TRIGGERnometry - Triggernometry Meets Guilty Feminist

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

Deborah Frances-White is a British-Australian comedian, author, and screenwriter. She is best known for hosting The Guilty Feminist podcast, where she explores feminist issues with humour and honesty. SPONSOR. Protect your wealth with The Pure Gold Company. Get your free investor guide at https://pure-gold.co/trigger SPONSOR. We’re honoured to parter with Hillsdale College. Go to https://hillsdale.edu/trigger to enroll for free. SPONSOR. Express VPN. Go to https://www.expressvpn.com/trigger/ to get 4 months FREE Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Substack! https://triggernometry.substack.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Shop Merch here - https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry: Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. 00:00 Introduction 05:20 Why Aren't You Anti-Woke? 09:36 Deborah's Views On The Trans Issue 26:35 Heated Gender Debate 44:19 Cancel Culture In Wokeism 01:09:42 Social Media And Empathy 01:16:30 There Was Always Going To Be A Backlash 01:27:51 Far-Right Debate 01:45:53 The Identity Obsession 01:54:45 Equal Rights For Everybody 02:00:00 Identity Politics Is Why Donald Trump Is In Power 02:03:36 What's The Thing We're Not Talking About That We Should Be? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You didn't say Elon Musk or Donald Trump were far right? Definitely not. But he hasn't been saying anything positive about gay people lately, has he? Has he said anything negative about gay people? We killed them. Yes. We committed a genocide. Why were we able to do that?

My visceral reaction to a white man sitting and saying to me, and why were we able to commit genocide on them? And then just pausing. Yes. It's very visceral to me. It's interesting that he brought up my skin color, because I thought that was the exact opposite of the point you're trying. kind of making the book.

You're very reductive. I thought you're a lot more intellectual than this. I think this is very revealing. So you're not reaching anyone who's listening to this conversation by doing that. Well, you don't know that. If you listen to what I was saying, it's actually perfectly logical and reasonable. This is quite controlling what you're doing now. Well, what you said was quite significant to me.

It was quite, it wasn't, it's not that it was offensive. It was, it's scared to me. A text says, you're on my mind. A bouquet from 1,800 flowers, says, you're my everything. Heartfelt moments belong in the real world, not just your phone. For 50 years, 1-800 Flowers has helped millions of people make memories that'll last a lifetime, with gifts they'll cherish forever. Their expertly curated arrangements and gift baskets shipped nationwide with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Don't wait for the next big moment. Make it when you visit

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With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into... Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer. Deborah Francis White of the Guilty Feminist podcast, welcome to Trigonometry. Thank you so much for having me. Well, this is a surprising meeting of the minds because I think it's fair to say that your podcast is one of the kind of arch pillars of progressive thought in certainly in our space. And you reached out to us saying you have a book out, you want to come and talk to us. It's fair to say that we're not one of the pillars of the woke space in our space.

So what are you doing here? Well, what a great question. My good friend Johann Hari told me I should come on your show. And I think had it been with my book The Guilty Feminist, I would have said probably not. This isn't the right space for it. But my new book is called Six Conversations We're Scared to Have. And it's about how I feel about the landscape now. I feel like the political landscape now.

I feel like progressive movements and people who are broadly on the left. are fragmenting by constantly having, I would say, being obsessed with trivial pursuits. Small level slights, this use of language, that use of language. Meanwhile, there's this huge polarising gap that is increasing every day. And we've seen this, you know, in the last couple of months in America, and an extraordinary chasm has opened up between the left and the right. I feel like the far right, which is quite sinister, is really making gains.

And so my book is about how to have conversations better, both with people on your side of the divide, but also reaching across the divide. So I can't really then say, oh, you think differently from me. I don't want to come and talk to you. That's exactly what I need to be doing. And I listened to your podcast, and I also felt like you guys were, like, reasonable, and I could have a good chat to you. you. What I'm not interested in doing is you know when you go on the BBC and they say, oh, you've got to talk to this person for balance. And there's somebody that is actually quite

like for me, someone who goes, I don't believe in climate change at all. I think feminists are bitches and witches. I'm like, well, it's, it just would take too long in a 20 minute interview to get there. So what are we doing? And then I think we're just doing gladiatorial arena sports. So, but, But I want to talk to people who I think are intelligent, who think differently from me,

because otherwise, what are we doing? Just sitting there congratulating ourselves in our little group. And ultimately, the reason I wrote this book is because when I was 14, my family joined the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Jehovah's Witnesses are a cult. I say that because... It's true. Yeah. It is true.

A useful definition of a cult is any group that won't let you leave with your dignity intact. and it's a shaming and shunning group. So if the elders come around and tell you and the elders are just some men who nominate each other in the congregation, they have regular jobs, they're not particularly trained or anything. And if they come around and tell you

your skirt's too short or you've got an attitude problem and you don't listen, you can be formally shunned. It means people will cross the road to avoid you pretend they can't see you. It's a name shame shunned. religion. It's very patriarchal. It's run entirely by men. And I lived in that. I had to get out of it

and I lost all my friends. I couldn't speak to anybody I knew and loved for many years. And I had to start over again. And then I wasn't in a cult for a long time. And then in the last 10 years, I have been feeling like I am in a cult again. Because I think the world is now a series of interconnecting cults, where we're all in our little group. And in order to be part of this group, we have to say these things, repeat these things. If we have questions about these things, or we think, I don't think that part of it's right, can I have a reasonable discussion about that? We're often going to be shouted down. And I see that on both sides of the political divide. I see that on the left, and I see that on the right. Well, if you think that, you're with them then.

And so that's why I wrote this book. That's a very good point. And I think right now, that is clearly happening on the right as well. Like, I experience this on a daily basis. There's a whole bunch of narratives that people on the right in America have about Ukraine. And any time I'm like, well, factually, actually, oh, you're with them then. I see that a lot.

And I think that's human behavior. What I found interesting is, and this is what I'd be keen to explore as part of this conversation, if you don't mind, is you said in the blurb for your book that you're not anti-woke. I don't think I would have, did I say anti-wark?

I don't think I would have used the word woke, but maybe I did. It says in the blurb of the book, but we, I guess... I'm definitely not anti-woke, no. Yes. But I... What I was going to ask you is, why is that? Why aren't you anti-woke? Well, I think, what does woke mean to you?

That's my question. What are all the very things that you said are the reason you wrote your book? The reason that people would say we're anti-war. I'm certainly anti-wark. I have no issue describing it is I'm anti-the, oh, oh, you used this wrong phrase. Oh, you made fun of this thing that I'm... I don't like, oh, you're not sufficiently inclusive of this blah, blah, blah. Oh, you know, you're a man, you need to be quiet while other people talk all of this stuff.

I reject this entirely. I reject the identity politics of it. I reject the censorship aspect of it. I reject the obsession with victimhood, which I think is damaging and it's making people into victims. That's what I mean by woke and that's what I'm against. So I think the reason I would describe myself as not anti-woke is because, I think what a lot of people mean by woke. And it's all, it's a soup, it's a rich soup.

So you can take out certain things and go, that's woke. But I think a lot of people see it and go, well, woke is, you know, an idea about gender or an idea about feminism that I haven't fully explored. It just sounds new. Or it just sounds, you know, like something that I don't have any particular knowledge of or empathy for. So that goes to the woke basket because it's new.

So to name something that, to pull something out of a hat off the top of my head, there's a lot of diverse casting now. So I see people getting very angry when they see a cast on television and they might be, you know, a couple of brown and black people in the cast. And they say, well, they don't need to be there. or this is not historically accurate. And I get very, very angry about that. And I feel very strongly that we want our television

to represent the people in our community. I live in London, and I have very close friends, chosen family who were black and brown, some of whom are actors, and I want to see them on TV. They're brilliant. And I really notice that, when it first happened, I might have noticed it. And then you get into a show and you don't notice. So even if something's set in Victorian times and you think, well, they might not have been black or brown, you just stop noticing and you just see that it's a great performance. And then the other thing is if when you look a bit deeper, you find out, of course, there were black and brown people in Victorian London at that time. And sometimes people say that person wouldn't have been black or brown. And historically, when you look into it, they actually were. So that's an example of something that I think people just go, whoa.

And I think, no, that needs more analysis, surely. Fine. But there's a lot to quibble with that, which we can. But I guess to most people, I don't think your characterization is quite accurate. I don't think most people's view of what woke is, is this thing that they don't understand, but because it's new they don't like it. It's more like suddenly we all have to pretend that if you say something about your identity, now it's true.

Like, if I say I'm a woman, I become a woman in that moment. And a lot of people don't dislike that because it's new. A lot of people don't dislike that because they think it's factually inaccurate. Sure. Well, that's a very, very big subject. There's a very, very big chunky chapter on that of my book. And I think that's something that... What's your argument on that?

So what you just said there is if someone says they're a woman, you have to accept it. Is that what... Yeah, but that's been the line. Trans women are women. Right. And if you say otherwise, you're a bigger. Okay, so what I'm arguing in my book is I am looking at the historical fight for two other sorts of rights that has happened. And I say in the introduction, actually, this is a book of ideas.

And I know a lot of people will go to this chapter first. It's called The Conversation About Gender Nonconformity. And I say, ideally read it in order because I'm building an argument. but if you do go here first and if you are triggered to use the name of your podcast by this if this is something that you feel very very strongly about whatever side of this

wherever in this kaleidoscope of this discussion you're coming from please be aware this is some ideas in a book of ideas this is not the first or last word this is not a new doctrine that I'm delivering for a new cult this is some ideas in a book of ideas.

So this is a complex discussion. So anybody coming in and going, you're not a woman, that's the end of it. I don't need to hear anything more about that. Or anybody coming in and going, you're not allowed to ask any questions about sport, that's just the end of it. Both of those I would question.

And I would say, this is a big complicated topic and in my book this is a book of ideas and this is a book of ideas and this is some ideas about gender So what are your ideas about it? So I want to bedge that down there, okay?

Okay. What I'm doing is first of all looking at how the brain works and why our brain is sort of a prediction machine. It's the autocomplete on your phone really. It's always going through the world and it's looking for things that aren't as the brain would expect them to be.

So if you got on a bus and the bus driver was dressed like a clown, you would double take. There's no reason to suspect that clown is going to hurt you or that there's nothing pejorative about the bus driver being dressed like a clown, but you would notice. If you got on the bus driver was dressed as a bus driver, you probably wouldn't notice the bus driver at all. If you're in London where you get on off buses

and you don't say anything to the bus driver, so many people. And someone said later, who was the bus driver? What'd they look like? You probably wouldn't know. But as soon as they're just like a clown, your brain goes, what? I've got questions. Now, the reason your brain can't do that every time, like a bus, you know, like toddlers go, a bus, a bus driver. That's because they're still learning what's normal, what's to be expected. So we can't do that. Our brain's got stuff going on all the time and it needs to save itself for all this other work. So if it's what's expected, it doesn't. remark. So if 30% of bus drivers dressed like clowns for a year, you would stop noticing.

I don't think I would know. You, you... I would continue to notice of their dress like for how long? For all eternity, because I know what a bus driver is supposed to look like. Ah, interesting. That's so your brain works different from other human beings then in that case. Because if we accept your premise of how people's brains work, yes. Okay. My assertion to you is that a lot of people have a standard that they expect, that they learn at a certain point, and they don't stop noticing things being different to that. Like, if everybody started walking around naked,

I wouldn't start, I wouldn't at one point go. Actually, I don't remember a time when nobody. You see what I mean? I do, but I think there's a whole different bunch of semiotics that go with nudity, that don't go with clown costumes. Fine. Whatever. Let's carry on with you, please carry on. Okay, here's an example. In the 1960s,

Mary Tyler Moore had to fight really hard to be allowed to wear trousers on screen because people double distilled double taking at women wearing trousers. When women first started wearing trousers, women were arrested in trousers. And I'll tell you, and it's because that's a gender signifier. And it repulsed people. It looked weird. Same as long hair. Think about a Victorian man.

Have you got a picture of Victorian man, Oscar Wilde in your mind? How long's his hair? Pretty long. Pretty long, right. Why is short hair masculine? Can you take us back to the trans bit? Because I'm not following the connection here. Okay, so I'm taking you somewhere.

Trust me. It's all right. We're getting there. Okay. So the reason short hair is masculine is because in the first World War, men went into the trenches, had to have short hair because of the lice. And then other men who hadn't been down in the trenches

wanted to demonstrate they could be as masculine, they could have survived the trenches. By the 1960s, hair like Oscar Wilde's, long Victorian hair, was so femme that when men walked down the street with that longer hair that came in the 60s, other men would shout, oh, gives you herneberg love,

and sort of sexist heckles. So that's how long it takes to get something to be normal or for something to be seen as femme or mask. That's why I say, if for all eternity you continue to notice clowns as bus drivers, even if you, you know, you still had comments on them, you would start to edit them out because nobody now looks at a man

with this sort of length hair and double takes or looks at a woman in trousers and double takes. Because as a society, we get used to something. So anything that's outside the norm, what happens is we notice it. and each generation has those alarm alerts, which is this could be dangerous because it's different. And we have that with gender.

You can see it again and again and again and again. And we know it's arbitrary because women were wearing trousers in Asia for hundreds of years when Western women weren't. It's not something absolutely normal or natural. So what we have to do then is look at, is there any history of transgenderism throughout the ages? And I looked into this because

I looked at indigenous societies and I thought, well, there will be some, you know, people fear what's different. There will be indigenous societies where there weren't transgender people accepted. And I looked and I looked and I looked and I could not find any.

It was completely normal in most societies for this to be not a, binary thing for it not to be male and female, but for it to be more like a scale. So if you walk past a building and, you know, a bar and someone says, is it loud in there, you understand that that person is saying, yes, it is loud in there, but they mean loud for them, because there's loud and there's soft, there's high and there's low, there's young and there's old. We're all old to someone and we're all young to someone, right? We're all old to a seven-year-old. We're all young to an 80-year-old, right? So there's very few things where we go, it's this or it's that.

You might have had the of the American two-spirit people, a Native American two-spirit, you guys said to that. Yeah. That was created like around in the 90s at a conference, an LGBTQ plus conference, when indigenous people, Native American people were like, we have to explain it to the Westerners because they keep using,

it was like a sort of slur for indigenous queer people that was often used. And they said, right, they see it as this and that. So let's say we're two. So whenever you hear that third gender in Indigenous spaces, it's not really, that's done through a Western framework of two and therefore a third. But if you talk to people in Indigenous cultures,

it's usually it's like it's not a third for us because it's more like a piano scale. So if that is in Indigenous cultures, it seems unlikely that there are no people in the West who also fit somewhere up and down this gender scale. And I think what's happened in the West is the legal framework is you've got to say your male or you've got to say you're female and that's it.

So if I have to be in one of these boxes in order to get any rights, this is the one I belong in because that's the one that feels more like me. But if you take it back to its kind of human roots, We're so obsessed with our own frameworks that we really do think there's no truth outside them. But one of the lenses I'm looking at this through is I'm adopted.

I was given away at birth. In any other time before now, I would have been an orphan. Oliver Twist had one living parent. It doesn't necessarily mean both your parents are dead. It means no one in your family can or will look after you. And orphan rights is a fantastic something I've written about in the book.

If you look at orphan rights, it's absolutely fascinating. Orphans were massive scapegoats in Victorian times. If you adopt one, it will infect your children with immorality. They're not a natural child. Their mothers were immoral and poor and they will be too. And so if you were lucky enough to be adopted in Victoria Times, you were Jane Eyre. So you had to say Mr. and Mrs. Reed.

You'd call them mum and dad. And so if I had been adopted, even some, decades earlier, I couldn't have said mum and dad, and I wouldn't have thought of my brother and sister as my brother and sister. I would have been constantly told I was a charity case. I was a waif. I was a stray. I was a bastard. I was an orphan. And my parents would have been my guardians and I would have been their ward legally. And if my mum and dad had gone around saying to people, this is our daughter, and people had found out I was adopted, they would have thought they were fantasists or liars, because you can't argue with biology. Now, at some point,

society just decided that because orphans had such terrible low self-esteem and 70% of the criminal population in the UK in Victorian times were orphans and because of stories like Jane Eyre and Oliver Twist, yeah, social activism and all that just decided that children like me should be fully endorsed. And so we did argue with biology and we won. And that is why I have self-esteem and have had a good education and feel completely endorsed by society. And I didn't even realize I was an orphan. until I found my biological mother and found out that from that time, some of newborn babies of my generation went to orphanages. And I cried for like 48 hours because I was just like, fuck, I'm an orphan, and I could have gone to an orphanage from birth. And children who are in orphanages from birth have massive issues, as you can imagine, because they don't have that attachment. And that made me feel really, really, really sad and really like,

oh, I would be a totally different person. And then you can parallel that with gay rights. If you look at the history of gay rights, in the 60s, many gay men were broken. You know, you watch something like The Boys in the Band, which is a play and a, you know, has been made into a movie about gay men in the 60s in New York and how miserable they were and how much self-loathing there was and how they kind of went for each other because there were two options. One was be in the closet, be married, come and get hand jobs under the bridge. The other was be out and be giving the hand jobs under the bridge.

And that was it. And so the misery those men lived with and the suicide rate and the mental health breakdowns. And we've seen what's happened since we've endorsed and legalized and for gay men who now live in our society freely and women. But it's easy to see with gay men because of criminalisation and decriminalisation. And so, you know, your and my gay friends now will be, you know, running the PTA and, you know, living their lives on their lives on. outside and being their full selves and not living in depression and marginalisation. This doesn't mean there's no homophobia, but it means the legalisation and the endorsing of language has functionally changed.

Who is capable of being productive, happy, whole members of society? And that's great for society as well as the individuals. So I'm looking at trans rights from both of those avenues and saying what would happen if we realized that our model is not the only model, there is absolute precedence for human beings to be fluid in gender and for them to be gender non-conforming. Just as much with orphans, indigenous societies don't have,

many indigenous societies, they don't have the concept of orphan because the whole community will look after you and your aunt is also your mum-type feel. And so it's a Western framework that delivers us orphans Do you see what I mean? I see what you mean, but I don't agree. And the reason is that I'm not a Western person by birth, and Francis has experiences outside.

And the idea that male and female are Western categories is just not true. In fact, I would put it... Not just Western, but you see what I mean about indigenous societies. Yes, but indigenous societies are like 0.0.0.0% of the entire population of human beings on the planet. And the more east you go, the more the traditional societies are, and the more the male and female rigidity,

is enforced, actually. The West is actually pretty loose about them. The other thing that I don't understand about the argument is that it sounds to me like we're confusing gender nonconformity, in other words, a feminine man or a man who doesn't comply with the stereotypes of what we expect of a man and a woman who doesn't comply and wears trousers or whatever with claiming that you are the opposite sex. These are completely separate things. And the third thing is, and we've obviously had a lot of people on the show to talk about this, the gay rights model doesn't work very well as a comparison, not least because it's actually gay people that are at the forefront of opposing trans ideology and say, if I had been alive today as a young person, people

would have told me I'm trans even though I'm gay or even though I'm autistic or even though I'm this. And the fourth difference is that decriminalizing homosexuality was about preventing the treatment of gay people. When we're talking about transgenderism, the way that we've been talking about in our societies until recently, until we're treating ban puberty blockers, is that because we have this ideology of compassion for people who may feel differently, we then would prescribe very significant medical treatments to young children who are not actually capable of making rational decisions about their long-term future. So for all of those reasons, I don't really see the argument that you're making.

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I think you can see the argument that I'm making. You don't agree with the argument I'm making, but you've made four points there, so I need to take them one by one. What was the first one? So the first, well, I don't remember the order in which I made them. I think the first one was that in the idea that the male-female binary is a Western concept.

It's just not factually accurate. Okay, so stop there. Yeah. I'm talking about indigenous people who lived all over the world until we had... So when you say the trouble with saying it's not Western is colonization did bring a lot of more fixed ideas. So I'm from...

No, hold on a second. Sorry, no, I'm not going to let that pass. Are you saying people in the Duchy of Moscovy 2,000 years ago... No, no, no. But I only just started the sentence. So I said, for example, colonization did export a lot of very Christian, quote unquote Christian,

not necessarily Christian ideals. around the world. So my example was, I think it's hard to talk about the whole globe, but my example was in Australia, you may know Australian aboriginals have the idea of brother boys, brother, boys and sister girls. And they are genderqueer people. But of course, when, you know, let's be honest, white Christian colonizers came and turned up, they said, that's not a thing and you're not allowed to do that, and said that that's wrong and there was a lot of shaming that's gone on. Now, that obviously has infiltrated into the Aboriginal population now. There's still brother boys and there's still sister girls,

but there's a lot of homophobia in the Aboriginal population that didn't exist before it was imposed. But you're not addressing my argument. My argument is not that there aren't indigenous communities where these practices exist. My argument is that that is by far and away a tiny minority of the global population of humans. I don't really understand how that matters, though,

because it's still the archaic way people behave. If 99% of people do something, and 0.1% of people do something different. Do you know why indigenous populations are so small, though? Isn't it? The point I'm trying to make to you is... Do you know why there's a small? Hold on a second.

But do you know why they're so small? You're deflecting from the argument that I'm making. Not really. Yes, you are. The argument that I made to you is, when you said this is a Western concept, I gave you examples, for example, the Dutcho of Moscow or Russia 600 years ago.

So when I say Western, I'm speaking, because that's where I'm having the arguments, in the West. Now obviously there are eastern places too, but I'm talking about, you know, Western frameworks. It's unlikely I'm going to come in here in Kent and start talking about, you know, far eastern concepts. I think you're mishearing what I'm saying. You made the claim that outside of the West in indigenous societies, these things are very normal. And the point I'm making to you is, while it may be the case in certain tiny communities that exist, hold on a second, that exists certain tiny communities, bless you Francis, outside of the West. There are also lots of other

civilizations outside of the West where the gender binary that you were talking about as a Western concept is actually much more firmly enforced than it is in the West in the Islamic civilization, in the Chinese civilization, in Russia, all over the world, in South America, pretty much everywhere. So the bringing up tiny indigenous communities does not prove the case. Okay, but indigenous communities tend to be, I think, more, it's more archaic, it's more what it was before we brought in all these religious frameworks. You're still talking about the Muslim world,

you're still talking about an Abrahamic framework. What about the Chinese? I don't know, I haven't looked into the Chinese enough. They represent 1.4 billion people. Sure, but if you probably looked into indigenous Chinese culture, you know, that archaic before we had a lot of, China now is not a great example, I think you'll understand why, because of a fairly extreme regime

with not great human rights. So I think what I'm trying to look at, if you literally look at what I'm saying, is that there are other frameworks that are perhaps more human, that are less... They're less driven by control, by controlling regimes or controlling religions.

You like them more, I get it, but I don't think that makes them more human. If 99% of humans do A, it seems to me that A is more human. You must know, you're a bright man. I am, thank you. You must know, you're a public intellectual. You must know

that 99% given the recent population boom of people under draconian governments, under draconian religious, binary religious ideals, doesn't dwarf an indigenous culture that has been there. Australian Aboriginals are the oldest indigenous culture in the world. Do you know why there's so few of them? We killed them.

Yes. We committed a genocide. Why were we able to do that? Why were we able to do that? What are you implying? I'm just asking you the question. Are you implying because we're better? No.

What are you implying? We were technologically far more advanced. That's what I'm implying. What's not clear about that? So you're saying... I'm saying we were technologically more advanced. So you're saying we're superior to Australian aboriginals? That's quite the opposite of what I'm saying.

I'm not saying we were superior. I'm saying we were technologically more advanced. So how is that the opposite? Superior implies a moral quality. I'm not making any moral implication. You seem to be. But what I'm saying is... I think most people would hear it.

that way? Again, you were a very intelligent man. How would most people hear that? Most people would hear what I'm saying for what I'm saying, which is... Don't think they would. Somebody who comes, my mother's South America, and I have indigenous heritage. I don't see it that way. A lot of my grandmother's ancestors were wiped out by the conquistadors, whether it's by they came in, executed them, or it was disease brought in by conquistadors. I don't interpret it that way, if I'm being honest. So why, what's the point of this question then? The point of this question is... It's because we came in with our better gendered binaries

and therefore we were able to kill them. This is going to work a lot better if you just hear the point I'm making instead of getting... I really cannot understand what it could possibly be other than we are better. Well, let me explain it to you what it could possibly be. What's it got to do with the gender binary? Your argument, we're just talking about the argument and you seem to get quite heated about this, which is completely unnecessary.

You think it's necessary? I'm a bit stunned by what you're implying. No, you're acting in a kind of passive-aggressive way, which indicates that you're not happy. I genuinely am being 100% authentic, my visceral reaction to a white man sitting and saying to me, and why were we able to commit genocide on them? And then just pausing.

Yes. Is very visceral to me. Well, let's go back. First of all, it's interesting that you brought up my skin color because I thought that was the exact opposite of the point you're trying to making the book. But anyway, let's come back to the argument. You haven't read my book, so you wouldn't know what the point is. You said that the point of your book is, it's all about you can't say this as a this person and whatever. But anyway, it doesn't matter. You're very

reductive. I thought you were a lot more intellectual than this. I think this is very revealing, but let's come back to the argument. The argument you were making was that the Aboriginal society and other indigenous societies, as you call them, were more human because whatever reason, they were therefore models for emulation for us. I don't think I said more human. I said there is something fundamentally human. You said more human. Yeah. About there's something fundamentally

of how humans are before there's a whole heap of religious imposition and a whole heap of totalitarian imposition. That's what I'm saying. I think we can learn a lot from indigenous societies. I don't think you can say there's fewer of them, therefore they don't count. That's not what I said. When they were...

I didn't say they don't count. What I said is if 99% of a population, if 99% of panders eat bamboo shoots, it's fair to say that eating bamboo shoots is the standard panda behavior. It's the more panda behavior than the 1% or the 0.1% they eat dog turds for a living.

Okay, so what about if pandas had been in an artificial environment for a long time and couldn't get bamboo shoots and were eating something else, but I could show you that pandas originally and some pandas for thousands of years, The oldest pandas in the world live in Australia, and those pandas still eat bamboo shoots and always have done,

that would be something interesting for you as an intellectual, wouldn't it? So the fact that pandas at 1.8, something other than bamboo shoots, I mean, your idea that everything since the Aboriginals is an artificial environment, well, those societies were artificial in their own way too. Yeah, I'm not saying anything as rigid as what you're imposing on to me. I am talking through things and around things right at the top. Remember when I said, this is some ideas and a book of ideas.

So I'm exploring your ideas with you. In a way, though, what you're doing is you're going, ah, you've said this thing and this thing isn't everything. And so I would love it if we could genuinely talk. I'm trying. And you could... I'm trying to address your argument, right? I gave you four arguments in response to the things that you said.

And we've only really got to one. Well, yes, because you got upset at me saying, something about the Aborigines. But what were you meaning by that? What were you meaning by why were able to commit genocide? We were technologically far more sophisticated. And what's that got to do with it? Well, if a civilization is able to produce things like penicillin and the ability for its children not to die in childbirth, I think that indicates that that civilization has something positive about it. The fact that the Western civilization has created the incredible material benefits and also other benefits of every kind that we now enjoy, says something about the utility of that civilization

and that worldview, which is that it is very good for human beings, which is one of the reasons that millions of people travel, many of them risking their lives, from other parts of the world to our societies today. Okay, so all, okay, so Aboriginals didn't need penicillin because they didn't have any of the diseases, and they were living an incredibly brilliant nomadic life so that they would, what they would do is it would use a certain area, then they would move on, and then they would move on, then they would come back. So they didn't have any problems with holes and ozone layers,

any problems with climate change, the incredible raging bushfires across America, across Australia right now. They didn't have that. So we brought in more problems than we did solutions, right? Well, I don't know that that's true. It depends which indigenous community is talking about. If you look at Native Americans, for example, they were just as brutal as Westerners in many ways.

They had slavery. They murdered each other on a regular basis. they went to war. All of these things existed. And they had, of course, their own diseases. It's a completely different discussion. No, it's not a completely different discussion. We brought the diseases that required the penicillin. Well, I didn't, but yes. And penicillin was certainly not invented when we committed genocide on Australian aboriginals. I don't understand your point. My point is we were technologically far more sophisticated. So this celebration of indigenous cultures as these possessors of all things of value from which we should now take

learnings and apply them to our society and that's why we need to give 12-year-old's puberty blockers is not a very strong argument. That's not anything like what I said though, is it? Well, that was the argument that I brought up. I really thought you were going to be open to me. I'm extremely open to it to you, but you have to make a rational argument that persuades me. Okay, so I made lots of really interesting new arguments you'd never heard before. I have heard lots of those arguments before. You haven't, you haven't heard. You haven't heard. You haven't heard about the dog. How would you know which arguments I've heard? Because it's, because I live in this world and the adoption argument is I'm the first one making it.

That I am. I don't know. That argument is not one I've ever heard and I, it was interesting, but that wasn't the argument that I responded to. I remember I responded to your argument about native indigenous people having some kind of great wisdom that we should learn from. That was the argument we were talking about. But they do. Hold on a second.

You believe that. I do. That's fine. I don't. But look at the, if you look, if you go to Peru, it's the indigenous people who are looking after the Amazon and who are defending it. from just huge swathes of it being destroyed with all that they can. Yeah, I should actually take back what I said in that I don't think we have nothing to learn from them,

but I think the implication that because they're indigenous, we should learn for everything. But I am suggesting this is something we could learn. It is not, I'm saying it's not the only framework. The only framework isn't women, men. It's not the only framework. So I'm demonstrating to you through my research that there are rather frameworks that you may be interested, in examining in case there's something interesting there. So how is it that they woke up and felt like that,

but nobody now in the 21st century is going to wake up and feel like that. It's impossible. It's impossible that we all fit into one of these boxes. And the same people who don't like trans people saying, I'm a woman, don't like the non-binary category, which is an attempt to say, hey, I don't feel like either of these categories go, no, you can't be that either.

You have to be in the one box we put you in. I've never said that at all. Well, you may not have, Right, so we're having the conversation with me, so let's just stick with that. The second argument I made was about... You're unbelievable. In what way? You literally started by saying, why am I not woke?

And I said, because people, these are the kinds of things that people who say I'm anti-woke say. And you might not say that, but you do know a lot of people who are anti-woke say non-binary isn't a category. They do. Yes, definitely. So I am suggesting that it is not possible that indigenous cultures that have said, survive to this day, Aboriginals being the oldest in the whole of the history of the planet,

have people within it who have a tradition of gender fluidity, but nobody feels gender fluid today, or nobody feels gender non-conforming today. Of course, some people feel gender non-conforming. What are they meant to do? If you remember at the very beginning, I said that there is some confusion, I think,

in our discussion here, between people who don't fit into the stereotype of what a man should be and a stereotype what a woman should be, and someone who claims to be the opposite sex. That's, I think, quite an important distinction. I don't see it as the opposite sex. I don't think there's opposites. I think it is far more fluid than that. And I think... You don't think there's the opposite sex. So you don't think there's male and female. I just think it is more fluid than that. And I trust people when they tell me that is not

how they feel inside. And much like the idea of an orphan, which again did not exist in the indigenous cultures I've researched, that just didn't, that wasn't really a thing. It wasn't something you could identify as. It's, you were taken care of by the community. It's our framework that requires, I've got to feel like one of these two. And so some people have now said, can I be this third category? And then people go, no, you've got to be one of these two. And it has to be the one you say you are.

And that makes people unhappy, the way it made gay men unhappy to not be able to say who they were. It's making them unhappy. And I don't understand why we need to scapegoat people who say that. I definitely don't think we should be scared because he's telling anyone. At the same time, because we treat men and women in society differently, the claim that you're a woman has consequences, not only for you personally, but also for the rest of society. It entitles you to certain protections that men don't enjoy and entitles you to access to certain spaces that

men don't have access to. And that's really, I think, the big debate when it comes to adults, when it comes to children, there is a question about whether children are able to make these decisions in a way the decisions that they make, which then have lifelong implications, particularly when it comes to medical changes. Which I talk about in my book, that very, very, very, very, very few tiny percentage of, it's not children, but of Teeds do ever seek medication

and even a tiny percentage of those have gotten medication. If, if, if, if, puberty blockers have been given incorrectly, have been pushed on anybody, which they have? Then that is malpractice, and that should be stopped. But it's a logical...

But it's a logical consequence of the claim that if somebody says that they feel a certain way, then they are that thing. It's not what doctors who prescribe them have said to me. They've said that they only give puberty blockers if that young person is absolutely adamant and on the cusp of, you know, self-harm and they just can't live any other way. If you, it's, it is just not common.

You found Hannah Barnes on here who did the BBC report into all of this. And she was told that at the Tavistock Clinic, some children were given puberty block as if I'm not mistaken after two consultations. Yeah, well, I talk about the Tavistock in my book. But what I'm saying to is it's a logical consequence. But that's, that's, it's not a logical consequence. It's malpractice. Okay.

Malpractice is two consultations. and we give you, no, it's not a logical consequence. It's malpractice. And if we find that there's a hospital near here and there's been malpractice in, you know, hip surgery, you don't close it down and say no more hip surgery for anyone. We say we need more safeguarding, we need more training, we need to make sure there's no malpractice. Far more people regret hip surgery than they do surgery to transition, actually. All right, we're about half an hour in and Francis hasn't said a word, so how about you have a job? I didn't have my childhood, so thank you both.

The thing that, the issue that I have with wokeism is, I think you're very accurate in the way you describe it as a cult. And by the way, like we've said before, we see the same things on the right, particularly when it comes to the right in America where some very ugly things, very ugly things are starting to manifest, things that we both feel deeply uncomfortable with. But let's just focus on wokeism for the moment. The thing that I have the most, the thing that wokeism really makes me feel really uncomfortable is cancel culture, which seems to be part and parcel of that particular ideology. And as somebody who has seen communism and the ultimate form of cancel culture, I find it deeply sinister. And the fact that it's marketed as being kind or progressive, I think is actually gaslighting.

It's not kind and it's not progressive. I'll use an example. Joe Lysett, the very famous UK comedian, said that cancel culture has made the UK comedy industry a kinder and better place. It's done none of those things. To strip somebody of their livelihood and destroy their career and impact,

not only them, but their families, their children. I'd see nothing kind or better about that. So I have a chapter about this in my book, a whole chapter on cancer culture. And the problem, I have with council culture is the same problem I had with being a Jehovah's Witness. The wisdom is dispensed from on high. If you don't agree with it, you're told to listen, to apologize. If you won't apologize, you kind of get marked. If you continue not to apologize

and you're even though, you know, you're not really allowed to present your side of the story. and you can be completely shunned. And that's the same model as a high control group. And then we have to ask the question, what do we do if we know we have a predator in our midst? If I'm on certain comedian WhatsApp groups and women look out for each other and they say, look, this happened to me.

It was an unpleasant experience. I don't want to say anything about it. He's quite powerful comedian. But I just want you to know that if you are in a car with him or you might want to get a lift with somebody else. That goes on all the time. We tell each other,

don't want to say anything about it, can't prove it, but we give each other those heads-ups. And because, say, Joe Lysos is talking about the comedy community, the comedy community has, for many years before the Me Too movement, it was just a free-for-all. There was literally nothing you could say. Even if you made a sort of mild remark about,

I remember doing it, about things being harder for women or there being no women invited onto this bill, even though so and so and so and so were free and they're very well known to be good. You would be, I mean, I was basically shunned once in Edinburgh for saying something like that about an improv thing and people would not talk to me in the bar

because that was the stranglehold. Anytime you get a kind of absolute power model, that power will be abused. And that power has been abused and it was abused. So I think the Me Too movement was very important to address that. So what do we do when there's a predator in our midst and the law doesn't really want to do anything about it or they say, well, there's no evidence for that,

or there's no will to do anything about it, or you can't prove it. What do we do? And so that's what that chapter is analysing. But ultimately, we, there's a whole section I've got on jurisprudence and how there's a lot of evidence that prisons are really, they're sort of an overhang from Victorian times when we warehoused people we didn't know what to do with.

So you put children in the orphanage, you put poor people in the workhouse and you'd put people who had mental health issues into a sanatorium and throw away the key. And prisons are sort of the only one left. And certainly there are some people who need to be taken away from society because otherwise they will really hurt people.

But most people are better off with community intervention. Because otherwise what happens is you take someone out of the community it was causing trouble in the community or hurting people in that community. You put them in a place that is, totally lacking in empathy. And so their problem was

they were lacking in empathy. You put them in a place where they are brutalized, where they are, even if they're not physically brutalised, they're emotionally brutalised. Then you say, okay, you've done your time and we now, having made you less empathetic, put you back into that community. We know that community intervention is better.

And crime doesn't go up. So I talked to a really interesting guy called Jared Bartle, who's a jurisprudence expert in Australia. And he said, during When COVID, they let a lot of people out of prisons and gave them ankle bracelets and, you know, did community intervention stuff instead. And the crime rate didn't go up at all.

Most people are much better off in their own communities. And so what the problem with counterculture is, is we go, we don't want that comedian in our midst anymore. So we shun him and he goes over there. Where does he go? He doesn't leave Earth. So if he is a predator, he's now going over there to do predator. predator things. He's not left. He's just, you've moved the problem on over there. But now he's

getting more and more and more and more bitter and he probably hangs out with the two or three other guys who are in the same position. They exacerbate each other. They get less empathy, not more. What they needed was more empathy to go, don't do that. That's really horrible for them. And then they get sidelined in the comedy community. So you make the problem worse. You just shifted over there. So what we need in the comedy community, I think, is community intervention. If someone's done something criminal, we need to act on them. But if someone hasn't done something criminal, they're just making life awful for the people around them, then we need community intervention. Ask 10 people to define capitalism and you'll probably get 10 different answers. It's a word

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Just snap a few photos and we'll take care of the rest. Who knew your questionable music taste will be a money-making machine? Your style can make you cash. Start selling on Deepop, where taste recognizes But I think the problem is, and we've had many psychiatrists talking about this, when it comes to sex-based crimes, it is pathological. It's very likely that if you are a sex offender, you're a sexual predator, you're a rapist. It escalates and you will remain like that for the rest of your life. We had Dr. Steve Peters talk about this.

So if somebody is a rapist, I don't think that's the same as they're difficult. there were lots of men in comedy before Me Too, and some of them still do, but who were kind of predatory. I think that's totally, that's what I said. If it's something criminal, we need to work on that. We need to actually get that sorted and get that solved, and that person does need to be removed

and whatever rehabilitative work can be done should be done. I think that our whole justice system is screwed in that way, and our whole idea of prison making anybody get better is absolutely screwed on that, I think, that that's a whole dismantling of a system. But there are all sorts of things on the spectrum there. Again, it's a spectrum. It's not you are or you aren't, you're in or you're out.

And so I think cancel culture, a lot of people who are abolitionists and want to, you know, don't like the way, don't like prisons, don't like the way the police operate. are really, really happy to have some quite brutal cancel culture moves made. And I think they are at odds, aren't they?

