The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - 393. The Makings of A Great Leader

00:00:00.960 Hey everyone, real quick before you skip, I want to talk to you about something serious and important.

00:00:06.480 Dr. Jordan Peterson has created a new series that could be a lifeline for those battling depression and anxiety.

00:00:12.740 We know how isolating and overwhelming these conditions can be, and we wanted to take a moment to reach out to those listening who may be struggling.

00:00:20.100 With decades of experience helping patients, Dr. Peterson offers a unique understanding of why you might be feeling this way in his new series.

00:00:27.420 He provides a roadmap towards healing, showing that while the journey isn't easy, it's absolutely possible to find your way forward.

00:00:35.360 If you're suffering, please know you are not alone. There's hope, and there's a path to feeling better.

00:00:41.780 Go to Daily Wire Plus now and start watching Dr. Jordan B. Peterson on depression and anxiety.

00:00:47.460 Let this be the first step towards the brighter future you deserve.

00:00:57.420 Hello everyone watching and listening.

00:01:11.040 Today I'm speaking with Australian journalist and former Prime Minister, the Honourable Tony Abbott.

00:01:17.260 We met before once in Australia, and this will be a follow-up to that.

00:01:20.820 We discussed Australia's role on the world stage, the problems facing the Australian economy and culture,

00:01:28.620 the broader problems that face the West, how the quasi-cult of carbon threatens, in particular, the poor in the developing world,

00:01:36.920 why new religions propagate where traditional faith has been abdicated,

00:01:41.020 and the looming threat of war as China destabilizes and Putin pushes forward against Ukraine.

00:01:49.240 We also discuss our joint involvement in the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, the ARC,

00:01:55.300 which is a new venture grounded in London designed to put forward a positive vision of the future

00:02:02.180 that everyone could, in principle, be on board with voluntarily.

00:02:08.080 So, Mr. Abbott, let's start by talking about Australia as a whole.

00:02:13.700 I mean, what role do you think Australia plays on the international front now?

00:02:21.100 Like, how do you think Australia should be conceptualized by people outside of the country?

00:02:26.640 Well, Jordan, I think Australia is one of those wonderful countries,

00:02:30.260 which is big enough to be interesting and significant,

00:02:35.340 but not so big as to be intimidating and threatening.

00:02:39.260 And Australia's history is such that there's really no one anywhere in the world who has a grievance against us.

00:02:48.520 And that's not true of so many other countries.

00:02:51.260 You think of the United States, you think of Britain, you think of France,

00:02:55.500 you think of Germany, you think of Italy, you think of Russia, you think of China.

00:03:00.260 There are grievances that different countries have against all of those countries.

00:03:05.760 All of those countries have great strengths as well.

00:03:09.060 But Australia is one of those happy places which has been a welcoming home to migrants from all over the world.

00:03:20.700 Yes, we fought on Britain's side in two world wars and we fought as America's ally

00:03:26.500 in just about every conflict over the last hundred years that America's been in.

00:03:32.460 And yet we've managed to do that while retaining, I think, our global reputation

00:03:38.900 as a country which is free, which is fair, and which wants to be a good mate

00:03:47.780 to the people and the countries of the world wherever we can.

00:03:52.380 So that, at least in principle, lays open the option for countries like Australia.

00:03:57.660 And I suppose this was true of Canada for a good while too, although I don't know if it is any longer,

00:04:02.580 to play a role in, what would you say, being a good faith partner in brokering peace, for example.

00:04:08.300 And so what problems do you think Australia faces at the moment?

00:04:13.420 And how are the issues that are broadly besetting the West, say,

00:04:19.040 on the cultural war front, making themselves manifest in Australia?

00:04:24.240 Well, the problems that every country has all the time are essentially,

00:04:30.220 how do we maintain our prosperity?

00:04:33.300 How do we maintain our security?

00:04:35.060 And just at the moment, this is perhaps a little bit more acute than usual.

00:04:43.140 We've got all of the challenges which all of the Western countries currently face.

00:04:51.500 We've got the risk of recession.

00:04:54.820 We've got high-ish inflation.

00:04:57.840 We've got all of the supply chain issues which arose from the pandemic.

00:05:02.420 And then the conflict in Ukraine, then the degree of decoupling with China.

00:05:08.680 So we've got all of those issues.

00:05:10.880 We've got a particular problem with energy.

00:05:14.880 While we are abundantly blessed, Jordan, with coal, with gas, with uranium,

00:05:22.580 we don't have all that much oil.

00:05:24.180 But because of the emissions obsession, we are not using these blessings sufficiently to our own advantage.

00:05:36.160 So that's a particular problem that we've got.

00:05:39.300 We're exporting our coal and our gas to the countries that are still only too eager to get it.

00:05:45.140 But we're not readily using it as much as we should here.

00:05:49.460 And then, of course, being in the Asia-Pacific region, obviously, we're very conscious of China,

00:06:01.340 in particular, China under the Communist Party and the challenges that that poses.

00:06:08.660 I keep saying that the disruption that has been caused globally by the Russian attack on Ukraine

00:06:18.280 is small beer compared to the disruption that would be caused globally by any attack

00:06:25.840 from the Beijing regime on Taiwan, given its much greater significance in the world economy

00:06:32.340 and given the effective security guarantees that the United States has always given to Taiwan.

00:06:38.860 So, look, those constant challenges of security and prosperity are particularly acute right now.

00:06:47.680 You ask about the cultural issues which are afflicting the West.

00:06:52.580 We may be maybe five years behind America,

00:06:56.280 maybe three years behind the United States,

00:06:58.620 the United Kingdom,

00:07:01.140 but we have them here too, Jordan.

00:07:04.420 Our universities are more into brainwashing

00:07:09.000 than the best that's been thought and said.

00:07:13.800 Our schools,

00:07:15.460 they're nice places

00:07:17.640 in the sense that

00:07:18.820 they want to teach our kids

00:07:21.460 to be nice to each other,

00:07:24.000 but I'm not sure that there's that much rigorous learning going on,

00:07:28.820 or as much as it should.

00:07:30.960 All right.

00:07:31.640 So, let's dive in.

00:07:33.380 We outlined a number of potential issues there of concern.

00:07:36.940 Let's dive in first to what you described as the emissions obsession.

00:07:40.960 And so, this is something that Australia and Canada share particularly.

00:07:47.460 Canada is blessed on the fossil fuel front,

00:07:49.980 and we have vast reserves of uranium as well.

00:07:53.340 And we are doing everything we can at the federal level in Canada

00:07:57.440 to scuttle the oil and gas industry

00:07:59.980 in favor, hypothetically, of renewables,

00:08:02.820 which is a really bad idea in a country like Canada,

00:08:06.100 which is massive and completely inhospitable to human life.

00:08:10.700 And in Australia,

00:08:12.100 you guys have the same issues in many ways,

00:08:15.840 ambivalence about utilizing your natural resources,

00:08:18.400 but strangely enough,

00:08:20.040 very little compunction in sending them to China,

00:08:22.840 coal in particular.

00:08:23.860 And this strikes me as extremely peculiar,

00:08:26.380 given that the Chinese, as far as I know,

00:08:29.960 breathe the same atmosphere we do.

00:08:31.980 And if the Chinese are building coal-fired plants like madmen,

00:08:35.880 which they clearly are,

00:08:37.280 then what difference does it make to us in the West,

00:08:41.040 let's say,

00:08:41.820 except in terms of prosperity,

00:08:43.400 whether or not we use our technology

00:08:45.500 to produce relatively clean,

00:08:47.940 say, coal-fired plants,

00:08:49.340 or the Chinese do it in China?

00:08:51.040 Like, what in the world is the possible rationale for that,

00:08:53.800 as far as you're concerned?

00:08:55.460 Well, Jordan, I find it as mysterious as you do.

00:08:58.620 We are inflicting

00:09:01.880 gratuitous economic damage on ourselves

00:09:05.240 without doing any good to the global environment

00:09:10.840 by refusing to use coal and gas in this country

00:09:14.780 while exporting as much coal and gas

00:09:18.440 as we can sell to others,

00:09:21.340 particularly China.

00:09:22.720 And the interesting thing is that

00:09:24.520 while we are fastidious

00:09:28.020 in measuring and reducing our emissions,

00:09:32.200 we are fastidious in making commitments

00:09:35.140 to the wider world

00:09:37.280 that we are determined to keep,

00:09:39.300 we're oblivious to the fact

00:09:41.020 that emissions are going up and up

00:09:43.180 because Russia, China, and India,

00:09:48.360 for understandable enough reasons,

00:09:50.000 are making no such commitments.

00:09:51.880 So this is really an act of economic self-harm

00:09:54.660 that we are engaged in.

00:09:56.220 It's a kind of virtue signalling

00:09:59.280 on a national scale.

00:10:01.640 And I very much regret it.

00:10:03.360 I regard myself as a conservationist.

00:10:07.840 I accept that we only have one planet.

00:10:11.240 I accept that if you look back over

00:10:13.760 what we know to have been the history of the planet,

00:10:17.980 there certainly has been global warming,

00:10:21.220 there has been global cooling,

00:10:22.680 there have been hotter times,

00:10:23.860 there have been colder times.

00:10:25.080 So climate change is real in that sense,

00:10:27.540 although you can argue about the contribution

00:10:29.860 that mankind's carbon dioxide makes to it.

00:10:34.120 But certainly the efforts that we in this country

00:10:38.760 are making to reduce emissions

00:10:41.080 are harming us

00:10:43.380 and they're not actually making any difference

00:10:47.360 to global emissions.

00:10:48.560 And I just think that's pretty irrational.

00:10:51.700 Well, it seems to me that you could make a case

00:10:55.080 that not only are they doing no good

00:10:57.640 on the global emissions front,

00:10:59.260 that in places like Germany,

00:11:01.620 these idiot green policies

00:11:03.560 have actually made the emissions situation worse.

00:11:06.440 And so, you know,

00:11:07.740 one way you could conceptualize this

00:11:10.620 that sort of cuts across

00:11:12.480 the political argument problem

00:11:15.760 is that if the green policies

00:11:19.400 that have been implemented

00:11:20.560 by countries like Germany

00:11:21.920 fulfilled their own mandate,

00:11:24.900 at minimum, you could say

00:11:26.580 that they have some credibility.

00:11:29.260 So, you know, you could look at Germany

00:11:31.160 and you could think,

00:11:31.960 well, electricity is more expensive

00:11:33.560 and it's more unreliable

00:11:34.960 and the Germans are dependent

00:11:37.080 on the Russians

00:11:38.560 and other relatively autocratic states

00:11:41.440 to provide their energy,

00:11:42.780 but at least carbon emissions

00:11:44.640 have gone down.

00:11:46.040 But in fact, in Germany,

00:11:47.480 partly because they've had to turn

00:11:48.740 to burning lignite

00:11:49.680 and they shut their nuclear plants down,

00:11:51.400 which was an act of unconscionable stupidity,

00:11:54.720 they're actually producing,

00:11:56.120 I think it's 10 times as many emissions

00:11:58.500 per unit of electricity as France

00:12:00.580 and they're far more polluting

00:12:02.920 on the energy front

00:12:03.800 than they were like seven years ago.

00:12:05.640 So not only have they failed utterly

00:12:07.660 on the economic front,

00:12:09.240 they're actually doing worse

00:12:10.780 by their own criteria.

00:12:12.760 And the same thing has to be true

00:12:14.480 of countries like Canada

00:12:15.720 and Australia,

00:12:17.040 when you look at it globally,

00:12:18.440 if we export our resources to China

00:12:22.340 and they do a relatively bad job

00:12:24.940 of generating electricity,

00:12:26.600 especially given the immense corruption

00:12:28.200 in countries like that,

00:12:29.640 why in the world wouldn't we do that

00:12:31.300 in the West where we could do it,

00:12:32.800 you know, with a certain degree of,

00:12:34.620 let's call it finesse.

00:12:36.680 And so I cannot see

00:12:40.100 that there's something wrong

00:12:41.120 with my reasoning

00:12:41.880 when I walk through the problem

00:12:43.460 in that sense.

00:12:44.640 And so what do you think about that?

00:12:48.500 Is there something that I'm missing,

00:12:50.280 say, in relationship to Germany?

00:12:51.580 Or is this as foolish

00:12:52.720 as it appears to be?

00:12:54.500 Well, Jordan,

00:12:55.280 I think this is monumental folly.

00:12:58.280 I think it is self-destructive folly.

00:13:00.340 But I think what we are dealing with here

00:13:03.000 is something more akin

00:13:04.920 to a new religion

00:13:06.180 than ordinary considerations

00:13:10.860 of rational self-interest

00:13:13.120 and even ordinary

00:13:15.660 stock standard idealism.

00:13:17.940 As I said,

00:13:18.720 I'm all in favour

00:13:19.840 of doing what we can

00:13:21.400 to protect the planet,

00:13:23.020 but I'm not in favour

00:13:24.200 of doing things which harm us

00:13:26.060 and don't help the planet.

00:13:27.420 And plainly,

00:13:28.340 that's what's going on right now.

