TRIGGERnometry - Mania： How Societies Go Crazy - Lionel Shriver

00:00:00.720 The sequence of manias that I've seen during the last dozen years, the first and most dramatic in some ways was the sudden obsession with transgenderism, the Black Lives Matter thing, and then COVID was a mania, and Me Too was a mania. 0.55

00:00:19.460 What the big red flag on climate change is you couldn't differ. You throw them all together, they were demonstrations of our collective capacity to lose our minds.

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00:01:06.160 Lionel Shriver, welcome back to Trigonometry. We were just talking about the fact that it's been six years since you were last on the show.

00:01:12.940 I've been playing hard to get. 0.83

00:01:14.640 And we've been pretty useless. But actually, it's so wonderful to have you on. We were going to, truthfully, just going to talk to you about everything that's happening in the world.

00:01:24.260 Your opinions on things are always fascinating. But then we read your latest book, which came out last year.

00:01:30.460 And it was an amazing read for a number of reasons. So beautifully written, obviously, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:01:37.380 But actually, the thing we were reading in both of us with the same impression, which is, oh, this is a great satire of woke culture that's been going on this entire time.

00:01:46.340 It's a world in which, I hope I'm not giving too much away, but, you know, social justice reaches the point where you can't differentiate between people based on intelligence.

00:01:54.940 And so to criticize people for being incompetent in their job becomes a thing that's not done. 0.98

00:02:01.320 And people get fired for using the D word, the D word being dumb or the S word being stupid and so on. 0.99

00:02:06.660 And then you get to the logical conclusion of it in which the protagonist who speaks up against this is punished, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 0.98

00:02:14.580 But then you get through to the other side in which the whole thing flips and things start moving in the exact opposite direction.

00:02:23.440 And that's what I thought really separated it from everything that has been written about these movements in recent years. 0.82

00:02:31.180 How, it sounds like a sucking up question, and I'm happy to suck up in some ways. 0.71

00:02:35.200 How were you able to be so... 0.99

00:02:36.560 Oh, go ahead.

00:02:36.880 Yes, yeah, exactly.

00:02:37.780 I'm going to show you mine.

00:02:38.780 How have you been able to be so prophetic about what's happened and what's happening now?

00:02:45.580 Well, the reason the book is titled Mania is that I wanted to look at the larger phenomenon of social hysteria,

00:02:54.220 the way that a whole culture has suddenly become consumed with an idea or a practice.

00:03:01.620 And it doesn't seem to take any time at all.

00:03:04.560 And in fact, it seems to take less and less time now, obviously, because we have the technology to communicate ideas more quickly than ever.

00:03:12.540 And I find this terrifying.

00:03:15.200 You know, ideas are powerful things and can contort a culture almost overnight.

00:03:24.400 I'm hesitant to resort to World War II as the tridest possible example, but it's obvious. 0.99

00:03:33.080 And what inspired me to write the book was this sequence of manias that I've seen during the last dozen years.

00:03:43.160 The first and most dramatic, in some ways, was the sudden obsession with transgenderism.

00:03:50.980 And it seemed to just come out of nowhere.

00:03:53.500 Once you do a little reading up, it didn't actually come out of nowhere.

00:03:57.680 There is a background.

00:03:58.540 And I think that's the case with a lot of these things, that it takes a little while and it's on a very low level and a few people and then suddenly just...

00:04:06.680 But what was most striking about that particular mania was that it came with the instruction on the box that you may not criticize it in any way or your career is over.

00:04:22.100 And indeed, that was a self-fulfilling warning.

00:04:29.600 And there was a good three years after this suddenly occupied a large proportion of our television schedule, all these little boys in dresses, that I kept my mouth shut. 0.70

00:04:48.560 So, I talked to my husband behind closed doors about how weird this is and where is this coming from and why is this the new test of your liberality.

00:05:03.680 But I did not write anything about it.

00:05:06.340 And that's not like me because I found it disturbing.

00:05:11.340 But I wasn't going to take my career in my hands.

00:05:16.860 So...

00:05:17.340 You were afraid of getting canceled.

00:05:18.880 I was.

00:05:19.600 And that sobers me.

00:05:22.000 Wow.

00:05:22.700 Sobers me too. 1.00

00:05:23.820 Because, you know, I have a reputation for being outspoken, even idiotically so. 0.83

00:05:31.180 And yet, I was so aware of it being a dangerous subject that I just steered clear of it.

00:05:39.860 And finally, in 2016, which I have in my meager defense, that was early.

00:05:46.980 Agreed.

00:05:47.460 I did an essay for Prospect magazine that was submitting my sense of myself, especially just alone in the room, is not especially female.

00:06:00.000 That is fundamentally androgynous.

00:06:01.840 And I think that a lot of people feel this way, whether they express that to themselves or not.

00:06:06.080 And a lot of women especially came to me afterwards and said that's exactly the way they feel.

00:06:12.140 I think the experience of sex is usually a social one, but not in private.

00:06:17.520 It's about the experience of being and whether the fundamental experience of being has a sex, and I don't think so.

00:06:28.620 And I also observed that the concepts of male and female are in the whole gender ideology.

00:06:41.300 It's based on crude stereotypes.

00:06:45.380 And even at that time, that was a very dangerous essay to write, and I'm impressed I got away with it.

00:06:51.800 But that was the beginning of this long string of manias, the Black Lives Matter thing. 0.98

00:07:02.920 Boy, that blew up overnight.

00:07:05.560 It became an international sensation.

00:07:09.780 Within about two days of George Floyd being killed.

00:07:13.840 And you even had, you know, people trooping around in South Korea, and they don't have any black people.

00:07:26.420 It was just like.

00:07:28.640 And then COVID was a mania.

00:07:32.660 COVID spawned little sub-manias about the vaccine and the mask mandate.

00:07:39.740 And, you know, we never used to lock people in their homes, basically.

00:07:43.840 Whenever we had a contagious disease around.

00:07:46.720 And then suddenly that's the new thing, and that's what the entire world does.

00:07:52.880 And Me Too was a mania.

00:07:57.160 Started out reasonably sensible.

00:08:02.280 There were some men who were getting away with murder.

00:08:06.840 Rapidly turned into an indiscriminate and vicious movement.

00:08:11.840 Where people, which people used to wreak revenge or make themselves more important.

00:08:21.300 You know, have their 15 minutes in the sun.

00:08:24.360 Every woman needed to have some kind of story of terrible sexual abuse to be a part of the conversation. 1.00

00:08:32.600 You know, that one depressed me, too.

00:08:34.360 They all depressed me.

00:08:35.660 But they were most of all, as a whole, you throw them all together.

00:08:44.200 They were demonstrations of our collective capacity to lose our minds.

00:08:51.760 And that's what I wanted to write about.

00:08:54.240 And it does not have a political character.

00:08:58.780 It's not a problem of the left or right.

00:09:01.840 It is a problem of the species.

00:09:04.900 Why do you say that?

00:09:06.160 Because all the ones you listed would, I think, be considered left-wing manias by most people.

00:09:12.200 Yes.

