Nationalist Internationalism (Ft. Cadell Last)

I remember it was a common talking point.

In like, woke discourse even among, like I would say,

PMC white people and black people.

So I say PMC because this is like, not something

I would ever hear with like written people

without master's degrees, but this common talking point,

oh, there's no such thing as white culture.

Whites have to go, what do you, what, what, what,

whites are you talking about there?

Ridiculous.

It's really ridiculous.

And then now you have this mirror reaction.

It's a very popular, you might see it everywhere, which

is, they say, it's like responding

to like a bunch of clips of, you know, kind of woke

influencers saying, oh, whites don't have culture.

And then it shows like, like this kind of compilation

of just random things associated with so-called white

civilization that, which is like the Roman Empire,

the Germans, Poland, or just like British Empire,

just really random things.

A lot of countries that wouldn't have even seen themselves

as part of the same race and whatsoever, but it's that

reaction, you know, like if you're going to reify this notion

of blackness or black as a race as a group, you know,

it's like, I guess part of why for me, like I never bought

into it is because I'm in a strange category of, you know,

a mostly Arabic, but I'm also, you know, I've also European

Arabs in America for some reason are put under the white

category and Europe, they're not.

And it's kind of your white passing, especially if you don't

have like a big beard or something, you know, and aren't

very darker.

People from the Levant are generally quite light.

These things function socially though, you know, like it's

interesting how these things function.

So like white, like you say, white passing, you know,

like that, I mean, these things seem socially real in a way,

like they are, but they're just not a group.

Like the real group identities, not real.

The feature is real, but the group identities, not real.

It's like, yeah, being wider or darker is like a feature

like, yeah, you're taller and shorter, you know what I mean?

And, you know, I kind of detected that when I was at McMaster

University back in the 2000s, when all this stuff I perceived

to be germinating or planting the seeds, it's like, okay,

you guys are just like inverting a stereotypical power narrative

of like British colonialism.

Like if you take like the most racist British colonialists

and people who had race, race, realist hierarchies,

and you can, you know, I was reading all like the 18th century,

17th century biologists and, you know, who were thinking

about these things about race.

I mean, and woke left is just like a weird inversion of this.

You know, it's like just taking it and flipping it upside down.

And, you know, whether it's explicit or not.

But I think, you know, that's what I saw it as.

And I always thought, well, this isn't going to go anywhere.

And then, well, whenever.

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or I'm going to change the world.

But I guarantee that I will spot the brain

that will change the world.

And that's our job.

We might not be the ones.

But let's not be selfish.

And because we're not going to change the world,

let's not talk about how we should change it.

By moderately conservative, I mean simply.

Before you act, think well about all possible consequences.

Philosophers call someone a relativist,

by which they mean it's a person that holds that any views

as good as any other views.

No one believes that every view is as good as every other view.

You want to do politics.

You got to fucking understand the issues.

It's not all just emotions and fantasy life.

Remember my friend, a wise man, you can learn more

from a few questions.

And a few can learn from a wise cancer.

Welcome to the back room.

I'm here again with Dr. Kiddell last

to follow up on our previous discussion,

which was on the broader zeitgeist.

Big shifts that are occurring.

Why we need to understand popular cultures, understand

what the culture is feeling.

And we talked about religion, mainly centered on the first episode.

This one is more explicitly focused

on the big return of a lot of repressed issues.

And those issues are immigration, demographic change,

which we've been talking about a lot.

Yeah, I mean, immigration, you know, you

presents it so far, I think, in one of the four dimensions

of Nick Fuentes' appeal and the demographic change.

And actually, you know, in my, you know, study,

so to speak, of his rise to fame.

The immigration issue and the demographic change

actually seems to be the one that he was most concerned about.

And the thing that was stimulating the most intellectual

attention among the right wing study circles

that he was working with before he became famous concerns

over demographic changes when he went to university,

being in a growing up in an all white neighborhood.

And then, you know, from his perception, for his perception,

like moving to Boston and seeing a very multicultural city

thinking that America itself was being lost.

Of course, he's associating America with a kind of white image

of America, but, you know, when you look at the

demographics in the view, was the Patrick Bed David

interview. Yeah, yeah, in the Patrick Bed David

interview. But if you look at the demographic data,

I mean, from the 1950s to today in Europe and America

and Canada, you know, the big narrative that now someone

like Tucker Carlson is just normalizing and realizing

is the the great replacement narrative, right?

Which is ultimately organizing all these people's thoughts

about immigration and demographics, the idea that white

people are being replaced. And at least in Nick Fuentes

ideology, the world jury is orchestrating it and, you know,

that Europe and North America are going to become parts

of the third world. Yeah, I should just clarify if it wasn't

obvious already to the audience. When we say

Fuentes bodies, or as a symptom of these things, it's not

that he is particularly correct and how he responds to

them or understands them or explains them. In fact, I

think Fuentes, the way he talks about like the men women

issue is not just a symptom of the problem and actually makes

the problem worse in that it's precisely exact like the

way in which, you know, this man going on the way the

funders on women. I mean, yeah, I mean, yeah, he looks

like he's never had the touch of a woman ever. Well, he

hasn't. Yeah, he views, he views, well, he views their their

role as like basically to be subordinate. He views them as

kind of like inherently jokes about I don't want a woman

that speaks English. I don't want to speak to her. Yeah, it's

insane. Yeah, the way it's it's it's actually so in many

ways, antichristian to like it's very antichristian. Yeah,

it's just it's very absurd. The race race stuff's antichristian

too, but like the. Yeah, I mean, but we should be saying is

like, how in the fuck are we at a place where people are

listening to this kid. Yeah, you know, saying women don't

have the right to vote. Like saying, yeah, but in the post

liberal thought, that's becoming common, which is crazy. It

is the level and how did it get this bad? Like, how did it

get this bad that people are listening to this? And it's that

's the real question. That's the real question and censorship

can only like avoid it. It can deal with the contradiction

that is happening. It's it's like, you know, Peterson, I

remember when Peterson is still a member in like 2016 when

Peterson was called like a sexist. Right. And he looks

Peterson looks like a goddamn feminist. Compared to he

looks like a fifth wave. This is this is worth thinking. Like

Peterson scapegoated post modernism. Right. It was post

modern neo Marxism. That was the enemy. But it's now it's if

you follow downstream of Peterson to the people we're

talking about in the post liberal space, they're scapegoating

modernism. Right. And the thing is is like, and my my my fun

like the motivation behind my work is this movement towards

scapegoating post modernism and then scapegoating modernism

and then you go further back and you scapegoat something

else, it's not going to work. It's not going to work. It

it has to be something that takes up modernism and takes up

post modernism and goes forward. And I know that there are

people in certain circles that think that the word for that

is metamonernism or or or various discourses associated with

metamonernism. I haven't necessarily been super impressed

with the stuff I see coming out of the metamonern space. But

at the same time, I think, you know, at least they're trying

to take up this jump.

