ICE, Immigration and Cultural Suicide - Lionel Shriver
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Length
1 hour and 10 minutes
Words per minute
147.80125
Harmful content
Misogyny
13
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Toxicity
18
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Hate speech
32
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Summary
In honour of International Women's Month, we're celebrating the life and legacy of the women who shaped who we are, and the legacy they left behind, with a special episode featuring the author of "A Better Life" about immigration.
Transcript
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this is all the result of individual political decisions the Biden administration opened that
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border on purpose there is design behind it we are not acting out of self-interest the gender
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dynamics in the book between who it is that actually is inviting these people and who it
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is that's resisting this movement has brought out the worst in women I'm a big fan with mess
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and I mean that on an individual level but also on a cultural one we have poo-pooed them for a long
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time our countries are being overrun by strangers because nobody is stopping them
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every family tree holds extraordinary stories especially those of the women who shaped who we
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are in honor of international women's month ancestry invites you to shine a light on their legacy
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until march 10th enjoy free access to over 4 billion family history records and discover
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where they lived the journeys they took and the legacy they left behind start with just a name
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or place and let our intuitive tools guide you visit ancestry.ca to start today no credit card
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required term supply getting ready for a game means being ready for anything like packing a spare stick
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i like to be prepared that's why i remember 988 canada's suicide crisis helpline it's good to know
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just in case anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a trained responder
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anytime 988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in canada
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driver welcome back to trigonometry third time lucky third time great to have you uh you are the reason we have
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you on regularly you're a prolific writer as i was saying before we started you've just written the
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new book called a better life and as always you stay away from the controversy don't you lionel
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oh yeah i tried to go for the safe subject well this book of course is a novel but it is about
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immigration and i think you actually go very deep and very hard at an issue that has become
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completely toxified impossible to talk about and also impossible to be honest about uh is that why you
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wanted to to talk about this issue well i i am always looking for a gap in the cultural library
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there's no point in writing a book that has been written multiple times um i i'm trying to look for
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something that people are not writing about and there's usually a reason people are not writing
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about something because it's dangerous it's too polarizing um and there have certainly been plenty
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of novels about immigration but they're always implicitly pro-immigration because they are reliably
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told from the perspective of the immigrant and um and they're not necessarily all bad novels and in fact
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uh i think the the format of the immigrant story is um a narratively appealing in in intrinsically you know
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someone who's seeking a better life right is on a journey is literally going from a to b and therefore
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perhaps making another kind of spiritual political social journey um and has has to face obstacles to
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overcome is usually at a disadvantage often often that's an economic disadvantage uh all of these things
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are a formula for a sympathetic character and when you have a sympathetic immigrant
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you are you are implicitly writing a pro-immigration book i mean that's just the way it works um insofar as
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as is you have any political content uh i i i know of only one other novel that portrays the experience of the
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host community and that would be tc boils uh the tortilla curtain that goes back to 1999
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and i really can't name another one one one of the interesting things that i think you explore in
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the book is why this is all happening in the west why there's been these gigantic waves of mass
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immigration in the last 20 years in particular and it was interesting i was listening to you uh on another
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podcast with our friend winston and he asked you about the comments that jim rackliff made when he said
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england's been colonized by immigrants and he said do you think that's true and you said
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of course which i thought was surprising actually because i think that the reason i don't agree with what
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he said even though i understand why he said it is that i think to say something is colonization
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is to imply that the people who are coming are responsible for it was what your book actually explores
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is the people who are responsible for the ways of mass immigration the people who are encouraging and
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making it possible um i i agree with you uh i'm not sure that uh being willing to use the word
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colonization uh means that that the cause of that colonization is just the force of people's desire
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certainly that's part of the explanation but it is being permitted right without without doubt
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encouraged and in fact invited i would yes yes and and you know i was doing an event last night and
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and somebody said well you know isn't it inevitable it is not inevitable uh and politicians
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uh of certain stripes have encouraged us to believe that it is is an inevitable and you know this book is set
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in the united states the u.s has been taught to believe that uh that the transformation the demographic
