TRIGGERnometry - What I Learned From Leaving Mumford & Sons

00:00:00.080 All these sort of far-left extremists, they're very effective online.

00:00:03.820 So within hours, my Wikipedia was changed to, is a fascist? 0.99

00:00:08.620 And you're like, what the fuck is going on? 0.98

00:00:17.040 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. 0.99

00:00:19.680 I'm Francis Foster.

00:00:20.920 I'm Constantine Kisham.

00:00:22.040 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:00:27.000 Our brilliant guest today is a musician and a friend of the show, Winston Marshall.

00:00:30.920 Welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:32.000 Thanks, Constantine. Thanks, Francis. How are we?

00:00:34.840 Yeah, we're very good. It's been a while since we've wanted to get you on.

00:00:38.280 We've been obviously chatting, you've been around, we've been having theological debates,

00:00:41.980 we've been talking about all sorts of stuff.

00:00:43.980 And we just thought it'd be great to get you on the show for us to have this conversation like this.

00:00:49.540 But I have an agenda.

00:00:51.140 You have an agenda?

00:00:52.100 Yeah.

00:00:52.540 Do you?

00:00:53.060 I do.

00:00:53.440 What is your agenda?

00:00:54.120 I'm plugging my own podcast.

00:00:55.760 Mate, so how do you do this?

00:00:58.160 What you do is you do some interesting stuff first.

00:01:00.940 Okay.

00:01:01.320 And then you go, by the way, I was talking to Alexander Solzhenitsyn's son on my podcast,

00:01:07.500 and you do that later.

00:01:08.480 So we'll talk about your podcast.

00:01:09.580 Full play, Winston.

00:01:13.000 Okay.

00:01:13.620 No, we got that, though.

00:01:14.620 That was good.

00:01:15.220 That was great.

00:01:15.840 We'll keep that.

00:01:16.700 I'm glad we opened with that.

00:01:18.240 So, Winston, since we're talking of full play, let's do a little bit of that.

00:01:21.980 Tell everybody a little bit about who you are, how are you, where you are, and what has been your journey through life.

00:01:27.740 Now, of course, you were a musician for a long time.

00:01:29.680 Then you had your own sort of self-cancellation, which we'll talk a little bit about.

00:01:33.720 But you've actually had an interesting life in general.

00:01:35.840 So just tell us, everybody, who are you and how are you here?

00:01:38.520 My name is Winston.

00:01:41.520 Yeah, we've established that.

00:01:46.340 We've also established I'm a musician, and I started playing pub circuit around London as a teenager with various bands.

00:01:56.820 My first band, Gobbler's Knob, was a ZZ Top cover band.

00:02:02.120 The name was inspired from Groundhog Day, classic, I'm sure you remember.

00:02:08.440 And then I was in a country rap band, a crap band, called Captain Kick and the Cowboy Ramblers. 0.51

00:02:16.760 We were never the same lineup for each show, but we were always at least nine players, and it was a total shambles. 0.90

00:02:24.540 And we had an American sleaze rapper sort of smutting his way over some very out-of-time and out-of-tune stringed instruments.

00:02:33.500 And that lasted about a year.

00:02:35.700 And we did tour the UK in a very messy, shambolic...

00:02:47.060 Yeah, that was fun.

00:02:49.860 Actually, no one lasted that tour.

00:02:51.300 It was like an eight-day tour across the UK, and it started about 15 of us.

00:02:56.100 And by the last gig, there were only four.

00:02:58.880 And I was organizing it, and I wasn't even at the last gig.

00:03:01.060 It just kind of like disintegrated over time.

00:03:03.640 And then from that, started playing, sessioning with various bands still in London.

00:03:13.220 Laura Marling was one, Alessi's Ark, and a few others.

00:03:17.140 And then that kind of evolved into Mumford & Sons.

00:03:22.700 That would have been 2007.

00:03:25.800 And that band just, we really clicked.

00:03:29.600 And for 14 years, it kind of was a bit of a miracle.

00:03:36.440 And it went very well.

00:03:37.380 We were sort of toured relentlessly, and the stars aligned for us.

00:03:42.000 We were very lucky in many ways. 0.99

00:03:43.340 But those three guys were fucking talented as well. 0.98

00:03:45.260 So a combination of hard work, talent, and a lot of good luck. 0.98

00:03:49.300 And it was kind of amazing.

00:03:51.840 And then, but now, I am no longer in that band.

00:03:58.480 And that, oddly, is because, I suppose, of a tweet.

00:04:10.040 I tweeted about Andy Ngo's book.

00:04:13.380 In the lockdown, I was tweeting about the books I was reading.

00:04:17.860 There's like a little minor theme on my social media that wasn't really being followed by anyone.

00:04:22.420 Which was, which makes what happened next even more bizarre.

00:04:26.720 But one of the books I tweeted about was Andy Ngo's book.

00:04:30.880 And even, I think on Twitter, I had like 3,000 followers or something.

00:04:35.480 So no one.

00:04:36.420 And then within a day or two, it blew up.

00:04:40.580 And it was a positive tweet.

00:04:41.820 It was like, you're a brave guy, it's an important book.

00:04:43.600 And which I thought it was, as far as I know at the time, or knew, it was the only book on far left extremism in the States.

00:04:51.720 And I'd been living in the States before.

00:04:53.320 So I was, even though it seems like a niche topic for a guy living in London, like it was, it was a topic that wasn't, didn't seem that niche from the life I was living in in America.

00:05:03.400 And also, I suppose, when the mainstream media was so ignoring the far left extremism, covering far right extremism, rightly, but didn't cover far left extremism in the same breath.

00:05:17.440 So I guess maybe that's why I was curious about it.

00:05:20.640 And that's why perhaps I came to the book.

00:05:22.520 And, yeah, that completely blew up.

00:05:29.200 And before long, I sort of apologized for the offense it caused.

00:05:35.740 And then over the few months after that, my conscience just sort of, I just, it felt, it was wrong that I had apologized because I don't think there was actually anything wrong with the book.

00:05:48.460 I mean, there's no book that's above criticism, obviously, even Shakespeare, but.

00:05:54.180 Apart from the good book.

00:05:57.740 Yeah.

00:06:02.720 Yeah.

00:06:04.860 So, so even though, you know, I kind of just kind of went into it deep.

00:06:10.680 I was like, what's wrong with this book?

00:06:11.720 What's wrong with the author? 0.99

00:06:12.300 And there's lots of criticism, there's a lot of fucking nonsense and lies written about the author. 0.86

00:06:20.860 And, and I was, I guess, aware of that as well, because a lot of those lies then came at me, you know, for example, like, they change your Wikipedia, all these sort of far left extremists, they're very effective online. 0.98

00:06:33.880 So within hours, my Wikipedia was changed to, is a fascist. 0.99

00:06:38.980 And you're like, what the fuck is going on?

00:06:41.520 And, and for, and for like a lot of friends in their life who don't understand the culture wars or don't understand, they'd never heard of the book, maybe never heard of Antifa, never understood the topic. 0.99

00:06:53.640 They see all this and they're like, what the fuck? 0.93

00:06:55.760 What's, you know, what's going on here? 0.99

00:06:57.100 And so, and so, and they want to sort of protect you at the same time, they don't really understand what's going on.

00:07:03.040 So it just, it was like a total, it's a very hellish period, privately and publicly, I guess.

00:07:12.920 But, so as I kind of got to, into this more, I realized like, I, it was, it was wrong of me to apologize.

00:07:24.040 I don't think it was wrong of me to apologize for bringing that, kicking that hornet's nest and bringing the, those, you know, that, that, that storm onto, onto my colleagues, onto my bandmates.

00:07:38.200 I think it was right for me to apologize for that and I stand by that apology.

00:07:41.500 But, but I, but I, the kind of conundrum I had was like, well, it's not true for me to, you know, there's nothing wrong with this book.

00:07:49.760 Um, or, or, or, or certainly, sort of, I certainly stood by, at least, let's put it this way, I stood by my original tweet.

00:07:57.520 He is a brave guy and it is an important book.

00:08:01.460 Um, have you read the book?

00:08:03.260 Yeah, we've had Andy on the show to talk about it, yeah.

00:08:05.480 What do you think?

00:08:06.180 He's a brave guy?

00:08:07.380 Well, Andy's definitely a brave guy.

00:08:09.360 Yeah, I mean, people can quibble with some of the things he says.

00:08:12.220 I personally haven't seen anything worth quibbling over, but people do.

00:08:15.600 And as you say, no books above criticism, but, I mean, the guy's got a brain injury for reporting on, on extremist organizations, so.

00:08:23.420 Well, that's actually, in the period between my initial apology and when I quit the band, he was attacked again.

00:08:30.320 Yeah.

00:08:30.700 And actually that footage has just come out last week.

00:08:34.020 So now I've seen, so I heard about it, but now I've actually seen the footage. 0.98

00:08:37.520 It's fucking horrific. 0.98

00:08:38.960 Of course it is. 0.99

00:08:39.400 And, and I remember being like, it was just like another, like, you, you know, you, you're on, you're assisting these evildoers, these violent hooligans in, in apologizing because you're accepting that they're right, they're, they're right, but they're not right. 0.99

00:08:53.520 But the problem I had was that if I say or said, no, actually I stand by what I said, then my bandmates were, were going to get in loads of shit. 0.95

00:09:05.020 Like little examples that radio stations said they were not going to play the band. 0.91

00:09:10.080 And, um, for me personally, I was supposed to DJ at one festival that I got, uh, you know, cut from the bill, um, because the headliner, they wanted to condemn me online.

