Lex Fridman Podcast - #296 – Douglas Murray: Racism, Marxism, and the War on the West

Episode Date: June 21, 2022

Douglas Murray is an author and political commentator. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - Brave: https://brave.com/lex - BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/lex to get 10% off - BiOptimizers: http://www.magbreakthrough.com/lex to get 10% off - Notion: https://notion.com/startups to get up to $1000 off team plan - ExpressVPN: https://expressvpn.com/lexpod and use code LexPod to get 3 months free EPISODE LINKS: Douglas's Twitter: https://twitter.com/DouglasKMurray Douglas's Instagram: https://instagram.com/douglaskmurray Douglas's Website: https://douglasmurray.net The War on the West (book): https://amzn.to/38L7B36 Madness of Crowds (book): https://amzn.to/3MShBpX Strange Death of Europe (book): https://amzn.to/3OnYmEX PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: - Check out the sponsors above, it's the best way to support this podcast - Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman - Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here's the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) - Introduction (07:49) - Western civilization (16:29) - Slavery (20:06) - Reparations (25:11) - Institutional racism (32:24) - Lived experience (41:49) - Resentment (53:55) - Critical race theory (1:08:27) - Racism (1:27:26) - Stalin (1:31:59) - Churchill (1:38:03) - Marxism (1:54:41) - Madness of Crowds (2:03:14) - Ego (2:10:22) - Donald Trump (2:17:06) - America's future (2:24:33) - Advice for young people (2:33:16) - Love

The following is a conversation with Douglas Murray, author of the Badness of Crowds, Gender, Race, and Identity, and his most recent book, The War on the West, How to Proveil in the Age of Unreason. He's a brilliant, fearless, and often controversial thinker who points out and pushes back against what he sees as the madness of our modern world. I should note that the use of the word Marxism and the West in this conversation refers primarily to cultural Marxism and the cultural values of Western civilization respectively. This is, in contrast to my previous conversation with Richard Wolff, where we focused on Marxism

as primarily a critique of capitalism, and thus looking at it through the lens of economics and not culture. Nevertheless, these two episodes stand opposite of each other with very different perspectives on how we build a flourishing civilization together. I leave it to you, the listener, to think and to decide which is the better way. And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description is the best way to support this podcast. We got Brave for browsing, better help for mental health, bi-optimizers, for magnesium supplementation, notion for startups and expressive PM for privacy.

Choose wisely, my friends. And now, onto the full ad reads. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make this interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out our sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too. This show is brought to you by Brave, a fast, privacy-preserving browser that feels like Google Chrome, but without ads,

with various kinds of tracking that ads can do. I love using it more than any other browser, including Chrome, Chrome being my second favorite browser. I fell in love with Chrome first, and then I met Brave. It's like that meme meme ear with your girlfriend, but you're checking out the new girl. But in this case, it wasn't just that the grass is green on the other side. It turned out when I went to the other side, the grass was still greener. So it's from one love to a bigger love. Overall, as a fan of technological innovation and given all the history of browser wars, it's just exciting and inspiring to see that a new browser comes along that really pushes all the other players to do better.

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and plus a special discount, all at magbreakthrough.com slash Lex. This show is also brought to you by Notion, a note-taking and team collaboration tool that combines note-taking, document-sharing, wiki's project management and much more into one space that's simple, powerful and beautifully designed. People love Notion. Anyone I ask on the internet, on Reddit, Google around looking for reviews and stuff. When I ask friends and you're talking about note-taking apps, like what is the cutting edge?

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Anyway, you can sign up, download, install it. If you go to expresseapn.com slash flex pod for an extra three months free. This is the Lex Freedom Podcast to support it. We check out our sponsors in the description and now to your friends, here's Douglas Murray. You recently wrote the book titled The War on the West, which in part says that the values, ideas and history of western civilization are under attack. So let's start with the basics.

Historically and today, what are the ideas that represent Western civilization? The good, the bad, the ugly. I actually don't get stuck on definitions, precisely because as you know, once you get stuck on definitions as a possibility, you'll never get off the list. Yes. I'd say a few things.

Firstly, obviously the Western tradition is a specific tradition, a specific tradition of ideas, culture. Well known to be perhaps easily defined by the combination of Athens and Jerusalem, the world of the Bible, and the world of ancient Greece and indeed Rome. Effectively creates the European civilization which itself spawns the rest of the Western civilizations. America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and others. But these are the main countries that we still refer to as the West.

So there's a specific tradition and all the things that come from it. My shorthand cheat on this answer is to say, you know when you're not in it. So, if you've ever been to Beijing, Shanghai, you know you're not in the West, somewhere else. You know you're not in the West. When you're in Tokyo, you're somewhere extraordinary, but you know you're not in the West.

Obviously there are, let's say borderline questions like it's Russia in the West Which I sort of leave open as a question Possibly if you were placed into Moscow blindfolded in you woke up Couldn't hear the language or maybe you didn't know what the language sounded like would you would you guess you were in the West or not? I think I was someone near it or maybe you didn't know what the language sounded like, would you guess you were in the West? Or not? I think I was somewhere near it. I think the game closer.

I mean, you know, it's also asked the question, doesn't it, whether it's European? And I think the answer to that is not really, although massively influenced by Europe, but sometimes wanting to reach towards it at times, wanting to stay away, but a part of the West, possibly, yes. But anyway, it's a very specific tradition. It's one of a number of major traditions in the world. And because it's hard to define, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Are there certain characteristics and qualities about the values and the ideas that define it? Is the type of rule, the type of governmental structure? Yes. I mean, the rule of law, property-owned democracies, and much more, I mean, these are, of course, things that were ended up being developed in America, and then give them back too much of the rest of the West. I'd say there are other, perhaps more

controversial attributes I would give to the West. One is a ravenous interest in the rest of the world, which is not shared, of course, by every other culture. The late philosopher George Steiner, who said he could never get out of his head, the haunting fact of the boat so he seemed to go out from Europe. They did the explorers, the scholars, the linguists, that the people who wanted to discover other civilizations, and indeed even President Ancient civilizations and lost civilizations. These were scholars that were always coming from the West to discover this elsewhere by contrast. You know, there were never boats coming from Egypt to help the Anglo-Saxons discover the origins of their language and so on. So I think there is a sort of ravenous interest in the rest of the world, which can be said to be a Western. Attributal load, of course, also has, fundamentally, preface it, some downsides and many criticisms that can be made to some become the consistence of that interest. Because of course it's not entirely lacking in self-interest.

So it's not just the scholars, it's also the armies, the armies, and they're looking to gain access and control over resources elsewhere. Mark it market and hence the imperial imperative to conquer, to expand. Although that itself, of course, is a universal thing. I mean, no civilization, I think that we know of, doesn't try to gain ground from its neighbors where it can. The wisdom ability to go further faster certainly gave an advantage in that regard. To do some civilizations get a bit more excited by that kind of idea than others. It's possible.

It's possible. Because you could say it's the Western civilization because the technological innovation was more efficient at doing that kind of thing. Absolutely. But maybe you wanted it more too. Well, the Ottomans wanted it as an awful lot and did very terribly well for many centuries and shouldn't forget that, as did others. I'd also say by the way that, again, it's a very broad one, but it's worth throwing

out there. I think self-criticism is an important attribute of the Western mind, one that, as you know, is not common everywhere. Not all societies allow, even their most vociferous critics to become rich. So, you know, criticism is a negative sounding word. It could be self-interrespection, self-analysis, self-reflection. And it can be what you need. And in the Western system, I'd argue that one of the advantages of the system

of representative governance is that where there are problems in the system, you can attempt to sort them out by peaceable means. We listen to arguments, most famously in America in the late 20th century. The civil rights movement achieved its aims by force of moral argument and just way to the rest of the country that it had been wrong. That's not common in every society by any means. So I think there are certain attributes of the Western mind that you could say

are entirely unique but they are not as commonplace elsewhere. What about the emergence and hierarchies of a symmetry of power, most visible, most drastic in the form of slavery, for example? Well, I mean, everyone in the world is slavery, so I don't regard it as being a western, the unique western sin. It's rather hard to think of a civilization in history that didn't have slavery of some kind. One of the oddities of the Western ignorance of our day is that people seem to imagine that

our societies in the West were the only ones who ever engaged in any vices, andasses isn't true. It's a sort of rissoian mistake, or at least one that's blossomed since risso, that everybody else in the world was born into sort of a panic innocence. And only we in the West had this sort of evil in us, that caused us to do bad things to other people. Slavery was engaging by everyone in the ancient world, of course. And through most of the modern world as well, of course, there are 40 million slaves in the world today, so it's clearly not something that the species as a whole has a problem with. That's more slaves, of course, than there were in the 19th century. And

I'd say on top of that, that the interesting thing about the Western mind, as regards to slavery, is that we were the civilization that did away with it. And by the way, the founding fathers of America who today are lambasted routinely for being acquiescent in the slave trade, engaging in it, owning slaves. There's not people almost don't even bother now to recognize the facts that Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, all wanted to see this trade done away with, couldn't hold the country together at the origins if they'd have made such an effort, and believed and hoped that it would be something they'll be dealt with after that time.

So the founding ideas within the notion that we should we should as a people get rid of this. The opening line to the Declaration of Independence set up the conditions under which slavery will be impossible. Oh man, I created equal. Once you've put that, that's a time bomb under the whole concept of slavery. That's ticking away. Okay. And sure enough, it detonated in the next century. If we just step back and look at the human species,

what does slavery teach you about human nature? The fact that slavery has appeared as a function of society throughout human history. There are two possibilities. One is, it's what people think they can do and God's not watching. Another is, it's what they can do if they think the God allows it. Really, really well put. And the fact that they want to do this kind of subjugation, what does that mean? Well, I mean, it's pretty straightforward in a way. There are people who get to work

for free. There's economic in nature in some sense. Yes. But in order to do it, I mean, almost always, there are some examples in the ancient world where this wasn't the case, but almost always it had to be a subjugated people, or people that regarded it as different. One of the things, actually, I've tried to sort of inject into the discussion through this book among other things is, is a recognition that there were very major questions still going on in the 18th and early 90th century, the one resolved, which were one of the reasons why slavery was not as morally repugnant to people then as it was to us, now as it is to us now. And that's the question of polygenesis and monogenesis.

At the time of Thomas Jefferson, the founding fathers were thinking and working. time of Thomas Jefferson, the founding fathers were thinking and working. They didn't know, because nobody knew whether the human races were related or not. There were arguments, the monogenesis argument, that we were all indeed from the same racial start. Apology was that we weren't. Black Africans, Ethiopians, they're often referred to at the time because they provided some of the first slaves were different from white Europeans, simply not related in any way. And that makes it easier, of course. That makes it easier to enslave people. If you think they're not your brother. Am I my brother's keeper? No, he's not your brother. And it's a very troubling argument in the 18th, 90th century also because there was a biblical question. It threw up a theological question, which was, I mean, people were literally debating this at the time. Was there also

a black Adamadive? Was there, was there an Indian Adamadive, an Native American Adamadive? I mean, this was a serious theological debate. It wasn't just Darwin, of course. But by the late 19th century, the argument that we were not all related as human beings had suffered so many blows that you had to really be very, very ignorant, deliberately willfully ignorant to ignore it by that. So no longer was after Darwin a theological question, it became a moral question.

It was already a moral question, but it clarified it, Darwin clarifies it definitely. And then you're in this, as I say, in this situation, if you're not subjugating some other people, you're subjugating your own kin. And that becomes morally unsustainable. So, given that slavery in America is part of its history, how do we incorporate into the calculus of policy today, social discourse, what we learn in school. We can look at slavery in America, we can look at it maybe more recent things like in Europe, the other atrocities, the Holocaust. How do we incorporate that in terms of how we create policy, how we treat each other,

all those kinds of things? What is the calculus of integrating the atroc policy, how we treat each other, all those kinds of things. What is the calculus of integrating the atrocities, the injustices of the past into the way we are today? That's a very complex question because it's a moral question at this point, and a moral question long after the fact. I say it one point in the war on the West that the argument for instance on reparations now that goes on and is not a not a fringe argument anymore. Some people say, oh, you're pulling up this fringe argument. It really isn't. I mean, every contender for the democratic nomination for the the presidency in 2020 was willing to talk about the possibility of

reparations. Some very eager that this country, America, goes through that entirely self-destructive exercise. I say that there's a lot of problems with this, but if I could refine it out of one thing, I'd say this, it's no longer about a wealth transfer from one group of people who did something wrong to another group of people who were wronged. It would have been that, it would have been that, could have been that 200 years ago.

Today, it's not even the descendants of people who did something wrong, giving money to people who were the descendants of people who were wronged. It's a wealth transfer from people who look like people who did a wrong thing in the past to another group of people who resemble people who were wronged. That's impossible to do. I'm completely clear about this. There is no way in which you could organize such a wealth transfer on moral or practical reasons.