We'll see what happens. Yeah, yeah, we'll have to see what

happens with that. It's like, but the deep thing with the

immigration, yeah, to go back on the immigration thing, the

demographics, you brought up the demographic of great

replacement. The great, which is, and you know, well, what

basically related to what you were saying before, with these

kind of impossible far right fantasies of going back to

this imagined world. Yeah, part of why what that does what I

kind of hate is it creates this mirror of decay where they end up

embracing ideas. They're so polarizing that now the other

side will have an even harder time talking about the issue

because that is what they're facing. It's like now anything

like if you even bring up something like 80 20 rule or whatever,

if you even talked about like the market sexual market

places, you know, you would be associated with being on the

manosphere, due to the way in which that discourse has been

hijacked. And now I know is whenever you talk about immigration,

they will say, oh, you're are they'll assume it's like a like

racist and that you're you're concerned about it for the same

reasons. Even if you might be concerned about it because you're

aware that it will trigger this reaction. And then instead of

looking at cause and effect, the fucking answers always to

just like look at the effect and somehow suppress the effect

suppress the reaction as if without suppressing what it's

reacting to, because it's like, okay, demographic change.

There is a there's yeah, I'm curious what you think about

that first because I think it's a little different in Europe

in the US, but I come at my critique of immigration in a very

different way, from the way Tucker Carlson and Nick

Fuentes does do. But it's it's what is important because like

yeah, you you all get they all get lumped in together. And I

think there is something about demographic change that is

there that is a truth. I just think they focused too much on

the white aspect of it, but you know, here's what your thoughts

are first.

Well, I guess my starting point for thinking about this is

somehow related to that story that I told you off recording

about my two summer in Cameroon, where you know, when I was

younger, I think it was 2008, 2009, almost everyone who came

up to me that wasn't associated with the environmental

organization I was working for at the time was looking to get

to where I was, whether they had the idea that I was living

in Europe or Canada or America, it didn't matter. It's just

I think that at the end of the day, when we're thinking about

this immigration issue, I don't think that this is going

anywhere. If anything, this problem is going to intensify

because most of the world's population lives in the

quote unquote third world or developing world or nonwestern

world, however, we want to categorize these things. And it's

just not a tenable model of global development to organize

our society around the expectation that all the people from

the developing world can come to the developed world, quote,

unquote. And we haven't yet thought about how the world

actually developed equitably for the total body of the working

class, including the European and North American working

class. So I guess that's the starting point for me is is how do

we recognize the severity and the level of the problem? And

then how do we take steps towards developing an international

ism where the working class and the various regions of the

world actually see opportunities where they are? Because my

I guess presupposition, again, inspired by that experience

from Cameroon is that the guys who are looking to get to

wherever I was wanted to get there because they didn't see any

economic or political opportunities in Cameroon. And so in

that sense, I mean, they have every motivation, they have

every incentive to take a risk. And I think that's in

large part what we're seeing and what we're going to continue

see going forward are mostly young guys from the developing

world, presuming that they have a better opportunity in

life to jump on a rickety boat across the Mediterranean,

try to get to Europe, then to have faith in the project of

their own nations.

Yeah, and that's the thing, right? Like I do like to always

critique the right when supporting, for example, like if

they support war, and generally to prevent, you'd want to

prevent refugee crises, prevent sanctions and regime

change that could or civil wars that could destabilize

countries that cause refugees. And I'm very sympathetic to

refugees. I take a similar position to the hope on that.

But the reality is there's a lot of mass immigration is not

refugees. It's just people coming for opportunity, especially

in America. You know, and in a lot of Europe too, a lot of

people come from North Africa, Latin America, they come for

jobs, because even the taking a very small wage for a very

shitty job is going to deliver them better prospects than it

would, you know, in their country, because they can buy more

with the currency that they're earning.

Yep.

And you mentioned international, you said international

realism, what I think is interesting is a real

internationalism that actually is genuine would be in

nationalist internationalism, in the sense that nationalism

is a precursor to genuine internationalism, because you'd

want every country to make their country great. And that is

not done by having all the people in the third world leave

their like all the men who are with skills to leave the

third world to go to the first world to then go compete with

people in the first world and lower their standards. It just

is just a brace the bottom. I think that has to be the

future of the left. I think the future of the left has to be

thinking the dialectic of nationalism and international

instead of just a negation of national or like I think

like the problem, like the prop, sorry, which ends up being

globalism. Yeah, I do internationalism without nationalism

is globalism. The left tends to just pretend they can negate

the nation state and just think about the international or

the global. And then the right seems to think that it can just

think about the nation state like, for example, America

first. And that it can just ignore the international. But I

think that the hard work is how do we sublate the nation

state for a real internationalism, which is to take up the

challenge of the nation state, as well as the context of

international economics and politics, they have to be thought

together. And if they're not thought together, then I don't

think we have a serious polity. That's what's missing. That's

what's missing in the post liberal discourse. And that's

that binary too is sometimes projected because many people

on the left when they hear my critique of immigration, they

think I am making the kind of, you know, nationalist

argument that doesn't see that internationalism to some

extent is necessary to actually solve broader problems, right?

