Bad History: Teaching Kids to Hate the West | Elizabeth Rata

Ajouté : 2026-06-05

[00:00:00]Let's not call the west evil. Let's not call a civilization which enables us to make judgments about it openly, publicly, let's not call that evil. And that's a real distortion of this concept of evil which I think is really important that we have and we use it correctly. We talk about the goodness in people. I think we need to talk about the other side of the coin. Evil that is in people. And we can see oh well Islamic leaders such as the Iranian Müllers, ISIS, Hamas. We also see it with Putin and Russia.

[00:00:42]>> We have an entire political class that's completely unwilling to make any kind of judgment about something that is so conspicuously I'm going to use your word evil.

[00:00:53]>> Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:00:54]>> I think that should give us courage exposure to other people's perspectives.

[00:00:58]is moving us in a good direction.

[00:01:01]>> Elizabeth, should we teach children that certain ideologies are bad?

[00:01:07]>> I'd like us to go further than that and teach our children that some ideologies are actually evil and the people who perpetuate them are evil.

[00:01:18]>> What do you mean by evil?

[00:01:20]>> Well, in the past, evil has been associated with religion. Different religions have have um talked about what evil is, but I think that all of us need to talk about what evil is. And I by evil I mean people who take joy in doing real harm to the point of destroying others. And what really matters is when people like that are leaders of countries and have the power to enact this this evilness upon many many even millions of people.

[00:02:02]>> But how can a secular that is a non-religious institution like a school make that claim?

[00:02:09]It is a pity that the word evil uh bel is is seen to belong to religion. I would like us to to connect it also to particular ideologies. Some are religiousbased, others are not. It it is a really useful word to to to describe human beings. We talk about good, >> you know, we talk about the goodness in people. I think we need to talk about the other side of the coin, evil that is in people. And we don't need a particular religion to uh to tell us what that evil is. We can see it ourselves. We can see it today in the contemporary world and we can see oh well um uh Islamic uh leaders such as you know the uh Iranian Müllers, ISIS, uh Hamas. We also see it with Putin in Russia.

[00:03:12]We see it in North Korea, of course. We see it with any leaders who subjugate and they subjugate their own people and do awful things to their own people. I mean historically we know about Stalin you know the 20 million plus thinking of Martin Amos's book Carbo the uh the dread the laughter of 20 million I mean it's a wonderful book to read 20 million and not just killed but killed in the most horrific ways you know through famine through torture through exile to the the the gulak Um, look at Mao. The estimates for Mao are even greater than 20 million. Hitler of course is obvious.

[00:04:01]And if we go back in history, we can see many leaders who do this to their peoples. And what we need to do is connect the history to what's happening now. We are still human beings doing the same things.

[00:04:16]>> But the mullers say the same thing about us that we're indoctrinating our children.

[00:04:22]What what is the response to that?

[00:04:24]>> I would um distinguish between ideology and philosophy.

[00:04:28]>> Now ideologies uh cannot be questioned by their very nature. They are the tool of authoritarian um leaders and they require total loyalty.

[00:04:43]I would differentiate liberalism and say liberalism is not an ideology.

[00:04:50]It is a philosophy because it can be questioned. It can be criticized. It can be changed. In fact, the very nature of liberalism is something that keeps reinventing itself.

[00:05:02]>> Hey, did you know only half of you watching are subscribed? If you're enjoying the content, hit the subscribe button to keep the videos coming.

[00:05:09]Thanks.

[00:05:10]>> Interesting. Is there a way to let's say that you're an educator in the classroom or you're an administrator or a policy maker. Is there a way to step outside and have what God got called a hermeneutic insight or have the make the judgment about whether or not an ideology is evil to use that word or maybe at the very minimum bad? Is there a way to adjudicate that claim if someone says it is bad, no it is not, it is evil, no it is not. Like is there a tradition of criticism we can invoke or use or >> Yes, good history will tell us.

[00:05:46]historioggraphy. We can read accounts of what has happened in the past, say under Stalin. Um we can read accounts of what is happening in some countries today. We can find out that way by um access to really good quality um information. So we can know we can know these things. Um and we can also um well if we're living in a country where criticism is not tolerated of course you look at the w the especially the young women in Iran at the moment look what happens to them when they challenge I mean there you have a a live example of an ideology at work >> so I'm trying to figure out so you think that and I don't want to put words in your mouth I'm trying to work through this now you think that we need to teach students about pernicious ideologies and we need to what do we need to institutionalize that in the classroom?

[00:06:46]Do we need to teach educators and teacher certification programs that it's okay to make these discerning judgments or judgments about or maybe even wholesale judgments about competing ideologies?

[00:06:57]>> I wouldn't go do it that way. I do it through extremely good history teaching, a really good history curriculum, right from, you know, when children are very young where they learn about world history and they have a grasp of the fact that human beings are human beings that the things that have happened in the past have happened to all humans and they continue to happen today. You know, we build societies, some become corrupt, all the rest of it. So that young children gain a really almost the raw material for when they become uh 12, 13, 14 and start to be able to uh discern to um compare and contrast, you know, to find uh commonalities and and differences. That's a really difficult ability to be able to look at things and see similarities and see differences.

[00:07:54]And we need to be a little bit older to be able to do that. But we need to have the raw material. We need to know a lot.

[00:08:01]So I would see education from naugh right through to sort of 12, 13 year olds as just lots and lots of really sound history, world history, local history, national history. So you just end up knowing a lot. And then 12 13 you start to be taught uh how the ability and it's not I'm not using the word skill it's an ability because it's cognitive to be able to make judgments what are judgments to be able to judge >> is different from having a preference when we prefer something we just say I like it you know and that's fine when we make a judgment then we have to say here is the criteria upon which I have made my judgment So >> that's very difficult.

[00:08:51]>> It it seems that liberty is a necessary condition for that. And so how do we persuade people that liberty is a good thing if they don't value it in the first place?

