TRIGGERnometry - Why Are We Fighting a War on the Past？ - Tim Stanley

00:00:00.120 Even as people reject British history, they're being incredibly British.

00:00:04.120 And isn't it the ultimately, the most British thing is to be self-deprecating and say,

00:00:08.400 well, we're terrible.

00:00:09.580 The only problem with that is you end up an orphan.

00:00:12.360 If you say my family is rotten, you wouldn't believe what my family did.

00:00:16.140 About like 200 years ago, what have nothing to do with my family?

00:00:18.820 Well, it's all very well, but you wind up an orphan.

00:00:21.400 And ultimately, as I found, when you buy a dog, you need someone to walk the dog for you.

00:00:24.960 And if you've written off the rest of the family, you've got no one to do it.

00:00:28.800 So no wonder we're feeling so lonely when we isolate ourselves not only from people alive now, but people from the past.

00:00:41.740 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.

00:00:45.920 I'm Constantine Kissin.

00:00:46.940 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:00:52.360 Our brilliant guest today is a historian, leader writer for The Telegraph and the author of Whatever Happened to Tradition, Tim Stanley.

00:00:58.800 welcome to Trigonometry. Hello. It's great to have you on. That was a very short hello from

00:01:03.100 you. Welcome on the show. I'm thrilled. This is the podcast. Is it? When my first, when my last

00:01:09.660 book came out about seven years ago, if you didn't get on the BBC or Channel 4, your book basically

00:01:13.740 didn't happen. And it's so fascinating that there are now all these different podcasts that you can

00:01:17.300 go on and your book can reach different people and new audiences. And this is one of my favorites.

00:01:21.900 Well, before we get into talking about your book, which we both really, really enjoyed,

00:01:25.540 Tell everybody a little bit about who you are, how are you, where you are, what has been your

00:01:29.780 journey through life that leads you to be sitting here rather than on the BBC? I'm a Cancerian.

00:01:37.580 Which is a good place to start. It tells you everything you need to know about me.

00:01:41.100 I was born in Kent. I had a father and a mother, no brothers and sisters. It's quite a small family.

00:01:49.900 I went to a grammar school. I then went to Cambridge where I studied history. I fell in

00:01:54.140 love with America and ended up trying to spend as much time over there as possible. I studied,

00:02:00.720 wrote about, taught a bit of American history, Sussex University, Royal Holloway. But I got sick

00:02:05.820 of the fact that I could literally name all the people who'd read my books. Because that's the

00:02:11.740 fate of an academic book. Hardly anyone reads them. So I decided to get into journalism. And

00:02:16.780 over about a year or two, I just constantly badgered different newspapers. I worked my way

00:02:22.180 from the bottom. I really did. I had no contacts. And eventually, I convinced the Daily Telegraph

00:02:26.400 to use me as a sort of an assistant comment type person in America. And somehow, I managed to

00:02:35.300 bagel my way into the newspaper. And I ended up working as a leader writer. So from history to

00:02:40.460 journalism, that's basically the trajectory of my career. And you talk about popularizing your work,

00:02:46.120 getting it out in front of more than just a handful of academics. I think your current latest book

00:02:51.220 about tradition is so poignant at this moment in time and I we've been thinking about this on the

00:02:56.720 show quite a bit and we've spoken to different people about it and it kind of struck me a few

00:03:00.960 weeks ago we were interviewing Posey Parker who used to be a gender critical feminist right and 1.00

00:03:06.100 one of the sort of key moments of that interview was her saying bring back shame right when talking

00:03:12.440 about stuff before that I remember we've interviewed a Christian Catholic uh Christian Catholic a

00:03:18.180 catholic uh in america called mary eberstad who wrote a book about how uh the sexual revolution

00:03:23.620 created identity politics yes we interviewed a lady called alex kashuta who talked about how

00:03:28.680 she said i don't have an ideology i just know that the closer my lifestyle is to my grandmothers

00:03:34.520 you know pickling cucumbers for winter and all of that uh living in a small town in romania

00:03:39.480 the better i feel as a woman and we found that actually those interviews have been most popular

00:03:44.160 with young women interesting your colleague madeline grant of the telegraph wrote a piece

00:03:48.340 about how she's one of a number of millennials who don't believe in god who now go to church

00:03:53.980 yeah and i think all of this at least in my opinion is part of a a feeling among particularly

00:03:58.960 young people but i think all of us really that we've been sold some kind of lie uh and i think

00:04:04.020 if i was to summarize that lie i would say that it's the idea that you know the faster we throw

00:04:10.040 in the bin 50,000 years of cultural development, the better, freer, more exciting and thrilling

00:04:16.600 and wonderful our lives are going to be. And I think a lot of people are starting to find that

00:04:20.200 that isn't the case for them. Do you have something to say on that? Because I feel like you ought to.

