Jacob Roth, a conservative civil rights attorney, shares his journey from being a libertarian atheist to becoming a religious conservative. He credits his transformation to influential figures and experiences, such as studying Russian literature and reading Jonathan Haidt's book 'The Righteous Mind'. He also discusses the impact of Jordan Peterson's ideas on his beliefs. Roth explains how his understanding of religion evolved and how he eventually embraced Judaism. He also shares his experience attending an evangelical church and the importance of giving his own heritage a chance. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
The big story over the last week is Kansas City
chiefs kicker Harrison Butker. Butker is Catholic and delivered a
Catholic themed speech to a Catholic university. Now, I really
hate when people say I don't agree with everything you
(00:27):
know this person says, because obviously, of course I can't
think of a single person where I agree with everything
they say. I don't even agree with everything I've ever said.
So I'll note that there are some things in Butker's
speech I disagreed with, as I'm not Catholic, I'm not
his audience. I'm very pro IVF for example, but again
(00:50):
not Catholic. The comments were not meant for me. The
part he's getting the most heat for is saying that
women would be most fulfilled stay home with their kids
instead of pursuing a career. If you listen to the speech,
he nearly breaks down when he's talking about his wife
and how her life truly started when she began living
(01:11):
her vocation as a wife and a mother. He literally
almost cries as he credits her with allowing him to
be the man that he is. I have a daughter.
She is fourteen, and she is brilliant, and she always
has been. I imagine all the amazing things she can do.
She reads these giant books all the time, carries them
(01:32):
around with her. She loves robotics. She's so sharp and
so clever, and she's so driven straight a student. The
very idea of getting a bee, you know, really alarms her.
She's going places. I'm sure she is, and I hope
she does. But when I imagine a successful life for her,
I imagine her with a family. I mean, look, there
(01:54):
are many ways to have a good life, but I
most desperately want for her to have a loving Marie
with someone that she wants to be around all the time,
and if God blesses them, I want them to have
many children. Do I want her to be a scientist
or work in tech or coding or whatever it is
she will love to do.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Of course, and I love my career. I love what
I do. But one thing.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
I'll say is that that's pretty rare. I did not
love all the jobs I had before I turned my
love of writing into an actual career. I had many
miserable jobs, some that paid very well and some that
didn't that I still absolutely hated. There was no fulfillment
at all. It was just a paycheck, and hey, paychecks
(02:41):
are important. Not everything we do is going to warm
our soul. I can think of many PowerPoint presentations or
spreadsheets that I made that did not change the world
at all. Most jobs are just jobs. And the thing is,
you have to be incredibly lucky to not have to work.
If you already have the option to stay home and
(03:01):
be a homemaker, you've already won the lottery. And I'll
also say this, when a couple has a baby, it's
very rare that anyone asks the man, hey, are you
going to stay home or keep on working? And it's
seen as like anti women to ask the woman this.
But the thing is, it's not an option at all
presented to men. It's an option only for women. So
(03:23):
if you get that option at all, it's not backward
or anti feminist or whatever nonsense people are calling. Butker's speech,
you're already among the absolutely most blessed people. The other
thing I'll say is that no matter how lucky I am,
that I get to do what I love. And I
should note that I get to do the thing that
(03:44):
I love around the schedule of my family, having always
worked from home, and I'm always there to pick up
the kids from school if they're sick, or go on
field trips or volunteer in their classes. But if I
had to pick between the career that I truly love
and find so meaningful and enjoy doing so much, if
(04:05):
I had to choose between that and my family, I'd
set fire to this career and throw it out the
nearest window so fast, and I wouldn't think twice about it.
It just doesn't matter to me nearly as much as
being with my kids, like, not even close. It's why
women choose more flexible jobs. It's not the patriarchy, it's
not the glass ceiling. It's that we want to be
(04:27):
with our kids. When we lived in New York, I
knew ivy leaguers, doctors, lawyers, the most successful women who,
as soon as they had a baby, only wanted to
be with that baby all the time. It's an instinct
inside of us. And here's the real thing. Men don't
have it in the same way. Of course, my husband
(04:47):
would choose his family over his career, but he didn't
sit in his office weeping like so many women. I
knew did when their baby was home without them. Men
and women are different, and women have a pull toward home,
and that's okay, and that's good, and that should be
nourished and most of all, that should be accepted. That's
really all. Butker was saying in that part of his speech,
(05:11):
if you're a woman who has the option to stay
home with her kids, it's an amazing gift to you
and to them. Butker is saying, grab that gift and
hold on to it, and I agree. Coming up next,
an interview with Jacob Roth. Join us after the break.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My
guest today is Jacob William Roth, conservative civil rights attorney
with Dylan Law Group. Hi Jacob, so nice to have
you on. So I've had your fantastic wife Abby Roth
on this show before. I love having you know, family
members on. Did you listen to her episode?
Speaker 3 (05:51):
I did. I listened to as much of her content
as I can because obviously I can't get enough of it.
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
I actually love to hear that. My husband is this
show's number one fan, listens to all the episodes, so
really into that. How did you get into the conservative
legal space, so to.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Go all the way back. Do you ever see that
movie Thank You for Smoking with AARNet Krt? I think so.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
I don't want that many movies, but I do think
I've seen this.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yeah, sure, so if you haven't, I recommend watching it.
It's a real slice of life from the early two thousands,
back when you could make a comedy about a tobacco
lobbyist and not just have people to cry uniparty corruption,
role and goal call that stuff. People would have thought
it at the time, but didn't quite have the same
edge as it would now. Ablay is a charming, slimy,
(06:44):
awful wheeler dealer tobacco lobbyist, and I love the movie.
I found it absolutely inspirational. And granted this is back
when I was like a libertarian hyper atheist, so the
moral quandry, I just like the idea of the guy
who talked for a living and was a smooth operator.
That was always so fascinating and appealing to me. So
I knew I wanted to go to law school from
a young age because I thought law school to lobbyist
(07:07):
some cause I don't know, but I want to do that.
And then over time the arc of my personal world
journey took me from being hyper libertarian hyper atheist, and
when you combine those two features in one person, it
makes you somehow more annoying than across the ink Megan,
which is the only other type of person who is
as possiblytizing about their causes. Crossfitting vegans are at number two,
(07:29):
libertarian atheists are number one, and either one of those
should you ever have been misfortunate of being in a
conversation with but want to be a lobbyist, want to
go to law school. Eventually became conservative in my orientation,
eventually became religious, also becoming an Orthodox Jew, and still
wanted to go to Wall School, but now it was
for a real cause, not just self aggrandizement. I went
(07:51):
to Wall School, didn't have much of a plan, wanted
to be a conservative attorney, whatever that meant. And then
when it came time for graduation, I realized, oh, you know,
our movement does not have the best developed nonprofit sector.
We have great nonprofits, but we don't have an entire
multi billion dollar industry. I say, every little want to
be activist can find professional employment doing their pet cause
(08:12):
after graduation. So I ended up doing I'll work at
a title insurance company for about a year in Omaha.
Managed to apply and become a staff attorney for Young
America's Foundation, and that was a real breakthrough for me.
Love working with the app or a great organization. Moved
to Virginia for that from Omaha, and then built up
my credentials a little bit. Applied to work with Dylan
Wall Group and was blessed and not to be accepted
(08:35):
onto the team. Now Here, i am in your favorite place, Florida,
and I'm sure we'll end up talking about what brought
me here because it is I feel like your mark
upon the world. Need have so many but is extolling
the praises of again in your ass to get your
buck well, you know that a total recall movie with
schwartze Er. Maybe you don't, but get your ass to Mars,
(08:58):
get your ass to Florida is like the girl with slogan.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
I love that. Actually I'm going to put that on
a T shirt. So actually I want to Okay, I
have so many things I want to talk about here,
But how did you stop being an atheist libertarian and
become a religious conservative.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
So there are two real inflection points for me both
of them due to the great fortune of coming across
good intellectual influences at the right time. So the first
is so I went to Northwestern University, which I had
a great effect upon my life from attending, but I
despised the institution, and especially with all this stuff coming
out every campus now, with all the crazy anti Semitism,
(09:38):
which I would want to talk about because that is
a real goal of mine professionally out is to fight
that stuff. I went to Northwestern. I did not enjoy
my time there. I would love for that place to
cease to exist. But I studied Russian literature and that
ended up becoming my major. There's one super rockstar professor
at Northwestern named Gary soul Morrison, and he is the
(09:58):
pre eminent Russian litter your scholar in America, if not
the West, and within the world. He's an amazing man.
So I took his intro to Russian literature class. It's
the class like that Dead Poet society kind of thing,
where this is the class that will change your life.
And normally that's just hype or it's just liberal arts
kind of nonsense of people will pumping up one rebellious
kind of thinker no, this class, this professor changed my life.
(10:22):
And so studying Anna Karana and Brothers Karamazov and the
great Russian literary masters, Dostoevsky told stoy Chekhov, it opened
me up to the idea that my libertarian worldview of
voluntarism and consent or literally the only moral principles was
so small, so beneath the reality. It's like how deep
(10:43):
the human mind goes, how much the soul really exists,
and that you actually cannot reduce man to voluntaryism and consent.
What my whole worldview just interact with that great literature,
So you know, now everything's blown up, it's not going
to stay that way. It's going to get put back together.
And so reading those great Russian literary masters under the
tutelage of this professor, he and I actually became very close.
I was living in a dorm building where some professors
(11:06):
can be the master of the dorm. They have since
changed that title because obviously master hasn't honestly right, uh huh.
Saving all that aside, because I could do a fifteen
minute sept on that alone, But he was the master
of that dorm building scene. Special discussion sections for the
students who live there. So I got to do special
discussion sections with this master of Russian literature, and it
(11:27):
changed my way. It brought me to this deeper understanding
of soul, of the importance of culture, of help, human psychology,
salt a lot more complex than just I want to
do this, So how could it be bad for me?
As long as it doesn't basically hurt me? Even if
it does, why I want you to do anyway? Right,
all of that was just shown to be so shallow
and teenage. So I became conservative of my orientation, but
I was still an atheist.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah, I'm dying to know how the atheist Russian writers
made you religious like this is this is, this is.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Where we need to go to give cret. Dostoevsky deeply
orthodox Christian and he may be made a Jews, but
at least you love God. Tolstoy weird in his religious journey,
but still fundamentally believed in God and Christianity, though interesting
pacifist pseudo anarchist version of it. And Chekhov was the
most traditional of the three. But yeah, that tradition showed
(12:17):
such a depth of soul that I couldn't say that
these men were wrong about their understanding of what it
meant to be alive and how to orient your life.
I just at the time considered them to have the
wrong explanation for why they were right. Like, Okay, these
guys know what it means to live, but they're wrong
in attributing it to God. So I'll give them a
fair pass on that one. I, as a twenty year
old obviously no more.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yeah, you know more.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Yeah, there's that cognitive disstance, right. These guys are wise
and profound in the right about so much, but the
wrong about the God thing. Obviously my numbers, so there
were gaps in my intellectual armor there that eventually were
fully opened up so I could change my mind. So,
studying under this professor, Professor Morrison, he recommend that I
read Jonathan Hikes The Righteous Mind, And so Jonathan Height
(13:00):
is pretty prominent moral psychologist.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
But also an atheist. I think right.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Atheist again, atheist wisdom being wiser than the atheism and
being responsible bring me across the finish line, as it were.
But I read The Righteous Mind when I was abroad
in Thailand. I finished my Russian urg degree early so
I could go to Thailand to do Mui Thai, because
that's of course what you do with the Russian rich country. Well,
but to do much else you may as well go
(13:26):
get munch.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Nice to know your parents were thinking through all of
this negative things.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
But as baby boomers who believed in freedom and exploration
and all those things, you can see where I got
some of my libertarian impulses from. They didn't see.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I've had the Russian Terans who did not have any
even though there were baby boomers, they did not have
any of that live free philosophy. I had the actual
you know, the people that you read about in those
Russian books.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
People who have a serious grounding on things do. But
they allowed me to make this big move which I
I'm never going to allow my children to do a
trip to Thailand to get punched in the face recreationally
for about three months with no connections in the country.
Go figure. I might consider that a bad idea, right,
but you know, bless my parents were allowing me to
(14:14):
do it. I get turned up fine, didn't really get hurt,
no bad things happened, And all the year I read
The Righteous Mind and so John Inheit, he's analyzing the
psychology of morally, and he is a first section on politics,
which is interesting, but it's not the real main event.
He has the second part about religion, and his ultimate
conclusion is that religion is kind of like a super
(14:35):
massive gravitational object, just this giant locust point that keeps
everyone in a culture kind of on the same gravitational orbits.
You don't quiet into each other, you don't go off
into the distance. You end up able to form a
culture because people are enough on the same page. It's
my metaphor not his. But that's like the four point there.
So I ended up being an atheist who respects religious insights,
(14:58):
now understands the utility of religion, but still had that
snobby thumbing my nose down up people, it's a noble
why right, Like, I'm glad religion exists at least, right,
I'm glad they're people believe we need it. But I
I will show you ike so again more cognitive dissonance.
So then finally what closed the loop on it was
(15:19):
Porse Jordan Peterson.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
So another atheist, right, No, I think that's so now
I know, and now that works with God. But he
was an atheist probably back then. Oh yes, yes, he was,
you know, I love this journey to religion through all
the atheists, I.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Mean never And to be honest, Professor Morrison, who I
adore and I'll end up saying more about him, But
he himself, I believe, is an agnostic. He's a secular Jew,
a child of Communist parents who rejected hard the Communism,
was like a real American patriot, but is no great
believer himself. So yet again another atheist influenced, many of
whom are secular Jews, who ended to bring me towards
(15:58):
wanting to be a conservative deeply religion just amazing.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
So what did Jordan Peterson say?
Speaker 3 (16:03):
So he had his first big interview with Joe Rogan
back in I think December of twenty sixteen. So I
was studying for my first set of law school exams,
and of course, rather than studying is intently so I
should have I also listened to podcasts and one of
those podcasts was the Jordan Peterson appearance on Joe Rogan.
And he was doing the Jordan Peterson you know routine,
and I don't say that to be reductive about it.
(16:25):
He was doing his greatest hits, except that was the
beginning of his arc, so they weren't his greatest hits,
yet it was all absolutely new, and so he was
talking about from a psychological perspective the profound insights of
the Jewish Bible, also the Christian Bible, but primarily the
Jewish Bible. And I, to be honest, growing up on
on the Island going to reform synagogue where the education
(16:47):
I received judaically and I went twice a week until
I was eighteen. After school, Wow, education I received was
more so the importance of abortion rights, some ethnic history
of Judaism, really focusing on the Hull Holocaust, and the
importance of being a Democrat, which is to me, honestly,
what I would sum up a lot of reform Judaism
as being those themes absolutely abortion, moove, the Holocaust, and
(17:10):
we're never going to stop talking about it. We're also
not going to know anything more about Jewish history and
vote democrat. H go figure. It ended up not being
a very nourishing or sustaining spiritual experience, which is how
I ended up an atheist, even though I did love
the Rabbis that I had and still them close with them.
World contains multitudes, but Fard Peterson was presenting the wisdom
of the Jewish Bible. And I had never heard anyone
(17:32):
talk about the importance of the Bible as being accurate
about reality in a deep way. The only way to
ever understood religion Judaism was what I call like the
John Stewart presentation of God, sky man with a beard,
listened to your complaints, occasionally dabbling and then striking people.
The thunderbolt, which is more accurate presentation is zeus, I
realized across the board. But that is the the benighted
(17:57):
understanding of religion. The sad so hearing the idea that
it's wise and true and real even if you don't
accept it as supernaturally true, never heard before. And the
way he explained it was so deep, so compelling. It
widened that cognitive distance even more so. Now you're telling
me that biblical wisdom straight up is really real about
(18:19):
how people work. Okay, I can accept that, But the
God things saying God's not real. Now it's even harder
than ever.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
And that.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
As part of the interview, he presented a few of
the Aristotelian arguments for God in the philosophical proposition for
a unitary God. You know, not the polytheist sky spirits
or animism or anything like that, but actually one united God,
and so I really couldn't argue with those. They really
made a lot of sense for me. So now I
believe in the idea of one God, but maybe not revelation,
(18:49):
except that the revealed wisdom of the Hebrew Bible, and
now it just is completely profound. It jibes so well
with what I knew to be the insights and wisdom
of the great Russia literary masters. And also Jonathan Height
and talking about the Wow Girl which and orienting culture.
So that was all a swirl in the Russian litery tradition.
Whenever like these intellectual characters end up just with their
(19:10):
entire world, you kind of blown up. They described us
like rain fever, at least in the English translations. I
felt like I had brain people. I got sick actually
for a few days, like it was just all a
lot going on thinking about it. I ended up coming
out the other side. Okay, I believe in doc I'm
curious in formal religion now seeing if these revolutions make
sense to me, but I think we'll be entertainedm bent
(19:30):
this next part. I actually attended an evangelical church for
a while.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
What made you do that?
Speaker 3 (19:36):
And very typically it was because of a girl. I
was interested in. A girl at the time was an
evangelical Christian and things didn't end up working out there, honestly,
very favorably, because I wouldn't met my wife out the work.
Well friends, and she's actually very close friends with my wife.
Now she married an amazing, wonderful man as a joke. Actually,
my wife once got us up.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
My god, I thought she I thought you were going
to say she married a man as a joke, And
I was.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Like, what, yeah, okay, no, very seriously, very seriously. Children
just said this second. They're great people. My wife is
a joke. Got me one of those best friend charms
that's like the little or that's cut in half connected.
So I have that with this woman's present. Okay, oh
with a husband okay, good, yeah, yeah, with the husband.
(20:22):
He's a great guy. But things ended up working out
with this girl, and it kind of was along in
the same lines at the same time as me realizing
I really appreciate Christianity. I really thought a lot of
the narrative related to Gesus and the idea of redemption,
connecting to God. That way made sense psychologically, But I
couldn't let myself be a Christian without giving Judaism a chance,
(20:44):
because now I've even got Now I'm willing to accept
a revelation, connect with the religion and really like do it.
But I hadn't given my own people a chance. And
if I were to be a Christian, I would be
validating almost all of the Jewish premise. And there's the
ortri point between Christine fed me validating the idea that
they are chosen people. They were given a revelation by Gout.
The Furah was real, powerful, finding and important, but at
(21:07):
a certain inflection point there's all this extra Christian content
as well, And well, that's two distinct premises to accept
at the same time. And if I were to be
a Jew or a Christian, I'd still be believing that Judaism,
at least originally was correct. So if it's my people,
if it's my inheritance, and people like me don't give
it a chance first before deciding no longer to participate,
(21:29):
that's a really pathetic reason for something as ancient and
important as the Jewish people to cease to exist. That
I wouldn't even give it a chance, so I wanted
to go back. I wanted to give it that chance.
I ended up going to al Habad at the UVA
campus for a while. Loved the rabbi there. What I
was studying and learning about Judaism swatted him so well
with the conservative sensibilities that I had developed, the idea
(21:50):
of culture inheritance and transmission taking the law seriously, and
as a law student at the time, the very legal
grounding of Judaism and interacting with God which supposed to
do it from a weeklegal perspective, it a lot of
sense to me too, So I ended up really liking it.
About six months into this is when I met my wife.
You're your wife, And that did not cause me to
(22:10):
want to embrace it. It just sped up the timeline on embracements.
So that's the story.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
I love that that path is windy and interesting and
just I mean, I love where you ended up. You know,
obviously a big fan of both you and your wife.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
We're going to take a quick break and be right
back on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Do you feel like.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
You've made it?
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Yes? And I mean I mean that wholeheartedly, in the
sense of if you take a look at someone's life
from an external perspective, it's like an audience member, especially
for someone and I don't fall into this category, but
take a famous person who's a high achiever and a
single domain, right an athlete, rock star, whatever, as a
(22:56):
third party, we can be impressed by someone being at
the top of one game. And some of this language
might go rellaup with the Peterson spiel on games and
dominant hierarchies, because also it's an extremely useful and accurate
approach to scrubbing a lot of these things in life. But
you see someone who's at the top of one game,
and unfortunately, to get to the top of one game
above everyone else, to be in that ninety nine percent tile,
(23:19):
you're sacrificing all the other games you could participate in,
all the other things that are really relevant and so
making it is not dominating in one space your career
or attractiveness to other people you look at, like the
kind of fitness models who sacrifice way too much physically
and experientially and socially so that they can have yeahds
and the photos the presentation or the people of the
(23:40):
accounts on Instagram where it's all about having the tractive
looking lifestyle of going out and doing travel. You look
at that and if you're sacrificing everything to go in
one direction so that it's attractive to third parties who
will never know you. And the Andrew Tait style grift
is that it is manicuring everything in your life to
give a basically photoshop presentation. And a fourteen year old
(24:02):
boy would think making it looks like that, and you
realize you have followed out everything else that matters, So
making it is balanced. Making it is having the good
relationship with your spouse and having the kids, and having
the good relationship with the kids, and having work that
doesn't take away from your soul and wear at you
and provides enough for your family. And if it provides
even more than enough, like a very horm up, that's great,
(24:25):
but you'll pursue that more than enough at the cost
of the family, at the cost of the kids. You
get enough out of it that you can you have
it be as positive to you as is enough to
keep you going. And if it's even more it's a vocation,
it's a calling. That's great, but you wouldn't pursue that
the cost of the wife and the kids, or the
religious community, the rest of it. So if making it
is balanced, and I really think it is, I have
(24:45):
made it, and I'm extremely blessed and fortunate. And I'm
very happy to talk about that as a topic because
where did I come from? Right libertarian atheism. I did
not think about being married. I did not think about
having the family. I actually would in the depths my
little attorney, and is very very condescending to a stadea
of family and spouses. You know, that kind of annoying
(25:06):
revolutionary mindset you see them?
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah, Ay, individual matters more than everything, you know, so
how could you focus on a family?
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Oh yeah? And even worse, even worse, family is an
oppressive institution. It constrains your freedom. Kids are just annoying
self adultate, like well cool, being the worst kind of
a student. That's what I was. So now understanding is balanced.
I like to talk about it because it's within reach.
Right for a normal ursh person. You're not going to
(25:35):
be at the nine and a half percentile of achievement
in any stupid attractive thing for a third party. If
you have a family, you can have the house and
provide and not be worried about like the next week,
and that stability to enjoy the family more. Life doesn't
get you happiness, but it can remove the things that
age miserable, the things that make things unstable or make
things dangerous. So if you make enough to avoid that misery,
(25:56):
you have your family and you have your community religiously grated.
Is that making it? Isn't the beautiful thing about it
that it's within reach? Which is absolutely Yeah. Yes, I've
made it, and I'm very very happy to be where
I am, and I understand that kind of there but
for the grace of God go I Because what did
it require for me to be able to be married
at the age that I was? That professor in Russian
(26:18):
literature Jonathan Heights's book at the right time when I
was in Thailand that could really make an impact. I
just because I was outside my own culture, I could
really see how that wisdom made sense. And then Peterson
doing the interview that he did at the right time
for that stuff, I probably would still be that annoying
libertarian atheist and I would not be making it by
any stretch of the imagination.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
So yeah, I think timing is such a big part
of everything I talk about that a lot on the show.
I think we really don't give enough credit to the
fact that luck plays a role in how while our
lives go. So a question that I ask on this
show to all of my guests is what do you
think is our largest cultural problem? And I want to
(26:58):
ask you that question, but a little bit differently because
I think that what you guys work on at Dylan
Law Group a lot of times is solving cultural problems.
So what do you think is our largest cultural problem?
And do you get a chance to work on that
in your legal career.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
So, fortunately, the answer to that second part is going
to be yes, which is why I'm happy that you asked.
So in terms of biggest problems, I think the biggest
problem is going to be the culture that we were
suffering under right now, this hyper individualist, god free You're
going to make your own way, trying to attach yourself
(27:35):
to some sense of value. But there is nothing really
transcendent kind of culture. This is a culture that stems
from modernity. It stems from the developments of science that
we've had the development of evolutionary through all these things
that kind of killed the idea of God in reality.
Now anti evolution my point is what people have taken
the implications of modern scientific and kind of philosophical developments
(27:59):
to be is killing God, is killing attachments to culture,
is killing the idea of anything transcendent. And so what
do you have with a bunch of very lost individuals
trying to go onto something new? Humans are believing beings.
We all believe something. We're worshiping beings. We all worship something.
The only question is what are you going to worship?
(28:20):
You can't really worship yourself because you can't ever put
something above you that's your own level. If you know
you're creating your values, you know they're arbitrary, you know
they have no power. Seat can't really worship it. That's
why I like the existentialist thing. I'm going to be
my own God. I'm going to upset my own values now,
you know, because you don't really believe it, because you
can't believe it because you know it's just from you.
(28:40):
So what do people end up worshiping appetites where the
ideal of like a liberated future where everyone is nicer
and quality or equity has been established. All that stuff.
People get attached to big causes and you end up
with leftism being basically the religious placeholder for a lot
of people. So the culture we have that makes everything
(29:01):
kind of flattened, people kind of realistic, people very lost,
is bad. The opening it presented for leptism to sneak
right in as the new religious state. A lot of
institutions that's an outgrowth of it. So leptism is like
the big bad guy, and that is the big problem.
We have our media pumping out just the worst, most
cynical kind of revolutionary traite. We have all our educational institutions,
(29:23):
highest level and also elementary or middle or high school
pumping out this worldview, this philosophy, this pseudo religion to
indoctrinate kids in it. We have government agencies filled with
unaccountable bureaucrats pumping out executive orders or administrative regulations to
instantiate this more. It's a giant cultural war. We're basically
in a formal religious war, except it's all normal religions,
(29:45):
all normal people in culture versus this new kind of
lefty revolutionary burk. So that's a big bad thing, and
it is the greatest threat to our country and in
a way, the gray threat to the West, and therefore
the rest of the world because this thing will drive
everything down to the drik. Russia not a great place
before the Russian Revolution, a much worse place afterwards. China
(30:05):
not a great place before the revolution, a much place, sorry,
much worse place after communists won. Things could always be worse.
So be worse, Always be worse, which is Jewish pieces,
your faith could always be worse. Be grateful to God
that it's not to say, yes, this giant lefty leviathan
that we're up against, but fortunately it is actually really solvable.
(30:29):
How did the left attain the power that it had, Well,
it just pushed It did entryism. It put its people
into institutions. They these revolutionaries cynically would just go to
the hiring committees where the people wi appoint others or
set the rules, and they would just put lefty terms
in the things and our baby. But were parents got
to welcome and their parents as well. They were too nice.
(30:50):
They assumed everyone was in good faith. They assumed that Americans,
as powered people will out disagreement, should just allow the
left fees in. They didn't realized the threat. They weren't
cynical enough. And they're understanding of how lefty revolutionaries work.
There's a big problem with our naive parents and grandparents.
Because there were such noble people and believing in traditional
American ideals, they kind of assumed everyone else would hold
(31:11):
those ideals. Other Americans, even lefty ones, pay by the rules.
We all want the same things. We just might disagree
over methods, right right, Nah, you can't chose to communists
to communists. Wants to make everything communists and the same
way that you wouldn't allow a crazy Islamist jihadist terrorist
in and a guy in an organization would operate normally
(31:32):
along line's decency in Dapora.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Right, There's no shared values there.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Yeah exactly. They want something fundamentally different if you and
I disagree with like a liberal or a center left person.
They want America to do well. They want everyone to
have a fair shake of things. They just might have
different opinions on tax policy or whatever. Fine, I don't
really care. I don't want their tax policies, really care
that they exist and are pushing it out there. But
(31:56):
the commedy, he wants something completely different.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
He wants differences.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Yeah exactly. They want to burn it all down and
rebuild it in their own image. That we can't abide that.
We can't work. So these people were allowed to infiltrate
everything but their culture and everything. We're seeing the consequences now.
But the solution is simple. It's not easy, but it's simple.
Do the politics, do the fights, you run for your
school board. You don't get intimidated when they in bad faith,
(32:21):
throughout the racist or the trans bo right, islamophobe.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
You have to just brush it off.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
Yeah, they'll say anything. People were in bad faith, will
do anything. In the same way that you wouldn't try
and combat a mugger by saying, well, don't you realize
that the aggressor here right, don't you realize that that's
a great point, is wrong and you wouldn't like to
be mugged. Yeah, they wouldn't like to be mugged. They're
just rawing on you, not picking up a knife and
doing it to them, and then being the only one
(32:47):
willing to do it if they can get away with it.
They're very happy with the state of affairs, or the
same thing, like that stereotype of being on the prison
yard the guy bombs sending you and says, why do
you knock into me? The correct answer to that is never. Oh,
I'm so sorry, sir, did I Now you're a mark.
Now you're to be at the bottom of the total poll,
and it's going to go very bad for you. Whenever
(33:07):
anyone in bad faith takes these actions against you, the
correct thing to do is point out their bad faith,
never trust them again, strip them of power, and doing
everything you can to organize the coalitions that that guy
can't just get away with this again. So it is
in our schools or in our academia. Right if it's
a public university, agitate have laws passed to strip them
(33:28):
of funding, or impose consequences to or put new rules
in or did a great job at the new college.
In Christopher Ruffo's participation, there are tools. We just have
to be willing to use them. The tough part is
fighting for control. But at least it's a simple proposition.
We can do it now. Where I step in with
Dylan Wall Group litigation has a rule and our side
(33:48):
has been a little delinquent on the lawfare. We all
know that you do anything that could ever fall within
kind of the realm of the left's interests. And they
have a million and one nonprofit legal centers that will
suit and the threat of litigation means it's kind of
like a self enforcing regime. Institutions, employment places, whatever that no,
(34:09):
they could get sued for something hypothetically, which is very
expensive bill abstained from all manner of action. It creates
I got silencing effect.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Right.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
No one wants to do anything that could go against
slepty pieties because they know they'll be sued into the dirt.
Even if the lawsuit doesn't succeed, the process is the
punishment itself. Now, I'm not saying that the right needs
to do cynical bad faith lawsuits. We just need to
do lawsuits the right ones that support our people so
that these institutions think twice because they can't take the
wallet hit, they can't take the bad publicity reputational bit,
(34:39):
so they won't try it again. So right now, Dylan
Wall Group is seeking plaintiffs, students, teachers, employees, you name it,
anyone who has suffered institutional anti semitism like what we're
seeing on these campuses, or like what we're seeing the
teachers unions or other places. You come to us, you
get in touch with us, We're going to hear you out,
(34:59):
We're going to at you funding we are going to
try and fight this stuff because that's the best way
to fight back. The best way to fight back is
to fight.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yeah, I love that, and I think that that's the
right path. I think that the cowering and the apologizing
and trying to talk and have conversations with people who
don't share any of your values has been entirely pointless.
I think we've gotten to a place where a lot
of people realize that. And I love the fighting back
is really key, and I love that you guys are
(35:28):
doing it. So I love talking to you. This has
been so just eye opening and I could keep going,
but my show is like half an hour. We've hit
the end. But I wanted to ask you what would
be your tip for my listeners on how they can
improve their lives. I think you've done so much to
improve yours. What advice do you have for people listening
(35:50):
on how they can do the same.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
Very happy to think about this question, And in my
own way, what's worked the best for me is the
best thing you can do for yourself is focus on
your relationships, because that's really where the locus of your
happiness is. Anyone who's ever gotten the object or the
attainment or whatever that they were longing for. If it's material,
(36:12):
if it's mere reputational, that wears off really quick, right,
relationships don't. The better the relationships in your life, the
better your life is. Period. A lot can be taken
away from you, but you're standing amongst your friends, your family,
the people who love anything like that, and that is
what endures. And the samely that we know that you
get punched in the face, you're not going to feel suicidal.
(36:33):
Someone defames you or destroys your reputation and harms your relationships,
that's when you have to be worried about people engaging
in self harm or worse because of that. So in
that vein, the best thing you can do is to
make yourself a more attractive person. And I'm not talking
about basically, yeah, it'd be fit, look nice, whatever, you
might feel little better, that's great, but being attractive as
a personality. And we all know the people in our
(36:55):
own wives who have attractive personalities, the ones that we
want to know, the ones who want to engage with
relationships with. There's no reason why we can't take stents
to be that way yourselves, being humble, being thoughtful, not
getting caught up in social scripts upon quote this or that.
Stand up for yourself, but don't get fixed to arbitrary notions.
The more attractive a personality, you are, more act in
(37:17):
the manner that you would want someone else to be
and that you're drawn to. And we all have examples
of this in our own lives. The humble grandfather or
the doting touring mother who was just devoted to her kids.
And if it was your own mother, that's great. For
someone in your community, you can see, you just see
people and we know that is a person. They're not
magnetic because of charisma. They're just attracting me because it's
a good soul. And we could all be that way.
(37:38):
There was a guy in my community who I'm now
extremely close friends with. When I first met him, he
was a little obnoxious. He had to have like a
cutting remark in a little sarcasm.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Some of us use that as a defense mechanism, okay.
Speaker 3 (37:50):
Which may have think but and I don't know what
the inflection point was for him, but a few months
into this he just stopped. He became extremely humble, very thoughtful.
He connected more with the religion, connected more with the prayer,
became a leader in the mignon and the prayer events
that get together in the Jewish community. He completely turned
it around and no one commented on it. There was
(38:11):
no big event announcing it wasn't a topic of discussion.
It just drew more people to them at He's one
of my abs with best friends and I love spending
time with them and just reflecting on this kind of
arc or who recently made me realize that's really encouraging.
If I'm ever realizing I'm kind of obnoxious or regrading,
and I'm ever worried about it, you can just do
things differently. People respond like think trou The last thing
(38:33):
I'll say related to this is there's again Jordan Peterson
a really good insight that he has about child development
because he has a lot of work on the development
of children psychologically. So his insight is that if a
child doesn't warn the skills to be engaging with others socially,
by the time they're wor right to give and to
take how to work with other people, it is an
(38:54):
absolute disability for them because other kids will not want
to engage with them, so they can't learn from engaging
with the kids They want to press the their relationships,
and also as importantly, they will not have adults who
are interested in them. We all know the kids in
our lives, not even related to us, but community members
or nieces or nephews, the ones who are a joy
to spend time with. What do we want to do?
What are we drawn to do to teach them, to educate,
(39:16):
to develop them. We take an interest in and we
want them to succeed for the sheer joy of doing it.
But we all know the kids who are creating annoying
them not And what do we do We pull await,
will be polite to them, to their pers We're not
going to be jerks, but we're not going to invest
in them. That doesn't really change. Over time, you're a
person who is enjoyable and humble and likable and all
(39:37):
these normal things people will be investing in you will
get so much more out of there. So any time
in all Hypernipe been unhappy, it's because ever realized I've
been acting less attractively and I've been hurting our relationships.
That is the best thing you can do for yourself
is work on that.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
I absolutely love that. Thank you so much for coming on.
Jacob William Roth, You're fantastic. I really enjoyed this conversation.
Check out Dylan log group. They're doing just such phenomenal work.
I'm so impressed all the time whenever I hear anything
you guys are up to. Thanks again for coming on
and say hi to abiroths for me, Shadre, thank you, Kerl.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Thank you so much for joining us on the Carol
Markowitz Show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
The big story over the last week is Kansas City
chiefs kicker Harrison Butker. Butker is Catholic and delivered a
Catholic themed speech to a Catholic university. Now, I really
hate when people say I don't agree with everything you
(00:27):
know this person says, because obviously, of course I can't
think of a single person where I agree with everything
they say. I don't even agree with everything I've ever said.
So I'll note that there are some things in Butker's
speech I disagreed with, as I'm not Catholic, I'm not
his audience. I'm very pro IVF for example, but again
(00:50):
not Catholic. The comments were not meant for me. The
part he's getting the most heat for is saying that
women would be most fulfilled stay home with their kids
instead of pursuing a career. If you listen to the speech,
he nearly breaks down when he's talking about his wife
and how her life truly started when she began living
(01:11):
her vocation as a wife and a mother. He literally
almost cries as he credits her with allowing him to
be the man that he is. I have a daughter.
She is fourteen, and she is brilliant, and she always
has been. I imagine all the amazing things she can do.
She reads these giant books all the time, carries them
(01:32):
around with her. She loves robotics. She's so sharp and
so clever, and she's so driven straight a student. The
very idea of getting a bee, you know, really alarms her.
She's going places. I'm sure she is, and I hope
she does. But when I imagine a successful life for her,
I imagine her with a family. I mean, look, there
(01:54):
are many ways to have a good life, but I
most desperately want for her to have a loving Marie
with someone that she wants to be around all the time,
and if God blesses them, I want them to have
many children. Do I want her to be a scientist
or work in tech or coding or whatever it is
she will love to do.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Of course, and I love my career. I love what
I do. But one thing.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
I'll say is that that's pretty rare. I did not
love all the jobs I had before I turned my
love of writing into an actual career. I had many
miserable jobs, some that paid very well and some that
didn't that I still absolutely hated. There was no fulfillment
at all. It was just a paycheck, and hey, paychecks
(02:41):
are important. Not everything we do is going to warm
our soul. I can think of many PowerPoint presentations or
spreadsheets that I made that did not change the world
at all. Most jobs are just jobs. And the thing is,
you have to be incredibly lucky to not have to work.
If you already have the option to stay home and
(03:01):
be a homemaker, you've already won the lottery. And I'll
also say this, when a couple has a baby, it's
very rare that anyone asks the man, hey, are you
going to stay home or keep on working? And it's
seen as like anti women to ask the woman this.
But the thing is, it's not an option at all
presented to men. It's an option only for women. So
(03:23):
if you get that option at all, it's not backward
or anti feminist or whatever nonsense people are calling. Butker's speech,
you're already among the absolutely most blessed people. The other
thing I'll say is that no matter how lucky I am,
that I get to do what I love. And I
should note that I get to do the thing that
(03:44):
I love around the schedule of my family, having always
worked from home, and I'm always there to pick up
the kids from school if they're sick, or go on
field trips or volunteer in their classes. But if I
had to pick between the career that I truly love
and find so meaningful and enjoy doing so much, if
(04:05):
I had to choose between that and my family, I'd
set fire to this career and throw it out the
nearest window so fast, and I wouldn't think twice about it.
It just doesn't matter to me nearly as much as
being with my kids, like, not even close. It's why
women choose more flexible jobs. It's not the patriarchy, it's
not the glass ceiling. It's that we want to be
(04:27):
with our kids. When we lived in New York, I
knew ivy leaguers, doctors, lawyers, the most successful women who,
as soon as they had a baby, only wanted to
be with that baby all the time. It's an instinct
inside of us. And here's the real thing. Men don't
have it in the same way. Of course, my husband
(04:47):
would choose his family over his career, but he didn't
sit in his office weeping like so many women. I
knew did when their baby was home without them. Men
and women are different, and women have a pull toward home,
and that's okay, and that's good, and that should be
nourished and most of all, that should be accepted. That's
really all. Butker was saying in that part of his speech,
(05:11):
if you're a woman who has the option to stay
home with her kids, it's an amazing gift to you
and to them. Butker is saying, grab that gift and
hold on to it, and I agree. Coming up next,
an interview with Jacob Roth. Join us after the break.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My
guest today is Jacob William Roth, conservative civil rights attorney
with Dylan Law Group. Hi Jacob, so nice to have
you on. So I've had your fantastic wife Abby Roth
on this show before. I love having you know, family
members on. Did you listen to her episode?
Speaker 3 (05:51):
I did. I listened to as much of her content
as I can because obviously I can't get enough of it.
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
I actually love to hear that. My husband is this
show's number one fan, listens to all the episodes, so
really into that. How did you get into the conservative
legal space, so to.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Go all the way back. Do you ever see that
movie Thank You for Smoking with AARNet Krt? I think so.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
I don't want that many movies, but I do think
I've seen this.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yeah, sure, so if you haven't, I recommend watching it.
It's a real slice of life from the early two thousands,
back when you could make a comedy about a tobacco
lobbyist and not just have people to cry uniparty corruption,
role and goal call that stuff. People would have thought
it at the time, but didn't quite have the same
edge as it would now. Ablay is a charming, slimy,
(06:44):
awful wheeler dealer tobacco lobbyist, and I love the movie.
I found it absolutely inspirational. And granted this is back
when I was like a libertarian hyper atheist, so the
moral quandry, I just like the idea of the guy
who talked for a living and was a smooth operator.
That was always so fascinating and appealing to me. So
I knew I wanted to go to law school from
a young age because I thought law school to lobbyist
(07:07):
some cause I don't know, but I want to do that.
And then over time the arc of my personal world
journey took me from being hyper libertarian hyper atheist, and
when you combine those two features in one person, it
makes you somehow more annoying than across the ink Megan,
which is the only other type of person who is
as possiblytizing about their causes. Crossfitting vegans are at number two,
(07:29):
libertarian atheists are number one, and either one of those
should you ever have been misfortunate of being in a
conversation with but want to be a lobbyist, want to
go to law school. Eventually became conservative in my orientation,
eventually became religious, also becoming an Orthodox Jew, and still
wanted to go to Wall School, but now it was
for a real cause, not just self aggrandizement. I went
(07:51):
to Wall School, didn't have much of a plan, wanted
to be a conservative attorney, whatever that meant. And then
when it came time for graduation, I realized, oh, you know,
our movement does not have the best developed nonprofit sector.
We have great nonprofits, but we don't have an entire
multi billion dollar industry. I say, every little want to
be activist can find professional employment doing their pet cause
(08:12):
after graduation. So I ended up doing I'll work at
a title insurance company for about a year in Omaha.
Managed to apply and become a staff attorney for Young
America's Foundation, and that was a real breakthrough for me.
Love working with the app or a great organization. Moved
to Virginia for that from Omaha, and then built up
my credentials a little bit. Applied to work with Dylan
Wall Group and was blessed and not to be accepted
(08:35):
onto the team. Now Here, i am in your favorite place, Florida,
and I'm sure we'll end up talking about what brought
me here because it is I feel like your mark
upon the world. Need have so many but is extolling
the praises of again in your ass to get your
buck well, you know that a total recall movie with
schwartze Er. Maybe you don't, but get your ass to Mars,
(08:58):
get your ass to Florida is like the girl with slogan.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
I love that. Actually I'm going to put that on
a T shirt. So actually I want to Okay, I
have so many things I want to talk about here,
But how did you stop being an atheist libertarian and
become a religious conservative.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
So there are two real inflection points for me both
of them due to the great fortune of coming across
good intellectual influences at the right time. So the first
is so I went to Northwestern University, which I had
a great effect upon my life from attending, but I
despised the institution, and especially with all this stuff coming
out every campus now, with all the crazy anti Semitism,
(09:38):
which I would want to talk about because that is
a real goal of mine professionally out is to fight
that stuff. I went to Northwestern. I did not enjoy
my time there. I would love for that place to
cease to exist. But I studied Russian literature and that
ended up becoming my major. There's one super rockstar professor
at Northwestern named Gary soul Morrison, and he is the
(09:58):
pre eminent Russian litter your scholar in America, if not
the West, and within the world. He's an amazing man.
So I took his intro to Russian literature class. It's
the class like that Dead Poet society kind of thing,
where this is the class that will change your life.
And normally that's just hype or it's just liberal arts
kind of nonsense of people will pumping up one rebellious
kind of thinker no, this class, this professor changed my life.
(10:22):
And so studying Anna Karana and Brothers Karamazov and the
great Russian literary masters, Dostoevsky told stoy Chekhov, it opened
me up to the idea that my libertarian worldview of
voluntarism and consent or literally the only moral principles was
so small, so beneath the reality. It's like how deep
(10:43):
the human mind goes, how much the soul really exists,
and that you actually cannot reduce man to voluntaryism and consent.
