The Case for Western Civilization
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Hello everyone and welcome to the latest episode of the Secular Foxhole podcast. Today we have a special guest, Professor Andrew Bernstein is here to discuss his latest essay, The Case for Western Civilization.

Well, to go along with that, there's at least three people here that value Western civilization. So, hi, Andy. How are you? I'm good, Blair and Martin. Thanks for having me on again. Always good to be in the foxhole with you guys, especially in the secular foxhole. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Great to hear. Great to have you. Great to have you. Thank you. Now, this is quite a long... It's a fairly long essay, but it's certainly very thorough, but...

I must say, you start off with a litany of less than favorable accusations against Western civilization. You want to delve into some of those? Well...

well yeah it's it's um it's it's funny because i think i started with susan sontag who was writing back in the in the 1960s yes you did long before long before these accusations against white people in the west became intellectually you know oh quran uh 67 or 68

An essay she wrote, you know, Susan Sontag, American writer and critic, in which she called the white race the cancer of human history. And so we've seen a lot of, you know, a lot of leftist writers since then, especially more recently, critical race theorists.

and the critical whiteness studies, people like Robin DiAngelo and Barbara Applebaum, of course, Ibram X. Kendi, people like that. And their claim is,

The history, the historical claim is that the white race is – and Western civilization, Europeans and Americans are – have been terribly imperialistic. They're responsible for imperialism, genocide of the American Indian population, slavery of blacks. And some of these charges are true, obviously. And the –

colonialism in Africa, the so-called scramble for Africa by European powers in the late 19th century. And there's some truth here's where

You need a rational philosophy to separate out, one, the truth from the falsehoods in these accusations. Yes, please. Yeah, and then two, to examine it and assess it in terms of a rational moral philosophy. Because it's, you know, my good friend, Dr. Eric Daniels, who's an objectivist and a professor of American history, said to me once a long time ago, he said, history is messy. You know? It is. It's very mixed.

in so many ways. But the critics of Western civilization nowadays are not mixed. They are full-throated and unanimous. Western civilization is evil. They agree with Susan Sontag. The white race is the cancer of human history. Any attempts to defend

Western civilization is just an attempt to paper over genocide, slavery, imperialism, and endless killing or murder of indigenous peoples. You know, Ward Churchill was one of those writers. Like you said, there's a whole, you know, reference to a whole litany of people who were... Edward Said. There's a, you know, there's an endless...

I'm looking through the Howard Zinn. I'm looking through the anthropologist David Graeber. I mean, there's a whole Frantz Fanon. There's a whole list of people.

people, intellectuals who believe two cardinal claims here. One, Western civilization is primarily responsible for slavery, imperialism, genocide. That's the essence of Western civilization, slavery, imperialism, genocide, and white people. There's the critical race theorists and the critical whiteness studies people, you know,

which is an ally discipline here, that white people are... America today is still systemically racist and white people are inherently racist. This is a constellation of claims that are integrated around the theme that Western civilization and the white people who created it are essentially evil and racist, racist and evil. Well, now that's Western civilization, according to them. Right. What is...

or what does Western quote unquote civilization consist of? Like what's the rule of law, individual rights, things like that, correct? Yeah. I mean, we have to deal with the criticisms because some of them are true, but we need to put it in a full context. Exactly. Integrate, see the big picture as Iran taught us so brilliantly. What is Western civilization?

Well, geographically, of course, it's the civilization that was founded in Greece. It's the civilization that was established by the Europeans and later by European colonies, including North America, which became the United States of America. But even though it's referred to as the West, the essence of it is not geographical. I think the essence of Western civilization is two things to me, and that is more than any other culture in history is a commitment to reason,

and there's the commitment to freedom, political economic liberty or individual rights. And those were never consistently or universally applied. They always were embattled in Europe and in the United States. For instance, the commitment to reason developed in Greece. Aristotle is the perfect example. Had to fight a long cultural war against Christianity, tried to suppress the Greek approach.

But I think more than any other culture, Western civilization is committed to reason, to rational process. And you see the fruits of it in freedom, philosophy, science, the arts, and so on.

