Making Sense with Sam Harris - #163 — Ricky Gervais

Episode Date: July 12, 2019

Sam Harris speaks with Ricky Gervais. They discuss fame, the effect of social media, the changing state of comedy, offensive jokes, Louis CK, political hypocrisy, Brexit and Trump, the state of journalism, and other topics. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.

Thank you. of the Making Sense Podcast, you'll need to subscribe at SamHarris.org. There you'll find our private RSS feed to add to your favorite podcatcher, along with other subscriber-only content. We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers. So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one. Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris. Okay, brief housekeeping. The Waking Up Course.

The Groups feature is finally launching, I believe in the next update. So, more or less any day now. And this will give you the ability to schedule a time to practice with friends and colleagues and even strangers. You can just go out to people in your world and then meet in a virtual group where you can sit in silence or listen to a guided session or both. I'm actually excited about this. It will obviously create social support for people and accountability, but I think it'll just be very cool to see your friends practicing with you in silence. I'm hoping that it'll simulate the intimacy one experiences on retreat. It's amazingly intimate just to sit with people in silence. So hopefully that proves valuable to everyone. Needless to say,

if you discover bugs, please let us know at support at wakingup.com. And if you're not using the app and you want more information, you can find all of it at that website. The app launched now nine months ago, and the feedback has really been great. It is very gratifying to know that so many of you are finding it useful, but it's still very much a work in progress, and it will be absorbing much more of my energy over the next year or so. So stay tuned for changes and more content. Okay, well, in this episode of the podcast, I speak with Ricky Gervais. You surely know Ricky from The Office and Extras and many of his other shows, most recently Afterlife on Netflix. You can also see his great hour of stand-up there, titled Humanity, and he has another one in the works called Supernature. This conversation was a long time coming. I've been emailing with him for years at this point, but we had never met, so I took the opportunity to fly to London. I thought this was one that had to be done in person. Anyway, it was

great to finally meet Ricky, and we talk about many things. We talk about comedy, obviously, and fame, the effect of social media. We talk about the risk of telling offensive jokes or saying much of anything, really. We talk about Louis C.K. and Brexit and Trump, political hypocrisy, the state of journalism. We touch many things here. As always, if you find conversations like these valuable, you can support the podcast by becoming a subscriber through my website at samharris.org. And I left the bonus questions in this episode, but once my website is revamped, which is also happening very soon, we'll be rolling out the bonus questions I've acquired for other guests to subscribers. So those, along with Ask Me Anything episodes of the podcast,

and some other content that will soon be coming, is there to incentivize subscription. Because while the podcast itself is free, subscriber support is what makes it possible. And now, without further delay, I bring you Ricky Gervais. Do you want to make sure that's recording? Yeah, no, it is recording, but I just want to make sure the level is right. I think we can keep this as close to you

as you need to be. But yeah, I don't want you to put your back out for this interview, so you should be comfortable. Get you comfortable. I will move the mic yes what kind of chair is that it's a novelty chair it's from graham norton right is that too much i'm i have no mic technique well yeah this mic this mic well you are a podcaster so you should have some mic technique no but um yeah this this you can get right up on it but you have you have that big laugh okay so yeah sound man all over the world yeah so uh yeah i'm gonna ask you to leave the room if you have to do that again okay a big laugh that's a lovely euphemism

for annoying noise no it's a big laugh it's a great laugh. You know who has the biggest laugh? Have you ever heard Jeff Bezos laugh? No. He has the most cartoonish billionaire's laugh. It's just, it's like a rifle shot. I imagine it's fantastic. It might be sort of a a linear relationship of wealth to wealth. Funny everything is. It gets louder and louder. Yeah. Okay, so.

Okay, right. There we go. I'm going to get you now. Two idiots setting up to try and sound intelligent. I am here with Ricky Gervais. Ricky, thanks for coming on the podcast. My pleasure. I've traveled a quarter of a mile for this.

My office is very near my house in Hampstead. You've flown 3,000 miles. Yeah, so guess which one of us is jet lagged? That's good. I have the advantage. It's an honor. For me too in some years that i've wanted to just meet you and i mean it's been you know i just noticed that uh it wasn't happening by accident though we were exchanging emails so yeah you know so i just wanted to make it happen the day has come and it's it's a thrill i'm a bit nervous you're a professional comedian and i know but i'm scared world famous star i'm scared that us two in a room we'll egg

each other wrong and we'll say we'll say things that that will be you can't have a subtle argument anymore is my point there's there's no place for nuance or or everything has to be binary for the for the right people to agree and disagree and there there's no context anymore. No one cares about context anymore. They take anything out because it's all about point scoring. So that's why when we're discussing contentious or having a discussion seems dangerous in the modern world. Well, I want to talk about that. Before we jump into that, I just want to ask you a few questions about just how you got into this position. At what point did you become famous? And how long were you working in comedy before you had to think about the world paying attention to what you were doing?

