The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast


455. The Devil and Karl Marx ｜ Dr. Paul Kengor


Summary

Paul Kengor has written a number of books, including The Devil and Karl Marx. He s also the editor of the American Spectator and a regular contributor to The Weekly Standard. In this episode, he talks about his new book, The Devil And Karl Marx, and how it sheds light on Marx s early work as a poet and a playwright, and the underlying structure of his theories that shaped and crafted the murderous doctrine that he developed as a polemicist and a so-called economist. Dr. Jordan Peterson has created a new series that could be a lifeline for those battling depression and anxiety. 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. With decades of experience helping patients, Dr. Peterson offers a unique understanding of why you might be feeling this way, and offers a roadmap towards healing. He provides a roadmap toward healing, showing that, while the journey isn t easy, it s absolutely possible to find your way forward. If you re suffering, please know you are not alone. There s hope, and there s a path to feeling better. Go to Daily Wire Plus now and start watching Dr. J.B. Peterson on Depression and Anxiety. Let s take the first step towards the brighter future you deserve. - let s take a step towards feeling better, and let s all of us know that we re not alone, and that we deserve a brighter future we deserve it. . Subscribe to Dailywire Plus to get immediate access to all the latest episodes of Daily Wire and all the newest episodes of the show on the Daily Wire. Today's episode is available on Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your favourite podcasting platform, and social media platforms, including Apple Podcast, wherever else you re listening to the latest news and information, including the latest in the world. Thanks for listening to The Daily Wire + Podcasts! Timestamps: 1:00:00 - What is your favorite podcast? 2: What are you listening to? 3:30 - What do you want to know? 4: What would you like to hear from me? 5:00 6: What s your favorite thing I m listening to right now? 7:00 | How do you think about the future of the future? 8:30 | What s going to happen next? 9:30 What are your biggest takeaway from this episode? 11:00 -- How do I feel about it?


Transcript

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 Hi everybody. I have the privilege of speaking with Paul Kengor today.
00:01:12.860 He's written a book, many books. One of them is, for example, The Crusader, Ronald Reagan, and the Fall of Communism.
00:01:20.540 This is going to be made into a movie. I just interviewed the lead actor for that movie a couple of weeks ago, Dennis Quaid.
00:01:28.880 And so that'll be releasing, a movie will be releasing at the end of August.
00:01:32.620 Paul is also the editor of the American Spectator, and this month's version has a list of the best conservative colleges in the United States.
00:01:43.300 And so that could be a very helpful list for those of you who are thinking about going to college or who have children who are thinking about going to college.
00:01:49.860 So that's the American Spectator.
00:01:52.400 And so, but what we're concentrating on today is actually a different book, The Devil and Karl Marx.
00:01:58.780 And I really like this book, not least because it delves into Karl Marx's work as a poet and a playwright.
00:02:05.740 And it sheds light, I think, on the underlying structure of his motivation for the so-called economic theories that he developed later.
00:02:15.300 And so we discuss the Mephistophelian nature of the fantasies, the poetic fantasies that Karl Marx developed as a young man,
00:02:26.020 and how that ethos, that Faustian ethos, what would you say, shaped and crafted the murderous doctrine that he developed as a polemicist and a so-called economist.
00:02:39.600 So join us for that.
00:02:41.900 So welcome, Paul.
00:02:43.240 I just read your book, The Devil and Karl Marx, recently.
00:02:47.640 And there is, a lot of it was striking to me for a couple of reasons.
00:02:53.540 I suppose reasons that are more idiosyncratic to me.
00:02:57.200 There are many reasons that it's of general interest.
00:02:59.440 But, so the first one was, one of the things I noticed about my students, especially the ones that were really searching,
00:03:09.180 is that if I gave them free reign to write an essay, they'd often either, they'd include or want to show me a poem that was relevant to that pursuit.
00:03:21.380 And then my first book, Maps of Meaning, actually started as about a 40-page poem.
00:03:27.840 Wow.
00:03:28.480 Well, and so...
00:03:29.100 Okay, so I know where you're going with this.
00:03:30.200 Okay, okay, okay.
00:03:31.180 So, well, so I studied Jung's analysis of creative thought a lot.
00:03:36.860 And Jung had this notion, which I think is right, that when we first investigate something that we don't understand, we fantasize about it, right?
00:03:48.960 Which, in some ways, seems so obvious that it hardly needs to be said.
00:03:53.940 But it does need to be said, because you fantasize about it, or you dream about it, or you daydream about it.
00:04:00.360 And what you're doing is you're using what you already have a grip on to get a new grip on this indeterminate object.
00:04:07.460 And that's fantasy.
00:04:08.840 And so you have, it's like you have the dream, and then you have the drama.
00:04:15.120 No, you have the drama, and then you have the dream, and then you have something like the poem.
00:04:20.420 Because a poem is where the dream meets the verbal.
00:04:24.660 And then you can differentiate that further, so it becomes more and more semantic and more explicit.
00:04:33.000 Now, this is a long way of asking you this question.
00:04:35.940 One of the things you took pains to do in this book was to concentrate on some of Marx's work before he was an economist, because he wrote drama and he wrote poetry.
00:04:46.220 And so, and your claim in the book is that, well, we should really be paying attention to some of that early work, because it does something like set the frame.
00:04:55.300 It sheds light on his motivation, and it also sheds light on the story that he was imagining or acting out.
00:05:02.220 So can you make some comments about that?
00:05:04.160 Yeah, so this is quite fascinating.
00:05:06.440 I think you should write the next forward.
00:05:09.560 The forward for this one was written by Michael Knowles, a colleague of yours at Daily Wire.
00:05:15.540 Yeah, yeah.
00:05:16.580 So Marx fancied himself a poet.
00:05:19.800 I mean, Marx's secret love was poetry.
00:05:23.300 In fact, one of his, I think his most important biographer, and this guy has been, he's kind of fallen, people just don't know about him today.
00:05:31.200 And no one had anything against him, really, but his name was Robert, Robert Payne.
00:05:35.100 So he was a British academic, man of letters, the arts, a translator, drama.
00:05:41.260 I mean, he was no right winger.
00:05:42.640 He was probably, probably slightly left of center.
00:05:46.160 He did a couple, did several works on Marx.
00:05:49.480 Late 60s.
00:05:50.180 Late 60s.
00:05:51.100 Early 1970s.
00:05:52.880 Published by New York University Press, Simon & Schuster.
00:05:56.500 So, you know, very credible.
00:05:58.280 And he was really the first one to mine Marx's poetry, to go through and figure it out.
00:06:05.860 How much of it is there?
00:06:06.900 How much poetry?
00:06:07.380 Well, there's quite a bit.
00:06:08.980 And it's deeply disturbing stuff, all right?
00:06:12.820 A lot of it is about the devil, you know, quite literally about the devil.
00:06:17.680 It's chilling, right?
00:06:18.900 You know, thus heaven I forfeited, I know it full well.
00:06:23.760 My heart, once true to God, is chosen for hell.
00:06:27.180 Right, right.
00:06:27.540 1837.
00:06:28.100 Straight Lucifer from Milton.
00:06:30.640 Yeah.
00:06:31.280 1837, that one was.
00:06:33.000 It was one of his first published writings.
00:06:35.100 He would have only been 19 years old at that time.
00:06:38.320 Another one.
00:06:39.280 So it's called The Player.
00:06:40.640 And it was 1841.
00:06:42.800 And here, he puts himself, it appears, in the form of this kind of mad violinist who's
00:06:50.440 like frenetically, maniacally sawing away at the violin.
00:06:54.840 And he's summoning up the powers of darkness.
00:06:57.260 And he's doing this in front of his love interest.
00:07:00.300 And the love interest.
00:07:00.520 As one does.
00:07:01.560 Yeah, right.
00:07:02.040 And the love interest, Robert Payne says, appears to be his girl at the time, Jenny,
00:07:07.960 the girl that he would end up marrying.
00:07:10.240 And he's summoning up the powers of darkness.
00:07:12.840 And she's saying, why are you doing this to him?
00:07:15.180 It's like a Faustian bargain.
00:07:16.920 More on Faust and Gerita and Mephistopheles in a moment.
00:07:19.640 But just to sort of set the table for people who are shocked by what I said about him writing
00:07:23.900 about the devil.
00:07:24.960 So here's what he says in The Player.
00:07:26.340 Here's just one stanza.
00:07:27.220 He tells the girl, look now, my blood-dark sword shall stab unerringly within thy soul.
00:07:35.900 The hellish vapors rise and fill the brain till I go mad and my heart is utterly changed.
00:07:42.620 See the sword, the prince of darkness, sold it to me.
00:07:46.440 For he beats the time and gives the signs.
00:07:49.320 Ever more boldly I play the dance of death.
00:07:52.220 And then he plays this sort of Faustian bargain.
00:07:58.120 But to back up a little bit, that's his poetry from an early age.
00:08:03.880 And Robert Payne, who wrote the book, the Simon & Schuster book,
00:08:08.000 the New York University Press said,
00:08:10.200 Marx's first love was poetry.
00:08:12.040 And he fancied himself as aspiring to be nothing less than the Goethe of his age,
00:08:18.900 to write the Faust of his age.
00:08:21.420 And Goethe's Faust, of course, the famous character is the Mephistopheles character,
00:08:26.060 the devil, demon character.
00:08:28.200 And as you saw in the book many times.
00:08:30.740 And Mephistopheles in Faust, that's a character I've done a fair bit of study about.
00:08:34.900 Because, well, there's a motif that's repeated both in Faust 1 and Faust 2.
00:08:41.700 So Mephistopheles in Faust is a variant of the heavenly adversary, right?
00:08:47.920 So he opposes being itself.
00:08:50.820 And his ethos, which Goethe has him state twice,
00:08:55.800 is that the suffering that's a necessary consequence of existence
00:09:03.200 in its finite and limited manifestation,
00:09:06.820 so our mortal frames, let's say,
00:09:08.680 that suffering is so unbearable and so unconscionable
00:09:11.900 that it would be better if existence itself did not exist.
00:09:16.340 Yeah, that's nice.
00:09:17.100 So what Satan does in Goethe's conceptualization
00:09:23.340 is make the case that life is so unfair in its fundament.
00:09:27.880 He's like the antinatalists, the modern antinatalists,
00:09:30.060 that anyone ethical would act in order to bring being itself to a cessation.
00:09:36.620 Right now, the problem with that seems to be, as far as I can tell,
00:09:40.220 and this is the problem with antinatalism,
00:09:42.140 one of many problems,
00:09:43.100 is that the reason that Mephistopheles is anti-being,
00:09:48.320 hypothetically, is because of the suffering.
00:09:50.980 But the problem is, is if you turn that into a political doctrine,
00:09:54.460 all you do is multiply the suffering.
00:09:56.680 Yes.
00:09:57.200 Right, because you become anti-life.
00:09:59.020 And so you might say,
00:10:00.280 well, I'm working for the cessation of suffering
00:10:02.220 because I'm working for the extinction of consciousness.
00:10:04.580 But if the price you pay for that is the endless multiplication of suffering,
00:10:09.260 then...
00:10:09.560 Marxism.
00:10:10.060 Well, that's partly why I found your book so horrifying,
00:10:14.620 is that, because all that's, in principle, lurking beneath the surface.
00:10:18.480 Okay, so what do you make of this conceptually?
00:10:24.100 Now, Marx proclaimed himself an atheist.
00:10:27.740 Okay, so the first question you might ask is,
00:10:30.340 well, what the hell does an atheist have to do with Satan?
00:10:33.280 Right.
00:10:33.880 Right, right.
00:10:34.260 Well, so what do you think about that?
00:10:35.800 And by the way, he had a favorite line from Mephistopheles,
00:10:40.680 which was, in fact, they said this was Marx's favorite quote.
00:10:44.160 Everything that exists deserves to perish.
00:10:45.640 Yes, that's the line.
00:10:46.680 Exactly.
00:10:47.180 That's exactly the line.
00:10:48.120 Everything that exists deserves to perish.
00:10:49.400 Right, and that's repeated.
00:10:50.620 It's in Faust 2, too.
00:10:52.560 Yeah.
00:10:53.140 That's his favorite line.
00:10:54.300 So if someone were to ask me,
00:10:55.580 do you have a favorite quote, do you have a favorite line?
00:10:57.300 I might give a scripture verse.
00:10:58.600 I might be not afraid, something like that.
00:11:00.760 But Marx said, ah, yes, yes, Mephistopheles, you know,
00:11:04.180 Geirtha's Faust, everything that exists deserves to perish.
00:11:07.380 That's terrifying.
00:11:08.460 To perish.
00:11:08.900 Well, it's terrifying because it truly is the case that
00:11:12.120 as the character of Mephistopheles is revealed in Faust,
00:11:16.480 in Faust 1 and 2, that's the apotheosis of his philosophy, right?
00:11:20.800 When you really start to understand who Mephistopheles is,
00:11:24.560 that's the final revelation.
00:11:26.420 He's the foe of everything that exists.
00:11:28.600 Now, the rationalization is because of the suffering.
00:11:31.700 Or it isn't just the suffering, eh?
00:11:33.840 Because there's a Luciferian pride element.
00:11:37.880 Mephistopheles is opposed to the structure of being
00:11:40.260 also because it doesn't meet his standard.
00:11:42.860 Right.
00:11:43.280 Right.
00:11:43.680 In one of the poems, Marx shouts in the form of Satan, right?
00:11:48.540 I shall howl gigantic curses at mankind.
00:11:52.460 And Robert Payne says, picture Marx standing there
00:11:56.740 in the middle of like a burned down village.
00:11:59.080 Yeah.
00:11:59.460 A burnt down house, right?
00:12:01.200 The raised R-E-Z-E-D building.
00:12:03.240 Yeah.
00:12:03.680 And flames all around him.
00:12:05.760 You know, everything that exists deserves to perish.
00:12:07.960 And as if to say, now we can begin, right?
00:12:10.880 He wants to take everything down.
00:12:12.480 He wants to completely level it.
00:12:14.300 And yet all of this, going back to your original point,
00:12:17.580 this is what he was writing before he was doing anything on economics.
00:12:21.420 Right, right.
00:12:22.040 Before he was doing, and also yet at the same time,
00:12:26.020 because I know there might be some Marx biographers who've ignored this.
00:12:30.820 I know that they've ignored it.
00:12:32.120 And they might say, well, it's so early.
00:12:34.780 He did this as one of his first published writings, 1837.
00:12:38.500 He was 19 years old.
00:12:40.260 That's not the real Marx.
00:12:41.700 Well, the one I just read to you, the player, that's 1841.
00:12:44.760 That was the same year that he started with Bruno Bauer,
00:12:47.720 at the University of Bonn as a professor of the Archives of Atheism,
00:12:51.520 the Annals of Atheism journal that he started.
00:12:53.900 His peak of writing was really in the 1840s.
00:12:57.100 I mean, they were writing the Communist Manifesto, 1846, 1847,
00:13:00.900 released February 1848.
00:13:03.200 So he's-
00:13:03.560 It's not that long.
00:13:04.520 It's not that long.
00:13:05.180 Well, the other thing too is that if the hypothesis that we described
00:13:10.100 at the beginning of this discussion is true,
00:13:11.960 and I truly believe it is, the, like, a complex set of ideas
00:13:17.180 comes out of a dreamlike matrix.
00:13:19.500 And you could make the case that someone radically shifts their view
00:13:23.700 away from that initial revelation.
00:13:25.920 But that isn't generally how things work.
00:13:28.100 And I think you need very strong evidence of discontinuity
00:13:30.900 not to accept the default proposition that continuity
00:13:35.000 is the much more likely occurrence.
00:13:37.140 I mean, one of the things I do in my interviews
00:13:39.940 with the people that I'm fortunate enough to interview,
00:13:43.300 all of whom are accomplished people,
00:13:45.420 is an autobiographical analysis.
00:13:48.300 And it's invariably the case that you can trace the seeds of,
00:13:54.780 you can trace who they are to seeds
00:13:57.420 that made themselves manifest very early.
00:13:59.660 Now, you might say, well, that's all retrospective memory.
00:14:02.100 But I don't believe that because one of the things I've noticed
00:14:05.320 in doing that kind of interviewing is that
00:14:07.260 the people who tell the story are shocked themselves
00:14:11.500 at how much of what they still do was there in a nascent form.
00:14:15.620 Right.
00:14:15.880 Like, even when they were children.
00:14:17.520 And so, no, my sense...
00:14:19.460 Marx's father saw that.
00:14:20.900 Yeah, right.
00:14:21.500 You make that case.
00:14:22.180 Marx's father, Heinrich Marx,
00:14:23.380 in the letter that he wrote to him in 1837.
00:14:26.100 And that was not long, probably...
00:14:30.120 Well, in that letter,
00:14:31.260 he talks about the disorder in Marx's life.
00:14:33.840 Yeah, right.
00:14:34.140 And I know you write a lot about order,
00:14:36.480 including in your most recent book.
00:14:38.800 And Marx was all about tearing down the traditional order.
00:14:42.860 Yeah.
00:14:43.300 In fact, he said,
00:14:46.080 he and Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto,
00:14:48.580 communism represents the most radical rupture
00:14:51.560 in traditional relations.
00:14:53.600 Right.
00:14:53.860 The most radical conceivable disruption.
00:14:56.220 Right.
00:14:56.700 Hence the assault on the family.
00:14:58.760 The most radical.
00:14:59.620 Right, right, right.
00:15:00.460 And the one word...
00:15:01.340 That was the goal.
00:15:02.340 Yeah, that was the goal.
00:15:03.080 And the one word...
00:15:04.120 Well, two words that jump out of
00:15:05.700 the Communist Manifesto,
00:15:07.460 all of Marx and Engels' writings,
00:15:09.260 two, criticism.
00:15:10.440 And Marx wrote to Arnold Rouge in 1843,
00:15:13.640 called for the ruthless criticism
00:15:15.040 of everything that exists.
00:15:16.180 Right, right.
00:15:16.840 Same thing.
00:15:17.740 By the way, not just...
00:15:19.140 People thinking about this,
00:15:20.660 not just for the ruthless criticism
00:15:22.320 of the bad things in society,
00:15:25.360 right, of that malady or this ill,
00:15:28.480 the ruthless criticism of everything that exists.
00:15:32.880 Yep.
00:15:33.420 And the other word that they use all the time
00:15:35.840 is abolition abolish.
00:15:37.700 They want to abolish everything, right?
00:15:40.480 Yep.
00:15:41.900 Communism calls for the abolition
00:15:45.260 of the present state of things,
00:15:48.060 they said in the manifesto.
00:15:49.720 So after they talk about the entire theory
00:15:52.440 of the communists may be summed up
00:15:53.760 in the single sentence,
00:15:54.840 abolition of private property.
00:15:56.540 All right, so that's gone.
00:15:58.260 Abolition of capital.
00:15:59.600 Yep.
00:16:00.360 In the manifesto, they write,
00:16:02.100 abolition of the family, exclamation mark.
00:16:04.400 Right, right.
00:16:04.920 Even the most radical flare up
00:16:06.400 of this infamous proposal of the communists.
00:16:08.660 So we've got capital, property, family,
00:16:11.300 present state of things, entire societies.
00:16:14.560 I mean, just, it's complete...
00:16:17.440 One person said to me, it's nihilism, right?
00:16:19.880 But in a sense, he has kind of a goal.
00:16:22.780 It's worship of destruction.
00:16:24.140 Exactly, yeah.
00:16:25.060 That's different.
00:16:25.380 There's actually a purpose.
00:16:25.960 Nihilism is you don't care.
00:16:27.540 Right, right, right, right.
00:16:29.000 No, no, this is way different.
00:16:30.560 No, no, that...
00:16:31.440 If he's an avid devotee of Mephistopheles,
00:16:34.720 it's active destruction.
00:16:36.780 Going online without ExpressVPN
00:16:38.640 is like not paying attention
00:16:40.080 to the safety demonstration on a flight.
00:16:42.260 Most of the time, you'll probably be fine,
00:16:44.340 but what if one day that weird yellow mask
00:16:46.700 drops down from overhead
00:16:47.720 and you have no idea what to do?
00:16:49.720 In our hyper-connected world,
00:16:51.520 your digital privacy isn't just a luxury.
00:16:53.900 It's a fundamental right.
00:16:55.160 Every time you connect to an unsecured network
00:16:57.100 in a cafe, hotel, or airport,
00:16:59.400 you're essentially broadcasting
00:17:00.580 your personal information
00:17:01.660 to anyone with a technical know-how
00:17:03.540 to intercept it.
00:17:04.460 And let's be clear,
00:17:05.320 it doesn't take a genius hacker to do this.
00:17:07.660 With some off-the-shelf hardware,
00:17:09.240 even a tech-savvy teenager
00:17:10.640 could potentially access your passwords,
00:17:12.800 bank logins, and credit card details.
00:17:15.040 Now, you might think,
00:17:16.280 what's the big deal?
00:17:17.160 Who'd want my data anyway?
00:17:18.400 Well, on the dark web,
00:17:19.880 your personal information
00:17:21.000 could fetch up to $1,000.
00:17:23.320 That's right,
00:17:23.880 there's a whole underground economy
00:17:25.400 built on stolen identities.
00:17:27.380 Enter ExpressVPN.
00:17:29.140 It's like a digital fortress,
00:17:30.600 creating an encrypted tunnel
00:17:31.780 between your device and the internet.
00:17:33.820 Their encryption is so robust
00:17:35.400 that it would take a hacker
00:17:36.440 with a supercomputer
00:17:37.280 over a billion years to crack it.
00:17:39.420 But don't let its power fool you.
00:17:41.280 ExpressVPN is incredibly user-friendly.
00:17:43.600 With just one click,
00:17:44.620 you're protected across all your devices.
00:17:46.340 Phones, laptops, tablets, you name it.
00:17:48.840 That's why I use ExpressVPN
00:17:50.200 whenever I'm traveling
00:17:51.340 or working from a coffee shop.
00:17:52.980 It gives me peace of mind
00:17:54.020 knowing that my research,
00:17:55.340 communications,
00:17:56.120 and personal data
00:17:57.100 are shielded from prying eyes.
00:17:58.960 Secure your online data today
00:18:00.500 by visiting expressvpn.com slash Jordan.
00:18:03.720 That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash Jordan
00:18:07.460 and you can get an extra three months free.
00:18:09.900 ExpressVPN dot com slash Jordan.
