TRIGGERnometry - Claire Fox on Generation Snowflake, Free Speech and Debate

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00:00:30.000 hello and welcome to trigonometry i'm francis foster i'm constantin kissin and this is the

00:00:44.560 show for you if you're bored of people arguing on the internet over subjects they know nothing about

00:00:50.320 at trigonometry we don't pretend to be the experts we ask the experts our amazing expert

00:00:56.160 guest this week is a director and founder of the Institute of Ideas. Claire Fox, welcome to

00:01:01.460 Chickenometry. Good to be here. Well, thank you very much for coming on. The first question we

00:01:05.680 always like to ask our guest is, how did you get to where you are? What's been your story and your

00:01:09.820 journey? Actually, for many years I was a teacher and I worked in further education and I was

00:01:18.340 passionate about aspects of education that I thought were neglected and became interested

00:01:24.860 in creating discussion and debate i was also involved in politics i took a year out from

00:01:31.140 teaching to relaunch what was living marxism and relaunch it as lm magazine and we weren't

00:01:38.920 pretending it had no relationship to living marxism which is what i had lm but it also was

00:01:44.100 um a different magazine and as much as the uh living marxism was set up by the revolutionary

00:01:49.540 communist party revolutionary communist party closed down and there was this magazine that i

00:01:54.520 thought was great had a readership and so I took the year out to relaunch it

00:01:59.260 with a colleague Helena Goldberg we did that you couldn't affairs magazine

00:02:04.200 recognizing that we were going to go across left and right free speech

00:02:08.620 magazine brilliant we got sued for libel in the first issue my big break into and

00:02:16.120 we got super libel and we decided that as we were a free speech magazine we

00:02:20.020 weren't going to shred the copies or tear it up or apologize because we hadn't done anything wrong

00:02:26.600 and so we then spent the next three years fighting a libel case um but bringing the magazine out and

00:02:32.740 during that time it got a following and a subscription base and it built and it became

00:02:37.700 very well known and one of the things that we did was we launched a summer of events called

00:02:42.140 the institute of ideas um and that was after we lost the libel case but we kind of did this summer

00:02:48.140 of events anyway it was a sellout and then we thought oh and then people came and said you

00:02:53.920 should do these debates you know it's really important to have discussions and why you know

00:02:58.080 discuss things on panels with people who aren't just the obvious suspects and attract particularly

00:03:03.860 young people to come along and debate create a new public square so that was it we carried on

00:03:09.320 by accident and that that's kind of how i got where i am now that's brilliant that's what we

00:03:14.100 tried to do on here as well is to have conversations with interesting people just as we were talking

00:03:18.120 before we started. You mentioned there were certain areas of education that you felt were

00:03:22.120 not being properly catered to. What particular were you? Well, what I meant by that was I was,

00:03:28.840 this is kind of a trigger warning that old fogey comments coming out now.

00:03:34.560 I felt that the young people I were teaching were increasingly not aware, not widely read.

00:03:42.720 I taught in a further education college. I wasn't expecting them to have kind of

00:03:46.480 of had access to the canon, but I did think that there was a closing down and a narrowing down of

00:03:52.900 what they knew, even in terms of cultural references. An example that I use quite often

00:03:57.820 because it really struck me at the time was, you know, I taught English and I'd be saying,

00:04:02.480 right, so there's an apple in this poem, what might that symbolise? Anybody like look at me?

00:04:08.380 I go, an apple, you know, like an apple. And then I realised that they didn't have any clue about

00:04:14.120 apples and garden of eden and you know any of these kind of like potential so i almost like

00:04:19.300 and then you sort of say this reminds me you know this is like the 18th century what is that

00:04:23.880 you know 19th century 20th anything right lovely was so i i was frustrated by that and also just

00:04:31.640 politically i felt that they were being ill-served in terms of getting a very insipid version of kind

00:04:39.180 of uh left-wing politics which i was involved in left-wing politics but a kind of knee-jerk

00:04:43.760 one-dimensional

00:04:45.480 kind of version of

00:04:47.360 left-wing politics

00:04:50.580 so I was frustrated at that

00:04:51.820 and so

00:04:53.840 I just thought we just need to have more debate

00:04:56.500 and discussion, these young people

00:04:58.300 deserve to have a kind of

00:05:00.160 political culture that's rich

00:05:02.080 and open at the very time when

00:05:04.200 it wasn't rich and open

00:05:05.160 and it was at the start actually of

00:05:07.580 you know, it's kind of Blair was coming

00:05:09.420 so it was kind of spin doctors

00:05:11.580 everything, you know, technocrat

00:05:13.400 technocratic politics no ideals uh just at the time when universities were beginning to kind of

00:05:19.960 deploy some of the post-modern uh tropes and the kind of closing down of debate so i was arrogant

00:05:27.060 i can't have this and i wanted to have a decent magazine that people could read that would be a

00:05:33.020 bit different and open-minded and bring into it people who you wouldn't normally see so the first

00:05:39.040 dish you had you know roger scruton alongside some well-known left-wing commentators you know

00:05:43.480 what i mean like interesting people say interesting things that was what we did well that sounds great

00:05:48.260 and i your wikipedia page which i'm sure is the best source of information the most accurate

00:05:52.860 information about you says that you're libertarian is that accurate i think that that late i think

00:05:59.480 that what has happened subsequent over the last 20 years i don't mean to me but to everyone is

00:06:05.220 that nobody knows how to label anyone anymore you know i'm i came from a marxist background and

00:06:11.860 i believe in freedom this apparently is not allowed

00:06:16.860 apparently you don't teach that but in first year politics degrees i mean everybody goes

00:06:23.420 you can't be a marxist you know and i also am aware of the fact that you know marxism was a

00:06:28.720 very important philosophical outlook for me i don't disavow it but i'm no longer involved in

00:06:34.020 an active Marxist organization or anything I consider myself to be on the left but increasingly

00:06:38.940 God knows what that means and so I think that what's happened over the years is that people

00:06:43.520 the one consistent thing that people can work out about me is that I've consistently argued for free

00:06:49.340 speech I've consistently argued for free thinking they think that libertarian is the appropriate tag

00:06:56.880 then they go but you don't appear to be into the free markets you know so that's people get

00:07:01.820 confused anyway i can't be bothered to argue so i simply say i don't see libertarian as an insult

00:07:07.440 it's just that i wouldn't have chosen that tag myself particularly because to me being libertarian

00:07:13.000 and being sort of associating yourself with marxism they seem kind of polar opposites in

00:07:17.120 certain instances well they have become that i think i mean in america libertarianism or kind

00:07:23.240 of free thinking and the left is not such an alien concept but in the uk it has become that

00:07:29.100 And that's all I'm saying is I don't even know what libertarian is.

00:07:32.200 I mean, if it's meant you believe in freedom, no ifs, no buts, then I'm not arguing.

00:07:38.480 In terms of where these strictly where these political labels come from, probably I don't quite fit into either of that.

00:07:45.260 So I kind of let it ride.

00:07:47.820 And as I said, I don't bother arguing with Wikipedia, which is not.

00:07:52.020 Well, there's no point arguing with that.

00:07:53.500 So let's come back to the kids, to education, because one of the things I've listened to, a few things that you were talking about, snowflakes and the snowflake culture and everybody being hypersensitive, everybody feeling like a victim.

00:08:06.540 You wrote, I find that offensive.

00:08:08.720 Tell us a little bit about what's going on in universities and schools and why are people now, are they first of all becoming more sensitive and if so, why?

00:08:17.660 Yes, one thing that Wikipedia does say is if you look up Generation Snowflake, it says Claire Fox is responsible for introducing this term into the UK.

00:08:29.040 And that was entirely fictitious, but I sort of know what they mean.

00:08:32.960 Because in I Find That Offensive, which is a short book on free speech, I talked about a phrase that was emerging in American universities of Generation Snowflake.

00:08:43.580 and I decided that I would write the book about and to Generation Snowflake

00:08:48.800 and so that's kind of how I suppose it became associated with the term

00:08:52.840 but I'm aware of the fact that it's an incredibly insulting caricatured term

00:08:57.500 and in fact I don't use it in that kind of, you know, you Generation Snowflake, you're all hopeless.

00:09:03.920 What I was interested in, excuse me, what I was interested in was

00:09:08.220 why young people and i had observed this myself because i hear a lot of talks in schools and

00:09:13.960 universities and so on seem to be increasingly thin-skinned and easily offended and rather than

00:09:19.660 arguing back which is entirely appropriate now i go and speak you expect them to argue back

00:09:23.800 people say you can't say that then getting upset i find that offensive you can't say that and

00:09:29.820 it was kind of like i thought i can't i'm sort of developing a reputation of going in and talking

00:09:34.960 to a 17 year old

00:09:35.920 and I was kind of

00:09:36.780 ending up in tears

00:09:37.620 I mean this is kind of

00:09:38.380 peculiar

00:09:39.540 sounds like my teaching career

00:09:41.020 it was a kind of

00:09:42.740 peculiar shift

00:09:44.300 in a way

00:09:44.720 they weren't kind of

00:09:45.320 bolshy or argumentative

00:09:46.700 or even kind of

00:09:47.980 silently

00:09:48.580 suddenly

00:09:49.220 glowering at me

00:09:50.600 they were getting upset

00:09:51.940 and they

00:09:52.980 it was almost as though

00:09:53.840 they couldn't believe

00:09:54.720 that anyone would say

00:09:55.400 certain things

00:09:56.160 and so

00:09:56.760 I

00:09:57.980 and I was aware

00:10:00.020 of the shifts

00:10:00.760 in university culture

00:10:01.760 which is in fact

00:10:02.840 sadly

00:10:03.860 intensifying which is at university which after all almost 50 percent of the cohort go to university

00:10:10.980 so we're not talking now about a small group of this generation that there was an increasing

00:10:15.680 tendency to argue for the protection of students from dangerous ideas and the whole emergence of

00:10:22.780 safe space culture in particular preoccupied me it wasn't so much no platforming no platforming

00:10:29.080 was around when I was at university a million years ago and although it's now broadened

