The Eric Metaxas Show - Peter Thiel (continued)

Episode Date: February 24, 2021

This special presentation of a Socrates in the City continues, with Peter Thiel expressing thoughts on globalization, academia, communion, and "the worst of the cardinal sins."

If you were a university president, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, one of these places, and you had some secret fantasy of getting lynched, and you wanted a coalition of alumni, students, faculty, to come after you, you'd give a speech saying, you know, we are giving such a great education that we're going to increase the enrollment. We're going to let more people in. We're going to double or triple our enrollment over the next 20 or 30 years. You know, since we're serving the whole world.

In 1970, there were 200 million people in the U.S. now they're 8 billion in the world. It's 40 times as many people. We're just going to double our enrollment. It will still be, and you would get lynched because people understand it is. is a zero-sum tournament. It's not a positive sum education. It's not about education.

It's a studio 54 nightclub you're running. And, you know, for what that is, it can be pretty robust for a long time. There's probably some point where it gets so deranged that... I mean, we're effectively there. I honestly have to say that where we are now, there's a brilliant novel out. I've interviewed the author on my radio program, Scott Johnston.

and it's called campus land. And it is brilliant. It's a brilliant criticism, lampooning of the whole world of, you know, Ivy League culture, but generally higher ed. And you see that it eats itself at some point. We're kind of at that point. How long can it sustain itself? I mean, again, I say the same thing about the New York Times.

The New York Times has value because people say it has value. it has value. But when you really look at these places, at some point, the word has to get out to the alumni, to the parents. It's not as good as it used to be. It's not what it once was. Somehow that, I mean, you have to allow that it's possible to have that kind of a, we can call it a market correction. It has to be possible. And I would have predicted it 30, 40 years ago. So it's been harder. I'm not saying like next decade I'm, I'm, you know, I think they may finally break this decade, but it's, it's probably something about the student debt that's unsustainable. And we had 300 billion in 2000. It's up to 1.7 trillion today. So I think there are certain trends that I can't see going on for another decade even. So I think something is going to break. But isn't it a little bit like the Soviet Union? It's not so clear. It isn't a little bit like the Soviet Union? I mean, at some point it has to break down.

At some point, the truth will out. So the fact that it could go on for seven decades is horrifying, but it did end, you know. And I guess I wonder, because I wouldn't have said that 100 years ago, Yale and all these places were corrupt, lost, leading young people astray. I don't think it was true. I think it's something that's more recently true, or it's a kind of a flower that has finally come to bloom. We know that Yale was going, a lot of these schools were going in those direct. already in the 20s and the 30s, but it didn't really come into the mainstream so that you have the madness that you're seeing until now. So I guess it seems to me that it will take a while, but it has to fall apart.

And it was I'm not sure how they can sustain it. You know, I think the overall system can't be sustained because of the runaway debt. The top parts of it, you know, it's possible. possible it can just keep going because it's exclusive, and this is this is what drives it. You know, I think, you know, I have this sort of theory that one of the reasons, you know, Republican political leaders, senators, congressmen, governors aren't going after the universities more is because they still just want their kids to go to the top schools. So if you were, if you were a senator or...

Some of those people are in this room, by the way. And, you know, we had this, you know, we had this crazy college admission. thing where it was, you know, people can get in through the front door or the back door or the side door. And, you know, I think all these places, there's probably some number even at Harvard or Stanford where if you make this number, your kid can get in no matter how unqualified your child is. I think it's something like $25 million. And, you know, I think it would be helpful to publicize these things. But the fact that there are people who are doing this suggest it's going to keep going for some time. And it's, yeah. But it is, I mean, I, I, I, I,

know what you mean and I fear you may be right, but I'm still thinking that because we're talking about this, people hadn't been talking about this. It seems where we've arrived at a point where it's possible some people will see this. And if you see what is happening at these colleges, it's dramatically different. I mean, when I was at Yale in the 80s, it was hard for the alumni to know the lunacy of political correctness that we were living out. It was hard for them to get it. But now, because of the way the world is, because of social media, I don't mean to bring up a sort of subject, but we have to talk about social media. But it seems to me that people can see things that they wouldn't have been able to see even 30 or 40 years ago. But

that's a larger conversation. I do want to talk to you a little bit about social media. And Today, our genius friend Anne Coulter was saying that you, Peter Thiel, ought to create a social media platform that will not kick people off if they have the quote-unquote wrong views. Will you? Look, I think that there is sort of a question how – I'm on the board of Facebook, so I have to always be like very careful what I say here. I'm not planning. You're on the board of Facebook? I'm on the board of Facebook. Holy cow.

