Let’s Agree to Disagree: Maciej Kisilowski on How to Save Democracy From Deplorables on All Sides

00:00:30 Andrew Keen: Hello, my name is Andrew Keen. Welcome to Keen on America, the daily interview show about the United States. Hello everybody, we're on the road today in Vienna, Austria, at the Central European University in conversation with an old friend, Maciej Kisilowski, is an expert on Poland, and a man who we've had on the show many times to talk about Central Europe, what it tells us about the future and dangers of both democracy and illiberalism. Maciej, lovely to see you again.

00:01:29 Maciej Kisilowski: Fantastic to be here.

00:01:31 Andrew Keen: Maciej, many people think of Central Europe, Vienna, Budapest as the past, but I know you think of it more in futuristic terms, a kind of canary in the coal mine, telling us not just about the future of politics in Central Europe, but in the United States and Western Europe,

00:01:49 Maciej Kisilowski: of course my country Poland elected what I would call radical or revolutionary conservative government in 21 years ago for the first time in 2005 Hungary elected a similar type of government in 2010 guess what happened a few years later that same model of politics explicitly pattern after the Polish and Hungarian examples came to the United States with Donald Trump first in a muted form in his first term when there was a lot of old style republican establishment kind of taming him around the edges and now in a much more untamed version, in the second, his second stint in power, so in many ways that this region where we are is a bit of a leading indicator of broader trends that are happening in 21st century democracy and politics.

00:02:50 Andrew Keen: Why is it a leading indicator? Is it because the economic forces of globalization, the great recession of the first part of the century, had an immediate impact? Is it because of political legacy? Is it because of the closeness of Russia? What is it about Poland, Hungary that makes it so interesting in terms of figuring out what's our next political chapter?

00:03:23 Maciej Kisilowski: I think the first lesson is to give a giant post to everybody who takes the materialist, implicitly neo-Marxist explanations of voters' behavior that they always emerge or are rooted in economic factors. Why is this a cautionary tale? Because Poland and Hungary are completely opposite economic stories. Hungary has been one of the most prosperous countries in the Soviet bloc, the so-called happiest barrack of the Soviet bloc, and in post 1989 times actually fared quite poorly economically. Poland was one of the poorer countries of the bloc and fared exceptionally well in one generation, Polish per capita GDP grew six and a half times that, 650% It's truly unbelievable progress. Inequality, interestingly enough, has not skyrocketed as in other high-growth countries like Brazil. Polish Gini coefficient is below that of France, so it's a relatively equal country, thanks to, in large part, the European Union that supports Polish agriculture, Polish farmers through very generous direct subsidies. So this story, and these two countries that couldn't be more different economically and yet end up being very similar politically shows you that there must be something else than economic explanation that the reason why we have radical conservatism in the 21st century at least in large part is not because of what we can call a figuratively empty stomach.

00:05:14 Andrew Keen: How much does it have to do with nationalism? Of course, Polish and Hungarian nationalisms are very powerful, very controversial. One of the founding intellectual fathers of the Central European University, in fact, there was a room dedicated to him at [unclear] Budapest campus was Ernest Gellner, the great Czech anthropologist, who, whose career was very much based on arguing that nationalism was a for a form of false consciousness. What's the role of nationalism, both in Hungary and Poland, and in this fight between democracy and illiberal authoritarianism.

00:05:55 Maciej Kisilowski: Here we are actually hitting the absolute crucial point, because it's not only nationalism, it's more broadly identity. This part of the world is very rich in identities. Show me another part of the world when 100 million people, you know, less than a third of the US population lives in 18 countries with separate histories, like real, real rich societies with separate identities, histories, cultures. So identity is very important in this region, but identity is becoming more and more important all around the world, including in the US, including in France, all established democracies, and the central European leading indicator, as I call it, is particularly because this challenge of globalization that the globalization on open society posed to the traditional notions of identity, not only the national identity or ethno national identity, we should say, but also male identity as patriarchy, religious identities, that challenge was very much accelerated in Central Europe. Yes, we were kind of separated from this slow progress towards open society that happened in post World War Western Europe and the United States, Western world more broadly, and in 1999 we needed to catch up with it at a faster speed. Yes, and that's why the reaction to this is similar in kind to the reaction that we are now seeing in the West, but was much more fierce because the process was much faster. There wasn't such a gradual process of decolonization, women's rights, racial justice, LGBT rights that happen over decades, economic rights that happen over decades in the West. Here it was compressed into a short period of pre-accession conditionality, very much driven by the EU accession, and that's why it created such a fierce and fast reaction, but that reaction I want to emphasize is, in my view, not in it's of a, it's not of a different kind that the reaction you have in the West. This is the same process, this is the same rebellion, traditionalist reactionary rebellion to open society that you see in the West. It's just a microcosm in which that happened in a much faster pace and a much broader scale. The institutions were also weaker, so of course you know the revolution was had an easier job because the walls guarding the liberal democratic castle were not as strong as in the West, but the reason why the revolutionaries are attacking the walls is fundamentally the same, in my view.

