01:00 Who determines the winning narrative? https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=155583
03:00 Christian nationalism as niche construction, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=155459
05:00 LEADERSHIP LAB: The Craft of Writing Effectively, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtIzMaLkCaM
10:00 Electronic Intifada: How the Gaza genocide will lead to Israel’s collapse, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly7qO9fGYZA
41:20 Dooovid joins, https://x.com/RebDoooovid
42:00 The stories we tell about ourselves: understanding our personal narratives with psychologist Dan McAdams, https://northbynorthwestern.com/the-stories-we-tell-about-ourselves/
1:36:30 Dooovid leaves
1:51:00 Halsey English joins the show
1:57:00 How Halsey English dealt with growing internet censorship after Charlottesville
2:06:00 Halsey on Israel’s trajectory
2:18:00 Claire Khaw joins
2:21:00 What creates winning narratives?
3:27:00 Sam joins from Haifa
Speaker 1
Good day aim mate 40 here. So who determines the narrative. I don’t know about you, but when I I follow the news, I often noticed that there is 1 dominant narrative, but what’s happening. So who determines that narrative? Like, where does that come from?
Like, who who are the people? Who determines who have that that power. So for example, think about the rise of Donald Trump. Right, there there was 1 dominant narrative for that story in in the… For example the mainstream media.
And that was, you’ve got this unruly outsider who who breaks all the rules who’s essentially mounted a hostile takeover of the Republican party and now trying to mount a hostile takeover of our democracy and our democracy is at threat. Think about the rise of Bar barack Obama. He you have this messi black man, who is whose election as president of the United States is going to redeem America from the the great sin. Of racism. Think about Russia gate.
Right? For 3 years, that was the dominant news story from the the end of of 20 15 until well, the… Into 20 19, this idea that Donald Trump may have concluded with Russia at least that Russia was messing with our state was messing with our election. So who determined a new story that on the faces of it didn’t really make much sense. Whatever I tried to read the Rushing hit stories, I just get a headache because there was no way that Russian interference was…
A dominant factor in the election of Donald Trump. It seemed like a distraction from reality, but it it met a need for a lot of people to explain the election of Donald Trump and so even though there were very few facts behind the idea that Donald Trump actively c alluded with Russia of And that determined the 20 16 election. There was a tremendous demand side for that narrative. So there are at least 2 factors that go into determining the winning narrative. Right?
1 factor is the supply side. And if there’s a small group of people, for example, to get to say what knowledge is, then maybe there’s a small group of people who get to say what the narrative is that’s on the supply side. So this is Larry Mc, former head of the University of Chicago writing program. And he’s a
Speaker 2
human bound. There are conversations moving through time, and there’s a bunch of people and they get to say what knowledge.
Speaker 1
Alright. So he says knowledge is a conversation moving through time, and there is small group of people in… Each area of knowledge who get to determine what knowledge is. Right? There they are the experts and who is an expert, an expert is someone that other experts say is an expert.
And if expertise is way beyond the the can of the ordinary person, then the ordinary person has absolutely no say on who the expert is. And when you look at, the publications that academics read, they are far removed from the publications that dominate popular concerns. Right? So what goes on? In the popular news media, usually has little effect on what our knowledge elites determine is knowledge.
And what got me thinking about this was an essay by Amanda Alexander. Esa essays is called the genesis of the civilian. So I didn’t realize that civilian was a whole brand new category established after first world War. I I thought civilian was an eternal change notion that is has gone on through time, but it turns out that the whole concept of the civilian is a specific way. It is a contingent way.
It is a historically conditioned way of viewing non combat that could be traced to the first World War. And part of her essay notes that the dominant narrative of World war 1 was shaped by the poets, and it wasn’t that way initially. Right? There were many narratives of World war 1 during World war 1, and in the immediate years after World war by the late 19 twenties, however, the narrative of the World war 1 poets became the dominant narrative of World war 1, to which all other narratives must bow, So who determines that? Right?
Who who determines that the perspective of the World War 1 poets was the dominant narrative to which all other narratives World war 1 must pay a obey. I think that’s a fascinating question. Who determines when Joe Biden needs to step down. Well, part of that question is based on highly misleading editing of video at Day celebrations that just… Show Joe Biden, you know, wandering off into a void.
But when you look at that video from a different perspective, it it’s not nearly as damning. Joe So we will see June 27 when Joe Biden debates Donald Trump that what kind of Joe Biden steps of the 4? I suspect that If he gets the right amount of adderall and Mod and Caffeine that he will perform above expectations. Just like Joe Biden exceeded expectations in his 20 20 debates with with Donald Trump. So Let me think about who determines the the winning narrative.
Right? So there’s also a human demand for narrative? Right, how well a narrative meets the demand? Will affect the success of particular narrative. For example, most people under stress.
Most people under du arrest, most people fighting for their survival, Right? Most people who feel that they are in a state of emergency will respond particularly well to narratives that blame out for their problems. Perhaps, narratives are primarily determined by those individuals and those groups with the most incentive and the most power to shape the narrative. And so in the United States political system, you’ve got the influence of different lob. So the lobby, the various lob for retired people have proven it.
Particularly effective, and so we have shaped our welfare payments to serve people who are retired more than young people because there are more effective lob for people who are retired than there are effective lob for young Americans. Think about the influence power of the Israel lobby. Right? Many Jewish leaders since World war 2 have determined that the very survival of the Jewish state depends upon American patron niche, and hence, the Israel lobby has been strongly incentivized to make its case because its leaders feel that very survival of the Jewish state and of Jews Depends upon their efforts. So think about the dominant narrative of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 20 22 and still ongoing.
Right? So the dominant perspective in Western News media among Western lease is that this was caused by Punt mega and insanity. While the dominant perspective in Russia in China, and among those with a realist perspective is that this Ukraine War was caused by nato expansion up to the borders of Russia. I think about all the news media coverage of threats to our democracy. Right?
When when you break it down, the threats to democracy include the authoritarian threat. Right? When the majority you’re able to use… Democratic means to get the ends that they desire, and this is thought to be a threat to democracy when the majority gets its way. So underneath, been coverage of all these threats democracy, a threats to the institution that the ruling elite dominate.
Think about most news coverage of Putin over the past what, 10 years, that Putin is a threat to democracy. Think about most Western coverage of China over the past 20 years, right, for many years, it was about how China’s rise threatened democracy, and now it’s about how China’s decline threatens democracy. Then think about the uniform nature of narratives around the rise of Christian nationalism. Alright? That this is really scary.
So I recently learned of the whole idea of niche construction, right? That every organism acts on its environment, often for its own benefit, and often against the benefit of other organisms? So why would Christians not act like other organisms? Why would Christians be more passive with regard to their environment than say earth worms, lemon, beaver, and the cooking, right, pour different forms of life that actively try to change their environment to suit their own interests. And then think about what discussions of genocide We have a massive increase, in the number of genocide scholars over the past 30 years, like, dev voting your life to saving genocide is become increasingly cool among academics.
So with the increasing supply of genocide scholars, right? There’s gonna to be an increasing demand jennifer sides to increase the importance, the income, the number of jobs, the prestige, the the power that goes to being a genocide scholar. And so the more immediate, the genocide, right, the more powerful Expansion of to increase expansion in number of job in mental health leads to Oh, audio fuzz again, let me see what’s going on. So here’s my pre am board to playing a video. How the gaza genocide will lead to Israel’s collapse.
Right? This is from electronic into Nevada. Obviously, this is a pro Palestine anti Israel perspective. But the reason I’m playing it given that I’m a rabbit zion is that I think you often get more clarity from… Your enemies than you do from your friend.
So I don’t believe that what Israel is doing in Gaza is a genocide. And I I don’t believe that Israel is about class. But I do believe that Israel’s under du. I do believe that about half a million Israelis have left. I believe the economy is under du, and I believe that morale.
In Israel has created over the past few months, and Israelis don’t know who is going to lead them there’s not a lot of faith in Bb Netanyahu or in the other politicians jo for power, But let’s get a pro palestine perspective on what’s happening in Israel.
Speaker 3
Welcome back to the electronic podcast. I’m Nora Be Friedman with Ali. As we enter the ninth month of Israel’s genocide in Gaza with no end in sight. We wanted to take a look at Israel’s insistence of maintaining a war of attrition while its own economy is in sham as more and more Israelis leave abroad for good and as its high tech sector collapses. We’re joined today by Sheer.
She is a political economist and is the military embargo court Na for the Palestinian Boycott dives and Sanctions National Committee, the B. He is the author of the privatization of Israeli security and the political economy of Israel’s occupation and comes to us today from Germany, sheer welcome back to the.
Speaker 1
Okay. So a lot of jews have been moving to Germany over the the past 20 years. Oh, also notice Israelis is moving to Los Angeles since. October seventh. So let let me know about the audio quality see if we can get that fixed But who determines the winning narrative.
Right? There are many narratives for what’s going on such as is what’s going on in Gaza right now is this Israel fighting. For its survival? Is this Israel fighting back against terror? This Israel fighting on the side of?
Civilization or is this, you know, Israel being a colonial imperial power who’s committing genocide against, daca skinned people? Look, do you miss your father? I I don’t. How often do I think about him rarely? Right?
I didn’t think about my father very often when he was alive, and when he died, I felt a great sense of relief. But I’m probably blocking. My perhaps my my deeper feelings, and my my wish that I had a better relationship with him, or I haven’t extended a great deal of empathy for my father, and I probably maintain a certain cold towards the world that it is very common with people who lost their mother at an early age, And so having lost my mother at an early age and then having a stepmother who had, significant. Health problems. Right?
Then then perhaps that’s, like a protective device that that I’ve used to keep myself safe. And so I just I just block perhaps some of these deeper feelings, and maybe I won’t get well until I move move away from my kind of court attitude. In particular towards my father. Maybe it’s a protective device that have this kind of cohort hearted cynical perspective on life, This Album isn’t about Rock and roll. It’s about genocide, David Bowie.
Okay. No news. As good news if people aren’t complaining about the quality of the audio. Alright. So…
Humanitarian law and human rights law become increasingly popular over the past 25 years. So compared to The early 19 nineties, there was an explosion of interest by the late 19 nineties with regard to human rights law, international humanitarian law. And so with this increased supply of expert is I would expect an intense jo for status, and this creates attention grabbing pronounce on Israel versus Gaza as experts strive to stand out from each other. Right? So we have an increase in number of genocide scholars increased in the number of humanitarian law, scholars increase in the number of human rights activists.
And so you therefore must have something to meet the demand for the service of their sense of prestige and importance and their need for for jobs. Alright? And the the more immediate the situation. The more it’s in the news. Right?
The better the job prospects are for these experts. Alright? Genocide scholars, humor rights scholars need jobs too. They need to increase demand for their services so they need hot new genocide and if there aren’t hot new genocide, they need to manufacture them. Much of the talk about a new cold war with China and Russia comes from international relations scholars who need jobs.
Right? They must manufacture demand for their services, just like mental health professionals are incentivized to widen definitions of metal illness so that their group has more income more power and prestige. Right? The more mental health professionals you have. Right?
The more effective, they are likely to be promoting awareness of the need for their skills, the diagnosing and treating of mental illness, this will lead to more people getting diagnosed as mentally ill, even when they only suffer from normal adaptive amounts of human sadness. So professions just like individuals are primarily out for their own good, not the public good 1. Economists estimated human selfish nurses operating at about a 95 percent level. That people put about 95 percent of their efforts forward to secure their own interests. Right?
The more professional, moral your society produces, the keen that and more effective they will be to promote a sense of sense of sin among the people so that their services receive more demand, more income, more power and more prestige because after survival, the strongest human drive is for status. And sharing these thoughts with the Phd friend it says this seems really simple, but it really cracks the code on everything. I became an expert in 1 particular area and then suddenly, I see it everywhere. Sometimes it’s about being able to spot things more easily, But perhaps more often is about manufacturing, what I need to imagine myself relevant. Good thing I left academia.
Well, think about firefighters, and their leaders. Right? They go around to classrooms and buildings and gatherings, and they see everything through the prism of their particular profession, what will reduce loss of life from a fire. And so this perspective dominates all other perspectives, so even if it’s hotter and more accountable, less fresh air to follow the direction of the the firefighters, they will still try to impose their will. When I look at a garden, Alright?
The first thing that I look at is its drainage. Right, due to my 3 years working in landscaping from 19 85 to 19 88. So between the ages of 19 and 22. I worked in landscaping, and I just keep dealing with drainage issues in gardens, so I remember 1 time, I was working at the home of this man. I really admired Doug In the Rock Rose area of Northern California.
And I kept working until about 2 in the morning because I had to, like, I wanted to just get it over and done with because I was working beside his front drive. And I had to dig down about 4 feet to get to this big drainage pipe and then I had to bang a hole through the drainage pipe to snake in some, some plastic to allow for for drainage of his garden. So went, when something big is happening, people want to jump on the bandwagon. And so when human rights is big or genocide studies is big. Right?
People want to jump on that that bandwagon. Right. This is the electronic inter fighter. They have a opposite perspective either the Warren gaza, Than I do, but I think you often get more clarity from your enemies than you do your friend.
Speaker 3
Electronic get fire a podcast.
Speaker 4
Thanks for having me. Good to be here again.
Speaker 2
High share. It’s really good to talk to you again. Share Palestinians and Gaza are victims of an ongoing genocide being per by Israel with broad support of the Israeli Jewish public. At the same time, there is a military war between the Israeli army and the resistance on the ground, which Israel appears to be losing. Israel’s military doctrine has always been to fight short wars on the enemy’s territory.
This is because it was thought that Israel as a small country could not sustain long term military mobilization. This has now been its longest mobilization and its longest or, And before we get into some of the details, although you’re in Germany give us your sense of how the Israeli public is faring right now. What are the main bases of support for this genocide in this war and is the Israeli public able to cope with the effects of the war? Both in terms of military casualties as well as other psychological and social impacts.
Speaker 4
Where you’ve gotten right into the heart of it. So I I don’t think I can just answer all of this in in 1 go, but let’s try to break it down and and attack from different directions. I think that, what we’re seeing is, first of all, down and that that… This is israeli military doctrine, has is flown out the window. There’s no there’s no, doctrine right now.
What we have is a collapse.
Speaker 1
Well, the traditional Israeli military doctrine has been escalation dominance so that if you punch Israel in the base Alright. They will punch back twice as hot. Then Iran sent to a fleet of of missiles. And drones to attack Israel and Israel’s response was incredibly mild, so Israel has shifted away from escalation dominance, which has been its long term. Long time military strategy.
And that… That’s curious. Right? Hezbollah is lobbying rockets over into Northern Israel and yet, The Israeli military response has been relatively mild compared to what you would expect. So there has been a shift away from the the number 1 Israeli military doctrine of escalation dominance.
Right. Who who determines the the winning narrative? And 1 of my favorite bloggers is Andrew Gel, who is a statistics professor at Columbia University, and he was trying to work out why? Was the nudge phenomenon, So popular. Right?
So the nudge phenomenon is if you just rig incentives a little bit and so n people to do the right thing that this will produce big effects. And so Nudge became a cool unifying slogan, the connected academic research to public policy. So you had more money and more jobs flowing into academia, and you had the opportunity to change the world and to gain more prestige power and income for yourself. Right? So Nudge became an academic success and a political success even though The evidence for it was virtually not existent.
And the success of the nudge story is the same a lot of other stories says Andrew enter Go when the story becomes a story. Down in the 19 nineties, Michael Jordan success became the story. And with Tiger Woods and Bill Gates, their success became the story. So when something gets big enough, its success becomes part of the story and takes on a power of its own. Right?
Think about Brexit, Black lives matter, Barack obama, Donald Trump, the story becomes the story, something big is happening and people want to join in. 1 friend recommended to me the works of Hayden White, who was a his geography in the 19 eighties, and he popularized the idea of meta history, And so he would say that that narratives would appeal to pre cognitive ways of seeing the world? So before we think about things, we we feel things through. And those narratives are most successful that appeal to our, right biologically, predisposed ways of of seeing the world. And historians who align with these, ways of seeing the world will create narratives that are more successful.
And hidden White says this whole process of creating narrative history is a subconscious desire to turn a meaningless reality into an imaginary order of c coherent and integrity. So from a secular perspective, our need for a hero system, is a way to turn meaningless reality into an imaginary order of c coherent and integrity where we get to play an important role. I’m thinking about the day that John f kennedy was assassinated. Right? 2 of the greatest new journalists of the 19 sixties went out into Manhattan on the orders of their editors to to get the story.
But the story that they brought back did not fit in with the prevailing narrative. And so both their pieces were rejected. So in his 19 79 book, the right stuff, right Tom Wolfe uses the concept of a discrete, Hip critic, victorian gentlemen. Who symbolize the press. So instead of giving its readers the whole story, the press acting as 1 giant entities side what the public must know, and then delivers it edited and re touch to perfection.
So the news media in America for oil is formed independent, really a great colonial animal animal made up of countless clustered organisms responding to a central nervous system. And this animal seems determined in all matters of national importance that there is 1 proper emotion. There is 1 seemingly sentiment. There is 1 fitting moral tone that should be established and must prevail an all information that mud this tone and weakens this feeling should simply be thrown down the memory hall. And so on the day of John Kennedy assassinated Tom Wolf went to little italy and everybody thought that their natural enemies had done the assassination of John Kennedy.
But the Italians didn’t like the Jews, so they blamed it on the Jews. S the Jews blamed it on the Chinese, the Chinese blamed it on the Italians. And Tom says I thought these stories were hilarious, but when I got back to the newspaper, I’m sitting there looking for my piece, and it’s not there. All they wanted was little old ladies collapsing in front of s saint. Patrick’s Cathedral.
That was it. They didn’t want any turmoil in the population over who did it. Newspapers are the last red doubt of people who want to observe the nice. Something big happens and whatever the proper reaction should be, that’s what you get in the news media. And the Tom Wolf, I believe correctly sees individuals primarily as representatives of their group.
So the perspective of liberal ism is that individuals are primarily individuals who are born certainly ina rights. The traditional way, of viewing people is that they’re are primarily members of a group. Right? So the Italians blamed the Jews who blamed the Chinese, people individuals the first and foremost a member of a group, race a tribe, a class a certain straight of society. And so Tom Wolf would look at the the vertical line of individual psychology as intersecting with the broad plane of society.
Nobody can be a true individual because whatever you want to be is going to be pushed out and changed by the your group’s hero system. And A gate to went out on the day of Kennedy assassination. He spent several hours with Tom Wolfe going from Downtown Manhattan, Wall Street, Chinatown, Little Italy, Then we came uptown. We walked around the theater district in the West forties uptown toward Columbus circles, and I didn’t see much reaction at all to the assassination from New Yorkers. I didn’t see anybody crying in the streets.
I didn’t over hear anybody lament aloud about the fatal shooting in Dallas. People heard the news over the radio, people were talking about the vent. Among themselves as they waited for traffic light on the street corner that there was absolutely no sign of the bon form masses there would be the signature image on Tv. And after I reported what I had seen in New York, the editor did not want me to write anything because what I had seen or not seen did not conform to the expected ideal response the situation seemed to call for at least in the editor eyes. So there was no story in the times by me that day.
Nor was there anything by Tom Wolf, in the New York Carol Tribune. Right? We could not publish what we saw because we didn’t see what our editors saw. And and who determined that Dallas in 19 63 was the city of right wing hate, and that was a dominant prison through which to understand the Ke, assassination that was carried out by a communist. Alright.
So Larry Mc, the former director of the university of Chicago writing program, Right. He says that knowledge refers to conversations that are that are moving through time.
Speaker 4
And that horrified you. Would those people get to say? Why did they get to say? Especially because historically, of course, they’ve looked just like me. As my niece says to me, every time she sees me.
Too male, to pale. To stale. Why on Earth would these people get to say, what knowledge is? I get it. I get it.
Big problem, but they do. And that’s a fact. These people get the same. What counts as knowledge. The good news is they are changing.
Way too long, way too late, way too slow, but they’re changing. But the point is, that’s the way it works. You may not like it, but that’s the way it works. They get to say. So they get to say.
Yep. You’re right. That was new. I didn’t know how many people were in 03, 02, but it doesn’t count as knowledge. It doesn’t have any value to us.
