The Future of our Civilisation Depends on Real Marriage - Kirk Durston and Tony Rucinski on JD Unwin

welcome everyone to the coalition for marriage  youtube channel if you're joining us for the   first time let me just mention again that we  are the uk's largest pro-marriage organization   we represent groups and individuals who support  one man one woman marriage and that's not to say   other things don't exist in a liberal democracy  but we think one man one woman lifelong monogamous   marriage has special unique value to society and  i'm really excited to welcome today's guest who's   going to talk to us about that and and why it's  so important uh kirk durston would you like to say   hello to our listeners yes well it's pleasure to  be here tony and a big hello to everybody who is   watching this video or listening to it can i just  say folks as well if you're listening to this and   you think it's useful could you please forward it  to family members to colleagues to friends what   we're discussing today is perhaps one of the most  pivotal things we've discussed so far and the more   people that know about this the better now kirk  you're going to talk to us about the writings   of a 20th century social anthropologist oxford  social anthropologist j.d unwin because he's got   a lot to say about society about the things that  matter to society in terms of whether it prospers   or whether in fact that society collapses first of  all kirk tell us a little bit about yourself and   how maybe you came on to the study of unwin sure  i grew up in central canada on a farm uh raising   beef and grain uh but i guess at the age of 17 or  18 i decided i needed a vacation so i went off to   university and uh did a couple of undergraduate  degrees there one in physics one in engineering   and uh then uh upon completion i moved to montreal  over for pratt awaiting his experimental test   engineer and during that time i met and married  the woman now that i've been married to for   let's see it's four it'll be 42 years this this  july and yeah well it's been it just gets yeah   i'm very thankful and grateful for her and uh  then uh i found working with uh high tech uh very   interesting but not near as interesting as people  and so i began to feel motivated to start working   more with people and i left after a couple of  years of looking at different opportunities   i left that and began to work with people  particularly university students on universities   across canada and eventually i began to um to  speak on issues at universities and not just in   canada but a little bit in the u.s and actually  a few several times in scotland once in the uk   and a little bit in europe but as i interacted  with university students i saw there were two   major problems that seemed to devastate them or  set them back and as a result that's where i did   graduate degrees one in philosophy which was a  master's not a doctorate but then a doctorate   in biophysics for reasons that would equip  me to be better to better interact with the   particular issues that university students  were raising and uh yeah so along the way   i i've always been interested because i  have i've been i was raised in a fairly   um what would you say i don't think the word  strict is particularly appropriate but with   with high moral values when it comes to  what we do with our sexuality but i was   always interested in what if people don't don't  live by those values like what is the difference   how does that affect them and so when i when i  heard about jd unwind's work back in the 1930s   i became very interested in it i went through  that book a couple of times created a summary   and published it on my website and i think the day  i published it there was a professor at princeton   uh robert p george who is internationally  distinguished professor who has i guess taught   on on one and his he was shown my article  and he actually endorsed it said this was a   very good treatment of bunwin but he went on to  say that although unwhen published in the 1930s   his book sex and culture no one since then  has surpassed or even reach the same level   of research as jd unwin did he studied 86  different cultures and civilizations to see   what the relationship was between flourishing of  those civilizations in terms of architecture art   agriculture and literature between that and the  sexual constraints they exercised and when he did   that he found some truly remarkable observations  that he said were consistent and repeat with and   i quote monotonous irregularity but the beauty  of him having published in in the mid-1930s   is that he published before our own  sexual revolution in western society   so what that enables us to do is enable us to look  at unwin his research what the consequences are   of loosening special constraints what the  predictions his research made and then looking   to see to test actually to test the validity of  his conclusions and observations by looking at   whether our own society is following the same  footsteps with and i quote monotonous regularity   and it turns out it is astoundingly so so if i can  summarize what what what i interpret as on one's   thesis is essentially once a society  drops the notion of one man one woman   monogamous lifetime relationships and added  to that keeping sex for that one man one woman   monogamous relationship once society lets go  of that it marks the demise of the culture   is that largely a summary of his analysis