00:10:34.060 who is no platformed and there's well known examples of you know one feminist group banning 1.00

00:10:41.340 another feminist you know all these kind of examples the real issue that fascinated me 1.00

00:10:46.760 was safe spaces and trigger warnings the idea that you would go leave home go on this exciting

00:10:54.220 intellectual journey to university and immediately demand demand of the authorities that they make

00:10:59.260 you feel safe seemed extraordinary to me i mean this is a period at which the one thing you don't

00:11:05.340 want historically if you're young is to be looked after and feel safe that's the aspiration of

00:11:11.980 you know old age pension you want to these days these days the old age pensioners are all going 1.00

00:11:16.540 off you know trips around the world and experimenting but you want them to bust out of

00:11:21.740 of this right there there is a generation that demands that they feel safe and comfortable

00:11:27.180 and don't have their ideas disturbed i was anxious that this was a problem and but no that's really

00:11:34.720 really interesting what you say there where do you think that comes from this idea that i don't

00:11:39.200 want to have my views challenged i want to feel safe is it because we molly molly collar them too

00:11:43.840 much as kids because you know because of the right-wing tabloid press you know pedophiles

00:11:47.900 and all the rest of it is it the fact that you know that children now they're getting ferried

00:11:53.160 to and from school is it the fact that now we we indulge them you know that you know you can

00:11:57.860 fulfill your dreams everybody's special even though we're not there's a billion of us no one's

00:12:01.800 going to miss us if we die yeah all of that so and in a way that's why i wrote the book or what

00:12:07.880 the book's about because because actually i didn't want to try and write a book about free speech

00:12:12.880 in as much as there's been some fantastically brilliant books recently about free speech and

00:12:16.860 I felt I had nothing to contribute. I wanted to try and understand what had created Generation

00:12:22.420 Snowflake. And so I said, by the time they get to go to university or leave home, they're already

00:12:27.840 preloaded with anxieties. And one of the things that I talk about is a kind of safety first

00:12:33.180 culture in which we've socialised the kids, basically, as parents, as teachers, particularly

00:12:39.160 social policy and education policy. As you say, you know, we scaremonger everything, right? I mean,

00:12:43.640 you know, eating too much sugar is like the greatest catastrophe that's going to kill all

00:12:49.620 the children. There's an obesity time bomb. It's called crack cocaine of childhood in the House

00:12:54.760 of Commons. That's like having a bar of chocolate, right? Or having a fizzy drink. There isn't anything

00:12:59.840 that we say to young people is kind of like, it's all right, you'll cope. You know, we basically

00:13:04.540 scaremonger all the time. Catastrophize is the word that I use, a terrible word. But anyway,

00:13:09.480 And so, in a way, we've kind of introduced young people from a very early age

00:13:14.320 into telling them that the world is the scariest place in the world.

00:13:18.360 Now, the role of adults, historically, was, you know, you get a kid, right?

00:13:22.400 When you're a kid, you know, when I was a young child, I was scared of the dark.

00:13:27.740 And I always thought that the jacket behind the door was a monster.

00:13:31.240 And, you know, the dressing gown or whatever, right?

00:13:33.740 And obviously, the role of the adult is to come in and say, no, it's all right, it's not.

00:13:37.480 Like, no, you'll stop having a vivid imagination

00:13:41.180 and to reassure you.

00:13:42.240 Now, if you say, I think there's a monster

00:13:43.640 hiding behind the door,

00:13:45.160 they'll be phoning child protection, right?

00:13:47.080 Saying, oh my God, there probably is.

00:13:48.740 Oh my God.

00:13:49.400 You know, so the adults don't reassure the young.

00:13:52.600 They make it worse.

00:13:54.620 And your paedophiles, right?

00:13:55.700 I don't know that that's the right-wing tabloid press 0.82

00:13:58.080 can be entirely just blamed for that.

00:14:00.180 I mean, we have become obsessed with child abuse,

00:14:02.860 children being at risk.

00:14:04.020 And so all sorts of well-known things have emerged from this, like children not playing outside anymore, over-molycoddled, over-terrified of every kind of stranger danger that you can possibly have, and then told even that if they stay at home and kind of stick in their bedroom, they're going to be groomed by sex gangs online, and, you know, everything is a sort of threat.

00:14:26.620 So I think that that has created an over-anxiety amongst young people.

00:14:30.620 I mean, that's the kind of culture in which they are growing up.

00:14:33.840 At the same time, unprepared to deal with the rough and tumble of everyday life

00:14:39.080 because they also then don't have an opportunity to experiment, take risks, make mistakes.

00:14:45.220 So they are kind of infantilised much later and mollycoddled in the way that you say.

00:14:51.260 And then there's a whole other story about the self-esteem movement in the way that you said people aren't special.

00:14:56.160 And so you get a combination of kind of thin-skinned, over-scared youth

00:14:59.840 who also think they're very special, the most important person in the world.

00:15:03.480 And there's nothing more toxic than that mix, I think.

00:15:07.180 So obviously not every single young person is like that.

00:15:10.860 We'll cut that bit out.

00:15:12.620 That is the climate in which they are socialising.

00:15:15.020 It is a generational trend, though.

00:15:16.660 I mean, you know, I insist on that because obviously I still talk to lots of young people.

00:15:21.760 And it's, you know, you can kind of get this like, well, I'm not like that.

00:15:24.880 but that's you know you have to be able to discuss generational trends the model that we have of

00:15:31.040 young people is is that that they need to be protected they're vulnerable they're at risk of

00:15:35.980 mental illness there's anxiety rampaging through this generation we're told that they've never

00:15:41.540 suffered so much as any previous young generation that makes me laugh i mean that's the idea well 1.00

00:15:46.900 you know what as you were talking there i was actually thinking it makes sense that they would

00:15:51.480 be the most anxious generation in history because if you've been coddled in the way that you've

00:15:55.260 described all your life you you feel utterly unprepared for the real world and you know at

00:16:00.740 some level that the real world is full of challenges and adventures and dangers and

00:16:04.980 you know that you're not prepared anxiety is exactly the right response to that situation

00:16:10.120 so that's what happens is it it goes it becomes a fait accompli you know it becomes a kind of

00:16:15.480 so in that sense it's not made up it's not a contrived thing there might be

00:16:19.840 opportunistic student union officers who kind of use these tropes to close down debate in a kind

00:16:26.240 of very opportunistic get in the papers you know we're not having this person but most people

00:16:30.320 actually are scared of words and scared of these things but i think the reason i'm saying this is

00:16:34.640 that you know in response to some of the educational pressures that young people face

00:16:40.160 at constant diet of exams there are problems in schools i appreciate that um but but but the

00:16:45.680 The adult community, the teaching unions, lots of teachers, their parents sort of say,

00:16:51.100 you are making our children mentally ill because they've got the stress of exams coming up.

00:16:55.240 And you think, no, it's called exam stress. You're meant to be stressed for an exam.

00:16:59.360 I mean, it's not like everything is talked up and then people accumulate both the language

00:17:05.520 and the lack of resilience. That means that it does become a real problem. You then go

00:17:09.040 to university and somebody says, no, you actually have to read some books. And at the end of

00:17:12.440 It's like, you know, you can't take the books into the exam with you at the end.

00:17:15.680 And they can't cope, right?

00:17:16.960 They just can't cope in a way.

00:17:18.620 And, you know, it's actually, it can be stressful leaving home

00:17:22.480 because you don't know anyone, you have to, you know,

00:17:24.380 but this is called growing up.

00:17:26.160 It's exciting.

00:17:26.820 You can look at it as an exciting adventure or a scary moment

00:17:30.680 and more and more see it in the scary moment phase.

00:17:34.300 But the point about this sort of, the way that these things are posed

00:17:39.020 this if you think about some of the generational debates that we have at the moment people say

00:17:44.160 you know young people being betrayed by baby boomers they're facing unprecedented pressures

00:17:48.720 you know unprecedented Britain in 2018 unprecedented pressure no young people have ever suffered the

00:17:55.520 way these young people suffer right and when I say what how so well you know you can't buy a house 1.00

00:18:01.460 before you're 24 well that is not a great hardship right it might not be great I mean I didn't buy

00:18:08.160 my first house until I was 40 and I thought it was a great privilege to be able to right I mean

00:18:12.740 first of all there's a little class question there as an aside but also unprecedented pressures you

00:18:18.460 know like cyber bullying you know never mind kids going up chimneys or down mines or having to leave

00:18:25.480 school at 14 or being recruited into the army all of this right no cyber bullying you know and how

00:18:32.680 can they possibly cope because they judge themselves on how many likes they get and the

00:18:37.460 pressures of instagram and this is driving them i i don't mean these aren't new pressures and

00:18:42.840 interesting but this is not an on you know the idea that they're suffering more than any other

00:18:46.520 generation seems unlikely to me yeah it is because i still work in a school a couple of days a week

00:18:53.700 and i mean we infantilize children and of course it sounds like an oxymoron but we really do i mean

00:18:59.900 i remember one teacher came up to me was like oh look what my like seven year olds created and he

00:19:05.780 showed me a picture of a macaroni picture and I was just like look seven-year-olds made my trainers

00:19:11.120 do you see what I mean we just think that they can't do these things and children are far more

00:19:18.280 capable and resilient than you give them credit for so we're dragging that away from them yes

00:19:23.960 we're robbing them so my book in a way was saying without letting the kids off the hook my book was

00:19:31.300 saying it's awful do you see what i mean so what i was trying to say was we have created you know

00:19:36.100 we've created their own frankenstein monster then when they take it to the logical degree and go to

00:19:40.760 university and start banning us from going in we're all like oh my god that's outrageous what's

00:19:44.860 wrong with them and then we lampoon them as being these thin skin but actually it's the culture 0.96

00:19:50.140 that they've come through exactly in the way that you said and i mean i mean you see it so often like

00:19:56.160 that i taught a girl a few a few weeks ago and she broke her foot and of course you know it's

00:20:00.740 a bit upsetting for her she's only 10 years old she broke her foot her parents wheeled her in in

