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Norman Finkelstein & Jeremy Corbyn: THE INTERVIEW ISRAEL WANT TO BAN — Transcript

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0:00Gaza's gone. There's nothing there. It's
0:02been [music] rendered a parking lot.
0:05There's no possibility, none, that
0:08Israel will allow Gaza to be [music]
0:09rebuilt. They invested two full years.
0:15The longest wasn't a war, it was a
0:17genocide.
0:18>> feel this constant anger [music]
0:21that this whole Zionist project, which
0:24came to the fore during the First World
0:26War, we're now seeing [music] this thing
0:28played out in the greater Israel
0:30strategy
0:31>> of Netanyahu's. I would never have
0:33[music] believed that they would be able
0:35to carry out a real-time genocide over a
0:38two-year period. I would figure at some
0:40point the Western powers would have
0:42stopped it, and they didn't. Every
0:45observer who walked [music] to Gaza,
0:47every observer, you know what they
0:48described it as? Everyone, a
0:51concentration camp.
0:52>> This super-educated, [music]
0:54super-intelligent, super-aware community
0:57basically in a big open-air prison.
0:59[music]
0:59>> Something's got to give.
1:00>> I would never have imagined October 7th,
1:04so when you say something [music] has to
1:05give, it didn't look like anything was
1:08going to give. It looked like
1:11they were just going to die out like
1:13Native Americans. I saw Oh God, Mehdi
1:17Hasan, and he's on with Piers Morgan,
1:19and Piers Morgan What
1:21The Gaza plan, it's a good plan, don't
1:23you agree? It's a good plan.
1:26And Mehdi Hasan says,
1:29Yeah, there are good some good aspects
1:31to it. There are some good as-
1:33What are you talking about?
1:36>> [music]
1:39>> What I've found more and more with
1:42Palestine is the more you
1:45dig into the the issue, the poverty, the
1:47violence, the disgusting behavior of the
1:50occupying forces, and so on, the more
1:52angry you become about it all. I just
1:55feel this constant anger that this whole
1:59Zionist project which came to the fore
2:02during the First World War. We're now
2:03seeing this thing played out in the
2:05greater Israel strategy of Netanyahu.
2:09>> Gaza's gone.
2:10>> Yeah.
2:11>> There's nothing there.
2:12>> Been destroyed.
2:13>> Yes, it's it's been rendered a parking
2:17lot.
2:18So,
2:19there are no options left for the people
2:23of Gaza except to leave. Now, how they
2:25will leave, I don't know the modalities.
2:28>> 10 tons of rubble per head of the
2:30population in Gaza.
2:31>> 10 tons per head. I know the global
2:34figure. It was 50 million tons of
2:36rubble. Now, it's probably up to
2:38something like 55
2:39>> I'm underestimating it, yeah.
2:41Yeah.
2:42>> I don't see how it's possible for the
2:44population of Gaza to remain in place.
2:48There's no possibility, none.
2:52None.
2:54That Israel will allow Gaza to be
2:56rebuilt
2:57uh with a population still in place.
3:00They invested
3:03two full years.
3:07>> Mhm.
3:07>> The longest wasn't a war, it was a
3:09genocide. Let's just call it the the
3:11longest military engagement in their
3:15history
3:16to make sure that Gaza was rubble.
3:20If you remember in May 2024,
3:24when the
3:26um South African delegation went before
3:28the ICJ for the fourth time, they went
3:32before it in January, then in February,
3:37then in March, and then in May.
3:41And their grounds for going before the
3:43ICJ in May
3:45cuz they were asking for more what's
3:47called provisional measures, meaning
3:50more pressures to be exerted on Israel
3:52to stop what it's doing.
3:54They said
3:57Rafa
3:58is the last remaining livable place in
4:02Gaza.
4:03If you destroy Rafa, they said
4:06then there's nothing left.
4:08>> Mhm.
4:08>> And
4:11what did Israel do?
4:13>> Destroy Rafa.
4:14>> Rafa and then
4:16pulverize Gaza City.
4:17>> Right.
4:18>> Everything else was gone.
4:19>> Yeah.
4:20>> So
4:21they had a very systematic plan.
4:24And now we're supposed to believe
4:27that Mr. Netanyahu
4:29is going to do a 180°
4:33flip.
4:34They're going to join hands chant give
4:37peace a chance sing Kumbaya Kumbaya and
4:41rebuild Gaza. You know, it's fairyland.
4:45It's It's just la la land. These sorts
4:48of speculations,
4:50you know, I saw
4:52uh
4:55Oh god, Mehdi Hasan and he's on with
4:57Piers Morgan and Piers Morgan what
5:00the Gaza plan, it's a good plan, don't
5:03you agree? It's a good plan.
5:05And
5:06uh
5:07>> [clears throat]
5:07>> Mehdi Hasan says
5:09Yeah, there are good some good aspects
5:11to it. There are some good as
5:13What are you talking about?
