In this milestone 200th episode of The Karol Markowicz Show, Karol sits down with Eugene Kontorovich, professor at George Mason Law and senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom. Eugene shares his remarkable journey from Soviet immigrant to influential legal scholar, reflecting on his early start in journalism, his path to academia, and his work shaping U.S. policy on Israel and international institutions like the UN. The conversation dives into his optimism and concerns for the future of the Jewish people, the challenges of preserving sovereignty, and the importance of translating big ideas into actionable policies. Eugene also offers personal reflections, from career advice to the value of yoga and detachment in daily life.
Follow Clay & Buck on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/clayandbuck
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome back to the Carol Marko Wood Show on iHeartRadio.
My guest today is Eugene Kantarovitch, Professor at George Mason
Law and Senior Research Fellow at the Margaret Thatcher Center
for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
So nice to have you on, Eugene.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Thank you, Caro. And I love how you say my name.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Did I do it right?
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I felt like I, you know, I had to do
the Russian pronunciation. You and I obviously have one or
two things in common. We were both born in the
Soviet Union and got out of there as fast as
we could.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
So something about books the New York Post at some point.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Oh yeah, I mean I continue to write a column
for them, and I know you write for them as well.
Tell me about your journey to get to this thing
of ours that we do with this public living and pontificating.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Okay, so I got to that journey pretty early. So
I was born in the Soviet Union and came when
I was a little child. I was naturalized in Media
County Courthouse outside of Philadelphia when I was ten years old.
Still have a memorable experience. Grew up in the suburbs,
the normal kind of stuff was always interested in writing
(01:18):
and journalism, and I think when I was fourteen, I
took I took a train and rode my bicycle into
the offices of the Princeton Packet, which was the Princeton
local newspaper, and asked for a job, and remarkably I
(01:41):
got one.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Really at fourteen.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
They were like, okay, yeah, like a summer internship. It
was fine, impressive, but I was very aggressive and I
wanted to write articles, and so I pushed my wife
kind of into that. And then I got noticed through
a secuitous route a man who became a great friend
of mine, Seth Lipsky, who hired me to work at
(02:05):
the Forward when I was fifteen, and I'll start working.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Are you working at the Forward at fifteen?
Speaker 3 (02:11):
What is that? I was? I was a very cocky
and I was a very kid. So there's there's an
amazing scene in Yersy Kazinsky's in the book version, in
the Peter Sellers version of Yeersy Kazinsky's being there where
Peter Sellers is this either badly artistic or retarded man
(02:34):
who grows up a very sheltered life. He's a gardener
for probably his his father, and then he's thrust into
the world and doesn't really understand anything, but by being
very simple and offering lots of gardening metaphors, he rises
to the top of Washington politics. And in the last scene,
he is taking a walk and he gets to a
(02:55):
pond and he just continues to walk across it, and
it's a metaphor for how he walks across the sun
by simply his unawareness. So I was unaware of what else.
I started writing for the Wall Street Journal, and then
I interned there, and then I worked for the New
York Post for colde So I started writing and publishing
(03:16):
newspapers quite early. My father was a professor, so always
wanted to be a professor. Also, I became a professor,
and then I continued writing, and then I kind of
started combining things, and some of the you know, topics
I started doing academic work on happened to be a
public interest and so that's I never really intended to
do this, But.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
How do you end up a law professor from that?
Speaker 3 (03:38):
So then I wanted to do I always wanted to
be a professor because I wanted some kind of deeper
body of knowledge. My father was a professor that seemed
like a nice life, and I wanted something kind of
that seemed to allow for leisure and a little stress
Like writing about the Israeli conflict turns out calm work, right,
(04:01):
So I went to law school and then embarked upon
the path of being a leagan academic. So I started
teaching at George Mason that I went to Chicago and Northwestern,
been around.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
So what kind of work do you do at the
Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom for Heritage. What's the senior
research fellow there all about?
Speaker 3 (04:22):
So I think every every researcher got to make their
own portfolio. But my work focuses both kind of two areas,
the US Israel relationship, which I think benefits of the United
States a great deal, and also reclaiming sovereignty for the
(04:44):
United States by pushing back on dysfunctional international institutions like
the UN, but also maybe like the ICC other examples.
So you know, there's different models. Will think tank. I'm
not interested in just thinking in a tank. I could
do that as a academic, sure, So we try to
come up with policies to inform our nation's policy.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Maker, to advance the arguments really, but.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Also to translate the ideas. So I come on, in
ideas you get like as an academic, but to translate
them into actionable policies.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
I saw you post recently about how the UN and
the US continually funding the UN is like the antithesis
of America. First, I think that's one hundred percent correct,
of course, But why do you feel like not a
lot of people are making that argument? Why even the
American firsters are sort of like, well.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
The UN said the UN.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Does you know, how come that's not a more widespread
thought cause I.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Don't want to psychoanalyse.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Psychoanalyze.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Come on, yeah, if you truly believe in MAGA and
you're skeptical of US overseas enterprises. So today I happened
to be posting today specifically about something very timely, UNIFIL,
which is a UN peacekeeping mission, and UN peacekeeping was
supposed to be the glory of the UN. They were
originally supposed to have these armies under their control, like
(06:10):
real UN armies, which would go and stop wars on
behalf of the UN. It turns out nobody really wants
to die in someone's complete strangers war, and that didn't
really no one wants to give the troops to this,
so that didn't really happen. But UNIFIL is like the
least maga thing ever it is. The US provides twenty
(06:31):
eight percent of the budget, more than any other country,
so they're paying the salaries of Chinese troops, French troops,
and they were supposed to disarm hes Bla. That was
kind of their original that was their mandate. Instead, has
bar amassed hundreds of thousands of missiles and started launching
them in Israel from positions based almost always right next
to UNIFIL posts. So UNIFL is kind of like Lebanon,
(06:54):
except for more deliberate and it costs hundreds of millions
of dollars of US tax payafons with US in between
letting Hesbalah set up camp next to their positions. Uh.
They also teach gender integration classes for the living owned forces,
which is a laugh. We don't get to make money
(07:15):
many jokes in this field, subtle.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
That's a last.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
The So there's a country where they can't even integrate
like the Shia and the Sunni, and they're going to
do so that's that's it. But even here, you know,
so so we're hoping that President Trump will veto it
because it's actually an area where the US can just
kill the mission. But the UN has created this amazing
institutional permanence, that is to say, succeed inertia is the
(07:42):
UN's superpower. And it's both too big to fail, to
bureaucratic for anyone truly to comprehend, and created to be
almost immune to reform. So so I think maybe one
other the one reason I think maybe some of America
first people don't talk about as much as maybe they
should Senator to Michael Leader does by the way, Sure, yeah,
(08:05):
is because there's almost like a despair, like it's like
it's inevitable. Another you know, another reason is because it
kind of tries to be it's below the radar, and
which we lose our sovereignty and spend off funds on this.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
What other path do you think you would have taken,
if not into public policy, into writing, had you're not
gotten the job at fourteen and you hadn't metzet Levski,
what would a plan be for Eugene look like?
Speaker 3 (08:34):
I think I would have been some kind of academic.
I had all sorts of academic interests earlier in life.
I was interested in Roman history, art criticism, economics. But
my father explained to me when I was in college
and thinking about graduate school, so that while I might
not mind eating last night's pizzas now with a whole
(08:58):
bunch of rooms right point, either I or my wife
or my kids would.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Resent on something more than that.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Yeah, don't go to the path of the art historian.
And I really admire I'm for telling you that because
of my he had the presence of mind not just
to completely panic and said, because that's that will be
clearly a nightmare scenario.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
But that's that's actually very Soviet, didn't wouldn't you say?