[00:09:01]>> Well, for some it's not. I mean some people don't want to be free because as we know modernity is very much that search for freedom but many people can't cope with freedom. You know it for for some some would be prefer to be told what to do to be told what to think. How do we create a disposition in a young person that says >> um I can cope psychologically? I can cope with in in society um with being able to criticize. And this is where I'd like to talk a bit about partial loyalty if I >> Sure. Sure. I just want to make sure we close the put a pin on the ideology. So we need to educate teachers about history and we need to use that historical understanding to inform people to give them tools to make judgments about what ideologies lead to human flourishing. That's a term I injected in the conversation. and what ideologies do not. As opposed to this kind of radical egalitarianism and saying, "Well, it's everything is equal and these people just they have their way of thinking about the world. We have science. You know, they're, you know, sacrificing goats or what have you." So, that seems like a monstrously large project.

[00:10:27]>> Well, it's it's the purpose of education of modern education systems. And in New Zealand, we had an education system that did that very well. It stopped doing it from about the, you know, the 1970s.

[00:10:41]But one of the main things is that I would suggest not starting from the abstract idea itself. not teaching about ideology but with young people uh using the u material reality and saying this you know if you're studying um USSR in the 1920s and 30s saying look at these features >> of um of that country at that time what are the features a good way too is to take another another country um perhaps North Korea at the moment moment, Iran at the moment, and look for things that distinguish those two countries from a country um that is liberal and that that way children are able to grasp the materiality that this is a material thing. Ideology, it's not just an not just an idea, a concept. It is a real thing and we have a word for it. So I would prefer to see uh start with the empirical data and then help children to see that we can conceptualize this is the materialization of the idea. And when you say that, are you talking about like a Marxist notion of materialist conditions?

[00:12:03]>> No, no, no. By material, I just mean matter.

[00:12:06]>> Matter, the thing itself, you know, the the um sending millions to the Goolags, the torturing of of >> Many on the left would think that's a great idea.

[00:12:15]>> Yeah. So you start with the reality and then you help children to understand that language that we use language to to do something to the real world to explain it to describe it to make judgments on it.

[00:12:32]>> Yeah. Interesting. I also think that many on the right would also think that's a great idea. And so we have these extremes and we're trying to navigate a situation. So right now, at least in the United States, Canada, I actually probably think largely in the entire Anglosphere, but specifically in the United States, we're taught how evil the United States was, were taught about slavery. My kids in actually in middle school, high school, all of their social studies classes, all of their history classes were on black enslavement and the civil rights movement, etc. And they were taught how bad the country was, but they weren't taught about other ideologies. They weren't taught about Stalin. They weren't taught about they had these massive gaps in their understanding.

[00:13:17]What is the benefit for Western liberal societies and western democracies of teaching children when I say children I mean under 18 that certain ideologies are destructive and dangerous and pernitious?

[00:13:33]>> Well, a couple of things I want to say.

[00:13:35]One is to do with time perception. your example there of children in the United States being taught about slavery in America. Well, of course, that's fine, but it needs to be put in the historical context of slavery throughout history, of what was going on in Africa at the time. Slavery throughout history, think of um the Roman writer whose name has escaped me at the moment, but who talked about the slave being the the dumb um uh the dumb object. Um, I mean, slavery has always been part of of human society.

[00:14:11]So, if you're going to teach about it in modern times, you have to give it that historical context. Now, I do want to get to partial stage, but there go ahead. I'm going to go through time perception um the idea of chronology and um time perception. Now, we have two types of time perception. we have spontaneous time perception and then there is um historical time perception.

[00:14:37]Now spontaneous time perception is is um what young children have and also what traditional societies have when you understand the past and the present in terms of what can be remembered uh probably back to say great-grandparents um and beyond that it's mythology and which is used for you know social stability and so on social cohesion but historical time perception is like any secondary cognitive ability, we have to be taught it and we have to practice it. And the only way to acquire it is by being taught history because then we understand notions of uh human agency >> making change.

[00:15:25]>> I was just going to ask you that. So if we have two cohorts, one is taught that and one is not, >> there's no not taught history at all.

[00:15:32]>> Yeah. particularly with the the temporal spin and the applications. What is the difference in outcomes and why would one group be superior or better and one group be inferior or worse?

[00:15:45]>> Uh children who are never taught history and who develop don't develop a sense of historical time perception, not just human agency but cause and effect and so on. um then they're able to start making judgments to look at humanity and make judgments about what caused this, you know, who was the agent involved and so on. But if you're never if you don't know any history, you just know stories, you just know the narratives that suit um people at the time, that sort of collective memory that we have, the type of history that's not subjected to any sort of critique, but is our stories.

[00:16:24]But that's that presupposes, correct me if I'm wrong, I'm going to push back on that. That presupposes that the people teaching the material, in this case history, are not themselves ideologically captured. Like my kids school, all they did is learn about slavery and how bad white people were and how oppressed. I mean that was the entire So I would argue to you it's better off to not teach them any history than to teach them a history in which the United States for example is always the bad guy constantly years and years of that. Like Marxists think history has a tilos.

[00:16:58]>> Yeah.

[00:16:59]>> Yeah.

[00:16:59]>> Yeah.

[00:17:01]That's a difficult one because on the one hand one could say well it's better they know some history than than none.

[00:17:08]at least they're getting a chronological awareness of it, right? But the the the the problem with it and is that if children are taught that you know my country >> um does the has done these terrible things then they see those thing that their own country is being evil correct and what I want to do is say let's make sure we understand what evil really is so that we don't look at liberal democracies the United States at the moment my own country New Zealand the UK and you know Europe Europe and say because a leader has done something I don't agree with therefore that's an evil country. No an evil country is one you know let let's not call the west evil.

[00:17:59]>> Let's not call um a civilization which enables us to make judgments about it openly publicly. Let's not call that evil. And that's a real distortion of this concept of evil which I think is really important that we have and we use it correctly.

