Conversation with Onkar Ghate, Philosopher | Yaron Brook Show

you feel about it? And then I'd like to talk about where you think we're going from here.

just wield the power. They want to kick people out to show that they have the power to kick people out. I even think they want to do it a little bit, pushing the boundaries of the law or even flouting the law.

They want to show that they can do that. So I have a pretty negative assessment of what's happening with the immigration and part of just what's happening, but part of it's he's surrounded himself in comparison to the first administration, I think, with more power lusters than the and that's bad, but it's part of I mean, it's part of what was so bad about him that he pushes out the better people in the Republican Party and you get the worse people who want who much more want to be there.

I think you still had in the first administration. I don't know when you think about this, but there were people who thought like they have some responsibility to keep this guy in check. And it's kind of he's a

child and you've got to humor him a bit. But there are a lot of stories that I think there were various individuals who thought they had to do that, and we're trying to do that, however successfully and whether it's fully sincerely or there's a bit they liked the limelight and power as well, but there was much more that I.

think his book later on really reflected that. But yeah, it's funny because I was in where was I It was somewhere maybe I was in London, and Joel Bolton walked into the walked into the the club I was at I was one of these British airways, a club thing, and sat not far from me, and I don't think you remembered who I was, but I went up and said I just went up and said, you know, just thank you for the work you're doing. I know how much you know, how much negativity is around it, And

he seemed to appreciate that. So I thought, given what's going on in the world, you know, it's good to boost the better people. But yeah, I definitely think that's the case. In the first admission. The number of people the Easy Economics team I think was there with the idea, and there was that guy who published that up ed the New York Times about with the adults in the room, and we're tried keep keep saying, there are no adults in the room this time. Yeah, they complete the complete accolades.

What do you think about I mean, one of the things that holifies me is, yeah, I think the people he's appointed on the immigration issue really really bad. But part of what holifies me is that the the the people on the ground, the people actually uh you know, applying these this to the immigrants. There seems to be a significant number of them that are just cool and nasty and you know, really enjoying the little power lusters, really enjoying inflicting this on people. And that's scary.

carrying drugs and stop the gangs from coming in. But too many people It's just this is an opportunity to wield power over people, and this is like way predates Trump. I've told this story to some people before I made it that, like, I'm not allowed to talk. My wife does not allow me to talk to Immigration Border Control anymore because I too many of them. They just want power the when I so, I'm a pretty patient person.

But the we have a green card that says keep your card in its sleeve, and I had to You used to before it's all automated. You used to have to give it to the person, and it was why is your card in the sleeve? You have to take your car up. So next time I take it out, why is your card out of the sleeve. It's supposed

to be in the sleeve. And the third time this happened, I just and the idea that it's a job to stop people from working, Like my job is to stop people from working, to try to figure out if they're trying to work in the US and if they are, to go after him, and like, how can I attract somebody who thinks, yeah, that's a productive activity stop other people from working. So it attracts the kind of person who, yeah, like I like to tell people what to do, and

I like to have them this power over me. And the other thing for the immigrant, which you're seeing now that it's it's a kind of no man's land where you don't have any recourse. You can't call a lawyer, you can't use your phone. I've been once pulled out of the line, and it is scary because they have a ton of power and you have no recour or you can't get like you can't go back to your country, you can't go into the US, you can't call a lawyer, you can't use your phone and now they're seizing all

the electronics. Often it's yeah, so it in comparison like to say, to be a government teacher, which that's a legitimate job. It shouldn't be run by the government. There's so much here that's not legitimate at all, and it has to attract people who want to wheeld their legitimate power.

it that a lawyer has to drive. They see it client like one hundred miles and has to drive back, and they're doing it deliberately to make it really hard for them to have representation, and that that if you're the government can do this to pretty powerless people, it should. Like I was talking to someone this week about this, that our government is supposed to function by permission. It's

not the one wielding authority doing whatever it wants. And even if you don't care about immigration, even if you think which I do think like some of these people are gang members, not all, and I have no confidence they have any idea what they're doing in trying. I mean, if you're using tattoos as your primary form of identitification, then it is you're gonna catch all kinds of people

who don't belong. But there are some. But the idea that like the government can wield this kind of unchecked power, should any American who thinks, yeah, we're supposed to have a government of laws and it's supposed to function by permission. Not it gives us orders. We give it orders. It can't function, it can't keep people away from layers, and it can't function in this way.

These are the liberal elites who opposed us so and now we're going to go after them, if for the anti semitism, if they deported or to took away the visas approvals and then deported some Jewish people and Jewish looking people who were involved in the protest on the on the sort of pro Palestinian pro Hamas side, if they said we're getting rid of them, I'd have more sympathy to maybe like what they what they really want to go after is the people who are pro Hamas.

But it's too much again that it is these the people they're going after will play in the media, that is, it will be there are people from Turkey or whatever, and they look like they could be the terrorist or like what sort of the average American could think? Yeah, versus a Jewish student who was involved in the protest help organizing these protests in front, They wouldn't. I don't think they would dare. The way they would put it

is the optics will be so bad. That's one of the revealing in the in the uh what is it? The Defense secretaries they I don't know if you read the whole the all the the messages, but they were very concerned about how the optics of this will play. Yes, and it's got to be in spades for what's happening with the universities, So I could so I can't take seriously that what they're actually going after pro hamas people.

