The shock of political violence warns of historical amnesia
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Summary
Rob Henderson, best-selling author of Troubled, a memoir about the foster care system in the social class, and contributing editor at The City Journal, joins me to discuss his recent article on Charlie Kirk's podcast, and about people's amnesia about the pattern of political violence that plagues history.
Transcript
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Hello, my name is Leah Mushed. I'm a reporter here at the Western Standard, and today I have with me
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Rob Henderson, best-selling author of the book Troubled, a memoir on the foster care system
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in the social class. He is currently a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing
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editor at the City Journal. Also, he recently wrote an article on his encounter with Charlie
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Kirk on Charlie Kirk's podcast and about people's amnesia about the pattern of political violence
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that plagues history, which he will discuss with me today. Okay, so thank you again for being here
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with me today, Rob. And my first question, jumping straight into it, is you were talking about how
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basically political violence in history is very common until we adopted like Enlightenment views
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in the West. So I guess I wanted you to just like tell me why you think it is that we're currently
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kind of the ideals of Enlightenment is currently diminishing, as well as just like why you think
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we're becoming a bit careless about it. Well, yeah, thanks, Leah. It's a pleasure to be here.
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You know, I'm reserving like everyone else the reaction to Charlie Kirk's death and this sense
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that political violence seems to be growing more acceptable. If you look at survey data, it seems
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like a growing number of people, especially young people under 30, believe that political violence
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is sometimes necessary to achieve your goals or that it's permissible to celebrate political violence
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against your perceived opponents. And, you know, those survey data in combination with the response to
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Charlie Kirk's murder. You know, I heard that article I wanted to write about this topic because a lot of
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people forget how much struggle and how much bloodshed and debate and conflict took place historically
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before we arrived at this implicit agreement that we could settle our disputes about important issues with words
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rather than violence. Historically, it's been the norm that if powerful people hear things that you disagree with,
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that they will attempt to imprison you or murder you or take you out. There's no shortage of stories
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stories and information from historians who cover the religious conflicts of Europe up until the last
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couple of centuries. And I tell this story about Rene Descartes, the French philosopher, who himself was
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a devoted Christian, but he wrote a series of books in which he attempted to logically prove the existence of
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God. And in response, the Catholic Church banned his books. Even though he came down on the, you know, in air quotes,
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the correct side of the debate, he came to the conclusion that God does exist. But the Church banned his books
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anyway, because he treated the existence of God as something that was worthy of debate and scrutiny. And this was to the
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Church considered a threat. And you can see parallels today that, you know, even if you come down on the correct side of
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of an opinion, that people still don't want you to express your views or believe that your idea
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shouldn't be platformed or countenanced because, you know, the very idea that that you would debate
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something is is offensive, challenging sacred norms, sacred ideas. And I think, you know, Charlie
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correct it regardless of whether you agree with his actual opinions, he did attempt to persuade his
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opinion or persuade his opponents with words, with debate, with communication. And, you know,
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people were uncomfortable by that. I think there was this grim irony that he was killed on college campus
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because college campuses are where this idea that words are violence was born. And so, you know,
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Charlie comes onto these campuses, and he's saying things that a lot of students agree with,
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many students disagree with, make people feel uncomfortable. And in response, eventually,
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this gave rise to this fear, this anxiety, and then this desire to take him out. And it's a very dark
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path to go down that if you think that words are the equivalent of violence, then you can use violence
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to silence people. But then if you inflict violence on someone, then you can also, by that same logic,
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inflict violence back. And this is a very dark path, a dark trajectory. If one side believes words are
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violence, the other and then decides to use violence against those words. And then the other side says,
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well, you inflicted actual violence on me, so now I get to inflict it back. That is, you know,
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recipe for catastrophe. Hmm. Yeah, I was also wanting to know more about the 2023 study that you also
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mentioned in the article about liberals and conservatives on the topic of, like, how they are perceived by one
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another versus, like, how they think they're perceived by one another. I think I said that right. Yeah.