of  86 cultures um over time well it's actually   uh that let's talk about the tipping point the  tipping point between a culture ascending this   curve of flourishing and well-being that  reaching the tipping point of sexual   um freedom or the relaxing of sexual  constraints and then the deterioration   what he found is that the tipping point actually  occurred before the abandonment of what he called   absolute monog or absolute monogamy  absolute monogamy defined by unwin   is the one man one woman for life and that  means that includes specifically their sexual   relationship is only between those two the man and  the woman for life that was absolute monogamy but   the tipping point occurred in a culture before  that the tipping point occurred when prenuptial   chastisty was no longer required that is he called  it prenuptial because he was referring to many   different civilizations that didn't use the term  marriage necessarily they had all sorts of customs   for marriage that we would translate as marriage  but he used the term nuptial so when sex before   marriage became acceptable in a culture that was  the tipping point and three things happened one   of which after that would be the loss of absolute  monogamy once pre-nuptial chastity was abandoned   then that affected marriages because marriages  lifelong marriages between a man and a woman   became well basically began to be replaced with  serial relationships and that's uh pretty much   where our culture is today as far as the middle  age to older people now would be well especially   the middle age there'd be serial relationships but  that is rapidly being degenerating even further   in western culture amongst the younger people  to what we might call complete sexual freedom   now that is devastating to a culture i know that  people get excited about sexual freedom but they   are unaware totally unaware of what the long-term  consequences of that are and j.d unwin nailed that   down it is the collapse of that culture within  three generations which he defined as roughly   one century a hundred years so when he's  looking at that um that collapse of the culture   tends to be lost from the culture he refers  to something uh this notion of energy doesn't   he which is uh reason reflection and creation and  it's almost like or is it almost like you tell me   it's like once people start thinking about  who they can have sex with and who they   what their own sexual desires are they stop  thinking about all sorts of other cultural issues   and in fact they might start tearing down the  culture in order that they can focus on nothing   but their own sexuality and who they want to  have sex with and that's strikingly similar to   what we might see is is possessing our society  today yes uh no one when unwin made a lot of   observations and recorded his observations but he  was also interested in the question why does that   society collapse and his theory was kind of  as you described is that this sexual energy   if there is a culture that has restraints on  that that sexual energy has to be diverted to   other more productive things or if it is not  it can become a major distraction away from   being productive and i would say that but he  didn't know for sure he just suggested this   but as you have observed and and i too  have observed that um unbridled sexual   constraints um our unbridled sexuality can  be a mass of distraction in a person's life   for example just the number of people  in our society today who spend let's say   to a minimum of two hours watching online porn per  week in the evening when their discretionary time   they have to work during the day so they have  to you know behave themselves and be productive   but our discretionary time has enormous potential  to do things that are positive and constructive   but so much now of our discretionary time it  would be well for many people many people a very   significant percentage of society there's  different percentages i see one is uh 75   percent of men spend more than two hours watching  illicit things online or and women are involved   at least 25 percent and but those  percentages depend on the survey or the study   but it is an enormous distraction but there's  something that is also devastating about this   and i think it is even more devastating  than simply uh wasting time and energy on   things that are not so productive in the area of  sexuality the devastation i think was outlined by   mary eberstadt more recently when she looked at  why is there such a massive increase of people who   are struggling with mental health and what about  the mass killing she was in the united states   and uh what about all this identity politics and  so she began to work backwards and she pinned   it down to the sexual revolution so something  about increased sexual freedom has resulted in   a massive deterioration in mental health amongst  particularly the younger people who are more   involved in this and eventually bottom line is is  that the section loosening the sexual constraints   decimates the family so for example  absolute monogamy as that deteriorates uh   the children are left in single-parent  relationships even blended family are better than   single but even blended family cannot cannot reach  the same level of well-being with the children as   uh children who grew up with the same dad and mom  all their lives for all their growing up years   so just explain blended family to uh yeah when  let's say uh absolute monogamy begins to break   down and people move split apart and marry someone  else often the children are are then blended   with the children of another with the  other spouse that's the second spouse   that's being made that they're married  to but there's an identity that children   acquire from their siblings and from their  immediate extended family cousins aunts uncles and   the sexual revolution really destroyed that larger  identity that children get from an extended family   because extended family meetings then become very  awkward once a marriage has broken up and so they   tend not to happen near as much the number  of cousins is greatly reduced because people   they break up after maybe one child or so so um  there is two factors involved in the destruction   of a civilization i think one of them is uh  the wasting of energy on the whole pursuit of   over sexualization of a society and we're  definitely our culture is way over sexualized   and secondly there are the consequences  on the relationships in the family   for the children uh that grow up in a in a  state where absolute monogamy has been destroyed   i should mention uh there were the  the three immediate consequences of   crossing the tipping point first of all i should  say i was shocked when i read that the tipping   point was pre-marital sex yeah like i i had  expected that the loosening of sexual constraints   that you would go pretty far down the road and  then they really start bothering culture but no   i was shocked because that's about the highest  standard a culture if there's prenatal chastity   the uh chances of lifelong marital relationships  is greatly increased greatly increased and uh so   figures figures today support that yes oh  yeah for sure i mean if you look at how long   marriages last today and plot that with um the  acceptance of premarital sexual relationships   uh you'll see a direct correlation we had we had  um uh dr pat fagan uh interviewed recently and uh   he was going through uh the u.s keeps some very  good figures on those sorts of things and and the   indications are very clear you know um one sexual  partner success in marriage it drops immediately   as soon as you go by one sexual partner yeah  and people think that you know we can soar   wild oats so to speak we can have a good time  before marriage but i have uh my my career was   literally thousands of hours in talking with  university students and and even young married   couples and so forth and those relationships  that they had before they were married   they don't just get deleted they don't the  memories don't just delete those come into the   marriage and it has a huge effect but for there  were three effects for that tipping point one was   i already mentioned the abandonment of absolute  monogamy the one man one woman for life secondly   uh abandonment to belief in god no all cultures  didn't just necessarily have a monotheistic belief   but as they increased and flourishing they  at least had a deistic or a theistic belief   belief in a god or gods that govern nature and  was were maybe active in human history and life   well that belief in god without the window once  that tipping point was crossed and we see exactly   the same thing today in our culture say in the  last hundred years since the sexual revolution   the belief in god has really declined now the  third thing that went that was that was lost   was rational thinking rational thinking like  the ability to think logically and rationally   and arrive at conclusions that are based on  well-reasoned uh well-reasoned process with   propositions and a logical conclusion  that gradually increased as the culture   incorporated sexual restraint but when the tipping  point was crossed there was a very rapid loss of   rational thinking in that society and again being  involved heavily involved in the academic world   of this this began to become very visible even  a couple even shortly after um premarital sexual   relationships became totally accepted university  many universities just are appalled at the lack of   critical thinking skills that today's young people  have in fact it's more important to today's people   younger people to believe what they want to  believe and insist that's true versus anything to   do with rational thinking and logical conclusions  so those were the three victims three signs   that unwin said that a civilization has crossed  the tipping point and is now on a decline and   we have seen those remarkably clear in our culture  today since the sexual revolution so it looks like   unwin's research is going to come true again today  for western culture in fact it's not just western   culture anymore the internet has connected us  globally so not all cultures are at the same place   when it comes to sexual restraint but when we look  at the figures let's say for online pornography   there is a remarkable similarity between the  cultures around the world even ones we would say   are are are officially part of behind closed doors  they are rapidly plummeting in this area as well   can we spend a moment cut exploring that a little  bit through the the lens of female emancipation as   uh as anyone calls it because he looks at these  cultures and says well there's there's a pattern   so as the culture begins to get a little bit  more liberal you've got this idea of female   emancipation that that women want the same rights  quite rightly as men and that that ends up turning   into sexual