Why Are We Fighting a War on the Past？ - Tim Stanley
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Summary
Tim Stanley is a historian, leader writer for The Telegraph and author of Whatever Happened to Tradition. In this episode, he talks about how he went from being an orphan to becoming a leader writer, and why he thinks we should all try to be a better version of ourselves.
Transcript
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Even as people reject British history, they're being incredibly British.
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And isn't it the ultimately, the most British thing is to be self-deprecating and say,
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The only problem with that is you end up an orphan.
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If you say my family is rotten, you wouldn't believe what my family did.
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About like 200 years ago, what have nothing to do with my family?
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Well, it's all very well, but you wind up an orphan.
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And ultimately, as I found, when you buy a dog, you need someone to walk the dog for you.
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And if you've written off the rest of the family, you've got no one to do it.
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So no wonder we're feeling so lonely when we isolate ourselves not only from people alive now, but people from the past.
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Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.
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And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.
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Our brilliant guest today is a historian, leader writer for The Telegraph and the author of Whatever Happened to Tradition, Tim Stanley.
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welcome to Trigonometry. Hello. It's great to have you on. That was a very short hello from
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you. Welcome on the show. I'm thrilled. This is the podcast. Is it? When my first, when my last
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book came out about seven years ago, if you didn't get on the BBC or Channel 4, your book basically
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didn't happen. And it's so fascinating that there are now all these different podcasts that you can
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go on and your book can reach different people and new audiences. And this is one of my favorites.
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Well, before we get into talking about your book, which we both really, really enjoyed,
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Tell everybody a little bit about who you are, how are you, where you are, what has been your
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journey through life that leads you to be sitting here rather than on the BBC? I'm a Cancerian.
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Which is a good place to start. It tells you everything you need to know about me.
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I was born in Kent. I had a father and a mother, no brothers and sisters. It's quite a small family.
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I went to a grammar school. I then went to Cambridge where I studied history. I fell in
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love with America and ended up trying to spend as much time over there as possible. I studied,
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wrote about, taught a bit of American history, Sussex University, Royal Holloway. But I got sick
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of the fact that I could literally name all the people who'd read my books. Because that's the
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fate of an academic book. Hardly anyone reads them. So I decided to get into journalism. And
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over about a year or two, I just constantly badgered different newspapers. I worked my way
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from the bottom. I really did. I had no contacts. And eventually, I convinced the Daily Telegraph
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to use me as a sort of an assistant comment type person in America. And somehow, I managed to
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bagel my way into the newspaper. And I ended up working as a leader writer. So from history to
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journalism, that's basically the trajectory of my career. And you talk about popularizing your work,
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getting it out in front of more than just a handful of academics. I think your current latest book
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about tradition is so poignant at this moment in time and I we've been thinking about this on the
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show quite a bit and we've spoken to different people about it and it kind of struck me a few
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weeks ago we were interviewing Posey Parker who used to be a gender critical feminist right and
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one of the sort of key moments of that interview was her saying bring back shame right when talking
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about stuff before that I remember we've interviewed a Christian Catholic uh Christian Catholic a
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catholic uh in america called mary eberstad who wrote a book about how uh the sexual revolution
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created identity politics yes we interviewed a lady called alex kashuta who talked about how
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she said i don't have an ideology i just know that the closer my lifestyle is to my grandmothers
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you know pickling cucumbers for winter and all of that uh living in a small town in romania
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the better i feel as a woman and we found that actually those interviews have been most popular
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with young women interesting your colleague madeline grant of the telegraph wrote a piece
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about how she's one of a number of millennials who don't believe in god who now go to church
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yeah and i think all of this at least in my opinion is part of a a feeling among particularly
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young people but i think all of us really that we've been sold some kind of lie uh and i think
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if i was to summarize that lie i would say that it's the idea that you know the faster we throw
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in the bin 50,000 years of cultural development, the better, freer, more exciting and thrilling
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and wonderful our lives are going to be. And I think a lot of people are starting to find that
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that isn't the case for them. Do you have something to say on that? Because I feel like you ought to.
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Well, I feel like that's the book. Yes, I agree with you. You use the word freedom. That's
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absolutely critical. We are nowadays taught that that is the highest value. And we are encouraged
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to think that we can be the authors of our own story. That, by the way, is a tradition. It's a
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Western tradition. It's a very Western way of thinking. So ironically, by pursuing freedom
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and tearing up tradition, we're actually being very traditionally Western. On the other hand,
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it's first of all a myth. It's nonsense. You don't write yourself. No one can. Even when you kick
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against where you came from, you're recognizing where you came from. And decisions we made on
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your behalf about the way you are brought up that are almost invisible so again that point about it
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being a western tradition one's pursuit of oneself is the product of a certain upbringing it's the
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way you're raised is to to aspire to certain things so first of all you you can't escape the past
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but secondly the idea that those thousands of years there isn't something in there that's not
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valuable that we precisely because it's been thrashed out over that that period of time
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They haven't whittled down certain basic problems and found certain solutions and coping mechanisms.