00:04:27.120 Well, I feel like that's the book. Yes, I agree with you. You use the word freedom. That's

00:04:33.600 absolutely critical. We are nowadays taught that that is the highest value. And we are encouraged

00:04:39.220 to think that we can be the authors of our own story. That, by the way, is a tradition. It's a

00:04:43.960 Western tradition. It's a very Western way of thinking. So ironically, by pursuing freedom

00:04:48.740 and tearing up tradition, we're actually being very traditionally Western. On the other hand,

00:04:53.800 it's first of all a myth. It's nonsense. You don't write yourself. No one can. Even when you kick

00:05:00.020 against where you came from, you're recognizing where you came from. And decisions we made on

00:05:04.980 your behalf about the way you are brought up that are almost invisible so again that point about it

00:05:09.640 being a western tradition one's pursuit of oneself is the product of a certain upbringing it's the

00:05:15.800 way you're raised is to to aspire to certain things so first of all you you can't escape the past

00:05:21.520 but secondly the idea that those thousands of years there isn't something in there that's not

00:05:26.020 valuable that we precisely because it's been thrashed out over that that period of time

00:05:31.880 They haven't whittled down certain basic problems and found certain solutions and coping mechanisms.

00:05:37.240 The idea that you'd want to junk that social knowledge, I think, is absolutely mad,

00:05:41.560 let alone the idea that you could come up with something better just off the top of your head.

00:05:45.300 So I think what you're describing there, people looking backwards, is part of that process.

00:05:51.360 What I would want to stress, however, is, I mean, you started with the word shame.

00:05:55.260 And sometimes when we talk about tradition,

00:05:57.660 it is talked about in terms of punishments, negativity,

00:06:03.360 some things we've all become a bit too decadent

00:06:05.100 and we need to be self-disciplined.

00:06:06.940 There's a very positive dimension to tradition as well.

00:06:09.940 I mean, the other thing you described there

00:06:11.940 was people trying to be more like their grandparents.

00:06:15.420 Well, that's more of a positive thing,

00:06:16.880 making your own stuff, walking rather than taking the car,

00:06:19.860 not using plastic bags,

00:06:21.160 All this sort of getting life that's simpler and more traditional in its style.

00:06:25.000 And that's really much more what the book's about.

00:06:27.300 This is not a handbag over the head of Western man. 0.93

00:06:29.660 I'm not saying, you dirty little thing. 1.00

00:06:31.860 You must go back to the 1950s.

00:06:33.600 On the contrary, the further you look back,

00:06:36.300 you might actually find some points of liberation and colour,

00:06:39.920 which are really rather exciting and upbeat.

00:06:44.280 And it's a really, really interesting point

00:06:47.340 because it just feels that we tend to be progressing,

00:06:51.500 not only fast, but at warp speed now.

00:06:54.240 Is that me and a person?

00:06:57.840 Yes, you're getting old.

00:06:59.160 No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

00:07:00.100 This is a very important point

00:07:01.980 that I sort of concluded in the course of writing this,

00:07:05.840 that I've noticed that many people in my generation

00:07:07.980 are nostalgic, not just for their own use,

00:07:11.380 but use that came before them.

00:07:13.560 That things have moved so fast,

00:07:15.080 even in their own lifetime,

00:07:16.440 that actually their points of reference for how they would like to live

00:07:20.240 are not when they were a kid, but their father or their grandparents.

00:07:24.800 So if you turn on the telly, I'm struck by how it's all Call the Midwife,

00:07:30.780 Downton Abbey.

00:07:31.700 It's 1950s or 1920s or 1930s.

