What to Make of Ben Shapiro’s Sudden Desire to Pardon Derek Chauvin

March 20, 2025/8 Comments/in Featured Articles/by Jose Nino

There’s something strange brewing on the horizon.

In an unexpected turn of events, Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro urged President Donald Trump to pardon former police officer Derek Chauvin, who was convicted of killing George Floyd in 2021, at the end of his podcast video episode on March 4, 2025.

Shapiro contended that Chauvin’s conviction was unjust and described it as a “defining achievement of the woke movement in American politics” that weakened the U.S.’s system of impartial justice. He claimed that external pressures, including media influence and statements from elected officials, compromised the fairness of Chauvin’s trial, leading to a politically-motivated verdict.

“Derek Chauvin, for large segments of even the tape that was shown [at his trial], had his knee on George Floyd’s shoulder or back, not on his neck,” Shapiro added. “The autopsy of George Floyd showed that he had no damage to his trachea, that probably George Floyd died of excited delirium. There were no accusations, even at trial, that Derek Chauvin had committed a hate crime against George Floyd or that he targeted George Floyd because of his race.”

In addition to Shapiro making his case for Donald Trump to pardon Chauvin, The Daily Wire launched the website, pardonderek.com where people can sign a petition pushing Trump to pardon Chauvin of all his federal charges.

For those with short-term memory, Shapiro’s recent defense of Chauvin lies in stark contrast to a video he released on May 28, 2020 right after Floyd’s death. In the video, Shapiro criticized Chauvin for kneeling on Floyd’s neck for “four consecutive minutes.” He added that the incident was “truly disturbing and profoundly wrong,” pushing for Chauvin to be prosecuted “to the fullest extent of the law” and “be incarcerated.” In a separate column he published on June 3, 2020, Shapiro highlighted that Floyd’s alleged death at the hands of Chauvin should motivate Americans to “rally” against such “obvious evil.”

What could be prompting Shapiro’s 180 on pardoning Chauvin? This author believes Shapiro’s change of opinion is a microcosm of the slight pivot organized Jewry has made to the right since the Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attacks against Israel. There is no “vibe shift” or a genuine move to the nationalist right by Jewish interest groups. Instead, organized Jewry has temporarily shifted its resources from fomenting anti-White hate in the United States to going all out in defense of Israel and even gearing up for a potential war against Israel’s archenemy in Iran.

For such endeavors, Jews must win the support of Whites — the only constituency capable of fighting those wars. Republican-controlled state governments have already rolled back diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs to get Whites to buy into an increasingly discredited political system. And what better way to sweeten the deal for Whites by throwing them another bone in a Derek Chauvin pardon?

Organized Jewry distancing themselves from their Black golems is not unprecedented. The excesses of the Civil Rights Revolution prompted the likes of Irving Kristol to become fixtures of the neoconservative movement that infiltrated both major parties. Neoconservatives were mugged by the reality of the New Left spawning Black nationalist groups critical of Israel and the broader Jewish community. For certain Jewish factions, this was an unacceptable scenario and motivated them to have all their bases covered by making inroads with the ascendant conservative movement at the time.

Indeed, Jews in the United States are still a reliable voting bloc for the Democratic Party. According to a poll carried out by the Jewish Electorate Institute, Jews pulled the lever for failed presidential candidate Kamala Harris by a decisive 71 percent to 16 percent margin in the 2024 presidential election cycle. Though it should be noted that institutional Jewish money and NGOs have made a concerted effort to woo the right post-October 7. That’s part of the juggling act Jews must perform in a country where they’re not only a visible minority but also surrounded by large swathes of gentiles who could turn on them at any second.

At the end of the day, Whites constitute a majority — albeit a dwindling majority — of the country’s voting population. Jews must still account for that when executing their stratagems to undermine their host nations.

As for Chauvin’s fate, he should be pardoned on the merits that he was unjustly persecuted by the corporate media and anti-White judicial system. But that does not mean the likes of Ben Shapiro should be automatically trusted for supporting a commonsense act of justice.

White Europeans are better served by looking beyond the small olive branches that Jews in the conservative movement extend to them and start taking concrete steps to re-assert sovereignty over the land of their forebears. Getting corralled back into the plantation of Jewish-dominated, Israel-centered, neoconservative politics is not an option.

Denouncing Hitler for Very Different Reasons: A Noltean Perspective on the Origins, Errors, and Consequences of World War II

March 18, 2025/24 Comments/in Featured Articles/by Richard Parker

General Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg: “Any objective observer will admit that National Socialism did raise the social status of the worker, and in some respects even his standard of living.”

Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb: “This is one of the great achievements of National Socialism. The excesses of National Socialism were in the first and final analysis due to the Führer’s personality.”

General Heinz Guderian: “The fundamental principles were fine.”

Leeb: “That is true.”

— excerpt from a secretly recorded conversation during allied captivity after the war

◊

To the shock and dismay of those of a more mainstream, conservative persuasion, many different voices in dissident right, far right, and populist right circles have expressed adulation, admiration, and approval for Adolf Hitler, seemingly without qualification or reservation.[1] Particularly in “Culture as Programming,” I have expressed sympathy for and agreement with much of the German perspective in World War II (as it existed at the time), while still expressing strong aversion for Hitler, as I have done so in many different contexts and venues in my personal life and online for many years. More particularly, I, unlike so very many even today, understand and acknowledge the number of underlying causes that can be rightly discerned as the true origins of World War II, a litany of which is set forth below, as many of these causes and grievances reveal the Anglo-American alliance in the First World War and its aftermath to be anything but the force for good that so many believe it to be to this day. The piercing of this veneer further impugns and indicts the same alliance in the Second World War. Careless or casual readers, or those who simply stop reading upon encountering even one sentence sympathetic to Germany in World War II or the years before, might make the error of interpreting assertions on such matters as endorsing or approving of Hitler without reservation or qualification. To the contrary, this author embraces a more novel position that not only understands but endorses legitimate German grievances at the time, agrees with and admires many (but not all) principal tenets of National Socialism and more particularly fascist movements more broadly, while still harboring a deep aversion for Adolf Hitler due to his myriad moral, political, and military failures—to mention nothing of crimes against white Slavic peoples and the German people themselves.

This view is largely derived from the thinking of Ernst Nolte in particular. One might suppose that these views are also derived to a lesser extent from Patrick Buchanan’s Churchill Hitler and the Unnecessary War, except that I was already convinced of this Noltean position long before Buchanan’s excellent treatment of this subject matter was published. Furthermore, my position takes a more benign view of the German perspective than does the eminent American paleoconservative.

There is usually nothing the least bit interesting or novel about denouncing this dictator: denouncing Hitler is not only the safest take perhaps in the history of discourse, but is obligatory for most and almost a sort of daily rite in modern life, a sort of banal routine as common for many as everyday things like brushing one’s teeth or putting shoes on before going about one’s day. But as will be demonstrated, the reasons for my aversion and even contempt for the dictator distinguish this unique and admittedly controversial position from the sort of boring, garden variety denunciation of the Führer that pervades most all historical and cultural discourse—a position that alienates both mainstream conservatives and those of a more radical persuasion.

Stated bluntly, I do not denounce Hitler for the reasons Abraham Foxman, Jonathan Greenblatt, the Anti-Defamation League, or indeed the “post-war consensus” implore us to do; rather I denounce him for effectively losing the Second World War by way of a series of blunders, both tactical and strategic, outlined below, as well morally reprehensible policies in the treatment of White gentile Slavic peoples and even the German people themselves at the end of the war. It must be noted in passing that, while the Holocaust is, I suppose, to be condemned, it is, to quote the late Jean Marie Le Pen, a “mere detail in history” in a century in which over a hundred million people were murdered by various state powers in the twentieth Century, and certainly should never have been allowed to be used as a tool for blackmail and extortion by various Jewish organs, in the manner documented and exposed by Norman Finkelstein in The Holocaust Industry. Given that Europe is on the precipice of oblivion as European peoples propel themselves headlong into racial suicide and civilizational ruin, and given that many of the intellectual movements and various machinations underpinning these existential threats have a very strong Kosher flavor and aftertaste, to put it mildly, the Holocaust really should be of no import to anyone who discerns and recognizes the existential threats faced by the sons and daughters of Europe.[2]

This unique perspective may not be immediately apparent to those who survey my writings or utterances concerning the Second World War, or indeed those in my personal life or acquaintance who learn of my personal interest and even affinity for the German armed forces in World War II, as expressed in certain interests and hobbies, as well as a deep and abiding interest in the German perspective in the history of World War II and the years preceding it, revealing its true causes and origins. Stated another way, I am a hardcore and unrepentant “Wehraboo.” My increasing disillusion with and even disdain for democracy is also likely to mislead many into mistaking me for a Hitler fanboy. Examining this matter must first begin with a brief but concise synopsis of why so many Germans, without the advantage of hindsight, followed Hitler and embraced the swastika in the first place.

Sympathy for Nazi Germany: A Brief Synopsis on the Origins and Causes of World War II

The Treaty of Versailles is one of the greatest injustices in history, exposing the lie of so-called American exceptionalism to any person sensible enough to see the abject hypocrisy and monstrosity of American foreign policy at that time, and really ever since[3]— a lie obvious and in plain view to anyone who cares to see it. Although overshadowed by the monstrous and unconscionable fate of the Germans after the Second World War, the Versailles Diktat assigned sole blame of the Great War on the German people and imposed on Germany the requirement to pay reparations for all costs and losses associated with the Great War, notwithstanding the belligerence and provocations of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, Russia, and even France which contributed more to the sudden chain reaction that very quickly unraveled into the outbreak of war than supposed German belligerence ever did. This is true even as Imperial Germany has been so effectively vilified that many ignorant Americans to this day think Germany alone was responsible for the outbreak of World War I or that the Kaiser sought world conquest. The blockade that preceded the signing of the Diktat led to mass starvation and deprivation, leading to the deaths of just under one million Germans. Danzig, Posen, and areas of West Prussia with either large German minorities or outright German majorities and which had belonged to Germany or predecessor states before German Unification in 1871 were wrongly taken from Germany and indeed violated the principle of “self-determination” that Woodrow Wilson and his supporters claimed to espouse. The Germans suffered hyper-inflation during several periods of the Weimar years. Requiring wheelbarrows instead of wallets, everyday Germans were not only paying millions of marks for a loaf of bread, but very often billions of marks for a loaf of bread.

This was compounded by a number of sharp business practices, principally perpetrated by Jews such as the Barmat Brothers[4], who were at the center of a bribery and currency speculation scandal that made headlines in 1925 and well afterwards. The hyper-inflation that afflicted Germany, rendering German currency worthless, provided opportunities for outsiders, usually Jews, to buy up real estate with foreign currency for practically nothing:[5] an unconscionable exploitation of the suffering of the German people in the name of abject (Jewish) greed. It is of note that Germany’s first laws prohibiting sharp business practices were promulgated by the national socialist regime, and still exist on the books to this day.

Finally, Germany’s defeat in World I is directly attributed to the Balfour Declaration, which, at least according to what is known as the Benjamin Freedman theory (see also Thomas Dalton’s The Jewish Hand in the World Wars), the British government, at the behest of Lord Rothschild, would cede Palestine to Jewish Zionists in return for Jewish financiers and lobbyists in America to bring the United States into the Great War. The injustice and tyranny imposed on Germany by the United States in particular (Germany would probably have won without American intervention) sowed the seeds of World War II, even while the evils perpetrated by this country are cloaked with the sickly sweetness of Doris Day herself among other assorted delusions, hallucinations, and figments of American intermeddling and war-mongering as “American exceptionalism.” This in turn tragically led to even greater injustice and tyranny imposed on the German people, including the evisceration of East Prussia, Silesia, and East Pomerania, with the once great German cities of Danzig, Breslau, and Königsberg lost forever, all attended with wholesale murder and rape at the hands of a marauding Red Army, with approval from Churchill himself (as discussed below).

The most comprehensive map this author could find, illustrating the changes and losses of territory by various German states in the 20th Century. This map unfortunately does not depict the acquisition and lost of Memelland in 1939 and 1945. This map also does not depict Danzig as an independent city state—nor does it depict Berlin or Hamburg as independent city states.

The economic hardship, deprivation, and destitution suffered by the German people is compounded by the moral depravity that had descended on certain urban centers of Germany, most notably Berlin during the so-called Weimar Republic. The sexual libertinism and indeed profligacy that had descended on Berlin during this era is well documented, but curiously has not received nearly enough exposure. There is perhaps no better avatar for such degeneracy than Anita Berber, a notorious figure in Berlin’s “party” scene. Dead before her 30th birthday, she was a bisexual drug addict, who partook in cocaine, heroin, opium and other drugs with abandon. Among her various escapades of abject depravity was a threesome with another woman and that woman’s 15-year-old daughter, both of whom Berber kept as “sex slaves” (Gordon 57–58). On a societal level, not only was prostitution commonplace, child prostitution and prostitution of young girls just past puberty were rampant as well.

The appeal of National Socialism and its continued relevance to the problems of the modern world is revealed in other ways as well. The transgender menace plaguing modern society originated in Weimar Berlin. Magnus Hirschfeld, a homosexual Jew, founded the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, from which modern lunacy about transgenderism derives. The Nazis destroyed the Insitut and burned most or all of its writing, and were in the absolute right to do so. It is also illustrative that Cultural Marxism, an existential threat to Europe and the Occident, originates from the Frankfurt School, a cabal of Jewish academics who were unfortunately allowed to escape from Germany to the United States where they then reestablished the Frankfurt School at Columbia University, from which their insidious ideas soon infected all of American and then Western academia in the infamous march through the institutions.[6]

The rise of National Socialism was a response to these and myriad other outrages, and—without the advantage of hindsight—an eminently just and proper response that ameliorated these and other evils with unwavering conviction swiftly achieved. The specter of Soviet Bolshevism in Germany and Europe at large was also a reason for the appeal of National Socialism given the role of Jews in the communist revolutions of 1919. Moreover, German language newspapers, unlike their counterparts in the Anglo-American world at the time and even to a lesser extent today, documented what transpired in Stalin’s killing fields.

The legitimacy of Germany’s territorial claims on Danzig and Posen have already been mentioned. These claims were ultimately a principal if not the principal catalyst for the outbreak of war when Germany invaded Poland in 1939, but the post-war consensus almost uniformly condemns remilitarization of the Rhineland, the Austrian Anschluss, and the Sudetenland crisis as harbingers of what is perceived as Hitler’s unending conquest for more and more land that, according to conventional wisdom, implored a firm and proper response by the virtuous Allies. The failure of intervening during the Sudetenland crisis, conventional wisdom dictates, led to the outbreak of World War II by not nipping the supposed Nazi menace “in the bud,” as the war ultimately became the greatest disaster in the history of humanity.[7]

Contrary to conventional wisdom, Germany was right to remilitarize the Rhineland. It is after all German soil, and this is particularly so given France’s policy of placing Black colonial troops in the Ruhr region of Germany in the 1920s, which had led to instances not just of miscegenation on a consensual basis, but rape and sexual assault as well. In hindsight, the Anschluss is similarly decried, but both the Germans and Austrians wanted it. And the notion that Austrians are a distinct nationality separate and apart from Germany is somewhat dubious, as the difference in dialect, customs and so on is no more pronounced than certain other regions in Germany, from Bavaria to those who speak Plattdeutsch, or PlattdUEtsch as those Germans sometimes spell it; the exclusion of certain German-speaking peoples based on the legacy of the Hapsburg dynasty would seem to be a most dubious proposition if it were not settled by the dictates and whims of the ultimate victors. Germany also had legitimate territorial claims on Sudetenland, despite how appeasement on this matter is so often used to condemn Neville Chamberlain and indeed the very notion of appeasement in most any context in modern foreign policy.

The aftermath of the Sudetenland crisis, in which Hitler partitioned the rest of Czechoslovakia between the Reich and a newly formed puppet state of Slovakia in March of 1939, is the first outrage for which Hitler is rightly condemned. Unlike other territorial concessions, Germany did not have legitimate territorial claims on the rest of Czechoslovakia, namely Bohemia and Moravia. And in this push to grab land, Hitler utterly and permanently discredited himself and the legitimacy of Germany’s many grievances on the international stage. Chamberlain was outraged by it, and felt that he had been duped into agreeing to the reasonable and just concessions made during the Sudetenland crisis. Alienating Britain in particular in this way made it impossible to regain Danzig through diplomatic means, and the proximate cause of destroying such hope for diplomatic resolution of these matters was Hitler’s annexation and partition of Czechoslovakia. To this day, deluded Britons and others who clamor to the absurdity that Winston Churchill was the “greatest Briton” and deny that Britain would be better off had she sued for peace, either after Danzig or in the wake of Dunkirk and the Fall of France, routinely aver that Hitler “repeatedly” broke treaties and that it would have been absurd for Britain to trust him on anything.

The problem with this position is obvious: unlike Czechoslovakia, Britain had the Royal Navy and the English Channel as a protective barrier, as well as an Empire stretching across the globe, all of which would make such unilateral and sudden annexation and occupation of Britain by the German Reich impossible. Instead of being subjugated or subservient to Germany, she became subservient and beholden to the American Empire and all of its many ugly, pernicious, civilization-destroying proclivities.

Conventional wisdom—the orthodoxy of the “post-war consensus”—uniformly condemns any and all action by the German armed forces as barbaric, wanton, naked aggression, replete with delusions that Hitler somehow wanted to conquer the world: delusions that persist among the more ignorant, particularly in the Anglo-American world. This is especially preposterous because Germany never had, in either of the two world wars, even a fraction of the maritime power to threaten the Western Hemisphere at all, nor could she envision a period in which she could come close to achieving such capacity. In relation to the reasons for Fall Weiss specifically and the outbreak of war in September 1939, Germany had, as stated before, legitimate territorial claims on Poland, Danzig and Posen in particular. Despite Hitler’s dishonorable and deplorable actions in relation to the partition of Bohemia and Moravia, France and Britain would have been wise to seek a diplomatic solution (the loss of the British Empire, the demographic implosion in France and much of Europe attests to that). Onerous, deplorable occupation policies brutalizing Polish gentiles are to be condemned of course, but Germany nevertheless had legitimate territorial claims and war could have been avoided if Poland had ceded Danzig and other territories which rightly belonged to Germany.

Some even to this day are unaware that Germany did not declare war on France or Britain, but rather France and Britain declared war on Germany. In addition to the centuries of aggression inflicted on Germany by France (Otto von Bismarck once stated that Napolean did not leave a single tree in Germany left unscratched), this declaration of war by the Allies legitimizes the invasion of France as well as the invasion of Belgium and Netherlands out of military necessity: the Maginot line in particular required the invasion of the Low Countries for Germany to have any chance of success. Victory over France could only be achieved by some variation of the Von Schlieffen plan, notably with Manstein’s masterstroke, the Sichelschnitt.

Just as the flux capacitor makes time travel possible in the film Back to the Future, Manstein’s Sichelschnitt is what made the successful conquest of France possible, except the latter is no Hollywood fairy tale. A pity that such a spectacular victory sowed the seeds of such catastrophic ruin and defeat, largely due to the blunders and shortcomings of Adolf Hitler.

The invasion of Denmark and Norway was similarly necessary. In addition to plans on mining Norwegian waters, Britain, Churchill in particular before becoming Prime Minister, had designs on invading Norway. Germany invaded Denmark as a springboard to take Norway before the British did, and to secure vital Swedish ore through the port of Narvik. Those who villainize Nazi Germany routinely point out the conquest of Greece as an indictment of Germany’s militarism and wanton desire to conquer more and more land. Never realize that Mussolini first invaded Greece, not Hitler. Hitler was actually incensed Mussolini for doing this unilaterally, not just out of defiance of the pecking order in the Pact of Steel, but because it gave the British a foothold in southern Europe, ultimately requiring the Wehrmacht—not the Italian Army—to win the campaign in Greece after the Greeks stymied Italian forces in such embarrassing fashion. The Invasion of Yugoslavia was similarly necessary, as there was an anti-fascist coup just prior to Operation Barbarossa. As an aside, the invasion of Yugoslavia delayed the Invasion of the Soviet Union by a month or more; unleashing Operation Barbarossa a few weeks earlier may have given the Germans enough time to sack Moscow before being completely bogged down by the historic Russian Winter of 1941–1942.

Condemning Hitler, But Embracing the Swastika Still

While the invasion of these countries was justifiable and even necessary, brutal occupation policies in Southern and Eastern Europe in particular perpetrated not by combat units, at least not generally, but by occupation forces was repugnant and counterproductive. This salient passage from Tapping Hitler’s Generals between Oberst Horst Egersdorf and Major Ulrich Boes is most illustrative. After one of the German officers denounced “our behaviour in all the occupied territories—I witnessed it in Greece too,” the other[8] responded by stating:

The soldiers [of the deutsche Wehrmacht are] the best propaganda for the Third Reich that [one] could possibl[y] imagine. These people in France and in the Balkans whom I met were enthusiastic about the discipline of the German army. And the very moment the Party and the SS took. . . control, even the most harmless citizens became fanatics—against us. …Is that wise or part of the creed? If that really were a part of National Socialism, then National Socialism would be the greatest crime there is. But it isn’t so by any means-National Socialism is actually a wonderful creed! The people who are at present playing first fiddle aren’t national socialists at all, they are criminals (Neitzel 173) (grammatical and typographical anomalies corrected).

This brief synopsis and appraisal of Germany’s actions prior to the invasion of the Soviet Union does not suggest much reason to regard Hitler—or more particularly Germany’s—war effort with such aversion as alluded to earlier, the one exception of course being onerous occupation forces, not by frontline units but police and auxiliary units that were notorious for such things.[9]

Many condemn Hitler for what is often regarded as a war-losing blunder of invading the Soviet Union. The invasion of the Soviet Union was ultimately a key, decisive factor in Germany’s catastrophic defeat, but it is unclear at all that the campaign was doomed from the start as some contend.[10] More importantly, the decision must be appraised based on the information available at the time. The Imperial German Army made rather quick work of the Russian Empire in the First World War, although that adversary obviously did not fall in six weeks as France had in 1940. Earlier the Red Army failed in spectacular fashion to subjugate plucky Finland in the Winter War. It is also worth noting that American intelligence predicted, rather grimly given who controlled Washington even then, that the Soviets would collapse in a matter of months.

While Operation Barbarossa is properly assessed and analyzed based on the information available at the time, the invasion of the Soviet Union does inform the more enlightened sort of denunciation embraced by this author. This condemnation is however largely derived from blunders committed at Stalingrad and elsewhere, rejecting the premise that the decision to invade the Soviet Union was inherently a blunder, and instead focusing on various considerations that contributed directly to the capitulation and ruin of Germany.

First and foremost, invading the Soviet Union under the color of Hitler’s peculiar racial theories about European Slavic peoples allowed Stalin to consolidate power, rally the Russian and other Soviet peoples to resist what were arguably genocidal policies against them, the success of which ultimately allowed Stalin to defeat Hitler, and take Berlin and half of Europe in the process. If the Reich had invaded with far less malevolent intentions, solely as liberators of Soviet Bolshevism, rather than as quasi-genocidal conquerors brutalizing much of the Russian and other populations, a critical mass of Russian people would most likely have revolted and sided with the Germans, and Soviet Bolshevism would have been quickly vanquished. These and other such moral failings underscore how Hitler, contrary to those who eulogize him so crudely, was no pan-European nationalist, but a German nationalist with the very worst propensities for barbarism and brutality.

Condemnation of Nazi Germany’s treatment of the Russian people—at Hitler’s directive—must of course be prefaced with a number of qualifications. One important consideration is that the Soviet Union never signed the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war. There are some indications German emissaries tried to persuade the Soviets to ameliorate that. Manstein’s memoirs and other sources as well contend that gruesome atrocities were first initiated by the Soviets against captured German soldiers, a credible allegation but not one that is universally acknowledged by all or even perhaps most historians. German treatment of the Ukrainian people is particularly confounding, as many accounts indicate the Germans did come as liberators for the Ukrainians and were received as such. This did not last, at least not categorically, as many Soviet partisans would ambush vulnerable contingents of German forces, before torturing and mutilating them, before and after death. Partisans would often perpetrate these atrocities in a way that would implicate a friendly or neutral Ukrainian town or village. German occupation forces regularly took the bait and carried out gruesome reprisals against innocent civilians framed by the partisan terrorists, which some historians falsely contend turned Ukrainians categorically against the Germans. This of course is belied by the large numbers of Ukrainians who volunteered to fight for the Germans to the end, a point of contention in the modern Ukrainian war, as some Ukrainian units adopt Third Reich imagery and symbols. This has created strange bedfellows in relation to the contemporary war, as the Canadian parliament even received a Ukrainian veteran of the Waffen SS.

Finally, large contingents of the German officer corps did not share Hitler’s dehumanizing view of the Russian people, as many veterans recount at least some friendly interactions with Russian civilians, the veracity of which is questioned by those insistent on condemning the entirety of the German armed forces to each and every single man[11]. These and other qualifications and reservations notwithstanding, German barbarism regularly—but not, as if often contended, categorically—meted out to Russians is deplorable, and discredits Hitler apologists who falsely portray Hitler as a pan-European nationalist.

Tactical and Strategic Blunders

With these important qualifications regarding the treatment of Russians and other Slavic Europeans established, focus can again return to the question of how Hitler’s tactical and strategic blunders substantially contributed to Germany’s defeat and utter ruin. Some condemn Hitler for not going directly for Moscow, but instead delaying the push east to finish off isolated pockets of the Red Army in Ukraine and elsewhere that were surrounded and enveloped by quick advances of the German armed forces. Guderian, von Leeb, and others have articulated, somewhat persuasively but not conclusively so, why this decision was a blunder, but this question continues to be debated to this day.

Far more damning, and a central foundation for my condemnation of the Führer, was Hitler’s absurd decision to declare war on the United States while bogged down on the outskirts of Moscow in the midst of the worst winter seen in a century—this while Britain remained intact on the home islands and in Egypt. In other words, Hitler involved Germany in a war with a third peer power while desperately contending with two other great powers on two different fronts while defending the Atlantic coast of France and the lowlands as a third front. And he did so even though the first principle of military and political strategy for Germany and her predecessors, going back many centuries, was her vulnerability, sitting in the very center of Europe, and her first priority of avoiding entanglement in wars with multiple fronts and the necessity to avoid prolonged entanglements of any sort. Indeed, this first principle of German military strategy through the centuries was the genesis for the formulation of Bewegungskrieg, which has been the very core of German military doctrine going back to the Prussian Army, Fredrick the Great and before. One German officer rightly decried such madness “to think we could challenge the world” as “fatuously stupid” (Neitzel, 159).

Invariably such objections to and condemnation of Hitler have subjected this author to a torrent of criticisms and derisive comments, the vast majority of which are uttered by the irretrievably stupid and the intentionally obnoxious.[12] Very often detractors will accuse me of being ignorant of the circumstances leading up to Germany declaring war on the United States, while still desperately fighting with Britain and the Soviet Union. This author is of course well aware that the United States was “neutral in name only.” Lend-lease policies to both Great Britain and Joseph Stalin after the Invasion of the Soviet Union, loaning destroyers to Britain help fight the Battle of the Atlantic are just some of the provocations. The incident concerning the USS Reuben James, which attacked a German U-boat without provocation and was happily torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat is particularly noteworthy, as that incident has informed my denunciation of the Anglo-American alliance generally and the United States particularly for many years. American aggression against German U-boats, despite best efforts not to attack American ships, was such a problem that many high-ranking officers in the Kriegsmarine applauded the decision even though it an immediate and obvious strategic blunder that all but doomed Germany.

Some Hitler enthusiasts also aver that war with the United States was inevitable. That may or may not be true. Before Hitler stupidly declared war, duped, incidentally, by the Japanese with false promises of declaring war on the Soviet Union, American popular opinion was decidedly against joining the war. Pearl Harbor and Germany’s declaration of war changed that, and no longer required FDR or the Jews in his cabinet to try to persuade the American public to declare war on Germany. Hitler did that favor for them. Whether the American people would be so keen on declaring war on Germany, particularly if the Reich had been able to force the Soviet Union to capitulate, is equally unclear, particularly given the brutal fighting that occurred in the Pacific, in which the Japanese did not abide by Western norms such as surrendering when overwhelmed or defeated in battle.

Regardless, there is no advantage in not delaying war with the United States as long as possible, in the event that war would have been inevitable, precisely because Germany did not have the military capacity or wherewithal to prosecute a war against the United States with any prospect of success while also at war with the United Kingdom and pitted against the Red Army in the most brutal and horrific fighting on the Ostfront.

These and other considerations demonstrate conclusively that America’s many provocations and offenses against Germany do not change the analysis regarding the decision to declare war on the United States. If Germany and her war machine were a truly omnipotent force, as invincible as imaginary space invaders from Mars or some other fantastical distant planet, Germany would have been absolutely and utterly justified in declaring war on the United States. But even as the Wehrmacht was the very paragon of military discipline and one of the greatest fighting forces in the annals of military history, the Wehrmacht, although a most lethal instrument indeed, was not so omnipotent. Even the German military had its limitations as to what material superiority it could ever possibly overcome. Any sane, rational person is thus compelled to condemn the decision to declare war on the United States, which in effect gave both Churchill and FDR precisely what they wanted, and dooming Germany in the process. By involving Germany with a third peer power before pacifying either of the other two powers she was at war with, Hitler rendered Germany’s defeat virtually an absolute, mathematical certainty, regardless of the unparalleled sacrifice, valor, and fighting prowess of those fallen, tragic heroes, those great defenders of Germany and Mother Europa, those fearsome columns of feldgrau that were the vaunted deutsche Wehrmacht.

Compare and contrast Hitler’s megalomania which drove him to such a disastrous strategic blunder with how Abraham Lincoln handled the Trent Affair. The Trent Affair concerned the detainment of a British vessel called the Trent, which was transporting two Confederate delegates to the British Isles on a diplomatic mission. The USS San Jacinto of the Union Navy intercepted and detained the Trent, in contravention of international and maritime law, and impounded the Confederate diplomats, who were in British custody, thus violating British sovereignty and provoking the most powerful nation on Earth. This outraged public opinion in Britain, and created the real prospect of drawing Britain into the war on the side of the Confederacy, notwithstanding the aversion to the institution of slavery held by a large majority of the British. Despite the hawkish temperament of some in his cabinet, Lincoln released the confederate delegates. When some in his cabinet balked, Lincoln simply replied “One war at a time, gentlemen.” This temperance allowed Lincoln to win his war. The lack of such temperance, despite fairly outrageous provocations by FDR and his cabinet with a very strong kosher aftertaste, doomed Germany and made it well-nigh impossible for Germany to win the Second World War, likely dooming Europe and the West in the process.

One of the fallen heroes of Stalingrad. On the left is a famous image of one of the German soldiers to die at Stalingrad. Fairly well decorated, the captain’s Iron Cross First Class, wound badge, and combat clasp are in plain view, with the top of the combat clasp broken off, a practice adopted by German soldiers in Stalingrad to denote the particular brutality of the combat conditions they experienced. His name was Friedrich Konrad Winkler, and to the right readers will behold his wedding picture. He died shortly after surrendering in February 1943. Those who so cavalierly dismiss Hitler’s criminal malfeasance regarding Stalingrad and other debacles are to be reminded of the callous disregard for the lives of hundreds of thousands of men like Winkler, men far better than those who are so dismissive of the manner in which they were betrayed.

Despite how improbable German victory was after this decision, Hitler further failed Germany and National Socialism as a cause by other strategic and more particularly tactical blunders. First and foremost was Hitler’s absurd stand-or-die order in the wake of the Battle of Stalingrad. Many of his generals wisely did not share the fixation on Stalin’s namesake, as many historical books and treatises persuasively demonstrate Hitler’s insistence to capture the city under those particular circumstances was utterly foolish. But once the offensive broke down, and once the corridor, consisting mostly of Romanian, Hungarian and Italian troops was threatened, Hitler refused to react by withdrawing the beleaguered Sixth Army to safety, and instead issued his utterly absurd stand-or-die order. This order doomed the Sixth Army, and led directly to its encirclement and destruction. Even as Manstein orchestrated General Hermann Hoth’s heroic but failed effort to relieve the Stalingrad pocket, Hitler refused to allow von Paulus to withdraw and fight towards Hoth’s 4th Panzer Army[13], sealing the grim fate of the Sixth Army, with hundreds of thousands of German soldiers dying in the Stalingrad pocket or dying in Soviet captivity under unspeakably depraved conditions that typified life of German POWs in the Soviet gulag.

Similar orders were made in other contexts, including the German response to Operation Star, as well as in the aftermath of Rommel’s offensive being repelled at El Alamein, in which the Desert Fox disobeyed this suicidal Führerbefehl. Paul Hausser, commanding general of the SS Panzer Corps holding Kharkov, disregarded such orders by withdrawing his beleaguered forces. Had he not done so, three of the most celebrated—and feared—units in the German armed forces—Waffen SS Panzer Divisions Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler (LAH) and Das Reich as well as Panzergrenadier Division Großdeutschland [14]—would almost certainly have suffered the same fate as their fallen comrades in the Sixth Army at Stalingrad. Manstein disobeyed such an order as well in early 1943, but instead of flatly disobeying and retreating in defiance of the Führerbefehl, Manstein persuaded Hitler to come to his headquarters at Zaporizhia some 50 kilometers from the front, and convinced Hitler to sign off on the necessary withdrawal. Manstein saved Army Group Don on the Donbas basin through his masterful withdrawal, while establishing the precursors to his celebrated Backhand Blow at Kharkov.[15] Had either Hausser or Manstein failed to disobey Hitler in their own particular ways, Hitler’s ridiculous “stand and defend” orders would have led to precisely the same or even worse disasters as had befallen the Sixth Army, hastening Germany’s defeat by a year or more, and likely allowing the Red Army to march through all of Europe all the way to the English Channel.

This offers just a small taste of Hitler’s abysmal failures operationally and tactically. There are others. For example, on the day of the landings at Normandy, the defending German forces were in a period of inaction during the most critical hours because certain generals prone to sycophancy refused to wake the Führer up, noting he likes to sleep in. This and other episodes were likely connected to addiction to opiates, amphetamines, and other illicit substances, an issue that Darryl Cooper expounded on at some length during his recent appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast.

Attitude toward the German People

These and other blunders are compounded by the callous disregard and even disdain he exhibited towards the lives of the German people and—as demonstrated repeatedly in the issuance of suicidal stand-and-defend orders recounted above—even the soldiers and officers fighting under his command. In the closing months of the war, this callous disregard for the lives of Germans escalated to mass murder of a different, more deliberate sort, when Hitler turned his demonic brutality against the German people outright. SS units of the Dirlewanger brigade sort—and generally not of bona fide combat units such as SS LAH, Das Reich—and other rogue elements went on killing sprees of any German even suspected of desertion, whether military or civilian. This was not done with any hope of changing the outcome of the war, but to buy Hitler and his top entourage a few more days to live before having to do the inevitable. Far more appalling was the Nero Decree given to Albert Speer, which quite thankfully Speer never considered carrying out. Had he done as ordered, this Nero Decree would have done far more than merely decimate the German population.

To be sure, the policy of unconditional surrender was a catalyst, cornering a vicious, dangerous, and wounded animal in a situation where it dies regardless of what it does. Despite the Allies deserving much more of the blame than the “post-war consensus” affords, Hitler’s intentions with the German people during the closing phases of the war are beyond repugnant. While Germany is in the throes of an existential threat she can barely perceive properly through the distorted perspective induced by war guilt, allied propaganda, and the various auspices of American Unkultur that have been installed[i][16] into the German consciousness through nearly a century of occupation, Hitler’s designs at the end of the war would truly have been Finis Germania, as he would practically have carried out the Morgenthau Plan on his own, saving the Jews the trouble of doing much of the dirty work themselves. The order to burn Paris almost a year earlier, which was also refused, is also an indictment. Returning to what he intended for the large numbers of the German people because of his abject failure—morally and militarily, as demonstrated by Albert Speer’s blood-chilling account of what Hitler said to him when giving Speer orders to carry out the Nero decree:[17]

If the war were lost, the nation would also perish. This fate was inevitable. There was no necessity to take into consideration the basis which the people would need to continue a most primitive existence. On the contrary, it would be better to destroy these things ourselves, because this nation will have prove[n] to be the weaker one and the future belongs solely to the stronger eastern nation. Besides, those who would remain after the battle were only the inferior ones, for the good ones had been killed. (498)

Other statements demonstrate Hitler had the audacity to blame the German people and above all the millions of German soldiers and officers who fought so fiercely and bravely, dying all too often in the process for his blunders and failures.

None of this means that I regard or that anyone should regard the Allies and more particularly the Soviets as anything other than an evil unto their own, as bad or indeed worse than Hitler was. It must also be stressed that Hitler’s worst characteristics did not present themselves in earnest until after American provocations that preceded his disastrous decision to declare war on the United States (again, disastrous not because it was unjustified but because Germany did not have the material power or the tactical or strategic position to declare and prosecute a war against the United States successfully when embroiled with the Soviet Union and the British Empire). The matter is hotly debated among historians, and while I regard the Holocaust as “a mere detail in history,” I am persuaded by the likes of Richard J. Evans who argues that the Holocaust was only initiated after war with the United States seemed inevitable, describing the Final Solution as the “greatest hostage scenario” in the history of humanity. Indeed, Darryl Cooper recently noted that the yellow Juden star Jews were forced to wear in Nazi occupied Europe was implemented only after the publication and promulgation of Germany Must Perish by Theodore Kaufman.

Brutal criminal occupation policies seemed to have stepped up as well once Germany was rendered as a wounded, trapped animal with no apparent escape. Those who have read and understood “The Scottish Play” understand how doom and despair leads to wanton and senseless killing, above all when contending with tyrants such as this. Quoting the once brave MacBeth when so cornered: “I am in blood / Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er.”

The degree to which Allied policy, notably Britain’s refusal to negotiate peace after the Fall of France as well as the Anglo-American policy of “unconditional surrender” inform what may seem a contradictory view that, despite the list of indictments above, Britain in particular would have been better off had Nazi Germany prevailed, either with Lord Halifax prevailing during the War Cabinet Crisis or even in a less likely scenario in which Germany could somehow have managed the occupation and capitulation of Britain in 1940–1941.[18]

Nor is it the case that the Allies are really any better concerning the wholesale murder of innocent civilians or their unabashed war-mongering. Those who prattle on about the supposed “myth of the clean Wehrmacht” [19] like to carry on about the war crimes of an isolated occupation unit in this or that village in Yugoslavia or some terrible happening in a Russian village, whereas the entirety of the American and British air forces were targeting the entire German population through terror bombings, campaigns that were known about and universally supported by the Anglo-American world at large. While rear-guard units would shoot a hundred or even a thousand civilians as reprisals for illegal partisan atrocities against the German military—and did so while looking their victims in the eye, the self-righteous Americans and British were killing tens of thousands and on some occasions such as the Bombing of Dresden even hundreds of thousands of German civilians on a daily basis, sight unseen.

Stalin and Churchill arranged the fate of Prussia and Silesia by agreeing to the revision of Soviet, Polish, and German borders with three matchsticks. The consequence of this was “ethnic cleansing” of all Germans from East Prussa, Silesia, and other areas, replete with wholesale murder and rape by the marauding Red Army.[20] Despite having the leverage of the atomic bomb, the do-goody Allies acquiesced and allowed the Soviets to partition what was left of Eastern Germany into the German Democratic Republic, more commonly known as East Germany. This of course followed complicity if not tacit approval of the wholesale rape and murder of German civilians in Prussia, Silesia, and other areas populated by Germans.[21] One third of German and allied fatalities suffered in the last six months could have perhaps been avoided if unconditional surrender had not been insisted upon. The fate of German POWs handed over the by the Western Allies to the Soviets as well as German POWs who died in Allied captivity—the statistics of which are murky at best—further bloody the “cleans hands” of the Allies.

Finally, most do not consider just how close the infamous Morgenthau Plan was to being implemented, although it seems that it was implemented, just on a much gentler, more gradual scale. Deluded and brainwashed by a constant, unremittent diet of Allied post war propaganda and war guilt, many modern “good” Germans somehow think Americans—more precisely the American Empire—are their friends.

It must also be noted—not conceded, but noted, as I have never suggested otherwise—that Hitler did desire peace early on and tried to negotiate with Britain several times as the French Campaign was winding down. Churchill and later FDR after him were as much war mongers and mass murderers as Hitler was, but at least the latter’s characterization is taken at face value rather than cloaked with the absurd national myth that is so deeply imbued on both sides of the Atlantic as to be indelible.

Regrets and Consequences

Two letters from British veterans who survived long enough to see Britain in modern times, taken from the book The Unknown Warriors. However damning the assessment of Hitler may be, this author agrees with their assessment, notably because the worst propensities of the Führer were only exhibited once utter doom and despair had taken hold, a concept readily accessible to anyone who has read and understands MacBeth.

Despite whatever hollow or empty assertions offered by those who support the Austrian painter so unreservedly, the bottom line is Hitler Lost the War. The consequences of that are manifold, obvious, and incalculable. The partition of Europe between the United States and the Soviet Union solidified the rise of the American Empire, with the United States being the lone super power for almost 35 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The United States is certainly in decline and has proven unable to defeat a variety of rag-tag, sandal-shod, Third World adversaries, from the rice patty farmers of North Vietnam to the Taliban in Afghanistan, both armed with not much more than AK-47s and improvised explosive devices. Even so, blessed with two oceans, a nuclear arsenal and sufficiently formidable armed forces (at least on paper), the decline of the United States may be inevitable, but it will just as assuredly be slow, almost imperceptible as it transpires over many decades or even a century or longer, the ultimate effect of which will be that the United States will, in all probability, remain just long enough to consummate the death of Mother Europa and the posterity of her sons and daughters. While there is still hope for Germany in particular, prospects seem grim at times as the German national consciousness has been subject to a deep marinade of war-guilt, augmented by the steady, inexorable evisceration of their language and culture by the import of American Unkultur, the saturation of German and other cultures in English language advertising, music, and other media, as well as the infusion of shit music and shit culture into all aspects of European society. The defeat of Nazi Germany, for which Hitler bears so much responsibility, has allowed America, the “nation producing this “culture,” to the extent one can call it culture at all, to occupy Europe, while reducing the nations of Europe to “vassal states—above all sacred Germany.”

Looking Forward: Out from under His Long Shadow

The many credible and tangible benefits and advantages of National Socialism particularly but right-wing authoritarianism more generally have been so thoroughly discredited by these and other failures by the Führer, both morally and militarily, that European civilization may never disabuse itself from the lie—from the self-destruction—that is modern liberalism and democracy itself. This is particularly critical because the democratic system has proven itself utterly unfit and unable to respond to a multitude of evils that threaten racial suicide and civilizational ruin, from the Great Replacement and the demographic winter, to unbridled capitalism’s propensity to peddle any number of vices, from pornography to illicit drugs, from sports and other gambling to garbage fast-food that is not fit for consumption by anyone, most particularly European men and women.

These and other failures demonstrate that, while authoritarianism is capable of implementing state policy through actions that are actually capable of solving real problems, having one man as absolute ruler is a most dangerous prospect. The risk of vesting absolute authority in one man leading any such authoritarian movement to disaster is too great. Some recommend limiting the vote to landowners, never bothering to notice the sorts of people that own land in far greater proportion to their numbers while overlooking the problems of generational wealth and similar considerations. Thomas Jefferson envisioned what he called a “natural aristocracy,” whereby those who have the raw, native traits of high intelligence, good health, and some semblance of a classical education—irrespective of the family wealth or poverty they were born into—should be hoisted into the highest stations of a more enlightened society. This ideal was actually embraced by the Nazis in a concept known as Volksgemeinschaft, which emphasized the importance of downplaying and diminishing class differences that existed between the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie, and the proletariat, and awarding and recognizing the individual based on merit, while fostering greater cohesion and unity in the German people. As I and many others have written, Robert Heinlein offers a large part of the solution in the society he envisioned in the unfortunately named Starship Troopers: “Service guarantees citizenship,” i.e., those who serve or have served the nation, in the military or in other important areas of public service alone have a say. Jettison the multi-culti, united-peoples-of-the-world love of the novel and infuse society with the first principles of race, blood and soil. If that is accomplished, a solution to the sorts of problems presented in Hitler’s catastrophic failure would be revealed. Churchill, FDR, and the cabal of International Jewry certainly wanted the destruction of Germany, but if Hitler and a handful of his more odious henchmen such as Himmler, Goering, and Goebbels somehow died in a plane crash as Fall Gelb was underway and a sort of grand national socialist council consisting of Germany’s finest military and other leaders were given power, or if Albert Speer, Rudolf Hess or an equivalent had assumed leadership, it is doubtful many of the war-losing mistakes outlined above would have been made.

