Modern Wisdom - #465 - Douglas Murray - The Wild Hatred Of The West

Episode Date: April 25, 2022

Douglas Murray is a journalist, author and associate editor of The Spectator. The last few years has seen a dramatic rise of anti-Westernism. But surprisingly, this movement hasn't come from overseas, the strongest anti-Western sentiment has come from the West itself. Whether it's demands for reparations, calls for the abolishment of white people, tearing down of statues or the rewriting of history, something is going on. Expect to learn why Dumbledore can't be gay in China, why BLM bought a 6 million dollar mansion, what Douglas thinks about Libs Of TikTok being doxxed, why anti-white racism sounds so disgusting when you change the wording, why there's more slaves alive now than at any time in history but no one cares, Douglas' personal philosophy around working hard and much more... Sponsors: Join the Modern Wisdom Community to connect with me & other listeners - https://modernwisdom.locals.com/ Get 30% discount on your at-home testosterone test at https://trylgc.com/modern (use code: MODERN30) Get 10% discount on your first month from BetterHelp at https://betterhelp.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D and Free Shipping from Athletic Greens at https://athleticgreens.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Extra Stuff: Buy The War On The West - https://amzn.to/3xQw7Kg Follow Douglas on Twitter - https://twitter.com/DouglasKMurray  Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello friends, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Douglas Murray. He's a journalist, author, and associate editor of the spectator. The last few years has seen a dramatic rise of anti-westernism, but surprisingly, this movement hasn't come from overseas. The strongest anti-western sentiment has come from the West itself, whether it demands for reparations, calls for the abolishment of white people tearing down of statues or the rewriting of history, something is going on. Expect to learn why Dumbledore can't be gay in China, why BLM bought a $6 million mansion, what Douglas thinks about libs of TikTok being doxed, why anti-white racism sounds

so disgusting when you change the wording, why there's more slaves alive now than at any time in history, but no one cares, Douglas's personal philosophy around working hard, and much more. I really love speaking to Douglas. The time that I spent with him in New York left me feeling motivated and balanced, and so much of the stuff that I've written about on the three-minute Monday newsletter over the last few months has come from reflecting on conversations that I had with him after a few too many manhattens at 2am in the morning. And I wanted to get that out of him today. So we get to speak about his book, which is interesting and touches on this bizarre sort of self-hatred of the West by the West. And then to the end of the episode, we get to talk about his personal philosophy, how he's so driven to work as hard as he does, how he deals with

regrets in life, reflections on his time with Christopher Hitchens. It's a really unique side of Douglas Ames, so glad that I managed to coax him into showing it because it's very valuable. I really hope that you enjoyed this one. And if you do, make sure that you've hit the subscribe button. It is the best way to support the show. I really hope that you enjoyed this one and if you do make sure that you've hit the subscribe button it is the best way to support the show and it means that you will never miss an episode when it goes up every Monday, Thursday and Saturday. But now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Douglas Murray. It's been too long since you've been on the show but this is our first time in person. When was it last on? Two years ago, Ish, paperback of Manus of Crowds.

That's right. And the world's only got better. Oh, it's so much better. So we've got a couple of hours today, and hopefully we'll go through some stuff that maybe you haven't spoken about before at the end. But first, there is some more pressing news. As you are aware, Dumbledore is a proud member of the LGBT community, but as you may not be aware, he is not allowed to be his true self in China.

Did you see this? No. Let me tell you about that. I mean, Dumbledore kept coming out. He came out more times in Sam Smith. So references to a gay relationship were edited out of fantastic beasts, the secrets of Dumbledore, by Warner Bros. for the film's release in China. As a studio, we're committed to safeguarding the integrity of every film we release, and

that extends to the circumstances that necessitate making nuanced cuts in order to respond sensitively to a variety of in-market factors, Warner Bros. said in a statement to variety. Our hope is to release the features worldwide as released by their creators, but historically we have faced small edits made in local markets. How gay was Dumbledore in six seconds of dialogue? What is it like?

It's dialogue. It's dialogue, not actual. Yeah, it's not a full frontal scene. Come on, it's not film for children. But my point is that he said something to this guy about how I used to love you or something like that, and it's been cut. Wasn't that, now we saw Harry Potter on stage

in New York with Jordan and Tamey Peterson only a couple of months ago. And if I remember rightly, there was some very slight illusion to gain us there. Yeah. The whole thing was homoerotic. I wouldn't agree with you there. I thought there were no symptoms. It was just charming.

But the no, there was some reference to it. Didn't because I mean, we don't know, I know this is pothrology, but I thought J.K. Roney only said that Dumbledore was gay, laugh the whole franchise had been. 2009, she posthumously brought Dumbledore. Posterously outed it. Yeah, so Richard Harry's, I've got no idea who's playing a gay character. No, which would have probably influenced the role. Massively changed the role.

Yeah, the point just being that Hollywood, yeah, Hollywood to Florida is we say gay, but Hollywood to China is, we'll say whatever you want, please take our money. Beautiful, isn't it? Yeah, it's beautiful. Well, I mean, I just have an ending contempt for these people as you probably guessed. And the contempt is based on a lot of things, but one is the way in which these sorts of entertainment haunt shows and so on, always, their idea of bravery is poking at empty hornets' nests. And whenever they find a real

hornet's nest, they just run a million miles. And that's why they're perfectly willing to weirdly melt down over Florida and to Santas and a bill which is totally reasonable in my view, to not like tell three year olds that they might wake up the next morning in a different sex. I don't think it's anything wrong with not teaching kindergarteners crazy, 100 gender, two-spirit ideology, which was come up with about yesterday and which they're still trying to work on to make any sense at all, which it never will. It's just completely typical. The same people who have a meltdown about that happening and attack Florida will be totally silent when the Communist Party of China expects different roles. That's one of the ways in which the 21st

century could go. Of course, we don't have to take you, sir. Did you see that a transorther wrote a horror novel in which J.K. Rowling is burned alive by a trans woman? I didn't. But you're missing out on everyone. I didn't. Were you missing out on every... I haven't even read that book. No, it sounds like nobody has. No. I don't know anymore. I don't know if it's yet to come out.

But what I do know is that the secrets of Dumbledore had a $9.7 million first weekend in China, which meant that two out of every three people at the cinema was going to see that film in China, which meant that two out of every three people at the cinema was going to see that film in China. Just tighten this in a little bit for me. Wow, that's... Well, the rules are different there, aren't they? And the cynical corporations realize that. And it's a none of its surprises in me at all. And it's a none of its surprises in me at all. This is how Hollywood and other companies operate. As I say, they pretend to be very, very brave.

They give each other awards for bravery. They meet up and slap each other on the back for bravery. They talk about human rights in Florida and lots of things like that. And then they just, of course, they do this in China. So Ricky Gervais said in the Golden Globes the other year, you know, these ISIS set up a streaming service, these people would run to it, you know. I mean, of course they would. They'd work for the cash came in. I mean, look at all these companies Apple and all that. They're all such damn cynics.

They all know how to have played this sort of virtue signaling thing in America and totally different rules broad. It's always been like that. It's always been like that. But I am cyber musel by this meltdown about the Texas thing. Did you see Gempsaki the other day? She cried. She cried. She said, I don't know. I've just become very emotional that what's happening in Florida because people are mean. You go, well, I mean, I don't know. I mean, maybe she's just trying to make sure her job at MSNBC is secure because if you express that amount of sentimentality and stupidity, then you're all miss certain to give a job at MSNBC.

She could have got a golden glow for the performance. You think she believes it? I don't know. I think if you wind themselves up about this stuff, they wind themselves up about issues that are just not relevant. The line between persona performance and identity kind of begins to get blurred. I mean, Sak is obviously, why has Spokesperson is obviously a smart woman. She must know that the Florida Bill in question doesn't say what she's

pretending it says, isn't going to do what she's pretending it'll do. She must know that. She's not stupid. Very stupid people who aren't informed might believe that actually Governor on the Santers has decided that you're not allowed to say the word gay in Florida. But I don't believe that somebody who's well informed could think that. So they whip themselves up on things that don't hurt them. Have you ever used your gay privilege card? Well, on other gay men, probably. I mean, I just don't want to know. I'm going to be a true digger.

And what do you mean? Is there not some sort of privilege? It's like a free extra shot at Starbucks or whatever. What do you get? No, never that. I think I know what you're getting at. As it were, are there things I'm able to say and do that a straight person wouldn't? Yes.

No. That would be the case if I was very left-wing or remotely left-wing for sure. But since I've not got the correct views. So you're basically straight? I'm an honorary straight, if not worse. I'm even worse than a traitor. Straight traitor. Straight traitor. It's that bad, Chris. It's that disgusting and reprehensible that my views have ungained me and I don't have a minority card. That is actually the case. It honestly is.

It's the same with women, right wing women and not really women. They have their woman card taken away. Anyone is right wing and gay isn't actually gay. They have their woman card taken away. Anyone is right-winging gay, isn't actually gay, they have their gay card taken away and so on. And I just, occasionally, I hear people saying, oh, well, Douglas only gets away with saying, I don't know if he's saying because he's gay. I think they don't really understand this, not the case. I say what I think, and I defend it pretty vigorously, I think, usually. And I've never felt that I've had any extra leeway because it happened to be gay. Partly because it's something I don't talk about very much.

I don't think it's very interesting. I don't want to bang on about uninteresting things. But also because I just, I don't believe in, I may have said this to you before and prior to my public, but I don't believe in the speaking may have said this to you before and probably I'm public, but I don't believe in the speaking as a Prefects. I mean, I just don't believe in that and even before I could identify what I didn't like about it I didn't like it. I didn't like the sort of person who stood up and say So my parents were from Peru and Honduras, and I am a bisexual. I don't care, get to the point,

you know, doesn't matter to me, stop it. And people only ever did it if they had traits that they thought meant that they should grab the microphone. Is there not some validity to the experience that everybody has, which gives them a unique perspective on the world? Yeah, but that's endless. But everyone has that. Everyone's got a unique perspective.

Go down, I mean, every person in the world has a unique perspective. Identical twins each have unique perspectives from each other. That's not a real thing observation. I mean, we all have a unique perspective. Now, you know, is a person who has been oppressed in some way, have they got a particularly interesting perspective? Well, on their oppression, sure, and on subjects relating to it, but not on anything else. And I shouldn't take your advice on accounting or macroeconomics or something. Definitely not. I run a million miles and I'm trying to give you financial advice. Speaking as a gay man.