00:13:30.100 One of the many reasons

00:13:31.240 why I think there's

00:13:32.040 a religious dimension

00:13:33.280 to all of this,

00:13:35.040 a kind of a,

00:13:36.020 almost like a cultish dimension

00:13:37.980 to all of this,

00:13:39.180 is that the same people

00:13:40.980 who are most insistent

00:13:42.700 on the urgency

00:13:43.520 of emissions reduction

00:13:45.140 are normally deeply hostile

00:13:47.200 to the only form

00:13:48.940 of emissions-free

00:13:50.200 24-7 baseload power,

00:13:53.380 namely nuclear.

00:13:54.360 Now, if it really is

00:13:56.000 absolutely essential,

00:13:57.420 that we move rapidly

00:14:00.060 to a zero-emissions world,

00:14:03.120 and if we do want

00:14:04.900 at the same time

00:14:06.040 to maintain our standards

00:14:08.020 of living,

00:14:08.800 there's really only one way to go,

00:14:10.780 and that's nuclear,

00:14:12.040 which is proven,

00:14:14.660 reliable, safe.

00:14:17.000 It may well be somewhat

00:14:18.320 more expensive

00:14:19.160 at this time

00:14:21.060 than alternatives,

00:14:22.640 certainly than coal

00:14:24.520 and gas and oil,

00:14:26.920 but we know it works,

00:14:28.380 and we know

00:14:28.840 it's emissions-free.

00:14:30.320 We know that France

00:14:31.540 has been generating

00:14:32.760 something like 70%

00:14:34.820 of its electricity

00:14:36.040 from nuclear

00:14:37.240 for the best part

00:14:38.660 of 40 or 50 years.

00:14:40.300 They haven't had

00:14:41.000 any significant accidents,

00:14:42.140 so why not do something

00:14:43.880 like this

00:14:44.560 in other countries

00:14:46.120 if we really do think

00:14:48.300 that emissions

00:14:50.400 are as important

00:14:51.260 as all that.

00:14:52.700 The religious cult idea,

00:14:56.020 so I think I want

00:14:58.760 to pick up

00:14:59.340 two streams of thought there.

00:15:01.400 I'm also puzzled

00:15:03.400 like you

00:15:04.180 with regard

00:15:06.320 to attempting

00:15:07.220 to conceptualize

00:15:08.260 the opposition

00:15:08.880 to nuclear power,

00:15:10.440 because the bitter pill

00:15:13.900 we're asked

00:15:14.540 to swallow constantly

00:15:15.900 is that climate change

00:15:19.080 caused by excessive

00:15:20.980 carbon dioxide production

00:15:23.120 poses an existential threat

00:15:25.420 to mankind,

00:15:26.740 and so that's

00:15:27.860 the ultimate shibboleth,

00:15:29.620 let's say,

00:15:30.480 with regard

00:15:31.180 to the radicals

00:15:32.260 on the left

00:15:33.300 or people who are

00:15:34.100 utilizing radical left ideas

00:15:36.040 for their own

00:15:36.740 nefarious purposes,

00:15:38.140 let's say.

00:15:39.220 And if that is the case,

00:15:40.600 then,

00:15:41.440 and we're willing

00:15:42.120 to contemplate

00:15:43.300 tactics like geoengineering,

00:15:45.720 because I know

00:15:46.280 the Biden administration,

00:15:47.620 for example,

00:15:48.160 is toying with the idea

00:15:49.440 of blotting out the sun

00:15:50.780 like Mr. Burns

00:15:51.840 in The Simpsons,

00:15:53.220 and if we're willing

00:15:54.160 to go to that extreme

00:15:55.220 or even to look into

00:15:56.380 going to that extreme,

00:15:58.260 then why in the world

00:15:59.600 wouldn't we turn

00:16:00.500 to nuclear?

00:16:01.160 And the answer has to be,

00:16:02.440 as far as I can tell,

00:16:03.580 and tell me what you think

00:16:05.300 about this,

00:16:05.820 is that there's actually

00:16:07.480 an anti-industrialism

00:16:09.420 and an anti-humanism

00:16:11.240 at the basis

00:16:12.200 of the climate apocalypse claims.

00:16:15.480 And so the anti-humanism

00:16:17.360 is something,

00:16:18.240 it's often expressed

00:16:19.540 in the form of the claim

00:16:21.420 that there are too many people

00:16:22.740 on the planet,

00:16:24.280 you know,

00:16:24.580 and that we could only,

00:16:25.660 and you hear more extreme

00:16:26.740 versions of this

00:16:27.760 where the claim is,

00:16:29.340 well,

00:16:29.460 we could really only

00:16:30.500 tolerate

00:16:32.560 in an ecologically

00:16:34.180 sustainable manner

00:16:35.280 a population

00:16:36.060 of about 500 million,

00:16:37.740 which is a big problem

00:16:39.200 given that there's

00:16:40.160 8 billion people

00:16:41.240 and we'd have to figure out

00:16:42.400 what to do

00:16:42.900 with all those excess bodies,

00:16:44.820 and that even if we did

00:16:46.100 have 500 million,

00:16:47.860 those people would have

00:16:48.880 to live, you know,

00:16:49.680 basically at a subsistence level

00:16:51.420 so that we wouldn't be

00:16:52.520 scraping the surface

00:16:53.500 of the planet

00:16:54.280 with too much diligence,

00:16:56.720 okay?

00:16:57.020 And so I have a lot of problems

00:16:58.480 with that standpoint,

00:16:59.720 not least because

00:17:00.640 there's an element of it

00:17:01.700 that's genocidal.

00:17:03.120 And then there's a kind

00:17:04.520 of naive Rousseauian

00:17:06.320 anti-industrialism

00:17:07.920 that seems to go along

00:17:08.960 with that,

00:17:09.500 which is part and parcel

00:17:10.580 of the claim

00:17:11.220 that all human activity

00:17:12.340 is somehow pathological

00:17:13.760 and that we're violating

00:17:15.280 some essential state

00:17:17.120 of nature.

00:17:18.160 And then all that mess,

00:17:20.680 because that's a mess,

00:17:21.760 also is allied with something

00:17:23.880 that I think is even darker,

00:17:25.520 which is this attempt

00:17:27.500 by the hypothetically

00:17:30.140 a-religious radicals

00:17:31.920 on the environmental front

00:17:33.240 to reduce the entire panoply

00:17:36.480 of human problems

00:17:37.520 to one issue,

00:17:38.900 and that's of carbon dioxide,

00:17:40.420 and then to claim

00:17:41.700 for themselves

00:17:42.600 an elevated moral virtue

00:17:44.540 that goes along with,

00:17:46.400 well, opposing carbon dioxide

00:17:48.020 at all costs.

00:17:49.920 So to me, that's,

00:17:51.760 you know,

00:17:52.780 one of the commandments

00:17:53.700 is that you're not

00:17:55.140 to use the Lord's name

00:17:56.260 in vain,

00:17:57.220 and that commandment

00:17:58.520 means that you shouldn't

00:17:59.920 claim divine virtue

00:18:02.140 or even moral virtue

00:18:03.680 when you're actually acting

00:18:05.120 in a manner

00:18:05.680 that's only benefiting yourself.

00:18:07.960 And I see that

00:18:09.240 as the cardinal sin

00:18:11.560 of this new religion,

00:18:12.920 which is all morality

00:18:14.840 can be reduced

00:18:15.920 to the claim

00:18:16.840 that I'm a good person

00:18:19.100 because I oppose carbon dioxide

00:18:21.060 and to hell with the cost.

00:18:22.400 And I'll add one more thing

00:18:23.560 to that,

00:18:24.280 which is that

00:18:25.700 from what I've been able

00:18:27.660 to understand,

00:18:29.060 if you can help

00:18:31.060 the world's poor

00:18:32.280 raise their average income

00:18:34.720 on the GDP

00:18:35.680 with GDP as a measurement

00:18:38.580 to about $5,000 a year,

00:18:40.800 which pops them out

00:18:41.940 of basic subsistence,

00:18:43.300 then they start to be able

00:18:45.200 to take a longer-term view

00:18:46.920 of their future

00:18:48.040 and their children's future

00:18:49.160 and to attend

00:18:50.040 to environmental issues

00:18:51.580 spontaneously.

00:18:53.380 So my sense is

00:18:54.700 that we could have a planet

00:18:57.380 that was full of thriving people

00:18:59.460 with a large population

00:19:00.900 if people were rich enough,

00:19:03.460 and that would mean

00:19:04.160 that they would have

00:19:04.820 to have access

00:19:05.440 to cheap energy.

00:19:06.740 And if we did that globally,

00:19:08.620 then everyone would spontaneously

00:19:10.220 start to evince concern

00:19:11.720 for the environment

00:19:12.520 so we could have

00:19:13.580 like a flourishing population

00:19:15.400 and a planet that works.

00:19:18.240 And so what the hell's

00:19:20.300 wrong with that?

00:19:21.060 Why isn't that a good plan?

00:19:22.600 Well, nothing's wrong

00:19:23.900 with that, Jordan.

00:19:24.840 It's a very sensible plan.

00:19:27.000 And if you want to look

00:19:27.900 at environmental devastation,

00:19:29.980 the places where you will find

00:19:31.440 environmental devastation

00:19:32.860 are the poorer countries

00:19:34.240 where they can't look

00:19:36.460 after their forests,

00:19:38.040 they can't look after

00:19:39.540 their paddocks and fields,

00:19:41.240 where they can't afford

00:19:43.720 to worry about

00:19:44.620 the conservation

00:19:45.380 of native animals,

00:19:47.700 it's really only

00:19:49.580 the better-off countries

00:19:51.220 where we can take

00:19:52.200 all these things seriously

00:19:53.440 because in the other countries,

00:19:55.680 they're embarked

00:19:56.840 in a constant struggle

00:19:58.340 just to stay alive.

00:20:00.340 And this is why,

00:20:01.820 as you say,

00:20:02.820 if we want

00:20:04.100 a better environment

00:20:05.480 and if over time

00:20:07.460 we want

00:20:07.980 the world's population

00:20:09.840 to stabilise

00:20:11.220 and perhaps even

00:20:12.040 reduce a little,

00:20:13.740 if you look at

00:20:14.640 what has already happened

00:20:16.180 in many of the

00:20:17.280 more developed countries,

00:20:18.680 let's do what we can

00:20:20.200 through trade

00:20:23.320 and through

00:20:24.040 the encouragement

00:20:25.280 of better governance,

00:20:26.500 let's do what we can

00:20:27.700 through the encouragement

00:20:29.060 of decent education

00:20:30.340 and the liberation

00:20:32.460 of minorities,

00:20:33.180 let's do what we can

00:20:34.400 to try to bring

00:20:35.780 what are currently

00:20:38.220 the most impoverished countries

00:20:40.600 up to,

00:20:41.340 as you say,

00:20:42.180 a better level of life.

00:20:44.220 I mean,

00:20:45.420 you're right,

00:20:46.400 once a country gets

00:20:47.460 up to about

00:20:48.580 $5,000 US dollars

00:20:50.560 per person

00:20:52.640 per year

00:20:53.320 in national income,

00:20:55.460 things start

00:20:57.320 to transform

00:20:58.180 and

00:20:58.860 if you look at

00:21:00.600 some of the countries

00:21:01.520 of Africa

00:21:02.080 which have got

00:21:03.180 to this level,

00:21:04.580 they are very,

00:21:05.760 very different countries

00:21:06.880 in a host of ways

00:21:08.980 to what they were

00:21:10.440 just a couple

00:21:11.040 of decades back.

00:21:13.020 Going online

00:21:13.980 without ExpressVPN

00:21:14.960 is like not paying

00:21:16.040 attention to the safety

00:21:16.900 demonstration on a flight.

00:21:18.480 Most of the time

00:21:19.240 you'll probably be fine,

00:21:20.640 but what if one day

00:21:21.760 that weird yellow mask

00:21:23.000 drops down from overhead

00:21:24.020 and you have no idea

00:21:25.440 what to do?

00:21:26.320 In our hyper-connected world,

00:21:27.800 your digital privacy

00:21:28.740 isn't just a luxury,

00:21:30.120 it's a fundamental right.

00:21:31.420 Every time you connect

00:21:32.220 to an unsecured network

00:21:33.400 in a cafe,

00:21:34.340 hotel,

00:21:34.880 or airport,

00:21:35.700 you're essentially

00:21:36.260 broadcasting your

00:21:37.140 personal information

00:21:37.960 to anyone with a

00:21:39.060 technical know-how

00:21:39.840 to intercept it.

00:21:40.760 And let's be clear,

00:21:41.620 it doesn't take

00:21:42.360 a genius hacker

00:21:43.020 to do this.

00:21:43.960 With some off-the-shelf

00:21:44.940 hardware,

00:21:45.520 even a tech-savvy teenager

00:21:46.940 could potentially access

00:21:48.080 your passwords,

00:21:49.100 bank logins,

00:21:49.880 and credit card details.

00:21:51.340 Now,

00:21:51.780 you might think,

00:21:52.580 what's the big deal?

00:21:53.460 Who'd want my data anyway?

00:21:54.720 Well,

00:21:55.400 on the dark web,

00:21:56.180 your personal information

00:21:57.300 could fetch up to $1,000.

00:21:59.620 That's right,

00:22:00.160 there's a whole underground economy

00:22:01.700 built on stolen identities.

00:22:03.680 Enter ExpressVPN.

00:22:05.440 It's like a digital fortress,

00:22:06.900 creating an encrypted tunnel

00:22:08.080 between your device

00:22:09.100 and the internet.

