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- [00:18]
A
What does it mean for a civilization to hate itself? Not to be self critical, that's healthy. Or not to acknowledge past wrongs, that's also healthy and very necessary. But to develop a deep self structural contempt for the very culture and traditions that produced you, to treat your own inheritance as the primary obstacle to human flourishing. To be, in a word, embarrassed by where you came from. Now this is something we're very familiar with in the west, for example, it's always struck me as strange that when I meet Americans, when I'm traveling, often the more left wing ones say, I'm from America, I'm so sorry. Or they start apologizing for who they are and what their government's doing. And I have to say this was even pre Trump. I've also noticed it in certain situations where people are sharing their opinions and someone in the group, usually white person, often a white woman, will preface their very milquetoast and socially acceptable opinion by saying, speaking as a white person with privilege or speaking as a person whose culture and history has done so many bad things and then proceeding to want to learn more about how they can become a better person from someone from a different culture. This is overwhelmingly a Western thing and I haven't seen the same thing happen from say Japanese people or people from Africa or the Middle east, but speak to Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders, Americans, and we're very familiar with this. So this actually has a name, it's called oikophobia and my guest today is an expert in it. Benedikt Beckeld is a philosopher, classicist and writer based in New York. And he's really popularized and educated the world about this term oikophobia, which was actually coined by Roger Scruton. Benedikt was born in Sweden to Brazilian and Jewish parents and he completed his doctorate in philosophy and Classical Philology at the University of Heidelberg, has taught at the American University of Paris and has been a full time writer and intellectual for over a decade. His 2022 book, Western Self Contempt, Oikophobia in the Decline of Civilizations, published by Cornell University Press, has established him as one of the most rigorous and historically grounded voices on on the voice of where the west currently finds itself and where it is likely headed. In this conversation we cover a lot of ground. We get into the civilizational cycle, why self contempt rises when it does, and whether it can be reversed. We talk about which countries and cultures are most resistant to oikophobia and why Israel and Japan look so different from France and Germany. On that score, we discuss assimilation, multiculturalism, and what Genuine cultural cohesion actually requires. This is all very timely because just the day before recording this podcast, the controversial Australian politician Pauline Hanson, who's the head of our populist One Nation party, said that she advocates for a monocultural Australia. She was very careful to not say monoethnic or monoracial, but really a monocultural Australia.
- [03:18]
B
We cannot be a multicultural society.
- [03:23]
A
We are a multiracial society, but we must be monocultural. So Benedict and I get into that. We talk about what monoculturalism is. Is it a good thing? Isn't it? You'll have to watch till the end to find out. But before we get into it, if you're not already subscribed, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. If this conversation gets you thinking, please share it with someone who would love it or maybe even someone who would absolutely hate it. And who's going to send me hate mail? I don't know. Look, a download is a download. I'll take it where I can get it. And if you're listening on Apple or Spotify, please leave me a review, preferably a good one. Or if you think the podcast is crap, you can also tell me that. Without much further ado, let's get into this conversation with Benedict Beckel. I came across your work through Quillette, through one of your pieces, which is actually, I think, one of our most popular and most visited sites on our website, the oikophobia article. And I did make a video about it, and it's. It's very popular, this term, oikophobia. People are very interested in it. I'm very interested in it. And you're. Although you're not necessarily the man who coins the term, you're really the guy who's popularized the term. So for viewers or listeners who don't know what oikophobia is, we've got the expert here with us. Could. Could you explain a bit about what it is?
- [04:48]
B
Yeah. So you mentioned there was somebody else who coined the term, which of course is true. That was the late Roger Scruton, who passed away in 2020, but he had coined the term in an article in the 90s, actually, and then used it again a few times in. In a few various pieces in the 2000s. And so what he meant by that term was effectively the hatred of home, Oikos, Greek for home, oikophobia. So the opposite of xenophobia, as xenophobia is the hatred of the foreigner or foreign cultures, and oikophobia, the diametrical opposite, the hatred of one's own culture, or sometimes one owns Fellow citizens as well. So that's the. That's the basic meaning of the term. So what I did basically was I took that term. It's very useful, obviously, to have a word for a phenomenon that so many of us recognize. This, you know, covers the gamut from Americans tearing down sculptures or statues of our founding fathers, which is obviously a very kind of obvious in your face expression of orchaphobia, to the sort of sotto voce statement by the. In the faculty lounge that, of course, Americans are so stupid if it's an unref difference in America. Sotto voce.
- [05:55]
A
Yeah.
- [05:56]
B
Yeah.
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A
What does that mean?
- [05:57]
B
Well, under the voice in Italian, but sort of the expression. Expression kind of softly saying, you know, whispering, so. They're so dumb.
- [06:05]
A
Yes. And.
- [06:06]
B
Or. Or Australians for that matter, thinking that Australians are backward or what have you. So. So that's the. And. And everything in between. So that's okaphobia. And so what I did basically with this term, I was curious, I thought to myself, well, okay, how does this. How did this arise? Because as someone who was an academic myself, obviously this is something I came across a lot, both personally and professionally. And so I wrote the book which. Well, actually, my very first piece, the piece that you mentioned that I ever wrote on Orkophobia, an article was published by Colette. And then a couple years after that, my book on the subject came out from Cornell University Press. So all is not bad in academia, since they did, actually, an academic press, did publish this book after some protests and fighting back and forth. Of course, that's. That's par for the course, but. But it did. Did come out in the end. And so basically what I do in that book is to explain from a philosophical and cultural, anthropological point of view, why okaphobia happens and come to the conclusion that, in fact, this is something that has happened in recurring phases since ancient times. And that's something that sometimes disturbs conservatives to hear because they. It's easier to attack orchaphobia if one, in a certain sense, if one is able to say that this is just some absurd, bizarre madness, a pathology that has no explanation. But of course, explaining something doesn't mean excusing it. But if one establishes that it is something that recurs in history, then it becomes a little more indomitable. It becomes more difficult to find in a certain sense. But that is, in fact, what happens.
- [07:36]
A
Can you give us some examples of periods of oikophobia or examples of oikophobia from the past?
- [07:43]
B
Yeah, so the first example we have of it is in Ancient Greece. And the reason for that is that if one establishes the causes of arkrophobia, some of which are, I go into great detail, but some of which are an establishment of relative wealth in a society, a measure of egalitarianism doesn't have to be full blown democracy, but a measure of egalitarianism, a space where intellectuals can meet and exchange ideas without fear of the government or the church and a sense of security that the barbarians or the enemy power, whichever it is, isn't about to invade. When all of those circumstances have coalesced, then you have room for orchaphobia to arise. And the first time that we have that in the west is in Athens in a late 5th century BC, early 4th century BC and that's where we find the first examples of okaphobia. You then have similar circumstances coalescing, socio historical circumstances coalescing in late republican, early imperial Rome. We have similar circumstances Coalescing in mid 18th century France, Age of the Enlightenment, then late 19th, early 20th century Britain and in the United States post World War II. So those are some of the major examples, but you find others as well.