00:09:00 Andrew Keen: You mentioned open society, of course, the father, the figure who set up the European University, whose name is very much associated with it is George Soros, is let's say is identity and an open society, are they compatible? Is that the core of the debate that liberals, or many liberals historically, including perhaps people like Ernest Gellner, believe that really, to have an open society, we needed to liberate ourselves of primeval associations with identity, which were always based, at least according to Gellner, or on one kind of myth or another.

00:09:44 Maciej Kisilowski: I mean, of course, he's right, and so, of course, there is this scope of compromise which I, being a constitutional lawyer in my day job, have been exploring, including in my recent book, where maybe we can have more localized or private identities which can somehow coexist with the more global and urban open society, but as a matter of logic, there is a clash. Yes, there is a clash when, if you want, at the very least, if you want identity to be a guiding principle. Will that guides governmental power as a government as a legitimate source of power and violence in society in an open society paradigm should be based on reason, facts, morally neutral justifications. It can be based on prejudices and hierarchies that are rooted in identity-based politics, and so, so in that sense it clashes. Yes, can we design a system where you know the open society side and the identity side don't get everything they want, and we can live together. I very much believe so, but it will be a tough compromise between views, which logically, in purely theoretical academic discussions, are I completely agree irreconcilable.

00:11:26 Andrew Keen: Tough compromises is the heart, the idea of a tough compromise is the heart of your new book. Let's agree on Poland, which suggests that there is a Polish model, and maybe correct me if I'm wrong, if I'm interpreting your book wrong, but the Poles are offering us, or the Polish example is offering us a path away from intolerant illiberalism, which perhaps might be a model which people in Western Europe and the United States might try to emulate.

00:12:05 Maciej Kisilowski: Yes, and it needs to, in our view, in the view of my co-authors, who actually represent a very broad spectrum of ideologies, from big cheerleaders for open society like me to stanch conservatives who are also among the authors of the book, and we all agree on that, perhaps the best and most practical way to live together, based on those two paradigms, is some sort of subsidiarity or decentralization, I mean, that idea, of course, has a very difficult and toxic history in the United States. Why,

00:13:03 Andrew Keen: why, why toxic in the United States? Because

00:13:06 Maciej Kisilowski: of what happened before the Civil War. Yes, and although,

00:13:09 Andrew Keen: of course, Tocqueville came to the US before the Civil War, and suggested American democracy was rooted in local power. The

