TRIGGERnometry - Konstantin Kisin Defends Book in Battle of Ideas Debate

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00:00:30.340 My grandfather, this is one of the things I talk about in the book, he criticized the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan,

00:00:36.440 much like people are now in Russia criticizing the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

00:00:41.140 And he was immediately fired from his job.

00:00:43.960 His wife was fired from her job.

00:00:46.240 Their children, that's my father and my aunt, were kicked out of university for one comment that he made in private.

00:00:53.220 I wrote the book before the invasion of Ukraine,

00:00:56.240 but people who've read it know that the preface essentially predicts what has happened.

00:01:02.020 When the powerful forces that hold the current world order together abdicate their responsibility

00:01:08.500 or abstain from that responsibility, then other people will attempt to fill that void.

00:01:13.720 I think to remind people, most of all, that what we have in the West, the freedom, the prosperity,

00:01:21.260 they didn't fall out of the sky.

00:01:23.340 They're not random occurrences.

00:01:25.500 The problem we've got is if you change the language, you can change the laws without legislating.

00:01:31.600 And that's really the biggest problem.

00:01:33.480 If you have laws that say people must be safe, right, that law is there to prevent violence against people.

00:01:41.700 But if you change the meaning of the word safety, you've now got a law that is a law against people having the wrong opinions in public.

00:01:48.560 The idea that you must force people to be equal is evil,

00:01:52.180 whether you are looking at it through the lens of class or race or sex or gender 0.99

00:01:56.660 or whatever other bullshit people have come up with. 0.96

00:01:59.120 And the reason it's evil is not that it's not a good thing to redistribute wealth and income from one group of people to another. 0.99

00:02:05.500 It's the amount of tyranny that it takes to achieve is inevitably going to lead to millions of people being killed,

00:02:12.120 as it has done every time it's been tried.

00:02:14.660 Hello, everyone.

00:02:25.840 Thank you very much indeed for coming to this bookshop Barney.

00:02:29.620 My name is Austin Williams.

00:02:31.680 I'm the director of the Future Cities Project.

00:02:33.980 And this is a special Barney in association with trigonometry and, of course, the Battle of Ideas.

00:02:38.900 It's a curious setup in the round.

00:02:41.760 You have to excuse my back to some members of the audience and vice versa.

00:02:45.700 So this Barney, if you haven't been to one before, it's kind of like hopefully an engaging conversation with an author about their book,

00:02:54.100 for them to explain to you what they've written, why they've written it, and the ideas behind it.

00:02:58.560 This one is looking at Constantine Kissin's book, An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West.

00:03:03.320 And with a touch of marketing genius, it came out just as the war started.

00:03:06.680 And actually, if you look now in the news, Russia says it's losing lots of conscripts to the war.

00:03:13.680 And last week, there was a general, General Oleg Mijayev, was killed.

00:03:18.540 But this book won't cost you an army and an Oleg. 0.73

00:03:23.140 It's only 14 quid.

00:03:28.640 There's another one coming.

00:03:29.860 Hang on.

00:03:31.080 So it's not about Russia, actually.

00:03:33.280 There's a session tomorrow on Russia.

00:03:34.900 Constantine's already done a session on Ukraine.

00:03:36.680 This is about kind of British values, British values which are under attack and in some ways need to be defended.

00:03:42.640 In it, Constantine says, freedom, human rights, tolerance, peace, and prosperity must be guarded and never taken for granted.

00:03:49.880 And the Times congratulated you on the book, but then did criticize you for not defining what constitutes the West.

00:03:56.260 And I kind of thought if the Times doesn't realize what the West is, then we've got a bigger problem maybe than even we thought.

00:04:02.340 Constantine is a podcaster.

00:04:03.820 And together with Francis Foster, who was in the last session, is a co-creator of Trigonometry Show, which has half a million subscribers.

00:04:16.020 One man and one round of applause.

00:04:17.660 That is the sort of reaction I'm working for here.

00:04:20.540 That's the only payment you can afford, isn't it?

00:04:22.560 Exactly.

00:04:24.020 Anyway, Constantine is a translator, writer, social commentator, and is described as a Jewish-Russian-British comedian, which is a bit like one of those kind of jokes, a Jew, a Russian, and a Brit walk into a bar.

00:04:37.500 Wait for it.

00:04:38.120 The Brit says, I'm tired and thirsty.

00:04:42.540 Could I have a beer?

00:04:44.180 The Russian says, I'm tired and thirsty.

00:04:46.280 Could I have a vodka?

00:04:47.940 The Jew says, I'm tired and thirsty.

00:04:50.220 Could I have diabetes?

00:04:52.540 Anyway, it goes downhill from here, right?

00:04:56.560 So the main thing is it's a really enjoyable book.

00:04:59.680 If you haven't read it, it's on the book stand.

00:05:01.840 I thoroughly, thoroughly recommend it.

00:05:03.180 Really, really insightful book.

00:05:04.260 And very challenging, as it happens.

00:05:06.240 It's available on the bookstore, so please go and get a copy.

00:05:09.400 The way the Barney works is simply that I allow Constantine to do maybe a five-minute introduction, or as near to five minutes as we can get.

00:05:17.960 Then I've got a whole series of questions which I've derived from reading the book, which hopefully will allow Constantine to draw out some of the more themes.

00:05:25.140 If you haven't read it, you'll understand it maybe a little bit more.

00:05:28.160 And then we come out to you, the audience, for your questions and comments on what you've heard and what you've read, yes, and more broadly.

00:05:34.260 So, with no further ado, can we welcome, please, Constantine Kissin.

00:05:43.760 Give us your thoughts.

00:05:44.440 I feel like I have to turn around and say thank you over there to the people clapping as well.

00:05:48.000 Thank you for that introduction.

00:05:49.440 One thing, I like disagreeing with people, so I'll immediately disagree with you in that you say the book is not about the war, and of course it isn't.

00:05:57.160 But the main contention of the book is that what Frank Ferreira, who I just did a session with on Ukraine, talks about, which is what he calls the West's moral disarmament.

00:06:08.880 And that is the complete loss of belief in our values, in the fact that they're important, in the fact, frankly, that they even exist.

00:06:16.580 The idea that there's such a thing as British values or Western values is now something that a lot of people question.

00:06:23.140 And my contention is, and has been from day one, and of course I wrote the book before the invasion of Ukraine, but people who've read it know that the preface essentially predicts what has happened.

00:06:35.600 Because it is, in my view, inevitable that if the West weakens itself morally, economically, militarily, then the law of history is very clear.

00:06:47.760 When the powerful forces that hold the current world order together abdicate their responsibility or abstain from that responsibility, then other people will attempt to fill that void.

00:06:59.240 So it's unfortunately, because the situation in Ukraine is obviously very tragic, but it is unfortunately a very timely book, if I say so myself.

00:07:09.580 But the point of the book is, I think, to remind people, most of all, that what we have in the West, the freedom, the prosperity, they didn't fall out of the sky.

00:07:21.760 They're not random occurrences.

00:07:23.400 They're the product of centuries of intellectual debate, of actual war, of endless battles in order to attempt to work out what is a better way of governing than the way of governing that exists in most of the rest of the world, including the country from which I come, which is a strongman leader comes in, kills or imprisons anyone they don't agree with, and then they rule for as long as they can sustain that.

00:07:47.480 We've gone beyond that in the West.

00:07:50.120 That seems to me to be a better way of doing things.

00:07:53.140 And I'd quite like people in the West to remember that and to be willing to defend that.

00:07:58.380 So I wanted to write an immigrant's love letter to the West to remind people that, particularly young people who maybe haven't traveled very much, who haven't seen much of the rest of the world, who've grown up in comfort and prosperity,

00:08:10.400 who don't really appreciate what we have here, how rare it is, how unique it is, and therefore how worthy of defending and protecting it is.

00:08:21.560 And that's the crux of the book.

00:08:23.520 Very good. Very good.

00:08:24.420 On that basis, I'm sure you'll all now want to buy it, but let me just ask a couple of questions, if you will.

00:08:29.820 The gist of the book, I'll just take a couple of quotes and throw them back at you to see what you think.

00:08:34.080 Or maybe you can just do that at the point.

00:08:35.280 So you say, over the past few decades, ever since postmodernism, moral relativism and multiculturalism became a thing,

00:08:42.380 intellectuals and academics, brackets, many who buy into the Soviet-style theory, have promoted destructive fashions.

00:08:48.620 As a result, the West has lost all self-confidence in its own values.

00:08:51.560 And so that undermining of cultural norms, I think we probably all recognize,

00:08:56.400 I was just wondering whether you were positing that this was a destabilization from without,

00:09:02.240 or whether it's actually happening from within.

00:09:04.020 Yes. Yes, it's both.

00:09:08.120 It's both.

00:09:08.880 And you cannot destabilize a society from without unless that society wants to destabilize itself.

00:09:15.000 So the external forces that would seek to capitalize on the discord and the divisiveness that we have in the West,

00:09:22.600 China, Russia, etc., they've been putting a lot of money into bot farms

00:09:26.500 that amplify these supposed divisions in Western society.

00:09:30.540 But if those divisions weren't there, those efforts would be completely futile.

00:09:36.120 So we've done this to ourselves.

00:09:38.300 And then, of course, our enemies will want to take advantage of that.

00:09:42.260 And that's where I think it's a combination of those two things.

00:09:45.660 As we make ourselves weaker, opportunistic adversaries will take advantage of that.

00:09:50.620 I understand that.

00:09:51.100 But give us a little bit of background as to how you think that kind of –

00:09:54.500 I don't necessarily buy into the – many who buy into the Soviet style theory.

00:09:59.040 I don't necessarily think that's a driver.

00:10:01.360 But how is this kind of moral relativism – it's a big question.

00:10:04.940 But how has it really occurred?

00:10:06.260 Give us a snapshot.

00:10:07.300 I don't know that I know the answer to that question.

00:10:10.140 I don't know how – I think it's a very complicated thing.

00:10:12.920 I mean, one of the people we interviewed on Trigonometry recently is a woman called Louise Perry,

00:10:16.980 who has a book called The Case Against the Sexual Revolution.

00:10:20.160 I think her central argument is that the technological advances of the sexual revolution 0.51

00:10:25.980 altered the dynamic between men and women and therefore changed the status and role of family

00:10:32.720 and many other things.

00:10:33.960 And I think a lot of this is technological.

00:10:37.980 The development of social media has taken those ideas, particularly ideas of the sort of progressive left.

00:10:46.780 They have an advantage online because they sound good and they feel good.

00:10:52.180 They feel so good.

00:10:53.620 Equality and diversity and all of this stuff.

00:10:57.260 It sounds a lot better than, I don't know, closed borders or meritocracy.

00:11:01.960 These things have a different ring to them.

00:11:05.280 And so these technological changes that we've seen, they amplify some of the directions of travel

00:11:11.380 that I think are unhealthy for Western society because we're no longer able to argue for the things

00:11:17.000 that actually represent British values or Western values.

00:11:20.240 Yeah, that's a fair point.

00:11:21.340 So like the chapter on language and undermining or destruction of certain kind of words and meanings

00:11:27.060 is really, really interesting.

00:11:28.140 And, you know, there's diversity, there's gender, there's all that kind of stuff we know about.

00:11:31.660 Even, as you say, progressive or even left wing, right?

00:11:35.120 I mean, what do we mean by these things?

00:11:36.500 So again, just to flip the question around, I suppose, how, as a linguist, how do we deal with that?

00:11:42.860 Do we try to reclaim some of these words, right?

00:11:45.060 You know, I think I'm progressive, right?

00:11:46.820 I wrote a book on progress.

00:11:48.080 Yet, if you say that today, it's meant to be, you know, something else.

00:11:52.220 So do we reclaim these words or do we give them up as lost and try to formulate new ideas and new ways of expressing ourselves?

00:11:58.780 Well, again, yes.

00:11:59.800 We have to reclaim or, you know, the word woke, I think, is a very interesting one

00:12:05.520 because obviously we all know it started out as a self-descriptor of people who thought that they were on the right side of history and blah, blah, blah.

00:12:13.380 And then people like me started mocking it and then it became a derogatory term.

00:12:18.240 And now it's kind of got to a point where I don't really use the word woke because I just think it's tarnished by all sorts of things.

00:12:23.960 So these linguistic battles will always go on.

00:12:26.360 My first invitation to people is, first of all, to recognize what is happening with language.

00:12:31.380 So, for example, I always like to use this example, the term inclusion.

00:12:36.040 This is one, and safety.

00:12:37.860 These are words that have meanings.

00:12:39.700 Inclusion means that people are included.

00:12:42.240 Yet, what we'll find in a modern inclusive space is quite a lot of people like me and you would be excluded from them.

00:12:48.440 Or if we talk about something like safety, safety means the absence of physical violence.

00:12:53.080 Yet, safety now means that no one disagrees with your opinion.

00:12:57.520 So it is to notice these things.

00:12:59.720 And then the problem we've got is if you change the language, you can change the laws without legislating.

00:13:06.280 And that's really the biggest problem.

00:13:07.900 If you have laws that say people must be safe, right, that law is there to prevent violence against people.

00:13:16.140 But if you change the meaning of the word safety, you've now got a law that is a law against people having the wrong opinions in public.

00:13:22.980 So the first thing I think is we've got to be aware of it.

00:13:26.200 And then, yes, culturally, satirists and, you know, podcasters and whoever can play with these other terms and make them terms of ridicule.

00:13:33.060 So people can no longer have that shield of virtue when they're talking about being woke while advancing some very regressive ideas.

00:13:39.520 OK.

00:13:40.000 Because it's always done by the tolerant, isn't it?

00:13:41.720 Most tolerant people are intolerant of me and you.

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00:15:00.780 Let me move on.

00:15:03.380 In terms of the Russia story, you say compared to Russia, we have a free and honest media.

00:15:09.920 Low bar.

00:15:10.940 Yeah.

00:15:11.920 And as a matter of fact, there is a kind of a debate to be had as to whether we do have a free and honest media.

00:15:17.500 Well, we don't, but compared to Russia, we do. 0.97

00:15:19.280 Well, compared to, you know, yeah, compared to Russia, China looks good.

00:15:23.900 But I mean, the point is, is that are you letting the West off the hook by making those low bar comparisons?

00:15:31.260 Well, I think anyone who follows my work knows that I'm not exactly a big fan of the mainstream media.

00:15:35.840 And I've been very critical about many of the things.

00:15:39.100 In fact, there's a whole chapter in the book, which is a sort of reproduction of a long Twitter thread that went quite viral during the pandemic, in which I talk about how misrepresentation, false messaging on that issue and on many previous issues has destroyed our faith in the media, which now means that people, you know, there's this kind of online meme of I support the current thing.

00:16:03.780 And now there's the I oppose the current thing and people will blindly believe or disbelieve things simply because the mainstream is advancing them.

00:16:12.060 But people also should not be confused.

00:16:14.440 When we talk about societies like Russia and China, there is a difference between a media landscape, which is increasingly misrepresentative and not entirely accurate and people choosing and picking what they want to hear.

00:16:26.600 And the society like China or Russia in Russia, for example, there is no independent media anymore.

00:16:31.940 Now, everything is state controlled.

00:16:35.000 80% of the Russian public get their news from television, and that is entirely controlled by one man and his cronies who are able to enforce a particular vision of reality on the rest of society.

00:16:45.800 So this is kind of the issue that I address with the whole book, which is, yes, we have problems in the West.

00:16:52.340 Yes, we're not perfect.

00:16:54.160 Yes, some of the ways that our institutions have allowed themselves to be degraded over time are really, really bad and dangerous.