Speaking as a gay man, you need to invest in ice. I mean, no. No, it's... All that sort of ridiculous validity seeking, I'm not in favour of. But no, I suppose there are some people who think that I get away with saying certain of the things I do about highly contentious issues for some, they try to find some reason for it. But it's definitely not because the fact I haven't been gay because they say in my own

experience it's never been anything I've benefited from. Career wise certainly hasn't. Occasionally it's been something I've suffered for to a certain extent or I don't really like to think in those terms and certainly don't like to moan, which makes me an unusual figure in this era, of course. Did you see that the lips of TikTok creator got docksed by Taylor Lorenz? Oh yeah, it's disgusting. I loved it lips of TikTok. I mean, we wouldn't know about these maniacs, I think otherwise, and I wouldn't sit on TikTok watching what a teacher from Minnesota was saying about, you know, their gender pronouns

otherwise. There's not quite enough time in the day. And so, and so, lives of TikTok did a great service. And, yeah, Taylor ends of the Washington Post. That's just such a disgusting baby. Long article. Do you read it? No, I's just such a disgusting behavior. Long article. Do you read it? No, I didn't read the whole article. Long article, serious. Yeah, I wish they'd have looked at Hunter Biden the laptop story at similar length.

I mean, corruption in the first family, which strike me as being a much more interesting subject than who runs lips of TikTok. But then Washington posed as his own priorities. But Taylor Lorenz is someone who broke down crying on MSNBC not long ago talking about online harassment. Yeah, all these people, bullies, who whenever they finished bullying people, pretend to

be a victim, whenever they get caught out they cry. The Kathy Neumann phenomenon, you know, bully somebody and then when you're caught out behaving badly, present yourself as a victim, nice, nice turnaround there. Very, very common. So I think it was Julie Bertschew who coined the term cry bullies for these people. Cry bullies is a great term for our era. What do you mean by that? Cry bullies are people who go around bullying everyone, and then when they're caught or in any way critzised cry, just immediately turn themselves into a victim. Everyone knows this from children. I mean, there's a certain kind of child who does that, and they should be slapped or, you know, in a country or allowed to slap a child,

they should be slapped or, you know, in a country or allowed to slap a child, or, you know, otherwise, you know, disciplined, to not behave like that. You know, these are sort of grown up Eric Cartman's, and maybe not even grown up. There's sort of Eric Cartman like, they're horrible bullies and nasty people who when it's not going for them, go, wow, wow.

What do you think is the problem with lips of TikTok as a channel? Is it because it's just bringing attention to, go, wow, wow. What do you think is the problem with lips of TikTok as a channel? Is it because it's just bringing attention to things that the left would rather people not see? It's not that, it's just a left in particular. It's just, this is what, I mean, I don't look at TikTok. And by the way, I think it's a highly unstable platform and obviously it's Chinese Communist Party direct.

Brainwashing us slowly. It is. One video at the time. All those things. And so, so yeah, obviously, you know, these teachers and others who say these ridiculous and outlandish, there was one who even said she was a witch. Did you see that one? No. There were some teachers like, you know, I'm a witch and I told the students and they had questions

and I was not as right. I was like, make it, I'm a witch. I told the students and they had questions and I was not as right. I was like, make it a bit harder for us. I mean, you know, they're actually, say, I also practice witchcraft after some of the strut of years being. No. It seems to me like it's a warning shot to any future potential people

that would consider doing the same sort of thing. Because, you know, someone posts something on TikTok, you're not doing it to get attention. Yeah, the whole reason that you're doing it is to get attention But maybe not by 600,000 people on a Twitter account. Yeah, they don't they want to be famous. They don't want to be infamous and Once something highlights it to a group they would never have got to otherwise, who don't see it favorably, it becomes a different thing, of course. I mean, it's a form of that thing in the air of the context collapse phenomenon

that occurs with social media all the time. Context collapse being when an out group discovers an in group's discussion and doesn't view it. What's an example of that? Oh, banter between friends on texts, for instance, where a group of guys banter about stuff and including bad taste stuff, joking about girls or whatever, somebody leaks it and an out group discovers it and thinks how disgusting the way these men talk about women. There are a university got popped for this a couple of years ago. I mean, people are sort of wise up to them. Yeah, right rugby teams quite often get done over

for it. An out group discovers an in-group discussion. And it's understandable that that happens in our era, because everybody has access to the clicker a few buttons to expose an in groups discussion. And it's really hard sometimes to discover what the context would be of a particular discussion. So I mean, that is something that goes on all the time at the moment, but, but, but, lips of TikTok is simply exposing what an in-group was hoping to be able to say to

to itself, and it's been discovered by an out-group, but the out-group really doesn't like it because it's teachers, you know, and things like that. It's like, if it's just we, I mean, there's that one person on lips of TikTok, I've seen several times, is totally to range the individual, a man who dresses as a woman and says he's trans and If it's just we, I mean, there's one person on lips of TikTok, I've seen several times, is totally deranged individual. A man who dresses as a woman and says he's trans and I had a lipstick and like a hairy chest and like he says, you know, he can't understand why people don't think he's a woman and call him a certain thing. You know, I guess it's a fake, you got a hairy chest and you know, like a dude. That's the problem I'd have thought, you know.

But there's this particular guy that he's like, he comes back to repeat it. He's like, one of them is like, you will respect us. You will respect us. I don't want that person anywhere near members of the public. It's really interesting to discover those people. But what the Washington posted was basically a punishment beating on the woman who runs the lives of TikTok. Punishment beating ended up warning to others. Well, the editor said that it was completely

in line with the journalistic standards of the Washington Post. Well, that's true. But they amended the article to remove her real estate license. Yes, right. Because that had doxer. Did you know that there's another online influencer with the same name as the person that founded Lives of TikTok, who's that the fallout from this has been so hard that a person that isn't the person that runs it but has the same name has also been getting harassed online. Doesn't surprise me at all. Doesn't surprise me at all. Because Taylor Lorenz turned up at that lady's house. Yeah, yeah.

There's a video, sorry, there's a photo of her standing at the door. Yeah, through the sort of, she's just really nasty piece of work, Chloe. It seems like it's not the first thing that she's done. This is the first time I've been introduced to her. A lot of people in America, in media knew about her, thought she was a kind of rogue lots of people in America. In media, I knew about her.

Thought she was a kind of rogue, unpleasant, bad operator. And this has just proven that. I mean, of course, is vile behavior. And as I say, I mean, there is so much that's important to write about in America, of all places. So many stories, such a rich environment for real investigative writing and journalism. And to be going and exposing the identities of citizens who are reposing things from TikTok

would strike me as being a very strange, journalistic priority. But don't forget, truth dies in darkness. As the Washington Post tagline says, truth dies in darkness. So their view of themselves, the Washington Post is absolutely. Our democracy would not run. The world might not be free unless they can dox, take, lives a dick doc. So that's there. Okay, so new book. Indeed. We're on the west hiding a kind of diet, Dr. Pepper, who we both want to be sponsored by if there's a... If there's any chance for sponsored... Dr. Pepper, I would welcome it. In my first sponsorship deal, I promise the carrot round all the time.

We know that it's a legitimate love, but New Book, very good, congratulations. New book, aren't it? How has the West been coaxed into hating itself? Oh, by all sorts of means. The first thing is just to say that it has, that I call it the war on the West because it seems to me that everything that's Western, everything is of the West, is in the process of being assaulted and insulted and demeaned and diminished.

And the rest of the world does not put itself through this. There are lots of forms of anti-Westernism which are foreign, you know, there's Russian anti-Westernism, there's Chinese anti-West Easternism, Middle Eastern and Easternism. All of these are interesting, but the most interesting one is Western and Westernism, and that's really what I'm writing about. The way in which the West has done itself over by demeaning and diminishing itself and attacking its own history, attacking its own heroes, bringing down its own heroes, destroying its own path, the past, can't out iconic plastic attacks on its heroes and founders, insulting the majority population, the white population. So there is this strange war on white people

in our day, which a lot of people even just hearing that phrase go, you know, worry, but it's absolutely the case. Racism in our day has rightly deemed to be totally impermecible in the public square with one exception, which is white people about whom you can say absolutely anything now. And people do. Now you've a remorseless number of examples in the borough. I mean, if any group of people, if you took what is now said about white people in America, Britain and elsewhere, and said about any other group, you would be regarded rightly as a racist, in a lot of countries you'd be locked up for hate speech. But this is now not just normal

rhetoric, but instilled and installed in every area of government, in countries including Britain and the United States. It's instilled through the media, through academics, through the military, through absolutely every level of our societies. White people are seen as being a problem and a problem for whom a remedy must be found. Now of of course, some of the maniacs who have been pushing this like Robin Yang, who herself is white and of course the author of white fragility, which sold about half a million copies after the death of George Floyd, says, there is no good form of being white. No good form of being white. And there's a rider. You also can't escape it. You can't escape it. So you can't like shift to another racial group. You can't identify

as not being white if you're white. She doesn't know what it is. And I don't think anyone really does. It's a very weird category to even talk about people in these contexts, you know. But if you said that about any other group of people, if you said there is no good form of blackness, none, and don't ever try to stop being black because you can't, you can't get out of it. We'd go, wow, that's a racist. That's a big racist right there. Well, it's racist when they do it about white people as well. The talk of white privilege has become a racist trope quite clearly. The talk of white tears, white female tears, try that any other way, black tears, black female tears.

Oh, she's just crying black tears. Oh, you'd say that's a racist. So it is when they say white tears, without a white rage, when the ones that they've in this attempt to pathologize being white, they've come up with most recently, particularly in the wake of January the 6th, white rage, no less a figure than General Millie, the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff in the US, testifying for Congress, addressed the issue of so-called white rage, said, I want to learn about white rage. I want to find out what it is. Let's try the other way around. One more time. Black rage. Let's look into it. Oh, you'd say that doesn't sound like a very nice thing to do. Why don't we just

talk about rage in general? White rage, black rage. Only one of those is a permissible thing to talk about. Only one of those you've catched the channel, joined Chiefs of Staff, using before Congress. Where does this asymmetry come from then? Is it because white people are seen to... It's always punching up toward white people. Is it this current trend that we have toward anti-Westernism, colonialist, imperialist, reparations need to come from the past, and that white people are, and that skin colour is a representation of that as

an ideology, or as a, like, the modern day tip of the spear of that history. I think it's an attempt to rectify a historic wrong and a wildly misguided attempt at it. So I mean I think we talked about this when we talked about the manners of crowds. We talked about the fact that there's such a thing as an over correction in social issues. Nobody denies that women historically were not able to make the same life choices as men were able to make. They didn't have as much freedom in general. They didn't. And so if you want to make up for that historic wrong, the obvious thing to do is just make everyone equal. A certain type of person says, no, we can make up it faster by punishing men for a time.

Nobody can deny that gay people historically were not treated equally as straight people. There's a type of person who says, let's attack the heterosexuals for a bit instead of saying, why don't we just have equality? In the same way, nobody, with any sense, would be able to deny that historically racism has existed in countries of the West as it has in all countries. It's a very, very ugly human instinct, one of the worst. And it exists in, it exists in particular American society. Exists still, there are still pockets of racism in America, not legitimate or in any way of mainstream, but there are some people who will hold racist views, but they're all on the margins.

