so Jacob Hansen had seen my interview with James Lindsay an expert on critical
social justice and wokeness and his response is well wouldn't any atheist
naturally go down that line of wokeness and my response is well there are a lot of them that do not they're very
libertarian and very rooted in the enlightenment but this is a very interesting discussion and gets to some
of the heart of woke ideology and a belief in God now before we get started
make sure that you sub subscribe and hit the Bell so you receive notifications and this interview is brought to you by
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all right welcome to Quick show my name is Greg Matson and I am your host in this episode we bring back Jacob Hansen
to talk about a recent interview that I did with James Lindsay he wants to talk about Believe It or Not atheism and
critical social justice so Jacob welcome back to the show thanks nice to be here great so you had watched uh the
interview that I did I think it was last week or the week before and and had contacted me and said well wait a minute
here uh James is an atheist why does he fight against wokeism and critical
social justice and I started to think about that because there are a lot of philosophical underpinnings that would
say well wait a minute these things kind of are combined but I think you had really thought about this and I wanted
you to be able to talk about it here on the show yeah absolutely and and first off I'm a huge James Lindsay fan uh have
been for a long time in fact I I feel like I might have liked James Lindsay before it was cool I didn't just read
his book cynical theories I have right here how to have impossible conversations his book that he did with
Peter Bogan um so I've been a big James Lindsay fan for a long time and love what he does however um actually this
goes back a few years kind of when the the woke stuff was starting to to come
about um I was I was kind of frustrated
because I saw it coming out and I I saw these different ideas I started studying what the roots of it was and um one of
the things that I found was that I wanted to do a Steel Man of it like I
wanted to engage with it on its strongest terms and so I actually wrote I have it posted on my website or I
don't know if I have it on this website I might have been an old website but I have it posted uh where I did a Steel Man of kind of the critical social
justice worldview and I came away from it honestly kind of like wow this is
actually pretty compelling stuff and I I had to and it may sound strange you know people know me as kind of like one of
the most anti-woke people around but I actually I was shocked at how strong it
was and so what I wanted to do today was kind of review some of the stuff that
James said and then push back on it from sort of a a a woke worldview cu I think
he does a very good job of explaining where this stuff came from and why it's
connected to Marks and why it's religious in nature but I don't know that James provides the the strongest
rebuttal of it and so I I kind of want to push back on him and then I want to see how you kind of Greg what your
thoughts are on a few of these so I have some some clips we could go through and and do that so is that that work for
rock and roll I think this will be fun cool well if you want to put on the um
on the screen uh this this clip that I have ready to go uh for for the viewers
um you and him were talking about sort of the origins of the Marxist ideology
back into Hegel back into Russo all of that kind of stuff and you guys are talking about it and James is doing an
excellent job of kind of explaining the roots of this and so I want to play this this clip here and then and then discuss
it a little bit you don't go out on the football field and get a coach one day tomorrow you're a football player you're
always becoming a football player by the act of playing football and so and and
let me just actually preface one other thing so what they're talking about here is about in this philosophy it's a very
totalizing worldview philosophy that's talking about the nature of what we are as human beings right kind of a
religious worldview and he's talking specifically here about this idea of of it of what human beings are becoming
over time right and sort of what that looks like from sort of what the Marxist kind of view of human beings and human progress kind
of what that looks like so I should have given that before but we'll continue the coach is guiding you to get better at it
so there's these two kinds of things and he says that human beings actually have both of these they don't just build
things and bring things into being they also do so starting from their imagination but they also are
continually building not just houses and homes but they're also Building Society
and through Building Society we're building ourselves we are in fact our own Creator he casts down God out of the
story he says the creator of man is man man builds a society around himself that
Society socializes the Next Generation and even the current generation into modes of behavior and activity and being
that make you who you are and so man is creating man in this kind of endless
circle of creation okay so when I heard him talk
about that that man creates man I wanted to ask and I'll ask you
this Greg okay but doesn't man create man if there is no God okay if we like
James is not a not a Christian in fact he's he's a pretty well-known atheist and a lot of these sort of secular
atheist types I I wonder well isn't man ultimately the creator of man aren't we
the product of our got your assumption and your premise in place to begin with so you're talking about
atheist you're giving an example of hey you're kind of talking to James here and saying hey wait a minute if you're an
atheist don't you believe that man creates man yeah I mean what's the
alternative yeah I mean you could say biology but wouldn't we all agree that
human beings are a product of Nature and nurture isn't that kind of the the you know and nature you can't really do much
about but the part that we can do you know that we can control is how we're
socialized and ultimately that's sort of in our
control yeah I would say yeah I would say there's a third element there there's nature nurture and
agency so so there is nurturing and that would be my environment my socialization but then
ultimately even though that can be reduced at times ultimately it's agency and I think that ultimately agency has
