Hi. I'm Ron Coleman and a partner in
the Dylan law group social media legend, and
free speech ent.
When I started the culmination podcast in the
string of 20 21,
Its focus was on free expression and censorship
on the Internet.
Pod as important as that subject is to
me, which is very important. I felt hemmed
in in the podcast.
I wanted to spend more time talking to
the interesting people I've met in my legal
and free speech work.
Without feeling any need to have them all
make the same point.
So I culminated the first series of the
podcast and have started the second series.
I hope you'll enjoy these conversations
as much as I have recording it. I
love comb.
Are you enjoying the lovely summer weather? I
know that I am.
Today, we're gonna talk to
someone that you may
or may not know.
But he is 1 of the turns out
from what I'm read. He's a a shadowy
figure. He's low.
And he is
well, listen.
Why be shy about it. He's a Us
university lecturer behind a
bar right, Twitter account and publishing house. U.
And
Jonathan
has recently
you know,
been getting a very interesting
attention,
and
said, when when I went to... Well, what's
all what's all this about.
I said, well, okay. Whoever he is, he
follows me. So
That means
he's obviously a man of great discernment. That's
right.
And also from what I gather,
appears to be a friend of another friend
of mine.
Who... You'll notice you've never seen the same
place.
That's right.
And and we had
extra dead
Jc
on a culmination podcast a while ago.
Jonathan. You're act... You're... You are
an academic, professor or former professor or a
lecturer. I don't know what they've done to
you so far. Yeah. How'd you get yourself
into all this? Oh, boy. Where do we
start?
Okay. So... Are at the beginning.
First,
let me say thanks for having me on.
I really appreciate this opportunity to speak to
you in your audience.
Became familiar with you. I think probably through
your legal work.
You were probably...
At least, if not directly defending some people
that, you know, I I've been following and
and supporting you were at least vocal
in your defensive of them. So...
Was likely losing some very big and very
courageous case for somebody. Yeah. But these these
are important cases to fight. And actually, I
think the
general topic of free speech should be sort
of on our agenda here, and that's maybe
where,
most of all and among other things, we
we see Ida to eye and the importance
of free speech. So, okay. Where do we
start?
I grew up in in California in Northern
California.
And I think that's relevant because
what I think a lot of the country
is experiencing
now
was
apparent in California,
you know, 10 years ago or more California
has a reputation of being
sort of 10 years ahead of the curve
of everywhere else,
both were the good and the bad. And
I think unfortunately, most recently, this has mostly
been
for the bad in terms of,
you know, some of the social policies and
politics of the state and what it's done
to middle class families,
And how Californian in particular has approached
the question of higher ed,
that's my domain.
So
Okay. I I won't get 2 in a
depth, but I but I had a career
in in tech after
undergrad. I worked for Google for a little
while.
Was always enamored with the idea of of
being an academia, and I sort of had
this romantic notion in particular of
writing, being a writer or teaching in an
English department,
you know, being a literature professor, of some
kind seemed like AAA nice thing to do.
I went back to grad school completed my
graduate studies and got hired to teach at
Uc Irvine in the English department. This was
in
2012
to give some context. So, you know, we're
sort of in the middle,
or the beginning, excuse me of, Obama's second
term,
there's this...
My memory of it, you know, I I
didn't really experience this too much at the
time.
But now looking back, we were kind of
in this lim space where Soc, politically, the
country is kind of figuring out where to
go next after
you know, the bush years and the the
first obama administration, which was this attempt at
this kind of unity, you know,
Obama going to Iowa and the primaries I
remember and speaking to Iraq war veterans, and
he was gonna be sort of the politician
for everyone. Things sort of changed in 2012,
fairly radically in my view.
Some people
account for this, you know, with occupy Wall
Street, for example,
I have my own sort of pet theories
about what was happening at the time.
And why
from 2012,
then
into the middle of the 2000 tens, things
seem to tip sort of radically to the
left. In terms of the prevailing ethos of
our institutions,
higher ed in particular.
So in the English department I was teaching
in, well, I had... Yeah. Go ahead. Jump
up.
Snapshot.
You in 2012.
Yeah.
Particularly political, not that political.
I mean, kind of I was reading, like
Steve Sailor,
all the way back then, and I was
reading bloggers like...
Curtis Y and Nick lands,
who might be described as the outer rights.
And I think if I had to trace
my sort of ideological trajectory. I would go
back to
sort of pat Buchanan,
Like my my father's, like, liberal, you know,
Jewish father,
He was, you know, a Bill Clinton Knight,
and we would sit around. We would watch
the Mc miguel group. Do you remember this
television
Tv. And sure.
Almost like, just because you're an adolescent, you
wanna, like, argue with your father. I would
I would take the side a path you
can. But truthfully, you know, he probably spoke
most closely to my sort of intuitions
about sort of politics. And he was a
hell of a good debate. He was. He
was very sharp and About world war 2.
I will go to the grave, believing he's...
He he did a lot of harm with
that book.
But
there were important points in that book, and
they go the package done a little bit
differently.
Yeah. But he was he was he was
a hero of mine. Yeah.
I love you Buchanan and of course, this
then led me down, you know, and the
kind of a Quasi historical rabbit hole, and
I became sort of enamored with Richard Nixon
and and the Nixon administration. And Nixon was
a favorite of mine for, you know, again,
a variety of complicated reasons. But nonetheless, that
sort of trajectory continued on, and then And
I started reading, you know, people like Paul
Godfrey and Larry Os, and I don't know
how familiar are with these guys, but Not
I won't I I'm nodding because I... That's
my way of,
acknowledging what you're saying.
