Uncancelled History with Douglas Murray | EP. 08 The Classics
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- Опубликовано: 9 сен 2024
- Thomas Chatterton Williams joins Douglas Murray on this episode to discuss the Classics. From Socrates to Voltaire, they conduct a thorough analysis of the western figures deemed inherently racist. Should the Classics stay cancelled?
Uncancelled History re-evaluates events, people, and ideas that have otherwise been cancelled from the past. Learn more at www.uncancelledhistory.com
Douglas Murray is a British author and political commentator, who - along with his guests - looks at great figures of the past through their historical context.
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Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.
That’s a lovely quote. Where is it from?
@@danmallier5836 Kingsford charcoal.
Gustav Mahler
@@willmercury LOL
@@lavapanther YES!!!
“Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.” ― George Orwell
The whole ‘uncanceled’ series by Douglas is fantastic, with this being one of several highlights throughout. Thank you 😊
Love this quote in particular: "It's a weird thing to do to expect everybody to be morally superior to their age." Wonderful conversation, wonderful series. Thanks.
Right, because most of us certainly aren't! :D
Yes, I thought so as well. A great line and a great talk.
Yes, and it would be very nicely balance by this one from Meade: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
@@birgiklove this
I love this series. It's probably the most important show on RUclips and Cable. Thank you Douglas Murray!!
I studied the Classics at University from 1976 - 1980. At that time the professors were all traditionalist who revered the Western canon. But things have changed, and not for the better. Victor Davis Hanson, a Classicist and an Historian, explored reason why this happened in his book "Who Killed Homer: The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom." He continues to write about it today and has advanced reforms to return The Academy to greatness. I urge you to search the internet for his essays which are excellent.
As Douglas and Thomas discussed how classic philosophers are appropriate for people of every social class, and perhaps even more important for poor people, I couldn't help think that while Socrates is certainly the gold standard for critical thinking, Diogenes deserves a prominent place. After all, Diogenes lived in a pot in the street, and yet ridiculed Alexander the Great to his face. Diogenes is also dear to me because of his criticisms of Plato, with which I agree. The criticisms which Diogenes levelled at Plato are applicable to much of "woke" ideology today.
I’m a fan of Victor Davis Hansen as well
My reading list just keeps growing as I watch these excellent discussions.
yes, truly these interviews are informative and fascinating. A real education
Aristotle was the tutor for Alexander the Great who was quoted as saying:
“For me every virtuous foreigner is a Greek and every evil Greek worse than a Barbarian.”
… for a leader over 2300 years ago to be making an argument for a universal humanism is nothing short of amazing.
he also said "if i werent alexander the great id rather be dioganes" i think the similarity being, if u believe the tale, only two men who weren't slaves at that time in Greece.
"If we are so superior to the Persians, why do we not rule them?"
He must have learned it from the Assyrians as their kings considered every person in the empire as Assyrian
There’s a reason why there’s so many cities named after him. In the Middle East the name Alex was used as well, not as popular today, but his ability to blend with other cultures, adapt the customs of the region as well as implementing Greek culture, speaks to your point. I find that many charismatic people of quite empathetic…
I could listen to these two talk for hours. Just excellent. And as a (proudly unWoke) public librarian, I appreciated Thomas' comment concerning decolonizing libraries.
Thank you both. Another enlightening discussion on an ever-increasingly important topic.
Thanks for listening! Glad you enjoyed it.
Absolutely fantastic conversation. Thank you Douglas and Thomas. 🙌
Вы хотя бы думайте, когда применяете слово - фантастика. В настоящей реальности не существует никакой фантастики, ибо она предполагается лишь в будущем.
I was so excited when I realized it was Tuesday and there would be a new episode here. Thank you for this series! Keep 'em coming.
Will do!
Wonderful conversation! Thanks Mr Murray for putting these on!
"Know what you do not know"
I find it amazing how few people today fail this test today. So many people that I find myself interacting with assert so many things as fact that they can't possibly know as such.
This discussion was simply brilliant and immensely refreshing 👏
An astonishingly good, life assuring discussion.
This is, to me, the best content available. Thank you. I will be purchasing & reading this gentleman’s books.
This excellent discussion reminds me of this quote from GK Chesterton (another dead, white male GASP):
“Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father.”
So welcome to see these conversations continue. Thank you
I’m really enjoying these interviews. Thank you 🙏
Education is not the be all and end all, when it comes to nurturing children. The heart to nurture is above all else and will produce lovely people, not criminals, activists or misfits. Lovely to hear this dear man speak of his father as he does.
The fog of the context of time! Brilliant!
