John Gray: Thoughts after liberalism
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- čas přidán 7. 10. 2023
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In our disrupted age, as Russia and China continue to rise, the West faces the return of destabilising dynamics in geopolitical power. Philosopher, and author of The New Leviathans, John Gray seeks to disabuse us of the liberal certainties that have distorted the Western mind and calls for us to return to realism. He joined Freddie Sayers in conversation at the UnHerd Club.
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"Destroyed the tyranny of Gadaffi?" Libya was always ruled via the consent of the twelve or so tribes who gave him his power originally---at least to my knowledge. Libyans enjoyed the highest standard of living on the African continent with the most generous societal benefits in the Western or Eastern world. That kind of 'tyranny' is sorely missed in that now devastated country of slave trading and profusion of refugees. Our notion of what is right and correct is far from always right for everybody.
I guess sometimes there are worse things than tyranny.
John makes that very argument elsewhere!
Look at his interview with Novara Media. You both agree, I believe.
@@festivetosho7376 we do
You know you're in trouble when your opinion sounds like a government press briefing.
It is always calming to hear a sensible voice.
As a 65 year old guy, let me give you a perspective. We had 3 main TV stations and radio growing up. The big change now is that you are inundated with media all day long and it distorts your perception of what is really happening and inflames your emotions. If you do a complete media detox and turn it off for a month and only talk to real people you will never hear about most of the things talked about in this video. Real people in real life don’t care about these things. It’s the media that amps people up
This is so true. Go for an early morning walk and the world is as it should be - until the humans awaken. Junk food was that your mom made cookies and maybe Tang. Things are based upon cheap abundance and a whim and people have become highly reactive to it. It's not real life and we see how complex we make things as we become, in some ways, more ignorant or powerless.
Doubt i could have picked something better to watch in the middle of the current shitshow around us. Thank you for your time Mr Gray. I look forward to hearing more from you in the future.
I thought i disliked John Gray, his ideas don't align with my own. I watched this and thought he was fascinating . I will read the books of his i own again. This is why we should keep listening.
a profound talk about the current state of affairs in our society. I think this leaves alot to think about for sure. One of our days most objective nuanced open minded thinkers. Definitely a good presentation hoping to read his books to better understand him soon.
No such word as ALOT! You'd find it is 2 words. You learn that in grade 3.
@@elizabethk3238 do you feel better now?
One of the most rational discussions on every single topic discussed. Bravo, Freddie, for this broadcast!
Right up to the point when someone mentions Russia. Brits are genetically incapable to be rational about Russia.
Professor Gray attributes to British soldiers what American soldiers captured by Germany actually did- led by a Sargent, since the Germans separated enlisted men from their officers in the attempt to better control them. The Sargent, asked by the camp Commandant to identify those soldiers of Jewish faith refused, but when pressed said “I am.” His men followed suit and the German Commandant got nowhere.
Credit where credit’s due.Sargent’s are the backbone of the US Army, and for good reason.
My understanding is that Jewish prisoners in German captivity from the armed forces of the western allies were in fact treated the same as other prisoners.
@@vanillagorilla9732
The problem of cancel culture is far older than 5-10 years, it is much older. In fact, in my country if you were a know Marxist in the 60s, your career would suffer, you would be given as good bank loans and promotion would be out of reach. It was an anti-meritocracy. Cancel culture does not come from above (top down) but it is rather paralell or comes from bottom-up.
If I work in a pharma company and I see no reason why a particular subgroups should be vaccinated I should have legimated fear to be layed off. I would self-censor in order not to get layed-off/cancelled by the company. It is a time for the right-wing to acknowlegde that!
No, you should be brave and resign. Then speak about what you know!
Curtailing your attitude is a cowards way!
@@robertholland7558 Millions of people have been killed by US wars and sanctions last decades....because their leaders opposed western ideology. Every word this man say about communism , can be used on US/Western foreign policies.
@@ellengran6814 fully agreed!
I been opposed against the communist/capitalist dichotomy ever since I developed a political understanding! And while in 50 years since, I still have not found a suitable useful alternative.
The only conclusion I can reach is that humanity is a barbaric species, not worthy the accreditation of “ civilisation “.
Give peace a chance, but sadly humanity is to dumb stupid idiotic ignorant arrogant to realise that blatant in your face fact! Now prove me wrong!
Cancel culture comes from academia so is top-down. The idea of repressive tolerance of Herbert Marcuse is the most important idea of cancel culture because it states that tolerating points of view that allow oppression was unjust. This got filtered down from European to American intellectuals and reached peak distillation in Kimberly Crenshaw’s “Mapping the Margins” essay with the now oft quoted phrase “from the margins equality looks like oppression”. As we know Herbert Marcuse was no liberal, he was a Marxist in the Antonio Gramsci tradition. For John Gray to say that cancel culture is a byproduct of liberalism is absurd when you recognize the evolution of the woke ideology. Wokeness is really cultural Marxism dressed up in liberal drag. A wolf in sheep’s clothing in fact.
@@januarysson5633 To me, wokism is a natural respons to "liberty for Big Businesses, debt slavery for ordinary people" = crony capitalism/fascism or what we used to call feudalism.
“To be able to talk freely without being afraid.”
This resonated. I see this more and more (especially in the workplace).
Free speech used to mean being free from state persecution, so not being imprisoned or executed by the state. Thats a litmus into understanding how and why modern free speech arguments ruin is false. You don't have a right to keep your job, and you generally aren't free from being persecuted (verbally) by your workplace or other individuals. That is generally also their free speech right. Get worried when yourself or others are being persecuted by the state for your speech. Otherwise, what you are witnessing is really just the free speech of others (to verbally disagree). It's all been very drummed up and misconstrued, deliberately. Unfortunately for Mr Grey here, he fell for the rhetorical far right trick. That people aren't allowed to disagree or verbally disagree. Oh yeah? And who is suppose to enforce that? The state? Uh oh. Suddenly, it becomes apparent that free speech advocacy is actually in the wrong based on centuries of legal precedence. Best not to tamper with that. Speech today is freer than it's ever been.
Especially in the collective West
Rieff died only a couple of years ago; was married to Susan Sontag. Brilliant guy and “Triumph of the Therapeutic” was and still is an incredible read almost 60 years later.
What a refreshing and lucid talk, thank you!
John Gray is always worth listening to, and many of his criticisms of immature left illiberalism, cancelling, etc are valid. That said, the rosy picture of tolerance in the academy in the Oxford of Isaiah Berlin is a chimera. Remember, this was a 1970s Britain in which racism was rampant, minorities barely present in universities and public life, and where many of the atrocities committed to maintain the empire (e.g. 1950s Kenya) had not been the subject of academic research. Samuel Moyn has recently written of the cramping of liberalism that took place during the Cold War, including in Berlin's thought.
The simple truth is that it has in some ways become more difficult to maintain liberal tolerance because the demands of inclusion have become greater. Women, and all kinds of minorities will no longer be shut up, but will protest all kinds of silencing and exclusion. A more serious and thorough engagement with the subject would recognise this.
What minorities were there to be represented in 70s London? The countrh was almost entirely British.
Thanks for your question. Starting with ethnic minorities, I don't have figures for London, but, for Britain as a whole, there were 304,000 people of Caribbean origin in Britain in 1971, and 375,000 of Indian origin. Numbers of Africans would have been smaller, but there were arrivals of a few thousand per year. Then of course there were Irish, Polish and Jewish minorities.
As for sexual and gender minorities, it is less a question of numbers, but of social prejudices and legal disabilities, which lessened in the late 1960s, (before making a comeback in the Thatcher years). Britain was more liberal than many other places, but far behind the diversity we take for granted today.
Anyone who grew up watching 70s British television knows that jokes at the expense of these groups were a daily routine.@@polybian_bicycle
@@madramalou2706 Out of touch old white men like John Gray thinks "not being able to say slurs" is a cancel culture because they used to let them get away with it. I love how the supposedly cancelled voices are loudly annoucing it in their podcasts and talk shows.
Old white men like Gray are funny because they say freedom of speech is no longer! because the "darkies and gays" won't let me be racist but would be the first to cry "anti whiteness" if minorities were making fun of white men.
Yes. The more I listen to this guy, the more his "liberalism" sounds like old school conservatism. We just wants the old white boy's club to stay in charge. He doesn't get that diversity, inclusion, deplatforming fascists, racists etc for their bad ideas is protection of liberal ideas. Now that women, minorities, says etc want a voice, he can't handle that its not only his ilk that have a voice so he just dismisses it as "progressivism". What a fogey. That generation needs to go.
Sr. Gray doesn't seem to understand what scotus did with Roe v. Wade. They punted! The ball moves to the states. This doesn't destroy the American project. If anything, it reduces fragility.
Great discussion thanks! On the subject of EVs and the likelihood (or not!) that they will ever dominate, I heard an energy industry insider in the UK remark that even if we did succeed in putting in enough charging points to allow all cars to be electric, the grid would collapse under the demand as we don't have the capacity to generate enough electricity. In spite of all the blah blah about net zero and phasing out ICE vehicles in the near future, none of our uniquely gifted leading class seem to have much to say about this little problem...
EV's would destroy the roads as well.
As a rule, complaining that "X technology will not possibly accommodate this future change." Is a bad take. Just as a rule. That's being Wiley Coyote, you've run out into the air at the top of the cliff and it's just your confidence that it's still beneath you keeping your assumptions alive.
History is a slave to technology, not the other way around. History will do what technology tells it to, every time.