00:20:04.880 a wheelchair i mean what could what was wrong with just giving her a couple of crutches and look i'm 1.00

00:20:11.060 sorry you broke your foot that's a bit upsetting but you know what this is like you're just gonna

00:20:15.120 have to get on with it instead of wheeling her around in a wheelchair it just seems excessive

00:20:20.620 like you know the kids come oh mr foster look i've got a little cut on my finger great get on

00:20:25.060 with it we seem to have forgotten hardcore yeah we seem to have forgotten that and actually a lot

00:20:30.660 of the times in life you just need to suck it up and get on with it but if your child goes to

00:20:35.360 francis school you know what's happening in there by the way i just for anyone watching i would like

00:20:40.060 to say francis was not defending child labor there he wasn't making a case for it um but i think that

00:20:45.240 although it is profitable yeah yeah the thing no but you do make a good point about about you know

00:20:51.300 what we expect because i think that one of the examples i give is you know where do young people

00:20:56.100 by 18 how have they developed this notion that words are the same as violence you know why would

00:21:02.220 word why would they think that right and then you look at the growth of the anti-bullying movement

00:21:07.180 in schools and you can see where it comes from so traditionally bullying horrible thing to happen

00:21:14.020 to a kid right every kid is bullied but you know you some kid comes in and says i'm being bullied

00:21:18.500 you sort of think oh you know that's terrible you sort of have visions of them being totally

00:21:23.540 intimidated by you know people who are uh you know kicking their head in and stealing their money and

00:21:29.220 just cruelty and all the rest of it and then you sort of say oh what's happening you all right and

00:21:34.500 then one what actually my niece but she hates me telling this story actually it's in the book but

00:21:38.900 my niece said yeah because you know that all the girls they're going out and they they're going to 1.00

00:21:43.300 the pictures on Friday night and I'm not coming and then they haven't invited me and I said

00:21:48.880 because I thought oh my god the poor kid's so distraught yeah and I said that's not bullying

00:21:54.160 Abby that's like going out with you you know and she's like no it's bullying anyway she goes into

00:21:59.860 anyway I suddenly see the school policy is that bullying includes exclusion from friendship group

00:22:05.560 so she was right and I was wrong and these are the bullying rules on the wall right so if you

00:22:11.460 So I started to look at, this was some years ago,

00:22:14.580 but I started to look at anti-bullying policies

00:22:16.920 and they have just expanded exponentially

00:22:19.820 what constitutes bullying.

00:22:22.360 And so it's like, you know, aggressive gestures.

00:22:26.160 You know, no, but it is, you know,

00:22:28.320 it's how bullying looks, all this sort of thing.

00:22:30.200 So you have that kind of growth of what bullying is,

00:22:34.660 it counts as bullying.

00:22:35.640 You tell kids that if anything's happened to you,

00:22:38.020 you are being bullied.

00:22:39.360 You then look at the anti-bullying literature and the experts in bullying

00:22:42.980 and the people who have given, you know, a set of large organisations

00:22:47.260 and are advising governments and schools and all the rest of it.

00:22:50.140 And they say, if you're bullied at school, it will have lifelong damaging impacts

00:22:54.260 and will lead to years of trauma and mental health problems

00:22:57.780 and might mean that you are unemployable, unemployed, you know,

00:23:01.780 that your life is going to be ruined, right?

00:23:03.940 So we tell kids that being excluded from friendship groups is bullying

00:23:08.000 and we then say that bullying making no distinction between that and getting your head kicked in

00:23:12.140 um will destroy your life so no wonder if you're 11 and you're being bullied that not only is it

00:23:20.180 not very nice when it happens to you but you then think it's going to ruin your life and you

00:23:24.580 therefore imagine that when people say horrible things to you that this is going to destroy you

00:23:30.060 and it that exacerbates the problem right i mean as it happens even if the worst kind of bullying

00:23:35.640 happen to you I don't think it's going to destroy your life and I think it's the role of adults

00:23:38.800 to help him get over that and to learn to cope with it but that's not what they're told but

00:23:44.220 they're also told the most trivial silly acts of cruelty by one child to another is going to have

00:23:49.980 this long lasting impact and I think then that makes people think oh you know I'm being bullied

00:23:55.320 online somebody said they don't like my dress and somebody's called me fat and somebody's said that

00:23:59.620 I'm and that somebody's prettier that and by the time you get through that whole thing and think

00:24:04.140 going to destroy your life that actually makes you anxious yeah and so actually you can't cope

00:24:09.740 so you then associate horrible words and this is where the free speech issue comes in with having

00:24:17.580 a damaging traumatic impact on people so of course this becomes theorized around trigger warnings and

00:24:23.980 safe spaces and so on we have to ban those people from speaking because their words are harmful just

00:24:30.140 like the physical act have been punched in the stomach or kicked in the head the words are

00:24:35.040 harmful and the term harm has now become a kind of existential I don't like it and J.S. Mill's

00:24:42.560 harm principle now incorporates harm in this kind of very broad therapeutic meaning of the sense

00:24:49.780 of the word. The thing I find worrying about kids is the nature of victimhood and that everybody

00:24:55.200 nowadays seems to be a victim everybody you know has something or you know and you know that

00:25:00.660 everybody is being oppressed and i just find it worrying because if you have that attitude like

00:25:07.680 you said you you are going to collapse when the moment you face adversity and what we're not

00:25:13.680 teaching kids in school and i'm as guilty of it as anyone as being a teacher is we're not teaching

00:25:19.140 and resilience. I teach kids so often and I give them all the strategies. I teach year six. So

00:25:25.380 that's 10 and 11 year olds. And I give them all the strategies and they understand it. And when

00:25:30.440 I give them questions one to 10, where they follow along to the pattern, they can do it.

00:25:34.280 The moment you veer slightly to the right or to the left and ask them for a bit of independent

00:25:39.680 thought, they come up against the barrier, they give up. Pencil goes down, head goes down.

00:25:44.420 and if you do that at 10

00:25:46.920 and that's not, we don't

00:25:48.600 nip that in the bud, that is going to

00:25:50.680 create an adult who simply is not going to function

00:25:52.480 well I think that's the thing is that vulnerability

00:25:54.160 in the sense that you are vulnerable

00:25:56.060 which is the consequence

00:25:58.660 of a climate that scaremongers

00:26:00.560 about everything, you are the vulnerable

00:26:02.820 one, constantly a threat of

00:26:04.580 everything, from the food that you

00:26:06.660 drink to the people that you meet

00:26:08.300 and so on and so forth, creates the

00:26:10.520 victim doesn't it, I mean that's where you see yourself

00:26:12.540 in that particular way the converse of that of course is that any young person who kind of is a 0.94

00:26:19.620 bit bullshit and a bit um you know not you know tries to say i'm not that bothered or or doesn't 0.87

00:26:26.580 appear to adopt that kind of is is treated as though they're either in denial or as though 0.95

00:26:32.660 they're kind of like insensitive and in fact one of the things that the um again they're kind of

00:26:39.080 theorizing on the free speech issue is to say that somebody like me who's critiquing

00:26:43.600 Generation Snowflake is that I am insensitive. You know, I am the kind of person who doesn't

00:26:48.460 understand the suffering of the vulnerable young. And some of the responses to the book

00:26:54.580 were really interesting because I was really nervous. I thought, God, middle-aged woman 1.00

00:26:57.640 critiques Generation Snowflake, I'm going to get hammered. Every young person is going 1.00

00:27:01.560 to think I'm an idiot, right? And, you know, it's a kind of caricature middle-aged woman 1.00

00:27:05.000 attacking the young and I was nervous actually I've had a much more positive

00:27:10.580 response from young people and really absolutely hate the book and who you

00:27:16.040 know written horrible reviews about it have largely been people who work in

00:27:19.760 educational psychology social workers you know that kind of will I my peers in

00:27:25.100 the kind of world of policy you think that I am and being horrible about and

00:27:30.320 to young people and then they'll say oh Claire Fox is just the sort of person who

00:27:34.580 who thinks that everybody needs to be bullied

00:27:36.280 in order to harden up.

00:27:38.020 Claire Fox is the sort of person 0.68

00:27:39.160 who somebody's cutting themselves, you know,

00:27:40.900 and self-harm, said, get on with it.

00:27:43.240 I don't clean on this sort of thing.

00:27:44.760 So you're caricatured as a, you know,

00:27:48.340 a kind of hard-nosed, mean-spirited, ungenerous person.

00:27:55.420 And I can live with all that.

00:27:57.360 What I'm saying is for people growing up then,

00:28:00.840 the model for if you're gonna get some sort of like hearing

00:28:04.300 is that you are the sensitive, easily offended,

00:28:08.380 you know, vulnerable person.

00:28:09.800 If you're somebody who actually can brush it off

00:28:12.300 and get on with it, you're seen to be somehow, 0.99

00:28:14.580 some kind of psychotic lunatic 0.97

00:28:16.420 who's not in touch with their feelings, right? 1.00

00:28:18.600 And that something wrong with you,

00:28:19.980 you're the person that's problematic.

00:28:21.800 So of course, young people learn,

00:28:23.520 but in order to kind of gain the respect

00:28:25.980 of the adult world and of society,

00:28:28.420 they actually have to play the victim card.

00:28:30.220 And I think that that's kind of a,

00:28:32.740 It's not the political form it takes, but I think it gives a sort of sense of the world in which some of these big political disputes on free speech occur.

00:28:40.940 And you can then see that it's playing the victim card in terms of identity politics, accruing more and more examples of one's own vulnerability versus, you know, the absolute villain of the piece in terms of identity politics and intersectionality, which is the white male.

00:28:59.040 And it's always kind of like the white male stiff upper lip.

00:29:02.360 So, again, it's this sort of hard-nosed, you know, whereas the emotionally sensitive, vulnerable person who feels the pain,

00:29:11.500 they are the ones that everyone says, what a wonderful person.

00:29:13.900 And this person over there is written off as some kind of monster for not being in touch with their emotional angst.