America is filled with people who have the same skin color as us, for instance, who have no connection to the slave trade and should not be made to pay money to people who have some connection. And then the country is also filled with ethnic minorities who have come after slavery, who would not be, do you for any reimbursement, as it were, the problem with this is though, is that there are, I'm perfectly open to the possibility that there are residual inequities that exist in American life,

and that the consequences of slavery could be one of the factors that resulted from this. The thing is, I don't think it's a, I don't think it's a single issue answer. I think it's a multi-dimensional issue, something like Black under-achievement in America. It's obviously a multi-dimensional issue. Much of the left and others wish to say it's not, it's only about racism. And they can't answer why Asians who've arrived more recently don't, for instance, get held down by white supremacy, but actually, I say white supremacy in quotes, obviously, but don't get held back by it, but actually flourish to the extent that Asian

Americans have a higher out household earnings and and higher household mean equity than home equity and so on than than white Americans. So I don't think that on the merits, the evidence is there that, you know, racism is the explanation for black ongoing black underachievement in some sections of the black community in America. It's obviously a part of it. Could you say that even those things like fatherlessness and similar family breakdown issues are a long-term consequence of it? Possibly, but it's it's being awfully generous to people's ability to make bad decisions. For instance, how many generations off the Holocaust would you allow people to claim that everything

that went wrong in the Jewish community was as a result of the Holocaust? Is there some kind of term limit on this? I would have thought so. And I think most people probably think that's over. I think the details matter there and... But it's very difficult. I enjoy swimming out in the ocean, so... Although I'm terrified of what's lurking underneath in the darkness. You're right. You're right to be. Okay, it's really complicated calculus with the Holocaust and with slavery. So the argument in

America is that there's deep institutional racism against African Americans that's rooted in slavery. So however, that calculus turns out, that calculation still persists in the culture, in the institutions, in the allocation of resources, in the way that we communicate in subtle ways, in major ways, all that kind of stuff. How is it possible to win or lose that argument of how much institutional racism there is that's rooted in slavery?

Is it a winnable? It's an unquantifiable argument. And I'd like to apply some shortcuts to some of this as a following. For instance, all, let's take the EV-1 that's most often cited. If a white person is walking down a street in America and they see a group of young black men coming towards them and it's later night and they cross the road, is it because of slavery? Is it because of institutional racism? No. It's because they've made a calculus-based, not entirely on unfounded beliefs that given crime rates, it's possible that this group of people might be a group of people they don't want to meet later night. That's an ugly fact, but as crime statistics in American cities are from American cities bear out, it's not an entirely unreasonable slavery? It's a stretch.

If you're in a city like Chicago where the homicide rates shot up in the last two years, we'll be it again as always has to be remembered, mainly black on black gun violence and knife violence. Nevertheless, if you're in a city like Chicago and you make that calculus, I've just suggested the cliched one that the street late at night, there are other factors other than a memory of slavery that kick in. And I'm afraid it's something which people don't want to particularly acknowledge in America

for obvious reasons because it's the ugly, it's damned abay for the world. But I was actually just writing in my column in New York Post today about a very interesting case, a similar which is the question of obesity in the US. As you know, America's the most overweight country in the world. America has, I think, a 40% of the population is obese. In medical ways, and the nearest next country is a long way down. That's New Zealand, a 30% of the population. So America's a long way ahead.

Why during the coronavirus era, when we know that obesity is the one clearest factor that's likely to lead to your hospitalization if you also get the virus. Why did almost no public health information in America focus on obesity? 80% of the people who ended up hospitalized in America with coronavirus were obese. We locked the schools when there was no evidence that the coronavirus was deadly for children. We all wore cloth masks when there was no evidence that the coronavirus was deadly for children. We all wore cloth masks when there was a very little evidence that this was much use in stopping the spread of the virus. We had massive evidence about obesity being a problem and we never addressed it. Why? Is it just because we worried about fat people? No, it's actually because

about fat-shaming as it were. No, it's also because when it great extent It's a racial issue in America as well. And actually I quoted this new publication from the University of Chicago It happens which makes that claim explicit says the reasons why people are Have views that are negative about obesity is because of racism and slavery This is what everything is drawn back to America anything you want to stop you say it's because of racism is because of slavery how about it's actually because you mind The hospitals getting clogged up you mind people dying you mind I think minorities disproportionately dying and you'd like to say something about it

once again as in everything America it's cut off by some like to say something about it. Once again, as in everything in America, it's cut off by some poorly educated academic saying, it's about slavery. So we're really not, I mean, this requires a kind of form of brain surgery to perform it on a society, probably one that's not possible without killing the patient and it's being done by people who are wearing like mittens.

it's being done by people who are wearing like mittens. So I'm sure that there's a few folks listening to this that are rolling their eyes and saying, here we go again to white guys talking about the lack of institutional racism in America. First of all, what's your, what would you like to tell them? So our African-American friends who are looking at this, and I've gotten a chance to talk to a bunch of them on clubhouse recently, clubhouse is the social app. Yeah, yeah, I know. And I really do.

It's an absolute zoo of an app, as far as I can see it. I personally love it because you get to talk to, as somebody who's an introvert and doesn't socialize much. I enjoy talking to people from all walks of life. So it got me a chance to first of all practice Russian and Ukrainian to get the chance to talk about Israel and Palestine with people who are from that part of the world. And you get the here raw emotion of people from the ground where they start screaming, they start crying, they start being calm and collected and thoughtful. And this is as if you walked into a bar with custom picked regular folks, getting quotes regular folks, just people that have, quote, unquote, lived experiences, real pain, real hope, real emotions, biases, and you get to listen to them, go at it with no, uh,

because it's an audio app, you're not allowed to start getting into physical fist fight. So even though it really sounds like it's happening. Yeah, and so you get to really listen to that feeling. And for example, it allows a white guy like me from another part of the world coming from the former Soviet Union to go into a room with a few hundred African Americans screaming about Joe Rogan using the N word. And I get to really listen. There's very different perspectives on that in the African American community. And it's fascinating to listen. So I don't get access to that by sort of excellent

books and articles and so on. You get that real raw emotion. And I'm just saying, there's a few of those folks listening to this with that real raw emotion. And they, one argument they say, as you Douglas Murray and you Lex Freeman don't have the right to talk about race and racism in America. It is our struggle. You are from a privileged class of people that don't don't know what it's like To be a black man or woman in America walking down the street. Can you steal man that case? First of all fuck that Okay, that's not I think we need to define steel

It's still manning Can youning. I know what's the training is. I really resent that form of argumentation. Sure. I really resent it. I have the right to talk about whatever the hell I want. And no one's going to stop me or try to intimidate me or tell me that I can't simply because of my skin color. And I think that if I said to somebody else the other way around, it would be equally reprehensible. If I said shut up, you have no right to criticize anything that Douglas Murray says because you've not got my skin color.

Okay, it's not an exact comparison, but seriously, is that a reasonable form of argument? You haven't been through everything I've been through my life, therefore you can't comment. No. In that case, nobody can talk about anything. We might as well pack up, go home and isolate ourselves. Strong words, but can you try to steal me on the case, not in this particular situation, but there's people that have lived through something that can comment in a very specific way, like for example, Holocaust survivors. Yes. There is a sense in which maybe a basic sense of civility, when a Holocaust survivor speaking about their experience of the Holocaust, then an intellectual from a very different part of the world is simply writing about

nuance, geopolitics, the World War II, just should not interrupt the Holocaust survivor. We physically interrupt them if they're telling us stories. With logic and reason, that the experience of the Holocaust survivor somehow fundamentally has a deeper understanding of the humanity and the injustice of the... First of all, again, when even deeper word is now,

but in terms of wanting to listen to another person who has experienced something, yes, yes, but not endlessly, not endlessly. I mean, there are some people who've written about, I mean, there are people who've written about the Holocaust who didn't experience the Holocaust and have written about it better than people who did. It's not this idea that the lived experience to use this terrible modern jargon as if there's another type. This idea that the lived experience

has to triumph over everything else is not always correct. It can be correct in some circumstances. If you are sitting in a room with a Holocaust survivor and somebody who'd never heard about the Holocaust and wanted to kind of shoot out their views on it, yeah, one of those people should be heard more than the other. Obviously, obviously, if there's somebody who's experienced racism first hand and there's somebody else who has never experienced it Then obviously you'd want to hear from the person who has experienced it first hand if that is the discussion underway I don't think that it's the case that that is endlessly the case I'm also highly reluctant to concede that there are groups of people who by didn't of their skin color or anything else

get to dominate the microphone. Now of course we're literally both speaking to microphones at the moment so there's an irony to this but let's skate over the irony. What I mean is people saying you don't have the right to speak, I have the right to take the microphone from you and speak because I know best. I have the right to take the microphone from you and speak because I know best. Fine, if you know best, we'll argue it out. And someone will win, long or short term. But the almost aggressive tone in which this is now leveled, I don't like the sound of. Nobody's experience is completely understandable by another human being. Nobody's. And what many people are asking us to do at the moment, us collectively

is to fall for that thing. I think it was Camille Foster who said it first, but I've adopted in recent years, is to say, you must spend an inordinate amount of your life trying to understand me personally might lived experience everything about me you should dedicate your life to trying to do that simultaneously you'll never understand me. This is not an attractive invitation this is this is this is an unwinnable game. So if somebody has a legitimate and important point to make, they should make it and they will win through whatever their character is or whatever their race. And by the way, there are plenty of white people who experience racism as well. There are plenty of white people who do and have done and increasingly so, which is one of the things I write about

from the war on the West. I mean, I would argue that today in America, the only group you're actually allowed to be consistently, vilely racist against the white people. If you say disgusting things about black people in America in 2022, you will be over. You will be over. If you decide to talk about people's white tears, their white female tears, their white guilt, their white privilege, their white rage, and all these other pseudo-papologizing terms, you'll be just fine.

You could be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. You could lecture at Yale University, absolutely fine. And the white people have to suck that up as if that's fine because there was racism in another direction in the past. So white people can have racism as well. Does that mean that I think that I have a right or other white people have a right to dominate the discourse by talking about their feelings of having been victim victims of racism? No, not particularly because what does that get us? It gets us into an endless

cycle of competitive victimhood. Am I saying that white people who have experienced violence have experienced historically anything like the violence that was perpetrated against black people in America historically? Obviously not. But, you know, what kind of competition do we want to enter here? And this is very, very important terrain reign now in America, because there's one other thing I have to throw in there, which is, how do you work out the sincerity of the claim? How do you work out the sincerity of the claim being made? At one point in this latest book, I refer to very useful bit in the niche and the genealogy of morals, where, as you know,

Nietzsche always has to be treated carefully, you know, and people say, I love Nietzsche, you know, which bits. What exactly do you love about him? But he had a lot, and a lot can be learned from the other side. But there are moments in the January of tomorrow that were very useful for this book. One of them was the moment when Nietzsche used a phrase that I've now stolen for myself, appropriate, you might say, where he refers to people

who tear at wounds long since closed and then cry about the pain they feel. Now, how do you know, how do you know whether the pain is real? How do you know? I'm not saying you can never know, but it's hard. So when somebody says, I feel that my life hasn't gone that well, and it's because of something that was done to my ancestors 200 years ago, maybe they do feel that. Maybe they're right to feel that. Maybe they're making it up. Maybe they're using it as their reason for failure in life.

Maybe they're using it as their reason to not even try. Maybe they're using it as their reason to smoke weed all day. I don't know. And who does know? How can you work that out? And that's why I come back to this thing of who are we to constantly judge in this society, other people who we don't know, and attribute motives to them based on racial or other characteristics. And as you write in this part, I like your cultural appropriation of Nietzsche, and at the same time, cancelling Nietzsche in the same set of sentences, but you write in this part about evil. Now, I didn't cancel Nietzsche. Well, I can't cancel Nietzsche. I was saying, I was saying treat him carefully.

To him carefully, fair enough. But you can judge a man's character by which parts of Nietzsche he quotes. Mm-hmm. That's just fair enough, really. I think when you meet people to do man and Superman a bit too much, you're in. Now you're pulling in even deeper water referencing Hitler here.

Okay. So you write in this part of the book about evil. Quote, what is it that drives evil? Many things without doubt, but one of them is identified by several of the great philosophers is resentment. That sentiment is one of the greatest drivers for people who want to destroy. Colin blaming someone else for having something you believe you deserve more. And you're saying this kind of resentment, we don't know as its surfaces whether it's genuine or if it's used to sort of play games of power to evil ends. Can you speak to this to this this because this is a fascinating idea that one of the biggest drivers of evil in the world is resentment because if you look at boy if you look at boy, if you look at human history, if you look at Hitler, so much of the propaganda, so much of the narrative was about resentment. So is that surface, there's level or is that deep?

There is that comparison. It can be any of the above. First of all, everybody has resentment. I use the result tomorrow, which is sort very similar to resentment, let's stick with resentment. So we don't sound too pretentious. The, let me give you a quick example of somebody in our own day who has, who has a form of resentment of Vladimir Putin.

Did you see Navalny's documentary, Putin's Palace? Yes. You remember the stuff about Putin as a young KGB officer in Germany? Remember the stuff about Putin, his first wife's resentment of one of his KGB colleagues who had an apartment that was a few meters bigger than the Putin's apartment? Yeah, it's very interesting. And by the way, I'm not saying that, you know, Flamé and Putin became the man he has become and invaded Ukraine because he didn't have an apartment

he liked him, but in Berlin or Munich or whatever, what is the stink possibility? My point is that, my point is that, is that resentment is a factor in all human lives and we all feel it in our lives and it's something that has to be struggled against. Resentment is in political terms can be a deadly, I mean, it's an incredibly deep thing to draw upon. You mentioned Hitler. Obviously one of the things that Hitler played on was resentment, obviously. Almost every revolution it does. I one of the things that Hitler played on was resentment. Obviously, almost every revolution it does. I mean the French Revolutionaries did as well. And we're not without cause. It was a good reason to feel that Versailles was not listening to Paris in the 1780s and feel resentment for Mary Antoinette and her palace within the palace, ignoring the bread shortages in Paris.

