TRIGGERnometry - David Starkey： Can the West Survive？

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00:01:01.080 British opinion has hardened hugely against Harry and Meghan, and in favour of the monarchy.

00:01:09.720 Harry has had a religious conversion.

00:01:13.300 He's been converted to this.

00:01:15.020 The beautiful woman will do that to you.

00:01:16.920 Well, exactly, he's got a priestess.

00:01:19.780 The religion has got a priestess, but she's Meghan.

00:01:22.680 But she believes in this stuff.

00:01:24.520 What does he do?

00:01:25.520 He found the Invictus Games for badly injured soldiers.

00:01:29.780 Do you know what Invictus means?

00:01:32.280 Not victim.

00:01:33.360 Wow.

00:01:34.560 It means, isn't it interesting?

00:01:36.580 Isn't it interesting?

00:01:37.760 It means not victim.

00:01:39.320 It means unconquered.

00:01:40.680 It's from the Latin to conquer.

00:01:42.600 He really doesn't see it.

00:01:43.520 He doesn't see it.

00:01:45.180 I'm sure he managed to go through six years at Eton and not learn a single word of Latin.

00:01:51.200 I mean, I think that they're doing profound damage to themselves.

00:01:55.000 He's an exile.

00:01:56.980 He's become, to use, I think an appropriate word, because he's been treacherous.

00:02:03.980 He has become a traitor.

00:02:15.500 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry.

00:02:18.460 I'm Francis Foster.

00:02:19.740 I'm Constantine Kitten.

00:02:20.680 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:02:26.320 Our fantastic and returning guest today is one of this country's most prominent historians,

00:02:30.440 Dr. David Starkey.

00:02:31.480 Welcome back to Trigonometry.

00:02:33.180 Thank you.

00:02:33.860 It's so good to have you on the show.

00:02:35.400 We've got lots to talk about, particularly the royals.

00:02:37.820 We want to get your take on that, and I'm sure it's going to be very interesting.

00:02:41.400 50 minutes is knocking now, is it?

00:02:44.120 That we'll have to stretch it out then, David.

00:02:46.300 But before we do, one of the things I'm pleased to see is that you've recovered.

00:02:51.640 So if there was any recovery needed from the attempted cancellation, you're back.

00:02:57.440 You are speaking at Oxford Union shortly.

00:02:59.860 You've been welcomed back into the fold of society.

00:03:02.580 Is that broadly speaking right?

00:03:04.060 I'm not sure that I was ever driven out of the fold of society.

00:03:07.880 There's this strange little world, this tiny world of smug, self-satisfied people, centering

00:03:15.200 on places like The Guardian, the BBC, some university common rooms, certain charities, the civil

00:03:22.900 service that think they are the world.

00:03:25.740 They are, of course, not.

00:03:27.500 They're a little group of self-satisfied people.

00:03:29.660 Now, those self-satisfied people can do terrible, terrible things because they control employment.

00:03:36.180 In many ways, they control, they used to control.

00:03:39.120 BBC had virtually a monopoly on the dissemination of information.

00:03:43.000 The one thing they didn't control is real society, save in so far as people are frightened.

00:03:50.940 And yes, there was fear.

00:03:54.460 There was fear in not me.

00:03:56.440 I've never been frightened.

00:03:57.520 I lost only one semi-friend.

00:04:04.040 One.

00:04:04.700 And he was the kind of person who buys friends.

00:04:08.560 To give you an idea of the quality of the man, I once visited his garden.

00:04:12.940 I complimented him on the white foxgloves.

00:04:15.600 He said, yes, yesterday I had 10,000 planted.

00:04:19.800 That tells you all you need to know.

00:04:22.580 Somebody who buys foxgloves and friends.

00:04:25.280 Real friends were absolutely stalwart.

00:04:28.240 What they were hesitant about doing, a lot of them, was putting head above parapet.

00:04:34.280 There was much support behind this.

00:04:36.520 Oh, yes, absolutely disgraceful.

00:04:38.060 Shocking.

00:04:40.340 Not actually much muscle.

00:04:43.660 But then I decided that no one has ever shut me up before.

00:04:50.540 Many have tried, beginning with my mother.

00:04:54.020 That explains a lot, David.

00:04:55.840 It says so much.

00:04:57.100 My mother, as always, mothers get you half right.

00:05:00.740 She said, your tongue will be the ruin of you.

00:05:02.860 Well, it very nearly was.

00:05:04.840 It's also been the making of me.

00:05:07.620 And it's this, again, we've seen the same thing with Clarkson.

00:05:11.520 You know, those of us who walk tightropes can fall.

00:05:15.960 Those of us who parade on knife edges can get cut.

00:05:19.540 But above all, you need a degree of courage.

00:05:25.720 You need a degree of honest self-judgment.

00:05:31.460 Admitting you were a fool yourself is a start.

00:05:37.020 But equally, once in my sense, in my case, one of outraged injustice, that an outraged sense

00:05:46.000 of justice, that the sheer disproportion, and of course, above all, the fact I wasn't

00:05:54.020 employed.

00:05:55.680 You know, if I depended on university salary, I would have been lost.

00:06:01.580 It's why J.K. Rowling can get away with it.

00:06:04.180 She's too rich to cancel.

00:06:07.800 The retired, have you noticed, the most outspoken academics are the retired academics.

00:06:14.720 You look now at, for example, History Reclaimed, David Aboulafia, Robert Frost.

00:06:21.460 Retirement is not only giving them a new lease of life, it's giving them a new lease of freedom.

00:06:27.320 You can't be cancelled.

00:06:29.660 You can't, or rather, the whole, as it were, enforcement machinery, dismissal, professional

00:06:38.040 restriction, and whatever, doesn't apply.

00:06:42.100 It's those who are in employment.

00:06:43.480 It's those, those are the ones who are so vulnerable.

00:06:47.640 And then again, as we've been talking about, so that's the fact that the constructions apply

00:06:54.740 in a very, very uneven way.

00:06:56.960 I mean, I think, I think, again, you look at so many of those who are making, making the

00:07:04.340 running in the, in the revival, because there's undoubtedly a very serious revival of free

00:07:09.740 speech.

00:07:10.000 Many, many of them are the elderly.

00:07:12.720 They're those out, somewhat outside, those standing away from...

00:07:17.000 You're talking about us, mate.

00:07:18.180 The elderly.

00:07:19.880 No, but you're, sorry, you're of a different kind.

00:07:23.520 You are the world of the new media.

00:07:25.220 But then equally, the new media were precisely one of the means by which the worst aspects,

00:07:32.060 through Twitter and whatever, of cancellation was enforced.

00:07:38.680 In other words, we're in a world of margins, aren't we?

00:07:42.940 In which mass society enforces rules.

00:07:50.040 But equally, there are so many bits that you fall off the edge in most interesting ways.

00:07:55.920 I mean, I've always argued that the, if you wanted to do really big pseudo-history stuff

00:08:01.500 on freedom in the West, you'd said that freedom is a little bit like the mammals in the age

00:08:07.820 of the dinosaurs, these tiny little creatures scurrying around between these things.

00:08:12.740 And in the West, above all, I think it's the fact that you have the war between church

00:08:19.260 and state, between papacy and empire.

00:08:22.480 And there's this little bit of space.

00:08:25.040 And the world that we're in now, with these gigantic forces, oddly enough, it leaves little

00:08:29.800 bits of space.

00:08:30.980 And people like us, the smart, clever little mammals, can run around these gigantic, snorting,

00:08:37.560 posturing dinosaurs and laugh at them.

00:08:40.980 And occasionally, you're underneath, so you can do horrible things to their tender of bits.

00:08:46.100 But David, we need those people.

00:08:49.500 We need the people on the knife edge.

00:08:51.560 Dissent is essential.

00:08:54.100 All progress.

00:08:55.340 I mean, all new ideas depend on heresy.

00:08:58.920 The heretic is the key figure.

00:09:01.180 The person who says, to pick a crass and crude example, no, the sun does not revolve around

00:09:09.720 the earth.

00:09:10.100 Somebody has got to break the obvious.

00:09:14.020 Somebody has got to say what everybody thinks is untrue.

00:09:17.500 And again, my dear mother came in very useful.

00:09:20.280 I come from a background of minority religion, Quakerism.

00:09:26.600 And my mother was, in many ways, a profoundly conventional woman in one sense, over things

00:09:32.460 like morality and whatever.

00:09:33.640 But equally, she had a remarkably powerful sense that public opinion is often wrong.

00:09:42.680 Just because everybody says something, she would say, is not necessarily right.

00:09:47.400 I was also brought up.

00:09:49.660 She was fiercely opposed to corporal punishment.

00:09:52.420 So she made them.

00:09:53.520 Dear me, talk about making a rod for her own back.

00:09:56.300 She thought the right way to deal with a child is to reason with them.

00:09:59.440 Can you imagine trying to reason with me as a three-year-old?

00:10:03.000 She nearly broke herself.

00:10:05.880 But it gave me that sense that finally the truth is there, that it can be argued for,

00:10:13.920 it can be defended.

00:10:15.100 Again, I was immensely, bearing it my age, I'm born in 45, I was immensely fortunate, both

00:10:21.020 in my primary school and more particularly in my little grammar school, 300, a boy's grammar,

00:10:27.520 which had been taken over by an astonishing reforming headmaster.

00:10:32.360 I think he was one of the youngest in the country.

00:10:34.160 He was only in his early 30s, a man called James Boyes.

00:10:37.400 And he'd essentially abolished corporal punishment.

00:10:40.800 I was going to say capital punishment.

00:10:42.340 That had been the previous decade.

00:10:45.040 But he'd essentially abolished corporal punishment.

00:10:47.960 And the school operated as far as it could on a principle of argument and reason.

00:10:54.080 Well, that's...

00:10:58.080 Of course, you always find yourself coming up against the fact that people may say that

00:11:04.300 they believe in reason.

00:11:05.600 But when he touches things really tightly, my mother, again, her favorite word, she was

00:11:12.580 such a bundle of contradiction, was, oh, it's a matter of principle.

00:11:16.180 And this little boy learned very quickly that a principle is something that people believe

00:11:21.240 in so strongly that they won't listen to reason on the subject.

00:11:26.000 Again, at Cambridge, with my great teacher, with Geoffrey Elton, always, you know, I've got

00:11:34.460 the view, you know, you should be contemptuous of your elders, harsh to your equals, and generous

00:11:40.740 to those below you.

00:11:42.000 You apply that to me, which I did.

00:11:44.700 And at which point...

00:11:45.520 Surprisingly, you know, suddenly, you know, you've rebelled against your intellectual father.

00:11:54.060 But I've tried not to fall into that trap.

00:11:58.660 I'm sure I sometimes have.

00:12:00.040 David, and speaking of dissent, I mean, one of the things that I found, and I don't use

00:12:06.780 this word lightly, but genuinely shocking, was to do with the royal family, which is one

00:12:13.740 of the reasons we wanted to have you back, but at the tail end of last year, where you

00:12:18.180 had this incident with Ngozi Fulani.

00:12:20.560 Yeah.

00:12:20.720 And it just seemed to me that we've become deranged in the way that we talk about these

00:12:26.160 things.

00:12:26.400 I mean, the way that story was covered showed me that that bubble that you talked about

00:12:30.120 earlier, I mean, their view of reality is so distorted now that they are so bought into

00:12:37.240 the idea that the royal family is just one racist enterprise, et cetera, et cetera.

00:12:42.080 What did you make of all that?

00:12:43.100 I was profoundly shocked by the way in which the entire case was reported.

00:12:53.480 I mean, I was listening that evening when Fulani went public.

00:12:59.540 She was interviewed on virtually every channel.

00:13:02.980 I was in a car when my friend Ian Dale interviewed her.

00:13:08.060 And I have never heard a more shameful, and I say this, and I'm deeply fond of Ian, I've

00:13:13.840 never heard a more shameful and sycophantic piece of broadcasting in my life.

00:13:19.100 That there was simply this prostration before this woman who clearly had to be the voice

00:13:25.180 of absolute truth because of who she was, what she was, what color she was.

00:13:30.120 And I thought that was shameful.

00:13:32.160 It was clear that the story was a complex one.

00:13:35.440 I was again profoundly shocked at the response of the household of the Prince of Wales immediately,

00:13:43.920 implicitly accusing his godmother, Lady Susan Hussey, of racism.

00:13:49.560 That, I thought, was shocking too.

00:13:52.980 The dialogue was a very strange one.

00:13:56.600 But then, so when you actually looked at Ngozi Vulani, was she?

00:14:02.220 Here was a woman with an extraordinary conflation of names.

00:14:07.920 Hussey knew Africa.

00:14:10.760 Hussey was a church, gather as a member of a church with large numbers of African members

00:14:17.820 of the congregation.

00:14:19.200 She was clearly profoundly puzzled by the union of two wildly different tribal names.

00:14:26.540 Here was a woman who was wearing, come on, say, it was almost a carnival version of African dress.

00:14:35.120 It really was.

00:14:36.240 I mean, it was a sort of outfit that, in the old days, a Victorian traveling circus would have used

00:14:44.960 to exhibit an African queen.

00:14:47.620 She was wearing as much leperskin print as you'd normally only find on a barstool in Las Vegas.

00:14:55.160 Is it any wonder that a woman who traveled with the queen to Africa had seen the real thing

00:15:03.200 was completely puzzled?

00:15:05.920 Okay, the interrogation probably went too far.

00:15:09.120 But here again, if I, do you know what?

00:15:14.600 I could hear myself as Susan Hussey.

00:15:17.220 I really could.

00:15:18.780 You have the sense of, I'm puzzled by you.

00:15:23.100 I don't understand you.

00:15:24.840 I don't understand what you're claiming to be.

00:15:26.960 And, of course, you know, the whole game was played to, as it were, get maximum traction for, again,

00:15:38.700 this view that British society, particularly upper class British society, is fundamentally racist,

00:15:46.140 that she was challenging this woman's right to be British, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

00:15:50.840 But isn't it striking?

00:15:52.500 Fulani goes out of her way to emphasize not her British identity, but her Pan-African identity,

00:16:03.640 which, again, very many black commentators were saying is something they find profoundly problematic,

00:16:11.240 because, of course, it places skin color above culture,

00:16:15.060 which, again, gets us into, to associate identity with skin color, surely is racist.

00:16:25.020 So, you know, the whole, we are in the cul-de-sac of absurdities and paradoxes.