00:09:22.760 A lot of musicians and artists, even ones we'd worked with, not all, but obviously, but a lot had, you know, come after me in a nasty way online or like in an at home and any way.

00:09:34.280 Um, not just criticism, criticism is fine, but like gone a bit further than that.

00:09:39.880 Um, and so my conundrum was, do I live a lie to protect or stand by a lie to protect the band or protect the band and leave, which is where I, the conclusion I came to, uh, which meant that I didn't have to, um, lie or, and they wouldn't suffer for, for the truth that I thought I was telling.

00:10:04.280 Um, and that might seem like, uh, like, uh, like, uh, like not such a big, uh, um, thing, but for me, it was like quite, it was a hellish few months as well.

00:10:16.760 Like I was not sleeping.

00:10:18.620 I was like, I, it was felt like a, uh, a puzzle I couldn't escape from.

00:10:22.880 I was like, what?

00:10:24.080 Like, and, and I didn't see a good way out of it.

00:10:27.580 Um, so anyway, but I actually think now it's been difficult rebuilding since, but, you know, I'm a big boy, uh, I'll be all right.

00:10:35.060 Uh, but, um, coming through it now, uh, uh, uh, you know, life's sort of, I'm slowly building it back up again.

00:10:44.840 So it's, we'll see.

00:10:46.620 Well, you know, you're someone who thinks very carefully about things.

00:10:50.060 And one of the things that struck me was when we, uh, France and I came over to your house, you kindly invited us.

00:10:57.400 Your house.

00:10:57.880 So for the listeners, I'm a huge fan of you both as comedians and have been following you both, uh, well before all of the events that I.

00:11:07.100 Yeah.

00:11:07.380 Yeah.

00:11:07.780 Well, actually you were at Comedy Unleashed and you messaged me and that's how we connected.

00:11:11.180 So I don't think you, I saw your show.

00:11:12.880 Yeah.

00:11:13.240 In January, 2020.

00:11:15.420 Yeah.

00:11:15.740 At Comedy Unleashed.

00:11:16.780 Yeah.

00:11:17.560 And thought it was great.

00:11:18.880 Yeah.

00:11:19.320 Um, and then, yeah, touch base stuff.

00:11:22.000 Yeah.

00:11:22.240 That's so, so you weren't a fan of trigonometry initially.

00:11:24.540 You were a fan of us comedically, I think more, more than anything.

00:11:27.460 Yeah.

00:11:27.980 Yeah.

00:11:28.180 Exactly.

00:11:28.380 Yeah.

00:11:29.060 So, but, but anyway, when you kindly invited us to your house, uh, it's not the tidiest house and that's because, sorry, Winston, I didn't mean to offend you.

00:11:37.580 It's because it's covered in books.

00:11:39.980 Right.

00:11:40.380 You've got books everywhere and they are books from people like Andy, no, they're books from people who would be the very opposite.

00:11:50.360 You're clearly someone who likes to take in different perspectives, think about things you read about history, you read about philosophy, you read, I, and it's, it's, it's clear to me that you're someone who thinks carefully in a nuanced way and is very interested.

00:12:04.820 Um, and I, I think the, the reality of your situation partly is that we no longer live in a world that, that is understands that that's possible, that you can read a book and think someone's brave without necessarily being right wing or read a book and think it's interesting without necessarily being left wing.

00:12:22.820 Or, and I think that's kind of, and I think that's kind of partly what you came up against, that you're sort of measured by each tweet as an, independently of your entire track record as a human being.

00:12:33.600 Yeah. And if you went through the other books I was reading, that I was reading about, I was like, fucking Mao, you know what I mean? And, and, you know, that's actual evil. 0.97

00:12:43.220 Um, yeah, I mean, perhaps on, you know, reflection, I perhaps, well, I definitely didn't understand Twitter for the, the thing that it was.

00:12:55.280 And, and if you, the whole point is each tweet does have its life of its own as soon as it's out there and, and it's almost like a statement.

00:13:03.120 If you're, for some people tweeting is just like train of thought, but for other people or like artists, I guess, or institutions, each tweet is a, is a statement.

00:13:13.220 And I guess I got that wrong, which I'm now, ironically, now I get that.

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00:14:38.840 Obviously, it shocked you by what happened with the tweet, but did it shock you, the behaviour of your fellow artists? 0.95

00:14:47.080 Because one would think that, particularly in the music industry, you know, rock and roll, freedom, fuck the man, I'm going to say what I think, what I want. 0.87

00:14:57.660 Did that surprise you that there was that backlash? 0.97

00:15:00.400 I was surprised by a couple of the artists who said stuff who I'd worked with because they could have done it privately instead of adding fuel to that fire.

00:15:17.980 Again, I don't think anything's above criticism, so fair enough, you know, if they felt like they needed to.

00:15:25.320 But then, yeah, the idea, and absolutely, as I said, I only had a few thousand followers, so it was insane to me.

00:15:33.280 Within like a day or two, it was on The View and Tucker Carlson, it's like, what?

00:15:38.720 Like, how is this, you know, just seemed like an act of God, which, you know.

00:15:44.420 And so, with the other artists, it doesn't really surprise me that, I do think all, you know, all, I've written about this in a piece for Barry Weiss last week, her Common Sense Substack.

00:16:00.980 All communities, all groups are prone to a certain amount of homogeneity of thought, and that's absolutely normal.

00:16:11.660 It's forgivable, it's definitely not good, but what can you expect, and particularly in the music industry, when it's a community of people who will have similar personality traits and being open.

00:16:25.980 And the only, it's not that strange that there's a kind of, a kind of agreed upon, or a popular opinion within a group, even if it's not popular.

00:16:41.040 No, actually, Barry Weiss sent me a, because I did an interview with her, and I didn't do very many interviews, but I did one with her.

00:16:48.260 Because I just wanted to get my story out, and I didn't, I wasn't, like, trying to, I just wanted to get, set the record straight, so I just did her.

00:16:56.300 Yeah, such high regard for us, that you didn't do it with us, by the way.

00:17:00.000 I did, I am.

00:17:01.040 Yeah, and, but Barry sent me a, one poll, which I should dig out, but the Antifa in the States had a five to six percent approval rating, which is the, that is the fringe.

00:17:19.640 That's like, now, in America, five to six percent of people is a lot of people, right?

00:17:24.020 But nevertheless, as a, as a society, that's the fringe of society, and, and that's the extremist.

00:17:31.460 I mean, that's probably what the far right is, five to six percent.

00:17:34.400 Probably less, even, yeah.

00:17:35.660 Yeah, is that right?

00:17:38.600 So, it was an extreme thing, and, and they're very effective.

00:17:43.060 They know what they're doing online, they know what they're doing, or they, it looks like they, do they know what they're doing in real life?

00:17:50.720 Well, I don't know, but they're causing all sort of, all sort of, all sorts of havoc and, and damage, and it's, it's appalling.

00:18:03.460 So, where were we going?

00:18:05.500 We were talking about, were you shocked by the reaction of your fellow artists?

00:18:09.520 Yeah, so, um, I was, I was shocked, but, again, I, I, I sort of understand now, with hindsight, over Twitter's kind of, that's the world I was engaging in.

00:18:23.060 And, also, I do think that artists generally, I do think there's a problem, a problem of homogeneity of thought in the, in the creative industries.

00:18:31.240 Like, you see this, and this is what I, I wrote for Barry last week, is, whatever the topic is, unorthodoxy, um, is established pretty quickly, and even if, um, this doesn't mean everyone disagrees.

00:18:47.640 Like, for example, on Antifa, I think the only other musician that's publicly outspoken on Antifa is Nick Cave, who, um, on his blog, has written about it, criticizing them.

00:18:58.560 And, um, I, I know he got pushback from, from doing that.

00:19:03.060 Um, but otherwise, I don't think there's many who have, um, and because I do think there's probably a decent amount of, of consensus within the industry, even if society at large doesn't, there isn't evidence of that consensus on Antifa.

00:19:14.760 But, you see, you've been very diplomatic, Winston, and I, and I understand why, because I think you're a far more conciliatory person than I am.

00:19:25.040 But it, it, but it enrages me.

00:19:27.340 It enrages me, because the whole point of art, to me, whatever type of art it is, is that it should be welcoming and celebrating of a diverse, of diverse viewpoints.

00:19:36.940 It should challenge the status quo.

00:19:40.260 It shouldn't be just one particular viewpoint is celebrated and everybody else should be silenced.

00:19:46.660 That, to me, is, is an ethema to art, surely.

00:19:50.100 Well, that's what has been particularly shocking this year with, with, uh, what's happened to Rogan.

00:19:56.520 Um, it's, it's artists forming their own, leading the mobs, against freedom of expression.

00:20:05.960 It's, and again, I'm not saying that Rogan's First Amendment rights are in question here, although the White House did follow up by saying, yeah, more needs to be done to combat misinformation.

00:20:16.880 But it's artists like Neil Young, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, uh, here, it was Stuart Lee, here, it was...

00:20:23.980 Joni Mitchell.

00:20:24.980 Joni Mitchell, um, who are closing down conversation.

00:20:29.840 I mean, their whole career, their whole job is expression.

00:20:34.720 So how can they not see the, the, the, the kind of paradox there?

00:20:41.740 But you actually saw signs of this before your tweet, because...

