>> and june 19 41, hitler and stalin recounts his life and work as a historian. the event hosted by saint joseph university boathouse in philadelphia is one hour. >> i have two events of considerable difficulty talking to you right here. the first is the occasion is to talk about my now published a book titled last rites which is a very honest title because it is at the end of my career, but last rites is not written with it could have been called extreme function. [laughter] >> but the first difficulty is that i find it very hard to talk about something i have written.

and the reason for this is not artificial modesty. it is probably the memory of the teacher that for gosh sakes, don't keep repeating herself. and it also has something to do with my personal temperament, which is i write something, i say something, it's done with. gets out of my system. other people, you know, luckier than i am, who can embroider, repeat, crossett, and constantly embellish one main thing which is perfectly all right, you know. unless they are talking to

people who know their life and writing very well. i am different. i find it difficult to. i find it quite difficult to talk about things that i have written. i will be very brief about it. since this is the excuse and a pretax with which jack bateman had me come here and spend a rainy afternoon with you. the "last rites" is a very odd book in the sense it is autobiographical because it is written in the first person singular. it's not really an autobiography. it is really, well it is essentially a could develop in history of my thoughts and beliefs.

now i have written another book like this, another i call it a book to. i emphasize this is not an autobiography. i call it a collection of my auto-history because i say the book is about me but not so much about my personal life but about my thoughts and beliefs. that book i wrote in my early 60s was published in 191989 at the age of 65. it is called confessions of an original center which is a pretty good title. and as i told you, it was published at age 65. fort in an evil are ever thinking about writing an autobiography or even if you write something informally for your children, family, that's the time to write an autobiography. at the age of 65.

not earlier and not later. but 20 years have passed since 1989, and i was compelled about three years ago to write, not to continue this but to write another book because i don't want to go into great details about this. just about the time 1989, my life considerably changed. it changed professionally. it started a more extensive writing career. it involved my native country, hungary, because it's a coincidence. it in 1989 that the russian rule, the soviet rule, the communist rule in eastern europe fell apart. and not for the first time,

since 1989 i have been able to go back every year, even though i have no relatives left now, to my native country. and this is not so much the result of a patriotic pole. because something happened since 1989 that i would have never believed would happen, even in the change of the regime, it even within the communism, that i must say i foresaw long before important people in the cia foresaw at all. but we must understand we live in a world where it is not little wisdom that rules things, but enormous institutionalized stupidity. so it was no great prophecy of my part to have saw decades

before 1989 that the soviet union was going to fall apart. but it involved me personally because i never expected that. you know, i love english-language. i like in english. i think in english. i even dream in english which is extraordinary in some ways. but since 1989, every year a new book of mine is published in hungary. translated into hungarian. even though these books of mine, 14 books, 15 books of mine translated there, and only one of them is in my native country. so every year i go there, national book week, don't misunderstand me, there's a little money in it but very little. so it barely pays my hotel bill, but still i have never expected this to happen. so my life changed. my life is change in other ways

also. my writing career became to some extent successful and so forth. and so i decided to write this other election, not the history of the last 20 years, but how my beliefs and ideas and everything changed in the last 20 years, hence the title "last rites." but you see there is a much greater, deeper change there. confessional of an original center, i never write books are a bestseller. sold about 10000 copies. which is pretty good for an average book, you know. since then i have written a lot about. my name may be well-known, that "last rites" i will be glad if it sells one third of that because i have lived through any

ideas in this book, there is only one chapter in this book that deals with my return to hungary. only one chapter. you see, the book has several chapters. it starts with a chapter entitled bed 15 minutes. this is bad 15 minutes because this is kind of, it's not so easy to read but i tried to put it as easy as possible. then i have a long chapter about my adopted country, the united states. how do i see what is happening here after 20 years, and i have a shorter chapter about the world behind me. the chapter of united states called the world around me, my adopted country. then there's a short chapter, world behind the. this is the hungry i left behind. and there is a personal chapter within me, my family, my life and so forth. so there's a great difference.

since 1989, the world of books and the world of publishing has declined to an extent that even the most pessimistic people in the publishing world would not have believed there why is this such a complicated thing, you know. but i repeat to you, at the age of 65 when i was perhaps less well known, a book of mine just about me, there was interest in that. sold 10000 copies which is not very big, it's a pretty decent sale. i cannot expect this for any other book of mine because this is what americans do not know and why should they know because of this country was only born 250 years ago. the entire modern age and entire age of the book is dying away. there always will be books.