[00:18:18]Yeah. I mean I I think plurality and tell me what you think about this. I think intellectual maybe even ideological plurality is really important for educators. But currently the survey after survey has shown that the overwhelming majority of people who go into education are on the left. And as we've seen from the, you know, recently, very few intellectuals on the left, public intellectuals certainly will criticize the Iranian regime and many support some pretty horrible things with Maduro and in Venezuela, etc. And my concern is that they'll be teaching the kids the wrong things. And so I don't know like how to fix that. And then we'll go to partial loyalty almost very soon. Yeah. Um well, I would say people like that are poor teachers because a good teacher will will teach the event and we'll say this is what happened here. These are the reasons that are given for it by those who did it, by those who opposed to it and so on. This is why that background and knowing an awful lot of history >> enables it's almost like children can can um have a a cushion have a foundation for new things to be embedded in on that foundation >> and they are they're able to understand nuance. they're able to understand that um liberal democracies are when they do something we need to know for what reason, >> what drove it, what are the reasons, who did it, why? Um how was it criticized?

[00:20:04]Let's look at it that way. Um rather than say the person who did it is a bad person, >> right? That's just >> reductive doesn't work.

[00:20:12]>> Terribly naive. I mean, it's that's just ignorant.

[00:20:15]>> All right. So, what's partial loyalty?

[00:20:17]>> Well, partial loyalty is a really useful idea. I came across it in my reading on anthropology some time ago and used it in a book I wrote in 2012. And partial loyalty, I think, explains the absolute central role of the individual in modernity.

[00:20:38]The key idea in liberalism is the individual. It is the individual who thinks.

[00:20:44]>> And that's a new idea. I mean, previously it was the leader who thought, it was the cleric who thought.

[00:20:50]The idea that an individual and maybe a female can think is was radical. We have forgotten that because we don't know our history. Now, Mary Wilstoncraft in her what was it 1782 I think book. have to check the date but she made the point she said of course we females um h um are not bright of course we don't are unable to think which was true and then she said and the reason is because we are not educated so this idea that you know as a human being you can think automatically no you can't but you have the potential to and that's why education is absolutely vital it is the person who thinks. Ideologies are it's the group that thinks.

[00:21:40]>> What do you mean by ideologies? A group thinks. What do you mean by think?

[00:21:44]Because anyone with language can think like orangutans can make instruments um to think would be you think of all the um now I think it was Plato who talked about acts of thinking and there are many basic ones of course memorization absolutely vital uh classification categorization uh I talked about you know being able to compare and contrast um to be able to synthesize to be able to analyze that's what thinking is it's all those cognitive abilities. They should not be reduced to skills. Critical thinking is not a skill. It's a cognitive ability and it involves many of these other things. You can't um engage in criticizing something if you at first you're not able to categorize it just and so on.

[00:22:36]>> Is that related to partial loyalty?

[00:22:38]>> Oh, I just step back a bit. Yes, partial loyalty require requires the individual, the concept of the individual.

[00:22:49]Liberalism has the individual as its main tenant. Um ideologies um non-liberal countries don't. They have the group, the leaders acting for the group. So here we've got the individual as the key concept.

[00:23:05]But it's very difficult being an individual. I mean the caricature of liberalism is this isolated individual who is lost, who is unconnected, who um is distraught, who is suicidal, who has no psychological and social stabilities because he or she is isolated. That is a complete caricature of liberalism. The liberal individual is not the isolated individual. The liberal individual is the partially loyal one. So by being partially loyal, you can still be deeply attached to say your family the your primary kin group >> and the tribe >> uh no only if the tribe is not a political category once a group becomes a political category i.e has power over others, some sort of governance, you know, but I'm talking about just the social group, mainly the family or the local community and so on.

[00:24:07]>> Yeah. Cuz I was thinking about in Britain there's a lot of tribal voting now, literally tribal voting with and and there's sectarian voting, voting on religious lines. So that wouldn't fall into the category.

[00:24:21]>> No, that's not partial loyalty. That's that's group think. No, partial loyalty is when you, the liberal individual, make the conscious decision, you have decided that because you value your connection to say your family or your local group, you will not criticize it.

[00:24:38]I mean, you might want to I mean, who hasn't wanted to criticize their parents and siblings and so on? you might want to but you think no they they give me real belong a sense of belonging and I'll um you know their definition of the of a family is um is a group that however badly you behave they'll they'll forgive you. So that's that's sort of the loyalty part of partial loyalty. But as well this liberal individual um making having made a conscious decision that I'm not going to criticize this group for these reasons which might change is turned to face the bigger world the world of of political institutions of institutions social institutions political institutions governance. Now at that point that individual will suspend his or her lack of judgment and say I am going to make judgments about this part of my world and this is how I'm going to make the judgments. Here is the criteria upon which I make the judgments you know judging the government. Is the government serving the people? Is the government doing what it said it would do? and so on. So you engage your critical faculties but you may and and you decide when you will engage them and to whom. Um that's the part so the partially loyal individual is the liberal individual.

[00:26:09]>> So I often hear on the right many people say I'm a Christian first, Republican second or something or father or whatever second and then a Republican third, something like that. and on on the left you know you can just swap out Christian etc for you know Muslim et so is that that's not an example of partial >> no that's that that's an example of people who have not made a decision about um the groups to whom they will be loyal and for what reason and the groups uh that they will be critical of. um as a liberal your legal and political rights adhere to you as a citizen and one of the duties you have is to be critical of the government. So already the government is one group that you will not be completely loyal to because as a citizen you can't you it goes against your duty of critique but I can understand you know people saying oh you know I'm a say a mother first and so on there are there are some groups that will say no I see all your faults I know them well but um I will be loyal to you because I'm your mother and for Some in some families that may come to a point where the loyalty is tested and the loyalty may in fact disintegrate. But what really matters is that we make a decision about where our loyalties will go and why. And um when it comes to uh suspended loyalty, then we we look at why we have partial loyalty in the first place. In liberal democracies, we don't have to be completely loyal.

[00:28:02]>> So, who are you partially loyal to, if I may ask?

[00:28:05]>> Oh, gosh, that's a good question. Well, I know who I'm completely loyal to.

[00:28:10]>> Who are you completely loyal to?

[00:28:11]>> Well, I'm completely loyal to my to my sons.

[00:28:14]>> Okay.