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and ethnic racial transformation of the country which has been drastic since 1965 is almost like a natural
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process like photosynthesis it's like um the sun shines and the immigrants come you know or you water the
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garden and you get flowers and it's it's it's as if nobody's making any decisions that makes such rapid
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demographic change possible but these are all there are the these are this is all the result of individual
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political decisions and um and it's the same in the uk you know and they're being let in or as you say
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actually invited in and the plot of the book deals with an ordinary middle-class family american
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family who invite this immigrant into their house and then as it progresses it has awfully tragic
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consequences as i was reading the book two words kept coming up into my mind which is an idea which
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started with gad sad former guest of the show which are the two words are suicidal empathy i knew that's
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what you were going to say and it really struck me is that something that you'd agree with
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oh sure i mean it's my only problem with that expression is that i think often what you're
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dealing with is not genuinely empathy it's it's suicidal vanity right it's a it's a conceit about yourself
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being a good person and you're going to inflict your your goodness on everybody else you know it's
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sticking it's sticking it's it's sticking up for people who are uh vulnerable um but
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i often feel with these people that the the the groups of people they are defending
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they're almost irrelevant because it's an exercise in in moral display absolutely and one of the things
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that you see when we talk about moral display is how the people should we just say the characters
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let's call them progressives or hyper liberals whatever whatever term you want to use to describe
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them is not only do they have this suicidal vanity but they're also quite patronizing as well to these
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immigrants they treat them as lesser than and they can't really see that yeah i know it's it is conspicuous
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at any distance that um that the progressive view of minorities is terribly condescending and one of
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one of the things that's condescending is the assumption that all these illegal immigrants are
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are innocent you know and and in the united states uh there's also this conceit that
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that they're just you know not only are they just seeking a better life which is itself a you know
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portrayed as a faultless process um but they they admire the united states you know they love america they
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want to become a part of it they want to make contribution um they just they they they are patriots in
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waiting and waiting and that's really what's motivating them um this admiration of the country
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and of the culture and wanting to be part of it and of course at the same time progressives think
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the country is evil but you know inconsistency never bothers these people um
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um and and and so there's no there's no giving of credit that this is in many instances in the era of the
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welfare state a transactional process right the immigrants for the most part knew know your immigration
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law better than you do way better so they've done their homework in advance they have the stories prepared
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for their asylum claims even though that they're overwhelmingly economic migrants um and they they
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know what benefits they can get and that's that's a lot of it that's part that's a big part of the
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motivation they're smart right this is smart this is acting out of self-interest what's odd about our
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immigration policy again i talk in terms of both countries uh is that we are not acting out of
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self-interest the laws are not in our self-interest and that's a really profound point because there's
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moments where the police get involved and the what the main characters realize is there's no way of
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getting these people out of their house and then you suddenly make it very clear in the book that the
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system is biased against the people that it's meant to in inverted commas protect yes and the british will
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recognize that right away quite and why you mentioned that you agree with me that this is being invited
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what do you think is the motivation for all of this or the motivations i'm sure there's more than one
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i think it's especially mysterious in the uk um though there there may be an intersection there i resisted
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for a long time this notion that democrats were deliberately inviting masses of uh foreigners into
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the country uh because they wanted to to grow little democrats and create a one-party state um i've i've
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started to come around to that view i also i before trump uh effectively closed the southern border
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i imagined a lot of it was incompetence and fecklessness now there may be an element of that
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but i think it was more intentional the biden administration opened that border on purpose
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and shipped people all over the country wherever they wanted to go
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in fact they put illegal migrants with no id onto commercial airplanes
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with regular passengers who all have to have you know an impeccable national id i mean it's just it's it
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there is design behind it and i i don't have any other theory aside from this pathological passion for
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minorities and a weird uh notion that uh people who are non-white are superior um
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i i i don't see any other reason for inviting so many people in especially because you know on the
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one hand the left talks about oh we need these people economically you know we have this aging um age
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structure and you know social security's um imperiled and and uh medicare costs too much and