00:16:30.280 David, the thing that really struck me, and you use your own example, and I think about this in that context as well,

00:16:34.960 is the amount of bad faith that was so obvious in that engagement that was not critically analyzed by the media at all.

00:16:42.360 I mean, if you and I were to have a conversation, as we might have done when we first met,

00:16:46.640 and you said to me, oh, you're foreign, where are you from?

00:16:49.020 And I gave you some obfuscatory answer, and you went on, oh, but where are you really from?

00:16:55.260 I'd be like, I know what David's asking.

00:16:57.120 He's asking where I was born.

00:16:58.380 Why don't I just tell him, and then we can have a conversation about that,

00:17:01.220 and that's how human beings connect.

00:17:03.660 It was very clear from this engagement that this woman was deliberately making this into a big deal,

00:17:09.140 and nobody had the balls to stand up and say it.

00:17:11.440 That's right.

00:17:13.360 It, again, I mean, I had a remarkable conversation, and I wish I could remember his name.

00:17:19.300 It was at a history-reclaimed party, and he was from, I think, I think in the Balkans.

00:17:27.800 He completely anglicized to a level that I would say for the fact that he used an original version of his surname.

00:17:40.100 I would have had no awareness whatever.

00:17:41.920 And what we were then talking about, what was I supposed to call him?

00:17:46.920 And I wanted to call him English because he seemed to me to have everything that I regard as English in the sense of the use of language, the sensibility, the culture.

00:17:59.900 And he was saying, no, I can't be.

00:18:02.820 I have to be British.

00:18:04.320 And I found myself, it was really odd, I found myself arguing that finally Englishness has become a matter of culture.

00:18:13.660 It is in the same way that you, despite spelling constant time of the K, and whatever, in so many ways are almost as English as you.

00:18:31.180 And I think we're going to, see, I think this is the way forward.

00:18:36.760 And I have got this sense, again, England increasingly is becoming a place of the mind in exactly the same way that Rome was.

00:18:48.540 And for all the same sorts of reasons, a dominant culture, which was the center of a vast empire,

00:18:55.200 which itself is being transformed ethnically precisely because of the empire coming back home and so on.

00:19:02.840 But the idea of Roman-ness survived as a mental and cultural identity.

00:19:13.380 And one, of course, that was capable of being revived hundreds, a thousand years after Rome had fallen.

00:19:20.040 I wonder if...

00:19:22.020 We might be going that way.

00:19:23.080 I'm wondering, but it seems to me that rather than just sticking to the brief, it's worth exploring that thought.

00:19:31.600 But to return, because you want to talk about that.

00:19:34.120 Well, we were wanting to talk about the royalty, the royal family.

00:19:37.800 And I think my question, and the question that I really want to ask you, before we get into anything to do with Harry, etc.,

00:19:44.220 is why does a royal family matter?

00:19:47.100 Why is it so important to this country, David?

00:19:49.160 It is the one continuous thread in our history.

00:19:55.240 I try to explain to people why...

00:19:58.360 There are several ways in which you can understand it.

00:20:01.080 But essentially, and it is this utter paradox of English history.

00:20:07.700 It's not British history.

00:20:09.120 It's English history.

00:20:10.000 This utter paradox of English history, that all the things that we think of as our freedoms,

00:20:17.860 the security of property, the forms of representative government, the rigorous enforcement of law,

00:20:27.040 all happen under monarchy, are finally a creation of it, and it is their guarantor.

00:20:34.220 In other words, we are that most paradoxical of things.

00:20:38.100 We are a royal republic.

00:20:40.620 As, in fact, Prince Charles, King Charles, very clearly understood in what I thought was a remarkably good speech,

00:20:49.220 which he gave the sort of invented, like so much of the accession,

00:20:53.640 the invented speech when he met both houses of parliament in Westminster Hall

00:20:58.340 and emphasized the fact we are a parliamentary monarchy.

00:21:02.380 Now, many people think that that's a sort of creation of democracy in the 20th century.

00:21:07.700 It's not.

00:21:08.960 It goes back to the very latest, the beginning of the 14th century.

00:21:14.880 In 1308, in a ritual that will shortly be reenacted, that's the coronation and the taking of the coronation oath.

00:21:23.720 In 1308, Edward II was forced to swear an oath that he would obey and enforce the laws that shall be chosen by my people.

00:21:34.980 Shall be chosen.

00:21:38.060 That's, it is unique in the history of the English monarchy.

00:21:42.080 In other words, what I want, what I think is important about the monarchy is that it shows that freedom can be historically rooted,

00:21:53.040 that it's part of a tradition, that it is not a product of the 19th century, that it is not a product of democracy,

00:22:01.460 that it is not a product of revolution, that it's not a product of a bill of rights,

00:22:06.020 although all of those things at certain points enter into the story.

00:22:10.400 The thing that finally guarantees freedom in Britain, extraordinarily, isn't the revolution of the 17th century.

00:22:17.180 It is the restoration of a monarchy.

00:22:19.420 And this is the wonderful paradox of English history.

00:22:23.360 Do you think that...

00:22:24.460 In other words, I'm saying our history is monarchy.

00:22:29.320 That's why I wrote a book called Crown and Country, which is a history of England through the monarchy.

00:22:34.920 It is the institution which reflects us to ourselves.

00:22:38.940 Now, what the relationship of that is to Charles and Harry and the soap opera of all of that is anybody's guess.

00:22:47.000 But I'm giving you the high intellectual view of monarchy.

00:22:50.720 And I think it's one that is...

00:22:52.100 I mean, I'm being desperately serious about it.

00:22:54.420 Because, remember, particularly this whole new laborish, new leftish university college constitution unit view of political freedom and whatever,

00:23:06.700 that it's all to do with the Enlightenment, that it's all to do with written constitutions,

00:23:12.700 that it's all to do with bills of right and sort of doing what, more or less,

00:23:17.500 a newly enfranchised Eastern European country would set up as its structure of government.

00:23:23.620 I will always gently try to remind people that the average age of a written constitution is about 10 years.

00:23:31.400 They last no longer.

00:23:33.560 The fact that, for example, America was able to create a constitution which has endured is utterly unique.

00:23:42.340 There is no other example that compares with that.

00:23:47.380 And, of course, it has an enormous downside, as we can actually see at the moment.

00:23:52.040 You cement a rigidity.

00:23:54.720 You get over the right to bear arms and whatever.

00:23:58.420 You get absurd doctrinal rigidity.

00:24:02.020 Whereas, a living and constantly revivifying tradition, such as we have or had and should have,

00:24:11.300 I think is the right way to handle human relations.

00:24:15.320 David, you talked about England being this idea.

00:24:17.820 Do you think we can have England without the monarchy?

00:24:20.560 Do you think it could exist as a republic?

00:24:22.780 Or are those two things incompatible?

00:24:26.240 It was tried, wasn't it?

00:24:28.460 It was tried in the 17th century.

00:24:30.120 That's exactly what happened.

00:24:31.440 We did abolish the monarchy, and we lasted for 21 years and clamoured to have it back.

00:24:38.740 I mean, repeatedly, the obvious thing was for Cromwell to have, there was a clamour to make Cromwell king.

00:24:47.420 The sense was that the norm couldn't work without the monarchy.

00:24:55.420 Now, I suspect that's probably no longer true.

00:24:57.620 I think that the monarchy has become so much of a formality that you could, I'm afraid, very easily see it vanish.

00:25:10.440 I think it would be a profound error.

00:25:13.280 I think if we did do what we did again in the 17th century, we would discover our absolute vulnerability.

00:25:22.220 We have all the things you and I talk about, the world of woke, the awful cesspit of race relations or whatever.

00:25:35.180 These are forces which press very, very heavily on the whole of the Western polity.

00:25:43.120 It seems to me your only resource against these things is finally tradition.

00:25:48.960 And I'm now arguing against my younger self.

00:25:56.020 It may be just that I'm getting old.

00:25:58.400 It may just be that my mind is no longer as sharp as it used to be.

00:26:02.140 But I don't think reason is any defense against these horrors.

00:26:08.000 I really don't.

00:26:09.420 I mean, in fact, the horrors, in my view, demonstrably arise from the reason gone wrong.

00:26:18.080 The very fact that so much of it is called critical theory.

00:26:24.120 It's a kind of reason become cancerous.

00:26:27.900 It's a whole series of intellectual movements that, as it were, have turned against the metabolism of the mind and of society.

00:26:36.940 And finally, the anchor against them is our traditions of decency, of good sense, of the way in which we do things.

00:26:47.500 And this is what is so shocking, for example, places like Oxbridge, and particularly my own University of Cambridge.

00:26:55.060 Once upon a time, the sheer notion of collegiality, the sheer notion of the relationship between teacher and taught,

00:27:05.680 would have the sheer reverence for learning itself, would have acted as a barrier and a bulwark.

00:27:13.420 But the deliberate attack on these traditions, the destruction within my own lifetime of a sense of collegiality,

00:27:20.880 the absence any longer of common dining, of dons who live in, of unmarried dons who give their whole lives to their institutions,

00:27:29.860 it means that the barriers of tradition have largely vanished.

00:27:34.220 There is nothing but reason, self-advancement and whatever, and we can see how totally inadequate they are.

00:27:40.600 You go back to my own case, a college, for a mere moment of thinking, oh, this is a bit of a problem,

00:27:48.320 throws somebody who has been involved in it at a very high level and doing a great deal of good for it for 50-odd years,

00:27:56.000 simply aside like a soiled tissue.

00:27:58.580 Now, that represents, in my view, moral corruption.

00:28:02.200 That represents the abandonment of decency, the things on which we really depend.

00:28:09.420 Reason, reason, reason, reason I'm sorry, isn't much of a protection.

00:28:13.600 Look at the French Revolution itself and the absurdity of the goddess of reason,

00:28:20.480 who's some half-naked actress from the Comédie Française performing on the altar of Notre Dame.

00:28:26.540 It's why Burke pushes reason to one side.

00:28:33.260 Reason can very easily go mad.

00:28:36.180 It's a rootedness of behavior and a rootedness of political institutions.

00:28:42.920 And one of the things that most worries me about what's happening in Britain

00:28:47.460 is the increasing contempt for our political process, which in many ways I share.

00:28:54.600 The parliament, which used to be a thing of genuine...

00:28:59.740 Okay, everybody laughs at parliament and individual parliamentarians,

00:29:03.860 but broadly that sense of pride in the thing seems to me to have worn dangerously, dangerously thin.

00:29:12.420 And that worries me, because...

00:29:18.420 Are you familiar with that extraordinary story of Churchill at the beginning of the First World War?

00:29:27.300 He takes a young man late at night.

00:29:31.160 They're wandering around the Palace of Westminster, as indeed I was last week, the small hours.

00:29:36.020 And they wander into the chamber of the House of Commons, dark, blue lights, flickering,

00:29:42.720 I suppose maybe electricity, maybe gas at that point.

00:29:46.020 And Churchill invites this young man to look.

00:29:50.720 He says, going into the empty House of Commons, this is why we're going to win.

00:29:57.900 Now, would anybody be confident about doing that now?

00:30:02.520 That confidence in the tradition of...

00:30:05.420 We were talking about the Oxford Union, which, of course, models its debating,

00:30:10.260 like the Cambridge Union, on parliament.

00:30:12.680 Does anybody any longer have confidence that what goes on in parliament

00:30:17.040 represents a genuine discussion by debate?

00:30:21.380 And I think this is an utter, utter tragedy.

00:30:24.640 And it leaves us profoundly vulnerable, that without that security of tradition, you have very little.

00:30:35.320 We talk about tradition, and we talk about being profoundly vulnerable.

00:30:39.100 To me, the royal family are profoundly vulnerable without Queen Elizabeth.

00:30:44.260 Because even people who identify as republicans, who would openly question or even mock the monarchy,

00:30:49.900 practically everyone I speak to in this country had the utmost respect for our Queen.

00:30:55.760 But the moment that she passed away, it seems that they're up for debate,

00:31:02.280 and it seems that they can be challenged, and they can be...

00:31:06.080 I mean, do you know what?

00:31:07.380 I think you reflect that the very last phase of the Queen's reign,

00:31:14.900 that this unchallenged respect was very much a product of, I think, really only post...

00:31:27.260 Well, I thought the last 10 years or so.

00:31:29.720 I mean, if you actually think at the deeply challenged unrespect

00:31:33.320 that was directed at the Queen at Diana's death,

00:31:37.140 when you actually had Blair seeing himself as having to protect the monarchy against itself,

00:31:43.200 she was accused of being cruel, unfeeling,

00:31:46.940 not sharing the marvellous openness of Princess Diana.

00:31:51.780 No, I think that what I was surprised by was the remarkable warmth of the reception given to King Charles.

00:32:04.920 I was actually very impressed by the confidence with which he acted at the beginning of the reign.

00:32:12.640 I've been less impressed by, of course, the current hoo-ha.

00:32:20.520 But then equally, if you look at opinion polls,

00:32:24.080 British opinion has hardened hugely against Harry and Meghan and in favour of the monarchy.

00:32:32.820 And what, again, of course, is striking is...

00:32:36.360 Well, it's not even striking.

00:32:37.400 The patterns of support, if you want to call them sides,

00:32:43.340 they correspond to that other great, great divide in British life.

00:32:47.960 In general, you will find Harry and Meghan's supporters were invariably remain voters.

00:32:55.220 And, you know, monarchists are invariably...

00:32:58.220 Die-hard monarchists invariably leave voters.

00:33:02.080 Because, I mean, it's a very...

00:33:04.880 Now, the overlap between the two groups, in other words,

00:33:08.120 not every Remainer is a supporter of Harry and Meghan,

00:33:13.180 but all supporters of Harry and Meghan are on the Remain side and so on.

00:33:18.400 But what is striking about those people is, of course,

00:33:21.360 the die-hard supporters of Harry and Meghan,

00:33:23.600 by definition, are fundamentally anti-monarchist.

00:33:25.900 And the kind of source, the kind of groups that they're appealing to,

00:33:32.120 particularly the extraordinary trio of people who appeared in the Netflix series,

00:33:38.960 you know, when we were talking about the Susan Hussey

00:33:45.080 and the Ngozi-Fulani business,

00:33:49.140 the business when the alleged essential racism of the monarchy was being discussed.

00:33:57.560 Look at who they were.