Yeah. To me, and this was my problem with me too, not at the beginning, but where it ended up, where I had a friend who was in the comedy community, who was in the comedy industry, he's no longer in the comedy industry, and I'm not using his name. But he was effectively cancelled because women said that they felt awkward around him,

female comedians did, because he stood too close to them and talk to them. He had autism. That's what he did to everybody. That's what he did to me. And this entire campaign was then started. His reputation was destroyed. He nearly had a breakdown. He nearly lost his job because he's socially awkward. Well, if that's the case, that's terrible. Like, I don't know the details of that case or what else women were saying. So I don't want to, I don't want to overly, you know, you can't say his name and I don't know the details. But if that's the case, that's terrible. And so I, the thing,

is I am a progressive person who's known to be a public feminist. Yeah. And it got to the point where I couldn't do the kind of work I'm doing anymore in that space without saying what's going on with council culture. Because at the beginning of Me Too, it was really writing historical wrongs and drawing attention to something and shining a light. But like anything, any tool in the world can be used. used as a weapon and will be used as a weapon. That's how human beings are. So someone can have a,

you know, great tool to get the weeds out of the garden or plant tomatoes or whatever, but that can be used as a weapon. And Me Too is an incredible tool that has been used for great things. Otherwise, Harvey Weinstein would still be out destroying careers and sexually assaulting people. But like any tool, it can be used as a weapon. And if we don't want the baby to be thrown out with a bath, we are going to have to let the baby grow up. I agree. And then also there was this, and it's still happy now. Let's take the case of Alfie Brown. Do you remember that case of Alfie Brown? So I'll explain to you what happened to Alfie, and then we can discuss it.

And I'm going to be factual. Alfie was doing a preview at a comedy club of his show. He did a number of jokes, basically jibes, very funny actually jokes, about Corbyn, the Corbyn Easter government, insinuating that he was anti-Semitic. It then went on to Twitter. There was a back and forth from Twitter. People then started to dig up old interviews of Alfie during it in podcasts. They also, an old routine was dug up.

Where the premise of the routine was that if you wanted to have a good slur, you needed a hard consonant. A good racial slur, you needed a hard consonant. That's why all the racial slurs had hard consonants in them. and he just went through all of them. And he said, and that's, that is why all slurs have hard consonants. He didn't execute it particularly well. This was a routine that was over eight years old. It was then dug up and it was then used to prove that he was a racist.

And then it was then used to cancel him. His shows got pulled, lost opportunities, blah, blah, blah. I have a real issue with that. And people claiming that they were offended and that's the, reason. As somebody who has been called many of those slurs, as someone who looks Jewish, I get more than my fair show of anti-Semitism online. And as someone with a Latin American background, I also get that as well online, Twitter X, whatever you want to call it, social media is accessible, as we all know. And I have a real issue with that. I have a very, very real

issue with that, that suddenly you can claim to be offended by something that happened years before, and then use it to destroy somebody's career just because you felt offended. Well, I'm going to go on a large limb here and say, I don't think Alfie's career is destroyed. Alfie's a work in common, he's doing all right. No, he lost a lot of opportunities at the time. Gigs were cancelled. Sure. I'm sure it was unpleasant. But I don't think it's in the realm of, it's not in the realm of a Louis C.K. Who is also back in as one a Grammy.

So I think that's the other thing we do need to contextualize. But that's an unfair comparison. because Alfie did nothing wrong and Louis CK did do something wrong. But that's what I'm saying. It's a spectrum. So let's talk about it as a spectrum. It's not a, it's not a kind of black and white.

I think if people are going to go back in time and dig stuff up and, you know, with an agenda, it's because they know what they're doing and that's a decision they're making and that is a part of modern life. that it's unpleasant. In terms of...

I'd say it's more than unpleasant, Deborah. It's more than unpleasant. It is reputation destruction. Yeah, no, I understand what you're saying. I'm just trying to think it through. I think it's... Okay, fair enough. a book, have a chapter in the book called

Freedom of Speech in Comedy. And one thing that I say in that, because I'm a, I mean, I think people always, you know, sometimes the BBC will ring me up and say, they can't, you know, they, they, uh, a baby it's cold outside is being banned on the radio. And, uh, we want you as a feminist to say that that's a good

thing, basically is what they're saying? And I'm like, I'm not going to like, what? Why do you think they want me to be Mary White House? And I'm like, I'm a Gen X comedian. I'm not in for banning stuff. It's just not who I am. But they misunderstand. They see feminist and they go, you'll want to ban baby it's called aside. I won't want a ban, baby it's called outside. And when you look into it, it's not being banned. It's, uh, they've, it's, you know, it was the me too era where they were like, let's curate something else this year. Let's just do jingle bell rock instead. It's probably a little tone deaf at this particular time in history is all that's

going on. Um, but, uh, I don't want to ban stuff. I don't want to dig stuff up on people. I also find it slightly disturbing when I see, um, but, you know, this guy's going to be booked on SNL, but 10 years ago he did this tweet that was clearly an edge lord joke, but also I don't think that that man is genuinely, gets up every morning and is motivated by racism. So it's an area where I go,

I feel like it's, it feels like a really unpleasant part of modern life that people are online, trying to be private detectives, to try and destroy you over the, this because I really want to get you for that. And I don't, I don't like it. I don't endorse it. I also think comics,

some comics say stuff that they don't really understand or care how what they are saying might land as every tool as a weapon, right? So a joke can be a tool, can also be used as a weapon. So I would say Jimmy Carr's joke

Did you see that big thing about Jimmy Carr? So in his big Netflix special In his Netflix special It's called his dark material And specifically it's about being able to do dark material About an edgy stuff That's what a day And he really contextualised it

He goes, this is the joke that's going to end my career And he I break down the whole joke in the book But he goes He's like in the Holocaust And he looks to camera like, yeah I'm going to go there in the Holocaust. And he says, people always talk about six million Jews being killed, but they rarely talk about the, I can't remember what it is,

but the hundreds of thousands or millions of gypsies that were killed. And then there's a gap. And then he goes, because no one ever wants to talk about the positives. When people talk about the Holocaust, they talk about the tragedy and horror of six million Jewish lives being lost to the Nazi war machine. But they never mention the thousands of gypsies. that were killed by the Nazis. No one ever wants to talk about that, because no one ever wants to talk

about the positives. Right. And then he tries to explain why that joke is very clever, very funny, while it's educational, and why it's so good. And of course, it caused a huge forury. And even the comedians that kind of stood up for Jimmy on a basic, Jimmy's my mate sort of basis, no one really stood up for the joke. Because the joke is not funny enough. It's not too, it's not too, be worth that that level of nastiness when Amnesty International have said that Romani people, travelling people,

who Jimmy calls gypsies and some people own that term and some people don't so I won't. That Amnesty says Romney people are the most disenfranchised, the most overly criminalised population in this country. They have the least protections. They don't have famous people standing up for them and famous

they don't have representation. Now, that joke we know will no doubt be used in the playground against a kid because Jimmy said it. The audience has laughed because it's edgy. And they've laughed in shock. They can't believe Jimmy said that. That's where the laugh's coming from. And that's where Jimmy wants the laugh to be coming from. Jimmy doesn't want to hurt Romany people.

Jimmy doesn't care about that. It just doesn't, that's not what he's doing. He's doing a shock joke. And that's his joy and that's his bliss. And that's what he wants to do. But what I'm asking is, I don't want anything banned. but I want comedians and I want broadcasters to ask about what they're curating

and to again, like I say to the Me Too movement, if you're not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater, let it grow up. Because that will be used as a grenade for sure in the playground against Romney kids that are there. It's like, oh, we never want to talk about the positives. And then the teacher comes on. I was just saying what Jimmy Carr said.

And if multi-millionaire Jimmy Carr and his Amani suit, standing on stage at the Hamas with a multimillion-dollar Netflix special can say it, why can't this kid? And that kid may come from a community where he hears a lot of racism about Romani people, right? So I'm asking, I'm not saying ban anything, but I'm just saying, think about what we're saying, because, yes, we should be free in comedy to go wherever we want. That's the art form, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But we're also free to drive a car. But we also understand there are a rule. and also conventions about not driving like an asshole. If it's going to really inconvenience or hurt somebody else, we know that. That's understandable. A lot of comedians are better people driving to the gig than they are at the gig. And that just makes me go, hmm, I wonder why you're doing that. I wonder why you're not choosing to be as funny about something else

that isn't going to probably have a real world knock on effect. So I would say to Alfie, and I bet you anything, Alfie would go, that joke wasn't good enough and I don't know why I did it and I was experimenting with being edgy. I doubt Alfie would stand behind the joke or is still doing the joke about all the slurs and are they hilarious. No, he was eight years ago. He no longer does that. Exactly. When he was a younger man, and this is incredibly pertinent to the argument at a different time, socially. Absolutely. Absolutely. This is going to sound weird coming from me, but I think on the most of it, you're actually agreeing. So me playing peacemaker here is strange. But I think actually what I'm here from Dubber is,

You agree canceling people is a bad idea. But this is something Francis and I have said from day one, which is I think cancel culture, first of all, it's a human thing anyway. But also it emerges from the gap between what we can prosecute legally and what we know is wrong and immoral behavior that can't be punished through the legal system. The legal system does not cover all forms of bad behavior effectively, right? And so it was an attempt to deal with things that were sitting under the surface that couldn't be dealt with through the criminal justice system.

And sometimes just aren't. Like they, you know, let's be incredibly honest about the rape, the rape, the rape conviction is so low. Most people won't even, most women won't report a rape because they just know their lives are going to be destroyed. And they will not get any satisfaction. That's what Prime Facey, the play was about. It's just so rare.

So, yes, there will be men, for example, in the comedy community who are, you know, criminals, but there's nothing we can do about it because they're not going to be convicted or we can't prove it in a way that the court expects us to. And actually everyone also in the British judicial system now has to watch Prima FAC before they do a rape trial to understand, that is policy, to understand how difficult it is for someone to come forward and then how difficult it is to go through that

and how unlikely it is that they'll ever get any justice. So, you know, we are dealing with an incredibly broad spectrum of from, and this is the problem with it, really, we all know that that man has been accused of rape by a number of women, but nothing is done, nothing continues to be done. And somebody made a really quite nasty tasteless joke, but it was eight years ago. He doesn't stand behind it. He'd like to get it taken off the internet. He's happy to apologize for it. and someone's dug it up because they've got a different beef with him now. And can we see the kind of the spectrum that we're playing in? And this is why I think we need, we just need more nuance. And in all of these things, I just think we need more discussion because it's not either or and it's not this or that.

It's crunchy stuff that we want to think it all through. We want to really sit with it and go, what kind of society do we want to be? And we want to take into account all of these things. We do want to take into account how Indigenous people lived and if there's anything we can learn. And we do want to take into account that comedy's crunchy and contravening norms

is something that comedy has always done. But society has changed. And now, you know, it used to be that Lenny Bruce would say the unsayable. And there was one space for that. And it was a basement comedy club. And now look at the internet. What is unsayable?

There's nothing that you're saying. that's so edgy that isn't said every single day on Reddit, you do not need to perform the service of saying the unsayable every day anymore. People are saying all sorts of nasty stuff. And I think, you know, the idea that comedy is for, you know, oh, we've got to all be transgressive in this space. I'm like, the most transgressive thing now is to be not transgressive,

actually, when you look at people's daily life and what they're looking at on Pornhub and Quorum, Reddit, and, you know, all of these different spaces, if you're still on X, bloody hell. Like, everything is, every unsayable thing is being said all of the time. Well, the left did a thing about, it obsessed with virtue signaling for ages, which is signaling how good of a person you are.

What's happening on the right now is there's an obsession with vice signaling, which is the more transgressive the thing you say, the cooler you are. And so people are starting to say all this moronic stuff, not even often because they, believe it or anything else, not even if it's funny or not. They're just saying it because it's transgressive and that's the only purpose of it, which is obviously totally pointless and a giant waste. And it's made a lot of social media, which I actually always enjoyed. There's always

been robust debate and all of this stuff. I never mind people having to go at me and whatever. But I think it's just made the whole environment very, first, the worst thing about it, it's made it very inauthentic. It's made a very inauthentic in that you're not actually talking to human beings. You're just talking to people who are trying to say something like that. But anyway, we've talked about two of the six conversations.

We talked about trans as much as we could and we talked about cancel culture. What else have we not covered? So the first chapter, there's some interesting stuff in there about how modern life is modeling cults. And one of the things that said a lot is just picking up on what you said there is that people often say

the internet makes us less empathetic or social media makes us less sympathetic and there was in fact a study done in 2009 that said people are getting less empathetic and actually when you look into it and I've broken it down in the book it didn't really prove that at all but you know

you can read about it in the book but what I'm arguing there was another study it didn't say that the internet had made it just posited that but it didn't actually look at that. And then it was another study that looked into it and found that social media made children more empathetic. And so I started looking at that

and what I discovered and what I'm arguing is that every single day social media, which we think, oh, it makes you less empathetic, trolls and keyboard warriors, every single day, it demands that you be more and more empathetic but to fewer and fewer people. Yes, yeah. So one thing I am,

argued against in 2016 when it came up. So I started the guilty of feminist in end of 2015. 2016, it was kind of in full swing. And this men are trash hashtag came up. And I was like, guys, what do you think a 14 year old boy who's just trying to figure out how to be a man, just, I don't know, he's a nice guy where he isn't in his little self, but he's probably just a little complicated person who isn't anything yet. He's just figuring out how to be a human being and how to be a man. How is that, how was that landing with him? I'll be honest for you, Deborah, as someone who was in their mid-30s at the time and has always, you know, I'm not saying that I've succeeded, but I've always tried to be a good person and do my best. That really pissed me off. It pissed me off.