They project that myopia that, you know, the right has when

it comes to just put my nation first, I only care about my

nation, I care about my people only. They think that that is

necessarily the position, unless your position is workers of

the world unite. And like you said, you put it perfectly

when you said they just try to skip over the nation state.

And that's what it's doing. Exactly. You start off with

internationalist politics as opposed to having internationalism

as a goal. The what that ends up doing is like, you know, it

totally dismisses the reality that you have to build a

movement's first grassroots movements. They call it grass

roots, because it's rooted in the local, regional and

national cultures of that country. And that involves starting

there, every country needs to do that. That's how you build

movements. You don't start off by saying everyone in the

world is the same workers of the world. And that's a

globalist mentality. And you know, why people believe in

this? The people believe in themselves, the people who

usually believe in this fantasy that you can just skip the

nation state rather than work going through it. So

exactly. They are usually globalists themselves in the sense

that they are, they meet this trope of the rootless

cosmopolitan, which is they don't use mean like by that

mean like Jew, right? The non Jewish Jewish is when, you know,

Stalin used that term to actually kind of popularize that

term, use it that way. In today's world, the rootless

cosmopolitan is just somebody in a big city or who has an

opportunity to travel a lot and live abroad a lot. I mean,

we might be rootless cosmopolitan. I am. I am. Yeah. A lot of

and I'm not repressing it. I mean, I'm part of this

system. And, you know, and, and, you know, and then we

shouldn't scapegoat rootless cosmopolitan. But we have to

be reflective about our own political position and our

own political circumstances as well. So, yeah, because a lot

of the mindset is when Marx is talk about workers of the world

unite, you know, I'm really now thinking more and more that

there's from a psychoanalytic point of view that there's

no libidinal link for this. Like that, like, you know, when

Marxists talk about workers of the world unite day, I know

some Marx say, we're waiting to spark, you know, the spark

of international class consciousness. But it will never

come. It will never come. The spark will never happen. Unless

it's thinking the nation and the international together, I

don't think we can do it because I think there is a libidinal

link for the nation. And there is a libidinal link for

religion. And there is a libidinal link for race and ethnicity.

I think all of those things are clear. Like the working class

quote unquote, if we want to see from that perspective, there

are libidinal links for those things. But there is no libidinal

link for the international working class. Maybe it could

emerge, I'm open to them. Like, maybe it could emerge if we

take things in the right steps. But it would have to be

steps that include the nation state. And the reason why that

has to be done is if that's not done, then the working class

can too easily, and we shouldn't underestimate this

problem, the working class can to the international

working class can to easily become its own worst enemy. Right?

And so unless the nation state and all of the projects

associated with their taken up and then go to the international

level, the working class is much more likely to see itself as

its own worst enemy than to see itself as a united

universal brotherhood.

You mentioned the maybe we maybe it is possible, right? The

workers of the old unite. I think it is already possible, but

not with workers, not with ordinary people with globalists.

And that's why it comes from globalists. And what I mean by

globalists, it's the two categories I put is the limousine

liberal and the kind of Latte left us. So the I would just say,

you know, the what I mean by the rootless cosmopolitan is

somebody who has and then I call it the cosmopolitan

privilege. Because a lot of the you think about it growing up

if you grow up in a city, just a big city that's multicultural

and are in a position where you have the luxury to actually

experience the diversity of culture around you, right?

Whether by food, education, that's a privilege. Most people

don't get to do that. Most people's prejudices, their simple

mindedness, their primitiveness that the globalists will often

attribute to them is not a result of their lack of virtues.

It's a result of their sociology. Like if you only grow up in

one area and you maybe travel a couple times in your whole life,

if at all, outside of the country, you're going to be shaped by

the limited worldview that you are socializing. And hence,

the idea of Muslims coming into your country is going to

tend sound 10 times scarier than if you are a person of a

multiracial background who's encountered with actual Muslims

know that they're not that scary and regular people, right?

But most people don't experience that. So of course, you're

going to have French people in the rural areas absolutely petrified

our of their mind.

A Muslim immigration, you know, like it's just a different

circumstance, not to mention the fact that, you know, just in

general mass immigration is something they're going to be

weary of given that they already are like competing with each

other in their own country over jobs. That's what I'm talking about.

Yeah, so the only people who have the privilege to kind of be like,

oh, why don't we just all be human? It's maybe that's true.

Maybe there's a truth in that. Maybe that's good. But that is not

that's a luxury belief in my opinion. Most people don't get to

have that open-mindedness. I think there is a truth to it. I just

think if things aren't put in the right order, then it becomes empty

abstract idealism. But like it, I mean, if you build up the links in

the right way in the right order, it would make sense that

there would there could be a solidarity between workers if they

share the same interests and the same problem. But it's just, if you're

jumping all of the steps that it would take to get there, then it's far

more likely that the working class will see itself as its own worst

enemy, which is what I mean when, you know, pointing towards what you're

saying about very logical for someone who's growing up and

say, for example, rural France to see immigrants being

competitors for them, then opposed to part of the same

international working class because, you know, they're already

competing with workers. Perfect example of this is in

Canada, there's often like this debate, which province is the most

racist? And everyone likes to point at Quebec or Alberta?

I'm gonna say Alberta. The reality though is that it actually

is not even about province, it's actually cities. Because if you look

at Montreal, Montreal is known to be like the Wokas city,

among one of the Wokas cities in the world, you know, it's there

with like Neckonneck with Toronto, and probably more

honestly, because it has the more art world there.

And the rest of Quebec though, however, super xenophobic,

extremely xenophobic, and they also have a sense of culture and identity.

They have kind of what like Quebec is more like Europe in the sense that

they have a strong like ethnic identity in the way that a lot of

Canadians don't because a lot of the even like generation

little Canadians, they have their ancestors kind of mixed.

It's like Irish, Scottish, you know, English kind of all mixed together,

mixed together with other people. So they they're more

they're less, you know, I guess likely to be ethno nationalist,

but even then that's not like that's not like they never can be. But in Europe,

I mean, it's just a whole different question. Like in Europe,

they can make legitimate claims. Like in Ireland, the far right

saying stuff like they indigenous people of Ireland have a right.

And no, this is I heard from leftists talking about land back and

indigenous. Well, left, well, right.