I don't mind if you think I've heard
the names because I have, but since you
asked, I'm not very familiar with them. Okay.
I don't have to apologize that anyone it
about for my air, but it is limited
as
No. It... It's fine. I mean, and these
were relatively obscure figures. I mean, they had
been kind of systematically kicked out of the
mainstream conservative movement.
Partly because of their stance on sort of
foreign wars and their disagreements with the Neo
cons, of course, and the term paleo con
is a
sort of reflex term in opposition to the
Neo con. So there was a lot of
sort of an there. And and the other
big issue in the 1 sort of animating
my own politics, I think was largely
immigration. And again, this is why being from
California is so relevant. So South California... Southern
California. I'm from Northern California, but I went
to school in Southern California and lived there
for... Right. Basically half my life. So kind
of a a child of both worlds, and
they are very different sort of politically, socially,
but they do share...
Some of the same path in my view
that came out of sort of mass immigration
that really was accelerated by the George Bush
and frankly I was see. You must have
been grown up in an intellectually oriented household.
So You know I mean, this is sort
of upper middle class, suburban San Francisco, my
parents. Yes. They, you know, they listen to
Npr. They read New York times, we said.
But... So the raw materials there, be because
you're coming from a very similar background to
mine.
But
like and like me,
you're coming to a
a different political conclusion for from that of
your
environment. Yeah.
And when I meet people like us, you're
a little bit younger than I am But
when I when I when I I meet
people from our kind of background who become
conservatives, I I'm
I'm curious
why
we didn't follow
the path that everybody else did. That even
mean Jews is still overwhelmingly
liberal in this country.
I mean, I have I have a variety
of chance to that. I mean, I'm
what what, you know, some term I'm michelin.
Okay? I'm I'm a half you, my mother's
Catholic.
So, you know, I guess in some technical
sense, I'm not quite considered jewish either. But
my view about that is that that actually,
as far as my parents are concerned,
many of their intuitions that were passed down
to me and certainly the way they raised
my family, were very conservative.
That's right. That's right. And then and they
didn't necessarily appreciate
how the world was moving away from things
that they took for granted in terms of
values.
And so any wax has written about this,
for example...
You know, she has this concept of sort
of middle class bourgeois values.
And that there are members of sort of
the... You the upper middle class, or of
liberal left, particularly from the baby Boom era,
where they
they sort of speak in the sort of
wrote sort of progressive slash liberal slogan.
But when you look at the actual choices
they make.
You know, where they live, where they send
their kids to school, how they raise their
kids, the sorts of values that they inc
in their children,
they're very conservative. And they'd be hard pressed
to find, like, a real sort of progressive
sort of liberal,
foundational, ideology underneath it. However,
The era they grew up in in the
sixties baby boomer era, it's just a very
different set of, cultural circumstances, political circumstances,
and their politics sort of cal at some
point. This probably will happen to us too.
It'll probably happen to me too and I'll
just... This is something I'll have to deal
with when I'm arguing with my kids at
some point. Okay. Fine. But
they're they're unable to move past the kind
of label and slogan that they adopted from
this. And and let's face it. Through that
period, let's call it, like sort of end
of end of the cold war, what, you
know, Fu yam because the end of history
period of the nineties,
this sort of western liberal
idea
prevailed, and this this is where status came
from. And if you were in any kind
of major institution
particularly like, in a place like California,
you just adopted these views because all of
the other high status people around you held
those views and In fact, I... I've heard
that just when I was in college and
I took a politics course from a guy
named Ken O.
He he shared with us an article. In
describing what you're describing as
in essentially neil conservatism. Yeah.
Not
conservatism is not merely the property of a
bunch of
old Dash men on the upper West side.
Yeah. Where young Men the upper West side
used to be liberals, but a sort of
consensus,
stability oriented,
cold
war liberal.
Yep.
And I think that's right.
And they were trying to preserve...
And and and if if I'm being maximally
charitable,
I would say that they... They were trying
to preserve the best parts of liberal.
But I think there are a variety of
things that happen in the sort of intervening
years from when neo conservative is. Conservatism,
sort of hit its high watermark to now
where
that particular political project is is sort of
obsolete, I mean, look, take someone like David
from, who I despise for a variety of
reasons. Okay? And I have massive disagreements with
him. But he used to be like, an
immigration hawk. And and sort of still is
if you actually, like, read between the lines,
but he won't say so out loud because
those... Those sort of values, the things that
we're animating him probably early in his career
have now been super seated by,
you know, his sort of... History onyx about
democracy or whatever.
Okay. So
public scene of the eighties. Yeah. The early
nineties.
That defines it. Another guy like Mickey Cows.
Okay? Who is, like, no sort of conservative
in any meaningful sense, but Actually probably agree
with Mickey Cows on
Well, immigration remains the only thing he really
cares about. That's true. And and but but
he's right to... I mean, not to say
that's the only thing that matters.
But his focus on immigration. Again, this is
a California centric thing. So it's it's no
coincidence that like Mickey Cows is a Californian.
Interested. Actually, I would say that if if
my father's no longer alive, but his politics
sort of probably closely
adhere to, like, somewhere in the Mickey Cow
sort of, like,
range of beliefs and attitudes.
Okay. Now,
a lot of these guys, I was mentioning
previously, Larry Os, the Paleo cons, us, Steve
Sailor,
what drew me to their writing. And, you
know, here's another example of someone who came
from this broad mil that I'm talking about
is Steven Miller.
You know, Southern California kid, similar background,
and
animated by this question of of immigration because
this is the thing that when you grow
up in California, you're staring at sort of
head on. You cannot avoid it.