Because I, and what I was saying at the time was, okay, so there's, there's, again, it's not binary. I don't really believe in this, sort of, it is that or isn't that. We're all on a spectrum. We're all fraud, we're all fucked, we're all doing our best. There are some people probably on polar opposites who just get out of bed every day to make other people happy or some people who are blatant sociopaths

and who, you know, psychopaths who are not empathic at all. But most of us are in the middle. We've got some love, we've got some fear, and all the other emotions are those two emotions in costumes. That's what I think. It's just, we're all trying.

to struggle through. So for me, a 14-year-old boy hearing that, just to use the most extreme example probably, I feel like what he's hearing is you can't be any better than you are on your worst days. And if you're on your best day and you're really trying hard or you advocate for somebody else, it doesn't really matter because we're going to see you as trash anyway. And I said at the time, and I said it on other people's podcasts, I was begging people to stop using it, begging feminists to stop using it. And they, I think they were kind of riding high a little bit on what was happening in the world. And, you know, there was a time of, you know, a little bit of getting our own back. I think that's what was going on at that time,

because women had felt not listened to, not heard. It was before Me Too. We all we'd had is a march. If we'd even had a March then, we had probably hadn't even had a March then. Did we have our March 2018? So we probably hadn't even had a March. It was, it was, it was, so, it was such a time of kind of clawing for something. But I was saying at the time, that 14-year-old boy, that's what he's hearing. And guys who are really bad who hurt women, when they are caught, I know this is true, psychologists, and also I had somebody in my show from the government where they specifically work on this problem. This is absolutely true. Men who hurt women, when psychologists work with them, truly believe that all men do it or want to do it,

but just aren't man enough, quote, unquote. That's what they think. So when you tell men, men are trash, the ones who do hurt women are hearing that and going, yeah, all men are trash. So when men say to me, not all men, I go, yeah, we know. A hundred percent of the men I've been with have not killed me. I know. I live with men. I work with men. I get in a cab. I know it's not all men. I want men who are basically good guys who wouldn't hurt women to tell the other ones, not all men. Because the ones who do hurt women, they think it is all men. They're the ones you need to tell. You don't need to tell me. I know it's not all men. I think it is the minority of men who are violent towards women. And by the way, male-on-male violence is much higher than male-on-female violence. He does. He does. He does. is a male problem. But the truth of the matter is, if men stop killing, killing would stop.

Very, very few deaths are from women. And generally, it's either women in self-defense or in coercive control situations under the group of a man. That's the fact. So it is not all men. Please tell the men it is. It's not all men. Because they don't hear me because I am the other to them. We'll get you back to the interview in just a sec. But first, imagine this. You're walking down the street, and there's a giant billboard with all your personal details on it. Your passwords, your credit card numbers, your bank logins, just there for anyone to see. Sounds insane, right? Well, that's basically what you're doing every time you go online without Express VPN, whether it's using dodgy airport Wi-Fi or grabbing a coffee at your local cafe. If the network

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Even when I'm traveling, I know I'm protected. Secure your online data today by visiting ExpressVPN.com. slash trigger. That's e-X-P-R-E-S-V-S-V-N.com slash trigger to find out how you can get up to four extra months free. One more time, expressvPN.com slash trigger. Sorry, do you have... No, no, no. The point that I was going to make was that the thing that I knew was going to happen was there was going to be a backlash. There was only so long, you you can tell a group of people that they are wrong, evil, stupid, disgusting,

simply through the fact that they have these immutable characteristics before they turn around and go, you know what, fuck you. And I see Andrew Tate as part of that backlash, if I'm being honest. Well, because, and people, and by the way, I am no fan of Tate. I want to make that absolutely clear. But to me, when people go, this is awful, of course he's awful. That is a symptom of a backlash. Tate isn't the problem.

The problem is what is underneath that, that has given rise to his prominence. I would suggest that we cannot blame feminism for the Manusphere. The Manusphere is far too... I'm not blaming feminism. I'm blaming all men are trash. And that kind of punitive vengeful, those pervutive vengeful movements have created a backlash. That's my argument.

I would say that misogyny is a deep and great... vast mine and I don't think you can really blame very recent feminist marches and some hashtags for it. It's much deeper than that. Andrew Tate is much deeper than that. It hasn't helped. I'll give you that. And I was saying it, I was saying it all through that, I was going, you know, those 14-year-old boys now, they were 16 then. How old are they now? Going to be 24, 25? Yeah. And a lot of them are looking to Jordan Peterson. A lot of them are looking to Andrew Tate. And that, to me, again, is a spectrum of manospheric ideas. And then that bleeds in. to Zuckerberg going, we need more masculine

energy at Facebook. I've worked at Facebook. They did not need any moment. Well, actually, it's interesting you bring up Jordan and Andrew in the same sentence because I actually see the distinction between the two of them is very telling. Jordan Peterson was a male role model for men of our generation,

some men of our generation, a very constructive figure who told them how to be better and taught them certain values and importance of, you know, there's a We had somebody on our team who had a baby recently, and I sent him a video of Jordans talking about the most important thing when your child is born is to look after your wife. That's your job. Yes, you know, number one job.

So he had a very positive impact on young men. The next generations male role model is Andrew Tate. And I think that difference and that negative evolution is precisely the point of Francis is making. I never really felt that the old men are trash thing was an attack against. me, but there are a lot of young men, younger than us, who did feel that. And that thing you're talking about, about vengefulness, it's the thing that we find Vera putting about the right nowadays, particularly in America. They're like, oh, now we have the power, and now we're going to show them. And that's exactly what men felt, when a lot of men felt,

especially young men who are not as advantaged as people like to pretend in our society. We've just had various reports come out about the fact that the gender pay gap now works the other way and all sorts of other things. I would like to see that. Yeah, you should look into it. I would like to see that. Yeah, you should look into it. So the point I'm making is that evolution from Jordan Peterson to Andrew Tait is exactly the thing that Francis is talking about as the backlash.

See, I do you not think Jordan Peterson has missed the turn off now? I've seen him say some really unpleasant things about women. Like what? Oh, just that men can't control insane women, you know, that kind of thing. I mean, no one can control insane women, that's for sure. I mean, do you not find that... No one can control insane men. either. And saying people are quite difficult to control.

Well, yeah, but it's said in a context of, you know, that's what they like. You can find, if you look, if you Google Jordan Peterson quotes about women, you'll find anyone's quotes, you can find things that you're not going to like. I have seen him say stuff that I find unpleasant. I know Jordan very well. I've been on tour with him. I've seen 10,000 people turn out for his shows well-dressed. And I've seen him talk to the people who come to shows afterwards. And all of them, to a person, say, you've made me a better person. and here's the girlfriend I met because of you, etc. He's made an incredible positive impact.

I'm not saying he has, I'm not saying he has not said anything wise. I'm saying I find it kind of a bit scarier sometimes when somebody has this sort of respectability element of, look at all my well-dressed fans, and then they can start to say almost anything because they have convinced people. John's done quite the opposite, though. He's become far more considerate and careful.

over time. Maybe I missed that phase of Jordan and I'll look back into it. But I have, I've seen things that I haven't got them to hand and I don't want to be misquoting. But I've seen things that have troubled me about Jordan Peterson. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. But that doesn't mean he's a bad person. It just might mean that you have a different view of things, right? Like you and I have a different view of things. But it doesn't necessarily mean that I come away from this conversation thinking you're a bad person or you hate men, likewise the other way around, right? So what I'm saying, the point I'm making is not,

Jordan's human, I'm sure he said things that you don't like, I'm sure he said things I don't like. But on balance, he's someone who's made a huge positive impact on men. Andrew Tay, I see is very much the opposite of that, right? And the point Francis is making is, I think there's a lot of truth to the idea that this constant, the thing that you were against, the thing that you were speaking against

is what's created that shift so that now we've gone from Jordan Peterson to Andrew Taye. I think it's a lot more sinister than that. I don't think it's helped and I opened by saying this didn't help. No, no, I agree. This did not help.

And the constant them and using, the cult like them and us sing, and I do see this on both sides. I see it across the board, across the political scape, and I feel like my side is the progressive left.

And therefore I want to keep my own house in order. And I also think the progressive left are meant to be empathetic and helping other people up. That's the whole, that's the whole name of the game for us. What are we doing saying anybody is trash? It's dehumanizing. I don't know why we're doing it. And I fought against it for years. And I feel angry that it has exacerbated the situation. However, I also think when you look at Project 25 and the Heritage Foundation in America and the right, the right, of the trad wife and the increasing unpleasantness of far-right politics that is rising up and Elon Musk trying to buy elections across America across Europe for the far right,

I think it's just so much more sinister. The Andrew Tate of it all is so much more sinister than, well, if you're going to say we're trash, we're going to build an Uber misogynist. I think there's so much else driving it and going on. And I think it's a little cosmetic to say it's the fault of. Honestly, I think I had a really interesting conversation, which is in the book, I've got it as an interview in the book with a guy called Neil Datter, who is the head of the European Forum for Sexual Reproductive Rights in Europe.

So it's European, obviously, in Europe. And so it's basically a forum and he gets all the MPs that care that women have. It's really that women have access to birth control, abortion, and cervical smears, you know, for stop cancer and, you know, just basically that kind of package. And it's basically he explained to me and then I looked into it and this does check out that around 2012 there was, I mean, I don't know how much I really want to say about this. Maybe I should just let people read it in the book. But basically, there was some Christian far right nationalists who got very angry that they were losing. Based on the fact that both the UK and France brought in equal marriage. And it was around that time.

And they went, okay, if it's the Mad Scandies, the Danes will marry a chair. That's nothing to do with us. But when it's the United Kingdom and when it's France, we've got to do something here. And they came over and they had a forum in, they had a, a sort of conference in the UK around 2011, 2012, that time. And they said, we've got to stop asking what do we want? And we've got to start asking, what can we get? Because if we come into the UK saying no abortion, anti-gay rights,

we'll be laughed out as crackpots. And one of the questions they asked was, what do you know what they came up with? Trans rights. But there'd always been a little bit of a, well, back to the 60s, Is that gay rights? Is that queer rights? How is this related to time? I don't follow.

So it's all part of the same sort of bubbling up of this is not how we want it to be. And I think there's a real, you can really draw a line between the kind of bubbling up of this extreme misogyny. And at the same time, that heritage foundation family values. And there's evidence that the, that the, that the, the Heritage Foundation of funding the Trad Wives. Like, you know that, do you know that Ballet Farm? Yeah, I'm familiar in a moment. But I, forgive me, I'm genuinely not being difficult.

It's just like a... I don't follow how Andrew Tate comes from that. I think it's just like a landscape. Well, here's an example. Andrew Tate has now been given the... He was here somewhere in... He was in Florida. Florida.

He's been moved to Florida, but he was moved from... No, no, he wasn't moved to Florida. He went... He was granted leave by the Romanian courts and he's a US citizen, so he went on holiday to Florida. I thought that was somehow given to him by Trump. No, no, it wasn't. Trump wasn't worth.

No, no, no, I think Deborah's right. I think the Trump administration put pressure on Romania to release him to be able to go back to the US. That's what I thought happened. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that is what happened. And that's, I mean, that's what I read. And, you know, one must always check one sources on the internet, but that's what I read. And I think that is accurate. And it just feels like a sort of rising.

tied to me. Okay, let me give you a different version because that sounds a little wishy-washy, but actually what you're getting at, I think is not inaccurate. A right-wing person, of whom I know many, would say that what you're describing is a reaction to progressive overreach.

Now, I don't think gay marriage is progressive overreach, but many of the things, by the way, I think part of the part that we've talked about that's missing from this is the social media aspect, which comes along around 2014. and you see the rise of all of this stuff happening. But there are lots of other things that people will describe as progressive overreach to which they're reacting.

And Andrew Tait and all sorts of other social movements are certainly a reaction to that, which is the sense that like, you know, you said it yourself, you know, we now finally have the opportunity to get our message across. And there was a kind of crudeness to that. There was a vengefulness to that. There was a...

But that in itself is a response to patriarchal overreach, which has been intact. for a very long time. Like, you know, you can't expect people to have no voice for so long and be kept to the dark. Then we're stuck in this doom loop. And then if no one... Not come out and have something to say about it. If no one wants to forego vengeance, then we're stuck in this doom loop.

I think it's unfair to say that women took vengeance. They took some glee, I would say. Some women took some glee. But again, this is some women. Feminists of this tiny group, really. When you look at the most people in this country are watching the traitors. The far right. It's just some men. It's just some men.

But it's some very powerful men. Some very powerful women. That hashtag was trending and it wasn't just a hashtag. You cannot equate some very powerful men. Who's the equivalent of Donald Trump and Elon Musk who can actually change our lives? Name me that woman. And I'll tell you what it isn't. It's not Hillary Clinton.

It's not Kamala Harris. Who is that woman? Well, set aside those two. I certainly wouldn't say either of those two men is far right. You wouldn't say Elon Musk or Donald Trump were far right? Definitely not. They're literally canceling. everything.

Anything. They're canceling. They're destroying life. Okay. Perhaps we have a different, different definition of what far right is. What would you say, what's the definition of far right in your head?

What about them isn't far right? What is, what about what they're doing isn't far right? I understand your question. In order to answer your question, we both have to agree on a definition of far right. They've literally said, they've taken,

they've taken. Just pause. Just pause for a moment. What is your definition of far right? It's far further than, fiscal conservatism. It's social conservatism that says

there is one proper way to live and that way is a heteronormative family, 2.4 children, women should be having babies. This is all Heritage Foundation values. This is all Project 20-25 staff. And this is, well, and also, if you don't agree with this,

here's an example of something far right that Trump and Musk are doing. If you don't agree with this, if you go to, if universities allow illegal protests, by which they mean protests, the students will be instantly dismissed. This is what the American government are saying. So you're at Harvard. You want to protest. That government decided that's illegal protest. The students will be instantly dismissed.

