Debating Douglas Murray on Gender, Reparations, and Extinction Rebellion

this episode of the cosmic skeptic podcast is brought to you by you to support the podcast please visit patreon.com forward slash cosmic skeptic [Music] [Applause] [Music] so welcome back to the cosmic skeptic podcast everybody today I am joined in the studio by Douglas Murray who is of course the author and journalist founder of the Center for social cohesion and associate editor of The Spectator but you'll probably know him if you do know him most for his publications in 2017 wasn't it the strange death of Europe and as if you hadn't annoyed enough people with that you've decided now to take on four more equally controversial issues in the madness of crowds a link to which is available in the description but thank you for being here it's a great pleasure so far yeah so far good so far right the last time I saw you in person not that you have any reason to remember this was after your event at the o2 arena ah with Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson no and you know I was there again recently listening to John Mayer who'd sold out the arena and I couldn't help think I was sat at the back looking at all these people thinking here are these epitome of pop culture John Mayer ariana grande One Direction's selling out these these arenas and the last time I was here I was listening to you it's one thing to speak in front of a crowd what on earth is that kind of experience like to speak in front of an arena to American listeners who don't know that's one of the the largest venues in the United Kingdom I can't imagine what that must have been like yeah we were two nights earlier we Jordan Sam and I had done the three Arena in Dublin with a similar number of people on a Saturday night in in Dublin and yeah both events were kind of unusual I think we were the first writers to play the ode too right yeah although since then regrettably Michelle Obama has yes so Lynette and certainly you need credit and also has performed at the o2 but it's it's an amazing thing I have to say that of all the things one can be pessimistic about these days that isn't one of them right the idea that you know 10,000 people mainly young are willing to turn and pay to come to a major venue to listen to a discussion which I mean I was moderating it but I mean certainly you know Jordan and Sam's contribution an incredibly high intellectual level and I think if even ten years ago or five years ago you'd said that that would be the sort of thing that could happen yeah at this time you people wanted to believed you that it amazed yeah well that's what mr. penguin said to me that he had people essentially laugh in his face when he suggested the idea originally but right the thing is so that I mean the thesis of your of your book in a sense or at least what it's about is this kind of the difficulty of holding the kinds of views that someone like sam harris with those criticisms of islam someone like Jordan Peterson and these criticisms of post-modernism and yourself of course the difficulty of holding those views in the mainstream and yet here you are selling up an arena of people who are willing to come and listen yeah I mean what how does that speak to to the points of your book if you're able to do something like that just by simultaneously claiming that anytime you try to say anything on Twitter it's like it's like an mind that without that well Twitter the real world of different things of course give collapse I think that what's happening is that there are things that we know to be true or at least very likely to be true which have been anathematized and put beyond limits exactly by who and in what order you can debate but that that there are a set of issues which a lot of people if not most people know to be true and yet cannot say or cannot speculate upon in public I mean the one I finish the madness of crowds with issue of trans is is perhaps the most obvious of that because we keep seeing the effects of not being able to have a debate about it and we keep on seeing the anathematizing that's been happening around it and all that most most people don't want to kill people they don't actually want to incite riots against people but they would like to be able to have conversations about important and tricky subjects without being an athlete I yes so I mean what is it that you think would bring up specific accusations let's say of transphobia for instance is it the attempt to discuss the question or is it the holding of the view that's contrary to the mainstream well the truth is it can be anything hmm and this is one of the problems is that on each of the really difficult landmine issues of our time an accusation even if it is implausible or even if it is in sincerely made has the accusation of a truthful claim so that somebody's saying that is transphobic or that is racist does have the effect of silencing a person or making them seem like a very sort of person you wouldn't want to be near and people take these things to heart now I think people have gotta be a little bit more resilient against that because there's an obvious play going on there simply to win by labeling all opponents for your own personal convenience as being a particular type of phob but the cost to our society of not being able to think about things seems to me to already be evidence I understand is there any is there any truth in the claims of the kind of identitarian that you're criticizing in the book yeah of course I mean this is this is the problems that it wholly unjustifiable claims are unlikely to get anywhere the kind of claims that do or ones that start in a reasonable place you know my last book was strange death of Europe I I did this with the immigration question and and I knew from writing and talking and about that and traveling all around the world to a search for that I knew that the problem with the immigration