5:16As if any of it is going to be
5:18implemented. As if It was so perfectly
5:21obvious
5:22it was not going to happen, but you know
5:25with Piers Morgan's you had what you the
5:28gatekeeper questions. Do you condemn
5:30what happened on October 7th?
5:33After that question
5:35died a natural life, it became what was
5:38Israel supposed to do
5:41after October 7th?
5:43And then the new one became you have to
5:45be positive about the Trump ceasefire.
5:50And
5:51if you're not positive, you're not on
5:52the show.
5:53You know, you have to answer the
5:54questions. So, Mehdi Hasan, he condemns
5:57October 7th. Look, what happened on
5:58October 7th was horrible. I'm not going
6:01to
6:01uh pretend I'm not of that sect which
6:05wants to deny
6:07what happened on October 7th and claim
6:09it was all Israel's, or overwhelmingly
6:12Israel that killed uh the civilians.
6:14It's not true. It's not true. I mean, as
6:16far as the available information tells
6:18us. I may be forced to reconsider my
6:21opinion if new
6:22evidence becomes available. As of now,
6:25um
6:26but nobody who had studied Gaza,
6:31who knew what those people had endured,
6:35you used the expression an open-air
6:37prison.
6:38Now, I'm not here to be rhetorical,
6:42and I'm not here to be
6:44pure radical, you know, posing for the
6:47cameras. I don't do that.
6:50But, if you go back and read the history
6:53as I have, you'll be very surprised
6:55yourself.
6:57Already beginning in 1948,
7:00when Gaza was under
7:02Egyptian rule,
7:05every observer who walked to Gaza, every
7:08observer, you know what they described
7:09it as?
7:11Everyone, a concentration camp.
7:14Now, you could say, "Well, maybe they
7:16didn't really know what a concentration
7:17camp was." Well, actually, they did. It
7:20was right after World War II.
7:22There were fresh images. There were
7:24fresh images. If you look at E.L.M.
7:27Burns, who was the main UN figure in
7:30Gaza in the early 1950s,
7:32he wrote a book called after his service
7:35in Gaza between Arab and Jew.
7:38How does he describe Gaza? He describes
7:40Gaza as a concentration
7:43You look at Al Gore, our senator who ran
7:45for president. His father was a
7:48prominent senator as well.
7:50He goes to visit Gaza
7:52in 1967,
7:55July 1967, right after the war.
7:58How does he describe Gaza? He describes
8:00Gaza as a concentration camp. Yes, it's
8:02in it's the record. I've read it.
8:05Then there's the head of Israel's
8:07National Security Council, Giora Eiland.
8:10He's in Gaza in 2004.
8:13How does he describe Gaza? Quote, "A
8:15huge concentration camp."
8:17>> You and I were involved in the
8:18anti-Vietnam war movement,
8:20anti-apartheid movement, and all those
8:22movements, and
8:23they were in their day very big, in
8:26their day. But, the numbers of people
8:29that are now consciously involved in
8:31stuff in Palestine, the horror
8:33creates a reaction around the world.
8:36>> Obviously, there was much more popular
8:37involvement during the war in Vietnam.
8:40But, what distinguished the war in
8:41Vietnam was there was a material stake
8:44in it. Americans
8:46of my age at the time
8:48>> could go end up getting killed. And that
8:50was a a so
8:52I don't want to in any way diminish the
8:55idealism of young people during that
8:57generation. There was a real that
9:00idealism, but there was a very practical
9:03personal dimension to it. If you were in
9:05college age, you got a draft number.
9:09It was called the lottery.
9:11And if your birthday came up in like the
9:14top 200 numbers they pulled in the
9:16lottery,
9:18there was a good chance you were going
9:19to go. My eldest brother, it looked like
9:22he was going to go. My parents, in
9:25particular, my mother, was hysterical
9:28hysterical in her fear that her son was
9:31going to die.
9:33Uh we got what was popular back then, a
9:35draft counselor, to figure out a way my
9:38mother was trying to get my brother a
9:39conscientious
9:41objector uh
9:43status because of what they went through
9:46during the war and they couldn't bear
9:48losing their son after losing everyone
9:50during the war.
9:52Um
9:53So, there was a material stake.
9:55South Africa, which was next great
9:58movement, the anti-apartheid and the
10:00international sanctions movement,
10:02that was I feel it was part of the the
10:04global third world era.
10:10Gaza's very different because there's no
10:13longer national liberation movements.
10:15There's no longer the non-aligned
10:17movement.
10:19The It's very localized.
10:22This is tiny parcel of land
10:25in which, to use the cliché,
10:28nobody has a No one has a stake Nobody
10:31has a dog in that race if you're an
10:33American right now.
