The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - 359. Separating Good from Evil in the British Empire ｜ Dr. Nigel Biggar

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00:00:57.540 Hello, everyone.

00:01:11.640 Today, I have the privilege of conversing with Professor Nigel Bigger,

00:01:16.520 a distinguished British theologian and ethicist.

00:01:19.180 His controversial book, Colonialism, A Moral Reckoning, was recently published and hit the non-fiction bestseller list in the UK.

00:01:28.100 It's now available in North America and English-language world.

00:01:31.480 We discuss the ethics of the colonial enterprise, the reality and falsehood of the idea of privilege,

00:01:38.340 the purposeful and pointless miseries of cancel culture, 0.59

00:01:41.760 and the separation of good from evil in the process of historical analysis.

00:01:47.820 So, Nigel, we're going to talk today about your book, Colonialism, A Moral Reckoning,

00:01:53.320 which has just been released just a few weeks ago and which, as I understand, is doing quite well.

00:01:59.820 I would like maybe to start with the story of why it was that you got drawn into this historical,

00:02:08.940 why you decided to write a history of this type.

00:02:11.340 It's not precisely in your bailiwick as a professor.

00:02:15.420 So, why don't you outline the circumstances that led to your undertaking this endeavor?

00:02:21.400 Yes, Jordan.

00:02:25.020 So, I'm an academic professor of ethics, of Christian ethics.

00:02:32.080 And so, over the years, I have been in the business of trying to make moral sense

00:02:36.640 and come to moral judgments about complicated moral issues.

00:02:41.880 For example, the moral problem of war.

00:02:47.020 My first university degree and my first love has always been history.

00:02:54.240 So, all of my life, I've read history.

00:02:56.620 And I've been reading British imperial history for 20, 30 years.

00:03:02.240 And so, moral questions that have been raised by European colonial endeavor around the world,

00:03:11.140 especially the British effort, have always interested me.

00:03:15.520 And so, in 2015-16, there was an agitation in Oxford imported from South Africa

00:03:26.380 to have a statue of Cecil Rhodes, the late 19th century imperialist,

00:03:33.260 which stands over Oxford's High Street on the back of Oriel College, Oxford,

00:03:38.160 to have it dismantled because it was said Rhodes was South Africa's Hitler.

00:03:43.000 As it happens, at the time, December 15, I was reading the standard biography of Cecil Rhodes.

00:03:50.100 I thought to myself, no, that's just not true.

00:03:53.920 And so, in early 2016, I published articles and I took part in a debate in the Oxford Union

00:04:02.340 opposing the dismantling of Rhodes' statue because what was being projected onto him

00:04:08.480 just seemed to me to be untrue.

00:04:10.920 So, that was my first, as it were, public performance on this issue.

00:04:16.700 And then, in 2017, pursuing my interest, I launched a research project here in Oxford

00:04:24.220 called Ethics and Empire with a very eminent historian of empire globally, John Darwin.

00:04:30.600 And the aim of the project was simply to look at how people across time, from ancient China

00:04:35.820 to the modern period, how they regarded the empires of their day in moral terms.

00:04:42.160 And then, finally, in late November 2017, I published an article in the London Times

00:04:47.720 in which I made what I thought was the completely unobjectionable, rather bland point that

00:04:57.420 we British, we British can find both cause for shame and pride in our imperial history.

00:05:07.420 And then, about a few days later, I published online an account of the Ethics and Empire project

00:05:17.160 and, as my wife and I were waiting at Heathrow Airport to fly to Germany to celebrate our

00:05:23.040 wedding anniversary, I got word from the university that a group of students had published

00:05:28.540 an online denunciation of me and my project.

00:05:33.060 I thought nothing of it.

00:05:35.160 Four days later, three days later, my historian collaborator abruptly resigned from the project

00:05:43.540 and then, within the space of five days, two more online denunciations appeared, one from

00:05:50.860 58 Oxford colleagues and the second from about 170 academics around the world.

00:05:56.960 So that was my inadvertent baptism of fire.

00:06:01.920 I wasn't expecting it.

00:06:03.760 I just pursued a research project I thought was interesting and important and I published

00:06:08.820 an article saying things that I thought to be true.

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00:07:10.340 And that was, you said that was in 2017?

00:07:26.140 That all blew up around?

00:07:27.700 December 17, that's right.

00:07:29.820 So why did your collaborator, was that John Darwin who resigned?

00:07:34.900 And if it was, why did, okay, so why did he resign?

00:07:38.800 I mean, he had obviously thought through participating in this project.

00:07:42.620 I presume, although you can fill us in, that you were working well together and that he felt this was a worthwhile project.

00:07:49.460 Why?

00:07:50.240 And I mean, the fact that he withdrew obviously made things more difficult for you.

00:07:54.080 At least that's how it looks from the outside.

00:07:55.960 So what happened to Dr. Darwin and why did he feel compelled to take this route?

00:08:00.940 Well, Jordan, I don't want to be liable to accusations of defamation here.

00:08:06.700 So I want to be cautious.

00:08:08.800 Yes.

00:08:09.680 So what John told me that weekend was that he had pressing personal problems and just felt he needed to withdraw.

00:08:20.260 Okay, so I have some comments about that.

00:08:22.140 So I've talked to about 200 people now who've undergone, let's say, a trial by fire of the sort that you describe.

00:08:31.140 Now, it's easy to pillory people who withdraw in the face of opposition.

00:08:35.480 But my experience has been that most of the people, virtually all of the people that I know who've been subjected to this sort of treatment react to it in a manner that's analogous to either facing a very protracted lawsuit or divorce or a very serious illness on their part or a serious illness on the part of someone close to them.

00:08:55.740 It's devastating.

00:08:57.560 Jay Bhattacharya, for example, at Stanford, he was raked over the coals for his attitude toward, for his scientific discussion of the problem of the epidemic response and his skepticism about the COVID lockdown.

00:09:10.560 He lost 35 pounds in three months.

00:09:12.880 And I know other people who've ended up, well, devastated sufficiently to receive psychiatric treatment and who've withdrawn, you know, into their own personal lives, who've been abandoned by their professional colleagues.

00:09:27.440 It's absolutely, brutally awful.

00:09:29.660 And so it never surprises me when I hear that someone has, in fact, withdrawn when they've been mobbed because it's a stunningly effective tactic from the psychological perspective.

00:09:39.980 And you said Dr. Darwin had indicated to you that he was having trouble in his personal life at that point as well and obviously either couldn't tolerate or didn't need the stress.

00:09:50.240 And that's interesting, too, you know, because lots of people move forward professionally despite the fact that they're having all sorts of trouble, right?

00:09:59.380 And then if you complicate that so that moving forward brings with it a tremendous psychological or personal cost, then you can bring the whole enterprise to a shuddering halt, which we seem to be hell-bent on doing at the moment.

00:10:11.300 So I have some sympathy for Dr. Darwin, but it put you in an awkward position because now your collaborator had disappeared.

00:10:18.340 I was stunned, frankly, and I mean, I didn't know what was happening, but I was stunned because our collaboration to that point had been very, very congenial and we were both very happy.

00:10:32.940 We launched the project in July 17, it went very well.

00:10:35.960 And I was aware there was a connection between this student protest and John's sudden abandonment of the project.

00:10:48.140 It wasn't clear to me what it was.

00:10:49.400 He said there were personal reasons.

00:10:51.740 Given the timing, that seemed to be less than the whole story.

00:10:55.600 I was told by a third party that he did indeed have domestic concerns that were preoccupying him.

00:11:01.740 But later I discovered on an obscure part of the Oxford University website, a statement by him saying that he had withdrawn from the project because its aims had changed.

00:11:17.640 I have to say, as far as I can see, that wasn't true.

00:11:20.680 But to your point, I mean, I think, I mean, my experience, not just with John, but with others, too, even some very old and good friends was that one friend described the issue of colonialism as toxic.

00:11:40.660 And as a consequence, he was involved in a research center I run and he also withdrew.

00:11:47.960 So my experience was a feeling as if I'd suddenly become diseased and people were stepping back.

00:11:54.060 Right, right, right.

00:11:55.480 Well, I think that's the right metaphor, you know, because I think the psychological mechanisms that underlie shunning and isolation are an extension of, they describe it as a, what would you say, as a consequence of the operation of the behavioral immune system.

00:12:16.160 And people who are shunned are essentially treated with contempt and derision as if they are infectious pathogens.

00:12:24.860 Now, one of the things I learned, for example, I read a book called Hitler's Table Talk, and it was transcripts of his spontaneous discussions over mealtimes, over about a three-year period.

00:12:38.680 I was very interested in the psychology of contempt and derision.

00:12:44.700 And Hitler never used language that was associated with fear in relationship to the Jews.

00:12:49.960 You hear this notion that Hitler was afraid of the Jews.

00:12:52.300 But that isn't the case, is that the language he used was all parasite host language, contempt and derision.

00:12:59.600 And it's a much more toxic emotion to have directed at you than fear, because you destroy things that are pathogens.

00:13:07.160 You burn them out.

00:13:08.140 You show them no mercy.

00:13:10.180 And to be targeted with derision and disgust, as you said, you end up contaminated.

00:13:15.620 It's about the worst thing that can happen to you socially.

00:13:18.340 Yeah, I think in the cases I'm talking about, I think it was more fear than disgust.

00:13:26.220 Of course, I've had plenty of disgust and hatred and hostility directed from other quarters.

00:13:30.620 In this case, it was more, I mean, you know, I accept now there are people out there who really, really, really hate what I say and think, and therefore hate me.

00:13:42.620 You know that.

00:13:43.680 I know that.

00:13:44.380 But the other phenomenon is of people who are friends or colleagues who don't hate you.

00:13:50.320 But I think that they're more scared of what, the way I interpret it is, they step back from you because they're scared of what other people will think of them if they're associated with you.

00:13:59.240 Well, they're afraid of becoming the target of that contempt.

00:14:02.200 Yeah, okay.

00:14:02.840 Because it's catchy.

00:14:03.260 Yes.

00:14:03.840 Yes, that's right.

00:14:04.540 So the fundamental problem is that you become a target of disgust and contempt.

00:14:09.640 And then people are afraid of being contaminated by that and thrown into the same.

00:14:14.620 Absolutely.

00:14:14.960 And, you know, another problem you had, I presume, is that you're, in some ways, you're the perfect poster boy for the kind of mobbing that might occur in relationship to colonialism.

00:14:25.640 Because, well, you're a professor at Oxford, you're a professor of Christian ethics, you're Caucasian, and, you know, you are... 1.00

00:14:35.900 I'm male.

00:14:37.720 Yeah, well, there's that, too.

00:14:39.200 There's that, too.

00:14:40.040 And so that begs the question.

00:14:41.660 You know, it might be that it's easier for people to believe ill of you because they might say, well, Dr. Bigger is only justifying the structure that gave rise to his incredible privilege, his tenured luxury at Oxford.

00:14:56.420 And so he's inclined psychologically to support the colonial enterprise because he's a prime beneficiary of it.

00:15:04.760 So how would you, how do you, how have you responded to that sort of psychological analysis, typical of the mobbing types, right?

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00:16:52.000 That's a really, really important point, and I've thought about this.

00:17:00.520 So my first response is, yes, you could be right.

00:17:04.040 I mean, all of us have social and economic interests, right?

00:17:09.340 And sometimes those interests can determine what we decided to research on, and it can shape the judgments we come to.

00:17:20.500 So, yes, it's possible that my views on colonialism are indeed shaped by my private interests.

00:17:28.380 Of course, not all interests are illegitimate, but it could be that I'm defending my privilege.

00:17:33.960 But, of course, in my view, that goes for everybody, including my critics.

00:17:36.960 So, in principle, yes, it could be the case.

00:17:40.900 So how do you, as an ethicist, how do you protect yourself against that?

00:17:45.360 I mean, methodologically.

00:17:47.080 I mean, it's easier in the scientific domain, at least in principle, because there are strict methods for separating out personal interest from the facts at hand,

00:17:56.520 even though they're not, you know, 100% reliable.

00:18:00.120 But it's a lot harder when you're investigating history.

00:18:02.740 So, I think, Jordan, and here I speak as a, not simply as a theoretical ethicist, but as one who thinks himself bound to practice a bit of what he preaches.

00:18:14.740 I think one needs certain virtues.

00:18:17.920 I mean, I think one needs to have a sense of responsibility, to be honest.

00:18:23.200 And that means a sense that one is morally bound to expose oneself to criticism.

00:18:28.580 I'm sure I'm not perfect on that, but I think I do do that.

00:18:35.820 And so, in my book, you tell me if I'm wrong, let me just decide.

00:18:42.060 In my book, when I'm coming to a judgment about the British Empire, I don't shy away from the really bad bits.

00:18:48.180 And insofar as I identify as British, those are painful for me to admit, but I do admit them. 1.00

00:18:57.200 So, I think one response I have is it is possible to be honest.

00:19:04.160 And there are certain marks for an honest person that they are willing to face criticism, they're willing to think about it, and sometimes even willing to concede.

00:19:12.620 And I have to say, compared to my critics as I've experienced them, I do more of that than they do.

00:19:23.340 No doubt I've got things to learn.

00:19:26.480 So, going back to the…

00:19:28.620 Please go ahead.

00:19:29.560 Yeah.

00:19:30.700 As it were, the tactic of psychologizing people you disagree with and saying, well, he's only doing that or saying that.

00:19:40.460 He would say that, wouldn't he, because he is white and male and privileged.

00:19:44.640 So, one thing I say is, well, it's possible in principle.

00:19:47.880 Let's see if it is the case in practice.

00:19:49.600 The other thing to say is, it's a dangerous tactic to deploy this psychology of the opposition. 0.98

00:19:57.360 Because what it allows you, the psychologizer, to do is to say, well, because he's only doing that because he's white and male and privileged, I don't have to listen to a damn thing he says. 0.90

00:20:07.060 So, I immediately exempt myself from any responsibility to listen to what he says and to respond to it rationally, giving reasons. 0.73

00:20:16.040 So, it kind of immunizes myself against any responsibility, actually, to be honest and open to the criticism implicit in what he says.