James, that’s nonsense. In the battle between physics and platitudes, physics is still the undefeated champion. We have neither the capability nor the resources to make the EV thing happen. If what you said would be true (basically “if you build it, they will come) then the British attempt at building a gigafactory would have succeeded. EVs are nonsense.
Good to see someone thinking realistically/logically on this issue. @@mithrandirthegrey7644
I love both of these men!!!
Excellent. John’s excellent 1986 primer on liberalism (back when he was more optimistic) changed my outlook entirely, but he sold me so well that I didn’t want to read his later work. But this subject is the one that captures me the most these days. The task of treating people equally who want to treat others unequally, what to do?
hmmm
Paradox of tolerance. Karl Popper. You let them remain hemmed in by the existing laws. They are allowed to demonstrate and operate within the society, but the moment they effectively cross those boundaries as individuals and break laws, such as through violence, they are held accountable to the law. Popper is a bit more clear about this, and he sort of assumes that a society will always have a majority of decency and reasonability, and thus advises that majority society not even to entertain the auspices of the intolerant, as a matter of fact. But in our times that's a lot less obvious to more and more people, and it's the tolerant that are seen as intolerant (I'm not sure Popper addressed this in the paradox).
Personally, most of the time I'm fed up with the mile taken from the inch. I want to see beneficent dictatorships and fully structured societies where these intolerant factions are nipped in the bud as an institutional matter and are necessarily eradicated. But I don't fully know what all that would entail. I just know that I'm tired of the bs. And I'm willing to allow a lot of bs in order to get rid of that bs. It seems like we don't know what to do with freedom, because to far too many people, their own freedom can only mean the lack of freedom for others. If a post liberalism ever took a form like this, it would seem obvious the mistakes that liberalism allowed to flourish that counteracted its visions. But to be fair, liberalism was always supposed to be a paradoxical and tenuous balancing act, because the imposition of ideas of certainty were the real dangers and matters to be skeptical about. Trying to get beyond that opens a paradox in itself. An authoritarian society defiantly functions with someone or other under the heel of the state. How to make that heel soft and accommodating, I'm not sure exactly. And one thing is for certain, any fundamental changes to these effects would be devastating one way or another, economically, or for some factions and groups over others.
Personally, I don't think parents should have a right to their children after age 7 or so. Rip from history and make them viral entities of the state. Higher education, national security, and civic necessity would be imbued in them. Society could drastically change in a single generation. All the works that need to be done would get done, there'd be a core sense of national identity and ideology, all shared, and to be against the state and against society would be anathema. It's one example of a simple change they could have dramatic benefits. The only issue is those kids would then see their subversive and rebellious parents as traitors or vice versa. But that's a bandaid I'd be willing to see ripped off. The sheer ignorance that is imparted by too many parents into their children is the greater evil, and it's allowed to sustain generation after generation. The society that cooks figure out this calculus and for the better would be a beacon to the world, while the rest of us allow swine to beget more swine. Most people are decent and intelligent and coherent enough, but the overreacting elements of liberal society that only exist and thrive because of an over abundance of freedom... maybe the freedom is the problem...
But that's just an exercise in thought, and I personally wouldn't consider it in the vein of counter enlightenment or anti liberalism. It's a continuation of those revolutions, it's an insurance to shore them up. At least there's the spirit I'm trying to further.
In the 1960s and 70s and 80s when watching say a sitcom or drama. When someone would say "can i sit here?" The repost would be "it's a free country" i literally have not heard that phrase said in the last 30 years on anything. I think we can sense that if the "feeling" of freedom that was prevalent in the past was always a pretence, all pretence is now gone.
Yeah, why bother asking? Just take the free seat!
@robertholland7558 you didn't get my point but I gave your comment a like anyway.
@@marccas10 I got your point alright. Back on the 60;70/80’s I still took the free seat without asking.
If there was an issue, I would be told, and I would apologise.
After all, it easier to apologise than to ask permission, then and now.
@robertholland7558 "After all its easier to apologise, than ask for permission" not in a northern pub in the 80s you'd be food.
@@robertholland7558 You're entitled to take the free seat, but it's a common courtesy to ask anyway. That's my way of thinking here in England, and I would still do the same thing today.
John Gray is brilliant.
Sensemaking.
Indeed.
💜
We have to push back against curtailment of freedom of speech if nothing else.
John Grey must surely be aware that the US state dept recognises Tiwan as part of China.
There’s a lot of things of which John Gray doesn’t seem aware.
The US does that in name only, while selling tonnes of arms to Taiwan so it can defend itself against China’s invasion threat.
From Freedom Equality and Fraternity
Until Sovereignty Justice and Responsibility ❤️ 💚 💜
Hi Freddie, as usual I could just sit here listening to your voice!. This time your guest sounds very pleasant and relaxed as well.
