Nationalism Debate: Yaron Brook and Yoram Hazony

Lex Fridman (02:19.520)

me.

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As long as we don't get stuck there, as some folks sometimes do in these conversations.

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This is the Lex Readman Podcast, to support it please check out our sponsors in the description

Lex Fridman (02:31.320)

and now here's my conversation with Yoram Brooke and Yoram Hosoni.

Lex Fridman (02:37.320)

I attended the excellent debate between the two of you yesterday at UT Austin.

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The debate was between ideas of Conservatism, represented by Yoram Hosoni, and ideas of

Lex Fridman (02:47.020)

Individualism, represented by Yoram Brooke.

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Let's start with the topics of the debate.

Lex Fridman (02:53.080)

Yoram, how do you define Conservatism, maybe in the way you were thinking about it yesterday?

Lex Fridman (02:58.320)

What to you are some principles of Conservatism?

Lex Fridman (03:02.360)

Let me define it and then we can get into principles if you want.

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When I talk about political Conservatism, I'm talking about a political standpoint that

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regards the recovery, elaboration, and restoration of tradition as the key to maintaining a nation

Lex Fridman (03:22.000)

and strengthening it through time.

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This is something that if you have time to talk about it like we do on the show, it's

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worth emphasizing that Conservatism is not like Liberalism or Marxism.

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Liberalism and Marxism are both kind of universal theories and they claim to be able to tell

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you what's good for human beings at all times in all places.

Lex Fridman (03:47.160)

And Conservatism is a little bit different because it's going to carry different values

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in every nation, in every tribe.

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Even every family, you can say, has somewhat different values and these loyalty groups,

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they compete with one another.

Lex Fridman (04:03.560)

That's the way human beings work.

Lex Fridman (04:04.720)

So it's deeply rooted in history of that particular area of land.

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Well, I wouldn't necessarily say land, you're right that many forms of Conservatism are

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tied to a particular place.

Lex Fridman (04:16.340)

So how does the implementation of Conservatism to you differ from the ideal of Conservatism,

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the implementations you've seen of political Conservatism in the United States and the

Lex Fridman (04:26.200)

rest of the world?

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Just to give some context, because it's a loaded term, like most political terms.

Lex Fridman (04:32.600)

So when people think about conservative in the United States, they think about the Republican

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Party, what, can you kind of disambiguate some of this, what are we supposed to think

Lex Fridman (04:41.920)

about?

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Yeah, that's a really important question.

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Usually the word conservative is associated with Edmund Burke and with the English common

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law tradition.

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Going back centuries and centuries, there's kind of a classical English conservative tradition

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that goes Fortescue, Hooker, Coke, Seldon, Hale, Burke, Blackstone before Burke.

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If you take that kind of as a benchmark and you compare it, then you can compare it to

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things like the American Federalist Party at the time of the American founding is in

Lex Fridman (05:23.000)

many respects very much in keeping with that tradition.

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As you go forward, there's an increasing mix of liberalism into conservatism.

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I think by the time you get to the 1960s with William Buckley and Frank Meyer, the jargon

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term is fusionism.

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By the time you get there, it's arguable that their conservatism isn't very conservative

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anymore, that it's kind of a public liberalism mixed with a private conservatism.

Lex Fridman (05:58.580)

So a lot of the debate that we have today about what does the word conservatism actually

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mean, a lot of the confusion comes from that, comes from the fact that on the one hand,

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we have people who use the term, I think properly historically to refer to this common law tradition

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of which Burke was a spokesman, but there are lots of other people who when they say

Lex Fridman (06:22.480)

conservative, they just mean liberal.

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I think that's a big problem.

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It's a problem just to have an intelligent debate is difficult when people are using

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the word almost too antithetical.

Lex Fridman (06:39.560)

What would you say the essential idea of conservatism is time?

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You mentioned your father's a physicist.

Lex Fridman (06:44.280)

So a lot of physicists when they form models of the universe, they don't consider time.

Lex Fridman (06:50.480)

So everything is dealt with instantaneously.

Lex Fridman (06:53.280)

A particle is represented fully by its current state, velocity and position.

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You're saying, so you're arguing with all of physics and your father, as we always do,

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that their time matters in conservatism.

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That's the fundamental element is the full history matters and you cannot separate the

Lex Fridman (07:14.480)

individual from the history, from the roots that they come from.

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The parallel in political theory is what's called rationalism.

Lex Fridman (07:25.320)

I guess we'll probably talk about that some.

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Rationalism is kind of an instantaneous, timeless thing.

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Before I mentioned that liberalism and various enlightenment theories, they don't include

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time at all.

Lex Fridman (07:37.580)

Their goal is to say, look, there's such a thing as universal human reason.

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All human beings, if they reason properly, will come to the same conclusions.

Lex Fridman (07:47.840)

If that's true, then it removes the time consideration.

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It removes tradition and context because everywhere where you are at any time, you ought to be

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able to use reason and come to the same conclusions about politics or morals.

Lex Fridman (08:03.580)

So that's a theory like Immanuel Kant or John Locke is an example, Hobbes is an example.

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That kind of political theorizing really does say at a given instant, we can know pretty

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much everything that we need to know, at least the big things.

Lex Fridman (08:23.560)

And conservatism is the opposite.

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It's a traditionalist view, exactly as you say, that says that history is crucial.

Lex Fridman (08:33.400)

So you're on, you say that history is interesting, but perhaps not crucial if in the context

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of individualism.

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No, I mean, I think there's a false dichotomy he presented here, and that is that one view

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holds that you can derive anything from a particular historical path and kind of an

Lex Fridman (08:53.180)

empirical view.

Lex Fridman (08:54.800)

And if we know the history, we know where we should be tomorrow.

Lex Fridman (08:57.360)

We know where we should stand today.

Lex Fridman (09:00.100)

And the other path is we ignore history, we ignore facts, we ignore what's going on.

Lex Fridman (09:04.640)

We can derive from some a priori axioms, we can derive a truth right now.

Lex Fridman (09:10.640)

And both are false.

Lex Fridman (09:11.640)

Both of those views, in my view, are false.

Lex Fridman (09:14.060)

And you know, Ayn Rand and I reject both of those views.

Lex Fridman (09:19.520)

And I think the better thinkers of the Enlightenment did as well, although they sometimes fall

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into the trap of appearing like rationalists.

Lex Fridman (09:25.920)

And Jorm and I agree on one thing, and that is that Kant is one of, you know, we've talked

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about this in the past, Alex, but we both hate Kant.

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We both think Kant is, I at least think Kant is probably the most destructive philosopher

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since Plato, who was pretty destructive himself.

Lex Fridman (09:49.120)

And part of the problem is that Kant divorces reason from reality.

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That is, he divorces reason from history.

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He divorces reason from experience, because we don't have direct experience of reality

Lex Fridman (09:59.480)

according to Kant, right?

Lex Fridman (10:01.040)

We're removed from that direct experience.

Lex Fridman (10:03.280)

But I view Kant as the anti Enlightenment, that is, I view Kant as the destroyer of good

Lex Fridman (10:09.880)

Enlightenment thinking.

Lex Fridman (10:11.480)

And I acknowledge a lot of history of philosophy, people who do history of philosophy view Kant

Lex Fridman (10:18.240)

as the embodiment of the Enlightenment, that is the ultimate.

Lex Fridman (10:21.800)

But I think that's a mistake.

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I think both Rousseau and Kant are fundamentally the goal, the mission in life is to destroy

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the Enlightenment.

Lex Fridman (10:30.380)

So my view is neither of those options are the right option.

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That is, the true reason based, reason is not divorced from reality.

Lex Fridman (10:39.040)

It's quite the opposite.

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Reason is a tool.

Lex Fridman (10:41.080)

It's a faculty of identifying and integrating what?

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It's identifying and integrating the facts of reality as we know them through sense perception

Lex Fridman (10:52.360)

or through the study of history, through what actually happened.

Lex Fridman (10:55.860)

So it's the integration of those facts.

Lex Fridman (10:58.140)

It's the knowledge of that history.

Lex Fridman (11:00.360)

And then what we do is we abstract away principles based on what's worked in the past, what hasn't

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worked in the past, the consequences of different ideas, different past, different actions.

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We abstract away principles that then can be universal.

Lex Fridman (11:14.720)

Not always.

Lex Fridman (11:15.720)

We make mistakes, right?

Lex Fridman (11:16.720)

We can come up with a universal principle, it turns out it's not.

Lex Fridman (11:19.640)

But if we have the whole scope of human history, we can derive principles as we do in life,

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as individuals, we derive principles that are then truths that we can live by, but you

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don't do that by ignoring history.

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You do that by learning history, by understanding history, by understanding in a sense tradition

Lex Fridman (11:36.960)

and where it leads to, and then trying to do better.

Lex Fridman (11:40.000)

And I think good thinkers are constantly trying to do better based on what they know about

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the past and what they know about the present.

Lex Fridman (11:46.240)

What's the difference between studying history on a journey of reason and tradition?

Lex Fridman (11:53.720)

So you mentioned that Burke understood that reason begins with an inherited tradition

Lex Fridman (11:57.680)

yesterday.

Lex Fridman (11:58.680)

So what's the difference between studying history, but then being free to go any way

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you want and tradition where it feels more, I don't want to say a negative term like burden,

Lex Fridman (12:12.600)

but there's more of a momentum that forces you to go the same way as your ancestors.

Lex Fridman (12:18.960)

It's the recognition that people are wrong, often are wrong.

Lex Fridman (12:23.640)

Including parents?

Lex Fridman (12:25.000)

Including your parents, including your teachers, including everybody.

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Everybody is potentially wrong, and that you can't accept anybody just because they happen

Lex Fridman (12:34.080)

to come before you.

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That is, you have to evaluate and judge, and you have to have a standard by which to evaluate

Lex Fridman (12:39.400)

and judge the actions of those who came before you, whether they are your parents, whether

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they are the state in which you happen to be born, whether they are somebody on the

Lex Fridman (12:49.120)

other side of planet Earth.

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You can judge them if you have a standard.

Lex Fridman (12:52.960)

And my standard, and I think the right standard, is human well being.

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That which is good for human beings, qua human beings, is the standard by which we judge.

Lex Fridman (13:03.600)

I can say that certain periods of history were bad.

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They happened.

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It's important to study them.

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It's important to understand what they did that made them bad so we cannot do that again.

Lex Fridman (13:14.460)

And I can say certain cultures, certain periods in time were good.

Lex Fridman (13:17.640)

Why?

Lex Fridman (13:18.640)

Because they promoted human well being and human flourishing.

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That's the standard.

Lex Fridman (13:22.480)

To derive from that, okay, what is it that made a particular culture good?

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What is it that made that particular culture positive in terms of human well being and

Lex Fridman (13:30.160)

human flourishing?

Lex Fridman (13:31.400)

What made this bad?

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And hopefully from that, I can derive a principle.

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Okay, if I want human flourishing and human well being in the future, I want to be more

Lex Fridman (13:39.400)

like these guys and less like those guys.

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I want to derive what is the principle that will guide me in the future.

Lex Fridman (13:45.400)

That's I think how human knowledge ultimately develops.

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I think people often make a mistake, I'm not saying your own, but lots of people don't

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actually read the original sources and so what happens is people will attack conservatives

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assuming that conservatives think that whatever comes from the past is right.

Lex Fridman (14:02.960)

And actually, it's very difficult to find a thinker who actually says something like

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that.

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Seldon or Burke, the big conservative theorists hooker, they're all people who understand

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that the tradition carries with it mistakes that were made in the past.

Lex Fridman (14:21.880)

And this is actually I think an important part of their empiricism is that they see

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the search for truth as something a society does by trial and error.

Lex Fridman (14:31.240)

And what that means is that in any given moment, you have to be aware of the possibility that

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things that you've inherited are actually false.

Lex Fridman (14:39.840)

And the job of the political thinker or the jurist or the philosopher is not to dig in

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and say whatever it is that we've inherited is right.

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The job is to look at the society as a whole and say, look, we have this job of first of

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all conservation, just making sure that we don't lose good things that we've had.

Lex Fridman (15:01.280)

And second, seeing if we can repair things in order to improve them where it's necessary

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or where it's possible.

Lex Fridman (15:07.920)

And that process is actually a creative process.

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This is a way in which I think it is similar to Jeroen's philosophy that you take the

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inherited tradition and you look for a way that you can shape it in order to make it

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something better than it was.

Lex Fridman (15:25.760)

That's a baseline for what we call conservatism.

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It's not, yeah.

Lex Fridman (15:29.120)

Just a comment.

Lex Fridman (15:30.120)

So the trial and error, the errors is, you're proud of the errors.

Lex Fridman (15:35.120)

It's a feature, not a bug.

Lex Fridman (15:37.000)

So you mentioned trial and error a few times yesterday, it's a really interesting kind

Lex Fridman (15:40.320)

of idea.

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It's basically accepting that the journey is going to have flaws as opposed to saying,

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I mean, the conclusion there is the current system is flawed and it will always be flawed

Lex Fridman (15:55.640)

and you try to improve it.

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When you listen to your on talk, there's much more of an optimism for the system being perfect

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now or potentially soon, or it could be perfect.

Lex Fridman (16:09.640)

And to me, the way I heard it is almost like accepting that the system is flawed and through

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trial and error will improve and Jeroen says, no, we can have a perfection now.

Lex Fridman (16:25.980)

That's the way it sounds to me.

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Yeah.

Lex Fridman (16:28.240)

And I think that's right.

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I think the difference is that at some point, just like in science, I think one can stop

Lex Fridman (16:34.880)

the trial and error and say, I can now see a pattern here.

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I can see that certain actions lead to bad consequences, certain actions lead to good

Lex Fridman (16:45.920)

consequences.

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Let me try to abstract away what is it that is good and what is it that is bad and build

Lex Fridman (16:54.000)

a system around what is good and reject what is bad.

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I think ultimately, if you read the founding fathers and whether we call them conservatives

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or individuals, what the founding fathers actually did, all of them, I think, is study

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history.

Lex Fridman (17:06.080)

They all did.

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They all talk about history.

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They all talk about examples of other cultures, whether they go back to the Republic in Venice

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or back to the ancient Greeks.

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They studied these.

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They learned lessons from them.

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They try to figure out what has worked in the past and what hasn't and try to derive

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principles.

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They got pretty close to what I would consider kind of an ideal, but they didn't get it

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completely right.

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Here we sit 200 and something years after the Declaration and after the Constitution.

Lex Fridman (17:38.360)

I think we can look back and say, okay, well, what did they get right?

Lex Fridman (17:41.320)

What did they get wrong based on how is it done and where are the flaws and we can improve

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on it.

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I think we can get closer to perfection based on those kind of observations, based on that

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kind of abstraction, that kind of discovery of what is true.

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Just like at some point, you do the experiments, you do the trial and error, and now you come

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up with a scientific principle.

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It is true that 100 years later, you might discover that, hey, I missed something, there's

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something, but to not take the full lesson, to insist on incrementalism, to insist on

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we're just going to tinker with the system instead of saying, no, there's something really

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wrong with having a king, there's something really wrong with not having any representation,

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whatever the standard needs to be in the name of we don't want to move too fast, I think

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is a mistake.

Lex Fridman (18:37.920)

The problem with trial and error in politics is that we're talking about human life, right?

Lex Fridman (18:45.120)

So there was a big trial around communism, and 100 million people paid the price for

Lex Fridman (18:51.440)

the trial.

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I could have told them in advance, as did many people, that it would not work.

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There are principles of human nature, principles that we can study from history, principles

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about economics and other aspects.

Lex Fridman (19:04.160)

Well, we know it's not going to work.

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You don't need to try it again.

Lex Fridman (19:06.680)

We've had communal arrangements throughout history.

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There was an experiment with fascism, and there have been experiments with all kinds

Lex Fridman (19:13.920)

of political systems.

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Okay, we've done them.

Lex Fridman (19:17.480)

Sad that we did them, because many of us knew they wouldn't work.

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We should learn the lesson, and I think that all of history now converges on one lesson,

Lex Fridman (19:26.560)

and that is what we need to do is build systems that protect individual freedom.

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That is the core.

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That's what ultimately leads to human flourishing and human success and human achievement, and

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to the extent that we place anything above that individual, whether it's the state, whether

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it's the ethnicity, whether it's the race, whether it's the bourgeois, whatever it happens

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to be, class or whatever, whenever we place something above the individual, the consequence

Lex Fridman (19:49.960)

is negative.

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That's one of these principles that I think we can derive from studying 3,000 years of

Lex Fridman (19:57.760)

civilization.

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of a moderate skepticism, which says, look, we may not know everything, it says, look,

Lex Fridman (1:00:11.680)

we know everything.

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Here it is.

Lex Fridman (1:00:13.680)

Here's what we know.

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We know.

Lex Fridman (1:00:15.680)

Here's what we think.

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So, you know, I'll agree with you all.

Lex Fridman (1:00:19.280)

I don't like self evident.

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I don't like self evident because he's absolutely right.

Lex Fridman (1:00:22.820)

It's not self evident.

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These are massive achievements.

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These are massive achievements of enlightened thinking, of studying history, of understanding

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human nature, of deriving a truth from 3,000 years of historical knowledge and a better

Lex Fridman (1:00:40.440)

understanding of human nature and a capacity.

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It's using reason in some ways better than any human beings have.

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I mean, the founding fathers are giants historically, in my view, because they came up with these

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truths.

Lex Fridman (1:00:55.160)

I do think they're truths, but they're certainly not self evident.

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I mean, if they were, your arm is right.

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They would have discovered them thousands of years earlier or everybody would accept

Lex Fridman (1:01:03.200)

them, right?

Lex Fridman (1:01:04.200)

I mean, how many people today think that those, what they state in that document is true?

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Pretty much, you know, five people.

Lex Fridman (1:01:11.080)

I don't know.

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It's very, it's very, your criticism of modern society, yes, we'll get there.

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It's very, very few people recognize that if they were self evident, bam, everybody

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would have become, you know, would have accepted the American Revolution as truth and that

Lex Fridman (1:01:26.600)

was it.

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A lot of work has to go into understanding and describing and convincing people about

Lex Fridman (1:01:32.400)

those truths.

Lex Fridman (1:01:33.400)

But I completely disagree with your arm about this idea or I'll voice my dissent, as we

Lex Fridman (1:01:39.720)

said.

Nationalism Debate (1:01:40.720)

I disagree with your official dissent.

Nationalism Debate (1:01:42.800)

About A, that this being two different revolutions and B, that the American Revolution had any

Nationalism Debate (1:01:47.560)

similarity to the French Revolution.

Nationalism Debate (1:01:50.200)

You know that Jefferson and Payne, they were in France running a different revolution.

Nationalism Debate (1:01:55.760)

I know, but they were waiting constantly.

Nationalism Debate (1:01:58.280)

I mean, they were in communication with Madison, there was a lot of input going on.

Nationalism Debate (1:02:01.800)

I know, and Jefferson's sitting there in Paris pulling his hair out because Madison has come

Lex Fridman (1:02:06.480)

under the influence of these nationalists and he can't believe it.

Nationalism Debate (1:02:09.800)

The reality is that the difference between the French Revolution and the American Revolution

Nationalism Debate (1:02:15.080)

is vast and it is a deep philosophical difference and it's a difference that expressed, I think,

Nationalism Debate (1:02:23.160)

between the differences.

Nationalism Debate (1:02:24.160)

You know, Joram, in his writings, lumps Rousseau with Locke and with Voltaire and with others

Lex Fridman (1:02:29.680)

and I think that's wrong.

Lex Fridman (1:02:32.280)

I think Rousseau is very different than the others.

Nationalism Debate (1:02:34.280)

I think, again, Rousseau is an anti enlightenment figure, Rousseau is in many respects hearkening

Nationalism Debate (1:02:40.360)

back to a past, an ancient past and I think a completely distorted view of human nature,

Nationalism Debate (1:02:47.680)

of human mind.

Lex Fridman (1:02:48.680)

He rejects reason.

Nationalism Debate (1:02:49.680)

I mean, Rousseau is on the premise that reason is the end of humanity, reason is the destruction

Nationalism Debate (1:02:55.400)

of humanity, reason is how we get civilization and civilization is awful because –

Nationalism Debate (1:03:00.160)

I don't disagree.

Lex Fridman (1:03:01.960)

We're only talking about different texts.

Nationalism Debate (1:03:04.040)

When I say Rousseau, I'm just talking about the social contract.

Nationalism Debate (1:03:06.760)

Yeah, but the social contract, there's similarity between others, but he takes it in a completely

Nationalism Debate (1:03:11.000)

different direction and we agree social contract is a bad idea, but you can't have a contract

Nationalism Debate (1:03:16.720)

that you don't actually voluntarily accept, but Rousseau is the French Revolution.

Nationalism Debate (1:03:21.600)

Rousseau is about destruction and mayhem and chaos and anarchy.

Lex Fridman (1:03:26.880)

He is the spirit behind the French Revolution.

Nationalism Debate (1:03:29.000)

I think the American Revolution is a complete rejection of Rousseau.

Lex Fridman (1:03:31.920)

I think Jefferson is a complete rejection of Rousseau.

Nationalism Debate (1:03:34.400)

I don't think Jefferson is a fan of Rousseau.

Lex Fridman (1:03:36.040)

He is of Voltaire and he certainly is of Montesquieu.

Nationalism Debate (1:03:38.800)

If you look at the Federalist Papers, the intellectual most cited in the Federalist

Lex Fridman (1:03:43.160)

Papers I think in terms of just the number of times it's cited is Montesquieu.

Lex Fridman (1:03:48.000)

So I think that the American Revolution is an individualistic revolution.

Lex Fridman (1:03:51.860)

It is a revolution about the rights of the individual.

Nationalism Debate (1:03:55.400)

The French Revolution is a negation of the rights of the individual.

Lex Fridman (1:03:58.280)

It's a collectivistic revolution.

Nationalism Debate (1:04:00.440)

It's not quite the Marxist revolution of the proletarian, but it's defining people in classes

Lex Fridman (1:04:06.720)

and it's a rebellion against a certain class and yeah, kill them all, right?

Nationalism Debate (1:04:12.200)

Off with their heads.

Lex Fridman (1:04:13.880)

It is a negation.

Nationalism Debate (1:04:15.380)

It's about egalitarianism in the sense of equality of outcome, not in a sense of equality

Lex Fridman (1:04:19.760)

before the law or equality of rights, which is the Jeffersonian sense.

Nationalism Debate (1:04:23.720)

I think it's wrong to lump Jefferson in to the fraternity egalitarian notion of the French,

Nationalism Debate (1:04:33.280)

which is far more similar to what ultimately became socialism and Marxism and that tradition.

Nationalism Debate (1:04:42.200)

It's anti individualistic, the French Revolution is, whereas the American Revolution, the first

Lex Fridman (1:04:46.360)

one, is individualistic.

Nationalism Debate (1:04:48.700)

It's all about individual rights and while there's certain phrases in the Declaration

Nationalism Debate (1:04:52.880)

of Independence that I don't agree with, it's beautifully written and it's a magnificent

Lex Fridman (1:04:58.240)

document, so it's hard for me to say I don't agree, but who am I?

Lex Fridman (1:05:02.280)

These were giants, self evident is one of them.

Nationalism Debate (1:05:06.520)

I'm not particularly crazy about Endowed by the Creator, but I like the fact that it's

Lex Fridman (1:05:13.180)

creator and not God or not a specific creator, but just a more general thing.

Lex Fridman (1:05:18.080)

But putting those two ashes aside, it's the greatest political document in all of human

Lex Fridman (1:05:22.280)

history in my view by far.

Nationalism Debate (1:05:24.160)

Nothing comes close.

Nationalism Debate (1:05:25.400)

It is a document that identifies the core principles of political truism, of truth.

Nationalism Debate (1:05:34.120)

That is, the role of government is to preserve and to protect these rights, these inalienable

Lex Fridman (1:05:38.560)

rights and that is so crucial that these rights are inalienable.

Nationalism Debate (1:05:42.260)

That is, a majority can't vote them out, a revelation can't vote them out.

Nationalism Debate (1:05:48.100)

This is what is required for human liberty and human freedom, the right that is the sanction,

Nationalism Debate (1:05:55.080)

the freedom to act on your own behalf, to act based on your own judgment and as long

Lex Fridman (1:05:59.280)

as you're not interfering with other people's rights, you are free to do so.

Nationalism Debate (1:06:04.480)

That is such a profound truth and that to me is the essence of political philosophy.

Nationalism Debate (1:06:10.080)

That's the beginning and it's based on, just not to fall into, Yolam's going to say it's

Nationalism Debate (1:06:17.280)

a rationalist, it's based on a whole history of what happens when we negate that.

Nationalism Debate (1:06:21.320)

It's based on looking at England and seeing to the extent that they practiced a respect

Nationalism Debate (1:06:27.160)

for individual liberty, of property, of freedom, good things happened.

Lex Fridman (1:06:32.560)

So let's take that all the way.

Nationalism Debate (1:06:34.480)

Let's not compromise on that.

Nationalism Debate (1:06:36.140)

Let's be consistent with the good and reject the bad and when England goes away, distance

Nationalism Debate (1:06:42.720)

itself from the rights of man, from the idea of a right to property and so on, bad things

Nationalism Debate (1:06:47.840)

happen and when they go to it, let's go all in and I'm all in on the right to life, liberty,

Nationalism Debate (1:06:54.120)

property and the pursuit of happiness.

Lex Fridman (1:06:55.640)

And I think the idea of pursuit of happiness is profound because it's a moral statement.

Nationalism Debate (1:06:59.920)

It's a statement that says that sanctions and says that ultimately people should be

Nationalism Debate (1:07:06.080)

allowed to make their own judgments and live their lives as they see fit based on how they

Nationalism Debate (1:07:12.840)

view happiness.

Nationalism Debate (1:07:13.840)

They might be right, they might be wrong, but we're not going to dictate what happiness

Nationalism Debate (1:07:16.840)

entails and dictate to people how they should live their lives.

Lex Fridman (1:07:20.760)

We're going to let them figure that out.

Lex Fridman (1:07:23.800)

So it has this self interested moral code kind of embedded in it.

Lex Fridman (1:07:29.440)

So I think it's a beautiful statement.

Lex Fridman (1:07:31.240)

So I think the declaration is key and I think there was an experiment.

Nationalism Debate (1:07:35.280)

An experiment was proposed in that period before the Constitution where the experiment

Nationalism Debate (1:07:41.720)

was let's let the states, let's have a kind of a loose confederation, let's let the states

Nationalism Debate (1:07:47.600)

experiment with setting up their own constitutions and rule of government and we won't have any

Nationalism Debate (1:07:52.760)

kind of unity.

Lex Fridman (1:07:54.020)

And I think what they realized, and I think even Jefferson realized, is that that was

Nationalism Debate (1:07:58.040)

not workable because many of the states were starting to significantly violate rights.

Nationalism Debate (1:08:05.160)

There was nothing to unify, there was nothing to really protect the vision of the declaration.

Nationalism Debate (1:08:11.640)

You needed to establish a nation, which is what the Constitution does, it establishes

Lex Fridman (1:08:16.000)

a nation.

Lex Fridman (1:08:17.180)

But the purpose of that was to put everybody under one set of laws that protected rights.

Nationalism Debate (1:08:25.880)

The focus was still on the protection of rights and I agree with six of the seven of the principles.

Lex Fridman (1:08:33.280)

Which did this group?

Lex Fridman (1:08:34.360)

The common welfare, the general welfare, which I'm worried about, right?

Nationalism Debate (1:08:37.560)

I think in the way the founders understood it, I think I probably agreed with it.