00:17:00.660 And I talk about it in the book, but we mustn't throw away the baby with the bathwater.

00:17:05.300 We do need a mainstream media for all the excitement that people like me have about new media and the destruction of the old way of doing things and whatever.

00:17:14.300 That's great.

00:17:15.240 But we still do need mainstream publications that will spend a million pounds doing some kind of genuine investigative journalism.

00:17:21.580 We still do need mainstream institutions.

00:17:23.760 I mean, I think the BBC is beyond saving, but the idea of the BBC is actually quite a good one and so on and so forth.

00:17:30.820 So, yes, we don't have the perfect media landscape, but it's nothing like these authoritarian countries.

00:17:37.780 And again, we shouldn't take that for granted.

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00:18:08.660 Yeah, but how do you play that comparison line then, right?

00:18:14.460 Because like I say, it's a low bar.

00:18:15.420 That's my cheap shot at your argument.

00:18:17.380 But in terms of you saying, you know, we have a free press notionally.

00:18:21.960 Freer.

00:18:22.600 Yeah, exactly.

00:18:23.760 So by comparison, I get it.

00:18:25.900 But is there a more worthwhile, how would you deal with people criticizing the press in this country, regardless of how you do it?

00:18:34.040 But I mean, by then them saying, actually, we are freer than what's going on in Russia, therefore, we should have the ability to criticize the media in the West.

00:18:43.820 Do you know what I mean? 1.00

00:18:44.240 How I deal with them is usually I call them idiots on Twitter. 1.00

00:18:46.320 But I don't know how you deal with that. 1.00

00:18:51.960 That's just a lack of understanding and a lack of context.

00:18:55.680 You know, we have a saying in Russia, everything is understood in comparison.

00:18:58.820 You cannot understand the value or meaning of something unless you have something to compare it to.

00:19:03.020 So, yes, the media in the West has many issues.

00:19:07.220 Yes, those issues need to be resolved.

00:19:09.320 Yes, part of the solution to those issues is new media attempting to highlight and expose the problems with the old media.

00:19:16.340 But again, we must not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

00:19:20.220 We are fortunate to have a society in which there is a debate happening.

00:19:25.040 Most other societies in the world have no debate at all.

00:19:27.540 It's a uniform view that's imposed from above.

00:19:29.860 And so we have to remember the value of those institutions, try to call them out when they're going wrong.

00:19:36.860 And hopefully that is the method by which they get better.

00:19:39.800 Fine. Okay, good.

00:19:41.500 Again, bear these questions in mind and other questions that you may have to develop if you don't like the answer.

00:19:46.540 If you don't like the question, just move on.

00:19:49.680 If you don't like the answer, by all means, come back to it in the question and answer session.

00:19:53.080 In terms of the education section, you criticize, again, I'm going to court you.

00:19:59.280 And obviously I'm quoting you out of context in some regard for the sake of polemic.

00:20:02.980 You're doing a mainstream media, I mean.

00:20:03.920 For polemic, yeah.

00:20:05.860 It's not a gotcha.

00:20:06.920 It's more I just want to kind of work out what you're getting at.

00:20:09.420 You criticize UK education for not teaching about the ills of socialism, you say.

00:20:13.780 Yes.

00:20:13.920 The ills of socialism.

00:20:15.220 And you say that's a good – that's because, quotes, today's teachers and professors often think communism is a good idea.

00:20:21.580 I haven't really come across that myself.

00:20:23.060 But anyway, I get the gist.

00:20:24.840 But does that mean that you are kind of in favor – you know, by teaching the ills of socialism, it means that in praise of something else by comparative standards.

00:20:34.740 So do you want to have a politicized education system, which –

00:20:37.840 No, I just want an objective one.

00:20:40.000 I'm quite problematic like that.

00:20:42.280 I just – I think that we need to teach people about history in a broader context.

00:20:48.320 So if we're talking – you know, we spend a lot of time teaching ourselves about the evils of Nazism, quite rightly, of course. 0.99

00:20:54.120 But if you just compare on a raw numerical basis, communism is far more dangerous and has taken far more lives.

00:21:00.620 And yet I find that almost nobody in this country understands that.

00:21:04.800 Now that to me seems like quite a big problem.

00:21:06.700 And you say that you haven't met many people in academia who think communism is a good idea.

00:21:12.100 I've met quite a few, number one.

00:21:13.980 But also you have to consider what we mean when we're talking about communism or Marxism.

00:21:19.440 I mean, many of the racial conversations we are now having – I mean, look at BLM, for example, right? 0.75

00:21:25.480 That is an organization run by people who are openly Marxist.

00:21:29.560 Many universities have professors who are openly Marxist.

00:21:33.600 And many of the identity politics conversations we have in this country, they're just a new form of Marxism.

00:21:39.580 I mean, it's a race-based Marxism instead of a class-based Marxism, right?

00:21:44.820 Except that that undermines the very notion of what Marx is.

00:21:48.320 I mean, I would say I'm openly Marxist.

00:21:50.240 Yeah.

00:21:50.580 But I don't support Black Lives Matter. 1.00

00:21:52.700 Yeah.

00:21:52.820 So, you know what I mean?

00:21:54.020 So, I just – I don't necessarily recognize the characterization of this being a left-wing – I mean, socialism and communism are different.

00:22:02.120 Marxism and communism, in some respects, are slightly different.

00:22:04.800 But so it's kind of really –

00:22:06.100 Real Marxism has never been tried.

00:22:08.120 Is that your phrase?

00:22:08.760 No, no.

00:22:09.140 I think it's your phrase based on this conversation.

00:22:11.160 No, I don't think – for the record, I didn't say that.

00:22:15.300 But, you know, so I'm happy for you to put words in my mouth.

00:22:17.820 But it's that idea about, you know, teaching the ills of socialism was kind of a striking phrase for me.

00:22:22.640 I mean, if you say the horrors of Nazism, I kind of understand it. 1.00

00:22:25.740 So, are you saying about teaching, you know, what happened under Mao's China or what happened under, you know, what happened under Stalinist Russia?

00:22:32.680 Yeah, but it's not just about what happened under Stalinist Russia.

00:22:35.500 You've got to understand the Soviet Union carried on after Stalin.

00:22:38.660 And it wasn't particularly great after that either.

00:22:41.540 And the point I think that people don't seem to have really grasped in the West is the idea of communism is evil in and of itself.

00:22:50.820 And it leads to evil outcomes because it is an evil idea. 0.97

00:22:54.100 The idea that you must force people to be equal is evil, whether you are looking at it through the lens of class or race or sex or gender or whatever other bullshit people have come up with.

00:23:05.440 The idea that you must put your hand on the lever and take from people who have drive and ambition and creativity and whatever else, 0.71

00:23:14.680 and you must take from them as much as possible and give it to people who have none of those things and who are not contributing to society.

00:23:20.640 That's an evil idea.

00:23:22.300 And we should just be very clear about it.

00:23:24.200 And the reason it's evil is not that it's not a good thing to redistribute wealth and income from one group of people to another.

00:23:30.200 It's the amount of tyranny that it takes to achieve is inevitably going to lead to millions of people being killed, as it has done every time it's been tried.

00:23:40.020 Okay.

00:23:41.400 I don't recognize that characterization, but fair do.

00:23:44.060 Although I recognize Stalinist purges and also Maoist purges as being one of the greatest crimes of society.

00:23:53.200 Sorry, Austin, this is what people don't understand.

00:23:56.200 More people died in Soviet Ukraine alone from an artificial famine created by the incompetency of the communist state than the Nazis killed during the entire occupation of the Soviet Union. 0.56

00:24:08.060 Right.

00:24:08.700 So it's not just about evil Stalin who came in and wanted to kill certain people.

00:24:14.480 It's about the fact that a system, a central planning system, inevitably results in this sort of nightmare.

00:24:21.160 I don't know whether it does or not.

00:24:22.920 But I mean, the fact is that, I mean, it did.

00:24:25.820 Right.

00:24:26.040 I don't know whether you can necessarily project that.

00:24:28.280 But I'm not here to defend Soviet system.

00:24:31.200 Right.

00:24:31.460 I'm certainly not here to defend the Chinese system.

00:24:33.020 But we can have that row again.

00:24:35.040 And in China, more people died in the Cultural Revolution and in the Great Leap Forward than even did under Stalin.

00:24:40.380 Yes.

00:24:40.740 So, I mean, so we can compare statistics and notes.

00:24:43.700 And I'm against both of those things.

00:24:45.480 So don't get me wrong.

00:24:46.740 But we're going off.

00:24:48.660 Well, maybe we're not off being.

00:24:50.300 Maybe we're not off being.

00:24:51.440 Yeah, well, I'm going to move on now.

00:24:53.280 So bear that in mind.

00:24:54.920 I'll talk that one up as a win for me.

00:24:56.900 Carry on.

00:24:58.500 We'll have that over a bit.

00:25:00.940 I'm just messing with you.

00:25:01.860 So the early part of the book talks about kind of socialist utopias.

00:25:07.240 Thank you very much.

00:25:08.460 Explores hypocrisy.

00:25:09.980 Those who profess to be egalitarian but live the lives of privilege.

00:25:13.640 Kind of quite an interesting take.

00:25:16.300 Anybody that has a good Michael Moore is all right by me.

00:25:18.960 Michael Moore, you know, talks a good talk.

00:25:20.840 But then it has several houses, you say.

00:25:22.760 Then you say Engels had many factories.

00:25:25.020 That old chestnut.

00:25:25.900 You call the Bolsheviks grifters.

00:25:27.780 That's a good one.

00:25:28.260 But anyway, but actually you are known, I think, for tackling the content of what people say rather than necessarily their background.

00:25:35.680 So is that a fair line of attack?

00:25:38.560 It is a fair line of attack because I am known for pointing out the hypocrisy of people who say one thing and do another.

00:25:46.200 And I think people like Bernie Sanders who went on holiday – not just on holiday.

00:25:52.000 His honeymoon was in the Soviet Union, right?

00:25:55.180 While people from my country that I come from were starving, were impoverished, were struggling to have basic necessities.

00:26:05.140 He was there being given a tour by people he thought were just ordinary citizens who were actually KGB agents whose only job was to take around gullible Westerners like Bernie Sanders.

00:26:17.520 And then he now is a multi, multi, multimillionaire who preaches socialism for everybody. 0.97

00:26:22.480 It's hypocrisy and it's complete nonsense.

00:26:24.180 I have much more respect for a Marxist like Cornel West, for example, who actually lives with the things that he preaches.

00:26:32.220 My issues were people who are being inconsistent with the very principles that they espouse and in the process impoverishing all laws.

00:26:39.420 All right.

00:26:40.520 I won't mention private schools.

00:26:42.540 Anyway, no, just a joke.

00:26:43.800 No, no, no.

00:26:44.280 What about them?

00:26:44.820 Anyway, so the next question is comedians being targeted.

00:26:49.820 It's kind of interesting that there's this kind of shtick that comedy or comedians are the last bastion of free speeches, which is actually quite interesting, isn't it?

00:26:59.660 And just take a look in the last year, two years or so, comedians getting canceled left, right and center.

00:27:05.540 And it's the idea that comedians should be allowed to say things in the context of a comedy routine, which kind of pushes the bar, pushes the boundary.

00:27:12.280 So do comedians, should comedians have bigger room for maneuver than, say, me and you in this room?

00:27:21.240 I mean, maybe put it another way.

00:27:23.520 Why has it occurred that comedians seem to be in the forefront of actually challenging those kind of very woke speech code boundaries that we're all having to put up with?

00:27:33.000 Well, the truth is that, Austin, most comedians are nowhere near challenging the woke boundaries of the modern society.

00:27:39.260 They are actually enforcing them on other comedians.

00:27:41.500 The few of us, people like myself, Francis, Andrew Doyle, Leo Kersnick, I mean, I can go on for a while in this country who are doing that, have all been pushed out of the mainstream comedy industry one way or another and have had to create things outside of that in order to even get our voices heard.

00:27:58.840 But the reason that we are constantly – we use irony and satire a lot.

00:28:06.640 We say things that we do not mean.

00:28:08.360 And in a society which deliberately misrepresents jokes as somebody's actual opinion, comedians are obviously going to find themselves in the firing line pretty quickly.

00:28:18.400 And, of course, comedians – the job comedians are actually supposed to have, in my opinion, is to push back against the dogma of their day, the dogma of the comedians who – the dogma that existed 20 and 30 years ago.

00:28:34.360 When I was growing up, my heroes were people like Bill Hicks and George Carlin and others who were pushing against the Christian right, who were the ones saying, you can't say that, you can't do this, you can't – whatever.

00:28:44.660 They've been replaced by a religious left.

00:28:47.300 And it's the religious left that is enforcing its dogma on everybody at the moment.

00:28:52.280 And it's – and the comedians who are attempting to challenge the dogma of the day find themselves up against that.

00:28:58.820 That's why it's funny.

00:29:00.300 You've got people on the Christian right now defending a comedian's right to be offensive, which to me is just mind-boggling.

00:29:07.700 Yeah.

00:29:08.060 What about – well, let me give you two quotes in the book which I just wanted to resolve for me.

00:29:13.260 One is where you say more and more comedians are self-censoring for economic reasons and promoters are unlikely to rebook the act if they perceive it to be divisive.

00:29:21.780 OK?

00:29:21.980 We've got that.

00:29:23.080 Then you say the beauty of capitalism is that consumers assert their democratic power with every penny they spend.

00:29:29.040 So you have this kind of consumer power which you describe – the first quote seems to be kind of cancel culture that people are cancelling you and not coming to your show.

00:29:37.700 It's not you.

00:29:38.380 One show.

00:29:39.720 But then the beauty of capitalism, people are allowed to do that.

00:29:42.400 Is that a contradiction or is that –

00:29:43.840 No, there's no contradiction because the comedy environment in this country is a complete cabal.

00:29:48.840 It's a monopoly run by a handful of people who decide who gets which opportunities.

00:29:54.400 And if the comedy industry in this country, as it has done, decides that the most important thing about a comedy show is that it's diverse as opposed to that it's funny,

00:30:04.380 then you end up with the comedy shows that we've ended up with.

00:30:07.060 And then what happens is they get canceled by the market.

00:30:09.180 But first, the ideologues who are booking those shows and making those shows, they get to impose their will on a show like Mock the Week, which inevitably gets canceled.

00:30:18.780 They get to impose their will on a show like The Mash Report, which I actually wrote on for a while, which inevitably gets canceled.

00:30:24.540 They get to impose their will on a show like Live at the Apollo, which will soon be canceled because no one watches it anymore.

00:30:29.920 So you've got a deluded monopolistic cabal that runs the industry, and then you've got the market which punishes them for the things that they're doing that don't actually meet what people want to watch.

00:30:41.680 And I always have to say this because it always sounds like I'm sort of whining and complaining.

00:30:45.900 I had a great comedy career.

00:30:47.560 I did everything I ever wanted.

00:30:49.320 I wrote for some great shows.

00:30:51.940 I opened for some of my heroes on tour.

00:30:54.140 I did my own show in Edinburgh.

00:30:55.600 It's all fine.

00:30:56.440 You can still do it.

00:30:57.460 It's just that much harder, and because of that, a lot of people are terrified.

00:31:01.660 They won't cross any lines, and I can tell you there are hundreds of comedians in this country who would love to be able to do the jokes that they want to do, 0.73

00:31:08.420 but instead they're going around doing dick jokes because it's the only thing that's acceptable anymore.

00:31:13.320 I don't know what you mean. 0.97

00:31:14.920 Yeah.