- [08:55]
A
Camille Palia talks about these periods of decadence where people begin focusing on, you know, strange niche topics of sexuality or gender. Is that linked to what you've said? These periods of. It is because supreme comfort?
- [09:14]
B
Yeah, it is because the religion also starts to decline at those times. The decline of religion is a, is one also one of the prerequisites for. And then further make, makes religion decline further. So it's a kind of a vicious circle there. And that makes sense also because once these circumstances that I've mentioned are in place, people feel less of a need for God, they feel less of a need for community. You don't need a community as much as when the Persians are invading, for example, in the case of the, of the Greeks. So you don't need a community in the same way when the British are invading in the, in the case of the Americans. And when those things are no longer happening, there is more room for individualism to arise. And what a lot of critics of religion forget is that religion is of course not only a belief in the supernatural, that's a caricature of religion. Religion is so much more than that. Religion is community. Religion is a space reserved for the sacred in life and so on. And so those, when those things disappear, you have more of a space for orchaphobia to arise. And with the decline of religion, with the decline of traditional social roles, there is more space than also for Challenges to traditional gender roles to arise for androgyny to arise. And you see, not to the same extent, but since you mentioned Camille Palia, she talks about, as you know, when she talks about Hellenistic sculpture, she talks about how they become weak and effeminate and sort of flabby as compared to. As compared to classical sculpture, which is true. And so that's a type of androgyny, you might say, again, not. Not as extreme as the androgyny we have today, where we just say that a man can become a woman and vice versa. But it is that same tendency, it's the same trajectory. The prerequisites for okaphobia that I've mentioned exist in greater measure today, which is why okaphobia itself is more extreme today than it was in ancient times. But the, but the trajectory is the same and the tendency is the same. So certainly androgyny and the weakening of masculinity, they're all part of it. Yeah.
- [11:12]
A
What about the. Not only the weakening of masculinity, but the celebration, or not just celebration, the sort of placing the feminine on pedestal in many ways.
- [11:25]
B
Yeah. The women become often more powerful. That's less. I mean, that is to some extent the case also in ancient times, but less so because it is still, for obvious reasons a man's world in the sense that life is harsher in those days. And the kind of security that we have today is never so completely established in, in the ancient world as it is as. As it is in modern times. But there is a certain. Certainly in Imperial Rome, there are women who are able to reach positions of influence, more so than would have been possible in early Republican Rome, for example. So there is that tendency as well, but that is more of a modern phenomenon. But.
- [12:01]
A
So what does history show us about periods of oikophobia?
- [12:07]
B
So that depends. So that's where we're lucky to live in the modern world, in the sense that we don't have the Visigoths or the Huns knocking on the door. What comes after orchaphobia is. Yeah, right. So there is. I was going to. There's definitely a but there coming at the end of the sentence. So there is. We do have. We. We're not going to have Rome in. In ruins and barbarian hordes rushing through the city and so on. And similarly here in the United States, we're not going to have the Mexicans or the Canadians invading us. But. And of course, that's, I think, what you were implying. We do have, with certain differences in the details A similar problem in the sense that we don't have an immune system. When okraphobia arises, it weakens the immune system that we have for preserving our own culture, for preserving our own ecosystem. And so we allow foreign and barbarian elements to make their entry. And that's going to look a little bit different depending on where in the world we are. But obviously Western Europe is the prime example right now with Middle east and Islamic migrants coming in. I mean, that's the process that's been going on for a long time, but certainly has accelerated in recent times. And we have less extremes, less extremely so. But the same kind of problem in the United States as well. And you have it of course to some degree in Australia as well.
- [13:21]
A
Can you compare the culture in the US or your immunity? Because I know you've, you've lived in various parts of the world. I know you live in New York now. I think you grew up in Sweden.
- [13:34]
B
My first 14 years. Yeah. So I'm like they're saying, as I said, I'm more optimistic, I'm less pessimistic, let's put it that way, about the United States than about Western and Northern Europe. When it comes to Australia specifically, I'm not so much of an expert on Australia. So I mean, you know, I read the news and so on. It doesn't look great. But, but certainly if we were comparing Europe with the United States. Yes, I'm certainly, certainly more optimistic about the United States. We do have our, I mean our Constitution first of all is more resilient. It's not, it's not invulnerable. It can certainly, if we get too many orkophobic Supreme Court justices, for example, that can change. But we do have a stronger fabric. Our federalism is a great, is a great advantage as well. The fact that something is done in one part of the country doesn't necessarily mean that there are other parts of the country, of the country that won't resist that. And yeah, I mean a stronger sense of patriotism. The fact that religion still is stronger here, even though of course it is weakened here as well, that is also a great bulwark against okaphobia. I say that as a non religious person, but it's simply a fact that religion does help in this regard. So those are all advantages that we have. We do of course have degree that doesn't matter as much in the modern world as it did in the past. But a degree of geographic isolation does also help. So we do have these various advantages as compared to Europe. So I mean, Europe is. Depends a little bit on which country we're talking about. But there's some countries in Europe which, where I'm almost tempted to say that they're a lost cause, but I don't think that's the case in here in the U.S. yeah.
- [14:59]
A
I mean, Australia is lucky that we have that geographic isolation as well. But I think that in terms of our identity, we're even more, we're even weaker than European nations because where, you know, a colonial offshoot more or less outpost and we're just so young. It's, it is hard to define what makes an Australian Australian. And even though we feel is hard to define.
- [15:32]
B
Yeah, I mean, that's, that's one problem we do have a little bit in the United States as well. Obviously the fact that we started as a multiethnic multicultural Republican. Now, of course, leftists will exaggerate the, the multiculturalism of our origins and say that, oh, you know, we've always been a multicultural nation and so on. I mean, that's true to an extent, but multicultural meant something different in the late 18th century than what it does today. Multicultural in, in those days meant Englishmen and Frenchmen living side by side and creating a new nation. It did not mean Englishmen and Pakistanis living side by side, creating Indian nations. And that is a very significant difference. And so, yes, it's, it's true that we, we do have that multicult. In order for us to understand, okay, what does it mean to be an American or what does it mean to be an Australian? It does. One can be different things, but there has to be a dominant Anglo culture. Without the dominant Anglo culture, you don't have a country anymore. So that's something we could talk more about.
