The War on Truth, Beauty, and Goodness

Your dog and a stranger are drowning. You can only save one. Who do you choose? Dennis Prager says your answer reveals everything about how you define right and wrong. In his new book, If There Is No God, Prager exposes the danger of emotion-based morality and why without objective truth, society descends into chaos. This isn't a religious book. It's a rational case for moral clarity in a confused age. If There Is No God from Dennis Prager. Order now at PragerStore.com.

Hello there, everybody. Dennis Prager and Julie Hartman. Dennis and Julie. As I said that, I thought Why did I say Dennis first? Is that bad? Is it arrogant?

No, you're—

because it's Dennis and Julie.

Of course. And also, you're speaking first.

If a guy said to you, you're in an elevator, the only other person is a guy, and he goes, ladies first, how would you react?

I would love it. You know, when I was in London, I was walking with a British guy. We met at the subway or the tube station, and we were walking down the street, and he changed sides with me to walk on the side of the road so that I was more sheltered. Yeah. And I would— I stopped and I went, Oh my gosh, that's so nice. I had no one know. I had never seen a guy do that. And he said, and I said that. I said, I've never had a guy do that.

Really? You were not talking. You did not know each other.

No.

This was a random man.

No, no, no. We met. We met at the subway station. We're going to the same ARC event. And so we met at the subway station.

All right. Yeah. No, no. Either way, it's fine.

But I was walking and he just went onto the—

and I was like, Yeah. So what percentage of women your age would have your positive reaction?

Hmm. You know, I actually, I actually think more than you would expect.

Right. That doesn't fully answer my question. I'm not being cute.

No, I understand.

What does it— what percentage? I mean, there's no way to know. Do you think 50%? What do you think? I don't know. That's why I asked it. I have no idea.

People my age.

Yeah.

Probably 50. It should be 100, of course. And my question for people who wouldn't like that is, well, what's so, what's so bad about it? You know, the feminists—

did I ever tell the story? Because that did happen to somebody who wrote to me. It drives me crazy that I don't remember the details, but it was something to the effect that at some restaurant where the waiter said something to the effect, I'll get the orders from the ladies first. One of the women was offended.

So weird. So weird. Why would you get offended by that? You know, sorry.

No, no, you could tell I was going to say— I know. Go ahead. Doesn't matter.

I've observed this on Dennis and Julie before. But, you know, when you look at someone, there are indicators that you can kind of pull out of their wealth or their privileged status socioeconomically. You can see what kind of clothes they're wearing. You can see jewelry, you can see a watch. You can tell by the way that they speak that they may have had, you know, a, a good education. We know that. But I actually think that your worldviews can be just as indicative of your privileged status as the clothes you wear or the way that you speak. And if you are offended by a waiter—

yeah, sorry, you're ladies first. You're in the wealthier—

well, the odds are that you have had a pretty cushy life if you think that that is something that ought to earn your ire.

I mean, earn your ire. You're in good form today.

Really?

Yeah. No, no, that was very well stated, I got to say. And I don't know. I often think that, but I don't.

Well, I love finding eloquent ways to say common things. Like, why? See, in my head I was going, say something, phrase it in a different way.

Well, you know what this reminds me of? I was reading an article that your generation Generally speaking, what is your generation?

I'm Gen Z. Yeah.

So Gen Z, all they care about in texting is that they're understood. They're not interested in spelling correctly. They're not interested even in spelling out a word. They're not interested in punctuation. They're not interested in capital letters. Is— I believe that to be true.

Oh yeah.

Right. So This is very worthy of note. I go, I review every text I send.

I know yours are flawless.

They're, and they're meant to be. And it's not, I know that I'm not showing off. I don't think the reader is thinking, wow, that's really impressive. This guy really obviously cared to write a proper text. I do it for me. I want to be proud of everything I do, even text messaging. Does that make sense?

Absolutely.

I thought it would.

Well, it's interesting that you're bringing this up as we're— we have started a little bit to talk about male-female relationships, dating, because when I go on dating apps— by the way, did you see what I sent you the other night?

Maybe not.

I sent, I sent Dennis a screenshot of the first person that came up for me on Hinge. And I feel like it may be bad to put this up because we didn't get permission from this person. But the, but the guy was so—

well, you sent that— didn't you send that in the past as well?

Oh, I, I often do that. Last night I said, okay, I said, what did he look like?

What, what, what?

I really want to pull up a photo.

So can we block out an eye?

What do you think, Sean?

I don't know.

I don't want to.

I don't know. No, no, no, no, no. You're making a point. The point is not to make fun of the guy. The point is to make a point.

What do we think, Sean?

Well, wait, if, if—

No, everyone's saying—

Wait, even if the guy is not, uh, identifiable, but he might be by— All right, describe it.

Okay, the guy was like this, like Sitting back like that?

Was he seated?

Yeah, like, like, and then there were— he had like—

oh yeah, yeah, he's right. There are people who listen and don't watch. I don't— I can't describe your look.

Just delinquent hours. Just so like— I wanna, I wanna ask that person, what about this photo do you think is going to impress a woman, right? You're not sitting up straight. You look like you're trying to like, you're coming off as like you're a pimp. You're trying to look cool.

He's cool, right? That's what I got.

Subversive facial expression.

So, right. So he probably thinks that women are attracted to quote unquote bad guys, right?

So anyway, that was just a total tangent, right? Oh, of Dennis and Julie.

But by the way, Sean is disturbing the broadcast.

What did he say?

Can I look for just a second, look like a pimp? This is what I have to do.

He does every day. He does now. Look at him now.

Sean, no, no, no. He wants me to try.

Oh, you? Yeah. I was like, okay, every day Sean looks like a pimp. Oh, I'd love to see Prager pimp. Prager pimp costume.

I have no idea. How does a pimp look? How the hell do I— how come I get—

you don't know what a pimp looks like? Come on, you've seen movies. Yes, you could, you know, right? Okay, you see him on the street corners.

And I did watch the Benz Rap video, it went viral.

Oh, that was funny.

Yeah, well, he did it well.

He was so funny. Yeah, yeah, and Nicki Minaj praised him. Anyway, the reason that the picture was a total aside though, I have to say it would be a really funny segment if I could do this legally if I could go on Timeless and just go through the Hinge profile, I think people would be fascinated and point out that. True, right? And point out— and by the way, I sometimes I fear I'm coming off as overly critical. Any girl who has my worldview and looks at these Hinge accounts would think the same thing. This is not— I'm not nitpicking here. These are just general poses, ways of dressing, ways of answering prompts, which are just so— again, the word I come up with is delinquency. It's just like, ugh. Anyway, so on Hinge, you were talking about texting. One of the ways that I kind of immediately disqualify a guy, and I know I sound really critical, but I'm just being honest, is if they write like, hey, how are you?

That's right. Yes. And by the way, I agree with you.

I am not unlike Dennis Prager. When I'm texting with my friends, I use slang. I— it's sort of a mix for me. Like, I'll say, you know, love and then the letter U, you know, if I'm writing to my friend. So I'm not— I'm not like—

right. But anyone who isn't intimate with you and, and doesn't matter, so to speak, I, I understand.