And then and then yeah, and then they're trying to get significant control over the universities and the programs and so on that. Yeah, I can't. I don't know what you think. I can't see it as it's properly motivated.

they would take over the universities. They can't because they don't have the people to replace the existing professors, so all they can do is really harass the universities at this point.

is not true as well. It's plausible to me. So the stories that came out that this was a draft that was sent by accident to Harvard, I believe that again that kind so I don't have so the kind of view that this is some there are masterminds behind all of this, I don't have that view. I do think there are people from heritage and so on who are involved in really trying to strategize what to do, but I don't think they're masterminds either. So I think

there's a lot of screw ups. The going after the DEI things seems to be there's a fair amount of we're just doing searches and if DEI shows up. There's been people in some so I'm in the greater like Washington area of the d m V who have said, HM, they were government employees who were forced to go to the who didn't want were forced to go to d I training and because they're on the list of the training,

they got fired. They didn't And but I believe, like how because there's no way they can go with the speed and know what they're doing, So they have to have all kinds of shortcuts and they're gonna catch including people who are against the Yah, you're gonna kick out.

apply anymore. I think there will be a lot of things like that, including that you've got to return this person who's sent to Al Salvador and it's sort of but what was the Supreme Court? You have to facilitate their return, and then it's, oh, well, the dictator inl Salvador doesn't want to return it, so what are we

going to do? Like if it was Zelenski, you would berat him in the office, but here it's oh, it's convenient if he says he doesn't want to return to this person, so we'll say, like, what can we do. I think it'll be a lot there. I mean, there already is that, and there'll be that continuously. I'd be surprised if it's openly defiant that it's ah, they passed, there's oh no, we're just not following that versus oh yeah, we're trying to facilitate it, but we can't. That's what

I expect. So that is a kind of crisis, but it's much more a crisis of thinking of it as the whole operation of government. So here if we had not just boot liquors, it would be there would be pushback in Trump's own party against him. That there was a little bit in regard to Terras, but pathetically little given out of it, and the destructive to terrorists are That's the to me, the much the why we're more than drifting towards authority. It's much more that Congress will

go along with everything. That then that it's going to be the court versus the executive. There's that tension for sure, And as I said, they're going to try to push the envelope and and try to sort of skirt the meaning in the letter of the law and say, oh no, but the letter of the law, we can't do this. But for Congress it's and this has been long standing. It's Trump wants people who will just do what he says. And if you saw.

actually want to be tough. It's too much work. The most revealing thing for me in this second term, but it fits completely what he was I think in the first administration was with the list of pardons, there was a sort of I don't know if it was a challenging or friendly reporter, but it was. He was sort of Trump, you pardoned this guy and he's not like his records, not just January sixth, And why did you parton? And now he was Trump that wouldn't really, I wouldn't

parton somebody like that. I'll have to look into it. And the guy pre but you did pardon, and you gave him by and you gave him a full Parton's and and then Trump said, I don't have time to read a thousand things of what, So he has no idea who he parted. And I really believe that, I mean, I believe all the stories that he will only read the first page and you've got to put the points the first three bullets. So a list of a thousand or whatever people to partner, there's no way he looked

at it. And he accuses Biden of this, but I think partly he accuses Biden because he does exactly the same and he knows like he thinks he can get Biden and people can't get him on this because he'll just admit, yeah, who can read that much? And somebody power hungry would It's not that that's not Putin. For instance, Putin would know some of the details and would be going after someone. So I don't think he's power hungry,

and that's relevant. I think for what is happening. If there's some emergencies, he'll be pushed to you need to declare an emergency and get emergency power, and then they help. People around him will want to wield that emergency power. So I think the more likely thing is that it's just continuing down the road to the administration. But if we got a financial crisis, a crisis I mean partly as a result of Trump's policies, then I could see it getting worse more and quickly.

for many reasons. You're talking about the ominous perils, that is, talking about the whole intellectual climate that was necessary for their rise, and that you have to see it as a century and more in the making. I mean century in Germany with Kanton Hegel, or a century and more, but going back even further than that into the nature and ideas and philosophy. Another aspect of it is there's a way people can hold it as you've got some crazy aber like who knows where they came from, how

it happened, and they just quickly seized power. So that's not what happened. And I think one of the things, so this is part of my asking you are. I think asking like, what's going to happen if when we get the next administration or the next people in the Republican Party. For me, the most important thing because I

have a certain view of Trump. As I said, I don't think of him as his craving power, but I do think there are people around him or cra I think the most important thing is that all these people it's the end of their political career. I would put Rubio gnome jd vance that once Trump is gone, it that they cannot get voted into power. There's too many in the country. You will say, no, these were bootleckers, boot liquors. They would they would basically sell their soul.

And I mean that's my view of Rubio when you see him on camera with with Zelenski, it's the it's he knows he's sold his soul yea, and what like I've I've now got to play that card in effect or or play that persona. But it's so I think that's the for me, the most important I would never vote for any of them ever, no matter what policies they put forth, even if it sounds good, it was if you're willing to sell your soul then you're you're

basically willing to do anything. And then again that like that's the difference that we were talking about between the first administration and the second. There were people around who thought, yeah, maybe I have to stay around to try to restrain Trump and so, and you have now the people who want to enable him or use him to get their policy and the that's I think really dangerous and it is. Yeah, I have such a negative view of those people.

before he got the nomination. I thought of the field the Republicans were, that the people vying for to be the nominee for their party for the presidential election, Rubio was the most American that he seemed to actually believe that the story of immigration in America, of what the Cuban immigrants have done and their right to flee Cuba and then build something, and it's right for America to be open to them, and that he can reverse in the way that he has and the way like a

whitewashing Veniceul because we want to send people back to there, and so all that is the that that's what I think of his part is selling his soul, and that the I think an American, normal American should be really turned off by that. I think they will. Yeah. I so I think I might might be wrong, but yeah, I think Vance doesn't can't have the support that Trump has, and I think Rubio couldn't unless he really could somehow explain. Yeah,

I'm like, I'm changing course again now. I've I've met or sort of known someone who's known Rubio for a long time and says like, this is Rubio six point zero, that it's he changes his tune all the time, so, which is certainly possible. But yeah, so it's the people around him Trump now that I think it's very important that this be the apex of their political career. And when Trump's gone, They're gone. Yeah.

he would win. I might have been wrong about that, but.

It's still they've never heard of you like this, And the only way they're going to hear it is if there's more and more intellectuals in the culture, and intellectually I'm using in a broad term, in a broad way, not so it doesn't that I don't mean just sort of the leading intellectuals or the most recognized public intellectuals or anything like that, just that they encounter it some of these ideas in their high school in the college classroom.

