EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,006 words- 0:00 – 2:38
Intro
- CBCarl Benjamin
How much effort was that, you know? How, how, how much sweat and tears and toil was it for you to achieve this moral virtue that is saying something really extreme, you know? You didn't build a house, you didn't climb a mountain, you didn't raise a child, you didn't construct a building, you said something on the internet. You know, it's amazing that that gives people cred. (wind blows)
- CWChris Williamson
I am very happy to see how well you're doing with Global Deceiters at the moment, man. It's really impressive. The team's massive.
- CBCarl Benjamin
It's huge, isn't it?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- CBCarl Benjamin
It's mad. It's like 13 people in the office now. We're waiting for the next... In the ne- office next to us is the, uh, the transport police that you saw when you came down. We're waiting for them to leave so we can expand into their office because they've got a huge office, and we're just gonna essentially just take it over. So I'm, I'm looking forward to it. Get another s- get another set, so we can start-
- CWChris Williamson
What does it feel like going from being just some blokey YouTuber to now, you know, a proper company, media team, researchers shit?
- CBCarl Benjamin
Yeah, it's, it's exciting, right? Uh, like, 'c- 'cause before I could feel myself getting wearied by, "Right, now I'm gonna have to read these things and do this," and the, the, you know, you had to do all the backend stuff, and it was just tiring, and it w- you know, it sapped the motivation to do the things, you know. But now we've got like, you know, two people who do like the video production, and then we've got other people who are doing other things. And so I... And it's lots of other, you know... 'Cause we're all in the same office, and I've been very insistent we work in the office, uh, you get lots of different ideas being thrown into the sort of the ring. And, and it's not just me having to think of everything myself and having to do everything myself. And so it makes it a completely different en- environment, and the office is a really chill place, and everyone seems to have a good time there as well. And so everyone's being very creative with what they're doing. It's turning into quite the little think tank. Uh, I'm very, very happy with it, and it's, it's, it's definitely a good idea. I'm, I'm so... I, I knew it would be. I had this instinct. I was like, "Yeah, that would probably be a good thing to have, uh, and it would be nice to be able to bring other people in to do stuff." And it- I'm, I'm glad that that was correct, (laughs) a good instinct.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, man. It doesn't surprise me. Uh, went down, the atmosphere's cool. I mean, you've got your own servers and shit-
- CBCarl Benjamin
Oh, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... in there as well. You're as-
- CBCarl Benjamin
Yeah, yeah, it's really great.
- CWChris Williamson
... protected as you can get. It's, um... You know, what you guys do is the closest thing I think we've got in the UK to the Daily Wire, and that's one hell of a fucking operation.
- CBCarl Benjamin
Yeah. The, I mean, we're nowhere near the scale of the Daily Wire, but, um, you know, we get something like seven or eight million views a month on our YouTube channel. Um, we get, you know, 200,000 on the website, which is not that bad actually 'cause all conservatives say that.
- CWChris Williamson
Seriously, man. Serious
- 2:38 – 19:33
Ethan Klein & HasanAbi Vs Jordan Peterson
- CWChris Williamson
shit.
- CBCarl Benjamin
Uh, you know?
- CWChris Williamson
But speaking of, speaking of YouTube dramas and people that are worried about losing their business, what's your thoughts on Ethan Klein's recent spat with Jordan Peterson?
- CBCarl Benjamin
I think that what we're witnessing is the inevitable radicalization of Ethan Klein because of his Twitter usage. Uh, Ethan obviously used to be a sort of anti-social justice, uh, commentator. He used to mock all of this, and little by little, and I think it's because of the natural environment of Twitter, having purged so many conservatives, and, uh, suppressing conservative viewpoints, that essentially it just makes it seem like the, the only, and most sensible and common, viewpoint is that of the far left. I mean, it's written in Twitter's terms of service that you can't misgender people and things like this. And there are so many... The, the, the political environment is so skewed on the platform that it becomes a sort of water in which you swim, and I don't think Ethan Klein is the smartest person in the world. And so I don't think he recognizes that, and I mean, take for example, the way that he disavowed Jordan Peterson. He was like, "You did something transphobic, you said something, y- this, you said that," and essentially it was just a list of crimes against progressivism, but I mean, that's the same as an imam coming to me and saying, "Well, you've eaten bacon, you've had, you've drunk alcohol, you've fornicated before marriage." I'm like, "Okay, but I'm not a Muslim," you know? These are not my standards. I don't, I don't agree that these are things I should care about, and Ethan Klein has adopted them unthinkingly because other people on Twitter, these are the, these are the things that the big Twitter, you know, viral Twitter threads and, and tweets, um, highlight. And so it's, it's put it into his mind that these are important things, but are they important things, or is there something more important in Ethan's life, like his wife and children, perhaps, you know, rather than a very tiny fringe minority of which he probably knows very few people? But this is, this is the thing. This is the problem with Twitter, and so... And you can see this, this dramatic leftward shift in his content, and now he's hosting a podcast with a guy called Hasan Piker. For anyone who doesn't know, he's a, he's a literal communist, and the kind of communist that one would call a tankie. Uh, he, he-
- CWChris Williamson
What's that?
- CBCarl Benjamin
Uh, he, he, he thinks the Soviet Union was a good idea and that America deserved 9/11. Uh, and so-
- CWChris Williamson
Explicitly?
- CBCarl Benjamin
He, he explicitly said America deserved 9/11, yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- CBCarl Benjamin
He had to go and... He, he's the nephew of Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks, and he was working at The Young Turks at the time. This was a couple of years ago. And he had to go on The Young Turks and, with his uncle, and essentially be told he had to disavow this position. He can't say that America deserved 9/11. And the thing is, he refused to do so, and now he's no longer at The Young Turks, 'cause even Cenk, who obviously hates America himself, was like, "Look, we, we can't just say that." You know, you can't just say, you know, "We're Americans. We're in America. We're not gonna say that America deserved the worst terror attack it's ever experienced." Uh, but Hasan, for some reason, thinks the ISIS position is, (laughs) uh, the, the Jihadi position is more legitimate than the American position-
- CWChris Williamson
And Ethan's got him-
- CBCarl Benjamin
... because he's a communist.