00:13:16 Maciej Kisilowski: fact that you are protesting my characterization shows what I am observing a lot nowadays, talking about this project and this book, which is that the opinion about federalism, decentralization, states' rights on the liberal side of the spectrum is changing rapidly. 10 years ago this would be viewed as some sort of exaltation of reaction, and but now when we see what the abuses of power of Donald Trump's administration, what he's doing with, you know, that's the rights of the states in, you know, education, which is the paradigm state responsibility, and the central federal government is imposing its ideological agenda on schools and universities nationwide, or what he has been doing in Minneapolis. I think people realized that centralization is a double-edged sword. It's fantastic when we are in power, but it's really, really biting when the radical conservatives are in power, and the problem is that for liberals I would argue that there will be always a symmetry here that our right wing compatriots are much more prone to radical forceful imposition of power than we are, so we will never win with centralized solutions, because the central government, even on the assumption that we will keep having free and fair elections and the power will alternate when we will be in power, we will just not be able inherently morally, ideologically, to do in the name of liberal principles what Donald Trump is doing in the name of his conservative reactionary principles, so the from purely pragmatic terms, that centralized deal will not work for us in what game theorists call a repeated long-term game. It is much better for us to settle on some form. Of decentralized compromise, in which there will be differences, for example, in the scope of identity-based politics, that, in my view, the far right, of course, the far right accuses us of that, but I think that's more of a projection, really, the identity-based politics is the far right politics and we will need to accept the fact that in parts of our democracies where 6070 80% of people support you know radical right deeply conservative parties, we will not be able to implement liberal democracy to the same extent that we can in Vienna, which is a city state, as you know, Andrew, it's a constituent unit of the Austrian Federation, and it's been having a social democratic government, with the exception of Nazi occupation, the 100 years, yes, social democrats have governed Vienna for 100 years, and of course, in that framework it is possible to create open society, and Vienna is an open society, you feel it when you live here, but it's not possible when you go to the American South or South East of Poland, which is similar ideologically, deeply, deeply conservative. 70 80% of people voting election to election for right-wing parties. There is no democratic way in which you create a Vienna-like polity with the electoral support of the voters' preferences, like those, like those regions have. It's just impossible.

00:17:22 Andrew Keen: So, is your argument in Let's Agree on Poland, using the Polish case and substituting Vienna for Warsaw, that some sort of compromise has been established in Poland, whereby Warsaw becomes, and I'm borrowing your language here, a city state, open, tolerant culturally, sexually, politically, and other parts of the country, particularly the southeast,

00:17:51 Maciej Kisilowski: increasingly racially, yes, because the Poland was very mono-ethnic and white society, but now immigration is changing that, so is

00:18:01 Andrew Keen: the Polish solution one in which both sides have agreed to compromise, the writers agreed to allow Warsaw to remain this city state. Progressives have agreed that southeastern Poland is different from Warsaw, and people's cultural or educational policies should be reflective of that. Is that the Polish compromise?

00:18:30 Maciej Kisilowski: This is definitely what we are working on, and on the progressive side, it's not only Warsaw. Anybody who will visit Poland should visit Gdańsk, which truly looks like Amsterdam now. The whole region is very, very progressive, or Poznań, of Warsaw, or Chechnyen. We have a lot of places, which are, which are, you know, almost more open-minded and Western in their mentality than the West itself, because there is certain, you know, neophyte zeal in this of people who gain this freedom, and the one Kraków,

00:19:10 Andrew Keen: particularly

00:19:11 Maciej Kisilowski: Kraków, is another.. I mean, Kraków is interesting because it's a liberal city in a very deeply conservative region. That's why, in our book, as you rightly pointed out, we would want it to get the city-state status. I know you will be in Kraków, so you should ask Kraków people what they think about this idea, but I think this will be wonderful for Kraków if they become the city state, but the point is that this is really relevant to the US situation, because Poland is truly like the US, a 5050 society, we don't have just enclaves of progressivism, there are very robust regions, which have these open views, and we have likewise successful regions that are staunchly against it. Both sides are in this kind of ideological trench war. Our proposal in this book, which is like an edited book on constitutionalism, which became a best seller. Think about it. In Poland, yes. And let's go a

00:20:18 Andrew Keen: good title.

00:20:18 Maciej Kisilowski: Yes, I mean,

00:20:21 Andrew Keen: maybe the alternative title could be Let's Disagree on Poland. Yeah,

00:20:26 Maciej Kisilowski: of course. I mean, actually, the more. Top of our group, which is called the Social Contract Incubator, is an association behind this project. Is agreed we are different. Yes, and that agree to

00:20:40 Andrew Keen: disagree. So is the message. Let's try and make sense of it in the US, because it's always nice for the US to learn from Central Europe rather than the other way around, which was always a feature of the Cold War. Are you saying to people in my hometown of San Francisco, for example, that they can do whatever they like in San Francisco? San Francisco, of course, being historically one of the great centers of gay rights, of left-wing thinking, of all sorts of cultural diversity, but they shouldn't try to impose their values on the Central Valley of California, and your message is the reverse to the people of Central California, that they can do whatever they like in their communities, but they shouldn't try to change San Francisco.