If they're foreign students, they'll be sent at home. They may be arrested and imprisoned, no matter where they're from. and if the university is allowed at, all federal funding will be pulled from that university. Does that, or does that not seem to you, to be verging into fascism? No, I don't think it's verging into fascism. But so...

What would cause your alarms to go off then? The right to protest is incredibly important. And if without it, what do we have? What kind of government do we have? Hold on a second. I'm answering your question. The right to protest is incredibly important. I think the interesting thing about those particular cases that you're referring to

is whether there is celebration, glorification, or promotion of terrorism, which is illegal, both on this country and in the US. And I think that's probably where the dividing line is on that issue. But I'm a little bit confused. Please do not think for one second, this isn't going to hit queer people, LGBTQ plus people.

It is hitting them right now. There are states where they are arguing to take, take back the right to equal marriage and there are states which are putting forward these sort of, I can't know what they call them now, but sort of some kind of special trust marriages where we give you a tax break

but the marriage is one from which a woman cannot divorce a man basically without these really old-fashioned, like we're literally talking about the rights that women fought for that unless you can prove that your partner's been faithful or you can prove that they've been significantly abusive, you cannot divorce them. Yes. I mean, we are heading into Gilead.

We really are. None of those are things that anybody here supports. But I'm just coming back to this idea of Trump and Musk being far right. You initially talked about the Heritage Foundation, traditional marriage, trad, all of that stuff. And then we talked about fascism. So is your definition, are you saying Trump and Musk are fascists? I'm saying that the, the government,

government is making moves, which makes anybody who is frightened of fascism, which should be all of us, very scared. Like, I feel like saying if it's an illegal protest, and what kind of protest does Trump like? You know Trump. What does he like? I don't know Trump. Well, you know, you've seen him in power before. If the students were all out protesting in a state where they were taking away equal marriage and it were loads of gay, years students... I'm pretty sure Trump is pro-equal marriage,

isn't he? And Elon, certainly. I would imagine. They're all pro-at-while there's social capital in it. But he hasn't been saying anything positive about gay people lately, has he? Has he said anything negative about gay people? I'm pretty sure.

Which way is the wind blowing, be honest, in America? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And who's in charge? Yeah, but this is the interesting thing, because it's the worrying thing about the right now. Trump seems like a moderate compared to some of the people

who are outside of the holes of power. Well, then in that case, someone else is pulling the strings and he's allowing them to be pulled because it is fast going towards... I don't like neither does Francis a lot of the things that are happening in America in particular on the right. You don't need to convince anyone here of that.

I'm kind of a bit of a stickler for definitions because I think it's important. And one of the things... This is one of the big things that's happened that really always worried me with wokeness And I think we're now seeing, unfortunately, the tragic results of that, which is when people throw around labels like fascist and Nazi and bigot and whatever, irresponsibly as they did and they continue to do,

what then happens is there are now actual Nazis, actual Nazis, not people who say, you know, trans woman isn't a woman or whatever, but people who actually are doing Holocaust denial, people who are actually saying, well, Hitler was a good guy, all of this stuff. And we can't call them a Nazi anymore and be credibly believed because the left spend years calling people a Nazi for, you know, thinking pronouns are funny or whatever. Do you see what I mean? I think you can. He has no effect on the right anymore. It has no effect.

I don't really think you can. I don't really think you can blame some young people who, like the internet is a vicious place. It wasn't young people. David Lammy called the ERG. He went on national television in Britain with Andrew Marr. and said that the ERG, basically a group of conservatives or pro-Brexit, are worse than Nazis. It wasn't young people. It was the entire left.

I was the entire left. We do know that Boris Johnson is with Steve Banyan, who is a white supremacist. We do know that there are links between Victor Orban, Salvini and others. I'm not backing off on this. Never will I back off on this on behalf of my constituents. And the BBC should not allow this extreme hard right fascism to flourish. And often the... These are elected and the servile of MP.

I don't care how elected they were. So was the far right in Germany. They're often elected, often giving a cover for the thugs on the ground. Look, I don't know that it was the entire left. I don't remember calling anyone a Nazi, and I would say myself on the left. I think we've all got a problem that we go on the internet and whatever the worst things that we see,

even though there's fewer of them than the best things and there's fewer of them. Most people aren't even on social media in that capacity. They're just sharing their holiday snaps and they're, you know, picture of their grandchildren.

And we decide that's who society is and that's who the left is. That's true. But David Lammy and prominent left-wing politicians and prominent left-wing activists and prominent left-wing campaigners and prominent left-wing figures, all used these words and threw them around deeply irresponsibly, in my opinion.

And now we have lost the language to describe the things that are happening. Well, that may be the case. I'm not suggesting that people should have called people Nazis who were, in fact, who they felt a vociferous disagreement with, or were perhaps, in my opinion, taking steps towards the space we're in now. But I don't think you can blame that for people, if I hear somebody described as a, as a Nazi, it doesn't make me go, I'll show you what a real Nazi is. Nobody becomes a real Nazi who wasn't, no, no, I understand, you're right,

you're right, who wasn't seething with those thoughts. That's not my argument. I'm not saying we've created Nazis. I'm saying we now can no longer call out Nazis for being Nazis, because the word Nazi no longer has the meaning that it did, because it got eroded. That's what I'm saying. But it sounds like you agree, which is fine. And that's why I pick up. up on the far right point because I don't think Donald Trump is far right. I just don't. The guy was a Democrat. If you look at his policies, some of which I like and some of which I don't like, on the broad scale of it, he is a pretty moderate center-right guy. I don't think Donald Trump has any ideology except more power and glory for Donald Trump.

I don't think, I think we impose far more intellectual rigor on that man than, then. And there's just nothing there except more for me. Elon Musk is the same. It's just more for me, more money for me. How could anyone need that many more billions and still want more billions? I think it's about money, actually. And take a chainsaw. No, but it's about what money represents, which is I'm the best, I'm the biggest, I'm the most powerful.

Take a chainsaw like, lo, I'm going to cut all the literacy programs. I mean, when you have that much about what, like one thing that I think does point to fascism is who is Elon Musk? why is he there? Why is he making these? Why is he making these? Wasn't making any recommendations? Like this is... Well, the steel man argument would be that he is a very, very, very successful businessman who knows how to run and create things very powerful. But an unelected man who is... It's pretty normal for governments to bring in business people to run certain things.

Sure, but there's certain things and there's... This is my right hand, Dr. Evil. There's certain things and there's what's going on now. And I haven't met anyone on any side of the political divide. And I'm a pretty, I'm a pretty, I talk to lots of people from lots of, you know, I'm open to all discussions. I'm here today. I haven't met anyone who's not scared of Elon Musk, who isn't going, oh my God, that guy's unhinged. That guy is, that guy is, shouldn't be in the position of power that he's in. He's making fast decisions about things he doesn't understand. And the economy is an ecosystem. And, you know, You can't just go, we'll cut every community center in America because the government aren't funding that shit. And they're not understanding, but the corner shop around the corner where the kids go and buy their Coke

is, and their sandwich is now going to go out of business. And the lady who lives across the road who does the manicures and so on where the mums come when the kids are in the community centre is going to go out of business. What are they doing? What are they doing? I think everyone I know is looking at that and going, this isn't wise and this is insane

and this is really going to cause a terrible collapse of the economy and I don't know what an unelected person is doing at this right hand in the White House now apparently in charge of everything and the way the wind is blowing towards queer rights towards women's rights is scary

women are dying in states where abortions are banned or now are virtually inaccessible. They're dying. And women coming in, I've talked to doctors about this, women are coming in going, I'm miscarrying, please can you, and their doctors are saying, we cannot do anything until it is life-threatening.

And if we do it, we have to sit there and watch and wait till the point of life-threatening, or we can lose our medical licence and we can go to jail. And that's a very, very real fear for these doctors. Doctors are leaving the state because they're like, I can't do my job anymore.

And I don't want to watch women die and watch women bleed out. and or have to prove in court she would have died. So women are already dying in America. And this is why I would never say I was anti-woke. Because to me, sometimes people, what people lump into wokeness is the concern that people have when people who are not,

they don't have representation in the big buildings that count for people like them. They don't have anyone in there going, but people like me are dying. And that to me is why the word woke is misused to sort of like, oh, well, somebody criticized me because I forgot Jenny's pronouns is not the same as this is, you know,

I mean, obviously use Jenny's pronouns, what's costing you, but it's not the same as we don't need to worry about women dying on tables of miscarriages because they're not allowed to have an abortion. I've never heard anyone make that argument. But that's what I'm saying. I'm anti-work because I want to prevent people from having an abortion.

But it's just people do categorize it. People do categorize it all is the same thing. It's all your kind of values. When people say to me that I'm woke, it's like you care about these things. The main things feminism should be caring about is are people's lives appreciably worse or appreciably better? Are people, is there unfairness? That's what feminism should be about. Can there be justice where there is unethical, where there is unbearably?

unfairness. Agreed. Agreed. I think what you, when you're talking about how people categorize wokeness, I think that's people who don't actually understand what it means to be woke. I think that's people who just have a very surface level analysis of it and have a quite... Your definition is going to be different from mine. I mean, I, I, anyway, let's get off the topic of right, because all we're doing is a nuance of a word and that's what we're criticizing other people for. That's not the problem. The problem is we have two ways of looking at the world and then a million ways in between. and we are reducing and reducing and reducing and reducing to them and us. And we need to understand we are the human race

and our world is getting hotter. My friend's house burnt down in LA. I've got friends in a cyclone in Australia at the moment. The world is getting worse in so many different ways that we are at risk of war in Europe. We need to get on our own team and our own team is humanity. I also think as well, Deborah, and we talk about this a lot on the show.

I think it's also people need to show courage. I think for too long, we've seen either side go off the deep end. And a large part of it is because people don't say we're going off the deep end. Part of the reason, whatever you want to call that side of the left, when off the deep end is because not enough people on the centre left went, hang on a minute, can we just calm down a bit here? Maybe not all men are trash. Maybe we don't destroy someone for a joke they made eight years ago.

this is not the correct way of doing it. And it's the same on the right. We need the people in the centre, which I see as broadly being, centre left, us, wherever we may identify as being, we need to actually be able to hold that centre. I'm pretty hard left.

That's what I was going to say. I don't think she is centre left. But no, but I'm pretty hard left, but I also have been in a cult and I know when I'm in one. And so I want, I want to prioritise what's important. By being in the centre, I mean that, not these fringe little movements,

that. I'm happy to be on the left. I just want to build bridges to the right. And what I don't want to do, and at least, at least not burn the bridges we already have. And I feel like we have, we have suffered from burning some of the bridges we already had. Most people are just cracking on with their day and watching the traitors and looking at what's two for one in Sainsbury's and worried about where they're, you know, what their kids doing at school and all of that. That's what most people are doing. And so for me, it's those people in the middle where I want to say, hey, we are in danger in this country of losing our abortion rights. We are. Like, there are moves here to be anti-abortion moves and bring the weeks down and then bring the weeks down and then

they bring the weeks down and they want it to be like America and there are forces in this country. So I want to appeal to people for whom that would matter who are not politically activated right at the moment because they're just cracking on with their lives and they've never had the time or the, you know, the, you know, it hasn't been a priority. That's who I think we should be talking to and I think we need to be building bridges. And I think if we want a fairer world for people who are gender non-conforming, for gay people, for women who do have different needs, then we have to start building bridges to people who are in the middle and not immediately scold them because they've come online and said something with the wrong turn of phrase. And I think we need to be really

figuring out how to build bridges to people on the on the rights that are reachable well if you want to do that then i have one suggestion for you based on what you've just said which is i think the one thing that you will never reach people anywhere outside the hard left with is the idea that we want to build a fairer world for people from this community or this community or that community if you want to reach people across a political spectrum should be talking about a fair world for everybody and this is the problem that the left has made over the last 10 years in particular which is this obsession with identity. It's incredibly divisive

because anyone who listens to what you've just said, what they will hear is, you want a better world for these subsets of the population. Okay, well, I'm not one of the subsets of these subsets for the population. What does that mean for me? And they might, I don't know, reasonably or unreasonably, hold on, assume from that

that what you want is to take something away from them and give it to these people. That's what it sounds like. And this divisiveness along racial lines, sexual lines, it's just, it's not going to bring people together. It's the reason I'm against identity politics is not because I want whatever my identity is to be well protected. It's because I know that when people disappear down these rabbit holes and only care about this group and this group and this group, that's when everybody suffers. It doesn't have to be only, but can you

imagine a world in which gay people have the rights that they do in this country now that you agree with where gay people didn't get up and fight and say we don't have any rights and we're going to make that our focus. When you look at how gay people got rights in this country, they had to say for now, this is what we're focused on. That was identity politics.

We just didn't call it identity politics. We didn't have that name. How would they have got them otherwise if they'd been like, but also for straight people, because straight people had rights. Fine. Then you're never going to reach the people that you're trying to reach. Okay. So let's let's say. What do you mean fine? What do you mean fine? How would they have got them? Do you agree with them having them? How would they have got them?

You're demonstrating, and early in the interview, exactly the opposite of what you claim you're trying to do, which is the moment I say something you don't like, you become aggressive and highly emotional. Aggressive and highly emotional? I'm just having a debate with you. No. I'm showing passion. No, especially not at the beginning you weren't. But anyway, what I'm saying to is... I didn't like one thing that you said in a way that I found unpleasant. Yes.