Lex Fridman (1:08:42.120)

But it's such an ambiguous—

Nationalism Debate (1:08:43.120)

I'm sure you don't agree.

Lex Fridman (1:08:44.640)

Maybe I don't.

Lex Fridman (1:08:45.640)

Can you state the general welfare principle?

Nationalism Debate (1:08:48.440)

Well the idea that part of the role of government is to secure the general welfare is something—

Nationalism Debate (1:08:53.880)

This is something we didn't get to in the debate, we really should have, is the question

Nationalism Debate (1:08:58.080)

of whether there is such a thing as a common good or a public interest or a national interest

Nationalism Debate (1:09:04.920)

or a general welfare, do these words, do these terms mean anything other than the good of

Lex Fridman (1:09:11.280)

all of the individuals in the country?

Nationalism Debate (1:09:13.320)

That's an important—

Nationalism Debate (1:09:14.320)

Yeah, so that's right, so that's why I object to it because I think it's too easy

Nationalism Debate (1:09:19.280)

to interpret it as.

Lex Fridman (1:09:20.760)

So I interpret it as, well, what's good for a general, a group, a common people, it's

Nationalism Debate (1:09:27.200)

a good collection of individuals, so what's good for the individual is good for the common

Nationalism Debate (1:09:29.800)

welfare, but I understand that that's something that is hard for people to grasp and not the

Nationalism Debate (1:09:35.920)

common understanding.

Lex Fridman (1:09:37.320)

So I would have skipped the general welfare in order to avoid the fact that now the general

Nationalism Debate (1:09:42.440)

welfare includes the government telling you what gender you should be assigned, so I would

Lex Fridman (1:09:48.680)

have wanted to have skipped that completely.

Lex Fridman (1:09:51.160)

So I think the Constitution is completely consistent with the Declaration with a few

Nationalism Debate (1:09:54.840)

exceptions of general welfare, but perfection is a difficult thing to find, particularly

Nationalism Debate (1:10:01.120)

for me politically, but it's a magnificent document, the Constitution.

Nationalism Debate (1:10:05.560)

It doesn't quite rise to the level, I think, of the Declaration, but it's a magnificent

Nationalism Debate (1:10:08.720)

document because—and this is the difference, I think, between the English Constitution.

Lex Fridman (1:10:13.960)

Here's what I see as the difference.

Nationalism Debate (1:10:17.320)

The difference is that the Constitution is written in the context of why do we have a

Lex Fridman (1:10:22.480)

separation of powers, for example?

Nationalism Debate (1:10:24.580)

We have a separation of powers in order to make sure that the government only does what

Lex Fridman (1:10:27.960)

the government is supposed to do, and what is the government supposed to do?

Nationalism Debate (1:10:30.720)

Well, fundamentally, it's supposed to protect rights.

Nationalism Debate (1:10:33.080)

I mean, all of those seven, or at least six of the seven, are about protecting rights.

Nationalism Debate (1:10:37.960)

They're about protecting us from foreign invaders.

Lex Fridman (1:10:39.680)

They're about protecting peace within the country.

Nationalism Debate (1:10:43.240)

They're about preserving this protection of rights, and why do we have this separation

Lex Fridman (1:10:48.080)

so that we make sure that no one of those entities, the executive or the legislature,

Nationalism Debate (1:10:53.240)

the judicial, can violate rights because there's always somebody looking over their shoulder.

Nationalism Debate (1:10:56.520)

There's always somebody who can veto their power, but there's a purpose to it, and that

Nationalism Debate (1:11:00.600)

purpose is clearly signified and characterized, and that's why I think the Bill of Rights

Lex Fridman (1:11:05.440)

was written, in order to add to the clarification of what exactly we mean.

Lex Fridman (1:11:09.960)

What is the purpose?

Nationalism Debate (1:11:10.960)

The purpose is to preserve rights, and that's why we need to elaborate what those rights

Nationalism Debate (1:11:16.040)

are.

Lex Fridman (1:11:17.040)

And Madison's objection to the Bill of Rights was to say not that he objected to having

Nationalism Debate (1:11:20.920)

protection of rights, but to listing them because he was worried that other rights that

Nationalism Debate (1:11:26.920)

were not listed would not be, and his worry was completely justified because it's exactly

Nationalism Debate (1:11:30.560)

what's happened.

Nationalism Debate (1:11:31.560)

It's like, the only reason we have free speech in America is because we've got it in writing

Nationalism Debate (1:11:34.840)

as a First Amendment.

Nationalism Debate (1:11:35.840)

If we didn't have it in writing, it would have been gone a long time ago, and the reason

Nationalism Debate (1:11:39.480)

we don't have, for example, the freedom to negotiate a contract, you know, independent

Nationalism Debate (1:11:46.320)

government regulation, that was not listed as a right in the Bill, even though I think

Nationalism Debate (1:11:51.320)

it's clearly covered under the Constitution and certainly under the Declaration.

Lex Fridman (1:11:54.720)

So there was a massive mistake done in the Bill of Rights.

Nationalism Debate (1:11:57.080)

They tried to cover it with the Ninth Amendment, but it never really stuck, this idea that

Lex Fridman (1:12:03.720)

nonenumerated rights that are still in place.

Lex Fridman (1:12:06.960)

So I don't see it as a second revolution.

Lex Fridman (1:12:08.640)

I think it's a fix to a flaw that happened.

Nationalism Debate (1:12:13.600)

It's a fix that allowed the expansion of the protection of rights to all states by creating

Nationalism Debate (1:12:22.000)

a national entity to protect those rights, and that's what ultimately led to slavery

Nationalism Debate (1:12:28.200)

going away.

Nationalism Debate (1:12:29.880)

You know, under the initial agreement, slavery would have been there in perpetuity because

Nationalism Debate (1:12:36.120)

states were sovereign in a way that under the new Constitution they were not, and in

Nationalism Debate (1:12:40.960)

a sense, the Constitution sets in motion, the Declaration and then the Constitution

Nationalism Debate (1:12:44.920)

set in motion, the Civil War.

Nationalism Debate (1:12:47.400)

The Civil War has to happen because at the end of the day, you cannot have some states

Nationalism Debate (1:12:51.520)

with a massive violation of rights, what's more of a violation of rights than slavery,

Lex Fridman (1:12:55.760)

and some states that recognize it's not, it inevitably leads to the Civil War.

Nationalism Debate (1:13:01.040)

Yaron was just saying that, you know, other than the general welfare, these principles

Lex Fridman (1:13:05.240)

are about individual liberties.

Nationalism Debate (1:13:07.440)

I just don't think you can read it that way.

Nationalism Debate (1:13:09.560)

The first stated purpose of the Constitution of 1787 is in order to form a more perfect

Nationalism Debate (1:13:15.240)

union.

Nationalism Debate (1:13:16.240)

A more perfect union, it's describing a characteristic of the whole, it is not a characteristic of

Nationalism Debate (1:13:22.840)

any individual.

Nationalism Debate (1:13:24.520)

If you look at how the individuals are doing, you don't know whether their union is more

Nationalism Debate (1:13:28.960)

or less perfect.

Lex Fridman (1:13:30.200)

So what they're doing is they're looking at the condition in which in order to be able

Nationalism Debate (1:13:35.740)

to fight the battle of Yorktown, somebody has to write a personal check in order to

Lex Fridman (1:13:40.200)

be able to move armies.

Nationalism Debate (1:13:41.480)

A more perfect union is a more cohesive union, it's the ability to get all of these different

Lex Fridman (1:13:47.320)

individuals to do one focused thing when it's necessary to do it.

Lex Fridman (1:13:52.720)

Well it's more than that, right, so I agree with that, but for what purpose?

Nationalism Debate (1:13:57.880)

That is, and this is why, you know, this is why it's so hard with these historical documents

Nationalism Debate (1:14:02.560)

because there's a context and there's a thinking that they can't write everything down, right,

Lex Fridman (1:14:07.240)

which is sad because I wish they had.

Lex Fridman (1:14:09.360)

What's the purpose of a more perfect union?

Nationalism Debate (1:14:11.380)

The purpose of the more perfect union is to preserve the liberty of the individuals within

Nationalism Debate (1:14:15.840)

that union.

Lex Fridman (1:14:16.840)

Well how do you know?

Lex Fridman (1:14:18.320)

Because if you look, what's the rest?

Lex Fridman (1:14:20.020)

So what is the common defense?

Nationalism Debate (1:14:21.240)

The common defense is to protect us from foreign invaders who would now disrupt what the rest

Lex Fridman (1:14:26.680)

of the Constitution is all about.

Nationalism Debate (1:14:28.160)

All of the Constitution is written in a way as to preserve, find ways to limit the ability

Lex Fridman (1:14:33.880)

of government to violate the rights of individuals.

Nationalism Debate (1:14:38.160)

The beauty of this Constitution, and again, it's connection to the Declaration and tradition,

Lex Fridman (1:14:43.200)

right?

Lex Fridman (1:14:44.200)

What came before it?

Lex Fridman (1:14:45.200)

What came before it was a document, which they all respected, which was the Declaration,

Nationalism Debate (1:14:49.280)

which set the context for this.

Lex Fridman (1:14:50.800)

And now the union is there in order to provide for the common defense, great, because we

Nationalism Debate (1:14:55.760)

know that foreign invaders can violate our rights, that's what war is about.

Nationalism Debate (1:14:59.880)

To protect us from peace, to establish peace and justice within the country, that's based

Nationalism Debate (1:15:04.340)

on law, the rule of law, and again, individual liberty.

Lex Fridman (1:15:09.500)

So to me, when you read the Founders, when you read the Federalist Papers, when you read

Lex Fridman (1:15:13.900)

what they wrote, what they're trying to do is figure out the right kind of political

Nationalism Debate (1:15:19.200)

system, the right kind of structure to be able to preserve these liberties, and not

Nationalism Debate (1:15:25.680)

all of them had, from my perspective, a perfect understanding of what those liberties entailed,

Lex Fridman (1:15:30.640)

but they were all, even the conservatives that you call conservatives, were all in generally

Nationalism Debate (1:15:35.240)

in agreement about the importance of individual liberty and the importance of individual liberty.

Nationalism Debate (1:15:39.400)

Of course, because almost all of these rights are traditional English rights, they exist

Nationalism Debate (1:15:44.420)

in the English Bill of Rights, in the English Petition of Rights, they exist in force.

Lex Fridman (1:15:49.000)

All of these are traditional.

Lex Fridman (1:15:50.000)

And what they're trying to do is perfect that.

Lex Fridman (1:15:51.000)

They're trying to take the British system and perfect it.

Lex Fridman (1:15:54.040)

But you keep leaving out that they want to be like England in that they want to have

Lex Fridman (1:15:59.480)

an independent nation.

Nationalism Debate (1:16:01.160)

An independent nation is not a collection of individual liberties.

Nationalism Debate (1:16:04.640)

An independent nation, the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence is the

Nationalism Debate (1:16:09.000)

declaration that there is a collective right, that we as a people are breaking the bonds

Nationalism Debate (1:16:13.120)

with another people, and we're going to take our place, our equal station, among the nations

Nationalism Debate (1:16:17.820)

of the earth.

Lex Fridman (1:16:18.820)

But for what purpose?

Nationalism Debate (1:16:20.240)

The purpose is to protect individual rights.

Lex Fridman (1:16:22.200)

And there's no collective right.

Nationalism Debate (1:16:24.080)

Your argument is completely circular.

Nationalism Debate (1:16:25.840)

You're not allowing the possibility that there could be great and decent men that you and

Nationalism Debate (1:16:32.800)

I both admire who wanted the independence of their nation, not because that would give

Nationalism Debate (1:16:39.760)

individuals liberty, but because the independence of their nation was itself a great good.

Lex Fridman (1:16:45.200)

So we clearly disagree on this, because I don't think the independence of the nation

Lex Fridman (1:16:48.920)

is a good in and of itself, because it's –

Lex Fridman (1:16:50.920)

But did they think it was?

Lex Fridman (1:16:52.720)

I don't think they did.

Lex Fridman (1:16:54.200)

And this is why they tried so hard not to break from England, and why many of them struggled,

Lex Fridman (1:17:02.080)

really, really struggled with having a revolution, because England was pretty good, right?

Nationalism Debate (1:17:07.240)

England was the best.

Lex Fridman (1:17:08.240)

And this is where we should get to the universality of these things, because I do think England

Nationalism Debate (1:17:12.600)

was the best, and universally and absolutely was the best system out there.

Lex Fridman (1:17:18.080)

And they struggled to break from England, because they didn't view the value of having

Nationalism Debate (1:17:23.280)

a nation as the primary.

Lex Fridman (1:17:25.040)

But what they identified in England is certain flaws in the system that created situations

Nationalism Debate (1:17:30.300)

in which their rights were being violated.

Lex Fridman (1:17:32.540)

So they figured the only option in order to secure these rights is to break away from

Nationalism Debate (1:17:38.100)

England and secure a nation.

Lex Fridman (1:17:39.320)

Now, I am not an anarchist, as Michael Malice is, because we've discussed it.

Nationalism Debate (1:17:44.360)

I believe you need nations.

Lex Fridman (1:17:46.440)

You need nations to secure those rights.

Nationalism Debate (1:17:48.980)

That is, the rights are not – you can't secure those rights without having a nation.

Lex Fridman (1:17:53.080)

But the nation is just a means to an end.

Nationalism Debate (1:17:55.160)

The end is the rights, and I think that's how the founders understood it, and that's

Lex Fridman (1:17:58.920)

why they created this kind of country.

Nationalism Debate (1:18:01.560)

I think this is a good place to ask about common welfare and cohesion.

Nationalism Debate (1:18:07.400)

Let me say what John Donne wrote that, quote, no man is an island entire of itself.

Nationalism Debate (1:18:14.600)

Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

Nationalism Debate (1:18:18.600)

He went on, any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore

Nationalism Debate (1:18:25.720)

never sent to know for whom the bell tolls.

Lex Fridman (1:18:29.080)

It tolls for thee.

Lex Fridman (1:18:32.120)

So let's talk about individualism and cohesion, not just at the political level, but at a

Lex Fridman (1:18:40.040)

philosophical level for the human condition.

Lex Fridman (1:18:43.600)

What is central?

Lex Fridman (1:18:45.140)

What is the role of other humans in our lives?

Lex Fridman (1:18:49.760)

What's the importance of cohesion?

Lex Fridman (1:18:51.160)

This is something you've talked about.

Lex Fridman (1:18:53.080)

So Aaron said that the beauty of the founding documents is that they create a cohesive union

Nationalism Debate (1:19:00.040)

that protects the individual freedoms, but you have spoken about the value of the union,

Nationalism Debate (1:19:07.600)

the common welfare, the cohesion in itself.

Lex Fridman (1:19:13.240)

So can you maybe elaborate on what is the role of cohesion and the collective, not to

Lex Fridman (1:19:19.880)

use that term, but multiple humans together connected in the human condition?

Nationalism Debate (1:19:25.040)

Sure, I keep getting the feeling that Yaron and I are actually having a disagreement about

Nationalism Debate (1:19:30.600)

empirical reality, because I think that enlightenment rationalist political thought features the

Lex Fridman (1:19:37.280)

individual, it features the state.

Nationalism Debate (1:19:40.920)

There isn't really a nation other than the nation, the people as a collective is created

Lex Fridman (1:19:46.760)

by the state, and when the state disappears, then the collective disappears.

Nationalism Debate (1:19:51.520)

Now, I think that when conservatives of all stripes look at this kind of thinking, that

Nationalism Debate (1:19:58.840)

there's the individuals and then there's the state, and there really isn't anything else.

Nationalism Debate (1:20:04.000)

When they look at that, they say, even before you get to consequences, it's a terrible theory

Nationalism Debate (1:20:10.020)

because when we try to understand any field of inquiry, any domain, any subject area,

Nationalism Debate (1:20:16.120)

when you try to understand it, we try to come up with a small number of concepts and of

Nationalism Debate (1:20:25.240)

relations among the concepts, which is supposed to be able to explain, to illuminate as much

Nationalism Debate (1:20:33.000)

as possible the important things that are taking place in the domain.

Lex Fridman (1:20:37.360)

And conservatives look at this, individuals and the state, and they say, you're missing

Nationalism Debate (1:20:42.040)

most of what's going on in politics, also in personal human relations as well.

Lex Fridman (1:20:50.160)

But it just doesn't look like a description of human beings, it looks like a completely

Nationalism Debate (1:20:54.400)

artificial thing.

Lex Fridman (1:20:55.720)

And then conservatives say, well, look, once you adopt this artificial thing, then the

Nationalism Debate (1:20:59.160)

consequences are horrific because you're not describing reality.

Lex Fridman (1:21:02.780)

So a conservative reality begins with an empirical view of what are human beings like, and the

Nationalism Debate (1:21:12.000)

first thing you notice about human beings, or at least the first thing I think conservatives

Lex Fridman (1:21:16.280)

notice is that they're sticky, is that they clump, they turn into groups.

Lex Fridman (1:21:20.800)

And you take any arbitrary collection of human beings and set them to a task, or even just

Nationalism Debate (1:21:27.200)

leave them alone, and they quickly form into groups and those groups are always structured

Nationalism Debate (1:21:33.580)

as hierarchies.

Nationalism Debate (1:21:34.580)

This is this competition within the hierarchy, who's going to be the leader, who's going

Nationalism Debate (1:21:38.080)

to be number two.

Lex Fridman (1:21:39.400)

But everywhere you look in human societies, universally, there are groups, the groups

Nationalism Debate (1:21:46.880)

compete and they're structured internally as hierarchies, and then there are internal

Lex Fridman (1:21:51.080)

competitions for who leads the different groups.

Lex Fridman (1:21:55.040)

And when we think about scientific explanation, we allow that there are different levels of

Nationalism Debate (1:22:00.360)

explanation that a macroscopic object like a table, it doesn't have properties that can

Nationalism Debate (1:22:07.560)

be directly derived from the properties of the atoms or the molecules or the microfibers

Lex Fridman (1:22:13.040)

that make up the table.

Lex Fridman (1:22:15.480)

And that's understood, that there's what academic philosophers call emergent properties,

Nationalism Debate (1:22:21.040)

that when you get up to the level of the table, it has properties like that you can't put

Nationalism Debate (1:22:25.320)

your fist through it, which you can't necessarily know just by looking at the atoms alone.

Lex Fridman (1:22:31.040)

And I think conservatives say the same thing is true for political theory, for social theory,

Nationalism Debate (1:22:36.140)

that looking at an individual human being and thinking about what does that individual

Lex Fridman (1:22:41.080)

human being need, which Jeroen does very eloquently in his writings.

Lex Fridman (1:22:46.280)

But that doesn't tell you what the characteristics are of this hierarchically structured group.

Lex Fridman (1:22:53.320)

As soon as you have that, it has its own qualities.

Lex Fridman (1:22:56.680)

So an example, the question of what holds these groups together, and we need to answer

Lex Fridman (1:23:01.600)

that question.

Nationalism Debate (1:23:03.400)

I try to answer it by saying there's such a thing as mutual loyalty.

Nationalism Debate (1:23:07.360)

Mutual loyalty is shorthand for human beings, individuals have the capacity to include another

Nationalism Debate (1:23:14.160)

individual within their self, within their conception of their self.

Nationalism Debate (1:23:19.240)

When two people do it, it creates a bond, like a bond between two atoms creates a molecule.

Nationalism Debate (1:23:27.680)

That doesn't mean that they lose their individuality.

Lex Fridman (1:23:30.660)

Within the group, they may still continue competing with one another.

Lex Fridman (1:23:33.640)

But that doesn't mean that there isn't, in reality, a bond, and that real bond is the

Nationalism Debate (1:23:39.960)

stuff of which political events and political history are made, is the coming together,

Nationalism Debate (1:23:46.420)

the cohesion and the dissolution of these bonded loyalty groups.

Lex Fridman (1:23:51.280)

That's the reality of politics.

Lex Fridman (1:23:54.600)

And so when I hear these discussions about individuals in the state, I feel like we're

Nationalism Debate (1:24:00.680)

missing most of the reality, and in order to understand the political reality, we need

Nationalism Debate (1:24:05.840)

to understand what makes human beings coherent to groups, what makes them dissolve, what

Nationalism Debate (1:24:12.000)

makes the groups come apart and end up creating civil wars and that kind of thing.

Nationalism Debate (1:24:16.400)

I think we also need to know, in practice, rival groups do come together and bond.

Nationalism Debate (1:24:25.680)

I mean, basically, when we think about democratic society, we're talking about different groups,

Nationalism Debate (1:24:33.560)

we can call them tribes, or you can come up with a different name, but different tribal

Nationalism Debate (1:24:37.800)

groupings with different views, they come together to form a nation, and they're able

Nationalism Debate (1:24:43.560)

to do that, even though often they hate each other, like we were talking about the American

Nationalism Debate (1:24:48.800)

Revolution, and often they hate each other, and nevertheless, they're able to come together.

Lex Fridman (1:24:53.400)

Why?

Lex Fridman (1:24:54.400)

How?

Lex Fridman (1:24:55.400)

And that leads us into questions like, how does honor, the giving of honor by one group

Nationalism Debate (1:25:00.840)

to another, how does that increase the mutual loyalty between groups that are still competing

Lex Fridman (1:25:08.800)

with one another?

Nationalism Debate (1:25:10.280)

All of these questions, I think we have to answer them in order to be able to talk about

Nationalism Debate (1:25:15.040)

politics.

Lex Fridman (1:25:17.920)

And I think the reason, the first reason why one should approach politics as a conservative

Nationalism Debate (1:25:23.720)

rather than as an individualist is because it gives us these theoretical tools to be

Nationalism Debate (1:25:29.000)

able to talk about reality, which we don't have as long as we keep within the individualist

Nationalism Debate (1:25:33.720)

framework.

Nationalism Debate (1:25:34.720)

As we're talking, the metaphor that's popping up into my mind, and this is also something

Nationalism Debate (1:25:40.120)

that bothers me with theoretical physics, the metaphor is there's some sense in which

Nationalism Debate (1:25:46.440)

this thing's called theories of everything, where you try to describe the basic laws of

Nationalism Debate (1:25:51.640)

physics, how they interact together, and once you do, you have a sense that you understand

Lex Fridman (1:25:55.960)

all of reality.

Nationalism Debate (1:25:57.960)

In a sense, you do.

Lex Fridman (1:25:59.240)

And that to me, that to me is understanding the individual, like how the individual behaves

Nationalism Debate (1:26:05.240)

in this world.

Lex Fridman (1:26:06.240)

But then you're saying that they're, hey, hey, you're also forgetting chemistry, biology,

Lex Fridman (1:26:12.400)

how all of that actually comes together, the stickiness, the stickiness of molecules and

Lex Fridman (1:26:17.880)

how they build different systems and they, some systems can kill each other, some systems

Nationalism Debate (1:26:22.080)

can flourish, some can make pancakes and bananas and some can make poison and all those kinds

Nationalism Debate (1:26:28.620)

of things that we need to be able to, we need to consider the full stack of things that

Nationalism Debate (1:26:36.600)

are constructed from the fundamental basics.

Lex Fridman (1:26:40.760)

And I guess, Yaron, you're saying that, no, you're just like the theoretical physicist,

Nationalism Debate (1:26:47.480)

it all starts at the bottom, like if you need to preserve the fundamentals of reality, which

Lex Fridman (1:26:54.000)

is the individual, like the basic atom of human society is the individual, do you?

Lex Fridman (1:27:01.320)

So yes, so the basic unit, the basic moral unit, the basic ethical unit in society is

Lex Fridman (1:27:07.280)

the individual.

Lex Fridman (1:27:08.280)

And yeah, of course we form groups and you can't understand history unless you understand

Nationalism Debate (1:27:13.160)

group formation and group motivation and I have a view about what kind of groups should

Nationalism Debate (1:27:18.420)

be formed and politically, from a political perspective, voluntary ones, ones in which

Nationalism Debate (1:27:25.400)

we join when we want to join and we can leave when we want to leave and ones that help us

Lex Fridman (1:27:32.460)

and clearly groups help us pursue whatever it is a goal is ultimately.

Lex Fridman (1:27:38.740)

So in the pursuit of happiness, there are lots of groups that one wants to form, whether

Nationalism Debate (1:27:43.600)

it's marriage, whether it's businesses, whether it's sports teams, there are lots of different

Lex Fridman (1:27:49.460)

groups one wants to form, but the question is what is the standard of well being?

Nationalism Debate (1:27:54.180)

Is it the standard of well being some algorithm that maximizes the well being of a group,

Lex Fridman (1:28:01.060)

some utilitarian function?

Nationalism Debate (1:28:03.560)

Is it something that's inherent in the group that we can measure as goodness and to help

Nationalism Debate (1:28:11.320)

with individuals within as long as we can get the group to function well, we don't really

Nationalism Debate (1:28:16.200)

care about where the individuals are.

Lex Fridman (1:28:17.960)

So to me, the goal of creating groups is the well being of the individual and that's why

Nationalism Debate (1:28:23.680)

it needs to be voluntary and that's why there has to be a way out of those.

Nationalism Debate (1:28:27.680)

Sometimes it's costly, it's not a cheap out, that's why you should really think about what

Nationalism Debate (1:28:31.200)

groups you and this on an issue that's very controversial, maybe we can discuss, maybe

Lex Fridman (1:28:36.720)

not.

Nationalism Debate (1:28:37.720)

To me, immigration is so important, open immigration or free immigration is because that's another

Nationalism Debate (1:28:42.860)

group that I would like people to be able to voluntarily choose both in and out and

Nationalism Debate (1:28:48.000)

I'd like to see people be able to go and join that group that they believe will allow for

Lex Fridman (1:28:54.120)

the pursuit of happiness.

Lex Fridman (1:28:55.120)

But let me say that that's a description of an ideal, what I'm just saying.

Lex Fridman (1:29:00.200)

I recognize that that's not the reality in which we live.

Nationalism Debate (1:29:03.400)

I recognize that that's not the reality in which history.

Nationalism Debate (1:29:06.800)

Recognizing that the individual exists in a sense, philosophically, is a massive achievement.

Nationalism Debate (1:29:15.560)

Human beings, however they evolved, clearly we started out in a tribal context in which

Lex Fridman (1:29:21.360)

the individual didn't matter.

Nationalism Debate (1:29:23.000)

We followed the leader, the competition was for power, power over the group and dictates

Lex Fridman (1:29:28.600)

how the group should work.

Nationalism Debate (1:29:32.280)

The history of human beings is a history of gaining knowledge and part of the knowledge

Lex Fridman (1:29:36.880)

is the value of an individual.

Nationalism Debate (1:29:39.640)

You can see that in religion, you can see that in philosophy, you can see that through

Lex Fridman (1:29:44.400)

the evolution.

Nationalism Debate (1:29:47.680)

We evolved from tribes into nations and then empires and conflicts between nations and

Lex Fridman (1:29:52.420)

conflicts between empires.

Nationalism Debate (1:29:54.200)

We tried a lot of different things, if you will.

Nationalism Debate (1:29:56.080)

I don't think we always did it on purpose, but different philosophies, different sets

Nationalism Debate (1:30:01.040)

of ideas drove us towards different collectives, different groupings, and different ways in

Lex Fridman (1:30:07.200)

which to structure.

Nationalism Debate (1:30:09.600)

After 3,000 years of known history, there's history before that, but we don't know much

Lex Fridman (1:30:14.840)

about it, 3,000 years of known history, you can sit back and evaluate.