00:29:21.520 And how much of this do you think is an exaggerated sense of compassion,

00:29:24.700 this idea essentially that being compassionate is so much more important than being practically

00:29:30.380 helpful to a young person that's i mean that's fundamentally what you're talking about being

00:29:35.180 compassionate is not always the best strategy for helping a young person yeah although i think

00:29:39.200 compassion i'm a bit of a fan of compassion i think compassion is not quite the term i think

00:29:45.060 compassion it's all right but you could but there's a kind of be cruel to be kind or in as much as you

00:29:49.880 know like um as a teacher you know if you go into if you if you go into a class and say you know

00:29:56.720 what do you want me to teach you want me to teach um you know kind of poetry as rap music or you

00:30:03.480 know the lyrics of rap as poetry or do you want me to do henry the fourth part one right and they

00:30:09.000 say rap's much more relevant and then you say good we're not doing that we're doing henry the fourth

00:30:13.780 part one right because i don't need to teach you that but you do need to do this you have to work

00:30:17.340 well I don't want to do what's the point in doing Jane Austen's you know what's the point

00:30:22.440 I'm not doing that what's the point of course you know you have to be very unpopular for a period of

00:30:27.960 time young people do not want to learn what they are entitled to know all right it's pretty obvious 0.76

00:30:34.580 you know what I mean they want to have a great time or they don't they don't want to do anything

00:30:37.960 that's going to make their brain hurt or it's not easily accessible and adults have lost the

00:30:45.100 courage to look young people in the eye

00:30:47.480 and say I don't care

00:30:48.820 that you don't want to know this

00:30:51.020 you are going to

00:30:52.380 well that's what I meant by compassion

00:30:53.820 I know but I think

00:30:55.180 all I'm saying is I think it's compassionate

00:30:56.840 to give them what they need to know

00:30:58.540 you're reframing my voice

00:31:00.960 but I think what I'm saying

00:31:03.660 is that you want to be cruel to be kind

00:31:05.760 to be compassionate

00:31:06.440 I don't think that kind of fawning over the young 0.52

00:31:10.080 and their wants

00:31:11.900 is doing them any favours at all

00:31:13.760 I think it's a major betrayal and I also think it shows a certain indifference to them because

00:31:18.100 you're basically more interested in being popular with them than in actually giving them what they're

00:31:24.180 entitled to and for me generation is a generational transaction you know you know I have a tiny weenie

00:31:31.440 little bit of understanding about the best that's known and thought not very much but a tiny little

00:31:35.960 bit right and and a little bit I've got I want to pass on you know I for me it's like you you you

00:31:43.080 you should know this stuff right this is like the greatest ideas in the world and I want you to have

00:31:49.940 it I'm passing it on to you and we don't do that now right we kind of go this is the great stuff

00:31:54.680 that that's known in the world but we're worried that it was created by white philosophers who

00:32:00.460 were around you on the slave trade so it's not that great after I might have to renew it all

00:32:05.100 and review it but you interesting 15 year old digital native you really do know interesting

00:32:10.860 stuff right I can learn from you and that's the you know when you said what's happening in education

00:32:16.260 it was that turnaround right it was that shift that beginning to be the shift in educational

00:32:22.020 terms which was teachers were told that they had to be you know guides on the side you know and

00:32:26.920 we can learn from the students facilitators and all this and and I'd say no you know I

00:32:32.980 and of course if you've got the confidence to do it I mean I wasn't a great teacher but I was a

00:32:38.760 good teacher you know and but I would get you know these kind of tough because I taught quite

00:32:43.240 tough kids really um but you know you'd get these kind of like kids be complete especially you know

00:32:49.520 some of the lads would be like I'm not even doing that and then you kind of get a rather sensitive

00:32:53.000 essay on the latest Jane Austen novel written and of course they wouldn't admit that in class

00:32:58.360 and it took me nearly a year to get them to even read the bloody thing and then they'd read it

00:33:03.600 and then suddenly I'd get this essay so you know it's really important that dilemmas that Emma

00:33:07.620 would go through. And I think, oh, it's that little secret between them and me that they

00:33:13.740 have discovered a little bit of literature and a little sensitivity. Now, I wasn't going

00:33:17.600 to explain. I didn't read it out in class and show them up, right? But I knew that they

00:33:22.280 knew that a little thing had occurred in our lessons. They'd learned something. They'd

00:33:26.620 read a novel. And also I'd given them a gateway to potentially some literature. That was the

00:33:32.040 least I could do. That just doesn't happen. And in fact, I would consider to be some sort

00:33:36.160 of like old-fashioned dinosaur type for giving a lecture in an fe because in an fe college where

00:33:43.180 kind of it's kind of working class kids not necessarily uh kind of the greatest academics 1.00

00:33:47.460 you know i i insisted on doing lectures you know you have to listen write notes do you know i'd make

00:33:54.120 a bit of a point about the fact they had to read the books you know because we're doing literature

00:33:58.400 all this sort of thing it's considered i was considered to be some sort of lunatic no no do

00:34:02.040 group work ask them what they think but they don't think anything because i haven't taught

00:34:05.840 them anything yet what's the point get them to sit in groups and talk about a novel they haven't read

00:34:10.640 and they haven't thought i mean this is just self-indulgent nonsense it's a fascinating

00:34:15.340 point because i'm thinking back as you're talking about teaching uh to my school days my favorite

00:34:21.100 teacher i didn't even like him but he was my favorite teacher because he made sure that i

00:34:26.400 learned what i needed and i had a healthy respect for him but i wouldn't say that i felt some gray

00:34:30.940 affinity to him and if i think back through the great teachers it was much more about respect and

00:34:37.240 them teaching me something as opposed to uh liking them this is my great self-justification

00:34:43.940 for why nobody liked me no but i mean i think that's the i think that's the balance i'm trying

00:34:49.280 to say and i think there's if you've taken away from me or teaching but maybe just just to sort

00:34:54.880 of i think that there's a collapse of adult authority in the world and i think what i was

00:34:59.840 trying to, and a belief in the kind of values of the world, you know, so, so for me, that's the

00:35:07.580 greatest betrayal. And so Generation Snowflake, in a way, is kind of both the scaremonger and also

00:35:13.060 this kind of inability, as I say, to look the young in the eye and kind of say to them, these

00:35:18.600 things matter, you know, this is right and this is wrong. There's a dispute about what would be

00:35:23.780 right and wrong, but to have the courage to do it rather than to go, I don't really know,

00:35:27.120 and what do you think i mean you know who cares what they think i see i completely agree with you

00:35:33.540 because i used to teach in the london borough of newham which is one of the poorest boroughs in

00:35:38.000 london and you i'd get these kids coming up and they hadn't been taught the basics no one had

00:35:43.520 explained to them and every time in the first lesson i'd say to them here's the thing i'm your

00:35:49.200 teacher i'm not your mate i don't care what you think your behavior is a choice you choose to

00:35:55.000 behave you've come in to learn if you choose to misbehave you not only damage your own education

00:36:00.320 you damage the education of everyone around you and here's the thing most kids would die to be

00:36:05.540 in your position so if you're going to behave like that i've got no interest out you go and most of

00:36:12.360 them actually even like the supposed i mean there was always one or two but the vast majority went

00:36:16.560 okay and if they could see themselves learning and progressing they liked it kids crave boundaries

00:36:23.160 and all that these people do, these adults do,

00:36:27.000 who are like, oh, what do you think?

00:36:28.260 It's just, look, just accept that you're a weak person 0.95

00:36:30.540 because that's all you are.

00:36:32.920 What kids want of any age is to go, this is it.

00:36:36.700 This is what you need to do.

00:36:38.340 Here it is.

00:36:39.480 And I'm sorry, but you've got to work.

00:36:40.960 Well, there's a big argument going on in schools at the moment,

00:36:43.720 which you probably may be familiar with.

00:36:46.480 And actually somebody would be good for you to interview maybe on this,

00:36:51.500 is um uh tom bennett who's the behavior czar for the government but i i think that title is mad but

00:36:59.660 anyway he's a great guy um he's interesting and he and i argue over lots and lots of things but

00:37:04.660 what he's really good on is behavior in schools but one of the things that happens is that if you

00:37:11.300 are somebody who says that there should be quite strict behavior code in schools and this could

00:37:16.080 these can be over codified and some of the stricter schools kind of slightly drive me mad by

00:37:21.000 kind of almost thinking it's a technical activity you know everything is so rules-based but they've

00:37:26.700 kind of lost sight of what it is they're trying to do having said that the the opposite side of

00:37:31.960 the argument that basically says you know putting somebody in detention is the equivalent of putting

00:37:35.820 them into internment or like sort of like like prison and depriving i mean the hyperbole deployed

00:37:42.380 by people to discredit and delegitimize a perfectly reasonable way of organizing a school

00:37:48.020 is incredible and i think that's what um you know something you're recognizing i suppose with these

00:37:54.880 films which is you know these are then it starts being a debate i mean if what you do is simply

00:38:00.360 demonize as beyond the pale somebody's going like into child abuse because they believe in

00:38:05.400 disciplining kids that is not a discussion right that is not any way kind of a thing

00:38:10.300 um you it means there's nowhere to go with it there's nowhere there's nowhere to have a fruitful

00:38:15.980 conversation and I find that one of the things that happened to me quite early on in when I

00:38:22.640 started writing about education because when I was teaching I was also writing about education

00:38:26.700 and I suppose that's how I got more interested in getting um publishing the magazine if you

00:38:32.160 know what I mean because I kind of started to be interested in a different kind of journalism

00:38:35.840 and getting the word out I realized I could have a bit of an influence um and you can't it's hard

00:38:41.500 to do that when you work full-time for an institution these days because they don't let

00:38:45.460 you I mean all those days anyway because you know you could get disciplined and and so on and so

00:38:50.300 forth so um anyway um I uh one of the things I noticed was I'd be arguing what I thought were

00:38:56.060 completely reasonable things about educational standards and we have some of these things right

00:39:01.700 and I I I'd been teaching for some years before I did my PGCE you didn't have to

00:39:06.460 have a qualification to teach in further education at one point and then they kind of change it so I

00:39:11.740 that I better rush off and get mine.