And so I'm not going to, I have to be somewhat careful what I say in these contexts. But I think that, look, I think there are obviously all these questions about the homogenization of thought, the way in which these institutions channel thought and, you know, do not allow as wide variety of views to be heard. And that sort of the Overton window seems to always get narrower and keep shifting. to the left on the discussions we have in our society. I think that there was a hope in the late 1990s that the Internet was going to be like the Gutenberg Press, that it was fundamentally this technology that would widen debate, just like, and that it would be sort of Protestant. It would be sort of somewhat schismatic.

You'd be able to dissent from views, and that it would have the effect of undermining the monopoly of these of the large, you know, old media type companies. You know, if I had to give a reading of the landscape in 2020, I think it's certainly not as libertarian as people thought it was going to be in the late 90s. I would still defend the Silicon Valley companies partially in the sense that I think they are still, there still are more views that can be broadcast on the Internet than you get, in, you know, in the New York Times or the washing post or things like this. Could you set a lower bar?

Well, that's, that is the alternative. That is the alternative, you know? That is the alternative. And, you know, I think that, you know, if, let me, I'll pick a little bit on Twitter since I can, I can focus on that once I'm not on the board. You're not on the board of Twitter? And if you want to understand the sort of the political dynamic in Silicon Valley was, You know, in 2015, 2016, everybody at Twitter wanted Sanders to become president. That would probably be the person that the median employee at Twitter would have liked.

And, you know, they're sort of smoking pot and not doing much work, but it's sort of a – the business just sort of runs itself. But it dawned on them one day that they were actually – they were just working for Mr. Trump every day that they came to work. You know, he's the most effective user of their platform. And that leads to – a really extreme amount of cognitive dissonance and a lot of a lot of derangement. But I certainly think that Twitter was more helpful to the Republicans in 2016 than to the Democrats.

That's clear. And I think something like this is probably true of Facebook and of Google and of all these platforms because the mainstream media had a super narrowly controlled narrative. And we were able to get other ideas out. There was a question whether the mainstream media talked about President Trump's tax returns. It never talked about Hillary Clinton's health. And Hillary Clinton had her 9-11 on September 11, 2016, where she had her feigning spell in Brooklyn.

And there were these other channels through which you could get, questions out about her health and have a debate and you could have a sort of a two-way discussion like this. And I think, you know, I think there's obviously some attempt to rein this in to get it even more controlled, you know, in 2020 and 2024. And we have to push back. But I would say at this point in time, it's still better than the alternative. If you shut down the internet, that would help the left. Let there be no doubt, big tech and the far left have joined forces to purpose to purge America of conservative views. But even if you keep your accounts, you don't have to give big tech websites access to your data. That's why I choose to protect my online activity by using

ExpressVPN. Ever wondered how free to access social media companies make all their money? Well, by tracking your searches, video history, and everything you click on and then selling your valuable data. When you use ExpressVPN, you anonymize much of your online presence by hiding your address that makes your activity more difficult to trace and sell to advertisers. What's more, ExpressVPN encrypts 100% of your data to protect you from eavesdroppers on your network. And the ExpressVPN app couldn't be easier to use. You just tap one button on your phone or computer and you're protected. Take back your online privacy with the VPN I trust at ExpressVPN.com slash metaxis. By visiting my link, you'll get an extra three months of ExpressVPN service for free

on a one-year package. Again, that's ExpressVPN.com slash metaxus, E-X-P-R-E-S-V-P-N-V-P-N.com slash Metaxis, to protect your data today. Hey, folks, I've got to tell you a secret about relief factor that the father-son owners, Pete and Seth Talbot, have never made a big deal about, but I think it is a big deal. I really do. They sell the three-week quick start pack for just 1995 to anyone struggling from pain like neck, shoulder, back, hip, or knee pain, 1995, about a dollar a day. But what they haven't broadcasted much is that every time they sell a three-week quick start, they lose money. In fact, they don't even break even until about four to five months after if you keep ordering it. Friends, that's huge. People don't keep ordering relief factor month after month if it doesn't work.

