If I Speak - 63: Do people just want to be told what to do?

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

Moya has a big theory and you’re not going to like it: most of us would rather be told how to live our lives by someone else than work it out ourselves. Could it be? Plus, advice for a broken-hearted student. Seats for our live show in London are going fast! Join Ash, Moya and […]

Anna Holland was a pretty normal teenager. Shy, well behaved. I was a real goody two shoes. You know my homework was always in on time. No one would have predicted that a couple of years after leaving school, Anna would be in prison for throwing soup at a priceless painting. What is worth more, art or life? Just a few months before their now infamous soup-throwing action, Anna has signed up to Just Stop Oil. The group's activists are some of the most hated people in Britain.

I need to get my kids to school. The anti-growth coalition that we have to thank for the disruption that we are seeing on our roads today. And it's not just tabloid readers and Tory ministers that don't get them. I also really care about the climate crisis and I struggle to understand why Just Stop Oil's activists put themselves up for such punishment. Is any cause really worth your freedom? My going to prison was completely my choice.

I think the irresponsible thing would have been for me to not do anything and just to hope that someone else would fix it for me. I'm Rivka Brown. And I'm Claire Hymer. And we've been trying to figure out how someone could go from a high school goody two shoes to a convicted criminal. On Committed, we go behind bars to find out what life's like for Britain's climate activists, whether their relationships can survive the separation,

and why Anna doesn't regret a minute they spent in prison. I toasted the judge who sentenced me, thanking him for that time in prison because I have come out of it so much stronger. That's on Committed, a four-part series available now on Novara Media's podcast feed. Listeners, we have something to tell you, which is that we just had a great discussion about Mario and you're never going to hear it. Sorry, because Ashley's- No, can we not reproduce it as if- You know I don't like to go backwards.

I don't want to mar the authenticity of this podcast. Who did you play in Mario Kart? I'm not going to answer, but you can answer. Who did you play in Mario Kart? I'm not gonna answer, but you can answer. Who did you play in Smash Brothers? Okay, well, it was Yoshi for Mario Kart, Kirby for Smash Brothers, and I identify a lot with Kirby because like super power was sort of like

opening mouth really wide, like, oh, like great, identify with that. And also just like jumping on people. Again, that's my special move. Special move. I don't, I think it's, I think if you choose to play as Mario, you should be, like, scientists should study you because you're a particular type of narcissist. What about Princess Peach? Princess Peach, you think of yourself as, you identify too much with the concept of helplessness.

Yeah. What about Pokemon? Do you have any strong Pokemon feelings? I didn't play Pokemon. I didn't play Pokemon at all. I did not have Pokemon. We were not a Pokemon family. Didn't have time. I got cheating on Pokemon, just had Nintendo. And in fact, the Nintendo only came about because my sister saved up to buy it and then I would borrow it and play it deep into the night until about 4am. If you've never played Nintendo until 4am in the morning as a prepubescent, let me just say it's not good for the old brain. You do see Nintendo the next day when you close your eyes. Are you too young to have ever played GoldenEye on N64? Yes.

Too young or too rural? One of the two. It was the older cousins thing, right? So I got to play a bit of GoldenEye. Number one, never beaten. Love it. Remember when bin men were proper art? Do you remember when GoldenEye was the best game?

Can you just briefly, I know we've got a show soon, but can you just briefly outline what GoldenEye is for those of us? Okay, GoldenEye was a James Bond N64 game, and it was first person shooter. And I just love playing it. Like I love playing GoldenEye. I think there was also sometimes a two player version

where you'd like, I can't remember if you'd like hunt each other or like you'd be on the same mission. Also I might be making up the two player version. I'm not making up though that Goldeneye was goated. I do think inside of you lives a geezer. I think, I think this is what a lot of media gets wrong about you. Inside you are just Michael Caine. You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off. You're like, love James Bond, love the French Revolution, love the Roman Empire. You are kind of just like, also tot until I die. You are kind of just a geezer. Yeah, love me husband, love me cat, up the spurs, simple. Highest, highest compliment I could give. You are a geezer. Yeah, love me husband, love me cat, up the spurs, simple.

Highest compliment I could give, you are a geezer. Yeah, you know what? I accept that as the compliment with which it was intended. Like, I was also saying this to one of my friends, which is that, I know this is an unpopular opinion because like, you know, feminism and rarer, but I actually think straight men are the funniest demographic.

And they're allowed to be the funniest. I don't think that's true at all. I do think that is a mental thing to say. No, no, no, man. I think you're so wrong. They're so funny, especially when they don't know they're being funny, they're so funny. No, no, no, this is patriarchy.

So, the funniest people I know, the funniest people I know are probably gay men, women, second funniest. They've got the reputation. No, no, no, you're on the wrong gay men. You're know are probably gay men, women second funniest. They've got the reputation. No, no, no. You're on the wrong gay men. You're on the wrong gay men. Straight men when they are funny are so funny that I would wet myself, but it's much rarer

than you think. And there is a problem and I agree with you on this problem, which is straight men who think they're funny, not funny. Like I was somewhere recently with with straight man who would like Was clearly waiting for like the opportunity to say funny things and then would like laugh at himself But not in a like haha. I know this is dumb But like in a laughing at himself, but like staring you in the eye to try and make sure you were laughing too, right? That cohort of straight men is bringing the whole group down, but a goofy and or stoned straight man, unbeatable.

I think this is again, this is again underlying my geezer theory, because humor is obviously an expression of the way you see the world, right? The way that you, I've written about this before, if you laugh at something, it is the interruption of the expected with the unexpected. So you have to expect a certain thing to find a certain stimulus funny. And you're a geezer, and therefore you and the straight men are finding the same interruptions funny. Whereas I am a hag to my core,

so I'm finding the same interruptions funny as certain other demographics, as my girls and my gays. That's why we're all kicking and having the biggest laugh ever. Whereas when I come with straight men, we different interruptions. I think we should do this as a quadrant. We haven't done a quadrant for a while, which is hag, geezer.