I guess it's sort of an accident, a very slow, gradual process. a sort of an accident, a very slow, gradual process. And by the time I decided to be a professional comedian, I sort of nearly was one. Because The Office came first, right? Well, I actually started stand-up before The Office went out. And I think my first Edinburgh show was while The Office, the first series, was going out on TV. So I certainly started right in The Office before I started doing stand-up 20 Degree. But they're about the same. But I think it was still relatively late, you know.

Okay, briefly, I was a failed sort of musician, early 20s. I then eventually got a job, just a job in my 20s. And I worked in an office for like nine years, I think, which is what the office is sort of based on. You know, I wasn't taking notes. I wasn't thinking one day I'll be a comedian and I'll write about this. I was thinking this job's near my house. It pays the rent and I've got friends and it's,

it's fun, you know? And then because I worked as part of, it was the admin center for the university. I helped a local radio station get its license by letting them promote to the students. And out of the blue, because I got on with them, it was a tiny little station that just got its license called XFM.

They rewarded me with a job. And again, it was still an admin. I was the head of speech and they wanted me to, you know, write little news things and help out in the office. Just, it was a gift of a job, right? And I was meant to write things for the DJs you know what was on that night or bits of the news and and because I'm lazy I thought I thought do I have to type this out can't I just go on and say it myself it'd be

quicker right and I went yeah go on and I went on and I was funny I was just myself and I was sort of funny but a normal guy being funny, never, never thought that this would be my job. And soon I was popping up on three or four different radio shows throughout the day. And it was, it was just the day job with a little bonus,

you know? And I think from that, I got, someone was listening. They were starting a new show on channel four. This is 1997. And it was called The 11 O'Clock Show. So it was sort of like a cutting-edge, no-holds-barred sort of Saturday Night Live

for new comedians and pretty much anything. You'd say what you want. And I went on there a couple of times. And I suppose that was when I when I thought oh this is good this pays better than a real job it's less work it's fun but still I was thinking oh this is this is not gonna last you know I'm just doing this and and then I thought no I'm earning enough now to do this full time. And I'd already started. I already had David Brent, along with lots of other things that I was doing. Just again, it seemed like I was an amateur comedian all my life.

So you had David Brent as a character before The Office? Yeah, yeah. And he wasn't called that. It wasn't until, you know, he started thinking about it and he's got to have a name. And then there was this sort of nice synchronicity that I was earning enough and didn't have a day job to sort of write the office. And it still didn't go out for another two or three years. It went out in July 2001.

And then I also got my own show from the Channel 4 thing as a, as a little spinoff called meet Ricky Gervais, you know, again, it was getting like a million people and, but I knew I had the office and I knew the office was sort of more important. And I, and I thought this is the, this is what I want to kick the door down with. And so what year did the office air?

2001, July the 9th 9 30 bbc2 so so when did fame kick in when did you suddenly well that was that was certainly i'd have to say that i would be getting recognized on the streets and have and see things about me in the news and my picture around immediately the first season of The Office? Yeah, but still, to most people, I came from nowhere because all the other stuff was small. I had a bit of a cult following from the 11 o'clock show. But, you know, we're still talking a couple of million people watching that.

And indeed, the first series, The Office, I think, only got like one or two million people. Then it repeated and it became a cult cult and then it was like four million then the first the first episode of the second season got started at five million so it grew sort of gradually and quickly but yeah that was certainly when i thought oh okay i'm a i'm a professional comedian now with a bit of profile. And it was creepy at first. In fact, I feared fame before it happened because I was sort of older and wiser. I was like...

You're in your 40s, right? Yeah, well, 38, 39 starting. And then after the first year of The Office, I think I hit 40. It would have been, yeah, it would have been, yeah, July 2001, I was just 40 and uh it's because lots of things i you know i i didn't want to people to think that i'd i didn't want to be lumped in with those people that just wanted to be famous so i wanted to be clear that

this was an upshot of fame if you become a if you become a a successful comedian or actor you're probably a bit of a famous one just because you know and uh i never signed that never signed that deal with the devil you know make me famous and you can go through my bin so i was quite militant about my privacy and probably too much now i've now i now it's cool now i don't care you know and uh i also thought it was it would be an injustice for people to tell lies about me because i thought my reputation was everything you know and uh i also thought it was it would be an injustice for people to tell lies about me because i thought my reputation was everything you know and now i think it's still important but i realize that reputation is what strangers think of you you know and characters what your friends

know you are and so i don't care anymore now i hear things about me i think who cares no one cares no one cares yeah well i mean so people certainly pretend to care they give a a good semblance of caring yeah but then if that's like that's like it really if you if you take you know social media not just social media now now lazy journalism that the worst bit of clickbait for me is so and so said a thing and people are furious. No, no, they're not. 0.001% of people are furious. The rest of us don't give a fuck.

And we wouldn't even know about it if you hadn't made it a headline and shown two tweets as an example. So that's the problem. If you take what social media is saying, you might as well go and visit every public toilet wall in the world and get offended by what they've written. Except there are now real-world consequences to this kind of amplification. Of course. Well, that's exactly what it is. I mean, Twitter's become more and more of a cesspool,

and you just mustn't take it seriously. You've got to treat it like it's virtual. And I don't get a lot of stick really i see some people that they're it's like they're they're keeping back a mob with a with a flaming torch it seems to me that you have created a persona for yourself that inoculates you against the the worst part of this i mean so you first of all, comedians in general have a little more latitude than normal people make. A comic can get away with something that a politician could never imagine saying. Traditionally, historically, but now it's like, it's like,

it's worse to make a joke about a bad thing than to do the bad thing. Yeah. So I want to, I want to talk about that, about whether comedy has become more dangerous. But I also want to notice that I do think you are, you're managing to fly above or below the radar in a way that I feel like you are more bulletproof than most, partly because you don't appear to give a shit about any kind of backlash. Well, that has to be the perception, I think, for a comic. Because as soon as you start apologizing to the mob, you might as well give hecklers the stage because that's all they are, they're hecklers. And you've got to be in charge. And I think if I have achieved that,

I've achieved it for lots of reasons that's happening under the water. That is, I try and make my stuff bulletproof so I can defend it. I don't go out there and go, I'm going to say what I want and offend who I want and I'll ruin the day and I'll undermine the moral fabric of society and I don't care. I'm not like that at all.

When these jokes, these routines hit Netflix or BBC, they've been tested on people around the world. They've been honed. But then there's been a sea change in people's attitudes. Of course. world. They've been honed. But then there's been a sea change in people's attitudes. So are there any jokes that you once did and could have fully defended at the time, but now wouldn't do? Has anything fundamentally shifted for you? Well, I think the big impossible feat through recent changes is you can make your jokes bulletproof for the time, but now you have to make them bulletproof for 10 years' time, just in case. Or 10,000 years' time.

Exactly, yeah. It's never going away. John Wayne was cancelled 40 years after he died recently for not being woke enough in 1971. Just how woke did you expect John Wayne to be? I know, exactly. I know, yeah, exactly, yeah. Disappointed.

In an interview for Playboy magazine, no less. Right, right. People reading Playboy nowadays are going, this isn't woke enough, you know. So, but you can't legislate against stupidity. You can't legislate against the future. All you can hope isate against stupidity you can't legislate against the future or you or you can hope is that people understand like um i talk about this in uh my new show super nature about

the council culture that it's not enough to apologize anymore and move on people want blood people want you ruined because it's a point scoring competition now so kevin hart did some shitty childish homophobic tweets 10 years ago about, oh, my son's not gay. At the time, he got a backlash. He said, oh, sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I was just being silly. Really sorry. Deleted them all. Then he gets the job of his life, you know, last year, hosting the Oscars.

The tweets come back up. The mob on Twitter go, what about these tweets? You're trying to get homophobe. He cannot do it. Oscars committee go, oh, just apologize again kevin he goes no i can't keep apologizing i said sorry and i can't keep watching so he lost the job now he's got a point really because if there's no value in saying sorry and changing and progressing and evolving why bother he might as well just do those tweets again and it's really counterproductive

also if the apology isn't sincere i mean that's the actually i want to let's table after a second i want to talk about what i am thinking about is kind of the physics of apology i mean just what just how how can people redeem themselves what what should constitute an adequate apology well it's before we get there, I want to just stay on this issue of dredging the past in search of controversy. Because this did almost happen to you recently. It was more targeted at Louis C.K. But so you had that interview show where you sat down with Louis C.K. and Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld. And you guys use the N-word and you're discussing why it is that only two of you ever use the N-word and the other two of you never do,

but you're using the N-word in the context of having this discussion, right? And then this gets exported to social media and media in general in the most inflammatory framing. I mean, the thing that was, in my view, totally exculpatory, and it was exculpatory at the time, and I don't remember you getting grief at the time for this. It was like 2011.

No. Was that you were explicitly referencing one of the most famous bits of comedy ever. Is it Chris Rock's bit about N-word? You know, there are black people and then there are ends and he goes back and forth and me and jerry were saying we never use that right right and then and and louis ck does and then chris he and chris were going back and forth about about that and you know i think chris said that he was he was black or something i mean so

but it was it was the most important point is that at no point was there an indication that anyone there was a racist or whatever. Use this term to express racism. Right. Of course. Yeah. And and the person who got the brunt of it, of course, was Chris Rock for allowing. Yeah. Uncle Tom, the helped midwife this atrocity his his that was the headline and uh uh the rest of us were sort of like collateral damage but um he was the he was the one that got that got the real hate well i mean the thing that is well and louis and louis because of obviously they were trying to find other reasons of course exactly yeah yeah well i i actually i want to talk about that as well but you heard you must have heard

what happened to um this guy jonathan friedland at netflix the communications director at netflix no um okay so he i probably do but this is probably now a year old i mean this the story is didn't get a lot of press, but it's so emblematic of what has gone wrong in this moment. So I just want to kind of get your intuitions on it. But the comic Tom Segura, who has a couple of Netflix specials, very funny guy who, in his latest special, used the word retard or retarded.