Nevertheless, you can't deny it historically. America has been a white dominated country in which black people were oppressed for a very long time, and until not that long ago, what do you want to do to make up for that? Again, you have the same options as you have women, other minority issues. You can decide to go for equality, or you can decide to overdo it for a bit. Overcorrect. And the overcorrection in race is let's beat up on the white people for a bit. So one of the great race hustlers of our day in America is a man who calls himself Ibrahim X. Kendi, partly to give himself as a Malcolm X vibe. And he wrote a book called How to

Be an Anti-Racist, which is very, very popular in America. It's flooded everywhere. There's also a very slightly less grown-up version called the anti-racist baby, which explains, among other things, for two-year-olds that you should talk to your two-year-olds about the fact that policy is not people are the problem. Then if you have a matter two-year-old, but they very rarely talk policy issues in my experience. Anyhow, Ibrah Maks-Kendi, as he calls himself, says completely openly in how to be an anti-racist, and I quoted in the book, he says, the answer to past prejudice is present prejudice. The answer to past prejudice is present prejudice. The answer to past inequalities is present inequalities.

You must rectify historic wrongs by committing wrongs in the present. Is his message? What's wrong with that message? Well, first of all, you punish people who look like people who did a bad thing in the past. On behalf of people who look like people to whom a bad thing was done, you're not even dealing with victim and oppressor. You're dealing with people who look like perpetrators of the past and people who look like victims of the past. So that's the first thing.

Second thing is it's not going to work. And I'll tell you one reason why it's not going to work in particular, which is that this would be very hard to do if you're dealing with a minority group. I think if you said to any minority, you're really scum and worthless and historically, the only people who have ever done anything wrong and no one else has and so on. And you should think badly of yourself. And you should be locked in this bad identity forever and never get out of it. I think if you did that to a minority group, unlikely you could persuade them into this mindset.

Try doing that with a majority group. I think you're doomed to failure. I hope they're doomed to fail. I think they. I think you're doomed to failure. I hope they're doomed to fail. I think they're pretty confident they're doomed to failure. I don't think it'll work. But it seems like it's being pretty widely accepted at the moment. There doesn't seem to be a massive amount of pushback. That's right. I certainly get, you know, when you were using examples earlier on of flipping the language round to talk about black rage or black tears or blackness that you can't get rid of, that makes me cringe inside in a way that whiteness

doesn't because I feel like it's, I've just become so used to hearing that terminology. Use that, of course you have. I don't think twice about it. Yeah, well, I mean, in the early 2000s, the filmmaker Michael Moore wrote a book called Stupid White Man, which I reference in my book. I remember it very well.

I remember thinking even then 2000 or so. Ooh, I'm not sure the Michael Moore could write a book called Stupid Black Man, where there's a chapter in his book called Blame Whitey. I wonder if you could do the opposite as a chapter if Mr. Moore. He says in that book, show me any problem in the world, and I can point you to white people being minded. Mr Moore has not seen very much of the world, if he thinks that. But yeah, it's been prominent throughout our lives. It's been growing head of steam.

And it's now basically acceptable to hell with it. Times got to be called on it. It's a vicious, vicious thing. It's not just the fact, it's not the anti-whiteness, which is just a very, very ugly prejudice. It's that it's being done as a way to attack people in the West and attack everything about the West. And that's why in the book, as you know, I go through the war on white people, the war on Western history, the war on Western religion, including philosophy, and the war on Western culture, whereby the same remorseless attack, the same remorseless allegations of racism about everything run through absolutely everything in the culture.

So, explain to me how it is that that gets accepted, though. You know, you're talking about the fact that you have this majority. It's a critique made of the largest group of people within the community. It is trying to critique. And yet it seems to have been. I mean, it's the thing that I think that it's been accepted perhaps by media organizations and by book publishers and by authors, but on an individual level, when you speak to most people, I think they would say, this kind of feels a little bit icky. I don't understand how that's been allowed to occur

without a pushback. Well, because there's enormous... Everything I'm saying in this book, and a lot of what I'm saying to you now, most people can't say. They would... They're just not in a position in their lives to say, you can, I can, because I don't owe anyone anything. I'm a free person and I can say what I see and what I think. And this is a position of privilege. There's no doubt about that. But I know

that most people can't say it. And there's a reason, which is that they will be called a racist. Now, I might be called a racist by some people. I'm certainly not a racist, but I will inevitably be called a racist by some people because I'm saying something that is true and unpopular. And the best tool that my opponents have is to accuse people of racism. And for me, it's ugly, it's unpleasant. I dislike it, I dislike it partly, and large particles are true.

It's reputationally damaging, as it would be if people called me a misogynist or a homophobic or anything else. But I think I can survive it. I hope I can survive it, touch wood. Most people can't, because most people, going about their lives,

getting on with their jobs, if they would have that allegation made against them, it could very easily be over. So if you're just working in a company and you're told that you're going to do racial bias training, and you're told that you should read Robin DeAngelo's work and think about your white privilege. Which John McWater called the second worst book he's ever read?

Yes, it was. The first worst book was, I wanted to say it's like a some fan fiction book about something like something completely catastrophic. Right, okay. But he said it was the second worst book, but would be useful to fix the leg of a wobbly concept. Yeah, I think it is up there as among the worst tones I've ever had to dove through, I mean, every page. No, the autobiography of Rudolph Hus, the camp commandant of Auschwitz, was also deeply

every page, because he, among, as well as being a war criminal, he couldn't write. Every page of his memoir is absolutely true. Apart from being disgusting and brutal and gleeful, it was all illegible. It was also just, like, turgently, badly written out there. I remember when I read that, I thought, that's a terrible book. Robin Yanzhou's book is probably for me the second one. Impressive. After that.

But yes, the point is, if you're in a place in your life where you're told to do these things, you're told to talk about white privilege and contemplate that. And you said, I'm not doing that. Not doing that. Don't have privilege. You're very likely to be in a serious trouble. And there's lots of people who have been, and there's a partner at the firm KPMG who lost his job just because he said that he thought implicit bias training was crap. He lost his job. He was a partner. implicit bias training was crab. He lost his job. He was a partner. A big firm, you know. So let alone if you're one of the poor underlings who has to be put through this rubbish. So yeah, and anyhow, it's time that this is stocked, is my view. And not enough people

have willing to say it and I am, but it's time to stop. I'm not willing to allow people to keep talking about white people as being innately privileged. They don't know damn thing about most people. You cannot work out somebody's life, their experiences, their privileges or their sufferings because of their skin color. It's a gross generalization, it would be against black people, it is against white people. And I think also we have to call time on this ridiculous notion that there are racial groupings who have something to apologize for for historic reasons. You and I are both born and brought up in the United Kingdom. We are told now that we have some hereditary responsibility for slavery and, I mean, Americans only have

responsibility for slavery. You and I have responsibility not only for slavery but colonialism. Well, Chris, neither you nor I did anything in the slave era, either you nor I did anything in the colonial era long before our time. The British Navy policed the high seas two centuries before we were born in order to stop the slave trade, not just in Britain, across the world. The colonies fell apart decades before we were born. So no hereditary guilt from me, and I hope none from you, I hope none from anybody. There's no such thing. It's a vile idea. It's a vile idea that's certain. It would be permissible in a way as an idea if you agree that everybody bore some responsibility for things that

their society has done in the past, the past. Do they not? But they don't. It's one directional. It's only a western thing. And I explain in the book, I mean, other societies do not do do this and they just don't do this. China is not currently trying to work out what it did, historically wrong in mislaving era. China did as much slaiving as anyone still is actually. We have 40 million slaves in the world today, which were more than there were in the 19th century. More slaves alive today than there were

in the 19th century during slave trade. 40 million you said alive today? Yeah. I've met slaves. I've met former slaves in Africa and elsewhere. People are born as slaves. They're made as scaper. This is not an abstract point I'm making.

I think that us beating ourselves up over a trade which our own country got rid of two centuries ago, and if any of which we proud got rid of, and so on, there is significant likelihood we are not dealing with, for instance, slavery today because we're so obsessed with going over again An issue that was closed two centuries ago and You know it brings to mind a phrase of Nietzsche's in the genealogy of morals These are people who there's a type of person who who tears that wounds long closed and then shrieks about the pain they feel. We're dealing with a lot of those people at the moment.

They do not themselves feel pain from slave trade. They not feel pain from colonialism. They have decided to rip at a long-closed wound and then cry in order to win something, whether it's pity or money or reparations or something, everybody would have their own view on it. But I refuse to go along with this idea that, as I say, if everybody decided to take upon themselves exactly the amount of, as I say, it's a horrible idea, hereditary sin, but exactly the proportion of hereditary sin that their own society was accorded. Then that would be one thing.

It's quite another thing, when only one group of people, and that white Westerners are expected to be responsible for everything that anyone who looked even remotely like them in the past did. And everybody else is not. I mean, the obvious example to give is, is a point the Voltaire made in the 18th century,

he said somewhere, the only thing, by the way, Voltaire now is one of the many figures who's been torn down literally in Paris. His statue has been now removed by the authorities in Paris. On the great rationalist thinkers of French for the society, his statue was attacked so many times by people throwing red painted it that it's now removed and you can't find it in Paris. Nobody knows quite where Voltaire is today. But now, part of the allegation is that he profited through shares

in some slave companies. They forgot, by the way, the Voltaire also wrote and indeed won the great, great attacks on slavery. But Voltaire says in his own days, he says,ead won the great, great attacks on slavery. But Voltaire says in his own days, the only thing worse than what the Europeans have done to the Africans is what Africans have done to their fellow Africans. Is what Africans have done to their brothers and sisters. We know from the few memoirs we had, of people who were slaves in this period, people like Eqiano, Lauda Eqiano, a most amazing man who was and up to British and was baptized in Westminster, became a free man, had most extraordinary life, memoirs, well worth reading. We know from him, for instance, and many, many others, of course, that he was stolen by his neighbors in Africa in 1700s. They are neighboring village, they came and they snatched them at night. That's what

they were. People snatched, as they call them. And these Africans stole their neighbors and sold them. And now, what is the moral responsibility of the descendants of the people, Steelers? If white Westerners have taken some guilt, then I would like guilt from Africans as well. What do you do about African Americans who are descended both from slavers and slaves? What's their guilt, hereditary-wise? They cash out in zero. They would come out at yes exactly, the balance sheet you end up there. If you, when I was researching the slavery section of this book, I got into the very interesting story of the other slave, or the other slave trade, of the time,

whilst the transatlantic slave trade was going on, which was the Arab slave trade. And the Arabs had a huge slave trade that went on for much longer than the Western one, the transatlantic one. It's thought that maybe 10 or 11 million people were transported across the Atlantic during the whole of the period of the slave trade. It's an appalling thing. It was an unbelievably horrible trade, which people at the time, most people at the time didn't think was wrong because people in the past thought differently from us and almost all civilizations, sadly at that point, they'd

all engaged in slavery. Everyone did slave labor. How are the pyramids built? You know, the ferros didn't do it themselves. They didn't pay a fair days labor wages to the people who hold the stones for miles. The acropolis in Athens was not built by stones dragged up there by Azerbaijan. Willing employees. Yeah. I went to a church in Florence that was nearly 2000 years old, and it overlooks downtown Florence. And the tour guide was explaining to us, and like thinking, this building's nearly 2000, and it's been built up over time, but still the foundation to 2000 years old, and a lot of the frontage of it is over a thousand years old.