While I sit here listening to both of you I can tap away at my keyboard as well!. I will start by saying that I never understood what anyone ever meant by the word liberal, it clearly relates to some sort of generosity and open-mindedness but also implied some rather more relaxed attitude to regulation than the totalitarianism promoted by tyrants, dictators and far too many schoolteachers!.
What has always troubled me is that it never seems to have acquired any greater definition and it is some form of definition that I have always craved.
The last few years have brought me to a condition in which I now consider the propensity of humans to resort to various cognitive delusions fantasies and myths as a quick and easy substitute for slow, logical, methodical, careful reasoning.
There is absolutely nothing new about this, it is and always has been an embedded structural element of our biology. If anything at all has changed it is the stability is the current system, during the era of feudal autocracy the bulk of the population had no say in anything beyond the narrow compass of their own domestic life and virtual slavery, the 'rulers' were mostly too busy robbing each other and trying to hang on to the loot to 'normal' bother people very much!.
Two related things then started to emerge, the money system was invented and extended and gradual industrialisation evolved, this had compound effects, one the one hand the stability of the feudal system was gradually undermined and the influence of money became more prevalent, at more or less the same time industrialisation produced a new workforce who could only do the jobs they were being paid for if they learned how to operate and repair the machinery they had to use, they had to do this with little on no input from 'management', plenty of 'orders' but no real help!.
Over the next several generations this produced an entirely new demographic with communities springing up in the midst of the satanic mills!, this was the birthplace of socialism, it was born into an environment without any established hierarchy allowing ordinary people to find simple sensible ways of making things work.
This bedrock of socialism that was in fact just a by-product of the industries has ceased to exist! and with it the working practises fallen into disrepute, this leaves us in something of a cultural vacuum, none of the old ways appear to have any real traction, the preponderance of indoctrination in the name of education has so undermined people's confidence and abilities, the 'powers that should not be' have no more clue about what to do or how r=to do it than they ever did, no person can ever make properly competent decisions on behalf of any other person! but that does not stop them from trying, trying, and trying some more!.
Twenty five minutes have passed and suddenly I am distracted from my own thoughts by his clear ands sensible description of how western and Chinese capitalist management differs, for a moment I thought he was actually going to say 'In the west corporations own the governments but in China the government owns the corporations, of course this is not a structural deviation, itis still the same dog, just a slightly different leg action.
Freddie, you ask him about the back-pedalling on some government plans, I must remind you that at no time have the ever published any plans!, that word implies deliberate systematic implementation of practical measures that will lead to the desired outcome!. What they have done, and all they have done for as long as I can remember, is issue a torrent of demands and desires, mostly simply to pander to the emotional demands of a juvenile electorate.
Cheers, Richard.
The Supreme Court’s abortion ruling this year is not an example, as Mr. Gray claims, of the “politicization” of the Court. The ruling returned the issue of abortion to the political processes of each state.
He does not know what the hell he is talking about. Also see his "climate change" claims.
Since Roe v Wade, the political right has explicitly campaigned on reversing the ruling by blocking the nomination of liberals and confirming conservatives to the bench. Their success proves that the judicial branch is now an extension of the political process hence “politicization”
I was wondering if he meant Roe v. Wade from 1973 or the decision last year which returned the abortion issue to the states.
@@januarysson5633 I’d say it’s unlikely, the ‘73 decision was made by a coalition of justices nominated by republicans and democrats. It’s hard to see how that decision was the result of political activism.
@@allred6505 That’s funny considering that the court had to literally invent a new judicial doctrine to take into account the “emanations of the penumbras” of the Fourth Amendment to justify the Roe decision because not even substantive due process was strong enough to justify it.
I glaze over quickly when words ending in "ism" are used a lot. So I'm glad he replaced the word "liberablism" with tolerance for other people's opinions. That I can understand better.
China relies on access to the US market and US Capitol quite heavily. You always hear about how much the US gets from China, but often less about the other side of it.
Knowledge is power🎉🙏🇬🇧
As I get older, and as the world becomes more fractured, I notice that I want a space (and become increasingly focused on creating) where I can be unafraid to speak openly. I also notice that I value open discourse, and try to promote it with leading comment, as there appears to be more reactivity on media. It's interesting how varied attitudes can be based on geography (etc) and how they interact on popular platforms, being the centralized spaces apart from real life.
I was finally happy to hear Gray say that he doesn’t know something, that is, the history of the Nazis and Bulgaria. You can read it in a book called Beyond Hitler’s Reach. Basically, Bulgarian civil society, for reasons to some degree explained in the book, rejected Nazi demands to turn over their friends and neighbors.
Please interview Dr Judith Curry
Thanks
That was soo great I almost became a paying subscriber
Almost
Bulgaria did indeed reject Nazi pressure to deport its Jews during World War II but it was not occupied by the Nazis, as Gray says. In Thrace, where Bulgarians operated under Nazi authority but without Bulgarian civil society norms, about 7000 Jews were deported and murdered.
Great talk in general. Sad to hear Gray repeating anti-Russian and anti-Chinese tropes. While China certainly has some very authoritarian features, it is not a threat to liberalism in the West. That assault has come from our own technocratic elite.
As for the countries which protected their Jews while under the WW2 Axis power, three examples are very different. In Denmark the Royal family, followed by many of their subjects, wore the yellow star armbands when Danish Jews were ordered to do so. Now doubt the favoured status of Scandinavians in Hitler's absurd but deadly racial supremacist scheme was a major factor enabling this to go unpunished. In Bulgaria there was a tricky balancing act performed by the government. Neutral until Germany invaded Yugoslavia and Greece, then opportunistically joining the Axis against Britain and it's then Allies. Refusing (unlike Romania and Hungary and the Ukrainians around them) to join the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. Then switching sides only when the Soviet armies drove the Germans out of the neighbourhood.
Italy also resisted persecuting its Jewish people until the land fell under German military domination when Mussolini's fascist state collapsed.
"The medium is the message" - Thsi is an outstanding observation but the causes of 'after liberalism' are never properly addressed I think. The changes of man's means of communication have a profound effect on how we relate to others, how we set up our societies, culture, everything - why is it that no scholars realize and discuss this fact?
34:50 hope Owen Jones and Novara Media guys listen to this part and they stopped lying about hiw good was/is the German Green agenda
11:03 not yet my friend!
9:54 Hannah Arendt explain it long time ago
When the alarmism isn't enough, claim it must be 'underestimated'...
29:44 - James Lovelock used to say Climate Science is inexact but if Climate Science has
_________ a bias, it's probably to under estimating the speed of change
29:55 - James Lovelock thought that climate change would consist of sudden jumps,
_________ It could be sudden & transform things quite quickly in a couple decades
That's what makes it unfalsifiable and hence not science. They simply move the goalposts to accommodate or explain away disconfirming data.
Even as a Mackem, i find posh Tyneside a soothing tone. Like a cross between Ian La Frenais and Ridley Scott. What a refreshing change from the pseudo intellectual alt right nonsense out there.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
I have a theory as to why illiberalism is on the rise in Western countries: it's actually a form of revenge on society by disappointed people who expected to have important roles in life but haven't been successful in that aim. They were constantly given the impression when they were growing up that they would easily move into important positions in life, and when this didn't happen - probably because so many other people had precisely the same idea so that there simply wasn't room for all of them at the top - they've decided to get their own back, and the way a lot of them have decided to do this is by trying to trash liberal society. It's a nihilistic attitude that they have, almost saying: if I can't have what I expected to have, no-one else should be able to either.
That's a well known theory called aspirant elites. People like Peter Turchin have written books on it. Eventually there are more aspiring elites then there are elite positions. So they form a counter elite to tear down society.
Probably the result of a combination of social media, technological stagnation, nimbyism and the costly 2nd Iraq war in the case of the US.
Sounds like unemployed liberals who don't want to pay their student loans
This is one of the main arguments in Peter Turchin's book: 'The End Of Times - Elites, Counter Elites, and the Path to Political Disintegration' where he frames it as Elite Over Production rather than Revenge. Here is Review of his book if you care to have a listen: czcams.com/video/SHoqcGqnAUY/video.html
Perhaps, but isn't this the inevitable conclusion of any successful, liberal, meritocratic society? The problem is compounded because no meritocratic system can be perfect, humans are naturally nepotistic, and other values are always going to get in the way, these days it's values like inclusion and tolerance, but can also take the form of religion or ideology, thus giving those who fail an potential excuse for failing beyond simply not being good enough.
It seems like a fatal flaw to the system and is probably why democratic and oligarchic systems have historically been quite unstable compared to more autocratic or hereditary approaches to government.
what he is talking about, ie tolerance of diversity, respect for the truth, civil conversation & all those liberal values associated with the democratic experiment, have, & are, being very deliberately disrupted by reactionnaries, who require authoritarianism to maintain their power, position & wealth. It is disingenuous to suggest this has happened naturally, from the ground up, when it has been engineered by the petrochemical states industries & the power structures that underpin it's might & benefit from maintaining it. We have, never faced such risk of extinction to multiple species, including our own, cooperation & accurate data have never been more important, instead we have the banality of Tucker Carlson promoted by malevolent billionnaire Musk, who is choking freedom of speach on his X twitter, for the hell of it. Grey has bought into the Nihilism, of can't stop it, won't try, mend & make do. This isn't an option. After the free market corporate counter revolution, must come the real revolution
Ah, we have a Hillary Voter. And a long-winded one at that.
NZ MMP, with our election only a few days away, it’s a disfunctional election system. All the horse trading takes place after the election. You’ve got little idea of what you are actually voting for. That assumes in addition that real solutions are being put forward.