to win out on that so just clear on that but if you're an atheist and you're saying well wait a minute doesn't man
just create man I think that's exact I think your point is extremely valid absolutely and I would say that it's
inescapable because there's I mean an atheist that believes like an atheist
materialist right fundamentally what I am is I am a biological machine and
biology is the product of chemistry chemistry is the product of physics and physics is governed by deterministic
laws right so so I am just the product of natural forces and I don't have
agency and so one of the big problems that you run into when you get rid of
the notion of agency is that human beings in fact socialization goes out
the window altoe because you are just the product of of biology you get into kind of a social darwinian worldview so
again I I'm I'm looking at this and I'm going if we're going to grant that man has agency but we grant that um there is
no God well then man creates man and the world is what we make of it a absolutely
so if you're an atheist that's what it is right it's it's Uber Mitch it is it is the the Overman it is it is the man
God and in a sense that is a very good point because if you go through 19th
century which he mostly talks about 19th century philosophy and you go through that Continental very
German line of philosophy and you go back to to Hegel and and and come up
through all the way up through Marx and and nche and Beyond it is it is all
about the new man and that is used in 20th century Marxism the whole idea of
the new man is used in 20th century Marxism and yet as an atheist what else would you
put forward I mean if there's no God who who's going to who's going to try and
improve ourselves and and you know of course you could always ask why what is the whole purpose to improve yourself anyway but but sure it is it is Uber MCH
no question and there is ultimately the highest power in the universe that that
and is man the ultimate power in the universe if if there is no
God then yes then I we're the next in line we're the highest most developed
creature out there human beings are God and then there's another problem that you run
into because is it the individual who's God am I God or is the
collective are human beings writ large the thing that occupies the throne
right so there's kind of two different ways you can go if you're going to be an atheist because something's still going
to occupy the highest position of power the ultimate power in the universe is either you as the individual you're the
Locust of everything or Human Society is okay now the marxists they Embrace a
view not that the individual is the highest but the
society is the highest right that's the ultimate power okay so it's interesting
though because he goes in to talk a little bit about this that ultimately
it's all pretend right and I want I want to go a little bit into that because I think it's it's important to understand
that when there is no Transcendent truth when everything is a social construction
then what it all is is like uh you can read juval hari's book talks all about myth right and he says basically that we
create myth like money it doesn't actually like exist it's it's a myth it's a social construct that human
beings have have created and there's all sorts of things like that and you start getting deep into this social
constructionism or constructivism where everything is a social construct which is another way of saying it's all just
pretend he talks about in here about how Judith Butler in his interview with you said drag is life and life is drag in
other words it's all just you're just putting on makeup and we're all just playing this game that is that we've
sort of invented ourselves and it doesn't have to be this way and anyway if we want to real quickly pull up this
other clip real fast um I want to go into where he he starts to talk about
sort of this pretend World Academia I'll just Loop that back
to what we were just saying what did Judith Butler say was the answer to the problem of entrenched power in society
she called it the politics of parity in other words you have people literally
all they're doing is performing president of Harvard Claud and gay was performing she's an actor this is why so
many of the ACT activists are theater kids this is why so many this is why we have politicians who are literally just
actors who are showing up and playing the role of a politician uh but but
actually with their hands on the levers of power instead of you know on a on a big screen in a movie they're closers
they are that's exactly right but the entire philosophy is designed through doing that it the
entire worldview to the degree you accept it believes that's all that's ever happening anyway they literally
believe that everything is constantly brainwashing through socialization so they get to brainwash everything is just
performance so they can just go do you know a highly scripted fake performance
of the same thing and so if AOC is acting then she's doing a great she's doing a great performance it's changing
the world and everything is always some fake pasti artificial thing so they can
step in and they have every right to come in and do some fake artificial pasti thing but with the values that
they want to project into it put at the center which makes them intrinsically good nobody's doing anything of any
value by the way in their worldview everybody's doing fake stuff it's just whether or not you see the vision for
the future or you don't as to whether or not your fake stuff is good or bad
so okay so here's what I would ask James are you just performing James or
is there some sort of a Transcendent truth is the world our social constructs
that we create as a society or are you positing some sort of a Transcendent truth that you that you have real
knowledge of and that they're The Pretenders because either they're The Pretenders or you're the pretenders or we're all
Pretenders right and we're all just making up our own values yeah I would say I would say this
I understand where you're going with that I I don't think I would agree with it um because I do think that there is
because what we're really talking about ultimately is identity and and so when you you know
you can see this whole woke movement which is trying to strip down destroy all identity so whether you're a man or
you're a woman you know uh um they do push up race but it's it's it's it's
it's trying to completely confuse who you are and so I can say well Judith
Butler for example I can go and be a woman and act like a woman and perform
like a woman and therefore I am a woman because being a man is only a social construct so there are underlying truths
and there are underlying orders in place that wokeness takes you
beyond it says no throw off those orders throw off those truths and you can you
can be this even though you're not and that's what I think he's saying right it's it's it's not just a matter of
saying saying uh you know we're all we're all performing I mean I I
understand you can say that to a certain degree but it's I think that what he's saying is that that wokeness
takes you beyond any kind of truth that exists with with or without well and I
would and I to certain degree agree with them if you're going to go down this rabbit hole because what am I
Greg you say I'm a man that's a category that's been created by human beings there's nothing intrinsic about you are
a man sure you there there are biological truths about you being a man
that that can be oberved and and proven I would say this but that Cate
categorization itself is a social construct we created
the lines about where the line is between a man and a woman no we didn't
we created the language we we didn't create the category we didn't create the lines
between the two right the the the the X and Y chromosomes as compared to the XX
chromosome we didn't create that division that change you're right but so so that already exists what we created
was the language and now you're taking us into post modernism here good would would would say yeah you know
man and woman is is just a symbol the the wording is just a symbol and we can
infect and change what those words are and and then make them mean something
completely different as if again I go back to my point as if Again by changing the language and and what culture thinks
is the meaning that we actually change truth because everything's a social
construct as you said that so I I think I I again I think I know what you're
saying but there are absolute truths that we know that critical social
justice wokeness postmodernism in many ways tries to say no none of that is
real it's all there is no objective truth whatsoever so so it's just your
truth my truth we're all are authentic selves and XY chromosomes don't mean
anything period the problem is again and I always want to ask somebody this is okay if I'm not
a man because there's two levels right they always want to break this down whether it's Identity or
truth it's it's saying okay well well let's let's not say there's there's a
breakdown in Sexes yet we'll say there's a breakdown in gender and this is the higher level up here so we're g to we're
going to pull apart gender and sex because theyve always meant the same thing always even in the 90s when the
family proclamation was written right and so we'll pull gender up and pull this apart little by little right and
and we'll say gender is different gender is your performance gender is what you act
gender is the social construct but we'll keep sex in place so there is a male and a female but men and women will be
assigned to the gender but of course if you say that to someone today and you say okay so a
transwoman is a male right they're going to have a very hard time with you
because ultimately the goal is to break it all down it's gender is not enough
they've got to break the sex down also so and and fair enough I I do I I I can
see what you're saying there there are areas like for biology and stuff where you can say this is not that now a
hardcore postmodernist would go down the route of saying even the categorizations that you make around the biological
realities that we see are ultimately Chosen categorizations and you can
choose to categorize things in ways to structure power to your advantage right
but again that is that is that is absolutely true and that's happening and working very well today but but
ultimately they're wrong right they're completely wrong they're right in the fact that you can take language and
change its meaning they're wrong in saying that the underlying order which I
would call an order of God the underlying truths objective truth can be changed because you're changing those
meanings they they can't change because the question is if you're if you take away male and female uh then I still
have to ask you okay what are we going to call what's the word for someone with XY chromosomes what is that called then
if we're going to take man or male out of it what is someone with because that's something what what do we call an XY
chromosome a human we'd call it a human being just to but it's different from
other human beings that are ex but I could say well then but aren't you different then but we could continue to break this down you know what do we call
a human being who has blond hair blue eyes and XY chromosome am I something different from a human being that like
you have XY chromosomes but you have different color hair and eyes right
divide things endlessly there are differences though right and those are
truths and so and so the the social construction portion of which is really
part of critical theory and postmodernism is is a matter what all it is all this ever works for is what what
the whole line of Liberation it is it is if you go back all the way to Kant
another German philosopher before Hegel and he starts talking about critique
critiquing and critique in German at that time didn't mean like analysis like
we talk about critical thinking it meant an attack or on on something to break it
down not to analyze but to break it down to change it that's what critique means
and that word gets carried on through Hegel and up into Marx and and up into
uh critical theory with the Frankfurt School into critical race Theory it's a matter of breaking it down so that
loosening of of meaning that loosening of symbolism the the whole idea of social
construct all it's for is to break it down to break once you break it down
then you can replace it with something firm I want and and but here's my thing I want to put on my critical social
justice there are things that should be broken down if the world is if the power structures of the world are not the way
that I want them as an atheist if I think that they're unjust and by unjust I don't mean by a standard of justice
that is objective that all people are accountable to but literally to what I think the way things should be then it
makes sense that I would you I would want to use language and categorization
to restructure power according to what I want and if what I want is a world in
which gender is a is is seen as fluid if it's a world where um yeah where all of
these things that have given white men an advantage and I want to restructure
power so that that power gets shared more equitably why is that a problem isn't
this a noble politics I and and that's but what I'm
saying is is that we have to give the devil is due sure no I Absol I agree
absolutely I see I know what you're saying I would say that most atheists and you can argue and
say but why right but I would argue that most atheists have a morality
of the golden rule it is entrenched in them and and and and and and does that
come from Christianity probably it probably comes from Christianity but they're going to say because a lot of
them are going to have that libertarian approach which says hey I will I can go
along with anything you go be you do what you want but it can't hurt anybody
else but see this is the this is the thing actually let's actually go to this next clip I it's a good seg that goes by
the way that goes to the that goes to the enlightenment value of the individual which I would say was
superseded by or or or was initiated before a lot more by Christianity than
by the enlightenment it's what the enlightenment carried over from Christianity now now here's one thing
though I want to I want to push back on remember if you get rid of sort of that there is a Transcendent order to
things right then what's left is just what you
want I always say you can boil down the world to two things preference and power
preference is what you want and power is your ability to get it right
now now from an individualist point of view there's sort of
um see see what the the people who have this sort of mindset want is that they
want a world of equity they want a world where everyone has sort of they're
putting forth sort of a radical humanist idea this is the way I see it this is a radical form of humanism and what it
says is if humans are ultimately the center of the universe the highest thing
we can do for human beings is to give them power to get what they
prefer right as much as we possibly can
I think that is the end goal of the the woke worldview I think that that's that
it's kind of like well what higher vision is there of the world than that people get the chance to have what they
want to to to get what they prefer and if you prefer to go out and dress like a
woman and all of that you shouldn't be forced or you shouldn't be I wouldn't even say forced you shouldn't have
people looking sideways at you judging you for that right you should I say I have a little bit of that I have a
little bit of that feeling well let's let's actually go to this clip real real fast I want to talk about Liberation versus Liberty real quick so
if you want to pull this back up that's a big focus of what I talk about absolutely yeah and it's a very
important distinction um yeah let's let's listen to this we kind of added
our American mix to it and now we're we're giving it back yeah yeah so a dominant uh voice now at the UN is this
intersectionality but but it's this this religion as you talk about Mark focusing
on the individual really and and Society you get the ideas of the new man right
and the new woman this transformation that to me anyway and tell me what you think uh on this
there's a difference between for example Liberty and Liberation this idea of Liberation
becomes uh what you're speaking of from rouso Hegel and moving forward W and
this idea that we're going to throw off the shackles of society we're going to throw these shackles off the problem
with that is that the problem is always out there yeah right the problem is the
system systemic racism the problem is of course focused on the west is democracy
and capitalis capitalism but then compared to say for example
Christianity where you have to say well I'm a problem I have to change I I need
personal responsibility to take hold of my Free Will and and be something or
become something it's almost a perversion of that yeah uh with social
justice that says yeah you need to become something you need to throw off the shackles of society not I need to
throw off the shackles of my mistakes of my errors does that make sense okay so here are my thoughts on
that if you were born in Afghan Greg you'd have a very very different
worldview in other words and I'm going to use this from sort of a I'm playing
devil's advocate here a little bit so what really shapes you isn't your choices so much your choices are they
actually exist within a very tight environment that you were brought up in that even gives you the the ideas of
what are out there and so we don't have a ton of judgment for someone in
Afghanistan acting certain ways because that's just the culture that they grew up in right that's just what they were
socialized into and so if everyone is being socialized into these different systems then ultimately what we need to
do is we need to change the systems themselves because what makes man that's the real question that James
is asking and we're sort of like oh you know acting like no Society society makes man especially if
you have an atheist worldview so we have an obligation to throw off the shack of
these societies that oppress people right and so if I think according to my
own sort of subjective view of the world that it is oppressive for people to be
restrained in their sexual sexuality well then I'm going to fight to free them from that oppressive the
oppressive shackles of the society that they're in just like you would want to free people from oppressive structures
that that that are out there from your point of view right so it's just a battle of power and this critical theory
is extremely effective at breaking down
structures that stop people from doing whatever they want sure so a couple points here again
I don't know I don't know where you're talking as an atheist and from an atheist point of view and a devil's advocate or where you're you're actually
is that all about is that all Devil's Advocate pretty much okay so here here's
what I would say response to that um I think you're right number one it's extremely effective I mean we're
watching it today it is incredibly effective um but the problem is is that
again you're you're you even though you're saying you're going to the individual as I said In that clip you're
not starting with the individual and that's the difference for example between the gospel and an understanding
