I don't listen to Cooper's podcast, but I heard a lot about it on the recent Joe Rogan podcast — this one — with Dave Smith and Douglas Murray. Snippet:
SMITH: Darryl is incredibly knowledgeable.MURRAY: He's not, he's, he's not... when he was offered to debate the current greatest living biographer of Churchill, he said, I can't because he knows much more than me and I admire his work and I've learned from it, but I can't possibly debate him....ROGAN: Right. But you don't have to be able to debate people to have opinions on things.... That's not your thing.MURRAY: But if you, for instance, well, okay, but if you say, I've decided that Churchill is the bad guy in, World War II...ROGAN: It's not what he said. It's not what he said. It's not what he said.... What he said was he, he jokes with his friend Jocko, who's an Anglo-Saxon, he jokes with him, you know, I think that Churchill was the secret villain of World War II....
Posts
106 comments:
What's this? Rogan bringing context to a conversation?
Anyone who turns Churchill into a villain - to be edgy - is a moron.
Professional historians who routinely and non-ironically use the term "the right side of History" do not appreciate anyone who tries to understand the perspective of those on the "wrong side" of History. Quelle surprise!
MURRAY: ...but if you say, I've decided that Churchill is the bad guy in, World War II...
ROGAN: It's not what he said.
But legions of fans — many on the right — can’t seem to resist what he presents as hidden truths.
"Me, I always tell the truth - even why I lie. So, say goodnight to the bad guy!"
"he jokes with his friend" Ah, yes, he "jokes." Quite the comedian, that Cooper. I recommend Andrew Roberts' response to the Tucker interview on History Reclaimed.
Most of us don't have time to get to the bottom of peripheral stuff like the merits of Darryl Cooper. We pick up fragments from sources we trust. When Rogan and Murray disagree, people like me either have to spend time getting to the bottom of it, or ignore it. I'm going to sit this one out.
Rogan has turned into a mendacious liar.
"Anyone who turns Churchill into a villain - to be edgy - is a moron."
World War II has been over for 80 years. Could we maybe stop puking up stale propaganda long enough to realize that the people who got us into the most pointless and destructive war in history were not the best leaders we ever had?
Extra, Extra, NYT publishes an oped to encourage followers to appeal to authority.
The “conversation” between Murray and Dave Smith on Rogan was illuminating. Murray came across as a mendacious twit, contradicting himself continually while striving to always get the last word in, Smith ( as always) just takes the moralist argument that the killing of civilians outways killing the bad guys ( you must make selective weapons?), and Rogan, to his credit, just tried to be neutral to let the 2 idiots debate.
Murray’s attack on Cooper was so over the top that I lost all respect for him as an intellectual or a person. He assumes the mantle of the academic journalist that cannot be questioned because “ he’s seen it all”. Cooper was on Rogan a few weeks ago and went through the whole kurfuffle that caused Murray’s ire. Overblown nonsense.
The bottom line is that Murray worships Churchill, who was a very flawed person and made terrible mistakes in strategy, albeit rose to the occasion of great in the critical part of WW2.
"...many on the right..."
Dog whistle!!
The Three Stooges without the slapstick. And not the better for it.
Hitler is a hero to socialists. Mengele is a hero to progressives. Mao is a hero to liberals. Mandela is a hero to Diversitists. Washington is a hero to conservatives. Pravda is a hero to NYT. Abortionists think of the Aztec empire in performance of human rites. Everyone has a hero.
We interrupt this learned colloquium to recommend that everyone watch Sean McMeekin on CSPAN later. They are rerunning his appearance at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute later.
He talks about his new book "To Overthrow the World: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism" and discusses recent events in that light. (The first five-ten minutes are an award ceremony; meat after that. I may rewatch to catch some points I may have missed.)
An authority and expert, well worth watching and reading even if he does have a PhD.
Lindsey - explain yourself
Because the Left controls the Universities and 90 percent of all professors are liberal/left, the NYTs is constantly using the appeal of authority. The X-burts say this, the x-burts say that. Oh your opinion is useless, you don't aren't a "scholar" or an X-burt. As someone said: "Appeal to Authority".
HIstory is the easiest subject to become an X-burt on, and you don't have to go to college. All you have to do is read.
When the Liberal/left doesn't like a mainstream historical view, then the people who attack it are labeled "iconoclasts" "brave Truth seekers" & are "Challenging old fashioned views" and "Bringing a needed fresh perspective " . When liberal/left doesn't want a historical view challenged then they people who do it are " X deniers" "Conspiracy theorists" or "Revisionists". And who get a lot of "Mmm..why are you challenging this? Why don't you accept it like everyone else? Are you an awful X-ist?"
Churchill was mix of good and bad. There was a good book published years ago called "Churchill 1874-1939 a study in failure". The author showed that one reason Churchill attacks on Appeasement were ignored is because he'd been wrong on so many issues. Lots of people in the 30s wrote him off as an Imperialist warmonger well past his "Sell date". His desire to attack the USSR after WW 1 and his authorship of the Darndenalles disaster didn't improve his reputation.