Good to see you booted out the Labour Party in NZ.
I'd like to hear John Gray on psychedelics. 🤔 (Green Fire, UK) 🌈🦉
He would probably say it's right for most of them to be illegal, but people who use them personally shouldn't be persecuted too strongly by the authorities. That's my view as well.
29:40 - James Ephraim Lovelock CH CBE FRS ( 26 FEB 1919 - 26 JUL 2022) was an
_________ English independent scientist, environmentalist & futurist. He is best known for
_________ proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates Earth is a self-regulating system.
28:54 -
29:26 -
37:37 - Under estimating [ greatly which will require employing everyone as Emergency Environmental Protection Workers ]
Nietzsche was wrong about almost everything but right about one thing. The besetting vice of citizens of a modern democracy is RESENTMENT.
Seems that way, dunnit?
I couldn’t tell if he was talking about climate change are the Covid policies, same difference, I guess.
Russia and China's rise Is faltering. China's economic rise was fueled by strong ties to the West, but President Xi Jinping's policies have reversed this trend. China's debt-to-GDP ratio is over 300%, and its economic growth is projected to slow to the mid-single digits in the coming years. The West is diversifying its supply chains away from China and restricting China's access to advanced technology. China's military buildup is unsustainable, and its aggressive posture has alienated its neighbors. China's aging population will further complicate its economic troubles. Russia is a kleptocracy that has plundered its resources, weakened its military, and seen its population decline. The war in Ukraine has further weakened Russia, and the West is taking steps to counter Russia's influence. The United States and its allies are increasing their military presence in the Indo-Pacific region and building a coalition to counter China. The United States is also working to reduce its reliance on China for critical goods and technologies. These efforts will make it difficult for Russia and China to achieve their strategic goals. The world may be entering a period of bipolarity, with the United States and its allies competing with Russia and China for global influence. This is a competition Russia and China cannot win. The West, and liberalism in particular, is under great stress, but it is not at its breaking point yet. Western citizens, especially the elites, must wake up to their failed policies that have led to the current situation. Billionaires who are trying to counter public discontent by stoking populism and culture wars should heed history's warnings: mobs cannot be controlled and often act against their masters' wishes.
Why reduce the discussion to punditry (eg., war with China, oil prices, Tucker Carlson) which serious intellectuals like John have no comparative advantage over journalists? It would have been interesting if the host had followed up on his questions by probing into the core reasons liberalism might be finished - when it began to unravel, who were the guiding lights (intellectual, political and cultural), were gutted-out institutions at fault, the role of monetization of politics, is the US leading the way, etc?).
"Thoughts after Liberalism", that's pretty funny. If there were any thoughts before Liberalism, there wouldn't be any.
Interesting insights for thought, but pretty dated and irrelevant today. We didn't have the infrastructure to blindly cause the climate crisis, but through political lobbying, oil corporations and adjacent ones like the car industry, built all the infrastructure to structure society around consuming energy, travel and distribution. It was able to be done, it can be undone. This is why the degrowth movement makes more sense. If you could walk or bike, why drive? Especially if you can't afford a vehicle in the economic leading that brought so much tentative ruin at the margins. Just wait until it's no longer at the margins.
Please can you interview Academic Agent about Elite Theory pls.
I am a lefty and I think they are very good.
AA is bellend of the highest order.
AA is a bit too edgy for the respectable centrists at Unherd.
@@skymanifest8339 Nah, he's just bellend.
I’d love to hear AA’s take on this talk. I mean, for all his criticism of the post-45 liberal order, Gray still believes in a lot of the founding myths of the boomer truth regime.
I am uncertain what he means about China. Taiwan and China are accepted as one state by the UN. Officially by the US as well. From what I gather it's the US likely to attack China than the other way around
Who cares what the UN or US thinks. The point is Taiwan thinks of itself as independent of communist China. That's what matters. I support their right to be independent from them.
@@ajs41
That is very strange, you say it doesn't matter what the UN thinks. You also say it' doesn't matter what the US thinks, you should do, because they are the main supporter of a war with China because of Taiwan. I put It to you, you don't even understand the basic geopolitical situation.
In any case I was not interested in your views, the question really is for the philosopher, in the video. The reason being he Is trying to turn the geopolitical situation on its head. He Is not being honest, he is not mentioning that the US is the aggressor in this situation. Saying they support the UN view, which the US has signed up for, at the same time readying itself for war with China over Taiwan.
00:51 That was a serious argument against Brexit, I wish I had heard someone make it at the time.
Which book did Isiah Berlin recommend to him?
We, humans have to adapt to a warmer climate. The current strategy of CO2 reduction, is the wrong way. After all, climate in general is ALWAYS changing, with or without our industrialization. The best prove of it, which is we have no ideas how &what triggers ice age/interglacial ice age . If people care enough to ask the question What and Why, we will not be in such climate mania.