And count. The good news is this thing just move does move through time. The other the good news is this boundary is permeable.
Speaker 1
Okay. And here’s the example of the opposite perspective on Gaza from myself. This is from the channel, the electronic Nevada, P, anti zion.
Speaker 4
Of Israeli society. It is a social collapse. It’s also psychological collapse. It has to do with the fact that Israelis have lost connection with reality. Even, media that used to be more or less reliable.
Arts newspapers has always been as ion on its venue, but it was, sort of a liberal venue which insisted on on showing different opinions, but they’ve have been publishing fake news for the last 9 months, absolutely. So so Israelis, for example, think that South Africa didn’t accuse Israel of genocide. Because in order to know this very simple fact that anyone can find out in in 1 minute, you need to to read English. And and Israelis, even those who do read, they prefer not to. So I think you you’ve started with with talking about the military side of things.
Obviously, Israel has a very, a much stronger military. A lot of weapons, a lot of international support for its armed forces. But all that doesn’t matter if it’s the side which is fighting with its eyes closed. So that’s the point. That they’re they’re killing it discriminatory, but more than this, this is not really a a war which is driven by strategy with clear goals.
This is a pure una active vengeance. And 1 thing that Israelis know israeli knows.
Speaker 1
And why is vengeance bad. Right? All punishment comes with a significant element of vengeance. So if you create room, for any kind of punishment, you are essentially seeding to the legitimacy of vengeance. Right?
The the desire of vengeance for Right. Drives all forms of of punishment. Okay. This
Speaker 2
sw suddenly running for cover as gunfire broke out yesterday. The mass shooting left at least 9 people hurt including 2 children. An 8 year old boy is listed in critical condition at a hospital with a bullet wound to his head. Hello everyone. This is Fox News live.
I’m Mark Neville. Hi Eric.
Speaker 2
Hi, arthur. Hello everyone. I’m eric Sean. Thank you for joining us. Police say this happened just after a 5PM yesterday at a crowded recreation center in Rochester Hills.
That’s just north of Detroit. They say suspect
Speaker 1
So approximately 10 unarmed black men are killed by police in the United States each year. But how did police racism become… A dominant narrative of 20 20. Right? The summer of George Floyd?
Like, why was the why was the death of George Floyd close to the the number 1 news story that year when the guy had a horrible track record, I, behaved terribly… Convicted Felon. And yet it became that number 1 news story. Why was there 1 dominant narrative about it. There is a famous essay this regard called No and narrative.
So It was by the late harvard legal scholar robert cover, essentially saying that we all have to have a hero system. Alright? A no. Is a hero system. It’s a universe that’s filled with right and wrong.
So we constantly create a maintain a word right wrong. Of lawful and unlawful of valid and and void. So no matter how and atheist and secular your life perspective, we can’t live without having instinct reactions that some things are good and some things of evil. Now, the student of law may come to identify right and wrong with the law. Right?
So the rules the principles of justice, the formal institutions of the law, the conventions of a social order are in potent, but they are but a small part of our hero system of the norma universe that claims our attention. So no set of legal institutions or prescriptions exist apart from the narratives that locate it and give it meaning. Right for every constitution, there is a story. But for every dialogue, there is a scripture. Right?
So once we understand, in the context of the narratives that give it meaning, law becomes not merely a system of rules to be observed but it’s a world in which we live, at law and narrative and separately related. So every prescription is insist in its demand to be located in a narrative to be supplied with history and with Destiny beginning in an end at next nation and a purpose, the good guys and the bad guys good evil. Reit narrative is insist in its demand for some prescription, some moral, Their history and literature play a significant role in our universe. We can’t escape it, and we can’t escape the need for a prescription. Which in part is the law.
Right? Even when it’s embodied in legal text, this legal text cannot escape its origin in a narrative, it’s end in experience. Right? We experience the life… We experience life on on the basis of our narratives, which in short, our our hero system of what is heroic and what is coward, what is good and what is evil.
And It’s our imaginations informed by our community that create A system. And so we’re constantly making interpretive judgments. Right? Some small and private others meant in public. In the commitments of our police and of our judicial system, Right, determine what the law means and what the law should be.
So there’s the law on the box, but it’s always enforced by human beings and human beings are shaped by the dominant hero system. So the dominant hero system of our society significantly changed after the death of George Floyd to the idea that police were way to racist against black people in particular and that they should back off enforcing the law if there was a desperate disparate impact. And of course, they’ll always be a desperate disparate impact because different groups have different strengths. Different weaknesses and different groups again to commit crimes at a different rate. So if you enforce the law, there’ll always be a disparate impact, The anyway to reduce the desperate disparate impact is to reduce enforcement of the law and to reduce punishment.
So laws are part and parcel of a narrative. Right? So our tradition includes not only law, but also language and history and and myth. Right? And these stories, these hero systems these myth establish what is good and bad behavior.
Right? They build relations between the norma and the material universe norma referring to right and wrong. To Right? Between the constraints of reality and the demands of a particular hero system or an ethic. Right?
And so These myths that we believe in establish a repertoire of what is considered heroic and what’s considered evil. And then we combine and all this into meaningful patterns to give our life a… An opportunity to be heroic and significant and important. So we impose our hero system, a norma force upon reality and use narrative. Right?
So the various genres of narratives such as history, fiction Tragedy comedy or all alike that they are part of our account of the current state of affairs. That narrative is a models through which we study and experience life. Na is a way of simplifies simplifying the confusing and buzzing nature of reality and to boil it or down into something incomprehensible. So more intelligent, you are the more sophistication you will be able to appreciate in your narratives. Alright?
So behavior only makes sense, as against particular narrative that is dominant. Right? Any person who lived in his own idiosyncratic world would would just go mad Let’s get a perspective from the electronic nevada.
Speaker 4
Is that revenge is has no chance to succeeding. And and and that is something… In in the context of general genocide, I cannot stress this enough because Israelis… I mean Jewish Israelis, Jewish Israelis, whose whose families came from Europe mostly. They certainly know a thing or 2 about genocide, and those, stories going running the families, in my family.
So of course, regardless of what, Jews think about about Germans about about Nazis, they also know that if they had attempted to exact vengeance against Germans for the holocaust, then there would have never been a state of israel there would never been… That dishonest movement would never have succeeded to to achieve what it did achieve. So now Israelis are talking about zion in the past tense. This is something that, has become mainstream. In it in Even right wing Israelis that support the gen genocide.
But they don’t support the gen genocide because it they think it will achieve something they support the genocide because they think the story is over. And now there’s no point of of, planning for the future.
Speaker 2
Do you think what applies to to people like, It and Basil Mo who are going to conferences to talk about settlements in Gaza. They think it’s over.
Speaker 4
No. No. It it does not apply to them. They represent 50 percent… 15 percent of the Jewish population of Israel, which is the national orthodox.
Religious movement, which is highly messi. They still believe in in their heart of hearts that God will somehow save them at some point. So for them it just…
Speaker 1
So the more du, you you feel the more attracted you will be to some kind of messi relief. Right, People who are happy and healthy and successful. Right, they have less need for salvation descending in some dramatic gesture. Right? If you’re doing well, then you have more attachment to the governing paradigm, to the conventional order to the way things are.
Right? You’re doing well in the way things are, then you have less desired to be a revolutionary you have less desire to risk the the good things that you have going to, you know, achieve some kind of messi redemption. Alright. So who determines the the winning narrative? And 1 of the great books on this is a work in progress by Ronnie Goodman, right?
Cultural claims of conservative claims of cultural oppression. And he talks about liberal is now viewed by a conservatives as an overarching cultural narrative of which the policy prescriptions are only symptoms. So… A good deal of the support for Donald Trump comes from this idea that the elites who dominate our society. Are part of the the left or the center left that they dominate our our institutions.
And by voting for Donald Trump, we have an opportunity to ever overthrow them. So elite rule depends upon a divided people. Right? Because with a divided people, the elite can make coalitions with, say, the most educated and the least successful, which is the democratic party coalition and you can then reach reach an accommodation with these various sectors of society and maintain rule. But if the people become cohesive and and dominant and gather together, then it’s a lot more difficult for the elite to role.
Right. Do the, welcome back to the show. How are you?
Speaker 2
At Broke. God bless.
Speaker 1
Okay. Alright. Anything that you’ve heard so far that you’d like to comment on.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Let me talk about you… Because there’s… Possibly 1 of my favorite subjects, the main area of my research. Although, also, if you wanna talk about to Detroit after that, at think that was interesting.
I didn’t meet or go, but I followed it pretty intensely. But we spoke in the past, like, a about narrative identity theory, and I referred you to this… A researcher called Mc adams, if you remember, who, you know, kinda seen as the file of narrative identity there. Is that ring bell?
Speaker 1
Vaguely, but presume Though, I don’t know anything and and talk from that place.
Speaker 2
Just forget his first name. I think Douglas Mca adams, and, I mean, the concept is… The identity is a narrative. So, you know, there’s different theories of identity. There’s trait theory.
There’s you know, saying that identities made up of character traits that might be relatively stable over lifetime, there’s different ways that we understand identity. So his new theory was over the… In the nineties was a person’s concept of identity is based on a narrative, a storyline, You know, like, a novel that we write about herself, and then there’s the dissonance between how we understand our narrative and how other people understand the narrative, and it could be formed by key events, major players, and also just who listens to us in in the sense, like, I have my concept of my identity, which people tend to believe themselves in a more positive light, versus other people who might believe themselves to be in a more pro light versus the people that are actually your audience to listen to you talk about yourself So this the way I understand things. And I’m kinda of the hero in my own story, and I’m gonna base, like, you know, these key events, these things that made me who I am. And then there might be other people who have a different narrative where you’re, you know, you could be the bad guy or the hero, you have to wrestle with flat.
You know, in terms of the dissonance between how you see yourself, and know, other people see themselves. And and there’s also a field what’s called narrative identity psycho analysis where where, like, it came out as dispersed to just the cognitive theory of how the mind works and then in the last 20 years has developed into its own method of psycho analysis that you you could see a psychiatrist. That will so to say work with your narrative and try to help you from you know, this concept of narrative identity. And I’m not sure that’s ringing to Bellevue or something.
Speaker 1
Let let me let me just jump in. So let let’s try to make this theory possible and I’ll just share. Some some anecdotes from from my experience in in this regard. So I have I’ve long had a trouble leading a unified life. I have tended to completely adapt myself to my circumstances into my environment and so there wasn’t a a consistent unity in how I would portray myself.
And so for a long time when I was, following judaism in 1 part of my life, I was des creating Orthodox judaism and another part of my life, and I noticed how uncomfortable that made people. Ex Right? Because I didn’t know how to deal with me because there wasn’t 1 easy narrative that that made sense of my behavior. So I noticed… How uncomfortable it made people who want Orthodox Jews when I wearing a Yam spoke and behaved in a way that was not aligned with orthodox judaism.
And so people people don’t like it when you’re presenting contradictory narratives about yourself. Right? People don’t wanna spend a great deal of effort, figuring you out or or putting a narrative of on you. And so the board difficult, you make it for people to put particular narrative on you, the less inclined they are to engage with you, you’re just too much trouble. So any reflections on how this narrative theory that you’re explaining has, perhaps played out in your own life.
Speaker 2
Yeah. And definitely just to add to the theory that first, is that… I mean, the other major main school identity theories basically trait theory. Which is that, your, people have certain traits that might be immutable or formed by extreme experiences that, lead them to have certain traits that they carry out through their life and that’s a defining thing about their per personality, then there’s also role based identity that, you know, people fall into identity based on social roles that identity is social constructed by the roles that we have to fill, fall And, you know, because I’ve heard hundreds of about… We’ve talked for probably maybe even hundreds of hours, and I’ve heard maybe even thousands of hours of you, you’re like, I know countless stories about yourself and to say, well, Luke is the way he is because of this, you know, dramatic childhood experience or this thing that happened to him, you know, your chronic fatigue syndrome, you know, you’re being a temporary or as a child.
There’s certain things with your father. And you say, well, maybe you had this character trait that was just kinda in born or you developed it from this extreme experience as a child. And then later events, you had these def def characteristics, character traits. And that defined how, you, Who Luke is and how we the situations and, you know, the somewhat, like, predictable, and, like, narrative, like, if it was a story where there’d be key events and key players. And then, you know, so the role because you…
Both of us came on to being Orthodox jews in adult, you know, how that fits into the narrative, in, you know, the, like, a changing narrative, you know, so if you’re just talking AA1 off of introducing you to somebody that never met you before It doesn’t know your narrative hasn’t heard from other people competing narratives you know, like, your family, your friends or colleagues or something, have competing narratives where someone who’s just trying to form the narrative, off you the first time, and then you have, like, well, you know, from our perspective, like, Jewish identity, orthodox Jewish identity is such a huge aspect. Of my narrative, even of my identity. Like I would… Because Judaism such a strong identity, I would almost factor that into every single decision I make. Well, why did I do this?
Why did it act like this is well because I’m a jew, because I’m an orthodox Jew, And that’s explanatory of basically all of my behavior, you know, to a certain extent in or that could be in conflict with other aspects of my identity or my experiences, and then you have the outside perspective, like, well, you, you’re like, obviously, you’re delusional, you might think that you’re doing this because you’re a jew or an orthodox you, But, like, clearly that is, you know, that’s opposite to orthodox judaism. Like, you’re not… You’re not a real you. You’re a bad you, and that’s the, you know, the competing narrative because, like, in my mind, like, you know, I’m this guy who’s just trying to do my best to be a good jew. And at least for a period of my time, you, large period of my life being a good jew and being a good person.
We’re basically synonymous. And then, you know, then you have the severe dissonance of running into people who say, like, well, no, being a good you and being a good person or not synonymous, or the Jewish pushback in saying, like, like, you’re you’re, like, you’re not a good you at all or the expectation level of what it means to be a. We’ve talked about this a lot in the past. Where, your, people who have high expectation, pattern recognition of what it means to be an orthodox you and could look at me or you and say, you do not fit into my expectations of what I would see from Orthodox you at all. And but, you know, but this concept of you’re the construction of a narrative and then dealing with people who obviously are not buying your narrative and even have a narrative that is completely counter to how we how we build up our identity.
And, like, for me and you, like, that happens every single time we walk into Sc Or like any single time someone notices the Yam, You know, it’s like this kind because, like, our narrative doesn’t make sense really. Like, even from a perspective, like, because I’m me or you’re you, you have to have a narrative that makes sense to yourself, but from, like, a larger perspective, neither of our narratives really add up and like, any person who just, like, you know, loop or Yam, how am I gonna put the 2 and 2 together a created a narrative for that?
Speaker 1
Right. It it verge on the impossible to maintain… A narrative in the face of opposition from the people most important to you. So for example, in my journey through judaism and I initially converted in 19 93. I’ve only had 2 people and 1 of them was kidding, who did not accept my conversion to Judaism.
And so if, you know, every synagogue cock I went to or, like every Orthodox shoe, I I met, there was this denial that I was a fellow orthodox Jew, it would be impossible for me to maintain my identity. And so another… I’m thinking about delusional identities that I’ve taken on, I went to an acting class circa 19 95, and I behaved quite crude, and I was wearing a Yam God forbid, and the acting teacher had to stop the class and say, we we’re gonna to maintain a certain level of decor. So I just done a skit where the release of flat was a a major theme in to it in my well man performance, not forbid and and the teacher had to stop the class and and insist on a certain level of Decor that eye as a person wearing a yam had broken it. And I remember how awful I I felt that I felt out of control, and I have felt out of control most of my life because I’ve had just a heck of a time trying to align…
My behavior with my narrative. Alright? My narrative is that I’m a good person that I am a worthy convert to orthodox judaism, that I am engaged in heroic project, and and yet so much of my behavior has been petty, juvenile attention seeking, I’ve been a a sex pest And it it was it was just excruciating to be constantly devi from my own narrative in in my behavior and frankly getting on adderall just made all the difference in making it much easier to align my my behavior with my narrative, but it it takes an enormous amount of strength to try to maintain your narrative, in the face of of denial. So I’ve I’ve thought of of my live streaming as heroic journey particularly since 20 20 16, 20 17. And then I look back on it, and I see much of it as as Juvenile, as having no standards so that I’d just allow anyone to come onto the show just for the the shock value and the entertainment value.
So I now look back on much of the stuff that I did prior to to 20 20, and I I don’t see much of it as her heroic awake at all. I I see much of it as is lacking lacking good judgment. Good sense. And and I kinda recognize recognized that I was somewhat diluted in my perspective that I was you know, engaged in a, heroic narrative. Do you have further thoughts on this line do.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I might have been speaking a little bit hyper just saying like, people reject you as a you outright, but they just reject your narrative. Your understanding of how you know, Judaism amount what Judaism plays in your life or or, you know, aspects of whether you’re could you or a bad you, what, you like… And I mean, mac Adams goes into great detail in in the basics of what you’re saying as the essential, what it means, narrative identity and narrative. Identity theory and that, you know, the person themselves has to construct himself in a positive light or, you know, victim of circumstance would be better had circumstances been better, or you’re just generally judging themselves favorably or even friends, people in your corner, right, I maybe both of us.
You’ll liked or ortho orthodox judaism, like, people are in your corner, they they wanna see you for who you could become not who you are or have some sort of, you’re, like, being becoming understanding of you that fits positively that, like, okay, even though we might have all these defects right now that, you know, through the community or good friends, we could overcome these defects and come that hero. You might also look into. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s, you, especially La Hollywood if there’s experts in, narrative psychotherapy. I’m not sure if you… If a, you would actually consider a, you know, like, in listing, but I I wouldn’t be surprised if if, you know, especially Synagogue networks that there’s even, prominent Jews that you might even loosely know through Jewish networks that are narrative therapist, but Yeah.
And we’ve talked about this in the past, and I just thought that was an important aspect to you know, you’re talking, like, the winning the narrative as… An individual. And, you know, we talked about that in the past many times also like, entourage, dealing with difficult people where you’re you’re always part of a group where you have your your negative aspects. You, you know, there’s the people that just don’t like you. They don’t think you belong there.
They don’t think you make the cut, and they have their evidence their reason. And, you know, like… So the guy who likes you. He might also be aware of the evidence. Against you, You know, Was saying well…
You know, like, like, I always mentioned, you know when I traded my wealthy friend that would… Was pretty charitable and would buy everybody food or pay for everybody. And then occasionally, he would wanna favor, and he would bring up every single time he ever did a favor for you. And be like, Come on. You’re not gonna do this 1 time for me that time.
I did this and this and that. And you know, so if you looked like the Perk elbows. Every time we do a good deed It creates a good angel. Every time we do a bad deed to it creates a bad angel, and that comes out in narrative. So it it’s like an entourage.
Or a wealthy person, an opportunity, you know, could be dating any form of competition where you have those good parts of your narrative. Was like, yeah, Luke, he’s a great guy. Like, you he did this this and this, and then you have your d demeanor like, Luke, like no, stay away from that man. He did this this and that and both might be true. And you know, so for to deal with that as an individual, and know, then then it gets into role identity theory, what roles you play, you know, based on your narrative in social.
So you could fall into being, you cynical being a class clown being a charitable, nice or whatever because that’s the role that’s expected of of you, you versus maybe your true identity you know, based on your immutable characteristic traits that you might act on or you withhold. So I mean, that you mean because we both like psychology, just mentioning that. But, know, if we’re talking about narrative, like, group narrative where we’re talking about you know, Israel Palestine or politics, then we’re talking about group narrative.
Speaker 1
Right. Let me let me jump in for you. So you have a narrative that you are a friend friend of jews and that you are engaged in in a mission in particular to those with anti Jewish narratives, and then you’ve had challenges to that particular narrative that you’ve presented. And so I would expect that the more fierce, the pronunciations of your narrative that you felt less strength and and less ability to carry on with your online narrative of make making the case for for jews among the the enemies of the jews. So that…
That’s 1 example of your narrative that is attracted opposition. Any reflections on what it’s like to carry on a particular narrative in the face of strong opposition and how that is affected how you feel about yourself,
Speaker 2
divide into 2 categories. 1 is intention, and then 2 is outcome. And, you know, they’re linked and and to say, know, most people, their narrative has limited as the hero who has good intention in the victim of circumstance. So if you’re saying, mind… And you might have, you, Jews that say, like, oh, we have Du always had good intentions.