00:21:31 Maciej Kisilowski: Yes, and my message will be very concrete for America. I was educated in America, so I know America quite well. Spent a decade there. You need to stop being afraid, as liberals, of constitutional convention. I mean, it is clear that the system does not work at the moment. If, if the argument is that your compatriots are so dangerous, so monstrous, that allowing a debate on how to change the system that is not working is so dangerous that it can't even be discussed, which is the dominant narrative on the liberal side that you know, hell of high water, no constitutional convention, because God knows what will emerge out of it. I mean, that is for a country that started with the notion we the people is a profoundly paradoxical sentiment. I mean, if this is, if this is the real situation, then what's the future? I mean, the system clearly doesn't work. I mean, I've had no American colleague, academic commentator who would say our constitutional system works fantastic, and yet there is this almost obsessive fear of changing,

00:22:53 Andrew Keen: so let me give you two concrete examples, and tell me how liberals should think of these abortion rights, or lack of rights, and book bans in some states, Florida and Texas, in particular, come to mind, but broadly in the South, it's harder and harder to get an abortion, to put it crudely, and more books are being banned, some slightly absurdly seem to many people. Are you arguing, let's say, in this book, and if Poland is the model to get beyond an imminent civil war, that the liberals of San Francisco, or New York, or Houston, for that matter, or Miami, simply need to accept the reality of the situation on the ground, except that in Florida there will be book bans, except that in Texas it's harder and harder to get an abortion. Is that your message to American liberals

00:23:57 Maciej Kisilowski: that needs to be on the table, but only if the other side abides with some sort of a deal? Yes, there is. The title of the book is Let's Agree on Poland, not let give the, you know, not let, let one side offer all the concession before the other side gives away anything, as that's not the compromise. I know you've been seeing a lot of lousy deals by supposedly superb deal makers, but my understanding of a good deal is that both sides need to bind themselves, so if the restrictions of abortions are paired with a rock solid guarantee that in California people are free to choose their gender, including in schools, and there will be no reactionary propaganda against gender fluid people imposed by federal government on Californian schools, or if you get a rock solid guarantees that California can move ahead without federal interference with green transition, then you should consider what are the potential things that you can let go in, you know, Alabama or Louisiana. Yes, but, but, but I would be very much against giving up anything, much, much, much, as you know, important human rights unilaterally. That's why I'm saying you need a constitutional. Convention or some other forum in which you will discuss how you can organize, you know, a binding rules of coexistence between people who are so different. In Poland, it's very similar, the country is much smaller, but the divisions are almost as broad as in the in America, and there needs to be a deal. We need to create a new social contract in all our societies. We need to understand that for the rest of our lives, the very conservative and very progressive views will coexist. One side will not have the total ideological victory over the other, and we need to find mutually enforceable, credible rules of coexistence, and there will be very, very tough compromises that need to take place as part of the deal, but nothing should be given away without the other side agreeing to certain rules in response.

00:26:36 Andrew Keen: Let me bring Gellner back in again. In his great book on nationalism, he argues that the nation state is a consequence. He's an anthropologist, very functional anthropologist, that the nation state is a consequence of the unity of language and in the modern industrial age, but it seems to me that your vision of the future, which is true, is, and it's been increasingly true for the last 10 or 20 years, is that you and I have much more in common, you in Vienna or Warsaw, me in San Francisco or London have much more in common than we do in the people outside Vienna or certainly the people in southeast Poland. So will the political structures catch up? Why should I want to live in San Francisco, what's the reason, apart from physical geography, for me to be in the same political community as someone I have absolutely nothing in common with? I'd rather be in your community, in Warsaw or Vienna, or even Singapore, or Bangkok.