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The idea that you'd want to junk that social knowledge, I think, is absolutely mad,
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let alone the idea that you could come up with something better just off the top of your head.
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So I think what you're describing there, people looking backwards, is part of that process.
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What I would want to stress, however, is, I mean, you started with the word shame.
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it is talked about in terms of punishments, negativity,
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some things we've all become a bit too decadent
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There's a very positive dimension to tradition as well.
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was people trying to be more like their grandparents.
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making your own stuff, walking rather than taking the car,
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All this sort of getting life that's simpler and more traditional in its style.
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And that's really much more what the book's about.
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This is not a handbag over the head of Western man.
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you might actually find some points of liberation and colour,
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because it just feels that we tend to be progressing,
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that I sort of concluded in the course of writing this,
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that I've noticed that many people in my generation
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that actually their points of reference for how they would like to live
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are not when they were a kid, but their father or their grandparents.
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So if you turn on the telly, I'm struck by how it's all Call the Midwife,
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No one can be bothered to go back to that particular period.
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So my youth isn't really represented there at all.
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If you think about when we went through the pandemic,
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what were the historical parallels we reached for?
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A bit bizarre because there have been actual pandemics
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that actually for the past offers a sense of the solid
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so people reach back to something that came even before because it seems a little more solid
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and it's not just even been in the last few years but even when you if you take during the pandemic
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it seemed that the world speeded up even more yes the moment george floyd was murdered it just
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seemed to be that we just shifted everything just shifted again yes in a way that was very very
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confusing for a lot of people when people were almost had to question themselves and think to
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ourselves, am I now racist? I don't think I'm racist, but am I now racist? Yes, yes. And it's
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not just that circumstances change, but also it feels like morality changes and language changes,
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which is very unusual for that to happen again within not just a lifetime, but a space of a
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couple of years. So to take the lockdown, for example, I thought that recognised British value
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pre-lockdown was mind your own business. That's what I thought we were all about in this country,
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But then I discovered almost overnight that it wasn't just that that value was contestable or problematic,
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but actually that the opposite was true and it was a British value to keep an eye out on people.
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I appreciate that values change dramatically over time.
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I just think it's a little unusual for them to change so fast, so dramatically.
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And as I say, for the language to shift with it so that one is no longer an expectant mother in the course of your lifetime, you can suddenly wake up and discover that you're in fact a pregnant person.
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And that these changes in language affect meaning and they affect how people feel and assess themselves.
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So it actually feels increasingly as though old definitions of what it meant to be human are built on shifting sands.
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So no wonder people are looking back, looking back to points in the past which, as I say, because it's happened and therefore it's unchangeable, it's immutable, people look back and think, well, I prefer that when I understood what a woman or what a lady was to this period of extraordinary rapid change.
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So are you saying that we're sort of like, we feel like we're holding onto a train from which we're about to fall out and we just crave the time when it wasn't going quite so fast where we felt a little bit more secure?
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Yes. And that's a myth. There has always been change.
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And one of the things that really struck me when researching this book,
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because I didn't really know a lot about the 19th century,
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so I ended up having to do an insane amount of crammed reading about the 19th century,
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I was struck by how many complaints made in the 19th century could be made now.
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And they were related to industrialization, the rise of the train, newspapers, all these sorts of things.
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The 19th century people were, there was a brilliant psychiatrist, a liberal Zionist called Max Simon Nordau, who wrote a brilliant book called Degeneration, I think, in which he describes the condition of his patients.
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And he concludes that the world has gone mad on the basis of the people who he's treating.
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And he actually more or less predicts what would become the Second World War in about 30 or 40 years' time.
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But to answer the question about holding on to something, yes, that is what the feeling is.
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And I think that's partly where Brexit and Trump come in.
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I think that's part of what we've been through in the last four or five years.
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The language of take back control, I think it's not just, it was misinterpreted as simply
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about restoring parliament or controlling borders.
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I think it's actually the individual wishes to be able to actually say to history,
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stop there. I want to take stock. I want to understand my relationship with you. And I want
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to regain a sense of investment and a stake in my own life. And is it the internet that's done this
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or is there more to it than that? I think the internet has accelerated it. As I say,
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it's really a two or 300 year process, but definitely it's become much faster with the
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communications revolution. There's no denying that. But I also think it is the natural terminus
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of the Western tradition. As I mentioned at the beginning, we have it hardwired into our DNA to
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question things constantly and analyze things and scrutinize them. And the internet has helped to
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accelerate that process. But it's also the atomization of society, isn't it? This progress
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that we seem to be on. And we seem to devalue community and promote identity. And that to me
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just seems a way to the madhouse, isn't it? Yes and no, because I'm sympathetic towards
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identity politics to the extent that I think it is a symptom as much as a cause of everything
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we've described. It's understandable that the atomised individual looking for an identity
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might reach out for a group and say okay that makes sense of my life and if you look at Black
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Lives Matter for instance like when Black Lives Matter says we need to deconstruct the nuclear
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family you might just read that and say well they just hate families that's not quite true they
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actually talk about going back to older forms of family they see the nuclear family as an as a
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white imposition a modern invention etc but they're not anti-family or community by any means
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it's just one senses that they feel no investment in the current social structures so they are
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individuals looking for something else. So I see that as a symptom. But undeniably, yes, it does
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also ironically help to perpetuate this problem of us becoming more and more like individuals.