But again, it doesn't have to be like the superstar at the at the university or even at the high school. It's just they get some more exposure to this in a serious way and this is I was telling you before the show that I just did a guest appearance in a Harvard business class. So that's part of how I think of it, as it like, this is the mainstream.

It's the mainstream in academia, but it's not some and it wasn't some professor who's like way outside and everybody of the mainstream people think he's crazy or as strange views or something. And the guest appearance because it's a class where they look at influential people across like not just in business, like a wide range of influential people and think that it seems at least sort of two angles on it in what way if they did did these people change the world? So like what's their impact?

And then what did they have to do to have that impact? Including like what did they have to do to have the career they had? What kind of dedication today? So it's it's and so it's looking at I rand as having an impact on the culture and then what was like what did she do to do that? And like what's for instance, what's the significant's that she wrote both fiction and nonfiction? Is that keda understanding part of

her impact? It's all and the class. So these are obviously smart, uh and and dedicated students by and large, I would say like much more than just the bare majority didn't really know much about iron Rand. And what they've heard is the various kind of critics and conventional

takes on iron Rant. So that you've got and then and then on the ideas it was I and I still I mean, I've encountered as often, but the I mean often to understated that everybody's selfish and that you can think that and really like you're at Harvard and you can think that. It like it's sort of yeah, everybody, but what you can't take it to too much of an extreme. But everybody is like sort of partly selfish, and they have no idea what like what that means

how to think about that. They don't really believe it, because they'll say something different ten minutes later and it comes as news to them that, you know, and Ren's challenging the whole way you think about selfishness and the and I mean one of the good things is so both two of us at the institute, myself and Alan, did guest appearances in the class, and we've pushed you can get on Rend's books for free from us, and the professor wrote back that one of them is starting

reading The fountain Head and part but this is part of what the interesting the reaction is. This book's really good. He was one hundred pages in. It's like nothing I've read before. Why didn't I get this in high school or college? Yep, Like I took a guest appearance of someone from an I ran institute that I'm sure they never heard of, and yeah, I could get afraid. That's

how I got. And that is there's gotta be so many people still like that that this was if you had people in high school recommend not even if not teaching it to the whole class, but recommending it to students who think he thinks like this might have an impact and so on. And I mean, we need that

in thousands and thousands and thousands of times over. And that means you have to have thousands and thousands and thousands of people in schools, in universities who are doing this, as I say, like they don't have to be the leaders in the field, but are introducing students and just young minds to a new way of looking at things.

And it's easy when you're immersed in I random objectivism to think everybody's heard of this, it's still I mean, it's better and work we've done at the Institute of work we did when you were here in leading institute has so they're for sure more people than twenty five years ago, but still it's small compared to what it could be and needs to be.

and over again. The categories you're using, you can't think with these, they're wrong and you need different categories. And a philosophic person to me perks up when they hear that, and it is really like, there's a whole different way of looking at things than the way I've been looking at or looking at it, or have been taught to look at it, and that it's what iron Rand did.

But part of the work of intellectuals is to hammer that in because it's so difficult to do, and there's many people who are won't do it, even like some exposure to iron Rand, won't do it unless it's really pushed, and part of the work of the intellectuals is to say no. Like, what she's doing is she's rethinking selfishness, and you can't think of it in the way you're doing it. It's not selfishness doesn't come automatically. That's not

the way the right way to think about it. You've i mean, one of the ways that I often put it when I'm explaining it to relatively new people. Most people's selfishness is it's easy and bad, and her view is it's hard and good yep, and like that's so it's it's like a very different perspective. And as I say that, a philosophic person finds that really interesting. But

there will be many features people in the culture. And again it doesn't mean they're bad who just can't do that, won't do the work unless they're getting it in their education. Of that it's really forcing them to do it. But that's like you need teachers and intellectuals doing that work over and over again. And if you don't have that, it's then what you'll have of the conventional views are

conventional for a reason. And part of the reason is this is what the educational system gives them, and that's all they'll work with. And unless you get like a big change in the educational system, it will just repeat itself. And it's the intellectuals who have to change the intellect the educational system. Nobody else is going to do it.

then they've succumbed to conventional views of Inrant. But again I still find it I shouldn't, but I still find it shocking that if you're dealing with bought the level sort of the intellectual and achievement level, I think the people buy and large you get into Harvard, I've seen more of Stanford and like the people at Stanford or the students at Stanford, like they're really smart and achievement oriented and so on that. So one of the things that came up was that Einran just glorifies the rich

and glorifies business. And I brought up in the in the whatever fifteen twenty minutes of remarks that I had time to do of well, that's when if you look at at the straw and like the major villains are businessmen and rich in it, it's and it's they haven't even read it. And no one's like, mate that how can you have a view of Inrand if you haven't read it? And they like, how do you know that

this is going? And again like that's they would need to be challenged in the educational system like you and pritically if you know that iin rand is sort of she's a controversial figure. You can't just take for granted that people told you, well, she loves anybody who's rich and hates anybody who's poor, so that must be your view. But like that's you. Real teachers and educators would push them, like how do you have a view if you haven't even read at the shrug, But it's they're not encouraged

to do that. And I mean, if you want better people, better educated, somebody has to do the educated. And if it's always just you're blaming the schools, but nobody's going in and saying like I'm going to do it different or I'm going to do it better, how do you

expect things are going to change? And this is why the you don't need thousands of mine rants, but you need thousands of people who are really teaching her ideas and worldview in such a way that you'll have students and especially the better students, actually engaging with it versus even And again I don't think it was ill motivated

at all. It's just part of this is how they've been They've been trained with the conventional categories, and they've been trained that this is what Iran stands for and so and they have not been encouraged to really probe preticting for controversial figures. So I felt sad for the student, not oh my god, like how could they be like, But it's just, yeah, you think your education is not serving you if you're being given all this conventional stuff

and you're not really encouraged. And I'm not putting like this professor. I think it's good that he's bringing Iran in and so on, and it's he seemed to of the people I've heard serve have been some of the case studies. It seemed fairly wide ranging, and that was good. But when you're looking at the students, I don't get the sense they've really been pushed in their whole education. And that's a tragedy.

more pushback in the class in regard to this. And again it's just I think this is the educational system.

