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Dr. Larry Arnn Explains America's Founding — Transcript

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0:00[Music]
0:05welcome to
0:05another edition of the federalist radio
0:07hour i'm your host
0:09john davidson political editor at the
0:11federalist and i'm joined today
0:13by dr larry yarn president of hillsdale
0:16college
0:16which i should say at the outset full
0:18disclosure
0:19was my uh is my alma mater class of
0:222004.
0:24uh dr aaron welcome to the program today
0:26great to be with you john
0:28we are going to talk about the
0:30federalists
0:311620 project which we launched just
0:34before
0:35thanksgiving a series of essays
0:38podcasts interviews and articles about
0:42the landing at plymouth rock about the
0:45pilgrims
0:46the mayflower compact and really the
0:48beginning of the american story
0:50dr arn i wanted to have you come on and
0:52talk to us about that
0:55not just because hillsdale college
0:58has played in especially in recent years
1:00such a a
1:01big role in reviving the ideas
1:05uh and the spirit of the american
1:07founding
1:09but also because we're living in a time
1:12when
1:12the spirit of the american founding in
1:15the in the mainstream culture
1:17is not necessarily something to revere
1:21or something that is considered salutary
1:24but is maybe something that we should
1:25apologize for so maybe we can just
1:27begin there and the obvious
1:30uh comparison to our 1620 project would
1:33be the new york times
1:341619 project um
1:38if you could maybe just start off our
1:40discussion with
1:41a uh comment about the distinction
1:44between the frame
1:45of the 1619 project uh and and
1:48something like our 1620 project
1:52well the 1619 project is a exercise in
1:55despotism
1:56of the kind uh described in the novel
1:591984.
2:01uh they their initial position was
2:04they discovered the true key to the
2:06american founding
2:08but turns out that claim is nonsense on
2:11its face as was proved by the very noble
2:13efforts for example of gordon wood
2:15a very distinguished historian and so
2:18now their position is that was a posture
2:20that they took to affect the present
2:23and the whole thing in 1984 is that the
2:25past is malleable
2:27and we can use the past the past is in
2:30our control what is the doctrine of the
2:32big brother regime he who controls the
2:36past controls
2:37he who controls the present controls the
2:39past and he who controls the past
2:42controls the future so
2:45uh you know the uh
2:48this temper is evident everywhere in
2:51america
2:52uh scholarship academic things are
2:55supposed to begin by looking at the
2:57thing that they're trying to understand
2:58and
2:59gain a better understanding journalism
3:02is supposed to be the story of the day
3:04what happened today as it truly happened
3:07and and uh so
3:11we we now are all in a contest who can
3:13be powerful
3:14the purpose of the new york times uh
3:17project
3:18on its face is to exercise and influence
3:21a power
3:22on the future not to tell the truth
3:25about the past
3:28that's right it strikes me as as
3:31fundamentally
3:32political not uh historical
3:35um and and so it's it's not really
3:38related to
3:39the purposes of journalism but it's also
3:42not really related to the purposes of
3:44history
3:45uh because it because it is
3:46fundamentally a political project and
3:48it's and is concerned
3:50like uh like much of the left uh
3:54with power as you say um
3:57that's not what we're trying to do and
4:00and
4:01as uh as our publisher ben dominic noted
4:04in our
4:04opening 1620 introduction introductory
4:08essay
4:09the purpose of the 1620 project isn't to
4:11refute the 1619 project because the 1619
4:14project is self-refuting
4:16and has already been repudiated by its
4:19own creators
4:20after getting pushback they sort of
4:22walked back their claim
4:24that the american revolution was spot to
4:26preserve slavery which is ridiculous
4:29and was called out by many historians as
4:31such
4:33but that leaves us with the 1620
4:37project and the importance of 1620 and i
4:40i wanted to talk to you especially about
4:43the
4:44interplay or the correct understanding
4:47of 1620
4:48uh together with 1776 the nation's
4:52founding
4:52um i think that we have to look back to
4:56the mayflower compact and we have to
4:58look back to
4:58those first uh pilgrims who arrived in
5:011620
5:03um as the start of an american project
5:05as a nascent american project
5:07um but that our true founding as a
5:10nation
5:11belongs and will always be 1776.