of Christianity and choice and agency and and and
Atheism is that okay if I go and I just say well everyone's just a product of their environment and a product of their
biology period then all I need to do is work on their biology and work on the
systems right and and so I can change that but if I believe you can see you
can see though that if you're if you're an atheist no question absolutely that's
exactly where you would go I mean why not right again the difference is Western
atheists the difference I I I you're right in that if you keep going down the
rabbit hole that's where an atheist should be right but but Western atheists most
of them are built on the enlightenment where they have actually whether they want to agree to it or not and I think a
lot more are starting to understand that they are their
atheism their Enlightenment anchor is built on Christianity because I mean look at look
at Douglas I have a clip I have a clip for this exact part I I I want to segue into this just because it you are saying
exactly what James says and it was funny for me to hear him say it because I was like James James and some people don't
know this James was kind of part of the new atheist sort of movement so I I to hear him say some of this stuff you guys
it is this is a big deal for him to say what he says here it's uh 47 minutes let's see here 4739 is where I want to
start let me pull this up real quick believe know it's it's interesting
when you bring that up because it's it this has caused a a watershed moment for
demographics politically because you have those therefore that are that will not fall into that idea that have been
on the left typically so you've got classical liberals people that are really they hold the enlightenment as an
anchor right to and science is an anchor and my brothers by the way fall into
this exact category as atheists who are also strong sort of libertarian types
anyway we'll continue so you've got a Jonathan height and a Stephen Pinker and and uh you know others that even even a
Bill Maher right that are all of a sudden going what in the world this is not what I had signed up for yeah I I I
still hold on to these other truths these this science and and what is produced from the enlight
and so there's this shift in a sense of course Trump pushes that also the other way but it's it's it's this shift
demographically where you have um even someone like yourself all of a sudden i'
see I see you working with a number of evangelicals and and because you're on the same page with a number of these
things whereas before it would have been completely on the opposite side of the gulf right yeah so the the dividing line
and I find myself saying this more and more often I was actually in a I think I was in a public conversation with
Charlie Kirk at one point he put me to the test and said you know what's going on and somehow I came out of my mouth that the the dividing line the real
dividing line here uh to put it theologically and then I'll I'll kind of put it in in simpler terms afterwards
but put it theologically is the line is people who know that they're not God versus people who think that they might
be oh he said it he said it that's exactly the
difference the difference is is that some people recognize that they're not
God and other people kind of think that well they take the logic to its
conclusion that well if there's no God what's the next highest thing and the
next greatest power and I would say that this is a very powerful argument the next highest thing isn't you as the
individual the next highest power is
society because you're subject to the societ like we just talked about if you were born in Afghanistan you're subject
to that Society in the way that it's going to form their minds yeah in their minds and
the way they teach it that's right exactly but that's I think that this is the thing we tend to think oh man these
people are crazy but I'm saying no no no no no if you get rid of
God and that it it changes the Power Balance the power dynamics to use their
words of reality you and I Greg operate from the
position that there is a power in the universe greater than human
societies they don't because what is more powerful than human
society yeah exactly the funny thing is that they won't tell you that they'll
speak that way and they'll talk that way in many cases about their Solutions because they know they've got to go to
the Society they've got to go to the collective they've got to go to the systems and and change those therefore
they can socially construct you right that's that's the approach but but what
they actually do in terms of recruiting and activism toward individuals kind of
their their uh their missionary work so to speak is about the individual right
it's you can be you and and you can be accepted and and tolerated and all all things are good and you can you can be
do whatever you want and everything's fine and that's always been the CH the the the approach and you know for
example you get this with um there's a certain line I've got what's his name
Carl Truman right Carl Truman I saw speak a couple years ago uh Christian he talks a lot about expressive
individualism and and that that's the problem is this this idea of you can do anything it's a post-modern approach
kind of and and before him there is is uh oh boy I'm going to forget his name he's a Canadian philosopher where
Truman's pulling from and then today you've got Jeffrey th in the church that
that pulls a lot from this and does a lot of great work on this really good work fantastic really like Jeffrey th
the problem though what is not brought up in that line of thinking is the
collective because what really is happening here expressive individualism is simply a carrot to
bring you into a collective expressive individualism isn't the problem
right it because expressive individualism says you can be anything you want but in the end what they really
are doing is they're recruiting you to be exactly like themselves and to think exactly like themselves and to follow
very strict rules virtue signaling to say this is exactly who you need to be
so expressive individualism is the carrot but it's a lie it's it's a
complete lie it is it is no we want you to come in and be part of the hive right
you need to be part of the hive with us and and do what we do well I'm gonna I'm going to push back on that a little bit
okay there is so well first of all I first I'm gonna tell you what I think you you hit perfectly okay if man is if