00:22:10.120 Their encryption

00:22:10.600 is so robust

00:22:11.700 that it would take

00:22:12.340 a hacker with a supercomputer

00:22:13.580 over a billion years

00:22:14.980 to crack it.

00:22:15.720 But don't let its power

00:22:16.740 fool you,

00:22:17.460 ExpressVPN is incredibly

00:22:18.920 user-friendly.

00:22:19.900 With just one click,

00:22:20.840 you're protected

00:22:21.380 across all your devices.

00:22:22.960 Phones,

00:22:23.440 laptops,

00:22:24.020 tablets,

00:22:24.540 you name it.

00:22:25.140 That's why I use ExpressVPN

00:22:26.500 whenever I'm traveling

00:22:27.640 or working from a coffee shop.

00:22:29.260 It gives me peace of mind

00:22:30.320 knowing that my research,

00:22:31.640 communications,

00:22:32.420 and personal data

00:22:33.400 are shielded from prying eyes.

00:22:35.240 Secure your online data today

00:22:36.800 by visiting

00:22:37.420 expressvpn.com

00:22:38.880 slash jordan.

00:22:40.020 That's

00:22:40.320 E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N

00:22:42.620 dot com

00:22:43.120 slash jordan

00:22:43.760 and you can get

00:22:44.400 an extra three months free.

00:22:46.360 expressvpn.com

00:22:47.540 slash jordan.

00:22:48.260 Right.

00:22:52.500 Well,

00:22:52.840 I know that you have

00:22:54.080 recently agreed

00:22:55.580 to participate

00:22:57.100 in this

00:22:58.460 Alliance for Responsible

00:23:00.240 Citizenship

00:23:01.120 conference

00:23:01.800 and movement

00:23:02.580 that we're organizing

00:23:04.280 in London

00:23:05.460 in October.

00:23:06.940 And I mean,

00:23:07.360 part of our vision

00:23:08.200 on the energy

00:23:08.960 and environment front,

00:23:10.020 well,

00:23:10.220 it's two-dimensional.

00:23:11.860 The first

00:23:12.340 proposition is

00:23:14.040 stemming off

00:23:15.780 of what we've already

00:23:16.560 discussed

00:23:17.100 is that

00:23:17.580 we don't

00:23:19.400 have the moral

00:23:20.240 right to sacrifice

00:23:21.480 the world's poor

00:23:22.740 either in the West

00:23:23.920 or in the developing

00:23:24.680 world

00:23:25.120 to our

00:23:26.080 narrow green agenda,

00:23:29.240 especially because

00:23:30.000 it's not going to work

00:23:31.120 anyways

00:23:31.500 and it puts all

00:23:32.380 these people at risk.

00:23:33.600 And so you see

00:23:34.660 this very strange

00:23:35.980 conundrum, right?

00:23:36.860 Because the left

00:23:38.200 in principle

00:23:38.960 historically

00:23:39.760 has been the voice

00:23:41.440 of the oppressed

00:23:42.840 and the working class

00:23:43.880 and particularly,

00:23:45.560 let's say,

00:23:45.960 strong voice

00:23:46.680 for the poor.

00:23:47.780 But when you see

00:23:48.820 now what's happening

00:23:49.920 that the radical

00:23:52.840 environmentalist types

00:23:54.320 in particular

00:23:54.900 seem to be willing

00:23:55.840 to sacrifice

00:23:56.660 the world's poor

00:23:57.560 at the drop

00:23:58.260 of a hat

00:23:58.880 to not make

00:24:00.360 any progress

00:24:01.220 whatsoever

00:24:01.800 on the planetary

00:24:02.760 salvation front,

00:24:04.040 right?

00:24:04.260 Like I said,

00:24:04.760 it would be different

00:24:05.480 if they could point

00:24:06.600 to any,

00:24:07.800 what,

00:24:08.980 successes

00:24:09.540 whatsoever

00:24:10.400 on the alternate

00:24:11.200 energy front

00:24:12.020 that have actually

00:24:12.960 produced a positive

00:24:14.120 outcome.

00:24:15.020 Instead,

00:24:15.340 you see Germany,

00:24:16.300 you see the UK

00:24:17.000 where energy prices

00:24:18.280 are much more

00:24:18.860 expensive than they

00:24:19.660 were before

00:24:20.200 and much more

00:24:20.800 unreliable.

00:24:21.660 So how do you

00:24:22.580 understand,

00:24:23.480 and this is maybe

00:24:24.120 where we can start

00:24:24.920 touching on issues,

00:24:26.400 broader issues

00:24:27.320 of faith.

00:24:28.020 You know,

00:24:28.200 you characterize

00:24:28.800 this anti-industrial

00:24:30.820 environmentalist movement

00:24:32.060 as a religious

00:24:33.080 enterprise.

00:24:34.280 It's like,

00:24:35.000 how do you,

00:24:36.240 and you were,

00:24:37.080 you know,

00:24:37.300 you've been involved

00:24:38.040 in the political game

00:24:38.880 for a long time.

00:24:39.600 How do you understand

00:24:41.640 the fact

00:24:42.400 that these policies

00:24:44.020 have started

00:24:46.060 to become

00:24:46.580 dogmatic doctrine

00:24:48.180 and that they're

00:24:49.240 being pushed so hard,

00:24:50.640 you know,

00:24:50.920 across the political

00:24:51.820 spectrum,

00:24:52.520 that Tories in the UK

00:24:53.720 are worse on the

00:24:55.260 net zero front

00:24:56.060 than the lefties,

00:24:57.020 or at least as bad.

00:24:58.580 So how do you

00:24:59.680 understand how this

00:25:00.660 happened,

00:25:01.420 given that it's

00:25:02.180 so preposterous?

00:25:03.680 Well,

00:25:03.920 that's a very good

00:25:04.540 question,

00:25:05.160 Jordan,

00:25:05.440 and let me just

00:25:06.300 give you one

00:25:06.880 little anecdote,

00:25:07.540 which I think

00:25:08.240 might be telling.

00:25:09.680 The other week

00:25:10.700 in London,

00:25:11.880 I went to the

00:25:13.000 famous Farm Street

00:25:14.480 Jesuit Church.

00:25:16.160 We got to the

00:25:17.240 prayers of the

00:25:18.360 faithful,

00:25:19.340 and one of the

00:25:20.420 prayers of the

00:25:20.960 faithful was about

00:25:21.860 the rapid

00:25:22.300 decarbonisation

00:25:23.460 of our society.

00:25:25.620 Now,

00:25:25.880 I don't normally

00:25:26.640 stand up in church

00:25:27.680 and object,

00:25:28.360 and I wasn't going

00:25:29.440 to break the habit

00:25:30.100 of a lifetime

00:25:30.740 on this particular

00:25:31.980 day,

00:25:32.400 but I did suddenly

00:25:33.260 decide,

00:25:33.840 well,

00:25:34.020 bugger it.

00:25:35.040 I went online,

00:25:36.820 found the

00:25:37.920 parish

00:25:38.780 website,

00:25:40.400 and sent a

00:25:41.680 note to

00:25:43.220 whoever was

00:25:44.500 the parish

00:25:45.880 recipient of

00:25:46.660 this thing,

00:25:47.280 saying,

00:25:47.780 why the hell

00:25:48.480 are you doing

00:25:49.760 this?

00:25:50.320 The other day,

00:25:51.240 Father Dominic

00:25:52.180 sent a response

00:25:53.900 to me,

00:25:54.820 saying that

00:25:55.740 we have a

00:25:57.200 moral obligation

00:25:58.440 to reduce our

00:25:59.780 emissions as

00:26:00.440 quickly as

00:26:01.000 possible,

00:26:01.620 to which I

00:26:02.140 said,

00:26:02.400 well,

00:26:02.520 sure,

00:26:03.440 don't we also

00:26:04.140 have a moral

00:26:04.740 obligation to

00:26:06.080 try to ensure

00:26:06.840 that poor

00:26:07.700 people in

00:26:08.220 rich countries

00:26:08.860 and poor

00:26:09.940 countries more

00:26:10.620 generally have

00:26:11.740 access to the

00:26:12.640 affordable energy

00:26:13.500 that they need

00:26:14.240 in order to

00:26:14.700 have a decent

00:26:15.200 life.

00:26:15.640 Now,

00:26:15.920 I don't expect

00:26:16.780 to get a

00:26:17.220 response from

00:26:17.880 Father Dominic

00:26:18.620 or anyone else

00:26:19.540 from the Farm

00:26:20.760 Street Jesuit

00:26:21.540 Church,

00:26:22.400 but I do think

00:26:23.560 that what we're

00:26:25.220 seeing here

00:26:25.940 is one of the

00:26:28.680 many byproducts

00:26:29.940 of the decline

00:26:31.720 of what I

00:26:33.240 would regard

00:26:33.700 as a more

00:26:34.440 substantial

00:26:35.040 faith,

00:26:36.080 because we

00:26:36.860 human beings

00:26:37.720 tend to be

00:26:39.720 creatures of

00:26:43.680 faith,

00:26:44.180 maybe it's

00:26:44.660 because we

00:26:45.120 need faith,

00:26:46.440 maybe it's

00:26:47.120 because there's

00:26:47.840 just something

00:26:49.160 out there

00:26:49.660 drawing us

00:26:50.340 to faith.

00:26:52.260 If we don't

00:26:54.520 have faith in

00:26:55.100 our countries,

00:26:56.320 if we don't

00:26:56.840 have faith in

00:26:57.440 our God,

00:26:58.000 if we don't

00:26:59.000 have faith in

00:27:00.360 the religions

00:27:01.580 that have stood

00:27:02.220 the test of

00:27:02.820 time,

00:27:03.400 we'll find new

00:27:04.340 things to have

00:27:04.920 faith in,

00:27:05.460 and even in

00:27:07.560 the heart of

00:27:08.360 Catholicism,

00:27:09.980 we now have

00:27:11.300 this green

00:27:12.880 thing,

00:27:13.860 which I think

00:27:15.380 is strange,

00:27:17.740 unsettling,

00:27:19.280 fundamentally

00:27:19.780 foreign,

00:27:20.920 and it can

00:27:22.560 lead nowhere

00:27:23.180 good.

00:27:24.200 So I've been

00:27:25.440 thinking about

00:27:26.160 this issue

00:27:27.320 of needing

00:27:27.980 faith for a

00:27:29.640 very long

00:27:30.120 time,

00:27:30.580 you know,

00:27:30.880 and the

00:27:31.340 classic

00:27:32.960 objection of

00:27:34.100 the rationalist

00:27:35.180 materialists,

00:27:36.140 I'd say the

00:27:36.620 atheist

00:27:37.020 rationalist

00:27:37.900 materialists,

00:27:38.600 is that you

00:27:39.780 shouldn't have

00:27:40.420 faith in

00:27:41.060 anything for

00:27:41.840 which there

00:27:42.340 isn't proof.

00:27:44.260 And, you

00:27:44.780 know, there's

00:27:45.240 a certain

00:27:45.660 amount of,

00:27:46.880 you can give

00:27:47.620 a certain

00:27:47.980 amount of

00:27:48.380 credence to

00:27:48.920 that viewpoint

00:27:49.620 because it

00:27:50.180 helps protect

00:27:50.940 you against

00:27:51.620 believing

00:27:52.700 evidently

00:27:54.560 counterproductive

00:27:55.900 and foolish

00:27:56.460 things.

00:27:56.940 but I

00:27:57.700 think the

00:27:58.140 idea that

00:27:58.820 you can't

00:27:59.800 have faith

00:28:01.160 or that you

00:28:01.600 don't have

00:28:02.060 to have

00:28:02.380 faith in

00:28:03.240 anything that

00:28:04.800 isn't factual

00:28:05.980 is misguided

00:28:07.780 and here's

00:28:08.360 why.

00:28:08.920 So tell me

00:28:09.760 what you think

00:28:10.240 about this.

00:28:10.820 Well, the

00:28:12.140 problem with

00:28:12.640 human beings

00:28:13.300 or a problem

00:28:14.120 with human

00:28:14.620 beings is that

00:28:15.840 we're fundamentally

00:28:16.780 bounded by our

00:28:18.520 ignorance.

00:28:19.560 And so, for

00:28:20.000 example, if you

00:28:21.340 embark on a

00:28:22.140 marriage, you

00:28:23.140 have to take

00:28:24.760 a vow and

00:28:26.180 in principle

00:28:26.820 it's an

00:28:27.240 unbreakable

00:28:27.860 vow.

00:28:28.520 And the

00:28:28.920 reason you

00:28:29.500 do that is

00:28:30.200 because you

00:28:30.680 have to jump

00:28:31.560 with both

00:28:32.200 feet with

00:28:32.840 your partner

00:28:33.420 into a

00:28:33.960 kind of

00:28:34.320 abyss.

00:28:35.080 And the

00:28:35.320 reason you

00:28:35.760 have to

00:28:36.080 do that is

00:28:36.600 because,

00:28:37.600 well, what

00:28:38.560 the hell do

00:28:39.080 you know?

00:28:39.940 You don't

00:28:40.420 know what's

00:28:40.760 going to

00:28:40.960 happen to

00:28:41.320 you in

00:28:41.520 your life.

