My Conversation with Carl Benjamin
Carl Benjamin, aka Sargon of Akkad, is a UK-based cultural critic and self-described “Postmodern traditionalist. Sensible centrist.” He’s also a friend.
In 2017, I got to know Carl well. He was on tour in the US when I invited him to Portland for a fireside chat at my former university. Carl stayed at my home for a week and we were up late every night, talking, debating, arguing, and solving the world’s problems.
If you read Carl’s Wikipedia page—which I will not link to—you’ll find that the ideological hacks at Wikipedia want to give the impression that he’s a far-right maniac. This is untrue. His opinions fall across the political spectrum and, as you’ll see from this video, his views are exceptionally well thought-out. He’s also versed in multiple arenas of thought, including politics, philosophy, history, and more.
Carl is best described as a free-speech activist, staunch critic of identity politics, and champion of English Liberalism. He began his YouTube career in 2013 under the pseudonym “Sargon of Akkad,” amassing nearly one million subscribers and over half a billion views. When YouTube and Google shadowbanned his channel in 2019 for wrongthink, Carl continued creating content on Akkad Daily. In November 2020, he launched a new media venture: Lotuseaters.com.
I genuinely enjoyed speaking with Carl. We have fundamental differences about our core principles, but we were able to explore these differences constructively. Carl challenged my views and I find his take on social and cultural issues to be insightful, refreshing, and unhindered by moral fashions. We discussed myriad topics over more than two hours; I’m sharing the most interesting segment, where the issue of national sovereignty sparks a deep inquiry into the value of rationality, the possibility of “moral facts,” the attainment of objective universal principles, and the possible pitfall of a doctrine of human rights.
I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.
Thank you again for your support,
Peter
PS: For further reading on ideas discussed, check out Michael Oakeshott, John Rawls, Richard Rorty, J. L. Mackie, Jürgen Habermas, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Michael Shermer.
This conversation got my mind in a whirl. Thank you both.
When Carl Benjamin describes a "set of values", it sounds like he is describing axioms. The description of an axiom provided by Merriam-Webster online is:
In mathematics or logic, an axiom is an unprovable rule or first principle accepted as true because it is self-evident or particularly useful. “Nothing can both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect” is an example of an axiom. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/axiom
The axiom example provided speaks to the “self-evident” subset of axioms in the description. I believe Carl was speaking to the "particularly useful" subset of axioms from the description. I think failing to make that distinction is the source of the disagreement (and the use of the word value might be adding to the confusion), because I think both parties would probably agree, if the distinction could be clearly established. I think you did make that point when you said, “you are saying there is something intrinsic to the structure of reason, which is itself objective and universal.” https://youtu.be/piprrQmiCuY?t=3113 Following that up with, “such as, nothing can both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect” might have made the difference.
I think it is also important to point out that axioms, despite our reasons for accepting them, affect our conclusions. I think it is possible to be perfectly logical and wrong, or come to incorrect conclusions, if a single axiom one accepts to be true is actually false (principle of explosion). This is why a higher IQ does not save one from coming to incorrect conclusions, even though one has the ability to come to the correct conclusion. This is why (I think) humans do not respond uniformly to evidence. Unfortunately, this appears to me to be a functional necessity of our ability to think abstractly. How else could we consider another person’s viewpoint? So, we inherently possess the potential for our logic to lead us to high confidence in incorrect conclusions. Another important note, is that a rational person acting in accordance with logic and reason, could appear wildly irrational to another rational person accepting different axioms, which is why your most recent book is so important and timely. If we are not talking to each other about axioms, and not letting our own axioms be explored openly, we can have no confidence in our own confidence.
I really enjoyed the conversation about sovereignty. Thank you for sharing!