And I said, well, how is it that people from so long ago were able to make a building which has stood the test of time, said, well, you don't have the cost of labor? Yes, yes, that's right. That's right. Well, I'll come on to them the second, because that's a very important point. But just to finish that thought on the Arab slave trade,

it was about 50% more people in total during the same period. So if 10 or 11 million or so were taken across the Atlantic and the Translantic slave trade, it's thought maybe as many as 18 million from where to what were taken from Africa to what we can now call the Middle East Arab countries by who Arabia? By the Arabs. The Arabs traded as the Europeans did in slaves from Africa. Now you may wonder why therefore are there not more black people in the Middle East than there's an answer, which was this one, actually, a genocide.

The Arabs deliberately castrated every single male. So any African male they took to the Arab countries was castrated in order that there would be no more black people. Now, does that have a legacy today? Be sure it does. If you go to Qatar, various of the Gulf states, you'll find that they basically have

a slave labor class today. The Filipinos and others who are brought in and have effectively slave conditions, I've seen myself, to buy the same, to buy nobody like FIFA cares about this. But this is the case today, in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, the word for a black person, a bid, a plural I bid, is slave. They still call black people slaves. My friend I am, who was born in Somalia, spent a bit of time in Saudi Arabia, she was growing up and they were black because they were in Somalia and they were

so many black than the people in Saudi Arabia and they were always called abid slaves. My point is not in any way to at all diminish what the European slave trade was or what the Transatlantic slave trade was. But it is very, very strange to live in an era where it is presumed that only the West was engaged in such a thing. And only we, for the rest of time, must repay a debt which it appears can never be paid down. And that brings me to what you were just saying about what was going on in countries

of the time. I mean, didn't you say that the life expectancy of a worker in Lancashire, England, was exactly half of that of a slave working at the time? The average man in the north of England working in a mill, you know, a mine, they died in their late 30s. So, I'm sorry, but yes, this is different from being a slave, but it's not so wildly different that we are able to talk about those people in the north of England as benefiting from privilege. These are not privileged

people. These were not privileged people. These people did not have very many life choices of themselves. And here's one of the main points to make about all of this is the past was pretty much health and pretty much everyone. I mean, even kings died and princes died of diseases, which you'd now cure by a shot of penicillin. But the poor, who was almost everyone, they were not privileged people. And the idea that we have to recast all the ancestors of people who happen to be white as oppressors and the ancestors of everyone who happens to be black solely as oppressed isn't incredibly simplistic game and it's unfair. And that's one of the main problems about it.

It's just deeply unfair. And when you find an unfair game like that, you should ask yourself, why are we allowing this game to be played like this by people who literally declare themselves sheriff? Well, what's the goal of revising history? Why do it? Well, we revise history all the time and we should. I'm not trying to stop anyone coming out historical investigations far from it. I say in the book, I'm not against historical revisionism. I think the revisionists need to be revised in turn, because I think they've had too fast and full of run. I'm not against understanding any of this in the round. What I'm against is trying to understand it through a very narrow ideological lens.

And here's the thing. I mean, if we'd have been born like 50 years earlier than we were, we would almost certainly have had an education in the UK where there would have been a map on the schoolroom wall of the globe and the great pink of the British Empire. And we'd have been brought out and say, go, go, go, and we're a great amount of the earth we own in that terrific. And we're a tiny country below. Now we've gone all of that. That's just grand. And the teacher would have told us about these great heroic people who went out and made this possible. Now, that was not history in the round. That was a very narrow ideological view of Empire. Well, unfortunately, it's also a narrow and highly ideological view of Empire to do what we're currently doing, which is to say you must only look at Empire by, for

instance, equating it with the worst actions of the Third Reich, you know, that you can only compare it with Nazism. You can't say, well, it's a complex thing. Some benefits for some countries, a lot of negatives for a lot of countries. And the only people who tried to add any context and make any of the necessary corrections to the overreach have been just destroyed. People like Professor Nigel Bigger from Oxford University in the wake of the Sessel Rhodes

affair at Oxford when they were then attempt to pull down this Statue of Undoubtedly Colonialist, Sessel Rhodes, who also endowed his former college at Oxford Aurel as an attempt to pull down his Statue. And this Professor at Oxford, Regis Professor at Oxford, in ethics, has an attempt to pull down his statue and this professor at Oxford reads his professor at Oxford in ethics. Nigel Bigger, a very fine man, objects to this and says, why don't we, since we're a university, we shouldn't allow these lies to be told about assessor roads, which is what people were doing. They were making up quotes of things he said, when what he said was quite bad enough, but they invented quotes and said he'd use the N word in context he had and all that sort of thing.

And Nigel Bigger this professor said, why don't we try to sell a course at Oxford where we study the ethics of Empire in the round? You know, try to work out a moral calculus, is it? What? What it meant? Now that would be a really good and reasonable project. He wasn't allowed to do it. Fellow academics by the hundreds denounced him. wasn't allowed to do it. Fellow academics by the hundreds denounced him. How can you even think of trying to put this into context, they all said. One of the main arguments they used repeatedly was you can't excuse Empire because to excuse Empire would be to excuse, for instance, the Amritza massacre, which was the time when British troops opened fire on an unarmed crowd of protesters in Amritza, in India, not to be confused with the time when Andear Agandhi ordered the massacre of far more

Indians on the same spot, those two things are not to be confused at all. But the time when the British opened fire and Winston Churchill in the House of Commons denounces it as one of the greatest crimes of the era. He says it's a great stain on the British Empire that such a thing should have happened. And it was. And the Colonel, Colonel Dye, who ordered the soldiers to open fire on this unarmed crowd, he was put into time immediately. You might say, worse should have happened to him, but that's what happened. And there was an incredible outcry. Now, some hundreds of people were killed in Amrit's but again, is it impossible to work out what the benefits were for certain countries of

British presence? Is it wrong to think that Hong Kong benefited from British presence or Singapore, societies which have flourished, or did it flourish in the case of Hong Kong till quite recently, is it wrong to try to work out why the places succeeded and why the places that failed failed and what went right and what went wrong and whether you could find a ledger? That seems to me to be a very good, reasonable enterprise. Why is it that Winston Churchill has been seen as a racist, but Karl Marx has been seen as a hero? Yeah, I'm so glad you asked that. That's one of my favorite bug bears. Yeah, well, here's my short answer. There is an attempt to take down all our heroes, all of our heroes.

Winston Churchill for the British is our hero, our national hero. Only 20 years ago when we were allowed an opportunity to vote on who the greatest Britain was, the BBC had this, BBC documentary, ten people were in the end up being shortlisted, I think, and people presented a program on each. And the, and the person who won hands down as the greatest Britain of all time was Winston Churchill, of course. Now in 2022, even the BBC, whenever it runs a piece about Winston Churchill has to run like the case for the, for the prosecution, like 10 terrible things when it's in Churchill did. They've just, it's been decided to recast him in a different light. And again, a very unfair light.

He's accused a lot of things he didn't do, such as gassing Iraqis. In fact, he, and this is a known Tom Schuyler, he actually used, not to get too much into the weeds, but Churchill ordered the use of what we would now call tear gas, not mustard gas. And Chomsky and others are pretending that he used mustard gas on the arches. That lie has gone round repeatedly. There are other, all the sorts of other accusations against Churchill. But basically it's because the British love and admire Winston Churchill still. Not everybody, there are some critics. But by and large, he is our biggest national hero. And when the film Finest Hour came out,

there were lots of stories of people in cinemas at the end getting to their feet and doing standing evations. And I mean, I don't know if you feel this, but I feel very strongly that Churchill is, it's not just about him in Britain as a view that, I think think is correct that the world would certainly have allowed Nazism to flood across Europe and possibly to Britain if Churchill hadn't been in place at that time. Who is it that said this is the one time I've seen the hand of God at work in the real world? Yeah, Lord Hale Shum said it's the one time I've seen the hand of God in operating politics. It felt like it just the moat that Churchill being put into place at that moment was just a god send. And it was. And the other thing is, of course, he, for all of our families in Britain, I mean, he was the rallying figure along with the king and the queen, who showed the British people the

resilience necessary to sacrifice their sons a second time within a few decades. Because he'd done what fought on six continents or something or five continents, he'd put himself forward for World War One. He volunteered to fight in World War One. He did have fantastic hats, smoked a lot. He smoked, did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. He did a lot. not self-pitying, and much more. And so why have they come for Churchill? I explain the ways in which they've come from him.

My answer as to why is because they know that it will demoralize us. Who's they? The people who hate the West in general who hate Britain who hate America if you take down they hate people like Churchill being admired They can't bear it because they know that it's something so deep within us Now what is that deep thing for me? And I think for a lot of other British people it is the sense That we're a good country But we did something good, that France may have given in,

that we're the only shots fired being against French soldiers, by French soldiers, but that's good, it's a crossover that. The Dutch rolled over. A lot of other countries didn't have a choice and so on and so forth. But the British wouldn't, and this is because we were a good country and we faced up to bad people when we saw them. That is a very, very important feeling nationally. But if

you want to stop the British feeling pride in themselves, you've got to take out Winston Churchill. In the same way, in America, if you hate America, you not only hate the fact that the founding fathers are revered, and they've been, my God, as I say, saying the chapter on history, they've really come for the founding fathers in recent years. You might say again, there's a historical revisionism that was needed 60 years ago, people in America who revered Jefferson say say didn't necessarily know he was a slave owner We know today it would be nice to know something other than the fact he was a slave owner But the point is if you attack the founding fathers you attack an idea of America if you take down Lincoln

the victor of the Civil War and That's also happening Literally this and I've seen themselves with statues of Lincoln torn down in America. If you tear down Lincoln, you go in a similar way to attack the foundation of America, because if you don't have Lincoln, you basically don't have America. And again, not just because he was a good man who won the Civil war and did this extraordinary thing. Not just because of that, but also because his whole story was a story of coming from nothing and becoming president. I mean, he grew up in absolute poverty, Lincoln. Probably had one year of formal education.

Everything else, he was self-taught. He taught himself to read books. He was a remarkable man who imbued a spirit of America which many Americans still feel, but if you take down Lincoln, you've taken down the idea of America. Now, sorry, one of the quick point of that. Why don't they do it to Marx? Ah, well, the same remorseless battle is,

the same remorseless attack is made on every historical figure in the West, on every philosopher of the West, every cultural hero of the West. And it's always done the same way. They lived in a time of slavery and did something to endorse it or didn't work against it enough. They lived in a time of colonialism and didn't attack it enough or benefited from it in some way. They were racist by modern standards.

