RadixJournal - Richard Spencer - ALEX university: What Are We Thinking!? Aired: 2022-05-11 Duration: 25:13 === Digital Alexandria Initiative (04:13) === [00:00:00] Hello, everyone. [00:00:01] This is Richard, and welcome back to my journal. [00:00:05] Today is May 11th, 2022. [00:00:11] Notable people born on May 11th. [00:00:16] Cam Newton, Salvador Dali, Louis Farrakhan, and myself. [00:00:24] So, quite a group. [00:00:27] I'm proud to be among them. [00:00:30] Alright, I want to talk a little bit about Alex University, which is a new initiative that I've started. [00:00:41] And before I do that, I'm going to talk a little bit about this podcast. [00:00:45] So this is a podcast for subscribers only, but I'm going to make this one open to the public. [00:00:56] And I'll do this for other matters as well, but I really want this one to be open to the public because it's not just my hot take. [00:01:05] It is a, I guess, advertisement, you could say if we want to be crass, but it's a discussion about something that I feel really passionate about. [00:01:16] And in fact, I think it's... [00:01:20] A way that I can, and other people who will be involved in it, can contribute to the world and intellectual life and fill a void in many ways. [00:01:33] So, it's Alex University, and here are the basic components of it. [00:01:39] It is an online university. [00:01:42] So, it is not... [00:01:46] A place where you could stay at a dorm or go to lecture halls or go to amazing keggers on Friday night. [00:01:54] No, it is all online. [00:01:55] All classes will take place via Zoom. [00:02:00] The classes will be highly affordable, infinitely affordable in comparison to the current university system. [00:02:10] They will be in the $200 range, and they will be fairly short in length. [00:02:16] That is a month, five weeks, six weeks, something like that. [00:02:20] So it is something that you can dedicate a short part of the year to. [00:02:27] And it is something that takes dedication. [00:02:33] As I wrote in our initial essay, We live in a digital Alexandria, so the Library of Alexandria is obviously a famous library and scholarly institution of the ancient world, perhaps the most famous. [00:02:56] What exactly happened to it is up to dispute. [00:03:00] There's been long-term rumors of burning and so on, but it did disappear at some point. [00:03:07] But it was an incredible institution of learning and maintaining scrolls, but we could imagine it a lot like the Lyceum of ancient Athens as well. [00:03:24] Now, we live in a digital Alexandria right now. [00:03:30] The amount of information is absolutely... [00:03:36] And not just information. [00:03:38] The amount of, at least potentially, learning that one can acquire through the internet, and effectively for free, is absolutely amazing. [00:03:50] At the very least, if you're living in a first-world country where you have easy internet access, you can hear lectures. === State of Dumbing Down (15:53) === [00:03:59] You can read books online. [00:04:02] You can search books for details through Google Books. [00:04:07] Intelligent people all have a podcast of some kind or a YouTube channel. [00:04:14] You can learn about mainstream history, arcane philosophy, revisions of how we view the world in various ways. [00:04:29] It is all at our fingertips, literally and figuratively. [00:04:34] But I think we also recognize that we live in a state of dumbing down. [00:04:43] And so we have all of this available, and yet there are polls of, say, high school graduates in the United States that are rather shocking Possessing negative knowledge. [00:05:02] They're very sure that Jesus Christ is an American. [00:05:08] Things like that. [00:05:09] You think I'm joking, but sadly I'm not, or 40% of the American public thinks that chocolate milk comes from chocolate cows. [00:05:18] You've heard stuff like that. [00:05:20] Well, obviously we cannot resolve a problem of that magnitude, but... [00:05:28] I think we will be able to ameliorate things in our own small way. [00:05:34] And I think what is lacking in this endless cornucopia of information and knowledge, even potential wisdom, is good instruction. [00:05:50] I am not as hostile towards the university system as many people on the right are. [00:06:01] For better and for worse, I think that if you are going to seek status in the world, that attending Harvard is not a bad way to go. [00:06:14] Okay. [00:06:15] I also gained quite a bit from my own education. [00:06:20] I was educated at the University of Virginia and the University of Chicago and Duke. [00:06:26] Yeah, there was a lot of Salinas along the way, you know, the bad