Setting these colossal problems with Hitler aside, and even presupposing that each of these strategic and tactical blunders as well as monstrous, barbaric acts against White Slavic Europeans and the German people themselves could somehow be overlooked, as various detractors so foolishly insist, those who support right-wing populism and share either a skepticism or even disdain for democracy and the American Empire should and must regard Hitler with a comparable level of aversion simply because, even if one could overlook, excuse, or explain these gigantic flaws, the public view of Hitler will never be reformed by a sufficiently large number of the populace to make such rhetoric a viable strategy for convincing a critical mass of people on the issues that National Socialism shares with today’s dissident right, ethno-nationalist right, and right-wing populist movements.

A collage of memes that express many of the grievances made by Hitler enthusiasts, but which recognize the fundamental distinctions set forth in this treatise. All but one were created by this author.

This is not to suggest that any discussion of the Third Reich or the legitimate grievances of the German people and the issues that National Socialism discerned correctly should not be discussed or embraced; however, to whatever extent Hitler believed in the tenets that are applicable to the problems faced by the Occident in modern times, he ultimately betrayed those principles by failing in such catastrophic and gruesome fashion as outlined above. Dick Morris’s genius strategy of triangulation, which allowed Bill Clinton to win reelection in 1996 by absorbing many of the strengths of the Republicans in the wake of the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress while deflecting criticisms of the Democrat party at large reveals how this can be done. Instead of absurd memes that foolishly eulogize Hitler, we should embrace the unique vision proffered in this essay and most especially by Ernst Nolte, enunciating that most essential distinction between the German people as well as the deutsche Wehrmacht (and even many combat units of the Waffen SS) on one hand and the political leadership at the top so irredeemably marred and discredited by the crimes and failures outlined above on the other. Despite twenty plus years of an insidious but largely successful effort to criminalize the entirety of the deutsche Wehrmacht that impugns any charitable or favorable view of the men who fought and all too often died for Germany, large swathes of the Anglo-American world nonetheless admire the fighting prowess of the German armed forces to this day. Using the Wehrmacht and the Noltean view of the German perspective can redeem those principles of National Socialism that are still relevant to the salvation of European peoples today, while disavowing the many liabilities associated with Hitler and those who eulogize him in such simplistic and ignorant fashion.

Despite blithe and often petulant insistence to the contrary, the unique perspective and insight described here will be key for any resurgence of right-wing authoritarianism in the Occident, as this perspective recognizes the legitimate grievances of the German people at the time; it recognizes and embraces the many advantages of National Socialism in principle, while still recognizing both the evil personal propensities of Hitler, as well as how the defeat and ruin of Germany resulted directly from these propensities. As Heinz Guderian so aptly quipped to his colleagues while in Allied captivity, “the principles were fine.” It was a problem of leadership—the leadership of Adolf Hitler.

Other articles and essays by Richard Parker are available at his publication, The Raven’s Call: A Reactionary Perspective, found at theravenscall.substack.com. Please consider subscribing on a free or paid basis, and to like and share as warranted. Readers can also find him on twitter, under the handle @astheravencalls.

[1] This phenomenon compelled Keith Woods to publish this essay, “National Doesn’t Need National Socialism.” Private correspondence demonstrates this treatise was already undergoing composition and revision before this essay by Woods was published.

[2] Anomalies such as reductions in deaths at Auschwitz from 3.5 million to 1.5 million are indeed interesting. It is also interesting that Unit 731, a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit—really a gruesome human experiment, torture, and murder factory—run by the Japanese in China, left very few surviving victims. Nonetheless, contesting or disputing figures insisted by Jewish and other interests is counterproductive and unnecessary. First, a critical mass of people will never be convinced otherwise. Second, this author wishes to continue to travel to Europe. With figures insisted upon granted, the Holocaust narrative can still be attacked as a “mere detail in history,” as the populist right can expose and decry the shakedown that Norman Finkelstein and others have criticized in books and essays like The Holocaust Industry.

[3] On the particular matter of Pax Americana, I often think of the music of German aggrotech band Feindflug, particularly the spoken word samples from the song Neue Sieger, which describe the account below of the millions dead attributed to U.S. military action (not all of it unjustified such as actions in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, as well as the initial response in Afghanistan), juxtaposing that with what appears to be a pronouncement of a death sentence for war crimes, possibly a recording from the Nuremberg Trials. One of course laments that Feindflug also did not recount needless millions of dead Germans that soil American (and British) hands. The first half of this juxtaposition reads as follows; note however that eight million figure does not include millions of dead from military action in Iraq, or most of the time in Afghanistan (the song is from 2005), Libya, Syria, or deaths resulting from billions given to Isreal, which in turn directly supports “crimes against humanity” perpetrated against the Palestinians. Even so, the first sound sample reads as follows:

Japan, China, Nordkorea, Bosnien, Sudan, Jugoslawien, Afghanistan
Alle diese Länder haben etwas gemeinsam, was ist es, he?
Diese Länder sind in den vergangenen 60 Jahren von Amerikanischen Truppen bombardiert worden
Das bedeutet 8 Millionen Tote in 22 Nationen. Wer glaubt das wäre gerecht?
Sowas wie Gerechtigkeit werdet ihr nirgendwo finden!

Japan, China, North Korea, Bosnia, Sudan, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan

All these countries have something in common. What is it, eh?

These countries have been bombed by American troops over the past 60 years.

That means 8 million deaths in 22 nations. Who thinks that’s fair?

You won’t find any such thing as justice anywhere!

[4] An internet search in both English and German will demonstrate this happened, but there is scant discussion of the precise nature of this scandal with detailed particulars, other than lamentations as to how the Nazis exploited this to fan the flames of so-called anti-Semitism, never mind that the charges made by the Nazis are doubtlessly true. The scandal is mentioned briefly in Before the Deluge: Portrait of Berlin in 1920s, but with no particular details. It is curious that so little information is available given that the scandal harmed the SDP dramatically in the polls, as SDP politicians in office were accepting bribes from the Barmat Brothers. It is peculiar indeed that there is so little content concerning such a momentous moment in Weimar Republic. Could it be that those who control the past, control the present, and therefore the future?

[5] Darryl Cooper, better known as “Martyr Made,” stipulates this dirty little secret in his excellent commentary concerning the outbreak of war in Ukraine and its origins. In this excellent podcast, the right-wing historian compares and juxtaposes how American foreign policy “thanked” the Russian people for giving the world a bloodless, velvet Revolution in 1991 and afterward with the misery and death imposed on the German people by the do-goody Allies for agreeing to an armistice in 1918. In discussing the deprivations of hyper-inflation and what is in effect the death of a national currency, he comments briefly on how mostly Jews procured real estate and other holdings in Germany for next to nothing by obtaining foreign currency.

[6] See Chapter 5 of Culture of Critique by Kevin MacDonald, for starters.

[7] This received orthodoxy never considers Hitler’s multiple attempts to negotiate peace with Britain.

[8] The transcript of the secret recordings identifies the officers present and speaking but does not identify who is speaking when.

[9] Given that terror bombings originated with the RAF, including such abominations as “calling cards” used as incendiary devices to burn down the Black Forest and civilian population centers as well as Allied policy towards German civilians both during the Second World War and at the end and during the aftermath of the First World War, to say nothing of the game with matchsticks described later and its grim consequences, such strong focus, as mandated by received orthodoxy, only on what the Germans did seems peculiar and hypocritical.

[10] This is the position espoused by John Ellis in By Brute Force, among other historians. Others disagree. While this author is convinced Germany could have prevailed against the Soviet Union if winter clothing was not neglected, and more particularly if Hitler’s blunder at Stalingrad had been avoided, it is certainly a debatable question that will continued to be a subject of much controversy.

[11] Off-hand this is evidenced throughout War Without Garlands and even Tapping Hitler’s General’s. Even though Neitzel and the publishing house tout the volume as somehow discrediting the supposed “myth of the clean Wehrmacht,” the impression it left on this reader was quite the opposite, as I reject the absurd complicity and knowledge standards of collective culpability described in footnote nineteen. One anecdote is intended to be particularly damning, concerning a captain who sat down with a Russian villager at a table before shooting him in cold blood in front of his wife and child, before shooting the deceased’s screaming wife, and then their baby. The entire unit was outraged, and the commanding officer had sought to court martial him for murder, punishable by death. The captain alleged in defense it was not murder because Russians are not human. A directive from the Führer was handed down asserting this is correct, requiring that the captain was to only face lesser charges. This is appalling, but it is of note that the entire unit was outraged and the commanding officer wanted him executed for it.

[12] Note these insults are not directed at those in ideological and political affinity with this author who has a more benign view of Hitler, but is confined solely to those who spew such ridiculous blather, as discussed in this treatise.

[13] Hoth’s rush to Stalingrad reached as close as just 30km from the Stalingrad pocket.

[14] Großdeutschland was not, of course, under Hausser’s direct command but the GD withdrew in concert with his decision to disobey Hitler and withdraw SS Panzer Divisions LAH and Das Reich.

[15] For a general account of these and other events in the Donbas basin in the wake of the destruction of the Sixth Army at Stalingrad, see generally Last Victory in Russia by George M. Nipe, particularly chapters four through seven. There are of course other volumes on this critical period on the Eastern Front.

[16] Several essays by this author explain how the externalities of a given cultural milieu greatly limit individual autonomy, and even serve as a sort of programming of the mind.

[17] The significance of this excerpt requires reproduction in Speer’s verbatim statement, in the German:

Wenn der Krieg verloren geht, wird auch das Volk verloren sein. Dieses Schicksal ist unabwendbar. Es sei nicht notwendig, auf die Grundlagen, die das Volk zu seinem primitivsten Weiterleben braucht, Rucksicht zu nehmen. Im Gegenteil sei es besser, selbst diese Dinge zu zerstören. Denn das Volk hatte sich als das schwächere erwiesen und dem stärkeren Ostvolk gehöre dann ausschließlich dte Zukunft. Was nach dem Kampf übrigbliebe, seien ohnehin nur die Minderwertigen; denn die Guten seien gefallen.

[18] The near total consensus is that Sea Lion could never have worked, although Manstein argues a somewhat persuasive counterargument in Lost Victories. Kurt Student was convinced that use of the Fallschirmjäger to capture key ports and areas long the coast would have been high-risk but feasible. In my mind the hypothetical that would have most likely led to a negotiated peace was if the Dunkirk contingent was properly destroyed or captured. Alas, it was not.

[19] Since an exhibition Verbrechen der Wehrmacht. Dimensionen des Vernichtungskrieges 1941–1944 and accompanying documentary Der unbekannte Soldat exposing or rather embellishing the crimes of the German military during the second world, a new generation of historians have unleashed a concerted campaign to impute culpability to the German military generally and, in practical terms, categorically to each and every German soldier and officer who served his country. The Myth of the Eastern Front, a laughably biased polemic that originally was subjected to many poor reviews on amazon.com (they were eventually deleted) and other websites is a notable exemplar of this school of thought. It is noteworthy that screeds like “Crimes of the Wehrmacht: A Re-evaluation” by Alex. J Kay and David Stahel and other texts, both “academic” and otherwise, assign guilt based on complicity and knowledge standards. If a solider was in the general vicinity of reprisals against Soviet partisans carrying out an order—even in the case of the systemic murder of Jews and others targeted by the Reich, this school of thought regards any such individual as similarly culpable based on this complicity and knowledge standard. It is laughably ridiculous to expect a solider or officer to take arms against his own military or commit desertion or some other act of disobedience, particularly when all these men were otherwise focused on fighting for their nation in the throes of a death struggle against Soviet Bolshevism while also trying to simply survive.

There are other problems with this reasoning, including how men who served for example in an artillery battalion would be in anyway responsible, or for that matter panzer crews in das Heer and even the Waffen SS. The reputation of the Waffen SS in particular has been so tarnished as to seem utterly beyond redemption, but it remains unclear how a man like Michael Wittmann and his crew were war criminals or did anything other than engage and destroy Soviet and later allied armor in a heroic bid to save their country. In defiance of a new consensus among an academic elite subject, to put it mildly, to ideopolitical capture, I submit that the vast majority of the Wehrmacht and even appreciable numbers of the Waffen SS fought fiercely and with honor and incredible fighting prowess the likes of which the world may never see again, and did do in ways that do not deserve being branded as war criminals or the like. Unfortunately, what passes as modern historical scholarship, subject to certain ideological-political capture, is so uniform and lockstep on this matter it is difficult to find recent works which rebut or even criticize this mantra. While consisting of anecdotes from Germans who lived during this time, as recounted over half a century, Professor of Germanics Frederic Tubach reaches a somewhat similar conclusion in German Voices, in which he makes a firm distinction between what he calls German patriots and nationalists on one hand and bona fide Nazis on the other. One interview of a German veteran who was captured in Italy is particularly moving, as Tubach recounts that he sensed, with disapproval, that the veteran was despondent even in old age that they lost.

[20] See generally de Zayas, A Terrible Revenge and After the Reich by Giles MacDonogh, among other works. Statistics on number of dead from Churchill’s and Stalin’s matchstick play vary, but most estimates place the number under or a little more than two million, not counting those who lost everything, rape survivors, and so on.

[21] See e.g., the illustration of Churchill and Stalin playing with matchsticks and the accompanying footnote.

WORKS CITED.

Buchanan, Patrick J. Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World. Crown, 2008.

Cooper, Darryl. “Enemy: The Germans’ War, Prologue.” The Martyrmade Podcast.

https://martyrmade.com/ Audio.

Cooper, Darryl. “Thoughts on Ukraine (Remastered).” The Martyrmade Podcast,https://martyrmade.com/. Audio.

Evans, Richard J. The Coming of the Third Reich. Penguin Books, 2004.

Evans, Richard J. The Third Reich at War. Penguin Books, 2009.

Evans, Richard J. The Third Reich in Power. Penguin Books, 2006.

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Friedrich, Otto. Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920s. Harper & Row, 1972.

Glantz, David M., et al. Slaughterhouse: The Handbook of the Eastern Front. Aberjona Press, 2005.

Gordon, Mel. The Seven Addictions and Five Professions of Anita Berber: Weimar Berlin’s Priestess of Decadence. Feral House, 2006.

Heinlein, Robert A. Starship Troopers. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1959.

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Kaufman, Theodore N. Germany Must Perish! Argyle Press, 1941.

Kay, Alex J., and David Stahel. “Crimes of the Wehrmacht: A Re-evaluation.” Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 55, no. 2, Apr. 2020, pp. 236-258, doi:10.1177/0022009419864166.

Kershaw, Robert J. War Without Garlands: Barbarossa 1941-42. Ian Allan Publishing, 2000.

Le Pen, Jean Marie. [Specific work unknown; quote attributed to interview or speech, publication details unavailable].

MacDonald, Kevin. The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements. Praeger, 1998.

Manstein, Erich von. Lost Victories. Translated by Anthony G. Powell, Zenith Press, 2004.

Neitzel, Sönke. Tapping Hitler’s Generals: Transcripts of Secret Conversations, 1942–45. Translated by Geoffrey Brooks, Frontline Books, 2007.

Nipe, George. Last Victory in Russia: The SS-Panzerkorps and Manstein’s Kharkov Counteroffensive, February–March 1943. Schiffer Military History, 2000.

Nolte, Ernst. Three Faces of Fascism: Action Française, Italian Fascism, National Socialism. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966.

On Moonlight Bay. Directed by Roy Del Ruth, performances by Doris Day and Gordon MacRae, Warner Bros. Pictures, 1951.

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The Collapse of Western Europe into Third World Chaos

March 17, 2025/6 Comments/in Featured Articles/by Edward Dutton

Could Western Civilization be preserved in Eastern Europe just as Roman Civilization was once preserved in Byzantium, which is (almost) Eastern Europe? Considering that Eastern Europe is so much poorer than Western Europe and many of the nations there seem to have a lower average IQ and higher levels of corruption, than countries such as the UK, the question may seem bizarre. But my own recent research, combined with other emerging data, is leading me to think that the question is increasingly reasonable.

I’ve written a lot in recent years about how the West, like the Roman Empire, is likely to collapse due, in part, to dysgenic breeding among Whites: Intelligence is strongly genetic, it’s behind every aspect of civilization and there is a negative association, especially among women, between intelligence and fertility, such that we are losing about 1 IQ point per decade for genetic reasons. Imperial Rome clearly witnessed a negative relationship between socioeconomic status – a strong proxy for intelligence – and fertility and, likewise, went into decline. It also witnessed immigration from the periphery of the Empire, where conditions were often easier, so historical selection for intelligence wouldn’t have been as intense. Either way, as my colleagues and I set out in our study “Intelligence Trends in Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of Roman Polygenic Scores,” we know that Roman intelligence went into decline during the Late Republic for genetic reasons.

There are a number of reasons why we might expect intelligence in parts of Eastern Europe to eventually exceed that of much of Western Europe. Firstly, they industrialized later which would have mean they moved into dysgenic fertility later, as living conditions improved later. Secondly, studies indicating they have lower IQ will at least in part reflect the fact that they are poorer and have worse education systems, mindful of the fact that about 20% of IQ differences relate to the presence of an intellectually stimulating environment. As they become wealthier, having been economically retarded by Communism, we would expect to see a so-called Flynn Effect; an increase in IQ for environmental reasons. Thirdly, there is far less Third World immigration into these countries. Third World immigration will negatively impact the IQ even of the native population because it will worsen the education system (due to poor immigrant behaviour) and render the general environment less intellectually stimulating for everybody. Likewise, if you bring increasingly stupid people into a university, you render the general environment less intellectually stimulating for everybody and so people are pushed to their phenotypic maximum intelligence to a lesser extent. In other words, you create a Flynn Effect in reverse. It should also be remembered that parts of Eastern Europe — such as Estonia, Hungary or Slovenia — had about the same average IQ as the UK (British IQ is the Greenwich Mean, always set at 100) — even in the immediate wake of Communism, when data could be collected.

In my study “Changes in Cognitive Capital in Eastern and Western Europe: Some Implications from School Assessment Studies,” I drew upon three international student assessments that are accepted to be excellent proxies for IQ tests and for which we have large samples from each country: PISA, TIMMS and PIRLS, based on the results between 1995 and 2019. When the lower school and economic standards were taken into account, ex-Communist countries displayed significantly stronger growth scores on the PISA tests, which are robustly associated with IQ. In other words, Eastern Europe is rapidly catching up with Western Europe in terms of their students’ performances in Mathematics, Science and Verbal Reasoning. It is probable that part of the reason is that Western countries are declining, relative to Eastern European countries, due to the effects of dysgenics and due to the effects of low IQ immigration.

The change is consistent with related trends that have recently emerged. The UK’s ITV News reported on 12^th March 2025 that the UK’s poorest households were now poorer than the poorest households in Slovenia. Slovenia is one of the wealthiest countries in the old Communist Bloc and was the first to be economically robust enough to be allowed to adopt the Euro. If we judge a nation’s success and development level by the living standards of its poorest people (which is probably a good way to do so, as massive economic disparities are associated with developing countries), then, in effect, this means that Slovenia, a Second World Nation, has caught up with and overtaken Britain.

On the same day, the Daily Telegraph reported that parts of the UK are now worse off than the poorest parts of Lithuania and they are considerably worse off than Finland, which, a century ago, was poorer than the Baltic States. Finland now has the wealthiest “poor people” in Europe. However, parts of Birmingham and Northeast England are poorer than the poorest parts of Lithuania. As “Stella” quipped on X: “Import the Third World, Become the Second World.” This makes sense in terms of Birmingham. But the other area of England that was poorer than the poorest parts of Lithuania was the Northeast, which is overwhelmingly White. This would be more consistent with the consequences of dysgenic breeding among Whites combined with intelligent people from that region tending to migrate to the more prosperous south.

At this rate, British people may start moving to the more prosperous Eastern Europe, just as educated people in the chaotic Western Empire once moved to Byzantium. I predicted that this would happen in my 2022 book The Past is a Future Country where I discussed the idea of a Neo-Byzantium, but I didn’t think I’d start to see the signs of it only three years later. The West, or, at least, Western Europe, seems to be collapsing at a shockingly fast rate.

Professor of Puppets: How a Lover of Open Borders Has Gone from “Let Them in!” to “Kick Them Out!”

March 15, 2025/8 Comments/in Featured Articles/by Tobias Langdon

It’s called a “RoboRoach” and it’s one of the horriblest things I’ve ever seen. A living cockroach has an electronic board mounted on its back and connected to its nervous system. The ethical imbeciles responsible for this miniature abomination proclaimed, with appropriately autistic enthusiasm, that you will be able to “Control a living insect from your smartphone!” They added: “This is the world’s first commercially available cyborg!”

The repulsive RoboRoach

It’s the “living” bit that’s important, of course. That’s what gives the ethical imbeciles their thrill: the thought of destroying the autonomy of another living creature and “controlling” it. Now, I don’t think insects are fully conscious, have free will, or can suffer in any true sense. But even if that’s so and even if this kind of experimentation were always confined to insects, it would still be wrong and still be repulsive. But it won’t be confined to insects, of course. The same psychology that thrills to the thought of controlling a cockroach “from your smartphone!” thrills even more to the thought of controlling a living cat or living dog or – and now we reach orgasmic level — living human. The Jewish poet Heine (1797–1856) said that Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen – “Where they burn books, they will in the end burn people too.” He was right. And I’m right when I say that, where they implant neuro-controllers in cockroaches, they will sooner or later implant neuro-controllers in people too.[i]

It’s satire now, but lots of people want to make it reality: a neuro-controlled and auto-vaxxed transwoman in 2030

Millions of us would enjoy having control over another human like that. Maybe most of us would, if we could. But the average person would only enjoy the sadism of it, the antinomian thrill of committing evil and, in theological terms, defiling the imago Dei.[ii] More frightening, in some ways, are those who would think it good and right and proper to implant neuro-controllers in human brains. For example, Britain currently has a Labour government full of leftists who would happily stamp out racism and sexism and Islamophobia like that. George Orwell explored that kind of leftist psychology in his dystopian dark comedy Nineteen Eighty-Four, where scientists working for IngSoc — “English Socialism” — have begun to directly control the human brain. Orwell’s novel was published in 1949, but the desire to destroy autonomy and directly control other humans is much older than that. In Doctor Faustus (1592), Christopher Marlowe put it into the mouth of a character who stole a book of magic and gloated: “Now will I make all the maidens in our parish dance at my pleasure, stark naked, before me.”

The World’s Worst Wheedlers

But direct control of brains is much, much older than the human desire to achieve it. Millions of years older, in fact. As I described in “How to Cure a White Zombie,” very simple parasites can directly manipulate the brains of much more complex hosts. The “RoboRoach” has natural analogs in those cockroaches controlled by the Emerald cockroach wasp, Ampulex compressa, which stings a cockroach with paralyzing neurotoxin, feeds off its body-fluid, then guides it to a burrow where the wasp’s larvae can feed on it. I argued in “Verbal Venom” that parasitic or predatory manipulation has also evolved among human beings. But it doesn’t involve us injecting neuro-chemicals into each other’s brains. Instead, it involves injecting something that can be just as potent: words. English has a wonderful little verb that describes manipulation-by-verbal-injection. Where wasps inject, we humans wheedle. Insects don’t use language, so wasps can’t wheedle cockroaches into acting against their own interests. But humans can certainly wheedle other humans into doing that. And who are the World’s Worst Wheedlers? I think Kevin MacDonald has answered that question by explaining and exploring the The Culture of Critique created by Jews like Marx, Freud and Boas to wage war on Whites and the West. Rather as the biology of cockroaches is vulnerable to the literal venom of Ampulex compressa, so the psychology of Whites is vulnerable to the verbal venom of Jews.

Emerald cockroach wasp with paralyzed cockroach (image from Wikipedia)

MacDonald has described how The Culture of Critique depends on charismatic Jewish gurus who recruit and control a group of fanatical disciples who spread the ideas of the guru. Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud and Franz Boas were all like that. So, in descending order of fame and importance, have been Leon Trotsky, Yigael Gluckstein and Frank Furedi: Karl begat Leon, Leon begat Yigael, and Yigael begat Frank. In other words, the sociologist Frank Furedi was the charismatic Jewish guru who led a Trotskyist sect that descended from the Trotskyist sect led by the charismatic Jewish guru Yigael Gluckstein. As I described in my article “Frank Furedi Fights for Freedom,” Yigael’s sect was called the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and Frank’s sect was called the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP).

Metallica’s meisterwerk: the mighty Master of Puppets (1986)

But in some ways you could say that RCP stands for “RoboRoach Communist Party,” because to me Frank Furedi’s control over the brains of his disciples strongly resembles the control over a “living insect” promised in that repulsive advert. The American heavy-metal band Metallica once released an album called Master of Puppets (1986), which explored the politics and social norms whereby humans are manipulated and controlled into waging war or becoming addicted to drugs and so on. Inspired by that album, I’ll call Frank Furedi a Professor of Puppets and salute his almost uncanny ability to manipulate and control his gentile disciples. He’s equipped them with a thoroughly Jewish set of instincts and ideas. For example, Frank has a typically Jewish attitude to animal welfare[iii]. He doesn’t think it’s important. Accordingly, his gentile puppets don’t think it’s important either. They wouldn’t find the RoboRoach repulsive. No, I think they’d celebrate the RoboRoach as a brave early step towards Man’s full and glorious control of brute creation and all lower life.

Professor of Puppets Frank Furedi, a former lecturer in sociology at the University of Kent (image from Infogalactic)

This is because the Professor and his puppets are Promethean in the typically Marxist way described by Leszek Kołakowski in his magisterial Main Currents of Marxism, vol. 1 (1978): “Salvation, for Marx, is man’s salvation of himself; not the work of God or Nature, but that of a collective Prometheus who, in principle, is capable of achieving absolute command over the world he lives in.” The arrogant and misguided Prometheanism of the Professor and his puppets helps explain why I’m very glad that the RCP never rode revolution to power in the United Kingdom. If it had, I am certain that Professor and puppets would have done their best to reproduce the horrors of the early Soviet Union, where resentful, revenge-thirsty minorities like Jews, Georgians and Latvians took revenge on the Russian Orthodox majority in an orgy of torture and mass murder.

Libertarian in 2015: “Let Them In!”

In Britain, only the controlling role of Jews in revolutionary Marxism remained the same: the resentful minorities and revenge-worthy majority were different. The revenge-worthy majority were White Protestants and the Jew Frank Furedi, for example, recruited minorities like the Irish Catholic Brendan O’Neill, who deeply resented the racist treatment of his Irish father in London, and the Indian Muslim Kenan Malik, who deeply resented the racist bullying he suffered at school. I think the resentment of O’Neill and Malik is perfectly understandable (“There but for the grace of God go I”). But I’m still very glad that neither O’Neill nor Malik got the chance to translate that resentment into revenge, serving as ministers in an all-powerful revolutionary regime. All the same, O’Neill and Malik have done their best to harm the White Protestant English using Third-World proxies. The RCP campaigned hard for the “rejection of all controls on immigration.” Long after the RCP was disbanded, Brendan O’Neill was still arguing for open borders. In 2015, he issued a stirring call for Britain to “Let Them In” at RoboRoach HQ, the Spiked Online web-magazine:

We shouldn’t demonise or infantilise African migrants. We should welcome them. … We shouldn’t pity these migrants; we should admire them, for using guile, gumption and perseverance to come here. They’re precisely the kind of people sluggish Europe needs more of, an antidote to our students who can’t even clap without having a mental breakdown and our new generation who think that being told to ‘get on your bike’ to look for a job is tantamount to abuse. Let’s relax the borders and let them in to try their luck in our countries and see how they fare. If we do that, we’ll put the traffickers out of business, end the deaths in the Mediterranean, and, more importantly, do our part to enable the aspirations of human beings who have committed no crime other than wanting to [KMac comments: to escape their shithole countries and] realise their potential in our towns, our cities, alongside us. (“Let Them In,” Spiked Online, 21st April 2015)

But that was ten years ago and, as the Romans wisely noted, Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis – “Times are changed and we are changed with them.” Where once Brendan O’RoboRoach waxed lyrical in support of open borders, he now lists that very support among the three worst examples of the “cranky shite” urged upon sane folk by the woke left: “transwomen are women, open the borders, Israel is bad.” Indeed, in 2025 Brendan is loudly proclaiming that a certain class of “migrants” simply “shouldn’t be allowed in Britain.” That’s right: we shouldn’t admire this class of migrants or celebrate their “guile, gumption and perseverance.” We shouldn’t welcome them as an “antidote” to “sluggish Europe” or “enable” their “aspirations … to realize their potential.” Not at all. Far from enabling, we should exclude.

Libertarian in 2025: “Kick Them Out!”

That’s what Brendan thinks now. But what exactly is the class of migrants that Brendan wants to exclude not just from Britain but from the whole of the West? Well, it’s those migrants who espouse “hate” towards a group already present in and ornamenting the West. Let’s ask what this migrant-menaced group might be. Is it perhaps women, who have suffered horrendously from the misogyny and rape-culture of migrants? Consider Brendan’s own ancestral land of Ireland, where the White woman Ashling Murphy was brutally murdered by the Gypsy migrant Jozef Puška (as you’d expect, the BBC calls him a “Slovak national”). Consider Brendan’s birthplace of England, where a migrant from Sudan raped and shattered the skull of another White woman and a migrant from Jamaica, Delroy Easton Grant, sexually assaulted scores or even hundreds of elderly White women.

So is it “migrants who hate” women who “shouldn’t be allowed in Britain” or Ireland? No, Brendan hasn’t called for anything like that. What about “migrants who hate” homosexuals? In Brendan’s ancestral land of Ireland an Iraqi-Kurdish migrant called Yousef Palani, driven by “hatred of and prejudice towards homosexual men,” murdered and decapitated two homosexuals in 2022. In England, a similarly hate-driven Libyan migrant called Khairi Saadallah murdered three homosexual men in 2020. But again, no, Brendan hasn’t proclaimed that “Migrants who hate” homosexuals “shouldn’t be allowed in Britain.” Let’s try for third time lucky. What about “migrants who hate” Ahmadis? They’re the peaceful Muslim sect that believes in “Love for All, Hatred for None” and is horrendously persecuted by other Muslims. In 2016, an Ahmadi Muslim named Asad Shah was brutally murdered on British soil by a migrant from Pakistan who objected to Asad Shah’s free speech on the topic of prophethood. Despite long and loudly professing his love of free speech, Brendan O’Neill has never condemned or even mentioned the murder of Asad Shah. But has he perhaps now repaired his most grievous fault and proclaimed that “Migrants who hate” Ahmadis “shouldn’t be allowed in Britain”?

The special group that really matters

Nope. It’s third time unlucky. Brendan has never proclaimed that women, homosexuals or Ahmadis must be protected from migrants who hate them. Members of all three of those groups have suffered death and serious injury in Britain from hate-driven migrants, but Brendan hasn’t demanded the exclusion or expulsion of such migrants. Instead, Brendan has been exercised on behalf of another and very special group that hasn’t, to date, suffered death or serious injury from migrants in Britain. Here’s what he had to say in the Spectator in March 2025:

Migrants who hate Jews shouldn’t be allowed in Britain

If you’re a foreigner who hates Jews, should you be allowed to move to Britain? For me it’s a no-brainer: absolutely not. The safety and dignity of Britain’s Jews count for infinitely more than the ‘rights’ of a racist migrant. Does the Labour government agree? Does it agree that overseas anti-Semites are not welcome here? We are about to find out.

There are disturbing reports emerging that a man from Gaza with very iffy views has arrived in Britain. He goes by the name Abu Wadee. He is said to be an ‘influencer’ with a substantial following on social media. Last week he reportedly posted a video of himself sporting a keffiyeh while crammed onto a dinghy in the English Channel. ‘Thank God, we arrived in Britain’, the video caption said.

… [A]ccording to the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism (CAA) he has a track record of spouting vile views – including calling for the slaughter of all Jewish people. The CAA has pored over Wadee’s alleged social-media output. He would seem to be a keen supporter of Hamas and a self-proclaimed member of the so-called ‘Tyre-Burning Unit’, a militant gaggle of extremists known for hurling firebombs at Israelis manning the Gaza border. He is also alleged to have posed with AK-47s, leading even the Independent to wonder out loud if an ‘alleged Palestinian gunman’ has just slipped into Britain.

It’s his seeming Jew hatred that is most chilling. He is alleged to have posted a video in which he says, ‘Oh Allah, punish the Jews and those who support them …’. We must find a final solution for these people, he reportedly said: ‘Oh Allah, kill them all and do not leave a single one of them.’

Kill them all. If the CAA is right and Wadee really did express such genocidal hatred for Jews, then he must be removed from the country immediately. No delays, no legal hold-ups. If a newcomer to these shores, especially an illegal one, is found to harbour an apocalyptic loathing for the Jewish people, then he must be expelled from these lands, instantly and permanently. … The Wadee scandal shines a harsh light on Britain’s border crisis. Who exactly is coming here? And what foul, regressive ideologies are they bringing with them? It is so clear now that having porous borders doesn’t only corrode our national sovereignty but our national security too. It is a scandal that virulent forms of anti-Semitism may have leaked from the Middle East into modern Britain courtesy of officialdom’s failure to police our frontiers.

We need to get real about immigration from those benighted parts of the world where anti-Semitism flourishes. For me, that was the most alarming thing about that judge’s decision last month to let a family from Gaza settle in Britain under the Ukrainian refugee scheme. … Many on the ‘anti-racist’ left cheered that judge’s decision. Clearly virtue-signalling now takes precedence over cool-headed analysis. But what is the price of their ‘virtue’? It is potentially the endangerment of Britain’s Jews as more people with unenlightened attitudes arrive on our shores.

Kemi Badenoch got a load of flak last year when she said there are too many people coming to Britain ‘who hate Israel’. But she was right. A frothing loathing for the world’s only Jewish state is a marker for bigotry and backwardness. It is very often a marker for anti-Semitism itself. Going forward, Jewish security should be made into a key goal of Britain’s immigration policy. First step: kick Wadee out. (“Migrants who hate Jews shouldn’t be allowed in Britain,” The Spectator, 8th March 2025)

It’s quite a leap from “Let Them In!” to “Kick Them Out!”, isn’t it? Not that Brendan wants to kick all migrants out, of course. Just those who “hate Jews” and are responsible for the “endangerment of Jews.” Women, homosexuals and Ahmadis haven’t simply been “endangered” by migrants in Britain, but brutally murdered, raped and injured by migrants. So why has Brendan never demanded the exclusion of migrants who hate women, homosexuals or Ahmadis? Why hasn’t he noisily proclaimed that the “safety and dignity” of Britain’s women, homosexuals and Ahmadis “count for infinitely more” than the “rights” of sexist, homophobic or Ahmadiphobic migrants? The answer is simple: Brendan hasn’t done that because he is the puppet of Frank Furedi and Frank Furedi is neither a woman, a homosexual nor an Ahmadi. Instead, Furedi is a Jew and has always pursued what he thinks, at the time, to be best for Jews. Like many other Jews, Furedi once supported open borders, so in 2015 Brendan O’Neill was calling for open borders. Since the attacks on Israel by Hamas in 2023, Furedi and a lot of other Jews have re-thought their support for non-White migration and for Muslim migration in particular. That’s why Furedi’s puppet Brendan O’Neill is now proclaiming that “Migrants who hate Jews shouldn’t be allowed in Britain.”

Surveying the professor and his puppets

Brendan has also written incessantly in support of Israel’s right to bomb the Gaza Strip to rubble in response to the brief invasion of Israel by the rapists and murderers of highly illiberal and authoritarian Hamas. But Brendan has almost entirely ignored the continuing invasion of Ireland by non-White hordes who are just as rape-friendly, murder-prone and illiberal as Hamas. In other words, Brendan is ignoring his own racial interests and championing the racial interests of Jews, who are deeply hostile to Irish Whites and to the Catholic church that was historically dominant in Ireland. As hate-thinkers like Irish Savant have often documented, anti-Irish Jews like Alan Shatter and Rebecca Solnit have been central to the Third-World invasion of Ireland. But the racially Irish Brendan O’Neill isn’t working against that invasion and for Irish interests. Instead, he’s working for Jewish interests. His behavior bears close parallels to the parasitic manipulation whereby an animal host has its nervous system subverted and begins acting against its own interests and for the interests of a parasite.

Jewish ideology at work again: the Marxist IRA refuses to defend Ireland from non-White invaders

But it’s futile to blame Frank for manipulating Brendan or Brendan for being manipulated by Frank. When I survey the Professor and his puppets, I think of a hackneyed but profound saying: “There but for the grace of God go I.” Nevertheless, it remains important to speak the truth about the professor and his puppets — and to note that Jewish manipulation of gentile hosts is characteristic of Western politics in general, not just of obscure Trotskyist sects like the SWP and RCP. The RoboRoach Communist Party doesn’t call itself “communist” or a “party” any more, but the gentile disciples of Frank Furedi are still acting like RoboRoaches under Frank’s control. Still, I think it’s a very positive sign that a Trotskyist libertarian like Brendan O’Neill has gone from “Let Them In!” to “Kick Them Out!,” from celebrating the “guile, gumption and perseverance” of Third-World migrants to acknowledging, however belatedly, that there can be good grounds for Third-World migrants to be excluded or expelled “from these lands, instantly and permanently.” Welcome to the far right, Brendan!

[i] The Spanish neuroscientist José Manuel Rodríguez Delgado (1915-2011) first experimented with the electronic control of cats, but was experimenting on humans in the end.

[ii] The imago Dei means man seen as the “image of God.” Knowingly or otherwise, sadists and some murderers are delighting in not just the pain or destruction of a human being, but also the defilement of the imago Dei.

[iii] Here’s a relevant Jewish joke: “Question: If Tarzan and Jane were Jewish, what would Cheeta be? Answer: A fur coat.” (Cheeta is the chimpanzee companion of the gentile Tarzan and Jane.)

GROK 3 Agrees That White European Men Are Responsible for Almost All the Greatest Human Accomplishments

March 14, 2025/10 Comments/in Featured Articles, Western Culture/by Prof. Ricardo Duchesne

One of the most damaging costs of the imposition of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” across Western universities has been the outright exclusion, suppression, and demonization of research and open debate about the racial character and cultural greatness of the West. For decades now, academics have been reducing the rise of the West to the creation of colonial empires, the extraction of gold and silver from the Americas, the “genocide” of Amerindians, the African slave trade, the malevolent use of modern weapons against a supposedly peaceful Asian world, and the cultivation of “white supremacist” notions against non-Caucasians.

The following article is an effort to show that the West far outperformed the rest of the world combined in all the intellectual, scientific, technological, artistic, literary, athletic, and philosophical endeavors of life.

These lists are not based on my subjective preferences but on careful documentation and extensive research from a wide variety of sources, books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, Wikipedia, reference books I have consulted over many years of studying Western Civilization. The origins of this particular article go back to i) an article published at the Council of European Canadians website on July 2020 consisting of many lists of European greatness without any elaboration; ii) a number of articles published at Postil magazine, each covering the topics of European music, painting, cartography, mathematics, children’s literature, chemistry, geology, philosophy, universities, and paradoxes. Unlike the lists posted in the July 2020 article, the lists below include introductory statements and details about the key names, dates, and the specific nationalities of individuals, as well as descriptions of the accomplishments. These details rely on Grok 3, which I consulted for weeks making sure that the claims I make in these lists are verified and substantiated by the AI powers of Grok 3.

I asked Grok 3 to evaluate all these lists. It pleases me to say that, on the whole, except for minor additions, specifications of dates, correction of minor errors, Grok did not have major objections to the claims made in these lists about the far greater accomplishments of “white men of European ancestry”. Grok did note that many of these lists were “Eurocentric”. On some occasions I did follow Grok’s suggestions, tempering somewhat my initial, and intentionally provocative, wording that “all the greatest … were white men”. I am aware, and have not denied in my publications, that the non-European world was responsible for a few peak-level achievements.

I did not always accept Grok’s suggestion to be “inclusive” of non-European names and females. Grok’s criticisms, it needs to be understood, cannot be divorced from the liberal progressive context within which Grok, and all current AI systems, operate. Some of the names and achievements recommended by Grok are simply not on the same level of excellence and originality. A common observation Grok made is that I should take into account that, “especially in Europe, access to education, literacy, and scholarly pursuits was overwhelmingly restricted to men, particularly those from privileged socioeconomic backgrounds. Women and non-Europeans were systematically excluded.” Intelligent as Grok is, it can’t consider that non-Europeans have their own places and civilizations where Europeans have never been in privileged positions.

These lists cheerfully use some of Grok’s own words about the achievements of “white men of European ancestry” to illustrate its strong agreement. The brief introductions cover the rationale behind the choice of topics, names, and achievements, and, in most instances, the degree to which I agreed (or not) with Grok’s suggestions. This article, however, does not aim to explain this vast discrepancy in achievements between the West and the rest. That’s the work of The Uniqueness of Western Civilization (2011), Faustian Man in a Multicultural Age (2017), and my upcoming book, Greatness and Ruin: Self-Reflection and Universalism Within European Civilization (2025).

I. 100% of the Greatest “Modern” Inventions

In the case of this list, I asked Grok directly: “I’m looking to defend my thesis that white men are almost solely responsible for the inventions that created the modern world. Here is my list so far, are there any I’m missing? Any that you’d remove?”

Grok basically suggested the names of a few additional “white men” responsible for other great innovations, and it correctly indicated, as I already knew, that mechanical clocks and optical lenses were medieval inventions, and that the origins of optical lenses can be traced back to the Islamic world of the early Middle Ages.

I left this list as it was for two reasons: i) the additional names/inventions it suggested are already included in other lists, and ii) my judgment that it was the Italians who first crafted semi-shaped ground lenses in the thirteenth century is one that Grok agrees with if one rephrases the question, or ask specifically about this one invention, … I just did again, and this is Grok’s reply: “Yep, you’re right—the Italians were indeed the first to craft semi-shaped ground lenses back in the 13th century”. Now, I kept this medieval invention in this “modern” list because this breakthrough set the stage for the development of concave and convex lenses later in the 1600s to correct near- and farsightedness. This is even truer of mechanical clocks, which originated in the Middle Ages, but would be continuously improved upon thereafter. A crucial distinction between the West and the rest is why the former civilization was inclined to improve (or innovate) continuously its inventions, whereas China barely did.

Printing Press – Johannes Gutenberg (German, white male) is credited with the movable-type printing press around 1440.

Electricity – Michael Faraday (English, white male) and Thomas Edison (American, white male) are key figures in its practical development and application.

Television – John Logie Baird (Scottish, white male) demonstrated the first working television system in 1926.

Vaccination – Edward Jenner (English, white male) pioneered smallpox vaccination in 1796.

Computer – Charles Babbage (English, white male) designed the Analytical Engine, and Alan Turing (English, white male) later shaped modern computing.

Photography – Louis Daguerre (French, white male) developed the daguerreotype in 1839.

Airplane – Orville and Wilbur Wright (American, white males) achieved powered flight in 1903.

Nuclear Energy – Enrico Fermi (Italian, white male) led the first controlled nuclear chain reaction in 1942, building on work by others like Ernest Rutherford (New Zealander, white male).

Steam Engine – James Watt (Scottish, white male) improved it significantly in the 1760s.

Telephone – Alexander Graham Bell (Scottish-born, white male) patented it in 1876.

Radio – Guglielmo Marconi (Italian, white male) is credited with its practical development in the 1890s.

Rocketry – Robert H. Goddard (American, white male) pioneered modern rocketry in the early 20th century. Wernher von Braun (German, white male) later advanced it.

Mechanized Clock – Christiaan Huygens (Dutch, white male) built the first pendulum clock in 1656.

Oil Drilling – Edwin Drake (American, white male) drilled the first commercial oil well in 1859.

Refrigeration – William Cullen (Scottish, white male) demonstrated artificial refrigeration in 1748, with practical systems later refined by Jacob Perkins (American, white male).

Pasteurization – Louis Pasteur (French, white male) developed it in the 1860s.

Automobile – Karl Benz (German, white male) built the first practical automobile in 1885.

Internet – Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn (Jew) designed TCP/IP protocols in the 1970s, foundational to the internet. Tim Berners-Lee (English, white male) later invented the World Wide Web.

Anesthesia – Crawford Long (American, white male) used ether as an anesthetic in 1842. William Morton (American, white male) popularized it.

Optical Lenses – Salvino D’Armate (Italian, white male) is often credited with early eyeglasses in the late 13th century.

Telegraph – Samuel Morse (American, white male) developed the practical telegraph and Morse code in the 1830s.

Semiconductor Electronics – William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain (all American, white males) invented the transistor in 1947 at Bell Labs.