00:27:48 Maciej Kisilowski: I absolutely think that this is the fundamental reality, and as you remember, I've been telling on your show that this is happening years ago when it was much less obvious, and now it's becoming obvious. It is going to impact everything. For example, in international relations, we talk about friendship between countries. This is no longer relevant, because countries are split. If a country is run by radical right, it will like other countries run by radical right and dislike other countries run by liberals. So basically, we almost every area, from foreign to domestic cultural, definitely policies will be impacted by this split. Now, I don't think it's practical to end in case of Poland, also would be highly responsible to split the nation entirely. After all, I would prefer Poland to be under the rule of our domestic neo-fascist than under the rule of Vladimir Putin. Yes, so we have some things and interests in common, but I agree with you that the split, the ideological split, is perhaps the largest we ever had in the modern history of democracy, and we need to create new institutions. That's my argument for Poland. Let's change the 1997 constitution. It's less tall order than an argument for America. Let's have a constitutional convention, because our constitution is just a quarter century old, so it's easier to imagine it being changed, but the fundamental principle is that we became so dissimilar that we need to create new institutions which will manage our coexistence, and it is absolutely true that my cultural, ideological, moral bonds with you and other liberals half across the world are much closer than my bonds with a fellow Pole in deeply conservative regions of my country

00:30:01 Andrew Keen: isn't ultimately the challenge that you're articulating in Let's Agree on Poland is that everyone needs to be less fundamentalist. Let's use the example of abortion. Liberals need to understand that there are going to be parts of America where abortion is banned. Conservatives need to understand that they're going to be parts of America where it's very easy to get an abortion. You can just wander into a clinic. Can have it without probably even showing any ID to both sides, it's a fundamental assault on their fundamental conception of what it means to be human and their values, but both sides, by definition, are rooted in that morality, so how do they get beyond that?

00:30:54 Maciej Kisilowski: So the key is, how do we interpret the word need in your statement, that both sides need to be less fundamentalist? If this is a practical strategic conclusion out of the political reality we have. I couldn't agree more. If it's some sort of moral centrist principle, then I cannot by any means sign up to this. I am a committed liberal. I also am not going to cheer as a privileged white man, heterosexual, cisgender. I'm not going to cheer the fact that women will lose any rights, you know, people who can get pregnant get lose any rights in conservative states. I'm simply saying there are limits to what we can do. I am also, you know, not happy about the fact that oppositionists in Belarus, just across the border from conservative southeast Poland, are being jailed, but also there are limits of what I can do about that. Yes, so I'm simply saying we need to delineate our moral responsibility, and, and be honest with ourselves, what we can do, and the history, the sad history of your country shows that this is a direct trade off. Yes, I mean, the abolitionists in 19th century were unquestionably right, but the reason why they were able to change the status quo is that they were willing to go to a war where 7% of your nation perished, yes, in the name of those ideals, the same with the brave Ukrainians fighting Russia on the border of their country, and I admire people who are willing to take those sacrifices, but I think the biggest liberal hypocrisy, hypocrisy is when we are not willing to take the sacrifices, but we are still pronouncing morally absolutist views. I mean, then what's the benefit of it? I mean, that will lead to potential total collapse of the liberal order, because we will be completely uncompromising. The centrist voters will not go with us, but with the far right, and in our lifetime, we can have a situation in which liberal values are just in the history books, yes. When they are completely excised from the democratic reality or political reality, probably wouldn't be called democratic anymore. Yes. So, so my argument simply is we need to be realistic about what we can do, and I am arguing, my co-authors are arguing that in those regions, when there is a huge and consistent majority of people who have what you call a very different view of identity, morality, state, society, good life, there are limits to how you can impose from top down open society, and maybe that's also a question of time. Maybe there are limits now, but if we are truly, as I happen to believe in the superiority of open society as an organizing principle to all those myths that Professor Gellner was talking about, maybe there is also a question of time, maybe, maybe with time the sentiments will change. So,

00:34:41 Andrew Keen: you think you'll win out in the end?

00:34:43 Maciej Kisilowski: I mean, I don't know, but I'm simply saying in some of those places we cannot win at the moment, and we are risking the whole game by overextending and being over ambitious, but I'm not going to cheer any centrist compromise, because, frankly, you know, as a pole born behind the Iron Curtain with unpronounceable name, I wouldn't be here if not for the open society and liberal world, so it would be awfully hypocritical of me to cheer some sort of center-right compromise with the neo-fascist as a morally optimal solution. I think it's unfortunately some sort of accommodation is necessary. We need to have an honest discussion with. What is the least bad form of accommodation?