Education is the only way that anyone from an impoverished background can do better in life than their parents. It adds value to people, both internally and externally. This ridiculous reworking of edcuational thought and intellectual method is not only patronising and racist, but consists of an unforgiveable 'dumbing down' of all young people. It's sinister and despicable.
😢 CV
Wrong.
Смотря какое Высшее образование. Если это гуманитарное, то ещё не факт, что выпусник университета найдёт высокооплачеваемую работу. А может вобще не найдёт по специальности работу и тогда получится, что деньги на образование выкинуты на ветер. В наше время котируется образование по точным наукам. И с подобным образованием найти работу в разы выше, чем тому, у кого гуманитарка закончена.
You can and should admire Aristotle, but you can still acknowledge that he understood certain things very differently from us. I like Tom Holland's take on it. He writes about it in Dominion showing how exceptional Christainity was and comparing it also to ancient Greeks.
This is just wonderful! Great channel.
Glad you enjoy it!
Another amazing conversation. Thanks.
We are so glad you enjoyed it!
I am addicted to this series....just fantastic!! Keep them coming!
I am very grateful for this series!
I appreciated this conversation.
I've placed a hold on the two titles by Thomas Chatterton Williams, that were shown in the introduction, and will pick them up at my local library.
It is interesting what you said about a few wrong ideas beeing seen as sufficient to cancel a whole body of work. In science, we are used to simply keep the right theories and discarding the wrong ones (we study Newton's calculus, not his alchemy)
Thank you for another outstanding talk.
Our pleasure! Thanks for listening.
Is it just me or can anyone else almost hear the esteemed Mr. Murray stopping himself from breaking into Monty Python's philosopher's song during the discussion of Voltaire, Hume, Hegel, and others?
Great series. Reminds me of Buckley and Firing Line. In depth, serious, thoughtful.
Douglas, you will never know how much I respect you. Thomas - how I wish I had met your father. What a young man he helped create.
Excellent series! Wonderful conversations!
One of the best episodes yet
"I reject that question, Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus". Beautiful.
Oh my gosh! Another name to know and be alert for, another book to buy. What a charming individual Douglas has introduced to us. I’ve bought & read two of Murray’s. Wonderful, both! Such praise from our host for his guest has me anxious to order his!
Btw, Will Durant’s book was one I read during my own awakening. I even did a shadow-sculpture of the “thinking man” on the cover. Did not realize that was an image of Socrates! Wish I could post a picture.
Brilliant. Thank you gentlemen.
A beautiful interview and conversation. And one year on, critically important, as we strangle our societies with dangerously imperfect constructs.
The eloquence of the dialogue does not strike a clear enough blow against the notion that cancellation is absolutely racist. The unthinking mob is not moved by noble ideas but through sheer hatred.
Actually the unthinking mob suffers from protracted adolescence more than anything else.
Lol not a right winger in the slightest (although I’m moderately socially conservative), but I always liked Douglas. lol he has an endearing quality about him 🤷🏽♂️
This has been such a great series- that you so much!
So enjoying this series... "please sir, I want some more".
Watching this for the second time - what a great series!
The reason they think they can get rid of any figure that had bad opinions is because they think the point of education is to learn what the correct ideas are, rather than to learn how to overcome the limitations of the world you're born in.
You can't replace Aristotle with a list of moral rules written last week because A) you already know the moral rules by the time you're in college, and B) that doesn't help you see how to overcome the prejudices of the moment.
Brilliant! Thank you both.
Is this a podcast done by Douglas Murray? This is amazing.
We're glad you enjoy it!
DM punctuates the conversation with wry wit that serves to expose the 'delicate underbelly' of modern 'progressivism'.
He's an excellent interviewer. Others doing this should learn from because some interviewers give the impression that it's all about them. DM gently guided he discussion with wit and genuine interest in trying to get as much of topic from whom interviews for the benefit of audience. Great series.
Normally an ad during a YT video is mildly annoying but these conversations are so interesting, the usual ad becomes almost enraging and seemingly a very rude interruption.
“Or voltaire ain’t comin’ back”😂😂😂😂
This guy is the man!
So other ways of knowing how to do math would be to address your feelings and relate to the problem on an emotional level in order to solve it??? Yep, that’s going to help them figure out how much concrete they need to pour their driveway
I demand that all non-Germanic Barbarians, be cancelled, for wearing shirts and trousers as well. It’s the most widespread form of cultural appropriation.
@khalidalali186 The Persians were wearing trousers and shirts when the "Germans" were still wearing skins and eating mud. 😂
This is terrific. Brilliant
This young man,( im 77) clearly shows us the difference, and the importance good parents make in ones life. His were clearly very brave as well, especially being from Texas.