Wait, what's the other two? Hag, I don't know. What else can be other things? You're seeing how the sausage gets made, folks. Yeah, what can be the other sides of that? So it's hag, geezer. Are we doing a funny quadrant or not? Like what's the other bit?

Maybe it's just hag or geezer. Where do you stand on that? We're gonna have to give us ideas for the other axis on this listeners special. Okay, I think there's hag, there's geezer, and then I think there is, I don't know a better way to put this other than cruel or rollover. Cruel or rollover, maybe it's like goofy or malevolent or something like that. Yeah, I think you know what, there's malevolent and then there's, you're just like roll around,

like you're gentle, you would never hurt a fly. But like malevolent geezer, right? That's the thing, like there are malevolent geezers. There are definitely malevolent hags. But is it like soft or hard? Is that what we're saying? You know what the opposite of malevolent is? What?

Roly poly. It is, but I also think soft and hard work, because you can have hard geezer, hard hag, and you can have soft geezer, soft hag. That's true. I think it's hard and soft just basically hard all right so okay all right so by the way guys this is if I speak and this is a cold open right back to the geezer axis let's do this so the quadrant is hag geezerer, hard, soft. Where are you?

I think people think I'm a hard hag, but I'm actually a very soft hag and very, someone was saying this to me the other day. Horseshoe hag. Let's come back around. Someone was saying this to me the other day, they're like, people give it to you because they think you can take it, but you're actually just so soft like a marshmallow.

Just because I'm loud doesn't mean that I'm hard. I'm actually very soft. I cry all the time. Not even about sad things, just when I see like a sunset. I get hurt. I'm hurt very easily. I'm very, I'm very soft. If you, if you tap me, I will bleed.

So I'm a soft hag, I'd say, but I'm, I'm going to put myself, I'm definitely a hag, but I'm, maybe I'll put myself closer to the, to the hard line than you think because of my perception. Where are you? You're obviously a geezer. The thing is, is that I'm okay, I guess we have to be geezer.

You've established geezer and also I love that now and I'm like, oh my God, I'm a geezer. Oh my God guys, I'm such a geezer. I would say a geezer with hag characteristics maybe. Yeah, so you could be in the middle, you know, you can be further down because it's an access, it's a beauty. Yeah, a little bit more towards Giza. The thing is, is that I don't identify with soft, but I do identify, had it been rolly polly,

I'd say more rolly polly than malevolent, but between soft and hard, I would say probably a little hard. I think you're soft, Ash. You're quite soft. Do you think I'm soft? I think you're soft, I think you give off hard, but you're actually soft, but you're probably in the middle. You're probably more in the middle. Yeah. Than both of those things.

Giza with hard characteristics, soft with hard characteristics. And if you're doing malevolent in roly poly, you'd definitely be roly poly. This is why I think it changes, because if we do malevolent and roly poly, I'm actually quite malevolent. Yeah, so that's why I think malevolent and roly poly is... That's a fun extra access. Yeah, all right. So, all right, so I would say I'm roly poly geezer and you're malevolent.

Yeah, I'm a malevolent hag, for sure. But I'm soft, but malevolent. I wanna hear people feeding back on, where are you on hag, geezer, malevolent, roly poly? That was incredible work. Did you, the brain lab that just happened. That's good stuff. This's, this is how policy is made. Oh, I was going to say something like, you know, fucking Steve Jobs and whoever the other one was.

Tim Cook. Was it him? Was he even there? I don't know. I don't know if he was there. He certainly rolled it into the ground now. Okay, well, I've got some icebreaker questions for you, even though we've done an icebreaker quadrant. Are you ready? I'm ready, I'm primed. All right, primed.

Okay, question one. When you were a little kid, what did you perceive as the height of grownup glamour? Oh, this is very hard because all my memories from childhood are basically repressed apart from the really traumatic embarrassing ones. Oh, great. It's kind of weird.

I've like blotted out a lot of my life and I don't know. I get snippets of it if I'm reminded, but it's hard for me to recall like certain things that I thought. It's very difficult. She says broadcasting from her childhood home. Yeah, I know. But I mean, like I can't remember what I thought. It's very difficult. She says broadcasting from her childhood home. Yeah, I know. But I mean, like, I can't remember what I thought

as a child was glamorous. I put a lot of white powder on my face, not because I wanted to be white, just because it was there and available. The height of glamour, me and my sister used to play a game where we'd imagine our lives, like we'd suddenly pretend that we were,

it was basically improv. You flip into the character of yourself 10 years in the future. So you're 16 or 19 or whatever. And every time I flipped into that character, I was a writer in London. So I guess I thought that was the height of glamour. But I was pigeonholed as a sort of tomboyish one out of the two of us. So glamour wasn't a word that really applied to me. My sister was very brushes and hair dryers and makeup, whereas I was the one who fixed the wifi. Which is what happens when you're in a house, you get stereotyped in different roles, which is very funny. So I don't know what glamour

was to me. I don't think there was anything glamorous. I merely had aspirations to be a detective and a writer. A London writer or a detective. So sorry guys, I've always been a bit London centric. What about you? What was glamour for you as a kid? I was thinking about this. I think it was the perfume that my mum had,

which was like in a turquoise kind of spiky bottle. And I think it was like Chalamard. Never heard of it. Something is that, like I remember that being in her makeup bag and whenever I'd like go to get it, because obviously the perfume was really expensive. And obviously my mom didn't have much money. She'd be like, get off!

Stay away! Like everything else was like, you know, you could play with and muck about with, but whenever you went towards the perfume, it was like, unhand it! Give it back to me now, child. Get your sticky little paws off of it before you chuck it everywhere.

Okay, so scent for you, scent, glamour, lovely. Scent. Okay, next question. Two. If you had to choose any historical figure, i.e. someone who's definitely dead, to co-host the pod with, who would it be? I don't live in the past. I don't live in the past.