emancipation meaning that they can  have or that they want to have sex with whoever   they want to have sex with and not be restricted  to one man and um unwind's a recommendation there   is actually it would be good to to have a society  which is uh absolutely monogamous but where women   have equal rights to men because he sees that  as as a potential um solution and i wonder if   he could maybe discuss that and also discuss that  in the context of our society maybe being a little   bit different to ones that have come before  because we have things like um contraception   and we have things like technology which which  does allow people to explore things on their   own that they normally wouldn't have been able to  yes this was a a very this was another observation   unwin made that just prior to the tipping point  what he observed in these various cultures like   we tend to think today that emancipation  let's say the equal rights for men and women   is a modern thing but it's not there  were other cultures that had that as well   uh that were that arrived in greek culture for  example in roman culture but what he observed   is that something unfortunate first of all  is that women tended to be treated often   with not the same in not the same way as men and  that was unfortunate and eventually a culture as   it began to flourish reached a point where the  emancipation of women occurred now he used the   term emancipation basically what he meant is that  the same rights that men had would be what women   have as well which unwin regarded as a good thing  and i i i personally regard as a good thing and i   think many people intuitively think well that's  that's good you know that's good that we that we   see this equal equality here but unfortunately  what he also noticed is that when this occurred   uh shortly afterwards the sexual revolution  occurred and again we saw that happen the feminist   movement began well actually began early 1900s  there's different stages that they've talked about   but it really reached the forefront of the  mid-1960s in western culture and uh very shortly   almost immediately after that or even with it  began the sexual revolution and what why is   this why is this so unwin thought wouldn't it be  somehow somehow it would be great if we could have   both the emancipation of women but retain high  sexual moral standards he said in that case the   flourishing would increase exponentially  the flourishing of a civilization but that   never occurred actually in every case so what  does that tell us it tells us that uh prior to   that emancipation of women because they were  not treated equally uh there was a certain   holdback of sexual freedom in that the men  there was a huge double standard in other   words often the men would be more free than the  women and the thing that restrained men or who   was a big restraint was not just sexual rules  but the unavailability of women to participate   sexually and freely but that really disappeared  for example in our culture with with the invention   of contraceptives i would so the question is how  can we have both and and i i actually think there   is a solution and it would be that the the moral  values that we have when it comes to sexuality   i think need to be intrinsically held  not externally imposed on ourselves   if they're externally imposed there's a lot  of people are very creative there's a lot of   cheating going on behind the scenes but when  they're intrinsically held by both the man and   the woman you can have both men and women treated  completely equally with equal freedoms and rights   but both of them hold an intrinsic  high moral standard when it comes to   sexuality that is sexuality should be constrained  within that union of marriage for life   and uh i i i mean i i i would not i've  been married for 40 almost 42 years now   and the older i get in and the more i can look  back and i could appreciate certain things that   when i was young i didn't appreciate i  have enormous value i've seen the value   of being committed to one another and only one  another like just it's a total just that for life   that that provides a context of where love  can flourish it provides a context where trust   could absolutely flourish i neither of us ever  have to worry you know wonder when somebody's   on a road trip somewhere about what might be  happening there's absolute trust built earned   over the course of years there's no baggage  from our past that we brought into our marriage   so um and consequently we have six children who  have all they're all grown up they're all married   now and they seem to be doing quite quite well  and uh i think the me a big reason for that is   that they were able to grow up within a loving  relationship provided by their dad and mom   who first of all loved each other and loved  them and it's just a beautiful context   and they watched that and they saw that yeah  in fact i would say they they learn more they   pick up more by watching and seeing and living in  that environment then by me giving them a lecture   on the on the topic i'm sure to a degree that  that's it is self-sacrificial in the sense that   you know from a from a humanist animalistic  perspective you know the temptation for   sex wherever you can get it you can see how  people want it but actually that sacrifice leads   to something greater and i know unwin um refers to  uh the the the error of treating women as chattels   if you like in society and that's