Eliminate Socrates, Plato, Socrates, The Bible, Shakespeare, Chaucer... from the curriculum, what do you get?
We're looking at it.
You need to do more of these interviews, Mr Murray. I know I would like to see them on Christopher Columbus, The Pilgrims, The Crusades and so much more.
Great interview.
Thanks
That is so true George.. We set a top Giza sized. Pyramid of accumulated knowledge that those that came before us gifted us free of charge.. And reset the top this pyramid and have diluted ourselves into thinking that it's not even there that all of it can be taken for granted.. It's so destructive. It's so ungrateful
Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
- George Santayana
Similarly “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."
Sir Isaac Newton (though attributed to Bernard of Chartres)
Thank you guys.
We have left an age of anti-intellectualism and entered an age of emotionalism- where all thought and rationality is banished and society revels in a stew of rage and pathos. It's an interesting regression, perhaps the beginning of another dark age ... I wonder where we're heading.
Thomas, I love your father. How fortunate you are.
A Wonderful podcast love it!
A really good interview and full of what have, unfortunately, become brave assertions. I do wonder if some of the things future generations may look back on and wonder why we believed such odd things will relate to apocalyptic ecological catastrophism and the denial of biological sex, though I could be wrong.
Living in a home with 15,000 books makes you very rich.
I always enjoy Douglas Murray incisive intellect and sense of humor [witty sarcasm] and this series in particular. Jesus Christ in the Gospels and the the rest of the New Testament Scriptures call true disciples of Jesus Christ to a Christ-like morality as taught in those very same Scriptures. When/if this is done by his true disciples [those regenerated, indwelled and empowered by the Holy Spirit], it will inevitably result in a transformation by the renewing of the mind that is not conformed to pattern of the "age" in which they live. So, it may be weird "to expect everybody to be to be morally superior to their age", but it would be equally "weird" to expect nobody to be so, especially those who are supposed to be genuine Christians [granted, which Deists are not].
Loved the back and forth banter of this conversation. I have only watched one other episode and was not feeling well about this series because it felt like a making excuses for the past without leading anywhere. Maybe its because I have enjoyed Thomas' videos in the past but now I have a more positive outlook on watching a few more episodes.
Humility interferes with looting and 'smashing'.
"Guns, Germs and Steel" by Diamond I think, ought to be required reading for all high school students. It explains how and why European (i.e. white) people happened to end up dominating the colonial and modern worlds without resorting to ridiculous racism, from the Right or the postmodern Left.
But nevertheless wild Success of this this book I think is contributed somehow to present days situation- white European races had a head start …
I don’t recall Neil Armstrong saying, “One small step for a White man; one giant leap for mankind.”
Hahah who cares what an actor said.
@@thefarmer828 you're being ironic, right?
"Yes," say the Wokesters, "but he strongly implied it by simply being white".
The classic books. time to collect them all
We stand on the shoulders of Giants. We should not care what the race is of the Giant that raises us up but know they are human.
Great talk, thank you!
As a complete aside, your guest's wonderful jumper/sweater is evidence that he is loved by a very fine knitter.
Ppl hav no idea how dangerous cancl culture is.
He said his father had around 15,000 books in the house. That's amazing and crazy. I have a big collection but nothing like that. I hope to read everything but it's tough. You need the time.
Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
- George Santayana
"Methinks it was a fairy.". 😊 Is it possible Isaac Walton was being ironic? But I take your point and almost hope not.
This is the second episode that I have watched from this podcast. It is an important series for so many reasons, although it does sometimes, tilt at the idea that 'everybody' is necessarily, 'unaware' of their responsibility in the 'cutting edge' of the work that should be done in their own times. This is evidently an erroneous assumption in any age. Therefore, no, not 'everyone' whom are sure that they would have fought the emergence of the nazi's in the 20's and 30's are narcissists. Some of us have accurately predicted and actively fought the worst excesses of the rogues, scoundrels and their falsities and manipulations since childhood and represent the 'type' who fought their own battles in the past. Those who honestly and unabashedly know this should sing out loud in resistance to whatever threat to a free society we are faced with, whether a historical nazism or communism or presently, an increasingly encroaching and becoming totalitarian, late capitalism (China's economic primacy is at heart, driven by the transnational corporate need to produce cheap goods - thereby a huge percentage of the world economy is driven by the same 'cheap labour' and totalitarian, social control that was prevalent at the time of the original industrial revolution. We should all ask ourselves: whom does all this divisive (PC) nonsense, in part, effectively and elegantly countered here, ultimately serve? Whom does it profit to generate profound, doctrinaire ignorance, a generation softened up to any media led, ahistorical, context free and fluidly, 'double think', clap trap that is foisted upon them? Whom has the most to lose from a broadly well educated and epistemologically aware and discerning public? Which economic class of people would like to get away with murder, helped along by a co-opted, infantile consumer class, distracted from the Real by electronic toys an endless and facile bickering over a 'consensus imaginary' binary set of 'alt-right' and 'woke left' mumbo-jumbo as a soiled and scatological stand in for 'democracy'? Which economic class is laughing all the way to their offshore bank, while our society (and society, as 'civic life', is what 'nation' means as praxis) falls apart?
