It Doesn’t Matter Where You Put Communist Policies Into Play, the Same Outcome Occurs — Transcript

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1. 0:00on the subject of totalitarianism um
2. 0:04i wanted to do something very quickly so
3. 0:09i'm guessing that even though most
4. 0:11people in the room have negative views
5. 0:13of both men they have a more intensely
6. 0:15negative view of hitler than of stalin
7. 0:21i'm guessing almost everyone in the room
8. 0:23has a far more negative visceral
9. 0:25reaction to the swastika than to the
10. 0:28hammer and sickle
11. 0:31some of the protesters at your event at
12. 0:33mcmaster university stood behind a
13. 0:35banner with a hammer and sickle you've
14. 0:38said that a hammer and sickle is no
15. 0:39funnier than a swastika
16. 0:41that quote the reprehensib the
17. 0:43reprehensible ideologies that are based
18. 0:45in fundamental marxism killed at least
19. 0:47100 million people in the 20th century
20. 0:49unquote i've discussed this proposition
21. 0:52with numerous people in recent months
22. 0:54and almost no one seems to buy it
23. 0:57no one disputes the body count under
24. 0:59socialist regimes
25. 1:01few dispute that stalin was a vicious
26. 1:03murderer
27. 1:05roughly on par with hitler in moral
28. 1:07terms
29. 1:08most think that communism should not be
30. 1:11tried again
31. 1:12in other words they share your critique
32. 1:14of the argument that previous communist
33. 1:17experiments did not represent proper
34. 1:19communism and that proper communism
35. 1:21should be tried
36. 1:24nevertheless they still disagree with
37. 1:26you
38. 1:27that we should react as negatively to
39. 1:29the hammer and sickle as we do to the
40. 1:32swastika
41. 1:33why
42. 1:34because they say the two ideologies
43. 1:37are not morally comparable national
44. 1:39socialism is much worse morally than
45. 1:42marxism or marxism leninism so what do
46. 1:45you say to this
47. 1:50well i would say the first thing is that
48. 1:51it's highly probable that you were
49. 1:53talking to intellectuals
50. 1:58students
51. 2:01well we'll call them budding
52. 2:02intellectuals
53. 2:10it's it is a it is a mystery you know
54. 2:13it's a it's a it is a mystery because
55. 2:15it is the case that
56. 2:18there is something about the nazi
57. 2:19doctrine that seems to have a visceral
58. 2:22impact
59. 2:23that
60. 2:24that the
61. 2:25communist doctrine doesn't have
62. 2:28and i said when i opened my remarks
63. 2:31tonight that it might be
64. 2:33the
65. 2:35issue of racial superiority you know
66. 2:37it's something single that you can put
67. 2:39your finger on
68. 2:41whereas what's happening on the left
69. 2:42that's horrifying is murky it might even
70. 2:45be multi-dimensional like maybe there
71. 2:47isn't a single radical leftist idea
72. 2:49that's murderous like the racial
73. 2:51superiority doctrine maybe it's a
74. 2:53combination of three or maybe it's some
75. 2:55set of four out of ten who knows so and
76. 2:58because of that it doesn't seem as
77. 3:00repugnant and there was also a
78. 3:01universalizing tendency among the
79. 3:04communists that seem to
80. 3:06be less morally reprehensible than the
81. 3:09ethno-nationalism of the nazis so you
82. 3:11know you think if you go back to 1914
83. 3:14it's complicated but if you go back to
84. 3:16say 1918 at the time of the russian
85. 3:19revolution
86. 3:20it's not like the communists
87. 3:22knew that their attempts to bring about
88. 3:24the socialist utopia would be doomed to
89. 3:27absolute murderous catastrophe right
90. 3:29they were they were working in ignorance
91. 3:31now it's not that simple
92. 3:33because by that time dostoevsky had
93. 3:35already written the devils the possessed
94. 3:37and he outlined very very clearly what
95. 3:40he thought would happen if people like
96. 3:43that got the reigns of power and
97. 3:44nietzsche had done the same thing in his
98. 3:46writing so people knew that there was
99. 3:48something toxic let's say and deadly
100. 3:50about the doctrine but it hadn't been
101. 3:52played out
102. 3:53on the world stage
103. 3:55but now
104. 3:56it's like
105. 3:58well this is why i said what i said at
106. 3:59the beginning
107. 4:01fine
108. 4:02you know if
109. 4:05i don't know exactly how to make the
110. 4:07moral distinction
111. 4:11but it's a distinction that has to be
112. 4:12made i think that people who apologize
113. 4:15who say something like i think i think
114. 4:17that
115. 4:20that it's virtually
116. 4:22i don't know if it's as reprehensible to
117. 4:25say that a given ethnic group should be
118. 4:27consigned to the fire and to say that
119. 4:30wasn't real communism but they're damn
120. 4:33close
121. 4:35and when i hear someone say that wasn't
122. 4:37real communism i know what they mean
123. 4:40what they mean was
124. 4:42if i was the dictator in stellen's shoes
125. 4:46i personally would have brought in the
126. 4:47utopia that's what that statement means
127. 4:51and or it means uh
128. 4:53an ignorance of history that's so
129. 4:55utterly appalling
130. 4:57that
131. 5:01that any political statement made on
132. 5:03behalf of that person whatsoever should
133. 5:06immediately be followed by a paroxysm of
134. 5:08extreme embarrassment
135. 5:11i say one just um i just want to be
136. 5:14clear that
137. 5:15these students
138. 5:17were conceding
139. 5:18that they don't agree
140. 5:20that they share your critique
141. 5:22they don't share it enough oh okay fair
142. 5:24enough i just wanted to make that clear
143. 5:26but so so they would more or less agree
144. 5:27with what you just said i think about um
145. 5:30it's not okay to say those regimes
146. 5:32weren't proper communism and the proper
147. 5:34communism should be tried they still
148. 5:36dispute though that socialism as an
149. 5:38ideology is on par with nazism so i just
150. 5:40wanted to make that well we could say
151. 5:41communism let's say we could say radical
152. 5:44leftist ideology as i said already there
153. 5:47are reasons for the left and the right
154. 5:49wing right the right wing stands for
155. 5:51hierarchy and the left wing stands for
156. 5:53the for those who are displaced by
157. 5:56hierarchy right an endless problem
158. 5:59but that doesn't mean that still
159. 6:01leaves it in the camp of the people
160. 6:03speaking on behalf of egalitarianism to
161. 6:06figure out just what the hell went wrong
162. 6:09and to take some responsibility for it
163. 6:12you know it's no joke and we see these
164. 6:14things play out continually still look
165. 6:16at what happened to venezuela here's a
166. 6:18fun story do you know that it is now
167. 6:21illegal for physicians to list
168. 6:24starvation as the cause of death for a
169. 6:26venezuelan child in a hospital that's
170. 6:29how they're dealing with the
171. 6:31fact of starvation
172. 6:33right you just make it illegal to have
173. 6:35that diagnosed as your cause of death
174. 6:37that'll solve the problem
175. 6:39it's like you know we have a group of
176. 6:42of well-meaning socialists in canada who
177. 6:45just produce something called the leap
178. 6:47manifesto a couple of years ago and it's
179. 6:49a pretty radical
180. 6:51it's a pretty radical document they're
181. 6:53trying to move our socialist party the
182. 6:54ndp new democratic party towards the
183. 6:58acceptance of this leap manifesto which
184. 7:00doesn't look like it's going to happen
185. 7:01but they were all radical promoters of
186. 7:04of the venezuelan government before
187. 7:05everything went like badly sideways
188. 7:09you know i think the average venezuelan
189. 7:11now has lost 17 pounds that's not
190. 7:13because they were put on a voluntary
191. 7:15dieting program right it's not good
192. 7:18and so
193. 7:19if you're tilting towards the left and
194. 7:22you're temperamentally inclined that way
195. 7:24and half the population is then you have
196. 7:26an ethical problem on your on your hands
197. 7:29which is how do you segregate yourself
198. 7:31from the radical policies that produce
199. 7:33the catastrophes of the 20th century
200. 7:36and you can't just say well that's not
201. 7:37my problem it's like well okay
202. 7:40if it's not your problem now it
203. 7:42certainly might become your problem in
204. 7:44the future
205. 7:45so and i would say it's actually
206. 7:47everybody's problem in the aftermath of
207. 7:48the 20th century it's everybody's
208. 7:50problem
209. 7:52so
210. 7:54so it's it's it's
211. 7:56it's complicated like
212. 7:58there is a
213. 8:00genuine desire like i worked for a
214. 8:01socialist party for quite a while when i
215. 8:03was a kid
216. 8:04you know and i saw both sides of it i
217. 8:06saw some very very admirable people i i
218. 8:10was privy for for a variety of
219. 8:13chance reasons to the leadership of the
220. 8:15socialist party in canada at the
221. 8:17provincial and the national level i met
222. 8:19the people who ran the provinces some of
223. 8:21the provinces and who ran the party and
224. 8:23a lot of them were really admirable
225. 8:24people like they'd spent their whole
226. 8:26life i would say working on behalf of
227. 8:28the working class you know so they were
228. 8:30genuine labor leaders and and and and
229. 8:33there was also a lot done in canada on
230. 8:35the left that looks like it was actually
231. 8:37pretty good standard work week the incul
232. 8:39you know the establishment of of
233. 8:41pensions the introduction of our health
234. 8:43care system which i would say probably
235. 8:47overall works better than the american
236. 8:49system although not at the upper end
237. 8:53and they were working hard on behalf of
238. 8:55people who had
239. 8:56working-class lives but then i also
240. 8:59encountered the sort of low-level
241. 9:01activist types and i didn't have any
242. 9:03respect for them at all i just thought
243. 9:05they were peavish and resentful and
244. 9:07irritable and those two things exist in
245. 9:09a very uneasy coalition on the west
246. 9:11there's care for the poor and hatred for
247. 9:14the successful and those two things
248. 9:16aren't the same at all and it looks to
249. 9:18me like one of the things that really
250. 9:19happened when the communist doctrines
251. 9:22were brought into play and it also by
252. 9:24the way we did the multinational
253. 9:25experiment right it doesn't matter where
254. 9:27you put these policies into play the
255. 9:29same bloody outcome occurred didn't
256. 9:31matter whether it was russia or china or
257. 9:33cambodia or vietnam or
258. 9:35to pick a random african country or cuba
259. 9:38or venezuela for that matter it was an
260. 9:40unmitigated catastrophe and so to me
261. 9:43that's experiment plus replication
262. 9:46enough
263. 9:47enough
264. 9:52you