00:28:42.120 And so,

00:28:42.800 you take

00:28:43.160 this person

00:28:43.760 and you

00:28:44.120 say, as

00:28:45.400 a show

00:28:45.900 of good

00:28:46.420 faith, we're

00:28:47.900 going to

00:28:48.340 bind ourselves

00:28:49.180 together,

00:28:50.760 predicated on

00:28:51.580 the assumption

00:28:52.180 that we'll

00:28:53.300 be able to

00:28:53.880 handle what

00:28:54.700 comes at

00:28:55.300 us better

00:28:56.000 as a

00:28:57.100 honestly

00:28:57.920 communicating

00:28:58.740 and loving

00:28:59.240 couple than

00:29:00.480 we could do

00:29:01.140 with sequential

00:29:02.340 relationships or

00:29:04.120 alone.

00:29:05.100 Now, we don't

00:29:05.760 know if that's

00:29:06.640 true, but

00:29:07.760 we're going to

00:29:08.600 spend our

00:29:09.120 whole life

00:29:09.900 giving it our

00:29:10.620 best shot.

00:29:11.660 Okay, well,

00:29:12.040 that's an act

00:29:12.680 of faith because

00:29:13.620 you don't have

00:29:14.740 the evidence for

00:29:15.620 what's going to

00:29:16.160 happen in your

00:29:16.760 life in front

00:29:17.820 of you.

00:29:18.360 Right, okay.

00:29:19.120 You do the

00:29:19.760 same thing when

00:29:20.440 you take a

00:29:20.920 new job.

00:29:22.180 Right?

00:29:22.520 Whenever you

00:29:23.000 make an

00:29:23.320 important foray,

00:29:24.540 you have to

00:29:25.320 say, I

00:29:26.480 believe this

00:29:27.140 could work if

00:29:27.920 I abide by

00:29:28.940 this particular

00:29:30.000 set of

00:29:30.580 principles, and

00:29:31.320 that's an

00:29:31.720 act of

00:29:32.120 faith.

00:29:32.800 Okay, so

00:29:33.360 that's

00:29:34.520 ineradicable.

00:29:35.640 Then, you

00:29:36.280 know, you

00:29:36.580 said there's

00:29:37.320 something drawing

00:29:37.960 us to faith,

00:29:38.740 and so this is

00:29:39.400 how it looks as

00:29:40.120 far as I can

00:29:40.720 tell.

00:29:41.180 It's that,

00:29:42.260 first of

00:29:44.240 all, some

00:29:46.520 things have to

00:29:47.340 be more

00:29:47.720 important than

00:29:48.380 others, because

00:29:49.820 if they're not,

00:29:50.680 you can't do

00:29:51.340 anything.

00:29:51.740 And the

00:29:52.560 reason for

00:29:53.000 that is that

00:29:53.580 if you're

00:29:53.860 going to do

00:29:54.300 something, you

00:29:54.900 have to do

00:29:55.480 that thing

00:29:56.300 instead of all

00:29:57.720 the other

00:29:58.120 things you

00:29:58.720 might have

00:29:59.080 done, or

00:29:59.900 instead of

00:30:00.460 nothing.

00:30:00.920 So you have

00:30:01.380 to prioritize,

00:30:02.460 and as soon as

00:30:03.000 you prioritize,

00:30:04.200 you have a

00:30:04.840 hierarchy of

00:30:05.540 value.

00:30:06.500 And that

00:30:06.940 means that if

00:30:07.580 your hierarchy

00:30:08.200 of value is

00:30:09.020 internally

00:30:09.620 consistent, there

00:30:11.420 has to be

00:30:12.420 something at

00:30:13.080 the top of

00:30:13.800 it.

00:30:13.980 truth and

00:30:24.760 love should be

00:30:25.580 at the

00:30:25.900 pinnacle, and

00:30:26.840 that should be

00:30:27.460 expressed in

00:30:28.640 honest discourse,

00:30:30.540 for example.

00:30:31.140 That's part of

00:30:31.700 the worship of

00:30:32.540 the word.

00:30:33.920 And now, if

00:30:35.140 nothing is put

00:30:36.000 at the top,

00:30:36.840 then there's

00:30:38.280 nothing at the

00:30:38.940 top, and you

00:30:39.620 have disunity

00:30:40.980 and confusion.

00:30:43.200 And so,

00:30:44.060 there's no,

00:30:45.480 the only

00:30:46.160 alternative to

00:30:47.140 organizing your

00:30:48.400 perceptions and

00:30:49.180 your actions in

00:30:50.700 a hierarchical

00:30:51.520 manner with

00:30:52.060 something at

00:30:52.600 the top is

00:30:53.380 confusion and

00:30:54.660 disunity.

00:30:55.600 There's no

00:30:56.100 third choice.

00:30:57.860 So I think

00:30:58.680 that's what

00:30:59.160 draws us to

00:31:00.400 faith, is

00:31:01.840 that we're

00:31:03.000 drawn to

00:31:03.940 integrate our

00:31:04.920 perceptions and

00:31:05.720 our actions

00:31:06.240 under a

00:31:06.760 single scheme,

00:31:07.420 and that

00:31:08.360 helps stabilize

00:31:09.600 us psychologically

00:31:10.760 because then

00:31:11.520 we're not

00:31:11.920 confused and

00:31:12.700 hopeless, but

00:31:13.340 it also unites

00:31:14.400 us socially

00:31:15.760 because, you

00:31:16.760 know, you

00:31:17.060 and I, for

00:31:17.740 example, right

00:31:18.380 now, we can

00:31:19.000 sit and engage

00:31:20.020 in civil

00:31:20.500 discourse because

00:31:21.360 we've agreed on

00:31:22.420 a unifying

00:31:22.960 framework, right?

00:31:23.780 We're going to

00:31:24.140 talk for 90

00:31:24.780 minutes, we're

00:31:25.700 not going to

00:31:26.180 play any tricks

00:31:27.020 on each other,

00:31:27.800 and we're going

00:31:28.380 to see how

00:31:28.860 that goes, and

00:31:29.580 that means now

00:31:30.380 we can cooperate

00:31:31.880 and compete in

00:31:33.660 a peaceful

00:31:34.500 manner.

00:31:35.360 Okay, so I

00:31:35.800 don't see that

00:31:37.160 any of that is

00:31:38.140 replaceable.

00:31:39.260 Now, you

00:31:40.240 pointed out that

00:31:41.000 if we don't

00:31:41.420 have faith in

00:31:42.060 one thing, we're

00:31:42.660 either going to

00:31:43.000 have faith in

00:31:43.640 nothing or in

00:31:44.820 something else, and

00:31:45.720 it does seem to

00:31:47.000 me to be the

00:31:47.560 case that, you

00:31:48.540 know, Gaia, the

00:31:49.440 Earth Mother, has

00:31:50.740 risen up as an

00:31:51.840 alternative to,

00:31:52.920 let's say, Yawa

00:31:54.140 and the classic

00:31:57.240 uniting God of the

00:31:58.900 West, and that

00:31:59.740 doesn't seem to me

00:32:00.700 to be a reasonable

00:32:01.500 replacement.

00:32:02.740 Well, I agree with

00:32:04.380 you, Jordan, and

00:32:05.340 look, the things

00:32:07.640 that really

00:32:08.040 matter can't

00:32:10.240 be proven.

00:32:11.240 Certainly, they

00:32:11.880 can't be proven in

00:32:12.840 the way that a

00:32:13.480 mathematical formula

00:32:14.560 or some scientific

00:32:16.640 experiment can be

00:32:18.820 proven.

00:32:20.360 We can't prove

00:32:21.740 that the people

00:32:23.580 close to us really

00:32:24.560 love us.

00:32:25.540 They can't prove

00:32:26.580 that they are really

00:32:27.340 loved by us.

00:32:28.900 We have to take all

00:32:30.020 this stuff on

00:32:30.680 trust.

00:32:31.100 And similarly, we

00:32:34.260 absolutely need an

00:32:36.240 important purpose to

00:32:37.860 our lives, which is

00:32:39.860 above simple

00:32:42.060 survival, simple

00:32:43.720 pleasure, just the

00:32:47.180 basic satisfactions

00:32:48.440 that an animal might

00:32:50.600 seek.

00:32:51.400 We need to have a

00:32:52.760 purpose, and whether

00:32:53.980 the purpose is looking

00:32:55.620 after our loved ones,

00:32:57.320 whether the purpose is

00:32:58.440 being very good at a

00:33:00.620 necessary but quite

00:33:01.860 possibly simple job

00:33:03.260 that we do as well

00:33:04.840 as we can, whether

00:33:06.380 the purpose is love

00:33:08.280 and respect for the

00:33:10.980 God that we think is

00:33:11.940 our creator, every

00:33:13.960 single human being to

00:33:16.040 live well needs a

00:33:18.040 sense of purpose to

00:33:19.440 his or her life.

00:33:21.220 Once upon a time, it

00:33:23.240 was, I suppose,

00:33:24.720 civic-mindedness.

00:33:25.740 In the case of

00:33:27.460 some, it was family

00:33:28.580 commitment.

00:33:29.020 In the case of

00:33:29.780 others, it was a

00:33:31.060 sense of the divine

00:33:32.180 in the case of

00:33:33.820 still more.

00:33:34.940 But all of those

00:33:35.840 things are much

00:33:36.880 weaker today across

00:33:38.320 the West than they

00:33:39.600 were a generation or

00:33:41.160 two back.

00:33:42.400 But because we are

00:33:43.700 faith-focused people,

00:33:45.640 we will seek other

00:33:46.580 things, and it might

00:33:47.500 be money, it might

00:33:48.860 be pleasure, hedonism

00:33:51.260 in all its forms, or

00:33:53.380 we might find some

00:33:55.320 alternative, a kind

00:33:57.680 of green cult, if

00:33:58.740 you like, or a

00:33:59.520 climate cult, if

00:34:00.420 you like, saving the

00:34:02.420 planet, not from the

00:34:03.820 devil, but saving the

00:34:05.620 planet from a climate

00:34:06.920 apocalypse that might

00:34:08.060 fill that gap.

00:34:10.240 Now, again, I say, I

00:34:13.600 think all sensible

00:34:15.520 people should be

00:34:17.580 conservation-minded.

00:34:19.420 I don't want to see

00:34:20.860 beautiful buildings

00:34:23.380 demolished readily.

00:34:25.400 I do not want to see

00:34:26.860 our flora and fauna

00:34:28.920 devastated.

00:34:30.520 I take infinite

00:34:33.280 satisfaction and

00:34:35.580 delight in the waves

00:34:38.300 rolling in at Manly

00:34:40.320 Beach when I get down

00:34:42.160 there of a morning on

00:34:43.860 my longboard.

00:34:44.740 I love to see the

00:34:45.780 dolphins in the distance

00:34:47.500 and occasionally the

00:34:48.420 spout of a whale.

00:34:49.260 magnificent, absolutely

00:34:51.860 magnificent, but

00:34:53.860 you can't worship

00:34:57.600 that.

00:34:59.240 And certainly this

00:35:00.920 idea that we should

00:35:02.000 fixate on man's

00:35:06.180 contribution to carbon

00:35:07.840 dioxide emissions, I

00:35:09.800 just think is odd.

00:35:12.600 Starting a business can

00:35:14.040 be tough, but thanks to

00:35:15.300 Shopify, running your

00:35:16.340 online storefront is

00:35:17.480 easier than ever.

00:35:18.860 Shopify is the global

00:35:20.100 commerce platform that

00:35:21.100 helps you sell at every

00:35:22.120 stage of your business.

00:35:23.320 From the launch your

00:35:24.080 online shop stage, all

00:35:25.300 the way to the did we

00:35:26.080 just hit a million

00:35:26.860 orders stage, Shopify is

00:35:28.680 here to help you grow.

00:35:30.240 Our marketing team uses

00:35:31.240 Shopify every day to

00:35:32.420 sell our merchandise, and

00:35:33.500 we love how easy it is to

00:35:34.800 add more items, ship

00:35:36.100 products, and track

00:35:36.980 conversions.

00:35:38.200 With Shopify, customize

00:35:39.260 your online store to

00:35:40.340 your style with flexible

00:35:41.740 templates and powerful

00:35:42.780 tools, alongside an

00:35:44.220 endless list of

00:35:45.060 integrations and third

00:35:46.020 party apps like on-demand

00:35:47.360 printing, accounting, and

00:35:48.720 chatbots.

00:35:49.740 Shopify helps you turn

00:35:50.680 browsers into buyers

00:35:51.920 with the internet's best

00:35:52.920 converting checkout, up

00:35:54.200 to 36% better compared to

00:35:55.900 other leading e-commerce

00:35:56.940 platforms.

00:35:58.120 No matter how big you

00:35:58.980 want to grow, Shopify

00:35:59.980 gives you everything you

00:36:01.020 need to take control and

00:36:02.260 take your business to the

00:36:03.300 next level.

00:36:04.520 Sign up for a $1 per month

00:36:05.900 trial period at

00:36:06.800 shopify.com slash jbp,

00:36:09.100 all lowercase.

00:36:10.560 Go to shopify.com slash jbp

00:36:12.540 now to grow your business

00:36:13.860 no matter what stage

00:36:15.100 you're in.

00:36:15.780 That's shopify.com slash jbp.

00:36:21.100 All right, so let's walk

00:36:22.740 through this a little bit

00:36:23.580 more conceptually.