00:33:58.820 David Olusoga, Kehinde Andrews, and Afua Hirsch.

00:34:04.040 Every one of them, a profound anti-monarchist.

00:34:07.140 So you think it's an anti-monarchy thing,

00:34:13.820 but the damage they're doing to the royal family is...

00:34:16.900 I'm not sure.

00:34:17.500 I'm not...

00:34:18.000 I really don't think so.

00:34:19.620 I mean, I think that they're doing profound damage to themselves.

00:34:23.180 I mean, the...

00:34:24.140 I mean, what's...

00:34:26.020 I mean, Harry is an exile.

00:34:28.280 He's an exile.

00:34:30.500 He's become, to use, I think an appropriate word,

00:34:35.240 because he's been treacherous.

00:34:37.180 He has become a traitor.

00:34:40.000 And what I've said earlier on, it seems to me,

00:34:44.240 Harry has undergone...

00:34:46.080 We talk, don't we, increasingly about...

00:34:49.920 Woke, about critical race theory as either religions or heresies.

00:34:56.680 Harry has had a religious conversion.

00:35:00.220 He's been converted to this.

00:35:01.940 The woman...

00:35:02.220 The beautiful woman will do that to you.

00:35:05.240 Yes.

00:35:06.560 I said a beautiful woman will do that to you.

00:35:08.480 Well, exactly.

00:35:09.560 It's got a priestess.

00:35:10.920 The religion has got a priestess, which is Meghan.

00:35:13.760 But she believes in this stuff.

00:35:15.260 Yes.

00:35:15.460 Yeah.

00:35:15.940 And so what you have with Harry,

00:35:18.440 and it's only with poor Harry,

00:35:19.980 because he's not terribly bright

00:35:21.140 and he doesn't really understand all of this,

00:35:22.940 it's a very partial conversion.

00:35:25.320 But you see this poor man straddling

00:35:27.580 between two worldviews.

00:35:29.240 The worldviews were not terribly bright.

00:35:33.420 Hooray, Henry went in the army,

00:35:35.300 which traditionally rescues them,

00:35:39.020 gives them a purpose,

00:35:40.180 gives them a sense of direction,

00:35:41.840 and he behaved admirably.

00:35:43.700 He also did things that were really very striking.

00:35:46.380 And again, one wonders now quite how much he was responsible.

00:35:51.500 I mean, what does he do?

00:35:53.140 He found what I thought was something astonishing,

00:35:57.020 which was the Invictus Games for badly injured soldiers.

00:36:01.060 Do you know what Invictus means?

00:36:02.820 No.

00:36:03.860 Not victim.

00:36:05.920 Wow.

00:36:06.360 It means, isn't it interesting?

00:36:07.780 Wow.

00:36:08.040 Isn't it interesting?

00:36:09.320 It means not victim.

00:36:10.900 It means unconquered.

00:36:12.280 It's from the Latin to conquer.

00:36:14.160 He really doesn't see it.

00:36:15.160 He doesn't see it.

00:36:15.960 But I'm sure he managed to go through six years at Eton

00:36:20.880 and not learn a single word of laughter.

00:36:23.200 I think, you know,

00:36:24.200 I'm afraid that really is the level of density.

00:36:29.160 But it is, you see, you got the point instantly.

00:36:32.800 Right.

00:36:33.080 What he has done,

00:36:34.240 he created a set of games

00:36:35.960 which he designed to say to these men who've been,

00:36:39.700 I mean, you look,

00:36:40.480 I was born with club feet.

00:36:42.440 I find I've got a very awkward relationship with disability.

00:36:46.220 I can't look at those men without wanting to cry.

00:36:49.400 And you look at their courage,

00:36:53.040 their refusal to be victims.

00:36:55.880 Okay.

00:36:56.400 They're the kind of men who express themselves normally simply physically.

00:37:00.280 But here they are saying,

00:37:01.420 right, I may be shot up,

00:37:03.080 but I can still do,

00:37:03.980 I can still pull a weight.

00:37:06.240 I can still,

00:37:06.880 I can still row.

00:37:07.980 I can still do whatever.

00:37:09.360 Refusing to be victims.

00:37:10.540 And here is this man who creates a non-victims games,

00:37:14.540 playing the perpetual role of victim.

00:37:17.920 But about things that are so petty,

00:37:20.460 so trivial,

00:37:21.960 so absurd.

00:37:23.220 I mean, it is,

00:37:24.220 you know,

00:37:24.440 it's always been the problem with monarchy.

00:37:26.480 But on the one hand,

00:37:27.560 you've got an institution,

00:37:29.180 which, you know,

00:37:29.860 it is freighted with 1,200 years.

00:37:33.280 And I'm not sure what it must feel like.

00:37:37.980 I love,

00:37:38.660 I've got a sort of inkling,

00:37:41.160 what it must be like to sit in that chair,

00:37:44.140 that chair made for Edward I,

00:37:46.980 with the conquest of Scotland in form of the stone beneath it.

00:37:52.140 To sit in that chair,

00:37:54.780 in that building that is built a century earlier,

00:37:59.320 for the specific purpose of a coronation,

00:38:01.700 with a text which hasn't changed very much

00:38:04.420 since the coronation of Edgar in the ninth century.

00:38:07.700 That extraordinary,

00:38:10.080 in front of all the great medieval kings,

00:38:13.540 arrayed behind you in that great arc,

00:38:16.740 a kind of audience of your ancestors,

00:38:19.180 as well as an audience of your subjects.

00:38:23.400 And that institution finishes up in producing Harry.

00:38:27.200 You know,

00:38:27.620 the sense of the weight on the one hand,

00:38:33.020 and the feather froth on the other.

00:38:35.400 But that's the nature of humanity.

00:38:38.020 Well,

00:38:38.260 this is what I was going to say.

00:38:39.400 Give us a historical perspective,

00:38:41.060 because I thought I'd been doing that all the time.

00:38:44.100 And very well,

00:38:45.200 of course,

00:38:45.480 as always.

00:38:46.020 But on this particular issue,

00:38:47.840 I mean,

00:38:48.080 primogeniture,

00:38:49.380 the idea that the eldest son inherits titles,

00:38:51.660 and lands,

00:38:52.080 and so on,

00:38:52.520 and the rest get nothing,

00:38:55.100 is quite a long-running thing in human history.

00:38:58.160 Yeah,

00:38:58.700 of course.

00:38:59.740 Touche.

00:39:00.360 Touche.

00:39:01.000 Touche.

00:39:01.620 Touche.

00:39:02.280 As a lad born in the council house,

00:39:04.420 I do feel that.

00:39:06.140 I do feel.

00:39:07.400 I do feel.

00:39:08.180 I do sympathize with the grinding poverty of Nottingham Cottage,

00:39:14.220 you know,

00:39:14.680 its rateable value would have paid,

00:39:17.280 I would have thought,

00:39:17.940 for my entire education.

00:39:19.460 A very successful counter-strike there,

00:39:21.620 David.

00:39:22.040 I'm wounded deeply by the appropriateness of your response.

00:39:26.500 But you know what I mean.

00:39:27.620 I do.

00:39:27.940 Throughout history,

00:39:29.400 you have had these spares,

00:39:31.360 as he's called himself,

00:39:32.520 right?

00:39:32.840 And that is the way that it's been.

00:39:35.700 But is it,

00:39:37.100 how common is what's happening now,

00:39:39.340 where the spare,

00:39:40.800 so to speak,

00:39:41.660 seizes the microphone?

00:39:43.440 Whether we like it or not,

00:39:45.000 he's got a huge book deal,

00:39:46.680 there are millions and millions,

00:39:48.000 and people,

00:39:48.420 if not a billion people around the world,

00:39:49.800 are going to read at least bits of it.

00:39:52.220 And this is a guy who is,

00:39:54.700 you know,

00:39:55.080 getting his story out,

00:39:56.500 quote unquote,

00:39:57.520 and maybe not destroying the royal family,

00:40:00.440 as you say.

00:40:00.820 I think you're right.

00:40:01.940 The injustice of the way that he's behaving

00:40:04.200 is actually galvanizing a lot of support for the monarchy.

00:40:08.400 But he is tarnishing them.

00:40:09.920 He's slinging mud,

00:40:10.960 at least.

00:40:11.620 Oh,

00:40:11.760 he's certainly trying to.

00:40:12.780 He's trying to.

00:40:13.880 How is this common?

00:40:15.420 Has this happened before?

00:40:16.540 Have we seen this?

00:40:17.820 In fact,

00:40:18.500 the problem of spare brothers

00:40:20.500 is so acute

00:40:22.380 that the Ottomans,

00:40:25.700 the Ottoman Empire,

00:40:27.720 the sublime port,

00:40:28.860 that's to say,

00:40:29.640 the rulers of Turkey,

00:40:30.860 had a very simple way

00:40:32.080 of dealing with brothers.

00:40:33.900 You succeed as sultan.

00:40:36.160 You invite your brothers

00:40:37.820 to a wonderful feast.

00:40:40.560 The following morning,

00:40:41.600 they are strangled with a silken court.

00:40:44.080 That's what the Ottoman Empire did.

00:40:47.300 I mean,

00:40:47.900 that would solve the harrowing problem.

00:40:49.200 It would solve the harrowing problem.

00:40:50.500 It might not, actually,

00:40:56.580 because the books might already be written.

00:40:58.240 He's got a full book deal.

00:40:59.840 So they might still be released.

00:41:01.260 It would be a posthumous publication.

00:41:02.960 You think there's a clause,

00:41:04.660 an activation clause,

00:41:06.380 when I'm hanged with a silken,

00:41:07.740 when I'm strangled with a silken court.

00:41:09.620 And again,

00:41:10.380 you look repeatedly in English history

00:41:12.860 when you were fighting about real things,

00:41:15.060 not about,

00:41:15.840 you know,

00:41:16.060 my bedroom was smaller.

00:41:17.400 And you look,

00:41:18.820 for example,

00:41:19.920 or indeed,

00:41:20.920 being pushed into a dog bowl.

00:41:23.420 Well,

00:41:23.820 the younger brother

00:41:25.180 of Edward IV,

00:41:27.500 the Duke of Clarence,

00:41:28.360 was pushed into a butt of Marmsley wine

00:41:30.560 and drowned.

00:41:31.200 And it was the relationship

00:41:33.580 between the three brothers

00:41:34.720 of the House of York,

00:41:36.180 between Edward,

00:41:37.540 between George,

00:41:38.700 and between Richard,

00:41:40.160 is a kind of,

00:41:41.600 you know,

00:41:42.300 on steroids version

00:41:43.960 of what seems to be the case

00:41:45.940 with Harry.

00:41:47.660 It's frustrated ambition.

00:41:49.760 It's anger at being overlooked.

00:41:52.380 There's even a struggle about wives.

00:41:55.040 Of course there is.

00:41:57.780 And you would expect that

00:41:59.180 to be the case.

00:42:00.620 One of the great successes

00:42:02.520 of the English monarchy

00:42:03.820 for much of its history

00:42:05.160 was it didn't have

00:42:06.140 too many spare children.

00:42:07.940 One of the great problems,

00:42:09.680 actually,

00:42:10.500 was King Edward III.

00:42:12.420 King Edward III,

00:42:13.300 I forget how many sons,

00:42:14.600 it's something like eight.

00:42:16.380 And he actually boasts

00:42:18.040 in Parliament about,

00:42:19.200 you know,

00:42:19.400 my marvellous proclivity

00:42:21.200 at generating sons.

00:42:22.960 But of course that leads

00:42:24.380 pretty well directly

00:42:25.860 to the Wars of the Roses.

00:42:28.020 That you've got

00:42:28.460 too many rival royal branches.

00:42:31.340 And what happens

00:42:32.180 when one of them fails

00:42:34.220 or you get an absence

00:42:37.280 of the usual kingly qualities?

00:42:39.040 You've got all too many

00:42:39.940 other branches ready,

00:42:41.260 you know,

00:42:41.540 ready to step up

00:42:42.500 and to claim the throne.

00:42:43.900 Again,

00:42:44.480 one of the reasons

00:42:45.400 that the monarchy survives

00:42:47.480 all the torments

00:42:48.820 of the 17th century

00:42:50.100 is that until the very end,

00:42:52.260 until 1688,

00:42:53.760 the royal house

00:42:54.600 doesn't split.

00:42:57.180 The younger sons

00:42:58.660 do not,

00:43:00.760 as it were,

00:43:01.260 take up the line

00:43:01.980 of opposition.

00:43:02.820 Normally that's what happens.

00:43:04.120 Again,

00:43:04.500 in 1688,

00:43:05.860 in 1689,

00:43:07.380 the solution

00:43:08.080 to the great crisis

00:43:09.380 of the Stuart monarchy

00:43:12.840 was that you had

00:43:14.380 daughters who were prepared

00:43:15.780 to rebel against their father.

00:43:17.140 David,

00:43:19.280 what I'm getting at,

00:43:20.320 though,

00:43:20.440 this is,

00:43:21.040 I mean,

00:43:21.540 fascinating what you're saying,

00:43:22.840 but what I'm getting at

00:43:23.700 is it seems to me,

00:43:24.620 and again,

00:43:25.040 give us a historical perspective

00:43:26.200 because you're much more

00:43:27.820 knowledgeable,

00:43:28.660 of course,

00:43:28.920 in this area,

00:43:29.480 is,

00:43:30.180 is it not unprecedented

00:43:31.400 for the spare

00:43:32.640 to have this level

00:43:33.920 of,

00:43:35.240 I mean,

00:43:35.640 you want to call it

00:43:36.380 power or influence

00:43:37.440 or this,

00:43:38.020 it's not.

00:43:38.740 Again,

00:43:39.820 Harry has carried out

00:43:41.660 the equivalent

00:43:42.120 of a modern rebellion.

00:43:44.260 I mean,

00:43:44.520 what the man I was talking about,

00:43:48.760 the one who finishes up

00:43:49.720 in a butter of Malmsey wine,

00:43:51.420 what he does,

00:43:52.140 he twice rebels

00:43:53.540 against his brother,

00:43:55.020 and unlike Harry,

00:43:57.600 who is,

00:43:58.260 you know,

00:43:58.560 merely slinging mud

00:44:00.060 at William.

00:44:01.500 He was slinging arrows.

00:44:02.620 More than that,

00:44:03.480 he actually,

00:44:04.020 once,

00:44:04.540 he drives his elder brother

00:44:05.980 from the throne,

00:44:07.180 twice.