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And of course, that's not just a... Sometimes when people talk about atomization, it's a little bit
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theoretical. But we all know in our everyday lives that it is a lived reality. Because, for instance,
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I have, as I sort of mentioned at the beginning, I have a very small family. I live alone. I'm a
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classic example of an atomized individual in the 21st century. We don't live the way that we used
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to, which is not just as part of large families, but also crucially large kinship networks, where
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you have, where if something goes wrong, you don't just have to fall back on your wife or your mom
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and dad. You might have extended relationships of aunts and uncles, et cetera, et cetera. So the
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actual pattern of our lives has changed. It's a very, very good point. When I was reading your
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book, I kept thinking about religion. Because when I was younger, and reading Dawkins, A God
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Delusion, you just think to yourself, where do we need religion? We have science now. We have
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logics. We have facts. And then we've taken religion out, and you're looking around going,
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maybe we did need it. Yeah, yeah. Well, those facts won't comfort you when someone dies.
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They just don't. This is the problem with them. I mean, you mentioned someone going to my friend
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Maddie Grant, going to church without believing in God. See, that's very interesting. It raises
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the question why. If you don't believe in God, it could seem a bit mad because the whole point of
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the church is to worship God. But is that true though, Tim, because the shift from the pagan
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religions or the or the sort of multi um whatever they're called uh polytheistic religions right
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the romans the greeks etc ordinary people weren't allowed in the temple right and the shift from
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that to christianity included making the church the house of god i don't think madeline i don't
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know i haven't spoken to her about this specific issue but i think young people who go to church
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without necessarily believing in god do so for the community element of it rather than
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And maybe just a sort of meditative practice as well,
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a place where you no longer for one time in your life
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I don't want to talk about her without being here.
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you could, for instance, join a political party.
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what is it that draws the community? It is the belief. So everyone else around you probably
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believes in God, even if you don't. They are there for a reason. And second of all, once you are there,
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what is it you're hit with? Well, it's not just the community, is it? It's either the preaching
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or it's the experience of transcendence, depending upon the kind of church that you go to.
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What I would say is to, because I am religious, but I made a point when writing the book not to
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make it all about religion. I saved religion until the very end, partly because I've learned
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from doing things like thought for the day, that the moment you try to inject religion to the
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conversation, you lose someone. So it's better to introduce it very subtly. But also because I
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wanted to make the point that traditions serve human needs. Some are indeed just invented and
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imposed, and that can be horrible, and fundamentalism is an example of that. But in most
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cases, they've actually evolved over time to meet people's very basic needs. And even if you don't
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feel in your heart belief in God, I think you can see the psychological benefit and what it's
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speaking to. And there are certain moments in people's lives, typically when they give birth,
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when they get married, when they die, or when a loved one dies, when they instinctively reach
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for the church. And it's partly because the church has developed a language that we do not have.
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At those moments, these experiences are so profound that there's almost no everyday language
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to describe them. How do you feel when your husband or wife has died? The church lends you
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the language. And even if you don't believe in reincarnation or going to heaven or whatever,
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it almost doesn't matter. You're allowing someone with thousands of years of experience
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to speak on your half and provide comfort. And so you don't have to believe. But I think that
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the belief can come because you realize that what's generating this tradition, what sustains
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it is the belief. And over time, I think that can come. It's a community as well. It's the way it
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binds you together. I was raised Catholic. We always used to go to Sunday mass five o'clock
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and used to sit down, used to see the same faces. Now, even if you didn't know them in any great
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depth, there's a comfort to seeing the same people again. It anchors you in community.
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Yeah, and also it gives you something to do on a Sunday morning. Again, don't knock that. The lack
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of structure in the week. I have a slightly odd week because I work at weekends and sometimes
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it's just not possible to do my usual mass on a Sunday. And on those days, I just feel lost.
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I've lost that sense of structure to the week. Really, that's what religion is about. It marks
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the year. It gives structure to your year. The liturgical year is wonderful. It explains to you
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You actually have a sort of dialogue with the universe.
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which is it is a core tenet of Western civilization
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Is that an inevitably self-destructive force then?
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is that we want to be free of the external impositions on us,
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and you will be looked badly upon by your community.
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or is there going to be some kind of natural built-in mechanism that says to us,
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okay, we've got the freedom now, let's just make sure that we don't lose it by doing something else?
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Yeah, I think an important caveat to my argument is that even within those sort of traditions that I'm saying look back to,
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you'll still find that sort of DNA strand of the search for freedom and moral autonomy.
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So you find it within Christianity as well, which is why it is at once a very conservative religion,
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a religion of churches it's also a religion of reformations and of constant change and every
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generation or so the church will settle and look like it's it's it's sort of it's found its place
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in the world and someone will come along and say no it's not pure enough um and and there's also
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this feeling within christianity that faith must be chosen so so there are lots of ways in which
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even those things that i would like us to look back to and revive i recognize that that that
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desire for freedom is within them but yes i do think it is self-destructive and i i think it's
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a real problem. And what I'm arguing in the book is that I'd like people to look a little bit
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beyond. I'd like people to look before the Enlightenment, because there was a medieval
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consensus which was very different, which saw freedom in a very different way. I'd like them
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to look beyond Europe a little bit, because there is Russia, there is Japan, there are other countries
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which deal with the same problems we have and handle them in a very different way, and to just
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think beyond themselves and beyond the desire for liberation constantly, and to look for freedom
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in things which are settled. And that's a key point of the book, that you really can't have
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liberty without order. And there are certain forms of, there are certain traditions like
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notions of authority, which we just recoil against nowadays. But the point is that these
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things defend liberty, because you, if there's chaos, ultimately, you can't be free. And I do
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fear that's where we're headed towards. I flinched a little bit when you said the word order. I think
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we've all sort of, we all now, not all, a lot of us think about it as a sort of ordnong, like that's
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the vibe of that word. Yes. And it's difficult. But if I could step in there, if you take the
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lockdown, for instance, I would say that a traditional society, I would hope, wouldn't
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have needed those draconian rules because the public would have been so public spirited that
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they would have done the right thing without being told what to do. When you have a breakdown in moral
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order, it requires the state to step in to tell people what to do. So the less there is this sort
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of organic, instinctive understanding of a moral consensus, the more you actually fall back upon
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the state to instruct people to behave a certain way. That makes sense. Let me pick up on something
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you said earlier, because we're both fascinated by history. And you were talking about how in
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the medieval times, there was a consensus that was very different around the issue of freedom.
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Talk to us about the historical evolution of this very idea of individual autonomy and freedom. How
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has that changed over time? Well, it's always there because, of course, the roots of the
00:22:52.360
Enlightenment really come from humanism and the Renaissance, and that itself was looking back to
00:22:57.320
Greek philosophy. So it's always there. But I think a key element of the medieval attitude towards
00:23:06.460
the individual and towards life was this idea of everything being interconnected, that you are
00:23:12.060
defined by your relationship, not just by yourself and how you feel, but your relationship to other
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people. So whereas now we begin from the point of view of who am I, how do I feel, and we're
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intensely psychological, instead an older, more traditional approach towards life is to define
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oneself in relationship to other people. And you find this in more traditional societies as well.
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So you might say not just I am a woman, but I am a mother, I am a wife,
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So I think that's one way in which it's slightly different.
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you start from a different set of first principles to the ones we have now,
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which again are very much about negotiation with morality.
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Whereas if you just say, look, things are as they are,
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as we have been told it, and as God has ordered it.
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starts from a different set of first principles.
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is that we don't worship God, we just worship ourselves now?
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And you see that with social media, with Instagram.
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you know its entire focus on the self so isn't part of the problem with talking about traditionalism
00:24:35.280
is that we live in a society that incentivizes us to be selfish and narcissistic because we see the
00:24:42.520
people who are selfish and narcissistic they're the ones who get to the top they're the celebrities
00:24:47.420
they're the bankers they're the wealthy etc etc yeah yeah and and actually in the medieval period
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people were making precisely that complaint. That's the age group you belong to, mate,
00:24:58.880
500 years old. I mean, those characters, you could read the Canterbury Tales and you'd see
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those representations there. So that is a human ongoing thing. I mean, some of the scriptures
00:25:10.640
are about complaining about those attitudes as well. So I'd say it's eternal, but I do agree.
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I think we've become over-psychological and everything is over-internalised.
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um is it see i'm reluctant to just to say it's because we don't believe in god partly because
00:25:25.320
again i will lose lots of people who i'd like to see by the book i think i think you can say god is
00:25:32.320
a useful is useful in the sense that it draws our attention away from the self and to something else
00:25:38.900
another way of thinking about it is what are your points of reference for aspiration
00:25:43.260
this is one thing that really troubles me i think we're one of the first societies in history
00:25:48.140
that has very little moral aspiration, that doesn't have a strong sense of this is the
00:25:54.220
kind of person you should be. It's constantly being negotiated, and it's constantly up for
00:25:58.840
debate. But there is less and less of a sense of ideal. And that's part of what religion does,
00:26:05.740
is it provides you with ideal human beings and ideal types, crucially with moral content. So
00:26:12.380
they're not just ideal because they are beautiful or strong or anything like that, but because they
00:26:16.240
are good people. So in Christianity, saints are very often poor, they're mad, they're very difficult
00:26:24.520
people, but they're extraordinary people who put their own life on the line for other people.
00:26:28.760
That should be who your ideal is. In this society, insofar as we have ideals, it's either for the
00:26:36.820
rich, people who made it, and that's who you want to aspire to, or it's for a set of things which I
00:26:42.620
would describe as not being really moral. I mean, this is Frank Ferreira's point, is that we obsess
00:26:46.920
about, we've got hooked on words that have no moral content. So one of the ideals of our society
00:26:53.260
is to be diverse. That's just a descriptor. Just to say that this room is diverse doesn't mean any
00:26:59.620
of us are moral people in it. Well, hey, we've got 10 out of 10 because we're a diverse group of
00:27:03.840
people. So what? That doesn't say anything about us and our moral character. Another is inclusion.
00:27:09.560
Well, hey, you could include a murderer in your party if you wanted to.
00:27:15.920
So religion offers ideals, but crucially, they are usually ideals with a moral content.
00:27:24.080
Tim, so as a sort of, you're talking about moral history in a way here,
00:27:30.720
That's something I've studied very carefully myself.
00:27:32.880
As a former translator, comedian, I obsess about words all the time.
00:27:36.100
and there's a chapter in my book about the evolution of language.
00:27:40.180
But you mentioned diversity, you mentioned inclusion.
00:27:43.420
Why have these particular, I mean, non-ideals ideals, right?
00:27:48.360
Things that, as you say, don't have that moral content,
00:27:54.540
Why are we so keen to focus on that at the moment?
00:28:06.100
to get those things. But actually, they're quite easy to achieve. And it's partly because we live
00:28:12.000
in a capitalist order. And it's something that capitalism can do without having to make an
00:28:17.260
enormous sacrifice. It's something businesses can do. Businesses can go diverse, and they can sell
00:28:22.060
diversity, and they can sell themselves as diverse, and they can gain a huge custom base,
00:28:26.880
like HSBC, by pushing certain woke things and selling themselves to us. They're not actually
00:28:32.960
giving their money away, are they? Well, they're laundering drug dealers' money at the same time.
00:28:38.120
You've got a portrait of Stalin on the wall, and this is by no means to endorse Marxism, but
00:28:42.620
at least that aimed for a genuine redistribution of wealth and power. One of the frustrating things
00:28:48.360
about this new moral paradigm is it doesn't actually do that. It doesn't actually level
00:28:54.240
anything or make anyone more equal or make society genuinely fairer. So I think that's
00:29:01.360
one reason is because it's an easy form of moral progress. It's easy to track and it doesn't cost
00:29:07.580
very much money. Hold on, let me say it doesn't make it fair. What about minorities that have
00:29:12.580
been historically discriminated against and now their lives are a lot easier and they're being
00:29:16.560
That's true. That's unfair. That's unfair of me to say that. Yeah, you're quite right. That's a
00:29:21.840
fair point. But I suppose being old fashioned and having in my youth been a socialist myself,
00:29:27.000
I just always thought that I measure fairness in the genuine redistribution of wealth and power,
00:29:35.820
And there must be a reason why BAE Systems is pro-diversity.
00:29:40.640
The company, for those of you who don't know, makes British armaments.
00:29:44.160
Yeah, and they sponsored a pride festival, I think, in the Isle of Wight somewhere.
00:29:49.160
I just thought that's extraordinary, an equal opportunity weapons dealer.
00:29:55.460
And it's not a morality that would have been recognised 100 years ago
00:29:58.120
when the left, pacifistic and genuinely into redistribution
00:30:03.780
would have thought associations with that kind of group
00:30:08.060
But that's so interesting because a lot of these companies are like that.
00:30:17.080
Their manager came out and spoke about the evils of slavery.
00:30:43.980
I'm looking forward to Harry Kane wearing a pride.
00:30:49.860
I'm sure he's not going to be wearing that in Qatar.
00:30:52.260
No. And look, a lot of people believe it. And a lot of people genuinely want to help. And I
00:30:57.320
do feel a little bit bad about being sarcastic or doubting that. And some of what they want,
00:31:03.380
that fairness, that equality, these are good things. And I'm not against them. I just,
00:31:09.420
as I say, always be suspicious when a big business endorses an idea, because ultimately,
00:31:15.520
it's motivated by the bottom, by how much money it makes. And I just, I suspect that they're doing
00:31:21.440
this because it's it's an easy win tim but come back to uh i just want to finish up on this idea
00:31:26.320
about uh these values inclusion diversity surely there's got to be something there because my
00:31:32.680
experience when i talk to people in this country as an outsider someone comes from russia is people
00:31:37.660
here feel very guilty about the past right that is the primary response of many people about this
00:31:45.380
country's history of britain being one of the greatest countries in the history of the world
00:31:48.920
by the way just to put that out there right so to me as an outsider that that i don't get it i don't
00:31:54.860
understand it and i know it's part of the british tradition that all well talked about that you know
00:31:59.440
most intellectuals would rather be seen stealing from the poor box than seeing the standing for
00:32:04.600
the national anthem but nonetheless i feel like these movements for inclusion and diversity in
00:32:09.900
the way that they are now again i agree with you equality and all it's very good they seem to me
00:32:14.760
to be stemming in a very fundamental shift in our perception of our past, of our history,
00:32:20.320
of our tradition. Do you feel that's a factor there? Yeah, no, I think that's really true.
