Ah, 19 mins ish. The Inquisition. The Ayatollah. Universal values without argument.

All of Gray's initial list of what is dead about liberalism are highly debatable. Liberalism was never about "libertarianism" in the current definition of that word. It was about "liberty", or "freedom" in a broad sense. Liberalism is at the very heart of freedom of speech enshrined in law. The supposed "woke" repression of points of view is largely a myth. I would like to see a list of the items being repressed. Scientific expertise acquired by government doesn't displace moral and political judgement. That's just a silly juxtaposition of paradigms or criteria seemingly at odds with each other but which are in fact complementary. We all must stop at red lights except ambulances or fire engines. Contrary to conventional wisdom, modern liberal society is really about intricate prohibitions that increase personal freedom. Think about food safety, or freedom from slander. The first is all based on technocratic scientific expertise, the second about limiting the power of the more powerful against those with less power. As someone said, modern government is a big insurance company with an army.

Wrong 😢❤! Decentralization, Don't die ❤

He doesn't address the institutional corruption of science by for-profit forces. A lot of seemingly well deserved controversy around authoritarian Covid Big Science, as in "Follow the Science" (or else!). Well designed double-blind methodology, for example, is made a mockery of. One hypothesis given short shrift is; the fix is in, and it favours the emperor's dowsers, Clever Hans, and celebrity scientists who dodge the issue, deflect attention to relative trivialities, effectively acting as apologists for corruption. If feminists, indigenous rights activists, etc., have corrupted and de-legitimized popular notions of scientific truth and beauty, as I think they can and do, corporations, captured academic institutions, private fiefdoms in the mass media, in short, powerful moneyed interests, have done far worse. This problem dates back to Galileo, and before him to Socrates.

I LiKe The Term SCienCe The JeWel of HuManiTy

it strikes me, contrary to my comment before, that neoliberalism, in condoning "choice", 'believes' that people make the best choices for themselves??? If neoliberalism promotes choice, why can't people choose not to work???

Very impressed by him laying out what we know and don't know about this topic at the beginning. I feel that far too often historians who write for a general audience don't do that because they think it makes themselves sound less credible or something. I honestly think it makes you sound a lot more credible and wish more people in more fields would do this!

philosophical/political theory seems to ignore activities of daily living, including cleaning, tidying, shopping and cooking, or that without manual workers, our system wouldn't work? yet, i suggest the latter 'jobs' conflict with more academic 'work', leaving those who do them, disenfranchised? more to the point, 'liberalism' has taken me, 61, all this time to try to figure out, and, I'm still not sure I have 'solved' it, definitely being poor. I have children and i've lost 3 teeth! Due to neoliberalism's 'mystique', i suggest we have a longer time to familiarise ourselves with it in order to prosper from it. indeed, it would seem that this ability can reasonably be stated to be a human right, given the centrality of the theory to our lives now? Thus, obtaining this above-delineated 'faculty' is another argument to support longevity research, no???

Very insightful

I read his books over and over again.

I like Adrian but man does he need to swag up

Shaun Maguire, another greedy MAGA elitist who only cares that his taxes might go up.

Thank you Shaun, very interesting talk and lots of food for thought!

Memes hitching a ride on a planetary tale Sea monkeys Earth monkeys...solar system monkeys. Redundant spheres in a dimensional redundancy monkeys Our existential Hiatus until we teleport buckaroo bonsai

pro Romon propaganda

Orwell was wrong. Telling the truth is not a revolutionary act. It is a counter-revolutionary act. Because the lies come from the Revolution. As this learned gentleman neatly explains.

Zizek asks a similar question: can we do away with religion after the death of god? Following Jacques Alain Miller, Zizek believes that what dies on the cross is not JC but God. The question then becomes: after building our moral and ethical systems on monotheism, can we now safely pull up the ladder and abandon it? Gray would say we cannot

Powerful and enlightening

The UK's Amy Coney Barrett, with a better education for sure, but still utterly corrupted by so called "conservative" values. Despicable.

Shaun is a true class act

actio personalis moritur cum persona

The big problem for Dawkins, something that he by now must be fully aware of and is having trouble to cope with, is the fact that the simplistic dogma that has made him famous is now being compehensively debunked by sound scientific facts. The post-Darwinist dictum is that spontaneous mutations in DNA create some individuals with superior adaptability who then dominate through selective pressure. This mechanism works beautifully within a given species, but cannot explain speciation. Speciation is a mystery and Dawkins must know this, and yet he keeps pushing his theory because his entire fame is based on it.

I'd pay more than makes sense to read a detailed and lengthy review by this John Gray about the other John Gray's book "Men Are From Venus, Women Are From Mars".

I enjoyed that, I must say...

This is kind of embarrassing, to be honest. He’s giving off a very old person being bigoted but still needing social approval energy here. If people don’t like your values, they don’t like your values, deal with it. How is government-sanctioned bigotry any more tolerant?

Mr Goldsworthy is a Master of his profession. I find his teachins fascinating. His delivey is excellent, in my opinion.

The grandstanding end of this discussion is embarrassing. People don’t protest the crimes of any random government, but their OWN government’s crimes; something they actually have a say or moral responsibility for. What would possibly be the purpose of protesting another government? The idea makes no sense. Gray lectures us on humility, and then posits some bizarre, universal moral duty of protest to (he thinks) outline the hypocrisy of today’s protests. What nonsense.

I honestly have never heard Gray sound so confused. Some decent ideas here, but also a lot of horse manure. Religion ushering in tolerance? Laughably, astonishingly false. Consumer choice was always a propagandistic selling point for the free market: the ultimate value was always the unleashing & deification of man as producer; choice was the hoi poloi’s reward for letting great men do their thing (and, especially, keep their rewards). I think he’s right about the inherent amorality of the market, but that’s not only a problem of choice, but of pluralism, which he’s apparently favors. What? Maybe I’m jumping the gun here because I’m only about a third through, but this seems to already be completely off the rails.

Parthians were Iranians, they just were not Persians, but definitely they were Iranians. I've never heard anyone contest that! Must have been a slip or something.

Why didn't Sumption ask Simpson what his politics were then go on to mention some of the people he'd consorted with politically?

The book, Winston Churchil: His times, His Crimes by Tariq Ali deals with objective truths ignored by those who prefer comforting falsehoods.

He previously wrote a book Rome and Persia……is this a different book?

His argument for tenure is weak, to put it mildly

he should ve learnet armeniana and georgian to read these sources including syriac asswell they have good accounts on sassanians

He’s an atheist. “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools,“ ‭‭Romans‬ ‭1‬:‭21‬-‭22‬ ESV

Dawkins commentary would be considered a hate crime in this day and age.

“Elicited praise from the likes of George Soros”….o’ dear!

So, do Mr Goldsworthy and those who read his books also fall under that idiotic new "meme" about "thinking about the Roman Empire"? 🙄

Linear history and progress is a myth. The heart of man needs redemeption. Calvary was the central act of history

Thanks Dr Richard Dawkins. Excellent presentation.

I think the woke claims to victimhood are more prosaic than the suggested re-imagining of Christianity as Rees Mogg predicted 30 years ago: ‘In Campuses across America the new buzz word is ‘oppression’ any group that claims to be ‘oppressed’ is suddenly possessed of an asset, an entitlement with which to leverage claims to redistribution of wealth’ p110 The Great Reckoning:Protect Yourself in the Coming depression by William Rees-Mogg & James Dale 1992

By bringing the Uygur's into this conversation, condemns him in my opinion. It reminds me that he supported Mrs Thatcher. If this man was a dispassionate intellectual, won't he know that Uygur's genocide was a means to destabilise China. Especially now that China is opened, he could at least try to discover the truth before opening his mouth.

When I began my work life, the department of the company that handled people was called "Personnel". Personnel was responsible for taking care of employee needs and issues. Around the end of the 80's, Personnel suddenly became "Human Resources". I thought this was strange at the time but I subsequently realized that how the business viewed employees had changed. Employees were no longer people but just another type of depreciable resource. This was change, but it has not resulted in progress.

Thank you Sir...!

The man is a national treasure.

Iranists find his books to be a joke. Romaboo prattling.

It has been said, and I wish I could remember by whom, that liberalism’s natural end point is intolerance and illiberalism. This occurs when the liberal state starts enforcing liberalism as if it were akin to the Articles of Faith in an Established Church. Dissent goes underground lest it be punished. We can see this in the dogmas of DEI, where through coercion and legislation, equal outcomes are being enforced, language is enforced, and criticisms of the doctrine are treated as a threat to inclusion, and called “hate.” Fear keeps the masses in line, fear of social and career penalties. You might even be asked by your bank to take your business elsewhere. In Canada, where I live under the Trudeau Doctrine (intolerance with a sunny disposition), we are well down this path. I don’t recognize my country anymore.

You went to Cambridge ? So what, I went to Widnes Tech. Don’t be such a snob !

Adrian Goldsworthy's knowledge of ANY period in history is staggering. Thanks for a great lecture.