00:20:46.740 You were doing interviews, not in a cultural way, necessarily, with the band, when you were touring.

00:20:53.980 Yeah, so for sure.

00:20:54.620 So, so, the last, touring the last record, well, let's put it this way, like, we did a record in 2015, and then we did another record in 2018.

00:21:06.860 And so, and we're doing promotion for that in 2019.

00:21:10.140 In 2015, none of the questions were about politics.

00:21:13.800 In 2018, none of the questions were about music.

00:21:17.260 And that's, and that, and that's a bit pithy, and it's not totally true, but that's kind of how it felt, like, a little bit.

00:21:24.100 But, um, and something about, uh, essentially Brexit and Trump meant that all the interviews were, like, trying to get in that.

00:21:33.560 Even though the music wasn't remotely political.

00:21:35.880 It's not, it's not remotely relevant to the, to the music, um, and to the product, and to the album, and to the band, or not in my opinion.

00:21:43.880 Um, and, and then there was, there are certain topics that, yeah, there was group consensus on in the industry.

00:21:54.240 So, doing interviews, I, I got to a point where I was, you know, very nervous going interviews because it was, I'm gonna, I don't want to say the wrong thing.

00:22:03.580 I'm gonna get my bandmates in trouble, um, because they're probably gonna ask about the, you know, politics, um, whatever topic it might be.

00:22:13.400 Um, and even though I don't think there are opinions that are publicly particularly controversial at all, um, that's just, you know, an exact, I think there's a lot, I was sensitive to it.

00:22:25.580 Because, um, the photograph, uh, come out with Jordan Peterson, who I was, was, and am a great admirer of, and it kind of blew up to be this thing.

00:22:40.000 It's like, what, like, and he's, this is a guy who sold millions of books.

00:22:43.320 He's incredibly popular.

00:22:45.300 Um, he's, um, uh, changed so many lives for the better.

00:22:49.960 And, and, um, obviously he's divisive and there's some people, uh, who, who dislike him, um, or, or at least dislike the person they think he is.

00:23:00.780 Um, but, and then after that, it's like, wow, well, like, if what I consider, I don't think he's remotely controversial.

00:23:06.660 So, if, if that, if a topic like that can blow out like that, like, anything can go like that.

00:23:12.860 So, you'd go into these interviews and you'd, you'd be very hesitant about saying anything at all.

00:23:18.800 Even though you were being asked about it, you were being asked political questions as a musician who's not political.

00:23:23.840 And you'd just sit there going, I really don't want to say the wrong thing.

00:23:27.180 And, and the interviewers generally, or not generally, but would often either have an agenda or you could almost be certain that the way they would present it would be not fair.

00:23:40.100 It would be, they would be pushing their own agenda, um, because they would care about the topic.

00:23:46.400 Or, uh, you can see this with some of the, um, legacy music, um, magazines like NME.

00:23:55.760 It's incredibly political.

00:23:57.440 I think they had Jeremy Corbyn on the front cover and it's like, of a music magazine?

00:24:01.540 Like what, what's the, what's, I think that would have been, when would that have been?

00:24:06.260 20, was that, it was a 2019, that election?

00:24:10.060 Yeah.

00:24:10.240 Um, so, you know, all these music magazines where it's not, it's not politics, we're, we're putting, we're turning into political magazines with an agenda.

00:24:20.540 And so you couldn't, I was just like, well, they're not, they're obviously not going to present this fairly.

00:24:26.180 So I don't want to engage in this conversation like that.

00:24:29.980 Did you feel, did you ever have conversations with other artists talking about how they felt that the Overton window was narrowing and how things were becoming more fraught?

00:24:40.480 Because, uh, now, having gone through this experience, I've had amazing artists, very high profile, not just in music, but across, um, the board.

00:24:52.200 Yeah.

00:24:52.300 I'm going to talk about, like, all the time.

00:24:54.140 Yeah.

00:24:54.300 Like, will be remembered for centuries type artists.

00:24:56.760 Yes.

00:24:56.780 And I'm not going to name them, but.

00:24:57.840 We have the same.

00:24:58.820 Yeah.

00:24:59.000 You have the same.

00:24:59.460 And again, most of them won't say anything publicly, but.

00:25:01.660 Yeah.

00:25:01.940 Yeah.

00:25:02.320 But we all love Eric Clapton.

00:25:03.500 Yeah.

00:25:07.240 Big fan.

00:25:08.000 Um, uh, so there's definitely a lot of artists that, that, that see this as, as, um, the ridiculous situation that it is.

00:25:22.680 And, and, and hopefully that will, I think, I sense it will like deescalate.

00:25:28.200 Like last week, for example, there's a photograph of Skrillex came out with Jordan and Michaela.

00:25:34.760 And, and it's like, um, and he's a big artist and I imagine he's probably getting a bit of flack behind the scenes, but I don't know if, I hope he's surrounded by good people anyway.

00:25:47.580 Um, and it's since like, and more and more people do that.

00:25:52.000 And it's just like, it will expose the lunacy of the, of the state of those industries by just more and more people having the courage, realizing that there aren't, like Skrillex is untouchable.

00:26:02.760 So more people like that do that.

00:26:05.120 Do you think it's going to help the fact that the music industry, because of the internet, because of social media, because of Spotify, it's losing its power.

00:26:13.120 It can't really shut people down like it used to.

00:26:17.700 Like if you were dropped by your record label in the nineties, I mean, that was potentially career ending and it, for many, many people.

00:26:24.180 But now if your record label drops you, you can still release your own stuff.

00:26:27.660 You can, you can still have a career.

00:26:30.200 You can definitely release your own stuff and, um, you don't need any of that stuff, but music industry is very small.

00:26:36.980 Um, and pretty much everyone knows each other.

00:26:40.020 So, uh, it depends what kind of career you want.

00:26:44.220 If you want to be huge, you do need the industry to get to that level.

00:26:48.680 But if you just want to release music, you don't, you don't need, you can just release music.

00:26:52.780 And so you still think that if you're dropped by your label, that's still a, that's still a career ender potentially.

00:27:00.360 I think so.

00:27:01.720 I think so.

00:27:02.280 It doesn't stop you from putting out music, but I do think.

00:27:06.980 It's, it stops you from getting to a certain level.

00:27:09.620 It's a very significant deterrent.

00:27:11.140 In other words, to making sure that that doesn't happen for you.

00:27:15.980 Um, and Winston, one of the things that you talked about your apology and, and I wanted to explore this because you and I have talked about this in the past, because you apologized really because you wanted to protect your band.

00:27:27.520 Right.

00:27:28.000 Would that be fair to say?

00:27:29.420 Yes.

00:27:30.160 And then you, you saw, you regretted the apology because it wasn't authentic to who you are, but you still wanted to protect your band.

00:27:35.660 Yes.

00:27:36.040 Right.

00:27:36.280 Um, and I didn't regret the apology to the band.

00:27:39.300 Yes.

00:27:39.900 Yeah.

00:27:40.060 The public apology.

00:27:41.640 Exactly.

00:27:41.780 Exactly.

00:27:42.660 That's what I meant.

00:27:43.700 Um, and the reason I'm delving into it is that I think one of the things that happened with you is when you did apologize, there was also a lot of people from the other side who then decided to come after you.

00:27:56.320 Yeah.

00:27:56.760 Yeah.

00:27:56.860 That was an eye opener for me.

00:27:58.160 I was like, oh yeah, you guys behave exactly like the people you, you were taught to be, uh, against the anti, the anti, the anti-woke mob.

00:28:07.700 They're, they're just as quick to cancel people as, as the, the, you know, the progressives on the other side.

00:28:14.060 And, and, um, you know, now I hope you get canceled and this kind of stuff.

00:28:19.400 And it was really quite helpful for me to see that.

00:28:22.080 I was like, oh yeah.

00:28:22.800 And, um, I would be very reluctant to kind of take that, go flip onto that, that side of things for sure.

00:28:31.620 There's another sort of inspiration for me in that sense, um, was, I mean, someone I've spoke about so much so that it's probably boring at this point.

00:28:40.320 But, um, uh, in, uh, in Solzhenitsyn's warning to the West and he, he came over and he gave a bunch of lectures across the, um, uh, the UK and, and, and the States, I suppose it would have been the seventies or eighties.

00:28:55.940 Um, I'm not sure exactly, uh, when, but, um, he, he comes over and he could, and he still loved Russia.

00:29:04.420 It was his country, uh, but he, he could very much have, you know, it's cold war. 0.89

00:29:09.560 He could have come and been like, fuck Russia, like America and America, you know, America would have loved him, but he came over and he criticized America. 0.98

00:29:19.600 People went off him very quickly when he did that. 1.00

00:29:22.040 They did.

00:29:22.480 He could have played to the crowd.

00:29:23.880 He could have, and, and, and it would have turned him to, into another, he didn't buy into any of that.

00:29:29.720 And he saw, he saw it for, or, or, or he, I mean, that's real, I mean, that's integrity to another level.

00:29:36.860 Um, and, uh, that's the, that's the, that's sort of the archetype really, I think, dealing with that sort of, the mobs and crowds and, um, it's the opposite to like politicians.

00:29:50.900 Politicians have to play to the mob to further their careers.

00:29:53.280 And that's the great thing about an artist is he doesn't, well, actually an artist does in a weird way, but Solzhenitsyn didn't let that affect him.

