The Pete Quiñones Show - Pete Reads Ryszard Legutko's 'Demon in Democracy' Part 5

Episode Date: December 7, 2024

68 MinutesPG-13Pete continues a reading of a book that greatly influenced him, "The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies" by Ryszard Legutko.The Demon in DemocracyPete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Antelope Hill - Promo code "peteq" for 5% off - https://antelopehillpublishing.com/FoxnSons Coffee - Promo code "peter" for 18% off - https://www.foxnsons.com/Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's Substack Pete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

Ready for huge savings, we'll mark your calendars from November 28th to 30th because the Liddle Newbridge Warehouse Sale is back. We're talking thousands of your favourite Liddle items all reduced to clear. From home essentials to seasonal must-habs, when the doors open, the deals go fast. Come see for yourself. The Liddle New Bridge Warehouse Sale, 28th to 30th of November. Liddle, more to value. You catch them in the corner of your eye. distinctive by design they move you even before you drive the new cupra plug-in hybrid range for mentor

leon and terramar now with flexible pcp finance and trade-in boosters of up to 2000 euro search cupra and discover our latest offers cupra design that moves finance provided by way of higher purchase agreement from vows wagon financial services arland limited subject to lending criteria. Terms and conditions apply. Volkswagen Financial Services Ireland Limited. Trading as Cooper Financial Services is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Discover five-star luxury at Trump Dunbeg. Unwind in our luxurious spa. Savour sumptuous farm-fresh dining. Relax in our exquisite accommodations. Step outside and be captivated by the Wild Atlantic Surounds. Your five-star getaway, where every detail is designed with you in mind. Give the gift of a unique

experience this Christmas with vouchers from Trump Dunebeg. Search Trump Ireland gift vouchers. Trump on Doonbiog, Kush Farage. If you want to support the show and get the episodes early and add free, head on over to freeman beyond the wall.com forward slash support. I want to explain something right now. If you support me through Substack or Patreon, you have access to an RSS feed that you can plug into any podcatcher, including Apple, and you'll be able to listen to the episodes through there. If you support me through Subscrib Star, Gumroad, or on my website directly, I will send you a link where you can download the file, and you can listen to it any way you wish. I really appreciate the support everyone gives me. It keeps the show going. It allows me to

basically put out an episode every day now, and I'm not going to stop. I'm just going to accelerate. I think sometimes you see that I'm putting out two, even three a day. And, yeah, can't do it without you. So thank you for the support. Head on over to freeman beyond the wall.com forward slash support and do it there. Thank you. I want to welcome everyone back to part five of my reading of Rizard-Lugutko's The Demon in Democracy. see. Still going through some stuff with my um, my sinuses here. So, um, I apologize for any noises

and any, um, I'll try to edit out as much as I can. But, um, yep, still going through some stuff. A lot of people are. Most of the people I know are sick. I just having trouble breathing. So better off than most. So, um, a reminder. Thomas and I are movie reviews. You got a free man beyond the wall.com forward slash movies. Uh, the latest movie we did was Highlander. I'm sure a lot of you have seen Highlander and, yeah, we're watching comments on it. So let's get going here. We are up to chapter three, and the title of this episode, the title of this chapter is politics. Communism and liberal democracy are related by a similarly paradoxical approach to politics.

Both promised to reduce the role of politics in human life, yet induced politicization on a scale unknown in previous history. The most famous statements about the imminent twilight of politics come from the German ideology by Marx and Engels and Lenin's The State and Revolution. I actually read both of those books, read State and Revolution on the show. Marx and Engels imagined how in the world to come, man, liberated from the burden of politics, would hunt in the morning go fishing at noon and engaged in literary clericism after dinner. Lenin predicted a withering away of the state, which would eventually be limited to simple administrative functions. A famous thought attributed to him is that the administration of the communist state would be so simple that even a kitchen maid would be able to handle it.

All these stories about a stateless and depoliticized society were articulated in the language of communist eschatology, but in the communist reality, things look different. Neither the power-wielding politicians nor citizens trying to find their place in the communist state treated such declarations seriously. The state did not wither away, nor was it likely to do so. Citizens' lives were full of politics, and no one ever thought of spending their entire life in moving from poetry to fishing and back. And needless to say, the state's administration was not simply simplified to kitchen-made level. Such a non-political world did not exist, and there was no indication would ever arise. Rather, we witnessed an almost absolute domination by the Communist Party and consequently the growing intrusion of politics into the

smallest sectors of what was officially called the developed socialist society. Politics remained the sole domain of the party, primarily its highest authorities, above whom there were the Soviet leaders as the ultimate political sovereign. For the rest of the public, politics meant only an unceasing support for the Communist Party through participation in parades, demonstrations, mass meetings, and other. organized outburst of political enthusiasm. This was politics in a good sense, but politics in a bad sense was also possible. It meant challenging the decisions of the authorities as, for instance, was done by the Solidarity Movement in Poland. This type of medley in politics was condemned and often

punished by law. What he's describing is, you know, politics run by experts, the managerial regime. It's exactly what he's describing. And you can get, theoretically it's possible in the United States to elect a housewife to Congress or even the Senate. But is she going to stay a housewife? Her sensibility is going to remain that of the housewife, the person who runs the home, was communism without politics doctrinally possible at all? At least one important factor negates that possibility. The idea of the class struggle, which in the Marxian theory, was to account for the rate and direction of social change. The idea was simple and catchy with great potential for practical application, though on closer scrutiny, it could be easily refuted.

As we know, Marx and Engels began by formulating a fundamental class conflict with capitalism, which, according to them, played out between the capitalists representing the bourgeoisie and the proletariat representing the working class. The division of society institute classes seemed to the communists at some point a strikingly apt depiction of the capitalist world. But this moment soon passed, and the communist faced its first major trial. The original theory of the class struggle predicted a progressive antagonism between the two opposing groups, whereas what really happened was the reverse. Antagonism gradually decreased until at the end it virtually ceased to exist.