00:31:16.980 Finally then, which follows on from that, I suppose, you say towards the end of the book, you say that your status as an immigrant means that you're protected from the worst of cancel culture. 1.00

00:31:27.460 And you describe yourself as Teflon-courted, untouchable immigrant. 1.00

00:31:33.140 Slightly optimistic, perhaps.

00:31:34.240 Well, I look at Lebedev and think it didn't work for him, did it?

00:31:36.640 But I mean, does it make, I mean, would that assume that then you're a bit too obliging?

00:31:43.840 You're too, dare I say, tame to be cancelled?

00:31:46.120 Are you too, I don't know, are you too much engaged in supporting the Western model?

00:31:53.220 Never been described as tame before, I promise you.

00:31:56.640 It's not a quality people usually associate with me.

00:31:59.660 No, I think the point I'm making about sort of immigrant privilege, if you like, in the context of this conversation is,

00:32:05.120 I don't believe that I would be sitting here having this conversation with you if I was a British-born straight white man, that great evil thing.

00:32:13.620 Because the book would never have been published in the first place.

00:32:15.960 And it wasn't particularly easy to get it published anyway.

00:32:17.920 People don't know this about the creative arts and publishing in this country in general,

00:32:23.440 but there's literally like one literary agent and one publisher that will publish books like this one.

00:32:30.780 And so we live in a very restricted environment.

00:32:33.500 And the only reason even those publishers and even those agents and even those people are able to work with someone like me,

00:32:39.940 is they can go, well, guys, guys, guys, he's not white, it's okay.

00:32:44.260 And that to me seems like quite a big problem.

00:32:47.920 Oh, there's a hiatus point there.

00:32:50.100 That was good.

00:32:50.760 The inflection threw me for a second.

00:32:52.440 Okay.

00:32:52.900 Right.

00:32:53.300 Ladies and gentlemen, I've done me bit.

00:32:56.240 So it's over to you.

00:32:57.920 And again, apologies for my inability to turn.

00:33:01.220 It's an age thing.

00:33:02.700 Gentlemen in the awkward corner.

00:33:05.380 Hello.

00:33:05.820 I was just wondering who your literary influences were in writing the book.

00:33:10.160 Not to inflate your ego too much, but it reminded me of Orwell and maybe even Solzhenitsyn.

00:33:16.420 It's a family member.

00:33:17.460 No pressure there, no.

00:33:20.120 Can we take this lady as well? 1.00

00:33:24.220 The phenomenon where immigrants are the most patriotic British citizens is not really a new thing.

00:33:28.860 I think it's existed for decades, unlike America where overt patriots are more acceptable.

00:33:32.680 Do you think there's something in our character that just quite enjoys negativity?

00:33:35.680 I do.

00:33:37.680 I do.

00:33:38.580 I do.

00:33:39.620 I also don't – I actually don't know that I agree that immigrants are the most patriotic. 1.00

00:33:44.480 I think they're the ones that are allowed to be the most patriotic in public.

00:33:48.080 I think that's really the issue.

00:33:49.220 I think there's quite a lot of people in this country of every background who are very patriotic about Britain.

00:33:54.480 But they are concerned about being – because, you know, being patriotic has been confused with all sorts of, you know, xenophobia, racism, whatever.

00:34:03.260 So, yeah.

00:34:05.880 Yeah.

00:34:05.960 But in terms of the Solzhenitsyn comparison and Orwell, I mean, those are two people that I have read.

00:34:14.300 So, I feel very British about trying to compare myself to people that I consider great.

00:34:20.040 I think I actually – while I'm a – you know, Solzhenitsyn is one of the most formative influences on my thinking, and I quote him in the opening of the book.

00:34:31.580 And I actually try to avoid repeating his mistake because the mistake that he made is when he was released from the camps.

00:34:40.180 He was able to publish the Gulag Archipelago, and he was eventually invited to go to the West.

00:34:47.100 And he went to America where he started lecturing Americans about what was going wrong with their society.

00:34:52.820 And Americans don't like that, which is why I've come to Britain, where you love being told how terrible you are.

00:34:59.340 So, I can tell you how to right your wrongs.

00:35:01.960 No.

00:35:02.360 So, yeah, those are two people that I respect very much.

00:35:05.840 I think they made very good points.

00:35:07.300 And the one thing I would say to people, because most people haven't read it,

00:35:10.060 if you want to understand the way that censorship operates, particularly in our society today,

00:35:17.100 read Orwell's preface to Animal Farm, where he talks about how much difficulty he had in having it published.

00:35:25.140 Because even in those days, coming back to our conversation about communism,

00:35:29.100 because the Soviets were seen as necessary to winning World War II,

00:35:34.940 it was very, very difficult to publish a book that was critical of that system.

00:35:39.880 So, and it wasn't through hard censorship, it was through enforced self-censorship.

00:35:44.760 And I think he writes beautifully about that.

00:35:47.920 In terms, very quickly, in terms of the immigrant stuff, I'll follow in,

00:35:50.980 because on the topic of Brexit, kind of, I hate to raise that B word,

00:35:57.840 but you say most people don't hate immigrants, they hate the politicians who say they do.

00:36:01.760 Which I think is a really, really important point.

00:36:04.160 And dismissed or misrepresented by a lot of the media and popular opinion.

00:36:08.300 But it's there to discredit kind of popular opinion and that idea of populism,

00:36:13.840 which has then taken on, as we've said before,

00:36:15.960 taken on this kind of dark interpretation of populism, rather than it being a popular opinion.

00:36:21.340 What do you think about populism, the label of populism?

00:36:24.360 Because it kind of is brought in to a lot of conversations these days,

00:36:28.180 which maybe it doesn't deserve to, but also it's given this negative connotation.

00:36:32.940 Well, first of all, on Brexit, I voted Remain on that referendum.

00:36:36.720 And the thing that really changed my opinion about that issue,

00:36:40.540 to the extent that I've changed my opinion about that issue,

00:36:43.500 was I had to watch the country that I've come to,

00:36:48.780 lived in as a dark-skinned immigrant all my life,

00:36:51.260 be misrepresented as full of, you know, half the country is racist,

00:36:56.260 half the country hates immigrants, half the country is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:36:59.980 Well, first of all, that didn't even make any sense to me,

00:37:01.980 because the immigration that people were concerned about

00:37:03.960 was mainly from Eastern Europe, where people are white.

00:37:06.320 So that doesn't ring true.

00:37:08.140 But also my own experience of living in this country,

00:37:10.040 my very valuable lived experience,

00:37:12.400 tells me that it's complete nonsense.

00:37:14.920 It doesn't mean to say that populism doesn't exist.

00:37:17.280 People have always wanted to hear a simplified version of reality

00:37:21.400 that panders to all their prejudices and whatever.

00:37:24.920 But I just think the way we have the conversation about immigration

00:37:28.640 is completely insane at the moment.

00:37:31.460 I like ice cream.

00:37:33.100 I don't want to eat ice cream for every meal,

00:37:36.180 every day for the rest of my life.

00:37:38.220 And the attitude to immigration has got to be the same.

00:37:41.220 Immigrants contribute. 0.66

00:37:42.440 Immigrants are great.

00:37:43.220 But when the numbers become, it's like the great man Joseph Stalin said,

00:37:49.260 joke for you, the great man Joseph Stalin said,

00:37:52.700 quantity has a quality all of its own.

00:37:55.200 And the problem we have with immigration in this country 0.89

00:37:57.280 is not that immigrants are bad people.

00:37:59.140 It's that when I came to this country in 1995,

00:38:02.480 3% of the British public thought that immigration was a major issue

00:38:06.240 because it wasn't a major issue, right?

00:38:08.580 And then you have the Blair era,

00:38:10.260 where more people came into this country in about 10 years

00:38:13.260 than had come into this country between 1066 and 1950.

00:38:19.000 It's quite a big shift.

00:38:21.000 And for people to be concerned about that

00:38:22.640 doesn't make them racist or xenophobic or whatever.

00:38:25.320 You can be in favor of immigration. 0.86

00:38:27.640 You can think that people like me,

00:38:29.460 who I would like to think came to this country 1.00

00:38:31.380 and contributed and created jobs for local people

00:38:34.380 and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, are valuable

00:38:37.120 without thinking that open borders is a great idea.

00:38:40.460 It's not that.

00:38:41.960 And as you know, I talk about this in a book quite a lot.

00:38:46.180 Left-wing politicians, let alone right-wing politicians,

00:38:50.200 have been making the very point that I've just made

00:38:52.460 for the last 30 years.

00:38:54.080 Barack Obama was to the right of Donald Trump on immigration.

00:38:57.280 It's just everyone forgot.

00:38:58.160 Yeah, well, it was Barack Obama who maintained the wall

00:39:03.080 from America to Mexico, didn't he?

00:39:05.900 But the whole issue, which I presume you were discussing

00:39:08.380 in the last session on Ukraine about sovereignty

00:39:10.400 and about borders is kind of fundamentally in our face now.

00:39:14.140 So it's something which maybe those Remainers

00:39:16.420 who denied its existence maybe have to rethink.

00:39:20.100 Anyway, any more for any more?

00:39:21.720 There's a gentleman at the very back.

00:39:23.900 Oh, there's lots of...

00:39:25.940 Oh, sorry, I didn't...

00:39:28.120 Because you're wearing T-shirts,

00:39:29.120 I just assumed you were, like, saluting or something.

00:39:32.500 Take this gentleman and then we'll go back to the T-shirt man. 1.00

00:39:34.920 Saluting? What kind of session do you think this is?

00:39:36.840 Well, I'm pandering to your Putinesque agenda. 0.99

00:39:41.760 Brilliant. Thank you, Constantine.

00:39:43.360 You spoke about wanting to have a more objective education system.

00:39:46.880 What role, then, do you think parents should play

00:39:48.720 in helping to shape the national curriculum

00:39:50.340 and the content that their children are learning?

00:39:52.720 It's a very timely, topical issue, both in the UK and overseas.

00:39:56.280 I think there are discussions about it at the Battle of Ideas.

00:39:58.780 And I ask, because obviously every parent

00:40:00.060 will have their own subjective opinion

00:40:01.700 about what should and shouldn't be taught.

00:40:03.420 How does society manage that? 0.98

00:40:05.280 Yeah, it's an interesting question

00:40:06.320 and very much above my pay grade.

00:40:08.000 But what I would say about it is

00:40:09.700 I, for the first few years of my life,

00:40:13.340 so from until I was about 13,

00:40:15.040 I obviously was educated in the Soviet education system,

00:40:17.740 which was very good on the hard sciences,

00:40:19.840 the chemistry, the whatever,

00:40:20.740 but also contained a huge amount of historical

00:40:23.580 and cultural indoctrination, 0.99

00:40:25.200 which everybody knew was complete bullshit. 0.99

00:40:28.000 And so the role of the parent, in my opinion, 0.99

00:40:30.480 partly will be about, you know,

00:40:31.960 what the curriculum should be or whatever,

00:40:33.540 but actually everything begins in the home.

00:40:35.460 You have to give your children the context

00:40:37.400 for the things that they're being taught. 0.99

00:40:39.300 You have to inoculate them against some of the crap 0.98

00:40:41.200 that they're going to be inevitably taught in any school. 0.97

00:40:43.220 And, you know, when I talk about a more objective system,

00:40:47.340 I just, I think we are failing to educate our children.

00:40:50.960 And I, this is true for my generation too.

00:40:52.980 And by the way, you know,

00:40:54.200 when I went to school in this country,

00:40:55.580 it coincided with like a five-year period of my life

00:40:58.580 where my family had money.

00:41:00.120 So they sent me to a good school for a very short time

00:41:02.600 before going bankrupt again and blah, blah, blah.

00:41:05.540 But I went to a good school

00:41:08.280 and we were taught history terribly, terribly.

00:41:11.740 I learned more in history

00:41:13.640 by watching a one-hour YouTube video

00:41:15.740 than I learned in my entire time at school, right?

00:41:18.660 So I don't know that this gets fixed necessarily

00:41:22.780 in the education system.

00:41:23.960 And I think the challenges we're seeing

00:41:27.300 as a result of the sexual revolution 1.00

00:41:29.100 and the breakdown of the family

00:41:30.480 are much more where these issues are happening,

00:41:33.460 where there's not enough parents

00:41:35.320 to basically teach their children right from wrong

00:41:37.860 the stuff that they're being taught in school

00:41:40.900 that is completely nonsensical

00:41:42.360 versus what's actually true

00:41:43.960 and to set a context for the things.

00:41:45.780 So as a new parent,

00:41:47.680 this is probably extreme optimism on my part,

00:41:50.120 but I'm sort of hopeful

00:41:51.240 that I can teach my children

00:41:52.460 the stuff that they need to know

00:41:53.740 and protect them from some of the indoctrination

00:41:56.360 they're going to get in school.

00:41:58.100 Very good.

00:41:58.880 All right.

00:41:59.400 These two gentlemen,

00:42:01.640 statuesque figures.

00:42:03.340 Hiya.

00:42:03.580 I think a lot of the problems we have

00:42:06.880 in politics in the West

00:42:08.200 come from the fact that a lot of people think

00:42:11.100 that everyone else in the world

00:42:12.340 thinks exactly like us.

00:42:14.200 So, you know,

00:42:15.000 people don't understand

00:42:15.860 why Putin would invade Ukraine.

00:42:17.860 People don't understand

00:42:18.800 why someone would vote for Brexit

00:42:20.240 or just disagree with them on something.

00:42:23.320 Do you see us recovering from that?

00:42:25.760 Any way of stepping into other people's shoes 0.97

00:42:28.260 and understanding that they have different motives

00:42:30.120 and morals and values

00:42:31.340 and they're going to act on those

00:42:34.400 and that drives their behaviour?

00:42:36.680 Hold that thought.

00:42:37.740 I'll take the other guy.

00:42:38.780 Take you, sir, as well.

00:42:39.900 Two very quick things.

00:42:41.240 A personal question.

00:42:42.480 What are you most proud of in the past year?

00:42:44.700 The baby, the book, or America?

00:42:47.000 And the second thing, very quickly,

00:42:48.620 is do you think the whole culture war

00:42:52.260 is because everybody's bored

00:42:54.060 and we've got nothing to believe in,

00:42:55.360 i.e. lack of religion?

00:42:57.100 Would there be a culture war 0.85

00:42:58.460 if we actually had things to really believe in

00:43:00.080 and we weren't so comfortable?

00:43:02.140 Yeah, both good questions.

00:43:04.540 So the first question is,

00:43:07.000 just remind me briefly

00:43:08.080 because my memory is failing.

00:43:09.380 People believe that everyone else across the world...

00:43:12.740 Yeah, yeah.

00:43:13.060 How can we get people to listen to each other

00:43:14.680 and understand each other's point of view?

00:43:16.300 To empathise with...

00:43:16.800 Yeah.

00:43:17.140 Well, this is one of the paradoxes

00:43:19.000 of the progressive leftist way of thinking

00:43:21.760 because it's all about inclusion

00:43:23.520 and tolerance

00:43:24.400 and understanding and empathy.

00:43:26.660 Yet they are the very people

00:43:27.900 who don't seem to understand

00:43:29.140 that the reason people have different points of view

00:43:31.820 is different genetics,

00:43:33.360 different upbringings,

00:43:34.400 different life experience,

00:43:35.520 different lived experience,

00:43:36.960 different all of these things, right?

00:43:38.960 And that, I think,

00:43:40.120 is largely a product of social media

00:43:42.360 where, as I say,

00:43:43.520 certain types of ideas

00:43:44.860 get way more traction

00:43:46.440 because they sound better,

00:43:48.300 even though often they're completely wrong.