God is not the highest power then Society is the next highest power so Society then takes the place of God
right the social order is the highest power of the universe and state yeah the state okay the state so no but I I even
want to go beyond government power okay because I think that they talk about power in a way different than Libertarians like you and I do um we
tend to talk about power in terms of political power like guys with guns who force you to obey the rules of a
particular area geographical area they are talking about power in a sense that goes towards all power dynamics in any
social system whatsoever down family everything right and so what they're
saying is is that the social forces both cultural po political economic everything all of these social forces
this is the greatest power in the universe and we want to it is the deao
god and that God should be a beneficent God a good God and for them the highest
good is to let people do whatever they want okay expressive individualism is
the religion so society's the god expressive individualism is the religion
and anyone who deviates from that expressive indiv ual
ideology is a heretic and not only that if you um uh and we need to break down
any power dynamics that stop people from being their authentic selves whether those are economic whether those are
social anything that holds you back from doing whatever you want is that's the
that's the dichotomy between that's the line between good and evil in this sort of religion okay and
ultimately if I were an atheist I'd have a very hard time
telling someone why that is wrong yeah I I agree with that but again
I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna push back on you on say look I mean the the the
god um might be Society but but I think that the religion is too uh and I I I
again I think that the message is expressive individualism but it's not the
religion uh for example if I am going to be part of that religion and I say um the traditional
family is by far the best option that's my expressive individualism that's how
I'm expressing myself and my own beliefs and what I really want I'm G to get
hammered right I'm going to be booted out of the religion and so it's not a matter of of of expressive individualism
and and being being a uh being able to say be whoever I want to be it's not
they're not going to allow that I mean and you'll see that over and over again people getting cancelled constantly you
saw this in the n in the 20th century with trism for example I mean can were
all booted out because they weren't quite exactly the way the Lenin has started you know and it's I I think
practically I think you're right but I think theoretically what they're saying is is no you can have your family Greg
I'm trying to again give this the best argument what I think they would say to you say no Greg you can have your family what you can't do is go around shaming
people who don't and creating and and and creating
a culture that says these people for some reason are less than and marginalizing people because they don't
conform to you you can do whatever you want just don't marginalize other people and use your power against them and I
don't mean political power I mean any kind of even even looking sideways at them through your eyes and being
judgmental that is a form of Oppression yeah but see so I like looking at what
is I and and that can be even when I'm looking against gospel principles or or
anything else I I want to see what the fruits are what are the fruits so if I look at it today marxists don't like to
do that yeah so so if I look at it today and I see exactly what happens when I go out and I talk about the family
proclamation or I'm talking about uh a traditional family being an ideal situation it's not going to work for
everybody it didn't work for me in in when I was growing up you know but but uh it's it's the ideal situation I am
going to be shamed I'm going to be pushed back and it's all from the same group it's from
those that are part of that Collective it's from those that start off with the idea oh this is all just expressive
individualism but really they're all part of a collective and and they're sitting on this one specific building up
really high pointing their fingers down is what's happening and so if I look at
what is and how it actually happens and if I even look through through how the same ideologies have worked in the past
in actual societies that have been taken over by this um I don't see any room whatsoever
for tolerance in fact this is exactly what marus goes over he says that the tolerance we need to have a really high
level of tolerance for the for the hard left for the leftists so they can go and do what they want but you cannot give
even a tiny bit of tolerance to the right and and that is exactly the way
they act right it is you cannot have anything that is going to be against the
woke ideology yeah I mean at the end of the day the inherent in this sort of
conservativism is the conservation of oppressive structures that need to be dismantled now I I wanna there's
actually a little bit of Truth to that but and that's agree I think that most of the the devil's best work is done by
mixing truth with lies like he did to Adam and Eve in the garden right he he says something that's true but and
something that isn't now I want to say put one other thing though for the atheist right we can say there's that great question what makes man what
determines who you are right and we as Believers in agency say we do you
largely are the product of the way that you use your agency now your influ inced by Society But ultimately we're all
accountable to God because with whatever light and knowledge we receive we have the agency to respond to the influences
that come at us however if you take that out of the equation man is the product of biology and sociology socialization
and biology now we' talked a lot about the socialization part Society is the great God but there's another way you
can look at this you could be a hard materialist and say if you're going to go that route then your biology
determines Who You Are and you will be whatever your biology has made you okay
so these are really Bleak pictures because either once you take God and
agency out what you're left with is either you are a meat computer that is going to do what your meat programming
has made you do okay and if you are if you got the wrong programming you're going to and
some people are programmed better than others to have better outcomes than others this is social Darwinism there's
