Yes, of course we can’t avoid talking about politics. Even though I’m actually not that interested in it, but you kind of have to. I’ve always found politics to be an exceptionally difficult field, I’ve said that before. Because you’re dealing with extremes, and even when you have a centrist party, that in itself is also still extreme. And you actually can’t, at least I can’t, find a party of which you say, well, that really represents most of what I also think. I suppose everyone has that, and of course people have very different views.But in our time it’s become very difficult to still take politics seriously. I remember the time of Van Agt and Den Uyl.

Back then we really were dealing with a very strong opposition between two people. Not only politically, but also personally, there was such an incredible contrast. And then things really did get intense, head to head. But still in a very different way than what we see in our time now.If you look at the left-wing parties, they have this aura as if they have a monopoly on morality. They know what is moral and stand for that, and of course want to implement it. But the opposition, of course, is then not moral. That opposition also has a certain morality, but it’s in a certain national sense. And in that sense, both sides are actually unsympathetic to me.Because on the one hand there is a clearly moralizing force. While as a human being you actually want to form your moral principles yourself. And the other side has a partial humanity and a partial inhumanity, which is also not sympathetic. So the only thing that really happens is that one alternates with the other. And that’s usually how it goes. Usually, one side dominates for a while until the people — we — have had enough. Enough of the extreme and say: We should choose something else. And then the other side comes more to the fore.And that way there remains a certain balance in the progress of politics. If only those who believe they have a monopoly on morality were always in charge, then you would get a very extreme course of events.Now that is being interrupted by something entirely different. And in that sense it’s refreshing. Even if you can’t agree with it either. So that’s what I find difficult about politics, that there is of course no ideal party.What we used to have in Christian centrist parties — those often didn’t really hold the center either. But they were, let’s say, based on a kind of foundation of Christianity, which still means you love your neighbor. Ideally. Those centrist parties have, of course, also disappeared. And what’s left of them, you really can’t find that Christian principle in anymore.But okay. So now, for less than a year, we have a very different government, a very different cabinet than we had before. I find that a relief. But agreeing with it is another matter.Now I’ve noticed — and you probably have too — that from the very start of this cabinet’s term, they actually haven’t been given a chance. They’re not getting a chance to implement what they would like to implement, and it’s been, from the very first day perhaps, the opposition has been constantly piling on these people.That has, in the past week, reached a level the likes of which we haven’t seen, and yes, I can’t let that go unnoticed. At a certain point you say — I don’t want to claim the monopoly on morality either. But there are, of course, certain things that you as an observer do see. Things that perhaps aren’t felt as clearly by those who are in the fight. But as a bystander, you do see them. And if you try to follow the course of global affairs a little, then you see that what is happening here in the Netherlands is not only happening in the Netherlands, you see it happening in America as well.You see it happening everywhere, that people no longer feel bound to—let me put it this way—a certain tact. A certain… yes, decency is a strange word, but that’s more or less what it is. And then I had to think of the ninth century after Christ. At that time, at a council, the Catholic Church established the dogma that the human being has a body and a soul. And that it was no longer permitted to speak of the human being as also having a spirit.

The human being has a body and a soul, and that soul possesses some spiritual qualities.

Now, when you look for a word in Latin for “spirit,” of course you have *spiritus*, but you also have *mens*. That could be seen more as the rational part of the spirit, you could say. And perhaps that was still seen as belonging to the human being.

But in any case, in that council  in the ninth century AD, the Catholic Church thus established a dogma that the human being does not have a spirit, but does have a body and a soul. And it seems as if such a dogma eventually becomes reality when people are no longer aware that the human being **has** a spirit. What that actually means, and that it is simply not true.

What I believe I see in world politics—so not only in the Netherlands (although the Netherlands is, of course, part of that, and it is seen very strongly in the Netherlands at the moment)—that is a form of dementia.

Dementia of the human being, in the Latin sense. The rational mind, the thinking spirit, seems to be retreating. And when that, as a principle of order, no longer asserts itself, what you get is what is known in psychiatry as a term: you get *loss of decorum*.

That is also a symptom of dementia. Dementia of the human being. Of the individual human being. When dementia begins, one of the symptoms is not only that there is memory loss, but also that the decency that normally exists in everyday life is also forgotten. And that boundaries are crossed that are inhuman. That is what you see in politics.

So I would like to speak of a dementia of politics. It is incomprehensible what people do to each other. And that can only be justified by a materialism that has become reality, whereby the human being no longer even sees himself as a soul, but only as a body.

Well, you leave that body alone, of course. People are still that decent. In the House of Representatives, people don’t physically attack each other. But they do, in fact, attack each other’s soul. They really go very far in attacking the soul of their fellow human being. Not to speak of the spirit, then.

And what you then see in that affair of the past week, in which a minister refuses to do something that people think she *should* have done—that’s where the difficulty already lies: that you no longer leave the moral decision with that person themselves, but that you believe there are certain principles that apply universally.

And that the left-wing side of politics knows and applies those principles. And when there is someone who does things differently… Well, you’ve seen what happens then.

And when there is someone who does things differently… Well, you’ve seen what happens then.  Because I find that very hard to judge. I don’t think I would have done it that way myself. I don’t think it was wise. But I cannot judge whether it was right or not. She knows that herself. I really do assume that.

And that it then happens that half the chamber—or more—piles onto such a person and speaks the most terrible insults about that soul… How is a person supposed to endure that? Look, if you beat someone up, that’s not allowed. But it just happens anyway.

There is a soul-beating going on. That is, yes, almost deadly. And I absolutely cannot understand it. That people who believe they have a monopoly on morality, believe they are allowed to go after a fellow human being like that, someone who does something that they are convinced is wrong.

Even if it is wrong, you still don’t go that far. That simply cannot be.

You simply cannot someone – everything she is and does is dragged through the mud. I really couldn’t leave that unmentioned, this week, in which that has taken place – or actually last week – to bring that up in this video. Because of course, it’s not only the Netherlands. You see it everywhere. People truly no longer have the restraining force to limit the judgment you have to just a judgment, and not to a destructive act toward the other. That is really something terrible. And I see that as a very serious symptom in the development of humanity. And that is of course not only at play in politics, but there it does become visible. Namely that humanity is becoming demented, that the spiritual part of the soul is letting go, and that the more instinctive and animal-like part of the soul is gaining the upper hand. And that the controlling power that the human being has, in the human – in the Latin sense of the word, where of course the word ‘mens’ is also connected with ‘man’ – that controlling effect, which is truly human, is disappearing. That you, namely, restrain yourself. You see that falling away. And I think that the first step out of that downward line is that you are aware of it, and that you, in yourself, refuse to become like that, and that you, with the awareness that this is a tendency in humanity, that you also suffer deeply because of it. Because surely we as human beings are not born to murder one another. Look, in war it’s already bad enough, but there it is at least still open. But here it is something that is actually still tolerated. A chairperson of parliament, for example, they allow those things. That must be allowed. No. That absolutely must not be allowed. That is truly the beginning of the end of a developed humanity. Let me have said this today, once.