00:43:50.520 So I think we will get away

00:43:52.640 from that way of doing business

00:43:54.340 whenever we find a way

00:43:55.580 to destroy social media.

00:43:57.320 It's probably the only way.

00:43:59.120 How many subscribers do you have?

00:44:01.040 Yeah.

00:44:01.820 Let's hold on to them.

00:44:03.020 Social media.

00:44:05.200 And what am I most proud of?

00:44:07.260 Well, I didn't really have

00:44:08.300 that much to do with the baby,

00:44:09.720 I can tell you.

00:44:10.840 There's a very limited level of involvement.

00:44:14.300 No, you know what?

00:44:15.680 The thing I am most proud of, actually,

00:44:18.400 is that Trigonometry is now a small business

00:44:20.920 that employs,

00:44:23.620 including me, Francis,

00:44:25.580 and our producer, Anton,

00:44:27.720 another seven or eight people now.

00:44:31.260 About seven or eight people.

00:44:32.680 And I'm really proud of that.

00:44:34.660 I'm really proud that we employ people,

00:44:36.520 that we give people meaningful work,

00:44:38.640 that people come and work for us

00:44:40.200 for very little money,

00:44:41.960 let's be honest,

00:44:43.200 because they love what they do,

00:44:45.000 because they love being involved

00:44:46.740 in a project that is passionate,

00:44:48.740 where we're all pulling

00:44:49.500 in the same direction.

00:44:51.180 And, you know, Francis and I have been,

00:44:54.040 we've transformed from basically 1.00

00:44:55.420 two idiot comedians 1.00

00:44:56.560 to actually managing 1.00

00:44:58.080 a small team of people

00:44:59.240 and looking after people

00:45:00.380 and making sure that they're developing

00:45:01.900 and what they're doing.

00:45:03.000 To me, that is really

00:45:04.320 the most exciting thing about it.

00:45:05.980 You've got hardcore fans,

00:45:07.020 I've noticed today,

00:45:07.800 and mostly as well.

00:45:08.600 Hardcore fans.

00:45:09.920 Yeah.

00:45:11.020 Yeah, so I'm excited about that.

00:45:12.580 But in terms of the culture wars,

00:45:13.640 are we just bored?

00:45:14.320 But I think you're right

00:45:15.380 that a lot of the problems

00:45:17.240 we have in the West

00:45:18.280 are a function of our comfort

00:45:19.780 and prosperity.

00:45:22.240 And every time something

00:45:24.420 goes badly wrong,

00:45:26.140 I am really hopeful

00:45:27.200 that that is the kick that we need,

00:45:29.460 which is like

00:45:30.200 when the pandemic happens.

00:45:31.360 Do you remember there was

00:45:31.980 that like brief moment

00:45:33.160 when everybody was like,

00:45:34.640 oh, guys, we're a society.

00:45:36.320 We should pull in the same direction.

00:45:38.060 Let's bring some food

00:45:39.100 to our neighbor, right?

00:45:40.480 And then we had George Floyd

00:45:42.100 and everybody, you know,

00:45:43.140 everybody went mental.

00:45:43.860 The thing that we need,

00:45:44.820 need to do what?

00:45:46.400 We need to look after people

00:45:48.140 and we need to have solidarity

00:45:49.720 with ourselves and whatever.

00:45:50.960 And just there was a couple of months

00:45:52.620 that everything was kind of going.

00:45:55.500 I was like, oh, wow,

00:45:56.440 we're starting to unite

00:45:57.480 around this common threat

00:45:58.660 that we face.

00:45:59.400 And then you have Dominic Cummings,

00:46:01.620 who, as Francis always points out,

00:46:03.280 must have been the biggest supporter

00:46:04.820 of BLM

00:46:05.420 because it just took

00:46:06.200 all the attention away from him.

00:46:08.460 And that happens

00:46:09.420 and the world goes crazy.

00:46:10.560 I mean, you see people

00:46:11.400 posting these videos now

00:46:12.500 from the summer of 2020

00:46:14.400 where you've got like white people

00:46:15.720 kneeling to black people, right? 0.88

00:46:17.720 And I was saying at the time, 0.99

00:46:19.040 this is mental.

00:46:20.180 This is completely mental.

00:46:21.480 On my first day at uni

00:46:22.340 at Goldsmiths,

00:46:23.180 like a year ago,

00:46:24.680 I had white girls come up to me, 1.00

00:46:25.880 I'm so sorry for being white. 0.95

00:46:28.040 I'm so sorry.

00:46:30.700 How nice for you, my friend.

00:46:34.440 Actually, there's a terrific,

00:46:35.520 have you seen this viral video

00:46:38.200 by the Russian state?

00:46:40.740 Yes.

00:46:41.180 Which is kind of doing

00:46:41.800 a parody of America

00:46:42.860 on an airplane

00:46:43.820 and it's all that stuff

00:46:44.900 where they allow the guy,

00:46:46.640 the black guy 0.98

00:46:47.140 to walk to the toilet 0.99

00:46:48.060 on the airplane 0.98

00:46:49.180 while all the white people 0.90

00:46:50.140 can abide to him.

00:46:50.760 It's a really clever piece of work.

00:46:51.980 Well, that's the thing.

00:46:53.320 It really isn't that clever.

00:46:54.820 It's actually very easy

00:46:56.000 to satirize

00:46:56.860 if you can put it on television,

00:46:59.040 which you can't

00:46:59.900 in this country.

00:47:01.760 Trust me,

00:47:02.400 I can rustle up

00:47:03.760 some comedy writers

00:47:04.820 that could do that

00:47:05.820 a hundred times better.

00:47:06.920 It just wouldn't go anywhere.

00:47:08.560 I thought it was quite funny.

00:47:09.820 No, no.

00:47:10.580 I'm not saying it's not funny.

00:47:11.960 It was great.

00:47:13.040 In relation to your views

00:47:15.120 on the mainstream media,

00:47:16.920 being someone who works

00:47:18.100 within the mainstream media

00:47:18.960 but not in this country,

00:47:20.900 how do you think,

00:47:22.360 what's your opinion

00:47:23.480 of the media coverage

00:47:24.900 of the war?

00:47:26.060 I mean, it's a big question,

00:47:27.300 but what are the strengths

00:47:28.360 and weaknesses

00:47:28.960 in your opinion

00:47:30.240 of how the war

00:47:31.340 is being covered

00:47:32.600 in the mainstream media?

00:47:33.400 It's a good question.

00:47:34.280 You've obviously caught me

00:47:35.280 in a massive generalization

00:47:36.440 because the mainstream media

00:47:37.440 is composed of all sorts

00:47:38.520 of different outlets

00:47:39.380 and different people

00:47:40.540 will cover it differently.

00:47:42.600 If I think of coverage

00:47:44.700 of the war

00:47:45.300 and the mainstream media,

00:47:46.240 I sort of think

00:47:46.760 of the BBC.

00:47:48.500 And I think the BBC

00:47:50.340 has not been inaccurate,

00:47:53.180 generally speaking,

00:47:54.760 while also,

00:47:56.880 the main issue I have

00:47:58.280 is I don't think

00:47:59.240 that you could possibly

00:48:00.140 work out

00:48:00.740 why the war is happening,

00:48:02.820 why Russia invaded,

00:48:04.440 what's actually going on

00:48:05.640 on the ground,

00:48:06.320 and what is likely

00:48:07.320 to be the future,

00:48:08.260 and what are the most

00:48:08.980 important issues

00:48:09.740 from the BBC

00:48:10.680 because all you see

00:48:12.020 is pretty refugee

00:48:13.120 running away from bombs

00:48:15.040 or, you know,

00:48:16.760 the LGBTQ survivors

00:48:19.720 of Putin's invasion

00:48:21.000 in Rotherham

00:48:22.660 being integrated

00:48:23.600 with the family.

00:48:24.180 These are all great stories.

00:48:25.720 I just don't think

00:48:26.680 that they really educate people

00:48:28.280 about some of the issues,

00:48:29.680 and I think

00:48:30.220 it's one of the reasons

00:48:31.360 that the alternative media

00:48:32.900 has been so involved

00:48:33.840 in covering this issue

00:48:34.900 and attempting to

00:48:35.780 bring certain issues

00:48:37.560 into life

00:48:38.000 because I just don't think

00:48:39.000 the mainstream media

00:48:40.180 is calibrated

00:48:41.020 to educate people

00:48:42.620 and to give them

00:48:43.300 the information

00:48:43.940 that they need

00:48:45.140 because they're much more,

00:48:46.860 you know,

00:48:47.300 it's odd to me

00:48:48.460 because I sort of used

00:48:50.100 to think that it's

00:48:50.700 the online space

00:48:51.880 where everything's clickbait,

00:48:53.240 but actually,

00:48:54.200 I often feel now

00:48:55.040 with the mainstream media,

00:48:56.000 they are the ones

00:48:56.620 that are doing most

00:48:57.400 of the clickbait

00:48:58.080 because they're going,

00:48:59.780 you know,

00:49:00.060 if it bleeds,

00:49:00.740 it leads type of thing,

00:49:01.840 and we all get,

00:49:02.920 look,

00:49:03.060 I have family in Russia

00:49:04.000 and Ukraine

00:49:04.680 who've all been affected

00:49:05.760 by all of this,

00:49:07.380 and it's terrible.

00:49:08.580 I just don't know

00:49:09.520 how much yet another story

00:49:11.520 about the poor victims of war

00:49:13.240 advances people's understanding

00:49:15.180 of what's happening,

00:49:16.400 and that has always been

00:49:17.340 my priority

00:49:18.000 to try and explain to people

00:49:19.320 why it's happening,

00:49:20.980 why does it matter

00:49:22.060 to the West,

00:49:23.160 and I think people

00:49:24.460 really don't understand.

00:49:26.560 You know,

00:49:27.120 it's funny,

00:49:27.880 I wrote this thread

00:49:29.760 on Twitter recently,

00:49:30.520 which was a translation

00:49:31.360 of Vladimir Putin's

00:49:32.440 latest speech

00:49:33.100 that some of you

00:49:34.000 probably have read,

00:49:35.280 and I had a bunch

00:49:37.140 of mainstream journalists

00:49:38.200 follow me afterwards

00:49:39.200 and ask me questions,

00:49:40.800 and these are people

00:49:41.360 who cover the war,

00:49:42.820 and I'm like,

00:49:43.480 why are you asking

00:49:44.660 a satirist and podcaster

00:49:46.720 what Vladimir Putin

00:49:48.520 is saying?

00:49:48.940 How come you haven't got

00:49:49.880 a whole team of people

00:49:50.820 analyzing his speeches,

00:49:52.300 breaking it down,

00:49:53.380 explaining to people

00:49:54.180 in the West

00:49:54.660 what he's actually saying?

00:49:56.320 It's a catastrophic failure,

00:49:58.200 and it's important

00:49:59.380 because if we in the West

00:50:00.940 don't understand

00:50:01.480 what's going on,

00:50:02.160 how the hell are we

00:50:02.940 going to react to it

00:50:03.780 in the right way?

00:50:05.240 So why haven't they?

00:50:07.580 Look,

00:50:08.080 you probably know

00:50:08.720 more about it than me.

00:50:09.740 I am just seeing

00:50:10.380 the symptoms.

00:50:10.980 I can't explain

00:50:11.780 what the disease is exactly.

00:50:13.740 I think there's probably

00:50:16.040 not a lot of money

00:50:16.780 in doing a three-hour

00:50:19.200 breakdown of what's

00:50:21.160 happening in Ukraine,

00:50:21.860 and there's probably

00:50:22.380 quite a lot of cliques

00:50:23.380 in people who want

00:50:24.560 to just see a pretty

00:50:25.480 refugee running away 1.00

00:50:26.520 from a bomb.

00:50:28.940 It's a theory.

00:50:29.960 Okay.

00:50:31.140 There's a guy behind you

00:50:32.040 as well.

00:50:33.260 Sorry.

00:50:33.340 Give up on that.

00:50:33.820 Yeah, yeah.

00:50:34.860 Straight white man.

00:50:35.360 Take those two

00:50:35.860 gentlemen there.

00:50:38.540 We'll take the white guy 0.88

00:50:39.520 first.

00:50:40.580 As is his right.

00:50:41.920 Just on the history

00:50:43.040 of trigonometry,

00:50:43.900 there's a great episode

00:50:45.260 where Constantine and Francis

00:50:46.660 talk for about an hour

00:50:48.040 and a half about the story

00:50:49.080 from being in a flat in

00:50:50.440 Dalston to the empire 0.80

00:50:52.320 they are now.

00:50:52.920 And it's very,

00:50:53.820 it's quite life-affirming,

00:50:55.160 partly because it's been 0.98

00:50:55.880 through so much kind of shit, 0.99

00:50:58.560 for want of a better term, 0.99

00:50:59.860 and kind of come out

00:51:01.280 the other side.

00:51:02.100 Although Anton doesn't come

00:51:03.100 out of it very well.

00:51:04.600 But, you know, 0.99

00:51:05.360 I guess he's the butt

00:51:06.120 of the joke often.

00:51:07.820 But no,

00:51:08.360 I wanted to pick up

00:51:09.080 on a point you made

00:51:09.620 in the plenary

00:51:10.060 about Ukraine earlier on

00:51:11.200 and a point that

00:51:11.740 someone else made earlier

00:51:12.720 about how other people

00:51:14.100 see Western values.

00:51:16.560 And someone asked

00:51:17.040 about how we

00:51:17.840 try and, you know,

00:51:20.640 encourage people

00:51:21.440 to see them

00:51:21.820 in a more positive way.

00:51:24.080 But could you give

00:51:24.680 some examples

00:51:25.320 of how in Soviet Russia

00:51:28.140 and also in post-Soviet Russia,

00:51:30.380 something that we would

00:51:31.120 take for granted,

00:51:32.100 or at least maybe

00:51:32.560 the people in this room

00:51:33.260 would,

00:51:33.880 like liberal democracy

00:51:35.240 or equality

00:51:36.800 or tolerance of speech

00:51:39.880 and so on,

00:51:40.780 would be seen

00:51:41.660 by the authorities

00:51:43.460 or the people

00:51:45.260 who shape public opinion

00:51:47.660 and the culture?

00:51:48.820 What would we be

00:51:49.540 really surprised to hear

00:51:50.800 would be a common view

00:51:52.180 in Russia?

00:51:53.500 Well, Russia has never had 0.86

00:51:54.740 a single democratic

00:51:55.680 transition of power,

00:51:57.040 ever.

00:51:58.580 Ever.

00:52:00.060 The first mention

00:52:00.880 of Russia is 882.

00:52:03.180 That's the Kievan Rus 1.00

00:52:04.220 that people talk about.

00:52:05.480 In its entire history,

00:52:06.780 Russia has never had 0.96

00:52:07.940 a single democratic

00:52:09.320 transition of power, right?

00:52:11.000 So that seems to me

00:52:11.960 quite important.

00:52:13.760 That's something

00:52:14.420 we completely don't understand.

00:52:15.740 And it's true of most

00:52:16.560 of the world, by the way.

00:52:18.340 It's true of most

00:52:19.080 of the other countries

00:52:19.860 in the world.

00:52:20.900 Democracy is a quite rare,

00:52:23.420 quite unique,

00:52:24.040 and quite a fragile thing,

00:52:25.380 which is why it has to be

00:52:26.300 guarded so carefully.