So one was buying into the story that ein Rand doesn't care about didn't care about her family, and so so this is in some of the biographies, this is like really trumpeted, and they couldn't nobody brought up that, well, she's writing to her family in the Soviet Union, and it might be dangerous to do that, and she's like one of the most fierce anti communists and being connected to her, like might that be a problem for people

left back? And again like they're at Harvard, so they have to know something about Yeah, this to Iran Iranian dissidents, this kind of thing happens, or even just like Russia now it happens. If you're critical of Putin, you have to worry what if you're going back or if your family's like some awareness that regimes take it out on the families of the of people who are outspoken and outspoken critics, Like it doesn't cross your mind, like that

might be that she's not like super published. She might be trying to get her family out, but she's not super public about it, and so like it can't even occur to a question of like maybe it's something like that is going on it, But it was just no, it's like obvious that she couldn't set her families. So I told them that, and I told him that, you know, there would be a reason for and you could see that for some of them it was yeah, that could

make sense, but that it it couldn't occur. And then that you have that for a controversial figure, and I want to put it like that, a controversial figure not I Ran specifically that biographies of a controversial figure you should think are very difficult to do. That You're going to find people who hate that person and you're going to find people who love them that person, and you have to be suspicious of both, I think, and you have to think, like, how do you really get to

to the to think you've got a reliable biography. I didn't do it in this class, but in one other class, because we've done this class a few times now, I brought up, uh, like, imagine the person who likes you the least wrote your biography for you wrote your would you like, how accurate do you think it would be? Everybody rely on it and so And when you put it in those terms, it was, yeah, like, there's some people that really don't like me, and there I wouldn't

think that biography. And I said, well, like iin, RAN's a very polarizing figure and she had people who loved her people who hated her. Having a biography that you can't just think, well, there's a biography, so it's probably accurate or something like that. But again that they don't have the tools to think again, not to have the answer, but just to have a question about Yeah, a controversial figure. It's probably hard to find the biography that is good.

bridges and so on. But if you can abstract, yeah, in spirit and that's what interested her, and that's that interests me. But you can get that from Einran's work. You don't need all the personal details of it, and I do so I think more than I used to think that it's relevant to think about her personal life from the point of view that she said she was living her philosophy, and so how is this actually working?

I mean part of the after that, the shrug, the whatever about the author, I forget what that section is and my life comes down to I mean it. And she says something like, I've used the ideas that it's not like I'm telling people to be selfish, but I think I shouldn't be selfish and wasn't selfish? No, no, she thinks I was selfish, and so it is relevant to think of that, but I don't think we have

access to it. So the in the sense that these are personal details, and unless you knew her well, and I think like are a good judge of people, a good judge of character, then you don't really know what was going on with her, like that she was depressed after out the drug. What did that mean exactly? What

was the nature? There's a way in which I can imagine it of the cultural reception and of thinking, yeah, the culture's more bankrupt than I thought it was, and that's pretty depressed, Like I can understand, but part of the way it's portrayed I have trouble believing it was in that form that she sort of the reaction after at the drug because in some ways she had to know this because she's writing out of the drug, so she like she has a view of the state of

the culture and and she says like this is ten years or something down the road. So I think what shocked her really is that she had no defenders, not that the culture. And but that's very different then the way it would be put as all the cultures. She didn't get good book reviews. Yeah, and she went into a depression. I don't believe. But it's really like, if I'm right about that, i'd have to know her, which I'd never met her, or know someone who I really

have confidence in their judgment. I don't know many people like that. So it's just for me, it's just it's no accessible. So it's interesting but not accessible.

of just this mixture of loving atlas Uk but not really getting it.

that I can so I can understand that. And I think given the just the artistic achievement that it is at the shrugged yep, that nobody can recognize that and again it's not all like the vast swaths of people, but that some other minds that can really see this and will say it that I can imagine of having a kind of impact that is, that I can imagine

that shocking her. It's if you if you think of it in terms of her kind of artistic vision, it's Whyden's reaction to Rarc, and it's it's he should try to crush Roarc, and he sort of halfheartedly tries, but he can't bring him to because he can see the level of achievement that is, and it is, Yeah, like I have to recognize this. And and I think she thought there'll be some people minds like that, and that she didn't get that that's gonna.

philosophic genius is. And she she comments on this later when she's writing the non fiction of how it's like she used the metaphor how a few lions have gone into the field of philosophy, they've left it for the losers in the fact, And I mean she called Kant the kind of idiot savan so that there's an element of like real powerful mind there, but not it's not a positive orientation. And her view is it's not like Kant and Aristotle are on the same level. A positive

genius is just so much to achieve. It's just so much more than to use your genius to destroy that you're not you're not in the same galaxy, so that it it's so rare. And I don't think that she was took philosophy as sort of everybody thinks philosophic, like how could you not? And so I think Projecting a genius that doesn't think philosophically is hard for her. I mean, she makes a she's aware of it. In the end,

she makes this kind of comment about Einstein. It was clearly genius, but she puts it only so conventional once he gets outside of science. And it's but that I think would have been so alien to her that it's hard to project. Yeah.

to project. I mean she came to see it was true, but the project that yeah, there can be some genius level minds, but they're so conventional yeap philosophically, Yeah, yeah.

It was when I first read Iinrand. My reaction, in effect, if not in so many words, was this, a person takes morality more seriously than I do, and I took it seriously. So it was like, that's the impression she made on me, and that at the shrug made on me. So it's been it's my interest from the start into philosophy. But part of it is Iran thinks of morality for good or bad, as having causal power. That so that understand people's actions at an individual level, to understand the

way cultures work. To understand something like the Trump administration, you have to think in moral terms about what is happening. I mean part of what we were talking about earlier about that there's an element of now of people who've sold their souls around him versus what there was before.