00:18:11.980 And you don't want to underestimate
00:18:16.340 the fact that a poetic line
00:18:19.880 takes root in someone's soul,
00:18:22.280 especially when it's produced
00:18:23.800 by someone as profound as Faust.
00:18:26.320 Like, that's not nothing.
00:18:28.660 That really means that Marx identified
00:18:31.700 the central spirit of Mephistopheles.
00:18:34.020 He pulled out the central message
00:18:36.380 and that's stuck in his memory, right?
00:18:39.040 And then, okay, so let's-
00:18:40.440 Stuck in his memory
00:18:41.060 and integrated into his worldview.
00:18:42.780 Right, right.
00:18:43.480 Into what he loved doing the most,
00:18:45.800 writing poetry.
00:18:47.060 So it's really fully, deeply a part of him.
00:18:50.860 And yeah, it's-
00:18:53.360 Well, you also talk in the book
00:18:55.760 a fair bit about the sordid details
00:18:58.520 of his private life.
00:18:59.940 I mean, Marx was also, by all accounts,
00:19:03.440 a person who was filthy
00:19:04.780 in every way, essentially,
00:19:07.160 that you could be filthy.
00:19:08.520 Like, literally,
00:19:09.740 because his personal hygiene habits
00:19:11.480 were detestable, to say the least.
00:19:13.080 Sure.
00:19:13.320 But he also lived in a-
00:19:14.960 Well, you're better at explaining this than me,
00:19:17.400 so do you want to walk people through that?
00:19:19.020 And I would circle this back
00:19:20.400 to the point of disorder.
00:19:21.540 Right, exactly.
00:19:22.380 So it is a totally disordered personal lifestyle.
00:19:26.200 His father noticed it
00:19:27.580 when Marx was in college.
00:19:29.160 And then when Marx got married,
00:19:30.580 his life was a wreck.
00:19:32.460 And both his mother and his wife
00:19:34.620 both expressed the wish
00:19:35.800 that Karl would start earning some capital,
00:19:38.440 right, rather than just writing about it.
00:19:40.720 The family had to beg for money all the time,
00:19:43.780 everywhere that they went.
00:19:45.300 So first they got the money
00:19:46.660 from Karl's father, all right?
00:19:49.140 And then when he died,
00:19:50.540 and by the way,
00:19:51.000 Marx didn't attend the funeral of his father.
00:19:53.580 Some biographers have said
00:19:54.980 that's because it was out of spite
00:19:56.840 against his father.
00:19:57.900 Another biographer says
00:20:00.000 he just couldn't make it there,
00:20:02.280 maybe because of the weather,
00:20:03.580 I don't know.
00:20:04.460 But he didn't go to the funeral of his father.
00:20:06.620 He was interested in his father's money.
00:20:08.680 And the one letter that I quote from his father,
00:20:10.780 the father's like,
00:20:11.480 okay, here's what you really want.
00:20:13.140 I will give you the money
00:20:14.280 for whatever, whatever, whatever.
00:20:15.600 So he clearly knows that the son wants money.
00:20:18.380 After the father died,
00:20:20.020 he went to visit his mother,
00:20:22.020 who he wasn't close to at all.
00:20:23.520 He was at least a little close to the father.
00:20:25.260 And the goal was to get money
00:20:26.840 from the old lady.
00:20:28.160 And he writes a letter back to Jenny,
00:20:30.200 his wife, ahead of time,
00:20:31.900 basically reporting that,
00:20:33.540 well, I really didn't get much money
00:20:35.360 out of the old lady,
00:20:36.560 but she did agree to burn up the IOUs.
00:20:40.000 So in other words, success, right?
00:20:42.560 I at least got her to do that.
00:20:44.180 And then Jenny would go begging to her relatives.
00:20:47.180 And in one case-
00:20:48.040 Well, she was from a rich family, correct?
00:20:49.660 Yeah, fairly well-off family.
00:20:51.260 And that family eventually got to the point
00:20:53.640 of tough love.
00:20:54.580 They had to cut her off as well.
00:20:56.100 And both her family
00:20:58.600 and also Marx's wider family
00:21:00.320 all knew that when Jenny or Marx
00:21:01.860 came knocking on the door,
00:21:03.200 it was because they wanted money.
00:21:04.920 Right, so they lived in economic disarray.
00:21:07.260 Economic disarray.
00:21:08.080 And to the point where Jenny's family
00:21:10.140 got to the point where they said,
00:21:12.480 okay, look,
00:21:13.180 we know that you and Carl have all these kids.
00:21:16.140 We know that you need money.
00:21:17.720 These are our grandchildren.
00:21:18.900 We feel bad for you.
00:21:20.420 Jenny, we can't give you any more money.
00:21:22.260 We just, we just, we can't do it.
00:21:23.980 So the family lends to the Marx family,
00:21:27.240 the family nursemaid.
00:21:29.000 Now, this is a woman named Helen DeMuth,
00:21:31.340 who was called Lentgen.
00:21:32.660 So the nickname was Lentgen.
00:21:33.960 She grew up with Jenny.
00:21:35.540 So Jenny's parents say,
00:21:37.180 okay, we will lend you Lentgen
00:21:40.140 to help the family out
00:21:41.660 rather than giving you more money.
00:21:43.600 So Lentgen basically,
00:21:44.980 here's Karl Marx,
00:21:45.940 champion of the proletariat,
00:21:47.360 the working class, right?
00:21:48.680 Doesn't pay her a dime.
00:21:50.240 Never gives her any money.
00:21:51.760 Yeah, well, that sets the stage
00:21:53.320 for the later communist revolutions.
00:21:56.560 That's right.
00:21:57.260 In fact, really what he's developing
00:21:58.720 is kind of the ideal world
00:22:00.120 that he wants for himself,
00:22:01.540 which is that other people
00:22:02.400 will pay for him to do
00:22:03.600 whatever he does
00:22:04.680 in the library,
00:22:05.560 the writing, the research.
00:22:06.980 So at one point,
00:22:08.560 Marx has sex with Lentgen
00:22:11.420 behind Jenny's back
00:22:12.760 and she got pregnant.
00:22:14.840 Now, Robert Payne says
00:22:16.520 that he thinks that the sex
00:22:17.800 might've been non-consensual,
00:22:19.960 that it could've been rape,
00:22:20.740 but I don't know how he would know that.
00:22:22.360 But either way,
00:22:23.960 Lentgen got pregnant.
00:22:25.580 Marx refused to admit
00:22:26.600 that the child was his.
00:22:27.980 Everybody knew the child was his.
00:22:29.460 Jenny knew it.
00:22:30.000 In fact, Jenny was crushed.
00:22:31.540 I mean, her heart was broken.
00:22:32.680 She never really forgave
00:22:33.700 her husband for this.
00:22:35.280 The child, Friedrich Engels,
00:22:38.160 steps up.
00:22:38.980 Now, the Marx family
00:22:40.100 gets most of their money
00:22:41.100 at this point from Engels.
00:22:42.920 Engels becomes
00:22:43.640 the Marx family's sugar daddy.
00:22:45.700 I mean, he's not just
00:22:46.480 a partner with Marx.
00:22:48.320 Engels inherited all this money
00:22:49.600 from his wealthy industrialist
00:22:51.600 father's inheritance.
00:22:52.940 And so, he subsidizes
00:22:54.280 not just Karl,
00:22:55.520 but the Marx family.
00:22:56.940 So, Engels,
00:22:57.760 who doesn't believe in marriage,
00:22:59.320 all right,
00:22:59.560 these guys were against marriage
00:23:01.480 long before anybody else was.
00:23:03.820 Engels has various women
00:23:05.040 that he shacks up with,
00:23:06.440 which in that day
00:23:07.060 is really unusual.
00:23:08.220 I mean, that was scandalous.
00:23:09.340 You didn't live with a woman
00:23:10.260 that you weren't married to.
00:23:11.260 And a lot of these women
00:23:12.300 wanted Engels,
00:23:13.660 Friedrich,
00:23:14.220 to marry them,
00:23:14.900 make honest women out of them.
00:23:16.480 One of them died
00:23:19.120 and Engels was really crushed by it,
00:23:22.540 really brokenhearted.
00:23:23.940 Marx writes him a letter
00:23:25.120 and he kind of acknowledges
00:23:26.800 Engels' loss
00:23:27.560 in the first couple sentences
00:23:28.720 and then he gets straight
00:23:29.460 to the point of asking
00:23:30.320 for more money.
00:23:31.900 Engels just raged back
00:23:33.580 in a letter,
00:23:34.700 even my bourgeois friends
00:23:37.320 showed more compassion
00:23:38.400 and interest than you did.
00:23:40.400 But the point of Lentgen,
00:23:42.120 so Engels doesn't care
00:23:43.860 about his reputation.
00:23:44.760 Everyone knows
00:23:45.740 he doesn't believe in marriage.
00:23:47.360 So he steps forward.
00:23:49.180 Helen DeMuth,
00:23:49.900 Lentgen gives birth
00:23:50.720 to this baby boy
00:23:51.580 and Engels says,
00:23:52.680 I'll accept paternity.
00:23:55.220 Let's give him
00:23:56.660 the name Friedrich.
00:23:58.460 So the son is known
00:23:59.760 as Freddy.
00:24:01.200 Marx never acknowledges
00:24:02.620 his existence,
00:24:03.660 never acknowledges
00:24:04.640 that it's his kid.
00:24:05.840 Of course,
00:24:06.660 never gives him a penny,
00:24:07.980 just like he never gave
00:24:09.040 a penny to Lentgen.
00:24:10.480 And by the way,
00:24:11.400 that poor kid,
00:24:12.180 Freddy,
00:24:12.420 ended up surviving
00:24:13.360 all the Marx family.
00:24:15.740 Marx,
00:24:16.780 of the six kids
00:24:17.960 he and Jenny had,
00:24:19.460 four of them died
00:24:20.460 before they did,
00:24:21.700 he and Jenny.
00:24:22.660 And then the two girls
00:24:23.900 that survived
00:24:24.740 both committed suicide
00:24:26.980 in suicide packs
00:24:28.880 with their husbands
00:24:30.240 and by drinking poison.
00:24:32.860 And as you noticed
00:24:33.520 in the Marx poetry,
00:24:35.000 a recurring theme
00:24:36.140 in all of his poetry
00:24:37.320 is about the couples
00:24:38.700 coming together,
00:24:39.960 the one,
00:24:40.440 the Pale Maiden,
00:24:41.200 which sounds like
00:24:41.980 a late night
00:24:43.060 B-movie horror flick,
00:24:44.680 this Pale Maiden.
00:24:46.180 You know,
00:24:46.360 she drinks hemlock,
00:24:47.500 she commits suicide,
00:24:48.680 lovers committing suicide
00:24:50.100 and suicide packs.
00:24:51.180 That's how Marx's
00:24:51.980 two daughters died.
00:24:53.520 But the family,
00:24:55.740 it was a complete wreck.
00:24:56.980 The household,
00:24:57.880 the house was
00:24:58.400 in complete disarray.
00:24:59.720 There are German police reports
00:25:01.180 from 1848, 1849
00:25:03.800 on how one of them says,
00:25:05.780 trying to take a seat
00:25:08.160 in the Marx household
00:25:09.780 is a dangerous enterprise
00:25:11.920 or something like that
00:25:12.760 because the chair
00:25:13.480 could break from under you.
00:25:15.420 It was dirty.
00:25:17.080 The landlords
00:25:17.620 would kick them out.
00:25:18.580 The landlords
00:25:18.980 would cut off the heat.
00:25:21.480 Marx suffered
00:25:22.680 from boils,
00:25:24.100 carbuncles,
00:25:25.500 which Paul Johnson,
00:25:27.240 the late British historian,
00:25:28.480 said,
00:25:28.980 you know,
00:25:29.140 people don't consider this,
00:25:30.340 but Das Kapital
00:25:31.380 is kind of this long,
00:25:32.700 agonizing,
00:25:33.440 painful-to-read work.
00:25:34.880 Marx's carbuncles,
00:25:35.760 on his bottom
00:25:36.780 were at their worst
00:25:37.560 when he was writing
00:25:38.220 Das Kapital.
00:25:39.760 He had them
00:25:40.620 on his private parts,
00:25:42.760 on his penis,
00:25:43.700 to the point
00:25:44.260 where they would
00:25:44.880 sometimes set him
00:25:46.480 into these
00:25:47.520 outbursts of rage.
00:25:51.040 He wrote one letter
00:25:51.840 to Ingalls.
00:25:52.380 He said,
00:25:53.180 I have this boil
00:25:54.120 between my upper lip
00:25:55.440 and my nose.
00:25:56.340 It's like the devil
00:25:57.280 has been hurling
00:25:58.320 excrement at me.
00:26:00.160 Use the word S-H-I-T.
00:26:02.160 But he suffered
00:26:03.440 and the doctors
00:26:04.040 tried to figure out,
00:26:05.500 boy,
00:26:05.760 why does Marx
00:26:07.280 have all these
00:26:07.920 boils and carbuncles?
00:26:09.080 No one else
00:26:09.500 in that home
00:26:10.240 seems to have them.
00:26:11.240 Well,
00:26:11.440 the answer is
00:26:11.940 he wouldn't bathe.
00:26:13.200 The guy refused
00:26:14.060 to bathe.
00:26:14.920 Mao Zedong refused
00:26:15.880 to bathe.
00:26:17.280 Some of these
00:26:17.900 communists were like this.
00:26:19.100 But he was a
00:26:19.860 very disordered
00:26:21.060 individual
00:26:21.720 at so many
00:26:22.640 different areas
00:26:23.520 of his life.
00:26:24.900 Even his research,
00:26:26.140 and we can probably
00:26:26.460 talk about this later,
00:26:27.320 you and I are both PhDs,
00:26:28.360 we've done academic
00:26:29.020 social science research.
00:26:30.940 Marx never went
00:26:31.860 into the field
00:26:32.460 or the factory.
00:26:33.080 I mean,
00:26:33.760 he wrote about
00:26:34.980 the proletariat
00:26:36.100 from, you know,
00:26:37.640 from the vantage,
00:26:38.820 from the library,
00:26:41.160 from a desk,
00:26:42.480 from a desk in the library
00:26:43.940 in London
00:26:44.460 or at his home.
00:26:45.680 He never actually
00:26:46.640 did real field research.
00:26:48.540 And if you read
00:26:49.280 the Communist Manifesto,
00:26:51.440 it is not the work
00:26:52.400 of an economist.
00:26:53.520 It is more like
00:26:54.760 a polemic.
00:26:56.060 It's more like
00:26:56.900 a philosophical statement.
00:26:58.380 He said once,
00:27:01.800 the revolution
00:27:02.960 that began
00:27:03.680 in the brain
00:27:04.300 of the monk,
00:27:05.560 that would be
00:27:06.160 Martin Luther,
00:27:06.860 he says this
00:27:07.340 in his opium
00:27:07.920 of the masses,
00:27:08.620 will now begin
00:27:11.200 in the brain
00:27:11.760 of the philosopher.
00:27:13.260 So he really
00:27:13.900 fancies himself
00:27:14.900 a philosopher
00:27:15.780 and a poet.
00:27:17.180 A poet above all.
00:27:18.240 He's really not
00:27:18.920 an economist.
00:27:20.180 If he is a crappy one.
00:27:21.780 Well, that was probably
00:27:22.580 an accurate
00:27:23.100 self-characterization
00:27:24.320 because his work
00:27:25.980 really,
00:27:27.720 I know there are
00:27:28.340 economists who've
00:27:29.180 fallen under his sway,
00:27:30.380 let's say,
00:27:30.900 but his work
00:27:31.900 really served
00:27:32.960 the purpose
00:27:33.820 of motivational
00:27:35.100 doctrine, right?
00:27:36.880 So the typical
00:27:38.500 writings of an economist
00:27:40.180 aren't taken up
00:27:42.420 by the masses
00:27:43.380 as a rallying point,
00:27:45.840 right?
00:27:46.560 But poetry
00:27:48.580 and philosophy
00:27:49.740 can be taken up
00:27:51.660 as a rallying point.
00:27:53.340 And so...
00:27:54.120 And that's what
00:27:54.520 this book does, right?
00:27:55.340 I mean, if you actually
00:27:56.700 read The Communist Manifesto,
00:27:58.080 which most young people
00:27:59.180 who say,
00:28:00.120 well, if you read
00:28:00.700 The Communist Manifesto,
00:28:01.980 it's a pretty good book.
00:28:02.940 It talks about sharing.
00:28:04.000 They haven't read it.
00:28:04.780 They haven't read it.
00:28:05.540 It's about that thick,
00:28:07.180 okay?
00:28:07.620 The one I have in mind,
00:28:08.840 the 1998 Penguin
00:28:10.860 and the Penguin
00:28:10.880 Classics edition
00:28:12.020 edited by Martin Malia
00:28:13.800 is 56 pages.
00:28:15.620 In my Marxism course
00:28:17.040 at Grove City College
00:28:18.200 every spring semester,
00:28:20.400 we read it.
00:28:21.020 It's only 56 pages.
00:28:22.580 It's not long.
00:28:23.380 But it is a...
00:28:25.320 You're right.
00:28:25.740 If it was an economics
00:28:26.840 work or tract,
00:28:28.660 I mean,
00:28:29.140 it would have data.
00:28:30.120 It had information.
00:28:31.520 It wouldn't be anything
00:28:32.260 that could rally anybody,
00:28:33.640 right?
00:28:34.180 But this is more like
00:28:36.000 a Jefferson Declaration
00:28:39.220 of Independence, right?
00:28:40.720 Except it's aimed
00:28:41.480 at the Mephistophelian aim,
00:28:45.620 right?
00:28:46.140 Yes, yeah.
00:28:46.780 It's actually
00:28:47.460 the polar opposite,
00:28:48.440 but in the sense of
00:28:50.340 Adams and Franklin
00:28:51.240 saying,
00:28:51.640 you know,
00:28:52.220 we need a kind of
00:28:53.000 statement here
00:28:53.700 to rally everybody
00:28:54.700 for this.
00:28:55.740 Who can write?
00:28:56.440 That Jefferson's
00:28:57.160 a great writer, right?
00:28:58.500 33 years old,
00:28:59.620 fantastic writer.
00:29:00.960 You know,
00:29:01.100 one of the course
00:29:01.620 of human events
00:29:02.220 just puts it out.
00:29:03.760 And of course,
00:29:04.240 in his case,
00:29:04.840 it's truth
00:29:05.320 and it's inspiring.
00:29:06.500 But what Marx
00:29:07.180 sits down to write
00:29:08.120 is just kind of
00:29:08.840 this polemic...
00:29:10.240 The Communist Manifesto
00:29:11.700 is kind of a diatribe.
00:29:13.680 It's really...
00:29:14.980 There's a lot
00:29:15.480 of anger in there.
00:29:16.160 There's a lot
00:29:16.720 of catchphrases,
00:29:18.660 kind of revolutionary
00:29:19.400 catchphrases.
00:29:20.220 A guy who could
00:29:21.020 really turn a phrase?
00:29:22.220 Yeah.
00:29:22.660 I mean,
00:29:23.000 that was Marx.
00:29:23.460 Radical leftists
00:29:24.380 are very good
00:29:25.140 at turning phrases.
00:29:25.980 They really are.
00:29:26.560 Yeah.
00:29:26.740 Gender affirming care.
00:29:28.400 Right, right.
00:29:28.860 That's a stroke of genius.
00:29:29.920 Yeah, yeah.
00:29:30.360 Diversity, equity,
00:29:31.380 and inclusivity.
00:29:32.060 Right, right.
00:29:33.080 Seriously.
00:29:34.080 Totally.
00:29:34.940 Like, once those slogans...
00:29:36.960 Slogan...
00:29:37.360 You know what the derivation
00:29:38.080 of the word slogan is?
00:29:39.340 Right.
00:29:40.040 This is so funny.
00:29:41.000 What's that?
00:29:41.540 It comes from the Welsh.
00:29:43.320 Two words,
00:29:44.080 sluag and garim.
00:29:45.600 Sluag is S-L-U-A-G-H
00:29:47.760 and garim is G-H-A-I-R-M.
00:29:50.740 Sluag garim.
00:29:51.900 Battle cry of the dead.
00:29:53.600 Oh.
00:29:54.020 That's what a slogan is.
00:29:55.060 Yeah.
00:29:55.340 Oh, it's so perfect, right?
00:29:56.720 Wow.
00:29:56.800 Because it conjures up
00:29:58.880 images of armies of the dead
00:30:01.420 fighting against the living.
00:30:03.020 Yeah.
00:30:03.360 Yeah, well,
00:30:03.660 that's what a slogan is.
00:30:04.760 Oh, yes.
00:30:05.280 Right, right.
00:30:05.640 No kidding.
00:30:06.360 Yeah, yeah.
00:30:06.740 He was really good
00:30:07.440 at sloganeering.
00:30:08.060 Yeah, yeah.
00:30:08.560 In fact,
00:30:08.980 to the point where
00:30:09.820 the only part of the end
00:30:11.720 of the Communist Manifesto
00:30:12.920 anybody remembers
00:30:13.820 is workers of the world unite.
00:30:15.920 Yeah.
00:30:16.240 We have nothing to lose
00:30:17.160 but our chains.
00:30:17.740 Yeah, yeah.
00:30:18.520 But, you know,
00:30:19.420 people just back up.
00:30:20.520 To each according to their need
00:30:21.500 is pretty damn good too.
00:30:22.540 That's a good one too.
00:30:23.240 That's a good one.
00:30:23.920 But if you just go back
00:30:25.540 one paragraph at the end,
00:30:27.520 right,
00:30:28.160 the communists
00:30:28.880 support every revolutionary movement,
00:30:33.600 the forcible overthrow
00:30:36.220 of all existing conditions.
00:30:37.820 I mean,
00:30:38.060 those lines are in the next
00:30:39.680 two final paragraphs.
00:30:41.080 Yeah.
00:30:41.220 And that's what really
00:30:43.060 the Manifesto is all about.
00:30:44.780 Okay, so let's,
00:30:46.440 I want to go get back
00:30:47.480 to a question
00:30:48.060 that we touched on
00:30:48.880 but didn't fully address.
00:30:51.700 Starting a business can be tough,
00:30:53.540 but thanks to Shopify,
00:30:54.720 running your online storefront
00:30:55.980 is easier than ever.