He just wasn’t qualified for the job or you know, it was just a insurmountable task and he failed versus you know, look at like, my extreme d who would be, like, you, you know, like that would come like, not only I failed, but my intentions were always negative, and might be he’s not even a jew. He’s lying about being Jewish. He’s lying about, you know, these various things, and he secretly. He hates the Jews. He secretly wants to see the Jews destroyed And those are kind of the black box of the human mind, the intention.
So I could think, well, I know my intentions. That’s not accurate. But, you know, psychologically, you could argue you don’t even know your intentions or intentions are multifaceted and change over time. But, you know, the certain level of the intentions, those are kind of largely pointless battles because they’re unknown. It’s hard to measure and another person to claim that they know your intentions is you very lame…
You know, border. Like, you can’t know another person’s intentions. It’s very difficult to even know your own intentions. Then you’re talking about outcome. And then you’re saying, well, you, did Du have, you, net positive or net negative?
And then how do you measure that? And even say, well, you, I, you know, Steven James. So B, I der. I positively changed a handful of people, but maybe also, I, reinforced, your know, negative anti semitic stereotypes, you know, so some sort of, like, larger your, narrative, and you can do the same for yourself in terms of you know, like, me and you both enjoy the deep dive into the human heart, human mind of intentions, But, you know, that’s still largely a black box versus some sort of like, quantum quantum… You know, we use you just defined to me, which I like the J in general.
Net neck net negative or net positive. And you say, like Du, Luke 4 net negative or net positive for the Jews. And there could be different people that have different takes on that or understanding how do they measure that. And manual that you
Speaker 1
sense you’re kind of avoiding, I I think my question was that how strong you feel and how desi you are of live streaming will depend upon the kind of feedback you get. So if you’re getting more feedback undercut your narrative if you’re gonna have less strength, to live stream.
Speaker 2
Yes. So I’ve I’m saying dividing it into 2 realms. So the the About
Speaker 1
your personal experience up trying to theo it talk about your own personal experience. We all have more or less strength, and it takes a great deal of strength to livestream, And so what’s it like, trying to summon the strength in the face of feedback that undercut your narrative? You, your personal experience, not the theory.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Well it’s I’m my own personal experience. I’m just dividing that into intentions and outcome. So, you know, my hate watchers or something. I don’t even know if I have that many hate watchers.
Oh, although, you know, even the small audience I reach now, still has a decent percentage of the hate watchers that, You. So if I have a handful of people that still think I have good intentions even though I failed. Like he’s a good guy he tried. He just failed. And, you know, did I failed due to my own personal failings?
Because, you, I didn’t work hard enough and didn’t study hard enough. I didn’t listen to, the advice and the feedback that was given to me? Or did I fail just because it was insurmountable test I really couldn’t been expected, to have succeeded in the first place versus some sort of objective measure, like, was Due a net positive or a net negative. And, you know, always talk about A coming to Detroit. And like, God forbid, I was looking at as, like, a like, I was thinking of going down and like, hey, I was like oh my god.
Like, I know, like, half of these guys there. And, like, I actually had semi, like, friendly… You, dealings with a lot of them because we spoke and, you know, it’s kinda honest and straightforward. And then and they think of about, they’re not really my friends. Like, you’re like, no, I mean, we’re kinda, like friendly or cordial, but it’s saying, like, certainly, those guys aren’t my friends.
And and they say, well, you it was net negative. Like, god forbid. All these people were in Detroit, and, you know, it was due successful or not. And and then, you know, like, did Do have a positive impact in my conversation with Keith Woods, Lucas Gauge, you know, you, you know, you spoke to Nicholas Fu or different people. And you
Speaker 1
you keep avoiding my question about how much strength do you feel depending on receiving… Feedback that undercut your your narrative. It’s very hard to sustain a narrative in the face of opposition. So you’re not talking about your own personal level of strength. I I physically am weaker when I receive negative devastating feedback.
I can do fewer push ups, fewer pull ups, and fewer live streams, when I am receiving overwhelmingly devastating feedback. I be weaker, and I’m less able to and certainly less inclined to livestream stream when I’m feeling weaker in the face of devastating feedback. I’m trying to pinpoint it onto your own c coherent and strength when when your narrative receives devastating feedback.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, my narrative… I completely switched my narrative, and now I basically look at myself, I’ll even self proclaimed myself, to be a failed. Like, to to when we first spoke, I considered myself, you know, like, an integral important part of the community, and I was doing a special service based on my background and skill set, and the rabbi I worked with and because of… You know, negative feedback in terms of just rising anti antisemitism, my my inability to produce results, I can…
I changed my narrative, but, you know, my intention. So I think, well like, you know, I try to be honest and intros and and say, like, well, I do have some… Negative intentions. I try to, transcend to change those. But, like, generally, I still have a sympathetic view to…
I tried my best you know, I wanted to do good. I love the Jewish people. Even it now. You know, if I’m accusing Israel, you know, god for forbid being guilty of genocide, it’s because I love the Jewish people and am using this strong language because I wanna stop israel from doing what they’re doing that say because objectively, you know, like, that’s what the word means because objective… You, like, I wanna change the course of, outcome, and maybe by hyper speaking, could have some influence on that.
So, you know, definitely, like, since we first started talking 5 years ago, where I was, you know, just this happy merchant, pacific Jew who thought I was gonna, you know, change the world in in the hearts now I’m just, like, a failed, like, you know, I tried it. It failed, you know, part of the false mind part of the fall the circumstances. And, however, I still have some positive feedback. You, like, the Stephen James or people who still watch my programming. People who message me and, you know, say, I help der them, or, you’ll speak to me.
And or or, you know, even some people still call me Rabbi, you know, you know, like, relatively, Like, you know, like, you know, don’t give up and in, you know, even in the Jewish community people I know Ir. So, you know, that little bit of positive feedback know, still keeps me going and could still you know, internally vin my sympathetic view of myself. I was assume that’s similar for you too.
Speaker 1
Yeah. 1 1 adaptation to devastating feedback that undercut one’s narrative. Is to change the people that you take seriously or or look to for validation. So if someone who you had been relying on for for validation, becomes a devastating critic, then you can dismiss that person in your mind and switch to someone else who validates what what you’re doing. But I think another…
It thing that you’re saying there is that the narrative of a failed bio is simply easier to pull off. On a live stream than the narrative of a successful bio that you receive less devastating feedback, and it’s just it’s just a a more comfortable narrative to present fail bow rather than successful bio. Is that accurate?
Speaker 2
Well, no Would probably prefer to portray myself as a successful Paul Drum going with the evidence. And to say that to portray myself as a successful Doesn’t match the evidence. And, you know, you know, so to say I’m a failed, why do I have all this knowledge? Why do I know all this stuff about the Jewish community? Why do I know all these people it’s…
But well, because I was a for 20 years Like, you know, Went to Sc and you know, I still put on fill today and and, you said all the sad pairs and so on and so on, But, like, you know, I think it was, you I don’t know if it’s self serving Now I’m saying is it was based on my accepting the evidence that I failed as a, like, you know, so, like, I don’t think it’s beneficial for me to portray myself as a failure other than the results.
Speaker 1
Well, I would say that the results have
Speaker 2
There’s always. I portray myself as a successful alt.
Speaker 1
Right. Now it’s gonna beat up on you if you say that you’re an unsuccessful bio. So you are reducing your vulnerability compared to claiming you’re a successful budget of. It it’s as though let’s say I went on here and said that I was a successful money maker. Right?
Then people would have have an incentive to take me down and and, you know, point out, you know, various revelations of my poverty. But on the other hand, if I came on here and said, you know, I’ve got very little safer for retirement, that I I don’t have Riches, and I don’t have power and I don’t have conventional attainment of success such as a family, then I am… That I’m creating a smaller smaller target of of vulnerability because I’m am admitting. That I don’t fit any of the conventional criteria for success. And so both of us have have adapted to devastating criticism by shrinking our target of vulnerability by owning up to our failures.
Is that fair?
Speaker 2
Yeah. It might be fair. I mean, I I guess, if you’re looking… You’re within, like, a narrative. Is there a true narrative, and you question there’s no such thing as a true narrative.
And you know, saying, but, well, was it? I had a positive view of myself, and then I humbled myself based on the evidence, or I just recreated a narrative that worked that made me less vulnerable that was safer. And, and you’re saying that’s, you know, kinda… You could define that as a more a true narrative in either of our cases like, you know, when we first started streaming, it’s like, well, you know I’m I’m, and and a lot of that is failures in my own personal life, like, when we first started streaming, I was a leader at the Downtown Synagogue. I was inter involved with K kebab.
You know, like, I still had connections with all this people in Brooklyn. And a lot of those connections faded away, and, you know, to portray myself is kind of a spokesman for specific jewelry, became more and more clearly a false narrative? And and say, well, was it always a false narrative? Was I always diluting myself or was there a period of time? Where that narrative was true, and then circumstances changed and I adapted my narrative or say it was a delusional narrative in the first place and that, you know, could be examined or different people could have, different outcomes, and and it’s was like, yeah.
My narrative identity is basically a protection mechanism, but also a success mechanism, meaning, you know, like, a fake it till you make it. If you could, you know, the purpose of a narrative has 2 purposes. 1 is internally, you, for your own personal psychological well being, you’re just between you and yourself, and then how you present yourself to other people, So, you, also when we first started streaming, I had much different expectations of what would happened, you know, in terms of you, you know, maybe I would have you’re risen in the ranks of, your kebab or this considered community, hierarchy, you maybe I would have risen in the ranks of, your Jewish organizational life of the Downtown Synagogue, but none of that came to fruition. And you, so say just per force I had to adapt my narrative, and they saying, well, my narrative and saying, when I adapt my narrative, there’s 2 ways of doing that. 1 is to just say circumstances changed.
So it it’s like a novel, like, that was true for when we first met, and then circumstances, life outcomes changed. And now I have a new narrative that was beyond my personal control or by reworking that it was a false narrative all the time. And it was just internally psychologically that I finally came to accept that how I saw myself wasn’t accurate. And, you know, personally, I say, I don’t know the truth among that, and I still flip I still flip at that, you know, internally, my internal struggles. Which I assume you have a, you know, some sort of similar psychological that, you know, difficulties of, you know, did your narrative change, by circumstance or was your narrative false the whole time?
And so you just change your narrative to match reality or does your narrative include that this was true for that period of your life and then change your circumstances.
Speaker 1
Right. It’s impossible to participate in a community where nobody accepts your narrative. You have to have a handful of people at eddie bare minimum who accept your narrative to you have to participate in in that community. Now in in my experience of belonging to various synagogue. I’ve always had, at least a handful of people who were sympathetic at least to my narrative.
I I can’t imagine belonging to a synagogue or to any group where everybody was was kept to call or dismissive of, of minority narrative. There has to be, you know, a number of people who become a safe space for 1 to to continue participating in in in that community. So I I can’t imagine going to a church or a synagogue or to a stamp club where you didn’t have a number of of friends. It would just be it it would be impossible for me. I mean, how many people would you need to be at least sympathetic to your narrative to participate in a particular community?
Speaker 2
We’re we’re sure, like, I guess you at least need someone sympathetic to sit next to to, you know, talk with. Yeah. Like, you know, maybe just a pray and I’m gonna just go in there and pray and then leave. And and, you know, like, I mean, we talked about this length in the past Like, I always add d tractors at every stage in my… You’re, really my whole life, but, you know, especially in my Jewish journey at but I always had ben factors.
I people on my side, and you know, Jews are largely charitable people. So you, I assume any synagogue guy I went into, there would be a few people that would be sympathetic to me, and you, you might you know, you know, sit sit with them, sc with them, you know, maybe, you know, still part of Kidd club or or invite me to their house on Chavez, and there would be, you know, d tractors that would, you, make it their point to inform, anybody that hadn’t, you know, been keeping up with you all the negative things that you’ve done since they saw you last. So, you know, I would say, it’s always dynamic like that and you know, so the balance where you got 0 people versus some sort of you know, balance where things are shifting against you, where you know, how many is it 2 or 3 friends in Synagogue or 1 friend. And then also, a lot of times that’s circumstance, like, beyond your control, like, you’re 1 very good friend in Synagogue, you, moved or, you, like, a rabbi Rabbi assistant or someone like that, who is always sympathetic friendly to you someone who had some sort of power in the community and leverage that power for your benefit, you know, they pass away your move.
And you know, so that’s the, you know, the circumstance also, you, so when we first started, I had many more contacts in the orthodox community. And a lot of those people were sympathetic to me, and, you know, watched my program or write jews on and slowly, a lot of that, you, you know, went away. And you know, I would say online or in real life it’s gonna be like that. III know from your own background, and, you know, your biography and all they’re talking, like, you, you, the stories of how that’s… Happened to you and saying just 1 sympathetic person, not being there any longer, could make a huge difference.
Speaker 1
Yeah. I remember once I went on a hike. And I ran into a bunch of guys from my synagogue at the time, and it was just really painful to think that I I realized it never would have occurred to them to ask me to accompany them. So I was out hiking on my own, and I would have much more enjoyed hiking with a group. So I assume that you also have undertaken many activities alone have you run into people from various communities that you know and has it also been a devastating blow to you to realize that they would not have wanted to invite you to accompany them.
Speaker 2
Look, I was kind of informed of that from the beginning. And You know, knew that I would never really kinda be, like an insider in Judaism in that way, and that’s why it kind of fell into these peripheral roles and we’ve discussed that at length. But, I, we also discussed during Covid 19 when people just started forming what they call bubbles or I forget the word that they’re using, but that I wasn’t really part of the community that, you know, the community adapted to Covid 19, and you still held on to the community. However, you know, I quickly realized, like, I wasn’t part of anything. Or at least in terms of how the people adapted to Covid 19 and reform the community that they did all this you know, without me, So, you know, like, getting invited to weddings or your, different social events to Shop in various things.
And, like, a lot of times, I I think I actually… Because a lot of times people are nice to outsiders or, you know, make yourself useful that I was actually more of a Jewish insider then a lot of fellow jews. Although like certain circles like, I never got married, of, the little clicks at Synagogue that always hang out with each other, I wasn’t really part of, but you because I actively served the community. I I was privy to being a direct assistant to community leaders and rabbi and a certain maybe information level that even other Jews didn’t have, you know, so it’s usually dynamic, but we discussed in the past. It was Covid 19 that, you know, that hit me that I…
I’m not part of this. You know, these people are moving on and forming their little bubbles or clicks, and I’m not part of any of them.
Speaker 1
So among those popular types of feedback that I’ve received over the course of my life is I don’t get you and and people. Simply did want to expand the effort, affecting a a narrative to me because there were just too many contradiction. So they just use the feedback, like, that, you know, I don’t have the bandwidth to deal with you or I don’t get you. Have you had the experience of wanting to be close to people and realizing that they simply didn’t accept your narrative and therefore, wasn’t going to go anywhere.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, really my whole life even before I… You got serious about Judaism and even a child, like, I was always… Go an individual and unique, and there were people sympathetic. You know, the 1 and only do it.
You know, like, you… This got, you know, unique character is different than other people and the people are sympathetic. You know, to you say, like, you know, this guy is different. You can’t understand this guy as, personality type he’s, you know, 1 of a kind. And you’re probably like that also.
And so you have sympathetic people that look at you as, like, like, you, the protagonist in a hero’s journey, versus other people who just, you know, look at you as weird and should be avoided. So, you know, from a child I got used to that where, you know, there was your, social interactions, where maybe the majority of people kinda thought I was weird and avoided me. But there were a few people that looked at me as having unique special abilities or special purpose, and you would defend me would include me, and, you that I’ve always worked with that as part of, my identity, and I would assume that you’re you’re similar with that a little, maybe you had less realistic expectations to me where I kind of always recognize recognized that the majority of people were kind of against me or if vice I cons, you know, like, I got my backers. I got the people that recognize my greatness. But the majority people are always gonna be against me as where maybe you, you know, you know, from my perspective, we’re delusional in looking at that that you thought, like, the majority people liked you
Speaker 1
Well, people have have said to me that my na isn’t was was the problem, but much of my life na is being the solution. Because even though it was delusional that I was special, it it gave me the strength to keep going. So how much have has a delusion of your own uniqueness and special and and greatness. Giving you the strength to keep going in the face of painful reality.
Speaker 2
I would say I’m pretty reality in evidence based You, like, I’m engineer and training, and Mentioned, like, even now, we’re kinda the only positive thing I have going for me is a chess coach, and that’s something, you know, was like, well, you could be demonstrated. You, like, like, I’m a former junior champion. I’m am 1 of the best players in the state. It’s something that could be fundamentally demonstrated factual. And so, you know, have some part of my identity that your uniqueness that could be verifiable, your versus, you you’re kinda, like, diluting, you know, saying, well, I’m unique because you know, like, I’m a leader in the considered community and and say, well, that collapsed.
I’m not a leader in the considered community anymore. Although, there are… You know, I still have some specific friends. I still have some your people that… And most of those people who are sympathetic, you know, like, I’m a unique protagonist in a special story.
Like, I’m I’m on my and a lot of that’s based on, you know, probably for you too. Like, okay, with your a con convert, you know, like, I’m a half jew. I the special difficulties. I’m not expected. To be, like everybody else because I’m fundamentally different, and you know, they could look at me as, you know, the protagonist and and a hero’s journey that’s interesting to them to follow my story as opposed to d tractor, you they’re not usually gonna follow your story, and that’s you’re, you’re, causing problems to them or dissonance to them in, their narrative, which could also be because of I’m, I’m presenting an alternative narrative, you know, so we we you were mentioning the safety mechanism, me calling myself a failed Alt.
Yeah, because if I admit I’m a failed Alt, I don’t get as much pressure from the Orthodox community, you know, or pushback the, you know, some, like, nefarious negative agent. I’m just a guy you… You, it’s really difficult to be Orthodox you. I tried my best I failed. But, you, I’m not, you know, out to harm anybody.
You know, I really… Wanted to be an orthodox actually you, it’s just too difficult for me I failed. You know, know, as opposed to portraying myself as a successful that gonna create dissonance in the orthodox community for, you, their narrative, you know, like, you, even in the chat. You’re was, like, you can’t be hindu and jewish at the same time. It’s So if I say, well, because I failed at being a, like, you know, I just started doing other things, and as opposed to saying, like, yes, I can.
And if your Rabbi told you that you can’t it’s because they’re wrong or, you know, say, I have a special dis compensation because I’m half, I spoke to some rabbi, and said Judaism needs you and you need to do the special mission that’s been chosen just for you that most other jews can’t do. So yeah. I still have delusions say that narrative. Like, in my own mind, occasionally, you’re, like, I mean, when I first started listening to you were talking about, like, the the dominant narrative. But I think there’s always sub narratives and they’re always changing.
So, you know, in my own mind, you know, like, I’ll still go back to my delusional narratives or my, you know, of grandeur and greatness. And sometimes you have a few successes, and it’s like, no. No. Like, like, you know, like, this other narrative that I discarded as a delusion was actually the correct narrative the whole time.
Speaker 1
But 1 of the more painful things I’ve experienced is welcoming people into my life in large part because they they bought into my narrative. But then the more they they got to know me, particularly in the case of romantic relationships, then the more skeptical they became of my various narratives. And I I’m sure you’ve also experienced that where people initially bought into your narrative, then as they got to know you, they became more and more skeptical of your narrative.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I when, you ever heard that Bon Song ras bra, lover the russian queen?
Speaker 1
Yes.
Speaker 2
And then the part at the end where… Like, they have the voice over and it’s, like, as more and more people knew. His delusions a grandeur, the call to stop this ridiculous man became louder and louder or something I afraid forgot the exact voice over, but you think, like, yeah, Like, me and you might both suffer these delusions of grandeur, and it could be, especially like in a naive, orthodox Jewish community. Sometimes you could get backers in the Orthodox community to buy into your, delusions and, you know, think that, like, oh, like, maybe du it is, like, our savior and he really is gonna transform and get all these counter to you know, change their mind and like us or or something like that, you, versus you know, the the, you know, the calls for more and more people to put an end to this man in his delusions.
