Essential Lessons for Human Behavior - Sunday Fireside Chat:
Dennis Prager argues that acknowledging human flaws like the yearning for power and fame is essential to appreciating America's moral achievements, contrasting religious self-battle with secular external blame. He critiques the "woke" movement as a desire for importance, claims microaggressions are invented, and asserts liberty is a value, not an instinct, while condemning herd mentality and ingratitude. Addressing election controversies, Prager defends free speech against hate speech labels and concludes that the right marvels at humanity's imperfections, whereas the left denies them, urging a moral obligation to act happy regardless of internal feelings. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Welcome to Fireside Chat00:01:24
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Hi, everybody.
And I know this is a strange moment because this is.
Oh, he was very comfortable till I lifted my hand.
That was Charlie, by the way.
Charlie belongs to Rodrigo.
Rodrigo is behind the camera now.
And Charlie and I have a fairly long relationship.
The Desire for Power00:11:30
Nothing like this, of course.
How you do?
Oh my God, you're up today, Otto, the man.
America's best known dog.
All right, everybody, welcome to the Fireside Chat.
I'm Dennis Prager.
This is number 100 and.
This is number 172.
That's a lot.
And we haven't missed a week in 172 weeks.
Is that right?
That's what's amazing.
Well, how do I explain this to those of you who are new to me?
This is just a chance to completely spontaneously offer you some thoughts about life, about America, about a whole host of issues, and take your questions.
And that's really what it's about.
It is 99% unrehearsed.
So you'll say, What is the 1%?
The 1% is I do give thought to what I will open up.
Talking about.
That's true.
I do.
Today's talk, today's opening is so important that I hope number 172 will go viral.
That's how important I think this subject is.
I want to explain to you what I think is one of the two or three most important things people have clear about life in order to understand life and to have wisdom, which is the same thing as understanding life.
Human nature is not basically good.
I've talked about this on many occasions.
I have a Prager U video on it.
People don't quite understand why.
It's as important as I know it is.
And I won't give you all the reasons it's so important to understand how profoundly flawed human nature is.
I want to make something clear.
There is good in human nature.
There's no question about that.
Otherwise, you couldn't explain any goodness.
There is goodness on earth, after all.
There are people who are good.
They work on themselves and they work on their nature, or in some cases, they're just luckily born with a really good nature that is not.
The usual flawed nature.
But the reason I'm raising it today is that to understand what is happening in America today, this is the key thing to understand.
So I'll go to the conclusion and then I'll work backwards.
If you understand how flawed human nature is, you will understand what a moral achievement America is.
That's it.
That's the key to what I want you to understand today.
See, if you have really mundane ingredients and make a terrific meal out of it, that's a big achievement.
If you have spectacular ingredients, it's not as big an achievement.
Given the ingredients of human nature, what America.
Baked itself into, if you will, cooked itself into, is an astonishing achievement.
But if you think people are basically good, which a lot of people, especially the well educated, because they don't understand much, and unfortunately I mean that literally, they think, well, human nature is good, so of course it's astonishing how terrible America is.
If you start out with the appreciation of the raw material, Then you marvel at how good America became.
Of course, America has bad aspects to it.
Of course, it does.
How could it not look at the raw material human beings?
What nation, what country, what tribe, what group has not had a profoundly flawed society?
That's why, among other things, you have to compare America to other places.
Who made as free a place for as many people from as many backgrounds?
Nobody.
That's not to say that all Americans are good.
A lot of Americans are awful.
In fact, more today than perhaps ever before in some ways, which is a very sad thing for me to say because it's a very painful subject.
But given, again, this raw material, it is astonishing what we made here, what Americans made here.
So let me deal with this raw material.
Very rarely I use notes, but there are so many lousy parts to human nature, I had to make a list of some of them.
This is not an exhaustive list, and it's not in any order of importance.
When you realize what people want, what animates them, And then you realize that this place has been pretty darn good with all its flaws.
The flaws are completely understandable.
The good parts are a riddle.
The freedom, the opportunity, the working through the terrible origins that had racism in them.
It's an amazing achievement given human nature.
So here are some parts of human nature I thought I'd share with you that are, shall we say, difficult.
No order of importance.
A vast number of people, for example, yearn for power.
Power.
The desire to have power over other people is apparently very widespread.
It is especially true in many men.
And I must admit, I have a flawed nature like anybody else.
This is not one of my built in flaws.
There is zero.
Zero desire in me to have power over anybody else.
I know it's there.
I know how widespread it is, but I must tell you, I have no relationship to it.
It's one of the reasons I didn't run for office.
It's one of the reasons I'm conservative.
I don't want anybody to have power over me either.
I want me to have power over me.
I want my moral code to have power over me.
I want God to have power over me, and that's it.
So I don't want to have power over anybody else.
And that, by the way, that was the American founding dream.
Small government so that you can develop individually to the best of your ability without the most universal thing in the world strong government, princes, kings, queens, emperors, other governments, dictators, tyrannies.
I mean, think about it.
The human norm has been for the state to have power over the individual.
America was founded.
To reduce the power of the state.
There is no other country in the world founded on the basis of limited government.
You know how this alone ran against human nature.
People want power.
That's why America is divided into three co equal branches the presidency, the Congress, and the Supreme Court, because they didn't trust humans with power.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
It's a famous statement by the British Lord Acton.
So that alone, it is astonishing how much freedom we made in America.
Not we, Americans before me, given the yearning for power.
Number two, I could just spend time on that the yearning for fame and recognition.
So many people want to be famous and so many people want recognition.
That's a reason so many people want to be politicians.
Some politicians are in it for idealistic reasons.
Most are in it because.
You know, you get a lot of fame if you're a senator, just to give an example.
And recognition.
People ache for recognition.
Half the people in Hollywood didn't enter it just because they love acting.
If they just loved acting, they'd have joined a Shakespeare group in Boise, Idaho.
But they want to have their name on a movie theater.
They want to get an Academy Award.
Remember, what do they so often say when they do get an Academy Award?
Everything okay, fella?
See, when I talk about fame and recognition, he perks up.
Okay, you know what?
A little humility never hurt a dog.
So, this is a massive desire.
I want to be known.
When I talk to kids, and I mean kids, I mean eighth graders, what do you want to be when you grow up?
So many answer, famous.
That's what you want to be, is famous.
That's depressing to me.
Because then, by the way, I ask them, what would you like to be famous for?
Now, if the kid said a cure for cancer, okay, sounds good to me.
They just want to be famous.
So they say for anything.
So I say anything?
You want to be famous for most hamburgers eaten in a day or in two hours?
Yeah.
And by the way, that's what we do have the yearning for people.
What is Instagram if not a desire for recognition and fame?
This is a huge thing in the human condition.
Another terribly flawed aspect.
Now, look, everybody wants recognition for the good and the achievements they've had.
That's normal.
That's good.
I have no issue with that.
But to seek recognition, to seek fame as an end, that's a very big problem and it leads to corruption in government because the people are not there to serve you, they are there to serve their fame and recognition.
Number three.
A yearning to be important.
That's related to the other one.
This is a, or I'll add to that a yearning to think you are wonderful.
The whole woke thing is that.
Oh, look at me.
Look at how anti racist I am.
Look at how I am fighting transphobia.
Look at how I am fighting homophobia.
Look at how I am fighting Islamophobia.
Look at how I am fighting, and then you name the evil that you wish to fight.
You feel great about yourself.
But what if, in fact, there just isn't that much to fight?
Fighting Free Speech Suppression00:12:44
This country is the least racist, multiracial country in the history of the world.
It's one thing to have fought racism and Jim Crow and went slavery.
But in the early part of the 21st century, there's just not that much in America.
I proved it in an article I wrote, Proofs That There Was So Little Racism in America.
And I'll give you just one because I don't want to go through all of that list.
And that is microaggressions.
Microaggressions prove how little racism there is.
They have to invent it.
So, if you say there's only one race, the human race, University of California's list of microaggressions says that's racist.
There's only one race is racist.
It's the opposite of racism.
So, there's another reason that human nature can lead to a disintegration of society the yearning to think you're terrific and important and famous and so on.
Next, sex.
You know, you read about a Jeffrey Epstein and you read about all these.
People, all these men who have sexually harassed or charged with sexual harassment, and all the other aspects of people where sex is a very powerful drive.
According to Freud, it's the most powerful drive.
And that could lead, and it does, it leads to a lot of terrible stuff.
It has to be kept in check.
But who teaches kids that you have to keep yourself in check?
For all of my adult life, I have explained the difference between a religious education and a secular education.
When I had my religious Jewish education through 12th grade, half day in Hebrew, half day in English, very rigorous education in Judaism.
And kids with Christianity, the same thing.
You learn the biggest battle in your life is with you.
Or, as I always put it, I was taught that the biggest problem in Dennis Prager's life is Dennis Prager.
But not in secular schools.
You learn that the biggest problem in your life is something outside of you, like America.
So while the religious are battling themselves, the secular, not all, this is a generalization, are especially on the left, they're battling America, not themselves.
Next, lack of wisdom.
We're not born wise.
And without wisdom, all the good intentions in the world are useless.
In fact, good intentions without wisdom.
Usually leads to evil.
What is it?
The road to hell is paved with good intentions?
That's it.
Why is that?
Because those people don't have wisdom, they just have good intentions.
Good intentions without wisdom lead to hell.
And we're leading America to hell today.
All these good intentions.
Oh, I'm here to fight racism.
I'm here to fight all these phobias.
I'm here to fight capitalism.
That's not wise.
Lack of courage is a very, very normative part of the human condition.
Very few humans are born courageous.
You have to want to be courageous to be courageous.
It doesn't come naturally to almost anybody.
Some people have it naturally, very few do.
So, therefore, you have this herd mentality.
And I will admit, I wrote about this in a recent column, The Good American, that's what it's called, and how few Americans are exhibiting courage today.
Oh, you want to close down my business?
With the lockdown, Governor Newsom, go right ahead.
We won't protest.
Yes, I can no longer feed my family properly, but I'm going to let my restaurant die.
I won't even open it up.
Or people wearing masks outdoors when they're walking their dog.
This is a herd mentality.
I'm not telling you not to wear a mask indoors when you go to a restaurant or when you go to a store.
No.
But.
It's a little scary to watch people walking pretty much alone outdoors and wearing a mask.
That's a herd mentality.
That's not science.
Oh, how's this one?
People don't yearn to be free.
People yearn to be taken care of.
I've talked about that on occasion.
Liberty is a value, not an instinct.
I'm talking to you about all these built-in flaws in human nature, and we still built America the way it is.
The yearning for utopia.
People really believe that you could make a place where there's no more inequality and there's no more hatred and there's no more.
There's no such thing as no more.
That doesn't exist.
We can lessen, we can improve, and we have.
But you can't have a place with none of these things.
It doesn't exist except in the imagination of PhDs.
Ingratitude, oh God, that alone explains what's going on in America.
Human beings are not grateful by nature.
I have a simple proof.
How many times have you been told when you were a kid, or did you tell your kid, say thank you?
If we were naturally grateful, why would we have to be told 10,000 times, say thank you?
Because it doesn't come naturally.
Gratitude is a value, not an instinct.
Ingratitude is normal.
And that's what the left has for America.
They.
They are not only ungrateful, they teach others to be ungrateful.
I would say that if I had to define the average BA, master's, or PhD, it's a degree in ingratitude.
That's what you get at our schools today.
How can we produce ungrateful people?
And ungrateful people are miserable human beings, both in both senses of miserable, unhappy and the way they treat other people.
Ungrateful people are awful people.
And our schools produce them in the millions.
Oh, finally, the psychological impediments to being a decent person.
Even all the built-in, then there's other stuff, the person who just has physiological issues, psychological, physiological issues, which prevents them from appreciating what they have.
So it's incredibly hard to make a decent society with this raw material.
So America's divided between left and right.
The right knows how flawed human nature is and says, wow, what an achievement America is.
The left doesn't acknowledge how flawed human nature is and looks at it and goes, what a miserable society.
Okay, that's important stuff, if I'm allowed to say that myself.
We begin with your questions.
Take it away.
Hi, my name is Sophia Dukal.
I'm 17 years old and I'm from Newport Beach, California.
So, at least half of Americans, some 74 plus million people, feel they were robbed of their constitutionally granted voice in this past election.
How do you suggest, or what do you suggest, these Americans do to cope with the fact that there appears to be somewhat of a double standard and one party seems to be above the law?
Okay, look, it's true.
Tens of millions of Americans are very suspicious with regard to the last election.
But the question, if I may, Sophia, is even larger than that because people can dismiss it.
Oh, you're crazy.
You're paranoid.
You're hallucinating.
You're making up stuff.
So let's talk about stuff, the division in America that can't be denied the suppression of free speech.
Half of America thinks it's okay, and half of America thinks it's evil to suppress free speech.
That's one we could all acknowledge that we have this massive division on.
I want, when I fight, I fight using clarity.
Clarity is my best weapon, where I can have, as happens on my radio show, look, I have 35 years of practice of dialoguing and debating with people who don't agree with me.
And I've learned a lot, obviously.
And one of the things is, and it happens a lot, and it's very touching, where someone will call up and Disagree with me, and then I'll give an answer very calmly, and then there's a little silence, and they go, Oh.
And I always commend them because they actually listened to my answer and then took it in.
So, 40 to 50 percent of America's young people think it's okay to suppress hate speech.
They say, Oh, we believe in free speech, but not for hate speech.
But of course, they don't realize then they're not for free speech.
Free speech includes hate speech, or what you define as hate speech.
Otherwise, what is the point of free speech?
Otherwise, free speech means there's only free speech for love speech.
Then there isn't free speech.
Who's against free speech for love speech?
Nobody's suppressing, I love you.
It's where people differ.
And you then have been taught to label what you differ with hate speech.
If somebody actually says, I don't think it's fair for biological men to compete against biological women in sports, why is that hatred?
You may differ with them.
You may think it's fair.
I think it's cheating.
Because if biological men can, in fact, compete against biological women in sports, then there's no reason for women's teams to begin with.
If men don't have biological men, I'm not denying that there are men who believe that they are women, and I honor that, that's fine.
If your name is Cynthia now, I will call you Cynthia, and I'm not being cute.
That's a separate issue.
But allowing you with your male body that you can't get rid of, allowing you with your male muscles, your male bone structure, your greater height in most instances, To race against females, that's called cheating.
I'm anti cheating.
Okay?
But what I just said would be labeled by Facebook as hate speech or the new term, misinformation.
It's misinformation that there's a need for women's teams and men's teams.
If biological men can compete against biological women, then let us end men's teams and women's teams because you're denying that men have an advantage in sports.
Okay?
What I just said is so obvious that you have to have been brainwashed from early grades to believe otherwise.
What I just said is not debatable.
Now, I won't suppress your right to say something foolish, but I will acknowledge it is not debatable.
Men, biological, the biology of males is advantageous, which is the only reason we have female teams and female track, right?
That's the reason.
Otherwise, men and women would compete in every sport.
But we know men have a physical advantage, they don't lose that advantage just because they say they're women.
So, Sophia, it goes well beyond this election.
The differences are so profound.
The Obligation to Be Happy00:06:19
So, what did you want to know?
How do you suggest what these Americans do?
We have to articulate our position.
There are tens of millions of us.
We have to articulate our position constantly and eloquently.
Will they shut you down?
Yes, they will.
But it's harder to shut down 70 million people who keep talking.
Than 2 million people who keep talking and 68 million who are afraid to speak up.
What's our timing?
25.
Good.
Chris, Raleigh, North Carolina Prager Force member.
Hi, Chris.
Hi, Dennis, Otto, Snoopy, and Megan's Arm.
Wow.
That is nice.
I hope when I am your age, Dennis, I have experienced a full enough life to have an ounce of the wisdom you possess.
The issue is not that I've had a full life, I've had a full life.
The reason that I have wisdom is because I was steeped in religion from a very early age.
And it's because, and this I don't even take credit for, I wanted wisdom from a very early age.
You have to, whatever goal you want, you have to want it.
You don't become a decent person, a good person even, just by being one.
You have to want to become one.
You have to want to be wise.
And you can become wise.
That's the reason I have read Wiser Thinkers Than Me.
But you don't learn wiser thinkers than you any longer in American schools.
They dropped Shakespeare because he's a white male.
But who cares if he's a white male?
I only care if he has wisdom to impart.
But the unwise are now teaching our kids how to be unwise.
So, yes, so now that Chris's question continues.
In a recent fireside chat, you mentioned a moral obligation to be happy.
Can you expand on the idea of being and not acting happy, especially in hard times?
Thank you for everything you do.
You're welcome.
Thank you for your thank you.
Well, my whole thesis is we have a moral obligation to act happy.
We cannot impose our bad moods on others any more than people impose their bad breath or bad body odor on others.
And just like we wash away our odors, we should wash away our moods.
So I'm adamant about that.
Even if you're feeling bad, you can't inflict your bad mood on me.
Now, I'm not talking about people.
Who have no capability of controlling themselves because of physiological problems, the manic, depressive, or the schizophrenic, for example.
I understand that.
I understand that if you just lost your child, you're not going to be walking around smiling.
I'm well aware of this.
My dearest friend from high school just lost his child, and I'm going through this with him, and I don't expect him to sit there and act like nothing happened.
But for most of us, most of the time, We should, in fact, try to act happy.
By the way, for our sake as much as for others, because how you act will, in fact, affect your feelings.
Act X, you'll feel X.
Okay.
Craig, 33 Los Angeles.
Is this the Craig I know?
He is a nuisance.
This guy's like a stalker.
Tell him.
I will.
Ugh.
Unbelievable.
What are your Super Bowl predictions?
So let me explain.
I know why he asked this, because he thinks I'm out of it.
Now, you guys are witnesses.
Not only did I know who's playing, I told you the quarterback's names.
Is that correct?
That's true.
Okay.
Just want to make that clear.
But since you asked, Tampa Bay.
Okay.
That's not to say they will.
I'm just telling you what I think will happen.
So I'll ask you something, Craig.
Who's going to win the Stanley Cup?
To which he's going to say, What sport is that?
I got him.
He thinks it's a guy named Stanley who gives a cup away.
Okay.
Got him back, didn't I?
What's our state?
Oh, we are.
Oh, let's see.
Oh, the next one is so good Eric in Benton, Pennsylvania.
One of my sons lives in Pennsylvania.
I have a warm spot for Pennsylvania about self-discipline.
So stay tuned for the next fireside chat.
That's the best way to do it.
Listen, folks, what I began with is really important.
I marvel at what good has been produced in this country, given human nature, and given how much corruption has torn down societies around the world because of human nature.
That's basic to judging a society given human nature.
What did it produce?
Okay, thanks for being with me.
On behalf of Otto, Otto, why are you hyperventilating?
Okay, that's my man.
Thanks for being with me.
See you next week.
Tomorrow, Untimeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
Well, this one is personal.
On a boat to, of all places, Antarctica, with 70 listeners to my radio show, I gave two talks on my life, one personal and one development of my ideas.
This is a full two hours.
I hope you'll enjoy it.
Join us tomorrow to hear more on timeless wisdom with Dennis Prager.
This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis' lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles.