Within Reason - #11 — Douglas Murray | Gender and Activism

Episode Date: November 25, 2019

Douglas Murray is a British conservative author and journalist, and associate editor of The Spectator. In 2017 Murray wrote The Strange Death of Europe, taking on the issue of the global immigration crisis, and now he returns with The Madness of Crowds, a book about identitarianism in four areas: 'gay', 'women', 'race' and 'trans'. Douglas speaks to Alex about the logic of reparations and a retributive approach to historical injustice, as well as the nature of gender, and the advocacy tactics of the LGBT community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode of the Cosmic Skeptic podcast is brought to you by you. To support the podcast, please visit patreon.com forward slash cosmic skeptic. So welcome back to the Cosmic Skeptic Podcast, everybody. Today I am joined in the studio by Douglas Murray, who is, of course, the author and journalist, founder of the Centre for Social Cohesion and Associate Editor of The Spectator, but you'll probably know him if you do know him most for his publications in 2017, wasn't it, the strange death of Europe? And as if you hadn't annoyed enough people with that,

you've decided now to take on four more equally controversial issues in the madness of crowds, a link to which is available in the description. But thank you for being here. It's a great pleasure. So far. Yeah, so far. Good so far, right. The last time I saw you in person, not that you'd have any reason to remember this,

but was after your event at the O2 Arena with Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson. Right. And, you know, I was there again recently listening to John Mayer who'd sold out the arena. And I couldn't help think. I was sat at the back, looking at all these people thinking, here are these epitomies of pop culture, John Mayer, Ariana Grande, One Direction, selling out these arenas.

And the last time I was here, I was listening to you. It's one thing to speak in front of a crowd. What on earth is that kind of experience like? To speak in front of an arena, to American listeners who don't know, that's one of the largest venues in the United Kingdom. I can't imagine what that must have been like. Yeah, two nights earlier, we, Jordan, Sam and I had done the three arena

know in Dublin with a similar number of people on a Saturday night in in Dublin and yeah both events were kind of unusual I think we were the first writers to play the O2 right although since then regrettably Michelle Obama has stolen that unfortunately unique credit and also has performed at the O2 but it's an amazing thing I have to say that of all the things we're one can be pessimistic about these days, that isn't one of them. Right. The idea that, you know, 10,000 people, mainly young, are willing to turn out and pay to come to a major venue to listen to a discussion which, I mean, I was moderating it, but I mean, certainly, you know, Jordan and Sam's contributions, you know, are an incredibly high intellectual. level. And I think if even 10 years ago or five years ago, you'd said that that would be

the sort of thing that could happen. At this time, people wouldn't have believed you. They'd been amazed. Yeah, well, that's what Mr. Pangburn said to me that he had people essentially laugh in his face when he suggested the idea originally. But the thing is, so, I mean, the thesis of your book, in a sense, or at least what it's about, is this kind of, the difficulty of holding the kinds of views that someone like Sam Harris with his criticisms of Islam, someone like Jordan Peterson and his criticisms of both modernism and yourself, of course, the difficulty of holding those views in the mainstream. And yet he was selling out an arena of people who are willing to come and listen. Yeah. Does, I mean, how does that speak to the points of your

book if you're able to do something like that, despite simultaneously claiming that any time you try to say anything on Twitter, it's like a mind people out there? Well, Twitter and the real world of different things, of course. Of course. But I think that what's happening is that there are things that we know to be true, or at least very likely to be true, which have been enathematized and put beyond limits, exactly by who and in what order you can debate, but that there are a set of issues which a lot of people, if not most people,

know to be true and yet cannot say or cannot speculate upon in public. I mean, the one I finish the madness of crowds with the issue of trans is perhaps most obvious of that because we keep seeing the effects of not being able to have a debate about it and we keep on seeing the enathematization that's been happening around it

and all that most people don't want to kill people they don't actually want to incite riots against people but they would like to be able to have conversations about important and tricky subjects without being anathematized. Yes. So, I mean, what is it that do you think would bring up specific accusations, let's say, of transphobia, for instance?

Is it the attempt to discuss the question, or is it the holding of the view that's contrary to the mainstream? Well, the truth is it can be anything. And this is one of the problems, is that on each of the really difficult landmine issues of our time, an accusation, even if it is implausible, or even if it is insincerely made, has the accusation of a truthful claim

so that somebody saying that is transphobic or that is racist does have the effect of silencing a person or making them seem like a very sort of person you wouldn't want to be near. And people take these things to heart. Now, I think people have got to be a little bit more resilient against that because there's an obvious play going on there

simply to win by labelling all opponents for your own personal convenience as being a particular type of phob. But the cost to our society of not being able to think about things seems to me to already be evident. I understand. Is there any truth in the claims of the kind of identitarians that you're criticizing in the book?

Yeah, of course. I mean, this is the problem, isn't it? Wholly unjustifiable claims are unlikely to get anywhere. The kind of claims that do are ones that start in a reasonable place. You know, in my last book, The Strange Death of Europe, I did this with the immigration question. And I knew from writing and talking about that and traveling all around the world to a situation.

search for that. I knew that the problem with the immigration question was not that there's no reasonable case for immigration. The problem is that there is. There's a reasonable case for asylum, millions of people around the world who have reasonable asylum claims. And it's the sense of that that claim, the legitimate claim is so strong that it embeds itself so deeply in people that if somebody pushes it a bit further, the intuition to just follow it. Well, so for instance, if you do, just to stick on that one for a moment,

if you pretend that there is basically no difference between somebody fleeing war and somebody fleeing economic deprivation and because you happen to be in favor of open borders, you're willing to pretend that that thing, that divide doesn't exist, you can do a lot of bullying in that space of your opponents. But as I say, I mean,

I spoke to enough migrants and indeed refugees in the years I was researching that book to know that, you know, these things are harder than that. They're harder than any scientist is often willing to say. And as I said at that time, people dream impossible dreams from all directions. But one of the things that came across when I was researching, that is exactly one of the things that's also informed my thinking

and writing in the madness of crowds, which is there are these issues, I do them one by one, as you know, gay women, race and trans, where we've basically prevented ourselves from being able to have a reasonable discussion. For instance, relations between the sexes. I mean, I know the minute I start talking about this, most people just get very sweaty and worried because there's not much. to be gained, they think, and there's an awful lot to lose. It's like a why bother kind of thing, right?

Yeah, it's a risk analysis. So, I mean, that approach and recognizing that that's an approach that people take implies that maybe there isn't, it's maybe you're interested in what's true, but it's not got particularly many implications, but it seems like you're saying more than that. It seems like you're saying that the reason that you want to talk about these ideas is because they are of crucial importance. Yes. I mean, there are things that are popularly held.

be true that are not, that do not do very much harm? Would you rather, I mean, so you say there are things that are held to be true that are not. But, I mean, depending on the issue, would it not perhaps be more accurate or even more easier to get your point kind of accepted to say that there are certain things that whilst perhaps not true have just not been proven to be true? I don't know if they're false, but the real problem is that is not so much that I know they're false and you won't let me talk about it. is that you haven't actually presented.