That's thinking in moral terms of what is the dynamic between him and the people he surrounded himself with and so on, And that most people don't think of morality as having a causal impact, and that I think they just missed so much of what's going on in reality because of that. So that's the area that I'm most interested in and think a lot about what I'll be talking about. An oatcome likely will touch on some aspects of this.

she has. That that that she has embraced a pattern of non thought. Uh. That is that makes her stupid. That the divorces are from the facts of reality. Divorces are from being able to see real causes. I don't know if you saw her latest thing about uh, you know, NASA and uh and space. Uh, just a Satanic conspiracy. But but here's a lion there was. There was really amazing, right, she says, it really is, you know, from the Church of Satan or whatever, because the whole purpose.

So the whole dedication to selfishness is a dedication to what's in your self interest, what will enable you to thrive in the world. And from that perspective, what rationality is for human beings, our minds, our ability to think is our way to thrive in the world. So like, what is it? Why is it rational to be selfish? Because that's the goal that you need to reach and thinking it's your means to reach it.

And she says it would require the integration of different fields and what's happening in different fields and that integration is different. It would be difficult if you had good people in those fields to try to think of the integration of the physiology of sound and sound of so the whole auditory system and the way the mind works, of values and emotions work. It's it's so this it's a difficult thing to even have a hypothesis about. So it's not like if someone spent but half a year

working and then they can figure it out. This is a is a I think like a would be a lifetime project and even then, like there's a real possibility of failure.

doesn't rule it out. And although even lyrics, how do you evaluate objectively? The quality of lyrics is a hard enough thing even within you know, within prose. So the whole field of aesthetics is way underdeveloped. I'm kind I've talked about this in the past, way underdeveloped in terms of the principles.

or things like that. It is the part of her hypothesis is it's a creation of a new mental entity, and you have to think a lot about that. But it's not like we're trying to reproduce something we heard or something like that. And so just to think of it in those terms, it's difficult to think about what that means. And music is not a thing that copies in the way one might think of painting as copying

your visual world. I don't think that, in the end is one painting does either, But it's more plausible to think, well, that's something that what it's doing, but that's not what music is doing.

some being wrong with you and your viewpoint. If you think like I can stop everybody if from going to and fro by taking over a bridge or something like that, that's how you get media coverage. But or real Americans should think there's something wrong with you if you think you have that power to stop everybody else. So I agree that we should be arguing these issues, but physical protests is not an argument we should be drawing attention to

these kinds of issues. I don't think it's legitimate to do it by protest.

have that kind of impact. Then you can only support things that are relatively mainstream, because it's only the things that are relatively mainstream that could have make that kind of difference. I think of it as we're an organization with a longer term mission, and it has to be a longer term mission because yeah, we eventually want to see these ideas have real cultural impact and changing the

direction of the culture. But that can't happen in five years or of ten years, Like you can't what I was talking about earlier about how even students who are potentially interested in these ideas haven't been exposed to them. It's on how are you going to have an impact on how they're going to vote in five years when they don't know anything even about these ideas, And so the real work, but it has to be long term because it's you slowly get the ideas more and more

into the educational system. And I think compared to twenty years ago, for sure, iron Rand and the ideas have more prominence than they had, but there's still nowhere close to having the kind of cultural impact that one anybody who thinks the ideas are true hopes that they will have in the future, but it's not like the near future.

happens in the show run. Eric says in the chat ninety years since Anthem, Yeah, you know, it probably takes a couple of centuries. This is not This is not something that happens quickly, and particularly given how revolutionary objectivism really is in a sense.

doesn't happen like that. And I think there's a reason why it doesn't happen. It's harder to build than it is to destroy.

tribal than one way of thought. That that's one of

the lessons that I take. If you asked this so to take some equivalent of the MAGA crowd around COVID, however you want to put it, the progressive, the left, the but just sort of the supporters of it, that all of this had to be right, and you wear a mask even when you're alone walking outside and so on, and yeah, that's it, and then you'll berate somebody else who doesn't do this, and things like really, when I'm outside, I've got to wear a mat and there's people are

fifteen feet away. It's and if you think of it as it was sort of I think of that, it's exactly like Trump's space. And there's an element of the more you hammer on it, the more you don't have to think about like really, I'm saying you've got to wear a mask even like I saw people driving and find themselves or the mask on it, and it's a way of not thinking about it is sort of just repeating it and often berating other people. Like the proof of how loyal you are to it is, Look, I'm

going after the pre and that's. Yeah, you don't really want to know and you don't really want to think about it. But if you think of it as just like it's the mega people who do this and nobody else does this, I think you're just not you don't really you're not really seeing the phenomenon and you're not then seeing But unfortunately it's partly it's a little more depressing.

It's not just the mega people. The I don't know if because I think this is very revealing of So there were a lot of I mean, like a sizeable enough percentage of people voted in this way that AOC had to do go on like a podcast or whatever,

a TikTok of people who voted for Trump and her. Yeah, and to me, that fits completely, Like I'm not surprised at all that there's a lot of voters like that, But that's they both appeal to more tribal elements in people, and yeah, so you have to I think, yes, there's a for sure, an element of their trying to convince themselves. But it's not just the mega people who do this.

But among Democrats now seventy percent of Democrats support free trade. Now you tell me that they've gone through some kind of understanding of the value of trade over the last three months that justifies them all being supported as of free trade.

just changed sides because my tribes changed. It's no, there's reasons for it, but those reasons aren't actually governing their thinking. And so that's the sense in which, yeah, they're pretending to themselves, not just to other people, to themselves.

and then you have the intellectual dark web. And it's again be put as well, they're responding to the whatever irrationality, mysticism, lunacy that they see all over the place and on both political sides and so on. But it's too much. What's uniting them is opposition to something. And if you ask what is it that they deeply have in common, it's not even that they have a shared understanding of rationality. Is religion rational not like belief in but that you

need religion? They'll split in regard to that, they split in regard how to think about science and the pandemic, they split in regard to trumpet. And that's because there's not a shared positive vision and it's easy to relatively easy to spot irrationality. What actual rationality looks like is the much harder question. That's what objectivism is about crucial and objectivism is to have a real perspective on rationality.