00:36:24.680 So, about 40 years ago,

00:36:29.720 50 years ago, psychologists

00:36:31.760 started to analyze the

00:36:34.720 manner in which the way

00:36:36.500 people describe themselves

00:36:38.020 aggregates.

00:36:39.960 And they were looking at the

00:36:41.640 underlying factors

00:36:43.860 statistical structure of

00:36:45.500 self-descriptive language.

00:36:47.980 So, here is the idea.

00:36:49.100 We're going to study

00:36:49.740 personality.

00:36:51.580 Personality is reflected in

00:36:54.060 language.

00:36:54.940 If we could analyze the

00:36:56.560 statistical structure of

00:36:57.720 language, we might be able

00:36:58.720 to understand something more

00:36:59.920 about personality.

00:37:00.840 And so, psychologists did

00:37:02.240 this.

00:37:02.540 They aggregated great bodies

00:37:06.980 of descriptive phrases and

00:37:08.940 sentences and adjectives and

00:37:10.360 found out by statistical

00:37:11.900 analysis, kind of an early

00:37:13.140 application of AI, by the

00:37:14.560 way, that temperament had

00:37:16.880 five dimensions.

00:37:18.900 Extraversion, neuroticism,

00:37:20.500 agreeableness, conscientiousness,

00:37:22.020 and openness.

00:37:22.660 Now, neuroticism is the

00:37:24.940 dimension on which all the

00:37:26.980 negative emotions aggregate.

00:37:28.560 So, if you're more sensitive

00:37:30.020 to anxiety, you're more

00:37:31.320 sensitive to pain and

00:37:32.520 frustration and

00:37:33.340 disappointment and guilt.

00:37:34.580 And that's like a baseline

00:37:36.620 sensitivity to life's

00:37:38.280 challenges.

00:37:39.380 And so, the higher in

00:37:41.080 neuroticism you are, the

00:37:42.860 more units of physiological

00:37:45.440 preparation you undertake per

00:37:47.920 unit of stress.

00:37:49.440 Right?

00:37:49.840 And it's kind of a guess.

00:37:51.540 Okay.

00:37:51.860 Now, one of the things

00:37:53.400 psychologists discovered at the

00:37:55.400 same time was that all of the

00:37:58.600 emotions associated with

00:38:00.420 attention to the narrow self

00:38:04.040 were indistinguishable from

00:38:06.140 negative emotion.

00:38:08.140 So, self-consciousness is

00:38:09.640 actually a facet of

00:38:11.680 neuroticism.

00:38:13.100 And so, to the degree that you

00:38:14.520 focus on yourself, this is quite a

00:38:16.460 stellar discovery, to the degree

00:38:18.340 that you think about yourself,

00:38:20.100 that you're concerned about

00:38:21.040 yourself narrowly, you are

00:38:22.800 simultaneously possessed by pain

00:38:25.680 and anxiety.

00:38:27.300 Right?

00:38:27.820 Now, you kind of know that,

00:38:28.800 because if you're out on stage

00:38:30.180 and you're addressing a crowd

00:38:31.580 and you get self-conscious,

00:38:33.080 it's very uncomfortable.

00:38:34.560 You blush.

00:38:35.180 You lose your place.

00:38:36.200 You stumble.

00:38:37.160 The same thing happens to

00:38:38.160 musicians if they're

00:38:39.120 performing.

00:38:39.740 And so, self-consciousness is

00:38:41.100 actually a disruption of the

00:38:43.180 natural flow of events.

00:38:45.320 Okay.

00:38:46.160 Now, when people are looking for

00:38:48.440 something that unites them,

00:38:50.180 let's say, and that calls to

00:38:51.720 them, they tend to look for

00:38:53.680 superordinate identities that are

00:38:55.840 outside the self.

00:38:57.080 So, you could say, well, you

00:38:58.780 could find meaning in an

00:39:00.460 intimate relationship with your

00:39:02.640 family, with your local

00:39:04.260 community, with your state,

00:39:06.040 with your nation, and then

00:39:07.560 maybe there's something upon

00:39:09.500 which the integrity of nations

00:39:11.880 itself rests.

00:39:13.740 I think that's the word in the

00:39:15.480 Judeo-Christian tradition, by the

00:39:17.100 way.

00:39:17.400 And so, you nest your identity in

00:39:19.840 these superordinate elements, and

00:39:21.380 that's also an element of faith.

00:39:23.660 And that takes you, well, the

00:39:25.400 benefit on the hope side, you

00:39:27.060 know, you said people have to

00:39:28.240 have something to strive for.

00:39:29.440 If you don't nest your identity in

00:39:32.160 these superordinate social

00:39:34.320 organizations, then you end up

00:39:39.800 impulsive and hedonistic and

00:39:42.080 self-focused, and that makes you

00:39:44.240 hopeless and miserable.

00:39:45.840 Correct.

00:39:46.180 So, that seems to be a bad

00:39:47.460 solution.

00:39:48.140 Okay, okay.

00:39:48.940 So, all right, all right.

00:39:50.840 So, we're in agreement on that.

00:39:52.640 So, okay.

00:39:52.960 So, let me ask you something more

00:39:54.460 specific then.

00:39:55.500 You know, you are a very

00:39:56.400 intelligent person.

00:39:58.380 You had, you won a Rhodes

00:40:00.400 Scholarship.

00:40:01.060 That's a very difficult thing to

00:40:02.240 manage.

00:40:02.720 You studied at Oxford.

00:40:05.460 And yet, and I'm saying this as

00:40:08.200 devil's advocate, you're also,

00:40:10.340 you're also a man of traditional

00:40:13.600 faith.

00:40:14.780 And so, I might say, well, why,

00:40:16.940 how is it that you have been

00:40:18.800 able to balance your intellect,

00:40:22.020 which tends, you know, the

00:40:23.140 intellect tends to have this

00:40:24.380 corrosive, rational, doubtful

00:40:27.080 element that can demolish

00:40:29.540 traditional faith, for example,

00:40:31.200 which is certainly something

00:40:32.220 that's happened to many people

00:40:33.460 and happened more broadly

00:40:34.720 culturally.

00:40:35.800 Why did your faith remain for

00:40:38.260 you a central element of your

00:40:40.540 being?

00:40:40.920 And how have you reconciled that

00:40:42.820 intellectually?

00:40:43.620 Well, this might sound a bit

00:40:46.740 odd, Jordan, but I think that

00:40:52.660 humility is incredibly important

00:40:57.200 to a successful life.

00:41:01.520 I mean, you've got to, in a sense,

00:41:04.100 lose yourself to find yourself.

00:41:06.900 You've got to, in a sense, forget

00:41:08.900 yourself to fully flourish.

00:41:11.180 And I guess one of the things that

00:41:15.860 I'm very conscious of is that I

00:41:19.920 don't have all the answers.

00:41:21.860 I don't have all the experience.

00:41:25.380 I don't regard myself as morally or

00:41:31.360 intellectually superior to my forefathers.

00:41:34.640 And I might have personal doubts, but I

00:41:42.440 think it's important to be sufficiently

00:41:45.880 immersed in the tradition, at least

00:41:50.060 to the point where you respect it and

00:41:53.540 you allow it to work its magic on you.

00:41:57.200 And look, you know, my personal faith

00:42:02.460 waxes and wanes.

00:42:04.100 One of the many reasons why I never

00:42:07.460 further pursued something that I did for

00:42:11.120 a couple of years, namely the Catholic

00:42:13.480 priesthood, is because I didn't think I

00:42:16.600 had enough of a personal relationship

00:42:19.980 with our Lord and Master Jesus Christ

00:42:24.480 to be able to communicate that to people

00:42:28.740 and persuade people that they too could

00:42:32.360 have it.

00:42:33.200 But nevertheless, the fact that my faith

00:42:36.720 was insufficient to move mountains

00:42:38.840 doesn't mean that I don't respect it.

00:42:42.140 It doesn't mean that I don't strive after

00:42:45.420 it.

00:42:46.140 And it doesn't mean that such that I have

00:42:51.000 doesn't sustain me.

00:42:53.380 I mean, okay, so you talked about the role

00:42:57.920 of moral and intellectual humility on

00:43:01.900 that front.

00:43:02.440 So, okay, so I've been reading, I've been

00:43:05.520 writing about the book of Exodus, and I

00:43:07.680 conducted a seminar with a variety of

00:43:09.640 people on that book.

00:43:11.280 I was reading this section the other day

00:43:14.000 where the burning bush appears to Moses.

00:43:17.040 And it's really a compelling section,

00:43:19.180 because at that point, Moses is outside

00:43:21.720 of Egypt.

00:43:22.220 So he's no longer concerned with the

00:43:24.700 tyranny or the pharaoh or his strange

00:43:27.960 heritage.

00:43:28.880 He's gone off to this place called

00:43:30.940 Midia.

00:43:31.780 Is Midia?

00:43:33.860 Anyways, to a foreign country, it's

00:43:35.700 Midia.

00:43:36.120 He's out with the Midianites.

00:43:37.600 He's married a woman there.

00:43:39.320 He's taking care of his father-in-law's

00:43:41.720 flocks.

00:43:42.900 They respect him.

00:43:44.380 He's got himself a life, you know,

00:43:46.040 and it's kind of hassle-free.

00:43:47.960 And he's wandering around near Mount Sinai,

00:43:51.320 interestingly enough, when something

00:43:53.160 attracts his attention, right?

00:43:55.900 And he decides to turn away from his path

00:43:59.280 and to go investigate.

00:44:02.100 And so, to me, what that story is reflecting

00:44:04.980 is the fact that in our lives, we'll be in a

00:44:08.520 relatively comfortable position, and something

00:44:10.880 will beckon to us that we can decide to

00:44:13.920 investigate.

00:44:15.440 And if we decide to investigate that, we'll,

00:44:19.520 well, God only knows what will happen, and

00:44:21.380 that's what happens to Moses.

00:44:22.540 He goes off the beaten path.

00:44:24.700 He goes to investigate the burning bush, and

00:44:27.260 the burning bush is a symbol of life and

00:44:29.260 transformation at the same time, right?

00:44:31.380 Because fire is a transformative element.

00:44:33.540 So he goes to investigate being, that's life, and

00:44:38.000 becoming, that's transformation.

00:44:39.540 And as he investigates it more deeply, he

00:44:42.340 finds that he starts to walk on sacred

00:44:44.920 ground, and God tells him he has to take

00:44:47.320 his shoes off.

00:44:48.040 That's humility, right?

00:44:49.940 And so, and then as he investigates even

00:44:52.440 more deeply, the God of the Old Testament

00:44:55.260 speaks to him and says that it's the same

00:44:57.860 voice that called to Jacob and Isaac and

00:45:01.020 Abraham.

00:45:01.660 And so, this seems relevant to the issue of

00:45:04.440 respect for tradition.

00:45:06.280 And so, you could imagine, imagine that

00:45:08.860 there's a spirit that unites the great acts of

00:45:14.140 history, right?

00:45:15.080 It's all a manifestation of the same proper

00:45:18.120 orientation towards what's highest.

00:45:20.740 That's represented in that story as the spirit

00:45:23.400 of Yahweh.

00:45:24.160 And that part of what you do, if you're

00:45:26.780 called upon to be a leader, which is, of

00:45:28.740 course, the next thing that happens to Moses,

00:45:30.300 is that you bow down and have respect to that

00:45:35.120 guiding spiritual principle that's operated

00:45:38.360 over the entire corpus of history.

00:45:40.240 And so, you seem to be making allusions to

00:45:43.140 something like that when you said that, for

00:45:45.140 some reason, you had a kind of intellectual or

00:45:48.400 moral humility.

00:45:49.440 Now, why did you have that given the fact that

00:45:52.440 you could have been inordinately proud of your

00:45:56.120 own intellect?

00:45:57.160 I mean, it was of stellar quality, and you were

00:45:59.640 definitely rewarded for it.

00:46:01.280 So, how do you think that humility developed?

00:46:04.600 And why do you think people who are listening

00:46:07.580 should give it some credence?

00:46:10.400 Well, Jordan, that wonderful story that you've

00:46:13.960 just so well developed for us is one of the great

00:46:16.920 civilizational stories of our culture and of our

00:46:22.260 history, and part of the modern tragedy is that we

00:46:27.060 know so much, and yet we know so little about the

00:46:31.120 things that have really formed and shaped us as

00:46:33.800 peoples.

00:46:35.060 And there's almost an amnesia now about the Bible

00:46:42.500 stories, whether it's Old Testament or New

00:46:45.020 Testament.

00:46:46.520 There's an indifference to the great history,

00:46:50.840 whether it's the Greeks, the Romans, the history of the

00:46:56.500 development of England and so on, and how the great

00:47:00.180 ideas spread from these places throughout much of

00:47:05.180 the world.

00:47:06.440 There's just this ignorance mixed with scorn, which I

00:47:12.880 think is so sad.

00:47:14.660 I mean, we can know all about artificial intelligence, but

00:47:18.120 if you don't know anything about the culture and the

00:47:20.420 civilization which has made this possible, you are

00:47:23.560 intellectually impoverished, however clever you might be

00:47:27.580 in so many areas.

00:47:28.900 Now, this is part of our problem.