00:44:08.740 And he's finally

00:44:10.900 bumped off

00:44:11.680 when it's perfectly clear

00:44:13.020 that he's dabbling

00:44:13.940 with another coup.

00:44:15.500 And then what happens

00:44:16.480 with the younger brother

00:44:17.920 still,

00:44:18.700 Richard,

00:44:19.440 he murders his,

00:44:20.900 famously murders

00:44:21.900 his nephews.

00:44:22.960 You get this perpetual,

00:44:24.940 the crown

00:44:26.020 is seductive.

00:44:29.820 Of course,

00:44:30.980 it's seductive.

00:44:31.940 You look at that thing.

00:44:33.520 You look,

00:44:33.900 you look at how

00:44:34.900 it holds you.

00:44:35.900 You look at

00:44:36.480 those,

00:44:37.740 those extraordinary

00:44:38.740 images of the Queen

00:44:40.960 wearing the crown,

00:44:42.760 either the coronation

00:44:43.720 or particularly

00:44:44.840 at the state opening

00:44:45.780 of Parliament,

00:44:46.860 the imperial state crown,

00:44:49.000 that mass of diamond.

00:44:52.000 As the lights come up

00:44:53.300 and watching that,

00:44:54.920 you can see

00:44:55.800 why people fight,

00:44:58.420 die,

00:44:59.060 kill,

00:44:59.660 murder

00:45:00.040 for the thing.

00:45:01.480 And, I mean,

00:45:02.560 Harry,

00:45:04.400 Harry has that.

00:45:07.740 He also,

00:45:08.260 of course,

00:45:08.600 has the extraordinary

00:45:10.740 sense of white knighthood

00:45:13.400 with his mother

00:45:14.260 and assumed with Meghan.

00:45:17.160 But all he's doing,

00:45:18.340 really,

00:45:18.820 is using modern devices.

00:45:21.680 You know,

00:45:22.160 HarperCollins

00:45:23.080 is the equivalent

00:45:24.200 of going into alliance

00:45:26.160 with the Lancastrians

00:45:27.120 against the Gorkies.

00:45:28.120 You're deploying modern

00:45:29.920 means to get even.

00:45:33.080 David,

00:45:33.680 isn't this

00:45:34.440 just what happens

00:45:36.260 when you live

00:45:36.840 a life without purpose?

00:45:38.380 No.

00:45:39.080 Many people,

00:45:40.120 on the contrary,

00:45:41.340 the struggles

00:45:41.900 were much more vicious

00:45:43.140 when the monarch

00:45:44.020 had a profound purpose.

00:45:45.280 It's just called,

00:45:46.420 it's called humanity,

00:45:48.420 brother's quarrel.

00:45:49.400 Human nature.

00:45:50.120 It's called human nature,

00:45:51.600 brother's quarrel.

00:45:53.140 In many ways,

00:45:53.940 it's a highly creative thing,

00:45:55.640 the male competition.

00:45:58.280 No,

00:45:58.500 I don't think it's,

00:45:59.540 I mean,

00:45:59.920 in Harry's case,

00:46:01.480 it is,

00:46:02.500 but equally,

00:46:04.580 you can see,

00:46:06.140 I mean,

00:46:06.380 one of the paradoxes,

00:46:07.520 I mean,

00:46:07.720 let's now just quickly

00:46:08.560 turn the thing around,

00:46:09.880 the whole notion

00:46:10.820 of King Charles

00:46:12.300 in saying,

00:46:12.940 oh,

00:46:13.060 we want to slim down monarchy.

00:46:14.760 Now,

00:46:15.860 in one sense,

00:46:16.920 that is exactly

00:46:18.600 what might have dealt

00:46:19.740 with Harry,

00:46:20.500 you know,

00:46:20.780 saying,

00:46:21.100 right,

00:46:21.560 you're the younger son,

00:46:22.820 you enjoy rights

00:46:25.100 and royal privileges

00:46:26.100 until Denmark

00:46:27.220 shows exactly

00:46:28.400 the case that's happened.

00:46:29.920 Queen Margaret has decided

00:46:31.060 that her younger son

00:46:32.560 and his children

00:46:33.700 shall,

00:46:34.320 as it were,

00:46:34.820 be disroyal

00:46:36.360 because there is now

00:46:37.640 a secure succession

00:46:38.960 with her elder son,

00:46:40.540 right?

00:46:41.240 And you could imagine

00:46:42.560 that erected

00:46:43.660 into a rule

00:46:44.600 that until

00:46:46.000 the succession

00:46:46.720 is secure,

00:46:47.980 you know,

00:46:48.560 you will retain

00:46:50.340 everything and whatever,

00:46:52.040 but once

00:46:52.740 two,

00:46:53.940 three children,

00:46:54.940 sorry,

00:46:55.900 we give you dignity,

00:46:56.960 we give you a pension,

00:46:58.100 we give you

00:46:58.720 every encouragement

00:47:00.080 to go off

00:47:00.700 and do things,

00:47:01.580 but no longer royal.

00:47:03.120 The trouble is,

00:47:03.940 isn't it,

00:47:05.260 that we've got

00:47:05.980 a very different view

00:47:07.100 of monarchy.

00:47:08.120 Have you noticed

00:47:08.960 these extraordinary

00:47:10.360 ancient people,

00:47:11.720 even older than me,

00:47:13.440 like the Duke of Kent

00:47:14.700 and Princess Alexandra?

00:47:16.240 These people

00:47:16.780 in their 80s,

00:47:17.780 I mean,

00:47:18.040 the Duke of Kent

00:47:18.740 looks as though

00:47:19.200 he's going to drop dead

00:47:20.480 any moment,

00:47:21.340 but he's being wheeled out

00:47:22.580 the whole of the time

00:47:23.860 because,

00:47:24.540 of course,

00:47:25.940 all sorts of things

00:47:27.320 have royal patronage.

00:47:29.540 The one of the,

00:47:30.280 you were talking about

00:47:31.140 not having a purpose.

00:47:32.800 One of the things

00:47:33.540 that the monarchy

00:47:34.220 has become

00:47:34.860 in the 20th century

00:47:36.080 is the essential

00:47:38.160 patron of voluntary activity.

00:47:41.220 Organization after organization

00:47:43.380 rejoices in royal patronage

00:47:45.660 and the royals do something.

00:47:48.360 Now,

00:47:48.620 that needs a lot of people.

00:47:51.240 You look at the number

00:47:52.300 of engagements

00:47:53.100 of the Princess Anne

00:47:54.240 or of the Queen

00:47:55.260 or of King Charles.

00:47:56.520 Now,

00:47:57.880 you need spares.

00:48:00.240 You need hyper spares.

00:48:02.120 You need pre-generation spares.

00:48:04.440 But, of course,

00:48:04.820 you need those

00:48:06.000 who are prepared

00:48:06.720 for that subordinate role.

00:48:09.680 And, again,

00:48:10.960 one just marvels

00:48:12.280 at the problems

00:48:12.980 of Harry's education.

00:48:14.700 Apparently,

00:48:16.200 it took Meghan

00:48:17.080 to instruct him

00:48:18.880 that monarchy

00:48:19.780 was hierarchical.

00:48:22.360 Can you imagine

00:48:23.800 the spelling?

00:48:25.280 Constantine,

00:48:26.000 can you imagine

00:48:26.740 the spelling exercise?

00:48:28.380 No,

00:48:29.120 the I comes before

00:48:30.640 the E,

00:48:32.000 and there's an R there,

00:48:33.100 yeah,

00:48:33.420 and hierarchical.

00:48:34.820 Okay.

00:48:35.820 But you can imagine

00:48:37.340 it would take

00:48:37.940 a very,

00:48:38.500 very long time.

00:48:39.600 But how have you been

00:48:41.280 a royal prince?

00:48:44.540 How have you been

00:48:45.380 in the army?

00:48:47.120 How have you been

00:48:47.920 at Eton?

00:48:48.560 Eton is not exactly

00:48:49.840 a democratic institution.

00:48:51.560 No.

00:48:52.140 And not understood

00:48:53.120 there's a thing

00:48:53.780 called hierarchy.

00:48:55.200 David,

00:48:55.460 do you not think

00:48:55.900 this speaks

00:48:56.400 to very much

00:48:57.080 the issue

00:48:57.460 that we've discussed

00:48:58.200 with you in the past

00:48:58.960 and we speak

00:48:59.440 often about

00:49:00.420 on the show.

00:49:01.640 I think

00:49:02.240 the unwillingness

00:49:04.280 to recognize

00:49:05.200 the existence,

00:49:06.680 whether you like it

00:49:07.620 or not,

00:49:07.960 the existence

00:49:08.520 of hierarchy

00:49:09.300 is part

00:49:10.620 of this new

00:49:11.640 world view

00:49:12.580 which seeks

00:49:13.880 to make

00:49:15.120 everybody equal.

00:49:15.940 and that's

00:49:17.060 the solution

00:49:17.800 as if that

00:49:19.040 ever would happen,

00:49:20.460 as if that

00:49:20.800 would ever work.

00:49:21.500 As I always say,

00:49:22.060 no silliest statement

00:49:23.300 has ever been uttered

00:49:24.620 than we hold

00:49:25.500 these truths

00:49:26.020 to be self-evident

00:49:26.820 that all men

00:49:27.580 are born free

00:49:28.280 and equal.

00:49:29.080 It is the silliest

00:49:30.280 statement.

00:49:30.960 I mean,

00:49:32.140 even women

00:49:32.740 aren't born

00:49:33.340 free and equal.

00:49:34.780 Let me free myself

00:49:36.360 immediately

00:49:37.020 from the charge

00:49:38.860 of misogyny.

00:49:39.800 A baby is born,

00:49:41.460 a human baby

00:49:42.380 is the most

00:49:43.760 dependent creature

00:49:45.200 in existence.

00:49:47.100 It is absolutely

00:49:48.980 incapable

00:49:50.160 of sustaining itself

00:49:52.020 not for a week

00:49:53.120 or two,

00:49:53.560 not for a month

00:49:54.220 or two,

00:49:54.640 but for years.

00:49:56.560 Now,

00:49:57.000 that seems to me

00:49:58.080 to be a fundamental

00:49:59.060 fact about human beings

00:50:00.660 and the profound

00:50:03.260 inequality

00:50:04.400 of humankind.

00:50:08.140 And these are the things

00:50:09.100 that we should be

00:50:09.700 ready for.

00:50:10.720 Inequal in strength,

00:50:12.080 unequal in strength,

00:50:13.400 unequal in mental strength,

00:50:14.820 unequal in endurance,

00:50:16.560 unequal in every quality

00:50:18.700 you can think of.

00:50:20.000 Which, of course,

00:50:20.820 is why we're so wonderful.

00:50:22.400 Ants are standardized.

00:50:24.220 If we want

00:50:25.240 a standardized world,

00:50:26.560 we need to be turned

00:50:27.380 into ants,

00:50:28.220 which is exactly,

00:50:29.240 of course,

00:50:29.600 what regimes

00:50:34.640 like communism

00:50:35.480 and to an extent

00:50:36.520 Nazism endeavored to do.

00:50:38.380 What Chinese communism

00:50:39.560 in particular,

00:50:40.620 its aspiration

00:50:41.440 is to turn you

00:50:42.300 into a human ant

00:50:44.680 in a functioning anti.

00:50:46.980 The wonderful thing

00:50:48.320 about being human

00:50:49.240 is precisely

00:50:50.440 the diversity,

00:50:52.140 the separateness.

00:50:52.600 importantness.

00:50:56.060 But, you see,

00:50:57.040 I think the great curse,

00:50:58.940 I think the great curse

00:51:00.500 of the West

00:51:01.180 is, in fact,

00:51:04.020 the beginning

00:51:04.700 of the Declaration

00:51:05.480 of Independence.

00:51:06.820 I think the thing

00:51:08.720 that's held up...

00:51:09.540 You're going to get

00:51:10.220 some hate mail

00:51:10.980 out of this.

00:51:11.660 No, no, no.

00:51:12.340 I'm fully aware.

00:51:14.020 I think the opening...

00:51:14.700 I'm joking, Terry.

00:51:15.220 No, no, I'm sure I am.

00:51:15.920 We have a big American audience

00:51:17.160 who, by the way,

00:51:17.780 love you,

00:51:18.220 so they'll be interested

00:51:19.020 to hear your points.

00:51:19.580 No, no, but I'm being

00:51:19.620 really, really serious.

00:51:21.540 I mean, I think Jefferson

00:51:23.000 is the disaster

00:51:23.960 of the founding fathers.

00:51:25.540 This is the language

00:51:26.420 of the extreme enlightenment.

00:51:28.540 This is the language

00:51:29.460 that leads to the catastrophe

00:51:31.960 in France.

00:51:33.520 And what is very striking

00:51:34.900 is, of course,

00:51:35.800 that those notions

00:51:36.820 of equality

00:51:37.620 figure nowhere

00:51:39.040 in the Constitution

00:51:40.660 at all.

00:51:41.920 When you come to draw

00:51:42.780 the serious document

00:51:43.980 that gives America

00:51:45.220 its extraordinary

00:51:46.320 tensile strength,

00:51:47.840 this brilliant,

00:51:48.720 brilliant balancing

00:51:50.340 between federalism

00:51:52.220 and, in other words,

00:51:54.700 the power of the states

00:51:56.140 and the creation

00:51:57.040 of an acceptable machinery

00:51:58.660 of federal,

00:52:00.200 of central government,

00:52:01.120 astonishing,

00:52:02.760 the way in which

00:52:04.500 the Senate

00:52:05.800 becomes this kind

00:52:07.960 of tensile bond,

00:52:09.720 this idea

00:52:10.480 of the equal representation

00:52:12.520 of states,

00:52:13.400 whatever their size,

00:52:14.700 whatever their population.

00:52:15.980 It is an extraordinary document.

00:52:18.900 But it is merely

00:52:20.060 a very lightly amended version

00:52:23.640 of the 18th century

00:52:24.940 English Constitution.

00:52:26.560 This is exactly

00:52:27.540 what John Adams says.