Oh, I do know about this, but I can't remember the details. Go on. Okay, I do know about this, but I can't remember the details. Go on. Okay, so he used this word, and there was a lot of blowback. I mean, Netflix got lots of grief from parents with kids with mental disabilities, and so they had this sort of emergency meeting of the top brass at Netflix. So it says Reed Hastings, the CEO, and, you know, the 10 people under him. And this guy, Jonathan Friedland, who was their communications director. And he said, listen, we've all been blindsided by this, you know, who knew this was this bad. But apparently, the word retard is as bad as the N word, but he used the word right he said it is as bad as oh as this word right for the

black community and we just have we have not you know understood this yet so we have to so he's he's using it in the spirit of saying this is how bad he used the word he used the he used the r word in full or use the n-word in full right he used the n-word in full. Right. He used the N-word in full to illustrate how bad the R-word is. But again, it was in the service of saying, this is how woke we have to be. This is how scrupulous we have to be. We have to figure out how to navigate this such that we make amends and don't offend any more people, right? But his uttering those magic syllables,

again, in a context where not only was he not expressing racism, he was expressing the most energetic anti-racism, right? He got fired. They fired him because the magic syllables had been used in that context. And I happened to find myself at dinner with him just randomly at a dinner party and had not heard the story.

So I'm hearing it directly from him and his wife in the, you know, maybe two months after he had been fired. And it seemed to me they hadn't even absorbed what had happened to them, right? So I'm asking him, I said, well, wait a minute. So did anyone in that room, you know, did Reed Hastings or anyone under him or even any of the millennials at Netflix who were calling for your head, did anyone think you're a racist? And he said, oh, no. No, exactly. No. But he hadn't, it's like he hadn't even absorbed the implications of that.

It's like this was a human sacrifice to a taboo. Of course. And it seems to me that we have to pull back. Well, that's interesting as well. But then again, there's something comforting in that because a lot of people, if that had happened to me and I'd been fired and lost my livelihood, I'd still want people to know that actually I wasn't a racist. That would still be the worst bit for me, for people to think I was a racist.

Oh, yeah. So that to me is like a little light at the end of the tunnel that, okay, I'm fired. I've lost my, but at least I'm not a racist. And that's what people know, the power of it. They know it's the worst thing to be and accuse someone of. Yeah. And that's the, that's the, do you know what I mean?

Yeah. So that's the power people have when there's a, when there's a, you know, a lynch mob out to get someone. People do sacrifice good people because they can't get to the bad people. But that's what's so perverse about this circumstance, because what it's selecting for, politically especially, are the bad people who don't care about being called racist. Because everyone that's being fired and publicly embarrassed about a misdemeanor and being called a Nazi, there are real Nazis who are getting away with it. Just waiting for the job. Exactly, yeah. This must be amazing for real racists to right, to be out there and going,

it's all right, everyone's a racist now. This is a great smokescreen. We've got people out there calling people who aren't Nazis, Nazis, which makes us look, they don't know the real Nazis from the people who said the wrong thing once, you know. It's a happy accident, I think, and it plays into the hands of the genuinely bad people. There are real racists and there are real Nazis and there are people who are oppressing,

actually oppressing people and causing harm. And then the people who joke about these things, who are the poster boys, they get the brunt of it. It just makes the world slightly worse. All right. I want to swing back into social media and controversy for a second. But I have another question about fame. Have you gotten too famous for your own comfort?

If you could reel it back and be less famous or be differently famous, would you? I mean, how much does fame complicate your life? Well, sort of, but then that's like saying, I want to be able to turn it on and turn it off. like saying I want to be able to turn on and turn it off I like I like getting a seat in restaurants you know but I don't like people looking at me when I'm shopping for pants well that's that's sort of tough so all I can do is demand all I want is the same rights as anyone else that's all I want you know you know the money sorts out the privilege. Right. Now I just want. But no, I think I don't court it. I don't, you know, I can, I live in a place where I can walk around and I'm not bothered, you know. Now, how different is that from city to city?

Are there cities, like if you go to L.A. or New York, are you bothered more than in London or less? Are you bothered more than in London or less? Well, I'm not bothered because I'm a 58-year-old in a stable relationship who doesn't do drugs or gamble or break the law or go to court. You know, I don't – I'm not an interesting – I'm not interesting. But you must get the incessant demand for selfies and – Yeah, and that's nice. I never refuse and that's that it's always that's nice you know because i hear stories of someone's oh so and so and so you know a person who's genuinely likes your work and they think they know you and they have to pluck

up a bit of courage to ask for a selfie and i see they're nervous and and um i also thank you very much my pleasure and uh that that's And that to me isn't being bothered. That's being a person. That's being a human being. If I wasn't famous and someone asked for help that it didn't take anything, I'd do it anyway. Have you got change? Yeah, I have, yeah.

It's not like you don't walk away going, what a great person I am. So that means it's no skin off my nose. So you're in a restaurant eating with friends and people come up to the table and interrupt your dinner asking for a selfie. Again, slightly annoying that they haven't read the situation right. Again, but usually I'm really left alone in restaurants because they get it. I could go to places and be bothered. If I went to some sort of loud, drunken bar at 11 o'clock, I'd be bothered.

If I go to a posh restaurant, I'm not bothered because you sort of create your safe spaces. We'll get onto that. So no, it doesn't really bother me. There is a level of fame that's clearly paralyzing or at least deranging of a normal life where the people like you know that i guess it may correlate with some of the variables you just checked off as not having i mean being you know whatever the you know the justin bieber level of fame is or the you know the the lady gaga level that's crazy yeah crazy teenagers you

can't get out of the car because there's 100 people waiting for you and you know and you have to hide and wear beards and yeah you know that's great i haven't i haven't got that because i haven't got that demographic that's a big difference yeah i mean i i also haven't got that sort of i see comedians who, they caught it. They say horrible things and scummy things, and they get scummy people, and then they get annoyed when they're scummy people that they've pandered to act like scummy people.

Now, all my fans are, I like to think, are normal, but they're not crazy, because I haven't propagated that sort of environment. Do you know what I mean? I'm not on telly all the time. If I go to a, I might play with 10,000 people, but I'm in the car before they're out of the door. If I went, if I started stage diving, it'd probably get a little bit hairy. You know what I mean? That would be hilarious. Exactly. Yeah.

Do it once just for the image. Exactly. So as much as I sort of fear it, and I'm probably a little bit phobic about, and I joke about, you know, the general public, I ironically treat them as scum and say things like that. That's it. But they get it, I don't mean it.

They know that i appreciate my fans more and more actually as i get older and and uh and that's what makes you bulletproof well that that comes through but it's interesting that you so you have that layer of i don't know if this is on some level you know the david brent persona or there's a few of your personas that yeah that you use comedically where you're above everyone exactly and yet the joke's on you right yeah right well that's the important point so traditionally a comic is a court jester they're down in the mud with the people making fun of the king carefully you don't want to get off with his head and so we have to be low status

off with his head. And so we have to be low status. Now, nowadays, people know what comedians like me earn. Yeah, it's hard to be low status on a Gulfstream. Exactly. Right. So what do I do? I do it in two ways. One, I invite them in, I let them look behind the curtain. I go, what you think it's brilliant being rich and famous all the time? Well, look at this. And you know, I say, it's not all. Look how I embarrassed myself in front of the queen. Or the first time I took a private jet, they thought I was the cook. So I let them in and go, I'm one of you, right? I know I shouldn't be here, but it's like I'm taking the piss.

And it's not all roses. The other way I get low status is I talk about things where they're better off than me. Genuinely. I talk about being old and I'm going to die soon. I'm fat. I'm going bald. I got,

you know, right. I've got distended testicles. So I do that. And, uh, and then, um,

you know, you, you, you can sort of get away with more, you know, that they, they get it. They get the joke. And then you can sort of get away with more. They get it. They get the joke. And I think that's preferable to lying. I think that's preferable to me going out there and pretending to be on welfare or pretending to still care about this or that. So I joke about being rich and, and, uh, I do it arrogantly so that hopefully they get the irony. Right. Right. It's a great position to be in because you're, you get all of the benefits of being honestly appreciative of your fans and you get all of the fun of playing that other layer of,

you know, pseudo arrogance. Yeah. And, and, and it's- But also, there's a part of me that says, honestly, if I can do it, anyone can. They know that I probably worked hard and they know that I probably had something. But it is quite an inspirational story, really. A fat working class kid from Reading who suddenly makes it at 39. That's quite a good story. It's not like I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth and I had privilege. Do you know what I

mean? There's nothing to be jealous of with me. They look at me out there in my bad jeans and fucking sweat stained black t-shirt drinking Fosters out of a can and they go i don't want to be him i want his money but i don't want to be him you know they can they can laugh they can laugh about it because we have to be the butt of the joke really and with all that arrogance and with me playing the war story i'm always the butt of the joke if you look into it i'm i'm being childish if i'm, I'm smugly being a child. Is there an example of a comedian who has a fundamentally different geometry to their comedy who you would compare yourself to? Well, there are comedians that don't go there with themselves. They go out in a suit and they do puns.

And they're good at what they do. But those jokes are as good to read. You almost don't need them there so um my stuff can't be stolen yeah if you know what i mean it's not it's not it's not syntax and semantics it's it's attitude right it's a mood it's a man as angry about the world as we are you know it's almost not about the lines it's there's a narrative you know and this it's interesting you thought about persona right because that's the other thing that the problem some people don't get it is a persona it's a persona as much as david brent but it's just

more subtle because i use it as my own name so i treat the audience with a lot of respect in that I want them to be smart enough to know when I'm saying something I mean, and when I'm saying something I don't mean. And I almost explain that in my news series, Supernatural. I come up and I do a joke and I go, that's irony. That's when I say something I don't really mean. And you as an audience, you laugh. You're laughing at the wrong thing because you know what the right thing is. And I explain it at the beginning. You also have that bit in humanity where you go through a list of jokes that you would never tell while telling the joke. Of course. And again, I've set them up. I've warned them. I've warned them. I almost challenge them to be offended. And of course they're not, because they're ready for it. And then people