00:39:14.000 So I went to Greenwich University,

00:39:16.420 Greenwich Poly as it was then,

00:39:18.180 get my PGCE,

00:39:19.760 utter, I mean, talk about, 0.91

00:39:22.760 you know, intellectual nonsense.

00:39:25.800 I mean, I kind of was shocked 0.56

00:39:26.980 at what was passing for educational theory.

00:39:29.140 But anyway, I'd argue through these things.

00:39:31.340 People were standing up in the class

00:39:32.920 and denouncing me as a kind of Thatcherite

00:39:35.240 right-wing fascist

00:39:37.260 because I'd say I believed in discipline. 0.58

00:39:38.940 right

00:39:39.620 you know

00:39:40.500 when I kind of

00:39:41.260 argued for

00:39:42.280 you know

00:39:42.680 one girl stood up 0.99

00:39:43.560 in the class

00:39:44.180 she was training

00:39:44.860 to be a teacher

00:39:45.320 with me

00:39:45.920 you know

00:39:46.980 we were all

00:39:47.520 kind of in our

00:39:48.160 I don't know

00:39:49.480 late 20s

00:39:51.420 something like that

00:39:52.540 she said

00:39:53.180 I can't believe

00:39:53.700 you said that

00:39:54.160 you know

00:39:54.400 I failed every exam

00:39:55.960 all through my life

00:39:57.080 and you're basically

00:39:58.100 writing me off

00:39:58.940 as a failure

00:39:59.540 and I was thinking

00:40:01.020 of course

00:40:01.680 no disrespect

00:40:02.580 but

00:40:03.140 what are you doing

00:40:05.560 on this course

00:40:06.300 yeah

00:40:06.640 and

00:40:07.580 yes

00:40:08.600 if you fail every exam it probably means something yeah the idea that i should kind of somehow say

00:40:14.160 and she said this is the system that oppresses the working classes i was like no it doesn't

00:40:18.740 working class people pass exams all the bloody time it's insulting right and all this kind of 1.00

00:40:23.000 thing and then and then kind of and i got a reputation during the year there i was

00:40:27.240 lefty marxist teacher and people started caricaturing me he's like oh she's just like a daily

00:40:32.960 male. And I realised that this was just a way of trying to close you down, and close 0.98

00:40:38.280 down debate. And as it happens, on the left, historically, internationally, high standards

00:40:43.740 of education and left-wing thinking are actually bedfellows, not the opposite. The idea that

00:40:50.200 the kind of history of radicalism is based on some kind of philistine, you know, we shouldn't 0.63

00:40:56.440 ask people to do exams in case they fail and then it dooms them to being oppressed. I mean,

00:41:00.440 just not what it's about at all exams as it happens by the way were brought in and supported

00:41:05.180 by trade unions because they were meritocratic because they took no interest in people's

00:41:10.060 background they simply measured whether you'd achieved or not and i always find that rather

00:41:14.860 inspiring universal aspiration you know anyone can sit the exam and anyone can do really well

00:41:21.100 at it i think that was great although you could argue that towards the far left end of the spectrum

00:41:26.040 when it comes to the left wing

00:41:28.380 it eventually ends up in shutting down ideas

00:41:30.720 so if you know like Cuba

00:41:32.640 for example or Venezuela

00:41:34.080 oh god there's loads of examples I mean I understand that

00:41:36.600 but all I'm saying is

00:41:37.840 yes but as I say I don't that's kind of practical

00:41:40.540 examples of countries that are

00:41:42.280 basket cases and I agree

00:41:43.820 but I'm for free speech I was simply saying that

00:41:46.680 in terms of its

00:41:48.500 philosophical tradition there's nothing that

00:41:50.340 associates the left with being

00:41:52.640 apologies

00:41:54.360 for philistinism yeah or for failure effectively yeah anyway well let me drag the two of you away

00:42:00.520 from education sorry we've done a great bit on education i think it's great uh well actually i

00:42:06.780 think the things that the other things we we're very interested to talk to you about they're kind

00:42:10.240 of the adult manifestation of some of the things that you're talking about with kids which is a

00:42:16.400 culture of hypersensitivity and partly what you just talked about which is a culture of saying

00:42:21.360 if you don't agree with me you're evil if you don't agree with me you are that other thing

00:42:26.560 that must not be engaged with and wherever we look at the kind of identity politics which you

00:42:32.720 refer to whether it's modern feminism or any other things that happen within that identity politics 0.89

00:42:38.060 bracket they all seem to be subject to this complete inability or unwillingness to actually

00:42:43.960 debate things which is what you've created with the institute of ideas and then debating things

00:42:48.700 that you do how why do you think being able to discuss ideas are so important well i mean first

00:42:56.380 of all because there's no i i do not believe that i have stopped changing my mind about things and

00:43:05.220 so i think it's um you know the ability to hear other opinions um can mean that i might change

00:43:12.240 my mind and uh or improve the way i argue or just get a new perspective on the world so

00:43:18.120 even from an entirely personal point of view, I think it's a peculiar idea to have in your head

00:43:24.040 that, you know, you at any age say, this is what I think, and that's it. I mean, never will it ever

00:43:29.420 change. I mean, obviously, as you get older, you're more accustomed to having developed and

00:43:34.000 thought back, but I mean, nonetheless, we'll want to be open all the time. The world changes as well,

00:43:40.960 so you need to be able to take account of things that change.

00:43:44.200 sorry that seems to me to be so important because this idea that you sort of say right this is what

00:43:51.020 i think i'm never going to think anything else i mean you might just hide under the bed i mean

00:43:55.360 what does that mean i mean you just say you know how boring would mean that you'd read a book and

00:44:00.180 nothing would occur i mean you know that you'd never be able to to watch a podcast and your

00:44:05.300 brain work because you'd say no no no no this is what i think and nothing else will you know

00:44:09.420 so for me it's because we all don't we um want to access new ideas to stimulate ourselves to kind of

00:44:18.140 test out and also because by the way there's a lot of problems in the world that need solving

00:44:22.460 and we need as many people kind of addressing them as possible and you need to be open-minded

00:44:27.520 to consider that i think as well that the intellectual life by the way is exciting

00:44:31.820 and i think that you know there's nothing more brilliant than when you read a novel or you read

00:44:38.080 I've just read Andrew O'Hagan's essay on Grenfell in the London Review of Books.

00:44:45.660 It's something like 30,000, it might even be longer, 30,000 words, but it's like a little book.

00:44:52.240 I mean, it's the most perfect essay.

00:44:57.720 It makes you think, it's shocking, it's moving, it reveals new information, it's a brilliant piece of journalism.

00:45:04.400 is a fantastically important way of understanding the world.

00:45:09.420 Demos have just brought out a new report on nostalgia,

00:45:13.420 which is based on the notion that probably people voted Brexit

00:45:16.700 and populism in France and Germany based on nostalgia,

00:45:20.860 a thesis which I completely disagree with.

00:45:23.180 But the report is well written.

00:45:25.060 It's got great quotes in it.

00:45:26.680 I loved it.

00:45:27.840 I kind of learned a huge amount from it.

00:45:30.960 So I didn't agree with the thesis, but it was fantastic.

00:45:32.700 And, you know, and then I kind of bore everyone with you and I said, oh, you've got to read the demos, you've got to read the LL, as I'm doing with you, because you learn, you know, things I didn't know.

00:45:42.440 It's not feasible.

00:45:43.700 So I believe everyone's like that and everyone should be like that.

00:45:47.420 And ideas are important because society cannot move on, cannot resolve any problems, cannot solve the problems of humanity if we're not constantly intellectually open to each other's developing ideas.

00:46:02.900 people who are brighter than us taking ideas from 2000 years ago and thinking about how they apply

00:46:08.260 today people who are not as bright as us but have got an absolutely sharp wit who see something in

00:46:14.260 a different way people whose experiences are different which is why you know identity politics

00:46:18.600 is one of the great tyrannies of our time but that's not to say that you don't want to have

00:46:22.540 any knowledge of somebody's personal experience through that that created by their identity

00:46:26.960 Because that can give you a great insight as well.

00:46:29.500 So, of course, the frustration of this kind of stratified, static, dead intellectual climate that we live in.

00:46:38.620 I could speak on this.

00:46:40.300 I know you don't.

00:46:42.080 Don't speak to me.

00:46:43.140 I refuse to listen.

00:46:44.900 Well, I think it's more than that, actually.

00:46:46.320 I think quite often now it's not that someone will say you said this thing and you're wrong.

00:46:51.340 No, you're right.