[00:28:15]>> Despite Yes. And I think many many listeners would say yes. Same here. Am I completely loyal to my friends? Now, that's an interesting one. I've I've had to think a bit about that. What if I have a friend who does something that is really egregious?

[00:28:32]>> I was thinking about that with your son.

[00:28:33]What if one of your sons came to you and told you they murdered someone and they needed your help disposing of the body?

[00:28:39]>> Yeah. Well, um I'm going to take a pass on that because I know what you mean. I had a friend whose son did actually um kill someone else by beheading them.

[00:28:54]>> Beheading them?

[00:28:55]>> Yes. Yes. This was a many decades ago.

[00:28:58]This was drugfueled thing and Yeah.

[00:29:01]Yeah. So, you know, it can happen um that that some poor individuals are put in this position of having their total loyalty completely tested. I have not been put in that position.

[00:29:16]>> Good.

[00:29:16]>> You know, like many many mothers, I have been tested at times, but not not too much.

[00:29:22]>> So, you're loyal to your friends.

[00:29:23]>> Yeah. And there's a hierarchy, right? I mean, more >> and what what matters is that I'm aware of it. I'm conscious of it. It's a decision I make.

[00:29:32]>> Are you loyal to your country? And how do you prioritize conflicts between loyalty to country and loyalty to friends or family?

[00:29:42]>> Oh, look, that's a good question.

[00:29:44]>> That's why you're in the big time here, Elizabeth.

[00:29:46]>> Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, loyalty to country, I've thought a lot about that recently. Okay. Um, especially as I'm I'm starting to I'm I'm wanting to celebrate our colonial past, New Zealand's colonial past, you know, the many good things that are the result of colonization, you know, such as the education system, the rule of law and so on. And um and then of course I think about well you know pe those pioneers in the 19th century both Maldian settlers who read that's just too funny. That's exactly what I was thinking but I didn't want to say it. Sorry. Go ahead. You know it it just reminds me Have you seen the Monty Python skit? What have the Romans ever done? You know like roads aqueduct like he just goes on for five minutes about what the Romans have done.

[00:30:39]>> Absolutely.

[00:30:40]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:30:41]>> Yeah. Well, I I think well with I mean think of surge systems, you know, if you have a look at a graph in New Zealand of what when when the when child mortality rates just absolutely went right right down high, it was you know good clean water and sewage systems. So the the impulse then to or even more than the impulse the actual dismantling or the decolonization of the curriculum >> seems has always seemed to me to be a completely deranged idea.

[00:31:14]>> Well, it is deranged because it's saying that things that actually did happen didn't happen.

[00:31:20]>> Yeah.

[00:31:20]>> I mean that's deranged. I mean things did happen and then you look at what happened and you make a you make judgments about it. You know you have your criteria for judging it. right?

[00:31:30]>> You know the benefits to people for example literacy reading and writing um the introduction of that moldi for example absolutely took to literacy in the 19th century there were 42 newspapers in the moldi language and it's a bit like Europe in the late 15th century as soon as print printed materials become available people want to read they want to write and it happened in Europe happened everywhere happened in New Zealand and the 19th century for Maldi.

[00:32:01]>> I I I have a thought running through my head and I'll just throw it out to you and if it's ridiculous or wrongheaded, tell me. It seems like loyalty is more intense when the stakes are higher.

[00:32:15]>> Oh, that's that's an interesting comment. Um, yes. Yes. What are the reasons for our loyalty? You know, are they what do they do for us? as I saying, you know, with family loyalty, it gives us real psychological stability, gives us a social um social bond.

[00:32:36]>> I'm thinking about >> and it's tested.

[00:32:38]>> Yeah. Like I'm thinking about like foxholes, you know, you don't fight for your country, you fight for the guy next to you in a foxhole. And I'm thinking about like why is it that certain activities yield deep bonds of friendship whereas other activities yield kind of friendlies, not friends?

[00:32:55]like why is it that if you built, you know, went around the world and to clubs that did model trains or something or or like you'd be friends with those people, but it wouldn't be a deep bond. And I think when the I'm just thinking a lot like I bet you I don't jump out of parachutes, out of planes, parachutes, but I bet you that people who do that regularly befriend the the man or woman who latches their parachute. It's like in jiu-jitsu when you trust someone with your life, like wrestling, you trust someone with your life, you develop bonds with those people. So, I'm wondering if that if the stakes are higher >> if the tribal loyalty or the partial loyalty isn't shifted in some sense, isn't like because of the activity, you become more loyal.

[00:33:42]>> Yes, that's that's right. And I suppose in a in in a liberal um society, all you're able to do is to know that it's happening, to be able to look at the groups that you are loyal to. Um >> is a purely rational individual, again, I realize no such thing as exists, but would a purely rational individual not be loyal to any particular anything in particular?

[00:34:12]And why why do we even need to think in terms of loyalty at all?

[00:34:14]>> Yeah. Yeah. Um well, you know, I've mentioned psychological stability several times. I think it's because that base that human bond that we maybe someone who is quite isolated may still have loyalty to perhaps dead parents, you know, to the memory. So maybe there's loyalty to a memory. Um and that's where collective memories and spontaneous time perception comes in.

[00:34:40]It's quite possible to to for a spontaneous time perception to work really well because that collective memory um is is so strong, so powerful because it creates um total loyalty.

[00:34:57]>> Yeah. I'm thinking of the Chinese tradition of pi pie and honoring your ancestors >> and I'm thinking about even that as a kind of pre-medieval idea. And so thinking in terms of loyalty to me see correct me if I'm wrong is it just that we're wired is that the state of humanity to just break off into ever smaller niches of tribe and have certain kind of is that is that like so I'm trying to work out the idea here.

[00:35:28]>> Yeah. Um this the strength of our need to belong. I suppose what the watershed happens when the group to which we belong becomes um a a a governing group a political group a a a political category when it's just a social category then I don't think it matters too much we just feel good about you know everything we belong to but when the group is is a political category >> such as you know a liberal democ ratic government >> that's a political category then we um we can't be totally loyal to it if we were it will be it would be an ideology >> okay so let me ask you a question do you ever see the show sliders from many years ago like the things of the '90s >> well basically let's do a thought experiment I have a window that takes you to a different universe and you go through and you can't come back.