5:14maybe you can comment on the interplay
5:17and the relationship between
5:18these two monumentous dates and
5:22and how they affect one another
5:25well the uh necromancer independence is
5:27of course
5:28a culmination a beautiful combination of
5:32what 150 years of learning on the new
5:36continent
5:37uh the mayfair compact which is
5:40arguably the first deliberate act let's
5:43say act of legislation of of
5:46common policy making in the new world
5:50and uh and it's extremely telling
5:54uh i'd like to say that uh
5:58if you want to understand the american
5:59revolution you have to watch the great
6:01old westerns
6:03because they're always the same
6:06like liberty valence one of the best of
6:08them there are two things in that town
6:10that contend for authority
6:12a law book and a gun and the town is
6:16incapable of producing either
6:19they brought it with them right and so
6:21it never happened before in history and
6:23it actually can't happen again
6:26that a highly developed civilization
6:28would pick up and move to a new place
6:32and they didn't bring much of the stuff
6:33with them they brought the knowledge
6:35with them
6:36and the mayfire complex is a is a
6:39wonderful
6:40microcosm of the knowledge they brought
6:43um so the two main things are
6:48religion and moral philosophy and the
6:52mayfair complex is
6:53complex is expressive of those two
6:55things
6:56and beautifully so
7:02why did they pick up and go though you
7:04know this is something that i i think a
7:06lot of people
7:07uh in the era of the 1619
7:11project the only plausible reason for
7:14the pilgrims to pick up uh and leave a
7:16highly developed civilization in europe
7:18would be to
7:20come to america and uh commit genocide
7:23against the native inhabitants or
7:25uh to act out their
7:29dominion over the earth and over all
7:30other peoples in an
7:32in a founding act of white supremacy uh
7:35and that is literally how the the
7:37pilgrim story is taught
7:39in universities and high schools and
7:41probably at this point in elementary
7:43schools as well
7:44um but there are other reasons for for
7:47picking up and coming to
7:49to the new world uh and i wonder if you
7:51might uh comment on
7:53maybe you know what what those might
7:55have been
7:56uh and why uh europe was not a place
7:59where
7:59something like the mayflower compact
8:02could
8:03could be written and signed and
8:06something like the declaration of
8:08independence also could not arise
8:11and well the the uh mayfield conflict
8:13compact
8:14uh pays homage to king james
8:18which monarch would not let them do that
8:20on english soil
8:22uh they don't they you know this the
8:25whole idea
8:26of establishing a government by compact
8:29by agreement
8:30among some people and that's
8:33uh that's both a broadly christian idea
8:37and a protestant idea well was three
8:39things
8:40and a precept in moral philosophy that
8:42it all developed
8:44christianity has an interesting posture
8:47toward
8:49government it's a universal religion
8:52that explicitly by the the words of the
8:55founder
8:56does not establish a kingdom
8:59and that means kingdoms to be just
9:04have to protect the practice of
9:05christianity
9:07and that means religious freedom is the
9:10in fact the limited government itself is
9:12born
9:12chiefly in the realization over time
9:16of this of this particular significance
9:18of christianity
9:20so that's the first thing that's just
9:22broadly that's what it is right
9:23you don't it's very different from the
9:26religion of the spartans
9:27it's very different from the religion of
9:29the persians it's very different from
9:31the religion of the jews
9:33uh so so there's that
9:36and then uh these people are protestants
9:40and what's going on in protestantism is
9:43the idea that
9:45we come together as volunteers to form a
9:48society to seek our salvation
9:51and that is the religious parallel of
9:54the
9:55of the mechanism of the government of
9:57government by consent that's one of the
9:59main precepts of the declaration of
10:01independence
10:02and so these people had worked all this
10:04out you know by the time they
10:06left for left holland for united for
10:09america
10:11and they came for that right they didn't
10:13it was uh
10:15if you just read the record
10:18and see if you're a serious
10:21student of anything if you stop and look
10:24at
10:25anything you'll find out that
10:29there's an awful lot of candor in the
10:30world so like if you want to
10:33if you want to know what hitler thought
10:35you can find out by reading hitler
10:38he tells us what he thought same thing
10:39with stalin
10:41right they're liars and cheats and
10:43murderers on a mass scale
10:45and yet they say what they're up to so
10:48the point is
10:49the mayfair are compacted since what
10:51it's up to and indeed it's dramatic
10:54document because there was divisions
10:55among the people on the boat
10:57and they'd already had a hard time
10:58getting ready to have a worse time
11:01and so they thought the way to maneuver
11:04through this
11:05was for us all to reach an agreement
11:08how we're going to behave and that's you
11:11know that's
11:12awesome right that's freedom that's
11:15compact
11:16and uh and so it's you know just
11:20under pressure they repair to that