professors focusing on partying or whatever, or just, you know, the university is what has become a kind of gigantic... [00:06:45] Daycare center for 20-year-olds where the gym and the student center and the student center's climbing wall and cafeteria that has all sorts of chain restaurants in it. [00:07:00] It has become that, a kind of entertainment place and not really a place of serious learning. [00:07:09] But I do have very fond memories of my time in school, and there is no question that professors that I had, I could go into this perhaps at some point, influenced me, helped me learn to read. [00:07:23] By that I mean read something closely, to interpret something in a way that I don't think I would be the person I am today without them. [00:07:36] Some people might consider that an insult, but I'll leave that as it is. [00:07:41] So I am not as hostile towards this. [00:07:44] I'm not sure I can agree with people when they're just like, don't go to college, go start a business and make money. [00:07:49] That can be an excellent decision for many people. [00:07:53] I actually don't think that's a great decision for all people. [00:07:58] I would also add that I think the university system has become... [00:08:04] Deformed, as it were, in the sense that there's a kind of reverse engineering or cargo cult attitude towards what an education is. [00:08:15] If you listen to politicians, and I'm sure a lot of advisors in schools, they think of a university education as a ticket to the middle class. [00:08:28] So you get this ticket, it's punched, you get on the train, next thing you know, You got a house in the burbs and you're happy and stable and paying taxes and going on vacations and so on. [00:08:44] Well, I can obviously, no myth is, you know, no myth could come about if there isn't a kernel of truth to it. [00:08:54] And there is a kernel of truth to that. [00:08:56] Though I think that myth is quickly being transformed into a kind of nightmare at this point where young people And I have a tremendous amount of sympathy for them, by the way. [00:09:11] Young people will go and announce, you know, oh, I'm working at Starbucks and I've got $150,000 in debt. [00:09:19] And the conservative response is usually, well, yeah, that's what happens when you major in women's studies or critical race theory and, you know, pay your... [00:09:28] Pay that bill and shut up. [00:09:31] Well, I actually do have a lot of sympathy for them. [00:09:34] I think they were sold a bill of goods. [00:09:36] And, you know, an 18-year-old or even a 25-year-old or maybe even a 30-year-old, they do see a lot of potential in education. [00:09:46] They've maybe bought into that myth to some degree about a ticket to the middle class. [00:09:51] Maybe they actually seriously want to learn things. [00:09:55] When you sign on a dotted line, you know, here's a subsidized loan. [00:09:59] Pay it back when you can. [00:10:01] It's hard not to take that. [00:10:03] So I actually have a great deal of sympathy for them. [00:10:07] But this is a digression. [00:10:07] I think the main thing is that that myth of the university is quickly turning into a nightmare. [00:10:19] And there is a tremendous amount of skepticism. [00:10:23] About the university system. [00:10:26] Now, I am never going to host any course that would demand $50,000 to $70,000 a year subsidized through loans. [00:10:41] That's not how I imagined this taking place. [00:10:46] I think a small, highly affordable... [00:10:51] These courses are now $200. [00:10:54] Demanding, though, something that should supplement your life. [00:11:01] Supplemental. [00:11:02] I think those are some of the values, pragmatic values, that I take towards this endeavor. [00:11:08] But again, we need to return to that paradox of we live in the greatest library that ever was, the internet. [00:11:17] So why is everyone stupid? [00:11:21] Well, again, I think we should on some level break down that myth of education, the American myth of education. [00:11:29] It's a ticket to the middle class. [00:11:32] But I don't think education is for everyone, at least higher education. [00:11:39] It is for the very few. [00:11:42] But again, to answer the paradox, I think there's just been simply a lack of instruction. [00:11:50] And engagement. [00:11:51] People go to the great store of knowledge in order to get some cool facts so they can win an argument on Facebook. [00:12:04] Or they go to it just merely to be entertained. [00:12:09] To watch YouTube until 3am and, you know, watch old Saturday Night Live sketches or... [00:12:19] You know, various reviews of the new Spider-Man film or makeup tutorials. [00:12:25] A