00:46:52.180 It's not even that. 0.98

00:46:53.240 It's you're evil. 1.00

00:46:55.120 You're bad. 1.00

00:46:55.880 you have no right you are white or you are well they say you're white i mean so it's not just 0.99

00:47:00.480 what you it's not just what you're allowed to discuss today it's who's given permission to

00:47:05.180 discuss it and that's become very problematic of course because it becomes um impossible to have

00:47:11.520 a discussion about confronting racism or any issues in relation to racism if you aren't from

00:47:18.360 an ethnic minority of course it becomes ever more divisive by the way because then you kind of get

00:47:22.560 people saying oh well you know it's already well megan markle because she can pass for white so 0.98

00:47:27.520 she's not the kind of right kind of black or then you get the kind of disputes around politics kanye 1.00

00:47:32.160 west you know wrong kind of politics so he's uh an uncle tom because he looks like he's supporting so

00:47:39.040 even within the identity groups that are given permission you actually can only follow one

00:47:43.680 script anyway as it goes and it becomes particularly unpleasant in that way of sort of like accruing

00:47:50.320 you know i i may um you know because i always make the point you well when people say i find

00:47:54.480 that offensive i mean they're not just telling you i mean they're saying i find that offensive

00:47:58.640 shut up right yeah it's not like just an observation and of course it's given an added 0.87

00:48:03.520 moral weight today when you say you know as a woman i find that offensive i mean that's it 0.98

00:48:08.560 right or then that's not enough you see so as a muslim woman i find that offensive you know

00:48:14.960 know as a disabled trans woman you know and so on and so on and so you're accruing all the time

00:48:21.240 because it's like sort of ratcheting up how can i stop you know what's my unique position to say

00:48:27.980 this and not it's like creates a field around you once you've said as a woman i find that offensive

00:48:34.000 that means no one's allowed to comment that's it it creates a culture of fear because then what

00:48:39.520 you're saying is that my opinion is worth more than yours and also as well you're potentially

00:48:45.200 now entering into the realms of racism and intolerance and if you enter into the realms

00:48:50.440 of race and tolerance and that label sticks to you that can affect everything from how the way

00:48:55.740 people see you to your career prospects and it is a feeling of terror and we all feel that at

00:49:00.760 certain points when we engage in these topics of conversation i do it and i start getting worried

00:49:05.620 you know I call it sweaty back syndrome where you just think oh my word have I said the wrong

00:49:10.400 thing can I be misinterpreted am I going to look racist sexist whatever it is and can you imagine

00:49:15.080 what it's like so so so that is entirely accurate and I think you only have to look at what's

00:49:21.840 happening on American campuses to see how far we could go we're only starting and we're usually

00:49:28.580 kind of behind the trends in terms of America just in terms of the number of people who are

00:49:33.060 being sacked and uh you know people being uh kicked out of universities and so on and so forth

00:49:38.540 being expelled and as you say it's not just that they're being called racist i mean you know once

00:49:43.340 you've got that label i mean you know and obviously because i'm not interested in um uh you know

00:49:49.260 because it's like the it's kind of the worst thing isn't it you know uh misogynist racist 0.83

00:49:54.100 you know bigot right you'll never work again but it's not just that anyway i'm not a bloody 0.91

00:49:58.740 bigger so you don't want you know it's like it's like a horrible thing you spend the whole time

00:50:03.760 having to get out of the straitjacket of that term but the other thing about the the terror

00:50:10.320 is can you imagine what it's like for people who aren't no fair with the rules i mean we know the

00:50:16.100 rules right what happens is is that millions and millions and millions and millions of people in

00:50:20.760 this country right they haven't they don't know the rules of intersectionality and what language

00:50:25.880 you can use right they can inadvertently wander in and say something perfectly reasonably in good

00:50:32.360 faith and can be absolutely castigated humiliated you know and thrown to the dogs i mean it's so

00:50:40.660 unpleasant and i i think it's difficult if you know the rules but it's just that people will

00:50:45.120 uh break the rules inadvertently you know i remember i mean this is quite a controversial

00:50:50.820 one but I you know the gay marriage issue is fascinating for me because many years nobody

00:50:57.740 demanded gay marriage I mean it really wasn't a big issue on in the kind of LGBT community just

00:51:03.880 wasn't nobody was kind of it wasn't like a big radical demand people went actually there were

00:51:07.500 some people like it wasn't a big thing largely because I think in a kind of lesbian and gay

00:51:13.440 culture there had been a kind of like you know we're not we're not interested in bourgeois marriage

00:51:17.480 You know, it's like, you know, I mean, we want equality.

00:51:19.400 We don't want to be treated differently, but we're not married.

00:51:21.520 It wasn't the big thing.

00:51:22.600 Anyway, within six months or something, you know, David Cameron announced

00:51:26.840 it's going to bring in a Tory is going to bring in gay marriage. 1.00

00:51:30.440 And suddenly you had to agree with gay marriage 0.98

00:51:33.840 or you were a homophobic bigot. 0.64

00:51:36.240 Now, I mean, it was like there wasn't even there wasn't a campaign. 0.81

00:51:40.280 There was no argument.

00:51:41.200 There was no debate.

00:51:42.560 And I think perfectly reasonably, you know,

00:51:45.560 friends of mine and family of mine from you know from my from where i'm from um uh less in the kind

00:51:53.600 of intellectual world and so on were a bit like they couldn't they were a bit bemused i mean they

00:51:58.340 weren't particularly hostile i mean they didn't go on marches against it but they sort of said

00:52:01.240 that's a bit gay marriage odd why does a man want to marry a man or a woman want to i was like oh 0.79

00:52:05.940 those backwards you know bigots you know it's that kind of homophobic deplorable that how would 0.95

00:52:12.080 you have just worked out that you're meant to change your mind marriage has been between people 0.96

00:52:16.840 of opposite sex sexes for a very long time you come along and declare from on high that if you 0.97

00:52:24.000 don't agree with that you're a bigot without ever trying to convince anyone and that was it you know

00:52:28.460 it's a very effective tactic isn't it that's that's the reason and it made but it made me

00:52:32.220 realize how scary it was because i found it very tricky to kind of have that argument and even now

00:52:37.680 sort of like i'm not a bigot i don't want anyone to think um but i it was the speed with which

00:52:45.280 you had to learn the language right and that people would go on today and sort of say i'm

00:52:49.040 not sure about gay magic people say you know there's already a problem of uh you know they 1.00

00:52:52.560 need to go on re-education courses and all that sort of thing and i think that what happens then

00:52:57.280 is is that it silences many people it effectively kicks them out of the public square because they

00:53:02.160 know that they don't know how to react or there's a kind of underground reaction to it

00:53:07.120 and i can't and this can take quite an unpleasant form sometimes which is to kind of associate

00:53:11.360 yourself with people who play on the bigotry question a bit because you kind of you're just

00:53:16.720 aware the fact that you're walking on eggshells the whole time you can't say what you think you

00:53:20.480 you're frightened that you might get done over for saying the wrong thing your sweaty back point

00:53:26.080 that happens to so many people what what what that either does is kind of kills the soul and

00:53:32.080 right kicks you out public discourse right it means you're not allowed to ever speak again

00:53:37.740 you have to go away drop out politics drop out of everything or you can only do it in the kind

00:53:43.780 of most clandestine underground sort of sense and very often with young people that can take

00:53:48.880 the form of a kind of a reaction a kind of quite reactionary reaction i sorry i know i'm talking

00:53:55.400 and that's why we have you here keep talking i was very upset recently about what happened at

00:54:01.060 Warwick University um I went to Warwick University so I kind of just 11 students there was a Facebook

00:54:07.400 private Facebook group oh yes yeah uh 12 students involved in uh lads and uh they they had

00:54:14.800 conversations on their Facebook group that were met where they made some of them made rape jokes

00:54:20.580 and some of them said some pretty uh racially insensitive things say the least but in my

00:54:27.480 opinion first of all it was a private conversation amongst 12 people for me it was an insight into

00:54:33.420 um if you make everything verboten a kind of childish reaction is to kind of tell the bad

00:54:41.760 jokes that you're not meant to tell i i i on the one hand one of those people reported them

00:54:47.300 they've now been um suspended from university their lives are destroyed effectively and they've

00:54:52.840 been accused of uh of being uh part of the rape culture i mean that and warwick's going to let

00:54:58.060 them back in some of them are going to be lawyers that's that that's that they're dispensable

00:55:01.960 collateral damage in the culture wars of today right vile behavior in my view um so private

00:55:08.980 conversation is no longer private so god knows and then there's sort of front pages of the local

00:55:13.280 newspapers and of the student paper that women at warwick universities are frightened to cross 1.00

00:55:17.000 campus because they think there's going to be rapes i mean these are kind of puerile stupid 1.00

00:55:21.660 boys I mean of all let me tell you rapists don't kind of make a habit of kind of loving a chat on 1.00

00:55:27.380 Facebook before going out raping that's not the kind of modus operandi right you know well just

00:55:32.200 have a chat about it before I do it I mean do you know what I mean but this was kind of right so it

00:55:35.980 has a scaremongering impact on young women demonizes all the male students that were at 0.92

00:55:41.140 universities and my original point was there was something about that chat and I've noticed it

00:55:46.520 myself in terms of things that happen on twitter and social media and young people i know who

00:55:52.120 personally is a way of kicking against the you can't say that culture kind of go into a kind of

00:55:58.680 milo yanlopoulos you know kind of feminism is concert mode almost out of frustration yeah and 1.00

00:56:06.520 i can understand that psychologically because you can't just be told you can never speak about

00:56:12.180 anything you're not allowed it's one of the reasons jordan peterson i think is so popular

00:56:15.580 he makes all these points in a coherent way

00:56:18.820 and people go, oh wait, there is something unexplained

00:56:21.620 and here's someone who's actually giving shape

00:56:23.480 to some of the things that I've been thinking about.

00:56:25.840 There was a very interesting article in the Times

00:56:27.520 a couple of weeks back, I don't know if you saw it,

00:56:29.320 it's with Matthew Parris when he wrote about

00:56:31.180 the bad behaviour of the liberals in Ireland

00:56:34.840 when it came to the abortion campaign

00:56:36.780 and he just said some of the way they spoke

00:56:39.160 to the Conservatives, the way they demonised them,

00:56:41.700 the way they portrayed them,

00:56:43.220 and he came out and said, look,

00:56:44.780 the classic thing i'm actually pro-abortion i believe in women's rights for her to have an 1.00

00:56:49.540 abortion however i believe the behavior by the campaign uh by some of the proponents of the

00:56:55.100 campaign was disgraceful and then you had people on twitter and whatever else saying you know he's

00:57:00.960 disgusting what he's saying and it was just i know but when did it become reasonable just to be

00:57:08.460 unreasonable I know when did when when did we when did it become acceptable to start attacking other

00:57:14.960 people and to be vile just because they disagreed with you but there's an illiberal liberalism isn't

00:57:19.660 that which is very dangerous for those of us who have some aspiration to fit under the liberal

00:57:25.900 heading liberal in the sense of being and the liberal tradition associated with the enlightenment

00:57:30.800 of free thinkers and that kind of it's the liberals who are leading the charge on this and I

00:57:35.540 And I felt equally squeamish about the abortion debate, by the way, because I was overexcited.

00:57:41.520 I'm from an Irish Catholic background, and I was overexcited about the Ireland vote and about what happened, because, you know, that is a fantastic thing.