So resentment is a very, it's a very understandable thing and sometimes it's justifiable and it's also deadly to the person as it is to the society. It's an incredibly deep sentiment. Somebody else has got something that you should have. And the problem about it is that it has the potential to be endless. You can do it your whole life. And one of the ways I've sort of found myself explaining this to people is to say,

it's also important to recognize that resentment is something that can cross absolutely every boundary. So, for instance, it crosses all racial boundaries, obviously, and how it goes out saying. More interesting is it crosses all class boundaries and socioeconomic boundaries. And if I were to sort of simplify this thought, I would say, I guess that you and I, and everybody watching, knows or has known somebody in their lives who has almost nothing in worldly terms. And is a generous person, a kindly person, a giving person, a happy person, even a cheerful person.

And I think we'd probably have also, or many of us would have met people who seemed to have everything and who were filled with resentment, filled with resentment. Somebody else has held them back from something, their sister once did something, they shouldn't, she got this and I should have got that.

And on and on and on, it's a human trait. And one of the things that suggests to me is that we therefore have a choice in our lives about this. This is something which we can do something about, not limitlessly. But for instance, I mean, there are very good reasons that some people in their lives might feel resentment. Let's say you're involved in a car crash and a friend fell asleep at the wheel and that's why you are spending your rest of your life in a wheelchair. That's a pertinent example of this in American politics at the moment.

You would be justified in feeling resentment. And at some point you have to make a decision, which is, am I going to be that person or a different person? But even in that case, you're saying at the individual level and that societal level is destructive to the mind, even when you're quote unquote justified, it rots you. It rots you because the best you can do is to eke out your days unfulfilled. So the antidote as you describe is gratitude. Yes. Gratitude is the antidote to evil in a sense. So gratitude is the individual level and the societal level. Gratitude is certainly the answer to resentment. I quote in the one west this this but when I read it

the first time a few years ago I was absolutely floored by the brothers Karamazov not everything in it, but when I went into it, but I have some very big structural criticisms of the novel. Now you're just sweet talking to me because I'm a Dostoevsky fan, but I appreciate this. Oh, okay. Well, we could get into what I see as big as structural flaws in the brothers' kind of others. Anyway, now I'm offended and triggered. Yeah, no, I mean, this is, coming out of my mouth and saying, I didn't think it was much good. Yeah, there's structural flaws. Yeah, I know the ending stank in the middle wasn't very good. No. there's structure of loss. Yeah, I thought they had the ending stank. Yeah, middle wasn't very good. No. When I read that novel, I was floored by a couple of things. One is

of course, of the moment where we rise the devil appears. The moment that Evan says to his brother, you know he visits me and he realized that he's talking about the devil, the whole marvel, goes into this totally different space. He's even more than you've already realized the novel's about. And then when the conversation occurs between a van and the devil, remember, I think he says it describes him as dressed as a French, a French, a French, in the French style of the early part of the 90th century, very strange, the devil would be dressed like that, but sort of... And if you remember that he's sort of crossed the leg and rather a vain figure, but the

devil mentions imparsing to Evan that he says, I don't know why gratitude is not an instinct that's being given to me. And yeah, you're not allowed. This is not given the role of being the devil. This is not one of the things. Just not one of the things. And you think, and of course, only a genius of Dostoevsky's stature could, I mean, a lesser genius would have made a whole novel out of that insight, only Dostoevsky can just throw it away, because there's such an abundance of riches that he still has to get through the structural problems aside. But the, the, the, the, the passive aggressive, the microaggression in this conversation, as palpable.

A little knife fight. No, but the reason I mentioned is because of course when I saw this, I thought this is such a brilliant insight by Dr. Stewsky because why would, why would gratitude not be a sentiment that the devil was capable of? The answer is of course that if the devil was capable of gratitude, he wouldn't be the devil. He'd be somebody else. He has to be incapable of gratitude. Do you think for Dostoevsky, that was as strong of an insight as it is for you?

Because I think that's a really powerful idea that with gratitude, you don't get the resentment that rots you from the core. Yes, I think it was one of the just endless things that he saw in us. And the way I put it is that, I mean, I also think of it in terms of the era of deconstruction, which is one of the things I'd like us to call the era that's now ending. The era of deconstruction was the era that started, let's say, from the 60s onwards, and was originally an academic game that then spilled out into the wider culture, which was, let's take everything apart, let's pull it all apart. There are lots of problems with it. One is it's quite boring.

You don't get an awful problems with it. One is it's quite boring. You don't get an awful lot from it. You also have the problem of what Hildren find when they try to do this with bicycles, which is they can take it apart quite easily, but they can't put it back together. And the era of taking things apart as a game is one we've lived through and it's been highly destructive. But you can do it for quite a long time. I'm going to look at this society and I'm going to take it apart by showing systemic problems. I'm going to, at the end of that, what have you got? What have you done? What have you achieved?

We need to interrogate this. At the end of that, what have you got? What have you done? What have you achieved? We need to interrogate this. Okay, interrogate, by all means, ask questions, but interrogate as a deliberate hostility to this. I'm going to interrogate this thing and take it apart, and again, at the end of it, what have you got? Whether you're interrogating a text

or a piece of music, or an idea, or a a society, fine question, endlessly question, yes, interrogate, assumes it's all criminal in a cell and it's guilty and therefore it must be taken apart. And that's what we've been doing for decades in the West. And that's resentment, that's one byproduct of resentment. You can't build the thing, but you know how to take it apart. It's a little bit of resentment. Good. So you have, you know, that I love Tom Waits, and he has a song where a little drop of poison, I like my Tom with a little drop of poison. It's a good to have a little bit of poison in your drink. Depends what the poison is, and it depends if you know not to have

another drink. Well, it might be the case you find out as some alcoholics do that one was too many and ten is not enough. So there's a natural, in this case, this kind of deconstruction as a slippery slope, it becomes an addiction, it becomes a drug and you just can't stop. Well, you'd have to wean yourself off it and try to start creating again. You'd have to start trying to put things together again.

Something I think might be in the throes of starting is it happens. Well, speaking of taking things apart and not putting them together again, the idea of critical race theory, can you, to me, explain, so I'm an engineer and have not been actually paying attention much, unfortunately, to these things? Not if the people in your field were until it comes along as a smexier in the face. I've had that line of thinking, you know, from MIT, I said, well, surely whatever you folks are busy about yelling at each other for is a thing at Harvard and Yale.

It's not going to be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course. People in the STEM subjects thought it's not coming for us. It can't come to us. Bang. Well, it hasn't quite been bang. Engineering is more safe than others.

So let's draw on life now between engineering and science. So I think engineering is I'm sitting in a castle of the tallest tower with my pinky out drinking my martini saying, surely, the peasants below with their biology and their humanities, we'll figure it all out. No, I'm just kidding. There's no there's no pinky out a drink vodka and And I hang with the peasants. Okay, where's this metaphor gone too far?

Can you explain to this engineer what critical race theory is is it a Term that's definable is there tradition? Is there history? What is good about it, what is bad about it. It is a tradition. It is a history. It's a school of thought. It started in the law, roughly in the 1970s and some of the American Academy. It's spilled out. It always aimed to be an activist philosophy. People deny that now, but as I cite them in the on the West, the foundational texts say as much, this is an activist academic study. We're not just looking at the law, we seek to change the law. And it's built out into all of the other disciplines. I think there's a reason for that, by the way, which has

it happened at the time that the humanities and others in America were increasingly weak and didn't know what to do and they needed more games to play or new games to play. The secagogy's got bored. Yeah, I mean, well, they needed to tenure and they needed something to do. And I mean, it's not an original observation. Plenty of people have made this, but I mean, Neil Ferguson said to some time ago, for instance, that in the last 50 years in American academia, certainly in humanities departments, when somebody dies out, who's a great scholar and something, that's just not replaced by somebody of equal stature. They're replaced by somebody who does theory

or critical race theory. They're replaced by somebody who does the modern games. Somebody dies out, who's a great historian of say, I don't know, it's one of my mind, Russian history or Russian literature, and they're not replaced by a similar scholar. In his observation, in yours, is this a recent development? It's happened the last few decades for sure, and it's sped up. Is it because we've gotten to the bottom of some of the biggest questions of history? No, it's because we're willing to forget the big questions.

Because it's more fun to big questions are. What? No, partly, partly, no, it's just stress that partly isn't, this is in the way, but partly is a result of hyper specialization in academia. You know, if you if you said you'd like to write your dissertation on Hobbes, yeah, if you wanted to say something central to Kans thought or or hegel or something, I mean, that's not popular. That what's popular is to take somebody way down the line from that because there's a feeling that that's all been done. So you take something way, way, way down the line from that

that's much less important and then you sort of play with that. And I think most people, anyone who's watching who's been in a philosophy department or any other reason, you guys will know that tendency. By the way, there's a very practical consequence of this. I saw this the under my friend Roger Scruton's life when he he would occasionally he didn't get tenure at universities, but he would occasionally be flown in even by his enemies to teach courses in various universities in basics of philosophy, because there was no one in the department able to do it. Like he would go in and teach for a semester,

you know, Hagle and Kant and Chopenhauer and others because there was no one to do it because they were all playing with the things way, way, way down the road from this. So that had already happened and people were searching for new games to play. And the critical race theory stuff forced its way in, partly in the way that all of this that's now known as anti-racism does, which is in a sort of

bullying tone, of saying if you don't follow this, it's the same way that all the things that are called studies, I think everything called studies in the humanities should be shut down. Because of the activist, they're all activists, gay studies and queer studies. Nothing good has ever come from it. Nothing good. To push back, is it obvious that activism is a sign of a flaw in a discipline? So, is it the sign of the death of the discipline? Is the sign that the discipline is over?

But isn't it a good goal to have for a discipline to enact change, positive change in the world? Or is that for politicians to do with the findings of science? I mean, not to create an ideology and then set out to find disciplines that have weakly put together to try to back up your political ideology. So ideology should not be part of science or of? No, I mean, why would you? I mean, anyone could do it. You could decide to go in and be wildly right wing about something and only do things that prove your right wing ideas. Be fantastic the anti-academic, fantastic the anti-science, fantastic. It's an absurd way to mix up activism and academia.

And it's absolutely right. And critical race theory is one of the ones that completely polluted the academy. Yeah, and there's been dark moments throughout history, both for doing World War II with both communism and Nazism, fascism that infiltrated science. And then, like, corrupted it. Yes. and Naziism, fascism, that infiltrated science, and that, like, corrupted it. Yes.

I mean, for instance, also, let's face it, that in science, as in everything else, there are dark, difficult things. It's much better we know about them, face up to them and try to find a way socially to deal with them, than that you leave them in the hands of some activist who wants to do stuff with them. Some of my best friends are activists. I'm just kidding. Okay. None of my best friends

are activists. That's how it should be. Well, I was kidding because I don't have any friends. But okay. Now I'm trying to get some pity points. Okay, so to return. You have your clubhouse friend. Screaming away like the rain maniacs. Now I'm anti clubhouse by the way, because at the only time I heard it was that Brett Weinstein one when he did that. I didn't know if you heard that,

but I heard it early in clubhouse. I was invited clubhouse by various people. He was like, oh, this is a really great civilization I was waiting to hang out and talk with interesting people. I downloaded the app and I got on one night and because Brett Weinstein said, I'm doing this conversation and I listened and it was a maddest damn discussion I've ever heard. Was there something about biology? Something about... Was it some...

Some COVID times or that... At some point Brett said, I'm an evolution I'm an evolutionary biologist and somebody else that is saying, you're a eugenicist and he said, no, I'm an evolutionist, I'm just saying, that's the same thing. And it just went on like that and Brett desperately tried to explain that's not the same thing as being a eugenicist and he lost the clubhouse room. They thought that was the same thing. He'd come. It horribly reminded me of a time some years ago in a British newspaper, Rann sort of realizing that the only thing you can unite people on in sexual ethics

is revulsion against pedophilia, Rann and anti-Pedo campaign. And shortly after pediatrician's offices were torched in North of England by a mob who hadn't read the whole sign. Yeah, well to me, like I said, a little bit of poison is good for the town. Anyhow, sorry, I interrupted you with flattering you with our people on clubhouse. I have many, I have of multiples of friends. Yes. We didn't get to some of the ideas of critical race theory. What exactly is it? I'm actually in part asking this question quite genuinely.

Yeah. It's an attempt to look at everything among other things through the lens of race and to add race into things where it may not be as a way of adding, I'm trying to give the most generous estimation, to add race in as a conversation in a place where it may not have been in the conversation. And that means history too? Oh, short racism. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All history. And to look at that through these particular lenses.

I mean, there's a certain, like all these things, there's a certain logic in it, like with feminist studies or something. I mean, is there a utility in looking back through a undoubtedly male dominated histories and asking whether the more silent female voice was, yes, very interesting, not endlessly interesting and can't be put exactly on the same par as, but it has a utility. It's that endlessly so to interrupt that endlessly part that seems to get us into trouble like it. out there endlessly part, they seem to get us into trouble. Yes, absolutely. Well, because of this thing of where do you stop?

