An Obama Recommended Author Is Now a Conservative Hero—What Happened?

I think we're gonna agree on Patrick Denine. So, so let's jump in and uh talk about about Denine. Um an important figure I think today uh is one of the intellectual leaders if not the preeminent intellectual leader of kind of the new right. Um a real intellectual. I mean, given credit, I mean, he's a he's a PhD, taught at Princeton, taught at Georgetown, now teaches at uh Notre Dame, and is a full professor there. Uh it has written a number of books, writes a lot of articles, has built a movement, if you will. Uh we know he is influential with JD Vance. Jade events has has spoken about it has uh uh spoken at conferences that Denine has has organized uh and Denine has spoken about his relationship with JD Vance. But also Denine has a much broader influence on on the national conservative movement and the Christian conservative movements and the integralist movement and the the kind of common good conservative movement uh which includes a number of other academics around the country. So, >> and if people get confused with all these titles, by the end of the episode today, you will not be confused because we're going to explain to you how they intersect, what are the similarities, what are the difference. So, you're going to get full clarity on that. >> Absolutely. And and and he's also come out for kind of populism. He calls it kind of aristo >> aristo populism. Um, so he's kind of a a Trump supporter, uh, but very much somebody who I think has framed the critique of modern society, has frame the critique of liberalism on the right, and as a good intellectual, which you know is an influential intellectual, put it that way. Uh, he is then cited over and over and over again. and his material is used by many people on the right to criticize the world in which we live in even if they don't attribute it to Denine. So he's had a massive influence it's since certainly since uh his publication of um uh of his the failure of liberalism um in >> 2018. So he was the first serious intellectual who gave a voice to the MAGA movement. Before that you would say the MAGA movement was figures like you know Breitbart was already dead but his publication Bannon was not he didn't ever write a manifesto and then you had culture warriors the type of Milo Yanopoulos and things like that. So there in 2018 comes Patrick Denin with why liberalism failed and provides the MAGA movement with an intellectual suggestion an intellectual proposition. He wasn't a regime intellectual at that point. But from then till now this proposition this this this these ideas have been taken on board by people like Jay Devans who will be the tomorrow the next day of the Republican party after Trump because while Trump was on board what dominated was Trump's personality Trump's erratic instinctive politics but now we see a whole ideology a whole set of ideas being formed for the day after tomorrow for the day after Trump for MAGA 2.0 >> and and yes and I think Denine is very much going to be an architect of whatever is being formed. You know it might not agree with every point and every every element of it but he is he is kind of the intellectual behind the scenes um that is influencing all the all the other intellectuals. And an interesting exercise for our audience, those of you who watched two weeks ago when we did the deep breakdown, the deep dive on JD Devans, notice how many of the things that you heard two weeks, today they're going to sound familiar. But if we did it in like temporal timeline form, Denin would come first. Jay Devan's idea would come second. >> Definitely. And and there were criticisms of modernity before and there was there were obviously intellectuals that supported Trump like the people at Claremont institute um and and other people on the right but they have a more shrill hysterical panicked voice to them. Denine comes across as a Catholic arisatilian scholar trying to really much more analyze this and give it and really flesh it out and and and really you know criticize it not emotionally but criticize it you know academically. >> Yes. So shall we begin why >> so let's jump in with this with what it's all about. What maybe we should start with, you know, what does he even mean by liberalism? >> Good. That should be indeed the starting point because what he means by liberalism is not only different from what the average American would understand by liberalism they would understand Roosevelt Obama or something like that. It's also different from what you and me would understand as liberalism. So for the need there are two types of liberty and liberalism is the political regime that would promote these two ideas of liberty. The first which he considers the wrong idea of liberty is the liberty for people to do whatever they want without external constraints. Some would define it non-coercion principle. Someone else would define it the right to use on your mind and act accordingly. But more or less we understand liberty means I can go on in my life if I don't hurt other people, if I don't physically qu them without anyone intervening with my life. He says this is the conventional but the wrong type of liberty. Why? Because this is not a true liberty. Because this liberty does not protect you from your disastrous basket case that is your