What my whole worldview just interact with that great literature,
So you know, now everything's blown up, it's not going
to stay that way. It's going to get put back together.
And so reading those great Russian literary masters under the
tutelage of this professor, he and I actually became very close.
I was living in a dorm building where some professors
(11:06):
can be the master of the dorm. They have since
changed that title because obviously master hasn't honestly right, uh huh.
Saving all that aside, because I could do a fifteen
minute sept on that alone, But he was the master
of that dorm building scene. Special discussion sections for the
students who live there. So I got to do special
discussion sections with this master of Russian literature, and it
(11:27):
changed my way. It brought me to this deeper understanding
of soul, of the importance of culture, of help, human psychology,
salt a lot more complex than just I want to
do this, So how could it be bad for me?
As long as it doesn't basically hurt me? Even if
it does, why I want you to do anyway? Right,
all of that was just shown to be so shallow
and teenage. So I became conservative of my orientation, but
I was still an atheist.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah, I'm dying to know how the atheist Russian writers
made you religious like this is this is, this is.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Where we need to go to give cret. Dostoevsky deeply
orthodox Christian and he may be made a Jews, but
at least you love God. Tolstoy weird in his religious journey,
but still fundamentally believed in God and Christianity, though interesting
pacifist pseudo anarchist version of it. And Chekhov was the
most traditional of the three. But yeah, that tradition showed
(12:17):
such a depth of soul that I couldn't say that
these men were wrong about their understanding of what it
meant to be alive and how to orient your life.
I just at the time considered them to have the
wrong explanation for why they were right. Like, Okay, these
guys know what it means to live, but they're wrong
in attributing it to God. So I'll give them a
fair pass on that one. I, as a twenty year
old obviously no more.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yeah, you know more.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Yeah, there's that cognitive disstance, right. These guys are wise
and profound in the right about so much, but the
wrong about the God thing. Obviously my numbers, so there
were gaps in my intellectual armor there that eventually were
fully opened up so I could change my mind. So,
studying under this professor, Professor Morrison, he recommend that I
read Jonathan Hikes The Righteous Mind, And so Jonathan Height
(13:00):
is pretty prominent moral psychologist.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
But also an atheist. I think right.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Atheist again, atheist wisdom being wiser than the atheism and
being responsible bring me across the finish line, as it were.
But I read The Righteous Mind when I was abroad
in Thailand. I finished my Russian urg degree early so
I could go to Thailand to do Mui Thai, because
that's of course what you do with the Russian rich country. Well,
but to do much else you may as well go
(13:26):
get munch.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Nice to know your parents were thinking through all of
this negative things.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
But as baby boomers who believed in freedom and exploration
and all those things, you can see where I got
some of my libertarian impulses from. They didn't see.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I've had the Russian Terans who did not have any
even though there were baby boomers, they did not have
any of that live free philosophy. I had the actual
you know, the people that you read about in those
Russian books.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
People who have a serious grounding on things do. But
they allowed me to make this big move which I
I'm never going to allow my children to do a
trip to Thailand to get punched in the face recreationally
for about three months with no connections in the country.
Go figure. I might consider that a bad idea, right,
but you know, bless my parents were allowing me to
(14:14):
do it. I get turned up fine, didn't really get hurt,
no bad things happened, And all the year I read
The Righteous Mind and so John Inheit, he's analyzing the
psychology of morally, and he is a first section on politics,
which is interesting, but it's not the real main event.
He has the second part about religion, and his ultimate
conclusion is that religion is kind of like a super
(14:35):
massive gravitational object, just this giant locust point that keeps
everyone in a culture kind of on the same gravitational orbits.
You don't quiet into each other, you don't go off
into the distance. You end up able to form a
culture because people are enough on the same page. It's
my metaphor not his. But that's like the four point there.
So I ended up being an atheist who respects religious insights,
(14:58):
now understands the utility of religion, but still had that
snobby thumbing my nose down up people, it's a noble
why right, Like, I'm glad religion exists at least, right,
I'm glad they're people believe we need it. But I
I will show you ike so again more cognitive dissonance.
So then finally what closed the loop on it was
(15:19):
Porse Jordan Peterson.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
So another atheist, right, No, I think that's so now
I know, and now that works with God. But he
was an atheist probably back then. Oh yes, yes, he was,
you know, I love this journey to religion through all
the atheists, I.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Mean never And to be honest, Professor Morrison, who I
adore and I'll end up saying more about him, But
he himself, I believe, is an agnostic. He's a secular Jew,
a child of Communist parents who rejected hard the Communism,
was like a real American patriot, but is no great
believer himself. So yet again another atheist influenced, many of
whom are secular Jews, who ended to bring me towards
(15:58):
wanting to be a conservative deeply religion just amazing.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
So what did Jordan Peterson say?
Speaker 3 (16:03):
So he had his first big interview with Joe Rogan
back in I think December of twenty sixteen. So I
was studying for my first set of law school exams,
and of course, rather than studying is intently so I
should have I also listened to podcasts and one of
those podcasts was the Jordan Peterson appearance on Joe Rogan.
And he was doing the Jordan Peterson you know routine,
and I don't say that to be reductive about it.
(16:25):
He was doing his greatest hits, except that was the
beginning of his arc, so they weren't his greatest hits,
yet it was all absolutely new, and so he was
talking about from a psychological perspective the profound insights of
the Jewish Bible, also the Christian Bible, but primarily the
Jewish Bible. And I, to be honest, growing up on
on the Island going to reform synagogue where the education
(16:47):
I received judaically and I went twice a week until
I was eighteen. After school, Wow, education I received was
more so the importance of abortion rights, some ethnic history
of Judaism, really focusing on the Hull Holocaust, and the
importance of being a Democrat, which is to me, honestly,
what I would sum up a lot of reform Judaism
as being those themes absolutely abortion, moove, the Holocaust, and
(17:10):
we're never going to stop talking about it. We're also
not going to know anything more about Jewish history and
vote democrat. H go figure. It ended up not being
a very nourishing or sustaining spiritual experience, which is how
I ended up an atheist, even though I did love
the Rabbis that I had and still them close with them.
World contains multitudes, but Fard Peterson was presenting the wisdom
of the Jewish Bible. And I had never heard anyone
(17:32):
talk about the importance of the Bible as being accurate
about reality in a deep way. The only way to
ever understood religion Judaism was what I call like the
John Stewart presentation of God, sky man with a beard,
listened to your complaints, occasionally dabbling and then striking people.
The thunderbolt, which is more accurate presentation is zeus, I
realized across the board. But that is the the benighted
(17:57):
understanding of religion. The sad so hearing the idea that
it's wise and true and real even if you don't
accept it as supernaturally true, never heard before. And the
way he explained it was so deep, so compelling. It
widened that cognitive distance even more so. Now you're telling
me that biblical wisdom straight up is really real about
(18:19):
how people work. Okay, I can accept that, But the
God things saying God's not real. Now it's even harder
than ever.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
And that.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
As part of the interview, he presented a few of
the Aristotelian arguments for God in the philosophical proposition for
a unitary God. You know, not the polytheist sky spirits
or animism or anything like that, but actually one united God,
and so I really couldn't argue with those. They really
made a lot of sense for me. So now I
believe in the idea of one God, but maybe not revelation,
(18:49):
except that the revealed wisdom of the Hebrew Bible, and
now it just is completely profound. It jibes so well
with what I knew to be the insights and wisdom
of the great Russia literary masters. And also Jonathan Height
and talking about the Wow Girl which and orienting culture.
So that was all a swirl in the Russian litery tradition.
Whenever like these intellectual characters end up just with their
(19:10):
entire world, you kind of blown up. They described us
like rain fever, at least in the English translations. I
felt like I had brain people. I got sick actually
for a few days, like it was just all a
lot going on thinking about it. I ended up coming
out the other side. Okay, I believe in doc I'm
curious in formal religion now seeing if these revolutions make
sense to me, but I think we'll be entertainedm bent
(19:30):
this next part. I actually attended an evangelical church for
a while.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
What made you do that?
Speaker 3 (19:36):
And very typically it was because of a girl. I
was interested in. A girl at the time was an
evangelical Christian and things didn't end up working out there, honestly,
very favorably, because I wouldn't met my wife out the work.
Well friends, and she's actually very close friends with my wife.
Now she married an amazing, wonderful man as a joke. Actually,
my wife once got us up.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
My god, I thought she I thought you were going
to say she married a man as a joke, And
I was.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Like, what, yeah, okay, no, very seriously, very seriously. Children
just said this second. They're great people. My wife is
a joke. Got me one of those best friend charms
that's like the little or that's cut in half connected.
So I have that with this woman's present. Okay, oh
with a husband okay, good, yeah, yeah, with the husband.