Well, if I, so I was saying that the several fault. Firstly, I should have gone on to the second part of what I was going to say about your point, about your question about whether the people on criticizing are onto anything. And when I was saying, yes, I should stress that in each of the cases I write about in this book, it's obviously the case that historically there has been homophobia. Yeah. it's obviously the case that historically women have been at a disadvantage in many societies it's obviously the case that there has been racism what do you mean when you qualify all of

these things by saying historically or has been that it's worth bearing in mind that the era we're in doesn't come from nowhere among other things and that we may be on some kind of if we are on some kind of correction course for instance it's among other things bear it it's worth bearing in mind the possibility that we might be in periods of overcorrection. So it's worth placing our current situation in some kind of historical context. But the reason I say that is because if, for instance, somebody is deeply worried about sexism or misogyny or homophobia or racism, yes, there have been good reasons to worry about that. Is there a good reason to weaponise it now and allow people to make other political points

by using those issues? I'd say not. But because they're rooted in a legitimate, have been rooted in the past, certainly in a legitimate cause, it makes it harder for a lot of people to tread into this now. Okay, so do you think that we still live

in a racist culture? Is that an accurate statement or is that a false statement or is it kind of somewhere in between? No, I think it's a, it would be a defamatory generalization about a society like ours in Britain to say we live in a racist culture

just like it is to say we live in a patriarchal culture or a sexist culture or a rape culture or any of these other claims that get thrown around that isn't to say that there isn't racism that there can't be sexism, there can't be homophobia, of course there can be. So the argument would be that those things exist but they're not, what is it, institutionalised?

It's like what is it that makes it kind of a cultural phenomenon rather than just a thing that exists within a culture? Well, first of all, to say that a thing can exist, that there are individuals, for instance, who may have unpleasant views themselves, and to then extrapolate that out and use it not just as something that the whole culture is meant to suffer from, but as the defining issue of the culture. You know, we don't live in a society which, for instance, provides welfare to people who are not able to look after. No, we live in a racist society. Right. But so I understand that.

The point I would make is that although some people do believe that something like racism is what defines society, that's not so that's not necessary to say that we live in a racist society in the sense that you can say that we have a red apple. But it's not the redness that defines the apple. It just happens to be red. right? And in the same way, it may not be racism that defines all of our social institutions, but you could still, perhaps, or at least the argument can still be made, that the society, a one of its attributes, is racism. You could make that. I think that there's... And you don't think that's true?

No. Okay, so if it were true, this is something I was interested, reading your book about, like, the criticisms of concepts like intersectionality and the criticisms of positive discrimination and things, would you still be as critical and as suspect of these approaches towards society if we did live in a racist society. Well, if we did live in a racist society, then many of the claims that people make would be legitimate, and you'd have to act on them.

You'd have to act on them. I'd submit in a general way as well as in a case-by-case basis. Right. But it is extremely hard, I would submit, this day, for any fair-minded person to look at a society like Britain and claim that racism is endemic, or sexism and misogyny are endemic. And when somebody interprets an entire society in that way,

I think that you've then got to start separating out. Are you talking about a critic who wants to improve you, or are you talking about somebody looking at you as an enemy? Right. This is such a hostile interpretation of a society. I don't think it can legitimately be being made by people who simply want to make minor improvements in it. Yeah. Well, the reason I'm asking is because I don't think it's particularly interesting, although it might be important to discuss whether society is racist. The reason that I'm asking you isn't just to get your opinion on that, but to say that it seems to be that you're implying therefore in saying that if we did live in a racist society, perhaps these methods would be appropriate, that the problem is not in fact the approach. The problem is that they've got the context wrong, but the actual attitude, the kind of in order to solve a problem like this, something like intersectionality would be.

a good approach. No, intersectionality would still not be a good approach. Intersectionality couldn't be a good approach in any universe. Right. Because it's demonstrably untrue. Well, can you say that with confidence? Because the reason why you say that, at one point at least, you say that intersectionality has not been trialed, and so people can't go around saying that it's true. But if it hasn't been trialed, then how can you say it's false? Well, I say that it's false because the claims it makes a demonstrably false. The idea that, for instance, the central intersectional claims, that the world is based on a set of interlocking oppressions and that if we unlock one, we have to unlock them all.

You know the argument I'm making the book, among other things. This is demonstrable nonsense because it's very clear at this stage that gay and trans do not happen and work together. They do not interlock together. If you so-called unlock trans, you cause an enormous amount of oppression to gays. straight out, straight out. And what does that look like?

Because we have a situation of, well, you might call it disappearing of young gay men and women. One of the points of gay liberation was that gay people should be allowed to decide, work out their sexuality themselves, and not be told that because they were gay, they were basically of the opposite sex.

Or a sort of, that gay men like me were not sort of women in hiding. Right. And that lesbians were not just actually men, you know, manly women sort of thing. This is a very basic thing. But I don't think the trans activists are saying that. Oh, they are saying that and a lot more. The whole campaign in trans at the moment is to say there are people who we can identify while they are children

as being actually in the wrong body when, for instance, it's an effeminate young man or a slightly manly girl, you know, what we might have called a tomboy. And the intersectional activists are actually saying that these things unlock at the same time rather than grinding in a really ugly and increasingly ugly way against each other. Or let me just use the other example. If it were the case that trans rights has to be unlocked, and it can only be unlocked if we also unlock institutional misogyny, Well, what do you do with the fact that so much of the male-to-female trans issue

runs directly against what feminism has tried to do for the last century, directly against it, by basically embodying stereotypes about women that women have been trying to get away from since the first wave of feminism? And again, if the intersectional claims were true this wouldn't be the case there wouldn't be these terrible grinding gears going on it would be being clear by it would become clear by this point

that the whole thing frees us all up together and it doesn't but when I say that this hasn't been tried I say that it's very unwise to for instance roll out things like bias training across all government departments across an increasing number of corporate and parts of the corporate world,

if it's not clear at this stage that this thing work, that particular aspect of it, the biased, the alleged bias identification and training. So yes, I think that there isn't a world in which the intersectional thing works because on its own claims it's not possible. But I think it's necessary then to separate out the intersectional bit, which is a specific claim, from other specific rights claims. You know, I think it would be a shame if, for instance, if there were an element of society that were discovered to be really institutionally racist, if we had to then, instead of addressing that, address it only by going through the logjam of intersectional claims about it. you know in fact it's probably that would probably be one of the worst ways to solve such a specific issue and we see quite a lot of that at the moment where people say we can only solve this issue if we also solve x y and z

we hear this quite a lot at the moment within the anti-capitalist movement you know we can only address capitalism if we also address you know institutional misogyny and racism and etc etc it's such a large panoply of things that none that no specific could be addressed and they don't have anything to do with each other. I noticed when I was, I went to witness the protests against Steve Bannon's talk at the Oxford Union about that long ago. And I remember there were lots of people there and you had the typical Oxford against fascism, science. But you also had people carrying around things saying,

save the NHS. Yes, of course. As if it's got anything to do with... Well, there's a class of person who wants to protest against everything. That's a perennial. There's never a protest that they'd... can't turn up to with their banner of choice. It's a particular type of psyche, in my view.

Most reasonable people really only turn up to a protest under serious jurors when something very close to their own life is being affected. But a reasonable person does not have a collection of banners in the hallway waiting eagerly to latch on to any particular grievance. Unless they think that those kinds of issues that are so personally affecting and moving, are embedded into the culture they're living in. At least you can understand why they might be of that mindset even if you think it's wrong.