You have to see it not just as cognitive as but as normative, and you have to integrate your ideas and your values, and most thinkers cannot do that because they have a conventional view of values which does not inter They have some form of altruism slash utilitarism which does not integrate with reason. So you get So you're not gonna get this coalescing around a positive vision of reason governing people's thinking and action. Yeah.

And while I love some of what Douglas movie says, we don't agree on unimportant issues, on really important issues, particularly in the positive He I think he clearly considers himself a cultural Christian, like like Dawkins, and that's a problem.

I talked about that it Clemson and the students, very bright students, but you could see the cognitive dissonance.

you have to fight. So there's a way in which if thinking, oh, like we're destined for authoritarianism, it's a self fulfilling prophecy. It's like, what can you do? So don't do anything? Like what and yes, so if nobody does anything to fight, then we are but we're not destined. It's that you've given up in effect. But so no, I do not think authoritarianism is some inevitability, but it is the way we're moving. So you need people to push against this, and there are people pushing against it.

But I think particularly in the legal sphere, and it's important to support these people like I would support Again, we talked about how the Congress as that branch is caving in to the present, but I would support any congressman that I thought is just willing to sort of exxert some of the power of Congress. So some these people who said like, yeah, the president shouldn't really have the power to impose terroriffs like this, and he shouldn't. It's not clearly even does. So there's going to be

legal push on that. But that that so there's things and specific people causes that you can support on it. I'm supportive of some of the organizations that are pushing back on the immigration things, for instance, and it would be crazy for them to think, well, but it's inevitable that we're going to have authoritarianism, So what's the point of.

resistant to this? And there's there's possibilities not exhaustive, so none of these might fit. But you have to like really think about it and think, yeah, does is that what's happening? There's people who will equate a philosophy and a religion for various reasons. So I'm coming to see it's thinking yeah, I'm RAN's right about this, or this idea is true. It's am I starting to swallow a religion? And I get it? And that's not how I think of myself and and and maybe rightly and for good reasons.

Like you think, yeah, I don't want to just follow along? I don't. That's not what I do. But is it? Are you following the longer? Do you actually see that it's true? And to be able to distinguish? But it's not an easy thing to distinguish. So there's people who the more it gets systematic and say, yeah, this idea makes sense and that and this they connect together. It's more like, well, am I following for a religion like

I've got a system of ideas? Or it can be because modern education and culture is certainty is simplistic, so and I ran certain like what she projects is certainty. I think it's an aruncertainty. But there's an easy way to think about it, thinking, yeah, but there's got to be something wrong because someone who's this certain and it has echoes of the religious aspect, because these two things

go hand in it. So you can have you can have in effect a suspicion of certain indeed that you don't really know you have, and it's sort of a need. And so you can find that I would put that you feel a kind of psychological resistance. You see, it's true, but certainty is for morons or religious types of So those are two for instance that I've seen people who yeah and you and it is yeah, but it doesn't change the fact that this idea is true and I've got to get over this. But so it's a good

thing to note. And then you have to probe it and don't be like you have to really probe it. So those neither of those might be explanations for you, and then you have to think, well, what else is going on?

real authoritarianism. They will be disturbed by. But if you call everything that's happening fascis, then they'll tune it out and they'll be it's all. This is just another of the people who hate him saying he's engaged in fashions. So you if you make that kind of accusation, you have to be able to explain it in detail. What do you think the fascism And if fascism is cutting

government positions? Yeah, like, if that's fascism, then it loses all meaning and just thinking well that, but is fascism bad then like you can never reduce the size of government, and yeah, so it it definitely can be counterproductive, and by so much of the left, it's counterproductive of what they're doing.

kind of just a contemporary world, a contemporary America. And you can't get from the film that the perspective is most people are seeking the truth, and no, most people are secondhanded in various kinds of ways. And it doesn't mean they're oblivious to the truth, but it's the truth's conditional, and it's on a leash. And so it's not the bold pursuit of the truth. It's y'all take that if it's convenient, not too threatening. But if it is, I

will start to tune it out. And I will. And that's you have to think of it more like that. So the if you can't get if you were thinking about in regard to Trump, if you can't get the people like him for some understandable reasons, then you think that, well,

the whole thing's crazy. But if you think, if you if you can get to the position of thinking, yeah, there's some pushback against woke, and people respond to that, and then if it's going to be yeah, but what he's doing with immigration and so isn't there something really troubles Well, no, he's sending back gang members and he's doing that, and it's and but it's because they still want Yeah, but he's tough on woke and then you're

going after it and I want that. And if you think, well, but if you start thinking Trump has real problems, it's going to jeopardize that, then it's you sort of downplay the problems and and it's and I like, I've had many many conversations like it's yeah, it's not too good, but it's a one off case like this, and and it's and it it's starting to fudge. But you have to see this. It's motivated by something, not just oh okay, now the person okay, this is sort of blind to reality.

That's not what's happening.

So if you remember after the Trump's win in twenty sixteen, people a lot of media outlets like The New York Times, but just a lot of people who thought of themselves as the mainstream. I was like, yeah, we don't really seem to understand the country, and we probably ignored the middle of the country for so we've got to start really investigating, and they go, what is what are their grievances and why do they seem so pissed with us?

And whatever? The coastal elites or how it was. I don't think when you look at that in large, that there was genuine soul searching in regard to that. There were some individuals who I think had some genuine curiosity, like why is it that these people thought Trump's better than Hillary Clinton? So, but I think the vast majority they're not interested in that, and they've showed that.

based are crazy, but it's not. Think it's the only thing that's crazy. And part of the way the New York Times and the Washington Post, it's own function is crazy.

the final say. And in that sense, yes, like if a court has ruled, what an oath of the Constitution means is yeah, like the Constitution says the Supreme Court on this is you in this one has the final say and that's then so so yes, in a broader sense like it has, it has and it should have a meaning that you're swearing an all to uphold the Constitution.

we're still adding small amounts. But typically I add anyway from one hundred to three hundred subscribers a month, if that's helpful. So over a year, I should add more than a thousand, and some years significantly more than a thousand. It depends if I get on a good podcast subscription go up a lot, if I get good publicity, If like now I'm mainly talking about Trump, I lose a

lot of people. So it varies over time, Right, Thomas, what's the possibility that Trump's second presidency will be so bad that having JD as VP, that Trump alone will end the national conservative movement? So what's the possibility his presidency is so bad that the national conservative movement will go away.

for taking events as his running mate. But I think he knew what he was doing in regards and there's a way like he's trying to use them, and there's a way they think they can use him, and how that will play out, it's much more likely I think that they're using him.