00:30:57.680 Shopify is the global commerce platform
00:30:59.680 that helps you sell at
00:31:00.600 every stage of your business.
00:31:01.940 From the launch your online shop stage
00:31:03.860 all the way to the
00:31:04.580 did we just hit a million orders stage,
00:31:06.900 Shopify is here to help you grow.
00:31:08.640 Our marketing team
00:31:09.800 uses Shopify every day
00:31:11.040 to sell our merchandise
00:31:11.840 and we love how easy it is
00:31:13.480 to add more items,
00:31:14.740 ship products,
00:31:15.460 and track conversions.
00:31:17.020 With Shopify,
00:31:17.800 customize your online store
00:31:18.940 to your style
00:31:19.860 with flexible templates
00:31:20.960 and powerful tools
00:31:22.020 alongside an endless list
00:31:23.720 of integrations
00:31:24.440 and third-party apps
00:31:25.400 like on-demand printing,
00:31:26.820 accounting,
00:31:27.400 and chatbots.
00:31:28.540 Shopify helps you turn browsers
00:31:29.940 into buyers
00:31:30.700 with the internet's
00:31:31.420 best converting checkout,
00:31:32.840 up to 36% better
00:31:34.220 compared to other
00:31:34.940 leading e-commerce platforms.
00:31:36.880 No matter how big
00:31:37.660 you want to grow,
00:31:38.520 Shopify gives you
00:31:39.280 everything you need
00:31:40.000 to take control
00:31:40.740 and take your business
00:31:41.760 to the next level.
00:31:43.320 Sign up for a $1 per month
00:31:44.700 trial period
00:31:45.320 at shopify.com
00:31:46.640 slash jbp,
00:31:47.900 all lowercase.
00:31:49.180 Go to shopify.com
00:31:50.500 slash jbp now
00:31:51.660 to grow your business
00:31:52.680 no matter what stage you're in.
00:31:54.520 That's shopify.com
00:31:55.920 slash jbp.
00:31:57.000 What in the world
00:32:00.940 is an atheist?
00:32:01.320 Atheism.
00:32:01.780 Absolutely.
00:32:02.460 Why is an atheist
00:32:03.480 toying with,
00:32:04.680 not toying with,
00:32:06.160 centered on,
00:32:08.220 what would you say,
00:32:08.880 analysis of
00:32:10.200 and identification
00:32:10.980 with religious tropes?
00:32:13.100 Yeah.
00:32:13.360 Right now,
00:32:13.680 he claims atheism,
00:32:14.620 but you don't write
00:32:15.760 a Faust-like poem.
00:32:18.500 Being in league
00:32:19.380 with Mephistopheles
00:32:20.340 is not technically atheism.
00:32:23.180 Right, right, right.
00:32:23.360 Now, you might ask
00:32:24.300 about the relationship
00:32:25.180 between the two,
00:32:25.920 but that's a different question.
00:32:27.180 So, what do you make
00:32:28.320 of the fact
00:32:28.860 that he was obsessed
00:32:30.280 with these Faustian notions
00:32:32.360 and with ideas
00:32:33.700 of conjuring up
00:32:34.600 the underworld
00:32:35.200 despite his professed atheism?
00:32:37.360 Yeah, by the way,
00:32:37.860 even the phrase
00:32:38.440 from each according
00:32:39.020 to his ability
00:32:39.500 to do each according
00:32:40.080 to his needs,
00:32:40.600 that's a twisting
00:32:41.440 of the scripture
00:32:42.060 of the New Testament.
00:32:43.300 Right, right.
00:32:43.940 Right, but in his case,
00:32:45.760 so, yeah,
00:32:47.000 and people have asked me this.
00:32:48.040 They say,
00:32:48.260 well, if he had this fascination
00:32:49.720 with the devil,
00:32:51.060 it must have only been
00:32:52.560 in a kind of rebellious
00:32:53.820 sort of way,
00:32:54.600 like McAleby.
00:32:55.420 Yeah, right.
00:32:56.580 Like Mikhail Bakunin.
00:32:58.920 Saul Alinsky
00:32:59.800 in the intro
00:33:00.720 to Rules for Radicals,
00:33:02.520 right?
00:33:03.200 Lest we forget
00:33:04.020 at least an over-the-shoulder
00:33:05.400 acknowledgement
00:33:06.200 to that first of all rebels
00:33:08.280 who won himself
00:33:09.180 his own kingdom.
00:33:10.220 Yeah,
00:33:10.560 lest we forget.
00:33:11.880 Yeah, no kidding.
00:33:12.880 Yeah, you don't walk
00:33:14.060 by that sort of statement
00:33:15.240 accidentally.
00:33:16.140 Right, right.
00:33:16.340 No, definitely not.
00:33:17.160 And a lot of people
00:33:17.860 on the left do.
00:33:18.580 They're like,
00:33:18.900 well, he's just being
00:33:20.020 so figuratively.
00:33:20.160 Yeah, right.
00:33:20.820 Figuratively.
00:33:21.360 Well, those are the same people
00:33:22.480 who think that Milton's Lucifer
00:33:23.880 is a hero.
00:33:25.040 And lots of people
00:33:26.220 thought that.
00:33:26.900 And who give their magazines
00:33:28.080 names like the Jacobin
00:33:29.580 of all things.
00:33:30.280 Absolutely, absolutely.
00:33:31.160 Why the hell would you
00:33:31.880 name your magazine
00:33:32.740 after a group
00:33:33.880 that guillotined
00:33:34.580 40,000 people
00:33:35.800 in France
00:33:36.380 in 1793, 1794?
00:33:38.100 Yeah, absolutely.
00:33:38.920 Well, I've also noticed
00:33:39.920 that I've read
00:33:41.540 a lot of comments
00:33:42.900 by online anonymous trolls.
00:33:45.000 A lot.
00:33:45.840 And I've looked
00:33:47.020 at their names.
00:33:48.380 And there's a sizable
00:33:50.820 minority of the really
00:33:52.120 vicious online trolls
00:33:53.420 who adopt satanic names.
00:33:55.380 Absolutely.
00:33:56.100 Like far more than
00:33:56.780 you'd expect.
00:33:58.860 And it's not cute
00:34:00.040 or funny.
00:34:00.820 No.
00:34:01.140 Not in the least.
00:34:02.300 And it sums up
00:34:03.240 the manner in which
00:34:04.600 they deal with the world
00:34:05.660 with much more accuracy
00:34:07.540 than they might imagine
00:34:09.420 when they've had that,
00:34:10.800 what would you call it,
00:34:11.520 unmitigated gall
00:34:12.520 to dare such a thing.
00:34:13.820 Right.
00:34:14.140 Right.
00:34:14.440 In fact, one of them,
00:34:16.220 and I won't say who it is
00:34:17.260 because she could end up
00:34:18.020 watching this,
00:34:18.740 but it's somebody,
00:34:20.200 I know the name of the magazine,
00:34:21.760 and her pen name,
00:34:22.980 I won't give the first name,
00:34:24.020 but the last name
00:34:24.640 is Diavolo.
00:34:25.540 Right, right.
00:34:25.980 D-I-A-V-O-L-O,
00:34:27.220 which is Italian for devil.
00:34:28.360 Yeah.
00:34:28.740 Right?
00:34:29.460 And, I mean,
00:34:30.520 what does that tell you?
00:34:32.020 Well, that's the question.
00:34:32.800 Nom de plume
00:34:33.560 of all things,
00:34:34.300 Diavolo, the devil.
00:34:35.180 Well, it is the question,
00:34:36.040 what does it tell you?
00:34:37.080 Why would you pick that?
00:34:38.320 Well, all the people
00:34:39.040 who picked that would say,
00:34:40.220 well, Lucifer is misunderstood
00:34:42.460 because he's just a rebel
00:34:43.940 against tyranny.
00:34:44.980 Sure.
00:34:45.360 Right.
00:34:45.820 And so that's their standard.
00:34:48.880 The devil is misunderstood.
00:34:50.640 He's just a rebel
00:34:51.580 against tyranny.
00:34:52.280 That's how Mikhail Bakunin,
00:34:53.580 who was one of Marx's associates,
00:34:55.180 God and the state,
00:34:56.420 he wrote about Lucifer
00:34:57.660 in this heroic way.
00:34:58.860 Yeah.
00:34:59.240 And he was an atheist.
00:35:00.540 Now, in Marx's case,
00:35:01.660 all right.
00:35:02.060 So, he wasn't an atheist
00:35:06.660 in 1837
00:35:07.680 when he wrote that first poem.
00:35:10.260 Okay.
00:35:11.180 Even in 18,
00:35:12.040 by 1841,
00:35:13.140 was he an atheist?
00:35:14.600 Probably.
00:35:15.240 Let me back up.
00:35:15.700 Well, the question is,
00:35:16.820 was he ever an atheist?
00:35:18.300 Yeah.
00:35:18.480 You know what I mean?
00:35:19.160 Because if he's stated
00:35:20.960 his allegiance to Mephistopheles
00:35:22.780 True.
00:35:23.300 when he's 19 or 20,
00:35:24.700 and that's actually
00:35:25.440 the motif of his writings,
00:35:27.060 he's never an atheist.
00:35:28.780 No.
00:35:28.940 He might not be very pleased
00:35:30.760 with the idea of God,
00:35:32.020 but that's not exactly
00:35:32.960 the same thing
00:35:33.600 as being an atheist.
00:35:34.540 And they also end up
00:35:35.760 putting their faith
00:35:36.420 in Marxism-Leninism
00:35:37.560 in an almost religious-like way.
00:35:38.940 Yeah, almost religious-like way.
00:35:38.960 I mean, Ronald Reagan,
00:35:41.340 well, Marxism-Leninism,
00:35:42.760 that religion of theirs.
00:35:44.040 Yeah, yeah.
00:35:44.640 The opium of the intellectuals
00:35:46.260 is what Raymond Aaron
00:35:47.140 called it.
00:35:47.960 Yeah.
00:35:48.360 But in Marx's case,
00:35:49.940 let me back up a little bit.
00:35:50.800 So, he's born May 5, 1818,
00:35:53.280 in Trier, Germany.
00:35:55.020 Trier is spelled like Trier,
00:35:56.380 T-R-I-E-R.
00:35:57.380 A very religious city.
00:35:59.980 Right, right.
00:36:00.660 I mean, like 90% Roman Catholic.
00:36:03.440 The great cathedral of Trier
00:36:05.100 was founded around the year 320, 330.
00:36:10.000 It was paid for by St. Helena,
00:36:13.480 the mother of Constantine,
00:36:14.940 of all people, right?
00:36:15.960 Oh, really?
00:36:16.540 So, it's that early?
00:36:17.180 Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:36:18.100 Oh, wow.
00:36:18.620 And so, and by the way,
00:36:20.580 it is also the birth town
00:36:22.800 of St. Ambrose,
00:36:25.200 who was the bishop of Milan later,
00:36:27.780 who brought Augustine into the faith.
00:36:30.580 So, Ambrose and Marx
00:36:31.820 are both from Trier, Germany,
00:36:33.580 of all things.
00:36:34.320 So, you have this cathedral in Trier.
00:36:36.520 St. Helena is the one
00:36:37.520 that goes to the Holy Land
00:36:39.220 and brings back all kinds of relics,
00:36:42.220 all right?
00:36:42.520 In fact, she believes
00:36:43.460 that she found the Holy Lance,
00:36:45.900 which is pierced the side of Christ,
00:36:48.000 and that is at the Vatican today.
00:36:50.280 She found, she believes,
00:36:51.800 the crown of thorns,
00:36:52.900 which is in Notre Dame.
00:36:54.920 She believed that she found
00:36:56.520 the holy robe
00:36:57.600 that Jesus wore at the crucifixion
00:36:59.680 that the Roman soldiers cast lots for
00:37:01.820 at the foot of the cross.
00:37:03.220 The holy robe is in that cathedral
00:37:05.500 in Trier.
00:37:06.920 By the way, Marx,
00:37:08.400 in his 1841 poem,
00:37:11.840 The Player, right,
00:37:13.100 which is actually a play,
00:37:14.260 because you mentioned drama.
00:37:15.620 A lot of these plays
00:37:16.300 are actually dramas as well.
00:37:18.520 His demonic violinist
00:37:21.580 who's summoning up
00:37:22.480 the powers of darkness,
00:37:24.080 Marx not only wrote
00:37:24.980 the character and the words,
00:37:26.580 he also wrote the stage,
00:37:30.220 the production,
00:37:30.960 the furniture on the stage,
00:37:32.180 the clothes people would wear.
00:37:33.560 The violinist is wearing
00:37:34.920 the holy robe of Christ
00:37:36.480 from the cathedral in Trier
00:37:38.580 while he's summoning up,
00:37:40.440 I mean, chilling,
00:37:41.500 chilling of all things.
00:37:42.640 And there's a letter
00:37:43.440 between Marx and Jenny,
00:37:44.660 whose wife,
00:37:45.180 who's an atheist,
00:37:45.900 and at one point,
00:37:46.780 when everyone's coming to town
00:37:47.920 for like the annual sort of festival
00:37:49.620 where people come in
00:37:50.600 to venerate the robe,
00:37:52.420 Jenny's making fun of them,
00:37:53.920 like all these silly people, right?
00:37:56.620 But so in Marx's case,
00:37:59.000 he's born May 5th, 1818 in Trier.
00:38:01.400 He was baptized in 1824.
00:38:04.460 Now, he's a Jew.
00:38:06.460 The family,
00:38:07.220 he comes from a very Jewish family,
00:38:09.240 not just in terms of ethnicity,
00:38:10.960 but Judaism,
00:38:11.880 they are religious Jews.
00:38:13.120 They're Orthodox Jews.
00:38:14.600 A bunch of rabbis in the family.
00:38:17.480 His father had converted to Christianity,
00:38:20.960 to Lutheranism specifically,
00:38:22.700 Heinrich Marx.
00:38:23.740 And some say that he did
00:38:25.000 because of social pressures
00:38:26.240 in Germany in the day,
00:38:28.020 like anti-Semitism,
00:38:29.220 and perhaps so, maybe.
00:38:30.900 He had an uncle
00:38:31.900 who converted to Roman Catholicism,
00:38:33.740 which most people there did
00:38:34.780 because it was like 90% Roman Catholic.
00:38:36.640 But Marx's father
00:38:37.560 converted to Lutheranism.
00:38:38.800 And Marx's father died a believer, right?
00:38:42.060 Probably kind of a more liberal Christian,
00:38:44.200 but he was a Christian.
00:38:45.640 So Marx converts,
00:38:47.380 Marx is baptized 1824.
00:38:49.560 He would have been five or six years old.
00:38:51.660 His mother really didn't want him to.
00:38:53.940 The mother really didn't want to convert.
00:38:55.940 But Marx is a fairly dedicated Christian
00:38:59.360 through his teenage years.
00:39:01.680 And he really doesn't start to change
00:39:03.860 until college.
00:39:05.180 And he came in particular.
00:39:07.020 Do you have any idea what happened?
00:39:08.120 Well, he came under the influence.
00:39:10.440 I had a hard time pinning this down.
00:39:12.240 And I don't think there's enough good information.
00:39:14.680 And you'll appreciate this
00:39:16.080 as a fellow academic.
00:39:17.560 So many academics don't give a damn
00:39:19.300 about faith at all.
00:39:21.260 I mean, the first biography
00:39:23.140 that I set out to do on Ronald Reagan,
00:39:26.220 and I've written, I think,
00:39:27.420 eight books on Reagan,
00:39:28.660 was going to be about him
00:39:29.940 and the end of the Cold War.
00:39:31.540 And I ended up writing a book
00:39:33.380 called God and Ronald Reagan
00:39:34.560 because I found all this stuff
00:39:35.920 on Reagan's faith
00:39:36.840 that no one had talked about.
00:39:38.060 Oh, yeah.
00:39:38.580 Oh, yeah.
00:39:38.900 I thought, look at all this.
00:39:39.820 How interesting.
00:39:40.080 Look at all this.
00:39:40.920 Look at all these letters.
00:39:42.120 Well, that's particularly relevant
00:39:43.400 in the context of this conversation.
00:39:45.080 Yeah, yeah.
00:39:45.900 Wow, look, in this letter
00:39:47.060 to this Methodist minister
00:39:48.900 who's having doubts
00:39:49.740 about Christ's divinity,
00:39:51.060 Reagan's blew it using
00:39:52.160 the liar, lord, or lunatic argument
00:39:54.160 of C.S. Lewis, right?
00:39:55.480 So I kind of picked up on that.
00:39:57.380 But so many of these biographers
00:39:58.800 ignore faith.
00:40:00.100 So in Marx's case,
00:40:01.040 I'm one of the only ones
00:40:01.740 that really cared, right?
00:40:02.720 A lot of the Marx biographers
00:40:04.000 are leftists.
00:40:05.720 Yes, of course.
00:40:06.600 So they ignore all of this stuff.
00:40:08.580 I'm getting off track.
00:40:09.580 No, no, that's okay.
00:40:11.040 The first main Marx biographer,
00:40:14.740 Franz Mering,
00:40:16.640 this would have been
00:40:17.200 over 100 years ago,
00:40:18.520 was the first to discover
00:40:19.980 the demonic poetry and plays.
00:40:23.360 And he presented them
00:40:24.440 to Marx's daughter.
00:40:26.020 And he said,
00:40:27.240 you know,
00:40:28.260 we should,
00:40:30.140 this stuff shouldn't see
00:40:31.380 the light of day.
00:40:32.440 I mean,
00:40:32.760 this is bad.
00:40:34.920 I mean,
00:40:35.160 this is really damning.
00:40:36.920 And a communist
00:40:38.100 with some integrity,
00:40:39.800 was it David Risenau?
00:40:40.940 With the Marx-Engels Institute
00:40:42.580 in the 1920s,
00:40:43.960 found all of it
00:40:44.760 and said,
00:40:45.400 no,
00:40:45.560 for the sake of,
00:40:46.480 you know,
00:40:46.660 we need to put this stuff
00:40:48.140 out there
00:40:48.480 so people know
00:40:49.160 what Marx believed.
00:40:50.880 So he actually found it,
00:40:52.420 first published it.
00:40:53.840 It's untouched
00:40:54.780 until Robert Payne
00:40:55.760 mentions it,
00:40:56.340 late 1960s,
00:40:57.220 early 1970s.
00:40:58.160 Paul Johnson
00:40:59.080 wrote about it
00:40:59.800 in Intellectuals.
00:41:01.360 Pastor Richard Wormbron,
00:41:02.860 who was tortured
00:41:03.900 in the Romanian prison
00:41:05.160 of Potessi,
00:41:06.120 wrote a book
00:41:06.560 called Marx and Satan.
00:41:07.820 He wrote about it.
00:41:08.780 But all the other
00:41:09.680 Marx biographers,
00:41:11.000 they just ignore it.
00:41:11.900 They completely ignore it.
00:41:13.200 It's a long way
00:41:13.720 of saying,
00:41:14.660 how and why exactly
00:41:16.700 did he become an atheist?
00:41:18.120 What happened
00:41:18.760 between those teenage years
00:41:20.840 and college years
00:41:21.780 that really flipped him?
00:41:22.560 The best that I can determine,
00:41:24.340 he came under the influence
00:41:25.500 of a professor in college
00:41:26.960 named Dr. Bruno Bauer,
00:41:32.860 University of Bonn.
00:41:34.340 And he was a professor
00:41:35.620 of theology
00:41:36.340 who was an atheist,
00:41:37.540 right?
00:41:37.800 Imagine that,
00:41:38.480 just like the colleges today.
00:41:40.080 He's eventually run out
00:41:41.200 of the university.
00:41:42.160 But he and Marx
00:41:43.140 became very tight,
00:41:45.260 very close.
00:41:46.320 Interestingly too,
00:41:47.120 Bruno Bauer
00:41:47.760 was intensely anti-Semitic.
00:41:50.300 So close
00:41:51.320 that they together,
00:41:53.380 so Bauer influences
00:41:54.380 Marx's atheism.
00:41:55.460 They start a journal together
00:41:57.540 called Annals of Atheism,
00:41:59.640 which never gets
00:42:00.380 off the ground,
00:42:01.080 partly because they don't
00:42:01.760 have money to support it.
00:42:02.840 I guess they couldn't find
00:42:03.540 a wealthy atheist socialist
00:42:05.740 who could help them out.
00:42:07.500 So they start
00:42:08.420 this archives
00:42:09.280 of this Annals of Atheism.
00:42:12.760 And then Bauer's eventually
00:42:14.600 fired from the university.
00:42:16.860 He's pushed out
00:42:17.500 of the university.
00:42:18.120 And he and Marx
00:42:19.740 pulled a couple stunts.
00:42:20.980 In one case,
00:42:21.580 they went to a nearby village
00:42:23.100 for Palm Sunday
00:42:25.320 and rode in on donkeys
00:42:27.280 together,
00:42:28.540 kind of mocking
00:42:29.280 the entrance of Christ
00:42:30.540 into Jerusalem
00:42:31.480 on Palm Sunday.
00:42:33.160 Yeah, mocking
00:42:33.540 or imitating.
00:42:34.520 Yeah.
00:42:34.760 Right?
00:42:34.980 Well, you have the same
00:42:35.940 weird dichotomy there
00:42:37.080 with the character
00:42:37.800 in the play
00:42:38.360 that you described.
00:42:39.460 It's like,
00:42:40.340 you know,
00:42:40.740 are you mocking
00:42:41.980 or usurping?
00:42:43.080 That's a better metaphor.
00:42:45.060 Yeah, that's good.
00:42:45.140 That's right.
00:42:45.460 Absolutely.
00:42:46.220 Well, because Lucifer...
00:42:47.420 I don't like the word
00:42:48.040 channeling that people
00:42:48.980 use today,
00:42:49.540 but that might actually
00:42:50.260 apply in this case.
00:42:50.920 Usurping is good
00:42:51.800 because Lucifer's
00:42:52.960 a usurper, right?
00:42:53.860 True.
00:42:54.020 I mean, he's the spirit
00:42:54.920 that wants to overthrow
00:42:55.820 everything and put himself
00:42:56.900 at the top.
00:42:57.680 And not just himself,
00:42:58.840 but his intellect specifically.
00:43:00.600 Yes.
00:43:00.840 And that's very reminiscent
00:43:02.080 of the way Marx conducted
00:43:03.220 himself in his life, right?