Some naturally parted with this theory, but others tried to save it by claiming that the disappearance of the fundamental antagonism was only temporary or better that it could never happen because as long as there is social injustice and as long as there are a capital or, and imperialists, the struggle continues, even if many people take it lightly or do not see it at all. Stalin's famous statement that the more the communist society has developed, the more fierce the class struggle becomes, though officially abandoned at some point, retained its validity later on in less sweeping versions. All crises of the communist system, process, riots, demonstrations, activities of the political dissonance, and others, and anything that slowed down the coming of the world revolution, and the victory of communism, seemed to confirm that hostile forces, both domestic and international, continued their war against the forces of progress.

Even today, despite the fact that the communist empire crumbled, an international brotherhood of Marxist has survived, whose votaries have never stopped preaching that the class struggle goes on, albeit in new costumes and with the use of new weapons. The communist eschatology promising the world without politics, was not, let it be noted, just a hoax perpetrated by ruthless politicians from Marx and his first international through Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin to today's socialist from all continents. The paradoxical concept of a socialist politics where everything is political, while everyone dreams of a world free from politics, has a much deeper source and accurately illustrates the

paradox of the modern mind. On the one hand, modern man believes that making everything political is the highest form of manifestation of his dominion. Politicization is therefore nothing but a consequence of the fact that everything that happens depends on his decision and that only his decision assigns meaning and value to things. Such was the dominant moral postulate, formulated by European philosophy from the beginning of modern times. It has to be expected that man's awareness of his growing power over life,

society, knowledge, morality, and everything else would be concordant with the increasing presence of politics. politics. More politics meant more instruments to make use of this power. So I want to go back to this. On the one hand, modern man believes that making everything political is the highest form of manifestation of his dominion. Politization is therefore nothing but a consequence of the fact that everything that happens depends on his decision. So people ask me sometimes often, what is my politics? what would I have the state do? And I mean, I really would have the state just there to protect the culture and what the culture is doing.

So that no one subverts it, so that no one gets in the way of it. Mostly subversives to look for subversives. And I don't want the politicization of everything. I don't want the politicization of business. I don't want the politicization of religion, faith. I don't want the politicization of anything cultural. More than anything, the state, in my opinion, should be there to make sure that that doesn't happen. That it just, whatever, what that group, a homogenous group of people who share common values and common goals, whatever their goals are, that's what the state's supposed to protect.

so that no one stops them from doing that. Stay out of the economy as much as possible. You don't need to, the state doesn't need to impose tariffs if people don't have the thought to, if they're of a culture that isn't going to send their manufacturing overseas, or to, you know, if the culture does decide that they want to import from, you know, different places, well, if it looks like the culture is suffering from that and that local manufacturing is suffering from that,

well, that needs to be dealt with it, dealt with by, you know, by the people. And the state only, the state would only step in when it has to, to decide the exception, really. My thinking is constantly evolving on this because it's so far, it's so different than what we've been raised with,

but it's what makes the most sense to me. So, continuing. But the rising tide, of politicization did not eliminate the dream of a world without politics. In fact, one could believe, as did many, the disappearance of politics would be not so much a conscious act of elimination as it would the results of politics ultimately fulfilling its function. The final withering way of the state was to be the ultimate triumph of human aspirations of power. Man's absolute control of everything that relates to him at the same time, the stage where the struggle for power becomes irrelevant,

and political activity comes to an end. Having reached this stage, man can finally do what was always his desire in the innermost striving of his nature, to create, to follow his dreams, to flourish. This paradox, however, contains a serious problem. If man reaches fulfillment by increasing his decision-making power, then it seems natural to assume that the desire for power lies deep within his nature. Why? Then should we expect that this desire will vanish in some future system that allows the unfettered realization of human aspirations and free expression of human nature. It's a great question. And it's one I ask the anarchists all the time. Okay, the state disappears. How are you going to stop somebody from starting another state? Especially if you're basing it,

if you're basing your whole system off of non-aggression. I've literally been told recently through vigilanceism. How long does that last before a group needs to come together and decide who decides the exception? Ready for huge savings? We'll mark your calendars from November 28 to 30th, because the Liddle Newbridge Warehouse sale is back. We're talking thousands of your favorite Liddle items, all reduced to clear. From home essentials to seasonal must-habs, when the doors open, the deals go fast. Come see for yourself. The Liddle New Brits. warehouse sale, 28th to 30th of November. Lidl, more to value.

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by the Wild Atlantic Surounds, your five-star getaway, where every detail is designed with you in mind. Give the gift of a unique experience this Christmas with vouchers from Trump-Dunbeg. Search Trump-Ireland gift vouchers. Trump on Dunbiog, Kush Faragea. Why would a revolutionary who led the class struggle

against the enemy fought against exploitation and saw conflict in every part of life at some point turn into an angler and an art critic indifferent to the issue of the distribution of power, willingly passing it on to a kitchen made, was the power that absorbed him for so many centuries only a factor that resulted from accidental circumstances, a factor that in other circumstances might never have played any role. Two.

The paradox reveals itself to be much stronger in liberal democracy, which, like communism, had a tremendous share in the process of politicizing modern society while at the same time proclaiming loudly that it was pushing humanity to a politics-free world. How modern man came to this stage as a somewhat complicated story, primarily because liberalism and democracy, taken separately, had different approaches to politics. For a long time, liberalism was believed to be a theory describing human activity as largely non-political, and a human individual as a private person, not a citizen. A standard illustrator of this view is, of course, John Locke, particularly his concept of ownership and labor. In a

his view, once the state is created, as a result of a free contract, its main duty is to defend property, whose owners expanded through work. This, in turn, should strengthen their links with the state, which makes the process of acquisition possible. You know, from what I just said before, sounds great, right? Among the thinkers who, so to speak, privatize a citizen, one should also mention Benjamin Constant. In its future, famous lecture about the difference between the freedom of the ancients and that of the moderns, he argued that to participate in public life, which was the freedom enjoyed by the ancients, ceased to be a priority in our time and had been supplanted by the individual freedom to pursue

private goals. In other words, and Constant wrote this openly, although later he somewhat modified his position, people should elect their representatives to political institutions in order for their representatives to provide them with the freedom to take care of private matters. politics and the state are in the hands of a small service people replaced and controlled by the elections, while the rest of the people have as little to do with politics as possible. They keep their peace of mind devoting their time to running their businesses, increasing their wealth and property, enjoying their family lives, and pursuing personal passions and interests.

This is very much what John C. Calhoun was talking about in his disposition on government. But what was the main thing that liberalism, and modernism leaves out. It is a people with common goals, common culture, and who none of them are thinking about killing each other just because they're in competition for something. The kind of people who come together,

for lack of a better term, the common good. But that common good is like a family. A family should come, when a family comes together for the common good, we don't call it communism or something like. that. Well, the same thing has to do with a culture. You can find people, when Sweden decided to leave laissez-faire behind and become a gigantic welfare state, you can find people all over the place throughout the culture who complained about that, who were like, well, this isn't going to work

economically, economists especially. But even with economic problems, there really weren't people going to war with each other over this and all these interest groups who were interfighting and because it was a monocultural society. If everyone's seventh and eighth cousins, it's a lot better off than if you're importing the third world. And I mean, really, the third world doesn't even exist anymore. You're just basically importing people from the world where, the part of the world where they can't do for themselves.

They have to come here. They have to find a place where people can do for themselves and people can create and people can invent and people can innovate because they can't. And sure, if you have a gigantic welfare estate, which I'm not saying you have to have, you're going to have economic problems. But they can be the war that you see amongst the people is mitigated by the fact that you're, maybe most of these people are related in some distant way. Again, monocultural. But the hypothesis that a liberal man is a non-political animal, however probably, however probable it may sound, is false and has never been true. As liberalism progressed, the people who did not withdraw from politics, much less abolish it, but on the contrary, continued to empower it with prerogatives

it had never had before. This does not mean that Locke and Constant made an erroneous diagnosis of modern society when they stressed the growing importance of private matters. Indeed, these matters soon became the major object of interest of politics and thinkers. But this did not result at all in depolitization. The majority of private people did not divest themselves of political passions and whatever private pleasures they pursued, these goals did not change the inherently political character of a modern society. And it is easy to understand why. Liberalism is primarily a doctrine of power, both self-reaching, and other regarding, to aim to limit the power of other agents, and at the same time grants enormous prerogatives for itself. In a sense, it is a super theory of society, logically prior

to end, by its own declaration of self-importance, higher than any other. It attributes to itself the right to be more general, more spacious, and more universal than any of its rivals. Its goal is, as the liberals say, to create a general framework within which others will be able to cooperate. The liberals will never voluntarily give up this admittedly highest of political prerogatives to anyone and will never agree to share it. Why this extraordinary hubris in the belief that liberalism should play the main, in matter of fact, the only organizing role in society? Until recently, the liberals have been saying probably in good faith that they are doctrinally transparent because not only do they not exclude anyone from the great society, but they want to include everyone in it. To use an analogy, they think they are like those who write the rules of the road and at the same time are responsible for directing traffic. They aim to create a system that will be most efficient and most convenient to a large number of vehicles, much higher than that of the other road builders or traffic wardens. According to what they have claimed, they are the only ones who can create such a system because only they are neutral, their sole interest being to secure freedom for each and every agent. There is no neutrality.

There's no such thing as neutrality. You're not neutral when it comes to your family. This noble goal, however, has its other side, usually ignored by liberals who claim to be transparent. Not only do these liberals position themselves above the others, but they always demand more power, essentially. from making more traffic rules and hiring more traffic wardens, being almost never satisfied with the power they have. Not only do they want to control the mechanisms of the great society, but also those of all its parts, not only what is general, but also specifics, not only human actions, but human thoughts as well. The original message, we will create only a framework

for a society at large, and you will be able to do what you want within it, is rapidly turning into increasingly detailed message such as, we will only create frameworks and education in the family and community life, and you will be able to do what you want within them later. But even this is not enough. We will only create a framework at this school, and you will be able to do what you want within it later. Then the class follows the school and so on and so forth.

Few liberals claim to be transparent nowadays. Most of them openly stand for a specific worldview, which they believe to be the most adequate of and for modern times, formulated in opposition to other world views and held to be uncompromisingly superior to them. They no longer hide themselves into the formula we are creating only a general framework, but fight hard for their power over minds and institutions. The spirit of partisanship should not be surprising, as liberalism has always had a strong sense of the enemy,

a direct consequence of its dualistic perception of the world. After all, liberalism is more about political struggle with non-liberal adversarial, than deliberation with them. This whole thing when you see classical liberals, quote-unquote, like the James Lindsay's of the world, they will tell you that the reason they've come up with this term woke right is because the people they're calling woke right are looking at the world through friend and enemy

while they're accusing you of being the enemy, accusing the woke right while they create a term called woke right to describe their enemy, the enemy of liberalism. So when it all comes down to it, you go back to Carl Schmidt. All politics is friend and enemy. And liberalism looks at anything that isn't liberal as the enemy. All those such words is dialogue and plural. pluralism appear among its favorite motifs, as does tolerance and other similarly hospitable notions.

This overtly generous rhetorical orchestration covers up something entirely different. In its essence, liberalism is unabashedly aggressive because it is determined to hunt down all non-liberal agents and ideas, which it treats as a threat to itself into humanity. I'm perfectly fine with hunting down, as I said before, to keep subversives out. of your community. But that's not all humanity. That's your community. That's people of like mind. That's people who share values. If they come in and they start trying to screw with it, you know, Hans Herman Hoppet talks about his covenant communities, where you can have a world of covenant communities, where you can have a communist community over there and a liberal community over here,

and you have a, you know, a narco-capitalist community over here. Well, in that community, as soon as somebody, starts preaching communism in his anarcho-capitalist community, their goal is to seek to correct that person, and then if that person doesn't correct, you kick him out. Okay. It's exactly what I'm talking about. The only thing is that the anarcho-capitalist thinks that they're taking the moral high ground because they don't have a state or monopoly on power in order to do it, and I'm saying that there will always be a state monopoly on power. Ready for huge savings? We'll mark your calendars from November 28 to 30th

