Hey folks, welcome to the Dark Horse podcast Inside Rail. I am sitting this morning with my friend

Joshua Stileman. Okay, if I call you Josh? Please do. All right. Josh is a little hard to

describe, but he's somebody you should know about. At some point here, you should sign up for his

substack, which we will link in the

description, and I'll point you to a couple of pieces that are particularly excellent. Josh is sort of,

I think he says it jokingly, but maybe a stand-up philosopher. He's an independent researcher.

I know him through encounters at the Brownstone Institute. In any case, Josh,

welcome to Dark Horse. Thank you for having. All right, Josh, I asked you to come on after reading

a piece that you put out must be a couple of weeks ago at this point. And this piece kind of

stopped me in my tracks because I have been having a certain experience since October 7th of

23, and I've been having a hard time articulating it to people.

I'm, of course, Jewish, as my viewers know.

I grew up in a secular Jewish home, and, you know, I have a sort of complicated relationship

with this.

I don't really understand people who have pride in their ethnicity. I feel like am I supposed to be proud?

I'm a man. No, it just happened to me. I'm happy as one. But it's not a matter of pride.

And I feel sort of the same way about Jewishness. I got a ton out of it growing up. But, you know,

I don't know that it makes, I don't know that it makes

logical sense to be proud of something that you had no hand in. And in any case, I've been

sort of trying to keep my head above water as a Jewish person who tries to think very carefully about things in an era where that has become

extremely difficult.

And the piece that you wrote described my experience quite well.

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