00:47:34.820 Now, I guess I was blessed, if you like, by this sense of

00:47:43.300 respect verging on reverence for our history and for our

00:47:48.080 traditions, when I was very young, my mother would probably on a

00:47:54.780 weekly basis bring me home the now almost forgotten, but back

00:48:00.340 in the 1960s and 70s, very well-known ladybird books, which

00:48:05.380 popularised great historical stories, mostly from British

00:48:10.560 history, I hasten to add.

00:48:11.780 But, you know, there was Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar and

00:48:16.140 Plato and Aristotle and all these as well in there, and I just

00:48:22.080 soaked it all up.

00:48:22.940 And so I guess from a very young age, I wasn't scornful of these

00:48:29.840 things.

00:48:30.280 I was appreciative of these things.

00:48:32.540 I wasn't rejecting of these things.

00:48:35.140 I was respectful of these things.

00:48:36.980 And I guess that's what's sustained me, for better or for worse, all the

00:48:42.100 way through.

00:48:43.160 All right.

00:48:43.920 So that's a very interesting observation.

00:48:46.200 So you were exposed to biographical accounts of greatness when you were a kid.

00:48:52.580 And those affected you.

00:48:54.500 Now, I think that's common, right?

00:48:56.200 And I was lucky.

00:48:56.980 I was lucky, Jordan, as a youngster.

00:49:01.500 I had nuns teaching me when I was in infant school.

00:49:07.080 I had Jesuits who were presiding over my primary and secondary education.

00:49:14.340 These were the days before the Western Church had been afflicted to the extent it

00:49:20.720 ultimately was by, I guess, the religious self-doubt that seems to have been associated with elements

00:49:28.320 of the Second Vatican Council.

00:49:31.060 These were impressive human beings.

00:49:34.640 Whatever foibles and faults they may have had, they were impressive human beings.

00:49:40.320 Certainly, they immensely impressed and helped me as a youngster.

00:49:45.420 And I've been lucky to carry all that throughout my life thus far.

00:49:49.400 I have had wonderful exemplars of courage, of faith, of inspiration, of insight.

00:49:58.980 And that's brought me along, carried me in its wake.

00:50:04.220 And my challenge is to be worthy of this great benefaction that I've had.

00:50:10.280 Right, right, right.

00:50:11.240 Well, you also said that your mother brought you these stories.

00:50:14.340 And that's kind of interesting psychologically and symbolically, because what that means

00:50:19.360 in a sense is that your mother brought you tales of the great men of the past, which

00:50:25.720 indicated that your mother, so the primary feminine influence in your life, was someone

00:50:33.200 who believed that that greatness of spirit actually existed.

00:50:36.840 Now, you could imagine the counterpart, right, because you could have had a mother or female

00:50:42.200 teachers who were bitterly resentful about the patriarchal oppression of the past, who

00:50:48.340 believed that every heroic figure was nothing other than a patriarchal oppressor, and that

00:50:53.520 was anti-masculine in the most fundamental sense in that manner.

00:50:57.500 Now, you know, you see this.

00:50:59.200 There's lots of women.

00:51:00.240 And this is increasingly true, and I think it's increasingly a consequence of familial

00:51:05.520 breakdown.

00:51:06.680 There's no shortage of women who have never had a positive relationship with anyone masculine

00:51:13.620 in their whole life.

00:51:15.260 You know, now, I talked to this leftist scholar, Naomi Wolf, a while back on my podcast, you

00:51:21.660 know, and she wrote The Beauty Myth, and she's been a pretty powerful voice on the left,

00:51:28.440 on the pro-patriarchal oppression front, right?

00:51:32.820 I mean, that's a narrative she buys.

00:51:34.260 But, you know, she was raped when she was 11, and then she had a pretty dismal experience

00:51:39.720 with someone who was supposed to mentor her in university, and it left her fractured and

00:51:45.740 with a permanent animus against men, you know, and you can see that sort of thing spiraling

00:51:51.580 out of control.

00:51:52.300 But your mother had respect for these historical figures.

00:51:58.780 What was the relationship between your mother and your father like on the personal front?

00:52:03.120 Look, you know, I don't claim to have seen every intimate moment, so to speak.

00:52:14.620 But my mum and dad had a long and, I think, pretty successful marriage, and they raised

00:52:21.160 four kids who have turned out to be okay.

00:52:25.640 All of us respected, well, my mum's still alive.

00:52:30.660 All of us respected our parents very much and have done our best to honour them.

00:52:36.380 But, look, I absolutely accept, Jordan, that, again, to use a phrase that the Jesuits used

00:52:43.540 to use back in the day, in a sense, we are all the product of those who have loved us or

00:52:49.700 failed to love us.

00:52:50.720 And I guess if you've come from an affirming and supportive, intellectually curious, capable

00:52:59.520 family, you are more likely to turn out with a certain set of attitudes than if the

00:53:06.360 opposite has been the case.

00:53:08.600 And, yeah, I can fully understand why someone whose experience of others has been bitter,

00:53:15.540 how they might be less optimistic and outgoing.

00:53:22.740 But if you believe, as I do, that most people, most of the time, are basically good, and if

00:53:31.780 you think, as I do, that the challenge is every day to try to come closer to being your best

00:53:37.860 self, well, that's a good way to live your life, because even if it's not perfect, at

00:53:46.080 least you won't be consumed with bitterness.

00:53:48.580 Yeah, well, that's something.

00:53:49.980 That can stop the tragedy from degenerating into hell.

00:53:53.740 So that's at least a doorstop against the catastrophe of life.

00:53:58.440 You know, I've thought that through a lot, partly as a consequence of working as a clinician.

00:54:03.520 You know, I've seen people in very dire situations, and it's certainly the case that if Job-like

00:54:11.620 tragedies come to visit you in life, you can make the situation a hell of a lot worse by

00:54:16.920 becoming bitter and resentful.

00:54:18.920 You know, and you can point to the catastrophes and say, look, I have every reason to be bitter

00:54:23.240 and resentful, and the proper response to that is, well, be that as it may, and you could

00:54:29.280 well be right.

00:54:30.380 If you go down that road, tempted towards it by the weight of your suffering, all that

00:54:36.560 will do is make your suffering much worse and universalize it.

00:54:41.040 See, that's what the book of Job concentrates on in such an interesting manner, Ray, because

00:54:46.320 Job has absolutely every reason to lift his middle finger towards the sky and to curse

00:54:52.340 God.

00:54:52.980 I mean, God literally bets with Satan that Satan can't take Job out, you know, and that's

00:54:59.520 a pretty rough situation, right?

00:55:02.440 But I think the moral of the story is something like, no matter what happens to you in your

00:55:08.400 life, and this is a bitch of a thing to say, no matter what happens to you in your life,

00:55:14.900 no matter how deep the degradation and the suffering you are called upon to maintain

00:55:21.760 faith in the essential goodness of being and to orient yourself upward, you know, and

00:55:27.500 that's a hell of a thing to ask of people.

00:55:30.220 But the alternative seems to be degeneration into a kind of hopeless and bitter misery.

00:55:35.440 Exactly right.

00:55:36.280 And one of the books that I read as a youngster was Viktor Frankl's famous book, From Death

00:55:40.980 Camp to Existentialism.

00:55:43.440 Now, I didn't know too much, still don't know too much about the existentialism, but I do

00:55:48.300 know that he survived that by virtue of focusing on the love he had for his wife, the love he

00:56:00.240 had for his family.

00:56:01.220 The tragedy is that the modern world, while having less and less in the way of objective

00:56:19.560 difficulties, has less and less of the why that will enable us to endure the how.

00:56:28.600 So, you talked about humility as a precondition for your development of a certain kind of respect

00:56:36.640 for the accomplishments of the past.

00:56:39.580 And, you know, we could also talk about, so one of the, something I've learned about the

00:56:48.780 religious enterprise is that the emphasis on virtues like humility is allied with a sense that that has

00:57:01.120 to be practiced.

00:57:02.560 So, the practice of faith in that regard is to actually practice, to consciously adopt an attitude,

00:57:10.920 let's say, of humility, and humility might be, in principle, you know, I still have something to learn.

00:57:17.180 I could learn to listen better.

00:57:18.840 I could learn to attend better to the treasures of the past.

00:57:23.200 I'm an ignorant creature.

00:57:24.780 I should conduct myself in that manner.

00:57:26.860 I should seek wisdom.

00:57:27.960 And there are all sorts of counter-positions that the full play of the rational mind can produce

00:57:37.340 that will fight against that impulse, but it is something you can practice.

00:57:42.260 And the same thing seems to apply to, let's say, an attitude of gratitude.

00:57:48.020 And this is also part of the problem with the idea that you could orient yourself by mere facts.

00:57:59.120 Like, if you look at the conditions of life, especially when things are not going well for you,

00:58:04.640 you could easily proclaim, like the antinatalists proclaim, that life is so bloody miserable in its

00:58:11.280 essence that it would be better if it didn't exist at all.

00:58:13.900 Well, that's Mephistopheles, by the way, in Faust's, in Goethe's Faust, right?

00:58:19.480 Is the whole enterprise should just be scrapped because the suffering is just too much.

00:58:24.140 Well, the alternative to that is to attempt to practice finding what's good,

00:58:31.520 I suppose, even in the darkest spots.

00:58:34.420 You know, like when my wife, a while back, my wife was afflicted with what she had been told

00:58:40.300 would be a terminal cancer.

00:58:41.580 And in fact, the cancer that she had had only been reported by 200 people, and every single

00:58:47.660 one of them died within 10 months.

00:58:49.640 So it was pretty damn dismal, you know?

00:58:51.720 And I watched her nearly die daily for like nine months.

00:58:58.400 It was rough.

00:59:00.080 And then she had surgical complications that, you know, the surgery probably, it was certainly

00:59:06.480 one of the factors that saved her life, but it also put her in great peril, you know?

00:59:10.160 And she, what did she do to cope with that?

00:59:14.780 Well, she turned to the things that she had in her life that were positive, right?

00:59:20.420 She really opened herself up, for example, to the love of her children in a way that even

00:59:26.300 though she had been a very good mother and had a very close relationship with her kids,

00:59:30.760 she found a dimension of love, of that maternal love that was fathomless, I would say.

00:59:40.580 And that really helped her, you know?

00:59:42.320 And she also decided when her father, her father had to cope with the long-term neurological

00:59:51.540 degeneration of his wife, she had prefrontal dementia and she deteriorated from the age

00:59:58.040 of about 55 to about 70, you know, in the way that neurological diseases take you out piece

01:00:05.140 by piece.

01:00:05.720 And he did that, he was stellar, man, he took care of her like a champ.

01:00:10.680 And like, he was a real man about town, but he just reoriented himself in a selfless manner

01:00:17.120 that was something to behold.

01:00:18.740 And he was also willing to accept help.

01:00:21.340 And that's another thing that happened to Tammy when she was ill, is that she abandoned a lot

01:00:27.340 of her pretensions and she allowed people into her life to support her.

01:00:31.860 And that was also part of that practice of being grateful even under dreadful circumstances.

01:00:38.140 And Jordan, this is where suffering is not ever something that we should go out and seek.

01:00:46.060 But if suffering finds us, if we react rightly to it, it is in its own way, or it can be at

01:00:55.300 least in its own way, ennobling.

01:00:57.060 And I'm thinking of a good friend of mine whose wife ultimately died of dementia.

01:01:07.780 For four or five years, she didn't know him, but he went every day, even so.

01:01:16.180 And you could say, well, why did he bother?

01:01:18.120 Well, just in case she did know, and because that was the duty of a husband for a wife in

01:01:28.520 extremis.

01:01:29.500 And we can say, well, let's try to, you know, baptise the suffering.

01:01:37.660 Let's try to make the most of this.

01:01:40.680 Or we can say it's all too hard, and we can euthanise people, we can institutionalise people.

01:01:49.700 And I just think it's important that we choose the better way.

01:01:54.640 As far as we humanly can, we should choose the better way.

01:01:58.980 And again, if we go back to the teachings of Holy Mother Church, I mean, it's best if you

01:02:08.040 get something out of the sacraments.

01:02:10.380 But even if you don't, you should keep going, because you just never know.

01:02:16.820 And maybe even if you don't think you're getting anything out of it, you might actually be getting

01:02:21.880 something out of it, which is beyond your comprehension, but is nevertheless making a difference.

01:02:30.080 Well, you know, when I was a kid, 13 or so, and starting to turn away from the Protestant church

01:02:38.240 that my mother in particular was part of, we didn't have a particularly religious home,

01:02:43.100 but she went to church every Sunday, and she liked to sing, and she liked the community.

01:02:46.880 And I got pretty sceptical about, probably about my emerging understanding of the conflict,

01:02:53.280 hypothetical conflict between, say, evolutionary views of the origin of man,

01:02:57.900 and the views that were being put forth in the church, and decided that it was appropriate

01:03:03.460 for me ethically to stop going, which caused my mother a certain amount of distress.

01:03:10.800 Now, part of my cynicism at that time, I suppose, was the kind of standard petty observation

01:03:18.720 of weekend, about the criticism of weekend Christians, right?

01:03:23.140 People go to church for an hour a week, and they proclaim their allegiance to this virtuous pathway,

01:03:29.700 and then they go back out into the world and do exactly what they were going to do anyways.

01:03:33.360 And, you know, there's some truth to that, I suppose, in that everyone can be hypocritical,

01:03:39.840 but that was also true of me, and I had an insufficient understanding of that at the time.