11:24that's where they think safety and
11:27efficacy lie
11:28and that's deep right that's it's
11:31marvelous
11:32and and you know you don't really get
11:34things like that
11:35in the ancient world um
11:39because religion was different and
11:41philosophy was different in some ways
11:43some ways the same and so you know just
11:47think that's a
11:48and then if you think of the unfolding
11:49of america
11:51uh it's all implicit in that
11:55set of arrangements
11:57[Music]
11:59the doctrine of equality is not in there
12:01except implicitly but powerfully
12:03implicitly because they all have to sign
12:05it
12:06and uh and um
12:10so that's you know and the point is get
12:12everybody together
12:14uh and you know the what the the people
12:16who were on the boat who were not
12:18uh puritans they called them strangers
12:22and they were very concerned about them
12:24because they needed their help but they
12:25wanted
12:26them to behave properly and were
12:29prepared to behave properly toward them
12:31and so they make a compact with them
12:33and that's you know very powerful thing
12:36and it strikes me too that this is not
12:40the kind of thing
12:41that we saw or could have seen
12:44in uh the europeans
12:47who came to different parts of the new
12:49world
12:50you know the development of european
12:53civilization in the americas that was
12:55started by
12:56catholics uh that was started in
12:59catholic
13:00spain in in in new spain in
13:03in what is now mexico and central
13:05america the culture
13:08the institutions that developed uh were
13:10not built on this idea
13:12that you have to get everybody together
13:14and that you have to have a compact
13:16uh they they were the they
13:20were the exportation of authoritarian
13:23absolute monarchical rule
13:26from europe uh to this new place uh
13:29and it and it built in completely
13:31different institutions
13:33so that 150 years later when
13:36the american founding was taking place
13:39and the seeds that were planted by the
13:42mayflower compact were coming
13:44to fruition in places like
13:47like mexico and central america um
13:51there were very different things afoot
13:53that
13:54and not just in the 18th century but all
13:56the way into
13:57the 19th century you had uh
14:01absolute monarchy contending with
14:04revolutionary uh insurgencies
14:06uh that that uh that didn't follow the
14:09american pattern at all and now today
14:11you have
14:12uh on on the same continent over over a
14:15a shared border
14:16completely different societies based on
14:19completely different sets of ideas about
14:22uh about what government should be and
14:25and uh and how we should arrange our
14:27lives
14:28together uh and and that that is a very
14:31powerful thing i think when you think
14:32about the
14:33the the the ripple effects
14:36of something as simple maybe as the
14:37mayflower compact as opposed to
14:40uh the declarations made by spanish
14:42conquistadors when they landed
14:44uh uh on the coast of mexico or central
14:47america
14:48yeah i think uh first of all
14:52just ask the quest the simple question
14:54who's on the boat
14:55right so the english
14:58well the spanish right they sent men you
15:02know
15:02a bunch of men alone is an essentially
15:05dysfunctional society
15:07and so they had priests and soldiers and
15:10the english sent families they called
15:12them plantations
15:14and then they could grow and become
15:16self-sufficient because of that in fact
15:18the survival of plymouth colony was
15:21rooted in the fact
15:23that they were disciplined by the need
15:25to defend their loved ones
15:27and then they could go right so i mean
15:30it's really great
15:30because you know the english did send
15:33one
15:34big bunch of men it landed in roma
15:36roanoke i think
15:38and uh and they you know settled down
15:41built a fort and went went off left a
15:45note
15:45went off in the country they're gonna go
15:47explore
15:48and they were never heard from again
15:52and that's because it's just a bunch of
15:54men
15:55right and that's not that won't work uh
15:58and so it gives an entirely different
16:02uh
16:05direction and foundation just that
16:08and uh and see it was not
16:13it meant that it was a evangelical
16:16or a military operation or both
16:19and that's something different than
16:20founding a city
16:22right and that's and it's less
16:25comprehensive
16:26set of aims so it's completely different
16:30i i think i've been told i don't really
16:32know that
16:35most of the people in mexico are
16:37descended from the people who live there
16:39when the europeans came but most of the
16:42people in north america
16:44are descended from immigrants and that i
16:46don't know if that's true or not but it
16:48stands to reason if it's true
16:51that's right because the spanish weren't
16:52really founding a uh
16:56society they they weren't they didn't
16:59come to
17:01create a uh a polity
17:04that they they came to conquer uh and to
17:07extract
17:08riches uh as as best they could
17:11and that was reflected not just in
17:14their initial contact with the natives
17:16of central america and south america and
17:19mexico
17:20but in the institutions that they
17:22developed the
17:23um the the rancheros
