Our guest for today's interview is John Derbyshire. He was born in the United kingdom, studied mathematics, spent quite a time in China, worked for a while on Wall Street, has become a US citizen and is now a conservative writer for The National Review, The American Conservative and many other publications.

He has written about issues like politics in general, immigration, China, religion, science and education, mathematics, literature and much more.

Here are his last 20 published articles; here are some of his published works: on the histories of algebra, and the Riemann hypothesis, and a novel too. And he also has a weekly radio broadcast on NRO called Radio Derb.

His straightforward approach - combined with his lack of patience for political correctness and merciless approach towards bullshit, wherever it may come from - usually earn him criticism not just from liberals but more sensitive conservatives as well. Naturally that is precisely one of the reasons why we decided to ask him for an interview.

(The Hungarian translation can be accessed here. We ask our readers to comment here in English and there in Hungarian.)

Read and enjoy! 

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[John Derbyshire]: May I just take the opportunity before beginning to say that if any more Hungarians wish to send me wine, I have no objection at all.

 

[KatPol]: Thank you for accepting our invitation for an e-mail interview. First of all, let's get over with this presidential elections issue. You can't possibly imagine to wich extent this Obama-McCain race is debated even in Hungarian media with people arguing for one or another as if it was their own business. The question of who's going to occupy the White House certainly has a lot of influence on world politics, but yet do you think this justifies the current intensity of worldwide interest in the US presidential elections?

[J.D.]: It is very natural.  The USA is a big, rich country with a huge military establishment.  (Did you know that we not only have the world's biggest air force, we also have the world's second and third biggest, too?!)  Of course people are interested.  America's historical problems with our black population are also well known around the world - that's well KNOWN, not necessarily well UNDERSTOOD - so the fact of there being a black candidate for the Presidency adds extra interest.

It's natural, but is it good?  In Britain, my native country, through the 1950s and 1960s, there was much talk about Britain's place in the world.  Did we want to be "Great Britain" (i.e. a world power) or just "Little England" (i.e. minding our own business as just another country). I think this discussion will take place in the USA over the next few years.  The USA is very far from anywhere else, and very secure.  Why do we need such a big military establishment?  Why do we need 65,000 (I think) troops in Germany?  The British at last decded they would be happy as "Little England."  Perhaps Americans will come to the same conclusion.

[KatPol]: In your articles you've argued again and again that the upcoming election - an "The Election from Hell" - offers no good choice for the US. Would you be so kind as to briefly summarize your opinion on both of the candidates for our Hungarian readers?

[J.D.]: Barack Obama is really two people. Prior to 2002, he was a radical leftist, and all his friends were radical leftists. Then he fell in with a political consultant named David Axelrod, who is a specialist in "packaging" candidates.  He "packaged" Obama to make him acceptable to white voters - he created this image of Obama as a "healer," a "uniter," etc.  Obama is nothing of the sort. It is a false image. Obama's entire life, his entire experience, have been in the sphere of radical leftism. Black-American politics is in any case far to the left of mainstream American politics. Black Americans are mainly redistributionist socialists; almost all black politicians are left-wing. Even by those standards, though, Obama is radical, because of the long period he spent in elite colleges, which have a very radical atmosphere; and also because of some deep psychological "issues" he has with his parents.

How this will play out in the White House, it is difficult to say. It seems certain, though, that in making federal appointments (judges, heads of federal departments) he will favor leftist intellectuals like himself, and this will (in my opinion) be very bad for the USA. These people have a poor grasp of reality. They are ideologues - what we call "cultural Marxists."

John McCain would be more sensible, and his federal appointments would be in the mainstream of American public opinion, not far to the left of it. For a conservative like myself, however, he is an unattractive candidate, and he would promote many foolish policies - most especially, on mass unskilled immigration, which is degrading the quality of the American workforce. He would also try to pursue aggressive foreign policies, which I believe would be endlessly troublesome and expensive for the USA, and very little (if at all) to our advantage.