- [16:29]
A
Yeah, well, yeah, let's, let's get into it because it's something that's really on my mind and I've been writing a little bit about it lately. I've come to change my opinion on it. It's, I mean, even last night we, we had a speech, a national, National Press club address from Pauline Hanson, who's the leader of our populist party here, which is, you know, she was, she's been in politics for, I don't know, decades now, and she was always mocked, derided as a racist and someone to not be taken seriously as a hick. But now she's the most preferred leader of, of the country. She's so much so that our, you know, center right, our Conservative Party is, is just in tatters. Like no one knows what to do to save this party because the, the populace have just eaten into the mainstream right wing party. So you know, there's a debate should they align themselves with the populist party. And, and you know, I, I have no issues with this party and I can, I sympathize very deeply with, with people voting for them. And I am concerned that there is an element of the party that is genuinely. Well, actually, let, let me go back. She, she made a statement last night where she said Australia should be monocultural. She used that word monocultural. And then just after it she said, I don't mean mono ethnic. No, I don't mean monoracial. I mean monocultural. And I've actually over time come to the same sort of conclusion, especially after visiting Israel, which I think is a great example of a country that is predominantly monocultural but you know, Jewish. But there are Jews from Ethiopia, from Morocco, from England, from wherever, but the culture is Jewish. So yeah, can we get more into that, that topic of monorail versus monoculture?
- [18:41]
B
With pleasure. Yeah. So it's, it's the, I mean, you're right about Israel, but there's one problem with that comparison which is, and then I, maybe I'll address the more general point which is that yes, Israel is multi ethnic. You have Russian Jews, you have Ethiopian Jews and so on and, and, and everything in between, but they're Jews. And religion is the strongest, bar none. Religion is the strongest force of communal cohesion. So the fact that it's multi ethnic is, is, is outweighed by the fact that it's mono religious. I mean you, of course, you have Christians and Muslims as well in, in Israel, but the fact that it's so predominantly mono religious and, and as long as that's the case, you can afford, quote unquote, to have various different ethnicities. That is not the case in the United States or Australia. I mean, we used to be a Protestant nation, now we are God knows what. And that is also the, it helps the fact that a lot of people in Israel are still religious. I mean, the, the religious portion of the populace is growing in Israel much to the chagrin of the Israeli left. Although the Israeli left of course is already quite weak. But, but so, so that's where the comparison with Israel doesn't quite work because they do have that additional advantage that we, that additional defense, if you will, that we don't have in the United States or, or, or in Europe or Australia, I believe. And so for us who do not have that sense of religious community to the Same extent. I don't want to exaggerate the important, the, the strength of the religious community in Israel. Of course there, there are many Israelis who are quite anti religious, but, but there is still a feeling of, yes, I'm a Jew and this is the Jewish homeland. For those of us who, outside of Israel who do not have that, we do require more or less a mono ethnic community. The reason I say that is it's certainly not for racist reasons. I mean, I'm, I'm a half Scandinavian, half Brazilian Jew, so I'm, I'm, I'm not, certainly not a, not an Anglo Saxon, a drop of blood in me. But we do, we do need to have that because we have to. And this is a point that is lost on both the left and the right, namely that multi ethnic communities lead to multicultural communities. And that's, and that's a process that cannot be stopped. So when we, when I say that we need to have a mono ethnic, not completely, obviously it doesn't, you know, not 100% there is room for various groups, but a predominantly mono ethnic society, it's not because of racial realism, but because of racial memory, as I like to call it. Basically, different ethnicities bring with them various cultural, ethnic memories. Some of these memories are real, some of them are imagined, but they bring with them stories about themselves. And these stories that each ethnic group brings with itself is going to start to compete with the stories of other ethnicities, with the cultural memories of other groups. And once you have that situation, the society starts to collapse, communal cohesion starts to collapse. And we see this, of course, and we see this perfectly clearly in the United States where different ethnic groups now become so proud of their particular ethnic heritage that we are no longer able to come together as a cohesive society. So we have to distinguish. So when you make this point, leftists will immediately call you a racist, of course, and right wingers will say that, you know, that we're defending multiculturalism or something like that. That distinction between racial realism and racial memory is lost on both sides. And so we have to make that distinction. We have to prefer a society with a dominant, with one dominant ethnos, with one dominant ethnicity. But again, not because that ethnicity is somehow intrinsically superior to other ethnicities. It's not a racial thing, but because we need one story, one set, one set of cultural memories that need to be dominant in the culture.
- [22:29]
A
Hmm.
- [22:31]
B
Because in the United States, if we were to have 30% white people, 30% black people, 30% Hispanics and 10% Asian or what have you. Even if, you know, we could say that, of course, you know, we're all in Anglo culture. What difference does it make, the color of your skin? Well, in and of itself, that's true, but the. De facto, it does make a difference because these various groups will so insist on the. On their own ethnic trajectories, on their own stories, on their own cultural memories, whether real or imagined, that society will collapse. So def. It's an unpleasant truth that nobody wants to hear. But de facto, we do need a predominant ethnos in a society.
- [23:06]
A
My question is how do you define. Like. Well, should, should we separate whiteness from Anglo Celtic ness? Like, for example, I'm English Irish, like most Australians on one side, and then my mum's side were Greek migrants. You know, the way I've thought about it is, although Greeks and Italians and other Europeans, White Europeans, I would call them white, although, you know, it depends. They, they face some racism in Australia when they first arrived, more or less, they, they were a very compatible cultures, both Christian cultures. So is there sort of a hierarchy? Maybe that's not the correct term, but like a scale of compatibility and we should just be.
- [23:55]
B
I think, I think hierarchy or scale are quite good terms, actually. The. Yeah, I mean, there is, as I mentioned before, an Englishman and a Frenchman living side by side in the late 18th century is multicultural, but it's not the same as an Englishman and a Pakistani living side by side. So it's a. Yeah, it's a sliding scale. And sure, if you have a bunch of Englishmen living and building a new community in the new world and then a bunch of Irishmen come in, certainly, yes, there's plenty of room for conflict there. I mean, as we know historically, and of course, religion then also comes into the mix. People were panicking about JFK maybe being the first Catholic president and so on. So that's certainly a concern. But yes, those cultures are still, for all of their historical squabbles, they're still far more compatible than a Frenchman and an Arab, for example, because the trajectories, the. The former are still Western, whereas someone from the Middle east is not. And that comes with an entirely different. With a different religion. I mean, even more different than Catholicism and Protestantism and an entirely different set of cultural memories, an entirely different set of, of cultural mores and so on. So. Yeah, so there, there is a line that has to be.
- [25:03]
A
Assimilation.
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B
Yes. What about assimilation?
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A
Well, it's something I've been thinking about. Like, you know, assimilation definitely in Australia has very, very, very Negative connotations because it makes Australians think about the white Australia policy and maybe in particular the, the stolen generation, so called stolen generation of Aboriginal children that were removed from their families to assimilate into white families. So sort of assimilation policies like that. But as I've gotten older and sort of seen what's been happening to Australia, I think that we, what we're currently doing is requiring absolutely no assimilation whatsoever. There is no, there's no requirement, let alone benefit really to, to assimilating I would say in many ways. So there's no expectation given. So.
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B
Yeah, and that's, I mean it's hard
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A
to define our culture. So when we're asking people to assimilate they're going to say into what? Well that's what leftists say.