kind of endless, dumbing-down session. [00:12:32] There isn't that instruction. [00:12:34] There isn't that ability to connect with the teacher, to learn from him or her, to challenge him or her, to be challenged, to... [00:12:47] Think in a way that you haven't before. [00:12:51] That is absent. [00:12:54] And I also think that, and I'm kind of speaking just about my own personal career and so on, I think there has been a real absence of serious intellectual engagement in right-wing circles in general. [00:13:17] Now, you absolutely do not need to be a right-winger in order to attend a class I teach. [00:13:28] In fact, I hope there are people who aren't ideologically rigid in my class. [00:13:37] But you know what I mean. [00:13:39] I think a lot of failure and spinning of wheels and going nowhere So, we are starting out quite modestly, as one should do. [00:14:06] I think the term in Silicon Valley is a minimal viable product. [00:14:13] And that doesn't mean that we don't take it seriously or that it's a throwaway or a one-off. [00:14:19] It's none of those things. [00:14:20] But I want to start off quite minimally, really nail things, make some mistakes, learn from them, correct them, and move to what would be a functioning online university, what could eventually be... [00:14:41] A real-world university as well, if it is viable and if we are serving our students and if we are attracting excellent students who want to engage in this material. [00:14:55] That is a great long-term vision. [00:14:59] Again, my medium and short-term vision is to create some awesome four- to six-week courses that people want to take and that they want to engage with. [00:15:11] I also have a bit of a, let's say, secondary motivation in doing this, in the sense that a lot of these courses are going to coincide with publishing efforts in a really productive way. [00:15:32] So Edward Dutton, for instance, is teaching a course on an introductory to... [00:15:38] Evolutionary psychology. [00:15:40] He will be referencing some work that he's published. [00:15:44] Ed's obviously incredibly prolific. [00:15:47] And so it can work in that way. [00:15:50] I'm more excited about how it can work in another way. [00:15:56] For instance, Mark Brahman and I have a book planned on film that is in... [00:16:04] Production in terms of a manuscript. [00:16:10] And it is basically applying REM theory, which you can learn more about, to 20th century cinema. [00:16:20] And I think the teaching a course on that, which we are going to do... [00:16:26] Would actually go a really long way in honing our interpretations and getting this book to be excellent. [00:16:37] We need to actually first publish the REM book, which is well underway. [00:16:43] We've been working on it for many years now. [00:16:45] So that the basic theory is out there and applying it will be... [00:16:52] Very fruitful, and I think fun as well, particularly when we're talking about, you know, Hollywood cinema of the 20th century. [00:17:01] But I think teaching a course, which we are going to do over the summer, will go a long way in terms of actualizing that book. [00:17:11] And so taking a course would mean that you're kind of, I don't know the right word, you're being our editor, you're giving us feedback. [00:17:22] Maybe even kind of rechanneling things, making us question aspects of what we're doing. [00:17:29] And ditto with the course that I'm teaching, which I'm very excited about, which is Nietzsche's Political Theology. [00:17:37] This is something I have written a lot on in the past, but these matters are kind of a bit scattered. [00:17:45] They're very interesting essays I'm proud of, but... [00:17:49] They really need to be put together in terms of a larger interpretation of Nietzsche and what he thought about politics. [00:17:57] And again, a course goes a long way into making that a reality. [00:18:03] I'd also mention that over the past two years, I have been effectively doing this, doing Alex University, as you could say a kind of warm-up, a spring training. [00:18:17] For Alex University with a group of supporters. [00:18:22] We have done very close readings of Plato's Republic. [00:18:28] We've looked at Nietzsche on occasions. [00:18:31] We've read a bit of Machiavelli. [00:18:34] We've read Carl Schmitt. [00:18:35] We've read the Bible. [00:18:37] We've brought in people who have something to say on these matters. [00:18:42] And we have had a kind of university seminar. [00:18:47] These will usually have the form of, I will start out the lecture, speak on a text for 45 minutes to an hour, while getting feedback from the group. [00:19:05] And then that will transition to open discussion. [00:19:10] And these have been excellent. [00:19:13] Again, we've done some serious classics in this way, and I feel like even two years ago, I was convinced that this is the kind of thing that we need to be doing. [00:19:26] That my supporter group, we get lost in the day-to-day, in reaction, effectively, and that we need to start developing... === Seminars for Better Reading (05:35) === [00:19:41] A major conception of who we are. [00:19:45] And that can be achieved through interaction with great books and great ideas. [00:19:53] And that can be best achieved in this seminar-like environment. [00:19:59] So, again, for the time being, seminars will take place via Zoom. [00:20:04] If you sign up, you will be given, I should say when you sign up, when you sign up, you will be given a repeating Zoom meeting. [00:20:15] We'll do once a week. [00:20:17] And we will follow that basic format of close reading. [00:20:21] I will offer a lecture, I guess in the literal sense of the word, a reading, giving you my perspective on matters. [00:20:29] And of course, you are... [00:20:31] Welcome and encouraged, in fact, to interact with that and question it. [00:20:37] And then we will have a free-flowing discussion that I think will be very productive, and that can go wherever you want to take it. [00:20:49] But I'll certainly be there to guide things and interact with you. [00:20:54] So I am extremely excited. [00:20:59] And this is the kind of thing that if I were a young person, I shouldn't even say a young person, if I were an old person as well, I would be enthusiastic to enroll in. [00:21:13] And I'm not just saying that. [00:21:15] That is very true. [00:21:17] You can see ideas like this cropping up in other spheres. [00:21:24] Perhaps most famously, there's the University of Austin that is That was initiated by, I guess, Barry Weiss, and it has some famous right-of-center professors who are involved with it to some degree. [00:21:38] I think Niall Ferguson is involved, which would be very interesting. [00:21:41] They are obviously much better funded than I am, so they are starting out doing in-person instruction. [00:21:50] And I think it's great. [00:21:52] I mean, again, whatever you think about that, you can call it neocon university if you want. [00:21:57] I think that's probably unfair, but you get it. [00:21:59] You can say that's not for me. [00:22:01] But the fact is, it's a good thing that this is happening. [00:22:06] And this has been going along for well over a decade now, probably two, in terms of technical skills. [00:22:17] You know, learn Photoshop, learn how to edit video, whatever. [00:22:21] And that is a much better system for an adult in particular, or a young person just starting out, dipping his toe into things, than giving someone $100,000 in finance and sending them off to a big university. [00:22:38] Obviously, that is just much better. [00:22:40] And I think it is time for us to move... [00:22:47] Move into that sphere in the intellectual realm, in the humanities, and in the case of Ed, the sciences. [00:22:57] Because it's, you know, I guess you will learn some skills. [00:23:03] I hope that you'll be a better reader after working with me, that you'll be able to dive into a text and dissect it and see various threads in it. [00:23:16] Kind of read against the grain. [00:23:17] I do hope to give you that skill. [00:23:21] But I think the main thing is just the expansion of your mind that is possible with a program like this. [00:23:33] And which again is really absent from many people's lives and is increasingly absent even within academia. [00:23:46] And that is a very sad thing. [00:23:49] So anyway, I hope you sign up. [00:23:54] You can look at my blog, I guess is the right word, on Substack about this. [00:24:05] You can visit alexuniversity.online. [00:24:09] And you can enroll for courses. [00:24:11] You can pay for it with a credit card right then and there. [00:24:15] It's very easy. [00:24:16] After you sign up, you'll receive information on when these things are taking place. [00:24:24] They are going to start in mid-June, so we actually have plenty of time to sign up and so on. [00:24:33] If you would like to ask a question, I would encourage you to contact me at hello at alexuniversity.org Hello at alexuniversity.org And I will respond to you. [00:24:54] So anyway, I might do a couple more podcasts on this subject because it's very interesting and it's just deeply important to me. [00:25:03] And again, it's the kind of thing that I would do. [00:25:07] If I were you. [00:25:09] All right. [00:25:10] I'll leave it there, and I will talk to you soon.