10:35So, then you have to ask the question,
10:37why, if you have no personal stake in
10:40it, and there's no revolution in the
10:44air, it's not
10:46the national liberation movements, it's
10:48not the non-aligned movement,
10:49why is there this deep
10:53interest in
10:55Palestine general and Gaza in
10:57particular?
10:59Um I think that's an interesting
11:01question to ponder.
11:02My own view is
11:04because
11:05it reflects the reality of so many
11:08people,
11:09namely a tiny, powerless people
11:13being
11:14decimated by this juggernaut, this
11:17juggernaut of power.
11:19>> So, they kind of empathize in a in a
11:21city.
11:22>> see themselves
11:23>> commercial juggernaut destroying my
11:25community.
11:25>> Exactly. They see the capitalist system
11:27destroying them. And they're utterly
11:29innocent. They're just young people who
11:31want a future.
11:33And they see Gaza as a
11:36uh metaphor
11:38for their own lives. This These people
11:42who are being
11:43shattered, pulverized
11:46by this utterly heartless
11:49uh
11:50utterly shameless juggernaut.
11:52>> I remember once in Gaza during a more
11:55benign period. I was in one of the
11:57universities there talking to a group of
11:59students.
12:00And this is a place with more graduates
12:02per head of the population than any
12:03other place on Earth.
12:05They were all talking about the PhD
12:07they're going to do next, but etc. etc.
12:09None of them had a job. None of them had
12:11any prospect to getting a job. All they
12:13were thinking of was the next course to
12:15do cuz that's all they could do.
12:17Um
12:18And so I just thought to myself, this
12:20super educated, super intelligent, super
12:23aware community
12:24basically in a big open-air prison.
12:27Something's got to give.
12:30>> I would never have imagined
12:33October 7th. When you say something has
12:35to give,
12:37I
12:39by
12:40>> [clears throat]
12:40>> uh
12:412020,
12:43>> Mhm.
12:44>> it didn't look like anything was going
12:46to give. It looked like
12:48they were just going to die out like
12:51Native Americans.
12:53>> Mhm.
12:53>> And it was completely hopeless.
12:56So, when
12:59October 7th happened,
13:01>> Mhm.
13:01>> I was
13:04very surprised. We can speak of things.
13:08You can speak of aspects of phenomena
13:11discreetly, so you can say
13:14there were significant crimes committed
13:17on October 7th, but you can also say
13:20there was a very high level of technical
13:23sophistication
13:25uh which overcame probably the most
13:28technically surveilled parcel of land on
13:32God's Earth
13:33>> Yeah.
13:34>> by the Israelis
13:36uh
13:37spy technology and also
13:39they had a huge
13:41um
13:43army of informers in Gaza the whole
13:47former Fatah
13:49uh people informers.
13:51So
13:52uh I was astonished by the level Well,
13:56it's two things. The level of
13:58sophistication
13:59of that {quote} {unquote} operation
14:02and the level of incompetence of the
14:04Israelis
14:06uh
14:06you know
14:07they didn't come across as supermen
14:10uh the Israelis with their cutting-edge
14:12technology. So all of those things came
14:15as a surprise to me and then
14:17as matters unfolded
14:19I
14:20I can be very cynical about power
14:24but I would never have believed
14:26that they would be able to carry out a
14:29real-life a real-time genocide over a
14:322-year period.
14:33>> Mhm.
14:34>> I would never have believed it. I would
14:35figure
14:36you know, hypocrisy is the
14:39uh compliment that vice pays to virtue.
14:42At some point the Western powers would
14:44have stopped it. And they didn't. That I
14:47could never have predicted.
14:49>> Palestine, Gaza
14:51neighboring countries, refugee camps,
14:53and so on.
14:54You and I both been involved in this for
14:56a very long time in this huge huge
14:59enormous issue. So I mean my involvement
15:02with Palestine has been
15:04sort of constant for as long as I can
15:06remember. I
15:08obviously remember the 1967 war and I
15:10remember being one of a small number in
15:12my school who had question marks about
15:15what Israel was doing.
15:17Um
15:18When did you first go there and get
15:20involved?
15:21>> Well, I the the going there actually was
15:23not a big step. It was getting involved.
15:27And getting involved is very easy to
15:29date.
15:29>> Okay.
15:30>> It was June 5th or 6th, I always get
15:32confused, uh 1982
15:34when Israel invaded Lebanon.
15:37I uh I was a person from a very young
15:40age, has nothing to do with me, it's my
15:42family. I was a person of the left.
15:46And so I was
15:48for my age, I was active in politics. It
15:51was at that era it was of course the
15:53Vietnam War.
15:54And it was the Civil Rights Movement,
15:57then it came to be called the Black
15:58Power Movement.
16:00Um
16:01and that's what consumed me well through
16:04college.
16:06And then I was a person
16:11I'm not saying it proudly, but I'm not
16:12going to say it ashamed
16:14uh shamefacedly either. I was a Maoist.