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Liddle, more to value. You catch them in the corner of your eye, distinctive by design they move you even before you drive the new cupra plug-in hybrid range for mentor leon and terramar now with flexible pcp finance and trade-in boosters of up to 2000 euro search cupra and discover our latest offers cupra design that moves finance provided by way of higher purchase agreement from vows wagon financial services arland limited subject to lending criteria. Terms and conditions apply. Volkswagen Financial Services Ireland Limited. Trading as Cooper Financial Services is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Discover five-star

luxury at Trump Dunbeg. Unwind in our luxurious spa. Savour sumptuous farm-fresh dining. Relax in our exquisite accommodations. Step outside and be captivated by the Wild Atlantic Surounds. Your five-star getaway, where every detail is designed with you in mind. Give the gift of a unique experience this Christmas with vouchers from Trump Dunebeg. Search Trump Ireland gift vouchers. Trump on Dunebiog, Kosh Farage. It's just a matter of what their purpose is. The organizing principle of liberalism, as in all other philosophies aiming to change the world radically, is therefore dualism, not pluralism. The modern stalwart of liberalism, Isaiah Berlin, was absolutely faithful to the liberal spirit when he said,

said that the history of human thought could be viewed as a conflict between pluralism and monism, and that liberalism represents the former, whereas everything that is not liberal represents the latter. This opinion, fairly typical, reveals the absurdity of the liberal claim. First, Berlin and other liberal-minded thinkers put duality, monism versus pluralism, closed versus open, freedom versus authority, tolerant versus autocratic, as the primary division, and by doing so, had to assume that whoever supports pluralism must be for dualism. It is like saying that anyone who is for diversity must see the world dichotomously. This leads to an even more bizarre conclusion that whoever supports pluralism must favor liberalism,

which means that anyone who wants to recognize the multiplicity of social arrangements and the diversity of human experience, can accept only one philosophical and political, one philosophical and political philosophy. Given in the course of human history, of human thought, there were dozens of different profoundly non-liberal philosophies, many of them of great intellectual value. Such a conclusion can only be compared with Henry Ford's famous statement about the Model T. In defense of pluralism, we give people the right to choose any available philosophy provided that they choose liberalism. I believe the Henry Ford quote about Model T is that it comes, you can get it in any color as long as it's black, something like that, I believe. Berlin himself a superbly educated man knew very well and admitted quite frankly that the most important and most valuable fruits of Western philosophy were monastic, monastic in nature.

The consequence of this was inescapable, virtually everything intellectually intriguing, that the Western mind produced in the field of philosophy had to be classified not only as monistic, but also as non-liberal. Therefore, if we take Berlin's view seriously and disregard all monistic theories of the entire history of human thought, we would be left with very little. The effect of this supposed liberal pluralism would be a gigantic purge of Western philosophy, bringing in an inevitable degradation of the human mind, which it was. And the quote from Henry Ford, is at the bottom right here. I'll give customers any color they want so long as it's black. The communists, who were the first to use and with much success, the dualistic perspective

to fight their enemies, made us accustomed to a certain practice of philosophical polemic. They evaluated the arguments of their adversaries in the light of political consequences. The arguments were to be rejected, not necessarily because of their demonstrated spuriousness, but because of their political implications for communism. one accepted what served the movement's cause, and one rejected what hindered its construction. Lenin, of course, made this practice his only method of argumentation. Every fact thought idea book or person was looked at from one and only one perspective, whether they were used full for or detrimental to Russian communism.

The liberals adopted a similar practice, though probably they would not find the adjective pleasing. When faced with a statement or an opinion or an idea, the first and most important question they ask is whether any of these may be dangerous, that is, whether they may potentially contradict liberal assumptions. Their favorite version of this approach is a slippery slope argument. It amounts to the following. If one can indicate that this or that idea may sooner or later lead to some harmful practice, the idea should be discarded as politically contaminated. I don't think there's any problem. I mean, I think we see that the slippery slope. argument works, or some call it a fallacy. I mean, I think history shows it's real,

maybe not in the way the slippery slope fallacy is described, but in cause and effect. Because most theoretical claims or statements contain an element of unity, which the liberals would call monism, or imply a hierarchy, which the liberals would call domination, these claims and statements can be interpreted as directed or indirect encouragements to some form a political authoritarianism and immediately become politically suspect. What I will say is when I say I'm calling for a state that the perfect state would be one that protects a culture. I'm also talking about hierarchy. I'm talking about the people from within in that culture who have a stake in that culture surviving. I'm talking about a natural hierarchy. I'm talking about natural elites.

talking about an aristocracy. To give an example taken from Berlin, several philosophers made a distinction between superior and inferior parts of the soul. Whether the statement is true or false is of little importance, what is important is that it is politically dangerous because it is easy to imagine a group, a party, a community, or a church considering itself to represent the superior part of the soul

and using coercion against another group, party, community, or church, to which it will ascribe the role of a representative of the inferior part of the soul. This kind of argument, outrageous, let us admit it, is considered by the liberals to be decisive, and it serves them to disparage opponents by suggesting that by making seemingly harmless theoretical statements, they open the gates to totalitarianism, fascism, inquisition, torture, Hitler, and various other horrors. Yeah, making statements about saying, they would have you, there are many who would have you say that by stating that trans, that there are no trans children.

I saw that statement on Twitter the other day. Someone just said there are no, there's no such thing as a trans child. There are some, especially in the liberal camp and the progressive camp, which is basically the same thing, that that just leads us down the road to, you know, saying that, you know, black people have no agency. things like that. Surprisingly, this essentially intolerant and doctrinaire side has been overlooked, and liberalism achieved a remarkable success in conquering people's minds. In the past few decades, the liberals and the liberal Democrats have managed to silence and marginalize nearly all alternatives

and all non-liberal views of political order. Liberalism monopolized people's minds to an extent that would put to shame the theorists of socialism in the communist countries, who, after all, had much richer resources at their disposal. Think about what, you know, if you listen to Thomas, Thomas talks about the fact that one of the reasons why it would have been preferable to live in East Germany than to live in West Germany is that, you know, if you're under an East German regime,

if you're under a totalitarian regime, they may just, you know, steal, take your life. On the other side of that divide, you had people who were seeking to racially cleanse you, that you're not a German anymore, you're not a Frenchman anymore, you're not this, you're not who your ancestors were. We all have to be this one homogenous thing, which is more cruel, which is more cruel. Think about it, if you, if you're a family man and you have five kids and they kill you, your family lives on. They can still push forth your family