[00:36:35]>> And one window takes you to the society in which there's no partial loyalty whatsoever.

[00:36:43]And then the other window there's there's there just I don't know you want to say it's not wired or we've overcome our however you want to however you want to frame it. And then the other window takes us to another society in which there's even more loyalty.

[00:37:00]Would there be a way to know which is better and which one would you want to live in? And what would the society which which would each of those societies look like?

[00:37:09]>> I wouldn't want to live in any society that demanded total loyalty especially as a female.

[00:37:15]>> Oh, why is a female?

[00:37:16]>> Um because um the loyalty of for females is not just to the society. It's to the the male first. There's females in a totally loyal um ideology. Females have an extra loyalty put upon them and it makes life tougher. They their ability to criticize is restricted even more than a a male who um is confined by the need to be totally loyal.

[00:37:50]You see this is another thing that that um irritates me is that um you know in the west females are inclined to forget what life used to be like for women and what it is like in many parts of the world today under ideologies which require total loyalty. You know, we've got to know our history.

[00:38:13]>> Can we name those ideologies?

[00:38:15]>> Um oh yes. for any ideology that that sees women as um having um less political rights than men. Um that's that that would be one.

[00:38:25]>> Does any any of those pop out to you?

[00:38:27]Well, let's just say Afghanistan, Iran, I mean, countries where women really suffer.

[00:38:37]>> But yet, we have a wholesale inability or unwillingness to call those out, >> putting women in cloth bags and beating them, denying them of education, throwing acid in their faces if they want to be educated, court testimonies being less, inheritance being less. We have an entire political class who is completely unwilling or that's completely unwilling to make any kind of judgment about something that is so conspicuously I'm going to use your word evil.

[00:39:06]>> Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:39:07]>> Okay. So, the concept of partial loyalty seems pretty obvious. Um why is it important to know about or emphasize?

[00:39:16]It's really important because it breaks the stereotype that caricature I mentioned of the liberal individual, the western individual as some poor isolated personism, selfish who um doesn't connect to others, who doesn't care about about others. In the last say 30 40 years with the rise of sort of communitarian ideologies, individualism has had a really bad rap. And I'd like us to recover the individual as the I mean to be an individual. Isn't that a wonderful thing to be able to to have autonomy to be able to chart your own destiny in life? I mean in the conditions that that you're in of course but still to be able to make decisions to have hope that wonderful can dictim.

[00:40:07]Um uh what what can I know? Uh what shall I do? What may I hope? Um, when you're an individual, you can do things.

[00:40:19]You can hope for things.

[00:40:20]>> Would you say that's a broadly classical liberal value?

[00:40:24]>> Yes. Oh, very much so. And it's one we are in danger of losing because we don't appreciate it enough.

[00:40:31]>> So many people have said that classical liberalism has failed us. Do you agree with that?

[00:40:38]>> Well, I mean, it's not some that's rarifying it. that's saying, you know, here's this thing, classical liberalism, and it's got these components, and you know, it's that real, oh, it's my right that it's my right attitude. No.

[00:40:53]Classical liberalism is is a set of ideas, and it's up to us to put those ideas into practice, into policy and practice. And if we don't, it's on us.

[00:41:04]It's not the fault of the ideas. It's the fault of people who who don't know about them, who characterize them, who um who who blame blame the idea instead of blaming themselves. Typical.

[00:41:20]>> So are those ideas and values are they sufficient to solve our biggest problems like mass immigration?

[00:41:28]>> Um the ideas won't of course. Um it's how we um how we employ the ideas. But there's a really important point about liberalism. Liberalism cannot tolerate anything that undermines um its foundations. So liberalism has limits to its tolerance. It can't it it can't accept any anti-individualistic um ideologies. Um as I say, the individual is a is a key idea in liberalism. So liberalism has limits to its tolerance. Um it also I think uh needs to be to be valued for the philosophical tools it gives us. That's all it gives us you know philosophical ideas what we do with those ideas we need to be critical of.

[00:42:19]>> Yeah. So I often hear well you've just assumed this value you've just assumed this value you've assumed the value of individualism as some kind of a priori good but they've assumed the value of collectivism other people have assumed the value of submission of Islamism like what is the argument for it depends what the starting value is >> um that's very strong argument but the value is just the beginning then the value must be institutionalized for example the value of the individual is institutionalized in in law and in politics. In law as you know the um legal rights adhere to the individual.

[00:42:59]In politics the um the citizen is the political entity. Uh so the the ideas have to be institutionalized in a way that secures them firmly.

[00:43:12]>> But that presupposes that there are good values to institutionalize. It's like but why should we assume that? Well, at a certain point we make assumptions about what it is to be a human being.

[00:43:23]And classical liberalism makes the assumption that the first one is that individuals can think. If you can think, therefore you have values.

[00:43:33]>> An assumption.

[00:43:34]>> Therefore, well, it is um because you know in pre most societies in the past um particularly people who were slaves were considered unable to think, women of course unable to think. So the idea of thinking is is a is is a new idea and one we need to value.

[00:43:53]>> You know in the symposium Socrates threw the women and the slaves out of the room before the dialogue began.

[00:44:00]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:44:00]>> Yeah.

[00:44:01]>> That's right. Um, so I'm thinking through this idea that we I'm also thinking in the back of my mind Huntington's cluster of civilizations like we we have certain starting assumptions and so the assumption we share is I believe in the enlightenment. I believe in the enlightenment values. I believe that we should give individuals the opportunity to live by their own rights and have freedoms and enjoy liberties, cognitive liberties, epistemic li en enjoy liberties to live the kind of lives that they believe are conducive to their flourishing even if I personally disagree with some of those practices.

[00:44:41]And I'm also thinking about what you said about how classical liberalism and individual rights deal with the issue of mass migration and importing large numbers of people into the west who are don't share those fundamental values of liberalism and they vote along sectarianism, sectarian or tribal identity, something that has identity markers or a strong identity salience. And I'm thinking about is the idea of keeping those people out of your country itself an illiberal idea that runs contrary to classical liberalism and the ideas of the enlightenment.