00:32:24.540
The past can be a place of learning, both the good and bad. And they very often pick up on the bad,
00:32:31.000
but sometimes you lose a sight of the good. And we go back to aspirational ideals. The good just,
00:32:37.160
the past does throw some up. And the problem is if you just write off the past and you say,
00:32:41.100
basically everyone before this date was racist and sexist and they were like sort of ignorant
00:32:47.100
neanderthals you lose a lot of good learning as well I mean I think Britain is the best country
00:32:53.600
in the world because it's my country if I were born if I were born again I may well choose to
00:32:58.320
be Norwegian I get the impression that they have a much better life than we do but it's it's
00:33:02.580
instinctive and natural to people to say this is the best because it's mine in the same way that
00:33:07.200
would say, my mum cooks the best flan, right? She probably doesn't. I'm sure there are some
00:33:12.260
Michelin star chefs who do it much, much better. But to you, it is the best. And that kind of
00:33:17.600
personal attachment to things is perfectly natural. And I think it's rather artificial
00:33:22.920
and strange. I never psychologically got it why people don't feel that. It seems normal to me.
00:33:29.240
And you're right. There is a war on the past. It is a very Christian idea. Again, I come back to,
00:33:35.620
This is the fascinating, complex thing about tradition is much of what seems to be kicking against it is actually an endorsement of it.
00:33:42.680
And in a lot of that language about slavery, I hear echoes of original sin.
00:33:47.420
And this idea that we did something a long time ago that was so bad that everything is stained by it ever since and we've got to make up for it and atone for it.
00:33:59.060
So even as people reject British history, they're being incredibly British.
00:34:06.740
is to be self-deprecating and say, well, we're terrible?
00:34:09.420
The only problem with that is you end up an orphan.
00:34:18.640
Well, that's all very well, but you wind up an orphan.
00:34:21.240
And ultimately, as I've found, when you buy a dog,
00:34:24.800
And if you've written off the rest of the family,
00:34:30.460
when we've when we isolate ourselves not only from people alive now but people from the past
00:34:35.500
it's a great point one thing i would push back on with the original sin isn't part of the problem
00:34:42.520
now with the way we look at things some people have original sin and some people don't right
00:34:48.860
yes yes but that yeah that's true um i think there's a this is gonna get a bit weird and niche
00:34:55.320
but i think a lot of woke is actually calvinist so i said catholic but that might be the wrong
00:34:59.660
way to approach it. And in Calvinism, you have this idea that some people are going to heaven,
00:35:06.140
and only God knows. And some people are going to hell, and only God knows. And it's sort of,
00:35:11.060
it's a decision that's taken... It's something over which, it's not that you have no control,
00:35:17.900
but because God knows everything, he already knows. So how are we to tell who's heaven-bound
00:35:24.180
and who's hell-bound? Because we want a church, and we don't want to let the hell-bound people
00:35:27.980
into our church. So you develop this theory of visible sainthood, that people have to act like
00:35:34.880
they're going to heaven. They don't know if they are or they're not, but they've got to act like
00:35:38.240
they are. And I see some of that in woke as well. There's this attempt to be a visible saint by
00:35:44.440
signing up to certain things, using certain language to prove that you are not going to hell.
00:35:48.820
So yes, you're right. Some people are definitely not sinful, but it's more than just even that.
00:35:53.840
it's people who might be sinful are desperately keen to prove that they're not. And that's what
00:35:58.960
I think we're in right now, is a Calvinist cult of visible sainthood. And what do you think the
00:36:04.780
future is going to be? Do you think that it's, because there's some people who think, look,
00:36:09.900
this is here, this is here to stay. We have to accept it. We have to work within these remits.
00:36:14.340
There's some people who say, no, we need to take it on. We need to challenge it. We need to fight
00:36:19.380
to? Yes. Where do we go? Well, I could sell 10 times more books by saying it's all over and
00:36:24.980
we're doomed. But again, my experience of history is that's not the case, because at so many points
00:36:31.480
in Western history, we have said, well, that's that then. We're finished. And then we've bounced
00:36:36.220
back. Everything goes in cycles and everything moves in fashions. And in fact, that, come back
00:36:42.900
to poor old Madeline, must bring her on the show to explain herself. We go back to Maddie and
00:36:48.800
young people going to church even though they don't believe in God. That's very interesting.