00:43:04.620 Everything around him,
00:43:05.840 including his family,
00:43:06.700 his wife,
00:43:07.460 his friends,
00:43:08.320 everything,
00:43:09.020 was sacrificed
00:43:10.000 to the glorification
00:43:11.540 of his intellect.
00:43:12.500 Right.
00:43:12.780 Right.
00:43:13.120 In this...
00:43:13.440 Right, right, right.
00:43:13.960 And like,
00:43:14.600 well, and this is exactly
00:43:15.960 what happens
00:43:16.380 in the Faustian bargain,
00:43:17.520 right?
00:43:17.700 I mean, Faust essentially
00:43:18.980 sells his soul
00:43:20.240 to, for what?
00:43:22.580 What do you say?
00:43:23.420 Intellectual supremacy.
00:43:24.660 Right.
00:43:25.180 Well, there's a good diagnosis
00:43:26.980 for the universities
00:43:27.860 for today, too.
00:43:28.800 But it is the...
00:43:29.540 It's the fundamental temptation
00:43:31.060 of the intellect, right?
00:43:32.400 Because it's...
00:43:33.500 It is the highest angel
00:43:35.120 in God's heavenly kingdom
00:43:36.360 most capable
00:43:37.140 of going bitterly wrong.
00:43:38.660 Right.
00:43:38.940 And Marx is a great example
00:43:40.280 of that.
00:43:40.680 And finding his own kingdom.
00:43:41.880 Well...
00:43:42.260 Which is what Alinsky
00:43:43.100 liked about him.
00:43:43.900 In today's chaotic world,
00:43:46.840 many of us are searching
00:43:47.740 for a way to aim higher
00:43:48.960 and find spiritual peace.
00:43:50.920 But here's the thing.
00:43:52.120 Prayer,
00:43:52.520 the most common tool we have,
00:43:54.040 isn't just about saying
00:43:54.940 whatever comes to mind.
00:43:56.280 It's a skill
00:43:56.920 that needs to be developed.
00:43:58.620 That's where Hallow comes in.
00:44:00.320 As the number one prayer
00:44:01.300 and meditation app,
00:44:02.400 Hallow is launching
00:44:03.140 an exceptional new series
00:44:04.480 called How to Pray.
00:44:06.300 Imagine learning
00:44:07.060 how to use scripture
00:44:07.860 as a launch pad
00:44:08.800 for profound conversations
00:44:10.180 with God.
00:44:11.280 How to properly enter
00:44:12.380 into imaginative prayer
00:44:13.620 and how to incorporate prayers
00:44:15.660 reaching far back
00:44:16.740 in church history.
00:44:18.240 This isn't your average
00:44:19.140 guided meditation.
00:44:20.440 It's a comprehensive
00:44:21.300 two-week journey
00:44:22.160 into the heart of prayer
00:44:23.440 led by some of the most
00:44:24.740 respected spiritual leaders
00:44:26.180 of our time.
00:44:27.360 From guests including
00:44:28.300 Bishop Robert Barron,
00:44:29.720 Father Mike Schmitz,
00:44:30.720 and Jonathan Rumi,
00:44:32.000 known for his role as Jesus
00:44:33.240 in the hit series
00:44:34.040 The Chosen,
00:44:35.020 you'll discover prayer techniques
00:44:36.340 that have stood
00:44:37.040 the test of time
00:44:37.920 while equipping yourself
00:44:39.120 for the tools needed
00:44:39.900 to face life's challenges
00:44:41.120 with renewed strength.
00:44:42.980 Ready to revolutionize
00:44:44.060 your prayer life?
00:44:45.240 You can check out
00:44:45.840 the new series
00:44:46.580 as well as an extensive
00:44:47.640 catalog of guided prayers
00:44:49.080 when you download
00:44:49.980 the Hallow app.
00:44:51.260 Just go to
00:44:51.900 Hallow.com slash Jordan
00:44:53.420 and download the Hallow app
00:44:54.540 today for an exclusive
00:44:55.700 three-month trial.
00:44:57.120 That's Hallow.com slash Jordan.
00:44:59.480 Elevate your prayer life today.
00:45:01.040 Think of the arrogance
00:45:07.280 that it requires
00:45:09.180 to be a critic,
00:45:11.820 like a devastating critic
00:45:13.160 of everything.
00:45:13.860 Not in the manner
00:45:16.220 that Descartes questioned.
00:45:18.700 That's not the same thing.
00:45:20.560 Questioning is more
00:45:21.400 an admission of your own inadequacy.
00:45:23.600 But that damning critique
00:45:26.260 of everything,
00:45:27.160 like the question is,
00:45:28.080 who the hell do you think,
00:45:29.040 you know,
00:45:29.340 the kids who shot up
00:45:31.480 the Columbine High School,
00:45:32.960 that's the position
00:45:33.740 they put themselves in.
00:45:35.120 Like their writing,
00:45:36.180 which no one pays
00:45:37.020 any attention to,
00:45:37.860 is absolutely bone-chilling.
00:45:39.900 Like there's no difference
00:45:41.760 between the writing
00:45:42.560 of the more literate
00:45:43.460 of the two
00:45:44.000 and something
00:45:44.900 that you would expect
00:45:45.740 from someone
00:45:46.320 who's manifesting signs of,
00:45:48.040 for lack of a better word,
00:45:49.100 possession.
00:45:49.700 It's really chilling stuff.
00:45:51.360 This is independent
00:45:52.300 of your religious belief.
00:45:54.120 Like you can't read
00:45:55.060 what he wrote
00:45:55.780 without the hairs
00:45:56.760 on the back of your neck
00:45:57.700 standing up.
00:45:58.340 And he literally
00:46:00.700 positioned himself
00:46:02.720 as the judge
00:46:03.660 of everything.
00:46:04.400 He believed human life
00:46:05.480 was inadequate.
00:46:06.180 He believed everything
00:46:06.980 should be destroyed.
00:46:08.200 Him and his friend
00:46:08.900 were planning
00:46:09.580 a much more destructive
00:46:11.180 rampage
00:46:11.980 than they managed.
00:46:13.400 And they had fantasies
00:46:15.280 and wrote
00:46:15.800 about destroying
00:46:19.080 entire cities.
00:46:19.920 They wanted to lay
00:46:20.500 everything waste
00:46:21.760 exactly in that
00:46:22.840 Mephistophelian manner.
00:46:24.720 And you see that
00:46:25.240 in Marx's poetry
00:46:25.980 as well.
00:46:26.560 I mean,
00:46:27.040 Marx says,
00:46:27.820 I mean,
00:46:28.080 in one case,
00:46:28.580 he's like jury
00:46:29.200 and executioner,
00:46:30.140 right?
00:46:30.340 Right, right.
00:46:30.680 Again,
00:46:30.940 I shall howl
00:46:31.820 gigantic curses
00:46:33.100 at mankind.
00:46:34.700 And the mockery,
00:46:36.520 it's a good point.
00:46:37.360 I mean,
00:46:37.620 because the devil
00:46:38.940 hates to be mocked,
00:46:39.960 but the devil
00:46:40.420 mocks Christ.
00:46:41.420 The devil mocks God,
00:46:42.620 right?
00:46:43.340 And in Marx's case,
00:46:45.480 so they're imitating
00:46:46.560 or mocking
00:46:47.320 Christ entering Jerusalem.
00:46:50.140 They would go
00:46:50.580 into churches together,
00:46:51.660 he and Bruno Bauer,
00:46:52.640 and laugh
00:46:53.700 and kind of
00:46:54.560 make noise
00:46:55.300 in the pew
00:46:55.860 just to be disrespectful.
00:46:58.220 So he's,
00:46:58.820 you know,
00:46:59.580 he's an angry,
00:47:01.940 and throughout his life,
00:47:03.320 no one liked him.
00:47:04.600 I mean,
00:47:05.180 he...
00:47:05.980 I can't imagine why.
00:47:07.700 He got along
00:47:08.740 with his own family,
00:47:11.360 you know,
00:47:11.660 his wife,
00:47:12.160 I mean,
00:47:12.340 his family tolerated him.
00:47:14.340 Some biographers
00:47:15.000 say that he had
00:47:16.380 a great relationship
00:47:17.240 with his daughters
00:47:18.040 other than he didn't.
00:47:18.960 It's amazing,
00:47:19.540 and two completely
00:47:20.180 diametrically
00:47:20.860 different takes on that.
00:47:22.480 But all the different people
00:47:24.020 who worked with him
00:47:24.780 described him
00:47:25.480 in this dictatorial
00:47:27.000 kind of way,
00:47:27.700 and he eventually
00:47:28.340 split with everybody.
00:47:29.820 Mikhail Bakunin,
00:47:32.200 Forbach,
00:47:33.640 I mean,
00:47:33.900 all these different guys.
00:47:35.080 They would eventually
00:47:35.720 get to the point
00:47:36.760 where Marx is calling him
00:47:38.680 an ape or a baboon,
00:47:40.500 and they're saying,
00:47:40.920 oh,
00:47:41.400 this is Marx's typical
00:47:42.460 filth and vitriol
00:47:44.220 and bile.
00:47:45.440 This is what he does
00:47:46.160 to everybody.
00:47:47.000 So he eventually
00:47:47.480 got to that point
00:47:48.240 with just about everybody.
00:47:49.540 But on your point,
00:47:52.720 right,
00:47:53.080 so when did he
00:47:55.560 become an atheist?
00:47:56.560 So he's there
00:47:58.120 by 1841
00:47:59.800 at that point.
00:48:01.320 And he's 26?
00:48:02.640 At that point,
00:48:03.200 he would have been
00:48:03.540 23 years old.
00:48:04.480 23.
00:48:05.200 And I'd love to really
00:48:07.340 see some sort
00:48:08.180 of documentation
00:48:08.940 of exactly how
00:48:10.440 it began to slip away.
00:48:11.800 Right,
00:48:11.940 although you said
00:48:12.720 that this association
00:48:13.760 he had with the professor.
00:48:15.200 Well,
00:48:15.340 that's in some ways
00:48:17.680 a sufficient explanation.
00:48:19.540 Like,
00:48:20.340 not exactly
00:48:21.080 because it doesn't
00:48:22.000 explain why
00:48:22.780 he would have been
00:48:23.400 attracted to that professor.
00:48:25.220 But you could,
00:48:25.800 it's easy to imagine
00:48:26.780 that,
00:48:27.100 well,
00:48:27.220 maybe that professor
00:48:27.900 paid a lot of attention
00:48:28.740 to him.
00:48:29.240 I think so.
00:48:29.940 And the professor
00:48:30.420 is anti-Semitic,
00:48:31.740 which is odd.
00:48:33.040 And Marx is Jewish.
00:48:34.640 And Marx ends up
00:48:35.700 with some very
00:48:36.980 anti-Semitic statements.
00:48:38.660 Right.
00:48:38.860 He said,
00:48:39.480 the Israelite faith
00:48:40.720 is repulsive to me.
00:48:42.560 And he has this one statement
00:48:43.940 where he talks about,
00:48:45.280 in the end,
00:48:45.960 the final emancipation
00:48:47.360 and the emancipation of the,
00:48:48.640 it sounds like something
00:48:49.600 Hitler could have said.
00:48:51.340 I mean,
00:48:51.560 some really disturbing
00:48:52.680 statements about Jews.
00:48:54.400 Tell me about
00:48:54.860 the emancipation.
00:48:55.840 Yeah,
00:48:56.200 I should get,
00:48:56.660 I'll get that exact quote.
00:48:57.680 Okay,
00:48:58.000 okay,
00:48:58.320 okay.
00:48:58.640 I'll get that exact quote.
00:49:00.040 Okay,
00:49:00.420 okay,
00:49:00.780 so we don't know,
00:49:02.100 okay,
00:49:02.540 so we have this sense
00:49:03.560 that he identified
00:49:04.380 with Mephistopheles,
00:49:05.600 which is not great,
00:49:07.400 and that he has
00:49:08.400 a Luciferian intellect,
00:49:09.640 which is also
00:49:10.500 not exactly
00:49:11.940 what you'd hope for.
00:49:13.180 By the way,
00:49:13.480 just for the cameras,
00:49:14.380 I did a piece called
00:49:15.380 Marx on Judaism,
00:49:18.760 Christianity,
00:49:19.360 and Evolution Race.
00:49:21.280 If you look that up,
00:49:22.280 it has that quote
00:49:23.400 on the Jewish.
00:49:24.080 Okay,
00:49:24.420 okay,
00:49:24.820 okay,
00:49:25.340 okay,
00:49:25.640 so we don't know,
00:49:26.580 we don't know
00:49:27.740 why he turned to atheism.
00:49:30.040 These poems that he wrote
00:49:31.500 that were pans
00:49:32.420 to Mephistopheles,
00:49:34.400 is that after
00:49:35.280 he becomes an atheist?
00:49:36.700 No,
00:49:37.080 he's writing,
00:49:37.780 so the first one
00:49:38.440 was 1837,
00:49:40.640 wrote another in 1841.
00:49:42.160 He wrote a bunch of them,
00:49:43.120 and he did,
00:49:43.820 he did just a chilling play
00:49:47.300 called Ulanem.
00:49:49.140 Yes.
00:49:49.680 O-U-L-A-N-E-M,
00:49:52.100 and people that are watching this,
00:49:53.860 if they now type
00:49:54.560 into their computer,
00:49:55.700 Ulanem,
00:49:56.340 even in Google,
00:49:57.540 it'll pop up,
00:49:58.640 play by Karl Marx.
00:49:59.820 It even has
00:50:00.600 a Wikipedia entry,
00:50:02.300 and let me warn people,
00:50:03.920 you might not want
00:50:04.640 to do this,
00:50:05.320 but if you click
00:50:06.560 the images button,
00:50:07.740 you will see,
00:50:08.840 I mean,
00:50:09.140 there's some satanic
00:50:10.780 stuff up there
00:50:12.560 from like,
00:50:13.400 not heavy metal,
00:50:14.400 but like black metal
00:50:15.780 groups.
00:50:16.900 So Ulanem
00:50:17.620 is an anagram
00:50:18.700 for Emmanuel,
00:50:20.360 or Emanuello.
00:50:21.500 Right, right.
00:50:22.160 So Marx takes
00:50:23.060 Emmanuel,
00:50:23.940 which is the name
00:50:24.640 given to Christ,
00:50:25.860 or Emanuello,
00:50:26.780 and he flips it
00:50:28.120 into this anagram
00:50:29.060 called Ulanem,
00:50:30.600 and it's this
00:50:31.320 chilling play.
00:50:32.820 The main character
00:50:33.540 is Lucindo,
00:50:34.640 Lucindo,
00:50:35.600 L-U-C-I-N-D-O,
00:50:38.160 and you just can't believe
00:50:40.100 what you're reading
00:50:41.440 with this play.
00:50:43.880 So that was written
00:50:45.220 later in the 1840s,
00:50:46.700 so really the prime
00:50:47.660 of his writing,
00:50:49.000 including the decade
00:50:49.840 when he wrote
00:50:50.340 the Communist Manifesto,
00:50:51.660 is also the same
00:50:53.000 decade when he
00:50:54.520 was writing
00:50:55.020 these poems.
00:50:58.000 And plays.
00:50:58.620 And plays.
00:50:59.240 And plays.
00:51:00.020 And throughout his life,
00:51:01.060 his kids and others
00:51:02.000 would say,
00:51:03.200 yeah, he had a favorite
00:51:04.020 line always from
00:51:04.920 Mephistopheles,
00:51:05.460 everything that exists
00:51:06.680 deserves to perish.
00:51:07.800 So that remains
00:51:08.580 a part of him
00:51:09.360 throughout his life.
00:51:11.280 His son,
00:51:12.840 Edgar,
00:51:13.500 has a letter
00:51:14.360 where he addresses
00:51:14.940 his father
00:51:15.620 as my dear devil,
00:51:17.820 which,
00:51:18.880 I don't know,
00:51:19.500 maybe it's playful,
00:51:20.780 I don't know.
00:51:21.360 Although I would never
00:51:22.720 call my dad
00:51:23.880 my dear devil.
00:51:25.060 His wife called him
00:51:26.480 my wicked knave.
00:51:29.540 I quote
00:51:30.380 Henrik Hinesen
00:51:31.780 referring to him
00:51:33.500 as a goblin
00:51:34.400 who tried to
00:51:35.360 take me
00:51:36.140 under his spell.
00:51:38.200 Other cases
00:51:39.200 of where he's using
00:51:40.720 that kind of language.
00:51:43.100 When Ingalls
00:51:44.280 first met him,
00:51:45.380 he describes him
00:51:46.520 as this
00:51:47.520 dark man
00:51:48.880 from Trier
00:51:50.000 who hops
00:51:51.880 and leaps
00:51:52.520 and springs
00:51:53.160 on his heels.
00:51:54.480 The monster
00:51:56.000 of 10,000 devils,
00:51:57.900 he describes him.
00:51:59.420 And the letter
00:52:00.700 from his father
00:52:01.860 is,
00:52:03.760 which was written
00:52:04.320 in 1837,
00:52:05.760 a year before
00:52:07.020 his father died.
00:52:10.400 So his father
00:52:11.780 writes to him,
00:52:12.700 March 2nd,
00:52:13.580 1837.
00:52:14.560 Carl,
00:52:16.280 at times my heart
00:52:17.340 delights in thinking
00:52:18.340 of you and your fortune
00:52:19.400 and yet at times
00:52:20.300 I cannot rid myself
00:52:21.580 of ideas
00:52:22.860 which arouse in me
00:52:24.040 sad forebodings
00:52:25.260 and fear
00:52:25.820 when I am struck
00:52:26.840 as if by lightning
00:52:28.400 by the thought.
00:52:29.700 Is your heart
00:52:30.620 in accord
00:52:31.200 with your head,
00:52:32.240 your talents?
00:52:33.580 Has it room
00:52:34.260 for the earthly
00:52:34.980 but gentler
00:52:35.780 sediments
00:52:36.400 which in this
00:52:37.440 veil of sorrow,
00:52:38.820 it's a beautiful letter
00:52:39.720 in many ways,
00:52:40.560 are essentially
00:52:41.380 consoling for a man
00:52:42.780 of feeling?
00:52:43.720 And then this question
00:52:44.720 from the father
00:52:45.660 of Karl Marx
00:52:46.660 to his,
00:52:48.420 at this point,
00:52:50.100 18-year-old son.
00:52:52.140 And since that heart,
00:52:53.600 Karl,
00:52:54.180 is obviously animated
00:52:56.160 and governed
00:52:56.920 by a demon
00:52:58.020 not granted
00:53:00.300 to all men,
00:53:01.600 is that demon
00:53:02.820 heavenly
00:53:03.380 or Faustian?
00:53:05.720 Will you ever,
00:53:06.740 and that is not
00:53:07.400 the least painful
00:53:08.240 doubt of my heart,
00:53:09.760 will you ever
00:53:10.440 be capable
00:53:11.060 of truly human
00:53:12.200 domestic happiness?
00:53:14.000 Will,
00:53:14.500 and this doubt
00:53:15.100 has no less
00:53:15.860 tortured me
00:53:16.500 since I have come
00:53:17.200 to love a certain
00:53:17.960 person like my own child,
00:53:19.760 will you ever
00:53:20.360 be capable
00:53:21.080 of imparting happiness
00:53:22.640 to those
00:53:23.660 immediately around you?
00:53:25.080 By the way,
00:53:25.460 the answer was no.
00:53:27.080 Right?
00:53:27.840 But that phrase,
00:53:29.160 obviously the father
00:53:29.400 had intimations of that.
00:53:30.740 Yeah,
00:53:31.140 and since that heart
00:53:32.080 is obviously animated
00:53:33.960 and governed
00:53:34.640 by a demon
00:53:35.640 not granted
00:53:36.800 to all men,
00:53:38.260 is that demon
00:53:39.180 heavenly or Faustian?
00:53:40.840 That's his dad.
00:53:41.780 Yeah.
00:53:42.700 And there's only
00:53:43.480 so many of those things
00:53:44.760 I think that a
00:53:45.900 sympathetic
00:53:46.540 Marxist
00:53:48.160 or Marxist biographer
00:53:49.260 can shrug off.
00:53:50.880 I mean,
00:53:51.160 there's just so many
00:53:51.860 statements like that
00:53:53.080 from him
00:53:54.080 and people about him
00:53:55.080 and people who knew him,
00:53:56.000 loved ones,
00:53:56.720 a wife,
00:53:58.420 a son,
00:53:58.900 a best friend
00:53:59.600 from Ingalls
00:54:00.440 and then the
00:54:01.320 different writings.
00:54:02.340 Okay,
00:54:02.940 so let's attack this.
00:54:05.020 Now was he a Satanist,
00:54:06.200 right?
00:54:06.580 Well,
00:54:06.880 that is a whole
00:54:08.860 different thing
00:54:09.960 that I can't
00:54:11.640 personally answer.
00:54:13.260 Well,
00:54:13.740 it seems
00:54:14.340 not unreasonable
00:54:16.120 to presuppose
00:54:17.340 that he was a devotee
00:54:18.660 of the Mephistophelian ethos.
00:54:20.360 Yeah,
00:54:20.600 I think that's a really good way to put it.
00:54:21.200 Right,
00:54:21.420 so the question is,
00:54:22.400 you know,
00:54:22.660 what constitutes a Satanist?
00:54:24.540 Well,
00:54:24.800 someone who generates
00:54:25.740 a murderous doctrine,
00:54:27.000 that raises questions.
00:54:28.200 I mean,
00:54:28.420 dead serious about that.
00:54:29.860 Right, right.
00:54:30.220 the most murderous doctrine
00:54:31.540 ever promoted
00:54:33.100 in the roughly
00:54:35.180 Judeo-Christian context
00:54:36.560 by a large margin.
00:54:39.020 So,
00:54:39.380 I would say
00:54:40.400 it's incumbent
00:54:40.960 on those who would defend him
00:54:42.260 to describe
00:54:42.860 why we wouldn't
00:54:43.440 just assume that.
00:54:44.680 But,
00:54:45.540 like,
00:54:46.440 part of the reason
00:54:47.520 that I was so interested
00:54:48.500 in talking to you
00:54:49.240 was because
00:54:49.740 I felt that
00:54:50.760 what you documented
00:54:51.660 in your book
00:54:52.280 was extraordinarily telling
00:54:53.740 from the psychological perspective
00:54:55.080 because I know
00:54:55.620 how these things work
00:54:56.620 and it is not
00:54:58.680 something that can be
00:54:59.820 overlooked.