- CWChris Williamson
... on a podcast now?
- CBCarl Benjamin
Yeah, it's called Leftovers, which is a really stupid name, but then they're not very bright people, but the th- the interesting thing about this is that Hasan looks like the smart guy next to Ethan on this.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CBCarl Benjamin
But the best parts though, the best part, even though he's a literal communist and Ethan is basically a communist now himself, uh, the best part about it is their phenomenal success. Uh, their set costs $3 million, and in the middle, like, h- early, between the segments of their thing, I watched, uh, an episode of it, and they, they have to do like f-... three adverts of, uh, you know, for, "Buy this product and you'll grow," I don't know, some sort of anti-capitalist chest hair or whatever it is they sell. But it's the most hyper-capitalist thing in the world, and you can see during the shilling, Hasan's face. He just looks like he's dying inside. He's just like, "It, it... This just isn't worth the money." So he stops.
- CWChris Williamson
You gotta pay the setback.
- CBCarl Benjamin
E- exactly. You've got to pay for it all. Got to, got to pay for that $3 million mansion that he lives in. And, uh, so by promoting communism, they're literally being as capitalist as possible and dying i- on the inside. And I, I kind of love to watch it. I kind of love, 'cause I've, I've never done a shill. I've never promoted a product. I've never, uh, had any kind of corporate contract or anything like that, and I do... An- anything I do, I do on a gentleman's agreement because I think that's... There's something important there, right? 'Cause it's about not just you are going to be forced to keep your word, but it's about the desire to keep your word. It shows good will and good faith in what you do. Uh, and so that, I think, there, there's something there. But, um, but the fact that I've never had to do the shill, and I'm pro-capitalism (laughs) and, and these communists who are constantly raging about linked states capitalism are the ones shilling, shilling their hearts out. It's... There's, there's just a beautiful irony there. But, um-
- CWChris Williamson
So is Ethan... Are, are you thinking that Ethan's sort of been passively peer pressured in just based on what he sees on Twitter?
- CBCarl Benjamin
I don't think it's peer pressure. I just think that Ethan is not really a very philosophically-minded guy, and these people, the, the, the ideology itself and the people who are the authors of the main strains of thought within the ideology, are very, very smart. And what they've done for the last 50, 60 years, probably since, since, uh, the, since post-war, uh, Euro- uh, the, the time of post-war Europe, um, they've established that, "Look, the way things are working in United States is not going to bring about communism, and therefore we need to undermine this and deliberately engage in what, uh, communist Antonio Gramsci called a war of position. So we can see that the society is a very powerful society. It's not gonna be overthrown in a revolution like Lenin did against the provisional government. Uh, and so what, what they need to do is wear away the society in order to open up the possibility of going towards communism." And so for the past, I mean, probably, probably nearly 100 years now, that they've been creating memes, right? They've, they've been working on ways of cracking open the contradictions or the, um, inconsistencies within our philosophy as the sort of, like, classically liberal, uh, Enlightenment West, and trying to break it apart slowly but surely just a- as if, you know, you've got this... You, you've seen the, you've seen the, um, the videos, the viral videos you see on Facebook of, like, some guy in India or something. He's got this giant stone and he's got, like, just a couple of metal, um, uh, chisels and, and a hammer, and he puts a couple of them in and then crack. The whole thing splits open, right? It's that kind of effect that they're going for. They're like, "Right. We... There's a, there's a, a contradiction here, there's a, an inconsistency here, there's something that's just not filled out here. If we just hammer on these bits hard enough, (imitates explosion) the whole thing starts breaking apart." And that's what they've been doing to us, and they've been doing it very consciously. They know that they're doing this and they want to do it because frankly they think that communism is where we should all be, even though there's never been a good example of communism and never will be. Um, but it's, it's kind of like the unfinished puzzle of the Enlightenment. You know, the smart people look at it and think, "I can solve this. This will fix all of our problems," but it's nonsense. Um, but yeah, so Ethan is essentially, um, the victim of that process.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. I was, I was gonna say 'cause I'm always skeptical about the people that are whatever at the coalface of this. I'm so non-conspiratorial with the way that I think, like the fact that Ethan Klein could be co-opted into some grand a, a- attempt to try and take down the West just doesn't seem realistic. But it... What it seems like what you're saying is that he's sort of a, a willing ignorant participant, like a useful idiot.
- CBCarl Benjamin
The problem is, uh, it's not a conspiracy. Um, it's all out in the open, and I can just tell you the names of the people who are doing it and the books. In fact, in fact do I have them on my desk? Yeah. There we go. So, I mean, it begins with people like the Frankfurt School. It's Theodor Adorno, uh, Horkheimer, Marcuse, and a bunch of others. Um, this is dialectic enlightenment where they're literally trying to figure out what's gone wrong. Why haven't we achieved communism? Why has capitalism won? Uh, then this, this is what's called critical theory. This moves into, uh, what we now know as critical race theory, and then that's people... It begins with people like Derrick Bell. Um, let me, let me get out my, uh, my notes actually 'cause... Right. So you've got Derrick Bell, you've got Alan Friedman, you've got Richard Delgado, Mari Matsuda, um, obviously Kimberle Crenshaw, Harlan Dalton, Anthony Cook. You can look all of these people up. I don't have the book with me. It's at work, you know, it's in the office. Uh, otherwise I'd be able to bring up that huge book. It's just called Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Informed the Movement. It was edited and curated by Kimberle Crenshaw, and she's got a bunch of essays in here. And, but a, a bunch of the essays that she's written, uh, in Harvard Law School this was, uh, back in 1987 and 1989 I think it was, uh, that, um, she expressly says this. But, uh, that, I mean... And in various other writings of critical race theory you can find this. For example, she's got an essay called Race Reform and Retrenchment: Transformation, Legitimation, and Anti-Discrimination Law, and this is where she says, and I quote, uh, she wants Gramsci to literally... Uh, she wants to use the Gramscian tactics to begin withering away our society, uh, and therefore she says, uh, she wants to adopt a legal s- she... The problem is that a legal strategy will not include redistribil- redistribution of wealth. Right? That's what she thinks. And so you can see exactly it is a... She's a communist, she is interested in achieving communism, and she is a l- in the legal-... arena, the legal academia, and she can't get the redistribution of wealth that she's looking through, for through American law, because American law is of course based on classical liberalism, which is fundamentally based on the right to own property. Communism, of course, is that nobody owns property. So this is never going to happen, there's no justification for it. And so what she does is realize, well, if we can ess- essentially expand the definition of the words ... Because one of the things she points out is that, look, if I just come in and say, "Right, we need a revolution," then all of the, all of the s- the systems that are just carrying along happily, and she tries to put that down, they're just gonna bash her out of the way, and say, "We're not having a revolution. Get out of here." You know, "We- we've got a constitution," for example. But then she realized, well, what we need to do, and she says, literally, it need- she says this, quote, "Demands for change that do not reflect the institutional logic will probably be ineffective," which is true. Um, this is the demand for revolution, not gonna work. And so what she does, essentially, slides into the institutional logic and expands the definition of the words that they're using in order to encompass their antonym. Now, for example, she, in this particular essay, uses the example of racism. Racism, she, she gives two definitions. The expansive and restrictive views of racism. What? Who consents to this? Who agrees that there are two definitions of racism? I don't agree with that. Racism, in my opinion, is the conscious act of discriminating against someone because of their race, because you do not like th- their race. But that's not her definition. Her definition is an outcome that has a, that can be categorized based on races that shows some kind of difference. I don't agree that's racism. But if she redefines it to be that, and then inf- uh, proliferates this view of what racism is, which is now a systemic, structural, everything around us is complicit in the average white family having more wealth than the average Black family, then suddenly our entire society becomes racist, and now you can see how the critical race theorists are saying, "Well, we live in a giant racist society." It's like, okay, but you can never point to an act of racial discrimination, but they don't care-
- CWChris Williamson
They don't need to.
- CBCarl Benjamin
... because we're not using ... Sorry?
- CWChris Williamson
They don't need to because they've concept creeped it and expanded it out. Yeah.
- CBCarl Benjamin
Precisely. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
So is it, is it the case with Jordan, is he tainting the purity of Ethan when you look at his back catalog?
- CBCarl Benjamin
Yes. Uh, without a doubt. (laughs) Um, the, the, uh, and notice how this came unprovoked from Ethan Klein as well, right? So the, just to, just to quickly finish this up. Basically, Ethan has found himself just f- it's, it's, he's in this river, right, that's been redirected to, to the critical race theory view of things, the woke view, view of things. Uh, sorry, I've got a massive spot there 'cause the other day I was reading something and I had a spot and I just kept scratching it and it looks gross.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CBCarl Benjamin
And I'm trying not to scratch it now. Um, E- Ethan, Ethan is just in the river of wokeness. Wokeness is critical race theory, that's what it all comes from. And, again, it, Kimberlé Crenshaw's basically the chief strategist of this, because in her essays she was writing, "Well, look, it's not just, uh, we can do this for Black people and Black women." Uh, and then she coined the term intersectionality, 'cause she was writing an essay about the intersection of how the, the way that American civil rights worked at the time, this is back in the '90s or the '80s, uh, is that they would recognize oppression because you were Black or because you were a woman, but they didn't insect into Black women. And if you think about it, this was inevitable that this would come about, you know. If, if you, uh, if you invis- envisage a world that, you know, Blacks are oppressed or women are oppressed, uh, then why couldn't you have Black women being oppressed, you know, doubly oppressed? You know, there's no, no reason that this logic wasn't going to come about at some point. And Kimberlé Crenshaw was the first one to identify it, coined the term intersectionality. And from this she even says, "Well, we can do this with the gay community, with the trans community." And this is back in the '80s and '90s she's saying this, so you can see how long these ideas have been on the pot for, on the boil, right? And it's just, it's not just her, of course. There's, there's dozens and dozens of different criti- you know, Left-wing academics, Communist academics, because they're looking to destroy the s- what they call the patriarchy, the, the inherited structures of classical liberal society in the West, because these are the things, as Gramsci says, are preventing the Communist revolution. And th- they're not wrong. Like, they're not wrong that the fact that we've got families and business owners and properties and governments and rules and laws. Yeah, these are all preventing a Communist revolution, that's true. That's why we have them. We don't want a Communist revolution. We want a prosperous society where we can feel safe and secure and we know what's gonna happen tomorrow and we've, you know, I'm gonna wake up and my car's gonna be in the driveway and things like this 'cause I own it. You know, that's much more preferable than no one owning anything and the state having total domination over everything we have. Uh, which is even, not even the end of what they're aiming for in Communism. But the point is, this is the entire basis of woke philosophy. And Ethan is the victim of the memes, the, the memetic warfare they've been engaging in. So what they're doing is saying, "Well, look. Trans rights, Ethan." And he's like, "Well, I mean, they're human beings. Of course they have rights. You know, everyone has rights." But what's a trans right? Why would you bring that up? Why wouldn't you just say human right? It's exactly, it should be exactly the same thing, should it not? Except a trans right is something new now, you know, it's something different. Uh, there are apparently rights that trans people have that I don't have, for example, uh, which is implicit in the construction of the phrase "trans rights". And Ethan, you know, being a bumbling idiot, he's just like, "Well, of course, I don't know. You know, of course I believe in this." But once you start going, he's put, like, a foot in the river, you know, and then, oh, you know, affirmations and people retweeting and, and the general sort of radicalizing effect of Twitter, getting in bed with other leftists who then take him down the sort of memetic paths that they bring you on. Uh, and now he's like ... And notice that he just comes out and just out of nowhere, no one was saying, "You know, Ethan, you have to disavow Jordan Peterson." No one was saying it. This old- this is an old interview. But he just came out and was like, "I'm gonna take down that Jordan Peterson interview." It's like- (laughs) Okay. No one's making you do that, Ethan, but you've chosen to do it because you've accepted a series of premises that have led you to the conclusion that actually, you used to be a terrible person. And it's like, that's weird because it leaks to me and all the world, like, you're the terrible person now? Like, Ethan used to do decent things. He used to actually help people. He used to, he used to do a bit of investigative journalism occasionally, and he used to entertain people and just, you know, be an entertainer. He wasn't the active piece of shit that he has become. Like, you can see this in his, like, betrayal and deception of Steven Crowder. It was just a scummy thing to do, absolutely scummy. And the way he's going after Joe Rogan, the way he's going after John Deaton, people that I would consider to be people of high moral character, you know, and people I've both met, I've, I've had conversations with them, they did not seem in any way deceptive, they seem to exhibit virtue in their daily lives, they have millions of adoring fans because of their virtues. And you've got this fat, communist idiot going, "They're bad people. Ugh." Shut up, Ethan.