And that's always, I looked at it, taught by this in my last book in the Manus of Crowd, it's one of the big conundrums in activist movements, and particularly in activist academia. Where would you stop? It's not clear because you've got a job in it. You've got a job in it. You've got a pension in it. You've got Your only esteem in society is in keeping this gig going What I mean is there any likelihood have you ever there's the old academic joke? Isn't it that you know the end of every conference the only thing everyone agrees on is that we must have another conference like this one. So one thing they always agree on. This conference

is so great when we must have another one. Well, that's the criticism you could apply to a lot of disciplines. Of course civil engineering, bridge building, at a certain point, do we need any more bridges? Can we just fly everywhere? Well, so at the very least, you need to keep the bridges up. Sure. And they would, uh, critical race theory folks would probably make the same argument. At the very least, we need to keep the racism out. Uh, make sure we don't descend into the, uh, the racism. It assumes all the time that we are living on the cusp of the return of the KKK, right?

Which is totally wrong. It's a massive, you say that now, until the KKK Army is marching. We can't always predict the future. We can't always predict the future and you can always say you should be careful, but you've also got to be careful of people who've got their timing like totally, totally wrong or the estimation of society they're in. You mean like most of society before in the 1930s when Hitler was, I mean so many people got Hitler wrong. Sure they did. And so most people, maybe it was nice to have the alarmist thinking there, well, the wear of the man with the mustache.

If only it was that easy. That always above facial hair. I mean, I always say that I mean, what a very often is to clean, shave and chaps, both say one of the problems everybody knowing a little bit about not. Is that they think that they know where evil comes from and that it comes from like a German with a small moustache, getting people to go step, for instance, and that's not correct. A much better understanding of it is it can come from all number of directions and keep your antennae as good as you can.

But once you end up in this society, which I would argue certainly parts of America, where you're always in 1938, that's not healthy for a society either, where people are so primed and think they're so well-trained because they spent a term in school learning about the Second World War and the Holocaust. I think they're so well-trained and Hitler spotting that they can do it all the time. Look at all these phrases we now have in our societies like dog whistle. You know, as I always say, if you hear the whistle, you're the dog, but people say, that's a dog whistle, as if they're highly trained anti-nazis. I mean, you know, there should be some humility, we should be careful, we should be wary for sure. And we should also be slightly humble in our inability to to to spot everything. If not significantly humble. Right. So if we can, there's something

funny, if not dark, about the activity of Hitler spotting, if I just may take it aside. But spotting, if I just may take it aside. But so critical race theory, how much racism, what is racism, how much of it is in our world today? If we were thinking about this activity of Hitler spotting, how and trying to steal man the case of if not critical race theory, but people who look for racism in our world. How much would you say? Well, it's a good thing to try to define how to say that racism is the belief that other people are inferior to you. You could say, you could see a form that where you thought people were soup area to you. It could also happen, but more commonly is, you see a group of people as being inferior to you simply by the end of the fact that they have a different racial background. And that's sort of the easiest way to define racism.

As I say, I mean, there are types of racism. I mean, mainly anti-Semitismemitism, perhaps it's the only one, which weirdly lies on a hatred of people who a certain type of person thinks are better than them. And that's a particular peculiarity, one of the peculiarities of antisemitism. Well, antisemitism somehow does both. Yes, one of the eternal, fascinating things about antisemitism is it can do. peculiarities of anti-Semitism. Well, anti-Semitism somehow does both, right? Yes. One of the eternal, fascinating things about anti-Semitism is it can do.

It does everything at the same time. Like quantum racism. Yes. It's both superior and inferior. You know that, you know, vastly gross from life and fate. So in the middle of life and fate, which a Persian friend of mine said was one of

only two great novels of the 20th century, which was very harsh, literally, could take. What was the other one? Oh, the leopard, obviously. The leopard? The leopard, as you said, could lampodusa. Yeah. Okay. I'm definitely right on that one. Life and fate is a is a is an extraordinary book. Mainly about, we know Grossman was a, obviously, George himself, he saw almost everything, whether he could have done it in the second, but he always saw Stalin grad, who was a journalist, and he wrote first-hand accounts of Stalin grad. He was also the first journalist into Treblinka and his account was you can read him on the collections of his journalism,

his account of walking into Treblinka, his just one of the devastating haunting pieces of journalism or prose you can read. Anyhow, I mention him because Gerasmann at the middle of Life of Fate, which is about 900 pages novel, in the middle of it, which is about the dark axis around Starlingrad. He way at one point, he amazing me, he sort of goes into the minds of earth Hitler and Stalin. He says he says Stalin in his study feels his counterpart, but then he says he feels very close to him at this moment. Wow. Around Stalingrad, like leading up to the back.

After Stalingrad. When the Germans lost, he says he feels closeness of Hitler. But Grossman, in the middle of life and faith, swatman at the worst hours of the 20th century, suddenly dedicates a chapter to anti-Semitism. And I've seen anti-Semitism something I've always been very interested in, because I've always had the instinctive utter revulsion of it. And ultimately because I've only seen bits of it in the Middle Eastern elsewhere, but I mention this because the growth in the middle of life has it takes time out and does it's like

three page explanation, three page description of antisemitism. And it's extraordinary. I mean, it's the only thing I can think of that's equally good is Gregor von Redsori, who wrote a lyridly titled, but brilliant, Saturn of Alice called Confessions of an Anti-Semite, and about pre-First World War Anti-Semitism in Eastern and Central Europe. Anyway, Grossman says in the middle of life and fate, that one of the extraordinary things about anti-Semitism is that it does everything at the same time. That Jews get condemned in one place for being rich and in another for being poor. Condemned in one place for assimilating in another for not assimilating, for assimilating too much and assimilating too little for being too successful for not being successful enough.

So I think it's the only racism that includes within it a detestation for the real anti-Semite, a detestation of people that the person may perceive to be better than themly or otherwise. By the way, I'm embarrassed to say I have not read this one of two greatest novels of the 20th century life in faith, the Gs. Seedba, and just to read off of Wikipedia, I see a Grossman, a Ukrainian Jew became a correspondent for the Soviet military paper, Krasnoyev, Vizda, having volunteered and been rejected for military service, he spent a thousand days in the front lines. Roughly three of the four years of the conflict between the Germans and the Soviets and the main themes covered in the hazlical life and fate, I keep thinking, Jeanne-Soudeba, is

a theme on Jewish identity in the Holocaust, Grossman's idea of humanity in the human goodness, Stalin's distortion of reality and values and Science like goes on in reality of war. It's interesting. I need to definitely do it It's you'll I think you'll really get a lot from it. It's one the other thing so on Revenant But one of the other things he does is he he has this extraordinary ability to talk about the the Absolute highest levels of the conflict and then zoom in is rather like the camera work they use and things like Lord of the Rings where he zooms down and then gets one person in the midst of all this and you get you get on that. I'll put you in the study too. So I

personally have read and reread the William Shire's The Rise and Father Therick who's another journalist who was there but But he does not do it. Interesting enough, given such a large novel, kind of the definitive work on the definitive original work that goes to source materials on Hitler, he doesn't touch anti-Semitism really. Big thing to miss out. Well, he just says it very calming and objective is he does for most the work that this was the fact of life. There's a lot of cruelty throughout, but he doesn't get to. Well, one of the things is of course, he lost the war because of anti-Semitism. I mean, that's one kind of important way to view it. And

to rob us and other historians say, is that, you know, in the end, the Nazis lost the I mean, that's one important way to view it. And Robb is another historian. So, in the end, the Nazis lost the war because there were Nazis. It sounds almost too neat, but it's worth remembering that, you know, at the end of the war, when the Germans need to be transporting troops, and they need to be transporting very basic supplies, I can make sure he gets the trains to transport the Jews right up to the end. Well, that's certainly a dark possibility. You know, but to go back to racism in general, racism in general, apart from anti-Semitism,

relies on the perception that another group of people, a racial group, other than your own, are inferior to you. That's what I'd say is that he's easiest short-hand of racism. And of course, it's one of the stupidest things that our species is capable of. I mean, one of the stupidest that you can look at a person and guess them in their entirety, in fact, because of their skin color. I mean, it's like, what a stupid idea that is, as well as being an evil one. But the, I would say that one of the, I think it's a dangerous thing in our era that there are bits of it coming back. That's why I say we do need sort of We need our antennae working. We just don't need them to be overactive or underactive, you know

Now the book is war on the West but speaking of racism racism towards Different groups based on the skin color. You've said that there's a war on white people in the class. Would you say that's the case? Would you say that there are significant races and towards white people in the United States? I'd say that the white people in the United States are the only people who are told that they have hereditary sin.

And that's a big one just to start with. Based strictly on the skin color. I mean, I would find it so repugnant if, and I hope everybody would join me in feeling this, I would feel it's so repugnant if there were any school of thought in America today that had any grass on the public attention that said that black people were born into evil because of something their ancestors have done, like they had the mark of cane upon them. I mean, I think it would be such a vicious way to try to demoralize a group of people and to tell them that the things they would be able to achieve in their lives are much lessened because they should spend

significant portions of their lives trying to turn for something they didn't do. Is there a difference? And and and and the funny point the obvious point left unsaid but let's say it nobody in the public square says that, I mean, they're the maniacs of the far fringes, but nobody in the mainstream would dare to say that, or I think even think that about any group of people, other than white people. And does this mean that white people are more disadvantaged than black people know? And again, let's not

make this a competition. But let's not get into, I just desperately urge people not to get into the idea of her edictory sin according to racial background. Is there something to be said about the feature aspect that sort of played devil's advocate about the asymmetry of sort of accusations towards the majority. So because why much easier to attack a majority? It is much easier. But is there something to be said about that being a useful function of society that you always attack?

That the minority has this proportion of power to attack the majority so that you can always keep the majority in check. Well It's a dangerous game to play, isn't it? I think it's a very dangerous game. That's a good summary of entire day of humans of us. Oh, yeah, everything's dangerous But it's a very dangerous game to play that. I wrote about this bit in the madness of crowds when I was saying like Gay rights people the ones rights people, the ones that still exist, the ones who don't have homes to go to, who want to beat up on straight people in a way, or want to make straight people feel like they're unremarkable, uncool,

boring straights, so boring. So not like the magical pixie fairy dust gaze. That's a bad idea to push that one. That's a bad idea and some gaze pushed that. Highly unwise, given the fact that about two to three percent of population actually gay, although now there's like an additional 20% who think they're like too spirit or something and all that bullshit, but they're just... ...attention seekers, so let's not spend too much time on that. But equally, as I've said, I said in the Man of the Crowd with the Feminist Movement,

very unwise for half of the species to say that the other half of the species isn't needed. And there were always third and fourth wave feminists willing to make that nuts argument. Not first wave feminists, you didn't hear it in first wave feminists, you didn't hear it. Suffrage yet tended not to say, we like the vote and men scum. It would be hard to have won everyone over their side, not least the men they needed to win over their side. But you do get third and fourth-wave feminists who say, do we need rich or rainham somebody from Harvard describes that men are the originators of violence physical violence in society and he argues that actually the world would be better off. Now just a very cold calculus if you get rid of men there would be a lot less violence in society is his claim. But who says you need to get rid of men, there would be a lot less violence in society is his claim.

But who says you need to get rid of violence in society? Well, that's, but it shouldn't at least be a discussion. Right, but have a discussion. Have a debate on a panel discussion, violence, pros and cons. Well, that's the sort of thing, as I can say, so the Sunday, we cast academic decides to do because he thinks that his area of Boston would be nicer, whatever. Um, he might decide it's useful if he was living in Kiev today to have violent

men. I mean, it might, if, um, if New York was invaded right now, I'd need some violent men around here. But it wouldn't be invaded if there's no violent men. Well, there's the art goes to argument. There's also at least there's some level of threat that you ought to exude that puts people off. If I was in, you know, I'm very glad that the men and women of Ukraine are capable of, and more than capable of fighting for their country and for their neighbours and their families and much more, but it's

better that there was violence ready to unleash when violence was unleashed upon them than that the whole society had been told that they should identify as non-binary. But at least it's a conversation to have, isn't there, is there aspect to the sort of feminist movement that is correct in challenging the... Some forms of violence, domestic violence, for instance, although women are capable of that as well. I'm learning about this. We're all learning about this in the moment.

I can't help but watch the entirety of it go down in this beautiful mess that is human relations. Okay. But it's just finished. I thought it's it's very unwise for women to war against men as it would be for men to war against women. It's highly, highly unwise to war on a majority population, and in America, Britain and other Western countries, white people are still a majority, and so why would you tell the majority that they're evil by the skin colour?

And think that that would be a good way to keep them in check. I mean, I'm not guilty of anything because of my skin colour. I'm not guilty of anything because my skin color. I'm not guilty of anything. My ancestors didn't do anything wrong. And even if they had, why would I be held responsible for it? So to go back to Nietzsche, is there some aspect to where, if we try to explain the forces of play here, is it the will to power playing itself out from individual human nature and from group behavior nature? Is there some elements to this which is the game we play as human beings is Always one way of less power. We try to find ways to gain more power

That's certainly one the desire to to grab is Let me see if I find a quote for you on that, the desire to grab that which we think we're owed and to do it often in the guise of justice. I mean, justice is one of the great terms of our age and one of the very great bogus terms of our age. People forever talk about their search for justice and it's amazing how violent they can often be in their search for justice and how many rules they're willing to break so long as they can say that they're after justice and how many norms they can trample so long as they can say it's in the name of justice. You can burn down building the name of justice. Well, the majority groups throughout history,

including those with white's, King Colour have done the same in the name of justice. We deal up with all kinds of sexy terms in our propaganda machines to sell whatever atrocities we'd like to commit. One of the quotes of Nietzsche that I liked, and I quoted in this. Careful I'm judging you harshly.