(20:22):
He's a great guy. But things ended up working out
with this girl, and it kind of was along in
the same lines at the same time as me realizing
I really appreciate Christianity. I really thought a lot of
the narrative related to Gesus and the idea of redemption,
connecting to God. That way made sense psychologically, But I
couldn't let myself be a Christian without giving Judaism a chance,
(20:44):
because now I've even got Now I'm willing to accept
a revelation, connect with the religion and really like do it.
But I hadn't given my own people a chance. And
if I were to be a Christian, I would be
validating almost all of the Jewish premise. And there's the
ortri point between Christine fed me validating the idea that
they are chosen people. They were given a revelation by Gout.
The Furah was real, powerful, finding and important, but at
(21:07):
a certain inflection point there's all this extra Christian content
as well, And well, that's two distinct premises to accept
at the same time. And if I were to be
a Jew or a Christian, I'd still be believing that Judaism,
at least originally was correct. So if it's my people,
if it's my inheritance, and people like me don't give
it a chance first before deciding no longer to participate,
(21:29):
that's a really pathetic reason for something as ancient and
important as the Jewish people to cease to exist. That
I wouldn't even give it a chance, so I wanted
to go back. I wanted to give it that chance.
I ended up going to al Habad at the UVA
campus for a while. Loved the rabbi there. What I
was studying and learning about Judaism swatted him so well
with the conservative sensibilities that I had developed, the idea
(21:50):
of culture inheritance and transmission taking the law seriously, and
as a law student at the time, the very legal
grounding of Judaism and interacting with God which supposed to
do it from a weeklegal perspective, it a lot of
sense to me too, So I ended up really liking it.
About six months into this is when I met my wife.
You're your wife, And that did not cause me to
(22:10):
want to embrace it. It just sped up the timeline on embracements.
So that's the story.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
I love that that path is windy and interesting and
just I mean, I love where you ended up. You know,
obviously a big fan of both you and your wife.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
We're going to take a quick break and be right
back on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Do you feel like.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
You've made it?
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Yes? And I mean I mean that wholeheartedly, in the
sense of if you take a look at someone's life
from an external perspective, it's like an audience member, especially
for someone and I don't fall into this category, but
take a famous person who's a high achiever and a
single domain, right an athlete, rock star, whatever, as a
(22:56):
third party, we can be impressed by someone being at
the top of one game. And some of this language
might go rellaup with the Peterson spiel on games and
dominant hierarchies, because also it's an extremely useful and accurate
approach to scrubbing a lot of these things in life. But
you see someone who's at the top of one game,
and unfortunately, to get to the top of one game
above everyone else, to be in that ninety nine percent tile,
(23:19):
you're sacrificing all the other games you could participate in,
all the other things that are really relevant and so
making it is not dominating in one space your career
or attractiveness to other people you look at, like the
kind of fitness models who sacrifice way too much physically
and experientially and socially so that they can have yeahds
and the photos the presentation or the people of the
(23:40):
accounts on Instagram where it's all about having the tractive
looking lifestyle of going out and doing travel. You look
at that and if you're sacrificing everything to go in
one direction so that it's attractive to third parties who
will never know you. And the Andrew Tait style grift
is that it is manicuring everything in your life to
give a basically photoshop presentation. And a fourteen year old
(24:02):
boy would think making it looks like that, and you
realize you have followed out everything else that matters, So
making it is balanced. Making it is having the good
relationship with your spouse and having the kids, and having
the good relationship with the kids, and having work that
doesn't take away from your soul and wear at you
and provides enough for your family. And if it provides
even more than enough, like a very horm up, that's great,
(24:25):
but you'll pursue that more than enough at the cost
of the family, at the cost of the kids. You
get enough out of it that you can you have
it be as positive to you as is enough to
keep you going. And if it's even more it's a vocation,
it's a calling. That's great, but you wouldn't pursue that
the cost of the wife and the kids, or the
religious community, the rest of it. So if making it
is balanced, and I really think it is, I have
(24:45):
made it, and I'm extremely blessed and fortunate. And I'm
very happy to talk about that as a topic because
where did I come from? Right libertarian atheism. I did
not think about being married. I did not think about
having the family. I actually would in the depths my
little attorney, and is very very condescending to a stadea
of family and spouses. You know, that kind of annoying
(25:06):
revolutionary mindset you see them?
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah, Ay, individual matters more than everything, you know, so
how could you focus on a family?
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Oh yeah? And even worse, even worse, family is an
oppressive institution. It constrains your freedom. Kids are just annoying
self adultate, like well cool, being the worst kind of
a student. That's what I was. So now understanding is balanced.
I like to talk about it because it's within reach.
Right for a normal ursh person. You're not going to
(25:35):
be at the nine and a half percentile of achievement
in any stupid attractive thing for a third party. If
you have a family, you can have the house and
provide and not be worried about like the next week,
and that stability to enjoy the family more. Life doesn't
get you happiness, but it can remove the things that
age miserable, the things that make things unstable or make
things dangerous. So if you make enough to avoid that misery,
(25:56):
you have your family and you have your community religiously grated.
Is that making it? Isn't the beautiful thing about it
that it's within reach? Which is absolutely Yeah. Yes, I've
made it, and I'm very very happy to be where
I am, and I understand that kind of there but
for the grace of God go I Because what did
it require for me to be able to be married
at the age that I was? That professor in Russian
(26:18):
literature Jonathan Heights's book at the right time when I
was in Thailand that could really make an impact. I
just because I was outside my own culture, I could
really see how that wisdom made sense. And then Peterson
doing the interview that he did at the right time
for that stuff, I probably would still be that annoying
libertarian atheist and I would not be making it by
any stretch of the imagination.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
So yeah, I think timing is such a big part
of everything I talk about that a lot on the show.
I think we really don't give enough credit to the
fact that luck plays a role in how while our
lives go. So a question that I ask on this
show to all of my guests is what do you
think is our largest cultural problem? And I want to
(26:58):
ask you that question, but a little bit differently because
I think that what you guys work on at Dylan
Law Group a lot of times is solving cultural problems.
So what do you think is our largest cultural problem?
And do you get a chance to work on that
in your legal career.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
So, fortunately, the answer to that second part is going
to be yes, which is why I'm happy that you asked.
So in terms of biggest problems, I think the biggest
problem is going to be the culture that we were
suffering under right now, this hyper individualist, god free You're
going to make your own way, trying to attach yourself
(27:35):
to some sense of value. But there is nothing really
transcendent kind of culture. This is a culture that stems
from modernity. It stems from the developments of science that
we've had the development of evolutionary through all these things
that kind of killed the idea of God in reality.
Now anti evolution my point is what people have taken
the implications of modern scientific and kind of philosophical developments
(27:59):
to be is killing God, is killing attachments to culture,
is killing the idea of anything transcendent. And so what
do you have with a bunch of very lost individuals
trying to go onto something new? Humans are believing beings.
We all believe something. We're worshiping beings. We all worship something.
The only question is what are you going to worship?
(28:20):
You can't really worship yourself because you can't ever put
something above you that's your own level. If you know
you're creating your values, you know they're arbitrary, you know
they have no power. Seat can't really worship it. That's
why I like the existentialist thing. I'm going to be
my own God. I'm going to upset my own values now,
you know, because you don't really believe it, because you
can't believe it because you know it's just from you.
(28:40):
So what do people end up worshiping appetites where the
ideal of like a liberated future where everyone is nicer
and quality or equity has been established. All that stuff.
People get attached to big causes and you end up
with leftism being basically the religious placeholder for a lot
of people. So the culture we have that makes everything
(29:01):
kind of flattened, people kind of realistic, people very lost,
is bad. The opening it presented for leptism to sneak
right in as the new religious state. A lot of
institutions that's an outgrowth of it. So leptism is like
the big bad guy, and that is the big problem.
We have our media pumping out just the worst, most
cynical kind of revolutionary traite. We have all our educational institutions,
(29:23):
highest level and also elementary or middle or high school
pumping out this worldview, this philosophy, this pseudo religion to
indoctrinate kids in it. We have government agencies filled with
unaccountable bureaucrats pumping out executive orders or administrative regulations to
instantiate this more. It's a giant cultural war. We're basically
in a formal religious war, except it's all normal religions,
(29:45):
all normal people in culture versus this new kind of
lefty revolutionary burk. So that's a big bad thing, and
it is the greatest threat to our country and in
a way, the gray threat to the West, and therefore
the rest of the world because this thing will drive
everything down to the drik. Russia not a great place
before the Russian Revolution, a much worse place afterwards. China
(30:05):
not a great place before the revolution, a much place, sorry,
much worse place after communists won. Things could always be worse.
So be worse, Always be worse, which is Jewish pieces,
your faith could always be worse. Be grateful to God
that it's not to say, yes, this giant lefty leviathan
that we're up against, but fortunately it is actually really solvable.
(30:29):
How did the left attain the power that it had, Well,
it just pushed It did entryism. It put its people
into institutions. They these revolutionaries cynically would just go to
the hiring committees where the people wi appoint others or
set the rules, and they would just put lefty terms
in the things and our baby. But were parents got
to welcome and their parents as well. They were too nice.