01:03:45.200 But I would also say, and this is to your point about what the practice might be doing for you,

01:03:50.620 even if you don't understand it, is that, you know, even an hour badly spent contemplating your own

01:03:58.820 inadequacies, let's say, in the form of sin and trying to aim upward, seems to be an improvement

01:04:04.280 over never doing it at all for even a minute, and which seems to be the alternative, right?

01:04:10.280 Because once you scrap the church, and this is the sort of thing that people like Richard Dawkins

01:04:15.940 and the atheist types would have us do, we'll just dispense with all that.

01:04:20.680 And his plan was that we'd all become Enlightenment rationalists, but we tend to degenerate into

01:04:25.640 polytheistic pagans instead, and then we don't even give a second's thought to anything approximating

01:04:31.060 a higher moral endeavor.

01:04:33.840 And then these weird quasi-religions grip us and pull us down.

01:04:37.940 Exactly right.

01:04:40.280 Look, you know, I do not claim to be a particularly virtuous person, and I certainly do not put

01:04:49.660 myself on any kind of a pedestal.

01:04:52.680 But I am confident, not that faith makes us good, but that faith makes us better.

01:05:01.480 And I am sure that I would be even worse, but for the fact that I had a wonderful early

01:05:13.280 beginning, and even now, pretty imperfectly, I try to practice it all.

01:05:21.560 So when you were the leader of the opposition, that was 2009 to 2013, and then you were prime

01:05:28.920 minister for two years. Now, you said that you didn't regard yourself as a sufficiently

01:05:34.360 developed person on the moral front, let's say, to enter the priesthood. You studied as

01:05:40.680 a Catholic seminarian, and so you took the devil's route into politics, let's say.

01:05:44.740 I saw the dark.

01:05:45.920 Now, you, yeah, you saw the dark. Okay, well, so tell me about your experiences as a leader

01:05:52.240 of the opposition and as prime minister. I mean, you got to see how things operated at the

01:05:56.600 highest level, both nationally and internationally. And so what did you learn about people? And

01:06:03.180 what did you learn about the kind of machinations that go on at the highest political levels?

01:06:08.540 And I'm also curious about your experiences on the international front, like with organizations

01:06:13.520 like the World Economic Forum and so forth. So what conclusions did you derive from this

01:06:19.040 time that you spent so integrally involved in the political landscape?

01:06:22.240 Well, I think the important thing is to say what you mean and do what you say. And it doesn't

01:06:32.160 matter whether you're the local cobbler or the local school teacher or a professor of law

01:06:40.580 or indeed the leader of a country. I just think you've got to say what you mean and do what

01:06:46.660 you say. And there were some leaders that I interacted with who I thought were brilliant

01:06:55.240 and capable, but I never really sensed that they were being fair dinkum with me. And there

01:07:01.400 were others who were probably less brilliant in some ways, but I got the impression that they

01:07:09.400 were being straight with me. And always that's the test. Can you be straight with someone? And

01:07:18.600 do you think that person is being straight with you? And I guess knowing that the world is made

01:07:27.320 up of all sorts of different people, some of whom will try to be helpful, some of whom will

01:07:34.140 not try to be helpful. You've got to try to conduct yourself in such a way that the people whose welfare

01:07:44.680 it is your duty to advance are as best as you can manage it, having their well-being advanced. So

01:07:52.660 as opposition leader, it was my job to try to work out what the then government was doing wrong

01:07:59.880 and what I might do that would make it less wrong or perhaps even more right. And then in government,

01:08:08.740 it was my job to try to ensure that to the extent government can, it's making bad situations better,

01:08:18.360 making good situations better, knowing that you're never going to make it all right.

01:08:25.360 There are some things which you probably can't even begin to improve. So you've got to know what's

01:08:33.800 within the purview of government and what's not really. And it's a question, I suppose, of applying

01:08:40.680 your insights and your judgment, hopefully, I guess, helped by such character as you've managed to

01:08:51.760 develop over the years in ways which make sense and make a difference. And look, I can talk about

01:09:00.700 different policies. But in the end, the job of everyone in public life is first to do no harm,

01:09:09.600 and then to try to respond intelligently to the exigencies of the day, all the time, hoping

01:09:17.980 to nudge things in a better direction, as best you can tell. That's the duty of everyone in public life.

01:09:27.080 How would you analyze the narrow and broader success of your attempts to play a straight game when you

01:09:38.480 were prime minister? I mean, you ran into a lot of opposition, and your faith ran into a lot of

01:09:47.120 opposition as well. And a cynic might look at your record and say, well, if you would have been a

01:09:55.100 little more instrumental in your tactics, a little more Machiavellian, let's say, you might not have

01:10:01.280 run into so much difficulty in opposition. I'm not necessarily saying that's the case. I'm asking

01:10:07.200 in retrospect, no, you attempted to play a straight game. In some ways, I think you were a man out of

01:10:15.860 time. You know what I mean? Is that the qualities that you brought to the position weren't necessarily

01:10:22.980 the ones that were being demanded loudly and publicly at the time? And your Catholicism, for example, is

01:10:29.580 certainly something that exists in opposition to the new environmentalist ethos. Arguably so, at least.

01:10:37.980 And so do you think that attempting to play a straight game worked for you? And if so, how? And do you think

01:10:46.080 that politics tends to attract people who are more likely to play a crooked game than other modes of

01:10:53.900 interacting with the world, business, art, culture? Well, Jordan, I think it would be generally thought

01:11:02.720 or conceded that I was a very effective leader of the opposition in that I brought my side of politics

01:11:12.020 back into government in record time. Now, I did that by, I suppose, ruthlessly focusing on the mistakes

01:11:22.720 of the then government and coming up with what I thought were feasible and principled and effective

01:11:32.100 ways of improving that. Now, I got into government and it would generally be thought that I was less

01:11:40.380 effective as a prime minister. And I guess the fact that my own party replaced me after two years

01:11:46.700 would provide a certain validation to that. But nevertheless, I did my best to try to temper

01:11:54.680 the emissions obsession. I did my best to stop the border protection disaster and I think pretty much

01:12:02.760 completely succeeded in that. I did my best to get taxes down, in fact, abolished a couple of taxes,

01:12:12.600 big taxes, the carbon tax and the mining tax. I did my best to reduce the regulatory burden,

01:12:19.760 did my best to honour and respect the traditions and the institutions which had stood the test of time.

01:12:26.400 Now, because I was probably against the zeitgeist in a way that most contemporary politicians are not,

01:12:38.580 I did attract a kind of visceral dislike, including from people inside my own party who were happy enough

01:12:46.520 when I was a successful leader of the opposition to put up with this more traditional conservative

01:12:55.520 approach to things, but decided once we were in government that they could do better. But look,

01:13:02.480 it's just one of those things. I mean...

01:13:04.940 So why do you think you were so universally acclaimed as effective as leader of the opposition

01:13:12.980 and that that was then flipped on its head to some degree when you became prime minister,

01:13:20.340 when you became the prime minister itself, right? It doesn't exactly stand to reason. So what do you

01:13:25.100 think happened? Well, Jordan, the leader of the opposition has effectively one job to get his team into

01:13:31.440 government. The leader of a government has many jobs. You've got to try to ensure that everything

01:13:41.620 which is in the purview of government is handled as well as it can. So running a government is much

01:13:52.320 harder than leading an opposition. It is. And it's particularly difficult at the moment,

01:13:59.740 given that we are more fragmented and more polarised in the West than we have been for a long,

01:14:06.960 long time. And I suppose, I think it was more difficult as a conservative, because there's a sense

01:14:14.880 in which you're against the zeitgeist. You're out of sympathy with the temper of the times.

01:14:21.220 But rather than conform yourself to the so-called signs of the times, I think the important thing

01:14:28.540 is to push on with what you think is right and do your best to be good enough to overcome

01:14:37.440 the difficulties of these times. And notwithstanding the fact that I was only there for two years,

01:14:45.340 I think it was probably the most successful two years of the nine years of the recent coalition

01:14:52.480 government in this country. So, you know, I talked to Bibi Netanyahu about issues that were similar to

01:14:58.540 this. And he made himself dreadfully unpopular at one point in his political career by pursuing a round

01:15:05.020 of radical measures aimed at transforming Israel economically. And as far as I can tell, those

01:15:13.420 worked. But they took about 10 years to bear fruit. And he was sort of in the political wilderness that

01:15:18.680 entire time. But he certainly came back with a vengeance. And so one of the things I'm curious about is,

01:15:24.500 you know, are you pleased about the fact that you stuck to your guns? And if so, why, given the

01:15:32.180 defeat on the electoral front? And also, what did you learn from, suffer from, and benefit from

01:15:40.640 as a consequence of being attacked in the manner that you were?

01:15:45.260 One of the phrases I think I used on the night I was ejected from the parliament, Jordan, is that it's

01:15:52.900 better to be a fighter than a quitter. And if you're not prepared to lose in a good cause, you're not

01:16:02.200 really prepared to fight for a good cause. And so, look, I'm pleased that I did try to resist the

01:16:11.780 emissions obsession. I did try to get the government less burdensome on people's lives.

01:16:22.180 I did try to ensure that our country had a degree of integrity in its borders. I did try to ensure

01:16:31.780 that our country was an effective and valuable ally to our friends. And look, there are a few things that

01:16:44.320 I guess I might have done differently. Everyone makes mistakes. But fundamentally, I think what I was

01:16:54.420 trying to do was good and proper. Could I have been more emollient from time to time with colleagues? Of

01:17:03.760 course. Could I have lavished a little more time on some people? Sure. Might I have expressed myself

01:17:13.520 better in different circumstances? Well, absolutely. I've done plenty of dodgy interviews over the years.

01:17:21.600 Who hasn't? Who hasn't? But I think the project, if you like, the purpose, if you like,

01:17:32.560 was good and right. And I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

01:17:37.360 And what made you prepared to lose, do you think?

01:17:40.240 Well, in the end, it's about trying to make a difference. And if you want to make a difference,

01:17:56.000 you've got to strive for it. And if you're prepared to sacrifice that which you are striving for in order

01:18:02.160 to win, it's not about the cause, it's about you. And this is the problem in our public life right now.

01:18:13.280 Too many people seem to be about preferment, promotion.

01:18:21.440 It's about them. It's not about the country. It's not about the cause.

01:18:32.320 They would rather stay in office than make a difference.

01:18:35.520 Yeah. It's a very narrow, it's a very narrow conception of self. I mean, one of the problems with,

01:18:41.520 so if you look at the life outcomes of psychopaths, and psychopaths are particularly interesting,

01:18:46.960 eh? Because they're completely self-interested in the narrowly selfish sense. But one of the

01:18:53.040 interesting things about psychopaths is they betray their future selves just as badly as they betray

01:18:59.280 other people. So, like, a psychopath will take momentary gratification whenever he can get it.

01:19:05.600 And the problem with that is that there's always a price to be paid. And so, psychopaths are completely

01:19:10.640 incapable of learning from experience, and they're much more likely to end up in prison. And the reason

01:19:16.400 for that is that that impulsive, narrow focus on the demands of the self actually turns out to be

01:19:23.760 a very, very bad medium to long-term strategy, even if you're thinking selfishly, right? Because

01:19:31.120 you're not conceptualizing how you're going to be interacted with by people over any span of time. It's all

01:19:38.400 about now. You know, and when we talk about the power monger types being selfish, it isn't just that

01:19:45.280 they're selfish. It's that they're stupidly and narrowly selfish, in a manner that can't sustain

01:19:50.960 itself, yeah. One of the things that I often used to say to myself was, no unnecessary enemies. Now,

01:20:00.240 there are some necessary enemies, because if you want to do something that you really believe is right

01:20:06.240 for the country, and others oppose it, they are going to be your enemies, and you just can't avoid that.

01:20:11.040 But let's not gratuitously offend people, because we can. I mean, that's the mark of the bully.

01:20:21.920 It's not the mark of someone who has at least tried to be a statesman.

01:20:26.720 Yeah, yeah. Well, no unnecessary enemies. That's sort of like the doctrine of minimal necessary force.

01:20:32.880 Oh, it's a good doctrine. Let's turn our attention, if you don't mind,

01:20:36.080 to the international landscape. And so you have given a lot of thought, for example, to the issue

01:20:44.560 of China. I'm not a big fan of the CCP, not least because they support North Korea. And I would say

01:20:52.320 that any state that supports North Korea is, let's call them questionable on the moral front, to say the

01:20:58.800 least. And you guys in Australia, you have to deal with China in a way that's even more

01:21:05.440 immediate and threatening and promising than, say, those of us who are a little bit more distant.

01:21:12.240 And so what do you see looming on the international front vis-a-vis China? Their economy doesn't seem

01:21:18.560 to be very stable. They seem to be degenerating into a very comprehensive surveillance state tyranny.

01:21:25.200 Our hope in the West that increasing material wealth would liberalize China doesn't seem to be

01:21:32.960 bearing fruit, although, you know, the Chinese aren't starving and there's something to be said

01:21:37.120 for that. And we've had a lot of cheap goods as a consequence. So how do you conceptualize

01:21:44.880 China, the West's proper relationship with China? What are your views in that domain?