inner self. Left alone to your own devices, you might fall victim to everything from drugs, pornography, wrong decisions, abandoning the norms and the and the traditions that build this beautiful civilization that is the western civilization. So liberty in terms of you do what you want has a negative connotation for Denin. And this is the type of liberty that failed. This is the type of liberalism that has failed. Now there's a second type of liberty and for the it's the proper type of liberty which is to do what you have to do with prudence and with respect to the norms of your society of your elders. respect to those who came before you and those who will come after you. So for the nin true liberty requires self constraint and the best provider of self of sad self- constraint is not just the law. It's not just telling you don't get drunk and start beating people but the best constraint is the norms and the traditions of your community. So it is your community who makes you who you are according to the nin. So to put it in a simple sentence, why did liberalism fail? Again, that's the whole title of his book, >> liberalism fails because it did away with such constraints. Constraints such as family tradition and this led to an anarchy without norms that leads to selfdestructive and even worse to community distracting behavior. and a community distracting behavior. You be for example you your own left the country of your parents and you flew to a different country to pursue your own dreams for Denim. This is a community at least maybe not destructive but community upsetting behavior and this even worse makes you feel that you are at the center of the universe and this creates in you what he calls the soul of a tyrant or what he calls a gluttony for power that I can do everything. It's like almost as if you watch a movie a super villain like h you know they have the evil laughter I have the freedom which means I can do everything and this is the beginning of everything wrong. This is why liberalism failed as is the title of his book. So I mean what he's really suggesting is that there's that the the individualistic view that you know man has the capacity and the ability to take care of himself to to pursue his own values that he has the capacity to reason basically is false. that human beings as individuals do not have that capacity and therefore we we are a um a political animal. I mean, I'm sure he'd quote Aristotle here and and a social animal. And as such, what you know that we need communities to be able to help guide us and we need tradition and we need rules in order to guide us because individuals themselves cannot use their mind to pursue their own values because the mind ultimately is impotent and our emotions override our reason. Um and and so we're flawed beings kind of there's a real Catholic uh original sin here, right? The original sin is that uh you know that that our our emotions, our desires are in conflict with our region. >> Now he is our original sin in in many respects. He does not openly make this epistemological point but he he makes this point by by he indirectly. So he says what makes us who we are is not we're not beings of self-made soul as anyone will put it. We are beings of communal soul. It's the community who makes us who we are. Therefore without a community to proper form us to proper gives us shape. We are lost. This is why in his latest book which is an analysis of the Odyssey he says that all the monsters if you think about it they live without a community. Kirki or however they call it in English Cersi or whatever anyway Greek Kirki lives alone in an island. Cyclopes live alone in an island. They live without the police. And his analysis that this is a metaphor for what individualism does to you. It makes you sad, miserable, but also a monster. So, you are a danger to yourself and you're also a danger to those to those around you. And uh look, a sympathetic reading would be that what Joo Willing says, discipline equals freedom. That to live a good life, you have to be disciplined and to do the right things and not do whatever you want. But we already have a term for this thing, which is discipline. So it's not clear to me why Denin has to give this very distorted or weird definition of liberty in order then to attack liberty. So this is what he does. He defines liberty in a way that then it becomes obvious that we can attack it. That obviously we don't want anarchy. We don't want drugged dazed porn addicts. Therefore liberalism has been tried and failed. Therefore, capitalism and less effort society has been tried and failed. This is the scheme, the very convenient scheme he erects in order then to demolish it. >> Yeah. I mean, I think I think it's his underlying premise is a hatred of of individual of the individual and individualism and then he's trying to build a a a foundation to attack individualism uh and to present his particular form of collectivism, a a a traditionalist collectivism, a collectivism of the village, but you know, and of the past and of tradition. But he wants to do it in an academic, you know, form, you know, and he and and he doesn't get into the epistemology, but the epistemology is crucial here, right? It there is a there's a a I mean there's a clear elitism in what he's actually doing and saying, right? He is he he's