Yeah, of course. Nietzsche says that one of the dangers of men of resentment is they'll achieve their ultimate form of revenge, which is to turn happy people into unhappy people like themselves, to shove their misery in the faces of the happy, so that in due course the happy, and this is quoting Nietzsche, start to be ashamed of their happiness and perhaps say to one another

it's a disgrace to be happy. There is too much misery. This is something to be averted for the sick says Nietzsche must not make the healthy sick too or make the healthy confuse themselves with the sick. Well I think there again there's a lot of that going on. How could I be happy when there is unhappiness in the world? Why should I not join the ranks of the unhappie? I think Dusty Eski has a book about that as well. Sure, knows from underground. Okay. This has been very Russian, Russian focus. I'm very pleased with another time, times, but the Austrian Grossman and others have come in.

This is very... I wasn't like doing this as a sort of... Yeah, well, it's always good to plug the grades and good to know they're still relevant. Do you speak Russian, by the way, at all? Which I did. I'm told it's a 10- year language basically to learn from scratch. Yeah. My friends who have done it. Well, there's the language and then there's the personality behind the language and the personality. I feel like you already have. So you just need

to know the surface details. Okay. In fact, the silence to be silent in the Russian language is something that's already important. Oh, I should, if we had a moment I'd tell you, I saw about Stalin's birthplace. I told you that? No. I once went to Gory where Stalin was born. Have you been? No.

I was there just after the Georgia War. I went to the, no matter as land in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. And I said, I really got to go to Gory also here because the shell had landed in Gory rather weirdly from the Russian side, and Gory is where the Stalin was born. And of course Gory is in Georgia. And anyhow, the museum of Stalin's birthplace, they've been trying to change for some years because it's been unadulteratedly pro-Styling for years.

And the George and the authorities, this is in Chicago's village time, were trying to make it into a museum of Stalinism. And it was really tough. The only place I've seen, which is similar as the house in Mexico City where Trotsky was killed. That also is that they're not quite sure to do. They don't want to say he's a bad guy because they think that people won't come any out. The Stalinist House in Gory had changed from the museum of Stalin to the museum of Stalinism. There was

this large Georgian woman with a pink pencil who had clearly been doing the talk for like 50 years and he just pointed all the facts. She did that classic thing. I've also sort of wanted to in North Korea, where they sort of, that sort of communist thing, where they say, here is, this is 147 feet high by 13 feet deep. It'll give you lots of facts. I don't care. What does it matter? It'll give you facts. This is starting to suit case. It is 13 inches wide by, you know, isn't it? Anyhow, and this one we did all of this and it was all just wildly pro, not pro-science, just explain the science of it. It was just all in great local boy done good.

They didn't mention the fact he killed more Georgians per gap than anyone else. What a good one. And we get to the end. And before being taken to the gift shop where they sell red wine with Stalin's face on it and among other things. And a lighter for Stalin on it. They took you to a little room under the stairs and they said this is replica of interrogation sale to show represent horror of what happened in Stalin time. Now a gift job. As I said, there's no... No, I'm not going to say that.

I took the woman aside. Yeah, and I said, she said this to other journalists, and I said, I took her aside and said, I said, what do you think about Comrade Stalin? And she said,

I was going to say, she'd obviously done this during Comrade's time. So, she said, it's say she'd obviously done this during comedy's times. She said it's not my place to judge, sort of thing. We had an interesting comment in itself. I said, yeah, but he killed more Georgians than anyone. And all that sort of thing. And she said, it's not my place to judge, you want to give my views and the sort of thing.

And eventually I said, but what do you think about it? And she said, it was like a hurricane. It happened. That's interesting because if I may mention clubhouse once again, I got in a chance to talk to a few people from Angolia. There's a woman from Angolia,

and they talked about the fact that they deeply admire Stalin. The love, she sounded, if I may, hopefully that's not cross in line, I think I'm representing her correctly, in saying she admired him almost like, loved him, the way people love, like Jesus, like a holy figure.

Well, isn't that still silvocation lies plus a Russian? Yeah, I mean, he keeps on, isn't that still silvicating lies plus a brush? Yeah. I mean, keeps on, starting keeps on winning greatest Russian of all time. And, and that's perhaps maybe there's a dip, but if we were to think about the long arc of history, perhaps that's going to go up and up and up and up as,

there's something about human memory that just you forget the details of the atrocities of the past, and remember the, I mean, think of the number of people we talk about as historical hero Napoleon, I mean British people don't talk about Napoleon as a hero, but the French Now you're you didn't think that does the Yosuke now again to tricky ground but no, but like the the French are Normandy my Napoleon and there hadn't been any moral aspects to you.

It was also unbelievable brute, and killed many people unnecessarily. And there are lots of figures from history that we sort of cover that over with. Yeah, yeah. Can we mention Churchill briefly? Sure. Because he is one of the,

you could make a case for him being one of the great representatives or great figures historically of the Western civilization Yes, and then there's a lot of people From not a lot. I know I have like three friends and one of one of them happens to be from London and they they say that he is a Not a good person. Why? So listen, this friend, I just, this is an opinion poll of the three friends, but I do know that there's quite a, you know. There's a backlash going on at the moment.

At the moment, in general, there's a spirit like reflecting on the darker sides of some of these historical figures like challenging history through. It's not just critical race theory. It's challenging history through. Well, the people we think of as heroes, what are their flaws and are they in fact villains that are convenient sort of were there at the right time to accidentally do the right thing. Accidentally. Well, I hope this isn't the representative fair estimation of your friend in London's views. No, she's going to be quite mad at this, but I didn't say the name, so it could be any

friend. But we know it's a she Canada. Well, see, I, I, I, I've given that away. Well, that's with, of course, I would not, I made that up completely. It's, it's all just like my girlfriend in Canada, she's completely a figment of my imagination. Nevertheless, Winston Churchill is somebody, I mean, just looking at reading the Ryzenfall that the Reich is an incredible figure that, that to me, so much a World War II is marked leading up to the wars marked by stunning amounts of cowardice by political leaders and

It's fascinating to watch here This person clearly with the drinking and a smoking problem was it was I didn't understand why that's the negative No, I didn't say you see yeah, you thought you'd throw it in as if it is No, well, it's it's called humor. I'll explain it to you one day with that means, but he still explain dry him. He stood up. He stood up to what we now see as evil when at the time, it was not so obvious to see. So that's just a fascinating figure of Western civilization. I'd love to get your comments. The real criticisms, I mean, of making it drinking. The real criticisms of Churchill were quite easy to sum up. And I do so in the war on the West.

I say, these are the things that they now use against him. I didn't do enough to revert the Butbankle family in 1943, for instance, that's been shot down by numerous historians, including Indian historians, in the middle of the war. In the middle of a world, the war'll see what he could to get grain supplies diverted from Australia to Bengal. The famine was appalling, it was caused by a typhoon, it was not caused by Winston Churchill, and the idea that some, basically Indian nationalists historians have pumped out in recent years, and just anti-Churchill figures, that he actually wanted Indians to die as a total calumny.

And when people claim, some people claim that, I mean, there are a few very ignorant scholars who now, the less with some credentials, who claim that Churchill wanted the Indian population to, basically be genocide. And it's complete nonsense, not least, but the fact that during the period which, in question, Indian population boomed. So that's one of the main ones. Another one is that he had some views that we now had regard as racist. He definitely regarded racists as being of different characters and that there were superior racists and the, as it were, the white European was a superior culture. He was born in Victorian England, so he has a Victorian attitude.

These are things in the negative side of the ledger, and as with all history, you should have a negative and a positive side of the ledger. Positive side of the ledger includes he almost certainly didn't more than anyone human being to save the world from Nazism. So that should count as something. And one of the reasons I talk about Churchill and this regard is this is to stress that if you get, I'm not trying to stop anyone doing history at all. I don't think that the revisionism of recent years about Churchill or the founding fathers of America or anywhere else is anything I want to stop. I find it interesting, I find it interesting not least because it's so sloppy on occasions, but I find it interesting and it's important. And we should be able to see people in the round.

But that includes recognizing the positive side of the ledger. And if you can't recognize that side, you're doing something else. You're doing something else. It's not history. It's some form of politicking of a very particular kind. And I think it's the same thing with the founding fathers. There are some people, for instance, certainly since the 90s who have pushed

the Sally Hemings Thomas Jefferson story to show that Thomas Jefferson was some kind of brute. As a result, we see Jefferson's statue being removed from the council chamber and the city was sitting in last November by council members who said that Thomas Jefferson no longer represents our values. If you can't recognize greatness of Thomas Jefferson and that he had flaws, I mean, that's not a grown-up debate. And weigh them and weigh them in the context of the time, but let me sort of throw a curveball at you then. What about recognizing the positive and the negative of a fellow with nice facial hair called Karl Marx?

Sure. Sure. I mean, I Have a section in the one the West as you know where I go for Karl Marx with some glue. So he seems to have gotten some popularity in the West recently. Not just recently. Yeah, I mean, he's had a resurgence recently. Yes, resurgence recently. Well, that's because whenever things are seen to go wrong, people reach for other options. And when, for instance, it's very hard for people to accumulate capital, it's not obvious they're going to become capitalists. And so one thing that happens is people say, let's look at the Marxism thing again, see if that's a viable goer. And my argument would simply be point me to one place

that's worked. Well, the argument from the Marxist or the Marxian economists is that we've only really tried it once. The Soviets tried it. And then if there's a few people that kind of tried the Soviet thing. You bet, tried it. Well, they basically, it's an offshoot of the Soviet. They tried Soviet. Yes, they've tried it. They tried it in Venezuela.

Yes, yes, yes. So, let's just quickly say, how did all these experiments go? They did not, while they failed in fascinating ways. They did, but they failed. Yes, they failed. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that they threw millions and millions of people into completely 40 lives that were much shorter than they should have been. Yeah, so the lesson to learn there, you can learn several lessons. One is that anything that smells like Marxism is going to lead to a lot of problems.

Now another lesson could be, well, what is the fundamental idea that Marx had? He was criticizing capitalism and the flaws of capitalism. So is it possible to do better than capitalism? And that's, if you take that spirit, you start to wonder. That might actually become relevant in, I don't know, 20, 30, 50 years, when the, the, the, the machines start doing more and more of the labor, all those kinds of things, you start to ask questions. My finally might get to Marx's dream of what the average day would look like.

Yes. Well, it's going to be an awful lot of literary criticism then. If you remember, that's what Marx said that we would be doing in the evening. It's the labor in the evening. Well, he didn't know Twitter was a thing or Netflix, so he would change. Are there things we could learn from Mark's plausibly, possibly? I can't think of anything myself, I've had.

But to have a critique of capitalism isn't by any means a bad thing in the society. I'd rather that it was a critique of capitalism that showed how you improve capitalism. A critique of free market that showed how people could get better access to the free market, how you could ensure, for instance, that young people get onto the property ladder, things like that. Those are constructive things. So people who say, we must have Marxism, I mean, don't know what the hell they're talking about, because that never leads to any of those things. Haven't learned in the past. It's never led in the past. And at some point, you've got to try to work out how many attempts you make at this damn philosophy

before you realize that every attempt always leads to the same thing. I would say, we could pretend that fascism has never been properly tried and that it was unfortunate what happened in Nazi Germany. but you know, that wasn't real fascism. And in Mussolini's fascism, you know, didn't go all that well, but it was, you know, a bit better.

And maybe we could try a bit more Franco-fascism. Nobody would have any time for this crap. Nor should they. The people who try that are reviled and quite rightly. So why do we tolerate it with a Marxism thing? And it's a great mystery to me the way that people do tolerate it. Always, always in this stupid way of saying we haven't done it yet. And if you keep trying the same recipe and every time it comes out as shit, it's the recipes shit.

Well, sort of I'm trying to practice here by playing devil's advocate practice the same idea that you mentioned, which is when you say the word Marxism, should you throw out everything or should you ask a question, is there a good idea here? And the same, it's the good, it's weighing the good and the bad and be able to do so calmly and thoughtfully. Sure. You know, the famous George Orwell comment on the style, in an argument with a stylist. Do you know this? That's one of my favorite quotes.