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we need young people to fill out the workforce but then you know they support family reunification
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which means these these people can bring in their parents right i mean so much for improving the age
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structure and furthermore the people that that came in um illegally during the biden administration were
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largely um unskilled or underskilled poorly educated these people i mean they've done the research these
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people are going to be uh net usurpers of social resources over the course of their lifetimes so that
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is definitely not going to fix the public finances so you know you use the economic argument to open the
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border but then you don't do the economically rational thing which would be to let in high
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skilled immigrants who are going to walk into um jobs with uh substantial salaries they'll pay taxes
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etc that makes sense but that's not what that's not what we're doing in either country i'm about to
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well in britain there is another motivation which is um and we've talked about this a lot which is
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if you measure economic growth in terms of the total gdp of the country and you're not capable of
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delivering actual growth as in improvements and productivity the creation of new jobs new businesses
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then the one thing you can do to avoid if you're the prime minister going out and having to say well
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actually the economy shrank by 0.3 percent is just to bring more bodies in yeah but that's assuming
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that if you have an intelligent opposition they're not going to point out the gdp per capita has gone
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down well i've been pointing this out for a long time but it's only until it's only now that the
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supposedly intelligent opposition is starting to catch on to this idea but i i think there's another
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thing that you touch on and this is a very very difficult and controversial thing but i think the gender
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dynamics in the book you that you explore between who it is that actually is inviting these people
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and who it is that's resisting is interesting because it's men and women or women and men i i think
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that's very accurate you know that's it's it's um i mean the women in the book i i tried not to make
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uh caricatures uh and i honestly in comparison to the the lunatics i see uh trying to interfere with
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ice operations in the likes of minneapolis uh the mother in my book is really quite sedate and reasonable
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and rational and and calm right she's she's not screaming at the top of her lungs or something so
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um and so i i think i'm fair to her i think she it's a it's a realistic portrait and she believes in
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her own stick you know uh we can step outside her and see that moral vanity but i i don't think most of
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these people are aware of it it feels like passionate concern for others that's that's the experience
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and so i give her credit and the two other women um to slightly lesser extent but they they all
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they all they all buy themselves the ui they all um they all sincerely embrace their their beliefs
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and can't see can't see their own vanity and can't see for example their own condescension
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and it's quite interesting because as well as talking about the women you don't spare the men
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particularly the protagonist the main character nico the young man i mean it's a pretty devastating
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analysis of young men that you do in the book uh the entire book is seen through the eyes of nico who is
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26 when the book starts he has earned a degree in engineering from a decent university
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but had an epiphany uh shortly before he graduated that he doesn't want to be an engineer and he
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doesn't want to be anything else either he just doesn't want to be a grown-up there's nothing in it
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that attracts him uh this is very different from how i felt at that age uh there's always something
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intimidating about your 20s you're supposed to be an adult and you don't really feel like one
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um and you're making decisions that are probably going to influence the rest of your life and you
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don't know which they are and i can see just deciding not for me right um the idea of just not having any
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ambition at all is weirdly attractive it's restful you can't fail right no pressure no pressure whatsoever
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it's you know your life is calm um nico is uh has so little to do with other people that he has
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deleted the calendar app on his phone and um i when i was writing this character i came to see his point
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of view that uh being an adult is hard assuming responsibility especially for your own life can feel
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onerous um and as long as you can get away with it uh i can see just resigning from adulthood right
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and this is typical of a certain kind of young person now and i think we've gone through a couple
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of generations where a percentage and i think it's especially been a problem with men a percentage of
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that their generation has um tried to hide under the bed but one of the things that your book explores
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very intelligently is incentives yes the women of the family behave the way they do because of
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incentives social incentives you know being seen to be a good person the migrants behave in their
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own way because of incentives because they know that if they come to the us they're going to have
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a better quality of life far better than when they came from before and there will be opportunities
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for them to have a much better quality of life but nico is also responding to incentives
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being an adult is hard it's tough you have responsibility you have unpleasant days at work
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you're getting involved in a relationship it might not work you get involved in a career