00:52:28.600 The idea that in the Soviet Union

00:52:30.920 you would express

00:52:31.900 your opinion in public

00:52:33.200 and that opinion

00:52:35.860 was unpopular

00:52:36.740 and you would be safe

00:52:37.840 was no,

00:52:38.800 it would never occur

00:52:39.680 to anyone 0.98

00:52:40.280 that such a ridiculous 0.99

00:52:41.120 thing could happen.

00:52:42.440 In the late 80s,

00:52:43.600 this is why we were having

00:52:44.620 the argument earlier

00:52:45.240 about Stalinism,

00:52:46.420 my grandfather,

00:52:47.240 this is one of the things

00:52:47.940 I talk about in the book,

00:52:49.060 he criticized the Soviet

00:52:50.420 invasion of Afghanistan,

00:52:52.240 much like people

00:52:53.160 are now in Russia

00:52:53.900 criticizing the Russian

00:52:55.140 invasion of Ukraine.

00:52:57.080 And he was immediately

00:52:58.160 fired from his job.

00:52:59.740 His wife was fired

00:53:00.740 from her job.

00:53:02.060 Their children,

00:53:02.720 that's my father

00:53:03.440 and my aunt, 0.92

00:53:04.480 were kicked out

00:53:05.080 of university

00:53:05.780 for one comment

00:53:07.420 that he made in private.

00:53:09.600 And there are people

00:53:10.420 in Russia today

00:53:11.260 who initially

00:53:11.980 when the invasion happened,

00:53:13.000 they went out

00:53:13.580 with placards to protest

00:53:15.300 and the placards

00:53:15.940 would say for peace

00:53:16.820 and they would get

00:53:17.800 instantly arrested

00:53:18.660 and dragged away

00:53:19.300 into prison.

00:53:19.940 So then they started

00:53:21.080 going out

00:53:21.660 with no placard at all,

00:53:22.780 just standing

00:53:23.240 with their hands in the air

00:53:24.260 and they would get arrested.

00:53:26.940 The idea that you should

00:53:28.420 be able to protest

00:53:29.580 against your government

00:53:30.520 because you disagree

00:53:31.600 with it,

00:53:32.380 it doesn't really occur

00:53:33.880 to most people everywhere

00:53:34.980 and the only way

00:53:35.880 that they are able

00:53:37.020 to do so

00:53:37.580 is to go out 1.00

00:53:38.320 and get their head smashed 1.00

00:53:39.160 in by the riot police. 0.99

00:53:40.400 As you see in Russia,

00:53:41.600 as you are now seeing

00:53:42.360 in Iran,

00:53:43.240 as you would see,

00:53:44.120 as you saw in China,

00:53:45.220 of course,

00:53:46.000 it was Tiananmen Square

00:53:46.800 and not just Tiananmen Square

00:53:48.120 but it was a country-wide thing

00:53:50.400 what happened.

00:53:52.280 People in the West

00:53:53.120 absolutely do not realize

00:53:54.780 how rare and unique

00:53:55.860 and precious

00:53:56.400 what we have here is

00:53:57.660 and to the point

00:53:58.860 where it wouldn't even occur

00:54:00.480 to people in other countries

00:54:01.420 that these things

00:54:01.980 are good things to have

00:54:03.120 because they've never had them.

00:54:05.680 Yeah, it's funny

00:54:06.340 because I taught in China

00:54:08.200 for about six years

00:54:09.140 and when I first took

00:54:11.180 my Chinese students out

00:54:12.420 and I offered to buy them

00:54:13.340 a drink,

00:54:13.700 mainly because it was

00:54:14.200 25 pence for a pint,

00:54:15.840 but buy them all a drink

00:54:17.180 and then one girl said

00:54:18.460 I don't drink in public.

00:54:21.500 Okay, so you think, 0.59

00:54:22.860 okay, what the hell

00:54:24.020 does that mean?

00:54:24.760 I don't drink in public.

00:54:25.780 So I kind of harangued her

00:54:27.200 sufficiently that she explained

00:54:28.500 that in the 70s

00:54:30.660 the family always used

00:54:32.180 to have their meals outside

00:54:33.160 in the village

00:54:34.320 and then the grandfather

00:54:35.940 got drunk

00:54:36.700 and said too much

00:54:37.760 and before you know it

00:54:38.900 he was hauled off,

00:54:39.820 her father was hauled off.

00:54:41.060 So there's a family rule

00:54:42.140 not to drink in public.

00:54:43.800 You know,

00:54:43.900 and it's like moments like that

00:54:45.000 when, I mean,

00:54:45.460 you've lived it, right,

00:54:46.380 but moments like that

00:54:47.260 when you realize

00:54:47.860 this is a different system

00:54:49.860 and a different perception

00:54:51.140 about, you know,

00:54:51.900 what your personal

00:54:52.700 and private

00:54:53.160 versus public experience is.

00:54:54.980 So I think it's kind of

00:54:55.940 very useful to remember

00:54:57.600 that these are

00:54:58.820 very, very different

00:54:59.940 social systems

00:55:01.460 and kind of very difficult

00:55:02.700 as somebody was asking

00:55:03.700 at the back there,

00:55:04.580 very difficult to grasp

00:55:05.700 the kind of the conception

00:55:07.220 of what China mindset

00:55:09.960 might be.

00:55:10.620 I don't know,

00:55:10.920 that's not meant to be racist,

00:55:12.380 but it's generally difficult

00:55:13.820 to understand

00:55:14.340 how they think

00:55:15.480 about certain things

00:55:16.380 and interpret them

00:55:16.980 because it's of such

00:55:17.980 a different historical magnitude

00:55:19.100 to what we've had

00:55:19.940 in the West.

00:55:20.580 So it's kind of

00:55:21.460 a very important point

00:55:22.560 you raised.

00:55:23.840 Hey, Francis,

00:55:24.640 do you like locals?

00:55:26.140 I live in London, mate,

00:55:27.400 so obviously not.

00:55:28.640 The only pleasure

00:55:29.360 I get from the locals

00:55:30.980 is when we share

00:55:31.940 an intimate moment

00:55:32.880 as we watch

00:55:33.720 a Japanese tourist

00:55:34.940 get trapped

00:55:35.720 in a tube door.

00:55:37.560 That is good.

00:55:38.660 But I wasn't talking

00:55:39.720 about the locals,

00:55:41.020 I was talking about

00:55:42.220 our community

00:55:43.200 on Locals.

00:55:44.520 You mean the one

00:55:45.180 where you get phenomenal

00:55:46.480 behind-the-scenes content

00:55:47.900 when you

00:55:48.440 like your space

00:55:49.400 with this,

00:55:49.960 this, this,

00:55:50.160 this, this.

00:55:51.120 where you get to ask

00:55:52.820 incredible guests

00:55:54.460 like Jordan Peterson,

00:55:56.600 Brett Weinstein,

00:55:57.940 Bill Burr,

00:55:59.040 Sam Harris,

00:56:00.260 Adam Carolla,

00:56:01.620 Heather Hying,

00:56:02.680 and others

00:56:03.320 your questions.

00:56:04.460 Not just that,

00:56:05.440 you can get

00:56:05.960 supporter-only benefits

00:56:07.340 like trigonometry mugs, 0.64

00:56:09.120 monthly calls

00:56:09.860 with our other

00:56:10.480 top supporters,

00:56:11.460 and even a regular meal

00:56:12.660 with me and Francis.

00:56:13.720 You also get

00:56:14.940 phenomenal

00:56:16.080 behind-the-scenes footage

00:56:17.620 of our trip to America

00:56:19.400 where we met

00:56:20.160 a whole host

00:56:21.860 of incredible guests

00:56:22.980 and gave ourselves

00:56:24.220 terminal indigestion.

00:56:25.720 We're also starting

00:56:26.740 to do monthly giveaways

00:56:27.940 for locals only.

00:56:29.080 The first one

00:56:29.680 will be signed copies

00:56:30.700 of Andrew Doyle's new book.

00:56:32.780 Plus,

00:56:33.520 you get access

00:56:34.400 to an incredible community

00:56:36.300 of like-minded people

00:56:38.180 who share memes,

00:56:39.620 have fun conversations,

00:56:40.800 and most importantly,

00:56:42.820 you get to make

00:56:43.860 new friends.

00:56:44.560 You can support us

00:56:45.880 with as little as $7

00:56:47.100 or about £5 a month

00:56:48.780 or give us more

00:56:50.020 for the higher tier benefits.

00:56:51.760 Go to

00:56:52.120 trigonometry.locals.com

00:56:54.500 Go to

00:56:55.180 trigonometry.locals.com

00:56:57.960 and support the show.

00:57:00.480 Take the gentleman

00:57:01.420 further over, please.

00:57:02.780 Okay, so you said

00:57:04.900 you had cast-iron

00:57:06.040 immigrant privilege 0.63

00:57:08.060 before.

00:57:09.340 I'm just wondering

00:57:10.180 how much longer

00:57:11.620 that will last

00:57:12.420 given that

00:57:13.980 in general,

00:57:16.120 the left

00:57:16.440 have now discovered

00:57:17.400 from the last two

00:57:18.380 cabinets

00:57:18.760 that black and Asian 0.99

00:57:20.680 people can be

00:57:21.580 Tories too

00:57:22.280 and in some cases

00:57:23.300 significantly more

00:57:25.040 right-wing

00:57:25.680 than their

00:57:28.720 cabinet colleagues

00:57:30.360 and also

00:57:31.220 in America

00:57:32.760 there are more

00:57:33.700 Hispanic people

00:57:34.700 who voted

00:57:35.480 for Trump.

00:57:36.780 So is the narrative

00:57:37.600 of the gammon

00:57:39.460 of white privilege,

00:57:41.280 is that going

00:57:41.960 to hold

00:57:42.760 forever

00:57:43.660 or will they have

00:57:44.720 to come up

00:57:45.060 with some kind

00:57:45.780 of new

00:57:46.160 kind of formulation

00:57:47.520 about who the

00:57:48.080 problematic people are?

00:57:49.700 Yeah,

00:57:50.000 are you superficially

00:57:51.540 an immigrant?

00:57:52.660 Yeah, well,

00:57:53.320 I don't know.

00:57:53.880 I'm internally

00:57:54.680 xenophobic,

00:57:55.500 I guess.

00:57:56.760 No, I think

00:57:57.820 it's funny,

00:57:58.820 isn't it?

00:57:59.200 Because

00:57:59.540 anyone with 0.92

00:58:00.740 half a brain 0.94

00:58:01.320 knows that

00:58:02.020 immigrant communities

00:58:03.140 actually tend

00:58:03.700 to be more

00:58:04.160 conservative

00:58:04.600 particularly on

00:58:05.380 social issues

00:58:06.140 than the

00:58:07.000 native population.

00:58:08.420 Yet we pretend

00:58:09.400 that ethnic

00:58:10.180 minorities are

00:58:10.960 this sort of

00:58:11.500 monolith

00:58:12.140 who all believe

00:58:13.520 in eternal

00:58:14.940 progress or

00:58:15.540 whatever it is.

00:58:17.000 I don't know

00:58:18.040 how that issue

00:58:18.680 is going to

00:58:19.040 play out.

00:58:19.580 I mean,

00:58:20.240 I don't know

00:58:20.920 how people

00:58:21.260 in this room

00:58:21.760 feel,

00:58:22.040 I don't know

00:58:22.360 how people

00:58:22.740 in the country

00:58:23.200 feel.

00:58:23.820 I think

00:58:26.560 many of

00:58:27.140 these ideas,

00:58:28.180 you know,

00:58:29.020 the idea

00:58:29.500 that a

00:58:30.520 black cabinet 0.51

00:58:31.200 member of

00:58:32.040 a conservative

00:58:32.560 government,

00:58:33.240 which is frankly

00:58:33.820 useless at the

00:58:34.500 moment, 0.93

00:58:34.740 but nonetheless,

00:58:35.900 a black cabinet

00:58:37.200 member of that

00:58:37.820 government has

00:58:38.540 internalized racism

00:58:40.480 because they have

00:58:41.340 the wrong opinion

00:58:42.420 according to some

00:58:43.180 white leftists.

00:58:44.340 That seems to me

00:58:45.260 to be slightly

00:58:46.060 discredited by now.

00:58:48.020 And so I don't

00:58:48.880 really,

00:58:49.320 I think increasingly

00:58:50.100 people take

00:58:50.740 less notice of it.

00:58:51.860 I think the

00:58:52.760 way that we

00:58:53.360 are having

00:58:53.740 this conversation

00:58:54.540 in this room

00:58:55.300 is probably

00:58:56.080 not the way

00:58:56.640 it might have

00:58:57.060 been had

00:58:57.500 two years ago.

00:58:58.360 I think we're

00:58:58.760 all starting

00:58:59.260 to kind of

00:58:59.780 to realize

00:59:01.560 the,

00:59:02.080 to borrow

00:59:03.000 one of the

00:59:03.640 language tricks,

00:59:05.160 we're starting

00:59:05.660 to realize

00:59:06.120 the gaslighting

00:59:06.900 that's been

00:59:07.220 happening.

00:59:07.720 And I think

00:59:07.960 more and more

00:59:08.400 people will

00:59:09.500 open their eyes

00:59:10.260 to how much 1.00

00:59:10.900 crap they've 0.99

00:59:12.040 been sold 1.00

00:59:12.440 about it.

00:59:12.920 And I think

00:59:13.420 you just,

00:59:14.480 particularly as

00:59:15.160 the,

00:59:15.540 as the makeup

00:59:16.720 of our society

00:59:17.420 changes,

00:59:17.800 as we see

00:59:18.300 that politics

00:59:18.960 increasingly

00:59:19.980 reflects

00:59:20.720 every ethnicity

00:59:21.780 in this country,

00:59:22.640 increasingly reflects

00:59:23.640 every variety

00:59:24.680 of person,

00:59:25.360 whatever.

00:59:25.980 I think that

00:59:26.640 issue will

00:59:27.080 probably go

00:59:27.780 away because

00:59:28.500 people like

00:59:29.600 me and people

00:59:30.140 like you

00:59:30.640 and others

00:59:31.100 just,

00:59:31.680 we're kind

00:59:32.620 of immune

00:59:32.980 to this.

00:59:33.480 Like if,

00:59:34.100 I mean,

00:59:34.380 someone once

00:59:35.040 called me a

00:59:35.600 Nazi, 0.95

00:59:36.100 Jewish Nazi, 0.99

00:59:37.240 the best kind. 0.99

00:59:37.860 Like it's, 0.91

00:59:38.960 it gets silly

00:59:40.020 after a while,

00:59:40.800 you know what I

00:59:41.180 mean?

00:59:42.980 Okay.

00:59:43.740 This gentleman.

00:59:45.200 All right.

00:59:46.500 So I'm for

00:59:46.920 Blackpool and

00:59:47.800 if we don't,

00:59:49.420 if you're

00:59:49.780 oppressed.

00:59:50.720 Well,

00:59:51.400 yes,

00:59:51.920 I mean,

00:59:52.320 I'm probably 0.66

00:59:52.720 a thick racist 0.94

00:59:53.440 northerner.

00:59:54.440 Nobody's ever

00:59:54.860 really called me

00:59:55.380 out.

00:59:55.680 I work for the BBC

00:59:56.300 so I can't really

00:59:57.000 say much on social

00:59:58.620 medias about politics.

00:59:59.720 I'm not allowed

01:00:00.140 to have a view.

01:00:01.580 And obviously the BBC

01:00:02.240 is run by a guy

01:00:03.300 that used to market

01:00:04.420 fizzy drinks to fat

01:00:05.360 kids. 0.99

01:00:05.860 So,

01:00:06.300 you know,

01:00:07.660 and Bill Hicks,

01:00:08.600 his view on

01:00:09.320 marketeers,

01:00:10.120 you I'm sure

01:00:10.840 will remember.