01:21:50.160 Well, I think it was the current American Secretary of State, Blinken, who said that we would cooperate

01:22:01.040 where we can, we will compete where we should, and confront where we must. I think that was the formula

01:22:10.080 he used. And I actually thought that was quite a good formula. In my time, when MH370 disappeared into the

01:22:21.520 wastes of the Indian Ocean with 240 people on board, of whom about 150 were Chinese nationals,

01:22:29.680 Australia put everything we had into that search because that was the right thing to do. And I think

01:22:39.440 the Chinese government appreciated that. By the same token, when China declared unilaterally air

01:22:48.160 defence identification zones over parts of the East and South China seas, we flew military jets

01:22:54.320 through there because, again, that was the right thing to do. When China was trying to create this Asia

01:23:03.600 Infrastructure Investment Bank, against the wishes of both America and Japan, our very good friends and

01:23:12.080 allies, we were prepared to join this. Although we insisted on changes to the governance structure,

01:23:19.920 because we wanted it to reflect the kind of governance structures that global bodies typically had,

01:23:27.840 rather than being simply a proxy for the communist government in Beijing. So, look, I think in my time,

01:23:36.640 we did pretty well. We successfully secured the first free trade deal between China and a G20 country.

01:23:46.880 But prior to 2015, I think it was still possible to be optimistic about China and to think that even under

01:23:55.440 the CCP, economic modernisation was going ultimately to lead to a degree of political liberalisation and that

01:24:04.640 over the decades, there would be some kind of convergence, if you like. Unfortunately, as we discovered

01:24:13.520 in the COVID period, if there was any convergence taking place, we were getting more like communist China

01:24:20.080 than they were getting like the liberal West. So, my attitude to China and to the CCP,

01:24:30.080 I think was fair enough, over-optimistic perhaps, but it was fair enough back then.

01:24:38.640 So, my view today is quite different. China is increasingly oppressing its own citizens.

01:24:48.960 It has crushed the freedom of Hong Kong, one of the world's great cities. It's

01:24:59.120 being monstrous towards its Uyghur, its own Uyghur citizens. It's bullying and threatening

01:25:06.560 all its neighbours. And it's now particularly focused on taking Taiwan by force if necessary. Now,

01:25:15.120 now I think that if the Beijing regime believes that it will be 1.4 billion Chinese against 24 million

01:25:28.240 Taiwanese, at some point in the near future, they will strike. And I just think it would be horrific

01:25:36.800 for 24 million Taiwanese to have their lives surrendered into the hands of a brutal dictatorship.

01:25:50.080 And while no one wants conflict, I think it is important for free countries like Australia

01:25:58.400 to join with our partners and allies such as the United States, such as Japan, such as the United Kingdom,

01:26:05.600 to say very clearly to Beijing, there will be the most severe consequences if you try to alter the

01:26:13.440 status quo by force across the Taiwan Straits. As I said earlier, Jordan, the Ukraine war has been

01:26:23.520 a catastrophe. But it would be any war over Taiwan would be several orders of magnitude greater. And

01:26:36.160 I think we have to do everything we can to deter that. But I think strength is much more likely to deter

01:26:44.240 than weakness.

01:26:48.960 concerned about the probability of Chinese assault on Taiwan. And so, you know, in my darker moments,

01:26:57.360 I think, well, if I was running the CCP,

01:27:00.640 a little distraction to take my citizens' attention away from the catastrophes on the domestic economic

01:27:10.080 front might be quite welcome. There's nothing that unites a fractious population more than a targeted enemy.

01:27:16.880 It's a pretty easy thing to use propaganda to, you know, to agitate for a vision of a unified China,

01:27:25.280 as it should be. And so it would be a lovely distraction. And so, and you said, you know,

01:27:31.760 you take a peace through strength approach, let's say, and you talked a little bit, you made some

01:27:38.560 allusion a little bit to deterring China. Like, what do you think that the West could do on the

01:27:45.680 deterrence front that wouldn't increase the probability of a cataclysmic interchange between

01:27:52.240 the West and China? See, the terrifying thing about China is that they're likely more willing to

01:27:59.360 sacrifice their citizens than we are, right? And God only knows what price they'd be willing to pay to

01:28:07.840 invade Taiwan, for example, especially if that gave them a purchase on power for another five years.

01:28:14.720 So that's a very hard enemy to deal with, right? Because if they'll light themselves on fire to

01:28:18.880 singe you, that's a pretty difficult thing to contend with.

01:28:22.800 I take your point, Jordan, and I take your point. And I particularly take your point that

01:28:32.560 a dictatorship in trouble is a more unpredictable and dangerous dictatorship than a dictatorship that

01:28:39.840 thinks that its best days are ahead. But likewise, I don't think that free countries

01:28:50.480 can be blasé about the fate of what is practically a free and independent country.

01:28:59.120 I don't think that the democracy should depart from the one-China policy.

01:29:08.480 I don't think that the United States should change its strategic ambiguity as such.

01:29:16.560 But I do think that back channels and certain practical steps ought to be taken to try to ensure

01:29:26.800 that Beijing is under no illusions about the magnitude of the challenge it would face.

01:29:34.480 And I'm not necessarily President Biden's greatest fan, but on this particular issue, his statements

01:29:45.280 repeated now I think four times that the United States would defend Taiwan may well have sent a

01:29:52.640 strong message to Beijing, even though when officials have subsequently walked them back,

01:29:59.040 they have stressed that the posture of strategic ambiguity has not changed. I mean, I think he has

01:30:07.440 actually changed what strategic ambiguity means without abandoning the term.

01:30:14.160 What are your thoughts, sir, on the situation vis-a-vis Russia and the Ukraine?

01:30:19.440 I know that's a complicated topic. Well, look, again, I don't say this is easy.

01:30:30.400 But I think what Putin is doing is monstrous.

01:30:33.200 I think it's monstrous. He regards Ukraine as a rebel province, just as Beijing regards Taiwan as a rebel

01:30:43.120 province. And unlike Taiwan, which has had a kind of a legally ambiguous situation now for decades,

01:30:53.600 Ukraine has been fully and legally independent for 30-odd years. Putin has never accepted that.

01:31:07.040 Even though Ukraine was no threat to Russia, even though NATO was no threat to Russia,

01:31:14.000 Russia. He sent his army across the border, expecting a rapid victory, expecting that his death squads would find and eliminate President Zelensky.

01:31:28.800 The Ukrainians have turned out to be much more united, much more heroic, much better prepared, much more imaginative,

01:31:38.960 much more creative on the battlefield. And so for the last 15 months, they have at worst stalemated the Russians and in some ways bested the Russians,

01:31:53.280 notwithstanding the fact that Russia has vastly more resources, vastly more manpower, vastly better weaponry.

01:32:02.000 And I think it's the duty of free countries such as mine to try to avoid escalating the war, sure, but also to try to do whatever we can to help the Ukrainians into the most advantageous possible position.

01:32:25.200 If things went optimally, let's say, for the Ukrainians, but realistically, optimally for the Ukrainians and for the West,

01:32:34.780 how do you think, like, what do you conceptualize as an ending?

01:32:40.140 You know, because one of the things I've really tried to puzzle out is, well, what's the end game here?

01:32:44.220 Like, if we got what we wanted, and by we, I mean the West that's supporting Ukraine,

01:32:49.900 if we got what we wanted, what would that look like? Do you have a sense of that?

01:32:56.300 Well, ideally, it would be Ukraine regaining every inch of its territory and driving every last Russian soldier off its land.

01:33:07.360 Ideally, that would be what it looks like.

01:33:10.020 Now, in the end, I think it's up to the Ukrainians to decide what they are prepared to accept.

01:33:20.480 But at the moment, despite the fact that Putin is relentlessly and mercilessly devastating their infrastructure,

01:33:30.320 pulverizing their cities, they are determined to fight.

01:33:34.140 And the extraordinary thing is that this message that we got very, very pervasively prior to the 24th of February last year,

01:33:46.480 that really there were the Western Ukrainians and then there were the sort of Russian Ukrainians,

01:33:53.880 that appears to be largely a Putin-inspired myth.

01:33:59.300 The Russian-speaking Ukrainians appear to have been almost as appalled by the brutality of the Russian invasion as everyone else.

01:34:11.160 And Putin has succeeded in uniting the country in a way that maybe no one else has.

01:34:18.320 So, look, I think out of respect for the heroism of the Ukrainians,

01:34:24.540 we have to leave them to determine what they think is a satisfactory outcome.

01:34:35.280 Obviously, we do not have to support, and I would not expect this for a second,

01:34:40.940 any official Ukrainian incursions into Russia.

01:34:48.160 But I do think that NATO and NATO's partners such as Australia should first do everything we humanly can

01:34:57.340 to help the Ukrainians into the best possible position militarily.

01:35:02.920 B, say to the Ukrainians that once this war is over, of course we will admit you into NATO.

01:35:14.420 And C, if there is any use of nuclear weapons by the Russians, well, we will then immediately admit you to NATO.

01:35:23.860 That would be, I think, a reasonable position for Ukraine's friends to adopt,

01:35:30.100 which is trying to avoid escalation, while at the same time trying to avoid the triumph of aggression and dictatorship.

01:35:43.520 So, all right, we're coming to the end of our time on YouTube.

01:35:47.660 I know you have a hard out that we negotiated a priori, and so I won't ask you any more questions.

01:35:53.400 I would, however, like to offer you the opportunity, if you think it would be useful,

01:35:58.560 to address anything that you think might be well communicated to people on whatever broad international level we manage with this podcast.

01:36:08.820 Is there anything else that you'd like to say to people before we close up this segment?

01:36:14.940 Well, Jordan, obviously I'm here because I have a great deal of respect for the work you've done over the last few years.

01:36:21.400 And I particularly admire the way you have reached a wide international audience,

01:36:31.400 particularly an audience of younger men, and tried to remind them of the enduring virtues.

01:36:39.620 You have tried to give them through your own insights and your own experience something to live for

01:36:50.360 and some ways of actually grasping those essential truths.

01:36:57.460 And look, I just think that countries like Australia, and look, I would extend this to the Anglosphere in particular,

01:37:12.900 and I suppose to the Western world more generally,

01:37:15.220 we have achieved so much, and largely through the influence of the Anglo-American ascendancy.

01:37:28.420 The whole world in 2020 was more prosperous, it was more safe, it was more free than ever before in human history.

01:37:37.880 And rather than despise and reject the values that created that,

01:37:49.220 we should cherish and admire them.

01:37:51.740 And yes, to do our best to renew them and take them forward,

01:37:57.080 because I want the future to be at least as good as the recent past,

01:38:06.220 and yet things look much more ominous now than at any time since the early 1940s.

01:38:12.980 And I don't think we're going to fix it by surrender, whether it's economic surrender,

01:38:21.740 whether it's military surrender, whether it's cultural and civilizational surrender.

01:38:27.280 Surrender is not the way.

01:38:30.020 A decent and self-confident approach is going to be best for everyone.

01:38:37.760 Well, hopefully that's something that we can outline in more detail

01:38:43.660 with this Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, you know.

01:38:47.280 What was it that Churchill said at the beginning of his histories of the Second World War?

01:38:55.120 In defeat, defiance, in war resolution, in peace, goodwill, and in victory, magnanimity.

01:39:02.540 I mean, something like that is what we need today.

01:39:06.160 Yeah, yeah.

01:39:08.020 Well, it would be lovely.

01:39:09.520 What we're hoping to do is to help inspire a vision for the future

01:39:14.500 that draws on the wisdom of the past with respect for the past,

01:39:20.360 with the kind of respect for the past that you described developing,

01:39:23.300 you know, over the course of your life,

01:39:25.160 that people can ally themselves with voluntarily,

01:39:29.620 that will provide them with hope,

01:39:32.600 and that will offer a respite from unnecessary anxiety.

01:39:36.960 And with tremendous emphasis on the voluntary element, right?

01:39:40.820 We don't want to produce a vision that would rely on compulsion, force, and fear to implement,

01:39:46.760 but that would be invitational instead.

01:39:48.960 And I don't think that that's a pipe dream.

01:39:51.120 I think that that's actually what everyone who has any sense

01:39:54.400 and who thinks about it for any length of time would want.

01:39:57.620 And so I'll see you in London, I believe, at the end of October,

01:40:02.580 and so that should be extraordinarily interesting,

01:40:05.100 and we certainly appreciate your participation.

01:40:07.840 I'm looking forward to it, Jordan. Thank you.

01:40:10.620 All right. Well, thank you, sir.

01:40:12.300 Thank you to everyone watching and listening on the YouTube side

01:40:15.360 for your time and attention,

01:40:18.340 and to the Daily Wire Plus crew for facilitating this conversation.

01:40:22.460 And thank you again, Mr. Abbott, for your time and your insight.

01:40:28.380 And that's all much appreciated.

01:40:30.280 We've had a lot of positive response in relationship to the ARC on the Australian side,

01:40:36.580 and so that's been very heartening,

01:40:38.320 and we're hoping that that'll produce all sorts of positive things in the future.

01:40:43.100 So thank you very much, sir.

01:40:44.600 Very good talking to you today.

01:40:46.060 Thank you.

01:40:46.660 Thank you.

01:40:46.700 Thank you.

01:40:46.760 Thank you.

01:40:48.700 Thank you.

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - November 02, 2023

393. The Makings of A Great Leader ｜ The Honourable Tony Abbott

Episode Stats

Length

Words per Minute

Word Count

Sentence Count

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript