The Future of History with Bronze Age Pervert

Bronze Age Pervert (BAP) joins Tom Rowsell to discuss ancient history and how the heroic ideals of the past can shape our future. This is your chance to hear BAP’s unfiltered thoughts on the classical antiquity that inspires his philosophy, from the vitality of the Bronze Age to the inspiration of the Renaissance. We also talk about Plato and religion and in the second half we also discuss the misinterpretation in population geneticists of ancient cultures and elite dominance models of cultural replacement.

BAP's podcast: https://bronzeagepervert.gumroad.com/l/BronzeAgePervert
Starting Heathenry course: https://startingheathenry.thinkific.com/
STJ links: https://linktr.ee/SurvivetheJive

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to another episode of Jive Talk. Today, I've got
a guest who needs a little introduction. Bronze Age Pervert,
a renowned author and Internet troll and an admirer of
ancient aesthetics.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome on the show, Bat.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
Thank you for having me on. Tom. It's a pleasure
to talk to you.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Again and to you. Yeah, I was a guest on
your excellent podcast Caribbean Rhythms a couple of years ago.
I think it was about time we get you on
here on Drive Talk to have a talk about what
I think is very central to your like ethos, including
your first book. Your first book, Bronze Age Mindset is

(00:51):
obviously the title reveals that there is a historical basis
to the philosophy your spouse, but also, like you're on
your cast Caribbean Rhythms, you've frequently go you talk about
areas of particularly ancient history, but sometimes more recent history
as well. So I'd like to know a bit just
about what.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
For well, I remember even maybe twelve thirteen. Maybe you
also have similar memories from even your earliest boyhood. Maybe
you've always believed more or less the things you believe now.
I for me, that's always been the case, and I

(01:34):
look back history examples of human greatness. I was amazed
when I read ancient stories, especially from ancient Greece Rome.
Then I read some of Viking sagas with my teens,
but the amazing feats of the great men of antiquity,

(01:56):
as told, for example, in plutarch Parallel Lives, it was
just so awfully different from everyone I knew around me.
I don't know if people understand that before internet, it's
not even before internet whatever in the early two thousands,
but before let's say twenty ten, twenty eleven, it was

(02:17):
almost impossible, at least in the United States to meet
anyone who thought like me. I really never met anyone
in real life who thought like me. And it was
only in reading historical that I saw examples, I mean
historical epics, stories, histories of antiquity, from Herodotus to synd These, Crew, Tarket, etc.

(02:44):
That I saw examples of human spirit and totally different
way of seeing the world. And it is in that
that's been my primary inspiration and focus. I look at
history as a way to take inspiration how can and
I don't mean for myself, for you, or for people
we know, but in general going forward, how can possibilities

(03:08):
of human greatness be reborn in our time? This my
primary focus in looking at history, because in our time
possibilities of action and as well freedom of thought ideas
are increasingly constrained. And now it seems there is a change.

(03:30):
But I think the recent what happened on x or Twitter,
or the recent elevation of the recent liberation from censorship,
let's say, is illusory and temporary, and you still need
to look to antiquity, to the Renaissance and such. Those

(03:50):
two eras, for me in particular, were important to see
different type of man is possible, a different type of life,
and that's been my primary interest in history.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
It's interesting you bring up the Renaissance because that was
the time. Although it's seen as a time of progress,
of progression and a change in the Western civilization's direction,
it's also a time of looking back, of rediscovering the
past through history. Yes, and I suppose that's sort of
what you're advocating for. And it's when you talk about

(04:29):
rediscovering great men. It's a cliche to say, you know,
Caesar was inspired by Alexander and Napoleon was inspired by Caesar.
So it's clear that great men are often drawn to
the greatness of the past as an inspiration for the
for what to how to go forwards. So where does,
when does that sort of looking to the past become

(04:53):
a conservatism or a kind of inertia or static conservatism
that prevents dynamism of a vital civilization.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
Well, I'm glad you bring up the Renaissance. It's a
perfect example of what we're talking about. Because let's say
you pick up Machiavelli at the beginning of his Discourses,
he says something like a lot of people are trying
to copy, and not copy especially, but revitalize, bring back
ancient forms of seeing and thinking in the arts, and

(05:25):
trying to reproduce ancient sculptures, ancient visual arts, and even
improve upon them. But nobody is doing it in the
realms of morality and politics, that not trying to take
lessons from the remote antiquity and apply to our own time.
And that's what I'm going to do in this book,
the Discourses, i will study Livy's history of Rome, and

(05:48):
I'll see how it's what lessons we can take from
it to our time, what inspiration we can take for
not just you know, how to live your own life
as an individual. That's not I think primarily he's concerned,
you know, twenty one lessons from Homer about how to

(06:09):
improve your interior design business. This, this is not Macavelli's concern.
It's more, how can we found new modes and orders,
a new foundation for a new type of state, a
new type of life, and be inspired by what happened
with Rome in that case, for example. So I think
that is a right approach to history. On the other hand,

(06:33):
there is what you just refer to using the weight
of the past. It bears down on you so much
that you can't create anymore. Which is why, since you know,
we talk about Italy. Now you go to Italy, all
the almost all the great new innovations of let's say,
since eighteen hundred nineteen hundred, happened in the north, in Piedmont,

(06:59):
in Turin, that was actually the place from which Italy,
the Italian state, was created and united in the eighteen sixties.
And you go to Piedmont, you go to Turin, it
feels in many ways very modern. I was walking around
the streets, and Nietzsche loved this city. I was thinking
he must love if he sees Chicago or New York,

(07:23):
it looks like a very prosperous nineteenth century industrial city.
And an Italian friend described this to me, says, in
Turin and Piedmont is where the weight of the past
was least felt. In the rest. You walk around, you
see these things that were built two thousand years ago
or more. You say, how can I ever equal this?

(07:44):
And it crushes your spirit in some way. Whereas all
the innovations seemed to come out of Piedmont. Of course
you could say they took inspiration from the past too,
but it wasn't in this inertia sense. And if you'd
like to talk about this some more, the problem of
history in regards to conservatism versus let's say, futurism, I

(08:06):
think Nietzsche has some quite profound thoughts on this. I
don't know if you want to go.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yes, I would like to.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
I think that's an interesting thing about the point about Piedmont,
and like the fact that it's a source of innovation
and it was modern I think. I mean, although I'm
sure Piedmont has its share of historical marvels as well,
but sure that the descent of Nietzsche into Turin reminds
me a lot of his own description of the character

(08:34):
of Zarathustra descending from that mountains, because he came He
did come down out of the mountains, right, Yes, in
a state of confusion. He wasn't in his best state
by then breaking down and crying and hugging a horse allegedly. Yes,
but what we could talk about that Nie thing. But
I also wanted to pick up on what you're saying
about your second.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
Book and Leap and why that will.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
Focus on Levy's history of Rome, like what is how
is that to be the starting point?

Speaker 3 (09:02):
So I'm sorry I should clarify. I don't know if
there was maybe the attack internet system. I love Lizzy,
but I meant that Machavelli's book his discourses, and not
the Princes but the Prince too. But in the maybe
I'm confusing the introductions of the two in one of them.
But in the Discourses he starts saying, you know, I

(09:25):
will folle, it's a discourses on Livy's history of Rome.
But if you read it's not He's not doing like
a book report or textual analysis. He has different short
chapters aphorisms really, in which he looks back at Livy's history,
and he takes he combines it with recent Florentine and
Italian history and European history, and he draws lessons from them.

(09:49):
I'm very interested in this. My second book, that's a
different matter. It will hopefully come out, I think will
come out later this year, hopefully by end of summer
of autumn, and it's different. It's not about this, But
I was referring to Macavelli's approach to history, which I

(10:09):
very much agree with. And look, since we're talking about
there is a famous Nietzsche passage. I will read a
little bit of Nietzsche if you don't mind, because it
bears directly on what we're talking about. In his book
Twilight of the Idols, there is it's called whispered to
the Conservatives. He says, what was not known formally, what

(10:33):
is known or might be known today. A reversion, a
return in any sensor degree is simply not possible. We
physiologists know that. Yet all priests and moralists have believed
the opposite. They wanted to take mankind back, to screw
it back to a former measure of virtue. Morality was
always a bed of procrusties. Even the politicians that ate

(10:53):
the preachers of virtue at this point today two there
are still parties whose dream it is that all things
might walk backwards like crabs. But no one is free
to be a crab. Nothing avails. One must go forward,
step by step further into decadence. That is my definition
of modern progress. One can check this development and does

(11:13):
dam up the generation, gather it and make it more
vehement and sudden. One can do no more. I've always
found this, And remember this is the thinker. Say what
you will about the modern interpretations, I mean contemporary interpretations
of him, but no one denied that, let's say, the
European what you'd call hard right far right from nineteen

(11:35):
hundred to nineteen forty was almost entirely Nietzsche, and a creation,
spiritual creation of Djday constantly referred to him, went back
to him. So that's a hard right thinker saying this,
what does that mean? I agree with that he was
opposed somewhat to the although sympathetic, he thought that conservatives'

(11:57):
reactionaries really very much which went the wrong way. And
his criticism actually of Plato and the Socratic moral schools
in antiquity is similar to what I just read now.
His main criticism of them is that they were kind
of conservative, reactionary antiquarians in their own time and in

(12:22):
an age of let's say, coming apart of decadence and
the generation of the ancient Greek word world, they were
trying to re establish or save an earlier version of virtue,
and that that didn't work. In fact, he thinks it
had long term catastrophic effects. But anyway, that passage I

(12:43):
just read, I don't know what you think about that.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
I think it's interesting.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
Yeah, I think there's a point to be made connected
back to what we were talking about the Renaissance before that.
I can't remember who I was, rich philosopher I was
reading it, But they argued, and I think correctly that
a lot of the like Western ideas of the ancient world,
the classical world, the Greeks and greg and Rome, is
based on assumptions during the Renaissance which underlie like humanism

(13:13):
and you know, like a lot of like modern liberal ideas,
and it sort of like projects onto the ancient world
a sort of it kind of idealized version of them
that wasn't really what they were about, because it was
more about like rejecting some of the prevailing norms of

(13:33):
medieval Europe and and and then going for the antithesis
and assuming that the ancient world was this is antithesis,
But I think it's it might be guan Ono I'm
thinking of wrote this argument, but I think it's true
that there was much more continuity with the medieval and
the classical than it's generally assumed, and a lot of
like the idea of although there were, like you know,

(13:55):
people say, like the freedom free like energetic sexuality depicted
in artwork in the classical art worker sculpture is just
not really present in the hymend lages as much, but
there were I think you've said on your podcast, like
the average medieval person was pretty hyper sexual, that there

(14:15):
was a lot of sexuality in medieval Europe, and people
were probably fucking more than they are now, to be honest.
So yeah, I think there's some misunderstandings there.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
One of my favorite things in regards to that, I
knew some English friends who maybe we talked about this
with the idea of merry Old England. That was actually
done away with by the Puritan takeover of England, but
before then it the English had a very different type
of morality in life. And one of my favorite details

(14:48):
is about the beer. The beer issue. You know about
this the fact that before, well before the Puritans, the
English drank ale and it was flavored with with gruet.
I don't know how you pronounce that with mix. Yes,
the mix of herbs has primarily but other herbs, and

(15:11):
beer was seen as a stimulant people had I won't
see orgies, but they had kind of jolly medieval rollicking parties.
And then the Puritans are the ones who introduced from
the continent the use of hops. Why because hops make
beer bitter and unpleasant, and at the same time they
are soporific. So beer now is associated with calming you

(15:31):
and putting you to sleep or something. But before it
was a stimulant. You know, so.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
Germany, the hops that came in from it was a
German foreign custom. In England, it was never a native
thing until until, as you say, it was like Protestant
Protestant connections with Germany. But I know, maybe interesting to
some as a related tidbit, when when coffee was first introduced,
the first some of the first coffee houses in Europe
besides Vienna, were in England. Uh, and they were copying,

(15:58):
you know, the Vienna copy them for the Turks. But
the previous to coffee, like the main drink had been ale,
that you would drink at breakfast or whatever it would
invigorate you, and that that stage in history al brewing
had been dominated by women. Actually, so it was the
ale wives were like had cornered the market, and they
released propaganda saying that coffee makes a man as barren

(16:22):
as the deserts whence it came, and implying that beer
made you virile and quite the reverse.

Speaker 3 (16:29):
Yes, I think this may be throughout. God, I'm complete
addicted to coffee, but I'd like to stop. But what
you were saying earlier about the Renaissance, it made me
think the men Palladio the architect very much today when
you see people attack modern decadence, modern art, modern so one,

(16:52):
and then they go and say, we should be reproducing
older classical styles which are beautiful, by which they mean
really nineteenth century or late nineteenth century styles which were
new at the time, by the way, But Palladio didn't.
He looked around. He saw he was, let's say, displeased

(17:14):
with general run of architecture of his time, and he
took inspiration from antiquity. But if you look at his buildings,
that not just reproductions of ancient Roman or Greek buildings.
He innovated. So this, I think perfect use. You look
back to the past, you see the beautiful ancient Greek,

(17:36):
ancient Roman architecture, but you don't reproduce it. You reinterpret
it for your own time, you revitalize it. That is
to me the wonderful looking back at history, the example
of Palladio and the arts, the same can be done.
Of course in politics and morality. It's not I'm going
to role play and re enact and copy and the

(17:56):
slave to history. You know.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
Yeah, I think the pre Raphelites are sort of like that,
like the arts and craft room and of Victorian times,
which it was medieval esque, but it wasn't like I mean,
the pre Raphelitic painting doesn't look like a medieval painting.
It's just inspired by it and it takes any direction.
Some people will still say it's kitsch, but I think
that's I think that's a bit too critical. I think
it's I don't think it's kitch. I think it's a
very interesting direction, and I mean the Neo Gothic in architecture,

(18:25):
I really love it. That is a bit more derivative,
but like the House, the Houses of Parliament in England
amazing building.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
And in Canada and North America.

Speaker 1 (18:36):
There was a lot of Neo Gothic and it was
basically just sort of building Gothic architecture from eight hundred
years previously, but on a larger scale, which is which
is an which is a new interpretation, like a skyscraper
with Gothic elements would is not purely medieval, but it
has that link to the past as athletics, which I
think would be natural.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
Would you agree, yes, of course there is a long
line of cultural commentators from everyone knows about Spangler. But
Paglia makes a similar point that the skyscrapers are natural
evolution of the medieval European Faustian spirit and they even

(19:17):
look like Sure, that would be that would be a
wonderful uh re update example of how history can revitalize
and inspire new creation. But it is this, to go
back to your initial question, it is this that concerned me.
How can new modes of life be reintroduced in our time?

(19:38):
When yes, you look around that everybody's uh a low man.
Everybody has petty desires? How do you how do you
escape that? And how can preconditions for the production of
culture in the broader sense, the arts literary production is
on how can it happen today? Not just as a

(20:01):
preservation of the past, but how can history inspire new
creation today? This has been my concern and I need
to emphasize that there is a way that you can use,
unfortunately examples of ancient greatness to smother and suffocate actually
the possibility of new creation. And Nietzsche has a passage

(20:22):
about this. It's not too long, but maybe a couple
of paragraphs can I read And this is from his
essay that I recommend for anyone interested in these questions
on the Use and Abuse of History for Life, where
he talks about three approaches to history? How can He
says history is not really a science, It is something

(20:45):
that is always in the service of some agenda or
some use today, And he talks about three approaches, the critical,
the antiquarian, and the monumental. And we can get into
these if you want, but the monumental is kind of
what I've been referring to. You look to the past
for inspirations of human greatness or artistic or philosophical greatness.

(21:10):
And that can be great if it's used to inspire
and spur on new things. But here he gives an
example of how it can be used to smother and suffocate.
And it always depends on who uses it, you know.
Here I will read. Now, let us take the simplest
and most frequent example. If we imagine to ourselves uncultured
and weakly cultured natures energized and armed by monumental cultural history.

(21:35):
Against whom will they now direct their weapons against their
hereditary enemies, the strong cultural spirits, and thus against the
only ones who are able to learn truly from that
history that is for life, and to convert what they
have learned into a higher practice. For them. The path
will be blocked and the air darkened if people dance
around a half understood monument of some great past or

(21:57):
other like truly zealous idolators, as if they wanted to state, see,
this is the true and real culture. Why concern yourself
with those who are transporting themselves and wanting something new?
Apparently this dancing swarm possesses even the privilege of good
tastes so called, for the creative person always stands at
a disadvantage with respect to someone who merely looks on

(22:19):
and does not put his own hands to work, just as,
for example, the political know it all has always been wiser,
more just more considerate than the ruling statesman. But if
we want to transfer into the realm of art, excuse me.
But if we want to transfer into the realm of art,
the use of predecites and of the medical majority, and
as it were, to require the artist to stand in

(22:39):
his own defense before the forum of esthetically inert types,
that we can take an oath in advance that he
will be condemned, not in spite of, but precisely because
of the fact that his judges have solemnly proclaimed the
canon of monumental art, that is in accordance with the
official explanation of art, which in all ages has had effects.
Whereas for the judges, all art which is not yet

(23:01):
monumental because it is contemporary, is always first unnecessary, second
without pure tendencies, and third lacking that authority of history.
On the other hand, excuse me. On the other hand,
their instinct tells them that art can be struck dead
by art, the monumental is definitely not to rise up
once more. And for that their instinct uses precisely what

(23:22):
has the authority of the monumental from the past. So
they are connoisseurs of art, because they generally like to
get rid of art. They behave as if they were doctors,
while basically they are concerned with mixing poisons. So they
develop their languages and their taste in order to explain
in that discriminating way why they so persistently disapprove of
all the nourishing artistic food offered to them, For they

(23:45):
do not want greatness to arise. Their method is to say, see,
greatness is already there. In truth, this greatness that is
already there is of as little concern to them as
what is emerging of that their life bears witness. Monumental
history is the theatrical costume in which they pretend that
their hate for the powerful and the great of their
time is a fulfilling admiration for the strong and the

(24:07):
great of pastimes. In this, through this guise, they invert
the real sense of that method of historical observation into
its opposite, whether they clearly know it or not, they
certainly act as if their motto were let the dead
bury the living. What do you think of that? You
like that? Tom? Your mic is muted?

Speaker 2 (24:34):
Sorry, which book is that from?

Speaker 3 (24:37):
That's from an early essay from the eighteen seventies, I
think on the use and abuse of history for life.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
Yeah, I've not read that of nietzschez. It does sound
it's describing a kind of a cope where people project
onto someone and achieving people like a fault by you know,
comparing them to an idealized passes, a way of round
the minding that the greatness of the present. That's quite interesting.

(25:05):
In the in your work you have used like certain
you've used as like a representation of this like negative history,
certain civilizations including Neolithic Europe and China. China you've lged advertised.
So this is you you see as a danger to

(25:26):
the philosopher or to or as a general threat to
Western culture or as the present, this kind of this
mode of long housed civilization.

Speaker 3 (25:39):
Well, yes, I think history can be used in various ways,
with various excuses to retard the possibility of freedom, of
human greatness of progress. And certainly China in its desultory
mostly its desultory history has represented this that that's my

(26:02):
main objection. I don't care as much about the modern
Chinese state and so on, but it's what it has
been in history and so on. But yes, more than
just a danger to the West or Western culture, which
is not in a good condition right now, but it's

(26:23):
a danger to this. It's the danger to possibility of
human greatness and human action when it's used in the
way I just describe now, which, by the way, the
left has its other faults, which we can talk about
in a moment. You know, they want to debunk the
past examples of human greatness also in order to say

(26:43):
that it's not possible today. So they go to Napoleon
or any other again out of a sense of envy
or spite over the possibility that the higher form of
human life is possible. And through that means, you know,
a critical history means they want to say that he
never really existed, the great men of the past were

(27:05):
also crooks or wankers, or didn't really exist, and so on.
But what I just described and read now is actually
very common among a certain type of conservative, a certain
type of traditionalist, and it's extremely common unfortunately among the
Philistines who are promoted online now as so called dissident

(27:26):
populists and so on. It's it's people who what he says,
it's a theatrical costume they put on the image of history,
the weight. They don't really appreciate it. They only want
to use it as a weapon against the possibility of
any further modern innovation, you know, m.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
Because it makes him feel infarior to know that a
man can become great. Yeah, that phenomenon is also in
Hollywood with the recent biography of Napoleon, that Scottish chap
Ridley Scott.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
Yes, the dominant mode of the West I think is
still left East, and so they employ that different past.
They say all great men of the past are secretly whatever,
sexual perverts or crooks or thieves or Yeah, in some
cases they would even say didn't really exist or this
kind of thing. You know.

Speaker 1 (28:25):
Yes, it's interesting that the individual as a great man
is so threatening. I wanted to also talking of individuals
whose shape history like go to a point.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
That you've made in the.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Second to last podcast you uploaded, which echoes Nietzsche's idea
criticisms of Plato. Because Plato is so important such an
extraordinarily important man for understanding all Western culture and many
of the things that are happening all over the world.
And I think you can attribute to him everything from Christianity, Communism,

(29:00):
and even fascism, because some extent have their roots in
his thoughts. But you said Plato represents a new level
on which the spiritual struggle for the future takes place,
that his introduction of his thought Platonism by extension, and
that this was the start of a new view of
man as an object of political, moral contention and ambition,

(29:22):
which is kind of like the sort of transition some
people would argue, like the transition to the total war
of the early twentieth century was because of the death
of God Nietzsch would call death of God, and like
the sudden reframing of man is like the subject of
like this control of ideological control that you want to

(29:42):
win over masses in this way. But certainly I think
it's reasonable to extend that further back to Christianity, and
from Christianity back to Plato. But maybe it's unfair to
some extent of teap I mean, how when you said that,
were you entirely against what Plato achieved?

Speaker 3 (30:03):
Or that.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
No, I think that this was an inevitability anyway, because yes,
because Ida and Zarathustra were going to do the same
kind of thing anyway.

Speaker 3 (30:10):
Right, Yes, I think it's simply a biological historical event
in the life of any intelligent species who doesn't, let's say,
stay at the level of the grass hut. Obviously, even
before let's say five hundred, four hundred, three hundred BC,
there had been empires. There had been empires in Mesopotamia

(30:32):
and Asia going back well before then, but the mode
by which they existed was very different, as their self
understanding and self justification was very different. They conquered foreigners,
and they sometimes said they were doing it in the
name of their gods. But you get an image of this,

(30:54):
I think it's in Herodotus of how the Persians saw
themselves with concentric I mean, it's the ultimate example of
what you could call s no centrism. They saw the
world in concentric circles. Anyone as far the farther away
it got from Persia, the more inferior and irrelevant they
thought such people, and they saw themselves as entitled to rule,

(31:18):
and they, you know, the empire was formed on that basis.
But when you look at what happened the event I
described with Plato, which which was also based I read
on that show a passage, beautiful passage from Nietzsche's book
The Dawn, where he talks about how Plato made three
attempts to go to Sicily. Why Sicily and southern Italy

(31:42):
were kind of like the America of the ancient Greek world.
They had expanded a couple of a few hundred years before,
let's say, seven hundred BCS. Before then. It was a
big territorial expansion of the Greek people's It was enormously
wealthy for its time and so on. And the cities there,

(32:05):
Syracuse being the biggest of them, were pan Hellenic. They
were kind of cosmopolitan. It wasn't just anymore. The Ionians,
the Dorians and you know, the or separated by a
lot of different types of Greeks had settled there, and
so it became a pan Hellenic Mediterranean megalopolis, Syracuse, and

(32:28):
Plato went there with the intention to found a political
moral teaching that would apply to the entire Greek world.
He makes the comparison to Mohammed, what Mohammed did for
the Arabs to kind of unite the Greeks under a
new I don't even want to say religion because that

(32:49):
word is misunderstood today. As you know, it's a new, complete,
complete vision of life that would regulate everyday behavior and
state structure and everything else. And so it could have
been he failed, but he only failed by a few
historical accidents. It could have very well been that his
disciple there die on. He could have become King Tyrant

(33:13):
of Syracuse, and we would have seen the Platonization of
the European South some several centuries before it actually happened
under the form of Christianity. But it would have been
a kind of universal religion, political structure for the for
the Greek race. Call it what you will, and that's
what I meant. It's a new The stakes are up

(33:37):
considerably from what had existed before, where it was always
political structures, religious structures even were very local. This is different.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
Yeah, I see what you mean.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
I think that the Platonism as a religion was something
that posts I what mynorledgy of Platonism is. I wouldn't
say I'm an expert, but it seems to have develop
in the Platonic Academy after Plato over time. I know
that that the general view of like philosophers of brid
like experts in philosophy in the nineteenth century, like in

(34:10):
the English speaking world, was that the Neoplatonists were not
real Plato. They did weren't real disciples of Plato because
they saw Plato at that time it was like this
absolute rational Anglo style thinker, whereas the Neoplatonists were mystics
who had just lost their nerve and had to retreat
to metaphysics. But I think that like the metaphysics is
in Plato, it's clear in the times, but I think

(34:32):
that like the astral fleshing out of it there it
becomes a dogma is something that happened a long time later.
Maybe that was not Plato's intention. I'm not sure, because
he does seem more like putting it out there. These
are some ideas, whereas the Platonists are like, this is
what the master, the divine Plato, who was himself inspired
by the gods, has taught us.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
So they kind of like.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
Made him into Like I think he used the term
Mohammad of the Helenes, which is quite interesting. But I
think there's some accurate that's that becomes true, perhaps only
during the Roman period, but I'm not sure exactly when
when that picks off.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
But yeah, I also think that this kind of.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
Tendency was like, as you say, it's in the it's
it's in the Persians since aara Astra, and that like,
once you've got a kind of doctrine that you think
is the true, the absolute universal truth, then there's a
tendency then to see it as your duty to enforce
it on everyone else who hasn't figured it out yet.
So maybe it would have happened anyway, or would you have.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
Liked if you could. Would you want to prevent that?

Speaker 1 (35:27):
But you said you think it's a necessary stage of development.

Speaker 3 (35:31):
Yes, I don't think it's preventable. It's like saying, yeah,
I don't. And by the way, it's not only Plato,
the Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans, who by Plato's time were
already an established school in southern Italy and Sicily. They
had a big hand in inviting Plato there to to
start his mission. They too. I think both Pythagoras and

(35:52):
Plato saw themselves as as possible religious profits. Again, it's
I would agree with you, it's religion used as in
the modern sense. But I think they did think they
would become kind kind of like what Muhammad later became
to the others, but the Greeks, and they couldn't because
the Greek world, even by the three hundreds, was so

(36:15):
multifaceted in its the variety of its individual types. They
were so egotistical, that was both their strength and their weakness,
that they would never accept the imposition of such a
system on themselves. So if you look at Plato's Laws,
everyone read the republic, but the laws, which, by the way,
the only modern state, in fact, the only state I'm

(36:38):
aware of that was, let's say, the modern state that
was founded on the laws is the Iranian Islamic Republic.
Quite self consciously, Komane based it on structures that are
even institutions from the laws that were reproduced in Islamic
form in Iran.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
I think, you know, the Greeks beat the Persians in
the long run, anyway, Yes, by the by the medium
of Islam.

Speaker 3 (37:02):
Finally, yes, well, it's very yes, it's very it's very
compatible in the the laws. It regulates aspects of daily
life in the same way that if you look at
chi clerics go on any chit forum, it's always sir, can,
I can I go to the bathroom in this form
or this other form. It reads very much like you know,

(37:23):
people throw the word talmudik. That's what rabbinic commentary is
like too. But it's already in the laws that type
of uh a minute regulation of everyday life in the
service of something great, not and greater. And I don't think,
by the way that Plato or Pythagoras themselves I thought
that this political or religious posture was the final truth.

(37:48):
But but they thought it would be in service to
the final truth, and we're trying to move towards.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
They believe that it was achievable to understand an absolute truth,
including thereby an absolute maray, even if they didn't actually
espouse one.

Speaker 3 (38:04):
Yes, it's not that they necessarily believed, like like someone
like Muhammad, that that God spoke to them and gave
them this legal code that that the Greeks and in
some way mankind would then have to follow. It's more
like they just thought this would be good, this this
moral code would be good for for the Greeks or

(38:24):
mankind to follow. A similar point, by the way, is
made by by Alexander Kojev when he he says that
something entirely new happened with Aristotle and Alexander, which again
same provenance from from Socrates, right and and and Plato,
but saying that Alexander is the first one to actually

(38:45):
found a true universal empire based on the idea of
the biological unity of mankind, which prior to that had
not been a thing, It was not even conceivable. But
you know, he forced the Greek aristocracy to marry per
women and did many things that we today would consider
at least proto cosmopolitan, toto globalist. But it was founded

(39:08):
on this new idea from from Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, that
that the new arena of spiritual war would be the
determination of what human is, what what human is as
such universally, not just for Greek or you know.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
Yeah, well, this idea of the human is certainly revolutionary,
and it causes all the a lot of I mean,
I think it's a philosophical concept, more of a biological
because right now I think a lot of archaeogeneticists are
started getting getting in a bit of a tizzy about
what exactly I mean, it's not it's not so relevant
in terms of the biology of existing hominids, because there's

(39:50):
only one so that you can easily say were humans.
But if if there's a hum there was a biological
definition of a of a human, that it needs to
exclude other hominids, and that that's why they're getting getting
a bit a bit worried, because that would that would
mean there were degrees of humanness and that that could
even spill into the modern population. And so they some

(40:11):
people want to call me Anathos a human, for example,
and others would say, no, that doesn't make any sense
because it undermines the entire basis of biological taxonomy that
applies to other species, Like that's not how we we
would define the species and any other things. So anyway,
it is a philosophical like a potent philosophical idea of
like that were that united together and things like the

(40:33):
Garden of the Common descent from Adam and Eve couldn't
really I don't think they could really exist without that
previous philosophical development. I don't know what Semitic mythology was
like prior to contact with Plato, or whether they even
had whether Adam and Eve was just the ancestral the
racial ancestors of the Semites, and then they were expanded
to becoming the ancestors of all mankind later on.

Speaker 3 (40:57):
That's extremely interesting and gets in to a topic that
we can discuss if you want. I know it's of
high interest to you too, Tom, which is the history
of what actually happened with the Bible and Judaism and
Christianity and after that Islam. What is their origin? I
just very briefly, I think the religion of the Bible,

(41:17):
whatever it was called, by the time of the Bible
coming about, it was already a universalist, cosmopolitan religion. I
think that's what you're hinting at. Maybe, but yes, I
think so.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
I think that the Judaism was already heavily Hellenized and
platon Platonic influence had existed that prior to the Christianity,
long long, several quite a while before, and also Iranized
or Persianized too, because the Jews of Persia were so influential.

(41:52):
I think that concept of Satan has probably left difference
Aurastianism due to the Jews in Iran. But well, this
does so if you had something to say on the matter,
I'd like to hear it.

Speaker 3 (42:03):
I have many things to say, I'm reluctant to because
this matter it's so politicized now, and we all use
the word astroturfed. But anything you say on the early
history of Christianity and Judaism right now immediately gets plagiarized,
taken over by uh and and co opted and distorted

(42:26):
by others. So i'm I would like to write a
longer thing on this to fully make the case so
that it can't be distorted by this. But but very briefly,
I think the first time you really see something like
recognizably biblical monotheistic religion is in the Hasmonian dynasty, and.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
When when Hasmini and tennessee For those who don't.

Speaker 3 (42:57):
Know, well, let's say, let me go back to the
beginning of it. I recommend for you and all of
your listeners to read the mccabees Book of the Bible.
It reads the beginning. The opening of it reads very
very different from the rest. It starts with saying, and
Alexander had laid low the world at his feet, and

(43:21):
there was nothing left but Alexander and blah blah blah.
It goes on from there. I think that that was
the foundation of the Bible and of the of the
Israelite religion as mods as exists in the Bible. Before then,
there had been a people, there have been tribes in

(43:43):
that area, and probably King David had existed. He probably
had a war god or something, but they were probably polytheistic.
And around that time I think there was a conscious
attempt by the Maccabees and what came after them to
found a people, well, to found a unified national religion based, yes,

(44:05):
based on the teaching of Plato, but inverted and we
can get into that if you want. It was an
inversion of Greek Hellenism, which means just Alexandrian world and
the Bible I think, which probably various parts of it
had existed before, were compiled into a scripture, a unified

(44:25):
national scripture at that time, and reinterpreted with Genesis the opening,
probably written around then or after everything reinterpreted in my opinion,
as an inversion of the Greek ideal and of the
Greek way of life, but with similar universalistic, cosmopolitan pretensions,

(44:47):
with the so called Israelite or Jewish people called Hebrews
whatever you want, at the center. And it was very
it was a proselytizing religion. People forget this it was.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
Christianity, Yeah, yes, the Roman Empire, late Roman Empire.

Speaker 3 (45:03):
Absolutely it was. It was I think a proselytizing religion
even before zero a d. And that's something that both
Jews and Christians do they try to sweep under the rug,
you know.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
Hmm, yeah, it does.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
Old Testament seems to me like it does have an
obvious character of a genuine like native mythology of a people,
traditional mythology like including like you know, their past battles
and the Genesis, I mean, parts of Genesis do seem
to be like an authentic Bronze Age religious origin, but
then rewritten and interpreted to a to to to a

(45:37):
philosophical perspective, like you know, due to Hellenic specifically Platonic influence.
And I know that it's kind of like a competing
like in like the world of late Antiquity particularly, there's
like a compete competition to see who was actually the
source of this way of life, because I know, like
the Hebrews wouldn't like to attribute it to the Greek.

(45:57):
So even like the Platonists, the Jewish Platon's Philo he
said that like Plato learned everything from from Moses, and
it came to Moses. But I know you said, like Pythagoras,
I think you speak age of Greek, so it would
it be to say it in the old way. But
Pythagoras was, yes, he was influenced by I think as

(46:22):
Plutarch claimed that he was influenced by our Asta, even
though they were like basically contemporaries.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
I don't see that's very likely.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
Yeah, Yamlocus says he was Phthagoras learned everything from the
British Celts, and I mean glined to think that's probably
more true.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
Yeah, but that was that's eight hundred years after.

Speaker 1 (46:41):
Uh, Pythagoras lived, So yeah, just take that to salt Wells.

Speaker 3 (46:47):
I said that all of these are possible. I mean, look,
schopenhowerd says Jesus must have surely lived in India and
studied with the Hindus. But the Greeks always had this
kind of infiantoritic complex with respect to the great Near
Eastern cultures. So they even you know, Herodotus, I think

(47:07):
that they thought that gods came from Egypt, which which
is obviously not true, and many other things that that
Thales must have studied Babylonia. You know, they always thought this.
It's very interesting. They thought of themselves as heirs and
looked up in awe at the great civilizations of the

(47:29):
Near East, primarily I think because those civilizations had much
older written historical records actually, but and and you know
the Greeks that had the Dark Ages, and so they
they thought of themselves as newcomers. But it's amazing that
they had this opinion and borrowed heavily from others, but
were also the creators of radically new culture that was

(47:54):
very unique. So but yes, to get to you what
you're saying, I don't I don't think it's it's true
or whatever or relevant that Pythagoras learned from this sort
of that if Plato learns from Egyptians or whatever. You know.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
Yes, well, I mean to me, it does seem possible
the doctrines of Pythagoras were influenced by Egypt. But yeah,
I don't consider it, like, I don't think that means
that we blame Egypt or that that Plato needs to
be like it's a platarizer of Egyptian thought or anything.
It's not even certain that that is the case. But
it just seems like a possible act The doctrine of

(48:30):
transmigration of souls. While it did exist among the British,
the native Celts, but it also gets around Slavs and Germans.
But it's known to be a thing that is in
Egypt like quite early on, and they have written records.
So it's so interesting what you're saying about the importance
of written records and how it has basically like it
undermined the Greek confidence in the in the antiquity of

(48:52):
its civilization, because there's a myth that the Egyptians had
an argument with the Scythians about two years older, and
the Scuthians were illegal, so they would have been they
would have been confident in the antiquity of their culture
just based on their oral traditions, Whereas at some point,
maybe because of the Bronze Age Dark Ages, the Greeks,

(49:12):
having learned literaate, become literate, then become illiterate again, and
having to become literate a second time, maybe they lost
a continuity with their ancient history that which made them
feel somewhat inferior to some of the one that cultures
to the east and south, who had retained like written
traditions for so long in the same way that kind

(49:33):
of like British historians in the eighteenth century started to
claim they've descended from Phoenicians or whatever, just because they
wanted to have and even earlier they started to say
they were from Trojan origins because they wanted to have
a connection to a culture with a written history in
late you know, in the deep distant past, which is

(49:53):
just because of what once you become literate, once you're
introduced to that technology, it's hard to see the value
in the previous form of information retrieval, which was the
ancient songs of your people were sung by bards and
things like that.

Speaker 3 (50:06):
Yes, yes, and I think by the way that kind
of we need to put quotation marks about feeling inferior
or that kind of inferiority complex when you look at, oh,
that other civilization must be ten thousand years old because
they have records that go back to Atlantis or whatever.
But at the same time, the Greeks felt that they

(50:29):
were the natural rulers of everyone else. So it was
kind of, I think, a playful thing where they look
back and they freely borrow from others, but it doesn't
it's a spur to them. It's a spur to creativity.
And in this sense, I want to go back a

(50:51):
bit to what we started to talk at the beginning
of show, if you don't mind, because there's in this
essay of Nietzsche they use and abuse of life for history.
He must have written it when he was twenty eight
or something. But again he has three types of history.
Critical history, antiquarian history, monumental history. He says, all three

(51:15):
can be used for the benefit of life, they can
improve things you know, and all three can also be
used for the opposite. And what you just described now,
where you have a civilization that looks always to its past,
and its thinkers, its scribes are always trying to preserve
the past, to honor it, to honor that past, and

(51:38):
so on. It's the ultimate example of traditionalism or conservatism.
And if you don't mind, I would like to read
another paragraph from Nietzsche what he has to say about this,
because it's at the same time an example of the
use of history, of it's great value and of its limitations.

(52:02):
Can I can I read a paragraph?

Speaker 2 (52:04):
Please? Do?

Speaker 3 (52:07):
History belongs secondly to the man who preserves and honors,
to the person who with faith and love looks back
in the direction from which he has come, where he
has been. Through this reverence, he gives thanks for his existence,
while he nurtures with a gentle hand that has stood
from time immemorial. He wants to preserve the conditions under
which he came into existence for those who are to

(52:27):
come after him, and so he serves life. The possession
of his ancestors household goods changes the ideas in such
a soul, for those goods are far more likely to
take possession of his soul. The small, limited, crumbling, and
archaic keep their own excuse me, keep their own worth
and integrity. Because the conserving, conserving, and honoring soul of

(52:47):
the antiquarian person settles on these things, and there prepare
for itself a secret nest. The history of his city
becomes for him the history of his own self. He
understands the walls, the turreted gait, the tick date of
the city council, and the folk festival like an illustrated
diary of his youth, and he discovers from himself in
all this force his purpose, his passion, his opinion, his foolishness, etc.

(53:11):
And he keeps, He keeps going like that, and explains
that in a very beautiful way, maybe more beautiful than
a conservative or a traditionalist could explain the great use
of this kind of history that you see today in
traditionalists and conservatives, and in a much more hieratic state

(53:33):
form in the ancient Oriental civilizations that we've just been
talking about. But listen to what he says, But listen
to what he says next about this which is okay,
But how could history better serve life? Excuse me, how
could history better serve living than by the fact that
it thus links the less favored races and populations to

(53:55):
their home region and home traditions, keeps them settled there
and prevents them from roaming around in foreign places looking
for something better, and in search of that, fighting competitive wars.
So that sounds a bit condescending, and I think it's true.
I mean, I think Nietzsch is saying history, even at
its best, you know, it's suited for unambitious, unremarkable races,

(54:18):
when when it's a guide to life in this sense,
whereas the ancient Greeks were obviously very very different from this,
you know.

Speaker 1 (54:26):
Yes, that is interesting. I think, as far as I'm aware,
the actual histories that the Greeks have themselves, none of
them really go that far back, like they can't really
place they talk about. They don't have a coherent narrative
of the introduction of like the Indo European languages, you know,
like four thousand years ago into that region of Greece.

(54:50):
So they but they but so they don't. They saw
themselves as like being native and indigenous to the region,
but they also saw the pallad Sis as predating them,
and so they had some notion that they weren't the
original inhabitants of the land.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
But yeah, that is an interesting view.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
I wonder if they having the I wonder as an
Englishman sometimes whether us having a national origin myth of
us taking the land from coming from abroad and just
seizing the land for ourselves contributed to a less static
like national character that was less inclined to be confined.

(55:28):
And so under Eliza was the first at the first opportunity,
when we had the money and the means to do it,
we started trying to reach our arms around the entire world.

Speaker 3 (55:38):
Yes, No, that's very interesting. I think it's probably true. Yes,
And I think there was a similar spirit among the
ancient Greeks even if they didn't have an explicit miss
like the arrival of Horsten Hengist or whatever, but they
had they didn't have these ancient, huge national chronicles going
back supposedly whatever eight years, like the Babylonians or Egyptians did.

(56:02):
But that's something else they had, of course, the story
of the Trojan War told in Homer, but in other
variations too, So this ancient raid was kind of the
national story that kept getting told over and over. And
there was another one, a special favorite of mine, Jason's
voyage Jason and the Argonauts. And I don't remember this, Yes,

(56:23):
I don't remember if we talked about this when when
you came on my show, Tom. But one of my
favorite theories, alternative theories, is that the story of Jason
is the story of the arrival of the Greeks, but
told backwards. In other words, they remembered their voyage over
sea actually from the Caucasus, but in the story of Jason,

(56:43):
it's told backwards. You know.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
Interesting, Well, it does imply some kind of like connection,
like knowledge and connection to the causes, but then again,
there was a civilization that worth trading with, so it
might just be contemporary, you know, knowledge of that that's
part of the you know the world, and they were
a maritime people, the Greeks, So like it isn't it
isn't especially difficult place to get to, although it is

(57:08):
in the myth. It's an epic journey. But you know,
I don't think when you go through the boss Us
that they actually start clashing.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
Together and smashing or anything like that.

Speaker 3 (57:17):
Yes, but since we're on this connection to the Caucasus.
The other myth that you know, very popular important to
the Greeks, the myth of Prometheus is actually common, I think,
not just to the Greeks, but many are and whatever
Indo Europeans also and it's shared by some of the
native peoples of the of the Caucasus. So in pre

(57:38):
Islamic Chechen culture, they have a Prometheus myth, you know.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
Interesting, I'm not aware of that.

Speaker 1 (57:46):
But I would also say that the problem with that
Caucusus for that mythic comparison is that there have been
it's a region of it's a term, lots of term
or the Iranic you know, Scuthian tribes came into those
regions that would have brought cultural elements into those regions,
and there could be you know, there could be a
Scothyan origin rather than Chechens the ancest of the Chechens.

(58:08):
But yeah, I mean I totally agree Prometheus has Indo
European origins because I think Loki is the same Loki
and Norse myth is the same, being like it has
a very similar end, you know, like he gets punished.
He like challenges the gods in a his disruptive behavior
and then he is tied up in the underworld and

(58:30):
punished by an animal and he's restrained there, you know,
is his punishment. So it seems the same, the same
myth and he's he's not exactly the same character. But yeah,
I definitely think that that. You know, there's been a
long time for them to diverge. But there's I've said
a video about what I said, Like there's this Hermes
Hermes and Prometheus has this relationship that parallels uh Loki

(58:57):
and Odin. So I think there's something going on there,
like they are two sides of the same coin or
something something like that.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
But would you like to talk more because I know.

Speaker 1 (59:06):
We have a disagreement about the Caucuses and the origins
of the Proton Europeans.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
Maybe we don't have time to go over it.

Speaker 3 (59:14):
We can if you like, sure, Well what about it specifically?
I know we've talked about this before.

Speaker 1 (59:21):
It is well, I mean there's there's the the I
guess it might be too much to go into now,
but because we'd have to go over at each of
ours positions first and then, and I haven't prepared notes
or anything.

Speaker 2 (59:33):
But yeah, I think that, Like personally, I think the
role of.

Speaker 1 (59:37):
The Caucuses is overstated by many because I really believe,
like Antony, that it's a step phenomenon. That Proton European
is step phenomenon. It has contacts with cultures to the south,
and it's absorbing DNA from it in from the Caucuses.
But that the like the cultural phenomenon of the Proton
to Europeans and the way that it disseminated, it's just

(59:59):
not connected to the Mountain people at all. Yes, really,
I think it's a step phenomenon. It comes from Step
warrior people and not from the Caucuses.

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
But I would actually agree with that Tom. It's only
a matter of there would have been different staging areas
so very quickly on what we just spoke about with
the Greeks. If you look at the southern Caucasus culture
called Trialety I think yes, although it was located by
let's say two thousand BC or something in the southern Caucasus,

(01:00:31):
but its origins where I think it was part of
the Catacombs culture or something like that. So it was
a step culture that had moved there in relatively recent times.
It was extreme warlike some of the earliest examples of
organized combat warfare are from that region. And the case

(01:00:55):
can be made, which I can try to say quickly
if you want to get into it, the evidence for
why I think that culture is probably the immediate predecessor
of the Greeks. I'm not saying it's of the other
Indo European peoples, but I do think they went across
the Black Sea and settled, or rather took over Greece

(01:01:17):
starting in about eighteen hundred BC or then. There are
many archaeological I think arguments that can be made for this,
including the use of Cyclopean architecture there right before it
comes to Greece and so on to the Mycenean age
and so. But I'm not saying that all the Indo

(01:01:41):
European peoples came from there. Similar I remember we had
an argument about the role of the of the Carpathians.
This isn't this isn't my argument. It's I am taking
it from Robert Druz. And he's not saying that the
Carpathian basin is you know, or let's say the Upper

(01:02:02):
Danube when it it kind of curves and it moves
into the Carpathian mountains. And he says that was one
of the landing grounds of some people from the Caucasus
or the Step who arrived who thereafter spread to the
rest of Europe. And he says they founded the the
Italic and and and and Celtic and branches of in

(01:02:26):
the European But he's not saying that that is their origin.
He's saying that was one of their staging grounds into Europe,
whether they came from the step Or or from the Caucasus.
And his evidence has to do with the spread of weaponry.
And if I can since you know, I hope I'm
not getting too detailed, if you don't mind, but it's

(01:02:47):
not it's not a quote, it's just very briefly the
the argument that that he's making the innovation is, you know,
a lot of people, look, how do you trace where
the Indo Europeans are from and how they went, Oh,
they look at pottery before, now they're looking at genetics
some or they look at this. He's saying, this was
very obviously conspicuously a warrior culture. Why don't you look

(01:03:11):
at the spread of weapons? And so that's that's what
he does. And he if you look at the spread
of the sword, and it's you know, it's development. The
earliest samples are from there, and you can see it
develop into northern Europe, northern Germany and Italy and so
on northern Italy. Say what you will. It's a novel

(01:03:34):
way of thinking about this.

Speaker 2 (01:03:36):
I can see I I have some points to make.

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
I mean, the last person I interviewed for trivetalk before
year is a bronze aide swordsmith that we specifically talked
about the development of the sword and to what extent
the different swords, because you could see like first daggers
that corporates daggers star and then they get bigger and bigger,
the dirks and rapiers and then finally swords when and
once one smith has figured out a way to make

(01:04:02):
the bronze longer, then it spread because other smiths will
take it up because that's their craft, so you don't
need to have racial like because blacksmith thing at the
time the Bronze Age necessitated large distance trade networks because
of the nature of the alloys that to make this
alloy you need a cornish tin and copper from the
mountains elsewhere whatever. But that meant that bronze smith's were

(01:04:28):
like having to know about what the latest techniques are
and how to get longer blades, stronger blades, et cetera.
So it's not a very good way of measuring weapons
in general in any time. I don't think are the
greatest way for measuring the arrival of migrator with peoples
and cultures because of the fact that although they can

(01:04:48):
try to stop their enemies getting hold of that weaponry
and will try, they won't. They won't be successful forever
there was. It's only a matter of time before your
enemy takes up the weapon too, because they for their survival.
It's just it's just the same worry of war to day, right,
It's how everyone wants news.

Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
So but yeah, can I answer that or should we
get into a mini debate tom or no?

Speaker 2 (01:05:08):
Yeah, oh, well, let's go ahead if you'd like to well.

Speaker 3 (01:05:11):
My answer to that is, again I'm repeating the evidence
from Druze. It isn't just that it spread. You are
absolutely right. For example, the horse technology when it appears
the bits and later the stir up, they appear in
one place in the step, and then just a few

(01:05:32):
hundred years later that used everywhere from China to the
Near East. Of course people copy that, but in this
particular case Europe, before let's say fifteen hundred BC, there
is no evidence of combat weapons used. And then when
they appear, it's not just like, oh, a sword model
appears when they appear in these areas. So let's say

(01:05:55):
the Carpathians around fourteen hundred BC or so fifteen under
the BC, the proto sword that was later used everywhere
and probably did spread the way you're saying, eventually everywhere,
but it appears there. And then other models appear in
North Germany and North Italy and so on. But but
they don't appear by themselves. They appear with a whole

(01:06:17):
toolkit of other things, including chariots, armor, long spirit like
a whole thing, and evidence of occasionally destruction of local sides.
And so he's making the point they couldn't just have
appeared on their own. They they appeared as as obviously

(01:06:39):
part of a class that knew how to use them,
and that took over the local population.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):
And yeah, well there's no there.

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
There were major technological developments in the second century BC,
and like chariots, dissemination of tariots and swords a part
of that. But I think that like weapons of war
saying that, I don't know that you're quoting him, erbertim
but to say weapons of war begame with the sword
like they're already I just made a broad like about

(01:07:10):
four thousand year old, like early British weapon, which is
it's not a sword because it's too short, but it's
a it's a very long dagger, like bigger than my head.
But it's not having people to death. It's a it's
a it's not anything else.

Speaker 3 (01:07:23):
You would disagree with that. There are such things from
before made of copper, but they're not bronze.

Speaker 2 (01:07:29):
And bronze they're just it's long to be swords.

Speaker 3 (01:07:31):
But some of them are too long, some of these
dirks and rapiers, and they would have been ceremonial. But
you are right that the sword isn't the first one,
it's the spear, yes, but combat spears don't really exist
before twenty one hundred twenty two hundred BC or so anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:07:50):
So but as you know as well, even going back
to before metal like there were there are like massacre
sites and stuff, so there was there was some there
was a see like the way that the Papal tribes
today like they sometimes get together and have a.

Speaker 2 (01:08:05):
Bit of a war killer of each other.

Speaker 1 (01:08:08):
Some of it is like not proper combat because they
just sort of shake their weapons around and look aggressive
rather than actually killing each other. But a few people die.
And I think war is much older than the middle There.

Speaker 3 (01:08:21):
Is well, violence is, but what we understand by combat
of military groups of young men fighting that I don't
think is. And I'm willing to change my views if
further archaeology come about. But I was just talking today
with a friend. The earliest very clear evidence of organized

(01:08:43):
warfare is only about twenty two hundred BC and Abbashevo
in the North step and there you actually have for
the first time a burial ground of several hundred young
men who had combat spears. I don't know if shields,
but armor and so on. It is obviously a very
warlike place before that. Of course, you've always had violence,

(01:09:06):
no doubt, but it was massacres like the skirmishes, massacres
of unarmed villagers and so on. It wasn't the same
thing that we have in mind when we talk about
a warrior class.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
I just wanted to give some context for the listeners
who aren't like up to scratch on all the things
we're talking about. Abashevo is a derivative of Yamnia, and
earlier we were talking about catacomb culture near the Caucuses
that's also a derivative of Yamnia. And the Amni, for
those aren't aware, is one of the archaeological culture that's
most popularly associated with the Proto and European language at
the moment.

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
But the Yamnia.

Speaker 1 (01:09:40):
Themselves had limited weaponry and they had there's a debate
about the extent to which they employed equestrianism. Some people
think not at all and others. And we're a camp,
which I think Drus is in that camp. But I'm
in the camp that thinks that Yamnia did have equestrianism,
and there's there's some evidence for that. Maybe maybe we

(01:10:01):
should not dwell on it too much because without having
all the without everyone being familiar with the papers we're
talking about, it isn't yes very easy for them to
follow our arguments.

Speaker 3 (01:10:12):
It's very interesting. I don't know if you want to
get into this the bigger question of what you touched on,
and I don't mean to derail conversation. Feel free to
change subjects if this doesn't interest you. But you mentioned
migration of people's and I am very concerned by what's
happening in genetic studies with people like Joseph Lazaridi's and

(01:10:33):
these others who are basically ethnic activists. And I think
I will write longer on this and try to make
the case I think they're perpetrating a fraud. Uh. For example,
they recently had a paper that in the Mediterranean Phoenician
cities don't have noticeable or maybe very small, but don't

(01:10:57):
have noticeable Leventine ancestry, and they just presented that kind
of without explanation. And I think what's been going on
in right clabs, especially which I'll get to. You know,
they have a commitment to if somebody happened to live

(01:11:17):
in the Port of Carthage, whoever it may have been,
and they find the bones, they say that person is
as much a Carthaginian as let's say, one of the
founding families that rule the city. And a lot of
the time these bones are collected, and when you read
the studies, you cannot find the provenance of the bones.
In other words, they may know them, but sometimes I

(01:11:39):
think they even delete the provenance. They don't talk about that.
You as a reader, even if you're with access to
the raw data, cannot find sometimes where the bones are from.
Are they from one of the ruling families. Were they
found in a mass grave by the port, Were they
let's say, local migrant laborers from nearby? Reens you don't know.

(01:12:01):
And my model Tom for how ancient history happened is
that full scale migration of people's was extremely rare, and
that almost all historical change that you see was done
by small, mobile, highly organized groups. And so what's going
on with these studies, especially in the Mediterranean where you

(01:12:23):
have people like Nasine Taleb and Las Redis who aren't
necessarily let's say, all Lebanese or Greek nationalists, but more
like Mediterranean nationalists Pani Mediterranean.

Speaker 1 (01:12:33):
I call them Pan Mediterranean chauvinists exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:12:37):
And they're finding evidence of a kind of homogeneity and
continuity among the bones of the Mediterranean, which I never
denied this, but they're basically taking bones of local Mediterranean peoples.
But they're not what we know today from studying history.
The Greek upper class, the Punic upper class, and so

(01:12:59):
forth are the ones who did the history that we're
studying today, and that study about them being unable by
modern methods to find Punic or Levantine ancestry to the
known Phoenician cities should be a big red flag to
people that there's something seriously wrong with how genetic studies

(01:13:19):
about antiquity are done today. It's like, so.

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
It makes a good point, but and I'm no fact
I have my own criticisms of Lazaridus as well, which
I mean, I you know, vary against his southern arc
theory and things like that. But to steal man their case,
what I mean that paper, I didn't read it in detail,
but usually the papers themselves don't like talk about the

(01:13:49):
context of the samples a lot. But then if you
read the supplements, they are having their detailed description of
the archaeological context of.

Speaker 2 (01:13:56):
The samples that are used in the study, so.

Speaker 1 (01:13:58):
That you can find them out, but then they usually
don't always get like put in the articles that like
Scientific American do on the on the findings, whatever, add.

Speaker 3 (01:14:07):
Access to the raw, and they don't, I'm telling you.
Sometimes they do. Sometimes they say this is from a
royal grave and so on, and when those samples don't
fit their expectations, they sweep them under the rug. But
many times you can't find that that uh, that information.
And it's unbelievable to me that they talk about Greek
burials and mass graves when we know that they practice cremation,

(01:14:31):
which you can't do. Studies on the upper class did.
So that's just one small example. Look, my main point,
since we're talking about history in the broad terms without
without boring your your audience about these details, we can
debate later. Why is the conquest of Why are the
conquests of the I call them, the audience call them

(01:14:53):
in the Europeans whateveryone? Why are they so interesting? Similarly,
why is the settlement of the Phoenicians around the Mediterraneans
so interesting? It shows history and action. It's done in
a planned way by small groups who know exactly where
they're going. They have the latest technology, the latest military

(01:15:14):
tactics and so on. They have a plan, and I
think that is how a lot of these things happened.
The Norman conquests are or the conquests of South America
by the Spanish, I think are a good parallel. I
think that's how these ancient what we see now.

Speaker 1 (01:15:35):
Talk about an elite dominance model dominance, Yeah, that's the
Norman model is an elite dominance. So you have a
small number of men taking over a large civilization and
then and then implanting themselves as the rulers of it.

Speaker 3 (01:15:49):
Yes, I believe this is how ancient history took place
in overall including well we can get into what happened
in the levant and so on, but I think this
is how it happened. And if if you don't at
least have this, like you know about this model, if
you don't at least have this model to be able
to argue against it, and these genetic slabs rule it

(01:16:10):
out completely. They do not want to consider this possibility
at all, you know. They want to talk about migration
of peoples for which there's often almost no archaeological evidence.
For example, that the that the Philistines migrated to to
Canaan and so on, there's no but.

Speaker 1 (01:16:26):
I would say to be to counter that, I'd say
that in the case of Anglo Saxon England, for example,
among like leftists and like general like academics of the
last few decades, the elite dominance model was by far
preferred as being more politically correct than it's a racial replacement,
because they hope they would like to have thought of
the Anglo Saxon invasion as being like the Norman invasion,

(01:16:48):
where a few Germanic speaking elites took over it and
forced their language on a Brathonic population. But because that
to them is less problematic than that an entire people
came and just replaced another people, and they even denied
that that's sort of thing happened. But I think that
thing did happen. I think both of those two models happened.
So that's why I don't think you can say whether

(01:17:09):
in any individual circumstance and history whether it was an
Anglo Saxon or a Norman style takeover. But both both
are possibilities in each case, so you have to go
and look at the details of each specific events. I
think that like the Indo European languages spread in diverse
ways in different places, and some of those involved Anglo
Saxon style replacements and others only involve Norman style elite takeovers.

Speaker 2 (01:17:34):
But yeah, you'd have to look at the details.

Speaker 1 (01:17:37):
But yeah, going back to the Phoenicians, I'm just curious,
like your objection to it, because what they found is
that they say that a lot of people in this
Phoenician contexts were actually genetically more like Sicilians or like
other Mediterranean peoples.

Speaker 2 (01:17:52):
Yes, with whom you would expect them.

Speaker 1 (01:17:54):
There to be lots of Phoenician contact anyway, because Sicily
had Phoenician colonies on it, and you know it's not
that it's a boat trip away, and people were on
the boats a lot in those days. So do you
think it's just like a gradual absorption of other Mediterranean
people into the Phoenician colonies of Carthage that would not
make them just sort of look like Southern Europeans over time.

Speaker 3 (01:18:17):
No, I think that's perfectly plausible. I have no problem
with that. But when you look at the abstract of
that study and the way people are interpreting it, and
also some of their conclusions, For example, the model you
just spoke of right now, I would agree with. At
some point in antiquity, Phoenician men, probably small groups started

(01:18:38):
to form trade and poria. It developed into cities. Probably
they kept up with the home cities in the levant.
Maybe they brought wives. You know, this happens, I know,
you know about this in Spain. There are English families
who make wine in Spain and Portugal who always they
get their education in England, they get their wives back
in England. Think certainly Greek colonization took place this way.

(01:19:04):
For example, Mother City was overpopulated, so they sent a
lot of young men, and but at their core there
were families. There were Greek families. The families formed the
local aristocracy, where as the many young men married local women,
let's say in Sicilian women, and that ended up forming

(01:19:26):
the people of the city. And over time you would
expect that to be interbreeding among the aristocracy and the
middle classes and so on, so the original stock would
get diluted and so on. I have no problem with that.
That's probably the way this colonization took place. But that
isn't what they're saying in this paper. That's just presenting
it as if you know, and so it's basically, yes,

(01:19:52):
what's being forgotten is that there was a core population
that was foundational at least at some point.

Speaker 1 (01:19:59):
You know, well, I think that if they're denying that,
that's outrageous because of course they couldn't possibly be a
Phoenician like like you know, a Semitic language spoken by
these people unless they had been a Semitic people founding
that that cultural like, that's that colony initially, but that
I mind. I didn't do a detailed reading of the paper,

(01:20:19):
but my understanding was it was just showing that they
had absorbed the people who they colonized to the extent
that there wasn't a discernibly notable amount of of of
of the original stock in examples that they had.

Speaker 3 (01:20:33):
Well take the Greek or Roman case of that, because
their intentions become clearer when you when you look at
what they say about that. I think the Greek or
Roman case is very much like this. You know, there
was an Indo European colle which we spoke about this before,
and it's not exactly what the nord this is claimed.
They were not like modern North Germans or whatever it's

(01:20:57):
it's it's rather they had more of that a component
that was also a firm component that was also later
foundations to that, you know, but but it was different
the point, it was different from the mass of the
local population. And that's what these people are denying. They
look and they say, oh no, there's a perfect continuity
between mycene and Greeks and modern Greeks. Don't don't even

(01:21:19):
think about whether there was a core that was foundational
that was different from that, you know, and in Rome
the same. It's absurd.

Speaker 1 (01:21:27):
Yes, I got some of the people, I get very
strange comments with someone saying it's noticis for me to
point out that the step signal in Greece comes from
the people with higher amount of step than it is
in the Great examples. That's obvious because you know, it
has to be introduced by that that component of their ancestry,
must have been introduced by the source of that component.

(01:21:47):
That's that's just it's like, it's not I don't know
how that's Nordicism, but yeah, certainly, sorry go on. I
was saying in Italy as well, with the bell beakers,
like I often see that people reluctant to talk about
well the bell because but have just been Central Europeans
if there's if the balbigger source of Indo European languages
in the Italian peninsula, and we know bell because we're

(01:22:08):
just coming from Central Europe, that means that the source
of Italic languages was a Central European people. So you're
talking like Austrian like or South German like people, but
they is that? Is that noicist to say that it's
just this a fact.

Speaker 2 (01:22:20):
It just has to be a fact.

Speaker 3 (01:22:22):
But it's a it's a fact that of course it's
not noticist because I mean, we spoke about this before.
The Nordic peoples as they exist now are also from that,
but in a different way. But just I was going
to go on, I was getting excited about this, the
stupidity of these Mediterranean nationalists. It's the pettiest kind of

(01:22:43):
example of what we've been talking about on this show,
with the reverence for history and kind of petty ethnic nationalism.
I just want to give give you what I think
is kind of the context of this. It's the same
kind of people who say that modern Greek is pronounced
exactly the same way that ancient Greek was, and they
chimp out at you if you try to reconstruct ancient

(01:23:05):
Greek pronunciation. It's obviously absurd, like there's no evidence. All
the evidence is preponderantly in the other direction. But no, no, no,
with perfect continuity, there's nothing, there's nothing changed. And it's
the same people who sensitive subject. But there's one of
these Greek nationalists recently wrote a book about how no, no, no,
the ancient Greeks never practiced anything that looks like homosexuality.

(01:23:28):
It's it's all made up by evil German and English
modern historians who have a agenda. And absolutely they were
just like modern Greeks, and they were you.

Speaker 2 (01:23:38):
Know, he gets an idea of Lazarid.

Speaker 1 (01:23:40):
This is headspace how he thinks that, if I tell
you he recently posted a sort of imaginary dialogue fanfic
between Athena and Lord Elgin about.

Speaker 2 (01:23:53):
Like she's trying to convince him to return them or something.

Speaker 3 (01:23:56):
It's what do you make of that? The the Elgin
Marbles debate.

Speaker 1 (01:24:02):
I am like, I have Greek friends, I like Greek,
I like I understand the argument that they should be
returned there and on the basis of just like that's
the original home of the creations, and people made that
argument in the eighteenth century as well, and it's it's
not a bad argument, it's not they're not actually intending
to return them to the path, and they're going to

(01:24:23):
put them in a museum at the bottom of the Acrocoplis,
so they still won't be in the original context in Greece.
But like the point, my objection is that there's any
kind of indication that Britain stole them or that Britain
owes them to anyone, because Britain did Greece and the
world a service like looking after them, and they ought
to be We are to be thanked for the start,
and if they wanted to buy them back, they should

(01:24:45):
come humbly and request to do so. That would be fine,
and I wouldn't object to them being given being sold
to the Greeks, even if it was at a loss.
It's not about the money. It's about, you know, being respectful.
But the accusation that they were stolen is a lie,
and that we have any duty to give them back,
that's not just not true. So I think it's open

(01:25:07):
framed in this post colonial like a leftist way, which
is just a fiction. That's my main objection to it.
And Maria Mercury, The Feminist nineteen seventies feminist socialist politician
who started all this in Greece. And that's why I
think it's got that association really.

Speaker 3 (01:25:23):
Well, it's disgusting. It's the same thing with the Rosetta stone. Right.
The only way we have decipherment of hieroglyphs is because
of work done by someone who tagged along with Napoleon
and so on. And it's the work of English, French, Dutch, German,
West European archaeologist estets appreciators of art and antiquity, that

(01:25:45):
things like the Elgin Marbles and so on were saved
from possible destruction or defilement. I have no sympathy to this.
We call it third world is in now, But it's
exactly this, this intersection of leftism, anti lonialism plus petty
ethnic nationalism of these marginal peoples who themselves really until

(01:26:06):
recent times had no appreciation or knowledge or interest in
their own history. There's a wonderful aside in Schopenhauer, where
you know, he says it's often the case that a
master work, a painting is found in the servants quarters,
just neglected with no you know, and some est finds it,

(01:26:29):
and most people would not respect it if they were
not told that it's important or beautiful. And overall that's
just the history of beautiful ancient artifacts in the world.
I'm not saying it's impossibly. It's not impossible for others
to come to appreciate it, but at least until recent times.
You're totally right. It's the world owes so much too.

(01:26:52):
I'm an anglophile on this, as on so many other things.
The world though so much to English and French archaeologists
and explorers for this kind of thing, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:27:00):
And German to those three. And there was something similar.
Stone a Turbalists when he was active, was talking about
the African like the bronzes and sculptures from West Africa,
where like they were they were just going to melted
down a lot of them, they didn't have any they
weren't valued. British people bought them, put them in museums.
Then with Africans figured out that they were actually valuable,

(01:27:21):
then they were give them back again who were given
some of them were given back, and then they were
immediately lost because they were sold off again to get money.
So it's they're not they're not. They don't have the
same sense of custodianism, like this idea that the Anglos
developed and other Western European nations had that like we're
looking after the heritage of mankind.

Speaker 2 (01:27:41):
It comes from that thing we were talking.

Speaker 1 (01:27:42):
About earlier, like the idea that, like the Anglers, the
English weren't like hoarding these just for national chauvinism, like
we've got this stuff because we're English. They kind of
sen sensed themselves as being like the you know, the
shepherds of like of mankind are like inheriting this like
duty to look, you know, the white man's burden is
kept in called it, which is sort of absent now

(01:28:03):
because it's seen as problematic.

Speaker 2 (01:28:05):
But it was an interesting thing.

Speaker 1 (01:28:07):
And I think that sense of self worth and like
purpose is what enabled the less achieved what they had.
They but they don't have it anymore, so it's not
possible now.

Speaker 3 (01:28:18):
Yes. Can I give another especially disgusting example of this
attitude that touches on so many things we've just spoken about.
In Australia, I think in Kimberly region that there's the
Bradshaw figures. I think they're called. Some are dated back
to sixty thousand years ago. That's disputed, but.

Speaker 2 (01:28:38):
They're incredibly yes, wow.