If you thought that you lived in a society that was constantly challenging who you are, you'd probably have those picket fences by the door ready to go. Possibly, although we've just seen the phenomenon of extinction rebellion. Indeed. It's, you know, the demographic of that from what I saw in London was people who hadn't had anything big to protest about since 1968 and love the whiff of the fumes of righteousness

that they haven't had since then. You think that's what it is? Part of it, sure. I mean, all of these things are, just to go back to the thing of who would be protesting within the areas of the thing I'm writing about in the madness of crowd. Obviously, there are some people

who are deeply sincere in their view of what our society is. largely I would submit because they've been told to believe this stuff by adults who are themselves deluded or wrong but I think it's very sad but I think it's visibly the case I've seen too many cases I've spoken to many people who actually do believe that we live in the most oppressive society imaginable and that's because they don't have a historical memory going back before last week yeah do you think that's true I hate to interrupt but do you think it's true that they're saying

that it's the most oppressive society imaginable? I mean, that seems a bit of an exaggeration. At least that it's exceptionally unfair. They don't, I mean, one has to almost get anecdotal, but I've spoken to too many people, if I might say, so sort of your generation, who have adopted the hysterical attitude and who, when you dig down it,

they just have less reason to be hysterical than any generation in history. Yes. I mean, you know, I was speaking, again, sorry to get anecdotal, But there was a young lady in a audience I was speaking with recently who was confronting me after some bat and she was telling me all of her concerns of her generation.

She said, no, there's North Korea, you know, developing nuclear weapons. Your parents and grandparents grew up under the shadow of total annihilation. Yeah. Okay. Total global nuclear annihilation. My father remembers going to bed one night

and his father's saying to him, we may not wake up in the morning, so make sure you say your prayers tonight. Okay? that was just a normal household at the height of the missile crisis. Yeah. And so, so yes, there is something of, there is something of just a terrible lack of historical context

about what we're going through at the moment. But one of the things that interests me more is not the people who've been lied to or fibbed to or persuaded that hysterical attitude is the appropriate attitude of a serious person, but rather the people who have cottoned on in the most, cynical way imaginable to this whole thing and are at this stage using identity issues as pure political battering rounds those are those are in some ways the ones that are most interesting yeah

but before talking about that I'm interested in in this this example you give you say that you know people historically in the UK have had good reason to be genuinely worried and to be protesting their governments because they lived and we less than anywhere well because because because they lived under the threat of total annihilation within their lifetimes. Well, is that not exactly the claim of the Extinction Rebellion protestors that we live under the threat of total annihilation and we need to do something? Yeah, they do. And not their parents also saying, listen, you know, this, this, this species of ours might be gone sooner than you can do anything about it, right? That is their attitude, yeah. And whether or not you agree with that or think

it's wrong, right? You're kind of criticizing the mindset of self-righteousness and not recognizing that we live in a better time than ever in history, but if it is true, surely it makes sense in the same way that it made sense then to worry, it makes sense now to worry too. And in fact, you could say that the environmental crisis, if it's as bad as they're saying it is, is much worse than the threat of nuclear war, which at least could be abated by governmental action. Well, it isn't worse. I mean, we're not, I'm not an ex-examination. I'm not an ex-exam. expert in climate, but I need an awful lot more persuading from the people who take the Extinction Rebellion view that it's worth completely emissorating our lives in order to

agree to what they say. Sure, but there's an awful lot more persuading to do. Yeah, but then I guess that the people who are protesting aren't the people to be doing that, right? So there are people... Aren't the people to the people. No, I don't think so. I think it's the job of the scientists and the research.

to do the persuading. And if you are persuaded, then you go in protest, even if you can't necessarily defend the science yourself, if you see what I mean. So if you're mainly listening and seeing in the news the stories of these extinction rebellion protesters, and I see these videos on YouTube of people going and interviewing them about the issues and getting these sound bites of where they don't know

what they're talking about. And it's like, well, a lot of people don't know what they're talking about. But do they need to be in order to be angry about something that they've become convinced of? You ought to be very sure before you seriously disrupt everyone else's life. And you ought to be really sure before you tell everyone to impoverish themselves and their children. right and that's the same kind of logic as saying like you need to be sure that this works

before you enroll it in society it's the same kind of thing yeah being sure that intersectionality works or something yeah i've rolling it out a certain amount of humility in this regard wouldn't be wholly misplaced sure i suppose these people just feel like there's no time for humility yeah perhaps in more ways than one actually there's no time for humility but there's also they just don't have time for humility i don't know but i i don't know but i I'm just trying to kind of express, like, you know, I wasn't on the street protesting with the extinction rebellion, but I, and yes, it's annoying when I can't get to work in the morning, but at the very least I can kind of understand that if they've got, because take, for

instance, like you say, if we lived in a racist society, then protesting against racism would, of course, make sense. And maybe the reason it would be a silly thing to do in your view is because the racism doesn't exist. It's like, but you can recognize that if it were true, like, those protests would be intense. If we lived in a genuinely racist society, you'd probably be okay with people blocking traffic in order to get that fixed. You might find better ways to address the problem than blocking traffic. Of course, you would do what you could do.

Because that's the problem, right? People feel the reason that this movement kind of sprung out of nowhere is because they feel like they've tried everything else. I wouldn't like to compare the Extinction Rebellion with the civil rights movement in America. But only in its methods. Sure. But one of the things looking back historically at the civil rights movement, movement in America, which it's worth remembering had an awful lot of support from non-black Americans as well.

One of the things that's just so striking about it. I mean, I compare it with the gay rights movement in America, particularly the March of Washington, 30 years later, organized by the LGBT community, compared with a rather a downer

on the gay version. But the reason I mentioned is because what is one of the striking things looking back on the civil rights movement, but the unbelievable moral force of the argument being made. It wasn't, we're going to make you agree with us by disrupting your day or by shrieking or by behaving terribly or by pissing off the entire society until it agrees with us. It was, here is a case of such outstanding moral force.

You can't resist it. That was what happened in the end. That was what happened. And if it wasn't done in that manner, would you have less respect for the movement, even given the rightness of its cause? Well, I mean, for instance, there are good causes historically, which have been ruined by people doing it the wrong way, for sure. I mean, for instance, I'm not a particular, I'm not at all a supporter of Irish nationalism

when it seeks to change people's, the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom. but Irish nationalism's cause was very significantly harmed in my own lifetime by the decision of a certain number of people to disappear a woman, a mother of 10 like Gene McConville from her home, shewed from the back of her head and disappear her body. It wasn't like, well, you know, this didn't exactly help the Irish nationalist cause in the end. So, of course, there are some causes that can be good. which are then wrecked by the behavior and the tactics of their followers. Yeah, but on a kind of less wrecking ball approach to this,

you take like the approach of someone like Rosa Parks, or at least the people could, because it's, I've read at least that it wasn't as spontaneous as people make it out to be, but the fact that she kind of disrupted people's day. She disobeyed the law, she probably stopped the bus from getting moving for a very long time, and someone might come along and say, listen, I get the whole civil rights thing, But you're just going about this wrong Rosa Parks. Like you're poisoning the movement. You're just pissing everybody off.

Come on, you go knock on Parliament story instead. Several things. First of all, I mean, the striking thing about Rosa Parks was the dignity of the protests. I mean, that's what everyone remembers about it, surely. It's that everybody reflects still and were struck at the time by the fact that this was such a dignified way of protesting. It was triply hard to oppose if you were so inclined to oppose.