Like the woke the woke right stuff in a car Benjamin makes the same point.

He always talks about the indigenous people of England.

I wonder if does he include the people in the colo British common

commonwealth colonies? All the black. He's focused on England.

Interesting. Like he's totally like his his point of view is like, no,

we've given up the empire. You know, we've given up the the other territories.

But now it they're he's dealing with the defense of of England. Like he'll give

examples of, for example, as someone born in England, he says the

Pakistani government would never let someone like him hold office in Pakistan.

But in England, we're letting people born in Pakistan have political power in our

parliament. So sort of saying like that's a good point. It's a good point.

But he's making a nativeest argument for political power.

Well, it gets it is where the kind of a multiculturalist argument does kind of

all part like I remember, you know, for a lot you probably knew that for quite a while

of until literally just very recently in Jagmeet Singh was the leader of Canada's NDP. He was

the Indian Sikh with a turban and they beard very visible minority. And you know,

the people with common sense were like, yeah, he's never going to win. Just like that's not going

to happen. And there was a lot of the people in the in the liberal left bubble like in the NDP

bubble kept keeping them as leaders. They're like, no, no, we just might we just need to fight

the racism. And I remember thinking like, man, like Algerians who are a third generation can

barely do that in France. Right. You know, the French blood, the black people in French are still

kind of often still marginalized despite being like second generation citizens like all the soccer

players. You know, they use you on the soccer team. They're all French, right? Very French, but

you know, they're kind of seen this and not really French because that's a difference in a

homogenous state as opposed to settler state where you have a different relationship to land

and blood and soil and all that. The other the other component is like just the practicality of it.

So how do you deal with that? I wouldn't fucking if I could not imagine I imagine I spoke perfect

Spanish. I went to go run for politics in Mexico. Like I'd be, you know, that'd be ostracized as a

gringo. And rightfully so probably, you know, I wouldn't blame them anyway. I wouldn't blame them.

Even if I was, even if I was like, you know, I spoke the language perfectly. It's like, you know,

not all countries are American Canada, which are built kind of on ideas.

Sure. France is technically built with an idea, but it's still homogenous. So it has this conflict

that's kind of why it takes in more migrants than other countries. But like a lot of countries

are very tied to their ethnicity, like Poland, and they say keep pulling Polish.

Well, I think one of the, I think one of the problems here is we struggle to think the unity

between the particular and the universal or the local and the global. That we think that

to be universal or to be global, we should negate the local, we should negate the particular.

But I think the power is seeing the unity of the both and taking them up. I mean,

that's ultimately what we would do if we affirm the argument that you can only run for political

office in England. If you were born in England, and you were, I mean, to take the nativeest

argument, if you were ethnically English, I think that would probably be taking it too far. But

to say that you can't, like, I mean, isn't it an America like Arnold Schwarzenegger could never

run for president because he wasn't born in America? You know, like that you'd have to be born

in a certain country to be able to run for high political office. So just seeing the unity

between the local and the global, the particular and the universal, to see them as less in some sort

of irreducible antagonism, but to see them as actually strengthening universality and strengthening

globalism, I think would be an important first principle. What do you mean by that? That to be truly

universal, it would be truly global would not be to just simply negate ethnic or national identity,

but rather to take it up as part of your universal global identity. That you can stand for your

universe. Yeah, you can stand for universality and globalism and stand for being a Canadian or

being a white man. It's not antithetical to universality or globalism. And at the end of the day,

why are you not using it? Or internationalism, like what how would I like to differentiate them?

I like to differentiate them. I like to really be particular about it. Like, I like to say,

I don't know national anti-globalism, because internationalism has a word in it. Internationalism

has the word nationalism in it for a reason, because it's kind of like implies, you know, nations

kind of working together. That's the next step. As opposed to globalism, it's like superseating

the nation state. And that's why I like to try to capitalism and corporations superseding the

nation state. I like global elites, you know, I will use that in the future. That's an important

distinction. So we should make a distinction between internationalism and globalism. But okay,

so like the term internationalism, I think that term is a good example of uniting the

particular in the universal. Like we're talking about the universal, the international, but we're

including within the universal, the particular, the national. And I think we should just do that

with as a general principle, meaning why would we want, you know, like people on the post-liberal

discourse, they talk about the global nomad as building a kind of cultural, multi-cultural sludge,

or what is the call in the monoculture? The monoculture. Yeah, they talk about it as a

modernist monoculture. But like if we were to really take up an international project, like why

wouldn't we want, you know, the uniqueness and the diversity of Japan and Ireland and

Mexico and whatever? Like I don't want to lose those cultures for the international. Like

those are the building blocks of the international.

That's, this is a, it gets at a really interesting contradiction where the people who do not care

about culture really can't answer. They say they don't care about culture, but apparently they do.

Well, but even like actually Marxists, this is where I found where I kind of turned away from

Marxism is, while trying to keep the good things, because that's still trying to like, you know,

work through these traditions and take what I learned and use them. There's a lot of things I

learned from it. But part of where I think it's a big blind spot in Marxism is that it's

completely oblivious to the cultural realm. And you take, you know, when Marxists,

you know, their vision of internationalism is a one-world government.

If you take a lot of them at their word, most of them don't even really believe in that

the whole international communism thing. When I really pressed them, it can tell. They

don't really believe in it. Or I haven't really thought about it. It's like, I think for most

Marxists and where I like to exotic, I like to be sympathetic. I think it functions in Nervana

principle. Do you know what I mean? Or it's a kind of, not Nervana, but not, no, that's not the

right word. No, no, no. I mean, it's kind of, it's a Nervana. It is just a kind of, it's a heaven,

it's a future. It's a utopian, it's a utopian vision with no actuality.

Yeah, but it's something you can kind of like think about as a distant

way to drive you forward. It's like a unreflective teleology. It's a pseudo-escatology.