Nationalism Debate (1:30:19.520)

I think that's what is done in the Enlightenment.

Lex Fridman (1:30:23.080)

You sit back, and certainly we can do it today, we can sit back and evaluate.

Lex Fridman (1:30:27.140)

What promotes human flourishing and what doesn't?

Lex Fridman (1:30:29.620)

What do we mean by human flourishing?

Lex Fridman (1:30:32.240)

Who's flourishing?

Lex Fridman (1:30:33.240)

Well, individual human beings.

Nationalism Debate (1:30:35.040)

Now, since I don't believe in a zero sum world, and the world is not zero sum, we can see

Nationalism Debate (1:30:39.440)

that, it's empirically possible to show that the world is not a zero sum game, my flourishing

Nationalism Debate (1:30:44.440)

doesn't come at your expense, so I can show that a system that promotes my flourishing

Nationalism Debate (1:30:49.400)

probably promotes your flourishing as well and promotes the general welfare in that sense

Nationalism Debate (1:30:53.280)

because it promotes individuals flourishing, and we can look at all these examples of how

Nationalism Debate (1:31:01.520)

we evolved and what leads to bloodshed and what doesn't and what promotes this ability

Nationalism Debate (1:31:06.480)

to flourish as an individual, again, an achievement, the idea of individual flourishing, and then

Nationalism Debate (1:31:11.920)

we can think about how to create a political system around that, a political system that

Nationalism Debate (1:31:17.300)

recognizes and allows for the formation of groups, but just under the principle of voluntary.

Nationalism Debate (1:31:24.180)

You can't be forced to join a group, you can't be coerced into forming a group other than

Nationalism Debate (1:31:29.580)

the fact that you're born in a particular place, in a particular, you know, that in

Nationalism Debate (1:31:33.040)

a sense, but that's not forced, there's a difference between metaphysics and between

Nationalism Debate (1:31:37.560)

choices.

Lex Fridman (1:31:38.560)

So this is something that came up in the debate that Yoram said that not all human relations

Nationalism Debate (1:31:42.520)

are voluntary, and you kind of emphasized that a lot of where we are is not voluntary.

Lex Fridman (1:31:48.400)

We're grounded, we're connected in so much.

Lex Fridman (1:31:51.880)

So how can a human be free in the way you're describing, individual be free if some part

Lex Fridman (1:32:00.000)

of who we are is not voluntary, some part of who we are is other people?

Lex Fridman (1:32:04.440)

Well because what do we mean by freedom?

Lex Fridman (1:32:06.760)

Freedom doesn't mean the negation of the laws of physics, right?

Nationalism Debate (1:32:10.940)

Freedom doesn't mean ignoring, freedom means the ability within the scope of what's available

Lex Fridman (1:32:18.540)

for you to choose, being able to choose those things.

Lex Fridman (1:32:22.240)

So in a political context, freedom means, you know, the absence of coercion.

Lex Fridman (1:32:30.800)

So once you're an adult, you know, Yoram says you're born into a particular religious

Nationalism Debate (1:32:35.880)

context, absolutely, but once you're an adult, I think it's incumbent on you to evaluate

Nationalism Debate (1:32:39.400)

that religious context and look at different religions or nonreligion or whatever and choose

Nationalism Debate (1:32:45.640)

your philosophy of life, choose your values, choose how you want to live your life.

Lex Fridman (1:32:50.520)

That's the freedom.

Nationalism Debate (1:32:51.520)

The freedom is, one system says you're either coerced by the state or coerced by the group

Nationalism Debate (1:32:58.560)

or coerced by society around you to follow a particular path, or the expectation is,

Nationalism Debate (1:33:06.200)

the demand is, the pressure is to conform to a particular path, and my view is, no,

Nationalism Debate (1:33:12.560)

you should be in a position to be able to choose your path, and that choice means you

Nationalism Debate (1:33:16.960)

look around, you evaluate, you evaluate based on history, based on knowledge, based on all

Lex Fridman (1:33:23.480)

of these things, and you choose what that path would be.

Nationalism Debate (1:33:26.040)

That's fundamentally what freedom means.

Lex Fridman (1:33:28.800)

Yes, you cannot choose your parents, but of course not.

Nationalism Debate (1:33:31.840)

Nobody would claim that that's within the scope of what is possible.

Nationalism Debate (1:33:34.760)

I think the coercion freedom dichotomy, these are too few concepts, coercion and freedom.

Nationalism Debate (1:33:43.600)

It's too simplistic to be able to describe what we're actually dealing with.

Nationalism Debate (1:33:47.700)

The traditional Anglo conservative view is that society has to be, it has to be ordered,

Nationalism Debate (1:33:56.720)

it has to be disciplined, and there are two choices for how it can be ordered.

Nationalism Debate (1:34:03.600)

One is that a people is, by its own traditions, you would say voluntarily, but these are mostly

Nationalism Debate (1:34:11.280)

inherited traditions, by its own traditions, it is ordered.

Nationalism Debate (1:34:16.640)

For example, people just in general will not go into somebody else's yard, because that's

Nationalism Debate (1:34:23.440)

the custom here, is we don't go into somebody else's yard without their permission.

Nationalism Debate (1:34:27.600)

Fortescue, we're talking about 500 years ago already, Fortescue says that the genius of

Nationalism Debate (1:34:34.240)

the English people is that our government can be mild and apply very little coercion,

Lex Fridman (1:34:40.680)

because the people are so disciplined.

Nationalism Debate (1:34:43.240)

When he says the people are so disciplined, what he's saying is that our nation, our tribes,

Nationalism Debate (1:34:51.140)

we have strong traditions which channel people through tools of being honored and dishonored.

Nationalism Debate (1:35:00.080)

That's a reality that exists in every society, and it's not captured by your distinction

Lex Fridman (1:35:05.280)

between coercion and lack of coercion.

Nationalism Debate (1:35:08.840)

When I'm going to be dishonored if I don't care for my aging mother, I'm not being coerced

Nationalism Debate (1:35:16.520)

like the state comes and puts a gun to my head, but I am being pressured and given guidelines.

Nationalism Debate (1:35:22.960)

I'm saying that's wrong, and I'm saying that's dangerous, because that could easily be used

Lex Fridman (1:35:31.320)

for bad traditions.

Nationalism Debate (1:35:32.320)

No, of course it is.

Nationalism Debate (1:35:34.320)

What's the standard by which we evaluate what a good tradition is and what a bad tradition

Lex Fridman (1:35:37.280)

is?

Lex Fridman (1:35:38.280)

It's the English.

Nationalism Debate (1:35:39.280)

You're getting to the standard too fast.

Lex Fridman (1:35:40.280)

Wait, wait.

Nationalism Debate (1:35:41.280)

You're getting to the standard too fast.

Lex Fridman (1:35:42.280)

But first I want to know, factually, is it true that all societies work like this?

Nationalism Debate (1:35:47.160)

Because if it's true that all societies work like this, then saying we should be free from

Lex Fridman (1:35:50.640)

it is just a fantasy.

Nationalism Debate (1:35:52.120)

No.

Lex Fridman (1:35:53.120)

A, I don't think all societies work like this.

Nationalism Debate (1:35:54.700)

I think much of what happened in America post founding in the 19th century didn't work like

Lex Fridman (1:35:59.320)

that.

Nationalism Debate (1:36:00.320)

I think that's the genius of America, and I think what happened during the 19th century

Nationalism Debate (1:36:03.320)

in the Industrial Revolution, what happened in the 19th century to some extent globally

Lex Fridman (1:36:08.360)

but certainly in the United States didn't work that way.

Lex Fridman (1:36:11.000)

It broke tradition.

Nationalism Debate (1:36:12.000)

I think all innovation breaks tradition, and I think that's what the genius of this country

Lex Fridman (1:36:16.920)

is and the post enlightenment world is.

Nationalism Debate (1:36:21.400)

I think pre that tradition, they work that way.

Lex Fridman (1:36:24.520)

And then the question is, do people understand why they do what they do?

Nationalism Debate (1:36:28.280)

That is, I don't want people doing what I think is right just because I think it's right

Lex Fridman (1:36:35.060)

and I've created a society in which somebody founded this country in a particular way,

Lex Fridman (1:36:42.920)

so we're just going to follow.

Lex Fridman (1:36:43.920)

I want people to understand what they're doing.

Lex Fridman (1:36:45.420)

So I want people to have a respect for property, not because it's a tradition, but because

Lex Fridman (1:36:48.960)

they understand the value of a respect for property.

Nationalism Debate (1:36:53.000)

I want people not to murder one another, not because there's a commandment, thou shall

Nationalism Debate (1:36:56.840)

not murder, but because they have an understanding of why murdering is bad and wrong and bad

Nationalism Debate (1:37:03.240)

for them and bad for the kind of world that they want to live in.

Lex Fridman (1:37:07.040)

And I think that's what we achieve through enlightenment, through education, and where

Nationalism Debate (1:37:13.080)

we don't treat people just as a blob, a tribe that just follows orders, but we now treat

Nationalism Debate (1:37:19.520)

individuals as capable of thinking for themselves, capable for discovering truth, capable of

Nationalism Debate (1:37:25.840)

figuring out their own values, and that's the big break between.

Lex Fridman (1:37:30.840)

And this is the break, I think, that the Declaration represents, the break between society that

Nationalism Debate (1:37:36.720)

is based on tradition, following commandments, following rules, because they are the rules,

Nationalism Debate (1:37:41.620)

because they are the commandments, and a society where individuals understand those rules,

Nationalism Debate (1:37:46.480)

understand.

Nationalism Debate (1:37:47.480)

Yes, it's now become a tradition, let's say, to respect individual rights, to respect

Nationalism Debate (1:37:51.360)

property rights, but they're not following it because it's a tradition.

Nationalism Debate (1:37:54.840)

They're following it because they understand what it is about it that makes it good.

Lex Fridman (1:38:00.080)

So that's the world, I think, that we were on the process of evolving towards, and that

Lex Fridman (1:38:06.080)

is what got destroyed in the 20th century and has certainly disappeared today.

Lex Fridman (1:38:11.000)

And I think that's the great tragedy, is that we're evolving to a place where people understood

Lex Fridman (1:38:15.480)

the values that represent it.

Lex Fridman (1:38:18.320)

Of course, the danger with tradition is, I mean, we'll agree, right?

Lex Fridman (1:38:23.360)

Yeah, it's okay to kill the Jew, right?

Nationalism Debate (1:38:25.880)

Or it's okay to steal people's property if they're of a certain color, or it's okay to

Lex Fridman (1:38:30.080)

enslave.

Nationalism Debate (1:38:31.080)

Those are all traditions.

Lex Fridman (1:38:32.080)

And yet, once you stop and say, but what are they based on?

Lex Fridman (1:38:36.320)

Is this right?

Lex Fridman (1:38:37.320)

Is this just, based on some moral law?

Nationalism Debate (1:38:40.840)

No, it's not.

Lex Fridman (1:38:42.440)

There's something wrong here.

Nationalism Debate (1:38:43.600)

We can't achieve happiness and success if we follow these rules.

Nationalism Debate (1:38:46.440)

You're talking about reason and tradition, but I think I would love to sort of linger

Nationalism Debate (1:38:50.220)

on the stickiness of humans that you describe.

Lex Fridman (1:38:54.800)

So you kind of said this primary, the individuals, is primary and that was a great invention.

Lex Fridman (1:39:00.000)

But to me, it's not at all obvious that somehow, that the invention that humans have been practicing

Nationalism Debate (1:39:09.120)

for a very long time of the stickiness of community, of family, of love, that's not

Nationalism Debate (1:39:20.600)

obvious to me, that's not also fundamental to human flourishing and should be celebrated

Lex Fridman (1:39:28.360)

and protected.

Nationalism Debate (1:39:29.360)

Of course it is.

Nationalism Debate (1:39:30.360)

Now, I suppose the argument you're making is when you start to let the state define

Lex Fridman (1:39:38.640)

what the stickiness, how the stickiness looks between humans, so you're really like the

Lex Fridman (1:39:42.760)

voluntary aspect.

Lex Fridman (1:39:44.600)

But I just want to sort of, the observation is, humans seem to be pretty happy when they

Lex Fridman (1:39:51.920)

form communities, however you define that.

Lex Fridman (1:39:56.680)

So romantic partnership, family.

Lex Fridman (1:39:58.640)

Some communities.

Nationalism Debate (1:39:59.800)

Some communities.

Lex Fridman (1:40:01.320)

People are miserable in other communities.

Lex Fridman (1:40:02.860)

So the nature of the community matters, right?

Lex Fridman (1:40:05.160)

We know this.

Nationalism Debate (1:40:06.160)

We know that some bondings are not healthy and not good for the individuals involved

Lex Fridman (1:40:10.480)

and they don't thrive.

Lex Fridman (1:40:13.040)

So I absolutely, I mean, I'm a lover, not a fighter, right?

Lex Fridman (1:40:17.000)

I'm a huge believer in love.

Nationalism Debate (1:40:18.840)

The whole philosophy I think is a love based philosophy.

Lex Fridman (1:40:22.040)

I fight in order to love, right?

Lex Fridman (1:40:23.920)

So love is at the core of all of this and it's a love of life.

Nationalism Debate (1:40:30.200)

It's a love of the world out there and it's a love of other people because they represent

Nationalism Debate (1:40:34.960)

a value to you.

Lex Fridman (1:40:37.160)

So the stickiness is there, it's, you know, my point is A, it should be chosen.

Nationalism Debate (1:40:43.320)

It should be consciously chosen and this is, put aside the state.

Lex Fridman (1:40:46.680)

Forget the state for a minute.

Nationalism Debate (1:40:48.240)

Forget coercion.

Lex Fridman (1:40:49.360)

Forget all that.

Lex Fridman (1:40:51.160)

What I would encourage individuals to do, and this is where, you know, I'm not primarily

Nationalism Debate (1:40:56.280)

a political, you know, interested in politics, although I tend to talk most about that.

Nationalism Debate (1:41:01.400)

I'm primarily interested in human beings and how they live in a sense in morality.

Lex Fridman (1:41:05.800)

And what I would urge individuals to do is to think about their relationships, to choose

Nationalism Debate (1:41:11.440)

the best relationships possible, but to seek out great relationships because other human

Lex Fridman (1:41:16.920)

beings are an immense value to us.

Lex Fridman (1:41:20.240)

And you know, when I write, you know, maybe you won't quote this or not, but when I write

Nationalism Debate (1:41:25.320)

that, you know, about the trade of principle and trading, you know, it's easy and obvious

Nationalism Debate (1:41:31.600)

to think of it as a materialistic kind of thing.

Nationalism Debate (1:41:34.080)

You know, I get, you know, I do the chores this day and my wife does the chores the other

Nationalism Debate (1:41:38.240)

day and we're trading.

Lex Fridman (1:41:39.520)

But trading is much more subtle than that and much more, can be much more spiritual

Nationalism Debate (1:41:42.960)

than that.

Lex Fridman (1:41:43.960)

It's about the trading in emotions.

Nationalism Debate (1:41:48.240)

It's about the way one sees each other, it's what one gets from one another.

Lex Fridman (1:41:53.720)

I think friendship is a form of trade.

Nationalism Debate (1:41:55.800)

Now I know that that seems to make it material, but I don't think of trade as a material

Lex Fridman (1:42:01.240)

thing.

Nationalism Debate (1:42:02.240)

Friendship is incredibly important in life.

Lex Fridman (1:42:04.360)

Love is incredibly important in life.

Nationalism Debate (1:42:06.520)

You know, having a group of friends is incredibly important in life.

Lex Fridman (1:42:10.280)

All of these are sticky and important.

Nationalism Debate (1:42:11.880)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (1:42:12.880)

How can I try to be eloquent on this?

Lex Fridman (1:42:14.820)

So if you give people freedom, if you give people, well, not politics, relations, relationships.

Lex Fridman (1:42:25.040)

So this is interesting because we have an interesting dynamic going on here in terms

Nationalism Debate (1:42:28.960)

of beliefs, they're differing and there was interesting overlaps, but there's a worry.

Nationalism Debate (1:42:36.200)

If you look at human history and you study the lessons of history and you look at modern

Nationalism Debate (1:42:39.800)

society, if you give people freedom in terms of stickiness and human relations and so on

Nationalism Debate (1:42:45.560)

full, like if you not give people freedom, emphasize freedom as the highest ideal.

Nationalism Debate (1:42:53.680)

You start getting more tender online dating, the stickiness dissolves just like in chemistry.

Lex Fridman (1:43:00.160)

You start to have a gas versus a liquid, right?

Nationalism Debate (1:43:03.880)

That's the worry.

Lex Fridman (1:43:04.880)

So you have to study what actually happens.

Nationalism Debate (1:43:08.560)

If you emphasize that the stickiness, the bonds of humans is holding you back, the exercise

Nationalism Debate (1:43:17.680)

of voluntary choice is the highest ideal, the danger of that is for that to be implemented

Nationalism Debate (1:43:25.680)

or interpreted in certain kinds of ways by us flawed humans that are not, I mean, you

Nationalism Debate (1:43:31.720)

could say we're perfectly reasonable and rational, we can think through all of our decisions,

Lex Fridman (1:43:35.640)

but really, I mean, especially you're young, you get horny, you make decisions that are

Lex Fridman (1:43:41.120)

suboptimal perhaps.

Lex Fridman (1:43:42.640)

So the point is you have to look at reality of when you emphasize different things.

Lex Fridman (1:43:49.400)

So when you talk about what is the ideal life, what is the ideal relations, you have to also

Lex Fridman (1:43:55.560)

think like, what are you emphasizing?

Nationalism Debate (1:43:57.320)

I think you both agree on what's important, that community can be important, that freedom

Nationalism Debate (1:44:02.520)

is important, but what are you emphasizing and you're really emphasizing the individual

Lex Fridman (1:44:06.920)

and you're emphasizing, Yoram, you're emphasizing more of the community, of the family, of the

Nationalism Debate (1:44:16.720)

stickiness of the nation.

Lex Fridman (1:44:18.040)

Well, look, I don't want to deny the place of the individual.

Nationalism Debate (1:44:22.520)

I think that there really is a very great change in civilization when the books of Moses

Lex Fridman (1:44:33.160)

announce that the individual is created in the image of God.

Nationalism Debate (1:44:39.080)

That's a step that's, as far as we know, without precedent before that in history, and to a

Nationalism Debate (1:44:46.320)

very large degree, I mean, one of the kind of unspoken things going on is that Yoram

Lex Fridman (1:44:53.280)

and I really do agree on all sorts of things, I think in part because we're both Jewish.

Lex Fridman (1:45:00.400)

You did say Yoram is basically Moses, yes sir.

Nationalism Debate (1:45:04.200)

No, I said he was channeling Moses, but that's still, in my book, that's still pretty impressive.

Lex Fridman (1:45:10.200)

No, that's a compliment, I took it as one.

Nationalism Debate (1:45:13.720)

For me, that's a compliment.

Lex Fridman (1:45:14.720)

And we'll talk about this a little bit just for the listeners, just so they know, Yoram,

Nationalism Debate (1:45:19.840)

amongst many things, we'll talk about the virtue of nationalism, but you're also a religious

Nationalism Debate (1:45:25.700)

scholar of sorts, or at least leverage the Bible for much, not much, but some of the

Nationalism Debate (1:45:32.000)

wisdom in your life.

Nationalism Debate (1:45:33.520)

Look, the way that Yoram looks at enlightenment, or maybe at Ayn Rand, that's the way that

Nationalism Debate (1:45:40.040)

I see the Hebrew scripture and the tradition that comes from it.

Nationalism Debate (1:45:45.720)

It has the same kind of place in my life, and I just, I don't know how much we want

Nationalism Debate (1:45:51.600)

to explore it, but I think that the agreement that we do have about the positive value of

Nationalism Debate (1:46:01.320)

the creative individual, the positive value of the individual's desire to improve the

Nationalism Debate (1:46:08.120)

world, and in my book that means including his or her desire to improve his family, his

Nationalism Debate (1:46:17.640)

tribe, his congregation, his nation, but it still comes from this kind of, what Yoram

Nationalism Debate (1:46:24.240)

calls selfishness, the desire to make things better for yourself.

Lex Fridman (1:46:29.200)

In Hebrew Bible and in Judaism, that just is a positive thing.

Nationalism Debate (1:46:34.460)

Of course, it can be taken too far, but it just is positive, and it doesn't carry these

Nationalism Debate (1:46:39.300)

kinds of, you should turn the other cheek, you should give away your cloak, you should

Nationalism Debate (1:46:44.180)

love your enemy, these kinds of Christian tropes do not exist in Judaism, and so it

Nationalism Debate (1:46:49.280)

just, I like listening to Yoram, I do feel like he goes too far on various things, but

Nationalism Debate (1:46:55.120)

I also hear underneath it, I can sort of hear the Jewish current and the resistance to things

Lex Fridman (1:47:04.520)

about Christianity that Jews often find.

Nationalism Debate (1:47:06.520)

Okay, I'll ask you a question there.

Lex Fridman (1:47:09.560)

Can you make an argument for turn the other cheek?

Nationalism Debate (1:47:12.720)

No.

Lex Fridman (1:47:13.720)

I tend to, I guess you would equate that with altruism.

Nationalism Debate (1:47:18.760)

I tend to.

Lex Fridman (1:47:19.760)

Unjustice.

Nationalism Debate (1:47:20.760)

It's unjust to turn the other cheek.

Lex Fridman (1:47:23.760)

I agree.

Nationalism Debate (1:47:24.760)

Okay.

Nationalism Debate (1:47:25.760)

You don't love yourself if you're turning the other cheek, it's a lack of love, lack

Nationalism Debate (1:47:29.320)

of self respect.

Nationalism Debate (1:47:30.320)

Well, let me push back on that, because I like turn the other cheek, especially on Twitter.

Lex Fridman (1:47:38.520)

So I like block the offender on Twitter.

Nationalism Debate (1:47:42.720)

No, so Twitter aside is more like you're investing in the long term version of yourself versus

Nationalism Debate (1:47:54.240)

the short term.

Lex Fridman (1:47:55.800)

So that's the way I think about it, is like the energy you put onto the world.

Nationalism Debate (1:47:59.840)

The turn the other cheek philosophy allows you to walk through the fire gracefully.

Lex Fridman (1:48:05.520)

It's some sense.

Nationalism Debate (1:48:06.520)

I mean, perhaps you would reframe that as not, then that's not being altruistic or whatever,

Lex Fridman (1:48:13.040)

but there is something pragmatic about that kind of approach to life.

Nationalism Debate (1:48:19.040)

Disciplining yourself so that you become a better version of yourself.

Nationalism Debate (1:48:22.200)

I mean, not only do we agree, but I think every religious and philosophical tradition

Nationalism Debate (1:48:28.960)

probably has a version of that, even Kant, who we joined together in finding to be terrible.

Nationalism Debate (1:48:35.320)

Even Kant makes that distinction between the short term interest and the long term interest.

Lex Fridman (1:48:39.240)

So I think that's universal.

Lex Fridman (1:48:41.680)

I don't know of anybody who's really disagreeing about that.

Nationalism Debate (1:48:44.380)

The thing that we were talking about a couple of minutes ago before we got onto this tangent

Nationalism Debate (1:48:49.280)

is the relationship between the individual who is in the image of God and is of value

Nationalism Debate (1:48:59.280)

as an individual.

Nationalism Debate (1:49:00.840)

Nevertheless, there's this question about what is good for that person and also what

Nationalism Debate (1:49:07.880)

makes him happy.

Nationalism Debate (1:49:08.880)

I'm not sure that those are exactly the same things, but they're both certainly relevant

Lex Fridman (1:49:13.160)

and important.

Lex Fridman (1:49:15.520)

And I feel like, I mean, I think we're beginning to uncover this empirical disagreement about

Lex Fridman (1:49:22.640)

what it is that's good for the individual and what it is that makes them happy.

Lex Fridman (1:49:25.240)

And I'll go back to something I raised in the debate, which is this theory of Durkheim

Nationalism Debate (1:49:32.400)

that now has been popularized by Jordan Peterson.

Nationalism Debate (1:49:40.280)

Durkheim argues that he's writing a book on suicide, he's trying to understand what

Nationalism Debate (1:49:48.200)

brings individuals to suicide, and he coins this term, anomie, lack of law.

Lex Fridman (1:49:54.840)

And the argument is that individuals basically are healthy and happy when they find their

Nationalism Debate (1:50:04.080)

place in a hierarchy.

Nationalism Debate (1:50:06.920)

Within a loyalty group in a certain place in a hierarchy, they compete and struggle

Nationalism Debate (1:50:11.680)

in order to rise in the hierarchy, but they know where they are.

Lex Fridman (1:50:15.280)

They know who they are.

Nationalism Debate (1:50:16.400)

The kids today like to say they know what their identity is because they associate themselves.

Nationalism Debate (1:50:22.600)

Their self expands to take on the leadership, the different layers, the past and the future

Nationalism Debate (1:50:27.920)

of this particular hierarchy.

Lex Fridman (1:50:29.920)

And I completely agree with you, Ron, that some of these hierarchies are pernicious and

Nationalism Debate (1:50:35.880)

oppressive and terrible, and some of them are better.

Lex Fridman (1:50:40.800)

What we might disagree about is that you can find human beings who are capable of becoming

Nationalism Debate (1:50:49.980)

healthy and happy off by themselves without participating in this kind of structure.

Nationalism Debate (1:50:55.880)

The minute that you accept, if you accept, that this is empirical reality about human

Nationalism Debate (1:51:01.760)

beings, it's an iron law, you can't do anything.

Nationalism Debate (1:51:06.920)

You can tell human beings that they can be free of all constraints, all you want, and

Nationalism Debate (1:51:11.680)

you can get them to do things that, as you say, they can have contempt for hierarchies.

Nationalism Debate (1:51:19.480)

They can say, I'm not going to serve the man, I'm just going to burn them all down.

Nationalism Debate (1:51:25.120)

You can get kids to say all of these things.

Nationalism Debate (1:51:29.200)

You can get them either to be Marxists who are actively trying to overthrow and destroy

Nationalism Debate (1:51:34.880)

the existing hierarchies, or you can make them some kind of liberal where they basically

Lex Fridman (1:51:38.680)

pretend the hierarchies don't exist, they just act like they're not there.

Nationalism Debate (1:51:43.640)

In both cases, and it's not a coincidence that that's what universities teach is your

Lex Fridman (1:51:47.960)

choice is either Marxist revolution or liberal ignoring of the hierarchies.

Nationalism Debate (1:51:53.680)

In both cases, what you've done is you've eliminated the possibility that the young

Nationalism Debate (1:51:58.980)

person will be able to find his or her place in a way that allows them to grow and exercise

Nationalism Debate (1:52:08.120)

their love, their drive, their creativity in order to advance something constructive.

Nationalism Debate (1:52:13.680)

You've eliminated it and you've put the burden on them, a kind of a Nietzschean burden, to

Nationalism Debate (1:52:21.760)

just be the fountain of all values yourself, which maybe some people can do it, but almost

Lex Fridman (1:52:29.360)

no one can do it.

Lex Fridman (1:52:30.360)

And I think that's empirically true.

Lex Fridman (1:52:32.440)

And so I think by telling them about their freedom rather than telling them about the

Nationalism Debate (1:52:39.720)

need to join into some traditionalist hierarchy that can be good and healthy for them, I think

Lex Fridman (1:52:46.160)

we're destroying them.

Nationalism Debate (1:52:47.160)

I think we're destroying this generation and the last one and the next.

Lex Fridman (1:52:51.320)

Yaron, is the burden of freedom destroying mankind?