16:19Um
16:20I was wrong about a lot.
16:22But
16:23part of it
16:24I believe
16:26I wasn't wrong about. I think that
16:29>> Mhm.
16:29>> the Chinese Revolution
16:32was probably
16:34in fact by a wide margin
16:36the most significant event of the 20th
16:39century, next to which everything else
16:41pales.
16:43You are roughly of my age generation, so
16:45you know
16:47when we were growing up, China was the
16:49sick man of Asia.
16:51And the only thing you associated with
16:53China
16:55was famine.
16:56And backspread, you know,
16:59the coolies
17:01pulling
17:02uh rickshaws for the British gentleman.
17:06That was the beginning of the night
17:08beginning of the 20th century.
17:10>> Yeah.
17:10>> The beginning of the 21st century
17:13uh China is at cutting edge of world
17:15capitalism.
17:16>> Exactly.
17:17>> And the bridge between sick man of Asia
17:21and cutting edge of world capitalism,
17:23the bridge is Mao Zedong. It's the
17:26Chinese Revolution.
17:27Uh when we were growing up, there was no
17:29China. China was a sack of potatoes.
17:32The foreigners owned parts of it, the
17:34warlords controlled parts of it. Uh
17:37there's a very good book written by
17:40a British gentleman, Philip It'll come
17:42to me. Philip
17:44In any case, it's called
17:46Mao
17:47and the subtitle is The Man Who Made
17:50China.
17:51And that's factually correct statement.
17:53China was a notion
17:56at the beginning of the 20th century.
17:59The notion became a nation
18:02under Mao Zedong. In any event,
18:06a lot of horrible things happened. A lot
18:08of things I was
18:09I blinded myself to.
18:12But once
18:14uh the Chinese Revolution as a socialist
18:16revolution, once it passed at the end of
18:18the '70s, I was politically adrift.
18:22And then I became involved in 1982 with
18:26Lebanon.
18:28I was involved with a group of Jews
18:31and the question was it became
18:34where do you stand on Zionism?
18:37Which is a very current question for
18:39you, as I understand it, where you stand
18:42on Zionism.
18:43I wasn't going to take a stand until I
18:45read about it. I sat down
18:48and I, as it were, attacked the problem.
18:52And then I turned that into my doctoral
18:54dissertation.
18:56And
18:59I never looked back. It's a factual
19:01matter. I'm not saying it with trying to
19:05evoke self-pity.
19:06Uh my entire adult life was consumed by
19:09it.
19:10Um
19:11it was for two reasons. First of all,
19:13I'm not a quitter.
19:15I started, I'm going to see this thing
19:18through to the end.
19:20There are many causes.
19:22Vietnam war, it ended.
19:24Timor, it ended.
19:27For the worse, the Central American
19:29wars, Nicaragua, El Salvador, they
19:32ended. There was a terminus and people
19:35moved on.
19:36>> [snorts]
19:36>> Palestine never ended.
19:38And so, and I wasn't I wasn't a
19:41fair-weather friend.
19:43You get commit yourself,
19:45you stick with it. So,
19:49it ended up consuming
19:52most of my adult life. In fact, the
19:54whole of it at this point. But, I
19:56started in 1982,
19:58it's more than four decades.
20:01Uh was I happy about it?
20:03Well,
20:04on the one hand,
20:07I felt what I was doing, nobody else
20:08would do.
20:10I was doing all this kind of micro work,
20:13reading through all the human rights
20:14reports, trying to find
20:17answers to the lies
20:20that were being said. And I didn't feel
20:22anybody had that kind of mental
20:25discipline for the minutia. Real if
20:28minutia. [laughter]
20:30Um so, I felt that what I was doing was
20:36important.
20:38Uh it was not it's sort of
20:41uh
20:43John Stuart Mill says in On Liberty,
20:47when you become more valuable to
20:49yourself, you become more valuable to
20:52the world. That's why he says you have
20:53to develop your individuality. You
20:56become more valuable to yourself, you
20:57become And I always related to that
20:59statement because
21:01I felt that I was doing something I was
21:04good at.
21:05>> Mhm.
21:05>> I could sit down and just
21:09uh hyper focus on documents and
21:14tease out the lies.
21:16And the more I did that, the more it
21:19became a skill, which I didn't believe
21:21was easily replaceable.
21:23>> Mhm.
21:24>> Because nobody else Not because I'm so
21:26smart, nobody else would do it.
21:28You know, it was why are you doing this?
21:31Why are you reading each of these human
21:32rights reports three, four, five, six
21:35times?
21:36So,
21:38uh I stuck to it and I felt like I made
21:41a significant contribution. The more
21:44valuable you become to yourself, the
21:46more valuable you come to the world
21:48around you.
21:49>> Mhm.
21:49>> And um
21:51uh it ended up consuming my life and uh
21:58it was very narrow.
