me a lot of I mean I'll give
you an
example
Herbert Marku say who I'm not a
fan of
button by any stretch but when
when I
read some of his works I was
struck by
real insights about things that
were
very troubling about American
culture
one dimensional man
this idea of a consumer and and
life as
consumption and and and losing
me I mean
his solutions is a whole other
problem
but and this is something I
think that's
very seductive is that the the
critical
aspect of of Marxism and neo
Marxism has
always been it's always had a
resonance
in a lot of people there's
something
very very powerful about it
when you
when you get to solutions and
how we
deal with these things we're in
another
realm but if if I think if
conservatives
don't really address the the
real
serious critiques that are
there you
know about the status quo yeah
I think
you're right they have they
have perhaps
neglected those critiques but
you know
as I saying earlier the purely
negative
approach to the status quo is
simply
going to perpetuate this
negativity and
has done if you're not the
typical
conservative in my reading of
events is
someone who looks around
himself and he
finds things that he loves you
know
anything's when those things
are
threatened they're vulnerable
I've got
to protect right and it's not
often that
you find on the left somebody
who looks
around and finds things that he
loves
it's um it's always something
that's
gone wrong something that is
even
hateful and you've got to
mobilize
against it if you've lost any
sense that
actually the world is lovable
and that
there are things there for to
be rescued
in it you have actually lost
the sense
of why there is such a thing as
a
community in the first place
and that I
think is one of the things that
I felt
very strongly throughout my
life that
that there really are wonderful
things
that we've inherited all
Americans
however whatever position in
society
they are are still heirs to
something
rather remarkable you know a
rule of law
which has goes on perpetuating
itself
from generation to generation
if they if
only people knew how rare that
was they
would see that they've got a
fight to
preserve it you know
and the same with so many other
institutions that we yeah no I
couldn't
agree with you more I think one
of the
most one of the most
interesting things
and Gwen we were talking about
Gwyn
earlier the grammarian one of
the things
that Gwyn points out and it
really
struck me in his little book on
grammar
that made quite a splash I
think in the
UK one of the things that he
points out
is that language our English
language
has not changed a great deal I
mean the
conservation of the language
this site
could be because there's a lot
of people
that the the descriptivists
will just
say that language is whatever
people use
but there is a reason to hold
on and to
preserve language because if we
allow
language to dissipate into
private
languages we lose the ability
to
communicate as a culture or a
civilization that is all true
but also
equally true is a fact that
languages we
inherited is not the product of
a single
person or it's the evolved gift
of
generations and and it
contained in
every word there is a kind of
history of
the human condition
we're actually inheriting
wisdom with it
with language these words make
distinctions that we couldn't
have ever
made ourselves right without
their aid
and so but we are living
entering a
world where grammar is not
given the
importance of it that it
deserves one of
the things and and talk for me
I mean
conserving language is
extremely
important and and it was an
obsession of
Muslims the idea the Quran in
essence
almost froze the Arabic
language in a in
a in a period so the the ideal
of Arabic
will always be the Quran and
and in some
ways the the King James Bible
did that
to English to a certain degree
yes it
did or interestingly of course
the King
James Bible isn't unashamedly a
translation you know and the
Quran as
and is what I mean most Muslims
don't
accept that it can be exactly
translated
because it has a it has a perfection
of
its own I course it was recited
when you
know more about this three is
recited
long before it is written down
right and
and then it had achieved a kind
of
statuesque quality that that
our Bible
has never has never managed but
you know
grammar the grammar of the King
James
Bible is often quite unorthodox
and and
it it's a very strange book and
we now
look is the book that made our
seventeenth and eighteenth
century
literature arguably it's it's
the book
also that made some of the
greatest
orators and
in our civilization yes I mean
Lincoln
Lincoln's Lincoln's reliance
and
dependence on on the King James
Bible
was immense but hardly any
Church now
uses it my Church the Anglican
Church
does use it but only in certain
little