And battled, nevertheless, to a significant degree, reason was triumphant in the West, more so than any other culture. And because of that, because of the great respect for man's reason in mind, more than any other culture, the West has been, Europe and the United States has been committed to

the rights of the individual to your own mind, to your, to your own life, to political economic liberty, and of course, capitalism. So I think those are the, that's the essence of Western civilization. What makes it special, what makes it great, and what makes it distinctive from all other cultures in, in, in the history of the world. Well, much like your essay, we will go back and forth with the praise and, and do it deserved condemnation. So let's talk about some of the, uh,

accusations about genocide for a minute or two. Yeah, a minute or two on genocide. Well, I guess it's a grim topic. But the main claim regarding genocide is

regards the American Indian population or in what became politically correct terminology several decades ago, the Native Americans. And I just want to make a point about terminology here because there's no accurate locution because terminology

American Indian, the older term that I grew up with, many of us grew up with, is inaccurate because those tribes were not originally from India. Native American, I think, is even more inaccurate because the implication is they were indigenous to the North American continent, which they most certainly were not. It's been known for a very long time by anthropologists that they migrated from Central Asia during the last ice age.

10, 12, 10, 12,000 years ago. So I use, I prefer American Indian because at least the recognizes that they're of Asian. These tribes are of Asian origin, indigenous North America. No, but there was certainly here long before the Europeans, you know, thousands of years before the Europeans ever, ever arrived. But the main claim about genocide against the West is, is the, is the European American attempt to wipe out the American Indian population.

And yet it's been known for many years now. And there's, you know, many writers have written about it. I like Dr. Clark Whistler.

who was an anthropologist from Columbia University and a curator at the American Museum of Natural History. His PhD was in anthropology, and his specialty was American Indian culture. His book, Indians of the United States, I think is very good. It's accurate. It was published around 1940 before any politically correct or woke prejudices infected academia. And Whistler writes, and any number of other people write, the overwhelming...

deaths that American Indians suffered was from the transmission of European diseases such as smallpox for which they had no natural immunity.

And there may have been some European or American commanders who traded deliberately, you know, infected smallpox blankets to the Indians in a deliberate attempt to wipe out various tribes. That's possible. There's not a lot of evidence to support it. Generally, it's acknowledged that these were diseases were transmitted illegally.

unintentionally, and the Indian population simply had no natural immunity to it. And they were ravaged by European diseases, smallpox in particular. So genocide, it was overwhelmingly that was unintentional. And then all the evidence...

From American, influential Americans, Benjamin Franklin, who wanted to send blacksmiths among the Indians so they have a productive trade. George Washington wanted to live in peace with the Indians and wanted to encourage them to be farmers. Thomas Jefferson also wanted to live in peace with the Indian tribes. You know, so on and so on. Ulysses S. Grant wanted them to become American citizens, which eventually happened after World War I. By the late 19th century, the U.S. military had defeated India.

The most warlike, all of the warlike tribes, the Sioux, the Apache, whoever it is. And why didn't they wipe them out? They consigned them to reservations. If genocide was the attempt, why not just wipe the Indian tribes out? They didn't. They consigned them to reservations. And as I pointed out in the essay, the reservations were not sealed like a communist country behind an iron curtain. Many of those western tribes, you know, tribes west of the Mississippi were powerful warriors.

And due to the heritage, a lot of them left the reservations, enlisted in the U S military were heroes in world war one, later heroes in world war two. And, um, I went, uh, let me one last point. I went to college in South Dakota in 1970s. And, um,

And the Pine Ridge Reservation, huge Sioux reservations in western South Dakota. And a number of my classmates were Sioux, you know, men or women who left the reservation to go to college, get an education, have a career, you know, take advantage of life in advanced American civilization. The reservations were never sealed, like not like a communist country. So that's an important point.

Two things I want to mention, just in passing. When I lived in Nashville, I met a young woman who was like half Cherokee. Extraordinarily attractive young lady. She was working in a bank. So, you know, they do assimilate, if you will. And the other thing I want to mention is these critics, they apply modern terms to...

things that happened 200 years ago. So their accusations, in a way, in my mind, aren't valid because you're using today's terms to identify what happened before

unintentionally, as you say, you know, 200 years ago and so on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There was genocide was a term, best of my knowledge, coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew who escaped the Nazis during the time of World War II and was writing about the Armenian genocide, the Turks. That was a genocidal attempt. So the term is

1930s, 1940s. But the reality in 1915 was the Turks did attempt to, I don't want to use the term exterminate, that applies to insects, you know, but did attempt to annihilate the Armenian population deliberately. And the European and American leaders in the new world did not attempt to deliberately wipe out the American Indian populations. They wanted to

They could have done so circa 1880s when they defeated these tribes and those tribes were exhausted and consigned to the reservations. Would have been bloody for the U.S. Army because these guys were mighty warriors. But if they wanted to wipe out the Indian population, they could have done so. And they had the heavy guns, just using the heavy guns, the artillery.