00:20:24.920 So, I think it's a danger that the psychologizing dismissal of opposition allows you to be dishonest.

00:20:36.020 That casual kind of moralizing, you know, the only reason you think the way you are is because you're trying to justify yourself.

00:20:43.980 First of all, that cuts both ways.

00:20:46.080 And I think it is worth taking it seriously.

00:20:48.440 You have to examine your own bias in order to think straight.

00:20:52.100 I used to tell my graduate students to triple, double, triple, and quadruple check their statistics and to try to make the results they obtained go away.

00:21:01.860 Because if they were motivated by the necessity to develop their career to publish something that wasn't true, number one, they would warp the whole research enterprise and send other people chasing a red herring.

00:21:14.420 And number two, they could spend the rest of their life investigating something that simply didn't exist.

00:21:21.320 And then there's the other complicating issue of just being wrong.

00:21:25.600 If you're a sensible thinker and you're a critical thinker, you should subject your own thoughts to the most intense critical analysis possible, knowing that if you put forward second-rate thoughts, you'll act them out.

00:21:38.780 And that will cause you no end of grief.

00:21:41.360 And partly what we're supposed to do in university is teach people to subject their own thoughts to a multiplicity of critical perspectives so that there's nothing left but wheat, right?

00:21:51.800 So the chaff disappears. 0.97

00:21:53.000 And so when you're writing, you said you take an even-handed approach as much as possible to the catastrophes and benefits of the British colonial enterprise.

00:22:03.340 I mean, how do you, again, how do you, what do you do to try to ensure that you're surveying as broad a range of the evidence as you possibly can, you know, knowing your own potential bias?

00:22:17.260 Well, there are a number of things.

00:22:20.620 I mean, I teach my students the virtues of being scrupulously just to what someone says in a text and even to be charitable.

00:22:34.900 It's to say, before you start to criticize what they say, construct it, construe it in the strongest possible form and then dismantle it.

00:22:44.280 So I apply that same thing to myself.

00:22:47.260 So when I come across material in history that I read about that is negative about the British Empire, I report it in my book.

00:22:59.600 So there are a number of pages that deal with the 150 years worth of abhorrent involvement in slave trading and slavery in the second chapter, I think.

00:23:13.820 And I quote descriptions of what was done to slaves who tried to escape, for example.

00:23:19.180 It's horrific.

00:23:21.160 But I, so it's there on the page.

00:23:23.100 I let the reader see it.

00:23:23.980 So it's partly a matter of, it's a matter of, not just of critical skills.

00:23:28.620 I mean, I'm, this is, so I would say this, it's a matter of personal virtue.

00:23:31.940 You have to become the kind of person who just does this.

00:23:34.820 One feels obliged to do it.

00:23:36.120 So there's that.

00:23:36.820 Right, right.

00:23:37.140 But in terms of my own work on this topic, so for example, I have read a number of books on controversial issues written by the kind of people who are very hostile to me.

00:23:51.500 I read them, and on the whole, I mean, there are a number of cases in the book, I lay out what they say, and then I take it apart.

00:24:01.440 And most of the time, in my view, it falls apart.

00:24:06.360 But I, as I said, the reader can see what I'm doing exactly.

00:24:09.240 And if the reader thinks I'm not playing fair, or I'm cheating in some way, or I'm overlooking something, they can see it.

00:24:15.740 Right, so they can check.

00:24:16.980 So you put enough of the process of the inquiry into the work itself so that people can follow along and double check for themselves whether you're playing a straight game.

00:24:24.820 Absolutely, absolutely.

00:24:26.260 Right, and you, you know, you pointed to something that's extremely important, I think, in this regard, given your position also as a professor of, say, Christian ethics.

00:24:33.860 I mean, one of the, I've been investigating the metaphysical presumptions of science, and there are metaphysical presumptions that have to be accepted before you can start to operate as a scientist.

00:24:47.040 And so, for example, you have to believe that there is a logos or a logic in the objective world.

00:24:52.680 You have to believe that there is an objective world.

00:24:55.220 You have to believe that that logic is apprehensible.

00:24:58.140 You have to believe that apprehending that logic is a moral good, because otherwise, why would you bother?

00:25:05.660 And then you have to believe that truth in relationship to that apprehension is the most important orienting principle.

00:25:13.000 Those are all metaphysical presumptions.

00:25:14.740 I actually think they're metaphysical presumptions that are derived from Christianity itself, which is why science emerged in Europe and not elsewhere.

00:25:22.300 But you said, you know, that you have to live your life in a manner, if you're going to tell the truth when you write, you have to live your life in a manner that indicates respect for the truth.

00:25:33.280 And how do you justify the claim that that's what you do do in your life, and why should people take that seriously?

00:25:41.160 That's a very germane question, given your position as a professor of Christian ethics at Oxford, right?

00:25:47.420 I mean, you above all, in some ways, are required to not only make that case, but to walk the walk.

00:25:56.080 That's a deep question, Jordan.

00:25:59.820 So what's my answer to that?

00:26:04.020 I think it's first of all to say, I mean, we human beings, our lives are, you know, taken by themselves, taken in isolation.

00:26:14.780 Our lives are little and meaningless.

00:26:17.600 I mean, we come and we go, and, you know, I mean, unless we plug ourselves into some larger narrative, what on earth does it matter what I do or say?

00:26:31.500 So partly, I'd say that if you think of your life, as I do, as a kind of pilgrimage or an adventure, and the goal is to approximate oneself to what's good and true and beautiful, you might say God.

00:26:53.220 Then, in a sense, my little life in this place, this time, it takes on a larger, deeper significance.

00:27:05.360 So I think of myself, I mean, I don't know the truth.

00:27:08.780 I know fragments of the truth.

00:27:10.100 But I think of myself, the point of my life is to bear witness in the way that I can to what I think is true and worthwhile.

00:27:20.320 I mean, God knows, and I mean that literally, God knows alone how anything I say or do or achieve will last, or what effects it will have.

00:27:29.720 I don't know.

00:27:30.760 But here and now, I have a limited task, and that's simply to bear witness to the truth as I see it.

00:27:37.700 That's one thing I'd say.

00:27:38.900 Okay.

00:27:39.940 Okay, well, what was it in your life, do you think, that drove you to conclude that alignment with the truth was the appropriate way to conduct yourself?

00:27:50.600 Because there are alternatives, obviously, like manipulation and the pursuit of short-term gratification, the use of deception, for example, to get what you want.

00:28:02.000 And why did you decide, what drove you to decide that you were going to at least attempt to align yourself with the truth?

00:28:10.740 That's, that's a, yeah, it's a really good question.

00:28:16.440 And to me, it's a bit of a mystery.

00:28:19.860 I mean, I wasn't brought, I wasn't brought up in a Christian household.

00:28:22.260 Um, I, I, I was attracted to Christianity.

00:28:27.940 Um, and I think that has something to do with the question you're asking.

00:28:31.860 So, um, I mean, for a long, I mean, I, you know, um, for, for a long, long time, I find myself fascinated and admiring of, um, individuals who stand up for what they believe to be true.

00:28:52.240 And right, uh, even though the whole world turns against them.

00:28:57.660 I mean, I, I know, yeah, I, I'm quite aware that I seem to have become such a person in some respects, but I remember, um, um, age of six, seven, eight, when, uh, the, the, the movie, um, King of Kings by produced by Cecil D.B. Mill came out in, I think, 16, 19, 63.

00:29:18.580 Uh, my father took, took me to see it at the local, uh, uh, uh, cinema.

00:29:23.480 And I was so moved by the, the story of Jesus and his crucifixion, uh, that at the age of seven or eight, I came back home, um, was, was put to bed.

00:29:36.360 And, and I lay there staring at the ceiling, weeping, saying to God, and here, here I was praying, though no one taught me to pray, uh, um, take it off Jesus and put it on me.

00:29:49.800 I mean, it's a bit, it's a bit, it's a bit, it's a bit, it's a bit.

00:29:52.860 That's a rough thing to pray for.

00:29:54.980 It's a bit, it's a bit, it's a bit messianic for, for, for, for, for that, uh, for that age.

00:30:01.200 So, um, so I think somehow the, the, the, the idea that one is bound and, you know, talk about being bound or obliged, it sounds like a burden.

00:30:12.960 Yes, it is, but it's also, it's also a fulfillment.

00:30:19.680 And so shortly after that, this was, I was talking about age six, seven, age 10.

00:30:25.080 I mean, when I was young, I used to steal.

00:30:27.940 Um, and I remember an occasion in, in, I was at a boarding school at the age of, I don't know, 10, let's say.

00:30:35.880 And I used to steal toy soldiers from some of my school, schoolmates.

00:30:40.340 And, uh, one evening I was doing this again.

00:30:45.160 And I suddenly thought to myself, no, this is not satisfying.

00:30:50.040 I don't want to do this.

00:30:50.900 I don't want this stuff.

00:30:52.280 And I put it back.

00:30:53.600 I never stole again.

00:30:55.640 Now, uh, I, I, I, I, again, why did I do that?

00:30:59.600 So in that case, it was a sense of, this is not what I really want.

00:31:03.500 It's not where, so, and, and, uh, yes, did, did I say this to myself?

00:31:08.740 Well, yes.

00:31:10.340 The phenomenon was, no, um, something said this to me that, and I, I heard it.

00:31:18.420 Yeah.

00:31:18.580 Hey, everyone.

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00:32:14.620 So what makes you, so the radical claim, then we'll get to your book, but I want to go into the trustworthiness of its source, let's say, and how that might be established.

00:32:24.560 The radical postmodern slash neo-Marxist claim is that all claims to truth are essentially masks for an underlying drive to power, sort of a demented Nietzscheanism, and that there's really no escaping your motivation.

00:32:44.300 That, and even if you claim to be, as you're claiming now, to be the representative of a higher truth, all that is, is a particularly subtle and insidious justification of your underlying motivation.

00:32:57.680 And what makes you believe, do you think, you touched on it with regard to the, like the external quality of the voice of conscience, say, and the emotional impact that this admiration you had in the aftermath of the movie, you touched on this.

00:33:16.400 What makes you think that there is a truth that can be pursued independent of the subjective striving for dominance and power?

00:33:27.680 So, you're quite right, the neo-Marxists and the postmodernists say that it's all about power.

00:33:39.800 What they mean is, they're all about power.

00:33:43.520 Yes, they certainly do mean that, yes.

00:33:45.880 Yeah, but the assumption they're making is, they're all about power and it's wrong.

00:33:53.040 They're making that because they're criticizing the way the establishment or the elite behave.

00:34:03.520 And the criticism is based on the assumption that they, the neo-Marxists, know the truth and they have it right, which is why they want to dismantle that power.

00:34:11.900 But what's, what's missing here is any sense of self-criticism and any kind of self-awareness because the cynicism is directed completely externally.

00:34:23.120 And, but, but the cynicism with regard to other people implies actually an oblique affirmation that there is truth and there is morality.

00:34:33.600 It's just that we have it, so, so I think-

00:34:36.880 Well, that's very, that's very interesting because the other problem with that, so essentially your observation is that, well, the postmodern types, especially with the more neo-Marxist twist,

00:34:48.340 accuse every system and every other person other than themselves, let's say, of being motivated by nothing but power.

00:34:57.320 Yet, they claim that that doesn't apply to themselves and they implicitly claim that objection to the use of power is moral, but they absolutely never, as far as I can tell, explain why, which is actually why I was asking you that question.

00:35:12.020 It's like, well, if it's self-evident that power is wrong and it's self-evident that you stand for something other than the use of power, which is obviously something both transcendent, because it can unite people who are united against power, and higher in that it's morally preferable to power, then exactly what the hell is this?

00:35:32.580 And that postmodernists simultaneously disavow the existence of anything like a unifying metanarrative, and they do that explicitly, even though they seem to have a unifying metanarrative in their objection to the use of power, but it's all left implicit.

00:35:48.300 It's like an unconscious god, as far as I can tell. It's something like that.

00:35:51.760 And so, you elaborated out your relationship to transcendent truth in the confines of conscience, you said, with regards to the theft, but also to the feeling of admiration that overcame you when you were six or seven years old when you saw this particular movie.

00:36:11.120 And that's an interesting observation to me, because I think often that our moral intuition is grounded in something like admiration, right?

00:36:21.680 And that comes upon us. It's not something we create. You said that happened to you when you were six or seven.

00:36:27.060 You learned that there was something to admire, and you didn't come from a religious background, and yet you became a professor of Christian ethics.

00:36:34.160 So how did that unfold across time?

00:36:36.640 Just on this business of admiration, another reason I would give for saying, for justifying why I think of human life properly as being about the acknowledgement and the approximation and the calling toward truth, goodness, and beauty,

00:37:03.320 is that it makes those who adopt that position more beautiful.

00:37:10.740 So they become, you know, those who, and I think even postmodernists might agree with this if they were willing to be thoughtful.

00:37:21.240 When you look upon, as it were, exemplars of the moral position you hold, those who have risked all for justice or for the truth,

00:37:37.860 there's a beauty about them that is fascinating and draws you to them.

00:37:42.260 And that raises the question, you know, I don't suppose, you know, cows or slugs react this way,

00:37:48.720 but it raises the question of why is the cosmos so constructed that we human beings are really moved by people who do such things

00:37:58.000 and sometimes moved to risk all, to risk all, to follow them and to do likewise?

00:38:03.960 That tells us something really important about the cosmos.

00:38:08.080 Well, it seems to me, and I think your level of analysis is correct,

00:38:14.260 I think that it's a truth that's metaphysical and objective and theological at once,

00:38:21.360 that the proper pathway forward, all things considered,

00:38:26.040 is to be found in establishment of a relationship with the truth.

00:38:29.280 And you might say, well, that's because if you're in accordance with reality,

00:38:34.820 you can dance with reality in a much more effective manner than if you set yourself up in opposition to it.

00:38:41.060 And then you might say, well, that's such a fundamental truth that we're actually oriented instinctively

00:38:46.000 to apprehend its presence when we see it.

00:38:49.080 And I think the reason that heroes in movies and heroes in literature,

00:38:53.480 I think the idea that the king of kings, that that idea of a king of kings even emerged,

00:38:58.100 is it's the hierarchical ordering of that which is most admirable.

00:39:02.780 And what you have on the Christian front is this peculiar proclamation 0.52

00:39:07.440 that what's most admirable is the union of what is highest with service to what is lowest

00:39:13.100 and most helpless.

00:39:16.320 You see that I've been looking, for example, at shepherd imagery in the Old Testament,

00:39:20.460 because the shepherd is a common trope for, well, obviously for Christ,

00:39:25.780 but also David is a shepherd and Abel is a shepherd.

00:39:29.160 And a shepherd's a very interesting character because a shepherd back in more archaic times

00:39:35.620 was a very brave person because the sheep that he guarded were preyed upon by vicious predators.

00:39:42.220 Lions and wolves were very common in the Middle East.

00:39:44.680 And shepherds were often called upon to defend their flock from very vicious predators

00:39:49.960 with very primordial implements.

00:39:52.800 So David, for example, obviously used a slingshot, which he also used to kill giants.

00:39:58.960 And then the shepherd at the same time has to be the person who,

00:40:03.120 despite that monstrous capacity to kill even wolves and lions,

00:40:06.920 is capable of paying attention and caring for the most vulnerable possible creatures.

00:40:12.440 And in the shepherd story, it's obviously lambs.

00:40:14.600 But the idea that that's the lost among human beings or infants, it's an easy move from that position.

00:40:22.040 And you look at Michelangelo's statue of David and you see this combination of masculine capacity

00:40:29.960 to stand firm in the face of terrible opposition and this ability to care for what's vulnerable.

00:40:37.200 And it seems to me that that idea is core to the Christian set of images and stories.

00:40:46.380 And it calls out admiration because it calls to the instinct to emulate that.

00:40:51.200 And that's not a cognitive, it's not exactly a cognitive process.

00:40:54.180 It's way deeper than that.

00:40:57.100 Yes, yes, yes.

00:41:00.960 So should we turn to your, so please go ahead.

00:41:03.680 So you asked about how on earth I became a Christian ethicist.

00:41:07.440 Just briefly to tell you that.

00:41:13.560 I mean, I said my first love was always history.

00:41:16.660 I studied history at university in Oxford in the early 70s.

00:41:20.460 But that period of history in this country, in Britain, was extremely disturbed.

00:41:27.060 But my first term in Oxford in October 73, I had to learn to drink my tea without sugar

00:41:37.120 because the docks were all closed, because the dockers were on strike.

00:41:41.100 No sugar was coming to the country.

00:41:42.920 I had to learn, I had to prepare for my first set of exams by candlelight

00:41:47.180 because the power stations were all shut down, because the coal miners were on strike.

00:41:51.200 And that was when the violence in Northern Ireland was at its height.

00:41:55.060 So there was a sense of national crisis.

00:41:58.200 And as a young Christian, I had decided to become a Christian when I was 13,

00:42:05.000 and I was now aged 20 or so, 1920.

00:42:09.200 I was asking myself, what have the theological and moral resources of Christianity

00:42:17.260 got to say to this national crisis?

00:42:19.020 And actually, looking back, I ended up pursuing a career as a professional ethicist

00:42:27.540 because I wanted to work out my answers to those questions.

00:42:34.380 And so it's a really, I became a Christian ethicist partly because I had become a Christian,

00:42:38.140 but also because I was early, fascinated is too trivial.

00:42:44.720 I was possessed by questions of right and wrong and good and bad,

00:42:50.380 and particularly with regard to the political crisis in Britain of the 1970s.

00:42:57.620 And in some ways, Jordan, the book I've just written, A Colonialism,

00:43:00.740 I feel that of all that I've written, that probably is the book I was born to write.

00:43:05.540 Uh-huh.

00:43:06.540 You used this language of possession, you said, and you insisted upon that.

00:43:11.120 And what do you mean by that, and why did you use that terminology particularly?

00:43:17.680 Well, again, because it's not true.

00:43:20.100 The experience, the phenomenon was not, I chose to do X.

00:43:27.120 As with the story of when I finally decided I didn't want to steal anymore,

00:43:35.280 it was a sense that something came to me.

00:43:37.900 That was the experience.

00:43:39.140 Came to me and said, Nigel, you don't really want to do this.

00:43:42.080 And I said, no, I don't really want to do this.

00:43:44.240 So the sense of which, so the word of, the talk of possession, being possessed,

00:43:49.960 is a more accurate description of the experience.

00:43:52.100 Right, right.

00:43:53.940 Well, that seems to me to be a reflection of the intrinsic logos of being.

00:43:59.440 And it's partly, you see that in science because there are phenomena that scientists study.

00:44:05.500 But those phenomena are also those phenomena that call to the individual scientists, right?

00:44:12.260 They pursue an interest that makes itself manifest to them in some ways independent of their will.

00:44:17.860 So that grip of interest, it manifests itself as the problems that beset you that will not let you lie in peace.

00:44:25.280 And it manifests itself as the set of opportunities that beckon to you.

00:44:30.240 You know, I don't know if you know this, but the word phenomenon itself is derived from a Greek root,

00:44:36.780 phenisthai, and it means to shine forth.

00:44:41.320 And there is this, yeah, that's very interesting.

00:44:43.780 There is this autonomy of problem and interest that's quite the mystery.

00:44:51.180 You know, if something bothers you, you can't just easily shake it off voluntarily.

00:44:57.020 And if an opportunity compels you forward, you can capitalize that and use it as a source of motivation.

00:45:02.980 And you could object to it and put it off to one side, which is a big mistake.

00:45:08.500 But it's very, very difficult to convince yourself that you're interested in something that doesn't call to you.

00:45:15.540 So there is that autonomy, right?

00:45:17.180 And that's related to that idea of possession, is that something seizes you and directs you.

00:45:22.480 And you can act in concert with it or reject it.

00:45:26.280 Those seem to be your options.

00:45:28.420 I was looking at the story of Jonah the other day, trying to sort it out.

00:45:32.380 You know, it's such an interesting story because it's very germane to what we're discussing.

00:45:37.200 So Jonah hears a call from God and he's basically called upon to go to a city, Nineveh,

00:45:44.920 and tell the people of Nineveh that they've wandered off the path and that they're going to be in serious trouble

00:45:50.500 if they don't get their act back together.

00:45:53.080 And Jonah, being a wise man, just like most professors, let's say, decides there's no damn way he's going to go to a city

00:46:01.580 and tell everyone there that they're wrong because that's not going to turn out very well for him.

00:46:06.600 So he decides to get the hell out of there and jumps on a boat, goes in the opposite direction.

00:46:14.060 And then the storms rise around him and the sailors conclude that there must be someone on board who's offended the gods or God.

00:46:23.280 And they go to each person and inquire.

00:46:25.380 And Jonah finally admits that God told him to stand up and say what he had to say to the demented citizens of Nineveh. 0.96

00:46:32.600 And he decided he was going to escape.

00:46:36.260 And so the sailors throw him off the boat, at which point the waves cease.

00:46:41.840 And that's pretty...

00:46:42.600 And so it's so interesting psychologically because what it implies is that if you are called upon to say something,

00:46:48.880 to set things right, even at the social level, and you don't, the storms are going to rise around you.

00:46:54.500 But that isn't all that happens to Jonah, right?

00:46:57.540 The next thing that happens is that this terrible beast comes up from the abyss and swallows him and pulls him all the way to the bottom of the world.

00:47:04.400 It's like the harrowing of hell in the Christian story.

00:47:07.300 And so the further inference there is that if something calls to you to speak the truth when things are corrupt and you ignore it,

00:47:15.760 not only will the storms rise around you, but you will end up somewhere so dismal you can hardly possibly imagine it.

00:47:22.080 And I can't help but think about that in light of the rise of totalitarian states in the 20th century.

00:47:28.560 Because people in totalitarian states lied to each other and to themselves 100% of the time.

00:47:35.320 And that's why they ended up in hell.

00:47:38.200 You know, when Jonah repents and decides to go to Nineveh, the whales spits him back up on shore in consequence.

00:47:44.220 And because of that, because he goes there and tells the truth, the god then decides to not destroy the city.

00:47:51.340 And what that also implies is that if Jonah would have permanently abandoned his ethical responsibility to say what he was called upon to say,

00:48:00.460 that an entire city would have been devastated.

00:48:03.140 And that's a hell of a good lesson for the current times.

00:48:07.620 Yes, I mean, I guess my, something that puzzles me, I don't know the answer to it, is,

00:48:12.940 why are some people so made that they respond to the call?

00:48:19.960 I mean, you caught Jonah, I'm thinking of a passage in the book of the prophet Jeremiah,

00:48:27.100 where the prophet is complaining to God, he's saying, you know,

00:48:31.080 you give me your word and I speak it, and everyone hates me and insults me.

00:48:35.840 Bloody hell, I'm not going to do it anymore, he says.

00:48:38.460 I'm sulking, I'm not doing it anymore.

00:48:40.540 But then he says, but when I do that, this thing burns within me, I cannot hold it in.

00:48:47.420 So there are some people like that.

00:48:49.000 But there are others who are not like that, who somehow, when the flack arrives, they distance themselves,

00:49:00.980 they keep themselves safe.

00:49:02.300 And I don't know, I don't know what the secret is.

00:49:06.100 I mean...

00:49:06.600 Well, I think part of it is, I think part of it is the consequence of a million micro-choices.

00:49:11.880 You know, there's this old idea that the blues singers in the U.S. had that you meet the devil at the crossroads.

00:49:19.400 And the crossroads is obviously a choice point.

00:49:21.760 And what I saw happening in universities is that whenever the faculty were called on to withstand the pressures of the administration,

00:49:29.840 especially as the administration became more and more woke, they retreated.

00:49:33.860 It was a micro-retreat.

00:49:35.560 Yes.

00:49:36.540 And so it was a failure to...

00:49:38.480 And the rationale was, well, I don't need to make an issue out of this.

00:49:42.920 But if you fail to make an issue out of a million micro-catastrophes, then it's a macro-catastrophe and you're weak.

00:49:49.820 Now, it doesn't completely address the question because you might say, well, why do people turn to the right or the left in the initial stages of that decision process?

00:50:00.100 Like in childhood, in principle, when you were faced with your conscience in relationship to stealing those soldiers, you could have continued to steal them, right?

00:50:09.760 You could have upped the ante.

00:50:11.240 You could have doubled down like the pharaoh, let's say, and pursued that pathway.

00:50:15.840 You know, the classic Christian response to that is that, well, we have free will.

00:50:21.820 And whatever that means is our soul is granted the capacity to freely choose between up and down.

00:50:29.300 And, you know, barring a better explanation, that's a pretty good one.

00:50:33.260 Otherwise, you end up with notions of predestination and so forth, which...

00:50:37.180 Yeah.

00:50:38.720 Yeah.

00:50:39.140 I think there's a mystery there that we can't completely resolve.

00:50:43.460 I certainly can't.

00:50:44.360 We can observe.

00:50:45.560 Yep.

00:50:46.220 No.

00:50:47.120 Yeah.

00:50:47.340 No, no.

00:50:48.000 So shall we turn to your book itself?

00:50:52.260 Yes, please.

00:50:53.620 All right.

00:50:54.260 So there's eight chapters in the book, and you associated each of the chapters with a question.

00:51:00.080 I thought we would just go through the chapters in the question.

00:51:03.020 So chapter one is...

00:51:04.980 Well, let's start with the introduction.

00:51:06.900 You already laid out the opposition to your work that arose when you started to investigate

00:51:12.860 the ethical pros and cons of colonialism, and you decided to undertake a moral assessment

00:51:22.380 of the British Empire project.

00:51:25.160 You lay that out in the introduction.

00:51:27.060 In chapter one, you start with motives, good and bad.

00:51:29.760 And the question you put forward was, was the imperial endeavor driven primarily by greed

00:51:36.500 and the lust to dominate?

00:51:38.280 Well, that's the ultimate in postmodern questions, you might say, allied in that sense we discussed

00:51:43.720 with the Marxists.

00:51:44.760 And so was the imperial endeavor driven primarily by greed and the lust to dominate?

00:51:51.440 Tell us what you concluded and why.

00:51:55.660 Yeah.

00:51:56.000 So this phrase, the lust to dominate, is the one that St. Augustine used in the early 400s

00:52:04.900 to describe the Roman Empire.

00:52:07.060 That's why I used it.

00:52:09.240 And if you take your cue from Augustine, then that was the kind of essence of Roman Empire.

00:52:20.300 So when I came to think about the history of the British Empire, that was in my mind.

00:52:27.140 And it seemed to me, certainly as far as the British Empire goes, to be completely inadequate

00:52:34.120 to describe it as driven by either the simple lust to dominate or greed.

00:52:40.880 In fact, if you look at the variety of motives that moved Britons to travel over the world and

00:52:52.860 to take control of various territories, the reasons are various.

00:52:56.860 And I make a point here that no one woke up in London one day and thought to themselves,

00:53:02.780 oh, let's go and conquer the world.

00:53:05.800 It wasn't like that.

00:53:06.960 It was much more ad hoc in response to circumstance.

00:53:10.000 I mean, there may be empires where someone wakes up in Berlin and decides to go and conquer

00:53:14.220 Eastern Europe.

00:53:15.720 But it wasn't always so.

00:53:17.100 And there may be empires that are entirely about the lust to dominate.

00:53:19.820 Maybe, you know, Genghis Khan was of that and his Mongols were of that kind. 1.00

00:53:24.320 But one needs to be careful, very careful, I think, not to import a kind of one-fits-all

00:53:31.920 theory and to say, well, this was an empire, so this must have been like that.

00:53:35.780 And a lot of my critics, their reading of historical data is kind of pre-programmed by a theory as

00:53:44.700 to what empire must be.

00:53:45.800 But if you look at the history of the British Empire, motives, I mean, an early and persistent

00:53:52.400 motive was trade.

00:53:53.760 People, the East India Company, went out to India in the 1600s to trade and make money.