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you might get fired you get knocked back you get rejected so in a way isn't every character
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just responding to the perverse incentives of our society um yes there's a an exchange in the book
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between nico and an old friend of his that he hasn't seen in a long time and his friend is that is
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he's the he's the grown-up he's the the alternative he he has a job he has a career he's going to get
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married he wants children wow where'd you come from um and his friends says you know nico
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i don't know you were um you were really popular in high school
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how have you why have you stalled why are you what happened is it basically he stalled because i can
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because i can as you were saying been enabled his mother's not going to kick him out of the house
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he has a little inheritance from his grandfather and there's a way in which that's that is all the
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the book is full of metaphors but that even that little inheritance from his his grandfather
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is metaphorical like the too many young people are spending their inheritance and not contributing to
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what would they would pass on even this refusal to have children is a is a spending of your inheritance
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without amassing another fortune to pass on a kind of a genetic fortune a social fortune an economic
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fortune even um there is a widespread i don't want to i know these are generalizations i don't want to
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trash young people everyone's not like this but there there is a proportion of of young people who
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who just who are doing what nico is doing writ large not not embracing a future and there's the whole
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way of thinking behind that i'm very convenient i mean i think this whole thing of um climate change
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is a big fat excuse right oh there is no future we're all going to die well yeah that's right we
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are all going to die um and if you keep thinking that like that uh there will be no future that's a
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very self-fulfilling you know if you don't have if nobody has kids that's that's it and most of all
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there is a the rejection of the western heritage um that's convenient too if you reject it you don't
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have to learn it you don't have to appreciate it you don't have to read any of those long books um
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uh you you just say it's all evil you don't have to learn anything about history if you decide
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all history is bad you make it very simple you know you you reduce it to americans reduce it to
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slavery and the slaughter of the indians that's all you need to know about history oh and you need to
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know a little bit of world war ii so you can call the enemy nazis and fascists that's about it and
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it's it seems as if the the the left in in both our countries is is utopian but they're not utopian
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they are dystopian in fact they are nihilistic i don't think there is any positive vision for the future
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that's just a complete blank no future that's nihilistic and it's easy you know it's staying
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home it's not building anything it's not making anything and it's not appreciating anything it's not
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it's not humbly accepting that many people have come before you that make your smartphone possible and
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your your your sewage and your supermarket full of infinite array of food i mean it's it it's an
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ungrateful position and that's all that's that's easy too because great gratitude requires humility
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it's it's not something that that makes you vain right it is it is and gratitude requires some
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some energy uh uh generosity and and i think this whole the whole progressive left which i talked
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to a little bit um with winston um is just incredibly narcissistic and i find that ironic because they
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this is in the guise of caring so much for others i was going to say as well because
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focusing on the men in the book particularly nico his constant search for comfort has meant that he
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has become demasculinized when you compare him to the immigrants coming in who've had a much harder
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tougher way of life they're far more masculine than he is yes they're far more assertive they're far more
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not only are they mentally they're mentally dominant they're far more physically dominant
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so what you show is this comparison between somebody who's been raised in the west and you look at
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him you go this isn't a man this is a glorified pet i thought you're going to say girl no i like pet
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better yeah it's a glorified pet no because it's an insult to women to say that because that's
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it's it's not it's not feminine it's something deeply pathetic that can only be maintained
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if someone looks after them that's not a woman that's a pet yeah well
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for the first long part of the book nico seems to be very uh contented with this uh demasculi demasculinized
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version of himself and many of his peers but there is a crucial point at which
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he realizes that he needs access to the masculine virtues
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uh even physically he needs strength he needs to be able to express aggression
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um and he needs to most of all he needs to be able to protect his mother who is in
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profound danger and he doesn't know how he feels he has no no tools uh in a literal sense and also
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in a characterological sense uh he can't he can't rise to the occasion i of course don't want to give
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away the ending but in his own small struggling way he does start to embrace being a man toward the end of
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the book doesn't come naturally he doesn't really want to but you know it's it you can see that
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you know i'm i'm a big fan with masculine virtues and i and i mean that on an individual level but also
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on a cultural one and especially on a cultural one uh we have we have poo-pooed them for a long time and
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and and so i think in my own small way i'm defending a more um a more traditional manhood
00:31:27.540
let me say this because i know i'm not alone at some point your body just stops bouncing back the
00:31:34.420
way it used to you train hard you travel you push yourself and suddenly recovery takes longer
00:31:39.620
you wake up stiff joints complain skin hair nails things don't look or feel quite right anymore
00:31:45.620
so many people listening to this know exactly what i'm talking about what surprised me is that
00:31:50.500
this isn't just getting older in some vague sense a huge part of it is collagen your body starts
00:31:56.260
producing less of it from your mid-20s onwards collagen is basically the glue that holds everything
00:32:01.700
together so when your levels drop you feel it everywhere that's why i started using bubs naturals
00:32:07.860
collagen peptides and i've stuck with it since i've added it to my routine recovery is noticeably
00:32:13.300
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on that subject i mean the reason i brought up the men and women dynamic in all this i think that that
00:34:01.220
comes across quite clearly and it reminded me of a conversation we had with a lady called helen
00:34:06.980
andrews when we were last in america i don't know if you caught that episode but her thesis essentially
00:34:12.740
is that a lot of people say that the woke moment is a product of ideology and her argument is not so
00:34:18.900
much ideology it's what happens when you have women becoming dominant in institutions and imposing
1.00
00:34:28.340
their values and their mindset onto those institutions so for example the idea that you
00:34:34.340
talked about at length already in this interview about well the immigrants or the minorities they
00:34:39.300
can't put it for wrong because they're they just need protection and looking after her argument is well
00:34:44.580
if you kind of see vulnerable people effectively as babies then that is how you're likely to add
00:34:50.500
towards them is that is there any truth on this do you do does that make any sense to you
00:34:55.460
yeah definitely i mean i'm afraid that in discussing the male female uh dynamic in in relation to to woke
00:35:03.220
world um i i don't speak very warmly about my own sex um this movement has brought out the worst in women
1.00
00:35:13.860
and you know women women are capable of the masculine virtues also and we have allowed them to run riot
1.00
00:35:26.580
uh feeding their worst impulses some of the some of their those impulses are masculine they're just
00:35:34.500
disguised because that that crowd can be extremely aggressive and violent and vicious right and um
00:35:48.980
it's true that it's a the traditional cancel culture uh has has has had a caddy female side you know that
0.70
00:35:59.300
um assassination of of character and assassination of career uh that's that's pretty female um
1.00
00:36:11.700
but you know even physically a lot of these people in um in protests and stuff
00:36:16.980
they're frightening right um and and i i i feel that a lot of the emotions that that dominate the
00:36:31.220
the progressive left are not just girly emotions you know fury um
00:36:39.860
uh and a a a a malign intent you know an intent toward destruction and harm it's very very negative
00:36:54.420
well i think there's also another thing that maybe you could say does code more masculine which is a lot
00:36:59.620
of it from what i see is um you know you talk about the character the male character in your book who's
00:37:06.900
sort of pacified and contented and also for the women as well but ultimately within every human being
00:37:14.580
there is the desire for a cause to to to be contributing something of value to to stand up for
00:37:21.700
what is right all of these things still exist and also the desire to have status that corresponds with
00:37:27.060
that i know i think a lot of progressives look to the previous generation of people who fought for
00:37:32.660
certain rights and absent any other meaning in their life that is what they're trying to emulate so when
00:37:38.100
you go and get shot by an ice agent while quote unquote defending immigrants not quite in my opinion
0.99
00:37:45.220
what they're doing there is an attempt at some to seek greatness as part of that is what i see as well
00:37:51.380
there is a a huge sense there that you are doing something important and willing through your own
0.99
00:37:57.060
stupidity to put your life on the line and frankly also objectively speaking to go down in history
1.00
00:38:04.340
right because you know millions of billions of people around the world are going to know your name
1.00
00:38:08.740
i think it's a little tricky uh to to unravel when you're when you're um you're pursuing your own
00:38:23.300
causes leaving the left aside um and i'm talking about us not not the others humans um i mean i have
00:38:32.260
lots of beliefs also they're not the same beliefs uh but and you know i i wrote this novel partly out of
00:38:41.060
my own beliefs about immigration that it's been excessive and often damaging to the to western culture
0.99
00:38:50.340
in particular uh you know we'd like to see it slow so i i have strong feelings about this issue
00:38:58.340
and maybe you know maybe there is also a vanity in my thinking you know the the vast majority out there
00:39:07.380
needs somebody to speak for them that's what i'm trying to do and maybe you could step outside of me
00:39:14.100
and say well you're just actually self this is just an act of self-promotion right this is this is
00:39:21.060
narcissistic this is your books are narcissistic this is just this is a kind of moral display in other
00:39:27.300
words it's possible to turn all that stuff on yourself you know and and i and and therefore
00:39:33.700
i think it's important even when disagreeing with the progressive left to at least give them credit
00:39:40.660
that i think they do they do believe that they believe what they say but there is a huge difference
00:39:47.220
between these two things lionel and i think this is comes down to uh creativity versus destruction
00:39:53.300
right what you've done is you've written a great book now people might read that book and say i
00:39:58.020
disagree with the views that are implied by the plot and the storylines here but they won't deny
00:40:03.860
that it's a well-written book if they've got any sense to them creating a good book is a hard thing
00:40:08.980
to do it takes skill it takes practice it takes the willingness to have people write negative things
00:40:14.500
about you and deal with that emotionally that none of those things are easy
00:40:17.300
going to a protest and putting yourself in harm's way it may in some ways you could argue is courageous
00:40:24.820
but it's not hard it takes no skill it takes no intelligence it takes no creativity and i think
00:40:30.500
that's the difference i think the the difference and you talked about nihilism the difference is that
00:40:36.020
this is an easy way to access status it's an easy way it's a way of getting the things that take work
00:40:42.660
without putting any work in because if you really care about immigrants there's ways to contribute
1.00
00:40:47.620
you could go and start some kind of uh non-profit organization that teaches them english or that
00:40:52.660
teaches them job skills or that allows them to do this xyz all of that is creative and i think most
00:40:59.060
people would respect that right if people already hear they don't speak english you'd want to teach
00:41:02.900
them english you could do that but if you go to a protest you don't have to do any work you just
00:41:07.540
turn up and start screaming in someone's face i also think there was an element of um assumed imperviousness
00:41:16.180
in these anti-ice protests uh i do not think that either of the people who got shot in minneapolis
00:41:25.300
believed that they were genuinely putting their lives in danger their middle class and imagined that
00:41:32.900