Now,
a lot of these sort of upper middle
class liberals, in particular
have kind of
insulated themselves from the path methodologies of mass
immigration to their state, and their only
confrontation with that reality is like, the cheap,
gardener and cleaner who comes to their house.
You know, they essentially have these almost like
ind servants
that, you know, serve them. They would never
put it this way. Okay? They they would
never, like,
describe the relationship they have with this class
of people who've been brought in to serve
this sort of lower class role
as this kind of tiered
ind ser to sort of relationship, but that's
in effect what it is. Sure. And yeah.
And I actually This is why I I
have like, disagreements a lot with someone like
Richard Han, but he's at least honest enough
to sort of couch it in this way.
And so I appreciate that sort of honesty.
And in fact, anybody who's honest from any
side, you know, deserve some respect and a
hearing.
Okay. We're getting a little for our field
So anyway, is the meal you I grew
up in, this was my sort of political
trajectory. Now when it came to my teaching
when I was in the classroom and my
studies.
This it was completely political. And in fact,
I went out of my way to divorce
my sort of private politics
from what I was doing in the university
classroom.
Now what happens
in this period from, like, 2012
to, let's say, like, 2015.
So this... Pre dates Trump really where this
change started to happen.
The left for a long time,
this goes back to the political correctness wars
the of the nineties and and perhaps even
earlier. Had this mantra that, the personal is
political?
And what they mean by that is that
every decision we make,
every behavior we take part in.
Our preferences
as it relates to not just, you know,
social preferences and, like, how we vote and
where we live and send kids to schools,
but what kind of books we read, what
kind of art and culture we participate in,
all of this has a political violence. And
not only does it have a political violence
that that political
dimension is the most important fact
about those preferences and behaviors.
And so the idea of being sort of
political in the classroom or in your art,
okay? When you're writing or doing anything else.
Is totally an ethic
to this notion of the personal being political.
And
Marxism and social realism. Of course, Of course,
that's right. And and that's right. It... The
idea is a kind of pod politics. Okay?
And and this is really like,
in my view, the
concern I have
more than anything maybe with this kind of
far less leftist politics is that it doesn't
leave room for private space. It doesn't leave
room for the personal
anywhere divorced from this sort of political super
structure. It's total. Okay? And
so my experience in teaching,
I was just...
Unable to at some point, kind of make
this separation. And then when the Trump
election happened in 2016,
I was a Trump supporter.
And while I wasn't vocal about my politics.
Because again, my preference is to leave that
to my private life,
it just became un 10 at some point.
And I sort of limp along for a
while, and my wife was also in the
program with me.
And, eventually in 2020,
Covid hits,
school shutdown.
Okay. We we're not even, like, doing anything
anymore.
And we scatter to the winds, we left
to a different state. And in 2022,
they were gonna call us back to campus
now.
The other complicating fact there is that they
wanted us to get vaccinated owner to come
back to campus
for my own reasons, I... Wasn't going to
do that. My wife wasn't going to do
that either.
And so we had to make a decision
about what to do next.
And I decided
given my background
and what was annie animating me at the
time and still does this sort of what
I I feel like there's this sort of
urgent need for
a new kind of literature and intellectual landscape
on the right in particular,
though I don't wanna be
too sort of... I I don't wanna pigeon
hole what we're doing
as being sort of 2 or overt
ideological, though there's elements of that.
But given the need for this new intellectual
space as far as I was I was
concerned. I started this publishing company.
And it's called passage press, passage dot press.
And we can get into what we do
at passage, but that's the origin story. That's
where I'm coming from. Happy to fill in
any details.
There's an overwhelming theme both in your social
media content and
I just the most recent article of yours
that I read?
The long house maybe? Yes. Long house. That's
it. Yeah.
And it sort of reflects that sort of
panic feeling
that a lot of us...
That a lot of people feel and and
and people who aren't
passionate
about their
life
that
they have
grown up in and in a country that
they've grown up in and who are not
necessarily intellectual. Yep. You can really
discern in social media,
the the sense of panic. Mh.
I wanna now throw something up on the
screen, but I think you'll find it
really
intriguing. It it is from a Youtuber
named
And he... He's in South African ex patriot.
It's gonna... I'm gonna play 2 minutes.
And I wanna use it to sort of
frame the rest of our discussion.
I'm talking about this massive problem that American
has.
You know, every time, every single time I
look at social media turn on the Tv
on the news. I'm bombarded by this
this
negative chaotic view of America. You see
riots on campus. More than a dozen people
who arrested out of 5 State University overnight.
You see homeless people,
drug addicts.
You see gun violence.
You see urban decay.
You see Disney village passing around as if
they're attractive or something. You see just in
general, a country in decline.
There's just 1 problem movements,
and that problem is that I live in
America,
and I have lived here now for 5
years.
And
this stuff,
although alone it exists, I just don't see
it.
If I walk outside now, but go downtown
now to get a restaurant or something. I'm
not gonna see any of that stuff. And
that's because that stuff is so amplified and
so overblown, not only by
people locally in America but by ad aerial
powers abroad and just the international community as
a whole. They will... Amplify every negative aspect
of Americans to make it look as if
this place is falling apart and on fire,
So I wanted to talk about this because
I'm not some sort of fresh off the
boat tourists here. I've lived in American now
for 5 years.
I'm not an American fan boy either. I
love America. I think it's a phenomenal country.
I'll get that a little bit.
But
Having lived here for 5 years, I've had
to deal with all the it pitfalls to
this absolutely
insanely expensive medical system. I mean, my...
My medical insurance cost me more than my
rent and all of my monthly
bills in in China for instance, just for
my medical insurance. Stupid.