Lex Fridman (1:52:57.680)

What freedom?

Lex Fridman (1:52:58.680)

I mean, how many people are indeed free?

Nationalism Debate (1:53:01.640)

Look, the problem is that we're caught up on political concepts and we're moving into

Lex Fridman (1:53:09.920)

ethical issues.

Lex Fridman (1:53:11.160)

And I don't think it's right to tell people, you're free, go do whatever the hell you want.

Lex Fridman (1:53:17.880)

Just use your emotions.

Nationalism Debate (1:53:20.480)

Just go where you want to go in the spur of the moment.

Lex Fridman (1:53:23.520)

Think short term.

Nationalism Debate (1:53:24.520)

Don't think long term.

Lex Fridman (1:53:25.520)

Well, don't think.

Lex Fridman (1:53:26.520)

Why think?

Nationalism Debate (1:53:27.600)

One has to provide moral guidance and morality here is crucial and crucially important.

Lex Fridman (1:53:34.520)

And part of taking responsibility for your own life is establishing a moral framework

Lex Fridman (1:53:40.360)

for your life.

Lex Fridman (1:53:42.080)

And what does it mean to live a good life?

Lex Fridman (1:53:44.480)

I mean, that's much more important in a sense of a question.

Lex Fridman (1:53:47.800)

And it is my belief that people can do that.

Nationalism Debate (1:53:51.560)

They can find and choose the values necessary to achieve a good life, but they need guidance.

Nationalism Debate (1:53:57.400)

They need guidance.

Lex Fridman (1:53:58.680)

This is why religion evolved in my view, because people need guidance.

Lex Fridman (1:54:01.680)

So I had called religion a primitive form of philosophy.

Nationalism Debate (1:54:06.160)

It was the original philosophy that provided people with some guidance about what to do

Lex Fridman (1:54:10.440)

and what not to do.

Lex Fridman (1:54:11.600)

And secular philosophy is supposed to do the same.

Lex Fridman (1:54:14.440)

And the problem is that I think religion and 99% of secular philosophy give people bad

Lex Fridman (1:54:21.560)

advice about what to do, and therefore they do bad stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:54:25.840)

And sometimes because when they do good stuff, it gets reinforced, we survive in spite of

Lex Fridman (1:54:33.880)

that.

Lex Fridman (1:54:34.880)

But ideas like Kant and Hegel and Marx and so on give young people awful advice about

Lex Fridman (1:54:40.280)

how to live and what to do, and as a consequence, really bad stuff happens.

Lex Fridman (1:54:43.880)

And the world in which we exist today, which we agree there are a lot of pathologies to

Lex Fridman (1:54:50.000)

it, a lot of bad stuff going on, in my view is going the wrong way.

Nationalism Debate (1:54:53.320)

In my view, a product of a set of ideas, on the one hand I think Christian ideas, on the

Nationalism Debate (1:55:02.080)

other hand I think secular philosophical ideas that have driven this country and the world

Nationalism Debate (1:55:06.920)

more generally in a really, really bad direction.

Lex Fridman (1:55:09.760)

And this is why I do what I do, because I think at the core of it, the only way to change

Nationalism Debate (1:55:16.040)

it is not to impose a new set of ideas from the top, because I worry about who's going

Lex Fridman (1:55:21.220)

to be doing the imposition.

Nationalism Debate (1:55:22.220)

Plus, I don't believe you can force people to be good.

Nationalism Debate (1:55:26.080)

It's to challenge the ideas, it's to question the ideas, it's to present an alternative

Nationalism Debate (1:55:30.740)

view of morality, an alternative set of moral principles, ultimately an alternative view

Lex Fridman (1:55:36.760)

of political principles.

Lex Fridman (1:55:37.760)

But it has to start with morality.

Nationalism Debate (1:55:40.120)

If you don't – and my morality is centered on the individual and what the individual

Nationalism Debate (1:55:43.720)

should do with his life in order to attain a good life, I believe that leads to happiness,

Lex Fridman (1:55:49.920)

the good life, that's why it's good, right?

Nationalism Debate (1:55:53.400)

The goal is survival and thriving and flourishing and happiness, ultimately.

Lex Fridman (1:55:58.960)

But politics is a servant of that in the end.

Nationalism Debate (1:56:02.080)

It's not an end in itself.

Lex Fridman (1:56:04.360)

So the real issue is, you know, you asked before what is the value of relationship.

Nationalism Debate (1:56:08.120)

There's an enormous value in relationship because we get values from other people.

Lex Fridman (1:56:11.200)

We don't produce all our values.

Nationalism Debate (1:56:12.600)

We don't produce all our spiritual values, and we don't produce all our material values.

Nationalism Debate (1:56:17.040)

Other people are a massive benefit to us because they produce values we can't – there's

Nationalism Debate (1:56:22.240)

a massive division of labor in terms of values, not just in economics, but also in philosophy

Lex Fridman (1:56:27.520)

and elsewhere.

Nationalism Debate (1:56:28.520)

It's why we have teachers.

Lex Fridman (1:56:29.520)

It's why we have moral teachers.

Nationalism Debate (1:56:31.080)

Moral teachers are important to help guide us towards a good life.

Lex Fridman (1:56:34.560)

Not all of us are philosophers.

Lex Fridman (1:56:36.140)

But what I do demand, if you all are individuals – this is where I put a burden on people,

Lex Fridman (1:56:41.840)

right?

Lex Fridman (1:56:42.840)

Understand what you're doing, right?

Lex Fridman (1:56:45.180)

You know, don't embrace a moral teaching because it was tradition.

Nationalism Debate (1:56:49.680)

Don't embrace a moral teaching because your parents embraced it.

Lex Fridman (1:56:53.080)

Don't embrace a moral teaching just because your teachers are teaching it.

Nationalism Debate (1:56:57.680)

Challenge it.

Lex Fridman (1:56:58.680)

Think about it.

Nationalism Debate (1:56:59.680)

Embrace it because you – embrace it.

Lex Fridman (1:57:01.840)

You might be wrong.

Nationalism Debate (1:57:02.960)

You might embrace the wrong one, but take moral responsibility.

Nationalism Debate (1:57:06.440)

Take responsibility over your life by evaluating, testing, challenging what you have received

Lex Fridman (1:57:13.920)

and choosing what you're going to pursue.

Lex Fridman (1:57:18.600)

And I acknowledge empirically that most people don't do that, and this is why intellectual

Nationalism Debate (1:57:25.520)

leadership is so important.

Nationalism Debate (1:57:28.040)

This is why you want to get – you want the voices in a culture to be good voices so that

Nationalism Debate (1:57:33.440)

those people who don't think for themselves end up being followers, but they end up being

Lex Fridman (1:57:38.080)

followers of somebody good versus followers of somebody bad.

Lex Fridman (1:57:41.520)

But for the thinkers in the world out there, who I think are the people who count, who

Lex Fridman (1:57:45.680)

are the people who shape society –

Nationalism Debate (1:57:46.680)

Oh, boy.

Lex Fridman (1:57:47.680)

No, no.

Nationalism Debate (1:57:48.680)

Shape society.

Lex Fridman (1:57:49.680)

Wait a minute.

Nationalism Debate (1:57:50.680)

Not count in a sense that you can dismiss the lives of others and, you know, because

Lex Fridman (1:57:53.840)

I'm – you know, obviously I'm anti coercion and anti violence, but –

Nationalism Debate (1:57:56.200)

They sound like Plato.

Lex Fridman (1:57:57.200)

But – yes.

Nationalism Debate (1:57:58.200)

I don't want to sound like Plato.

Lex Fridman (1:58:00.440)

But in a sense that they're the ones who shape – who end up shaping the world.

Nationalism Debate (1:58:03.840)

They're the ones who end up shaping how the world is.

Nationalism Debate (1:58:06.640)

I want those people to make choices about their values and not to just accept them based

Nationalism Debate (1:58:12.200)

on tradition or based on the commandment or based on where they happen to grow up.

Lex Fridman (1:58:16.880)

And in that sense, again, you know, I do – and this is an interesting point where we disagree,

Lex Fridman (1:58:24.120)

but I'm not exactly sure what Jerome's position is.

Lex Fridman (1:58:26.320)

I do believe in universal values.

Nationalism Debate (1:58:28.040)

That is, there are things that are good, and there are things that are evil.

Lex Fridman (1:58:31.560)

And I think we'd agree on that.

Nationalism Debate (1:58:32.960)

When there are systems, we agree that communism and fascism are evil.

Nationalism Debate (1:58:36.880)

Well, I think we should be able to agree that some things – some political systems are

Nationalism Debate (1:58:40.400)

good.

Lex Fridman (1:58:41.400)

And maybe there's this middle ground where we both think that they're not particularly

Nationalism Debate (1:58:46.680)

bad but not particularly good, and you all might think they're better than I think

Lex Fridman (1:58:49.880)

they are.

Lex Fridman (1:58:50.880)

But if we can agree on this is good and this is evil, right, then the systems that tend

Lex Fridman (1:58:55.800)

towards the good are good, and the systems that tend towards the evil are evil.

Lex Fridman (1:59:00.240)

But that's universal, right?

Nationalism Debate (1:59:02.120)

You know, I look at places like South Korea, Japan, Asia – you know, cultures that are

Nationalism Debate (1:59:07.960)

very, very different in many respects in the West.

Lex Fridman (1:59:10.720)

And yet when they adopt certain Western ideas about freedom, about liberty, about individualism

Nationalism Debate (1:59:19.040)

– I mean, the Japanese Constitution, because MacArthur forced it in there, has the pursuit

Nationalism Debate (1:59:22.520)

of happiness in the Constitution, not because they chose it because he put it in there.

Lex Fridman (1:59:26.360)

But they, to some extent, adopted that, and they're successful places today.

Nationalism Debate (1:59:32.920)

Those societies in Asia that didn't adopt these values are not successful societies

Nationalism Debate (1:59:37.060)

today.

Lex Fridman (1:59:38.060)

Yaron, Japan has a birth rate of, what is it, 1.1, 1.2 children per woman?

Nationalism Debate (1:59:47.280)

I mean, look, there are some things – there are some places where you give people freedom

Lex Fridman (1:59:54.960)

– this is also biblical, right?

Lex Fridman (1:59:57.520)

The idea that everyone did what's right in his own eyes, okay?

Lex Fridman (20:00.760)

It's tragic, I think, because we're going to keep experimenting, sadly.

Lex Fridman (20:03.680)

I see it, right?

Lex Fridman (20:04.840)

I'm not winning this battle.

Nationalism Debate (20:06.960)

I'm losing the battle.

Nationalism Debate (20:08.560)

We're going to keep experimenting with different forms of collectivism, and we're going to

Nationalism Debate (20:11.400)

keep paying the price in human life and in missed opportunities for human flourishing

Lex Fridman (20:17.000)

and human success and human wealth and prosperity.

Nationalism Debate (20:21.040)

Let's take communism as a good example.

Lex Fridman (20:23.480)

None of the major conservative thinkers would say, you know what's a good idea?

Nationalism Debate (20:27.400)

A good idea would be to experiment by raising everything that we've inherited and starting

Lex Fridman (20:33.760)

from scratch.

Nationalism Debate (20:34.760)

I mean, that's the conservative complaint or accusation against rationalists as opposed

Lex Fridman (20:40.520)

to empiricists.

Nationalism Debate (20:41.520)

I mean, using rationalism, let's take Descartes kind of as a benchmark.

Lex Fridman (20:46.880)

Can you also maybe define rationalism?

Nationalism Debate (20:49.280)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (20:50.280)

These are two terms that are in philosophy, especially in epistemology.

Nationalism Debate (20:54.920)

They're often compared to one another.

Nationalism Debate (20:58.080)

Jeroen said that it's a false dichotomy, and maybe it is a bit exaggerated, but that doesn't

Nationalism Debate (21:04.000)

mean it's not useful for conceptualizing the domain.

Lex Fridman (21:08.000)

So a rationalist is somebody like Descartes who says, I'm going to set aside, I'm going

Nationalism Debate (21:15.880)

to try to set aside everything I know, everything I've inherited, I'm going to start from scratch.

Lex Fridman (21:20.960)

And he explicitly says, in evaluating the inheritance of the past, he explicitly says,

Nationalism Debate (21:27.800)

you take a look at the histories that we have, they're not reliable.

Nationalism Debate (21:30.600)

You take a look at the moral and the scientific writings that we receive, they're not very

Nationalism Debate (21:34.680)

good.

Nationalism Debate (21:35.680)

His baseline is to look very critically at the past and say, look, I'm evaluating it.

Nationalism Debate (21:41.740)

I think all in all, it's just not worth very much.

Lex Fridman (21:44.660)

And so whatever I do, beginning from scratch, is going to be better as long as, and here's

Nationalism Debate (21:50.840)

his caveat, as long as I'm proceeding from self evident assumptions, from self evident

Lex Fridman (21:59.240)

premises, things that you can't argue against.

Nationalism Debate (22:01.120)

I think, therefore, I am.

Lex Fridman (22:03.080)

And then from there, deducing what he calls infallible conclusions.

Lex Fridman (22:07.400)

So that model of self evident premises to infallible conclusions, I'm calling that rationalism,

Lex Fridman (22:14.160)

I think that's kind of a standard academic jargon term.

Lex Fridman (22:19.440)

And it's opposed to empiricism, which is a thinker, I think in universities, usually

Lex Fridman (22:27.440)

the empiricist is David Hume.

Lex Fridman (22:30.240)

And David Hume will say, we can't learn anything the way that Descartes said.

Lex Fridman (22:36.560)

There is nothing that's that self evident and that infallible.

Lex Fridman (22:40.520)

So Hume proposes, based on Newton and Boyle and the new physical sciences.

Lex Fridman (22:50.040)

So Hume proposes a science of man.

Lex Fridman (22:53.200)

And the science of man sounds an awful lot like what Yaron just said, which is we're

Lex Fridman (22:56.240)

going to take a look at human nature, at the nature of societies.

Nationalism Debate (23:01.640)

Human nature, we're going to try to abstract towards fixed principles for describing it.

Lex Fridman (23:06.440)

Human societies, we're going to try to do the same thing.

Lex Fridman (23:09.040)

And from there, we get, for example, contemporary economics.

Lex Fridman (23:13.720)

But we also get sociology and anthropology, which cut in a different direction.

Lex Fridman (23:19.260)

So that's rationalism versus empiricism.

Lex Fridman (23:23.400)

Can I just say?

Nationalism Debate (23:24.400)

Yeah, go ahead, please.

Lex Fridman (23:25.400)

Yeah, I agree with that.

Nationalism Debate (23:26.400)

I think empiricism, the one thing I disagree is I think empiricism rarely comes to these

Lex Fridman (23:33.560)

abstractions.

Nationalism Debate (23:34.560)

I mean, they want more facts.

Lex Fridman (23:36.440)

It's always about collecting more evidence.

Lex Fridman (23:39.840)

But this is where I think Ayn Rand is so unusual and where I think there's something new here.

Lex Fridman (23:48.120)

And that's a bold statement given the history of philosophy.

Lex Fridman (23:50.360)

But I think Ayn Rand is something new.

Lex Fridman (23:53.480)

And so she says, yes, we agree about rationalism and that it's inherently wrong.

Lex Fridman (23:59.520)

Empiricism has the problem of, OK, where does it lead?

Lex Fridman (24:03.340)

You never come to a conclusion.

Nationalism Debate (24:04.400)

You're just accumulating evidence.

Lex Fridman (24:06.280)

There's something in addition.

Nationalism Debate (24:07.760)

There's a third alternative, which she is positing, which is using empirical evidence,

Nationalism Debate (24:14.400)

not denying empirical evidence, recognizing that there are some axioms, there are some

Nationalism Debate (24:18.800)

axioms that we all, at the base of all of our knowledge, that are starting points.

Lex Fridman (24:24.640)

We're not rejecting axiomatic knowledge.

Lex Fridman (24:27.340)

And integrating those two and identifying the fact that based on these axioms and based

Lex Fridman (24:32.240)

on these empirical evidence, we can come to truths.

Nationalism Debate (24:36.960)

Just again, like we do in science, we have certain axioms, scientific axioms, we have

Nationalism Debate (24:40.000)

certain experiments that we run, and then we can come to some identification of a truth.

Lex Fridman (24:44.660)

And that truth is always going to be challenged by new information, by new knowledge.

Lex Fridman (24:48.900)

But as long as that's what we know, that is what truth is.

Lex Fridman (24:52.760)

So truth is contextual in the sense that it's contextual, it's based on that knowledge that

Lex Fridman (24:58.920)

surrounds it.

Nationalism Debate (24:59.920)

It's always available to change if you get new facts.

Lex Fridman (25:02.360)

Absolutely.

Nationalism Debate (25:03.360)

It's always available to change if the facts that you get, and they really are, I mean,

Nationalism Debate (25:07.160)

the burden of changing what you've come to a conclusion of truth is high, so you'd have

Nationalism Debate (25:12.320)

to have real evidence that it's not true, but that happens all the time.

Lex Fridman (25:16.260)

So it happens in science, right?

Nationalism Debate (25:17.680)

We discovered that what we thought was true is not true, and it can happen in politics

Lex Fridman (25:22.000)

and ethics even more so than in science because they're much messier fields.

Lex Fridman (25:27.400)

But the idea is that you can come to a truth, but it's not just deductive.

Lex Fridman (25:33.800)

Most truths are inductive.

Nationalism Debate (25:36.200)

We learn from observing reality and, again, coming to principles about what works and

Lex Fridman (25:41.680)

what's not.

Lex Fridman (25:42.680)

And here I think this is—Ayn Rand is different.

Nationalism Debate (25:46.080)

She doesn't fall into the—and she's different in her politics, and she's different in

Nationalism Debate (25:49.600)

her epistemology.

Lex Fridman (25:50.600)

She doesn't fall into the conventional view.

Nationalism Debate (25:53.560)

She's an opponent of Hume, and she's an opponent of Descartes, and she's certainly

Lex Fridman (25:57.840)

an opponent of Kant.

Lex Fridman (26:01.040)

And I think she's right, right?

Lex Fridman (26:03.600)

So—

Lex Fridman (26:04.600)

If it's okay, can we walk back to criticism of communism?

Lex Fridman (26:09.440)

You're both critics of communism and socialism.

Lex Fridman (26:12.520)

Why did communism fail?

Nationalism Debate (26:14.120)

You started to say that conservatives criticize it on the basis of rationalism, that you're

Nationalism Debate (26:21.640)

throwing away the past.

Lex Fridman (26:22.640)

You're starting from scratch.

Lex Fridman (26:24.640)

Is that the fundamental description of why communism failed?

Nationalism Debate (26:27.440)

I think the fundamental difference between rationalists and empiricists is the question

Nationalism Debate (26:33.900)

of whether you're throwing away the past.

Lex Fridman (26:36.120)

That's the argument.

Lex Fridman (26:37.720)

And it cashes out as a distinction between abstract, universal, rationalist political

Lex Fridman (26:43.720)

theories and empirical political theories.

Nationalism Debate (26:48.400)

Artificial political theories, they're always going to say something like, look, there are

Lex Fridman (26:57.320)

many different societies.

Nationalism Debate (26:59.420)

We can say that some are better and some are worse, but the problem is that there are many

Lex Fridman (27:06.720)

different ways in which a society can be better or worse.

Nationalism Debate (27:11.080)

There's an ongoing competition, and we're learning on an ongoing basis what are the

Lex Fridman (27:15.040)

ways in which societies can be better and worse.

Nationalism Debate (27:17.820)

That creates a kind of, I'd say, a mild skepticism, a moderate skepticism among conservatives.

Nationalism Debate (27:24.520)

I don't think too many conservatives have a problem looking at the Soviet Union, which

Nationalism Debate (27:29.120)

is brutal and murderous, ineffective in its economics, totally ineffective spiritually,

Lex Fridman (27:36.880)

and then collapsed.

Nationalism Debate (27:38.680)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (27:40.000)

So I think it's easier for us to look at a system like that and say, what on earth?

Lex Fridman (27:45.660)

What should we learn from that?

Lex Fridman (27:47.540)

But the main conservative tradition is pretty tolerant of a diversity of different kinds

Nationalism Debate (27:53.440)

of society and is slow to insist that France is so tyrannical, it just needs a revolution

Lex Fridman (28:00.080)

because what's going to come after the revolution is going to be much better.

Nationalism Debate (28:03.160)

The assumption is that there's lots of things that are good about most societies and that

Nationalism Debate (28:09.560)

a clean slate leads you to throw out all of the inherited things that you don't even know

Lex Fridman (28:16.560)

how to notice until they're gone.

Lex Fridman (28:17.960)

LW.

Lex Fridman (28:18.960)

Could I actually play devil's advocate here and address something you also said?

Nationalism Debate (28:23.080)

Can we, as opposed to knowing the empirical data of the 20th century that communism presented,

Lex Fridman (28:29.280)

can we go back to the beginning of the 20th century?

Lex Fridman (28:32.920)

Can you empathize or steel man or put yourself in a place of the Soviet Union where the workers

Lex Fridman (28:39.420)

are being disrespected?

Lex Fridman (28:41.800)

And can you not see that the conservatives could be pro communism?

Nationalism Debate (28:48.040)

Communism is such a strongly negative word in modern day political discourse that you

Nationalism Debate (28:53.640)

have to put yourself in the mind of people who like red colors, it's all about the branding,

Nationalism Debate (29:05.240)

I think, but also like the ideas of solidarity, of nation, of togetherness, of respect for

Lex Fridman (29:15.440)

fellow man.

Nationalism Debate (29:16.440)

I mean, all of these things that communism represents, can you not see that this idea

Lex Fridman (29:23.200)

is actually going along with conservatism?

Nationalism Debate (29:26.780)

It is in some ways respecting the deep ideals of the past, but proposing a new way to raise

Lex Fridman (29:34.600)

those ideals, implement those ideals in the system.

Nationalism Debate (29:37.880)

Yes, I'm going to try to do what you're suggesting, but historically we actually have a more

Lex Fridman (29:43.000)

useful option, I think, for both of our positions.

Nationalism Debate (29:46.000)

Instead of pretending that we like the actual communists, we have conservative statesmen

Lex Fridman (29:52.580)

like Disraeli and Bismarck who initiated social legislation.

Nationalism Debate (2:00:01.880)

This is a refrain in the Book of Judges.

Lex Fridman (2:00:06.560)

And the Bible is not an anti–freedom book.

Nationalism Debate (2:00:08.720)

I mean, there's many, many – look, I –

Lex Fridman (2:00:10.720)

Well, let's talk –

Nationalism Debate (2:00:11.720)

No, we're not – fine.

Lex Fridman (2:00:12.720)

Well, we –

Nationalism Debate (2:00:13.720)

Oh, we'll get there.

Lex Fridman (2:00:14.720)

Okay.

Nationalism Debate (2:00:15.720)

Oh, he's going to guide us.

Nationalism Debate (2:00:16.720)

Okay, look, just as an asterisk, I'm not asking you because the Bible is such a great

Nationalism Debate (2:00:21.440)

authoritarian book – it's not that at all.

Nationalism Debate (2:00:24.600)

In my view, if you want to know where this – what you call the sanctity of property,

Lex Fridman (2:00:33.160)

where does the sanctity of property comes from?

Lex Fridman (2:00:35.280)

It comes from the Ten Commandments.

Nationalism Debate (2:00:36.520)

It comes from Moses saying, I haven't taken anything from anyone.

Lex Fridman (2:00:40.160)

It comes from Samuel saying, I haven't taken anything from anyone.

Nationalism Debate (2:00:42.800)

It's the condemnation of Ahab, of the unjust kings who steal the property of their subjects.

Lex Fridman (2:00:49.400)

So, property and freedom, I think there's a great basis for it in the Bible.

Lex Fridman (2:00:57.160)

But right now, I'm focusing on this other question, which is what happens when everyone

Lex Fridman (2:01:03.960)

does what's right in his own eyes?

Nationalism Debate (2:01:05.640)

That's the Book of Judges, and that's this civil war, moral corruption, theft, idolatry,

Nationalism Debate (2:01:12.600)

murder, rape – I mean, that's what happens when everyone does whatever is right in his

Nationalism Debate (2:01:18.120)

own eyes.

Lex Fridman (2:01:19.120)

Well, no, that's what it says in the text.

Nationalism Debate (2:01:22.160)

Okay, so when I look at – you're right, there are things that I think are objectively

Lex Fridman (2:01:28.280)

true.

Nationalism Debate (2:01:29.280)

I think it's really hard to get people to agree to them, almost impossible.

Lex Fridman (2:01:33.960)

But when I look at a country which is approaching one birth per woman – in other words, half

Nationalism Debate (2:01:44.640)

of the minimum necessary for replacement – you can say whatever you want.

Lex Fridman (2:01:50.040)

Whatever you want about immigration, we can have that discussion.

Lex Fridman (2:01:52.960)

But the point is that when your values are such that you're not even capable of doing

Nationalism Debate (2:02:00.160)

the most basic techniques that human beings need in order to be able to propagate themselves

Lex Fridman (2:02:04.800)

and their values and the way they see things, then I – look, you're finished.

Lex Fridman (2:02:09.880)

You can't say that –

Lex Fridman (2:02:10.880)

So if I implied that Japan is an ideal society, I take that back.

Lex Fridman (2:02:15.600)

But let's think about Japan for a minute.

Nationalism Debate (2:02:17.920)

I just think we're in trouble, and we're in trouble –

Lex Fridman (2:02:20.480)

I agree with –

Nationalism Debate (2:02:21.480)

All right, all right.

Lex Fridman (2:02:22.480)

Give me a second.

Nationalism Debate (2:02:23.480)

I'll hold you to that.

Lex Fridman (2:02:24.480)

It's being a tutorial.

Nationalism Debate (2:02:25.480)

No, I'm sorry.

Lex Fridman (2:02:26.480)

It's his show, man.

Nationalism Debate (2:02:27.480)

It is his show.

Lex Fridman (2:02:28.480)

We enter into his hierarchy and that's it.

Nationalism Debate (2:02:31.040)

We should talk about hierarchy.

Lex Fridman (2:02:35.120)

Just to clarify, how do you explain the situation in Japan?

Nationalism Debate (2:02:39.440)

Is it the decrease in value in family, like some of the – just expand on that.

Lex Fridman (2:02:45.000)

How do you explain that situation?

Nationalism Debate (2:02:47.160)

You're saying that that society is in trouble in a certain way.

Lex Fridman (2:02:50.440)

Can you kind of describe the nature of that trouble?

Nationalism Debate (2:02:53.320)

I'm saying that when the individual is part of a social group – this can be a family,

Nationalism Debate (2:03:02.000)

a congregation, a community, a tribe, a nation – when the individual feels that the things

Nationalism Debate (2:03:08.640)

that are happening to the society are things that are happening to him or to her.

Lex Fridman (2:03:13.640)

And I want to emphasize, this is not the standard view of collectivism that Mussolini will say,

Nationalism Debate (2:03:21.840)

the glory of the individual is in totally immersing himself in the organic whole.

Lex Fridman (2:03:27.400)

That's not what I'm saying.

Nationalism Debate (2:03:28.400)

I'm saying that human beings have and are both.

Nationalism Debate (2:03:32.360)

They enter into a society to which they are loyal and they compete with one another in

Nationalism Debate (2:03:41.240)

the terms that that society allows competition, but also sometimes by bending the rules and

Lex Fridman (2:03:45.320)

by shaping them and by changing them.