um no harm would befall them it's a kind of entitlement that you know um so in that all of this is the
00:41:46.260
performance it feels like theater and they didn't actually believe that uh trying to stop armed law
00:41:55.780
enforcement from doing their job was was potentially putting themselves in harm's way i i i just don't
00:42:07.060
think that was the world in which they were mentally living um i mean i didn't i i was not convinced that
00:42:16.900
either of those shootings was righteous uh i think it showed poor judgment on isis part um
00:42:26.580
but at this at the same time they did make it it it was a joint effort right there there were um
00:42:36.980
misjudgments on both sides how much of this and the ideology people's behaviors
00:42:45.940
everything really is down to the fact we're simply not having enough kids i don't think it was an accident
00:42:50.980
in your book not an accident the three of the characters they didn't have any kids the mom was
00:42:57.940
in a house a big house on her own that maternal in those maternal instincts have to go somewhere
0.96
00:43:04.420
arguably this wouldn't have happened if the two daughters had all had kids and nico had a kid
00:43:09.700
because mom would be so busy with grandkids and babies and ferrying them to hockey practice or
1.00
00:43:15.940
whatever it may be i don't know wouldn't have time for any of this stuff um yes i mean the martin the
00:43:22.660
the immigrant who's invited into the house the first one um she she makes that point very uh specifically
00:43:31.860
that it looks as if this whole family is going to disappear right none of them have had kids
00:43:40.580
and and therefore there will be no one left in the house nico's nico who doesn't take any of this stuff
00:43:49.140
very seriously um said yeah okay well let me have the house for 70 years and i'll leave you the keys
00:43:57.780
and it's but but you know that's that's also that's the country the house is the country
00:44:03.140
and if we don't have children then we're handing the keys to somebody else if you watch or listen to
00:44:09.860
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and i think not enough people realize that because again our civilization at this moment seems to be
00:45:32.260
built around comfort i don't want anything that will make me uncomfortable i don't want to test
00:45:38.020
myself because then i might feel anxious i might feel stressed so what i'm going to do again using
00:45:44.500
the analogy of a pet i want to be looked after but the reality is that has very real trade-offs
00:45:50.500
particularly when it comes to kids and families if you don't have kids then what happens is
00:45:57.540
you don't have a legacy that's right and by the way i i need to clarify i have not had children
0.90
00:46:05.380
so i'm a i'm a hypocrite um i i had my um in fact i'm the only non-hypocrite at the table
00:46:14.820
good for you good for me i um i came around to my um pro natalism late in my life and it in all
00:46:27.460
honesty i still don't feel specifically regretful on my own account my life worked out pretty much
00:46:34.660
the way i wanted um there is some parallel universe in my mind in which i had children
00:46:43.460
and and i think in in a lot of ways the latter part of my life would be much more interesting
00:46:50.020
if i'd had children and that's where it really gets me um because there'd be so much more plot
00:46:56.980
and i like plot unlike most literary like writers i like plot and um i i follow what happens to my
00:47:05.780
nieces and nephews my um my younger brother has four kids and uh with with real eagerness you know
00:47:14.260
as if i'm i'm getting back to a novel that i'm in the middle of not and but one that someone else is
00:47:20.260
writing and uh it's just more story and some some of this not all the story is good but it's uh it's
00:47:30.020
this stuff you know it's more life and um and i'm that aspect of my brother's life i'm actually you know
00:47:39.860
envious of so my life is now too simple and people keep dying and if my husband dies i will be very by
00:47:54.020
myself you know if there's i have some friends uh and i still have my brother but the family's getting
00:48:02.900
littler on my side and and it's it's kind of shocking
00:48:09.860
you know when when you realize your friends start dying i've lost any number of friends already
00:48:23.700
social connections deep social connections meaning familial connections and uh and there's a price to
00:48:32.420
to pay for that and that's something that i don't think we acknowledge in our society
00:48:37.780
by seeking comfort by avoiding what's important by things like career becoming an adult testing
00:48:45.140
yourself what you are not doing is you're not investing in your future that's right and you're
00:48:51.620
not investing in everyone else's future you're not investing in a future that you will not experience
00:48:56.900
that having children is an act of generosity in every sense and i i one of the things that's changed
00:49:03.140
i i never you know was disapproving of people who had children but i it's i'm now actively approving
00:49:12.100
of people have children i admire people who have children those who say oh climate change i'm not
00:49:18.500
going to have any i i think it's uh i think it's a lie i think it's a cop-out and i it's just it's getting
00:49:26.820
out of it because it's too much trouble it is trouble but it's trouble that's worthwhile and if
00:49:36.340
you don't if we don't have kids as shown in the book you invite a different sort of trouble yes you're
00:49:42.340
never going to escape from trouble life is trouble so wouldn't it be better to have trouble that has
00:49:50.900
meaning instead of doing what the characters do in this book and look for meaning in places where
00:49:56.100
there really is no meaning yeah it's really like returning to basics um it's what people have always
00:50:04.820
found meaning in always is having children having a family that's where your your deepest bonds are
00:50:13.940
and your biggest problems um and and we need to we have we need to become a more old-fashioned well
00:50:25.540
i i think it francis is totally right to hone in on the idea of comfort because i think what having
00:50:30.900
children does it it's i think maybe i spend too much time in my in my youth playing computer games but
00:50:35.860
i think of a lot of things as a video game and having kids is is is literally going to the next level
00:50:42.980
you up the difficulty level you up the reward level and if what you want is to be comfortable
00:50:49.140
as nico in the book does or if you want to just stay you know you kind of got you know you you're
00:50:54.020
content like content is the right word you put it very well why increase your difficulty level
00:51:00.100
why do it if you're not aspiring to a bigger reward for example of any kind whether that's
00:51:05.380
meaningfulness or anything else why push yourself and i think that's just seeped so much into the
00:51:12.500
culture now um but it's interesting because i think the question i was going to ask you is
00:51:18.180
do you think you know your book is one aspect of this but there's a bigger thing going on where
00:51:23.380
actually a lot of people are starting to realize that this just isn't sustainable
00:51:27.540
the immigration thing isn't sustainable the birth rates aren't sustainable i mean i saw mark
0.99
00:51:32.580
a ruby in munich and he was talking about security global security but he talked about mass
00:51:38.100
immigration as part of that and you just go people are starting to get it now the tide is starting to
00:51:43.380
turn obviously the example of what's happened in the us where you've actually closed the border i mean
00:51:48.660
you have right um do you think this is about to turn around the immigration situation yeah
00:51:56.500
uh i think on the ground it turned around a long time ago uh and that's why there is so much popular
00:52:06.740
rage on this point um in the uk the electorate has opted to uh elect uh government after government
00:52:19.700
which has promised them beforehand that they're going to bring down uh immigration to the tens of
00:52:26.340
thousands um and people are furious indeed furious they've been ignored and lied to lie to totally