17:27the the societies built around a boss
17:30uh and patronage uh you know
17:34these are things that still exist in
17:35mexico today
17:37uh these social systems they may be
17:40informal now but they still exist
17:42um uh and they resident they have
17:44resonated down the centuries
17:46uh in the same way that that our systems
17:50founded by in part by the pilgrims and
17:53and later by the founders
17:54resonate today um but i wonder
17:58in in our our current
18:01moment in american history where we do
18:03have this
18:04kind of revolution taking place an
18:06intellectual revolution certainly
18:09uh taking place about what america
18:12should be about what it was but but
18:15really about what it should be
18:18if we are not trying to recreate uh
18:21in a in a modern 21st century context
18:25uh the kind of patronage systems that
18:28are aliens
18:29that would have been alien to the
18:31pilgrims certainly would have been alien
18:33to the founders
18:34but would have been right at home in uh
18:37in new spain
18:38among the conquistadors and the
18:39societies that they ruled
18:41in the new world yeah that
18:45certainly uh it's more like
18:49what we're developing now is more like
18:52those other european settlements in
18:55america
18:57then it's like the pilgrims but you have
18:59to remember this terrible difference
19:02it's the same thing as the difference
19:03between ancient tyranny and
19:05totalitarianism
19:08the introduction of the power of modern
19:11science
19:12which is of course the most powerful
19:15possible means
19:17but it's a means that's construed to be
19:19an end
19:21uh it it uh the purpose
19:24of technology is the use and production
19:28of technology
19:30and that means that uh that we become
19:33subjects of an engineering project and
19:37you know the the priest who came the
19:39catholic priest who came to convert
19:42the and had the existing inhabitants
19:47well you know they may have done some
19:48wrong but their purposes were ultimately
19:52charitable and were understood to be the
19:55completion
19:56of the life of people that their own
19:59life was completed in the same way
20:01right whereas uh
20:04the masters of technology
20:08they look at us as something to move and
20:10manipulate
20:12they they think they can perfect the
20:14society and
20:15just think you know uh what
20:20the reasons for things are always
20:23influential in how they play out
20:25so the reason for those mexican and
20:29central american
20:30south american settlements the reason
20:33for
20:34it was to convert people to god and go
20:35find some gold
20:37and chiefly right well to convert people
20:40to god that's
20:41a concern for those people right
20:45but if you launch yourself into utopian
20:48world
20:50i'm full of this stuff right now because
20:51i just taught a class on totalitarian
20:53novels and i read a bunch of them
20:55and uh you know they're horrific
20:58and true right um
21:02and so the thing is that thing and i and
21:05i think the new york times thing
21:07you know kindly meant of course
21:11uh i think it is expressive of that
21:14thing
21:14if you can if you can you know the the
21:18in
21:18in 1984 the protagonist is winston
21:20winston smith
21:22named by george orwell for winston
21:23churchill
21:25and his job is to sit all day along with
21:28thousands of other people
21:30and rewrite the past every book
21:34every article every magazine every
21:36encyclopedia
21:37everything in the library if the party
21:39changes its opinion
21:41about anything if it changes
21:44its opinion about with whom we're at war
21:48then everything is immediately rewritten
21:50and that means the past
21:52is flowing past like a river
21:56and that means and see that it is a
21:59profound and terrible novel
22:01that becomes explicit in the in in the
22:04culmination of the
22:05novel and it's it's the only philosophic
22:08seminar i've i know
22:10conducted under torture but in the end
22:13o'brien the representative of the big
22:14state
22:16uh he tortures winston and teaches him
22:20and what he teaches him is that nothing
22:22is real
22:24and the strongest proof of that is that
22:26the past itself
22:28is not only not real it takes its
22:31reality from what i say
22:32from my will from the will of the party
22:36and so i think the new york times i
22:38think that's what that is right
22:40in other words those people they're
22:41high-minded fine people
22:43but they want to have an effect about
22:45upon us
22:47and so they're prepared to malign
22:50you know because i mean it just doesn't
22:52work right where are the documents that
22:55show that the purpose of the european
22:58settlement
22:58of north america was to extend slavery
23:03because they don't exist right and and
23:06of course they don't exist
23:08and uh because it wasn't the purpose
23:12it you know it is true by the way that
23:15it happened in american history it
23:17happened
23:18sometime between 1787
23:21and 1800 we know this because
23:25the northwest ordinance is in 1787
23:28and it forbids all slavery and that was
23:31a general agreement
23:32by the whole union in the new territory
23:35and the northwest territory by the way
23:36was given by virginia
23:39on the motion of thomas jefferson and on
23:41condition there be no
