00:07:47.820And as I said, I don't bother arguing with Wikipedia, which is not.
00:07:52.020Well, there's no point arguing with that.
00:07:53.500So 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.
00:08:08.720Tell 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?
00:08:17.660Yes, 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.
00:08:29.040And that was entirely fictitious, but I sort of know what they mean.
00:08:32.960Because 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.
00:08:43.580and I decided that I would write the book about and to Generation Snowflake
00:08:48.800and so that's kind of how I suppose it became associated with the term
00:08:52.840but I'm aware of the fact that it's an incredibly insulting caricatured term
00:08:57.500and in fact I don't use it in that kind of, you know, you Generation Snowflake, you're all hopeless.
00:09:03.920What I was interested in, excuse me, what I was interested in was
00:09:08.220why young people and i had observed this myself because i hear a lot of talks in schools and
00:09:13.960universities and so on seem to be increasingly thin-skinned and easily offended and rather than
00:09:19.660arguing back which is entirely appropriate now i go and speak you expect them to argue back
00:09:23.800people say you can't say that then getting upset i find that offensive you can't say that and
00:09:29.820it was kind of like i thought i can't i'm sort of developing a reputation of going in and talking
00:14:04.020And 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.
00:14:26.620So I think that that has created an over-anxiety amongst young people.
00:14:30.620I mean, that's the kind of culture in which they are growing up.
00:14:33.840At the same time, unprepared to deal with the rough and tumble of everyday life
00:14:39.080because they also then don't have an opportunity to experiment, take risks, make mistakes.
00:14:45.220So they are kind of infantilised much later and mollycoddled in the way that you say.
00:14:51.260And then there's a whole other story about the self-esteem movement in the way that you said people aren't special.
00:14:56.160And so you get a combination of kind of thin-skinned, over-scared youth
00:14:59.840who also think they're very special, the most important person in the world.
00:15:03.480And there's nothing more toxic than that mix, I think.
00:15:07.180So obviously not every single young person is like that.
00:28:32.740It'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.
00:28:40.940And 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.
00:28:59.040And it's always kind of like the white male stiff upper lip.
00:29:02.360So, again, it's this sort of hard-nosed, you know, whereas the emotionally sensitive, vulnerable person who feels the pain,
00:29:11.500they are the ones that everyone says, what a wonderful person.
00:29:13.900And this person over there is written off as some kind of monster for not being in touch with their emotional angst.
00:29:21.520And how much of this do you think is an exaggerated sense of compassion,
00:29:24.700this idea essentially that being compassionate is so much more important than being practically
00:29:30.380helpful to a young person that's i mean that's fundamentally what you're talking about being
00:29:35.180compassionate is not always the best strategy for helping a young person yeah although i think
00:29:39.200compassion i'm a bit of a fan of compassion i think compassion is not quite the term i think
00:29:45.060compassion it's all right but you could but there's a kind of be cruel to be kind or in as much as you
00:29:49.880know like um as a teacher you know if you go into if you if you go into a class and say you know
00:29:56.720what do you want me to teach you want me to teach um you know kind of poetry as rap music or you
00:30:03.480know the lyrics of rap as poetry or do you want me to do henry the fourth part one right and they
00:30:09.000say rap's much more relevant and then you say good we're not doing that we're doing henry the fourth
00:30:13.780part one right because i don't need to teach you that but you do need to do this you have to work
00:30:17.340well I don't want to do what's the point in doing Jane Austen's you know what's the point
00:30:22.440I'm not doing that what's the point of course you know you have to be very unpopular for a period of
00:30:27.960time young people do not want to learn what they are entitled to know all right it's pretty obvious
00:30:34.580you know what I mean they want to have a great time or they don't they don't want to do anything
00:30:37.960that's going to make their brain hurt or it's not easily accessible and adults have lost the
00:30:45.100courage to look young people in the eye
00:45:27.840I kind of learned a huge amount from it.