00:09:12.640 So what's the evidence for that?

00:09:13.680 Actually, there's nothing about the COVID thing that is necessarily left-wing.

00:09:17.600 Yeah.

00:09:18.300 It became that.

00:09:19.180 It became that.

00:09:19.840 Because we were already used to separating along those lines.

00:09:26.460 That it was always going to end up being owned by the left or right because everything is.

00:09:33.180 It still is.

00:09:35.360 And is there a mania now that's happening?

00:09:38.580 Climate change.

00:09:39.940 I actually think climate change is on the ebb.

00:09:42.260 But, yeah, the giveaway with climate change, I mean, I'm not going to get into the ins and outs of the science, but it's anything but settled.

00:09:57.100 The big red flag on climate change is you couldn't differ, right?

00:10:03.440 You couldn't say a discouraging word.

00:10:06.340 That will get you canceled.

00:10:08.160 And if a political perspective does not admit any kind of criticism or debate, then it is not any longer a political perspective.

00:10:21.380 It is a social hysteria.

00:10:25.440 It is a mania.

00:10:27.600 It's such a great point because in your book, your character talks about not understanding how the Holocaust happened, 0.89

00:10:34.600 and not understanding how the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge happened and all of these great atrocities.

00:10:40.120 But having seen what's happening with the mania in the book, which is about IQ and discrimination against people who have low cognitive ability,

00:10:50.640 suddenly she understands how people, how these events happen.

00:10:55.260 Yes.

00:10:55.560 And that was my experience of COVID, watching a democratic country, or not just this one, but we shouldn't pick on the UK.

00:11:10.460 It was virtually every democratic country in the West, just to turn on its principles completely,

00:11:20.040 renege on all civil rights, and the way everyone just got with the program because they were frightened.

00:11:33.480 That really took me aback.

00:11:35.760 I will never feel about our system of government the same again because it is obviously so fragile and so easy to just say,

00:11:46.300 well, that doesn't apply anymore.

00:11:47.360 And what was chilling for me was how easy people turned on their neighbors, their friends, their families,

00:11:56.280 with this self-righteous fury that I was, it was, it seemed religious to me at the time, and it still does.

00:12:04.080 Yes, and it, you know, it hit on all the, the, what religions are concerned with,

00:12:09.740 and issues of purity and contamination and self-sacrifice and, and in a rational discussion of the real dangers of the disease,

00:12:25.020 which were known pretty early on, that just went out the window.

00:12:30.240 And people, people were hysterical, and it was very disappointing.

00:12:37.300 I was, I was a little proud of the United States in this instance because at least the U.S. did spawn a few pockets of resistance.

00:12:49.900 I wouldn't say the entire country said, no, we're not going to do this.

00:12:54.420 We still believe in the Bill of Rights, and we think that we should give people the information they need to protect themselves

00:13:03.940 and then otherwise let people get on with their lives.

00:13:08.620 No, of course not.

00:13:10.180 Most of the United States did the same as everywhere.

00:13:13.080 But, you know, Florida was pretty relaxed about it.

00:13:19.980 They had, they didn't have any worse mortality stats as a consequence.

00:13:26.620 And I think it was South Dakota was also pretty cool.

00:13:33.420 So, and, and, and there were a few protests.

00:13:37.240 In, in, in the U.K., there were very few protests.

00:13:40.940 I attended one of them.

00:13:42.220 There was about 70 people.

00:13:43.200 Good for you.

00:13:43.680 Yeah.

00:13:44.480 And they were never, they never got any coverage.

00:13:47.540 Pretty much.

00:13:48.700 What's interesting is just a linguistic point there is when you were looking for the right word to describe Florida's approach,

00:13:56.160 the, the word that came to my mind when you were saying they, Florida was pretty, I, I nearly jumped in with liberal.

00:14:02.520 Mm-hmm.

00:14:03.420 Yeah, that's, that word's gone funny.

00:14:06.600 Hasn't it?

00:14:07.220 Hasn't it?

00:14:07.720 It's, it's all, it's become meaningless because it usually means illiberal.

00:14:13.980 And that's when you know you have to throw a word away.

00:14:16.360 Mm-hmm.

00:14:16.760 So, I think you mentioned language and it's one of the things that I had a lot of fun with with this book.

00:14:25.680 Mm-hmm. 0.96

00:14:25.940 Uh, because once I started, uh, making lists, I discovered how much of our language is contaminated by, um, words that mean stupid or smart. 1.00

00:14:40.540 Mm-hmm. 0.99

00:14:40.920 For example, no more smart phones.

00:14:43.680 Yeah.

00:14:44.000 Yeah.

00:14:45.600 It's my, my, um, my protagonist joke.

00:14:48.100 So, what do we call them now?

00:14:49.660 Mediocrity phones.

00:14:50.740 Yes, yes, yes. 0.99

00:14:51.560 Um, and that, that was a lot of the, the playful side of that book is, is, you know, you, you, okay, you can't use the word dumb anymore, but can you have a dumb waiter? 0.99

00:15:04.980 No, you cannot. 0.99

00:15:06.460 Mm-hmm.

00:15:07.420 A waiter might take exception.

00:15:09.320 Mm-hmm. 1.00

00:15:09.500 Can you have a dumb president, uh, more instantly in terms of- 0.99

00:15:11.800 Oh, we're not going to get into that. 0.97

00:15:14.400 Um, but sticking with this, the one thing I wanted to slightly push you on further is, uh, you said something that I think to many people, particularly people who, who are kind of somewhere in the center, as I feel we are, um, something that instinctively sounds true that what you said, which is manias aren't a political thing.

00:15:33.820 They're a human thing.

00:15:35.020 Um, but then you gave a bunch of examples of manias that are exclusively left-wing.

00:15:39.900 And if I were on the right, I would say, well, look, you're claiming that the right is equally culpable of this, but you're only giving me examples of left-wing.

00:15:48.240 So is it that the left is, uh, it's not a human thing.

00:15:51.380 It's a left-wing thing to engage in these crazy manias.

00:15:53.340 Um, well, I just have to observe that the, um, it's been the left that has been generating, uh, social manias recently.

00:16:03.300 And you're right, that doesn't illustrate my thesis, but then that's one of the reasons that I made up my own mania.

00:16:10.720 And I had control over it.

00:16:12.740 Um, and in fact, I've deliberately put it in, in alternative 2011 before any of the things that I just listed out had happened yet.

00:16:22.640 So I got it behind them and let, uh, the, uh, mental parity movement, um, take over and none of this stuff happens.

00:16:36.320 And in fact, one of the things that never happens is, uh, the marriage equality movement.

00:16:41.140 The, um, there's no gay marriage because my mania takes over and just, uh, all these other things don't happen.

00:16:52.640 Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.

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00:18:41.340 The reason I'm digging deeper on this, I guess, is certainly in America, the right is now in power,

00:18:50.660 are quite happy to use that power.

00:18:52.220 Which has its own manic side.

00:18:54.900 Such as?

00:18:55.500 Well, there's even in the texture of the Trump administration this time around a literally manic feeling of not being able to get enough executive orders out the door.