Have to deal with that. Of course, I've
had to deal with the government lot here
in every aspect of getting driver's licenses and
registering, you know, my daughter are being born
going through the medical system in social security
members, and
everything you can think of course, paying tax,
and dealing with that, which is look very
overly complicated in American for some reason. But,
you know, I had a deal with pretty
much everything that's...
Most people would complain about.
And there are definitely some things to complain
about America.
But
before we even get into
this nonsense because I've I figured it out.
I understand why this phenomenon happens and we'll
get into that. So
Is he right?
Yeah. I mean, look, it's a useful...
I I think I'm just reading from your
from your comments there. I saw on the
screen. It is a useful perspective. And
I think we have to be careful
about not being, sort of overly hysterical.
And
sort of,
just sitting here in our, like, bunker waiting
for, civil war breakout or something because there
is still, I think, by and large a
sort of sense that things are
you know, functional or operational that
you know, neighbors aren't like,
even red, blue neighbors, you know, can sort
of get along or there's this sort of
cold piece like, across these political
divides.
But
I would question
whether or not things are trending in a
good direction or a bad direction. And there's
a kind of sense that in, you know,
the the old saying about the boiling pot,
just because the frogs don't feel immediately, like,
they're about to die or or turn into
soup. Doesn't mean that they're not getting cooked
to death. And I think if we look
at our institutions and we look at
and and did some comparison
you know, we could pick the date we
wanna go back to, let's say, again, you
know, I'm I'm biased towards this sort of
period I grew up in, let's say, and
the in the nineties, although that was not
perfect either and that had its own sort
of path.
But we can we can ask ourselves our
things as good as they ought to be
given the level of American d
in terms of our economy,
or are things trending in a bad direction?
You know, I'm I'm thinking, for example of
this kind of underlying social fabric that's someone
like Robert Putnam,
you know, wrote about and books like Bowling
alone or our kids, where you look at
this dis integration of social trust,
in in communities,
across different classes and ethnic groups.
In our kids, he
sort of identifies that our public schools, for
example, which ought to be the centerpiece of
our sort of civic life have lost their
ability to
effectively
serve the function that they're supposed to. And
as a result of these institutions and we
could scale all the way up to higher
ed, But the civic institutions are basically dis.
And people are kind of going their own
ways and forming these sort of ad hoc,
sort of communities of of of
affinity groups of 1 kind or another,
and
this isn't good in the long term in
my view.
And so what do we do about this
sort of underlying dis integration of things like
social trust of atom amortization,
you look at marriage rates and fertility rates,
and all these different data points and the
macro trends.
And, yeah, okay, this guy can walk out.
By the way, being from South Africa, I
hope America doesn't look. As bad is what
he's tried that's so good. You picked up
on what on my second point, which was
that He's from South Africa as of... Or
he lived there 5 years ago. He's from
the South Africa,
not the South Africa
4 white people
Existed
40 years ago, but the absolute health scape
South Africa is today.
But but also and I I you you
nailed it when you mentioned public schools.
People
think they're walking down of beautiful street. Yeah.
They think their children are coming home with
beautiful products from public school and singing pretty
songs. They,
unfortunately,
Yes. Yes. Yes. It is a good perspective.
Don't panic.
We are still America,
but you have no idea what's going on
in those public schools. That's right. You have
no freaking idea. It's it is
insane.
It's insane,
and
not only
is it... Yes. I'm not experiencing
violence in the street personally right now.
Looking out the window Ben had. I can
go him man manhattan at any time it's
into midtown and walk around and have a
very nice New York experience. The differences is
when things don't go right.
Not only that they don't go right, because
it's... I grew up during the the rides
of the sixties, You know, III,
you know... I've been
not during award
machine at all.
The difference was in those days, authority was
on the side of the majority. Authority was
on the side of order and law. And
now it's not.
So I I think he his perspective is
useful from a psychological and social point of
view, and it's good to get it from
someone who is a recent immigrant.
But
I think he's missing. I do think you're
right. He he's missing some underlying problems that
do not trend well.
Yeah. So I... You know,
I'm not someone who thinks that like a
civil wars around the corner, and you do
sort of hear some of that rhetoric online.
And I think there's a certain amount of
people who who sort of want that. Okay?
They they desired that. But what did they
even ring? But but what do they mean
by it? It it it's such a name...
Obviously, it doesn't mean like a warranty in
the state's kind of situation. That's literally impossible.
Yeah.
I mean, there is... I mean, I've had
more than 1 guest on this program who
have asserted that there is a civil war.
It's already underway and so we have to
So if you mean that there's a culture
war... Yeah. And there's a sort of a
clot
fine. That is true. Yeah.
I don't know. But to you... But you're
right. Do do we want to...
Well, there is a look. There's a struggle
going on. This is what you're writing about.
Is what you're observing. Yeah.
I mean, III don't wanna discount the possibility
of that happening either. So while it's not
at our at our doorstep right now,
it certainly could be. I mean, I'm thinking
of
it's kind of an outrageous book, but the
military,
historian,
scholar,
William Lin. Are you familiar with William Lin.
He he coined the term fourth generation warfare,
he wrote he wrote a novel
called victory,
which was about a kind of civil war
unfolding
according to the sort of fourth generation warfare
principles that he wrote about elsewhere,
it's
in Laura detail where almost get the sense
that he was sort of, like, enjoying himself
a little too much
as he's sort like,
writing about a kind of army of, like,
Jefferson,
Agrarian, you know,
farmers, like American Ko essentially, like, rising up
to
take on the bolsheviks. Okay? Like, in the
universities and stuff.