00:07:34.720 There are very few rosy shows about the 1990s.

00:07:37.480 No one can be bothered to go back to that particular period.

00:07:40.580 So my youth isn't really represented there at all.

00:07:42.740 If you think about when we went through the pandemic,

00:07:45.920 what were the historical parallels we reached for?

00:07:49.580 It was the war.

00:07:50.640 A bit bizarre because there have been actual pandemics

00:07:52.740 you could reach for as much better analogies

00:07:55.140 for how to behave.

00:07:57.200 But that looms so large as a moral story

00:08:00.180 that for many of us, we reach back to that.

00:08:02.580 And I agree.

00:08:03.180 I think it comes down to the pace of change

00:08:05.560 has been so great within a lifetime

00:08:07.980 that actually for the past offers a sense of the solid

00:08:12.220 because it's unchanging.

00:08:13.220 so people reach back to something that came even before because it seems a little more solid

00:08:18.520 and it's not just even been in the last few years but even when you if you take during the pandemic

00:08:24.940 it seemed that the world speeded up even more yes the moment george floyd was murdered it just

00:08:32.020 seemed to be that we just shifted everything just shifted again yes in a way that was very very

00:08:38.040 confusing for a lot of people when people were almost had to question themselves and think to

00:08:42.660 ourselves, am I now racist? I don't think I'm racist, but am I now racist? Yes, yes. And it's

00:08:47.780 not just that circumstances change, but also it feels like morality changes and language changes,

00:08:54.580 which is very unusual for that to happen again within not just a lifetime, but a space of a

00:08:59.220 couple of years. So to take the lockdown, for example, I thought that recognised British value

00:09:06.040 pre-lockdown was mind your own business. That's what I thought we were all about in this country,

00:09:11.420 So did I. That's why I came here.

00:09:14.320 But then I discovered almost overnight that it wasn't just that that value was contestable or problematic,

00:09:22.000 but actually that the opposite was true and it was a British value to keep an eye out on people.

00:09:28.520 So these things are not written in stone.

00:09:32.060 I appreciate that values change dramatically over time.

00:09:34.880 I just think it's a little unusual for them to change so fast, so dramatically.

00:09:38.940 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.

00:09:48.500 And that these changes in language affect meaning and they affect how people feel and assess themselves.

00:09:54.380 So it actually feels increasingly as though old definitions of what it meant to be human are built on shifting sands.

00:10:01.220 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.

00:10:18.840 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?

00:10:30.520 Yes. And that's a myth. There has always been change.

00:10:34.360 Right.

00:10:34.840 And one of the things that really struck me when researching this book,

00:10:38.040 because I didn't really know a lot about the 19th century,

00:10:39.940 so I ended up having to do an insane amount of crammed reading about the 19th century,

00:10:43.520 I was struck by how many complaints made in the 19th century could be made now.

00:10:48.520 And they were related to industrialization, the rise of the train, newspapers, all these sorts of things.

00:10:54.260 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.

00:11:07.120 And he concludes that the world has gone mad on the basis of the people who he's treating.

00:11:12.500 And he actually more or less predicts what would become the Second World War in about 30 or 40 years' time.

00:11:17.580 He's remarkably prophetic.

00:11:19.880 And it is the overloading of information.

00:11:21.980 It's the pace of change.

00:11:23.100 And that's already there in the 19th century.

00:11:25.540 But to answer the question about holding on to something, yes, that is what the feeling is.

00:11:30.120 And I think that's partly where Brexit and Trump come in.

00:11:33.380 I think that's part of what we've been through in the last four or five years.

00:11:36.800 The language of take back control, I think it's not just, it was misinterpreted as simply

00:11:44.240 about restoring parliament or controlling borders.

00:11:47.040 I think it's even bigger than that.