(30:50):
They assumed everyone was in good faith. They assumed that Americans,
as powered people will out disagreement, should just allow the
left fees in. They didn't realized the threat. They weren't
cynical enough. And they're understanding of how lefty revolutionaries work.
There's a big problem with our naive parents and grandparents.
Because there were such noble people and believing in traditional
American ideals, they kind of assumed everyone else would hold
(31:11):
those ideals. Other Americans, even lefty ones, pay by the rules.
We all want the same things. We just might disagree
over methods, right right, Nah, you can't chose to communists
to communists. Wants to make everything communists and the same
way that you wouldn't allow a crazy Islamist jihadist terrorist
in and a guy in an organization would operate normally
(31:32):
along line's decency in Dapora.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Right, There's no shared values there.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Yeah exactly. They want something fundamentally different if you and
I disagree with like a liberal or a center left person.
They want America to do well. They want everyone to
have a fair shake of things. They just might have
different opinions on tax policy or whatever. Fine, I don't
really care. I don't want their tax policies, really care
that they exist and are pushing it out there. But
(31:56):
the commedy, he wants something completely different.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
He wants differences.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Yeah exactly. They want to burn it all down and
rebuild it in their own image. That we can't abide that.
We can't work. So these people were allowed to infiltrate
everything but their culture and everything. We're seeing the consequences now.
But the solution is simple. It's not easy, but it's simple.
Do the politics, do the fights, you run for your
school board. You don't get intimidated when they in bad faith,
(32:21):
throughout the racist or the trans bo right, islamophobe.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
You have to just brush it off.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
Yeah, they'll say anything. People were in bad faith, will
do anything. In the same way that you wouldn't try
and combat a mugger by saying, well, don't you realize
that the aggressor here right, don't you realize that that's
a great point, is wrong and you wouldn't like to
be mugged. Yeah, they wouldn't like to be mugged. They're
just rawing on you, not picking up a knife and
doing it to them, and then being the only one
(32:47):
willing to do it if they can get away with it.
They're very happy with the state of affairs, or the
same thing, like that stereotype of being on the prison
yard the guy bombs sending you and says, why do
you knock into me? The correct answer to that is never. Oh,
I'm so sorry, sir, did I Now you're a mark.
Now you're to be at the bottom of the total poll,
and it's going to go very bad for you. Whenever
(33:07):
anyone in bad faith takes these actions against you, the
correct thing to do is point out their bad faith,
never trust them again, strip them of power, and doing
everything you can to organize the coalitions that that guy
can't just get away with this again. So it is
in our schools or in our academia. Right if it's
a public university, agitate have laws passed to strip them
(33:28):
of funding, or impose consequences to or put new rules
in or did a great job at the new college.
In Christopher Ruffo's participation, there are tools. We just have
to be willing to use them. The tough part is
fighting for control. But at least it's a simple proposition.
We can do it now. Where I step in with
Dylan Wall Group litigation has a rule and our side
(33:48):
has been a little delinquent on the lawfare. We all
know that you do anything that could ever fall within
kind of the realm of the left's interests. And they
have a million and one nonprofit legal centers that will
suit and the threat of litigation means it's kind of
like a self enforcing regime. Institutions, employment places, whatever that no,
(34:09):
they could get sued for something hypothetically, which is very
expensive bill abstained from all manner of action. It creates
I got silencing effect.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Right.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
No one wants to do anything that could go against
slepty pieties because they know they'll be sued into the dirt.
Even if the lawsuit doesn't succeed, the process is the
punishment itself. Now, I'm not saying that the right needs
to do cynical bad faith lawsuits. We just need to
do lawsuits the right ones that support our people so
that these institutions think twice because they can't take the
wallet hit, they can't take the bad publicity reputational bit,
(34:39):
so they won't try it again. So right now, Dylan
Wall Group is seeking plaintiffs, students, teachers, employees, you name it,
anyone who has suffered institutional anti semitism like what we're
seeing on these campuses, or like what we're seeing the
teachers unions or other places. You come to us, you
get in touch with us, We're going to hear you out,
(34:59):
We're going to at you funding we are going to
try and fight this stuff because that's the best way
to fight back. The best way to fight back is
to fight.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yeah, I love that, and I think that that's the
right path. I think that the cowering and the apologizing
and trying to talk and have conversations with people who
don't share any of your values has been entirely pointless.
I think we've gotten to a place where a lot
of people realize that. And I love the fighting back
is really key, and I love that you guys are
(35:28):
doing it. So I love talking to you. This has
been so just eye opening and I could keep going,
but my show is like half an hour. We've hit
the end. But I wanted to ask you what would
be your tip for my listeners on how they can
improve their lives. I think you've done so much to
improve yours. What advice do you have for people listening
(35:50):
on how they can do the same.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
Very happy to think about this question, And in my
own way, what's worked the best for me is the
best thing you can do for yourself is focus on
your relationships, because that's really where the locus of your
happiness is. Anyone who's ever gotten the object or the
attainment or whatever that they were longing for. If it's material,
(36:12):
if it's mere reputational, that wears off really quick, right,
relationships don't. The better the relationships in your life, the
better your life is. Period. A lot can be taken
away from you, but you're standing amongst your friends, your family,
the people who love anything like that, and that is
what endures. And the samely that we know that you
get punched in the face, you're not going to feel suicidal.
(36:33):
Someone defames you or destroys your reputation and harms your relationships,
that's when you have to be worried about people engaging
in self harm or worse because of that. So in
that vein, the best thing you can do is to
make yourself a more attractive person. And I'm not talking
about basically, yeah, it'd be fit, look nice, whatever, you
might feel little better, that's great, but being attractive as
a personality. And we all know the people in our
(36:55):
own wives who have attractive personalities, the ones that we
want to know, the ones who want to engage with
relationships with. There's no reason why we can't take stents
to be that way yourselves, being humble, being thoughtful, not
getting caught up in social scripts upon quote this or that.
Stand up for yourself, but don't get fixed to arbitrary notions.
The more attractive a personality, you are, more act in
(37:17):
the manner that you would want someone else to be
and that you're drawn to. And we all have examples
of this in our own lives. The humble grandfather or
the doting touring mother who was just devoted to her kids.
And if it was your own mother, that's great. For
someone in your community, you can see, you just see
people and we know that is a person. They're not
magnetic because of charisma. They're just attracting me because it's
a good soul. And we could all be that way.
(37:38):
There was a guy in my community who I'm now
extremely close friends with. When I first met him, he
was a little obnoxious. He had to have like a
cutting remark in a little sarcasm.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Some of us use that as a defense mechanism, okay.
Speaker 3 (37:50):
Which may have think but and I don't know what
the inflection point was for him, but a few months
into this he just stopped. He became extremely humble, very thoughtful.
He connected more with the religion, connected more with the prayer,
became a leader in the mignon and the prayer events
that get together in the Jewish community. He completely turned
it around and no one commented on it. There was
(38:11):
no big event announcing it wasn't a topic of discussion.
It just drew more people to them at He's one
of my abs with best friends and I love spending
time with them and just reflecting on this kind of
arc or who recently made me realize that's really encouraging.
If I'm ever realizing I'm kind of obnoxious or regrading,
and I'm ever worried about it, you can just do
things differently. People respond like think trou The last thing
(38:33):
I'll say related to this is there's again Jordan Peterson
a really good insight that he has about child development
because he has a lot of work on the development
of children psychologically. So his insight is that if a
child doesn't warn the skills to be engaging with others socially,
by the time they're wor right to give and to
take how to work with other people, it is an
(38:54):
absolute disability for them because other kids will not want
to engage with them, so they can't learn from engaging
with the kids They want to press the their relationships,
and also as importantly, they will not have adults who
are interested in them. We all know the kids in
our lives, not even related to us, but community members
or nieces or nephews, the ones who are a joy
to spend time with. What do we want to do?
What are we drawn to do to teach them, to educate,
(39:16):
to develop them. We take an interest in and we
want them to succeed for the sheer joy of doing it.
But we all know the kids who are creating annoying
them not And what do we do We pull await,
will be polite to them, to their pers We're not
going to be jerks, but we're not going to invest
in them. That doesn't really change. Over time, you're a
person who is enjoyable and humble and likable and all
(39:37):
these normal things people will be investing in you will
get so much more out of there. So any time
in all Hypernipe been unhappy, it's because ever realized I've
been acting less attractively and I've been hurting our relationships.
That is the best thing you can do for yourself
is work on that.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
I absolutely love that. Thank you so much for coming on.
Jacob William Roth, You're fantastic. I really enjoyed this conversation.
Check out Dylan log group. They're doing just such phenomenal work.
I'm so impressed all the time whenever I hear anything
you guys are up to. Thanks again for coming on
and say hi to abiroths for me, Shadre, thank you, Kerl.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Thank you so much for joining us on the Carol
Markowitz Show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
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