00:36:53.420
Where is that being transmitted? If you weren't necessarily raised that way, if you don't believe
00:36:57.640
in that, why would you be drawn to this thing? I see lots of young people doing that. The future
00:37:02.440
is, yes, more tension and chaos and fuel queues and things like that. But the future is probably
00:37:07.740
also renaissance and restoration because it always has been. And I think the good things
00:37:14.080
that we've discussed are so powerful and attractive I do think they win people back
00:37:18.740
it's just up to a new generation to make the case for them and that's part of what the point of the
00:37:24.260
book is I'm making a case for something that in the past people didn't feel they had to make a
00:37:28.080
case for just taken for granted but no we need to start all over again and there are lots of people
00:37:32.700
doing that like Jordan Peterson I find Peterson's books fascinating because I read them and I think
00:37:36.840
this is bloody obvious he's just saying things that are blindingly obvious like tidy your room
00:37:40.960
I don't do it but he just he says things but there is a generation of people who don't know
00:37:46.560
blindingly obvious things and they need to be reinstructed in them well you were talking about
00:37:51.400
Jordan Peterson and that is such a powerful point because if you if you were to say if an alien came
00:37:57.780
down from the skies you asked us before you came before we started the show you said who's the
00:38:01.740
biggest person you've had on have you had Jordan Peterson yes and you go well this Canadian professor
00:38:07.540
who refused to bow down to some particular law that they introduced in Canada, and suddenly he's
00:38:12.460
the biggest intellectual star in the world, or certainly the Western, the English-speaking world.
00:38:17.340
And I think the reason is, is the crisis of meaning that people talk about.
00:38:22.640
What traditionally and historically have people used, human beings used, to give their lives
00:38:29.220
meaning? And how does that differ to us today? First of all, Peterson literally wrote a book
00:38:36.440
called Maps of Meaning, of course, and the first time I read it, I thought this is just Jung.
00:38:41.960
It's about archetypes. Peterson is Jung at heart. And the point about archetypes is that you, again,
00:38:50.480
have these aspirational ideals that you say to people, this is what a man is like, this is what
00:38:54.060
a woman is like. It doesn't mean that's what we are actually like. It just means that you're given
00:38:58.160
templates to people and you tell, you explain how to be a human being through stories, stories which
00:39:05.280
you can place yourself into, stories about danger, hope, charity, things like that.
00:39:13.260
It gives us, in Jesus Christ, the model of the perfect person to compare yourself to.
00:39:17.980
As we mentioned earlier, freedom, the individual personality,
00:39:26.380
so that you find meaning in your relationship with other people and with structures.
00:39:31.520
um so i i that that's the that i think is the answer is to find redemption in other people
00:39:37.580
how can i help them how can i have a good relationship with them um how do i fit within
00:39:42.900
a society what is my role um and how do i serve rather than beginning from the point of view of
00:39:49.220
how do i get on how do i actually flourish as a member of this community in this society
00:39:54.860
do you think we're going to see a resurgence of religion with uh or christianity with young
00:40:00.680
people generation z or whatever they're called going to church on a 11 o'clock on a sunday
00:40:05.380
morning we're not quite there yet i mean benedict the 16th talked about the future being a smaller
00:40:09.660
but more faithful church that we're moving away from the hangover of ethnic religion cultural
00:40:16.000
religion where you went to church because it's what your parents did except well people's parents
00:40:19.640
have stopped going so certain ideas are not being transmitted anymore therefore people will
00:40:24.740
rediscover them in a whole new way and i think that process will be very slow and it might be
00:40:28.860
slight. Though again, I come back to this as nothing unusual. Many people were complaining
00:40:32.820
in the 19th century that Christianity had become a very middle class thing, that the working class
00:40:36.920
had drifted away from the church. So yes, I think the future could be that, but you've got to make
00:40:41.800
it happen. It's certainly that in other societies. And we mustn't be too Western-centric. Religion
00:40:48.140
is doing very well in other countries, in Latin America, in Africa, and the Middle East.
00:40:53.240
No, it's true. And that is a problem with the West, I think, is that we have this
00:40:57.420
navel-gazing attitude where we just look at ourselves and our culture and our societies
00:41:02.420
without actually looking outwards. Yes. And we have a habit of thinking that how we feel is
00:41:07.000
universal. It's very frustrating. And again, it's a very Christian thing to do, this idea that
00:41:12.980
it's not just my God, it's the entire world's God. And his laws don't just apply to me,
00:41:19.080
they apply to the entire world. And the West has inherited that sense of universalism and
00:41:23.760
universality. We very often tell ourselves that our attitudes towards freedom and our definitions
00:41:29.000
of what the good life is, everyone either shares them, which of course is nonsense because we know
00:41:33.240
they don't, the Taliban don't, or if you took away certain structures from people's lives,
00:41:38.520
they would choose them. And they might do. It's an experiment that we keep trying with nation
00:41:43.520
building, but thus far it hasn't worked. Some people do like the way we live. Undoubtedly they
00:41:49.440
do. But a lot of people we've discovered actually don't. You mentioned the Taliban and it's
00:41:56.140
interesting that you do because some people have talked about the idea that you talk about things
00:42:01.380
moving in cycles in history and of course you're right. The idea that what will come in response
00:42:09.120
to a lack of order is a craving for order that goes too far in other direction and people start
00:42:17.100
to seek order from people who bring it with all sorts of terrible other things that, you know,
00:42:22.900
free Western society actually wouldn't. And I'm not talking about Islamic fundamentalism only.