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Like I, I definitely tell my kids, you know, when
they propose various future career paths for themselves, I remind
them of how expensive they are right now and how
that will only grow and things like that. But also,
you know, in the last few years there's been this
whole discussion about prestige and all the best you know,
colleges and elite and all that, and for ex Soviet,
(09:54):
for me, I don't care about elite.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
I care about them, you know, making money.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
That's the that's the thinking, that's what I.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Was raised with.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Who cares about who thinks you're a lead or the
prestigious college you went to. I don't want a prestigious
college degree. And then you're, you know, making twenty two
thousand dollars a year like that, that does not.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Mean meaning to me to a job, right, right?
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Do you feel like that's the kind of background that
we were raised with or did you get.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Something parents value and sort of success and excellence kind
of of any kind. But also, yes, you had to
you know, pay to pay your bills and take care
of yourself. It's clearly important the equation. Yes, and so
definitely in the Soviet Union it wasn't so much about month.
(10:45):
There was a greater intertwinement between because prestige only came
from the party, and you know, prestige and jobs went
hand in hand because there wasn't so much salary bariers.
But so there was that was more tied to success.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
But it was still like what you could get.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Yes, you made the same salary, but what your salary
could buy it was different. We're going to take a
quick break and be right back on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
So what do you worry about? What is on your mind?
As a concern.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
You know, I'm a normal person. I think I worry
about normal things, money, health, kids, whatever, all the extendard package.
But I think my most particular concern, which I've had
for quite a long time, bothers me a great deal
and has guided I think many of my actions is
(11:42):
I have a historical approach. I always have a kind
of sense of where we stand in history, and we
weven the best time to be a Jew, I think
in thousands of years, and I have a dim conception
of what it was like during the uh Asmane and
(12:04):
Commonwealth or the Dividic Kingdom. You know, it was probably
pretty great in one sense, but like on the other hand,
the sanitary conditions were kind of like everywhere else. So really,
this is maybe the best time drew ever, the safest time,
the most stable time and uh And in addition, we
(12:24):
have access to our ancestral lan in a way that
we're in and that is such a small little filament
of history and it's completely game changing philosophically. How how
it makes us feel. You know, when you read the
medieval anti Semitic writings, Yeah, Martin, they're all the rains
(12:46):
now vanishing position in Martin yeah, very popular staples. People
getting back. That's part of getting back to the roots.
You know, protocols of the others of Zion is like
to modern uh. One of the things Marvin Luther would
would complain myself. Look, the Jews have lost their land.
(13:07):
They've been exiled. That proves they have lost. They have
been unchosen, and they're kind of annoying because it's like
they're like a loser in a game who refuses to
admit lost. That's just annoying. And I understand that point is, Look,
they've like lost, and like they still continue to say, wait,
game's not over. And it turns out the games not over.
(13:29):
So we live in a time where it's much easier,
I think to be. And my fear of getting back
to that is the God. It's almost too fearful to say,
God forbid. My grandkids will would look at me one
day and say, grandfather, you had all this and you
lost it. You didn't leave it to us. You could
go pray in the tomb of the patriarchs in Hevron.
(13:52):
And what do we have. We have a little ghetto
around Tel Aviv, right, you can travel the whole card.
What do we have and already. You know, we see that,
you know, I yeah people, you know, I know people
who used to be able to go to Bethlehem. I
know people who lived in Gaza, right and you know,
we don't have that anymore to pass down. So that's
(14:14):
that's a tremendous fear, and I feel we need to
do everything we can to to pass tho down.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
It's interesting because you started kind of an optimistic high
with things are as good as can be for Jews
right now, even though it doesn't always feel like it
actually feels like a very dark moment for Jews in
the world, but it actually is the strongest we've ever been.
We've never had the ability to defend ourselves the way
we do in so many ways, not just in Israel,
(14:45):
but also I feel like in the United States, being armed,
et cetera. But then you ended sort of on a
pessimistic what you worry about note where you feel like
we could lose it all and we need to be
more careful.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
The question was worded that way, what do I word so?