There's a sort of "Stopped clock is right twice a day" quality to Churchill. He was also alert to any foreign threat and wanted to take miliatry action. War with Germany in 1914, War with the Bolshiviks in 1919, War with Germany in 1936 and 1938. War with Germany in 1939.
His flip flops on the USSR are astounding. First wanting War in 1919, and in favor of bombing baku in 1939-40. Then flip flopping in 1941 to "Uncle Joe" and believing the USSR was Britians life long pal. Then in 1946 flopping back and giving the "Iron Curtain" speech, and wanting to fight a cold war.
I don't think that the case that Churchill was something of a bad guy, at a time when there were a lot of bad guys, is that hard to make. He divided up the Middle East for the benefit of the British Empire, and we are still fighting wars because of it. At some point, you realize that the world is one big free-for-all and you choose your champion, I guess; which people you care about whether they are oppressed, and which you don't. For instance we want to break Taiwan off of China, when it is universally recognized legally as part of China, but we draw the line at Russia breaking off the ethnic Russian areas from Ukraine, even as, should Kiev regain control of it, they will most likely continue their tradition, which they honor openly, of ethnically cleansing it; and even as we know China would never do this to Taiwan. How are the two situations different in the context of international law? Well, they aren't if you are a disinterested observer, but if you look at the issue through star-spangled glasses, then they are night and day, right?
So yeah, Churchill was a villain who got to write the history books.
"To Overthrow the World: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism"
And yet we are the country that has been fighting wars non-stop since the fall of the USSR and are chomping at the bit to fight more of them.
If your theory depends on Hitler being reasonable and satisfied early before trying to conquer all of Europe and kill millions of people, you're probably just winging it for attention.
Churchill used his Bipolar Disorder to advantage.
Cooper is a Noam Chomsky type - he says all sorts of gross stuff, but when he's called on it, he weasels. He says that the Nazis only executed millions of prisoners because they couldn't afford to feed them, but then he insists that he's not a Holocaust denier. He talks about "Zionists" and uncritically reposts Hamas propaganda, but he insists that he doesn't have strong feelings about the Gaza conflict. He knows that his core audience likes to hear him say that the Nazis weren't so bad, but he doesn't want to be cut off from a wider reach.
I haven't listened to the whole interview yet, but I think all three men have made some valid points. I also think Douglas Murray comes across as a fatuous snob even though I admire nearly all of his writings.
I was a scholar of Europe between the wars, especially Lindbergh and the too-much maligned America First movement, which bears a lot of commonalities with the populist right movements of today.
Churchill and FDR were a lot of things. I'm not familiar with the younger bloggers they reference, many of them veterans of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia, who have begun to promote isolationism again. I think Islamic terror is a worldwide threat; I support Israel unconditionally, but even I have been accused of anti-semitism or fascism for even daring to question the narratives involving America First, Allied Leadership, the demonization of Joe McCarthy, and the way Churchill's fraught legacy is considered untouchable.
It's healthy to have these debates, and they should not be restricted to "experts" like Murray, is my first reaction to listening to the first 40 minutes of the podcast. I know too many deeply damaged veterans of our modern Middle East wars --- and too many online and DC "experts" profiting from permanent chaos, to believe it was any different leading up to WWII.
We need to hear a range of voices and not presume that the people digging into the past outside academia are Holocaust deniers or pro-Hitler. If I'm going to be completely honest, I am sick of political Jewish supremicism on the Right. They destroy people's reputations at will, a move that ironically, actually diminishes necessary support for Israel. That does not diminish my allegiance to Israel or my Jewish friends or great respect for their faith -- or our special responsibility to defend them.
Douglas Murray certainly never went to any war, and he should expand his intellectual horizons and stop speaking down to people who actually gave sons and blood to defend Britain and Israel, yet feel just as he does about the Islamic threat.
I’m a subscriber to Cooper’s podcast. He tries to tell the his stories not from the standpoint of leaders, but of the people caught up in the events. I don’t agree with his characterization of Churchill, but people do mischaracterize his argument. He gave a long form description of his opinion.
Cooper’s assessment used a metaphor of a crazed gunman, Hitler, holding hostages, Poland/Jews, and a policeman, Churchill, confronting the situation. Cooper thinks the goal of the police is to minimize the loss of life. He thinks Churchill wanted to make sure that people realized how crazed Hitler was by pushing Hitler to go ahead and kill the hostages.
Cooper didn’t use this example, but the best way I could see his viewpoint on this is comparing Churchill to Janet Reno and Hitler to David Koresh. I think the outcome of that event was horrible, but most people recognize the real bad guy was David Koresh, but Janet Reno ran the op horribly.
Again, I don’t agree with Cooper on this way of looking at the lead up to WWII. It would make more sense to describe this of FDR’s handling of the Japanese by withholding oil exports. Even then, you have to ignore Japanese aggression in China and support of Hitler.
Yeah, Darryl and Jocko fall into my personal 'Life is too short' category. Not to be dismissive; I've tried listening to both, but it becomes tedious to me, not my flavor. Such is the modern gestalt of professional podcasters. Rogan is in this category too, most of the time, but with notable exceptions when he has a really interesting guest.
Douglas Murray can be brilliant and incisive but he lets his 'British' get up too frequently, so he's a bit self-deflating. But: Cooper is only useful to the left as an example of the Extreme-Right-Wing-Ultranationalist (racist homophobic misogynistic) boogey man. How many subscribers does he really have?
"Then flip flopping in 1941 to "Uncle Joe" and believing the USSR was Britians life long pal." I don't think you can blame Churchill for that. He would have allied with Satan to defeat Germany, but he realized that Stalin had designs on all of Europe. He wanted to invade through the Balkans, to forestall what he correctly foresaw would become the Warsaw Pact. It was Roosevelt who trusted Stalin, and insisted on the disastrous Italian invasion instead.
"I support Israel unconditionally"
It all depends on which oppressed people you care about, and which you don't. It's like here in the US; how many Indians did we kill to gain control of this territory? What kind of tactics were they not allowed to use to defend their territory? It depends on whom you support "unconditionally."
It's best to just not think about this stuff. I think that there was a line in Bull Durham about the statement, "the unexamined life is not worth living," that was to the effect that the people who don't examine the world too closely actually live the best lives.
It’s not about who’s right or wrong about Churchill or Ukraine or Gaza. Murray was trying to tell Rogan who he should have on his show.
One of my favorite bits from the Ukraine war was when Russia retaliated for something or other by destroying a museum dedicated to a Ukrainian Holocaust participant, and the Ukrainians complained about Russia attacking its "cultural heritage."
We are lied to constantly, it's impossible to sort it all out. Ukraine is full of nazis; we put the CIA in there to cultivate the nazis in a leave-behind operation against the USSR, yet we are all assured that the nazis are on the other side. You can't sort the lies; the constant drip of repetition is too powerful.
If he can't debate a Churchill scholar, he can listen to him and ask questions about things not understood. It is telling that he would not do that, even. Amazing that the right can have hucksters as vile as the leftist hucksters. Almost like the political caste sets itself up to allow grifting as well as graft.
RCOCEANII: "Because the Left controls the Universities and 90 percent of all professors are liberal/left, the NYTs is constantly using the appeal of authority." This.
90% is probably a low estimate in the case of University History departments. Since Hegel and Marx revealed all of History as the inevitable working out of materialistic Progress, the only inevitability was the takeover of University History Departments by adherents of the new religion, and the expulsion from the temple of the non-believers.
Well-put, Leland.
Leland's post @12:13 PM is the closest to what I've come away with from Cooper trying to explain/justify his opinion. I also think bagoh2o's "if" clause in his post @ 12:02 is also why Cooper's criticism of Churchill isn't well grounded.
I became a subscriber to Cooper's podcast after listening to his episodes on Jim Jones and those on Jeffrey Epstein. I have no idea how accurate either series was but both were engrossing. Highly recommend them.
I read a lot of history. History got more sides than the Pentagon. I was recently reading a history of Luther and Lutheranism. Luther is part of the German soul. Back in the 19th century they put up big statues of him and celebrated his memory. During the recent quincentennial they made little kitsch dolls. The Germans are somewhat embarrassed by him
these days. There's no doubt he was an asshole, but he was a brave man who changed the course of history. He was a bit like Trump. He had a gift for insults and he knew how to use the media of the day, i.e.the printing press, to make those insults widely known....Perhaps in another couple of hundred years he can regain his lost reputation, or maybe not.
Here's an interesting little known fact. There are no contemporary accounts of Luther nailing those 95 theses to the cathedral door. He probably only just wrote a letter to the Archbishop detailing those theses. His friend--and, as it were, publicist-- Cranach printed a broadside with that as an illustration. So that's the version that history sticks with.....Cranach was apparently the first artist to integrate text and pictures to tell a story. We owe comic books to the Protestant Reformation so in the end it was all worth it.
Here's an interesting little known fact. There are no contemporary accounts of Luther nailing those 95 theses to the cathedral door. He probably only just wrote a letter to the Archbishop detailing those theses. His friend--and, as it were, publicist-- Cranach printed a broadside with that as an illustration. So that's the version that history sticks with.....Cranach was apparently the first artist to integrate text and pictures to tell a story. We owe comic books to the Protestant Reformation so in the end it was all worth it.
I tried listening to Cooper's podcasts about the Middle East. In my view, he takes historical events and filters them through a very personal, emotional vantage point. I don't think he likes the Jews very much. After a while, it became soooo tedious that I gave up trying to take any information from him.
Murray could have been clearer about his point. There's just too many ill-informed voices speaking, and the wrong ones are getting a lot of attention, for the wrong reasons.