You think? So it's more hard to oppose something like that, even though it exhibits a similar kind of... If you're dealing with a certain type of society. And I mean, this is my point is that arguments with moral force in the right conditions, yeah. But to get back to the things that people are claiming at the moment, I mean, you know, obviously every country is different. And one of the things I think we're suffering from at the moment is the rolling out of this, of an interpretation of all democracy. societies as being broadly similar. So that, for instance, the undeniable racial problems that specifically exists in America end up, the interpretation of them and the lens of that ends up getting rolled out across other countries as well. That's one of the phenomena that I think people

haven't quite realized at the moment, but which is going on so that a specific issue in one country becomes effectively the lens through which the issue is seen in all other countries. Yeah. That's definitely a problem. You mentioned earlier about a potential overcompensation for the historical abuses of racism, sexism, things like this. What kind of things are you talking about? I'm very interested in overreach because if you agree that there's been a historical

problem such as historically we've had as I say sexism. Do you correct by getting to equal? Do you correct by over-correcting for a period? If you believe that the swiftest way to correct it is to have a period of over-correction, which I think a lot of people knowingly or otherwise do think is the case. When in that case would you identify that the over-correction had happened and how would you get back to equal? I'm very interested in this in each of the issues I write about in this book because I think that an element

of them has crept into each one. It was always there in the gay rights discussion. Were gays exactly the same as straights or slightly better? Okay? A weird, really uncomfortable, not that common, but it was there. It was there.

Does sexuality matter or does it not? Right. Does sexuality matter? Does it not matter or does it matter more than anything else, for instance? Those are big differences just there. Are women exactly the same as men or are they the same and magically better? Are black people the same as white people or do they have something a bit better? Now, I quote, as you know, in the introduction, the talented young, as it happens, black American writer Coleman Hughes, who mentions that among his contemporaries in America, he couldn't help noticing in recent years that they seemed to think that he had some special moral insight because he was black. And that would be an example of over-correction. You know, you get past equal and go on to slightly better.

Well, is he saying that he's better? saying that he's not saying he's better, he's saying that he interprets his white contemporaries as seeing him as in some way better. I see, yes. So the, I think the principle that goes behind the overcorrection would be something resembling retribution, right? Yeah, I don't know how much you buy into retributivism, generally speaking. But to me, the interesting point about this is if we consider, because you say, like, how far would it go? Like, how do we know when it's done? Well, retribution implies like for like, It implies kind of a eye-for-eye type approach,

meaning that it may be the case that these people, by wanting some kind of retribution, they say the overcompensating is done when as much damage has been done to you as has historically been done to us, which is obviously a disastrous approach. I think that's what we're going through from some people. But is there any legitimacy to the retributive approach

of saying, well, listen, you've punched me in the face and you could say, well, look, do we want to fix this by becoming equal and no longer, anybody punching each other in the face? Or do I get to punch you back? Well, there's an added layer of complexity to this, isn't there? Which is, it's not even, if it were that claim, that would be one thing. But the claim is something like, historically you punched somebody like me, so I can punch you now.

I think it's more like historically you punched somebody, and as a result of that, I'm suffering. whether or not you agree with that that's more accurately the claim surely we've recently seen the interesting attempt by some people to do gay reparations piggybacking on the back of reparations claims in America for black Americans and this just goes to show the fact that this stuff

can just spill out everywhere because some people just want a bit of cash and that's what's going on with some people But, no, I think that, I think the attempt to, I think the attempt to claim suffering because a forbear suffered, unbelievably unwise thing to open, because I don't see how you close it. So, I don't see how you close it from me. Let me give you a quick example. Sure.

Again, I'm interesting in us trying to have reasonable attitudes towards ourselves. as well as towards our past. And if you take the view that, for instance, there are people today who suffer because of their gender, sex, sexual orientation or race, and they suffer because of forebear suffered, for instance. You, among other things, you engage in so many lies,

but one of the lies is that everybody who wasn't of your group was somehow part of therefore the oppressor group. So that an average white British person today must in some way put up with some overcompensation the other way. When in actual fact most of our own ancestors did not spend the 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th century just living in Clover, but scratched out a living, died far too young, had lives of horrible toil

to just provide for their families. And it wasn't like they were massive beneficiaries of some patriarchal, systemically racist society. It's such an unfair interpretation of what our forebears went through in a country like Britain. I mean, there's a lot to unpack there. I mean, I suppose you could say

that they perhaps were, to say that they were benefiting, seems ridiculous because they were suffering so much, but you could still say that perhaps they were suffering less than other people were. But again, we get into this, I mean, whether they were suffering or not. Yeah, but it doesn't matter, right? Of course, it's a silly argument, but allow me to kind of represent it in the way that I would present it were I making it, not that I probably would, but also the way that I feel

like is perhaps the argument and people who are putting it the way you're putting it are not fully understanding the point, which is like, it's not that somebody in my ancestry suffered, and because they suffered at the hands of somebody else, if you are a descendant of that somebody else, you deserve the retribution. It's like, well, not only have I suffered as a result of that historical injustice, but you've benefited from it. So it's not by virtue of you being part of the ancestry that caused the harm in the past, it's by virtue of you now benefiting from that, right?

That's the argument I hear. Would you respond to that version? Well, there are so many things. One problem in this whole thing is, like, who's going to do the accounting on this? Like, seriously, who are the accountants of this? I mean, people are trying. Oh, yeah, the people who are trying are the people who also want to be the beneficiaries. Not entirely coincidental this.

I mean, what if we agreed, for instance, that we should draw up a list of suffering people in history and find a way to compensate people for it. We might find, for instance, that at the top of the list of races that have suffered are the Jews. Do we do some massive house-to-house money taking and give it to the Jews? I mean, I just, where on earth would this end? You know, my, my, my, my, my, presumably it would end up. after that if we managed to actually account for everything.

Because, of course, like... How about another... I mean, if you wanted... Here's one that would easily follow that. Yeah. My forebears did more to fight for this country and its liberties than your forebears. Therefore, I deserve more of the liberty. Wow.

Okay, people could do that. They could. They could easily do that next. But they wouldn't, because that would be silly, right? Well, it's all silly at some point, because we're looking at history as some kind of bank that we that where deposits have been put that are being kept from us yeah and that at some point in our lifetimes we can pull the lever ka-ching and the interest rates are pretty high and i i as i say if you start this game yeah what's the end i just think a reasonable attitude towards history

among other things would help us to have a more reasonable attitude towards the present but the whole thing is being interpreted in this extraordinary zero-sum, highly retributive way. And one other thing, if I may, just to add to that, is I'm obsessed by this issue, I wrote about it quite a lot in the strange death of Europe, but I'm obsessed by this issue of forgiveness, as you know, I write a chapter about it in the Mans of Crowds, but why we spend no time thinking about the mechanisms of forgiveness, which, as you know, I quote Hannah Arendon in this book, which is just something fascinating to me. we are living in societies where guilt and blame,

including historical guilt and historical blame, are made to be overwhelming for certain groups of people. But we have no thought about what the mechanisms of forgiveness would be. But here's the other problem from that, is that we don't even think in a serious way about who actually can forgive and who can be forgiven. it's one of the most important issues in this whole thing I don't know if you know that

there's a very interesting story by Simon Wiesenthal I think nobody knows if it's true or not if it's a novelized version of what he went through or if it is a truthful thing but he read a book called The Sunflower have you ever read it? It's really worth reading it's an account of a man like Vienthal in the camps

who is pulled aside from a queue of workers and slave labours and is taking the deathbed of a dying Nazi who basically wants to confess about a terrible crime is committed in a village where they burned a village to death and the Wiesenthal character works out doing it what the high-ranking Nazi is

wanting is absolution and the Vizantile character describes how at the end of this confession to all intents and purposes he gets up and leaves and the published version which was I think came out sometime in the 60s has a symposium afterwards by a range of philosophers and thinkers about this question did he did the recentile figure do the right thing

and it's interesting that most of them basically agree that he did and the basic agreement for a very wide variety of philosophers is that he did because it's not in the gift of the person who has not themselves suffered to give absolution And if that is the case, what are we, what is this game we're engaging in? I think it's a game of trying to figure out whether people now are suffering due to historical injustices. Yeah, I repeat. Because if they are doing the suffering, then they do have the power to give the absolute.