you know, on the, on the, on the, these peaceful camps in the reservations, they could have wiped out any number of, uh, of American Indians, men, women, children. They didn't do that. And like the claim, the claim is beyond false guys. It's a flat out lie. Yeah. Well, yeah. In my mind, certainly that's true. And look again, let's, let's jump back to today, uh, here in Connecticut, uh, the Mohegan sun casino is run by the Mohegan Indian tribe. Yeah. And, uh,

And that's certainly the area around that where they've I'm assuming there's a reservation there, although I haven't honestly looked. Those homes, although basic and modest, are are all built by that the wealth obtained by the casino.

Yeah. At least the wealth that isn't drained by the state. Right. Right. Are the Indians with the casinos, are they tax exempt? I'm not sure whether they have to pay taxes or they... They certainly pay state taxes. I'm not sure about federal taxes. Yeah, okay. I've been on the Pine Ridge Reservation, the enormous Sioux Reservation in western South Dakota. And it ain't pretty. It's like going into the projects.

You know, there's a lot of drug trafficking, just like in the projects. We have a large black American population in many of the urban areas. There's drug trafficking. There's violence between and amongst the gangs. There's a high homicide rate. It's really, it's, you know, it's just really tragic how many young men...

kill each other and how many innocent people get caught in the crossfire. But my point, of course, is today and for a long time, the reservations are not sealed and the people who want a better life leave, you know, to go to school, have a career, get, you know, just like people can leave the projects, get, you know, move to a better neighborhood, get a, get a, get a job, you know, move to a better neighborhood, raise their kids in a safer, in a safer area. And people do. Yes. Yes. Now you, uh,

Moving along here, you also mentioned things like the Asian communists and the Mongols and so on. Is that related to more false accusations? Yeah, the accusation is that white Westerners have been uniquely evil in terms of these heinous crimes.

the slave enslavement of black Africans, you know, the, the transatlantic slave trade. Yes. You know, the colonialism I mentioned, uh, Leo, Leopold II, the King of Belgium who, uh, established his fiefdom, you know, establish his fiefdom in, um, in, in the Congo and in, in the Belgian Congo. And he was a lawyer. It was, it was,

making money, stealing, you know, exploiting the rubber and the, and the, and the ivory tusk and, and, you know, and, and everything. So there was a lot of, there was a lot of evil here. King Leopold II of Belgium was a monster with it.

Well, Javon Mises called him a lot of dick on Quistadora. But the claim is that this is the leftist claim is that these kinds of depredations of colonialism, killing American Indians, taking their lands, enslavement of black Africans is uniquely Western, that this is

that this is what the West did. And, you know, the implication is, since they don't talk about the rest of the world when they're making these accusations, the implication is, you know, people around the world are,

Well, like, you know, innocent little Boy Scouts who were exploited and brutalized by the evil white man. So, you know, if Susan Sontag says, well, the white race is the cancer of history, we need to look more broadly at history. Well, let's see what went on in the rest of the world. And so I gave three examples. One was the Mongols, almost unbelievable, unfathomably destructive. Genghis Khan today was 13th century Mongol conqueror.

Today, they claim 40 million murders on the hands of Genghis Khan and his men. 40 million using swords, spears, and fire as weapons of mass destruction. Tamerlane, another Mongol conqueror in the 14th century. Again, his favorite...

His favorite form of architecture, Matthew White says, wrote a really grim book. Atrocities is the title, about like the hundred worst atrocities in human history. But White is an expert on these atrocities. He points out Tamerlane, the Mongol conqueror in the 14th century, his favorite form of architecture was the Tower of Skulls. He'd have his men

Drag all the civilians out of a conquered city, chop off their heads, men, women, children, babies, pregnant women, everybody, and then pile their skulls in so many towers. 70,000, 80,000, 90,000 human skulls ringing in the city. The Mongols did a few good things, but the... And talking about that also as a remark, Andy, didn't they also do other things when they conquered? So in a way...

Many people could be traced back to the Mongolians, right? Yeah, Genghis Khan. Nobody knows how many fathers, you know, nobody knows how many children from the many wives he had, the concubines, the sex slaves of the conquered women who he raped or had sex with. Nobody knows. But yeah, he tried to repopulate the world after depopulating.