[KatPol]: Regardless of the upcoming election's outcome, it seems that we'll have to get used to another president who sees the US entrusted with a universal mission to defeat whichever evils he thinks there are to defeat. Do you think that the United States needs to see itself playing some indispensable, messianistic global leading role? In your point of view how should the US live with the fact that it still is, and for quite a time foreseeable will also remain the only global superpower?

[J.D.]: The USA has been a global superpower for only 67 of the last 232 years - 29 percent of our existence. (I am not counting some uncharacteristic adventures in the McKinley and Roosevelt presidencies.) It is not a naturally American thing to be. I confess to some inner conflicts here. As a native of England, I am very grateful to the USA for coming to Europe in the 1940s to defeat Hitler and stop Stalin's advance. (Too late for Hungary, I know...) Now, however, as a US citizen, I find myself more and more skeptical of our great-power role. Does the world NEED a superpower? For what, exactly? I think that many other Americans are asking the same questions.

[KatPol]: Sadly we can't find the exact article, but once you wrote that although you've supported the general idea of a war against Iraq, you're highly discontent with both the official reasoning behind its necessity and the actual methods of its implementation. Could you tell us a bit more about that? In your point of view how could the Iraq war have served a meaningful purpose?

[J.D.]: I saw the Iraq War as a punitive exercise. Iraq had made herself a nuisance to the USA. She also seemed to be a threat. (Like everyone else, I believed the intelligence reports about Weapons of Mass Destruction.) I thought a brisk punitive expedition was called for, in the tradition of "gunboat diplomacy." We would, I thought, send our army there, blow up their buildings, kill their leaders (as many as we could find), then leave, perhaps after installing some alternative gangster who would be less of a nuisance to us. When it turned into a "nation-building" exercise, I realized that I had understimated the romantic idealism of George W. Bush, and turned against the war. Here is the article.

The war might have served a useful purpose if it had concentrated on humiliating Saddam and destroying key components of his military effort. Instead, it became a huge and disgraceful waste of lives and money. It now seems that the place has been pacified; but I am sure that after we leave, Iraq will stagger along in its new democracy for 4 or 5 years, then fall under the rule of another gangster.

[KatPol]: A German professor, Herfried Münkler has written about a phenomenon he calls the "post-heroic ethos". He argues that in developed Western societies classical values like heroism, patriotism or self-sacrifice have lost their significance to a set of more individual, more material concerns and values governing peoples lives. The point he's trying to make is that through this process, rich western democracies - despite having financial and technical capabilities never seen before - have practically lost their ability to fight war effectively. Do you see that as an actual threat? Do you think that the marginalization of military affairs in the thinking of our societies could or should be reversed?

[J.D.]: It depends what you mean by "war."  It is very hard to imagine that we could see another great conflict between Euro-Asiatic powers, as we had in the 19th and 20th centuries.  For one thing, all these "Arctic" peoples have lost their demographic vitality. There simply aren't enough young men. My grandmother had her 13th child in 1917, when WW1 was still going on. Nobody has 13 children now.

I suppose small conflicts will break out - I am thinking of something like the Falklands War of 1982, or Russia's recent engagement with Georgia.  Any modern nation can easily summon up the resources for such a war.

More problematic is the possibility of a north-south war between some advanced but demographically feeble and de-militarized power (Russia, China, perhaps the EU) and one of the less-developed but more fertile nations to the south (Pakistan, Indonesia, perhaps some North African federation). My guess is that intelligence and resources would win against sheer numbers, but with nuclear weapons probably in play, perhaps not.

[KatPol]: Taking a step further in that direction, do you see any chance of Western democracies (facing severe international threats) developing a stronger sense of Realpolitik and self-interest with a little less inclination towards spreading ideals? We're thinking about something vaguely like nineteenth century Britain, or perhaps even more the idea Robert Cooper proposes in one of his articles (pdf): applying double standards in our foreign relations, based on common values towards those with whom we share them and applying classic power politics towards more 'old fashioned' actors.