And yeah, you can't get anywhere if that's what. So you need a base that the philosophy is establishing. And the basic issue in philosophy is how to think about consciousness's relationship to reality, and I think objectivism's view is right in regard to that. So in that sense it would form the base of a proper psychology. R.

but learn a work ethic. And so there's an element of that that I think they actually believe it like this because it is in part what a religious mentality

looks like. That people are falling in line and are doing their duty, is one way to put it, and that that they think of that as and it does have it it's spiritually bad, but it has a spiritual like this is how people should be thinking, and we need to mold people that Again that they have this kind of more obedient character where they think like it has real meaning to them of yeah, I've got to do my duty. That is an element that is that

is real. It's a perverse spiritual dedication, but it is a spiritual dedication.

an element of something happening again. But if one holds it so concretely as well, what we're gonna have is concentration camps, and that it's no that to repeat history doesn't that's not what it needs to mean to repeat it, but that there's that the opposition of that's the to think of the Trump phenomena. But more broadly, I think

populism around the Western world. You have to see in what they're say they're in opposition to and the plausibility of people thinking, yeah, we need someone who's gonna stand up to this. That's part I think of what's repeating, but in a different but never a similar form, And

you you have to think of it like that. Of that, like you have to try to really think what gives this appeal versus just thinking these whatever, how do you want to put Trump's base maga people populist around the Western world, they're all crazy and so and one of the phenomenon I think one should take seriously, and it's

something I've been thinking more about. I know people who I think of as good who have embraced these kinds of things in or in part, and so you can just just sort of brush it all away as well they're now all irrational or something like that. Are there's deeper dynamics going on, and my views it's the second. So that's part of what I want to talk about probably at o't com.

the leading into it's not what came. Communism goes to Russia, whether people are backward uneducated, because I don't think anybody who has some experience with the modern world can really think that if we abolish private property, everything's gonna work. Well, some person who's hasn't been educated, hasn't been in capitalism thing. Yeah, like we just took up people's property over everything's gonna work. So the fascist was, yeah, we're not going to to

just take everybody's properties, we're gonna take their lives. In effect, there's still own property, but we will tell them what to do. And so that appeals to a more educated mind of thinking, well, yeah, maybe that could work. You can't just socialize everything and think and so that's the sense of which it's not. That's partly why I resist. It's the dumbing down, but it is a conditioning of people to think this could work.

have a lot of false positives. Maybe there's not in one direction. It tells you something, but not everybody with this tattoo is part of the gang. Even though everyone in the gang has this tattoo, not everyone who has this tattoos in the gang, and that like, that's part of what the worry is here. So that's one kind and it is the more you're trying to move quickly,

you just oh, yeah, like we made a mistake. We thought it everything works like this gang, but no, there's all kinds of different gangs that work in different ways. And that's part of just the the the the sort of the atmosphere around everything the administration is doing. There's a different issue of whether you can convict someone based on tattoos with no other corroborating evidence, and that's for the courts of law to have real evidentiary standards that that can happen.

interested in iron Rand. So it's discussing Objectivism, and it's the first three you can just drop into for free, and then if you want to continue, it's a subscription. So that's another place like if you're really reading the stuff and I have questions, you can see in advance what the essay is and drop into one or two of those to see if you can get and.

getting something from the people I'm spending time with. So we're both gaining, we're both benefiting. The people who've been raised very in a sort of very altruistic frame where the expectation is always like you're to give, and it's often women are raised like that You're to give, other people are to receive, and so can find Yeah, I want to stop doing that and think like the solution to that is not be in relationships, but it's rather to change the nature of the relationship. It's not like

withdraw and because people. I don't want to be a servant to people. It's rather try to have relationships where there's a positive like you know what you want to get from the relationship, and thinking of the other person is yeah, they should be thinking of bringing something to the relationship. And Ben fit in true too. So trade means you're both gaining.

bringing fascism to the country. So it would that kind of ad would so easily be taken as yeah, like we're on the side of the academics, and and no, they're they're the main reason that we've got Trump, and that's part but part that to say there's some push against the elites means in significant part there's a push against the intellectuals, and that push is understandable. That's part of the issue. And if you don't see that that's part of what's going on, then you you're non understanding.

I think the Trump phenomenon, yeah.

really different than the neocons. So that that's why an ad here will there will be put on a certain camp on the right. Oh, you're like the neo caay here an ad like this against that there were whatever nineteen twenty five will be put Oh, you're like the academics who are writing about fascism and they've been said they're warning about Trump and no we're not like that.

whole education like it's difficult. It's inherently difficult to do this of how to teach abstract ideas to minds that haven't yet formed them, And there's a way in which you can teach it in a way it makes it seem like, oh, the ideas are already here, and rationalism is a perspective of the ideas already here. There's not that big of a question of how did they get here,

because they're already here. And our education system has doubled or tripled down on the worst form of that error, which is and take it of science and math so often or taught. Here's the formulas, sort of memorize these formulas will give you all kinds of problem sets where you have to apply them. But why do we have these formulas? Who created them? And why what problems were they dealing with where they couldn't deal until they discover these ideas and so on. So oh Newton has three laws.