George Orwell in the early 40s gets into an argument with a stylist. He's obviously a Marxist. And this is after the show, I was 37, this is when it's very clear what Marxism in the Russian form is. And this, all well, is in the discussion with this, this Marxist, and it goes on and on, and eventually, all well, it says, well, you know, what about the show trials and he does and what about what's happened in Ukraine and and and the famines and and much more and the purges and the purges and the purges and eventually the Stalinist says to all well what all knows he's going to say all along which is he says you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. And all well says where's the omelette.

eggs and all well says where's the omelette. Oh yeah so it's a good that's a really good because look at this by this stage okay how many where's my damn armlet where how many just messy big bloody eggy piles have the marks is created by now in country after country. Always next time they're going to produce the great omelette, but they never have and they never will because the whole thing is rotten from the start. But let me just also say one thing about, because Marx isn't as nice as he sounds. And that's one of the things that I try to highlight in the book is, if we're going to do this reductive thing of people in history in St. Louis, they had views were of their time, and we must therefore condemn them for them. So fine, let's do the same thing with

Marx. And there were things I quote in this book from Marxist letters, not least letters to angles. And indeed in his published writings, he was writing for the American press in the age of 50s. He has horrible views on slavery and colonialism and much more. But the main thing is, I mean, the horrible things he says about black people and the constant use of the N-word. In fact, when I was doing the audiobook for the War of the West, I had to decide, will I read out the quotes from Marx or not? use of the N word. In fact, when I was doing your audiobook for the one of us, I had to decide, will I read out the quotes from Marx or not? If I had to read them out, I'd have been canceled because people would have just said, you've been using the N word so much in this passage. And I slightly thought of doing it so that I could say I was only quoting Marx

to try to hit the point home. In the end, of course, I was sensible and decided not to, but Marx's letters are disgusting on these terms. Since I highlighted this in this book and some of the media picked it up and have popularized this thing, I'm trying to put into the system, which is if you're going to accuse church of racism, you're going to accuse Jefferson of racism, Washington of racism, and so on, what about Marx? The two things that Marxists have said since this came out has been, first of all, why are you saying this about Marx? He was a man of his time. Like everyone else.

And the second thing that says, we don't go to Marx for his horrible, abhorrent views on race. So talking about mixed race people, with gorillas, and so on. We don't go to him for that, we go to him for his economic theories. I say, okay, well, we don't go to Thomas Jefferson for his views on slaves. We don't go to Churchill for his, the precise language he used that points in the 1910s about Indians or his his health advice. Or his health advice.

I do get him for that. But that explains so much. But let's have some standards on this. And that's why I'm very suspicious of the fact that the people don't do this with Marx because I think what some people are trying to do, and this isn't this may sound conspiratorial but I really don't think it is, I think that some people are deliberately trying to completely clear the cultural landscape of our past. In order to say there's nothing good, nothing you can hold on to, no one you should revere, you've got no heroes, the whole thing comes down, who's left standing? Oh, we've also got this idea from the 20th century still about Marxism.

Well, the 19th and 20th centuries, and no, no, you will not have the entire landscape derasinated, and then the worst ideas tried again. So basically destroy all of history and the lessons learned from history and then start from scratch and then it's completely any idea can work and then you could just take whatever. Well, and the thing is there are always some people who have pre-preferred ideas. And I mentioned this also with the post-colonialists. The post-colonialists were really interesting.

Because when the European powers were moving from Africa and the Far East, post-colonial movements had one obvious move they could have done, which was to say, since the European powers of the left, we will return to a pretty colonial life, which in some of their places would have been returning to slave markets and slave ownership and slave selling a much more. But put that aside for a second. They could have said we have an indigenous culture which we will return to, almost uniformly in the post-colonial era. You had figures like France, Fannon, you had European intellectuals like Sartre who said, the Western powers are retreating from these

countries and therefore we should institute in these countries what but Western Marxism. Well it's not obvious to me that like the bad ideas will be the ones that emerge but it's more likely that the bad ideas would emerge in this that emerge, but it's more likely that the bad ideas would emerge in this kind of context when you erase history. When you erase history. When you erase history and you leave some ideas deliberately uninterrogated.

I mean, as I say, find me one in a hundred American students who've heard of any of the communist desks of the 20th century. I mean, name recognition in, there was a poll down a few years ago in the UK, and I name recognition among children, school children for Stalin, let alone Mao. I mean Mao who kills more people than anyone, 65 million Chinese, perhaps. How many students in America know what Mao was, who he was, where he was, nothing? Or the atrocities committed. Where the atrocities were committed. Or...

I worry about that because it means that we might have learned one of the two lessons of the 20th century. We think we've learned one of the two lessons of the 20th century, we actually haven't learned that lesson, we've learned a little bit of it and we've not learned the other one at all because that's why we still have people in American politics and elsewhere actually talking about collectivization and things. As if there's no problem and things, as if there's no problem with that, and as if it's perfectly obvious, and they could run it, and they'd

know exactly where to start. What are the two lessons of the 20th century? Fascism and communism. Yeah. I mean, I'm not exactly sure what the exactly the lessons are. No, it's not clear. The lessons were very clear that we'd be better at it. Well, one is your book broadly applied of the madness of crowds. That's one lesson.

How so? Meaning like large crowds can display heard-like behavior. Yes, be very suspicious of crowd. Yeah. In general, I mean, you apply it in different more to modern application in a sense, but that's rooted in history that crowds can, when humans get together, they can do some quite radically silly things. The lies connect, he's very good on that crowd's power. And Eric Hoffa, who is a sort of self-taught, amazing, not a sort of didactic writer, the true believer, and so on. He was extremely good on that. But the reason I mentioned the two thing, though, I mean, we should have realized that the

two nightmares of the 20th century fascism and communism, that we should know how they came about, and we're interested in learning how one of them came about fascism and we know some of the lessons like don't treat other people as less than you because of their race that's one lesson but when we've done some good at learning that but the second one not to do communism again not to do socialism I think we're way away from knowing, because we don't know how it happened, and the little temptations are still there always. Look at people saying, I'm gonna expropriate your property.

People do things they don't like. They will get to a can't wait to take your property. Well, there's a sense, there's an appealing sense. Okay, every ideology has an appealing narrative behind it that sells the ideology. So for socialism, for communism, that there's a, it seems unfair, that the working class does all of this work and gets only a fraction of the output. It just seems unfair. So you want to make it. If they do get a fraction of that, but yes.

Yes. And so it seems to be more fair if we increase that. If the workers own all of the value of their output and well, the things that are more fair seems to be a good thing. I'd say, well, yeah, I mean, fairness is, I like fairness as a job. No, I match it for fairness because it's a much easier thing to try to work out. It's quite amorphous itself of the concept, but everyone can recognize it. So for instance, should the boss of the company earn a million times that of the lowest paid employee doesn't seem fair? Should they earn maybe five or ten times

the salary of the low sub right? Yeah, possibly. That could be fair. There are certain sort of multiples which are within the bounds of, you know, reasonableness. I think actually that's the much bigger problem in capitalism at the moment, as I see it, is the not untrue perception that a tiny number of people get a lot of the, a crew a lot of the benefits and that the, that the, that the bit in the middle has become increasingly squeezed and is danger always of falling all the way down to the bottom. I mean, I think in the snakes and ladders of American capitalism, for instance, it's a correct perception to say that the snakes go down awfully far.

If you tread on the snake, you can plummet an awfully long way in America. And the deal in the game was that the ladders took you high. And there's a perception. And again, it's not entirely wrong. The ladders system on the board is kind of broken. So what you're saying is you're a Marxist. I'm not the same. I'm a Marxist. You heard that here first in the, in the out of context blog post,

going to write about this. I get to that practice point. The way to critique capitalism, if it's gone bad, is to get better capitalists. Free markets, whether or not fair, should be made fair. Never decide that the answer is the thing that has never produced any human flourishing, i.e. Marxism. So as you describe, in the madness of crowds,

the heard- like behavior of humans that gets us into trouble, you as an individual thinker and others listening to this, how can you, because all of us are mid crowds, we're influenced by the society that's around us, by the people that's around us. How can we think independently? How can we, you know, if you're in, in the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 20th century, if you're in, I don't know, Nazi Germany at the end of the 30s and 40s, how can you think independently? Given first of all that it's hard to think independently

just intellectually speaking, but also that there's, it's just becomes more and more dangerous. So the incentive to think independently, under the uncertainty that's usually involved with thinking is, I mean, it's a silly thing to say but on Twitter There's a cost to be paid for yes for going against the crowd on any silly thing Well, we can even talk about you know What is it will Smith slapping Chris rock? You know, there's a crowd that believes that that was unjustified I forget what the crowd decided but I don't crowd split on that one is safe to have one opinion either way. Okay, it is. Right. But there is this you put it very nicely that there's clearly a

calculus here and that you can measure on Twitter, particularly you can measure kind of the crowd sense of where the crowd lays. Michael Jackson. Well, boy, I don't want to, this is not a legal discussion. I don't have law. I don't have my law of personal. I don't even have a lawyer. The man in question is dead. But I think most people who are not just die hard fans would concede that Michael Jackson had a strange relationship with children.

Yes. And was almost certainly a beautiful. Is that, was that the crowd agree on that? No, the crowd hasn't agreed because he's too famous and we all love Thriller. Yeah, we do. So you said people who are not fans, I just don't. No, I'm a fan of Michael Jackson, but I think he was almost certainly a beautiful. And I, but I've been, I've been nobody wants to give up dancing to bad at weddings.

So they just kind of added in. It's fine. Yes, it's your lot. It's not applied to Bill Khazmi. Well, he wasn't, he was of course one of the most famous people in America, but maybe he wasn't regarded as talented. Oh, wow. There's depth to this population. Oh, yeah, there's a genius opt out in all cultures. There's a genius opt out in all cultures. Look at Lord Byron. Lord Byron, Shack is sister. Doesn't affect his reputation. In fact, if anything, it kind of adds to it. But then again, this kind of war against the West, genius is actually makes you more likely or no to get canceled

So if you look at the genius of Thomas Jefferson or well, yes, because if you don't have done anything remarkable nobody will come looking for you Post-castley. Yeah, I'll societal genius can get you trouble alive Okay, sidle through life and nobody noticing be totally harmless and then and then die and hope you haven't used any carbon totally harmless and then die and hope you haven't used any carbon. But you were asking about how to survive the era of social media as it were and the crowds. And there's a very simple answer to that. Don't overrate the significance of the unreal world. Oh, come on, but this is still human psychology, because you want to fit in. There's a, you want to, why? Because you're, you like people and you're just as a, why not

just like a small number of people and ignore the rest? Yeah, that's, that's what I do. Well, I mean, I actually like most people. I'm not, this isn't a general thing. I don't have detestation for most people at all. I mostly people, I'm not, this isn't a general thing, I don't have detestation for most people at all. I mostly like, I can't really enjoy speaking with them, being with, but in terms of storing your sense of self-worth in absolute strangers, big mistake. Yeah, well, me, that's, this is the standard therapy session, because for me, and I think I represent some number of population, is I'm pretty self-critical. I'm looking for myself in the world. And there is a depth of connection with people on the internet. I mean, I have

some of the challenges. It's shallow connection. Interesting. I put it this way. If you if you became very old tomorrow, would any of them help? On the internet? No. No. No. Good. That's a good test. Yeah, that's a good test. But then at the end of the day, yeah, you're right. You're very close friends would help, family would help. Yeah. Yeah. Perhaps that's the only thing.

You can't store, you can't store significant amounts of trust or faith or belief or self-worth in places which will not return it to you. Okay, so let's talk about the more extreme case, the harsher case. When you talk about the things you talk about in the war on the west and madness of crowds, I mean, you're getting a lot of blowback, I'm sure. And for the listener, you just shrugged lightly with a zen light, look in your face. So you don't, all you need is Sam Harris to say that you're brilliant and you're happy. I know, I'm very, I love Sam.

Yeah. I'm deeply pleased when he flandes me, but I mean, I'm, and it's nice about me, but no, I don't just, I'm very, I love Sam. Yeah. I'm deeply pleased when he flatters me, but I mean, I'm, and he's nice about me, but no, I don't just rely on Sam. No, I mean, I, I don't, why would I mind? If I, I mean, maybe it's self-selecting. If I didn't have the view I had about that

or the whatever armory it is that I have on that, I wouldn't do what I did, maybe. I mean, have you been to some dark places psychologically because of the challenging ideas to explore? So like significant self-doubt, just kind of... I can't say I've been unaffected by everything in my life, by any means, that would make me an automata or some kind. There's definitely times I've got things wrong and regretted that. There's times I've, there was a period around the time I wrote my book, The Strange Death

of Europe, which I was very, very dark time. And it wasn't because I was having a dark time in my life, but because of the book I was writing. Oh, because of the place you had to go in order to write book. And while I was contemplating the end of a civilization, so occasionally, now I have maybe slightly too pat at this stage, but sometimes readers come up to me in the street or whatever and say, you know, I'd love the strange death of Europe. And we'll say, you know, very depressing book to read, however.

And I would say, you should have tried writing it. But it was because I mean, I was, it was, it has chunks of it, which I'm very proud of in particular about the death of religion, the death guard, the loss of meaning and the void. And that's difficult stuff to write about and to grapple with. And there is a sort of, I haven't read that book since it came out, but I think there are passages in it which reveal what I see. And if there's any pushback, I've got from that, I'm completely consoled that I'm saying what I see with my own eyes. That's your source of strength is that you're always seeking the truth, this bus you see it. Well, I can't agree to go along with a lie if I've seen something with my own eyes.