the platonic he's he's very much a platonic uh you know, philosopher king. So reason the knowing what is good for the common good for the people right he's very concerned about the common person right he says at some point yeah maybe these professors know what they want and know how to get it but common people you that's what we need to care about they don't know so you know he's so he's trying to form a liberty that allows him to dictate to the common people what's good for them and how they should live. >> He's though again he's doing this in a way that you cannot pinpoint exactly what he's trying to do. So for example you would say I'm not for statism. I don't want so don't consider me a statist. Of course every single argument that he makes as we'll see goes towards >> but here's the mental acrobatics he does. He says look it's actually individualism that leads to statism. >> Y >> first of all he considered that the number one characteristic of the left is the left is for individualism and for progress which to me it sounds as if it's opposites day for the the left. So but in his mind for example the trans movement means this idea that I can do whatever I want. I'm not bound by anything including reality. So to him, individualism is subjectivism. To him, individualism is doing whatever the hell you feel like doing. And again, this is the when you when you uh detach individualism from reason, right? And individualism is, and this is why it's so dangerous to define liberty as ability to do whatever the hell you want, you know, and we don't define it that way, right? It it's defined very much in the context of pursuing rational values. That's what liberty is for. It's for the pursuit of rational values of it's for the the the person who uses reason. Um but but to him it's do whatever the hell you want. Individuals individualism is subjectivism. It's do whatever you want to you want to be a man today, you want to be a woman tomorrow, you want to be a dog, you know, doesn't m anything goes. So to him the left is the epitome of individualism because they are completely subjectivist. So to him individualism is in social sphere the left and in economic sphere the kind of right right and and he actually he talks about libertarians because libertarians kind of capture this libertarians have the subjectivist mentality um and they justify they justify both so he he attacks libertarians um in and he and he's right in that sense that there's something wrong with you know anything goes in terms of personal morality at least even if we would say politically sure let them let them take the drugs and destroy their lives but but you don't want to create a culture in which everybody's destroying their lives >> and now we're opening a parenthesis but this is also why our and our I don't mean objectives I mean the liberty movement the way we defend and we promote liberty is absolutely pathetic because it's so non-inspiring no one is going to inspire it by saying I want to have the right to destroy my life with cocaine or whatever. I mean, yes, politically you do have that right, but it's not it's not a good vision. But anyway, let's not move too much away from Denine. So, let's give a concrete example what he means individualism leads to statism. So, he would say back in the day when a young woman and a young boy would go to the university, they were bound by two institutions in terms of their sexual behavior. The one was the church that said you don't have sex before marriage. By the way, I don't know how many young people actually abided by that, but anyway. And the second was that the institution of the university had this local oparent that now that you are under my my roof, I will have a say. I will have an authority on how you will engage in behavior. Without these two authorities these days, young men and young women get drunk. They have a promiscuous sex. Then next day they regret it and now the state has to intervene and the state has to also give power to new institutions for example the HR department me too and all that stuff. So this what looks like statism is the result of this un an un unhinged individualism in the mind of Denin. >> So so it's the response to subjectivism and there's a certain truth to that right there's a certain truth to if you build a culture on drug addicts and and you know people just emoting then some dumb thing's going to break. So so much rests so much of his argument and I think of the of the of the right argument rests on this idea that individualism equals you know subjectivism and and and complete relativism. Do whatever the hell you want. So no standards uh are the only standards can come from the church. Right? That's what's implicit here. and also a guide for people who will dive into Denin. When he uses the term natural law, natural rights, it is not the classical liberal natural rights, it is what it is the supposedly objective morality that comes from the church. So whenever he talks about natural law, he's actually talking about the Catholic teachings. So again, don't be confused because even when I first started say natural law, what does he mean? Oh natural the natural order for him is the order for the church. Not to cut him too much slack though even you who you are not a subjectivist even the pursuit of your self-interest for him would be bad and