- 19:33 – 27:34
The Problem of Ideology
- CBCarl Benjamin
- CWChris Williamson
Have you heard of the purity spiral? Do you know what that is?
- CBCarl Benjamin
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. So I only learned about that this week, so the situation-
- CBCarl Benjamin
Really?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. I, I... Well, it makes sense. Like, I understand the circular firing squad sort of analogy, but, yeah, the fact that over time, ideological groups require the, uh, binding of an in group to be over the mutual hatred of an out group. And the easiest way to do that is to continually shave off little elements that allow one person to go, "Oh, well, look, we are now moral because we're standing on the shoulders of the people that are no longer moral."
- CBCarl Benjamin
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And, um, that really fucking... That increasing sort of zealousness about ideologies explains so much. I love when, uh, things piece together like that and there's a, a concept.
- CBCarl Benjamin
So one, one, one thing I've been thinking about is the concept of ideology. Um, I mean, could you define an ideology?
- CWChris Williamson
No.
- CBCarl Benjamin
Define what ideology is?
- CWChris Williamson
Me, no.
- CBCarl Benjamin
Right? Exactly. And like most... And I'm not... And that's not a criticism either. Most people can't. I couldn't, you know. And I was, I was just sat there one day thinking about this. Why can't I define what ideology actually means? 'Cause I mean, you can go to the dictionary and get like a very basic definition. But
- CWChris Williamson
It's something more than a belief structure, right? It's more than norms-
- CBCarl Benjamin
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... it's more than...
- CBCarl Benjamin
Yeah, so what, what... The critical race theorists, there's, um, there's a chap called, I think it's Alan Freeman's, uh, one of his essays. Let me just go through my notes. Sorry, I've got loads of notes, uh, because they... There's literally like 40 essays in this giant tome of, uh, all of their ideas. Right. But, uh, they, they've got like their own theories on what the world, what the world is and how things mean. Uh, you know, what, what things are. Um, and one of them has a theory of ideology, and this is not the only person who has a theory of ideology. Um, but this, this theory is that ideology is a series of contested ideas, uh, that is a battleground for power games. You know, as in you're trying to assert one set of ideas over another, win a series of arguments, and essentially conquer the field. Uh, the... And this, this was similar to a theory of ideology from a conservative philosopher called Michael Oakeshott, who said that it's a, an interlaced, an interlocking, uh, system, uh, or, you know, lattice of ideas that justified the seizure of power. And also, these are kind of a crib of a set of traditions. Um, and there's a, there's a bit of overlap there. So it's like, right, okay, th- this is... It is interesting how the very notion that I have a series of thoughts and that justifies hurting people is just totally pervasive in society. Everyone thinks it. Like, all of the left at the moment, they will do what they can to deplatform, to humiliate. And this is something that I can't stand watching beta left-wing men trying to humiliate right-wing women. It's like, "Oh, that's so feminist," you know. Uh, but because they think wrong, it's okay. And of course, you know, deplatform Antifa attacking people like Andy Ngo and whoever it is. But it's this constant war that they're engaged in. You know, this is the ideologist's war. They're eroding the power and the status and the position in society of anyone who opposes them. And the, the circular firing squad is something that happens when they're in their own echo chambers. Now it's about status, you know. How do you get status? Well, being the person who professes the most correct interpretation of the ideology, this, this lattice of contestable ideas. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
You get that... S- So, to interject there, you get that, uh, ever-increasing requirement to adhere to the tribal norms in conservative circles as well though, right?
- CBCarl Benjamin
In... Not in quite the same way. Um, there are... Because the, the problem is that often what we call conservative circles are actually not conservative. They're actually, uh, Whig circles or classical liberal. They, they are a set of ideologies themselves. Uh, take for example, the Republicans in America. Uh, they're not conservative. They have an ideological agenda. They're the product of a revolution. You know, a conservative is someone who is the inheritor of tradition, uh, which is in- innately anti-revolutionary because, of course, you're continuing a long tradition that has been passed on to you with the expectation that you will maintain it, look after it, and pass it on to future generations. And so, you don't have an ideological agenda. You're just looking at the real world and the way things are done and you act accordingly. You don't really have like an agenda for the entire world. You've got a particular thing in a particular place at a particular time and you are just preserving it for the next generation and making sure you're... You're sort of polishing it, you know. You're, you're buffing it up. But you don't have a series of ideas that can be contested and attacked based on someone else's rational thoughts. Like, the British monarchy is a great example of this. Why do we have all this pomp and ceremony? Like, you can't rationally justify it because it's the product of m- millions of peoples' inputs over thousands and thous- uh, thousand years and-You can't explain it, you know. It's, it's, it's the in- the inherited wisdom of generations upon generations of people. It's way more than one man could just sit down and be like, "Right, and so I'm gonna explain why we do this." But we do it because A, we know it works, it's lasted, so it must have some value, and it's, uh, it's an irrational thing. It's a, it's a prejudice that we have. Uh, but it also has emotional resonance with us. It matters, you know. This, it makes us feel at home in our world. When we see, you know, the, the, the pomp and ceremony of the monarchy, we go, "Right, okay. The world is properly ordered. Everything is as it should be. We're gonna watch the ceremony. Everyone will do their part because they're supposed to do the little part because, you know, 300 years ago, someone fell over and it became a, a habit that now has fallen into the ceremony," and stuff like that. But you, uh, but it, it creates a kind of, um, sort of emergent order, right, that no one person is in control of and no one person has designed. The American republic isn't like that. You know, republicans aren't like that. Progressives aren't like that. They have got a series of basically, you know, holy books that people have gone, "Right, so