Well, I think it's about first impressions.

That's right.

That's what—

why doesn't the guy care about why—

impressing—

why isn't there a voice in him that thinks, well, she'll think I'm— well, I'll tell you why. I was just going to use a word that they would never use. I was going to use the word sophisticated, but it's not a word anyone in your generation would use, right? I, I don't want to appear sophisticated. In fact, they would probably have contempt for that. That's like old white men want to be sophisticated.

That is very true. I often find sometimes when I'm talking with people my age about some of my interests or some of my hobbies, like they kind of look at me like I'm a little weird. It's not— and I get the vibe that it's, as you say, it's not cool to be sophisticated. I don't know if it's— that doesn't mean that it's cool to be dumb. I'm sure among some people it's cool to be dumb. But I was recently reading a picture book on Giotto, the painter, and looking at some of his paintings, which, by the way, I'm going to do a show on this This, this painter is so cool and he revolutionized the, the art of painting. Um, and I was talking about it with some people my age and they were just kind of like laughing at me and I'm like, yeah, yeah, it should be like all of us should endeavor to be deeper, deeper and more sophisticated.

I know we, we've talked, we, we can't talk about this again, but yeah, we don't have to, but I want to go back to just the point that I made I, from when I was much younger than you and in high school, I wanted to be proud of anything associated with me. Isn't that a good thing to aspire to?

Yes, absolutely.

So I, when I send a text, I understand, forgetting intimates, but But to most people, my sense is I want, in the best sense of the word, for them to have respect for me. To see, this is the irony. I'm going to say a word which sounds bad about me, but I want I want to impress them.

But why is that bad?

Because it sounds self-aggrandizing. It sounds egocentric. But it's not about my ego. And it's not— it's about I want them to see me in, in, in an admirable light. Why doesn't everybody have that instinctively? But, but it's been shattered. The, the very notion is probably dismissed as, as old people.

Why do you think, or how do you think?

Because there's been a war on truth, beauty, and goodness. They're corny, they're old-fashioned, they're not hip, they're not cool, whatever term you want to use. That's what we began with. Why did this guy look like a jerk? He wanted to look cool. It's not cool to send a text with everything spelled correctly. I just, I just showed you an ad that I was given to read prior, right prior to our going on, and it had, um, there. Yeah, so it had, uh, they're offering this product at a, you know, a great, at a great price. T-H-E-I-R.

They're offering the product. Yes, that's how it was spelled.

I wonder what percentage of college sophomores would detect the error. Hmm. Yeah. Yes. He asked me if somebody sends me a text and it's grammatically error-filled, and what was the other term he used? No, well, shorthand, no. The shorthand, if it— let me put it to you this way. Half of my texting is to people deeply embedded in my life. If they go, "RU FREE," capital R, capital U, FREE, It has no impact on me. None. I want to make that clear. That's right. But the other half of my texting is like, say, somebody from some city saying, so, you know, you're coming, you're coming to Cleveland to speak next month. Can we, can we speak? I would hope that they would send me a properly spelled text.

Of course, yes. And that's, you know, on Hinge or on other dating sites. When the guy is first messaging me, I want him to pay attention to grammar and punctuation because it's like, I respect you, I'm trying to impress you, and I'm trying to show that I'm sophisticated.

Good way in trying to impress people.

Absolutely.

And a guy should— a guy should aspire to impress a woman he's trying to woo. That's— it's all backwards to me.

It is all backwards. I mean, and then once, you know, I'm dating someone, or again, with my friends, I'm not— I don't write these perfectly grammatical, you know, texts. I use shorthand with my friends, but that's because they're my friends. They're not— they're not someone who I'm meeting for the first time trying to— it's like, would you— let's say that you— I mean, I'll use an example with, with you. When I first came here and did your radio show, like day one when you invited me on, you were gracious enough afterwards to say, if you'd ever like to come to my house and watch a taping of the fireside chat, you're more than welcome. And I remember you said, I'll text you my address and the time. What's your cell phone number? So you sent me the address. And so imagine if I had written back like, THX, thanks. I would never do that.

Right. That's right.

I may write back THX to my friend who says, you know, like, see you. I made a reservation at this place because they're my friend. When I'm trying to— when I'm building a relationship with someone or a potential, you know, future boss or something, you— no one would think twice. Of course you would write out the long thank you. You know, you would. You would make an effort to show that you're impressive. So why doesn't the same apply to dating? But it's totally to your point that being sophisticated and being—

Or another word. Or another word.

Or traditional.

Or classy.

Traditional.

Which is certainly not a word your generation would use because it's a negative. Classy, that implies classes. Dennis Prager here with a man I have come to admire. For his work. So when I asked him, what do you do? This is the title he gave: Wealth Architect.

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See, I don't, you know, well, I don't know if it's so much that it implies— I'm sure among the woke, that's, that's why they wouldn't use that.

But yeah, but a lot of people, I think my generation.

Yeah, but I think even non-woke people in my generation, it's not a word that we would use because to your point, you wouldn't use sophisticated. No, it's seen as antiquated. I'm trying. It's a really important point. I'm trying to figure out why this is or where it comes from.

Well, they would think— well, they would think— I'll give you a whole list of things that, that they think are words that are antiquated that are good. Mature.

I mean, yeah, I rarely hear that.

Oh, oh, though I can't believe the word doesn't have negative connotations. If somebody would say, you know, that's not mature, they go Oh, give me a break. What era are you from?

You know, maybe what it is is that everyone wants to come off as casual or as cool and they're not thinking about things.

Global warming matters, but nothing about my life. There's no goal of excellence that I should pursue. It's By the way, I just want to make something clear. There's a voice in me that thinks, has every generation in history lamented the next generation? Am I just falling into the trap that others have? But I'm not like that.

Kids these days.

Yeah, kids these days. Yes, exactly. But that's— I was unhappy about my own generation.

Well, let me ask you a tough question. Is there anything about Gen Z that you admire, or is there anything about my generation that you think we're doing better than generations before?

I can't think of anything. But again, your generation is not defined yet. I mean, I got to give you time.

What about yours? Or what about the baby boom? Are you a baby boomer?

Yeah, I'm a baby boomer. I have always had a low opinion of my generation. There are a lot of— look, there are terrific people in your generation, there are terrific people in millennials, there are great people in every generation. There were great people in Nazi Germany, there were great people in the Soviet Union. There is always a certain number of great human beings. That's certainly true for my generation as well. But, uh, I, I believe that my generation ushered in the decline of the United States. We are the products of a crappy upbringing. The great generation that fought World War II did not know how to raise children.

Why?

Oh, I know exactly why. I knew this when I was your age, and I was already lecturing. And I would look at an audience of people, all of whom were the World War II generation, and I'd say, you know, your motto is we want to give everything we didn't have to our children, meaning affluence and peace, generally speaking, but especially material benefits. And I would look at the audience and say, that's really nice, The problem is you didn't give us anything you did have. And I told them what? Religion, patriotism. They didn't hand over what made their generation great. And I even know why that, because, you know, my operative question is always why. Because they were not aware of the fragility of all the good values. Ronald Reagan's great line— and he, he had— he was a brilliant man, but the sophisticates didn't think he was brilliant because he spoke intelligibly. He didn't speak in academies.

And academies, is that a real word?

No, but, but it's used.

I love that. Yeah, I love that. I'm gonna adopt that or borrow it.

So he, he said, we are always one generation from losing freedom one generation away.

Oh gosh, let me get you some. I have to read this. You'll love this. I just used a Prager line. You'll love this. Um, you realize you say that a lot.

Do you love this?

Yeah, you'll love this. Okay, it's okay. I, I was told that I used the term mealy-mouthed a lot, so we, we all have our, our things that we love, uh, to to go to. Damn, where is it? Oh, gosh. Oh, here. So my friend recently went to Nebraska to visit one of his friends, and they went to the Museum of the Air Force there. And he sent me— there's an inscription that was dedicated to people who— Air Force members who served in Nebraska, or who are from Nebraska who served in the Cold War. And here's the inscription of this statue that he sent to me. He said, the inscription says, we must never forget that freedom is never really free. It is the most costly thing in the world. Freedom is never paid in a lump sum. Installments come due in every generation. All any of us can do is offer that generations that follow have a chance for freedom. But I love that. It's so true. It's— you can't pay in a lump sum. You have to pay in installments. And every generation is obligated to pay their installment to ensure their security.

And for the next installment, you lose the product.

Right. And that's— and that's what we're seeing now. Yeah. So I think about this, too, because I, I'm very critical of my generation. I'm very critical of the baby boomers. But I also want to be fair and think, is there something that we're doing that actually is good? Is there a quality that we have? A lot of people would say that we're extraordinarily tolerant, but I actually think it's the opposite. People say, oh, God, we're so— that's what people would say about us. And that's what—

right.

And I was watching speeches. Then-Vice President Joe Biden spoke at Class Day at Harvard during their graduation ceremony in 2017. And he said, you guys are the most tolerant generation to ever exist. The way the way that you love each other, the way that you accept people who are gay.

And I will say this. Yeah, it— this is why I don't blame your generation.

Really?

Yeah. I, I don't have great admiration yet. It— I may turn out wrong, but with all my criticism of my generation we had a lot of wonderful people as well. And part of the reason is they didn't tell us all the time how terrific we were. Nobody got up— that I, I would like to see the— the— were you the one? Was it Nathan Pusey? You remember? Yeah, yeah, you, you cited a 1960— yes, I remember.

Good memory.

Yeah, our last Dennis and Julie, or one of our last ones. And you cited his talk. He didn't go, oh, you're the great leaders, you're the terrific, you're the tolerant, you're the open.

He was actually criticizing the audience.

All I remember was you have to live up to the past. I, in my religious Jewish school, we were taught the opposite. And I think they went overboard, believe it or not. Nevertheless, we were taught there's a concept in Hebrew, yiridat hadarot, the diminution of the generations, that we are standing on the shoulders of giants before us. Not, oh, you're great. No, the greats have already lived. You're on their shoulders. We never got that type of talk, thank God. I mean, you got it. I mean, I can't believe what you were told at the Harvard graduation. It drives me crazy.

That we're gonna change the world.

Yeah, yes.

Yeah, we may change the world.

Right, that's right.

They're not wrong about that. One of the deans said, I have no doubt that your generation will make a positive impact on this country. I have no doubt that our generation is going to make a negative impact.

That's right. Well, because you're a dean, because you have made a negative impact. By the way, I have a theory as to why people constantly compliment young people.

Okay.

Yeah. I'm curious if you do.

Give me a few minutes or give me a few seconds. Hmm.

I may be wrong, but I do have a theory.

You tell me your theory.

My theory is they want to be liked.

Oh, well, that's certainly true.

Okay, then that's it. You don't have to go further.

Yes.

Yeah, it's really about them. See, if you get up and you criticize the Harvard class of whatever year, they may not like you for it. And the desire to be liked, which is a catastrophe— it is a catastrophe. The only— this is— I'm adamant about this— the only people you should work to be liked by are your peers, your spouse, and your friends. That's it. Go, go. You wanted to say something?

No, no, you finished.

Okay. That if you are in any position of authority— a dean, a teacher, a policeman, a parent, a parent, a parent— did I say parent? If, if you work to be liked, you will do a bad, destructive job.

I have been thinking about this so much lately because one of the subjects that you often bring up on this show and on your radio show is Is it a blessing or a curse to have a happy childhood?

Right.

And we've kind of uncovered that, that having a challenging upbringing actually benefits you later in life. Of course, most people, of course, sometimes it can be debilitating. But, but yeah, but sometimes having—

we're not talking about child abuse.

Of course not.

Of course not. Right. Yes.

And so I have thought about that same question with regard to being well-liked because You have hit the nail on the head that many deans, and not just, you know, you just went through the list of parents and, you know, people everywhere, they have a desire to be liked. And I am someone who over the past 3, 4 years of my life have witnessed a lot of people start to not like me. And that, I am not complaining. I have wonderful friends. I have wonderful professional life. I have a wonderful family. I mean, it's not like everybody's turned on me, but I have seen it. And not to, I don't mean this as a bragging way, but there was no one at my high school who had a more sterling reputation than I. I was beloved at my high school. And I'm sure there were some people who didn't like me, but I had a really, really good reputation. Not just in my high school, but just in every community that I was in. And I knew this, that I had a very— people really admired me, respected me, and liked me. And since I started doing this job, I have seen people come out of the woodwork, either through the grapevine or, you know, to my face, to tell me that they are disappointed in me, that they think what I'm doing is terrible, that, you know, I've had that. And there were times when it was really hard. Certainly the first two weeks— I talk about this this time in my life a lot. The first 2 weeks after I went public on your radio show, that was really, really hard because it was just a bombardment of people. But now I am— I view it as such a blessing. And it's weird because, believe it or not, I don't go out every day endeavoring to not be liked. If I could wave a magic wand, of course I would have everybody like me. Who wouldn't? But it is It's strangely liberating to have people not like you because you're no longer thinking about how to please them because you know they already don't like you. You know that the effort would be wasteful because the ship has sailed. They're not a fan of you. And so that actually enables you to keep doing what you're doing because you're no longer looking to the side to appease someone. And so I sort of wish for, I mean, listen, If someone at your funeral gives a speech and says, this person had no enemies, they were liked by everyone, they never disappointed anybody, then the odds are that that person lived a very safe life, a not principled life. When you live a principled life, you are going to tick some people off.

That's great. That's right.

Do you agree?

Who wouldn't agree? It's— if one knows anything of history, were great figures—

Oh, of course. They're the— we've talked about this. They're the most persecuted.

Yes.

They're the most disliked.

Well, that's the Christian— that's the whole Christian message, right? The one perfect person was crucified.

Mm-hmm. But I sort of wish that for people. I, it sounds like a strange wish, but I wish that more people would become accustomed with people being disappointed in them or disapproving of them. Because when people disapprove of you, you're kind of, you're kind of set free. Right.

You should not aim to be disliked.

Of course.

Of course. And you're not saying that, I'm making that clear. And we all rather be liked than disliked. When I spoke at this convention of this conservative women's group in Philadelphia about a year ago, Moms for Liberty, so I spoke at— I was the keynote speaker for their Sunday event, and there was a big demonstration outside, big one, of people who, you know, woke folks, especially on behalf of LGBT LGBTQIA+, which by the way, I'm curious if this is, if our stuff is watched 20 years from now, let alone 50, and I hope it is, but by the way.

I hope it is too.

Will they even know what LGBTQIA+ is? But in any event, so I passed them and as I walked into the hotel, there was a lot of F-U's at me.

Really?

I didn't even know that they knew who I was.

It was like an organized protest.

Yeah, there was an organized protest, basically. Yeah. And they were behind a little barricade and I was in the inside going into the hotel. So I actually walked over to them and with a big smile I go, you know, I'm very curious to know why you hate me. And first of all, it was obvious they were taken aback that I would even show up and dialogue with them. No animosity. I didn't go F you back to them. I just, I was very curious. What have I said? And by the way, I was very curious.

Of course.

Why do you hate me? Right. I, I don't know what I say that should elicit such hatred.

Well, you, you— I remember you're telling me this story, and what you told me is that you said, I've dedicated my whole life to trying to bring people to God, trying to make marriages better, to try to make people more principled. You know?

Yes.

Why do you hate me? I dedicated my whole life to trying to improve people's lives. What did they say?

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Oh, didn't one call you a Nazi or something?

Basically, yes. You're, you know, you're speaking at a Nazi conference.

You know what? It is so sick. And we—

it is.

And you know what? We— I'm realizing what we as conservatives and as rational thinkers have to do now is that we are so always on the defensive. We need to start playing offense. When people levy an accusation at us, you know, like, oh, well, you're at a Nazi conference. The modus operandi that we have pursued up until now has been, no, no, I'm not. Or what makes you say that? You know, trying to disprove their point. What I am now doing, and it's a conscious effort, is I'm trying to flip it. I'm trying to be on the offensive and go, how dare you? How dare you say that this is a Nazi conference? Do you know that you are cheapening the charge? Do you know what an egregious atrocity Nazism was in Germany? And you are going to stand here and you are going to so recklessly throw out that term and say that this convention of Moms for Liberty is a Nazi conference? Shame on you. I'm done. No, no, that is entirely the accurate way to respond because we need to start stigmatizing these beliefs.

Well, that's what I said when I was on Piers Morgan with this leftist guy.

Yeah, we did. We recently did.

I know that. And that's when I said, you know, you've raped the word genocide. You know, by the way, I looked up just for the record, my use of the word rape is appropriate. Every— I think every dictionary I looked up had two definitions for rape, at least two. One is the obvious sexual violence. All right. Which is what rape is. I, I'm forcing someone to have sex, okay, or to, to submit to my having sex would be even more accurate. Correct. But every other one, for example, the— because a lot of dictionaries give examples— the rape of the rainforest, it is actually a very—

wait, what's the second definition?

It is to despoil. Oh, ruin, degrade, a whole bunch of synonyms, right? But nothing quite comes up to the level of the horror of rape. But that's what it is. And they gave it one— gave, which is a common example, the rape of the rainforest. So when I say a word is raped, I've chosen a very severe word, but I have not cheapened the word rape. I may— if I'm wrong, I did cheapen it. But if I'm right, if I'm a Nazi, haven't you raped the word Nazi of its meaning? Or what? Or obviously you use a very— a nicer word to describe the—

well, we've talked—

we've talked about just now you use the word cheapen. Yeah. Cheapen. Yeah. But cheapen and rape are obviously— cheapen is not nearly as—

Well, cheapen also doesn't capture the harm.

Yeah. Well, that's right. Yeah.

Cheapen something is to dilute it. But, but what really what they're doing by throwing around these terms so superfluously and so recklessly is they're doing a lot more than just cheapening it.

Yes. Which is— and I can't find— is it effective?

Right.

I'm just noting it.

Right. And I've always— and I've said to Dennis and Julie listeners, because we have a very intelligent, sophisticated, mature, deep audience to tell a word, you know, throw out a word that you would have used because—

Right.

I don't know. I've told you, I don't know if I would have used that because I know that the argument would be, well, you're— but you're—

you're doing this word, right?

Right.

Yeah.

But, but there we need to find a word which captures the gravity. You know, something I've been thinking about, by the way, it's great.

Your English is beautiful. Captures the gravity.

You know, I have to credit my mom. My mom is, is really eloquent. She, and she growing up was not, not in an annoying way, but she would always correct my grammar in a loving way.

My mother did that for me, by the way.

So I, I give all the credit to my mom.

But I, but also it's something that I give your mom 82% of the credit.

Well, it's something that you, you get credit for wanting to do it. Well, you— there have been times when you've corrected me, for instance, with regard to, not in regards to.

Oh, in regards.

But you know what, here's the thing, like, so there's a member of my family, an extended family member, who— so whenever this person, uh, makes a grammatical error, they and I, or my mom or someone will lovingly correct them, they get upset, right? And they view it as a criticism, right? Obviously, if someone's going, you stupid, you know, POS, you— but that's not the nature in which my mom and I are correcting this person. You know, we're trying to lovingly point it out to make them better. And this person always gets very kind of upset and takes it as a criticism. And I just can't understand that, that mindset. When someone corrects me, I'm thinking, thank you. You're right. You're doing me a service. You're preventing me from going out in the world and sounding like an idiot. And you're elevating me.

And as you say, Julie, well, well, it's so— it's such a healthy, correct response. I just thought of an analogy.

Yep. What if you had toilet paper hanging from you? What if—

Yes. Well, I was going to say a guy has his fly open.

Yeah.

So if you go and whisper in his ear, I just wanted to let you know your fly is open. Are you angry at him?

Of course not. Are you criticizing him? No.

He's saving you from being embarrassed. If I am correcting your English, I'm saving you from that. I've always viewed corrections as thank you. That means I won't repeat it. Oh, why isn't that a service?

Well, telling someone the truth or correct— now, obviously, if you're nitpicking and it's, you know, okay, okay. Again, we always have to add the caveats. I affirm my white privilege. I apologize. I atone for America.

One minute. He's interjecting.

Sean?

Sean? No, no, no. It's much better than— especially if it's more than one sentence. Let people hear what you have to say.

Oh my God. He can do that?

Yes.

Welcome, Sean, to Dennis and Julie.

We don't want to make a habit of this.

It's now called Dennis, Julie, and Sean.

Okay, go ahead.

I was just saying that you were talking about the war on truth and beauty and goodness, how the degradation of society was ushered in with the baby boomers, that grammar doesn't matter anymore, that we're going to lose this. And I tend to agree with you that your generation may be the last, other than pariahs like Julie who maintain eloquence. I think one way of combating that is to be the way you are. Because I know if you text me, I have to elevate my texting response to you where I would otherwise shorthand something. So I think by being eloquent, by being elevated, you require that of others, or at least others feel obligated to meet you at that.

I want to react to that. That's very good. So you heard that, right?

I'm so sorry, I didn't.

Oh, that's— we should have let the speaker on. That's ironic. Wait, this— the listener will hear it and you won't hear it.

Yeah.

All right, so in a nutshell, agreeing with all of what was said, but saying when I text back to you, Dennis, because of the way you text, I elevate my 100%.

And my favorite book, as many of you know, is Jane Eyre. And there is just— it's filled with nuggets of wisdom. And there's one scene where Jane goes to work at a school for poor children, rural poor children. And she was talking about how— what a struggle it is to, to, you know, rally these kids to want to pay attention to the lessons and to quiet down and etc. And there's this great thing that Jane says, probably my favorite line in the entire book. And she said, you know, I treated them with dignity and I treated them with holding a high standard for their behavior. I almost treated them like an adult. And she said, when you treat people, when you treat other people with dignity, they start to see themselves as more dignified. And that's going along with what you said. When you set a good example for someone, whether it's in a text message or just in an interpersonal reaction. You're— when you send an eloquent text to someone, you're indicating that you respect them. You're indicating that you want to impress them. You're indicating that you took time to be eloquent. And in turn, they start to see themselves as worthy of that time and that respect and being the recipient of your wanting to impress them. And then they will want to in turn impress you. It's amazing we're talking about this with regard to texting.

No, no, no, it doesn't matter what it is. This is, this is why I'm saddened by the number of Christians who in the course of my career have called to disagree with me about dressing up for church. The way, the way you dress, like the way you text, or the way you speak, or the way you do anything influences the environment, the human environment in which you're in. You text well, it says we're elevating the act of texting. Now, most people hearing that go, what the hell does that matter? But they're wrong. Everything matters. Some things matter more than others. It's true. It's not on— this is not on the level of child abuse, text abuse, but it's not on no level. And, and his point is very important. I elicited from him a desire to up his game by the way I presented myself, in this case through texting. By the way, I regard the same thing with emails. I read all my emails. I don't send them. I try to catch any error, uh, you know, missing a word, just like I've written a book. But the dressing for church is really the one. God doesn't care. So God— this is their argument— God doesn't care how you dress, which I don't believe at all. I think God does care. I 100— not 99— 100% disagree with that comment. I have so much biblical context to show that God deeply cares about how people dress, but I won't get into that right now. The elevating of the way you dress has an effect on everybody else.

Absolutely. Well, what if someone showed up to your wedding wearing a crop top?

That's right.

Would you, would you not be offended by that?

Right.

Or would you?

I mean, yes, I, I, so after all, they showed up at the wedding, right? What else do I want?

Come on, you're not, you're not giving this day the proper respect that it deserves. It shows, it, it all goes back to it showing that the person didn't respect you enough to put in the time and to endow the—

that is, that was the thinking for generations until the '60s. That's why people dressed up to go to a baseball game. I owe it. Why did they do that? I owe it to others.

If I go in public to appear in a certain way, you know, you and I talk all the time about the way that certain ideologies have corrupted our society. And obviously that is true. I think a lot of our modern malaise has to do just as much with technology. Because like when you, when you didn't have social media and phones and like these things mattered more to you because you had to, I don't know if I'm making sense, but you had to pay more attention to the way that you lived your life, including the way that you dressed and the way that you interacted with people, because that's what, that's what you had. That was the way that you impressed people. That was the way that you marketed yourself, if you will. But now that we have social media, people, that's how they're spending their time and their energy. And you market yourself online with the pictures you post or the vacations you go on instead of who you really are as a person. I think technology has ruined a lot of this. I mean, with dating, yes, it's true that feminism has morphed from an ideology which was very focused with giving women equal rights, and now it's become this, I think, man-hating, masculinity-hating way of thinking. But Look at what I think, I think dating apps have really done the most harm to male-female relationships as opposed to feminism. Because when you, before dating apps, you as a man, the only way that you would get a girlfriend is if you walked up to a girl who you thought was cute in a restaurant or in church or wherever the heck, and you talk to them and you ask them out. Now with, with dating apps, that's not the swiping is the primary way of meeting people. And so guys don't go do that anymore. They don't go up and talk to women. They don't try to dress better to impress a woman. Does that make sense? The ideological capture?

It does make sense, but it doesn't make sense. Everything you said makes sense. What doesn't make sense is, wait a minute, don't I want— whether it's on an app or in person, don't I want to impress her? I think that's the operative question, but it doesn't seem to be operative in much of the single dating apps. I don't, I don't understand that. Let's say if I were single, much younger, or even single my age, and I wanted— and we're on a dating app, okay? The only question, the only one, would be, how do I impress a woman and sitting back and looking like that guy you mentioned, or showing off my biceps, like, like that's going to really do it for most women. Maybe an 18-year-old girl is going to really go, wow, what a hunk. Most women do not date biceps. It's just, I mean, men, this is a word to men. It's great to have a good body, that's great, but that's not the most operative element for the vast majority of women over 18.

Totally, totally.

Exactly. And see, they're so not in touch with male and female. They don't— with a woman's body is 10 times more important than a man's body in attracting the other sex. It's not fair, but it's a fact.

By the way, I don't even know if I would call that not fair. I just think that's kind of—

Yeah, well, that's the way it is.

Personality is 10 times more important than the woman's, you know, initially.

That's correct. That is absolutely right. The way the world works and certainly his income.

Right.

That's not fair to him. That's the way life works. So, but by the way, leftism is rooted in the denial of life. You will like this.

I never told this.

Yes. Oh, 35 years ago, 40 years ago, I read, and it kills me now. I would know it because it'd be on the internet and I would be able to look it up. Some woman writer wrote that leftism— this is a really long time ago— she said it is rooted in the, uh, the, uh, denial. That's it. The denial of— and then she wrote it in French— les faits de la vie, the facts of life.

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That's what it is. It is. It is. All that is why I say truth is not a left-wing value. It's not meant to insult leftists. I know it's an insult, but it's not meant as an insult. If you deny facts of life, that means truth is not a value.

It doesn't have value, of course.

That's exactly what it does. So if I say, a leftist hearing, you know, a man's body is not as important in attracting women as a woman's body is in attracting men, sexist, misogynist, old-fashioned, Oh, right. In other words, they don't ask the question, is it true? Is it discomforting? They ask.

And this is my whole point, that the truth is good. When you get down to it, the truth isn't, isn't, uh, you know, favoring men over women or favoring one race over another race. The truth isn't bigoted or racist or sexist. The truth is good because, you know, some people may think it's so unfair that a woman's body matters more to men, you know, with, with the man than, than a man's body matters to a woman. But it kind of evens out because look at what I just said about income or look at what I just said about—

it all does even out.

I mean, a man's right, a man's, you know, a man is much more defined by his career.

Very attractive women I know I could even say who it is. So my trainer is a very attractive woman, okay? We were together 7 years. She's a mom, married, and she's a great trainer, which is what matters to me most. But she's a good-looking woman, and we talk about this stuff. What am I going to talk about when I'm doing my 30th squat, right? How much I want to get the hell out of here.

So watching— I've seen Dennis work out once. Watching you do squats is so funny.

Thank you, it's beautiful. So anyway, the, uh, so he hates it. Yes, that's correct. So, well, who likes it? Give me a break. But anyway, uh, so she had a great line. She said, I don't want to be with a man who spends as much time in front of the mirror as I do.

Totally.

Isn't that a great line?

Absolutely. By the way, I've seen on Hinge there's a lot of men like that.

That's exactly right. Yeah, I know. That's right.

Come on. But oh gosh, what were we talking about? This was—

this is the denial. The denial of facts. Yeah, but the truth is not their value.

Yes, but before that, before that, before that, we were talking about— don't you wish you could hit rewind?

No, no. Yes, we we were talking about why Sean should probably not be heard when he has a comment to make. He found that funny, which is good.

Um, there was some point— well, I'll, I'll take it in a different direction. This is, this is totally a little— it's a little off topic, but it's going back to— I thought of it when you were talking about how the World War II generation didn't give give their children the same right values that they enjoyed. Have you noticed that some of the worst ideologies have come out of the West? Now, the West has been the most decent civilization to ever exist. But over the past two centuries, some terrible, terrible ideas have come out of the West. For instance, Communism, right? Marxism. Karl Marx was a German thinker. Nazism came out of Germany. Now, we talked in a recent Dennis and Julie episode, you know, what was— is it fair to say that Nazism came out of the Christian world? I think it's— the answer is yes, it is fair to say that. Now, Nazism wasn't a Christian ideology, obviously, but I hate saying this because there is such a war on the West right now. That it seems like I'm, you know, tarnishing the West. I, as I said, I believe it. And the evidence is in that it's been the most decent civilization. But, but in the very recent past, very malignant ideologies have arisen in the West. Wokeism.

Right. As a result of their anti-Western ideology.

They are. But they are—

the geography is the West. The culture is not West.

Well, I may push back on that because You are totally, totally right that the ideologies themselves are anti-Western. However, the irony is I think that they were born of Western freedoms and ways of thinking that allowed such thinkers to emerge. For instance, one of the— and this is when I'm introducing the subject, this is not to say that I am anti-freedom of speech. Or anti the values which have made the West. But ironically, freedom of speech is what has caused a lot of the issues that we're seeing now, because we live in a society where people can say whatever the heck they want and it's given credence.

This is a rare time where you and I differ. Well, only, only because if there were freedom of speech, they would be trounced. They— the only way the left can succeed in Canada, New Zealand—

Well, look at the United States. We have freedom of speech in the United States.

No, we don't.

They haven't been trounced.

No, no, no. It has been trounced by the left. You open your mouth, you're fired.

Well, it's starting to get trounced.

You open your mouth— No, it's not starting. It—

Right. But 50 years ago, that wasn't the case.

You're right. There was freedom of speech 50 years ago.

Right.

So I'm saying if we really had freedom of speech, these toxic ideas of the left would get nowhere. They depend for their success on suppressing everybody else. If a teacher— I know a teacher, an elementary school teacher, and it was a he, which is very rare. It's only 20%, I think, of elementary school teachers are men. And he says, no one knows my beliefs. No one. I would be ostracized and perhaps even suspended if they knew my beliefs. No leftist worries about their beliefs being known. Not at a company, not at a college, not at an elementary school, nowhere. We have less freedom of speech today in the United States than 200 years ago, let alone 50 years ago. So it's the, the crap that has come out is not a product of free speech. It's the product of suppression of free speech.

I totally agree with you that over the past, in the recent, you know, history, in the past decade, there has been an assault on freedom of speech which has favored, you know, the left at the expense of everybody else. 100% in agreement. However, these ideas that have been allowed to percolate in this country go back many decades. Well, yes, wokeism is especially new, but the antecedents to wokeism, as Paul Johnson outlines in Modern Times very well, go— goes— they go back 100 years.

That's right.

And so what I'm saying is, and in no way am I anti-freedom of speech, but it's just interesting, the, like, the fact that we, that we live in a society which allows everyone to speak has allowed these crazy ideas to emerge. And that's what's funny to me when I see, when I see wokesters who are, who are anti-freedom of speech, who want to, who want to punish hate speech, for instance. Obviously, they're hypocritical because they're, they're not anti-freedom of speech. They're pro-freedom of speech with themselves. They're anti-freedom of speech for the people who they don't like. But, but when they want to enact these laws, criminalizing hate speech, I want to say the only reason that you can argue that hate speech should be criminalized is because you have the free speech to argue that hate speech could be criminalized.

So again, I'm missing the point.

The point is that a lot of our freedoms, the openness of Western society, the fact that we've always allowed, you know, in the marketplace of ideas, you to say anything, you can get up and say the craziest idea. That men and women are, that there are 38 genders instead of 2 genders. Ironically, the thing that has made us great is now contributing to our demise because we have—

Right. But so, all right, I understood that then from the beginning of what you said. I don't blame freedom of speech. I understand. I understand if freedom of speech were practiced, the left would be crushed. If people were not afraid of speaking out against the left, the vast majority of Americans do not believe that there are 37 genders, do not believe that men give birth, do not believe that colorblind is racist. I mean, the amount of inversions of reality that one is expected to shut up about at the least or say yes to at best is equivalent to the number of leftist ideas there are. So they thrive on suppression of speech.

There's a great quote from John Adams who says, during the founding, he said, this Constitution, these freedoms that we are giving are made for a religious people. They are made for a reasonable people. Yes, a religious and moral people. And he says, You know, if our freedoms are not supplemented and supported by good moral values and reasonableness, our system will cut through our culture the way a whale like breaks through a net. Like all hell will break loose. In other words, what he understood was that people should be allowed to have freedom of speech, But you need to be responsible with that speech. You need to temper. And that's my point.

We have to vet rackets with that speech.

All right.

So I would only modify— your point is our freedoms have enabled the toxic.

Yes.

Yes. So where I would want to modify your statement and then agree with it is freedom generally. The freest country in the world can only survive if you have dominant good values.

That is precisely my point.

Yes, I know.

And I'm not just talking about freedom of speech. I'm talking about freedom in the way that we dress.

Well, you said freedom of speech.

You're right, I did. But yeah, but I—

so yeah, that's correct. You can— free societies are dependent upon some basic universal or near-universal affirmation of good values, or you're doomed. Because then the freedom— and America's been the freest society ever— is the anarchy. It becomes anarchy. We, we are living in anarchy, right? I, I, I, I read on, on my program, uh, well, the anarchy, first of all. I, well, I'll tell you what I wrote. I want to interrupt my own point. I read about 4 illegal immigrants who beat up police in New York City.

I saw that.

They just beat them up.

Yep.

And the reason, as I pointed out, is there is an awareness today that you can do whatever you want. Yes, you can come into the United States if you want with no passport, totally illegally. You'll be fine. You can beat up a policeman and they were let out without bail. Mm-hmm. So the left is the product of freedom without values that keep freedom alive.

That is my point. That is exactly my point. Because if you look at other countries where they don't allow— I'm going to use freedom of speech, but I mean this point with freedom more generally. You know, there's a reason why wokeism doesn't exist in communist China. Or in Putin's Russia or in the Ayatollah's Iran or in the vast majority of countries in the world. And it's because they don't allow you to even get there. The second you start saying stuff that they deem to be unacceptable, they'll literally cut your head off. And that's not good. That is not good. We don't want to live in a society like that. But we have squandered our freedoms. We have taken advantage of them because what we ought to do is have a free society that is tempered by values. But what we've done is we've taken our liberal society, lowercase. I'm not talking about Democrats.

So I know you have now, and we've taken advantage of it. You've enabled me to answer a puzzle that I have not had an answer to. Why are the most woke countries the English-speaking ones?

I have that. This is the answer.

Canada, New Zealand, Australia, United States.

This is the answer.

They're the freest.

Yes. And that's the greatest irony to me is that is that right now we are using the— I want to say this eloquently. We're using the tools which made us great to destroy us. That's right. That's the funny thing where I look at these people who hate the United States and I'm like, you could only exist in the United States. Like you are a product, you are a terrible product, but you are a product of the freedoms of the United States. The fact that you can say and do whatever you want. You would never be allowed to exist anywhere else, you stupid.

You would be laughed out of France, even by the French left, if you said men give birth in France. And France is a free country. There are social norms. Our social norm was Judeo-Christian civilization. That was the social norm of the English-speaking world. Uh, that's been trampled on by the left, so there is no more social norm. There is no such thing. Social norms are derided as dead white European male patriarchy. It's, it's heteronormativity, all these other terms that used to dismiss the social norms. France has social norms that are not based nearly as much on religion. They're social, literally social norms, societal norms. So that's why France has not succumbed nearly as much. We have relied basically on In God We Trust. It's one of the three mottos of the United States. Right. Not a motto of France. France is a big believer in laicization. That's their term from French.

Right.

So they have relied on social norms, as has Denmark, as has Norway. As Norwegians aren't saying— and that's a secular society as you can get— they're not saying men give birth. The idea is preposterous. They None of them have hospitals like we do giving hormone blockers to 12-year-olds. They don't have that. It is almost unheard of in Finland.

Mm-hmm. Well, this is, this is the downside to freedom. And I am the most pro-freedom chick you'll find.

But as you quoted, it has to come with value.

And this, it just, it is endlessly fascinating to me. Like, So I know I bring up Friedrich Nietzsche a lot on this show, but he is— I honestly am just kind of obsessed with the way he wrote because it both so reviles me and also weirdly rings true. Not everything he said, of course, but his whole argument is that— and he wrote in the 1800s— he said that the modern obsessions— and it's interesting, he even said it back then. This was 200 years ago. So it really shows you that the antecedents to wokeism have been have been festering for some time. But he said that the modern malaise that we have now, obsession, you know, with victimhood and celebration of weakness, he says that it comes from Christianity.

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And he says that Christianity has enabled these kinds of ways of thinking by putting God on the cross. He says that's a celebration of weakness. What kind of, of God would so humiliate himself and put himself on a cross? This really— Nietzsche says this religion just— when they're putting their highest person on a cross, they are celebrating and giving credence to weakness, and they're encouraging weakness among the population. He said, you know, when Christianity says that people are, are all equal, they're essentially supporting like radical egalitarianism. And sometimes people aren't equal and sometimes people shouldn't be treated equally. Obviously, I don't agree with everything that he, he says. I think that Christianity is a beautiful doctrine and I don't think it celebrates weakness. I don't think that it argues for radical equality. But I take his point that kind of what we're seeing right now are perversions of Western ideas or Western ideas that are taken too far, like all these woke people who obsess about victimhood and obsess about weakness. What I want to say to them is like, it's ironic because they hate Christianity, but the only reason why they care so much about victimhood and care so much about weakness is that they have consumed a cultural diet in the United States over many centuries where we have cared about the underdog, where we have thought of people as equal. In the vast majority of countries, people don't care about the underdog. People don't care about the minorities. People just disregard them. The whole idea of the last will be first is a Christian idea. And that's a beautiful thing. And our attention to that for many, many centuries made our society unique. But now, people are using that and they're taking it too far. Does that make sense? That they have bathed in this culture where we have cared about the underdog, and it's because they've consumed that cultural diet that has contributed to their malignant outgrowth.

Well, what they did was they took the parts of Christianity that they like, I mean, it also says, Paul says, if you don't work, you don't eat. Anybody on the left quoting that? By the way, in general, that's the difficult and unanswerable, probably, issue with religion is what parts do you take and what parts do you reject?

I'm more so talking about the culture that the Christian— I don't think that many of these individuals are smart enough, nor informed enough to like read the Bible and take parts of what they want. I mean that Western Christian society, what it means, has contributed to this very liberal culture. And by liberal, I don't mean like Democrat Party. I mean liberal as—

Right. It's endless, you know, and only look, it also produced the end of slavery. Of course, Christians produce that.

I'm—

No, I know you're not. No, I'm not knocking Christianity. That isn't the point. Your point is if you don't stop, you get to anarchy.

Yes.

Okay.

And only woke people could flourish in a Christian Western free society. And that's the irony to me, because they hate the Christian free society.

But they are the last of it first. That's why we're having affirmative action for United Airlines pilots, right? That's right. Blacks and women have been the last to be pilots. Now we're going to make them first.

Woke people would never emerge in these dictatorial repressive regimes because they would never have the freedom to emerge.

Where you have other social cohesion, as I pointed out, like in France.

Right.

So It's— we may not survive our own suicide.

We're just— it's so stupid. We're so— we've gotten so dumb as a nation. People just don't realize how lucky we are to be in this system.

Well, it's not easy to make a free society for a very long time.

I know that's—

that's one of the lessons. That's why I've always said to my fellow Jews, you know, If you support the left here, you're crapping on the greatest place we've ever lived, we Jews. And you might want to remember that civilization is pretty damn fragile.

Well, no one civilization has ever survived. I mean, civilizations all throughout history have risen and fallen.

I'll say this though, if that rule holds true for the West, the world will be engulfed in, in a Holocaustian narrative.

I know. Trust me, I know. I think about that a lot. You know, it's interesting because you and I have talked about what a sad and irrational phenomenon it is that there are increasing numbers of people who say, oh, I'm not going to have kids because of climate change, or I'm not going to have kids because of whatever, systemic racism or something like that. It's like, come on. But I will say, as much as I criticize that because I think the reasons are absurd, I want to have kids. I will have kids, God willing. But I do worry. I have thought, you know, what will I be bringing my child into? In the United States, because throughout my lifetime I anticipate that things are going to get a lot worse. And can you imagine throughout their lifetime? I mean, they'll live until the—

well, into the 2100s, and they literally might be a bloody, not a bloodless civil war.

