Warren Smith Can Not Comprehend Slavoj Žižek

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]This Piers Morgan debate is a perfect encapsulation of the sort of major intelligence gap or at least knowledge gap between left and right critical thinkers at least in uh the media. So this debate is between uh Sek who is one of the you know most preeminent left-leaning philosophers uh in the world not just in the Anglosphere. He's in the continental tradition. super super interesting guy. I don't agree on a lot, but I think his approach is fascinating and it's very well thought out. Warren Smith was a high school teacher who started a YouTube channel about critical thinking and I I guess Peters Morgan's team thinks he thinks he's the best option on the right to combat XK's ideas. So, let's just watch this and see how this turns out because it's it's underwhelming to say the least. is being too unique.

[00:00:58]She may be on to something and she's not a psychoanalyst. Let me bring in Warren Smith, >> okay, >> to join us about you've been listening to this. Warren, welcome to Uncensored.

[00:01:07]You're one of the world's great critical thinkers. So, apply some critical thinking to what you've been hearing from Slavoy.

[00:01:13]>> Yeah, it's a real honor to be able to talk to you, Slavoy. So, I really appreciate this opportunity. I think it's an important conversation. I was just having this conversation yesterday and the response I'm getting is similar to what you're describing where the person claims, well, there are so many people that are accepting this new definition that just what makes Trump a fascist? Well, he's trying to get Jimmy Kimmel pulled off the air. That that's what makes him fascist. They said, "Well, that's not fascism." Yeah, but if enough people claim that if enough people understand it as fascism, doesn't that >> make it fascist? So part of the issue with these sort of arguments is that while obviously colloquial definitions changing can be a dramatic way for the common understanding of a word to change. This is the 21st century. We have at this point decades if not sometimes hundreds of years of academic institutional knowledge that we build upon. for fascism it's not that long but we have a very rich and and deep uh literature or set of literature from philosophy in history and policy departments in universities where there is some consensus if you go to one of the preeminent if not the preeminent scholar of fascism uh Paxton you know on the more liberal institutional liberal side you'll see immediately there are some clear definitions and more importantly that you can find people in different political spaces like Paul Gotfried who's a paleoconservative who wrote a book on fascism who has a lot of overlap of what he agrees with. So you can already see this. We have a weird sort of understanding from Warren Smith of critical thinking where we're assuing all of that institutional knowledge and immediately going towards the colloquial understanding without really addressing the substance of why or why not an action like trying to take off oppositional media from uh the airwaves may be perceived as being fascistic uh or if it's reasonable to do so. But if we're actually looking at the original definition, the authoritarian pursuit of national purity through violence, I would argue that our founding father, >> so what's even more fascinating about this misunderstanding, he's quoting uh I think Jen Thiel there, who's the original originator of like you call fascist theory during the time of um you know fascist Italy uh emerging. But these terms authoritarian, totalitarian are actually a bit contested by fascist fascist theory uh academics. We're now less sure that fascism was that authoritarian or that whatever because there was way more participation organization between industry and the government. It's not the same as a Gaddafi who really was this authoritarian regime. It's a little more complicated than that. So trying to reduce this to some binary uh definition is already the opposite of critical thinking.

[00:04:04]>> Were so genius in the way they were able to anticipate this ideology before it was ever articulated. It's as though it's always existed within the >> the human spirit. There's these >> and like this is again just I I know I keep pausing just of a start. What's crazy about this is that no fascism was not something that was always in the human spirit. Unless you reduce fascism to the most nondescript things, fascism was unique because it was a vehicle for political ideology during modernity like the you know so following the industrial revolution that was meant to challenge not only liberalism which again did not exist prior to the enlightenment but to also challenge Marxism. The idea this is something lurking just in all of human history. No, it was a political response to a political moment. uh there is no fascism without liberalism and Marxism because it was oppositional. That was the entire pointualities whether it goes into communism, Marxism and they they recognize this framework will prevent this from ever being prevailing. So I'm not sure how we could point to authoritarianism. If you can think of an example, let me know. But I don't like as PICE described, I don't think that what ICE is doing would be the equivalent of what fascism argues for, which is based on the idea of um identifying people through blood. That your national identity, it began in Italy. Being Italian means something by by blood. What's really, and I don't know if Warren Smith knows this, what's really interesting about the way he's phrasing this or a little manipulative is that fascism, the Italian fascism was in some ways anti-racist. He's right.

[00:05:45]There's this blood element, but it was transracial. It was that being Italian meant something, but it is actually closer to the Trumpian understanding of it, which is this sort of um xenophobia.

[00:05:55]Nazism is what was much more directly racially, you know, oriented, right? it went beyond nationality into the actual, you know, quote unquote racial compositions. So, in a way, if you're pointing towards Italy as a sort of like actual dominant, you know, understanding of what fascism was, you're kind of making the opposite argument. You are the ice starts to look more fascistic than it might be if you compare it to Nazism.

[00:06:21]>> And you are with us or against us. it it takes away the individual and moves into identity politics and group politics which is are many of the things that along >> and again this is where it gets very weird. You can tell he's talking about idpole or identity politics because he's trying to connect um the politics of the past to today but identity politics as we understand it didn't really exist you know prior to World War II. the the sort of national identities that you're having back then. It's not comparable because you don't have the sort of post-war consensus that even puts uh an emphasis on identity above uh nation.

[00:06:57]Nation is something that's much broader.

[00:06:59]It's much more uh tied to historical concepts. It's not postmodern like identity politics today. That's the whole critique usually of these guys too like the Jordan Peterson types or whatever is that they call it pole a postmodern phenomena. So this is all I don't know if it's intentional or if it's just ignorance, but I you will see this stuff does not work on someone like Jacquek who understands these things >> for me about the left that I've been seeing in in the past years. Um, so I would and I would also love to challenge you on this idea because I have the opportunity to speak to what people consider to be the most dangerous philosopher in the west or to the west.

[00:07:37]And I believe they call you that because you identify as a communist and I I would just challenge you on why are you comfortable describing yourself as a communist when over 100 million people have died under communism.

[00:07:47]>> I would also be so curious to know who he's talking about. Jujek is a popular philosopher. He's an interesting philosopher, but he's not that relevant.

[00:07:57]Like his his weirdo left Hegelian but kind of anti-Marxist school of thought is is almost wholly irrelevant. You know, he's an interesting guy in academics. He's very good at speaking in spite of his speech impediment and uh eccentricities. He's a an interesting guy to listen to, but most dangerous philosopher to the west.

[00:08:18]I feel like that'd be much more squarely put on something someone like Dugan >> Slav easy to answer. First I describe now myself as moderately conservative communist crazy as this may sound but let me answer you very seriously. uh you know Peter Thiel when he defined antichrist uh uh in a public intervention a month or two ago he defined it through three features. Those who are too obsessed with the danger of artificial intelligence, those who are too obsessed with an environmental problems and those who are too obsessed with war danger. I think that these are real actual problems. I'm not a catastrophes. I'm not saying whatever will happen. I'm just saying something so basic is changing. And my solution is not of course what we knew as communism. But I think and I'm not even very original here that the problems we are facing.

[00:09:31]Look co there I think Trump and Boris Johnson certainly not communists acted almost in a communist way. You know every family got a >> So I just want to break this down quickly because again very entertaining presentation but it's a little confusing what Jika is saying. What he is claiming is that in the past when you have Marxist Leninism, Stalinism, whatever these these older forms of what you would consider communism, that they were addressing a completely different set of problems with a completely different um set of ideas, they failed. It didn't work. So when he says he's like a conservative communist, what he's referring to is this idea that as capital, as uh liberalism has developed, we're starting to come across problems that mass democracy seems unable or unfit to solve. An example being environmentalism, right? Where it doesn't seem like western democracies are able to efficiently deal with these issues because their self-interest is being subverted constantly. So they feel like they have to fight against it even though it might be against the interest of the civilization itself and that you stack enough of those kinds of issues on top of each other you eventually just have demise. So what JJek is going to point to with the co example is we've already seen what he calls a version of communism this newer version of it which is where the state is actually willing to do full market intervention. it's willing to shut down um an economy authoritarian in an authoritarian ma uh fashion that it's willing to you know distribute um a form of UBI in that sort of state of emergency but it's willing to provide immense business loan structures that would otherwise be unheard of. This all sounds like capitalism, but he's arguing that when you think about the state stepping in that much to that extreme of a degree.

[00:11:30]How is that not just a form of communism? And how are we not going to just have to keep seeing more and more interventions like that as these problems balloon? You can disagree with that, but it's a pretty sophisticated idea, but you have to break down like at the the subst substantial level for $2,000 and so on direct state intervention and so on. What I think is that the crisis we are confronting, no reason to panic but nonetheless uh uh cannot be resolved cannot be even properly approached through the standard liberal democratic multi-arty. And what's weird about this, if you might think about it for a second, this is kind of why JJ gets a lot of flack from the left, not even the right, which is again, why is he calling the most dangerous person to the right, whatever.

[00:12:22]A lot of what J says sounds like the alt-right. He's incredibly skeptical of mass democracy. He's incredibly skeptical of the post-war liberal consensus because he doesn't believe that the people are able to address these issues in appropriate fashion. So, you know, when he calls himself a conservative communist, in practice with the way that the world has already developed, you know, in terms of actual policy, he actually does lean pretty conservative, especially when it comes to issues of immigration and culture.

[00:12:48]So, let's see how Warren breaks that down.

[00:12:51]>> Political system.

[00:12:53]>> So, are you pushing for a uniarty?

[00:12:55]Because people would claim that that's one of the primary attributes of >> Sorry. Am I pushing for a non multi-party? So it's even again where does Warren go? Where does a critical thinker go? Does he address the issues? Does he address the substantial disagreement?

[00:13:12]No, he immediately jumps to a policy distinction uh of of parties of of do you have a unique party or do you whatever instead of even arguing on the philosophical elements of what Juj is saying. So you know maybe that's just a mistake or maybe trying to get some clarification.

[00:13:28]No, no. I'm absolutely for pluralism and so on. But I'm asking you a simple question. Do you remember in uh northern United States, West and Southern Canada, there three, four years ago, there there was a mega heat wave for a week or two. Seattle and Vancouver were warmer than Emirates and white and so on. Were they to blame? No, they were had pretty good as far as I know, ecological policy and so on. Obviously, something is wrong in the circulation of the air and so on around the northern pole or artificial intelligence.

[00:14:15]We don't know what is happening there.

[00:14:20]Really, fair enough. We have to think in relation. All right. But in relation to Warren's question, it's an interesting one, isn't it? about you being proud to call yourself a communist and yet many people view communism as just an evil uh kind of mindset ideology as fascism.

[00:14:37]It's killed. So like this is where the issue comes where again I I I do blame Phil because yes these terms are loaded and and the reality is normal people can't understand them. But notice what's happened here. So explains here's why I call myself a communist. Then he roots it in realworld examples and says, "How can we not address what's currently happening is already a version of communism as I'm describing it and Warren Smith just pivots completely away to asking, well, so you're calling for a uni party?" And he's like, "No, no, no.

[00:15:07]I'm talking about pluralism. I still want there to be parties. I just think that we have to acknowledge what we're doing is basically communism now." And then here's Morgan's like, "Well, Warren's got an interesting point. You know, communists just kill people, right? Just evil. They're I has to be intentional somewhat. They're trying to get away from the substance of the argument because they don't know how to argue. They actually don't like Yeah, it becomes kind of tricky. Like, damn, the code lockdowns are kind of like communism. Like, h how do we resolve this? How do we It's a semantic game.

[00:15:37]It's a semantic battle, but that's what philosophy is usually. So, let's see if they'll even just try.

[00:15:42]>> Over 100 million people at least. um it's been used in the same way that fascism and Nazism have been used to terrorize and oppress people and so on.

[00:15:52]So what do you say some of people said well right you can be very anti-fascism most people are who are not fascists but you defend proudly being a communist and yet you know because you know your history just how malevolent communism has often been in the history of the planet. So how do you how do you sit those two things?

[00:16:14]>> First, you know, I've written much more than about fascism. I've written about communism >> and uh we don't have time to go into it.

[00:16:26]But what always fascinated me and this doesn't make communism any better >> is the difference in their functioning.

[00:16:35]Just think about one thing. We don't have time to go into in detail. In communism, you have this show trials, people tortured to confess and so on and so on.

[00:16:45]>> In fascism, proper at its worst, Nazism, you don't have it. It's meaningless. It would have been easy for Hitler to organize a show trial, get 15, 20 leading Jewish figures, torture them to confess. It's meaningless. There another feature uh I like this as a Freudian these details which tell a lot you know that in gulak every year on Stalin's birthday they >> so to break this down a little bit because it sounds like a totally random tangent and it kind of is not really answering the question well I think what he's trying to say is that it's important to remember fascism was rooted as being oppositional to liberalism and Marxism but Marxism was oppositional primarily to liberalism.

[00:17:35]But that meant that it wanted to overtake the institutionalism that was successful liberalism. It wanted to preserve the rule of law and actually elevated it in in its ideal form. But fascism disregarded all of this. It just started a a a new morality, a post-Christian morality, a sort of might is a right. Um a a new set of code.

[00:17:57]That's a totally different phenomena.

[00:17:59]And there's no option for reform in that. That's that's the argument he's making. He should just spell it out more cleanly, but that's what he's trying to say. I believe >> all the prisoners had to sign letter to Stalin wishing him all the best. Can you even imagine something like this in Nazism gathering the Jews in Avitz, you have to and so on.

[00:18:22]>> Yeah, I feel like you can tell this is not connecting with either of these guys. So I am not here in any way claiming that uh uh uh Stalinism is nonetheless better. I am saying that Stalinism in all its horror is still part of or legacy of the European enlightenment. It still has. So here we totally agree. But what I mean by communism and I use this term of course in a consciously provocative way is simply a mode of not even control international regulation. For example, imagine a new co we instantly felt a need to international cooperation. I think market itself no longer functions as global regulator.

[00:19:21]>> Yes. So, and this is what's so critical is that like it's almost like he's speaking about the philosophy of economics in that you could have a state that is totally um liberal in its function and appearance politically at least, but the market is effectively one that is state controlled. We kind of see that today with how successful the Trump administration's currency regulation manipulation has been. Um especially with uh you know allied countries like Argentina where they've been able to do these cash transfers through these sort of like almost like alchemical currency conversions where it's like well this is kind of like almost like a state economy. This is not the free market.

[00:20:01]There's so much market intervention at every level that it becomes a question of like well what what does it mean to be pro or anti-communist? Like this is a real interesting question. I'm not sure where I even fall on it totally cuz it is a compelling hard to digest thing.

[00:20:14]But like what where's the critical like thinker interrogation by Horn Smith? Like it it's coming surely. There's not much time left in the video, but I'm sure it's going to come in a minute. The irony today, I wonder if you would agree or not. The irony today is that of the three big powers.

[00:20:35]There are more but let's say generally United States, Russia and China.

[00:20:40]Uh China precisely because communists are empowered there but communists who learned the lesson follows more faithfully market rules definitely than Russia or United States. China is for me and I am not pro-Chinese. I'm well aware of all.

[00:21:02]>> Let me let me get Warren's reaction to that. Okay.

[00:21:05]I I don't honestly I don't understand what makes you a communist if the definition >> so like just to start with the framing. We're not going to substance. We're not going to like trying to interrogate what he means by communism. The way if you don't understand what he means like why he associate that you would phrase it as a question. You would try to reframe what he said back to him steel manning or whatever. But he won't do that. He's trying to to tease this out.

[00:21:33]Communism is the government or the inability to own private property. And many people would argue that there's there's not a single real communist country. China is not really communist.

[00:21:44]They've introduced components of capitalism.

[00:21:48]The ideology of communism has been detrimental there and that's where 50 million people died as a result. But so this goes back to the original conversation of these terms.

[00:21:58]>> Okay. And this is dumb too because the problem is when you say that's not real communism. Well, communists can say the same thing back to you. It's not real capitalism when the state is the guarantor of your property ownership rights, right? Like this is like a stupid pedantic thing where clearly what he means by communism is that the mode of production, the economy, the way it functions is is one that is intertwined with the state. There's no longer a separate. Now it doesn't mean again obviously you could always have market interventions but it would be the removal of this market government um distinction and this more interwoven market government synthesis that is communist what he's referring to again is it the perfect word I don't know but that's the substance of what he's saying to to pivot to like an argument about like the private property is it truly communism just that's not what he's saying it's just it's a very very weak defense >> terms have meanings But they're being thrown around so loosely. So I don't like what makes you a communist if you if you're not >> again also loosely. What do you mean?

[00:22:58]Like he conditionalized everything he said. Again, if you disagree with the substance, go ahead and debate that. But why just say, well, it's you're just throwing these terms around loosely.

[00:23:08]What makes this?

[00:23:09]>> Not discussing the inability to control or own private property.

[00:23:14]>> Sadly, you got to leave it there. Ch.

[00:23:16]It's a fascinating debate. We could do this for hours and maybe we should one day. Uh, Slavo, brilliant to see you here in the studio. Your book, Liberal Fascisms, is out now. Slavo Jek, thank you very much. And to you, Warren as well. Thank you.

[00:23:30]>> Thank you.

[00:23:31]>> But there's a reason they cut it off there because it would just be explaining the same thing again. It would be about saying that no, the private property distinction is not everything. That's perhaps for Marxism it matters, but there's more to it.

[00:23:43]There's more to these things. So I I just the point to show us is that like the reality is like if this is like the champion, this is the philosopher type uh that that they can roll out from the right wing to debate critical theory or to debate uh critical thought. It's just ridiculous. It's like honestly it's like the same level as like the kind of like weird blood sports debate tactics you'd see in like 2016.

[00:24:10]There there's like you you think you'd have people who are able to engage this stuff at a certain point, but no. It's because there's seemingly no market incentive. I'm sure there's people that exist, but there's a reason why the algorithm doesn't promote them. It's because there's not an audience on the right for this sort of thought. There's not a active engagement with the ideas.

[00:24:29]It's about defensively posturing around definitions, trying to keep these definitions sacred. It's the reason why Andrew Wilson likes to debate definitions and not really ideas. So yeah, I mean I think it's just a perfect demonstration of a lot of the uh problems we have in today's discourse because the intelligence or knowledge asymmetry between these two sides is so great that I don't know how you resolve any bigger political debates until you start to clear some ground where you have like equivalent opposition somewhat. But anyway, you guys agree, disagree, let me know in the comments and I appreciate everyone who watches this much. Uh take care.