00:52:41.620
now even you know i think brexit wasn't was a a vote of desperation i supported it for sovereignty
00:52:52.340
reasons as well as you know to get a handle on on immigration but it was like
00:53:01.460
there was so much anger on the immigration front that they would that the country the country voted
00:53:10.260
to do something drastic right and were willing to take a kind of risk that i thought was very un-british
00:53:17.460
um you know the british have have always been uh uh a slow to anger uh population and um very orderly
00:53:27.540
oriented towards the status quo and not into radical change so that's one reason that vote really is
00:53:34.340
astonished me because it was it was outside the popular character but it was it it was it was it was
00:53:43.780
very specifically to do with immigration and none of the other votes had helped so let's try this
00:53:50.820
and it's one of the fascinating things when you talk about immigration or you talk about different
00:53:56.660
cultures and as people my mother's from a different culture constance from russia what people in the
00:54:03.300
west don't seem to realize and we talk about this a lot and we talk about it between ourselves is
00:54:07.460
they think everyone thinks like them the reality is they don't people in afghanistan do not think
1.00
00:54:14.180
the same way as people living in a flat in mayfair and by the way there's another thing you and i've
00:54:20.260
talked about this a lot on the show there's another thing i just realized that we should add on top of
00:54:23.460
that western people if they lived in the circumstances that people live in afghanistan in
00:54:29.540
also wouldn't act like western people act today living in a flat in mayfair that's that's another
00:54:35.780
aspect of it which is when you're confronted by real hardship for example your mentality has to
00:54:41.140
change and either changes because you want to survive or it changes because you die right so all
00:54:45.860
the people that are refused to adapt they die off and then what you're left with is the people who
00:54:49.860
actually know how to survive in a difficult environment and therefore they're much more connected to the
00:54:54.100
reality of the world you know completely and that's what the characters in the book they think
00:55:00.580
everybody thinks this to put it bluntly they've got every the whole world thinks in these demented
00:55:06.180
progressive values yeah they don't nice neutral statement there's one character in the book i
00:55:14.580
especially like it's he's a side character his name is alonzo you remember him and uh alonzo uh
00:55:24.660
thinks that the most americans are incredibly gullible and and don't give immigrants credit for
00:55:35.780
for being conniving right for knowing how to game the system both the immigration system and the benefit
00:55:42.580
system and he's very good at it he's he's a an excellent and very clever shyster and proud of it um and
0.96
00:55:53.060
and he thinks that that americans are fools and he says you know you think that we we admire you and
0.99
00:56:01.940
and we're grateful that that you let us into your country but no i'm we think you're fools we have
0.99
00:56:07.860
contempt for you and uh he says if uh if i had a country if it's my country right i have a country
0.99
00:56:17.620
and and someone crosses my border without my permission i'd shoot him
0.96
00:56:22.980
and then his friends will think twice about crossing my border without permission
00:56:32.580
end of migration crisis no and i and that's and that is how people in the rest of the world think
00:56:40.980
by the way yes that is how they think yes and and and in fact the kind of uh numbers that we've been
00:56:48.260
confronting like during the biden administration and even um like a thousand people in a day rocking
00:56:56.180
up on the on the southern coast of england at any other time you know that would be a military incursion
00:57:07.060
and that would be met with a military force that would be regarded flat out as an invasion but that
00:57:14.100
of course is one of the words that we cannot use anymore or so we're told let's be honest when your
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may vary based on studies of topical and oral minoxidil and finasteride you know it's so funny
00:58:35.060
the the entire conversation we're having i just had a flashback when i was in my early 20s i was
00:58:41.620
living in a flat share with a girl uh and one day her dad came around and i remember him talking to
00:58:49.700
me and he was telling me the story about the fact that there was a we were talking about immigration i i
00:58:55.620
you know and he told me the story about how he used to work with this afghan guy i think he was from
00:59:02.020
afghanistan somewhere like that uh who used to say to him directly he used to say you brit you know you
00:59:07.620
british you're gullible you're easy to take advantage of and he said the the father of the
00:59:14.500
girl i was living with he said and i said to him well if you feel that way then you know if you if you
00:59:18.500
don't if you if that's how you treat us you should leave and his daughter said dad dad let's not talk
00:59:24.900
like that here and i think that's the entire thing in that one conversation this is how i think the dad and
00:59:32.660
i i remember saying to her i agree with your dad i'm an immigrant i agree with your dad because he's
00:59:37.220
right because a lot of people if you let them they will take advantage of you and you have to not let
00:59:41.460
them take advantage of you and if people are here who are taking advantage of you they should go home
00:59:46.660
and she was horrified by what her dad said and by the fact that i agreed with her dad and this that's
00:59:52.900
the entire conversation isn't it well i mean if you think about it imagine how all those uh boat people
1.00
01:00:04.100
in being put up in hotels all over britain what what do they really think what do they really think
01:00:14.740
um why on earth are british taxpayers putting these people up and giving them three meals a day
01:00:25.220
actually in in most circumstances they have snacks and food on offer 24 7. um they've done nothing to
01:00:34.500
deserve this it's actually a kind of theft right it's a theft from the taxpayer they've they have not
01:00:43.140
contributed anything to the system there is no reason that britain has responsibility for these people
0.98
01:00:49.780
so if you're one of those people don't you feel that these that you're surrounded by fools
0.74
01:00:57.780
i mean what why why are these people rewarding your having broken the law and arrived and you just
0.87
01:01:07.540
arrive and and they're taking care of you indefinitely why would why would you not hold these people in
0.69
01:01:15.540
contempt what is wrong with them it would never happen where you're from you know if if the the if british
01:01:24.260
show up on in in in in afghanistan or albania or so you think that they they're going to be taken
01:01:30.820
care of and put in hotels no so why wouldn't that engender contempt rather than kind of gormless gratitude
01:01:42.260
you know i watch quite a lot of sports and sometimes you see a really great team or with
01:01:49.380
really talented players lose against another team with less talented players and in a moment of honesty
01:01:55.140
they'll ask one of the players and they'll go why did you lose and they'll go you know what
01:02:00.100
they just wanted it more and i look at the characters in your book i look at what's happening
01:02:07.700
in society writ large i look at these people coming over i see the way that they behave and i think
01:02:14.820
maybe they just want it more than us yeah there there's an element of that and and i think that's
01:02:21.620
pretty clear in in the novel that the the people who are taking action for the most part in in the book
01:02:32.180
are the immigrants they're going out and getting what they want and and
01:02:37.700
and and and the and the the locals are passive and you know nobody's
01:02:48.820
our our countries are being overrun by strangers because nobody is stopping them
1.00
01:02:54.820
so one of the things we don't want enough is to stop them