But we're optimistic on Dennis and Julie.

Well, no, I said might be. I mean, if what you said would happen. I'm not optimistic. Optimistic or pessimistic. I never think in those terms. I just ask, what do I have to do? But I can only speak as a Jew. Jews had reason not to have children in every generation because things were so bad for them so often.

True.

And they had children. And that's what you do. And whether you're an optimist or a pessimist, all I want to know is, are you going to have children? Because if you're an optimist and you don't have children, your optimism is useless. And if you're pessimistic and you have children, then good. I salute you. You're pessimistic, but you know what you have to do.

And as bleak as things are now, and it really is just insane what is going on, the fact that we have— I think the greatest example is the Department of Justice is suing the state of Tennessee. Because Tennessee recently passed laws which say that you cannot get genital mutilation surgeries until you are 18. And the Department of Justice— what an Orwellian name— is suing the state of Tennessee, saying that they are discriminating against LGBTQ children. I mean, that— I mean, I could give many, many more examples of just how bad things have gotten. And you and I both know how bleak it is. However, I often do think about I mean, can you imagine what it must have been like to live during the Civil War or leading up to or after the Civil War? I mean, talk, talk about a moment when you thought that things would, would be done forever. I mean, yeah, there have been times in this country where people, people have had this, this thought and it was arguably in a worse situation than we're in now.

Well, I think this is worse. I've thought about that a lot. Because there was one huge difference, and huge is an understatement, slavery, or even the alleged inferiority of blacks. But the otherwise there was a lot that united the North and the South. Love of country, love of the founders. I mean, we have nothing in common in the United States today, left and right, nothing. People who say we have more— this, I hear this from politicians, some writers— oh, we have so much more in common than we have that divides us.

Not anymore.

Well, we don't. It's just, it's ridiculous. Well, if you say, if you want kids to attend drag queen story hours, what do I have in common with you? Really, literally, what do I have in common? That you don't regard bringing a kid to a drag queen show as not good for that child, having nothing to do with L or G or B or T or Q or I or A. Just not good, right? Or plus.

I totally hear you. However, hindsight is 20/20 and we know the way that the Civil War worked out and how we were able to recover from that. Can you really imagine if you were in, you know, 1860 and states were seceding from the Union and there was a full-blown war and it was over this moral atrocity? I mean, when you were in it, you probably thought there's no, there's no way we're ever going to get through this. This is, this is as bad as it gets. Right. But we know they did.

Yeah, that you're right.

At any given moment for us to go, well, it's worse now than it was.

No, it's not easy because I think a lot of people would say, what, are you kidding? The number of Americans who were killed in the Civil War and you're saying it's worse today. I don't know if it's easy. I just know it's far longer It is. It is getting worse.

Well, what, what really scares me—

and by the way, just the opening of the border to millions and millions of people to come into the country.

Right.

Who don't share our values.

Right.

We didn't have that during the Civil War. I mean, it's— there's this— the assault on America is, is ubiquitous.

Well, what particularly scares me about this moment is the irrationality and the denial of reality. And look, obviously the most irrational and denial of reality thing that you can ever think is that Black people are inferior to white people. I mean, that, you know, one could argue that during the Civil War, that was the epitome of the adjectives or descriptions that I just used. But now, like, It is really scary that we have people who, like, like swaths of people who literally, like, don't believe in reality, who think that there are 38 genders, who think that Israel is committing genocide, who, you know, like, think that, that there are, that conservatives are white supremacists. I mean, these are like convictions of just a distortion of reality.

That people have a lot of convictions.

And it's a lot. Yes. It's not just one. And obviously that, that one slate was, was the most egregious, immoral, you know, abominable one that one that a person could have. But now it's like, it's, it's so, it's like police. You can live in a society where there are no police. You can have mental health professionals. You can give puberty blockers to minors. You like, It's so— do you understand what I'm saying? Where it's like, it's, it's, it's like a mental illness, right?

It's such a denial of reality. People of your generation, uh, have the, have understanding of the inversion of reality they're expected to accept. I would be curious for your college roommates to hear what you just said and say, oh yeah, of course, Julie, really make sense. I don't, I don't think most would. You agree?

I do. Maybe not singling out those people, but the greater— yeah, the greater class. I, I do agree.

And those have it, as we know. What's our story, Mr. Sean?

We're done. Boy, it flies by.

Thank God.

I know. I've never felt on this show like we're—

boy, it's time dragging.

Yeah, I've never felt— I've only felt disappointed when it ends. Have you ever felt that on, on the air? Like, I gotta get through this?

Number 39. No, I'm just kidding.

I don't mean on this show, I mean just in your career.

No, that's a terrible— oh, that's a bad sign. I will tell you this. It's a light note, but it's a very serious one. I began speaking publicly at 21, and within a few years I was giving a speech, and in the middle of the speech, I said to me— I vividly recall it— Dennis, you're boring me. Oh. And that was the last time I ever— and I've given thousands of speeches— that is the last time I ever thought, am I boring? I am relentlessly interested in being interesting. Part of the reason is I bore me, so I get bored so easily.

You do?

That is a gift. It turned out I would have been diagnosed with ADD. I would have. There's no doubt in my mind. It turns out if I have it, I don't know. But if I do, it's a gift because it has helped make me and my writing, not just my speaking, interesting because I get bored so easily, including of my own writing or my own speaking.

It's a great test. I do this before I do an episode. Would I want to watch this? Would I want to listen to this? Would I be riveted by this? Yes. You can reach me at julie@julie-hartman.com. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter @JulieRhartman. I'm so good at this spiel. I've stopped asking you to cut in because I'm so efficient. Because I'm so good at it. Do you know your Instagram handle?

Certainly do.

Would you like to?

No, I wouldn't.

@TheDennisPrager on Twitter is Dennis Prager. That's so easy. But you know what? You know what I love about you? You don't like— your mind is so oriented to the big stuff that even if every single week I'm reminding you of what your handles are, you will never remember it because you just—

right. It's not—

it's not significant.

It's not a good thing. But yes, you're right. I'm preoccupied with the big stuff.

By the way, someone wrote into me saying that my shalom is offensive to Jews.

It wasn't a Jew, I'll bet.

I think it was.

Really?

Yeah, this person was like, it's making fun of Judaism.

See, we live in a sick age.

How is saying that? No, I know, I know, it's with admiration.

No, no, and then I mean, what if you said to, to people, if, if I were Japanese, okay, your co-host was Japanese, you go sayonara or sayonara, as they say, in front of a Japanese person, or arigato, which is Japanese for thank you.

Sometimes the right can be just as cancel culture.

Oh, that's interesting. You think that person was on the right?

Yeah, because they said love Dennis and Julie, you know.

Yeah, it's sad. I would love that person. That's why I love talk radio. I would love to dialogue this through with that person. It's a pure endearment.

Of course. It's just— I like audibly. It's just a fun word to say.

Fine.

Shalom.

Yes.

On that note, shalom. Not going to stop.

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