And while I
doubt that this kind of kinetic warfare
or spontaneous
coordination between these factions,
is even possible in our current circumstances,
maybe precisely because of a lot of the
lack of social trust and sort of atom
amortization that that we see.
It does sort of reading that sort of
thing. Does remind you, a, like, look, these
things are possible. They do happen. And and
like,
we don't have to go so far back
in history to see a time when
an otherwise sort of stable nation started cracking
apart and it was you know,
slow, but then happens all at once. And
I think we have to be mindful of
the possibility for something like that happening.
I don't personally see see
where that could start, and I don't want
it to happen. I may have 3 young
kids. I'm not
hungry for a hot war. I... I... That
would be sort of a horrific possibility. There
are better ways to solve our underlying problems.
However,
it may be possible, but also...
Okay. The the last thing I wanna say
on this, we can move on to the
next point though is that
What this guy is identifying. This kind of
like,
comfortable S that he sees and that
the
trouble
in the the sort of cultural flash points
are merely
a kind of illusion or spectacle
of online digital life,
just simply isn't true. I mean, I remember,
you know, going back to 2020,
the George Floyd Riots.
It so happened that the...
I mean, this is a personal thing, but
we...
The restaurant where my wife and I had
our rehearsal dinner, for example, got burned down
in 1 of these riots. Okay? 1 of
these cities.
As an example,
we saw
what was
real
violence,
and that was certainly
that had the possibility
to escalate into something much more severe
and into discount that something like that wouldn't
happen again and happen rather quickly as I
think very naive.
But we also had a totalitarian experience and...
Between then and now.
The Covid
years. Yeah.
Were a bona fide totalitarian experience
where
it didn't have that Connecticut, that kinetic
aspect or to a large extent, it did
not have the c
aspect in the
in the military sense. But but but the
c act aspect was right was
right there. It was right there.
And
it was not a test that we passed
with flying colors. No.
And and it also it it resulted in
a further
deterioration of the trust society. Yep.
And of the bonds.
So believe it or not, we've been talking
for over half an hour.
In your overall
world,
what do you think is gonna work?
If that, you know,
You're not obviously abandoning it.
When past view buchanan was writing.
Mh.
There was something to grab onto.
Although even then I think he was
fooling himself through fooling himself about
what other catholics.
Mh. Thought about social issues. Mh. He was
already, I think
they were already past him moving moving left
as a group.
40 years later.
There
your product of inter marriage. Yeah. People don't
make
life commitments
outside of
you you used a very important term before,
which I promptly forgotten.
You know, atom,
like, I I'm... I live in a sub
culture of orthodox juice. Mh. And for us,
it's going great guns. Yeah.
We are very cog... Very cognizant of what's
going on around us.
And as is typically the case with sub
cultures,
it reinforces our belief that we're doing it
right, like how badly they're doing it.
But
it's not good for anyone involved for it
to go to hell, especially that us. It's
especially right.
And evangelical
I I don't know. I what's
to me the obvious leap is always to
faith, but that might not work in the
20 first century.
Well, I think it's a
necessary, but insufficient condition. Okay. I do think
Theory. Yeah. But, well, maybe maybe not. I
mean,
you know, there's...
The there really isn't a kind of like
robust
secular
answer to faith community. What you see instead
are these sort of nominally
secular
affinity groups, substitute
traditional religion with
you know, like, W, These sort of quasi
religions of 1 kind or another.
And so it's it's gonna be religion, no
matter what. It's just what is the nature
of that of the... Of these religious beliefs
because they aren't even though sort of liberal
or progressive
religions,
or or what they would call ideologies
or grounded in a faith of a kind.
I mean, they they don't have any better
access to first principles than
anyone else, they might fool themselves to lube
themselves into thinking they do. But, you know,
I much prefer the honesty of of a
group of people who just commits themselves to
a God and said that's that's where it's
coming from. I mean, it's it's,
look, my own religious beliefs aside. It's just
it's more likely to be true, and it's
a better answer from a
strictly,
sort of utilitarian or functional perspective in my
view. Okay. So
that's 1 thing. I also, look, if you're
if you're asking me for, like, answers about
how to get through this, and sort of
breakthrough through. I'm I'm sorry. I don't have
an answer. And because I don't have an
answer and sort of
almost dis trust anybody who is so committed
to 1 answer that, you know, they they
are excluding other possibilities,
is this is why, you know, free speech
and this sort of new intellectual environment is
so important to me. We need to throw
a lot of stuff at the wall and
see what's sticks and we don't know ahead
of time,
what is going to be the most effective,
sort of ideological or cultural tools
to get us through this impasse, and it's
a mistake. Also, I should say, you know,
in reaction of various kinds, I think fall
into the trap of thinking, okay. Well, we
can just return to something that came before
us. And
you know, George Bush, 1 of the few
things he said that was very wise was,
I think we can all agree the past
is over. And I think there's there's something...
Almost a yogi bar. Yeah. Yeah. That's right.
But, you know, there's something was profound about
that. We have to go forward, we have
to push through. And even if...
Okay. So 1
sort of topic of mind that I think
is important that a lot of people have
begun to sort of... It's it's become actually
mainstream in a sense and give credit to
people like Christopher Caldwell, and Chris Ru, Richard
10, for example, say, okay, let's revisit civil
rights law.
And let's really think about, like, the functional
effects of certain aspects of civil rights law,
like, dis disparate impact, for example.
And let's really sort of take a hard
look at whether or not these are solving
the problems that they were intended to solve
or creating new problems or whatever the case
man. And that process is underway. Disparate impact
In hanging by a slim thread. Which and
and I
would love to see desperate disparate impact go
the way of affirmative action. Okay? This is...