00:42:27.900
It could be lots, it could take shape in other forms. Are you concerned about that? Do you think
00:42:32.420
that's a possibility? I am concerned about that. I mean, I'm keen to say in the book that, because
00:42:36.740
people will come back to me and say, look, so you want traditional forms of religion. Okay, well,
00:42:40.980
is ISIS and the Taliban not traditional? Well, I'm not going to run away from that. To a certain
00:42:46.140
extent they are, but I would argue they are quite untraditional in their manifestation of religion.
00:42:50.840
For a start, they don't recognize evolution within tradition. They want to turn the clock
00:42:57.380
right back to a fantasy of what things were like in the 7th century. And in some ways,
00:43:02.140
things weren't actually like that. I mean, a classic example is ISIS reintroduced slavery
00:43:06.120
for Yazidis and non-Muslims. Well, there was slavery in the 7th century, but the trend was
00:43:12.820
actually towards manumission. Muhammad preached clemency and things like that. So if anything,
00:43:18.140
Islam was moving in a certain direction, they've actually countered that and gone back.
00:43:22.100
They are fanatics and fundamentalists. They lack a nuanced understanding of what religion is
00:43:29.560
and the way that it develops. Nevertheless, you're right that there is a great worry that
00:43:35.840
if you don't provide answers, if intelligent people rooted in the past with compassion don't
00:43:42.000
provide answers and direction then something else will step in and of course in the 1930s that was
00:43:47.100
fascism and communism and that's where it ends um and that that that is alarming and people people
00:43:53.240
were having this sort of conversation in the 1920s and 30s by the way right so you can't rule out
00:43:58.040
fascism and europe has a history of doing it um we are we are just as capable of being brutal and
00:44:04.040
nasty as any other part of the world and that's reassuring that is very reassuring one thing i've
00:44:10.300
really enjoyed about this interview is I assume you're a conservative in your politics would you
00:44:17.780
not with a capital c but okay but I would say that unlike small c conservatives there's you're
00:44:27.160
quite optimistic oh I'm very optimistic yes and I find that quite incongruous I would say as a
00:44:33.240
world because a lot of the time when I talk to conservatives and I have conservative leanings
00:44:37.700
as well particularly small c conservative leanings I think they're rooted in pessimism a lot of the
00:44:42.760
time yes they seem to be well you know if only we could go back to you know when when when we
00:44:47.740
respected marriage or when we respected tradition we wouldn't have all this shit right bring back
00:44:54.680
hangings right but you speak you see what I mean whereas you there's there's an optimism which I
00:45:00.220
don't often see in a lot of people who have those leanings what I would say to them is two things
00:45:05.140
one if you want life to be a certain way live it and many of them do but I just think it's
00:45:12.540
incumbent upon the individual if you think marriage is important right okay go and find
00:45:15.720
yourself a wife and have lots and lots of kids it begins with you don't just berate society it
00:45:20.320
begins with you the second thing I would say is that I think it's it's almost un-christian
00:45:25.180
to be to despair indeed it is it is un-christian to despair because Christians at heart believe
00:45:30.400
that Jesus Christ is coming back, things are going to be okay. So if you go around saying,
00:45:34.880
oh, it's all over and it's done, that's a very unchristian attitude. It's also quite an un-British
00:45:39.280
attitude. Again, one of those things I was raised to think Britishness was, was stiff upper lip.
00:45:47.220
And there's a wonderful scene in, which I always like to quote, in Carry On Up the Khyber,
00:45:52.280
when the palace is being stormed and someone says to Sir Sidney Rough Diamond, what shall we do?
00:46:03.300
And finally, and particularly Americans who are apocalyptic,
00:46:10.400
America is all about positivity and being upbeat.
00:46:12.940
So if you want to revive these traditions, live them.
00:46:15.000
But also these traditions, one of the reasons why they keep going
00:46:20.340
and their ability and self-confidence in their ability to persevere
00:46:25.200
and to flourish and to flower and to change and to grow.
00:46:31.640
it is actually going against the spirit of tradition
00:46:36.120
All right, we're not going to ask you any more questions
00:46:47.920
And we have one final question for you as always.
00:46:50.660
Which is, what's the one thing we're not talking about?
00:46:54.160
anything other than politics. That is my one big complaint about the modern world is this
00:47:01.120
obsession with politics. And it is the terminus of everything we've discussed,
00:47:06.040
which is the rise of liberalism and the idea that everything in life can be debated and sorted out.
00:47:10.780
And therefore, if you believe that, literally every single element of your life, not just from
00:47:16.060
economics, but to who should be the next James Bond, is discussed in political terms. And I would
00:47:21.680
just like to go for a week in this country in which we don't talk about politics that would be
00:47:26.020
the most radical radical proposition i can imagine amen my friend amen uh tim stanley thank you so
00:47:32.660
much we're going to ask you a couple of quick questions for locals but in the meantime thanks
00:47:35.980
so much for coming on and thank you for watching and listening at home we'll see you with another
00:47:40.500
brilliant interview like this one very very soon or you can catch a raw show at exactly the same
00:47:46.520
time 7 p.m british standard time 2 p.m eastern standard or if you like your trigonometry on the
00:47:52.560
go it's also available as a podcast take care and see you soon guys