Konstantin Kisin | What makes the West great

whenever you bring up any of these arguments people will say oh you're just a culture Warrior okay I am just a culture Warrior because I actually happen to think our culture is the reason we are where we [Music] are I'm Tom Switzer and I'm the executive director at the center for independent studies and for those of you who don't know much about CIS if this is your first CIS event where a public policy the research organization we're just based down the road on mcari Street 131 mcari Street we usually do our events there but on special occasions like this we needed to find the extra room now we are dedicated to tackling our nation's greatest challenges by producing work that promotes our core classical liberal beliefs so we promote Economic Opportunity for all healthy institutions of Civil Society education reforms that improve Teaching Standards and schools outcomes and and this is especially important for an event like tonight we are passionate Defenders of our Western liberal cultural heritage and that also means we are strong critics of those counsellors and they're broadly speaking to be found on the left spectrum of politics where strong critics of the counselors who wish to strangle debate kill the ethos of a liberal Society suppress ideas and seek to standardize opinion and indeed on many issues from the energy transition to Identity politics to censoring children's books the prevailing Western narrative the prevailing wisdom across much of the elite media and the political class can be stifling and intolerant we at CIS are among those groups who stand up to that IL liberalism and that and that brings us to tonight's speaker Constantine kissen now Constantine is a popular russian-born British podcaster pundit and saturnist who distinguished himself a year ago you may have seen this at the Oxford Union debate a year go pretty much to the day where Constantine took issue with the notion of a woke culture and the debate was whether it had gone too far and he argued that all Wess has to offer is quote to brainwash Bright Young Minds like you to believe that you are victims and the result remember we're talking about Oxford University here the result his side carried the debate by a margin of 889 to 60 and get this his widely praised lecture which you can easily find on YouTube has attracted close to three million views on YouTube but also 100 million views across online platforms 100 million views extraordinary now Constantine has been a guest at CIS for the last week we've done sold out events in Perth Melbourne with our friends at the institute for public affairs and of course here tonight his co-host as many of you probably know of trigonometry and he's author of an immigrants love letter to the West which is a Sunday Times bestseller now after Constantine's opening remarks my colleague Glenn Fay who heads our education program he'll exchange thoughts including some of the questions that you have sent us but for now it's a great pleasure to welcome and please join me in welcoming Constantine kissen thank you very much ladies and gentlemen before we get any further please join me in thanking Tom deian Glenn and the rest of this team at the Cs for having me here for uh the last week thank you very much thank you now ladies and gentlemen it is my uh first time here in Australia I didn't really know what to expect uh when I first came over and a guy on the plane recognized me and started talking to me and found out I was coming to give a few talks and he said mate watch out Australia's is getting very politically correct there's a big problem with political correct and I didn't really know what to expect uh so I get off the plane I get to my hotel the lady checks me in gives me the card and she goes and if you want breakfast tomorrow head to the two fat [Music] Indians I this is my kind of place cuz in the UK we wouldn't say that we don't say fat we say people of girth actually on the way here Tom ask me what my what I think of Australia what's my take on Australia and here it is I think it's a country that looks like America full of British people who aren't miserable that's basically what I'm getting here now it's such a pleasure to see so many young people here several of you are under 60 thank you for coming all six of you now it's really great to be here I'm not going to speak for very long I just thought I would touch very briefly on a subject that Tom's already raised which is of course the West now I'm not an academic I always say I claim zero expertise but as long as keep people keep asking my opinion I'll keep giving it uh and the reason I think about the West quite a lot at the moment is the reason that I think we all think about the West which is the direction of travel I have to say in in the week or in a bit that I've been here I don't think you guys are quite as far down the slippery slope that other Western countries are I usually get booed when I say this um here in Australia but I do think it's true I think you are in a better way um but the reason I care about it actually there's several people here who who were like me born in the Soviet Union is I've seen the other side uh albe it briefly uh and I'm aware that what we have in the west is unusual now uh by the way those of you who' have seen my AR speech of course I mentioned I was from the Soviet Union and I brought up Alexander soljan uh and I was immediately accused online as is common in this situation something quite ridiculous I was accused of comparing myself with Alexander Solan niton there is no comparison Alexander Sol niton spent 20 years or however long it was in the Soviet gag where he endured brutal punishments of starvation dire and all sorts of other nastiness I went to a British boarding school that's where the similarities but what is the west and it strikes me that I'm in the right place to ask this question because if I had to conduct an experiment to prove that our societies and our culture and our civilization are unique it would be what the British did here I would round up a few thousand of my least law-abiding citizens and I would ship them over to the other side of the world to a baron land full of venomous creatures and I'd leave them there for a couple of hundred years and I'd come back and I would see what was happening and if I found 200 years later that this Society was thriving that would require some sort of explanation what do I mean by thriving by the way well we could talk about GDP per capita or all sorts of other things but actually you only need to look at what's happening how many young Australians are getting on small rickety boats every year and braving shark infested waters in search of a better life and how many people until your government did something about it were trying to do the opposite and come here millions of people are crossing the southern border of the United States illegally every year and risking their lives dealing with Mexican drug cartels and all sorts of terrible things that happened to them on the way to get into the United States tens of thousands of people risk their lives by getting on small boats to cross the English Channel every year to get into the UK illegally likewise with the Mediterranean now why is that why are people coming why do people want to come to our societies as I once did well the answer is very Politically Incorrect I'm afraid and by the way um political correctness is a phrase i' like to pick up on because most people in the west do not know where the term comes from political correctness never had anything to do with not offending minorities and proect protecting the rights of people and anything like that political correctness was invented in the Soviet Union for one reason and one reason only so that they could say comrade what you're saying is factually correct but it's Politically Incorrect and what that meant was what you're saying is true but it is not compliant with the party line of the day and that is increasing ly how restriction of speech is being used in the west which is what we'll come to in a second but the politically correct truth is that the reason people want to come to our societies is that they're better sorry they are and I don't mean that we are we have a higher moral value or we are somehow morally Superior I just mean that people come to our societies because they're better at creating the sorts of things that human beings seem to want safety Prosperity the ability to change your gender every morning you know things like that now why are our societies better at creating these things why why are societies better at doing this freedom very good sir you've watched too many Hollywood movies any other ideas someone say democracy good democracy good why are societies better at creating safety and prosperity prob good now there are some answers because if you if you say freedom and democracy you have to explain why those things are good why is freedom good why is democracy good these are just words and the things that we mean by them don't really correlate to the outcomes of safety and prosperity we have to be able to explain what the link is between those things and the things that people actually crave because there are not many people who get on boat in search of freedom and democracy most people are coming because the societies are safer and more prosperous now why is that well what do we mean by democracy exactly I once asked Jordan Peterson this question at dinner I said what is Western civilization and Jordan did what Jordan often does he he launched into a 20 minute monologue and the first 18 minutes I've had absolutely no idea what he was talking about and then around the 19 minutes Market all comes together and it starts to make sense as many of you are nodding because you're familiar with the experience that's the Bea of Jordan he's able to explain these complex Concepts and he said that within a chimp troop there are true there are two rather there are two primary strategies for how the alpha male is able to rule the troop the first is uh you rule by strength and brute force and as long as you are the strongest the most powerful the most violent male in the group the biggest in the group group you're able to dominate others however it's quite a bad long-term strategy because the moment you lose your dominance the moment you're not the strongest or the moment that two smaller chimps can get together and take you down your life ends and pretty quickly and pretty brutally the other strategy and it's the reason that most many many alpha males in chimp troops are actually quite often one of the smaller males is a coalition strategy it's a strategy whereby the the alpha male Grooms the other members of the tribe in a good way and this reciprocal exchange this Coalition building approach is how the chimp the alpha male chimp is able to maintain Authority and control over that troop and this is a much better long-term strategy and this is what we mean by democracy it's not always been democracy in the western world but what we mean is government by consent the fact that our leaders are answerable to us in some way in a way that they're not in almost every other Society uh give you an example Tom and I had a big uh rout today on on the on the C podcast about Ukraine and whatever you think was the reason that Vladimir Putin felt the need to invade uh one of the things we do now know is that the reason he felt comfortable to do so is that nobody in his inner circle is really able to tell him the truth anymore he thought that it would be easy he thought that the Ukraine ukrainians would welcome his troops with bread and salt and so on and this wasn't the case now our model of government by consent means that our leaders are unable to put themselves in this bubble uh and if they do reality strikes them in the face very very quickly but it's not I'm not just talking about politics the idea of government by consent is the reason that our armies fight better because the soldier on the ground is able to pass information of the chain of command in a way that he might not be in an army that is much more hierarchical and authoritarian there are many many reasons why this model works better for example uh there is a reason that uh Western countries have not had a choby siiz nuclear disaster because the sorts of human errors that were made in that tragedy are much less likely to be made in a less hierarchical less authoritarian system government by consent is one of the reasons that we have been able to be a success UC f as we are now the second reason I want to talk to you about uh that I think is the Bedrock of our success is something that we're practicing right here right now and Tom raised which is of course freedom of expression now again we talk about freedom of expression as if it's some kind of moral good right it's it's good it's just good freedom of expression yeah it's good why why is it good why is the PE the ability to speak freely good we have to be able to answer this question if we are to teach our children the values of our civilization and if we're to explain to them why they should actually care about these things because just saying from the height of our Authority these things are good is not enough as we can see right now why is freedom of expression good well the first thing is that you cannot think freely if you cannot speak you have to speak to be able to think and when you speak you often find out whether whether what you're saying is complete crap because someone will tell you and it that's basically Twitter in the nutshell right and it is this sharpening of idea against idea that has produced the technological and scientific progress that we've been able to make now my experience is that when I go around the west and I speak to people like you about this people in the west do not understand the extent of our technological and scientific superiority through not only today but Through the Ages I I mean you can go to almost any part of our Western history and and see this uh the example I like to give most recently is because of the Oppenheimer movie which I'm sure many of you have seen how many of you have seen it just okay half of you so I'll explain for the rest of you it's a movie about the Manhattan Project the developing of the nuclear bomb in the' 40s in the United States now because it's a Hollywood movie uh they spend the entire time you know focusing on the Red Scare and McCarthyism and how dare you know the Americans oppress these poor little Communists but at the end they slip in the fact that the only reason the Soviet Union got the nuclear bomb was because of Communists working on the Manhattan Project who gave it to Stalin Communists in America gave the nuclear bomb to Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union the second greatest superpower in the world could could develop one by themselves and it's interesting because the nuclear bomb that the Soviet Union developed shortly afterwards was called rds1 which stands for RIA Russia does it by itself quite ironic given that it was lifted almost entirely from the Americans go back to history I mean we talk often about colonialism right hernand Cortez arrives in Central America and he takes down an Empire of 6 million Aztecs with a few hundred cona doors and some local allies that is the level of technological superiority we enjoy and that is the reason why Western Nations dominate the world and there have been times when that hasn't been true we often talk about the fall of Constantinople as this great moment in history where the the the former Roman Empire ended conclusively well there are many reasons cultural and historical that it happened but actually the reason that the walls of Constantinople could be breached is that muhmmed II had bigger cannons it's as simple as that and the story repeats time and time and time again now how do you get from freedom to progress well one of the reasons is of course that we have been much Freer comparatively from the dogma of religion from the dogma of authoritarian government from the Dogma the dogma of social uh and societal uh Orthodoxy is probably the right word to be able to do things that other people in other societies have not because we've had the freedom to do so now let's be clear I'm not by any means suggesting that we have some kind of Monopoly on Innovation uh you you know gunpowder is invented in China but almost every major and Victor Davis Hansen has a wonderful lecture on YouTube about this which I recommend people watch when he talks about the Western Way of war and he makes many of the points that I'm making tonight um gunpowder invented in in China and almost every development in the history of firearms from the musket to the automatic rifle to the cruise missile is then made in the west but freedom of expression and freedom of research and freedom of science is not enough the thing that really makes this work is