But unfortunately, probably some of that was rape of conquered women. But the Mongols are unbelievably destructive. And modern Westerners don't just kind of conveniently ignore that. And from there, I went to the Arab Muslims and some of their converts, like the Turks. And, you know, the

They conquered them. Muslims conquered this vast empire to the east, which they still hold to this day, impose Islam on those countries. To this day, if somebody leaves the one true faith,

It's apostasy. It's a capital offense. Will Durant, very sober-minded American historian, said bluntly in the story of civilization that the Islamic conquest of India was the bloodiest story in history. One Indian historian claims that over those centuries following roughly 1000 AD that Islamic conquerors annihilated 80 million Hindus, he claims.

80 million Hindus. And of course, I don't know what the exact number is. Nobody knows. But Islam is a fanatically monotheistic religion. And the Hindus say things like, you know, there are millions of gods which strike the jihadist as blasphemy. And so, you know, they butchered millions of Hindus. The Turks, of course, I mentioned before that in World War I,

attempted genocide of the entire Armenian population, murdered roughly one and a half million civilians. Muslim invaders repeatedly invaded Europe, conquered Spain, invaded France, later on the Ottoman Empire, of course.

conquered large parts of Eastern and Central Europe. The Mediterranean for a long time was referred to as the Ottoman Lake. They took hundreds of thousands of white European Christian slaves, including many white women they preferred as concubines, sex slaves. And today, when people talk about slavery, it's like the only form of slavery they seem to know of is white Westerners enslaving black Africans.

And the Islamic slave trade out of sub-Sahara Africa was significantly more extensive than the European trade. The numbers vary from source to source, but everybody concedes the Muslims enslaved more. Long before the Europeans ever got involved in the slave trade, enslaved more.

enslaved more black Africans. And in a way, the treatment was even worse because the Muslims castrated their slaves, which explains the dearth of a black population in the Middle East today. So, and today, of course,

you know, the religion of peace can miss one atrocity, terrorist atrocity after another. And then I went on to the communist. Yeah. And before that, I want to talk about that symbolic date there. Oh, 9-11. Yeah. Yeah. That's also a little historical thing that Osama bin Laden recognized. Yes. Thanks for bringing that up, Morten.

Most Americans don't know, and I don't know if people in the Western world generally know, the second time the Turks besieged Vienna in 1683. And think about how much of Europe the Turks had conquered. Much of Eastern and Central Europe was conquered by the Muslims. And besieged Vienna, they besieged it before in 1520s under Suleiman the Magnificent. 1683, King...

King John Sobieski, a poem, devout Catholic, noted Muslim follower, brought his army down out of the hills and they routed the Turks in front of the gates of Vienna.

Different accounts historically, but generally it was claimed to be on September 12th, 1683, which means that September 11th, 1683, was the high point of the Islamic long coveted attempt to conquer Christian Europe.

That was the high point of it. After that, of course, the Ottoman Empire slowly went into decline. 1680s, you look at the date, Britain's going to go through its industrial revolution soon. The West becomes, certainly starting in Britain, the West becomes, you see John Locke's influence, the principle of individual rights, the West becomes politically freer. Industrial revolution, you free the mind of all these great thinkers in Britain.

British Industrial Revolution, the British become wealthier, Western Europe in time becomes wealthier. You see the rise of the West, the decline of the Arab Islamic world. People don't realize anymore. For a thousand years, the struggle between Christianity and Islam or between Europe and the Middle East was dominated by the Muslims invading Europe.

And the Mediterranean was an Ottoman lake. It wasn't an Italian lake or a French lake. But after this, the shoe goes on to the other foot, right? You see Napoleon conquering Egypt and British defeat Napoleon and the French conquer Algeria and Morocco, large parts of North Africa. You see the scramble for Africa in the 19th century. And, of course, after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I,

by the British famous Lawrence of Arabia incident. You see eventually the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, all of this Western imperialism as the Islamic world season. But prior to that for a thousand years, it was the Muslims invading Europe and the Europeans did a good job defending themselves. But other than the crusades, which again was a defensive struggle, you know, because the,

The Muslims had conquered large parts of the Byzantine Empire and eventually conquered Constantinople. But, you know, the Europeans did a good job defending themselves. But to this day, the Arab, look, to coin to Islam, Islam is the one true faith destined to rule the world. And whatever it takes, conquest, terrorism, murder, rape, whatever it takes, and Islam is still very much on that philosophy.