[J.D.]: If modern Western attidues of sentimentality & guilt towards the Third World continue, which is certainly possible, we could end up with a sort of "World Welfare State," in which the prosperous and capable populations of Europe, North America, and North Asia "carry" the failed populations of Africa, the Middle East, Latin America - very much as the white and Asian population of the USA will end up "carrying" the less-capable black and Hispanic populations. The advanced world may feel it has no choice (as the productive part of America's population feels - correctly, in my opinion - it has no choice but to "carry" its welfare underclasses).

The alternative would be a more callous attitude on the part of well-organized, high-IQ nations to more desperate places. We could just try to corral them off and "manage" them - watching carefully for developments that might harm us (Islamic terrorism, for example) and nipping them in the bud. The situation then would be somewhat like the old Chinese Empire, secure behind its Wall, so long as they kept careful watch on the steppe barbarians. The problem is, internal troubles would sooner or later get distracting, the ancient skills of "soothing the barbarians" would be neglected, and next thing you know the Mongol horsemen are pouring in to the Middle Kingsom. Barbarian management is a fine art, perhaps too fine for hedonistic, demographically weak cultures.

There are a few signs of a more callous attitude emerging - see this, for instance. However, I would put my money on the World Welfare State.

[KatPol]: Before turning to some more delicate issues like demographics, immigration and the kind we would like to ask your opinion on the possible future of political correctness since it appears to have an adverse effect on the public's ability to comprehend matters of (security) policy. Will PC just keep getting worse and worse, even possibly spreading to countries that haven't experienced it yet? Or will it generate widespread public resistance which will eventually force it back, as you've suggested in one of your previous articles?

[J.D.]: It is hard to imagine it could go any further than it has among white people.  East Asians are not much affected, though - they remain frankly realistic. I don't know the situation in Latin America. So far as European countries are concerned, I would guess that any place that has not yet been infected (is there such a place?) will be. PC has a while to run yet - probably another generation (20-25 years). We are told that white people will be in a minority in the USA by 2042. It is difficult to see how PC could survive in those circumstances. (Though it might:  white South Africans are still quite PC.)

[KatPol]: Gary Brecher - aka the War Nerd - writes on demographics and immigration that we'll inevitably have to get used to faces on the street getting one or two shades darker, but if failing to address these issues we're also risking the decline of our culture. What kind of alternatives do you see before us? Do you think it's possible that if reaching a certain point even Western societies could become disillusioned with multiculturalism, and turn to a more old-fashioned approach on immigration, placing more emphasis on assimilation? Do you think that the slow but inevitable 'fading out' of the '68 generation could give way to some positive change in public discourse?

[J.D.]: The turning over of generations always offers new hope.  The physicist Max Planck remarked, in relation to scientific theories, that nobody ever really changes his mind, it's just that one generation of professors retires, and a younger generation comes up. For all I can see, though, the tide of multiculturalism is still running strong, so again I'd say it will be a generation before we see much change in attitudes, and it's hard to guess what the change will be TO. And again, assimilation just goes against the whole multiculturalist ethos, so I can't see it happening until PC has gone. Actually, I sometimes wonder if there are ANY limits to the tolerance of white Europeans. There are now huge gaudy mosques disfiguring towns and cities all over Europe. Why did people let that happen? I don't understand. Forty years ago in England, Enoch Powell warned of the consequences of mass Third World immigration. Everything he said has come true. Still nobody cares. Perhaps the West has a death wish.

[KatPol]: In principle both the US and Europe seem to face the same challenges, namely immigration and an aging population. Do you see any major differences in their situation or their possible ways out? Do you see any solutions other than some kind of immigration to the challenges posed by a growing lack of skilled (physical) workers accompanied by a decline in the numbers of working age population?

[J.D.]: It's just one of those grand civilizational changes that countries go through, like the industrial revolution. Generally speaking, the first nation to go through the change and come safely out the other side, will have a huge lead. In the case of this present demographic transition, that would be Japan.

Machines will go on getting smarter, so there will be less and less need for low-skill (and eventually even medium-skill) workers. Meanwhile, the problems of aging might yield to medical advances. "Live long, die fast" is everyone's ideal. Perhaps this ideal will be realised.  Personally, if I were in charge of a Western country, I would stop all immigration, except for Einsteins.