I don't live in the past. You studied history. I know, but it's different. That's in forms of future who's. You're like that's in the past and I don't live there anymore. I'm just trying to think who would be like an all class. I'm thinking like 20th century yapers.

Who would be really, ah. I'd love like Lauren Bacall or Katharine Hepburn. One of those two I think would be fantastic value for money. So Lauren Bacall or who? Katharine Hepburn. That's great, you know what? That's really not far off the kind of area I was thinking. Oh, what are you thinking?

Tallulah Bankhead. Tell me more, never heard. So Tallulah Bankhead, Hollywood actress, who it is said had sex with 40% of the British aristocracy. That's British, not English. They're all related. She was a bisexual menace. She was part of a scandal when two Eaton boys

were found with her in their room. I assumed they were 18, hopefully. You suddenly, when you were saying saying that you're like, hmm, this is not as cool. Not as cool as I thought. It was a different time. But the story she could tell, I bet they would make your hair curl. Yeah, these will be fab. Also guests, but not regular co-hosts because they would drive you mad. Little Edie would be a really good guest. mad, little Edie. Would be a really good guess. Yeah, little Edie. Little Edie, one of the random Vanderbilts

who got divorced. Any of the women who were fabulously wealthy, so they could say whatever the hell they wanted, but also had somehow been shunned by society at some point, so they also had more motivation to say- Anne Boleyn. Anne Boleyn. I would want her as a guest. Would you, she was, I mean, only in that sweet spot had more motivation to say. Anne Boleyn. Anne Boleyn. I would want her as a guest.

Would you, she was, I mean, only in that sweet spot between getting her head cut off and being pushed out of the role of mistress, because before that she had everything to lose, so she wouldn't have said anything. Yeah, yeah. She's a pick me, Anne Boleyn's a pick me, sorry. I'm 100% a pick me, but that was all there was to be.

Not true, Catherine Parr played the game. Catherine Parr played the game, respect her. Played the game and what was, Henry, her third husband? No, it was her second, but her first husband, she was actually in love with Thomas Howard, I wanna say. He was awful, he was the one who molested, sorry, trigger warning, who molested Elizabeth as a child. What's Thomas Seymour? It might have been Thomas it was one of I think it was Howard I might be wrong it might be Seymour it might be Seymour it was it was one of the two of those

massive families and she married him after Henry's death and then he interfered with Elizabeth. Okay next question. It's something's just clicked, right? So when I was watching Wolf Hall, the actress who played Jane Seymour, I was like, who does she remind me of? Who does her face shape remind me of? And it's you! I'm gonna have to Google this now.

Look at that, look at that. The actress who plays Jane Seymour, her face shape reminds me a lot of your face shape. And like the set of her eyes and stuff. She's blonde. Yes, ignore that, ignore that. She looks like a white you. She's bust, sorry.

I don't like this comparison at all. I'm sorry, you've got a similar face shape. Maybe she is a bit, yeah, we do have a similar face shape, but I do not appreciate the comparison. We do have a similar face shape. I don't like the comparison, but I also accept it. And I think that's important. Final icebreaker question.

I think, look, this has been, we're on tangents today, fucking hell. That's fine, because my middle section is not gonna be a lengthy one. This is the meat. Great. Right, chitter chatter. Final question.

What is your most romantic memory? Oh, you can't make me say that. It doesn't have to be,, have been with a romantic partner, but what's your most romantic memory? If we're talking romantic in the sense of the sublime, it's standing. Okay, Wordsworth. Thank you. Standing on a Turkish hillside listening to Hentai by Rosalia and watching the sunset over an amphitheater and crying. Um, that's my most romantic.

That's one of them. Every, every time I touch nature, it's like, Oh my God. Um, romantic in the sense of love. Also Rosalia Barefoot in the Park. It was a song that meant a lot to me and one of my partners and probably dancing in the kitchen too, a song from Dirty Dancing. Not in a dirty way, in a romantic way. Getting hoisted above someone's head like this. No, it was very much just like slow dancing, which had never happened to me organically before and then did and I was like, oh my god, wow, love's crazy.

But it was also just another romantic memory, like I remember falling in love with someone and just like lying on a rock and realizing I was falling in love with them and getting that weird feeling of like being totally static and your stomach's kind of dropping out of your yeah um dropping out of your your general body uh lower lower lower region I guess um those are all very romantic memories so it was the small moments isn't it rather than the big ones yeah yeah that's my memory. But I prefer that person fucking hates me. So I prefer to think of I prefer to think of the sublime. Thank you very much.

Right. Should we move along? Got to do middle section with contractually obliged to do middle section. Just the middle. Right, here we go. So this is my big theory. I don't think we've had a big theory in a while, which no, I've been feeling really uninspired. It's because we've been too busy. Honestly, the only reason that I can even come up with a bit of a big theory is because

I have a methaphone program, which I can't remember if we discussed or not. But no, it's just, I'm weaning myself off my smartphone dependency. And in the gaps where my phone has been, there is instead thoughts. And I'm reading. I went hog wild on JSTOR the other day. Crazy stuff. I just want to remind listeners, by the way, you can get a hundred free articles per month on JSTOR. Yes, 2010-20 did not result in racial equality, but it did result in 100 free articles per month on JSTOR. And that at least should be celebrated. And I want you to make the most of it. So get your 100 free articles on JSTOR today. Wow, you're in the pocket of big peer review.

Listen, a hundred free articles per month on any journal, like almost every journal. It's sub-stack but smart. What's not to like? It's so good. I promise that Moira isn't actually being paid by JSTOR for this. I'm not, it's free.

The articles are free. The marketing's coming free. It's like Substack but smart. Well, they did it because they said they needed to open up knowledge because this was actually, honestly, it was downstream of, this is classic stuff, of George Floyd's death. Because in the Black Lives Matter movement, there was the whole wake of like, we should make things more accessible with that. And JSTOR said, ah, we've been siloing off this knowledge from you guys we're gonna give you 103 articles a month. It was a direct result of George Floyd's death and yes it's probably like classic what the fuck is this gonna do but also it actually is changing my life

a little bit so 103 articles. Anyway segment, big theory. We are told this is the age of the self, we are told this is the age of libertarianism, individualism, and I posit to you, people want to be told what to do by someone else more than ever. People's desire for authoritarianism is stronger than ever as a result. desire for authoritarianism is stronger than ever as a result. I'll just paint you a small picture, right? So I wrote a post recently about the increase of religion among young people. And when I was researching it, one among other things, one stat jumped out to me, which was people born after 1996 are the most likely to accept the authority of religious leaders out of all the generations of established

religion. So other religions, even if they were religious, were not likely to, as likely to accept the authority of like established thought leaders within that religion, they were more likely to carve their own paths and take from their doctrines what they will. Whereas so these young people, these Gen Zs, as they like to be called, well, they don't like to be called in the fucking marketing agents, don't get me started on Gen Z.

I hate the term and have to use it all the time. Anyway, the Gen Zs, they like to be told what to do when it comes to religion. And at the same time, there's also been this shift that we've noticed among Gen Zs towards a hardline conservative doctrine often overlapping with religion and a general shift politically in this direction. So strong men leaders taking center stage, people like Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, not so much a

strong man, but still someone who has strong opinions as a man. And we have to see this in the influence space as well, you know, the Manosphere is infamous and there's this pattern with women that I see, you've got dating and lifestyle influences who've racked up huge followings amongst very young people by being so strict, by saying like, you need to do this, you need to do that, you need to stop eating, you need to get off. They say, they generally say stuff like, do you care about, sorry trigger warning, but do you care about eating or do you care about losing weight fatty like they're so horrible and so strict and so hardline?

The answer to that question. I care about eating. I care about eating. But also in general, the whole thing of influences is telling people what to do. Like, and that gen like our generation and generation below has been so porous to that. And I can't help but think in this age where the self is supposedly all powerful and individuals reign, what people really want is to be told what to do. And I think time and time again, and I wrote this in my post because it lives rentfully in my head,

of that monologue from Fleabag where she's in the confession booth and first she's sort of like nervous and then she just gets really serious and she says I I need to be told how to live my life because I don't think I'm doing it right father and even though I don't believe in all your mumbo-jumbo I still need you to tell me what to do just fucking tell me what to do and then he said Neil and I get the kiss but whatever and I think a lot of people just want to be told what to do, even though they claim that they want this autonomy, they actually don't. Thoughts? Okay, there are so many ways to get into it, which is the sign of an interesting big theory. Okay, first is channeling my inner Mao, combat liberalism. Like, I think that there is a difference between liberalism, individualism, and maybe what we're seeing is like these two things break down because we're still

very atomized and very individualistic. But I think that there is an awareness that the, oh, everyone do what you want as long as it's not like harming someone else. Like that is not good enough. That is not good enough as an instruction for how to lead a good life or a fulfilling life or a happy life. And I think that there is a sense that, you know,

that wateriness, you know, oh, do what you want, just as long as it's not harming other people, is that harm was too vaguely defined. To whom you owe a sense of obligation and responsibility was absent. And I think there was also a sense that it left us all really vulnerable to forces that want to prey on us. And I think that there is a sense that if you were to give yourself over to all of the addictive slops pumped out by late capitalism, whether it's smartphone, whether it's a relationship to the internet, which makes you feel really isolated and logged on and not touching grass, whether it is the constant pursuit of sex and relationships, but it's not really happening for you, whether it's hustle culture, whether it's, you know, again, like a really unhealthy relationship to online pornography, that like all these things kind of want to do you harm and sap you of life

and goodness and in the ways that we've talked about it, you know, lots of times, these forms of consumerism or a supplication to consumerism and capitalist values that leaves you feeling empty and grubby, right? And that is one of the problems with liberalism is that it doesn't give you defenses against any of these things, right? No defenses. Very bad at helping you cultivate resilience and the ability to distinguish between the bad and the good, because the only principle is like, oh, well, you make your choice as long as it's not impinging on other people. And what it means to harm or impinge on someone else, as I said, so badly defined. So I think that

many of these things are in response to that, this sense of, okay, well, you know, you've got all of these narcotics being pumped into the atmosphere and you're giving me no filter or defense against it. The second thing I think is about, you know, the overall, so I'm doing thinking out loud, which means I'm going to say like, and I'm going to start thoughts and abandon them. You've actually not been saying like as much, you've been saying you know. You know. There'll be a filler. I can't, I'm addicted to fillers. I've got filler blindness, but only with filler words. Everyone knows that politicians are not in it for the public good,

even if they think of themselves as being dedicated to the public good, they're so compromised by the system that they're operating in, that whether they want to or not, they're in the service of something else, right? I think that thing is rentier capitalism, but other people

might say other things. There's a sense that they're corrupt, whether you're left-wing, whether you're right-wing, whether you don't have any strongly held politics, there is a consensus, politicians are corrupt. So when you're in this situation where democratic forms of leadership are so compromised and you've got no faith in them, that does mean you start looking at other forms of leadership, religious forms of leadership. It might even be like Kuki wellness influences, or it might be strong man political leaders who promise to drain the swamp, who promise to burn it all down and build up something else. And you could say many things about them, but you're not going to say that they're people of inaction, right? Fundamentally, they're men of action. And I think that when you've grown up, and especially if you've come of age post 2008, where all you hear from politicians is, sorry, we're not going to make your

life better in any way, and you can see and you can feel that managed decline and you can see that retreat of the state from the public good. No wonder you look to different forms of leadership. That's a lot of words for me to say that you're right. I agree with you. I think that what this comes down to is liberalism is a crock of shit and politicians have totally failed. But maybe there's a question that I want to throw back to you, which is in what ways have you or do you look to strong leaders to tell you what it means to live a good life? I don't know about me personally. I don't know if I do look to strong leaders for me personally, but I think that's because I have a value system that's already pretty

hefty. So I already have an idea of what a good life is. So it's not like one strong leader. It's like a collection of thoughts and ideology that's already very established. When I say people want to be told what to do, at the moment we're seeing strong leaders fill the vacuum as you pointed out, but it doesn't have to be a strong leader, it has to be a strong coherent, actually there's an incoherent. Moral system?

Yeah, coherent, a system with a moral imperative. People want to have an external moral imperative or set of values that they can adhere to. And it needs to feel coherent, even if we look at it and we're like, that's totally incoherent, which is the right are really just good at being hardline. The right are really good at saying, this is what you need to do and do it now, you worm.

And I think that appeals to the fear factor and the shame and negativity that people hold about themselves while also satisfying the tell me what to do vibes and I think the left as we've touched upon before, sorry this is getting very downstream but I guess we're here, the left are just not very good anymore at telling people what to do in a way that actually gives you a moral imperative rather than just tinkers with like language. At least the left that I know, but I'm, I might be wrong. There's something I was thinking about because, like, I'm doing a little bit of some experimenting with writing fiction at the moment and it might go nowhere or it might be something,

I don't know. But one of the characters is wrestling with this thing of like, I'm looking for a moral system. I'm looking for a moral system. I'm looking for something to tell me what's good and what's bad and what I should do and how I can redeem myself. And they go to church, or have written this even though they kind of go to church, but they basically find that they're too selfish for it. Like that they're just too selfish for it. And I think that there's obviously, I don't want it to be one of those things where just because the system we've got of like lost in the source, liberalism, that it means that you romanticize the moral systems of the past and romanticize religion. But I do think that there are some aspects of religion which are important and maybe get,

I think we've become maybe too skeptical of them. One is the idea of universal forgiveness, which stems from, people always get it wrong, right? People think that forgiveness starts with you are morally compelled to forgive everyone. It actually starts from a different point. It says everyone requires forgiveness. You require forgiveness. And so you have to have a system which creates a moral imperative to forgive because you are in need of it, right? Because everybody's in need of it. And I think that we look kind of askance at forgiveness in a weird way, or we think that it's weak,

or we think that it cancels out the wrong that someone's done. But I don't think living in a world which is so skeptical of forgiveness has been good. I think it's made people feel more anxious and afraid. I think there's also something else, which is the idea of, you know, and again, I'm looking at this through like very much a, a like Christian point of view. And that's because as a country, we're still so steeped in

Christianity. Like, you know, even if you're not Christian, I'm not Christian, but I recognize that because of the culture I've been brought up in very steeped in Christianity, the idea of hate the sin but love the sinner, which is that you are compelled to integrate everybody in society, but you can identify the sin and say, I don't like it. Now, this, particularly when it comes to the church's stance on queer relationships obviously gets a bad rap. I'm not saying, oh, well, the church gets a pass on homophobia. I don't believe that.

But I wonder if the idea of love the sin, but hate the sinner, oh, sorry, that's the other way around. Love the sinner, but hate the sin, is again, something that like, we need a bit more of, because we sort of end up in a place where it's like, hate the sinner, don't want to say place where it's like, hate the sinner, don't want to say what's a sin, but hate the sinner.

Which again, I think really contributes to a sense of social precarity and anxiety. So, thinking about coherent moral systems, are there aspects of religion that you ever find yourself picking elements from? It's hard to say, because I don't study the doctrines enough to know if I've picked the elements from it. Get your King James. Get my King James out. Why do you seem that I'd be a Christian? Because it's the easiest one to just like slip into.

You don't have to go through all the different conversion hoops. You just slip into a pew and go Christian now. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We have got, we make it very easy as well. Like if you want to talk about who makes it easy to convert. Who are you identifying here? Are you talking about Islam or Hinduism?

Islam, Islam. Where about bums on seats, your face east, you say the Shahada, Bob's your uncle. I don't think that's true and I think that's good. I was reading a piece, okay, so sorry, we're getting into my sub stack now, but it's fine, whatever. So I was reading this piece by this hardline, very socially conservative, Anglican pastor

from America, who was talking about why young people are he thinks are attracted to hardline, socially conservative religions. And he talks about the religions that practice out loud. And he taught he praises Islam and he says that is a religion that is public, practiced and patterned. You can see like it's a religion that's lived as a way of life, not just a private practice between you and God as an individual like that as part of it. But it's like there's certain ways of certain modes of dress that you participate in even if you know you don't wear the hijab then on certain holidays then you definitely show that you're part of the Muslim faith. There's specific holidays in the calendar, there's prayer times different

times of the day like there are specific rituals that make that religion something as a life rather than just like something that oh I hear God and I see God. And he also talks about Roman Catholicism as something, similarly, that's public, practiced, patterned, and how people want those, want to partake in those commune, that communal identity and those rituals. I would say Judaism has that as well, if you're practicing Jew. And I think that these, this is the thing that I was writing about myself, which is there's been a rise in Christianity in the UK

after a long decline, it's bouncing back. But the faiths that have the biggest leaps are the evangelicals and the Roman Catholics. Why? Because they're the ones that I think are dear to this pattern that this hardline Anglican priest presented. And it doesn't mean you have to be socially conservative to be part of these or that that's trend. And I think I think the left is missing a trick when they they're looking at this. I think that that we're

missing a trick in realising that people want these wants to be told what to do. And they want a, as we said, like a morally coherent set of things, but they also want a lifestyle that they can embody, they want to practice they can embody, it doesn't have to be religious, political tradition can do that. But we've backed down so much on these, like outlined political traditions, and instead got this cobbled together sort of, here we go, here's just a general doctrine thing, that mishmash, do what you want, vibe that I think things go in cycles. I might be totally wrong and I might be advocating for something that will end up terribly,

but I just do feel like the people don't trust themselves and they don't really want, they want agency, but they also want an external guidebook. So a couple of things. First is, when I was talking about Islam being easy, I'm talking specifically in conversion. Then you've got your five pillars, all right? And you're like, you better do all five.

