The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - Multiculturalism in Europe ｜ Interview with Dr. Benedict Beckeld

00:00:00.320 Hello, everyone. Welcome to this interview of the Lotus Eaters, and I'm pleased to be interviewing 1.00

00:00:05.660 again Dr. Benedict Beckel, the author of Western Self-Contempt, Ecophobia in the Decline of

00:00:13.560 Civilizations by Northern Illinois University Press. And today we're going to talk a bit about

00:00:21.120 something a bit different, but not entirely different. We're going to talk about multiculturalism

00:00:26.960 and its philosophy, but also how it has been practiced in the US, but also in Europe. And I'm

00:00:34.380 sure we'll have a lot of doom and gloom to discuss about the European setting. But also, I would like

00:00:39.780 to ask you about some of the reasons of your current optimism regarding the United States, or at least

00:00:47.260 that's how I have heard my mutual friend. So one question is, what are your late projects now? What

00:00:58.360 are the projects you're working on lately? So currently, well, first of all, thank you so much

00:01:03.440 for having me again. It's a pleasure always to speak. And my current projects are a book on aesthetics.

00:01:09.980 It's actually based on a book that I wrote, a piece of juvenilia, if you will, in my early 20s,

00:01:16.980 on aesthetics. And that was because aesthetics was really my first great passion in philosophy.

00:01:21.140 But now, obviously, many years later, I've developed since then, hopefully anyway. So now I'm revamping

00:01:27.280 it, additions, deletions, revisions, and so on, making a new work out of it. And it's basically about

00:01:33.040 the relationship between art and society. So it's aesthetics and political philosophy, if you will,

00:01:38.240 combined, what one teaches us about the other. And that's going to, yeah, that's going to come

00:01:45.460 out soon, I hope. I mean, I've finished, almost finished writing it. And then the long process of

00:01:49.880 trying to get it published is going to begin. So it might still be a while. But that's my main

00:01:53.900 project right now. And then I have a smaller project on conservatism. For example, there's a

00:01:58.720 book chapter on conservatism and pseudo-conservatism in the United States. That's an academic book

00:02:05.280 chapter that's going to come out soon as part of a Sammelband, you know, a collected volume.

00:02:11.100 So, and I might build on that as well to write a little more about conservatism and that whole

00:02:16.300 political philosophy.

00:02:17.960 I'm very interested to see how it's going to eventuate. And I really hope you the best of luck

00:02:24.400 with the publishing process, which I know is a living hill. But you did it for the first time.

00:02:31.760 So I think that chances are, you have better chances now, I think.

00:02:36.440 Hopefully, yeah. Cornell University Press, which was the, well, you mentioned Northern

00:02:40.160 Illinois University Press, which is the imprint of Cornell University Press. They've, I was,

00:02:45.920 I met some very good people there, especially the main philosophy editor there was very open

00:02:50.320 to the message. So there is still hope or islands of sanity, if you will, within academia.

00:02:55.360 And so, yeah, I think once the first major book, I'd written a few other books, but they

00:03:00.500 were sort of more niche. This was the first one that really was more for a broader audience

00:03:04.980 and so on. And so once that, as you say, once that has, once one has gotten one's foot in

00:03:09.820 the door, hopefully it'll be easier the next time around. We'll see.

00:03:13.000 Excellent. Right. So fingers crossed.

00:03:15.840 Yeah.

00:03:16.060 Right. So I want us to talk a bit about multiculturalism. And the reason why I want us to talk about

00:03:20.860 it is because it's one of the main isms of late. And I have been excessively critical of, about

00:03:29.280 it. But I think that whenever we're talking about abstract concepts, we are very vague and

00:03:36.860 there always lies there the need for developing a conception of what we mean when we're using

00:03:43.660 an abstract term. The same is with diversity. So in circles that we both move, presumably diversity

00:03:51.400 is a word that when is heard, we're supposed to go boo. But on the other hand, I think the most

00:03:57.800 philosophically apt reaction to this is to basically ask, what do we mean? What is diversity? Diversity

00:04:05.100 of what? And whether it's good or bad. So when it comes to multiculturalism, I think a really good

00:04:11.180 idea is to just sit down from a philosophical perspective and start talking about it, interrogate

00:04:17.000 multiculturalism. And I want to ask you several questions about it. So what is multiculturalism?

00:04:23.960 And most probably we will need to start by asking, what is a culture? Because multiculturalism

00:04:31.600 essentially means many cultures. So what would you say a culture is?

00:04:36.400 So, yeah, I take a fairly Wittgensteinian approach, if you will, to these questions. And meaning

00:04:45.880 that I don't take one essential definition, but that basically a family of resemblances,

00:04:52.600 to use this kind of language when we try to define something, late Wittgenstein anyway,

00:04:58.220 as opposed to early Wittgenstein, who, as you know, was rejected by Wittgenstein himself.

00:05:02.540 But anyway, my understanding of culture, and I think it's important to point out that the people

00:05:09.060 who speak in favor of multiculturalism, they themselves usually have rather a poor understanding

00:05:16.540 of what they mean by it. And it's just sort of a general feeling that they have of what a society

00:05:21.720 should look like, but they haven't crystallized it very clearly in their minds. Most of them in a way

00:05:26.920 have not. But what we mean by a culture is a shared language, history, values, and also more

00:05:36.560 external things like dress and cuisine and things like that. But it's important to note that,

00:05:43.440 and this is a mistake that one sees both on the left and the right, the left tends to understand

00:05:48.600 culture as something very superficial. The fact that in Asia, they'll use chopsticks as opposed 0.58

00:05:56.320 to knife and fork over here, which of course is a part of culture, but it's an extremely superficial

00:06:02.020 part of culture. Of course, culture is something that goes much deeper. If that's how you understand

00:06:06.080 culture in such a superficial way, then of course, there should be no problem combining them.

00:06:10.860 Similarly, on the right, it's not as grave a mistake, but it's still a mistake that you hear a lot

00:06:16.740 on the right where people say that, well, culture is simply a question of holding a certain set of

00:06:24.720 beliefs. For example, if we believe in democracy or in the equality of the sexes and so on, then we

00:06:32.760 share a culture. Again, there is some truth in both of these conceptions, both on the left and on the

00:06:39.500 right, but it's so much more than that. Being a part of a culture isn't just those things. It is also

00:06:45.720 the shared history, for example. This is why you cannot simply say that, okay, I believe in secularism

00:06:53.560 and therefore I can now live in France and be a Frenchman, for example. It's much more than that.

00:06:59.500 It's a shared language. It's a shared history. It's a shared sense of identity. The idea that we have

00:07:05.480 been here for centuries, for millennia even, and all of that is a part of culture. We can't say that

00:07:13.020 it's any one of those things. It's all of those things together. If we say that, if we isolate

00:07:18.240 one of those aspects, then we haven't fully understood what a culture is. Now, I say that,

00:07:22.420 of course, with a certain caveat, there are certain differences between Europe and the United States

00:07:26.600 in this regard. Obviously, in the United States, we are more of a melting pot. It's a cliche, but of

00:07:31.700 course, it's true. I'm an immigrant to the United States myself. Obviously, my ancestors have not been on

00:07:36.020 this soil for millennia, not even centuries. But basically, in order to understand a culture,

00:07:42.100 we at least have to understand that it's something that approaches that conception of it. And then

00:07:47.120 in different parts of the world, you can find certain exceptions and you would have to revise

00:07:51.320 the understanding of it to a certain extent based on the particular circumstances that obtain in that

00:07:56.000 place, in that time and place. But by and large, to understand what a culture is, we have to keep all

00:08:01.040 of these conceptions in mind at the same time. Excellent. So, I think it's important to dwell

00:08:08.580 on it a bit, because you're saying that a culture requires commonality of language and a shared history.