II. Almost all the Greatest Classical Composers

Classical music is not “an international language”. It is uniquely European in origins, spirit, and greatness. Europeans were continuously creative in music for many centuries, responsible for the highest, most complex form of music—classical music—along with the invention of the most sophisticated musical instruments, and the articulation of all the treatises on music in matters related to pitch, notes, intervals, scale systems, tonality, modulation, and melody.

I asked Grok whether it is accurate to say that the greatest composers of classical music are all men of European ancestry with a few Jews, providing the list below. Grok replied: “Yes, it’s broadly accurate to say that many of the most celebrated composers in the Western classical music tradition hail from Europe, with a significant number being of German, Italian, French, or other European descent, and a few notable Jewish composers among them.”

But Grok could not avoid repeating that this list “reflects the historical and cultural development of classical music, which emerged and flourished in Europe over centuries, particularly from the Renaissance through the 20th century.”

Well, yes, Grok, that’s the point, it reflects the historical reality that classical music is 100% European. Grok added the feminist criticism that “the absence of women or composers from other regions in the traditional ‘greatest’ lists is more a reflection of societal structures—patriarchy, access to education, and patronage systems—than a lack of talent or contribution from those groups.”

Josquin des Prez (c. 1450–1521) – Italian.
Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643) – Italian
Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–1687) – Italian, but naturalized and influential in France.
Henry Purcell (1659-1695) – English.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) – German.
Domenico Scarlatti (1685–1757) – Italian.
Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764) – French
George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) – German.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) – Austrian.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) – German.
Richard Wagner (1813–1883) – German.
Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) – Austrian
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) – Russian
Franz Schubert (1797–1828) – Austrian
Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) – Polish-French
Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) – German
Robert Schumann (1810–1856) – German
Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) – Italian
Claude Debussy (1862–1918) – French
Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) – Italian
Franz Liszt (1811–1886) – Hungarian
Hector Berlioz (1803–1869) – French
Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) – German, of Jewish descent
Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) – French
Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) – Russian
Anton Bruckner (1824–1896) – Austrian
Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) – Austrian-Bohemian, Jewish descent.

III. All the Greatest Astronauts

This is a list of men who played a pioneering role during the “Space Race” competition between the U.S. and the USSR. Grok reminded me that there have been significant astronauts in recent decades from China, such as Yang Liwei, the first taikonaut in 2003, representing Asia’s entry into spaceflight. Grok mentioned other significant names from India (Rakesh Sharma), and from Japan (Soichi Noguchi), and other nonwhites who participated in American space voyages, such as Sunita Williams (Indian-American), and Koichi Wakata (Japan). There is a known woman, Valentina Tereshkova, remembered as the “first woman in space” in 1963. But this list is about the men, as Grok says in agreement, who represent “pivotal moments in space history”.

Yuri Gagarin: The first human in space, completing one orbit around Earth aboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft in 1961.

Alan Shepard: The first American in space, piloting the suborbital flight of Freedom 7 in 1961.

John Glenn: The first American to orbit Earth, completing three orbits aboard Friendship 7 in 1962.

Gus Grissom: The second American in space, flying the suborbital Liberty Bell 7 mission in 1961, and later commanded Gemini 3, the first crewed Gemini flight, in 1965.

Neil Armstrong: The first human to walk on the Moon during Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969.

Andriyan Nikolayev: Flew on Vostok 3 in 1962, setting an endurance record of nearly 4 days for the longest solo spaceflight at the time.

James Lovell: Flew on Gemini 7 and 12; orbited the Moon on Apollo 8, the first human mission to do so; and commanded Apollo 13 in 1970.

John Young: Flew on Gemini 3 and 10, commanded Apollo 16 (walking on the Moon in 1972), and piloted the first Space Shuttle mission (STS-1) in 1981.

Alexei Leonov: First person to perform a spacewalk, exiting Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes in 1965; commanded the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975.

Buzz Aldrin: Second human to walk on the Moon during Apollo 11 in 1969; piloted the lunar module Eagle.

Gordon Cooper: Flew Mercury-Atlas 9 (Faith 7) in 1963, the longest Mercury mission; commanded Gemini 5 in 1965, setting a new U.S. endurance record.

Wally Schirra: Only astronaut to fly Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions; piloted Mercury-Atlas 8 (Sigma 7) in 1962, commanded Gemini 6A, and led Apollo 7, the first crewed Apollo flight.

Vladimir Komarov: Commanded Voskhod 1 in 1964, the first multi-person spaceflight.

Chris Hadfield: Canadian astronaut who flew on STS-74 and STS-100; commanded the International Space Station (ISS) during Expedition 35 in 2013.

Edgar Mitchell: Sixth person to walk on the Moon during Apollo 14 in 1971; piloted the lunar module Antares and conducted extensive lunar surface experiments.

Thomas Stafford: Commanded Apollo 10, the “dress rehearsal” for the Moon landing, and the U.S. side of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975; flew on Gemini 6A and 9A.

Gene Cernan: Last person to walk on the Moon during Apollo 17 in 1972; flew on Gemini 9A and piloted the lunar module on Apollo 10.

Ed White: First American to perform a spacewalk, during Gemini 4 in 1965.
Michael Collins: Orbited the Moon in the command module Columbia during Apollo 11 in 1969 while Armstrong and Aldrin landed; also flew on Gemini 10.

IV. Almost all the Greatest Sculptors

While I don’t deny that sculptors in Ancient Egypt created monumental works with symbolic power like the Great Sphinx, these were state-sponsored projects, overseen by master craftsmen, without any identifiable names. However, although there is no firm evidence of the sculptor’s name, I decided, on the advice of Grok, to include the Egyptian sculptor known as “Thutmose,” as the creator of the bust of Nefertiti, dated to around 1345 BCE. I did not include another name from the non-European world. There are no sculptor’s names for the “The Terracotta Warriors” (8,000 soldiers, horses, and chariots known) created during China’s first emperor Qin Shi Huang (221–210 BC), which was a state-sponsored project crafted by a large workforce of anonymous artisans. Similarly, while I am aware that the Khajuraho temple carvings in India, built between 885 CE and 1000 CE, are renowned for their intricate beauty, there are no specific names of sculptors associated with these carvings. And there are no individual sculptors identified with the African Benin Bronzes, a collection of some 3,000 brass plaques and sculptures, crafted primarily between the 15th and 17th centuries. I have added a white woman, Camille Claudel (1864–1943), in recognition of her truly impressive works. The initial list, stopped with Brancusi (1876); the list below added two twentieth century sculptors, Henry Moore (1898–1986) and Alberto Giacometti (1901–1966), in response to Grok that I was was leaving out widely recognized sculptors of the 20th century. After constructing my list, I asked Grok to indicate briefly what was original about these sculptors.

Thutmose (1350 BC): Identified by some as the sculptor of the Bust of Nefertiti, recognized for its “exquisite craftsmanship and timeless elegance”.

Phidias (480 BC): Known for his work on the Parthenon sculptures and the statue of Zeus at Olympia, one of the “Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.”

Praxiteles (364 BC): Celebrated for introducing a more naturalistic and graceful style, as seen in works like the Aphrodite of Knidos.

Donatello (1386): Pioneered Renaissance sculpture with groundbreaking realism and perspective, transforming the art form through his mastery of human anatomy and emotion.

Riemenschneider (1460): Excelled in intricate wood carvings, blending Gothic and Renaissance styles to create deeply expressive religious works.

Michelangelo (1475): A Renaissance giant, renowned for masterpieces like David and the Pietà, showcasing unparalleled skill and emotional depth.

Cellini (1500): Dazzled as a Mannerist goldsmith and sculptor, famed for his exquisite metalwork and dynamic compositions.
Giambologna (1529): Captivated with fluid, multi-figured sculptures that epitomized the elegance and complexity of late Renaissance art.

Bernini (1598): A Baroque master whose dynamic works, such as The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, revolutionized sculpture with movement and drama.

Girardon (1628): Embodied French Baroque grandeur, crafting monumental works that glorified the Sun King’s reign.

Coysevox (1640): Fused Baroque dynamism with classical grace, leaving a legacy in portraiture and public monuments.

Houdon (1741): Captured the Enlightenment’s spirit with strikingly naturalistic portraits and sculptures of historical figures.

Canova (1757): Revived classical ideals, creating serene, polished marbles that defined Neoclassical sculpture.

Thorvaldsen (1770): Drew from antiquity to craft noble, harmonious works that echoed the calm of ancient Greece.

Rodin (1840): Often called the father of modern sculpture, with works like The Thinker that broke from classical traditions.

Brancusi (1876): A pioneer of modernism, known for minimalist and abstract forms like Bird in Space.

Henry Moore (1898–1986): Pioneered abstract forms inspired by nature.

Alberto Giacometti (1901–1966): Known for his elongated figures, offering a new vision of the human form

V. The 5 Biggest Ideas in Science

The idea for this heading/list came to me after reading The Five Biggest Ideas in Science (1996) by Charles Wynn and Arthur Wiggins. For this list, I asked Grok whether “white men were responsible for the five biggest ideas in science”. Grok agreed that “all listed contributors were of European descent and their work collectively shaped” the development of all five theories. Grok added that I should consider the “historical context” within which these ideas were formulated. It advice me to take one name out (from the Theory of Plate Tectonics, as he was not directly involved in the development of this theory). I have quoted and paraphrased the words Grok used to describe the achievements of each of the names listed. Grok did not come up with a single non-European name, except to agree with me that Arno Penzias was Jewish, and Alexander Friedmann “half-Jewish” (both in the Big Bang Theory).

1. Atomic Structure of Matter

Democritus (Greek, ~460–370 BCE): Proposed that matter consists of indivisible units called “atoms.” This was a philosophical concept, not experimentally tested, but it laid a conceptual foundation.

John Dalton (English, 1766–1844): In 1803, he provided experimental evidence for atoms as indivisible, indestructible units unique to each element, marking the birth of modern atomic theory.

Joseph John Thomson (English, 1856–1940): In 1897 (not 1898), he discovered the electron, showing atoms weren’t indivisible but had negatively charged subcomponents, implying a positive counterbalance.

Ernest Rutherford (New Zealander, 1871–1937): In 1911, his gold foil experiment revealed the atom’s nucleus—a dense, positively charged core orbited by electrons.

Niels Bohr (Danish, 1885–1962, half-Jewish): In 1913, he introduced a model where electrons orbit the nucleus in quantized energy levels, explaining light emission.

Werner Heisenberg (German, 1901–1976): In 1925–1927, he developed quantum mechanics, refining the atomic model with probabilities rather than fixed orbits, incorporating newly discovered particles.

Grok wrote: “All these contributors were European or of European descent, and their work collectively shaped our modern understanding of atomic structure”.

2. Theory of Plate Tectonics

Possibly the most difficult theory in science to demonstrate.

Alfred Wegener (German, 1880–1930): In 1912, he proposed continental drift, suggesting continents were once joined in a supercontinent (Pangaea) and moved apart. Lacking a mechanism, his idea was initially rejected.

Arthur Holmes (English, 1890–1965): In the 1920s–1930s, he suggested mantle convection as the driving force for plate movement, hypothesizing activity beneath the oceans.

Drummond Matthews (English, 1931–1997) and Fred Vine (English, b. 1939): In 1963, they showed magnetic stripes in ocean floor rocks, supporting sea-floor spreading as evidence of plate movement.

Harry Hess (American, 1906–1969): In 1960, he formalized sea-floor spreading, proposing new crust forms at mid-ocean ridges, driving continental motion.

Robert S. Dietz (American, 1914–1995): In 1961, he reinforced Hess’s ideas, quantifying the spreading rate of oceanic crust.

Grok concluded: “These contributors, all of European descent, developed plate tectonics through observation and evidence, with Wegener’s early vision gaining traction decades later”.

3. Big Bang Theory

Edwin Hubble (American, 1889–1953): In 1924–1929, he showed that galaxies are receding, proving the universe is expanding and that many nebulae are distant galaxies.

Georges Lemaître (Belgian, 1894–1966): In 1927 (published 1931 in English), he proposed the universe began as a “primeval atom,” linking expansion to a single origin.

Alexander Friedmann (Russian, 1888–1925, possibly half-Jewish): In 1922, he mathematically modeled an expanding universe, providing a theoretical basis for later observations.

Fred Hoyle (British, 1915- 2001) work on stellar nucleosynthesis explaining origin of all heavier elements complemented Big Bang Theory prediction that the lightest elements were formed in the first few minutes after the Big Bang.

Robert Wilson (American, b. 1936), Robert Dicke (American, 1916–1997), and Arno Penzias (German-American, b. 1933, Jewish): In 1965, Penzias and Wilson discovered cosmic microwave background radiation, with Dicke interpreting it as Big Bang evidence (though Dicke’s role was theoretical, not direct discovery).

Later telescope advancements by Europeans (e.g., Hubble Space Telescope, WMAP) confirmed this model.

4. Theory of Evolution

Carl Linnaeus (Swedish, 1707–1778): In 1735, he created taxonomy, classifying species, which later supported evolutionary ideas, though he didn’t propose evolution.

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (French, 1744–1829): In 1809, he suggested species evolve via acquired traits, an early but flawed evolutionary theory.

Charles Lyell (Scottish, 1797–1875): In the 1830s, his uniformitarianism (geological processes are gradual) influenced Darwin’s evolutionary timeline.

Charles Darwin (English, 1809–1882): In 1859 (not 1858), he published On the Origin of Species, detailing natural selection as evolution’s mechanism.

Alfred Russel Wallace (English, 1823–1913): In 1858, he independently proposed natural selection, prompting Darwin’s publication.

Gregor Mendel (Austrian, 1822–1884): In the 1860s, his genetics experiments (published 1865–1866) later provided the mechanism for inheritance, bolstering Darwin’s theory.

Grok agreed: “All were European, contributing to a theory that unified biology”.

5. Periodic Table

Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner (German, 1780–1849): In 1817, he noted “triads” of elements with similar properties, an early step toward periodicity.

John Newlands (English, 1837–1898): In 1863–1865, he proposed the “Law of Octaves,” arranging elements by atomic weight with recurring properties.

Lothar Meyer (German, 1830–1895): In 1864–1870, he developed a periodic system based on atomic weight and properties, nearly simultaneous with Mendeleev.

Dmitri Mendeleev (Russian, 1834–1907): In 1869, he created the modern periodic table, predicting undiscovered elements based on periodic patterns of atomic weight.

Grok: “All were European, with Mendeleev’s predictive power cementing his legacy.”

VI. Almost all the Greatest Historians

Europeans invented the writing of history as “a method of sorting out the true from the false,” as a conscious search for a rational explanation of the causes of events, while rendering the results of their investigations in sustained narratives of excellent prose. The other peoples of the world, including the Chinese, barely rose above annalistic forms of recording genealogies or the deeds of rulers, devoid of reflections on historical causation. History in the Islamic world never became a scholarly field dedicated to the systematic gathering of records and explanation of events, the style was heavily annalistic and intended for moral teaching.

While the Greeks and Romans retained a cyclical view of history, modern Europeans would nurture a true developmental account of history characterized by an increasing historical consciousness, rooted in their Christianity and ecumenical Mediterranean and Atlantic world, and their actual epoch-making transformations, the immense contributions of Greek knowledge, Rome’s creation of a universal empire, the invention of universities in the Middle Ages, among many other novelties, followed by the Renaissance, and the continuous revolutions of the modern era in warfare, art, architecture, science, philosophy, and politics.

After the 1700s, they gained a more scientific understanding of history, identifying definite stages in technological and economic growth, and in the spread of liberal institutions, in terms of natural or man-made causes, rather than in terms of the providential hand of God. This idea of progress would come along with tremendous improvements in archival research and in historical methodologies, while the rest of the world would remain stuck with annalistic historiographies.

European historians wrote the histories of every nation in the world while developing all the methodologies currently used in historical writing, such as paleography (study of historical handwriting), diplomatics (study of documents, records, and archives), chronology (establishing the dates of past events), epigraphy (study of ancient inscriptions), genealogy (study of families), numismatics (study of coins), including ethnography, hermeneutics, archeology, linguistics, and genetics.

Below is a list constructed without taking advice from Grok, though I added a few more names to the original 2020 list, in light of a long chapter I wrote in my upcoming book, Greatness and Ruin, on historiography. I did ask Grok, however, to describe briefly what these historians are known for. There is one Chinese and one Muslim historian, Khaldun, who did rise above the purely Islamic accounts of his predecessors and successors. I have identified a few Jewish historians. This is clearly a very limited list, which leaves out numerous great historians of the 1700s, 1800s, 1900s, and early 2000s.

Herodotus (c. 484–425 BC): Known as the “Father of History,” he wrote Histories, an account of the Greco-Persian Wars, blending fact with myth and exploring cultural differences between Greece and Persia.
Thucydides (c. 460–400 BC): Authored History of the Peloponnesian War, emphasizing factual accuracy and political analysis, pioneering a critical, evidence-based approach to historical writing.
Polybius (c. 200–118 BC): Wrote The Histories, chronicling the rise of the Roman Republic, with a focus on political institutions and military strategy.
Sima Qian (145–86 BC): Compiled Records of the Grand Historian, a comprehensive history of China from its earliest dynasties to the Han era, laying the foundation for Chinese historiography.
Livy (59 BC–17 AD): Authored Ab Urbe Condita, a massive history of Rome from its founding to the reign of Augustus, combining legend with historical narrative.
Tacitus (c. 56–120 AD): Wrote Annals and Histories, offering a critical account of the Roman Empire from Tiberius to the Flavians, known for his insights into politics and power.
Plutarch (c. 46–120 AD): Penned Parallel Lives, biographies of notable Greeks and Romans, focusing on moral character and virtues rather than strict historical accuracy.
Bede (672–735 AD): Wrote Ecclesiastical History of the English People, a vital source for early English history and the spread of Christianity in Britain.
Geoffroi de Villehardouin (1150-1213):. Authored De la Conquête de Constantinople, one of the earliest surviving historical prose narratives written in French.
Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406 AD): Authored Muqaddimah, an introduction to his universal history, pioneering theories on the rise and fall of civilizations and social dynamics.
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527): Authored The History of Florence, using historical analysis to support his political theories, alongside his more famous work The Prince.
Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon (1609–1674): Penned The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, a royalist perspective on the English Civil War.
Edward Gibbon (1737–1794): Wrote The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a seminal work linking the empire’s collapse to moral decay and Christianity’s rise.
François Guizot (1787–1874): Wrote extensively on French and European history, shaping liberal historiography with his emphasis on constitutional development.
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859): Authored The History of England, known for its vivid narrative and Whig interpretation of history as a story of progress and liberty.
Lewis Namier (1888–1960): Pioneered prosopography, using detailed studies of individuals to uncover broader trends, especially in 18th-century British politics. (Jewish)
Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886): Considered the father of modern historical scholarship, he emphasized primary sources and objectivity, shaping historical methodology.
G.M. Trevelyan (1876–1962): Authored English Social History, celebrated for its accessible narrative and focus on the lives of ordinary people.
Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897): Wrote The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, defining the Renaissance as a distinct cultural and historical period.
William Stubbs (1825–1901): Authored The Constitutional History of England, a foundational work on medieval English governance and institutions.
Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903): Wrote A History of Rome, a comprehensive study of Roman history that earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature.
J.B. Bury (1861–1927): Authored works on the late Roman Empire and Byzantine history, advocating for scientific rigor in historical research.
Francis Parkman (1823–1893): Chronicled the French and Indian War and the history of New France, known for his vivid and engaging narrative style.
Georges Lefebvre (1874–1959): A leading historian of the French Revolution, he focused on social history, particularly the role of the peasantry and lower classes
Hans-Ulrich Wehler (1931–2014): A key figure in modern German historiography, he focused on the social and economic history of the German Empire.
Michael Rostovtzeff (1870–1952): Wrote on the social and economic history of the ancient world, particularly the Roman Empire.
Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–1975): Authored A Study of History, a comparative analysis of the rise and fall of civilizations across time.
Fernand Braudel (1902–1985): A leader of the Annales School, he wrote The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, emphasizing long-term social and economic trends.
Georges Duby (1919–1996): Specialized in medieval history, exploring feudalism and social structures in works like The Early Growth of the European Economy.
A.J.P. Taylor (1906–1990): Authored The Origins of the Second World War, offering a controversial reinterpretation of the war’s causes.
Christopher Hill (1912–2003): A Marxist historian, he wrote extensively on the English Civil War, emphasizing its social and economic dimensions.
Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012): Authored The Age of Revolution and The Age of Capital, exploring the transformative effects of industrialization and capitalism. (Jewish)
David Landes (1924–2013): Wrote The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, analyzing the economic rise of the West compared to other regions. (Jewish)
William H. McNeill (1917–2016): Renowned for his work in world history.
J.G.A. Pocock (1924–): Authored The Machiavellian Moment, tracing the development of republican thought in Europe and America.
Carlo Ginzburg (b. 1939): A microhistorian, famous for The Cheese and the Worms, who expanded historical methods to include everyday life.
Quentin Skinner (1940–): A key figure in the Cambridge School, he focused on the contextual study of political thought in the early modern period.

VII. About 95% of the Greatest Explorers

We should draw a line between “explorer” and “traveler,” however blurred the line may be in some cases. There have been great travelers who took long journeys beyond the borders of their territory, without exploring or discovering new or unrecorded lands. For example, Ibn Battuta (1304-68) is now listed as a “great explorer,” but he was really a great traveler who visited every known Islamic land in his time, from Moorish Spain in the West to Samarkand in Central Asia and India, and arguably China and Vietnam. Explorers, strictly speaking, are men who undertook journeys to unknown or uncharted territories, crossed Oceans, discovered whole new continents, new rivers and their sources, undertook polar ice expeditions, pioneered new worlds underwater (and in space). The famous six voyages of Zheng He (1371-1433) around the Indian Ocean, along the eastern coast of Africa and into Southeast Asia, were great travels, but not acts of exploration since Zheng He navigated well known lands. Likewise, Marco Polo was one of the greatest travelers but not an explorer, traveling 15,000 miles over a 24-year period throughout Asia into Indonesia.

Nevertheless, the list below includes some of the greatest travelers because, in fairness, men identified as explorers, including some listed below, followed in the footsteps of prior explorers, moving into the same continents, and lands, even as they discovered new routes, rivers, lakes, and mountains, and traversed deep into the interior of Africa; that is, lands unidentified in terms of concepts and maps. The list below is very short. There are hundreds of great European explorers. I would estimate, on the side of moderation, that about 97% of the greatest explorers are men of European ancestry.

Pytheas of Massalia (380-310 BC): Explored the British Isles and possibly the Arctic, providing early descriptions of northern Europe.
Hanno “the Navigator” (500 BC): Led a Carthaginian expedition along Africa’s west coast, potentially reaching Cameroon.
Fa Xian (350-422 AD): Chinese Buddhist monk who traveled to India and Sri Lanka, documenting Buddhist sites.
Leif Erikson (c. 970–c. 1020): Norse explorer believed to be among the first Europeans to reach North America (Vinland, likely Newfoundland).
Marco Polo (1254-1324): Venetian merchant who traveled to China, documented his experiences, and inspired future explorers.
Ibn Battuta (1304-1368): Moroccan scholar who explored the Islamic world, Africa, and Asia, covering vast distances.
Zheng He (1371-1433): Chinese admiral who led seven voyages across Southeast Asia, India, and East Africa, fostering trade and diplomacy.
Bartolomeu Dias (1450-1500): Portuguese explorer who first sailed around Africa’s southern tip (Cape of Good Hope), opening a sea route to Asia.
Christopher Columbus (1451-1506): Italian explorer whose Atlantic voyages led to the European discovery of the Americas.
Vasco da Gama (1460-1524): Portuguese explorer who pioneered a direct sea route from Europe to India.
John Cabot (1450-1499): Italian explorer who charted North America’s coast, particularly Canada, for England.
Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512): Italian explorer who identified the Americas as a new continent, later named after him.
Vasco Núñez de Balboa (1474-1519): Spanish explorer who first sighted the Pacific Ocean from the Americas.
Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521): Portuguese explorer who led the first global circumnavigation, though he died en route.
Jacques Cartier (1491-1557): French explorer who mapped the St. Lawrence River and claimed Canada for France.
Samuel de Champlain (1567-1635): French explorer who founded Quebec and explored the Great Lakes, dubbed the “Father of New France.”
Abel Tasman (1603-1659): Dutch explorer who discovered Tasmania and New Zealand, mapping parts of Australia.
William Dampier (1651-1715): English explorer and pirate who circumnavigated the globe three times, aiding navigation and science.
Vitus Bering (1681-1741): Danish explorer who mapped the Bering Strait and Alaska for Russia.
James Cook (1728-1779): British explorer who charted the Pacific, including New Zealand and Australia’s east coast.
Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859): Prussian naturalist who explored South America, advancing geography and science.
Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) and William Clark (1770-1838): American explorers who crossed the western U.S. to the Pacific.
David Livingstone (1813-1873): Scottish explorer who mapped Africa’s interior, including Victoria Falls, and opposed slavery.
Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890): British explorer who visited Mecca in disguise and sought the Nile’s source.
Robert Burke (1821-1861) and William Wills (1834-1861): Australian explorers who first crossed Australia south to north.
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913): British naturalist who explored the Amazon and Malay Archipelago, co-developing evolution theory.
Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904): Welsh-American explorer who traversed Africa and found Livingstone.
Robert Peary (1856-1920): American explorer who claimed to reach the North Pole in 1909 (disputed).
Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930): Norwegian explorer who crossed Greenland and neared the North Pole, later a Nobel laureate.
Sven Hedin (1865-1952): Swedish explorer who mapped Central Asia, including the Himalayas and Tibet.
Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912): British explorer who led Antarctic expeditions, including a South Pole attempt.
Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922): Anglo-Irish explorer known for Antarctic expeditions, notably the Endurance survival saga.
Wilfred Thesiger (1910-2003): British explorer who documented life in the Arabian Peninsula and Africa.
Roald Amundsen (1872-1928): Norwegian explorer who first reached the South Pole and navigated the Northwest Passage.
Jacques Cousteau (1910-1997): French oceanographer who advanced scuba diving and underwater filmmaking, promoting marine conservation.

VIII. Most of the Greatest Mathematicians

Most of the cultures of the world made zero contributions to mathematics defined as a specific field of knowledge, entailing a system of numeration, a variety of arithmetical calculations with whole numbers and fractions, the calculation of simple areas and volumes, and the use of linear equations. Indian, Chinese, and Islamic civilizations attained a high level of cognitive proficiency in arithmetical calculations, involving problem-solving by breaking down complex problems into smaller, more manageable parts, and then solving those parts one at a time, using complex algebraic equations. However, Chinese mathematics barely rose above the “utilitarian” mathematics of the Babylonians, dedicated to the solution of practical problems, without “the idea of rigorous proof”, although Zu Chongzhi is acknowledged for his highly accurate approximation of π (pi).

Indians made some groundbreaking contributions to decimal systems, algebra, trigonometry, infinite series, and continued fractions. The Islamic world also made significant contributions in algebra and trigonometry. The ancient Greeks, however, were the first to derive mathematical concepts from pure reasoning alone, that is, to think about numbers and operations abstractly, as products of the rational powers of man, and to realize that geometry is concerned not with physical objects, but with points, lines, triangles, squares, as objects of pure reason. They invented deductive reasoning, a method wherein reason proposes self-evident premises or axioms from which it deduces theorems in a rigorously consistent (and self-conscious) manner.

Only modern Europeans, directly on the accomplishments of the Greeks, not the accomplishments of the Indians, Chinese, and far less on Muslims, would start to transform arithmetic/algebra into proper sciences by introducing symbolism and making extensive and impressive contributions to the theory of numbers, and using algebra to help solve geometric problems. Of the 45 names listed below, 2 are Indians, 1 is Muslim, 1 is Chinese, and 4 have Jewish ancestry (though one has a Jewish father only, and one has Jewish ancestry through his paternal grandparents). The rest are European. Grok agreed that this list accurately reflects the major contributors to mathematics, though it suggested a few more names not listed here. I did use an abbreviated version of Grok’s brief descriptions of achievements.

Eudoxus (b. 408 BC): Developed the method of exhaustion, a precursor to integral calculus, for calculating areas and volumes.
Euclid (lived around 300 BC): Authored Elements, a comprehensive treatise on geometry, number theory, and algebra that served as the primary mathematics textbook for over 2,000 years.
Archimedes (b. 287 BC): Calculated an approximation of π (pi) and developed methods for finding areas and volumes; laid the groundwork for calculus with his use of infinitesimals and the method of exhaustion.
Apollonius (b. ~15 AD): Introduced terms like ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola, and systematized the study of conic sections.
Zu Chongzhi (429–500 AD): Calculated π to seven decimal places, a record for accuracy until the 15th century.
Brahmagupta (598–668 AD): Introduced the concept of zero as a number and defined rules for arithmetic operations with zero and negative numbers.
Al-Khwarizmi (b. ~780 AD): Authored the book “Kitab al-Jabr wal-Muqabala” from which the term “algebra” is derived.
Fibonacci (b. 1170): Introduced the Fibonacci sequence (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, …), revealing patterns in nature and mathematics.
Regiomontanus (1436–1476): Advanced trigonometry as a distinct mathematical discipline.
Cardano (1501–1576): Introduced imaginary numbers (e.g., √−1), a key step toward complex numbers.
Viète (1540–1603): Pioneered symbolic algebra by using letters for variables and constants, modernizing mathematical notation.
Descartes (1596–1650): Invented analytic geometry and introduced modern exponential notation (e.g., x²).
Pierre de Fermat (1607–1665): Co-founded analytic geometry, and laid foundations for number theory.
Newton (1643–1727): Co-invented calculus (with Leibniz), introducing derivatives and integrals. Formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, grounded in mathematical principles.
Leibniz (1646–1716): Co-invented calculus, introducing modern notation (e.g., dx/dt, ∫), and developed binary arithmetic.
Bernoulli (1700–1782) Formulated Bernoulli’s Principle in fluid dynamics, a cornerstone of physics and engineering; advanced probability and statistics.
Euler (1707–1783): Introduced key notations (e.g., e, i, ∑, f(x)) and the Euler identity (e^(iπ) + 1 = 0), solved the Basel problem (sum of reciprocals of squares).
d’Alembert (1717–1783): Developed the wave equation.
Lagrange (1736–1813): Formulated Lagrangian mechanics, revolutionizing classical physics.
Laplace (1749–1827): Developed probability theory; refined Newton’s work on planetary orbits.
Fourier (1768–1830): Introduced Fourier series to analyze periodic functions and heat conduction.
Gauss (1777–1855): Proved the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra and developed the Gaussian distribution in statistics.
Lobachevsky (1792–1856): Pioneered non-Euclidean geometry (hyperbolic geometry).
Bolyai (1802–1860): Independently developed non-Euclidean geometry.
William Hamilton (1805–1865): Invented quaternions, extending complex numbers to four dimensions.
Galois (1811–1832): Founded group theory and Galois theory, solving the problem of polynomial solvability by radicals.
Boole (1815–1864): Developed Boolean algebra, the foundation of digital logic and computer science.
Weierstrass (1815–1897): Rigorized calculus with epsilon-delta definitions of limits and continuity.
Riemann (1826–1866): Introduced Riemann surfaces and complex geometry; developed differential geometry, influencing Einstein’s relativity.
Dedekind (1831–1916): Defined real numbers via Dedekind cuts, rigorizing analysis.
Cantor (1845–1918): Created set theory, introducing concepts of infinity (cardinality) and transfinite numbers. (Jewish ancestry through his paternal grandparents.)
Klein (1849–1925): Developed the Erlangen Program, unifying geometry via group theory.
Poincaré (1854–1912): Founded algebraic topology.
Hilbert (1862–1943): Formulated Hilbert’s 23 problems, shaping 20th-century mathematics. Developed Hilbert spaces, key to quantum mechanics.
Weyl (1885–1955): Unified mathematics and physics through group theory and differential geometry.
Ramanujan (1887–1920): Made breakthroughs in number theory (partition function, Ramanujan conjecture).
Banach (1892–1945): Co-founded functional analysis with Banach spaces.
John von Neumann (1903–1957): Developed game theory. (Jewish)
Kolmogorov (1903–1987): Axiomatized probability theory; contributed to turbulence and complexity theory.
Turing (1912–1954): Laid the foundations of computer science with the Turing Machine; pioneered artificial intelligence concepts.
Erdős (1913–1996): Prolific contributor to number theory, combinatorics, and graph theory. (Jewish)
Shannon (1916–2001): Founded information theory and developed digital circuit design.
Hirzebruch (1927–2012): Advanced algebraic geometry and topology; contributed to K-theory.
Grothendieck (1928–2014): Revolutionized algebraic geometry; developed foundations for cohomology and category theory (Jewish father).
Wiles (b. 1953):Proved Fermat’s Last Theorem (1994), a 350-year-old conjecture, using elliptic curves and modular forms.

IX. Europeans Invented All Literary Devices

Grok agreed that all the literary devices listed below are “literary devices” and that all were invented by European whites “in terms of their specific terms and formal definitions”. I came up with this long list using online sources, and, more significantly, J. A. Cuddon’s 1000+ page Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory (1991). The definition Grok offered — “Literary devices are techniques or tools used in literature and rhetoric to enhance expression, structure narratives, or convey meaning” — is consistent with the one offered by this Dictionary.

Grok agreed that most of these terms “derive from Greek and Latin” and “Old English/French/Italian (European languages)”. Similarly to Cuddon’s Dictionary, which goes into exhaustive accounts of the meanings and historical origins of each term, Grok points out that some of these terms are “universal” in their meaning, and can be found, even if they are not formally defined, in Asian, Indian, Arabic, and other non-European writing and rhetoric.

Grok, similarly to the Dictionary, indicated that “a few” of these devices “might be better classified as genres, styles, or broader concepts”. Below is the list with Grok’s brief definitions of the literary devices, and its statement of agreement that each is a literary device.

Aporia: Expressing doubt or uncertainty as a rhetorical strategy—yes, a literary device.
Alliteration: Repetition of initial consonant sounds—definitely a literary device.
Appositive: A noun or phrase renaming another noun—yes, a device.
Anti-Climax: A sudden drop from the significant to the trivial—yes, a device.
Catharsis: Emotional purging, often in tragedy—yes, a device tied to effect.
Comedy: A genre, but it employs specific techniques (e.g., humor)—related to devices.
Catalog: A list used for rhetorical effect—yes, a device.
Diatribe: A bitter, critical speech—yes, a rhetorical device.
Dialogue: Conversation between characters—yes, a device for narrative.
Digression: A departure from the main topic—yes, a device.
Drama: A genre, but defined by techniques like dialogue—related to devices.
Denouement: Resolution of a plot—yes, a structural device.
Dilemma: A difficult choice in narrative—yes, a device.
Didacticism: Teaching through literature—yes, a device or approach.
Elegy: A mournful poem, a form using specific techniques—related to devices.
Epigram: A concise, witty statement—yes, a device.
Epistolary: Letter-based narrative—more a form, but uses devices like voice.
Essay: A genre, but employs rhetorical devices—related.
Epic: A long narrative poem, a genre with techniques—related.
Euphemism: Mild expression for something harsh—yes, a device.
Fairy Tale: A genre, but uses devices like symbolism—related.
Fantasy: A genre, with techniques like world-building—related.
Foil: A character highlighting another—yes, a device.
Foreshadowing: Hinting at future events—yes, a device.
Folklore: Traditional stories, a category using devices—related.
Flashback: A shift to past events—yes, a device.
Fallacy: Faulty reasoning, often rhetorical—yes, a device.
Frame Story: A story within a story—yes, a structural device.
Figurative Language: Non-literal expression (e.g., metaphor)—yes, a device.
Hypotaxis: Complex sentence structure—yes, a stylistic device.
Hyperbole: Exaggeration—yes, a device.
Hubris: Excessive pride, often thematic—yes, a device.
Hamartia: Tragic flaw—yes, a device in tragedy.
Hook: Opening to grab attention—yes, a device.
Induction: Reasoning from specific to general—yes, a rhetorical device.
Inversion: Reversed word order—yes, a device.
Intertextuality: Referencing other texts—yes, a device.
Inference: Implied meaning—yes, a device.
Lyric: Expressive poetry, a form with devices—related.
Logos: Logical appeal—yes, a rhetorical device.
Meiosis: Understatement—yes, a device.
Memoir: Personal narrative, a genre using devices—related.
Non Sequitur: Illogical leap—yes, a device.
Motif: Recurring element—yes, a device.
Novella: Short novel, a form with techniques—related.
Nemesis: An opponent or downfall—yes, a narrative device.
Neologism: New word creation—yes, a device.
Narrative: Storytelling—yes, a broad device.
Octave: Eight-line stanza—yes, a structural device in poetry.
Ode: A lyrical poem, a form with devices—related.
Omniscient: All-knowing narrator—yes, a narrative device.
Onomatopoeia: Sound-imitating words—yes, a device.
Parallelism: Similar sentence structures—yes, a device.
Paronomasia: Wordplay or pun—yes, a device.
Parody: Imitation for humor—yes, a device.
Parrhesia: Bold, frank speech—yes, a rhetorical device.
Plot: Sequence of events—yes, a structural device.
Prosody: Study of meter and rhythm—yes, a poetic device.
Realism: A movement, but uses techniques—related.
Reductio ad Absurdum: Disproof by absurdity—yes, a rhetorical device.
Refutation: Counterargument—yes, a rhetorical device.
Romanticism: A movement, with stylistic devices—related.
Rhetoric: Art of persuasion—yes, a broad device category.
Rising Action: Build-up in plot—yes, a structural device.
Sarcasm: Ironic mockery—yes, a device.
Soliloquy: Character’s speech to self—yes, a device.
Satire: Social critique via humor—yes, a device.
Sonnet: 14-line poem, a form with devices—related.
Surrealism: A movement, with techniques—related.
Symbolism: Use of symbols—yes, a device.
Synesis: Grammatical agreement by sense—yes, a device.
Suspense: Tension in narrative—yes, a device.
Syllogism: Logical argument form—yes, a rhetorical device.
Synesthesia: Blending senses—yes, a device.
Stream of Consciousness: Inner thought flow—yes, a device.
Tragedy: A genre, with devices like catharsis—related.
Trope: Figurative use of language—yes, a device.
Utopia: Ideal society narrative—more a genre, but related.
Vernacular: Everyday language—yes, a stylistic device.
Vignette: Brief descriptive scene—yes, a device.

X. 66 oldest universities in the world were founded in Europe

Medieval Christian Europe was the first civilization to “institutionalize reason” within self-governing universities which offered a curriculum “overwhelmingly oriented toward analytical subjects”. The first university was Bologna, founded in 1088, followed by Oxford in 1096. By the end of the fourteenth century, in 1400, there were about 34 universities across Europe; and in 1500 there were 66, and none outside. In 1789, the year of the French Revolution, there were about 143 universities in Europe, with only one university outside in Turkey. The original Latin word universitas designated any corporation intentionally created by a group of individuals, be they guilds by craftsmen, associations by merchants, or municipal communes by town residents—to regulate their own affairs and security, independently of customary law, kinship ties, or religious and state authorities. Corporations were self-governed in that their members participated in specifying the rules that regulated their activities; power was shared and leaders could be held accountable for their actions. Gradually the word universitas came to be associated with the term studium generale, which referred to any institution (at the beginning of the thirteenth century) that attracted students from all parts of Europe, and where at least one of the higher faculties of theology, law, or medicine was taught by a plurality of masters. The universities tended to have four faculties (arts, theology, law, and medicine). The program of the arts consisted of the three verbal disciplines of grammar, rhetoric, and logic; and the four mathematical disciplines of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. Grok agrees that, strictly speaking, these were the first universities. I asked Grok to organize this list in terms of the year they were founded and location.

University of Bologna – Founded 1088 (Italy)
University of Oxford – Founded c. 1096 (England)
University of Paris – Founded c. 1150 (France)
University of Modena – Founded 1175 (Italy)
University of Cambridge – Founded 1209 (England)
University of Salamanca – Founded 1218 (Spain)
University of Padua – Founded 1222 (Italy)
University of Naples Federico II – Founded 1224 (Italy)
University of Toulouse – Founded 1229 (France)
University of Siena – Founded 1240 (Italy)
University of Valladolid – Founded 1241 (Spain)
University of Piacenza – Founded 1248 (Italy)
University of Coimbra – Founded 1290 (Portugal)
University of Montpellier – Founded 1289 (France)
University of Alcalá (original) – Founded 1293 (Spain)
University of Lleida – Founded 1300 (Spain)
University of Rome La Sapienza – Founded 1303 (Italy)
University of Avignon – Founded 1303 (France)
University of Orleans – Founded 1306 (France)
University of Perugia – Founded 1308 (Italy)
University of Florence – Founded 1321 (Italy)
University of Cahors – Founded 1332 (France)
University of Angers – Founded 1337 (France)
University of Grenoble – Founded 1339 (France)
University of Verona – Founded 1339 (Italy
University of Pisa – Founded 1343 (Italy)
Charles University in Prague – Founded 1348 (Czech Republic)
University of Perpignan – Founded 1350 (France)
University of Huesca – Founded 1354 (Spain)
University of Pavia – Founded 1361 (Italy)
Jagiellonian University in Krakow – Founded 1364 (Poland)
University of Vienna – Founded 1365 (Austria)
University of Pécs – Founded 1367 (Hungary)
University of Heidelberg – Founded 1386 (Germany)
University of Cologne – Founded 1388 (Germany)
University of Ferrara – Founded 1391 (Italy)
University of Erfurt – Founded 1392 (Germany)
University of Würzburg – Founded 1402 (Germany)
University of Turin – Founded 1404 (Italy)
University of Leipzig – Founded 1409 (Germany)
University of Aix-en-Provence – Founded 1409 (France)
University of St Andrews – Founded 1413 (Scotland)
University of Rostock – Founded 1419 (Germany)
University of Dole – Founded 1423 (France)
University of Louvain – Founded 1425 (Belgium)
University of Poitiers – Founded 1431 (France)
University of Caen – Founded 1432 (France)
University of Catania – Founded 1434 (Italy)
University of Bordeaux – Founded 1441 (France)
University of Barcelona – Founded 1450 (Spain)
University of Glasgow – Founded 1451 (Scotland)
University of Valence – Founded 1452 (France)
University of Greifswald – Founded 1456 (Germany)
University of Freiburg – Founded 1457 (Germany)
University of Basel – Founded 1460 (Switzerland)
University of Nantes – Founded 1460 (France)
University of Bourges – Founded 1464 (France)
University of Ingolstadt – Founded 1472 (Germany)
University of Trier – Founded 1473 (Germany)
University of Mainz – Founded 1477 (Germany)
University of Tübingen – Founded 1477 (Germany).
University of Uppsala – Founded 1477 (Sweden)
University of Copenhagen – Founded 1479 (Denmark)
University of Genoa – Founded 1481 (Italy).
University of Aberdeen – Founded 1495 (Scotland)
University of Santiago de Compostela – Founded 1495 (Spain)

XI. Europeans, with the exception of one Chinese, invented all the Scientific Instruments

Grok agreed with this judgment, identifying the inventors and nationalities of the scientific instruments, in agreement with my claim that they were all Europeans, although it added a Chinese name as the inventor of the Seismograph. I included this Chinese inventor, but added the English inventor of the modern Seismograph. Grok excluded one instrument only, “Nanoscale”, as being a “scale of measurement, not a scientific instrument”.

Ammeter: Invented by André-Marie Ampère, who was French. The ammeter measures electric current.

Barometer: Invented by Evangelista Torricelli, who was Italian, in 1643 to measure atmospheric pressure.

Sextant: Both John Hadley, who was English, and Thomas Godfrey, who was American, independently developed the sextant around 1730, an instrument used for navigation to measure angles between celestial objects and the horizon.

Voltmeter: Invented by Edward Weston, born in England, in 1886.

Thermometer: Invented by Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, who was Dutch, but was born in Danzig, Poland), in the early 18th century.

Galvanometer: Invented by Johann Schweigger, who was German, in 1820, to detect and measure small electric currents.

Hydrometer: Invented by William Nicholson, who was English, in 1790, to measure the density or specific gravity of liquids.

Radar: Invented by Robert Watson-Watt, who was Scottish, in 1935.

Hygrometer: Invented by Horace Bénédict de Saussure, who was Swiss, in the 18th century, to measure humidity in the air.

Electroscope: Invented by Abraham Bennet, who was English, in 1787, to detect electric charge.

Microscope: Invented by Zacharias Janssen, who was Dutch, in 1590.

Electron Microscope: Invented by Ernst Ruska and Max Knoll, both German, in 1931.

Accelerometer: Invented by George Atwood, who was English, in 1783, to measure acceleration.

Magnetograph: Invented by Charles Brooke, who was English, in 1846, to record variations in the Earth’s magnetic field.

Telescope: Invented by Hans Lippershey, who was Dutch, in 1608.

Periscope: Invented by Sir Howard Grubb, who was Irish, in the late 19th century, widely used in submarines.