They're just not as strong as the West, so they can't conquer the West militarily anymore. So they perpetrate terrorist atrocities instead. But, you know, the Western leftist intellectuals treat the Islamic world as generally victims of the West. It's like they'll start history at around 1800.

you know you know as uh as the west is growing stronger and conquering north africa and and what all that happened before that is like a blank out as john gould says in africa but maybe the most egregious example of the asian communists and i pointed out i couldn't even deal with i couldn't even discuss the soviets because the soviet leadership was white and um

I was concerned to point out the atrocities perpetrated by non-white, non-Westerners. The communists are the worst. I mean, Islam, like I said in the essay, Islam at least had a golden age where Islamic thinkers made advances in any number of different fields. Astronomy and medicine and literature and any number of fields.

Influenced by Aristotle, of course. Yes, yes. It was definitely inspired by the Greeks and Aristotle in particular. Absolutely right. But the golden age of Islam ends roughly 1200 AD, roughly 800 years ago. For the last eight centuries, I think the Islamic world's been in the dark ages. But...

The communists never had a golden age. Well, they had a gulag, totalitarianism, mass murder. You can look at Mao's mass murder in China. Look at the insanity in Cambodia. North Korea, the gigantic slave labor. It's like 10% of the entire population is a brutal slave labor as we speak.

You know, these are the most evil people in history, along with the Nazis. But to the leftist Western intellectuals, I mean, the communists are much worse than the West at its worst. And so I went through all these examples before I even got to the major point.

to point out that the criticisms of the West, you know, Susan Sontag put it very nicely, the way, you know, the white race is the cancer of human history. Western civilization is, is, is evil. This is a gigantic example of the half truth fellows. And that is, you know, where you, where you look at part of the truth, those parts that tend to corroborate your conclusion and you simply ignore or neglect the

Those parts of the truth that are relevant, but that tend to disprove your conclusion. So, you know, these depredations of the Mongols, the Muslims, the communists, they do not reduce the guilt of any white villain so much as one scintilla. But they do raise a question, and that is why single out the white man?

Why are we singling out Western civilization when these other guys, if anything, were at least as bad and maybe even worse? I think the communists were. Yeah, I think they're all worse than the West at its worst. So it's a gigantic example of half-truth fallacy. And that doesn't even count. We haven't even gotten yet to the main point about the half-truth, and that is the enormous life-giving achievements of Western civilizations.

which get completely overlooked by the critics. Of course. Yeah, the advances in medicine, I mentioned. Well, the advances in agriculture. I mentioned Norman Borlaug and the Green Revolution that, you know, by some estimates have, you know, saved a billion lives around the world. Borlaug was an American agricultural scientist.

And medicine, I mentioned Maurice Hillman at Merck, whose vaccines and, you know, for measles and rubella and all kinds of diseases, again, saved millions and millions of lives around the world. And go on and on, you know, Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin with the vaccine for the dreaded polio virus. Western science, Western medical science has saved millions and millions and millions of lives of people all over the world.

They just give so many examples of great accomplishments of Western civilization in science and philosophy, in the arts. And I had to mention John Locke and the rise of principle of individual rights, of a political economic liberty, capitalism, and the stupendous wealth creation that benefits people all over the world, especially in Europe, North America, and the Asian tigers. But we trade with people all over the world that benefits them. And

critically, and I took great pleasure in writing this, on slavery. Thomas Sowell and any number of other writers point out slavery was ubiquitous. Slavery has existed all over the world going all the way back into the mists of prehistory. It's not the white race, you know, who was responsible. It originated, yeah. Yeah, I know. White men didn't originate. It's been all over the world forever. White men didn't originate it, but they ended it.

because the principle of individual rights in Britain is what gave rise for the first time in history to a concerted abolitionist movement that succeeded to a significant degree in certainly curtailing slavery. And, you know, starting in Western territories, British territory, the 19th century, the Brits, the French, the Americans all abolished slavery in the 19th century. The Brits pressured the Ottoman Empire,

They never did succeed in stamping out slavery in the Ottoman Empire, but succeeded in curtailing it. And, you know, I think there's a great line in the essay where I said slavery was ubiquitous. Abolitionism was Western.

And that's absolutely true. Absolutely. I want to go ahead. Go ahead, Martin. Yeah. Thanks, Blair. Isn't it the case also that still slavery is around in certain parts of the world, like in Africa, in different tribes? Oh, yeah. Absolutely right, Martin. I mentioned just before 10% of the entire population of North Korea, including children, are in heavy, brutal slave labor as we speak. You know, sometimes if I'm feeling sorry for myself,

I think, well, wait a minute. I got a lot to be grateful for. I could have been born in North Korea. I wasn't, thank God. I was born in the United States. Yeah. And in North Africa, in Sudan, a jihadist regime. And under Islam, it's impermissible to enslave a co-religionist. But everybody else is fair game. You can enslave everybody else. And

South Sudan is largely black. And yes, the Islamic regime of North Sudan arms guerrilla outfits, or at least tolerates them. And they've slaughtered in Darfur. How do you say that? Darfur? Darfur?