00:30:01.280 The reason I bring it up is, is something that Francis and I've been thinking about a lot and dealing with, because there's no question that we are not woke and against wokeness.

00:30:13.120 We are, we are anti-woke, right?

00:30:15.340 But the problem is if you are anti-cancel culture and you then engage in cancelling people because they said something you didn't like, or, you know, I see this quite often, you know, on YouTube, you'll get somebody on who's more left-leaning or who may be woke even.

00:30:32.620 And you want to have a conversation with them and people are like, I'm not watching this, you know, and it's like, well, you're not anti-cancel culture then.

00:30:40.500 You're just anti that cancel culture and you actually quite like to engage in your own thing.

00:30:45.960 And so, and that's the evolution of all of us.

00:30:49.040 I think initially for us as artists, as comedians, that was the feeling of like this, this industry has become very homogenous and everyone's supposed to have the right opinion.

00:30:57.640 And I'm against that, but then also as you, as you move away from that, you're starting to see the flaws in some other arguments.

00:31:04.400 And, and, you know, we're generally trying to build our own picture of issue by issue, topic by topic, subject by subject, as you do with the books that you read.

00:31:12.780 And the, I think it's, it's big tech, it's social media is just designed to, to just push you into an echo chamber.

00:31:22.780 It's just pushing you, you're either woke or you're anti-woke.

00:31:25.820 Like, you know, you can't just be human being with different opinions.

00:31:29.060 Like it, it's going to feed you this, it's going to feed you that.

00:31:32.260 Do you know what I mean?

00:31:32.920 Absolutely.

00:31:33.420 And it's great that you've identified that.

00:31:35.280 And, and as you, you know, take trigonometry forward, and this is how I say it, for example, for me, another, it's not exactly speaking to that,

00:31:45.900 but I got invited to every news thing on, under the sun.

00:31:50.860 And I've been very careful to like, not go on to certain shows because I, I, you know, I don't need to like, so I can play to now the anti-woke crowd very easily.

00:32:00.520 But I don't, because I don't want to play that game at all.

00:32:04.200 I don't want to engage that game. 0.98

00:32:05.340 I want to, I know what it's like to lose my integrity, and I want to fucking keep hold of it, keep hold of my bloody soul. 0.94

00:32:10.620 And, and just kind of see above it and see, and not play quick, you know, games, which you're in a tricky position because you're building a business. 0.98

00:32:19.300 So you kind of need to play quick games, but at the same time, people will see through you in the long run.

00:32:26.280 We never, we never looked at it like that, man.

00:32:28.240 We never, ever looked at it like that.

00:32:29.940 Yes, of course, now we have staff and people helping us make the show.

00:32:34.080 We've got to make sure that we've got a salary to pay them.

00:32:37.060 But we think of it as the integrity that we try to maintain.

00:32:42.780 And look, we're human beings and we're fallible, but it's the integrity that attracts people.

00:32:48.280 So when we say this is our opinion, and now we've changed it, for example, because we've changed our opinion, that to me is what people recognize as human beings.

00:32:59.060 And you hope that there's an audience out there for that.

00:33:01.120 But it's like when I started comedy, people would always ask me, you know, comedians are desperate to succeed and whatever.

00:33:06.300 And I always said, if I can't do the comedy that I want to do, I don't want to be a comedian.

00:33:11.460 It's part of the reasons I don't do comedy now anymore.

00:33:13.860 I feel like I've got more interesting things to do, you know.

00:33:18.280 I don't want to play to any crowd, you know.

00:33:22.860 Who do you not find that crowd, though?

00:33:24.520 The crowd finds you.

00:33:26.480 And the crowd I'm interested in playing, and I suppose if there is one, is the crowd of people who are interested in exploring ideas and making up their mind on an issue by issue.

00:33:35.120 And still retain that genuinely liberal feeling of, I'm interested in hearing people that I don't agree with.

00:33:43.920 You know, that's the goal for us.

00:33:46.260 I think you've done well at that, inviting this kind of range of people.

00:33:50.940 Yeah.

00:33:51.280 We're not interested.

00:33:52.160 I'm not interested in being a partisan.

00:33:53.920 I'm not interested in being a partisan left, right, or whatever it may be.

00:33:56.500 It's an easier path to take.

00:33:58.140 Much easier.

00:33:58.800 Because you find your tribe and you can all agree.

00:34:01.060 And we're built to seek the tribe.

00:34:03.720 We're built to be part of the tribe.

00:34:05.240 That's how we are, evolutionary speaking.

00:34:07.780 But I don't want that.

00:34:08.920 I'd much rather be a part and actually have my own thoughts and my own views and my own sense of integrity than to be part of a group where I have to become disingenuous.

00:34:19.400 And lie not only to other people, but more fundamentally to myself.

00:34:24.400 But I am going to ask this question because I think, sorry, go for it.

00:34:28.220 Well, I found that with now launching my new podcast and the people I've got on, it's a range of people.

00:34:35.340 I think probably all my guests are liberal if not progressive.

00:34:41.440 I don't think I have any conservatives yet.

00:34:43.760 But I certainly don't agree with them on everything to different degrees.

00:34:52.280 But I want to make them look good because they're humans.

00:34:56.500 And because there's no reason, even if I disagree with someone, that they aren't an interesting and nice person that should be given the time.

00:35:08.560 And I think that that's that vilification that happens when you get into the tribal stuff.

00:35:13.780 It's so cheap.

00:35:15.120 It doesn't need to be like that.

00:35:16.540 You can be mates.

00:35:17.540 Everyone at home has got mates who they disagree with massively, but they don't let that get in the way of their friendships.

00:35:23.440 It should be the same on these sort of shows.

00:35:25.660 I think that's starting to die out, Winston.

00:35:27.760 What you said about people having mates that they disagree with.

00:35:31.140 I actually agree with you on that.

00:35:32.780 Yeah.

00:35:33.140 I think that used to be it.

00:35:34.480 Since 2015, it's like, you know, it's been very, you know.

00:35:38.200 Yeah, I think, sadly, that's going that's starting to ebb away.

00:35:43.320 The question I was going to ask is, is the artist, I'm someone who's always been a big fan of art, music, film, whatever else.

00:35:52.160 Why do we now believe that the artist has to be a good person?

00:35:57.440 When did we start judging the artist for their actions and not for the art they produce?

00:36:05.100 He's asking you to defend pedophiles.

00:36:08.200 Well, the example I went to in my head was R. Kelly, because I frigging love that song Ignition.

00:36:13.560 It's a banger.

00:36:14.620 It's a banger.

00:36:15.300 It still is.

00:36:16.520 Do you have any moral qualms listening to that song?

00:36:18.900 No, I don't.

00:36:19.740 I think this idea that we should judge artists and say that, you know, if they have done reprehensible things, which many of them have done, suddenly we can't have access to all the beautiful things that they've created. 0.69

00:36:33.120 I find ridiculous. 0.59

00:36:35.480 I'll give you an example. 0.93

00:36:36.980 I'll give you an example.

00:36:38.060 Lewis Carroll. 0.98

00:36:40.020 Probably a pedophile. 0.99

00:36:41.640 Probably. 0.98

00:36:42.200 Everything that we know about him.

00:36:43.540 Allegedly.

00:36:44.060 Allegedly.

00:36:44.780 Right.

00:36:45.420 We're going to get sued by the Lewis Carroll Foundation.

00:36:47.920 Yeah, I'll get a message in my Twitter.

00:36:52.300 Yeah, eliminate that.

00:36:53.780 Take it down.

00:36:54.740 Right.

00:36:55.640 Created one of the most brilliant works of children's literature in Alice in Wonderland.

00:37:00.540 I want to have children.

00:37:04.080 If I have a little girl, I will read Alice in Wonderland because I think it is a book of brilliance.

00:37:10.920 It just is.

00:37:11.780 And I taught it.

00:37:12.720 Every primary school class I had, we read Alice in Wonderland together.

00:37:19.320 It is a magical book.

00:37:20.520 Is there any artist that's committed a crime too much for you to enjoy their work or sponsor their work? 0.99

00:37:31.280 Because that's another line is if you know that by listening to them or watching them that they're getting paid and that money is then fueling insidious behavior or inappropriate, immoral shit. 0.93

00:37:42.440 Then that's, is there a line there for you? 0.98

00:37:47.060 Because, you know, you can talk about people who are dead.

00:37:49.600 It doesn't make a difference.

00:37:50.640 Yeah.

00:37:51.120 You know, but I don't want to.

00:37:55.300 I'm much more ambivalent about it.

00:37:56.800 I also think it depends on what you're talking about.

00:37:59.100 For example, if you look at someone, the music may be different somewhat, but comedy, how you experience a comedian's material depends very, very much on what your perception of their character is.

00:38:10.540 It's one of the reasons someone like Jimmy Carr gets into a lot more trouble than someone else doing the same jokes, because Jimmy Carr presents a kind of fairly normal person on stage.

00:38:21.680 He's not vulnerable.

00:38:22.740 He doesn't talk about himself.

00:38:24.460 It's all, there's no authenticity to it.

00:38:27.360 It's just jokes, right?

00:38:28.600 And so people look at the joke on its own.

00:38:32.020 And he's not necessarily the most likable persona on stage either.

00:38:35.760 Whereas if you took someone like Jerry Sadowitz, who says things that are way worse than what Jimmy Carr says, but his persona on stage is someone who's completely mental, right?

00:38:46.600 And very vulnerable and very sort of unhinged.