Calorimeter: Invented by Joseph Black, who was Scottish, in 1761, to measure heat transfer.

Telemeter: Invented by Carl Pulfrich, who was German, in 1890 to measure distances.

Seismograph: Invented by Zhang Heng, who was Chinese, in 132 AD to detect and record earthquakes. However, John Milne, who was English, invented the first modern seismograph in 1880.
Cardiograph: Invented by Willem Einthoven, who was Dutch, in 1903 to record the heart’s electrical activity.

XII. Whites invented close to 100% of the sports/athletic competitions

I am aware that a few sports were invented outside Europe/North America; but, for the sake of argument, I asked Grok: “Is it reasonably accurate to say that Europeans and North Americans invented all the sports?” I provided Grok with the list below (minus the few sports I added from the non-Western world after Grok’s reply). Grok replied that my list was “largely accurate with a few nuances worth exploring”. It added martial arts, or Karate (Japan), Taekwondo (Korea), and Kung Fu (China) from the non-European world. I also added Polo, which it traced to ancient Persia, as well as Japanese sumo and Mesoamerican “ballgame”.

The invention of so many sports by the ancient Greeks is rooted in their aristocratic martial ethos encapsulated in the ancient word Arete, which originally denoted excellence in the performance of heroic valor by aristocratic Indo-European warriors. In pre-Homeric times, it signified the strength and skill of a warrior. It was his arete that ranked an aristocrat (aristos meaning “best,” “noblest”) above the commoners; and it was the attainment of heroic excellence that secured respect and honor among aristocratic peers. The word aristeia was used in epic stories for the single-handed adventures of the hero in his unceasing strife for superlative achievements over his peers. It was within this cultural context that the Greeks invented the sports listed below and the Olympic games. England adopted this culture of athleticism. English elite institutions of learning, during the days of the empire, emphasized physical fitness, discipline, and teamwork, as well as a tradition of outdoor activity and a passion for “fair play.”

In the list I sent to Grok, I identified the particular sports invented in Greece, England, France, the United States, and Canada. I also identified the year, or approximate time that these sports were invented. Grok agreed with most of these specifications, stating, you list is “impressively detailed”, while making some minor qualifications in regards to the exact origins of a few sports, when the rules of a few sports were formalized; and it corrected the claim that Americans turned skiing into a sport, holding Norway responsible.

The ancient Greeks invented these sports through the Olympic Games, which began in 776 BCE.

Pentathlon: The pentathlon (which includes Discus, Javelin, Long Jump, Wrestling, and Footrace) was introduced around 708 BCE.
Boxing: Added to the Olympics in 688 BCE.
Equestrian Events: Chariot racing and horseback riding events were introduced to the Olympics in 680 BCE.
Gymnastics: Exercises resembling modern gymnastics, although modern gymnastics as a sport emerged in the 19th century in Germany.

The British invented many modern sports.

Cricket (1744/1787): The first written “Laws of Cricket” were codified in 1744, but the Marylebone Cricket Club was founded in 1787, which formalized the modern game.
Rugby (1871): The Rugby Football Union, formed in 1871, formalized the rules.
Golf (1764): The first 18-hole course is traditionally linked to St. Andrews, Scotland.
Tennis (1874): Patented in 1874.
Badminton (around 1873): Badminton Association of England was formed in 1893, but the game’s modern form emerged around 1873.
Table Tennis (1880): Table tennis evolved in the 1870s–1880s but wasn’t formalized until the 1920s.
Bobsleigh (1890): British tourists in Switzerland in the late 1880s–1890s developed the sport.
Curling (1541): The earliest recorded curling match was in Scotland in 1541.
Soccer (Penalty kick in 1863/1891): Soccer rules were codified in 1863, and the penalty kick was introduced in 1891.
Swimming (Early 1830s): Competitive swimming began in the 1830s.

The U.S. contributed some important sports

Volleyball (1895): William G. Morgan invented volleyball in 1895.
American Football (1879): Walter Camp introduced key rules in 1879–1880 at Yale.
Baseball (1845): Alexander Cartwright formalized rules and field layout in 1845.
Softball (1887): George Hancock in 1887.
Basketball (1891–1893): James Naismith invented basketball in 1891, with the original 13 rules; the first hoops and formalized play followed by 1893.

France, Norway, and Canada contributed:

Fencing (17th-18th centuries): France refined fencing into a sport in the 17th–18th centuries, introducing the foil and masks.
Cycling (1868): France is credited with the first race in Paris in 1868.
Skiing (1843): First skiing competition in Norway.
Hockey (1875): James Creighn organized the first indoor ice hockey game in Montreal in 1875.

XIII. 43 of the 50 greatest technological “breakthroughs” in history

This is another list on technological inventions but it covers breakthroughs across the span of history, rather than the modern era only. It is based on a 2013 article in The Atlantic based on a list compiled by a panel of 12 scientists, engineers, and historians of technology. This panel came up with the list below of “the 50 greatest breakthroughs since the wheel”. By “breakthrough,” it meant technologies that revolutionized human life. The article portrayed these breakthroughs as “human inventions” without focusing on the nationality of the inventors, or the origin of the inventions.

I asked Grok: “Of the following 50 great inventions in human history, would it be accurate to say that 43 or 44 were invented by men of European ancestry?” Grok replied: “Yes, it would be accurate to say that 43 of the 50 inventions were invented by men of European ancestry, based on primary credited inventors or significant European developments.”

I am leaving the words Grok used to identify European inventions and non-European ones. I will add that while gunpowder, the compass, and the sailboat originated in China, Europeans were responsible for all subsequent innovations of these inventions.

The Printing Press – Johannes Gutenberg (Germany, 15th century). European.
Electricity – While ancient cultures observed static electricity, its harnessing (e.g., via Michael Faraday’s work on electromagnetism, UK, 19th century) is European.
Penicillin – Alexander Fleming (Scotland, 1928). European.
Semiconductor Electronics – Pioneered by William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain (USA, 1940s), all of European descent. European.
Optical Lenses – Italian monks and scholars (e.g., Salvino D’Armate, 13th century) refined early lenses. European.
Paper – Invented in China by Cai Lun (Han Dynasty, 105 CE). Non-European.
Internal Combustion Engine – Nikolaus Otto (Germany, 1876). European.
Vaccination – Edward Jenner (England, 1796). European.
The Internet – Developed by Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn (USA, 1970s), both of European descent. European.
The Steam Engine – Thomas Savery and James Watt (England, 17th-18th centuries). European.
Nitrogen Fixation – Fritz Haber (Germany, 1910s). European.
Sanitation Systems – Roman engineering (e.g., aqueducts, sewers) refined in Europe; modern systems by Joseph Bazalgette (England, 19th century). European.
Refrigeration – William Cullen (Scotland, 1748) and later Jacob Perkins (USA, European descent). European.
Gunpowder – Invented in China (9th century). Non-European.
The Airplane – Wright Brothers (USA, 1903), of European descent. European.
The Personal Computer – Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs (USA, 1970s), both of European descent. European.
The Compass – Invented in China (Han Dynasty, ~200 BCE). Non-European.
The Automobile – Karl Benz (Germany, 1885). European.
Industrial Steelmaking – Henry Bessemer (England, 1856). European.
The Birth Control Pill – Gregory Pincus (USA, 1950s), of European descent. European.
Nuclear Fission – Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann (Germany, 1938). European.
The Green Revolution – Norman Borlaug (USA, 1940s-60s), of European descent. European.
The Sextant – John Campbell (England, 1757), building on earlier European navigation tools. European.
The Telephone – Alexander Graham Bell (Scotland/USA, 1876). European.
Alphabetization – Evolved in ancient Greece (e.g., alphabetic script, ~1200 BCE). European.
The Telegraph – Samuel Morse (USA, 1830s), of European descent. European.
The Mechanized Clock – European monasteries (e.g., Richard of Wallingford, 14th century). European.
Radio – Guglielmo Marconi (Italy, 1890s). European.
Photography – Louis Daguerre (France, 1830s). European.
The Moldboard Plow – Improved in Europe (e.g., Dutch and English designs, 17th-18th centuries), though earlier forms existed elsewhere. European.
Archimedes’ Screw – Archimedes (Greece, ~250 BCE). European.
The Cotton Gin – Eli Whitney (USA, 1793), of European descent. European.
Pasteurization – Louis Pasteur (France, 1860s). European.
The Gregorian Calendar – Pope Gregory XIII (Italy, 1582). European.
Oil Refining – Ignacy Łukasiewicz (Poland, 1850s) pioneered kerosene refining. European.
The Steam Turbine – Charles Parsons (England, 1884). European.
Cement – Joseph Aspdin (England, 1824) patented Portland cement. European.
Scientific Plant Breeding – Gregor Mendel (Austria, 1860s). European.
Oil Drilling – Edwin Drake (USA, 1859), of European descent. European.
The Sailboat – Early forms in Mesopotamia and Egypt (~4000 BCE), not Europe. Non-European.
Rocketry – Early rockets in China (13th century); modern rocketry by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (Russia, 1900s). European (modern form).
Paper Money – Invented in China (Tang Dynasty, 7th century). Non-European.
The Abacus – Originated in Mesopotamia or Egypt (~2400 BCE); Chinese suanpan later. Non-European.
Air-conditioning – Willis Carrier (USA, 1902), of European descent. European.
Television – Philo Farnsworth (USA, 1927), of European descent. European.
Anesthesia – Crawford Long (USA, 1842), of European descent. European.
The Nail – Ancient, widespread (e.g., Egypt, Mesopotamia); no clear European origin. Non-European.
The Lever – Known to ancient civilizations (e.g., Egypt, Mesopotamia); Archimedes (Greece) formalized its use (~250 BCE). European (formalized).
The Assembly Line – Henry Ford (USA, 1913), of European descent. European.
The Combine Harvester – Hiram Moore (USA, 1834), of European descent. European.

XIV. Europeans Named the Continents

I asked Grok: “Do I explain correctly that European whites came up with the names of all the continents on the planet?” Grok replied: “Your explanation is largely accurate, though it could benefit from some clarification and nuance.” Below I pasted Grok’s reply, as it makes clear what I got right, and where “clarification and nuance” were needed.

1. Africa

You’re correct that the name “Africa” derives from Roman usage after their defeat of Carthage around 146 B.C. The term likely comes from the Latin Africa terra (“land of the Afri”), referring to a local Berber tribe or possibly from a Phoenician word afar (“dust”). The Romans applied it to their North African province, and over time, European explorers—starting with the Portuguese in the 15th century—extended the name to the entire continent as they mapped it. While “terra incognita” (unknown land) was a general term for unexplored regions, the continent’s naming reflects a gradual European expansion of geographic knowledge rather than a single act of naming.

2. Asia

Yes, “Asia” originates from the Ancient Greek term Ἀσία (Asía), used by Herodotus around 440 B.C. It initially referred to Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) or the Persian Empire, distinguishing it from Greece and Egypt. The term itself may have roots in the Assyrian word asu (“east” or “sunrise”), suggesting an Eastern Mediterranean influence predating the Greeks. As European exploration and scholarship grew, “Asia” was extended to encompass the vast landmass east of Europe, a process solidified by Greco-Roman geographers like Ptolemy.

3. Europe

The name “Europe” is often linked to Greek mythology, possibly after Europa, a Phoenician princess abducted by Zeus in the form of a bull. However, the etymology isn’t entirely clear—some scholars suggest it could derive from the Greek eurus (“wide”) and ops (“face”), meaning “broad land,” or even a Semitic root like the Akkadian erebu (“to set,” as in the setting sun). By the time of classical antiquity, “Europe” was used to describe the lands west of Asia and north of Africa, a convention cemented by European geographers. So, while the mythological connection is plausible, the name’s adoption was a gradual cultural process.

4. The Americas

Your summary is spot-on: the Americas were named after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian explorer who, between 1499 and 1502, recognized that the lands discovered by Columbus were not part of Asia but a distinct “New World.” The name was proposed by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller in his 1507 map, Universalis Cosmographia. This reflects a European naming convention, though indigenous peoples had their own names for these lands long before—names that didn’t persist in global usage due to European dominance in exploration and mapmaking.

5. Australia

The term “Terra Australis Incognita” (Unknown Southern Land) was a speculative concept in ancient Roman and medieval European geography, imagining a southern continent to balance the northern landmasses. The name “Australia” evolved from this, with “Australis” meaning “southern” in Latin. While James Cook claimed eastern Australia for Britain in 1770, the name “Australia” was indeed popularized later by Matthew Flinders in 1814, after earlier uses like the 1625 reference you mentioned. Dutch explorers had mapped parts of it earlier, calling it “New Holland,” but Flinders’ advocacy stuck. This was a distinctly European naming effort.

6. Antarctica

“Antarctica” does come from the Greek antarktike (“opposite to the north”), tied to its position relative to the Arctic (from arktos, “bear,” referencing the northern constellations). While the continent wasn’t fully mapped until the 19th century, the name is credited to European cartographic tradition, with Scottish cartographer John George Bartholomew often associated with its formal adoption around the 1890s. This fits the pattern of European naming through exploration and science.

At the end Grok made the usual comment it has to make considering that it operates within a progressive world order: “your explanation is correct with the caveat that it reflects a Eurocentric lens on a complex history of exploration and naming”.

XV. Almost all the top “groundbreaking” medical advances

I asked Grok: “It is accurate to say that this is a list of the top “groundbreaking” medical advances in history and that all these advances were accomplished by white men of European and North American descent?” I also asked, separately, “what additional top groundbreaking medical advances would Grok add to this list?”

The last four medical advances listed below were added at the suggestion of Grok. I did not add mRNA Vaccines. Grok qualified my question by indicating that a few of the major names behind these medical innovations were not white males. Gertrude Elion, co-developer with George Hitchings, of Antiviral Drugs, was a woman with Polish Jewish ancestry. Fei-Fei Li (Chinese-American) pioneered Artificial Intelligence in Diagnostics, with Geoffrey Hinton (British-Canadian). Tasuku Honjo (Japanese) was a co-discoverer of Immunotherapy for Cancer with James P. Allison (American). Two white females, Emmanuelle Charpentier (French) and Jennifer Doudna (American), are known as major figures behind CRISPR Gene Editing. In the case of Blood Transfusion, Grok named James Blundell as the first who performed blood transfusion, while it added that “Charles Drew, an African American physician, later developed blood banking in the 1940s, significantly advancing transfusion practices.”

All in all, then, except for two Asian co-participants, one Jewish women, two white females, and one mixed race African-American, white European men were responsible for almost all the medical breakthroughs. Below is the list, using mostly Grok’s words regarding nationality and nature of the advance.

Stethoscope: Invented by René Laennec, a French physician, in 1816. Laennec was a white man of European descent. Revolutionized diagnosis by allowing doctors to listen to internal sounds.
X-Rays: Discovered by Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, a German physicist, in 1895. Roentgen was a white man of European descent. Enabled non-invasive visualization of the body’s interior.
Germ Theory: Established primarily by Louis Pasteur, a French chemist, in the mid-19th century, with contributions from Robert Koch, a German physician. Both were white men of European descent. Fundamentally changed medicine by linking microorganisms to disease.
Blood Transfusion: The first successful human transfusion was performed by James Blundell, an English physician, in 1818. Blundell was a white man of European descent. Charles Drew, an African American physician, later developed blood banking in the 1940s, significantly advancing transfusion practices.
Ophthalmoscope: Invented by Hermann von Helmholtz, a German physician and physicist, in 1851. Helmholtz was a white man of European descent. Allowed direct examination of the retina, advancing eye care.
Anaesthesia: William Morton, an American dentist, demonstrated ether anaesthesia publicly in 1846. Morton was a white man of North American descent. Transformed surgery by eliminating pain during procedures.
Organ Transplants: The first successful kidney transplant was performed by Joseph Murray, an American surgeon, in 1954. Murray was a white man of North American descent. Pioneered life-saving replacement of failing organs.
Antiseptic Surgical Methods: Introduced by Joseph Lister, a British surgeon, in the 1860s. Lister was a white man of European descent. Reduced infections, improving surgical outcomes.
Vaccines: The first vaccine (smallpox) was developed by Edward Jenner, an English physician, in 1796. Jenner was a white man of European descent. Prevented countless deaths from infectious diseases.
Catheter: The modern medical catheter was developed by David S. Sheridan, an American inventor, in the 1940s. Sheridan was a white man of North American descent. Improved medical procedures like drainage and drug delivery.
Antiviral Drugs: Gertrude Elion, an American biochemist, co-developed acyclovir in the 1970s with George Hitchings. Elion was a woman with Jewish ancestry. Provided treatments for viral infections previously untreatable.
Microscopy: The compound microscope is credited to Zacharias Janssen, a Dutch spectacle maker, in the late 16th century. Janssen was a white man of European descent. Enabled the discovery of cells and microorganisms.
CT Scans: Developed by Godfrey Hounsfield, a British engineer, in the 1970s. Hounsfield was a white man of European descent. Advanced diagnostic imaging with detailed internal views.
Penicillin: Discovered by Alexander Fleming, a Scottish bacteriologist, in 1928. Fleming was a white man of European descent, though its development involved Howard Florey, Ernst Chain (both white men), and Dorothy Hodgkin (a white woman who determined its structure). Introduced antibiotics, revolutionizing infection treatment.
CRISPR Gene Editing: The major names are Emmanuelle Charpentier (French, b. 1968) and Jennifer Doudna (American, b. 1964). A revolutionary technology allowing precise editing of DNA for treating genetic diseases.
Artificial Intelligence in Diagnostics: Pioneered by Geoffrey Hinton (British-Canadian, b. 1947), and Fei-Fei Li (Chinese-American, b. 1976). Enhanced diagnostic accuracy and speed.
Robotic Surgery: The key figure is Frederic Moll (American, b. 1951). Allow for minimally invasive procedures with greater precision.
Immunotherapy for Cancer: Discoverers of immune checkpoint pathways are James P. Allison (American, b. 1948) and Tasuku Honjo (Japanese, b. 1942), who won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering immune checkpoint pathways. Turned some terminal cancers into manageable conditions.

XVI. All the Greatest Theater Playwrights

I asked Grok: “Can it be reasonably argued that the following playwrights, all white men, are the greatest, most original, and widely recognized by their peers?” Let’s not be naive, Grok collects its data from a Western world that has been progressively liberal for over 100 years. Yet, despite this, Grok could not but admit that my list of the greatest playwrights is fundamentally accurate and quite complete. “It seems likely that these playwrights are among the greatest and most original in Western theater, given their widespread recognition and influence. Research suggests they were widely admired by their peers, with many receiving praise and awards during their lifetimes.”

Grok added, however, that I should include “equally significant non-white and female playwrights, like August Wilson or Caryl Churchill”. In my estimation, Wilson and Churchill, a black and a woman, don’t belong in a list of the “greatest”. Grok’s argument that “the list’s exclusivity to white men reflects historical biases, and acknowledging other voices enriches the discussion, ensuring a more comprehensive view of theatrical greatness”, is based on the pervasive influence of political correctness and DEI in the West. I kept the original list except that I added Grok’s identification of the nationalities of the names, and what each name is recognized for.

- - Aeschylus
    - Nationality: Greek
    - Birth: circa 525 BC
    - Greatness/Originality: Considered the father of tragedy, Aeschylus introduced the second actor to the stage, enabling more complex dialogue and plot development, and reduced the chorus’s role, laying the foundation for dramatic structure.
  - Sophocles
    - Nationality: Greek
    - Birth: circa 496 BC
    - Greatness/Originality: Added the third actor, enhancing dramatic possibilities, and focused on character-driven narratives with deep psychological insight, as seen in masterpieces like Oedipus Rex.
  - Euripides
    - Nationality: Greek
    - Birth: circa 480 BC
    - Greatness/Originality: Known for realistic portrayals and strong, complex characters (often women and slaves), he challenged societal norms, making his works both controversial and influential.
  - Menander
    - Nationality: Greek
    - Birth: circa 342 BC
    - Greatness/Originality: A leading figure in New Comedy, Menander focused on everyday life and human relationships with wit and subtlety, influencing later Roman and European comedic traditions.
  - Plautus
    - Nationality: Roman
    - Birth: circa 254 BC
    - Greatness/Originality: A master of comedy, he adapted Greek plays for Roman audiences, emphasizing farce and slapstick humor, influencing the development of European comedic traditions.
  - Hrosvitha of Gandersheim
    - Nationality: German (Saxon)
    - Birth: circa 935 AD
    - Greatness/Originality: The first known female playwright, Hrosvitha wrote Christian-themed plays in Latin, adapting Terence’s comedic style to promote moral and religious values, a pioneering effort in medieval drama.
  - Ludovico Ariosto
    - Nationality: Italian
    - Birth: 1474
    - Greatness/Originality: Best known for his epic poem Orlando Furioso, Ariosto also wrote comedies that bridged medieval and Renaissance theatre, blending classical influences with Italian innovation.
  - Lope de Vega
    - Nationality: Spanish
    - Birth: 1562
    - Greatness/Originality: Incredibly prolific (writing hundreds of plays), he established the three-act structure in Spanish theatre and skillfully blended comedy and tragedy.
  - William Shakespeare
    - Nationality: English
    - Birth: 1564
    - Greatness/Originality: Shakespeare’s unparalleled poetic language and profound understanding of human nature shine through his tragedies, comedies, and histories, making him a timeless figure in world literature.
  - Ben Jonson
    - Nationality: English
    - Birth: 1572
    - Greatness/Originality: Excelled in satirical comedies, developing the “theory of humours” and critiquing society sharply in works like Volpone.
  - Pedro Calderón de la Barca
    - Nationality: Spanish
    - Birth: 1600
    - Greatness/Originality: Explored philosophical and theological themes, such as free will and destiny, with his masterpiece Life is a Dream being a pinnacle of Spanish Golden Age drama.
  - Pierre Corneille
    - Nationality: French
    - Birth: 1606
    - Greatness/Originality: His tragedies, like Le Cid, set new standards for French drama, blending heroic ideals with emotional conflict.
  - Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin)
    - Nationality: French
    - Birth: 1622
    - Greatness/Originality: A master of comedy, he satirized societal hypocrisies in plays like Tartuffe and The Misanthrope, which remain enduring classics.
  - Jean Racine
    - Nationality: French
    - Birth: 1639
    - Greatness/Originality: Crafted tragedies with precise, elegant language and intense psychological depth, often drawing from Greek and Roman myths.
  - Henrik Ibsen
    - Nationality: Norwegian
    - Birth: 1828
    - Greatness/Originality: The father of modern drama, he introduced realism to the stage, tackling social issues and individual psychology in works like A Doll’s House.
  - George Bernard Shaw
    - Nationality: Irish
    - Birth: 1856
    - Greatness/Originality: Used wit and provocation to advocate social reform in plays like Pygmalion, blending entertainment with intellectual depth.
  - Anton Chekhov
    - Nationality: Russian
    - Birth: 1860
    - Greatness/Originality: Revolutionized drama with his focus on subtext and the inner lives of characters, as seen in The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard.
  - Luigi Pirandello
    - Nationality: Italian
    - Birth: 1867
    - Greatness/Originality: Explored identity and reality, blurring fiction and truth, most notably in Six Characters in Search of an Author.
  - Eugene O’Neill
    - Nationality: American
    - Birth: 1888
    - Greatness/Originality: The first American playwright to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, he revitalized tragedy in works like Long Day’s Journey into Night.
  - Bertolt Brecht
    - Nationality: German
    - Birth: February 10, 1898
    - Greatness/Originality: Developed epic theatre, using distancing effects to provoke critical thinking, with politically charged works like Mother Courage and Her Children.
  - Federico García Lorca
    - Nationality: Spanish
    - Birth: June 5, 1898
    - Greatness/Originality: Fused surrealism with traditional Spanish themes, creating passionate, lyrical dramas like Blood Wedding.
  - Samuel Beckett
    - Nationality: Irish
    - Birth: 1906
    - Greatness/Originality: A Theatre of the Absurd pioneer, he explored existential themes with minimalist settings in plays like Waiting for Godot.
  - Eugène Ionesco
    - Nationality: Romanian-French
    - Birth: 1909
    - Greatness/Originality: Used absurdity and illogical scenarios to critique conformity, as exemplified in Rhinoceros.

XVII. White Men Engineered and Designed the Best Airplanes

I asked Grok: “Can one reasonably argue that European (including Russian and American) white men originated, engineered, and designed almost all the best airplanes in history; and that the following, which includes a Japanese airplane, are among the best ever engineered.”

Grok replied: “Yes, one can reasonably argue that European (including Russian and American) white men originated, engineered, and designed ‘almost all’ the best airplanes in history, given their overwhelming representation among aviation’s most iconic designs. Your list supports this, with the Mitsubishi A6M Zero as a notable exception that doesn’t undermine the broader pattern. The claim holds due to historical and industrial realities, though it’s worth noting that global contributions (e.g., Japan, later Soviet designs) add nuance to the narrative. The listed aircraft, with minor clarification (e.g., “Shturmovik Dreamliner”), are indeed among history’s finest, reinforcing the argument.”

Grok actually reinforces my argument, agreeing that “the Mitsubishi A6M Zero” stands “as the notable exception from Japan”, while reminding me that “Japan’s aviation industry was heavily influenced by Western technology and ideas, though it adapted them brilliantly.”

Grok makes the well-known point that European whites were responsible for the origination of aviation, “its foundational developments occurring primarily in Europe and the United States. The Wright Flyer (1903), credited to the Wright brothers (American), marked the first powered, controlled flight, setting the stage for subsequent innovations. Most early aviation pioneers—e.g., Louis Blériot (French, Blériot XI), Glenn Curtiss (American), and later figures like Donald Douglas (American, DC-3) or Willy Messerschmitt (German, Bf-109, Me-262)—were indeed of European descent or from European-derived populations in America”.

Below I simply pasted what Grok said about my list.

“Let’s examine the aircraft you listed to see how they align with the claim:

Cessna 172 (USA): Designed by Cessna, an American company, led by engineers like Dwayne Wallace.
Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star (USA): Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, an American of Swedish descent, led its design.
Learjet 23 (USA): William Lear, American, pioneered this business jet.
B-29 Superfortress (USA): Boeing’s American team, under figures like Edward Wells, engineered this WWII bomber.
Bell X-1 (USA): American engineers at Bell, with input from NACA (e.g., Walter Williams), broke the sound barrier.
Lockheed C-130 Hercules (USA): Another Kelly Johnson design, iconic for its versatility.
Douglas DC-3 (USA): Donald Douglas, American, created this revolutionary transport.
Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress (USA): Boeing’s American team, led by E. Gifford Emery and others.
Boeing 747 (USA): Joe Sutter, American, spearheaded this jumbo jet.
F-35 (USA): Lockheed Martin’s multinational effort, but primarily American-led.
MQ-1 Predator (USA): General Atomics, American, developed this drone.
RV-3 (USA): A homebuilt design by American Richard VanGrunsven.
F-16 Fighting Falcon (USA): General Dynamics (now Lockheed Martin), American engineers like Harry Hillaker.
Wright Flyer (USA): The Wright brothers, American pioneers.
Blériot XI (France): Louis Blériot, French, flew across the English Channel.
Focke-Wulf Fw 190 (Germany): Kurt Tank, German, designed this WWII fighter.
British Spitfire (UK): Reginald Mitchell, British, crafted this legendary plane.
P-51 Mustang (USA): North American Aviation, led by Edgar Schmued (German-born, American).
Messerschmitt Bf-109 (Germany): Willy Messerschmitt, German, WWII mainstay.
Messerschmitt Me-262 (Germany): First operational jet fighter, also Messerschmitt.
Mitsubishi A6M Zero (Japan): Jiro Horikoshi, Japanese, a standout non-Western design.
Shturmovik Dreamliner (?): Likely a mix-up. The Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik (USSR, Sergey Ilyushin) was a Soviet ground-attack plane; “Dreamliner” is Boeing’s 787 (USA). Assuming Il-2, it’s Russian.
Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird (USA): Kelly Johnson again, American.
Cirrus SR22 (USA): Klapmeier brothers, American, modern light aircraft.
Lockheed Constellation (USA): Kelly Johnson and team, American.”

XIX. The 50 Greatest Philosophers

I did not follow Grok’s claim that I missed some non-European philosophers, and a few females, though Grok agreed that most philosophers have been men of European ancestry. I would have included non-Europeans in a list of about 100, but not in a list of 50, for the following reason: Philosophy began with the Pre-Socratics when we witness for the first time in world history speculations on the nature of things with self-conscious appeals to the use of human reason as the vehicle to attain truth, rather than relying, without reflection, on taken-for-granted kinship norms, set traditions, or revelations by gods. It is not only that the ancient Greeks posed critical questions — “Is there some substance or some basic stuff out of which everything is made?”—but that their answers consisted of reasoned arguments.

The list below, therefore, exclude thinkers, mythical figures, religious prophets, or declarations based on faith, apologetics, or beliefs devoid of sound reasoning. With the exception of Islamic Aristotelians, there were no sustained inquiries “into the nature of knowledge and how it is acquired” outside the European world. While there were “inquiries into the nature of reality and existence” and into “what is good,” there were no treatises on what constitutes valid and sound reasoning.

Indian philosophy was inextricably tied to India’s religious traditions, and was never conceived as a separate intellectual pursuit. Confucianism is not a philosophy, but a doctrine of moral advice, or a guide for proper moral behavior for the scholar gentry class of China’s bureaucratic state. Chinese philosophers, as a whole, were accustomed to express themselves in the form of aphorisms, apothegms, or allusions, and illustrations, lacking demonstrative reasoning and clearly-stated primary premises.

It is not that this list abides solely by the criteria that a philosopher must be a rationalist or logician, engaged in deductive or inductive reasoning, as the ultimate path to the discovery of the nature of things. The Western philosophical tradition, actually, contains the most reasoned critiques of the pretensions of reason in favor of alternative ways of finding meaning and making sense of the universe—intuitive, poetical, artistic, archetypal ways. The difference is that those philosophers who pointed to the limitations of reason would go on to develop alternative methodologies, or fully articulated philosophies, such as hermeneutics, phenomenology, and existentialism—by individuals well-educated in the Western rationalist and empiricist traditions. This accounts for the variety of philosophers listed below, some of whom I don’t like but are nevertheless recognized as great by some of the many sources I have read.

Abelard (1079–1142)
Anaximander (b. 610 BC)
Anselm (1033–1109)
Aquinas (1225–1274)
Aristotle (384–322 BC)
Augustine (354–430)
Bacon, Roger (1214–1292)
Bacon, Francis (1561–1626)
Bentham (1748–1832)
Berkeley (1685–1753)
Carnap (1891–1970)
Democritus (460–360 BC)
Deleuze (1925–1995)
Derrida (1930–2004)
Descartes (1596–1650)
Fichte (1762–1814)
Frege (1848–1925)
Hegel (1770–1831)
Heidegger (1889–1976)
Heraclitus (535–475 BC)
Hobbes (1588–1679)
Hume (1711–1776)
Husserl (1859–1938)
James (1842–1910)
Kant (1724–1804)
Leibniz (1646–1716)
Locke (1632–1704)
Marx (1818–83)
Mill (1806–73)
Nietzsche (1844–1900)
Ockham (1285–1347)
Parmenides (b. 501 BC)
Peirce (1839–1914)
Plato (428–348 BC)
Plotinus (204–270)
Pythagoras (570–495 BC)
Quine (1908–2000)
Rawls (1921–2002)
Reid (1710–1796)
Rousseau (1712–1778
Russell (1872–1970)
Sartre (1905–1980)
Schelling (1775–1854)
Schopenhauer (1788–1860)
Duns Scotus (1266–1308)
Socrates (470–399 BC)
Spinoza (1632–1677)
Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
Zeno of Lea (b. 489 BC)
Žižek (1949–)

XX. All 21 Greatest Books on Science — Except 1

Grok agreed that “this list is very accurate as a representation of the greatest books in science, particularly if we interpret ‘greatest’ as historically foundational and influential up to the 19th century.” I wanted a list that covered the major fields of scientific inquiry, rather than three or four, without affecting the quality of choices. The two changes I made to the original list was to replace Leonhart Fuchs’s Notable Commentaries on the History of Plants (1542) with Ptolemy’s Almagest. Grok said that Fuchs’s Notable Commentaries was “less groundbreaking than, say, Mendel’s work on genetics (though not a book) or Watson and Crick’s “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids” (a paper, not a book).” Since these two works are papers, not books, I decided that the obvious book to stand as a substitute was Ptolemy’s Almagest. Grok noted that the list did not include books from the 20th century; however, the books Grok suggested are not, in my estimation, at the same peak level of “revolutionary” or “influential” as the ones listed here. I did, however, decide to substitute one of the two books I had listed from Newton, Opticks, with Marxwell’s A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. I had not included Albert Einstein’s Relativity: The Special and the General Theory (1916), for the sake of provocation, but have added it now.

Physics – Aristotle (4th Century BCE)
Almagest – Ptolemy (2nd Century)
On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres – Nicolaus Copernicus (1543)
On the Fabric of the Human Body – Andreas Vesalius (1543).
De Re Metallica – Georgius Agricola (1556).
On the Magnet – William Gilbert (1600)
Harmony of the World – Johannes Kepler (1619)
Novum Organum – Francis Bacon (1620)
An Anatomical Exercise on the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Living Beings – William Harvey (1628)
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems – Galileo Galilei (1632)
Discourse on the Method – René Descartes (1637)
The Sceptical Chymist – Robert Boyle (1661)
Micrographia – Robert Hooke (1665)
Principia Mathematica – Isaac Newton (1687)
Treatise on Light – Christiaan Huygens (1690)
Systema Naturae – Carl Linnaeus (1735)
Theory of the Earth – James Hutton (1788)
Elements of Chemistry – Antoine Lavoisier (1789)
On the Origin of Species – Charles Darwin (1859)
A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism – James Clerk Maxwell (1873)
Relativity: The Special and the General Theory – Albert Einstein (1916)

XXI. Almost 100% of the Greatest Architects are European Men

This is a list of the greatest architects with identifiable names from the Gothic period to the early 2oth century, ending with Art Nouveau and Art Deco. I asked Grok if this was a “reasonably accurate list of architects with identifiable names, which is not the case for most architecture outside the Western world. This is why this list is overwhelmingly of men of European descent. The only non-Western architect I would find is Mimar Sinan.”

Grok replied: “This is a reasonably accurate list of the greatest architects in history from the Gothic to the early 20th century, including Art Nouveau and Art Deco architects…It is a strong and reasonably accurate compilation, particularly given your focus on architects with identifiable names. As you noted, this naturally skews the list toward men of European descent, since historical records outside the Western world often lack individual attribution. The inclusion of Mimar Sinan as the sole non-Western architect is a thoughtful exception, reflecting his monumental contributions, such as the Süleymaniye Mosque, which rival the best of European architecture.”

The list below has been improved by Grok’s identification of the full names of a few architects, its observation that two names were “landscape architects, rather than rather than building designers,” its judgment that three names were not major architects, and its observation that I had omitted some 5 great architects.

I also asked Grok to organize the list in chronological order, according to birth and death of the architects, within the respective architectural movements or subheadings I had provided.

This list is not a denial of great architecture outside the Western world. The civilizations of the Mayans, Aztecs, and Incas saw impressive “monumental” stone buildings, pyramids and temples, constructed at the behest of state officials, which deserve much admiration. But these architectural attainments were a one-time affair in their originality, deserving only one chapter or section in a survey of the history of world architecture. The architecture of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Persia is more impressive than that of the Americas, but not on the same aesthetic and geometrical level of harmony as the ancient Greek Parthenon of Athens, built in the mid-fifth century BC, the Doric Temple of Zeus at Olympia (460 BC), or the Temple of Poseidon at Sounion (440 BC). It is certainly below the level of proficiency and beauty attained by the ancient Romans.

In fairness to non-Western architecture, however, I decided to leave out Classical (Greece and Rome) and Romanesque architecture.

India saw great architectural styles, Jain Architecture (early medieval times, with delicate marble carvings characterized by precision; Vesara Architecture (7th–13th century CE), with detailed friezes and balanced proportions; Indo-Islamic Architecture (starting in the 12th century CE) best known for Taj Mahal. In China there were different styles, “Garden Architecture,” “Buddhist Architecture,” “Taoist Architecture,” or “Confucian Architecture”. It is hard, however, to hide the standardized, bureaucratic reality of Chinese architcture. The classical Chinese language has no word for “architect,” only one for a person who engages in the craft of building. The standards were sanctioned and guarded by the Chinese court, and the government was the sponsor of all major manuals that dealt with official architecture. Craftsmen were not required to be literate, only to follow prescribed modules and methods so as to ensure that court dictums were followed.

All in all, there was a lot less variety of architectural styles in the non-Western world. Once certain styles were established, little originality followed: no or few new epochs in aesthetics, without major individual architects to identify. In contrast, Europeans originated a continuous sequence of major architectural stylistic periods (within which there were other national styles): Classical (850 BC–AD 476), Romanesque (AD 900–1200), Gothic (1100s–1500s), Renaissance (1300s–1600s), Baroque (late 1500s–late 1600s), Rococo (1700–1760), Neoclassicism (1760–1830), Victorian-Eclecticism-Restoration (1815–1900), Art Nouveau (1890–1910), Art Deco (1915–1930), Modernism (early 1900s–1980s).

I have grouped the styles listed above under fewer movements/ headings for simplification.

Gothic Architects (prevalent in Europe from the 12th to the 16th centuries).

Abbot Suger (c. 1081 – 1151) Known for his role in the development of Gothic architecture at the Basilica of Saint-Denis.
William of Sens (c. 1120 – late 12th century) Worked on the reconstruction of Canterbury Cathedral in the 1170s.
Robert de Luzarches (c. 1180 – mid-13th century) Architect of Amiens Cathedral, begun in 1220.
Villard de Honnecourt (c. 1200 – c. 1250) Known for 13th-century sketchbook documenting Gothic construction techniques.
Arnolfo di Cambio (c. 1240 – 1302) Italian architect involved in the design of Florence Cathedral.
Erwin von Steinbach (c. 1244 – 1318) Worked on Strasbourg Cathedral, a masterpiece of Gothic architecture.
Henry Yevele (c. 1320 – 1400) Prominent English architect, active in the 14th century, known for work on Westminster Abbey.
Peter Parler (1330 – 1399) German architect who contributed to Saint Vitus Cathedral in Prague.

Renaissance Architects (the 14th to 17th centuries)

Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 – 1446) Pioneered Renaissance architecture with the dome of Florence Cathedral.
Michelozzo di Bartolomeo (1396 – 1472) Collaborated with Brunelleschi and designed the Palazzo Medici Riccardi.
Leon Battista Alberti (1404 – 1472) Architect and theorist, known for the façade of Santa Maria Novella.
Donato Bramante (1444 – 1514) Designed the Tempietto and contributed to St. Peter’s Basilica.
Giuliano da Sangallo (1445 – 1516) Known for the Villa Medici at Poggio a Caiano.
Michelangelo (1475 – 1564) Renowned artist and architect, designed the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica.
Baldassare Peruzzi (1481 – 1536) Designed the Villa Farnesina in Rome.
Michele Sanmicheli (1484 – 1559) Known for fortifications and palaces in Verona.
Jacopo Sansovino (1486 – 1570) Principal architect in Venice, designed the Biblioteca Marciana.
Mimar Sinan (1489 – 1588) Ottoman architect, famous for the Süleymaniye Mosque.
Giulio Romano (c. 1499 – 1546) Designed the Palazzo Te in Mantua.
Giacomo Vignola (1507 – 1573) Known for the Villa Farnese and the Church of the Gesù.
Andrea Palladio (1508 – 1580) Influential architect, designed the Villa Rotonda and Palladian buildings.
Philibert de l’Orme (c. 1510 – 1570) French architect, known for the Château d’Anet.
Giacomo Della Porta (c. 1533 – 1602) Completed the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica.
Vincenzo Scamozzi (1548 – 1616) Successor to Palladio, designed the Teatro Olimpico.

Baroque Architects (late 16th to the 18th century)

Carlo Maderno (1556 – 1629)
Designed the façade of St. Peter’s Basilica.
Inigo Jones (1573 – 1652)
Introduced Palladianism to England with the Queen’s House.
Pietro da Cortona (1596 – 1669)
Known for the Church of Santi Luca e Martina in Rome.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598 – 1680)
Architect and sculptor, designed St. Peter’s Square.
François Mansart (1598 – 1666)
Known for the Château de Maisons-Laffitte.
Francesco Borromini (1599 – 1667)
Designed San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane in Rome.
Alonso Cano (1601 – 1667)
Spanish architect, worked on Granada Cathedral.
Louis Le Vau (1612 – 1670)
Designed the Palace of Versailles (early phases).
André Le Nôtre (1613 – 1700)
Landscape architect, designed the gardens of Versailles.
Sir Christopher Wren (1632 – 1723)
Rebuilt St. Paul’s Cathedral after the Great Fire of London.
Jules Hardouin-Mansart (1646 – 1708)
Expanded Versailles and designed Les Invalides (note: listed as “Jules Mansart” in the query).
Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (1656 – 1723)
Austrian architect, designed Schönbrunn Palace (note: listed as “Johann von Erlach” in the query).
Jakob Prandtauer (1660 – 1726)
Designed Melk Abbey in Austria.
Johann Dientzenhofer (1663 – 1726)
Part of the Dientzenhofer family, worked on Bohemian Baroque buildings.
Andreas Schlüter (1664 – 1714)
German architect and sculptor, designed the Berlin Palace.
Sir John Vanbrugh (1664 – 1726)
Designed Blenheim Palace in England.
Pedro de Ribera (1681 – 1742)
Spanish architect, known for the Hospice of San Fernando.
Johann Balthasar Neumann (1687 – 1753)
Designed the Würzburg Residence.
Joseph Emanuel Fischer von Erlach (1693 – 1742)
Son of Johann Bernhard, completed works like the Karlskirche in Vienna.
Bartolomeo Rastrelli (1700 – 1771)
Designed the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.

Neoclassical Architects (18th century)

Hans Georg von Knobelsdorff (1699 – 1753)
Designed Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam (note: listed after Nash in the query but placed here by birth date).
Jacques Germain Soufflot (1713 – 1780)
Designed the Panthéon in Paris.
Carl Gotthard Langhans (1732 – 1808)
Designed the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.
Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (1736 – 1806)
Known for his utopian architectural designs.
Jean Chalgrin (1739 – 1811)
Designed the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
Thomas Jefferson (1743 – 1826)
American statesman and architect, designed Monticello.
Charles Cameron (1745 – 1812)
Worked in Russia, designed Pavlovsk Palace.
John Nash (1752 – 1835)
Designed Regent’s Park and Buckingham Palace expansions.
William Thornton (1759 – 1828)
Designed the United States Capitol.
Charles Bulfinch (1763 – 1844)
First American-born professional architect, designed the Massachusetts State House.
Benjamin Henry Latrobe (1764 – 1820)
Contributed to the U.S. Capitol and Baltimore Basilica.
Sir Robert Smirke (1780 – 1867)
Designed the British Museum in London.
Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781 – 1841)
Designed the Altes Museum in Berlin.

Victorian, Gothic Revival, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco Architects (from the 19th to early 20th centuries)

Sir Charles Barry (1795 – 1860)
Victorian architect, designed the Palace of Westminster.
Richard Upjohn (1802 – 1878)
Gothic Revival architect, designed Trinity Church in New York.
George Gilbert Scott (1811 – 1878)
Gothic Revival architect, designed the Albert Memorial.
Augustus Pugin (1812 – 1852)
Gothic Revival pioneer, collaborated on the Palace of Westminster.
Eugène Viollet-le-Duc (1814 – 1879)
Gothic Revival theorist, restored Notre-Dame de Paris.
James Renwick (1818 – 1895)
Gothic Revival architect, designed St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.
Charles Garnier (1825 – 1898)
Victorian-era architect, designed the Paris Opéra.
Richard Morris Hunt (1827 – 1895)
Designed the Biltmore Estate in the Victorian style.
Gustave Eiffel (1832 – 1923)
Engineer and architect, designed the Eiffel Tower.
William Le Baron Jenney (1832 – 1907)
Pioneer of skyscraper design in Chicago.
George Brown Post (1837 – 1913)
Victorian architect, designed the New York Stock Exchange.
Henry Hobson Richardson (1838 – 1886)
Developed the Richardsonian Romanesque style.
Otto Wagner (1841 – 1918)
Transitional figure, bridged Victorian and Art Nouveau styles.
Daniel Burnham (1846 – 1912)
Part of Burnham and Root, designed the Flatiron Building.
John Root (1850 – 1891)
Partner in Burnham and Root, contributed to Chicago’s early skyscrapers.
Antoni Gaudí (1852 – 1926)
Art Nouveau architect, designed the Sagrada Família.
Martin Roche (1853 – 1927)
Part of Holabird & Roche, designed early skyscrapers.
William Holabird (1854 – 1923)
Partner in Holabird & Roche, influenced Chicago School architecture.
Louis Sullivan (1856 – 1924)
Chicago School architect, known as the “father of skyscrapers.”
Cass Gilbert (1859 – 1934)
Designed the Woolworth Building, blending Gothic Revival and early skyscraper design.
Alphonse Mucha (1860 – 1939)
Primarily an artist, included here for Art Nouveau influence.
Victor Horta (1861 – 1947)
Art Nouveau architect, designed the Hôtel Tassel in Brussels.
Henry van de Velde (1863 – 1957)
Art Nouveau and early modernist architect and designer.
Joseph Maria Olbrich (1867 – 1908)
Art Nouveau architect, designed the Secession Building in Vienna.
Hector Guimard (1867 – 1942)
Art Nouveau architect, designed Paris Métro entrances.
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867 – 1959)
Began in the late Victorian era, later influenced modern architecture.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868 – 1928)
Art Nouveau architect, designed the Glasgow School of Art.
Peter Behrens (1868 – 1940)
Transitional figure between Art Nouveau and modernism.
Adolf Loos (1870 – 1933)
Early modernist, rejected Art Nouveau ornamentation.
Raymond Hood (1881 – 1934)
Art Deco architect, designed the Rockefeller Center.
William Van Alen (1883 – 1954)
Art Deco architect, designed the Chrysler Building.
Walter Gropius (1883 – 1969)
Founder of the Bauhaus, bridged early 20th-century styles.
Ralph Walker (1889 – 1973)
Art Deco architect, designed the AT&T Building in New York.