But I love taking ideas to logical conclusions because I like to think, okay, well, what if there

was communism, one-world government, what would that look like? Because that tells you a bit where

the direction you might want to take us based on that end goal. And I find there is a weird way in

which, you know, there's kind of, okay, so to me, like, yeah, genuine internationalism would be

allowed for particularism. Exactly. That's why I'm arguing. And I think there always will be cities,

like urban centers, metropolis, that have a multicultural house where you get that urban

monoculture. Right. So Toronto is kind of a fascinating experiment, right? In diversity,

New York, Chicago, I think those places are great. But we don't want to make every place in the

world like that. And the implication of mass immigration is to make everyone like that. Like,

if you take it, like, if you believe that there's no issue at all culturally with it, which some

kind of will say, or, you know, like, at least it'll act as if they think it's not an issue.

But if you take it to its absolute conclusion, if you take the far left policies, which is open

borders, that is the conclusion. Everyone moving to the global north. And some people, you know,

are explicit that they want to make everyone urbanized. You know that there's this book called

Half Earth Socialism. And their solution to the climate change is basically to have half the

earth, nobody lives in, conserve half the earth, and have everyone concentrated in cities.

And I think, God, these are just silly ideas. These are just silly ideas. But in a certain sense,

in really, they're not really happening. Well, it takes what's already happening to like a very

crazy radical conclusion, which is a rapid urbanization. And within that, it's like, I think of

why is Toronto cool to live in? I get to experience different cultures. Now, that's because those

cultures are still something that exists. I myself as a multicultural person, I'm pretty,

I'm not very rooted in the cultures that I'm ethnically related to. Like, you know, I'm very

distant from Lebanese culture compared to people who are full Lebanese. I'm even way more distant

compared to like, you know, New Mexico and Germany, very, very, that's all very distant to me.

My mom was, my mom's American, right? So I got US citizenship. I'm culturally Canadian.

It's the country I grew up in. It's why I identify pretty strongly. And I'm can tell by the way,

you are Canadian. I don't know if you can tell if I'm Canadian or not.

You might have lost a little bit of your Canadianness. Yeah. Well, look, we all contain it,

depending on who we're around. I guess, you know, we're not, but yeah, that's a whole other thing.

Canada, I have a certain kind of fidelity to also because I like Canada as a

kind of post-racial country. But even that, and for one, not in America as a post-racial country,

even that, right? That can't work in every country, right? It's post-racial also because we have

different, we have multiculturalism because we still have cultures coming in. You don't want to

make the whole world multicultural because then you just, you'll have everyone be like me,

which is like not rooted in a particular community with its traditions that will lose its

traditions. And it's why big cities, people in big cities, have similar cultures with each other,

more than they do with the, you know, the older parts of the country, which are much more diverse,

and where you see like local cultures are very diverse, even within the countries,

whereas urban, there is, there is like tenancies that you see across all urban cities.

Some are different, you know what I mean? But that's why they call the urban monoculture, right?

We want to want a world, right, where there isn't like where everyone's a fucking rootless

cosmopolitan. That's kind of dystopian. So there's that. And also even for the post-racial

experiments to work, which can really only work in, you know, the settled areas, the settlers

states in my opinion, which is like US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. And even then that only works

if there's integration, assimilation into the civic culture, or else you just get

aerial societies, which we're starting to see. Well, look at the ethnic enclaves.

Yeah, with the Indian community, everyone knows that's a real thing, which is you have whole cities

that are basically just Indians, like, you know, Surrey, Brampton, you know, Suburb,

and that you have a parallel society. They're not socializing with each other. It's

you know, you build this, like I think America, like I love the idea of America, like that,

you know, and you can, anyone can be American, anyone can be Canadian, we had similar thing going on.

But you had a assimilate, and that only works with assimilation and mass immigration, you know,

disincentivizes assimilation if it's coming from particular areas.

So is all this being driven? In your view, is this immigration thing being driven by economic

incentives? Is it driven by global economic incentives? By global capitalism, absolutely.

Yeah, that's what I would say. Yeah. 100%. Yeah.

So it's insisting that's where, like, you know, the horseshoe theory, your friends, right?

Yeah, Greg. Yeah, Greg, and then the horseshoe theory podcast where like, you know, the far left

and the far right converge on issues, right? I think that's in some sense happening with the far

left and the far right right now in a weird way, like, and it's happening in a very obscene

and unreflected way. But how so? Well, specifically on Israel, the far left and the far right are

working on Israel as an enemy. But I think in some ways, you could see the far left and the far

right converge on global capitalism as an enemy. She actually, I actually don't quite see that.

Well, just on this level, the far left is still very wedded to liberalism. In fact,

I think there's a more liberal taleism where, like, if you look at the Marxist end goal versus

the liberal end goal, one is just the socialist version of the other. Like, one wants the communist

open society. I mean, people who, one person who had a public kind of conflict with openly said

that he said, you know, open society would be fine as long as it's communist. And if you look at

what their solution, it's a stateless, classless, borderless society, borderless world.

You know, kind of wild. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't hold that, that, that, me either. Yeah.

But that's why in principle, they oppose borders now. So they end up justifying or rationalizing

being tied to the global liberal world order. And it's the big, the big issue, right? So like,

Marxists recognize that mass immigration is driven by global capital. But what they say is that,

you know, I'm talking about the true believer Marxists here, not the ones who are more practical

and don't really believe in the whole, the real ones, because I, I found this debating the people

at platypus, except Chris Kitchhorn. Chris Kitchhorn, my opinion, doesn't really believe in communism.

He's a Marxist, but he's not a communist. Okay. And I got the sense you don't have to be. Yeah,

wouldn't surprise me. I mean, that's the impression I get. But Marx himself did believe in communism.

And the true believers really did believe in that. And they believe that, okay,

immigration is driven by global capital. And it is useless. They think it's useless to have

things like borders, because it doesn't get at the root of the problem. You need to get at

the root of the problem, which is abolishing capitalism. And that is only possible if you have

international world socialist revolution. And I'm thinking like, okay, so you're not going to

deal with this. That's what you're going to tell the working classes of your countries that

you're going to wait until the global world revolution until you address this problem. And it

goes back to what you were telling me earlier, which I think was a good point that like,

in a time also of a meaning crisis, identity crisis, lack of initiation crisis.