actually he calls in his book why liber fails he calls self-interest a disease >> why disease because it upsets it upsets the norms it accepts the traditions and it breaks this link that should your contract with those who came before you and your contract with those who will come after you. So the environmentalist thinks we have a duty to future generations and to future polar bears. The NI thinks we have a obligation to the future I don't know Americans residents of Indiana. It depends what level of connection you will take. But you have an unchosen duty to those who came before and to those who came after. whether you like it or not. Which by the way, the interesting question is does this also apply for example to the mountains in Afghanistan. Does a religious fundamentalist or tribal Afghan does he have a duty to continue living like that or is this not part of the natural law? And how do we know? So you see it's it's very difficult to universalize his teachings because then the question will be why is this a good thing? Why is living by the decrease of your ancestors good? But isn't isn't that where what he's trying to avoid really talking about? I isn't that true of all religion? And fundamentally his whole his whole perspective is a religious one. that is there is a truth natural law that was that is provided by by the Catholic religion not even Protestantism it it's provided by the church or capital um and the Afghan is going to stay in his barbaric state until he discovers you know Jesus Christ and is is saved by him. Um, so the the church ultimately has to I don't think he's I don't think I mean it's interesting to it would be interesting to ask him is he defending all traditions or is he defending the tradition of the west which he views as Catholicism as Christianity which which I think is what he's actually doing. Well, his interpreters I think would defend any tradition because remember Jay Devans was saying in that debate, I don't remember who was in Rogan or the the other the entrepreneur one, he was saying well Iran is a you know is a great civilization and therefore it's you know there are these misunderstandings. The message is >> they have their views we have our views and sometimes this creates misunderstandings. I think the question is that is that a position on foreign policy or is that you know a pos if you asked him is western civilization better than Iranian civilization I think you would say yes it's better I I I think these people are non multiculturalist in the sense of egalitarian civilizations they think the west is better and if you dug as to why it would be because of the church so Iran will become better Afghanistan would become better if it adopted the church. >> Okay, that makes that makes that makes sense. Because yes, empirically they are not multiculturalist. >> Yeah. >> Okay. The fact though that we have this obligation to past and future also means that this will have an effect on what we are allowed allowed emphasis allowed to produce what we will be allowed to create. Therefore, he has a particular view of progress and a particular view of the innovator. The innovator in the view of Denin is not just a disruptor. He's a powerlaster. He's someone who is dangerous. And we have collected some uh quotes from his work if you want to to present them to people. Well, he makes this claim that we need to be protected from to use an example familiar to us, Howard Ror, a fictional example, the innovator, the guy who has these views that no one else has. He's a danger. He's someone who needs to be put in his place. But also we need to be protected from our betters because the fact that they are our betters means that they will push forward in a pace that we will not be able to catch up and this would create disruption. >> So what's the paragraph again? >> How does the paragraph start with a quote from him on this? Do you remember? >> You have you got it? Oh wait. Yeah, I have it. I have it. I have it here. Wait. >> Yes. It's the I send it to you. Ambition as a threat or you can you can put Yeah, it's the paragraph that starts ongoing cultural practices. >> Okay, here we go. All right, I'm going to share my screen, guys, so you can read along. Uh but I I'll read it to you as well. >> And sorry, the reason why we have collected these quotes is so that people don't think we mischaracterized him because some of the things he says are actually even worse from our commentary on it. So we want the viewers to we want you to see it with your own eyes. >> So these are quotes out of the book. This particular quote is out of his latest book I think. >> Regime change. Yes. >> Yeah. This is out of regime change. Not his latest but is his one before last. Okay. See here it is. Ongoing cultural practices exist not merely to prevent the liberty of self-inventions. In other words prevent the liberty of self-inventions create self-creation you know creating yourself. but to protect ordinary people. He's very concerned about ordinary people from the potential repriciousness of the ambitious. Viewed in such a light, these informal but pervasive cultural forms not only prevent efforts of a revolutionary character from reordering society around the imperative of individual liberty. Here, by the way, he's implicitly criticizing the founding fathers. This is exactly the