00:45:30.960So I didn't agree with the thesis, but it was fantastic.
00:45:32.700And, 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.
00:45:43.700So I believe everyone's like that and everyone should be like that.
00:45:47.420And 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.
00:46:02.900people who are brighter than us taking ideas from 2000 years ago and thinking about how they apply
00:46:08.260today people who are not as bright as us but have got an absolutely sharp wit who see something in
00:46:14.260a different way people whose experiences are different which is why you know identity politics
00:46:18.600is one of the great tyrannies of our time but that's not to say that you don't want to have
00:46:22.540any knowledge of somebody's personal experience through that that created by their identity
00:46:26.960Because that can give you a great insight as well.
00:46:29.500So, of course, the frustration of this kind of stratified, static, dead intellectual climate that we live in.
00:56:44.780the classic thing i'm actually pro-abortion i believe in women's rights for her to have an
00:56:49.540abortion however i believe the behavior by the campaign uh by some of the proponents of the
00:56:55.100campaign was disgraceful and then you had people on twitter and whatever else saying you know he's
00:57:00.960disgusting what he's saying and it was just i know but when did it become reasonable just to be
00:57:08.460unreasonable I know when did when when did we when did it become acceptable to start attacking other
00:57:14.960people and to be vile just because they disagreed with you but there's an illiberal liberalism isn't
00:57:19.660that which is very dangerous for those of us who have some aspiration to fit under the liberal
00:57:25.900heading liberal in the sense of being and the liberal tradition associated with the enlightenment
00:57:30.800of free thinkers and that kind of it's the liberals who are leading the charge on this and I
00:57:35.540And I felt equally squeamish about the abortion debate, by the way, because I was overexcited.
00:57:41.520I'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.
00:57:51.940But, and I never thought I'd say it either, right?
00:57:54.540but i hated some of those campaigners because you know the thing is also that you know people
00:58:02.300are allowed in conscience to say that they think that abortion is a sin is wrong is morally wrong
00:58:12.140that is allowed right that doesn't make them misogynist i think they're wrong i don't i don't
00:58:17.660agree with their religious sensibility but you've got to otherwise you basically abolish free
00:58:23.020your conscience. And you basically say, well, change the law. You've got to go along with
00:58:27.120it now. Well, no, you don't. I mean, if the law is going to be the decider of conscience,
00:58:33.520obviously that's authoritarian. I mean, that's a kind of fascist outlook. I mean, that's
00:58:38.140like a proper state controls your mind stuff, right? No, I mean, there's lots of laws I
00:58:43.920disagree with. I'm going to say so. But particularly in relation to religious freedom, it's hugely
00:58:48.460important to defend religious freedom even if you don't agree with it because that's the basis on
00:58:54.220which you say we are a tolerant society it doesn't mean that i'm going to it it doesn't mean that
00:58:59.080you shouldn't be protected as in you know we can't say that if you insult a religion that you
00:59:04.160you're going to be done for offensiveness but similarly you're going to say that somebody has
00:59:08.540to follow their conscience that's the basis on which we are individual autonomous citizens that's
00:59:13.680the only way it works. And again, this is the infantilizing process, because if you've
00:59:19.320got only one script to follow, then actually you can never grow up. You don't need to hear
00:59:23.740the other side of the argument, do you? Do you know what I mean? You just have to learn
00:59:26.900the script. You learn the script. Anyone who doesn't follow the script is a lunatic, hateful,
00:59:33.720should be banned anyway, because they're not following the script. And in terms of why
00:59:38.440this does young people no favours is because as soon as they encounter an argument that is
00:59:45.060an argument because they've they've actually not ever heard an argument they can't maintain the
00:59:51.280script because they're actually only repeating something as it were by rote they're not used
00:59:56.560to having to defend that argument so i don't mean that they should change their mind when they
01:00:00.740argue with someone like me or anyone else but but they they're so unused to the argument that they
01:00:06.440actually collapse and he but they can't do it so of course then they associate and then they kind
01:00:11.000of they definitely don't want those speakers and then because then they kind of might have to argue
01:00:14.840but you know that's what jsmill brilliantly explains that you don't really understand that
01:00:19.480your argument's right um unless it's kind of clashed against unless you've heard the other
01:00:24.520arguments that's you can't just say my argument's right i know this because the only argument i've
01:00:29.240heard it has to be exposed to the light of the other argument so you can work it out and actually
01:01:45.160I mean, I'm tempted to say yes, but it's not quite right.