the thing that  promotes the desire for emancipation quite rightly   but there's a degree to which i belong to my wife  just like you i am hers i'm not somebody else's i   am hers and she is mine and that any uh anything  outside of that there is an aspect of theft too   because we belong to each other and that means  something and that has implications down the line   yeah absolutely like for example you might notice  i have a sort of a bit of a stubble here why do   i have this stubble i would much rather have  a full beard it's because my wife prefers me   like this and you know i as you said i  feel that i belong to her you know i mean i   i want to please her there is a sacrifice i mean  it's not like um people are no longer notice other   women or other men but um i don't actually i guess  on the short term it can seem like a sacrifice   especially if there's an opportunity to maybe  experience something sexually that um normally   might not be there and it's very attractive  there's a short-term attraction here and it   seems like a short sacrifice on the short term but  on the long term there is enormous reward at least   i've experienced that in our own life enormous  reward the love just continues to flourish and   grow when when that rather small sacrifice is made  now there's a lot of small sacrifices you know   because there's a lot of times we may be attracted  to or tempted in some way but the long-term payoff   there is no comparison and it kind of i i know  carl truman in his work um rising trump the modern   self and his his latest book kind of summarizing  that he talks about the way um our approach   or or the the modern man or woman's approach to  life has been what do i want and what do i need   as opposed to what's my role in society so it's  much more self-centered as opposed to i'm a member   of society how can i best contribute but picking  up on a another video you recently did with um   critiquing something that sam harris had put  out and sam harris in that video had said um sam   harris people who who don't know is uh one of what  you might call the new atheists if you like um but   sam harris said well what's so bad about hell it  might be quite nice and picking up on that thought   um what's so bad about a collapsed society it  might be quite nice oh it's never nice according   to unwind's research what happens is okay so  first of all in he said it collapses within three   generations of that society crossing the tipping  point which is when pre-marital sex becomes   fine there's no restrictions on that  so there's three generations which he   roughly translates to one century 100 years  the first generation after that tipping point   is uh there's very little change actually in the  first generation so our tipping point it's not a   particular day on the calendar probably not even  a particular year but for us it was probably some   time it started in 19 mid 60s but i would say  that pre-nuptial sexual relationships didn't   become perfectly fine and normal maybe until the  1980s somewhere in there so the tipping point was   somewhere in the 90s so the first generation is  roughly 33 years and we're at the end of that now   and you will see not a whole lot of change  normally in all the cultures they looked at   because it's running on the momentum of the  past and still there will be older people who   still hold to a higher sexual moral standard  than say the younger people and so that has   a stabilizing influence for the first generation  and then the older people start dying off and the   younger people start come becoming of age where  they're having families and you enter the second   generation and unknowns research so that's where  you really start seeing a decline in rational   thinking lifetime monogamy and um deism or theism  or basically religion see decline in those three   areas in the second generation now remarkably  we've seen that huge in the first generation   already but i think it's because of the internet  so the second generation starts to decline and by   the time you hit the third generation so let's  let's do some projections here uh roughly 30   years from now would be 20 let's say in the mid  2050s we should enter the third generation at   that point unwin says it goes into free fall  now remember what he's valuing or measuring   civilizations on is in terms of flourishing  agriculture art literature uh architecture   all those things rapidly decline in the third  generation to the extent that the society either   there's a just a complete complex collapse of  how that society works even in the production of   food of housing uh usually at that point you can  either break out in a civil war where it's just be   anarchy and it's every person for themselves  which is not fine or that culture is invaded   by another culture that has higher sexual  standards higher higher capabilities greater   flourishing and it's at a higher stage in what  you would call flourishing it's invaded so we've   seen that throughout history today it's a little  bit different because of a global maybe decline   although some cultures are still higher up than  western culture as far as their capabilities so   but even then they're they're declining too so i  don't know what it's going to look like probably   something more akin to anarchy uh city-states um  civil wars um survival of the fittest it's it's   never ever pleasant how much of this um kurt do  you think is the balance between natural slippage   let's say so as a liberal democracy kind of  progresses uh it wants to give more people freedom   and what that does is end up restricting some  people's freedom and saying well in order for some   to be free this is what you now must believe and  sorry but that's going to restrict your freedom   and that's you could say that's that's almost like  a natural slippage in liberal democracy and where   it always tends to how much to think is that and  how much do you think is there's almost like an   agenda being pushed by something or someone is it  just natural slippage or is it more than that well   that's a very good question and a very good point  you raise because we are observing that as well in   our in our western western culture and not just  in western culture but okay so um let's say as   a society becomes more progressive um what tends  to happen is that it wants to make people behave   so the the the incentive for behaving now becomes  more and more external because people want more   and more personal freedom to do whatever  they want so the laws have to be increased   and you have to have more constraints on freedom  uh the kind of freedom that progressive society   doesn't want to see let's say freedom of speech  for example has to be more tightly constrained   in sort and you have to have a lot more laws  to make people behave because they're not   operating from an intrinsic moral standard anymore  for example a friend of mine recently retired as a   police officer he had been a police officer for  about 30 years and he said that when he retired   he had approximately three times as many laws to  enforce as he had 30 years earlier when he joined   the police force that he worked for three times  as many laws and so we we absolutely see that now   and that restricts our  freedom that i mean eventually   it becomes a gigantic daycare center i suppose  where there are strict rules about how everybody   has to behave in order so we can get along as  opposed to uh when everybody has a high internal   intrinsic moral standard and that includes i  really want to get along with my neighbor and do   you mentioned earlier what are my moral  obligations to other people to my society   that's a high moral value when you think of your  life in terms of what are my moral obligations to   other people but as you pointed out our society  has swung away from that too what do i want   what are my rights and as that happens then  because everybody has different ideas of what   they want what the rights are then you have to  have more government more restraints more rules   more laws to kind of kind of try and rein in  the ano the personal anarchy that's happening   and that leads to a collapse of society as well  one it can really lead to one of two ways a lot   of times maybe even most of the time it reaches  a point where people just say enough of this   and you have a civil war or if you have a brutal  government and north korea is an example and i've   been there two times i've seen with my own eyes  if you have a brutal government you can enforce   the ultimate in a progressive society where  it's all about you know let's all work together   theoretically and here are all the rules to  make sure that everybody behaves and it becomes   absolute it's like living in a penitentiary really  in a prison our government and i'm not talking   about uh necessarily political parties but our  governments uh in canada and in the uk generally   they're not comprised of completely silly people  but people with knowledge and understanding who   realize the significance to a society to a stable  society of of real marriage of one man one woman   monogamous marriage why is it being abandoned i  mean they know what they're doing what's going on   first of all there are some like i'm thinking  of canada here i know canada politicians there   there are some who personally in their own life  they seem to believe that absolute monogamy is   the way to go but in the kind of legislation they  introduce it's totally contradictory to what they   do and i think a lot of it has to do to at least  two things one one is is a cultural brainwashing   let's say a culture-led mentality where we want  to fit in with our culture our culture seems   to be going in a particular direction and it can  influence a person we're influenced by our culture   every day we actually have to work i have to work  and intentionally evaluate why do i think of these   things why do i believe what i believe and the  second thing that happens is that goes along okay   that influences the academic world and  right now i would say the academic world   is almost front and center in leading the charge  into the complete collapse of our civilization   very much with the things that they're doing  but the second thing that happens is that   the politician even if they believe in say maybe a  higher moral standard is heavily influenced by the   polls and by the temptation to want to get elected  in the next term and so consequently they are   pressured by the culture to draft certain  laws bring certain things into effect   and often that culture if it's on the decline  that pressure is negative on the moral values of a   politician or a government leader and that's just  two possibilities there that second one is a tough   one i don't know how many times i've referred to  this but in 2018 here in the uk there was a comres   uh anonymous poll of of our politicians and  of those who responded over