00:11:48.680 I think it's actually the individual wishes to be able to actually say to history,

00:11:54.240 stop there. I want to take stock. I want to understand my relationship with you. And I want

00:11:59.440 to regain a sense of investment and a stake in my own life. And is it the internet that's done this

00:12:06.160 or is there more to it than that? I think the internet has accelerated it. As I say,

00:12:10.700 it's really a two or 300 year process, but definitely it's become much faster with the

00:12:14.320 communications revolution. There's no denying that. But I also think it is the natural terminus

00:12:19.660 of the Western tradition. As I mentioned at the beginning, we have it hardwired into our DNA to

00:12:25.540 question things constantly and analyze things and scrutinize them. And the internet has helped to

00:12:31.220 accelerate that process. But it's also the atomization of society, isn't it? This progress

00:12:37.420 that we seem to be on. And we seem to devalue community and promote identity. And that to me

00:12:45.940 just seems a way to the madhouse, isn't it? Yes and no, because I'm sympathetic towards

00:12:52.480 identity politics to the extent that I think it is a symptom as much as a cause of everything

00:12:57.480 we've described. It's understandable that the atomised individual looking for an identity

00:13:03.320 might reach out for a group and say okay that makes sense of my life and if you look at Black 0.99

00:13:09.020 Lives Matter for instance like when Black Lives Matter says we need to deconstruct the nuclear 0.94

00:13:12.620 family you might just read that and say well they just hate families that's not quite true they

00:13:17.640 actually talk about going back to older forms of family they see the nuclear family as an as a

00:13:22.220 white imposition a modern invention etc but they're not anti-family or community by any means

00:13:26.960 it's just one senses that they feel no investment in the current social structures so they are

00:13:31.560 individuals looking for something else. So I see that as a symptom. But undeniably, yes, it does

00:13:37.940 also ironically help to perpetuate this problem of us becoming more and more like individuals.

00:13:44.640 And of course, that's not just a... Sometimes when people talk about atomization, it's a little bit

00:13:48.660 theoretical. But we all know in our everyday lives that it is a lived reality. Because, for instance,

00:13:56.540 I have, as I sort of mentioned at the beginning, I have a very small family. I live alone. I'm a

00:14:02.040 classic example of an atomized individual in the 21st century. We don't live the way that we used

00:14:07.540 to, which is not just as part of large families, but also crucially large kinship networks, where

00:14:13.020 you have, where if something goes wrong, you don't just have to fall back on your wife or your mom

00:14:17.720 and dad. You might have extended relationships of aunts and uncles, et cetera, et cetera. So the

00:14:22.560 actual pattern of our lives has changed. It's a very, very good point. When I was reading your

00:14:30.100 book, I kept thinking about religion. Because when I was younger, and reading Dawkins, A God

00:14:36.760 Delusion, you just think to yourself, where do we need religion? We have science now. We have

00:14:41.520 logics. We have facts. And then we've taken religion out, and you're looking around going,

00:14:46.960 maybe we did need it. Yeah, yeah. Well, those facts won't comfort you when someone dies.

00:14:52.560 They just don't. This is the problem with them. I mean, you mentioned someone going to my friend

00:15:00.160 Maddie Grant, going to church without believing in God. See, that's very interesting. It raises

00:15:05.480 the question why. If you don't believe in God, it could seem a bit mad because the whole point of

00:15:09.840 the church is to worship God. But is that true though, Tim, because the shift from the pagan 0.78

00:15:17.040 religions or the or the sort of multi um whatever they're called uh polytheistic religions right

00:15:23.960 the romans the greeks etc ordinary people weren't allowed in the temple right and the shift from

00:15:29.720 that to christianity included making the church the house of god i don't think madeline i don't

00:15:34.860 know i haven't spoken to her about this specific issue but i think young people who go to church

00:15:38.880 without necessarily believing in god do so for the community element of it rather than

00:15:44.420 rather than the belief in God.

00:15:46.080 And maybe just a sort of meditative practice as well,

00:15:48.880 a place where you no longer for one time in your life

00:15:53.260 are obsessed with yourself.

00:15:54.920 Yes, yeah.

00:15:55.720 And there is something beyond you,

00:15:57.320 which I think a lot of people crave for now.

00:15:59.640 I'd agree with that, except that,

00:16:01.180 and Manny's a very good friend,

00:16:02.380 I don't want to talk about her without being here.

00:16:03.640 We're just talking about another person

00:16:04.940 who's not here for no reason whatsoever.

00:16:06.300 But ultimately, if you wanted to do that,

00:16:08.120 you could, for instance, join a political party.

00:16:09.980 I don't think it's just the community.

00:16:11.940 Yeah.