say, ah, but the problem with irony is some people don't get it. And I go, yeah, that's true. And they go, so someone can be laughing for the wrong reasons. And I go, yeah, yeah, I don't know what I can do about that. Because if you water the irony down so much that it's not irony anymore, I might as well go out and say racism's wrong, isn't it? And get a round

of applause. Well, that's great. That's lovely. But it's not funny. No, no. So you want to sort of, to me, comedy is an intellectual pursuit. And as soon as you start, you know, pandering or wanting everyone to give you a round of applause because they agree with you,

then you've lost something comedically. And I think you've got to be a bit cleverer with it than just going out there and and it's not my problem who's at the back you know when you play the 10 000 people there there probably is a rapist and a nazi yeah and uh you know i mean what what sort of door policy is that uh as you come in have you ever raped anyone uh you're not coming it's like i'm not responsible for the people at my gig i'm only responsible for what i say i'm not responsible for the people at my gig i'm only responsible for what i say i'm not responsible for how they take it do you know what i mean it's and the intention

behind what you say should be what's most important i mean what you're honestly attempting to communicate if you if you if your speech somehow misfires if you use the wrong word in the wrong context i mean i think there was a, someone told me about this, this may be closer, this is, I think this is a British story, which this must be very well known to you, and it's, I'm going to botch it because I'm from America, but wasn't there a comic who recently used the phrase colored people? In the U.S., saying colored people puts you in the South in 1963. I mean,

this is straight up racist, but people of color is the perfect phrase. Right. But, but, but, and to get that wrong is, is enough to have.

It would have to be, it would have to be, it's about intent. I think if you, if you were going round saying coloured nowadays, it's hard to believe you haven't heard that we've moved on. Right. It could be genuine.

Yeah. It could be a genuine mistake. Because I remember when it was the polite thing to say, and then when they would say that, people thought it was too harsh saying black. You know, there's people with good intentions. And, of course, if things change, then it's a bit odd that you militantly stick to words

that people have moved on from. But it depends whether it's genuine or not. I think it's all about intent. It's all about context and intent. Well, I mean, the reason why it should be about intent, I mean, it's not that you can't cause harm that you don't intend and one should feel sorry about that. But the crucial bit is that the fact that you didn't intend it is the indicator that you're not the sort of person who will cause those harms in the future i mean like you're like in 10 years time this podcast will have us two saying the c word right yeah right yeah yeah you know yeah and so there's already another c word too i have a list of c words now you can say cunt because you're in the uk again i try to explain to americans that

how it doesn't hold the same misogyny in england it's a term of affection. Saying cunt to a woman would be a bit, I'd never say that because it's just, it just seems too, and I'm sexist for not saying cunt to a woman. But I try and stress that it's so far removed from female genitalia in context in England. We call it, we say it to men for for two reasons one we hate them two they're our mate i was in um edinburgh once and uh two policemen walked past and they said oh mr javis

you're a funny cunt i said thank you very much it's a term of endearment as well you know but there is no misogyny it's it's in fact it's almost the other way, that you don't use it. So it's very, very complicated and nuanced. And that's the problem with social media as well. It doesn't know international boundaries. So when I tweet from London, that's a different... That's for all time in every culture, everywhere. Of course.

And we have to be educated and and i'm a fan of political correctness per se that i don't say the wrong i try don't say the wrong i don't want to be taken the wrong way i don't want people to be offended i don't want people to think you're a fan of civility civility exactly yeah yeah political correctness like other things has been has been mugged and and changed and now there's a new word for it. It's woke and all that. But yeah, if someone says, oh, we have a new term for that now, I go, good, yeah, fine. Just let me know.

I didn't get the memo, but now I've got the memo. I'd be a psychopath to still go around using the wrong term. All right, well, I'm feeling the tractor pull of controversy is irresistible, but I have one left field question to ask you now because I'm going to forget it if I don't do it. In thinking about this interview, I stumbled upon an interview you did with Gary Shandling on YouTube, which was fascinatingly off kilter and i don't i don't i couldn't tell how much was being played consciously for comedy and how much was truly awkward and i uh i don't know what to

say here because i've sort of he i don't i don't think he was quite himself really he was the time he was in a bad place yeah and. And he talks about it after. There's a thing on YouTube where he talks about it. He says he was trying to do a thing and it sort of went wrong. What happened was he invited me to be on some sort of anniversary box set, a DVD extra of Gary Shandling, of Larry Sanders, because he was a fan know as a fan right and i said oh i'll do a thing with you as well when i'm at it i was gonna do my i did a thing where i was doing my three comedic heroes which was him uh larry david and christopher guest and i did um i did those three there's a conspiracy theory that goes around that after the gary shanding

i cancelled the series it was only I said, you do that then. Like, no, that's it. People think that you do it as you go along. You know, I cancelled the series. So I think it might have been the first one. Oh, no, Larry, I did Larry David and then I did David Wittner. I mean, he had that,

I didn't know him. I met him once very briefly, but social awkwardness was part of his comedy. I know. But off hair, he told me that he was in therapy five days a week. He had five different therapists. When we got there, his crew couldn't find him. He was sort of, he was, and then he came in and he says he thought he was recording for his thing

at first there's a thing on youtube where he talks about it look it up um um i can't remember what it was but he explains it all and it was still it was still fun i left it all in you know people think that it was a stitch up i got no i edited it right you know i edited it i left it it's like you know that's, that's like on this podcast. Occasionally I get people attack me as though they've caught me saying something on this podcast. Well, of course. Like I had a chance to take my foot out of my mouth. Of course.

I know. We left it in because it's there. And also it didn't feel awkward. It felt like two people, two idiots sparring. Didn't feel awkward. It felt like two people, two idiots sparring. Well, it felt, it was a weird, it felt like there were sort of comedic egos jockeying for status a little bit.

But also, I said at the beginning that he's my hero. Yeah, well, yeah, but then it was also, it was not clear that what he was playing for comedy and kind of foe status, or whether he was, he actually didn't know who you were to the degree that that most viewers would assume in that at that moment yeah but he was he was teasing me as well he was trying he was trying to get something going even you know even after the initial thing where he says he didn't realize i mean then we had then we had it it was like far and we were

we were sort of in fun and then we had breaks and he and he told me lots of stuff that he'd been through and then we got back to it you know so it was just it's funny to be to you know as a an enormous fan of yours to just have a document there and an enormous fan of his to have a document there where the two of you are are collaborating and to actually not know how to interpret what's going on. I mean, it's kind of a weird sort of cognitively straining document. Yeah, but it was like we were doing it because it was funny and interesting

and we were winding each other up. Right, but then it seemed like there were moments where it could have been taken personally. But I love that. I love that awkwardness. In fact, you know, I could have put in the bits where we stopped and we were sort of normal and nice to each other. But where's the fun in that? Anyway, people can look that up on YouTube.

He owned me and he hated me. He didn't. He invited me to be on his DVD, you know. And then there's a great thing. You should find it. It's speaking about it. And he says that he got the energy wrong and he was trying something else. And he put it, you know then he um he and it's funny because when i got back with it

the broadcaster went oh my god this is really great you should do a new intro saying oh he was he was weird and it was i was going no i'm not doing that no i'm not doing that it's just it's it's yeah that's what it was he had a bad day and you know but yeah it's it's odd what um people hold up it's like this thing that owned yeah is it i see so is it owned on twitter really owned so uh all right so we we've put our toe in the water a bunch here, but let's just focus for a moment on what social media is doing to us. So you do seem to more or less just have a good time, at least like the public facing on social media. You're very engaged. No one's ever genuinely hurt my feelings on Twitter. That would be impossible.

Right. impossible right it's like the the the the analogy i use is i'm walking down the street and there's a guy living in a bin covered in shit right and he shouts at me you can't am i gonna get upset at that i'm gonna keep walking i'm like i'm not gonna i'm not gonna you know i might take a picture. That's a re-sweet. Yeah, exactly. No, it's like... So let's just walk through this somewhat systematically. So you do respond to people occasionally.

Some, some. I mean, the truth is I don't get that sort of... Again, I don't know why, but I don't get it. I think, yeah, i have no idea why sometimes i have to look for it sometimes i search things to look for if i if i'm doing a new bit i'll put in a couple of words and find a mad thing you know and i talk about that and someone said done once said why do you only retreat the maddest examples of you know fundamentalist christians and i go because a sensible christian not funny. Where's someone

who just says, oh, I've got spirituality and yeah, live and let live. There's nothing funny about that. Whereas someone that says, I hope you get raped by Satan. That's funny. That's why I choose that. Comedy is an exaggeration. It's not my job to be fair, to be fair. It's like, is it funny? Well, now, is there a problem, though, when you retweet someone to whatever it is, what are you at, 20 million or something? Yeah, 30 million. So is there a problem?

Are you encouraging the Twitter mob to go after this person? Well, I am a bit careful because you don't want that. So I try and do it with good humor. Now I hardly do it at all was there any point at which you felt your engagement with social media was out of balance and just and complicating your life and you do course correct no wasting time it gets more because it's fun it's interesting i can you know i can sit there and go through and I use it in many ways. I think number one, I use it as a marketing tool. 13 million people who get an email, that's really good. Yeah. And on that level, it may just be unavoidable. When you have a new show and

you need to put tickets on sale, it would be idiotic not to have a Twitter channel. I don't spend anything on... My gigs are pure profit because I don't have to spend anything on advertising. They sell out around the world. So there's that, right? Why would I not use that? It'd be crazy for me to shut that down because there are a couple of idiots. I use it as market research as well, because that's not a sample. That's the world. You know, if 100, 200 is a good sample, then 13 million, pretty much as it is. That's how it is. There's still the echo chamber because they're presumably following me for a reason and that, you know, I can't. But it's very good for putting out jokes and finding the ambiguity because someone out there will go, do you mean this?