00:19:16.260 They seem a little crazed.

00:19:21.260 Maybe I give the New York Times too much of my time and attention.

00:19:28.080 But that's certainly what the impression that the legacy media is generally promoting is that these people are in some kind of weird frenzy.

00:19:41.520 They're in a hurry, people.

00:19:43.020 A more steel man version of the argument is they feel like they've got four years.

00:19:47.160 Yes, but they don't.

00:19:49.060 They don't have four years.

00:19:50.460 Right.

00:19:51.020 Right.

00:19:51.480 They're likely to lose the House.

00:19:53.100 Even if they keep the Senate, then they can't pass any significant legislation.

00:20:00.640 And even the majority in the House is slender.

00:20:05.540 Yeah, there's a reason they're in a hurry.

00:20:09.680 They're not going to be in real power for very long.

00:20:13.080 One of the characters that I found really interesting in the book was the character of Emery, who is more intelligent than the protagonist.

00:20:21.660 More talented.

00:20:22.640 More beautiful.

00:20:23.700 More charismatic.

00:20:25.080 A better communicator.

00:20:26.860 And at the same time, utterly cynical.

00:20:29.480 And that, to me, reflects a lot of the people who end up quite influential in these types of manias in that you look at them and you think, do you actually believe what you're saying or is this just careerism for you?

00:20:46.840 Yeah.

00:20:48.600 And those people are common as dirt.

00:20:52.740 In fact, the people who go for the mental parity movement in the book are the people you'd think would be the last sort to sign on because it's the intellectual class and they have the most to lose.

00:21:10.140 But they immediately know which side of their bread is going to be buttered, so they better get on board.

00:21:18.760 And so they're some of the earliest adopters.

00:21:23.880 And that's – I think that's also commonplace.

00:21:29.000 And so the people – the people who are well-educated and you would think would be the last to be susceptible to something that's basically crazy are some of the first people.

00:21:44.960 They're some of the early adopters.

00:21:46.600 Because the more intelligent you are, the more able you are to make an argument, the more able you are to convince yourself of your own, shall we just say, retarded argument. 1.00

00:21:58.820 Yes. 0.87

00:21:59.460 You know, I have to say, I have been so happy to see that word resurrected.

00:22:04.100 As have we all.

00:22:05.560 I have so missed it.

00:22:07.480 It's been at least 20 years, if not 30.

00:22:10.400 I don't know what decree came down that made it – that gave us permission again, but yes.

00:22:20.280 But I'm glad you brought up Emory because this book is sometimes misunderstood as purely a political satire, and it's certainly a political satire.

00:22:30.540 But it's also about a friendship, and the friendship part is sincere.

00:22:37.300 It is – and I wanted to write about a friendship that was progressively under strain from not just – not exactly political opinions, but different approaches to the circumstance.

00:22:53.380 You either go with it or you fight it.

00:22:57.580 So my protagonist thinks that saying there is no such thing as variable human intelligence is retarded.

00:23:07.560 And Emory is an opportunist, and she's always had ambitions to be a media commentator. 0.95

00:23:18.120 She's stuck in a kind of under-listened-to, stupid little afternoon radio show, and she wants to be on TV, like everyone. 0.91

00:23:30.940 And so this is her opening, if she really goes with this. 0.98

00:23:39.260 And eventually the relationship blows up.

00:23:43.640 That attracted me partly because I hadn't written that much about friendship, and I think it's an interesting relationship to explore in fiction.

00:23:52.000 I think underexplored.

00:23:53.100 But also because I've lost friends during this period, not scads of them, but enough to be really concerned that this is happening to a lot of people.

00:24:11.040 That – and I have to say here, it is usually during these manias.

00:24:19.500 It has been the friend who's further to the left, who usually flounces out in a huff.

00:24:29.840 I mean, most of my friends are to the left of me.

00:24:34.820 You know, the nature of London and New York, and that's kind of inevitable.

00:24:40.900 And they put up with me.

00:24:42.460 Most of them put up with me.

00:24:43.600 But it's very painful to have a friendship that, you know, you've nurtured for years, and suddenly, you know, you have cooties.

00:25:01.800 You know, it's like, get away from me.

00:25:03.720 And there's – in one instance in particular, I suspected that it wasn't just that this person was disturbed by my political positions, but that she didn't want to be associated with me.

00:25:23.000 It was bad for her career, bad for her reputation.

00:25:28.400 And I think that goes on also.

00:25:30.220 And what the book describes so beautifully is how these particular manias, when they start out, you can keep them at bay.

00:25:40.140 They're only in the professional world.

00:25:42.520 That's, you know, you just have to go in.

00:25:44.200 You have to present a facet of yourself, a professional side, shall we say.

00:25:48.100 And, you know, that's what happens in every job.

00:25:50.680 What's wrong with that?

00:25:51.900 But slowly but surely, it starts to encroach into the personal space.

00:25:56.860 Yes.

00:25:57.120 And then you have no choice but to pick a side.

00:26:01.900 And that is – that's what's so insidious about these manias, is they don't just affect the professional.

00:26:07.480 They affect everything about our existence.

00:26:10.220 Yeah.

00:26:10.840 I mean, if you think about how difficult it has become to talk about anything to do with race,

00:26:18.320 and that includes your closest friends, that it's – especially during the pitch of the Black Lives Matter thing.

00:26:30.820 You really had to – you really had to wash the mouth because almost anything could be misinterpreted and willfully and maliciously so.

00:26:38.740 So – but you gradually couldn't trust even people close to you to get a joke, you know, to realize that you were just tossing something off.

00:26:53.580 You couldn't relax.

00:26:54.860 You couldn't relax talking.

00:26:56.600 And one of the interesting things about the book is that the protagonist, the heroine of the book, is not – in terms of IQ, I think it's in the book she's got an IQ of 107, it turns out, at the end.

00:27:10.360 So she's not someone who's particularly bright academically.

00:27:15.080 But what you explore really interestingly is a lot of this is about temperament.

00:27:20.480 There are people who are very bright, very sharp, but they don't have the temperament of somebody who is unwilling to go with it. 1.00

00:27:30.620 There are people who just temperamentally can't stand bullshit, and then eventually they take so much, and then they go, fuck it, I can't. 1.00

00:27:38.840 Yeah. 1.00

00:27:39.160 And I saw myself a lot, actually, in the protagonist.

00:27:44.300 So you take and you take and you take and you go, I can't do this anymore.

00:27:48.260 A man can't be a woman. 1.00

00:27:49.640 Can we just – can we stop?

00:27:52.660 You know, not every white person is a white supremacist. 0.95

00:27:56.300 Can we stop with the nonsense?

00:27:58.820 But there are some people who are able to deal with it or accept it far better, shall we just say.

00:28:03.360 And are they wrong?

00:28:04.000 This is the question I want to ask you, because if you look at the last 10 years, there's mania after mania after mania, as you've described.

00:28:13.140 And if you took the position that trans women couldn't actually be women, you'd be fired from your job like my for-starter.

00:28:20.520 That's right.