Speaker 3 (01:28:42):
That's disputed, but some people say that they're in any
case tens of thousands of years old. They show humanoid
figures that do not look anything like the Aborigines who
lives there now and prior to European Let's say, it's
well known that until very recently, the local Aborigines said,

(01:29:08):
these are from before our time. They are made by
by birds actually, and we're going to scratch them out.
And they try to scratch them out all the time previously. Now, however,
because attention has come on this, they've been taught to say, oh, no,
we made these, We made these, you know, and when

(01:29:29):
you look up what the scratching out means, they say,
oh no, we were improving them. It's like me going
to an ancient painting and like shipping at it. And
then when I'm asked what I'm doing with this vandalism,
I'm improving on you know, I'm adding heritage to it. Right.
But they were obviously trying to scratch out I think
evidence of a previous people that had been there who

(01:29:52):
they didn't understand and hated. And now they said, no,
it is ours. And this was the way, you know,
the worst kind, the worst kind of third world is
ethnic nationalism, anti colonialism use simply to clobber the heads
of the West Europeans, who are the only preservers of

(01:30:17):
the rich heritage of mankind in the recent centuries.

Speaker 1 (01:30:21):
Yeah, it's very clear to me from the examples we
just discussed how ethnic ethnocentrism and ethnic like feeling can
actually become an obstruction to the you know, the learning
and learning about and preserving the heritage of even your
own ethnicity, let alone like mankind in general. But I

(01:30:42):
think also, and this is an argument I have to
make against like mainstream academics, Like I think it's it
can be a good thing as well, because the audience
I find, like is mostly layman and they want to
connect with history through a sense of pride. So I
do think that harnessing like the general sense of pride

(01:31:02):
and in one's history and the dignity that a knowledge
of your history affords you is a good way for generating, like,
you know, the general public interest in history. That that
can help to generate revenue as well. So she mean,
what do you think about ethnos because you have like
mixed feelings about ethnocentrism, do you think it's only it

(01:31:23):
could be helpful as well.

Speaker 3 (01:31:26):
Yes, I think it can obviously be helpful. But in
a lot of these third world cases, it's a very
recent creation, right, I mean, what the hell is Pakistani nationalism?
It's completely made up country. I think the name comes
from an acronym, right. You know, the only thing holding
together those ethnicities is Islam, which is why they are

(01:31:46):
so adamant about that, and their whole self conception is
oppositional to the West. And that's I think even the
case in countries with genuine ancient histories like India and
China and so, yeah, it's Who's no centrism, I don't.
I obviously think West Europeans could use a healthy dose

(01:32:07):
of extra ethnic feeling.

Speaker 2 (01:32:09):
Yeah, it's it's interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:32:10):
It's still quite strong in Greece, but it also hasn't
stopped there being a very leftist sort of culture in Greece.
And also you know that you see these tourists go
home and refugees welcome graffiti and stuff in creet It right,
So if any kind of ethnocentrism is not like explicitly
attached or detached from Third worldism, then it doesn't really

(01:32:33):
have much positive influence.

Speaker 3 (01:32:35):
Well, I have a lot of contempt for that kind
of petty thing where the Greeks say you cannot call
Turkish coffee Turkish, and Turks have their own stupid arguments
about you know, the Armenians say you can. So you
should go to the joke is right, the Kora board,
the Korra forums, where you get an Albanian a Bulgarian
arguing for twenty thousand pages about who owns some valley.

(01:32:59):
I mean, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:33:01):
I enjoy Bulkan arguments on the internet. Yes, I want
to go back on the set of the Internet to
sort of wrap up our conversation to what you said
at the beginning, that you made a comment I thought
was quite interesting. I'd like you to elaborate on you
said that before twenty ten, that wasn't such this interesting
age in history. You couldn't find it or you wouldn't

(01:33:21):
encounter people talking about it. What do you think is
it about the world since twenty ten and the online
culture that's developed that has renewed this fascination for the
deep past?

Speaker 3 (01:33:34):
Yes, well, I ought to clarify and meant specifically what
today would be recognized as hard right or far right,
I don't like these words, or dissident whatever. Let's just
call it the faction of truth, which includes an appreciation
of vital interest in antiquity and so on. That before
twenty ten in the real life for me was I

(01:33:57):
couldn't meet people in real life or I could talk
to so I met some online on forums before twenty ten.
But something started to change around ten to twenty twelve,
and I think it was the acceleration of the leftist program.
Maybe now leftism, wokism, call it whatever you want, had

(01:34:18):
been around at least since the early nineties, but even before,
but it really accelerated, especially with the start of Obama's
second term. They went so crazy. And then in Europe
it went so crazy, especially around then with you know
what Merkle did in twenty fifteen, busting open the borders
and everything going insane. Before that, there were the protests

(01:34:43):
in France around gay marriage in two thousand and thirty, Yes,
and really those turned into protests against mass migration by
the youth involved in that, which was a wonderful development.
Dominic Venner, the great historian, committed suicide around that then.
Excuse me, so around that time something happened, which I

(01:35:04):
think was the overreach by the left maybe where young
people around the world went online. They had some many
had already been partly on forums like Fortune, but other
things to discuss forbidden knowledge, which includes this fascination with
aspects of antiquity. That's that would be my that would

(01:35:26):
be my guess of what changed this acceleration.

Speaker 1 (01:35:29):
I think, yeah, because also in a way, like in
Britain and I think other parts of the West, there
was like a focus, a very deep focus on the
Second World War as a year zero. So even just
like having an active interest in anything before that, whether
it was the French Revolution or the Fall of Rome,

(01:35:50):
had become sort of right wing coded, even though academia
for all these knee subjects was still deatally left wing.

Speaker 3 (01:35:57):
It's yes, I think, I think. I don't know what
will happen next, but things have certainly accelerated change since
twenty fifteen. When I like to give the example of
austers like Celine and ern Stunger and Mishima, I didn't
know anybody who was reading them before then. I remember

(01:36:19):
mentioning it to some professor that I liked them, and
you know, yeah, Arab men touched your sigh. He leaned over,
put his head on my size. He said, he whispered,
I noticed you liked some of the more reactionary authors.
And then he patted my back. He's like, that's okay,
that's fine. It wasn't seen as especially harmful, but it
was seen as extremely odd that you would be reading them.

(01:36:40):
Now so many young people are reading them. I think
the same reasons you just spoke about.

Speaker 1 (01:36:45):
I remember in my during my postgraduate degree in history,
I had the course in English because I was studying
Middle English and stuff. We had some one of a
lecture on like modern influences from older Middle English, which
had shared with the English literature graduates, and they undergrad
and they did it actually on Ezra Pound. And they asked,

(01:37:09):
like a room full of like fifteen students, like who
here reads Ezra Pound. I'm the only hand that went up. Yeah,
that was like twenty eleven.

Speaker 2 (01:37:17):
I think it was like, I.

Speaker 1 (01:37:19):
Don't know if it would be any different now if
they went into the room, because I think most of
the people who go and study at literature at university
are still quite.

Speaker 3 (01:37:27):
Yea, I would imagine it would be the same in
a university libtard setting. Unfortunately, Tom, I think it would
be the same broadly online to the people who actually
read Ezra Pounds Seline have a vital interest in ancient
history are about the same number, maybe as in twenty

(01:37:48):
fifteen sixteen. I am very skeptical of the recent popularization
of these kinds of ideas on X and such.

Speaker 1 (01:37:56):
You know, yeah, everyone knows that right wing people on
the internet like to pretend have read books they haven't read.

Speaker 2 (01:38:02):
But yeah, I have.

Speaker 1 (01:38:03):
I read Salin myself in the naughties when I was
in my early twenties. I think that's the time to
read him, because he's Yes, maybe I should reread him
now in middle aged but I think it was like
that energy and vitality of it was very appealing to
me as a young man.

Speaker 2 (01:38:17):
I think, yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (01:38:19):
Highly recommend if you read don't just read Journey to
End of the Night, read his book that's on credit,
and ask your audience to read it too. It's one
of the most cynical, darkest books, again by a man
widely recognized as hard right or whatever, but he is
completely cynical about all modern ideas, all modern pieties. He
thinks all modern pieties have to be thrown into the trash,

(01:38:41):
and only those that make the gauntlet of humor and
cynicism and come out the other side deserve to survive.

Speaker 1 (01:38:47):
You know, yes, I believe I compared you to him
in the first review I get of your book because
it's not what people might think right wing literature, because
I wouldn't Coozily Sleeve was right wing in the sense
that he I think it was a as a sympathizer,
but his literature doesn't feel like what people might think
right wing literature would be, Like it's it's course at
vulgar at times. And yeah, I mean he you know,

(01:39:12):
dregs up for the muddy bottoms to find gems if
you were like sort of thing you kind of do,
like you don't shy away from like the popular vulgarity
of the time and use the internet slang to sort
of get your point across. But yeah, I definitely think
especially younger audience members who he likes, you know, something
a little bit, a little bit rough and like that

(01:39:34):
kind of thing. Definitely read to a lean definite credit
or Journity and the Night. I read both, but I
can't remember which ones which are my memory because the
so long ago.

Speaker 2 (01:39:42):
One of them.

Speaker 1 (01:39:43):
He goes on a boat to New York and and
he comments that they talk to each other while pissing,
and he finds that strange all kinds of So was
that is that definite credit or journey to the end
of the night.

Speaker 2 (01:39:58):
He could a doctor in America? I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:40:01):
I think that maybe journey he start to be doctor
in Africa. But it's it's bizarre. Yes, it's kind of
The plot is loose and not especially engaging, but the
genital story reads. It reads like a world wind that
reads very fast.

Speaker 1 (01:40:18):
So yeah, yeah, he reminds me of the Beats in
that sense, but I prefer But yeah, this has been
an interesting discussion and thank you very much for joining
me today. BAP is a pleasure. I'd like to continue
our conversation another time on my on my podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:40:34):
Anytime, Tom please come on Caribbian Hythm soon.

Speaker 1 (01:40:37):
I will do that would be great. Thanks a lot,
Thank you, Thanks for listening everyone, goodbye. Are you interested
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