Where do we start with it? Where do we start with this and where do we finish? Well, I don't know. My grandmother lost her brother's in the first war and her father in the first war and her brother's in the second. They all just drowned at sea. She didn't spend the rest of her life looking for vengeance on this, or indeed compensation for it. History was horrible for everybody. And we can't engage in this, as I say, in this mad accounting book. And at least we could do.

I'm just urging people to think again about it. I mean, because intuitively, I agree with what you're saying. at least the component of where does it end, where can we draw this line, where can we decide when it's, when what counts and what doesn't, seems to me something of an argument from futility like saying, you know, look, it's a very tricky thing to define the line between what counts as sexual assault and what counts as playful flirting. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't argue that the worst instances of sexual assault are wrong.

Because I could say, well, look, people are starting to go around and saying that rape is wrong. but like if we start on that train, where's it going to end? Like, is sexual assault wrong? Sure, is this wrong? Is this wrong? And you get nearer to the line, but it's like, so what if we don't know where it ends? Surely there are some injustices. That one's really easy by comparison because, I mean, rapes against the law. We're talking about the ethics of this, right? Not what is currently legal, but what we should be doing, how we should be designing society.

Well, as I say, I mean, the laws on rape are pretty good for a pretty good reason, which is actually there is a identifiable line. it's not always as easy as it we might wish it to be to actually prove that in a court of law because by nature you're dealing with two people's testimony of an event. But the reason why that line is drawn clearly in law at any rate is because the law recognises as our society does that there is a big difference if one person withholds consent and nevertheless is abused. Sure. Obviously the specificities of that example of perhaps not the most appropriate or easy to talk about,

but the point remaining that just because we don't know where it would end or where the line would be drawn doesn't mean that there isn't some line to be drawn, even if it's more of a kind of a hazy miss rather than a definitive line. Sure, but then again, if we agree that historically there have been injustices, and then we try to work out what injustices may still be occurring today, why would any reasonable criticism of it instead of engaging in an attempt to gather as broad a broader coalition as possible

to address that specific thing said actually the problem is that your society our society is racist, cis, patriarchal, white supremacist, et cetera, et cetera. The worst way to get a consensus on some of these things. I say this, as you know, in the trans chapter, where I lay out, I think as humanely and as carefully as possible, what it would look like to try to get a coalition of support for legitimate claims within this area. And as you know, what I find striking about it is that none of it has been done, none of it.

that instead of getting a coalition of reasonable people to address, for instance, the really just really unfortunate situation that some people have when they're born, so-called intersex, you know, with unclear genitals. It really just a terrible start in life, not life-ending, but just not an optimal start. Why did people, why was then,

why did people skip over that? and go straight to, or at least very swiftly, to say the big bearded man is a penis, whether penis is a woman or you're a bigot. When alleged rights claims do not go down a reasonable route like that, but instead run to the most unreasonable claim and demand that you agree with it, it's no surprise that they're not going to work. So this is more of a criticism of kind of the approach that's being taken rather than the ontology of the point. Well, it's not just the approach, because I think the approach betrays something important, which

the counterintuitive fact that a coalition is not what they're after. I see, yes, yeah, that makes sense, I suppose. That's an interesting argument. It's very counterintuitive because most of us assume if you want people to agree with you, you will be trying to get a consensus of agreement. But as I say, I think the trans thing is marked out by the fact that, again, not by any means with everyone. But the campaign in recent years, particularly in the last 15 years, has moved very swiftly onto demanding the most impossible to acquiesce in claims in order that people fail.

And it's why you can predict with 100% accuracy who's going to grab onto the latest trans claim. And they are always the people who, in every case, the people who want. to completely change the society we're in for some other reason. I'm talking about why is it that every radical Marxist who still exists always grabs the latest big muscular man who says he's a woman who just wins another weightlifting competition. Why would the Marxists be? Because they don't care about the weightlifting.

They care because it undermines a certainty in the society they wish to critique. Even if they're trying to critique it in another way, the idea that it can be critiqued. They grab the male to female trans people. I do you see it at the moment. It's going on at the moment since Stonewall Group, sort of basically the founders of Stonewall split in the last week, because not before time, a number of the Ls and Gs and the Bs realized that the T's were a problem and certainly weren't in the same category on a range of rights claims.

A problem to the... To the LGBT bit. As in to the advocacy for their rights. Yeah, I mean, I mean, we see these cases. There was a case last month in Manchester with male to female transsexuals barricing a group of women including lesbian activists in a room. They're banging and banging on the windows outside.

No other time in our society do we allow people who are born men to intimidate women and think that that's a sort of non-arrestable offense? Yeah, but then there were two different arguments going on here. saying that they shouldn't be conducting themselves in that way, and another saying that they're wrong. Well, I think they're both. And you're making both points. I think the first betrays the second on this occasion.

I think the extraordinary rage. The male to female transsexuals expressed towards women in particular is a heck of a giveaway. It's a heck of a giveaway. First betrays the second because you think that if your cause was right, then that would entail you

wanting to approach it in this manner. And since you're not approaching it in this manner, that implies that the cause is wrong. It's an awful giveaway that you would decide on a wet Wednesday evening to go to Manchester and bang on the windows of a women's rights movement, you know? It's the sort of thing that a reasonable person might weigh up their life and wonder if it was going in quite the right direction. Okay, so the wrongness of these people, are they wrong, in what sense do you think

that these people are wrong on the ontology of that point? Is it a philosophical wrongness? Is it a biological wrongness? Let me get about the point I was making about the stone one. to answer that. Of course. The point I was making about the Stonewalls bit is that in recent days since it happened, all of the radical Marxist types left in the UK,

including the straight ones, have been all over social media saying there's no LGBT without the T. Well, that's flat out wrong, by the way. As Philip Henscher pointed out this morning, Laurie Penny, who I think claims to be straight, is telling gay people how to live. And as Philip Hentcher said, We don't particularly want the direction from that.

Thank you. But it's demonstrably wrong that without the T, there's no LGBT. Of course. If there isn't a T, I'm not going to go out and start dating women this evening. It's not the case. These are separate. They may be legitimate, all in their different ways. But they are separate claims at this day.