founding fathers that he's talking about, right? They the they you think about a a revolutionary character from reordering society around the imperative of individual liberty. That's the founding. But they protect the stability and order that most benefits ordinary people. It's all about ordinary people. people who are not well served by instability, generational discontinuity, institutionalized disorder. In short, what Mil called progress. So, who does progress hurt? It's it's and it's not hurt materially. I don't think he he he deny that they're better off materially, but psychologically they are. And I I think we'll talk about this. Progress cause is in ordinary people. Think about the looking down on ordinary people. Um progress causes an ordinary people alienation. It causes ordinary people to be alienated from the world around them. And uh this is what he wants to save them from. He wants to save them from this sense of alienation, this existential angst, this psychological horror that that progress. But not just progress, revolution. The American Revolution did that to Americans. Americans were quite comfortable living ordinary Americans, not the intellectuals, not the founders. Ordinary Americans were quite comfortable living, you know, in in um under the British. Everything was was set. There was a king. You knew exactly your place. And suddenly these founding fathers said no you have individual rights. You can kind of live your own life. It it shook them and according to according to Denine they they have never recovered from it. Um >> you know I I thought for a second I had an actual desav. But then I realized it's it's a it's not a des because we had exactly the same discussion with the Frankfurt school. The Frankfurt school scholars made these claims against alienation. Patrick Denin rehabilitates the neo-Marxist critique of the Frankfurt school and serves it in a way which is more digestible to conservatives. Yeah. And and if we think about the opponents to capitalism, if we go back to 19th century and and I'm going to go back to reading this, go back to 19th century, the biggest in addition to monarchs, the the other big uh uh element that resented capitalism were the conservatives who yes, you know, people were leaving their little villages. They were leaving their communities. Communities were being broken apart. They were leaving their churches and their families. They were traveling away. They were immigrating to America. They were going to the city. They were working in factories. They were losing touch with the with the with the, you know, with the land with with working with their hands. And again, we'll see the need venerates this idea of working with your hands and and and physical labor uh above above all else. So, this is there's a long tradition of conservatives uh you know, agreeing with Markx on this point even if using different language. The difference is Denine actually uses Marx's language. He uses alienation. He talks about a alienation. What does alienation means? It means that you don't you don't know where you are. You don't understand your relationship with the existence around you. Like you know for for Markx, you're alienated from the product you're making because you only make a little piece of it and you're not responsible for it from beginning to end. like a craftsman who who makes something from beginning to end is connected to it or when you grow vegetables you're responsible for the whole process here you're only responsible for a little bit of it and and that alienation of the product wellina is saying the whole and by the way this is exactly what the woman that I critiqued on Friday it's exactly the same thing she said about capitalism and she's a leftist Marxist she said the problem is that investments and progress progress the the ordinary person has no stake in it. They didn't create the progress. They didn't invest in the progress. They didn't decide to invest. This is why she wants democracy. So we can vote on it and that'll give us that'll give us a connection to it. But we don't have any connection to this progress. So we're alienated from it and therefore we don't belong in this world and that creates all the existential angst that leads in Benin's world to drug addiction and to sexual promiscuity and to you know all the all the evils that he sees exist out there. I I'll just finish this p this section customs uh etc. restraining the tyrannical impulses. Notice tyrannical impulses of the powerful to be free of the moderating and sustaining scriptures of custom tradition and culture. Our impulses are tyrannical. Um if >> you want see see again this formula. If you try to be free, you are a tyrant in the making because you're going to upset people's lives. >> Yep. He's the type of guy who would read Atlas Shrugged and if you ask him who are the villains in the book, he would say the number one villain is Hanken. Yep. And by the way, he read Atlas Shrugged. So this is a tidbit we picked up online. He read he read Ein Rand as a high school student. He read all the novels and and he you know supposedly he he liked them. He he got he was enthusiastic and because he read Iron Rand that led him to go read Aristotle and Plato who convinced him supposedly that Ein Rand was wrong and uh and now he calls a a a a Nietian you know and and