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B
Yeah, and, but leftists say that because of course they have so destroyed the idea of a unified culture. They have so destroyed the idea of a cultural identity, at least a Western cultural identity. They're fine with other cultural identities of course, but so destroyed that idea that of course it's easy for them to say oh well, what does that even mean? Well, they can't destroy it and then complain that it doesn't mean anything because they're the ones who destroyed it. But of course for those of us who still do have a very clear eye view of what our cultural identity is, I think it's, I think it's quite easy to define it. And that's something that we should, that's something that we should insist upon. And of course the fact that we don't is this weakening of our immune system through orchaphobia. Islam is not assimilable to our culture. There are perfectly cogent philosophical arguments to be made for this, but our refusal, it's our archaphobia that forces that makes us run away from the actually quite clear conclusion that it's not assimilable and there's not even a point in trying.
- [27:11]
A
It's an interesting question though when it comes to Judaism. Right?
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B
Yes.
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A
Because I mean assimilation has another meaning for Jews which is, you know, being forced to give up your identity and your religious practices. So where do Jews fit into this?
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B
Jews are part of the west in a way that Islam is not. I mean Judaism is foundational to the west along with Christianity and along with Greece and Rome. I mean that is the West. So to say that Jews are something, Jews aren't something that need to be assimilated into the west because Jews were always there obviously from. It's going to matter a little Bit from country to country. Obviously, certain countries have a stronger relationship with Jews or Judaism than others. For example, it's easier for. It would be easier for Jews at least once upon a time to assimilate into the Netherlands or Britain or the United States that have historically been quite friendly to Jews than number of other countries, especially in Eastern Europe. Although nowadays it's more. It's the opposite, if anything. So of course, yeah, it varies a bit from country to country. But Jews, the mere question of assimilating Jews is a completely different kind of question there. It's simply a question of whether Jews are going to preserve their own identity. That's more of an internal Jewish question because Jews have to decide if they want to still preserve a semblance of their Jewish identity. But if they choose to do that, which why I for one would encourage them to do, that's still perfectly compatible within, within the framework of the countries, of the Western countries in which they live. Because again, the Judaism is as a religion is not antagonistic to the state, to the secular state in the way that Islam is. And so the, so that's multiculturalism to
- [28:55]
A
some, to some extent. If you have a Jewish community, yeah,
- [28:59]
B
it is to some extent. But. And yeah, I mean if you had, if 80% of the United States were Hasidic Jews, yeah, of course then it would be a different country. So it is a sliding scale. But you could have a fairly large quantity of practicing Jews and still have the same country because Judaism is not imperialistic or proselytizing in the way that exactly as Islam is. So it's a completely different. I mean, it's something I've written pretty extensively about the, the, the, this distinction and basically three major reasons. I had a long conversation with a public conversation with Peter Boghossian about this about a year ago.
- [29:33]
A
Great conversation. Yeah.
- [29:35]
B
Okay. Yeah, so basically gave a bunch of. A couple of series of very concrete reasons why, why Islam cannot do this. Judaism is.
- [29:44]
A
Can you please repeat. Repeat them for my. It was such a good, good podcast, but I want, I want some of it on my too so people don't go up there.
- [29:52]
B
Well, thank you, I appreciate that. Well, so the, yeah, so one can talk for this, talk about this for a long time. But basically the three, the three main reasons I offered for why Islam is not compatible with the west and cannot be assimilated again, you can find some particular individual Muslim who doesn't take his religion so seriously or at least who does not take certain aspects of his religion so seriously. We can be assimilated but certainly on a mass level it's not possible. The first reason is probably the most well known reason, which is that, sorry for the police sirens, I'm in the middle of New York City here, I hope.
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A
Yeah, it's New York for you.
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B
Yeah, exactly. But so the first reason is the, the fact that Islam is a political construct. So we in the west think of religion as something private. That's mainly a result of our Protestant heritage, that we think of religion as private communion between us and God. In this case, Judaism is actually a bit closer to Islam in the sense that it's a, it's a more total system that kind of encapsulates everything but Jew. But whereas Judaism has a political element, it's not proselytizing. And Christianity, there are different Christianities, but Christianity is much. We is proselytizing, but has a much weaker political element. It doesn't seek political imperialism in the sense that Islam is noxious and not assimilable because it has both the proselytizing and the political aspect. And so if we have a large number of Muslims in our, in our Western societies, then they will, they will not just practice their religion privately, they will in fact change all of the institutions of our, of our society. The government will change, the judiciary will change, everything will change. Educational institutions. So that's the first reason. The second reason is that you do not have a hierarchy of exegesis in Islam in the same sense as in Judaism. There is broad agreement in Judaism about what certain biblical passages mean. For example, I think the example I offered in that conversation was an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, which is of course the famous verse in the Torah which means, and there is broad rabbinical agreement on this. It means, not that it's not a lex talionis, that you knock my teeth out, I get to knock your teeth out. Rather, it means that you have to pay me damages. And so there's a broad agreement on this. Whereas in Islam when they try to interpret the Quran, you do have some interpreters who do have a more. Take a more peaceful view, but you also have many who take a more literal and, and violent view who take the, who take the word for its kind of bare meaning. And the point is, so there's no
- [32:17]
A
authority, that's the thing.
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B
So there's no overarching authority about which reading is correct. Which means that extremist preachers, of which there are plenty, they have a room to spread their views without anyone being able to say, well, okay, those people are wrong. Those people are marginalized. No, because their views are just as legitimate as any other person's views. Such scholarly differences in Judaism were settled by debate, Rabbinical and scholarly debate. In Islam they were settled by the sword, which ultimately means they were not settled at all.
- [32:48]
A
There is scholarly debate though, right in the, In Islam. Why do you think they didn't develop authorities like.
- [32:57]
B
Well, because. Because they are an imperialistic religion. They spread all over the world. And when you, When Islam covers such a broad surface of the world and such disparate populations, then it's much more difficult to develop such an exegetical hierarchy about what is correct and what is not. Judaism being a much both geographically and inter and demographically a much smaller group of people, it is easier to reach consensus on what particular passages mean. So that. That was a big problem basically. Their overextension then also leads to a plethora of different interpretations.
- [33:33]
A
Fascinating. And obviously in Christianity there's a lot of different, you know, authorities and interpretations as well.
- [33:42]
B
There is, but Christianity was also. Is also just more peaceful in general. So the, when we're interpreting verses in the New Testament, the, the things that are being debated and the things that are being disagreed upon are entirely different from. From Islamic scripture. The, I mean is Christianity did start as a pacifist religion. It's worth remembering. Obviously didn't then in subsequent history often did not live up to that. But it did start as a pacifist religion, which was never the case with Islam. And that leads us to the third reason, which is the Arab tribalism that was part of the birth of Islam, that Arab tribalism which has even. Which is a bit ironic because Islam is a. Has universal aspirations but is still very tribal. And that Arab tribalism, you know, my brother, me and my brother against, against my cousin, me and my cousin against the foreigner and so on. It's still very tribal. And that tribalism that then has been weakened a little bit in those parts of the Islamic world that are not Arabic, they're not Arab, but persist even there to some degree at least. And that tribalism makes them also less amenable to differing interpretations because in that culture things were generally settled by the sword. I mean, it was an illiterate culture for a long time. So those are the three main reasons. And those three reasons aren't going away anytime soon. And which is why Islam does not fit with the West.