But the point I'm making is, why can you predict with 100% accuracy that the people on the T side in this specific interneissine dispute are the ones who also want to bring down capitalism, also want to destroy the patriarchy, and so on and so on in the very predictable menu of grievances, which they now claim that they have. Well, that's a manifestation of this intersectional approach to things. It's like saying, because you can take the logic one way,

because I definitely think that these people would have far much more success if they recognize the individuality in their causes. And so when you recognize that being transgender is a, totally different experience from being gay, you've kind of got two options, which is to say, well, actually, no, let's keep the LGBT and let's allow the tea to be a separate community. Or you say, well, okay, well, let's keep the tea, but then we probably have to add on this and add on this and that's the direction that a lot of people have taken. That's probably the direction that most people have taken, is to instead of shorten the acronym, turn it into...

How you get to 100 genders. I think my own beef with this, and the reason why, I say I very carefully try to maybe in an opposite metaphor but try to salami slice this whole issue is because I believe that there's a fundamental set of untruths we're telling on this area

I don't think there are a hundred genders I don't think that the non-binary thing exists is that you being unconvinced or you believing that it's false nobody has yet convinced to me I believe it is false but I'm totally open for convincing But those two aren't the same thing, surely, to say that you're unconvinced of something and to have the active belief that it's false, right?

Well, they can be. I mean, the first bit is a polite way of saying the second. But I'm asking which you believe, because the reason being, if you just say that I'm unconvinced by the claim, then you can say that with no problem. But if you say that it's false, then you've got your own proving to do. No, I don't. No, no, no. Hang on.

If you think it's, if you think it's not the case, there are more than two sexes. Or if you, if you are unconvinced that it is the case, which isn't the same thing. Okay. Well, it's, it's not for me to prove that there are two sexes. Yeah, of course it's not. The arrangements on the chromosomes have been well documented for an awfully long time by now. It's not on you to claim, it's not on you to prove that there are two genders. unless you claim that there are, in which case you're making a claim that requires some justification.

That's a different thing from saying I'm unconvinced of the claim that there are more. I'm happy to hand over the defense to any biologists. But now, I mean, that sounds like when you go to an Extinction Rebellion protester and they say, well, look, I'm going to hand this off to the scientist, going to speak to them. Is that not kind of a similar thing that's going on here? X, X, X, Y, Kromen says very well understood. I'm happy to keep my faith in that.

I'm perfectly happy to keep my faith in it. When people come along and claim, actually, there are 100 genders such as two spirit, genderqueer. But bearing in mind, these people don't see gender as informed by chromosomes. They see sex as informed by chromosomes. Yeah, well, that's one of the slips

that happened in recent decades. There was a turning of sex into gender, which we're now reaping the rewards of this. Basically, the social science is holding themselves out as science. which has had an incredible amount of, cause an incredible amount of damage and not produced very much light in the decade since this was permitted to happen in the academy primarily. But, but the whole claim is based on the way that an individual feels. And it's very unclear among other things why we should change our interpretation or our understanding of science based on the way in which people feel. I think that there's a way to approach this in a humane manner, which I try to do, in person and in practice, as well as in my writing on this issue.

You know, I'm not interested in just trying to upset people. I am interested in trying to understand what is going on. What I find upsetting is when, as I say, a claim that has no basis is then used to bully people into not believing what has been scientifically known for an awfully long time. time and see one of the reasons why I found the trans thing so interesting when it's really came flooding into the mainstream in the last decade or so is that I noticed the people who were having problems with it were very often people who didn't have any problems with any previous rights claim of any kind yeah and oh I see you kept coming across the same thing which was expressed to me actually once by a scientist friend at one of the main universities here who said I just

just can't do it, Douglas, because it's the first time that we scientists have been asked to say something that isn't true. It hasn't happened before in my career or my lifetime. And that is something that should worry people. Of course. And when people say, well, why don't you just say it for politeness's sake? Yeah, you can do it to politeness's sake in a social situation. At a dinner party, you're not going to say to the transsexual, you know,

about, hey, sir, or whatever. You know, it's like, don't be a dick. Unless you're Ben Shapiro. But, well, actually, I think Ben Shapiro was incredibly restrained in that particular encounter. But, you know, you don't do it in that situation. But, again, if you are asked, I mean, look at the language slippage of gender assigned at birth. Yes. Yeah, I've noticed that too.

It's not gender assigned at birth. It's not that the doctor was a bigger. Right. Right, but I think we have to be careful to unpack it, right? Because obviously if somebody's making a scientific claim that there's more than two sexes, apart from, of course, the abnormality such as people who are intersex, is false, right? That is biologically false because they're making a biological claim. But this argument is muddied by this attempt to distinguish gender from sex.

Now, the first argument is whether that should be done. And the second argument is supposing that it can be done, which these people, generally speaking, do, who are making this advocacy group. They're not actually making the unscientific claim that you're purporting them to make it seems to me. It's like their claim is about the psychological aspects for someone who feels like they're a man. It's got nothing to do with the biological claims. It does. It's a huge amount. That's why we see the endless push for the changing of sex at birth on birth certificates.

Of course they are. If you insist that somebody born a man who decides in later life they actually feel like a woman and transition should be recognized on their birth certificate, therefore, to have been born a woman, they are making a biological claim. They're making a scientific claim. They're making a claim, which is going to make it much harder to collect data on things. That's not the primary reason I'm opposed to it. I'm opposed to this because I think that society should as little as possible embed lies. lies or mistakes well

we're going to make mistakes but do you think it's lying or do you think they're mistaken look as I said we're going to make mistakes everybody does every society does we're going to make so many mistakes

that are going to come out of our ears when we look back at them but but lies that you know a lies is unwise in my view yeah

I there will be cases we can we can play around with where it might be necessary yeah I cannot see that this is one and just one other point about this over and make some I'm conscious that we mustn't get stuck on trance but the problem the problem about this is not just being told lies but the horrible opportunity cost of going through this for a range of other reasons I think that a lot of what we're seeing with the trans phenomenon at moment are and by the way a lot of doctors say this in private and a lot of clinicians say this in private a lot of it is an expression of mental illness i don't know if you saw the LGBT town hall that the democrats ran in america um the beginning

of october i might have done it was like an asylum outbreak i'm not i'm not exaggerating it your viewers and listeners can go and watch highlights on Yeah, because anything mentioned will be in the links in the description. It was like an outbreak for an asylum. A mother standing with her nine-year-old child who introduces himself as a trans child and everyone whoops and cheers, Elizabeth Warren included, or she leads to the cheering and the whooping. I did see that, yes, yeah, I did see that.

A woman who's there with her trans child and then a black male to female transsexual says we're not spending enough time talking about black women of color who are trans and grabs the microphone and more people do this and then attacking Don Lemon who's a black gay man for covering up racism

and it was just an asylum outbreak. Why would that be the case? Because there is, I reiterate, an awful lot of people in practice say this in private. There is an awfully large crossover of mental illness and at least elements of the trans thing.

And it isn't only because we live in a transphobic society that makes people deranged because we're so transphobic. And then the trans people have mental. It's not just that. Yeah, because that's the claim that's made. That's the one that's made. But there is an awful lot of the other way around in this. Right.

And that seems to me worth exploring. And here's the kicker on that. that's really worth exploring before you carry out medical experiments on children. Yes, now that we can hopefully well, I almost say we can hopefully all agree on, but we obviously... We can't. You and I might agree on it.