Speaker 1
And any thoughts on on the bigger issue of narrative so that that 1 narrative becomes dominant, For example, in after World war 1, the the narrative of the poets of World war 1. Who served in the trenches that became the dominant narrative to which all other narratives must must bow. And often when there’s a major new stories such as the Hamas attack on Israel and then Israel’s attack back on Hamas in Gaza, there they become certain dominant narratives. Do you have any understanding of why, 1 particular narrative becomes dominant overall competing narratives.
Speaker 2
Well, yeah And I I don’t think I don’t think there’s ever a dominant narrative. In totality, there might be a dominant narrative in a group. You’re also so saying like, we’ll what about the Russians or the Chinese or the Palestinians verse like the dominant. A media narrative, And I I forgot to mention… I I thought I mentioned right when I first came on.
I I we discussed maybe a few months ago, I was talking with my dad about you know, conspiracy theories like as a doctor and he’s, like, you know, most of his patients or, you, larger of them believe in conspiracy theories or you know, don’t trust specific to medicine and they’re saying, well, expertise like real experts, usually don’t convey certainty. They talk about things in probability and statistics. And evidence has shown that’s 1 of the most difficult things where people to think in terms of statistical thinking, and conspiracy theorists or cult the personalities can convey certainty. And so, like, if you’re actually an expert, you’re not gonna convey certainty because that’s not the nature of, science or knowledge. You’re gonna, like, admit, like, deal chances and talk in terms of statistics and probability.
You, I suppose to leaders they wanna convey certainty, and then you look… Well the masses are gonna fall behind certainty, and it’s only gonna be a very small people of philosophers, or very wise people that recognize that certain impossible, and therefore the best you could do is work with probabilities. And you know, so then we have to move from individual narrative to group narrative. And why how it’s possible for a group to fall behind a universal narrative. And how is it portrayed?
How does it collapse? I read on we can review a paper about, your, war narrative, and let, you know, most of the experts say, like, well, military has multiple purposes. There’s the… You know, the military objective, there’s the political objective, and then there’s the narrative objective. And they all go hand in hand, and you could lose the bore on any of those fronts, of your, politically or narrative.
And you know, sometimes the narrative ones, the last 1 to collapse or the first 1 to collapse. Once the narrative collapses, you’re usually, the war is gonna be over. So if you’re looking like Israel’s battle in Gaza or America supporting Ukraine, Once the narrative battles lost, the war over, You know, so, like, the Israeli narrative of kinda like being the good guy or the basic talking points, you know, Charles Mo said, Michael Jones on this week for a little debate or something like that, you know, like, the war over narratives or the Ukraine Russia. But once that narrative collapsed the war is over. And so if you look at like, a no manufacturer of consent the reason you have the dominant narrative is kinda like, it’s just propaganda because you can’t have the war without the backing of the masses.
And you might. You know, so the narrative battle could collapse, which I think is what’s happening where you’re seeing that, you know, like, we’re not doing this because we’re the good guys are because the narrative was true. We’re doing it because of a Jewish conspiracy theory because Jews of Who Powered in America and are forcing us to do something against their own interest. In our so nefarious that they will completely bring down the country for their own, your purposes if you look at, like, the A pack Nicholas Fu. Counter narrative.
And in, you know, at some point, you’re looking at it, like, well, the competing narrative, you know, you know, the the narrative battle, I’m not not sure if that makes sense to you that, like, of course, there’s always multiple narratives. No narrative is intrinsically true. It’s just a matter of a, your, group strategy. To control the narrative.
Speaker 1
Yeah. I I tend to react to narratives. By, asking who benefits and how does this create more more prestige and more of a you know, good feeling and dopamine release for the person who is, you know, articulating a certain narrative. I just find asking who benefits, a great way of of decoding narratives. So, I haven’t talked to you for a few months, what…
Speaker 2
That point related to Israel. Because, like, I file your commentary. So, you know, you played electronic into fad. So if you’re saying, like, will, your psychological makeup? You don’t need to feel like you’re the good guy.
You just wanna feel like the jews are winning. So, like, you’re whether the narrative, like, we’re the most moral alarming in the world or you know, like, America benefits more from Israel than Israel from America. That’s not as important to you in terms of being the good guy, but, like, the narrative, like, like, someone says, like, Israel’s is losing. You know, kinda like Ukraine. You know, it’s saying like, just facts on the ground, Russia’s beating Ukraine, And from a military political perspective, you say, well, facts on the ground, Ama hamas is defeating, or, or you know, axis is defeating Israel.
So that, you know, there’s the dual aspects of that narrative, and maybe you’re at the point where your dissonance is, like, well, you don’t need to be considered the good guy. For your psychological well being, But what are you gonna do if Israel starts losing the war?
Speaker 1
Well, my… I guess my my self esteem is much more dependent on am I reading reality accurately, then are, the the good guys winning. And so that’s that’s why I like to hear. But sides of many stories, even the electronic into far which has the opposite perspective on the Israel Gaza conflict than I do. I…
I’m curious why they think that Israel’s is losing. Sure because that there’s reason to to see that Israel’s had great success killing members of Hamas. What what’s the perspective that, Israel’s losing It’s not a perspective that I would normally naturally hear because almost everyone I know everyone that I… I’m close to is very pro Israel. So I have to go out of my way to to hear a a contrary perspective.
Speaker 2
Well, I mean, you use the term good guys there as opposed to we. So you’re saying, well, are the Jews winning? And even if we’re the bad guys, you know, does it matter too much whether they’re we’re the good or bad guys as long as we’re winning. Or, you know, some sort of perspective of the good guys and you’re saying, well, we’re not the good guys. But I mean, just interesting that you use the word the good guys is opposed to just us the Jews or…
Know, whether we’re good or bad. But the the military perspective is that the question of how much of Israel is actually inflicted damage on Hamas. And you’re saying that Israel has not really conquered territory in Gaza, all they did his mom took out the easy sites, and I was just watching a big military channel, and he called the history, military history.
Speaker 1
Yes or I know that channel.
Speaker 2
No. History legends, history legends just did a video. Put in the chat, you know, and he’s a former Russian Canadian. And he was just, you know, an update, and he… His estimate was that Israel had destroyed 4500 hamas fighters.
And also that Israel had not actually taken control of any land in Gaza, so that your Israel just bomb destroyed some infrastructure, but they didn’t actually take control and basically, Ham hamas still controls most of Gaza. You know, so that extent, like, not necessarily, like, that Hamas is winning because they’ve inflicted the, a damage or the assessment of Iran or he it, like that I iran, demonstrated that they could penetrate Israel’s defenses that the re, you know, hezbollah has demonstrated that that they can’t be defeated, and that Israel is just draining its O economy, its own will to fight, and and its international standing. And it hasn’t accomplished to you’re really anything towards destroying a hamas all they’ve done is kill innocent women and children. And so you’re looking the Israeli perspective, You said, like, no. They’ve done substantial things to destroy a hamas.
You know, I mean, they probably destroyed a lot of, like, the places that they launch missiles from. They’ve destroyed, you know, the universities, the hospitals, of, the Hamas, you know, governmental buildings. But, like, from the tunnel networks, how intact is a mask, it’s the fog award nobody knows. And, you know, then the question, like, Israel is the 1 blocking out the media. So the reason we don’t know what’s happening on the ground is because Israel doesn’t wanna let let us know what’s happening on the ground?
Do you think as opposed to Ukraine. You know, Ukraine Russia, you know, basically, like, every time when Ukraine or Russia gains a hundred meters as everybody knows it. There’s war reporting there’s videos as opposed to Israel, like, the question does Israel, or Hamas control Gaza today. And you don’t know anything really besides what Israel tells you and I say a lot of the military experts say no Israel has not actually captured land and territory, and even Northern Gaza, central gas. Hamas still controls all those territory, Once israel pulls out, Ham hamas will be in complete control of all of Gaza.
Speaker 1
Okay. I don’t recall being wedded to any 1 particular narrative about how the war in gaza is going. There’s… Evidence that Israel’s is accomplishing its aims. There’s evidence that Israel’s is not accomplishing its aims, so I’d like to think I’m in the middle just trying to assess what’s going on.
But I’m gonna move on, do it any final words for today.
Speaker 2
Yeah. This is my favorite topic. I saw your streaming, like, you, god bless. I saw your back and you’re putting the link in the chat. So if that’s a sign of, your psychological well being.
I do that each week, and then I’m thinking like, you know, got… You, people ask me, like, you know, I’m putting the link in the chat and, like, you know, I get claire pretty often or other people. And, you know, 1 thing just… Okay. Like, a lot of times, like, like, I didn’t stream we can review for passover because it was on the holidays.
So you know, just, you know, to do the weekly stream then I canceled a few other weeks because of, you’re just personal scheduling type things, but It was thinking like, Oh, man. Like, all I get is negative feedback. I didn’t even wanna do we can review. I’m gonna put the link in the chat and, like, at best the friend person I’m gonna get is clear. But, you know, just to have the courage to stream and put the link in the chat.
You know, so I’m glad you’re streaming and and you know, talking to more people and You know, know, as I mentioned, if you wanna talk about narratives again in the future I don’t know if I have that much to add on it. You know, you… We talked about theory of mind and predictive processing. Which gets a little bit more deeper into, like, neuroscience or psychology. But, you know, said that’s my favorite subject, And if you do have any experience, if you look into narrative therapy or or, you know, maybe you would speak to somebody.
Who’s was like, yeah. I have a narrative a cognitive therapist. I’ve been doing it for a few years, Like, I’d be fascinated to, you know, you know, know your take on it because I think it’s interesting new field of psychology that to me, I think it’s more true, and probably me and you would agree on that. In terms of, like, trait identity theory, or role identity theory, of the ai more towards narrative identity theory.
Speaker 1
Okay. Thanks, David. Good to talk to you.
Speaker 2
Okay. Thanks for lot God bless.
Speaker 1
Okay. Take care. Bye bye. Okay. So When I I was listening to this electronic into nevada Live stream, it it…
It’s like it’s a presentation of an upside down world from my perspective, For example, they see the dominant media is in the hands of the right wing. The the dominant business media, such as… Bloomberg, financial times, Wall Street Journal, is being controlled by the right wing. And I hate can’t imagine the financial times as a right wing newspaper, but I guess it all depends upon where you stand. So from someone who believes he’s on the right wing, I see a United States and a Western world that seems to have institutions that are disproportionately dominated by the left and that they have the the dominant power to shape the dominant narratives.
So power. Right? People who occupy the high ground of culture, the high ground of politics, Right? The high ground of academia, they have much more power to shape narratives than than people who do not. And I didn’t see…
I I don’t see people with my point of view on the world controlling many of our, institutions. So who determines the winning narrative? Or alright? I would expect that the winner is in large but determine winning narratives. Right?
The people in power are gonna have much more influence to determine a winning narrative. So Ronnie Goodman is working on a great book conservative. Claims of cultural oppression and talks about how the the liberal left dominates the high ground in culture dominates the the high ground in narrative of creation. And from a not left perspective, Left liberal is not just a political orientation. It’s a total worldview view.
It’s a way of life that’s crept into the American psyche. And can be discovered in your workplace, in your classroom in the tri of social life and pop culture, and it seems to be suffocating a right wing perspective from all sides. And it’s not that liberal is primarily sustained by reason and by argument, more by the M po that… Liberals have quietly entrenched as the un unexplained taken for granted background of things that civil rights are really good that we’re on this progressive march forward to give people more and more rights and human dignity while from a non liberal perspective, you can’t give any group rights, give additional rights without taking away rights from other people. So from a realist perspective, the world it’s not moving forward, right, the the human condition is simply circling.
Right. So from a not liberal perspective, Right, the the left wing liberal pro ethos that envelop us has progressively ind, by small, often percent all increments. And so in making loud stride claims of cultural oppression conservatives seek to awaken their fellow Americans to this otherwise hidden reality. So the discipline in rep of the liberal left perspective. Right?
This idea the Buffett identity that we can create reason purpose, meaning and a way forward on our own solely through the use of our own reason and that we don’t have to be contaminated by what’s going on next door to us. Right, From from a non liberal perspective, This is the achievement of a historically unprecedented degree of self possession self control and self transparency. Alright right? That… That’s the liberal perspective.
Right? It’s the liberation of central human faculties from the traditional illusions which a ben united past cha with. But this self con con enlightenment narrative. So 1 way of defining the enlightenment is that there are facts and that we should be guided by them. Right?
But from a non liberal perspective, we see this enlightenment narrative of conceal a darker more complicated story. That reveals the coercion corrosion. That the left and liberal uses, and then describes as liberation and awareness. So for the santa to left and the left. Right.
Civil rights are surrender liberation and an extension of human dignity throughout society while from a traditional perspective, the civil rights legislation of 19 65 and after that has completely redefined the Us constitution and removed or reduced rights to private property and freedom of Association and devastated, social cohesion and social trust and the ability of Americans to trust 1 another and to live together in peace and has vastly incentivized litigation. And brought government intervention into more and more intimate parts of our lives. So Liberal sees its perspective on life as kind of autonomous self possession. As the internal centralization of the certain restraint and inhibition of a disciplined society. But from a non liberal perspective, this perspective on life, is not some un unfinished rationality or as liberals want to see it.
It’s the result of contingent historical forces that generated it It’s a new uniform, a new homo modernization, new rationalization that liberal enlightenment narratives want to conceal. Right. So liberal sees its outlook on life as a Psychic liberation from blind convention to traditional religious narratives. But they overlook that their perspective on life is another kind of blind convention in its own right. It’s the outcome of the secular protestantism that under goods liberal left ideals.
So liberals believe in their heart of heart, that they enjoy a more self regulating in self transparent form of human agency because they threw their Buffet identity are able to achieve morality and purpose and meaning through the use of their own reason. Right? And they are a higher form of human agency than that which has been attained by conservatives by just bitter cli lost in a luc world of imaginary cultural villains, But what liberals celebrate as their higher order rationality is in its sub iranian pre cognitive structure. A another hero system, another system of collective meaning production. Right?
A hero system, that is on par with other hero systems such as the hero system of orthodox judaism, christianity and conservatism. So the conservative claim of cultural oppression is a right wing populist Ideology turned post modern. Right? It protest liberal isn’t not as a public philosophy, but as a meta narrative. It’s a way of thinking.
That is no longer recognizable as its own worldview, but something that si into the realm of habit, taste and feeling without being explicitly present. And so conservatives frame this liberal simplicity in all sorts of ways, but the various conservative frames are united by a conviction that liberal is sustained by an or pervasive social distortion. And that this distortion must be exposed if we are to have rhetoric parity between the left and the right. So Jon Goldberg describes this liberal denial of ideology. So Liberal wisdom presents itself as simply reason and.
And Goldberg says, well, no. Not so much. The Liberal war is offensive to logic it’s culturally per and infuriating. And this ex exploration, is fairly typical among American conservatives who find themselves perennial accused of racism. And of marlin intellectual failure by those who lack the standing to condemn them.
So the liberals have the acr dexterity dexterity to allude every attempt to hold them accountable, and from a cons conservative perspective, they’ve been taken in by their own performance, as dis disproportionate rational and p. And conservatives are the primary threat to these performances to un asking the par nature of liberal identity. So this conservative that dominates the left and liberal. It’s not some free floating vice. It’s not a calculated political strategy.
It’s a logical corollary of liberal elizabeth’s basic self understanding has somehow being above the fray of sec and ideology. So feminists understand patriarchy in a particular way. It’s not just a set of political aims, but it’s some kind of overarching ethos narrative, which the explicitly political aims are only 1 expression not usually the most important 1. So liberal in here, not primarily in its principles and policies, but in the pre cognitive, pre reflective more of our culture. Because the liberal left dominates the high ground of our culture.
So Goldberg wants conservatives to guard against being seduced by the narrative of victim. Even though the narrative is correct on its. Merits that conservatives accord racist and big and fools and Ashes every day by those who control the commanding heights of culture. But John Goldberg says this is counterproductive to complain ashes it just concede the authority of the liberal establishment make such claims. And we should discourage conservatives from 2 types of unhealthy responses, the burning desire to offend liberals just for kicks, and then self hating conservatism.
Otherwise, known as compassionate conservatism. So the liberal narrative refuses to recognize the loss of social cohesion, of social trust and chaos has resulted from its growing ascend in pushing through, for example, civil rights legislation. So liberal wisdom has a narrative that that absorbs liberal of responsibility for the decay of traditional values and the conventional morality and for portraying ordinary Americans is still Mir in una unattended racism and thus needing liberal intervention. Alright right, the liberal narrative of celebrates birth controls is a crucial step in women’s liberation. But Margaret Sang, patron state of Wim liberation.
She promoted birth control by hitch it to a unique campaign, to female liberation. So in persuading women that birth control was a necessary tour of their own personal gratification, Margaret Sang used the language of liberation to convince women not to go along with the patriarchy, and she was supposedly speaking truth to power. So the problem with liberal is not its excesses, but its fraud. Right? That it hides its hidden tri, partisan impulses, by operating underneath a facade of rationality and p.
So the moral re and subject of liberal is not the transcend of ideology as the liberal narrative has it. But on the contrary contrary, these are ideological weapons through which to disguise the injuries, which the people of fashion inflict on ordinary people. So the latter moral degradation augment the political and cultural capital of the left. No less the vast armies of low wage workers augment the profits of industrial less. Right?
This Degradation of ordinary people is the currency of liberal ambition. Just another way for the anointed, to set themselves up against the ben united, and their moral religious traditional. So our political attitudes rights running Go in this great work in progress, conservative claims of cultural oppression, emerge out a s semantic incurred moral narratives, meaning that that our brains are wired, to need a narrative to need a hero system. And we all have these narratives comprised of heroes, villains, victims, helpers and so forth And this is under by an emotional structure, which binds the dramatic structure to positive negative emotional circuitry, so we feel, we feel fear we feel relief in response to developments within the drama structure such as Villain, battle and victory. So we feel el later, anger When our political candidate wins, we feel depressed when he loses.
Right? The candidates bait has been newly integrated with our dopamine circuitry, which is activated by his Vic tree and suppressed by his defeat. It’s not that we are born with these narratives, but the foundations to these narratives become physically encoded in our brains quickly enough that they become the lens through which we see others and ourselves. Now our choice, our politics and candidates can change. But the deep narratives that drive our choices are resistant to chains because they’ve have been snap encrypted into our physiology.
But to the extent that we change our politics is because language has changed our brains because the right words and the right images have strengthened some. S connections while weakening others to the point that political re orientation becomes possible. Let me play a little bit from the alec Doesn’t
Speaker 4
matter that Israel is losing the war because this is only god testing them, and there will be some kind of of change. And and they’re saying things like, we don’t need weapons from the United states. We don’t care if Biden stops the weapons because we will win by the grace of God. But these 15 percent… I mean, it…
It’s it’s less than 15 percent. The 15 percent are the national orthodox Jews, but not all national orthodox G… Jews are are… As fan phonetic and
Speaker 1
and English back onto the show. Hal. How are you man?
Speaker 2
Thank god. How are you?
Speaker 1
Barack s. It’s great too great to hear from you.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I I apologize if it doesn’t work out so well. I’m on my phone…
Speaker 1
No. You sound fine. You sound fine. Okay. Great.
Any anything you’ve heard today you’d like to comment on. So
Speaker 2
No. Just I was just listening every time I see Du anywhere. It just pisses me off. Because the the guy is so full of crap. I don’t even know…
I would love to know why she does this, Like, why he he just blatantly lies. About being, like, a jewish scholar and having this just shi background and all of that. And, like, like, I don’t know if it’s because he just like getting attention from, like, people, like Adam Green and Richard Spencer and people like that. Or if he just likes that that people, like, call him a scholar or something. It just…
It drives me crazy.
Speaker 1
Right. Well, I think we all tend to gravitate towards that which… Brings us the kind of attention that we feel we deserve.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, I I guess that’s true, but it’s it’s… It’s… I find it infuriating. That’s why I usually don’t even interact with them.
I just leave it alone, but occasionally, like, I’ll see him amount of podcast or something and just I I start talking.