places and in villages or in hi
Sara
monile occasions I mean most of
it for
the most part is the new
English Bible
that has replaced it there you
went to
grammar schools and and and and
they've
been largely the attack on
grammar
schools has been amazing
because it's
been seen as an elitist
enterprise and
one of the things that's that
struck me
I read a book by David Mulroy
called the
Warwick against grammar it was
quite an
eye-opening book for me because
one of
the things that in teaching our
students
Arabic it's very difficult
because many
of them have very little
English grammar
yeah and and traditionally
grammar
grammatical languages I mean
all all
languages are grammatical but
by that I
mean a language that is almost
impossible to understand
without
knowledge of grammar like
Arabic because
it's inflected and because it
the verbs
are conjugated and so if you
don't have
some understanding of that it
becomes
very difficult but david moore
roy makes
this argument that in the 1960s
early
60s in the u.s. there was
actually a
movement to stop teaching
grammar and
they saw it as very abusive to
children
and but but what's interesting
he has
he has something that I've
replicated in
several classes I on average
I'll take
50 students I give him the
opening
sentence to the Declaration of
Independence when in the course
of human
events it becomes necessary to
the end
of that sentence it's it's it's
a
sentence that has several
subordinate
clauses and I all I ask the
students is
identify the main point of this
sentence
now these are college students
on
average out of 50 students I'll
get two
or three that actually can
identify the
main clause and and so there's
a type of
higher illiteracy that that the
fact
that grammar has been removed
and I
think a restoration of language
is the
only thing for me the the
salvation of
the civilization has to be
predicated on
the resurrection of the
corruption of
this language well I think
you've
actually touched on what the
real
essence of conservatism is
there you
know that that there are things
that the
conservation of which is
actually
fundamental to understanding
the world
as it is and if you lose those
things
like the rules of grammar the
habits of
good speech or good manners the
sense of
what a legal solution
as opposed to a mere bullying
solution
to a conflict might be all
those things
we we used to be taught to us
as part of
becoming an adult if you lose
those
things you're at sea in the
world and I
think that's one of the things
that that
most worries me about modern
education
you refer to the this movement
in our
schools to abolish grammar as
elitist
it's absolutely true that a
grammar is
elitist because it makes a
distinction
between the people who know it
and the
people who don't and that's the
kind of
distinction that we all need if
we're to
survive not only as a
civilization but
as individuals too so this is
where are
the real arguments for
conservatism in
my view should be based not in
their
economic sphere at all but in
these
fundamental cultural inheritances
and
yeah I couldn't agree with you
more
and I think it's very one of
the things
that really troubles me we had
recently
a professor I think down in
Southern
California at a major
university who was
considered racist because he
was
demanding that the students use
proper
grammar and so the minority
students
objected to that because they
felt that
it was discriminatory and and
and one of
the things about in our culture
and I
and I think the the poor white
people in
this culture are also
disenfranchised
from a type of normative or
conventional
language and I and I think it's
very
disempowering to do that
of course when I was at school
grammar
school I was I came from a poor
background right you know and
we were
our teachers as their first
instinct
when they found that you were
in some
way handicapped by your the the
language
that you'd learn from your
parents was
to take you in hand give you
the
advantage which were family had
not so
that you could catch up with
the others
right and I think that's that
idea of
teaching that you that you're
actually
lifting people up so as to be
able to
receive their inheritance that
idea has
gone to a great extent it's
much more
now that the teacher comes down
to the
level of the students exactly
and this
is and this big male Ian's a
good
example of that because because
Shaw in
Shaw's Pygmalion and and it
obviously
there's a lot of irony and
sarcasm in
that but the idea of the flower
girl who
speaks non-standard English
wanting to
speak like a lady to speak
proper as a
way of upward mobility yes and
and and
one of the things that Toynbee
points
out is that a civilization on
its way
out
inverts that so there's a
vulgar ization
of the patrician class where
they begin