history, your culture, who you are, who you were. over on the other side, if you have five kids and you're sending them to school and they're teaching them that, you know, the African migrant who's being forced, integrated into your community is no different than you and that you're all just humans and, you know, family doesn't matter. It's all that matters is, um, this homogenous nothing where no one has a history anymore. one has a culture anymore. I mean, one is certainly worse. Unfortunately, a lot of us have been brainwashed into believing that death is worse than this basically racial cleansing that they're doing. In democracy, politics was perceived in a different way. De-politicization was not and could not be an ultimate goal. Democracy is the most political of all known regimes. None other engages so many people in civic responsibilities, and none other depends so much on them for its own existence. If the number of participating citizens decreases, the democracy is believed to be falling

into a state of crisis and possible delegitimization. If the democratic system is upheld by the activity of a minority, not a majority, it ceases, theoretically at least, to be democratic in the entire political mechanism breaks down. The democratic politicization is of a special kind being energized by the spirit of partisanship. Modern democracies function on the assumption that the driving force in politics is society's opportunity to choose a program according to which the country should be governed. These programs are presented to the public by a variety of political parties, and the public, though through a process of election, selects a party or a group of parties and gives their representatives the mandate to implement the chosen program. As Joseph Schumpeter accurately wrote,

Democracy is a contest organized periodically by the public to select their representatives. Democratic society is thus political out of necessity because through elections, it automatically gets involved in the struggle for power. Moreover, this involvement is a civic duty, which the people can renounce only at the price of destroying democracy. You know, if you don't vote, you can't complain, right? The political mechanism seems almost perfect. Its advantages are manifold. It protects the people from uncontrolled power and provides a right to participate in politics.

It secures a smooth transition of power from one political group to another. It offers a wide range of competing programs from which the voters can choose. It keeps the losing parties within the system as they may hope for success in the next election. Of course, in reality, the democratic system is strongly deviated from this model in one or more aspects, but it cannot be denied that the mechanism proved formidably efficient in stabilizing the process of transferring power through elections. The emergence of liberal democracy strengthened the bad sides rather than the good sides of the democratic model. The system soon began to limit the offer of the party programs from which the voters were to choose. Of course, the idea that democracy is a system where we, the voters, have brought offerings to,

choose from, like the customers in a department store, responding to the multiplicity of political preferences rationally examined by us's individuals and groups, never accorded with the facts. A society might be large, but it needs to be diversified. It need not be diversified. As early as the Athenian democracy, it was discovered that the spectacularly noisy conflicts of the bickering political groups did not change the herd-like nature of the demos. And that whatever the initial diversity, democratic tendencies steer society towards some kind of uniformity. Tocqueville, Mill, and a host of others made a similar argument about the modern representative democracies. This phenomenon should not be surprising, giving the nature of the democratic man,

a rather uninspired being, not much interested in the world around him, closed within his own prejudices and amenable to impulses of mimicry. Democracies have therefore always been threatened by and pushed into uniformity. The mechanism that formed the uniformity of aesthetic tastes of fashion and with its powerful, often absurd and yet irresistible waves, could be and in fact has been easily extended to the domain of political opinion. True, the party system, which legitimized political divergences, served to counteract this tendency. For this reason, representative democracy was considered superior to direct democracy as it was thought to have the tools with which groups could defend their political identity against other groups with different identities.

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Terms and conditions apply. Volkswagen Financial Services Ireland Limited, trading as Cooper Financial Services is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. And now this is over the nation-hamsira. It's leargoal gul of Gey and not yet gree in Aundun, and leant of Gaela to Gael Fadden. In Ergird, we're taking tour tauchy in one-ha-le-ha, with funnivine.

Vunae to do do you have done on the language to do the entire

people and people tariff in the tachachew there are a cooct

you are more in Erguit Pongue Pongue Y. Why should you have

to do that? There are communities all over this country that are basically

monocultural yet they are threatened by the vote of somebody 3,000

miles away. Unfortunately, since the transformation of democracy into a liberal democracy, the spectrum of political acceptability has been distinctly limited. Liberal democracy has created its own orthodoxy, which causes it to become less of a forum for articulating positions, and agreeing on actions then, to a much higher extent, a political mechanism for the selection of people, organizations, and ideas in line with the orthodoxy. This phenomenon can be seen, especially in Europe where in the past few decades, there have been a major ideological reprochement of the right and left-wing parties. This resulted in the

formation of what is called the political mainstream, which includes socialists, Christian Democrats, the Greens, Social Democrats, Liberals, and even conservatives. The mainstream that runs in Europe today is tilted far more to the left than to the right. Within it, the left has made a slight shift to the right in some matters, mostly economic, and made a further move to the left in other matters, mostly moral, while the right-wing movement shifts to the left was huge. Such a process has its roots in the past, even quite distant, but undoubtedly the single most decisive direct impact came from what happened throughout the Western world in the 1960s. It was then that a massive political revolution broke out and brought the left wing to dominant

position. If you go back and you check out my episode with Adam from myth of the 20th century where we talk about what's his name, Kerry Bolton's new book on the Revolution of 1968, this wasn't an organic revolution, political revolution. This was an elite revolution to change the political dynamics and the cultural dynamics of the country and of the West, because it happened in every country. much like the revolutions of 1848, it happened in every country. It was then that a massive political revolution broke out and brought the left wing to a dominant position.

The language of the revolution was a medley of anarchist slogans, a Marxist rhetoric of class struggle, and the overthrowing of capitalism, and a liberal language of rights, emancipation, and discrimination. Capitalism in the state were the main targets, but university schools, family law, and social wars were attacked with equal vehemence. The revolution broke out unexpectedly, considering the fact that the Western societies were then at a peak of economic prosperity and democratic stability. To be sure, there existed factors that tarnished this rosy picture and substantially changed the mood of the public, the European power's stormy process of decolonization,