01:00:12.740 For this question,

01:00:13.740 you wrote an

01:00:14.320 immigrant's letter

01:00:14.940 to the West.

01:00:16.600 Have you had

01:00:17.240 a letter back,

01:00:19.000 an actual letter

01:00:19.740 or a direct

01:00:20.420 response back

01:00:21.420 from an individual

01:00:22.180 and what was it?

01:00:23.760 What was the best one?

01:00:25.240 It was Douglas Murray's

01:00:26.380 very generous review

01:00:27.540 in which he,

01:00:28.660 he sort of,

01:00:29.600 he thanked me

01:00:30.660 for writing the book

01:00:31.420 and he said that

01:00:32.240 the feeling

01:00:34.460 is reciprocated.

01:00:35.840 He spoke on behalf

01:00:36.720 of the West,

01:00:37.340 which was

01:00:38.160 in Douglas's style

01:00:40.620 and who I love.

01:00:41.460 But yeah,

01:00:43.420 that was,

01:00:44.340 you know,

01:00:44.720 right or left

01:00:46.280 or whatever,

01:00:46.960 I think Douglas Murray

01:00:48.080 is one of the most

01:00:49.680 insightful

01:00:50.660 public commentators

01:00:53.100 that this country

01:00:54.080 has produced

01:00:54.460 in quite some time.

01:00:56.820 I don't agree

01:00:57.620 with Douglas

01:00:58.040 on everything.

01:00:58.740 I agree with him

01:00:59.280 on a lot of things

01:00:59.920 that he says.

01:01:00.920 I think he's had

01:01:01.760 the courage

01:01:02.240 to address

01:01:03.040 a number of issues

01:01:04.860 that nobody

01:01:05.800 wanted to be honest

01:01:07.260 about

01:01:07.620 way ahead of time.

01:01:09.120 And so when he wrote

01:01:10.280 a review

01:01:12.080 suggesting that,

01:01:13.320 you know,

01:01:13.560 he was grateful

01:01:14.140 to me for writing

01:01:14.740 the book,

01:01:15.560 you know,

01:01:16.580 that meant a lot

01:01:17.120 to me.

01:01:17.780 Yeah.

01:01:18.800 Any hostile ones?

01:01:20.900 Reviews?

01:01:21.380 Yeah.

01:01:21.640 No, no, no.

01:01:22.120 Reviews,

01:01:22.440 but the letter,

01:01:23.280 the concept

01:01:23.680 that you've written

01:01:24.300 this book and

01:01:24.860 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:01:25.760 Oh, it was funny.

01:01:26.780 There was a woman 0.88

01:01:27.280 on Twitter

01:01:27.720 who followed me

01:01:28.480 after I translated

01:01:29.340 that Putin speech

01:01:30.460 and she was so enthusiastic

01:01:32.460 about everything

01:01:33.340 that I'd said about it.

01:01:34.540 She was absolutely brilliant.

01:01:35.860 Can't wait to read

01:01:36.780 your book.

01:01:37.500 Next day,

01:01:38.100 she just like

01:01:39.080 sent me a hundred

01:01:40.140 like hate-filled messages

01:01:41.300 about how wrong

01:01:42.200 and bad

01:01:42.600 and terrible

01:01:43.080 my book is.

01:01:44.180 So there was a,

01:01:44.940 I managed to persuade

01:01:46.000 one person

01:01:46.640 very quickly.

01:01:48.560 Yeah.

01:01:48.760 Very good, very good.

01:01:49.420 Toby?

01:01:50.160 I run a kind of

01:01:51.460 alt media website

01:01:53.400 called

01:01:53.940 The Daily Skeptic

01:01:55.040 was Lockdown Skeptics

01:01:56.140 and we've had

01:01:56.660 a number of problems

01:01:57.880 with censorship.

01:01:59.420 So I think Facebook

01:02:00.840 have currently banned

01:02:02.400 The Daily Skeptic

01:02:03.280 Facebook account.

01:02:04.380 We were closed

01:02:07.040 by PayPal

01:02:08.620 about a month ago.

01:02:10.740 They eventually

01:02:11.140 changed their minds

01:02:12.020 but for,

01:02:12.940 and it looked as though

01:02:13.540 they did that

01:02:14.140 because they thought

01:02:14.860 we were guilty

01:02:15.380 of spreading

01:02:16.060 misinformation

01:02:17.040 about the COVID-19

01:02:18.580 vaccines.

01:02:19.920 And I wondered,

01:02:20.960 I know,

01:02:21.200 I know Trigonometry

01:02:22.120 has in the past

01:02:23.360 had some similar problems.

01:02:25.140 YouTube videos

01:02:25.700 being removed.

01:02:26.980 You convinced

01:02:27.820 that you're being

01:02:28.820 shadow banned.

01:02:30.120 Not convinced.

01:02:30.620 We have direct evidence.

01:02:31.600 We have evidence.

01:02:32.620 You've been shadow banned.

01:02:33.700 I wondered,

01:02:34.620 as Trigonometry

01:02:35.560 has grown,

01:02:36.740 grown its audience

01:02:37.560 as it's become

01:02:38.220 a business

01:02:39.160 with seven people

01:02:40.580 whose livelihoods

01:02:41.500 you're partly now

01:02:42.000 responsible for,

01:02:43.220 how do you now

01:02:44.660 navigate this world?

01:02:45.960 Do you find yourself

01:02:46.920 having to self-censor

01:02:48.040 more and more

01:02:48.720 to avoid

01:02:49.460 this kind of

01:02:51.340 actual censorship

01:02:52.680 by big tech?

01:02:54.780 No,

01:02:55.480 because I firmly believe

01:02:57.360 and Francis

01:02:58.100 and I think

01:02:59.140 our whole team

01:02:59.660 is united

01:03:00.540 and believing

01:03:01.100 that the point

01:03:02.540 of Trigonometry

01:03:03.220 is to explore

01:03:04.740 difficult issues

01:03:05.580 and I think

01:03:06.300 the moment

01:03:06.680 we start doing that

01:03:07.580 I don't think

01:03:08.140 the people in this room

01:03:09.280 would be in this room.

01:03:11.080 So we cannot sell out

01:03:12.760 to that

01:03:13.200 and if the day comes

01:03:16.000 that we can no longer

01:03:17.000 do what we do

01:03:17.700 on YouTube

01:03:18.120 then we will find

01:03:19.560 another way of doing it

01:03:20.580 and if that means

01:03:21.340 that we all have

01:03:22.060 to take a hit

01:03:22.640 we've always been

01:03:23.320 very clear

01:03:23.800 every time

01:03:24.380 we talk with

01:03:25.580 myself,

01:03:26.580 Francis and Anton

01:03:27.300 about

01:03:27.760 maybe we should

01:03:30.040 give this person

01:03:31.380 a bit more salary

01:03:32.140 or give ourselves

01:03:33.140 a bit more salary

01:03:33.840 so we can do whatever

01:03:34.840 that's always

01:03:36.700 with the understanding

01:03:37.920 that things may go up

01:03:39.500 as well as down

01:03:40.240 because of the nature

01:03:41.260 of what we do.

01:03:42.720 What I am very concerned

01:03:44.200 about Toby

01:03:44.800 as you and I

01:03:46.280 have spoken about this

01:03:47.480 before

01:03:47.840 and you've had some issues

01:03:49.220 with PayPal recently

01:03:50.520 is that

01:03:51.880 if you've got

01:03:53.080 the wrong opinion

01:03:53.660 you can't have

01:03:54.200 a bank account

01:03:54.840 which is the direction

01:03:55.600 we're going

01:03:56.120 that is a very

01:03:57.660 very dark path

01:03:58.780 that is a very

01:03:59.880 dark path

01:04:00.500 and that's got to

01:04:02.320 I mean we've got to

01:04:03.440 fight so hard

01:04:04.120 against that

01:04:04.700 because you know

01:04:05.660 before you know it

01:04:06.380 you're not going to

01:04:06.740 have electricity

01:04:07.220 if you've got

01:04:07.820 the wrong opinion

01:04:08.420 I just think

01:04:09.120 I think that

01:04:10.860 that is the most

01:04:12.360 scary thing to me

01:04:13.780 and I wish more people

01:04:15.940 would focus their

01:04:16.640 attention on that.

01:04:18.520 Can I just jump in

01:04:19.180 on the conversation

01:04:19.880 in terms of

01:04:20.780 the PayPal issue

01:04:22.520 I've just cancelled

01:04:23.580 my PayPal account

01:04:24.800 precisely because

01:04:25.940 of your

01:04:26.500 problems

01:04:28.040 but what do you think

01:04:29.480 because I'm opposed

01:04:30.700 to consumer boycotts

01:04:31.880 so I had a bit

01:04:32.680 of an ethical turmoil

01:04:33.680 as to whether I should

01:04:34.620 be doing this

01:04:35.280 in support of you

01:04:36.680 or whether I should

01:04:37.540 actually be

01:04:38.060 not endorsing

01:04:39.260 the idea that I can

01:04:40.000 bring my consumer

01:04:41.160 power to play

01:04:42.840 on distorting

01:04:44.040 a company's

01:04:45.420 own decision making

01:04:47.300 processes

01:04:47.760 how do you sit on

01:04:49.240 sorry Justin

01:04:50.100 how do you sit on this?