00:54:01.280 Other people at the same time went westwards across the Atlantic and pitched up on the

00:54:07.040 coast of North America.

00:54:08.600 Why did they do that?

00:54:09.900 Partly because they were there to harass Spanish shipping, bringing gold back to the Americas

00:54:16.420 to Spain.

00:54:17.740 Why?

00:54:18.240 Because Spain was the dominant empire and England was a Protestant country at the wrong 0.99

00:54:24.300 end of power at that time.

00:54:25.840 Ironically, the beginnings of English-British empire in that case were actually anti-imperialist.

00:54:31.900 And then, but yes, then people like Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh are keen to find gold

00:54:40.360 in the Americas.

00:54:41.180 And yes, they abuse the natives. 0.98

00:54:43.440 But there you've got trade, which I think is innocent.

00:54:46.840 You've got actually a desire to defend yourself against overwhelming imperial power, which could

00:54:53.540 be innocent.

00:54:55.100 The lust for gold that leads you to abuse other people is not so innocent.

00:54:58.760 Later on in the 19th century, one reason the British ended up in West Africa and East Africa,

00:55:06.140 one reason was lobbying by humanitarians to suppress the trading in slaves.

00:55:13.600 So there was a humanitarian reason.

00:55:16.220 So the historical phenomena tell you there are a variety of motives here, some good, some

00:55:21.740 bad.

00:55:22.040 Okay, so we could perhaps assume as a rule of thumb that the motivations of our ancestors

00:55:30.480 were just as complex as our motivations.

00:55:33.760 And then we could assume that the tendency to monomaniacally reduce all motivations to

00:55:39.380 a single motivation is probably more reflective of the refusal to think in complex ways than

00:55:45.000 it is, what would you say, a manifestation of accuracy and diagnosis.

00:55:50.180 And so you see, I mean, I'm an admirer of Freud in many ways, but he was rather monomaniacal

00:55:56.940 about sex.

00:55:58.540 And the Marxist types and the neo-Marxists are absolutely monomaniacal about power.

00:56:05.180 They assume that all human relationships are structured by power, except theirs, as we pointed

00:56:11.160 out before.

00:56:11.820 And then they extend that analysis to the economic and historical domains.

00:56:17.260 And that really does simplify the endeavor, right?

00:56:21.320 It's also interesting from a religious perspective, I would say, because the atheist neo-Marxist

00:56:29.580 postmodernists have elevated power to the status of a god.

00:56:34.060 And I would say, if the spirit of power is your god, that's about as close to an antichrist

00:56:43.000 as you could possibly formulate.

00:56:45.400 And that's a very interesting phenomenon as well.

00:56:50.500 You know, because you might ask, well, in the aftermath of the Nietzschean death of god,

00:56:55.300 what arises to replace that central unifying tendency, let's say, one possibility would

00:57:04.840 be nihilistic disunity, which Nietzsche did describe as a looming danger.

00:57:10.220 But the other is that another kind of monotheism will arise.

00:57:15.620 And it does seem to me to be very self-serving, because once you have decided that power is the

00:57:21.720 only motivation, you never have to think about anything again.

00:57:25.540 You can just interpret everything that happened in terms of oppression and victimization.

00:57:31.100 And if you're smart, you can do that well, you know, but that doesn't mean that it's helpful.

00:57:36.580 Yes, let's stick on this issue of power for a moment, Jordan, because I realize in retrospect,

00:57:44.060 a major, not very articulate theme running through my book, and in fact, all my recent

00:57:50.000 thinking and writing is what I would call a certain realism.

00:57:55.840 So just taking the issue of power, my view is there ain't nothing wrong with power.

00:58:01.660 We all want it.

00:58:02.820 I mean, if we don't have power, we can't do anything, right?

00:58:06.060 So let's stop assuming that the power is always bad.

00:58:10.300 The only question is whether we use power well or badly, justly or unjustly.

00:58:15.300 And the postmodern critics obviously oppose certain kinds of power, but they need to be

00:58:24.240 honest about the fact that they oppose it because they want power for themselves.

00:58:28.660 And the question posed to them is, will you use it well or badly?

00:58:32.280 My experience of them, insofar as they've criticized me and what I think is, they abuse power

00:58:39.960 very broadly and very casually.

00:58:46.200 Well, if it's the only motivation, then why not use it?

00:58:49.520 I always think of it as self-justification for use of compulsion.

00:58:53.880 I think we could also distinguish two kinds of power.

00:58:57.140 There's ability and there's use of compulsion.

00:58:59.700 And you pointed out as one of the motivations that drove the British Empire, you pointed out

00:59:06.940 the desire to trade.

00:59:09.380 Now, a skeptical Marxist would say, well, there's no difference between trade and greed.

00:59:14.020 And so you've undermined your own argument.

00:59:16.720 But if I have something valuable to offer that you can't produce and vice versa, and we

00:59:23.340 trade, in principle, we're both better off.

00:59:25.440 I mean, that's the classic free market argument.

00:59:27.240 And I don't see anything at all that reeks of compulsion in that endeavor.

00:59:33.140 I mean, I think you have to be damn cynical to think that all production and exchange can

00:59:37.500 be reduced to mutual exploitation.

00:59:40.000 It doesn't account for productivity, right?

00:59:42.100 There's no productivity there. 0.98

00:59:43.580 So it's a foolish theory. 0.97

00:59:45.440 And so it is. 0.99

00:59:46.760 I mean, greed is excessive desire for whatever it is.

00:59:50.880 It's a lust.

00:59:52.220 And the question of when we all, everybody, I think, wants to flourish.

00:59:56.160 We want to profit in some way.

00:59:58.680 Nothing wrong with that at all.

01:00:00.520 But yes, our desire to flourish and profit can become excessive when it's at other people's

01:00:05.380 expense or when it's unjust.

01:00:08.360 So let's distinguish the desire to profit or flourish from greed.

01:00:15.140 Well, OK.

01:00:15.740 And so I would also say we can point to a natural ethos that emerges as a consequence of repeated

01:00:20.900 trade.

01:00:21.900 So we're trading repeatedly in this conversation.

01:00:25.860 And hopefully I'm not dominating.

01:00:28.040 And hopefully you're not dominating.

01:00:29.560 And what would happen if one of us did is that the conversation would degenerate.

01:00:34.320 Like if we can exchange mutually and reciprocally, then we can play a game that's self-sustaining

01:00:40.840 and that's growing.

01:00:42.040 And the same thing applies on the trade front.

01:00:44.340 So I would say there's a natural limit, intrinsic natural limit to the use of exploitation in

01:00:50.920 economic exchange.

01:00:51.980 Because if you do nothing but exploit your trading partner, the next time you come to

01:00:57.060 trade, you're going to fail.

01:00:59.460 Yep.

01:01:00.340 Yep.

01:01:00.560 And in the early decades, centuries of overseas colonial endeavor, the British Europeans were 0.69

01:01:12.260 on the weaker foot.

01:01:14.980 Indian merchants, Indian... 0.93

01:01:16.920 In fact, the East India Company only got a foothold, a toehold in India because it was

01:01:21.640 granted them by native Indian rulers.

01:01:25.200 So at that point, the British were the weaker, not the stronger.

01:01:30.560 Right.

01:01:31.680 So the role of the mercantile impulse, which is an impulse for mutually beneficial trade

01:01:36.780 in the expansion of the empire is radically understated by the Marxist types, partly because

01:01:41.900 they don't distinguish trade in any other economic enterprise from greed and power.

01:01:47.120 Yeah.

01:01:48.040 And I think, you know, go ahead.

01:01:50.380 Yeah.

01:01:51.320 I mean, let me be honest here and say, for example, in the use of native African labor in 0.92

01:02:01.360 Southern Africa and elsewhere in the British Empire in the 19th century, there is no doubt,

01:02:09.340 well, it's highly probable, one needs to examine each case, that native labor was exploited.

01:02:17.340 That's to say, the terms of their employment was unfair and they were forced to do things

01:02:20.940 they didn't want to do.

01:02:22.180 To which my answer is, well, yes, I'm sure that happened.

01:02:26.860 But it also happened in Britain itself.

01:02:30.200 And it happens, no doubt, in contemporary India and Nigeria.

01:02:33.900 So the exploitation of labor through unfair terms and conditions wasn't a particularly colonial

01:02:40.860 sin.

01:02:44.200 So, okay.

01:02:45.720 So now let's go to chapter two, from slavery to anti-slavery.

01:02:50.540 The question you posed there was, should we speak of colonialism and slavery in the same

01:02:56.300 breath as if they were the same thing?

01:02:58.420 Now, one of the weird tensions that emerges for me there, and I've tried to think this through

01:03:03.960 clearly, I'm reading at the moment a multi-volume history of slavery put out, I think, by Cambridge

01:03:09.700 University Press.

01:03:10.920 And my sense, historically, and you can correct me if you think I'm wrong here, is that slavery

01:03:17.140 is a ubiquitous feature of human societies.

01:03:20.340 And the conscious realization that slavery itself is intrinsically wrong, even in the

01:03:27.380 case, let's say, of prisoners of war or debt or debtors, that notion emerged with great

01:03:35.180 difficulty.

01:03:35.720 And it manifested itself most profoundly in the UK, probably in the person of Wilberforce,

01:03:43.360 who, and the Christian Protestant evangelists, who made a very strong case that slavery itself

01:03:49.420 was intrinsically immoral.

01:03:51.300 And the consequence of that was, eventually, that the British Navy fought for about 175 years

01:03:57.480 on the high seas to make slavery a counterproductive enterprise.

01:04:01.360 And one of the things that sort of terrifies me about the radical leftist enterprise is that

01:04:06.600 they really risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater, because whatever it was that

01:04:11.000 impelled Wilberforce and then the entire UK to stand against slavery is the only thing we

01:04:16.300 know of in the entire history of the world that actually did stand against slavery with

01:04:20.520 any degree of success.

01:04:22.300 So why do you, what other cases do you think can be made that colonialism and slavery were

01:04:28.240 not the same thing?

01:04:29.060 And why do you think there is this insistence on the radical left side to deny the very process

01:04:35.780 that actually did free slaves insofar as they've become free in recent times?

01:04:40.880 So, Jordan, I think the identification of colonialism with slavery is similar to the 1619 project

01:04:53.080 in the United States, which identifies the foundations of the US with fundamentally racist and therefore

01:04:58.680 fundamentally illegitimate.

01:05:00.220 I think what's happened is that the, probably through Black Lives Matter, the killing of George 0.60

01:05:06.020 Floyd in 2020, Minneapolis, Black Lives Matter movement came across the Atlantic with no change 0.99

01:05:13.240 of clothes, landed in Britain.

01:05:16.100 And our equivalent is to say, contemporary Britain is systemically racist.

01:05:22.460 And the reason we're systemically racist is that we continue to revere our colonial past,

01:05:29.020 let's say, by having a statue to Cecil Rhodes.

01:05:31.980 And as we all know, colonialism was essentially about slavery, which was based on a racist view

01:05:42.420 of Africans as subhumans.

01:05:44.300 So colonialism equals slavery equals racism.

01:05:48.680 And that's the foundations of Britain.

01:05:50.440 And that's why we have to repudiate our colonial past, pull down Cecil Rhodes, pull down John A. 0.60

01:05:56.800 Macdonald in Canada, and somehow, therefore, we liberate ourselves from systemic racism.

01:06:02.120 And that's the logic behind the colonialism and slavery mantra.

01:06:06.820 So in this country, those two things are commonly talked about as if they were the same thing.

01:06:12.480 And my very simple point in that second chapter is to say, wait a moment, as you've just said,

01:06:19.560 Jordan.

01:06:19.820 Yes, for 150 years, some British people, by no means all, were involved in slave trading

01:06:26.660 and profiting from slavery in the West Indies.

01:06:30.060 But from 1807 onwards, and then 1833, first the slave trade, then slavery itself were abolished

01:06:37.720 by the British.

01:06:39.000 And for the rest of the empire's existence, for another 150 years, roughly, the British were 0.95

01:06:43.740 involved in anti-slavery.

01:06:44.720 So you cannot identify British colonialism with slavery, because for the second half

01:06:49.960 of its life, it was anti-slavery.

01:06:52.880 And yes, slavery in one form or another, and some forms were more humane than others, has

01:07:00.800 been around since virtually the dawn of time, practiced on every continent by black and brown

01:07:06.580 and red-skinned and yellow-skinned people, as well as white-skinned people.

01:07:09.640 The Comanche nation in the southwest of the US ran what one historian has called a vast

01:07:16.440 slave economy in the 1700s.

01:07:20.640 The Arabs were involved in slavery.

01:07:23.120 Africans were selling African slaves to the Romans and the Arabs before they ever sold

01:07:27.460 them to Europeans.

01:07:28.220 So, you know, we may be dismayed at the fact that so many Europeans and British people up 1.00

01:07:39.500 until the late 1700s accepted this institution and the fact of slave trading.

01:07:45.860 But we have to put it in context.

01:07:47.560 Everyone did it, including slaves who escaped from the plantations in Jamaica into the forest

01:07:54.600 of the interior, some of them kept slaves of their own, so common was the practice.

01:08:00.060 So yes, what happened in the late 1700s was that for the first time in history, some nations,

01:08:08.280 not just Britain, also Denmark and France, came to the view that owning other people as

01:08:13.400 your property, without them having any rights, was morally abhorrent.

01:08:18.700 And for the first time in history, these nations, eventually led by Britain, abolished the slave 0.97

01:08:26.000 trade and slavery.

01:08:28.000 And then Britain used its imperial power, its power, for humanitarian purposes to abolish

01:08:35.420 slavery from Brazil across the Atlantic, across Africa, India to Malaysia.

01:08:40.340 So power can be a good thing.

01:08:42.340 And in that case, it was used for humanitarian purposes.

01:08:45.880 The iron here is, Jordan, as you suggested just before I started speaking, the iron here

01:08:52.000 is, in that case, the empire and those humanitarians who were lobbying for the imperial power to

01:09:01.060 be used to suppress slavery, they were the progressive people of their day.

01:09:07.360 Well, it also seems to me, and you're in a great position to comment on this.