dismisses her completely. But like Vance like so many people in our culture so many people including the real bad guys uh he went through an Iron Man phase. So I mean it was a short phase and he you know there's no evidence that he studied her seriously but you know enough to to mentioned her in a biographical interview he did in 2023. Um he he says if expertise is especially prized in societies that seek and promote progress, change, transformation and growth, the role of common sense is especially valued and necessary in societies that societies that are stable and in which continuity between generations is prevalent. I don't I don't even know what that means. Right? So you know uh um In what sense, right, is um is the continuity between generations not prevalent in societies that are progressing? In what sense is there no continuity among generations in um in American society since the founding? Yeah. I mean, a lot of this is is is to some extent googly. What comes to my mind is one essay by an Rand or a line the divine right to stagnation. >> Yeah. >> That because I cannot create what others have created. I cannot write 12 rules for life and sell millions. Therefore, Jordan Peterson should not be able to write 12 rules for life. Or to put on the spiritual level, I cannot create a philosophy that will revolutionize the world. Therefore, in Rand is a powerluster and should not be left to upset. We should go from generation to generation. Same old, same old, same old. Who are you who come here to upset and by the way notice how an unamerican this is unamerican? And that's why he wrote his latest book on on the odisay where he tries to say no no no America is not just change America is also this yearning of for home and he brings anyway we we can discuss this later but he he knows he has the understanding that this is a hard pill to swallow for Americans and he's trying to sugar this pill any way he can. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I I think what he's doing is exploiting a moment in time in American history right now where there really is existential angst out there. I mean, there is alienation, right? There there's the kind of alienation I think Brandon talks about in in his in his essay on alienation. But I mean, the alienation is is Patrick Denin's fault. It's the fault of leftist intellectuals and right-wing intellectuals. It's not the fault of progress. But there is alienation out there. There's a lot of angst. Uh you see that in the election of Donald Trump. So that's true that people are upset. There is there is way too many people on drugs. There are way too many people who are who are unhappy with their lives. And what he's saying, what Denine is saying is basically the same thing what the left is saying. They're saying all of this is a consequence of capitalism. All of this is a consequence of too much freedom that was unleashed by them by by the founding of America by by by the the the the the focus on individualism and individual rights. And what we need is to go back to communities. And the left has a different vision of what communities look like and collectivism looks like. But they completely agree on the diagnosis of what led to this. too much freedom, too much individual freedom and too much and and the manifestation of that is too much capitalism. It's capitalism that is at fault. That's capitalism that's created all the problems and all the angst and all the the the the um the uh challenges that exist in the world uh in which we live and and it's you know JD Van says it right he says um he says uh we are going to if the more we push capitalism the more we're going to get socialism right because capitalism causes the angst people's respon response to the angst right now is democratic socialism, right? Let's go with the with the socialist. But it's the capitalism that is the fundamental issue and the fundamental problem. And of course, you scratch under the surface of collectivism of of you some people cannot progress if not everyone progresses with them. Obviously you find altruism and he's explicit in his altruism that the fact that some of us are different means that those who are better off have a very specific obligation to help and support those who are left who are left behind. And actually if you if you look if you look the the second quote on the paragraph that starts from post-liberal integration it's worth reading this again because people will think we are we are strawmaning it. He cannot he cannot be it's the left is against merit. Read this sentence read this paragraph that s from post liberal integration would take. I'm looking forward to one side. I don't have that. Oh, there it is. Post li so this it's it postal integration would take the following form. So this is his solution, right? This is this is where he wants us to go. Inequality based upon differences in talent, interest and achievement is not a marker of individual merit, but rather a sign of our deeper solidarity, a window into our mutual need and insufficiency. >> Sorry. Notice that merit is in quotation marks. >> Yes. Well, there is no such thing as individual merit. The source of this in a minute. Inequality is a window into our deeper equality. Wow. Demanding not the flattening of our differences, but recognition of our mutual obligations. Obligations. Um, so yeah, I