[00:45:22]>> Oh, I think seeing it as a liberal is foolish. That's saying liberalism is will tolerate anything. No, no, liberalism will not tolerate anything that undermines its very foundations.

[00:45:34]And those foundations are the individual um the rule of law, the citizen is the political category and you know the freedom of of thought and speech and many many things. Um no no they are they are values and we know they're values because of what they enable us to do, how they enable us to live.

[00:45:58]>> How do they enable us to live? Well, if you're a female, they enable you to um you know, have equal rights, political and legal rights. Fairly important.

[00:46:07]If you know, if you didn't have them, if your mother and grandmother didn't have them. Yeah. They are very important. And we we mustn't forget how important they are.

[00:46:17]>> Yeah. So I I struggle with even acknowledging some of the criticisms and giving them countenance because I think they're so idiotic >> and but if I don't do that then they they just run a muck. So I think one of the things we've seen is and please push back on me if you think this is not the case is that many people are afraid to criticize. We talked about women's rights in other countries because the people happen to have dark skin and so the fact that they're they don't want to be perceived as being racist and so they don't criticize how Afghanistan is again the paradigmatic example of this.

[00:46:58]What do you have to say to those people?

[00:47:00]Well, by not being critical, you're being racist. You're saying you're dividing people into racial categories, and you're saying that this particular category of people, I see them purely in racial in terms of their race. Um, glossed as culture usually, but um, >> what was that again?

[00:47:18]>> Oh, glossed as culture. often we we slip between the term race, ethnicity, and culture. But really what we're talking about is the idea of genetic inheritance um which is seen to be the cause of cultural behavior in norms and values.

[00:47:37]>> So in a few years ago I was always struck by what people protested about and what they didn't protest about. And when the uh Ziti had literal slave bazaars of women, literally actual slave bazars and we've seen video after video that's prei not a pe not a not a nothing on western campuses no protests nothing feminist professors women's studies nothing nothing what do you think accounts for that silence or do you think it's unfair what do you think accounts of that silence >> I just say shame on them why weren't they speaking up why why do you think they weren't Oh, because they are enjoying the benefits of liberalism.

[00:48:21]They are enjoying the benefits that our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers fought for with with this and and also men men too of course and for them not to value them to enjoy the benefits and deny them not recognize the rights of others to them. Now I say shame on those people.

[00:48:44]>> Yeah, I've actually given up on them. I don't even wish shame on them. I think that they're incapable of reasoning honestly about the nature of problems.

[00:48:51]And so I think they themselves have become part of the problem and then that problem has institutionalized itself. Uh switching gears a little bit, tell me about neotribal capitalism.

[00:49:02]>> Oh, I'm really pleased you asked. Um >> no one's ever said that to that before.

[00:49:08]Well, surprisingly neotribal capitalism it keeps on being something people are interested in. I do get um um uh notifications to say that various people around the world are writing about it.

[00:49:22]Um in the 1990s I was very much involved in a number of moldi uh moldi initiative called kurakopa maldi which was the establishment of um mai language and cultural schools and I was deeply committed to it and in fact my master's thesis was a history of you know what we' done in including getting legislation uh that recognized the these schools as um public government funded schools we established these six original ones and so on. So really committed to um Kurakopa Maldi was was is the name of these schools and wrote master's thesis in the history and when I look back it was one of those master's thesis that are really manifestos ideological manifestos but it was about that time just thinking about doing a PhD I thought what we say we are doing is not what we are actually doing.

[00:50:23]>> What do you mean?

[00:50:24]Well, there was a lot of talk about how this movement would ensure equity for Mai children. It would ensure educational achievement. But when I looked at what was happening, I said, "No, what will it it will ensure is um a retribalization of this group of children >> and to shift their partial loyalty to more full loyalty and then undermine." I thought this is not really about educational achievement and in a way for some it wasn't really about the mai language either though as time has gone on they have become schools where the moldi language is being revived to an extent um but it was really retribalization and that took me into the concept of elite emergence why retribalization um and I could see that there were a group of people who had come through the new left who were now identifying politically very strongly as MAI >> with rights that should acrue to them as MAI not as as citizens and just taking the idea of elite emergence I thought these people need followers you can't be a leader someone who can acquire um economic resources and political power as the leader. If you don't have the people, you don't have your followers.

[00:51:55]So, you need to create the retribalized tribal member.

[00:52:01]>> Interesting. I I Yeah. Interesting. I had a totally different idea of that which I was thinking the way the way to fix the problem would be to import millions of people with a dangerous illiberal ideology. And that would the hammer blows of modernity would then take these people who had fundamental tribal issues and reorient them toward liberalism.

[00:52:22]>> No, in fact these people are very liber.

[00:52:26]They are doing what people in modernity do. If you are able to access political power and economic resources, >> that's a very modern thing to do. But it's when you use a traditional ideology to make your claim that's when it becomes neotribal. I mean if you look at other I mean groups take Saudi Arabia.

[00:52:48]The um ruling class in Saudi Arabia is in fact a very modern ruling class but they use a traditional ideology to justify their claim to to the past to history and to the fruits of history you know the um material wealth econ um political power. So neotribal capitalism is a very modern form of modern capitalism, you know, where people do strive to get more.

[00:53:17]>> But it's when you use an ideology to justify your claim in terms of your history and you distort it to do it.

[00:53:27]>> It's interesting. In the last five minutes, I was listening and I was wondering to myself if you could substitute the word epistemology for ideology there.

[00:53:37]Um, in what way?

[00:53:40]>> Well, it's less of it seems to me that the the word ideology is broader and less specific than the word epistemology. Neotribal epistemology. Yes.

[00:53:52]>> Um, no, I would just call it a theory.