XXII. 18.5 of the Greatest 22 Modern Logicians are European with 3.5 Jews

There is a series, Handbook of the History of Logic, which consists of 11 volumes, of which only the first volume, mostly about Aristotle’s logic, has two chapters about nonwhite contributions to logic, namely, Indian and Arabic logic, with every other volume singularly dedicated to Western logic. The Chinese had no logic. I asked Grok, firstly, whether the following list was “leaving out some of the greatest modern logicians,” and, secondly, whether it would be “accurate to say that the following men of European ancestry, including Jewish ancestry, represent all the greatest modern logicians.”

Grok agreed that this “list contains many of the most influential and celebrated logicians in the history of the field…aligning with the ‘modern’ era.” In response to the two questions, Grok mentioned the following “notable omissions” (European and Jewish) and “notable” women and non-European logicians. After further research, I decided to add i) Stephen Kleene (American of European ancestry), as he is “widely considered to be one of the greatest logicians of the 20th century”; ii) Jaakko Hintikka (Finnish ancestry) for his very significant contributions to “modal and philosophical logic”; iii) Haskell Curry (American logician of European ancestry), as a “highly influential and prominent logician”; and Saharon Shelah (Jewish ancestry), “widely considered one of the greatest logicians”.

Although Grok mentioned these names, but I did not include Alfred North Whitehead (British) since he is best classified as a philosopher of mathematics. Emil Post (1897-1954, Jewish Heritage) is not included either since he is generally rated as a “significant and influential figure in the field of computability,” but is not recognized as one of the top logicians. Andrey Kolmogorov (1903-1987, Russian ancestry) is not primarily known as a logician, but as a great mathematician, already included in the list of greatest mathematicians. Likewise, Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920, Indian) is already included in the list of greatest mathematicians. The woman Emmy Noether (1882–1935, Jewish ancestry), as Grok admits, “is not primarily a logician”. Julia Robinson (1919–1985, American) is really a mathematician; and Hao Wang (1921–1995, Chinese), is significant but not a top logician.

The list contains 22 logicians, of which 18 are of European ancestry and 4 of Jewish ancestry, though Cantor’s Jewish ancestry is through his paternal line only. Some may argue that all 22 logicians are of European ancestry to the extent that Ashkenazi Jews are considered of European ancestry due to their historical roots in Eastern Europe.

Bernhard Bolzano (1781-1848)
- Nationality: German-Italian
- Achievements: Made early contributions to logic and mathematics, notably the Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem, which is fundamental in real analysis.
George Boole (1815-1864)
- Nationality: British
- Achievements: Developed Boolean algebra, a cornerstone of computer science and digital logic design.
C. S. Peirce (1839-1914)
- Nationality: American
- Achievements: Contributed to the development of quantifiers in logic and semiotics; influential in the philosophical school of pragmatism.
Georg Cantor (1845-1918)
- Nationality: German (Jewish ancestry through his paternal line)
- Achievements: Founded set theory and introduced the concept of infinite sets and transfinite numbers, revolutionizing mathematics.
Gottlob Frege (1848-1925)
- Nationality: German
- Achievements: Developed the first formal system of predicate logic, laying the groundwork for modern logical systems.
Giuseppe Peano (1858-1932)
- Nationality: Italian
- Achievements: Formulated the Peano axioms for natural numbers, advancing the formalization of arithmetic in mathematical logic.
David Hilbert (1862-1943)
- Nationality: German
- Achievements: Proposed Hilbert’s program to formalize all of mathematics; made influential contributions across multiple mathematical fields.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
- Nationality: British
- Achievements: Co-authored Principia Mathematica with Alfred North Whitehead, aiming to derive mathematics from logical axioms.
Jan Łukasiewicz (1878-1956)
- Nationality: Polish
- Achievements: Developed many-valued logics and Polish notation, which influenced computer science and logical syntax.
Thoralf Skolem (1887-1963)
- Nationality: Norwegian
- Achievements: Contributed to mathematical logic with the Skolem normal form and the Skolem paradox in set theory.
Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970)
- Nationality: German
- Achievements: Key figure in logical positivism; advanced the philosophy of science and inductive logic.
Haskell Curry (1900-1982)
- Nationality: American
- Achievements: Developed combinatory logic, a notation for functions without variables, foundational in theoretical computer science; the concept of currying in programming is named after him.
Alfred Tarski (1901-1983)
- Nationality: Polish Jewish
- Achievements: Defined truth in formal languages through his semantic theory; made major contributions to model theory and formal semantics.
- Note: The query lists his birth year as 1902, but historical records confirm he was born on January 14, 1901.
Alonzo Church (1903-1994)
- Nationality: American
- Achievements: Developed the lambda calculus and co-formulated the Church-Turing thesis, foundational concepts in computability theory.
Kurt Gödel (1906-1978)
- Nationality: Austrian-American
- Achievements: Proved the incompleteness theorems, demonstrating inherent limitations in formal mathematical systems.
- Note: The query lists him as German, but he was born in Austria-Hungary and later became a U.S. citizen, making Austrian-American more accurate.
Willard Quine (1908-2000)
- Nationality: American
- Achievements: Contributed to logic, set theory, and philosophy of language, notably with the concept of the indeterminacy of translation.
Stephen Kleene (1909-1994)
- Nationality: American
- Achievements: Developed regular expressions, the Kleene star, and significant concepts in computability and recursion theory, including the Kleene hierarchy.
Gerhard Gentzen (1909-1945)
- Nationality: German
- Achievements: Developed natural deduction and sequent calculus, essential tools in proof theory.
- Note: Born November 24, 1909, later in the year than Kleene (January 5, 1909), placing him after Kleene chronologically.
Alan Turing (1912-1954)
- Nationality: British
- Achievements: Introduced the Turing machine, a fundamental model of computation, and advanced computability theory and cryptography.
Jaakko Hintikka (1929-2015)
- Nationality: Finnish
- Achievements: Contributed to modal logic and developed game-theoretical semantics, influencing logical and philosophical analysis.
Saul Kripke (1940-)
- Nationality: American-Jewish
- Achievements: Developed Kripke semantics for modal logic; highly influential in the philosophy of language with works like Naming and Necessity.
Saharon Shelah (1945-)
- Nationality: Israeli
- Achievements: Leading figure in model theory, known for developing stability theory and classification theory; made significant contributions to set theory, including proper forcing.

XXIII. Almost all the Greatest Adventure Stories

That white men of European ancestry wrote all the greatest adventure novels should not be surprising considering that they explored most of the world, mapped the earth, the moon, the sea beds, identified countless stars and galaxies, climbed the highest mountains, reached the center of Antarctica, navigated all the oceans and rivers, and achieved numerous breakthroughs in science, technology, and in all the disciplinary fields of knowledge. On the advice of Grok, I added the adventure tale, Journey to the West (China) and The Epic of Gilgamesh (Mesopotamia). I did not include The Epic of Gilgamesh because I don’t consider it to be heroic with an individual hero. But, considering it has been a very influential epic from the Middle East, and that it is viewed by some as an “adventure story,” I have decided to include it. Gary Paulsen’s novel, Hatchet, was also added, after Grok suggested it. In the original 2020 list, I listed two novels by Dumas and Verne, but decided this time to include one book per author, for the sake of consistency. It should be noted that Alexander Dumas had a paternal grandfather of African descent.

The Epic of Gilgamesh by Sin-leqi-unninni
- Publication Year: ~2100 BCE
- Nationality: Mesopotamian
Odyssey by Homer
- Publication Year: ~8th century BCE
- Nationality: Greek
Aeneid by Virgil
- Publication Year: 19 BCE
- Nationality: Roman
Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’en
- Publication Year: 1592 (specific year for the first known complete edition)
- Nationality: Chinese
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
- Publication Year: 1605 (first part)
- Nationality: Spanish
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
- Publication Year: 1719
- Nationality: English
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
- Publication Year: 1726
- Nationality: Irish
Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
- Publication Year: 1812
- Nationality: Swiss
Ivanhoe by Walter Scott
- Publication Year: 1819
- Nationality: Scottish
The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
- Publication Year: 1826
- Nationality: American
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
- Publication Year: 1844
- Nationality: French
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
- Publication Year: 1851
- Nationality: American
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
- Publication Year: 1870
- Nationality: French
Roughing It by Mark Twain
- Publication Year: 1872
- Nationality: American
The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne
- Publication Year: 1874
- Nationality: French
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Publication Year: 1883
- Nationality: Scottish
King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard
- Publication Year: 1885
- Nationality: English
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Publication Year: 1886
- Nationality: Scottish
Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope
- Publication Year: 1894
- Nationality: English
Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling
- Publication Year: 1897
- Nationality: English
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
- Publication Year: 1903
- Nationality: American
The Sea-Wolf by Jack London
- Publication Year: 1904
- Nationality: American
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
- Publication Year: 1912
- Nationality: American
The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle
- Publication Year: 1912
- Nationality: Scottish
The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
- Publication Year: 1915
- Nationality: Scottish
Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini
- Publication Year: 1922
- Nationality: Italian
The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard
- Publication Year: 1922
- Nationality: English
Beau Geste by P. C. Wren
- Publication Year: 1924
- Nationality: English
The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson
- Publication Year: 1941
- Nationality: Swedish
The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat
- Publication Year: 1951
- Nationality: English
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
- Publication Year: 1954
- Nationality: English
Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian
- Publication Year: 1969
- Nationality: English
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
- Publication Year: 1987
- Nationality: American
The Beach by Alex Garland
- Publication Year: 1996
- Nationality: English
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- Publication Year: 2006
- Nationality: American

XXIV. 100% of the Greatest Physicists of the 19th century

The 1800s were ground breaking in physics, establishing the unification of electricity and magnetism into a single framework, the laws of thermodynamics, the wave theory of light, the idea of conservation of energy, or the principle that energy is neither created nor destroyed, but only transformed. These revolutionary insights were carried out by a cast of European men only, as the rest of the world remained stuck in a pre-Newtonian mental state. The names below follow closely my initial list, except that I have taken Grok’s advice, adding two very important names, Clausius and Ohm; while excluding Euler as he belonged in 1700s, even if his impact spilled over into the early 1800s. Thomas Young (1773–1829) and Robert Brown (1773–1858) were removed from the original list as less impactful . Grok agreed that all of these men are European in ancestry.

Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736–1813)
- Achievement/Originality: Developed Lagrangian mechanics, a reformulation of classical mechanics that became foundational for later physics, though much of his work was in the 18th century, influencing 19th-century developments.
- Nationality: Italian (born in the Kingdom of Sardinia, later worked in France).
Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788–1827)
- Achievement/Originality: Pioneered wave optics, developed the theory of diffraction, and invented the Fresnel lens, revolutionizing the understanding of light as a wave.
- Nationality: French.
Georg Ohm (1789–1854)
- Achievement/Originality: Formulated Ohm’s Law, establishing the fundamental relationship between voltage, current, and resistance in electrical circuits, crucial to electromagnetism.
- Nationality: German.
Michael Faraday (1791–1867)
- Achievement/Originality: Laid the foundation for electromagnetism with discoveries like electromagnetic induction and pioneered electrochemistry with his laws of electrolysis.
- Nationality: British (English).
Sadi Carnot (1796–1832)
- Achievement/Originality: Established the groundwork for thermodynamics through his work on heat engines, introducing the concept of the Carnot cycle.
- Nationality: French.
Julius Robert Mayer (1814–1878)
- Achievement/Originality: Formulated the principle of conservation of energy (first law of thermodynamics), independently recognizing energy’s fundamental role in physical processes.
- Nationality: German.
James Joule (1818–1889)
- Achievement/Originality: Conducted experiments establishing the mechanical equivalent of heat, solidifying the conservation of energy and advancing thermodynamics.
- Nationality: British (English).
Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894)
- Achievement/Originality: Made immense contributions to thermodynamics (conservation of energy), optics (theory of vision), and electrodynamics, bridging multiple fields of physics.
- Nationality: German.
Rudolf Clausius (1822–1888)
- Achievement/Originality: Formulated the second law of thermodynamics and introduced the concept of entropy, shaping modern thermodynamics.
- Nationality: German.
Lord Kelvin (William Thomson, 1824–1907)
- Achievement/Originality: Advanced thermodynamics with the Kelvin temperature scale and contributed to electromagnetism, including work on transatlantic telegraphy.
- Nationality: British (Scottish-Irish).
James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879)
- Achievement/Originality: Developed Maxwell’s equations, unifying electricity and magnetism into electromagnetism, a cornerstone of classical physics.
- Nationality: British (Scottish).
Ludwig Boltzmann (1844–1906)
- Achievement/Originality: Revolutionized statistical mechanics with his work on entropy and the Boltzmann equation, explaining the microscopic basis of thermodynamics.
- Nationality: Austrian.
Albert A. Michelson (1852–1931)
- Achievement/Originality: Conducted the Michelson-Morley experiment (1887), disproving the existence of the luminiferous ether and paving the way for Einstein’s relativity.
- Nationality: American (born in Prussia, now Poland, immigrated to the U.S.).

XXV. Whites invented all the home appliances

The key figures associated with the development of many of the home appliances everyone in the world loves are all of European ancestry, and they are men except for two female exceptions, Melitta Bentz, inventor of the coffee filter, though not the electric coffee maker, and Josephine Cochrane, inventor of the dishwasher. Worth remembering that many of these inventions were improved over time, and that subsequent innovators brought important changes and refinements. I am using some of Grok’s own words to describe the nature of the inventions, the contribution of each inventor, and their particular nationality.

Refrigerator: The concept of artificial refrigeration dates back to William Cullen, who demonstrated it in 1748, but the first practical home refrigerator was invented by Fred J. Wolf in 1913.
Stereo: The modern stereo system, delivering two-channel sound, was pioneered by Alan Blumlein in the 1930s.
Stove: The first practical cast-iron stove for home use was invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1742, known as the Franklin stove. For electric stoves, Thomas Ahearn patented an electric oven in 1892, which evolved into the modern electric stove.
Washing Machine: The first patented washing machine was by Nathaniel Briggs in 1797, a hand-powered device. However, the electric washing machine was developed by Alva J. Fisher in 1908.
Toaster: The first electric toaster was invented by Alan MacMasters in 1893 in Scotland. Charles Strite perfected the pop-up toaster in 1919.
Microwave: Percy Spencer invented the microwave oven in 1945 after noticing a melting chocolate bar near a magnetron.
Coffee Maker: The drip coffee maker was invented by Melitta Bentz in 1908, using a paper filter. For electric percolation, Gottlob Widmann patented an electric coffee maker in 1954.
Food Processor: Pierre Verdun created the first food processor in 1960, marketed as the “Robot-Coupe” in France. Carl Sontheimer later adapted it for the U.S. market in 1971, popularizing the Cuisinart brand.
Blender: John Oster and Fred Waring; Oster developed a blender in 1937, but Waring financed and marketed the “Waring Blendor” in 1938, based on a design by inventor Frederick J. Osius.
Air Conditioning: Willis Carrier invented the first modern air conditioner in 1902, originally for industrial use.
Water Heater: The first practical water heater was invented by Edwin Ruud in 1889.
Vacuum Cleaner: Hubert Cecil Booth invented the first powered vacuum cleaner in 1901; and James Murray Spangler created the first portable electric vacuum in 1907.
Dishwasher: Josephine Cochrane invented the first practical dishwasher in 1886. Her hand-powered design was later electrified.

XXVI. Almost all the greatest Political Theorists

European men wrote most of the major treatises on politics, formulated most of the concepts, and almost all the ideologies or isms we know about. The following concepts and ideologies were originated and fully explained in countless treatises: Democracy, Justice, Natural Law, Sovereignty, Social Contract, General Will, Separation of Powers, Rights of Man, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Utilitarianism, Dictatorship of the Proletariat, Liberalism, Conservatism, Socialism, Communism, Anarchism, Limited Government, Constitutionalism, Natural Rights, Feminism, Civil Rights, Environmentalism, Pluralism, Globalization, Multiculturalism, Justice as Fairness, Fascism, Traditionalism, and more.

I asked Grok whether “it can be accurately argued that this list includes the greatest political thinkers in the world. Did I leave out any truly major political philosopher?”. Before I sent the list to Grok, I made sure there were enough Chinese names, and one Indian name, adding Han Feizi and Kautilya, so as to avoid statements from Grok about “Eurocentrism”.

Grok replied: “No, you did not leave out any truly major political philosopher. The list includes the greatest political thinkers in the world, and while other significant figures could be added, those present are sufficient to represent the field comprehensively.”

Of the additional names Grok suggested as great figures that could be added to the list, namely, Mary Wollstonecraft, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, and Hannah Arendt. I only added Foucault, who has obviously played a huge role in recent decades, the most widely read author in academia, whom I had meant to add. I added Simone de Beauvoir to stand as the foremost feminist, author of The Second Sex in 1949, a text widely seen as a cornerstone of feminist philosophy. I replaced Russell Kirk with Eric Voegelin. This list includes 27 European, 3 Chinese, 2 Jews, 1 Indian, and 1 Tunisian, Khaldun, who is already listed as a historian.

Confucius (551–479 BCE) – Chinese
Mozi (c. 470–391 BCE) – Chinese
Plato (c. 428–348 BCE) – European
Aristotle (384–322 BCE) – European
Kautilya (c. 350–283 BCE) – Indian
Han Feizi (c. 280–233 BCE) – Chinese
Polybius (c. 200–118 BCE) – European
Cicero (106–43 BCE) – European
Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) – Tunisian
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) – European
Jean Bodin (1530–1596) – European
Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) – European
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) – European
John Locke (1632–1704) – European
Montesquieu (1689–1755) – European
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) – European
Edmund Burke (1729–1797) – European
Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) – European
Joseph de Maistre (1753–1821) – European
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) – European
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) – European
John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) – European
Karl Marx (1818–1883) – Jewish
Giovanni Gentile (1875–1944) – European
Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) – European
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) – European
Leo Strauss (1899–1973) – Jewish
Eric Voegelin (1901–1985) – European
Michael Oakeshott (1901–1990) – European
Simone de Beauvoir (1908 –1986) – European
Russell Kirk (1918–1994) – European
John Rawls (1921–2002) – European
Michel Foucault (1926–1984) – European
Jürgen Habermas (1929–present) – European

XXVII. Most Decisive and Tactical Battles in History

I asked Grok to evaluate the accuracy and completeness of this list. “Do you agree that this list is reasonably accurate in identifying the most decisive as well as tactically significant battles in history? I calculate that Europeans fought in 35 out of the following 39 battles (the ones with an asterisk * are the battles fought between non-Europeans.) Which crucial ones I left out, and which ones should not be included in this list?”

The list I compiled referred to Europeans but not Americans. Grok listed 7 “omissions that could arguably belong on a list of decisive or tactically significant battles”, namely, “Plataea, Manzikert, Sekigahara, Trafalgar, or Kursk for broader scope”). It listed 5 battles “that might not belong” in this list, namely, “Thermopylae (less decisive), Barbarossa (too broad), or Cambrai/Omdurman (less globally pivotal)”. Grok also observed that “Yarmouk involved Byzantine (European) forces, contradicting its asterisk.”

It said that the list “is an impressive and well-considered compilation of some of history’s most decisive and tactically significant battles, spanning ancient times to the modern era. It includes battles that shaped empires, altered the course of civilizations, or showcased brilliant (or disastrous) military tactics”.

I accepted Grok’s evaluation except its view about the Battle of Sekigahara (1600), which “decided the unification of Japan under Tokugawa Ieyasu, ending the Sengoku period and ushering in centuries of stability.” If this battle were to be included, we would have to include many battles that “decided the unification” of major European countries.

After I compiled the 42 battles listed below, I asked Grok to i) identify with an asterisk * the non-Europeans, ii) to indicate which side won in these battles, and to italicized the battles (they amount to only 4) in which both sides fighting were non-Europeans.

Battle of Marathon, 490 BC
- Sides: Greeks (Athens and Plataea) vs. Persians*
- Outcome: Greek victory
- Note: Persians were a non-European empire from Asia (* on Persians).
Salamis, 480 BC
- Sides: Greeks (Greek city-states) vs. Persians*
- Outcome: Greek victory
- Note: Persians were non-European (* on Persians).
Battle of Plataea, 479 BC
- Sides: Greeks (Greek city-states) vs. Persians*
- Outcome: Greek victory
- Note: Persians were non-European (* on Persians).
Maling, 342 BC
- Sides: Chinese (State of Qi) vs. Chinese (State of Wei)
- Outcome: Qi victory
- Note: Both sides were non-European (Chinese states during the Warring States period, * on both).
Battle of Issus, 333 BC
- Sides: Macedonians (Alexander the Great) vs. Persians*
- Outcome: Macedonian victory
- Note: Persians were non-European (* on Persians).
Gaugamela, 331 BC
- Sides: Macedonians (Alexander the Great) vs. Persians*
- Outcome: Macedonian victory
- Note: Persians were non-European (* on Persians).
Lake Trasimene, 217 BC
- Sides: Romans (Roman Republic) vs. Carthaginians*
- Outcome: Carthaginian victory
- Note: Carthaginians were from North Africa (* on Carthaginians).
Cannae, 216 BC
- Sides: Romans (Roman Republic) vs. Carthaginians*
- Outcome: Carthaginian victory
- Note: Carthaginians were non-European (* on Carthaginians).
Battle of Metaurus, 207 BC
- Sides: Romans (Roman Republic) vs. Carthaginians*
- Outcome: Roman victory
- Note: Carthaginians were non-European (* on Carthaginians).
Ilipa, 206 BC
- Sides: Romans (Roman Republic) vs. Carthaginians*
- Outcome: Roman victory
- Note: Carthaginians were non-European (* on Carthaginians).
Battle of Zama, 202 BC
- Sides: Romans (Roman Republic) vs. Carthaginians*
- Outcome: Roman victory
- Note: Carthaginians were non-European (* on Carthaginians).
Pydna, 168 BC
- Sides: Romans (Roman Republic) vs. Macedonians
- Outcome: Roman victory
- Note: Both sides were European.
Carrhae, 53 BC
- Sides: Romans (Roman Republic) vs. Parthians*
- Outcome: Parthian victory
- Note: Parthians were a non-European empire from Asia (* on Parthians).
Pharsalus, 48 BC
- Sides: Romans (Caesar’s faction) vs. Romans (Pompey’s faction)
- Outcome: Caesar’s victory
- Note: Both sides were European (Roman civil war).
Teutoburg Forest, 9 AD
- Sides: Romans (Roman Empire) vs. Germanic tribes
- Outcome: Germanic victory
- Note: Both sides were European.
Chalons, 451 AD
- Sides: Romans (Western Roman Empire) and Visigoths vs. Huns* and allies
- Outcome: Roman-Visigoth victory
- Note: Huns were a non-European nomadic group from Asia (* on Huns).
Walaja, 633 AD
- Sides: Arabs* (Rashidun Caliphate) vs. Persians* (Sassanid Empire)
- Outcome: Arab victory
- Note: Both sides were non-European (* on both).
Yarmouk, 636 AD (assumed from context, as “Yarmouk” alone is incomplete)
- Sides: Arabs* (Rashidun Caliphate) vs. Byzantines
- Outcome: Arab victory
- Note: Arabs were non-European (* on Arabs).
Tours, 732 AD
- Sides: Franks (Frankish Kingdom) vs. Arabs* (Umayyad Caliphate)
- Outcome: Frankish victory
- Note: Arabs were non-European (* on Arabs).
Hastings, 1066 AD
- Sides: Normans (Norman French) vs. Anglo-Saxons (England)
- Outcome: Norman victory
- Note: Both sides were European.
Battle of Manzikert, 1071 AD
- Sides: Byzantines vs. Seljuk Turks*
- Outcome: Seljuk victory
- Note: Seljuk Turks were non-European (* on Seljuks).
Crécy, 1346 AD
- Sides: English vs. French
- Outcome: English victory
- Note: Both sides were European.
Battle of Agincourt, 1415 AD
- Sides: English vs. French
- Outcome: English victory
- Note: Both sides were European.
Panipat, 1526 AD
- Sides: Mughals* (Babur) vs. Delhi Sultanate* (Ibrahim Lodi)
- Outcome: Mughal victory
- Note: Both sides were non-European (Indian subcontinent, * on both).
Cajamarca, 1532 AD
- Sides: Spaniards vs. Incas*
- Outcome: Spanish victory
- Note: Incas were non-European (South American, * on Incas).
Leipzig, 1631 AD (assumed First Battle of Breitenfeld, as “Leipzig 1631” is ambiguous)
- Sides: Swedes and German Protestants vs. Holy Roman Empire (Catholic League)
- Outcome: Swedish-Protestant victory
- Note: Both sides were European.
Rocroi, 1643 AD
- Sides: French vs. Spaniards
- Outcome: French victory
- Note: Both sides were European.
Vienna, 1683 AD
- Sides: Holy Roman Empire and allies vs. Ottoman Turks*
- Outcome: Holy Roman victory
- Note: Ottomans were non-European (* on Ottomans).
Poltava, 1709 AD
- Sides: Russians vs. Swedes
- Outcome: Russian victory
- Note: Both sides were European.
Rossbach, 1757 AD
- Sides: Prussians vs. French and Holy Roman Empire
- Outcome: Prussian victory
- Note: Both sides were European.
Valmy, 1792 AD
- Sides: French (Revolutionary forces) vs. Prussians and Austrians
- Outcome: French victory
- Note: Both sides were European.
Ulm, 1805 AD
- Sides: French (Napoleon) vs. Austrians
- Outcome: French victory
- Note: Both sides were European.
Battle of Trafalgar, 1805 AD
- Sides: British vs. French and Spanish
- Outcome: British victory
- Note: Both sides were European.
Leipzig, 1813 AD (Battle of the Nations)
- Sides: Coalition (Russia, Prussia, Austria, etc.) vs. French (Napoleon)
- Outcome: Coalition victory
- Note: Both sides were European.
Waterloo, 1815 AD
- Sides: Coalition (Britain, Prussia, etc.) vs. French (Napoleon)
- Outcome: Coalition victory
- Note: Both sides were European.
Gettysburg, 1863 AD
- Sides: United States (Union) vs. Confederate States
- Outcome: Union victory
- Note: Both sides were European-descended (North American context).
Battle of Sedan, 1870 AD
- Sides: Prussians and German states vs. French
- Outcome: Prussian victory
- Note: Both sides were European.
Omdurman, 1898 AD
- Sides: British-Egyptian forces vs. Mahdists* (Sudanese)
- Outcome: British-Egyptian victory
- Note: Mahdists were non-European (* on Mahdists).
First Battle of Kiev, 1941 AD
- Sides: Germans (Nazi Germany) vs. Soviets (Soviet Union)
- Outcome: German victory
- Note: Both sides were European.
Midway Island, 1942 AD
- Sides: United States vs. Japanese*
- Outcome: American victory
- Note: Japanese were non-European (* on Japan).
Stalingrad, 1942–1943 AD
- Sides: Germans (Nazi Germany) vs. Soviets (Soviet Union)
- Outcome: Soviet victory
- Note: Both sides were European.
Battle of Kursk, 1943 AD
- Sides: Germans (Nazi Germany) vs. Soviets (Soviet Union)
- Outcome: Soviet victory
- Note: Both sides were European.

XXVIII. 100% of Inventions between mid-1700s and 1860s

Grok agreed with this list, replying: “Yes, it is accurate to say that White men of European ancestry were responsible for 100% of the listed inventions between the mid-1700s and 1860s, based on historical attribution. This reflects the socio-economic and technological context of the period, centered in Europe and its offshoots.”

Flying Shuttle – Invented by John Kay (English, 1733). European, White male.
Spinning Jenny – Invented by James Hargreaves (English, 1764). European, White male.
Steam Engine – Improved significantly by James Watt (Scottish, 1760s-1770s), building on earlier work by Thomas Newcomen (English). European, White males.
Cotton Gin – Invented by Eli Whitney (American of European descent, 1793). White male.
Telegraph – Developed by Samuel Morse (American of European descent, 1830s-1840s), with contributions from others like William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone (English). All European or of European ancestry, White males.
Portland Cement – Patented by Joseph Aspdin (English, 1824). European, White male.
Bessemer Process – Developed by Henry Bessemer (English, 1856). European, White male.
Battery – Invented by Alessandro Volta (Italian, 1800). European, White male.
Locomotives – Pioneered by George Stephenson (English, 1814-1820s). European, White male.
Power Loom – Invented by Edmund Cartwright (English, 1785). European, White male.
Arkwright’s Water Frame – Invented by Richard Arkwright (English, 1769). European, White male.
Spinning Mule – Invented by Samuel Crompton (English, 1779). European, White male.
Henry Cort’s Puddling – Developed by Henry Cort (English, 1780s). European, White male.
Gaslighting Arc Lamp – Early gas lighting by William Murdoch (Scottish, 1790s); arc lamp by Humphry Davy (English, 1802). Both European, White males.
Tin Can – Patented by Peter Durand (English, 1810). European, White male.
Spectrometer – Developed by Joseph von Fraunhofer (German, 1810s). European, White male.
Camera Obscura – Known since antiquity, but modern photographic use advanced by Louis Daguerre (French, 1830s) and others. European, White male.
Electromagnet – Invented by William Sturgeon (English, 1825). European, White male.
Mackintosh Raincoat – Invented by Charles Macintosh (Scottish, 1823). European, White male.
Matches – Friction matches by John Walker (English, 1826). European, White male.
Typewriter – Early version by Henry Mill (English, 1714), but practical typewriter by Christopher Latham Sholes (American of European descent, 1860s). White males.
Blueprints – Cyanotype process by John Herschel (English, 1842). European, White male.
Hydrogen Fuel Cell – Discovered by William Grove (Welsh, 1839). European, White male.

XXIX. Almost all the Greatest Painters

Going by the amount of space allocated to the greatest artists in reference works, encyclopedias, and dictionaries, as decided upon by generations of men with the requisite knowledge and taste for great art, Murray estimated that the absolute number of great visual artists in the West is far higher than the combined number of the other civilizations: 479 for the West as compared to 192 for China and Japan combined (with no significant figures listed for India or the Arab World).

A crucially missing factor in Murray’s statistical assessment, however, is that it leaves out a most peculiar characteristic of Western art: its exhibition of a continuous proliferation of highly original artists with new artistic styles, new ways of projecting images on a flat surface, new conceptions of light, new standards of excellence, and new conceptions about nature and man—in contrast to the non-Western world, where aesthetic norms barely changed, or where artists were invariably inclined to follow an established convention without breaking new aesthetic paths. Paintings in both China and Japan occurred within a cultural matrix that encouraged standardization and regularity, rather than unpredictability and freshness. New trends consisted in breaking from the regimented traditions of one’s age by reviving and putting new life into early traditions.

This time I decided to make the list as comprehensive as possible before asking Grok any questions. I included two of the greatest Chinese painters as well as two Japanese painters, focusing on the early Chinese painters, as the most original, but adding a Japanese from a later period in reflection of his prominence outside Japan. I asked Grok: “Is this list an accurate representation of the greatest painters in history?” I also asked Grok to describe briefly why these names are considered among the greatest and most original painters.

Grok acknowledged that the “list includes many of the most celebrated painters across different cultures and eras” but mentioned some “notable absences”, in abstract painting and female painters, namely, Jackson Pollock, Frida Kahlo, Mary Cassatt, and Wassily Kandinsky. It said that the list suggested “a possible bias toward Western male painters or pre-20th-century figures”, omitting “key figures from other regions (e.g., no Indian, African, or pre-Columbian American artists) and underrepresented groups.”

I believe this list did not need any changes; it is already a very strong representation of the greatest painters; adding painters from “underrepresented groups” would lower its quality.

Gu Kaizhi (c. 344–406)
Why Great: A foundational figure in Chinese painting, Gu Kaizhi pioneered expressive figure painting and narrative scrolls. His delicate brushwork and focus on capturing the spirit (rather than just the form) of his subjects set a standard for East Asian art.
Wu Daozi (c. 680–760)
Why Great: Known as the “Sage of Painting” in Tang Dynasty China, Wu Daozi revolutionized Chinese art with dynamic, flowing brushstrokes and a sense of movement that brought figures to life, influencing centuries of ink painting.
Giotto (c. 1267–1337)
Why Great: Giotto broke from medieval flatness, introducing naturalism, emotion, and three-dimensionality to Western art. His frescoes, like those in the Scrovegni Chapel, laid the groundwork for the Renaissance.
Jan van Eyck (c. 1390–1441)
Why Great: A master of oil painting, Van Eyck’s meticulous detail and use of light (e.g., Arnolfini Portrait) transformed Northern European art, making him a key figure in the Early Renaissance.
Masaccio (1401–1428)
Why Great: Known as the “father of Renaissance painting,” Masaccio introduced linear perspective and realistic human anatomy (e.g., The Tribute Money), pushing art toward greater naturalism.
Sesshū Tōyō (1420–1506)
Why Great: A Japanese Zen monk and ink painter, Sesshū blended Chinese influences with a minimalist, expressive style. His landscapes (e.g., Winter Landscape) are revered for their spiritual depth.
Sandro Botticelli (c. 1445–1510)
Why Great: Botticelli’s lyrical style and mythological themes (e.g., The Birth of Venus) epitomized Florentine Renaissance ideals, blending grace with emotional resonance.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)
Why Great: A polymath, Leonardo’s mastery of sfumato, anatomical precision, and innovative compositions (e.g., Mona Lisa, The Last Supper) made him a quintessential Renaissance genius.
Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528)
Why Great: Dürer brought Renaissance techniques to Northern Europe, excelling in engravings and woodcuts (e.g., Melencolia I) with unmatched detail and intellectual depth.
Raphael (1483–1520)
Why Great: Raphael’s harmonious compositions and idealized beauty (e.g., School of Athens) defined High Renaissance perfection, balancing grace and clarity.
Michelangelo (1475–1564)
Why Great: A titan of the Renaissance, Michelangelo’s monumental frescoes (e.g., Sistine Chapel ceiling) and sculptures showcase his unparalleled ability to convey power and emotion.
Titian (c. 1488–1576)
Why Great: The Venetian master’s use of color, loose brushwork, and emotional depth (e.g., Bacchus and Ariadne) shaped the course of Western painting.
Correggio (1489–1534)
Why Great: Known for his illusionistic frescoes (e.g., Assumption of the Virgin) and soft, sensual figures, Correggio influenced Baroque and Rococo art.
Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450–1516)
Why Great: Bosch’s surreal, fantastical visions (e.g., The Garden of Earthly Delights) offered a unique, moralistic take on human folly, unmatched in imagination.
Matthias Grünewald (c. 1470–1528)
Why Great: His visceral, emotional works (e.g., Isenheim Altarpiece) convey intense spirituality and suffering, distinct from Renaissance idealism.
Hans Holbein the Younger (c. 1497–1543)
Why Great: A master of portraiture (e.g., The Ambassadors), Holbein’s precision and psychological insight made him a standout in Northern Renaissance art.
Tintoretto (1518–1594)
Why Great: Known as “Il Furioso,” Tintoretto’s dramatic compositions and bold use of perspective (e.g., The Last Supper) bridged Renaissance and Baroque styles.
El Greco (1541–1614)
Why Great: His elongated figures and vivid colors (e.g., The Burial of the Count of Orgaz) fused Byzantine and Western traditions, prefiguring Expressionism.
Pieter Brueghel the Elder (c. 1525–1569)
Why Great: Brueghel’s detailed scenes of peasant life and allegorical landscapes (e.g., The Hunters in the Snow) offered a unique, earthy perspective.
Caravaggio (1571–1610)
Why Great: Caravaggio’s dramatic chiaroscuro and raw realism (e.g., The Calling of St. Matthew) revolutionized Baroque art with emotional intensity.
Frans Hals (c. 1582–1666)
Why Great: Hals’ lively brushwork and vivid portraits (e.g., The Laughing Cavalier) captured personality with a spontaneity rare for his time.
Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571) (Note: Primarily a sculptor, not a painter)
Why Great: Though best known for sculpture (e.g., Perseus with the Head of Medusa), his artistic versatility and Renaissance flair are notable.
Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640)
Why Great: Rubens’ dynamic, fleshy figures and vibrant colors (e.g., The Descent from the Cross) defined Baroque exuberance.
Claude Lorrain (c. 1600–1682)
Why Great: A pioneer of ideal landscapes (e.g., Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba), Claude’s atmospheric light influenced later painters like Turner.
Diego Velázquez (1599–1660)
Why Great: Velázquez’s masterful realism and complex compositions (e.g., Las Meninas) made him a giant of the Spanish Golden Age.
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669)
Why Great: Rembrandt’s mastery of light, shadow, and human emotion (e.g., The Night Watch) set a benchmark for psychological depth in art.
Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675)
Why Great: Vermeer’s luminous interiors and subtle detail (e.g., Girl with a Pearl Earring) showcase an unmatched mastery of light and texture.
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1699–1779)
Why Great: Chardin’s quiet still lifes and genre scenes (e.g., The Ray) elevated the everyday with exquisite simplicity and realism.
Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792)
Why Great: A leading portraitist of 18th-century Britain (e.g., Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse), Reynolds blended elegance with intellectual depth.
J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851)
Why Great: Turner’s revolutionary use of light and color (e.g., The Fighting Temeraire) anticipated Impressionism and modern abstraction.
John Constable (1776–1837)
Why Great: Constable’s naturalistic landscapes (e.g., The Hay Wain) captured the beauty of the English countryside with emotional sincerity.
Francisco Goya (1746–1828)
Why Great: Goya’s dark, satirical works (e.g., The Third of May 1808) bridged Romanticism and modernity, exploring human suffering and power.
Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849)
Why Great: Hokusai’s woodblock prints (e.g., The Great Wave off Kanagawa) brought Japanese ukiyo-e to global prominence with dynamic composition.
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
Why Great: A Romantic leader, Delacroix’s vivid color and movement (e.g., Liberty Leading the People) inspired later generations.
Jean-François Millet (1814–1875)
Why Great: Millet’s dignified depictions of peasant life (e.g., The Gleaners) brought social realism to French art.
Gustave Courbet (1819–1877)
Why Great: Courbet’s bold realism (e.g., The Stone Breakers) rejected idealism, paving the way for modern art.
Édouard Manet (1832–1883)
Why Great: Manet’s provocative works (e.g., Olympia) bridged Realism and Impressionism, challenging artistic conventions.
Claude Monet (1840–1926)
Why Great: The founder of Impressionism, Monet’s focus on light and atmosphere (e.g., Impression, Sunrise) redefined painting.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919)
Why Great: Renoir’s vibrant, joyful scenes (e.g., Luncheon of the Boating Party) epitomized Impressionist sensuality.
Georges Seurat (1859–1891)
Why Great: Seurat’s pointillist technique (e.g., A Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte) introduced a scientific approach to color and form.
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)
Why Great: Van Gogh’s emotive brushstrokes and bold colors (e.g., The Starry Night) made him a pioneer of Expressionism.
Paul Cézanne (1839–1906)
Why Great: Cézanne’s structural approach to form and color (e.g., Mont Sainte-Victoire) laid the groundwork for Cubism.
Gustav Klimt (1862–1918)
Why Great: Klimt’s ornate, symbolic works (e.g., The Kiss) blended Art Nouveau with psychological depth.
Edvard Munch (1863–1944)
Why Great: Munch’s haunting explorations of anxiety (e.g., The Scream) defined Expressionism’s emotional power.
Henri Matisse (1869–1954)
Why Great: Matisse’s bold use of color and form (e.g., The Dance) spearheaded Fauvism and modern art.
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
Why Great: Picasso’s invention of Cubism (e.g., Les Demoiselles d’Avignon) and relentless innovation reshaped 20th-century art.
Max Ernst (1891–1976)
Why Great: A Surrealist pioneer, Ernst’s dreamlike collages and paintings (e.g., The Elephant Celebes) expanded artistic boundaries.
René Magritte (1898–1967)
Why Great: Magritte’s witty, surreal images (e.g., The Treachery of Images) challenged perceptions of reality.
Salvador Dalí (1904–1989)
Why Great: Dalí’s eccentric, hyper-realistic Surrealism (e.g., The Persistence of Memory) made him an icon of modern art.

XXX. Designed all the Most Beautiful Cars

I simply said to Grok, “Car afficionados believe that white men designed all the most beautiful cars in history, many of which are listed below.”

While Grok agreed that “it’s an impressive list of cars, no doubt—icons of design and engineering that have left a lasting mark on automotive history,” it pointed out that “most of these cars come from mid-20th-century Europe and America, a time when the auto industry in those regions was indeed dominated by white male designers…The industry reflected the demographics of its era: heavily male, heavily European or American, and thus predominantly white…And if we widen the lens beyond this list—say, to Japan’s Mazda Cosmo (1967) or Toyota 2000GT (1965), designed by talents like Satoru Nozaki—diversity creeps in.”

I kept the list as it was but asked Grok to organize it chronologically.

1935: Alfa Romeo 8C 2900
1937: Mercedes-Benz 540K
1938: Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic Coupe
1938: Delahaye 165 Cabriolet
1939: Alfa Romeo 6C 2500
1939: BMW 328 Roadster
1946: Delahaye 135 MS ‘Narval’
1949: Cadillac Club Coupe
1952-1953: Alfa Romeo 1900 C52 Disco Volante
1953: Porsche 550 Spyder.
1954: Lancia Aurelia B20 GT
1954: Maserati A6GCS Berlinetta
1954: Mercedes-Benz 300SL.
1955: Citroën DS
1956: BMW 507
1957: Ferrari 250 GT Coupé Speciale
1960: Austin Healey 3000 MK1
1960: Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato
1961: Ferrari 250 GT California
1961: Lincoln-Continental 4-Door Hardtop
1962: Facel Vega
1963: Chevrolet Corvette
1963: Citroën DS Cabriolet
1964: Aston Martin DB5
1964: Maserati 3500 GTI Vignale Spyder
1965: Bizzarrini 5300 GT Strada
1965: Jaguar E-Type
1967: Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale
1967: Buick Riviera
1967: Ferrari 275 GTB/4
1970: R/T Dodge Challenger.
1971: Lamborghini Miura SV
1972: Opel Rekord Coupe
1972: Volvo 1800E

XXXI. The Greatest Mountaineers

I left this list as it was, without any non-European name. I am aware that some non-Europeans came along with the Europeans, contributed to the endeavor, and became great climbers in their own right, but my focus is on initiative, leadership, and originality. My initial list included descriptions of the achievements of these men and their nationalities, but I decided to Grok’s neater presentation.