But so, yeah, there's a lot here, you know. But that's the thing. It's like, it reminds me of like, I don't know, Charles Murray's investigations into IQ, right? And he discovers this uncomfortable fact. Now, I haven't read the medical, no, I haven't read the medical literature surrounding the relationship between being transgender and having mental illness. Now, I, now, so I can't sit here and say, no, you're wrong, but I also can't agree with you until I've read the relevant literature. But let's say that it is true, and there is like a relevant link.

It reminds me of when someone like Charles Murray kind of discovers this uncomfortable truth about the relationship between IQ and race. And then you're stuck with the situation of, well, what do we do here, right? Sure. If this is actually true, then surely it has to be reported on. Now, the advocacy that I would make is one of saying, if there is this link, or even if there's not, it's worth exploring, as you say. I think that to listeners who are made uncomfortable by the suggestions, I suppose, is what I'm trying to say, because I'm trying to be diplomatic here.

Sure. I admire your diplomacy. The people who don't like what you're having to say, and you can disagree vehemently with what Douglas is saying, but you can still be in favor of an honest inquiry into those questions, right? Because if you're so certain that there's no link, then you shouldn't be afraid of such research because it will come to prove you to be true, right?

Yes, and there may well be things in any society, including this one, which are unproductive to look into. Yeah, even if they're true. Yeah. So it's interesting, you know, you raise the IQ issue. I have written on this a little bit, as you know, I write a bit, about it in the Man's of Crowds in the race chapter because I think it's something that's coming back

and we have to be exceptionally careful about this. But personally, I have always put that into the bucket of as you do the, well, what are you going to do about it even if that is true. Yeah. It's kind of like a so what type thing. Right. That's not the same here. Yeah. So what? Well,

this is informing medical operations on children. Exactly. Right. And that's the difference. And also you're in the you're in the stages still of being able to do something about it. That's the thing, isn't it? Yes, yeah, of course. Yeah. If you're way past the stage, it's like, again, we can do this with history. Well, you know, people do it with, you know, trying to work out exactly where something went

wrong. And at some particular stage, you can say, what are you going to do about it at this stage? And then there are times, again, in a way, it links to the, the conversation we're having about the whole issue of historical restitution of things, is, yeah, there's There are times at which you could make up for a thing and times after which it's a case of what are you going to do now. And obviously you have to pick these things carefully. And I, you know, one of my editors says it's a good lesson. Assume that since every age in history has done things you look,

back on and just say what were they thinking assume we're doing some things like that too and try to work out what they are now I think the trans one is one I'm fairly confident you mean certain elements of certain elements possibly the

whole thing possibly the whole thing possibly I have no problem with because I'm always in favour of the open investigation into things but it's a very difficult conversation to have I mean I might lose subscribers patrons just for having this conversation with you, right?

Idiots, if they do that because... Well, I don't know if they're idiots. They might just have had an unfortunate university faculty that's made them think this way. But whatever is the case, it's like, it's so difficult, right?

Because I feel like there's a lot of talking across purposes. If you say that these people are biologically incorrect, and I say, no, they're not, that is a dead end argument. Because we might be talking on different mention just thinking, right? Yeah, yeah, we might be.

I think we just have to be a bit slower when we're getting into the conversation to make sure we're defining all of our terms. We could be, but here the challenge to your urge to caution is, is, what if this is all a very bad sign? Camille Pallier has made this point in the past, but when, you know, I'm not, you know, there's a possibility, there's a civilizational issue that arrives in this guise each time, that we get to the stage where we become fascinated in fluidity, for instance, where the norms are deliberately dissolved, where hermaphroditism, for instance,

becomes a particular fixation and so on. Paglia, I think it's her who first made this point, I was first aware of her from made this point, says this is what happens at the end of empires, at the end of civilizations. They become, they get into this weird terrain. Now, I agree with you, we should be respectful. We should be careful to the extent we can't.

But we can't be endlessly so. Yeah. Because the point of somebody of your generation and intelligence, and opportunity cannot be that you spend more than the shortest amount of time possible trying to undo this conundrum. Because there are so many other conundrums and questions that you and your generation should be applying your minds to. And if at the end of years of working out precisely where

the unwinnable, unresolvable, fluid game that you're being invited to consider in the most cautious way possible, were solved, which I don't think it can be, what would you have to show for it? You know, you'll hate the comparison. I can't help but imagine that I'm talking to somebody who is advocating for the approach of something like Extinction Rebellion and saying, look, you've got to be, yeah, be careful, but like, but there won't be time, you know, you've got a, you can't just kind of, uh, do you, do you see the comparison?

No, I don't think it is. I don't know, I mean, perhaps I'll leave it to the judas of the audience, but it just Run it by me again. It seems amazing. So, I mean, what's the essence of the point that you were just making? It was like, be careful because, I mean, if you have to kind of sum it up in a principle, it's like... Don't waste your time doing things that are beneath you. And that's what you're saying.

Beneath us. That's one thing I'm saying. Are you also suggesting that perhaps the... I'm urging you. Separate from that. Are you suggesting that our approach to people who are transgender or claim to be transgendered transgender, if you prefer. Is potentially the beginning of the end of civilization?

No, I'm saying I think it's very interesting what Paglia says. Indicative of a line of thought. This is indicative of a certain type of, for want of a better term, decadence. Right. Decadence of thought. Yes, I think there is something for interesting. No, I reject the comparison because I'm not saying, and I'm very happy to leave it to your listeners. I'm not saying, the end is nigh.

we're all about to die, unless just... No, but not just that. I mean, it's obviously not a comparable in terms of scale, but in terms of saying something like, you have the science wrong, and that's informing dangerous practice, such as operations on children,

and an environmentalist might say, you have the science wrong, and that view is informing a lack of action that's going to bring about the end of the world. That's a comparison. Yeah, I don't see it particularly, but I also have no intention of sitting on.

Vauxhall Bridge and stopping traffic because of trans but my main if it got bad enough like if it became so embedded in society I see no particular situation in which I sit in the middle of Vauxhall Bridge stopping the traffic but I by the way also because there's there's we don't need to get into it now so there is an interesting difference of approach in general to what argument is that expresses itself in different ways right it's a very different thing to believe that argument is what, for instance, we're doing now, or discussion, dialectic, and sitting in the middle of a thoroughfare, stopping people. And you're either the sort of person that does the first or does the second, but they are wildly different means

of communication. But no, the point I want to get back to on this is that, no, I am worried about the opportunity cost. If people of your generation want to spend your lives unweaving the fluid rainbow and working out exactly which colors go where, I'm not going to stop the traffic. I'm not going to say it's the end times,

but I think it's a damn shame. Yeah, like it's a waste of time. It's a horrible waste of time. Right. Like, your generation should be thinking so many things, working so many things out. There is so much to do. And the idea that this would occupy even a quarter of your mental space just doesn't seem wise. Well, my only response to that would be to say that it might be wise to try and unpack it in the sense of trying to get to the truth.