What is the right selling? What is the left selling? Oh, you know, actually, the West isn't real.

Nations aren't real. Yeah, it's all arbitrary. It's like giving them nothing. No answers,

no identities. It's like, what are they selling? They're only they can only sell stuff to people

who are outcasts from places. That's kind of what what the rootless cosmopolitan thing to me is.

It's like people who are outcasts or global kind of cosmopolitan can only identify with this vision.

It has that's why I think the left hasn't grown despite the decline of liberal center. It's only

in the far right. And even when the right has been unpopular like Trump, what do we see? It's not

the left growing. The left continues to decline. I think it could be I think it could be I've said

this to my to to Dimitri a friend at philosophy portal. It because you know, he's in Netherlands and

he's going to like he's exploring the socialist party in the Netherlands and the far right populist

parties in the Netherlands. And he's just he thinks the socialist parties in the Netherlands are just

dead and empty and all the right wing populist energy is very strong, just like we've been saying.

It could be that the true hesitate true form of it could be that a true form of something like Marxism

or international socialism actually comes out of the antinomies of right wing populism.

Like that we fully need to go into the conservative moment in order to think through what a

actual international would look like. I mean, it would make sense if we're going to fully take

on the particular. It would make sense if we're going to fully think the nation and the international

to think international that we have to, you know, and that's kind of been my disposition since 2016

was to to mourn the death of the money a lot. And to your point about control and Marxism

and saying that you distance yourself from Marxism, I kind of I said this to him. I take it seriously

that you're the last Marxist. Like I'm not trying to be a Marxist. Like I say,

control is the last Marxist, okay? Then we can go on. But how do we move forward? I think we have

to take up the question of the I'm more and more like I don't see another way then to take up the

particular and to take up the national as a serious political determination. And then even like

someone like Gary Stephenson when I follow his, I mean, Gary Stephenson's working on the level

of the nation like I'm on the level of the party politics. And he recognizes that it has to be

a coordination between nations, you know, before we could have an international socialism.

Before you're in social democracy, I mean, that's kind of why I don't understand when

I get a lot of like critique whenever I make any point about like why you need borders,

they say, oh, you're a nationalist, you don't you know that to solve problems, it's it's international.

Look, everyone with a brain knows that to solve problems that are international requires international

coordination, including the social Democrats who aren't even communist. Like Thomas Piketty,

this advocacy for the wealth tech says that you need to have it imposed by like the European union,

you need other countries to impose it or else they'll have capital flight. Yeah. And like

look at the far right, they've kind of even realized over time that they need to coordinate with

other countries to reduce mass integration like Trump in Mexico, Trump in El Salvador, in

Meloni, blaming French colonialism, even if my, take your anti-colonial stance, my literal approach,

my literal approach is to short circuit, try to short circuit, circuit both lacks. Like to not

have any a reactive distance from from any disposition right or left, but for the conservatives

to short circuit with communism, for the communist to short circuit with conservatism.

And the same thing in theology, for the Christians to short circuit with atheism, for the atheists to

short circuit with Christianity. Like in a deep sense, like both are needed, like and I mean that,

like I think both are true. Like or somehow the true includes both. Like in a sense, like

doesn't it have to be like that? Like I never understood like the far left progressives who

treat right-wing ideology as if it's like an alien other planet of non-humans. Like no, like these

people are humans. Like they're part of communism. Like how isn't like the right wing or conservatism

has to be a part of it? They're humans. They're part of the society.

That was brilliantly put, especially the part about the lacks.

They both lack. That's so important. You want to, you want to think like not just how I can make

my ideology win and make the ideology lose. Rather, how do I make all movements better?

That's an, I think, I think unique philosophy for that. I think that would be the function of

philosophy here. Because another thing that like is a long-running, you know, question for me

in my relationship with you. And I think you brought this up in private notes and stuff like that

is this weird relationship between politics and philosophy. How they're kind of like the opposite

to each other. And I've like said how like I don't really fit anywhere. And I have some sort of

like existential anxiety about that. And like you mentioned like that politics is about

forwarding like a positive non-contradictory political vision. Whereas philosophy is always

in the contradiction. It's always in the maybe I don't know. It's a question. I think they need

each other. And, and you know, I'm just thinking about how do I relate as a philosopher to these

political issues? Yes, absolutely. And even then within the deep pluralist world, this Benjamin

Sudobaker would say where there's inevitability a lot of differences. Not only is, not only is

the approach of actually you would want to make people who are conservative, more socialist,

and you would want to make leftists who are socialist, more conservative. Not only is that better?

That's also what is necessary for anything to happen. Exactly. Because that's the only way you can

agree on some things and not agree on everything and get things done. That's like how you get

the deal right? Because what is it? What is the scenario that each side envisions then? It's

totalitarianism. My group dominates your or we somehow vert everyone, which is the Woke is

fantasy. Woke is why I tied it to evangelicalism in my essay is that it's tied to this fantasy

that it's like your belief comes first before the interests and that you need to have the correct

consciousness and that you need to spread that consciousness. It's why like there's this never

going to be a time where everyone becomes leftist or everyone becomes rightist. It never

going to make sense. It doesn't make any sense. Now you don't have to think about it for a second

to know it doesn't make sense. But the problem is is no one follows through the consequences of that

obvious self-evident fact. You know, but like I honestly think like doesn't it just feel right?

Like I feel like I feel like I'm far enough along in my own process to like know this about myself

is like as someone who leans socialist and as someone who leans atheist in terms of my spontaneous

intuitive presuppositions and like the nature of my being, it just feels right to explore

conservatism. It just feels right to explore Christianity. Like it actually helps me. Whereas I feel like

the people who are deep in Christianity or the people who are deep in conservatism, I actually

think like you would benefit a lot by exploring like a little serious socialist literature or like

exploring some secular thinkers like it would open up your thinking in an interesting way.