00:16:12.500 And I would say, first of all,

00:16:13.760 what is it that draws the community? It is the belief. So everyone else around you probably

00:16:17.980 believes in God, even if you don't. They are there for a reason. And second of all, once you are there,

00:16:23.740 what is it you're hit with? Well, it's not just the community, is it? It's either the preaching

00:16:28.800 or it's the experience of transcendence, depending upon the kind of church that you go to.

00:16:34.200 What I would say is to, because I am religious, but I made a point when writing the book not to

00:16:39.340 make it all about religion. I saved religion until the very end, partly because I've learned

00:16:43.120 from doing things like thought for the day, that the moment you try to inject religion to the

00:16:47.220 conversation, you lose someone. So it's better to introduce it very subtly. But also because I

00:16:53.300 wanted to make the point that traditions serve human needs. Some are indeed just invented and

00:16:59.500 imposed, and that can be horrible, and fundamentalism is an example of that. But in most

00:17:04.120 cases, they've actually evolved over time to meet people's very basic needs. And even if you don't

00:17:09.880 feel in your heart belief in God, I think you can see the psychological benefit and what it's

00:17:15.340 speaking to. And there are certain moments in people's lives, typically when they give birth,

00:17:20.600 when they get married, when they die, or when a loved one dies, when they instinctively reach

00:17:25.960 for the church. And it's partly because the church has developed a language that we do not have.

00:17:32.520 At those moments, these experiences are so profound that there's almost no everyday language

00:17:38.980 to describe them. How do you feel when your husband or wife has died? The church lends you

00:17:45.500 the language. And even if you don't believe in reincarnation or going to heaven or whatever,

00:17:51.000 it almost doesn't matter. You're allowing someone with thousands of years of experience

00:17:54.980 to speak on your half and provide comfort. And so you don't have to believe. But I think that

00:18:02.800 the belief can come because you realize that what's generating this tradition, what sustains

00:18:09.000 it is the belief. And over time, I think that can come. It's a community as well. It's the way it

00:18:15.180 binds you together. I was raised Catholic. We always used to go to Sunday mass five o'clock

00:18:19.080 and used to sit down, used to see the same faces. Now, even if you didn't know them in any great

00:18:26.320 depth, there's a comfort to seeing the same people again. It anchors you in community.

00:18:30.840 Yeah, and also it gives you something to do on a Sunday morning. Again, don't knock that. The lack

00:18:35.820 of structure in the week. I have a slightly odd week because I work at weekends and sometimes

00:18:41.400 it's just not possible to do my usual mass on a Sunday. And on those days, I just feel lost.

00:18:47.320 I've lost that sense of structure to the week. Really, that's what religion is about. It marks

00:18:52.540 the year. It gives structure to your year. The liturgical year is wonderful. It explains to you

00:18:57.240 what you're going through.

00:18:58.220 Things don't just happen to you.

00:19:00.240 You actually have a sort of dialogue with the universe.

00:19:03.380 You have a sense of place within it.

00:19:05.660 So, Tim, now that we've lost all the people

00:19:08.140 who are uncomfortable talking about religion,

00:19:11.100 well, Francis and I are both non-believers,

00:19:13.080 but it's a very interesting conversation.

00:19:16.020 And I keep coming back in my mind

00:19:17.600 to the point you made at the very beginning,

00:19:19.180 which is it is a core tenet of Western civilization

00:19:22.940 to question and to seek freedom.

00:19:26.060 Yes.

00:19:27.240 Is that an inevitably self-destructive force then?

00:19:30.460 Because I suspect one of the reasons

00:19:32.560 that we believe in God less than we used to,

00:19:35.180 that people like Francis and I exist even,

00:19:37.420 is that we want to be free of the external impositions on us,

00:19:41.440 of the authority saying, don't do this.

00:19:43.820 And if you do that, then you're bad and wrong

00:19:46.580 and you will be punished

00:19:47.420 and you will be looked badly upon by your community.

00:19:51.100 Are we careering off the deep end here

00:19:54.140 with this endless pursuit of freedom?

00:19:55.660 or is there going to be some kind of natural built-in mechanism that says to us,

00:19:59.940 okay, we've got the freedom now, let's just make sure that we don't lose it by doing something else?