23:42slavery but then 1800 comes and you have
23:46to have the missouri compromise for the
23:47union to grow again because now they're
23:49concerned
23:50keeping the numbers the same the ratios
23:54between
23:54slave and free the same and that means
23:58somewhere slavery gained some support
24:02and come to find out john c calhoun the
24:04great disciple of all that
24:06was a friend of a man named francis
24:08lieber at yale
24:10and lieber was a descendant and
24:12connected to the people around friedrich
24:14hagel
24:15and he taught them the doctrines of
24:16history and
24:19that's what dominates the new york times
24:21today see uh
24:23what those doctrines say is you know you
24:25can you can read them in
24:26either of two ways you can read them
24:28that uh
24:32some uh there's a historical process it
24:34places us at odds with each other it's
24:36going somewhere
24:37and eventually we'll have the end of the
24:39process and
24:40leap into freedom or you can say that it
24:43has made some ascend to masters and
24:45others of us
24:45into slaves that's hitler and john
24:48calhoun
24:50the point is that got into america
24:51somewhere but it didn't come with the
24:53first settlers
24:55right and so you know to understand that
24:59i mean if you really want to do
25:01something
25:02about oppression you need to learn the
25:05principles that establish
25:06it being wrong and you need to learn the
25:09arguments and principles
25:11that assert that it's right and you need
25:13to get those accurate
25:14right you need to go you know unlike the
25:17new york times
25:18uh both aristotle and thomas aquinas say
25:21uh
25:22this alone is denied even to god to make
25:25what has been
25:26not to have been right right
25:30it uh the the your mention of calhoun
25:33reminds me that my first
25:34reaction to the 1619 project was
25:38uh was a column that argued that the
25:41ghost of john c calhoun
25:43is haunting the american left and that
25:46the american left today uh are the true
25:50inheritors of cal the of calhoun's
25:53political philosophy
25:55um that that calhoun was the one who
25:58hated the constitution
25:59uh who wanted to find a way around it um
26:03and and who who thought that the
26:05founders were
26:06were wrong and he said so uh he said so
26:10plainly that it cannot be true
26:12that all men are created equal um and
26:15and and so he came up with his theory of
26:18the concurrent minority
26:19uh majorities and and all these other
26:23ideas to get around the constitution and
26:27it seems to me he was a a kind of
26:29founding father if you will
26:31of uh progressivism uh
26:34you know people talk about woodrow
26:36wilson as as a
26:37as the founder of modern progressivism
26:40but the intellectual roots the
26:41philosophical roots it seems to me
26:43stretch back to calhoun calhoun is uh
26:47uh people who haven't read the
26:51disposition
26:52on government should read it in order to
26:54be able to brag that they did
26:58because it's a hell of a mess but
27:01there's a line in it that shows what
27:02calhoun really was
27:05it would be emptious to think that god
27:08would give us the gift
27:10of modern science and permit of it
27:12permit us to use it for ill
27:14you see he's just a progressive
27:18and and and it's just explicit
27:21in this book in various places but
27:22that's the clearest one
27:24and so how can a man think because what
27:26the concur majority means is
27:28every law in every jurisdiction
27:32including the national jurisdiction
27:34will be passed unanimously or not passed
27:36at all
27:38and he thinks that can be made to work
27:40there's a man detached from reality
27:43big time and you know very philosophic
27:45and
27:46there were you know there was cool
27:47things about about uh
27:49calhoun he he inherited
27:53from his father's in the making of the
27:56american union which are not that long
27:58before him by the way
28:00he inherited the idea of a grand nation
28:03and uh and but what went wrong
28:07was he added in the idea of a perfect
28:11nation
28:12master and slave we are all aristocrats
28:16we whites because we own these blacks
28:19right we have our slaves
28:20that makes us all aristocrats even the
28:23ones who are not slave holders
28:25and uh you know that was that was partly
28:28a political point because the
28:30slaveholders were not wonderfully
28:31popular with the poor people like my
28:33ancestors
28:34in the south who were competing with the
28:36slaves
28:37so yeah that's you know and that that
28:40utopianism
28:42is a key thing i mean if you just see
28:44this black lives matter stuff and all
28:46that
28:48we have to make it right right now and
28:51and think what we're doing to the young
28:53people right if you if you know anything
28:55about the story of race
28:56in america first of all you know it's a
28:58tragic story
29:00also relieved by greatness
29:04but it moves in three main long periods
29:08uh and i'm leaving out of account the
29:10civil war which is the
29:12wrenching struggle to get rid of it
29:14slavery
29:16first there's slavery and that was bad
29:19and then
29:20after a time of liberation
29:23and especially the efforts of ulysses
29:25grant
29:26then jim crow so we went into
29:29discrimination
29:30right and then beginning in about 1960