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Yeah, I think study, where the idea of this, this 2023 study by a team of social psychologists,
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they basically wanted to know about, you know, what they called meta representations of people's
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political parties, political orientation. And so they basically wanted to know,
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do conservatives accurately understand how liberals view them? You know, and then do liberals
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accurately perceive how conservatives view them? You know, can you sort of get into the mind of your
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political opponent and see how you look through their eyes? And one conclusion of that study was,
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yes, basically, conservatives understand that liberals view them as, you know, self-centered and
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unfeeling and, you know, approve of social hierarchies and that kind of thing, you know, with regard to,
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you know, success and accomplishments. And then, on the other hand, liberals accurately perceived that
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conservatives viewed them, meaning liberals, as, you know, a bit naive, a bit idealistic, you know,
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disconnected from ground reality. So that was one interesting finding is that we generally understand
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how the other side views us. The other interesting finding was the derogatory interpretation or
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perception of your own party. And what they basically found is that liberals tended to view
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conservatives as, uh, the researchers used the phrase savage. So, uh, you know, conservatives,
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you know, the most negative characteristics of conservatives are, uh, aggressive, hostile,
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confrontational, you know, I mentioned unfeeling, callous, um, you know, they have no empathy,
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that kind of thing. And then, um, uh, on the other hand, conservatives tended to view liberals
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as, uh, uh, immature, you know, kind of undeveloped, a bit naive, idealistic,
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doesn't understand how the world really works, that kind of thing. And, um, the other interesting
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finding is that, um, uh, conservatives, uh, overestimated how much liberals like them. If you ask a
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conservative, how much do you think liberals like you? They know that liberals don't have a,
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uh, a high opinion of them, but they still tended to overestimate, um, how much liberals like
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conservatives. So when you ask liberals directly, how much do you like conservatives? It was very low.
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If you ask conservatives, you know, how much do you think liberals like you? It was actually higher
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than that. So they overestimated that perception. And then, um, uh, and so, you know, liberals had a
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much lower opinion of conservatives than, than conservatives believed liberals had of them.
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Whereas the opposite was true. Um, when you ask liberals, um, how much do you think conservatives
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like you? Um, they, uh, actually underestimated how much conservatives like them. Conservatives
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actually have a generally fairly warm opinion of liberals. I mean, not as warm as they have of
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themselves. Conservatives like themselves the most, liberals like themselves the most,
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but conservatives had like a moderately warm opinion of liberals. Um, uh, or, or they had,
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yeah, a moderately warm opinion of liberals. But then you ask liberals, um, uh, they actually
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underestimated that and they thought that conservatives didn't like them very much.
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There's this interesting asymmetry where liberals really don't like conservatives and conservatives
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don't understand this. And conservatives actually kind of like liberals, but liberals don't understand
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that either. Hmm. Okay. Also on that note, because I know at least from what I've read that, uh,
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conservatives tend to be more, uh, polite. So I'm wondering if that has anything to do with the
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fact that they tend to like liberals more than liberals think they do. Uh, yeah, there's some
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interesting research on, um, you know, these, uh, agreeableness, these big five personality traits.
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And, uh, one of the big five personality traits, if you take a personality test, you get a score on
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five different dimensions. One of those dimensions is agreeableness and agreeableness can be broken
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down into compassion and politeness. Conservatives are a little bit more polite than liberals.
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Liberals tend to be a bit more compassionate than conservatives on these measures. And so, yeah,
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maybe there's a bit of that going on there where, uh, conservatives, um, you know, I think
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counterintuitively to a lot of liberals, uh, conservatives tend to give their, uh, uh, political
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opponents more of the benefit of the doubt that, um, you'll often hear this in right leading circles
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that, yeah, liberals are a little unhinged or whatever, but I think their heart is in the right place.
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You're hearing that less now, especially after the death of Charlie Kirk, but that was a common
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thing you would hear in right leading circles was like, yeah, these liberals are a little,
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you know, whatever. They're a little, uh, uh, misguided, but you know, they're trying to do
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the right thing, but the way they're doing it is just completely, uh, uh, ineffective, uh, and
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possibly destructive. Whereas the, you don't really hear that, uh, if you hang out in left
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leaning circles, you sell them here like, oh, these conservatives, their hearts are in the right
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place, but they're going about it the wrong way. It's more, so you're more likely to hear things like,
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you know, these people really don't care about anyone else and we need to stop them.
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That's also, um, what you mentioned in your article, like, so like what the sentiment, like,
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what it motivates is like, um, for liberals, I don't know exactly what you said because I can't
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quote you right now, but yeah, maybe explain more on like the gap between the two that you mentioned.
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Go ahead. Uh, the, the, the gap in terms of what? Sorry. The gap you mentioned between, uh, the liberal
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sentiments and conservative and like what that can lead to basically. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, you know,
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if you, if you're, the conservatives tended to view the liberals as immature, you know, undeveloped,
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you know, a little naive and, and that doesn't necessarily spark the desire for violence.
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Um, you know, don't get me wrong, but there, there is right wing extremism and there is political
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violence carried out by people on the right. Um, you know, these extremists, but broadly speaking,
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um, you look at the general interpretation, the perceptions that the right has of the left. Oh,
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you know, they're a little immature, but that doesn't spark this aggression and hostility.