Do you ever, so speaking of Sam Harris, and I mentioned to you offline, a lot of people, I talked to a lot of smart people in my private life on this podcast, and a lot of them will reference you as their example of a very smart person. So given that compliment, do you ever worry that your sort of ego grows to a level where you're not what you think is the truth is no longer the truth? Is this kind of it blinds you? And also on top of that, the fact that you stand against the crowd often, that there's part of it that appeals to you. You like to point out the Emperor's no clothes. Now get a certain thrill from the friction. Yeah. That sometimes Yeah, that's sometimes both your ego and the thrill of friction Will get you to a DV8 from the truth and instead just look for the friction could do could do for sure

Um, I try to keep alive to that I mean I try I mean earlier my career. I realized that for instance I didn't want to make enemies unnecessarily, any more than strictly necessary, because there was a very large number of already necessary enemies. And I remember one, so I went into the details, but I already had one sort of thing I'd done that we, and then another thing came out, I just thought I can't, I can't do. And I remember thinking don't be the sort of person who's forever creating storms.

And I'm trying to make sure I wasn't. And I think I pretty much stuck to that. But to answer your question, well, the first thing is I'm as confident I can be that I wouldn't fall into the trap you described for two reasons. I mean one is that I don't think of myself as a wildly intelligent person, partly because I'm very, very aware of the things I know nothing about. I mean for instance I have an almost no knowledge of the details of finance of finance or economic theory. I mean the real details, I don't mean the big picture of the kind that we were just discussing earlier, but I have, if you put the periodic table in front of me, in front of me, I would struggle to do more than a handful. I am very conscious of huge gaps in my knowledge. And where I have gaps or chasms, I tend to find I have a disproportionate

admiration for the people who know that stuff. Like I'm wildly impressed by people who understand money, really understand it. You know, there's a thing, how the hell do you do that? And the same thing with biologists, medics, stuff I just know very little about. And that's a source of humility for you just knowing that. Yes, I mean, I think, well, I'm going to get that stuff. But I'm like, Jesus, if you've got, I think, well, I can, I'm, I get that stuff, but I, I, Jesus, if you got me on a general knowledge, I would say that thing at some years ago, there's a thing in, in the UK called University Challenge, I don't know if it was, and I, I was asked some years

ago on to, there's a sort of, like, celebrity one of former students of the University's or colleges asked to go back for the Christmas special and, and I was asked to be one of the University of Zoologist asked to go back for the Christmas special. And I was asked to be one of the people for my old college to go back and compete in the sort of celebrity alumni one. And the only thing I actually wanted to do it was to go discover the Louis Thoreau had been to my college before my time and he was on. He agreed to be on the team.

And I thought I'd love to meet Louis Thoreau, that'd be great fun. And anyhow, and I said, well, I really don't want to do it. And they said, come on, you'd be great. I said, I wouldn't. I'd show myself up. I'd be a total asshole and they're going to rain this. And as it was, I sat down my flat and I watched some past episodes for university challenge. I just sat mute for the whole hour. I just couldn't not do anything. The first question was about physics and the second one was about, as it was, I watched the one and I could answer the first two or three questions of the one that actually

went out because they made it a bit simpler. But I mean, I'm terribly conscious of the, and I said to the producers, I said, I can't go on because I mean, I just couldn't answer the questions. He's unbelievably smart. Students seem to be able to answer on a whole range of things. So I'm perfectly aware of my limitations and you can't to plate your limitations. Yeah. And they're forever before me, you know, not hard to find in every day. And then on top of that, I suppose it's, in a way, you know that line from Radyod Kippling's

alternatively brilliant and slightly nauseating poem, If there's a line. It just enjoy a good poem, can you? Well, no, it's, it's not, it's not, I can enjoy a great poem. Yes. But I mean, a good poem. Yeah. This is, you know, sight you off.

But wait, this is, this goes to your criticism of Dusty Eski. Take, take, take, take a dog, this is criticism with a green assault. So I maybe I've heard it read it too many memorial services and things. But that line of, it's a good piece of advice. If you can learn to meet triumph and disaster and meet these Greet these two imposter's just the same. Yeah, that's a good line It's a good line as as keeping often an amazing turn of line But I do think that it's a very sensible thing to try to greet

Triumph and disaster and regard them as imposter and greet them just the same. And actually anyone who knows me knows that I never, partly it's because I have a sort of belief in the old gods and that the moment that I thought that I was at the moment of triumphant, the fates would hitch up their skirts and run at me at a million miles an hour. But it's also because anyone gen, anyone who knows me knows, I never have a moment when I say, that's just great. I feel totally fulfilled and victorious. I mean, it happened to me recently when I was in the West, when straight

in at number one in the best cell of this. How long did that last in terms of your self-satisfaction? I didn't have, not even for a brief moment. No. When I first saw that it was selling, I had that moment of relation. I thought, good, I've done it, it's out. And I did have a moment of relation then, definitely. But it doesn't last partly because I tell myself it mustn't last. Because as you said, fate hitches up its skirt. Is that skirts? I

don't know this you you brits with your with your poetry, even when it's nauseating. As of 2022, this year, what's your final analysis of the political leadership and the human mind and the human being of Donald Trump? I sort of avoided this for years. Just talking about Trump. Try to avoid talking about Trump years. Same with I tried to avoid writing about Brexit. Do you think the Trump just started a small tangent? Do you think the Trump story is over? We just done with volume one.

I've no idea the people I know who know him said he's running. And I think that in general Republicans have to do have a choice in front of them. And one friend put it to me recently said, you've got to go in with your toughest fighter. And I understand that instinct. And I also think it's a very dangerous instinct. Because what is your toughest fighter is also your biggest liability. What's the best way to get a Democrat voter in 2024 than Donald Trump running? Because what is your toughest fighters also your biggest liability?

What's the best way to get a Democrat vote than 2024 than no Donald Trump running and the people that are doing the war in the West are pretty tough fighters? they are and I'm cautious about this because I know every way I tread its dangerous, but let me just Just be trained gracefully. I'll try to gracefully as I can. My Wellington boots. I am my glosses. Here's a thing. I think everybody knows what Trump is. I think we all knew for years.

And I feel sorry for the conservatives who had to pretend that he was something he wasn't. I felt sorry for the ones who had to pretend that he was something he wasn't. I felt sorry for the ones who had to pretend that, for instance, he was some devout Christian or a man of faith or a man of great integrity or all of these sorts of things because I'm not even the public eye of the years, I mean, obviously that wasn't the case. But he has something extraordinary. One thing is a method of communication that you've just got to say is was unbelievable. In one fundamental way, you can't look away for some reason.

Can't look away. I mean, I'll be watching him clear everyone out of the way in 2016 was thrilling because those people needed clearing away. You know, I mean, it's just horrified what America is going to give us another bush. What's so great about this family? America is going to give us another Clinton. We're going to get to choose where any Clinton in the bush. Mark Stein said, whatever, we'll just wait for the day the Clintons and the bushes into Mario and then we can really have

a monarchy again. So I was very pleased to see him clear them away. I was very pleased to see him sort of raise some of the issues needed raising. I thought it was a sort of breath of fresh air and I wished it wasn't him doing it. And then there was a question of him governing, and it was just perfectly clear, he didn't

know how to govern. What he did have, however, what he does have is an incredible ability to fight, and some of the forces he was arraigned against were arraigned against him. My gosh, they would have taken down anyone else. I mean, if they'd have probably done some similar BS against Ted Cruz, if he, you know, or Marco Rubio, you know, they'd have said there's some people admitted, they'd have accused all these people of racism and misogyny, everything else as well, just so they didn't make Romney just so they did John McCain. But Trump was the one ugly enough and bruisey enough to fight. And also a willingness or a lack of willingness to play sort of the civil

yes game of politics sort of in a party when, politeness gets you in trouble. Yeah, I mean, show up and everybody's polite and you just out of momentum, when it be being polite and all of a sudden, you're in an island with Jeffrey Epstein and you get you into huge amount of trouble. But so, so Trump has these extraordinary qualities, but I just, you know, look, he screwed up

during his time in office because he didn't achieve as much as he should have done. You could have said about every president, but I refused to acknowledge that two years when he had both houses in the first beginning, he just didn't know what leave us to pull. You know, I mean, he was sitting in the office behind the Oval Office tweeting, watching the news. Sorry, that's not a president. And he couldn't fill and didn't fill positions, because people knew, I mean, people who were very loyal to him,

he would just, you know, he'd get them to do something loyal and then destroy them. And I think, and then we get onto the thing about, I'm here, we get onto the, you know, what of course is very, very fractured terrain, but, you know, I covered the 2020 election and I was traveling all around the states and I went to Trump rally and all sorts of stuff. I was in DC on election night

and it got very ugly at one point in so called Black Lives Matter Plaza. When it looked like Trump I'd win, which Florida came in. I got really, I could feel the air, well very, very heated, and like, Samantha, first people started getting into black and black and this sort of stuff. And I thought, this town's gonna burn, you know, if Trump wins. And in the aftermath of the vote, I was willing to hang around and wash in for a bit, and then I saw it was gonna drag on. And I saw some of his people and others and people told me they had great evidence of vote ringing and all this sort of thing. And I'm afraid I'm one of those people who doesn't believe that the evidence that they've presented is good enough

to justify the claim that he won the election. And I and people say, have you seen 2000 meals and have you seen? Look, the evidence isn't there that the election was won by Donald Trump. And I think that what he did on January the 6th was unbelievably dangerous. And, you know, here it is possible for us to hold two ideas on our head at the same time. January the 6th was not nothing, nor was it an insurrection and an attempt to stage a coup. And there's a vanishing number of people in the US or as Eric Weinstein said, that the, it's like this is the, the, the roof that you have to walk along and like the, the sides are very steep. Yeah. If you fall off either side.

Is there some sense, given the forces that are waging war in the West, you said this feeling perhaps because of antifor or something else that this town is going to burn, and maybe a continued feeling that this town is going to burn with the January 6th events. Are you worried about the future of the United States in the coming years because of the feeling of escalation? Is that just a war of Twitter or is there a real brewing of something? Oh, it's real. And how? Well, let me then respond to that. How? What is the hopeful?

If you... If you 10 years from now look back at the United States and say we turned it around, what would be the reason? What would be the ways the mechanisms that we do so? Since I wrote this book, there are two things in particular that I've been really pleased

that a specific type of specialist has approached me on to say that things I've written about actually have more application than I realized. One is the gratitude issue. A number of people have approached me who have gone through AA more alcoholics anonymous they sometimes say have you ever been to AA and I

personal question But they say but the reason they ask it is because they say well because if you go to drug rehabilitation or alcohol anonymous Normal don't say doesn't sound very anonymous you stand up and you say your name and you tell everyone the worst things you've ever done, that's the opposite anonymous. Anyhow, but they say, look, because if you go to these things, apparently you're asked to, as part of your recovery, say what you're grateful for, like list what you're grateful for. I didn't know that by the way until the book was out and so it turned out to have more application than the ninth new. The other thing though is that I say that it's absolutely crucial in America that we try

to find things that we agree on. And a couple of times since the book came out, I've been approached by people who have marriage counselors, but they've also said that we've been through marriage counseling. I think again, that's a very personal question. Some last few personal questions. No, but they're nice to have a wide, because this is one of the things that we do in couples therapy is try to find things you agree on. I think this is very important in America and it's made

much harder by the fact, and I said it's made times, but forgive me if I'm repeating myself, but it's made much harder by the fact that having different opinions is very last century. Now we all have different facts or at least the two sides have different facts. One half of the country roughly, or let's say 40% 30%, whatever you want to put it, with a tired minority in the middle. One segment of the country believes that Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election and that the Russians interfere and got Donald Trump into power. Another half of the country believes that Donald Trump won the 2020 election. If you can't agree on who wins elections, it's very hard to see what you agree on as a country. That's one of the reasons I mind the war on American history and Western history is

one of the things you have to agree on is at least some attitude towards your past. You don't have to agree on everything. But like the public square has to have public heroes who are agreed to be heroes to some extent What's an all? If you don't have that if actually you think friends like half the country thinks founding fathers were pretty good The other half thinks they were absolutely rotten racist and so on if half the country basically thinks it would have been better if Columbus had taken a different turn never found found America, gone back home and said, I don't know, nothing out there. That would have been better. And the other house pretty glad in the end that we've got America.

You know, you've got to agree on something. And I just see an America, so I do think we've got to try to find things to agree on, like a reasonable attitude towards the past. That's why that matters. And again, I stress, I'm not trying to say that everything in the American past was good. God knows that it wouldn't stand up to a second scrutiny or self-scrutiny. But nor was it all bad. This wasn't a country formed in sin and in a radical sin. It wasn't founded in 1619 in order to make the country wicked and incapable of escaping that wickedness. You know, these are things that will matter enormously in the years ahead,

because if you can't agree on anything, including who your heroes are, like the whole thing is just one massive division, and we'll see what I think we're already seeing, which is people basically going to states where it's more like the life they want to live. And some people say to me, well, that's okay and the genius of the founding is that it allows for that. That's possible, but it also eradicates part of what has been American public life, which

is the ability to look at each other and discuss face to face. And I see things like this bomb placed on the America the other week with the Supreme Court League, the draft League, as being just a further example of that. I'm very, very worried about it in America. And because if America screws up everything, everything else in the world goes. Yeah, there is the degree to which America is still the beacon of these ideas on which the country was founded and it's been able to live out in better and better forms,

sort of live out the actual ideals of the founding principle versus like with the desire to improve. Yeah, constant. An imperfect union. Yeah, most I generally have hope that people want to sort of in terms of gratitude, people are aware of how good it feels to be grateful. It's the better life psychologically. The resentment is a thing that destroys you from within. So I just feel that people will long for that and we'll find that. And that's the America way. Some of the division that we reveal now has to do with new technologies like social media. Yeah. That kind of is a small kind of deviation from the path we're on because it's a new we've got a new toy But we knew it happens. Yeah, we're relatively new

But we need to find reasonable attitudes towards these things And I that's why I say like it matters how you and buy Feedback on social media because we might we're all going through it to some extent We're learning and we're learning and we've all going through it to some extent. We're learning. And we're learning. And we've got to learn how to do this without going mad. You know, I say this, there was my minimalist call to friends in this era was the main job is not to go insane. Yeah.