But I think that's they go together because we're at
a high point. You know, I can see more downs
than ups. So people often ask M I give talks
about Israel, international law, explain why Judaan and scenario of
the West Bank aren't occupied, to which offer common answer?
(15:22):
You know, it's very convincing. It's very convincing. What's the
solutions of the conflict? Then everyone wants a solution. When
you look at history, you should first adopt a hippocratic
approach and first do no harm. And when you are
like in the top point zero one percent of historical
well being, we can see more ways down than up.
(15:43):
And it is truly a messianic sensibility that thinks you're
going to break through the ceiling of history and create
a new, as yet unseen up.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
What advice would you give your sixteen year old self
having to do this all over again.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Ah, the don't throw away the vinyl m.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Your kids might be into it someday. My teenager now is.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
We gotten a turntable? When my daughter said to me
that vinyl stuff people used to going on, I have
that vinyl stuff.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
I add a lot of that vinyl stuff at a
radio show in high school. Don't get rid of the vinyl.
You know, it's it's hard not to be a horder
when you think about how these things are. You never
know what the wrong thing is, so that's that's kind
of flip flip advice. More seriously, I think I would
have told myself to be a little bit less self
(16:44):
satisfied and small way.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
It served you so well, you've got to walk into
jobs at like fourteen and sixteen.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
I think it was probably a double edged sword. I
think there were pluses and minuses, but you know, just
concept sure, I think I would have seen the world
more a little bit more clearly, So that would be
one very major piece of advice. And I would you know,
I read a huge amount, but I would tell myself
(17:15):
to read even more because when you have kids it's impossible. Again,
but you got to do everything to read every book
before twenty five because then it's going to be recollecting.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Then my kids are a little older than yours, I
can tell you you're absolutely right reading. My reading went
off a cliff after I had kids, but it picks
back up again. They hit a certain age where they
don't need to be taken to the bathroom and you
don't need to be constantly with them, and you get
to sit back and watch them hang out and you
get to read again.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
It's quite a nice thing.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Well, I've loved this conversation. This is actually my two
hundredth episode and I have yeah, two hundred.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
I have questions that I ask all of my guests,
as my listeners know, and the most popular question and
the one I always end with, is leave us here
with your best piece of advice for my listeners on
how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Okay, so first of all, I just want to say
deal listeners of the Carell markets. I'm only answering this
question because I like con and she asked the question
on her show. I would never presume around telling people
whatever what is good in life or how to lead
(18:30):
their life. So I'm only answering because I'm being asked,
not because I think I have any particular to share what.
I think this works very well for me, and I
think I've gotten reasonably good at it is too. That's
(18:55):
what's a good way to put this h To not
be upset and re act to things. Really, you know,
other people's behaviors out of your control. If you're dealing
with difficult people, it's almost certainly because they're having a
very bad day in some way. You know, maybe they're
having a fight with their wife, or maybe they're having
a fight with the boss. Everyone's going through some kind
(19:18):
of difficulty, and people are going to be difficult. And
the only reason that we feel friction as we go
through life and encounter with these situations is because we
had a differential expectation. What's the basis for that expectation.
So cultivating a kind of detachment this is I think
(19:42):
very helpful. And I do yo golf, which I find
providing a great assistance.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Wouldn't have expected that.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
A lot of people say that I'm a very I
go to a teacher who was very, very serious, and
it's a staple of my of my life faction the well.
And I think there's a very fundamental insight in the yogur.
The control of the mind is kind of essential to
(20:10):
emotional or mental quality. But you can't have control of
the mind without achieving a certain control of the lumberous
vessel in which it finds itself. So a lot of
people want to like just dive in and meditate and
get enlightenment, but they're doing this in this machine that's
making all those noise, which meant to quiet down first,
(20:30):
but in general to don't take things personally. I think
that would be the In short, don't take things personally
and really tell yourself that you know something should have
to really rise to some kind of horrible moment, which
thank god we don't encounter in daily life to justify
(20:51):
ruining one's enjoyment of life.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Yeah, don't ruin your mood for strangers on the internet,
for sure.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Thank you so much much.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
He is Eugene Kantorovic. Check him out on x follow him,
read his work. He's really fantastic. Thank you so much
for coming on, Eugene.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Thank you great
Welcome back to the Carol Marko Wood Show on iHeartRadio.
My guest today is Eugene Kantarovitch, Professor at George Mason
Law and Senior Research Fellow at the Margaret Thatcher Center
for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
So nice to have you on, Eugene.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Thank you, Caro. And I love how you say my name.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Did I do it right?
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I felt like I, you know, I had to do
the Russian pronunciation. You and I obviously have one or
two things in common. We were both born in the
Soviet Union and got out of there as fast as
we could.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
So something about books the New York Post at some point.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Oh yeah, I mean I continue to write a column
for them, and I know you write for them as well.
Tell me about your journey to get to this thing
of ours that we do with this public living and pontificating.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Okay, so I got to that journey pretty early. So
I was born in the Soviet Union and came when
I was a little child. I was naturalized in Media
County Courthouse outside of Philadelphia when I was ten years old.
Still have a memorable experience. Grew up in the suburbs,
the normal kind of stuff was always interested in writing
(01:18):
and journalism, and I think when I was fourteen, I
took I took a train and rode my bicycle into
the offices of the Princeton Packet, which was the Princeton
local newspaper, and asked for a job, and remarkably I
(01:41):
got one.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Really at fourteen.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
They were like, okay, yeah, like a summer internship. It
was fine, impressive, but I was very aggressive and I
wanted to write articles, and so I pushed my wife
kind of into that. And then I got noticed through
a secuitous route a man who became a great friend
of mine, Seth Lipsky, who hired me to work at
(02:05):
the Forward when I was fifteen, and I'll start working.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Are you working at the Forward at fifteen?
Speaker 3 (02:11):
What is that? I was? I was a very cocky
and I was a very kid. So there's there's an
amazing scene in Yersy Kazinsky's in the book version, in
the Peter Sellers version of Yeersy Kazinsky's being there where
Peter Sellers is this either badly artistic or retarded man
(02:34):
who grows up a very sheltered life. He's a gardener
for probably his his father, and then he's thrust into
the world and doesn't really understand anything, but by being
very simple and offering lots of gardening metaphors, he rises
to the top of Washington politics. And in the last scene,
he is taking a walk and he gets to a
(02:55):
pond and he just continues to walk across it, and
it's a metaphor for how he walks across the sun
by simply his unawareness. So I was unaware of what else.
I started writing for the Wall Street Journal, and then
I interned there, and then I worked for the New
York Post for colde So I started writing and publishing
(03:16):
newspapers quite early. My father was a professor, so always
wanted to be a professor. Also, I became a professor,
and then I continued writing, and then I kind of
started combining things, and some of the you know, topics
I started doing academic work on happened to be a
public interest and so that's I never really intended to
do this, But.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
How do you end up a law professor from that?
Speaker 3 (03:38):
So then I wanted to do I always wanted to
be a professor because I wanted some kind of deeper
body of knowledge. My father was a professor that seemed
like a nice life, and I wanted something kind of
that seemed to allow for leisure and a little stress
Like writing about the Israeli conflict turns out calm work, right,
(04:01):
So I went to law school and then embarked upon
the path of being a leagan academic. So I started
teaching at George Mason that I went to Chicago and Northwestern,
been around.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
So what kind of work do you do at the
Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom for Heritage. What's the senior
research fellow there all about?
Speaker 3 (04:22):
So I think every every researcher got to make their
own portfolio. But my work focuses both kind of two areas,
the US Israel relationship, which I think benefits of the United
States a great deal, and also reclaiming sovereignty for the
(04:44):
United States by pushing back on dysfunctional international institutions like
the UN, but also maybe like the ICC other examples.