mean this is I mean really it it's really fascinating that the language of pretty much everybody on left and right today we we need to do a show on this. It it basically is all dictated by John Walls. John Walls is at the end of the day the most influential thinker in terms of influence of the of the late 20th century. Um and and you've got libertarian Wians, you've got leftist Wians, you've got right-wing Rianians, but they all and and this whole idea of well, there's no such thing as individual merit. I mean, you were born with this talent. You were born with certain genes. You were born to certain parents. It's all luck. We we should do that. We should do Sean Rolls and bring in Eron Man's article about him. uh you know to I can't remember what it's got it's got a funny title um but uh >> yeah now I blanked I blank as well funny story you mentioned the libertarian rosian the first time in my life I heard the term rolls was by someone who in my mind back then was a libertarian and he said when I asked okay where do I I was still a Marxist where do I begin he said rolls you should read you should read roles and of course as Marxist. I didn't like him. But this this veil of ignorance, my communist mother gave me this thought experiment and is one of my first actual memories. So my first connection to ROS without knowing that it's roles came from my Stalinist mother. The second came from a guy who was a self-styled libertarian probably almost two decades later. >> Was he was he a professor or >> Yes, of course, a professor. Yes. Is this Tomasi? >> Who? >> Tomasi. >> No, no, no. He's He's a Greek and was working in the in the UK. So, it was real life. Good guy for the standards of UK academia. Again, he was closer to a libertarian, but scratch under the service. He was a >> Tomasi who was a well-known libertarian uh who was a prince who was at Brown Brown University, he's not there anymore, actually wrote a book. And in the introduction to the book, he basically says, "Look, I I I I I'm I love libertarian ideas. I I love the marketplace. I love this stuff. I really like John Walls. I'm dedicating this book to my attempt to bring them, you know, to to to m them." And it, you know, it's just it's it's a the book is a disaster as a consequence because you can't you can't do it. Um but but that's John Tomasi. is a well-known kind of libertarian political thinker. Um, uh, used to be at Brown. Anyway, yes, >> the second Tomasi who features in Yaron and Nikico's dialogues after Rolo Tomasi in the red pill. Anyway, before we get to what what Denin wants for the future, let's finish his critique on capitalism. You mentioned in the introduction that he's a serious intellectual. However, he makes some arguments that make me question if he always is a serious intellectual and mainly I'm surprised by his attacks on the effect that capitalism has had on nature because he brings arguments that I wouldn't expect than anyone beyond my first year sociology students back in the day for example that with capitalism capitalism has to lead to perpetual growth and this will bring a depletion of resources. How? And he says this not in 1996. He says this in 2018. How can I take you seriously then? I mean this is these are arguments that have been debunked already from the debate between Paul Eric and who's the the good guy? >> Julian they were debunked well before that but but yes they they were debunked publicly between the two. But look, nobody nobody knows that, right? So these ideas are the are the prevalent ideas in the culture. Um, everybody I mean almost everybody holds them. When you say to somebody there's no limit on resources, they look at you like you're from Mars. They look at you know what are you talking about? Where does this even come from? So the Julian Simon view is clearly lost out in the culture. Is not one in the culture and and it is not held by many people out there. Um it and it's so he he I think it fits again you have to you can't understand the need without understanding he's a Catholic. He's a real Catholic and you know man was put on this earth to take care of nature and to preserve nature. I read a I read a really interesting article by by Vimule vermule is another integralist Catholic. He's a Harvard University. He's a law professor and he he advocates for what's called common good constitutionalism. He's very against originalism. He's very against the original meaning. It's all about reinterpret constantly reinterpreting the constitution for the common good. And the common good just like with Denin is understood as the common good as the Catholics understand it. um you know as as a as a kind of a a guided by natural law and guided by uh by Catholic teaching. So anyway, Vermule had this article about about environmentalism where he explained that environmentalism is actually a conservative cause that that this is exactly what God put man on earth to preserve nature to to take care of nature. That's the whole point of the Garden of Eden. And you know we if we abuse it we abuse we abuse our responsibility and I think Denine very much has that perspective and he has a I think he has at the end of the day kind of a zero sum view of that world. Again I I think that comes from from religion. He doesn't understand how markets work. And you can see that throughout a lot of Israeli