Tolerance is such a slippery term. Tolerance of what exactly? The premise this discussion seems to be based on is that a liberal society is tolerant. I beg to differ.
He provided an out. You only have to be tolerant of other "reasonable" people.
@@RWROW and then call everybody who's in your way terrorists
"Liberalism" can't end soon enough.
You won't say that if you end up on the wrong side of it.
@@rocketpig1914 There has been nothing more anti human and destructive than Liberalism in world history. We'll be fine.
So which type of totalitarianism do you prefer?
@@januarysson5633 Anything but Liberal Democracy.
@@555Trout Maybe North Korea will take you.
I honestly don't know what he means, it's not a claim Its their country.
Gray loses credibility when his snideness is evident, such as when he calls those who disagree with him “dim“. I teach at an American University and express my moderate and conservative views whenever I want and with whomever I want. Political conformity is a problem indeed, but I have had no pushback from criticizing such conformity and illiberalism.
I feel John doesn't understand the difference between norms and state oppression...? This whole discussion just makes no sense after he establishes them as the same thing.
It's just not true that we respected free speech across the board prior to the 80s or '90s. Ask any American who is black.
35:18 omgf
Would be interesting to hear Gray cite specifically what evidence persuaded him that human activity substantially determines the global climate. It's unfortunate to hear somebody as smart as him use a virtually meaningless expression like "climate sceptic" - it speaks to his own earlier point about the unfortunate tendency to present certain subjects as beyond the pale of reasonable discussion and debate.
Quite right. The "climate" question is very complex, and very few people speak about it precisely or pose
the fundamental questions. Without even discussing IF temp is increasing or IF humans contribute -----Why is it bad if all the cold areas of the earth get warmer by 1-2-3 degrees? What is the ideal global temperature? Why would anyone be confident we can predict
future changes? We never have before!
I'm not sure that is important for the actions he's suggesting we take, particularly in mitigating against the impacts of changing climate.
You just need to believe that the climate is changing to do that not that humans have caused that change.
Mr Gray's anticipation of America after the presidential election is extremely soberimg. Thinking on it, while I have little time for Nikki Haley, I wonder if the best, least threatenimg outcome wouldn't be that she become the Republican candidate and beats Biden.
46:12 In Bulgaria live a lot of gypsies which were prosecuted as well by the nazis. So they decided for cooperation not cooperating with the regime in order to create a virtual wall.
Thought provoking comments. On China, it is not true that nobody understands it. There are very good Sinologists who do and have got things right for decades. The Western media narrative on China is very misleading. It is extremely unlikely they would go to war with the United States. But they are very big, and consisently so on "national dignity, sovereignty and territorital integrity" and there are historical reasons for that. Their response to Ukraine and Palestine was very predictable. In fact their consistency makes them very predictable. Outside Tibet and Xianjing, China has never been interested in empires - except in mediaeval tmes when it maintained a tribute system over its neighbours, but this was for "stability", ie to maintain supply and trade routes in the face of attacks from barbarians and pirates. And in fact "national stability" - internal stability - literally holding the country together - together with border security is key to understanding the long standing perogratives of both Russia and China.
All systems of secular morality are based on an abstraction from the individual case. They are based on an appeal to a generality.The attempt to encapsulate a human being or the human psyche within a systematic account of another man’s experience is inhuman. Knowledge is not absolute nor is it’s pursuit and acquisition to be taken absolutely. With the death of G-d we’ve lost our belief in the foundation of our entire value system. A value system that was historically based and endured for two thousand years in Europe. Now Who’s going to rebuild a valid value system, and by whose authority? If there is no G-d and no transcendental realm and if all values, all rationale and truth are no longer given to man from an Agency outside himself, as absolute, then they will, by necessity, be given to him from those who are in power and authority over him. No one has the power to create their own values. For no one is G-d. The transvaluation of all values will put humanity into reverse by the very process which has led it out of barbarism and into civilisation. Decadence and the contempt for individual life, the lack of self in the sense of the loss of the fundamental instinct as the center within the person~ ie the loss of self, in favour of tyrannical abstraction disguised as 'rationality' and 'morality,’ nihilism becomes a pointless escape from and condemnation of life itself.
“Rather than cope with the unbearable loneliness of their condition, men will continue to seek their shadowed God, and for His sake they will love the very serpents that dwell among His ruins.”
Nietzsche
You're wrong about Germany. We're not doing well at all....
If Liberialism is dead and we need to create something new, we are done. Wokery, or Critical Consciousness will dominate, because it has already figured out a plan, has been acting it out for decades, and has captured most of our institutions.
The right-wing backlash against this will only grow.