- [35:03]
A
Do you believe that Islam can be reformed?
- [35:06]
B
Not while still remaining Islam. I mean, because you would have to, you would have to take away the exegetical point for example, okay, you couldn't say, okay, we at least as a separate community, not made all Muslims, but as a separate community, decide to have a peaceful interpretation of certain Quranic passages and the Hadith and so on. And of course that does already exist. But you would also have to get, and that, I think that's the harder part. You would have to get rid of the, of the political construct within Islam, of the fact that a state is only legitimate if it is an Islamic state, because that is such a core tenet. Again, there have been Muslims, I mean, to be fair, there have been Muslims who have disagreed also that there is such a thing. The Reformation that you mentioned already exists, but for the reasons that I mentioned, it's, I think it would be incredibly difficult for that, for that Reformation to, to, to gain the upper hand.
- [35:59]
A
Very interested in following people who convert to Islam. Maybe it's my algorithm. It's a sort of yet sick pleasure of mine to just try to understand the psychology of, of these people. They call themselves Reverts. Um, and I'm, I'm particularly interested in, you know, the young white women like myself who, who convert to Islam. I think it's more, unfortunately, it makes more sense for the men. I can see, you know, young white guys in the UK converting to Islam or all over Europe, America as well. It's hard to get the precise numbers, but it seems to be that they feel, probably due to, you know, oikophobia, that they can't feel proud of who they are or their history or culture, so they find a stronger and more dominant culture to, to latch onto and it gives them, especially for men, a sense of masculinity and strength and it just seems like a better, better option.
- [37:05]
B
Yeah, yeah. I mean, what those people often don't realize is that what they're rejecting isn't the west, but the decadent form of the west. Because, I mean, I will be the first to agree that some of the, their critique of the west is accurate in the sense that, yes, we have become weaker, decadent, more effeminate and so on. I mean, that's all. You don't have to go that far back in the past to find, to find historically where that was not the case, where we were actually much more masculine and strong and so on, while also still already having the virtues of the west, such as open and spirited debate and scientific skepticism and so on and so forth, where we had a greater balance, I think, between the various virtues of the West. So masculinity and strength and family and lots of Children and so on. Those are also Western things, Like, they belong to other cultures too. It's only. It's only the. It's only that we are more prone to. To this kind of social decadence than certain other cultures are. That then deludes those people into thinking that, well, the west is what it is and, and make them convert to Islam. Rather, they should strive to improve the west that they are in and try to bring the west back to its former strength instead of abandoning it. I mean, in my opinion, because, of course, when they convert to Islam, they lose the virtues of the west that. That still exist.
- [38:26]
A
Isn't one of the virtues of the west individual freedom?
- [38:31]
B
It is to an extent, yes, but it's also community. And there's a constant dialogue in the history of the west between those two things. I mean, you can go back already to the Antigone of Sophocles, where Antigone has to make a choice between, does she want to defy the law of the community of Creon, the city, saying, that is the law and this is what you have to do, and her individual desire to bury her brother who is lying unburied, which was a great sacrilege. Well, in many cultures, but certainly also in Greek culture. So that debate has existed for thousands of years within the west, and that's actually one, I think, one of the beautiful parts of the west that we have been able to have that debate and always try to balance those two things, sometimes more successfully, sometimes less successfully. But there has always been an ability on the part of Western culture to see the virtue in both community and in individualism and the dialectic between the two, rather than having just complete hedonistic individualism on the one hand, where nothing matters and nobody cares about anyone, and absolute submission on the other hand, as in. As in Islam. So. So, yeah, individualism is one of our strengths, but it. It can certainly, it cannot be viewed in isolation.
- [39:42]
A
Can you put the cat back in the bag after you've enjoyed decades of individual hedonism?
- [39:50]
B
Very difficult. It's. Historically, it doesn't really happen a lot. It does happen when, when a society faces a great setback of some kind. And one sees this in miniature in certain. So, for example, after. Right after 9, 11 in the United States, church attendance went up, for instance. Similarly, after October 7, of course, a lot of Jews who had never gone to shul certainly started putting out tefillin and so on phylacteries and suddenly felt Jewish. So setbacks like that, I mean, the okraphobic left in Israel, for example. Not that it was so strong to begin with, but it was basically destroyed on October 7th. Obviously that's the type of solution that nobody wants. It's not a good solution to have, but it is something, as a purely descriptive matter, it is something that does put the cats back in the bag a little bit, at least to some extent.
- [40:40]
A
Yeah. And I believe it's happened in Australia after the shooting just down the road from me at Bondi Beach.
- [40:46]
B
Right.
- [40:47]
A
I think, you know, the populist party and Pauline Hanson was already gaining popularity, but she's really just skyrocketed since then because she seems to be the only person and party truly serious about this, this threat of Islam in Australia.
- [41:07]
B
Yeah, yeah. So that's, yeah, again, it's, it's, it's not a price that we want to pay for that kind of a cultural development, but, but that is what happens. And then of course, sokophobia starts creeping back again and then that's the thing. But the, the sad thing is that of course increase, increasing okaphobia makes such a set reset or such a disaster likelier because we, then we are no longer on, on guard against. I mean, to take Israel again, as an example, this belief that the Palestinians, they're just like us and they want peace and they want to cooperate and so on, which does stem. It's not identical tokophobia, but it's a kind of xenophilia love of the other, which also has its roots in orchaphobia, that then makes such an attack as October 7th likelier. And so when we weaken our immune system through orchaphobia in this way, we invite such a disaster to occur which then in turn will, will lead to a weakening of archaphobia and in, in kind of a dialectic process. Again, I don't, I hate to sound so Hegelian, but, but in, in this particular case, I think it fits. So. Yeah, something like a war with China for the United States, for example, could, could really be, could weaken okaphobia a lot. Although of course nobody wants a war with China. But the, the idea of what. Yeah, sorry, go ahead.
- [42:20]
A
Oh, on that topic of China, I suppose, like we've talked a lot about, you know, Judeo, the Judeo Christian world and Islamic. How does Asia fare in all of this? I mean, the Japanese seem to be very proud, proud people. Not, not necessarily overly religious or observant in their religion, but maybe culturally they are. I guess I don't know enough about it, but.
- [42:47]
B
No, but because they. Yeah, I'm not an expert on Japan either. But, but they, but they are, to go back to an earlier point, they are mono ethnic, more or less. So far more so than we are. And when we talked about Israel, for example, saying Israel can afford to be multi ethnic because they're mono religious, so too Japan doesn't, doesn't have to have such a strong religion if they're mono ethnic. You need one of those. And that's, that's just how it is as a descriptive matter.
- [43:15]
A
And so the Japanese, unashamed about being an ethno state, essentially.