29:35but a movement for it longer than that
29:38we went into the age of race preferences
29:41which is just another word for
29:42discrimination
29:44and so there's never been a long
29:47sustained period in american history
29:49except
29:50leading up to and just after the civil
29:52war
29:53where the idea of equal human rights for
29:57all
29:58was the dominating notion and that's too
30:01bad
30:01and i i don't even think that's an
30:03accident i think that's a very hard
30:06principle to serve
30:08and that's that means you're between a
30:09rock and a hard place because if it's a
30:11hard principle to serve
30:13that doesn't change the fact that it's
30:14the right principle to serve
30:16and so rna our history has always been a
30:19struggle
30:20toward this thing that we articulate and
30:23we have long periods where we give up on
30:26this thing and try to do something
30:27easier
30:29and that's that's where the tragedies
30:31come
30:32and the contemporary tragedy is
30:36now we're gonna pick them by color and
30:38advance some and
30:40and debase others to make it up
30:43for the wrongs done in the past and we
30:46lose our individuality in that
30:48for one thing because you know
30:52my i come from arkansas uh
30:55my family was blessedly poor they never
30:58had a slave
31:00and uh and so
31:03uh i i stand in the same relation
31:07to slavery as john c calhoun
31:11under these principles that are taking
31:13over today
31:15that's right and it's easy it seems it's
31:17easy
31:19if you want to sort of sift through the
31:22american
31:23past for crimes and injustices
31:29for people like nicole hannah jones the
31:31sort of
31:32you know face of the 16-19 project
31:35um she doesn't have to go back uh she
31:38can go back to the beginning
31:39to to the landing at plymouth rock and
31:41the mayflower compact and say well
31:43you know this this was a compact and and
31:46has said so
31:46only signed by men only the white men uh
31:50signed this and so here we have evidence
31:53from the very moment the pilgrims set
31:56foot
31:57on american shores that they were
31:59establishing
32:00what she calls a society based on white
32:04supremacy white male supremacy
32:06uh and it seems to me that their project
32:10the new york times
32:11but the left's project more broadly is
32:13at pains
32:14constantly to deny the overwhelming
32:18evidence
32:18that the american founding from the
32:21mayflower compact
32:22through to the declaration and the
32:26founding of the country
32:29articulated these ideals
32:31uh and has worked arduously
32:35in fits and starts as you said toward
32:38these ideals toward fulfilling this
32:40great idea that all men are created
32:41equal but that the ideal wasn't
32:44cynical it wasn't hypocritical when it
32:47was put down
32:48that in other words uh the founders were
32:51sincere
32:52when they said all men are created equal
32:54it seems to me that hannah nicole
32:55jones and the new york times and left um
32:59it's an obstacle that they are pains to
33:02overcome
33:02to convince people that the founders
33:05were lying
33:07when the evidence seems overwhelming
33:08that they were not
33:10well you know the the question
33:14of women is different from the question
33:16of race
33:21so i grew up in the hills of arkansas
33:24uh everybody from arkansas is my cousin
33:27and
33:28um i knew both my grandmothers
33:31and my grandmothers one of them had nine
33:34and
33:35one nine one of them had eight children
33:38and they basically worked on the farm
33:41night and day alongside their husbands
33:44and they made a living barely
33:48and when by the time the kids were grown
33:51it was getting time for them to die and
33:54so
33:55that was life right for everybody
33:58and it isn't true that
34:01the man worked and the woman stayed in
34:03home right
34:04home was the farm and uh they all worked
34:07it all the parts of it
34:10um and that was most of america for a
34:13long time
34:13well you know i think two-thirds of the
34:15people were farmers until
34:17well into the 20th century yeah and you
34:20know the tools that we use and stuff
34:21that's changed a lot of things right but
34:23but that's you know this long legacy of
34:26woman
34:27oppression you think my grandmothers
34:31didn't get their way when they wanted it
34:33and
34:34my mother for sure whom i knew very well
34:37or for that matter my wife
34:39right we have a common project my wife
34:42and me
34:43and our project is to run our family
34:47and my career and we both do that and
34:50that is
34:50our career the combination of those two
34:54things
34:54that's what we do together and we both
34:56do both of them
34:58and that's what you know because come to
35:01find out
35:02human babies take a long time to raise
35:04longer than other critters
35:06and so somebody's
35:09it's going to take devotion to them in
35:12the beginning mostly by the mother
35:14and uh you know it's at least in the
35:16very beginning and so the point is
35:19if you can't make uh
35:23you're reducing human nature if you
35:26pretend that these biological facts are
35:28not
35:28facts and you know just today in the
35:31dining hall
35:32uh here's a here's a funny thing about
35:34hillsdale college
35:36uh we have just about the same number of
35:38men and women a few more men