Lex Fridman (2:03:49.000)

What you see in many societies, certainly throughout the liberal West, but also in countries

Nationalism Debate (2:03:55.080)

that have been affected by the liberal West, by industrialization and ideas of individualism,

Lex Fridman (2:04:00.740)

what you see is a collapse of a willingness of the individual to look at what is needed

Nationalism Debate (2:04:08.980)

by the whole and to make choices that are, as Jorn would call them, selfish because the

Nationalism Debate (2:04:18.360)

purpose of them is self expression, competition, self assertion, moving up in the hierarchy,

Lex Fridman (2:04:26.760)

achieving honor or wealth in order to do those things.

Lex Fridman (2:04:31.720)

But when you stop being able to look at the framework of a particular society and identify

Nationalism Debate (2:04:38.260)

with it, you cease to understand what it is that you need to do, not every single person,

Lex Fridman (2:04:46.240)

but I'm talking about society wide.

Lex Fridman (2:04:48.080)

So there are a few individuals who are just going to have a fantastic time and live the

Nationalism Debate (2:04:51.500)

kind of life that Jorn is describing, and the great majority, they stop being willing

Lex Fridman (2:04:56.880)

to take risks.

Nationalism Debate (2:04:58.080)

They stop being willing to get married.

Lex Fridman (2:04:59.780)

They stop being willing to have children.

Nationalism Debate (2:05:01.400)

They stop being willing to start companies.

Nationalism Debate (2:05:03.280)

They stop being willing to put themselves out to do great things because the guide rails

Nationalism Debate (2:05:09.440)

that told them what kinds of things and the social feedback that honored them when they

Lex Fridman (2:05:15.060)

did things like getting married and having children, they've been crushed.

Lex Fridman (2:05:19.020)

And what have they been crushed by?

Nationalism Debate (2:05:20.360)

They've been crushed by the false view that if you tell the individual, be free, make

Nationalism Debate (2:05:25.840)

all your own decisions, that they will then be free and make all their own decisions.

Lex Fridman (2:05:29.360)

They don't.

Nationalism Debate (2:05:30.360)

They just stop.

Lex Fridman (2:05:31.360)

They stop being human.

Nationalism Debate (2:05:33.760)

That's powerful.

Lex Fridman (2:05:34.760)

So do you want to respond to that?

Nationalism Debate (2:05:36.760)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (2:05:38.260)

So I don't think anybody should have children.

Nationalism Debate (2:05:40.320)

If the goal, there's a good tweet clip that you can make.

Nationalism Debate (2:05:50.000)

I don't think anybody should have children for the goal of perpetuating their nation

Nationalism Debate (2:05:55.960)

or expanding their society or for some, I think they'd make horrible parents if that

Lex Fridman (2:06:03.320)

was the goal, the purpose of doing it.

Nationalism Debate (2:06:06.400)

I think people should have children because they want to embrace that challenge, that

Nationalism Debate (2:06:10.120)

beauty, that experience, that amazing, very, very hard, very, very difficult experience

Nationalism Debate (2:06:18.640)

in life.

Lex Fridman (2:06:19.640)

And it's about being able to project a long term, but also being able to enjoy and love

Nationalism Debate (2:06:24.680)

the creation of another human being, that process of creation.

Lex Fridman (2:06:28.040)

It is a beautiful, self interested thing.

Lex Fridman (2:06:30.220)

And by the way, not everybody should have children.

Lex Fridman (2:06:32.160)

I think way too many people have children.

Nationalism Debate (2:06:34.800)

There's some awful parents out there that I wish would stop.

Lex Fridman (2:06:38.360)

I mean, there are.

Nationalism Debate (2:06:39.720)

Life is precious and life of suffering is sad.

Nationalism Debate (2:06:43.760)

It's sad to see people suffer and a lot of people are born into situations and are born

Nationalism Debate (2:06:47.920)

into parents that destroy their capacity to ever live a good life.

Lex Fridman (2:06:52.320)

And that's a tragic and sad thing.

Lex Fridman (2:06:57.880)

So I don't measure the health of a society in how many children they're having or health

Lex Fridman (2:07:04.240)

of a couple of whether they have children or not.

Nationalism Debate (2:07:06.700)

Those are individual choices.

Nationalism Debate (2:07:07.800)

Some people make a choice not to have children, which is completely rational and consistent

Nationalism Debate (2:07:12.380)

with their values.

Nationalism Debate (2:07:13.920)

Now when you look at a society overall, I do think having children and not having children

Nationalism Debate (2:07:18.400)

is a reflection of something.

Lex Fridman (2:07:20.160)

I think it's a reflection of a certain optimism about the future.

Nationalism Debate (2:07:22.920)

I think it's a reflection of thinking long term versus short term.

Lex Fridman (2:07:26.200)

I think a short term society doesn't have children.

Nationalism Debate (2:07:28.400)

People don't have children there because children are a long term investment.

Nationalism Debate (2:07:32.880)

They require real planning and real effort and real thinking about the long term.

Lex Fridman (2:07:38.000)

But those are moral issues.

Lex Fridman (2:07:39.720)

And again, we're confusing or mixing.

Nationalism Debate (2:07:43.440)

When I say Japan, look how well Japan has done.

Nationalism Debate (2:07:45.960)

I don't mean the specific Japanese people and how many kids they're having and what

Nationalism Debate (2:07:49.720)

kind of life they're having in terms of these kind of particulars.

Lex Fridman (2:07:53.920)

But think about the alternatives Japan faces if you look around the options that they face.

Nationalism Debate (2:08:01.020)

They tried empire.

Lex Fridman (2:08:02.640)

They tried nationalistic empire.

Nationalism Debate (2:08:04.120)

It didn't turn out too well for them or anybody who they interacted with.

Lex Fridman (2:08:08.320)

They could have become North Korea.

Nationalism Debate (2:08:11.020)

We know how that turned out.

Lex Fridman (2:08:12.100)

We know what that is.

Nationalism Debate (2:08:13.100)

We've seen Cambodia, if you've ever been to Cambodia and seen the kind of poverty.

Lex Fridman (2:08:16.600)

And yes, maybe Cambodians have lots of children, but God, I'd rather be in Japan any day than

Nationalism Debate (2:08:22.400)

have children in the kind of poverty and horrific circumstances they have.

Lex Fridman (2:08:27.240)

But in the context of the available regimes that were possible post World War II for the

Nationalism Debate (2:08:34.760)

Japanese to embrace, they embraced one that generally led to prosperity, to freedom, to

Nationalism Debate (2:08:39.920)

individuals pursuing values, not perfectly because they didn't implement the philosophical

Nationalism Debate (2:08:45.320)

foundation, the moral foundation that I would like them to have.

Nationalism Debate (2:08:48.680)

They're still being impacted by Kantian, Hegelian, whatever philosophy that's out there in the

Nationalism Debate (2:08:54.680)

West that's destroying the better part.

Lex Fridman (2:08:57.520)

So you give people freedom, now what do they do with it?

Lex Fridman (2:09:00.800)

And if they have a bad philosophy, they're going to do bad things with that freedom.

Lex Fridman (2:09:05.720)

You tell people to do whatever they choose to do.

Lex Fridman (2:09:08.660)

But if they have bad ideas, they will choose to do bad things.

Lex Fridman (2:09:12.980)

So it is true that the primacy of morality and the primacy of philosophy has to be recognized.

Nationalism Debate (2:09:19.720)

It's not the primacy of politics.

Lex Fridman (2:09:21.660)

And indeed, you don't get free societies unless you have some elements of decent philosophy.

Lex Fridman (2:09:29.220)

But you can get free societies with a rotten philosophy, but they don't stay free for very

Lex Fridman (2:09:33.720)

long.

Lex Fridman (2:09:34.720)

So how can it be a decent philosophy if it doesn't care about posterity?

Nationalism Debate (2:09:39.720)

If you're willing to say, I'm offering guidance, I think you should live as a traitor, all

Nationalism Debate (2:09:46.820)

relationships should be voluntary, those are interesting things.

Lex Fridman (2:09:50.520)

But the moment that it comes to posterity, to the future, to there being a future, let's

Nationalism Debate (2:09:55.800)

say that there were a society that lived the way, in general, according to your view.

Lex Fridman (2:10:00.120)

Let's say there was such a society.

Lex Fridman (2:10:02.000)

How can you not care whether that society is capable of passing it on to the next generation

Lex Fridman (2:10:06.440)

or not?

Lex Fridman (2:10:07.440)

But the way to pass it on to the next generation is through ideas and not through having children.

Nationalism Debate (2:10:11.880)

Having children is an individual choice that some people are going to make and some people

Nationalism Debate (2:10:15.280)

are not, but the fundamental that preserves the good life.

Lex Fridman (2:10:19.880)

What does that even mean?

Nationalism Debate (2:10:23.000)

If every generation from now on, your society that was good at a certain point has half

Nationalism Debate (2:10:28.500)

as many people in it, it's going to very quickly, it's just going to be overrun.

Lex Fridman (2:10:33.120)

Overrun by whom?

Lex Fridman (2:10:35.080)

What do you mean overrun by whom?

Lex Fridman (2:10:36.240)

Are we just totally ahistorical?

Nationalism Debate (2:10:38.360)

If you're the Spartans and you have all of these warrior values, but you stop having

Nationalism Debate (2:10:43.880)

children, you get overrun, you get defeated.

Lex Fridman (2:10:45.840)

Well, in the case of Sparta, that's a good thing, not a bad thing.

Lex Fridman (2:10:47.960)

But I get it.

Lex Fridman (2:10:48.960)

That's not my point.

Nationalism Debate (2:10:49.960)

You have to have the ability to have enough children to create enough wealth and enough

Lex Fridman (2:10:54.720)

power, enough strength.

Nationalism Debate (2:10:56.040)

Who makes these kind of conclusions, the decisions about how many you make it as an individual

Lex Fridman (2:11:01.160)

and you decide that in order to...

Nationalism Debate (2:11:03.440)

No, we're not talking about...

Nationalism Debate (2:11:04.880)

We're talking about what kind of intellectual, cultural, religious inheritance you give your

Nationalism Debate (2:11:10.040)

children.

Lex Fridman (2:11:11.040)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (2:11:12.040)

And those are the ideas that I give my children and those ideas are going to perpetuate because

Lex Fridman (2:11:15.440)

they're good ideas.

Nationalism Debate (2:11:16.440)

If they're bad ideas...

Lex Fridman (2:11:17.440)

No, they're not going to perpetuate.

Nationalism Debate (2:11:18.440)

They can't be good ideas if they don't produce future generations.

Lex Fridman (2:11:23.160)

What are you talking about?

Lex Fridman (2:11:24.160)

Why would they not produce future generations?

Lex Fridman (2:11:26.160)

Because look at every liberal society on earth is in democratic collapse.

Nationalism Debate (2:11:32.040)

There's not a single liberal society on earth today that I'm willing to defend.

Lex Fridman (2:11:36.920)

Because they're not living by my philosophy, they've not accepted my ideas.

Nationalism Debate (2:11:40.800)

They have a semblance, they have a semblance of a political system that is a little bit

Nationalism Debate (2:11:46.240)

like what I would like, far from what I would ideal, but they certainly don't have a moral

Nationalism Debate (2:11:50.920)

foundation.

Nationalism Debate (2:11:51.920)

I believe that people who have the right moral foundation, most of them, not all of them,

Lex Fridman (2:11:55.840)

but most of them will have children, most of them will continue into the future, most

Nationalism Debate (2:12:00.240)

of them will fight for a future, but not because they care what happens in 200 years, but because

Nationalism Debate (2:12:06.640)

they care about their lifetime and part of having fun and enjoying one's lifetime is

Lex Fridman (2:12:11.240)

having kids, is projecting into the future.

Lex Fridman (2:12:14.720)

Are you really going to tell me that people have children because it's fun?

Lex Fridman (2:12:19.120)

They're fun when they're four years old.

Nationalism Debate (2:12:20.560)

They're not fun when they're 15.

Lex Fridman (2:12:23.280)

When they're 15, they're not fun.

Nationalism Debate (2:12:24.280)

I agree with that.

Lex Fridman (2:12:25.280)

No, they're just not fun.

Nationalism Debate (2:12:26.280)

Look, you don't do this.

Lex Fridman (2:12:27.280)

I'm learning so much today.

Nationalism Debate (2:12:28.820)

You don't do this for fun.

Lex Fridman (2:12:31.360)

Marriage also you don't do for fun.

Nationalism Debate (2:12:32.640)

There are times that are fun and there are times that are not fun.

Lex Fridman (2:12:35.400)

Fun is not exactly the right word, but you certainly do it for happiness.

Nationalism Debate (2:12:40.320)

You do it for fulfillment.

Lex Fridman (2:12:42.040)

You do it as a challenge.

Nationalism Debate (2:12:43.760)

You do it for making your life better, for making your life interesting, for making your

Lex Fridman (2:12:49.960)

life challenging, for embracing.

Nationalism Debate (2:12:53.840)

Part of it is fun, part of it is hard work, but you do it because it makes your life a

Lex Fridman (2:13:01.000)

better life.

Nationalism Debate (2:13:02.000)

It's very interesting, empirically speaking, if you dissolve the cultural backbone where

Nationalism Debate (2:13:07.240)

everybody comes up, like the background, the moral ideas that everybody is raised with,

Nationalism Debate (2:13:12.360)

if you dissolve that and if you truly emphasize the individual, I think Yoram is saying it's

Nationalism Debate (2:13:19.560)

going to naturally lead to the dissolution of marriage and all of these concepts.

Lex Fridman (2:13:24.160)

So basically saying you're not going to choose some of these things.

Nationalism Debate (2:13:30.200)

You're going to more and more choose the short term optimization versus the long term optimization

Nationalism Debate (2:13:37.560)

beyond your own life, like posterity.

Lex Fridman (2:13:40.720)

So I don't think about posterity.

Nationalism Debate (2:13:42.040)

I don't know what posterity means.

Lex Fridman (2:13:43.640)

I can project into my children's life.

Nationalism Debate (2:13:46.520)

Maybe when I have grandchildren, it's the grandchildren's life, but it ends there.

Lex Fridman (2:13:49.280)

I can't project 300 years into the future.

Nationalism Debate (2:13:52.120)

It's ridiculous to try to think about 300 years into the future.

Lex Fridman (2:13:54.820)

Things change so much.

Lex Fridman (2:13:56.320)

But that's the founding fathers.

Lex Fridman (2:13:58.640)

That's the conservative founding fathers.

Nationalism Debate (2:13:59.920)

Well, no, I don't think.

Lex Fridman (2:14:01.200)

I think they set up a system.

Nationalism Debate (2:14:02.520)

I think the whole idea was to set up a system that was self perpetuating that would if people

Lex Fridman (2:14:09.080)

lived up to it, right?

Nationalism Debate (2:14:10.320)

No, no.

Lex Fridman (2:14:11.320)

Would perpetuate itself into 300 years.

Nationalism Debate (2:14:12.320)

No systems are self perpetuating.

Lex Fridman (2:14:14.200)

Things rise and fall and it's the...

Nationalism Debate (2:14:15.720)

They don't necessarily rise and fall.

Lex Fridman (2:14:16.720)

I don't believe in that.

Nationalism Debate (2:14:17.720)

Let me speak to your heart for a second.

Nationalism Debate (2:14:21.520)

The great individuals in societies are the people who have seen the decline, understood

Nationalism Debate (2:14:27.480)

it and provided resources in order to redirect and bring it back up.

Lex Fridman (2:14:32.160)

You can't agree to that?

Nationalism Debate (2:14:34.240)

I don't see it that way at all.

Lex Fridman (2:14:36.360)

Yes, I want people out there to rebel against conventional morality.

Nationalism Debate (2:14:41.480)

I think conventional morality is destructive to their own lives and broadly to posterity

Lex Fridman (2:14:46.000)

because I think it's unsustainable, it's not good and this goes to...

Nationalism Debate (2:14:48.920)

I think conventional morality is Christian morality.

Nationalism Debate (2:14:51.520)

It's a morality that's been secularized through Christian lens and I think it's destructive,

Lex Fridman (2:14:55.880)

but I don't want them to dump that and not replace it with something.

Nationalism Debate (2:14:59.520)

I want and I think it's necessary and essential for people to have a moral code and to have

Nationalism Debate (2:15:05.480)

a moral code.

Lex Fridman (2:15:08.160)

Morality is a set of guidelines to live your life.

Nationalism Debate (2:15:11.040)

It is a set of values to guide you, to help you identify what is good for you and what

Lex Fridman (2:15:15.840)

is bad for you.

Nationalism Debate (2:15:16.840)

Here's the thing.

Lex Fridman (2:15:17.840)

Let me argue against it.

Nationalism Debate (2:15:18.840)

Let me...

Lex Fridman (2:15:19.840)

Hold on a second.

Nationalism Debate (2:15:20.840)

You're saying central to this morality that people should have is reason.

Lex Fridman (2:15:25.680)

Yes.

Nationalism Debate (2:15:26.680)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (2:15:27.680)

You're not saying other things.

Nationalism Debate (2:15:28.680)

You're basically saying reason will arrive a lot of things.

Lex Fridman (2:15:32.720)

Why are you so sure that reason is so important?

Nationalism Debate (2:15:36.040)

There's nothing else.

Lex Fridman (2:15:37.040)

No.

Nationalism Debate (2:15:38.040)

Hold on a second.

Lex Fridman (2:15:39.040)

But it seems like obvious to you.

Lex Fridman (2:15:40.760)

So first of all, humans have limited cognitive capacity.

Lex Fridman (2:15:43.440)

So even to assume the reason could actually function that well from an artificial intelligence

Nationalism Debate (2:15:50.040)

researcher perspective.

Lex Fridman (2:15:51.040)

It seems...

Nationalism Debate (2:15:52.040)

The whole discussion about whether there is such a thing as artificial intelligence, whether

Lex Fridman (2:15:57.000)

that is what it is.

Nationalism Debate (2:15:58.000)

But...

Lex Fridman (2:15:59.000)

But see, here's the thing.

Nationalism Debate (2:16:00.000)

I mean, you're very confident about this particular thing, but not about other aspects of human

Lex Fridman (2:16:03.940)

nature that seems to be obviously present.

Lex Fridman (2:16:06.360)

So yes, human relations, love, connection between us.

Lex Fridman (2:16:12.920)

So it's very possible to argue that all of the accomplishments of reason would not exist

Nationalism Debate (2:16:17.800)

without the connection of other humans.

Lex Fridman (2:16:19.800)

But of course that's true.

Nationalism Debate (2:16:21.080)

It's not obvious though.

Nationalism Debate (2:16:22.480)

It's possible that reason is a property of the collective of multiple people interacting

Nationalism Debate (2:16:28.200)

with each other.

Nationalism Debate (2:16:29.200)

When you look at the greatest inventions of human history, some people tell that story

Nationalism Debate (2:16:32.860)

by individual inventors.

Lex Fridman (2:16:35.040)

You could argue that's true.

Nationalism Debate (2:16:36.520)

Some people say that it's a bunch of people in a room together.

Lex Fridman (2:16:41.240)

The idea is bubbling.

Lex Fridman (2:16:42.560)

And if you're saying individual is primary and they have the full power and the capacity

Lex Fridman (2:16:48.720)

to make choices, I don't know if that's necessarily obviously true.

Lex Fridman (2:16:52.840)

So there's a straw manning going on here of my position, right?

Lex Fridman (2:16:56.880)

Of course.

Nationalism Debate (2:16:57.880)

My favorite thing to do.

Nationalism Debate (2:17:00.520)

You don't do it and you do it more politely than anybody else I know when you do it.

Nationalism Debate (2:17:04.160)

Of course we all stand on the shoulders of giants.

Lex Fridman (2:17:06.480)

Of course, invention and science is collaborative.

Nationalism Debate (2:17:10.780)

Not always, not a hundred percent.

Lex Fridman (2:17:13.880)

Newton stood on the shoulders of giants.

Nationalism Debate (2:17:16.040)

I don't know how collaborative he was.

Nationalism Debate (2:17:17.720)

He wasn't exactly known as a bubbling up and testing ideas out with other people.

Lex Fridman (2:17:22.960)

But this is a metaphysical fact.

Lex Fridman (2:17:25.000)

You can't eat for me.

Nationalism Debate (2:17:26.520)

There's no collective stomach.

Lex Fridman (2:17:28.360)

You can't eat for me.

Nationalism Debate (2:17:30.160)

You know, you can provide me with food, but I need to do the eating.

Lex Fridman (2:17:33.420)

You can't think for me.

Nationalism Debate (2:17:35.240)

You can help stimulate my thought.

Lex Fridman (2:17:37.400)

You can challenge my thinking.

Nationalism Debate (2:17:39.200)

You can add to it.

Lex Fridman (2:17:41.040)

But in the end of the day, only I can either do my thinking or not do my thinking, but

Nationalism Debate (2:17:44.480)

I need to think.

Lex Fridman (2:17:45.480)

But you can think all by yourself alone.

Lex Fridman (2:17:48.160)

What does that mean?

Lex Fridman (2:17:49.160)

All by yourself.

Lex Fridman (2:17:50.160)

Right?

Lex Fridman (2:17:51.160)

Can I think on a desert island?

Nationalism Debate (2:17:52.160)

Yes, I can think on a desert island.

Lex Fridman (2:17:54.540)

Can I think as big and as broad and as deep as I can in Aristotle's Lyceum?

Nationalism Debate (2:18:03.520)

Of course not.

Nationalism Debate (2:18:04.520)

I'm a much better thinker in Aristotle's Lyceum or in any kind of situation like this

Nationalism Debate (2:18:09.360)

where you're going to challenge me and I have to come back and I have to think deeply about

Lex Fridman (2:18:13.440)

what it is you said and why I'm not communicating very effectively and why you're not understanding

Nationalism Debate (2:18:17.960)

me.

Lex Fridman (2:18:18.960)

Of course, now you're causing me to think much more deeply and to challenge me.

Lex Fridman (2:18:22.480)

But it's still true that I have to think.

Lex Fridman (2:18:24.200)

And if I don't think for myself, who's going to think for me?

Lex Fridman (2:18:28.000)

Right?

Lex Fridman (2:18:29.000)

So this is why I'm not a philosopher.

Nationalism Debate (2:18:32.280)

I'm certainly not an original thinker in that sense.

Nationalism Debate (2:18:36.440)

I recognize the fact that there are geniuses that are much smarter than me, whether it's

Nationalism Debate (2:18:40.360)

Aristotle or Ayn Rand or people that inspire me.

Lex Fridman (2:18:43.400)

I study their work.

Nationalism Debate (2:18:44.680)

I try to understand it to the best of my ability.

Lex Fridman (2:18:46.840)

But I don't take it as gospel.

Nationalism Debate (2:18:49.280)

I take it as this is something I need to figure out.

Lex Fridman (2:18:53.200)

I need to learn it.

Nationalism Debate (2:18:54.240)

I need to understand it because it's good for my life.

Lex Fridman (2:18:56.720)

It's important to me.

Lex Fridman (2:18:58.140)

But I have to do the thinking.

Lex Fridman (2:18:59.920)

It won't be mine.

Nationalism Debate (2:19:01.640)

It'll be Ayn Rand's.

Lex Fridman (2:19:02.640)

But it won't be mine unless I've done the thinking to integrate it into my soul, into

Nationalism Debate (2:19:07.320)

my consciousness, into my mind.

Lex Fridman (2:19:10.320)

But it's still true that I have to think for myself, not on a desert island.

Nationalism Debate (2:19:15.280)

I now regret ever using a desert island in the book as an example, because …

Lex Fridman (2:19:20.000)

We've achieved something.

Nationalism Debate (2:19:21.000)

There is progress.

Lex Fridman (2:19:22.000)

We're moving …

Nationalism Debate (2:19:23.000)

Progress towards truth is taking place.

Lex Fridman (2:19:24.000)

Because clearly, it was misunderstood.

Nationalism Debate (2:19:25.000)

I didn't make myself clear.

Lex Fridman (2:19:26.000)

I didn't make myself clear enough in the book in terms of what I meant.

Lex Fridman (2:19:34.000)

But I do not advocate for thinking alone in a dark room, not engaging with reality, not

Nationalism Debate (2:19:42.600)

studying history, not knowing about the world, or on a desert island, not interacting with

Nationalism Debate (2:19:46.600)

other people.

Lex Fridman (2:19:47.600)

So you're a collectivist?

Nationalism Debate (2:19:48.600)

No.

Lex Fridman (2:19:49.600)

I'm a trader.

Lex Fridman (2:19:50.600)

So I enjoy what we're doing right now because you're challenging me.

Lex Fridman (2:19:53.360)

You make me a better thinker.

Nationalism Debate (2:19:55.480)

It's interesting.

Lex Fridman (2:19:56.880)

The fact that a lot of people are going to watch this plays into it as well.

Lex Fridman (2:20:01.440)

But I would probably enjoy engaging with you in conversation.

Lex Fridman (2:20:04.240)

It's not even recording, so …

Nationalism Debate (2:20:05.240)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:20:06.240)

There you go.

Nationalism Debate (2:20:07.240)

I would enjoy engaging with you in conversation even if it wasn't being recorded, and even

Nationalism Debate (2:20:11.800)

if it was because that kind of conversation makes me a better … There are some people

Nationalism Debate (2:20:16.320)

who I wouldn't.

Nationalism Debate (2:20:17.320)

There are some people who make it worse, that you walk away from the conversation because

Nationalism Debate (2:20:22.920)

they're harmful to you.

Lex Fridman (2:20:23.920)

And this is where choice comes in.

Nationalism Debate (2:20:24.920)

I want to be able to choose who I engage with.

Nationalism Debate (2:20:28.520)

I don't always have that choice because, as a public intellectual, you go in front

Nationalism Debate (2:20:32.120)

of audiences.

Nationalism Debate (2:20:33.120)

You don't always choose who it is, but you want to choose who you engage with and who

Nationalism Debate (2:20:36.640)

you don't.

Lex Fridman (2:20:37.640)

You want to choose the forum in which you engage and how you engage.

Lex Fridman (2:20:41.480)

And the standard for me is reason.

Lex Fridman (2:20:43.240)

There is no other standard.

Lex Fridman (2:20:44.240)

So you asked a deep question to start off.

Lex Fridman (2:20:46.360)

Why reason?

Nationalism Debate (2:20:48.080)

Because that's where the values come from.

Lex Fridman (2:20:50.680)

That's the only tool we have to discover truth.

Nationalism Debate (2:20:53.440)

Yes, you know, reason is something that it doesn't guarantee truth.

Lex Fridman (2:20:57.680)

It doesn't guarantee the world is right, it's fallible.

Lex Fridman (2:21:01.120)

But it's all we have.

Nationalism Debate (2:21:02.120)

It's the tool in which we evaluate the world around us and we come to conclusions about

Nationalism Debate (2:21:06.920)

it.

Lex Fridman (2:21:07.920)

There just isn't other tools.

Nationalism Debate (2:21:09.720)

Emotions are not tools of cognition.

Lex Fridman (2:21:14.800)

Consciousness is a tool.

Nationalism Debate (2:21:16.840)

Emotion like love, all of these things are ways to experience the world to say that reason

Lex Fridman (2:21:22.520)

is the best tool.

Lex Fridman (2:21:23.920)

But there's a difference between experiencing the world and evaluating the world in terms

Lex Fridman (2:21:28.840)

of what is truth or what is not.

Nationalism Debate (2:21:30.400)

As a scientist, I appreciate the value of reason.

Lex Fridman (2:21:32.880)

And emotions and love are consequences.

Nationalism Debate (2:21:36.200)

They're not primary.