So you know, there's different models. Will think tank. I'm
not interested in just thinking in a tank. I could
do that as a academic, sure, So we try to
come up with policies to inform our nation's policy.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Maker, to advance the arguments really, but.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Also to translate the ideas. So I come on, in
ideas you get like as an academic, but to translate
them into actionable policies.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
I saw you post recently about how the UN and
the US continually funding the UN is like the antithesis
of America. First, I think that's one hundred percent correct,
of course, But why do you feel like not a
lot of people are making that argument? Why even the
American firsters are sort of like, well.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
The UN said the UN.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Does you know, how come that's not a more widespread
thought cause I.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Don't want to psychoanalyse.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Psychoanalyze.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Come on, yeah, if you truly believe in MAGA and
you're skeptical of US overseas enterprises. So today I happened
to be posting today specifically about something very timely, UNIFIL,
which is a UN peacekeeping mission, and UN peacekeeping was
supposed to be the glory of the UN. They were
originally supposed to have these armies under their control, like
(06:10):
real UN armies, which would go and stop wars on
behalf of the UN. It turns out nobody really wants
to die in someone's complete strangers war, and that didn't
really no one wants to give the troops to this,
so that didn't really happen. But UNIFIL is like the
least maga thing ever it is. The US provides twenty
(06:31):
eight percent of the budget, more than any other country,
so they're paying the salaries of Chinese troops, French troops,
and they were supposed to disarm hes Bla. That was
kind of their original that was their mandate. Instead, has
bar amassed hundreds of thousands of missiles and started launching
them in Israel from positions based almost always right next
to UNIFIL posts. So UNIFL is kind of like Lebanon,
(06:54):
except for more deliberate and it costs hundreds of millions
of dollars of US tax payafons with US in between
letting Hesbalah set up camp next to their positions. Uh.
They also teach gender integration classes for the living owned forces,
which is a laugh. We don't get to make money
(07:15):
many jokes in this field, subtle.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
That's a last.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
The So there's a country where they can't even integrate
like the Shia and the Sunni, and they're going to
do so that's that's it. But even here, you know,
so so we're hoping that President Trump will veto it
because it's actually an area where the US can just
kill the mission. But the UN has created this amazing
institutional permanence, that is to say, succeed inertia is the
(07:42):
UN's superpower. And it's both too big to fail, to
bureaucratic for anyone truly to comprehend, and created to be
almost immune to reform. So so I think maybe one
other the one reason I think maybe some of America
first people don't talk about as much as maybe they
should Senator to Michael Leader does by the way, Sure, yeah,
(08:05):
is because there's almost like a despair, like it's like
it's inevitable. Another you know, another reason is because it
kind of tries to be it's below the radar, and
which we lose our sovereignty and spend off funds on this.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
What other path do you think you would have taken,
if not into public policy, into writing, had you're not
gotten the job at fourteen and you hadn't metzet Levski,
what would a plan be for Eugene look like?
Speaker 3 (08:34):
I think I would have been some kind of academic.
I had all sorts of academic interests earlier in life.
I was interested in Roman history, art criticism, economics. But
my father explained to me when I was in college
and thinking about graduate school, so that while I might
not mind eating last night's pizzas now with a whole
(08:58):
bunch of rooms right point, either I or my wife
or my kids would.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Resent on something more than that.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Yeah, don't go to the path of the art historian.
And I really admire I'm for telling you that because
of my he had the presence of mind not just
to completely panic and said, because that's that will be
clearly a nightmare scenario.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
But that's that's actually very Soviet, didn't wouldn't you say?
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Like I, I definitely tell my kids, you know, when
they propose various future career paths for themselves, I remind
them of how expensive they are right now and how
that will only grow and things like that. But also,
you know, in the last few years there's been this
whole discussion about prestige and all the best you know,
colleges and elite and all that, and for ex Soviet,
(09:54):
for me, I don't care about elite.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
I care about them, you know, making money.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
That's the that's the thinking, that's what I.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Was raised with.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Who cares about who thinks you're a lead or the
prestigious college you went to. I don't want a prestigious
college degree. And then you're, you know, making twenty two
thousand dollars a year like that, that does not.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Mean meaning to me to a job, right, right?