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But the other, um, direction when liberals view conservatives as, you know, it was the phrase
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the researchers used as savage as, um, you know, aggressive and on feeling, and they don't care
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about anyone. They're very selfish that this can spark this desire for retribution, this desire
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for, um, extinguishing that person, uh, because you view them as a, as a threat. If you see someone
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as immature and idealistic, they're not necessarily a threat to you, um, or you don't perceive them as
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a threat. But if you view someone as a selfish and unfeeling and aggressive, and that does activate
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this anxiety and this feeling like, Oh, I need to stop them because they might hurt me.
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Right. Um, so also I kind of wanted to, cause I was thinking about like people were making like very
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political and obviously you said there there's obviously like political sentiments can motivate
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people. So I don't know. Cause like, obviously a person who's not, um, well, I feel like mentally
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stable wouldn't, even if they're thinking these things, they're probably not going to act on it.
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But I guess since it's like, if I don't know, maybe it's like, once it, they get like more motivated
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and more motivated, like group wise, um, say like, Oh, we have to stop them and stuff. There's going to be
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maybe one unstable type of person, like who has like these tendencies that are going to act because
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they're taking it seriously kind of. Yes. Yeah. If you, you know, the vast majority of people are,
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you know, we're all exposed. We're all swimming in the same toxic slime of social media and political
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polarization and, you know, all of the, uh, charges level back and forth, uh, of, you know,
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which side is worse or whatever. Um, and the, and the majority of people who are, who are in these,
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you know, swimming in this slime, they're not going to carry out violence, but you know,
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if you take a thousand people, um, uh, and you know, people are not all interchangeable in terms
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of their attributes and levels of aggressiveness and hostility and willingness to, uh, carry out
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extreme acts. So you take a thousand people and, you know, some handful of those people,
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um, when they're exposed to a lot of toxic stuff online and their, um, hostility is raised and
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applauded, you know, you see people posting horrible stuff online and they get a lot of likes
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and they get applause. And some people might see that and say, okay, well, if this person's getting
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applause for posting to this, uh, uh, aggressive content online, that how much applause might I get
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if I carry out an actual aggressive act in real life? So, um, yeah, I think it's, uh, it's, it's good.
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You know, most political leaders have condemned, uh, the killing of Charlie Kirk. Um, but you know,
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now we're in this increasingly fragmented media landscape and the incentives are skewed where,
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you know, I think in the past it was an agreed upon social norm that you shouldn't celebrate the
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death of your political, uh, uh, adversaries. Uh, even if you disagree with them, um, you know,
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it's still wrong to celebrate the death of an innocent person. Uh, but now with social media,
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it's, you know, it's a, it's a very alluring and enticing prospect to say something outrageous,
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get likes, and then other people see that and potentially might motivate them to act in the real
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world. Hmm. And like on that note as well, like you're saying, they might get applause and stuff.
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Do you think also a contributing factor could be like loneliness as well? Like, so they get their
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approval from online, obviously then they don't have maybe as many support in like their actual
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social lives. That's probably true. Um, that some percentage of people, uh, you know, friendlessness is
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rising rates of loneliness, uh, sexlessness, uh, relationship formation is declining. Uh, and a
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lot of young people, you know, I think it's not a coincidence that the group that is the most, uh,
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supportive or the least, um, apprehensive about political violence under 30, uh, young people,
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that's also the group that reports the highest levels, uh, uh, at least in recent decades,
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you know, the highest levels of loneliness and sexlessness, friendlessness, and all this stuff.
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They're spending a lot more time online. They're spending a lot more time on screens where,
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you know, back in the day, um, if you had a group of real life friends, you know, there's a,
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there's a, a, a restriction in terms of the range of how extreme that friend group might be. If you have
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six people, you know, there's not a lot of range in terms of how extreme they are, but if you have,
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uh, you know, millions of people, uh, and they're all online and you're exposed to, um, their content
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that tends to be a bit more exciting and dramatic and exhibitionistic. And that's, those are the groups
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you're drawn to people who you would never meet in real life and who would probably not necessarily
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behave that way in real life either, but online extremism can be rewarded. Um, and yeah, I think, uh,
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you know, social media and the screens and all that stuff, it, it has, uh, supplanted a lot of
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real life interaction, uh, and led to rising rates of loneliness. Hmm. Um, okay. So you said men
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ages 18 to 24 are most likely to commit murder. And then usually their victims are older men, 25 to 34.
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So I kind of wanted to know, like, why is that? And also like maybe a bit more about
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the research on that as well. Yeah. This is a classic finding, um, going back to the 1980s,
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Margo Wilson and Martin Daly. These were, uh, psychologists and they looked at, uh, the age
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crime curve as they called it, the, um, you know, rates of violence and homicide, uh, across different
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demographics and age groups and found that, yeah, young men, late teens, early twenties,
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that is the group that's most likely to, uh, commit violent crimes and homicides. Um,
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and, you know, a 20 year old man is 10 times more likely to commit a violent crime than a 60 year
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old man. Uh, so it is that age group and the, uh, victims, uh, are most likely to be, or disproportionately,
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uh, likely to be men who are slightly older. So as you mentioned, 25 to 34. And so, you know, that,
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that fact stood out to me, came to mind when I saw the video that everyone else saw of the shooting.