22:00You know, tunnel vision.
22:03You know what it means to focus 43 years
22:06a large part of it on this tiny parcel
22:09of land called Gaza.
22:11>> Mhm.
22:12>> You know?
22:14It was and it was mentally
22:17I would have to say
22:19suffocating,
22:21stifling.
22:23Because I would like to
22:24>> Look at it another way, Norman. Your I
22:27wouldn't call it obsession cuz I think
22:28that's seen as a derogatory term, but
22:30your concentration on it
22:32>> Mhm.
22:32>> uh has actually helped a lot of other
22:34people as well.
22:36>> Because I I
22:36>> You've been able to share a lot of that
22:39knowledge and give it a a human warmth.
22:42>> You know, in the 1960s,
22:45when you compare it to today,
22:47it's really astonishing because
22:50obviously I'm a I'm closer to midnight
22:54uh than I was in the '60s.
22:56Uh
22:57But back then,
22:59when you compare it to students today.
23:02Uh
23:03back of then
23:06there was about
23:0820 80% of our country.
23:10There was the famous line by Henry Luce
23:13who was the publisher of Time magazine.
23:16And he said everybody in the United
23:18States is middle class or on their way
23:20there.
23:21>> Mhm.
23:22>> And there was a lot of truth to that. I
23:24mean, we can't
23:25uh
23:26deny the prosperity
23:29of that period. There was about, roughly
23:31speaking,
23:3380% who were in the middle class or on
23:37the way there.
23:37>> Mhm.
23:38>> And there was the 20% who were
23:41immortalized by Michael Harrington, the
23:44social democrat, in a book called The
23:46Other America.
23:47>> Yeah, I remember it.
23:48>> And the other America was poor whites in
23:51places like Appalachia.
23:53>> Yeah.
23:54>> And non-whites, primarily
23:57African-Americans.
23:59Uh but the the middle class
24:02uh
24:03I have to say because I grew up in that
24:06era,
24:08my friends,
24:10most of them, they came from
24:13the Jewish ghettos in New York. Their
24:17family came from there. They were the
24:19Jews who were
24:21very active trade unionists, active in
24:23the Communist and Socialist Party.
24:25And
24:27they
24:28got out. They got into
24:32the next generation.
24:35My friends, even to this day, I get
24:38stories
24:40about people who just made it
24:42spectacularly
24:45in our country. Uh there was real
24:48possibility.
24:49Uh that was not a myth. The possibility
24:52of upward mobility.
24:54Uh that's not true of the new
24:56generation. New generation,
24:59the if we can be very current
25:02Mamdani's army is our Mamdani's army.
25:06Uh
25:07I went out to
25:09canvass for him.
25:12The difference in age between me
25:16and the next
25:18youngest
25:19next oldest person
25:21was and I'm not proud to flaunt it. It
25:25was about a half century.
25:28Uh Mamdani's
25:30>> What happened to the middle age then?
25:31>> Uh have I? What happened to the middle
25:33age? Did they not support him? They
25:36voted for him, but they were not out in
25:39the streets campaigning for him. That
25:41army was actually not even 30 years old.
25:44Uh
25:46Bernie Sanders got into maybe the 30-35
25:49range.
25:50>> Yeah.
25:50>> This was 25.
25:5225 and uh
25:56it's because
25:58that generation there's nothing It's
26:01really astonishing the extent to which
26:04when you walk in the street
26:06and you meet people randomly
26:09how many will tell you they've been
26:11they're are unemployed
26:13or they've been unemployed for a year or
26:163 years.
26:17And the the number who you ask, "What do
26:21you do?"
26:22>> Mhm.
26:22>> Okay.
26:24They don't define a job.
26:27They define gigs.
26:30"I do this. I do that. I do that."
26:33You know, it's like cobbling together
26:36two or three different jobs.
26:38>> But no, you know, my generation a job
26:42meant something very clear.
26:43>> Yeah,
26:44you and I are roughly the same age,
26:45yeah.
26:46>> 40 hours a week.
26:47>> Yeah.
26:48>> Uh you had many more benefits than we
26:50did. In my in the US, it was 2 to 3
26:53weeks vacation. If you had a good job,
26:55it was 3 weeks vacation. My father had a
26:57not a good job, it was 2 weeks vacation.
27:00You're off Saturday and Sunday.
27:02You have a vacation. Well, I said
27:05vacation. You have
27:07less medical care, obviously, than you
27:09had in the UK. But, it was it was
27:12substantial.
27:13And there was the aspiration, which was
27:15realistic.
27:17That's the important point. It wasn't a
27:18dream.
27:20It was a realistic dream. It wasn't just
27:22a dream, it was a realistic dream.
27:24That you would enter solidly the middle
27:27class.
27:28Um
27:29If you were to say, let's say my high
27:30school,
27:31I have a friend, Bonnie Penson. She
27:34wants to be in theater. You know what?