America's entanglement in the Vietnam War, and political awakening of the black population. The Revolution of the 60s was a success because much of what the revolutionaries proclaimed was met with widespread sympathy. Many thought, and apparently they were right, that Europe, indeed the entire West, had been for a long time harboring the ideas that provided a fertile soil for left-wing movements of the kind that shook the world in the 60s. you know, I always say that if the National Socialists hadn't burned a lot of the research from the Institute for Sex in Weimar, which was doing all this trans stuff, we could have seen this trans movement in the 60s being pushed as hard as it has been. I know everything wasn't destroyed, and there was still a lot of research there, but I've read a lot of articles. by them, and they could be lying because, I mean, they're just liars, saying that burning sent them back decades. Among the ideas that defined the West modern identity shaped its image of the future and provided

fuel for revolutions was first and foremost the idea of equality. As Francois Farre rightly wrote, equality gave the West the main moral impulse and determined the direction in which the political imagination pushed to fighters for a better world. The Paramount status of equality clearly favored the left much more than the political right. Not only was there a tremendous shift to the left in politics, but this shift was sanctioned, almost naturally and without much resistance from intellectuals and politicians, as the spoils of political progress. A similar shift occurred in the United States, although for specifically American reasons, a process that has taken place there in the years since is more complex, and the left

still meets with a major counteroffensive. Therefore, in America, we can still see a culture war continuing unresolved for several decades, although the forces of the left seem to prevail gradually over those of the right. Europe has not had such a war, and it is highly unlikely it will break out in the foreseeable future, as there is no social force of any consequence that could launch an offensive against the cultural monopoly of the left. It was this formation of a broad political consensus in the same. it generated a major influence on the character of the social and institutional changes in Europe.

Although the multi-party mechanism continued to induce the parties to assert their own distinct identities against their opponents, the overall degree of diversification conspicuously declined. From that time, it has been customary to talk of mainstream politics and mainstream parties. This disqualifying word has become an essential ingredient of today's political discourse and denotes a large cross-party area of ideas, objectives, and programs shared by the major political forces. The tricky side of mainstream politics is that it does not tolerate any political tributaries and denies that they should have any legitimate existence. Those outside the mainstream are believed to be either Mavericks and as such not deserving to be treated seriously or fascists

who should be politically eliminated. When I was talking earlier about the difference between like West Germany, East Germany. Just to give you an example, he's talking about how everything has been liberalized over there. In Germany, the towns that were behind the Iron Curtain right now are, would probably be, they're considered backwards compared to the towns that were on the west side. They're much more conservative. Why?

They were protected from all this stuff. They didn't go through a sense. So they're actually way more conservative than towns in historical West Germany, the Bundes Republic. This process marked the historical change not sufficiently, to my mind, noted and examined. The liberal democratic system, until then, a loose procedural device with two major elements, a multi-party mechanism and universal suffrage, turned into a petrified set of ideas and specific political goals.

Basically, there are only two acceptable ways of thinking, and really it's only one acceptable way of thinking with certain allowed deviations. That's how you get a Democrat and a Republican Party. But everybody votes for money for Ukraine. Everybody votes for money for Israel. Moreover, those ideas and goals acquired a strong radical coloring as a result of the 1960s revolution which profoundly transformed Western societies. The revolution was carried out under the banner of the liberation of various oppressed groups, those who wanted to be liberated as well as

those who never considered themselves oppressed. But once the liberal democratic institutions assimilated these ideas and goals and were forced to re-assume that their task was to continue this process of liberation through imposing appropriate legal measures and introducing new social norms, they unleashed a rapidly increasing politicization that could not be stopped without rejecting the basic assumption. Whoever dared to doubt that liberal democracy should work for the emancipation of ever new groups was immediately liable to a charge of being an enemy of liberal democracy as such. What happened as soon as people started pointing out that Haitians had taken over Springfield, Missouri, or Springfield, Ohio?

or that they were being shipped into Silicon, Alabama. These became the new groups that needed to be protected. They became victims of people pointing out that they were there. The revolution that shook the Western world in the 60s did not happen at the time and in the societies of stifling authoritarianism, but on the contrary, in an era and in the countries where the democratic system was quite firmly established. and yet the rebels were so unhappy with it that they chose to reject it in most inflammatory ways,

and with it they challenged the existing party system, which, as they claimed, differentiated the political spectrum only superficially preserving the status quo. This status quo and this arrangement had thus to be broken, but not within the system, but from outside it, through action direct. The party system had to capitulate to the will of the people, or rather to the movement that quite arbitrarily assumed the role of the will of the people. The revolution was not a triumph of classical democracy, but an explosion of livid impatience directed as a discipline of the democratic system.

Let me go back to that. You have a movement that quite arbitrarily assumed the role of the will of the people. The will of people in the United States right now is to fix the economy, to deport immigrants to close the borders, and many other things that Donald Trump has said that he is going to do he has adopted the will of the people

and if he doesn't do that that he quite arbitrarily assumed the role of the will of the people ready for huge savings we'll mark your calendars from November 28th to 30th because the Liddle Newbridge Warehouse Sale is back we're talking thousands of your favorite Liddle items

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from Volkswagen Financial Services Ireland Limited Subject to lending criteria Terms and conditions apply Volkswagen Financial Services Ireland Limited Trading as Cooper Financial Services is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland And now this is over the nation of hamshy. It's leargoal gilege, and not a greeing in Aundun,

and leant of gaolah to give a father gaul to deirin. In Ergrid, we're dig tour chawcci in Woonaha with Funevae. There's ozchrotho

lecturers onus, and as per cente to one tachey, and people tariff in one tachee. There's error of cooctuagued,

I'll am more in Ergred Pongahee. Politics. It became necessary to fight for a democracy that was more and more democratic as well as more and more liberal, a democracy liberated once and for all from all conservative burdens, a democracy that was certain to bring specific laws, norms, and mindsets. And if it felt short of these aims in any respect, it was generally understood that the system could be manipulated in order to bring what each

dedicated liberal Democrat considered to be an indisputable benefit. Within a short period of time, Europeans changed their perception of democratic politics and became convinced that it was about modernization, progress, pluralism, tolerance, and other sacred aims, which were to be carried out regardless of what the voters decided during elections. Four. The crowning achievement of these changes in the perception of democratic politics was the European Union, which, after the Treaty of Maastricht, boldly stepped into a new political role, surpassing everything that could be seen so far in the national states. Earlier forms of European integration were the work of politicians who still had a living and painful memory of the previous war in all its horrors.