00:20:04.980 Yeah, I think an important caveat to my argument is that even within those sort of traditions that I'm saying look back to,

00:20:11.740 you'll still find that sort of DNA strand of the search for freedom and moral autonomy.

00:20:17.780 So you find it within Christianity as well, which is why it is at once a very conservative religion,

00:20:22.380 a religion of churches it's also a religion of reformations and of constant change and every

00:20:27.620 generation or so the church will settle and look like it's it's it's sort of it's found its place

00:20:32.380 in the world and someone will come along and say no it's not pure enough um and and there's also

00:20:36.860 this feeling within christianity that faith must be chosen so so there are lots of ways in which

00:20:41.720 even those things that i would like us to look back to and revive i recognize that that that

00:20:45.420 desire for freedom is within them but yes i do think it is self-destructive and i i think it's

00:20:50.400 a real problem. And what I'm arguing in the book is that I'd like people to look a little bit

00:20:56.100 beyond. I'd like people to look before the Enlightenment, because there was a medieval

00:21:01.040 consensus which was very different, which saw freedom in a very different way. I'd like them

00:21:05.000 to look beyond Europe a little bit, because there is Russia, there is Japan, there are other countries

00:21:11.340 which deal with the same problems we have and handle them in a very different way, and to just

00:21:15.860 think beyond themselves and beyond the desire for liberation constantly, and to look for freedom

00:21:21.660 in things which are settled. And that's a key point of the book, that you really can't have

00:21:26.620 liberty without order. And there are certain forms of, there are certain traditions like

00:21:31.380 notions of authority, which we just recoil against nowadays. But the point is that these

00:21:36.420 things defend liberty, because you, if there's chaos, ultimately, you can't be free. And I do

00:21:43.560 fear that's where we're headed towards. I flinched a little bit when you said the word order. I think

00:21:48.080 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

00:21:54.220 the vibe of that word. Yes. And it's difficult. But if I could step in there, if you take the

00:21:59.920 lockdown, for instance, I would say that a traditional society, I would hope, wouldn't

00:22:05.500 have needed those draconian rules because the public would have been so public spirited that

00:22:12.220 they would have done the right thing without being told what to do. When you have a breakdown in moral

00:22:18.160 order, it requires the state to step in to tell people what to do. So the less there is this sort

00:22:24.240 of organic, instinctive understanding of a moral consensus, the more you actually fall back upon

00:22:29.000 the state to instruct people to behave a certain way. That makes sense. Let me pick up on something

00:22:34.260 you said earlier, because we're both fascinated by history. And you were talking about how in

00:22:38.760 the medieval times, there was a consensus that was very different around the issue of freedom.

00:22:43.140 Talk to us about the historical evolution of this very idea of individual autonomy and freedom. How

00:22:48.520 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

00:23:17.000 people. So whereas now we begin from the point of view of who am I, how do I feel, and we're

00:23:23.020 intensely psychological, instead an older, more traditional approach towards life is to define

00:23:28.740 oneself in relationship to other people. And you find this in more traditional societies as well.

00:23:34.080 So you might say not just I am a woman, but I am a mother, I am a wife,

00:23:40.040 or indeed you may say I'm a nurse as well.

00:23:42.740 So I think that's one way in which it's slightly different.

00:23:47.360 But if you live in a God-ordered universe,

00:23:49.200 you start from a different set of first principles to the ones we have now,

00:23:52.960 which again are very much about negotiation with morality.

00:23:56.780 Whereas if you just say, look, things are as they are,

00:23:59.340 because this is the world as we understand it,

00:24:04.080 as we have been told it, and as God has ordered it.

00:24:06.920 That doesn't mean there is no freedom.

00:24:09.040 It just means that the way you act

00:24:14.660 starts from a different set of first principles.

00:24:19.180 Isn't the problem with our society

00:24:21.580 is that we don't worship God, we just worship ourselves now?

00:24:25.120 And you see that with social media, with Instagram.

00:24:28.420 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

00:24:54.000 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

00:25:03.900 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.

00:25:16.400 I think we've become over-psychological and everything is over-internalised.

00:25:20.140 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.

00:27:13.560 Again, no moral content.