And you go, ah, I didn't know it was ambiguous. That's good. I'll change that. And so it's good for joke writing. It's good to reduce. I like that restriction of characters to, you know, it's no good for nuance. It's no good for. So you've got to be manipulating that sample. You've got to go, hold on.

So this person doesn't get it. Does that mean there's something wrong with the joke? Or does it mean they're an idiot? Usually it means they're an idiot. You know, you don't care about, if 10,000 people are laughing, you don't care about one heckler. It'd be madness to throw, oh, I'll lose that joke. And also it's a disservice. Sometimes I've explained the joke to people you don't care about one heckler it'd be madness to throw i'll lose that joke and also as a

disservice sometimes i've explained the joke to people and the people who got it are angry they go don't fuck it we got it you know don't and i the same when a comedian apologizes i go oh fucking don't apologize yeah that's you know so you can't please everyone you shouldn't you can't legislate against stupidity and you shouldn't you know So you're, again, I'm trying to find the ways in which you seem to be uniquely immune to the pain here. But what do you mean by I'm unique? I don't know. I'm not sure that's true. Is it because I act like I am, or my responses, or I shouldn't be?

I've survived terrible controversies. I'm defiant against. So yeah, it's just so it's one, the public perception of you not getting as much blowback as other people would. Because I'll tell you why it's not the public perception. That's the point. If you're on Twitter, you think that there's a war going on. If you go onto Twitter and you hit the right buttons, right? It's like you're watching Game of Thrones. It's like the world is full of Nazis versus anti-Nazis. It's TERFs versus trans activists.

You go out in the real world, it's not. They don't exist. it's like this one percent right that's that's in your phone and there's the that's the terrifying equality that someone living in a bin can do a tweet and the next tweet is richard dawkins right and you go oh look they're the same they're not the fucking same yeah ones's a moron. So that's the problem. So when you go on these things and it blows up like it's a... You pick Richard Dawkins as a perfect example of somebody who has obviously complicated his life by his use of Twitter.

And there's certain tweets he has sent, which I think had you sent them, it wasn't merely that the joke was poorly crafted in his case. It's that he functions by a different physics of reputation management than you do. Well, my name comes up a lot on Twitter when there's ever a controversy, right? At a politicians' summit, and people defend and go, hold on, Ricky Gervais says these things, which is right. But I want to go, well, hold on, let's look at it. There's lots of variables here. One, I'm good at it. I'm good at my job. I've thought about this joke. This isn't me going out and saying the wrong thing. Two, you could say, well, that's not a joke. I make jokes about those things,

but that's not a joke about the thing. That's someone advocating the thing. And there's another big difference there. Is it a joke, first of all? Was it a bad joke? there's another there's another big difference there is it a joke first of all was it a bad joke that's another thing if you're if you're dealing with really contentious the more emotive and contentious the issue is the funnier the jokes gotta be perfect yeah you know you've got to go people oh i get it and i again i talk about this on humanity that people often get offended by let's say a joke let's talk about jokes actual jokes people saying things they don't really mean for a comic effect to elicit a laugh right people get offended when they mistake the subject of a joke with the actual target

so but some people think that something shouldn't be joked about, which is clearly not true. So, and they do that because they think, and there's lots of stages here. They think that, so if it's a bad thing, if it's a joke. Auschwitz. Yeah, exactly. What's the target of the joke? Is it people being killed? Or is it about a stupid misunderstanding or is the nazi that there's lots there's lots of

ways this can be okay you can make jokes about race without being racist we don't have to get to you know is it a racist joke or not it can be just a joke about race and everyone knows that you can make a joke about race without being racist. It seems to me that there are comics, though, that have completely changed their act in response to how thin-skinned everyone has become. Again, you know, I sort of get it. You have those thoughts. You go, oh, I'm dealing in irony, and I used to play the right-wing bigot,

and everyone got it. But now, the right-wing bigots are in charge. So is it the right wing bigger and everyone got it, but now the right wing bigots are in charge. So is it the right thing to do? So I have to find a way where I can still make these sort of jokes and people get them. And, you know, so there's a,

I do feel there's a responsibility to at least try to get the right target and hope people get it. So I get that. And sometimes, and then I get why people go, it's just not worth it. No one understands me. I'm getting shouted at and my friends don't get it either. And sometimes, and then I get why people go, it's just not worth it. No one understands me.

I'm getting shouted at and my friends don't get it either. And I want to be in this club. I get it. I don't want to give up. I don't want to give up. I want people to understand it. And I try. If anyone says, I'll explain the joke.

I'm happy to explain the joke because I love the intellectual pursuit. I love to say to someone, no, no, I'll give an example. So the Golden Globes. And now that's the only chance I get to write one line. If you'd like to continue listening to this conversation, you'll need to subscribe at SamHarris.org. Once you do, you'll get access to all full-length episodes of the Making Sense podcast, along with other subscriber-only content, including bonus episodes and AMAs and the conversations I've been

having on the Waking Up app. The Making Sense podcast is ad-free and relies entirely on listener support, and you can subscribe now at SamHarris.org. Thank you.