So yes, Pete and Seth are literally on a mission to help as many people as possible deal with their pain. They really do put their money where their mouths are. So if you're in pain from exercise or even just getting older or to the three-week quick start for 1995, let's see if we can get you at a pain too. Go to relieffactor.com. Relieffactor.com or call 800, 500, 8384, 800-508384 relieffactor.com. I use it. It works. investors seeking steady cash flow, ready to diversify. NRIA has grown to be one of the nation's leading specialists and offers 10% annualized monthly payouts with bonuses targeted at 18 to 21%. That's right. You could receive steady 10% return monthly payments with bonuses. As their slogan says, they specialize in realty investing done right. You can even use your 401k or IRA to invest. NRA's 15,000, year track record and 1.2 billion in new construction development backs you. Learn how you can invest in this hard asset, real estate cash flow fund today and receive 10% annualized monthly payouts with bonuses.

This is something savvy investors should research and consider. Call now 800, 700, 500, 5483. That's 800,700 5483 or visit nria.net. An offer to buy or sell any security is only made by our private placement memorandum. Read it first. See us at nria.net. Part of what we're talking about, you know, it touches, when we're talking, let's say, about Google, for example, you're talking about companies that, I mean, we have the advent now of these companies that aren't really American companies. And so they don't really, or at least they don't feel that they have to answer to anyone. They can be, they can prostitute themselves completely. They don't have to think about, is this right or is this wrong? If they can make more money, they can do whatever.

And so when you see this happening for the first time, I mean, whether it's the NBA or Nike or Google, that they don't seem to understand what freedom is, what has allowed them to become who they are. And so they're going to places like China, and they seem to me at least partially to be selling their souls to get more money. And I think in their defense, they seem genuinely to be ignorant of what American-style freedom is or what a virtuous free market is.

They really don't seem to get that. One of the reasons that I've supported this president, and I know that you have, is because he sees some of this and he sees that there are values. that we should uphold. And he sees that China presents a particular threat to us and temptation to others. So what are your views, I guess, on what I've just said, and particularly with regard to China? Well, look, I think, I think, you know, the sort of geopolitical rivalry between the U.S. and China are going to be, the defining one for this country for the next few decades.

It is amazing that it took us this long to focus on it. I think that somehow we had the zombie years with the Bushes and the Clintons and the Bushes again and Obama. We had sort of, you know, it was like, I understand why Nixon and Reagan were pro-China because it was seen as a counterweight to the Soviet. Union. But after 89, there should have been a reassessment. And Bush 41, he was two in cahoots with China.

The Clintons, you know, they campaigned to be tough on China, and then that changed about two years into the Clinton administration in 94. Bush 43, again, no pushback on China. And then Obama, you know, just nothing at all.

So the hour is very late. But I think there is sort of a recognition that, you know, we are We have very radically different views of the world, of the future of the world, and we need to take this stuff seriously on many levels. I think within, you know, one of the things I've criticized Google for is, again, it's sort of like a narrow thing, but in some ways, illustrated of sort of the insanity of Silicon Valley, where you sort of have to think of the crown jewels of Google's research are sort of, are its AI.

research and they sort of pulled out of a contract with the military, the Project Maven, where they were going to help the military with some of their AI technology. And then at the same time, they continue to transfer to various Chinese research institutes, which are, of course, linked to the Chinese military because everything in China is sort of one giant Borg-like thing. And this is, to my way of thinking, something that is absolutely extraordinary. It never happened in the Cold War that a company, the scale of Google, would not work with our government and would work with our geopolitical rivals. And I think, you know, I think this was like genuinely surprising to Google when I pointed

this out and that this was, you know, that maybe they were doing something wrong or something like this. If you don't mind my asking, when did you, how did you point it out? I gave a speech on the summer of last summer. And then, you know, there's always some sort of pushback. But I think the self-understanding at a place like Google is that it's cosmopolitan and it's universal and it's sort of multicultural and it's global. It's open to the whole world. And then I think the reality is that it's not cosmopolitan at all. It's incredibly parochial.

It's sort of designed to have the look and feel of an inward-facing college campus that's completely unaware and completely clueless about the rest of the world. Well, everything you've just said, though, really, to sum it up, is that those people who think that way, and certainly they think that way in most of the cultural elites in the West today, think along the same lines. And you could boil it down to the phrase anti-Americanism. Fundamentally, they have an animus toward the United States of America, toward what we have been, toward what we've represented. I mean, you saw that in Obama, to some extent, a kind of a sense of shame for our greatness rather than a pride in our greatness. And I feel like, you know, unless you're teaching people why America is great, what has made her great, how can you expect people at places like Google?

I mean, we should have assumed that. Why would we ever think that they would be proud to help America, whether it's, again, against China or just to help us in general. I wasn't surprised. I was horrified. Well, you'd expect, I mean, it is, after all, it is mainly an American company, and you'd think that there would be some sort of rational self-interest where they would help us even if they didn't really believe it.

But it's not like saying that Yale is an American university. They couldn't be more anti-American. They just can't say it. But their worldview is very hostile to what we think of as America. Yeah, I'm not going to disagree with you. I can't quite explain it. Maybe, maybe, you know, I think, I think, I think sort of the, the way in which Silicon Valley is sort of a one-party state. And, you know, sort of you can ask questions why it has gotten as extreme as it has.

And I think certainly a part of it links back to the university discussion where Silicon Valley has the most educated workforce in the country with the most largest percentage of people went to these top elite universities. And so somehow the Yale problem is a Silicon Valley problem at this point. They're the same thing. And from my point of view, you know, what's going on these places is not that people are getting educated. They're just getting brainwashed. Yeah. Well, there's no doubt about that. And I guess, so my question then sort of touches on Trump, it has thrilled me to see him after decades of presidents ignoring these things, really shamefully ignoring.

a great threat to see him deal with China and in a way seem to get that we need to deal with Google and others. Is that one of the reasons? Did you see any of that early on? Is that one of the reasons you supported Trump as publicly as you did? Well, I certainly think that the whole globalization project isn't quite working the way it's supposed to do anymore. And you can sort of think of globalization on, I always think of it as a lot of different ways to cut it, but one way to think of the globalization project is on four separate metrics. You have the movement of people, which is immigration policy. You have the movement of goods, which is trade. You have the movement of money, which is banking and capital markets,

and you have the movement of ideas, which is the Internet. And for a variety of reasons we can go into, we've sort of been investing. in this globalization project, hook, line, and sinker as a country for many decades. And there are sort of all sorts of ways it hasn't quite been working for quite some time in at least the first two and maybe all four of these. And that perhaps the thing that the United States should do is that it should become the center of the resistance to the one world state.

this is the country where the one of the old state stops. And, you know, I can understand that there were different, there were sort of, there were libertarian, there were conservative reasons to believe in supernational structures at different times. You know, Margaret Thatcher, as late as 1979, still was pro-EU because she thought that the bureaucracy in Brussels would help her smash the labor unions in the UK. And this is why Jeremy Corbyn today is still a closet Brexit. because he's still stuck in the 1970s, and he still thinks that these

supranational institutions are somehow capitalist or something like this. But we need to update our thinking, and we need to realize that 2020 is not 1980 or 1970, and that these sort of supernational institutions are actually, you know, they're not working in the interests of the United States. I think there was a new dealer conceit like this in the late 1940s, that you were going to have these global institutions that would help the United States. run the planet. And at this point, and it semi-worked in the 1950s. In the 1950s, even the United Nations was a pro-American institution. And then we can sort of date, you know, at what

point did these various institutions get hijacked and taken over? I think the UN was somewhere in the 1960s. You know, the WTO was probably, certainly by the time China entered in 2001, at this point, most of the, most of these supranational institutions are anti-American. And probably, instead of trying to work inside them, we should withdraw, we should resist, and the U.S. should be the center of the resistance of the one world state. I heartily agree. Let there be no doubt, big tech and the far left have joined forces to purge America of conservative views.

