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- [00:00]
A
I hate the phrase, the idea that the pendulum swinging too far. I would rather say, is the pendulum going to swing to the wrong place? Are we going to overreact? And it could be, you know, a step toward fascism. It could be. Instead, it could be just too much exuberance. We take the, you know, Doge cuts 10 too many things or whatever. You know, there's a test coming now that this, whatever this new right is that hasn't decided who it is. Its identity is not set yet. There are vying factions to trying to determine who this new coalition is represented by, what philosophies, whether it's Burkean, whether it's, you know, fascist Evolen. There are people talking about whether it's Schmidian, whether it's Lockean.
- [00:44]
B
I think it's just Trumpian and American.
- [00:45]
A
Or if it's just American or, yeah, just, you know, make America great again, whatever it is, there's this ambiguity in what it is. And the question is, will it survive the most brutal of all tests, which is you now have power. Let's see what a steward you are of it. And I remain, unfortunately, nervous about how we might do with that test.
- [01:19]
B
James Lindsay, this has to be at least your dozen appearance on the Rubin Report, would you say?
- [01:25]
A
I think that's all right. I hope so.
- [01:26]
B
Ballpark does. And you're definitely in the top 10 of repeat guests.
- [01:30]
A
I'll take it.
- [01:30]
B
So let's just try not to muck it up if we could.
- [01:33]
A
Oh, no.
- [01:33]
B
We are here at the our conference, and much like when I spoke to you here about a year and a half ago, what I find most interesting about this conference is there seems to be a real move to find all of the commonalities between, say, the classical liberals, where guys like you and I fall, and the more traditional conservatives. It seems to be working, at least for now. Certainly in America, it's working. Do you think it can hold? What do you think the weaknesses are? And do you see a difference between it holding in, say, America versus maybe here in UK or more broadly, Europe?
- [02:09]
A
I do think it can hold, actually. I'll say that given that even just standing outside the room, a few minutes ago, I was getting a text message from somebody here at the conference who was saying, oh, I don't think it can hold. So there is some nervousness about this. This is a question.
- [02:22]
B
And the reason I'm starting that with you is because there are plenty of people literally in this building right now who you've had major arguments with and spats with on that, on that other side of it. But there's some healing happening, I think a little bit.
- [02:36]
A
So here's, here's what I think though is the reason that I think that these coalition, this coalition can be somewhat stable. If we think back to, you know, the 90s, let's say just kind of as an archetype, we have the classical liberals and the progressives have somehow aligned themselves against the conservatives. And they say, no, we're basically the same, we're open minded together or whatever it is. And the conservatives are obviously not, and they're a problem. So these two are in cahoots. And slowly and then all at once the classical liberals discovered these guys are lunatics, that progressives are not sharing our values, they're not actually even open minded. And so now the classical liberals have fled from the left and they found a home with these traditional conservatives. And this other alignment is actually a bit, it's fragile as well, but I think it's a bit different. And the reason is because there is an underlying respect for reality that exists on the classical liberal and the conservative side that does not exist with the progressives. And I mean this in a deep way to talk kind of in a very deep sense. The progressive view, their epistemology, so to speak, the way they think about the world is they have an idealistic future to which they are shooting. And their knowledge, their theory of knowledge, their theory of morals is all utilitarian around that in essence. Right, that ideal. Right. Almost as Platonic ideal. Whereas the epistemological force of the classical liberals is, well, let's check the evidence, let's bounce it off the real world and humble ourselves. And the epistemological force of the traditional conservative, the Burkean conservative is tradition. What has worked in the past, which is this kind of, from my perspective at least, which is this kind of heuristic to reality as opposed to like, let's do the test, let's check it out directly. There's still this adherence to. This has worked in the past. So there must be, even if we don't know what it is, there must be something in the sauce that works and that's an adherence to reality. Neither side is shooting for an ideal right now. It is possible to get idealistic. When conservatism goes idealistic, you end up with fascism and that's a threat. But it's not intrinsic to the traditional conservative, nor is it appealing to the classical liberal. So this coalition is qualitatively different than the one that was, oh, we're Both open minded.
- [05:05]
B
Yeah. Well, I'm thrilled to hear you say that because I agree. I think it's clearly represented by what's happening with kind of the tech pros and Trump at the moment. But in some sense, Trump is the ultimate version of all of this, isn't he? Because he's ushered in conservatism while obviously not being a conservative. Right. In Trump's real head. I think if you took the, the 1985 version of Trump, he's just a New York liberal, but he needed conservatism to sort of build a world that he could live in, and that's the world that we're all in now.