Speaker 1
So what has your live streaming been like the last Last few years. It seems to be somewhat reduced? You seem to be putting less time and energy into live streaming?
Speaker 2
Yeah. I don’t I don’t really have much time to live stream these days. I still do my Wednesday show and Occasionally, like, when people invite me if I have time or if I’m in the right area, I’ll I’ll, come on board. You know, and talk for a little bit, but I I haven’t had a lot of time to to live stream lately.
Speaker 1
So live streaming like anything can become an addiction. Is there anything that you have learned or anything that you experienced that perhaps surprised you as you put your time into other endeavors aside from live streaming.
Speaker 2
I I think we all get wrapped up in the idea that the Internet is real life. And then when we come outside of our Internet bubble and and out of the echo chambers that we get forced into, by the different algorithms. I think we realized, like, wait a minute. The whole world doesn’t know or care about half the things that we seem to think are important. You know?
Speaker 1
Yes.
Speaker 2
Like, I mean, it’s it’s really… It’s really amazing when you think of, like that if you if you go online and you Google, like, let’s say, on Twitter, you googled Nick Wendy’s. Right? Like, you would think he was, like, kind of this really famous person that has this huge following and all of this stuff, but go out in the real world and mention his name and 99 percent of people will have no idea who you’re talking about. And if they just, like, remember the name and go home and look into it, they’ll come back and be like, wow.
Like that guys are real piece. Shit. Why would you spend any time like, looking into him?
Speaker 1
III vaguely recall and this is something you discuss publicly, but a few years ago, you talking about moving towards a more isolated and rural life. Did that happen?
Speaker 2
No. Not at all. I’d like to wish it did, but it but it didn’t… I still wouldn’t in the same situation.
Speaker 1
Right. And I did want to you know, I don’t wanna to go get get get to too personal, but you you were, you know, a major deal in live streaming and and that, you know, that that feeds feeds our ego when when we receive ad and respect and numbers of people who are listening to us and and then you you put your efforts elsewhere. Did you did you miss the attention and the ad imagination that came with constant live streaming?
Speaker 2
Just the opposite. I I appreciated not having AAA microscope up my ass every every 10 seconds. Like, it’s it’s better to get to know humans and people and and whatever, like, on a on a more… Like, I don’t even know what it’s best word is. Like on a on a more personal level than to have 90 percent of the people who who claim to either like or dislike you, not know what you think about 90 percent of things.
Like, I mean, I I can’t even explain to you how often and even to this day when I’m not in not live streaming very much. People love to tell me what I think or what I believe or what I agree with. Or, like, what level of of judaism is my practice or, you know, what as a you I believe? And and things like that. And then, like, when I say, yeah, that doesn’t even come close to anything.
I I’ve ever even heard of. They they they either, like, are disappointed, or they just accuse you of lying when there’s no reason to lie about the things they’re accusing you out. Like anyone who listens to me pretty much knows my views on everything. Some pretty go about everything. But then they’ll they’ll come back and be like, well, you know, you’re pro immigration, you want…
You want people to come to the country. I said, well, actually, I’m anti even legal immigration. I don’t even take anyone to come to the country. Yeah. But you think all the Gaza should come here.
No. I don’t. And never once said that, never once intimate me that In fact, I think that would be a terrible idea. And then it’s it’s like, when you when you talk to people on a on a more individual basis in real life, none of that matters. Like, nobody wants to frame you for having certain views or or accuse you of things just because of who you are.
It’s it’s it’s a real wake up call that the Internet isn’t real.
Speaker 1
How did you respond to growing Internet san censorship the witch? Really kicked in after Charlottesville in 20 18.
Speaker 2
I mean, it was obvious it was happening. But at the same time, I mean, I don’t know how much of it was really, like, straight up censorship and how much of it was just my fault? I’ll just speak for myself. Like, how much of it was my fault? Like, the…
I I probably… I think I was on before Took over. I think I was on Twitter account number, like, 20 or something like that? But if I look back at, like, half the shit I said on Twitter, like, I don’t know. I’d I’d probably deserved it most of the time.
And I never really went on many other platforms. Like, I, I’ve never really been a Facebook person or a, like, Snapchat or anything like that. So let, was there an increase in censorship per sure. But was… Was it stopping people’s voices who were on the verge of, like, breaking out?
Probably not. You know?
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. Did you… Did did live streaming affect your real self in any way that you could detect.
Speaker 2
No. But you know what? It was it was funny because you know the person I’m talking about, but I’m not gonna say is them on on stream. But we we had a we had a mutual friend. Who went to a protest at at…
III believe it was at like a, like, 1 of the Jewish leaders houses or or maybe at their congregation or office. I don’t remember where was And while he was there, he was wearing, like, count 1 of the count shirts with with the dog giving the The Roman solution.
Speaker 1
Yes.
Speaker 2
And and they immediately picked up on that, of course. And, like, in the article written about him and all the Twitter post and stuff, it was, like, well, he’s wearing a nazi shirt. He was asking me about? He’s like, how do I get around, like, what what should I say? I and I told him I said, there is nothing you can say without…
And sounding completely retarded. It’s it’s impossible. You know, because what are you gonna say? Well, I know you think it’s it’s really a nazi shirt because it has a dog giving a roman salute. But there was his dude on Twitter who trained his dog, to give the Romans salute loot.
Every time he said, you know, just to jews. Yeah. And it was really funny, and the British government got really pissed at him and he got arrested. So this is kind of like me showing that funny it was, you know, an active censorship. It’s like, well, you don’t think that’s kinda stupid that he taught his dog to do that.
Well, no. I mean, that’s not the point. The point is is that he got arrested in Britain’s where. Yeah. But you don’t live in Britain.
Like, how does you wearing a t shirt like this have anything to do with what’s going on in Britain? Like, there’s no way you can explain it. It just… It… You can, but it’s just gonna make you sound more and more stupid the more you try to explain it.
So yes. There is there is, like, a a certain level of… Discourse that goes from online into the real world, but most of it is stuff that that doesn’t make any sense if you try to explain it to people who aren’t in your same online bubble.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And and my question was that did you find the… Live streaming affected your real self. Perhaps in positive or negative ways.
Speaker 2
I think so. I mean, I’m trying to think of, like, more concrete ways I can say yes or no. As I said, I think I think that when I did go out and talk to people, I made this assumption that they knew what was going on in the online slash live streaming world. When most people don’t. And and that was my point that I was trying to make.
I kind of beer tangent, but But the the point I was trying to make was that, like, if you tried to explain it to people, like, what you were doing. Like, I remember at… A time, I would I would tell to… Yeah. I’ve been having all these debates with people like, you know, Mike Kin and Nick Fu and all of them and, you know?
And, like, and they would kinda look at me, like, why? It’s
Speaker 1
the Right.
Speaker 2
And I’m because, you know, they’re they’re they’re a growing movement and and someone needs to debunk these people for all the post hit that they spout. Know why? Do do people actually care with these people have to say? Well, no, not really. I mean, like, no one’s really knows who they are or at all.
But at the same time, Like, and and then you say something like, what we… Should should we just let David Duke talk while that would be debunk in? And people kinda looked at me, like, yeah. But why would you pay any attention to them Like why would you give him attention? You know?
Like, better let him just spout nonsense to the 4 people who care what he has to say? Like, then, you know, give him attention. And then I realized, like, wait a minute. Nobody thinks what I’m doing is really all that noble, Like, they actually think I’m kinda stupid for doing.
Speaker 1
Yes.
Speaker 2
You know? And Yes.
Speaker 2
And yes.
Speaker 2
So it it it affects you that way because a lot of the cloud and and things that you think you’re you’re doing to, like, either help the world or or stand up for your people or
Speaker 1
or yeah.
Speaker 2
What separate may be, you’re not. You’re you’re… All you’re doing is arguing with idiots online.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. IIII learned that the same thing that yeah, people who winning at life thought that what I was doing, talking to these outright people was a waste of time at best.
Speaker 2
Yeah. And and they kind of look at you, like, well, why? Like, it’s… I… No 1 would accuse me of being, like, a fan of the alright.
Obviously, I I despise almost everything they stand for. But at the same time, the people that I would tell about it would be like, yeah. But why do you… Like, why are you engaging with these people? Like, are you…
Wanting to make them into better people, you know? Because even if you deb debunk them, you’re not gonna change them or their followers or anything else, And it’s kind of like, yeah. Well, I I just want the truth to be out there. And they’re like, yeah. But everybody knows the truth.
Like, nobody buys into this neo nazi garbage. You know? Like, it’s just not a thing. And and the more you try to explain it, the more you realize, like, your yourself use sound nuts. You know?
Speaker 1
Yes. Yeah. We we learned some similar lessons there. How… How do you see the trajectory of Israel?
It seems to me that Israel’s is in a very tough place that approximately half a million Israelis have left the country? Since October 7 and according to polls, it it seems like morale is collapsing in Israel because they’re not thrilled with their political leadership and their political options, what do you see as the current trajectory of israel?
Speaker 2
I don’t see much of a difference at all. Because the things that that are being advocated for. Like any solution the problem there, like, let’s say, I bought into the idea of a 2 stage solution, the more you look into it and to people in in our government, people in their government and people in all of these these peaceful organizations and people in the right wing organizations, if they… The more they look into it, the more they’ll admitted it to you, the idea of a Palestinian state and Gaza and the West Bank, even if they were complete completely peaceful. You’re talking about an area of land that’s the size of like, New York City.
It’s it’s a very, very very tiny piece of land that’s completely interconnected with Israel. Like, if they dig a well for water in the West Bank, it’s going to affect Israel because it’s the same water supply. You know, if the the the west Think is completely blocked. So trade routes are just gonna come from and Israel’s is ever gonna be okay with just an open border between Jordan and the West Bank, like, of course, they won’t. And it’s…
Did scrap the idea that the people will ever get along. They won’t. It doesn’t matter if you gave the palestinians everything they wanted it. They’ll never get it along. You’ll see the same thing over and over and over again.
Just protracted comp. Like see the so, like, put under a a system of, like, where they have their own government, we have ours and all that again, it’s it’s not really workable. Like, there’s there’s no way to deport millions of people from any country. I I would love to say it’s possible even here, but it’s really not. You know?
It’s it’s it’s really difficult to round up millions of people. That don’t want to go somewhere and force them to go there. It just… It… Like, what without using extreme violence to do it.
So I I don’t think there’s… I think that what’s going to wind up happening is that sooner or later this conflict end, the the war between Israel and Gaza right now because there there’s nothing more to do. Like, Israel can keep bombing them and and trying to wipe out hamas, but they won’t because there’s only so many people you can kill. That have any kind of like, real say so in any of this. Like, most of them are just people that don’t like Israel and just are gonna keep fighting regardless of who they call themselves hamas or, hezbollah or anything like that.
Like, the war with Hezbollah could turn into a big deal because that’s a war basically between countries. Call you know, and and that could maybe turn into something. But Israel, I think, and and I’ve kind of been proven right the more we go on, Israel is just the flavor of the week right now. First, it was Covid, then it was the vaccines, then it was Ukraine. Then then…
There’s there’s been a million different flavors of the week where, like, the entire world acts like this is not only the be all and all of all issues that ever face the planet. But they all become instant experts where they know everything about everything that’s ever happened in that specific area or or field. And then 2 weeks later, they move on. Like, remember when when you were literally a trader to the to the country if you didn’t support Ukraine. And no nobody cares at all.
Yes. You know? Except for, like, Adam And Lindsey graham, like, literally no 1 cares.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 2
It’s… I think israel’s had, like, we’re we’re getting to that point now. Like, originally was… Oh, look, we’re gonna start these cabinets because you have some pretty dedicated muslims who are still willing to do this stuff. But the more and more it just becomes a muslim thing.
We’re and less unless it becomes, like a a blue haired hippie kind of thing. The more you’re gonna see just people just don’t care. They they can’t hold their attention this long. You know? So do I see it, like, going negative or positive for israel?
I think it’s just gonna stay the way it is? And I think the situation is gonna go back back to exactly what it was before October seventh. And will it cost Baby his job maybe, but that’s… Good. Like, the guy’s been prime minister for forever.
Like, it’s time to get some new blood, and it doesn’t mean it has to be like a left wing communist that takes over. There just has to be new blood. You know, look look at it look at our country, about new blood. You know? I mean, granted, I’m I’m happy to to vote for Trump, but Do I really want Trump and Biden being my only choices?
Like, come on.
Speaker 1
Now what struck you as important with regard to the Pro Palestine anti Israel college protest.
Speaker 2
Nothing. I’ve didn’t find it important at all.
Speaker 1
Okay.
Speaker 2
I I think maybe I think like… A lot of the things that that came out during those protests, are stuff that we’ve all been talking about for years, like just a general little… Anti white attitude towards people, which, by the way, outside of the cards online, like most people saw it as an anti white thing. Like, they didn’t see it as just an anti Jewish thing as much as Jews love to be, like, different people. The vast majority of people just saw it as an anti white thing.
They just consider jews to be white people, and this is just another form of of anti whiteness. And that’s how most people see it. And do people love the passion know. They don’t. And that’s why, like, even the Democrats who who have never found a a violent protest they didn’t love.
Most of them had to kinda step back and just be like, yeah. We’re not gonna touch this. 1 Because again, it’s it’s 1 thing to support people when you think, like, okay. They’ve got a good cause. They’ve got a good idea, 1 maybe they’re getting a little violent, but whatever.
But with this 1, it wasn’t even that. It was just… It was it was stupidity and more and more of the people they were aligning themselves. Like, because originally was like, no No. No.
We’re we’re not pro Hamas. We’re just anti genocide or anti Israel bombing people. Was guess what. They were all pro us, and you’re just seeing it now. Like, like, now as as the people who were willing to, like, be a little more politically correct or are turning their backs because they just don’t care anymore.
Like, it’s all pro. Like, the people that are still doing the protest and the people who are still out there with the palestinian flags they’re celebrating October seventh. Like, they’re they’re talking about Israel being eradicated as a country. So everyone saw that it was headed in this direction. So now the Democrats have, a, a strong…
Oh, what’s what I’m looking for. A strong incentive to just make this go away like you ukraine did? And the republicans are just gonna keep doing what the Republicans do, because there never been a war they don’t love. So… I I just…
I don’t I don’t see it changing anything. Like, I don’t see any like people oh, or 10 7 changed everything. It really kinda didn’t.
Speaker 1
Who or or what do you turn to to make sense of the news? Is there any outlet? Is there any podcast? Is there any Twitter fee that you turn to… Who do you look to to become informed about what’s going on in the way to world?
Speaker 2
It’s a hard question because these days, like, I don’t I don’t care as much what’s going on in the world. And I take everything with a grain is fall. So I usually just read what’s going on and then try to see what the other side is saying and see, like… Kinda where in the middle it falls because I know I know that the left is lying. I know that the right is lying.
But I know there’s probably some truth in some of the things they’re saying. So I I tend to just, like, kinda look at whatever the source thought the source is, like, when Trump was on trial. Right? Everybody… Everybody on the right was saying he…
It was a set, and that’s all there was to it. And everyone on the left was saying no. He’s a criminal, and everything you’re you’re hearing is just him being prosecuted for a crime. And then I looked into it by reading the court documents. And guess what?
It was being set up. You know? Like, it it just is the way that it is. The the the the details, the the facts of the case don’t back up what they’re saying. And the same thing with Hunter Biden.
Like, like, they’re saying, oh, this is just a political prosecution and people lie on 4473 all the time, like, no. They actually don’t. When people lie on background checking submissions, they go to jail. I’m I’m I’m a professional guns smith. I know these things.
Like, people go to jail all the time for for just writing the slight Lock those things. It’s just part of what they do. The fact that it took them this long to prosecute them was a little worrisome. But notice how it took the jury in probably the friend is Biden town on the planet less than 3 hours to convict him. You know?
He did it. So… Okay. So you have to ignore, like, and I I’ve been talking about this with a lot of people even on my Wednesday show. Like, I think we’ve gotten to the trade with news.
Like, Tucker Carlson isn’t news. Sean hannity isn’t news. Rachel Mad isn’t news. Their news comment. They’re people that comment on the news.
So to say, like, oh, look, Tucker Carlson and debunked all of this. Like, maybe he did maybe he didn’t. But he’s not an investigative journalist. Like, he hasn’t done the research. He’s just…
Got a script in front of him that his research team gave him, and he’s just reading something for the popularity of his show. Like, they’re… And that’s that’s often what we do these days. And, like, if you if you go on any social media platform whether it be Facebook or Twitter or Tiktok or whatever. Everyone loves calling themselves independent journalists now or, you know, like, private assistant journal like.
Most of them don’t have slide Said, us journalism, it they just know that, like, they’re reporting stuff that other people are reporting and they think because they write breaking next to it that it’s like an act of journalism. Like, they they they don’t they don’t have any way to verify sources even if they wanted to, So I take everything with a grain of salt, and I just… III tend to turn more towards history these days. Like, I just like reading about history. And when I when I see something that’s bothering me, I kind of look into the history of it to see where things were before people got insane about it.
Speaker 1
So are you more or less pessimistic about the trajectory of the United States compared to when I was last? Talking to you in 20 19, 20 20 when you’re were quite negative about the trajectory.
Speaker 2
I’m I’m mixed on it because financially, we are headed for, like, a cliff like we’ve never seen before. Like, the amount of debt that we have and At this point or… I don’t I don’t think do anyone out there who disagree with me. Like, we are not on a on a solid financial trajectory. Like, we’re coming to a day of reckoning.
And fast it’s, but 2 the country. I pretty positive value this pace will have to come better. You. Like, if there’s no money for things, you can’t just make money appear. Like, I know we’ve been printing money for a while now and just give me it away month.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. I’m I’m losing you, the the audio is cutting out. So, if if if if you have time, can you, like, hang up and call back in? Off of that improves the quality.
So maybe you can hang up and call back in if you don’t have time, then it’s it’s great to talk to you. Okay. I’ll, I’ll play something else and see what happens.
Speaker 4
And and in fact, there are also among that this group of people those who say, well, there is a limit to irrational belief in in divine intervention. And and and
Speaker 1
Yeah. Jose, can you hang up and come back in, see, oh, there we go. There we… Nope. That didn’t bring you back in.
So…
Speaker 2
Let’s see if it works.
Speaker 1
Okay. That that’s that’s better. So yeah. I think that’s better. So talk to me what you see as the trajectory of the United States, everything.
You were saying got heavily garbled.
Speaker 2
What I think is is that when when you look at… At the monetary situation, like, things are going to change whether we want them to or not, and it’ll be interesting to see what people step up and what they do when things get interesting because we don’t have enough money to sustain our country at all. And we’ve spent so many years just wasting it on garbage and piling up debt that now, like, the simple things that we’re going to need in the future, like, a military and, like, social security and, like, the things that no 1 wants to cut, Like, they’re going to have to be dealt with because there’s not enough money to do it. The So I think that…
Speaker 1
Okay. We’re we’re losing your audio aussie. Okay. Maybe you can maybe you can hang up and come back in. Yeah.
We just keep losing your audio. So let me let me bring let me bring Cla cor in and jose if you can just hang up and come back in. Click Claire. Anything you’ve heard that you wanna comment on?
Speaker 2
I just… Just the comment your… On on your title about who determines the winning narrative and I suppose for people who claim to believe in god it must surely be the divine narrative of redemption after repentance.
Speaker 1
So those who believe in God have the winning narrative Is that what you’re saying?
Speaker 2
Well, those have really even God would have to believe that God will dispose of affairs in a where that is my satisfying even if we’re not quite sure, what what he’s going to do, And I believe I have a theory about the whole thing. Well, I do have a theory and, I’m just basically saying that, christianity is the the the problem and both at a political level and, in, in a logical level because it’s idol, So if god exist, he’ll be annoyed at the idol tree of worshiping and executed last. And, if god doesn’t exist. It will be, the reason why the west is in decline is because they don’t. Have an official moral system, at least maintaining minimum standards of sexual morality ensuring most parents are married parents, and that is a cause of d geography and climb, which, can only be corrected by secular Iran is and royal is Islam.
Speaker 1
So are there any parts of the world where you see them on a positive trajectory?
Speaker 2
We rem Muslims?
Speaker 1
Any part of the world?