Thanks for everything Mr. Murray.
My mom grew up in Russia in the 20th and 30th. The history they studied at school consisted of two events: French commune and October revolution in Russia. The rest of the history was illuminated as irrelevant.
Please do two more hours of this conversation between the both of you on JRE.
Priceless.
Female Male might be part of the problem. How many of those popularazing these ideas, are coming from female professors. I have studied literature under many female professors and one common thing is, that they value their feelings more than facts.
How many equations are used in designing, making and operating(apps and networks) a smartphone?
Great conversation thank you
I really enjoy these discussions.
I'm sure this will be interesting somehow I expect the irony of discussing Socrates and cancel culture not to be missed by the fact his own culture "cancelled" him they insisted he drink hemlock after persecuting him for being thoughtful and influencing others. The resurgence of that attitude is why we lack Symposiums in our own era too. Chomsky has discussed the suffering of intellectuals historically also.
And Chomsky thus makes himself the sympathetic epitome of victimhood. Is it not possible that the low repute suffered by Chomsky among his contemporaries is not because he is a wise intellectual speaker of truth, but because he is simply wrong?
In what sort of grim, dystopian setting does this conversation take place? It ought to be in a bright, sunlit room!
If I am going to fly in a plane then I would rather have the engineers who made the calculations get the right answer rather than using their abilities to "know" what the answer should be
The great Professor Langley intuitively "just knew" how to build a flying machine. His creation promptly belly flopped into the Potomac after having not flown a single inch.
The Wrights had little formal education in the mathematical sciences, but through experimentation and calculation constructed the machine that not only flew successfully but provided the engineering principles upon which all the wonders of powered flight since Kitty Hawk have been built.
This was absolutely brilliant! Loved it from the first second to the last! I never thought I'd say this, but I think this discussion surpasses those between Glenn Loury and John McWhorther.
I'll say it again:
"When all you have is a hammer (presentism)
Everything looks like a nail (an affront)"
23:35 “You want your elevator to not fall.”
Actually yes I do from time to time. But also to slow down before halting and hitting the ground
Thank you!
Thank you Douglas!
Very profound insights!
I remember the time I spent a year in the mountains of west virginia and i had never read anything except Of Mice and Men. Had no interest. but at 19. I picked up Shakespeare. Never having read anything and that started it for me. The feeling of not even understanding it, to beginning to see it’s genius just set me off on a path. I have hundreds and hundreds of books I collect now.
Congrats for bringing such brilliant light to history and culture
I have a sincere question. I LOVE the classics and absolutely think they are necessary.
But for the life of me, why were the intellectual guardians of the Classics & Humanities, among the FIRST to fall to the attack on them and the West?
It should be a mass point of contrite embarrassment that their "Classics" armor just crumbled like chalk before the insipidly stupid neo-Marxist "Critical Theory" type assault.
They did NOTHING to even slow it down at all, unlike the scientists who put up at least a tiny fight back in the 90s.
Excellent question. I studied the Classics at University from 1976 - 1980. At that time the professors were all traditionalist who revered the Western canon. But things have changed, and not for the better. Victor Davis Hanson, a Classicist and an Historian, explored reason why this happened in his book "Who Killed Homer." He continues to write about it today and has advanced reforms to return The Academy to greatness. I urge you to search the internet for his essays which are excellent.
@@GeorgeLowrey Thank you George. I know VDH, but was not aware of that book of his. I'll check it out.
As was stated in the beginning of the video, the classics are the foundation, the start of Western thought. The New Testament of the Bible is a very close second. Marxists believe Marxist teachings must be first and foremost of all philosophy. The *only* philosophy, even. You can see why Critical Theory targets exclusively Western Canon and not any kind of Marxist thought, Leninist, Maoist, etc.
VDH is a shining example of a classicist who did not crumble like chalk in response to the assault by the anti-Western cultural relativists. Victor has stood his ground and taken it to the Woke mob by applying the classics on the battlefield of practical politics. So too have Douglas Murray, Jordan Peterson, and Dennis Prager. Their large and growing audiences give us hope that all is not lost.