[00:53:55]Neotri, you know, it's a theory of elite emergence of a particular type of elite emergence. There are number of theories about you know how group a particular group will emerge and um you know one is is you simply trample on everyone else you know um tribute um tri tax and tribute is one one way to to become an elite. You just go somewhere else and take what those people have. But in the modern world, capitalism is a very sophisticated way for people to be able to um acquire what the ancestors didn't have. So it's it breaks birth status.

[00:54:36]You can acquire economic wealth without it coming from the ancestors.

[00:54:42]But neotribal capitalism is the theory of using a traditional ideology to justify what you're doing. instead of saying I'm doing what modern people do which is acquire things and of course once in New Zealand the Mai tribal elite now I won't say the moldi tribal elite I'll just say the tribal elite because most moldi are not involved in this okay >> but the tribal elite have been very successful in qu in using the idea of using history to make claims for sizable um assets and have because those assets are not taxed, they've been able to build a really solid capital foundation and have become very wealthy people.

[00:55:32]>> The elites.

[00:55:33]>> Yeah.

[00:55:34]>> And that's how elites and modern >> vaguely postmodern that they're all they're concerned about is power, >> right? So there is no kind of truth of the matter. There is no >> So So tell me, >> well, it's smart. I mean it's smart tactics if you as a group you know want to want to get a lot more than others um you know you can you people this is this is why I talked about evil at the beginning we have to recognize what human beings do >> human beings have always if you're able to get more than another group >> then there will be some people in that group that will do all everything they can to take >> you think that comes from a position of scarcity That's the reason they do it.

[00:56:20]>> No, no. I think it comes from um from what did the seven deadly sins? Everest.

[00:56:26]Um envy. Um >> God, >> I just greed.

[00:56:29]>> I don't know. It's hard for me to think like that. I just don't think like that at all.

[00:56:33]>> Like I just don't think about like maximizing my if I did, I wouldn't be in the financial situation I'm in now. But like I just don't think so. So it it must be a kind of predisposition or cultural must play in on it or certain value. That's why I'm thinking like because I was a middle class kid and so I'm thinking like maybe if I were lower middle class or lower class or have grown up and there was no peanut butter in the refrigerator or something like maybe I'd have that scarcity mindset and then I'd want to maximize my financial.

[00:57:04]>> No, many pe many people who are very poor are good people, you know.

[00:57:08]>> But but it's not about being being good though. It's about kind of using the levers of power to maximize your own financial interests.

[00:57:18]>> Um and and some people don't wish to do that. And this is where I go back to um you know who we are as human beings and to the notion of value and morality and how it is a pity that religion ha has the vocabulary. I would like liberalism to have the vocabulary too where we can talk about evil and good and and um things that seem to be very basic to us as human beings.

[00:57:48]>> Yeah, it's really it's really interesting. So, I've seen videos of people protesting on the streets of New York the deaths of the leaders of the Iranian regime.

[00:58:01]>> And that if there was ever an incommensurable value, that would seem to be one.

[00:58:08]>> Um, well, we're not completely rational.

[00:58:10]I can um this is the partial loyalty thing again. Yeah.

[00:58:14]>> Yeah. I would want to join in crying death to the bad evil leaders of the world. I would be involved in that.

[00:58:23]>> But but I don't understand why aren't they we don't know the exact figures obviously, but the 40,000 people who were mowed down by the regime, why aren't they on the street with their placards or their like why is it only that has to be ideological there? There can be no other explanatory mechanism to understand that than they're operating with a particular ideology >> or there are police waiting for them to shoot them >> if they go outside.

[00:58:53]>> No, no, like in the United States.

[00:58:55]>> In the United States.

[00:58:56]>> In the United States.

[00:58:57]>> Yeah. Um I >> So those people, how do you like >> How do you Did you see that? I see >> amazing picture. It's just amazing. It's the white leftist and the is who's protesting. He wants more immigration.

[00:59:16]He everybody's welcome here. And then the Islamist throws the literally uses him and throws the bomb over his head.

[00:59:22]Like it it just it's so iconic. It's >> And of course he doesn't it doesn't cause him not only to reflect on his belief, but to he doubles down on it.

[00:59:30]Like he doubles down on another level.

[00:59:32]>> Yeah.

[00:59:33]>> And so >> creatable.

[00:59:35]>> Yeah. It's rather astonishing. So, what is it that you would how do we reach those people? And they're probably thinking, well, I was going to say they're probably thinking, how do they reach us? But they think we're Nazis and fascists and pigs, and they probably want to kill us and put us in gas chambers. But like, what if you had an opportunity to say something to them like what would you say to them? What would you say to that guy?

[00:59:59]>> Um, well, probably he would be the sort of guy who wouldn't allow me the opportunity to speak. They're the sort of men who just speak at you and you don't get a chance to get a word in any way or if you start they stop you speaking. So they certainly um wouldn't want to are not interested in hearing anything but they're not um it's it's this ability you know to be able to to think and you know I gave you those sort of acts of thinking before >> it's very difficult to do that and there are many people who can't do it and you only do it if you have spent many years at school practicing how to do it with the material that you know that the the long history of the world um uh lots of ideas about science and language. You need all that material.

[01:00:54]>> It's a disposition.

[01:00:56]>> Um is it >> Yeah, that's something that interests me. Um I think it quite likely disposition in the sense that some people are disposed to be um nasty and some people are not. Uh well that was in a tertiary sense but I'm thinking it's a disposition like part of critical thinking and the big focus of my work has been the ability or willingness to revise your beliefs >> and some people just aren't willing to do that the ability or will a willingness to >> interrogate and I use that in the modern sense the things that you believe >> as a and then hopefully change your mind or align your confidence to the evidence if you look at in a basian sense but it seems seems to me that the most important thing in education is to cultivate a disposition in people, a more humble disposition, a a disposition that is less superstitious and more looks at evidence and reason and gets beyond ideology.

[01:01:55]>> And I think we're doing exactly the opposite and we have been doing the exactly the opposite time.

[01:02:00]>> That's right. It's that difference between preference and judgment. I mentioned earlier, you know, our education system for many decades now has been all about what would you prefer? What makes you feel good? What experience?