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,

00:27:28.040 and you bring up the evolution of language.

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,

00:27:50.820 but nonetheless we hold up as being ideal,

00:27:53.000 particularly here in Britain.

00:27:54.540 Why are we so keen to focus on that at the moment?

00:28:00.420 I think partly because it's easy.

00:28:03.080 The irony is it's sold to us as a struggle.

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 1.00

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,

00:29:33.420 and I don't actually see that happening.

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.

00:29:53.460 That is morality turned upside down.

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

00:30:01.740 and into getting rid of all arms,

00:30:03.780 would have thought associations with that kind of group

00:30:06.100 to be absolutely abhorrent.

00:30:08.060 But that's so interesting because a lot of these companies are like that.

00:30:12.580 Manchester City, again, supporting BLM. 0.72

00:30:17.080 Their manager came out and spoke about the evils of slavery.

00:30:20.560 You go, but you're owned by Qataris. 0.99

00:30:24.120 Right.

00:30:24.600 You know, you just go, it's so paper thin.

00:30:30.440 Yes.

00:30:31.180 I would understand if they hid it,

00:30:33.340 but they don't even bother hiding it.

00:30:35.060 No.

00:30:35.360 They just put a pride flag or BLM

00:30:37.440 and then they go, well, that's it.

00:30:39.200 Yeah.

00:30:39.460 That's all we need to do.

00:30:40.480 And it won't be happening in the country

00:30:41.840 that's the sponsor, I'm sure.

00:30:43.220 Yeah.

00:30:43.980 I'm looking forward to Harry Kane wearing a pride.

00:30:47.620 He had the rainbow captain's armband.

00:30:49.860 I'm sure he's not going to be wearing that in Qatar.

00:30:51.900 No.

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 0.95

00:32:47.100 neanderthals you lose a lot of good learning as well I mean I think Britain is the best country 0.98

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 1.00

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, 0.99

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.

00:33:46.580 I'm a Catholic.

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.

00:33:56.280 Well, that's a form of original sin.

00:33:59.060 So even as people reject British history, they're being incredibly British.

00:34:03.960 And isn't it ultimately the most British thing

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.

00:34:12.200 If you say, my family is rotten,

00:34:14.120 you wouldn't believe what my family did

00:34:15.680 about like 200 years ago.

00:34:17.080 What's nothing to do with my family?

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,

00:34:23.340 you need someone to walk the dog for you.

00:34:24.800 And if you've written off the rest of the family,

00:34:27.160 you've got no one to do it.

00:34:28.640 So no wonder we're feeling so lonely

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 0.88

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.

00:38:21.400 Yes.

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 0.97

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.

00:39:11.540 And that's much of what religion does.

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,

00:39:23.860 should be to some extent relational,

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 0.99

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 0.95

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. 0.96

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 1.00

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 0.96

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. 0.88

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 0.86

00:44:17.780 not with a capital c but okay but I would say that unlike small c conservatives there's you're 0.67

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 0.96

00:44:47.740 respected marriage or when we respected tradition we wouldn't have all this shit right bring back 0.71

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 0.90

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 0.89

00:45:30.400 that Jesus Christ is coming back, things are going to be okay. So if you go around saying, 0.55

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 0.64

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?

00:45:58.180 And so Sidney says, do.

00:45:59.740 We're British.

00:46:00.460 We'll do nothing.

00:46:03.300 And finally, and particularly Americans who are apocalyptic, 0.56

00:46:07.740 that's the most un-American attitude.

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

00:46:18.340 is because they have faith in the future

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.

00:46:28.760 So I think it's very, to me,

00:46:31.640 it is actually going against the spirit of tradition

00:46:33.780 to say it's all over and we're doomed.

00:46:36.120 All right, we're not going to ask you any more questions

00:46:37.940 because it's nice to end on a positive note

00:46:39.540 after the conversation we've just had.

00:46:41.580 So we'll wrap it up there.

00:46:42.880 Other than to say, Tim, brilliant book.

00:46:45.120 Thanks so much for coming on.

00:46:46.420 Whatever happened to tradition?

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?

00:46:53.180 But we really should be.

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

TRIGGERnometry - October 18, 2021

Why Are We Fighting a War on the Past？ - Tim Stanley

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