half said they   were too fearful to speak their mind uh on  certain lgbt issues for fear of backlash   and you think hold on if our law makers are too  afraid to speak and presumably vote with their   true feelings well that's a problem that's what  it is it's a significant it's kind of like an   unofficial coercion or restriction of of the free  discussion of ideas like i can i can um personally   i'm not going to stand up and say hateful things  about people i want to build bridges with people   but i also want the freedom to have a sincere  thoughtful discussion on any issue any issue   at all but as you say the same situations here in  canada polls have been done on universities here   and most the vast majority of university students  are afraid to say anything in class for fear   they somehow cross a line and get disciplined or  expelled or reprimanded so there's this fear and   and living in a culture of fear is another sign i  think that we're on a on a collect heading towards   a collapse of civilization and unwind forecast  now i should point out that unwin observed that   many of these cultures and civilizations thought  they would be the exception he said this was   hubert like he just observed this and he says no  there were no exceptions ever a lot of cultures   thought they would be it and i know our culture  probably thinks the same thing that oh we won't   collapse although i don't know i i see a lot of  pessimism especially amongst the younger people   that they're not sure the future's looking all  that rosy and they're worried about it and i think   rightfully so because there are larger things that  are slowly grinding to a halt that should go into   free fall you're right and not only that but you  look at the the global population and what you   might call the western world is about two billion  people out of seven billion people so we're not in   the not in the majority you know there's there's  a lot more people who think and feel uh culturally   very different to us exactly so we need to protect  and preserve that we do i know uh in fact i see uh   like here i hear a lot about how i hear  a lot about colonialism and how terrible   it is because north america of course was  colonized by the british and the french but um   and so they they're the the lab the  liberal left of the progressives would say   uh you know all the colonialism is terrible but  what i am observing is that when they're looking   at some of these other cultures in developing  countries that maybe have more concern of moral   values with regard to sexuality they actually  think they're wrong they actually want to   let's say practice a a cultural colonialism on the  developing world and convince the developing world   they need a sexual revolution revolution as well  that theirs they're backward and so forth so it's   a large double standard in our western culture  that we think our views of sexuality and sexual   freedom are the proper ones or the correct ones  and we need to basically colonize the rest of   the world with our ideas there's this concept of  uh liberal hegemony you know taking our views and   liberalism and almost like imposing it on other  other countries because we know it's better   um can i just touch i i know you you're a busy guy  and i could i could literally spend the entire day   talking to you um but a little bit of criticism of  um unwin in fairness we need to look at those who   and the criticisms will will involve things like  yeah but um correlation is not causation and um   you know actually uh if unwounded looked at japan  for example he would see that japan has become a   a lot more liberal over the years and that its  liberalism has coincided with its prosperity   so how would we deal with things like that yes  well first of all it is true that correlation is   not necessarily causation and i do mention some  my own reservation of that in my article that   although i think there is something to be said for  sexual energy and diverting that into something   more constructive i wasn't sure that that was the  cause of the collapse of civilizations but when   i read about the effect of the sexual revolution  on the family and on marriage i think we're much   closer to the cause of that collapse onward of  course wasn't didn't have a faith himself did he   he was i don't i don't see any evidence whatsoever  in fact when i read his book looking for that um   i saw the way he described say christianity for  example was um i don't think he ever mentions   jesus for example he does talk about  christianity but i think he refers to it uh   the galilean as a term that he used the galilean  he never uses and it refers to christianity in a   very um just completely as if it's no different  from any other religions pagan or otherwise so i   i would suspect uh based on my reading of  unwind that he was probably maybe an agnostic   maybe an atheist but certainly no evidence  whatsoever that he was a religious man because   you would expect religious people to be biased up  here but he he just doesn't seem to have that at   all if anything may be biased against slightly  slightly against i wouldn't say a bias but just   and of those of those who do criticize you know  they they pick up and say well his definition   of civilized versus uncivilized you know  that's not right but they don't actually   undermine his basic premises which is which is  once you lose that notion of lifelong monogamy   um and and keeping sex for