we're gonna do this, this, this, this, and this, that, that, that, and that, and that, and then boom, we'll have the perfect system." It's like, okay, that's one guy with one opinion. Maybe he's right, but he's probably not, let's be honest. And, uh, you know, the closest we've come to a decent version of that is the American republic. Every other example of this, like, you know, the French, uh, republics, which now they're on their fifth one, uh, you know, the Soviet Union, China, wherever, it, they've turned into terrible, terrible places that have made terrible, terrible mistakes that have got millions of people killed. Um, and so I'm, I'm very skeptical of ideologists at this point. You know, I, when some, when a guy comes along and goes, "I've got the ideas," and it's like, "So?" (laughs) So what, you know? (laughs) I don't care, you know. I don't have to listen to them. I don't have to be bound by them, and you don't have any right to hurt me because you've got an idea. You know, you don't get to take things away from me. You don't get to persecute me. You don't get to gain control of the entire country or the entire world, in, in many cases is what they're aiming for, just because you have a set of ideas. You know, this is just, you, this does not give you license over me, so just go away, you know. That's basically what anyone can turn around and say to any of these people. Uh, and so this, this is the difference. It, like, it... 'Cause I know what you mean, in like American republican circles, I know exactly what you mean. But l- listen to the language that they're inv- invoking when they do it. It's all this kind of ideologist rhetoric of the Constitution, the Founding Fathers, the ideological revolution that is the United States. And I'm not even saying they're bad. I support the ideological revolution of the United States. But it's not conservative, you know. It's, it's, it's classically liberal. It's Whig, uh, which is fine. I'm a Whig. Um, but, uh, but it's not, it's not the same thing. And it, it's this, this kind of murky, uh, confusion in our thinking that I think has allowed the progressives to be, you know, sit back very, very cunningly and be, "Right, I can see how I can get you." And that's how they've come along, I think.
- 27:34 – 42:07
Reacting to the 56 Year Old Supermodel
- CBCarl Benjamin
- CWChris Williamson
I wanna talk about this Paulina Porizkova lady, the 56-year-old supermodel that dared to look her age. Do you see this?
- CBCarl Benjamin
(laughs) I did a video on it, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, right. Okay, yeah. So, uh, Porizkova was once the world's highest paid model, but as she hit her 50s, she says she was suddenly invisible. Now 56, she's leading a new wave of older women, taking their place in the spotlight and on the catwalk, and flaunting it on Instagram in her bikini. What do you think of, uh, Paulina Porizkova, Karl?
- CBCarl Benjamin
I think that nature is a very cruel mistress.
- CWChris Williamson
To women, very much so.
- CBCarl Benjamin
Yes, to women. Uh, she's, she's not overly kind to men either, to be honest. But, uh, the-
- CWChris Williamson
We get the better end of the deal out of the two.
- CBCarl Benjamin
When we get older, we do, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- CBCarl Benjamin
When we get older. But when we're young, we don't, you know. It's quite rough actually.
- CWChris Williamson
Shite.
- CBCarl Benjamin
Yeah. Well, we're, we're thrown into a world where we're competing with a bunch of men who have a bunch of advantages over us. And there's no way of getting these advantages until a set period of time has passed.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Yeah.
- CBCarl Benjamin
So you're just sat there, right? So there's literally nothing you can do other than get your head down and get to work.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- CBCarl Benjamin
You know, that's all you can do as a man. Uh, but women have got a completely reversed dynamic, and it's kind of unfortunate actually. They're, they're, they're... In our society, they're, they're, they're, they, they emerge into a society that doesn't warn them that this doesn't last forever. Their birth, the, you know, as a, as they, they become a woman, 18 years old, and you can see this with all the OkCupid data and things like that. Women are most attractive to men, all men, at about 21 years old. Like every man will say 21 year old is the most attractive woman throughout every age group.
- CWChris Williamson
I've seen the same graph. I've seen the same graph that you're talking about, yeah, it's hilarious.
- CBCarl Benjamin
Whereas women will say, you know, uh, il- the mans, the, the most attractive men will be roughly their own age as they get older, uh, and, and peak at about 40, 45. Um, and so men, men (laughs) have that advantage over women. And so women are given a huge amount of social and sexual power in their youth that is just drained away as they age, and this is not fair, but it is a fact. And so wh- this is what women should be, th- they should be using their time in their youth to find the, the, the best man for them, the man that they really want, uh, and get him into a long term relationship, uh, preferably a marriage. So when they're in their 50s, they have the companion and they have earned the, the status of being the wife of this man, you know. This is not, they're not gonna be finding themselves on their own because at 56, men are not looking for a 56-year-old woman. Men who are eligible and who are looking for a partner do not consider 56-year-olds unless they're a significant amount older than 56.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, the thing, the thing that I saw from reading that article, um, this Paulina lady is upset because previously she would walk into a party and everybody would turn and look at her and she would be the showstopper. And now that's not happening anymore and younger girls are doing that. You know, the reverse is true. Uh, the guy at 18 that walks into a room no one gives a shit about, but at, uh, 48 when he's the CEO of a company and he's flown in on a private jet or he's got other markers of status-
- CBCarl Benjamin
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... or prestige or acclaim or whatever, then maybe people will. So-
- CBCarl Benjamin
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... over time, the, um, notoriety and value and prestige that society holds you in is going to change. Yes, that is-
- CBCarl Benjamin
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... that is true. The issue, the, the main issue that I saw with this is that...... the model was presuming that the thing which gave her value when she was younger should still be the thing which gives her value when she's older.
- CBCarl Benjamin
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And that, that felt really tragic to me because I can see how-
- CBCarl Benjamin
It is.