1786: Michel-Gabriel Paccard and Jacques Balmat
- Nationality: Duchy of Savoy, France
- Achievement: First ascent of Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps.
1865: Edward Whymper
- Nationality: British
- Achievement: Led the first ascent of the Matterhorn in the Pennine Alps.
1938: Heinrich Harrer
- Nationality: Austrian
- Achievement: First ascent of the North Face of the Eiger, known as the “last problem” of the Alps.
1953: Edmund Hillary
- Nationality: New Zealander
- Achievement: First confirmed ascent of Mount Everest, the world’s tallest peak.
1954: Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli
- Nationality: Italian
- Achievement: First ascent of K2, the second highest peak in the world.
1978: Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler
- Nationality: Italian (Messner), Austrian (Habeler)
- Achievement: First ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen in 1978; Messner later soloed Everest in 1980.
1985: Richard Bass
- Nationality: American
- Achievement: First to climb the Seven Summits (highest peaks on each continent: Aconcagua, Denali, Kilimanjaro, Elbrus, Vinson, Kosciuszko, and Everest).
1987: Jerzy Kukuczka
- Nationality: Polish
- Achievement: Second person to climb all 14 eight-thousanders, 13 without supplemental oxygen, completed in 1987.
1990: Tim Macartney-Snape
- Nationality: Australian
- Achievement: Climbed Mount Everest from sea level at the Bay of Bengal without supplemental oxygen.
2005: Edmund Viesturs
- Nationality: American
- Achievement: Climbed all 14 eight-thousanders without supplemental oxygen, completed in 2005.
2009 onwards: Simone Moro
- Nationality: Italian
- Achievement: Made the first winter ascents of four eight-thousanders, starting with Makalu in 2009.

XXXII. Founders of all the Disciplinary Fields of Knowledge

Possibly the greatest accomplishment of Europeans has been the founding of all the fields of human knowledge: Geology, Astronomy, Botany, Biology, Sociology, Anthropology, Archeology, History, Philosophy, Physics, Chemistry, Psychology, Geography, Political Science, Economics, not to mention many sub-fields. My criteria for the founding of a discipline include clear differentiation and conceptualization of the discipline as a field in its own right, with its own “founding” treatises, methodologies, and objects of knowledge. The identification of individuals who made insightful geological, botanical, economic, psychological or biological observations is not enough.

I asked Grok to “list the individuals, two or three, responsible as ‘founders’ of the following disciplinary fields of knowledge, as distinctive fields with their own unique concepts, methodologies, and treatises: Geology, Astronomy, Botany, Biology, Sociology, Anthropology, Archeology, History, Philosophy, Physics, Chemistry, Geography, Political Science, and Economics.”

The list Grok provided is reasonably good, except that it misses a few of the real founders for other figures who contributed major insights but were not the originators of the discipline. Therefore, I decided to delete the names I disagree with, and to add the names I think were true founders in italics.

Geology

James Hutton: Known as the father of modern geology, he developed the theory of uniformitarianism, which posits that Earth’s processes occur gradually over time.
Charles Lyell: Built on Hutton’s ideas, popularizing uniformitarianism and influencing modern geological thought through his work Principles of Geology.

Astronomy

Claudius Ptolemy: Developed the geocentric model of the universe, which dominated astronomical thought for over a millennium
Nicholas Copernicus: Revolutionized astronomy by proposing the heliocentric model
Galileo Galilei: A pioneer of modern astronomy, he used the telescope to make groundbreaking observations, supporting the Copernican theory.

Botany

Theophrastus: An early contributor, often called the father of botany, he wrote extensively on plant classification and description in ancient Greece.
Carl Linnaeus: Established the modern system of binomial nomenclature, laying the foundation for systematic botany.

Biology

Aristotle: Made early systematic observations of living organisms, influencing the study of life for centuries.
Andreas Vesalius (1514 – 1564): Revolutionized biology by publishing De Humani Corporis Fabrica, a detailed anatomical text based on human dissections, founding modern anatomy.
Robert Hooke 1635 – 1703: Discovered cells and wrote one of the most significant books in scientific history, Micrographia.

Sociology

Auguste Comte: Coined the term “sociology” and developed a systematic approach to studying society.
Emile Durkheim: Established sociology as a scientific discipline with works like The Rules of Sociological Method.
Max Weber: Contributed key concepts like the Protestant work ethic and theories of bureaucracy.

Anthropology

Franz Boas: Known as the father of American anthropology, he emphasized fieldwork and cultural relativism.
Lewis Henry Morgan: Pioneered the study of kinship and social evolution, influencing early anthropology.

Archeology

Christian Jurgensen Thomsen (1788-1865):
Jens Jacob Worsaae (1821-85):
William Flinders Petrie (1853-1942): Developed systematic excavation and recording methods, foundational to modern archeology.

History

Herodotus: Often called the father of history, he wrote the first narrative history in Histories.
Thucydides: Advanced historical methodology with a focus on evidence and causality in History of the Peloponnesian War.
Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886): His emphasis on primary sources and on “as it actually happened” laid the groundwork for the professionalization of history.

Philosophy

Parmenides: His focus on what it means to be laid the foundation for metaphysics.
Socrates: Laid the groundwork for Western philosophy through his method of questioning and dialogue.
Plato: Founded the Academy and wrote influential dialogues exploring ethics, politics, and metaphysics.
Aristotle: Systematized philosophical inquiry across numerous fields, shaping Western thought.

Physics

Galileo Galilei: Pioneered experimental physics and kinematics, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics.
Isaac Newton: Formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, foundational to classical physics.

Chemistry

Robert Boyle (1627-1691): Known for Boyle’s Law and early work distinguishing chemistry from alchemy.
Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794): The father of modern chemistry, he established the law of conservation of mass and clarified the role of oxygen in combustion.

Geography

Eratosthenes: Calculated the Earth’s circumference and pioneered early geographic measurement.
Ptolemy (2nd century): In his Geography he rationally explained the principles and methods required in mapmaking and produced the first world map.
Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859): Integrated physical and human geography through extensive exploration and observation.

Political Science

Aristotle: Analyzed political systems in Politics, providing a foundational framework for the field.
Niccolò Machiavelli: Authored The Prince, offering a pragmatic approach to political power and governance.

Psychology

Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920): Established the first experimental psychology laboratory, marking the birth of psychology as a science.
William James (1842-1910): Influenced modern psychology with his work Principles of Psychology, emphasizing functionalism.

Economics

Richard Cantillon (1680-1734): His Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en Général is the first comprehensive treatise on economics, earning him the title of the “father of economics”.
François Quesnay (1694-1774): His Tableau Économique is regarded as a precursor to modern input-output analysis and circular flow models.
Adam Smith (1723-1790): Authored The Wealth of Nations, laying the foundation for classical economics.

XXXIII. Key scientists involved in DNA, the genetic code, radioactivity, X-rays, neutron, and quantum mechanics in the late 19th/early 20th centuries.

Grok agreed that the names listed below “were predominantly men of European ancestry, with some noted for Jewish ancestry and two identified as women.” 5 out of 31 were of Jewish ancestry, though two of these were only half Jewish. Grok categorized the scientist by discovery.

DNA and Genetics

Mendel: Known as the father of genetics, established the laws of inheritance using pea plants.
Weismann: Proposed the germ plasm theory, emphasizing that heredity is transmitted via germ cells.
Morgan: Developed the chromosomal theory of inheritance, linking genes to chromosomes using fruit flies.
Miescher: Discovered nucleic acids, isolating DNA from cell nuclei, a precursor to understanding its role.
Griffith: Demonstrated bacterial transformation, hinting that a “transforming principle” (later identified as DNA) carries genetic information.
Chargaff (Jewish): Established base-pairing rules (A pairs with T, G with C), critical for the DNA structure model.
Franklin (woman and Jewish): Used X-ray crystallography to capture images of DNA, providing key data for its helical structure.
Watson, Crick, Wilkins: Collaboratively determined DNA’s double-helix structure, with Watson and Crick building the model and Wilkins contributing X-ray data.
Pauling: Though primarily a chemist, proposed an (incorrect) triple-helix DNA model, showing engagement with the problem.
Bragg: Pioneered X-ray crystallography techniques, foundational for Franklin’s and Wilkins’ DNA work.

Radioactivity

Becquerel: Discovered radioactivity by observing uranium’s emission of rays.
Curie (female): Advanced radioactivity research, isolated radium and polonium, and coined the term “radioactivity.”
Rutherford: Investigated radioactive decay (alpha and beta particles) and later discovered the atomic nucleus, bridging radioactivity and nuclear physics.

X-rays

Rontgen: Discovered X-rays, revolutionizing imaging and inspiring radioactivity research.

Neutron

Chadwick: Discovered the neutron, explaining atomic mass beyond protons and advancing nuclear physics.

Quantum Mechanics

Planck: Introduced quantum theory, proposing energy is emitted in quanta.
Einstein (Jewish): Explained the photoelectric effect using quanta, a cornerstone of quantum mechanics, and contributed to quantum theory debates.
Bohr (half Jewish): Developed the Bohr model of the atom, integrating quantum concepts.
Broglie: Proposed wave-particle duality, suggesting matter has wave-like properties.
Schrödinger: Formulated the Schrödinger equation, describing quantum systems mathematically.
Heisenberg: Introduced the uncertainty principle, a fundamental quantum concept.
Dirac: Developed quantum electrodynamics, unifying quantum mechanics and relativity.
Pauli (half Jewish): Proposed the exclusion principle, explaining electron arrangements in atoms.
Thomson: Discovered the electron, foundational for quantum mechanics’ atomic models.
Millikan: Measured the electron’s charge, supporting quantum theory’s experimental basis.
Lorentz: Contributed the Lorentz transformation, influential in relativity and quantum contexts.
Fermi: Worked on quantum statistics and nuclear physics, linking quantum mechanics to particle behavior.

XXXIV. ALL the Greatest-Original Children Stories

While folk tales are common to all cultures, being anonymous stories communities passed through the generations by word of mouth. Only Europeans started a literary scholarship of folklore, collecting and writing these tales down in published form during the seventeenth century. The Grimm brothers, Jacob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm (1786-1859), with their background in philology, meticulously recorded the tales exactly as the people told them, writing down every variation and publishing about 300. Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) not only collected tales but wrote dozens of original fairy tales, leading some to argue that he invented the literary fairy tale of pure fantasy about magical characters. While there were some children’s books in Europe before the 1700s, a literature specifically written for children took off in England during the 1700s. The list below, apart from including a few tales by the Grimm brothers, and fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen, including Aesop’s Fables dating back to ancient Greece, covers primarily major children’s books of the 1800s and 1900s, before diversity mandates began to degrade children’s literature.

Aesop’s Fables
Author: Aesop
Nationality: Greek
Year: 600 BCE (oral tradition; earliest written collections date to around 300 BCE) Caxton’s English edition
Gigantick Histories
Author: Thomas Boreman
Nationality: English
Year: 1740
Cinderella
Author: Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Nationality: German
Year: 1812
Snow White
Author: Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Nationality: German
Year: 1812
Hansel and Gretel
Author: Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Nationality: German
Year: 1812
Phantasmion
Author: Sara Coleridge
Nationality: English
Year: 1837
The Little Mermaid
Author: Hans Christian Andersen
Nationality: Danish
Year: 1837
The Emperor’s New Clothes
Author: Hans Christian Andersen
Nationality: Danish
Year: 1837
The Ugly Duckling
Author: Hans Christian Andersen
Nationality: Danish
Year: 1843
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Author: Lewis Carroll
Nationality: English
Year: 1865
The Story of a Bad Boy
Author: Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Nationality: American
Year: 1870
Through the Looking-Glass
Author: Lewis Carroll
Nationality: English
Year: 1871
Around the World in Eighty Days
Author: Jules Verne
Nationality: French
Year: 1872
Black Beauty
Author: Anna Sewell
Nationality: English
Year: 1877
Treasure Island
Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
Nationality: Scottish
Year: 1883
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Author: Mark Twain
Nationality: American
Year: 1884
The Jungle Book
Author: Rudyard Kipling
Nationality: British (born in India)
Year: 1894
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
Author: Beatrix Potter
Nationality: English
Year: 1902
Peter Pan
Author: J.M. Barrie
Nationality: Scottish
Year: 1904
White Fang
Author: Jack London
Nationality: American
Year: 1906
Anne of Green Gables
Author: L.M. Montgomery
Nationality: Canadian
Year: 1908
The Wind in the Willows
Author: Kenneth Grahame
Nationality: Scottish
Year: 1908
The Nicest Girl in the School
Author: Angela Brazil
Nationality: English
Year: 1909
The Secret Garden
Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett
Nationality: British-American
Year: 1911
Pollyanna
Author: Eleanor H. Porter
Nationality: American
Year: 1913
The Velveteen Rabbit
Author: Margery Williams
Nationality: British-American
Year: 1922
Madeline
Author: Ludwig Bemelmans
Nationality: Austrian-American
Year: 1939
The Little Prince
Author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Nationality: French
Year: 1943
Stuart Little
Author: E.B. White
Nationality: American
Year: 1945
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Author: C.S. Lewis
Nationality: British
Year: 1950
The Martian Chronicles
Author: Ray Bradbury
Nationality: American
Year: 1950
Charlotte’s Web
Author: E.B. White
Nationality: American
Year: 1952
The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet
Author: Eleanor Cameron
Nationality: American
Year: 1954
The Lord of the Rings
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien
Nationality: British
Year: 1954–1955
Old Yeller
Author: Fred Gipson
Nationality: American
Year: 1956
The Cat in the Hat
Author: Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel)
Nationality: American
Year: 1957
How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
Author: Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel)
Nationality: American
Year: 1957
Calico Captive
Author: Elizabeth George Speare
Nationality: American
Year: 1957
The Weirdstone of Brisingamen
Author: Alan Garner
Nationality: English
Year: 1960
Green Eggs and Ham
Author: Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel)
Nationality: American
Year: 1960
Where the Red Fern Grows
Author: Wilson Rawls
Nationality: American
Year: 1961
A Wrinkle in Time
Author: Madeleine L’Engle
Nationality: American
Year: 1962
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Author: Roald Dahl
Nationality: British
Year: 1964
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
Author: J.K. Rowling
Nationality: British
Year: 1997

XXXV. Identified the Cosmological and Geologic Time Periods.

While the concept of cosmological time evolved from 20th-century physics and astronomy, and no one “inventor” can be said to have originated a particular time period, it is possible to name scientists whose work is associated with the conceptualization of particular epochs. Similarly, although the conceptualization of geologic time periods is rooted in the development of the science of geology, the principles of stratigraphy first developed by Nicolas Steno (1669), and refined by many geologists later on. we can identify particular names associated with each geologic period. Of all the names listed below, Abdus Salam is the only scientist with non-European ancestry, born in Pakistan. Seven names have Jewish ancestry, and twenty-three are of European ancestry.

Cosmological Time Periods

Planck Epoch
- Time: 0 to ~10⁻⁴³ seconds after the Big Bang
- Description: The earliest phase, where quantum gravity dominated, and all fundamental forces were unified. Physics as we know it doesn’t fully apply.
- Originator: Named after Max Planck, who developed the theoretical framework for quantum mechanics and defined the Planck scale in the late 19th/early 20th century. The concept emerged from quantum theory and general relativity integration efforts.
Grand Unification Epoch
- Time: ~10⁻⁴³ to ~10⁻³⁶ seconds
- Description: Gravity separated from the other forces, which remained unified (strong, weak, electromagnetic). The universe was a hot, dense soup of energy.
- Originator: This phase stems from Grand Unified Theories (GUTs), proposed in the 1970s by physicists like Howard Georgi and Sheldon Glashow, building on earlier unification ideas.
Inflationary Epoch
- Time: ~10⁻³⁶ to ~10⁻³² seconds
- Description: A rapid exponential expansion of the universe occurred, smoothing out irregularities and setting the stage for structure formation.
- Originator: Alan Guth proposed cosmic inflation in 1980, revolutionizing cosmology by explaining the universe’s uniformity and flatness.
Electroweak Epoch
- Time: ~10⁻³² to ~10⁻¹² seconds
- Description: The electromagnetic and weak forces were still unified. The universe cooled as it expanded.
- Originator: Linked to the electroweak theory by Sheldon Glashow, Abdus Salam, and Steven Weinberg (1960s-1970s), unifying these forces mathematically.
Quark Epoch
- Time: ~10⁻¹² to ~10⁻⁶ seconds
- Description: Quarks, leptons, and photons dominated as the universe cooled enough for the strong force to separate.
- Originator: Named from particle physics developments, with George Zweig and Murray Gell-Mann proposing quarks in 1964.
Hadron Epoch
- Time: ~10⁻⁶ seconds to ~1 second
- Description: Quarks combined to form hadrons (protons, neutrons). Most matter-antimatter pairs annihilated.
- Originator: Also tied to Gell-Mann and Zweig’s quark model, with the term “hadron” coined by Lev Okun in 1962.
Lepton Epoch
- Time: ~1 second to ~10 seconds
- Description: Leptons (electrons, neutrinos) dominated after most hadrons annihilated. Neutrinos decoupled.
- Originator: Emerged from particle physics; no single originator, but builds on lepton classification from the mid-20th century.
Nucleosynthesis Epoch
- Time: ~10 seconds to ~20 minutes
- Description: Protons and neutrons fused to form light nuclei (hydrogen, helium).
- Originator: George Gamow, Ralph Alpher, and Robert Herman developed Big Bang nucleosynthesis theory in the 1940s, predicting elemental abundances.
Recombination Epoch
- Time: ~380,000 years
- Description: Electrons and nuclei combined to form neutral atoms, making the universe transparent to light (cosmic microwave background forms).
- Originator: Predicted by Alpher and Herman in 1948, confirmed by Penzias and Wilson’s 1965 discovery of the CMB.
Dark Ages
- Time: ~380,000 years to ~150 million years
- Description: A period of darkness before stars formed, with only neutral gas and CMB radiation.
- Originator: Term coined later by cosmologists; no single originator, but tied to post-recombination studies.
Reionization Epoch
- Time: ~150 million to ~1 billion years
- Description: First stars and galaxies formed, reionizing the neutral hydrogen with ultraviolet light.
- Originator: Concept developed in the 1990s-2000s from observations (e.g., by the Hubble Space Telescope) and theoretical work on star formation.
Stellar Era (Present Era)
- Time: ~1 billion years to present (~13.8 billion years)
- Description: Stars, galaxies, and planets dominate, with ongoing structure formation.
- Originator: Broadly understood through Edwin Hubble’s 1920s work on cosmic expansion, refined by modern cosmology.

Geologic Time Periods

Eons

Hadean Eon (~4.6–4.0 billion years ago)
- Description: Earth’s formation, no preserved rocks, intense bombardment.
- Originator: Term coined by Preston Cloud in 1972, reflecting a “hellish” early Earth.
Archean Eon (~4.0–2.5 billion years ago)
- Description: Early crust, first life (microbes).
- Originator: Named by James Dana in 1872, from Greek “archaios” (ancient).
Proterozoic Eon (~2.5 billion–541 million years ago)
- Description: Oxygen buildup, multicellular life emerges.
- Originator: Proposed by William Logan in 1857, formalized later; “protero” means “earlier life.”
Phanerozoic Eon (541 million years ago–present)
- Description: Visible life flourishes, complex ecosystems.
- Originator: Named by George Chadwick in 1930, from Greek “phaneros” (visible) and “zoe” (life).

Eras (Phanerozoic Eon)

Paleozoic Era (541–252 million years ago)
- Description: “Ancient life” – invertebrates, fish, early plants.
- Originator: John Phillips named it in 1841, based on fossil succession.
Mesozoic Era (252–66 million years ago)
- Description: “Middle life” – dinosaurs, first mammals.
- Originator: Also John Phillips, 1841, noting a transitional fossil record.
Cenozoic Era (66 million years ago–present)
- Description: “Recent life” – mammals dominate.
- Originator: John Phillips, 1841, for the modern fauna.

Periods (Phanerozoic Eon)

Cambrian Period (541–485 million years ago)
- Description: Cambrian Explosion, diverse marine life.
- Originator: Adam Sedgwick named it in 1835 after Cambria (Wales).
Ordovician Period (485–443 million years ago)
- Description: Marine diversification, first corals.
- Originator: Charles Lapworth, 1879, after the Ordovices tribe in Wales.
Silurian Period (443–419 million years ago)
- Description: First land plants, jawed fish.
- Originator: Roderick Murchison, 1835, after the Silures tribe in Wales.
Devonian Period (419–359 million years ago)
- Description: “Age of Fish,” early tetrapods.
- Originator: Sedgwick and Murchison, 1839, after Devon, England.
Carboniferous Period (359–299 million years ago)
- Description: Coal forests, amphibians thrive.
- Originator: William Conybeare and William Phillips, 1822, for carbon-rich deposits.
- Subdivisions: Mississippian and Pennsylvanian (North American terms by Henry Shaler Williams, 1891).
Permian Period (299–252 million years ago)
- Description: Pangaea forms, ends with mass extinction.
- Originator: Roderick Murchison, 1841, after Perm, Russia.
Triassic Period (252–201 million years ago)
- Description: Dinosaurs emerge, recovery from extinction.
- Originator: Friedrich von Alberti, 1834, for a three-part rock sequence in Germany.
Jurassic Period (201–145 million years ago)
- Description: Dinosaurs dominate, first birds.
- Originator: Alexandre Brongniart, 1829, after the Jura Mountains.
Cretaceous Period (145–66 million years ago)
- Description: Flowering plants, ends with dinosaur extinction.
- Originator: Jean-Baptiste d’Omalius d’Halloy, 1822, for chalk (Latin “creta”).
Paleogene Period (66–23 million years ago)
- Description: Mammal radiation, early primates.
- Originator: Moritz Hörnes, 1853, for “older recent” life.
Neogene Period (23–2.58 million years ago)
- Description: Modern mammals, hominids evolve.
- Originator: Moritz Hörnes, 1853, for “newer recent” life.
Quaternary Period (2.58 million years ago–present)
- Description: Ice ages, human evolution.
- Originator: Jules Desnoyers, 1829, for recent deposits.

XXXVI. Invented all the extreme sports

I just asked Grok to organize in a numbered format the following extreme sports, with a brief description of the nature of each sport, and the nationalities of the men associated with their origins. This is based on Grok’s reply.

Highlining
- Description: Tightrope walking on a strap at elevated heights, typically with a harness for safety.
- Origin: Pioneered in the early 1980s by American climbers Adam Grosowsky and Jeff Ellington in Yosemite National Park, California.
Free Solo Climbing
- Description: Climbing rock formations without ropes or assistance beyond a chalk bag and shoes.
- Origin: Paul Preuss (Austria, 1886–1913) is credited with promoting a purist climbing ethic in the early 20th century that resembles modern free soloing. Alex Honnold (USA) popularized it with his famous 2017 free solo of El Capitan.
Downhill Mountain Biking
- Description: Racing down steep, rough terrain on a mountain bike.
- Origin: Downhill mountain biking emerged in the 1970s in Northern California, USA, when a group of cyclists, including Gary Fisher, Joe Breeze, and Charlie Kelly, began modifying bikes to race down fire roads on Mount Tamalpais.
BASE Jumping
- Description: Jumping from fixed objects (Building, Antenna, Span, Earth) with a parachute.
- Origin: Modern BASE-jumping traces back to Carl Boenish (USA), who in 1981 coined the term and made it a recognized sport by jumping from El Capitan in Yosemite with a parachute.
Ice Climbing
- Description: Scaling ice formations like frozen waterfalls or snow-covered peaks.
- Origin: Ice climbing evolved from mountaineering in the European Alps. Oscar Eckenstein (UK, 1859–1921) is often credited with early innovations.
Cliff Diving
- Description: Jumping from high cliffs into water.
- Origin: Cliff diving has ancient roots in Hawaii, where King Kahekili (1737–1794) reportedly leapt from cliffs to prove his bravery. Modern cliff diving was popularized by figures like Orlando Duque (Colombia) in competitive formats.
Wing Walking
- Description: Standing on a plane’s wings during flight as it performs stunts.
- Origin: Wing walking began in the 1920s as a stunt in post-WWI barnstorming shows in the USA. Ormer Locklear (USA, 1891–1920) is credited as the first to perform it publicly.
Freshwater Diving (Cave Diving)
- Description: Exploring submerged cave systems underwater.
- Origin: Modern cave diving was pioneered by Sheck Exley (USA, 1949–1994).
Volcano Surfing
- Description: Sliding down volcanic slopes, often on a board.
- Origin: Volcano surfing (or volcano boarding) was popularized in the 2000s by Darryn Webb, an Australian.
Big Wave Surfing
- Description: Surfing massive ocean waves, often over 20 feet high.
- Origin: Big wave surfing originated in Hawaii, with George Freeth (USA, of Hawaiian descent, 1883–1919). Later, Greg Noll (USA) pioneered riding giant waves at Waimea Bay in the 1950s.
Freestyle Skiing & Snowboarding
- Description: Performing aerial tricks and maneuvers on skis or snowboards, often in terrain parks or halfpipes.
- Origin: Freestyle skiing emerged in the 1960s in the United States, with skiers like Wayne Wong and John Clendenin popularizing trick-based skiing in the 1970s. Snowboarding’s freestyle form followed in the 1980s, driven by Jake Burton Carpenter.
Waterfall Kayaking
- Description: Paddling over waterfalls in a kayak, often involving significant drops and turbulent waters.
- Origin: Evolved from whitewater kayaking, with Tao Berman setting notable records in the 1990s and 2000s, including a 98.4-foot waterfall descent in 2007 in the United States.
Big Mountain Skiing / Snowboarding
- Description: Skiing or snowboarding on steep, ungroomed terrain, typically in remote backcountry areas.
- Origin: Big mountain skiing traces back to the 1970s, with Bill Briggs making the first ski descent of the Grand Teton in Wyoming, USA, in 1971.
Ice Cross Downhill
- Description: Racing down an icy track with jumps, turns, and obstacles on skates.
- Origin: Created by Red Bull in 2000, with the inaugural event held in Stockholm, Sweden, in 2001.
Skydiving
- Description: Jumping from an aircraft and free-falling before deploying a parachute.
- Origin: Modern skydiving as a sport developed in the 1950s, building on earlier feats like Raymond Young’s first recorded free-fall jump in 1919 in the United States.
Canyon Swinging
- Description: Swinging from a rope or cable across a canyon.
- Origin: Popularized in the 2000s as an adventure tourism activity, notably in Queenstown, New Zealand.
BMX
- Description: Bicycle Motocross, involving racing on dirt tracks or performing tricks in skateparks with specialized bikes.
- Origin: Originated in the late 1960s in California, USA, when Scot Breithaupt organized the first BMX race in 1970.
Extreme Skiing
- Description: Skiing in extreme conditions, such as steep slopes, deep powder, or remote locations.
- Origin: Attributed to Sylvain Saudan who in the 1960s and 1970s made pioneering descents of steep Alpine slopes.
Freestyle Motocross
- Description: Performing aerial tricks and stunts on a motocross bike, often during jumps.
- Origin: Developed in the 1990s in the United States, with pioneers Jeremy “Twitch” Stenberg and Mike Metzger.

Conclusion

We could go on but these lists are more than enough to convey the supreme achievements of Europeans. In our age of immigrant DEI, which is destroying the West, these lists should become an indispensable part in the protection and affirmation of European identity and heritage. Carry them around, and overwhelm the anti-whites with them.

Vatican & B’Nai B’rith – a long story made short

March 13, 2025/10 Comments/in Featured Articles/by Francis Goumain

There’s something pathetic and final about this photo of a wheelchair-bound Pope receiving B’Nai’Brith’s highest honor: how can the Church ever recover from such an image?

It was May 30, 2022, Pope Francis received an award from B’Nai’Brith (the most powerful Jewish freemasonry) to thank him for his support of them.

All Francis’s predecessors, from Clement XII onwards, have condemned in advance such allegiance to the Anti-Christ sect. Among many other documents, we can only recommend Leo XIII’s magisterial encyclical Humanum genus (04/20/1884).

All his predecessors? No. In fact, Leo XIII’s encyclical would seem to mark the beginning of a gray area, getting darker and darker as we approach Pope Francis.

Pope Francis, during the audience granted to B’Nai’Brith on May 30, 2022, delivered an address that can be found here. In this address, he recalls the already long history of contacts between B’Nai’Brith and the Vatican.

Incidentally, this wasn’t the first time that Pope Francis himself had met B’Nai’Brith representatives at the Vatican; on June 25, 2015, a similar meeting had taken place, immortalized in a B’Nai’Brith video. Both sides are celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Paul VI’s “Nostra Aetate” address on October 28, 1965. The text of Pope Francis’ address on this occasion is available here.

On its website, B’Nai’Brith likes to recall that before he was known around the world at Pope Francis, then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio hosted B’nai B’rith’s Kristallnacht commemoration in Buenos Aires in 2012.

Going back to Pope Francis’ immediate predecessors, we find:

A meeting in the Papal Hall on Thursday, May 12, 2011, between Pope Benedict XVI and B’Nai’Brith: “Dear Friends, I am pleased to greet this delegation of B’nai B’rith International. I recall with pleasure my earlier meeting with a delegation of your organization some five years ago.”

About five years ago, says Pope Benedict XVI, and, indeed, on Monday December 18, 2006, the text of Pope Benedict’s address on that occasion can be found here.

Ten years earlier, on March 11, 1996, His Holiness John Paul II addressed a delegation from B’NAI B’RITH International: “Dear Friends, I am pleased to welcome once more a group of representatives of B nai B’rith International.”

September 29, 1984, address by John Paul II to a delegation from the Anti-Defamation League of B’Nai B’RITH (Sons of the Covenant) Consistory Hall of the Papal Palace, Castel Gandolfo.

All of John Paul II’s addresses to the Jewish community can be found here.

Pope John Paul II was the first to visit Auschwitz.

On Wednesday May 17, 1978 (in French, not available in English), during a general audience, Paul VI had these words for the B’NAI’BRITH: “To the Members of a Jewish Association. We now extend a warm welcome to the members of the Anti-Defamation League of B nai B’rith. We are very grateful for your visit and for the respect it shows.”

As mentioned above, Pope Paul VI began this whole shift towards the Jewish community (and other religions) with his Nostra aetate on October 28, 1965.

Finally, as JTA reminds us, on February 3, 1958, “Pope Pius XII granted an audience to Philip Klutznick and Frank Goldman, president and honorary president respectively, of the B’nai B’rith, it was announced here today when the two B’nai B’rith leaders returned from a trip to Rome and a subsequent tour of Israel. The Pope congratulated Mr. Klutznick and Mr. Goldmann on the good work and philanthropy of the B’nai B’rith.”

Makes you wonder if, in order to find Pope Francis’ successor, we shouldn’t find out about any B’Nai’Brith meetings with this or that cardinal.

Here’s a fine example with Cardinal Christoph von Schönborn, Austria, receiving his Menorah from B’nai B’rith on October 23, 2013.

The reason for the festivity: The European Lodge of B’nai B’rith wanted to give Schönborn its symbolic award, the “Menorah for outstanding humanitarian achievement.” Ach so! However, the cardinal is already 80 years old …

In any case, to cut a long story short, we may be witnessing a historic reversal of the balance of power.

Sources:

May 30, 2022: Bergoglio receives award from the B’nai B’rith
Bergoglio receives award from the B’nai B’rith

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS TO A DELEGATION FROM B’NAI B’RITH INTERNATIONAL Monday, 30 May 2022
https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2022/may/documents/20220530-bnaibrith.html

HUMANUM GENUS
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII
ON FREEMASONRY
Humanum Genus (April 20, 1884) | LEO XIII

Echo of the May 30, 2022 interview in the Jerusalem Post
In meeting with Pope Francis, B’nai B’rith calls for Accords expansion – The Jerusalem Post

Video B’nai B’rith Presents Gift To Pope Francis le 25 juin 2015
B’nai B’rith Presents Gift To Pope Francis

Video Papa udienza B’nai B’rith International 25-06-2015

Centro Televisivo Vaticano – Archivio
Papa udienza B’nai B’rith International 25-06-2015

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
TO MEMBERS OF THE “B’NAI B’RITH INTERNATIONAL” DELEGATION

Hall of Popes
Thursday, 25 June 2015
To members of the of B’nai B’rith International delegation (25 June 2015) | Francis

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
TO A DELEGATION OF B’NAI B’RITH INTERNATIONAL

Hall of Popes
Thursday, 12 May 2011

To a delegation of B’nai B’rith International (May 12, 2011) | BENEDICT XVI

GREETING OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
TO A DELEGATION FROM B’NAI B’RITH INTERNATIONAL
Monday, 18 December 2006
Greeting to a delegation from B’nai B’rith International (December 18, 2006) | BENEDICT XVI

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II
TO A GROUP OF REPRESENTATIVES
OF THE “B’NAI B’RITH INTERNATIONAL”

Monday, 11 March 1996

https://www.christianunity.va/content/unitacristiani/fr/commissione-per-i-rapporti-religiosi-con-l-ebraismo/atti-commemorativi1/pope-john-paul-ii/1995-address-to-representatives-of-b-nai-b-rith-international.html

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II
TO THE REPRESENTATIVES
OF THE “ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE OF B’NAI B’RITH”

Consistory Hall
Thursday, 29 September 1994

List of John Paul II’s speeches to the Jewish community

Pape Jean-Paul II

PAUL VI GENERAL AUDIENCE Wednesday, May 17, 1978

Audience générale, 17 mai 1978 – Paul VI | Paul VI

B’nai B’rith leaders received by Pope Pius Xii at the Vatican

B’nai B’rith Leaders Received by Pope Pius Xii in Vatican City – Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Nostra Aetate Rome, St Peter’s, October 28 1965.

Nostra aetate

Tucker’s Interview with Ernst Roets: The good, the bad, and the ugly

March 11, 2025/10 Comments/in Featured Articles/by Kevin MacDonald

Also of interest: US Halts Aid To South Africa ‘Immediately’ As Trump Offers Fast-Tracked Citizenship For Persecuted White Farmers | ZeroHedge

This is an interesting interview. Lots of good stuff on the failure of post-apartheid South Africa—crumbling infrastructure, incompetent government unable to provide electricity and water on a regular basis—or even carry out anti-White measures apart from taxation (“virtually every sphere of society is collapsing, with the exception of taxation”), that it’s unrealistic to expect Africans to respect or develop democratic institutions, the threat of mob violence, the need to hire private security services because the government protects neither property nor lives, and a law allowing land seizure from Whites given to Blacks without compensation (and if a Black South African sells his land to a White, the land can still be seized without compensation; but wait! The media claimed that there was compensation—null compensation, so just relax). And, as throughout the West, there is anti-White hate in high places based on American Critical Race Theory (“which essentially boils down to a theory that justifies the targeting and extermination of the white minority” because they “are not truly human”; “so they would say, no, [“kill the Boer”] is just a metaphor, but it’s preceded by a speech about how white people are criminals and should be treated like criminals, how everything they have is illegitimate and stolen, in which people are encouraged to go and invade their farms and so forth. And then they chant, “kill the Boer”). It goes without saying that The New York Times et al. would be thrilled if in fact there was genocide against White South Africans.

But despite all this, the commitment of White South Africans to stay in South Africa and their attachment to the country remains, and Roets predicts few Boers will take up Trump’s offer of refugee status and expedited path to citizenship. According to Roets, Trump would contribute far more if he had the U.S. pressure South Africa to ensure self-determination of different groups, including for the Boers. Roets’s solution is for communities to band together against the hate and violence and eventually develop a state of their own. He cites examples where armed Whites have stood up successfully against threats of mob violence and against murdering White farmers to the point that farm murders are declining. But Roets realizes this is not a long-term solution and that the Boer-descended people must have self-determination.

What’s frustrating is their discussion of why all this is happening—why so much anti-White hate that is applauded or ignored in the Western media. For example, Tucker asks this question and never has anything close to a satisfactory answer. They discuss the Whites-only town of Orania:

A neighborhood, a community of 3000 people, which is tiny even by South African standards, has received unrelenting negative media attention in the West. Why is that? Such a moral crime, such an outrage to have a community like that? …

Why, why, why the hostility. And that’s true globally, by the way, there’s not any White majority country. There are very few left. Very few left. But they’re just suspect because they exist. What is that?

Various possibilities are tossed around—affluence, World War II, nationalism are rejected. The closest they come to getting it right is when Roets hints that there is a hostile elite that dominates all the high places in Western societies, in politics, the media, and academia, but they don’t make a serious analysis of who constitutes that elite and why they hate White people:

Ernst Roets [00:50:18] I’d like to believe, and I hope that I’m right, that it’s it’s a minority within the Western world that really believes this stuff [i.e., the idea that Whites are evil and don’t deserve a homeland].

Tucker [00:50:24] I think.

Ernst Roets [00:50:25] But they have significant power and influence.

Tucker [00:50:27] They do that.

Ernst Roets [00:50:28] They are the editors of newspapers. They are the prime ministers. They are professors at universities and so forth. And those are the people who are promoting this type of idea.

In other words, Roets has listed the three main sources of Jewish power in the West: The media, politics, and academia. They mention World War II, but neither try to come up with a serious theory of why the Western elites changed after World War II. My theory of course is that the post-World War II era saw the rise of a hostile Jewish elite in the media, in the universities, and—via donations enabled by Jewish wealth—in the political culture (e.g., the power of the Israel Lobby enabled by instilling fear in politicians). In other words, it has been a top-down political and cultural revolution enabled at least partly by Western individualism but motivated by Jewish fears of a homogeneous White society (paradigmatically National Socialism) and atavistic Jewish hatred toward the West that’s been festering for 2000 years because of the expulsions, pogroms, attempts at forced conversions, and most recently, the holocaust.

Re individualism, I have emphasized that a powerful mechanism of social control in individualistic societies is the creation of moral communities. Tucker seems to realize this:

But I actually think that the only thing the people currently in charge of most of the world, certainly of the West, are good at, is seizing the moral high ground. And they don’t deserve it. They haven’t earned it. They’re rotten. Their ideas are rotten, and they don’t deserve to lecture the rest of us about our moral inferiority. While they’re endorsing the murder of people for how they were born. Sorry.

Later, Roets seems to understand this:

So, I think what the Afrikaner people need to do is in a large, to a large extent, built their own self-determination. And I think that that’s what we what we intend to do. But it would help a lot if we can get recognition for this pursuit as a legitimate pursuit.

The problem, of course, is that self-determination for any White group is seen by our hostile elite as completely illegitimate.

They mention Elon Musk:

Tucker: But we were required to talk about South Africa in a very specific way and to repeat certain cliches really at gunpoint. And that’s changed in the past couple of months, and it’s really changed due to a South African émigré called Elon Musk. This is my perspective. You tell me yours. But he has made it possible through X, but also through statements he’s made on X to say the obvious, which is this is a crime against a beleaguered minority …, this is racism against human beings and it’s wrong. What do you feel about that?

Ernst Roets [00:51:53] Yes. So I don’t know how much of what is in his biography by Isaacson is true, but it does seem from his biography that he’s had some bad experiences growing up in South Africa, which is unfortunate. [In the Isaacson biography Musk describes how brutal South African schools and summer camp were—he had to learn how to fight. So it’s not surprising he hasn’t donated much to them. And no, he did not receive money from his father, a common myth on the left; he designed a website and sold it. And although he did not found Tesla, when he got involved they had produced no cars and were really more of an idea than anything else.] And we’re still not sure quite how attached he still is to South Africa as a country. But looking at his X and his comments, it’s very clear that he’s interested. And the strange thing is, even though some people are very angry with him for speaking about South Africa, the only thing that he’s really doing is he’s picking up a mirror and he’s saying, look at what’s happening in South Africa.

Finally some good advice for all of us.

Roets: And I honestly think in the situation we are in, it’s better to on the side of being too bold than to be on the side of having not enough courage or trying to find some form of solution through appeasement. And so we make mistakes in the process. And, and you know, sometimes you say something wrong or you do something wrong, but I’m very much convinced that if we’re on this course and we try to pursue what we are trying to pursue, rather on the side of having too much boldness and too much courage and facing the consequences, then having to face the consequences of having a lack of courage.

In the following somewhat rough transcript provided by TCN I have bold-faced passages that I think are of general interest.

* * *

Ernst Roets: Attacks on Whites in South Africa, Attempts to Hide It, and Trump’s Plan to End It

Tucker [00:00:00] So, I think for most Americans, news about South Africa ended in 1994. Both literally. We stopped getting a lot of news from the country, but also people’s views about it stopped evolving. Then that was the year that that apartheid ended, I guess officially you had elections. Nelson Mandela, still a hero in the United States, often referred to by politicians. And it’s only been, I think, in American media in the past couple of months that stories have come out of South Africa that have, you know, a lot of Americans have read that actually, the country seems to be falling apart and that the government is kind of genocidal racist. Yeah. And and then President Trump in the past month has basically said the same, the same thing. And it’s shocking to a lot of people, I think, how bad it is and how just how racist it is, you know, far more than apartheid ever was. And so I’m wondering, since you’ve just landed from South Africa, you live there? What? Describe the state of the country right now, if you would?

Ernst Roets [00:01:25] Yeah, well, perhaps I can start with your reference about the 90s, because it’s absolutely true. South Africa and America was very involved with the setting up of the political system in South Africa during the 90s. And it was, of course, the end of an historical era. Everyone is excited about the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the whole world’s going to be liberal and democratic, including African countries. Yes. And Samuel Huntington actually cautioned against this in 1996, saying, you know, when you wrote The Clash of Civilizations and he said, don’t expect of African leaders and African liberation movements to suddenly become Western when you give them Western constitutions because they are still African, so they will use it’s the democratic paradox. They will use democratic institutions to promote non-democratic ends. And that’s what we see in South Africa. We have a parliament, we have a very liberal constitution. But if you read the Constitution and you compare that to reality in South Africa, it’s two completely different worlds. The de facto [image] in the diaspora [and] reality in South Africa are irreconcilable. And so what has been happening in South Africa is firstly, there was this major excitement about the new South Africa, Nelson Mandela, the miracle story. You know, Oprah was spoke about this and Charlize everyone and and but the reality on ground level was in many ways the opposite. And I think a lot.

Tucker [00:02:42] From the beginning.

Ernst Roets [00:02:43] And gradually so so they started for example, with these be as they call it, its black economic empowerment, which of course has nothing to do with economic empowerment. They started with that in 1996. And so they actually said initially in the 90s that that’s the ruling party’s strategy. They still call it that, the national democratic revolution, which is about using democracy to promote socialist ends. And so the revolution, they say it goes in two phases. The first phase is present yourself as being liberal and democratic and get support, especially international support and local, and then use multi-party democracy as a way of promoting the goals of taking the country down the road to socialism. And so recently, they even went as far as publishing a document saying, we are now ready for the second phase of the revolution. We now have power. We have control of the state. We now you need to use this to become much more aggressive in our socialist policies. And we seeing this in a plethora of new laws all of a sudden in South Africa, which I think, I think it’s gotten to the point where it’s just not possible to maintain the view that people have had of South Africa for the last few decades and look at what’s currently happening in South Africa. It’s two completely different worlds, and hopefully or happily, at least a lot of people are starting to to wake up to this.

Tucker [00:04:03] So you said Samuel Huntington wrote that in 1996, two years after the election. I kind of thought that from day one, simply because I knew people there, and I was more familiar with the details of the mandelas. Yes. So but I think most Americans, I don’t think, had any idea, like, what was Nelson Mandela on Robben Island for? What was in prison for, well, for being black. Was there another reason?

Ernst Roets [00:04:31] Well, literally. So I have I have children and they are taught in schools. And the government prescribes what children should learn in history. And so the the official version is he went to prison because he was a good leader and the government didn’t like that. I should say that he certainly was the best that the ANC has ever had to offer. Yes, but the reason why he went to prison is because they started to contour his way, which was the military wing of the ANC, which became involved with military actions in South Africa with an attempt to overthrow the government. And actually and this is, this is I’m quoting from the ANC’s own policy documents that’s on their own website, so that this operation, when they started, which was used in the Rivonia Trial against Nelson Mandela, it was a strategy called Operation Miyabi. And the slogan of this operation was shamelessly, we shall attack the weak, and shamelessly we shall flee from the strong. So those were the circumstances in the 1960s.

Tucker [00:05:30] Pretty noble policy statement there will attack the weak and flee from the strong…

Ernst Roets [00:05:35] And it’s still on their website. You can find it there. So that was it was an attempt at an armed uprising. Now we can talk about everything that is wrong with the previous political system in South Africa. There was a lot wrong. But but it’s simply not the case that he went to prison for being a good leader.

Tucker [00:05:52] Well, I think that most people would acknowledge a distinction between military action, which is, you know, a a a fight, a war, a battle between militaries. And attacks on civilians, which is the something we call terrorism. Yes.

Ernst Roets [00:06:08] So in 1985, the ANC had a conference in Kabwe in Zambia, and they took a formal decision that in their so-called military operations, they would not differentiate between hard and soft targets. So it was officially a policy that says we can kill innocent people. And a lot of innocent people died in the political violence in the run up to 1994. And 90% of the people who died were black South Africans.

Tucker [00:06:34] Right.

Ernst Roets [00:06:35] It was.

Tucker [00:06:36] But noncombatants, women, children.

Ernst Roets [00:06:37] Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Women and passers.

Tucker [00:06:38] By, you know, people had nothing to do with anything.

Ernst Roets [00:06:40] Yes. Yes, especially.