00:38:50.080 And that means he can get away with stuff that someone else can't.

00:38:53.120 So the knowledge, for example, that someone is a sex pest or whatever, changes how you experience a joke they might do about that issue, right?

00:39:03.620 So I don't think it's as simple as just going, well, you know, the art and the artist are separate.

00:39:10.840 Well, on some issues, some situations they are, and then some of them are not.

00:39:14.460 It's much more complex.

00:39:15.840 And I don't have an answer.

00:39:17.020 I just know that it's not a simple answer.

00:39:19.620 What do you think?

00:39:20.460 I probably, there's, I can't really think of an artist that I wouldn't listen to.

00:39:33.980 I would still listen to R. Kelly, but R. Kelly's, R. Kelly's the only one, because as far as I understand it, and this is, I'm not sure if this is actually right,

00:39:43.300 but he's an interesting example because he's someone who's still alive, who still profits when you listen to his music.

00:39:50.240 However, I don't think he's still engaging in that behavior.

00:39:55.060 So you're not funding, you're not fueling that necessarily.

00:39:59.000 But the idea that artists are infallible and morally sort of untouchable is insanity.

00:40:10.500 And so you can't, there's no art you can listen or engage with or enjoy at all if they have to be a good guy, because no one's a good guy.

00:40:20.660 But even more, to me, art comes from flawed people.

00:40:24.980 If you think about some of the greatest songs, the greatest art, literature, a lot of it stems from pain.

00:40:34.660 And when someone's in pain, quite often they inflict it on other people, whether they intend to or whether they don't.

00:40:44.560 An artist is never a well put together person when they're at their creative peak.

00:40:49.780 So to then expect them to be this flawed, perfect person who's then producing incredible works of art, to me, the entire thing doesn't make any sense.

00:41:00.540 It's completely incongruous.

00:41:03.580 I just see the way that we're putting artists on a pedestal now and expecting them to be perfect, both from what they create and in their private lives and in their political opinions and in who they are. 0.95

00:41:17.200 It's completely ridiculous. 0.84

00:41:18.260 Agreed. 0.70

00:41:20.620 And I've never, I've never, so let's say political opinions, because that's maybe where it's most relevant to my life.

00:41:26.800 I have no problem listening to like Marxist, communist musicians, like that, even though it's obviously an abhorrent and completely immoral political ideology that's killed hundreds of millions.

00:41:42.620 It doesn't mean I can't enjoy the music, I have no problem separating those things, but I don't think that that's the case for everyone.

00:41:51.760 I think that we're in a period where it's not the art that's judged, it's the person by whatever, kind of, whatever the faddy morals of the day are.

00:42:03.100 Hey, Konstantin, do you believe every business needs cyber security to succeed?

00:42:10.660 Yes, of course, because otherwise Uncle Vlad will hack the hell out of it.

00:42:14.500 Wouldn't that be a gross violation of international law?

00:42:17.660 In Putin, Russia, we don't have law.

00:42:19.500 Well, if you don't live in Russia, then Pocket Seam is the company for you. 0.99

00:42:25.000 If you have a business that needs protecting from the unscrupulous elements of the internet, then make sure to check them out.

00:42:33.360 Unscrupulous elements? That is no way to talk about my family.

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00:42:42.300 And if you want to keep costs manageable, you can also pay for their services on credit.

00:42:48.260 Pocket Seam is the best and most cost-effective cyber defence company in the world.

00:42:52.980 I tried hacking them and all I got was international sanctions.

00:42:55.940 If you want to protect your company at a reasonable price, then go to pocketseam.co.uk.

00:43:03.260 That's P-O-C-K-E-T-S-I-E-M.co.uk and get your company protected by the best in the business.

00:43:15.620 Well, let me ask you this because you're a religious person and a lot of people have made the comparison

00:43:22.460 that the thing we're going through now is a sort of new religion, if you like,

00:43:28.400 but one that has no forgiveness and has no redemption of any kind.

00:43:33.260 Do you think that's what it is?

00:43:34.560 Do you see sort of religion or cult-like features in what's happening now?

00:43:44.840 I certainly think, bringing it back to the book that's got me in trouble on the topic of Antifa,

00:43:51.540 I do feel sorry for these kids who are engaging in this stuff.

00:43:56.560 And one reason is that they've replaced where they don't have a god or ritual or community

00:44:06.800 like that religion brings in the church, they replace it with this other thing,

00:44:11.620 which brings them tremendous meaning.

00:44:13.440 And so there is a, that is one of the kind of consequences of God dying in modern times.

00:44:26.840 So I do agree with that.

00:44:29.480 And I do think that, I mean, I've written about this a bit as well,

00:44:32.900 but good faith and just remembering that we're all flawed.

00:44:37.720 That's, I'm trying to work out why, why that is not,

00:44:41.460 what so many of my friends still talk about goodies and baddies,

00:44:45.160 like life is a Disney film.

00:44:47.920 But even a Disney film's got more nuance than that.

00:44:50.540 But I'm trying to work out, I've been just thinking about why is it that,

00:44:54.780 that so many people see the world, because that's not Christian thinking at all. 0.87

00:45:01.480 Christian is very much that we're all,

00:45:04.340 the thought is that we're very much all flawed.

00:45:08.460 And one of the reasons is maybe I think we've been taught history really wrong.

00:45:12.840 Like with Nazism, which everyone learns in school, 0.91

00:45:18.040 which they should learn in school,

00:45:19.240 or it's, you know, Nazis bad, Brits good, or allies good, rather.

00:45:29.420 And so, and because that's quite an easy story to tell,

00:45:32.800 perhaps that's one of the ways we see the world.

00:45:35.340 And that's maybe why Nazi is the word that comes up so often

00:45:39.160 when you're having political arguments.

00:45:40.640 Like if you're pro-Brexit, you're a Nazi,

00:45:43.760 that was happening a lot of that kind of...

00:45:45.560 But actually, and the other side to it as well, 0.72

00:45:47.460 you're a kind of Remainer, fascist, you know, 0.90

00:45:51.060 there's, it's not just one side doing that.

00:45:54.540 I wonder if the, and before the interview started,

00:45:58.760 kind of a little bit toward the idea of like communism,

00:46:02.140 why is that so difficult to teach?

00:46:03.760 And is that taught?

00:46:04.900 And you're both from communist backgrounds.

00:46:08.440 I don't think it's difficult to teach at all.

00:46:11.080 Do you not?

00:46:11.860 No, it's not difficult to teach at all.

00:46:13.940 I think it is very difficult to teach.

00:46:15.220 Why do you think it's difficult to teach?

00:46:16.740 Because the thing I hear so often is,

00:46:19.240 even from friends, intelligent friends my age,

00:46:22.120 they're all like, oh yeah, well, it's,

00:46:24.040 it's conceptually brilliant.

00:46:26.760 It's just, impractically speaking...

00:46:29.140 That's what I think.

00:46:30.100 No, but that's nonsense.

00:46:31.460 It's conceptually, it's...

00:46:32.440 Fails to take into account human nature and it's utopian.

00:46:36.320 And that, so conceptually, it's nonsense.

00:46:39.200 You know what?

00:46:40.220 I take back what I said.

00:46:41.220 You're right.

00:46:41.700 It is conceptually nonsense.

00:46:43.000 What I mean is it's well-intentioned with some people.

00:46:47.320 Some people...

00:46:47.760 I'm not even sure it's well-intentioned.

00:46:49.200 For some people it is.

00:46:50.460 For some people it's not.

00:46:51.280 For some people it's just about the opportunity

00:46:53.560 to turn the tables and to be the authoritarian

00:46:56.900 and at the top telling other people what to do.

00:46:59.760 I'm at the bottom now.

00:47:00.980 I want to switch everything.

00:47:01.960 So I end up on top.

00:47:03.260 And a lot of people who led the Russian Revolution

00:47:05.460 were motivated by that.

00:47:07.400 But some of them were also motivated genuinely

00:47:09.320 by a desire to uplift people and to share and whatever.

00:47:15.100 I think there is some good...

00:47:16.040 Yeah, we all want a fairer society.

00:47:16.940 There's no one who doesn't, really.

00:47:18.680 Well, there's probably a few people who don't.

00:47:21.540 No, you're right.

00:47:22.060 Most people do.

00:47:22.780 But I don't think communism is very difficult to teach.

00:47:25.020 I could teach communism to a class of kids in an hour.

00:47:29.280 In an hour.

00:47:29.840 I'd like to be in that class.

00:47:30.920 It's very easy.

00:47:31.780 All you do is you take some resources like sweets or whatever

00:47:34.400 and you get some of them to produce them,

00:47:38.560 let's say, to make them or whatever,

00:47:39.980 and then you distribute equally to everybody.

00:47:42.240 See what happens.

00:47:44.200 See what happens. 0.99

00:47:45.460 See what happens when one person sits in a corner doing fuck all 0.99

00:47:48.380 and one person is doing all the work 0.98

00:47:49.860 and then you distribute everything equally.

00:47:52.260 Over and over.

00:47:53.520 And then the person who did nothing

00:47:54.920 gets to demand from that other person

00:47:56.880 what they should and shouldn't do.

00:47:58.760 See what happens.

00:47:59.320 It's not that hard to teach.

00:48:00.780 The reason we don't teach it is historical, in my opinion.

00:48:03.500 You asked me this before.

00:48:04.500 That's why I'm answering.

00:48:06.540 We needed the Soviet Union to win. 0.84

00:48:09.880 We, the West, right?

00:48:11.620 The West needed me, the Soviet Union, if you like. 0.89

00:48:16.180 I'm getting very confused now with my identities.

00:48:18.980 The West needed the Soviet Union to win the war 0.57

00:48:21.540 and to defeat Nazism.

00:48:22.860 And because of that,

00:48:24.100 it meant that they were willing to turn a blind eye

00:48:26.400 to all the atrocities.

00:48:30.080 Curiously, Churchill didn't, by the way.

00:48:31.880 Churchill didn't.

00:48:32.420 Churchill was, he, throughout,

00:48:34.760 if you read him throughout that period,

00:48:36.320 he's like, this is, we've made a deal of the devil here.

00:48:38.380 Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

00:48:40.300 But if you, this is one of my favorite things,

00:48:43.220 people who read Orwell obviously read 1984

00:48:45.420 and Animal Farm, et cetera.

00:48:47.060 But if you read the preface to Animal Farm,

00:48:50.220 he talks about how difficult it was to get it published.

00:48:53.840 Because criticizing the Soviet Union at that time,

00:48:56.560 which of course Animal Farm does very directly,

00:48:59.020 was seen as one ought not to do this thing.

00:49:02.120 It's called, I think, On Censorship is his essay,

00:49:05.260 which I recommend everybody read.

00:49:06.460 But, you know, it was a pragmatic decision.

00:49:12.100 And also, people in Britain, people in America,

00:49:16.500 were not affected directly by communism,

00:49:20.020 for the most part.

00:49:21.460 How many British people died fighting against communists?

00:49:25.860 How many British people were taken

00:49:28.700 to concentration camps by communists?

00:49:30.900 How many British people were repressed by communists?

00:49:35.180 Very, very few.

00:49:35.920 Well, the story is even worse than that.

00:49:37.580 And it's from your great, mighty guest, Giles Udy.

00:49:40.700 Who you recommended.

00:49:41.620 Thank you.

00:49:42.120 Whose book, Labour and the Gulag,

00:49:44.320 should be mandatory reading, I think,

00:49:46.900 in schools in Britain.

00:49:48.180 But the period, the feeling at the time after the Russian Revolution

00:49:54.300 and for a long time afterward was you mustn't criticize

00:49:58.360 the socialism and communism in Russia

00:50:02.460 because it's, you know, we've got to support it.

00:50:06.140 So even when there were stowaways on ships of the timber that was being cut down by gulag prisoners,

00:50:16.040 slave labor, you know, the timber itself had carvings like help in Cyrillic or whatever,

00:50:23.300 so obviously they couldn't really read it.

00:50:24.480 But there were actual stowaways that ended up in Britain and that stuff was ignored.

00:50:28.040 So the revolution could be supported.

00:50:31.540 But I don't think it's difficult to teach.

00:50:33.820 No.

00:50:33.980 I don't think it's difficult to teach.

00:50:35.200 No, as someone who's got a teaching background, it's relatively simple to teach. 0.99

00:50:39.320 Your big mistake is doing it with sweets because the little fuckers would eat. 1.00

00:50:42.100 Well, even better, what you do is you get them all to make something, 0.99

00:50:47.540 then you get them all to sell it, make the money,

00:50:50.160 and then you split it equally between people who've done absolutely nothing

00:50:53.320 and people who worked hard.

00:50:55.460 See how long that lasts.

00:50:57.100 That is going to last about a day, mate.

00:50:59.140 It's not hard to teach.

00:51:00.700 It's just about being willing to teach.

00:51:02.400 Yeah.

00:51:02.760 But again, the example, well, not again, but you're not, it's not a,

00:51:08.420 you're, it's a practical thing.

00:51:10.700 So you're still not articulating why communism bad's there.

00:51:14.720 You're just saying, try this, kids.

00:51:16.780 Whereas with Nazism, you could be like, you are like, 0.90

00:51:20.340 this was an evil ideology where they prioritised race over common humanity

00:51:26.760 and these were the consequences.

00:51:29.600 Whereas you still haven't.

00:51:31.640 Well, that part is, if you mean, what is the intellectual argument against communism?

00:51:35.980 That, I don't find that difficult to articulate at all.

00:51:38.100 I just think if you're going to teach people practical ways of doing it

00:51:41.220 are usually much better because they experience it directly, right?

00:51:44.880 But intellectually, the idea that we should pretend that human beings are not aspirational,

00:51:54.920 that human beings are not hierarchical,

00:51:56.980 that human beings didn't evolve to seek to be more successful than other people in society,

00:52:02.340 and that that is a healthy desire in a very large way,

00:52:04.920 which is why we live in a, in a, in a, in, in this world instead of mud huts, right?

00:52:12.260 I don't think that's difficult to explain to people.

00:52:14.280 And whenever Francis talks about his experience of Venezuela,

00:52:18.120 or I talk about, and as I do in my upcoming book,

00:52:20.620 about communism or the experiences,

00:52:23.260 I haven't found many people who've struggled to understand that.

00:52:26.860 What I have found is that even very well-educated people here in the West 0.91

00:52:30.380 have absolutely no fucking idea what actually happened in the Soviet Union, 0.93

00:52:35.360 what actually happened in China, what actually happened in Venezuela, 0.97

00:52:38.920 what actually is happening in Cuba, what actually is happening on...

00:52:42.100 They just don't know.

00:52:43.020 It's shocking, you know, knowing educated adults who have never heard of Mao.

00:52:48.180 Yeah.

00:52:48.340 And I wonder what the polls are there, if you, if you look at, like, who, you know,

00:52:52.460 who was Stalin, who, who are these people?

00:52:54.700 And I bet it'd be polling, like, there's just no education on it.

00:52:59.300 But you see, the problem is,

00:53:00.520 is that we don't prioritise the teaching of history at the schools.

00:53:03.200 We touch on it very, very lightly, right the way through primary,

00:53:07.300 right the way through secondary.

00:53:08.580 You get what?

00:53:09.680 An hour of history education at school?

00:53:13.020 What, total?

00:53:13.820 Yeah, every week.

00:53:15.340 That is bad.

00:53:16.780 An hour a week.

00:53:17.700 Are you getting an hour, maybe two hours a week,

00:53:21.620 which, if you look at the practicalities of school,

00:53:24.280 it's five minutes to get the kids in, set up the lesson,

00:53:27.120 then five minutes to pack away at the end.

00:53:28.700 So 50, 45 minutes of quality teaching.

00:53:31.880 I mean, really, can you go into depth into any particular subject?

00:53:35.980 Not really.

00:53:37.180 So the reality is, we just don't teach history.

00:53:41.400 Most people have a very, very poor and limited grasp of history.

00:53:45.820 And that's the reality of it.

00:53:47.700 Which is the reason, a lot of the time, where you saw people marching down the street

00:53:54.420 during the BLM demonstrations, saying things like abolish capitalism.

00:53:59.340 And, you know, I had lots of friends who were in the comedy industry.

00:54:03.780 They were neither intelligent nor well-educated, but we're going to skip past that.

00:54:06.640 And they were saying things, you know, like, oh, this is great.

00:54:09.280 And I go, do you know what that means?

00:54:12.860 Do you actually know what that means?

00:54:15.700 Have you ever seen capitalism abolished?

00:54:18.120 And they would just look at me and I'm just like, so why do that chant?

00:54:22.860 Unless you know what that chant means, unless you know the implications of that chant,

00:54:26.900 unless you know what effects that's going to have on society and the people around you.

00:54:32.600 Don't do the chant.

00:54:35.120 And that's the problem.

00:54:36.680 Because what it is, is a utopian fantasy.

00:54:40.600 It's a utopian fantasy.

00:54:43.520 And you're asking people to believe in this utopian fantasy.

00:54:46.460 But like all utopias, it doesn't lead to a utopia.

00:54:49.720 It leads somewhere incredibly dark.

00:54:51.740 But because people haven't been educated about it, you can lead them down the path.

00:54:56.180 I'll tell you the story.

00:54:58.460 I used to live in Wimbledon.

00:55:00.560 And there was a coffee shop down the road from me.

00:55:02.940 And it was run by a Cuban guy.

00:55:04.940 And every week I would go in and we'd sit down.

00:55:08.060 And I'd pick a moment when the coffee shop was empty.

00:55:10.480 And we'd sit down together, eat and talk politics.

00:55:13.400 And it was always one of the highlights of my week.

00:55:15.260 And I remember talking to him.

00:55:17.320 His name was Joel.

00:55:18.920 And I was saying I was really frustrated.

00:55:21.740 Because at that point, I could feel the comedy industry marching ever more leftwards.

00:55:26.340 And it was really starting to frustrate me.

00:55:29.520 And he said to me, I remember him saying to me, he said to me,

00:55:31.820 Francis, trying to explain why communism is bad to someone who's never really experienced it

00:55:40.580 is like saying to somebody who's always lived in a wonderful area,

00:55:44.340 don't go down that path.

00:55:47.440 Don't go down the alley.

00:55:48.460 He said it's only when you feel the punch across the back of your head.

00:55:55.000 It's only when you feel the blood in your mouth that you ever truly understand what communism is.

00:56:00.140 So there is that element.

00:56:01.240 This is the point I was trying to make earlier, though.

00:56:02.880 It's much easier to teach why Nazism is evil than to teach why communism.

00:56:06.840 Because the both of you are mixing the case.

00:56:08.600 To teach how communism is bad, you have to, like, show it practically.

00:56:11.960 Not necessarily.

00:56:12.780 Not necessarily.

00:56:13.500 You can teach it.

00:56:14.960 It's a little bit more tricky because Nazism, it's so obvious. 0.89

00:56:18.220 You just say how many people died in concentration camps, et cetera.

00:56:21.200 Okay, but I'm going to argue with you here.

00:56:23.800 Let's say how many people died in gulags.

00:56:25.820 It's more than in the Holocaust. 0.67

00:56:28.160 The holodomor, which was the deliberate starvation of people in the western parts of the Soviet Union,

00:56:33.220 killed more people than the Holocaust. 0.81

00:56:37.260 Did it?

00:56:37.680 Yes, it was over 7 million.

00:56:39.140 That's the official figure confirmed by the Russian parliament.

00:56:41.640 That's what's fine.

00:56:42.380 Right.

00:56:42.720 It's more.

00:56:43.620 And probably a lot more.

00:56:45.940 But there was also the racial element to it, which is just, you know.

00:56:51.040 And that, for whatever reason, that invokes a stronger reaction in us.

00:56:55.100 It does.

00:56:55.620 It's true.

00:56:56.220 It's true.

00:56:56.720 But let's look at the figures, man.

00:56:58.200 Yeah, I agree.

00:56:59.400 Let's look at the figures.

00:57:00.340 So the problem is, this is one of the things as well, historically.

00:57:04.800 What happened with Germany after Germany lost World War II is there was a very, very, very thorough denazification program.

00:57:13.140 If you were a German and you wanted to go and get a food parcel from the Allies to survive, which you needed to survive,

00:57:19.940 you'd go and have to see a movie about what happened in the camps.

00:57:23.420 That's what they did.

00:57:24.340 They made you watch that, right?

00:57:26.500 Did that happen in Russia in 1991?

00:57:29.740 No.

00:57:31.080 No.

00:57:31.320 And the people who run Russia are the direct inheritors of the very people who did the gulags. 0.87

00:57:36.700 The same people who used to be in the KGB, they now run the country.

00:57:41.260 So that's another reason.

00:57:42.940 There was no decommunization thing.

00:57:44.620 There was in some parts, in the Western parts, in I think Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, they did something about that.

00:57:50.900 So I just think it's not so much that it's difficult.

00:57:54.320 It's just that it hasn't been done.

00:57:56.460 I don't know why that is.

00:57:57.600 Do you have any thoughts on why that is?

00:58:01.320 Yeah.

00:58:02.520 I don't think it's difficult, man.

00:58:03.980 And whenever we talk to people, people who are not necessarily open-minded to our way of thinking,

00:58:08.560 when you tell them what it was like, they understand.

00:58:12.880 They understand.

00:58:14.080 But it's like a lot of everything that's happening in society now.

00:58:17.320 Now, if you believe in utopias and you care more about virtue signaling than truth, and you care more about your idea of what's right instead of what actually works,

00:58:30.300 yeah, that's what you're going to end up.

00:58:31.520 You're going to end up believing in all this stuff.

00:58:34.060 You know?

00:58:35.100 Francis and I have been talking about this a lot, you know.

00:58:37.000 We're living through a period when people are really embracing utopianism again.

00:58:43.140 I don't know necessarily why, but I think that's a big part of it.

00:58:48.420 It's a big part of why these ideas are coming back.

00:58:51.560 Maybe it's because we're so comfortable now that we can afford to be oblivious to reality.

00:58:56.720 We can just be, you know, sailing away with our thoughts in our own heads.

00:59:00.700 It's also because it's a simple solution to complex problems.

00:59:06.140 If we do this, then we're going to reach a promised land, when the reality is there is no promised land.

00:59:12.160 And maybe these problems that we're faced with at the moment, maybe they certainly don't have simple solutions.

00:59:19.640 Or even worse, maybe there are no solutions.

00:59:23.500 Maybe this is just what it is.

00:59:25.660 Well, look at something like our conversations around racism, for example.

00:59:31.320 Does anyone who's actually thought about it for more than two seconds think that a society of human beings who evolved to be suspicious of foreigners and of others will ever get to a point where there is no racism in society?

00:59:46.100 There's not a single racist person ever.

00:59:48.820 Are we ever going to get to that place?

00:59:50.200 No, but that doesn't mean it's not worth trying to deal with those issues.

00:59:56.160 In fact, one must.

00:59:58.220 Yes, agreed.

00:59:58.840 The problem is, so I absolutely do think racism should be, you know, fought against and combated.

01:00:06.620 But I didn't say it shouldn't be.

01:00:08.100 See, this is where we get into the problem, right?

01:00:11.440 I never said it shouldn't be dealt with.

01:00:13.180 I said, are we ever going to get to a point where there's not a single racist left in society, right?

01:00:19.540 And the problem is, and actually Peterson, who talks about this a lot, is the first 95% of the problem is usually solvable with pretty simple and normal means.

01:00:32.080 The last 5% takes an awful amount of social engineering to get to, right?

01:00:37.740 And so we've now got to a point where I think most of the normal ways of dealing with the issue of racism have been exhausted.

01:00:44.620 And you are now doing things that are actually counterproductive, not you personally, you, us, the society, right?

01:00:51.160 Where we are, we've got to a point where we think that just chastising people for saying the wrong word is going to make them less racist.

01:01:01.200 Well, let's look at the evidence.

01:01:03.620 Let's look at the evidence.

01:01:04.480 The evidence, since 20, since Obama was elected, have race relations improved?

01:01:12.900 No, they haven't.

01:01:14.440 The more we bang on about institutional racism and the more we talk about all of this stuff, the more difficult this conversation becomes.

01:01:22.960 There's another problem is that the solutions are wrong.

01:01:25.660 This is an example I gave in my piece with Barry a couple of weeks ago, which was, there was a BBC, I was still with the band and we did a show with BBC Orchestra and the producer in preparation was insistent on doing, having a racially diverse orchestra, which of course is nothing at all wrong with having a racially diverse orchestra.

01:01:51.860 Although her approach was that it should be, that the orchestra would be chosen by their immutable characteristics rather than their hard work and skill.

01:02:04.780 And a lot of people would argue, yeah, that's how you deal with racial inequality.

01:02:10.980 And I'm absolutely prepared to agree that there is racial inequality.

01:02:18.720 But I wouldn't say that then picking people by the colour of their skin is the answer.

01:02:23.440 Blind auditions would be the answer. 0.71

01:02:26.880 But here's where we come back to my point.

01:02:28.360 So the solutions are all out of whack.

01:02:30.160 Exactly.

01:02:30.620 But that's exactly what I'm saying.

01:02:32.440 You're reinforcing the point that I'm making.

01:02:34.260 I am, yeah.

01:02:34.500 Which is, if you start discriminating against some group in order to correct past mistakes, are you going to create less racism or more racism?

01:02:43.860 If you keep discriminating against the majority of people in this country?

01:02:49.040 I felt this so much because for a period I was going back and forth between England and America and that country is so racialized and they see everything through the prism of race.

01:03:00.520 And obviously I'm generalizing about a hell of a lot of people.

01:03:03.080 But compared to British society, in the last couple of years, we're taking that on, which is just horrible.

01:03:14.240 Moving back to England, I was like, oh, thank God I've escaped that kind of racialized nightmare of seeing the world through that lens.

01:03:22.380 When I think beforehand, I thought Britain was pretty good at not, you know.

01:03:27.840 Well, right.

01:03:28.420 But let me, and there was racism in society before.

01:03:30.960 But let me ask you.

01:03:31.600 Oh, of course there's racism.

01:03:32.060 Of course.

01:03:32.580 But let me ask you this, right?

01:03:33.740 Because how do you get people from different racial groups to get on better?

01:03:39.820 How do you do that?

01:03:40.960 We were, we visited a friend of ours who watches trigonometry.

01:03:45.120 And she was telling us about a plumber that comes around to her house who also now, thanks to her telling him something, watches trigonometry.

01:03:54.400 And she was saying, oh, she's like, oh, I love that interview.

01:03:57.380 I love, yeah, you know, they explore such different topics.

01:04:00.120 The only thing I'm not sure about is the Jews.

01:04:04.940 Big labor, man.

01:04:05.880 And Francis was kind of like, sort of, I don't know what your reaction to it was exactly.

01:04:15.140 But my reaction to it was good.

01:04:18.140 Good.

01:04:19.260 This person has some kind of thing that he's got about the Jews, right?

01:04:23.740 And now he's watching a show hosted by a Jewish man, right? 0.71

01:04:28.540 Co-hosted by a Jewish man.

01:04:30.760 And enjoying it.

01:04:31.760 And before he knows it, he's going to go, oh, maybe, maybe that he'll start with, maybe they're not all like that, right?

01:04:39.060 That's where we start.

01:04:40.140 And then he will continue down the path.

01:04:42.340 It's intermarriage. 0.95

01:04:43.440 It's living together.

01:04:44.480 It's being friends.

01:04:45.500 It's having mates who are Muslims.

01:04:46.900 It's having mates who are Jewish.

01:04:48.120 It's having mates who've come from another country who are dark skinned, light skinned. 0.99

01:04:51.840 That's how you solve racism.

01:04:53.380 You don't solve racism by chastising people, by insulting people, by telling them that they should be discriminated against.