[KatPol]: As for Europe, it is currently experiencing mass immigration and demographic implosion. In your opinion, how is the old continent going to be affected by these in the near future? 'Eurabia', escalating ethnic tensions, the further fragmentation of the nation state? Or is the whole issue blown out of proportion, as Thomas P. M. Barnett have argued?

[J.D.]: Europe has been very foolish to allow the settlement of so many Muslims - people with a strong group identity, historical grievances against the West, dysgenic customs like cousin marriage, and low average IQ. One of our American writers, Ralph Peters, has suggested that Europeans (unlike Americans, of course!) are natural fascists who will eventuall turn on their troublesome minorities and expel them. That's a possible outcome, but I'd rate the possibility as low. I doubt Europeans have so much will. At worst, un-assimilable aliens will just be "fenced off" in certain towns and districts, and the native population will try to ignore them - pretty much what white Americans have traditionally done with blacks. Whether that will be a stable situation, I don't know.

[KatPol]: Although perhaps to a different extent the education systems of Europe and the US are both facing similar problems, namely declining overall standards and a particularly striking fall in interest in fields of natural sciences. In your opinion, could these tendencies in time evolve into a serious threat towards western societies? If yes, could there be something done without giving up politically correct ideas like equal opportunities for everyone to reach higher education (as is the case in Hungary)?

[J.D.]: A serious threat? No, I don't see it. There is now a broad enough "base" of understanding in the natural sciences that we could go on inventing new gadgets, cures, etc. for decades without there being any further pure research at all. Physics has actually advanced very little since the "standard model" settled down in the 1970s. (String Theory is a purely abstract and useless piece of philosophical speculation.) In any case, East Asian countries can make advances and they would soon spread, as ours have spread to them. And in fact of course, the natural sciences will continue to advance, just perhaps at a lower level of activity.

I do worry that PC might shut down certain lines of inquiry - in population genetics, perhaps neuroscience.  See here. The spirit of free inquiry is always under threat from some direction, and always needs defending.

Sending "everyone" off to higher education is a pretty silly idea. I'd prefer an independent, non-residential credentialling system that anyone could put himself through, as suggested by Charles Murray in his new book ("Real Education"). With the internet, this should be easy to arrange. Britain's Open University (where you watch your lectures on TV) paved the way - but we should do much more like this. For heaven's sake don't let Hungary develop a huge, expensive, pointless system of colleges such as we have here in the USA.

[KatPol]: Usually everyone has a guess for the great upcoming international threat to cope with. For most people nowadays that is probably terrorism, for those with a nuance of Cold War nostalgia it's the re-emerging Russian Empire and for not so few it's the picture of the People's Republic of China becoming the new global superpower. In your opinion how correct, how well-grounded are Western estimates of China's soaring economic, political and military rise?

[J.D.]: Not well grounded. China seeks to be the hegemon in her region - to be in East Asia what the USA is in the Americas. I see no sign that the Chinese want any more than that. If they want it, I doubt they can get it. They too are looking at a demographic precipice. They also have deep systemic problems (corruption, pollution, resource shortages...) that will preoccupy them for a couple of decades at least. They may not even be able to manage hegemony. China has risen far, but from a very low base. That was the easy part.

A British historian once remarked that "Russia is never as strong as she looks; Russia is never as weak as she looks."  I feel the same about China.

[KatPol]: In your judgment, how would the Chinese leadership react to a worldwide recession or simply a domestic economic downturn? Would they become more desperate and aggressive or would they abandon their current ambitions for regional dominance?

[J.D.]: The Chinese are VERY resilient. I was in Hong Kong during the serious recession of 1973, and was amazed at how ingenious people were at coping. People hunkered down, borrowed money from relatives, accepted lower wages - whatever was necessary to survive. They didn't riot or make a fuss. There's an odd boast you sometimes hear from Chinese people: "I know how to eat bitterness." That means they are proud of their ability to survive in all kinds of conditions. In any case, in this present situation, the Chinese government has huge funds available to it to soften the blow. No, they will ride out a recession with ease. As for abandoning their ambitions - well, they might slow down, cancel a battleship or something, but there would be no real change of attitude.