This is done against everybody, everybody in American history and in British history and Western history, except for Karl Marx. What a coincidence is this. I took great delight in searching the book of finding out the many, many racist things at Karl Marx, except in his private letters, his private letters to Engels, he constantly uses the N-word often linked to Jew, profoundly antisemitic, of course. Sort of narrowly bad views on slavery,

on colonialism, everything else. He said much more racist things than any of the people we've discussed, discussed so far, including Churchill. And yet weirdly, he doesn't get the same treatment. And yet weirdly, he doesn't get the same treatment. So if you take out every thinker, other than Karl Marx, why would that be? Other than that you're not really just, you're not really carrying out a fair critique. You're carrying out a deliberately unfair critique in order to advance an existing cause.

The existing cause in this case is anything but westernism, and Marxism is one of the answers. And I'm afraid that anti-Westernism has always been whipped along by Marxism ever since the benign birth of Karl Marx. He, even in the post-colonial era, as I say in the book, one of the great ironies of the postcolonial era, is that anti-colonialists like Fanart, who I write about, all said, we've got to get rid of Western rule in Africa. Now you could say, well, at this point we must return Africa to a pre-colonial time, a kind of native tradition, which would have included all sorts

of traditions, which would also not look very nice in the light of modern thought. The Obar of Benin was not a liberal Democrat much more. Anyway, but the point is, they didn't say that. They said, people like Fennel said, we must get the Europeans out of Africa and stop the European colonialism and capitalism in order that we can institute Western Marxism. Well, this is an oddity at the very least. But as I say, I think it's one of these things that the fact that people don't apply this standard to certain people and due to others is a demonstration that they are engaging in a bad faith argument. The thing that I keep coming back to is the why, right? What the end goal is of this. I don't deny that, you know, that I was kind of shocked

when we saw statues of people that I thought probably shouldn't have been torn down. Like Winston Churchill seemed like a bit of a stupid idea to tear down. What was it? Abraham Lincoln setting free a slave that got down to one point. I was like, well, that kind of seems like symbolically kind of beautiful rather than racists or imperial or whatever to me.

So I don't disagree that the things that you're bringing up seem to have happened. What I'm the leap that I'm struggling to make is like, what's the agenda? Why is this? It's dissolving the West's love for itself, the attachment of whiteness with Westernness, because Westernness had some baggage that came along from the past, and then by attaching the two, you make the personal part of the ideological part of the historical part of the Ibra, why? Like what's the end goal? You're suggesting that this is a slow

march of Marxism? Is that who's pushing this? I think one of the people isn't pushing it. First thing to say is that there is a totally, as I said, there is a totally reasonable genesis to it, which is, there are things from our past we have not looked at enough, and perhaps we ought to understand more fully in the round. There is also a totally legitimate understandable sense of, you know, where we always the good guys, that's a pretty good question to ask. And you know, by the way, only the West engages in this sort of self-criticism, but fine, it doesn't need to be something everyone does. So that's one thing. Is it a perfectly

reasonable attempt to get ourselves in the round? My only belief is that there is several other things going on, and just to limit them to a carpool. One is internationally, this is also pushed the Communist Party of China's propaganda organs, put out on Twitter a cartoon of Uncle Sam behind the Oval Office desk surrounded by bodies and it's sort of you know Uncle Sam, America's always you know being racist and so on it's said you know George Floyd and separation of families at the border is going on like this. Does anyone really think the Communist Party of China minds about separating families? Does it mind that with the Uighurs? Does it mind the fact that it's carrying out currently or with the worse human rights abuse currently occurring anywhere on the globe.

And that's saying something. Honestly, think the Chinese care about the death of George Floyd. We don't know the names of the people killed in China. Of course, they don't care about it, but they push it on us because they know that we're that there's certain number of us are receptive to that. The same thing with Russia. Russia and others have for years encouraged this sense of self-loving in the West because they have a different sense of themselves. So our foes and our competitors take advantage of this self-criticism because it is not something that they share.

And then we have this thing of total self-abnegation. What's that mean? Self-abnegation is the desire to rid yourself basically of everything that you have, for a culture to get rid of everything because it's all bad. And that's what I tried to write about in the culture chapter on this, to show that, you know, we're even doing this throughout our culture.

I mean, phrases like dead white men, suddenly took, got currency in recent years, dead white men suddenly took got currency in recent years. Dead white men. And people could talk about people in these terms. I mean, it's, again, dead black men. Oh, that was just dead black men. Who would say that? Who would say that?

Oh, that's just the legacy of dead white men. This became a process of self-scurging in recent years. And I'm afraid that a lot of it is done by bad actors, bad faith actors, and a lot of it is done by ignoramuses, I'm afraid. One of the easiest ways to make yourself look clever in the modern era is just to be anti-western. It's a blame ask for everything. Got it. Is it reflexive anti-westernism? Yes, I mean, but let's put it the other way around. I mean, that is a sort of easy way to put it like that. Let's put it the harder way. It's a sort of easy way to put it like that. Let's put it the harder way. How easy is it today for anyone in the modern West

to stand up in a public forum on television, say, and list the accomplishments of the West? Who would do it? Well, it's not like we don't have accomplishments we could talk about. Simply in the political arena, we could just mention the evolution of representative democracy. The concept of one man, one vote, one woman, one vote. A lot of the world's got nowhere near that concept of the peaceful transfer of power, maintaining of political order, the rule of law.

Okay, this is a very small number of things, but everything I've just listed is pretty big. Most of Africa, historically, the Middle East, historically, the Far East, historically, the far East, historically, does not have the peaceful transfer of power. It's one group oppressing another group and taking their stuff. I think Russia hasn't had a peaceful transfer of power through the actual appropriate mechanism maybe ever? Yes, I mean, you could say that it is. Well, you know, you're, well,

it depends how you interpreted the Communist Party, Cold War era, transferring power from leader to leader, which was sort of peaceful on their terms, under a system which people have no say in, I mean, you know, not at all. You had this quote, I think that relates to what you were just mentioning there, when you are speaking into a great vacuum of ignorance, people with malign intent can run an awfully long way, awfully fast. Yeah. Yeah.

It's absolutely true. They, if you are brought up to, and I was slightly in this when I was a student, you don't know the world, you don't know very much about the rest of the world, you've not been too much the rest of the world yet. When asked anything about it, you've only got this prism of where you come from. If you're taught, well, it's us that's responsible for everything. Then it's quite easy to just always look at everything through that lens. But it's not a correct lens. I mean, it's a lens. It's not a fair one. It's one of you like critique in the book Edward Said who wrote the book

Orientalism, which always all students will read, unfortunately. It accuses Western scholars of approaching the Middle East and looking at it through Orientalist eyes, looking at it with European eyes. Ever since Said wrote this, it seems to think this is a brilliant insight. It's not a brilliant insight at all. What eyes were they meant to look at the Middle East through Chinese eyes, Japanese eyes? Of course, they looked through the eyes of the place they came from, and interpreted it as such just in the same way as an Arab traveling to Europe in the 70th century. We would have looked at Europe through Arab eyes. There's nothing particularly

surprising or racist about that. But in our era, we have been, I think, taught that a civilized, a person who wanted to sound clever, a person who wanted to be thought well of, and much more would laugh, would scorn what I just said about, for instance, just some of the political gifts of the West has handed down. George Orwell, you remember when that famous essay, The Line, The Unicorn, says that the average English intellectual, English intellectual, I think it was a particular example, you would rather die than stand up to the national anthem. That's different in America by the way, but there was always something in it. That observation of all else has often been used to show we'll be having more subtle form of

patriotism, more subtle form of national feeling and so on and so forth. But there is a form of that that can be very, very easily adapted into shame only. There is a version of that that can be very, very easily adapted into shame only. Shame only. There is a version of it which can be pride only, and that's ridiculous as well anyway, just to be... I mean, I'm not... As you know, well, no, I'm not a tub-thumping, flag-waving nationalist or any kind. I love my country, and I think it's been a broadly forced for good in the world, certainly more of a forced for good than it has for ill. I think the same thing for America.

And I'm much more pleased that Britain and America had global dominance in the 20th century than say that China or Russia had. And I think that for some reason generationally, there's just been this rebellion against what's perceived to be sort of jingoistic and simply what does that mean? Being jingoistic, it would be sort of nationalist and only asked, you know, you don't have to see a broad or broad or awful, you know. And there has been a sort of rebellion against that perceived trend and there's an understanding, well, I would rebel against that if I saw it all the time all over the place, you know. But

we don't see it all the time all over the place, quite the opposite. All of our cultural institutions are busy giving up our heritage as far as I can see and as I lay out in the book. All of our cultural custodians seem to me to be doing everything but looking after the culture which they're meant to be looking after. Well, the fortunate thing for black people is that you have BLM and the virtuous use of donations that can keep everything on track. You don't need to worry that he's in the hot seat.

Absolutely. How many mansions does that girl who started that woman who started her heaven now? She's left now, right? The first lady that did it last? I've wanted to go to the five mansions. Silent, very sort of quietly slipped away. I saw after the news story about the $6 million mansion came out. Do you see that there was an internal memo leaked?

Oh, about this. So an internal memo got circulated in an effort to see how they could downplay the fact that the $6 million mansion was there. They got caught lying about this is, they got caught lying about its purpose apparently. So it was, I think they called it like the center or the high community center. Something like that. Yeah, six million dollar mansion. And then they had everybody sign NDAs and then they sent private investigators after the journalists that were looking into it. Then they sent private investigators after the journalists that were looking into it. When you have a lot of donations, and one of the things that was interesting, this was reported, one of the instigators for why this began becoming investigated was because of

some of the local communities that were expecting support from BLM had found that they weren't getting support. So you had people who were struggling to make rent, who were living in these sort of impoverished communities and stuff like that. And meanwhile, yeah, the original director CEO, somebody has slept out, but still in her wake, there is an aftershock of a $6 million mansion. She has still held held onto five or so properties. What you need to. Yeah, I mean, you've got to get from one swimming pool to another,

it's easy to get bored with one swimming pool. Uh, this is a, this is a hassle. I mean, if, if, if, if, if no one, did you call it black lives racket, black lives racket, that's right. Uh, I'm one of my roles, I ride a week, you call called for the New York Post. And we ran a great front page or went on this benign news emerged. I think the posts were on the, I think they tried to come for the post actually on exposing this. Yeah, I think these people are,

I mean, you ask about motives and things. This is the easiest one, of course. One another mansion. And this is the easiest one, of course. One another mansion. And another mansion. Black Lives mentions was the fun. It was really around. Only the post.

And the impetus for these people is so obvious, so damn clear. And it's just such a shame is so obvious, so damn clear. And it's just, it's such a shame for so many reasons. You know, they, like a lot of sort of charity like things, they have to present a situation as being worse than it is in order to maximize profits. And all the gay rights groups do that now. I mean, I wish they'd all just shut up and shut down and go home. But they don't, they all, they all, they've all got pensions and interests, you know, invested interests. These are all vested interests. And they, they have to, all these groups, BLM's, the classics, I have to make the situation appear worse than it is. They have to exaggerate

the extent of racism in America, for instance, in order to maximize donations. They then have to mislead a load of perfectly, sometimes perfectly decent people, not always, into handing over money. They get corporations to hand over effectively ransom money. I mean, it's a sort of protection racket, you know, awfully nice business. You've got the shame if anyone accused you of racism. And then you've got the people who were expecting to benefit and don't benefit because the whole thing was a hassle. Well, you know, in America, we have a very clear sense of, I say, weeks we're sitting here, of a certain type of a pastor, you know, I read about this in the post, you know, there's sort of, Tammy Faye Baker sort of figures who, you know,

they still go on a bid, actually, there's one in Texas still, who sort of, you know, they like take out huge TV commercials and they say, you know, you got a hand over your money because I just got to have a helicopter. I was in the car yesterday in Anuba and I I've taken since I've been here I usually listen to classic FM to wake up on a morning what I've found is that when I first wake up if I listen to music I can't get the song out of my head and sometimes with classic FM this can be really awkward because a lot of the music is done to the same pace that I walk

out and that means as I'm walking down the street I'm creating the drum beat to the song that I'm trying to get out of my own head. So out here I've taken to listening to, keeping him close by, which is a local Houston, Christian radio station. Anyway, I got in the car yesterday, Uber driver had a different station on. And they were doing a 60 second countdown donation drive and saying, you know, if you feel moved to submit this money, then you can, you know, it's going to help. It is there for a good reason. I don't know. And then it was, if they got, if this particular station that must be part of a bigger network got more money than the other stations that were in different areas in the country, on the same

network, I don't know, but it just felt so icky to me. And that's being broadcast on the radio. This isn't the pasta hooks to doing it to a small town. And that was that sort of commercializing of donations, using a bunch of psychological tricks, a one time offer, a countdown timer. This is ClickFunnels from 2006, with an, oh, and here's an upsell for just another $5,

you can get our free DVD course, whatever, whatever. It's a bit of a tangent. I've got to say, I mean, there's no way to enjoy it and for a British person to just sit down and watch Advert on American television. I once, some years ago, I was in Los Angeles and I was watching a television channel hopping and there was an advert from a local funeral home,

a $999,99 cent creation of funeral all in offer was only available for another month. What can you do with that? Granny, look, there's just amazing offer and I know you're not well. This offer is only on for another month. There is a long set of stairs. If you were going to live another five weeks, you wouldn't be able to take advantage of this magnificent offer. So, you know,

anyhow, but the point is, yes, we all know that type of Huckstown and, and, you know, tin rattling maniac who, who, who comes from a sort of certain type of strategic, a better Instagram page now. Right. BLM is one of those. I'm sad that it's taken this amount of time for people to wake up to it.

I'm sorry that they did become that. You know, they could have been a civil rights campaigning organization. Campaigning for remaining legitimate complaints of black Americans. But they didn't do that. They just became another racket. Even supporters of them now, or supporters of the movement, have started to distance themselves by using two different terms.

Right? People talk about black lives matter to refer to the movement, and they talk about BLM to refer to the organization. And as soon as I started to see that, it's like, yeah, that worked. That's a sign yeah, that worked. That's a sign of internal dispute. Yeah. Are you concerned about white supremacists using the pro-white narrative that you've got with this to further some pretty nasty agendas that they might have? to further some pretty nasty agendas that they might have. I don't have a pro-white narrative in the book. By any means, they're not pro-white anymore than I'm pro-black.

I'm just, and four people not being told that they're inherently bad because of racial characteristics. We've drawn a line between pro-Western and Western being associated with whiteness, though, so we're only a couple of steps away from... Well, because most people, historically, in the West have been white. So, yes, and it's hard to attack the West without attacking white people,

or to attack white people without attacking the West. But I'm not making a pro-white argument, because I mean, it's like, any point not making a pro-white argument, because I mean, it's like, what, any point in making a pro-black argument, I mean. Okay, but let's say it's a pro-West argument. Pro-West? And then that's then going to be perhaps co-opted by some slightly nasty groups.

Well, the first thing is, is a, first thing, as a writer you have responsibility for the words you write. And I've been a writer for 22 years now, all my adult life. You have responsibility for the words you write. Other people have responsibility for their actions and their words. I find the attempts sometimes to make writers responsible for their readers to be essentially unfair. I think you write as carefully as you can, I certainly do. And will can I guarantee that nobody with unpleasant views will read the book? No, I can't.

I have very large readership, which I'm very fortunate to have. I can't promise that everybody is going to be exactly of my mindset or have exactly my tolerant views. I would hope they do. But I find this sort of a attempt, I'm not saying you're doing it,

but the attempt by a lot of people to sort of align the difference between author and reader to be sort of unfair. I mean, obviously Jordan gets quite a lot of that of the sort of, you know, you're read by young insults sort of thing, he says, he's not really fair as well as not provable and not the case. And in any case, I mean as far as I can tell

What actual racists and white supremacists still exist and there's a little little bit more of it I'm a miracle and there is in the UK I think a little bit more, but it is a tiny tiny Way out there fringe figures way out there, fringe figures. I wouldn't and don't like me anyway because I won't speak in their terms or agree with what they think. What would be the differences? All sorts of things. I mean, for instance, I don't tell people that being white is better than being black, so they don't think it is. I think that I think these things are morally neutral states. I think the very idea of saying to somebody that they should feel pride in their skin color

is as absurd as all of the other claims that you should feel pride about innate characteristics. I mean, let's take being a man. If somebody says, actually somebody did say this to me and we said weird question. But anyway, I said, Chris, are you proud of being a man. Like if somebody says, actually somebody did say this to me and we said, weird question. But anyway, I said, Chris, are you proud of being a man? I'm like, I'm not proud of being a man. I'm not, I'm not ashamed of being a man. So I'm not ashamed of being a man. But I'm not proud of it. I didn't do anything. I'm not ashamed of being white.

And I'm not proud of being white. I didn't do anything. That's one of the reasons why I've always hated the gay pride thing. You're not even proud, you're not even ashamed. Why would you be proud of being gay? I just don't feel ashamed about being gay as far as you can. I'm your bloody life and shut up. But the one I'm trying to get to is that white supremacist would say, and does say, I have great pride in being white, and it makes me better than these other people.

Well, I don't believe that. I don't feel I have any pride in being white, per se, and I don't think that being white makes me better than anyone else. But here's the deal in that. I require no persuading that this is my belief, because it's been my belief throughout my life. I was born and brought up in very multicultural London in the 1980s.

And it's not like I learned, no, to be, to have my view. It's been what I thought throughout my life. If you said, so the point I'm trying to come to is that I don't think I'm better than anyone else because of my skin color or my sacks or anything, but I also don't think anyone else is better than me because of theirs. I don't think I'm better than a black person because I happen to be white, and I also don't think they're better than me because they happen to be black, but if somebody distorts that, and a white supremacist will distort that equation by saying, no, of course the white person is better than the black person. I think that's racist and horrible, and apparent.

But I also think it's racist and horrible and apparent. If a black person thinks that they are better than a white person by dint of being black. Now the first of those two things is almost entirely society condemned. The second of those, it's not clear that it is. And I think that many of us can feel that in public spaces where certain people, and everyone is always on the cusp of it. A white person in a debate with a black person is always the vulnerable, the possibility that they will be accused of racism at some point, and if they are, that is disastrous. But that is because the black person on the stage effectively still holds this, at the moment, a certain unequal power in that regard. Sometimes it takes people

a while to work out, but in the current era we are in, that is the dynamic. In the same way that a man and a woman debating on the stage, it just requires a woman to say to the man, oh, thank you for mansplaining that. Now, the perception we still pretend is that the man is in a position of dominance on the stage, and isn't really the case in our era, Nor is it the case that a white person on stage has dominance over a black person stage. Certainly not. And just to reiterate, I don't want them to have. I want people to be able to regard each other as equals, not better nor worse because of characteristics over which we have no say.

Aside from the problems on the left, which we've been through, do you worry about the trends towards sort of populists or the endorsements of conspiracy theories in some right-wing parties at the moment? Which worlds? Well, I mean, the COVID conspiracy theories we've seen that were pushed, I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene was in an interesting position. It's such an idiot. Um, and is it Bolsonaro, I think, as well? Seems to be somebody that's starting to...

Yeah, I don't, I don't follow very much about Brazilian politics, but yeah, he seems to be... Nasty piece of work. Um, are you concerned about that at the moment? You know, we've seen sort of Trumpist wing and claims that the leaders like Bolsonaro. But I never bought this idea that there was a sort of populist surge in recent years, because I don't like the term populist and without getting into definitions. By the actual definitions of populism, the most prominent successful populist in the world is a manual macro, but in a current era, the idea has been that populism is only something of the right,

which is not really not correct, it's also centrist phenomenon and a leftist phenomenon. There's a certain interpretation of politics in recent years, which I don't go along with. A lot of what is called populist is just popular, voted on by the people, and deemed by a certain type of person as being the wrong decision to have come to. And I concerned with certain things on the left, obviously, and I spent a certain amount of my life critiquing that. And I concerned with some things that are going on the right, on the right, for sure.

Well, like sure. I think several things have happened in recent, actually in recent months, as well as recent years. I'm concerned about the complete, the particular America, the complete breakdown in trust in any institutions, which is both legitimate and terrifying. I don't know if non-Americans watching will understand the extent to which this is the case, but in America, you know, mainstream conservatives now, for very understandable reasons, do not trust any of the intelligence agencies of their own country, CIA, NSA, FBI.

They believe the elections are rigged, or at least unreliable, that the results are unreliable, that the courts are corrupt, therefore, and much more, that, effectively, the state is corrupt, totally corrupt. Here's a problem. I mean, they're not onto nothing. Then you've got the additional layers of the ability of big tech to, for instance, silence even

when you're opposed to America's, all these newspaper were told about earlier. So the tech companies are corrupted. They've already got the media problem in America where people don't trust the media because they see it as being a sort of extension of politics and not a reporting mechanism. All of these things are much more advanced in America than they are in the UK.

And you know, you have some people who do dislike the BBC, but the BBC is degraded in all sorts of ways, but it's not CNN. It's not seen as partisan, not in the same way. Exactly. People on left and right dislike it for different reasons, but it still got some reporting credibility. And in the UK, there are people who dislike the intelligence services or suspicious of them and so on. And I'm not getting back. Even talking about the May sounds can be a total, but I don't think anyone,

not very many people in Britain actively think that the C, that MI5, MI6 and GCHQ are not on the side of Britain. But you would say that, where's in America sections of Britain? So, in the significant sections of the right, as the left have decided that effectively the state is against the state.