00:57:51.940 But, and I never thought I'd say it either, right?

00:57:54.540 but i hated some of those campaigners because you know the thing is also that you know people

00:58:02.300 are allowed in conscience to say that they think that abortion is a sin is wrong is morally wrong

00:58:12.140 that is allowed right that doesn't make them misogynist i think they're wrong i don't i don't

00:58:17.660 agree with their religious sensibility but you've got to otherwise you basically abolish free

00:58:23.020 your conscience. And you basically say, well, change the law. You've got to go along with

00:58:27.120 it now. Well, no, you don't. I mean, if the law is going to be the decider of conscience,

00:58:33.520 obviously that's authoritarian. I mean, that's a kind of fascist outlook. I mean, that's

00:58:38.140 like a proper state controls your mind stuff, right? No, I mean, there's lots of laws I

00:58:43.920 disagree with. I'm going to say so. But particularly in relation to religious freedom, it's hugely

00:58:48.460 important to defend religious freedom even if you don't agree with it because that's the basis on

00:58:54.220 which you say we are a tolerant society it doesn't mean that i'm going to it it doesn't mean that

00:58:59.080 you shouldn't be protected as in you know we can't say that if you insult a religion that you

00:59:04.160 you're going to be done for offensiveness but similarly you're going to say that somebody has

00:59:08.540 to follow their conscience that's the basis on which we are individual autonomous citizens that's

00:59:13.680 the only way it works. And again, this is the infantilizing process, because if you've

00:59:19.320 got only one script to follow, then actually you can never grow up. You don't need to hear

00:59:23.740 the other side of the argument, do you? Do you know what I mean? You just have to learn

00:59:26.900 the script. You learn the script. Anyone who doesn't follow the script is a lunatic, hateful,

00:59:33.720 should be banned anyway, because they're not following the script. And in terms of why 0.99

00:59:38.440 this does young people no favours is because as soon as they encounter an argument that is

00:59:45.060 an argument because they've they've actually not ever heard an argument they can't maintain the

00:59:51.280 script because they're actually only repeating something as it were by rote they're not used

00:59:56.560 to having to defend that argument so i don't mean that they should change their mind when they

01:00:00.740 argue with someone like me or anyone else but but they they're so unused to the argument that they

01:00:06.440 actually collapse and he but they can't do it so of course then they associate and then they kind

01:00:11.000 of they definitely don't want those speakers and then because then they kind of might have to argue

01:00:14.840 but you know that's what jsmill brilliantly explains that you don't really understand that

01:00:19.480 your argument's right um unless it's kind of clashed against unless you've heard the other

01:00:24.520 arguments that's you can't just say my argument's right i know this because the only argument i've

01:00:29.240 heard it has to be exposed to the light of the other argument so you can work it out and actually

01:00:34.600 you might never

01:00:35.320 change your mind

01:00:35.880 but you'll get better

01:00:36.600 at arguing

01:00:37.120 if you expose yourself

01:00:38.120 to a society

01:00:38.600 before you ask

01:00:39.540 your next question

01:00:40.080 by the way

01:00:40.480 the correct term

01:00:41.260 is pro-choice

01:00:42.220 you said pro-abortion

01:00:43.800 I think it would have

01:00:44.520 been a lot less likely

01:00:45.920 to get a successful

01:00:46.780 outcome

01:00:47.160 although in fact

01:00:48.860 for many years

01:00:51.580 I think many of us

01:00:52.380 said that we were

01:00:52.860 pro-abortion

01:00:53.360 it's got less

01:00:56.060 of an appeal

01:00:56.600 the reason why

01:00:58.280 they kind of

01:00:59.080 changed it

01:00:59.520 of course

01:00:59.780 was because

01:01:00.180 they thought

01:01:00.580 it might put

01:01:01.120 people up

01:01:01.660 it's a marketing

01:01:02.500 it's marketing

01:01:04.240 I'm kidding, man.

01:01:05.080 No, no, but you made me forget my point, Constantine.

01:01:08.640 How dare you?

01:01:09.280 No, do you think that this sort of polarisation we've got now, 0.99

01:01:12.720 I don't want to interact with you because you're racist, sexist, 1.00

01:01:15.020 you're a snowflake, blah, blah, blah. 0.99

01:01:16.560 Do you think it's given rise to what we see now in politics?

01:01:19.900 We have someone like Trump on one hand, Hillary on the other.

01:01:23.780 There doesn't seem to be a middle ground.

01:01:25.360 Brexit, Remain, people screaming at each other.

01:01:28.600 Well, I think that the echo chamber effect or the kind of the sense of saying, following that script, as I say, is reflected in that.

01:01:42.880 I think it's all slightly different.

01:01:45.160 I mean, I'm tempted to say yes, but it's not quite right.

01:01:47.760 I mean, I think that we know that Trump, one of the reasons why Trump got elected was because he definitely appealed to those people who felt that they were the ones who weren't being listened to, weren't following the script.

01:02:01.560 And, you know, part of the left behind scenario, it's not just an economic left behind, and that's a misunderstanding, I think.

01:02:07.520 it was kind of aware of the fact that there was this kind of whole culture built up

01:02:11.180 that apparently the only you that you had to support you know um you know uh um it was the

01:02:19.480 toilets arguments on transgender i can't really remember the way but it was kind of like this

01:02:22.780 sort of you know if you don't agree with transgender toilets then you're really out

01:02:26.720 you know what i mean and people sort of there was a big debate in america about him people

01:02:29.700 just sort of saying what what what what and so that i think that there was that and then also

01:02:36.100 identity politics informed the people who voted for Hillary. She assumed that identity

01:02:42.440 would be one of the big things. So she didn't try and argue beyond that. And I think that

01:02:47.140 something of Trump's appeal kind of said, well, there's one identity that gets ignored

01:02:52.760 and that's the white working class. And there was a kind of element of that as well. So

01:02:56.000 I think that there was certainly a reaction against crudely put political correctness

01:03:00.360 and identity politics in Trump's vote.

01:03:02.940 But I also think that Trump is kind of himself

01:03:05.560 a hugely significant snowflake.

01:03:09.200 I mean, he's like, for me, the embodiment of snowflakery,

01:03:12.820 you know, surrounds himself by sycophants

01:03:15.120 who agree with him the whole time.

01:03:18.060 He's in a safe space and, you know,

01:03:21.300 lashes out any criticism and kind of takes,

01:03:25.600 you know, and tries to close it down,

01:03:27.100 you know, tries to ban anyone.

01:03:28.060 The irony is that he himself is kind of like a walking embodiment of that kind of over-spoiled, unable-to-interact, not-prepared-to-debate type person.

01:03:41.200 So I don't want to make any virtues in relation to what I think is a real problematic way that he's running society.

01:03:47.360 the Brexit but on the other hand

01:03:49.900 I think that the way that

01:03:51.240 the inability

01:03:52.820 as explained

01:03:55.800 by Mark Lula brilliantly after

01:03:57.500 Trump got elected he's a professor of

01:03:59.780 humanities at Yale he wrote a fantastic

01:04:01.860 article on identity

01:04:03.460 in the New York Times and is

01:04:05.540 of course as a consequence gone on

01:04:07.800 to be now called an apologist for

01:04:09.660 white supremacism but anyway

01:04:11.740 I mean really seriously

01:04:13.520 he's like a serious humanities professor

01:04:15.800 Professor. But anyway, he sort of said that one of the problems was the inability of the kind of liberal, young liberals to go beyond a kind of narcissistic obsession with their own identities that meant that they were unable to reach out beyond them to gain the votes of people not like themselves.

01:04:35.040 And I think that that was quite an astute. He explained it better quote than I should give, but more or less that and that really struck

01:04:40.980 Hope rang home for me. I think that in the build-up to the brexit referendum into the EU referendum

01:04:47.880 I constantly was meeting people in the circuits that I

01:04:52.620 Travel in he would say I mean has anyone ever met a brexit supporter?

01:04:58.140 You say yes. Well first of all, I'm one and they'd laugh because I thought was joking. Yeah, I was mostly they go haha

01:05:04.500 I said, no, I am going to vote Brexit.

01:05:06.680 Oh, my God.

01:05:07.740 But when they'd say, you know,

01:05:09.200 has anyone ever met a Brexit?

01:05:10.320 It's like sort of like get out more.

01:05:11.860 You know what I mean?

01:05:12.300 I mean, you know, and subsequent to the vote,

01:05:14.880 people still make these kind of comments.

01:05:16.720 I mean, who's met these people?

01:05:17.660 It's like, what do you mean?

01:05:18.820 There's an awful lot of them.

01:05:20.160 You shouldn't be voting and you don't know them, right?

01:05:22.720 Yeah, exactly.

01:05:23.880 And in the build-up of the referendum,

01:05:25.740 there might, at that point,

01:05:26.720 we might not have known there was going to be a majority,

01:05:28.640 but we did know that there was a lot of them, right?

01:05:30.240 But in there, there was no imagination.

01:05:32.800 So I think one of the consequences of kind of identity politics and the broader sense of sort of saying our kind of people means that there's this inability to understand a world beyond people who follow the script and to assume that, which is the other thing, because this is not just equal sided, is it?

01:05:51.380 I mean, you know, it's not just that, I mean, it's to write off huge swathes of people as deplorables and low information that is most distasteful for me.

01:06:02.800 And so it's not a kind of equal thing.

01:06:04.960 I mean, you could say, well, of course, if you're living in, you know, part, you know, if you're living in Sunderland, you also don't understand the world of being part of the metropolitan elite.

01:06:13.760 You know, we've all got separate lives. Right.

01:06:15.340 But what I think is most horrible is that people in the metropolitan elite who are often very influential write off people in parts of the country because they haven't got qualifications as being stupid and ill-informed rather than just living a different life. 0.97

01:06:33.240 And those kind of attitudes that emerged have really grated. 0.97

01:06:37.840 And so that's made it worse.