00:28:21.260 Until the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom had to rule that actually biology is real, right?

00:28:27.320 But if you were, I don't know, someone else working at the desk next to Maya at the job that you used to have, and you didn't engage in any of these manias, and you didn't say anything, and you just kept your mouth shut, and you got on with the job, and you paid the mortgage, and you raised the kids.

00:28:44.920 Fast forward to X number of years later, problem solved.

00:28:50.400 What's wrong with that?

00:28:51.300 There's something to be said for the agnostic route.

00:28:56.360 It's not a dramatic route, so it's underexplored in the book, but there is one character who represents that, and that's the...

00:29:06.460 The partner.

00:29:07.220 The partner.

00:29:07.820 Wait.

00:29:09.560 Yeah, he's a tree surgeon.

00:29:11.260 Right.

00:29:11.500 So, I mean, I couldn't think of anything more apolitical, because it doesn't even involve language.

00:29:19.080 He spends all day not talking to anybody.

00:29:23.160 But even there...

00:29:25.000 Well, he gets hurt.

00:29:25.960 He gets hurt.

00:29:27.280 Right.

00:29:27.760 But there are a lot of people who will say...

00:29:29.260 Because he's forced to employ somebody who's incompetent.

00:29:31.820 Oh, he gets hurt physically, and then he gets hurt because he's married to someone who isn't willing to be like him.

00:29:37.320 He gets hurt on several levels.

00:29:38.540 Yes.

00:29:38.780 But what I'm saying is, you know, is it really the case that everyone has to take a position when, if you look objectively, these manias blow over after a couple of years?

00:29:49.660 Because a few people say something about it.

00:29:51.640 A few people fight for it.

00:29:54.240 Aren't you better just keeping your head down, Lionel?

00:29:56.660 There's something to be said for it.

00:29:58.280 I agree.

00:29:58.800 And I'd also say, the people who stick their necks out on this stuff and put up resistance.

00:30:07.980 I mean, I wrote my first anti-lockdown column the third week of March in 2020.

00:30:15.440 I don't think I've benefited from that.

00:30:17.520 In fact, as usual, the truth is, being ahead of your time never profits.

00:30:27.960 No.

00:30:28.440 Never.

00:30:28.760 And the people who have been punished during this era are going to stay punished, or eventually they'll emerge.

00:30:40.060 But the injury will be real and lasting.

00:30:43.780 I mean, I've been astonished that David Starkey, for example, has been able to raise himself from the dead.

00:30:50.860 But he still suffered real damage, permanent damage to his life, and over a single word, which is shocking.

00:31:03.860 But I don't think, in terms of your self-interest, it is wise to resist.

00:31:15.220 I admire it.

00:31:16.620 But I'm like you, I think you can tell, I don't have a lot of patience with irrationality.

00:31:28.020 There's something missing in me in terms of getting easily infected by other people's obsessions.

00:31:39.000 It's just like, it just doesn't happen.

00:31:42.120 Something just doesn't happen.

00:31:43.420 It's like carrying a kind of medical immunity.

00:31:46.620 But it is not in your interest to indulge that immunity socially and professionally.

00:31:59.120 You will only suffer.

00:32:00.880 I think that the conformist gene is actually in your interest.

00:32:06.880 Other than?

00:32:08.080 Even on an evolutionary level.

00:32:10.320 Yes.

00:32:11.100 Other than it's the free rider problem, which is you can only do that as long as someone says something sufficiently so that the thing you actually don't want to happen stops happening.

00:32:20.780 If no one wrote an anti-lockdown column ever, we might still be in lockdown.

00:32:25.820 Right?

00:32:26.000 And so, this is, I guess, the opposite side of the argument I made earlier, which is someone does have to say something.

00:32:34.780 Mm-hmm.

00:32:35.360 Yes.

00:32:35.700 And I guess what, you know, Francis and I, I think, are both very stubborn about things like that.

00:32:40.180 And the reason for me is that you said it's being ahead of your time.

00:32:44.000 I don't think it's about time.

00:32:45.280 It's being ahead of the mob, ahead of the crowd.

00:32:47.880 Yes.

00:32:48.040 It's getting it before most people get it is what tends to get you in hot water, right?

00:32:54.480 And I guess the question is, how does one process those decisions?

00:33:00.560 Or do you think it's ultimately, it's like you're wired this way, so you're going to say the thing that you're going to say?

00:33:04.260 I think, I think Francis is right.

00:33:06.120 It's a matter of temperament.

00:33:07.700 Right.

00:33:07.880 And it's, it's not entirely in our control.

00:33:11.800 And there are people who are, to give them, to give them the benefit of the doubt, are naturally self-protective enough to keep their heads down and or, or to mouth whatever it is you're supposed to be mouthing now.

00:33:34.080 And they just, and, and they get through.

00:33:36.500 That is their nature.

00:33:39.460 That's not our nature.

00:33:41.620 I don't think it's your nature either.

00:33:43.980 I think that's fair to say, Lionel.

00:33:45.340 I think it's fair to say.

00:33:46.240 I have a lot of scars to show up for it.

00:33:47.680 Yes.

00:33:47.980 Yeah, yeah.

00:33:48.800 And, you know, I know what kind of people I like to hang out with.

00:33:52.380 Yeah.

00:33:53.020 You know, and, and the best part of this period, you know, we all hate the word woke and we all end up having to use it.

00:34:01.320 So, um, the whole, the best thing about the woke thing has been that a variety of individuals have distinguished themselves and, and have put their reputations at risk.

00:34:15.160 Uh, and, um, have been willing to stake out lonely positions, um, just for the sake of staking out a, a, a, a position that they believe in, not necessarily to benefit from it.

00:34:32.340 And little by little, I mean, this is where a lot of podcasting has come from.

00:34:37.560 It is, it has been people providing a forum for dissenters.

00:34:44.060 The, the, the, the people who are mouthing the latest whatever, they don't need a forum.

00:34:51.760 The whole world is there for them.

00:34:53.580 So podcasts is, have, have been a way for people like me or, or Helen Joyce, for example, um, with the transgender thing.

00:35:07.540 Uh, and I was just telling you, I really enjoyed your Maya Horstetter interview.

00:35:12.300 She was great.

00:35:13.060 Uh, it's been a very important form to make sure that in a, an ideological monoculture, other voices can be heard.

00:35:26.740 And, and I've, you know, I found it, this is the glass half full version.

00:35:32.680 Uh, I found it very encouraging that there are people out there who are not conformists, who, who are still capable of independent thought.

00:35:44.560 And, um, and little by little, I think we found each other.

00:35:49.200 We're not all best friends or something, but there is a loose, dare I say, community, another word I hate, um, of, of people who they're just temperamentally ornery and can't be manipulated.

00:36:10.200 Yeah. And again, going back to the book, I find it interesting that your character is somebody who is just in terms of IQ very regular because it does, it is a temperament thing.

00:36:24.100 I think a lot of people like to think it's an intellectual thing and, you know, they were so much smarter than everybody else.

00:36:30.000 And I don't think it is.

00:36:31.980 I think you're right.

00:36:32.780 I think it's just that person and you, you, you can see them, you can see them because frequently in their jobs, they're the ones who get fired because they, that's me, uh, because they physically can't stop themselves from going, no, no, it's, it's just bollocks.

00:36:49.040 That's just bollocks.

00:36:50.120 And everybody else swallows it, but for whatever reason, you have this kind of gag reflex where you can't swallow it.

00:36:56.960 Yeah. The intellectuals can talk themselves into anything. Uh, and there's something about the academic world, uh, that not only does it foster mediocrity, but, uh, it has a, it has a group think sense in a way.

00:37:14.460 I, I, I find that surprising. It's not what universities are supposed to be like, but it's certainly what, what they've become.

00:37:21.240 And I, but also as well, what we've currently seen in the present climate is an overcorrection, just like there was an overcorrection in the book where suddenly people were fetishizing IQ.

00:37:33.900 It was the most important thing. You couldn't vote unless you had a certain level of IQ. You had, there were mandatory IQ tests. It became the most important thing.

00:37:42.880 Your IQ is on your credit card.

00:37:44.620 Yeah. But we all know that the ability to regulate your finances is, it's got nothing. It's about discipline. It's not necessarily to do with IQ, but just as we've seen an overcorrection in the book, we've now seen, starting to see, particularly with the Trump administration, an overcorrection in, in culture and politics and society.

00:38:08.160 Yes. And my biggest worry is that the overcorrection will be clumsy enough that we boomerang back to what we were doing before. You know, the progressive Democrats.

00:38:18.460 The progressives say this is, they're doing all the things we told you they would do because they actually are Nazis and then you need us.

00:38:25.460 Yes. 0.98

00:38:25.900 Now chop your bollocks off or whatever is that follows from that. 0.98

00:38:29.260 Yeah. I don't have that sense that the overcorrection means that we naturally swing back gently to the middle. 0.94

00:38:40.620 But I guess the question is, again, what do you see as that overcorrection? Because I think like when Francis talks about it, again, it's something that sounds reasonable, but what does one point to to say that overcorrection is happening?

00:38:59.260 I mean, I don't know. I mean, I've got an event tonight with a spectator about Trump. I have no idea what I'm going to say.

00:39:08.580 But it is a problem for people like me because I wish him well. I don't like him personally. I've never been a big Trump supporter, but I would like that correction to take place.

00:39:26.700 I don't want the overcorrection. And I hate seeing the way he gives the opposition fodder for, you know, yes, he's an authoritarian.

00:39:39.120 You know, he's talking about a third term, which is unconstitutional.

00:39:44.460 I think he does this to a degree tauntingly. You know, some of it's on purpose.

00:39:49.160 Some of it's temperament. It's just his nature. He's a scorpion.

00:39:58.180 But if he just had some discipline, some self-control, he could bring about some very useful change.

00:40:10.320 But in being too aggressive and not obeying some of the rules, he may just self-destruct.

00:40:20.120 And then we're stuck with these Democrats again.

00:40:28.080 Look at your face as you say that. I guess the question I'm also curious to get your thoughts on is there has been a big debate about, you know, for years now, part of the way the manias of the left have been enforced is to say, well, all the scientists agree that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:40:47.740 All the scientists agree that the vaccine is this.

00:40:50.360 All the scientists agree that climate change is that.

00:40:52.520 All the experts agree that this, this and that.

00:40:55.540 All the people agree, all the professionals agree that this is Russian disinformation, which was completely fraudulent.

00:41:02.700 Those of us who saw through it clearly thought that this was wrong for them to do that.

00:41:08.660 And in the process, what they would do is undermine institutions and organizations and the credibility of things that actually was very important to run a cohesive society.

00:41:18.300 And now we are through the looking glass on that.

00:41:21.520 And now increasingly the sense that expertise exists at all is entirely in question for some people.

00:41:29.580 And so I don't know if you caught the debate between Douglas Murray and Dave Smith, for example, but there's been a lot of talk in the context of that.

00:41:36.960 And I don't want to get into that specifically, but I guess what I feel is happening is in the podcasting world, which was so important for giving the opportunity to dissent on a different voice.

00:41:49.840 Because we've become, I feel, my view is slightly edging towards the idea that dissent equals truth, that someone who disagrees is by the very nature of things right about things, as opposed to a perspective that ought to be considered.

00:42:06.240 And if it's wrong, to be rejected.

00:42:08.800 Do you see any of what I'm talking about?

00:42:11.180 Sure I do.

00:42:11.720 I haven't seen the Joe Rogan podcast yet, but I'm familiar with the parameters and the criticism of Douglas Murray in that case hinged on credentialism, which is similar to the issue of expertise and if there's such a thing.

00:42:37.280 Based, by the way, on that criticism, you don't need to see the podcast to comment on it, so please go ahead.

00:42:41.720 Not knowing what I'm talking about never stopped me.

00:42:51.400 We certainly don't want to get into a world where we don't believe any experts.

00:42:58.420 That, all the scientists agree, everyone agrees, the experts agree.

00:43:06.060 That number was, has been and probably still is being enforced because we all agree that the Trump administration is imploding, for example.

00:43:19.060 Everyone agrees.

00:43:19.920 Do they?

00:43:23.320 Or were you being satirical?

00:43:24.780 I'm super confused at this point.

00:43:26.880 I don't know.

00:43:27.420 No, it's another everyone agrees thing that the left is trying to put over.

00:43:31.360 You've been reading a lot of the mainstream media, I think.

00:43:33.080 Yeah.

00:43:33.340 Yeah.

00:43:33.520 I get it.

00:43:34.180 Yeah, yeah.

00:43:34.500 Yeah.

00:43:34.800 I see a lot of people who don't agree.

00:43:37.080 Yeah.

00:43:37.400 No, that's the New York Times version of events.

00:43:40.060 Yes.

00:43:40.360 Okay.

00:43:40.540 And, but if we go to climate change, for example, the, all, you know, 99% of, I don't remember what number they use, it's usually around there, of the scientists agree that it's all caused by human activity, et cetera, et cetera, the whole paradigm.

00:43:59.240 They can get away with this because they are actively censoring anyone who disagrees, and therefore all the descending voices are silenced.

00:44:14.080 And then it sounds, it seems as, you know, the legacy media all says the same thing, and therefore you do give this impression that all the experts agree.

00:44:25.100 It's not true.

00:44:25.800 And there are plenty of scientists out there who have either a completely different version of what's going on or, or a more moderate one, you know, a more complicated one, a more nuanced one, a less hysterical one.

00:44:39.480 But they do not get grants in universities.

00:44:45.260 They do not sponsor successful NGOs.

00:44:50.440 And they do not get into newspaper op-eds.

00:44:55.260 They do not get in scientific journals.

00:44:59.780 A lot of the media that promotes the voices of expertise has been captured, and therefore they speak with one voice.

00:45:13.000 And that does totally contaminate the whole notion of expertise.

00:45:17.540 But I don't, you know, I totally agree that just because you are being contrary doesn't make you right.

00:45:26.460 And what we want is a fluid and open system that sponsors voices on multiple sides of an important issue.