Here's the three laws, and now start. And that makes it seem like, oh, the ideas are just out there in reality, and just go grab them and start using them. And that's sort of the rationalist whole approach to ideas. So the major reason I think it's so prevalent is it's the method by which ideas are taught in our educational system.

live in freedom. And so but from a causal perspective, if too many people turn tribal, that you'll get what they want is some form of follow the leader, some form of authoritarianism. Yeah, so there's a sense in which causally, like this is the outcome you're going to get and in that sense it's earned. But it doesn't mean like people who are actually pro freedom morally deserves this neo.

the forms and are well motivated and so on. That's what it means to rely on experts. You have to have reasons for thinking of person's an expert. You have to have reasons for thinking they know something, and to know something means it's in principle accessible to anybody and everybody. Like I don't think of a doctor, I go to who specialize I don't know in colon cancer as Yeah, like I could never learn this. I can't understand this, but somehow he's been able to figure this out. So

I've got to turn my life over. No, it's he's specialized in this field. I could learn it if I specialized in it, and I want to see that he can in effect explain it to me, a non expert in a way that makes it. Yeah, Okay, that's plausible that that's the causality. And if I studied it more, I'd be more convinced that that is the cou But yeah, so it's not at all like you're blindly fault if you're properly relying on experts.

Einrand's that you? And if they tell you nothing and they yeah, maybe, like maybe that's embarrassing that I have such a strong view and I haven't read anything, then yeah, you might be able to get somewhere with that person. If they just keep telling you, oh no, but I know there she's a psychon well, I don't have to read anything. It's yeah, then there's no one point further engaging.

We're doing it super quickly. There's all kinds of things. We don't know what we're doing. We're we might even fire good people, we might try to rehire some of them, some of them we might not try to rehire. But if we don't do it sort of at the start and quickly, it will never it will be just be tied up in the bureaucratic pushback.

reality showed otherwise, they basically had two choices. It was, yeah, we're pro material progress, abundance, prosperity, and therefore have to give up socialism communism then, or we're going to give up material abundance and prosperity. And what the new Left did was what we want to cling to our statism and control over people's lives. So we'll say I'm put to something like, now we'll tell people it's better, you're better off to go bare foot. And that's part of

what the environmental movement was. It's, oh, Okay, we can't produce abundance, so abundance is bad.

change happens, but I would have been so. I yes, so I if like, if I were around at that time, would be sufficed by how the gradual the change is. But it's just because I would have had a wrong view, not because the change has been so slow and it should have been and we should have expected it to been super fast. Yeah.

the Ivory tower. We want ideas that work. And what America has done is like transformed a country into the greatest wealthiest country in the world. They want stuff that really works, and we have a philosophy that the whole emphasis is not hot air, but ideas that work, and if they stop working, we pick up other ideas. And that that was the appeal of Oh okay, So this is thinkers who actually value practical action in the way

that Americans do. And that was why it was. It really is a philosophy designed to appeal to Americans.

you are. If you really do give up thinking, which is what collectivisms, or to give up individual thinking, which means to give up thinking, then you do feel out of control and collectivism seems to make more sense then, like, yeah, as an individual, I don't have any control and I'm not able to do things, but collectivism promises, well, but the group will be powerful, so you move more that direction. But then you're preached those ideas and yeah, so that it forms a vicious circle. Right.

There was an element there's an element of power lust in Bill Clinton, I think, but he didn't wear it on his sleeve in the way that Hillary Clinton does. And I think someone like a JD. Vance projects much more a kind of contempt and why should be able to real power and crush people and someone like a Josh Shapiro doesn't. He seems more American yep than JD. Van's And I still think the electorate would respond if that's the choice. They'll respond to the more person who seems more positive.

I'm not in the camp. If there is such a camp of it's too soon to go into politics, people shouldn't engage with it. It's the last thing that's going to change part of what we were talking about before that it's it's a real problem that bad people go into politics. And I would support anybody who I think of as this person actually values America, even if I disagree with the whole slew of things, but they actually value the country, value the Constitution in a way that

there's so much now hand waving towards it. Like the National Conservatives, I do not think value the Constant. They might say they do, but I don't think they actually do so. And I would encourage anybody who I thought of of having good motivation to go into policy, Like if they're interested, yeah, go. We need better people in politics, so I don't want to assign people there, But if people are interested in it, yes, I think you should

go into it. There's positive things you can do if you don't have a sort of unrealistic view, Oh I'm gonna become president and change the whole country or something like that. But if you think, yeah, like maybe I could help Congress take back some of the power that it's ceded to the executive branch and so, and that's a long term goal of why I want to go into politic. So yeah, yeah, and if you're well motivated, I had support and encourage people to do that.

if God's the first cause, who created God? And then if it's well he doesn't need a cause, Well, why does the universe need a Like a child can see through that reasoning, And that's part of what tells you that it's a rationalization. It's not why they hold the idea, it's they want you to think they hold the idea because of this argument, because then it's oh, yeah, I'm just I'm rational, just like you.

So it's the powers of government, not the size. And it has a positive view that government is a proper government is a positive, so it doesn't it doesn't classify itself as minarchists. It doesn't think this is the right

way to look at the political spectrum. It's rather is the use of force under objective control, which means is it used only against the initiation of force, And proper government yes, and improper government including no government, is the use of force is not used only in retaliation by objectively defined rules and principles. And anarchy is just before everybody can use force when it strikes them as yeah, we'd like to use force. That's not force under objective control.

And then the other is the I suspect the propertarianism means of thinking of the essence of rights as they're about property and no, so objectivism rejects that too. And in part there was some mention about egoism. Rights are moral concepts and the attempt to make property rights the fundamental in regard to rights, not it's the right to life and all the aspects, which includes earning and keeping property, is an attempt to make rights non moral. It's like

property rights. Oh, you've made the stuff, so like somehow it belongs to you, but belongs to you means you are morally entitled to it, and then you need a moral perspective and a moral evaluation. It's not like you've made the stuff and now it's part of you. No, it's not literally part of you, and somebody could take it. The whole thing is they would be wrong to take it. But wrong means morally wrong, So you need a moral perspective.

And the people and the libertarians really at least sort of a wing or faction, tries to make everything about property rights because they think of property rights as this bypasses moral argument, moral evaluation, so now it doesn't actually and if you try to bypass that, then you can't get to a political philosophy, because a political philosophy says this is the right way to organize I side, which means this is the good way as against the bad ways, and that's a moral perspective.