Darfur is what I've heard it as. Yeah, Darfur. They've slaughtered various Black African tribes. They've enslaved thousands of Black Africans. So many parts of the world, slavery not only

I don't want to say it flourishes because something evil doesn't flourish, but it's widespread and popular and legal. And now, now slavery exists all over the world, but it's illegal in, in, you know, the, the sex slave trade, for example, but it's illegal in, in the, in the Western countries. It's illegal in the, in, in China under communism, the gulags run by the government. It's legal in North Korea is legal in Sudan. So yeah, the, the,

It's the Western commitment to abolitionism that has wiped out slavery to a significant degree, not everywhere, but to a significant degree in the world. And that's the principle of individual rights applied in action. Right. Now, let me throw this out real quick. I've long, and certainly when I've thought about things like this, I'm just wondering, and you may or may not have thought about this, but I just wonder,

There's certain people that are incapable of living in freedom, that are psychologically incapable of understanding freedom. Does that make any sense? I mean, again, all these critics of Western civilization, which is fundamentally about individual freedom, yet they attack it. In my mind, that means they're incapable of living in freedom. Does that make any sense? Yeah. I mean, I think...

I think there are some people who aren't evil. They just... Freedom means to take responsibility for my own life. My mommy and daddy aren't going to take care of me anymore. The welfare state, the big brother state or the nanny state is not going to take care of me under freedom. I have to take care of myself. Some people aren't evil, but there's...

this crazy harmless and this crazy dangerous. And then it's just kind of the harmless. They may be, may have some,

former mental illness. They may be crazy homeless, but they're not capable of holding a job and taking care of themselves, and they'll need their family or private voluntary charity in a free society to take care of them. Then there's the evil people that you're talking about who want to destroy freedom. And they're not only incapable of living for themselves, they want to make sure that you and I don't get to live. I remember once talking to my sister, who was a very smart, very common-sense person,

person, you know, about various American communists who went to Cuba and they talked about, you know, what a great guy Fidel is. And they had such a great, they had such a great time when they were in Cuba. And my sister got irate and she said to me, well, why don't they go live there then?

You know, and I which is a which is a very, very good question. And it occurred to me in that conversation. They don't want to live in Cuba. They want they want it. They don't want to live in a communist state. They want to impose communism here and make you and I live under, you know, live under communism. So, yeah, this is this evil guy's thing.

They, their power lust is they want to, they can't live under freedom and they want to make sure that you and I don't either. So now, uh, again, very shortly after this, uh, the section you, you've been covering, you mentioned a hero of mine, James Lindsay. Oh yeah. I've been trying to get him on the show to no avail yet. Uh, but he, uh, he is, uh, I think he's the foremost, uh, critic or, uh,

If that's the right word of CRT, critical race theory. Yes. And again, you touched on him in your essay. Can you go into that? Yeah. It's under the subheading, The Reasons for the Assault on Whites and the Wests.

Right. Right. Because, you know, just to set it up, you know, we see that the West at its worst is not as bad as these other bad guys. And at its best, it's the most life-giving culture that we know of. There's no culture that we know of that promoted human life properly.

around the world as effectively as Western civilization did. So why the attacks on the West? Why attack the best countries

With all the bad in it, it's the best culture in history. And give a pass to the worst. If we assume that the critics of Western civilization are honest, that's a puzzling issue. That's a good question to raise. Yes. Yeah, you're right. That brings us into critical race theory and its subcategory. I think...

Perhaps the single most irrational thing I've ever heard of, maybe the only exception being the Nazis, perhaps, is critical whiteness studies. And very similar to the Nazis. They just, you know, they just reversed favored and disfavored races. But yeah, so James Lindsay is a, well, he's a mathematician, right? I think his PhD is in mathematics. I think so, right. Yeah, but he's a brilliant mathematician.

cultural critic and does a very effective job of analyzing critical race theory, which goes back. I don't know the antecedents of CRT, but I know the essence of it today. And that is the two major claims that the CRT advocates make. One is that America today in 2024 is still systemically racist as if we've never changed from the Jim Crow era. And two, white people are inherently racist. And, um,

James Lindsay gives a very, very good, um, explication of that, but the start, the starting point for the, for, for CRT. And unfortunately I think Lindsay agrees with this to some extent. And I think, and I think it's false. And that is the claim that the white race is a social construct that rate, that race is not biologically based, that it's, uh, that it's, it's constructed socially. And, you know, uh,

I mean, what does that even mean? Anyway. Yeah. I mean, what it means, and Lindsay gives a good account of it, I think, but you can get it also from the horse's mouth, from Robin DiAngelo and Barbara Applebaum and Ibram X. Kendi and people, Todd Naheasy Coates, people like that, leftists, right?

