00:00 I suspect everybody who can hear our voice right now
00:02 Realizes they could be in Auschwitz-Gard. This Milgram experiment, famous the electroshock experiment
00:08 Maybe you guys play that to everybody. I think reflective of the fact that it's exceedingly rare
00:13 Probably that we cannot get into that groupthink mentality, the mass psychosis. Well, look, you know
00:19 That's part of the danger of the collective, right?
00:22 Is that well you should serve your community and you should subordinate yourself to your community
00:27 Well, yes, but what if your community is wrong?
00:30 well, then you have to have the gall and
00:34 That would be associated with the capacity for malevolence because to have that much gall you need that capacity for malevolence to say no
00:43 But that's very difficult now and that's allied with a virtue right the virtue is that we're consensus building creatures
00:50 We're communitarian. We tend to go along with the crowd which most of the time is the right thing to do
00:56 It's a virtue, but that is definitely also a danger and you know, you think well
01:02 We're how do you know when that danger is manifesting itself?
01:04 and I would say well that's when the collective demands of you to do something that violates your conscience and
01:09 But to do that property that means you've also had to have a dialogue with your conscience for a long time in the Pinocchio movies
01:16 There's something very sophisticated about the Disney movie that little cricket JC
01:21 And those initials are not
01:24 Chance my goodness. I didn't think about that till now. Yes, Jiminy Cricket was a slang
01:29 swearword
01:32 Alternative for Jesus Christ. Yes. So yes and why and you think so a bug is Jesus Christ. It's like yeah, cuz it bugs you
01:40 It's like it's that still small voice right that says hmm, maybe not
01:45 Okay, but but so interesting you see in the movie the cricket and even though he's Christ weirdly enough
01:54 He has to learn to as the movie progresses
01:57 there's a dialogue between Pinocchio and the conscience and that's partly because
02:00 Your conscience in some ways is a generic voice and it has to enter into a dialogue with you to become a
02:07 particularized voice for you
02:09 and so you have to consult it and sharpen it by paying attention to it and
02:13 Interacting with it and you can do that in part by partly by feeling so when I'm speaking
02:19 I'm feeling my words like is that a solid word? You know is is that okay?
02:23 Is that or am I feeling fake about that word? That's that's a big thing
02:28 Is that word sir? I trying to impress someone with that word or I'm just trying to say what?
02:32 What manifests itself to me at the moment as whatever truth I can manage
02:38 dialogue with your conscience and something to practice and
02:42 So that's part of what helps us cope with evil within and it also tells us when we need to stand up against what society is
02:49 Doing it's like no, I can't say that. I mean in my country
02:53 There was a law a few years ago that was passed that mandated speech
02:56 There was certain forms of discourse that I was obliged to use. I thought I don't care what your reason is
03:02 I don't care what your reason is. I'm not saying what you want me to say. I'm going to say what I
03:09 Can step on and that will support me and then I also thought well when the government is telling me what to say
03:17 Then they've gone out of their bailiwick
03:21 and
03:23 So and what I didn't do it because I was brave. I don't think that's the reason at all
03:27 It was because I felt the consequences of not doing it would be worse
03:31 so
03:33 It's partly being what I hope why you know afraid of the right thing
03:36 and so in that conscience that guides you that's also the force that revitalizes society because society becomes
03:43 obsolete with time and it tends towards corruption
03:47 You know as the leftists constantly point out well and people on the right as well who are afraid of big government
03:52 You know groups tend to some degree towards corruption and they ossify if they don't change across time
03:59 and so the conscience that tells you when to resist the consensus is also the
04:04 manifestation of the transformative force that keeps the collective alive and
04:08 so
04:09 Well, you better have allegiance to that above all else because everything fails
04:13 If if everyone doesn't have allegiance to that then everything turns into stone and we all perish of thirst
04:19 So and that's not that's not some I could say I was going to say that's not some fairy tale
04:25 So yes, it is every fairy tale. Exactly. Yes, it's every fairy tale
04:29 But ignore it at your peril
04:32 Well when you first read the Milbank experiment and realized that you could get I don't know if it's everybody
04:38 But I think everybody in the study actually electro shocked
04:40 the victim the pretend victim
04:43 Way up past the point of reality. Yes. So in in this experiment, basically they got
04:50 Students subjects to kill the person that they were. Yeah
04:54 They didn't realize it but they were being told was it opposite them because they did something wrong
05:00 Yeah, even if it wasn't something that was that the person's fault. Yeah. Well, it was a manipulative experiment in some sense a because
05:06 look
05:08 universities were trusted and
05:10 The authorities within universities were trusted and the universities within the political system were essentially trusted
05:18 And that was all inside a polity that was actually functioning pretty well
05:21 So people had reason to be trusted then the psychologist put this weird unexpected twist in it and said
05:27 Well us trustworthy people are going to demand of you something. That's you know
05:32 Unconscionable and that's a hell of a lot for people to contend with in the moment, right?
05:39 Because they have to in some sense comprehend a level of manipulativeness. That's almost beyond comprehension
05:45 They have to almost instantaneously and then the psychologists also dragged them along sort of step by step
05:50 So it's it's a hell of a thing to ask people to resist
05:53 especially when there was reason for trust and you could contrast that say with the Nazi era the
05:59 Stalinist era where people had every reason to distrust and thousands of examples of that across time and so
06:08 That's a criticism of the experiment the appreciation of it was yeah, but look what you can get people to do
06:14 Right. So, you know, there's lessons on both sides of that for psychologists and also for well for all of us
06:20 Obedience, you know when disobedience become pathological
06:24 well
06:24 I think the answer to that is well when what is demanded of you violates your conscience assuming that you have a
06:30 Relatively pristine relationship with that conscience. We seem moving towards an era when people are
06:36 They feel more like they're in a herd the herd mentality
06:40 that has allowed people to do things without a without much questioning that they probably wouldn't have done even a decade ago and
06:48 To my to my mind comes the arc the broader acceptance that Marxism
06:53 communism
06:56 Socialism might provide a better alternative to entrepreneurism
06:59 Something that was so foreign that you know, you probably would have been prosecuted not persecuted prosecuted if you've done it 50 years ago
07:06 Now it's being widely taught in schools. Is that true?
07:08 how would that happen so quickly and and how does it people get comfortable with
07:14 Ideas that are clearly destructive to the ones they're in what makes them so miserable
07:19 They would accept that or some of it is they do see and just what what is perceived injustice
07:24 I mean there is inequality and the problem of inequality
07:28 Let's say with regards to economic distribution is a profound problem
07:32 And they're part of the reason that I don't appreciate the Marxist take there's many many reasons. It's a profoundly
07:39 What would you say doesn't work at all to say the least it actually doesn't take the problem of inequality seriously enough
07:48 How so well, it's a real problem
07:51 I mean this proclivity for more and more to be
07:55 To end up in the hands of fewer and fewer people that seems to be true of every system
08:00 And so it's a big problem. Well, look look what happens when you play Monopoly
08:03 What happens you the winner gets everything and everyone else loses, right?
08:09 And so you can even see that manifesting itself in small-scale systems
08:13 And so we're always battling in some sense human beings always battle against this
08:18 unbelievably deep
08:20 Proclivity physicists have even modeled the distribution of money using physical equations to account for the proclivity
08:27 for
08:29 All to be in the hands of one
08:32 The systems tend towards that across time now the problem of course is that communist systems also have the same problem
08:40 right because if you look say in the Stalinist era or in for through the entire history of the Soviet Union
08:46 It wasn't like there was there was a tiny minority of people at the top who had everything just like in a capitalist system
08:52 And so when you say well Marxism would eradicate the problem of equality
08:57 What you're failing to contend with is the depth of the problem of inequality
09:01 It's something that it's it's something like it's it's like a natural phenomenon even a physical phenomenon. And so
09:08 We have to take it seriously because what it means is that there's going to be
09:12 Privation at the bottom the poor will be with us always well why well, that's this problem of inequality
09:19 And it's because as you get let's say money getting more is easier
09:25 You know more people you have more reach more people know you you get to a point where everything you do turns into money and
09:32 so
09:34 Advantage breeds advantage and then by the same token disadvantage breeds disadvantage
09:39 Right and so instead of going up like this and down like this you go up like this and down like this
09:45 And this is okay
09:47 if that's you doing it and we're all doing that collectively to some degree because we're
09:51 We're all getting richer very very rapidly collectively speaking, but this is a not so good thing at all man
09:58 You know when things go wrong
10:00 Well, you get hurt you get hit you're a little weaker
10:02 Just as susceptible to a blow maybe more you get another blow. It's like bang bang bang bang
10:09 Well, the limit of that is you're dead
10:11 and so
10:13 This is a very serious problem and the problem with the Marxist solution is that it doesn't address the problem
10:19 It doesn't take the problem seriously enough, and we don't know how to solve the problem. It's very hard problem to solve
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