Yeah. And yeah, like walk towards sanity. Because, you know, I'm sure there's a hundred of stumps in quote in there. Like insanity on the weekends can be at least fun. Okay, do you have advice for young people that just put down their TikTok and are listening to this podcast in high school and college about how to have a career, how to have a life they can be part of. So, April question, but of course, I mean, I can give specific advice for people who want to be writers and so on, but that's a bit niche, maybe.

Well, writers would be very interesting, sorry, to interrupt. Also how to put your ideas down on paper and stuff, your that develop them and have the guts to go to a large audience. Well, especially when the ideas are sort of controversial or dangerous or difficult. Well, the main thing to do is to breed. When I was a schoolboy, I've ever have a book in my pocket, the side pocket and my jacket on the side pocket, and would read.

And that wasn't just because I was swatish in some way, but because I discovered, I probably at some point in my early teens, I discovered something, I read about this one. I discovered that books were dangerous, which was a thrilling discovery. Yeah. I discovered that they could contain anything. And also people didn't know what you were reading. I remember I could fart a young

age, I read the doors of perception of all this actually. And I didn't make head or tail a bit, probably. But I knew that it was about something really interesting and dangerous. And I thought constantly when I read poetry or read history, I was just constantly thrilled and wanted to know more. And if you want to become a writer, you have to be a reader. You have to read the best stuff. And, and, you know, obviously people disagree or agree on what that is, and you'll find the people that really impress you. But I know that I just came across certain writers who just knocked me off my feet. And when you find those

people, like, read everything and cling on to them and find other people like that, find other writers like that where people are connected by history or scholarship or circles or whatever. For you, was it fiction or nonfiction? Is there a particular book that you just remember? Or I just give you pause? Well, I remember that the first book that absolutely threw me was the Lord of the Flies of William Golden,

which used to be a sign text and everyone's a bit snotty about because it's so popular. But I was thrown because I think it was the first adult book I read in that I had been used to the world of children's literature, of everything ends up fine in the end. The lost all get found. You know, and this was the first book I read, well that's not the case. The world turns out differently.

And I remember for days afterwards, I was just in a state of shock. I couldn't believe what I'd just discovered. And partly because I sort of intuitive it, it must be true. And of course, that is not to say that the Lord, that there's lots of scholarly upon what children do in the situation of being on the island, whether they do congregate. what children do in the situation of being on the island and whether they do congregate. Anyhow, but yes, that was a sort of introduction to the adult world and it was shocking and thrilling and I wanted more of it.

It was dangerous. And it was dangerous. And then of course, when I became interested in sex, the loan that I was gay, I read books were very, very good way to learn about what I was. And that was even more dangerous in a way. And I thought, I mean, nobody knows what I know. Did you discovered sex? That was an invention in books. What do you mean? No, what I mean is, no, no, no, no, no, what I mean is that one of the things that gay people have when they're growing up is that

You have this terribly big secret and you don't think the world will ever know you hope the world will never know and The it's been called by one psychologist the little boy with a big secret and So if you discover that other people have the same secret there's a sort of Thank God for that. But I mean, that's just a version of what everybody gets in reading in a way which is the thrill of discovery that somebody else thought, something you thought only you'd thought. I mean, one of the greatest thrill in all of literature is when a voice comes across a centuries and seems to leave a hand print. It makes you feel a little bit less alone because somebody else feels this is the world the

same way, is the same way. That's what Lewis said. It says, said to have said, we read to know and not alone. But we don't only read to know and not alone, we read to become other people. I mean, I think I saw in books a version of the life I wanted to live and then I decided to live it. And unfortunately, enough to have done so. I wanted to live in the world of ideas and books and debate. I wanted to live in the debates of my time. I remember when, like, a lot of people, I read

Auden when I was young. And, you know, certain lines obviously stuck with me. But I, that poem of his, which everybody, you know, knows on which he hated September the 1st, 1939. I remember certain lines in that just like, whacked me. Once I was sitting on a dive for a second, so we'd do great and alone. At the end of a load, dishonest decade.

And of course, there's a problem with that line, which is you kind of want to be living at the end of a load, dishonest decade as well. It sounds sort of cool in a way. You're the only person who sees it. But so yeah, anyhow, that's a diversion But the point is if you want to be a writer, you've got to be a reader And part from anything else you discover the the lilt of language and the

The things you can do and I've read people who and I still do I think my god I didn't know how did you do that? In fact books books for me now and articles and other things, fall into two categories. One is I know how you did that. And the other is I don't know how you did that. And the best feeling as a writer is when you do the second one. And it happens occasionally in my writing life. Will you almost like return to something you've written or like right after your...

No, at the moment you write it you wonder How did I do that? Yes That's that's the most I've never said that before that's the happiest thing in writing yeah, very occasion in his sounds But I mean I've occasionally finished something Funny enough it happened to some years going to long piece I wrote about the artist basket I and some years going to long piece I wrote about the artist's basket. I finished the piece and I gasped. I didn't know. Because that's also a thing with writing. Sometimes people say you need to write in order to know what you think, that's not quite true. Sometimes

you, that's a very bad piece of advice for some writers who don't know what they think and it's not going to become clear if they just start typing. But, yeah. Sometimes it is true that you, there's a thought that's just waiting there and a clarity that comes across and suddenly the sentence emerges in your brain and by the time you've typed it, you just go, yes. That's the greatest feeling of the writer. Almost like a king from somewhere else.

That's what the Becunin says about, you know, what's the moment? Tom Stopper's favorite quote about, you know, Becunin's saying what happens to the moment where the writer's pen when he pauses, where does he go in that moment? Yeah, that's so interesting. That's, that's, because I think the answer to that question will help us explain consciousness and all those other weird things about the human mind. Yeah. So that was advice for writers. I didn't really give any advice for people in general, but is that, oh, you want to give health advice to your channel, a Churchill and, no, I don't give health advice.

Clearly, because you implied that Churchill was one of your early guides in that aspect. So when you discovered your sexuality, let me ask about love, two persons far too personal go for question to ask a Brit. But what was that like and broadly speaking, what's the role of love in the human condition? Sex and love. And for you personally, discovering that you were and maybe telling the world that you were gay. I'm very perilously personal. I do actually have a sort of rule that I don't talk about my personal life, but I'll bruiser and to be broken. Okay, well I break it a little bit. The one of the ways in which growing up and rising your gay differs from growing up and being straight is that it's almost

inevitable that your first passions will be unrequited. Oh wow, I never thought about that. Yeah. Now that's not to say, I mean, you know, there's plenty of unrequited love among young men, for young women, young women of young men, plenty of of that. But it's almost inevitable if you're gay that your first passions will be totally unquiet because the odds are that the person you question will not be gay. So the experience of love is mostly heartbreak? It's heartbreak and disappointment. That heartbreak can be beautiful too. Of course. Well, again, it comes back to the thing, if you're a writer,

it was something, because you can always do something with it. That's why all writers are sort of not to be trusted. I didn't trust you the moment you walked in here. No, I mean, it's a famous problem with the writers, which I could use that. It's dangerous. It's a dangerous thing and all right. It's just like a drug, right?

No, it's not like a drug. It's the fear that all things, even the greatest suffering, it could be material. What's the danger in that exactly? That seeing the material in human experience, you don't experience it fully and you might be using it. I had a friend who wrote a poem about a friend who died in a most like accident in the 1760s and he said, he knew the moment he was told that his friend is death, a tiny

bit of him thought I could use this for a poem. And he did and the poem was wonderful, but there's always a slight guilt for writers of, am I going to use that? Anyhow, that's a divergent. Life is full of guilty pleasures, and I think that's one of them, because if you feel that guilt, really what you're doing is you're capturing that moment, and you're going to impact the lives of many, many people by writing about that moment, because it's going to stimulate something that resonates with those people, because they had similar kinds of memories about a loss and a passion towards somebody that they had to lose. So, you know, yes, but there is a good sign, maybe.

Yeah, more obvious, perhaps problem is reporting from war zones or bad places and wanting to find bad stories stories because it's useful and there's a definite guilt you get from that sort of thing like the worst of situation, the more useful and anyhow. No, so that's sort of the only difference that happens from growing up in gay and it means that most, you certainly am my generation, most gay men came to sexual or romantic maturity later and there's lots of explanations of that maybe being one of the reasons for perceived or otherwise promiscuity among gay men

Which is I think more easily persuaded by the fact that gay men behave like men would if women were men gay men behave like men would if women were men. That's one explanation, but it's both a feature and a bug that you come to sexual flourishing later in life. That could be seen as a, no, in the trajectory of human life, that could be a positive or a negative. Yeah. But what's broadly speaking is the role of love

in the human condition, Douglas? Well, it's the nearest thing we have to find the point. What is the point? What's the meaning of life? Let's go there. So what's the meaning? It's a hard one, of course. Where is the meaning as slightly easier? And I say that everyone can find that. You gravitate towards the places you find meaning. Now there's a conservative answer to this, which is quite useful and it's certainly more useful than any others because the conservative answer is find meaning where people have found it before.

It's a very good answer. Yeah. If your ancestors have found meaning in a place of worship or a particular canon of work, go there because it's been proven by time to be able to give you the goods, much more sensible than saying, hey, I don't know, discover new ways of meaning. But love is probably the nearest thing we can have to the divine on Earth. And of course, the problem of what exactly, what type of love we mean is an issue. Well, that goes to the fact that you don't like definitions anyway. I do like definitions, I just think they need to be pinned

down. But let's not let's not go there because it's that's not pinned down love at the moment. No, because as you know, I mean, because of the different varieties of love and the fact that we have one word for it in our culture and that it means an awful lot of things and we don't delineate it. Yeah. Well, but let's say human love with the greatest fulfillment in sexual fulfillment in sexual love with another person is probably the greatest intimation you can have of what might otherwise only be superseded by divine love. And it's the sense that all young lovers have which is that they've just walked through the low door

in the garden and found themselves in bliss, and that this is... there's a beautiful, beautiful poem of... can I read it to you? Yes, please. I'll try to find... there's a beautiful poem of Philip Larkins, which slightly says what I'm I'm trying not to dark your question by referring to other people, but Maybe that's the best way to answer the question. Could be it's to read read a poem So there's a poem by Philip Larkin called High Windows, which is Philip Larkin called High Windows, which is remarkable because he came to sexual, straight that he hadn't had a rather happy sex life, but he came to sexual friction in the 40s and and the whole hell that involved. And he took what I remember, a regard as being a really remarkable and important view on the sexual revolution in the 60s,

which is that most people who are his generation, most older people, resented the young. They resented the freedom they had, and actually, they've turned the freedoms terrible, and it was always getting likely to. And if people are lucky and rather surprisingly the very conservative person took a different view and he says it in his poem and the opening of the poem is he says when I see a couple of kids and

guess he's fucking her and she's taking pills or wearing a diaphragm I know this is paradise everyone old is dreamed of all their lives. Bonds and gestures pushed to one side like an outdated combine harvester, and everyone young going down the long slide to happiness endlessly. I wonder if anyone looked at me forty years back and thought, that will be the life no god any, or sweating in the dark about hell and that, or having to hide what you think of the priest. He and his lot will all go down the long slide like free bloody birds. And immediately, rather than words, comes the

thought of high windows, the some comprehending glass, and beyond it the deep blue air that shows nothing and is nowhere and is endless. The divine, he found it. He found it in seeing a couple of young kids and knowing that one of them was wearing a diaphragm. First of all, it's very kind of intuitive, but secondly, this is the point that sex had been so tied up with misery. I mean, people don't remember this now

when they talk about the past. I mean, there's one of my favorite books, Stefan Sylvag's The World of Yesterday, including the descriptions of what it was like, I think, I'm trying to have sex in pre-first world war Vienna. You know, all the men ended up going to a female prostitution, you know, so many of them got syphilis. And this was their first experience of sex. It was so goddamn awful and they were stuck with it all their lives.

And so there's lots of stuff that's gone better in our attention, that's one of them. But you ask about love, yes, I do think that love is basically one of them. But you ask about love, yes, I do think that love is basically the thing that gives us the best glimpse of the divine. And by the way, sex, liberating sex doesn't buy you love. No, I mean, it throws in an entirely, it threw in another set of problems If if there's any meaning on top of all that is we like to Find problems and solve that as a human species and sometimes we even create problems Douglas thank you for highlighting all the problems of human civilization and giving us a glimmer of hope for the future. This is an incredible conversation. Thank you for talking today. It's a huge honor. Thank you.

It's very kind of you to say that. Thank you. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Douglas Murray. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you with some words from Douglas Murray himself. This agreement is not oppression. Argument is not assault. Words, even provocative and repugnant ones, are not violence. The answer to speech we do not like is more speech.

Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.