35:40we're very rare in a liberal arts
35:41college and they come in with exactly
35:44the same
35:44academic profile and uh
35:48and they you know and they do they do
35:50great people do great here
35:52but it is typical for the top 10
35:54students in a senior class
35:56seven or eight of them to be girls
35:59now why is that well it's not
36:02a difference in intelligence i don't
36:04think i think it's the difference in
36:07character uh i explained it uh
36:12last term because six of my favorite
36:14boys ever
36:15and all the many years i've been here
36:18they get into a war with the
36:21dorm next door throwing things that
36:23smell
36:24bad on each other the key thing was dear
36:27urine
36:29and then somebody said i said it at
36:31commencement last summer i said
36:33why are the girls dominating the top ten
36:36and the answer is they're not throwing
36:38deer urine on each other so
36:40there's the difference right and it's
36:42it's not an intellectual difference
36:45uh and it's true today i go back to my
36:48point
36:48today at lunch uh a bunch of girls and
36:51boys at a lunch table and i was sitting
36:52with them and the girls i i often ask
36:54them what they're going to do
36:55and they've all got big plans and the
36:58girls will sometimes say and i'm going
37:00to have children
37:01and the great majority of them tend to
37:03whether they say it or not
37:05and i always say yeah good for you
37:08and good for you developing a career for
37:12yourself too
37:14because you're likely to live a lot
37:16longer than the child rearing
37:18years and you will need something to do
37:21to make a contribution to be a
37:22functioning human being you need
37:24to do that and uh
37:27you need to marry somebody who wants you
37:29to do that
37:31and uh that's you know that's just
37:33nature right
37:34and you you can any
37:37evidence of uh like if you read
37:40uh the diaries and letters of abigail
37:43adams
37:44that's a tremendous woman right and she
37:47was
37:49tough as nails and of course she was
37:52devoted to her husband
37:54he was devoted to her she's the one who
37:57made that family work
37:59and so honor to her one of the great
38:03figures of american history
38:06and
38:09if it were modern times
38:12uh things different now than they were
38:15then
38:16i imagine she'd be a college professor
38:19or a college president
38:21because she'd be better than i am at
38:25either of those things
38:27and uh probably better than her husband
38:29so i don't know
38:30i i i think if you
38:33and just remember if you set your face
38:37against the functioning of the family
38:40which changes with time and is a
38:42relatively fluid thing and yet the basic
38:44relationships
38:46have been the same for as long as we
38:47know right
38:49if you set your face against that then
38:51you've undertaken an
38:53engineering project that's going to meet
38:54a lot of violence to try to stamp that
38:56out
38:58that's what brave new world is about uh
39:01they don't use violence they just use
39:04overwhelming
39:05inducement to reduce people's lives
39:09see here's another thing
39:13if you raise a child it's a huge
39:16responsibility
39:18that's a bigger responsibility than
39:20anybody gets in this job
39:22you know me anybody
39:25and so you
39:29people should do that uh for one thing
39:32early in our lives and late in our lives
39:34we're helpless and we need the ones in
39:36the middle ears to take care of us
39:38and so if we stop having babies there
39:40won't be anybody
39:42uh and so it it
39:45this the family is a domain
39:49that's like a kingdom to the people who
39:52run it
39:53husbands and wives and children and
39:56that's
39:57an expression of freedom and
39:59independence
40:00that everyone needs however important
40:03their job is
40:05because you know i mean we were talking
40:08about it before we started this i i
40:10became a grandfather 10 days ago
40:12and there's a six pound baby living in
40:15my house right now our daughter's with
40:16us
40:16and her husband and that thing is
40:20precious you know and tiny and fragile
40:24and it's going to need a lot of help for
40:26a long time
40:28and and then she's but on the other hand
40:31it's going to go fast
40:33and i like to say when she turns
40:36two before then little
40:40she's gonna start talking and
40:44i like to say in my family we have boxer
40:46dogs and children
40:47and they all hear the same things but
40:49the children start talking and the dogs
40:50never do
40:52but after they start talking three
40:55months after that
40:56they're going to know everything in the
40:58world they don't even have to leave the
41:00house
41:01you see so the human soul is
41:04tremendous it just takes years of
41:07cultivation
41:09for it to grow to be what it can be and
41:12that
41:12that point that's a duty that we have
41:15or we can live in brave new world where
41:19everything is done for us
41:20and we have no serious work to do in our
41:23lives
41:25and it strikes me we've had
41:26conversations at the federalist about
41:28this
41:29recently that brave new world in some
41:33ways was more prescient than
41:351984. uh the the world that we
41:38see emerging uh through big tech
41:42and through big government uh and
41:45through
41:45um the progressive leftist ideology