00:08:16.780 What was I? Yeah. Right. So, I think, mentioning also Wittgenstein, but also the way of approaching

00:08:24.120 language, I think, it's also tied to a notion of a way of life within the context that you mentioned.

00:08:32.800 But also, it features in several ways, because people use the term culture in order to capture

00:08:38.820 all sorts of different things. So, for instance, in ways that you could say, in some cases,

00:08:45.780 the same culture counts as involving a host of cultures, or from another lens, it could just be

00:08:52.920 one, it could just involve a dominant monoculture. But I think that, for instance, we could be

00:08:59.100 talking about punk culture, road culture, rock and roll culture, all sorts of cultures and groups

00:09:08.380 within a society that practice different ways of life, but also have a common, some shared

00:09:18.500 commonalities. And in virtue of those shared commonalities, they can function as a society.

00:09:25.260 And from a perspective, they can be seen as multicultural, but not necessarily from another

00:09:30.840 perspective. So, I think when we're talking about multiculturalism and culture, I think we need to

00:09:36.440 discern between contexts and the civilizational context, the political, the social, the countercultural.

00:09:44.040 Sometimes that sounds like an oxymoron, but I think that we can draw meaning out of it. Because

00:09:50.140 I, the reason I say this is because a lot of people who reject one form of multiculturalism in

00:09:56.180 the domain of, for instance, the, of society at large, they think that automatically every form of

00:10:04.280 multiculturalism may be wrong. And they want, they want to occupy the perspective that everyone has to 0.99

00:10:11.660 live in the same way, believe the same things. It's just a, a culture with, that has shared genetics

00:10:20.000 and a shared origin. And it just is incredibly monolithic. And I think that this isn't the case

00:10:26.120 historically speaking, but on the other hand, it, there are enough problems for that to render

00:10:34.360 particular forms of multiculturalism incredibly problematic. So would you say that this makes sense? 0.98

00:10:41.120 Yeah, absolutely. And I, I agree with everything you just said. And that's also why in the very

00:10:45.720 beginning, I rejected, uh, an essentialist understanding of culture saying that we kind

00:10:49.760 of have to look a little, take a somewhat more complex view of the phenomenon and look at how

00:10:53.480 it plays out in various, at various times and places. Um, and I, especially your point about

00:10:58.520 various types of subcultures, like the, you know, uh, whatever it was, uh, that you said, uh, all

00:11:03.480 these, uh, in Germany, of course, they, they attach the word kultur to everything. And so that's

00:11:07.880 probably having, having lived, uh, many years in that country. I, I, that resonates a lot

00:11:12.480 with me because everything is a culture in, in the German language, uh, building culture

00:11:17.300 and, uh, uh, train station culture and, uh, and so on. Um, so, uh, yeah, uh, so that's

00:11:23.240 certainly true. And as I also mentioned, for example, in the United States, obviously the

00:11:27.140 situation is a bit different, um, from Europe and, and even within Europe. And of course, this

00:11:32.640 is what the left always loves to point out when they say, oh, people have immigrated

00:11:35.960 back and forth, um, uh, over centuries. Of course, again, there is some truth to that,

00:11:39.720 but of course that doesn't mean that it has been on anything approaching the same level

00:11:43.860 as it is now, or that, or that it justifies, um, the kinds of levels that we see now. Um,

00:11:49.980 and so, yes, um, there, there is, of course, um, part of, if we take a broader view of, um,

00:11:56.500 of the West, of course, part of, there is of course also an overarching Western culture,

00:12:01.140 which means that immigration within the West from one place to, from one Western place

00:12:05.040 to another Western place, um, is, um, is a change of culture, but in a broader sense,

00:12:10.740 it is also, um, it is also in continuation of the same culture. I mean, when one travels

00:12:14.760 or one can go as a Westerner to another Western country where one has never been before and

00:12:19.380 still recognize lots of things, um, as a Westerner. Um, and, uh, so that's also important

00:12:24.620 to keep in mind when it comes to, um, multiculturalism, um, maybe, and maybe this is something we're

00:12:29.880 going to get into more, but, um, the idea that these things can be combined, however,

00:12:35.720 also comes from a fact, comes from the fact that a lot of, uh, cultural manifestations

00:12:40.380 have been watered down and they can only be combined because they have been watered down.

00:12:45.300 If a culture remains very strong in its, in its self-confidence, then it is much more difficult

00:12:51.700 to combine it, uh, with another culture with, or with segments of another culture. Um, so these

00:12:58.140 are all things that have to be, uh, taken into consideration when we, when we say, okay,

00:13:02.640 can these things be combined or not? When we say that, um, that two different religions,

00:13:09.720 for example, can coexist, it's often because those religions themselves have been watered

00:13:13.680 down and they are not anymore what they used to be. Um, and, and that applies not just for

00:13:18.100 religions. Yeah. For, for religions and also for, for many other, uh, manifestations of,

00:13:23.320 um, cultural expression. Right. Uh, thank you very much. So I want to, the, the way I look at it is

00:13:30.700 that whenever we're talking about culture, we need to be very specific. We can't be talking about

00:13:36.140 culture abstractly. We're talking about specific human culture and, uh, space that is shared by

00:13:43.840 a people who live in a particular place and they have, let's say, problems to deal with. And they're

00:13:50.980 dealing with, with adopting their culture. So whenever we're talking about multiculturalism,

00:13:56.860 I think we are talking about multiculturalist experiments. And I think in some cases they may 0.96

00:14:02.900 seem to be working, but in other cases, but there are several questions there. So is this just the

00:14:11.000 calm before the storm or are there just significant cultural continuities between the, the several

00:14:20.960 groups that are called to coexist in a particular multicultural experiment? And I think ultimately

00:14:27.020 this is an empirical question, but the question that when it comes to multiculturalism and multicultural

00:14:32.680 experiments, I think that the main thing a lot of people have in mind, especially when they're

00:14:39.960 talking about politics is Islam in Europe. And I think that this is a really difficult question

00:14:49.160 because on the one hand, we're talking about Islamic culture and European culture. But if we talk

00:14:55.220 about European culture, it's a very abstract term. There are all sorts of cultures within Europe that

00:15:03.040 can be considered European without necessarily implying that there is such a thing as European culture,

00:15:09.340 but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. So this is a really complex situation. So would you say that there is such a thing as a European culture?

00:15:17.220 And if there is, could we use this as a sort of criterion to see whether Islamic culture can be compatible with it in particular multicultural experiments within Europe?

00:15:32.220 My quick answer to that question is yes. But there is a word that you used, which I think is very important, namely the word continuity. So there is, as you say, there are obviously different European cultures.

00:15:46.220 But you and I, for example, we could both personally attest to the fact that there is that continuity. You come from Greece and you live in England. I was born in Sweden. I live in the United States, also lived in other European countries.

00:16:00.280 And yes, every time we have switched country, and I'm sure you know what I mean, there have been certain adjustments that have been necessary.

00:16:06.900 But we have still been able to carry on what we do in a fairly normal way, if you will.

00:16:12.540 And the adjustments that may have been required for us, well, maybe I shouldn't put words in your mouth, actually, but

00:16:17.780 But I think maybe for a lot of people in our situation, the adjustments that we have to make are fairly are fairly superficial.

00:16:26.400 And because there is a continuity there, even though, again, obviously, a Sicilian is going to be very different from a Norwegian in lots of different ways.

00:16:34.740 But they can still come together and live under a particular form of government, for example, without too much friction.

00:16:46.020 That continuity breaks when it comes to Islam. 0.91

00:16:49.520 Now, the reason why that break has not been made, has not become more apparent earlier on, if you will, to a lot of people, is to touch on something that I mentioned before, is because the Christian European culture has been so watered down.