00:45:40.740 And since we're talking about the left-wing media is they are displaying a real insecurity about their positions because not permitting debate, saying, oh, you're a climate denier, you know.

00:45:56.260 And that suggests you're insecure about your position because if you are secure, then it should speak for itself.

00:46:05.000 And you're not afraid of your observations being refuted because you have confidence in them.

00:46:10.440 But here's the difficulty, Lionel, and this is, I think, why this conversation is being had the way that it is, which is 99% of scientists also agree that this table is made of wood and gravity is real.

00:46:23.420 And unless we're all prepared to spend the rest of our lives working out for ourselves, whether gravity is real or not, whether walls.

00:46:32.820 By jumping off buildings, for example.

00:46:34.980 Correct.

00:46:35.520 Yeah.

00:46:36.020 Among other things.

00:46:37.320 Among other things.

00:46:38.220 Then this idea that we simply need to debate everything endlessly and simply listen to podcasters opine about these things, podcasters like us.

00:46:52.660 I include ourselves in it.

00:46:53.600 I'm trying to work this out.

00:46:54.580 I don't feel I have a conclusion on this.

00:46:56.200 What I'm trying to feel for is how do we differentiate between the areas in which credentialism and expertise is and has been misused and areas where we can say, you know what?

00:47:07.320 Actually, 99% of scientists do agree gravity is real.

00:47:10.320 My observations seem to confirm that.

00:47:12.400 Let's move on and not waste three hours on a podcast talking about this.

00:47:18.100 Right.

00:47:18.360 Well, there's no substitute for thinking for yourself, right?

00:47:21.280 And making individual judgments.

00:47:22.600 You have to make those individual judgments all the time deciding who to have on this podcast.

00:47:31.200 Who's worth the time?

00:47:33.500 Who's going to be interesting?

00:47:35.660 Who's going to be persuasive?

00:47:37.320 Sorry to interrupt.

00:47:40.820 I'm very sorry to interrupt.

00:47:41.900 But what if the metrics by which these things are adjudicated internally are not the metrics of truth-seeking?

00:47:51.100 What if the metrics are, as they often are in the mainstream media, numbers, clicks?

00:47:56.540 What if the peculiarities of the individual person who's in charge of that podcast whose interest may not be the pursuit of truth but may be entertainment?

00:48:06.320 Those are not the same thing.

00:48:07.380 How do we – if we – if we, the podcast space is largely replacing the mainstream media as people keep saying we are, how does that all get – can this be the space where truth is pursued?

00:48:25.340 If the incentive –

00:48:26.840 Among other things.

00:48:28.100 Yeah.

00:48:28.520 Sure.

00:48:28.880 Among other things.

00:48:29.340 I mean, when I'm deciding whether to watch a podcast, there's a certain kind of podcast that I can watch a couple minutes of and it makes me feel a little guilty because what this person is saying, it seems true, you know?

00:48:49.520 Well, and maybe even enlightening, maybe it's about something that I could stand to be better informed about, but this person is boring and I don't want to watch it.

00:49:01.540 So, I mean, that's part of the format.

00:49:06.080 It's one of the requirements of the format that it be entertaining and that has very little necessarily to do with truth.

00:49:11.640 And I admire you guys for seeking out people who have something to contribute that does seem true, but there's also the requirement that it be stimulating in some way or amusing or, you know, somehow engaging beyond the actual information.

00:49:34.620 The other aspect of this debate that I find very frustrating is the thing that we can't trust the experts.

00:49:40.100 And the moment when people say that, I go, that's a load of bollocks because if your daughter had an epileptic fit, you wouldn't be there going, oh, let's not trust the experts. 0.99

00:49:50.220 No, you'd be trying to get, you'd be wanting medical intervention ASAP and you'd also want the best doctors, if not the best neurologists, to come in and look at her and you would be deferring to their experience unless you were a moron. 0.99

00:50:03.620 So, I agree. 0.92

00:50:06.340 But then on the other side of that, you look at the junior doctors in the UK who have all just got up in arms over the Supreme Court decision on, you know, legal sex is biological sex and claim that this is in defiance of medical reality.

00:50:27.700 They do not believe there are only two sexes, they think, you know, gender, whatever that word means, that's one I try to avoid, that it's a spectrum, which is a load of nonsense.

00:50:41.240 And that means these people, these are people who are trained in medicine, who no longer believe in the reality of biological sex.

00:50:52.100 That is scary.

00:50:53.300 And that is experts who have corrupted themselves.

00:50:57.540 Who would see your epileptic daughter if you took her to the hospital. 1.00

00:51:00.280 Yeah, or who would have your daughter cut her breasts off. 1.00

00:51:03.780 Right.

00:51:04.660 So, and this is why, like, neither of us is bringing a view to the table that's rigid and fixed.

00:51:13.320 But I can see a gigantic problem, which is if the pursuit, if what happens is we've gone to a place of the mainstream media, which had a bias, but I would say in my lifetime, the BBC had a pretty clear focus on the pursuit of truth, mostly with a bias, right?

00:51:31.860 That's not quite the same as a pursuit of truth, but it's not the same as a podcast, which focuses on entertainment first and truth as a byproduct of that, or if at all, right?

00:51:44.920 So, in the same way that the mainstream media needs to improve, I'm curious how we adapt to this new reality.

00:51:53.200 And maybe, you know, maybe interrogating you about the podcast world is unfair.

00:51:58.080 I don't know.

00:51:58.420 I've been on enough of them.

00:52:00.640 So, no, it probably is perfectly fair.

00:52:03.280 Well, so how do we negotiate our way through this technological revolution that's now causing revolution about the way we think, the way we, what we believe about what's true?

00:52:14.460 Well, the internet has made information chaotic.

00:52:21.840 It seemed as if at first it would just be, we'd all become so much smarter because we'd have access to the truth.

00:52:30.640 But, no, it gives us access to our truth.

00:52:36.880 And I'm sure I'm guilty of that as much as anybody.

00:52:41.920 I naturally seek out information with bias that confirms what I think already.

00:52:51.860 I waste a huge amount of time reading things that are telling me what I already think it is.

00:53:00.640 But that is, that's a natural human impulse to be affirmed all the time.

00:53:07.700 Because what we don't want to do and what most people actively avoid for understandable reasons is discomfort.

00:53:16.760 Yeah.

00:53:17.080 And discomfort, part of discomfort is having your opinion challenged, realizing that you're wrong.

00:53:22.940 Yes.

00:53:23.340 That actually what you believe is factually incorrect, which happens to every single person.

00:53:29.200 It's far easier to listen, to ingest information, expose yourself to podcasts, and even surround yourself with people who think the same things that you do, even if they are a load of nonsense.

00:53:41.220 Well, it takes a lot of discipline to constantly expose yourself to information or people disseminating information that you don't want to be true and it messes up your position on something.

00:54:02.900 And I don't think I'm that much better at that than most people.

00:54:06.500 Because it's not just your position on something, it's your whole world view.

00:54:11.460 For instance, if you are, like there's a lot of people in our space, they're naturally contrarian.