And I did react to that. Yes. But if I don't... So you're not reaching anyone who's listening to this conversation by doing that, is my point. You don't know that. You don't know who I'm reaching. Oh, I know. I know.

I know what I'm reaching. I know audience pretty well. I mean, can I just make... Let me just finish this. But you're asking me to sit here as if it's just entirely intellectual and talk like this. Sometimes I feel passionate. I'm not asking you to do anything. What I'm saying is your claim is you want to reach people.

And I'm saying to you, if you want to reach these people that you're currently probably not reaching, here's some thoughts I have about how better to do that. But then what you can't do then is just go... I just sit, I just push to the side. You're an intellectual. You have to intellectually discuss this. I'm not pushing anything to the side. I'm saying the method that you are using is not going to be effective

for reaching this particular group of people. I don't really believe you. I think passion is always loved. I think people don't want to see people go, hmm. Yes. And I think people want to see people go, no, but how can you say that?

I'm not against passion. I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. I enjoy debate. I don't find it. I don't find it off putting it all if I see someone go, no, but how can you say that? As long as they're being good nature.

Not do I, and that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is you become, hysterical, an hysterical woman. Is that what you're saying? See, you're demonstrating again. Now you're trying to put words in my mouth. You're trying to put me onto a template that already exists, which is a man calling you.

Yeah, you are. But every joke is only half joke, as we all know, right? So you're doing the thing that is going to put a lot of people off. What I'm saying to you is, if you want to reach across the spectrum, yeah, across the spectrum. Okay. Well, look, let's be honest, right? You're very good at reaching people on the hard left,

and you're very good at reaching women, and that's why they love your show. But a lot of my people will turn in to see this as well, because I'll tell them it's on. You're not trying to reach them, you already reach them, right? You claim you want to reach people on the other side, right? That's what you're saying. Now, I think it's fair to say that I'm probably better than you

at reaching people who are on the centre and centre right. Would that be fair? Yes. Well, because you agree with them. It's not because I agree with them is because I articulate arguments that resonate with someone. So now you seem really pissed off. I'm not even remotely pissed off. I'm just trying to make clarity on this issue, right?

So what I'm saying to is if you want to reach those people who I know how to reach, right? I should agree with you. No, you shouldn't agree with me. I'm just saying the strategy that you are displaying with your behavior is not going to be effective for reaching you. I feel like am I, I don't know, Francis, am I shouting? Am I swearing or am I just going, how can you say that? I didn't say that you were shouting or swearing. What is the behavior?

It's just me leaning forward and going, come on now. That's not the way you behaved early in the interview. Anyway. Well, what you said was quite significant to me. It was quite, it wasn't, it's not that it was offensive. It was, it's scared to me. Okay. And so I, that did.

Right. That did. So anytime I say something that scares you, this is how you react. Whereas if you listen to what I was saying, it's actually perfectly logical. This is quite controlling what you're doing now. Controlling the way that I operate in the interview space where I've done nothing inappropriate. I've just debated you. Most of the time I've agreed with you.

And I've agreed with you. I've found masses of agreement with you. And I've found with you. And where I haven't, I may have shown some passion in a debate, but to sort of say now I control your behavior. I don't control your behavior remotely. You made the claim that you want to reach people on the other side. And what I'm saying is this is not a way that's going to work for the following reasons. because identity politics is divisive by its very nature.

That's what I'm saying to. So... Okay, but then as I... What I pointed out to you was... Yes, the gay rights movement succeeded by focusing on gay rights. Right. So I'm asking you, how could they have done it? I'm not talking about how they could have done it.

I'm talking about now. How could they have done it otherwise? Because if you can't show me any other way, then you're just saying it's divisive, so sit back and take what you've got? I didn't see. So what's the other way? What's the other way is what I'm asking you?

I did tell you what the other way is, which is to emphasize as much as possible our shared common humanity. That's literally what I did. I said, I said, we're all going to be on the same side. But what I literally said that. But when you say, well, I want a fairer world for this group and this group and this group.

But I do. But I do. I also want a fair word for men. For men. I've said that. I've said that at other points in this interview. But there are, I have. I literally said I don't, I fought actively in my feminist community.

Against the old men of trash. Yes. But I have. argued on national radio many times that women and children first is what an odd rule. And what it means is if I'm in a rescue situation and I'm in a dingy and out in the ocean and there's a 19 year old young man who has got his whole life ahead of him and is probably ways less than me and is about to singled gig. I'm not going to open up another branch. Men and women are women and children first is exactly the right policy. Anyway, let's move on to Substack.

I mean... Say your final thing and then we'll move on to Substack where we'll continue the conversation. Is he always like that? I am always like this, yeah, it's very controlling. Controling. Yeah, it's very controlling. No, I... Producers laughing. I, um, if, if, if, if I'm, if I'm, if I'm, if I'm out in the ocean, I hope I would get out of the boat and say, look, you're 19, you, you stay in the boat, I'll drown. Okay. But, it's hard to. get out of a boat of privilege and society tells me that that's my right. I don't have any

children. Why am I in the boat? Why isn't he in the boat? I don't understand it. But it's hard to get out of a boat of privilege and it's hard for men to get out of their boats of privilege or even see them. So there are spaces in which I argue for men's rights all the time. Men's rights activists always think women, feminists don't do that. I do. I argue for men's rights all the time where I see that there's a disparity. And so I am not someone who's going, I'm only fighting for this, I'm only fighting for that. But if you go out onto the street and say more for everyone, and you don't say gay people can't get married, straight people can, it's never going to happen. The only reason we have gay rights in this country is because somebody got out and fought

for them on a specific platform. So there is also room for specific platforms. It is just not, there's just not a helpful way forward by going, we only feel for each other and everyone else is dehumanized. The argument with gay rights is different because what gay people wanted was equal rights with everybody. And all you have to say today is, I want equal rights for everybody. You don't have to talk about this community and that community. That implies that all, because gay people can get married, all other rights are sorted. No, but if there is legal discrimination, let's point it out and fix it.

Okay, so that's what feminism is doing, abortion in America. Okay. And fighting to keep our reproductive rights here. The abortion is never a case of equal rights because it's highly specific to one sex, although, as you say, everything is a binary. But it doesn't work that way. Okay. Because it's different because men can't have children. Right.

So therefore we need to fight for a community and that community has an identity. And the more you talk about that, the more you push away everyone else, which is the point I made. Okay, so we can't fight for abortion rights in case. I didn't say you can't. I said the messaging ought to be as much as. possible, abortion is a different issue, but on all the other issues that you're talking about, this marginalized community, that marginalized community, etc. The focus ought to be on the fact that we want everyone to have equal opportunities and equal rights. Sure, sure. And where it is a,

where it is a problem that all human being, climate change, that's all human beings would benefit from trying collectively to fix that problem, right? But abortion is specifically about, women and people of minority genders. So there are times when we do have to advocate for specific groups. But there are times when we don't and we have been. D.E.I, for example, is a perfect example of this, right? When you push people onto, we started this conversation, right, with this very thing, where you push people into certain positions to increase the representation. Often, inaccurately, you make the point about London, it's true. You know, BBC in the 1980s did not look like London today. But BBC today doesn't look like Hastings today either.

Right? So when we talk about representations, it's much more complicated than people who live in big cities who have a particular vision of it. And my point is, the more we emphasize our shared humanity and the need for everyone to have equal opportunity, the less divisive things become. The more we focus on individual communities, the more divisive things become. And that's just a fact. You may say that you need to fight for this group. I may agree with you. Doesn't change the fact that it's divisive. I feel very strongly that everything is not there. We're not there yet. We're not at a point where life is so equal, we can just say human beings for the win. I feel like there are still many, many things to be fought for. And we've lost stuff that we had, you know, you look at what's happening in America.

They're losing stuff hand over fist right now. And so, and to me, DEI was only ever about trying to write historical wrongs and I feel like the gutting of it is really about supremacy for people like Musk and Trump I don't really think it's anything to do with the fact that we've overstepped

if we'd overstepped the representation would be very, very, very different than how it is. We haven't overstepped and we're not talking about the casting of David Copperfield on ITV1. We're literally talking about who's in the House of Commons, who's in the Senate. So I would I would argue against...

You want an anti-politics, fine, but it's just... But I mean, you say things so categorically like it is and then... But it's what you want, it's what you're arguing. Everyone has to stop talking. No, you don't have to stop talking. I'm just saying it's the logical conclusion of the thing that you're saying. You think DEI is about writing historical wrongs.

So you want DEI. You think that certain communities don't have equal rights and you want to focus narrowly on those communities to bring them up to... whichever position you think that they should be in. You want identity politics. That's fine, but you have to acknowledge that it's divisive. Could it not be more nuanced than that? That's what I was saying at the beginning.

It's not it's not this or that. It's a big, crunchy, squishy, huge thing where we need this, but this can cause this. So then we try and do that. We try and do that. It's your very binary. You're very, it is or it isn't. And it is. And there it is.

Because some things are or they aren't, like male and female. And I am going to go out on. a large limb and say... There are lots of things that are very nuanced. That there are very nuanced. And one of those is people's gender identities. And one of those things is how we manage to fight for people, like the history of gay rights, how people fight and still manage to the hard work of creating acceptance, not just civil rights

in their communities. It's a hard, long fight. And the straight community has not really done a lot. The gay community's done most of the work to make sure there's an integration so that now most people in this country go, yeah, Paul and Jack next door, they're really nice. Jenny's teachers are lesbian and it's no big deal. That was a big old hard fight. And I just don't think we can minimize it by going.

It's divisive. Stop talking. It wasn't divisive. In the end, it brought a lot more humanity and harmony to, to this country. And now you've got Donald Trump and Elon Musk. So you're blaming your... I'm saying we talked about this with Andrew Tate,

we talked about this with other things. Progressive overreach is why Donald Trump is in power. So you would call gay marriage overreach? No, not at all. I'm saying all the things that happened. See, again, you keep putting words in my mouth so that you can make me sound like I've said something offensive. No, no, I'm not saying you've said anything offensive.

I'm trying to interrogate what you're saying. Because sometimes you do a bit of a leap where you go, Sorry. So this. And I'm like, oh, hold on. That's way over there. Donald Trump was elected effectively. Do you know what his most effective campaign ad was?

I think it was the, it was the Carmelis for them, Donald, that President Trump's feeling. Donald Trump was. Donald Trump was elected. Yeah, but that's propaganda. It is propaganda. Most people don't know when out trans person. Hold on second. Most people don't know a trans person.

That was propaganda. That's exactly what I was saying before about the Far Religious Right and Heritage Foundation and Project 25. Most people in America reacted to that ad in a very powerful way, which is why it was the most powerful ad, right? The reason that it's happening, the reason that Donald Trump is in power is that many, many people have had enough of this identity politics, have had enough of the obsession with victim, who have had enough about all of this stuff that you are advocating for more of. And my point to you is, if you carry on doing what you've been doing, you're going to keep getting the results you've been getting. It's as simple as that. Now, I don't like much of the overcorrection that we're about to experience.

And I've been predicting for many years and opposing the woke left for this very reason that this was inevitable. I think there's something more sinister going on which I've written about in my book and I did a lot of research. I was quite surprised by what I found actually. Overall, what I'm saying in my book is

we're all in a cult, whether we're on the left or the right. We've got to break out of it. we do need to understand that we are being asked to empathise more and more with fewer and few people. That erosion of our empathy is a lack of, is an erosion of our humanity. We need to rejig the rethink the cancellation of the past and instead figure out what we can learn

from flawed figures in the past, who are never going to agree with us, they're in the past. I've tried to make a very human, I've tried to have a very human look at gender nonconformity and try and make some new arguments that I think haven't been made before. I am very interested in, as a comedian, in the freedom of speech in comedy and I do want freedom of speech, I don't want censorship,

but I am also interested in how audiences do often know the difference between the punchline of the joke and the point of the joke. And I am broadly arguing that council culture has needs to change. And then I've got a chapter about what we can do about it all. It is a, I suppose, a book from the progressive left that says, we're doing a lot of things wrong and we need to do a lot of things right. I hope you're, we need to do a lot of things better. Great.

I hope your listeners like it. All right. Well, thanks for coming on. Should we do like... We've... Is this been two hours? Yeah. It's flown by. But that's because there's been a lot of disagreement. So I think we just do the final question, mate, and wrap it up there. Okay. Deborah, we always end the show with the final question, which is what's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be? Oh, what's the one thing we should? I planned something for this and now I think we've already covered it. This happens every interview. Does it?

Yes, very much. Yeah. Okay. The one thing we should have. should be talking about that we're not is, I think, have you watched couples therapy? No. So show about, with a New York analyst who's talking to couples and basically, you know, romantic couples. And I don't know why they've agreed to have their therapy televised, but it's absolutely riveting. It's fascinating. And she always asks, sort of gets what's underneath that. So one of them is saying, he's a child. He doesn't, I come home and, you know, the table's covered with staff and he's, you know, been playing with the baby, but he hasn't done anything else.

And why can't he clean the bathroom like a grown up? And then she will go, what's under that? What's the feeling? And sort of like, well, it's, it's that I have to do everything. And what is that feeling? It's that I have no help. I'm alone. I'm lonely.

And is there a time in your childhood when you were lonely? Yes. I, I, my mum left me alone. I was a latchkey kid, and it will sort of, she'll keep going underneath. That is what we are not doing. Like, the three of us here today, it's like, if you push my buttons and I go, I lean across the table and go, no, but how can you say that? You immediately go, firstly, my buttons are pushed.