But the claim is that some group of people just arbitrarily defined themselves as white, claimed intellectual moral superiority on the basis of being white, excluded arbitrarily a whole bunch of other people they didn't like, Indians, blacks, so on. Yeah.

excluded them from membership in the club, as it were. They were claimed, you know, subproclaimed intellectually and morally superior, which gave them the moral right to conquer and slave, murder, large parts of the, you know, of the inferior, the inferior races. That's an arbitrary social construct. Now, to me, this is just false.

you know i point to that look look at the empirical data first of all it's perceptually obvious that there's you know that there's different color race there's people with different color people with their facial structure you know this cheekbones relative to the to the eyes uh configured you know slightly differently and so on and so forth which argues for these are perceptual level facts they're observable they're observable facts

which argues for physical genesis, not social, not a social genesis, whatever the underlying biology is. I think the key point about race is several points. The true but trivial point about race is it's real. I don't think it's socially constructed. It's biologically based. It's perceptually self-evident. You can see it. The key point about race is it's trivial. It tells us nothing about race.

the most important characteristics of a human being, namely their moral character, whether intelligence or their proficiency at their, you know, in their profession. But above all, moral character is what matters above all. And, you know, race is irrelevant to that real, but trivial, like, you know, with white people, some have blonde hair, some have red hair, some have brown hair, whatever it's real, but it's trivial. It tells us nothing important about, about the person. But anyway, so, so,

The white race was a social construct on the part of people just several centuries ago. It's a power play. It's a power struggle. They wanted power. So that was the gestation of the white race, according to the CRT movement. Do you notice, by the way, I quoted an unbelievable essay, Harvard Magazine, I think it was 2002, right?

abolish the white race? That's scary. Yes, that's scary. Although I've heard it many times from different people as well. Harvard Magazine is supposed to be a serious intellectual center, abolish the white race. And they said in the essay, the author said they wanted to destroy, not deconstruct, but destroy the social construct that is the white race. Was it written by a Caucasian or...

I think so. Most of the DRT guys are white. I have a question about the so-called survey or census that you do in USA. Why is that so focused on what race and other things that you are belonging to, so to speak? Have you thought about that?

that you divide the country and the citizens in different like white or Caucasians, Latino, Black, all kind of different ways. Have you thought about that? Why are they doing this census and these surveys over time?

Yeah, it's a little bit, Martin. That's a really good question. And I just want to, you know, as a preamble to answering the question, I just want to go give an example. I was five, six years ago, I was lecturing at the Adam Smith Institute in London. Okay. And...

It's a really good crowd, you know, really intelligent people. I don't even remember what I was lecturing on at this point. But somebody in the Q&A raised the question, why is the United States so much more racist than Europe?

So anyway, my jaw hit the floor at that question. And after I picked my jaw up off the floor, I said, you want a serious answer to that? And the person said, yes. So I said, okay, you asked for it. Okay. So I said, no, look around the room. There's like 100 people there. We're in London. I said, is anybody here Irish?

Right away, you go, a bunch of hands went up. But right away, the question rolled his eyes. I get it. I get where you're coming from. So, you know, I discussed the brutal, you know, subjugation of the Irish. And I'm a big Anglophile. I love the English. But, you know, what they did in Ireland was not their shining hour, right? And then I said, well, let's go across the channel to the continent.

There's this group of people on the continent. They're called Jews, you know, and they went off on, you know, on the pogroms and persecution and went, you know, and then, you know, the jingoistic nationalism, which is a form of, you know, tribalism. It's a form of racism. The Napoleonic Wars, World War I, you know, go on. Anyway, my point is, and then there was the Armenian genocide didn't take place in Europe. It was in Turkey, but anyway.