we have a unique incentive structure in the west uh Charlie Monga uh and I think it was Charlie Munga the great investor I think who passed away recently he said that show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome we have created an incentive structure that is unique around the world and people again in the west forgive me do not understand what the hell I'm talking about somebody when I asked why we're successful mentioned uh the rule of law and private property now you don't understand this most of you but private property does not exist in the rest of the world the richest man in Russia was mik hovsky he was the richest man in Russia for as long as he didn't give give money to opposition parties in Russia the moment he did he ceased being the richest man in Russia and he went to prison for 10 years Jack Mah the sixth richest man in China makes some some comments about banking regulation of all things disappears and is Thoroughly re-educated uh ban uh disappears a year ago one of the richest men in China again reappears a few weeks ago uh changed man again uh miraculously gives up all his position in his own company right you do not have private property in most of the rest of the world now why does it matter one of the reasons it matters is if everything you create can be taken away from you by an authoritarian Tyrant the incentive is not to innovate the incentive is to comply and are the fact that the way you succeed in our societies is by creating things and providing things of value to other people is the way you get ahead and that's why we are innovators like we are in the Soviet Union where I grew up it was not Innovation or creativity that got you ahead it was compliance with the party Dogma serving the the elite that existed at the time a very small one and this is of course the same in corrupt regimes around the world in a corrupt country where there's a strong authoritarian cast you're not going to advance by being creative and free you're going to advance by doing whatever the hell you need to do to get on the right side of those people and facilitate the corruption that's happening in your Society so freedom of expression capitalism a dirty word now and government by consent are three of the major reasons we are where we are but we no longer have the language or the ability to articulate these things which is why I wrote in my book that I think the West has become a cargo cult now I know that many of you in this room will know what I mean in this neck of the words but some of you will not so let me remind you during World War II the Americans and the Japanese used many Islands small islands in the Pacific to station troops use them as air strips Supply dumps Etc ammo dumps Etc and when they were using these small Islands there were some local tribes fairly primitive tribes technologically that lived there too which benefited who benefited massively from the Japanese and the Americans giving them food clothing medicine Etc to to get their compliance and they watched this for years the planes would land drop off supplies take off and and they watched all this process and they benefited massively from the clothes the medicine the food Etc and then the war ended and the Americans and Japanese left and they took their clothes and their supplies and their medicines and the tribes that lived there were lost what do you do well what they did is they started to imitate what they'd seen they would make headphones out of coconuts they would March up and down fake Air strips like they'd seen the American soldiers do they would build towers radio towers out of bamboo and sit in them expecting the planes to come back and this is what we increasingly do we imitate the things that made us successful instead of practicing them that is why the West in my opinion is in great Peril or at least has the potential to end up in great Peril because we no longer are able to articulate these values to ourselves and we're not longer able to articulate them to our children we now have two or three generations of people who have not been taught any of the things that we've just discussed instead they've been taught about the evils of our society and our history is terrible and I always say to these people what who are you comparing us to what you think the Ottomans were woke is that what look at Russia the biggest country on the map how do you think it became as big as it did right so we have allowed ourselves to to be lied to about our history and that is one of the reasons that we are where we are now whenever you bring up any of these arguments people will say oh you're just a culture Warrior right okay I am just a culture Warrior because I actually happen to think our culture is the reason we are where we are and I think our culture is worth Pro protecting our culture is worth defending and our culture is worth remembering our culture is worth understanding how we got here thank you very much thank thank you for watching to see the Q&A from this talk click the video link here and don't forget to subscribe and click the Bell icon to get more content just like [Music] this

Channel: Centre for Independent Studies

Views: 51,930

Keywords: Centre for Independent Studies, CIS, AusPol, Australian politics, Classical Liberalism, freedom of speech, Classical Liberalist, Woke, Wokism, Australia, Private Property, Immigration, Freedom, Western Civilisation, Liberty, Democracy, Russia, Political Correctness, Cancel Culture, Culture Wars, Democratic, Refugees, Safe Space, The West, Freedom of Expression

Id: rJweuG89hPw

Length: 24min 48sec (1488 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 19 2024