- CWChris Williamson
... I can see how a, a girl who enters the world of modeling, who continues to be in that world, who is told that her looks are her primary contribution-
- 42:07 – 50:38
How OnlyFans Impacts Men
- CWChris Williamson
the more that I think about this, the more I feel like we might be totally fucked. Like, it just feels like-
- CBCarl Benjamin
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... you know that meme of the dog-
- CBCarl Benjamin
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... in the house, and the house is on fire and he's just smiling through the beginning of the end-
- CBCarl Benjamin
This is fine.
- CWChris Williamson
This is fine. Like, if men don't kill themselves, they're exiting education and society and family life at the highest rates ever, women are frantically pursuing careers only to discover that they're unable to find a partner that they're attracted to and then jump on meds at 40 years old, the highest, uh, percentage, uh, the highest group, uh, that use meds-
- CBCarl Benjamin
Depression.
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, are between white women between 40 and 45 years old. And then the people who want kids can't find a partner that does as well. Birth rate's declining. Faith in the leaders and the news organizations non-existent. And everyone's just about sufficiently sedated not to notice or care that it's going on.
- CBCarl Benjamin
That's a precise and accurate summary of how the West has declined and will collapse, yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Fuck.
- CBCarl Benjamin
I know. It's tr- And do you know what's worse, right, is that (laughs) the few that are in the generations that are coming up now are totally fucked by leftist ideology. Um, the way that women, young women view men is evil.It is purely as a transaction, as in they are essentially prostitutes, every single one, and they don't even realize it. And the young men-
- CWChris Williamson
What do you mean?
- CBCarl Benjamin
... view women as trophies, you know. Women are now just... Again, it, they're not people. They don't view each other as people. They, the, the, the thing... A human being is a three-dimensional thing. It's, it's got a material component, and then it's got an emotional component and a spiritual component. It's, you know, the, like the, the metaphysics we ascribe to what is a person and the thing that we consider. You know, you're not just Chris. You're, uh, you're, you're not just the body of Chris. You are, you know, a, a personality. You know, I'm considerate of you when I'm talking to you and things like this. You know, and when you, when you message me on Facebook, like, "Hey, man, how's it going?" You know. So... (coughs) I don't just send you a link to my OnlyFans, right? (laughs) And ask you to subscribe. But that's how a generation of women have been trained by feminists to view men in order not to be oppressed by the patriarchy, right? And so these women, I think, have been essentially made unable to love men as people, right? They don't really see them as people. They, they view them as a kind of competi- uh, competition, like, uh, uh, competitors on a playing field. And the young men don't know what to do, and so now they're just following their base instincts of, "I should try and have sex. I should try and see a woman naked," you know, and therefore that's flattening a woman down to merely her biological components. Now it's not even romance, you know. It's not about falling in love. It's about send nudes.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- CBCarl Benjamin
It's about hookups and -
- CWChris Williamson
But it's, uh, it's objectification from men to women-
- CBCarl Benjamin
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and commodification of, uh, men from women.
- CBCarl Benjamin
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Like...
- CBCarl Benjamin
Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's-
- CWChris Williamson
Is it, was it you that said, um, in the same way that porn has skewed men's expectations of women, OnlyFans has skewed women's expectations of men?
- CBCarl Benjamin
I think-
- CWChris Williamson
I've cited it by you, uh, even if it wasn't, so-
- CBCarl Benjamin
It, it may well have been-
- CWChris Williamson
... take it.
- CBCarl Benjamin
...'cause, but it, 'cause I, I totally agree with that statement. I may have said that. Um, because it's, it's awful how OnlyFans has turned... It, it's commodified being a girlfriend, right? That's the thing. 'Cause everyone thinks, oh, you know, you're just getting nudes. It's just like porn. It's like, it's not just like porn.
- CWChris Williamson
It's emotional intimacy.
- CBCarl Benjamin
And I've been... I've been watching a bunch of YouTube videos by women who do OnlyFans who explain what they're doing on OnlyFans 'cause I've never used them. You know, God forbid. My wife would kill me. Um, but, uh, so it, basically, it seems like a sort of like a- an online artificial girlfriend service.
- 50:38 – 59:53
Are Family Values Being Attacked?
- CWChris Williamson
see it.
- CBCarl Benjamin
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
What do you think... Do you think that celebrating family values and life is under attack or is it just eroded as a byproduct of modern society? Or is it a blend of both-
- CBCarl Benjamin
Well...
- CWChris Williamson
... or something different?
- CBCarl Benjamin
If, if we go back to what we were saying about the communists, looking at the sturdy structures of our society, uh, we can see that it has been a conscious attack by certain people, uh, by critical theorists, by communists. And it has been going on for quite some time. But this requires complicity on our parts. A happiness with pleasure and you consider anything that's non-material to be non-valuable, uh, then you end up at the place we are at now where it's just about satisfying the dopamine rush in your own brain, constant consumption. You have to consume on your phone. You have to consume food, eat the sugar, you know, take the drugs, drink the alcohol, whatever it is, have, have lots of sex, you know, with, with random people. Who cares, you know? What difference does it make? And if that's happiness, which I don't agree that it is, I agree- I think that's pleasure, then that's, that's a purely materialistic outlook. Uh, whereas happiness, I think, and in previous eras, happiness is defined as something that is not material. It's not physical. I can't give you something that will make you happy, but you'll know you're happy when you feel it, you know? And you'll feel it because it's a state of affairs, you know? You don't... It's not one particular instance where I'll take this pill and then I'll be happy. I'll drink this drink and I'll be, I'll feel, you know, happy. It's something that is, you know, essentially what we call now, I guess, satisfaction. You know, you just think, no, I'm happy. You know, I don't, I, I don't want to change my life. I'm just gonna carry on doing the things I habitually do. And l- I look around myself, I've got my, you know, in my, my particular case, I've got my wife, my kids, my business, my job, my, my studies, my, my, my Warhammer, you know, and I'm very happy. I'm very happy. I love everything that I get to do in my life, you know?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CBCarl Benjamin