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Do you feel like that's the kind of background that
we were raised with or did you get.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Something parents value and sort of success and excellence kind
of of any kind. But also, yes, you had to
you know, pay to pay your bills and take care
of yourself. It's clearly important the equation. Yes, and so
definitely in the Soviet Union it wasn't so much about month.
(10:45):
There was a greater intertwinement between because prestige only came
from the party, and you know, prestige and jobs went
hand in hand because there wasn't so much salary bariers.
But so there was that was more tied to success.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
But it was still like what you could get.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Yes, you made the same salary, but what your salary
could buy it was different. We're going to take a
quick break and be right back on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
So what do you worry about? What is on your mind?
As a concern.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
You know, I'm a normal person. I think I worry
about normal things, money, health, kids, whatever, all the extendard package.
But I think my most particular concern, which I've had
for quite a long time, bothers me a great deal
and has guided I think many of my actions is
(11:42):
I have a historical approach. I always have a kind
of sense of where we stand in history, and we
weven the best time to be a Jew, I think
in thousands of years, and I have a dim conception
of what it was like during the uh Asmane and
(12:04):
Commonwealth or the Dividic Kingdom. You know, it was probably
pretty great in one sense, but like on the other hand,
the sanitary conditions were kind of like everywhere else. So really,
this is maybe the best time drew ever, the safest time,
the most stable time and uh And in addition, we
(12:24):
have access to our ancestral lan in a way that
we're in and that is such a small little filament
of history and it's completely game changing philosophically. How how
it makes us feel. You know, when you read the
medieval anti Semitic writings, Yeah, Martin, they're all the rains
(12:46):
now vanishing position in Martin yeah, very popular staples. People
getting back. That's part of getting back to the roots.
You know, protocols of the others of Zion is like
to modern uh. One of the things Marvin Luther would
would complain myself. Look, the Jews have lost their land.
(13:07):
They've been exiled. That proves they have lost. They have
been unchosen, and they're kind of annoying because it's like
they're like a loser in a game who refuses to
admit lost. That's just annoying. And I understand that point is, Look,
they've like lost, and like they still continue to say, wait,
game's not over. And it turns out the games not over.
(13:29):
So we live in a time where it's much easier,
I think to be. And my fear of getting back
to that is the God. It's almost too fearful to say,
God forbid. My grandkids will would look at me one
day and say, grandfather, you had all this and you
lost it. You didn't leave it to us. You could
go pray in the tomb of the patriarchs in Hevron.
(13:52):
And what do we have. We have a little ghetto
around Tel Aviv, right, you can travel the whole card.
What do we have and already. You know, we see that,
you know, I yeah people, you know, I know people
who used to be able to go to Bethlehem. I
know people who lived in Gaza, right and you know,
we don't have that anymore to pass down. So that's
(14:14):
that's a tremendous fear, and I feel we need to
do everything we can to to pass tho down.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
It's interesting because you started kind of an optimistic high
with things are as good as can be for Jews
right now, even though it doesn't always feel like it
actually feels like a very dark moment for Jews in
the world, but it actually is the strongest we've ever been.
We've never had the ability to defend ourselves the way
we do in so many ways, not just in Israel,
(14:45):
but also I feel like in the United States, being armed,
et cetera. But then you ended sort of on a
pessimistic what you worry about note where you feel like
we could lose it all and we need to be
more careful.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
The question was worded that way, what do I word so?
But I think that's they go together because we're at
a high point. You know, I can see more downs
than ups. So people often ask M I give talks
about Israel, international law, explain why Judaan and scenario of
the West Bank aren't occupied, to which offer common answer?
(15:22):
You know, it's very convincing. It's very convincing. What's the
solutions of the conflict? Then everyone wants a solution. When
you look at history, you should first adopt a hippocratic
approach and first do no harm. And when you are
like in the top point zero one percent of historical
well being, we can see more ways down than up.