But the act of conversion, especially when you compare it to Judaism, where there are some schools of thought where you can't even convert, right? But even for the most liberal kinds, the act of conversion requires study and time. There are some people, you know, there are some groups within Islam who think that that should be the case if you're Muslim. Some say, well, it's not just about throwing the Shahadi, you have to do it on the phone to an imam. Some people have done the Shahada over the phone. But basically, we made the cost of entry very, very low, but the paying of the dues, the

union dues, there's a cost there. That's all I'm going to say, there's the cost. I think when it comes to being told what to do, and I was saying this ages ago to my partner, again, it's one of my, there are three things I talk about at home. There's football, there's the cat, and then there's combat liberalism. Those are the three conversation types that you're going to get. And so when I was on one of my combat liberalism rants, I was talking about the fact that actually as a child, one of the ways in which you know that your parents love you is because they tell you what to do. And because they want the best for you.

Now, of course that can take forms which are abusive, ones which are psychologically damaging, ones which make love feel conditional. But take it from someone who had a very, very painful memory of like, you know, this was when I was in my teenage years and I thought that like, maybe the reason why my biological dad wouldn't want to see me is because it was too difficult for him to come to London. And so I arranged to go up and see him. He's just like, not only did he not talk to me, So I arranged to go up and see him and he's just like, not only did he not talk to me,

but it was just clear that he had no investment in my wellbeing whatsoever. Therefore I could just do what I wanted. Never wanted to know where I was going. I like went running off with like some guy and like getting up to all sorts of no good. No concern for my safety whatsoever. My mom found out she went completely ballistic.

And while my mom's anger at me was the scarier thing, it also let me know that she loved me because she was worried about my safety, which meant that there were rules and that it mattered if I broke them. And, you know, creating a structure less environments for children, and that's different from creating spaces of possibility and creativity and exploration, but entirely structure less existences for children are really fucking bad, really,

really bad. And so I think that if you extrapolate that, obviously the degree of agency for adults is very different from the degree of agency for children. And I'm not saying that it should be one or the other. But again, I think if you get the sense that no one really cares how you're doing, and that they don't really want the best for you, and so there's not going to be any distinguishing between the bad and the good. I think people just feel really uncared for. Within, you know, not just like my romantic partnership,

but like within all of my friendships, sure you've got to, you know, it's dynamic, right? So sometimes you sally forth with your moral opinion of something that's going on, and sometimes you hold it back. There's never going to be a clear rule for which one you do and you just have to feel out the boundaries. But ultimately, with all of my friendships, I know that they care about me because if they thought I was doing something really wrong, they would tell me and they do tell me. And they know I love them because it's reciprocal.

It's funny you said as an example because that just happened in one of my closest, my best friend group and it was probably one of those loving like exchange of advice I've ever seen someone ask for advice, everyone else disagreed with their take on things and said so in a very loving way because that's how we feel about them and they were they didn't get angry or anything like that they were just like well I'm gonna do this thing and I see advice and then after they're like you guys were right but the no point there was that was that anger or like shaming it was just do think you're, you're probably handling this in a way that isn't going to help you in the long run. And that's our opinion. And then they still, they still, they still went ahead and did, made their choice. And that's their choice. And then

afterwards, they were like, I kind of want to handle it a different way. Now we're like, well, here's some other advice, and you can take it or leave it. But it was like, kind of want to handle it a different way. Now we're like, well, here's some other advice, and you can take it or leave it. But it was like, the, the reason we could give advice that dissented from just like, we totally agree, we're gonna we we're so on board, is because we have those bonds of love and care. Like you say, it's like, they felt cared for, it was advice out of care, it wasn't advice out of shame. And they've done the same to me. Like, this is not a group of yes men. And that's why they're my best friends. This is a group of people who care and care deeply.

So they're able to say no, or I disagree. And I know it comes from a place of care. And that's, that's what I think, you know, being told what to do when it's from a place of care, like you say, it's different to like Andrew Tate telling you what to do because he's an absolute worm. But people are looking for the thin imitation, the pale imitation of that care because they can't find it. I've got a provocation. Provoke me and then we'll go on to helping people.

Obviously there's lots of ways to be good. There's lots of ways to be bad. ways to be good, there's lots of ways to be bad. But like, I kind of feel like where this, I guess, edict against judgment comes in incredibly strongly is often to do with sexual behavior. And we loop back round to, you know, do what you like amongst consenting adults, as long as you're not hurting anyone. But is there, and this is me asking a genuine question, because it's not something that I feel like I've got an answer to that's

particularly clear. Is there a sort of danger with that, that people can pursue self-destructive or nihilistic, you know, approaches to their sex life. But because there is an edict against judgment and in particular an edict against slut-shaming, that we're not good at saying, like, I just don't think that this is good. Even if they're not hurting other people doing it. Socially sure but within my friend group again there is an ability to express when we think someone is doing that and express it sometimes through silence, through not endorsing a behaviour, sometimes through straight out saying do you think this is healthy? Do you think this is good for you?

I'm not sure that this is something that's going to help you. It's also knowing when to speak, like positive reinforcement of other behaviours, not to be like a dog, but they do this to me as well, like positive reinforcement of some behaviours and then coming back to something when they're ready to talk about it and ready to be open about how that actually made them feel. And I see this in my group a lot. So I don't think this is a thing,

it might be a thing broadly, it might be a thing that we do to strangers where we're like, go off queen, you do whatever you want. But I think within certain relationships, it's not, there's still just as much scope to say, I think this is self-destructive behavior. It's not just a yes man thing.