By launching a plan for integration, these politicians reacted to the experience of the war with its hitherto unknown forms of depravity of human nature and its uncontrolled explosion of political madness. By any standard, they were remarkable people by virtue of their lives and education. deeply indebted to what was best in Western culture, particularly its Christian and classical heritage. While it is true that what they wrote about the future of Europe was sometimes too naive and unnecessarily idealistic, their writing still impress us with the political seriousness and the gravity of thought that only the best traditions of European culture could inspire. Today, it is difficult to find public figures of similar intellectual and spiritual stature. When one compares to founding fathers of integration with the current EU leaders, one can not resist an impression that the former belonged to a different world of a long time past,

hardly recognizable today. The memory of the war experience that gave birth to the idea of integration war itself out with time, but the passage of time was not the only, or even the decisive factor. The war was soon forgotten in Western European countries, which, after its completion, were almost immediately caught in the turmoil of decolonization that reoriented the consciousness of the population, and then came the revolution of the 60s. For the majority, of Europeans today, World War II is a closed stage of history, both in terms of individual human biography and because it has been judged to belong to the world of the past with no connection to the present. On the other hand, the Revolution of the 60s is still a living

experience not only in the minds of old men remembering their rebellious youth, but also because its social mythology is still eagerly received and relived by the younger generation. At some point, the 68 generation finally laid their hands on European integration. The difference between the founding fathers and their successors is enormous. The former were, like their philosophical predecessors from Hugo Grosius to Kant, seekers of perpetual peace. In their moments of sentimental nostalgia, they spoke fondly of a European Brotherhood of Nations, thus resembling the former visionaries of European spiritual unity. Their successors who took over the work of integration, created the Union and Maastodic, and have been ruling it since, no longer talk about

peace or no longer talk about peace or evoke a shared European heritage, but seek to construct a federal superstate to create a European demos and a new European man. They are extraordinarily self-confident and arrogant and have no particular respect for the heritage they do not know and do not intend to learn about. They are bureaucrats and apparatchiks rather than visionaries and statesmen. They were not shaped by the European culture of which they have limited knowledge and toward which they do not bear warm feelings. The European Union reflects the order in the spirit of liberal democracy in its most degenerate version. If the strongest features a democracy where the elections and its built-in possibility of changing governments and its programs,

the European Union has done everything possible to reduce this possibility to the minimum. There are no clear mechanisms for the transmission of power and no institutionalized way for the voters to affect the direction in which the EU should go. The EU Parliament does not create the government and does not have much power. Moreover, it is probable that the only parliamentary body in the world, not to mention some of the communist and authoritarian regimes, where there is no opposition. Regardless of who wins the elections, the European Parliament's key decisions are made by the same political cartel and the same policy has been continued for years. European government, or rather something that is the equivalent of the government, i.e. the European

Commission did not arise as a result of a decision by the voting electorate but is completely independent of the voters' will. The main functions in the European Union are conducted by people who are not elected and cannot be recalled by voters, who have absolutely no effect of political tools. How then, in times of such brazen and pervasive democratic rhetoric could such an undemocratic institution be created? Contrary to appearances, answering this question is quite easy if one remembers what was said above. The European Union was not deliberately created as an anti-democratic system to countervail the weaknesses of democracy, but on the contrary, as a hyper-democratic or hyper-liberal democratic project. At least since the time of Mossadegh, it has been in the hands of

politicians and bureaucrats who, whatever their party affiliation, consider themselves to be the model liberal Democrats ready to convert the whole of Europe and even the whole world to liberal democracy. Consequently, European politicians do not see any problem in singing the praises of liberal democracy while failing to tolerate any deviation from the orthodoxy of the mainstream, believing themselves to be the embodiment, the quintessence, and the, I can say that word when I'm not reading it, and the fundamental guarantee of the liberal democratic order, they consider it obvious that all those who think differently and challenge their, authority must be enemies of the order that fighting them is a just defense.

Let me read that again. Believing themselves to be the embodiment of quintessence, quintessence, and the fundamental guarantee of the liberal democratic order, they consider it obvious that all those who think differently and challenge their authority must be enemies of the order and that fighting them is just defense. equally it is clear to them that the parliament, where the same cartel has ruled for years and will still rule unopposed for years to come, is a more perfect political construction than national parliaments where there is usually an opposition, sometimes even from outside the mainstream, which in the next election has an opportunity to win a majority of seats, create a government and change the direction of the policy to a greater or lesser extent. In the EU, a change in policy is always regarded as disaster of unimaginable proportions. To the European politicians, the fact that the actual direction of EU policy is created by people who do not have an electoral mandate is of no particular importance, because, as they probably assume, these people were selected and anointed by the elite mainstream.

European politicians thus fall victims of the same self-mistification as other groups who identified their own behavior with the views attributed. to them. They are motivated by a strong belief that they represent the system, which, as is commonly believe, respect diversity, choice, and pluralism, and this allows them to believe that their rule, albeit still performed by the same majority, and having only a loose relationship with the preferences of the voter, is also the rule that respects diversity, choice, and pluralism. So why risk a good thing? Why over-rely on the decision of voters? Referendum, an old traditional solution of direct democracy, which has serious flaws but is sometimes necessary, has for some time now not enjoyed the respect of the EU mainstream. Forcing the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon

without a referendum and then playing a pretty perfidious game with the Irish referendum are illustrative examples of these politics. Recently, Greece was prevented from holding a referendum on the issues related to its financial crisis. On the other hand, if it is convenient, the EU blasts the government it dislikes for failing to adopt a new constitution by referendum. Its attack for this reason on Hungary was, of course, outrageous, given the deceitful attempts by the union itself to adopt its own constitution without consulting the people at all. Even elections, an impeccably democratic institution, it would seem, are not necessarily deemed always desirable. Recently, precedent-setting cases occurred when the governments in two EU countries, Greece and Italy,

were changed without elections, only under pressure from the European institutions. As expected, special circumstances, namely the financial crisis, were indicated to justify such steps. But the bare fact is that was violated was not a simple rule or custom, but the holiest of the holy principles by which, as we have been made to believe, democracy stands or falls. Ready for huge savings We'll mark your calendars from November 28th to 30th Because the Liddle Newbridge Warehouse Sale is back We're talking thousands of your favourite Liddle items