- [43:19]
B
Right? Yeah, exactly. No, because they can see. I mean they have eyes to see with. They can see what's going on in Europe and to a lesser extent in the United States and various parts of the Western world. And they say, well, we don't want that. And so they are able to learn from our mistakes. I mean, the Chinese too, to some extent, although, I mean they have a, well, they, they have a whole different trajectory of course. But, but the Japanese, and that already goes back to the Meiji Restoration. I mean, they looked at the west and say, okay, well we wanted this and this and this from the west, but not, not those things. And they were kind of very selective about which parts of the west they wanted to bring in and which ones they wanted to exclude. And they were quite good at doing that. Of course. Then they ran into other difficulties, but, and that's something they're doing now as well in a more peaceful manner, thankfully. And they're saying, okay, we, we're, we reject the, the multi ethnic multicultural aspects of, of the current west, but we embrace these other things. And so I, I think so far they've done a pretty decent job with that.
- [44:15]
A
I'd love to know Japan's fertility rate. I assume it's.
- [44:19]
B
Yeah, that. I, Yeah, I don't think it's very great either, although I don't.
- [44:23]
A
Good. I'd like to explore that. 1.14 okay, so only slightly lower than Australia's, really.
- [44:30]
B
Yeah, it's pretty abysmal. Yeah. Not to say that they don't have problems, but at least they, they, yeah, they don't have those problems.
- [44:37]
A
Yeah, well, have, do you, do you think much about, you know, fertility and how that ties into this?
- [44:46]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean the, that's, it's not tied directly to orcaphobia. That's tied more to one of the prerequisites for orcaphobia, namely wealth and security, those things that historically reduce fertility. And that's something that happens now in Israel. They have more children. Of course. I think it's the only Western country with an above replacement rate, I believe currently.
- [45:06]
A
Yes. Even for secular Israelis, people always think it's just the Hasidim. It's not right.
- [45:12]
B
Exactly. They, they still have. Again, even though there are plenty of secular Israelis, there is still a. More of a religious community, even among, even among kibbutz Israelis. If A woman is 30, 35, and she hasn't had a single child, people ask what's wrong with you? Like that's, that's just, that's in their culture. And the fact that they're surrounded by enemies also helps in that regard. So they, they have that advantage. Well, quote, unquote advantage. But, and, and that I mentioned before that religion is such a big aspect of religion is the communal aspect. So when we lose religion, we also lose that sense of community. Community. We lose the communal aspect. And once you lose the communal aspect, you have this exaggerated hyper individualism that extends, that develops in late cultures, certainly early Imperial Rome. You have hyper individualism developing in the, in the city of Rome to a very great degree. That does decrease fertility for sure. So, and, and, and it's, it's not that that's a direct result of okaphobia, but that could be. To go to another point you raised about putting the cat back in the bag, having children can also reduce orchaphobia to the extent that when people have children, even if they were not particularly conservative type of people, when they have children, they often develop the need to hand something down to their children, some kind of tradition, something that they want to give over to their children. So that does help reinforce a sense of tradition, a sense of purpose in the culture as well, if once people start having children.
- [46:36]
A
Yeah, definitely. And I like what you said before about, you know, you criticize this myopic view of religion as just being a belief in God. And you've said that it's a lot more than that. And, you know, I've never been a religious person. I actually would love to know what it feels like to believe in God,
- [46:54]
B
because I can tell you I used to be religious.
- [46:56]
A
Yeah. Yeah, okay.
- [46:58]
B
I was raised, I was raised modern Orthodox Jewish, and then I left the path when I was 15, 16 around there. But yeah, I would say modern Orthodox. Yeah. To be fair, I think the meaning of modern Orthodox has maybe changed a little bit from when I myself was modern Orthodox in those, I mean, back in the 90s. I mean, in those days, modern Orthodox meant fully halachically observant, meaning observing all Aspects of Jewish law. Just that, you know, maybe you played a little more basketball when. When the full, you know, when the Hasidim were studying Gemara and maybe you had some. A colored. A colorful shirt as opposed to just a white shirt. You know, that's what it meant to be modern Orthodox. But everything else was, you know, you didn't shake hands with women or anything like that. It was very strict modern Orthodox, even.
- [47:40]
A
Modern Orthodox?
- [47:41]
B
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We were shomin ngia, meaning, you know, that we didn't. The sexist didn't shake hands and. And so on. Kosher.
- [47:49]
A
This is in Sweden?
- [47:50]
B
No, here in the United States. I went to. That's like, when I was in high school, which I. Which was here in the US I was in a. In a. In a Jewish high school.
- [47:58]
A
So why. And how did you change?
- [48:00]
B
Oh, I just. I guess I'm. I'm very inquisitive by nature. I was. I'm. I was born a philosopher. The. The adults knew that I was a philosopher before I did, and. And it just. There was nothing that happened. I just, I. I saw God and then I didn't see him anymore, and that's that.
- [48:16]
A
So you did see God?
- [48:17]
B
Oh, yes. Oh, I used to daven. I mean, I used to pray with a huge amount of kavana, as we say, hu. Great emotion and intention and so on. Yeah, absolutely. Three times a day until I was about 15, 16. So. So it's. It's. Yeah, no, it's. It's a very. It's a. It's a.
- [48:31]
A
When you. When you say see God.
- [48:34]
B
Yeah.
- [48:34]
A
Like, how can you describe it?
- [48:37]
B
Yeah. So this conversation took an interesting turn now. I was the. How do you see God? As so. Well, for me. And I. I know I'm not the only one, because this is actually also a tenet in Judaism, but it's also something that I experienced personally. Two faces of God, The. The God. The God of the king, the leader of the people, this kind of impersonal God that. That one fears to a certain extent. And then God, the. The friend. That maybe sounds a bit banal to put it that way, but the. The companion helper. Yeah, exactly. The personal companion who. Who was always there and with whom one communicated directly and personally. I mean, also as part of prayer, but also in just a personal capacity, informally at any part of. At any time of the day. And that was, I think, during prayer, because during prayer, of course, one speaks to God as a community. That was then more to God of the King. And informally during the day one speaks to God, the companion, the individual companion, the friend.
- [49:33]
A
That is interesting in Judaism that you do pray. Yeah. Communally. I mean, I know Christians do as well, but a lot of Christians, it's more about the individual connection with God. And you don't have to go to church, really, whereas with the Jewish community, it's very, very different. You do go to shul, you pray together.
- [49:56]
B
Yeah, exactly. The, the, the, the Protestant tradition in particular has that much more individual aspect, as you say. Whereas, whereas in Judaism, that communal aspect, I mean, you can't, as, you know, you have to have 10 men, preferably. I mean, if you don't, then of course you pray alone. But, but that is the, the ideal. And, and so it is a, is, it is a communal service which doesn't preclude individual conversation with God as well. But I, I think now, I think now modern Orthodox, it just has come to mean that, you know, they put on a yarmulke and when they go to shul on, you know, once a week or something, it's. Yeah, I think it's been very weakened that, that, that term. So maybe I should use a different one.