Lex Fridman (2:21:38.160)

Emotions are consequences of conclusions you've come to.

Nationalism Debate (2:21:40.760)

Your emotions will change very quickly, relatively speaking, when your evaluations of a situation

Lex Fridman (2:21:46.600)

will change.

Nationalism Debate (2:21:47.840)

Different people can see exactly the same scene and have completely different emotions

Nationalism Debate (2:21:51.920)

because they're bringing different value systems and they're bringing different thoughts to

Nationalism Debate (2:21:55.640)

the process.

Lex Fridman (2:21:56.680)

Maybe love is primary.

Lex Fridman (2:21:57.680)

But let me ask.

Lex Fridman (2:21:58.680)

Love is the same thing.

Nationalism Debate (2:21:59.880)

You can fall out of love with somebody.

Lex Fridman (2:22:01.240)

Why?

Nationalism Debate (2:22:02.240)

Because you learn something new.

Lex Fridman (2:22:03.240)

Because you've discovered something new about the person.

Nationalism Debate (2:22:05.280)

Now you don't love them anymore.

Lex Fridman (2:22:06.280)

This is the wrong podcast to bring up love.

Nationalism Debate (2:22:07.680)

We'll talk forever about it.

Nationalism Debate (2:22:09.720)

So, Yoram, you wrote the book, The Virtue of Nationalism, contrasting nation states with

Nationalism Debate (2:22:15.600)

empires and with global governance like United Nations and so on.

Lex Fridman (2:22:19.000)

So you argue that nationalism uniquely provides the, quote, the collective right of a free

Nationalism Debate (2:22:26.160)

people to rule themselves.

Lex Fridman (2:22:28.120)

So continuing our conversation, why is this particular collection of humans we call a

Nationalism Debate (2:22:35.680)

nation a uniquely powerful way to preserve the freedom of a people, to have people rule

Lex Fridman (2:22:42.120)

themselves?

Nationalism Debate (2:22:43.120)

Before I say anything on the subject, I should emphasize that I'm not a rationalist.

Nationalism Debate (2:22:49.000)

I'm an empiricist and I'm offering what I think is a valid observation of human history.

Nationalism Debate (2:22:58.320)

I don't have some kind of deductive framework for proving that the nation is the best.

Lex Fridman (2:23:03.520)

And empirically, we know something about the way systems of national states work and about

Nationalism Debate (2:23:07.720)

the way empires work and the way tribal societies work.

Lex Fridman (2:23:11.640)

What we don't know is, you know, is it possible to invent something else?

Nationalism Debate (2:23:16.240)

I mean, there's a lot of things we don't know here.

Lex Fridman (2:23:18.760)

So with the caveat that I'm making an empirical observation, the basic argument is human beings

Nationalism Debate (2:23:25.400)

form collectives naturally, loyalty groups, and for most of human history and prehistory,

Lex Fridman (2:23:32.860)

as far as we know, human beings lived in tribal societies.

Nationalism Debate (2:23:36.780)

Tribal societies are societies in which there's constant friction and constant warfare among

Lex Fridman (2:23:46.120)

very small groups, among families and clans.

Lex Fridman (2:23:50.020)

And we reach a turning point in human history with the invention of large scale agriculture,

Lex Fridman (2:23:55.280)

which allows the creation of vast wealth.

Nationalism Debate (2:23:57.240)

It allows the establishment of standing armies instead of militias.

Nationalism Debate (2:24:01.640)

You know, Sargon of Akkad says, I can pay 5,000 men to do nothing other than to drill

Nationalism Debate (2:24:08.400)

in the arts of war and then I'm gonna send them out to conquer the neighboring city states

Lex Fridman (2:24:12.000)

and there you have empire.

Nationalism Debate (2:24:13.920)

The Bible, which is the source of our image, our conception of a world of independent nations

Nationalism Debate (2:24:22.000)

that are not constantly trying to conquer one another, the source of that is the Bible.

Lex Fridman (2:24:27.380)

And the biblical world is one in which Israel and various other small nations are trying

Nationalism Debate (2:24:38.800)

to fight for their independence against world empires, against empires Babylonian, Assyrian,

Nationalism Debate (2:24:46.480)

Persian, Egyptian, which aspire to rule the world.

Nationalism Debate (2:24:51.440)

My claim is fundamentally twofold, it's moral that whenever you conquer a foreign nation,

Nationalism Debate (2:25:00.280)

you're murdering and you're stealing, you're destroying.

Lex Fridman (2:25:04.000)

As your own would say, you're using force to cause people to submit.

Lex Fridman (2:25:10.680)

So there is something in the prophets that rebels against this ongoing atrocity and carnage

Lex Fridman (2:25:18.960)

of trying to take over the whole world.

Lex Fridman (2:25:23.600)

And there's a prudential practical argument, which is that the world is governed best when

Nationalism Debate (2:25:30.160)

there are multiple nations, when they're free to experiment and chart their own courses.

Nationalism Debate (2:25:34.960)

That means they have their own route to God, they have their own moralities, they have

Lex Fridman (2:25:41.560)

their own forms of economy and government.

Lex Fridman (2:25:44.680)

And what tends to happen in history is that when something is successful, when something

Nationalism Debate (2:25:49.960)

looks like, when a different nation looks at it and say, well, those people are flourishing,

Nationalism Debate (2:25:54.800)

they're succeeding, then it's imitated in the way that the Dutch invented the stock

Lex Fridman (2:26:01.360)

market and the English said, look, that makes them powerful, so we'll adopt it.

Lex Fridman (2:26:06.840)

So there's endless examples of that.

Lex Fridman (2:26:09.760)

So that's the argument for it.

Nationalism Debate (2:26:10.840)

The argument is since we don't know a priori deductively from self evident principles what

Lex Fridman (2:26:20.320)

is best, it's best to have a world in which people are trying different things.

Lex Fridman (2:26:25.160)

So quick question, because the word nationalism sometimes is presented in negative light in

Lex Fridman (2:26:30.760)

connection to the nationalism of Nazi Germany, for example.

Lex Fridman (2:26:37.040)

So you're looking empirically at a world of nations that respect each other.

Nationalism Debate (2:26:43.800)

I use the word nationalism the way that I inherited it in my tradition, which is it's

Nationalism Debate (2:26:49.560)

a principled standpoint that says that the world is governed best when many nations are

Lex Fridman (2:26:56.120)

able to be independent and chart their own course.

Nationalism Debate (2:26:59.000)

That's nationalism.

Lex Fridman (2:27:00.000)

As far as the Nazis, Hitler's an imperialist.

Nationalism Debate (2:27:02.780)

He hated nation states.

Nationalism Debate (2:27:04.340)

His whole theory, if you pick up, I don't recommend doing this, but if you do...

Lex Fridman (2:27:08.800)

I'm actually reading it right now, Mein Kampf?

Lex Fridman (2:27:10.440)

Right.

Nationalism Debate (2:27:11.440)

If you do read Mein Kampf, then you'll see that he says explicitly that the goal is for

Nationalism Debate (2:27:15.520)

Germany to be the lord of the earth and mistress of the globe, and he detests the idea of the

Nationalism Debate (2:27:23.040)

independent nation state because he sees it as weak and defeat.

Lex Fridman (2:27:27.160)

He might as well have said it's Jewish.

Lex Fridman (2:27:28.640)

So let me ask from the individual perspective, for nationalism, what do you make of the value

Lex Fridman (2:27:35.440)

of the love of country?

Lex Fridman (2:27:38.640)

The reason I connect that... So I personally, what would you say, a patriot?

Lex Fridman (2:27:45.680)

I love the love of country.

Nationalism Debate (2:27:48.400)

Or I am susceptible... Or how should... In a Randian way, I enjoy... I in a self interest

Lex Fridman (2:27:56.920)

...

Nationalism Debate (2:27:57.920)

That's good.

Lex Fridman (2:27:58.920)

Don't run away from it.

Nationalism Debate (2:27:59.920)

Well, I love a lot of things, but I'm saying this particular love is a little bit contentious,

Lex Fridman (2:28:04.160)

which is loving your country.

Nationalism Debate (2:28:06.640)

That's an interesting love that some people are a little uncomfortable with, especially

Nationalism Debate (2:28:11.960)

when that love... I grew up in the Soviet Union to say you just love the country.

Nationalism Debate (2:28:18.120)

It represents a certain thing to you, and you don't think philosophically like I was

Lex Fridman (2:28:22.640)

marching around with marks under my arm or something like that.

Nationalism Debate (2:28:26.840)

It's just loving community at the level of nation.

Lex Fridman (2:28:33.280)

It's very interesting.

Nationalism Debate (2:28:34.280)

I don't know if that's an artifact of the past that we're going to have to strip away.

Nationalism Debate (2:28:39.400)

I don't know if I was just raised in that kind of community, but I appreciate that.

Nationalism Debate (2:28:44.480)

I guess the thing I'm torn about is that love of country that I have in my heart that I

Nationalism Debate (2:28:51.480)

now love America and I consider myself an American, that would have easily, if I was

Nationalism Debate (2:28:57.000)

born earlier, been used by Stalin, and I would have proudly died on the battlefield.

Nationalism Debate (2:29:03.240)

I would have proudly died if I was in Nazi Germany as a German, and I would proudly die

Nationalism Debate (2:29:08.480)

as an American.

Lex Fridman (2:29:09.480)

Are you sure about these things?

Nationalism Debate (2:29:11.480)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (2:29:12.480)

That's interesting.

Nationalism Debate (2:29:13.480)

I think about this a lot.

Lex Fridman (2:29:14.800)

It's interesting to run a radical counterfactual and be sure of the answer.

Nationalism Debate (2:29:18.880)

I mean...

Lex Fridman (2:29:19.880)

I'm not sure.

Nationalism Debate (2:29:20.880)

I think about this a lot because, obviously, I'm really interested in history.

Lex Fridman (2:29:25.720)

This is the way I think about most situations is I empathize.

Nationalism Debate (2:29:29.680)

I really try to do hard work of placing myself in that moment and thinking through it.

Lex Fridman (2:29:35.120)

I'm just... Okay, I just know myself psychologically.

Lex Fridman (2:29:39.800)

What I'm susceptible to, that's a negative way to phrase it, but what I would love doing.

Nationalism Debate (2:29:46.080)

I'm just saying, my question is, is the love of nation a useful or a powerful moral, from

Lex Fridman (2:29:57.640)

a moral philosophy perspective, a good thing?

Nationalism Debate (2:30:01.080)

I think it is a good thing, but before we ask whether it's a good thing, I think it's

Nationalism Debate (2:30:04.840)

worth asking whether there's any way to live without it.

Nationalism Debate (2:30:08.020)

The idea of national independence of a world or a continent which politically is governed

Nationalism Debate (2:30:14.240)

by multiple independent national states, that is a political theory.

Lex Fridman (2:30:19.400)

Somebody came up with that in the Bible or elsewhere.

Nationalism Debate (2:30:23.880)

Someone came up with this idea and sold it, and a lot of people like it, but the nation

Lex Fridman (2:30:29.200)

is not an invention.

Nationalism Debate (2:30:32.920)

Every place in human history that we have any record of, there are nations.

Nationalism Debate (2:30:41.640)

The fact of people creating families, families creating an alliance of clans, clans creating

Nationalism Debate (2:30:51.320)

alliances of tribes, tribes creating an alliance that becomes the nation, we see that everywhere

Lex Fridman (2:31:00.440)

in human history, everywhere we look.

Nationalism Debate (2:31:03.800)

The love of a group of tribes that have come together in order to fight opponents that

Nationalism Debate (2:31:10.200)

are trying to destroy your way of life and steal your land and harm your women and children,

Nationalism Debate (2:31:19.000)

the love of the leadership that brings it together.

Nationalism Debate (2:31:24.160)

This is a George Washington type figure or an Alfred the Great type figure or Saul, the

Nationalism Debate (2:31:32.680)

biblical Saul, somebody who has the wisdom, the daring to unite the tribes, overcome their

Nationalism Debate (2:31:39.520)

internal, mutual hatreds and grievances and rally them around a set of ideas, a language,

Nationalism Debate (2:31:48.760)

a tradition, an identity as people say today.

Lex Fridman (2:31:53.920)

That love is irradicable from human beings.

Nationalism Debate (2:31:57.280)

Maybe we'll have a brave new world, people will take drugs in order to get rid of it.

Lex Fridman (2:32:00.040)

The problem is that could be leveraged by authoritarian regimes.

Nationalism Debate (2:32:03.560)

Yes, but that's true of everything.

Lex Fridman (2:32:05.240)

It's like saying you can have children and you can teach them to be evil.

Nationalism Debate (2:32:08.960)

You can make a lot of money, you can use it for evil.

Lex Fridman (2:32:11.200)

You can have a gun for self defense, but you can use it for evil.

Nationalism Debate (2:32:14.320)

Come on, that's human.

Lex Fridman (2:32:16.240)

That's being human.

Nationalism Debate (2:32:17.240)

You guys are making love this primary, which I don't think it is.

Lex Fridman (2:32:20.520)

How dare you, your honor.

Nationalism Debate (2:32:22.320)

I know.

Nationalism Debate (2:32:23.320)

There are lots of people in the world out there who don't love their nation because

Nationalism Debate (2:32:25.680)

the nation is not worth loving.

Lex Fridman (2:32:27.520)

That is love is conditional.

Nationalism Debate (2:32:29.160)

It's not unconditional.

Lex Fridman (2:32:30.520)

Love is conditioned on the value that's presented to you.

Nationalism Debate (2:32:34.960)

I lived through this experience in my own life.

Nationalism Debate (2:32:37.720)

I grew up in Israel at a time of everything was geared towards patriotism and the state.

Nationalism Debate (2:32:48.120)

I would say I was trained to, when I saw a grenade, to jump on it because that was every

Nationalism Debate (2:32:54.960)

song and every story and everything was about the state is everything and you should sacrifice.

Nationalism Debate (2:33:03.320)

When the flag went up, I got teary eyed.

Nationalism Debate (2:33:06.840)

I bought into it completely and at some point, I rejected that and I changed and I changed

Nationalism Debate (2:33:13.400)

my alliance and I rejected my love of Israel.

Nationalism Debate (2:33:16.320)

It's not that I don't love it anymore, but it's certainly not my top love and I'm certainly

Nationalism Debate (2:33:20.280)

not looking for the grenade to jump on and I'm not volunteering to go fight the war there.

Lex Fridman (2:33:25.360)

I fell in love from a distance with the idea of America.

Nationalism Debate (2:33:30.240)

I love the idea of America more than I love America.

Lex Fridman (2:33:33.840)

I could see myself falling out of love with America given where it's heading.

Nationalism Debate (2:33:38.120)

It's not automatic.

Nationalism Debate (2:33:39.800)

It's conditioned on what it is that it represents and what value it represents for me.

Nationalism Debate (2:33:47.920)

I think that's always the case with love.

Lex Fridman (2:33:51.040)

It's not true that children have to love their parents.

Nationalism Debate (2:33:55.760)

That's the ideal and hopefully most children love their parents, but some children fall

Lex Fridman (2:34:00.520)

out of love with their parents because their parents don't deserve their love.

Nationalism Debate (2:34:04.960)

The same with the other way around.

Lex Fridman (2:34:07.320)

I think parents are capable of not loving their children.

Nationalism Debate (2:34:11.140)

Love is a conditional thing.

Lex Fridman (2:34:12.720)

It's not automatic.

Nationalism Debate (2:34:13.720)

Let me point out an agreement.

Lex Fridman (2:34:14.720)

Let me say something about an agreement.

Nationalism Debate (2:34:15.720)

You're trying to bribe me with an agreement.

Nationalism Debate (2:34:18.720)

To soften the blow, mostly I like to talk to Yaron about his ideas and I don't want

Nationalism Debate (2:34:25.280)

to talk about Ayn Rand, but I want to say something.

Lex Fridman (2:34:28.760)

Just one thing about Ayn Rand.

Nationalism Debate (2:34:32.240)

All my kids read Ayn Rand's books.

Lex Fridman (2:34:34.800)

My father read The Fountainhead.

Nationalism Debate (2:34:39.280)

We know Ayn Rand.

Lex Fridman (2:34:42.920)

I'll tell you it is incredibly difficult reading for me.

Nationalism Debate (2:34:47.520)

It's painful.

Lex Fridman (2:34:48.520)

It's painful to read.

Lex Fridman (2:34:49.860)

Why is it painful?

Nationalism Debate (2:34:51.600)

Not because I disagree with the view of trading and business and the creativity of it and

Nationalism Debate (2:35:00.160)

Reardon Metal.

Nationalism Debate (2:35:01.840)

That stuff moves me and I do admire it, but to read a book that's a thousand pages long

Nationalism Debate (2:35:12.480)

in which nobody is having children, nobody is having a stable marriage, no one is running

Lex Fridman (2:35:21.040)

an admirable government that's fighting for a just cause, anywhere, anywhere.

Nationalism Debate (2:35:29.280)

I feel like it's focusing on one aspect of what it is to be human and to flourish and

Nationalism Debate (2:35:36.960)

that everything else is just erased and thrown out as though it's just not part of reality

Lex Fridman (2:35:42.000)

and I'm scared.

Lex Fridman (2:35:43.000)

I'm scared of what happens to teenagers who hormonally are in any case.

Nationalism Debate (2:35:48.720)

They're programmed to pull away from their parents and experiment with things.

Nationalism Debate (2:35:55.720)

They're biologically programmed to do that and you give them a book which says, look,

Nationalism Debate (2:36:03.160)

you don't have to have a family.

Lex Fridman (2:36:04.320)

You don't have to raise children.

Nationalism Debate (2:36:05.440)

You don't have to have a country.

Lex Fridman (2:36:06.580)

You don't have to fight for anything.

Nationalism Debate (2:36:08.300)

All you have to do is assert yourself and trade.

Lex Fridman (2:36:13.080)

I think it's destructive because it's not realistic.

Nationalism Debate (2:36:16.320)

It's just not real.

Lex Fridman (2:36:17.320)

But I got none of that from Ayn Rand.

Nationalism Debate (2:36:19.680)

I got none of that from Ayn Rand.

Lex Fridman (2:36:23.120)

The books were not about a family.

Nationalism Debate (2:36:24.980)

You could write a book in Ayn Rand style where people have a family, but the goal, the purpose,

Lex Fridman (2:36:32.800)

it's a novel.

Nationalism Debate (2:36:33.800)

It's not.

Lex Fridman (2:36:34.800)

It's a novel which is delimited with a particular story.

Nationalism Debate (2:36:37.560)

There's one family in Gulch Gulch and there's a little passage about raising children and

Nationalism Debate (2:36:41.840)

the value of that because it's not core to what she is writing about, but that doesn't

Nationalism Debate (2:36:47.880)

exclude it.

Nationalism Debate (2:36:49.240)

When I read Ayn Rand, I read Atlas Shrugged when I was 16, and I read it over the years

Nationalism Debate (2:36:53.600)

several times more.

Lex Fridman (2:36:54.600)

It never occurred to me, oh, Ayn Rand's anti family, I shouldn't have a family.

Nationalism Debate (2:36:59.320)

That thought never came into my mind.

Lex Fridman (2:37:01.160)

I always wanted to have children.

Nationalism Debate (2:37:02.640)

I continue to want to have children.

Lex Fridman (2:37:04.760)

I thought of it a little differently.

Nationalism Debate (2:37:06.760)

I thought of how I would find a partner a little bit differently.

Nationalism Debate (2:37:09.360)

I thought about what I would look for in a partner differently, but not that I wouldn't

Nationalism Debate (2:37:14.600)

want to get married.

Lex Fridman (2:37:15.720)

One question I have is what effect it has on society, so outside of you.

Lex Fridman (2:37:21.000)

So for example, you mentioned love should be conditional.

Lex Fridman (2:37:23.160)

I think...

Nationalism Debate (2:37:24.160)

Well, it is.

Lex Fridman (2:37:25.160)

Whether you like it or not, it is.

Nationalism Debate (2:37:26.160)

You might pretend that it isn't, but it's always conditional.

Lex Fridman (2:37:27.880)

Well, let me try to say something and see if it makes any sense.

Lex Fridman (2:37:31.500)

So could there be things that are true, like love is conditional, is always conditional,

Lex Fridman (2:37:38.440)

but if you say it often, it has a negative effect on society.

Lex Fridman (2:37:43.220)

So for example, I mean, so maybe I'm just a romantic, but good luck saying love is conditional

Lex Fridman (2:37:50.000)

to a romantic partner.

Nationalism Debate (2:37:52.160)

I mean, you could, I would argue, en masse, that would deteriorate the quality of relationships.

Nationalism Debate (2:38:01.220)

If you remind the partner of that truth that is universal, like you have to, I mean, okay,

Nationalism Debate (2:38:10.780)

maybe it's just me.

Lex Fridman (2:38:11.780)

I'll just speak to myself.

Nationalism Debate (2:38:12.780)

It's like there is a certain romantic notion of unconditional love.

Lex Fridman (2:38:16.020)

It's part of why you have so many destructive marriages.

Nationalism Debate (2:38:20.360)

It's part of why...

Lex Fridman (2:38:21.360)

So you would say that's a problem.

Nationalism Debate (2:38:22.360)

Yes, it's a real problem because, yes, there is a, you talked about honoring your spouse

Lex Fridman (2:38:29.480)

and there's a real truth there and I respect that.

Nationalism Debate (2:38:33.020)

Yes, you have to do certain things.

Nationalism Debate (2:38:35.560)

Love is not, you marry somebody and there's a real attitude out there in the culture.

Nationalism Debate (2:38:39.260)

You marry somebody and okay, now we're going to, we're just going to cruise.

Lex Fridman (2:38:42.540)

It's just...

Nationalism Debate (2:38:43.540)

Right.

Lex Fridman (2:38:44.540)

Hollywood.

Nationalism Debate (2:38:45.540)

That's the Hollywood marriage.

Lex Fridman (2:38:46.540)

You know, marriage is work.

Nationalism Debate (2:38:47.740)

Like all values, it's work.

Lex Fridman (2:38:49.900)

It's something you have to reignite every day.

Nationalism Debate (2:38:51.800)

You have to, the challenges, the real disagreements, the things you fight about, you disagree

Nationalism Debate (2:38:59.460)

about and there's real, if it's a value, you work it out, you struggle through it.

Lex Fridman (2:39:07.220)

And sometimes you struggle through it and you come to a conclusion, no, this is not

Nationalism Debate (2:39:10.780)

going to work and you dissolve a marriage and I'm all for dissolving after really, really

Nationalism Debate (2:39:16.220)

fighting for it because if it's an important value and if you fell in love with this person

Lex Fridman (2:39:20.460)

for a reason, then that's something worth fighting for.

Nationalism Debate (2:39:23.460)

I have a feeling that Hollywood goes the other way, but it's not this cruising along and

Lex Fridman (2:39:27.700)

everything is easy, no human relationship is like that.

Nationalism Debate (2:39:30.700)

Not friendship, not love, not raising children, not being a child.

Nationalism Debate (2:39:36.620)

You know, they require work and they require thinking and they require creating the conditions

Nationalism Debate (2:39:43.100)

to thrive and that's the sense in which it's conditional.

Nationalism Debate (2:39:46.540)

You have to work at it and it's very easy not to do the work and it's very easy to drift

Nationalism Debate (2:39:55.560)

away and I think most people don't do the work, most people take it and generally in

Lex Fridman (2:39:59.180)

life.

Nationalism Debate (2:40:00.180)

The only place people seem to work is at work and then they take the rest of their life

Nationalism Debate (2:40:05.140)

as I'm going to cruise and yet every aspect of your life, the art you choose, the friends

Nationalism Debate (2:40:10.780)

you choose, the lovers you choose, all require real thinking and real work to be successful

Lex Fridman (2:40:17.900)

at them.

Nationalism Debate (2:40:18.900)

None of them are just there because there is no such thing as just the intrinsic.

Lex Fridman (2:40:23.940)

Right, I agree with all of that.

Nationalism Debate (2:40:25.820)

I was going to say before that the rabbis have this sort of shocking expression, tzargidul

Lex Fridman (2:40:32.940)

banim, the pain of raising children.

Lex Fridman (2:40:38.780)

And I find when I speak to audiences about relationships, I find that in general and

Nationalism Debate (2:40:45.780)

this is cross cultural, it's different countries, different religious backgrounds, that in general

Nationalism Debate (2:40:52.220)

young people do not know that the only way to make a marriage work is through a lot of

Lex Fridman (2:40:58.900)

pain and overcoming.

Nationalism Debate (2:41:00.700)

They don't know that raising children involves a great deal of pain.

Nationalism Debate (2:41:05.100)

They don't know that caring for and helping your parents approach the end of their lives

Nationalism Debate (2:41:11.360)

causes a great deal of pain and everything is kind of this sketchy, very sketchy, glimpsy

Nationalism Debate (2:41:17.980)

kind of, and I mentioned Hollywood just because everything is made to look easy except there's

Nationalism Debate (2:41:24.580)

kind of a funny breakdown of something but then maybe there's a divorce, they shoot

Lex Fridman (2:41:29.340)

one another so then they should get divorced.

Lex Fridman (2:41:32.500)

But the reality of how hard it is to do and how heroic it is to do it and then overcome

Lex Fridman (2:41:42.860)

and then actually in the end achieve something, create something that was really, it's almost

Nationalism Debate (2:41:51.460)

not discussed and so to me it's just not surprising that if there's no parallel to

Nationalism Debate (2:41:58.900)

Ayn Rand about the heroic saving of a marriage that was on the rocks, how does it actually

Lex Fridman (2:42:05.060)

happen?

Lex Fridman (2:42:06.060)

So…

Lex Fridman (2:42:07.060)

So it's a good point you're making but something just came to me that I've never

Lex Fridman (2:42:12.020)

thought of before so that's always good.

Nationalism Debate (2:42:14.060)

This is where conversation is good.

Nationalism Debate (2:42:16.540)

Look, take the Talmud and I can't remember how many years after the Bible the Talmud

Nationalism Debate (2:42:22.540)

is written, over how long of a period it's written, how many people participating in

Lex Fridman (2:42:27.300)

writing it.

Nationalism Debate (2:42:28.300)

Ayn Rand was one individual.

Nationalism Debate (2:42:30.540)

She wrote a series of books on philosophy which I think are true but they're the beginning.

Nationalism Debate (2:42:36.580)

There is a lot of work to be done to apply this.

Lex Fridman (2:42:40.020)

So hopefully there will be one of her students who writes a book on relationships and there'll

Nationalism Debate (2:42:45.820)

be somebody who writes a book on developing a political theory in greater detail and develop

Lex Fridman (2:42:51.500)

her ethics.

Nationalism Debate (2:42:52.500)

She's got a few writings on ethics and it's in the novels but there's a lot of work

Lex Fridman (2:42:57.660)

to be done, fleshing it out, what does it mean, how do you…

Lex Fridman (2:43:00.900)

So to say Ayn Rand didn't do everything is a truism.

Lex Fridman (2:43:04.940)

She didn't do everything.

Lex Fridman (2:43:05.940)

Okay, so what?

Lex Fridman (2:43:07.260)

But she laid this amazing philosophical foundation that allows us to take those principles and

Nationalism Debate (2:43:13.020)

to apply them to all these realms of human life and she does it on a scope that few philosophers

Nationalism Debate (2:43:18.580)

in human history have done because she goes from metaphysics all the way to aesthetics,

Nationalism Debate (2:43:22.780)

hitting the key, and she's an original thinker on each one of those things.