00:55:00.220 that that was
00:55:01.800 his favorite quote.
00:55:02.920 Right, right.
00:55:03.320 I mean,
00:55:03.540 especially not
00:55:04.420 when you understand
00:55:05.340 Goethe's centrality
00:55:07.780 in the German
00:55:09.480 intellectual tradition.
00:55:10.960 That's like having
00:55:11.720 a favorite quote
00:55:12.660 from Shakespeare,
00:55:13.660 right?
00:55:13.880 And it's not
00:55:14.520 any old quote.
00:55:15.900 It's the central credo
00:55:17.140 of Mephistopheles.
00:55:18.260 So,
00:55:18.640 that's extraordinarily telling.
00:55:20.040 Now,
00:55:20.260 okay,
00:55:20.560 now I do have another...
00:55:21.860 Can I give you a...
00:55:22.900 Yes.
00:55:23.580 So,
00:55:23.980 Robert Payne,
00:55:24.840 the very serious academic,
00:55:26.500 no right winger,
00:55:27.360 British man of letters,
00:55:28.800 the guy who really
00:55:29.620 broke this first
00:55:30.740 in his 1968
00:55:31.660 biography of Marx,
00:55:32.920 all right?
00:55:33.420 His chapter
00:55:34.300 where he talks
00:55:34.960 about this stuff
00:55:35.680 is called
00:55:36.260 The Demons
00:55:36.980 in his Marx biography.
00:55:38.620 Now,
00:55:39.120 he wrote this,
00:55:40.160 and I'm not saying
00:55:40.940 that I endorse this.
00:55:41.840 As an academic,
00:55:42.840 I can't say
00:55:43.440 if this is correct.
00:55:45.220 There were times
00:55:46.100 when Marx
00:55:46.880 seemed to be
00:55:47.700 possessed by demons.
00:55:49.680 That's what Payne wrote.
00:55:51.600 And,
00:55:52.140 now this,
00:55:52.960 I would at least
00:55:53.600 more endorse.
00:55:55.960 Marx had
00:55:56.500 the devil's view
00:55:57.420 of the world
00:55:58.080 and the devil's malignity.
00:56:00.240 Sometimes,
00:56:01.080 he seemed to know
00:56:01.980 that he was
00:56:02.460 accomplishing works
00:56:03.560 of evil.
00:56:04.560 I think that gets
00:56:05.460 closer to it.
00:56:06.740 Now,
00:56:07.760 Pastor Richard Wurmbrand,
00:56:09.060 who wrote the famous book
00:56:09.900 Tortured for Christ,
00:56:11.220 and was tortured
00:56:11.720 for Christ
00:56:12.260 in Romanian prisons
00:56:13.220 by communist captors
00:56:15.220 who were shouting,
00:56:15.960 I am the devil,
00:56:16.560 while they were torturing him.
00:56:17.640 He did a book
00:56:18.400 called Marx and Satan.
00:56:20.140 He's convinced
00:56:20.840 that Marx
00:56:21.500 was a Satanist
00:56:22.920 and did some things
00:56:23.800 ritualistically
00:56:24.540 that it might have
00:56:25.180 even been Satanic.
00:56:26.380 But I can't,
00:56:27.380 I can't say that.
00:56:28.440 I can't endorse that.
00:56:29.260 But you see evidence
00:56:29.700 of that in his play.
00:56:30.820 I've never seen,
00:56:31.580 in terms of at least
00:56:32.320 his fantasies.
00:56:33.360 That's right.
00:56:34.060 That's right.
00:56:34.900 In fact,
00:56:35.400 Payne even goes so far
00:56:36.580 as to say,
00:56:37.580 Vladimir Lenin,
00:56:38.560 right?
00:56:38.840 There's a statement
00:56:39.420 from Lenin
00:56:40.080 which said,
00:56:41.340 when I was a teen,
00:56:42.720 I broke from all religion.
00:56:44.200 I took the cross
00:56:45.280 from my neck
00:56:46.020 and I threw it
00:56:46.740 in the rubbish bin.
00:56:48.480 And,
00:56:48.520 and Payne has a quote,
00:56:50.220 not Payne,
00:56:51.280 Richard Wurmbrand,
00:56:52.460 where I think,
00:56:53.320 I think he believes
00:56:54.520 that Lenin even
00:56:55.060 stomped on it.
00:56:55.980 He says,
00:56:56.300 well,
00:56:56.400 that's a Satanic ritual.
00:56:57.580 I don't know.
00:56:57.960 I don't know
00:56:58.220 whether it is or not.
00:56:59.080 But there's another case
00:57:00.160 of Lenin
00:57:00.660 who at least did
00:57:01.240 the work of the devil.
00:57:02.540 I mean,
00:57:02.860 Lenin had,
00:57:04.360 according to Robert Conquest,
00:57:06.540 W.H. Chamberlain,
00:57:07.460 the first historian
00:57:08.100 of the Russian Revolution,
00:57:09.300 500,000 people
00:57:10.360 were killed
00:57:10.960 from 1917 to 1923
00:57:13.240 under Lenin,
00:57:13.900 not even including
00:57:14.500 the Russian Civil War.
00:57:15.440 If that's not
00:57:16.200 the devil's work,
00:57:16.880 I don't know
00:57:17.100 what the hell is,
00:57:17.960 right?
00:57:18.640 But,
00:57:18.920 but I think
00:57:19.620 what Payne said
00:57:20.880 in the latter quote,
00:57:22.100 the devil's view
00:57:22.820 of the world,
00:57:23.360 the devil's malignity,
00:57:24.340 and at the very least,
00:57:25.620 this identification
00:57:26.480 with kind of
00:57:27.680 devilish-like destruction,
00:57:30.060 right?
00:57:30.440 Tearing everything down,
00:57:31.700 rebelling against the world,
00:57:33.280 everything that exists
00:57:34.200 deserves to perish,
00:57:35.720 that at least.
00:57:37.240 And then the ideology
00:57:38.080 that he created
00:57:39.040 that just happened
00:57:40.440 to be responsible
00:57:41.880 for the deaths
00:57:42.600 of over 100 million people
00:57:44.080 in the 20th century,
00:57:45.940 you know,
00:57:46.120 more than World War I
00:57:47.320 and World War II combined.
00:57:48.900 So that ideology
00:57:50.920 was pretty hellacious.
00:57:53.360 Yeah,
00:57:54.160 to say the least.
00:57:55.820 Okay,
00:57:56.180 so,
00:57:57.080 and I think
00:57:57.700 it's very naive
00:57:58.380 not to assume
00:57:59.140 that the events
00:58:00.700 that we described
00:58:01.440 in Marx's life
00:58:02.260 are not connected.
00:58:04.380 Right.
00:58:04.540 Yeah,
00:58:04.840 correct.
00:58:05.100 And that his
00:58:06.220 economic polemics
00:58:08.500 were somehow
00:58:09.220 independent
00:58:09.760 of his poetic imagination.
00:58:12.040 It's like,
00:58:12.400 obviously they weren't
00:58:13.300 because they wouldn't
00:58:13.880 have had that
00:58:14.320 motivational force.
00:58:15.300 So they were calling
00:58:17.340 on dark forces,
00:58:19.480 obviously.
00:58:20.700 So,
00:58:21.300 because otherwise
00:58:21.880 they wouldn't have
00:58:22.460 compelled people
00:58:23.200 in that manner,
00:58:23.820 especially not toward
00:58:24.720 that sort of
00:58:25.720 immense sadistic murderousness
00:58:28.380 and utter destructiveness.
00:58:29.800 And of course,
00:58:30.240 get to the hatred of God,
00:58:31.760 which all the communists did.
00:58:33.180 So all the communists
00:58:34.100 thereafter
00:58:34.640 seek to ban religion.
00:58:35.860 Right,
00:58:36.120 right.
00:58:36.680 Atheists.
00:58:37.240 That's right.
00:58:37.640 They're not exactly atheists
00:58:38.740 because they're trying
00:58:39.420 to stomp something out.
00:58:40.820 That's right.
00:58:41.360 It's not just,
00:58:42.000 it's not just,
00:58:42.760 it's not a neutrality.
00:58:43.940 That's right.
00:58:44.360 It's not a neutrality
00:58:45.220 toward religion.
00:58:46.140 It's not irreligion.
00:58:47.200 It's not separation
00:58:47.880 of church and state.
00:58:49.000 It is militant,
00:58:49.880 aggressive atheism.
00:58:50.940 Trotsky and Lenin
00:58:51.700 create the league
00:58:52.740 of the militant godless.
00:58:54.180 Right.
00:58:54.520 They ban religion.
00:58:55.580 They have the Moscow
00:58:56.260 church trials.
00:58:57.180 They blow up churches.
00:58:58.300 They jail priests,
00:58:59.440 right?
00:59:00.400 You know,
00:59:00.780 the Solzhenitsyn writes
00:59:01.820 in the Gulag Archipelago,
00:59:02.880 they put nuns
00:59:03.540 in special sections
00:59:04.480 of the Gulag
00:59:05.140 with prostitutes.
00:59:05.920 Yes,
00:59:06.260 right.
00:59:06.560 Right,
00:59:06.820 deem them hoars
00:59:07.440 to Christ.
00:59:07.780 Absolutely.
00:59:08.280 Lenin said,
00:59:08.780 all worship of a divinity
00:59:10.440 is a necrophilia.
00:59:12.060 There is nothing more
00:59:13.240 abominable than religion.
00:59:14.860 Yeah.
00:59:15.220 So they don't just
00:59:16.680 try to stop religion.
00:59:18.040 They want Pol Pot,
00:59:21.120 the Buddhist monks
00:59:21.980 in Cambodia,
00:59:23.040 to renounce their vows,
00:59:25.400 to marry.
00:59:26.680 It's not enough
00:59:27.500 for them to be quiet.
00:59:29.180 And so after four years...
00:59:29.920 I don't know how
00:59:30.660 you can separate
00:59:31.780 a militantly
00:59:34.740 anti-religious atheism
00:59:37.080 from,
00:59:38.500 especially,
00:59:39.480 say,
00:59:39.700 within a Christian context,
00:59:41.020 from something
00:59:41.740 approximating
00:59:42.600 satanic
00:59:44.340 ideology,
00:59:46.500 because
00:59:46.760 I don't see how
00:59:49.000 conceptually
00:59:49.620 that separation
00:59:50.280 is possible.
00:59:51.100 It's one thing
00:59:51.780 to be atheist
00:59:52.480 in the manner
00:59:53.240 that leaves people
00:59:55.060 to go to hell
00:59:56.120 in a handbasket
00:59:56.840 in their own way,
00:59:57.940 but to be
00:59:58.860 actually
00:59:59.900 an enemy
01:00:01.200 of the religious enterprise,
01:00:02.940 that's a whole
01:00:03.540 different thing.
01:00:04.340 It is.
01:00:04.740 And that obviously
01:00:07.080 Marx and the communists
01:00:08.280 were obviously that.
01:00:09.380 Clearly,
01:00:09.860 obviously.
01:00:10.600 And Satan might say,
01:00:12.940 I don't care if you believe
01:00:13.800 in me or not,
01:00:14.400 you're doing my work,
01:00:15.320 man.
01:00:15.880 You're shutting down
01:00:16.940 churches,
01:00:17.360 blowing up churches.
01:00:18.360 That also touches
01:00:20.200 on the issue
01:00:20.880 of what it means
01:00:21.660 to believe.
01:00:23.100 Right?
01:00:23.400 And I mean,
01:00:24.400 you could imagine
01:00:25.780 someone comparatively
01:00:27.040 harmless
01:00:27.520 who toys with
01:00:29.280 ritualistic,
01:00:30.700 satanic activities
01:00:31.680 in a sort of
01:00:32.360 dramatic manner.
01:00:33.200 And then you could imagine
01:00:34.480 someone who tortures
01:00:35.580 nuns and priests
01:00:36.660 and burns down churches
01:00:38.040 but forgoes any
01:00:39.240 technical affiliation
01:00:40.820 with Satan.
01:00:41.640 Right.
01:00:41.800 I would say that
01:00:42.520 the latter is
01:00:43.360 the Satanist
01:00:44.680 in a much deeper sense
01:00:45.780 than the former.
01:00:46.580 That's right.
01:00:46.960 Not that what the former
01:00:47.720 is doing is excusable.
01:00:49.100 Yeah.
01:00:49.360 Or they're satanic.
01:00:50.580 Yes, right.
01:00:51.340 But to do
01:00:54.340 what the communists
01:00:55.200 did
01:00:55.680 to the religious enterprise
01:00:57.320 is evidence
01:00:58.940 of something
01:00:59.500 far more militant
01:01:00.700 than a mere atheism.
01:01:02.460 Yeah.
01:01:02.600 So, okay, okay.
01:01:03.860 Now, here's something
01:01:04.860 that was bothering me too
01:01:05.860 when I was reading your book.
01:01:07.000 So, one of the things
01:01:08.840 that the radical leftists do
01:01:10.720 that especially,
01:01:12.560 and this is sort of
01:01:13.200 in proportion to their,
01:01:14.640 what would you say,
01:01:16.440 their intellectual
01:01:17.400 arrogance
01:01:20.000 is elevate themselves
01:01:22.720 on moral grounds
01:01:23.760 above the great figures
01:01:25.520 of the past.
01:01:26.540 So, I can hardly stand
01:01:28.000 going into art museums anymore
01:01:29.360 because a typical art museum now,
01:01:31.700 and this is true
01:01:32.400 even of the greatest museums
01:01:33.520 in the West,
01:01:34.100 is a great painting
01:01:34.960 with a little polemic
01:01:37.400 off to the side
01:01:38.380 written by some art critic
01:01:40.100 who's basically claiming
01:01:41.980 moral superiority
01:01:42.920 over the artist
01:01:43.820 because of their adherence
01:01:45.280 to whatever the current
01:01:46.120 ideological doctrine is.
01:01:47.460 It's sickening.
01:01:48.320 Even though that work of art
01:01:49.400 has survived for six centuries.
01:01:52.020 We're still looking at it.
01:01:52.660 Well, but imagine
01:01:53.440 what a great advantage
01:01:55.100 it is to the art critic
01:01:56.720 to be able to claim
01:01:57.880 moral superiority
01:01:58.880 to a truly great man
01:02:00.420 of the past
01:02:01.060 without having to actually
01:02:02.480 have accomplished anything.
01:02:03.620 I mean, what a deal, right?
01:02:04.840 Okay, so, but I would like
01:02:09.160 to be very careful
01:02:10.040 in our conceptualization here
01:02:11.980 because I've thought
01:02:13.240 the same way about Foucault.
01:02:15.700 So, Foucault was a person
01:02:18.660 rather unpleasant,
01:02:20.080 you might say,
01:02:20.960 in his personal habits.
01:02:22.400 Like, seriously unpleasant.
01:02:24.680 And so, but here's our conundrum.
01:02:28.300 So, in the story of Noah,
01:02:32.960 Noah is described as a man
01:02:34.700 who's good in his generation.
01:02:36.680 And it seems to mean something like
01:02:38.720 for his time and place,
01:02:40.880 he was a good man.
01:02:42.420 And there might be men
01:02:44.000 that are so good
01:02:44.720 that their goodness
01:02:45.380 transcends their time and place.
01:02:47.640 And I think we remember
01:02:48.720 men like that.
01:02:49.740 But the typical amount
01:02:51.120 of goodness
01:02:51.560 that you could expect
01:02:52.500 from someone
01:02:53.020 is that for their time
01:02:54.000 and place, they're good.
01:02:55.560 Okay, so now,
01:02:56.560 the temptation would be
01:02:57.720 for us to look back
01:02:58.820 into history
01:02:59.500 to great figures of the past
01:03:01.300 and to say,
01:03:02.000 we understand
01:03:03.540 what wasn't good,
01:03:05.380 even if we misunderstand it,
01:03:06.680 about their time and place.
01:03:07.820 And then to say,
01:03:08.560 well, those people weren't good
01:03:10.320 and we should,
01:03:11.740 we are now morally superior to them
01:03:13.580 and we can remove
01:03:14.880 the detritus from our past.
01:03:16.240 We can tear down
01:03:16.880 the statues, for example.
01:03:18.120 Sure.
01:03:18.320 It's happening in Canada.
01:03:19.400 We're going to tear down
01:03:20.500 the statues of John A. MacDonald,
01:03:22.200 who was the founding
01:03:22.860 prime minister of Canada.
01:03:24.080 And we point to his inadequacies
01:03:26.080 as a person.
01:03:27.180 Okay, so.
01:03:27.620 Sure.
01:03:27.720 Churchill.
01:03:28.580 Sure, absolutely.
01:03:30.120 Churchill's a great example.
01:03:31.400 And that sort of thing
01:03:32.060 is happening all over the U.S.
01:03:33.280 Right.
01:03:33.580 Now,
01:03:34.500 how do you know
01:03:36.540 that
01:03:38.500 the leftist
01:03:40.340 criticism of your critique
01:03:43.620 would be something like,
01:03:44.620 has to be something like,
01:03:46.660 you have to separate
01:03:47.760 the man,
01:03:48.640 the works from the man.
01:03:50.700 Okay.
01:03:51.660 And I have some sympathy
01:03:53.920 for that because
01:03:54.760 because there are,
01:03:56.720 like,
01:03:57.260 Picasso's a good example.
01:03:59.160 And Picasso,
01:04:00.580 by any measure,
01:04:02.500 was a remarkable artist
01:04:03.940 and unbelievably productive.
01:04:05.960 He produced three
01:04:07.140 pieces of art a day
01:04:08.800 for 65 years.
01:04:10.620 Right?
01:04:10.940 I can't remember
01:04:11.560 how many tens of thousands
01:04:12.540 of pieces.
01:04:13.100 It's some insane number.
01:04:14.700 And was revolutionary
01:04:16.040 in that manner.
01:04:16.740 But by the way,
01:04:17.920 the left will not separate
01:04:19.440 the accomplishments
01:04:21.060 of the man
01:04:21.900 from the personal life
01:04:23.120 of the man
01:04:23.480 when it comes to people
01:04:24.500 they don't like.
01:04:25.020 Yes, I know.
01:04:25.780 I know,
01:04:26.420 but how do you...
01:04:26.980 They're very selective.
01:04:28.020 Okay,
01:04:28.300 but how do you,
01:04:30.100 as an academic,
01:04:32.060 you can imagine
01:04:33.260 that there should be
01:04:34.420 some separation
01:04:35.200 between the products
01:04:36.720 of thought
01:04:37.580 and the personality
01:04:38.680 of the person.
01:04:39.540 Right.
01:04:39.680 Okay,
01:04:39.880 so are you concerned
01:04:41.920 about that
01:04:42.560 in relationship
01:04:43.760 to your critique
01:04:44.640 of Marx and Marxism?
01:04:47.060 No,
01:04:47.200 it's a great question.
01:04:48.220 And by the way,
01:04:49.580 in case we don't get to it,
01:04:51.960 people should know
01:04:53.020 Marx's views on race,
01:04:54.460 especially toward black people.
01:04:56.420 I mean,
01:04:56.900 he had hideous views
01:04:58.760 toward black people.
01:05:00.200 All stuff
01:05:00.800 that should get him canceled.
01:05:02.080 I don't believe
01:05:02.700 in canceling anybody.
01:05:04.320 But the things
01:05:05.080 that the left
01:05:05.600 is willing to cancel
01:05:06.680 this or that
01:05:07.680 American figure on
01:05:08.640 because of maybe
01:05:09.240 a statement about race
01:05:10.300 or somebody who owns slaves.
01:05:11.760 I mean,
01:05:12.220 what Marx said
01:05:12.960 about black people
01:05:13.740 is unbelievable.
01:05:14.520 You'll be reading letters
01:05:15.320 in German
01:05:15.880 between Marx and Engels
01:05:17.620 and all of a sudden
01:05:18.340 the N-word pops up.
01:05:20.340 You know,
01:05:20.480 the American English
01:05:22.300 racial epithet,
01:05:23.960 you know,
01:05:24.120 N-I-G-G.
01:05:25.000 It's not like the German word
01:05:26.260 for Negro or black.
01:05:27.480 It's like,
01:05:27.800 whoa,
01:05:27.980 look at that.
01:05:29.120 And they were,
01:05:30.660 in fact,
01:05:31.240 his daughter
01:05:32.300 was married
01:05:32.980 to a guy named
01:05:35.180 Paul Lafargue
01:05:36.040 who was,
01:05:37.440 I guess,
01:05:37.820 partly Cuban
01:05:38.580 to some degree.
01:05:39.580 And Marx and Engels
01:05:40.340 are sitting there
01:05:40.880 trying to figure out
01:05:41.640 in a letter
01:05:42.080 deducing with scientific
01:05:43.860 accuracy
01:05:44.580 how much N-word
01:05:46.140 blood
01:05:46.740 is in his veins.
01:05:48.040 Is it one-eighth?
01:05:48.760 Is it one-twelfth?
01:05:50.000 And they called him
01:05:51.420 Negrillo,
01:05:52.360 the gorilla.
01:05:53.440 And they made fun of him
01:05:54.560 because he was black.
01:05:55.440 And there's a letter
01:05:55.920 from Engels
01:05:56.400 to Marx's daughter
01:05:57.380 who says something like,
01:05:58.380 oh,
01:05:58.520 here he's running
01:05:59.140 for office
01:05:59.900 in this district
01:06:00.760 in Paris.
01:06:01.600 Well,
01:06:01.860 it contains a zoo
01:06:02.860 as somebody
01:06:04.780 who's,
01:06:06.220 he should be
01:06:06.880 a perfect representative
01:06:07.860 of that district
01:06:08.500 being somebody
01:06:09.360 who's just
01:06:10.140 closer to the apes
01:06:13.100 and the monkeys
01:06:13.660 than we are.
01:06:16.680 Ferdinand LaSalle,
01:06:17.660 who they refer to
01:06:18.280 as the Jewish N-word,
01:06:19.860 they're looking
01:06:20.280 at his cranial capacity
01:06:22.180 and all kinds of,
01:06:23.260 so,
01:06:23.580 I mean,
01:06:23.880 very,
01:06:24.480 very racist.