And I don't... At the, at no point do I begrudge any of it. Even when some of it's hard and it's difficult, you know, even when I have to change my one-year-old's nappies or something, I don't ever begrudge it. It's never a chore, you know? Uh, and, but n- it's not all pleasurable, you know, but I, it is, it does, it is making me satisfied and it is making me happy. And this is a general sort of state of affairs over time, a continuum that could be broken. I mean, don't get me wrong, you know. If, if, if my family, God forbid, died in a car crash or something, then that would be broken, you know. But it's not something that can just be, uh, given to me by a product, right? It's not something that can be given to me by, uh, a service or a product or, you know, anything like that. It's, uh, and it can't just be taken away by a lack of those things, you know? And, and we've completely misunderstood what it is to be a whole and compe- complete and happy human being. And it's going to be very uncool to try and reclaim that. But on the plus side, I don't take (laughs) any depression pills. I don't go to therapy. You know, I don't have to worry about any of this. I never sat around going, "God, I wish something would happen so my life wasn't shit." You know? I never think anything like that. I'm always, "Oh, God, I hope nothing happens so it ruins what I've got." You know? I, I'm, you know, and then, and then suddenly you realize why I'm n- now a conservative. (laughs) Uh, is, you know, (laughs) I've got everything I want, you know. This is why families are innately conservative. Uh, you know, I don't, I don't wanna ruin the state of affairs. Young people have been programmed though not just to avoid that state of affairs by the materialistic culture in which we found ourselves, and again, I think you can directly link things like critical theory to this process. Uh, but they, they are now e- unenviably in a position where... And, and this is something I get from a lot of young men because like a couple of years ago I was like, "Look, this is what you need to do, lads. You know, get yourself a wife, get yourself kids, get yourself a house, get yourself a job, get on with it." And a lot of them are like, "Yeah, okay. That's easy for you to say because you're already married. You know, your wife isn't a gen Z Zoomer, uh, and isn't on OnlyFans, you know?" (laughs) Like, y- this is easy for you to say because you had the pick of women who were not essentially spoiled by the materialistic culture of the, of the modern era. Um, but now these guys, I mean, I wouldn't date a woman who had OnlyFans. I wouldn't date a woman who took loads of nude photos of herself and they were all, just all over the internet all the time. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
But not all, not all women. It, it's a very small percentage of women that do do that.
- CBCarl Benjamin
I don't know. I don't know if it is. And I, and it's not just that though. It's, it's the attitude as well. It's the-... the, the, the way they view men is not as potential life partners because they have been trained by feminists to say, "Hey, you can have it all. Be the girl boss. You know, sleep around as much as you want." I mean, let's say that they're not all on OnlyFans, sure, but I mean, what are their body counts, you know? Like, by the time a woman's 25, it's probably not insignificant at that point. And there are lots of young men who tell me, I, I get messages about this all the time from different areas of the world, where they're just like, "Look, it's just, there are just no women that I would f- think of as suitable partners for marriage and to become a wife." And, and I'm just like, "Right, okay, well, that's terrible." (laughs) "That's just really terrible." I don't have a solution, I don't have an answer, and it's gonna be really uncool to say, "Well look, young women basically have to use their time at their peak attractiveness to find the man of their dreams and get married and settle down with him, you know, see him as a human being, fall in love with him," you know?
- CWChris Williamson
Tha- that's not what's being pushed now in culture.
- CBCarl Benjamin
No.
- CWChris Williamson
It's about, you know-
- CBCarl Benjamin
It's the opposite.
- CWChris Williamson
... I think by, by 2030 you're going to have two women for every one man at a four-year US college.
- CBCarl Benjamin
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And again, as we said earlier on, if you've got that hypergamous nature where women are gonna date up and across, that means that you have double the number of women competing-
- CBCarl Benjamin
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... for that number of men. Are you familiar with the sex ratio hypothesis? Do you know this?
- CBCarl Benjamin
No.
- CWChris Williamson
It's quite logical when you think about it. So, um, in a local area where you have, uh, an abundance of women or an abundance of men relative to the other sex, you see changes in mating patterns.
- CBCarl Benjamin
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
So if you have an abundance of men, you see an increase in long-term mating, you see a increase in, uh, sexual violence.
- CBCarl Benjamin
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
You see, um, women being more selective, more choosy, and waiting longer to have sex.
- CBCarl Benjamin
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
When the reverse happens, and you have a surplus of women and a scarcity of men, you see that women are having sex sooner, there are more casual relationships, there are fewer, um, sexual aggressive- aggressive encounters. Um, but what that shows, first off, that's fucking fascinating, and this just happens, right? No one's thinking this through consciously-
- CBCarl Benjamin
Yeah, yeah. Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... or very few people are, but this means that human sexuality responds to its local ecology.
- CBCarl Benjamin
Yeah.
- 59:53 – 1:09:50
Do We Have a Moral Obligation to Have Children?
- CBCarl Benjamin
the sexes. It's, it's-
- CWChris Williamson
I mean even, even the pope is telling people that they need-
- CBCarl Benjamin
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... to have more kids. Did you see that?
- CBCarl Benjamin
And he's right. Yeah, he's right.
- CWChris Williamson
That they-
- CBCarl Benjamin
Having pets is selfish. Why? Because your pet will not look after you or someone else. And this, so this is another thing I was, I was thinking about a lot, right? Uh, this, so I was thinking, look, I think we actually do have a moral obligation to have children because we are expecting there to be people around to do the things that we want done. As in, you're like, "Yeah, well I'm gonna get my, my retirement money." Okay, but someone's gonna have to pay for that, you know? So you're gonna have to have a body working to pay for the retirement money you've got. "Okay, well I, I don't need kids, I'm just gonna go to a retirement home." Okay, and who's gonna run that home? You're expecting-
- CWChris Williamson
Other people's kids.
- CBCarl Benjamin
... someone... Exactly, other people's kids. You're expecting someone else to have done the work, to have engaged in the labor, to have raised a person to you to then sort of like parasitically... So like, "Yeah, well I've got money. Here's this money, come and..." So b- I mean, is that gonna be enough for them to be like, "Yeah, but I'd rather look after my own mum even if I don't get your money," you know? 'Cause I mean, I would like to think that, you know, when I'm old and infirm, my kids would rather look after me because I love them and took care of them and raised them well, uh, rather than going off to some 40-year-old guy.