Cooper's too smart to be this disingenuous,
the confrontation with Hitler was inevitable because of what was detailed in Mein Kampf, the Wansee Protocol is very clear about what was going to happen to the Jews
Stalin didn't spell out things as clearly, what was his particular animus toward Ukrainians Kazakhs Chechens,
Kirghiz, anyone who wasn't Russian, and in the aftermath
some of these factions, supported the Germans, until they discovered it was a wrong choice,
Churchill was more clear eyed about how power works, in the ways Baldwin and Chamberlain weren't, but they were against retaining India, so they got the leadership,
If you listen to this Rogan episode, you will not have your mind changed. Dave Smith spits out a lot of "facts" (Are they?) and quotes, but he comes across as manic and over emotional.
Douglas Murray is much more reasoned, but he should have made better arguments for his point of view.
When Murray made the point that Smith never visited the ME, the issue was the Israeli "blockade" of Gaza since 2005. I thought, "OK, Murray has him here. It's not really a blockade, is it?" But, he let that slip by, as the argument devolved into who was an "expert."
He is rather coldblooded about Soviet aims and their impact
on the Eastern Bloc, which the West largely accomodated themselves to, initially there was support to some of these problematic factions, but as Philby was the go between
they might as well not bothered,
Yet he indulges the Nakba notion, which was the way of the Bedouin refusing to accept their loss at the hands of the new state of Israel, not that they would really accept the Palestinians,
of course the fact that Marcus Joseph, chose Haj Amin, who had been a combatant for the Ottomans, and of course at odds with the British goals were and that set the stage of at least the next 70 years,
As for Churchill supporting the Soviet Union and Stalin. Upon the invasion of June 22, 1941 he was questioned about his seeming support of the USSR and he replied that HItler invaded Hell he would make a favorable reference to Satan on the floor of the House of Commons the next day. Support was practical and conditional.
Yes the 'blockade' hasn't prevented Hamas leadership from arming itself in 2006, 2012, 2014 (you get the notion) of course
UNWRA has raised up an army with their propaganda, which seems to have been funded in part by the Foreign Office and the State Department,
"anyone who wasn't Russian..."
Which is pretty weird, given that Stalin was Georgian.
the Soviets after initially supporting Israel's independence, had turned against it largely with the aid of Sakharovsky, who orchestrated most 'liberation movements' not only in the Middle East (Arafat was his hire) but in the Caribbean and even Western Europe,
the Political pilgrims (paul Hollander) largely went one way,
even reporters like Duranty, Matthews, Salisbury, I am picking on the Times, but other publications were nearly as bad,
the intellectuals, with rare exceptions, Aron, Conquest, Jacques Revel all celebrated the left,
and so the 'brave' rebels like the provos, the brigatte rossi, and the baader meinhof, much as the Weathermen in this country, the Montoneros, and the Sandinistas,
"All you have to do is read."
So when do you start?
so I wouldn't dismiss Cooper out right, but I would be a little more diligent in examining his premises, he seems to for example, accept Arab propaganda claims and not East Bloc claims when both are faulty and he isn't the only ones,
I’ve gotten to the point around here that if Tina Trent says it, it’s best that I pay attention.
- Krumhorn
I tried to listen to the podcast but I found myself getting irritated. Smith and Rogan kept insisting that Cooper didn’t claim to be an expert. Yet then they keep citing his 30 hours on a subject, making the point he has credibility. 30 hours is nothing, and you can’t have it both ways. I respect Rogan as an interviewer. But his actual knowledge on most things? No.
William - Rick Steves' has a series on Martin Luther. Not sure how completely accurate it is, but Rick walks thru his life and admits that near the end of Luther's life, he became a huge jerk. (huge jerk/my words)
McMeekin sounds like the adult (who was not) in the room. But there are temptations. One is to become a contrarian disruptor and crank like Daryl Cooper, Tucker Carlson, or increasingly, Dave Smith. The other is to become a polished and smug mouthpiece for the Establishment as Douglas Murray, Andrew Roberts, and Niall Ferguson have become. I hope he and other historians can avoid those temptations.
Cooper seems to buy into the German notion that they were always victims, encircled and with their backs against the wall. Thinking that way was common for Germans before 1945, and Hitler seems never to have admitted that he made a mistake. Cooper's other problem is continually forgetting that it was Chamberlain who ran the British government before 1940. Churchill was still a cranky fellow on the margins nobody wanted to listen to.
Churchill was the right man for Britain and the world in 1940. He was very much the wrong man at just about any other time. Yes, he was much better than Hitler and essential if freedom was to survive, but it's natural that people don't feel totally comfortable with the hero worshippers.
its arguable, that his successors did not do much better, see eden as well as attlee,
it was his advice, to handover the British responsibilities in Greece and Turkey that led to the Marshall Plan and the rise of NAT0, the near famine of '46 prompted this,
it would not have been crazy if lord halifax, who had been lenient with Ghandi, and too understanding of Hitler to have ended up with the top job
Wait, Joe! “Secret villains” are good guys? Is everybody in the mass media full of shit?
The main problem with the Holy Fox taking over is that he didn't want the job.
I posted earlier but it got eaten, so I'll try again--
Technology is not the problem, though it must be part of the solution (if there is one). The best-selling book in the decades after Gutenberg was about finding and punishing witches. Or so one historian says.
the story is more complicated, say the Vlasov Battalion wanted to fight Stalin, same for some Cossack units for reasons,
as long as we're playing multiverse, it could have happened, if Hitler hadn't invaded the Soviet Union, the communist would have gone along with neutrality,
the Malleus Maleficus, (sic) a handy volume for these times,
now the problem is many leftists like grover furr, white wash the holomodor, as many middle eastern ones like khalidi or
say ilan pappe make up accusations out of whole cloth
A pretty incoherent exchange of views here. It seems to me this Cooper thing has very little to do with Churchill and WWII. It seems to me to be about the Jews and Israel.
“Amazing that the right can have hucksters as vile as the leftist hucksters”
Cooper is not on the right. He is a lefty.
Shout out to the asylum attendants that are transcribing all the nonsense that narciso is writing on the walls in shit.
no I think you can peg him as a strong anticommunist, from at least some of his work, admittedly I haven't watched all of it, I don't have that strong a stomach,
the history of the Caucasus, and Central Europe is rightly called the Bloodlands, as Tim Snyder, noted before he lost his mind,
I do ponder much about what I put down, one might say as a amateur historian, I haven't figured out all the angles, but I don't embarass my self with stupidity,
Murray was basically saying he didn’t like Joe having certain content on his show. He said Joe should not have that content or should provide opposing, officially credentialled content. This reminds me of commenters telling Althouse that she shouldn’t post content from X or Y source because they’re full of shit or wrong or have bad intentions or whatever. Althouse’s response is ‘I blog what interests me. If you don’t like it, get your own blog.’
There are no credentials required to be on Joe Rogans show.
Either Joe is interested in a talking to you or he isn’t. That’s it.
Having a guest on does not incur an obligation on Joes part to have on people Murray approves of to provide a counter to opinions Murray disagrees with.
Let Murray start his own podcast and have on guests to say Cooper is full of shit if he thinks it’s so important.
he jokes with his friend Jocko, who's an Anglo-Saxon
that's a weird comment
"I think Churchill is the secret villain of WW2. But it's just a joke I say with my Anglo-Saxon buddies."
Murray was basically saying he didn’t like Joe having certain content on his show.
No, I think he was pointing out there's a big difference between reporting on events that you see and hear -- being a witness -- and repeating shit that you heard second-hand. The former is a good journalist and the latter is a shit journalist.
He wasn't trying to police Rogan's guest list, and he made that comment more than once. He was just trying to establish himself as an authority ("I've been there and I know what I'm talking about").
"We need to hear a range of voices and not presume that the people digging into the past outside academia are Holocaust deniers or pro-Hitler. If I'm going to be completely honest, I am sick of political Jewish supremicism on the Right. "
Bravo Trent. I am sick of gatekeepers and censors. Let a 1000 flowers bloom. If they're wrong, prove them wrong. All this absurd conformity over WW II and Hitler - its been 80 years. Good grief, you'd think we all lived in Israel or Germany - instead of the USA. We had nothing to do with the "Holocaust" except sacrificing 400,000 American boys to end it.
Its not 1946 anymore. Its 2025.
The Joe Rogan episode was a debate about and by "The Gatekeepers," not about Churchill. The real point was that there is a new class of Gatekeeper, the podcasters, while at the same time the Legacy Gatekeepers are collapsing. On average, 25 million people listen to a Joe Rogan episode while the NYT has 10 million digital subscribers.
So what do we make of these new Gatekeepers? Are they even Gatekeepers as we have understood the office before
The NYT says it has "All the news that's fit to print." This has become questionable as it has begun missing story after story - Biden's decline, Trump's rising strength across all groups, etc. But Joe Rogan is not the NYT replacement. Joe Rogan in some sense influenced the election but it was because Kamala would not talk to him, not because he caught her out in a lie.
So, what is Rogan's responsibility, if any? He is not reporting news or expressing his own opinions (primarily), he's talking to people he finds interesting and exploring their ideas. And Darryl Cooper, as well as I can make out, is somewhat the same. He is not reporting news or expressing opinion, primarily. Cooper concentrates on the fringe right and mostly discusses books. Is he responsible for the content of the books he discusses? No. Is he a Gatekeeper, in the classic sense. I think not. Then What is Cooper's responsibility?
Once the NYT or the universities would have answered Cooper's historical questions with facts from history. That's what I mean by a "Gatekeeper." There would have been a discussion of facts, real things that happened or that really did not happen. But then the NYT and the universities began Gatekeeping by alleging immorality on the part of anyone who dared to raise certain questions. The range of this cancel culture kept expanding for awhile. But, however it may be in other countries, in this country "Shut up, he explained," is never going to last long as a way to handle opposition. When I was listening to Murray, I thought he was a loser for that reason.
The great and truly saintly Islamic scholar, al-Ghazli, always said that an intellectual argument must be answered with an intellectual argument. He even said that those who answer a philosophical challenge with an appeal to the Bible would be responsible before God for the souls lost due a lazy appeal to an authority not recognized by a questioner.
In short, we should answer the questions raised by these new Gatekeepers who are more interested in opening the gates than closing them unlike the Legacy Bums.
"I've been there and I know what I'm talking about"
Yet Murray admitted he hasn't listened to Cooper.
Go look at the transcript, St Croix. Murray was trying to police Rogan's content from his opening remarks.
I'm not here to defend Cooper. Murray's case was the classic case made for censorship. That's where he lost me. I thought he embarrassed himself. One thing is for sure, he got attention. I guess that's winning on the internet.
@ wildswan
Well said.
The dying legacy media thinks they need to teach us all what to think about every issue and protect us from exposure to anything outside that narrative. Murray made it plain he thinks that's what Joe Rogan should be doing. Rogan has the biggest audience in the world because he doesn't do that. The legacy media is dying because people are sick to death of that shit.
Cooper is not fringe anything. He is a lefty.
Murray: “I see you’re advocating for prison reform. Let me ask, since you are such an expert, have you ever stood outside a prison and stared at the walls? No? Have you interviewed prison guard union PR reps about how evil prisoners are and why reform is stupid? No? Checkmate.” - Darryl Cooper responding to Murray's attack on Dave Smith.
I don't think of Rogan, Murray, or Cooper as gatekeepers. Then again, I don't think of them as historians either.
So, it's a wash AFAIAC.
Joe Rogan setting up a debate between Douglas Murray and Dave Smith about the situation in the Middle East is as factually useful as if Rogan invited Ann Althouse to debate Andrew Tate about the US Constitution. That would also be a train wreck.
I learned a lot from that debate. It was t a train wreck.
And I’d probably learn a lot from a discussion between Althouse and Tate
It wasn’t a train wreck.
I am a little curious. What did Eva Marie learn from that debate between Murray and Smith?
1. It’s possible for 2 people who are passionately opposed to each other’s point of view to treat each other with respect.
2. Murray misquoted Milos Kundera - and I liked Murray’s version more - that as we go through life making decisions there’s a fog of uncertainty surrounding our decisions but when we look back we see the man and we see the path but we don’t see the fog. He was relating this concept to Winston Churchill - easy to criticize his decisions looking backward but we don’t see the fog he had to make his decisions in.
3. Smith responded to Murray’s criticisms of Hamas methods of war by saying those are the only methods at their disposal.
4. Smith made the point that Hamas thought by committing acts of terror they could persuade Jews to leave as the French had left Algeria. What Arab resistance groups don’t realize is that Jews don’t have another homeland to leave to.
5. Murray said there are more violent conflicts than the one between Hamas and Israelis but Israelis get criticized whereas all these other groups do not.
6. Smith said (there were 2 separate discussions about Ukraine and Israel but I’m going to combine them) that he is going to be more critical of Israel and Ukraine because we are financing both groups.
7. Smith said part of the reason for the conflicts there is because the US toppled Saddam Hussein. A huge power vacuum was created and then the US left and BTW, Murray supported our war in Iraq.
8. Murray acknowledged that the British (when they were an empire) raised men who wanted to administer the states they created, whereas US had no desire to stay and occupy.
9. I was taken aback how strongly Murray felt about Churchill. I realized that (this is my observation not something he explicitly said) he thought WW2 was not only Britain’s finest hour but destroyed Britain as well. So he had to believe British decisions were the correct ones because so much was lost because of those decisions.
Although I don’t agree with Smith, it was the first time I’ve heard a thoughtful explanation of that position without a bunch of name calling. Much appreciated.
10. Smith implied that the people living in Gaza lived in horrible conditions. Murray countered that their population had increased significantly which was proof conditions were not dreadful.
There was really a lot more. Well worth listening to. Also worth listening to analyze the tactics both speakers used and to learn how to push back against an opponent who is really presenting an invalid argument.
But I go back to point one: kudos to them for discussing and ending the discussion in such a friendly manner.
@Eva Marie
I appreciate that you responded.
I had a very different experience because I've been living through this debate and studying this subject matter, actually for many years. Consequently I was not impressed by Smith's lack of knowledge of the history and lack of depth on what is happening in Gaza -- he really repeated a lot of propaganda couched in false self confidence. Murray for his part was not well prepared for this conversation, as people have mentioned he had not heard the Cooper program, but he tried to keep up the cheerful vibe set by Smith. Guys being cool. Call it politeness, I saw their performance as BS. I was disturbed when Rogan threw Murray under the bus defending Smith and their friend Darryl Cooper, because they aren't historians, after all, so it's all OK if they present crap information. That excuse wouldn't hold up in any other field; imagine a couple of comedians doing podcasts on their opinions on a number of other subjects: Real estate investments, carpentry, Christianity, mathematics, cooking, architectural history, physics, etc. They would be seen as ridiculous. But for some reason everyone is free to opine about the Israel Hamas as a quasi expert, imposing their logic on the biased information they have picked up on social media. The excuse is that US taxpayers are paying for this so they are entitled to pretend to know enough to make judgments sound informed.