27:36She ends up a stage manager in Broadway.
27:40Larry Spivak, he wants to be in music.
27:43He ends up being an orchestra leader in
27:46Greenwich, Connecticut.
27:48And then there is the whole slew of cuz
27:50I'm Jewish, and being Jewish means your
27:52highest aspiration is to be a doctor.
27:55And
27:56a very large number,
27:58including, by the way,
27:59women,
28:01in my sixth grade class, I still have
28:03the picture of my sixth grade class on
28:05my piano at home.
28:07Half the girls, as they were they were
28:10in sixth grade, half the girls became
28:12medical doctors.
28:13Half became medical doctors. This was
28:16before medical schools had opened up to
28:18women. Medical schools opened up to
28:21women roughly around 1968.
28:23So, when I'm in grade school, it's like
28:25'65, '64.
28:28And they already aspired
28:31to be doctors, and they became it. There
28:33was real possibility. There was real
28:36Just my high school, my just my high
28:38school public high school, which is
28:40different from the UK. Public means
28:43no fees.
28:45Uh taxpayer-based
28:47high schools.
28:50Chuck Schumer, current Senate minority
28:53leader,
28:54went to my high school. He was 4 years
28:56ahead of me. I knew his sister,
28:57brilliant young woman.
28:59Uh, Bernie Sanders
29:01went to my high school.
29:03Ruth Bader Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme
29:06Court Justice, went to my high school.
29:10I know this sounds almost surreal.
29:12>> It's supposed to be some high school as
29:14well.
29:15>> That's the whole point.
29:16It wasn't.
29:18It wasn't. It was an ordinary public
29:22high school.
29:24Not one, not two, not three, not four,
29:27five
29:29Nobel laureates
29:31in chemistry, physics, and economics.
29:34That was the possibility back then.
29:37Now, if you go back to my high school,
29:40Madison High School, James Madison High
29:42School,
29:43if one student gets into a state
29:46university,
29:48it's considered an achievement. It's a
29:50very different
29:52uh, it's a very different place, and
29:55I think that was the
29:57main, the driving force of the Mumdani
30:01campaign.
30:02>> Well, this
30:03So, partly an appeal to
30:06an older generation
30:09like yourself, who've got a memory of
30:11not exactly a welfare state, but
30:13something approaching that in the USA,
30:16and young people who feel angry and
30:18disconnected because they cannot
30:21I mean,
30:22we grew up with the idea, if you met
30:23somebody, you would have a very short
30:25time you get into a conversation, what
30:26do you do? What's your job? What's your
30:28profession? And that And that would be
30:29the basis of the conversation. I never
30:32do that now, because like you, you come
30:35across people who say, "Well,
30:37I do a bit of this, I do a bit of that.
30:38I do a bit of cab driving at weekends,
30:41and um
30:41>> Here in the New York it's barista.
30:43>> We meet people who are teachers and
30:45cleaners at the same time.
30:46>> Yeah.
30:47Yeah.
30:48>> Part-time, you know,
30:49endlessly
30:51dodging around between one part-time job
30:53to another just to survive. And that's
30:56modern cities all over Europe. It's not
30:58just London.
30:59>> And it's it's survival. You know, Bernie
31:01Sanders likes to say 60% of our
31:04population lives paycheck to paycheck.
31:07The one place where I would perhaps
31:10slightly amend what you would say you
31:11said not correct just amend it.
31:14Um
31:17Bernie Sanders did the worst among baby
31:20boomers.
31:21>> Mhm.
31:22>> He could not get the older people my
31:23generation. He could not get that vote.
31:26They were not interested at all for a
31:28very simple reason.
31:30Bernie Sanders says Medicare for all.
31:32They already have Medicare.
31:34>> Mhm.
31:34>> They're over 65.
31:36>> Mhm.
31:36>> Bernie Sanders says
31:38um
31:40abolish student debt. Okay? They never
31:43had student debt.
31:45In my generation except for the Ivy
31:48League schools, everything was free.
31:50>> Mhm.
31:50>> City University of New York where I
31:52currently teach in a very part-time
31:54basis was free back then.
31:57Not a dime.
31:58>> Mhm.
31:58>> State universities
32:01good state university system in New
32:03York.
32:03>> Mhm.
32:04>> It was free.
32:05They don't even have a concept the older
32:07generation of student debt.
32:10And the biggest difference is
32:12in my generation
32:15there was no If you're in college
32:18apart from pre-med students cuz if
32:20you're pre-med, you have to take the bio
32:22one, chem one
32:24organic, inorganic. There's a sequence
32:26in order to apply for medical school.
32:28But unless you chose the pre-med route
32:32I know it's hard to speak about now cuz
32:35it sounds
32:36science fiction like.
32:39Nobody ever talked about work.
32:41>> Mhm.
32:41>> We never uttered a single word about
32:45what are you going to do?