Like, what's this man telling me about the way to communicate? And so what's behind that? Well, behind that is, I was in a very patriarchal cult where men told me how to do everything. I don't want to be told by a man that I'm communicating incorrectly just because I'm leaning across the table and showing some people. passion and that I need to, you know, calm down. Well, what's behind that? It's the fear that I'm going to be controlled and I was controlled before and I'll never be controlled again. And then you get triggered and you go, you go. I wasn't particularly triggered to be honest. When you claim

that you're not, but there are times when you really get cross. No, I get cross when people misrepresent what I say. That pisses me off a lot. And what's underneath that? Why, when, what's that feeling? I don't like when people lie about me. But, okay, so, but do you think I'm lying or do you think I'm misunderstanding or? I think I'm misunderstanding or, I think that in, being offended or upset by something that I've said, you are then lashing out and trying to misrepresent me. Okay. So you think I'm trying to misrepresent you rather than, rather than what you've said has landed with me in a way that I think that's what you've said. I think that's interesting. Well, the reason for that is to win an argument, the easiest thing to do is to effectively say that somebody said something else.

For example, like when you said, are you being hysterical? Now, no, you were partly joking. I was joking. I was smiling. I know. But, well, not quite. But part of that. that part of the thing there is when you do a joke like that, what you're really doing is you're hinting at a stereotype that exists in people's head, which is a man dismissing something a woman says because she's being hysterical, right? So you're trying to push me into that box where I don't want to go. What's going on for you? What's going on for me is I don't want to go in that box because all I'm doing is exploring your argument and a fair way. And why don't want to go in the box?

What's wrong with the box? What's the box? Because the box is not representing what I'm actually saying. When I'm simply taking... But what's the emotion? of I don't like being in a box. What's, where's that come from? It's not a box. It's the box that you're trying to put me in, which is a man who's telling a woman she's wrong because she's being hysterical. So that box, which is, you don't like things projected upon you, basically. I don't like people describing me in public in a way that's inaccurate.

Okay, but I'm, pretty reasonable thing to feel. Okay, so you're not really playing the game, which is what's beneath that, what's the human thing? So my thing is behind that there's, you might try and control me. That's nothing to do with you, right? That's me vulnerably going, I, and if I went below, that, I'd be like, why don't I like being controlled? That makes me feel unsafe. And why does I, why do I feel unsafe? Well, that's easy for me. Look, as a public person, what people say about me

is what people will then go and believe, right? So people putting out false narratives about me, something that's necessarily something I'm going to be guarded against. Sure. Okay. So you're not really playing the game because the game is the sort of vulnerability piece. So it's sort of like, it's, it's, you're still putting up the on. I'm not going to make something up to pretend to be vulnerable. I'm telling you that, like, I regard somebody misrepresenting the core of my argument, right, as something that is dishonest in an honest discussion. Do you understand? Is it clear to you that there were times when I felt you did that to me? That I misrepresented your argument. Or you just misunderstood it.

I don't think I have a misrepresented your argument. No, I didn't do that. That's so interesting to me. So when I say something, and if you take it in your framework, sometimes you'll present it back to me. and I'll go, but that's not what I said, oh, that's not what I meant. So when did I misrepresent your argument? I thought, well, a bunch of times. If you watch a back, could you give an example?

You will, like the thing about indigenous people, well, they're only such and such percent. They're a tiny percent. And I'm like, no, but that's not what it's about. It's not about the percentage. But that's not misrepresenting your argument. I'm making a different point. I don't think you can get there. Watch the show, though.

I think it'd be really, really interesting. I don't think you can get to the place that I'm trying to get. It's not about going over the arguments. It's about. how you feel like when you say oh I get really that so that's why I think what we're not really talking about I already answered the question when somebody misrepresents what I'm saying okay I'm actually not going to like doing that okay I didn't try and misrepresent anything I had a feeling of that's not what I said or that's what you meant or that's it was a feeling so I pushed

the ball back to you no one was trying to misrepresent you know what it reminds me of we had this guy called Imran Imran Akman on the show And we talked about online censorship. And he made some very good points. And we were agreeing for about 90% of the interview. Yeah. And then I said something he didn't like. They didn't agree.

And suddenly the mask came off. And he instantly came out as just like, no, he started calling me names and doing all this stuff. And your sophistry right now is both transparent and deeply disrespectful. And I warn you that most of your listeners will think themselves, actually, Constantine's being a bit of a dickhead, right now. And to me, I experience that a lot with people who are arguing from the position of

high empathy. That happens quite a lot, where somebody pretends to be reasonable and they're having an agreement and whatever. But the moment I say something that makes them uncomfortable, as I said, with the indigenous people and as being sophisticated, suddenly they show a different side to themselves. Yeah. But that's normal and human. If somebody says something that is sort of feels what I'm trying to say to you, the thing we're not talking about is what's behind all of this. And so online when people are like, you said this, you said this, you said this, you said this, you did this, you did this, you did this, you did this, I'm right, you're left, you're in that box, I'm in that box, I'm an Andrew Tate fan, I'm a this. What's behind it all, I think, is I don't feel safe or I feel hurt or I feel, I feel boxed or I feel projected upon

to and I think that's what we're not talking about. Really deep down, that's not what we're talking about. So I didn't deliberately misinterpret anything you said, but it's interesting you thought I did, but I didn't. I genuinely can tell you this absolute honest place. I didn't. Deliberation is a complicated thing, though, because sometimes people do things subconsciously.

Sure, but consciously, I did not misinterpret anything. I heard it, and then either I felt like, hmm, I don't know what territory we're going into here, but this doesn't seem great to me, or that happened once. or all the other times, I was sort of like, wanted to, like, passionately engage. Sure, no, and I respect that. And I know what's, if I, if I ask those questions of, you know, I'll ask you, Francis,

when you feel upset about, you know, I don't know, what you might categorize as wokeness, can you dig down and go, what's the uncomfortable feeling for you? Oh, absolutely, yeah, yeah. What's the feeling for you? Well, I'm half-self. Well, my mother's from Venezuela. I saw the rise of communism. BLM had the same slogans that Chavez's government used, the government that means I will never get justice for my grandfather who was murdered. I had family members thrown into prison. Leaders of BLM did a black power salute with Maduro, who is the current dictator of Venezuela. I see that side of wokenness as akin to socialism slash communism, which is what destroyed.

my country and means that my family now live in constant fear. So you feel like this is a very personal geopolitical experiential fear that you live with. So you may see other things and link them together in a way that you think is human and understandable. And that underneath is a physical fear. I think there's a political logic behind that. If you see the words abolish capitalism, for example, which was BLM, slogan. I've actually seen capitalism being abolished. I've seen people being, I've seen people be shot at during protests by people using the same slogans. I've seen Jeremy Corbyn openly support

Chavez's government. I have a very visceral reaction to that. So it's very interesting. So, I mean, this is too long, but I think it's interesting. Do you think, do you see now that capitalism, unregulated capitalism has gone too far and it's not that. I think you do need to regulate capitalism. Absolutely. There needs to be checks and balances. Of course there is. There needs to be a monopolies commission to make sure that there's just not one company in charge of everything. Do you fear what's happening with unregulated capitalism around the world now? Yeah, of course I do.

So do you think that BLM could be having a response to unregulated capitalism? No, I think BLM are communists and they want to impose a communist order. That's why they say abolish capitalism. they don't want to regulate capitalism the meaning lies in the words abolish capitalism if you say if you say something

it's like if I say I believe the white race is superior I will take you at your face value you should take me at my face value when I say that just like when they say abolish capitalism which to me is communism and when they go on and take photos themselves with

Eduardo Maduro a dictator who has effectively destroyed my mother's country and has imprisoned members of my family, I'd take people at their face value when they say such things. This might be a whole other podcast, I think. Well, for me, it's exactly the same. I mean, we were talking about one specific incident and my grandmother was born in a gulag.

And what's more, I'm a first-generation immigrant to this country. So when I see all this racial divisiveness being stood up, I think it's quite natural that I would be concerned about it. When you antagonize people along racial lines, we know what happens. If you actually read history, you know what happens, which is when people are encouraged to go retreat into their identity boxes, they see each other as other, and then you begin to have conflict. It's very difficult, though, for black people in America who are suffering from a different level of state violence and have, you know, it's only a few decades ago that

the civil rights movement happened. And that, they were hoses and dogs turned on them, and they were up the back of a bus and not allowed to go to the same schools. And not enough has been done to address that. So inevitably, inevitably, there will be uprisings because they're still, you know, huge communities of black people

are still stuck in socioeconomic boxes. So can I push back against that? No, I've not pushed back against that. I agree with what you're saying, but that doesn't mean an organisation like BLM is a force for good. And I'll give you an example. Travis's government was elected in 1999

due to the fact that society was desperately unequal white people or what the version of whiteness in Venezuela which is different to our whiteness but anyway were in charge there was a whole swat of people who felt they didn't have access to resources society was deeply unequal unfair if you were born in what is called Los Ranchos of the ghettos you're going to die there all perfectly valid criticisms

he came to power in same thing is that we're going to abolish capitalism and people thought that it was going to be better for them. It wasn't, it just made everything in far, far worse, which is what communism does. Just because people have been marginalised and they have concerns and they want better outcomes for them, all perfectly natural, it doesn't mean that an organisation that purports to represent them is in any way good or noble, is my argument. I would suggest, though, if unless that the powers, that B are going to create fairness, justice, space,

and allow socioeconomic growth and prosperity amongst those communities, they will always continue to be uprising. Do you not see that that's exactly what the far right is saying? That's exactly what they're saying. Word for word. You cannot... Word for word is what they're saying.

You literally cannot keep people suppressed without those people finding a voice. That's why they're voting for Trump and that's why they follow entertainment. I feel like that there is a different, there was a different sort of marginalisation for black people in America because of the, not that long ago history of slavery.

Definitely, of course. You can't enslave people, bring them there, strip them of everything, strip them with their names, and then never let them get ahead. And then, you know, in the 60s, we all know what happened. This is not when, 60s is a living memory. Definitely.

It's not that long ago. So what do you, what do you, what are you suggesting those people do? What I'm suggesting is Martin Luther King was right. Yeah. Well, Martin Luther King was a complicated figure. We don't have time to get into everything. I'm not saying he was right about his relations with women.

I'm saying he was right about the core message of what he was saying, which is he dreamt of a place where everybody would be treated on the content of the character. Sure, but that's not all he said. He also said that the silence of the moderate white was in some ways worse than the, I don't know the exact quotes, I shouldn't say it, but is, you know, the silence of the moderate white going, everything's fine now. You've got what, you've got enough.

But that's not what people are saying. When Francis says he has problems with BLM, he's not saying everything is fine. He's saying BLM is not a constructive force. And it isn't, and it wasn't. Okay, you're and it isn't and it wasn't. That's not debate. That's not debate.

That's not debate. That's not debate. It's my opinion. In my opinion and in Francis's opinion, it isn't and it wasn't. That really helps me when you say it's my opinion. Okay. Because when you say it isn't, isn't and it wasn't.

I'm making a truth claim, absolutely. Yeah, and I feel like your truth claims close down debate. So, like, it makes... You're free to say you don't agree. You just did. But I do, and then you go, it isn't and it wasn't. And that's, it's slightly... It feels against the intellectual ethos of this show. How so?

Because you just go, it isn't and it wasn't. And it's not like, well, of course, there are some ways in which and... No, you can say whatever you... One, the intellectual ethos of this show, since it's our show, I can tell you what it is, is you present a set of ideas. We interrogate those ideas. We present a set of ideas. You interrogate those ideas.

And we all, and our viewers, most importantly, come away with a better understanding of what you think and what I think. And it's not necessarily to create agreement between you and I. I don't think it's possible. What I think is possible is to expose my argument in all its falsity and accuracy and to expose your argument. and that's why I'm making truth claims in the way that I invite you to make your truth claims. Okay. Well, thanks for the truth claim opportunity. I've enjoyed it, kind of. Yeah. Well, it's hard, isn't it? In a book, you can be so nuanced and rigorous and you can argue both sides. And then as soon as you're out freewheeling, you're like, hold on, but I didn't say that. And now I haven't

got time. And now we've moved past the argument. So I've had more time than any guests we've ever had on the show. Well, that's very kind. It's more, I know, it's my fault, because I've written a book called Six Conversations for Scare to Have, and there's six conversations. And most people come with a book with one conversation that's, that's what they're talking about. So I'm very sorry that I've taken up so much time. And I hope that the, there's absolutely no need. They might have tuned out by now. No, no, no, no. If they have, they're not hearing your apology, so you're fine. It's true. Yeah. And if we wanted it to stop, we would have stopped it. It was, yeah, It was great. The intention was not to harang you about stuff, but what we do is we try to

interrogate ideas. And sometimes people interpret that as them being interrogated. That's absolutely not the intention. So on BLM, since we, you don't agree that it's... Are we done now? Or is this a post thing? Are we still recording? Well, I think we should wrap it up. Yeah, I think we should wrap it up. Yeah, I think we're done. Okay. I think we've covered. I think otherwise you end up going into... this other whole big subject, and I think we've both said something about BLM. That's my feeling, I think. Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely fine.

Time it out. We're done. We're done. Do you need to say goodbye or anything? No. No. Okay. We're done. We'll leave it then.