01:03:02.100
so it's just happening and you know when you were talking about the illegal boat
01:03:09.780
immigrants in a hotel um and the way you were talking about it i felt this pang of like
01:03:15.940
but what and and i real and i think what was the pang you know what it was i think it was almost like
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isn't that exactly what the people who didn't let those fleeing the holocaust and world war ii
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would have said and that is what they said and they didn't let lots of people into their countries
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and lots of people died as a result and i think the guilt that we feel about that
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still even now is so profound that it has deranged the way we think about this issue completely
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yeah well that's where the uh european convention on human rights comes from that's why the we have
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the whole asylum system but it's been long enough that maybe we should get over it and update well
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what i think is is actually i not not even update i just think we have to be honest and recognize that
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if people are fleeing the holocaust we actually do want to let them in and look after them but if
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people are economic migrants who've worked out that if you claim that you are gay or whatever
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and you're fleeing afghanistan we're going to let you in all of a sudden it's all like that thing with
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you know we had i mean what was happening in syria during the civil war meant that there were
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hundreds of thousands of people actually fleeing for their genuine refugees but but if you come to our
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country and claim you're 12 years old and go to school when you're 24 and we don't even bother to
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check so the point is that the guilt and shame we felt i actually think was somewhat appropriate
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it's just it's now been misallocated you know if i you know if i uh if i was driving in in a careless
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way and i hurt somebody i should feel guilt about that but if that the result of that is i now decide to
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burn down all the cars in the country maybe that's another reaction and it sort of feels like that's
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what's happened here well i think the big mistake uh in the asylum system is making it legally uh
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required so that all is all that it is necessary is that uh someone from wherever sets a single foot
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on your territory and suddenly you're responsible for them right and they and they can make claims on
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your benefit system and they can also make claims on your judicial system which is not free either
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uh and that whole system has got to go i would can all of asylum but as you know that doesn't mean
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that voluntarily countries couldn't say you know here's this conflict over the over there let's say
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ukraine right um russia's invaded new ukraine there are a lot of people in danger especially in the east of
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the country we will take our share we will invite them voluntarily that's what we do right uh but not
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because we have to because we've inverted it so it's it's required charity and and therefore it's it's
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it's an open invitation to game the system and it's now a farce isn't now it's now an embarrassment
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but also as well there's another part to this argument is look we've spent the last however
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many years in universities in the media in conversations denigrating the rest we're racist
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we're evil we're not we all know the tribes and if that's the case if we are genuinely those things
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and our civilization is that then why would you defend it why would you defend your uncle if your
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uncle is a is a nazi or he's a sex offender you wouldn't you'd go enough about the raw family
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but yeah but why would you you wouldn't you would just go this person doesn't deserve to be defended
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well and our culture is the same yes and and this uh this incursion this mass incursion on western
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territory uh is a is evidence of a lack of cultural self-confidence because why would you want to to
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protect your culture from from and from people incursion by others you don't if you don't if you
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don't care about it you're not going to try to protect it and and we're raising we're raising people
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to not care about it i mean it it's not it's it's you don't even have to go so far as to
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to hate your own country but if you just you can passively not give a shit about it
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that'll do it yeah that'll do it lionel fantastic to have you back on uh congratulations on a better
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life i hope it does very well which i'm sure it will do um thanks for coming back on we're going to
01:08:08.820
ask you a bunch of questions from our supporters uh on substack in a second but before we do what is the
01:08:14.340
one thing that we're still not talking about that we should be
01:08:29.380
we don't talk enough about water tell me more well it's this is especially in the u.s
01:08:36.900
right now uh the u.s always acts as if we can increase our pop this is it's related to immigration
01:08:43.540
because it's demography we don't uh we think that we can absorb an infinite number of people
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and keep growing the population indefinitely there was even a a book published not that long ago about
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one billion americans and it was a it was it was that was supposed to be a positive vision the biggest
01:09:03.460
limitation on whole sections of of the united states is is is groundwater is fresh water
01:09:12.740
water it's um and uh we're sucking out the aquifers and that's uh and nobody talks about it
01:09:23.620
lionel so well i look forward to reading your next book which no doubt will be about water
01:09:32.820
thanks for coming on head on over to triggerpod.co.uk where lionel can answer your questions
01:09:40.020
if you were a young person currently seeing what you're seeing and you had the opportunity to move
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and settle down in some other country what would be your top picks of the same countries in the world
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broadway's smash hit the neil diamond musical a beautiful noise is coming to toronto the true
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story of a kid from brooklyn destined for something more featuring all the songs you love including
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