So I really do think it depends on the relationship. Yes, socially, we might have moved more towards that, but I do think there is, that's because a lot of the discussions we're seeing are like on the internet where it's just this binary, sort of this is bad, this is good. Whereas if you actually delve into interpersonal relationships where you have a rich back and forth communication reciprocal,

then it's that conversation looks very different. And those discussions of what sort of healthy behaviour look very different than you would get if you were an article saying, I think this is bad. And someone going, I think that you're a slut shaming misogynist kind of vibe. So it depends on the field, it depends on the field and I don't think those conversations when they had publicly have ever probably resulted in the maybe the amount of nuance we'd want but obviously the internet and these forums heighten binary positions people take. That's my feeling. Is there a way to talk about it publicly with more nuance? I mean, like, obviously not being like,

okay, in my 800 word article, like, here's my theory of sexual morality. Like, that's probably not good, but like, is there a way? Why is it not good? Why is it not good? If you wanna have these discussions, what you have to do is put forward your opinions and thoughts in a, and you will expect that things come back,

but you could just turn the comments off if you don't want to be an autocracy. You know, like, if you want to have these discussions publicly, you have them publicly, but you have to be aware of some people, and like a lot of people are not equipped to have this discussion. If you want to have it, you put it forward, you have it. But a lot of people will not respond to it in the way you think they will. We've moved into a space where lots of people can't think critically or with nuance

and their knee jerk happens and you just have to kind of not write them off as in like their lost causes, but just write off their responses. It's very hard when someone's in your comments going, oh, I don't think you can be right about this because this was then you can't just go, I think you're stupid. Because it's not even that

It's stupid. It's just they They can't engage with it on the level that you would like someone to engage with it and that's fine You just have to ignore that and instead focus on the people's reactions Who you do think are able to engage with the text in a way that's actually productive even if they are critiquing it And there's a difference between those things. I'm gonna write an 800 word article titled medium slag. Medium slag and then turn off the comments and log out of Twitter.

That's my advice. Medium slag I think would be, that should be a name for something. There's a writer on Substack who writes things that I really enjoy. And his page is a total autocracy. No comments. You're not allowed to comment.

You can't comment. And that's fine. I draw more of my own opinions in that vacuum than I do when there's comments. Yeah. Like engaging with something when you are insulated from other people's judgment of it. Very, very good. Trimble along? Let's go on to other people. I'm in big trouble. Are you? Other people are in big trouble. This is our segment called I'm in big trouble. If you

are in big trouble, if you have a problem, medium, humongous, very, very small, email us at if I speak at navaramedia.com. That is if I speak at navaramedia.com. Do you want to do you want to read it at? No, I just did a massive big theory. You should read it. Oh, okay. Hi, Ashton Moyer, longtime listener of the show now. Your takes have been the sensible soundtrack to a naff and often chaotic final year of university. Two weeks ago, a man I'd been seeing for around three months broke things off with us. I'd been expecting to go long distance after I moved home, but he told me he couldn't do that, and after I wrestled with it for a few weeks resulting in a lot of me pushing him away,

he decided he couldn't do the relationship anymore. He's the only boyfriend I've had, the first reciprocal I love you, and all in all just someone I felt so lucky to meet and so unfortunate now to have lost. I haven't met anyone whose worldview I matched with so well. I felt like I could talk to him about anything. There was a world in my head where we crafted a life together which I'm now trying to put to rest. This is all to say I have my dissertation and two essays due within the next three weeks. Since my GCSEs, being at the end of typical secondary school homophobic bullying,

I've never been very good at compartmentalizing negative emotions during study periods. It largely results in me switching off, dissociating or distracting myself. I'm finding my life to be so deeply dissatisfying at the moment. I hardly have the motivation or the care to put the effort into my work. Academia has been a struggle for me the whole time. Whilst I have a good time with creative writing and talking about my thoughts on things, I've always felt I've always struggled to coherently put these down in MHRA referenced essays. Everything else feels robotic and I feel

quite hollow. How do I help myself get through this period of uni stress whilst feeling so low? This is not to mention that my house currently has a broken fridge our landlord is stalling to fix by two weeks now. I often spiral when I struggle with my university work and get filled with feelings of laziness which I fear I will never shake. My brain feels more incoherent than ever

and everything comes back to that pit in my stomach that makes me feel like I really missed a chance at good life for this man, especially when everything in the world feels so uncertain. Sorry for the long message, this felt kind of therapeutic to write, even if I still feel all of these things. Thanks guys. Special one. Special one. I apologize for my horrendous reading. Send me back to school. Did you not read the email? Don't you don't want to go back to school? Wasting much work. Special one. Oh, I'm sorry, breakups suck.

The main thing is you're sad and you're grieving, and it's hard to work through grief. That is a key thing. There is, it's crazy to me that we don't get bereavement leave when we have a breakup, especially a breakup. You know, even after three months, those ones, when you're young, can hit the absolute hardest. First love, short, cut off at the height of when you're just

starting to feel all those mad love endorphins flood you. That's a sucker punch. It's brutal. It's brutal. First of all, totally get, you know, you feel like you missed a chance at a good life with this man. You haven't, you will realize that one day in the future, once you process this all. But the main focus right now is getting your works done, I would say. And you can't rely on motivation to do that. You can't rely on just like your brain one day sorting itself out.

You've already said that academia is a struggle at the best of times because the systems it operates, so you have to find your own system to work through. I would do something so, so structured, I would create yourself a work and feeling schedule, which is my- Hello, Virgo placements. I would create yourself a realistic schedule

that means you get at least 500 words done per day, because 500 words is doable. And if you do those 500 words and you feel okay, you do a bit more. But you have to get these 500 words done a day. You have to work out when you need to start this in order to get these these exams done or the you know, if it's revision, you fit that in there too. And then you leave the rest of the day free for you to do your moping and wallowing and walking outside and listening to music and starting to come back to life and rebuilding your life vibes. But you have to come up with a structure to order your days in my opinion, because when

you are lost and you need direction, you have to create that direction for yourself. That's my kind of thing. Don't fight the feelings of sadness. They exist. If you want more uplifting music, fine. I have a breakup playlist which has every single genre on, of breakup feeling. From the, I've lost the love of my life to, I'm so glad this person's gone. It covers every emotion. And you can find it on my page. I find it very helpful. Listen to it over and over again. But also talk. You answer this in your own, you know, how do you feel better? Felt Therapeutics is right. Write stuff down. Write stuff down about how you're feeling and

keep talking to your friends. It doesn't matter if they're bored. The point is they're your friends and when you're going through a hard time they will listen to you. You are still only a few weeks out of this breakup. You are allowed to talk to them. It is legal to talk to them about feeling sad. Get it out, get a schedule going, keep feeling your feelings. That's my main advice. Like when you're in a breakup, you just need to be heard.