(15:43):
And it is truly a messianic sensibility that thinks you're
going to break through the ceiling of history and create
a new, as yet unseen up.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
What advice would you give your sixteen year old self
having to do this all over again.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Ah, the don't throw away the vinyl m.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Your kids might be into it someday. My teenager now is.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
We gotten a turntable? When my daughter said to me
that vinyl stuff people used to going on, I have
that vinyl stuff.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
I add a lot of that vinyl stuff at a
radio show in high school. Don't get rid of the vinyl.
You know, it's it's hard not to be a horder
when you think about how these things are. You never
know what the wrong thing is, so that's that's kind
of flip flip advice. More seriously, I think I would
have told myself to be a little bit less self
(16:44):
satisfied and small way.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
It served you so well, you've got to walk into
jobs at like fourteen and sixteen.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
I think it was probably a double edged sword. I
think there were pluses and minuses, but you know, just
concept sure, I think I would have seen the world
more a little bit more clearly, So that would be
one very major piece of advice. And I would you know,
I read a huge amount, but I would tell myself
(17:15):
to read even more because when you have kids it's impossible. Again,
but you got to do everything to read every book
before twenty five because then it's going to be recollecting.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Then my kids are a little older than yours, I
can tell you you're absolutely right reading. My reading went
off a cliff after I had kids, but it picks
back up again. They hit a certain age where they
don't need to be taken to the bathroom and you
don't need to be constantly with them, and you get
to sit back and watch them hang out and you
get to read again.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
It's quite a nice thing.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Well, I've loved this conversation. This is actually my two
hundredth episode and I have yeah, two hundred.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
I have questions that I ask all of my guests,
as my listeners know, and the most popular question and
the one I always end with, is leave us here
with your best piece of advice for my listeners on
how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Okay, so first of all, I just want to say
deal listeners of the Carell markets. I'm only answering this
question because I like con and she asked the question
on her show. I would never presume around telling people
whatever what is good in life or how to lead
(18:30):
their life. So I'm only answering because I'm being asked,
not because I think I have any particular to share what.
I think this works very well for me, and I
think I've gotten reasonably good at it is too. That's
(18:55):
what's a good way to put this h To not
be upset and re act to things. Really, you know,
other people's behaviors out of your control. If you're dealing
with difficult people, it's almost certainly because they're having a
very bad day in some way. You know, maybe they're
having a fight with their wife, or maybe they're having
a fight with the boss. Everyone's going through some kind
(19:18):
of difficulty, and people are going to be difficult. And
the only reason that we feel friction as we go
through life and encounter with these situations is because we
had a differential expectation. What's the basis for that expectation.
So cultivating a kind of detachment this is I think
(19:42):
very helpful. And I do yo golf, which I find
providing a great assistance.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Wouldn't have expected that.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
A lot of people say that I'm a very I
go to a teacher who was very, very serious, and
it's a staple of my of my life faction the well.
And I think there's a very fundamental insight in the yogur.
The control of the mind is kind of essential to
(20:10):
emotional or mental quality. But you can't have control of
the mind without achieving a certain control of the lumberous
vessel in which it finds itself. So a lot of
people want to like just dive in and meditate and
get enlightenment, but they're doing this in this machine that's
making all those noise, which meant to quiet down first,
(20:30):
but in general to don't take things personally. I think
that would be the In short, don't take things personally
and really tell yourself that you know something should have
to really rise to some kind of horrible moment, which
thank god we don't encounter in daily life to justify
(20:51):
ruining one's enjoyment of life.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Yeah, don't ruin your mood for strangers on the internet,
for sure.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Thank you so much much.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
He is Eugene Kantorovic. Check him out on x follow him,
read his work. He's really fantastic. Thank you so much
for coming on, Eugene.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Thank you great
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
Hosts And Creators
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
Show Links
WebsiteNewsletterPopular Podcasts
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com