01:01:47.760I 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.
01:02:01.560And, you know, part of the left behind scenario, it's not just an economic left behind, and that's a misunderstanding, I think.
01:02:07.520it was kind of aware of the fact that there was this kind of whole culture built up
01:02:11.180that apparently the only you that you had to support you know um you know uh um it was the
01:02:19.480toilets arguments on transgender i can't really remember the way but it was kind of like this
01:02:22.780sort of you know if you don't agree with transgender toilets then you're really out
01:02:26.720you know what i mean and people sort of there was a big debate in america about him people
01:02:29.700just sort of saying what what what what and so that i think that there was that and then also
01:02:36.100identity politics informed the people who voted for Hillary. She assumed that identity
01:02:42.440would be one of the big things. So she didn't try and argue beyond that. And I think that
01:02:47.140something of Trump's appeal kind of said, well, there's one identity that gets ignored
01:02:52.760and that's the white working class. And there was a kind of element of that as well. So
01:02:56.000I think that there was certainly a reaction against crudely put political correctness
01:03:00.360and identity politics in Trump's vote.
01:03:02.940But I also think that Trump is kind of himself
01:03:28.060The 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.
01:03:41.200So I don't want to make any virtues in relation to what I think is a real problematic way that he's running society.
01:04:13.520he's like a serious humanities professor
01:04:15.800Professor. 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.
01:04:35.040And 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
01:04:40.980Hope rang home for me. I think that in the build-up to the brexit referendum into the EU referendum
01:04:47.880I constantly was meeting people in the circuits that I
01:04:52.620Travel in he would say I mean has anyone ever met a brexit supporter?
01:04:58.140You 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
01:05:04.500I said, no, I am going to vote Brexit.
01:05:26.720we might not have known there was going to be a majority,
01:05:28.640but we did know that there was a lot of them, right?
01:05:30.240But in there, there was no imagination.
01:05:32.800So 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?
01:05:51.380I 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.
01:06:02.800And so it's not a kind of equal thing.
01:06:04.960I 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.
01:06:13.760You know, we've all got separate lives. Right.
01:06:15.340But 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.
01:06:33.240And those kind of attitudes that emerged have really grated.
01:06:39.260You 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.
01:06:47.380Well, 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.
01:06:58.280But 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.
01:07:13.200I mean, this is one of the most tolerant countries in the history of the world.