Speaker 2
Well, we we know that the Iranians got their country back. And they are the most powerful Islamic State in the world, and well, I mean, that… That’s all I can say, really. And as for the other muslim countries. They they didn’t follow their religion properly, but then, the solution to not following your book of rooms of leaders to follow it better next time.
It’s like a recipe book that you don’t bother the reading or following.
Speaker 1
Of So is there anything that you wanna say that it’s not a repetition of secular?
Speaker 2
Really. What what what why were you asking about the winning narrative? You’re you’re talking about Israel aren’t you by
Speaker 1
I’m sorry any narrative, when it… When a major event happens, you’ll quickly notice that there’s a very similar emotional tone. And a very similar narrative that is dispensed from the mainstream media whether it’s from the the Bbc or the New York Times. I’m just wondering, you know, why is there usually 1 dominant narrative for almost every major event?
Speaker 2
Because the Cia won’t knows what it wants us to believe globally. So so that’s why it It has this dominant narrative. The bbc Ceo used to be called the content controller. And and that that was so obvious, what what they were doing all along. So so this content controller managers are quotations and manipulate or moods by you know, quiet us down especially during Christmas where everything is supposed to be quiet and nice and, creating narratives of political parties, what we’re having a a general election on the fourth of July.
And, basically, it it… The narrative is that, the tori are now une unacceptable. It’s got to be labor, It’s got to be labor. But but it’s been repeated many times over the decades, une you know, with with with the a similar managing of our expectations.
Speaker 1
And is the public just… Passive recipients of elite narratives or does the public get to play a role in which narratives become dominant?
Speaker 2
Well, they can choose to believe or it or not believe it, and I think this dominant narrative is, meant to meant for the eyes and ears of the average female voter who, won’t be interested in geopolitics won’t probably doesn’t understand her own history very well and certainly isn’t interested in the histories of other countries the American empire invades. And, what what I’ve noticed about, Ukraine was that Z was chosen especially for his ability, to appeal to a certain demographic, women of a certain page who thing, you know, he looks. He’s got a full head of hair. He’s he was a comedian he’s got a nice looking why, you know, that’s all of thing. I mean, Gu was you know, the the kind of guy that I think was being deliberately promoted to attract the female vote, Yeah
Speaker 1
who who who
Speaker 2
gui go Putter?
Speaker 1
Who who’s gui?
Speaker 2
Imagine was was be being promoted for a while in Venezuela. I think they gave up on that now.
Speaker 1
And which which narratives give you the the biggest dopamine rush, which make you feel the greatest.
Speaker 2
Dopamine Well, well, obviously, I want everything to, end happily and for for good to triumph over evil. Yes. I did want to ask you about Eu Yu Har book, Sapiens. Have you read that 1?
Speaker 1
No. I I find him Tires, and he he just seems to relay relay the the the conventional wisdom as though at some great big insight. So III just find myself tuning out whenever I listen to him speak. And and I haven’t read any reviews praising the book from people I respect. So…
Speaker 2
Yeah. I haven’t read a book either, but… He seems to be selling something quite important from the Wikipedia entry of his book that I read, which is that people believe what they want to believe and basically, human history has been people making up stories about themselves. And their group and living their lives to make it come true but fake it till you make it strategy for their for people’s preferred narrative? Or do you think about that, Luke?
Speaker 1
Yeah. I I think people choose the… The the narrative that makes them feel the best. It gives them the biggest dopamine I mean Rush reduces the pain.
Speaker 2
Yes. And and and today, IIII hosted a space, whose original title was do beliefs? Stupid believes make clever people stupid. I I was if you had an answer to that question, Luke.
Speaker 1
Do stupid beliefs make clever people stupid well. Certainly, I’d be… And and we’re all stupid in various areas. Like, nobody’s gonna be a astute in all areas of life. And as we are again to be primarily attracted to those narratives that give us the biggest dopamine Rush.
Of course, many of them are gonna be completely disconnected from reality. But if you embrace the narrative of this completely disconnected from reality and is rationally stupid. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad narrative for you because many of our narratives have to do with things that have no direct impact on our life. So let’s say you embrace narrative about the causes of World War 1 that is completely disconnected from reality That’s not gonna have any effect on your life. Let’s say you embrace a narrative about Ufo that is disconnected from reality.
That’s not gonna have any effect on your life. If you change, exchange 1 type of Christian theology for another type of Christian theology, it’s… Not not likely to make a dramatic difference in the quality of of your life unless it it changes the people that you hang out with, and then it’s there their social influence that will change your life. So so most narratives, most beliefs don’t have any direct impact on someone’s life.
Speaker 2
What about religious beliefs belief in the Abrahamic God because… Well, they’re supposed to be, you no, all those people who who claimed to be Jews Christians and Muslims, so they’re supposed to believe in god. But but it it’s… And and you’ve pointed it out before that that… It it just even jews Christians and Muslims do not.
Behave in a way that is different to to atheists.
Speaker 1
Yeah. So the the belief in and of itself doesn’t make much of a difference in the the lives of people who say yes to the belief except it does make them a little more predisposed to, more intense in group identity. So what will make a difference is if that belief then leads to concrete human connections, and then those will… Form you. Those will affect you.
So if you believe in god in a Christian sense, and then this leads you to greater connection with with Christians then those social short relationships will have some effect on you.
Speaker 2
Yes. I mean, I I think that… Many people, the overwhelming majority of people who claim to be juice christians and we’ll are in it, in fact, atheist. And what you said about, you know, you you you like Christian culture. You like Christian people.
So you you join the Christian gang, or you join the Muslim gang or the, you know, or or you you convert to today’s. And it is really about, which central club you want to be belong to rather than any any principled belief at all,
Speaker 1
Yeah. I think people… We’re we’re living in a secular nationalist age. And as opposed to 600 years ago when we lived in a much more religious world. So in this more secular, more nationalist age.
This is going to affect how we engage in religion. And most people are not abstract thinkers, and I’m gonna think deeply on matters of theology or religious principle. And so their religious affiliation, will will affect them, you know, primarily on the basis of identity and the personal connections that they make or or fail to make. So if you go to a church and you don’t have several friends there, you’re gonna abandon that church. On the other hand, if you go to a church or a synagogue or mosque, and you have half a dozen friends there, you’re going to persist.
And in our likelihood, if you attend frequently, those relationships are gonna become among the most important in your life, And so you will protect them and you will seek in protecting those relationships to conform your life at least outward, to what your most important friends expect from you?
Speaker 2
Yes. But all the subject of religious principles or or just any principle, aren’t we, at the end of the day, logically supposed to say that we’re prepared to die for our principles,
Speaker 1
principal Well, I… That’s just not the way the world works. I mean, very very few people are willing to die for their principles. I think what you find is that people are willing to die for their family or for their closest friends. So Americans who fought in World war 2.
They weren’t primarily driven by ideology or by promoting democracy. They were primarily driven by their connection with the soldiers that they fought were. There was those relationships that were the primary thing… Primary thing that shapes them. And so 2, with your typical Christian, Jew and Muslim, they are primarily driven by their closest relationships if those closest relationships.
Come out of a a house of worship or a religious schooling, then they’re going to be incentivized to conform their their behavior with with that which will enable these relationships to keep going, but certainly in in a overwhelmingly secular nationalist world, very few people would die for a principle, and it simply would be evolution m adaptive. So not many of our ancestors were willing to die for principles or we wouldn’t be here. Like, in a in a fight for survival and in a struggle for the fit. Alright. Those people who are less willing to die for principal were more likely to propagate their genes than those who were willing to die for principal.
So Our ancestors are much more likely to be killers and rap than they were to be people who die for principal. And so we’ve got the genetics of killers and Rap and liars much more than we’ve got the genetics of matters.
Speaker 2
But but the these killers and Rap you mentioned. They… That that surely need die for the principle of patriotism and when they are cons or or expected to join in a war that will ultimately kill them. But but that would be in in in service of western imperial, for example.
Speaker 1
Well, I I think they probably do everything that could to minimize their chance of of dying. So III think very few of them willingly went to their death because it just makes common sense genetically that our ancestors were more likely to be people who did everything that they rationally could to reduce their chance of dying and put more of a premium on reproduction than people who are going out there to die for any particular cause people who willingly put themselves out there to die for a cause are much less likely to reproduce successfully than people who try to avoid dying.
Speaker 2
But but if it’s for the fu of the group, my, a quote from Thomas Jefferson comes to mind about the trip of lipid tea being watered with a blood of young men something like that? Yeah.
Speaker 1
The blood of Marty. It… It’s 1 of those tea you know, nice sounding quotes that can can be quite inspiring, but I don’t think it accord with reality. So, most of our narrative probably don’t accord with reality, and that’s just another inspiring narrative that does not reflect reality. If our ancestors were were dying for principal, we wouldn’t be here as much more likely that our ancestors were people who did everything they could to minimize dying, including betray their principles, and they were much more likely to be killers rather than be killed, and they were much more likely to be rap than people who were extremely ci speck in their sexuality.
Speaker 2
But jude jude also have this principle of marty doesn’t it, and it is called K hash?
Speaker 1
Yeah. Kidd shit. Like, all religious traditions I would. Expect have some tradition of mo that’s inspiring. But there’s a very big difference between having principles and narratives that ex external mo and then actually carrying it out.
Now, there there have been a tiny minority of juice who willing to die him and to dia but there wouldn’t be jews around if that was the general predisposition of Jews.
Speaker 2
If if jews have been prepared to call out the idol tree of Christians, maybe Christianity would have been you know, less this global, but perhaps and perhaps, if if our muslims have been prepared to acknowledge those who claimed that God has been forgotten the son has commanded, by the quran in chapter 18 burst 4II guess they might have saved themselves from Western imperial, but since they didn’t follow these really religious principles. It it could be that they, brought a lot of suffering that, you know, that like, that being victims are western in period has caused caused them. So so maybe the jury is out on there,
Speaker 1
Well, nobody almost nobody meaning statistically speaking, nobody listens to what out groups have to say about your religion. So I remember growing up as a Christian. The idea that that the people around me gave a fig what Jews said about idol tree was just completely inc incompatible. Nobody cared what anyone outside of their particular religion said. And so to as a to orthodox studios are no Orthodox jew gives a fig, what any non orthodox jew says about god and religion let alone, what a Christian or a Muslim says, but And so I can only imagine that that for the overwhelming majority of Muslims, none of them give e fig and nor look for guidance.
From Christians and Jews with regard to what’s true. We’re all overwhelmingly oriented to only listen to people who already share out narrative who are already part of our in group, and we are just predisposed to ignore the the criticism of our groups.
Speaker 2
But liberal is a religion isn’t it?
Speaker 1
Yeah. It’s a secular centralization of protestantism. Like, work is a secular type of protestantism.
Speaker 2
And and it is based on on atheism, which means people are… Would would be afraid to die for their principles and, look, mock mock people who do die for their principles, but but it it it it makes me wonder how how weak it makes atheists seem, you know, if you can imagine, a group of soldiers who are all atheism and a group of soldiers who, believe in an after life and that good will be rewarded, then, it seems to be that the soldiers believing in in code and the afterlife would be more likely to fight more bravely, and therefore be successful in battle.
Speaker 1
Right. But, particularly in a technological age, the… The bravery of soldiers is rarely the decisive element in an engagement, what usually happens is the most technologically advanced most powerful armed forces wins over the less powerful armed forces and the bravery of the individual combat combat doesn’t really have much to do with it. I mean, if 1 side has machine guns and the other side does not have machine guns side with machine guns I’m pretty sure 1 must battles.
Speaker 2
Yes. I’m I’m saying all things being equal, but but, outside warfare, I imagine people with religious principles that they they hold to would be more prepared to defend them, and, atheists who will be prepared to pretend to believe in things they don’t believe in or say things, but they don’t mean in order, to acquire for themselves at highest status.
Speaker 1
Well, religious people just average religious people on average have a stronger in group identity. And are more more generous and more sacrificing for other people in their in group than non religious people. So… People with a strong in group identity are gonna be much more willing to sacrifice for for their group, then non religious people who tend to overwhelmingly lack a strong in group identity. And as far as the bravery of soldiers that that largely correlates with the intensity of group identity.
So for example, the Germans, would recruit soldiers from particular regions. Well, say in America, they would throw soldiers together from all parts of the country So German soldiers had much more intense in group identity than say American soldiers, which would throw together, say soldiers from Sacramento California, Alabama and and Arkansas and New York and throw them all together and it’d be a completely desperate, very group who would usually develop some bonds, but they would not nearly have the intensity of group identity of the German soldiers who would be recruited from specific parts of the country and likely, you know, grew up with each other, the and therefore, again, to be much more willing to sacrifice for each other. So Alright German soldiers during World war 2 and Japanese soldiers during World war 2, were much more willing to sacrifice for each other than, say, American soldiers were.
Speaker 2
Oh, you mean the regiment system, I I believe the British. That the British do. You that don’t they?
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well, the British have always enjoyed, you know, far more group cohesion and group trust than say Americans. Right? That there’s there’s much more of a sense we’re in it together in in Britain than in America.
Speaker 2
But on the question of of principled in june. Do you think having the principle of, well, getting married emboldened traditional. Do traditional men in into marriage, which I think, a a lot of atheist liberal men find horrifying, of Yeah. Want to do it at all.
Speaker 1
Yes. Yes. It’s really just people who more likely to get married to have kids. And so the the world view that you wanna get married and have kids that seems to be much more common among religious people. So I I think people essentially choose their sex lives, and then they build their re or lack thereof depending upon the type of sex life that they intend.
So you want to grow up to have a mono enormous marriage and children, you’re much more likely to be religious. If you intend to have a prom sex life, you’re less likely to be religious. So people decide you know, what kind of sex life they’re gonna pursue, and then they choose religion or secular depending upon how they wanna direct their sexual.
Speaker 2
Yes. They they they choose our lifestyle option first, and then Yeah. Choose the an ideology to fit in with their yeah option. Mh. Yeah.
I think it comes
Speaker 1
from like a pre cognitive part of ourselves. We have, you know, pre pre cognitive drives, And then… We all choose a hero a system or a a religion or lack thereof to to suit these very strong drives.
Speaker 2
Yes. Yes. Oh, I’m you you may know that my my regular streaming partner is is Men and Bruno who… Who’s an ex jehovah’s witness. But but I think well even people who are openly gay, may have the desire to to believe in the able court.
Speaker 1
Yeah. But very rarely. I mean, overwhelmingly, people who identify as gay, hate, judaism, Christianity. Just as christianity and judaism are strongly opposed to homosexuality. So they’re pretty much mirror images of of each other.
If you Primarily identify as Christian or as Jewish, you’re gonna have a strong opposition to homosexuality. If you identify as homosexual, can have a strong opposition to Judaism and Christianity, and those who don’t have that strong opposition they’re notable because they are the exception that proves the rule.
Speaker 2
Yes. I I think that in interior too. I mean, the the old brown, but, you know, obviously, 1 is… 1 1 worship idol and the other, dislikes the idea of, worship idol. It it reminds me of ancient Athens and ancient Sparta where they had, or, although the with the same row brace and worship at the same, deities, they have a different a very different idea of governance with the At opinions practicing direct democracy, and, the Spartan, something else?
Speaker 1
Yeah. The Spartan essentially had a a society that that places the highest value war and the readiness to go to war and, the At aca had had a, you know, a different hero system.
Speaker 2
Yes. What do you call it hero system? It it… Instead of moral system that I’m curious about that.
Speaker 1
I got it from a book code that what is it the fear of death? I’m trying to… Is it the denial? Is it the denial of death? I what what’s what’s the the the…
Yeah. Ernest becker. So he wrote a book called the the denial of death, and the what 1 point of the book. Was that our deepest fear is significance. And so that that aligns with my pre existing world our strongest drive after survival is for status.
And so ward off a feeling of insignificant, we all subscribed to some kind of here a system, some kind of system that we’re a part of so that our individual lives are not insignificant, but we’re really part of something that transcend our individualized lives that goes on after we die that we’re part of something that’s eternal and transcend and magnificent and we usually get this system from our community. And this this system tells us what’s heroic and what’s coward, what’s what’s good and what’s evil. And even if you’re secular, you still have a hero system. Like, even if you’re an atheist, even if you’re a relative, even if you’re post modern, you can’t help but have instincts that view certain things as evil and some things as good. And so hero system seems to to work for for people who deny objective morality because even however, philosophically, rationally you deny objective morality.
You still can’t help but live as though there such a thing as objective morality, and we’re all hardwired to need, some kind of system that gives our lives transcend meaning. And so if you’re a scientist, right, you you’ll probably get your transcend meaning, but being part of this heroic system of uncovering truth. And so you see the system is going on after your death and and you’re part of this system that removes ignorance from people and shows them, you know, a wise way to live. And if you’re Christian or if you’re Australian, Alright? I grew up in Australia, and there was this widespread notion in Australia that if you weren’t Australian, you didn’t matter.
And so there was a particular hero system simply in being… A secular Australian. So from secular to religious to from communist to capitalists from from doctor to painter, it it here system just seems to fit what what drives people, a system that includes morality that is not confined to morality.
Speaker 2
Recently, you tweeted about the the use of the word problematic, were you thinking of doing because he uses a word or not, but then I know a lot of other people use a word or not.
Speaker 1
No. I wasn’t thinking of David at all. I was thinking of an academic who I really enjoy. He’s Aaron W Hughes. He’s he’s quite an esteem academic in the field of day studies and Islamic studies.
I I’ve probably read about 20 of his books. And in some of his books, he starts using the word problematic. And so because here from someone, whom I had such great esteem. It it it ji me as as a eu that it’d be… I think it’d be much better writing to say what the problem is rather than seeking refuge in the term problematic.
Speaker 2
I I suppose people use it because They don’t want to seem to be imposing their own standards. Of morality over other people. But would you say that that could be the reason?
Speaker 1
Yes. Because… It is primarily used by academics, and academics are overwhelming on the left, and people on the left have it instinct that they have transcend hero systems. That they are simply pragmatic and rational and empirical and they believe in facts and truth, they’ve transcend these partisan hero systems that are an essential function of being on the the right where people are still be united and medieval and still clinging to the guns and religion. So if people on the left were to be explicit about why they use problematic instead of being more…
Explicit, they would have to face up to the to the partisan and subjective nature of their own hero systems.
Speaker 2
And and righteous, how do you feel about the word righteous? I I think people kind of cringe when you say that word?
Speaker 1
Well, some people like secular people and academics load the word righteous, but they have their synonyms that make them feel good like, inclusive. Or empirical or rational or their sense of identification with those who use the word problematic. So we we use different words but the words and and the particular narratives you know, are are employed by people to get a a dopamine rush. And to ward off the feeling of insignificant. But righteous is a word used by people with a more friendly attitude towards traditional religion problematic is used by usually people on the left or are in academia.
Speaker 2
So so there’s some academic you admire, he he’s an atheist. Is he.
Speaker 1
Yeah. I’m pretty sure he’s an atheist, but, I admire the quality of his scholarship. I don’t admire his atheism. But, I believe that every hero system in every world comes with at certain strengths. Right?
There a reason, The certain narratives have perpetuated themselves for hundreds and thousands of years, and that’s because they have confer an evolutionary advantage. So There are areas of life where I believe the atheist is going to see things more clearly than the believer, then there are other areas of life where the believer is going to see things more clearly than the atheist. They’re gonna be ares in life where a left wing perspective is gonna be more adaptive to the circumstances. And there are other situations in life where or right. Traditional approach will be more effective and some circumstances a communist approach is gonna be more effective and other circumstances, wing xenophobic right wing dictator approach will be more effective.
So I recognize that different hero systems come with different advantages.
Speaker 2
We recently also you tweeted about masculinity. Did… I… I think I might have not listened to it as as attentive as I should have. Did you arrive at any conclusion about what Masculinity should be or is?
Speaker 1
Well, I think what it is is measured by how much income you can bring down if you can do it in a legal enough ending manner to provide for your family. Right? That is the bottom line of how masculinity works in the real world. So if you ending are unable to bring in sufficient income to properly take care of a spouse and a kid and kids, or if you don’t have a spouse and and children then you’re not regarded as masculine. You have a masculine at
Speaker 2
all Right. And not marriage
Speaker 1
and you’re not masculine. So the primary purpose, given that the state overwhelmingly has near monopoly on violence. So you’re not usually court upon to defend your family. Through from physical violence. So the overwhelming definition is can you provide for a family And how wealth can you provide for your family?