- [50:33]
A
Well, that's a pattern, right, that things become weakened and diluted over time.
- [50:40]
B
Yeah.
- [50:41]
A
And I know it's a huge debate in, you know, in Judaism, I guess it has been for, for centuries now. But I, I respect, you know, it's very, very easy to convert to Islam. You say the Shahada. I believe it's the Shahada.
- [50:56]
B
Yeah.
- [50:56]
A
And boom, you're, you're Muslim. With Christianity, I guess it depends. But, you know, it's, it's again, pretty easy. But with Judaism, it's, it's not correct.
- [51:08]
B
Yeah. And, and that is, that is the people say, therefore, oh, Jews are so intolerant and exclusivist and they think they're better than everybody else. And there is some truth to that. But on the other hand, the fact that Jew Jews are not proselytizing in a certain sense, from a certain point of view actually means they're the most tolerant because they don't insist that everybody else has to think what they think. And so there's actually. The idea of live and let live is actually much stronger in Judaism. Calling it live and let live makes it obviously sound a bit banal and kind of does. Doesn't do justice to it. But that idea is if any of the three Abrahamic religions, it is the strongest in Judaism, certainly more so than in Christianity and Islam, not among Jews themselves. I mean, it is the obligation of a Jew to try to make an apostate Jewish to try to bring him back into the fold. So. But, but certainly bad Jews. Yeah, yes, exactly. But, but, but to non Jews there is much more. They want. Jews want non Jews to observe the seven Noahide laws, but the seven Noahide laws are. Are observed by most people, not all of them.
- [52:10]
A
But anyway, don't kill, don't steal.
- [52:15]
B
Yeah, exactly. And no. No idolatry. Right. So you're not. No paganism, but one passage which in. In ancient times, of course, was. Was an issue. Nowadays less so, Although some would argue that Christianity is a form of idolatry because of the icons and the cross and so on. Even though, of course, that. That's debatable to. To say the least. But, but the, The. The Jews as. It's the only. Judaism is the only one of the three Abrahamic religions to have the idea that you can be saved. Not only that we don't proselytize. I shouldn't say we, because I'm not a practicing Jew, but that Judaism doesn't proselytize. Not only that, but also Jews believe that Gentiles can also reach salvation simply by being right. Christians believe you have to be Christian. Muslims believe you have to be Muslim. So in that sense, also, Judaism is the most tolerant, quote, unquote tolerant of the three religions.
- [53:09]
A
Did Jews believe in hell?
- [53:13]
B
We do believe in an afterlife. Certainly not. Yeah, I mean, there is gehennim, which is. You don't use the word hell in the sense that it conjures up a bunch of imagery that we associate with Dante and so on, which is not exactly what we refer to in Judaism. But. But yes. I mean, there is haolamaba. I mean, there is the afterlife and there is the idea of. There is the idea of transcendent, transcendent reward and transcendent punishment. But they're stronger in Christianity, certainly, than in Judaism. But.
- [53:38]
A
Yeah, I could keep talking about this for a long time, but I know it's. It's late for you. We've been speaking for an hour. There's one last topic.
- [53:45]
B
Yeah, I don't mind, actually, It's.
- [53:46]
A
Yeah, about your. I think you wrote recently about the collective we.
- [53:54]
B
Yes.
- [53:56]
A
Could. Could you go a bit more in. Into that? I. Sorry, I actually haven't read the piece. I. I should, but I just found the topic interesting.
- [54:04]
B
Yeah. So the, The. Yeah, the. So the point I make in that particular piece is the fact essentially that the idea of a collective we, meaning we as in humanity, comes from Christianity. It has, it has forebears in. We find it in, in Hellenistic, in certain measure in Hellenistic philosophy. So you find it in Stoicism, for example, the idea that. So the Stoics were pantheists, effectively believing that God is reason, Logos, and Logos exists in all of us. And so there is a spark of the divine in every human being in the world. So that is a beginning of the idea that there is this kind of divine bond that unites all human beings with each other. But then, of course, the. Chris, Christianity takes that to the, to the next level, helped along also by the Jewish idea that we're all created in the image of God. If we're all created in the image of God, of course that is also some kind of divine connection between all of us. And so those various influences coalesce in Christianity where Christianity makes possible the idea of un human we. Then of course, various branches of Christianity will insist more or less on that than others. But that's, that's the idea. And so what I talk about in that piece is partly how this idea arose and then also why this idea, given our current. Given current. Given the current geopolitical state of, of the world, is a noxious idea and how we need to, we need to strengthen those aspects of our Western heritage that are, that weaken that idea of a universal we. Where we can speak of Western we, for example, we can. There are various levels at which we can speak of a we, we can speak of an American we, an Australian we, for example, a Sydney we, if you will, a New York we, but also a Western we. But that, that's where we, we. That's kind of where we draw a line. And of course, you, you do have some streams within Christianity also, or has a lot of people have been talking about in political discourse over the last couple of years, the idea that, yes, also as a Christian, you emphasize your own community first, before, before you move on to, to other, to other parts of the world, before you love other parts of humanity. But even, even in the Ordo Amoris, and you have that idea in Stoicism as well. It's called Oika in Stoicism, which is the, the homifying, turning the entire world excessively into your home we there we have to kind of. There has to be a rupture in the Ordamorus or there has to be a rupture in Oika in order for us not to go down the route of welcoming the entire world into our home in the name of this universal we. And so, yeah, that's The. That's the main idea of. Of that piece. And there are other aspects of. Of Western tradition that we can draw on for that. I mean, there is the Greco Roman tradition, of course, which did not have that at all. I mean, at least, you know, pre classical Greece, pre Hellenistic Greece. And there are of course also other aspects of Judaism from which we can draw as well in this regard. Yes, the idea that we're all created in the image of God is a Jewish idea, but Judaism is also more. A bit more exclusivist. There are certain aspects of, philosophically speaking, that we can draw from there as well. So.
- [57:07]
A
Yeah, and that's in Marion west, right?
- [57:11]
B
Yes, indeed. Yeah. I did a video on it as well. I realized people prefer to watch videos rather than reading texts. So people.
- [57:18]
A
Yeah, it's. It's easier. Easier to. To listen. There is one more topic, one more topic I just want to get into briefly. It's a topic I've sort of shied away from recently because it's been so in the media, in particular here in Australia, I suppose we've got a royal commission into anti Semitism after the Bondi shooting. This topic of antisemitism. It's actually the only topic that's. Or the only question that's got me to really consider whether there is a God, because it makes no sense logically. I can't make sense of it. The hatred of Jews throughout history or not just hatred. The just injustice that this one group of people have consistently been dealing with. I can't explain it logically and it's made me consider, well, perhaps maybe there is a supernatural force behind it. And I know if I. I've spoken to religious Jews who have said where. Where essentially here on earth to be hated. I had one man say that and that it's. What else did he say? That it. Us being hated sort of teaches the world a lesson, perhaps something like that. I don't know. What. What are your thoughts?