00:35:34 Andrew Keen: Some people are going to be listening to this and say, and thinking, well, what happens if it had written this book in the 1840s before the American Civil War, when half of America, or a significant part of America, believed in the institution of slavery, was willing to fight for it, and of course, the other half wasn't, and then you've got this civil war. Are there issues beyond the pale? I mean, we've talked about abortion book rights. Are there some issues where you believe, or you argue that it's impossible to compromise slavery, for example,

00:36:12 Maciej Kisilowski: and that history shows that ultimately the way to forcefully deal with this monstrosity was to go to war. Yes, so I think that history shows us that we need to be honest with ourselves that you know if you think that something is beyond the pale, which is absolutely central to the other side political identity and political agenda, you may need to be left with just, you know, forceful imposition, some sort of, I mean, the EU tried to, and in some ways was helpful to do it by imposing sanctions, or sanctions is not civil war, but, but it was a forceful imposition on Poland and Hungary. Yes, but there is no EU above the United States government. Yes, so the question is, you know, you each of us will need to decide what are the those issues which are so beyond the pale that we are willing, like you know, the abolitionists in the 19th century, like Ukrainians now, where we will be willing to go to war to defend our values or suffer significant costs short of war. It was very interesting, for example, that a lot of Poles were ambivalent about EU sanctions, because, of course, the EU sanctions on Poland were hurting not only the right-wing voters but everybody. Yes, once the Tusk government, the Liberal government, came back to power, one of the arguments against completely rejecting the very controversial and undemocratic judicial reforms of the far right was that it would paralyze the judicial system, so that's a very good example. If you really believe that independent judiciary is non-negotiable, is beyond the pale, you should be willing to endure a paralysis of judicial system in the name of cleaning it up of illegally appointed judges. Yes, the question in Poland was about the third of the judges now are illegally appointed, and simply excluding them from the profession would create a total mess. Yes, and the government didn't, didn't do it, but that, of course, means it legitimizes those judges. So I'm not saying this is right or wrong. I'm simply showing you that in case after case, you have the stark choice of either you take a sacrifice in and fight for your principles and are not willing to compromise and negotiate, but that will create a lot of costs, a lot of side problems, and unintended consequences, and you need to be able to live with it, or the alternative is you need to find some sort of compromise, which will include accepting some views which we find objectionable. So, in other words, we can't fight a civil war over every issue, but maybe we should fight a civil war over some issues. I agree with that, but let's have an honest discussion, and that book is an invitation to an honest discussion of what are those issues, by the way, on both sides, yes, which are beyond the pale, and what are the issues where we can live with, you know, certain regions or policy areas where the state will not work the way we want it to work. In Polish case, it's easy, because what we are saying is there is the European level human rights regime, European Convention on Human Rights. So we are saying European Convention on Human Rights should be the. Baseline for the entire Poland, conservative and progressive, but for example, European Convention on Human Rights does not grant marriage equality, which I personally believe to be an essential human right, but under the jurisprudence of the Strasburg Court, European Court on Human Rights, it is not a guaranteed human right. Yes, so then we can have a situation in which within Poland, in some places there would be recognition, like civil unions, which will be short of marriage, and in some regions there will be marriage with abortion rights. Likewise, the European Court on Human Rights doesn't grant full abortion rights on demand. Yes, so, so that also can vary in the US. The situation will be more difficult because you don't have some sort of an external regime that you can rely on to solve the issue internally. You will need to discuss issue by issue and make difficult compromises, or again, or you know, fight. I'm not against fighting, I'm simply saying that there are costs to fighting, and we need to be very honest, and what we, as liberals, should definitely avoid is to be very strong and uncompromising in our words, but then very weak in our actions. What I see in your country is a lot of strong words and a lot of weak actions from law firms, from universities, from businesses. Everybody's caving to this radical right-wing country. Well, they were. I'm

00:42:08 Andrew Keen: not sure they are anymore. Well, let's end on Hungary. Central European University was located there, and you were forced out. You moved to Vienna, where we're talking now on the campus was the defeat of Orban. How does this fit into the argument you make in let's agree on Poland, as you noted at the beginning of the conversation, Poland and Hungary, their neighboring states, they have in some ways rather similar histories. Is the victory of Peter Magyar in Hungary a model for challenging the illiberalism of characters like Orban,