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And as the information was released about the assassin, uh, the alleged assassin who's 22 years
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old and Charlie Kirk was 31 years old, and it matches that pattern of, you have a younger person,
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a younger male who's killing a slightly older male and different reasons for that. But one is, um,
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you know, this feeling of envy or resentment, you know, you, we, we tend to compare ourselves to those
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who are doing slightly better than ourselves. Uh, I use one who's a little bit older, a bit more
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successful and, you know, don't, there are probably plenty of motives and it's going to be impossible
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to disentangle all of them. But one reason why you see that pattern carried out young men killing
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slightly older men who are also quite young is that there's this envy directed at them that they're
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older and doing slightly better and they want to take them out. Wow. That like, to me also,
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yeah, I didn't even think about like the fact that it could be envy and also, um, maybe,
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do you think it's also because there's, since it's envy, they're just seeing like what's directly in
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front of them. Like they don't, they haven't attained whatever it is that they're envious about
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and the older people. And so since maybe as well, their brains aren't as developed, but I'm thinking
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it could also be. Oh, sure. I mean, it's, it's the thing is though, you know, there are millions of
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men in their twenties, teens and twenties, and not all of them are going to do something like this.
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So, you know, they're all, you know, too, but, but yes, of the men who do carry out these acts of
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violence, um, yeah, you know, because, because even men who don't commit those acts, you know,
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the, uh, like recklessness and risky behavior, you just see it a lot, a lot more of it, even within
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a given individual's lifetime. If you take the same individual at age 20 versus age 60, you're
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going to see more recklessness and stupidity at age 20. And partially because, uh, you know,
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and developed frontal lobes and peer effects and, you know, difficulties with impulse control and all
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that kind of stuff. Um, but yeah, when you go into like the extremes and you see people, um,
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who commit, commit violence, uh, you know, it's, uh, there are age-related patterns. Uh,
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you know, when I saw that, and I'm sure many of the listeners and the viewers saw this too,
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of the, uh, the older gentleman who was arrested initially after the shooting, 71 year old man.
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Uh, as soon as I saw that, uh, immediately I thought, no way, uh, men that old do not commit
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political assassinations. Uh, I mean, obviously anything is possible, but, um, you know,
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I was immediately skeptical and that it turned out that that, uh, old man, um, you know, this was
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reported recently, uh, the New York times that he, uh, was attempting to, uh, uh, fight, uh, the
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assassin time by, by saying that he was the killer so that the police would be distracted so that the
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assassin would be allowed to flee the scene. Um, and that's, you know, that, that matched, uh,
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the data much more than, than a 70 year old man doing something like, uh, like carrying out a
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political assassination. Okay. Let's see. Okay. Also, I was wondering, maybe you could talk a
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little bit more about like, what do you think there's any other like really good examples
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of like times in history when like, or maybe even recent other recent examples in history of
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political violence and like, I guess people taking it, uh, taking it for granted, like ideals of free
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speech? Uh, interesting. Hmm. You know, my, my sense is that at least, at least, uh, uh, the educated elites
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of most, at least in recent history, they were aware of, of, you know, the, the dangers of violence. Um,
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you know, I guess what comes to mind is the, the wave of political violence in the U S in the 1960s
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and 1970s, um, where it did seem like there was this pension of, you know, you have these ideals of,
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uh, dignity and equality and human worth and all this stuff. But now there were factions, uh, particularly
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on the extreme political left who believe that we haven't achieved those things. The only way we
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can acquire dignity and equality and all of the, these social ideals is, uh, to carry out violence.
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Um, but you know, means tend to corrupt ends. If you have a noble goal in mind, but you do a bunch of
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sorted and, uh, repulsive, um, acts to get there, then even if you do reach your goal, um, it will not
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be satisfying and it will taint, uh, uh, uh, you know, the, the, whatever you, you built, if you had
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to use what it means to get there. So anyway, uh, yeah, I, I just think, uh, in this moment,
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it seems like more people than ever have forgotten, uh, history. Um, you know, it's kind of, uh, uh,
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not, not taught well in schools and even educated people, political leaders and so on. There's just
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this focus on, uh, what a friend of mine calls the never ending now that, uh, you know, we're only
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focused on what happened within the last 10 minutes and saw them go back and look at, you know,
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historical periods of instability and conflict and civil war and what are the factors that led to
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those, um, those problems. Yeah. I think that's kind of all the questions I had for you today,
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but I appreciate you coming on again. Um, yeah, it was great having you and very interesting responses.