marriage that's  the beginning of the end for any culture it is   yeah because of the consequences that unfold from  that so um i'm um i was i was once um criticized   as being a pathological optimist which which i  took as a compliment as a pathological optimist   would of course um so i'm not i'm not willing to  think this is the end of our society and this is   the end of our culture and many people have said  actually we do a massive correction at some point   and and that could be painful if not managed  properly i wonder in your view how do we look at   you know you can never go back in time of course  you can't but in terms of uh and i don't think   anyone's looking for top-down imposition of of  these things to to get back to where we need to be   what's the route forward from here would you  say well i'll just give you my thoughts on that   and that is a very important that question you've  asked i think okay let's say if we want to be an   optimist here the way forward for me personally is  i think intrinsic moral values are very important   i don't want imposition of moral values like what  they have in north korea for example which is the   extreme it has to be intrinsic so what is that i  i think that i might not be able to do a whole lot   about the where our civilization is going but what  i can do is first of all look to myself how am i   doing personally and for example the emancipation  of women i thought like how is that working out   in my marriage i very much i totally see my wife  as my number one advisor for example i i don't   think i've ever made well i've never say pulled  rank as a husband say well i'm the man you know   we're gonna do this ever in 41 years of marriage  we talk about these things and if i ever did that   i would see that as a failure on my part a loss  and consequently the the relationship between a   man and a woman when they see each other is their  number one advisors and confidence and partners   that's the first step i think in producing the  next generation that will not be going downhill   but also will those values that they'll hold so  that's one step the second thing is well at least   maybe i can somehow influence others to maybe  think a little more carefully about their own   um intrinsic state of affairs their intrinsic  values and so that's why i have my website for   example kirktursten.com that's why i'm doing my  videos it's it's the with the hope that i can   motivate others and so even though clinton's  research said there were no exceptions in   the collapse that doesn't mean i throw up  the hands of despair and say okay i'm just   we're we're going downhill no i think we have  a moral obligation every one of us to first of   all look to ourselves what are my obligations  to my society personally i'm not interested   in my rights and freedoms well i i let me  let me say that i'm not interested in my   my rights freedoms is a different category  i'm very interested in that but rights i think   i'll say i'll trust god to look out for my  rights what i have to do is to look at myself   as basically a servant to my civilization and  to the people around me and my neighbors and so   i it's had it's about looking around me and  see what positive contribution can i make   coming out of my intrinsic love for what is right  and good and beautiful and true that's you know   kirk that is absolutely beautiful and that's  something we need to get back into our culture   is that it's not just about you and and the best  way of of producing the best environment for you   is for you to think about other people and if  everyone did that sounds a bit twee but actually   things might be an awful lot better than they are  now and that that's never more embraced than in   in the you know the marriage relationship uh the  context of sex within marriage all those things   that unwin says are absolutely ins essential  to a a prospering flourishing culture well yet   kirk it's been a privilege you mentioned your  website uh kirkdirsten.org was it dot com kirk   thurston.com that's kirk as in the scottish word  for church kirk durston d-u-r-s-t-o-n oh we'll pop   it on the screen uh can i recommend this uh this  video will be going out to or we'll be notifying   uh tens of thousands of people i want them to all  if they can go to your website have a look go and   watch your videos but most of all to take your  advice which is let's be examples to society let's   encourage others to do it too and let's get it  back and let's make it the society that it could   and should be based on real marriage and the  value that that gives kirk thank you so much   for your time i wish you well in all your work  as you're going forward and uh it's a pleasure   to talk to you oh it was a pleasure as well  tony thank you for this excellent conversation

Channel: CoalitionForMarriage

Views: 3,571

Keywords: C4M, Marriage, family, children, society, lifelong, union, exclusive, heterosexual, traditional, monogamous, best, relationship, success, research, evidence, same-sex, gay, lesbian, education, religious, sex, lgbt, secular, RE, RSE, no fault, divorce, parents, husband, wife, mother, father, christian, jewish, muslim, hindu, faith, humanist, atheist, wedding, service, ceremony, custom, church, mosque, synagogue, registry office, law, legal, married, one, man, woman, coalition, marital, institution, concern, tony rucinski, catholic, anglican

Id: QTH4LPdaFpo

Length: 49min 51sec (2991 seconds)

Published: Sat May 14 2022