some truth to that too you're right our we we say that our
socialization and our biology act on an agent a person inside but take away the
agent and if you're going to posit an agent like what are you positing you're positing something Transcendent
something Divine the biology you're right and I'm sorry like atheist is that
where we're going now are you guys all going down this this road to where you have to recognize that human beings have
a soul I don't think the you know you you talk about they go back to the enlightenment the enlightenment becomes
this like Magical Force where like all truth came out of the it is their worldview founding yes and the problem
is is they don't realize that the enlightenment actually emerged from judeo-christian ideas and it is very
much founded on religious assumptions okay
these assumptions like that human beings actually have dignity and worth inherently human
rights my biology doesn't give me rights does society give me
rights and a lot of them like when I talk to my brothers about this stuff they're like well yeah Society does like
we as a society come together and we decide you know what rights people have who's
God Society you mean that when the Nazis decided that the Jews no longer had rights that means they no longer had
rights because you get your rights from society no actually the Enlightenment thinkers that founded our
country founded on the even Thomas Jefferson who everyone wants to put out there as a big atheist he said all men
are endowed by their creator and he knew that he had to put something up that
transcended man because otherwise that makes man God and you have no rights if
there is no God what you have are privileges that are granted to you by the God of this world society and the
state yeah and you know it's really interesting because and this isn't a truth and I'm
not a philosophical expert or anything I've studied it quite a bit but I'm not anywhere near an expert and I I know
people who are and I get to talk to them sometimes but um it's really interesting that you have at one point coming in in
the 18th century the 1700s really this entire thought process
that starts coming through and again it's coming through Germany and German Germany and German
speaking philosophy on on the continent on Continental philosophy it's not all Continental philosophy but it's a
specific strain that is the the most uh um the most used and have the most
energy and Mo and and and momentum and and then on the other side you've got everything that behind what
started to become a part of the American founding and and not all of it but most
of it was completely different it was a different type of philosophy that started saying exactly what you're
saying that there are rights that are Transcendent above Society above man himself and it's founded on this idea of
religion and religious freedoms I mean think about just the concept of religious
freedom when you say Rel you have the the you have religious liberty you are saying immediate
mediately you have rights for something above individuals and above the
state that you get to choose right that that is not what's
coming from Continental philosophy at all it's just the opposite no what comes from that side and so you have these two
strains that come in the fruits of what you get on the other side that comes a lot through the Scottish Enlightenment
you you you get you get the United States and the founding of the United States coming through and then you have
on the other side this this battle here that's going against what what brings the really a lot of the
philosophical uh um underpinnings of the founding of America that now are taking
over today in America where we had that we're we're we're turning away from what built
us into this society and we're going to the other side and and one is built on
that transcendency God religion religious Liberties and the other side is built 100% on secularism
and man well was interesting I watched the coronation of uh I forget his name the
new King in England Charles and Charles and I was shocked at the symbolism in
that ceremony obviously there are connections to Temple ceremony stuff but what was really interesting and I didn't
realize this was how very much the English tradition is rooted in the idea
that it is God who is above the king and that idea of something
Transcendent being above the king because if there's nothing above the king then the king is
God but if there's something which which was the tradition in certain certain ancient Traditions right that the that
the ruler essentially was God or even in even in totalitarian States like North Korea
right but when you when you have something above him then he's accountable to it there's something
Transcendent and we have gotten rid of the world of the
Transcendent and as we get rid of that world of the Transcendent these what we're viewing are the natural
consequences you boil things down to priv or to I'm sorry to preference and
to power and that is the entire Obsession of this movement okay however so of the antidote
to this because I I thought about this a lot um as I Was preparing this sort of
Steel Man and then I wrote my rebuttal to my Steelman and I actually went to
the Lord of the Rings for the the great uh rebuttal of the woke
worldview and that is that if you frame the world as a constant battle for power
so that you can get your preferences it descends into
hell kind of like how the ring of power you have the you know Gollum in his cave like oh it's mine my precious I got the
power the power everybody wants power but what happens when you are the humble Hobbits who love each other and you say
because we love each other I'm willing to take the power that I could use to mold the world the way that I want it to
be and I'm going to cast it into the fire it's the idea
that Christ says give all power to God right render yourself to
God okay he has the power and all we do is
serve him and love him and love one another because there is truth there is
a Transcendent order uh a Celestial order as we would say that we are trying
to conform to because that I like to think of society and our vision of Zion
like an orchestra we all are different instruments we're all different but it's God who trying to get us all to play
music together now to play music together doesn't mean do whatever you want it's play your instrument and these
these musical notes not because it's oppressive but because this is how we make music if you