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from Volkswagen Financial Services, Ireland Limited, Subject to lending criteria Terms and Conditions apply Volkswagen Financial Services Ireland Limited Trading as Cooper Financial Services is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland And now

now she's chogged Rehaw-Nation in Ahehmst Gerey in Aondoon and leander Gala to give the tumulte deird In Ergaret We're taking tour in Woonagh

with funnive in Woonagh There's ozheradue Wageeckin'erer in the Anguach lecturers on the general people cariff of want to

the United. There are a cooctuagin. Full of nis more in the AICT Pongahee. Sometimes the country may hold

elections, universal, fair and according to all other rules, but the results are against the expectations of the mainstream,

then their credibility in the eyes of the union decreases respectively. Case and point are the reactions to the EU to the government

of the law and Justice Party in Poland and the Fidez government in Hungary. Immediately after the elections, it launched an extremely aggressive hostility campaign. The mind of a model EU politician has been conditioned in such a way that any dissident move to the right from the mainstream must meet the most severe condemnation. I learned that over here, huh? Especially on the right, quote unquote. The EU political system is not easy to define, and there are several ways to look at it. It can be, for instance, qualified as a peculiar example of the majoritarian democracy, or, to put it in a less neutral way, as a tyranny of the majority.

This shows even in a language used by the European politicians. When told that their supercilious disregard for those outside the mainstream contradicts the basic requirements of the liberal democracy, they so touchingly praise, they ignore such an allegation as totally devoid of merit. a minority can afford to say what it wants, and still the majority has its way without bothering to reply. And if they were to provide an answer, it would be, we have democracy here, the majority rules. Needless to say, the answer is to use communist speak to be treated dialectically. There are acceptable majorities, such as the cartel, which has ruled the European Parliament for many years, and the unacceptable ones, such as Hungary under the Fideh. the decision as to which is acceptable and which is not to be, which is not, is determined by the mainstream.

The European Union can also be described somewhat differently, namely as a kind of elite government, or better yet, as a liberal democratic government of the European aristocracy. The word aristocracy is used here in a metaphorical sense, of course, as is specific to a certain group of people who believe themselves superior to others. This feeling is probably a remnant of the 1960s when the leaders of today being then young and rebelling against a political order already considered themselves, as all revolutionaries do, superior to the slothful masses. When they were young, these leaders were believed to be the architects of the new world that was to emerge as a result of the revolution. Now being old, they claim to be the authors of the institutional system they think is the greatest political success in history. The attitude in both cases is the same, a hasty and arrogant dismissal.

of what stands in their way and what they readily qualify as prejudice and anachronism. In this respect, the EU leaders and bureaucrats are no different from other enlightened governments of the past, except perhaps that they managed to conceal their contempt for the demos. Both of these portrayals of the EU as a majoritarian democracy and as the rule of enlightened aristocracy, seem to contradict the standard view of what liberal democracy should be, no matter that this view, as we know, is often mistaken. In reality, both of them reflect well the internal logic of the system. It is, of course, true that at the level of nation states, voters have more to say

and tricks similar to those employed by the EU politicians would be difficult to manage in most member states. However, the European Union was not established in the Trubrian Islands, but on the old continent and fairly adequately mirrors the present European way of thinking. The phenomenon of mainstream, a shift to the left with a simultaneous reprochement between left and right, did not come into being in Brussels or Strasbourg, but in the nation states. It was also there that after the revolution of the 60s, powerful political movements were mobilized to fight against ever-new forms of so-called discrimination.

It was in the nation states where a program of enlightened liberal democracy took shape with the aim to manage all facets of individual and social lives, and at the same time to deny political as well as moral legitimacy to everyone who questioned this program. It was there that an avalanche of legislation was launched to make liberal democracy the only formula for all institutions and communities. It is true that European societies were not given an opportunity to vote in the referendums on the Lisbon Treaty, and when they had such an opportunity, as in the case of the Constitutional Treaty, a few of them voted against it. It is true that the Treaty of Lisbon would have ended up where its predecessor did in the trash basket if citizens were allowed to decide independently again. But once the public was excluded from the decision-making process and the entry into force of the treaty completed without their participation, no major group protested against the unfair and, as it is commonly said, undemocratic attempts by their governments and bureaucratic institutions. no protests were voiced on other similar occasions.

The public never questioned the role of the mainstream, and the citizens of Europe, as well as the political parties in Europe, did not exert any particular pressure on the democratization of the Union. To be sure, it is difficult to import the EU mechanisms into the systems of member states, a parliament without opposition or a non-elected government. What prevents this from happening is the existence of old institutions, too deeply embedded in this tradition to be easily rebutted. removed. But if we were to imagine the creation of a completely new state in Europe, today, the dream

country of today's liberal democratic Europeans, most likely it would not differ much from the European Union. It would be ruled by the mainstream. The enlightened majority would not be threatened by anything or anybody from the margin. Those outside the mainstream would constitute a sort of museum of antiquities, and any alliance with them would be an embarrassment. In Parliament, progressive parties would enter into polemics with even more progressive ones, competing to grant further powers to various privileged minorities and issuing increasingly bolder anti-discrimination decrees. It is difficult to predict the future of Europe within the EU model. In terms of the political doctrine, European society at the moment does not exhibit any ardent desire to move away from

such a model, even if the inefficiency and arrogance of the bureaucracy is more and more annoying. Perhaps to future will bring some significant movement from within when the arrogance exceeds a tolerable level. There is no doubt that a remedy must start from the nation states, and it is in them where the first impulse of changes should occur. The dethronement of the mainstream and the break of the liberal democratic monopoly. Until this happens, we will have more of the same. The EU will not change by its own will, and the majority of Europeans will continue to cling to the belief that despite the disadvantages, the EU is a more or less accurate emanation of the soul of today's Europe. All right, that's it.

We'll be back for part six and the second half of chapter three. There's only five chapters in this. So we're getting pretty close to the end here. And yeah, hope you're enjoying it and hope you're getting a lot out of it. I'll look into exactly what they're doing with the EU. you know, for those of us who properly understand globalization, this should be very eye-opening

if you haven't really dove into it yet. And from someone, you know, who lives over there in Poland, yeah, he can give you the view that you can't see from all the way over here if you're listening to the States. All right, that's it. We'll see you back for Part 6. in a few days. All right.

Take care. Thank you. Bye.