- [05:36]
A
Yeah. Trump is just fundamentally American. His instincts, I don't think he's doctrinaire. I don't think he's. I'm not to say he's unsophisticated philosophically, but I don't think he cares that much about these deep philosophical questions about, oh, well, you know, what do the Burkians think about this?
- [05:53]
B
You don't think he cares about that?
- [05:54]
A
Not too much. I'm just guessing he might, he might secretly be reading, you know, in the morning. You never know. But I think it's more, you know, what's on Fox and Friends. And so he's just kind of this quintessential American. And what's. His gut instinct is, well, well, what he says, make America great again and how do we do that? And what he's realized is that progressive vision, whether he was a 1985 Liberal Democrat or not, that progressive vision is not going to work. The ideal that they're shooting for is a catastrophe. And so he's brought this resurgent awakening to whatever made America work. We've got to rediscover it, which is that appeal to the traditionalism. And he's forged this new, kind of like you said, this weird pro America, classical liberal thing with conservative values are somehow necessary to make this thing function.
- [06:46]
B
So I always ask you every time you're on how you feel about being more in common cause with religious people, because you still are an atheist. Right. So you're still an atheist, but yet you go to Christian events all the time. Now you speak at Turning Point events. I think the world that you want to live in is actually very, very similar to the world that say, a Christian conservative wants to live in.
- [07:11]
A
Yeah.
- [07:13]
B
Have your feelings on any of that changed over the years? Is it?
- [07:16]
A
Yeah, certainly, certainly. While I haven't accepted the profound metaphysical claim, at the center of the Christian faith, the moral Precepts, the teaching, the just kind of logical civilizational structure that the both Judeo and Christian, in fact, the Christians can get a little worked up about this. But my opinion is that Jesus brought the Jewish model to the Gentiles, right? And so the Judeo Christian model, ethics, the way they think through problems, the way that they deal with one another, how they border and structure society, I think are actually very, very profoundly good. The Bible, in my opinion, is a record of several thousand years of when you do this, civilization works and when you deviate from this, everything goes sideways and you deserved it. And just this, you know, the poor Israelites, you know, go through this cycle dozens of times through the books of the Bible. And then we get to the New Testament and you have Paul running around, you know, you fools, you know you're doing it too. And so I think that this is a very key message, that when you follow certain precepts for your individual life, for your family life, this is going to sound very traditionally conservative for your individual life, then your family life, and then to your community life, and then to your state or nation life. And then as Jordan's been saying here at arc, you know, all the way to your duties, to the ultimate, things work better. And so I've become quite sympathetic to these arguments. I find them, I find it to be an intentional source. When I don't know how should I think about this, I will find myself turning to go ask the Bible rather than to just sit and chew on it myself or pick up Nietzsche or some lunatic.
- [09:04]
B
So in some sense, is there a utilitarian version of that? Or that's sort of what you're laying out there in that. I know you well enough to know that this is working within the way you live in your lens through life. But maybe from the purely atheistic perspective, it doesn't really scale properly where religion gives it the scale.
- [09:24]
A
Yeah, that's probably right. The fact is that I think that, like I said, the way that I see the Bible is that this is the trial. This is the long record of the trials and tribulations of a society that figured it out. Figure out how to make something actually work to make productivity, to make positive sum games come out of human interaction. And if that's divinely inspired or if it's the very astute observations of a very challenged and over history and detailed people, thoughtful people. I don't know which one it is, but I think it should be. It's something that A, we should take seriously and B, we should take seriously because of its now long proven track record. And now that we've kind of run this weird experiment of, I guess, post 1950s God is dead and it kind of opened doors to things going off the rails, maybe we should take it a little bit more seriously than we have been. So. Yeah, I don't know how it scales without the faith part, but the pragmatic side, the just brash American side, like Trump, I don't know if he's Christian. I'm not positive that he is, but he seems to resonate with.
- [10:36]
B
He seems to have gone to something much deeper than the political part of all of this.
- [10:41]
A
Yes.
- [10:42]
B
Which actually, even for the first time in this last few months or maybe post assassination attempt and hear him making a reference or two to God, that actually does feel more authentic than sort of his favorite Bible verse or something.
- [10:55]
A
Yeah. That he's living for 2 Corinthians anymore.
- [10:58]
B
Right.