41:49even in some cases explicitly stated
41:52it by group groups like black lives
41:54matter
41:55who invade against the nuclear family uh
41:58but a world
41:59uh where uh there are not families
42:03forming and uh there are not the
42:05responsibilities
42:07um the unchosen in some cases
42:09responsibilities
42:11uh that that grounded people in
42:14families and in places uh uh
42:17and to one another uh in in ways uh
42:20that the lasted a long time so so we
42:24have
42:24um a kind of brave new world today uh
42:27where the the
42:31the rulers uh the governors and mayors
42:34will impose a lockdown
42:35and uh and assume that you're okay with
42:38your weed and your netflix
42:40uh and uh and to
42:43to to not worry about anything um that
42:46you'll be taking care of
42:47uh that seems to me to be much
42:50more uh uh the picture of the future
42:53uh of of our present than than the 1984
42:57the totalitarian state uh big brother
43:00watching over everything
43:02um in this case big brother is is a is a
43:06coddling
43:06brother it's a brother that that wants
43:09you to
43:10not worry and not take on
43:11responsibilities and certainly not to
43:13form
43:14families because that is the number one
43:15threat to the state uh
43:17that that uh that is possible those
43:20loyalties
43:21uh i guess we may may have strayed away
43:24from the pilgrims a bit but uh
43:26but but it's all germane to the uh yeah
43:29to the original point
43:30that uh uh that they came with families
43:34and that says everything i think you're
43:37uh
43:37by the way i we we have that same
43:39argument around here all the time
43:41and we read both those novels in this
43:42class i taught and three or four others
43:45uh i think the people who think it's you
43:47know first of all
43:48uh aldous huxley was a teacher of french
43:52to george orwell at eaton college and
43:55they had a correspondence about who was
43:57right
43:58is that is the despotism going to be
44:00pleasure or pain
44:01and uh and huxley was very confident
44:04that he was right
44:05and the same for orwell uh i think the
44:08ones who think that huxley is right or
44:10optimistic
44:11uh because the society is not
44:15growing kinder right and
44:18we're more and more ready to hurt people
44:22and uh i i i don't know how it's going
44:26to go
44:28but i think bad elements of both are
44:30possible
44:31yeah yeah it strikes me that uh
44:35that that may very well may be um
44:38the signs are not good uh and and i
44:41think of the smashing of statues
44:43this fad of smashing statues
44:46the smashing of statues never stops with
44:49statues
44:50after after a while the mob gets tired
44:52of smashing statues and monuments and it
44:54moves on to the people
44:56um and and uh i think we saw maybe a
44:59little bit of that
45:01this summer uh this spring and summer um
45:04and i fear that we'll see more um
45:08and it and it strikes me that the only
45:10way
45:16you
45:20and hold fast to um the principles and
45:22the ideas and the philosophies of the
45:24mayflower compact
45:25and the declaration uh and the
45:27constitution and uh
45:29and that's that's why we're doing the
45:301620 project
45:32um and why we wanted to talk to you and
45:35maybe we'll go out on that note if
45:36there's if there's uh
45:39if there's a closing thought maybe you
45:40had on on those subjects
45:43well we we have to have a revival of
45:45learning
45:47because we're ignorant and
45:52there's a legislator in this state
45:55i you know i think these tense events
45:57that are going on are good for us too
45:59there's a legislator who announced
46:02in the hearing of one of my colleagues
46:05that
46:07the governor was the rightful leader of
46:09the legislature
46:12and that's why she has the veto power
46:15and you know the ignorance of that is
46:18just
46:18awesome right but then
46:21he was thinking about that because of
46:23the pressure of these events
46:25and this was pointed out to him
46:28in a less serious time it would never
46:30come up he would have just floated
46:32through his life right
46:33and they and and so so the person who
46:35heard this was happen to be very
46:37knowledgeable about such things and
46:39explained to him
46:40the the basic way that separation of
46:43powers works
46:44which is the key part of the structure
46:46of american government
46:47and it was like a revolutionary
46:51thing for the guy and you know they're
46:53trying to figure out
46:54in the michigan legislature what to do
46:56about this pandemic
46:58and what to do about this election and
47:00they're thinking more seriously about
47:02that than i have known them to do in the
47:04past
47:05and so i'm not doing it myself but i
47:07know people who are helping them
47:09and i'm pleased about that in other
47:11words there's a lot of room for
47:13improvement
47:14and there's a lot of reason to want to
47:16make it these days
47:19absolutely absolutely
47:23well we'll end on that optimistic note
47:26uh i want to thank you dr aaron for
47:28joining us
47:28uh this has been another edition of the
47:30federalist radio hour
47:32uh i'm john davidson political editor at
47:34the federalist and until next time
47:36be lovers of freedom and anxious for the
47:43fray

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