01:09:12.860 So first of all, we have to accept to some degree that the willingness to use power and

01:09:20.100 compulsion and to keep slaves is relatively ubiquitous across the entire human family, let's

01:09:25.380 say.

01:09:26.120 And that opposition to that emerges with difficulty and rarely.

01:09:31.340 And then you have to ask yourself, what are the preconditions for that kind of opposition?

01:09:34.940 And it was certainly the case with Wilberforce, as far as I can tell, that he was driven by

01:09:39.960 the conviction that all men and women are made in the image of God, and that it was a violation

01:09:46.900 of a transcendent ideal, that slavery in and of itself was the violation of a transcendent

01:09:52.640 ideal.

01:09:53.600 And that is something that's deeply rooted in the Christian tradition.

01:09:59.360 And deeper than that, I mean, there's certainly the dawning of objection to the notion of slavery

01:10:03.980 and tyranny in the book of Exodus.

01:10:05.760 That's much older than Christianity. 0.52

01:10:08.060 But it's still an idea that emerged with difficulty.

01:10:11.720 And I have tried to think my way around this, right?

01:10:16.660 Because I don't like to multiply unnecessary metaphysical presumptions.

01:10:20.340 But I can't see at all that opposition to slavery would have emerged the way it did in Britain

01:10:25.420 if it wouldn't have been able to draw on a well of metaphysical and religious presupposition

01:10:32.060 that was predicated on the idea that each person has a soul, and that that soul, in some

01:10:38.500 manner, has a divine value.

01:10:42.320 Yeah.

01:10:42.840 Yeah.

01:10:43.500 So, you're quite right.

01:10:46.480 The main impulse for the abolition movement was Christian, evangelical Christian.

01:10:52.420 And so, John Wesley, in 1774, published a treatise called Upon Thoughts of Slavery.

01:10:59.260 And on the front page of the treatise is a quotation from the book of Genesis, where, is it Cain

01:11:12.440 says something like, am I my brother's keeper?

01:11:15.940 God's answer being, yes, you are.

01:11:17.680 And the implication being that all human beings, regardless of race and cultural development,

01:11:24.980 are equally children of the one God.

01:11:28.080 And that was clearly the main conviction that drove evangelical Christians, non-conformist

01:11:36.160 Christians, initially, to found... 1.00

01:11:38.520 Right, and I hadn't, I didn't know about that comment by Wesley, so that ties the story

01:11:45.020 of Cain and Abel in with the opening chapters of the earlier parts of Genesis, the original

01:11:51.700 verses of the earlier part of Genesis.

01:11:53.660 Right, so you have the proposition that human beings are made in the image of God, and you

01:11:57.600 have the later proposition in the Cain and Abel story that that means that you have a divine

01:12:02.040 obligation to act in relationship to others with that divine value in mind.

01:12:08.600 That's right.

01:12:09.880 And so, and now we're getting on to chapter three on race here, Jordan.

01:12:14.620 So, this Christian conviction of the fundamental basic equality of all human beings, regardless

01:12:19.740 of race, that persists throughout the British Empire.

01:12:27.840 There was, in the second half of the 1800s, the development of a contrary view, which you

01:12:37.360 might call scientific or biological racism, which holds that you have a hierarchy of races,

01:12:42.300 and the white races are naturally biologically superior to non-white races. 0.99

01:12:47.860 So, you have a kind of permanent, fixed racial hierarchy.

01:12:51.480 But this notion of some peoples being naturally inferior vied with the Christian notion, but

01:13:01.340 never displaced it.

01:13:02.740 So, for example, I was reading, and I caught this in my book, an account of debates in the

01:13:09.140 Parliament of Canada in the 1880s.

01:13:12.460 And it's reported by the historian that every time someone would stand up and say that the

01:13:16.980 Native Americans are naturally inferior, others would stand up and other MPs would stand up 1.00

01:13:21.800 and say, no, that's not British. 0.95

01:13:23.760 That is not Christian. 1.00

01:13:26.340 Yeah.

01:13:28.080 Yeah, well, that's an interesting, there's a lot of issues there that are of great interest.

01:13:33.560 I mean, one is that the white supremacist movement in the late 1800s was grounded in the quasi-scientific

01:13:42.660 tradition and not in the Christian tradition.

01:13:44.480 So, that's pretty interesting for those who think that science, by necessity, will offer

01:13:50.640 a morally superior view to, say, a mythologically predicated metaphysics.

01:13:55.440 The eugenicist movement was a scientific movement as well, and it was predicated on a misapprehension

01:14:02.780 of Darwinian presumptions and a misuse of the notion of survival of the fittest, fittest being

01:14:08.360 equated with, let's say, most successful and dominant right now.

01:14:12.960 And those concepts are by no means equal.

01:14:15.940 So, a scientist would object, well, they were bad scientists, and, you know, there's some

01:14:19.720 truth in that.

01:14:20.440 But it's still interesting that the dominant form of explicit racism emerged out of the

01:14:27.520 confines of the scientific community and not within the confines of the religious community.

01:14:31.400 And so, the question that you pose in Chapter 3, which we just discussed, was, was the British

01:14:39.040 Empire essentially racist?

01:14:40.500 One of the things that struck me about Wilberforce and Wesley, this was particularly true in

01:14:45.940 relationship to India, is that even though by the time they were operating and agitating

01:14:51.300 against slavery, there were extremely potent economic reasons to keep India under the thumb

01:14:59.240 of Britain, so to speak, there was still a tremendous amount of impetus on the moral side

01:15:05.500 to translate the British Empire into something like self-government for the inhabitants of

01:15:12.480 India as rapidly as possible. 0.90

01:15:13.960 And that's, of course, a radical improvement over the situation that obtained before the

01:15:18.540 British occupied India, because it wasn't like it was a equality, a paradise of equality,

01:15:25.480 of opportunity prior to the emergence of British power.

01:15:31.360 That's right.

01:15:31.960 That's right.

01:15:32.800 I mean, as I am frank in the book, yes, the British Empire did contain all sorts of racial

01:15:42.880 prejudice.

01:15:45.000 But my point is, it didn't only contain that.

01:15:47.600 It also contained, as we've just discussed, this major movement for the abolition of slavery

01:15:52.780 and later on in the 1800s, a movement of concern for the plight of native peoples who were suffering

01:15:59.520 under the sudden impact of modernity, based on a racial, racially egalitarian view.

01:16:10.000 And also, yes, sometimes you get Britons who are dismissive and contemptuous of native cultures.

01:16:18.940 But on the other hand, in India, for example, you have Britons who are fascinated by ancient

01:16:25.480 Sanskrit, Hindu culture, who, unlike Indians who are allowing the ancient monuments to disintegrate, 1.00

01:16:34.280 preserve the monuments.

01:16:36.980 And then you get this very, just in case you think that British imperialists were constantly

01:16:44.940 imposing their unwanted culture on native peoples. 1.00

01:16:49.380 You have this incident in 1829, I think, when, or 1823, maybe, when the East India Company wants

01:16:59.060 to invest in building a Hindu college devoted to ancient indigenous Sanskrit learning.

01:17:09.960 And you have a progressive Indian social reformer, Raja Ramohan Roy, who writes to the governor

01:17:18.000 general and says, look, Sanskrit learning is benighted.

01:17:23.880 What Indians need is exposure to European science, in which Europe has become preeminent. 0.81

01:17:30.040 And just think of that for a moment.

01:17:31.380 In this case, the Brits want to support indigenous learning.

01:17:36.620 And the Indian says, no, we need the new stuff, the European stuff. 1.00

01:17:40.240 So, yes, there was racism, but there was also respect for and fascination for and admiration

01:17:49.420 for native cultures.

01:17:52.760 And also...

01:17:53.300 Yeah, well, the issue, the question that you posed, was it essentially racist?

01:17:57.660 Now, if it's racist by error and by corruption, that's very different than, say, as you pointed

01:18:04.420 out, the 1619 Project, which is making the case that the essential motivation was both

01:18:09.760 racist and slave-owning, let's say, predicated on this need to dominate and oppress.

01:18:15.540 And there's a big difference between saying that things might degenerate in that direction

01:18:19.360 even frequently and saying, no, that was all it was.

01:18:23.040 That's that essential monomania, again, that we were talking about.

01:18:27.300 Yeah.

01:18:27.520 And so, see, and another, I would say, historical fact that mitigates against the essentially

01:18:33.380 racist accusation is the persistence of the Commonwealth after the empire abandons its

01:18:42.340 direct political control.

01:18:44.540 I mean, you have to ask yourself, it's not as if the Commonwealth is as tight or effective

01:18:49.300 as it might be.

01:18:50.180 But as far as a loose collection of nations on the international front goes, the Commonwealth

01:18:56.740 is pretty damn voluntary in its structure and also an aggregation of the countries that

01:19:03.340 function better on average than almost all countries in the world.

01:19:07.820 And that includes India, interestingly enough, which is a very, very complicated country and

01:19:12.140 hard to get all moving in a productive direction simultaneously.

01:19:16.320 Yeah.

01:19:17.160 Yeah.

01:19:17.640 Just going back to your earlier point about the kind of the liberal vision of an empire

01:19:23.780 that would, as it were, relax into independent states.

01:19:27.940 I mean, the British learned their lesson from the American War of Independence in the 1770s

01:19:33.020 and 80s.

01:19:34.440 And in my book, I quote three Scotsmen, all of whom ended up governing cities in India, Madras,

01:19:45.100 Calcutta, Bombay in the 1820s.

01:19:47.720 And every one of them can be found writing to each other or saying to their subordinates,

01:19:52.960 look, we aren't going to be here forever.

01:19:55.920 We British can't rule here forever.

01:19:58.120 All we can hope to do is to help build decent government, leave with grace and carry, we hope,

01:20:06.660 the goodwill of Indians.

01:20:07.960 And then from 1860 on 1867 onwards, as you as a Canadian will know, when Canada became

01:20:15.160 a dominion, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, all become increasingly independent.

01:20:20.900 By 1930 they're virtually independent states.

01:20:23.480 And India is put on the same track after the First World War.

01:20:28.600 So yes, yes, some Britons wanted to cling on to power, imperial power, too long.

01:20:36.820 But there was also a kind of liberal vision whereby the empire would relax into what was

01:20:44.100 being talked about as a commonwealth of nations as early as 1916.

01:20:50.140 Yeah, well, it's very interesting to speculate on the motives for that emergence too.

01:20:55.180 I mean, you don't want to be naive when you look at the historical record, but it seems

01:21:00.260 to me to be undeniable that, especially again, in the impulse that gave rise to people like

01:21:06.140 Wesley and Wilberforce, there was this notion of the universal dignity of mankind and the

01:21:12.040 idea that if we could all cooperate voluntarily towards the highest possible ends, that that

01:21:17.100 would be much preferable to any state of, preferable in maintenance and productivity and ethical

01:21:23.840 desirability to any state that might be imposed by force.

01:21:27.820 Yeah.

01:21:28.120 So I think there was a positive liberal conviction, plus a kind of wise political recognition that

01:21:35.020 Britain didn't have the power to impose itself.

01:21:38.400 It lost the war against the Americans in the 70s and it recognized it didn't have the power

01:21:45.000 to make colonies do exactly what it wanted.

01:21:49.180 So it had to negotiate.

01:21:50.700 Right.

01:21:52.320 Well, so the cynical view would be, well, because Britain couldn't exercise power, it settled

01:21:56.800 for the second best choice.

01:21:58.280 But that's pretty damn cynical because there are other ways of being foul and corrupt that

01:22:02.660 don't involve necessarily the use of direct power.

01:22:05.920 And it is quite interesting that India, for example, still maintains very positive relationships

01:22:10.540 with the UK.

01:22:12.780 Yeah, it does.

01:22:13.240 And I myself think that since power is a fact of life, and the other question is whether

01:22:19.460 you use it badly or well, I think those who recognize the limits of their power are wise,

01:22:25.600 and many people don't.

01:22:28.640 Chapter four, land, settlers, and conquest.

01:22:32.200 How far was the empire endeavor based on the conquest of land?

01:22:37.200 So in North America and in Australia, and to some extent in Africa, yes, there was conquest.

01:22:52.240 As an ethicist, as a theorist about just war, that doesn't settle the matter ethically because

01:23:00.680 I have to know, you know, what were the reasons for the conquest.

01:23:04.200 But my reading of what happened in North America was that the English colonists in the 1600s

01:23:12.060 were pretty brutal and pretty unscrupulous in taking lands from native peoples.

01:23:17.360 But there was a moral revolution, as we talked about, or the end of the 1700s.

01:23:24.340 And in Australia, I think certainly colonial governors and officials were, they tried very

01:23:31.240 hard to prevent settlers from seizing lands unjustly from natives.

01:23:38.380 And in the 1800s, the principle was that you don't seize territory, you negotiate and you

01:23:45.780 make treaties.

01:23:46.720 And in the 1800s, that's what happened in Canada.

01:23:50.320 So there was a, so when people talk about, you know, the British Empire as if it was one

01:23:54.860 thing, and when people say, well, it was essentially racist or essentially exploitative or essentially

01:23:59.460 about conquest, I have to say, well, no, it was all sorts of things.

01:24:03.320 And you've got, you've got, you do have the unjust seizure of territory.

01:24:10.440 But in the case of India, for example, the British never settled there in large numbers.

01:24:15.240 In 1900, when there were about 300 million Indians, there were only about 164,000 Britons.

01:24:22.780 So there wasn't, there were conquests in India, but again, one has to ask, well, was the use

01:24:30.140 of force in this case justified?

01:24:32.040 Sometimes conquests are justified.

01:24:33.760 I mean, the, the allies conquered Nazi Germany in 1945.

01:24:38.240 Most of us would say that was justified.

01:24:39.900 So conquest is not necessarily wrong.

01:24:42.240 But there's no doubt that, that some land was taken unjustly from, from natives.

01:24:49.400 But let's put this in context again.

01:24:52.120 The, the, the mass movement of people and the trespass on other people's territory had

01:24:58.260 been a fact of life throughout history.

01:25:01.040 Within the North American continent, Indian peoples were in the business of displacing other 0.99

01:25:06.840 Indian peoples.

01:25:07.640 So the, the Iroquois, I think in the 1600s expanded, they had their own, if you'd like,

01:25:14.560 they had their own empire that was expanding.

01:25:16.480 The Zulu in the 1820s of Africa, they expanded and pushed other African peoples off territory. 1.00

01:25:22.000 I'm not justifying that.

01:25:23.080 I'm not saying it was good.

01:25:24.900 I'm just, and when the Europeans did or the British did, I'm not saying it was good.

01:25:29.120 But it happened a lot because, because unlike the world we inhabit today, we, we didn't have,

01:25:34.400 they didn't have stable states with fixed boundaries.

01:25:38.020 Things were much more fluid and uncertain.

01:25:42.180 But it's not the case that the British empire was built entirely on conquest or entirely on the

01:25:47.600 unjust seizure of land.

01:25:50.060 It depends on the case.

01:25:51.500 In some cases in Canada, for example, the cession of land by native Canadians was agreed by treaty.

01:25:59.020 And partly because inadvertently, Europeans are brought disease to North America.

01:26:04.740 Native peoples had died out in droves.

01:26:07.760 And land that had been occupied was then vacant.

01:26:11.500 And it suited native Canadians to cede this land that they had no use for. 0.96

01:26:16.360 It depends on the case.

01:26:17.280 Number five is cultural assimilation and genocide.

01:26:22.900 How did the British empire involve genocide?

01:26:26.500 I mean, this is a hot issue in Canada because our own prime minister has basically defined

01:26:30.880 our country and our culture as intrinsically genocidal.

01:26:34.340 And that's an accusation that's causing no end of trouble, but nowhere near as much trouble

01:26:39.500 as it's going to cause.

01:26:40.980 And so it's a crucial issue.

01:26:42.460 And so what did you conclude on that front?

01:26:45.080 So everything depends on how we define genocide, Jordan.

01:26:50.240 I think, first of all, following what international law says about genocide, genocide has to be

01:26:59.240 intentional, right?

01:27:01.140 So if we're talking about the mass annihilation of real people, my understanding is that no

01:27:09.860 genocide occurred with the British empire, not even in Tasmania.

01:27:12.400 And I'm not alone in thinking that there are Australian historians who also think the

01:27:17.460 use of the word genocide to discuss, to describe the annihilation of, the virtual annihilation

01:27:22.980 of Tasmanian Aborigines was genocide.

01:27:25.640 That's not appropriate.

01:27:27.080 As for Canada...

01:27:28.380 Why not in Tasmania?

01:27:29.960 If that's the most crucial case, that would obviously be a reasonable place to focus.

01:27:34.300 So why is that inappropriate in the case of Tasmania?

01:27:36.820 Because it's quite clear that the colonial government sought to protect Aborigines.

01:27:44.700 There was no intention on the part of the colonial government to exterminate Aborigines.

01:27:50.340 And the evidence I've read says that even among settlers, yes, there were some who were so

01:27:56.540 hostile to natives they wanted to exterminate them.

01:27:58.640 But that was not a majority opinion.

01:28:02.060 So to describe what happened, the reason, to describe the reason the Aborigines were virtually 1.00

01:28:07.420 annihilated, not completely, as because of an intentional campaign to exterminate them

01:28:14.200 is just not true.

01:28:16.520 Many of them, of course, died because of disease and because of displacement.

01:28:21.180 But it was not an intentional campaign of extermination.

01:28:27.500 In Canada...

01:28:28.200 Predicated on explicit state policy.

01:28:30.800 No.

01:28:31.340 No, not at all.

01:28:32.320 And the state did its best to prevent the abuse of natives by settlers.

01:28:42.240 The problem was, as was often the case with colonial government, it was too weak, not too strong.

01:28:47.260 It didn't have the power, the manpower or the resources to stop what was going on on the

01:28:52.820 frontier, which was wild and lawless.

01:28:56.660 Right.

01:28:57.220 Well, we should point out, as in the case of slavery, that explaining ethnocentrism isn't

01:29:03.420 actually a problem.

01:29:04.960 The problem is explaining any resistance to ethnocentrism.

01:29:08.480 That's the miracle.

01:29:09.540 I mean, human beings have very distinct in-group propensities, and that seems to characterize us

01:29:14.760 at every level of social organization.

01:29:16.560 And so, the probability that when one group meets another, there's going to be a certain

01:29:20.820 degree of dehumanization of the other, to use the leftist tropes, that's almost certain.

01:29:27.400 But there is that countervailing position that we've been elaborating, which extends

01:29:32.080 a hand of welcome and an invitation to trade to people who aren't part of our particular

01:29:37.140 ethnic group.

01:29:37.960 And that's a non-trivial modifying force to the expression of that desire to dominate

01:29:43.980 and destroy.

01:29:45.400 Absolutely.

01:29:45.780 And just to expand a bit on that, yes, the human propensity to identify with one group

01:29:55.620 against another and to feel superior to the other, whether it's football clubs or nations

01:30:02.440 or races or churches, whatever have you, that's a universal human propensity.

01:30:07.780 We all like to do it because it makes us feel bigger and better.

01:30:10.620 But when you're thinking about what happened when Europeans encountered natives and aboriginals

01:30:20.460 in Australia or native Americans or Canadians in North America, you need to bear two things 0.93

01:30:25.820 in mind.

01:30:26.280 First of all, the cultural gap was vast.

01:30:29.900 I mean, Europe at that time was at the pinpoint of modernity in terms of technology and science

01:30:37.320 and weaponry and whatever.

01:30:39.740 And they met peoples who, in terms of cultural development, were much less developed.

01:30:45.720 And so the cultural gap was just vast.

01:30:47.960 And these people don't understand each other.

01:30:49.660 And you have weak government authority.

01:30:53.820 So there's not much to control your encounter.

01:30:57.560 And so the sense of threat was high.

01:31:02.560 And where people feel insecure, they don't understand each other, they don't have the same customs,

01:31:07.420 conflict is almost inevitable and it's uncontrolled.

01:31:11.720 And that was tragic.

01:31:12.840 So when you're thinking about this encounter between different ethnic groups, then the inclination

01:31:23.360 to be dismissive and hostile to another group is intensified because of those conditions.

01:31:30.000 Right.

01:31:30.700 Yes.

01:31:31.080 Well, and I would also say, too, we don't want to underestimate the degree to which many

01:31:35.480 of the earliest adventurers on the colonial frontier were ne'er-do-wells and psychopaths

01:31:43.800 who left their own country because no one could tolerate them.

01:31:46.400 And so there was a certain heightened percentage of the worst who left first because no one

01:31:52.620 could stand them where they came from.

01:31:54.260 And they had the opportunity to let their sadistic motivations run free on the frontier.

01:32:00.040 So when we talk about colonialism, and I try to avoid the ism because it implies, again, 0.97

01:32:05.480 something that was unitary, we're talking about imperial government in London, colonial

01:32:11.260 government in Ottawa, and missionaries and traders and adventurers.

01:32:20.880 We're talking about all sorts of different people with different attitudes.

01:32:23.900 And you're right.

01:32:24.860 The story in North America and Africa was sometimes of independent private adventurers.

01:32:31.260 And part of the reason for imposing colonial government is to try and control the encounter

01:32:37.440 between Europeans and natives in the hope that you might be able to protect natives.

01:32:44.560 Right.

01:32:45.080 Great.

01:32:45.940 Well, number seven or number six was free trade investment and exploitation.

01:32:52.540 Was it the empire driven fundamentally by the mode of economic exploitation?

01:32:56.180 I think we've covered that.

01:32:57.260 So let's move to number seven, government legitimacy and nationalism.

01:33:02.380 Chapter seven.

01:33:03.140 Since colonial government was not democratic, did that make it illegitimate?

01:33:09.840 So what I say about that, Jordan, is I think any good government has to be government for the people.

01:33:18.080 And any government that wants to serve the people's interests needs to understand what it is the people need and it needs to be able to hear from the people so that it forms policies that serve the people's interests.

01:33:34.240 So there needs to be communication between the top, the bottom and the top.

01:33:38.640 And democracy is one way of doing that.

01:33:40.940 And it's one way of holding executive government to account.

01:33:44.040 But it's not the only way.

01:33:45.820 And I just think it is quite implausible to suppose that sufficient political justice only visited the earth with the birth of the American Republic in the late 1700s, early 1800s.

01:33:59.460 So the fact that a government isn't democratic, to my mind, doesn't make it illegitimate.

01:34:07.640 And mass democracy, mass democracy was only developing in the Western world in the 1800s and in Europe, the late 1800s.

01:34:17.900 I mean, Britain didn't give the vote equally to men and women until 1928.

01:34:24.520 So if the empire wasn't democratic, it was partly because Britain was only becoming democratic.

01:34:29.520 And the last thing I'd say about that is that native people sometimes recognize that even a government that isn't democratic is good enough. 0.98

01:34:38.280 So in the 1950s and 60s, no one knows how many, but there were several million Chinese who fled the Chinese mainland because it was then in a state of civil war or anarchy.

01:34:50.560 Where did they flee?

01:34:51.560 They fled into the British colony of Hong Kong.

01:34:54.300 They did it voluntarily, not because Hong Kong was democratic, but because at least there was the rule of law and there was sufficient stability to build a decent life.

01:35:03.080 So your case essentially is, I think, is that even if there is a hierarchy of legitimate government with highly functional democratic states being at the pinnacle,

01:35:14.280 that doesn't mean there's no differentiation whatsoever between states that haven't reached that level of development for one reason or another.

01:35:22.520 And that would be well exemplified in the case of Hong Kong.

01:35:25.820 And so it's not obvious to me at all that Hong Kong was well served by being returned to the Chinese communists, for example.

01:35:32.080 I mean, I know that was a transition away from democracy, but people had been voting with their feet long before that.

01:35:40.340 On the inside of the cover of my book, I insisted there be a photograph of young Chinese student protesters in Hong Kong with a placard saying Hong Kong is British.

01:35:52.420 Just to make that point.

01:35:54.440 Right, right, right, right.

01:35:56.080 Well, so what do you think it is that lends a government legitimacy, if it can be legitimate to some degree outside of the formal structures of the kind of democracy we more or less take for granted now?

01:36:10.480 It's because it provides just government, and just government means that the genuine interests of the people are well served.

01:36:19.660 And the thing about democracy, we all know government can go bad, and liberal democracy is a way of constraining that.

01:36:28.920 It doesn't remove the possibility that even democratic government can go bad.

01:36:31.980 But sometimes, without the democratic constraints, non-democratic governments can rule justly.

01:36:41.560 And that's why...

01:36:42.520 Well, if we refer back to...

01:36:44.980 That's why people...

01:36:45.980 That's why people...

01:36:47.300 If that weren't the case, Chinese people would not have entered Hong Kong.

01:36:51.260 Right, right.

01:36:51.960 Well, we could go back to our early discussion and presume that non-democratic governments that are still predicated on the idea that there's something intrinsically valuable about each individual,

01:37:04.080 and that each individual is responsible for the safekeeping and safeguarding of other individuals,

01:37:09.880 that's not a bad step in the legitimate government direction.

01:37:14.880 Absolutely.

01:37:16.040 Just to go back to your biblical allusions earlier, Jordan,

01:37:20.220 and, of course, in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Old Testament,

01:37:24.760 a common metaphor for the king is shepherd.

01:37:28.860 So, even back there, there's a notion that a king, a good king, is a shepherd of his people.

01:37:34.160 And sometimes, sometimes it happened.

01:37:37.220 And he's also subordinate to a higher authority.

01:37:40.300 And you even saw that among the Mesopotamians.

01:37:42.600 So, this is not in the Judeo-Christian line of thinking,

01:37:46.100 but the Mesopotamians regarded their emperor if he was exercising his sovereignty properly.

01:37:53.840 He was an avatar of Marduk. 0.95

01:37:56.160 And Marduk had eyes around his head so he could see in all directions,

01:37:59.580 and he could speak truthfully and magically.

01:38:02.440 And so, the Mesopotamians had already figured out that there was a principle of legitimate sovereignty,

01:38:07.840 and it had something to do with the ability to pay attention to everything and to speak honestly.

01:38:12.480 Yeah, so this goes back to our earlier discussion, Jordan,

01:38:16.800 because, yes, a good ruler is one who recognizes that he is subject to the requirements of goodness, truth, and beauty.

01:38:25.240 And, you know, human consciences aren't always sensitive,

01:38:29.020 but sometimes a ruler's conscience is sensitive.

01:38:32.140 And that's one of the reasons why I remain a supporter of the monarchy in Britain,

01:38:38.220 because, as we saw at the coronation ceremony a few days ago,

01:38:43.300 the symbol of the head of state gets on his knees to receive authority from above, which is given to him.

01:38:51.940 And I think that's a fantastic, a really important political symbol.

01:38:56.660 Right.

01:38:56.860 Well, and it's comprehensible, too, when you put it in terms of something like an aggregation of virtues,

01:39:02.240 you say, well, even if you're not explicitly religious in the classic monotheistic sense,

01:39:09.280 you could say, well, a good ruler should be subordinate to the principles of truth and beauty and justice and courage

01:39:15.700 and the panoply of more or less universally recognized virtues,

01:39:20.060 and that those are, in some sense, rulers above him or her.

01:39:24.640 Yes. Yes.

01:39:25.820 Chapter 8, justified force and pervasive violence.

01:39:30.880 Was the empire essentially violent, and was its violence pervasively racist and terroristic?

01:39:39.020 Okay.

01:39:40.420 The first thing to say is all states depend upon the threat of the use of violence,

01:39:47.780 because states are in the business of suppressing unjust behavior,

01:39:55.020 whether within or threats from without.

01:39:58.140 And unfortunately, in the world we have, some people do abuse others,

01:40:02.080 and sometimes they have to be forced to stop, and therefore force, and sometimes violent force,

01:40:06.620 has to be used.

01:40:07.360 So let's recognize that as true of all states.

01:40:11.380 Next thing to do is to recognize that,

01:40:13.220 as I said, in the past, whether in Britain or in Britain's colonies,

01:40:21.020 governments in the 1700s and 1800s were, compared to the states we have now,

01:40:27.740 very weak, limited resources.

01:40:29.740 And when you've got a weak state, the threat of violence erupting and the whole system disintegrating is high,

01:40:40.180 and therefore, in greater insecurity, the greater use of violent force is morally permissible.

01:40:47.500 The only reason that we in Canada or the states or in the West, in Europe,

01:40:56.740 we can afford to be very restrictive in the use of force within our own territories,

01:41:03.720 the only reason we can afford that is because we're very strong states

01:41:06.240 and where we don't have a lot of violence in the streets.

01:41:09.360 But in the past, that wasn't so.

01:41:10.820 So there's that.

01:41:12.160 And then the third thing to say is,

01:41:15.680 whether violence is justified or not depends on the circumstances of the case.

01:41:19.680 And I give some instances in that chapter of imperial violence that I think was quite unjustified.

01:41:26.460 But then I say,

01:41:27.880 the British Empire was at its most violent between 1939-45,

01:41:35.580 during the Second World War,

01:41:36.980 when, as Canadians and Australians and Indians and Africans well know,

01:41:43.500 the British resistance to Nazi Germany was an imperial effort.

01:41:48.840 And between May 1940 and June 1941,

01:41:51.980 May 1940, France fell.

01:41:53.820 June 1941, the Germans unwisely invaded Russia.

01:41:57.320 In that period, the British Empire, with the sole exception of Greece,

01:42:00.460 offered the only military resistance to the massively murderous racist regime in Berlin.

01:42:06.980 So, yes, the empire was often violent.

01:42:10.640 Sometimes, and in that latter case, its violence was well justified.

01:42:16.600 Well, let's wrap up with the conclusion in the epilogue.

01:42:21.220 I mean, one of the things that I've noticed

01:42:24.440 is that this insistence that our ancestors, let's say,

01:42:30.260 were motivated by nothing but oppression and power

01:42:33.700 is and is perhaps designed to be something that's profoundly demoralizing to modern people.

01:42:42.580 And I think that's especially true of young men 0.79

01:42:45.240 because the implication is that their ambitions

01:42:49.320 are nothing but the manifestation of a sort of narrowly self-centered greed,

01:42:55.380 that they're feeding nothing but patriarchal oppression

01:42:58.960 at every level of social organization,

01:43:00.940 from marriage up to the state itself.

01:43:03.780 And that even if they manage to,

01:43:07.440 and not only are their ambitions manifestations of that patriarchal oppression,

01:43:12.940 say, it's also part of a planetary,

01:43:15.780 a destructive planetary force.

01:43:17.860 And that seems to me to be profoundly demoralizing.

01:43:21.040 If we lose respect for our ancestors, like a balanced respect,

01:43:25.540 I think we simultaneously lose respect for our institutions and for ourselves.

01:43:30.100 And I really think that's happening in a widespread manner at the moment.

01:43:33.860 And that seems to me to be nothing but bad.

01:43:36.680 And so you wrote your epilogue and your conclusion.

01:43:41.140 What did you conclude overall in terms of what you would hope for

01:43:47.780 and recommend for the future?

01:43:50.240 Yeah.

01:43:51.200 So just in the conclusion,

01:43:54.200 I craft an overall judgment about the British Empire.

01:43:58.780 And I say, you know, we end up with,

01:44:01.700 and I list them, a list of evils and a list of goods.

01:44:06.300 There's no way we can say that one outweighed the other.

01:44:08.800 You can't do it that way.

01:44:09.700 I mean, how many, you know, how many emancipated slaves are worth,

01:44:13.680 how many people killed at Emirates in 19.

01:44:15.580 You can't do it that way.

01:44:17.840 What you can do, and I seek to demonstrate that,

01:44:20.980 is to say that the empire was not essentially racist or exploitative

01:44:25.000 or given to unjustified violence.

01:44:27.980 And in addition, you've got these growing humanitarian strands

01:44:31.700 in the 1800s and the liberal political strand

01:44:35.900 whereby the empire relaxes into independent states.

01:44:38.760 And then when does the empire exhaust itself

01:44:41.700 during the Second World War fighting Nazism,

01:44:44.200 which has to say something good about what it had become.

01:44:46.180 So that's how I, that's what I conclude about the empire.

01:44:51.020 But to your question about the present relevance of all this,

01:44:55.340 and this is why I wrote the book.

01:44:56.540 It wasn't just for historical reasons at all.

01:44:59.080 It was because, you know, I noticed that in current debate

01:45:04.620 in the English-speaking world,

01:45:07.560 the focus is entirely by the post-modernist or anti-colonial critics

01:45:18.480 entirely on European British empires.

01:45:21.860 The fact that Arabs and Africans and Native Americans did empire,

01:45:27.020 the Chinese or the Japanese, doesn't matter. 0.90

01:45:29.020 It's all about the white empires. 0.96

01:45:31.480 Why is that?

01:45:33.040 And I read that as being because this is an assault on the record

01:45:39.940 and the self-confidence of the West.

01:45:42.100 Because if it's true that our countries, Canada, Britain, Australia, New Zealand,

01:45:50.360 if our countries were built on racism and exploitation,

01:45:54.660 then that surely undermines our confidence in the institutions

01:45:58.080 that we've created.

01:45:59.940 And ourselves.

01:46:01.380 And ourselves.

01:46:02.120 And it's a recipe for, as it were, year zero revolution,

01:46:06.460 which, generally speaking, doesn't serve humanity very well.

01:46:09.600 So that's why I read the book.

01:46:11.900 Okay, so I see two things driving that.

01:46:14.560 And I'd really like your comments on this.

01:46:16.820 And then maybe we could turn, finally,

01:46:19.120 to the issue of critical reviews of your book.

01:46:21.600 So the first thing I see in that enterprise

01:46:23.980 is an attempt to revivify the Marxist doctrine of oppression and victim,

01:46:31.320 is that if you can point to the West as fundamentally exploitative

01:46:36.060 and the rest of the world, say, as fundamentally victimized,

01:46:40.540 you breathe new life into the corpse of Marx

01:46:45.160 and can maintain that monomaniacal fixation on power

01:46:51.500 as the fundamental motivator of humanity.

01:46:56.160 But I see something deeper going on there, too.

01:46:58.800 You know, and this is a trickier problem.

01:47:01.580 You know, I've been writing about the story of Cain and Abel.

01:47:06.740 And Cain and Abel are, of course,

01:47:09.280 the first two real human beings in history

01:47:11.540 because Adam and Eve were made by God.

01:47:13.640 And they lock themselves in a fratricidal relationship

01:47:19.860 that degenerates into chaos as the story progresses.

01:47:23.660 And the fundamental story is envy and revenge,

01:47:28.600 the spirit of bitterness, envy, and revenge against the spirit

01:47:32.260 that prevails as a consequence of making proper sacrifices.

01:47:37.120 And I see that battle, and I'm not alone in this.

01:47:41.360 I mean, people who analyze mythological stories

01:47:43.360 have noted the trope of the hostile brothers

01:47:45.480 as a universal trope for decades.

01:47:48.540 But it is something like the spirit of envy

01:47:50.560 against the spirit of productive generosity.

01:47:52.860 And I see the Marxist enterprise itself

01:47:55.340 as a manifestation of that more fundamental resentment and envy.

01:48:00.780 And this as a continuation of an ideological or religious battle

01:48:04.720 that's been going on, essentially,

01:48:07.020 as long as there's been human beings.

01:48:09.020 It's the attempt by those who refuse to produce 0.83

01:48:12.040 and refuse to share to tear down and destroy

01:48:15.560 the accomplishments of those who have done it

01:48:17.660 to some degree, even however badly.

01:48:20.880 And so I'd like your reflections on those suppositions,

01:48:25.020 if you wouldn't mind.

01:48:26.480 Yeah.

01:48:27.640 So in the epilogue, having decided that the story

01:48:33.800 that is being put about colonialism is historically untrue

01:48:37.900 and quite unfair, I then ask myself,

01:48:41.360 well, why are people going beyond the evidence and the truth here?

01:48:46.560 So the evidence says the record was mixed.

01:48:50.440 They say it was all essentially racist, etc.

01:48:53.900 What propels these people to go beyond

01:48:58.260 what reason and evidence and the truth permit?

01:49:03.980 And I end up thinking of it maybe as you do too.

01:49:08.940 It's a kind of spiritual thing.

01:49:11.240 One speculation is we all like to big up our little lives

01:49:23.320 by making ourselves into the knights in shiny armor

01:49:33.480 and we like to put down other people.

01:49:36.640 It's a very human thing.

01:49:38.640 And so there's a bit of kind of self-aggrandizement here

01:49:42.000 where I get to be the social justice warrior

01:49:44.240 and there's the wicked evil bigger

01:49:46.960 and there's the wicked evil Peterson 1.00

01:49:48.800 and we're going to smash them. 0.99

01:49:50.860 Feels great, doesn't it? 0.97

01:49:51.860 So there's a bit of that going on, I think.

01:49:56.820 I think it's also perhaps a kind of degenerate Christianity 1.00

01:50:00.580 in that, you know, according to Christianity,

01:50:06.980 it's always right to confess our sins.

01:50:09.740 And ironically, the saint is one who knows

01:50:16.960 just how sinful he really is.

01:50:19.220 Right.

01:50:19.780 And I wonder if there's a bit of...

01:50:20.700 But he doesn't know how sinful others are.

01:50:23.040 That's the thing.

01:50:24.620 Well, it's really...

01:50:25.880 I do think it is an attempt to acquire...

01:50:28.580 And this isn't particularly original observation,

01:50:31.020 but it's an attempt to acquire unearned moral virtue.

01:50:34.900 And it's a demented messianism

01:50:37.060 and it's unearned moral virtue

01:50:39.380 because the confession is on behalf of the group

01:50:44.040 and not the individual.

01:50:45.580 It's like, here's how we were wrong

01:50:47.420 and most of those we wasn't me,

01:50:49.140 that was my ancestors.

01:50:50.340 And I'm clearly morally superior to them.

01:50:52.320 And I've done all the necessary work

01:50:54.280 of repentance and transformation.

01:50:56.160 It's like, yeah, I don't think so.

01:50:58.240 That's a lot more difficult than you might think.

01:51:00.760 And I think it's a desire to avoid that responsibility

01:51:03.680 and to adopt the guise of...

01:51:06.000 The cloak of messianism without any of the work

01:51:08.620 that's driving this in one of the most fundamental ways.

01:51:12.980 Yes, and then some of these people...

01:51:15.740 I mean, they're often white.

01:51:18.920 They're often highly privileged.

01:51:20.960 And they presume to speak on behalf

01:51:24.200 of the oppressed of the world.

01:51:26.220 And when some members of the oppressed of the world

01:51:30.860 with non-white skins stand up and say, 1.00

01:51:32.800 hmm, we don't agree with you.

01:51:34.940 I've had...

01:51:36.940 Soon after I got into trouble in 2017,

01:51:40.220 I got an email from an Indian,

01:51:45.020 ethnically Indian Briton,

01:51:46.260 whom I'd met 10 years before.

01:51:47.580 He was a medic.

01:51:49.800 And he said to me,

01:51:50.600 Nigel, I don't know if you know,

01:51:52.080 but my grandfather was among those

01:51:54.740 in the Jellian Wallabug in Amritsar in 1919,

01:51:57.540 when General Dyer opened fire for 6 to 15 minutes

01:52:01.240 and shot 350 unarmed Indians.

01:52:04.720 My grandfather was among them.

01:52:06.860 But he said,

01:52:08.080 nevertheless,

01:52:08.760 I think the British Empire contained good as well as bad.

01:52:12.080 So there was one of the oppressed

01:52:13.940 speaking to me and saying,

01:52:15.520 I'm on your side.

01:52:17.720 But my critics,

01:52:20.300 they think they stand for the oppressed.

01:52:22.740 There's an odd, ironic,

01:52:25.500 patronizing,

01:52:26.920 condescending quality

01:52:28.540 to their attitude

01:52:29.860 to those they think they represent.

01:52:32.120 One could say...

01:52:32.600 It's also a bit much for me.

01:52:35.260 It's like one of the things

01:52:36.120 I did notice among the radicals,

01:52:37.820 say,

01:52:37.980 at Ivy League institutions

01:52:39.140 in the United States

01:52:40.160 is not only did they want

01:52:42.620 all the privilege of being privileged,

01:52:44.480 which they certainly have

01:52:45.580 merely as a consequence

01:52:46.840 of being in an Ivy League institution,

01:52:48.620 but they want all the privilege

01:52:50.680 and moral glory

01:52:51.600 of being oppressed

01:52:52.500 at the same time.

01:52:54.240 And there's a kind of

01:52:55.620 grasping narcissism

01:52:58.100 in that that's really overwhelming.

01:52:59.740 It's like,

01:53:00.200 I see,

01:53:00.660 I see what you want.

01:53:01.620 You want everything

01:53:02.560 that goes along

01:53:03.400 with wealth and power

01:53:04.420 and you want to

01:53:06.280 have all the virtue,

01:53:08.360 whatever that might be,

01:53:09.340 of being associated

01:53:10.240 with the victimized

01:53:12.260 and oppressed.

01:53:13.260 That's too much.

01:53:14.000 That's a greed

01:53:17.080 that is bottomless

01:53:18.360 in its narcissistic extent.

01:53:21.060 And so,

01:53:22.100 I can't help but see

01:53:23.040 that per the discourse.

01:53:25.740 I agree.

01:53:26.660 So you end up

01:53:27.280 with some people

01:53:28.000 claiming to have

01:53:30.000 indigenous heritage

01:53:31.340 that it's discovered

01:53:33.320 they don't have at all.

01:53:34.380 Because I take it

01:53:36.100 the attraction

01:53:36.960 of identifying yourself

01:53:38.720 as a victim

01:53:39.220 is certainly political now

01:53:41.060 because it will gain you

01:53:42.780 political points

01:53:45.060 in terms of your career,

01:53:46.680 in terms of your status.

01:53:49.380 So that there are material,

01:53:50.540 you know,

01:53:50.760 one can turn

01:53:51.400 the postmodernist cynicism

01:53:53.940 back on these postmodernists

01:53:55.780 and say,

01:53:56.240 well,

01:53:56.580 actually,

01:53:56.940 what are your interests here?

01:53:58.700 Are they legitimate?

01:54:01.060 Yeah.

01:54:01.420 Yeah.

01:54:02.480 So now,

01:54:03.540 here you are.

01:54:04.660 You're not being mobbed

01:54:05.740 horribly as we speak.

01:54:07.580 You published this contentious book

01:54:09.700 a few weeks ago.

01:54:10.620 Has the mob come for you

01:54:13.760 in any profound

01:54:15.420 and unsettling way?

01:54:16.860 And that's the first question.

01:54:18.580 And the second question is,

01:54:19.920 how has your book

01:54:21.500 been received critically?

01:54:24.140 Okay.

01:54:24.740 Let's take those two questions

01:54:26.420 in turn.

01:54:27.320 So,

01:54:27.940 has the mob come for me?

01:54:31.400 Yes.

01:54:31.880 insofar as

01:54:34.700 some of the reviews

01:54:36.640 I've received

01:54:38.240 have been

01:54:38.820 extremely hostile.

01:54:41.000 And,

01:54:41.400 you know,

01:54:41.780 I confess I

01:54:42.420 took a while

01:54:43.540 to read them

01:54:44.160 because it was always,

01:54:45.480 it's a bit emotionally taxing

01:54:47.260 to read what some people

01:54:48.180 say.

01:54:50.900 Particularly since

01:54:51.760 it's almost invariably

01:54:53.820 unfair

01:54:54.440 and

01:54:55.000 distorted.

01:54:56.240 so there have been

01:54:59.340 some very hostile reviews.

01:55:00.960 One of them

01:55:01.860 runs to

01:55:04.540 a 15,000 word

01:55:06.260 diatribe

01:55:07.960 that

01:55:08.280 the Journal of Imperial

01:55:09.760 and Commonwealth History

01:55:10.620 will publish.

01:55:11.580 Glad to say that

01:55:12.420 I was invited

01:55:13.340 to write a response

01:55:14.240 and after

01:55:14.960 girding my lines

01:55:16.260 and mustering my courage

01:55:17.400 I read through this

01:55:18.660 stuff

01:55:19.600 and I've written

01:55:20.480 a 14,500 word

01:55:22.140 response

01:55:22.720 and

01:55:23.180 with the exception

01:55:25.100 of three minor points

01:55:26.240 I don't think

01:55:27.260 it scores.

01:55:28.620 So,

01:55:29.360 in this case

01:55:30.480 and in all the others

01:55:32.220 once I've worked

01:55:33.960 my way through

01:55:34.720 the hostile responses

01:55:35.840 I emerge

01:55:36.620 feeling stronger.

01:55:38.500 Right, right.

01:55:39.620 That's a good

01:55:40.340 doctrine for life

01:55:41.340 actually

01:55:41.780 if you're trying

01:55:42.440 to live a straight life

01:55:43.520 is that if you do

01:55:44.340 confront those accusations

01:55:45.720 which is very unsettling

01:55:47.940 and requires

01:55:48.880 a lot of soul searching

01:55:49.980 to the degree

01:55:51.520 that they're unjust

01:55:52.420 and mere accusation

01:55:53.780 then

01:55:54.240 you can

01:55:55.760 what would you say

01:55:57.280 you can fortify yourself

01:55:58.840 in your convictions?

01:56:00.820 Yeah, I mean

01:56:01.460 to be

01:56:02.980 quite honest

01:56:03.820 I mean

01:56:03.960 I have learnt

01:56:04.660 some things

01:56:05.180 if I were to

01:56:06.940 write the book again

01:56:07.600 I would change

01:56:08.620 some things

01:56:09.080 but not big things

01:56:10.140 and

01:56:11.760 I mean I do

01:56:13.020 you know

01:56:14.460 I am open

01:56:15.240 to the possibility

01:56:15.860 that I'm completely 0.99

01:56:16.600 daft 0.99

01:56:17.080 and that I'm making 1.00

01:56:18.340 a huge fool 0.96

01:56:18.820 of myself 1.00

01:56:19.360 but as

01:56:21.480 my consistent

01:56:22.380 experience

01:56:23.020 over the last

01:56:23.900 five, six years

01:56:26.200 since December 2017

01:56:27.620 is

01:56:28.220 once I

01:56:29.360 face the opposition

01:56:30.520 and look at it

01:56:31.300 and scrutinise it

01:56:32.260 I actually think

01:56:33.980 no I'm right

01:56:34.560 as for the reception

01:56:36.360 of the book

01:56:36.820 generally

01:56:37.820 tremendous

01:56:38.900 it was published

01:56:41.560 in the UK

01:56:42.080 in 2nd of February

01:56:43.820 it went into

01:56:45.920 the Sunday Times

01:56:47.560 newspaper

01:56:48.300 non-fiction

01:56:49.620 top ten

01:56:51.060 bestseller list

01:56:51.720 for two weeks

01:56:52.380 I was told

01:56:55.220 a week or so ago

01:56:57.260 that in the first

01:56:58.360 three months

01:56:58.760 of its publication

01:56:59.400 here

01:56:59.760 it had sold

01:57:00.280 just under

01:57:00.900 24,000 hardback copies

01:57:03.100 and it was

01:57:04.680 published in

01:57:05.640 Canada

01:57:06.280 and the US

01:57:06.720 only last week

01:57:07.600 so we've yet to see

01:57:08.840 what it does

01:57:09.460 there

01:57:10.160 so

01:57:10.600 the good news

01:57:12.340 Jordan

01:57:12.680 is from my

01:57:13.500 point of view

01:57:14.080 in spite of

01:57:16.160 my critics

01:57:17.100 and in spite of

01:57:18.160 attempts to

01:57:19.380 cancel the book

01:57:20.620 that my original

01:57:21.220 publisher made

01:57:22.120 there is evidently

01:57:24.580 a large

01:57:26.640 public appetite

01:57:27.840 for a reasonable

01:57:30.100 even-handed

01:57:31.040 thoughtful

01:57:31.860 consideration

01:57:32.880 of this

01:57:33.560 contentious

01:57:34.180 issue

01:57:34.860 well that's

01:57:37.220 that's heartening

01:57:38.500 I would say

01:57:39.200 that there is

01:57:40.780 an audience

01:57:41.220 for it

01:57:41.880 and that the

01:57:42.480 audience is large

01:57:43.500 and that this

01:57:44.200 discussion can

01:57:45.040 proceed

01:57:45.420 and that you

01:57:46.040 can manage it

01:57:46.880 and still

01:57:47.600 well

01:57:48.680 and still have

01:57:50.080 your life

01:57:50.620 you know

01:57:51.040 you can say

01:57:51.600 these things

01:57:52.140 well that's

01:57:52.700 it's very

01:57:53.240 it is very

01:57:54.260 heartening

01:57:54.740 you know

01:57:55.000 that that's

01:57:55.440 still a possibility

01:57:56.340 a real possibility

01:57:57.460 to have it published

01:57:58.940 and to have it

01:57:59.480 widely appreciated

01:58:00.320 and at least

01:58:01.400 or widely

01:58:01.980 criticized for that

01:58:02.920 matter

01:58:03.160 at least available

01:58:04.060 and so

01:58:05.140 now are you

01:58:06.120 still teaching

01:58:07.020 are you still

01:58:07.720 teaching full-time

01:58:08.460 at Oxford

01:58:08.900 what's

01:58:09.540 no no I

01:58:10.360 I'm 67

01:58:13.040 years old

01:58:13.860 excuse me

01:58:14.480 I'm 68

01:58:14.800 now but I

01:58:15.360 retired at 67

01:58:16.540 which was

01:58:17.140 one year earlier

01:58:18.240 than I have to

01:58:18.920 because in Oxford

01:58:19.620 we still have a

01:58:20.180 mandatory retirement

01:58:20.860 age

01:58:21.240 but I chose

01:58:23.400 I'd always

01:58:25.000 planned to

01:58:25.820 retire

01:58:26.320 at 67

01:58:27.740 so I

01:58:29.200 I'm

01:58:29.720 yes I

01:58:30.980 finished being

01:58:31.780 a full-time

01:58:32.680 professor in

01:58:33.520 end of September

01:58:35.260 last year

01:58:37.020 but I

01:58:37.560 I did that

01:58:38.240 not because I

01:58:39.480 planned to

01:58:40.160 to

01:58:40.500 sit on the

01:58:42.600 beach and

01:58:43.040 drink cocktails

01:58:43.980 all day

01:58:44.500 because there are

01:58:45.640 things I want to

01:58:46.240 do like this

01:58:47.040 like writing

01:58:48.280 for the press

01:58:48.860 and so I

01:58:50.840 wanted to be

01:58:51.480 free to focus

01:58:52.140 on what I

01:58:52.500 really want to

01:58:52.880 do

01:58:53.140 and I'm

01:58:54.220 doing it

01:58:54.680 and so

01:58:55.100 and so

01:58:55.540 what's your

01:58:55.920 next project

01:58:56.680 right now

01:58:59.640 I just finished

01:59:01.160 two books

01:59:01.560 back to back

01:59:02.340 I did

01:59:02.600 did a book

01:59:03.200 on what's

01:59:03.520 wrong with

01:59:03.800 rights

01:59:04.140 in 2020

01:59:04.940 and then

01:59:05.320 this book

01:59:05.640 came out

01:59:06.080 and I'm

01:59:06.660 going to

01:59:06.780 be busy

01:59:07.220 I think

01:59:08.440 doing this

01:59:09.720 kind of

01:59:10.160 thing

01:59:10.440 having these

01:59:10.860 kind of

01:59:11.100 conversations

01:59:11.620 on colonialism

01:59:13.160 I think

01:59:13.720 through to

01:59:14.560 the autumn

01:59:14.880 of this

01:59:15.240 year

01:59:15.560 I'm not

01:59:18.240 set upon

01:59:20.700 writing another

01:59:21.120 book at this

01:59:21.540 point I may

01:59:22.180 write something

01:59:23.480 on what I've

01:59:24.820 experienced in

01:59:25.560 the last five

01:59:26.060 years in terms

01:59:26.860 of free

01:59:27.820 speech and

01:59:28.360 the way in

01:59:29.080 which communities

01:59:30.400 react to

01:59:32.100 people like

01:59:33.220 me

01:59:33.600 reflect on

01:59:34.900 on the

01:59:35.340 silence of

01:59:35.900 colleagues

01:59:36.360 and the

01:59:38.700 way in which

01:59:39.000 institutions

01:59:39.440 behave

01:59:39.800 something along

01:59:40.720 those lines

01:59:41.260 I haven't

01:59:41.740 decided yet

01:59:42.300 all right

01:59:44.800 everyone

01:59:45.240 well we

01:59:46.140 have been

01:59:46.900 talking today

01:59:47.740 with professor

01:59:49.020 Nigel Bigger

01:59:49.840 professor of

01:59:51.060 Christian ethics

01:59:51.880 about his new

01:59:53.540 book colonialism a

01:59:54.720 moral reckoning

01:59:55.340 which hit the

01:59:56.280 bestseller list in

01:59:57.160 the UK and is

01:59:57.900 now widely

01:59:58.640 available in

01:59:59.820 other what in

02:00:02.060 other English

02:00:02.520 speaking markets

02:00:03.360 and I presume

02:00:04.220 will be translated

02:00:05.040 quite widely as

02:00:06.320 the months

02:00:06.980 progress

02:00:07.500 thank you

02:00:09.340 everyone who's

02:00:10.860 watching and

02:00:11.360 listening for

02:00:12.000 attending to this

02:00:12.960 dialogue and to

02:00:14.320 the Daily Wire

02:00:14.820 plus people for

02:00:15.900 facilitating the

02:00:17.360 conversation and

02:00:18.380 adding their

02:00:20.000 level of technical

02:00:20.980 expertise to the

02:00:22.460 film crew here I'm

02:00:23.400 in Cyprus today to

02:00:24.380 the film crew here in

02:00:25.220 Cyprus thank you very

02:00:26.100 much for making this

02:00:26.940 happen Dr. Bigger it

02:00:28.660 was good to talk to

02:00:29.400 you again and good

02:00:31.260 luck with the

02:00:32.900 continued pursuit of

02:00:33.940 your endeavours and

02:00:34.880 congratulations on the

02:00:36.660 publication and

02:00:37.380 success of the book and

02:00:38.420 no doubt we'll be in

02:00:40.180 further contact at least

02:00:41.280 I hope so and it was

02:00:42.620 very good talking with

02:00:43.460 you today

02:00:43.900 yeah it's been great

02:00:45.620 talking to you Jordan

02:00:47.080 and thanks for the

02:00:47.600 opportunity

02:00:48.020 and now as you know if

02:00:50.360 you're listening I'm

02:00:51.020 going to talk to Dr.

02:00:52.540 Bigger Professor Bigger

02:00:53.640 for another half an hour on

02:00:54.680 the Daily Wire plus

02:00:55.420 platform and we'll

02:00:56.800 discuss some of the

02:00:57.800 elements of his

02:00:58.700 career and his

02:01:00.220 biography and so if

02:01:01.660 you're interested in

02:01:02.940 that and I think you

02:01:04.100 probably should be if

02:01:05.280 you found this

02:01:05.760 conversation useful

02:01:07.220 consider heading over to

02:01:08.760 the Daily Wire plus

02:01:09.520 platform and picking up

02:01:10.680 that additional

02:01:11.700 discussion see you all

02:01:13.880 later

02:01:14.180 hello everyone I would

02:01:18.480 encourage you to

02:01:19.120 continue listening to my

02:01:20.580 conversation with my

02:01:21.700 guest on dailywireplus.com

02:01:24.740 Pennsylvania's future

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02:01:27.860 and here's a fact that

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The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - May 22, 2023

359. Separating Good from Evil in the British Empire ｜ Dr. Nigel Biggar

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