- [58:48]
B
There are a couple of things there. I mean, what you say is very interesting. This idea that we're here to be hated. I mean, I think one can be forgiven for having that opinion. I mean, historically it would often seem that that is the case, but I. The reason I'm a bit reluctant to. To subscribe to that particular position is that there is one. One risks being seduced by the pleasure of being hated by wa. In this idea of hatred. I mean, it's a victim culture, which. Of which we so often accuse the left. And it's something to which we should not succumb. Even though there is often good reason to succumb to it, it's still something that should be resisted because that also leads us sometimes, and you see examples of this quite often. It leads us sometimes to see anti Semitism even when there's none. Now very often we are justified in seeing anti Semitism in lots of different places, but not always. And the, and there is, there is a pleasure in being hate. In, in being hated. One elevates oneself in that way. So that, that's, that's a kind of, that's a kind of indulgence that I think we should resist and, and try
- [59:47]
A
to be a. Sal Bruckner talks about that so well. Yeah, yes, good old Bruckner, yes.
- [59:54]
B
So, yeah, so, so that's something that I think we should resist when it comes to. I think it also is also helpful to parcel antisemitism into various antisemitisms. I mean it's well known, of course that antisemitism has undergone various in its history and they don't always have the same logic to them. I mean they, they can, you can find various commonalities among various antisemitisms, but they are still different. And it, it I think is helpful to try to understand them on their own terms. So to understand, for example, pagan antisemitism of which there was some pre Christian antisemitism and then to understand Christian antisemitism and then to understand racial antisemitism and now today political antisemitism, for lack of a better term perhaps anti Zionism. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, so we have to understand those on various terms. Now there is certain, there is, if you have to find one commonality between those various, among those various antisemitisms, I think it would be the idea that we consider ourselves, Jews consider themselves better than other people. Then again, every group of people consider themselves better than other people. It's in the nature of, of groups to do this, otherwise there, there wouldn't be groups. And so, so that's part of it. But the fact then also that's Jews have typ quite successful that which people can't stand. So that's, I think those are. If we had to isolate some commonalities among the various antisemitisms, those would be it. Then one can see how those commonalities express themselves in various ways. So for example, if we take, if we take Roman antisemitism, Romans had no particular reason, no racial reason, no religious reason to hate the Jews. They start to hate the Jews once the Jews are Constantly rebelling and refusing to put a statue of the emperor in their temple and so on. And so then that leads to, that leads to anti Semitism because a lot of, you know, a lot of Roman legionaries fall in battle in Judea and then you have Roman. Then you have Jews living in Rome. This is a juvenile, for example, complains about how people, how Roman matrons are going to Jewish soothsayers as opposed to going to the altars to worship their own Roman gods. And so this kind of sense of infiltration by these people who insist on being so different and better than everybody else. So that is. So that's a pre Christian antisemitism. The Christian antisemitism, of course, is very obvious. The Jews supposedly murdered our Lord and Savior and so on and refused to recognize him as the Messiah. Once again, they consider themselves better or different and they want to keep their own ways. Racial antisemitism is actually becomes a little harder to square there in the sense that of course, in Pre World War II Europe, as is well known, Jews tended to be very well assimilated and were often not so different. But that, that particular antisemitism has more in common with the antisemitism we see today rising on the right, for example, where Jews are considered to be, to be different and incompatible with America or with what have you. That is something that comes from often it's something I've also talked a little bit about. It's something that often comes from a drive toward a desire for purity. So in the, in the face of a, of a setback or a defeat, such as Germany had suffered in World War I, such as. Not as America has suffered in as dramatic a sense, but there is a sense of decadence, there is a sense of infiltration, there's a sense of weakening of the core of our culture, which is true. I mean, those complaints are accurate enough. But that drive towards purity then leads to wanting to throw at everything that is even remotely that is even just a little bit different. And so it's one. It's easy to turn against the Muslim because of course, the Muslim is very different. And in that case, as we've discussed, there are actually some good reasons for that. But the Jew also, in this drive toward purity, also falls a victim to this because. Because when a people feels threatened, it becomes even more obsessed with its own cleanliness, with its own perfection. And so the Jew then is someone who also has to be uprooted in the search for, for what is perceived to be the core and the, the the pure nucleus, if you will, of one's own society. So that's something that is, you know,
- [63:58]
A
but even then, like for example, in Australia, you know, you can't specifically tell, you know, a Jewish person like yourself or my husband or whoever from any other white, white person. Unlike Indians, Chinese. And look, Indians and Chinese do. Especially the, the Indian community here has been getting more hate, especially online from the right. But Jews, even more so, despite being a smaller community and a community that is more or less looks, does everything average one does.
- [64:33]
B
And according to this way of thinking, that actually makes us more dangerous because there is a greater risk there of confusing us for the core of the culture. I like to quote the phrase from Freud, denatism, differensen, the narcissism of small differences which he writes about in Civilization and Its Discontents where he talks about Haiti. The examples are a little different, but it's essentially that if someone is actually very close to you, very similar to you, then the need to, to limit yourself, to distinguish yourself from him actually is greater because everyone can see the difference between me and the Pakistani, but the difference between me and the Jew living, you know, in the same community and, and so on, that's, that's harder and so all the greater reason than to show that I am in fact not him and I, and I'm different from him. And so some of it is that. But the, the, there's.
- [65:24]
A
And that explains this sort of joy in discovering, you know, they're a Jew, which you sometimes see on the right. You know, you know, Scarlett Johansson, she looks like the perfect Aryan, whatever, blonde, beautiful, she's actually a Jew. It's this, this unveiling of this secret.
- [65:40]
B
Yeah.
- [65:41]
A
That can be very exciting to some people.
- [65:44]
B
Right? Yeah, horrible. Yeah. That's why I try not to spend too much time on X. But yeah, the. But yeah, that, that's. And I think it's, I think that's, that's, I think that's exactly right. And I think that's. So we try when we basically to, I mean, to look at it from your, from your original question, we have to understand the various anti. Semitisms. Again, there are certain commonalities, but then there are also certain differences. And once you look at those commonalities and differences, I think antisemitism kind of starts to make a lot of sense. I mean understanding obviously is not, is not condoning, obviously. But yeah, I think that's, I think that's a big part of it.
- [66:18]
A
I'm going to wrap it up. Is there. Well if people are interested in your work, where. Where should they go?
- [66:24]
B
Well, My website is benedictbeckeld.com and I have a YouTube channel. And I'm on X, of course, and Facebook and so on. A very archaic. I know. But I'm still there as well. And, yeah, it's my name everywhere. Benedict Beckeld.
- [66:39]
A
Great. It's a. It's a very. There aren't any other people with that name. I don't think it's very unique.
- [66:45]
B
Yes, I've been lucky in that regard.
- [66:48]
A
Well, thank you so much for joining me, Benedict.
- [66:50]
B
Thank you. It's been my pleasure, Sam.