00:17:06.500 And because it has been so watered down, and because a lot of people don't have the religious mindset, if you will, anymore, that break hasn't become so obvious.

00:17:15.300 If we had been a more, if European peoples had been more religious, always going to church on Sundays and believing fervently in God and so on, that break would have been much more apparent, which is why earlier generations, really, of Europeans, of Westerners, understood this much better than we do today.

00:17:37.800 By earlier generations, I mean, basically, through the 19th century or so, if you will, but especially pre-Enlightenment.

00:17:44.440 But even after the Enlightenment, and up until maybe early 20th century or so, first half, they understood this much better.

00:17:51.900 They understood that break much better than we do, the lack of continuity there.

00:17:54.900 Because there, we're not speaking of questions of degree, we're really speaking of questions of kind when it comes to Christianity and Islam.

00:18:02.220 And that's because we do not, and that's because Christianity and Islam are so fundamentally different, not just in terms of theological aspects, but also in terms of worldly governmental political aspects.

00:18:15.680 If anything, the worldly aspects, the worldly differences might be even stronger than the theological differences, although, of course, there are also many theological differences.

00:18:24.540 And that is something that Europeans need to begin to understand.

00:18:29.940 And we haven't, it's, the problem also is that Europeans, I include Americans here to some extent as well, but we're not as exposed to Islam here in the United States, of course, as many peoples are in Northern and Western Europe.

00:18:44.880 But the issue is that even though most Europeans today have left religion behind, and therefore do not understand what religion genuinely is, they are still inheritors of a Christian tradition in the sense that they tend to, and this is especially true of the Protestant peoples more so than of the Catholic peoples.

00:19:06.440 They have a Protestant and especially a Lutheran understanding of what religion is, that is to say, they believe that religion is about direct personal communication between the believer and God.

00:19:19.640 And if that's all religion is, and if that's all religion is, but if that is the main facet of religion, this quite Lutheran conception, then there should be no problem in I communicating directly to my God in one way, and this Muslim over here communicating to his God in a different way. 0.68

00:19:37.980 We can do it side by side.

00:19:39.840 That's not a problem.

00:19:40.580 And so in that sense, European peoples are still very clearly Protestant.

00:19:45.760 Again, talking now mostly about Scandinavians and Germans and the English, who are also Protestant, different type of Protestant, but still.

00:19:56.540 And that conception, that religious worldview, even for those people who are no longer religious, remains.

00:20:04.420 And so there is a lack of understanding of the fact that the Islamic worldview includes the political.

00:20:12.060 Catholics sometimes have a slightly better understanding of this.

00:20:14.900 I mean, slightly better sometimes because the political dimension, because of the pontiff and so on, is slightly stronger in Catholicism.

00:20:22.660 But by and large, that understanding has been lost as well.

00:20:25.660 And so there, there is really no longer a question of continuity.

00:20:28.760 It is a very clear break between those two worldviews.

00:20:32.080 Right, so these are mostly religious distinctions that you mentioned.

00:20:38.520 But I think that whenever we're talking about Lutheranism, there is always the question of the implication of the separation between church and state.

00:20:47.280 Right.

00:20:47.600 And that implies that a lot of Europeans, particularly those of a Protestant background or those who have been influenced by a Protestant culture,

00:20:58.640 even if they claim themselves to be atheists, they adopt a more, they think that the separation between church and state is a civilizational given.

00:21:11.120 And they use this as a means to understand other people.

00:21:14.440 Do you think that this is a particular mistake that a lot of Europeans are susceptible to,

00:21:19.640 or a lot of Westerners are susceptible to when they're in contact with foreign cultures?

00:21:25.020 Absolutely. And this is a type of, maybe arrogance is too strong a word because they're not aware that they're doing it.

00:21:32.480 But ignorance, certainly, of other ways, of non-Western ways of the world.

00:21:37.500 They think that other peoples see the nexus of politics and religion in the same way as we do.

00:21:45.320 And the problem is that we really need a whole different set of terms for some of these things.

00:21:51.440 The fact that we speak of religion on the one hand, and we speak of politics on the other hand, that in itself is already a problem.

00:21:58.020 Because that leads us to believe that in other cultures, or at least in some other cultures, these two are very distinct entities.

00:22:05.240 Now, of course, in Islam, you can still distinguish, as in any spiritual or religious system,

00:22:10.620 you can still distinguish between worldly concerns or political concerns on the one hand, and theological concerns on the other.

00:22:16.300 Of course, I'm not saying that they're identical.

00:22:18.920 But the fact is that in the Islamic conception as a whole, and Islam we think of as a religion,

00:22:25.000 that distinction that we have religion is one thing, politics is another, does not exist in the same way at all.

00:22:31.460 And this is why, when, for example, a Christian missionary tries to make a non-Christian become a Christian,

00:22:41.060 he is primarily trying to convince them of a theological worldview.

00:22:47.060 Whereas when a Muslim tries to make another person become a Muslim, again, obviously there will be individual exceptions, 0.94

00:22:54.800 but by and large, in a rather, in a very un-Christian way, he is not just pushing a theological system,

00:23:02.880 but also a political system, or what we would call, again, that distinction already presupposes a Western mindset,

00:23:09.300 but what we would call a political construct or a political system.

00:23:13.400 And that's what, and we don't really have the language to express that.

00:23:16.880 And because our word, religion, because of our history, especially after the Thirty Years' War,

00:23:24.260 but even more so after the Enlightenment, our language is not adequate to express these things,

00:23:29.560 because we have this very watered-down view of religion.

00:23:33.600 And the first step, I think, in beginning to understand what is happening in Western and Northern Europe right now,

00:23:40.180 is to understand how inadequate the terms are that we use.

00:23:43.960 There are other terms as well that are highly problematic that we could discuss,

00:23:47.720 but that's certainly some of them, yeah.

00:23:50.780 Right, so I understand your views about the general clash between Islam and the West,

00:23:57.900 but I think it would be really good for our audience if you gave us particular examples of where is the clash visible in specific cases.

00:24:07.300 So when it comes to clash of values, because what are the values that Westerners have

00:24:15.160 that supporters of Islam or Muslims don't accept or values that are not held in common

00:24:30.020 and that creates a problem with coexisting?

00:24:34.540 Yeah, so that's, how many hours do we have here?

00:24:37.640 Yeah, so basically, the first thing I would probably say is that we have,

00:24:44.140 you mentioned the separation of church and state.

00:24:47.040 This is admittedly, to be fair to Islam here, this is not based primarily in Scripture, in the Quran,

00:24:55.180 but as a historical matter, in Islam, the prophet and the political leader was the same person.

00:25:08.340 And then that continued later on as well, where the head of state was also the head of the church,

00:25:13.660 head of the mosque, head of the religious system.

00:25:15.920 Again, that wasn't always the case, but as a historical matter, that has tended to be the case in the Islamic world.

00:25:19.980 So that's the first thing I think that we need to understand, which means that the head of state,

00:25:27.340 Europeans have to understand that their heads of state are by their very nature unacceptable to a mainstream Islamic worldview. 0.98

00:25:37.180 And it's important to say mainstream here because it's not some tiny minority fringe.

00:25:41.300 This is really, we're talking about mainstream here.

00:25:43.140 And that then expresses itself, of course, in many other ways.

00:25:48.820 Along with that, we have, of course, the, maybe most obviously, the inferior position of women in Islamic society. 1.00

00:25:57.780 Now, again, as apologists of Islam will always point out, the Quran, and this is true, 1.00

00:26:03.940 does contain a number of provisions for the correct and just treatment of women,

00:26:09.500 for example, in divorce proceedings and so on.

00:26:11.360 That's all there and was quite liberal probably for its time and place.