I think very important, although,
even with affirmative action, you know, there's a
concept called
manipulating
procedural outcomes. Like, even if you
sort of azure outlaw these things, there are
ways of sort of manipulating
policies and regulations and how certain
sort of policies are put into effect to
achieve
right d factor facto, the same outcomes that
the laws and that the previous law, the
status quo was intended to achieve. So I
wanna be careful about focusing too much on
law, But now back to the general point
is even if we can undo, let's say,
disparate impact or these major pillars of civil
rights law.
It's not gonna be a return to pre
civil rights rights law. We're gonna now be
in a future in which there was a
thing called civil rights law and had this,
you know, half a century history in which
it was in effect and,
changed the sort of fabric of our institutions
in bureau.
And now after that, we're gonna have to
confront this new context and operate within this
new context
in which that past existed. So there there
just is no going back. It has to
be a forward looking vision. And this is
why... So some of the people we publish,
for example, Nick Land
he's
sort of coined to this term neo reaction,
which is this kind of highly theoretical
sort of concept of,
sort of right wing politics
that has certain
complicated
answers to some of these questions or Curtis
Y,
who is a self identifying monarch,
you know,
I try to him. Yeah. Yeah. He... He's
a very interesting guy. You guys would have
a great conversation, and I'm sure.
Okay Now whether or not you agree with
any of these particular
prescriptions that these guys are making,
and an I for now will just sort
of remain agnostic on that question.
It's important for us to consider these things.
Okay? It's it's important for us to sort
of be thinking outside the box.
I think we have to approach this as
a kind of
intellectual sort of ideological Manhattan project. There's no
sort of
potential or possibility
for
solution that should be discounted on its face.
We we have to find, like, smart, thoughtful
people. And if they're pushing in a particular
direction, let's follow them and see where that
goes. And if there are
of good practical reasons why we shouldn't pursue
that any further then we retreat and go
on to the next path, and it's like,
finding your way through a maze, and I
think
People are afraid of this. Okay? People are
afraid of ideas. They're afraid of new things.
They're afraid of ideas that are outside the
box. They want to sort of say, constrained
within this comfortable overt window that they've grown
a accustomed to. And I guess, if anything
else, my project is to just come in
and sort of blow that whole thing up
and say, no. Okay. This this isn't gonna
be the way we find a solution. We
have to be more creative,
we have to be more sort of intellectually
radical in some sense. To combat the kind
of
intellectual radical of the left, and that doesn't
mean falling into the same
sort of path and traps that they fall
into, but we have to be open to
new ideas. And and I want to really
put that on the table for those of
us on the right.
And that and and part of that learning
process is, you know, and and a lot
of the
G people who, you know, file...
Many of our friends. Yeah. And us. Yeah.
This
this bullshit,
penny, you know, Dime racism.
Yeah.
Yeah. I I get it. You have to
be a lot more realistic about
racial policy.
And
racial politics and sis all the things. Yeah.
But
we're here now
we're here now, we're we're not going back
to whatever it is you think was
before that was better. Yeah.
Familiar at all with,
Michael Bur,
say it causes.
Mh. So that... He he writes a
he he is a a great
phenomenal story. And not... I would not call
him a conservative.
But I wouldn't but I would call someone
who's who had historically been very critical of
a lot of the
trends that we're talking about. Never mind that
3.63 it's wrong.
Your... The structure that you've
chosen to to
tackle this is not to start a think
tank.
Or university, but to publish books get them
out there. Yeah. I mean, you know, I
would consider other avenues for doing this and,
we have, sort of discussed the possibility of
a sort of 5 of A1C3
arm of this organization where we can
do certain things where we're not, they're sort
of t to making a profit. And certainly,
that would be useful. And I have... What
you're putting up on the screen now is
a
art contest because I think actually that
non
explicit
ideological art you know, storytelling really is the
basis for whatever comes next. We have to
be able to tell ourselves sort of stories
that
model
what a sort of productive
and flourishing life looks like, not only in
our present environment, but
in whatever environment
comes next. So I think that's a that's
a really important component to this. I do
wanna just
briefly go back though to this question of,
like, what what you called sort of dime
store racism
and Oh, you know, this kind of, like,
vulgar
sort of
reactionary politics of various kinds.
Again, like, as a more or less free
speech maximal on these questions anyway.
I think we have to sort of
entertain
if not,
the
specific
arguments they're making, which are pretty
very often, not all the time, but are
often easily
identifiable as being just sort of wrong on
their face. Okay? Like, we should sort of
push back against those claims and identify why
they're wrong and and show the right
answer to those questions. But,
you know, by the way, some of these
people might be
making
critiques
that are important for us to listen to.
And are important for us to
you know,
reflect on
And and at least ask, okay. Why
are the certain set of critiques whether they're
aimed at
you know, Jews or various... Like, Jews ought
not to be exempt
from these kinds of critiques. And I don't
wanna say, okay. Well, it's just this sort
of, like, vulgar anti semitism therefore
ignore it. No.
Let's look right. They're like, hundred percent. There's
something
and,
you know, the there is something
there's a reason
that there's an audience for that now. And
it's not
because the Been thrown out of a hundred
and 25.
It's it's because
we have to make a reckoning
All Americans have to make a reckoning of
what
contributes to our culture
and who creates that culture
and
what are the
ideological
and social forces that make it what it
is?
Yeah. And I mean, you know,
look, I this... It's it's a complicated question,
but
it's
perfectly reasonable.
For a
certain segment of Americans
to look at,
our foreign policy over the last 2 decades.
Okay?