there always will be readers, but there will be a very, very tiny minority. and so you see, i'm very much aware that i'm not only approaching the very end of my life, but the variant of a historical era which i have been one of the last children and one of the last representatives. you see, we live in a world, i'm very much aware of this, where book reading, by and large in total, will never vanish but gradually disappear, you know. this world into which i do not belong and do not wish to belong, but i felt that i have to write how i see lot of this happening. this has something to do with,

you see human nature does not change. but habits of behavior, habits of the mind changes. what is at the bottom of this is not just the calculations of the publishing industry, something much deeper. and extraordinary, extraordinary shrinking of the attention span, you know, of people who can pay attention. and this, of course, very much involves the very reading of books. and so, you see, we are in this respect as i told you, i am really not typical of you, but i'm still part of an age of history and even of the country. and this is what this book is

about, that we, not only i., r. not constrain or should be constrained to rethink some very essential things. and this is a very difficult thing. because perhaps this is especially true about americans. it's true of other people to undreamt also. people find it, always found it and find it especially now very easy to change their possessions. to trading houses cars possessions, unfortunately sometimes even their spouses, you know. but people find it very difficult to find her mind, the essential spirit not only about which group or which movie, but the essentials. and this is where we have to rethink this is the underlying thesis of the book, the entire

idea of eternal, wonderful progress, things because of technology, and improvement to human. they are getting better and better all the time. we have to rethink this. and juicy, rethinking as i told you, people find it is natural. people find it much easier to get rid of possessions or to exchange their possessions than to change their minds. and this has very little to do with the functions of iqs or intelligence or whatever the people call it, you know. because of the great trouble in this world always and perhaps now especially it's not an inability to thank. it's an unwillingness to thank. because thinking, believe me, involves thinking as well as kicking a ball, you know, were

playing a game or investing in a stock, involve the choice, involves an act of will. we have to look in the mirror and recognize that most of us think, not only do what want to do, not only say what want to say, but we think what we like to think. and that is a habit very difficult to overcome. as i told you, the main problem is not -- the main problem of human beings is not mental or low iqs. it is not the inability to think, but it is the unwillingness to thank. i don't want to talk more about the book. as i told you it's a difficult

time, a difficult day to talk about what i have written and what i just told you in the past five or 10 minutes is not really a summary of the book, you know. you know, i could have gone through chapters, but this kind of statesmanship i find very boring. but now i face the second difficulty, which is a great one. i am not a professional literature. i do not know you. i never met jack bateman until half an hour ago, you see. and when you talk to people, for gods sake, you have to know who you talk to. you see, i'm not saying that you have to tailor your remarks exactly to an audience. that's television. that's showmanship. that's politics. and he never told me what he

wanted me to talk about. he said i want to talk you about the book. i said i cannot do this except, except you see, in a very limited way. and he told me i should talk to you about, well, about catholic education. well, let me start again. i will tell you a few things that will shock you, but my purpose is not to shock you. i'm not a showman. i'm not here to shock you nor am i a comedian whose job is to repeat something that makes people laugh. warcry. truck or. >> there are very many myths in this country which americans ought to rethink. one of them i mentioned already. the idea of progress, you know, that you see, we have a

president, it previous president bush who said all these people, taliban, make rockets and fire, they are enemies of progress. they never even thought of progress. this idea is actually a door with his idea. things by nature are getting better and better. i'm not saying they are getting worse all the time. no, but human nature does not change, you know. you have to rethink this myth of progress. one thing very similar, almost a byproduct, is the myth of education. you see, americans have always, even since our founding fathers, benjamin franklin certainly did, believe more schools, more education. that is a great myth.

and we have just a great myth that a child can be produced, his mind can be produced by what goes on in the school. no matter how good the schools arehere the formation not only of the child's character, but a child's mind depends on his home, you know. on his parents and on his home. you see, if you look at a picture of an american small town, or become, 150 years ago, you will find that the biggest thing, the biggest building in the small town is either a church or a bank. the biggest thing, the biggest building now and every american small town is the school. it's bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.