01:07:16.560But it's also the case that most people who voted Remain have accepted the
01:07:25.140referendum results and done so. Loads of my friends voted Remain. Loads of my
01:07:30.240friends voted Brexit. As you know, lots of people had arguments before and
01:07:35.280afterwards and my family was split, but actually not in that way that
01:07:39.780everyone says very acrobatics. But I have been really shocked by how a
01:07:44.440a substantial hardcore have kind of framed the debate subsequent well in the build-up to and
01:07:50.200subsequent of writing off brexit voters but i've been uh encouraged by how many of my remain friends
01:07:57.580are also shocked as in the way that you've said i mean it's given us an insight into way things work
01:08:04.400in a way that is like it's horrible right but it's definitely kind of like a kind of top you
01:08:10.540it's kind of like it's like one of the things is you think oh my god you know the establishment
01:08:15.140don't like it when they lose yeah like that like these people don't like it like that there's
01:08:19.960whole swathes of very influential people who are just furious and furious and will never forgive
01:08:28.580and i'll not get everything god on my and and whereas most ordinary remain voters are like
01:08:33.280sort of oh well that's a shame but now we get we've got to leave the emu have we and then suddenly
01:08:37.380you end up in a civil war and the problem is is that then the people who are kind of leading the
01:08:43.960remain won't give in they're not letting this happen easily have kind of whipped up what then
01:08:50.360becomes a sort of new form of identity politics whether you'll remain or or leave and i keep
01:08:56.080trying to um say and by the way we're not the institute of ideas anymore i should just add that
01:09:01.580we've changed our name to the academy of ideas because um the institute of ideas apparently is
01:09:06.820word you can't use the word institute um and so after 18 years um we had to change it because
01:09:13.180somebody complained so for 18 years it was perfectly fine and then now i don't suppose it's
01:09:19.180got anything to do with the post-brexit you know make people couldn't possibly couldn't be but
01:09:24.380anyway and um but but i i think that it i've tried to at the academy of ideas work at the battle of
01:09:32.140ideas festival that we organize i've tried to say can we just go beyond these labels can we just go
01:09:38.560and say it doesn't matter but what's your attitude now yeah i mean the one thing that i find
01:09:44.680frustrating with a lot of remain voters is this is that they vote to remain and therefore that
01:09:48.780means they're a good person and i find it baffling especially when they go oh i'm a corbynista
01:09:56.160a Remainer. And I'm like, well, Corbyn isn't probably Remain. Corbyn's a Brexiteer. If
01:10:02.060you are hard left, you would argue that's incompatible for voting for the EU.
01:10:08.020Exactly. I mean, I don't know Jeremy Corbyn very well. But let me tell you, the main ways
01:10:13.200that I've known Jeremy Corbyn over the many years that he's been involved in politics
01:10:16.940and I've kind of known him as somebody is because of his attitudes to the EU. He was
01:10:22.360The Benite anti-EU person all my political life that I've known.
01:10:28.780And you're right, I mean, so people don't understand that bit.
01:10:31.420But no, you know, we haven't discussed virtue signalling,
01:10:34.020and I know we've got to stop discussing everything,
01:11:34.700And that became a closing down of minds.
01:11:37.220So 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...
01:11:50.140who was international, outward-looking.
01:13:35.420But 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.
01:13:54.300And 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.
01:14:15.680and he liked that rap singer she posted the lyrics and of one rap song that contained the n-word and
01:14:24.000as a consequence she was found guilty of uh section one two three i think it is the communications act
01:14:30.720she's on a she's found guilty she had no criminal record for that um she she was found guilty of race
01:14:36.720you know of of hate crime um she got a fine but she's got a tag and she's got an eight to eight
01:14:44.320curfew and eight in the night till eight in the morning curfew she's 19 and a criminal record
01:14:49.420for hate crime which you know racism right yeah because she likes rap so these like little things
01:14:55.540right and they chip away behind the scenes a bit unfashionable and i don't you know and a lot of
01:15:01.920the people who create um drill music are gang members and undoubtedly some of them are unsavory
01:15:07.260and i might feel a bit weird to say that somebody like me should defend them but they're the hard
01:15:11.920cases on free speech that we need to defend so we organize a big festival the battle of ideas
01:15:16.960festival which i hope you two will come to you yeah we'd love to and also like we've got loads
01:15:21.940of speakers you'll be able to get loads of people let's talk about that yeah brilliant anyway we're
01:15:26.840going to have one of the big debates going to be on rap amazing so all sorts of things um yes that's
01:15:34.460one of my that's one of my i want to talk about that a lot more it's interesting you're the second
01:15:38.160person we've spoken to today who's brought up
01:15:40.140the issue of drill music, believe it or not.
01:15:41.840Really? Yeah. We'll talk about that after.