But even if you keep your accounts, you don't have to give big tech websites access to your data. That's why I choose to protect my online activity by using ExpressVPN. Ever wondered how free to access social media companies make all their money? Well, by tracking your searches, video history, and everything you click on, and then selling your valuable data. When you use ExpressVPN, you anonymize much of your online presence by hiding your IP address. That makes your activity more difficult to trace and sell to advertisers.

What's more, ExpressVPN encrypts 100% of your data to protect you from eavesdroppers on your network. And the ExpressVPN app couldn't be easier to use. you just tap one button on your phone or computer and you're protected. Take back your online privacy with the VPN I trust at ExpressVPN.com slash metaxus. By visiting my link, you'll get an extra three months of ExpressVPN service for free on a one-year package. Again, that's ExpressVPN.com slash Metaxus, E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N-S-V-P-N-S-M-T-S-S-M-Taxis to protect your data today. Hey folks, I've got to tell you a secret about relief factor that the father,

son owners, Pete and Seth Talbot have never made a big deal about, but I think it is a big deal. I really do. They sell the three-week quick start pack for just 1995 to anyone struggling from pain like neck, shoulder back hip or knee pain, 1995, about a dollar a day. But what they haven't broadcasted much is that every time they sell a three-week quick start, they lose money. In fact, they don't even break even until about four to five months after. It's a lot. It's a lot of, you keep ordering it. Friends, that's huge. People don't keep ordering Relief Factor month after month if it doesn't work. So, yes, Pete and Seth are literally on a mission to help as many people as possible deal with

their pain. They really do put their money where their mouths are. So if you're in pain from exercise or even just getting older, order the three-week quick start for 1995. Let's see if we can get you out of pain too. Go to Relieffactor.com. Relieffactor.com or call 800-500-384-800-584. Relieffactor.com. I use it.

it works. Investors seeking steady cash flow, ready to diversify. NRIA has grown to be one of the nation's leading specialists and offers 10% annualized monthly payouts with bonuses targeted at 18 to 21%. That's right. You could receive steady 10% return monthly payments with bonuses. As their slogan says, they specialize in realty investing done right. You can even use your 401k or IRA to invest. NRIA's 15-year track record and 1.2 billion in new construction development backs you. Learn how you can invest in this hard asset, real estate cash flow fund today and receive 10% annualized monthly payouts with bonuses. This is something savvy investors should research and consider.

Call now 800-700-5483. That's 800-700-5483 or visit nriA.net. An offer to buy or sell any security is only made by our private placement memorandum. Read it first. See us at NRIA.net. I'm looking through my notes. There's a quote that you did an interview with the New Yorker magazine in 2011, and you said that you believe, oh, here it is. You said, I believe Christianity to be true.

I don't feel a compelling need to convince other people of that. I think that somehow, at least somehow self-contradictory, because I think it's at the heart of believing that Christianity is true that you would feel that compulsion to convince other people of that. So what did you mean by that? Do you mean the same thing by that? Do you feel the same way as you did then, or can you expand on that idea? Well, maybe that was not as artfully worded as I would have.

worded that today. Were you afraid the New Yorker would call you out on your Christian? No, I think that in certain contexts, like in New York City, perhaps just saying that you're Christian is enough courage for people to have. It does enough. And so, you know, I think there was this whole, there was this whole doctrine where you were not supposed to sin against the Holy Spirit. If you denied the Holy Spirit, you couldn't be saying. There's all these debates in the third, fourth century about that. And, you know, we're probably not, it's probably not quite as bad as the, you know, Roman Empire under Diocletian or something like that.

But one gets the sense that it's, I tend to think it's a decent amount of courage to just say that you're Christian. And so maybe not in a small town in Alabama. Maybe you have to do more there. But if you're in Manhattan, and that's all you say in my book, that's plenty. Would you agree that by following up, by saying that you believe Christianity to be true. If that takes courage, would you say by saying I don't feel a compelling need to convince other people of that, that you have reduced the amount of courage?

