Peter Thiel: “The State Contains Violence”

Peter Thiel, arguably the most successful tech investor of modern times, also reads widely and thinks deeply about philosophy and theology. In a fascinating follow-up to his previous interview about his mentor, Rene Girard, Thiel discusses how modern ideologies such as fascism and communism "up the dose" from murder to genocide as Christianity weakened the power of human sacrifice. He also discusses how progressive ideologies are "stronger moves" than fascistic or reactionary ones because they weaponize Christianity's concern for victims. Thiel talks about how the state, with its origins in paganism, restrains violence by using violence and how Christians might navigate that dilemma by engaging politically but not becoming excessively entangled by it. Finally, Thiel points out how those who promise to protect us from Apocalypse can actually accelerate its coming.

Timestamps:

01:08 Girard, Scapegoating
04:00 Mimetic copies: Hitler and Stalin, Nazism and Communism, Fascism
05:30 Wokeism, Christianity, and Academia
10:40 Wokeism in cities, response to real estate costs. Structural Wokeism
14:27 Winning and losing postures towards wokeism
17:10 Wokeism is Christianity without the forgiveness
18:30 Acknowledging sin even when it enables critics
21:55 Holocaust as the ultimate test of forgiveness, destroying the concept of forgiveness
25:52 Ignorance and forgiveness
27:55 Gospels as deconstruction of philosophy
32:05 Getting tangled in politics. Government and violence
33:55 Can leaders behave like Christians?
35:37 The katechon and accelerationism. Preterism and futurism.
39:10 The Antichrist as a false katechon
41:14 The Precautionary Principle: technological Armageddon
45:15 Enabling Fascism to fight Communism
46:12 Reagan coalition
49:30 Christianity and mimetic entanglement, political atheism
54:30 How much can people change?

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