Tucker [00:06:42] And so during that time that Mandela was in prison. I’m 55. So I remember this very, very well. His wife was effectively his spokesman, Winnie Mandela. Yeah. And she was lying, I said. United States, she was a hero. She was the mother of an emerging nation. You know, a woman of of peace and decency, really, a transcendent figure, a holy thing. And and then it turned out that actually, she was a murderer who had, you know, burned to death or supervised the murder of a bunch of different people. Tell us about that.

Ernst Roets [00:07:12] Yes. So let me firstly say that I have a lot of respect for Nelson Mandela, I think in terms of, of his efforts and and as I say, he’s I think he’s the he’s the best the ANC has ever had to offer. Winnie Mandela, his wife. Not so much. So she famously I mean, she’s been involved with a lot of things, including what what was called the Mandela Football Club.

Tucker [00:07:31] Yes.

Ernst Roets [00:07:32] [The Mandela Football Club] was a gang that was involved with violence and killings of innocent people. And she famously said at a political rally with necklaces and all matches, we will liberate this country. Yes. Which, of course is a reference to the necklace murders, which was very popular in South Africa and still happens in South Africa. That’s when you take and a rubber tire, you fill it with petrol or gasoline, and you put it around someone’s necks so that it’s bound around the arms and you set it on fire, and then you stone that person while he’s burning to death. And that happened. They were, I think 500 or 700 people were killed like that during political violence in South Africa. And she encouraged this. Initially, she denied it. And then it came out that it was recorded of her saying this. So, yes, it’s very bizarre that someone like Mandela is a hero today.

Tucker [00:08:21] And was a hero then. And so that to me was a sign that these are these are not, you know, liberators that their oppressors. Yeah, yeah. And so but no one in the West wanted to think that it was like a really simple tale of white oppression, of noble black people and by definition, the black. But I mean, there were oppressed by people, of course, and there were no black people. But the leadership always struck me as evil.

Ernst Roets [00:08:46] Yeah. So? So there were some better and some worse people in the leadership. I think an important component here that is very well documented. It’s not a secret, but a lot of people don’t seem to want to know this or recognize this is the very strong alliance that the ANC has always had and still has with the South African Communist Party and the extent to which they were supported, and not just by the Soviet Union, also by the Vietnamese and by multitudes as well. Implementing a what they call the people’s war strategy that they got from from Mao Tse tung. So, yes, it was very much the ANC saw themselves as being the African or South African frontier of promoting a socialist or a communist revolution.

Tucker [00:09:30] So how did it turn out?

Ernst Roets [00:09:33] Well, if you mean you mean in terms of where we are.

Tucker [00:09:36] Let’s let’s just follow different threads. So let’s just start with I don’t know. Technology and infrastructure. What did in 1993. South Africa was famously the most prosperous society in Africa by far right and up among the most prosperous in the world. Correct. They had nuclear weapons in South Africa? Yes. Yeah, yeah. What is it like now, 30 years later?

Ernst Roets [00:10:02] Well, the reality is that that virtually every sphere of societies is collapsing, with the exception of taxation, of course, in tax collection, that’s still very, very efficient. Maybe I can explain it this way. So America has a somewhat skewed tax system with, if my information is correct, about 85% of tax income tax in America is paid by about 10% of the people.

Tucker [00:10:28] I think that’s correct.

Ernst Roets [00:10:29] So 1 in 10 in South Africa, 85% of income taxes paid by 1 in 30 people. So it’s a very small number of people, a very small portion of of society that pays tax that is heavily taxed. And then about almost half of the population in South Africa get money from the government in the form of social grants. If you add government employees, conservative estimates say that 50% of people in South Africa get money from the government. Some estimates say it’s up to 60% of adults voting age. Adults get money from the government each year. So then this money, of course, is then used. It’s given out to social grants. But what’s left is used to set up these programs that are actively discriminating against taxpayers. Like, I mean, there are so many examples. One of the most recent ones is this is this blacks only fund that the government has set up whereby they give money to black entrepreneurs exclusively. So so this is happening. And then on top of that, so after you spend your tax money to fund these government programs that are discriminating against you, you have to spend what is left to do the things that the government was supposed to be doing. So the classical definition of a government is that it should protect life, liberty and property. The classical liberal view we’re a bit cicerone in, so we think a government has to do more than that. But but if we use those three things, the government’s not protecting our lives. There’s about if this interview that we are about to have is two hours, it’ll there will be about seven murders in South Africa in this time. Government does not protect liberty. It’s actively targeting schools of minority communities [i.e., Whites\, actively denying the identity and the rights of minority communities. And it’s certainly not protecting property. It’s actively involved with the program to empower the government to expropriate private property without compensation. So, so and then we have to use the money that is left to pay for our own private security, to become involved with organizations to for the things that the government was supposed to be doing with the tax money that we paid in the first place.

Tucker [00:12:34] One of the reasons that I find this story so fascinating is not simply because, you know, it’s like the classical, you know, irony of history. This, you know, group comes in with one aim and then achieves exactly the opposite. We’re going to have a, you know, we’re going to end racism and then make racism much worse, but also because they have gone about it in a way that’s almost like American with the same language, the same is our strength kind of sloganeering. And it’s had the same result, which is to basically kill whites. And I mean, this is true, and I, I, I wonder if you see that it’s almost like you imported our kind of intellectual class framework for this project.

Ernst Roets [00:13:17] That’s absolutely the case. So so there’s a theory. There was this video that just went viral on social media of this guy talking about how white people are subhuman and all of that, and they get, well, this is taught at universities in South Africa. There’s a theory called Azania critical theory. Azania is a Ben African word for South Africa. And they actually get this from Americans like Robin D’Angelo. Who’s this? Ibrahim? It’s the Ta-Nehisi Coates, these people, they get it from them. And then they put an African flavor on it, which essentially boils down to a theory that justifies the targeting and extermination of the white minority. And and so the theory, to summarize, goes more or less like this. There’s an African term called ubuntu, which means brotherly ness, or it’s about your internal humanity. It’s a Zulu term. And the theory goes that white people are incapable of having ubuntu. But ubuntu is the essence of humanity. So if you don’t have it, you’re not truly human. So it boils down that the logical conclusion is that if you kill a white person, then you did not actually commit murder. So this is not widely believed in South Africa, but this is taught at universities by university professors, and it’s certainly believed by radical elements.

Tucker [00:14:34] It’s a predicate for genocide. I mean, it’s always the same in every I mean, we’re watching in a part of the world now. They’re not fully human, right? So we can kill them because they’re fully human. Then it’s a, it’s a, of course, a grave sin to kill them.

Ernst Roets [00:14:44] Yeah. Well, well, we’ve always been saying that there’s not a genocide in South Africa looking at what happened in Rwanda and so forth. It’s not the same thing, but it is very alarming to look at some of these claims that are being made and to compare that to what was made in Rwanda.

Tucker [00:14:58] You know, and well, every country and, you know, genocide broadly defined in an attempt to eliminate a group of people on the basis of their race or ethnicity.

Ernst Roets [00:15:07] Yeah. And we have these political parties chanting, I mean, you’ve seen this, you’ve reported on this chanting, kill the bush, kill the farmer to a stadium filled with people. And it’s not just rhetoric. So they would say, no, it’s just a metaphor, but it’s preceded by a speech about how white people are criminals and should be treated like criminals, how everything they have is illegitimate and stolen, in which people are encouraged to go and invade their farms and so forth. And then they chant, kill the Boer, kill the farmer and they make these hand gestures. Of course, the book is a reference to the Afrikaner people. And and but reality is also that the farmers are being attacked and killed on their farms. So it’s not just a metaphor. And and our attempts at researching this has found that there is an increase in farm attacks when obviously when the political climate becomes heated or warmer. And these type of statements are made in a way, in a way that’s highly publicized. You do get an increase in farm attacks. And it and it’s very brutal and very horrific farm attacks that we see.

Tucker [00:16:04] So the farmer texture attacks against white farmers, not.

Ernst Roets [00:16:08] Not not exclusively white farmers, but it’s attacks against farmers in South Africa of which the majority is.

Tucker [00:16:12] White. Right. Okay. So this has been going on a long time. I think it’s been well documented. I believe you wrote a book about it, which has become very sold, a lot of copies on Amazon, I notice. Yes. And so none of this is like a secret and all of it’s verifiable because, you know, dead people are pretty easy to track because they’re dead.

Ernst Roets [00:16:33] Yeah, we have the names of the people who’ve been murdered. Exactly. Yeah.

Tucker [00:16:36] But in the United States, the country that inspired the revolution that you’re living through, our media have ignored that and then gone beyond ignoring it to attack anyone who brings it up as a white supremacist. Yeah.

Ernst Roets [00:16:51] Well, well, I can tell you so many stories about this.

Tucker [00:16:55] Please do.

Ernst Roets [00:16:55] For example, I was on your show a few years ago to talk about the farm murders and the extent to which we were attacked by American media as a result of that. I had someone from CNN come see me in my office in Pretoria and to interview me about farm attacks. And the entire interview was about you. So you would put things to me and say, did you know Tucker Carlson said the following? Do you agree with this statement? And did you know that Donald Trump said this? And are you comfortable with this? And so I paused them at one stage and I said, what are we doing? I thought we had to talk about farm murders and what’s happening in South Africa. But the only. So. The argument was that because Trump made that comment about farmers in 2018, it has to be a non-existing issue because Trump is a liar and everything he says is false. And the same with you because you spoke about it. That means that the problem doesn’t exist, and we have to prove that it doesn’t exist in order to get to you.

Tucker [00:17:48] But not only doesn’t exist, you’re not allowed to complain about it existing. Yes. Yes. So it’s somehow a moral crime to notice and to not like it when people are murdered for the color of their skin.

Ernst Roets [00:18:04] It’s bizarre. It’s.

Tucker [00:18:05] Well, it’s not bizarre. It’s it’s a they’re telegraphing genocidal intent when they’re telling you, no, you’re not getting killed. And yes, it’s a good thing that you are.

Ernst Roets [00:18:13] Yes and no. You’re not getting killed.

Tucker [00:18:15] What are they [saying?].

Ernst Roets [00:18:16] Saying? Yeah, it’s no, you’re not getting killed. And if you are, you deserve it, right? Because of a variety of things. Because the attackers are poor or because remember all the horrible things that white people have done in South Africa and outside of South Africa. So so there’s always a justification. And so another example, just in 2018, again after you spoke about this and after Trump spoke about this, the president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, came to America and he spoke at an event in in New York. And he said there are no killings of farmers in South Africa. And he just flat out denied the existence of the problem. And he said this on an international platform. He said it’s not happening, it’s not true. And and the worst of it all was how the media knew this was wrong, especially mainstream media and South Africa. They knew that it’s not true. And so they immediately rushed to his defense, writing articles like this is what the actually meant to say. And then they sort of justify what’s happening. And so it’s we really do sometimes feel that our biggest battle is not primarily against what the government is doing, but against how the media is.

Tucker [00:19:22] But just consider this. I mean, if, you know, if Trotsky’s in Kalgoorlie in 1994 said, boy, I you know, I lot of us seem to be getting hacked to death by machetes and reporters or political figures said, shut up. You know, you’re a Tutsi supremacist for saying so. I think we could fairly say the people shouting them down are pro-genocide of Tutsis. Yeah. I mean, what what’s the other explanation? I don’t really get it. I mean, what honestly, what’s the other explanation?

Ernst Roets [00:19:53] Well, the the explanation that is used in court cases. So by the way, this kill the Boer chant was found in quote, not to be hate speech according to South African law.

Tucker [00:20:02] Not hate speech. Killing people don’t hate speech. Yeah.

Ernst Roets [00:20:04] Chanting about killing people.

Tucker [00:20:06] You know why it’s not a hate speech? Because it’s not speech they hate. That’s why.

Ernst Roets [00:20:09] Well, maybe that’s.

Tucker [00:20:10] Because they approve of.

Ernst Roets [00:20:11] So the arguments that that is used or are used to defend this type of rhetoric would always be something like you need to see it in context. You need to remember the apartheid system. You need to remember what these people went.

Tucker [00:20:24] Through that they deserved to be killed. You need to remember that.

Ernst Roets [00:20:27] That’s. Well, so the argument is that the actually commemorating the historic struggle, and that’s why they are still chanting this.

Tucker [00:20:33] I would disagree with you. I think what they’re saying is the people getting murdered deserve to be murdered. So stop complaining about it.

Ernst Roets [00:20:39] Yeah, well, I few people are saying that out loud, but it does seem to be.

Tucker [00:20:43] I mean, look, at some point, you know, I don’t need you to explain your motive. If I have a clear glimpse of your actions. If I know what you’re doing. I don’t have to hear you explain why you’re doing it. I already know because the motive is displayed in the action. Did you know what I mean? Yeah, sure. So, in other words, if I pulled out a gun and shoot you and somebody said, did you not like earnest? Yeah, I can say whatever I want, but I just shot you. So I think it’s kind of fair to infer that I didn’t like you. Yeah, right.

Ernst Roets [00:21:11] Yeah, but. But the motive is also explained in the words. So they’re trying to defend the word. It’s a famous story of Chamberlain and Churchill. You know, when Chamberlain came back from meeting Hitler and he say, no, well, I met him. And, you know, I think we’re going to find peace. And then Churchill said, no. Well, I read what he said and I believe them. Yeah. And so you can just read what they’re saying. If you read the policy documents of the ruling party, they say they want to convert South Africa into a communist society. They want to have a revolution in South Africa. And if you listen to the more radical parties to the left of them, they openly chant about killing white people. So so they say these things out loud. And now they are obviously more to the fringe. You find the more extreme rhetoric in South Africa. But but it’s very alarming and and how people just rush to their defense all the time.

Tucker [00:21:58] So that’s the part that bothers me. Like I’m not surprised. I’ll just I’ll just say it. I’m not surprised at all. I watched what happened in Rhodesia when it became Zimbabwe in 1980. And, you know, something identical happened. There was a lot of killing, and they drove it, you know, to the bottom rank of nations, the poorest country in the world. And following exactly the same script, I always thought that what happened in South Africa, I want it to be wrong. Turns out it wasn’t. What really bothers me is that the West has allowed this and cheered it on. Because I live in the West, I live in the United States. So like, I don’t want to think that my leaders are for killing people on the basis of race. But watching how they stood by and applauded Barack Obama’s applauded all this stuff. It tells you everything about Barack Obama and other American leaders, doesn’t it?

Ernst Roets [00:22:47] Yes. And this brings us back to the 90s. So during the 90s, it was again after the Cold War, and the world and especially the West was high on ideology. And this idea that, you know, the world will become liberal and everyone’s going to become like us, and everyone in the world is just an American waiting to be liberated, and we just need to go and liberate them from their own traditional beliefs and so forth. And so it really is the case that that America and many Western countries played a very significant role in creating the South Africa that we have.

Tucker [00:23:16] I’m aware.

Ernst Roets [00:23:17] And so it’s we we don’t want other people to fix our problems on our behalf. We want to solve our own problems. But you can certainly make the case that that the West has a moral responsibility towards the people in South Africa.

Tucker [00:23:29] First, the West forced through sanctions, boycotts, the change of government that put the ANC in power. So, absolutely, in the same way the West is armed, Ukraines, they have an obligation to make sure. Yep. You know, to at least know what’s happening and to be honest about it, not to hide their own. Yes, responsibility for the crime.

Ernst Roets [00:23:50] Yeah. And so there’s this false dichotomy in South Africa, all with regard to South Africa, that if you are against what’s happening in South Africa now, that means you want the apartheid system. So you have a choice. And there’s one former judge recently said this who’s retired. He said that we have a choice in South Africa between a moral system that is dysfunctional, which is the current system, or an immoral system that is a functional one, which is the former system. And so the problem is, if you criticize what’s happening in South Africa. Now you get accused of wanting to return to the apartheid system, but the truth is you can reject both. You can say, we don’t want the apartheid system and we don’t want what’s happening in South Africa at the moment. We want to govern ourselves. We want freedom. But but it seems that a lot of people are incapable of making that conclusion or leaving any room for saying that both these systems are wrong and we need a better system, a system that is much more decentralized, a system in which the various nations who live in South Africa, because South Africa’s very big. It’s almost as big as Europe. The various nations living in South Africa should just govern themselves. And that’s not what’s happening in South Africa. And I think it’s a worthy cause to pursue.

Tucker [00:25:00] So can I. I think I’m hardly an expert in South Africa at all, but I am American, so if I can, I just give my overview of what of the different groups in South Africa and you correct me. But just so people following on because I think it matters for reasons I’ll explain. So. So the Africa, they’re basically two big white populations in South Africa. Historically, they’re called the Boers. They Afrikaners who are were religious, basically religious refugees, a mixture of Dutch and French Huguenots, Protestant, Dutch, probably the French who moved to southern Africa for reasons of religious liberty. Okay. And then you had the English with, I think were after the Boer War in power. Yes. Who mostly were there for economic reasons and had in many cases passports back to Great Britain. And then you had a couple of different African black groups, the largest of which, I think to this day are the Zulus. Yes. Who like the Afrikaners, the Boers and the English, were not native to the area at all. They were newcomers who arrived, I think, just right before the Boers did.

Ernst Roets [00:26:11] Yeah, not long before.

Tucker [00:26:12] Okay. This is true.

Ernst Roets [00:26:13] Yes. Yes, yes.

Tucker [00:26:15] And they, you know, as invading groups [Zulus] often usually do kind of exterminated the native population who were what we would call the Bushmen or.

Ernst Roets [00:26:24] Yeah, the Khoi in the San, as they’re also called. Thank you. Yes.

Tucker [00:26:27] Okay. So that’s my, like, dumb foreigner overview. Is that roughly true? Yeah.

Ernst Roets [00:26:31] So. So just can I tell you a story from. I hope you will. Yes. It’s some people call it the origin story of the Afrikaner people. And it explains a lot about who we are today. So we were settled in the Cape, the Prato Afrikaners, who were still the Dutch, the French and the Germans. We were then colonized the Cape in, I think 1810 by the British. It was during the Napoleonic.

Tucker [00:26:55] When when did the Afrikaners for the Boers first get there? 1652 1650.

Ernst Roets [00:27:02] That’s what, 150 years before the Declaration of Independence or something. Wow. Something like that. Yeah.

Tucker [00:27:07] So it’s a long time ago. Yeah.

Ernst Roets [00:27:08] So? So my great great great grandfather, Nicolas Roets, who was the first Roets who came to South Africa. Came more or less the time when George Washington was a teenager. So he was eight years older than George Washington. So. So my family has been in Africa since, you could say, since George Washington, since the time of George Washington, just before.

Tucker [00:27:30] The United States was a country.

Ernst Roets [00:27:31] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So so the Cape.

Tucker [00:27:34] Do you have another passport?

Ernst Roets [00:27:35] No, no, no, I don’t I don’t really want one.

Tucker [00:27:39] Right. And do most Afrikaners have other passports.

Ernst Roets [00:27:42] No most don’t.

Tucker [00:27:44] Yeah okay.

Ernst Roets [00:27:45] But but this goes to the story I want to tell you. So. So we were colonized by the British. And we, you can call it the proto Afrikaners then said, you know, we don’t want to be governed by anyone else. We want to govern ourselves and to they opted to move into the interior of South Africa, which was called the Great Trek, and they didn’t know what they would expect. They said they reject slavery. They want to foster good relations with local tribes, which they did. There were many treaty signed, an agreement and so forth.

Tucker [00:28:11] And they did not hold slaves.

Ernst Roets [00:28:14] They were slavery in the Cape Colony before that. But when the Great Trek, that was around the time of the abolition of slavery, and they also rejected slavery, they explicitly said so. So they then went into the interior. And the leader of the Great Trek was a guy called Retief.

Tucker [00:28:29] Yes.

Ernst Roets [00:28:30] Who went to negotiate with the Zulu king, then gone. And so he said, what can we do to buy land from you for our people to live? The agreement was they had to return cattle that were stolen by another tribe with a king called Sekunjalo. So they went. They retrieved the cattle. They brought it to the zoo, looking at the Zulu king, then gone. King then says to them that we have to celebrate. So leave your weapons outside the logger, come inside and we’ll have a celebration. During the celebration. At one stage he chanted Bull Lani about which means kill the wizards! So they took Retief and his commando, his group, to a nearby U and they slaughtered him. They had. They slaughtered him. Lost because they wanted him to see. They want to make sure that he sees his people and his son murdered a few months later before so. So after that, they went on an extermination mission. They killed women and children in the loggers and so forth. A few months.

Tucker [00:29:24] No longer is a group of wagons pulled into a.

Ernst Roets [00:29:27] Circle. Yes. Correct? Yes. And so a few months later, his body was found with the treaty on which the Zulu king signed, giving them some land. So they then started a initiated a punishment commando, a group of 3 to 400 men to to counter attack the Zulus, which eventually led to the Battle of Blood River, one of the most significant battles in our history, where they found themselves completely surrounded. They were about, let’s say, 400.

Tucker [00:29:57] Before numbers.

Ernst Roets [00:29:58] Yes, surrounded by 12,000 Zulus. And so they had this wagon, and my great great great great grandfather was was in that lager, and he was the religious leader. His name is Sorrell Sally-ann. So, Sorrell.

Tucker [00:30:11] And what was their religion?

Ernst Roets [00:30:13] Christian.

Tucker [00:30:13] Dutch. Reformed.

Ernst Roets [00:30:14] Reformed, yes. So he said to them, listen, we need to make a vow to God. And so he wrote a vow which they all made. And the vow said that we standing in front of the God in heaven and earth, to make a vow to him, that if he protects us in the battle that lies ahead, we will commemorate this day in the years to come, as a day of thanksgiving and a Sabbath. And we will also tell our children their story, and we will build a church, and we will make sure that the honor of the victory goes to God and not to us. So they made this vow and the battle took place. And the result was that not one of the Afrikaners were killed. 3000 Zulus died in that battle.

Tucker [00:30:56] Not one was killed.

Ernst Roets [00:30:57] Yes. Yeah. And and so the reason why I’m telling the story is not because. Not to point to the Zulu people. We have good relations with the Zulu, and we’ve worked with him. This was, of course, the one major battle, but we’ve had good relations with him over the years. But it just it says something about, firstly, why the Afrikaner people are so patriotic. It says something about why we are so attached to African soil and why why we are still religious with a very religious community. We have some problems in terms of belief and so forth. But broadly speaking, the Afrikaners are compared to Europe and compared to some parts of America, still a very religious people. And it also says something about why we are so attached to the country and why we don’t want to leave. We want to stay there because our ancestors have been there for hundreds of years, and we fought and died for our our space there. And we’ve gotten used to it to to a certain extent.

Tucker [00:31:47] What’s the only country that you have, isn’t it?

Ernst Roets [00:31:49] Exactly. We don’t have any other country. It’s like we can’t go to. We can’t go back to England. We’re not Dutch anymore. We you know, we have there’s a slogan in South Africa, let’s go back to Holland. But, I mean, I’ve been to Holland, I’ve been to Amsterdam. It’s a beautiful city, but I don’t feel like I’m like I’m at home when I go there. It’s no foreign city that I’m attending. We became a people in Africa, which is why we are called the Africans. We named ourselves after the continent and our language. Afrikaans is named after the country.

Tucker [00:32:19] But you’re being called invaders by people whose ancestors were also invaders.

Ernst Roets [00:32:22] Yeah, well, who came from the north of Africa? Yes, from. From where Cameroon is and so forth. Who came down firstly towards the east of Africa and then along the Great Lake Lakes, eventually ending. Ending in South Africa? Yes.

Tucker [00:32:38] I think it’s what you said is really important because I think from the American or the Western perspective, there’s this idea that the Afrikaners, the Boers, are worse. They’re the worst whites, they’re worst. The English.

Ernst Roets [00:32:51] Yes.

Tucker [00:32:52] English, by the way, created the concentration camp during the Boer War. Yes. Yep, yep.

Ernst Roets [00:32:57] That’s true.

Tucker [00:32:57] Winston Churchill was there and kind of behave pretty dishonorably, I would say, on many, many levels for hundreds of years in South Africa. But that’s just my opinion. Yeah, but that the borders are somehow the worst and that they have no right to be there. And I think history suggests something different.

Ernst Roets [00:33:16] Well, absolutely. So on my mother’s side, I descend from the British. My great grandfather fought in the First World War, fought for the British. And so in many ways, culturally, we’ve become very close to the British because of the influence over the years. And I don’t think there’s friction today between the Afrikaners and the British, but it certainly is the case. I mean, the concentration camps were horrible. I recently read The Gulag Archipelago, and Solzhenitsyn writes in there that the first concentration camps were invented by the Soviets, but that’s actually wrong. The first concentration camps that we know of, of at least this type of concentration camps were during the first during the Anglo Boer War, where about 30,000 women and children died. But there was a lot of the great thing about the Anglo Boer War was that it was in many ways a of first for the world. It was, some people call it the first international propaganda war, because it was in a time when newspapers became popular. So there was this propaganda war in Europe with regard to the Boers or the Boer War, with a lot of people saying the Boers are boorish, and that’s where the word comes from. Evidently, if someone told me that’s where the word British comes from, it’s to be sort of, you know, very old style and, you know, not very sophisticated. Rough. Yeah, rough around the edges. And so there was a lot of propaganda like the book is being compared to, to Wild Hogs and things like that, but that’s okay. The word butcher was actually used for a long time as an insult, almost like Jew, like calling someone a Jew. It’s like, oh, you’re a typical butcher. But I mean, we’re very proud of that word. It’s, it’s it’s something that we take pride in. It’s meat in many ways. There’s some debate about the difference between poor and Afrikaner, but it’s broadly speaking, synonymous. But I mean, we’re very proud of our history in South Africa. And we’ve become a very sophisticated community with an immense treasure chest of literature, of poetry, of philosophy, all of it in our own language that we did over the last, especially the last 100 years, which of course is under threat now.

Tucker [00:35:14] Your language not spoken by anyone else in the world?

Ernst Roets [00:35:16] No, it’s some it’s it descends from Dutch. Yes. And so if you spend some time as an Afrikaans person with some Dutch friends, eventually you start to follow. But it’s not Dutch anymore. There’s been influences about other languages and so forth. So? So it’s they are people who speak it all over the world because. But that’s only because people who have left from so many people have left South Africa. Some estimates say it’s about a million people, white people who have left South Africa over the last few decades.

Tucker [00:35:45] How many are left? How many whites overall in South Africa and how many of them are African?

Ernst Roets [00:35:50] So? So it’s more or less about 5 million who are left? The Afrikaner communities, about 2.7 million. And the total population is about 60, just over 60 million.

Tucker [00:36:01] And now it looks like you’re, as you said, entering some kind of final stage where they’ll be. I mean, they’ve been expelled from a bunch of different African countries, as you know. But it sounds like the the plan is to force them to leave or kill them or what is the plan, exactly?

Ernst Roets [00:36:19] So, so. Yann Smuts, the famous general who worked with Churchill, also famously said that South Africa is a country where the best never happens and the worst never happens. And so we sort of believe that, and we hope that the worst outcome is is an unrealistic outcome. We do know that the most important thing that we need to do now is to be very well organized in terms of our own communities, to be very well connected to each other. And, you know, there’s this whole debate about the individual and the community in philosophy. And we’ve realized that if you’re just an individual, you are completely helpless. If you if you’re not part of a community, if you don’t have if you if you’re not given meaning by the community of which you are a member. You, you just you. You’re completely helpless against this. The Leviathan, the state. So? So we need to be well organized. We need to be armed. We need to have well-functioning communities who look after each, after look after the poor, do all the things that the government supposed to be doing, but also look after our safety. So we drive patrols at night. We are involved with tens of thousands of volunteers, involved with patrols, looking after our own safety and so forth. But but I think the bigger question here is the future of South Africa. And this is a controversial thing to say, but it’s so obvious that it’s not sustainable. It’s it’s not going to work and it’s just getting worse. So the only possible solution is not simply to say we need a different party in power, because the underlying foundations is still it’s problematic. The only possible solution is to move toward a system with subsidiary authorities, which could imply something like a republic for the Afrikaner people, it could imply a kingdom for the Zulu people. It can imply different types of authority depending on the community. But South Africa is a country made up of a long list of minorities. It’s a list. If you look at it from a racial perspective, you can say there’s a black minority, a black majority, but the black majority also consists of a variety, as you mentioned, a variety of nations and tribes and so forth.

Tucker [00:38:16] And plus massive immigration into your country. Yeah.

Ernst Roets [00:38:19] Yeah. It’s that’s a it’s a very serious problem. Yeah. We virtually don’t have borders in South Africa.

Tucker [00:38:23] Right. But and a problem of course, for the country, but also a demographic fact that it’s not as if there’s this like monolithic black majority there all kinds of different components of the black majority. Right. Yes. Don’t necessarily get along. Yeah, yeah. And but a lot of Zimbabweans murdered in South Africa phobic violence.

Ernst Roets [00:38:41] Every now and then there’s this upsurge in violence against foreigners. So they get accused. What typically happens is people come in from the north or the north of South Africa, like Malawi, Zimbabwe and so forth, Zambia and so forth. And then they work and they accept jobs for lower wages. And a lot of them work really hard. Yeah. So that leads to friction because there’s very high unemployment in South Africa already. And so it leads to friction within among the local communities. And then every now and then we have this upsurge in very, very brutal xenophobic violence. And so yeah, it’s the border is it’s virtually non-existent. The border to the north of South Africa.

Tucker [00:39:17] So what would it look like to have autonomous republics? And is that allowed under your 94 constitution? I thought there was some provision for that.

Ernst Roets [00:39:28] Well, it’s interesting that you know this. Yes. So there’s a section in in the South African Constitution, section two, three, five that provides for self-determination for communities. Now there’s some ambiguity in terms of how to interpret that section. But it is there is some constitutional provision for that. And so during the 90s, the negotiations for a new South Africa, the more conservative groups who were white and black, who were arguing for self-determination, were made fun of by the ruling party at the time, the National Party and the ANC, of course, and also some Westerners. This is just backwards. This idea of governing yourself is somehow an old, ancient thing that we should move away from. And part of the problem, part of the reason why they were made fun of is the question is, how do you do that practically? And the only way to practically do that is to have areas where people have concentrated where where people form a de facto majority, and they are such areas like, for example, when you talk about the Zulus and so forth, the Afrikaner people are pretty much dispersed, although there are some areas where we live more concentrated. But this, for example, and there are some initiatives to get Afrikaners to move closer together. And I think I think that’s a solution that, that we need to really focus on is getting the Afrikaners to move closer.

Tucker [00:40:41] Clustered in Pretoria, was my understanding the majority?

Ernst Roets [00:40:44] Yes, Pretoria and in the Western Cape and the south of the country. And then they were on your initiative in the Northern Cape.

Tucker [00:40:52] So tell us about that. What is Orania?

Ernst Roets [00:40:54] So Orania is a is a cultural communities and Afrikaner cultural community. It’s fairly small. It’s about 3000 people, but it’s growing rapidly. It’s growing by about 12 to 15% per year. And the idea is like it’s a culture. It’s privately owned. It’s a community where the Afrikaner culture can survive and flourish, and it has been growing at quite a pace, even though it’s from a small base. But the idea is to say this is an area where we are the majority and we make our own decisions, we make our own laws, we govern ourselves, we make our own decisions in terms of what happens with our tax money, what happens, you know, with our streets, what type of money.

Tucker [00:41:32] Murder other people, repress other people. And then then why? Maybe you have an answer to this. A neighborhood, a community of 3000 people, which is tiny even by South African standards, has received unrelenting negative media attention in the West. Why is that? Such a moral crime, such an outrage to have a community like that?

Ernst Roets [00:41:57] Yeah, it’s it’s bizarre the extent to which Orania has been attacked, especially in the international media. So I spoke with a friend in Europe recently who said to me, I’ve only read negative things about Orania, but that’s why I like it. Because. Because I know who’s right.

Tucker [00:42:12] A lot of us have reached that conclusion. Yes.

Ernst Roets [00:42:15] And so? So in South Africa there are many traditional.

Tucker [00:42:17] Lying is just guys pause and just say the lying is unsustainable when you know you’re up. But open up the New York Times and it’s a safe bet that whatever they’re telling you is the opposite of the truth. Then you’ve reached a point where it’s like, why even have media coverage at that point? You know what I mean? Yeah.

Ernst Roets [00:42:33] Also through statements he’s made on X to say the obvious, which is this is a crime against a beleaguered minority on the, you know, this is racism against human beings and it’s wrong. What do you feel that?

Ernst Roets [00:42:33] So in South Africa, there are many cultural communities, like Zulu communities, different, let’s say there are many black cultural communities. And when they are reported on by the media, they would say, this Zulu cultural community, so-and-so or this close our cultural community is doing this. But when it’s raining, they say it’s a whites only enclave. That’s that’s the term they use, even though it’s a cultural community. So so black communities. What has.

Tucker [00:42:55] That? What is that? Why, why, why the hostility. And that’s true globally, by the way, there’s no any white majority country. There are very few left. Very few left. But there’s just suspect because they exist. What is that?

yre has a as a, an explanation of how to make sense of what how how we how we derailed in trying to make sense of the Second World War. I mean, obviously, you know, Hitler was evil and all of that. I mean, no one disagrees with.

Tucker [00:46:09] That, obviously.

Ernst Roets [00:46:09] But so so the wrong lesson from the Second World War is that nationalism is evil or a sense of pride, and your identity is evil. And there are a lot of people who would really like us to believe this, that we need to abolish communal identities.

Tucker [00:46:24] MacIntyre’s line only when they’re white.

Ernst Roets [00:46:27] Yes, yes, yeah, of course, it’s.

Tucker [00:46:28] Actually I don’t think anyone thought the lesson of the war was that nationalism is evil, only that nationalism, when whites do it.

Ernst Roets [00:46:33] Yeah, when whites do it. Yeah. So McIntyre’s line is that that a sense of communal identity and pursuing what is good for your people is a good. And what went wrong with the Second World War was that Hitler was trying to pursue this good at the expense of all other goods. He was detaching this one thing from everything else. And in the end, you cannot do that without committing evil and inflicting evil. And so I think it’s a bizarre situation where we are in currently.

Tucker [00:47:01] But so I thought and think that the lesson the Second World War was that targeting people for violence and discrimination, but especially violence on the basis of their immutable genetic characteristics was wrong. Like I that’s what I was taught.

Ernst Roets [00:47:17] At in here in that.

Tucker [00:47:18] Even I believe that now as much as I’ve ever believed it. And but it’s just crazy to see people say that on the one hand. And then for a lot of people, a lot of our leaders, the lessons the Second World War was no. That’s good. Yeah, actually, you need to target more people on the basis of their immutable ethnic characteristics, their whiteness.

Ernst Roets [00:47:38] Yes.

Tucker [00:47:39] And kill them. Like that’s the lesson. No, that’s the opposite. Yeah. Right.

Ernst Roets [00:47:45] Yeah. Of course. Well, well, so in South Africa and this is part of the bizarre part of it is the ruling party in South Africa. They would write in their own, in their own policy documents. They say our ideology is a blend of race, nationalism and socialism. That’s literally what Nazi means. Now, I’m not saying they’re Nazis, but in some sense they’re calling themselves Nazis. If they say we promote a combination of race, nationalism and sex, I don’t.

Tucker [00:48:10] Think people can hear themselves. I mean, I think even this conversation’s be like, oh, that’s a Nazi. Conversation was like, no, no, we’re arguing. I wanna speak for myself. I’m arguing against what I thought the core idea. Was it or the core bad idea in the Second World War, which is that you should attack people, hurt people because of how they were born.

Ernst Roets [00:48:30] I’m just based on who they are.

Tucker [00:48:32] I’ve always been opposed to that. I will always be opposed to that. But now it’s like complaining about it makes I don’t know. It’s also.

Ernst Roets [00:48:41] You’re not even allowed to say this.

Tucker [00:48:42] It’s also fake. It’s also fake. Like it’s actually this is all a cover for something much more sinister that is not really related to the Second World War. Like, I just don’t think it’s it doesn’t make any sense. As an intellectual exercise, you just, like, immediately hit a brick wall. Yeah. Like what you’re saying is nonsensical. Right.

Ernst Roets [00:49:00] Yeah. Well, it’s difficult to make sense of it because it’s completely irrational.

Tucker [00:49:04] It’s completely irrational. Therefore, I think it’s a lie because it doesn’t even like you don’t even I don’t have especially high IQ. And it’s super obvious to me that it doesn’t make any sense to like what? Really? I guess there’s no answer. I don’t know the answer, but there’s something very deep going on here where the leaders of every country in the world all of a sudden decide this one ethnic group needs to be killed, like, well, I.

Ernst Roets [00:49:28] Think one part of it is something that you’ve said before, which is affluence. The people, people in the Western world have become very affluent and unfortunately, as a result of that, very self-centered. And in many ways they’ve become disconnected from their communities, disconnected from from the tradition.

Tucker [00:49:45] So there’s no doubt about that. But I mean, I would, you know, spend a lot of time in the in the Gulf, in the Persian Gulf. No most affluent countries in the world per capita. I think I mean, they are. And, you know, whatever you think of them, you don’t see a lot of Arab leaders being like, we really were too Arab. That’s the problem where I hate myself for my Arab ness like that doesn’t even occur to them. To their great credit, by the way. I don’t think self-hatred is ever good. I don’t think hating anybody on the basis of race is ever good. It’s it’s only this one group. Yeah, that does it.

Ernst Roets [00:50:18] I’d like to believe, and I hope that I’m right, that it’s it’s a minority within the Western world that really believes this.

Tucker [00:50:24] Stuff, I think.

Ernst Roets [00:50:25] But they have significant power and influence.

Tucker [00:50:27] They do that.

Ernst Roets [00:50:28] They are the editors of newspapers. They are the prime ministers. They are professors at universities and so forth. And those are the people who’s. Promoting this type of idea. And I think most hardworking, ordinary people don’t fall for this.

Tucker [00:50:40] Well, certainly most authentic Christians reject it out of hand immediately.

Ernst Roets [00:50:45] It’s essentially anti-Christian. In many wayw.

Tucker [00:50:47] It is the definition of anti-Christian, I think. I mean, that’s my look. What do I know? Don’t take theology advice from me. But that’s certainly my truest, deepest belief that it’s this is immoral, you know, no matter who it’s done to. Yeah. So one, I should have said this is the answer. But one of the reasons there’s been this real change in people’s willingness in the West to talk about what’s happening in South Africa in an honest way, not with the false pieties of Desmond Tutu was so great. Whatever Desmond Tutu, you know, think of Desmond Tutu. Not much. But we were required to talk about South Africa in a very specific way and to repeat certain cliches at really a gunpoint. And that’s changed in the past couple of months, and it’s really changed due to a South African emigre called Elon Musk. This is my perspective. You tell me yours. But he has made it possible through X, but also through statements he’s made on X to say the obvious, which is this is a crime against a beleaguered minority on the, you know, this is racism against human beings and it’s wrong. What do you feel that?

Ernst Roets [00:51:53] Yes. So I don’t know how much of what is in his biography by Isaacson is true, but it does seem from his biography that he’s had some bad experiences growing up in South Africa, which is unfortunate. And we were we’re still not sure quite how attached he still is to South Africa as a country. But looking at his X and his comments, it’s very clear that he’s interested. And and the strange thing is, even though some people are very angry with him for speaking about South Africa, the only thing that he’s really doing is he’s picking up a mirror and he’s saying, look at what’s happening in South Africa. And he’s he’s just he’s retweeting videos from rallies in South Africa and. Exactly. He’s. He’s literally just saying to people, look at this stuff that’s happening in South Africa.

Tucker [00:52:36] Yeah. What do you think of this? Are you okay with this?

Ernst Roets [00:52:38] You know, I think what a lot of people I think I can speak for a lot of people in saying that we’re really, really grateful for what Elon Musk is doing to shed light on what is happening inside.

Tucker [00:52:48] It must be so weird to live in a country that has received so much attention from Western media, so much attention. I mean, there’s no other country in Africa where your average American knows the name of three famous people. You know what I mean? There’s no I’m not even close to the name. Three famous people from, you know, Congo. Yo, you know, but every American knows about Nelson Mandela, probably Winnie Mandela.

Ernst Roets [00:53:11] Desmond Tutu announcements was also very big. Who became this poor general who was a a advisor to Churchill.

Tucker [00:53:19] Who joined the English in the I think in the First World War, like. Right. You know.

Ernst Roets [00:53:23] Yes. First and Second World War.

Tucker [00:53:25] Right. But the first war was, you know, not even 15 years after the Boer War. So that was a pretty remarkable decision that he made. I don’t think most people are that in tune, but yeah, they know the bigger ones. But of what happened post 94 and they know all about apartheid and all that. But it must be so weird to be living in this country where all this stuff is happening and nobody is saying anything about it.

Ernst Roets [00:53:50] Yeah, it’s it’s crazy. It really is. And I have to say, the last few months has been quite a ride in terms of what we, you know, the, the executive order signed by President Trump and statements coming from the US.

Tucker [00:54:03] To tell us about that executive order, if you don’t mind.

Ernst Roets [00:54:05] So so the executive order is, is a very strong reprimanding of what the South African government is doing. It says that the South African government is well, as Trump said, is treating certain sections of society very badly. And and this and that the you ever.

Tucker [00:54:22] Call that’s it. That’s the Trump thing. Yes.

Ernst Roets [00:54:25] And ever.

Tucker [00:54:25] Said.

Ernst Roets [00:54:26] And the US will not stand for this. And so it boils down to the sanctions in an important way, which is not. And one part of it says that that they will grant refugee status to Afrikaners if they want to go to the US, which I don’t think, in all fairness, we really grateful for that, for the public stance taken by the US and in a certain sense they haven’t gone far enough. But in a certain sense, I don’t think the the granting of refugee status is is much of a solution. Some people will take that up, but that’s why I told you the story of the Battle of Blood River and The Vow. We are culturally very, very attached to to South Africa. And so most.

Tucker [00:55:07] Think your family got to South Africa around the time my family got the United States, and.

Ernst Roets [00:55:11] This is hundreds of years.

Tucker [00:55:12] Is my country.

Ernst Roets [00:55:12] I think I’m ninth generation. And and so.

Tucker [00:55:16] I also have a mother of English descent. And I’m also on, unlike you. I’m ashamed of it. I’m sorry. Just kidding. Sort of. Not really, but. But you know, of course, I mean, it’s your country. I mean, what? At that point. What? You know.

Ernst Roets [00:55:29] So I think I think what a better response from the US could be is to take a firm stance against what is happening in terms of what the South African government is doing. But then to say, how can the US support minority groups in South Africa who are really working for some form of self-determination? I think America should recognize that it does have part in the problem in terms of what happened. Historic. Are you.

Tucker [00:55:56] Kidding? Yes it does, big time.

Ernst Roets [00:55:58] Yes. And therefore I it’s it’s reasonable and I think it’s fair. And I’m, I’m hesitant to say this because I’m not an American, but I think it’s reasonable to say that America has some form of a moral responsibility not to fix South Africa, but at least to to try to rework this mess that has been created because it was involved in creating this mess.

Tucker [00:56:17] We’ve mobilized our State Department to defend, quote, trans rights in the Donbass. Okay. We’ve wade into every sectarian conflict in this world for the past 80 years. Yeah, I think we can certainly say that a minority group targeted for genocide in the country we’ve been involved in really intimately and for my entire life, that that group has a right not to be killed and to have some measure of self-determination. I think we can do that. Yeah. That’s not too big.

Ernst Roets [00:56:42] Absolutely right. Yeah. And the solution, I would say the most sustainable solution is to help such communities to to govern themselves, to have self-determination. And it’s not only obviously it would be in our interest, but but I think it’s also in the interest of the West and of America.

Tucker [00:56:57] So just on principle, like every other group in the world, has the right to its own homeland, except white people. Like what? Yeah. Like, tell me. Just explain to me how that makes sense. Either no group has the right or every group has the right. It’s really that simple. And if you want to say no, group has. Right. Okay. You might even convince me, I don’t know. I’m not a race guy, actually, by my temperament at all. I’d kind of like to ignore it, but as long as some groups have a right to self-determination, then every group has a right. It’s that simple. Yeah. And if there’s a special carve out where one group doesn’t have a right, you have to explain to me why that group doesn’t have that right. Yeah, absolutely.

Ernst Roets [00:57:30] No, it’s absolutely fair. Well, I think South Africa is a I mean, what the hell is.

Tucker [00:57:35] Why are we playing along with this nonsense?

Ernst Roets [00:57:38] Yeah. It’s this this narrative has become this massive stream that it’s turned into a rapids on a river that just pulls everyone along. And this narrative just says, if you’re white, then there’s inherently something wrong with you.