00:52:29.240 Interestingly enough,

00:52:30.220 it's Tom Paine

00:52:31.260 who also says

00:52:32.680 to Washington,

00:52:33.600 I think it's his second,

00:52:35.960 third letter,

00:52:36.680 I lose track of these things,

00:52:38.040 I'm not an American historian,

00:52:39.580 that says to Washington

00:52:41.260 that we began with,

00:52:43.460 you know,

00:52:43.740 the aspiration,

00:52:44.460 allegedly,

00:52:45.520 I don't think

00:52:45.860 Washington never did,

00:52:46.940 begin with the aspiration

00:52:49.040 to have a real revolution.

00:52:50.860 And what we finish up instead

00:52:52.240 is merely

00:52:53.080 the very lightly amended version

00:52:55.300 of the English Constitution.

00:52:57.060 John Adams,

00:52:57.800 again,

00:52:58.260 that point about

00:52:59.040 royal republic,

00:53:00.100 I think in the 1760s,

00:53:01.920 said that it's unquestionable,

00:53:03.000 this is George III,

00:53:04.240 it's unquestionable

00:53:05.460 that England

00:53:06.280 is a republic.

00:53:07.460 It just happens

00:53:08.280 to have a crowned head.

00:53:09.680 It's ruled by law.

00:53:11.380 The king is under law.

00:53:12.680 And so on.

00:53:16.540 So I think the disaster

00:53:18.080 is that opening phrase,

00:53:20.340 which is very,

00:53:21.900 very effectively buried,

00:53:23.840 that notion of equality.

00:53:25.580 It's very effectively buried

00:53:27.480 until Lincoln

00:53:28.460 and Gettysburg speech,

00:53:30.280 you know,

00:53:30.560 that we are a nation

00:53:31.500 founded on new principles,

00:53:33.460 the principle of equality.

00:53:35.300 Tell me where is equality

00:53:37.440 in 19th century America?

00:53:40.360 Tell me where is equality

00:53:42.020 in the America

00:53:43.840 of the Gilded Age.

00:53:45.220 The quality of America

00:53:46.440 is precisely

00:53:47.080 wild inequality.

00:53:49.840 It's astonishing,

00:53:51.300 chaotic creativity

00:53:52.920 held together

00:53:55.020 by this miracle of words.

00:54:00.220 And is this a story

00:54:01.400 as old as time again, David?

00:54:02.620 And then, of course,

00:54:04.140 the catastrophe is

00:54:05.460 that it's propagated

00:54:06.920 by Eleanor Roosevelt,

00:54:08.900 principally,

00:54:09.660 through the machinery

00:54:10.980 of 1945,

00:54:13.180 the United Nations,

00:54:14.460 and particularly

00:54:14.840 the Universal Declaration

00:54:16.100 on Human Rights.

00:54:17.400 And, I mean,

00:54:18.040 have you,

00:54:19.200 have you,

00:54:20.060 I never know

00:54:20.940 how you pronounce his name.

00:54:23.400 What is the chap

00:54:24.500 with the African-sounding name,

00:54:26.800 the wonderful Dane,

00:54:28.060 who's written about

00:54:29.000 freedom of speech?

00:54:31.180 Natchangama?

00:54:32.320 I don't know him.

00:54:33.600 You really ought,

00:54:34.620 I'm sorry,

00:54:35.120 my memory is so bad.

00:54:36.220 You ought to have him

00:54:36.860 on the show.

00:54:37.540 But what he points out,

00:54:38.700 what he shows is

00:54:39.700 that the whole campaign

00:54:41.680 for the limitation

00:54:42.520 of freedom of speech

00:54:43.800 to protect the right

00:54:45.060 of minorities

00:54:45.880 has been driven

00:54:47.120 using the Universal

00:54:48.500 Declaration

00:54:49.220 of Human Rights

00:54:50.760 by the Soviets.

00:54:52.340 In other words,

00:54:53.140 all the notions

00:54:54.780 about discrimination

00:54:56.320 and whatever,

00:54:57.240 as we know,

00:54:58.200 have been used

00:54:58.760 to undo freedom of speech

00:55:00.260 actually derive

00:55:03.900 from the negotiations

00:55:06.080 in the 50s and 60s

00:55:08.620 to translate

00:55:10.640 the Universal Declaration

00:55:12.100 into,

00:55:13.280 from merely a declaration

00:55:14.800 into a binding statement

00:55:16.720 with the Soviet Union

00:55:18.300 and its satellites

00:55:19.200 coming up

00:55:20.240 with this whole idea

00:55:21.400 that we've got

00:55:22.120 to protect minorities.

00:55:24.020 The protection of minorities

00:55:25.340 is the thing

00:55:26.280 that has always been used

00:55:27.820 to destroy the freedoms

00:55:31.080 and to destroy

00:55:32.140 bills of rights.

00:55:33.040 Remember,

00:55:33.560 the original purpose

00:55:34.660 of the Universal Declaration

00:55:36.140 of Human Rights

00:55:36.980 is to protect

00:55:37.880 the individual

00:55:38.700 against the state.

00:55:40.440 The moment you say

00:55:41.760 that the essential purpose

00:55:42.900 of human rights

00:55:43.780 is to protect minorities

00:55:45.400 against majorities,

00:55:46.840 you then have to turn

00:55:48.180 the state

00:55:49.140 into the machinery

00:55:50.220 that protects

00:55:51.720 the minority

00:55:53.040 against the majority.

00:55:55.100 You invert

00:55:56.140 natchangama,

00:55:57.760 isn't it?

00:55:58.880 You invert

00:56:00.060 the process

00:56:01.740 and it is this

00:56:02.620 worship of this

00:56:03.800 silly word equality

00:56:05.360 forcing people

00:56:06.620 into something

00:56:07.360 that they're not.

00:56:09.100 This is what I

00:56:10.060 want to get at

00:56:11.540 with you

00:56:12.060 because this is

00:56:13.520 a struggle

00:56:14.040 as old as time,

00:56:15.280 right?

00:56:16.080 Who has how much power

00:56:17.920 based on what

00:56:18.800 and who gets what

00:56:19.760 and how do we divide

00:56:20.720 the assets

00:56:21.260 that are generated

00:56:23.020 in society?

00:56:24.440 And humanity

00:56:25.380 has struggled

00:56:26.040 for millennia

00:56:26.920 to answer that question

00:56:28.060 and communism

00:56:28.800 and Nazism

00:56:29.640 and all these

00:56:30.140 other things

00:56:30.700 were attempts

00:56:31.760 to re-engineer humanity.

00:56:36.220 What have we learned

00:56:37.920 through our human history

00:56:39.180 about those attempts?

00:56:41.180 I mean,

00:56:41.420 I know...

00:56:41.840 I think the answer

00:56:42.140 is nothing.

00:56:42.860 Yes.

00:56:45.160 The fact that we keep

00:56:48.640 on having to repeat them

00:56:49.920 would suggest to me

00:56:51.020 merely as a matter

00:56:51.820 of empirical observation.

00:56:54.620 In many ways,

00:56:55.760 we've learned

00:56:56.200 enormous amounts.

00:56:58.200 We accidentally...

00:57:00.880 I would argue...

00:57:01.760 Remember,

00:57:02.440 the notion

00:57:02.980 of representative government

00:57:04.340 that we have now,

00:57:05.260 which works pretty well.

00:57:08.620 We stumbled on

00:57:09.740 accidentally in Britain.

00:57:12.520 England.

00:57:12.980 It really doesn't...

00:57:13.940 You don't find anything

00:57:15.480 quite like it elsewhere.

00:57:16.740 And it was...

00:57:19.900 There was this...

00:57:20.800 Again...

00:57:21.900 Sorry,

00:57:22.360 I'm answering the question

00:57:23.380 very arse-versy.

00:57:24.740 But there are no great

00:57:27.460 conservative thinkers,

00:57:29.400 I would argue.

00:57:31.580 Conservatism doesn't lend

00:57:33.300 itself to thought.

00:57:34.720 In fact,

00:57:35.240 I don't think thinking

00:57:36.500 is a very conservative activity.

00:57:38.700 That's the thing

00:57:41.860 that's going to piss

00:57:42.520 a lot of people off.

00:57:44.480 That's the one...

00:57:45.360 I really don't think...

00:57:46.840 I don't think...

00:57:47.200 You like lobbing grenades

00:57:48.100 in every direction,

00:57:49.120 don't you, David?

00:57:49.220 It's very important.

00:57:50.640 One should particularly

00:57:51.580 lob the grenades

00:57:52.380 at oneself

00:57:53.060 on one's own side

00:57:54.100 and see if they stand it.

00:57:55.600 I don't think thinking

00:57:56.320 is a conservative activity.

00:57:57.940 What is,

00:57:58.840 is slow growth

00:58:00.220 of the tradition

00:58:00.920 of a way

00:58:01.680 of doing things.

00:58:03.400 And the idea

00:58:05.100 of representative government

00:58:06.380 in England,

00:58:06.980 and the idea

00:58:07.700 of government grounded

00:58:08.860 in law

00:58:09.500 and the limitations

00:58:10.280 of law,

00:58:11.260 there's no one individual.

00:58:13.120 There's no...

00:58:14.780 There's not even...

00:58:16.140 Well, there's sort

00:58:16.840 of Magna Carta,

00:58:17.820 but Magna Carta

00:58:18.600 is a kind of tiny germ.

00:58:22.180 What then happens

00:58:23.000 is a whole series

00:58:23.980 of things come together,

00:58:25.340 particular attitude

00:58:26.240 to law,

00:58:27.320 particular kings

00:58:28.320 come along.

00:58:29.320 One of the ways

00:58:30.060 in which you develop

00:58:30.900 the idea most strongly,

00:58:32.460 paradoxically,

00:58:33.280 is because the English

00:58:34.380 are addicted to fighting.

00:58:35.920 They love the king.

00:58:36.980 Those love war.

00:58:37.940 And they discover,

00:58:38.800 oddly enough,

00:58:39.600 that you can actually

00:58:40.200 raise taxation

00:58:41.080 if you ask nicely.

00:58:43.000 That you actually

00:58:43.860 get consent for it.

00:58:45.360 So it's actually

00:58:46.120 the very strong kings

00:58:47.460 who build up

00:58:48.160 this machinery

00:58:48.820 and so on.

00:58:49.540 But what you do,

00:58:50.560 you create

00:58:51.280 a political tradition.

00:58:55.340 And what we've got

00:58:57.080 so badly wrong

00:58:58.260 in the West

00:58:59.000 is to think

00:59:00.300 that this political tradition,

00:59:02.320 which gives us

00:59:03.280 the right

00:59:03.980 to do what we are doing now,

00:59:05.440 even the right

00:59:08.080 is the wrong word.

00:59:09.260 We just think

00:59:10.320 we're entitled

00:59:10.940 to do it.

00:59:11.920 We occasionally

00:59:12.440 talk about that

00:59:13.340 as a right

00:59:13.900 when we want

00:59:14.660 to invest it

00:59:15.460 with solemnity.

00:59:16.460 In the same way,

00:59:17.820 we tend to call

00:59:19.280 things that we think

00:59:20.340 we ought to have

00:59:21.100 universal human rights.

00:59:23.120 Has there ever been

00:59:23.900 a sillier phrase?

00:59:25.180 You know,

00:59:25.400 again,

00:59:27.200 Jeremy Bentham

00:59:27.960 describes universal rights

00:59:29.680 as nonsense

00:59:30.340 on Stilts.

00:59:31.080 You can only have

00:59:32.600 a right

00:59:33.060 with an enforcing body,

00:59:34.660 with an enforcing body

00:59:35.820 of law.

00:59:36.640 But the thing

00:59:39.120 that we need

00:59:40.180 to understand

00:59:41.220 is that

00:59:42.780 a particular

00:59:44.400 way of doing

00:59:46.240 things arose.

00:59:48.300 In other words,

00:59:49.460 it's rooted

00:59:52.340 in a particular society.

00:59:55.500 But if you actually

00:59:57.040 look at belief

00:59:59.140 in what we can

01:00:02.360 loosely call

01:00:03.400 representative law

01:00:05.120 bound government,

01:00:07.180 it's profoundly

01:00:08.620 shallow

01:00:09.340 outside the

01:00:10.560 Anglosphere.

01:00:12.380 It really is.

01:00:14.260 In other words,

01:00:15.540 these things

01:00:16.160 are not

01:00:17.040 universal.

01:00:18.560 These things

01:00:19.140 are not

01:00:19.740 logically deducible.

01:00:21.980 These things

01:00:22.800 do not arise

01:00:24.100 from a fixed

01:00:25.120 human nature.

01:00:26.040 they arise

01:00:27.380 from specific

01:00:28.540 localized

01:00:29.620 historical

01:00:30.420 experience.

01:00:32.140 Now,

01:00:32.340 this,

01:00:32.640 of course,

01:00:33.340 cuts absolutely

01:00:34.580 against

01:00:36.420 what is

01:00:38.840 virtually

01:00:39.260 universally

01:00:39.940 assumed.

01:00:41.640 I'm saying

01:00:42.680 it quite

01:00:43.160 deliberately.

01:00:44.300 As I said,

01:00:44.800 I think the

01:00:45.300 great disaster

01:00:46.740 of the 20th

01:00:47.900 century

01:00:48.200 is the

01:00:48.480 1945

01:00:48.980 settlement.

01:00:50.100 I think

01:00:50.480 we can see

01:00:51.240 in retrospect

01:00:52.160 that the

01:00:52.840 1945

01:00:53.380 settlement

01:00:54.160 is as

01:00:54.860 catastrophic

01:00:55.560 as that

01:00:56.340 at the end

01:00:56.740 of the

01:00:56.960 First World

01:00:57.480 War.

01:00:57.780 Tell us

01:00:58.060 more about that.

01:00:59.100 This is what

01:00:59.340 I've been

01:00:59.600 trying to

01:01:00.000 explain to

01:01:00.460 you.

01:01:00.780 It seems

01:01:01.280 to me

01:01:01.740 that with

01:01:03.820 the creation

01:01:04.680 of the

01:01:05.020 notion

01:01:05.420 of universal

01:01:06.820 human rights

01:01:07.860 and therefore

01:01:09.820 a universal

01:01:10.560 man,

01:01:11.360 remember,

01:01:12.140 if you've

01:01:12.360 got universal

01:01:13.020 human rights,

01:01:14.040 that assumes

01:01:14.680 there's a thing

01:01:15.200 called a

01:01:15.640 universal man.

01:01:16.820 That is,

01:01:17.600 again,

01:01:17.900 so far

01:01:18.900 from human

01:01:19.600 experience.