01:04:59.920 Because people who look like them 200 years ago did something that you now don't like. 0.98

01:05:04.040 That was accepted all around the world as the normal way of doing things, by the way, right?

01:05:08.700 You don't solve racism by doing that.

01:05:10.180 You make it worse.

01:05:11.180 And that's why you're seeing the racial tensions increase instead of decrease.

01:05:14.920 Because you're creating it.

01:05:17.880 You're creating it.

01:05:19.940 You know?

01:05:20.540 And it does my head in.

01:05:21.620 And that's why I'm so against it.

01:05:23.120 So, in the sense that I am anti-woke, I am very anti-woke for this reason.

01:05:27.060 Because they're making things worse.

01:05:31.300 Agreed.

01:05:33.320 Great interview.

01:05:34.040 Yeah.

01:05:37.200 But you know what?

01:05:38.140 You said you wanted to ask us questions.

01:05:41.440 So, we're giving you a bit of...

01:05:42.680 Yeah.

01:05:43.420 So, we've finally come to the end of the interview.

01:05:46.660 Before we ask you, not only our last question, but also our questions for our supporters.

01:05:50.460 Plug the podcast.

01:05:53.880 Thank you so much.

01:05:55.900 I am following your footsteps.

01:05:59.120 Starting my own show with The Spectator.

01:06:01.860 Interviewing comedians, actors, writers, everyone in the creative industries.

01:06:07.660 To try and work out what the difficult totemic issues are.

01:06:11.940 Which you've been doing, but I'm looking more specifically, I guess, at the arts.

01:06:16.320 And so far, we had Ignat Solzhenitsyn, who is Alexander's son, speaking about his work as a composer and conductor in the classical music world.

01:06:30.320 And also, he's an expert on his father's work.

01:06:33.740 And we talked about Live Not By Lies, which is the essay Alexander published right before leaving. 0.97

01:06:41.780 And got a little bit of a disagreement because, you know, this essay is like, if you don't stand up for what you believe, you're a cuck. 0.97

01:06:48.780 Not a cuck. 1.00

01:06:50.160 You're a coward. 1.00

01:06:51.520 You're a craven. 1.00

01:06:54.440 And Ignat sort of made the case that it wasn't actually that strong. 0.99

01:06:58.480 It was more of a gentle plea.

01:07:00.020 But anyway, that was very interesting.

01:07:02.480 And David Baddiel, we spoke about Jews Don't Count, his book.

01:07:06.500 I do think anti-Semitism is one of those serious issues.

01:07:11.760 Anti-Semitism is like Israel-Palestine as well.

01:07:16.680 Israel-Palestine is an example of a topic that the creative industries are completely orthodox on.

01:07:23.960 And actually, unlike other issues, it's a bit more of an anti-establishment position.

01:07:29.800 But I think last year there was the Musicians for Artists, there's over 600 musicians signing this anti-Israel declaration.

01:07:37.820 1,500 artists signed another similar such thing.

01:07:44.000 And it's like, whoa, it's really anti-Israel.

01:07:48.540 And then anti-Semitism, I think, is certainly linked to that.

01:07:53.240 But there's another issue that needs to be one of those sort of difficult topics.

01:07:59.680 And even hearing that, I've heard from Jews privately who are very nervous, even if they're not pro, you know, they're sceptical about Israel.

01:08:11.840 They feel like when that topic comes up, they have to keep quiet because it's one of those issues that really sort of angers and is very divisive.

01:08:20.820 And spoke to Don McLean.

01:08:24.100 Apparently, he saw it all coming.

01:08:26.220 If you listen to the song American Pie, he saw this state of the world a long time ago.

01:08:35.580 I look forward to listening, man.

01:08:36.660 It sounds like a great bunch of guests and I'm sure you've got plenty more lined up.

01:08:40.620 It's exciting, man.

01:08:41.740 I'm really keen to see what happens in the next stage of your journey.

01:08:45.680 Thank you.

01:08:45.980 And, you know, you're working your way through it and it takes a little time sometimes, you know, to work out exactly what you want to do and how you want to be.

01:08:54.920 And you're a very thoughtful man and you've got plenty of books to read, I think, as well.

01:09:00.160 Thank you both for giving me the time and being so thoughtful in your questions and for letting me plug my thing and supporting me in my new...

01:09:08.260 You've been very supportive, for your listeners should know, that you two have been very supportive friends behind the scenes as well as in front of them.

01:09:17.320 And I'm very grateful for it.

01:09:19.100 And you've been wonderful friends with me in this last couple of years.

01:09:23.500 So thank you.

01:09:24.240 Thanks, man.

01:09:24.780 Thank you.

01:09:25.180 It's a pleasure to know you.

01:09:27.020 We've got one more question for you before we ask a couple of questions from our audience only.

01:09:30.760 But, Winston, the last question we always ask is the same, which is,

01:09:33.560 what is the one thing that we're not talking about as a society that you think we really should be?

01:09:38.260 The thing that pisses me off, or not pisses me off, perhaps, well, it certainly occasionally pisses me off,

01:09:44.600 but I can't quite work out, is why the issue of the Uyghurs in China,

01:09:50.760 where it's the largest internment of human beings on the planet at the moment.

01:09:56.480 It's between two and three million, or one and three million Uyghurs in camps in Xinjiang.

01:10:03.720 And we've got all sorts of heinous, horrific stories of rape and organ harvesting and just the worst possible things you can imagine.

01:10:17.700 And it seems to me to be one of the great atrocities happening right now.

01:10:21.160 And there's certainly a lot of, there's been a decent amount of coverage across the board.

01:10:26.440 And it is one of those issues, a bit like Hong Kong, which seems to, in this country, be bipartisan,

01:10:34.860 in that there's no one, it's not a divisive issue.

01:10:37.220 It's, everyone's pretty much on the same page.

01:10:39.340 I mean, there are extremes who are hesitant to criticise China, but I would say they're the extremes.

01:10:44.880 But nevertheless, and even though, let's say, the Uyghur issues in Hong Kong gets a fair amount of press coverage,

01:10:52.560 I don't think it captures the imagination of my contemporaries and peers.

01:10:59.860 And perhaps this is because Uyghur culture is so alien. 1.00

01:11:05.560 I mean, this is another thing with, maybe one of the reasons why we got so, the George Floyd captured the imagination all the way over here,

01:11:14.280 and it's probably about the same, similar distance to how far away the Xinjiang is from here,

01:11:19.000 is because we're so marinated in American culture growing up that it feels like our culture.

01:11:24.440 Whereas, not only is Xinjiang a remote province of China, which is completely unimaginable, unfathomable to us,

01:11:34.600 but China itself, even though it's the biggest country in the world, is, I don't think it's something we're educated on at all.

01:11:42.300 Talk about being not educated on communism earlier.

01:11:45.220 We're not educated on China at all.

01:11:46.780 I certainly wasn't.

01:11:47.620 And it's really difficult because the language is very strange or, like, very different to ours.

01:11:56.620 It's a difficult, complicated, long history.

01:11:59.860 And so China, generally speaking, I think it's something we should all be striving to understand better.

01:12:06.320 But the Uyghur, that specific ongoing tragedy, I think, needs more attention.

01:12:12.300 And for any guests who are interested in learning more about the Uyghurs,

01:12:17.400 I recommend following Rahima Mahmood, who is in Britain. 0.89

01:12:21.500 She's a Uyghur who, she's also a singer, and she does various performances.

01:12:27.560 We've been working together, putting on cultural events together in the UK to try and enlighten

01:12:32.680 or try and show us the other side about Uyghurs that isn't just the horrible things that happen to Uyghurs. 0.97

01:12:40.000 What is Uyghur culture?

01:12:41.140 What is Uyghur food?

01:12:41.800 There's various Uyghur restaurants across London.

01:12:44.300 There's not many Uyghurs in the UK. 1.00

01:12:45.420 I think there's about 500 Uyghurs here.

01:12:48.180 But maybe if we can paint the picture of who they are and their wonderful music,

01:12:51.940 their wonderful traditions, then we can eventually push the needle on this horrible, heinous atrocity.

01:13:00.920 Winston, it's been a pleasure.

01:13:02.340 Thank you very much.

01:13:03.300 Thank you so much for coming on.

01:13:04.880 Thank you for watching and listening.

01:13:06.660 Before we go, I should just say China is not the biggest country in the world.

01:13:09.940 That's obviously Russia.

01:13:10.700 Are you meant by population?

01:13:12.200 By population.

01:13:12.740 Yes.

01:13:13.160 But we are the biggest.

01:13:14.240 We are the biggest, Winston.

01:13:16.700 Careful now.

01:13:18.120 Anyway, thank you guys for watching.

01:13:19.580 We are back very soon with another brilliant interview like this one or our show.

01:13:23.780 All of them go out at 7pm UK time.

01:13:25.660 And for those of you who like your trigonometry on the go, it's also available as a podcast.

01:13:30.380 Take care and see you soon, guys.

01:13:34.000 It's a great pun.

01:13:35.120 Uh-huh.

01:13:36.120 It's a great pun, my son.

01:13:37.140 I got it.

01:13:37.700 This is how you do it in comedy, by the way.

01:13:39.340 If they don't laugh, you just make them.

01:13:40.620 Yeah.

01:13:41.000 Russian way, anyway.

01:13:41.780 Yeah, exactly.

01:13:42.240 Uh-huh.

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TRIGGERnometry - April 07, 2022

What I Learned From Leaving Mumford & Sons

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