It wouldn't but like if you see it as a zero sum conflict like oh if I explore socialist literature

that means I can't be a conservative or if I explore more secular atheist thinking that that's

somehow a threat to my Christianity. Like I think that's just you know really we need to get

further on that. Well I actually only see it really with one side so I don't I rarely ever see

people who are religious who are like obsessively only look into religious thinkers and don't look

into anything modern as kind of the opposite. I tend to see that you know at least with so it's

different between people who are born into the religion versus converts. So with converts what I

tend to see seems at least you know this is generalization here. People who get very into religion

sometimes get a little depoliticized if anything and that's maybe one of my critiques of religion and

that would be an important point. Whereas people who are not in religion at all get hyper politicized

and treat politics like religion. And honestly if those people get that's why I'm pro religion

is get those flat. Honestly like I think some people they're not they're better not in politics.

Like they can't they can't handle contradiction. They're just they're what they want out of politics

which is like meaning and belonging is much better served by religion being part of an actual

community rather than you know being part of an online swarm and building your identity around

hitting like people on the right. But I think both I think both of the things you said there I've

seen good examples of both. Like I've seen good examples of religious people depoliticizing

and I've seen good examples of more politically oriented people putting their religious

enthusiasm in politics. We touched on this in the in the for YouTube side as well and I think it's

totally and we that contradiction is an important one to think the theoretical. I think a lot of

let and I've seen a lot of leftist people who are like really politically charged on like issues of

global capitalism and doing a lot of good work in principle about these issues. They burn out

because they don't have a theological or religious foundation and they put their religious

enthusiasm in a place where it's not meant. So yet both of these things this would be important

theoretical unity. I do think we were able to touch on the things we wanted to do. Oh yeah,

pretty much everything. Yeah, one final point I just want to end off on to touch on one more time

was you know I really thought it was interesting when you you know made this point about how the

leftist isn't selling anything to deal with the meaning crisis and it's not selling convincing

solutions that seem plausible to a lot of the things that are happening in the zeitgeist and

issues. People think are important their answer is either unconvincing or insufficient or to say

it's not a problem. So with immigration it's not a problem. They're solution to you know economics.

I mean I think I actually agree with at least you know I would agree more with Gary Stevenson

than Carl Benjamin on economics for example but it's like yeah okay then what do you have about

the the cultural question? What do you have about the meaning crisis? They don't have anything

and a part of me thinks that the only the solutions and I think I say solutions because I don't like

to think that there's going to be one solution there's going to be movements that can maybe make

each other better and converge as opposed to one big thing and one big battle between friends

and enemies which I think is the wrong way to look at what's happening. It's far too complex for

that. I kind of think so I've been dabbling a lot for a while which is okay what is what is socialism

look like? Because the issue you know that I have with communism is it's so implausible and it's

as such a bad track record. In my issue with democratic socialism there's there's other issues I have

with it structurally in terms of particularly in the US but what I think it has its issue is actually

it's kind of does it's also too materialistic and that it doesn't have an answer to the

meaning crisis it doesn't have an issue to the cultural questions. I tend to vote you know generally

for like democratic socialist and social democrats it's where you know I generally how I tend to vote

in terms of lesser evilism I guess but it's it's like I just think that they don't win partially because

they don't they're not tapped into what everyone else is feeling and it would be powerful if they

did too it shouldn't just be seen as the culture world like I'm I used to think the culture

words of destruction no the culture and class war are related the culture and economics are

related you can't stop separating them what I think what I've been increasingly going on I was

been dabbling on okay we're in a world where there's a return of nationalism we also have a

return of religion I've dabbled okay what is christian socialism look like what does national

socialism look like that isn't fascist because I think there is not one solution but you know

something in that trajectory I think would be more powerful but even then because it's like these

are very different things christian socialism would mean something very different from national

socialism and some ways I'm actually I find it more appealing because one thing I like about

Christianity is precisely it's universalist component it's kind of it has a genuine kind of universal

ism to it yeah the way that like nationalism is a little bit too closed it's too narrow

but where I do champion nationalism is in diverse countries this is the answer I've come to

so far tentatively I haven't like put out my candidate article the one I think of the

totally I was going to send you because I want to think on that for longer but in very diverse

countries I think nationalism is actually a very positive anti-racist force and it can be or

because if you have racial conflicts occur and the divisions occur for such a long time

which you might get as balconization and I mean if history is any indication who what is the

worst the far right has ever done when it got the most powerful in america hard to separate

and Nick Fuentes you know he says he's a nationalist right america for america for

but he has a vision which is so you know so racialized in a very diverse country that's going to

probably inevitably lead if you know assuming his vision was people I came more in power

would lead to balconization of the united states because there's some very white areas and

there's some areas that are far too diverse far too diverse for him to ever capture like he's never

Nick Fuentes that's what he said though like we'll never win New York they'll never win Chicago they'll

never win ethnically diverse areas so then what does that mean the white nationalists will carve out

their ethno states yeah it's obvious separation and that's terrible I would never want that for America

the people who the people who practically follow his thinking the people who like the grippers

there's a conversation with a guy I forget his name but I think it's Eric something and he had a

conversation and he's building a white only commune I forget if it's an arkansas or something but it

got a lot of press coverage recently but like that's kind of where they go like is to build an ethnic

uncle like to build a white only commune and their ideas they're going to have these across america

they're going to have these gripper communes like white only unglaves and like have them network

throughout america I don't know if that's the direction things will go or how much power those

things will accrue but you know it's certainly a different form of nationalism than the one you

have in mind yeah I think their nationalism is native is it's it's it's it's well it's it's

it's not it's not it's not civic nationalism like with the founders or or the republican party you

know and it's the end of the civil war which is really when america first becomes a nation it's

after the civil war established by the republican party it's a civic identity as opposed to this

very racialized vision which yeah like in an american context I kept thinking about this constantly

when I was watching these two films which say a lot about the zeitgeist I'm sure you've seen

civil war and then there was now the new paltamas anderson movie which is also a kind of civil

warish context which white nationalist capture the government yeah yeah I was thinking the whole

time like you can't let these fucking motherfuckers deal seventy seventeen seventy six like you can't

have them right right right right the left one like say oh those slave owners they weren't good

you're gonna see those ideas to these people who are totally not embodying those ideas at all

it is crazy to me like that there's so much but like it is great for in general speaking countries

have to for any movements are rooted partially in the traditions of those places like you know Mao

for example he would try to fuse dialectics with with Taoism even regardless if he was correct in

that you know comparison or not he tried to make it seem compatible dialectical materialism with

Taoism Mao also appeared appealed to Sunyat Sen right as the communist did who is the previous

Republican so did the KMT interestingly always in history movements our outgrowth of prior movements

the founding fathers built on British liberalism centuries of Republican thought in England and the

Renaissance you can't just like build out of all movements come out of something this rejection

of the past is is dead end and I think people on the left should really look at the positive

traditions of the past that are worth looking at like I think in America America is lucky it has one

of the few national traditions that where you can actually think of a post-racial nationalism that's

not really the case in a lot of Europe I think in Europe you need a better European union maybe

and you need to you know make your Europe doesn't go to war which was this problem for centuries

yeah America is lucky where it can do a non-racist nationalism it affects probably the way to avoid

ethnic conflict if anything but right now you have this kind of a stalemate I view the same with

Canada too because Canada if we don't have strong nationhood well all the provinces are just

going to separate and then within the provinces they're going to want to get rid of immigrants and

is this it's not it's not very good that's why I hated land back discourse by the way I was so

hostile to land back discourse I'm like you are opening that you're in Canada talking about land

back you know this is just going to lead to the separation of all the provinces is going to

separate and we're going to have no country now why would anyone be better off that way why would

anyone be better off that way that's the question why would anyone be better off living in their

white enclaves in their black enclaves well in the context of in the context of global capitalism

and you know capital mobility taxing wealth as a problem and all this type of stuff my presupposition

is that if we fraction lower and lower we lose sight of the ability to deal with this issue

whereas if we can build stronger and stronger higher order unions but that's a good

direction to go because it allows us to at least be able to approach the problem so I'm a defender

like I want a better European Union me too yeah yeah I mean and I don't want a fraction

do you and I don't want America to fraction into ethnic enclaves or Canada to fraction to ethnic

enclaves I would like yeah a stronger national identity and a stronger continental identity in the

long run because I think in the end of the day everyone benefits from that but I think just what

we're trying to say is that universal dimension or that international direction it shouldn't

it should take up the problem of the particular it shouldn't avoid it it shouldn't just negate it

it should take it up and and that's actually paradoxically perhaps the only way we can stop it

from fractionating into ethnic enclaves and to lowest common denominator political directions

which are organized around things that are perhaps easy for people to legitimately attach to but

in the long run they don't have the our best interests at heart as a people in regards to

what I think both of us take as the major issue is the way global capitalism basically function

this is a brilliant point I have to send you my candidacy because like half of it is literally

just talking about nationalism it's to the point where I have debated even separating into two

things it's just that I need to have writing so much on nationalism because I know that inevitably

I would get like this backlash because I felt in the moment I felt that when I wrote it like at

the height of the Trump you know when Canadians were freaking out of a Trump annex in Canada

54 scale revival of Canadian patriotism and I was thinking like I feel this in the zeitgeist it's

always existed you know it's just that it's one of these things we're an interesting example yeah

where I kind of wrote that and but I know the backlash you got all the typical arguments against

nationalism was trying to clarify what I meant and one of those things I said was this distinction

between internationalism and globalism and what you just said before which is you're kind of getting

at really which is what if you don't go through if you don't go towards net internationalism through

the nation state and you just reject nationalism what is the alternative to nationalism if you just

reject it locally I think that's the realism and localism yeah I think that's the problem that Gary

Stevenson's dealing with and he's running away from it you know I actually think like in the

Karl Benjamin Gary Stevenson thing he's like Drake and Karl Benjamin was like Kendrick Lamar

because right after right after the unite the kingdom rally Gary went on a tour to Australia

just like Drake wins but see I'm gonna go on a tour in Australia it's like I'm gonna I'm getting

out of the kingdom I can't do I can't do a tour in England that's what that's what liberals will

say is when Trump when Trump wins they say I'm gonna leave the country you know it's like all right

that's that's what you're gonna do that's taking to solve the problem yeah so many so many people

I know who who say those things it's so we're doing it shows their privilege too that's the thing

like they can do that yeah yeah they can go to Mexico and they can go to Mexico and

yeah not understand why Mexicans would complain about them being there exactly exactly

which is the thing there's like cities in Mexico that are just like Americans building their

enclives and Mexicans complain about it I'm like I get it yeah yeah yeah you can go both ways

all the California Buddhist and Bali and I don't know for you we should be viewing it like

dialectical process as opposed to this idea that nationalism is inherently opposed to internationalism

and that exactly yeah exactly so I just I just say as a as a final thought I think

you know 20th century is so haunted by these signifiers fascism and communism you say you get

rid of the idea of communism I think I I I for a similar reason have a distance between myself

and the word communism because it's just it it seems like we have to take up the next step before

we can even think about what communism might be but I think the dialectic between national and

international socialism is where I see the current tensions and all these discussions about post-liberalism

need to take up this antonomi if we're gonna actually work both ends of the spectrum so to speak

to see the value in national culture that could be an important dimension of what you're saying as a

solution to the meaning crisis and and other things but at the end of the day these things won't work

unless they're approaching the international dimension in the way global capitalism basically

functions so I think both both sides are absolutely necessary yeah this is this is phenomenal

novel conversation cadale always a pleasure to talk to you this is all mine next time I love

your work and if you like conversations like this check out lassafi portal I really recommend

actually the secular conversation Daniel Tutt on the crisis of initiation really I really like

that a lot and yeah thank you for listening become a patron at patreon.com slash one dime to support

the show and get access to extra content I am chic and tired of the revolutionaries or protest

movements which focus on those ecstatic moments oh my god one million people on syntagma square on

tachrir in Istanbul and so on we were also enthusiastic there and so on and so on I'm not impressed

by that at all I think this is even relatively easy to do the true test of a revolution or radical

social change is how do ordinary people experience the change when the ecstatic moment is over when

things return to normal that's the most difficult task when nothing happens when just everyday

life is here how is this everyday life different from the previous everyday life