I don’t even know what people like John Gray mean by “post-liberalism”. Most of the people I’ve heard use the phrase are either black pilled or some sort of authoritarians. It would theoretically be possible for everyone to self segregate into their own political camps on a geographic basis (something John Gray alluded to here) but as long as totalitarians are part of the mix it won’t work because they have an evangelical fervor about their ideologies and would never accept that type of settlement.
A large amount of good arguments. Completely wrong on electric cars. I have one. Charging is not a problem at all!
But as take-up increases electric cars will be used for longer journeys by people with less access to home charging. Public charging points will need to increase disproportionately.
How do you distribute them to ensure easy access while avoiding excessive expense? Maybe there are good solutions but I understand the concern that it hasn't been planned well enough.
Words juggler....
Gray is so wrong on China. If you followed the money, as he said and considered the strong family ties between Ukrainians and Russians, you would never have predicted the current war. I think the professor is wrong on too many topics to make further listening worthwhile
They want our kids😢😮
Ivory tower talk!
I think covid should shape your view of climate change.
BINGO! If you can be lied to about things you can see imagine the freedom to lie about unquantifiable things like the weather.
90% of the population do NOT has respiratory illness at any point in time, including Covid.
Of the 10% that do 90% have mild to minor symptoms.
Of the 10% that do have more serious symptoms, the majority already have underlying chronic conditions.
It's certainly changed mine. I don't have the right kind of science background to be able to assess the claims of the alarmist or "denialist" climate scientists, but noticing that almost everything we were told re covid was wrong (because as a nurse I can assess those claims) I no longer believe in climate change. I know believe that I don't know whether or not climate change is true, that I have no way to know, and that I deeply distrust that the things our leaders are telling us they are going to do to us due to climate change are because of climate change at all.
@@lilith3953 climate change has been occurring ever since there was a climate.
It has next to nothing to do with human input,and there is absolutely nothing humans can do to stop climate change. We absolutely and totally must find ways to adapt instead of spreading all these doomsday predictions. Planet earth has both been far warmer and colder way beyond even the wildest speculations. During the Jurassic period this planet was 10+ C degrees warmer then today, and warming of one two three even four degrees is all but amateurish. Beside vegetation loves CO2!
Not only is it wise to not believe the government,we must actively remove it, remember that next time you find yourself at the ballot box. Not only tear the ballot papers up, but but the place down,figuratively speaking, but yes it might need to come to literally burn the government!
Simple:
No mandated vaccines so no mandated EVs.
Absolutely shocking😢
I think he is delusional....I wonder what he was saying about nuclear energy in 70s and 80s? ...Freddie? Check this out
It's sucks, period
Isn't God the Collective UnConscious Becoming
Matter Beings and Events To Become Conscious ???
Good chat, lots of good information on various subjects. I do take issue with Mr. Gray's comments on medically assisted suicide in Canada which I believe were inaccurate and misleading. the objective of these programs is not a substitute for lack of available treatment or making additional choices in death, it's to offer a humane method of ending one's life in the face of terminal outcome with declining quality of life. It seems incredible to me, that this was overlooked and not mentioned in his comments, especially when this merciful means of ending a life has been offered for our pets for many years.
John Gray seems to be trying to cover all bases at once. You never know where he is - liberal, conservative, a supporter of tyrants, etc, as though he were trying to please everyone, to steer a middle course and not offend anyone or get into trouble with the university authorities. He would be terrible as a politician, I'm sure. I'm not sure I find his particularly British brand of empircist pessimsm convincing, not to say appealing. His prophetic, highly confident sci-fi prouncements on future events seem subjective and infantile, at odds with his 'analytic' credentials. My bet is that under all of this madly circular and contradictory reasoning he is something of a closet Buddhist or reader of Hindu religious texts. Maybe he should come out of his closet!
Exactly😢
I don't understand how anything he is saying is supposed to be interesting or insightful. Many more interesting thinkers with more interesting things to say than this.
Gray should look further than Lovelock. He was almost certainly completely wrong
Extreme weather is reducing. Gray is entering headlong into the soothsaying that he usually mocks
Pot holes 🇬🇧🤦
@ 10:25 what a silly, or dumb, thing to say. He needs to get outside more
Explain your reasoning
Im christian and i have faith❤🇬🇧🙏🙏
Islam can become the new and fresh alternative.
White reflection 😢
👍🤣🤣🇬🇧
👍🤣🤣
German coal plants are scheduled to be completely phased out, in stages, by 2030. Poland, on the other hand, is much more dependent on coal and has no plans whatsoever. Nuclear only made up 5% of German electricity consumption, and spending billions to construct new plants would help in 15 years. Instead, over this time span, they will be investing that money in true renewables and a smart grid, amongst other things. The prevailing narrative about Germany is breathtakingly superficial, but people will enjoy it for a while.
Did a green battery bus set on 🔥
34:57 - well , there we are.Progress always has casualties.
What is he on about?
😂
He is enigmatic.