00:42:57 Maciej Kisilowski: we don't know yet, because we have seen a number of cases of successful victory over revolutionary conservative governments, but then those victors were unable to restore liberal democratic order. Biden, of course, is a good example. We'll see what will happen with in my own country next year with the parliamentary election and the two's government, but I would argue definitely that Péter Magyar's campaign and the way he emerged as a political figure, especially given how incredibly consolidated that right-wing regime was. It was 16 years in power, it was rightly called the mafia state. The fact that Magyar managed to win constitutional majority in a completely unfair election in so many ways skewed towards the government is remarkable, and there are lessons that are entirely consistent with what with our diagnosis in Let's Agree on Poland. Most importantly, Magyar is a staunch conservative, not a centrist, he is a stanch and a former

00:44:13 Andrew Keen: member of the Orban government,

00:44:16 Maciej Kisilowski: of course, of the ruling regime, and so, so he is an embodiment of compromise with the radical right, he basically, his argument is that there is a place within democratic Europe for stanly conservative views. If I was to advise Péter Magyar, I would say, remember that the 2 million people from Budapest, very liberal people from Budapest, who voted for you, voted for you not because they like your conservative ideas, but because they preferred you unquestionably to the status quo, which was Orbán, and as Magyar is now pondering a new constitutional design, he should be considering what we have proposed, and we actually made sure he got our book, that it reached him, because Budapest should absolutely get, you know, a strong autonomy, so that it can pursue like Vienna. Much more liberal, so is

00:45:32 Andrew Keen: it about ruling with more vitality and confidence? Should Starmer in the UK have read your book? Should Joe Biden have read your book?

00:45:43 Maciej Kisilowski: Absolutely, because this is about finding a way to show, as Péter Magyar successful, so at least in the campaign, we'll see if he can deliver now that he's governing to the significant segment of far right electorate that there is a place for them and their views, which I personally, as Maciej Kisilowski, find very objectionable, but they are still my compatriots, and compatriots like family you don't choose to show those people with those very objectionable views that there is a place for them in a democracy, and I'm saying we need to do it not because those views are attractive, but because the alternative is that it's absolutely and positively rational for them to try to break the democracy. If our opening position to them is your views are beyond the pale, you are deplorable, there is no space for you in democracy. Then how on earth we expect anything else than revolutionary conservative conservatism as a response to that opening statement. It's entirely rational. I would argue that way if I had those views. If there is no space for me in democracy, if my views are beyond the pale, then I need to break the democratic setup, because otherwise there is no place for me. We need to, we need to get out of this catch 22 situation.

00:47:15 Andrew Keen: We need to, of course, read. Let's agree on Poland. Let's say Kisilowski, his best-selling book in Poland. He's a co-author of it. Maybe let's say also we just need to reread James Madison in The Federalist papers, who argued that we naturally form into faction, and that if we were angels, we wouldn't need government. Basically, you're making the Madisonian argument about democracy, aren't you?

00:47:41 Maciej Kisilowski: Absolutely, all new ideas are some sort of version of old ideas, and the brilliant part of Madison's characterization and of your constitutional setup was that the institutions were formed with full awareness that people are far from perfect and far from and entirely actually fallible, yes, and now perhaps because of the famous end of history, we came to this, we ourselves liberals, who are supposed, as Professor Gellner would tell, should shed all the myths we embrace a myth that we can treat people as naturally inclined to perfection, to perfect justice, to perfect equality, to, you know, voluntarily giving up all their privileges and hierarchies. That is a profoundly naive view. And I think the constitutional, if we are building constitutional setup, institutional setup of our countries based on this view, we are doomed to fail.

00:48:51 Andrew Keen: Well, one thing we can say about, let's say, Kisilowski is there's nothing naive about you. It's lovely to meet finally in person. You've been on the show virtually a few times, but we need to make this happen more often. Thank you so much. Great to meet you, and a wonderfully stimulating conversation. I'm not sure everyone will agree, but you will certainly stimulate people both on the left and the right. Thank you so much.

00:49:16 Maciej Kisilowski: Thank you.

00:49:19 Andrew Keen: Hi, this is Andrew again. Thank you so much for listening or watching the show. If you enjoyed it, please subscribe. We're on Substack, YouTube, Apple, Spotify, all the platforms, and I'd be very curious as to your comments as well on what you think of the show, how it can be improved, and the kinds of guests that you would enjoy hearing or listening to in future. Thank you again.