01:06:25.420 If Patrice Cullors,
01:06:26.640 one of the founders
01:06:27.260 of Black Lives Matter
01:06:28.380 who calls herself
01:06:29.160 a Marxist,
01:06:30.240 knew what Marx
01:06:30.800 said about race,
01:06:31.760 she'd probably
01:06:32.200 call herself,
01:06:32.820 I don't know,
01:06:33.100 maybe a communist,
01:06:33.780 but she probably
01:06:34.680 shouldn't call herself
01:06:35.340 a Marxist.
01:06:36.600 But in Marx's case,
01:06:37.920 to get to your question,
01:06:39.500 the personal,
01:06:41.540 what he believed
01:06:43.000 in his writings
01:06:43.640 and his ideas
01:06:44.500 and the world
01:06:45.500 that he wanted
01:06:46.120 is in fact
01:06:47.240 an extension
01:06:48.000 of his personal life.
01:06:50.020 So it's a fascinating
01:06:50.980 example of where
01:06:52.280 what he wanted
01:06:54.100 in public
01:06:54.960 very much
01:06:56.420 is reflective
01:06:56.960 of what he believed
01:06:57.820 in private.
01:06:58.560 Yeah.
01:06:58.940 Because communism,
01:07:00.580 again,
01:07:00.940 people read,
01:07:02.000 actually sit down
01:07:02.960 and read the manifesto,
01:07:04.600 okay?
01:07:05.340 I mean,
01:07:05.800 they actually call
01:07:07.720 for the forcible
01:07:09.340 overthrow
01:07:10.020 of all existing
01:07:11.680 conditions.
01:07:12.240 That's an actual
01:07:12.980 phrase.
01:07:14.240 That's in the
01:07:15.080 next to the last
01:07:17.200 paragraph.
01:07:17.460 Well,
01:07:17.500 the problem is
01:07:18.440 that for many people
01:07:19.660 that wouldn't be shocking.
01:07:21.580 It would actually
01:07:22.160 be admirable.
01:07:23.420 Right?
01:07:23.800 Yes.
01:07:23.900 Well,
01:07:24.200 seriously,
01:07:24.780 because what we tend
01:07:26.880 to think is that
01:07:27.760 if the excesses
01:07:29.640 of the real revolutionaries
01:07:31.840 were revealed,
01:07:32.960 that people would be
01:07:34.160 less attracted to them,
01:07:35.480 and I'm less
01:07:36.320 optimistic about that,
01:07:38.320 because if people
01:07:39.480 can regard Lucifer
01:07:40.660 himself as an
01:07:41.620 admirable rebel,
01:07:42.600 then the overreach
01:07:44.340 of the revolutionaries
01:07:45.400 is actually an
01:07:46.100 attractive part
01:07:46.900 of their fervor.
01:07:47.860 Right?
01:07:48.760 Because you're
01:07:49.480 hypothesizing something
01:07:50.760 like an overarching
01:07:52.000 reason that you
01:07:53.400 could just appeal to
01:07:54.520 by contrast,
01:07:56.220 and that that would
01:07:56.760 do the trick.
01:07:57.400 It's like,
01:07:58.040 it isn't,
01:07:58.640 it isn't,
01:07:59.620 I think that the
01:08:02.260 degree to which,
01:08:03.140 for example,
01:08:03.600 the real radical
01:08:04.460 protesters that are
01:08:05.660 burning down cities
01:08:06.500 aren't aiming at
01:08:07.680 burning down the cities
01:08:08.680 is highly questionable.
01:08:09.820 Yeah,
01:08:10.080 yeah.
01:08:10.320 Right.
01:08:10.600 Yeah,
01:08:10.720 so to actually go down
01:08:11.680 and to go down
01:08:12.820 into the village square
01:08:13.900 and just rip down
01:08:15.640 the statue,
01:08:16.760 right?
01:08:17.040 To go up and down
01:08:18.280 the California coast
01:08:19.560 to all the missions
01:08:20.480 that were founded
01:08:21.220 by St.
01:08:22.360 Junipero Serra,
01:08:23.640 who,
01:08:23.800 by the way,
01:08:23.920 was canonized by
01:08:24.720 Pope Francis,
01:08:25.360 of all people,
01:08:26.080 right?
01:08:26.340 To go to every
01:08:27.140 single mission
01:08:27.980 and tear them down,
01:08:29.540 right?
01:08:29.880 Every single,
01:08:30.220 so what are you
01:08:30.880 tearing down?
01:08:31.480 Yeah,
01:08:31.780 right.
01:08:32.000 Do you even know
01:08:32.420 who this guy,
01:08:32.900 and what are you
01:08:33.340 trying to put in place?
01:08:34.280 That's right.
01:08:34.940 Certainly you.
01:08:37.420 And in many cases,
01:08:39.040 they seem to be
01:08:40.020 tearing down
01:08:40.660 for the sake
01:08:41.200 of tearing down.
01:08:41.920 Yes,
01:08:41.960 absolutely.
01:08:42.700 And so this quote
01:08:43.540 from Marx
01:08:44.080 would go right into this.
01:08:45.140 This is in the next
01:08:45.820 to the last paragraph
01:08:46.640 of the manifesto.
01:08:48.620 They,
01:08:49.300 the communists,
01:08:50.600 openly declare,
01:08:51.980 this is an amazing
01:08:52.820 statement,
01:08:53.640 that their ends
01:08:54.740 can be attained
01:08:55.700 only by the
01:08:57.580 forcible overthrow
01:08:58.920 of all existing
01:09:00.320 social conditions.
01:09:02.120 So their ends
01:09:02.780 can be attained
01:09:03.680 only,
01:09:04.520 only by the
01:09:05.920 forcible overthrow
01:09:07.400 of all existing
01:09:09.060 social conditions.
01:09:09.900 And by the way,
01:09:10.880 I don't even know,
01:09:12.080 find me a leftist
01:09:13.000 who wants to
01:09:13.780 overthrow
01:09:14.520 absolutely everything.
01:09:16.660 I mean,
01:09:17.080 certainly there,
01:09:17.800 you know,
01:09:17.960 you can name
01:09:18.440 some things
01:09:19.200 you'd like to keep,
01:09:20.340 right?
01:09:21.140 This guy wanted
01:09:22.460 everything
01:09:23.700 to be overthrown.
01:09:24.220 Well,
01:09:24.460 it's worse than that.
01:09:25.580 So this isn't just
01:09:26.320 about spreading
01:09:26.960 the wealth
01:09:27.460 and redistribution.
01:09:28.100 This is about
01:09:28.440 forcibly overthrowing
01:09:29.700 everything.
01:09:30.780 Well,
01:09:31.200 there's two elements
01:09:31.900 of that,
01:09:32.400 three elements
01:09:32.900 of that
01:09:33.220 that are appalling,
01:09:34.540 right?
01:09:34.940 And it's difficult
01:09:35.420 to differentiate
01:09:36.280 the one that's
01:09:37.860 most appalling.
01:09:38.660 First,
01:09:39.060 that it's everything.
01:09:40.020 So it's like
01:09:41.860 a parody
01:09:42.320 of omniscience
01:09:43.220 and omnipresence
01:09:44.660 and omnipotence.
01:09:45.760 It's everything.
01:09:46.660 Okay.
01:09:47.260 Second,
01:09:48.360 it's,
01:09:49.440 so it's everything
01:09:51.660 two.
01:09:53.620 Let's go for two.
01:09:55.260 It's also not
01:09:56.480 a consequence
01:09:57.240 of a critique,
01:09:58.720 right?
01:09:59.260 And it's not
01:10:00.020 invitational,
01:10:01.120 right?
01:10:01.940 It's forcible.
01:10:02.920 Right,
01:10:03.080 right.
01:10:03.200 That's right.
01:10:03.780 So not only
01:10:04.680 do you have
01:10:05.140 the worship
01:10:05.600 of destruction
01:10:06.280 and utter destruction,
01:10:07.840 you have the worship
01:10:08.880 of power,
01:10:09.880 right?
01:10:10.280 Now,
01:10:10.460 you remember
01:10:10.960 when Christ
01:10:13.040 is out in the desert
01:10:14.020 and tempted
01:10:15.240 by Satan
01:10:15.880 after the 40 days
01:10:17.080 of isolation,
01:10:19.060 after the baptism,
01:10:20.720 that the third
01:10:22.060 temptation of Satan,
01:10:23.860 which is,
01:10:24.380 I would say,
01:10:25.000 the ultimate temptation,
01:10:26.820 is one of power.
01:10:28.340 Right,
01:10:28.920 now,
01:10:29.300 it's very interesting.
01:10:30.120 You're going to have all of this.
01:10:30.820 Right,
01:10:30.980 right.
01:10:31.260 It's straightforward power.
01:10:33.660 And that's the temptation
01:10:35.460 that Moses falls prey to
01:10:37.360 continually in his work
01:10:38.680 as the Exodus leader
01:10:40.740 as well.
01:10:41.380 It's why he doesn't get
01:10:42.160 into the promised land.
01:10:43.080 Like,
01:10:43.620 there's a very strict,
01:10:45.940 and it's something
01:10:46.580 that Christ himself
01:10:47.440 forswears utterly.
01:10:49.220 No force.
01:10:50.300 No force.
01:10:50.900 Right.
01:10:51.080 Regardless of the provocation.
01:10:52.700 Yeah.
01:10:53.080 Now,
01:10:53.400 what you have here
01:10:54.220 in this doctrine
01:10:55.600 that you just described
01:10:56.600 is not only
01:10:57.260 the desire
01:10:58.100 for universal destruction,
01:11:00.240 which,
01:11:00.720 as you pointed out,
01:11:01.600 is part and parcel
01:11:03.460 of Marx's celebration
01:11:05.180 of Goethe's
01:11:07.080 Mephistophelian doctrine,
01:11:10.900 but also allied
01:11:12.280 with worship of power itself.
01:11:13.860 Right.
01:11:14.080 Because otherwise,
01:11:14.860 why the forcible?
01:11:15.860 Right.
01:11:16.020 Because he could have written
01:11:16.840 the overthrow of everything.
01:11:18.080 That's right.
01:11:18.480 And that could happen
01:11:19.220 at the level of idea.
01:11:20.480 Yeah.
01:11:20.640 And of course...
01:11:21.240 Or even the phrase
01:11:22.020 the end,
01:11:22.800 right?
01:11:23.400 It can only be attained
01:11:24.720 with the end of all...
01:11:27.720 Right.
01:11:28.040 Yeah.
01:11:28.500 But no,
01:11:28.820 they want the forcible overthrow.
01:11:30.640 Right.
01:11:30.980 Which begs the question.
01:11:32.100 That means force.
01:11:32.640 So what is it that you want?
01:11:34.740 Do you want the end state
01:11:36.060 where everything's raised
01:11:37.020 to the ground
01:11:37.500 so that you have
01:11:38.100 a new beginning?
01:11:38.860 Or do you want
01:11:39.660 all the absolutely
01:11:41.360 satanic pleasure
01:11:43.460 of the act
01:11:44.760 of forcible destruction?
01:11:45.900 Right, right.
01:11:46.080 And I would say
01:11:46.860 if you spend any time
01:11:48.760 at all
01:11:49.200 analyzing the history
01:11:50.580 of Stalinist Soviet Union,
01:11:53.560 including the Leninist period
01:11:54.920 for that matter,
01:11:56.860 what you see fundamentally
01:11:58.560 is a celebration
01:12:00.940 of sadistic devastation.
01:12:03.620 Right?
01:12:03.860 That's the fundamental ethos.
01:12:06.060 That's the fundamental goal.
01:12:07.500 Now,
01:12:07.800 the flag-waving about
01:12:08.900 the new utopia
01:12:10.380 that's going to be created
01:12:11.300 in the future,
01:12:11.920 that's all cover story.
01:12:13.380 Right.
01:12:13.560 That's all camouflage.
01:12:14.660 Sure.
01:12:14.920 The actual worship is...
01:12:16.740 Because the things
01:12:17.480 that happened
01:12:18.040 in those communist countries
01:12:20.380 are so appalling
01:12:21.520 that...
01:12:21.920 Yeah, it's unbelievable.
01:12:22.340 Well,
01:12:22.520 that people won't
01:12:23.160 pay any attention to them
01:12:24.060 because they're too much
01:12:25.600 to even contemplate.
01:12:27.260 Right, right.
01:12:27.760 And so,
01:12:28.420 no one wants to know
01:12:29.380 anything about them.
01:12:30.360 But it seems to me
01:12:31.900 that the point
01:12:34.080 of dancing naked
01:12:36.600 and triumphantly
01:12:38.240 in the smoking runes,
01:12:40.200 that's fundamentally the point.
01:12:42.040 And if you happen
01:12:42.600 to be jumping up
01:12:43.820 and down
01:12:44.160 on the bodies
01:12:44.720 of your enemies
01:12:45.460 and the toppled statues
01:12:47.820 of your culture,
01:12:49.480 so much the better.
01:12:50.980 And wondering
01:12:51.860 how it goes,
01:12:53.080 how the personal matters
01:12:54.420 with like the public, right?
01:12:55.940 Okay,
01:12:56.320 the end of his manifesto
01:12:58.880 calls for the forcible overthrow
01:13:01.000 of everything that exists.
01:13:02.200 So,
01:13:02.440 that's an actual
01:13:03.360 policy prescription
01:13:04.740 at the end, right?
01:13:06.180 We're going to forcibly
01:13:06.960 overthrow everything
01:13:07.820 that exists.
01:13:08.820 And as we saw
01:13:09.400 in the private,
01:13:10.260 that's what he believes
01:13:11.080 in his life,
01:13:11.960 in the poetry.
01:13:13.400 So,
01:13:13.620 you see it in the poetry.
01:13:14.800 So,
01:13:15.000 you see one directly
01:13:16.320 leads to the other.
01:13:17.420 His hatred of religion,
01:13:19.200 right?
01:13:19.460 Communism begins
01:13:20.360 where atheism begins.
01:13:21.940 The famous line,
01:13:23.960 the opiate of the masses,
01:13:25.160 right?
01:13:25.560 That full quote,
01:13:26.760 a lot of people,
01:13:27.440 I've heard people say
01:13:28.140 from time to time,
01:13:29.200 well,
01:13:29.520 I kind of see
01:13:30.160 what he's getting at there.
01:13:31.300 Yeah.
01:13:31.560 Religion can be like
01:13:32.520 a sort of drug
01:13:33.880 for people,
01:13:34.760 right?
01:13:34.920 Yeah.
01:13:35.200 Maybe like a placebo,
01:13:36.800 maybe like a crutch.
01:13:38.140 But if you read
01:13:38.860 that whole line,
01:13:40.700 religion is the sigh
01:13:42.640 of the oppressed creature.
01:13:44.540 It is,
01:13:44.920 it is the heart
01:13:46.620 of a heartless world.
01:13:48.360 It is the soul
01:13:49.380 of soulless conditions.
01:13:51.520 It is the opium
01:13:52.660 of the people.
01:13:53.860 And then Lenin
01:13:54.420 picked that up
01:13:55.040 and said,
01:13:55.740 yeah,
01:13:56.060 like Marx said,
01:13:57.280 religion is the opium
01:13:58.600 of the masses.
01:13:59.260 It is a kind
01:14:00.040 of spiritual booze.
01:14:02.340 It is medieval mildew.
01:14:04.620 There is nothing
01:14:05.560 more abominable
01:14:06.760 than religion.
01:14:07.960 And so,
01:14:08.360 what does that mean?
01:14:09.240 Damn it,
01:14:09.660 that means we're going
01:14:10.360 to shut down
01:14:11.040 the churches,
01:14:11.880 right?
01:14:12.280 And we're going
01:14:13.040 to put them in jail
01:14:14.120 and we're going
01:14:15.040 to be an officially
01:14:15.800 atheistic country.
01:14:16.900 We're going to create
01:14:17.400 a league of the militant
01:14:18.500 godless.
01:14:19.020 You're not going
01:14:20.000 to be allowed
01:14:20.460 to be a religious person.
01:14:22.480 So,
01:14:22.640 the private thoughts
01:14:24.040 are actually being implemented
01:14:25.640 and acted out.
01:14:27.360 Well,
01:14:27.540 the other thing too
01:14:28.240 about that phrase
01:14:29.240 is it's actually a lie.
01:14:31.460 And it's a lie
01:14:32.520 in two ways.
01:14:33.340 So,
01:14:33.760 there's a Canadian
01:14:34.400 philosopher,
01:14:35.620 Taylor,
01:14:36.560 who wrote about this
01:14:37.720 in a book he wrote
01:14:38.420 on identity.
01:14:39.660 And he pointed out
01:14:40.820 that the medieval
01:14:43.460 fear of hell
01:14:44.720 was at least
01:14:46.420 the equal
01:14:47.020 of the medieval
01:14:47.800 fear of death.
01:14:49.320 Okay,
01:14:49.560 so that begs
01:14:50.340 a question.
01:14:51.340 It's like,
01:14:51.880 if your religion
01:14:53.040 is an opium,
01:14:55.520 then why isn't
01:14:57.100 it just all
01:14:57.680 smiley faces
01:14:58.420 and fun?
01:14:59.800 Yeah.
01:14:59.980 Right?
01:15:00.260 Well,
01:15:00.900 hell is a really
01:15:01.760 good start.
01:15:02.520 It's like,
01:15:03.240 and you know,
01:15:03.760 the cynics might say,
01:15:04.860 well,
01:15:05.080 hell is a convenient
01:15:05.860 place to put
01:15:06.580 those you hate.
01:15:07.560 But that's,
01:15:08.340 you have to be
01:15:09.100 cynical and naive
01:15:10.760 and stupid
01:15:11.440 to come up
01:15:12.220 with that theory
01:15:12.820 because you're
01:15:14.200 a fool
01:15:14.660 if you think
01:15:15.440 that the fear
01:15:16.240 of hell
01:15:16.880 was anything
01:15:17.900 but real
01:15:18.640 among the believers
01:15:20.780 in those periods
01:15:22.000 of time
01:15:22.400 where the reality
01:15:23.660 of hell
01:15:24.000 was amplified.
01:15:25.420 They were terrified
01:15:26.160 of that.
01:15:26.940 Right?
01:15:27.260 And so,
01:15:27.800 what are you going
01:15:29.040 to do?
01:15:29.320 You're going to do
01:15:29.720 something convoluted
01:15:30.580 like,
01:15:30.880 well,
01:15:30.980 you have to
01:15:31.600 leave in the opium
01:15:32.760 with a bit of terror
01:15:34.100 so that it becomes
01:15:35.200 believable enough
01:15:36.420 to be a soporific.
01:15:38.400 It's like,
01:15:38.820 hey man,
01:15:39.680 your theory's getting
01:15:40.340 a little convoluted
01:15:41.200 at that point.
01:15:41.940 It's like,
01:15:43.060 why bother with hell?
01:15:44.640 And so,
01:15:45.240 that to me,
01:15:46.240 and it's the same
01:15:46.920 with the Freudian critique,
01:15:48.080 you know,
01:15:48.340 that it's a form
01:15:49.900 of immaturity
01:15:50.620 and over-reliance
01:15:51.900 on a benevolent father.
01:15:53.080 It's like,
01:15:53.460 well,
01:15:53.580 the father isn't
01:15:54.240 all benevolent.
01:15:55.280 There's hell.
01:15:56.100 Right.
01:15:56.260 And so,
01:15:56.580 you better watch
01:15:57.520 your step.
01:15:58.520 Yeah.
01:15:58.820 And part of that
01:15:59.980 is implemented
01:16:00.800 by terror.
01:16:02.000 And then,
01:16:02.560 there's more to it
01:16:03.340 than that too.
01:16:03.480 And Jesus said,
01:16:04.100 you want to follow me?
01:16:04.800 Pick up your cross.
01:16:05.420 Well,
01:16:05.580 that's the next thing.
01:16:06.700 It's like,
01:16:07.260 okay,
01:16:07.900 so,
01:16:08.720 we have Christ,
01:16:09.600 the happy-faced God
01:16:11.040 who asks people only
01:16:13.080 to believe
01:16:13.800 that everything is good
01:16:15.060 and there's no price
01:16:16.380 to be paid for that.
01:16:17.640 No,
01:16:18.060 that's not,
01:16:18.460 that's exactly,
01:16:19.580 that couldn't be
01:16:20.580 a bigger lie
01:16:21.420 because there isn't
01:16:22.600 a larger sacrifice
01:16:23.900 that is possible
01:16:25.120 than the one
01:16:26.180 that the founder
01:16:27.700 of Christianity
01:16:28.400 required of himself
01:16:29.920 and his followers.
01:16:31.060 There's nothing in that,
01:16:32.180 in the least,
01:16:32.920 that's opiate.
01:16:33.880 Now,
01:16:34.120 you might say,
01:16:34.680 well,
01:16:34.780 the happy thought
01:16:35.480 that you go to heaven
01:16:36.240 when you die
01:16:37.000 is the opiate.
01:16:38.600 It's like,
01:16:39.020 well,
01:16:40.220 wait a second.
01:16:41.500 First of all,
01:16:42.240 that only happens
01:16:43.020 if you've actually
01:16:44.140 lived a good life
01:16:45.460 and the cost
01:16:46.740 of not doing that
01:16:47.720 is,
01:16:48.160 well,
01:16:48.380 now we're back
01:16:49.240 to the hell problem.
01:16:50.220 So,
01:16:50.580 I don't buy
01:16:51.760 the Freudian interpretation
01:16:54.200 that it's all,
01:16:55.720 you know,
01:16:56.040 immature dependence
01:16:56.860 on the heavenly father,
01:16:58.580 so to speak,
01:16:59.140 and I certainly don't buy
01:17:00.480 the Marxist doctrine
01:17:01.320 that there's anything
01:17:02.120 about it that's opiate.
01:17:03.280 Now,
01:17:03.740 you could say
01:17:04.680 any naive person
01:17:07.220 and any person
01:17:08.260 looking for
01:17:09.200 unearned security
01:17:11.220 could take any doctrine
01:17:13.120 and use it
01:17:14.040 as a security blanket.
01:17:15.580 And I think
01:17:16.060 there's some truth in that,
01:17:17.020 but boy,
01:17:17.400 if you don't think
01:17:17.900 that applies
01:17:18.440 to radical leftism
01:17:19.600 as much as it applies
01:17:20.500 to Christianity,
01:17:21.860 far more than it applies
01:17:23.940 to Christianity,
01:17:24.580 you're not thinking
01:17:25.760 in the least.
01:17:27.060 I mean,
01:17:27.340 what you see
01:17:27.880 with the radical leftists
01:17:29.020 on campus now
01:17:29.860 is that they make
01:17:30.980 the presumption
01:17:31.540 that all the leftists
01:17:32.960 theorizing
01:17:33.520 is predicated on
01:17:34.580 an admirable compassion.
01:17:36.540 It's like,
01:17:36.860 well,
01:17:37.100 if you want an opiate,
01:17:38.400 there's one.
01:17:39.120 Right.
01:17:39.740 Hyper simplification,
01:17:41.200 pathological hyper simplification
01:17:42.860 that's morally self-serving
01:17:44.440 and dangerous
01:17:45.660 beyond belief.
01:17:46.680 Right, right.
01:17:47.260 So,
01:17:47.920 and Marx said,
01:17:48.940 I was just looking
01:17:49.360 for the quote right now
01:17:50.200 and I couldn't find it,
01:17:51.380 but one of his criticisms
01:17:53.180 of Christianity later
01:17:54.340 was he said
01:17:55.380 it preaches cowardice,
01:17:58.380 self-contempt,
01:17:59.760 self-abasement,
01:18:00.860 self-sacrifice.
01:18:02.420 It's like,
01:18:02.780 well,
01:18:02.980 yeah.
01:18:03.300 I don't know
01:18:04.680 if it preaches cowardice,
01:18:05.940 but it preaches self-sacrifice.
01:18:07.960 those things don't go
01:18:08.780 in the same category.
01:18:09.600 Right, exactly.
01:18:10.320 No,
01:18:10.480 they certainly don't.
01:18:11.300 I know,
01:18:11.560 but Christ did,
01:18:12.520 didn't lack courage.
01:18:13.960 Right.
01:18:14.260 Right?
01:18:14.960 But for Mark,
01:18:16.240 it was about
01:18:16.900 the self,
01:18:18.140 selfishness.
01:18:19.440 And in fact,
01:18:20.620 that moment
01:18:21.420 where the devil
01:18:23.200 is tempting Christ,
01:18:24.480 right,
01:18:24.900 and Christ says to him,
01:18:26.980 man does not live
01:18:27.820 on bread alone.
01:18:28.380 Yes,
01:18:28.800 yes,
01:18:29.300 yes.
01:18:29.660 The Marxist
01:18:30.680 actually acts
01:18:31.660 as if man
01:18:32.200 does live
01:18:32.700 on bread alone.
01:18:33.320 Precisely.
01:18:33.840 And they believe
01:18:35.400 that if you solve
01:18:36.160 the economic problem,
01:18:37.640 if you solve
01:18:38.240 the class problem,
01:18:39.580 I mean,
01:18:39.840 that's the key
01:18:40.380 to your utopia
01:18:41.120 right there.
01:18:42.220 It's as if,
01:18:42.920 you know,
01:18:43.100 Augustine said,
01:18:44.220 we have a God-shaped
01:18:45.340 vacuum in each of us,
01:18:47.000 right?
01:18:47.460 But he didn't say
01:18:48.120 we have a dollar-shaped
01:18:49.120 vacuum in each of us,
01:18:50.180 but the communists,
01:18:50.960 they act as if
01:18:51.740 we have a dollar-shaped vacuum.
01:18:52.380 Yeah,
01:18:52.600 I know,
01:18:52.940 that's one of the other
01:18:53.860 things that's so perverse
01:18:54.920 about the communists
01:18:55.800 is that although
01:18:56.740 hypothetically
01:18:57.800 they're anti-capitalist,
01:18:59.300 they believe that
01:19:00.180 there's an economic
01:19:01.080 solution to every problem.
01:19:02.500 Exactly.
01:19:02.840 Yeah,
01:19:02.980 it's so perverse.
01:19:04.260 Yeah,
01:19:04.560 so the communists
01:19:05.300 and the leftists
01:19:05.920 will say all the time,
01:19:07.060 oh,
01:19:07.260 you capitalists,
01:19:08.020 all you guys
01:19:08.440 care about money.
01:19:09.400 No,
01:19:09.700 Karl Marx,
01:19:10.500 all you care about
01:19:11.640 is money.
01:19:12.500 I mean,
01:19:12.840 all you care about
01:19:13.780 is the material world.
01:19:15.560 It's like they're
01:19:16.120 fashioning their golden calf
01:19:17.820 out of money and capital.
01:19:19.660 They just think that
01:19:20.380 if you redistribute wealth,
01:19:22.260 if you can level the classes,
01:19:23.740 if everybody has equal income,
01:19:25.860 right,
01:19:26.180 that that's your key
01:19:27.560 to utopia,
01:19:28.400 right?
01:19:28.580 They think man does
01:19:29.520 live by bread alone.
01:19:30.480 Yes,
01:19:30.740 definitely.
01:19:31.400 But we don't,
01:19:32.860 right?
01:19:33.160 So they're alpha
01:19:33.920 and omega
01:19:34.580 is the economic problem.
01:19:36.500 Yeah.
01:19:39.140 Pope Benedict XVI
01:19:40.500 said the,
01:19:41.840 you know,
01:19:42.300 the problem
01:19:43.860 with the communists,
01:19:44.800 it's not the communism
01:19:45.500 failed even so much
01:19:46.880 economically,
01:19:48.100 though it did,
01:19:48.740 philosophically,
01:19:49.600 though it didn't,
01:19:50.460 but anthropologically.
01:19:51.700 They fail to understand
01:19:53.120 human nature.
01:19:53.820 Yeah.
01:19:54.200 They fail to understand
01:19:55.380 people.
01:19:56.460 And to just think that,
01:19:57.940 and they put it
01:19:58.960 this simplistically
01:20:00.520 in the communist manifesto,
01:20:01.880 people say all the time,
01:20:02.740 give me a,
01:20:03.560 give me a one sentence
01:20:04.640 definition of communism.
01:20:06.300 Okay,
01:20:06.620 that's easy
01:20:07.180 because Marx and Engels
01:20:08.100 did it.
01:20:08.800 They said the entire
01:20:09.760 communist theory
01:20:10.940 or program
01:20:11.820 may be summed up
01:20:12.800 in the single sentence.
01:20:14.080 Four words.
01:20:15.160 Abolition of private property.
01:20:17.560 Abolition of private property.
01:20:19.120 They think that
01:20:20.020 if you could abolish
01:20:22.100 private property,
01:20:23.180 this is the beginning
01:20:24.260 of the key
01:20:24.740 to your utopia
01:20:25.440 of all things.
01:20:26.220 And that the utopia
01:20:27.140 is entirely materialistic.
01:20:29.400 Right.
01:20:29.780 That's right.
01:20:30.040 So one of the things
01:20:30.580 that I found
01:20:31.240 particularly striking
01:20:32.400 about Dostoevsky,
01:20:34.100 especially in
01:20:35.160 Notes from Underground,
01:20:36.660 is he...
01:20:37.020 Speaking of devils
01:20:37.540 and demons.
01:20:38.260 Yeah.
01:20:38.580 Yeah.
01:20:38.920 Well, right.
01:20:39.440 Absolutely.
01:20:40.420 He put his finger
01:20:42.160 on the fundamental flaw
01:20:43.220 in the communist doctrine
01:20:44.960 before I think
01:20:46.820 it was probably
01:20:47.680 even expressed
01:20:48.580 by Marx,
01:20:49.240 at least popularly expressed.
01:20:50.520 I don't exactly know
01:20:51.440 when Notes from Underground
01:20:52.340 was written,
01:20:52.880 but I don't believe
01:20:54.180 that Dostoevsky
01:20:56.320 had any direct knowledge
01:20:57.640 of Marx at that point.
01:20:59.100 Now, I'm not certain
01:21:00.080 of that.
01:21:00.380 It doesn't matter
01:21:00.940 because the ideas
01:21:01.580 were in the air anyways.
01:21:02.820 Yeah, they were.
01:21:03.320 But one of the things
01:21:05.960 that Dostoevsky points out
01:21:07.300 in the Notes from Underground,
01:21:09.260 which is so brilliant,
01:21:10.360 is that he has this bitter,
01:21:12.480 resentful,
01:21:13.040 underground character
01:21:13.940 point out that
01:21:15.340 if you did provide
01:21:17.140 human beings
01:21:17.900 with the materialist utopia
01:21:19.540 that Marx promoted,
01:21:22.880 so that,
01:21:24.580 Dostoevsky says,
01:21:25.520 so that they had
01:21:26.120 nothing to do
01:21:26.800 but lie in warm pools
01:21:29.100 of bubbling water
01:21:30.440 and eat cakes
01:21:32.440 and busy themselves
01:21:33.480 with the continuation
01:21:34.320 of the species
01:21:35.360 that the people
01:21:37.280 so benefited
01:21:40.060 would promptly
01:21:42.360 go insane enough
01:21:43.300 to smash it all to bits
01:21:44.500 just to have something
01:21:45.540 interesting to do.
01:21:46.820 Now, he phrases it
01:21:48.020 more bitterly
01:21:48.700 because he phrases it
01:21:50.120 as a form of ingratitude,
01:21:51.440 but there's a point there.
01:21:52.320 And the point is that
01:21:53.340 it is the point
01:21:54.320 that man does not live
01:21:55.480 by bread alone.
01:21:57.520 That Dostoevsky—
01:21:58.540 Put in every word
01:21:58.960 from the mouth of God.
01:22:00.280 Right, right.
01:22:00.740 Well, Dostoevsky understood
01:22:02.120 that we were built
01:22:03.140 for something more
01:22:04.080 than infantile satiation,
01:22:05.740 right?
01:22:06.120 Yes, yes.
01:22:06.560 And for more than
01:22:08.580 hedonistic satiation.
01:22:10.500 And I would say
01:22:11.540 the Marxists
01:22:12.360 ally very nicely
01:22:13.660 with the infantile hedonists
01:22:15.740 because both of them
01:22:17.200 presume that
01:22:17.880 the mere satiation
01:22:19.320 of desire
01:22:20.100 would suffice
01:22:21.320 to bring about
01:22:21.920 the utopia.
01:22:22.560 That's exactly right.
01:22:23.160 Right, right, right.
01:22:23.920 That's exactly right.
01:22:24.740 And maybe this is
01:22:26.880 a kind of sharp departure.
01:22:28.920 Look where the Marxists
01:22:29.880 today are, right?
01:22:31.140 A lot of the Marxists
01:22:32.420 today
01:22:32.880 are not even bothering
01:22:34.320 with class
01:22:35.140 or economics,
01:22:35.780 but they've gone
01:22:37.200 into the area of culture.
01:22:38.460 They've gone into gender.
01:22:40.500 They've gone into race,
01:22:42.120 right?
01:22:42.400 Yeah.
01:22:42.560 And they,
01:22:43.960 a lot of the Marxists
01:22:45.020 today,
01:22:45.340 if you go to the website
01:22:46.460 of People's World,
01:22:48.160 which is the successor
01:22:49.100 to the Daily Worker,
01:22:50.780 and you go to the
01:22:51.800 About section,
01:22:52.860 they have a call there
01:22:54.180 not for factory workers,
01:22:56.040 not for coal miners.
01:22:57.900 I mean,
01:22:58.280 the West Virginia coal miners
01:22:59.840 voting for Trump,
01:23:00.900 right?
01:23:01.520 Not for steel workers.
01:23:03.140 You know,
01:23:03.500 my hometown of Pittsburgh,
01:23:04.820 steel workers
01:23:05.440 are probably large,
01:23:07.100 like MAGA people.
01:23:08.040 A lot of those guys
01:23:08.800 are blue-collar union guys.
01:23:10.260 They have a call
01:23:11.020 for culture workers.
01:23:13.000 So they're looking,
01:23:14.260 they've gone from
01:23:14.980 the factory floor
01:23:16.160 to the classroom.
01:23:17.500 Yep.
01:23:18.000 And so the modern Marxists,
01:23:21.000 knowing that the world
01:23:22.160 of the Communist Manifesto
01:23:23.600 and the Industrial Revolution
01:23:24.760 of the 1840s
01:23:25.700 is just completely gone.
01:23:27.080 Yeah.
01:23:27.180 I mean,
01:23:27.280 that book,
01:23:27.760 by the way,
01:23:28.520 is archaic.
01:23:30.360 I mean,
01:23:30.640 it's written for
01:23:31.960 1840s French Germany
01:23:33.720 and Britain.
01:23:35.800 Yeah.
01:23:36.300 I mean,
01:23:36.420 that world doesn't even
01:23:37.220 exist anymore.
01:23:38.220 So a lot of today's Marxists
01:23:39.800 have taken
01:23:40.440 the Marxist superstructure
01:23:42.520 of oppressed
01:23:43.420 versus oppressor.
01:23:44.380 Yes, yes.
01:23:45.500 And they said,
01:23:45.960 okay,
01:23:46.500 it's no longer
01:23:47.380 the oppressive bourgeoisie
01:23:49.820 and the oppressed proletariat.
01:23:51.640 And the proletariat
01:23:52.560 would be the oppressed group.
01:23:53.960 That would be
01:23:54.480 the victim class
01:23:55.580 and also the redeemer class.
01:23:57.440 Yeah, yeah.
01:23:58.040 By the stripes
01:23:58.720 of the proletariat,
01:23:59.900 you are healed, right?
01:24:01.120 Yeah.
01:24:01.300 They would usher
01:24:01.960 in the revolution.
01:24:03.360 So instead,
01:24:04.700 people don't,
01:24:05.440 I mean,
01:24:06.000 what young people today
01:24:07.220 even know what the word
01:24:07.900 proletariat
01:24:08.540 or bourgeoisie mean?
01:24:10.280 They've taken
01:24:10.860 the oppressed oppressor model
01:24:12.380 and they've applied it
01:24:13.540 to issues like race.
01:24:14.940 Yep,
01:24:15.180 that's exactly right.
01:24:15.980 And so the oppressor,
01:24:18.400 and this is the most
01:24:19.380 simplistic infantile thing
01:24:20.980 anybody could do,
01:24:22.060 the race-based
01:24:22.680 critical race theorists,
01:24:24.340 to take human beings
01:24:26.040 who are,
01:24:27.200 I mean,
01:24:27.600 you know,
01:24:28.000 I've done my DNA,
01:24:29.580 ancestry.com,
01:24:30.980 my family is just,
01:24:32.500 they're all over the place
01:24:33.760 in terms of their DNA,
01:24:35.260 right,
01:24:36.000 to boil people down
01:24:37.860 in America
01:24:38.520 in the 2020s
01:24:40.100 as,
01:24:40.440 okay,
01:24:40.760 two categories,
01:24:41.660 black,
01:24:42.260 white,
01:24:42.780 right?
01:24:43.180 How do you do that?
01:24:44.140 I mean,
01:24:44.340 my youngest son
01:24:45.060 who's adopted
01:24:45.780 is black.
01:24:47.820 Actually,
01:24:48.440 his mother's white,
01:24:49.640 his father's black,
01:24:50.800 so is Obama.
01:24:51.980 So he'd be considered black,
01:24:53.780 right?
01:24:54.160 But if you do his DNA test,
01:24:55.740 he's all over the place.
01:24:56.900 But the modern critical race theorist
01:24:58.760 is going to say
01:24:59.560 white,
01:25:01.000 oppressor,
01:25:02.120 black,
01:25:02.800 oppressor.
01:25:03.700 And they're going to hammer you
01:25:04.920 into one of those two categories,
01:25:07.120 which Martin Luther King Jr.
01:25:08.160 said,
01:25:08.680 no,
01:25:08.820 we're to be judged
01:25:09.260 by the content of our character,
01:25:10.420 not the color of our skin.
01:25:12.500 CRT,
01:25:13.040 which I interviewed David Garrow,
01:25:15.120 the King biographer,
01:25:15.860 about this.
01:25:16.920 And he said,
01:25:17.700 CRT predates King.
01:25:19.960 King was shot in April 1968.
01:25:21.480 So he didn't talk about CRT,
01:25:23.220 but he would have been
01:25:23.980 totally against
01:25:24.800 any kind of race-based
01:25:26.200 classification of human beings.
01:25:28.320 So the modern group
01:25:29.220 is hammering you
01:25:30.360 into one of these two categories,
01:25:32.320 oppressed versus oppressor.
01:25:33.600 So the new oppressed group
01:25:35.300 will be blacks,
01:25:36.660 and they need to have
01:25:37.500 their consciousness raised.
01:25:38.980 They need to know
01:25:39.960 that they are the oppressed group.
01:25:41.960 They will usher in the redemption.
01:25:43.840 They're also the redeemer class.
01:25:45.920 And try telling somebody
01:25:47.020 like Oprah Winfrey
01:25:48.140 or Kobe Bryant
01:25:49.160 that they're oppressed
01:25:50.160 just because they're black.
01:25:51.800 I mean,
01:25:52.000 how racist is that?
01:25:53.840 Whereas the white homeless guy,
01:25:55.660 that he's the oppressor
01:25:56.800 because he's white.
01:25:58.000 It's an unbelievably ridiculous,
01:26:00.160 infantile, absurd,
01:26:02.300 racist separation
01:26:03.300 of human beings
01:26:04.140 into opposing hostile camps.
01:26:05.940 And by the way,
01:26:06.360 it divides people.
01:26:07.720 And back to Marx,
01:26:08.780 this is what Marx and Engels
01:26:10.000 did with class.
01:26:11.360 Well, so you said
01:26:12.280 that that took us-
01:26:12.660 So these people
01:26:12.800 are doing it by race.
01:26:13.620 That took us afield,
01:26:14.760 and I don't think it did
01:26:15.820 because tell me
01:26:17.000 what you think about this
01:26:17.860 because this ties
01:26:18.820 maybe the close
01:26:19.920 of our discussion
01:26:20.620 to the beginning
01:26:21.320 because we talked about
01:26:22.840 essentially theological matters
01:26:24.600 in relationship
01:26:25.480 to Marx's fantasizing.
01:26:27.020 Okay, so imagine
01:26:28.400 that there's a theological element
01:26:31.340 to Marx
01:26:32.300 that can be traced
01:26:35.040 all the way back
01:26:35.660 to the story
01:26:36.140 of Cain and Abel
01:26:36.860 because Cain and Abel
01:26:38.040 is the first
01:26:39.000 victim-victimizer narrative,
01:26:41.660 right?
01:26:42.040 And Cain feels
01:26:43.100 that he's the victim
01:26:43.940 of Abel.
01:26:44.900 And he is driven
01:26:46.440 by a bitter resentment.
01:26:48.200 By the way, envy,
01:26:48.900 which is what Marxism
01:26:49.740 is all about.
01:26:50.300 Absolutely.
01:26:51.060 And he becomes
01:26:51.600 extremely hostile.
01:26:52.800 Okay, so imagine
01:26:53.920 that Marxism
01:26:56.540 is essentially
01:26:57.280 a retelling
01:26:58.020 of the story
01:26:59.360 of Cain and Abel
01:27:00.080 with Cain as the protagonist.
01:27:01.720 Okay, so now,
01:27:02.640 so once you get that,
01:27:03.860 then you can see
01:27:04.540 what's happened
01:27:05.180 with the modern
01:27:06.480 metamarxists
01:27:07.360 because we might think,
01:27:10.420 being slightly older,
01:27:13.000 we might think
01:27:13.620 that the core doctrine
01:27:14.740 of Marxism
01:27:15.560 is economic inequality,
01:27:16.900 but it's not.
01:27:18.100 The core doctrine
01:27:19.300 is victim-victimizer.
01:27:20.760 That's right.
01:27:21.120 Now, what Marx said
01:27:22.540 was the prime dimension
01:27:24.420 of victim-victimizer
01:27:25.800 is economic.
01:27:27.400 Now, I think,
01:27:28.400 and this is partly
01:27:29.000 why Marxism was powerful,
01:27:30.900 if you have to pick
01:27:32.360 a victim-victimizer narrative,
01:27:34.120 the most powerful one
01:27:35.460 is economic.
01:27:37.380 Let's just leave that aside.
01:27:38.880 Now, you said,
01:27:39.740 well, we no longer
01:27:40.480 have the dark satanic mills,
01:27:42.020 so the economic story
01:27:43.080 isn't playing out as well.
01:27:44.120 The child labor.
01:27:45.040 But the victim-victimizer narrative,
01:27:47.120 that's still alive.
01:27:48.080 I think of
01:27:49.680 the new postmodern leftism
01:27:52.760 as a metastasized Marxism
01:27:55.040 because it's
01:27:56.500 the victim-victimizer narrative
01:27:58.180 that's now multidimensional.
01:27:59.780 You can take any way
01:28:01.440 you can possibly
01:28:02.440 categorize human beings
01:28:03.760 that divides them
01:28:04.760 into groups
01:28:05.360 and you can take
01:28:06.880 that dichotomous dimension
01:28:09.040 and you can say
01:28:10.240 victim-victimizer.
01:28:11.500 Right.
01:28:11.740 So now you explain everything,
01:28:13.740 right?
01:28:14.240 Then you can say,
01:28:15.200 so you can explain everything.
01:28:16.520 You've got no more work
01:28:17.260 to do cognitively
01:28:18.140 and you can learn that
01:28:18.960 in 10 minutes, right?
01:28:20.300 But then there's
01:28:21.140 an additional advantage
01:28:22.060 and this is also
01:28:23.240 endemic to Marxism.
01:28:24.620 Imagine that you have
01:28:25.520 two problems to solve
01:28:26.520 in the world.
01:28:27.060 One is to understand it
01:28:28.300 and the other is to figure out
01:28:29.680 how to conduct yourself in it.
01:28:31.360 Okay, well,
01:28:31.800 the victim-victimizer narrative
01:28:33.220 gives you both
01:28:34.040 because not only have you
01:28:36.060 now a complete
01:28:36.860 causal explanation,
01:28:38.560 everything can be understood
01:28:39.560 in terms of power
01:28:40.520 because that's
01:28:41.400 the victim-victimizer story.
01:28:44.020 But goodness
01:28:45.320 merely requires
01:28:47.020 that you identify
01:28:47.840 with the victim.
01:28:48.700 Right.
01:28:49.060 Right, right.
01:28:49.680 So it solves
01:28:50.260 your moral problem, too.
01:28:51.420 Yeah, right on.
01:28:52.740 Exactly.
01:28:53.380 And so what we have
01:28:54.280 is the spectacle
01:28:55.860 of the modern universities,
01:28:58.480 what would you say,
01:28:59.780 promulgating this
01:29:00.720 metamarxism,
01:29:01.980 metastatic Marxism,
01:29:03.240 where they've fragmented
01:29:05.040 the oppressor-oppressor
01:29:06.800 narrative
01:29:07.160 into multiple dimensions.
01:29:08.460 Even if they don't know
01:29:09.100 it's Marxist.
01:29:10.540 Exactly.
01:29:11.780 Well, and it's not.
01:29:12.960 If it's a retelling
01:29:13.740 of the Cain and Abel story,
01:29:14.980 it's deeper than Marxism.
01:29:16.860 Marxism would then
01:29:17.640 become a variant
01:29:18.420 of something even deeper.
01:29:19.880 And I think
01:29:20.920 what is deeper
01:29:21.700 is the victim-victimizer narrative,
01:29:23.340 that way of construing
01:29:24.260 the world.
01:29:24.740 Yeah.
01:29:24.960 And that is a way of,
01:29:26.140 like the postmodernists,
01:29:27.320 especially people like Foucault,
01:29:29.400 it's all about power.
01:29:31.660 And they're always in search,
01:29:34.340 this kind of modern post-market,
01:29:35.780 whatever,
01:29:36.120 they're always in search
01:29:37.040 for the next victim group.
01:29:38.200 Yep.
01:29:38.560 Right?
01:29:39.080 That's the key.
01:29:39.880 Who's the next victim class?
01:29:41.220 And once you're in that group,
01:29:42.680 that group has to be taught
01:29:44.480 to hate the other group.
01:29:46.180 I mean,
01:29:47.020 for them to know
01:29:48.100 that they are a victim
01:29:49.000 because of that group.
01:29:50.060 Yes, that's right.
01:29:50.820 That's right.
01:29:51.080 And if you don't get that,
01:29:52.600 if you don't understand
01:29:53.340 that you need your consciousness,
01:29:54.920 this is where the university comes in.
01:29:56.140 You're also a traitor.
01:29:56.720 To teach it.
01:29:57.140 That's right.
01:29:57.520 And if you're in the oppressor group
01:29:59.440 and you don't realize
01:30:00.420 you're an oppressor, right?
01:30:02.080 You might be in that class,
01:30:03.240 you say,
01:30:03.500 well, you know,
01:30:04.040 I was brought up actually
01:30:05.180 in a multiracial family.
01:30:07.040 We've got adopted kids.
01:30:09.060 And it's like,
01:30:10.340 no, no, no, no, no.
01:30:11.420 You've got to understand
01:30:12.600 your skin color defines you
01:30:14.680 and puts you in that camp, right?
01:30:16.460 Or your sexuality.
01:30:16.780 You are the oppressor.
01:30:18.080 Or your sexuality.
01:30:18.880 Or your gender.
01:30:19.860 Yeah.
01:30:20.060 I mean,
01:30:20.240 what could be worse than
01:30:21.020 as simple as, you know,
01:30:22.000 male, female, right?
01:30:23.580 Gender Marxists.
01:30:24.680 Yeah.
01:30:24.860 But that's unfortunately
01:30:26.720 where Marxism is today.
01:30:26.740 Well, that allows you
01:30:27.460 to multiply the dimensions
01:30:28.560 of oppression too.
01:30:29.540 Yes.
01:30:29.920 Which is very convenient
01:30:30.840 if you want to rationalize
01:30:33.100 the power narrative
01:30:33.880 and you also want to claim
01:30:35.000 moral virtue
01:30:35.820 without doing any work.
01:30:36.980 That's right.
01:30:37.340 I'm on the side of the victims.
01:30:38.900 It's like, really?
01:30:39.720 Are you?
01:30:40.560 Really?
01:30:41.040 Now, you're really
01:30:41.760 on the side of the victims.
01:30:42.800 Right, right.
01:30:43.140 And you're sure you've got
01:30:44.040 the victims properly identified.
01:30:45.860 That's right.
01:30:46.160 And they're only victims.
01:30:47.460 And they're in a power position too.
01:30:49.140 They're in the position
01:30:50.640 to define who's the victim
01:30:51.900 and who's not.
01:30:53.060 And those are always people
01:30:54.160 during the revolution
01:30:55.060 that are going to be in charge.
01:30:56.020 This is what Lennon called
01:30:56.640 the vanguard, right?
01:30:58.000 And what is to be done in 1902.
01:31:00.240 He said what's needed here
01:31:01.600 is a cadre of revolutionaries,
01:31:03.960 kind of educated elites
01:31:05.420 who can run this whole thing,
01:31:07.920 who can run the project
01:31:10.020 and tell you
01:31:10.740 when you've gone from feudalism
01:31:12.960 to capitalism
01:31:13.680 to socialism
01:31:14.520 to communism, right?
01:31:15.760 They're the same ones
01:31:16.440 that tell you
01:31:16.920 when it's time
01:31:17.580 for a new pride flag now.
01:31:19.100 That's right.
01:31:19.580 That's right.
01:31:19.980 It seems to be about every week.
01:31:21.440 That's right.
01:31:21.800 They're the managers.
01:31:23.000 And we stop and say,
01:31:24.300 you know, I don't get this.
01:31:25.520 Everybody's supposed
01:31:26.080 to be equal in wealth,
01:31:27.740 but Castro,
01:31:29.220 I mean,
01:31:30.100 doctors, janitors,
01:31:31.480 baseball players,
01:31:32.380 custodians,
01:31:32.860 all get $120 a year in Cuba.
01:31:35.060 Castro's worth a billion dollars, right?
01:31:37.420 Look at the dachas
01:31:38.320 and the Black Sea
01:31:39.100 that all the communist apparatchiks
01:31:40.680 have in the Soviet Union.
01:31:42.060 Look at the Kims.
01:31:43.200 Look how much money they have.
01:31:44.620 Well, you have to understand
01:31:45.500 for them,
01:31:47.020 they're the rulers, right?
01:31:48.580 The Marxism,
01:31:49.340 the communism's for the ruled,
01:31:51.540 not the rulers.
01:31:52.420 It's for the masses,
01:31:53.680 not the masters, right?
01:31:54.700 It's for all of you idiots.
01:31:56.500 Well, there's also
01:31:57.200 no evidence technically
01:31:58.380 from the economic perspective
01:31:59.760 that the communist governments
01:32:02.040 had any impact
01:32:02.880 whatsoever on inequality.
01:32:04.600 Oh, yeah, no.
01:32:05.360 Other than making
01:32:06.160 everybody equally poor.
01:32:07.040 Well, that's the thing
01:32:08.160 is there was less
01:32:08.980 to go around, right?
01:32:10.480 So they were very good
01:32:11.660 at suppressing
01:32:12.480 the benefits of capital,
01:32:14.160 but were able
01:32:15.720 to address inequality.
01:32:17.080 Not at all.
01:32:17.420 Yes, by,
01:32:18.000 well, and by destruction.
01:32:18.900 Right.
01:32:19.280 But they were not able
01:32:20.040 to address inequality at all.
01:32:21.640 No.
01:32:22.040 Right.
01:32:22.600 They nationalized everything
01:32:24.480 including poverty.
01:32:26.460 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:32:28.420 Okay, so what,
01:32:30.280 let's close with this,
01:32:31.300 a more personal reflection.
01:32:33.720 Your book about Marx
01:32:35.320 is a rather personal analysis
01:32:38.860 of Marx.
01:32:40.260 And that makes it,
01:32:42.180 as you pointed out,
01:32:43.120 somewhat unique,
01:32:43.900 especially in its concentration
01:32:45.060 on his motivations,
01:32:46.900 his motivations,
01:32:47.940 let's say,
01:32:48.360 and his poetic motivations,
01:32:49.600 his revelatory motivations.
01:32:51.920 What has that done
01:32:53.000 to you personally
01:32:54.800 in your understanding
01:32:55.920 of Marx
01:32:56.640 and also your understanding
01:32:58.600 of the world?
01:32:59.360 Because there's a
01:33:00.060 very strange
01:33:01.360 theological dimension
01:33:02.460 to your analysis
01:33:03.240 of Marx.
01:33:03.960 Okay, so
01:33:04.300 was that theological dimension
01:33:06.980 there before you wrote
01:33:08.280 this book?
01:33:08.940 Partly, I suppose.
01:33:09.820 Well, yeah,
01:33:10.280 I think it probably
01:33:11.140 was already there.
01:33:12.100 I mean, I've always thought,
01:33:13.520 Jordan, that
01:33:14.300 when people ask me,
01:33:16.720 how did communism
01:33:18.800 catch on, right?
01:33:20.760 Even, well,
01:33:21.780 first of all,
01:33:22.320 it's never voted into power
01:33:23.620 and if it is,
01:33:24.280 they don't stand
01:33:25.340 for another election, right?
01:33:26.780 I mean, Fidel Castro
01:33:27.720 called for democracy
01:33:29.420 and free and fair elections
01:33:30.540 in 1959, right?
01:33:32.140 And it never actually had them,
01:33:33.880 right?
01:33:34.080 The Kims don't put themselves
01:33:35.260 up for election.
01:33:37.940 But the,
01:33:39.740 what's the rational reason
01:33:41.120 why anybody,
01:33:42.060 if you just read
01:33:42.680 the Communist Manifesto,
01:33:44.060 it's so clear
01:33:44.880 that this is
01:33:45.600 completely impractical.
01:33:47.940 It can't possibly work.
01:33:50.380 I think there's
01:33:51.580 almost a kind of
01:33:52.380 a diabolical
01:33:53.660 explanation for this.
01:33:56.260 You know,
01:33:56.420 Ronald Reagan said
01:33:57.740 in the grand destiny
01:34:00.840 of humanity,
01:34:02.240 we are not matters
01:34:03.200 of mere material
01:34:04.320 computation, right?
01:34:05.640 When great forces
01:34:06.960 are on the foot
01:34:08.320 in the world,
01:34:09.320 we learn that
01:34:09.980 we are spirits,
01:34:10.780 not animals,
01:34:11.820 right?
01:34:14.420 I think there's
01:34:16.820 almost a spiritual
01:34:17.680 explanation behind this.
01:34:19.320 Right, so you think you...
01:34:20.500 It doesn't make
01:34:21.240 mere rational sense
01:34:22.940 that this idea
01:34:24.960 could have ever
01:34:25.640 been fostered
01:34:26.500 or caught on.
01:34:27.780 I think there's
01:34:28.760 a diabolical
01:34:29.680 explanation
01:34:30.500 of course behind it.
01:34:31.440 Right, right.
01:34:31.740 So you basically,
01:34:32.660 you basically believe
01:34:33.800 that the Marxist
01:34:35.180 phenomena
01:34:35.600 cannot be understood
01:34:36.860 outside
01:34:37.680 an overarching
01:34:38.940 religious
01:34:39.500 interpretive framework.
01:34:40.360 I think so.
01:34:41.040 I think that's right.
01:34:42.220 And we haven't mentioned
01:34:42.940 the very opening words
01:34:44.340 of the manifesto.
01:34:45.700 A specter
01:34:46.440 is haunting you.
01:34:47.140 Yeah.
01:34:47.820 The specter
01:34:48.680 of communism.
01:34:49.500 No kidding.
01:34:50.060 Yeah, and it says
01:34:50.700 all the old allies
01:34:52.220 of Europe,
01:34:53.240 Pope and Tsar,
01:34:54.820 Metternich and Guizot,
01:34:56.000 German and French,
01:34:57.000 French radicals
01:34:58.020 and German spies
01:34:58.820 have entered
01:34:59.720 into a holy alliance
01:35:01.040 to exorcise
01:35:02.420 this specter.
01:35:03.280 Marx and Engels
01:35:04.560 opened the book
01:35:05.840 with a paragraph
01:35:07.400 describing it
01:35:08.260 as a specter,
01:35:09.460 a demonic specter
01:35:10.680 that needs exercise.
01:35:12.260 Now again,
01:35:13.080 well, they're being
01:35:14.040 playful with words.
01:35:15.000 Yeah, right.
01:35:15.620 No, there's too much
01:35:17.080 of this.
01:35:17.960 There's too much
01:35:18.780 of this.
01:35:19.860 There's something
01:35:20.480 deeper and darker
01:35:21.340 going on.
01:35:22.040 Every good joke
01:35:22.060 contains a seed
01:35:23.100 of the truth.
01:35:23.720 That's right.
01:35:24.120 Well, in my experience
01:35:25.380 for what it's worth,
01:35:27.220 it was the horrors
01:35:28.520 of communism
01:35:29.320 that motivated me
01:35:31.560 to think much more
01:35:32.600 deeply about religious
01:35:33.520 matters.
01:35:34.240 Yeah, yeah.
01:35:34.960 Oh, me too.
01:35:35.860 If you familiarize
01:35:37.060 yourself with the hell
01:35:38.820 of the communist regimes,
01:35:41.200 you end up
01:35:42.140 at a level of analysis,
01:35:43.280 I think,
01:35:43.920 that you can't avoid
01:35:45.000 at a level of analysis
01:35:46.000 that demands
01:35:47.740 that you account
01:35:48.560 for an evil
01:35:49.240 that profound.
01:35:50.100 Right, yeah.
01:35:50.700 I was in agnostic
01:35:52.620 in college
01:35:53.320 and close to being
01:35:54.920 an atheist
01:35:55.360 and studying this stuff
01:35:57.540 in the end
01:35:58.420 of the Cold War
01:35:59.160 is part of what
01:36:00.160 pulled me out
01:36:00.660 of that pit
01:36:01.240 because you really
01:36:02.940 do look at it
01:36:04.000 and you say,
01:36:05.140 this seems demonic,
01:36:07.580 this seems diabolical.
01:36:09.200 Yeah.
01:36:10.460 Another quote
01:36:11.300 from Reagan,
01:36:12.200 this isn't a matter
01:36:13.160 of rockets
01:36:13.900 and economics,
01:36:14.820 this is something
01:36:15.880 of the spiritual order.
01:36:17.760 Yeah.
01:36:17.880 There's something
01:36:18.680 deeper,
01:36:19.720 darker going on here.
01:36:21.240 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:36:21.460 No, I think,
01:36:22.260 I can't see
01:36:23.720 how you can be,
01:36:24.760 I also think
01:36:25.560 that that's a motif
01:36:26.540 that's reflected.
01:36:27.140 The founder of which
01:36:27.300 is Karl Marx.
01:36:28.440 Yeah, right,
01:36:29.220 right, right.
01:36:29.760 I think that there's
01:36:30.880 a reflection in that
01:36:31.920 of the dragon
01:36:33.580 treasure dichotomy.
01:36:35.320 You know,
01:36:35.540 we know from time
01:36:36.960 immemorial
01:36:37.520 that you go searching
01:36:39.480 for treasure
01:36:40.100 where the dragons are
01:36:41.440 and there isn't
01:36:43.380 a dragon
01:36:43.880 that's more terrifying
01:36:45.640 than the dragon
01:36:46.620 that's the spirit
01:36:48.000 of malevolence itself
01:36:49.240 and you cannot
01:36:50.660 study communism
01:36:52.120 without encountering
01:36:54.000 the spirit
01:36:54.480 of malevolence
01:36:55.300 and then
01:36:56.100 the treasure
01:36:57.000 that lurks there
01:36:57.980 is something
01:36:58.760 like a recognition
01:36:59.660 that the overarching
01:37:01.020 religious framework
01:37:01.900 is actually necessary
01:37:03.260 to conceptualize
01:37:04.920 the problem
01:37:05.400 properly
01:37:06.280 and probably
01:37:07.400 to offer something
01:37:08.380 approximating a solution.
01:37:09.660 That's right.
01:37:09.960 Like a genuine solution.
01:37:10.980 Yeah, I think
01:37:11.920 that's right.
01:37:12.700 I think that's exactly right.
01:37:14.320 Yeah, there's
01:37:14.940 a church encyclical
01:37:16.820 Divinity Redemptorist
01:37:17.800 from 1937
01:37:19.660 by Pius XI
01:37:20.880 and they described it
01:37:22.520 as a satanic scourge
01:37:24.280 orchestrated
01:37:26.060 by the sons of darkness.
01:37:27.540 I mean,
01:37:27.800 the church then
01:37:29.300 came to that conclusion
01:37:30.380 that they believed
01:37:31.200 that everything
01:37:32.400 that the communists
01:37:33.520 wanted and said
01:37:34.340 and wrote in their books
01:37:35.400 can only be interpreted
01:37:37.420 in this really dark
01:37:38.680 demonic sense.
01:37:39.900 What do the liberation
01:37:40.660 theologists think of that?
01:37:41.760 Oh yeah,
01:37:42.060 they're nuts.
01:37:43.420 I mean,
01:37:43.800 they're...
01:37:44.380 Yeah,
01:37:44.920 they're powerful nuts.
01:37:46.100 They are still.
01:37:47.600 And even someone
01:37:49.080 like Pope Francis
01:37:50.040 said in December 2013,
01:37:52.240 he said,
01:37:52.740 the Marxist ideology
01:37:53.840 is wrong.
01:37:55.660 But that having been said,
01:37:57.820 he's not a very good
01:37:59.500 anti-communist.
01:38:00.460 Yeah, yeah.
01:38:00.980 Right?
01:38:01.480 I mean, he's...
01:38:01.960 Well, it's a very powerfully
01:38:03.440 contaminating force.
01:38:04.740 Yes.
01:38:05.080 And its tendrils
01:38:05.800 are everywhere
01:38:06.420 and they're not necessarily
01:38:07.820 that easy to identify.
01:38:09.460 That's exactly right.
01:38:10.220 Especially if you don't
01:38:10.900 really want to look.
01:38:11.940 Yeah, and if you tell somebody,
01:38:13.480 you know,
01:38:13.700 what you're engaging in there
01:38:14.720 could be a form of Marxism
01:38:16.320 applied to culture.
01:38:17.440 Frankfurt School,
01:38:18.320 Antonio Gramsci,
01:38:19.340 cultural hegemony,
01:38:20.980 founders of the Frankfurt School,
01:38:22.300 Max Horkheimer,
01:38:23.320 Theodore Adorno
01:38:23.960 wrote about the culture industry
01:38:25.280 and the dialectic
01:38:26.140 of enlightenment.
01:38:27.160 You know,
01:38:27.260 this is the kind of Marxism
01:38:28.160 applied to culture.
01:38:29.460 If they look up
01:38:30.220 cultural Marxism,
01:38:31.260 it pops up
01:38:31.760 anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.
01:38:33.300 Yeah, right.
01:38:33.700 It's like,
01:38:33.940 well, what's that, right?
01:38:35.120 But, you know,
01:38:36.040 it's to the point
01:38:38.300 where it's infiltrated things
01:38:39.760 where people engaging
01:38:41.160 in the framework
01:38:41.860 or metanarrative
01:38:42.900 or Marxist superstructure
01:38:44.640 on gender, race,
01:38:46.040 culture, whatever,
01:38:46.780 often don't even know
01:38:47.840 that they're guilty of it.
01:38:49.020 Yeah.
01:38:49.280 Which they're, you know,
01:38:50.200 credit to them,
01:38:51.140 they don't know it,
01:38:51.900 but it's so seeped in
01:38:54.100 to the culture at large
01:38:55.600 that, yeah,
01:38:56.140 that's what we're dealing with.
01:38:56.880 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:38:57.980 All right, sir.
01:38:58.860 Hey, this was great.
01:38:59.540 Thanks so much.
01:38:59.940 Thank you very much.
01:39:00.620 Yeah.
01:39:00.920 Well, there were many other things,
01:39:02.160 too, that we could have talked about,
01:39:03.380 too.
01:39:03.560 I would have liked to have talked
01:39:04.520 about your work on Reagan
01:39:05.580 and your other books as well,
01:39:06.960 but we may save that
01:39:08.440 for a further discussion.
01:39:09.820 This was worth the devotion
01:39:11.560 of 90 minutes to,
01:39:12.640 I would say,
01:39:13.120 just this topic.
01:39:14.060 So, I'm very glad
01:39:14.740 that we did it.
01:39:15.620 Me, too.
01:39:16.180 I'm glad, too.
01:39:16.800 And for everybody watching
01:39:18.000 and listening on the YouTube side,
01:39:20.220 we're very happy
01:39:20.960 for your time
01:39:21.640 and attention as well.
01:39:22.660 And to the film crew here,
01:39:23.820 we're at the Museum of the Bible,
01:39:25.460 which is a very appropriate place
01:39:27.120 to be having this discussion
01:39:28.180 in Washington, D.C.
01:39:30.500 That's a museum
01:39:31.580 whose work
01:39:33.220 I did a documentary on
01:39:34.540 for The Daily Wire,
01:39:35.320 which I think is quite
01:39:36.000 a successful documentary
01:39:37.000 and was a great joy
01:39:38.220 to actually produce.
01:39:39.200 And it's a great museum,
01:39:40.400 so if you ever do
01:39:41.220 happen to come to D.C.,
01:39:43.000 go check it out.
01:39:45.140 It's the kind of place
01:39:48.460 that can help you
01:39:49.100 understand a lot more deeply
01:39:50.440 the relationship between,
01:39:51.740 at minimum,
01:39:52.560 the relationship
01:39:53.080 between the fact of the Bible
01:39:54.700 and the fact of literacy itself
01:39:57.340 in its worldwide distribution,
01:39:59.540 because those two things
01:40:00.620 are very integrally associated,
01:40:02.340 and that's an underappreciated
01:40:04.380 contribution of Christianity
01:40:06.580 and Protestantism
01:40:07.860 to the world.
01:40:09.260 So, anyways,
01:40:10.400 thanks to the Museum of the Bible
01:40:11.700 for hosting us today,
01:40:12.680 and I'm going to continue
01:40:14.600 this discussion
01:40:15.300 for another half an hour
01:40:16.240 on The Daily Wire side,
01:40:17.340 and what we'll talk about
01:40:18.880 is what I often talk about
01:40:20.320 on that,
01:40:21.400 in that additional half an hour,
01:40:22.920 which is the development
01:40:24.120 of the interests
01:40:25.020 that underlie this body of work
01:40:29.040 devoted not least
01:40:30.420 to the catastrophe
01:40:31.620 of Marxism and communism.
01:40:34.000 So, join us there.
01:40:42.680 As for talking to us,
01:40:44.200 e.g.
01:40:45.440 You