00:54:16.520 That very easily lends itself to a particular set of views on a range of different topics, whether it's COVID, whether it's whatever it may be.

00:54:25.520 Ukraine, it's blah, blah, blah. 0.81

00:54:27.240 If the government says this thing, then it must be that the government is wrong or they're lying to you.

00:54:32.440 Yeah.

00:54:33.140 So it's very easy to take that position.

00:54:35.640 But actually, once you start challenging yourself and you start exposing yourself to certain other voices that may be correct, all of a sudden, maybe it's not one grand conspiracy.

00:54:49.120 Yeah.

00:54:50.400 And one of the painful aspects of this era has been the way that we separate out into left and right and therefore we just – we have these set menus of opinions.

00:55:07.560 And there's no substitute for taking them one at a time and deciding what you really think.

00:55:12.720 I mean, for example, with Ukraine, I – just because the right-of-center position has gradually developed into it's their problem.

00:55:22.560 Why don't we – why don't we defend our own borders?

00:55:28.700 I don't have to think that.

00:55:31.940 I don't – I think I can look about – at Ukraine and think that's just horrible. 0.91

00:55:39.160 I can't stand watching Putin get away with it.

00:55:42.760 I don't know how to solve it, but I'm not going to naturally just adopt this new viewpoint because that's what people like me think.

00:55:57.280 And I sometimes have to really push myself on things like – or people, not just things.

00:56:06.920 People, do I have to align myself with this person?

00:56:10.500 Trump.

00:56:11.560 I mean, I like some of what he's doing, but I do not feel pushed to be his advocate just because my side has adopted him.

00:56:22.240 I don't want to have a side, and I think thinking in terms of sides is part of the whole problem we're dealing with.

00:56:31.280 In fact, it relates to expertise.

00:56:34.160 It's everything.

00:56:34.800 It's the whole concept of groupsturism, and party politics is part of it.

00:56:44.320 And it disables your brain.

00:56:48.840 That's very true.

00:56:49.500 And it's understandable to some extent because on election day, it's a team game.

00:56:56.760 It's a team sport on election day.

00:56:58.420 But once you've got past election day, it's a different conversation.

00:57:02.140 I suppose your book being called Mania, the most obvious question is, do you think human beings are capable – I don't think they're capable of avoiding manias,

00:57:11.680 but are they capable of reducing their frequency, reducing their intensity?

00:57:16.440 Are we able to learn from manias we've had and go, well, this thing is just like that thing, so maybe how about we don't do this?

00:57:24.220 Or do you think we're just going to go round and round and round on this carousel?

00:57:27.700 I think we're going to go round and round.

00:57:29.660 I mean –

00:57:29.900 Excellent.

00:57:30.280 I wrote the book because I wanted to come to a better understanding of the whole phenomenon.

00:57:37.920 It was an interesting – it was interesting to go through my made-up mania.

00:57:46.460 It brought out in relief a few things that I've observed along the way.

00:57:50.300 But I think it is an aspect of this species where highly social, even those of us who like to think of ourselves as loners, still operate in a swarm.

00:58:11.980 And that's just what swarms do. 0.67

00:58:14.740 What about at an individual level?

00:58:19.280 Is there, for example, a set of kind of like personal principles that, you know, I don't stop speaking to people because they think something?

00:58:29.880 Is there some way in which we can all be slightly cognizant of the fact that we're constantly living through periods of this madness?

00:58:39.140 And so when the latest madness comes along, it might not be a good idea to do the thing that we did last time that caused us to X, Y, Z.

00:58:48.780 Yeah.

00:58:49.300 Well, I mean, I'm big on independent thought.

00:58:52.800 Don't farm out your brain to other people.

00:58:57.980 And it's useful to be aware of the whole concept of social hysteria because in the midst of it, it just seems like the way things are.

00:59:13.880 Mm-hmm.

00:59:14.180 Right?

00:59:15.700 And you're just supposed to accept that.

00:59:18.760 And it helps to step, try to push yourself to step outside and look, well, that's weird.

00:59:25.240 We didn't used to think that.

00:59:26.380 Like last year, we didn't ever say anything about this.

00:59:29.920 And why is everyone saying the same thing?

00:59:33.280 And why is it that suddenly there are these things we can't say anymore?

00:59:40.800 And I think that's one of the biggest red flags is that suddenly these taboos are in.

00:59:48.860 And so it's, to the best of our small individual ability, it would be good to just be alert to the isn't this weird response.

01:00:00.440 Right?

01:00:00.820 This is strange.

01:00:02.340 Suddenly, we've got this thing that everyone thinks.

01:00:08.560 And do I really think that?

01:00:11.880 You know, do I really think it?

01:00:13.220 Do I really think that the UK or the US is systemically racist, an expression that burst onto the scene and suddenly it's in every newspaper article?

01:00:27.820 I mean, what does that mean?

01:00:30.980 Aren't things better?

01:00:32.340 Than they used to be?

01:00:36.120 There's no substitute for that just keeping a grip and noticing change.

01:00:47.000 And when change veers off into what really ought to be a radical, perceived to be a radical direction.

01:00:55.560 I mean, when we started cutting bits off of young people, I mean, that's pretty drastic.

01:01:05.180 Right?

01:01:05.520 Put the brakes on, like, this is weird.

01:01:09.420 This is too weird.

01:01:12.480 So don't lose your weirdness, Antenna.

01:01:15.200 But the point that you've highlighted in the book, it's a temperament thing.

01:01:23.360 It is.

01:01:24.360 I just think there's a lot of, most people will go along with something, not because they're cowardly or whatever it may be.

01:01:34.140 It's that they have the capacity to persuade themselves.

01:01:37.360 It's almost like a self-defense mechanism.

01:01:41.060 You have the capacity to intellectualize and persuade yourself that what you're doing is morally correct.

01:01:48.280 Like what you talk about in your book.

01:01:50.560 People with low cognitive ability have been discriminated against.

01:01:55.400 They've been mocked.

01:01:56.280 They've been sneered at.

01:01:57.280 They've been dehumanized.

01:01:58.340 Let's be honest.

01:01:59.520 Right from the dawn of time, I imagine.

01:02:02.120 And I've seen the way that we treat kids who struggle with maths and English.

01:02:06.500 When my time as a teacher, I talk about it in my book.

01:02:09.960 There was this one boy who I said to, I said to, I was covering for a teacher and I had to set them an exam.

01:02:17.700 There's a little boy who was six years old, seven years old, and he had to do an English test.

01:02:22.660 He was profoundly dyslexic, profoundly dyslexic.

01:02:26.520 He looked at me and said, Mr. Foster, I can't do it.

01:02:30.880 And I said to him, Billy, just do your best.

01:02:35.100 He goes, I can't do it.

01:02:36.760 I go, do your best.

01:02:38.580 And I was told that he had to take the test.

01:02:41.620 The little boy put his head on the table and wept.

01:02:44.560 And in the end, you couldn't even read the test paper because it was sodden with tears.

01:02:53.760 And yet, and yet, where it ended up being in this book and in our society is just chaos.