My point of course is racism in different forms all over the world. And, uh, certainly in the United States. And this is a legacy of racism. And if it were up to me, we would all recognize, you know, colorblind individualism, which I think was the spirit of your question, Martin. None of this matters. Latino, white, black, Asian, whatever it is. None of this stuff matters. Let's just, you know, it's real, but it's trivial. We could jettison it. The whole human race would benefit from it. Um,

I think the United States has the best chance of becoming a peaceful, multiracial, polyglot society. It's very difficult to do. History shows us it's history to do. But the principle of individual rights the country was founded on, I think, gives the United States an advantage in the attempt to overcome racism. I just want to say this. Cold-blind individualism is the panacea for racism in any of its forms.

against whites or blacks or Jews or Christians or, you know, or whomever, uh,

And you see the left today rejecting it. It's a microaggression, they claim. I just want to say publicly here, anybody who repudiates colorblind individualism, the recognition that only character matters, or character matters above all, far and away above all in races, trivial. Anybody who rejects colorblind individualism cannot, in logic or in ethics, claim to be a foe of racism. In logic, it's the only panacea for racism.

uh, that there is. And I think, um, we're still, we're, you know, we still, uh, I think that's still a legacy of it, you know, to do that on the census. I would, I would eliminate it, but, uh, racism is a worldwide problem. And, um, the United States, I think is the best chance to overcome it, but we certainly haven't done it yet. Andy, uh, just for my own, uh, uh, clarification. And I, uh,

Some of what you said, at least to me, was garbage. Would you go over the part where you said the people who don't advocate a white color, or excuse me, a colorless society? Yeah, colorblind individualism. Yeah, let me see. They are the actual racists? Is that what you said? Yes. Yeah, colorblind individualism means we recognize racism

that character above all matters and that people make moral choices. That's what defines their worth as a human being is the moral choices that they make and the color of their skin and these other racial characteristics are enormously secondary and irrelevant to their moral character. So that's what the essence of colorblind individualism we have

You know, we recognize that race doesn't matter and we recognize that human beings are individuals first, foremost, and always not members of a tribe and that they make moral choices that define them. That's the only cure in logic for racism in any form. And the people who reject it, like a lot of leftists who claim colorblind and to argue for colorblind individualism is to commit a microaggression, right?

And I said, those leftists are racist. And I want to go on public record as saying that anybody who rejects colorblind individualism, who believes it's a microaggression, cannot, in logic or in ethics, claim to be a foe of racism. Because you're rejecting the only panacea for racism that there is. And Andy, I got here also for a record now, I got an idea about...

potential you could say podcast because you have this great podcast on hero worship and heroes together with others and maybe that could be like a series of defending western civilization and take out great examples and follow through the history and so on

Well, that's a good idea, Martin. The hero show that you're referring to, we did with John Hersey and then with Robert Begley, was under the auspices of the Objective Standard Institute. Yeah, where everybody could find the article that you have written, yeah.

Yeah, and Craig Biddle, who runs OSI, gave me carte blanche, gave me the intellectual property rights, as it were, that if I want to reprise that show, whether by myself or with you guys or... Great to hear. Yeah, that we can reprise the hero show and defend the great heroes of Western civilization as well as other human beings who...

reached achievements that were supportive of human life. Yeah, because I think that's very important to say, because you have, and I want to end on a positive note, but you have some people and groups that are saying that they are defending Western civilization, but often it's boiled down to very, like the Christian faith or the Yudu Christian tradition or some other things like that. But that's why I asked about this question you said about the,

this symbolic year and to learn from the history and then continue and then show that the United States of America is the greatest example and others could be inspired by that. So that's great. Thank you. I just want to say I agree 100% with Ayn Rand that the essence of moral virtue is living in accordance with the requirements of human life and promoting human life

that that which furthers human life is the good and that which harms human life, what kills it, is the evil. And there is not, to repeat, there is not a culture in history that we know of that supported human life and whose achievements benefit human life all over the world nearly as much as those of Western civilization. And for anybody all over the world, male or female,

any race or tribe or nationality, if we care about human life, then we need to support the main principles of Western civilization. Reason, philosophy, science, the arts, freedom, individual rights, capitalism. We need to support these principles if we care about human life because then human beings all over the world will benefit from this, as they do. Look at what this has done for the Asian tigers over the last 80 years or so.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, on that note, I think we should wrap it up. Andy, we've been talking to Andy Bernstein, of course, on his great essay, The Case for Western Civilization. Andy, thanks for manning the foxhole with us. Always thanks, Blair and Maughan. Always good to man the foxhole with you guys. If I had to go to war, I couldn't find two guys that I'd be happier to go to war with. Great to hear, Andy. Thank you very much. All right.

so