I think that's very wise advice. I think me and you are in total agreement that like what you need are forms of external motivation and accountability, which the schedule really helps with. I've also got two more suggestions. One is eminently sensible. The other one might be a little bit cracked. So let's see how that goes.

Eminently sensible one is that I think that one of the best ways to get work done at uni, that's what got me through my final year and also my masters was studying with friends, having a library schedule with friends, and especially when you're having to crank out big essays, being like, okay, we're going to be at 8.30, we're going to spend half an hour having a coffee together, then we go in and like, other people's work rate also helps keep you working at a similar pace. And particularly because I was one of those people that was like a real last minute Larry, it helped me organize my work in a way which didn't mean that all my trains were going to come up once and I was going to have a nervous breakdown the night before my Victorians essay. I think that that's something which is helpful and also will probably help with the breakup element as well

because one, obviously you've got other people helping you be more like on it about your work, but two, you just have company and I think that you will on it about your work, but to you, you just have company. And I think that you will naturally talk about your feelings when you have them, naturally create a space for their stresses and stuff. And it's gonna make you just feel more in community with people. So that's the eminently sensible idea.

Do you wanna hear the cracked one? I definitely do. And I have one more thing to add. Okay, this actually isn't something I do, it's something that my partner does, but it's right here, so I'm gonna show you. For listeners, there will be sound effects. This is a chess clock.

And what he does is this. He's like, okay, I've got to do five hours of writing today. So when he's physically writing, hear that, that's the writing clock. And when he's doing anything other than writing, maybe he's scrolling, maybe he's he's reading the Tottenham blogs, maybe he's talking to me about some bullshit. Hit the other side. And so you're timing that. So why that's good is one, it makes you kind of your own policeman, right?

Because if you have to hit the chess clock every time you're faffing, you're like, okay, like I want to be back on the other side. The other is you set yourself goals in time. So it's like, I'm going to do five hours of like productive work or however many, and you can measure it and it's there. And the third thing is that some people find the like analog ticking noise just sort of meditative and helpful. I've never used the chest clock but my partner swears by it. Well that's really good advice. I love the chest clock. I'm a chest clock now. Oh my god. I'm drawn by the power of the chest clock. I told you, like the two of you are very similar in so many ways.

Well, maybe we should get together and like take over the world. No, no, the two most fucking ADHD border colleagues. That would be great. My other practical thing I've just noticed is they say they have their dissertation and two essays due in the next few weeks. Do the dissertation first, get that done out of the way. Ask for extensions on your essays if you have to, but do that in good time. But the dissertation is the big bit. Always do the big chunk of work first. Get that cleared. And then you then by the time you've got to do the essays, you're literally flying. You're just like, I can bash this out. It doesn't matter if they're robotic.

I have to say I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It doesn't matter. Just structure, fill in the gaps, done. It does not matter at this stage. Just get them done. I think like on the breakup, it's so painful, especially if it's the first time that you've really put those hopes in somebody. But I mean, like all these things are cliches because they're fucking true, right? Which is, you're not gonna feel this way forever. You are going to learn more through each relationship and I hate to say it, each heartbreak, like there are lessons in every single one of them.

The practice of repairing yourself after a heartbreak. Oh my God, that's so important. And ultimately, I think all of those things make you ready to be a good partner to somebody else and to have a good relationship. I think not having had to cultivate that resilience of putting yourself back together after a heartbreak, probably a shit partner. Like probably a shit partner. You know, someone who doesn't have a sense of perspective of

what's the big problem, what's the small problem. Again, bad partner. You know, somebody who got on the first train before checking all the destinations, again, that ain't gonna be a good partner. And it's something which, I know it's easy for me to say, because it's like, oh, you're in a very committed relationship, wife guy. But there is something that makes me really smile and feel a sense of tenderness and gratitude

towards all those heartbroken versions of me, because I don't think that I could have a marriage now without having had all those experiences before. And I certainly couldn't be single and massively avoid doing that. I'm joking. No, on the other side of it, I totally agree with what Ash is saying.

It does make you better for the future relationships. And you learn so much about yourself. You can be married to put yourself. I don't need to, do you know what's so hilariously sad? Because my methaphone thing, I'm not looking at screens before I go to sleep now. And I don't look at screens when I first wake up, I put the radio on.

You know where other people daydream of like, romances and what their life's gonna look like when they fall asleep? What am I dreaming of, Ash? What do I daydream about as I nod off to sleep? Is it TikTok? No, it's work. It's literally, this article, I need to commission this.

I'm, oh, we need more of this. I'm gonna do a strategy plan. Like, it's, I'm married to the job. But what Ash has said is so right. And we now need to leave you to feel your feelings, all of you. No, to write your essays. To write your essays, feel your feelings,

write your essays. Reminder, if you would like to feel your feelings with us, we're going to be doing our first live show of 2025. Wrap, wrap. The 21st of May at Earth in Hackney, I promise we will be leaving London soon. We just need, you know what special ones, if you want us to leave London, you need to tell us, like you need to send us a message about where you are.

We need to give you a little survey. Where are you located? Because we're going to go where the massive special ones are. Where is that? Tell us, tell us so we can come to you. Because I don't want to just end up in, you know, I'd love to go to Rochdale, but I don't want to end end up in you know I'd love to go to Rochdale but I don't want to end up doing a show there if no one's gonna come so tell us where you are not Rochdale no that's why Epson T father

lives is it interesting I have been to Rochdale actually interesting place anyway this is me if I speak I've been more Lotham McLean this has been chess clock is the chess clock So annoying. Like for the first week he had it, he only used it to piss me off. Anyway, bye. I love the Chess Clock. I think that's such a fabulous idea. Thanks for watching!