[01:02:12]>> Yeah. Live the lived experience. You don't need to to analyze. You don't because analyzing is a very difficult cognitive ability and you need to spend years practicing, you know, analyzing and many young people h have not done that. They don't know how to analyze and you can't make judgments if you haven't begun at the beginning which is you start with the analysis. So I I'll throw something out something I've been thinking about that disposition extends or it has to extend to some kind of dialectic like if you're not willing to engage in a di and I don't think it needs to be like s standing in front of someone and being interrogated >> even if that dialectic is written or on paper like you have to have that disposition of a willingness to really come up and confront and rebut and defend. And I think if you don't have that, you're not only more susceptible to whatever the reigning moral orthodoxy is, but you compromise something so fundamental about the way to have a good life and the way to lead a good life.

[01:03:30]And we have oriented our educational systems in exactly the opposite direction. Could it be the degree to which an individual feels threatened that the notion threat is a really primary primordial response >> and for some reason when people are presented with a different viewpoint they feel it as a challenge almost as a threat. Some would go further. I wonder if it's would be useful to say to people, you're allowed to have beliefs that are not justified. Once again, the partial loyalty.

[01:04:09]>> We have beliefs for a reason. They secure us. We don't want to interrogate all our beliefs.

[01:04:16]>> I do. I can't think of a belief I don't want to interrogate. Can you? What's a belief you don't want to interrogate?

[01:04:22]Why Why would you want to not know if you're wrong about something?

[01:04:25]>> Yeah. Yeah. And this is a good point.

[01:04:28]Um, yes, I would. Uh, this is why I am unable to believe something that I can't interrogate.

[01:04:36]>> But, you know, benefit of of the doubt to some who want to be able to believe say in a religion without interrogating it.

[01:04:45]>> Um, because going to that church provides solace. There are reasons for it. Um, >> yeah, >> you know, I I wouldn't go to that person and say, you know, let's interrogate your beliefs. You know, I no, that's that's that person's business, the freedom to believe. But when it's a belief that um has an effect upon the polity, the society, the the on politics, then that belief must be interrogated.

[01:05:20]So, I'm just thinking out loud here. I think that there's a relationship between the ability to tolerate physical discomfort and the ability to be epistemologically challenged >> in my I'll I'll spell that out maybe dismbiguate some terms. So I think many many people who are not willing to tolerate physical discomfort and this could be wrong. I think it's a ven diagram. I don't think it's a one-on-one.

[01:05:53]I I think there's somewhat of an isomeorphic relationship.

[01:05:57]I think that if you're willing to tolerate physical discomfort, my guess is you're far more ready to have your ideology challenged in some type of a vigorous dialectic.

[01:06:08]If you're not, I think that the correlation is stronger one way. I'm just thinking out loud here.

[01:06:13]>> Like you go to a you working out now.

[01:06:16]You're working out intensely.

[01:06:18]>> Yeah. Yeah. That sort of the notion of threat, how you perceive threat phys.

[01:06:24]And I suppose, you know, for very young children, if they grow up in a household where they are threatened, um, often it begins as physical. It could be even loud voices or actual physical harm done to them.

[01:06:38]>> So that from the beginning the threat is experienced physically and then maybe as they grow older it's more >> so there are psychological embedded psychological reasons why people wouldn't engage in certain behaviors that lead them to be less wrong more often.

[01:06:58]>> Yeah, I think so. Um, you see that you you often see it with women actually who are more we're more inclined to sort of let things go to step back because we don't want >> um >> to rock the boat.

[01:07:15]>> Yeah. Yeah. We don't want to see anger.

[01:07:17]We don't want >> I've talked a lot about women in this in this session >> and I know why I'm doing it. It's just occurred to me part it's part of as well as wanting to reclaim the individual reclaim um colonization um I want to reclaim women and it's a it's my reaction to the um the the way the word women itself has almost dropped out of our vocab has has been taken out of our vocabulary. I want it back. I want to put it back. I want to put back men. I want to put back women, girls and boys.

[01:07:58]>> How's it been taken out of our vocabulary for the whole trans thing?

[01:08:01]>> Yes. Through Yes. through through the rejection of biolog the reality of biological sex.

[01:08:10]And as we as as we know, you know, that movement's gone on what, a decade or even longer. And it's had a real effect.

[01:08:17]I know the previous we had in our curriculum we have a we had guidelines for relationships and sexualities. Now in the previous one until this current government changed it the word girl and boy the words girl and boy weren't there.

[01:08:36]I put in a submission saying get the language right you know um put these words in.

[01:08:42]>> So you want to reclaim the word woman.

[01:08:44]>> Yeah I do very much so. Yes. Yes. And and that's quite a personal thing too as well as for political reasons, but I also thinking of my total loyalty, I want to reclaim it because I'm thinking about my mother, what she experienced in her life. My grandmother, my great-g grandandmother was one of the s signitaries to our franchise position in 1893.

[01:09:10]Um, a contributory to, you know, women getting the vote in New Zealand. I sort of I want to honor them.

[01:09:16]>> They would be appalled to discover that that um >> that's somewhat of a partial loyalty.

[01:09:22]>> No, that's total loyalty to them. Yeah.

[01:09:25]But when I think about in terms of the politics of uh sexual difference, that's I have a political position there. So although the object the reference is the same women, I I have two different ways of approaching it. my total loyalty way which involves my family and then the partial loyalty which is to do with you know um political rights and legal rights and just the right to exist to be recognized. Imagine if women were completely >> wiped out of the of the polity then we would have no rights at all. I mean where that was going was very dangerous.

[01:10:07]So yeah, I'm I want to reclaim the word woman.

[01:10:10]>> Uh is there anything I should have asked you that I didn't ask you?

[01:10:14]>> I can't think of anything, Peter. I think we've covered a lot of ground.

[01:10:19]>> Oh, we have. Uh is there anything you'd like to ask me?

[01:10:22]>> No.

[01:10:23]>> Okay. Well, Elizabeth Rada, it's been a true honor and a pleasure. Thank you so much. And thank you for your work and what you do.

[01:10:29]>> Thank you, Peter.