And say, and ask themselves and look at...
For example, the previous group... Like, look at
the Neo cons in their position on foreign
policy and whatever else and to say,
is it the case
that our foreign policy
is in some sense being subordinate
by
a,
preference toward Israel
and that that is somehow having a negative
effect on our foreign policy more broadly. I'm
not asking you to answer that question. We
don't need to get into the weeds, but
it's a perfectly legitimate question to ask. Absolutely.
And just because people are asking that question,
we can't just dismiss them and say, oh,
this is some kind of vulgar anti semitism,
how dare you noticed that the Neo cons
were Jewish.
Okay. They were. So let's reckon with that
fact. It's okay to reckon with that fact.
Awesome. And so... And, you know, And frankly,
when it comes to questions like
anti semitism in the Us. It's my view
that organizations like the Ad, for example,
have
verified many of the complaints that people make
about, you know, Jews sort of
focusing exclusively on anti semitic rhetoric
and using the power that they
have in media, for example, to to silence
or suppress views that are critical of of
Jews. And and I think they're doing themselves
to the disservice. Now think there's a kind
of s
relationship between the Ad on the 1 hand
and and and sort of this vulgar grant
I semitism on the other hand. They give
each other a purpose. Okay. Like, their they're
their own raised on d. So
it's hard to sort of dis
the incentives there.
But anyway, I I just wanna say that
all of these questions are perfectly legitimate. We
have to have... We have to be confident
enough
in our public discourse and our ability to
sort of make arguments
and make the case to accommodate
these sorts of views And, you know, I
think back on it's something my father used
to
celebrate. As kind of the high watermark of...
You know, America and American ism, whatever that
meant in the late twentieth century. And it
was the Ac,
you of course, defending the the Nazis and
Sk Illinois. Okay. Right. That's that's always... Just
like,
not only was it sort of in, of
the right thing to do and sort of
serve the purpose of the Ac,
but it also demonstrated
this self confidence in who we were. Okay?
We could do this. We we had the
sort of strength,
and this
resilience
and
belief in our own values
to make a stand like that And I
think 1 thing we've lost is that sort
of self confidence. I think all of us
sort of feel like
these believe... That we hold dear, whether it's
free speech and you see this like in,
concerns over misinformation and misinformation disinformation. We've got
a make sure that these people can't have
these ideas or this article about me and
my publishing company.
This is derived from a lack of confidence
in who we are.
There is a crisis
of our belief in what it means to
be American.
And 1 of the ways this is expressed
is this... Through this kind of...
Totalitarian,
sort of speech norms, the censorship norms.
And so anyway, I don't have
you know, again, a great answer for how
we combat this, but, it's a serious problem,
and it it you simply just can't be
the case that we ignore anybody,
who makes critiques of us or or jews
or blacks or pick your group.
Everybody's open. Let's all put our cards on
the table and make the case Okay? That's
1 of the most fun things about social
media In fact is that you can make
friends
with woke black people and
Orthodox jewish people and Woke Atheists and Woke
Catholics. And in a way that you might
not in meat space
and
these are the people who are the most
comfortable talking about the problems within their groups
because
Why when I say, woke, I mean, I
mean, based. I see. Okay. I mean, our
hours.
Yeah. Hour woke.
The... You know, it's...
Because in a way, that the the risk
free aspect of social media that is so
cor in many respects. Also enables
interaction that you otherwise would never have. Yeah.
Do you have any concerns though that, at
the end of the day, what your
your prescription of, you know, let's just
what's let's have... Let's have ideas. Let's have
free expression
is
really just
another version of the liberal that has gotten
us here.
In other words, it's it's this sort of
counter argument that there are some forces that
are so
cor. And and so Anti empathetic to these
values
that perhaps and I does a discussion I've
had with Michael K a couple of times.
So because I I kind of asked what,
let's say we do draw the line and
say, you know, well what would the founding
fathers have thought? And therefore, we're not going
to admit into the Path of civil religion,
Devil Worship okay, Again. Like that, it standing
by itself, that sounds fine, but
as a practical matter, how does that how
does that work at a plural society? I
don't see how it can. I mean, you
know, you're the lawyer, you're the legal scholar.
I'm not gonna, pretend as if if free
speech law, in particular isn't a complicated mess.
And that,
upholding, sort of principles of free speech,
you know, doesn't come with
certain costs and certain drawbacks
and of requirement
for a certain kind of tolerance of ideas
that, yes, may be so cor
that,
they...
Could overturn the sort of very tolerance that
allows them to exist in the first place,
You know, the the paradox of tolerance. Okay?
And I'm, you know, I've made this joke
before when the right wins,
I'm perfectly
aware that they're gonna sort of put me
against the wall for my. You
commitment to free speech.
I think I'm okay with that. Like, I
like I'm, like, I'm okay with that. That's
the particular role that I serve.
But I think we really do...
IIIII
also think it's
it's a bit of
naive or...
A kind of, like sofa street to assume
that we can't make
meaningful practical
decisions,
about where and how to apply these principles.
And so,
you know, a state or public sponsored, like
Drag queen show for kids,
does that
rise to the same levels of protection for
you know, political speech as
a
you know,
a book by ernst younger or something?
Well, going going to your point about,
Again, here we... We're we're not where we
were in 19 65. We're we're 2024.
That might very well mean that we can
acknowledge that
the burger court to talk about speech
on the Warren court, in particular, the warren
court,
made some bad calls. They made some bad
calls. That they they
read the first amendment free speech guarantee
as guaranteeing
things that were really never contemplated
and that have resulted in
real societal
cost.
Yes.