Speaker 2
Yes. So so I… Going back to what we were saying earlier about righteous. I mean, I… I would say right just means principle.
But these days, if you stick to your principles, you are marked for probably being, maybe which extremist or a radical or a fundamentalist or bad words, But all you’re doing is trying to stick to your principles, which if they go against the state, what we’ll will get you called names. But but with regard to men, a masculinity, surely, but the most important principle of masculinity is the requirement to defend, property, territory, women, and children. And if they don’t, if they’re mostly atheists who are bachelors or gay or transgender, then they won’t be defending their territory or their women or their children. And this, I think is is the real danger of atheism in my view, they will all, run away because they they would not be living with any wear or children because they wouldn’t have any. And and and that, may explain why the older civilization still claimed to have some kind of religion.
Speaker 1
Right. Well, it… It’s very rare that a man is called upon to physically defend his spouse and his children. On the other hand, it is the normal thing that a that a man is called upon to provide for his spouse and children. So the the state has the overwhelming near monopoly of violence.
So it’s quite rare. That men in the United States or England or Australia, a quote upon to literally take up arms to defend their family.
Speaker 2
Well, I I was just thinking… If a if a wife when went she heard something downstairs and told her our husband to investigate and he refused. It it might make her want to divorce him, perhaps. I don’t know if you might.
Speaker 1
I think you’re you’re right. And… But but women are pretty good at t. The these sort of things. So she would have detected this coward in him, you know, very early on.
And so I doubt that it would’ve have it would be a revelation. Like, women are pretty good at detecting whether a man is there to… It is putting a priority I providing and protecting for. Just just like we detect all sorts of traits, you, whether a man is likely to cheat on you. Whether a man is likely to treat you horribly whether a man is likely to conduct himself in an esteem fashion so that he has the respect of the people are important to you.
I think women get a sense of these things very quickly. And and far more often than a man is gonna be called upon to physically defend his wife in the situation you just described from… From day 1, he’s going to be torn upon to financially provide for her. And a man who is cheap. Or simply unable to provide for her from day 1.
It’s gonna be at a sizable disadvantage in, you know, attracting her her affection. And so that’s why I think it’s the ability to provide that is the overwhelming measure of masculinity.
Speaker 2
Well, in in peace time. Certainly. But but III was also thinking of dessert in in in, war, So if if your some, you know, in a war war situation but a man, just 1 man turns up in… In a soldiers uniform. That that there’d be some assumptions made about them that that he he he must have deserted and, everybody is to s him, and he’s probably dangerous because he he’s no longer attached to us, you know, to the people he’s supposed to be attached to.
Speaker 1
Right. I mean, all groups develop a hero systems by which those who shook their responsibilities, particularly those responsibilities the cut against your individual advantage. So people have to be shamed to to act for their community against their individual advantage. And so all groups have ways of directing score towards those who are free loading. I have a a question for you at at what age, did you notice your female charms and the power that they gave you start to diminish.
Speaker 2
I know it you you you’ll find it surprising, but III get offers, even even now, but that’s probably because I I don’t show myself. And I I didn’t know how serious card it was when he said, he he was looking for a second wife and was there to consider me. I I don’t know I… I don’t… Okay.
Women are more fuss than men. And and men, I suppose I guess it’s just the nature of the o relations. So I’m sure I I would a attract woman if I just would shut up about politics. And my…
Speaker 1
But but in real life, I mean, there would I would I would guess around 15 to 25. That that you you felt the rush of of power that you had over man simply giving them your attention or a smile. And then as the years go by, women often note that they increasingly become invisible. So I’m just curious what that real life experience was for you as opposed to the online world.
Speaker 2
Well, I I don’t dress you know, in a, in a glamorous way. So I I don’t, you know, I can have this, you know, all eyes on me when I enter the room, feeling that, you know, a lot of beauties have, and I remember, a a female friend of mine who was a beauty, and and and then she grew old. And and and she told me, it it was actually a relief. To not have to, you know, go through the P of being, you of, yes, having this performance of you know, being the bell of the ball and all Turned on you. And and and she she she said she was happy to retire?
Speaker 1
Do you did you remember the rush of of power that you you got at when when men’s. But started paying court to you? Was was that a significant Russia power or you simply didn’t experience it that way or remember it that way.
Speaker 2
I… Remember that that men, you know, pest me when I was in my twenties, and I I remember people saying that, if you want the rockstar star treatment without actually being famous or a rockstar star, be a woman in her twenties. And you would get that feeling. For no reason other than the fat, but you, you know, you have a Vagina and you’re of child bearing age. I think this was sent by man about women and how how they are.
Speaker 1
I I don’t remember when. 42, I dated a woman who was 41, and she was beautiful. And I asked her… What what percentage of your self esteem you get from your looks and she said 100 percent. For you, say, in your twenties and thirties, what percentage of your self esteem came from your locks.
Speaker 2
I suppose I didn’t really think of myself as being that attractive. And so III Actually… I didn’t appreciate it that much at the time. I… You know, so so I might look at pictures that…
Of of me my twenties and I think good that know. I have to call back there. And On it, it wasn’t my thing, and and my mind was was on other things. And and so, I guess, at at at that age, I I didn’t really make as much of myself as I, I could have done. But but I suppose at the end of the day, I I did alright.
Speaker 1
How much self esteem did you get? From… Say having an affair with a famous man.
Speaker 2
Oh, yeah no. No. It’s because it was sort of, I I remember thinking. That that’s a best that they can possibly get. I’m only in my twenties, and I’ve got my heart designer.
And it can only go downhill from that. That’s I remember that that went went through my head. I’d life to better.
Speaker 1
So where do you primarily get your self esteem today?
Speaker 2
Through… Okay. I think I am doing something quite unusual, I think the truth needs to be stated clearly in a way that is meant to, motivate. Focused and successful action. I I really don’t see that being done anywhere.
So, even at as I lack success. I I still enjoy the challenge. I know I’m very fortunate because a lot of men fear to do what I do. And, I I find it, both compulsive, and rewarding to to to just say every day exactly what I mean.
Speaker 1
Okay. Great. I’m gonna move on any final words for today?
Speaker 2
No. No. Thank you for. Having me on and, discussing the topics so dear to my art. Thank you luke.
Speaker 1
Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 4
Okay. There’s still maybe some tiny hope of of saving the state of Israel by taking some kind of rational action. But those are… Those voices are ignored. And and but the other 85 percent of Jews, in Israel, who who listen to Smart and Ben, and and they listen to what they’re saying, they say, well, if this is what the government is saying.
Remember, the… I mean, III don’t know if all of our viewers, and listeners are aware that Ben redfield. Is the Israeli minister of national Security and Sm is the minister of Finance. So they are in very key positions in the government and
Speaker 1
okay. Just listening to a little bit from the electronic into fodder. They claim the ga genocide will… Lead to Israel’s collapse. So large part of the reason we have so much talk about Israel committing genocide in Gaza is that we have a vast increase in the number of experts in genocide and to increase their own power prestige income, and the number of jobs available to them, they are strongly incentivized, to denote you know, current ongoing genocide.
Alright? They are incentivized to create genocide where otherwise, people might not see them. So 2, we have a vast increase in the number of experts in the fields of international humanitarian law and human rights. And so by playing up the horrible things happening in Gaza people in the fields of human rights, and international humanitarian law. Right, they get to make the case that they’re expertise is important that they are important.
They are deserving of funding. They’re deserving of jobs to have endowed professors ships, they deserve to be published in the New York Times and the financial times, they deserve to be invited on Cnn just as people in the fields of mental health. Right? They’re they’re strongly incentivized to increase the definitions of mental illness so that more and more of the population needs their services, that will drive up the number of jobs available to psychiatrists and social workers or drive up their prestige and their income and their sense of themselves as possessing special skills that enable them to heal society, if you are a specialist in trauma. Right?
You’re incentivized to see the world through the perspective of trauma. So Almost all human ill have been related to a cause of trauma. That that’s become the the dominant paradigm. And so you strongly incentivized to describe what was happening in the world as a result of trauma. That the world has this illness and you have the cure.
So this will create more prestige for you, more demand for your services, more jobs for you, more income for you, you know, more likely to get published and you’re more likely to be part of the cool crowd if you can convince the world that trauma is the magic key to what’s going on around us. Right, back to few thoughts from Ronnie Goodman in his work in progress, conservative claims of cultural oppression, Feminist narrative tells us that women’s liberation is a struggle against the forces of patriarchy. But for conservatives, this history is written by the Victor. And it’s a history that silence is the voices of the losers. Right?
The non feminist women’s women, whose trials and tribulation never enter the liberal moral equation. So, yeah, feminism is a struggle, not by or women against mayor Patriarch, but really by an elite. Minority of powerful women against a majority of women who never felt compromise in the first place by traditional gender roles. So liberals adopt their moral stance like all groups in further of a heroic narrative that places them at center stage. And can scripts other groups as props.
So whatever you’re hear system, Orthodox Jew, Sun Muslim Seventh day adventist adventist, a gay activist. Right? Everybody adopt some moral stance in further of a particular heroic narrative that places you at the center of the universe and cons other groups as props. So Liberals seek to uplift the down, but the down props. Alright, Helping the down is part of the liberal heroic narrative that assigned them liberals a privileged role, which other people must bear the cost Right?
Just as Clarence Thomas had to bear the cost. That’s why he received so much a program. Right? If he would have simply… Accepted his designated role as a victim, he could have enjoyed the ben of the liberal establishment, the ben of the anointed, and played his role in the victim villain rescue narrative, as long as he acknowledged that narrative and the anointed status within it as rescuers, but by opposing affirmative of action, Clarence Thomas denied that narrative, and he denied the status victim and so he became exposed to the prejudice from which liberal lacks shield.
So Robert Ba, sim, and went through these trials and tribulation of denying the liberal hero system. He noticed that Supreme Court pronounce are significantly guided up by the meaning the constitution but by the values of the class that is dominant in their culture. And our primary institutions have being colonized by a par morality of an arrogant intellectual class. In this liberal left class elevate their particular cultural ethos into a he harmonic narrative about the meaning of American ideals all under the guise of thoughtful, light enlightenment and progress.
Speaker 4
And without them the government does not have a majority, so they have a lot of power. And if these people are in power If they are willing to sacrifice everything, and just wait for divine intervention, we better pack our packs. We better get out of here. And that’s what we’re actually seeing.
Speaker 3
Can you talk a little bit more about that? Phrase zion is being talked about in the in the past tense really jumped out at me. Can you talk about what what is
Speaker 1
Okay. Suddenly, things are lighting up on kick. So my light streams go out simultaneously on. Kick dot com backslash look forward on x backslash look forward on d live. D live, I think backslash look forward.
On Youtube backslash Lucas back. There on on 6 different places. And so here on kick dot com. What’s my birthday? 05/28/1964 Thoughts on the wall.
The the western wall? Well, it is the outer wall of the temple, and so it has has great historical and emotional resonance for people who who who believe in in that traditional Jewish perspective in life. Got a gay activist here in the chat, Right. So we all have a hero system. And so gay activist is 1 hero system, and I’m an orthodox Jew.
That’s another hero system. There’s no objective measure of hero system unless you wanna claim that… This is the objective measure, and all other hero systems. Or short. Should liberals be burned alive inside tires.
I think that’s a terrible idea. Chat says Israel is the victim Right. So there are plenty of perspectives and prisons through which you can see the arab of Israeli conflict through that particular prism that Israel’s Vic And then there are other prisons through which you can see it as Israel as the ag. So it all depends upon your particular hero system. Tim Am I Jewish?
Yes. I am a convert to orthodox Judaism thoughts on black lives matter. Thing has been a disastrous form of activism. Responsible for about 100000 additional deaths by discouraging policing, which has led to a vast increase in murder, and in reckless driving and the death of drivers and civilians. Okay.
And other questions here that completely beyond beyond my can. So… I just read a great essay by my my new favorite scholar. The name is Amanda Alexander. And she is at Australian Catholic University.
Amanda Alexander, trading Catholic University. Let’s see if I can find find a a picture of her. So she is a legal scholar, and I I love her her work. So I’ve just been been going through many of her essay essays is and contributions to various books. So do I think the old testament superior to the new testament?
Yes. I I do. I never resonated to the new testament, so Grew up the side of a Christian evangelist and theologian. My father did 2 Phds essentially in Christianity and Christian thought, did a phd in rhetoric at Michigan state. He did his thesis on rhetoric of the Apostle Paul, He did another Phd in apocalyptic, meaning the teachings of the book of Daniel, in particular chapter 8 verse 14, I believe apocalyptic religious teachings about the the time of the end.
And in part, as a punishment for my lies, and in part because he wanted me to learn these things, starting in about third grade, I’d have to read 30 to 40 dents pages of Christian ap every day and type a 1 page summary to demonstrate that I understood what I was reading, so I learned all the arguments for why Christianity was true, but at the same time, I developed an emotional loa for Christianity because This assignment took me away from playing with my friends and having to, you know, go through these dense, theological and ap works that were of no interest to me. So the new testament does not re reflect reality as I experience it. On the other hand, the Hebrew Bible, Christians called the old testament is much more reflective of reality. So Hebrew bible shows flawed people, while the the new testament, what portrays Jesus as god’s son on a on a divine mission to save humanity and by vic participating in in some ritual or faith affirmation. You can then live eternally.
That doesn’t ring true to me. It doesn’t seem particularly honorable but I could relate to the stories of the narratives and the main flawed characters in the Hebrew Bible much more than I could with the… Greek scriptures. So Amanda Alexander, I’m a big fan. And in 2007, she published a terrific essay called the Genesis of the civilian.
So civilian isn’t some kind of eternal category that goes on down through the ages. Alright So the civilian is a specific way of viewing non combat that can be traced to the first world War. So before that war, non combat was seen by the law and by a prevailing cultures as citizens, and has essentially taken for granted that citizens would share the fate of their state. As But now in the modern view, the people in Gaza should not share the state of the fate of Gaza. Right, they should not share the fate of the entity that controls gaza, a us.
Do I find the Hebrew Bible bleak? And the omniscient god to be cruel. No. I am able to relate to the Hebrew Bible. So there certainly bleak passages in the Hebrew…
Bible, but it seems to match the the bleak that’s there in life, and then there’s also a lot of love and celebration and and happiness and joy in the Hebrew revival as well. So I I don’t don’t resonate with the greek scriptures, I do resonate with the Hebrew bible. So prior to the first world War, the citizen was seen as potentially and likely aggressive and essentially bound to the fate of his state. Now we think that people of Gaza, they should not have to bear you know, the price that their state that their entity that Hamas. It is facing.
But prior to World war 1, it would have been taken for granted that of course, that the people of Gaza will have to bear the fate of the entity that governs and runs their lives. So prior to World war 1, right, the citizen was granted only minimal protection by law? There’s no violation of the laws of war if necessary to starve the the citizens of a country. But the first world war brought about technological change and a propaganda effort that transforms citizens into civilians. And so civilians were seen as essential to the war effort, which meant that they were now illegitimate target.
At the same time, citizens were weaponized described described as vulnerable women deserving a protection. So today, citizens attract the protection of international law They attract the attention of the world, so the fate of the citizens of Gaza is the primary concern of the world’s news media. And so among many observers of the Israel gaza conflict, the plight of civilians is the foremost concern. Pride to world war 1, they were not the foremost concern. So in those who specialize in international humanitarian law and human rights at the in viability of the civilian, has become obvious and crucial.
It’s it’s thought of as the foundation of the international order. At this perspective would have been completely unimaginable prior to world war 1. So what is the source for this concern? And what implications does it have Right? So the idea of the civilian is a peculiar way of conceptual people that evolved during World war 1.
Right, when the war began, non combat were perceived as citizens who are either voluntarily passive or woe dangerous. The Germans invade Belgium at the beginning of World war 1, and Allied Propaganda said, the Belgium civilians that no threat, at all. But the the Germans claimed that the Belgium Civilian citizens were a great threat to them and the the Germans mount of very bloody rep against Belgium civilians that Allied propaganda then blew up and exaggerated show how bad the Germans are. So at the time of world 1, governments show acknowledge the vital role of non combat in the modern industrialized war machine. And military strategist described them as key military targets.
It was taken for granted that citizens would be targeted in a war because they were part of a war machine. So we had this paradox reconstruction of non combat as both weak and critically important as both pitiful victims and dangerous adversaries. So Civilian has now achieved an ascend in international law. It’s hard to imagine a world where you don’t have civilians. And civilians are talked about as though this concept has long existed.
But the term in the group it describes the new. At the word civilian in the sense of a non military person only began to be used in the mid nineteenth century. In the current concept of the civilian, only defined in 19 77 in the additional protocol 1 to the Geneva accord of 19… Is it 19 48. So the civilian became characterized as a homogeneous population characterized by not being part of the military and deserving protect because they had not part of the military.
Right? In the past, citizens much be protected because of their membership of some kind of occupational or social group or because of their substantive innocence. So we have this whole new definition of the civilian and we have these new ways of con of non. And this or developed in World war 1. So we got the use of civilian to designate non military persons.
But in world war 1, they did not have the connotation or protected or victim non combat. So it was common during World war 1 to write about civilian spies or civilian bell. Right? Terms that now sound weird. So non combat was used to describe members of the military who did not fight, a non combat or civilian was used to describe the general non military population.
But it’s more common to use terms such as private citizen, private individual or private subject. Now the private citizen was a particular concept of the non. So the great legal scholars writing before the first World War recognized This concept they were proud of it. They thought of it as an achievement of western civilization. Gone were the days when the entire population was liable to be killed Robbed or exiled.
So Traditionally, the man would be killed, the women would be raped and the women and the children might be taken into captivity. Right. And so the leading scholars prior to world 1 you talked about citizens. They attributed the change to the plus Y Ro who in 18 o 1 argued that war as a relationship between states, not between men. Men were involved simply because they were citizens, but only when they were soldiers.
So these legal scholars would praise Res, but they’d claimed he was wrong in practice, that citizens of an enemy state are enemies too. So traditionally, the inhabitants of Gaza would be regarded as legitimate enemies of Israel. But not combat. Right, if they withhold themselves from fighting, then they are passive enemies. So it’s not necessary to injure them in the prosecution of a war.
So it was taken for granted as a fundamental principle of war that everything should be done to win the war. Right? So prior to world war 1 what Israel is up against in Gaza would be that number 1, the most expected guiding principle for Israel should be to win the war. But it was hoped that passive enemies would not be deliberately injured. But if by placing pressure on the general population can bring the water speedy conclusion.
Then it’ll be allowed as a necessity of war. So let me catch up with the chat, and I’ll play a little bit more from perspective that is the opposite of mine on the Israel, a mask conflict. This is from the electronic in nevada.
Speaker 3
What it looks like now? Like, as the political ideology. What do you mean by zion in the past tense?
Speaker 4
Well, I I hope we’re we’re also going to talk more about economic things today not so much it it just the the stuff, although that that’s interesting.
Speaker 1
Okay. Looking at. The chat on Kick yes. I am from Australia, but I left when I was 11, so that’s why my accent quite mild. If I left Australia moved to California at age 12, and I have a much stronger Australian accent, if I left Australia 08, 10 than moved to California with my parents, then I’d have almost a completely American accent.
Ab Britain’s the lost Hebrew tribe, no they’re not. Okay. Didn’t the masses involvement in war start with the French revolution in Europe before that, we had gentlemen war between royal houses and civilians were just cattle. I don’t know and why it involve cattle and war. Mass conscription started with the French revolutionary government.
I… That that may be right. But the At, for example had mass conscription. Everyone was expected so so there’s certainly been many societies where everyone was expected to serve. Civilians went from being subjects of royal dynasties to citizens of republics, hence part and parcel of the government and biological extension the government at war.
That’s when languages became standardized different dialects merging into a common army. Alright. Back to my favorite new scholar of the moment, Amanda, Alexander. So the leading scholars of the rules of war prior to world War 1 would pro praise r those ideals, but argue that he was wrong in practice, citizens of an enemy state or enemies. 2.