01:01:20.320 But was

01:01:20.860 it such

01:01:21.260 a bad

01:01:21.580 idea

01:01:21.980 after seeing

01:01:22.800 the horrors

01:01:23.420 of World

01:01:23.860 War I

01:01:24.240 and then

01:01:24.580 the horrors

01:01:25.440 of the

01:01:25.680 Holocaust

01:01:25.980 to go,

01:01:26.820 maybe all

01:01:27.940 humans should

01:01:28.580 have a right

01:01:29.160 to life,

01:01:29.840 lack of

01:01:30.200 torture,

01:01:30.840 not have to

01:01:32.120 have medical

01:01:32.640 procedures enforced

01:01:33.520 on them.

01:01:34.000 Was that such

01:01:34.460 a terrible

01:01:34.820 idea?

01:01:35.960 Of course

01:01:36.760 not.

01:01:37.160 And in

01:01:37.400 one sense

01:01:38.020 you can

01:01:38.360 see,

01:01:38.700 of course

01:01:39.180 you can

01:01:39.500 see its

01:01:40.060 immediate

01:01:40.680 profound

01:01:41.540 attractiveness.

01:01:42.980 The trouble

01:01:43.400 is you

01:01:44.260 root it in

01:01:45.140 the wrong

01:01:46.000 argument.

01:01:47.720 In other

01:01:48.320 words,

01:01:48.900 the idea

01:01:50.140 of human

01:01:51.940 universality.

01:01:53.300 Again,

01:01:54.120 let's just

01:01:54.880 go back

01:01:55.560 to how

01:01:57.200 this idea

01:01:57.900 arose.

01:01:58.860 One common

01:01:59.920 notion about

01:02:00.680 how this

01:02:01.100 idea,

01:02:01.980 how the

01:02:02.360 idea of

01:02:03.080 human

01:02:03.440 universality

01:02:04.520 arose,

01:02:05.300 and Tom

01:02:05.900 Holland

01:02:06.180 advances this

01:02:07.220 very strongly

01:02:07.880 in Dominion,

01:02:08.880 is that it

01:02:09.480 arises essentially

01:02:10.660 through

01:02:11.280 Pauline

01:02:11.900 Christianity.

01:02:13.020 I don't

01:02:13.200 know whether

01:02:13.460 you're familiar

01:02:14.040 with,

01:02:15.480 it's particularly

01:02:16.580 the epistle

01:02:17.160 to the

01:02:17.580 Galatians.

01:02:18.560 And there

01:02:18.900 what Paul

01:02:19.480 says is,

01:02:20.500 it's really

01:02:20.920 worth repeating,

01:02:22.220 that there

01:02:23.140 is neither,

01:02:24.760 listen carefully,

01:02:25.980 there is

01:02:26.300 neither Jew

01:02:27.740 nor Greek,

01:02:29.700 bond,

01:02:30.620 that's slave,

01:02:31.760 nor free,

01:02:33.220 man nor

01:02:34.260 woman in

01:02:35.840 Christ.

01:02:37.080 In other

01:02:37.440 words,

01:02:38.300 that Christ

01:02:39.120 abolishes

01:02:40.300 human distinction.

01:02:42.660 But that

01:02:43.100 doesn't mean

01:02:43.840 that human

01:02:45.260 distinction is

01:02:46.060 abolished.

01:02:46.980 Nobody assumed

01:02:48.360 that Christianity

01:02:49.020 until woke

01:02:50.220 came along

01:02:50.820 was about

01:02:51.480 abolishing the

01:02:52.120 difference between

01:02:52.820 man and

01:02:53.300 woman.

01:02:54.000 And what

01:02:54.500 it's saying

01:02:55.040 is that

01:02:55.600 there is

01:02:56.400 in a

01:02:57.160 particular

01:02:57.560 form of

01:02:58.380 religion and

01:02:59.040 spirituality

01:02:59.640 a

01:03:00.460 transcendence

01:03:01.740 of human

01:03:03.160 difference.

01:03:05.140 Now,

01:03:05.480 I think

01:03:06.460 that the

01:03:06.900 only way

01:03:07.660 which we

01:03:08.160 can all

01:03:08.700 get on

01:03:09.300 is,

01:03:09.900 and again,

01:03:10.240 so I'm

01:03:10.500 taking this

01:03:11.040 right back

01:03:11.720 to the

01:03:12.120 beginning of

01:03:12.560 our

01:03:12.740 conversation,

01:03:13.300 is recognizing

01:03:14.520 human diversity

01:03:15.920 and difference.

01:03:17.800 And the

01:03:18.060 last way

01:03:19.040 you can

01:03:19.500 do that

01:03:20.200 is if you

01:03:20.880 start producing

01:03:21.740 universalized

01:03:22.780 doctrines.

01:03:24.000 I can

01:03:24.660 understand,

01:03:25.500 right,

01:03:25.860 I can

01:03:26.160 understand,

01:03:27.180 and now I'm

01:03:27.820 thinking aloud,

01:03:28.820 I can

01:03:29.180 understand,

01:03:30.280 as it were,

01:03:31.100 the negative,

01:03:32.360 thou shalt not

01:03:33.440 do.

01:03:33.800 But that's

01:03:35.960 not a

01:03:36.200 universal

01:03:36.620 human value.

01:03:38.160 I can

01:03:38.520 understand the

01:03:39.280 negative in

01:03:40.160 the same

01:03:40.500 way I

01:03:41.120 don't believe

01:03:41.760 at all in

01:03:42.840 do as you

01:03:43.360 would be

01:03:43.700 done by.

01:03:44.900 I do

01:03:45.460 believe don't

01:03:46.760 do what you

01:03:47.400 wouldn't have

01:03:47.880 done to

01:03:48.380 you.

01:03:50.000 In other

01:03:50.700 words,

01:03:51.080 the golden

01:03:51.560 rule seems

01:03:52.160 to me to

01:03:52.660 be it works

01:03:53.560 much better

01:03:54.460 in the

01:03:55.560 negative than

01:03:56.220 in the

01:03:56.500 positive.

01:03:57.140 Because,

01:03:57.480 of course,

01:03:57.940 do as you

01:03:58.620 would be

01:03:58.940 done by

01:03:59.440 means I

01:04:00.260 can enforce

01:04:00.800 my values

01:04:01.420 on you

01:04:01.920 if you

01:04:02.440 bother to

01:04:02.760 think about

01:04:03.220 it.

01:04:03.800 We're

01:04:04.440 back to

01:04:04.780 the

01:04:04.920 Ten

01:04:05.080 Commandments,

01:04:05.640 David.

01:04:07.700 Again,

01:04:08.480 we're back

01:04:08.860 to your

01:04:09.260 point about

01:04:10.040 how do

01:04:11.540 we cope

01:04:12.120 with the

01:04:13.080 extraordinary

01:04:13.560 diversity of

01:04:14.560 human beings.

01:04:15.640 And it

01:04:15.860 seems to

01:04:16.280 me that

01:04:17.000 yes,

01:04:18.880 in one

01:04:19.220 sense,

01:04:19.500 we've

01:04:19.700 learned

01:04:19.960 nothing

01:04:20.400 in the

01:04:21.340 abstract.

01:04:22.620 In other

01:04:23.300 ways,

01:04:24.000 I think

01:04:24.340 we've

01:04:24.700 learned

01:04:25.200 profoundly

01:04:26.120 the

01:04:26.800 development

01:04:27.320 of

01:04:28.080 traditions

01:04:28.720 of

01:04:29.240 language,

01:04:30.080 of

01:04:30.180 culture,

01:04:31.140 of

01:04:31.260 thought,

01:04:32.320 of

01:04:32.480 manners,

01:04:33.040 the

01:04:34.000 behavioural

01:04:35.760 patterns

01:04:36.220 of

01:04:37.020 human

01:04:37.360 beings

01:04:37.840 have

01:04:38.320 changed,

01:04:39.140 have

01:04:39.320 improved

01:04:39.960 in many

01:04:40.500 ways.

01:04:40.880 I think,

01:04:42.400 and this

01:04:42.840 again is a

01:04:43.540 reflection of

01:04:44.180 age,

01:04:45.140 I think

01:04:45.880 my sense

01:04:46.820 is that

01:04:47.960 we've

01:04:48.640 sort of

01:04:49.100 gone a

01:04:49.640 little bit

01:04:50.260 off the

01:04:51.080 top in

01:04:51.760 our own

01:04:52.280 civilisation,

01:04:53.440 maybe rather

01:04:54.160 a lot

01:04:54.720 off the

01:04:55.300 top.

01:04:55.640 that the

01:04:56.580 cultivation

01:05:00.640 of a

01:05:01.180 civilisation

01:05:02.020 is,

01:05:03.280 and I

01:05:04.480 make it

01:05:04.840 sound like

01:05:05.280 a plant,

01:05:06.840 and I

01:05:07.120 think it

01:05:07.460 is.

01:05:09.660 In other

01:05:10.340 words,

01:05:10.740 you can

01:05:11.040 overcrop,

01:05:12.220 you can

01:05:12.560 overprune,

01:05:13.920 you can

01:05:14.220 overfertilise.

01:05:15.940 It goes

01:05:16.740 right back

01:05:17.380 to the

01:05:17.740 beginning

01:05:18.100 of our

01:05:18.680 civilisation,

01:05:19.900 which is

01:05:20.320 the invention

01:05:21.040 of the

01:05:21.340 English

01:05:21.580 language,

01:05:22.100 which is

01:05:23.480 Chaucer,

01:05:24.660 and Chaucer

01:05:25.460 has this

01:05:26.040 astonishing

01:05:26.660 phrase.

01:05:28.200 Chaucer

01:05:28.420 is,

01:05:28.880 again,

01:05:30.960 an

01:05:31.540 extraordinary

01:05:32.080 man.

01:05:33.240 He's a

01:05:33.860 product of

01:05:34.460 this strange

01:05:35.400 island on

01:05:36.500 the fringe

01:05:36.920 of Europe,

01:05:37.900 which didn't

01:05:39.360 really have a

01:05:39.900 language.

01:05:41.040 You're at

01:05:41.320 the stage,

01:05:41.960 you've killed

01:05:42.520 the native

01:05:43.020 language of

01:05:44.200 Anglo-Saxon,

01:05:45.720 it's got

01:05:46.140 completely mixed

01:05:46.980 up with the

01:05:47.700 language of

01:05:48.840 an alien

01:05:50.060 ruling class

01:05:51.020 French.

01:05:52.100 And Chaucer

01:05:53.560 in some

01:05:55.200 ways,

01:05:55.540 not quite

01:05:56.040 single-handed,

01:05:56.820 of course

01:05:57.200 not,

01:05:57.680 but shapes

01:05:58.480 it into

01:05:59.940 a language.

01:06:00.800 We forget,

01:06:01.400 you know,

01:06:01.860 English is

01:06:02.760 the most

01:06:03.600 extraordinary

01:06:04.200 recent of

01:06:05.020 languages.

01:06:06.200 English

01:06:06.500 really is

01:06:08.060 only,

01:06:09.340 well,

01:06:09.480 it's after

01:06:09.840 the beginning

01:06:10.220 of Parliament.

01:06:11.960 That oath

01:06:12.880 that I was

01:06:13.360 talking about

01:06:14.140 of Edward

01:06:15.800 II in

01:06:16.600 1308,

01:06:17.520 that's sworn

01:06:18.160 in Latin

01:06:18.640 and French.

01:06:20.340 But Chaucer

01:06:21.260 towards the

01:06:22.160 end of

01:06:22.500 that century

01:06:23.200 begins to

01:06:24.260 formulate

01:06:24.720 English,

01:06:26.220 but he

01:06:26.560 formulates it

01:06:27.280 against a

01:06:27.740 background of

01:06:28.360 Latin and

01:06:29.200 against a

01:06:29.640 background of

01:06:30.200 Italian and

01:06:31.240 his travels

01:06:31.820 in Italy.

01:06:32.980 And one of

01:06:33.500 the things,

01:06:34.000 of course,

01:06:34.640 that's shaping

01:06:35.640 this world

01:06:36.440 is the

01:06:37.260 world of

01:06:38.180 Rome,

01:06:39.220 that dead

01:06:40.180 great

01:06:40.640 civilization,

01:06:41.940 which is

01:06:42.300 still a living

01:06:42.960 civilization

01:06:43.900 through its

01:06:44.740 books and

01:06:45.320 its literature

01:06:45.900 and its

01:06:46.540 buildings,

01:06:47.460 which Chaucer

01:06:48.220 encounters,

01:06:49.280 particularly in

01:06:50.000 Italy.

01:06:50.840 And in

01:06:51.480 one of his

01:06:51.940 poems,

01:06:52.860 he writes

01:06:53.620 about his

01:06:54.320 experience of

01:06:55.520 reading one

01:06:56.660 of the most

01:06:57.020 important surviving

01:06:57.980 works of

01:06:58.640 Cicero,

01:06:59.580 The Dream of

01:07:00.120 Scipio,

01:07:00.800 in which Cicero

01:07:01.880 reflects on the

01:07:02.900 greatness of

01:07:03.500 Rome and

01:07:04.380 Roman history.

01:07:05.660 And it's

01:07:06.420 very wonderful.

01:07:07.920 He goes to

01:07:08.540 sleep,

01:07:09.500 he's bored

01:07:10.040 stiff,

01:07:11.100 and he

01:07:11.420 dreams not

01:07:13.060 of a

01:07:13.420 parliament,

01:07:14.380 not of a

01:07:15.100 senate of human

01:07:15.880 beings,

01:07:16.320 but of

01:07:16.960 birds all

01:07:17.560 making love

01:07:18.180 to each

01:07:18.560 other.

01:07:19.080 It's a

01:07:19.520 wonderful

01:07:19.920 poem.

01:07:20.580 And then

01:07:21.060 there's a

01:07:21.600 couplet in

01:07:22.560 which he's

01:07:23.140 reflecting on

01:07:24.140 this newly

01:07:25.040 discovered world

01:07:26.120 of Roman

01:07:27.360 literature and

01:07:28.080 whatever,

01:07:28.860 and the

01:07:29.180 phrase goes

01:07:29.760 as follows.