- [10:58]
A
But he's literally been in a. I mean, to be, I guess metaphorical with a literal. He's been touched by the angel of death. One does not merely have a bullet pass through one's flesh without doing some serious reflection on how fortunate we are to get to have this experiment of life. Um, I know that I watched that and I've said this on stage with Charlie Kirk at Turning Point events that I. It was. Okay. Atheist or Charlie makes me call myself an agnostic. That's more honestly correct, I suppose. Yeah. I have to grapple with the fact that I'm pretty sure I want witnessed a miracle on television. You were on my phone really, before the plane took off, but I witnessed a miracle and then, you know, Jordan was talking out of the Book of Numbers the other day. I've taken the Book of Numbers very seriously. This is wandering in the desert. And they're very dissatisfied. They want to go back to Egypt where they had their cucumbers and their slavery, and at least it was comfortable. And God says, no, you're not going to the Promised Land. Canaan's not for you. And it's because. Why? What does God say? He said, well, I've given you 10, which is maybe a literal and maybe a symbolic number for many. I've given you 10 proofs, miracles, the manna from heaven, the Red Sea, et cetera, et cetera. If you don't have faith now, you never will, so you don't deserve it. Right. And so I'm sitting there thinking, God in the Book of Numbers, as the story goes, is saying, I've given you miracles, so you better believe. And Then I watched Trump not get shot right as it actually happened. And I'm thinking, did we just have, like, did God turn his head at that last second and then say, all right, America, here's your moment? Do you have what it takes, which is faith, to enter the promised land or not? I have to chew on this, right?
- [12:43]
B
So regardless of whether you view it purely through a religious lens or through a more secular lens or whatever you want to call it, in some sense, it doesn't matter, because the fruits of that are really the same.
- [12:58]
A
I think that, yeah, regardless, there's this call to a faith in the fact, like Charlie very frequently says, Charlie Kirk very frequently says, or he said, at least at America Fest several times on the stage, we've been given another chance as a nation that we didn't deserve. And I think that we really should literally or metaphorically fall on our knees and be grateful for that and not waste the opportunity. And of course, that's not to be weird, because we're at Ark and just circle it back. But that's actually what Jordan has said ARK is all about. There's this opportunity that we now have in the world to kind of define the story of our own future and to think through what that story should look like and how do we make that story grounded in reality and also touching tradition, but maybe even not completely lost on idealism. And these are the things that we now have to grapple with as they keep. The phrase that they keep using and I'm not entirely comfortable with, is in.
- [13:53]
B
Our civilizational moment, which is interesting, because when we did this arc, it was a little over a year ago. It was right after October 7th. There was a real feeling of, oh, my God, is Western civilization completely collapsed? Is this the beginning? And now we're doing this just a month after Trump gets sworn in. And there's an incredible feeling of hope, which also shows you that things change very fast. Last thing, which I think I know the answer to already, but I will ask you, nonetheless, are you white pilled for America at the moment? It seems like. Well, everyone in this room or everyone in this building feels very positive about America right now, from what I can tell. Yeah.
- [14:28]
A
Have you seen those pills with the little. I think they used to have, like, diet pills and they had the little colored bulbs.
- [14:33]
B
I knew you were gonna give me something more than just a white pill.
- [14:36]
A
No, it's not.
- [14:37]
B
This is like a time release that there's multiple colors.
- [14:40]
A
Some of them are black, some of.
- [14:42]
B
Them are clown pills.
- [14:42]
A
Some of them are very I'm very nervous. My, my. I said this. You were there at the Prageru inauguration Make America Make Education Great Again event, and I said that I believe that we have at least one more major test. America has one more major test ahead of it. So while I am optimistic in general, I am nervous about what amounts to the backlash. Does I hate the phrase, the idea that the pendulum swinging too far? I would rather say, is the pendulum going to swing to the wrong place? Are we going to overreact? And it could be, you know, a step toward fascism. It could be. Instead, it could be just too much exuberance. We take the, you know, Doge cuts 10 too many things or whatever. You know, there's a test coming now that this, whatever this new right is that hasn't decided who it is. Its identity's not set yet. There are vying factions to trying to determine who this new coalition is represented by, what philosophies, whether it's Burkean, whether it's, you know, fascist Evolin. There are people talking about whether it's Schmittian, whether it's Lockey.
- [15:52]
B
I think it's just Trumpian or if.
- [15:53]
A
It'S just American or, yeah, just, you know, make America great again. Whatever it is, there's this ambiguity in what it is. And the question is, will it survive the most brutal of all tests, which is you now have power. Let's see what a steward you are of it. And I remain, unfortunately, nervous about how we might do with that test, but I'm actually growing a little bit more optimistic, especially not. Not to be again. Q. But the conversations I've had here, even with people I profoundly disagree with, have been encouraging, I think, in that direction.
- [16:31]
B
I guess we will have to continue this in the future to find out.
- [16:34]
A
I hope so.