01:06:39.260 You know what I mean? I mean, if you're called a racist, ignorant, stupid person because you voted Brexit, it's really hard to not get wound up. 1.00

01:06:47.380 Well, absolutely. And I find it very frustrating. I mean, look, Francis, mother's from Venezuela. I'm from Russia. I came to this country when I was 11. 1.00

01:06:54.320 We both vote Romain, right?

01:06:56.800 Yeah, we both vote Romain.

01:06:58.280 But what I found incredible and very upsetting, actually, is in the Brexit campaign and after the Brexit campaign, this idea that British people are these racist xenophobes is completely counter to every experience I've had in this country.

01:07:13.200 I mean, this is one of the most tolerant countries in the history of the world.

01:07:16.560 But it's also the case that most people who voted Remain have accepted the

01:07:25.140 referendum results and done so. Loads of my friends voted Remain. Loads of my

01:07:30.240 friends voted Brexit. As you know, lots of people had arguments before and

01:07:35.280 afterwards and my family was split, but actually not in that way that

01:07:39.780 everyone says very acrobatics. But I have been really shocked by how a

01:07:44.440 a substantial hardcore have kind of framed the debate subsequent well in the build-up to and

01:07:50.200 subsequent of writing off brexit voters but i've been uh encouraged by how many of my remain friends

01:07:57.580 are also shocked as in the way that you've said i mean it's given us an insight into way things work

01:08:04.400 in a way that is like it's horrible right but it's definitely kind of like a kind of top you

01:08:10.540 it's kind of like it's like one of the things is you think oh my god you know the establishment

01:08:15.140 don't like it when they lose yeah like that like these people don't like it like that there's

01:08:19.960 whole swathes of very influential people who are just furious and furious and will never forgive

01:08:28.580 and i'll not get everything god on my and and whereas most ordinary remain voters are like

01:08:33.280 sort of oh well that's a shame but now we get we've got to leave the emu have we and then suddenly

01:08:37.380 you end up in a civil war and the problem is is that then the people who are kind of leading the

01:08:43.960 remain won't give in they're not letting this happen easily have kind of whipped up what then

01:08:50.360 becomes a sort of new form of identity politics whether you'll remain or or leave and i keep

01:08:56.080 trying to um say and by the way we're not the institute of ideas anymore i should just add that

01:09:01.580 we've changed our name to the academy of ideas because um the institute of ideas apparently is

01:09:06.820 word you can't use the word institute um and so after 18 years um we had to change it because

01:09:13.180 somebody complained so for 18 years it was perfectly fine and then now i don't suppose it's

01:09:19.180 got anything to do with the post-brexit you know make people couldn't possibly couldn't be but

01:09:24.380 anyway and um but but i i think that it i've tried to at the academy of ideas work at the battle of

01:09:32.140 ideas festival that we organize i've tried to say can we just go beyond these labels can we just go

01:09:38.560 and say it doesn't matter but what's your attitude now yeah i mean the one thing that i find

01:09:44.680 frustrating with a lot of remain voters is this is that they vote to remain and therefore that

01:09:48.780 means they're a good person and i find it baffling especially when they go oh i'm a corbynista

01:09:56.160 a Remainer. And I'm like, well, Corbyn isn't probably Remain. Corbyn's a Brexiteer. If

01:10:02.060 you are hard left, you would argue that's incompatible for voting for the EU.

01:10:08.020 Exactly. I mean, I don't know Jeremy Corbyn very well. But let me tell you, the main ways

01:10:13.200 that I've known Jeremy Corbyn over the many years that he's been involved in politics

01:10:16.940 and I've kind of known him as somebody is because of his attitudes to the EU. He was

01:10:22.360 The Benite anti-EU person all my political life that I've known.

01:10:28.780 And you're right, I mean, so people don't understand that bit.

01:10:31.420 But no, you know, we haven't discussed virtue signalling,

01:10:34.020 and I know we've got to stop discussing everything,

01:10:35.800 but there is this kind of...

01:10:37.720 I find it very galling that people would say, 0.96

01:10:40.700 you know, all these ignorant Brexit voters don't know anything about the EU. 0.67

01:10:45.080 And I'd ask people, well, let's talk about the EU then, 0.95

01:10:49.240 and they knew nothing about the EU.

01:10:50.540 Oh, yeah.

01:10:50.820 What they were saying was, particularly young people, actually,

01:10:54.120 and, of course, there was this kind of, like,

01:10:55.740 as young people, we're being betrayed, you know,

01:10:57.720 and the EU is everything.

01:10:59.440 You know, people would say, you know, EU, how are we going to travel?

01:11:02.820 Yeah.

01:11:03.000 What are you talking about, right?

01:11:04.600 You know, sort of like, well, I mean, EU, and, you know,

01:11:07.600 people would say things.

01:11:08.580 I kind of made this point.

01:11:09.560 You know, somebody said to me, yeah, but you like Beethoven.

01:11:12.360 I mean, what's wrong with you?

01:11:13.480 And I said, well, the EU didn't create Beethoven, right?

01:11:16.800 You know what I mean?

01:11:17.240 It's like this sort of, like, everything.

01:11:18.740 But you like European culture, Claire?

01:11:20.140 How can you be so anti-European?

01:11:21.940 I'm not anti-European.

01:11:23.040 I'm not at the EU.

01:11:24.180 It's a particular institution.

01:11:25.880 I think we should get out.

01:11:27.480 I love Europe.

01:11:28.400 I consider myself to be European.

01:11:30.200 Do you know what I mean?

01:11:30.560 But it became a, I am a good person.

01:11:34.700 And that became a closing down of minds.

01:11:37.220 So the irony of saying that people were ignorant bigots who were voting Brexit was that far too many people before the vote assumed that you would just vote in Maine if you were any kind of a nice person who liked...

01:11:50.140 who was international, outward-looking. 0.87

01:11:52.440 That was it.

01:11:53.000 And not racist.

01:11:54.120 And not racist.

01:11:55.980 So, well, I think that's our time.

01:11:59.060 Before we finish, we always like to ask one final question,

01:12:02.300 which is what is the one issue that no one is talking about

01:12:05.100 that we should be talking about?

01:12:10.180 This is a slightly peculiar one,

01:12:12.420 but I think there's a real problem

01:12:14.560 with allowing the police to close down rap videos on YouTube.

01:12:20.460 I think that the issues of youth violence and crime in society are underestimated.

01:12:30.380 Sorry, the way that that issue is being used to assault free speech

01:12:35.400 is something that we should look out for.

01:12:38.620 So there's a consistent attempt by the police

01:12:42.500 to target certain types of music videos and remove them from the web.

01:12:47.260 So that might sound like, what is she talking about?

01:12:49.260 I did not expect you to bring rap music up, I've got to be honest.

01:12:52.380 No, but the reason why it's important is because,

01:12:55.840 I mean, it's particularly drill music,

01:12:57.680 but I think that the reason why it's important is because

01:12:59.940 these small little aspects of the culture wars kind of go on,

01:13:03.960 and suddenly you get the head of the Metropolitan Police

01:13:06.720 saying that it's very important to check

01:13:09.200 whether the lyrics of songs incite violence.

01:13:14.540 And you think, what?

01:13:15.720 The head of the Met.

01:13:17.280 And then in telling YouTube to remove videos of types of music.

01:13:21.820 Now, this seems like such a small thing that you could just let it go.

01:13:25.400 What's that got to do with anything?

01:13:27.180 And, you know, drill music, hardly me.

01:13:29.180 Do you know what I mean?

01:13:29.680 I'm not a fan, particularly.

01:13:31.960 All the drill musicians who are watching now are thinking,

01:13:34.340 thank God for that, our credibility.

01:13:35.420 But on the other hand, to let the state or indeed the big corporates who run the social media platforms remove types of music because the lyrics don't pass some purity test is one of those kind of free speech issues that we should all make much more of a fuss about.

01:13:54.300 And so I suppose for me, sometimes you have to find these small issues and also on the rap music issue, a 19 year old Liverpoolian girl was recently found guilty because she posted a rap song on her Instagram page after a 13 year old was killed in a car accident.

01:14:15.680 and he liked that rap singer she posted the lyrics and of one rap song that contained the n-word and

01:14:24.000 as a consequence she was found guilty of uh section one two three i think it is the communications act

01:14:30.720 she's on a she's found guilty she had no criminal record for that um she she was found guilty of race 1.00

01:14:36.720 you know of of hate crime um she got a fine but she's got a tag and she's got an eight to eight 0.85

01:14:44.320 curfew and eight in the night till eight in the morning curfew she's 19 and a criminal record

01:14:49.420 for hate crime which you know racism right yeah because she likes rap so these like little things

01:14:55.540 right and they chip away behind the scenes a bit unfashionable and i don't you know and a lot of

01:15:01.920 the people who create um drill music are gang members and undoubtedly some of them are unsavory

01:15:07.260 and i might feel a bit weird to say that somebody like me should defend them but they're the hard

01:15:11.920 cases on free speech that we need to defend so we organize a big festival the battle of ideas

01:15:16.960 festival which i hope you two will come to you yeah we'd love to and also like we've got loads

01:15:21.940 of speakers you'll be able to get loads of people let's talk about that yeah brilliant anyway we're

01:15:26.840 going to have one of the big debates going to be on rap amazing so all sorts of things um yes that's

01:15:34.460 one of my that's one of my i want to talk about that a lot more it's interesting you're the second

01:15:38.160 person we've spoken to today who's brought up

01:15:40.140 the issue of drill music, believe it or not.

01:15:41.840 Really? Yeah. We'll talk about that after.

01:15:44.300 Anyway, you're on Twitter.

01:15:46.100 I'm on Twitter. At?

01:15:47.520 At Fox underscore Claire.

01:15:49.160 At Fox underscore Claire. And if you

01:15:52.040 follow Claire also by her book, I find

01:15:54.160 that offensive.

01:15:55.880 I'm at Failing Human. I'm at Constantine

01:15:58.140 Kissing. And do you want to do the honors?

01:16:00.300 Yes. If you've enjoyed the show, which

01:16:02.140 I hope you have done, please give us

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TRIGGERnometry - July 16, 2018

Claire Fox on Generation Snowflake, Free Speech and Debate

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