Because even if it is totally dismissable as a concept, like, I don't know. Identitarianism is just a silly thing that we should get rid of. I still think it's worth because so many people have become convinced that it is a useful concept. I think it's worth unpacking it, if only to show to people, here it is laid bare. We've done the thinking and we know that it's wrong because otherwise they can just say, well, listen, you don't know what you're talking about. You need to unpack it. You need to understand it in order to tell me that I shouldn't be an identitarian. I'm worried if that response is coming. I don't think I don't think it's reasonable for people to say, unless you try to read Judith Butler enough, you can't engage in this conversation. That is not a reason. Of course, that's not quite what I'm saying. When I say unpacking,

I don't mean reading their literature. I mean just spending the time thinking about it and engaging with it. Sure. I mean, I think broadly speaking as a society, we are trying to do some of this at the moment. There is a little bit of a glimpse of the thinking, the discussion happening

I go back to this point though I mean one of the reasons I do the gay thing first in the madness of crowds is to show on the only one that I've got a tiny slither of yeah I was going to say no one's accused you of being a transphobe because how dare you put them last

in the book no I haven't had that critique yet but the reason I do gay first is because I wanted to show and I don't know if this comes across I rather hope it does I was speaking with Brett Weinstein the other day

who seemed to think so that I wanted to show look this is what I'm willing and very happy to talk about in the one thing of these identity groupings that I can claim to be a part of and I'm I'm very happy to have the discussion

about how little we know about gay still because it does because in a way the aim of doing that is to say, and it's not a trick, it's the truth. This isn't the foundation of myself, and I would urge it not to be the foundation of yourself.

Yes. We're never going to, we're highly unlikely to ever actually nix that question. So let's not spend too much. Why don't we just agree not to treat people badly, agree to equality, and then get on with more interesting things? That would be great if people didn't think that what you were doing was treating people badly, not saying that it is, but like we need to, it can't be as simple as that, you know,

because the problem is that whilst I might not agree with your answers here, I at least agree with the questions that they need to be asked, but so many people won't even allow that to happen. Yeah, because they are, frankly, badly educated on some of this stuff. They're badly educated in the whole dialectic of ideas. But how does this start? How does it become so embedded? If it's so, in some cases, obviously false, where did this come from?

Surely the first academic to try to talk about this must have been laughed out of the room, but clearly that can't have happened. How is this managed in such short time as well? If it is so kind of obviously false, to use the kind of Christian argument of how did it spread to the Roman Empire if it wasn't true, you know? But it's a similar kind of approach. It's like, how did this happen? I think it's very, one, I mean, there are lots of reasons, but I think one is that, There are times in society when you become vulnerable to bad ideas.

And we know that historically. Usually, not always, but usually when the economics goes bad. Quite a lot of people have contested this suggestion of mine. I don't mind. I still stick to it that I think that post 2008 crash, this stuff flooded into the system. because people weren't that able to oppose it

because you're not when the economics goes bad. It was a bad idea, a bad set of ideas sitting around, looked like it had been systematized, looked like it had been thought out, had been scientizing itself for an awfully long time and purported to be able to claim, purported to be able to solve all inequities in our societies.

And then you have the explanation for the sort of woke capitalism thing, which is, you know, companies and companies, banks that helped to very nearly crash the world have embedded things like implicit bias training and the diversity quotas and much more as basically a tithe to try to get back some of the it's a tithe to the gods of the time to get back

some of the goodwill they lost and they're willing to pay it it's like a recuppance rather than a kind of a positive you know this is something we want to do for the benefit of its goodness it's kind of like a good thing they're doing they're paying it because they think it'll get them out of it for a bit. They're probably not all of them believe in it, some do. And it's the way to get through this bit. So I think that's a sort of reasonable explanation for it.

But as for where the bad ideas themselves come from, as you know in the chapter on this, I tried to trace a very short history of it. But these were the products of liberal arts universities in America. and maybe this is a rather snotty thing to say, but since we're in Oxford, maybe I can get away with it in this room. But there is a Ponzi scheme going on in the American university system, as in this university system in the UK to some degree.

And this is a very good, and the whole intersectional thing is a very good way to try to cover that over in its last years. disciplines that aren't disciplines that prepare people for no career the products of the social sciences in the American system if you are in six-figure debt or your parents are in six-figure debt

because you did a social science degree that claimed to have nixed certain issues of the gender issue you're never making that back you're never making that back are you likely to in that situation recognise that you've been diddled or dig down further in some way

sadly the studies tend to show that people dig down that's interesting it's like even if you become convinced after that time that actually maybe this was a waste of time you won't allow yourself to accept it no way they will no way it'll always be somebody else's fault it's interesting you know i'm i'm hoping to have my uh my philosophy

tutor at least one of them at oxford uh is currently in the process of publishing a book about about feminism and she's just been promoted to a fairly higher position in the university actually and i'd like to have her on because she is an exponent of of intersectionality she is an exponent of the social sciences and i would love to uh to to put these stuff had this rot has come all the way to oxford I'll be sure to tell her you said that. Welcome. It's been a hell of a conversation. You know, it's a difficult conversation to navigate as well

because I tried to challenge all of my guests, but usually on points, like for instance, when Peter Singer was sat where you're sat and both of us are advocates for animal liberation. And here I was challenging him, and people were like, well, of course, he's easy to get. You're going to challenge him even though you agree. That's what you'd do.

But it was easy to do because we were disagreeing on whether pleasure is the fundamental basis of, and can it be extrapolated to the, it's philosophical boys, but the points that we're discussing here are not just these kind of abstract philosophical concepts, as much as perhaps they should be, right? They are fundamental aspects of people's identity, whether we like it or not.

And so it's a difficult conversation to have, and I'm glad it's not me that has to be doing it. And I think that anybody listening who wants to listen to the specificities of what we've been talking about should read the book, especially if something's book there is and they think, how dare he say that? Look, listen to some of the explication

and try and figure out what the actual argument is that it's being made, because like I say, even if I don't agree with the conclusions... Well, you do secretly. I thought you might say something like that. Just wanted to get you into trouble, no. Even, even is the operative word there. It is the method...

For me, the takeaway of the book was the kind of the critique of the method. It's like even somebody who reads this book as a virulent, it reminds me of that book that was written Defending My Enemy by the old president of the ACLU who when the Nazis tried to march in Skokie wrote this book and he wrote it to say like people were like, how could somebody defend a Nazi's right to march through the street? And he said, well, listen, I'm Jewish and like I want the same ends as you.

I want anti-Semitism to end. But I'm scared of this approach. I think it's self-damaging. And I think people can read this book and think that even if they completely hate everything that you're standing for, that you've hit a nail when it comes to saying that this might not be the approach you want to take. Yes, I want to urge people to not take the approach that they're being urged to take

and to do something better with their lives. Yeah. I'm inviting people not to waste their lives. Yeah, and you'd also urge people to buy the book, which is available, of course, to all find bookstores, and also an audible form. Also in audible. Which has caused a bit of a stir given your recitation of Nikki Minaj, which I... Some people love my Nikki Minaj and some people don't.

I wish I could have listened to it. Some people think it's better than the original. I can't possibly comment. I'm sure the remixes will be flooding in on YouTube anytime soon. I think they're already there. Douglas, thank you. Thank you for coming. It's great pleasure.

And, yeah, as always for my listeners, if you enjoy the podcast, please give us a rating on iTunes. We were, as I tell, most of my guests at one point. the number two philosophy podcast in the United Kingdom. And it's only because of ratings like yours. So please give us a rating, leave a comment. But as always, I have been Alex O'Connor. And today I've been in conversation with Douglas Murray. I don't know.

Thank you. Thank you.