That were easy. If you don't have institutions that you trust, it's hard to see what conservatives are. I mean, conservatism is innately tied up with trust in institutions. So I worry about that. A conspiratorial thinking has definitely washed up in all of our countries. And again, the problem is with some reason, I mean, look at the whiplash that occurred in most people in 2020, when we went from the most important thing is you stay locked in your houses and don't see anyone else to the most important thing is you stay locked in your houses and don't see anyone else to The most important thing is to get out on the street in a tight-depacked environment and protest against racism

When the narrative shifts like that and you're meant to just go along with it I Can see why people get conspiratorial when they're told that they're not allowed to say that the I can see why people get conspiratorial when they're told that they're not allowed to say that the Wuhan lab might have been responsible for the for the leak and and you're told you're conspiracy theorists if you believe that and then a year later the story changes and you're meant to just go along with it. I can see why people are or have lost it to a great extent. Um, and I'm you know, I'm not the arbiter of that. I don. I don't know. I mean, everyone makes their own judgments about whether other people have lost it or not. But it seems to me that

awful lot of people have, they've gone down the line of conspiratorial thinking. Is that another way that a lot of conspiracies work, though, that there's maybe a kernel of truth that act as a gateway drug? And then people start to tumble deeper and deeper into this sort of thinking. And it's that's not to say that there isn't problem similar to this on the left, but it does seem like the slope may be a little slippery. I think it's gone, I think it's gone sharper and slippery a faster on the right. We know the sort of left trajectory and have done for a long time.

But I mean, it's only like three years since Jordan and I sat down in London and talked about the the way in which the left goes wrong, which is a very interesting conversation, still hasn't been properly addressed, but we discussed this in London. I remember we said, we're discussing this because nobody knows where the left goes wrong, but we all know where the right goes wrong. But three years later, it's not clear to me anymore that everybody does agree where the right goes wrong. I mean, another example is look at elements of the right, particularly in America, in relation

to Russia and Ukraine. I mean, there is a sort of inevitable internet-like meme of, you know, always go against whatever is the prevailing narrative. Reflexive heterodoxy. Right. Exactly. Everyone seems to be praising this guy Zelensky. I don't want to praise this guy.

Well, everyone's praising him because he could have done a runner and lived in the south of France, the rest of his life, and instead he stayed, risked his life and the life of his family to stay and fight for his country and inspire his country to fight. Like, that's why people admire him. It's not that hard to discern. Let me give you another one that, I mean, just is amazing to me now. But there are people on the right again, particularly in America and in Europe, it has to be said, not in Britain so much, which is a good thing.

But certainly in Europe and certainly on the right in America, you have people who now say things only used to be said on the left, things like, who are we to say when we went into Iraq and killed X million people? Now, not getting in and arguing about the Iraq war, because we didn't kill X million people in Iraq. It made it turn out to be a very inept intervention, in which local militias and others and other countries poured in and then were responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. And it's not a small thing. But we went in and killed X million people and therefore we have no right to act, used to be a claim of the sort of Chomskyite left and you now hear it on the right. That has surprised me, that's happened very fast. Who are we to condemn Russia when we invaded Afghanistan? Again, I'm very happy to have the rabbi about that, but that used to be a

left wing thing. That did not used to be a right wing thing. And it has become one. We spent a good bit of time together in New York, which have been some of my favorite memories from my trip so far around here. I mean, I thought that were right. You introduced me to Manhattan cocktails, which is fantastic. Yes, yes, yes. We got into a row with a lady at a show, a Harry Potter show. And we had some really, really interesting discussions there that I kind of had a side of you that I hadn't really seen before and one of the first things

I asked was that you've got five columns a week that you write at the moment. That's correct. I write an average of four columns a week. Okay. Yeah. What plus media spots plus writing a book plus the other bits that you do plus trying to have a life as well. What is it that drives you to work that hard? Gosh, that's a difficult question. I do work very hard. I got to see this first hand, which is why he's not bringing it up. Yeah, I think I might have mentioned you, I sometimes have to register that with myself a few weeks ago. I got back Maybe it was when you were in New York, I remember I got home one night at about 10pm

And I remember having this terrible feeling that there must be something I've got to do and I rise Oh no, there isn't Wow, I can relax And at 10pm at night and that is not uncommon at all I sort of say that one of the great benefits of the life I've been able to create has been that I'd work in industries, trades, whatever you want to call them, where I have to work all of the time, but at about 90 or 80%. So most people work, well, let's pretend

the most people work, 95, 100%. And then they stop working, and they can do whatever they like rest of the time. If you do what you love, well, first of all, if you're very busy and so rare as I'm in, you just can't do a nine to five job, I may it wouldn't work. And so, yeah, I work all the time. Every day I have something, I don't think it's an ever a day when I don't.

What drives that a lot of things, I suppose, one is just being driven. And I don't know if anyone can explain for themselves why someone, why they're driven. I just, I just know I always have been. I always had a horror of wasting time. I'm quite an irritable person. One of my traits. Don't smile. You were perfectly pleasant with that. Okay, well, that's very kind. But in court, you're going to go, do we? I'm slightly irritable at times. And it's generally because of a fear of wasting time. And this is very strong in me. I can't bear clothes shopping, for instance.

I can't bear being in shops, actually, in general. I get very irritable because I just feel my life going. And I have that in certain films and all sorts of other things. I just have a very acute sense of life's brevity. Don't waste it. Work hard. Do whatever it is you're meant to do. And I've got a pretty clear view of what I need to do.

And so I don't like not using my time The other thing I suppose I'm motivated to be the best that I can be and that includes being the best in my field I Could always do less. I mean so on those sort of things that your mother says, you know, couldn't you not you know? Can you do a bit less? You know, something you well, I could but then I wouldn't be as successful and I want to be successful.

I want to do well you know, I If I if I've got a book, like I don't and not promote it, you know, because I feel like I've done the work. You prefer the columns I write. It's one of the great pleasures of my life. I get to write for and speak to millions and millions of people in different formats, in different countries, in tabloid newspapers,

and in broad sheet newspapers, and enter into and be in the big debates of my time. And I enjoy it. And people generally think I'm quite good at it and ask me to do it. And I get a thrill from it. And you know, I said a little while ago to a friend, you know, I wish I could have a couple of days off. And then I said, I wish I could just like not have to write anything for a few weeks. And she said, no, you'd be like 48 hours,

and you'd be like, dammit and bored. You had a similar experience with meditation, I think. That's right. I'm very, very bad at meditating. Very, very bad at meditating. Yeah, I think Sam Harris wants to get me to meditate. And I find that impossible. I'm told that there's a way to get through that,

but I couldn't get through it. I you know, all that thing even when Sam said it was in my room, Australia a few years ago, you know, Sam was saying, I'm to your mind of all your thoughts and I was just thinking, I'm so irritated. I was just being a book, and I can't do it. And, anyhow, that's my failing. I mean, Sam is terrific, and he's brilliant at that, and he's helped millions of people to find a way to do things like meditation. I wish I could do that. But in a way I don't really,

because I kind of don't want to turn my mind off. It's always racing. It's always looking for things. And I read a lot as you know, books and things and magazines and articles and all that. But I read books, and I read to relax as well, which is very important in if you do what I do. You read to relax as well, which is very important if you do what I do.

You know, you read to extend your knowledge, but you also read things that just take you out of work stuff into something else. But even then, I kind of read with a pencil on my hand, even the relaxing stuff is I have a site in the corner of my eye. Never friend who referred to that before you have the pencil in your hand is low stakes consumption. So he talks about low stakes podcast listening that if you're constantly embroiled in the culture wars and you're always listening, the newest whatever at a hundred miles an hour, it's kind of nice to just hear about a murder mystery for a little while. Low stakes listening. But this is something that I've been battling with so much. And we spoke about this with regards to productivity dismovere for you as well.

This tension between the fact that you know that part of your drive comes from your ability to pay attention, your ability to constantly be on, to be able to look at the details in a way that other people don't, and that that can actually lead to almost a fear that you go, okay, well hang on, if I tune this down, that is the fuel that's driving a lot of the achievements that I take so much pleasure in.

And that there's this difficulty sometimes with seeing the amount of work that we've done. And I think maybe we almost don't want to see the amount of work that we've done. Because we think, well, maybe if I took more satisfaction in the work that I'd done or if I felt like I could take more of a break, then that might short-cut some of the things which is propelling me to continue to do this. Well, when you start off, you have to work so damn hard. I mean, I think that's something that is not

expressed enough to people. When you start off your career, particularly a career like mine, you have to work so damn hard. In the beginning of my career, I didn't have a holiday for seven years. It was seven years until my family was ready to go away with it all the way. I just couldn't go on holiday. And one of the reasons was, at the beginning of my career, inevitably, if people called and asked me if I could write something, I had to do it. If I feared that if I said no, they wouldn't come back and ask again. Now, that's very common. The problem is, there is a certain point in your life when you have that fear and it's no longer relevant. It's information that you're being told by yourself about an earlier version of yourself. And you have the right at a certain point, but it's very hard to make that decision professionally.

To say, okay, no, I'm okay now. I can take time off. I can say no this time. I can turn that down. We also need to. You need to. It's only in the last 10 years that I learn how to say no this time. I can turn that down. We also need two. You need two. It's only in the last 10 years that I learned how to say no to things. Because I didn't know where I'd be asked again. But as for whatever the drive is underneath that, if I could, well, say, self revealing, but I suppose there are a couple of things. One is that I've always sought freedom in my life. As much freedom as I can have. And some years ago, I said to Some years ago I said to my friends and family members around and we were talking about various things. I said, you know, my experience of life has been that with every year I get more and more free. And I just realized I felt terrible actually because I was a younger guy who was there.

I said, I don't feel that at all. He had exactly the opposite feeling and I felt terrible that I said this. But it has sort of been my feeling is that I've gone further and further and a way I've gone further and further away from home, you might say. But that I've wanted to be free and to pursue what I want to pursue and have the ability to do that, to write about what I want to write about, to go where I want to go, to live where I want to live and to be with who I want to be with. And this is something I always wanted. And various other, there was a British journalist who's Anne more said something quite similar in a piece on her

Sub-Stack recently and I said to her I said it just wrink rang such a bell So that's the first thing and I suppose the second thing I could probably point to is that Actually, it's like I Wanted to say to my late friend Clive James. I know great Australian polymer I said him towards the very end of his life. He was born in 1939 and I once said to my late friend, Clive James, and if you knew, great Australian polymer, I said to him towards the very end of his life. He was born in 1939 and, opening line of his memoirs,

it says, you know, he was born in 1939. The other big event that year, he was an amazing wonderful man. But I remember saying to him once, you know, about what Duffield drives you. He lost his father in the war. He didn't die in the war. He lost his father died the war. He didn't die in the war. His father died

on a plane back. The Americans brought some of the Australian troops back home early and the plane crashed. It was just cliven his mum then. I remember I said to everyone, asked him about his drive and he said, I felt like I owed it to the ruins of my family. I do have a sort of sense, it's not to do with family necessarily, but I do have a sense of being born at a fortune at time and having had, I don't say luck, because for reasons I think you know, I'm worried about the term luck,

but I feel I have a good fortune which I shouldn't waste. And most of my predecessors, predecessors of my ancestors did not have very much freedom, economic freedom, freedom to move around,, to find stuff out. I mean, I think of the library, the sort of the books that would be on a shelf, you know, on sort of ground-to-parents age relatives. You know, they would have very small numbers of books because other than intellectuals or very rich people, people didn't have very many books, you know. And I always thought, if I can get the things that might pre-discess couldn't or go to places they couldn't, why would I waste that opportunity? opportunity. Can you imagine how frustrated you'd be to have been born in the early 20th century

or the late 90th century, not able to leave your village really even and not knowing much about what even happened in town, you know, or not alone in the capital. And, you know, and with every generation, you know, country like ours, we've had the ability to go further and further, and it's happened in my own family. And, so I feel like it's the responsibility not to waste that. But more importantly, I'm just driven by the desire not to waste time. You know, that's a line of animal novel. Behind my back I always hear times winger chariot haring near. I hear times winger chariot all flutters.