01:04:51.880 Well thank you

01:04:52.400 for closing your

01:04:53.460 PayPal account

01:04:54.040 I think lots of people

01:04:54.820 did

01:04:55.040 But I think

01:04:56.880 the number of people

01:04:57.960 who did

01:04:58.380 may have

01:04:58.840 contributed

01:04:59.800 to their decision

01:05:00.540 to restore

01:05:01.180 the three accounts

01:05:02.420 of mine

01:05:02.740 that they closed

01:05:03.400 I think that

01:05:04.980 you often hear

01:05:06.500 a slightly different

01:05:08.020 argument to the one

01:05:08.720 you made

01:05:09.200 which is that

01:05:10.060 well

01:05:10.360 why should we

01:05:11.800 fetter the freedom

01:05:12.700 of association

01:05:13.340 of these private

01:05:14.040 companies by saying

01:05:14.820 they can't discriminate

01:05:15.640 against certain

01:05:16.780 customers

01:05:17.300 on the basis

01:05:18.100 of their political

01:05:18.720 beliefs

01:05:19.140 you know

01:05:20.560 you can always

01:05:21.120 go with another

01:05:22.600 payment processor

01:05:23.600 that isn't going

01:05:24.500 to discriminate

01:05:24.920 in that way

01:05:25.440 and the market

01:05:26.180 will solve the problem

01:05:26.960 and I think

01:05:27.260 there are two

01:05:27.660 arguments

01:05:28.100 against that

01:05:29.280 the first is

01:05:30.020 that well

01:05:30.520 first of all

01:05:31.440 PayPal is a monopoly

01:05:32.880 it's about eight times

01:05:34.440 larger than its

01:05:35.100 nearest competitor

01:05:35.760 and it's quite difficult

01:05:36.600 to make a success

01:05:37.420 of sites like

01:05:38.120 Trigonometry

01:05:39.000 and the Daily Skeptic

01:05:39.920 which depend on

01:05:40.780 donations

01:05:41.260 amongst other things

01:05:42.200 if PayPal

01:05:43.240 closes your account

01:05:44.520 the second thing

01:05:45.740 is I think

01:05:46.100 you know

01:05:46.360 it's odd

01:05:47.480 you hear people

01:05:47.960 on the left

01:05:48.520 like James O'Brien

01:05:49.520 making this

01:05:50.320 kind of libertarian

01:05:51.400 argument

01:05:51.780 as though

01:05:52.240 they'd suddenly

01:05:52.780 joined the Institute

01:05:53.460 of Economic Affairs

01:05:54.200 you know

01:05:55.280 he says

01:05:55.840 why shouldn't

01:05:56.560 they discriminate

01:05:57.000 against you

01:05:57.640 they're a free

01:05:58.480 company

01:05:58.840 this is a free

01:05:59.420 society

01:05:59.820 but you wouldn't

01:06:00.840 say the same

01:06:01.420 thing

01:06:01.640 if they discriminated

01:06:02.440 against someone

01:06:02.920 on the basis

01:06:03.400 of the colour

01:06:03.960 of their skin

01:06:04.660 or their religion

01:06:06.320 or their sexual

01:06:07.100 orientation

01:06:07.680 and I think

01:06:08.640 your political

01:06:09.580 belief should be

01:06:10.200 in the same category

01:06:10.980 and you know

01:06:12.100 to your point

01:06:12.980 Constantin

01:06:14.180 I think

01:06:14.740 we definitely

01:06:15.200 do need

01:06:15.780 to do something

01:06:16.280 about this

01:06:16.860 urgently

01:06:17.300 to prevent

01:06:17.720 the emergence

01:06:18.240 of a Chinese 0.69

01:06:18.880 style social

01:06:19.640 credit system

01:06:20.260 in the West

01:06:21.320 except you know

01:06:22.040 without communist

01:06:23.300 authorities enforcing

01:06:24.500 ideological orthodoxy

01:06:25.600 it's these capitalist

01:06:26.400 corporations

01:06:27.060 in California

01:06:27.960 what can we do

01:06:28.840 about it

01:06:29.140 well

01:06:29.380 the free speech

01:06:30.040 union

01:06:30.220 is lobbying

01:06:30.800 the government

01:06:31.520 to amend

01:06:32.180 a bill

01:06:32.880 currently going

01:06:33.440 through parliament

01:06:34.020 to make it

01:06:34.600 more difficult

01:06:35.180 for companies

01:06:36.260 like PayPal

01:06:36.840 and lots of

01:06:37.880 other financial

01:06:38.340 services companies

01:06:39.060 to discriminate

01:06:39.640 against people

01:06:40.240 on the basis

01:06:40.780 of their political

01:06:41.460 beliefs

01:06:41.900 whether we'll

01:06:42.880 make any headway

01:06:43.460 I don't know

01:06:43.880 but we're

01:06:44.200 certainly

01:06:44.460 hoping to do

01:06:45.520 that

01:06:45.680 yeah

01:06:46.040 and everyone

01:06:46.720 should know

01:06:47.160 we at

01:06:47.920 Trigonometry

01:06:48.280 are huge fans

01:06:49.260 of the free speech

01:06:50.180 union

01:06:50.380 I think it's

01:06:50.720 really important

01:06:51.420 and you do

01:06:52.320 great work

01:06:52.800 can I just add

01:06:53.900 one other thing

01:06:54.520 as well

01:06:54.900 coming back

01:06:56.200 to your question

01:06:56.960 about you know

01:06:57.640 self-censoring

01:06:58.320 to protect our

01:06:59.360 staff or whatever

01:07:00.580 the one principle

01:07:02.200 the guiding principle

01:07:03.220 of my life

01:07:03.940 and I'm fortunate

01:07:04.760 to be able to

01:07:05.340 have this principle

01:07:06.040 because we live

01:07:06.660 in a time

01:07:07.100 where people

01:07:08.300 like you and I

01:07:09.080 are not burnt

01:07:09.540 on the stake

01:07:10.140 is that

01:07:12.440 the truth of it

01:07:13.460 is that in our

01:07:14.180 society I think

01:07:15.180 if you make a

01:07:16.460 stand on principle

01:07:17.360 that costs you

01:07:18.140 in the short term

01:07:18.940 it probably will

01:07:20.820 benefit you

01:07:21.360 in the long term

01:07:21.980 at least that is

01:07:23.340 a belief that I

01:07:24.060 operate by

01:07:24.620 I'm sure at some

01:07:25.400 point it will turn

01:07:26.040 out to be untrue

01:07:26.800 but generally

01:07:27.920 the way I try to

01:07:29.980 carry myself

01:07:30.640 in the world

01:07:31.440 is based on that

01:07:32.360 idea which is that

01:07:33.400 if you stand up

01:07:34.640 for what's right

01:07:35.240 now

01:07:35.720 you may suffer

01:07:37.100 the consequences

01:07:37.860 early

01:07:38.420 but in the long

01:07:39.880 run you will

01:07:40.360 be vindicated

01:07:41.020 and actually

01:07:41.600 shown to be

01:07:42.240 correct and

01:07:42.720 that will

01:07:43.100 reinforce people's

01:07:44.320 support for you

01:07:45.100 you will find

01:07:46.520 an audience of

01:07:47.420 people who

01:07:47.880 believe in what

01:07:48.660 you do

01:07:48.860 that you know

01:07:49.280 I know you

01:07:49.980 did a lot of

01:07:50.680 opposing of the

01:07:52.480 government's

01:07:52.960 restrictions around

01:07:53.800 lockdown which

01:07:54.980 was a big

01:07:55.680 concern of mine

01:07:56.340 as well and

01:07:56.860 I was frankly

01:07:57.900 you know sending

01:07:58.560 quite rude messages

01:07:59.480 to government

01:08:00.020 ministers and

01:08:00.600 whatever who

01:08:01.580 now say to

01:08:02.280 me oh you

01:08:03.320 were sort of

01:08:03.880 right do you

01:08:04.960 know what I

01:08:05.380 mean and so

01:08:06.520 I think that

01:08:08.240 standing up for

01:08:10.180 what you truly

01:08:10.880 know to be the

01:08:11.620 right thing

01:08:12.200 even when it's

01:08:13.440 difficult will

01:08:14.140 benefit you in

01:08:14.840 the long run

01:08:15.360 and so from

01:08:16.400 that perspective

01:08:17.060 if at some

01:08:17.800 point it comes

01:08:18.400 to that we

01:08:18.940 are starting to

01:08:19.680 have trouble

01:08:20.120 with our

01:08:20.760 payment system

01:08:21.600 or whatever

01:08:22.160 we will find

01:08:24.160 a way and I

01:08:25.500 hope that people

01:08:26.540 if more people

01:08:27.620 had that attitude

01:08:28.340 I think we'd be

01:08:29.020 making more

01:08:29.500 progress faster

01:08:30.500 and I do think

01:08:31.880 in the modern

01:08:32.240 world it is

01:08:32.780 genuinely true

01:08:33.500 particularly

01:08:33.980 because you

01:08:35.240 know you

01:08:35.700 with the

01:08:36.340 free speech

01:08:36.640 union are

01:08:36.980 able to

01:08:37.380 look after

01:08:38.040 the little

01:08:38.900 man who

01:08:39.840 maybe doesn't

01:08:40.480 have a big

01:08:40.920 platform and

01:08:41.480 doesn't want to

01:08:42.080 build a big

01:08:42.480 platform they

01:08:43.100 just wanted to

01:08:44.080 make a joke at

01:08:45.080 work or whatever

01:08:45.640 you know what I

01:08:46.040 mean so yeah I

01:08:47.440 think what you're

01:08:47.840 doing is very

01:08:48.240 important

01:08:48.640 very good

01:08:49.660 lovely love in

01:08:50.680 there

01:08:51.020 mutual appreciation

01:08:52.360 society

01:08:52.760 yes good

01:08:54.660 we'll take this

01:08:55.300 last here please

01:08:56.380 lady sorry 0.94

01:08:58.120 my question is

01:08:59.280 following on

01:09:00.040 from self

01:09:01.260 cancelling and

01:09:02.240 it's going to be

01:09:03.180 just touching on

01:09:04.060 the c-word

01:09:04.600 non-capitalism

01:09:05.380 comedy I see

01:09:06.600 comedy as a

01:09:07.320 higher level of

01:09:07.960 intelligence and

01:09:08.560 I'm wondering how

01:09:09.120 can we sustain it

01:09:10.220 as being an

01:09:11.780 outlet basically

01:09:13.600 walking that fine

01:09:14.740 line between being

01:09:15.640 offensive to some

01:09:16.900 and not offensive to

01:09:18.280 others through

01:09:19.540 council culture how

01:09:21.460 can we sustain is it

01:09:22.500 through perseverance

01:09:23.220 yeah I think

01:09:24.120 look there's a

01:09:25.220 couple of answers I

01:09:25.920 mean the flippant

01:09:26.460 answer is comedians

01:09:27.220 need to grow some 0.99

01:09:27.780 balls I suppose but 0.99

01:09:28.800 the bigger answer is

01:09:31.340 I think the internet

01:09:32.160 is the answer and

01:09:33.600 that's why I'm so

01:09:34.440 opposed to the

01:09:35.180 online harms bill

01:09:36.300 and the online

01:09:36.800 whatever it's called

01:09:37.580 now they keep

01:09:38.080 changing the name

01:09:38.780 but the in my

01:09:41.880 view the biggest

01:09:42.540 issue that we face

01:09:43.380 I feel weird sort

01:09:44.180 of answering your

01:09:44.600 question and with

01:09:45.480 my back to you but

01:09:46.140 the biggest challenge

01:09:48.720 from my perspective

01:09:50.520 and the thing that I

01:09:51.660 am most focused on

01:09:53.240 is we spent four and

01:09:56.600 a half years on

01:09:57.140 trigonometry pointing

01:09:58.160 out the hypocrisy of 1.00

01:10:01.100 this woke idiocy and 1.00

01:10:03.420 also challenging some 1.00

01:10:04.680 of the anti-woke 0.99

01:10:05.540 idiocy that is also 0.99

01:10:06.460 now starting to

01:10:07.200 emerge right and that

01:10:10.440 is good for as long

01:10:12.240 as that was happening

01:10:13.280 the problem that we

01:10:14.520 have is if you don't

01:10:16.880 have a positive vision

01:10:17.940 of a counterculture

01:10:18.740 people aren't gonna buy

01:10:19.960 into it right and so

01:10:21.380 I think what we have

01:10:22.320 to start to do is to

01:10:23.440 shape a positive vision

01:10:24.700 of the counterculture

01:10:25.600 whether it's comedy

01:10:26.900 whether it's anything

01:10:27.680 else and people just

01:10:28.480 have to go out and

01:10:29.320 do stuff they gotta go

01:10:30.480 out and create the

01:10:31.820 internet allows you to

01:10:32.880 find your audience so

01:10:34.080 from a comedy

01:10:34.660 perspective that's part

01:10:35.700 of it and then here's

01:10:36.880 the new dad part of me

01:10:38.000 which is you know I

01:10:39.640 think this doomsday

01:10:42.020 narrative that exists

01:10:43.260 on the left particularly

01:10:44.180 to do with

01:10:44.760 environmentalism and on

01:10:46.560 the right there's a

01:10:47.520 sort of it's not maybe

01:10:48.520 equal but there's a

01:10:49.300 similar sort of you

01:10:50.360 know the west is all

01:10:51.360 decadent and degraded

01:10:53.080 and devoid of any

01:10:54.560 values so you know

01:10:56.100 let's let Vladimir

01:10:57.080 Putin take over he's

01:10:58.280 a good Christian of 0.80

01:10:59.280 whatever nonsense these 0.97

01:11:01.840 people have brought

01:11:02.380 into but there's a

01:11:04.120 sort of like you know

01:11:05.500 the world's over type

01:11:06.600 of narrative and that

01:11:08.080 is just nonsense and

01:11:09.700 people need to have

01:11:10.500 more kids not fewer

01:11:11.680 more kids are the

01:11:12.920 solution instead of

01:11:14.920 being the problem so

01:11:16.600 that's got to be a big

01:11:17.580 part of it and then we

01:11:19.000 just have to take an

01:11:20.160 honest appraisal on

01:11:21.220 culturally about

01:11:22.320 environmentalism and we

01:11:23.920 have to be honest we

01:11:24.700 have to say look the

01:11:26.180 climate is changing

01:11:27.200 human beings contribute

01:11:28.400 to it the world's not

01:11:29.920 going to end in 10

01:11:30.660 years and if we poured

01:11:32.080 all the energy that we

01:11:33.300 pour onto paintings

01:11:34.460 into actually working on

01:11:36.540 problems and solving

01:11:37.940 problems technologically

01:11:39.060 we'd be a lot better

01:11:40.760 off and by the way we

01:11:42.200 wouldn't be buying our

01:11:43.100 energy from our enemies

01:11:44.160 making ourselves

01:11:45.360 vulnerable making

01:11:46.560 ourselves unable to

01:11:47.680 respond strongly like

01:11:48.700 we've seen so that

01:11:49.980 positive counterculture is

01:11:51.300 forming I'm having all

01:11:52.420 sorts of conversations

01:11:53.260 with all sorts of

01:11:54.020 people it's sort of

01:11:55.300 behind closed doors at

01:11:56.340 the moment but believe

01:11:57.880 me there's a counterculture

01:11:59.160 building comedians are

01:12:00.540 going to be a big part

01:12:01.220 of that satire is going

01:12:02.100 to be a big part of

01:12:02.840 that movies are going to

01:12:04.220 be a big part of that

01:12:05.040 because if you look at

01:12:06.000 the output from Hollywood

01:12:07.280 and and wherever over the

01:12:08.700 last decade I mean I

01:12:09.780 used to love the cinema I

01:12:11.440 don't go I haven't been to

01:12:12.620 the cinema for god knows

01:12:13.840 how long because it's all 0.94

01:12:15.060 crap right and that the

01:12:18.400 demand is there the market 0.99

01:12:20.140 will fulfill it as long as

01:12:21.720 we're still allowed to do

01:12:22.640 stuff on the internet

01:12:23.340 the market will decide

01:12:26.000 uh gentlemen under last

01:12:28.240 there

01:12:28.560 hi um at the moment we've

01:12:31.360 got a conservative

01:12:32.340 government whose support

01:12:33.640 for free speech and for

01:12:35.300 anti-woke issues is

01:12:36.760 positive but at best

01:12:38.680 feeble 0.58

01:12:39.120 uh we've got the prospect

01:12:42.120 of a labor government

01:12:43.140 very very strongly coming in

01:12:44.880 the couple of years do you

01:12:46.140 think we're all going to be

01:12:46.860 swimming in water of a

01:12:47.800 different temperature then

01:12:48.760 can we take the lead in

01:12:51.220 front um well you

01:12:53.320 mentioned that there is a

01:12:54.420 marxist problem um in

01:12:56.040 education and as a student

01:12:57.140 i wholeheartedly agree i

01:12:58.960 feel like whenever i do a

01:13:00.320 history essay the

01:13:01.300 professors they want you

01:13:02.660 to write about history in a

01:13:04.500 certain way i remember my

01:13:05.760 second year i did a module

01:13:07.260 on the soviet union and the

01:13:09.600 professors just kept talking

01:13:10.720 that kept saying that the

01:13:11.940 western historians they were

01:13:13.720 essentially they saw so many

01:13:16.020 negatives in a soviet union

01:13:17.800 and so we should we were

01:13:19.020 they advise against you know

01:13:21.600 using their arguments and

01:13:22.940 our essays and i remember

01:13:23.840 um a friend of mine she's

01:13:26.360 of she's half ukrainian and

01:13:28.120 she felt she personally felt

01:13:29.640 really uncomfortable um in

01:13:31.420 her lessons because these

01:13:32.960 um professors that you know

01:13:34.700 they've never lived in a

01:13:35.540 soviet union before they just

01:13:37.120 kept saying oh you know it

01:13:38.760 wasn't there were some things

01:13:39.960 that weren't great but you

01:13:41.340 know there are other things

01:13:42.880 that we can still praise and

01:13:44.280 you know clearly i

01:13:46.020 the soviet union was just

01:13:47.820 you know generally you know

01:13:49.360 a bad a bad thing um how

01:13:51.880 do we solve this issue of

01:13:53.900 you know the marxist 1.00

01:13:55.840 problem in education thank

01:13:58.000 you uh i don't know that

01:13:59.460 you can solve the marxist 1.00

01:14:00.860 i'll come back to the

01:14:01.700 gentleman's question i don't

01:14:02.860 know that you can solve i

01:14:03.800 mean academics are always

01:14:05.120 going to lean in that

01:14:05.880 direction because they like

01:14:07.440 ideas that don't work but

01:14:09.100 sound good um this is what

01:14:11.600 they do uh and uh this is

01:14:14.180 some um i can't remember

01:14:15.980 it's melissa chen i don't

01:14:17.440 know if you guys melissa

01:14:18.420 chen uh who i'm a big fan

01:14:20.240 of uh she tweeted something

01:14:22.280 a long time ago she said

01:14:23.660 you cannot remain woke when

01:14:26.620 you're building anything

01:14:27.600 whether that's muscle whether

01:14:29.240 that's a business whether

01:14:30.320 that's anything right so the

01:14:31.760 moment you get in the

01:14:32.920 practical real world you

01:14:35.280 start to be confronted by the

01:14:37.640 reality that people are not

01:14:39.580 equal they're not born with

01:14:41.520 equal intelligence or equal

01:14:42.860 drive or equal passion or

01:14:44.280 anything and so the people

01:14:46.680 who live in their in their

01:14:48.720 towers of academia they're

01:14:50.360 always going to be slightly

01:14:51.280 deluded and i think the way

01:14:53.320 that that gets solved is the

01:14:54.660 way you're solving it which is

01:14:55.780 critical thinking uh you are

01:14:57.660 there you're being asked these

01:14:59.100 to do these assignments you

01:15:01.120 starting to see the flaws and

01:15:02.640 the arguments that are being

01:15:03.540 presented to you and i don't

01:15:05.280 imagine you're going to come

01:15:06.220 out of that experience being a

01:15:07.320 marxist so that we kind of

01:15:09.820 solve that problem it's only in

01:15:11.060 your case um and i think

01:15:13.640 eventually over time uh people

01:15:16.060 will grow out of it the i

01:15:18.360 don't i mean academia is

01:15:19.860 important but i think culture

01:15:21.180 is much more important and i

01:15:23.280 think that is really you know

01:15:24.520 the conversation i was the

01:15:25.620 point i was making to the lady

01:15:26.580 there is if we can change the

01:15:28.360 culture everything else will

01:15:29.540 go with it and uh they're

01:15:31.520 always going to be marxist 1.00