Enemy subjects, right, even passive subjects, Were expected to be exposed to the strict and dangers of war that they would have to pay the price of the fate of their state. And during war in the theater of operations, they could expect little relief. Right? They could expect that their property would be destroyed. If they were siege that they would be killed by ba or starvation.
There’s no obligation for invaders to allow useless mouths to leave a siege town Coastal town that refused supplies to an enemy ship could be bombed and destroyed. All regions could be devastated if was necessary for military success. This was taken for granted. Once an area was occupied, private individuals were subject to requisition and required to pay contributions that to provide lodging and food for the oc occupy. If required the oc occupying force could c them into carrying out orders, including providing assistance in military works, and the non combat competent population could be subjected to rep, or the taking of hostages.
So as frequently court during the Franco Prussian war in 18 70 18 18 72, the Germans put or French hostages on trains that were likely to be wrecked by irregular combat. So the Leading lawyers of international law and the laws of war prior to world war wuhan were proud of the conceptual separation of the private citizen in the state military. But they didn’t take the idea too far. Right? Citizens were una unavoidable a part of their state and they could not expect ari, from the fortunes of their state.
And even the little bit of protection that remained for the private individual was assumed only if you remained private and peaceful. And has taken for granted, that citizens would not remain so. And so that became 1 of the principal concerns for j and governments. Alright. What happens when citizens take up arms against an enemy?
Right. What if they participated in brutal un what fair, you had these regular civilian combat, and it was expected that they’d be liable to be executed. And the rest of the population would be subjected to rep. There was a usual practice for an invader to announce as a promise and a warning, that he would make war only against the soldiers as long as the rest of the population remained neutral. So you had the Hague Peace conference in 19 o 7.
While the delegates believe that citizens will likely to take up arms against an enemy, they differ in what they saw as a proper response to this possibility, Germany was still traumatized by the experience of fighting citizens free shooters in the 18 70 18 71 Franco Prussian war. Which was most vigorously opposed to Germany by irregular French combat combative. So according to Germany, fighting outside the state military was savage in Inhumane and unfair. So 1 leading German general said it’s time to remember that soldiers are also men, have a right to be treated with humanity. Exhausted soldiers after long March or battle.
They might come to rest in the village and they have a right to be sure that the peaceful inhabitants shall not. Change suddenly into furious enemies. Now, Switzerland, Britain and Belgium agreed that citizens were likely to resist invasion but they felt that this should not be so rigorously prohibited. So when first world war wow began, laws of war contained no concept of a civilian pipe galatians, distinguish from its military and deserving of protection on the grounds of citizenship alone. Okay, Sam joining the show.
Sam, What’s going on?
Speaker 2
Hey there. Luke. How are you?
Speaker 1
I’m good, man. How are you?
Speaker 2
I’m kind of disturbed. I’m just reading the headlines now in Israel, and it’s actually shaking me at my courts. Unbelievable. That this should be done right in our faces because it’s actually, amplifies all of our suspicions, the people here in Israel. The supreme court, the high court in Israel which is all already suspect of being in the hands of foreign powers and foreign influence.
The Supreme Court, the high court orders, this state controller to suspend October seventh investigations probes into, negligence or shin bet negligence or even comp simplicity in letting it happen. And they’re citing the this a leftist justice, Gala, stein, her explanation for ordering, this suspension of the investigation the probe is that it’s based to ruling is based on classified opinions written by security agencies. The nerve of these people. The nerve of these people. I’m telling you there’s going to be such an uproar in Israel at foreign interference, especially American foreign interference, state department foreign interference in our domestic affairs, in our security, in undermining our security.
Alright. The a state department which was caught red handed funding of the anti, judicial reform protests. By way of the national endowment for democracy, and So non governmental organizations, he’s their front man for their dirty work. Alright? So when I went to Tel aviv to the center over there that’s called Cap Kaplan, Alright?
I waited there… I went to buy apart from my guitar, AAW bar. It’s close. It was nearby, and I I ended up taking a bus home, and it was there, it was Friday afternoon, so I couldn’t take a train. I was standing right in the center of where those from protest take place.
And I was looking at the banners they’d left behind in English. And they were all sucking up to Blink and Biden Blink we trust you. Blink we put our faith in you. These banners hung up on the bridge Alright that goes to our Kia, which is our military headquarters in Tel aviv, like our Pentagon. So, and these people are discussed they’re being paid.
A lot of them are being paid. A lot of being a lot of them are being manipulated into protesting. But and and a lot of Israelis are very naive, extremely naive to to put their trust in the United States as it stands. The United States is a captured country. It’s a compromised country.
Everybody there feels it knows it Biden has proven it’s everybody. Lincoln is a ra, and and people are rising up in America, realizing who’s really in control over there. I’m sorry to say it’ll… It is the, big time useful idiots in America. Are progressive atheist Liberal Jews that are quasi Bolsheviks or descended of bolsheviks, and you also have the nefarious, a, you know, social engineering, and, you know, institutions over there, that are from…
People are now have become more familiar with. The Frankfurt School, Tab Stock institute, the C, does a lot of social engineering and mind control. A I talked with Claire about this a lot. And people are wise up to this, they know that there… That this is an agenda.
In America. America is not what it seems. People there have begun to understand this. And now you have a legislation having been passed to authorize a draft of 18 to 26 year olds in case of AAA war that breaks out and then and the necessity for a draft. So a…
A draft is in place right now. Yeah.
Speaker 1
Your your son accuses you, I believe you’re right in the chat of being a conspiracy theorist. So what is your son’s? Critique of you in this regard.
Speaker 2
My son is 11 years old. He’s 11 years old. Oh, my my son, my son is a he plays along with me. I’m his dad. He he loves his dead.
He he he he could… Sam crazy, but he’s he he’s only 11 years old, but does he know?
Speaker 1
So what about other people in your life? Do they also accuse you being Conspiracy theorist?
Speaker 2
Yeah They’re coming around. A lot of people are coming around. It because the information that’s coming out about you just have to look at Biden. And the fact that he’s a Coma, you know, scare, you know, that just his ability, or or they’re allowing him to continue, to continue serving in that, role without him having any capacity to do so, And the the suspicion is real that he’s inc and that he’s crap himself all the time, and they’re… Everybody’s laughing at him, but they’re also laughing at the United States, The United States has become a laughing stock.
And so the the buying conspiracy theories or accusations is not as difficult as… It once used to be, It’s not as far fetched. And ay Bar iraq was caught a, you know, making a statements in the American press, calling for ce the the the the Israeli and overthrow the government here in a Coup d He said it here while he was in Israel in front of an audience, and he said it over there. In front of in front of think tanks and in front of the American press, the nerve of this person. So he’s under suspicion for for being comp.
Also, there’s a lot of the, a, high, a ranking brass. The Israel’s military industrial complex or the deep state that we do have here. There there’s… They’re under suspicion. They’re under the magnifying glass.
Along with the supreme court in Israel. And this is not theory. This is now fact after a betrayal of this level of the of this nature. It’s unbelievable. Yeah.
Go ahead.
Speaker 1
What at what age did you become turned on to these narratives outside of the mainstream?
Speaker 2
It’s when I arrived in Israel, and I started reading the paper alex, which I thought was a a hive, a, high library into left. Newspaper, and I wasn’t aware of what this newspaper was… This publication was really about. I thought it was Angie Bray. I thought it would be edgy Brain revealing.
I I found out that this this is a fifth… A this this is a, a guys This is the what’s the what’s the expression for today?
Speaker 1
Fifth call.
Speaker 2
Fifth. This is the fifth call and the leftist is, in Israel or a fifth column. And what’s the start year?
Speaker 1
How old were you then? What what year was that?
Speaker 2
Well I arrived in Israel, In 2005, let’s say, 14… 19 years ago, I guess I was 31.
Speaker 1
Okay.
Speaker 2
I was 31 years old. Okay? And, I I’d had already gotten really with drawn with America. And I was already beginning to question the reality of what was going on in America, and I arrived here, And I began learning about the Israeli left. I’d always heard things.
I’d always felt certain kind of from them a certain kind of sense of self importance. And a sense of supremacy coming from them, like they’re the elite, they’re the ruling class. But once I started observing and following what they were publishing, what the propaganda again they were putting out. I began realizing that they are a fifth call, They are treacherous. They are backs traders.
A lot of them, not all of them, but a lot of them are in high positions of power, they are compromised agents of foreign governments and a foreign interests and of money to interests. And now we’re seeing it, And now we’re seeing it very, very clearly. It’s not a matter of theory. It’s a matter of, like, they’re shameless about it now.
Speaker 1
Okay. So you you mentioned that you felt that you’d were withdrawn from America prior to moving to Israel, then you moved to Israel. And you similarly bound yourself alienate from the the government in Israel. So you were going through, you know, a series of emotional withdrawals from Right the 2 major governments in your life, the United States and the Israel. And so that must have been incredibly traumatic.
And Isolated. What?
Speaker 2
It was isolating. I felt alienate. I felt it it withdrawn, and I went on the attack. That’s when I started listening to Alex Jones and Info war. That’s when I started searching out.
Alternative media, alternative forms of information, alternative explanations as to of history, revision of history. That’s when I ran into the book, Caesars and Messiah, by Joseph. And by the way, I end I’ve ended up having many conversations with the author of that book, and I published it on a, John a channel of on Hilton and Claire caught… I I get hundreds of you. Sometimes thousands.
So once I started asking questions about, all the fundamentals that I’ve been taught that I wasn’t raised on, and and I began revealing a lot of things that were very convincing alternate versions of events. And then I began learning about the 19 73 on Kip War And, the American betrayal of the Israeli public and the Israeli government at the time, for the benefit of you know, closing the Pet dollar agreement with the Saudi for the benefit of sealing the deal at our expense. Now, this is not no longer a conspiracy theory but the way the America’s behaving now, blinking and Biden. It’s far. It’s like a…
It’s more shameless than it wasn’t even back in 19 73 when Henry Kissing the secretary of state, and that senator Joe biden misled our prime minister an American, a woman, Bo a and told her that the attack us, and they and they they kinda got us to a, let guard down. Okay. And then let What?
Speaker 1
Let let let me follow up here. So when you started embracing the Alex Jones narratives and other dis thinkers How did the people close you react?
Speaker 2
For the longest time they thought I was crazy that I was paranoid? That they didn’t wanna hear me talking about these things. But that when they began realizing that I’m associating it with end times messi prophecies that are of being fulfilled right now. And that these truths would become a mainstream and that would is breadth throughout the world, and they’d have a people from around the world would have access to alternative information, and it would stimulate their ability to doubt to speculate to add to question and to not go along with mainstream narratives. The mainstream in America is despise.
I hope you know that. They’re despise to and they
Speaker 1
redeem. You you feel as though.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I I took a great… Yeah. I took a great part. I was a big contributor to Alex Jones on in his comment sections.
I had a great influence on him. I also was a very strong into, helping Trump get elected the first time around I was very supportive of Trump. And, I’m very supportive of overs overthrow our leftist elites in Israel. I see them as being, behold to secret societies, like the free, The British Free, The the Supreme Court in Israel, it was built in a free masonic style, interior design and architecture, donated by the Roth challenge family. That’s.
And that’s an open secret. That’s an in your face, admission, to, a hidden hand ruling over us.
Speaker 1
So… And did you have the time to do all this for Alex Jones, and for Donald Trump, Like what what did you come?
Speaker 2
I was… I I don’t belong in Israeli society. I don’t belong in American society. I’m kind of a mis fit. I’m in I’m an in between.
I I could call myself like an international type of person, a, a multi multicultural type of person. I I did manage to eventually, you know, because I felt hu. I felt rushed and I it and, you know, it’s not that I lack the ability. I forced myself to bang a chick and actually get her pregnant. And and be a dad be because I wanted to be a father.
And I threw caution to the wind. And so if it… The marriage didn’t work out, at least on the father, I meant I’m I’m sat I’m satisfied with that. I’m I’m brad with that. But IIII don’t I don’t…
I didn’t have many Israeli friends. I’m Very few. I made friends online, Americans mostly it with the same mindset, like, I I had… I have prior military, a service both in Us Army and the Id. I know how to get along in Israeli society.
I can talk to people. I’m not a total mis fit, a complete mis throat or a, like, a a hermit or somebody living off in a cave, a caveman or anything. But it’s just… I’m I’m detached from Israeli society, and I’m also detached from American, a society.
Speaker 1
Yeah. So
Speaker 3
I had you got…
Speaker 1
Detached from a lot of different communities. So, when when you say that you’re a mis fit what does that mean practically?
Speaker 2
Practically, it means I know that I have to be employed and and earn a salary to get get by and survive, but my, anticipation and my, ambition is to see this world turned up on its upside its head and it’s about to happen. Turn… I want this world to turn upside down And and I’m glad that it’s happening right now. It’s turning upside down.
Speaker 1
So in in 2005, how many people? Would you be after walk up to in real life, and they would be beam and be really glad to see you.
Speaker 2
My family members, I’d say, nah, and out of a people that I knew that I worked with neighbors. They like me. I’m a likable person, but the… They didn’t like it when III used to go off on my, conspiracy theory rants or about Jesus being an invention of the Romans even from back that. A I’d say about 20 30 people.
I I had a close it group of people that, you know, we’re were my support a group, but they didn’t appreciate the fact that even way back then, I was talking about we’re going into a period prior to the Si revelation, and this is… These are the end times, and, they didn’t wanna believe me. They thought I was crazy. They thought I was, like, you know, just wish thinking. But I had a lot of…
Yeah. I had a lot of information back then to collaborate
Speaker 1
they would, they would not be happy when you’d start sharing these dis perspectives. The the people who loved you. The people who enjoyed you, the people who beamed. When you walked up to them, but they would cease beam when you’d share distant perspectives.
Speaker 2
They they gave me ugly looks. They gave me, like, they turned… They’re are they they gave, like, They rolled their eyes sometimes, and sometimes they didn’t wanna even be around me. But I I was a a kind of I had self awareness. So I I wasn’t constantly ob accessing.
I had self control.
Speaker 1
And But did any of them just cut you out of their lives or you No. Managed to avoid that?
Speaker 2
No. No. They didn’t. But for friends at work, once they realized what what what I believe them the positions I took some of them, did gossip. A lot of them gossip the about.
And you know what? I don’t care anymore. And and I… Back then, I didn’t care because I was… I have…
I’m very much committed to my beliefs, and I have a lot of conviction. Otherwise, I wouldn’t… I would not have held onto to these beliefs. And I would not have looked for evidence, constant evidence, collaboration. I need to reinforce what I’m…
What I believe it. And I don’t need that much.
Speaker 1
Yeah. So in the conventional packing order, in the conventional, varieties of status. You were cons confined to lower status. And Right so that drove you to seek an alternative, community where you could be high in status.
Speaker 2
Right. And that was an online with people that thought the same way I did. And I was influencing them, and they were influencing me.
Speaker 1
And where were you able to find a synagogue that shared your… Definite perspectives.
Speaker 2
No. Very primitive people in this in the in the Synagogue both the Es and the Safari and. They needed to get beaten over the head with a lot of terrible events to be convinced that we are in upon messi revelation and times. I was… Well ahead of my time, I saw this well in advance, and so, it’s like, a when you call it too early, you’re wrong, whether you’re right.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re right, you’re wrong. If you’re calling it too early when I’m a majority of the people, that can’t see it you end up being wrong in their eyes. And you can’t convince them. And the sad thing is that it’s, torment, it torment a person to know that that there… There will have to be very painful events that will bring these people shake them out of their stu and and bring them along and finally have them be on board because this is what I believe God wants of the Jews of a the the whole world, the whole of humanity, he wants them to know what he’s about to spring on them, and he’s not bringing on them, is bringing it on them, again, is a surprise because there’s been a lot of preparation.
Speaker 1
Okay. So. So let me follow up here. On a typical day, how much time do you get to spend around people who love you? As opposed to being online where there’s a whole community of people who love you.
Speaker 2
I I avoid people as much as possible. I’m, I’ve become anti social. I go out to restaurants. I go to the beach, but I don’t go looking to be in the company of people for too long.
Speaker 1
So in in your your real life, you get you get to spend very little time around people who love you as opposed to being online. Where there are dozens of people who love you.
Speaker 2
Sure. Why Yeah. But at the same… At the same time, it it’s sad because now, many of them because of the events that have taken place because God has shaken them out of their, accuracy or their lack of faith or lack of belief through a terrible sharp and traumatic events that we’re all witnessing and going through now. They can look back in retrospect on all the attempts I made, all my ranting and raving, all my trying to, quote, wake them up to what’s happening on the level of the spiritual, the religious, the mystical, the political, the financial, all of it.
And they could say, well, you know, a lot of them has said even admitted to my mother family members said, you know, we thought he was crazy, but you know, the the majority of the population here is beginning to believe we’re upon Messi revelation.
Speaker 1
The. His it here’s my thesis. You’ve had an incredibly painful life, but the benefit of all the pain that you’ve been through is that you see through the bullshit that normal people don’t see through. Is that fair?
Speaker 2
Right. Yes. Suffering builds character.
Speaker 1
And and so even in your your suffering, and when people would tell you to shut up or they minimize their time with you, what gave you the strength the carry on was this realization that you are unlike them, you saw through the bullshit.
Speaker 2
Not only seeing through the bullshit. I was a a… Convinced. I had conviction, and my and my conviction came not not not only through me from me, it came from god, There there’s a there’s a there’s a a belief that, a the the prior to messi revelation that there would be certain people. And Rabbi Cad before he died the Memory be blessed.
He said that certain people will know, and they would have… They would be actually worldly and intelligent and and cultured people, and they don’t necessarily have to be religious, and I fit that bill. And he, he wrote this in 2005 before he died and, passed away. And, that’s when I arrived in Israel. And, it’s not too long after.
I was like, I started getting into the mix and I, you know, 1 way lot… Another I was being led down this path, and my convictions were you know, firm and un unfavorable. And nothing could shake me. People told me stop talking about. Stop talking about messiah, stop talking about end times.
It’s a it’s dis case, it puts us off. And then over the years, events took place, since the this thing started rolling downhill, and then reality began hitting people in the face, the truth. And all the level of t in our government and in our culture in our society here, people… And and then the divisions. And and then it began to be very cons contiguous.
All the tele, you know, markers, all of the end times, hebrew profits, markers, all of them were starting to flash red flash. And now flashing freaking inferno red, you know? So even the the most Yeah.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Let me let me ask you another question. Would you like for your son to have the same sort of pain? But realizations that that you suffered, or would you prefer for him to have a more conventionally connected and successful life.
Speaker 2
Obviously, the second. The be… And now I’m I’m not concerned about, him having to go through what I went through. Absolutely That’s another part of my belief system and my convictions. I’m very satisfied and very calmed and very…
I’m tranquil. I’m very at peace with the fact that he will have a far easier, far better life and far less a, you know, torment than I did. It because we are upon Messi revelation, You know? So my son will be spared having to go what I went through.
Speaker 1
And did you see people socializing going to the the beach together going to dinner together? And do you feel any envy we of them or do you feel sad that they don’t say through the bullshit?
Speaker 2
The second, I feel sad for them that they can’t… They don’t wanna see they can’t see, and they can’t challenge themselves, and they’re they they’re a will fully ignorant or they are aware of things. They know. The the how do you say the I? They understand the I, they understand they feel the threat.
But they don’t wanna connect it to, things that are beyond their conventional beliefs or their their a cookie cutter kind of, positions that they take. Alright? So you don’t wanna drive themselves.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Okay. Sam, I gotta I gotta run. Thanks for
Speaker 2
going back.
Speaker 2
Hey I guess what the g 7, the a European europeans confiscated 50000000000 dollars of Russian money that was a frozen assets, you know, and this and this is the the the ball rolling downhill. It’s just snow… It’ll have a snowball effect. In no time at all. My rib Rib nailed Set.
Don’t tell don’t say that you haven’t been warned. The Jews of Europe, the jews of America. You’re gonna return to Israel penn list with only your shirts on your backs. That’s what he said. He warned of this for years.
We are upon Messi revelation. That’s my final say to you tonight, Luke, have a good evening.