You spoke to me about instinct. I can't remember who it was that gave you a piece of advice about how sometimes it's wrong but at the time it's the other thing. Oh, that was Clive as well, I just mentioned. Yeah, Clive had great success on television and other things, but he once wrote a... He once wrote a verse play in rhyming couplets about Prince Charles and opened it in the west end in London. It didn't run for very long.

I think it closed before opening night. I think it made it halfway through opening night. I think it stopped at the end of all hours. There's no one left, bleeding the cast. I remember he was devastated about such a career, he milliation. But he wrote somewhere, I think. He said, look, I found my instincts on it. And your instincts don't always lead you right, but you've got to trust that they are the things that have led you to what have been your success is.

And I've come to really follow that advice because I've written about quite a bewildering array of subjects in my life. I've written books about a lot of different subjects and I sometimes used to think, how can I be sure that it's going to work? And the answer that comes back in my head is, you can't be sure, But you've been right before. So the audits of you being right again, are quite good.

It's like, I find this thing interesting. If you wrote about things you found interesting and there was no reception for it, that would be one thing. But if you say, I find this really quite interesting, and you write about it, and you get an audience, and then you write about something totally different, but you find interesting. Very often you find that's because other people do too. And that's a fantastic thing as a writer. That's what the best things is to be able to do it not once, but quite a lot of times, on different subjects. Because that means that you might have an ability to, and you obviously have this, I mean, you have the ability to put your finger on things that are interesting to other people as well. That's good news. Well, you said instinct may sometimes direct you wrong, but it's the only thing which

is ever directed you right. And that's a price that you need to pay for following your instinct, and you're right. You know, this will be episode, nearly 500 or something of this podcast in four years, which is a work load that is difficult to do on your own. And I was reflecting after our conversation about your seven years without a holiday, I did 204 Saturdays in a row at the same club night without a break every single Saturday. And that was something similar. And there is something romantic, virtuous, heroic, old and worldy British about being someone

that does the work in that way. Perhaps it's a cope for my pure written work ethic. Yes, but we probably both got a bit of that. But there's something about that I like. I like the fact that I can look back in whatever year's time when there's a producer that comes in and does everything when there's a team that's looking after the editing or the scheduling with the guests. And I know that I did half a thousand or maybe a thousand of them and it was all on my shoulders with a video guy back in the UK. And there's something beautiful about that. And the other thing

that I really adored from when we spent time together in New York that you told me about was a story to do with regrets from Hitch. And this is a, we're talking about trade-offs here, right? And this has been, I wrote a newsletter about it, which I sent to you. And, too, it is one of the best insights for ameliorating regrets, for understanding that they're an unavoidable part of our lives. You tell that story about what he said about

regrets. Yeah, it's Chris Richards, he said, I think he wrote it in his memoir as well, he said, he said, you have to choose your regrets. I mean, everyone is going to have regrets in that life, you know. I know people have achieved great things and achieved small things. All of them have regrets. And yes, you have to know that you're going to have regrets. And the question is which ones you can bear, one, which ones you don't think you can bear. Let me give you an obvious example. Let's say you had a dream, always, of starting a shop.

You've got two options in front of you, really. One is starting it and seeing if it works. And the other one is not because you fear that it won't work. You'll fall flat on your ass. Both choices have regrets. And the sort of person you are, I realize to a great extent on which one can I bear? Can I bear not having tried, but at least I didn't fail?

More than I can bear, I tried and I might have failed. Either way in this calculation, you are risking a type of regret, so you have to make the decision. I have that all the time with writing. Quite a lot of times in my life, I've written things seriously against my own interests, you know. And I have this terrible, tearing thing within me, which is, I gotta say the thing, I gotta say the thing, I just gotta say the thing. Don't say the thing, don't say the thing, everyone's going to hate you. I'm going to say the thing. And I know that it's because I have two options in front of me. One is, I would kind of give all the details, but it haven't not long ago, it's the politicians. One is, oh, well, that's that. I've broken that relationship.

And I have that regret. No, that is a very big regret actually, but. But on the other hand, I would have had the regret of, I didn't say what I thought. So at least I don't have that regret. But it is a profound insight of Christopher's because you know because even freedom, which I mentioned earlier, is not an unloyed good, it's not like searching for freedom leads you only to a lack of regrets.

My experience of freedom for yourself can be very costly for others. The thing that it made me realize was looking back at always presumed that any regret that I had was due to a suboptimal decision that I'd made. Right. And that had I've been able to go back and make the right decision, I could have avoided regret entirely. I always thought that regret was a bug of my decision making, not a feature, an inbuilt feature of being a human. And as soon as you realize the fact that, look, opportunity costs exists by doing a thing, you're not doing another thing. And even if the thing that you chose to do was perfectly accurate, it was precisely the right thing. You're always going to have an open

loop around what could have happened had I have done the other thing. So when you're given the choice between two things, the good way for anybody that's stuck with the decision is to think which of these two choices could I not bear to live with the regret? Absolutely. And that is clarified. Absolutely. I mean, I have that thought all the time. I mean, all the time. What could I not bear?

As I say, for me, a very strong one is speaking my mind, speaking the truth as I say it, I can't bear not doing it. I would find it very hard. You know, an occasion, as I say, people say to me, you should be a little bit more diplomatic, you know, with this or you should have been a bit easier on that person, a fairly fun one often often phones me up and says, oh, that's another country you can't visit, don't you? Um, um, uh, one place you can live in the wild, you know, moving North Korea, no, that's tough on them as well. Unfairly, you know, um, no, um, but, but, yeah, so, so you Unfairly, you know, no, no.

But, yeah, so you work out what you can't. What you can't write, then. You do realize, I mean, I think this is a bit self-groundizing, but there is also a difference in people of the risk that they're willing to take, which is, I don't overemphasise myself, because I'm a writer and a soldier, or a fireman or a policeman. But I think there are There are prices you pay for throwing yourself against the world, and you have to decide whether you want to pay them or not. Most people go along with whatever they're meant to go along with, wherever they are. And a certain I've person doesn't. And generally speaking I

think I tend to be the sort of person who doesn't. And that comes with a considerable benefit to my case, freedom, certain degree of success, and so on. But it comes with a certain cost. I mean, one of the costs is you always feel a certain sense of isolation, you know, not to say loneliness. I don't feel like I'm not lonely in any personal or ideological sense, but it's inevitable that if you don't go along with the precepts, you're going to have a sort of isolation But then even that I mean that you and then you test that all the time. Can I bear that? and

Some of the time of the answer will be no I can't But other times it will be yeah, that's fine and other times it will be, yeah, that's fine. And other times it will be, I guess I have to. A land of botan says loneliness is a kind of tax we have to pay to a tone for a certain complexity of mind. That's true. That's true. That's not bad, Alar. Yeah, it's true. But that's laid on top of Orrith's a magnifying effect or a multiplier here, which is the complexity of mind plus the decision of whether or not to deploy this into the real world. Well, again, that depends on whether or not your first forays were received warmly or not.

Seth Goden had this amazing insight where he said a lot of the time we need support but only the first time around that when you start to get some positive reinforcement over time you can become more boneheaded, you can become more singularly driven. Yes. You know, I think that's true. A more troubling one in a way is the one that the older you get. I'm now in my 40s. I'm 42 now, but I was speaking musician for the other day, just one of his seniors that just died. And I know what was on my mind was on his, which is the fact that as you get older and your profession, your career, you notice the people who you looked to, you obviously thought

were always going to be there, go. And then, of course, you have the inevitable thing of, oh hell, that's gonna have to be the position that's filled by people of my generation. And there's a responsibility that comes from that. There's also, when you're starting off, hopefully you will have, I certainly had great mentors and people I sought out, really. They didn't just get given to me. I sought them out to help me start off and of course they die off. But then they don't entirely because that which got you started is you become

forward within you. And so it is a sort of eternal process of, it's what Tom Stopper in Arcadia described. He says it one by something like he says, you know, the character, the student says, says to tutor something like she says, how can you cope with the fact that all these players were lost in the library, Alexandria, you know, this number by escalus, this number by the, how can you you cope all these things that were lost and he says because nothing is lost nothing is lost to the March He says the place that were lost will come back in fragments or Return again in another language

We we shared as we pick up Nothing is lost to the march, but all we have is the march. It's a constant process of loss and renewal and discovery and loss and rediscover again. And almost every profession I would have thought is like that. Being a writer is particularly like that because you see the people who started you off as they start to fall away. You have and keep certain things they gave you and there are for me at any rate, there are connections I feel to people who I never met through people I did know. And now I feel quite often walking for a library or a bookshop or something. I feel like almost the whole place is surrounded by friends somehow. I think I knew him.

Sometimes it is, sometimes I knew. But, I was like, I have a connection to that person. And so the whole thing is a sort of... is like a constant rediscovery. That's what T.S. Eliot saw it as. It's a... I'm sorry, I sound like I'm waffling, but I'm kind of a major point, I promise. There's a version of history and ideas that is common at the moment, which is endless progress. And I never really believed in that, just innatelyately I didn't think that things were always getting better. I always thought it was all up for grabs.

I don't know why I always thought that, but I did. Even the people who believed in the sort of fukiyama stuff, you had to have bought about two world wars. Those are two quite big footnotes, you know, to a theory. But the theory of progress is most people, including people who I meet grownups all the time who believe in it, they think they're always just getting better inevitably. And they think that art and other things goes along an inevitable path, getting better and better, bigger and bigger, clearer and clearer, more and more accomplished. But there's another way of seeing things, the one I've just been trying to outline, which is that it's actually

cyclical the whole thing, that things are lost and come around again. And that's the case with ideas for sure. I mean, her libraries die every day in the heads of people and they will hopefully be reborn in another head the same day. Gertr says somewhere, he might as well be poems about the need to recreate that which has been created. And I think that's one of the great noble enterprises which is to recreate that which has been created to rediscover that which has been, has had it lost and found and lost again and again. And everything's like that. All the time wisdom is being lost.

But hopefully it's being picked up again by someone else. Every time you lose somebody, you're replaceable. And they're not replaced, but somebody else steps in. And that's the March. Douglas Murray, ladies and gentlemen, the War on the West will be linked in the show note below. Where else should people go if they want to keep up to date with what you're doing? You can find me on Instagram a little bit. Twitter, Douglas came, Murray, find me in the New York Post, the Sun, the Spectator, various other platforms. I appreciate you. Thank you.

Thank you.