And we don't have to throw out the
first amendment and the and the concept of
free speech to say,
let's make better decisions. Sort of like the
Supreme Court did with affirmative action.
We
institutional, we were wrong.
Yeah. And
you know, I I
I'm not sure, like, where I would say
the court has been wrong in the past
about this or that. Decision over free speech
and we could probably sit here for hours
and, like, go through the nuances of that.
It's actually very interesting and and sort of
very important, and I think in terms of
establishing precedent, and not just where speech is
allowed, but what constitutes speech? I mean, when
we're talking about speech, what does that even
mean? And
what are the boundaries
of, like, a speech act that we want
to protect under this thing called the first
amendment versus these other kinds of
you know, behaviors and expressions
that
we could sort of exclude
from this, you know, more focused,
category
of acts that we call speech. And and,
like, again, I don't I don't quite have
the answer to that on On balance, though,
I'm always going to air on the side
of more rather than less.
Not... But but not only because it's it's
politically good. Not only for these, like, sort
of utilitarian
arguments, you know, like, you go back to
John Stuart mill or whoever, and you say,
like, Okay. Because we want truth to win
out and the only way for truth to
win out is by the sort of competing
ideas and we have to let people
sort of... Try out all sorts of bad
ideas in order to get to the good
ideas. I believe that's true, but that isn't
the only reason. I think free speech,
as I understand it, as I sort of
grew up with it, is good for the
soul. Okay? It's good in its in its
own right. In and of itself, it is
good and
for us to have... And and I maybe
I'm... I'm saying this sort of selfish, you
know, I'm sort of book ish inter a
intellectually curious person and
as someone who's a writer or operates it
sort of in the life of the mind,
I just think we need to allow ourselves
to freedom to think about and express
all sorts of different ideas,
test out that expression against other competing ideas,
and go from there and
where it becomes un,
sure, I suppose there's some negotiation, but know,
if we look around, like, I look at
this kind of
disinformation regime that we're seeing sprout up. You
see all these programs like it. Harvard has
1. And, know, all these tools now. Stanford...
They all have these, like, misinformation, misinformation programs,
to really just designs as, like silence people
on the right. Okay? Hard to really see
much daylight between what they're doing and calling
misinformation and just right wing billion. Okay? Right?
And so it's that's that's
scary to me. Okay? That's the kind of
thing that's like scary. But it it... But
on the other hand, it tells you.
We are a threat to them.
Totally, I think they're only doing it precisely
because there's a crisis on their side. They
know they can't win on the merits. They
don't... They've could sort of run out of
arguments,
and the response then is to silence whatever
we're saying.
And so I understand why they're doing it.
I don't wanna live within a sort of
constitutional,
legal regime, a, a sort of,
legal structure that would allow them to... But
Sort of implement the maximal version of this
sort of disinformation regime and and go to
social media companies and sort of make demands,
that for example, you can't challenge
the
efficacy of the vaccination. Okay, or whatever.
Pick your pick your topic of choice Or
for that matter,
challenge the idea that the earth is round.
Okay? I want flat earth to be able
to go online and, like, make their argument
for why the earth is flat. For why
09:11 was an inside job. And the same
thing with Holocaust mile. Yes. Absolutely 100 percent.
Okay? Make the argument. Fine. Okay? We're not
gonna, like, the the idea that some
catastrophe is gonna be us by allowing these
ideas to sort of per and proliferate. I
think is
incredibly sort of hysterical.
It's... There's just no evidence to backup up
that that's the case. And by the way,
the truth is that we actually may learn
something from these people. Okay? Believe it or
not, we might,
I was having this discussion with Receive Con,
and we were talking about
creation is. And the fact that actually creation
is, the the smartest ones have helped
biologists,
sort of understand better,
like bio, like where did life come from?
It's because they're asking really difficult questions. Like
they get to the ground core of, like,
what is the argument being made on the
side of official truth? And, yeah, the Holocaust
is very complicated,
it's very well documented, but it's it's a
complicated question. Okay? Like, we should be able
to have this conversation and tolerate people, we
even claim that There was no such thing.
There was no, like, program to murder jews.
Okay? So what if someone says that? It's
okay.
That's right. And and and, you know, it
also... That goes to matters of of of
faith
in the in and of themselves. Do you
know what them is? Do you know what
the muslims believe? Do you know what the
Jews believe? Yeah their muslims. Yeah. If that's
the religion. Yeah.
If you don't subscribe to that religion,
do The Jews think they're they're god's chosen
people...
Also you're Jewish and then and now you
feel bad about. I'm not you. I of.
What the hell you care with the you
believe? Yeah. Well what's... Why that a problem
for you?
We could go on.
It's been an hour.
So,
I think you and I
have a lot to talk about. And I
hope we get a chance to do it
again. Yeah. Oh, you there's 1 more question
though. You probably haven't ask them many time
how do you get from Jonathan Keeper
to Loma?
Okay. Loma is a character from Seinfeld.
As and he's 1 of Kramer off screen
friends,
and you never see him.
And
he's a... Very interesting weird character who has
a lot of idiosyncratic, sort of,
hobbies and
whatnot.
So, you know, being anonymous, like, not being
on screen. I thought Okay. No, I get,
in other words, he he fulfill certain.
Certain script needs.
Yes. That we're cra... We're something even weirder
than Kramer himself. That's right. Has to be
accountable for some... Okay. So Yeah Shame on
Orthodox jew actually, lo as... Always
fargo
typical name for.
Yeah
So.
Jonathan. Great talking to you. Thanks a lot,
guys. Thank you appreciate it. Okay. Have a
great day.
Hey. Thank you for listening to the Coleman
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