But you got a lot out of it, so that's that. I'm used to having civil conversations so that's my minimum.
My take on Murray's defense of Churchill was that we in the free world can never forget that the outcome of WWII was not guaranteed. It could easily have gone the other way, and Churchill was extraordinarily important in winning, in spite of his flaws and all his mistakes. To claim Hitler was a better person or not responsible for the catastrophic war is brain numbing and creepy.
Narr said...
"The best-selling book in the decades after Gutenberg was about finding and punishing witches. Or so one historian says.
***********
Per AI Claude:
This is a challenging question because reliable sales records from the 15th century are limited, but there are some works that were notably popular after the Gutenberg Bible (published around 1455).
One of the most widely printed early books was likely the "Ars Moriendi" (The Art of Dying), which appeared in numerous editions and translations throughout Europe in the late 15th century. It was a practical guide for preparing for death according to Christian principles.
Other contenders for early bestsellers include:
"The Golden Legend" (Legenda Aurea): A collection of saints' lives compiled by Jacobus de Voragine
Works by Thomas à Kempis, particularly "The Imitation of Christ"
Various religious indulgences, which were printed in massive quantities
Latin grammar books by Aelius Donatus
Without modern sales tracking, it's difficult to definitively identify the "best-selling" book of this period. "
Myself, I suspect books on finding witches was a niche
market. One book was apparently a best-seller in that genre:
Per AI: " Publication of the "Malleus Maleficarum" (The Hammer of Witches) in 1486/1487 by Heinrich Kramer, which became an influential manual for witch-hunters."
@Rosalyn C:
“ To claim Hitler was a better person or not responsible for the catastrophic war is brain numbing and creepy. “
Now I understand why the expert class is so inept at solving any of our problems.
If you listened to that podcast and that’s what you got out of it you need to rethink. Find me that quote in the conversation. Utterly silly conclusion to come to.
Socialism and punitive taxation did more lasting harm to Britain than the war. We had the latter, too. How much richer and more advanced we'd all be if the Reagan boom had started 35 years earlier.
@Ralph: That’s true.
Thanks, effinayright.
Kramer was mentioned specifically, but I couldn't recall the name. The guy may have hedged--"best-selling non-devotional title" or the like.
But AI Claude's list actually confirms a broader point--the new technology didn't change what people were interested in, or their habits of thought. Not quickly, anyway.
It has always been my contention that Churchill was the greatest statesman of the last century. He managed to convince FDR that Europe and England were the center of the war and that the US needed to be part of that war. Despite being attacked by Japan.
He was right. Without England the North Atlantic belonged to Germany.
One of historians' jobs is to stand up for bastards.
At it's rare best, history is an exercise in imaginative empathy. It's not only helpful, it's essential to put oneself in the villain's shoes and try to see the world through his eyes.
It is entirely possible to do that and still find the villain's foes preferable.
WWII was, among other things, a fight between racisms and racist systems and regimes. And the good racists won.
Rusty, I’m not as confident as you are that Churchill was the greatest statesman of the 20th century but he was indispensable to Hitler’s defeat. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to examine whether that defeat could have been accomplished with less human cost.
As far as empathy goes, it can go too far.
On Tucker Carlson’s show (I watched this segment) Daryll Cooper says:
“the deaths of millions of Soviet prisoners of war during Operation Barbarossa (1941) were unintentional, resulting from the Nazis being unprepared to handle the massive number of captives. He stated that the Germans "went in with no plan" for the millions of POWs and civilians, asserting that "they just threw these people into camps" and "millions died, partly because the Germans didn’t have enough food to feed their own army, let alone prisoners." Cooper suggested that Nazi officers proposed killing prisoners as a "humane" alternative to starvation, citing alleged letters to Berlin.”(Grok summary)
Except there was a plan - the Hunger Plan
“The Hunger Plan (German: Hungerplan or Der Hunger-Plan) was a Nazi strategy formulated in 1940–1941 to deliberately starve millions in occupied Soviet territories during World War II, ensuring food for German forces and civilians” (Grok summary)
“the Hunger Plan intended to create an artificial famine in Eastern Europe, which would have resulted in deaths of around 31 to 45 million inhabitants through forced starvation. (Wikipedia)
“ the people who got us into the most pointless and destructive war in history were not the best leaders we ever had”— If you are referring to the leaders of Great Britain and France who turned a blind eye when Hitler sent the Wehrmacht into the Rhineland in 1936, I agree whole heartedly. They could have crushed Hitler and the German Army easily in 1936 and that would have spared the world WWII, the Holocaust and tens of millions of deaths.