32:47>> Mhm.
32:48>> Do you know why?
32:50Because everybody assumed
32:52the day you decide you wanted to work
32:55>> Mhm.
32:55>> whatever you wanted to do, there'd be a
32:57job out there.
32:58>> Mhm.
32:58>> There would be no
33:00uh there was no fear
33:03that you couldn't find a job.
33:05You always knew, and I'm not just saying
33:07a random job. You decide I want to be an
33:10editor.
33:11You decide I want to be whatever.
33:14There'd be a job there.
33:16There would be a job there. Nowadays
33:19the biggest corruption
33:22to higher education in the humanities,
33:25the biggest corruption
33:27is
33:29because schools are so expensive
33:32and because there are no guaranteed
33:34jobs.
33:35>> Yeah.
33:37>> Students are looking for a very exact
33:41correspondence
33:43between what they study
33:46and a job.
33:48>> Mhm.
33:48>> So, nobody
33:50I don't believe I'm engaging in
33:52hyperbole.
33:53Nobody wants to study philosophy.
33:57>> Mhm.
33:58>> Well, how does that correlate with a
34:00job?
34:00>> Mhm.
34:01>> Nobody wants to study sociology.
34:04How does that correlate with a job?
34:06>> Mhm.
34:06>> If you looked at them, you know, in my
34:08day
34:10there were very clearly distinct majors.
34:13>> You know, Norman, it goes back further,
34:14cuz you speak to in this country 14,
34:1815-year-olds who are just choosing their
34:20subjects for what we call GCSE. That's
34:23the 16-year-old 16-year-old exams, that
34:26is. General Certificate of Secondary
34:28Education.
34:29And they take eight, nine subjects,
34:31something like that, or maybe a few less
34:33in some cases. They're already thinking
34:35in terms of
34:38a vocational requirement they might
34:40need. So, they're going to do business
34:42studies, they're going to do marketing,
34:44possibly design technology.
34:47>> Um
34:47>> Probably the same here.
34:48>> you go to A levels, that's advanced
34:50grade, that's sort of 18 or so,
34:52equivalent to baccalaureate stage.
34:54Um they are not choosing history, not
34:57choosing modern languages, absolutely
34:59not choosing philosophy or anything
35:01else. They're choosing things that are
35:03totally focused. So,
35:05take this forward 20 years.
35:08>> It's the end of the world.
35:09>> are in their 40s and they're then
35:11>> vocational education.
35:12>> They're then in senior management
35:14positions or prominent political
35:16positions where
35:17where's their grounding? Where's their
35:19ideas of the wider world? There aren't
35:21any.
35:21>> No, it's a
35:22it's a it's a
35:25it's a sad sight to to behold.
35:28>> Yeah.
35:28>> Because first of all, the majors
35:31they they're
35:33they're not even
35:34majors, you know. What do you major in?
35:37Getting graphic design.
35:39That's not a major.
35:41You know, in our day
35:42you major in English, you major in
35:44history,
35:45sociology, anthropology,
35:48language. There were clear majors. These
35:51are not major This is just vocational
35:53training.
35:54Um
35:55and
35:57that's combined with
36:00I I don't like to say it, you know, cuz
36:02I I like my students, I care about them.
36:05I only teach because I believe in them.
36:08Uh not for the pay, for sure.
36:10Um
36:12the skill level
36:14I know
36:16cuz I assign the same paper assignments
36:19for 40 years, not cuz I'm lazy, but
36:22because I think they're quite cleverly
36:23done at this point. I've refined it and
36:25so forth. So, I have a very clear sense
36:29of how students performed in the past
36:31with the present. A very simple
36:32standard, how many A's do I give out?
36:36And the
36:39uh skill level, not the mental
36:42They're still mentally nimble.
36:44The students are mentally nimble.
36:47But the basic skill level
36:50I
36:51I'm not even sure if I should say it on
36:53camera cuz
36:54Who's my job?
36:55>> [snorts]
36:56>> I don't I don't assign reading anymore.
37:01Because I know they can't read it. Let's
37:04say your own John Stuart Mill on
37:07Liberty, which I always teach.
37:11I know they can't
37:13understand it. Now, it's difficult even
37:15for me, and I've read On Liberty at
37:17least 20 times, and maybe more,
37:18actually.
37:19And it's I still learn new things each
37:21time I read it cuz I didn't
37:23quite get what was being said there.
37:26But in the olden days
37:29they could I could ask a quiz question
37:33to see whether they did the reading.
37:34>> Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
37:35>> And I would quiz question I wouldn't say
37:37was particularly difficult,
37:40but you had to have understood
37:42something.
37:44And nothing.
37:46>> Isn't this a product of um
37:49instant information and communication?
37:52And so,
37:53if you ask a student a question, they'll
37:55quickly Google it say, "Okay, that's the
37:57answer." And
37:58what they'll get is a headline answer to
38:00any question and move on. And so, there
38:02is
38:03limited capacity to read anything at
38:06length, and certainly no time for
38:08students to analyze what they're
38:10supposed to be doing.
38:10>> The um
38:11the um
38:13>> [cough]
38:13>> level of concentration has obviously
38:16>> Yeah.
38:17>> vastly diminished because peop- if
38:20you're on those gizmos like this fellow
38:24is right now who's filming us.
38:26>> [laughter]
38:28>> If you're on those gizmos,
38:30um you're surfing constantly. You don't
38:34sit down to read something from
38:36beginning to end.
38:37>> [clears throat]
38:37>> And so your level of mental discipline
38:40is seriously
38:42diminished by
38:44uh that kind of social media.
38:48Uh but you know, sometimes I think
38:51there's a bit of a bit of exaggeration
38:54about the effects of the social media.
38:57I don't know if you remember,
38:59but I lived and we lived during the
39:02advent of what was called the boob tube,
39:04the television set. It was called in the
39:06US the boob tube.
39:08And if you read the studies back then, I
39:11think you'd be quite shocked. The
39:13average American like in the 1950s and
39:16'60s,
39:17according to the studies, they were
39:19watching TV 8 hours a day. Now, you
39:22might say, "How is that possible?"
39:23>> They were.
39:24>> They were. So, when I see the students
39:28constantly glued, that was like us
39:31constantly glued to the TV.
39:33>> to watch television a lot.
39:34>> Yeah,
39:35that was the babysitter.
39:37That was the That's the invention where
39:40your parents just sat you in front of
39:41the TV [laughter]
39:43uh to consume your attention.
39:45>> We got a television when I was about uh
39:4810, I suppose, eight nine, 10, something
39:50like that. Um
39:52my mother was um
39:54quite hostile to television, quite
39:56suspicious of it in some ways. And so
39:59she would
40:00ban myself and my three brothers from
40:02watching anything past 8:00 at night.
40:058:00, the television was switched off.
40:08>> And then the parents made that valiant
40:10attempt.
40:11>> [laughter]
40:12>> Never lasted very long, but once in a
40:14while
40:15uh
40:16we we got curbed.
40:19But I I I I
40:22recall that there was very deep regret.
40:25I should have been reading.
40:27I know that.
40:28Now.
40:29Belatedly. By 1970,
40:33I got rid of my television. 70, I was
40:35already in college.
40:37And I wanted to be serious. And so and I
40:40never looked back. I never saw any of
40:43the
40:44era programs, things like Seinfeld,
40:48Cheers, and all those I never saw any of
40:50them. I was very glad
40:53to be liberated. And I'm the last
40:56holdout, me and somebody in Inner
40:58Mongolia. I never got an iPhone.
41:02I
41:02>> Well, it's you and one other person, is
41:04it?
41:04>> Yeah, and Inner Mongolia, that's it.
41:06I never got the iPhone and
41:09part of the reason is not because I'm
41:11so austere and saintly like
41:15I didn't think I would have the
41:16discipline to stop myself.
41:18And I don't want to go around the city
41:20looking like this.
41:22Or in in the
41:24subway car.
41:25>> These are the people that cause traffic
41:26jams on the pavements. Because when
41:28they're looking at their phone, they
41:29always walk more slowly.
41:31And I think we need a we need an we need
41:33a phone lane and we need a pedestrian
41:36lane, you know.
41:37So we can get past these people.
41:39>> Unfortunately, with the SUVs, there's no
41:41room for anything.
41:43The [laughter]
41:44the streets were constructed for smaller
41:47cars.
41:48So when I'm a I never learned to drive.
41:50I'm a bicyclist.
41:52There's no space between the stationary
41:54traffic and the
41:57moving traffic. There used to be a nice
41:59space to ride a bicycle.
42:01But because of the SUVs,
42:04there are places like in Amsterdam in to
42:07buy an SUV, they have a 100% tax on it.
42:12And that's why they have they can have a
42:14bicycle culture.
42:15>> Yeah.
42:16>> Because they eliminate the SUV.
42:18>> And walk on a bicycle lane in Amsterdam.
42:21Wow.
42:22You I just remember accidentally I was
42:25last time I was in Amsterdam sauntered
42:26into the cycle lane. They're not kind.
42:29They're not polite. Get out.
42:30>> Get out. Get out of the way. Well,
42:33if that's to preserve a bicycle culture,
42:35I'm all for it.
42:36>> Well, absolutely.
42:38>> I have no problem with
42:39>> I love cycling.
42:40>> I don't think the truth would have come
42:42out. Programs like your own made
42:45[clears throat] the usual propaganda
42:47untenable. So, of course, I
42:50wholeheartedly endorse supporting your
42:53news program by subscription. So, if you
42:56can, join Double Down News on Patreon.

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