01:07:31.760 Just in

01:07:32.220 the same

01:07:32.620 way,

01:07:33.380 the point

01:07:34.120 that I

01:07:34.400 made about

01:07:35.000 a civilization

01:07:36.160 as a

01:07:36.820 kind of

01:07:37.180 culture,

01:07:37.920 as a

01:07:38.100 kind of

01:07:38.600 agriculture,

01:07:40.700 just he

01:07:41.080 says in

01:07:41.520 the same

01:07:41.900 way that

01:07:42.940 from the

01:07:43.500 old earth

01:07:45.000 each year

01:07:46.140 there springs

01:07:47.380 new corn,

01:07:48.940 so from

01:07:50.180 old books

01:07:51.500 new learning

01:07:52.860 comes.

01:07:54.460 And that's,

01:07:55.280 it's that

01:07:55.820 extraordinary,

01:07:56.540 and again it's

01:07:57.340 what Burke

01:07:58.520 is talking

01:07:59.160 about when

01:08:00.000 he talks

01:08:00.500 about society

01:08:01.860 as a

01:08:03.320 cross-generational

01:08:04.620 contract,

01:08:05.820 when he

01:08:06.120 talks about

01:08:06.800 it as if

01:08:07.500 it is a

01:08:07.900 contract,

01:08:08.680 it's a

01:08:09.020 contract

01:08:09.520 between

01:08:10.040 those who

01:08:12.080 are living,

01:08:12.960 those who

01:08:13.300 are dead,

01:08:13.800 and those

01:08:14.180 who are yet

01:08:14.680 to be born.

01:08:15.400 And it's

01:08:16.480 this

01:08:16.660 fertilization

01:08:17.720 across time,

01:08:19.300 and that's

01:08:19.560 why the

01:08:20.560 American

01:08:20.940 Revolution

01:08:21.520 is a

01:08:22.980 success,

01:08:23.560 and the

01:08:23.760 French

01:08:23.980 Revolution

01:08:24.420 is a

01:08:24.780 catastrophe.

01:08:25.900 The

01:08:25.980 French

01:08:26.500 Revolution

01:08:26.980 tries to

01:08:27.820 restart

01:08:28.340 time,

01:08:29.320 it tries

01:08:29.940 to do

01:08:30.380 what the

01:08:30.760 Chinese,

01:08:31.460 what the

01:08:31.740 Russian

01:08:32.000 does.

01:08:32.540 The

01:08:32.740 American

01:08:33.160 Revolution

01:08:33.740 effectively

01:08:34.720 is just

01:08:35.660 a group

01:08:36.020 of

01:08:36.180 Englishmen

01:08:36.720 deciding

01:08:37.420 actually

01:08:37.760 they can

01:08:38.040 run

01:08:38.240 their

01:08:38.440 affairs

01:08:38.860 better.

01:08:39.300 David,

01:08:42.140 we've got

01:08:42.820 to wrap

01:08:43.100 up shortly,

01:08:43.660 but you

01:08:44.340 raise,

01:08:45.000 I think,

01:08:45.420 within that

01:08:45.880 a question

01:08:46.340 that a

01:08:47.360 lot of

01:08:47.660 people

01:08:47.980 actually

01:08:48.740 deeply,

01:08:49.740 I think,

01:08:50.280 deep down

01:08:50.880 want to

01:08:51.780 hear an

01:08:52.240 answer to,

01:08:53.260 which is,

01:08:54.640 you talk

01:08:55.000 about our

01:08:55.400 civilization,

01:08:56.200 you talk

01:08:56.540 about it

01:08:56.820 as a

01:08:57.080 plant,

01:08:58.020 is it

01:08:58.400 dying?

01:08:59.760 Well,

01:08:59.920 I think

01:09:00.120 we're doing

01:09:00.460 our best

01:09:00.880 to kill

01:09:01.240 it.

01:09:02.020 I mean,

01:09:02.300 remember,

01:09:03.260 fundamentally,

01:09:04.980 a civilization

01:09:05.620 depends on

01:09:06.660 one generation

01:09:07.620 handing on

01:09:08.440 to the

01:09:08.760 next.

01:09:10.720 And many

01:09:11.720 of my

01:09:12.080 generation

01:09:12.600 decided they

01:09:13.340 didn't want

01:09:13.860 to do

01:09:14.200 that,

01:09:15.040 and quite

01:09:15.440 a lot

01:09:15.740 of yours

01:09:16.220 decided they

01:09:16.840 didn't want

01:09:17.280 to receive

01:09:17.740 it.

01:09:18.660 And

01:09:18.900 modernism,

01:09:20.620 to a very

01:09:21.720 significant

01:09:22.320 extent,

01:09:23.560 began as

01:09:24.400 destruction.

01:09:25.260 We really

01:09:25.980 do need

01:09:26.620 to understand

01:09:27.240 this.

01:09:28.060 I mean,

01:09:28.260 you look

01:09:29.000 at what

01:09:29.280 we call

01:09:29.760 modern art,

01:09:30.800 which begins

01:09:31.400 with Marcel

01:09:32.000 Duchamp.

01:09:32.920 Duchamp

01:09:33.440 did not

01:09:34.380 think he

01:09:34.920 was inventing

01:09:35.740 art.

01:09:36.760 Duchamp,

01:09:37.500 you know,

01:09:37.720 he's the

01:09:38.040 person

01:09:38.320 with the

01:09:38.580 urinal,

01:09:40.440 which is

01:09:42.080 then labelled

01:09:42.640 La Fontaine

01:09:43.300 and all

01:09:43.600 the

01:09:43.720 and with

01:09:46.260 a fictitious

01:09:46.780 signature

01:09:47.900 in New York.

01:09:50.180 Marcel

01:09:50.640 Duchamp

01:09:51.080 does not

01:09:51.720 think he's

01:09:52.340 inventing

01:09:52.840 a new

01:09:53.220 art.

01:09:54.300 Duchamp

01:09:54.800 is trying

01:09:55.600 to destroy

01:09:56.780 art.

01:09:58.100 He says

01:09:58.560 Rembrandt

01:09:59.300 should be

01:09:59.660 used as

01:10:00.200 ironing

01:10:00.760 boards.

01:10:01.700 He says

01:10:02.280 absolutely

01:10:03.180 specifically,

01:10:04.500 I am

01:10:04.840 an

01:10:05.280 artist

01:10:06.320 in the

01:10:07.100 same

01:10:07.320 way

01:10:07.460 as

01:10:07.560 an

01:10:07.800 anarchist.

01:10:09.160 I am

01:10:09.460 absolutely

01:10:10.120 opposed

01:10:10.600 to art.

01:10:11.260 All that

01:10:11.820 stuff,

01:10:12.700 the art

01:10:14.260 of

01:10:14.400 surrealism

01:10:15.000 and whatever

01:10:15.500 and Dadaism

01:10:17.320 is only

01:10:18.300 reinvented as

01:10:19.460 art in

01:10:20.940 the Warhol

01:10:21.540 circle in

01:10:22.340 New York

01:10:22.860 in the

01:10:23.380 1960s

01:10:24.340 and above

01:10:24.960 all by

01:10:25.640 a group

01:10:26.580 of money

01:10:27.340 grubbing

01:10:27.840 Germans

01:10:29.080 in Italy

01:10:29.760 who persuade

01:10:30.700 Duchamp

01:10:31.260 to

01:10:31.760 reissue

01:10:34.720 his

01:10:35.180 various

01:10:35.640 works

01:10:36.060 and it's

01:10:36.540 only in

01:10:37.100 the 1960s

01:10:38.240 that you

01:10:38.700 decide

01:10:39.140 this stuff

01:10:39.800 is art.

01:10:42.560 Again,

01:10:43.600 the modern

01:10:44.440 movement in

01:10:45.000 architecture

01:10:45.580 is a

01:10:46.180 deliberate

01:10:46.740 attempt

01:10:47.540 at

01:10:47.920 destroying

01:10:48.720 the

01:10:49.800 previous

01:10:50.360 patterns

01:10:50.960 of

01:10:51.440 artistic

01:10:52.120 endeavour

01:10:52.680 which,

01:10:53.420 again,

01:10:53.640 I was

01:10:53.940 thinking

01:10:54.240 this

01:10:54.700 today

01:10:56.320 being

01:10:57.060 driven

01:10:57.340 in from

01:10:57.780 Islington

01:10:58.200 to

01:10:58.920 the

01:11:01.560 wonders

01:11:01.840 of

01:11:02.080 King's

01:11:02.420 Cross

01:11:02.700 and

01:11:03.380 St.

01:11:03.640 Pancras

01:11:04.100 to catch

01:11:04.980 the trains

01:11:06.140 that get

01:11:07.060 me here.