Sure. I will concede I would not order it quite the same way today. Well, of course, this is 2011. We were just kids then, I know. But when you say you think Christianity is true, what do you mean by that, if I can ask a really open question? Well, I think it says, I think that, well, I believe in the resurrection of Christ. I think that, the bodily resurrection. The bodily resurrection of Christ.

So I think that's the central miracle. And I think that there is a way in which it gives us an understanding of the world. I think that it is, you know, there's, I studied under Renee Gerard, who's this professor at Stanford who, I think, was one of the greater Christian thinkers of the 20th century. And I think that there's an anthropology in Christianity. There's an understanding of human nature where we're in the image of God, we're memetic, we try to, you know, we need good role models. The only good role model for us is Christ. You know, all other role models lead to interpersonal conflicts of one sort or another. And so I think there are sort of a lot of things about it that are, they're true.

There's sort of ways we can offer an apologetic for it. But it is, on some level, I often think that, if you go back to the Old Testament, the Ten Commandments, I often think that the two most important ones are the first and last on the list, the First Commandment in the 10th. The first one is you should only worship God. You should look up to the one true God. And then the 10th one is you should not look around at your neighbor. You should not covet the things that belong to your neighbor. And when you do not have a transcendent religious belief,

you end up just looking around at other people. And I think that is sort of the problem with our sort of atheist liberal world, that it is just the madness of crowds. It's not reason. It's not rational. it's just mass insanity. Does that tie into your idea in the book? There's always a, you know,

I always think if you sort of contrast to evangelical Christian Bible study where the outward facing thing is often that people are somehow more moral or better and then the inward facing thing is that you're kind of sinful and that you have to, there's a lot of stuff you fix if you were in the Bible study and said,

you know, I figured out, everything's perfect in my life. You probably haven't quite gotten the message. But I, but whatever the sort of paradoxes and contradictions around that are, I think there's sort of a strange contrast with what I sort of describe as the atheist rationalist sort of group, where the outward-facing thing is that you're more rational than people, and the inward-facing thing is that you're not capable of thought at all. It is just spaghetti code, and the mind is not capable of thought. And to use the sort of tomistic medieval distinction, you know, the medievals believed in the weakness of

the will, but the power of the intellect, and the moderns believe in the power of the will, but the weakness of the intellect. And so I think, you know, yes, I think faith and reason are compatible. And in fact, in fact, when you get rid of faith, you end up in a world where there's no reason either. And that's, and we're living in a much less rational world than we lived in a hundred years ago. Do you, when you talk about, you know, coveting, in your book zero to one, you talk about how when you're trying

to build a company and when they get stuck on competing with Hertz, Avis, whatever it is. When they get stuck on competing, they lose sight of the larger goal, which is not just to defeat

the other guy, but to do something greater or whatever. Do those ideas tie together or am I just making that? Sure, sure. If you're If you're too focused on your enemies, your rivals, your competition, it becomes very hard to form a team that's going to work on some transcendent goal or transcendent purpose. Let there be no doubt, big tech and the far left have joined forces to purge America of conservative views. But even if you keep your accounts, you don't have to give big tech websites access to your data.

That's why I choose to protect my online activity by using ExpressVPN. Ever wondered how free to access social media companies make all their money? Well, by tracking your searches, video history and everything you click on and then selling your valuable data. When you use ExpressVPN, you anonymize much of your online presence by hiding your IP address. That makes your activity more difficult to trace and sell to advertisers. What's more, ExpressVPN encrypts 100% of your data. to protect you from eavesdroppers on your network. And the ExpressVPN app couldn't be easier to use.

You just tap one button on your phone or computer and you're protected. Take back your online privacy with the VPN I trust at ExpressVPN.com slash Metaxus. By visiting my link, you'll get an extra three months of ExpressVPN service for free on a one-year package. Again, that's ExpressVPN.com slash Metaxus, E-X-P-R-E-S-V-S-V-P-S-V-P-N. com slash metaxis express.com slash metaxus to protect your data today. Hey folks, I've got to tell you a secret about relief factor that the father, son, owners, Pete and Seth Talbot have never made a big deal about, but I think it is a

big deal. I really do. They sell the three-week quick start pack for just 1995 to anyone struggling from pain like neck, shoulder, back, hip, or knee pain, 1995, about a dollar a day. But what they haven't broadcasted much is that every time they sell a three-week quick start, they lose money. In fact, they don't even break even until about four to five months after. If you keep ordering it, friends, that's huge.