just go out there and do whatever you want and make noises with your instrument with everybody else around it just creates
chaos there has to be a conductor who is who is guiding us into a way to play
this music together to create something beautiful and so these categories these
laws and principles that were taught in the gospel are not oppressive they teach us how to play music together with one
another not only individually but also as societies and as and I believe that this is Manifest in reality that the
most successful societies are the ones that that to whatever degree to which
they Embrace principles of of the Gospel whether whether they whether they're Christian or not not yes yep yes
absolutely whether you're Christian or not the degree to which you align with this Transcendent order that I believe
is being revealed through God's prophets is the degree to which you prosper and so if we want to prosper we
need people to learn to play the music not do whatever they want because we're not
God God is God yeah and and doing whatever you want is
chaos and it's chaos for yourself it's chaos for others and you need chaos but you need you need chaos so that you can
create order and in that sense we are creators and we're supposed to be a Creator like God we're supposed to act
like him in the sense that we can also move through chaos and actually create as we go and so a
symphony right is is taking chaos a bunch of random notes and creating order
out of it and not everyone is the same you can express yourself you can within
the bounds of what that instrument can do you can do beautiful things but it
the radical Notions like you say they lead to chaos but then the other thing is you have the opposite extreme of over
too much order to where it's like you're so restricted that you can't do anything
that you want but the principles of the Gospel just in our own lives like we all know this yes they restrict certain
aspects but those certain aspects are aspects that should be restricted
because when you restrict some aspects of your life greater freedoms emerge on the other end and so the path to True
Liberty is not radical Liberation but rather discipline and discipleship and
the thing is is we all sort of know that and aligning with truth I mean it
is a matter of aligning with objective truth and these these movements are they
they want to break that away they want to break it down it there are viruses that try to break away objective truth
and when you do that you you lose you go into chaos I think I'm trying to remember if it was you uh on one of our
previous podcast did you give an example of a baseball game and baseball players before yeah same idea you know if you're
a first baseman and you're out trying to play center field and someone makes a head and it's like the short stop throws
it to First and there's nobody there you know it's like wait a minute Play Your Role you know do your role and and
everybody can do this together and that's where identity comes from because the the thing is is is that remember if
you're telling me what I have to do if my identity is like you have to do
something a lot of people are like that's oppressive well is it oppressive to tell a first baseman that he needs to go stand on first base because we're
playing baseball but the thing is if we put us all out on this on this field and it's like hey everybody expressive
individualism you just do whatever you want you won't have a game emerge what you'll have is just a bunch
of people running around probably get frustrated whereas if you actually teach people people to play the
game that means you're going to have to restrict some of the things that you want to do in order to play the game and
the there's a question what is the game that human beings are supposed to play or do we
just get to invent whatever game we want and no game is any better or worse than any other and for the postmodernist it's
sort of like there is no game it's all just it's all just whatever we want to make there two games and we get to
choose it it it is Liberty or tyranny and and and and because eventually everything goes to one of
those two areas and uh and Liberation leads to tyranny Liberty leads to disparity there
is disparity and that's what the other side really hits hard on but it also offers the opportunity for
charity and and for you know working together on that and and when we lack
that charity and that disparity then then that's when Liberty gets attacked pretty hard because that's
its weakness absolutely Yeah well yeah I I
mean frankly my my My overall kind of to sum some of this up is just that um I
love what James says big fan of his work but the reality is at least for me as I
sort of analyze this I have to ask well what do if there
is no God if there is no Transcendent order then All That Remains is power and
preference and the greatest power in this universe is society and biology but
can't really do much about my biology so I guess I'll just focus on the society side of it and then I guess if the world
isn't the way that I want it I should work to tear down the structures of power that uh prevent me from living my
authentic life that I want to live according to my desires and I just can't help but walk away from that and be like
that's a powerful argument man but it all changes the moment you say no there
is a Transcendent order and as we sing in our church there's a right way to
live and be happy right and that changes the whole game and so so much rides on that yeah
awesome well great discussion Jacob I'm glad we did this great idea um uh you
know James does an amazing job of pulling all those original sources and and pulling it together and articulating
it but it is an interesting question you bring up it's like well wait a
minute again if you go back and look at the original sources and you add in nche and mainlander and and Roth and all
these other guys that were part of that same German uh
uh pathway a philosophical pathway that that that Hegel and marks and others are
on they're on the same path God is dead and and uh
uh yeah it's it's it's a very good question maybe maybe we'll be able to ask him that some point yeah well I
James if you ever watch this I love you man uh big fan of all that you do would love to have this discussion with you or
do it with Greg he he can quiz you on it uh but I'd be really interested in hearing what you have to say about it so
awesome all right Jacob thanks so much thanks Greg take [Music]
care oh