01:11:08.500 And

01:11:08.520 my taxi

01:11:11.500 took me

01:11:12.240 down

01:11:13.220 through

01:11:13.700 the

01:11:14.860 squares

01:11:15.380 of

01:11:15.540 Islington

01:11:15.940 and

01:11:16.840 crossed

01:11:17.540 over

01:11:18.000 Richmond

01:11:18.880 Avenue

01:11:19.360 Hemingford

01:11:19.980 Road

01:11:20.260 and

01:11:20.400 whatever

01:11:20.640 and

01:11:21.080 then

01:11:21.220 it

01:11:21.400 turned

01:11:21.800 towards

01:11:22.220 Caledonian

01:11:22.840 Road

01:11:23.280 and

01:11:23.940 these

01:11:24.360 elegant

01:11:25.120 terraces

01:11:25.880 and pretty

01:11:26.560 villas

01:11:27.020 suddenly

01:11:27.860 turn

01:11:28.460 into

01:11:29.020 block

01:11:29.440 after

01:11:29.960 block

01:11:30.400 hideous

01:11:31.900 decaying

01:11:33.440 litter

01:11:34.200 strewn

01:11:34.900 paint

01:11:35.800 peeling

01:11:36.880 pissed

01:11:37.660 upon

01:11:38.180 council

01:11:38.760 flats

01:11:39.340 and

01:11:39.860 you

01:11:40.020 look

01:11:40.620 at

01:11:41.040 a

01:11:41.360 sense

01:11:41.700 of

01:11:42.000 a

01:11:42.200 civilisation

01:11:43.000 having

01:11:43.640 committed

01:11:44.340 visual

01:11:45.040 suicide

01:11:46.000 the

01:11:46.580 sheer

01:11:47.320 unredeemed

01:11:48.720 hideous

01:11:49.720 ugliness

01:11:50.600 and

01:11:51.420 again

01:11:51.880 it's so

01:11:52.840 much of

01:11:53.220 the city

01:11:53.720 the

01:11:54.220 preening

01:11:55.200 preening

01:11:56.220 swish

01:11:57.000 my

01:11:57.380 cock's

01:11:57.900 bigger

01:11:58.100 than

01:11:58.360 your

01:11:58.640 skyscraper

01:11:59.460 vanity

01:12:00.220 of

01:12:00.660 it

01:12:00.840 there

01:12:01.300 really

01:12:01.580 is

01:12:01.820 this

01:12:01.980 you

01:12:02.960 look

01:12:03.280 at

01:12:03.400 that

01:12:03.580 deliberate

01:12:04.500 visual

01:12:05.240 chaos

01:12:05.960 you

01:12:08.000 contrast

01:12:08.460 it

01:12:08.980 with

01:12:10.040 the

01:12:10.280 instinctive

01:12:11.740 elegance

01:12:12.820 and

01:12:13.080 I'm

01:12:13.540 sounding

01:12:13.800 like

01:12:14.020 Prince

01:12:14.260 Charles

01:12:14.560 I

01:12:14.720 apologize

01:12:15.100 King

01:12:15.720 Charles

01:12:15.980 elegance

01:12:16.940 and

01:12:17.120 human

01:12:17.420 scale

01:12:17.980 and

01:12:19.360 there

01:12:19.920 is

01:12:20.100 again

01:12:20.760 when

01:12:21.180 people

01:12:21.940 talk

01:12:22.520 about

01:12:22.860 everybody

01:12:23.980 laughs

01:12:24.520 when they

01:12:24.840 say

01:12:24.980 we've

01:12:25.220 got

01:12:25.360 to

01:12:25.560 build

01:12:25.860 beautiful

01:12:26.440 but

01:12:26.860 you

01:12:27.000 look

01:12:27.280 at

01:12:27.400 the

01:12:27.580 sheer

01:12:28.120 ugliness

01:12:29.260 of so

01:12:30.640 much

01:12:30.840 modern

01:12:31.160 house

01:12:31.520 the

01:12:32.620 sheer

01:12:32.920 ugliness

01:12:33.800 of the

01:12:34.160 spaces

01:12:34.560 we

01:12:34.920 create

01:12:35.500 the

01:12:36.240 absolute

01:12:36.860 indifference

01:12:37.900 to the

01:12:38.660 human

01:12:39.000 scale

01:12:39.740 to

01:12:40.340 beauty

01:12:40.900 to

01:12:41.180 even

01:12:41.700 elementary

01:12:42.540 convenience

01:12:43.180 and

01:12:44.440 it is

01:12:44.900 this

01:12:45.100 extraordinary

01:12:45.940 paradox

01:12:46.760 that

01:12:47.320 we've

01:12:47.940 created

01:12:48.480 levels

01:12:49.480 of

01:12:49.860 health

01:12:50.720 of

01:12:50.960 security

01:12:51.580 of

01:12:52.120 comfort

01:12:52.700 and

01:12:53.800 at

01:12:53.920 the

01:12:54.060 same

01:12:54.320 time

01:12:54.900 how

01:12:57.620 can

01:12:57.820 I

01:12:57.940 put

01:12:58.100 this

01:12:58.320 bluntly

01:12:58.840 shat

01:12:59.320 upon

01:12:59.780 a

01:13:02.020 tradition

01:13:02.580 of

01:13:03.080 civility

01:13:04.440 but

01:13:05.000 it's

01:13:05.220 above

01:13:05.500 all

01:13:05.720 in

01:13:07.200 other

01:13:07.380 words

01:13:07.540 we've

01:13:09.200 forgotten

01:13:09.620 that

01:13:09.900 things

01:13:10.280 really

01:13:10.740 do

01:13:11.020 have

01:13:11.300 to

01:13:11.460 be

01:13:11.680 transmitted

01:13:12.320 that

01:13:13.000 the

01:13:13.920 culture

01:13:14.400 is a

01:13:15.380 delicate

01:13:15.860 thing

01:13:16.480 again

01:13:17.320 all

01:13:17.860 the

01:13:18.080 bloom

01:13:19.320 stuff

01:13:19.660 about

01:13:19.900 the

01:13:20.080 closing

01:13:20.400 of

01:13:20.620 the

01:13:20.740 American

01:13:21.080 mind

01:13:21.540 this

01:13:22.000 is

01:13:22.240 true

01:13:22.680 that

01:13:23.700 if

01:13:25.080 generations

01:13:26.100 are not

01:13:26.580 taught

01:13:26.900 you

01:13:27.140 don't

01:13:28.040 absorb

01:13:28.860 Shakespeare

01:13:29.320 by

01:13:29.720 accident

01:13:30.240 but

01:13:30.580 look

01:13:33.900 at

01:13:34.560 the

01:13:34.720 role

01:13:35.220 in

01:13:36.280 the

01:13:37.880 book

01:13:38.120 that

01:13:38.300 seems

01:13:38.540 to me

01:13:39.020 to

01:13:39.180 be

01:13:39.960 the

01:13:40.820 prophecy

01:13:41.320 of

01:13:41.580 what's

01:13:41.840 happening

01:13:42.200 to us

01:13:42.620 is

01:13:43.000 Brave

01:13:43.260 New

01:13:43.480 World

01:13:43.900 that

01:13:46.580 society

01:13:47.400 which

01:13:47.900 Huxley

01:13:48.920 sees

01:13:49.460 to an

01:13:50.220 extent

01:13:50.540 experiences

01:13:51.240 in

01:13:51.600 20s

01:13:52.040 California

01:13:52.580 in

01:13:54.380 which

01:13:54.600 the

01:13:54.780 only

01:13:55.000 person

01:13:55.420 who

01:13:55.580 reads

01:13:55.820 Shakespeare

01:13:56.300 is

01:13:56.580 the

01:13:56.740 savage

01:13:57.200 that

01:14:00.640 world

01:14:01.120 of

01:14:01.380 absolute

01:14:02.300 valuelessness

01:14:04.080 there is

01:14:05.920 a risk

01:14:06.540 there is

01:14:08.500 a risk

01:14:09.080 and the

01:14:10.940 more

01:14:11.280 we decide

01:14:12.000 that the

01:14:12.360 western

01:14:12.720 tradition

01:14:13.340 is a

01:14:14.300 disaster

01:14:14.960 that

01:14:15.840 whiteness

01:14:16.420 is a

01:14:16.760 disaster

01:14:17.380 then I'm

01:14:18.800 afraid we

01:14:19.400 are signing

01:14:20.740 our own

01:14:21.280 death

01:14:21.520 world

01:14:21.840 you see

01:14:22.420 there is

01:14:22.760 a very

01:14:23.160 we were

01:14:24.340 we were

01:14:25.120 talking

01:14:25.440 quite

01:14:25.800 lightly

01:14:26.360 about

01:14:27.340 cancel

01:14:28.660 culture

01:14:29.040 and

01:14:29.280 and

01:14:29.400 or

01:14:29.540 Doyle's

01:14:29.960 written

01:14:30.180 brilliantly

01:14:30.720 on this

01:14:31.240 and about

01:14:32.200 cancel

01:14:32.580 culture

01:14:33.020 and all

01:14:33.280 the rest

01:14:33.620 of it

01:14:33.900 being

01:14:34.900 quasi

01:14:35.460 religious

01:14:36.020 but

01:14:36.800 there is

01:14:37.980 an example

01:14:38.640 of a

01:14:39.080 civilization

01:14:39.620 which got

01:14:40.860 religion

01:14:41.300 very badly

01:14:42.060 and a

01:14:42.380 religion

01:14:42.740 that was

01:14:43.200 profoundly

01:14:43.840 opposed

01:14:44.580 to its

01:14:44.960 central

01:14:45.300 values

01:14:45.840 it's

01:14:46.480 called

01:14:46.700 the

01:14:46.840 Roman Empire

01:14:48.000 and

01:14:48.220 Christianity

01:14:48.680 and the

01:14:49.880 classic

01:14:50.400 account

01:14:50.980 of the

01:14:51.340 fall

01:14:51.660 of Rome

01:14:52.220 that's

01:14:52.920 to say

01:14:53.420 Gibbon

01:14:54.280 sees

01:14:55.180 the

01:14:55.780 absorption

01:14:56.240 of

01:14:56.560 Christianity

01:14:57.080 which is

01:14:58.280 a religion

01:14:59.140 which

01:14:59.660 in

01:14:59.860 Rome

01:15:00.660 embraced

01:15:01.320 power

01:15:01.920 it

01:15:02.500 embraced

01:15:02.980 dignity

01:15:03.620 it

01:15:03.880 embraced

01:15:04.420 honour

01:15:04.940 Christianity

01:15:07.140 is religion

01:15:08.160 which

01:15:08.820 embraces

01:15:09.720 submission

01:15:11.260 unity

01:15:12.420 forgiveness

01:15:13.420 meekness

01:15:14.700 as

01:15:16.640 Nietzsche

01:15:17.880 says

01:15:18.300 the

01:15:18.540 religion

01:15:18.840 of

01:15:19.040 the

01:15:19.180 slave

01:15:19.700 who

01:15:24.980 knows

01:15:25.340 and on

01:15:27.120 that note

01:15:27.500 David

01:15:27.840 it's been

01:15:28.340 an absolute

01:15:29.360 pleasure

01:15:30.060 to have

01:15:30.580 you on

01:15:30.840 thank you

01:15:31.220 so much

01:15:31.640 for coming

01:15:32.000 on

01:15:32.260 before we

01:15:33.440 do our

01:15:33.760 questions

01:15:34.160 for locals

01:15:34.840 we always

01:15:36.040 ask the

01:15:36.600 same question

01:15:37.360 to end

01:15:37.880 our

01:15:38.160 interviews

01:15:38.500 which is

01:15:39.200 what's the

01:15:39.820 one thing

01:15:40.200 we're not

01:15:40.580 talking about

01:15:41.320 as a

01:15:42.160 society

01:15:42.600 that we

01:15:43.240 really

01:15:43.460 should

01:15:43.720 be

01:15:43.940 I

01:15:44.460 think

01:15:44.640 this

01:15:44.940 discussion

01:15:45.400 has

01:15:45.600 covered

01:15:45.820 absolutely

01:15:46.420 everything

01:15:46.780 seriously

01:15:49.800 it went

01:15:50.540 in wildly

01:15:51.320 different

01:15:51.740 directions

01:15:52.360 from what

01:15:52.900 I was

01:15:53.200 expecting

01:15:53.700 and I'm

01:15:54.800 sorry

01:15:55.020 I probably

01:15:56.240 wandered

01:15:57.360 into far

01:15:58.040 too many

01:15:58.320 strange

01:15:58.800 corners

01:15:59.260 but it

01:16:00.320 does seem

01:16:01.100 important

01:16:02.420 to say

01:16:02.920 these

01:16:03.220 things

01:16:03.640 it is

01:16:05.420 I mean

01:16:06.020 I am

01:16:06.500 aware

01:16:07.040 and again

01:16:07.920 it is

01:16:08.360 terrible

01:16:09.200 age

01:16:10.380 one becomes

01:16:11.520 very aware

01:16:12.600 of fragility

01:16:13.480 you become

01:16:14.600 particularly

01:16:15.220 aware

01:16:15.700 when like

01:16:16.140 me

01:16:16.340 you're

01:16:16.560 childless

01:16:17.140 I

01:16:18.100 never

01:16:18.780 thought

01:16:19.280 I

01:16:20.580 would

01:16:21.040 say

01:16:21.520 that

01:16:21.860 and certainly

01:16:22.540 never

01:16:22.780 say it

01:16:23.220 publicly

01:16:23.640 but the

01:16:25.340 only thing

01:16:25.820 that someone

01:16:26.300 like me

01:16:26.820 could have

01:16:27.580 as a

01:16:28.580 legacy

01:16:29.200 and again

01:16:29.940 it is awful

01:16:30.560 one starts

01:16:31.140 thinking of

01:16:31.700 these things

01:16:32.360 is that

01:16:33.200 process of

01:16:33.900 transmission

01:16:34.560 there used

01:16:35.600 to be the

01:16:36.040 notion of

01:16:36.880 in a sense

01:16:37.660 master handing

01:16:38.680 on to

01:16:39.200 pupil

01:16:39.600 it's very

01:16:41.800 difficult

01:16:42.240 to preserve

01:16:42.960 and

01:16:44.660 wherever you

01:16:47.500 look

01:16:47.940 really

01:16:48.340 that's

01:16:49.960 what's

01:16:50.480 needed

01:16:51.020 you

01:16:51.440 you

01:16:51.780 you

01:16:52.460 the trouble

01:16:56.040 is that

01:16:56.500 we've tended

01:16:57.400 to see it

01:16:58.240 as

01:16:58.820 strangling

01:17:02.420 creativity

01:17:03.720 we've

01:17:04.300 again

01:17:05.260 we were

01:17:05.720 joking

01:17:06.060 before

01:17:06.560 weren't

01:17:06.940 we

01:17:07.160 that

01:17:08.260 you need

01:17:09.640 rebellion

01:17:10.180 but you

01:17:11.620 also need

01:17:12.280 order

01:17:12.680 in some

01:17:14.100 ways

01:17:14.380 I suppose

01:17:15.160 it is

01:17:15.560 right to

01:17:16.080 burn

01:17:16.340 heretics

01:17:16.920 there is

01:17:18.940 this awful

01:17:19.620 paradox

01:17:20.520 we've got

01:17:23.040 a pie

01:17:23.340 ready

01:17:23.620 just

01:17:23.860 outside

01:17:24.200 it was

01:17:26.940 getting a

01:17:27.300 little

01:17:27.420 warm

01:17:27.800 if I

01:17:30.620 may pay

01:17:30.940 you a

01:17:31.140 compliment

01:17:31.440 before we

01:17:31.920 let you

01:17:32.200 go

01:17:32.440 I think

01:17:33.620 in terms

01:17:33.920 of passing

01:17:34.380 things on

01:17:34.960 this is

01:17:35.460 quite the

01:17:35.860 discussion

01:17:36.240 in which

01:17:36.660 you've

01:17:37.440 been able

01:17:37.760 to do

01:17:38.080 that

01:17:38.300 and

01:17:38.540 previous

01:17:38.960 conversations

01:17:39.500 we have

01:17:39.940 with you

01:17:40.300 we have

01:17:41.220 a lot

01:17:41.440 of young

01:17:41.700 people

01:17:41.960 who watch

01:17:42.320 the show

01:17:42.620 some of

01:17:42.960 them are

01:17:43.200 even as

01:17:43.520 young as

01:17:43.820 being in

01:17:44.260 their 40s

01:17:45.280 and so

01:17:46.120 some even

01:17:46.700 younger than

01:17:47.220 you

01:17:47.440 very difficult

01:17:49.140 to be

01:17:49.420 no but

01:17:49.760 I think

01:17:50.480 as we've

01:17:52.280 seen with

01:17:52.720 the growth

01:17:53.080 of our

01:17:53.380 channel

01:17:53.600 we joked

01:17:54.580 earlier about

01:17:55.260 when you

01:17:55.660 first came

01:17:56.120 on the

01:17:56.360 show

01:17:56.540 it was

01:17:56.760 in a

01:17:57.020 dingy

01:17:57.360 smelly

01:17:57.740 pub

01:17:57.960 and look

01:17:58.540 at us

01:17:58.760 now

01:17:58.900 we're

01:17:59.080 doing

01:17:59.260 very well

01:17:59.700 I think

01:18:00.760 there's

01:18:01.000 a hunger

01:18:01.420 out there

01:18:02.780 in the

01:18:03.020 world

01:18:03.240 I'm sure

01:18:03.740 no I'm

01:18:04.300 sure

01:18:04.780 sure

01:18:05.380 sure

01:18:05.920 there is

01:18:06.520 but of

01:18:07.060 course

01:18:07.240 there is

01:18:07.700 a conspiracy

01:18:08.300 not to

01:18:09.060 feed that

01:18:09.680 hunger

01:18:10.040 well

01:18:10.800 we're

01:18:11.100 conspiring

01:18:11.620 to feed

01:18:12.120 it

01:18:12.200 to deliberately

01:18:13.360 starve it

01:18:14.300 or to do

01:18:14.960 what's even

01:18:15.520 worse to feed

01:18:16.280 it rubbish

01:18:16.720 food

01:18:17.220 yes

01:18:17.640 but we run

01:18:19.440 a small

01:18:19.740 restaurant here

01:18:20.380 that focuses

01:18:20.980 on high

01:18:21.440 quality game

01:18:22.200 and you've

01:18:22.680 been that

01:18:23.020 today

01:18:23.340 David

01:18:26.900 absolute

01:18:27.780 pleasure

01:18:28.140 I recommend

01:18:28.680 everybody

01:18:29.140 check out

01:18:29.720 your YouTube

01:18:30.240 channel where

01:18:30.760 you put out

01:18:31.220 a lot of

01:18:31.540 great stuff

01:18:31.960 we're going

01:18:32.200 to ask you

01:18:32.680 a couple

01:18:33.120 of questions

01:18:33.580 that our

01:18:34.040 paying supporters

01:18:35.140 have submitted

01:18:35.800 from locals

01:18:36.480 but for now

01:18:37.620 thank you so much

01:18:38.260 for joining us

01:18:38.860 and thank you

01:18:39.560 for being with us

01:18:40.280 we will see you

01:18:41.040 very soon

01:18:41.600 with another

01:18:41.980 brilliant episode

01:18:42.720 like this one

01:18:43.460 or our show

01:18:44.540 all of them

01:18:45.320 go out at 7pm

01:18:46.260 UK time

01:18:46.820 and for those

01:18:47.440 of you who

01:18:47.760 like your

01:18:48.080 trigonometry

01:18:48.640 on the go

01:18:49.560 it's also

01:18:50.280 available as a

01:18:50.900 podcast

01:18:51.360 take care

01:18:52.220 and see you

01:18:52.900 soon guys

01:18:53.460 are civilizations

01:18:56.320 always destined

01:18:58.120 to fall apart

01:18:59.040 could a sufficient

01:19:00.740 degree of

01:19:01.460 robustness

01:19:02.140 ever be built

01:19:03.300 into one

TRIGGERnometry - January 23, 2023

David Starkey： Can the West Survive？

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