to speak in vanities in
profanity and
and become unfortunately that
is so yeah
but yeah I think we mustn't be
too
pessimistic about everything
okay I mean
you all roll that
you are someone who's found in
Islam
something which gives him the
foundation
that he needs in order to
confront this
gradual degeneration of things
all
around and I respect that you
want if
one can find that foundation
one can
then start building again - to
recapture
those things which are
jeopardized by
the laxness of our of modern
society and
I think you've got to be
optimistic
about that you've got to think
that you
can recapture these things
otherwise you
know what what are you doing as
a
teacher you know that's yeah it
depends
on what day it is okay they
yeah the
Arabs have a famous story about
a king
who had a positive day and a
negative
day William what that so I mean
some
days I look out there and it's
so
overwhelming you know that
what's
happened I think you I mean
we're old
enough you're a little ahead of
me but
we're both old enough to know
how
different the world that we
grew up in
is today and it's quite
devastating in a
lot of ways my mother who was
96 when
she passed I said to her she
she when
she was born there was an
ottoman Calif
in 1921 right and and and I
asked her
and she was extremely liberal
and and I
was raised with with a lot of
liberal
sensibilities my father was
very
conservative but so I got both
sides and
it was very interesting to see
those
those two views and and how
powerful
each one is in its own way but
when I
asked her once just what what
do you
think is the worst thing about
what's
happening that she said manners
yes just
manners and and one of the
there's a
French I can't remember his
name but
there was a French ethicist who
wrote a
book on virtues about 15 years
ago is
that yeah yeah compt I think it
was
called the book of virtues
that's right
and the first virtue he had in
there was
courtesy yes and and one of the
foundational virtues of the
Islamic
civilization is EDA and
and which means comportment it
means
decorum
it means courtesy but it also
means
literature exactly so the idea
is is is
a the edebe is somebody who has
absorbed
the humanities yes well that
the habits
of proper dialogue and I mean
that
that's all that is very
interesting of
course you living here in Berkeley
you know only you only have to
look out
of the window to see how far
things can
be Klein you know I look out of
my
window onto the English
countryside
right and mostly horses whose
whose
manners remained constant from
generation to generation but go
ahead
yeah but you know Berkeley is
famous for
being the pioneer in degeneracy
but
whatever form and maybe one
should you
know the very fact that you can
plant
your institution here and still
not only
recruit people but also create
this kind
of atmosphere of of peace and
and
goodwill in the middle of all
this and
suggest that you know that that
Berkeley
style degeneracy is perhaps not
more
than skin-deep and yeah well
can I say
something in defense of
Berkeley yeah
yeah of being here
I found the the the people here
are
they're very welcoming people
in and and
there's there and this is where
I really
try to avoid and maybe it's my
mother
and my father's influence on me
have
just seen both sides I really
try to
avoid Manichean type of
worldviews and
and I think you know that this
Dionysian
impulse that that's clearly
there in us
as a species and the Apollonian
this
idea of order as opposed to
this kind of
chaotic ex ecstatic type of
being and I
think one of the things in our
tradition
in the Islamic tradition was
very
interesting to me is they have
this
concept of what they call the
mush dupes
Alec who's the the the the goal
you know
in the spiritual tradition of
Islam is
be inwardly in a state of
ecstasy but
outwardly in a state of
sobriety and so
there's this this very
interesting
Dionysian Apollonian balance
that's it
that's actually taking place
and I think
one of the things that happens
in a
culture that that loses the
ability to
experience internal ecstasy
like to you
know where this mean comes from
the soul
I mean I'll give you an example
there
there's a there's a a I
recently I've
been reading a book called
video
accuracy which is about viral
videos
online and and there was a
video that
went viral by this guy named
bear
Vasquez and it was him seeing a
double
rainbow outside of his house
and he's
just in a state of just awe and
then he
starts crying he breaks down
and just
starts crying and and he's
asking what
does this mean and and there's
something
very powerful about that is
such an
appropriate response to a
double rainbow
and I think whatever happened
it
resonated in a lot of people
what he was
seeing I think we our culture
no longer
gives people vehicles for the
experience
of joy now that's a really
important
point pleasure has driven out
joy
exactly yeah because Roy is
essentially
something comes in or deep
social nature
from your need for others and
you'll
need to give to others yes and
I think
that I've often you know the
problem is
we're agreeing about too much
but I see
this in the change in patterns
of
dancing the dancing that that I
love
like Scottish country dancing
and you
know formation dancing I had to
do Greek
dancing exactly that they are
full of
joy because they are ways of
relating to
others forgetting about your in
your
appetites just being with
whereas modern
you know head bashes it's some
of Cystic
its own sister narcissistic and
narcissism is joyless it
because it
concentrates only on what can
be
received and not often be good
well the
other thing was fascinating to
about
about
because I thought about
duplicate with
Lebanese dancing Syrian dancing
which is
very similar to Greek dancing
and one of
the things about that type of
dancing is
that there's a formalism that's
very
rigid but within that formalism
once you
master it you're allowed to
improvise
and do certain things there's a
freedom
that comes and there was
something that
my father used to always say
about the
liberal arts is that the
purpose was
this immense discipline that
set you
free that that through that
structure
and discipline you actually
become free
and I think we this conflation
of
freedom with licentiousness and
freedom
with do what thou will the the
kind of
the thelema you know the abbey
of
Thelema this idea that that we
can just
simply do what we we want and
that's how
we're gonna find happiness yeah
you're
absolutely right that there
there's a
false idea of freedom which
took over
the world in the sixties in a
way with
the baby boomers we don't know
quite why
but it this idea that freedom
means that
the absence of control yeah
rather Vader
would say it was a change sorry
the
absence of control rather than
rather
than an order in the soul right
you know
my ideal of freedom is
something like
box art of fugue in which every
note is
necessary but every note is
totally free
you know that that idea that
there is a
an order which reveals itself
through
free gestures that's really
what you are
saying about those old
Mediterranean
style of styles of dance yes I
think
it's also rhetoric was like
that I mean
Shakespeare
Miriam Joseph wrote a
dissertation
Shakespeare in the arts of
language
where she proved that he had
mastered
all of these rhetorical
treatises of of
his of his time and and knew
over 200
tropes and and and schemes it's
amazing
that and and often borrowing
from the
very text that he that he had
mastered
so the artifice which used to
be a kind
of positive term in
in in in the past this idea of
craft
yeah of a real craftsmanship
and I think
the two areas where we still
see it in
our culture to a certain degree
I mean
popular music is is is very
troubling
and in a lot of ways but I
think you
still see it in in music and
sports
athletics you see it in jazz
improvisation yes yes
which which doesn't make sense
at all
until you've mastered the chord
sequencing right and can hear
the hidden
melody in the improvisation yes
so in in
in in in sports people go to
these
stadiums or they watch on
television
what they're waiting for is
that magical
moment you know the triple play
in
baseball I don't know what they
have the
equivalent in cricket is I
think
pitching something for six but
but
there's a moment where and
people look
at each other as if they've
just
witnessed a miracle or
something but
that that can only happen
because of an
immense discipline that
occurred and and
and we've lost that we've lost
that in
so many other areas of being
human but
again we can get it back where
we got to
be we have got to be optimistic
about
this well we for us for in our
tradition
it's it's considered an
obligation to be
hopeful yes well of course
likewise for Christians faith
open
charity of every fundamental
values
meaning by charity love certain
kind of
love yes but that's another
problem that
that idea of love has become so
corrupted well it's you know
it's the
grease and that nice
distinction yeah
between agape and eros and all
the other
sorts of love to Arabs do that
as well
yeah Arabs have ten different
types of
love all right the highest been
cuddler
right the lowest being ish
which is well
actually it's yet desire yeah
euros yeah
but is still quite a good it's
a
beautiful thing yeah and it's
it's
related to this cognitive
another word
which is see
mmm that love is something that
is
nurtured and and Rose because
hub is
seed
yeah and hub is love right yeah
you know
one of the things that that
that the the
traditional world ICS Lewis
talks about
this but one of the things that
the
traditio