00:26:15.940 But, of course, times change and places change.

00:26:20.180 And now that it is still, it is certainly the case that our worldview today of equality of the sexes is intolerable.

00:26:30.460 And, of course, this is an area where conservatives might say that, well, maybe the Muslims have a point here. 1.00

00:26:39.260 But, and one sometimes sees on certain fringes, if you will, of the right, a respect for Islam for this reason and for certain similar reasons.

00:26:48.320 But it's important to understand that even if we say from a more nowadays conservative point of view that there are differences between men and women,

00:26:56.740 it shouldn't be conservative really, it should be common sense.

00:26:59.660 But even if we say that the subjugation of women is still something that most people today wouldn't accept even on the more conservative side.

00:27:06.420 And, I mean, I could go on.

00:27:11.620 The fact that non-Muslims, everybody should become a Muslim ultimately. 0.99

00:27:16.380 And the fact that Christians and Jews exist in society could be accepted and has sometimes been accepted,

00:27:27.100 historically speaking, because they are people of the book, but they should, they are, should nonetheless be subjugated to the Islamic population. 1.00

00:27:34.480 Doesn't mean that they should necessarily be forcibly converted.

00:27:37.680 Many Muslims, including, you know, respected scholars in Islamic jurisprudence would say that you should not forcibly convert anyone to Islam.

00:27:45.540 But they are still subjugated, non-Muslims, and they live as a second class population. 0.99

00:27:52.780 And all of these things have to be understood by Europeans.

00:27:56.960 It has to be understood that if the current trend continues, then these are all things that will come to pass.

00:28:03.360 And we already see this.

00:28:05.380 I mean, if we had had this conversation 10 years ago, we would be speaking in the future tense.

00:28:11.280 But I think today we can speak increasingly in the present tense.

00:28:14.740 Because we see this in a number of European countries, how already accommodations have been made for the Islamic worldview.

00:28:25.520 And that's going to become more and more extreme.

00:28:28.240 And a lot of the ruling classes don't notice this because they, of course, live in wealthier, non-Islamic enclaves of their cities. 0.98

00:28:37.040 Because it's, as always, the lower classes that have to suffer the consequences of the policies of the upper classes.

00:28:44.220 And we see that a lot now in neighborhoods where, in poorer neighborhoods where Islamic immigrants move in.

00:28:50.860 Right. Thank you.

00:28:51.820 And there is so much to unpack here and to ask you.

00:28:55.600 But I want to start with talking about the leadership.

00:28:58.420 Because you mentioned that from a Muslim's perspective, the, you could say, secular leadership of European countries is unacceptable. 1.00

00:29:09.640 Why is it that the leadership doesn't see this?

00:29:13.320 Because the leadership, I would say there, one reason is probably that I, what I just mentioned, namely that they themselves don't rub elbows with Muslims a lot.

00:29:23.940 They might do them at, you know, at certain cultural events where, you know, where they go to do a ribbon cutting event or something like this.

00:29:31.620 Or I saw recently, just the other day, a video of King Charles packing dates to break the Ramadan.

00:29:40.360 And so they meet some Muslims on that occasion.

00:29:43.120 But that's a very superficial type of event because they're just there.

00:29:48.140 The cameras are rolling and everything is very nice and festive and so on.

00:29:51.320 That's not really to be in contact with the culture.

00:29:54.180 One is genuinely in contact with the culture if one lives in the same apartment building.

00:29:58.080 And one's neighbors are all Muslim and so on.

00:30:02.720 One notices these things then in a much more real way.

00:30:06.140 So that's one reason.

00:30:08.040 Another reason, I think, is simply that they have also been, they have been trained and educated in the pieties of multiculturalism.

00:30:19.080 As many non-elite, many people in the lower classes have as well.

00:30:23.620 But the lower classes tend to be slightly more immune to those pieties because, again, they live the contradiction of those pieties every day as part of their daily lives.

00:30:33.920 And so they see in a more different way that, well, not everything here is what it's told, is what it's said to be.

00:30:40.200 So I think those are probably the two main reasons.

00:30:44.200 The educational system has been dominated, of course, across the West by the left for decades now.

00:30:50.840 So we have entire generations who have been raised to believe in multiculturalism.

00:30:54.560 And one sees now more and more people starting to break away from that and starting to understand that the lies they were told by state employees in public school were precisely lies.

00:31:08.660 And so there is a reaction now against that, thankfully.

00:31:11.920 We'll see how far that brings us.

00:31:13.760 But I think those are the two main reasons.

00:31:16.120 Well, maybe I'll add very quickly one more.

00:31:19.160 I mean, there is the way which is tied to the to the educational aspect, namely simply vanity.

00:31:24.840 One will, of course, be able to raise oneself above the petty pieties of one's own culture.

00:31:31.520 It goes into orcophobia now, of course, and explain and posit oneself as superior and morally enlightened.

00:31:38.320 And if one can say that, well, our parochial culture here, our own culture is nothing special and we should all come together in a multicultural paradise.

00:31:48.980 There are vanities always, orcophobic vanity is always there, an important factor as well. 0.94

00:31:55.660 I'll just share an example from an interview I did with Professor Jeffrey Bale.

00:32:03.000 He told me that the people who were in the national security apparatus of the United States after the fall of the Berlin Wall, they didn't change.

00:32:14.920 They had the mindset that they are dealing with Russia.

00:32:18.560 And when they were dealing with, and when they were warned from extremists that the hits were going to be made, they didn't interpret them as extremists.

00:32:28.420 They didn't take them at their word.

00:32:29.760 They thought that they weren't true believers and they didn't react to them as true believers.

00:32:36.800 So it seems to me that there is a pattern of dealing with people who are openly hostile to what we call Western culture, a pattern of not taking them at face value.

00:32:51.600 And I think that this is one of the most, I'd say, despicable, but also dangerous aspects of multiculturalism as an ideology, because it seems to me that it is something, it is so forced on people who haven't voted for it.

00:33:08.480 Because in Europe, for instance, I don't recall any vote that said, well, do you want your society to lose its identity?

00:33:19.520 I don't recall any such vote.

00:33:21.220 But the point is that every time where there is a rise in crime, and there does seem to be evidence to suggest that there is, the reaction of the establishment is incredibly, how should I say it?

00:33:40.980 And they just make virtue signaling, they just express sentiments of sympathy with the victims, but then it's business as usual.

00:33:50.600 And they never allow the first, one of the first reactions to say, well, it doesn't matter who did the crime, we shouldn't be Islamophobic, or we shouldn't allow the far right to rise.

00:34:04.380 That's the sort of reaction.

00:34:05.960 And it seems to me that this is a distinctively anti-scientific perspective on the matter.

00:34:11.880 It's like saying that when we do have a multiculturalist experiment, but we're not going to treat it as a scientific experiment, we're going to actually be religious about it.

00:34:23.620 So is multiculturalism a form of religion for atheist secular governments?

00:34:31.860 Yes and no.

00:34:33.000 So yeah, there's a lot of, you said a lot of interesting things there.

00:34:38.960 So basically, I used before the word ignorance that I should say, maybe I should say ignorance instead of arrogance.

00:34:45.200 But in this case, I think arrogance is the right word, because there is this attitude that basically, we know better than the Muslims themselves do what they think. 1.00

00:34:54.320 So this particular type of person that you're describing, thinks he knows what the Muslim believes, even when the latter tells him differently. 0.72

00:35:01.920 And thinks, oh, it's just, he's just temporarily blind.

00:35:07.900 Yeah, they can't really believe that.

00:35:10.020 Right, they can't really believe that.

00:35:11.360 It's a class premise.

00:35:12.580 Yeah, exactly.

00:35:13.980 And this is also an inheritance from the Enlightenment.

00:35:17.220 I mean, we have people like Rousseau and Voltaire talking openly about morality is the same everywhere.

00:35:22.980 They literally write this.

00:35:24.180 All great men in history have agreed on the same set of moral principles and so on. 0.99

00:35:30.260 And this is, they were very ignorant. 0.98

00:35:32.560 They may have been good on certain things, but they were very ignorant about non-European cultures. 0.98

00:35:37.440 But they write very authoritatively about them, of course, always.

00:35:41.720 And this is, and people are children of the Enlightenment still in this sense, that they genuinely believe this.

00:35:49.260 And there is, and even now I have conversations with people who should know better that, no, this is not what they believe.

00:35:56.680 And we have to explain to them that the different forms that cultural expression can take are so vastly different that it would, I mean, it would shock us to see some of the things that are normal in other places.

00:36:13.300 Because when it comes to, and I mentioned before also that we need a different set of words for this.

00:36:21.260 And this is where, this is one of my pet peeves, but this is where also the conservative, where a lot of conservatives do the bidding of the left when they use the words Islamism and Islamist.

00:36:30.940 Because these words try to save Islam from any form of censure, from any form of critique.

00:36:40.780 Because they say that, well, if this thing goes on, this particular thing that we don't like, well, that's not Islam, that's Islamism. 0.88

00:36:47.300 And in making that distinction, they are making a left-wing distinction that is trying to save this foreign culture from critique.

00:36:57.940 Saying, well, we can criticize Islamism, but we may not criticize Islam. 0.97

00:37:02.820 But we should be able to criticize Islam just like any other faith system. 1.00

00:37:05.760 And when we use these words, we are then saying that, well, okay, this was not a, when an atrocity takes place, it wasn't a Muslim who did this, it wasn't Islamist who did this.

00:37:18.200 And therefore Muslim, therefore Islam itself is still safe.

00:37:22.160 And conservatives have to start, not just conservatives, hopefully, but certainly conservatives have to start using these words unabashedly.

00:37:30.620 And reject a certain set of words as insufficient to express what it is that we want to say.

00:37:35.480 And this goes back to what I was saying about the distinction before between religion and politics, that we have to understand the meaning of the words we're using.

00:37:43.640 Islamism used to be used synonymously with Islam in the late 1700s and in the 1900s, in the 1800s.

00:37:52.660 But that changed in the 60s and 70s of the last century, where they started to become distinct.

00:37:59.380 And Islamism was used as the political form of Islam.

00:38:01.980 But again, you cannot say the political form of Islam because it's really a part of it.

00:38:06.420 And it's really a part of the same overall structure.

00:38:09.540 And so we have to use the same word, namely Islam, in order to describe it.

00:38:13.460 And only once we start using these words properly, can we understand what it is we're really facing.

00:38:19.900 And I think part of that, that's an important part in, to go back to your question, understanding that we're dealing with something else.

00:38:29.680 As long as you use the word Islamist or Islamism, we can say that, okay, well, that's a small extremist fringe that believes certain things.

00:38:37.000 Once we use the right words, we understand that it is a major world religion that believes these things.

00:38:43.460 Again, not everyone, obviously, there will be exceptions.

00:38:45.720 And there are, should be said, there are reform movements, of course, within Islam that try to combat these things and that try to westernize.

00:38:52.900 And that's fine, and they should be encouraged.

00:38:55.960 But mainstream Islam itself is still what it is. 0.98

00:38:59.180 And only when we use the right words can we begin to understand that actually there is a massive part of the world,

00:39:05.980 including billions of people that have such radically different views from what we do here in the West about these things.

00:39:15.560 So a lot of it, again, comes down to the proper use of language, which, of course, as philosophers, is our, is our, is our main, almost our main thing that we always try to use properly.

00:39:26.860 Absolutely. So this has to be said. And yeah, I kind of maybe went off now a little bit here, but I think mainly your main point was about understanding how other peoples are very different from, from, from, from us, and that there is a real break in the continuity that we talked about previously.

00:39:45.020 Another thing that seems to me to be very weird about multiculturalism is that it looks like it's the people who have to lose more from it, who have the, who often are its most ardent supporters.

00:40:01.040 And I'll just give you two examples of movements. Well, however big they are is another matter, but they exist.

00:40:09.020 And I want to ask you, how do you think we can explain it? So for instance, the first is that there are a lot of women who claim themselves to be feminists, who also claim to be, who almost invariably side with Islam on several issues when it, when it comes to the Western world. 0.87

00:40:30.180 And then it's, for instance, the queers for Palestine movement, which I don't know, my impression is that people who are homosexual wouldn't be particularly well treated in, in Palestine.

00:40:42.680 Well, what do you think? How can, how can we explain that the, this phenomenon?

00:40:48.360 Yeah, I think a lot of that goes back to, to orcophobia really, which of course we've discussed before.

00:40:55.640 And the, so it is partly the ignorance inherited from the Enlightenment.

00:41:01.020 I mean, I'm not going to blame the Enlightenment for everything.

00:41:03.200 People have always been, regular people have always been ignorant in every era.

00:41:06.380 That's, that's common.

00:41:08.820 But with the democratization of knowledge, the idea that everyone, we, the illusion of education has not always existed.

00:41:17.140 People have always been uneducated.

00:41:19.380 But in the modern era, we have the illusion of many people that they are educated because a lot of people went to college.

00:41:26.740 Of course, that means that the, the quality of college education has concomitantly declined.

00:41:31.780 So people who come out of college aren't as educated as they used to be.

00:41:34.960 And the fact that we have information at our fingertips 24-7 also leads to the illusion of education and to the illusion of expertise.

00:41:43.040 Because somebody read a quick article about some, about Islam somewhere on Reddit or whatever.

00:41:49.240 And, and therefore now they are experts on Islam.

00:41:51.720 And so that illusion has led to a confidence on the part of the uneducated that did not used to exist.

00:41:59.280 And whereas genuine education and genuine expertise, of course, is something that's gained over a lifetime of study.

00:42:04.660 And so that illusion leads to this confidence, leads to the idea that, well, I know that, that this, that Islamic culture or the, or Islamic culture of a particular Islamic country is the way it is.

00:42:18.020 And I know that this is, that they do not, that they believe in the equality of the sexes, for example.

00:42:23.760 So that's part of it, this illusion of expertise and the confidence that leads to it, this sort of self-righteousness that comes with this illusion.

00:42:32.840 And the other is, again, that the, the, the old adagy, that the, the enemy of, of, sorry, the, the enemy of my friend is my, now I just messed that up.

00:42:44.480 But anyway, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

00:42:46.600 Yeah, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

00:42:48.280 Exactly.

00:42:48.660 Thank you.

00:42:48.980 And so the fact that, well, we are orcophobic and Western, Western civilization is patriarchal and oppressive and so on.

00:42:57.820 And if Islam is perceived as being somehow antithetical to that, then of course, Islam is to be supported.

00:43:04.420 And funnily enough, there is almost a tacit admission there that there is some kind of a distinction between Islam and the West, that they are in fact not so compatible. 0.51

00:43:13.440 Because if I am an orcophobic trying to suppress the inheritance of Western civilization, and I do so by supporting Islamic immigration, well, that is, that is a tacit admission, isn't it? 1.00

00:43:26.400 Even if an unwitting admission that there, in fact, that there is some kind of antithetical dynamic between, between Islam and the West.

00:43:35.440 Because Islam can be used as a means of suppressing the West. 1.00

00:43:40.260 And that, of course, they get right, but they don't understand what that ultimately will mean for them.

00:43:45.060 And there is this just general sort of short-sightedness about how, about what will happen.

00:43:50.800 People think of their own lives.

00:43:52.560 They don't think about what's going to happen three generations later.

00:43:54.920 They don't, they don't understand, they themselves don't have much to lose because the transformations that are, that are currently taking place will not fully play themselves out within their lifetimes.

00:44:06.600 So they can continue to live in their wealthier enclaves and not feel the consequences of Islamization to the same degree as other segments of society do. 0.98

00:44:16.540 But the, but, but that, but some of them will, will change their mind or their children will change their mind eventually.

00:44:23.500 Right. So I want to add something to what you said about the enlightenment.

00:44:29.220 And I think that one of the, obviously the enlightenment is an umbrella term.

00:44:34.020 There were many enlightenment philosophers and thinkers who believe all sorts of different things.

00:44:38.880 But I think we can talk about trends. 0.93

00:44:41.060 And I think one of the dangerous trends within enlightenment philosophy is the belief that almost everything pre-enlightenment is sort of stupidly naive at best.

00:44:52.560 And that traditions like mythology are the infancy of human thought and that they are ridiculous and they don't have any germ of truth. 0.99

00:45:04.200 And I think that this is a particular issue when it comes to understanding different cultures, because it's not that necessarily they're stupid. 0.97

00:45:12.660 It's that they're different. 0.96

00:45:13.600 That's one thing.

00:45:15.600 And also when it comes to, when it comes to the enlightenment and understanding and the idea of the supreme Western mind that cognizes the world and sheds lights, sheds light upon the darkness of ignorance is that it's, there's a crucial distinction that is being obscured, obfuscated.

00:45:42.600 The distinction between understanding a subject and understanding another person on their own terms, because it's one thing to be the specialist on a very specialist subject and know things that most people are completely ignorant of.

00:46:00.400 And sometimes they can't even learn because they can't even learn because they can't even learn because they can't even learn because they may be completely technical.

00:46:05.580 And quite another thing to frankly understand another person and another culture, because you have to, you have to treat them as to a degree rational in order to understand them.

00:46:17.980 I think that's, that's one of the famous discussions in the philosophy of language in the 20th century.

00:46:24.580 I think it goes back to Donald Davidson and Willard Quine.

00:46:28.380 They're saying that in order to understand a different culture, if you try to understand another language, you have to assume that there is a, that there is a substantial degree of rationality in people's mind.

00:46:40.860 You have to, you have to, you have to, you have to accept that to a very large degree, the rational, otherwise you can't understand, you can't understand what they're saying.

00:46:49.440 Yeah.

00:46:49.620 And I think that this is a distinction that is being entirely obfuscated when it comes to the topic of understanding, when it comes to, when it comes to academia and the elite of the spirit, if you'd like.

00:47:04.000 Obviously, I mean, I don't see it this way, but I think that there is a tremendous pressure within academia for people who are incredibly specialized on a small subject to think that they have to have an answer about everything.

00:47:22.380 So they, when, when they're asked about anything else, they, their default mode is to treat everything as their own subject.

00:47:30.620 And even, even when this comes to, to understanding other people and other cultures.

00:47:36.600 Yeah, no, I think that's a good point.

00:47:38.620 I don't, yeah, I don't know if I have that much to add to that, but I think you're right.

00:47:42.600 And I mean, the, the, I, I was reading just the other day, actually, I don't remember now by whom, actually, but somewhat similar to what you were saying about how the, how understanding, I think it was maybe your Elton or A.G.

00:47:59.820 Carr, no, I think it was Elton, riding against Carr, if I remember correctly, but anyway, about the difficulty of understanding another culture and how it really requires, it requires a whole other set of terms, which goes back a little bit to what we were saying before.

00:48:13.660 But also to, as you say, assume that there are reasons for why they're doing what they're doing and, and that these reasons are rational and self-interested.

00:48:21.660 And, and something which is, I think, undeniable, that's, even, even a hundred years from now, right, someone writing the history of the West today will have to try to understand why orcophobes and why defenders of multiculturalism are doing what they're doing.

00:48:40.180 And that even in that, there is a type of, as much as we may disagree with it, there is a, at least in some cases, a rational process that goes into it, even though we would say it's based on a lot of faulty premises.

00:48:52.360 But yeah, one, one always has to, and this is why we're philosophers and not, and not activists, because we want to take the trouble of genuinely understanding a phenomenon, which leaves some people feeling dissatisfied.

00:49:06.820 I don't know if you've had this experience, but basically there are, there are some people who just want the activists and the foot soldiers and people screaming down with such and such, whereas we're really, and, and it leaves them dissatisfied when one is sitting down and calmly trying to analyze and understand something.

00:49:24.280 But yeah, that's our job.

00:49:26.260 Right.

00:49:26.820 So I want to ask you last, a last question about multiculturalism before we move to, to the US and Donald Trump.

00:49:33.760 Yes.

00:49:34.600 Right.

00:49:34.960 So you have lived in Sweden for a long time.

00:49:40.720 Am I right?

00:49:41.820 Well, I left when I was 14.

00:49:43.580 Then I lived in, in other European countries as well.

00:49:46.480 Yeah.

00:49:46.680 Later on.

00:49:47.780 So lately we are hearing a lot of bad stuff about Sweden.

00:49:52.760 There are a lot of bombings.

00:49:54.040 There's a lot of gang violence and a lot, a lot of violence when it comes to underage children.

00:50:01.120 And a lot of them are used in gangs.

00:50:06.380 What's going on?

00:50:07.500 I thought Sweden was a, I was told that Sweden was a sort of paradise.

00:50:12.720 And it's also the social Democrats who have cultivated this idea of a Sweden that is heaven on earth.

00:50:20.000 Yes.

00:50:20.800 What's going on?

00:50:21.880 Right.

00:50:22.360 Well, they discovered that you cannot combine social democracy with, with open borders.

00:50:28.160 The social people who talk about Sweden as, as a socialist paradise or a social Democrat paradise, they're talking about the Sweden of the, of the 1960s, 1970s, maybe.

00:50:39.920 Um, and not of the Sweden of today, um, back in the, they were talking about Sweden back when it was still fairly, um, fairly homogenous, uh, which it's not anymore.

00:50:49.460 Um, and, uh, you have, uh, some Swedes waking up to the fact that you cannot have both together.

00:50:55.000 Um, but the Swedish people are traditionally non-confrontational, um, and, um, very much so, um, uh, unlike the French, for example.

00:51:04.560 Uh, and so they, um, they have, um, they have the, still the idea that it's probably just something temporary, something that hasn't, uh, you know, it'll, it'll pass just some.

00:51:15.580 The GDP hasn't gone up yet to create, yes, like.

00:51:20.340 Exactly.

00:51:21.240 Yeah.

00:51:21.500 We just need to, uh, just tax a little more to, uh, to bring in some more, um, some more revenue and then it'll, then it'll be fine.

00:51:27.040 It will go up this time.

00:51:28.760 Yeah.

00:51:29.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:51:30.120 Um, as opposed to all the other times.

00:51:32.060 Uh, and so, yeah, there is a certain Swedish mentality and one sees it to some extent in Germany as well, but, um, but this, it's not, the Germans aren't as, um, non-confrontational as the Swedes, but the Germans are convinced that the state is always right.

00:51:44.060 And so, um, and so that's why they are less prone to, to vote for major changes in the state.

00:51:49.500 There is this kind of feeling that what the state has been doing so far is probably okay because it was a state that was doing it.

00:51:54.560 In Sweden, it's more, it's not so much, um, this blind faith in the state, but it is the idea that, um, people, people are okay.

00:52:03.320 And, you know, I don't want to fight with them, so they don't want to fight with me.

00:52:06.340 Um, and I've known now from direct experience, a number of Swedes who are looking around and seeing what's going on around them, and they're starting to understand that, okay, it's not quite that simple.

00:52:16.720 Uh, but, uh, Sweden is another case, I think, of, as of so many other European countries where it has to continue to get worse, uh, before people genuinely wake up.

00:52:25.800 And, and, and, sorry, uh, just a final question because it is good, uh, it is a pertinent question on this subject before we move to U.S., to the U.S.

00:52:37.420 What do you think is the, does the future of Europe look like?

00:52:41.980 The future of Europe?

00:52:42.800 In the next, uh, let's say century.

00:52:46.000 Oh, in the next century.

00:52:46.720 Obviously, obviously, um, statements about the future are notoriously, uh, fallible and, uh, in, in, uh, several cases unreliable, but we'll take that with a pinch of salt.

00:53:01.280 Sure.

00:53:01.640 Absolutely.

00:53:02.120 Yeah.

00:53:02.360 So, um, but yeah.

00:53:03.180 I understand the, this quasi ridiculousness of what I'm asking.

00:53:07.600 No.

00:53:08.640 Well, no, I wouldn't say ridiculous, but yeah, but it's, yeah, certainly we, um, we'll take this with a great, don't quote me on this, um, um, 50 years from now.

00:53:15.760 Uh, but, uh, basically, um, the future of Europe.

00:53:19.820 So, uh, there, I would say there are two possible scenarios.

00:53:23.580 Um, the one possible scenario is that, uh, Islamization continues. 0.78

00:53:27.980 I mean, it will continue, but that it continues without, um, uh, but partly the Islamization and partly the demographic decline of, uh, the native population, that those two things continue, uh, in tandem.

00:53:39.240 Uh, and, um, when that happens, um, basically the countries will turn increasingly Islamized. 0.96

00:53:45.760 Islamic, it's not going to be this, uh, some people, when we talk about the decline of civilizations and the decline of societies and so on, some people think that we mean something like the collapse of the Roman empire with, with ruins and, and barbarian tribes roving and, uh, roving about and so on.

00:54:03.840 Um, that's not what we're talking about here.

00:54:05.340 Uh, the countries will continue to subsist.

00:54:07.820 The societies will continue to subsist, but their forms will change and, um, uh, public life will become increasingly Islamic and so on. 0.98

00:54:17.520 And those who disagree, I mean, they'll still continue to exist, but, uh, there will be pressure, uh, on people to convert to Islam and their, and, um, expressions of the native culture will become, grow weaker and weaker and so on.

00:54:32.680 That's the one scenario.

00:54:34.560 The other possible scenario is that people understand and they wake up to what's going on, uh, and they vote to, uh, they vote governments into power that will close the borders, not necessarily close the borders to all immigration, but certainly close the borders to that form of immigration.

00:54:51.220 Uh, and that, um, and that also starts to deport, uh, mass deportations because in a number of European countries, it wouldn't be enough to simply close the spigot, um, of, um, uh, Islamic immigration, but it would actually, it would be necessary to actually, uh, start mass deportations. 0.60

00:55:09.920 Um, now, uh, I'm not saying that that's going to happen, but that is in a number of European countries what would be necessary.

00:55:15.600 I know plenty of, uh, Europeans who already think that, um, it's too late at the point of no return for their countries have been, um, has been passed unless there are mass deportations and I'm inclined to think that they're right. 1.00

00:55:27.200 So those are the two scenarios.

00:55:29.060 If that happens, uh, probably there will some, uh, some violence, uh, will be the result of, uh, of such policies, which obviously, um, nobody supports.

00:55:38.100 I mean, I certainly don't support, um, uh, violent confrontation, but that is what would be the result, um, in that scenario.

00:55:44.600 So those are the two scenarios, which one of those will come to pass.

00:55:47.820 There might be more of one scenario in one country and more another scenario in another country.

00:55:51.500 Although as we see, the West now is unified, if you will, or it's, it's monolithic, sufficiently monolithic for cultural developments in one place of the West to have an effect on, uh, on other places within the West.

00:56:06.420 So if one European country is able, just like the United States now has inspiring conservative movements, um, also in, uh, in parts of Europe, if one European country is able to set the tone here, uh, that would make it likely for other European countries to follow.

00:56:21.640 So, so that's why, for example, the German election was, was disappointing for this reason.

00:56:27.120 Uh, but, um, yeah, I think those are the, are the two scenarios.

00:56:30.720 If I had to put money on it today, unfortunately, I would probably put money on the, on the worst of those two possibilities.

00:56:36.920 Um, that is to say on continued Islamization. 0.88

00:56:39.600 Uh, I hope that's wrong.

00:56:41.060 Uh, but, uh, yeah, I think that's where we are right now.

00:56:44.280 Right.

00:56:44.760 And you have expressed a kind of optimism for the U.S.

00:56:49.460 Yes.

00:56:50.080 What, what does this optimism lie up, lie on?

00:56:54.000 Yes.

00:56:54.440 So first of all, of course, we don't have, uh, we, we certainly have, uh, uh, immigration problems here as well, but our immigration is of a different form, of course, than European immigration by and large.

00:57:03.320 Uh, so the United States is not being Islamized. 0.70

00:57:06.280 Uh, I mean, we do obviously see certain signs of it here in New York city, my city, we had, you know, we've had pro Hamas demonstrations and things like that, certainly.

00:57:13.840 Uh, but by and large, in terms of just regular daily life, uh, it's not at all as, uh, as severe as in, uh, as in Western and Northern Europe.

00:57:22.080 Uh, but, um, the reason I'm optimistic is because American conservatism is something I've written a little bit about is, I mean, I don't actually consider myself a conservative, um, in general, but American conservatism is, um, is much more positive in its view of the world than, than similar forms in Europe currently.

00:57:43.300 That hasn't, that wasn't always the case.

00:57:44.620 I mean, there have certainly been very genuine forms of European conservatism and even more conservative than, than American conservatism.

00:57:51.160 Uh, but because of the fact that Americans by and large still believe in the superiority of America and the fact that they believe that America has a special place in the world, that they unabashedly believe in God, that they go to church and that they wear outward signs of their religion.

00:58:09.340 And all of those things and others yet are reasons to be optimistic because it means that we are, we are offering something positive.

00:58:18.100 When you speak to conservatives in Europe, um, there are, again, of course, there are exceptions, but there is a certain squeamishness on the part of number of European conservatives about Christianity, for example, about the fact that they have something to be very proud of.

00:58:31.640 There tends to be the case that their conservatism has become more negative, that is to say, they resist Islamization, they resist the radicalism of the left, and those are important things. 0.99

00:58:42.100 But the question is, what do they offer in return?

00:58:44.880 And as long as one feels a certain squeamishness about one's own past, about one's own history and one's own religion, that offer in return is not going to be as effective as it is in the United States, where there is this almost chandlike naivete, if you will, about the joys, about the beauty of one's own heritage, which we still have.

00:59:02.520 And I think that's the main reason why our conservatism has been more successful and is inspiring more people.

00:59:07.340 Could this actually be bad for the U.S., because could it breed a kind of arrogance that also generates the sentiments that we are culturally untouchable, therefore, there aren't any cultural threats, so don't take them seriously, and recreate all the mistakes we have been talking about in this interview?

00:59:33.620 Yeah, no, I think that's an interesting point, and there's certainly a risk for that.

00:59:37.760 I mean, part of it is simply all these triumphant declarations after the election that wokeism is dead and the radical left is dead and so on.

00:59:46.700 They're not dead. They're weakened, but they're not dead.

00:59:49.760 But also this sense that, yes, and I think actually what you just said made me think of this idea that, for example, and you see this now with the people like Elon Musk, for example, that, yes, we want the best of the brightest of the world to come in and settle in the United States.

01:00:03.380 And bring their expertise and businesses and so on.

01:00:06.340 And I mean, there is a lot to be said for that, and part, of course, of the rise of the United States comes precisely from that.

01:00:10.980 But there is, in that triumphalism and in that conviction that the United States is the greatest and untouchable, as you say, there is, one tends to not notice the fact that, well, some of those cultural elements that one would therefore invite into the country are, in fact, hostile to Western culture.

01:00:34.880 And the risk, I say we're not at risk of Islamization here, but that also leads to the fact that we're not aware in the same way, as certain aspects of, at least of European society are, that we're not aware in the same way of what Islamization is or what it means.

01:00:53.440 And although certainly there is this refusal to understand Islamic religion in Europe as well, one at least sees regular everyday people in Europe slowly waking up to this because they deal with it on a daily basis.

01:01:09.360 Whereas even speaking here with conservatives, with many American conservatives, they seem to be, they still have this, we mentioned the separation of church and state before, they still have this very sort of separation of church and state mindset, which is say, well, that's the American way.

01:01:25.480 So other religions are not an issue, they're not a threat.

01:01:29.780 So, yeah, there is, that is certainly a danger, what you mentioned, and something that we have to be vigilant about, yeah.

01:01:36.040 Well, there are always going to be triumphalists, and every time there is a major event, they're going to rush to announce the death of something and the birth of something else.

01:01:47.240 I think it's the same with those who were announcing the death of globalism when Donald Trump got elected eight years ago.

01:01:56.360 Yeah.

01:01:57.520 It just didn't happen.

01:01:59.080 I don't think it's that simple.

01:02:01.200 Right.

01:02:01.460 So I want to say that, I mean, I believe everyone who has power must be, must be criticized.

01:02:10.480 And I think that a lot of people right now look at Donald Trump and they idolize him.

01:02:16.120 And I think that this is, is not how it is supposed to be when it comes to, to the actual tradition of speaking truth to power and holding power into account.

01:02:27.160 But I don't, I don't want to be a meister.

01:02:29.200 I want to ask you whether you think that he's going to be ultimately good for the, for the Western world.

01:02:36.860 I do.

01:02:37.700 And if so, how, and whether, whether there are dangers in his approach of splitting the Western camp and actually creating a gap between the US and Europe and redirecting Europe towards other areas.

01:02:53.940 Yeah.

01:02:54.540 Yeah.

01:02:54.800 So, yeah.

01:02:55.860 So there, I mean, there is certainly a whole club of people who, who think Trump is the second coming of Jesus and so on.

01:03:04.500 And it's, and he can do no wrong.

01:03:06.000 Yeah.

01:03:06.200 So that's obviously, I, I don't have much in common with them.

01:03:09.420 I voted for Trump and I'm very happy that he won.

01:03:12.360 But yeah, the, this, this particular cohort of people, they also tend to be isolationists.

01:03:19.540 And I think they miss the fact that Trump himself is actually not an isolationist.

01:03:23.660 I think he's more of a peace through strength Reaganite in that particular context, which I think is a good thing.

01:03:29.900 When it comes to the split within the West, I think that's probably something that, I think that's where the European, some Europeans and this particular segment of the, of the American right have in common.

01:03:42.860 And in the sense that they, both those sides kind of play up that split, if you will, because on the one hand, America is perceived as very arrogant in Europe.

01:03:52.940 And therefore that we, you know, we should, we should move away from the orbit of the United States and, and, and Trump is very much despised by those people.

01:04:01.320 And so we should move away from America for that reason as well.

01:04:04.400 And then in the United States, we have this cohort of, of the, of the American right who think that, you know, Europe, they're a bunch, you know, they're just a bunch of warmongers and they can solve their own problems and we don't need them and so on.

01:04:16.200 And so there is this kind of mutual arrogance. And I think, I think both of these sides are wrong. I think, I think we do need each other. When it comes to Trump himself, I mean, Europe needs, needs the United States more than the United States needs Europe.

01:04:31.920 But, but, but, but the United States should not become arrogant and therefore say that we can divorce ourselves from Europe or from the world completely.

01:04:38.920 Whenever historically the United States has withdrawn from the world, what followed was not very pretty and forced the United States to reenter the world again. 0.62

01:04:47.920 I mean, there is a long tradition of American isolationism. That's, that's a very American thing, but, but isolationism has typically not worked out so well for us.

01:04:56.060 Um, now, when it comes to Trump himself, as many other people have said, um, one has to distinguish between the rhetoric and the policy.

01:05:05.260 Um, he has said certain things. I mean, his speech there where he talked about Zelensky as a dictator and so on.

01:05:11.060 And I mean, yeah, that's, um, that's unfortunate, but, um, but, uh, but I think people misunderstand him.

01:05:18.700 I think people on both the left and the right misunderstand him when, excuse me, when, sorry.

01:05:29.100 Bless you.

01:05:30.160 Thank you. Uh, when people, um, when the left say that, um, that he's a, uh, a Putin stooge, uh, that's not true.

01:05:36.820 But when the right, um, the, the pro-Russian right in the United States, I mean, that is a good thing. 0.99

01:05:42.820 I think they're wrong also. And, uh, yeah, I think what Trump really wants is, um, is, uh, peace in Europe and, um, and that the Europeans should, um, pay for more of, uh, of European defense.

01:05:58.060 And I mean, I think that's, it should be, I think that's inarguably right. Well, I shouldn't say inarguably, but I think that's absolutely right.

01:06:04.480 And the thing is, I think for Europe itself, that would in the long term be in Europe's interest because Europe should, there is both a, there is both a geopolitical and a social component of that.

01:06:15.940 Um, the geopolitical component is obvious, um, with Russia being, behaving the way it does, your European countries should have stronger defenses.

01:06:24.300 And number two, it's socially good to spend more on one's defense because that leads to more people serving in the military, which is a good thing.

01:06:34.480 Uh, it's good for, for a national character and it also leads to, um, hopefully less money being spent on social welfare systems that, uh, that ruin, uh, countries' economies and ruin their social fabric.

01:06:47.540 So, um, so I think that would be, I think it's in the Europe's, uh, interest, uh, also in the long term to, uh, raise their amount of GDP that they spend on defense.

01:06:56.660 Um, so I, I wouldn't make too much of the, uh, American-European split.

01:07:01.800 I think that's, um, I think that's something that's being encouraged by, by some people on both the left and the right, uh, with, uh, with whom I disagree, but who, but who I think fundamentally misunderstand the situation.

01:07:12.560 I, I hope you're right.

01:07:15.680 Yeah.

01:07:15.820 And, uh, I think that this is a good positive, uh, note to end on and it's good to, to have an optimistic note.

01:07:24.080 Now, I think that this was an interview where you were a bit more optimistic than I am, which is a global first, I think.

01:07:31.460 Right.

01:07:31.720 I'm not accused of, uh, of being an optimist, uh, generally speaking.

01:07:35.280 Okay.

01:07:35.680 So it's nice to, uh, to give that impression.

01:07:37.960 Well, uh, I'm sure we'll, uh, be able to have a doom and gloom conversation maybe at another time.

01:07:41.800 So, so we all feel comfortable again, but yes.

01:07:44.940 Right.

01:07:45.820 Okay.

01:07:46.300 So, uh, on behalf of our audience, I want to say that we were very happy to, to have you again and interview you.

01:07:53.940 And, uh, I really hope, uh, all the best and best of luck for your future endeavors.

01:08:00.860 Thank you.

01:08:01.460 Same to you.

01:08:01.900 It's been a pleasure.

01:08:02.960 Thank you very much.

01:08:04.160 Thank you.

01:08:05.680 Thank you.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - March 20, 2025

Multiculturalism in Europe ｜ Interview with Dr. Benedict Beckeld

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