Michael Shermer with Daniel Chirot - Revolution? Radical Idealism and its Tragic Consequences

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Listen to the Science Salon Podcast # 106 (audio-only):
bit.ly/ScienceSalon106
Why have so many of the iconic revolutions of modern times ended in bloody tragedies? What lessons can be drawn from these failures today, in a world where political extremism is on the rise and rational reform based on moderation and compromise often seems impossible to achieve? In You Say You Want a Revolution?, Daniel Chirot examines a wide range of right- and left-wing revolutions around the world - from the late eighteenth century to today - to provide important new answers to these critical questions. From the French Revolution of the eighteenth century to the Mexican, Russian, German, Chinese, anticolonial, and Iranian revolutions of the twentieth, Chirot finds that moderate solutions to serious social, economic, and political problems were overwhelmed by radical ideologies that promised simpler, drastic remedies. But not all revolutions had this outcome. The American Revolution didn’t, although its failure to resolve the problem of slavery eventually led to the Civil War, and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe was relatively peaceful, except in Yugoslavia. Chirot and Shermer also discuss:
• why violent radicalism, corruption, and the betrayal of ideals won in so many crucial cases, but why it didn’t in some others
• Did most Germans really believe in Nazi ideology or did they just go along out of social pressure and political convenience?
• No Hitler, No Holocaust?
• How do you get people to commit genocide?
• Anti-semitism in history and today
• how the logic of utopian radicalism leads to violence
• the difference in belief and action between Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky
the difference between the American and French Revolutions
• We think of the American revolution as liberal, but its chief English defender, Edmund Burke, is the founder of modern conservatism.
• lessons to learn from centuries of violent vs. nonviolent revolutions.
Daniel Chirot is the Herbert J. Ellison Professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Henry Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington. He is the author of many books, most recently, The Shape of the New: Four Big Ideas and How They Made the Modern World (with Scott L. Montgomery) (Princeton), which was named one of the New York Times Book Review’s 100 Notable Books of the Year.
This dialogue was recorded on February 19, 2020 as part of the Science Salon Podcast series hosted by Michael Shermer and presented by The Skeptics Society, in California.
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2 мар 2020

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Комментарии : 47

@davidanderson9664 4 года назад

This guy is top notch, thank you. I'm surprised I hadn't heard of him until now. I'll buy his book - I'm particularly interested in his discussions of Mexico and Algeria. Americans have NO idea about those situations generally. Another winner Prof Shermer! D.A., J.D., NYC

@wtfamiactuallyright1823 4 года назад

I thought this may be Interesting and instead, found it incredibly interesting, ty. .😯

@dobste 4 года назад

True in Romania, The army simply let go of many, i remember tanks in the streets, lot of guns running a lot. Later it was that a lot of ammunition went into the air, in my city many buildings still having bullets holes, like the prefecture main building. Thanks for the chat. Very nice to understand many things! One of my favourite themes, history on facts! Keep on, your chats makes me use my brain!

@parrmik 3 года назад

who needs fiction when we have such a rich history.

@LoyalFriend62 4 года назад

Thank you for the lengthy interview. Next time, try to make sure that the audio quality is better. In this case, Michael's voice is louder (too close to the mike?).

@PartlySunny74 3 года назад

The European-originated churches, and aristocracies did help and do help still perpetuate the antisemitic laws and rhetoric to both use Jewish resources while concurrently keeping Jewish people from amassing power. In the US, it just continues to today in the culture, with regular “topping off” from European Protestant and Catholic immigrants and influencers. Emotional citizens with too little education or resources are just tools everywhere. Thank you Dr. Shermer for another great interview!

@willnill7946 Год назад

I like your sinister term “amassing power”. Should I help the Jews amass power?

@davidwilkie9551 4 года назад

Tolerance is typically a neutral kind of ignorance that is natural to children. Lack of inquiry, and deliberate obfuscation against transparency, is the aspect of religions and eletist philosophies that is the actual problem, otherwise claiming tolerance is at fault is the usual tactic of blaming the victims by abuse of power. This review is a good example of why through research qualifies respect for the "power of the pen" to inform, and balance the internal politics of responsible individuals.

@teodelfuego 4 года назад

dan Hey look, everybody! Dan found a typo in a You Tube comment!

@aresmars2003 4 года назад

I like the term "true believer" because it is that state that allows you to support [ultimtately] murderous leaders who are called to execute the revolution. So the problem with revolutions is the tools used to execute it becomes a slippery slope where the goals become more important than the means, and once it starts moving forward, people will arise who not interested in the goals, but power itself in revolutionary time and they'll call for unjust means which followers will accept as necessary.

@PartlySunny74 3 года назад

January 6th was scary, not because it was likely to succeed but because so many innocents could have been hurt. Trump equals Treason.

@aresmars2003 3 года назад

@@PartlySunny74 The term "innocents" is an interesting one. Perhaps everyone acting out their convictions are "innocent", even if their facts happen to be wrong, and their means happen to be deadly.

@davidanderson9664 4 года назад

The Russian stuff at 1:25 is interesting. I think he means this Stalin speech: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-poOZFKoEx9c.html It oozes malevolence. My Russian is rustic so the accent is hard to pick.

@willnill7946 3 года назад

This guy really tries to insert his own ideology about his dislike of Christian conservatives into the conversation but the professor makes it clear he is talking about the dangers of any ideology in general and even Marxist or political ideology is the same as religion

@jeffersonianideal 4 года назад

1:15:20 Could it be that the phrase, "God's chosen people" wasn't about elite favoritism but rather, chosen to perform a particular task or mission?

@howtheworldworks3 4 года назад

Let me ask you this. It's very important. Do you think that something close to a utopia is possible? An utopia where there are no more wars, no more nukes, no more guns, no more armies, no more racism, no more sexism, no more homophobia, no more transphobia, no more tribalism, global free health care, global economy, one language worldwide(english), one economy worldwide completely based on fairness and empathy, one currency, fixed prices, free education including college with reformed school systems all over the world focusing on facts, honesty, kindness, generosity and empathy, a fair economic system that gives everyone exactly what they worked for, police being way better trained towards empathy to defend and help all innocent people and at the same time going against all who harm people including the political authorities if they fail to act according to justice, kindness, honesty and empathy and last and most important a world where no one has to die for it's achievement....except murderers. I think this is possible. I am writing about it right now and explaining exactly how it can be done.

@bobwilson7684 4 года назад

quite true, an empty stomach speaks first, it does not understand about beliefs or borders or history, nor science neither

@huemanzu 4 года назад

Ineresting please fill me in huemanzu@hotmail.com

@teodelfuego 4 года назад

indiana201333 I smell a cult leader starter kit

@HaIsKuL 3 года назад

Utopia in its original Greek definition means "no place", not just due to its fantastical implications but because of its practical implications. Of course all that is great but the policies presented may have the opposite effect. Every dictator promises people these things. We can dream all day long with these things but even if you or I were the supreme dictator of the universe, for however long, it's highly unlikely we'd achieve all these things, especially by force. A utopia is no place because that place won't survive. That kind of system does not handle stress well, whether it be tragedy of evil, whether a calamity or a genocide. All the traits you've mentioned are great but you're missing equally important traits such as strength, honour, justice, etc. These traits need to defend the traits you mentioned and the traits you mentioned need to allow these traits for the sake of survival. All vices are virtues taken to the extreme. You need discipline to carry out and realize your ideas and you need creativity to form your ideas. It's not that what you present is infantile wish-fulfillment and the traits I've mentioned are for brutish heartless dictators, but a functioning society requires the balance of both. We aren't omniscient that we're capable of a perfect system, but a self-correcting self-improving one that's rough around the edges is what we can hope for and, by historical standards, one we're slowly getting to.

@howtheworldworks3 3 года назад

@@HaIsKuL I like your reply because in my book I already fixed all the problems you stated and many more that you probably are not even aware of. This is why I dont like youtube comment. There is no possible way for someone to expain a book's worth of content in this length. Thanks for the comment and I promise you that one day you will be surprised by the complete nature of the solutions I have.

@darren.davies3957 4 года назад

51 mins read Nietzsche in ' Beyond Good And Evil.' He explains the roots of Nazism( and Nietzsche was thoroughly opposed to nationalism, not too great on women's lib though.) In 251, peoples and fatherlands he writes ': listen.- I have never met a German who was favourably inclined towards the Jews. ' He himself was not anti-Semitic. Have a great day, and thanks.

@thisperson3240 3 года назад

Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs. Charles James Napier

@dorobo81 4 года назад

You could as easilly say capitalism is a religion too then. Could you try to get Richard Wolff on?

@merlepatterson 4 года назад

If that is the case, then the "Greenback" is its cross.

@jimjimmy9541 4 года назад

Capitalism can be defended on rational grounds.Leftism cannot.

@BobbbyJoeKlop 4 года назад

Came to say this as well-about money/capitalism being our modern religion/cult. The Neoliberalism sect is most certainly the radical idealism at the root of so many unfolding tragic consequences. In a world of fiat currency, where money is the modern religion, the neoliberal priests at the unaudited central banks around the world have printed themselves unlimited power to shape the world in their image and were headed right off a cliff. Pure Jim Jones, but at a global scale. Also, if you look at the way the working class and poor are treated in America, it is in essence "religious persecution" when viewed through the frame of money as a religion. They are the "sinners" in this cult, and thus deserve what they get.

@dorobo81 4 года назад

@@jimjimmy9541 Oh really? We're inside a slow rolling apocalypse and you say it's rational? Profits no matter what is rational? Ok.

@TalladegaTom 4 года назад

Wolff also thinks that we should eliminate using grades for our school kids. He isn't all that bright.

@Bvic3 4 года назад

A good load of bullshit. Racism is bad ... but colonisation is bad because people don't like to be ruled by another race. Where is the logic here ? It's bigotry to oppose colonisation, the race of the ruler doesn't matter if you say racism is bad. Antisemitism in USSR when 95% of Bolchevik leaders were Jews. Russians opposing jew colonisation is antisemitism ... Where is skepticism and reason ? Hoo, the author is Jewish, maybe that's the explanation ...

@BobbbyJoeKlop 4 года назад

28:08 In Neoliberalism, the most pervasive and powerful religion/cult on the planet today, this force is called "The Market".

@BUSeixas11 4 года назад

BobbbyJoeKlop you misunderstand liberal philosophy and economics. The market refers simply to the interactions between consumers and producers. A market economy is one in which prices and production are determined by levels of supply and demand, not by a central planner. The order that emerges from it is spontaneous rather than planned. It is a concept akin to The Blind Watchmaker in biology

@harbifm766766 4 года назад

Except it existed for thousands of years since the oldest civilization like ancient Egypt...may you need to think about it

@mikhailfranco 2 года назад

Any comment or criticism that includes the word _'neoliberalism'_ is inevitably a strawman argument that has already defined what it hates in phrasing the question. All such criticisms should be immediately disregarded unless there is a reasoned argument of specific grounded accusations.