the elementary school, junior high school, the high school. it's the biggest, most robust, most of our tax money in the community goes to schools, you know. and do you think, bigger schools and so forth, you know, are going to educate our children better? the bigger the schools, the more ignorant our children are in many, many ways. not everywhere but in many, many ways. so we have to, you see, parents have to simply abandon this idea that we invest our children in schools, and that will take care of education of the child. that is not the problem, and that is not the problem especially even, even with catholic education. as you know, catholic education in some ways, especially in the middle schools, it's better than

it was and in some ways not better than it was. a shocking fact, statistics, you know, i'm not collecting statistics but i read this now about 10 years ago, you see, there's an average suburban community, middle-class and even upper-middle-class community, new jersey, of 45 youngsters in schools. only three of them had dinner at home regularly with their parents. only three of them had supper or dinner regularly with their parents. we can build the biggest schools in the world and so forth. it will not do a damn thing if we advocate and look at the schools, which they aren't now, many of them, you know what they are with some exaggeration,

custodial institutions. so you see, this situation is very bad at uc, and you must understand also of our church. you see, we have now a radical diminution of the number of young people who want to become priests or who want to become nuns, you know. thereby, you know, many of our schools have to be staffed by laypeople, which is not necessarily bad. but you must understand, these things, these things that we can -- these things that we can, there are many, many things wrong with this world. i need not mention them going on abortion, same-sex marriages, education, we have been over all that. but every turn is not possible.

this is not the way history works. this is not the way human life works. yes, when things go to a bad extreme, a reaction sets in. but history in our life is not a pendulum. it does not swing back. it will swing unpredictably in a different direction. which we cannot foresee. this in a way is supposed to occur and the blessing of human life that life is unpredictable. this is god's will. that history is unpredictable or to put it at a level, as a french moralists they want, things are never as good or as bad as they seem. they seem pretty bad now. [laughter] >> we know that. but no return is possible,

especially again i have the handicap. i hope i am mostly talking to catholics, you know. jack told me that catholic education, catholic belief. you see, i lived in this country when the church was very prosperous. late 1940s, 1950s, all the way into the 1960s. yes, some things were better and some things were worse. and this is of course particularly difficult for any catholic who honestly thinks he's a catholic because, you know, this brings up another problem. there's always a different between what people think and what they say and act. as it is, of course, the element of hypocrisy. but something deeper and even more dangerous is going along now. when there is a difference

between what people think they believe and what they really believe. we must look into the mental bearer, look around us and see that we catholics will be very, not only catholics, true god believers, christians, will be a small minority in the world now in the foreseeable future, you know. we will be a very small minority and perhaps even a dwindling minority. and of course, this has its tremendous shortcomings but it can also be a blessing. because when it comes to belief, belief is not a question of numbers. belief is not a question of quantities. belief is a question of quality.

the quality in belief is what matters. and just as i was preparing my remarks, i was thinking of something that came to me in the classroom almost 50 years ago. just around about 50 years ago in the 1950s, especially in america the irish catholic, irish italians had risen from second class status to very high, not only we elected the first catholic president, that's only on the surface but the church was triumphant and high and so forth. and i once asked my students around, i don't know, 1958, 1959, about their true beliefs. i asked them, are you an american who happens to be a catholic, or are you a catholic

who happens to be an american. 29 of his 30 students chose the first. an american who happens to be a catholic. when we -- this is no longer enough. has nothing to do with anti-americanism or the united nations and so forth, you know. the very word catholic means kind of universal belief, and believe in the uniqueness of christ. i have often been critical of darwinism. i am, you know. and i am shocked by the present shallowness of the anti-darwinists of this so called creationist. usage of phrases when they say intelligent design, that the

alternative to darwinism is intelligent design. christ's sake, what is it, that reduces god to a supercomputer wizard or a rocket scientist? [laughter] >> you know, intelligent design, you know. you see, the answer of darwinism is simply, was very profound. that no matter how much truth, and there is some truth, you know, in the evolution of the species. either there is a small but a fundamental difference between human beings and all other living beings. if there is no great difference, no difference between human beings and any other living beings, then there is no such thing as sin, then anything

including incest and murder are perfectly natural. you know, it is as profound as it is human. that human nature does not change. that we are all sinners, you know. not just wonderful, clean living, churchgoing, golf playing americans. you see, either we don't believe that there is this, no matter how small, but a sensual profound difference between human beings and all other living beings, i