- CWChris Williamson
Because they fucking owe you, Carl. That's why, because you owe me.
- CBCarl Benjamin
... but because we, there's a, there's a, there's a thick relationship there. This, this concept that's not just the materialistic about, thing about money. There's love there, you know. There's a desire to make sure the person who looked after them when they were young is looked after when they're older, and I'll do that for my parents, you know. God, God forbid they ever need that. You know, my parents are actually still quite healthy and active, so that's good. But like, you know, when, when the time comes, I'll do the right thing and my, hopefully my kids will do the right thing. And the, the selfish cat mother who now is expecting my kids to be, to be able to pay them to work for them, well, let's hope that they're willing or else you are just gonna be there in your own unchanged shit, you know, where you can't move and no one, no one has any obligations to you. That's the thing. It's about bonds of obligation and they're, they are selfishly expecting other people to have obligations to them. It's like, sorry, no one does. No one needs to look after you. And you're, again, just, the Pope is right, you're being very selfish saying, "Well it's a lot, I'm, it's a lot of work to raise kids." Yeah, it's a lot of work but it's also really, really rewarding and it rounds you out as a human being. Like you learn things from being a parent that you can't learn from being a pet owner, you know, and you're, you're, you're essentially absconding your position in the great chain of civilization. You know if you, like every individual is the l- the result of a lineage that goes back like a billion years, you know, to the very, very first organisms, to you, and you're like, "Yeah, so I don't need to carry on that chain. I can just, ah, abolish all of that. Ah, I'm just gonna live off other people's effort and energy." It's like, you selfish shit. What makes you think you have the right to just be like, "Yeah, pfft, I don't need to do anything about upholding this civilization by producing future generations for it. I'm the sort of person who's gonna get myself sterilized and I'm gonna sit there and drink my wine and live off the fruits of this, like some sort of conqueror." It's like, no, and this, this is a totally unsustainable attitude. It's not gonna last. You're gonna be miserable and you're a really selfish piece of shit.
- CWChris Williamson
I don't know if it's a moral obligation, but I definitely think that it's an optimal way for society to move forward. Uh-
- CBCarl Benjamin
Ah, okay. Let me, let me stop you there, right? I don't give a fuck about what's optimal. (laughs) Like, you know, it is a moral obligation because all their life they relied on the (...) that other people had done, and if they think that they can just inherit all of this and say, "I'm just gonna take, take, take, take, take," then that makes them selfish, which is a moral judgment. It is a moral obligation.
- CWChris Williamson
Interesting.
- CBCarl Benjamin
I've been thinking about this a lot. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
You... I can tell. Yeah, I can tell. Is this what keeps you awake at night?
- CBCarl Benjamin
But there's nothing wrong with this. There's, there's nothing wrong with... It does. There's nothing wrong with us asserting these sort of deep concepts that we have naturally in our language, you know, so things like betrayal, deception, selfishness. You know, we don't have to just go for the sort of thin scientific term that's like, "Well, is it optimal? Is it-"
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah.
- CBCarl Benjamin
... you know, "Is it..." G- I don't care, you know.
- CWChris Williamson
That's, that's really interesting, like talking in what almost sounds, not medieval, but certainly more grand terms, more-
- CBCarl Benjamin
W- it's relational language.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- CBCarl Benjamin
Right? Every, every, every, you know, when you, when you say you're selfish, you're saying there are two people involved and there's a relationship between them and that should've been a certain way but it's been betrayed or undermined-
- CWChris Williamson
Do you know, I-
- CBCarl Benjamin
... or something like that.
- CWChris Williamson
... I've just realized like I don't s- I don't see that sort of language used pretty much at all-
- CBCarl Benjamin
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... on the internet. I very rarely talk about betrayal-
- CBCarl Benjamin
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... o- uh, in, obligation, belonging, you know, none of this stuff. And I wonder, I- I've noticed this trend on Twitter that, let's say that it's dunk, it's just a dunk fest, right? Everyone's just trying to get one over on somebody else.
- 1:09:50 – 1:20:44
The Future of Mainstream Media
- CWChris Williamson
do you think the future of mainstream media looks like? 'Cause I'm, I'm pretty trusting-
- CBCarl Benjamin
Bleak. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... I'm, I'm pretty trusting usually of the people in power. And as I say, I'm not usually-
- CBCarl Benjamin
Really?
- CWChris Williamson
Y- yeah, I am, dude. I- I ... Two years ago I was, right? Two years ago I was.
- CBCarl Benjamin
(laughs) I like that. "Well, I, I was." (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Man, the last two years has completely eroded and like annihilated any sense of trust that I have, not only in mainstream media but also in institutions and the powers that be. Like it's just a, a, a really lethal cocktail of neglect, malice, and incompetence, like all sort of swirled together. But is there still a swath of people that have faith in these mainstream media and is it the older generation that pretty soon are going to, you know, within a couple of decades are maybe not going to be there anymore and we're now gonna have no institutions, no, uh, media that, that, mainstream media that the people that are coming through are prepared to trust?
- CBCarl Benjamin
It seems to me there's the older generation that is more skeptical of the institutions at the moment. Uh, the sort of radicalized boomers who are voting for Brexit and Trump, who are just like, "You know what? No. This is fucked. I don't like this. We're getting out." You know, eject. Um, and that, that seems to me that the, the... And they, they... And God bless, they're the ones who did the right thing. The problem I have are the Zoomers and the Millennials who don't know any different and don't have any framework for legitimacy outside of the power of the state and the institution. Uh, the, this is, this is the worst thing about, um, intersectionality and what it's done having proliferated through our schools and through our cultures and through our institutions. It is-
- CWChris Williamson
Well, I don't think-
- CBCarl Benjamin
... 'cause-
- CWChris Williamson
I'm not sure we could say it's proliferated through the schools yet, you know?
- CBCarl Benjamin
Oh, absolutely has. I mean, my, my, my-
- CWChris Williamson
Has it got to the stage where there-
- CBCarl Benjamin
Oh, yeah. I've had to have-
- CWChris Williamson
... these people are adults now?
Episode duration: 1:21:23
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