01:15:32.300 professors uh you know that's

01:15:34.840 just what they do uh but so on

01:15:36.440 your point about the

01:15:37.280 conservative government i mean i

01:15:38.500 have some conservative friends

01:15:39.860 who said this isn't really a

01:15:41.400 particularly conservative

01:15:42.140 government and uh i mean

01:15:44.320 they're probably probably less

01:15:46.500 woke than kia starmer's party

01:15:48.860 might be but they're still

01:15:50.720 pushing through the online

01:15:51.560 safety bill which is as andrew

01:15:53.260 doyle will tell you filled with

01:15:55.400 critical social justice language

01:15:58.360 and ideology from start to finish

01:16:01.100 and is in my opinion if not

01:16:02.960 purposely built then certainly

01:16:04.320 accidentally built precisely to

01:16:06.220 suppress the sort of

01:16:07.420 counterculture emerging that i'm

01:16:08.800 talking about where people are

01:16:09.980 free to make jokes on the

01:16:11.000 internet free to speak free to

01:16:12.580 take risks etc so uh but yeah i

01:16:16.060 mean the only thing that could

01:16:17.380 possibly be worse than the

01:16:18.720 current shambles is a labor

01:16:19.860 government which we're almost

01:16:20.920 certainly going to get

01:16:21.600 yeah so it's happy days ahead

01:16:24.120 mate yeah and on a high

01:16:25.580 there's a few more but if you

01:16:27.860 always say anything just in

01:16:28.780 terms of what that lady was

01:16:30.020 saying there because interesting

01:16:31.340 the the way you phrased it um i

01:16:34.500 mean part of it i agree with and

01:16:35.720 part of it i'm just a little bit

01:16:36.820 kind of worried about when you

01:16:38.240 say ukrainian student was

01:16:39.680 worried it sounded like she was

01:16:40.580 being triggered by somebody

01:16:42.120 saying that you know what was

01:16:43.100 going on in the ukraine was you

01:16:44.680 know the fault of the ukrainians or

01:16:46.360 whatever it was uh and there's a

01:16:48.180 in soas you know school of oriental

01:16:50.420 and african studies uh their student

01:16:52.260 union about two years ago did a big

01:16:54.580 takeover uh argument that how dare you

01:16:58.180 know white western expert professors or

01:17:01.180 just call them professors um who had

01:17:03.440 spent all their years understanding

01:17:04.780 africa uh how dare they teach 1.00

01:17:07.820 african students because you know

01:17:09.460 what do they know you know they

01:17:10.440 haven't had the lived experience and

01:17:11.540 they basically are imposing a kind of

01:17:13.640 a western-centric understanding of

01:17:15.500 africa on students rather than maybe

01:17:17.700 a knowledgeable one i can't speak to

01:17:19.380 the i think that's the opposite of

01:17:21.020 the point no i don't know i don't

01:17:22.100 think it was i think the fact is that

01:17:23.780 there was an element of that in the

01:17:25.440 question right but obviously more

01:17:26.940 broadly than that she was talking

01:17:27.960 about the fact that there's a you

01:17:29.440 know a marxist um you know uh uh tone

01:17:33.760 to what some of the students uh

01:17:35.520 lecturers are teaching them so i think

01:17:37.400 so i'm just slightly worried about the

01:17:39.020 middle ground of what was being said

01:17:40.980 there i mean i don't think that the

01:17:43.240 teachers you know have to be russian or

01:17:47.260 from the soviet union to have an opinion

01:17:49.340 um on soviet history it's just that they

01:17:54.560 were kind of being insensitive i mean

01:17:56.600 it's like you just can't you just

01:17:59.940 can't ignore certain things that

01:18:01.360 happened in the soviet union you can't

01:18:03.100 just brush it away just because the

01:18:05.160 dominant historiography in the west is

01:18:07.100 that you know it was it was bad and we

01:18:08.920 just want to disagree with what the west

01:18:10.180 says because you know we're open stuff i

01:18:11.680 mean for example um i have a teacher a

01:18:16.180 professor who is very knowledgeable um

01:18:18.160 about the country my family's from and

01:18:20.840 you know and he's white and i don't

01:18:23.360 disagree like i don't think it's a bad

01:18:25.020 thing that he's knowledgeable about about

01:18:26.140 where i'm from because he's white i'm

01:18:28.000 just saying that you can't just you know

01:18:30.780 forget that some things happen in

01:18:32.860 history that are wrong basically well i

01:18:34.540 actually speak to this very point in the

01:18:36.380 book i don't know if you've you've read

01:18:38.280 it but i talk about in one of the

01:18:39.960 chapters why the soviet union was

01:18:41.480 brilliant i list all the reasons it was

01:18:44.320 genuinely brilliant free education free

01:18:47.160 health care uh free child care uh you

01:18:51.060 know very high standard of education on

01:18:53.600 the hard sciences uh equality for all uh

01:18:58.180 much less wealthy and income inequality

01:19:00.240 that we have in this country and as i say 0.96

01:19:01.800 in the book it's a pity you had to kill 0.96

01:19:03.260 50 million people to make it happen 0.74

01:19:04.680 um that's kind of the trade-offs right

01:19:07.700 uh and i think uh the point that you're

01:19:10.400 making is is very valid one which is

01:19:12.440 you've got people who are essentially

01:19:15.040 saying you should disregard a particular way

01:19:18.340 of looking at this issue because it's all

01:19:20.640 western which seems to me actually is the

01:19:22.600 exact opposite of the argument that's

01:19:24.620 just been made so i agree with you

01:19:26.100 completely what it is opposite that wasn't

01:19:27.620 the point i was picking up on i was

01:19:28.600 picking up on the point of her friend

01:19:30.080 yeah who was upset by what this

01:19:32.080 lecture was saying very minor point in

01:19:34.040 the entire equation so i'm not i'm not

01:19:36.300 going to go at you well what i'm saying

01:19:37.640 is i think i would also be quite upset i

01:19:40.760 mean i would i would demonstrate it

01:19:42.800 differently yeah because i'm a 0.98

01:19:44.200 contrarian asshole but if i was in a in 0.99

01:19:46.820 in that classroom i'd be going you have 1.00

01:19:48.880 no idea what you're talking about

01:19:50.120 this is what happened this is what my

01:19:51.900 family went through it's called fighting

01:19:53.080 back arguing the case exactly right

01:19:54.980 that's not wasn't the point i was

01:19:55.900 making you sir

01:19:56.960 um so the i think the biggest problem

01:20:01.960 that we're all facing and why a lot of

01:20:04.820 people like ours like the sleeping

01:20:06.880 giants are waking up is what's happened

01:20:10.060 and i'm old enough to remember since the

01:20:12.020 70s is this is this creep of post-modern

01:20:16.800 marxism in the uh elites and the

01:20:20.680 university you're triggering austin

01:20:21.920 here yeah yeah it's it's post-modern

01:20:25.660 marxism you can have a go well it's a

01:20:27.420 combination jordan peterson uh i made a

01:20:30.580 good point about it um and what's

01:20:34.380 happened is especially in the

01:20:36.060 humanities but it's now creeping into

01:20:37.820 apparently math now is also um white

01:20:42.140 supremacy um that's another thing um

01:20:45.640 look it up um and what's happened is

01:20:49.360 that all the people who are educated in

01:20:52.480 the humanities go into the media and go

01:20:55.200 into all these big corporations and into

01:20:58.240 government and it's it's an infection

01:21:01.560 that's runs deep you know all the most

01:21:04.600 powerful elites uh in society and all the

01:21:09.120 big organs of communication and the

01:21:12.840 difficulties we're having uh whether it's

01:21:15.680 paypal or facebook or twitter is is simply

01:21:19.920 because there is a there's a shouty elite

01:21:25.140 backed up by greta thunberg and others um who who get

01:21:31.060 the oxygen of publicity and the monopoly on the on the

01:21:34.900 public debate and so that's the big challenge

01:21:37.700 and what we really need is a proper alternative

01:21:41.800 marketplace which is your is what you're doing in your own way

01:21:46.740 it needs to get bigger there needs to be an alternative to paypal

01:21:51.460 but the problem is as someone has said these these guys are monopolies

01:21:56.440 they're not they're not capitalists at all

01:22:00.120 they are they are corporate monopolies they're anti-capitalists

01:22:04.180 you know capitalism is all about being able to get you know you vote with

01:22:08.380 your feet if you don't think this works uh move somewhere else and we need

01:22:12.800 we need a leakage where we can get out and challenge it

01:22:16.700 okay great thank you very much you madam and yourself yeah

01:22:19.920 i am i just um wanted to say i really liked your substack

01:22:24.900 article about how to destroy a progressive argument three steps to do it

01:22:30.740 um one you know where is the evidence two on what grounds i can't can't remember the other

01:22:38.520 these are not mine by the way i should say i don't want to take credit for thomas soul's work

01:22:42.840 who's uh yeah those are these are thomas soul's three questions

01:22:46.740 compared to what at what cost and what hard evidence do you have hard evidence yeah

01:22:51.980 and i especially liked your point in terms of how the one of the logics to progressive

01:22:59.760 ism you know abolishing prisons if you just presume everyone has a good nature

01:23:07.260 and people only commit crimes because they're failed by the system rather than just simply being bad

01:23:15.200 people and i guess i wanted to ask you know what are we seeing any dangers at the moment of the

01:23:26.460 excesses of progressivism beyond you know theoretical posturing in academia

01:23:32.900 well look look sorry to interrupt but it's a good really good question so first we'll talk about

01:23:39.540 thomas soul in a second because it's really important but if you look at what's happening in

01:23:43.560 places like california where we just came back from in terms of releasing criminals from prison

01:23:50.000 in terms of not arresting people if they're stealing stuff from a shop that's worth less than

01:23:54.820 900 if you're not arresting people who are sleeping on the street and you're not actually

01:23:59.620 giving them the support they need because most of them are drug addicts and have mental health

01:24:03.680 issues that they need treatment for um then yes you create a progressive hellhole that

01:24:09.440 productive people move out of as has happened with california so of course you see that um but the

01:24:16.020 really interesting philosophical point that you pick up on is i mean i don't know how many people

01:24:19.900 here are familiar with thomas soul the american economist and and many other things absolutely one

01:24:25.560 of my favorite thinkers and um he wrote many many very interesting books but one of them is called

01:24:30.920 the conflict of visions in which he talks about the two visions of the world that people have and

01:24:37.280 one of them is what he calls the constrained vision uh which is the idea that human beings are fallible

01:24:43.820 they are flawed they are imperfect and the very best way to understand how human beings are likely to

01:24:50.580 behave in the future is to look at their behavior in the past so if you look at human behavior in the

01:24:56.020 past you would not be surprised when russia invades ukraine because people have been going to war for the

01:25:01.400 entire time that human beings have existed um and in every other area you you accept that people will

01:25:08.260 commit acts of murder and heinous crimes and it's not because they've been quote-unquote failed by the

01:25:12.880 system but because society produces a certain number of people who will commit crimes if given the

01:25:17.880 opportunity and motive and whatever the unconstrained vision however is the vision of the ability to

01:25:26.160 perfect humankind uh the idea that that all the great revolutionaries whether it's the french

01:25:32.980 revolution or the russian revolution underpinned all of that which is we can transform humanity

01:25:38.060 we can make a new man homo sovieticus is what he was called in the soviet union who can be reprogrammed 0.98

01:25:44.220 away from crime away from having more allegiance to his family than to communism or whatever and it is

01:25:50.960 this ideology this progressive ideology that is at the root of a lot of things including the fact that

01:25:58.180 we didn't really plan how we would deal with russia in this sort of situation because what i'm saying

01:26:04.980 is i mean it's as old as time the romans knew this civius pacem parabellum if you want peace prepare for war

01:26:13.540 because war is always coming and it is only people who are strong who are able to resist and prevent

01:26:19.820 war by showing strength in advance of the war right so there are all sorts of areas where this

01:26:26.420 very optimistic but inaccurate way of thinking is damaging our societies internally but also

01:26:34.440 geopolitically and and it's a big problem final word sir so congratulations on the baby thank you and this

01:26:41.440 is a good segue to the question so what would be your advice to second generation immigrants suffering

01:26:46.320 from an identity crisis like me so for example i was born in this city but my face is from egypt

01:26:53.320 at school a small minority used to call me a terrorist fast forward three decades later i'm muhammad salah

01:27:00.300 so so this is i think it's a key question that there's a identity crisis especially if it's top down

01:27:07.160 it just seems to be we're destroying our values and if there's nothing that pulls us together then

01:27:13.700 what is your advice yeah it's a really good question actually a really good one uh to finish on i don't

01:27:20.720 know exactly what you mean because identity crisis is two words and what you are personally experiencing

01:27:26.960 i don't know uh i think uh in terms of you know being bullied at school and all that sort of thing

01:27:33.540 the the valuable thing that my parents always taught me and it's it's very uh bigoted and prejudiced but 0.97

01:27:39.040 they always said look there's a bell curve of iq in society some people are idiots and the people who 1.00

01:27:44.860 are being racist to you are probably idiots so you probably should just ignore them right yeah of course 1.00

01:27:49.280 right they're the one of the tales of the of the bell curve right um uh so that's what i would deal 1.00

01:27:56.700 with but in terms of your identity now i would say to you what do you believe do you believe in western

01:28:02.820 values do you believe in british values do you believe in democracy do you believe in freedom do

01:28:07.820 you believe in the right of people to speak their mind even if it offends you or others uh and if you do

01:28:14.140 then you are as british as anybody you've come to this country or your parents uh came to this country

01:28:19.780 and you grew up here uh you're as british as anybody make yourself british contribute to the

01:28:24.280 society i don't know what you do for a living or what you're going to do for a living but for me

01:28:28.720 you know when um brian asked me about what i'm most proud of like i said i'm most proud that i

01:28:34.980 contribute to this society that i've built something here that other people benefit from and if you do that

01:28:40.940 uh i don't think you need to have an identity crisis your face is not from egypt your face is

01:28:46.180 from wherever your face is you know your genetics are what they are doesn't make you anything other

01:28:52.040 than genetics people can live in different parts so you've got a point you want to make

01:28:55.660 yeah try not uphold the values that are in your book yeah but if it's all crumbling around me yeah

01:29:03.300 then there's nothing for me to hold on to i understand so then i'm just an egyptian yeah living in the

01:29:07.660 yeah yeah uh and this is the doomsday narrative that i've been talking about and my book is full

01:29:13.160 of warnings and predictions about things going wrong if we don't but i believe it's people like

01:29:18.700 you and it's people like me and it's like everybody else in this room that if we believe that these

01:29:24.740 things are worth defending and we actually defend them then they will not crumble that's why i wrote

01:29:29.280 the book and i think that's why you asked the question because you don't want these things to

01:29:33.000 crumble because you believe in them and i think you gotta lean in my friend you gotta go

01:29:37.020 this is what i believe i'm gonna stand up for it i'm gonna fight for it and if it crumbles it

01:29:41.980 crumbles but i've done my best i think that's the answer to your question i think that's a very good 0.62

01:29:46.460 point yeah shut up round of applause

01:29:50.940 uh very very finally i mean my two penalties that i mean don't have an identity crisis it's got nothing

01:30:01.140 to do with your identities to do with your what you believe what you think what your politics are and

01:30:05.700 is broader than your personal identity uh i'm welsh but i very rarely tell you that because

01:30:10.880 it's got nothing to do with anybody and it plays a very small part in my life uh i'm more interested

01:30:16.280 in democracy and uh and political ideas um that said um i also think that that the name progressive

01:30:23.080 which is where we started the conversation is such now an abused term because everybody who's

01:30:28.000 progressive and says that they are are the most reactionary twats you could ever come across right so

01:30:33.060 i think we need to either like i say reclaim some of these words or use them in a different

01:30:37.240 different formulation uh because i think we need to understand what progress means progress development

01:30:42.860 as you say about environmentalism it's about development not sustainable development it's about

01:30:47.160 really kind of humanity being put first so i think i'm a great believer in that but it also means

01:30:51.920 reclaiming the idea of marx uh because not not not because i'm trying to convince you be marxist

01:30:57.440 but i'm saying that there is an abuse of what i've heard today is just not what marxism is um but

01:31:03.300 on that note thank you all very much for coming very very generous of you to ask your questions

01:31:07.660 round of applause for thank you guys thank you

01:31:09.400 if you don't have it on the bookstall now

01:31:14.940 you

01:31:20.800 you

01:31:22.800 you

01:31:24.800 you

01:31:26.800 you

01:31:28.800 you

01:31:30.800 you

TRIGGERnometry - October 31, 2022

Konstantin Kisin Defends Book in Battle of Ideas Debate

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