01:03:04.760 It's just chaos.

01:03:05.880 So there is always that need to balance the empathy for those types of people, but also realize that your empathy can't be ruinous and it can't destroy what we know to be true.

01:03:15.680 Well, one of the things that makes the mania work in mania, the mental parity movement, is that they've got a point.

01:03:26.200 That's exactly what you're saying. 1.00

01:03:27.960 That it isn't nice to treat people who are stupid. 1.00

01:03:33.900 It's not, you know, intellectual capacity is not any different from other, as we once called them, God-given traits. 1.00

01:03:42.220 It's, it's not within your control to have a greater IQ.

01:03:49.240 It's not something you can go out and buy.

01:03:51.700 It's not something you can earn.

01:03:54.560 You can become better informed, but you can't increase your natural mental ability.

01:04:01.980 It's true of all abilities that you can, you can get more skillful.

01:04:08.780 Um, but, uh-huh, I'm, I'm not ever going to be a great singer, right?

01:04:17.420 There are all these abilities that we have in varying degrees, and it's not fair.

01:04:22.220 It's not fair that they vary so much, and that there are really smart people out there, and, and really pretty thick ones also.

01:04:31.140 And it's not the thick person's fault, and there's no reason to treat that person worse, just because he or she was not born as very smart.

01:04:40.800 But the other thing that I was also looking at in this book, uh, and this is a, a left-wing proclivity, the obsession with equality and, uh, wanting everyone to be the same.

01:04:55.860 And that fairness that I was talking about, it's not fair that I don't, I have a terrible voice, I mean, I, that I can't sing.

01:05:02.700 It's not fair.

01:05:04.200 I want to be able to sing.

01:05:05.300 Um, and the left wants to address that kind of unfairness with a devastating leveling, which is, means that, uh, the, the society is less competent.

01:05:21.700 That you, you, you, if you, when you're going to level something, you have to take it down to the, the lowest point.

01:05:28.000 Um, and it also, uh, doesn't admit of the joys of human variation.

01:05:35.280 And I'm, I'm big on that.

01:05:37.420 I don't really have a problem with inequality.

01:05:41.380 I, I'm, um, I have an objection to economic insufficiency.

01:05:48.100 So, I want people to survive.

01:05:52.100 I want, I want them, um, to at least be provided, you know, uh, uh, uh, the means to be physically okay.

01:06:02.600 But it doesn't bother me that people achieve different degrees of excellence, of success in their fields.

01:06:09.860 I want to live in a world where success is possible, which means there, by definition, failure has also to be possible.

01:06:18.920 And I can live with that.

01:06:20.460 I can live with the pain that induces on people who experience failure.

01:06:25.820 I've had plenty of experience of failure in my own life anyway.

01:06:29.180 So, yeah, it comes into cost because I was ambition, ambitious.

01:06:34.140 And when you're ambitious, you, you risk the agony, what can turn into real agony, the agony of, of failure.

01:06:43.800 But I like that world better than one in which we all make the same amount of money.

01:06:49.380 We're all equally sub-mediocre. 0.97

01:06:54.220 Um, you can't, you can't really have a great life, but at least you can't have a really crap life. 0.97

01:07:02.620 Fundamentally, this is a social, has to do with taking on the socialist vision. 0.77

01:07:06.080 I, um, I find that vision, uh, anti-human and it is not a world I want to live in.

01:07:12.420 Lionel, what's the one thing we're not talking about that we should be?

01:07:17.480 Before Lionel answers the final question, at the end of the interview, make sure to head over to our sub-stack.

01:07:23.100 The link is in the description where you'll be able to see this.

01:07:27.060 Have you watched Adolescence and what did you think of it, if you have?

01:07:30.000 Do you share my sense that anti-Trump liberals are in denial that their political culture and social behaviour set the table for this populist backlash?

01:07:37.760 Will America regret voting Donald Trump back into office and why?

01:07:42.420 Lionel, what's the one thing we're not talking about that we should be?

01:07:47.500 Okay, but I've, I've advanced this idea before.

01:07:50.860 I, I think it's important that we start, um,

01:07:57.040 questioning things that have been in existence in a long time and we take them for granted.

01:08:02.440 And I would say in particular, and this is by way of, um, paving the way for my next novel out in January, um, that I think that we should, uh, either reform or completely scrap the asylum system. 0.97

01:08:18.240 I think, uh, I think, uh, both the UK and the US, but right now especially the UK, uh, is, um, is being taken advantage of.

01:08:30.580 And it's a system that has outlived its usefulness.

01:08:34.360 It was designed, uh, after World War II, as we know, and, uh, to try to prevent, um, what happened then is, especially before the war,

01:08:46.860 people did not open their borders for Jews fleeing persecution, but it's now being used for almost entirely economic purposes.

01:09:00.300 And it's, it's so widely abused that the people, the, the few people for whom it w it should be useful.

01:09:07.580 It sometimes isn't useful for, because they get lost in all these cases that, uh, that the, the system wasn't designed for.

01:09:14.920 So that's, that's, that's, I think, I think the vast majority of people will actually probably not have any idea what you're talking about.

01:09:22.400 So what, what, what is happening in your opinion that you're raising the alarm about?

01:09:27.480 Uh, we have a mass migration from the global South to Western countries that is too fast and is leading to social division, cultural dilution.

01:09:50.680 Um, I hate seeing, um, I hate seeing in the UK the, uh, uh, factionalization with Muslims and the majority culture.

01:10:02.860 Um, I would like to slow that down.

01:10:07.040 And, uh, it's not that I am hostile to foreigners.

01:10:10.560 I am a foreigner.

01:10:11.540 Mm-hmm.

01:10:12.400 Um, and we're all foreigners when we go somewhere else.

01:10:16.480 So, but I, I think that, you know, what's been happening in the United States under Biden was, uh, really socially destructive, economically destructive.

01:10:31.100 And, um, the best thing that Trump has done is, is effectively close the border.

01:10:36.960 So, and I'd like to see this country, um, get a grip on its immigration also, because then maybe Britain can start to assimilate the people who are already here and create a unified country again. 0.98

01:10:56.160 Well, I'm glad I followed up because for some reason, inexplicably, I heard you say mental asylum.

01:11:01.860 And I thought, I thought you had raised some really important issue about the mental health, psychiatric hospitals, et cetera, system.

01:11:09.940 So, yeah, well, that's, that's, and maybe that's my next book.

01:11:13.020 Well, there you go.

01:11:14.160 If you do happen to do that, I'd like 10%.

01:11:16.920 Uh, anyway, head on over to Substack.

01:11:19.140 Eight.

01:11:19.820 Eight?

01:11:20.480 That's a deal.

01:11:21.680 There's a lot of the deal happening in real time for you.

01:11:23.720 Head on over to Substack where we ask Lionel your questions.

01:11:26.160 Do you think the nuclear family is the healthiest form of social unit, or is the extended family unit that you find in many places around the world a better environment for children to grow up in?

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TRIGGERnometry - May 11, 2025

Mania： How Societies Go Crazy - Lionel Shriver

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