If Eva Marie is quoting Cooper accurately about the Soviet POWs (what he says is not new) then nobody has to take anything else he says seriously.
So... Jokes need to be silly and if they aren't -- if they're edgy or dark-- they're bad, cruel, crude and they somehow afford us a glimpse into the soul of the joker. Got it.
Heard this over and over for 40 years.
Sometimes people say things that are so counterfactual, so upside down, that it gets people to think "outside the box." Jokes are like that
@Eva Marie -- I was referring to Cooper's characterization of Churchill as the "chief villain" of WWII. If Cooper believes Churchill was the "chief villain" then it is fair to conclude that Cooper believes Churchill was worse than Hitler. Is there a position worse than chief villain?
Summary from perplexity:
Darryl Cooper, in his public commentary and podcast appearances, has advanced a revisionist argument that places primary responsibility for the escalation and devastation of World War II on Winston Churchill rather than Adolf Hitler. Cooper has described Churchill as the “chief villain” of the war, asserting that Churchill’s refusal to seek peace with Nazi Germany after the fall of France in 1940 transformed what could have been a limited conflict into a global catastrophe. He argued that Churchill was driven by personal ambition and a desire for historical redemption, and that his decision to continue fighting—rather than accept Hitler’s peace overtures—led to greater destruction, including the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe and the prolongation of the Holocaust.
Cooper has admitted that Hitler was evil, but he contends that Hitler was “backed into a corner by Churchill, who was bent on war from the beginning.” According to Cooper, if Britain had not declared war after the invasion of Poland, or if Churchill had accepted Hitler’s peace terms after France’s defeat, the war might have ended quickly and with less loss of life. He further suggested that the atrocities in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe were, in part, the result of Nazi logistical failures rather than premeditated genocide, a claim widely condemned as Holocaust revisionism.
Meanwhile Cooper ignores Hitler's ambitions to rule the world, as if Hitler would have been satisfied and placated as Cooper suggests:
"While the conquest of Europe was the first step, Hitler’s rhetoric and long-term plans indicated a desire for world domination. In a 1930 speech, he proclaimed that Germans had the right to “control” the globe (Weltherrschaft). Nazi leaders, including Joseph Goebbels, believed that whoever dominated Europe would naturally assume world leadership, reflecting Hitler’s main objective. There were even plans and discussions about attacking targets as far away as New York City with long-range bombers, underscoring the regime’s global aspirations.
Strategic Alliances and Spheres of Influence: Hitler envisioned a world where Germany, in alliance with Italy and Japan, would dominate Eurasia and the surrounding regions. Other European nations would be reduced to subordinate or dependent status, and colonial empires would be managed for the benefit of the Reich." perplexity.
Narr, I've never read it, but I have heard Bloodlands is a great book. For the American Front, anything from Justus Doenecke, whom I had the honor to study under. A true historian.
In context - and this was cited by Rogan in the Smith/Murray discussion and you can watch the Carlson interview to see it for yourself:
"I told him that I think — and maybe I’m being a little hyperbolic, maybe — but I told him, maybe trying to provoke him a little bit, that I thought Churchill was the chief villain of the Second World War. Now, he didn’t kill the most people, he didn’t commit the most atrocities, but I believe and I don’t really — I really think that when you get into it and tell the story right and don’t leave anything out, you see that he was primarily responsible for that war becoming what it did."
By ‘him’ Cooper is referring to his fellow podcaster Jocko Willinik (their Unraveling Podcast) whose family members are great admirers of Churchill.
Whether or not this statement is correct, and I think it is incorrect, Cooper is not saying that Churchill was a worse human being than Hitler.
Clausewitz observed that war is the defender's choice: they could always give up rather than fight.
Cooper's logic might be applied to everyone Hitler attacked.
The Poles could have given up on Day 1, and the Norwegians, Dutch, Belgians, and French likewise. (Don't bother with any French army jokes--I've heard them all and they are bumper-sticker substitutes for actual argument.)
Then the Brits should have given up if they hadn't already.
Yugoslavs, Greeks--all caused destruction and loss of life by opposing Hitler.
The Soviets! They REALLY should have surrendered, since they lost the most people and were the ones responsible for most German military deaths . . .
Pax Germania.
“war is the defender's choice”
That’s such a simple, obvious, and brilliant observation.
Even in English, Clausewitz can be hard going, but he's very insightful at times. As much as the world has changed since his day, he's still relevant.
Wow, thank you krumhorn.
Good point, Mr. Levene.
Post a Comment
Please use the comments forum to respond to the post. Don't fight with each other. Be substantive... or interesting... or funny. Comments should go up immediately... unless you're commenting on a post older than 2 days. Then you have to wait for us to moderate you through. It's also possible to get shunted into spam by the machine. We try to keep an eye on that and release the miscaught good stuff. We do delete some comments, but not for viewpoint... for bad faith.