Lex Fridman (2:43:26.860)

And she might be right, she might be wrong on certain aspects of it, always happy to

Nationalism Debate (2:43:31.600)

have a debate about where she's wrong or where she's not, but there's a lot of

Lex Fridman (2:43:35.820)

work to be done, right?

Nationalism Debate (2:43:37.500)

It's not like – and if there were objectivists out there who present it as, okay, human knowledge

Lex Fridman (2:43:42.620)

is over because Ayn Rand wrote these books, that's absurd, right?

Nationalism Debate (2:43:45.740)

This huge amount of work to be done in applying these particular ideas just like there was

Nationalism Debate (2:43:50.700)

for any philosophy, take these ideas and now apply them to all these realms in human experience

Nationalism Debate (2:43:56.460)

that flesh it out and make it – and one of the reasons I don't think objectivism

Nationalism Debate (2:44:00.420)

is taken off is because there's all this work still to be done that allows it to be

Nationalism Debate (2:44:05.180)

relatable to people in every aspect of them.

Lex Fridman (2:44:08.380)

Let me ask a hard question here.

Nationalism Debate (2:44:10.260)

We've got –

Lex Fridman (2:44:11.260)

Can I say what I agreed with you, Omar?

Nationalism Debate (2:44:12.940)

Sure, sure.

Lex Fridman (2:44:13.940)

This is good.

Nationalism Debate (2:44:14.940)

This will be a good transition.

Lex Fridman (2:44:15.940)

Here, this is the clip.

Nationalism Debate (2:44:17.620)

This is the clip.

Lex Fridman (2:44:19.460)

I agree about nations.

Lex Fridman (2:44:20.860)

So I don't like the term nationalism because I fear what happens when you put an ism at

Lex Fridman (2:44:25.980)

the end of any word.

Nationalism Debate (2:44:27.620)

Anything, yes.

Lex Fridman (2:44:28.740)

But the nation is a good thing.

Lex Fridman (2:44:32.420)

And having a diversity of nations in a sense is a good thing.

Lex Fridman (2:44:35.620)

And in this sense, I don't think one can come up – so look, I said and I hold that

Nationalism Debate (2:44:42.540)

the ideal nation is a nation that protects individual rights.

Lex Fridman (2:44:46.740)

How do you do that?

Lex Fridman (2:44:48.380)

What are the details?

Lex Fridman (2:44:49.420)

How do we define property rights exactly in an internet world?

Nationalism Debate (2:44:52.380)

There's going to be disagreement, rational, reasonable disagreement.

Nationalism Debate (2:44:56.140)

They're going to be – in my future, in the 300 years from now, in my ideas of one

Nationalism Debate (2:45:02.460)

finally, right, there will be multiple nations trying to apply the principle of applying

Lex Fridman (2:45:06.500)

individual rights, and they'll do it differently.

Nationalism Debate (2:45:09.620)

One of the benefits of federalism is that while you have a national government, there

Nationalism Debate (2:45:13.820)

are certain issues that you relegate to states, and they can try different things and learn

Nationalism Debate (2:45:19.100)

because there is a huge value in empirical knowledge comes there.

Lex Fridman (2:45:23.460)

You can't just deduce it all and figure it all out.

Nationalism Debate (2:45:26.120)

You have to experiment.

Lex Fridman (2:45:27.560)

So I do – I hate the idea of a one world government because experimentation is gone,

Lex Fridman (2:45:34.560)

and if you make a mistake, everybody suffers.

Nationalism Debate (2:45:37.300)

I like the idea, and then I like the idea of people being able to choose where they

Nationalism Debate (2:45:42.140)

live.

Lex Fridman (2:45:43.140)

But this notion of experimentation I think is crucial, but you need a principle.

Lex Fridman (2:45:50.380)

So I don't like the idea of nations if all the nations are going to be bad, right?

Lex Fridman (2:45:54.940)

If all the nations are going to be horrible, then I don't like it.

Lex Fridman (2:45:58.140)

What I like is a variety of nations all practicing basically good ideas, and then we try to

Nationalism Debate (2:46:04.620)

figure out, okay, what works better than other things, and what is sustainable and what is

Nationalism Debate (2:46:09.020)

not.

Nationalism Debate (2:46:10.020)

Given how many difficult aspects of history and society we talked about, let me ask a

Nationalism Debate (2:46:15.660)

hard question of both of you.

Lex Fridman (2:46:17.660)

I'm going to breeze up until now.

Lex Fridman (2:46:22.020)

What gives you hope about the future?

Lex Fridman (2:46:25.420)

So we've been describing reasons to maybe not have hope.

Lex Fridman (2:46:31.700)

What gives you hope?

Nationalism Debate (2:46:33.100)

When you look at the world, what gives you hope that in 200 years, in 300 years, in 500

Nationalism Debate (2:46:39.060)

years, like the founders look into the future, that human civilization will be all right,

Lex Fridman (2:46:45.820)

and more than that, it will flourish?

Nationalism Debate (2:46:47.860)

Two things for me.

Lex Fridman (2:46:49.700)

One is history.

Lex Fridman (2:46:50.900)

So in the very long run, good ideas win out.

Nationalism Debate (2:46:54.740)

I think in the very long run, you can go through a dark ages, but you come out of a dark ages.

Nationalism Debate (2:47:03.140)

The good and the just does win in the end, even if it is bloody and difficult and hard

Lex Fridman (2:47:08.860)

to get there.

Lex Fridman (2:47:10.000)

So while I am quite pessimistic, unfortunately, about the short run, I'm ultimately optimistic

Lex Fridman (2:47:14.800)

that in the long run, good ideas win and they're justified.

Lex Fridman (2:47:19.580)

And I think the fundamental behind that is I think is that I'm fundamentally positive

Lex Fridman (2:47:26.740)

about human nature.

Nationalism Debate (2:47:27.980)

I think human beings can think, they're capable of reasoning, they're capable of figuring

Lex Fridman (2:47:35.380)

out the truth, they're capable of learning from experience.

Nationalism Debate (2:47:38.620)

They don't always do it.

Lex Fridman (2:47:40.140)

It's an achievement to do it, but over time, they do.

Nationalism Debate (2:47:45.580)

If you create the right circumstances, they will, and when things get bad enough, they

Lex Fridman (2:47:50.220)

look for a way out.

Nationalism Debate (2:47:52.060)

They look maybe at history, if the history is available to them, maybe at just learning

Nationalism Debate (2:47:57.940)

from what's around them to find better ways of doing things, and that reinforces itself.

Lex Fridman (2:48:05.020)

But human beings are an amazing creature.

Nationalism Debate (2:48:10.180)

We're just amazing in our capacity to be creative, in our capacity to think, in our capacity

Nationalism Debate (2:48:14.660)

to love, in our capacity to change our environment to fit our needs and to fit our requirements

Lex Fridman (2:48:19.020)

for survival and to learn and to grow and to progress.

Lex Fridman (2:48:26.700)

So again, long term, I think all that wins out.

Nationalism Debate (2:48:29.540)

Short term, in any point in history, short term, right now, it doesn't look too good.

Lex Fridman (2:48:36.700)

What about you, Yaron?

Nationalism Debate (2:48:48.860)

The source for Yaron's hope is the book of Exodus, which is the first place in human

Nationalism Debate (2:48:58.900)

history where we are presented with the possibility that an enslaved people that's being persecuted

Lex Fridman (2:49:07.220)

and murdered and living under the worst possible regime can free itself and have a shot at

Nationalism Debate (2:49:14.500)

a life of independence and worth, and it's another inherited Jewish idea in the tradition.

Lex Fridman (2:49:24.220)

The way that we express this is by saying that there is a God who judges.

Nationalism Debate (2:49:32.140)

The Israelis in Egypt were enslaved for hundreds of years, according to the Exodus story, hundreds

Lex Fridman (2:49:38.460)

of years before God wakes up and hears them.

Lex Fridman (2:49:42.420)

And he doesn't do anything until Moses kills the oppressor and goes out into the desert.

Lex Fridman (2:49:51.340)

So I think it's pretty realistic that there is a God that God judges and acts, but probably

Nationalism Debate (2:49:59.820)

often not for a very, very long time and not until there's a human being who gets up and

Lex Fridman (2:50:05.340)

says enough.

Nationalism Debate (2:50:06.780)

I know that today people don't want to read the Bible.

Lex Fridman (2:50:09.320)

They don't like reading the Bible.

Lex Fridman (2:50:11.240)

But I always hear in my ear this cry of the prophet Jeremiah who saw his nation destroyed

Lex Fridman (2:50:21.740)

and his people exiled.

Lex Fridman (2:50:24.580)

And he says, in God's name, he says, he's not my word like fire, like the hammer that

Lex Fridman (2:50:33.220)

shatters rock, a petition, a petzela.

Nationalism Debate (2:50:38.140)

My word is like fire, like the hammer that shatters rock.

Lex Fridman (2:50:41.900)

And this is actually the traditional way of saying something like what Yaron is saying

Nationalism Debate (2:50:46.060)

that it may take a long, long time, but there is a truth and it has its own strength and

Lex Fridman (2:50:53.100)

it will, in the end, shatter the things that are opposing it.

Nationalism Debate (2:50:59.600)

That's our traditional hope.

Lex Fridman (2:51:01.380)

We grow up like that.

Lex Fridman (2:51:05.980)

So I do have hope.

Lex Fridman (2:51:07.780)

I see the trends.

Nationalism Debate (2:51:08.780)

The trends are terrible right now and it's frightening and it's hard, but we are terrible

Lex Fridman (2:51:16.220)

at seeing the future.

Lex Fridman (2:51:17.460)

And it is very possible that an unexpected turn of events is going to appear maybe soon,

Lex Fridman (2:51:25.300)

maybe much later, and the possibility of a redemption is there.

Nationalism Debate (2:51:33.680)

Let me ask, given that long arc of history, given that you do study the Bible, what is

Lex Fridman (2:51:40.900)

the meaning of this whole thing?

Lex Fridman (2:51:42.780)

What's the meaning of life?

Lex Fridman (2:51:44.180)

Wow, that's beautiful.

Nationalism Debate (2:51:46.300)

I think that the meaning of life is in part what Yaron touches on when he says that productive

Lex Fridman (2:51:59.060)

work, labor, creativity is at the heart of what it is to be human.

Nationalism Debate (2:52:03.380)

I just think that there are some more arenas and maybe we even agree on a lot of them.

Nationalism Debate (2:52:12.540)

To be human is to inherit a world which is imperfect, terribly imperfect, imperfect in

Nationalism Debate (2:52:20.700)

many ways.

Lex Fridman (2:52:23.860)

And God created it that way.

Nationalism Debate (2:52:26.960)

He created a world which is terribly lacking and he created us with the ability to stand

Lex Fridman (2:52:34.220)

up and to say, I can change the direction of this.

Nationalism Debate (2:52:38.620)

I can do something to change the direction of this.

Nationalism Debate (2:52:41.020)

I can take the time and the abilities that are given to me to be a partner with God in

Nationalism Debate (2:52:46.100)

creating the world.

Lex Fridman (2:52:47.500)

It's not going to stay the way it was before me.

Nationalism Debate (2:52:50.660)

It'll be something different, maybe a little bit, maybe a lot.

Lex Fridman (2:52:56.560)

But that is the heart.

Nationalism Debate (2:52:59.340)

That is the key.

Nationalism Debate (2:53:00.340)

That is the meaningful life is to be a partner with God in creating the world so that it

Nationalism Debate (2:53:06.140)

is moving that much more in the right direction rather than the way we found it.

Lex Fridman (2:53:12.180)

So nudge, even if a little bit, the direction of the world.

Nationalism Debate (2:53:16.540)

Well, Yaron, you've actually been talking in your program about life quite a bit.

Lex Fridman (2:53:24.860)

So let me ask the same question and I never tire you of asking this question.

Lex Fridman (2:53:32.620)

What do you think is the meaning of this whole thing?

Nationalism Debate (2:53:34.900)

Well, I mean, I don't believe in God, so God doesn't play a role in my view of the meaning

Nationalism Debate (2:53:41.260)

of life.

Lex Fridman (2:53:42.260)

I think the meaning of life is to live.

Nationalism Debate (2:53:44.780)

I like to say to live with a capital L. It's to embrace it and I agree with you on in a

Nationalism Debate (2:53:52.100)

sense we're born into a world and as human beings, one of the things that makes us very

Nationalism Debate (2:53:57.580)

different than other animals is our capacity to change that world.

Lex Fridman (2:54:01.340)

We can actually go out there and change the world around us.

Nationalism Debate (2:54:04.140)

We can change it materially through production and through, we can change it spiritually

Lex Fridman (2:54:09.660)

through changing the ideas of people.

Nationalism Debate (2:54:12.300)

We can change the direction to which humanity works.

Lex Fridman (2:54:17.260)

We can create a little universe.

Nationalism Debate (2:54:20.060)

I think part of the joy of creating a family is to create a little universe.

Lex Fridman (2:54:23.780)

We're creating a little world around us that's part of the joy.

Lex Fridman (2:54:29.020)

And there is joy in family, let's not make it all about difficulty and hard work.

Lex Fridman (2:54:32.820)

I agree.

Nationalism Debate (2:54:33.820)

I agree.

Nationalism Debate (2:54:34.820)

Part of the idea of getting married is to create a little world in which you and your

Nationalism Debate (2:54:39.580)

spouse are creating something that didn't exist before and building something, building

Lex Fridman (2:54:45.180)

a universe.

Lex Fridman (2:54:46.180)

But it's really to live.

Lex Fridman (2:54:47.180)

And one of the things that I see and it saddens me is wasted lives, is people who just cruise

Nationalism Debate (2:54:55.140)

through life.

Nationalism Debate (2:54:56.140)

They get born in a particular place, they never challenge it, they never question.

Nationalism Debate (2:55:01.860)

They just, you know, they live, die and nothing really happened.

Lex Fridman (2:55:05.860)

Nothing really changed.

Nationalism Debate (2:55:06.860)

They didn't produce, they didn't make anything of their life.

Lex Fridman (2:55:09.060)

And produce here, again, in the largest sense.

Lex Fridman (2:55:12.700)

So to me it's, in every aspect of life, as you know because you've listened to my show,

Lex Fridman (2:55:17.100)

I love art, I love aesthetics, I love the experience of great art.

Nationalism Debate (2:55:22.020)

I love relationships, I love producing, I like business, I like that aspect of it.

Lex Fridman (2:55:31.060)

And I think people are shallow in so many parts of their lives, which saddens me.

Nationalism Debate (2:55:38.340)

If you had eight billion people on this planet, even if it never grew, even if we just stayed

Lex Fridman (2:55:42.940)

at eight billion, but the eight billion all lived fully, wow.

Nationalism Debate (2:55:47.580)

I mean, what an amazing place this would be, what an amazing experience we would have.

Lex Fridman (2:55:52.620)

So to me that is, the meaning is just make the most that you have a short period of time

Nationalism Debate (2:55:57.140)

on earth.

Lex Fridman (2:55:58.980)

And that's it.

Nationalism Debate (2:55:59.980)

This is it.

Lex Fridman (2:56:00.980)

And live it, experience it fully and challenge yourself and push yourself.

Lex Fridman (2:56:05.060)

And let me just say something about optimism.

Nationalism Debate (2:56:08.260)

One source of hope for me in the world in which we live right now is that there are

Nationalism Debate (2:56:13.020)

people who do that, at least in certain realms of their lives.

Lex Fridman (2:56:18.020)

And I'm inspired, and I know a lot of people don't like me for this, but I'm inspired for

Nationalism Debate (2:56:23.220)

example by Silicon Valley, in spite of all the political disagreements I have with them

Lex Fridman (2:56:26.820)

and all of that.

Nationalism Debate (2:56:27.820)

I'm inspired by people inventing new technologies and building, I'm inspired by the people you

Nationalism Debate (2:56:33.060)

talk to about artificial intelligence and about new ideas and about pushing the boundaries

Nationalism Debate (2:56:38.020)

of science.

Nationalism Debate (2:56:39.260)

Those things are exciting and it's terrific to see a world that I think generally is in

Nationalism Debate (2:56:43.460)

decline.

Nationalism Debate (2:56:44.460)

Yet there are these pockets in which people are still creating new ventures and new ideas

Lex Fridman (2:56:50.260)

and new things.

Nationalism Debate (2:56:52.420)

That inspires me and it gives me hope that that is not dead, that in spite of the decay

Nationalism Debate (2:56:56.620)

that's in our culture, there's still pockets where that spirit of being human is still

Lex Fridman (2:57:02.180)

alive and well.

Nationalism Debate (2:57:03.180)

Yeah, they inspire me as well.

Nationalism Debate (2:57:05.220)

Yeah, and they truly live with a capital L, and maybe I can do a star, maybe you can also

Nationalism Debate (2:57:12.260)

put a little bit of love with a capital L out there as well.

Lex Fridman (2:57:17.140)

Yaron, you knew I would end it that way, wouldn't you?

Nationalism Debate (2:57:21.220)

Yaron, thank you so much, this is a huge honor.

Nationalism Debate (2:57:23.780)

I really enjoyed the debate yesterday, I really enjoyed the conversation today that you spent

Nationalism Debate (2:57:28.260)

your valuable time with me, it just means a lot.

Lex Fridman (2:57:30.580)

Thank you so much, this was amazing.

Nationalism Debate (2:57:33.420)

Thanks for listening to this conversation with Yaron Brook and Yaron Hosoni.

Lex Fridman (2:57:37.500)

To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description.

Lex Fridman (2:57:42.180)

And now, let me leave you with some words from Edmund Burke.

Lex Fridman (2:57:46.420)

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Nationalism Debate (2:57:53.220)

Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.

Nationalism Debate (30:01.680)

The first step towards saying, look, we're one nation, we're undergoing industrialization,

Nationalism Debate (30:08.960)

that industrialization is important and positive, but it's also doing a lot of damage to a lot

Lex Fridman (30:15.120)

of people.

Lex Fridman (30:16.120)

And in particular, it's doing damage not just to individuals and families, but it's doing

Nationalism Debate (30:20.640)

damage to the social fabric, the capacity of Britain or German to remain cohesive societies

Nationalism Debate (30:26.880)

is being harmed.

Lex Fridman (30:28.560)

And so it's these two conservative statesmen, Disraeli and Bismarck, who actually take the

Nationalism Debate (30:34.080)

first steps in order to legislate for what today we would consider to be minimal social

Lex Fridman (30:40.800)

programs, pensions and disability insurance and those kinds of things.

Lex Fridman (30:45.040)

So for sure, conservatives do look at industrialization as a rapid change and they say, we do have

Lex Fridman (30:53.320)

to care about the nation as a whole and we have to care about it as a unit.

Lex Fridman (30:57.480)

And I assume that your own will say, look, that's the first step towards the catastrophe

Lex Fridman (31:02.980)

of communism.

Lex Fridman (31:04.560)

But before your own drives that nail into the coffin, let me try to make a distinction

Nationalism Debate (31:11.320)

because when you read Marx, you're reading an intellectual descendant of Descartes.

Nationalism Debate (31:17.320)

You're reading somebody who says, look, every society consists of oppressors and oppressed.

Lex Fridman (31:27.120)

And that's an improvement in some ways over liberal thinking because at least he's seeing

Nationalism Debate (31:31.720)

groups as a real social phenomenon.

Lex Fridman (31:35.200)

But he says, every society has an oppressor class and oppressed class.

Nationalism Debate (31:38.920)

They're different classes, they're different groups, and whenever one is stronger, it exploits

Lex Fridman (31:42.680)

the ones that are weaker.

Nationalism Debate (31:45.440)

That is the foundation of a revolutionary political theory.

Lex Fridman (31:50.920)

Why?

Nationalism Debate (31:51.920)

Because the moment that you say that the only relationship between the stronger and the

Lex Fridman (31:56.120)

weaker is exploitation.

Nationalism Debate (31:58.680)

The moment that you say that, then you're pushed into the position and Marx and Engels

Lex Fridman (32:02.840)

say this explicitly, you're pushed into the position.

Lex Fridman (32:04.880)

We're saying, when will the exploitation end?

Lex Fridman (32:07.940)

Never until there's a revolution.

Lex Fridman (32:09.300)

What happens when there's a revolution?

Lex Fridman (32:10.640)

You eliminate the oppressor class.

Nationalism Debate (32:12.920)

It's annihilationist.

Nationalism Debate (32:13.920)

I mean, you can immediately when you read it, see why it's different from Descartes

Nationalism Debate (32:20.400)

or Bismarck because they're trying to keep everybody somehow at peace with one another.

Lex Fridman (32:25.300)

And Marx is saying, there is no peace.

Nationalism Debate (32:27.800)

That oppressor class has to be annihilated.

Lex Fridman (32:30.440)

And then they go ahead and do it, and they kill 100 million people.

Lex Fridman (32:34.400)

So I do think that despite the fact your question is good and right, there are certain similarities

Lex Fridman (32:40.320)

and concern, but still I think you can tell the difference.

Nationalism Debate (32:43.320)

That extra step of revolution to you is where the problem comes.

Lex Fridman (32:48.040)

That extra step of let's kill all the oppressors, that's the problem.

Lex Fridman (32:52.880)

And then to you, the whole step one is the problem.

Lex Fridman (32:56.520)

Well, it's all a problem.

Nationalism Debate (32:58.120)

First I don't view communism as something that radical in a sense that I think it comes

Lex Fridman (33:05.440)

from a tradition of collectivism.

Nationalism Debate (33:07.960)

I think it comes from a tradition of looking at groups and measuring things in terms of

Lex Fridman (33:12.160)

groups.

Nationalism Debate (33:13.220)

It comes from tradition where you expect some people to be sacrificed for the greater good

Lex Fridman (33:17.200)

of the whole.

Nationalism Debate (33:19.400)

I think it comes from a tradition where mysticism or revelation as the source of truth is accepted.

Lex Fridman (33:28.760)

I view Marx as in some sense very Christian.

Nationalism Debate (33:31.800)

I don't think he's this radical rejecting, I think he's just reformatting Christianity

Lex Fridman (33:38.680)

in a sense.

Nationalism Debate (33:39.680)

In a sense he's replacing God with the proletarian.

Nationalism Debate (33:43.620)

Knowledge you have to get knowledge from somewhere, so you need the dictatorship of the proletarian,

Nationalism Debate (33:48.400)

you need somebody, the Stalin, the Lenin who somehow communes with the spirit, the spirit

Lex Fridman (33:53.880)

of the proletarian.

Nationalism Debate (33:54.880)

There's no rationality, not rationalism, there's no rationality in Marx.

Nationalism Debate (33:59.760)

There is a lot of mysticism and there is a lot of hand waving and there's a lot of sacrifice

Lex Fridman (34:04.880)

and a lot of original sin in the way he views humanity.

Lex Fridman (34:08.160)

So I view Marx as one more collectivist in a whole string of collectivists.

Lex Fridman (34:14.960)

And I think the Bismarckian response, I know less about Disraeli so I'll focus on Bismarck,

Lex Fridman (34:23.760)

and Bismarck is really responding to political pressures from the left and he's responding

Nationalism Debate (34:29.480)

to the rise of communism, socialism, but what Bismarck is doing, he's putting something

Nationalism Debate (34:36.520)

alternative, he's presenting an alternative to the proletarian as the standard by which

Nationalism Debate (34:42.280)

we should measure the good.

Lex Fridman (34:45.800)

And what he's replacing it as the state, he's replacing the proletarian with the state,

Lex Fridman (34:50.120)

and that has exactly the same problems.

Nationalism Debate (34:52.380)

That is first it requires sacrificing some to others, which is what the welfare state

Nationalism Debate (34:56.120)

basically legitimizes.

Nationalism Debate (34:59.240)

It places the state above all, so the state now becomes I think the biggest evil of Bismarck

Lex Fridman (35:03.280)

and I definitely view him as a negative force in history, is public education.

Nationalism Debate (35:08.520)

I mean the Germans really dig in on public education, really develop it, and really the

Nationalism Debate (35:14.440)

American model of public education is copying the German, the Prussian Bismarckian public

Lex Fridman (35:20.940)

education.

Lex Fridman (35:21.940)

Can you speak to that real quick, why the public education is such a root of moral evil

Lex Fridman (35:27.080)

for you?

Nationalism Debate (35:28.080)

Well because it now says that there's one standard and that standard is determined by

Nationalism Debate (35:33.520)

government, by a bureaucracy, by whatever the government deems is in the national interest,

Lex Fridman (35:39.760)

and Bismarck is very explicit about this.

Nationalism Debate (35:41.200)

He's training the workers of the future, they need to catch up with England and other places

Lex Fridman (35:47.440)

and they need to train the workers and he's going to train some people to be the managerial

Nationalism Debate (35:52.000)

classes, he's going to train other people to be – and he decides, right, the government,

Nationalism Debate (35:55.440)

the bureaucracy is going to decide who's who and where they go.

Nationalism Debate (35:58.400)

There's no individual choice, there's no individual showing an ability to break out of what the

Nationalism Debate (36:03.920)

government has decided is their little box, there's very little freedom, there's very

Nationalism Debate (36:08.520)

little – you know, ultimately there's very little competition, there's very little

Nationalism Debate (36:12.760)

innovation, and this is the problem we have today in American education, which we can

Lex Fridman (36:16.240)

get to, is there's no competition and no innovation.

Nationalism Debate (36:18.760)

We have one standard, fit all, and then we have conflicts about what should be taught,

Lex Fridman (36:23.320)

and the conflicts now are not pedagogical, they're not about what works and what doesn't.

Nationalism Debate (36:28.680)

Nobody cares about that.

Nationalism Debate (36:29.680)

It's about political agendas, right, it's about what my group wants to be taught and

Lex Fridman (36:33.880)

what that group wants to be taught, rather than actually discovering how do we get kids

Lex Fridman (36:38.400)

to read?

Nationalism Debate (36:39.400)

I mean, we all know how to get kids to read, but there's a political agenda around not

Lex Fridman (36:42.360)

teaching phonics, for example.

Lex Fridman (36:44.160)

So a lot of schools don't teach phonics, even though the kids will never learn how

Lex Fridman (36:48.080)

to read properly.

Lex Fridman (36:49.280)

So it becomes politics, and I don't believe politics belongs in education.

Nationalism Debate (36:53.440)

I think education is a product, it's a service, and we know how to deliver products and services

Nationalism Debate (36:58.080)

really, really efficiently at a really, really low price at a really, really high quality,

Lex Fridman (37:02.440)

and that's leaving it to the market to do.

Lex Fridman (37:04.760)

But your fundamental criticism is that the state can use education to further its authoritarian

Lex Fridman (37:12.280)

aims.

Nationalism Debate (37:13.280)

Well, or whatever the aims – I mean, think about the conservative today critique of American

Lex Fridman (37:17.880)

educational system, right, it's dominated by the left.

Lex Fridman (37:20.320)

Yeah, what did you expect, right?

Nationalism Debate (37:23.040)

If you leave it up to the state to fund, they're going to fund the things that promote state

Nationalism Debate (37:28.640)

growth and state intervention, and the left is better at that.

Nationalism Debate (37:31.640)

It has been better at that than the right, and they now dominate our educational institutions.

Lex Fridman (37:36.840)

But look, if we go back to Bismarck, my problem is placing the state above the individual.

Lex Fridman (37:41.640)

So if communism places the class above the individual, what matters is class, individuals,

Lex Fridman (37:46.960)

and nothing, they're cogs in a machine.

Nationalism Debate (37:49.880)

Bismarck, certainly the German tradition much more than the British tradition or the American

Nationalism Debate (37:53.720)

tradition, the German tradition is to place the state above the individual.

Nationalism Debate (37:56.880)

I think that's equally evil, and the outcome is fascism, and the outcome is the same.

Nationalism Debate (38:01.040)

The outcome is the deaths of tens of millions of people when taken to its ultimate conclusion.

Nationalism Debate (38:06.040)

Just like socialism, the ultimate conclusion of it is communism, you know, nationalism

Nationalism Debate (38:12.640)

in that form, kind of the Bismarckian form, the ultimate conclusion is Nazism or some

Lex Fridman (38:18.300)

form of fascism.

Nationalism Debate (38:20.680)

Because you don't care about the individual, the individual doesn't matter.

Nationalism Debate (38:23.840)

I think this is one of the differences in the Anglo, you know, Anglo American tradition

Nationalism Debate (38:29.720)

where the Anglo American tradition, even the conservatives, have always acknowledged and

Lex Fridman (38:35.080)

it goes back to...

Nationalism Debate (38:36.080)

Especially the conservatives.

Lex Fridman (38:37.080)

Yes.

Nationalism Debate (38:38.080)

Well...

Lex Fridman (38:39.080)

The conservatives were there first.

Nationalism Debate (38:40.080)

They acknowledged.

Nationalism Debate (38:41.080)

Well, you've defined conservatives to include all the good thinkers of the distant past,

Lex Fridman (38:45.360)

and they're all good thinkers.

Lex Fridman (38:46.680)

We agree on that.

Nationalism Debate (38:47.680)

I'm defining conservatism the way that Burke does.

Lex Fridman (38:51.360)

I'm just...

Nationalism Debate (38:52.360)

Look, this is a very simple observation.

Nationalism Debate (38:55.080)

Burke thinks, when you open Burke and you actually read him, he starts naming all of

Nationalism Debate (38:58.760)

these people who he's defending.

Lex Fridman (39:00.400)

And it's bizarre, I'm sorry, it's just intellectual sloppiness for people to be publishing books

Nationalism Debate (39:05.000)

called Burke, The First Conservative, The Founding Conservative, The Found...

Nationalism Debate (39:08.840)

I mean, this is nonstop, it's a view that says Burke reacts to the French Revolution,

Lex Fridman (39:15.080)

so conservatism has no prior tradition, it's just reacting to the French Revolution.

Lex Fridman (39:18.880)

And this is...

Nationalism Debate (39:19.880)

I mean, this is just absurd.

Lex Fridman (39:20.880)

Can I ask a quick question on conservatism?

Lex Fridman (39:23.640)

Are there any conservatives that are embracing of revolutions?

Lex Fridman (39:27.480)

So are they ultimately against the concept of revolution?

Nationalism Debate (39:30.880)

Yes, Burke himself embraces the Polish Revolution, which takes place almost exactly at the same

Lex Fridman (39:36.480)

time as the French Revolution.

Lex Fridman (39:38.580)

And the argument is really interesting because there's a common mistake is assuming that

Lex Fridman (39:42.800)

Burke and conservative thinkers are always in favor of slow change.

Nationalism Debate (39:46.760)

I think that's also just factually mistaken.

Nationalism Debate (39:51.240)

Burke is against the French Revolution because he thinks that there are actually tried and

Nationalism Debate (39:57.320)

true things that work, things that work for human flourishing and freedom included as

Lex Fridman (40:04.400)

a very important part of human flourishing.

Nationalism Debate (40:07.900)

He like many others takes the English constitution to be a model of something that works.

Lex Fridman (40:17.160)

So it has a king, it has various other things that maybe your own will say, well, that's

Nationalism Debate (40:21.440)

a mistake, but still for centuries, it's the leader in many things that I think we can

Lex Fridman (40:26.400)

easily agree are human flourishing.

Lex Fridman (40:29.320)

And Burke says, look, what's wrong with the French Revolution?

Nationalism Debate (40:33.040)

What's wrong with the French Revolution is that they have a system that has all sorts

Nationalism Debate (40:37.540)

of problems, but they could be repairing it.

Lex Fridman (40:40.960)

And instead what they're doing by overthrowing everything is they're moving away from what

Nationalism Debate (40:45.680)

we know is good for human beings.

Lex Fridman (40:48.360)

Then he looks at the Polish Revolution and he says, the Poles do the opposite.

Nationalism Debate (40:52.120)

The Poles have a nonfunctioning traditional constitution.

Lex Fridman (40:55.520)

It's too democratic.

Nationalism Debate (40:57.280)

It's impossible to raise armies and to defend the country because of the fact that every

Lex Fridman (41:03.840)

nobleman has a veto.

Lex Fridman (41:05.760)

So the Polish Revolution moves in the direction of the British constitution.

Lex Fridman (41:11.320)

They repair their constitution through a quick, a rapid revolution.

Nationalism Debate (41:16.380)

They install a king along the model that looks a lot like Britain and Burke supports it.

Lex Fridman (41:21.240)

He says, this is a good revolution.

Lex Fridman (41:23.960)

So it's not the need to quickly make a change in order to save yourself.

Lex Fridman (41:31.080)

That's not what conservatives are objecting to.

Lex Fridman (41:33.240)

What they're objecting to is instead of looking at experience in order to try to make a slow

Nationalism Debate (41:40.400)

or quick improvement, a measured improvement to achieve a particular goal, instead of doing

Nationalism Debate (41:45.920)

that, you say, look, the whole thing has just been wrong.

Lex Fridman (41:48.680)

And what we've really got to do is annihilate a certain part of the population and then

Nationalism Debate (41:51.960)

make completely new laws and a completely new theory.

Lex Fridman (41:55.280)

That's what he's objecting to.

Nationalism Debate (41:56.560)

That's the French Revolution.

Lex Fridman (41:57.560)

And that then becomes the model for communist revolutions.

Lex Fridman (42:01.720)

And for me, I mean, the French Revolution is clearly a real evil and wrong, but it's

Lex Fridman (42:06.400)

not that it was a revolution and it's not that it tried to change everything.

Nationalism Debate (42:09.800)

I mean, let's remember what was going on in France at the time and people were starving

Lex Fridman (42:13.640)

and the monarchy in particular was completely detached, completely detached from the suffering

Nationalism Debate (42:18.540)

of the people and something needed to change.

Nationalism Debate (42:22.120)

The unfortunate thing is that the change was motivated by an egalitarian philosophy, not

Nationalism Debate (42:30.320)

egalitarian in the sense that I think the Fauny Fathers talked about, but egalitarian

Nationalism Debate (42:33.880)

in the sense of real equality, equality of outcome, motivated by a philosophy, by Rousseau's

Nationalism Debate (42:40.080)

philosophy, and inevitably led, you could tell that the ideas were going to lead to

Lex Fridman (42:44.240)

this, to massive destruction and death and the annihilation of a class.

Nationalism Debate (42:48.920)

You can't, annihilation is never an option.

Nationalism Debate (42:51.560)

That is, it's not true that a good revolution never leads to mass death of just whole groups

Nationalism Debate (42:58.560)

of people because a good revolution is about the sanctity of the individual.

Lex Fridman (43:01.920)

It's about preservation, liberty of the individual.

Lex Fridman (43:04.880)

And again, that goes back to, and the French Revolution denies and Rousseau denies really

Lex Fridman (43:10.300)

that in civilization there is a value in a thing called the individual.

Nationalism Debate (43:13.560)

I think this is a good place to have this discussion.

Lex Fridman (43:18.080)

The Fauny Fathers of the United States, are they individualists or are they conservatives?

Lex Fridman (43:26.260)

So in this particular revolution that founded this country, at the core of which are some

Nationalism Debate (43:31.240)

fascinating, some powerful ideas, were those founding fathers, were those ideas coming

Nationalism Debate (43:38.600)

from a place of conservatism or did they put primary value into the freedom and the power

Lex Fridman (43:45.400)

of the individual?

Lex Fridman (43:46.400)

What do you think?

Lex Fridman (43:47.640)

There were both.

Nationalism Debate (43:48.640)

I mean, this is something that's a little bit difficult sometimes for Americans, I mean,

Nationalism Debate (43:54.400)

very educated Americans, they talk about the founding fathers as though it's kind of like

Nationalism Debate (43:58.960)

this collective entity with a single brain and a single value system.

Lex Fridman (44:06.560)

But I think at the time that's not the way any of them saw it.

Lex Fridman (44:12.480)

So roughly there's two camps and they map onto the rationalist versus traditionalist

Lex Fridman (44:18.520)

empiricist dichotomy that I proposed earlier.

Lex Fridman (44:23.520)

So on the one hand, you have real revolutionaries like Jefferson and Paine.

Lex Fridman (44:29.000)

These are the people who Burke was writing against.

Nationalism Debate (44:31.400)

These are the people who supported the French Revolution.

Lex Fridman (44:33.700)

So when you say real, so when you say Paine, you're referring to revolutionaries in a bad

Nationalism Debate (44:38.640)

way, like this is a problem.

Nationalism Debate (44:40.400)

These are people who will say history up until now has been, with Descartes, but applied

Nationalism Debate (44:48.080)

to politics.

Nationalism Debate (44:49.080)

History up until now has been just a story of ugliness, foolishness, stupidity, and evil.

Lex Fridman (44:56.600)

And if you apply reason, we'll all come to the same conclusions.

Nationalism Debate (45:03.840)

Paine writes a book called The Age of Reason, and The Age of Reason is a manifesto for here

Nationalism Debate (45:10.360)

is the answer to political and moral problems throughout history.

Lex Fridman (45:14.200)

We have the answers.

Lex Fridman (45:15.720)

And it's in the same school as Rousseau's The Social Continent.

Lex Fridman (45:19.680)

You don't like that?

Nationalism Debate (45:20.680)

Not at all.

Lex Fridman (45:21.680)

Well, I thought it was the opposite.

Nationalism Debate (45:22.680)

I think they're the opposite.

Lex Fridman (45:23.680)

Okay, so let me...

Nationalism Debate (45:24.680)

Just to throw in a quick question on Jefferson and Paine, do you think America would exist

Lex Fridman (45:30.280)

without those two figures?

Lex Fridman (45:32.720)

So like how important is spice in the flavor of the dish you're making?

Nationalism Debate (45:38.840)

I don't want to try to run the counterfactual, I don't have confidence that I know the answer

Nationalism Debate (45:43.360)

to the question.

Lex Fridman (45:44.360)

But it's so much fun.

Lex Fridman (45:45.360)

You know what?

Lex Fridman (45:46.360)

I'm going to offer something that I think is more fun.

Lex Fridman (45:49.200)

More fun than the counterfactual is America had two revolutions, not one, okay?

Nationalism Debate (45:55.440)

At first, there is a revolution that is strongly spiced with this kind of rationalism.

Lex Fridman (46:05.280)

And then there's a 10 year period after the Declaration of Independence.

Lex Fridman (46:09.440)

There's a 10 year period under which America has a constitution.

Nationalism Debate (46:12.920)

This first constitution, which today they call the Articles of the Confederation, but

Lex Fridman (46:16.400)

there's a constitution from 1777.

Lex Fridman (46:19.420)

And that constitution is based on, in a lot of ways, on the hottest new ideas.

Nationalism Debate (46:25.760)

It has, instead of the traditional British system with a division of powers between an

Nationalism Debate (46:31.640)

executive and a bicameral legislature, instead of that traditional English model, which most

Nationalism Debate (46:38.480)

of the states had as their governments, instead of that, they say, no, we're going to have

Nationalism Debate (46:42.640)

one elected body, okay, and that body, that Congress, it's going to be the executive,

Nationalism Debate (46:50.400)

it's going to be the legislative, it's going to be everything, and it's going to run as

Nationalism Debate (46:54.400)

a big committee.

Lex Fridman (46:55.920)

These are the ideas of the French Revolution.

Nationalism Debate (46:57.520)

You get to actually see them implemented in Pennsylvania, in the Pennsylvania Constitution,

Lex Fridman (47:04.360)

and then later in the National Assembly in France.

Nationalism Debate (47:06.800)

It's a disaster.

Lex Fridman (47:07.840)

The thing doesn't work.

Nationalism Debate (47:09.140)

It's completely made up.

Nationalism Debate (47:10.240)

It's neither based on historical experience, nor is it based on historical custom, on what

Nationalism Debate (47:15.720)

people are used to.

Lex Fridman (47:17.240)

And what they succeed in creating with this first constitution is it's wonderfully rational,

Lex Fridman (47:23.320)

but it's a complete disaster.

Lex Fridman (47:24.840)

It doesn't allow the raising of taxes.

Nationalism Debate (47:27.440)

It doesn't allow the mustering of troops.

Lex Fridman (47:29.240)

It doesn't allow giving orders to soldiers to fight a war.

Lex Fridman (47:33.640)

And if that had continued, if that had continued to be the American Constitution, America never

Lex Fridman (47:41.240)

would have been an independent country.

Nationalism Debate (47:42.680)

There I'm willing to do that counterfactual.

Lex Fridman (47:45.400)

What happens during those years where Washington and Jay and Knox and Hamilton and Morris,

Nationalism Debate (47:55.880)

there's like this group of conservatives, they're mostly soldiers and lawyers.

Lex Fridman (48:02.480)

This is in Washington, most of them are from northern cities.

Lex Fridman (48:06.480)

And this group is much more conservative than the Tom Paine and Jefferson School.

Lex Fridman (48:17.080)

Some historians call them the Nationalist Party.

Nationalism Debate (48:20.000)

Historically, they give up the word nationalism and they call themselves the Federalists,

Lex Fridman (48:24.360)

but they're basically the Nationalist Party.

Lex Fridman (48:26.320)

What does that mean?

Nationalism Debate (48:27.320)

It means on the one hand that their goal is to create an independent nation, independent

Nationalism Debate (48:32.600)

from Britain.

Lex Fridman (48:33.600)

But on the other hand, they believe that they already have national legal traditions, the

Nationalism Debate (48:41.000)

common law, the forms of government that have been imported from Britain, and of course

Lex Fridman (48:46.680)

Christianity, which they consider to be part of their inheritance.

Nationalism Debate (48:51.760)

This Federalist Party is the conservative party.

Lex Fridman (48:56.720)

These are people who are extremely close in ideas to Burke.

Lex Fridman (49:00.320)

And these are people who wrote the Constitution of the United States, the second constitution,

Nationalism Debate (49:04.400)

the second revolution in 1787, when Washington leads the establishment of a new constitution,

Nationalism Debate (49:11.720)

which maybe technically legally, it wasn't even legal under the old constitution, but

Lex Fridman (49:17.000)

it was democratic.

Lex Fridman (49:18.540)

And what it did is it said, we're going to take what we know about English government,

Lex Fridman (49:24.160)

what we've learned by applying English government in the states, we're going to create a national

Nationalism Debate (49:28.560)

government, a unified national government, that's going to muster power in its hands,

Nationalism Debate (49:32.760)

enough power to be able to do things like fighting wars to defend a unified people.

Nationalism Debate (49:38.800)

Those are conservatives.

Nationalism Debate (49:40.220)

Now it's reasonable to say, well, look, there was no king, so how conservative could they

Lex Fridman (49:46.160)

be?

Lex Fridman (49:47.160)

But I think that's a reasonable question.

Lex Fridman (49:49.060)

But don't forget that the American colonies, the English colonies in America by that point

Lex Fridman (49:53.400)

had been around for 150 years.

Nationalism Debate (49:55.680)

They had written constitutions, they had already adapted for an entire century, adapted the

Nationalism Debate (50:01.200)

English constitution to local conditions where there's no aristocracy and there's no king.

Nationalism Debate (50:06.120)

I think you can see that as a positive thing.

Lex Fridman (50:08.760)

On the other hand, they have slavery, that's an innovation, that's not English.

Lex Fridman (50:13.040)

So it's a little bit different from the English constitution, but those men are conservatives.

Nationalism Debate (50:17.280)

They make the minimum changes that they need to the English constitution and they largely

Nationalism Debate (50:23.900)

replicate it, which is why the Jeffersonians hated them so much.

Lex Fridman (50:28.680)

They call them apostates.

Nationalism Debate (50:30.220)

They say they've betrayed equality and liberty and fraternity by adopting an English style

Lex Fridman (50:37.640)

constitution.

Lex Fridman (50:38.640)

So I would imagine, Yaron, you would put emphasis of the success of the key ideas at the founding

Nationalism Debate (50:43.760)

of this country elsewhere, at the freedom of the individual as opposed to the tradition

Nationalism Debate (50:49.360)

of the British empire.

Nationalism Debate (50:51.000)

The one thing I agree with, Yaron, is the fact that yes, the founding fathers were not

Nationalism Debate (50:55.040)

a monolith.

Lex Fridman (50:56.040)

They argued, they debated, they disagreed, they wrote against each other.

Nationalism Debate (51:00.520)

Jefferson and Adams for decades didn't even speak to each other, though they did make

Lex Fridman (51:03.880)

up and had a fascinating relationship after.

Nationalism Debate (51:08.000)

You and I are making up too.

Lex Fridman (51:09.000)

There you go.

Nationalism Debate (51:10.000)

It's like the founding fathers.

Nationalism Debate (51:13.000)

You know, there's this massive debate and discussion, but I don't agree with the characterization

Nationalism Debate (51:19.140)

of Paine and Jefferson.

Nationalism Debate (51:20.800)

I don't think it's just to call them rationalists because I don't think they're rationalists.

Nationalism Debate (51:25.280)

People who've looked at history, at the problems in history, and remember this is the 18th

Nationalism Debate (51:29.880)

century and they were coming out of a hundred years earlier, some of the bloodiest wars

Nationalism Debate (51:35.100)

in all of human history were happening in Europe, many of them over religion.

Nationalism Debate (51:42.060)

You know, they had seen what was going on in France and other countries where people

Nationalism Debate (51:46.840)

were starving and where kings were frolicking in palaces in spite of that.

Nationalism Debate (51:54.680)

They were very aware of the relative freedom that the British tradition had given Englishmen.

Nationalism Debate (52:01.760)

I think they knew that, they understood that, and I think they were building on that.

Nationalism Debate (52:06.400)

They were taking the observation of the past and trying to come up with a more perfect

Nationalism Debate (52:12.120)

system, and I think they did.

Lex Fridman (52:13.960)

In that sense, I'm a huge fan of Jefferson.

Nationalism Debate (52:16.440)

You know, there are two things that I think are unfortunate about Jefferson.

Lex Fridman (52:20.120)

One is that he continued to hold slaves, which is very unfortunate.

Nationalism Debate (52:26.000)

The second is early support for the French Revolution, which I think is a massive mistake

Lex Fridman (52:31.800)

and I wouldn't be surprised if he regretted it later in life, given the consequences.

Lex Fridman (52:36.760)

But they were trying to derive principles by which they could establish a new state,

Lex Fridman (52:41.840)

and yes, there was pushback by some and there was disagreement, and the Constitution in

Nationalism Debate (52:48.000)

the end is to some extent a form of compromise, it's still one of the great documents of

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all of human history, political documents, the Constitution, although I think it's

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inferior to the Declaration.

Nationalism Debate (52:59.120)

I'm a huge fan of the Declaration and I think one of the mistakes the conservatives makes,

Nationalism Debate (53:03.480)

one of the mistakes the Supreme Court makes and American judiciary makes is assuming the

Lex Fridman (53:09.160)

two documents are separate.

Nationalism Debate (53:10.360)

I think Lincoln is absolutely right, you can't understand the Constitution without understanding

Nationalism Debate (53:14.240)

the Declaration, the Declaration of what set the context and what sets everything up for

Nationalism Debate (53:18.760)

the Constitution.

Nationalism Debate (53:20.480)

Individual rights are the key concept there, and one of the challenges was that some of

Nationalism Debate (53:25.480)

the compromises, and compromise is not necessarily between groups, but compromises that even

Nationalism Debate (53:30.760)

Jefferson made and others made regarding individual rights, set America on a path that we're

Nationalism Debate (53:37.720)

suffering from today.

Nationalism Debate (53:39.880)

I mentioned three last night, one was slavery, obviously that was a horrific compromise,

Nationalism Debate (53:46.760)

one that America not just paid for with the Civil War, 600,000 young men died because

Lex Fridman (53:53.920)

of it, but the suffering of black slaves for all those years.

Lex Fridman (53:58.080)

But then the whole issue of racial tensions in this country for a century and to this

Nationalism Debate (54:04.760)

day really is a consequence of that initial compromise, who knows what the counterfactual

Nationalism Debate (54:10.320)

is in America if there's a Civil War right at the founding, because there would have

Nationalism Debate (54:14.920)

been a war no matter what, but if it had happened in the late 18th century, early 19th century,

Nationalism Debate (54:19.320)

rather than waiting till 1860s, but then second was Jefferson's embrace of public education,

Nationalism Debate (54:29.000)

his founding of the University of Virginia, which I think is a great tragedy, which nobody

Nationalism Debate (54:34.800)

agrees with me on, so that's one of the areas where I'm pretty radical.

Lex Fridman (54:39.120)

And then they embrace, both by Jefferson and by Hamilton, for different reasons, but an

Nationalism Debate (54:45.520)

embrace by both of them of government role in the economy.

Lex Fridman (54:49.360)

And I do finance, so I know a little bit about finance, and the debate between Jefferson

Lex Fridman (54:54.080)

and Hamilton about banking is fascinating, but at the end of the day, both wanted a role

Nationalism Debate (54:58.680)

for government in banking, they both didn't trust, Jefferson didn't trust big financial

Nationalism Debate (55:04.760)

interests, Hamilton wanted to capture some of those financial interests for the state,

Lex Fridman (55:08.140)

and as a consequence, we set America on a path where, in my view, regulation always

Nationalism Debate (55:13.960)

leads to more regulation, there's never a case where regulation decreases, and we started

Nationalism Debate (55:18.160)

out with a certain regulatory body around banks, and a recognition that it was okay

Nationalism Debate (55:22.080)

to regulate the economy, so once we get into the late 19th century, it's fine to regulate

Nationalism Debate (55:26.240)

the railroads, it's fine to pass antitrust laws, it's fine to then continue on the path

Nationalism Debate (55:31.560)

of where we are today, which is heavy, heavy, heavy, massive involvement of government in

Nationalism Debate (55:36.080)

every aspect of our economy, and really in every aspect of our life, because of education.

Lex Fridman (55:41.480)

So I think the country was founded on certain mistakes, and we haven't been willing to

Nationalism Debate (55:47.080)

question those mistakes, and in a sense that we've only moved in the opposite direction,

Lex Fridman (55:52.280)

and now America's become, whereas I think it was founded on the idea of the primacy

Nationalism Debate (55:57.840)

of the individual, the sanctity of the individual, at least as an idea, even if not fully implemented,

Nationalism Debate (56:02.920)

I think now that's completely lost, I don't think anybody really is an advocate out there

Lex Fridman (56:08.720)

for individualism in politics, or for true freedom in politics.

Nationalism Debate (56:13.040)

We'll get to individualism, but let me ask the Beatles and the Rolling Stones question

Lex Fridman (56:16.680)

about the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Nationalism Debate (56:19.000)

Rolling Stones.

Nationalism Debate (56:20.000)

Well, because it's like which document, Beatles or Rolling Stones, which document is more

Lex Fridman (56:23.960)

important?

Lex Fridman (56:24.960)

It's obviously the Beatles, right?

Nationalism Debate (56:25.960)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (56:26.960)

Is there a question here?

Lex Fridman (56:27.960)

Is there even a question?

Lex Fridman (56:28.960)

But let me then even zoom in further and ask you to pick your favorite song.

Lex Fridman (56:33.120)

So what ideas in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence do you think are the most

Lex Fridman (56:39.400)

important to the success of the United States of America?

Nationalism Debate (56:43.040)

I'll answer the question, but before answering the question, I want to register a dissent

Lex Fridman (56:48.360)

from your own.

Lex Fridman (56:49.360)

Is it the public education?

Lex Fridman (56:50.640)

Is it which?

Nationalism Debate (56:51.640)

No, no, no.

Lex Fridman (56:52.640)

Actually, look, we're not so far apart on public education.

Nationalism Debate (56:57.760)

I'm actually kind of surprised that you're so anti Bismarck because his public school

Nationalism Debate (57:01.800)

system, his national public school system was created in order to stick it to the church.

Nationalism Debate (57:07.240)

It was the church that ran the schools before then, and so that's a different...

Nationalism Debate (57:11.080)

I'm all for sticking it to the church, any opportunity, but not when the alternative

Nationalism Debate (57:15.320)

is the nation.

Lex Fridman (57:16.320)

I'd rather see a free educational system where freedom is in education.

Nationalism Debate (57:21.240)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (57:22.240)

So I want to register a dissent about Lincoln.

Nationalism Debate (57:25.400)

Look, Lincoln is an important figure and a great man, and he was presiding over a country,

Lex Fridman (57:30.800)

which at that point was pretty Jeffersonian in terms of its self perception.

Nationalism Debate (57:35.880)

He said what he needed to say.

Nationalism Debate (57:37.080)

I'm not going to criticize him, but I don't accept the idea that the Declaration of Independence,

Nationalism Debate (57:44.000)

which starts one revolution, is of a piece with the second constitution, the constitution

Nationalism Debate (57:51.160)

of 1787, the nationalist constitution, which is effectively a counter revolution.

Lex Fridman (57:57.940)

What happens is there is a revolution.

Lex Fridman (58:00.360)

It's based on certain principles.

Nationalism Debate (58:01.920)

There are a lot...

Nationalism Debate (58:03.040)

Not exactly, but in many ways resembles the later ideas of the French Revolution.

Lex Fridman (58:09.160)

And what the Federalist Party does, the Nationalist Conservative Party does, is a counter revolution

Lex Fridman (58:14.880)

to reinstate the Old English Constitution.

Lex Fridman (58:18.160)

So these documents are, if you're willing to accept the evidence of history, they are

Lex Fridman (58:23.720)

in many respects contrary to one another.

Lex Fridman (58:27.300)

And so if I'm asked what's the most important values that are handed down by these documents,

Nationalism Debate (58:34.080)

I don't have an objection to life, liberty, and property, all of which are really important

Nationalism Debate (58:41.120)

things.

Nationalism Debate (58:42.120)

I do have an objection to the pompous overreach of these are self evident, which is absurd.

Nationalism Debate (58:50.120)

They can't be self evident.

Nationalism Debate (58:51.480)

If they were self evident, then somebody would have come up with them like 2,000 years before.

Nationalism Debate (58:56.360)

It's not self evident.

Lex Fridman (58:58.840)

So that's damaging.

Nationalism Debate (58:59.840)

I like the conservative preamble of the constitution, which describes the purposes of the national

Lex Fridman (59:08.100)

government that's being established.

Nationalism Debate (59:10.560)

There are seven purposes, a more perfect union, which is the principle of cohesion, justice,

Nationalism Debate (59:19.360)

domestic peace, common defense, the general welfare, which is the welfare of the public

Nationalism Debate (59:26.640)

as a thing that's not only individuals, but there is such a thing as a general welfare,

Nationalism Debate (59:31.440)

liberty, which we agree is absolutely crucial, and posterity, the idea that the purpose of

Nationalism Debate (59:37.880)

the government is to be able to sustain and grow this independent nation, and not only

Lex Fridman (59:43.480)

to guarantee rights no matter what happens.

Nationalism Debate (59:45.840)

You don't like the, we hold these truths to be self evident, so you're definitely a Beatles

Lex Fridman (59:50.840)

guy.

Nationalism Debate (59:51.840)

You don't want the pompous, you don't need that revolutionary strength.

Nationalism Debate (59:56.480)

Look, I think that that expression, self evident truths, it does tremendous damage because instead