Tucker [00:57:50] It doesn’t make any sense. And it’s leading toward a really bad conclusion, obviously, as it as it has for every other group targeted in this way has really suffered in a bit. And there are a lot of them. Okay. It’s not you know, there are a lot of them. Yep. And it never ends up well. And I just don’t know why we’re playing along where you’re not even allowed to say how you haven’t been. I don’t care anymore, obviously. But again, either every group has a right to self-determination or no group does. You can’t have this system where, you know, some groups do or all groups do, but one. No, no, no, it’s all or nothing on this.

Ernst Roets [00:58:27] Yeah, well, I can tell.

Tucker [00:58:28] Me how I’m.

Ernst Roets [00:58:29] Wrong. No. Well, I can guarantee you that. That when I get back home, I’m going to be in a lot of trouble for this interview. It’s.

Tucker [00:58:36] I don’t know why, though. I mean, like, what’s the what’s the kind of argument? I don’t I don’t really get it. Like, what is the kind of argument? There’s only one group on the entire face of the planet that doesn’t have the right that every other group has. Like, tell me how.

Ernst Roets [00:58:47] It’s it’s it’s it’s really like.

Tucker [00:58:50] Maybe there’s a good answer. I’m waiting for it.

Ernst Roets [00:58:52] No. Well, we don’t know what the answer is.

Tucker [00:58:53] So there is no answer. And so because there is no answer, the way that uniformity is maintained is just through threats like shut up. Yeah. You’re a bad person for saying that you’re a Nazi. It’s like, no, no, I hate the Nazis. I must speak for myself. Yeah, the Nazis, of course. I hate the idea that people are attacked for something they can’t control, like how they’re born. Yeah. Their genetics. I just don’t believe in that. I never will. I’m a Christian. I don’t believe in it. You can call me whatever you want. I’m actually making the opposite case. And I haven’t done anything to be ashamed of. And if defending the right of people not to be murdered because of how they were born is a crime, then I’ll plead to it. Yep. But I actually think that the only thing the people currently in charge of most of the world, certainly of the West, are good at, is seizing the moral high ground. And they don’t deserve it. They haven’t earned it. They’re rotten. Their ideas are rotten, and they don’t deserve to lecture the rest of us about our moral inferiority. While they’re endorsing the murder of people for how they were born. Sorry.

Ernst Roets [00:59:52] It’s a house of cards, you know.

Tucker [00:59:53] So it’s not this house of cards. It’s exactly right.

Ernst Roets [00:59:56] Yeah, it’s built, and it’s a very shining house of cards, and it’s very proud of its accomplishments, but it’s not sustainable. So South Africa has been a victim of waste and imperialism.

Tucker [01:00:07] I’m aware in.

Ernst Roets [01:00:08] Many ways ideologically currently ideological imperialism. But also but and this is interesting, the ANC that’s governing South Africa today was founded just after the unionization of South Africa in 1910. And they said that this this was one of the major triggers that sparked us to start this movement. And the unionization was after the Boer War, before the Union. South Africa was a a variety of different republics and colonies. Yes, governing themselves and unionization effectively meant that all of these different subsidiary authorities were combined into one big South Africa as we know it today. The borders of South Africa were actually drawn pretty much by the British in 1910, and the ANC were vehemently opposed.

Tucker [01:00:51] A long history of border drawing. Yes.

Ernst Roets [01:00:54] You see this when you have this completely straight, you know, that’s that’s artificial. But and so the borders we have for South Africa today was a product of Western imperialism. And now those in power with love very much like to maintain these borders because they have control. And so if we are truly anti-colonialism and anti-imperialist. We should we should return to a position where people govern themselves. We should rethink the borders.

Tucker [01:01:19] You’ll never be allowed to do that. I mean, let’s just cut right to the the knobs part of this that will not be allowed is never been allowed. You will need either to get to force, which I pray you don’t because I hate that I hate killing. Or you will need the assistance of a powerful outside force, that force that makes it happen. That’s just a fact. Is that fair to say?

Ernst Roets [01:01:42] Yeah. No, I think it’s fair to say.

Tucker [01:01:43] I mean. Right, so anyone who says I want to kill you, you know, kill the boar, you’re subhuman. Those are not people are going to say, yeah, go ahead and create your own independent state and not bother anybody because you’re going to be way more successful and prosperous than they are, and they’re going to hate you on the basis of envy. Of course, that’s already happening.

Ernst Roets [01:02:03] And we have to ask them nicely to make certain concessions.

Tucker [01:02:06] Now, I guess it’s not going to happen. So. So what is your plan?

Ernst Roets [01:02:11] Well, I think the, the plan is to to firstly to be well organized communities, to have a very strong sense of community, a sense of pride in who we are, to remain Christian and have a strong faith, strong family ties and so forth. That’s where it starts. And then other than that, the second step, you might say the plan is to to just create certain realities on ground level. So it’s one thing to say, you know, we want more authority or more self-determination, but you have to, in a sense, create that so that what you have created can be recognized. It’s there’s no point in saying, well, you guys can have your own place, but that place doesn’t exist. So, so I think, I think what the Afrikaner people need to do is, is in a large, to a large extent, built their own self-determination. And I think that that’s what we what we intend to do. But it would help a lot if we can get recognition for this pursuit as a legitimate pursuit.

Tucker [01:03:04] So you don’t think I sort of just didn’t ask you to pause? I should have you began this segment of the conversation by saying the current scheme, the current arrangement, is not going to work. Yep. I think most people I’m certainly I as an outsider, instinctively kind of want it to work.

Ernst Roets [01:03:23] Well, it’s a good story. It sounds like a good story.

Tucker [01:03:25] Yeah. It is. I mean, I’ll admit to being kind of a dopey liberal in some ways. I really prefer the idea of, you know, people living together in harmony. It’s just. I just feel that way. I can help it. That’s my enlightenment legacy or something I think you should do with reality. And I definitely don’t think you should be allowed to kill people because the way they look. Period. Oh, so by the way, why how did these people why did they go on TV? Like they’re on the right side? They’re like endorsing genocide. Like I don’t understand. I don’t understand how they’ve been allowed to get away with being on Winnie Mandela side and feeling self-righteous. I just don’t get that. I think it’s disgusting. Whatever. I said that five times, I can’t say enough. But how do you know it won’t work? Like ANC obviously isn’t a criminal gang. Totally incompetent. You don’t have electricity on the dam. It’s not working. They’re just stealing everything. Got it. Stealing the copper out of the wires. But there’s not another political coalition that could run it effectively.

Ernst Roets [01:04:24] Oh, so. So you mentioned electricity in Johannesburg. The mayor just a few days ago announced that people should just wait seven days and then they will have water. So it’s not just an electricity problem. There’s a water problem.

Tucker [01:04:36] It’s waterproof. You’re gonna have a food problem at some point.

Ernst Roets [01:04:38] Well, if the farmers are targeted. Yes. So so there are many reasons why it’s not working and why it won’t work. And well, everything you can think of points to that direction. One is just the data, as I said, like you can look at the levels of how crime is increasing, how unemployment is increasing. Our government service delivery is increasingly failing. Everything, everything. I honestly health how health is, is deteriorating everything except tax collection. That’s one aspect of it. Another aspect of it is just the extent to which people in South Africa are turning their back on politics. There’s this political vacuum in South Africa, and you can see it, for example, with the extent to which people have stopped voting, how voter turnout has dropped significantly in elections. People just don’t get interested. They vote reluctantly, those who do. So that’s one aspect.

Tucker [01:05:29] Interesting.

Ernst Roets [01:05:31] Even so.

Tucker [01:05:31] Why do you think that? Because they feel hopeless.

Ernst Roets [01:05:33] Because they feel the political establishment is completely disconnected. They don’t. It doesn’t resonate with him. They don’t. People vote for parties even though they don’t really like them. But they think this is of all the parties. I don’t like any of them, but this one is the least bad, so I’ll vote for that one. So there’s a complete disconnect between the politicians or the political elite in South Africa, even the opposition parties and the people. And so there’s this political vacuum that has developed and this vacuum is filled. As my friend Aronson settle in South Africa says, either by the good guys or the bad guys. It’s filled by the bad guys in terms of organized crime. So we have these mafias and gangs coming to the fore with significant power, and to such an extent that the government is afraid of them. Or it can be found.

Tucker [01:06:17] That is the story globally, isn’t it?

Ernst Roets [01:06:19] Yeah. Well, yeah.

Tucker [01:06:21] The drug cartels are one of the most powerful governments in the world, or they’re not even in government.

Ernst Roets [01:06:24] It’s incredible. Yeah. So we have a construction mafia, for example. If you if you build a shopping center, the construction mafia turns up and they tell you you need to employ our people, or else we’re going to sabotage your building and, you know, stuff like that. And it’s it’s a regular.

Tucker [01:06:38] Thing and you can’t fight.

Ernst Roets [01:06:39] Them. No, you can’t, you can’t fight them. And but the vacuum can be filled by the good guys. And that’s well organized communities who take control of what is important to them. And so the future is very and that’s what analysts and scenario analysts and so forth have been saying that the future is one of deterioration, where you will have communities who will be much worse off than they are today because of the bad guys filling the void. And you might have flourishing communities because of good guys filling the void. And so that’s another reason. But I think the most important fundamental underlying reason why it’s not sustainable is it’s a political system that is detached from the reality in South Africa. The reality is the distance from Cape Town, the south to the north, or South Africa is the distance from Rome to London. So it’s a big country number one. But it’s not homogenous by any means. It’s very diverse. Yes, 11 official languages.

Tucker [01:07:36] It’s not just just to restate. It’s not just black and white at all.

Ernst Roets [01:07:39] No no no no no, it certainly not. Indian communities is what we call colored communities and Africa. And they are various different tribes. You could say all cultural communities within among black South Africans and among white South Africans. So it’s very diverse, different languages, different cultures. There’s a and and now we have this political system that just says you have individual rights. And, and in some ways the Constitution, even though it was very much celebrated when it was adopted, it was called the Constitution in the world, and the most liberal, most democratic, and so forth.

Tucker [01:08:11] The Constitution guarantees everything, but you get nothing.

Ernst Roets [01:08:13] Yeah, exactly. That’s exactly it. So we have what they call third generation rights first, second and third. It’s a very vast network of rights that you have in theory and but but then the question is, so there’s this idea that the highest authority is the Constitution, but it’s not possible for a written document to have the highest authority. The highest authority is with the person who gets to interpret it. So if, if say so.

Tucker [01:08:37] Boy, is that true. So then.

Ernst Roets [01:08:39] So for example, section 25 of the Constitution in South Africa, which the government is trying to change, it’s a private property rights clause. They want to change it, but currently it says the government can expropriate your property if it’s in the public interest. Now, if you ask me as a Westerner, when is it in public interest to expropriate property? It would be something like they have to build a big highway, Or maybe there’s a military emergency or something like that. If you ask one of if you ask a judge who is founded in this ideology we’ve just spoken of, they would say it’s in the public interest for white people not to own land. So so it’s a question of interpretation. You can have a wonderful document, but it boils down to how do you interpret it. And so and that’s why I’m saying it’s not compatible with with realities on ground level. And you know we can. And then there have been many lawfare in South Africa, many, many, many South Africans, a very good example of political court cases. And we’ve won many and we’ve lost many. But it’s it’s, it’s it’s a it’s a ship that is sinking. That’s the.

Tucker [01:09:37] One. It all seems fake. I mean, it seems like and I again, one of the reason I’m so fascinated by your country is I think it’s it’s on a trajectory that I recognize as an American. So you have these legacy institutions that sort of go through the kabuki of dispensing justice. But it’s not justice, actually. It’s totally disconnected from justice doesn’t mean anything.

Ernst Roets [01:09:57] Yes.

Tucker [01:09:58] And you have this Constitution which is beautiful, which is, you know, ignorant. The only power resides in the people who interpret it, as you said. And so then you reached kind of the endpoint or the most recent endpoint, which is the idea that whites can own land. Can you explain this?

Ernst Roets [01:10:15] Yes. So they have been trying to change the South African constitution, the property rights clause, to empower the government to expropriate private property without compensation. That’s the buzzword. It’s just just.

Tucker [01:10:25] Steal the land.

Ernst Roets [01:10:25] Yeah, it’s they call it it’s expropriation without compensation, but it’s confiscation of property. That’s what it is.

Tucker [01:10:31] Well, how is expropriation without compensation different from stealing?

Ernst Roets [01:10:34] No, exactly.

Tucker [01:10:35] But shoplifting.

Ernst Roets [01:10:37] It’s just it’s it’s flabbergasting to see the extent to which, again, academics and analysts and journalists are rushing to the defense of the South African government in South Africa. Yes. So, yes, one of the many bizarre things that they would say, they would say, this is all a lie. You guys are lying. It’s not expropriation without compensation. It’s expropriation without compensation. But compensation can be null. So it can be zero compensation.

Tucker [01:11:03] So it’s not happening, but it’s a good thing than it is. Yeah. That’s it. That’s it as always. Right.

Ernst Roets [01:11:07] And so the president has just signed the expropriation bill in South Africa, which is now which they now. Oh he signed it. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. So so and so there’s still an attempt to change the Constitution and there’s now a new bill in, in, in process. It was just announced, I think a week ago that they want to pass through Parliament that says that 80% of that’s what it boils down to. That 80% of land or property in South Africa must be owned by black people. So because it’s it it must be racially representative. And so I want to tell you a quick story about this, because it sort of highlights the ideology. I was at a land summit in South Africa, and a spokesperson for the Department of Land Reform spoke, and it was very clear from his speech that the problem is white people owning land. It was a racial thing. It was very clear. But it’s, it’s it’s colored with words like restitution and and correcting historic injustices and so forth. And so I asked him at this summit, I said to give here’s an example. And what would the government’s position be on this? The example is a white guy owns a farm. The government takes it from him to correct historic injustices, and they give it to a black guy, and it’s a black farmer. And maybe a year or two down the line, this black farmer decides he doesn’t want to be a farmer anymore. He wants to sell this land. And the buyer is white. And now there’s a white farmer again. What’s the government’s position on this? And the spokesperson for the department says in that case, the correction of the injustice has been reversed. So it’s it’s it’s completely bizarre.

Tucker [01:12:41] And then what’s interesting is we’ve seen this exact movie frame by frame, right next door in Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, which was one of the most prosperous countries in Africa, one of the big tobacco producers in Africa.

Ernst Roets [01:12:54] It’s a it’s very sad what happened to that.

Tucker [01:12:57] Well, it’s shocking, but it’s again, it’s, you know, like organized government sponsored racism doesn’t work. And I don’t care how often The New York Times defends it. It’s always the same. And what that is like right next door to you. And you have a refugee crisis in your country because of it.

Ernst Roets [01:13:15] And our government are willing. So what do.

Tucker [01:13:17] They say to.

Ernst Roets [01:13:18] That? No, they say that Robert Mugabe is a hero and that Zanu pf the party’s party.

Tucker [01:13:23] Yeah, yeah.

Ernst Roets [01:13:24] Is is a good party and it’s a liberation force and we respect them. Okay.

Tucker [01:13:28] So again no one wants to use the term. But this is this is genocide. I mean that’s what that is. It’s like targeting a group of people for extinction elimination on the basis of immutable characteristics. Like I don’t know what is there another genocide, a genocide definition I’m not aware of.

Ernst Roets [01:13:45] Well, you I think I think you can say they are threats, threats of that happening. I there’s not a genocide happening.

Tucker [01:13:50] And I’m not saying there is I’m saying that’s what’s going like. What’s the other end point here?

Ernst Roets [01:13:55] Well, well.

Tucker [01:13:56] You’re not human. You can’t own land. You should be killed. What am I?

Ernst Roets [01:14:00] And yeah, if you own land, by definition, that’s illegitimate. Regardless of whether you bought the land, it doesn’t matter how you got the land.

Tucker [01:14:06] Because of your race.

Ernst Roets [01:14:07] Because of your race? Yes.

Tucker [01:14:08] Okay, if we can’t say that’s wrong, then you know anyone who can’t say that’s wrong and you want to make excuses for that as a dangerous person? I don’t know what else to say. Put another group in there. I don’t care what group it is.

Ernst Roets [01:14:21] So? So the ANC in South Africa wanted to. They have this process of name changes. And by the way, this targeting of statues came from South Africa. It’s happening in America. It started in South Africa, you know, burning down statues and so forth. So and they’ve had this long process of name changes. And one thing they wanted to do change the street in which the US embassy is in South Africa to Fidel Castro Avenue. And that’s one story. The other one is they wanted to change one of the main streets in Pretoria to name it of the multitude. And then some of the opposition parties said, are you crazy? Do you know what Mao Tse tung did? And the response was, remember, Mao was never convicted of any crime.

Tucker [01:14:58] So it’s so I say it does seem not only like one of the worst governments in the world, but one of the dumbest also.

Ernst Roets [01:15:08] Well, so I think I think there’s but there’s some explanation as to why the South African government has gone so off the rails, and it’s that they’ve gotten a free pass for decades.

Tucker [01:15:18] Yeah, that’s right.

Ernst Roets [01:15:18] Because of this narrative, they could do and say whatever they want. They got no criticism or very little criticism, no very careful criticism. And that’s why I think they they they’ve gone ballistic after the recent comments by Trump and people like Elon Musk and so have that.

Tucker [01:15:33] I’m sorry, I don’t I don’t follow it that closely. Have they. Those comments were noticed and.

Ernst Roets [01:15:37] Said, oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It’s a it’s the biggest story in South Africa at the moment really.

Tucker [01:15:42] And what are they saying?

Ernst Roets [01:15:43] Well, they’re saying that we’ve the organizations that I was involved with at the time, they’ve committed treason that we’ve been charged for treason.

Tucker [01:15:50] You’ve been charged with treason? Yeah. For what?

Ernst Roets [01:15:53] For speaking well, among others. For me. Speaking with you about what’s happened to treason. Yeah, because it’s bad mouthing your country. That’s.

Tucker [01:16:00] That’s the argument I am.

Ernst Roets [01:16:02] So I don’t know if it was this one of the opposition parties.

Tucker [01:16:06] I wanted to go to Cape Town for Christmas. Just on vacation. I didn’t have time in the end.

Ernst Roets [01:16:10] But you left?

Tucker [01:16:11] Probably. I probably shouldn’t go without your saying.

Ernst Roets [01:16:14] No, no. You should come to South Africa now. You should definitely come, buddy. I don’t know if there’s going to as much as will come from the treason charges, but that’s certainly. Yeah, but you’ve.

Tucker [01:16:23] Been charged with treason. Yeah.

Ernst Roets [01:16:24] They were. They were official complaints filed at the police. Yes, yes.

Tucker [01:16:29] What’s the penalty for treason in South Africa?

Ernst Roets [01:16:31] It would be imprisonment. We don’t have the date. We don’t have the death penalty.

Tucker [01:16:34] No, they just as Nicholas. You. It’s informal.

Ernst Roets [01:16:38] Well, I’m. I’m honestly. Seriously, I’m more concerned if the questions about safety, about mob justice in South Africa than than the actual government coming off the horse.

Tucker [01:16:49] So what does that look like?

Ernst Roets [01:16:51] Well, we we have we I think you reported on this in 20 2021. I think when there was this massive riots in South Africa, when they just in.

Tucker [01:17:01] Durban.

Ernst Roets [01:17:02] In Durban. And then I remember that, yeah, it sort of spilled out to routing to Johannesburg to a lesser extent. And it’s just people it’s almost like, you know, smelling blood and becoming extremely violent. Oh yeah. And then people join in by the thousands.

Tucker [01:17:15] I’ve, I’ve seen that with my own eyes a couple of times. Yeah. It’s really scary.

Ernst Roets [01:17:20] So someone, a friend from Europe once asked me, are you not afraid that the government is going to come to your house and take your stuff? And my honest answer is not that much. I’m more concerned about a mob showing up.

Tucker [01:17:32] And so then what do you do?

Ernst Roets [01:17:34] Well, if if you are alone, you can’t do anything. If you’re a well functioning, well organized community, then the community, you can call people on the radio. You can you can get the community to take a stance. And I think I think that’s one too.

Tucker [01:17:46] So you don’t get lynched.

Ernst Roets [01:17:47] Yes.

Tucker [01:17:48] You got a lot of lynchings. And so I mean, that’s again added to the irony file. I mean, South Africa is like the world capital of lynching.

Ernst Roets [01:17:55] Yes.

Tucker [01:17:56] Oh I noticed.

Ernst Roets [01:17:56] Yeah. It’s not so much white people who are.

Tucker [01:17:59] Targeted, I’m aware know it of blacks.

Ernst Roets [01:18:01] Yeah yeah, yeah. Yeah. That that certainly it has happened in the previous dispensation. It’s still happening to an extent. Not as much as in the past, but people don’t know that it’s still happening.

Tucker [01:18:10] And to people accused of crimes and. Yeah.

Ernst Roets [01:18:12] And it’s partly due to the fact that the police is absent. Right. So especially in townships, someone is a rapist and the police doesn’t show up, doesn’t do anything, and then the local community just deals with him. That type of thing happens.

Tucker [01:18:25] In a very brutal way. Yes, yes.

Ernst Roets [01:18:29] Yeah, it does happen in a brutal way.

Tucker [01:18:31] Yeah. Yeah. I I’ve noticed like pretty shocking. Like almost like I wouldn’t want to describe it.

Ernst Roets [01:18:37] Yeah. Yeah I mentioned the Nicholas murders before. So we, we have that and it’s the same with the xenophobic violence. It’s It’s very unfortunate. And if we had a well-functioning police service, maybe that would have helped. But we don’t. So. So in South Africa, the we can check the numbers. I’m pretty sure the private security sphere in South Africa is almost as big as private security in America. But America’s much larger private security in South Africa is more than double the police and the army combined. If you add the police and the army up together and you multiplied by two private security, the amount of private security officers in South Africa, security guards is, do you.

Tucker [01:19:16] Have the right of self-defense, the right to defend yourself and your family?

Ernst Roets [01:19:21] We do have the right to self-defense. We can own firearms, although it’s not as easy as in America. Yes, but you can you can do that. And you can get arms, especially through a private security company. You can there’s some room to make sure that you can protect yourself.

Tucker [01:19:34] And does it work?

Ernst Roets [01:19:35] Yes, yes. In terms of the farm murders, we’ve seen that statistically that that in communities where areas or communities where people are well organized with our videos, where they drive patrols, where they are trained, there’s a decrease in four murders. You can clearly see that actually, in the last few years, the phone murder numbers have come down a bit. And it’s not because because the the incitement has gotten better. It’s not because the police is more efficient. It’s because local communities have become much more involved with their own safety. And so that’s certainly one of the most important building blocks of the.

Tucker [01:20:12] So what now that the president I’m using air quotes again around president, I mean, the whole system is fake. Obviously it doesn’t affect justice. It doesn’t improve the lives of its citizens. It’s a no sense of legitimate government. And by the way, it’s not the only illegitimate government in the world. But but anyway, what happens when they try? The government tries to put this law into effect to try and act on it. You know, the government shows up your house as you can’t. You know, you’ve lived in the same plot for 100 years. You can’t have a because you’re white. We’re taking it like what? How do people comply?

Ernst Roets [01:20:47] No, no, people won’t comply. No, I mean, that’s partly why I told this story at the beginning is the Afrikaner people and the farmers are very stubborn. This in Afrikaans we say R2 hard hit it. So this I will.

Tucker [01:21:00] Farmers. You have to be stubborn to be a farmer in the first place.

Ernst Roets [01:21:03] Yes, and especially a farmer in private equity.

Tucker [01:21:05] I mean, it’s easier.

Ernst Roets [01:21:06] Yes, exactly. So it’s, it’s it’s a common trope among farmers to say that I would rather die on my farm than to hand it over to the government. And so I think if they really tried to act on it, which they haven’t tried, they are land invasions in South Africa, but it’s not so much the government, it’s mobs and gangs and so forth invading people’s land. But if they really tried to act on these attempts at expropriation, there’s going to be a massive backlash. And that’s there’s no doubt. So what they would say is this is actually what the government is up that that we need to do what happened in Zimbabwe, but without violence. But that’s how they would argue it.

Tucker [01:21:46] And that’s just how we need to. What happened in Zimbabwe?

Ernst Roets [01:21:48] Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this time with it’s one of the.

Tucker [01:21:50] Worst crimes of my lifetime.

Ernst Roets [01:21:52] Yeah. Well, they say publicly. Yeah, you can find it online. And so the argument is but but we are we’re going to do it a bit better. We’re going to do it without violence. But what that means is we’re going to do what happened in Zimbabwe. And you are not going to resist. That’s what it means. But obviously people will resist when they try to do that. There’s no doubt about it. But I do think the government is very incompetent. You know, they have these very radical ideas. I don’t know if there is a competency competency to actually go through.

Tucker [01:22:20] That’s that’s the absolute. I lived in Washington, DC almost my whole life. And that was absolutely true there. You know, the government make all these local government make all these threatening noises, do this, do that, do the other thing. It’s against the law to do this. Whatever. And you just kind of ignore people. Just ignore it.

Ernst Roets [01:22:35] And so there are some business organizations in South Africa who now use the term maximum appropriate noncompliance. That’s what they encourage private companies to do. So it’s a form of civil disobedience. It’s with all these big that’s these black empowerment lawyers just say we’re just not going to comply.

Tucker [01:22:54] I know someone who had a thriving business. He built himself in South Africa. And the government shut up and said, you’re handing half your business to your new partner who didn’t do anything. Just show up and collect the money. And it’s just he stole half his business. Because it’s all theft. I mean, it doesn’t. I know that black South Africans haven’t gotten richer in the last third. No.

Ernst Roets [01:23:12] No. And the government owns the land. Most of the land that they expropriate, they don’t give it to people. It goes to the government.

Tucker [01:23:17] So what the government did say, like, how about no, look, you’ve no legitimacy and you haven’t been here any longer than I’ve been here. And you have, I mean, and I have guns too. So, like, I’m not participating. How’s that? Yeah.

Ernst Roets [01:23:30] Well, civil disobedience can be a wonderful thing. And we’ve had some examples of successful civil disobedience campaigns in South Africa, where the government had this. They call it the e-toll system. It’s like a big tax system on the highways that just it’s an electronic text toll system that. But people just by the thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands just refuse to to comply to get the tags and so forth. And eventually they had to stop it because even though it was law, people just didn’t do it. And the same with Covid. Covid was a good example that a lot of. We’ve had a bizarre Covid. I mean, everyone has had a bizarre Covid, so we had these strange laws like you can’t buy flip flops during Covid.

Tucker [01:24:07] Yeah, those are deadly.

Ernst Roets [01:24:08] Yeah, yeah. And you cannot buy shorts, all that and stuff. You cannot buy cooked chicken. We had these really, really bizarre Covid laws. It’s a crime to buy cooked chicken or to sell cooked chicken during Covid. And so people just people just said, well, we don’t care. We just going to do what we want. And so there was a massive civil disobedience phenomenon in South Africa during the Covid lockdown. And so I think people have learned and the government couldn’t do anything about it. I think people have learned that and that that you can actually do a lot if you just don’t comply with these completely ridiculous, irrational laws.

Tucker [01:24:47] That sounds I mean, I I’m the one in South Africa. But again, I have lived in Washington, D.C., so that sounds totally right to me. I wonder, though, about what you said us, that when we first started with this, about the the mob justice. That does sound scary to me.

Ernst Roets [01:25:03] I think that’s that’s a bigger threat.

Tucker [01:25:05] What do you do about that? How do you live in a country where, you know, like your neighbors could rise up against you?

Ernst Roets [01:25:12] Yeah. So? So, so we’ve had some examples of this. It started with the Rhodes Must Fall movement. The it was a oh the roads. Oh this will John roads. So this one guy defecated on Cecil John roads. A statue at was a duke. What university was it in in in Cape Town. And then they started this movement dedicated on. Yeah, yeah.

Tucker [01:25:34] That’s attractive. Well, that’s kind of that’s kind of like the level actually that you’re dealing with.

Ernst Roets [01:25:40] Yeah. And so they.

Tucker [01:25:41] Jumped on it.

Ernst Roets [01:25:41] They started this movement of tearing down statues, which eventually boiled over to America. And that’s how it got to America. It started in and it boiled down over to Europe and so forth. But it started with that, the targeting of statues. I think it was 2012 or something. It was. Yeah, maybe before that even. And it became a mob. It and and they, they, they wore T-shirts with slogans like kill the whites, like on the t shirts. And, and it became very violent and very overtly racist. And it was students running around just, you know, setting things on fire, burning down buildings and stuff like that so that that is a real threat. And then later we had the Feesmustfall movement that was university students demanding that education must be free. You shouldn’t pay to go to university. And it was the same thing. And now we’ve had these more recently we’ve had political parties sort of taken up that thing, this kill the Bush and so forth. And so I honestly think in South Africa, the threat of mob violence is a bigger threat than the golf.

Tucker [01:26:43] Course it is. Of course it is. And, you know, that’s where you get killed in situations like that, I think. So what do you I mean, you have to be pretty well organized. Pretty well armed.

Ernst Roets [01:26:56] Well, the the thing is, there’s no silver bullet. There’s no one thing that we can do to make sure that we’re equipped to withstand that. But if there is a silver bullet, it would be or the closest to it it would be. What I mentioned earlier is well organized communities, communities that have a sense of community that that recognize that you have a sense of responsibility not just towards yourself and your own family, but towards your community, and that you have some form of a communal identity that is under threat, that is being targeted. And you have to protect yourself. You have to fulfill a bunch of functions that the government is not fulfilling, even though you’re paying them to do it. They’re not doing it. So you have to look after your own safety. You need to have a gun. You need to have a bulletproof vest. You need to have. Or if you don’t, in at least a significant amount of people in your in your community must, especially those who are more interested in this type of thing. You need to be well organized. You need to be prepared if something bad happens in your community, if the mob comes, if they set the shopping mall on fire, or if they come for people’s houses, that in a very short time frame, you can get a whole bunch of people mobilized to protect their community. And with these riots in 2021, that was a good case study because some communities were completely unprepared and they were virtually destroyed, and some communities were very well prepared. And when the mobs arrived, there was a bunch of people with guns waiting for them. And I saw.

Tucker [01:28:20] That video of the South Asian communities in type in the big South Asian, big Indians, his community there, and I don’t know if this is representative, but the videos I saw, man, they were not putting up with it at all.

Ernst Roets [01:28:31] Yeah, they were very well armed. Yes.

Tucker [01:28:34] Yeah. It’s like some heroic Indians out there. Yeah.

Ernst Roets [01:28:37] There was one, I think some guy with something that looked like a minigun on the back of a pickup truck. I don’t know where they got that, but I don’t know. But that’s, that’s an example. It was another.

Tucker [01:28:47] That I, you know, these videos are all out of context. I’m not. Yeah. I don’t know that I read this, but I just assume we have got some brave Indians and yes.

Ernst Roets [01:28:53] Yes I do. We have some brave Indians. We do. But and they were they were other examples. One was a the mob was approaching a town and the people were waiting for them on a bridge. And then they got there. They just couldn’t enter because the people had just cordoned off their own town and their own village or community, and they weren’t able to enter. So we’ve had some case studies of this. It’s South Africa’s a fascinating case study for a lot of things.

Tucker [01:29:17] It certainly is. It certainly is. There’s just a dumb question, a childish question. Why, if I’m the government of South Africa, it’s like, why are you going after productive people? For one thing, the most productive. And that would include the Indians, the Afrikaners, by the way, some of the black African immigrants here, Zimbabweans like these are like are some of the most productive people in America. Why not just live in harmony, actually. So what would it be better for everybody?

Ernst Roets [01:29:49] Of course. Of course it would be better. I think it’s because they have. When they took power in 1994, they explicitly said, we are not a political party. We are not a government in terms of what people think a government should be. We are a liberation movement committed to the promotion of socialism and committed to the promotion of black nationalism. And that’s that’s the idea.

Tucker [01:30:10] I said that 94.

Ernst Roets [01:30:11] Yeah, they even said that before 94. They published.

Tucker [01:30:14] So it’s just I know I’m going back to the same themes. I’m getting older. Sorry, but like, no, but I mean, I actually did know that because as I said, I’ve always been interested and I knew people there. But nobody in the American press mentioned that. Not one.

Ernst Roets [01:30:29] Yeah. There’s a well-known book that was an international bestseller, My Traitor’s Heart, by a guy called Ryan Mullen. It’s sort of his autobiography. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. And so there’s one section in that book. I know, Ryan, I know the author is a great guy, but in the book he writes.

Tucker [01:30:45] About these in English. I don’t know if he wrote it off originally, but it’s a beautifully written book.

Ernst Roets [01:30:50] It’s very well written, very nice. He speaks like he writes. Oh he does. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, so there’s one part in the book where he talks about picking up the New York Times, and I’m sort of saying this from memory, from reading the book. But broadly speaking, what he says is he picks up the New York Times in, I don’t know, 1992 or something in, in New York or wherever. And there’s two stories next on the same page. The one is about the ANC and Nelson Mandela coming to save South Africa. And then the other story is a somewhat smaller story About a guy being Nicholas in a local community, a guy being viciously attacked and killed. And so he writing that book that what what concerned him was that The New York Times was not able to connect these two stories to each other. Yeah. They didn’t recognize that. It’s part of the same story. It’s presented as two completely different.

Tucker [01:31:40] I think they knew exactly. I think it was very obvious. So I was 25 and 1994 and it was very obvious to me. And I, you know, I don’t think I have any special powers of insight. I think you would have to be lying to yourself or lying to your audience not to acknowledge it. And by the way, it’s 1994. That’s less than 20 years after the cameras took power in Nam Pen in Cambodia.

Ernst Roets [01:32:04] That was while the Rwandan genocide was happening.

Tucker [01:32:07] It was the same years the World War two was later that year. So the same.

Ernst Roets [01:32:10] Month, even the the election at least was.

Tucker [01:32:14] In July.

Ernst Roets [01:32:15] April, may, may, may. Okay. Right.

Tucker [01:32:18] Right. Yeah. Yeah, I remember them both very well and I knew people in both places at the time. But I remember thinking, you know, obviously what happened in Kigali, we were in Rwanda is way worse than anything is happening in South Africa, thank God. But bottom line, when bad people with bad motives stated publicly take power, it’s not good. So like, I don’t know, that’s not hard.

Ernst Roets [01:32:41] Well, there’s a story from Rwanda and what is it I keep mentioning in the same, the same time? I think Linda Melvin wrote a book called Conspiracy to Murder, which is about, I think she lived in Rwanda and she’s a journalist, and she wrote about the what happened and she writes about a meeting. Must have been a party in Washington between American diplomats and government officials from Rwanda in the run up to, I think, to the genocide. And and it was just a big celebration. And everyone was happy because Rwanda was in the process of becoming a democracy. And then afterwards, someone asked one of the Americans, But did you not know what was happening in Rwanda? That they were on the verge of committing genocide? And he said the American diplomats said, yes, we knew. But we were so excited about democracy and Rwanda becoming a democracy. We didn’t want to spoil the mood by confronting them.

Tucker [01:33:34] That sounds like an American diplomat. Yeah. Wow.

Ernst Roets [01:33:37] That’s awesome. So, so that’s very, very alarming. This idea of being so excited about a potential idea that you are not willing to confront the realities that that’s happening or that could potentially unfold.

Tucker [01:33:51] We’re being unwilling to clearly define your terms, like what is democracy, actually?

Ernst Roets [01:33:56] Yeah. Well, that’s I think that’s an underlying.

Tucker [01:33:58] It’s an underlying problem. Yeah. Right. It’s an it’s a problem that’s only surfaced in this country.

Ernst Roets [01:34:03] And I give you an example, I hope you from the South African perspective. So I mentioned the name changes. It’s a big thing in South Africa.

Tucker [01:34:10] I’m sure that’ll fix your problems. Will that bring the electricity and water back north.

Ernst Roets [01:34:13] Obviously. So there’s a town called among them Toti which is on the east coast of South Africa. The main street was named Kingsway. They changed it to Andrews on Duke Street. Now, Andrews Zonda is really only known for one thing. He was a member of the ANC Youth League and I believe it was 1985. He planted a bomb in a shopping center and he killed, I think, five people and injured 40. All of the people who were killed were women and children. That’s the only thing he did. And he was a member of the ANC Youth League. The ANC regards that event as a something that they claim as a an act of heroism. So they named the main street after him and said, there are people in that town who drive to work in a street named after the person who killed their children, and now they would say that they need to do these name changes to make sure that they get rid of offensive names, offensive names, or Afrikaans names or names linked to South Africa’s past. And so I was at a again I summit with this was discussed and I mentioned this, I said, so you say that in Pretoria, Church Street is an offensive name and has to be changed in a man’s name. Toti. You changed Kingsway to Andrew Zondi and I tell the story and I said, so who decides if it’s if it’s offensive or not? And the guy said, oh, well that’s easy. The majority decides. And so but it’s not even the majority, it’s just the government. The government decides because they believe they are the majority. So we have these extremely offensive things happening under the banner of, well, they’re murderous.

Tucker [01:35:43] I mean, I see again, I just yeah, I think it’s the picture is really, really clear. You know, it’s it couldn’t be clearer. Yeah.

Ernst Roets [01:35:53] Yeah. Absolutely.

Tucker [01:35:54] How do you is you’re staying.

Ernst Roets [01:35:56] Yeah. No definitely. Yeah. We’ll stay.

Tucker [01:35:59] You guys must love your country.

Ernst Roets [01:36:00] Yeah, we really do. I mean, in South Africa, everyone who’s been to South Africa would say it’s an incredibly beautiful country and it truly is. And it’s a country that, unfortunately, has suffered so much under this current government and has suffered so much in the past. One of our Afrikaans philosophers, a man named in a fun way, Clough wrote. I think in the 1930s or something that you love AI people. Not so much for the accomplishments as for the hardships that they’ve had to endure.

Tucker [01:36:28] That’s right.

Ernst Roets [01:36:29] And and I think that’s true for South Africa. South Africa has endured many hardships and also for our people. The Afrikaner people, as with many other people all over the world, have endured many hardships. And it’s through these hardships and remaining, maintaining our sense of identity that we really love our history and our tradition.

Tucker [01:36:47] And, well, you came in the first place because you were an oppressed minority, correct? Yep. I know the French did. Yes.

Ernst Roets [01:36:52] The French, you know, it’s. Yes. Yes, it was the fleeing, the religious wars.

Tucker [01:36:56] Of course they were getting killed.

Ernst Roets [01:36:57] Yes. In big numbers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s that’s how that’s, that’s part of our origin story.

Tucker [01:37:02] How we what’s also actually true. Yeah. Part of history. I mean, it’s not a myth. It’s real.

Ernst Roets [01:37:07] Yes. Yes. Absolutely.

Tucker [01:37:08] Yeah. So do you think? I don’t know what the resolution will be? And I’m certainly rooting for all South Africans of every color, but fervently. But I gotta think that being able to say certain obvious truths out loud helps. Yes. Do you think.

Ernst Roets [01:37:29] It. Well, the problem is, if you do that, you really you get bashed quite aggressively and.

Tucker [01:37:35] Yeah. But like compared to what?

Ernst Roets [01:37:37] Yeah. No, they just said.

Tucker [01:37:38] We’re taking your land because your skin color.

Ernst Roets [01:37:39] The alternative is worse. It’s just living the lie. It’s, it’s it’s much worse than getting bashed for for telling the truth. Can I, can I tell you a quick story, a quick reference about courage?

Tucker [01:37:50] Of course.

Ernst Roets [01:37:51] So it’s somewhat philosophical, but I’ll make it practical. So Odysseus is on his way back from the Trojan War and and he has all these hardships, and he’s trying to get home, and he gets told that the only way for him to get home is to face Skyler and Charybdis. Skyler is this six headed sea monster, and Charybdis is a monstrous whirlpool that swallows ships whole, and the only way for him to get home is he has to navigate through these two monsters, which he eventually does. He decides it’s better for him to move to sail his ship closer to the monster sea monster than the whirlpool, and a whole lot of his people die, but he reaches his destination. And so Aristotle writes about this in the Nicomachean Ethics, and he talks about when he talks about the golden mean. And he says any virtue is about finding the balance between having excess of it and having a deficiency of it. And and so this goes to courage. And courage is a good example. If you have excess courage, you become reckless. Yes. And if you have a deficiency, then you are a coward. And so the point of having courage is finding the balance between cowardice and recklessness. And what’s great about the story of Odysseus is Odysseus discovers that he cannot simply go exactly in the middle between the two He has to be closer to the one threat than to the other, because if he goes too close to the whirlpool, these all ship gets swallowed up. And so the pointy end. Aristotle sees this as well. It’s not to find the exact middle point, it’s to find the appropriate balance between the two extremes. And so the one extreme is recklessness, and the other extreme is his cowardice. And I honestly think in the situation we are in, it’s better to on the side of being too bold than to on the side of having not enough courage or trying to find some form of solution through appeasement. And and so we make mistakes in the process. And, and you know, sometimes you say something wrong or you do something wrong, but, but I’m very much convinced that if we if, if we, if we’re on this course and we try to pursue what we are trying to pursue, rather on the side of having too much boldness and too much courage and facing the consequences, then having to face the consequences of having a lack of of courage.

Tucker [01:40:03] I love that, I got to say, in a lifetime of travel. The two. If I could just generalize the two most impressive groups I meet everywhere my whole life around the world, both groups living in exile in large numbers are the South Africans and the Lebanese are.

Ernst Roets [01:40:20] Really?

Tucker [01:40:21] Yes, yes. I’ve never met one of either group I didn’t like and didn’t admire. I don’t think I’ve met one in either group, and the thing that they have in common is they live in beautiful, volatile countries that they really love, but they’re very hard to live in. Yes. And so they’re they’re caught between that tension, you know, cowardice and recklessness. And they’re making that calculation every single day. And they’re they’re living so thoughtfully and so purposefully and in such a, I don’t know, just a admirable, noble way. I’ve noticed that.

Ernst Roets [01:40:49] Oh, I appreciate the comment of it.

Tucker [01:40:52] Let’s try. Right. Just an observation, but I’ve thought about it many times. Last question what where can and people who have made it this far into the interview and are interested in what’s happening in your country and happening to to your group. How can they follow it? How can they be helpful? How can they learn more and be supportive?

Ernst Roets [01:41:13] Well, I think there are many ways. The one way is just to follow what’s happening in South Africa and speak about it. Yes, because we’ve had this incredible barrage of of communications coming, just telling us again how wrong we are. You know, this narrative is this side. Geist in a certain sense, it’s it’s really like a monster that you have to fight this, you know, that you’re not allowed to say, speak certain truths, even though the truths are self-evident. So I think one thing is, if people just can help spread the message, help take some interest in South Africa, because what’s happening in South Africa is also of interest to the rest of the world.

Tucker [01:41:47] I think it.

Ernst Roets [01:41:47] Is in many ways, South Africa is the future of the Western.

Tucker [01:41:49] World.

Ernst Roets [01:41:50] I know in terms of the problem and the solution, I think. So so that’s one. And then the other is there really are some institutions in South Africa who are really focused on on building community based solutions. And I think if people can can identify these institutions and support these institutions, it really would help. And I think in terms of the US government, if the US government is willing to do something as it seems that they are, I think the most important thing that they could do is a combination of pressuring the South African government from away from these destructive policies, but also supporting communities, local communities or minority communities or nations, you should say, who are committed to finding some form of self-determination.

Tucker [01:42:34] Amen. Well, Godspeed. I hope to see you again. I hope you’ll come back.

Ernst Roets [01:42:39] I thank you, I will, I hope so, too. And and I have to thank you for not just for this interview, but also for the the focus you’ve been putting on South Africa in the past.

Tucker [01:42:46] It was just so it’s just so interesting and it reveals so much about us. I’m American and it reveals a lot about our leadership class. And I think it’s important to say it.

Ernst Roets [01:42:55] Yeah. Well, thank you very much.

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OF THE “ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE OF B’NAI B’RITH”

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Thursday, 29 September 1994

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ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI TO A DELEGATION OF B’NAI B’RITH INTERNATIONAL

Hall of Popes Thursday, 12 May 2011

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II TO A GROUP OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE “B’NAI B’RITH INTERNATIONAL”

Monday, 11 March 1996

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II TO THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE “ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE OF B’NAI B’RITH”

Consistory Hall Thursday, 29 September 1994

List of John Paul II’s speeches to the Jewish community

PAUL VI GENERAL AUDIENCE Wednesday, May 17, 1978

Nostra Aetate Rome, St Peter’s, October 28 1965.

Also available at Barnes & Noble

Also available at Barnes & Noble

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
TO A DELEGATION OF B’NAI B’RITH INTERNATIONAL

Hall of Popes
Thursday, 12 May 2011

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II
TO A GROUP OF REPRESENTATIVES
OF THE “B’NAI B’RITH INTERNATIONAL”

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II
TO THE REPRESENTATIVES
OF THE “ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE OF B’NAI B’RITH”

Consistory Hall
Thursday, 29 September 1994