People don't keep ordering Relief Factor month after month if it doesn't work. So yes, Pete and Seth are literally on a mission to help as many people as possible deal with their pain. They really do put their money where their mouths are. So if you're in pain from exercise or even just getting older, order the three-week quick start for 1995. Let's see if we can get you out of pain too. Go to Relieffactor.com. Relieffactor.com or call 800, 500, 8300.3.

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An offer to buy or sell any security is only made by our private placement memorandum. Read it first. See us at nria.net. You know, if you categorize it in terms of the seven mortal sins of medieval Catholicism, I always think, you know, you can sort of debate which ones are the worst. You know, officially pride is supposed to be the worst. I always think you can use Gilligan's Island as sort of a mnemonic for this where the professor is pride and, you know, the skipper is anger and Mr. Howell is greed and Mrs. Howell is sloth. That's why she married Mr. Howell.

And, you know, ginger is lust. Gilligan's always eating food. He's gluttony. But Marianne? Mary Ann's envy. She wants to be Ginger. And I think, and I think, I think in some ways, that's the one I'm most worried about the Marianne's in our society. And that's, I believe that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, envy is, it is, it is, it is the one mortal sin that is still completely taboo.

all the others can be sort of turned into something positive. You know, greed is good, Gordon Gecko, whatever. There's sort of ways you can flip all the others around. You know, envy is the one we still don't talk about. And as a result, I suspect it's the one that's somehow still sort of pervasive and the most destructive. To bring things to a shallower level briefly, I should point out that in 2006, we did a Socrates in the city event around C.S. Lewis. And my friend, the film director, Norman Stone, is here. He had directed a film about C.S. Lewis.

And who showed up with a friend to that event, to my shock, but I have a picture, Tina Louise, who played Ginger? Just so we know that that really happened. That really happened. Well, you talk about in the book, and it's all related. I mean, it's interesting to me. But you say that we've given up our sense of wonder at secrets left to be discovered. So to go back to the beginning of the conversation, the idea that, you know, we could wipe out cancer or Alzheimer's or anything like that. So two questions.

First of all, why are you hopeful, if you are hopeful, and also related to the sense of wonder and the secrets left to be discovered? I think somehow, I would argue, and maybe this goes against this interiority idea of yours, but that God, faith in God, is an endlessly self-revealing secret. In other words, that as we pursue God, we are inescapably pursuing a kind of science because to know God is to become more and more grounded in the reality of his creation. and that those things are related. So the first question was, why are you hopeful if you think we've given up our sense of wonder

at secrets left to be discovered? Well, I think, I don't think we're at the end of history. I don't think we know everything. I certainly refuse to believe that everything has been discovered that's going to be discovered. And I think there are all sorts of contexts where we can still come to understand

understand new things. I think, you know, just to push back a little bit on, you know, sort of the, I don't think there's anything wrong with Christian superiority the way you describe it, but I always think it would be somewhat inadequate if it was just that and nothing more. You know, when I was an undergraduate, the sort of the campus crusade idea was still always, you know, God has a plan for you and for your life, and you could figure it out, but then it would translate into a vocation to something you were supposed to do. We don't talk like that anymore. As a culture, not just Christians. As Christians, we don't talk like that anymore. And we, it's sort of

much more sort of pop psychology, a la Jordan Peterson, or something like that. And I don't think, I think it has to be more than just psychological. You refer in the book, we've just got a couple minutes left here. But somebody called Peter Pan and hold that bus. I know you have to get out of here. But I just want to say that when you talk about this, I think of people like William Wilberforce, who saw the slave trade as an abomination and spent his life effectively because he was a Christian crusading against that. And that seems to me to sum up the kind of thing you're talking about. Now, our faith has to be translated into action if I had to sum it up.

But let's go in a slightly different direction with this. We sort of think about, like, what are the real challenges in our society? What is sort of, you know, at the core of, let's say, of atheist liberalism today? And I always think there are two different kinds of arguments. It's worth differentiating. And one is that is sort of a metaphysical set of arguments. God doesn't exist. The Bible is not true.

Sort of set of arguments like that. But there's a second, which is something like the Christians aren't Christian enough. And I think that we have to think of what we're struggling against as hyper-Christianity, ultra-Christianity, something like that. It is sort of an extreme deformation of it. And I think there are all sorts of forms that this takes. And so I think it's not that there's a shortage of morality. I think there's too much morality. I mean, Grata is so moral she wants to shoot everybody who doesn't, you know,

line them against the wall and shoot them if you're not as committed to climate change. Or if you think about sort of medieval Christianity, you know, the two most important attributes of Christ were his divinity. And the second most important one was that he was poor. Anyone that you saw was poor might be Christ in disguise. But then in the 19th century, you have people like Tolstoy or Marx that sort of pushed this in a hyper-Christian direction. And we had to do more than the Christians. We had to have a violent revolution.

We're going to do more for the poor in this world right away. And that's what I think the contrast always is. And so I think the Christian alternative to this is always to come back to see that we're in this context, that we're not, that, you know, it's only if you realize that you're in a context where things are pretty screwed up that you have any chance of moving beyond it. So, you know, it's, the two vignettes I always give on this are, you know, there's a, that I think of as sort of examples of the alternative to hyper-Christianity. What would the alternative look like? There's the, in the Ethiopian Coptic tradition, Pontius Pilate is seen as a saint. and the reason is that you can't expect more from a politician.

You can't expect more from government. It is, you know, because after all he almost listened to his wife and he had this dream and he had some misgivings and, you know, you just can't expect more. And it's not that if you had lived in the time of Christ, you would have done better, which was, you know, the cause for medieval anti-Semitism was, you know, you should go after the Jews because they'd killed Christ

if we'd lived in the time of Christ, we would have done better, or the modern liberals who say they would have been more tolerant in the Middle Ages, whereas, you know, it's the people who style themselves as being part of the resistance. That very fact often tells you that they would have just been collaborators because, you know, or something like that. And the second vignette on this that I always give is, you know, not Catholic, but I think there's something about the Catholic doctrine of the transubstantiation. that's always super humbling, where it's literally the body and blood of Christ,

and you are still no better than a cannibal, and it's a cannibalistic meal, and you're still, the problems of human nature, the problems of violence are this continuous with the past. And the only hope we have of doing better are to realize that we're still this contiguous with the entire human past. And when we think, we've set that behind us, we've transcended it, We're much better. We're hyper-Christian. We're communist. We're, you know, we're the tolerant people who would have been super tolerant in the middle ages.

That's when you're simply worse. I have to say, you're pretty sharp guy, Pete. I don't know what Anne was thinking about when she said you weren't. I think that everybody here would disagree would say that you're pretty sharp guy. And I think most of us would also. say and I, at the head of the pack, that we're just so grateful to you for coming here being a part of our little group called Socrates in the city. I know you didn't do it for the money. You're making all sorts of assumptions about how much money I have. Yeah, and that's, and no, no,

it's because how little we pay. That's what I meant. You shouldn't believe everything you'd on the internet. But you, uh, that was, I think actually that was my final question. It was, uh, given, given your tremendous wealth, how can you help me specifically? I'm going to leave it at that. I really will let you go, but not before I say again, how genuinely grateful I am, Peter, for much of what you do, but specifically for just coming here and being willing to, you know, submit to the petty humiliation of being introduced by me and then submit to the free-form nature

of the conversation. I'm just really, really grateful to you, and we're going to let you go. But before that, I'm going to give you a copy of my new books. Here you go. And I know Bonhofer was a little heady for you, and I just thought, this, maybe you'll like these. But we really do want to say thank you. So, folks, as Peter leaves, how about a rousing Socrates in the city? Hey, folks, you have all helped build My Pillow into the amazing company it is today. Now, Mike Lindell, the inventor and CEO of My Pillow, wants to give back to my listeners. You can get deep discounts on all MyPillow products if you go to MyPillow.com right now and click on the new radio listener specials. You can get deep discounts on My Pillows, Mattress Toppers, Robs, and so much more.

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