question was not that there's no reasonable case for immigration right now the problem is that there is a there's a reasonable case for asylum and millions of people around the world who have reasonable asylum claims and it's the case a sense of that that claim that the legitimate claim is so strong that it embeds itself so deeply in people that if somebody pushes it a bit further yes the the intuition to just follow it well so for instance if you do does this think on that one promote if you if you pretend that there is basically no difference between somebody fleeing war and somebody fleeing economic deprivation and because you happen to be in favor of open borders you're willing to pretend that that thing that divide doesn't exist you can you can do not a bullying in that space yeah of your opponents so but as I say I mean yeah I spoke to enough migrants and indeed the refugees in the years I was researching that book to know that you know these things are harder than that they're harder than any side is often willing to say yeah and as I said at that time people dream impossible dreams and form all directions but one of the things that came across when I was researching that is exactly one of the things that's also informed my thinking and writing in the madness of crowds which is there are these issues I do them one by one as you know gay women race and trans where we've basically prevented ourselves and being able to have a reasonable discussion for instance we relations between the sexes I mean I know I know the minute I start talking about this most people just get very sweaty and worried because there's not much to be gained they think mm-hmm and there's an awful lot to lose it's like a why bother kind of thing right yeah it's a risk analysis so but but so I mean that that approach and recognizing that that's an approach that people take implies that maybe there isn't it's maybe you're interested in what's true but it's not got particularly many implications but it seems like you're saying more than that it seems like you're saying that the reason that you want to talk about these ideas is because they are of crucial importance yes I mean there are things that are popularly held to be true that are not that do not do very much harm would you rather I mean so you say there are things that are held to be true that are not but I mean depending on the issue would it not perhaps be more accurate or even more easier to get your point kind of accepted to say that there are certain things that whilst perhaps not true have just not been proven to be true I don't know if they're false but the real problem is that is not so much that I know they're false and you won't let me talk about it is that you haven't actually presented well if so we're saying that the several fault but firstly the second part was going to say about your point about your question about whether the people on criticizing are on to anything and when I was saying yes I should have should stress that in each of the cases I write about in this book it's obviously the case that historically there has been homophobia yeah it's obviously the case that historically women have been at a disadvantage in many societies and it's obviously the case that there has been racist what do you mean when you qualify all of these things by saying historically or has been that it's worth bearing in mind the the era we're in doesn't come from nowhere among other things and there may be on some kind of if we are on some kind of correction course for instance it's among other things Barry it's worth bearing in mind the possibility that we might be in periods of over correction so it's it's worth placing our current situation in some kind of historical context but but the reason I say that is because if for instance somebody is deeply worried about sexism or misogyny or homophobia or racism yes have been good reasons to worry about that is there a good reason to weaponize it now and allow people to make other political points by using those issues I'd say not but because they're rooted in a legitimate have been rooted in the past certain a legitimate cause it makes it harder for a lot of people to into this now okay so do you think that we still live in a racist culture is that an accurate statement or is that a false statement or is it kind of somewhere in between no I think it's a it's a it would be a defamatory generalization about a society like ours in Britain to say we live in a racist culture just like it is to say we live in a patriarchal culture or a sexist culture or a rape culture or any of these other claims that get thrown around that isn't to say that there isn't racism that there can't be sexism there can't be homophobia of course there can be it just so that the argument would be that those things exist but they're not what is it institutionalize like what is it that makes it kind of a cultural phenomenon rather than just a thing that exists within a culture well first of all to say that that a thing can exist that there are individuals for instance you may have unpleasant views themselves and to then extrapolate that out and use it not just as something that the whole culture is meant to suffer from but as the defining issue of the culture you know we don't live in a society which for instance provides welfare to people who are not able to look up know we live in a racist society right but no so I I understand that the point I would make is that although some people do believe that something like racism is what defines society that's not so that's not necessary to say that we live in a racist society in the sense that you can say that in the we that we have a red apple but it's not the redness that defines the Apple that just happens to be read right and in the same way it may not be racism that defines all of our social institutions but you could still perhaps or at least the argument can still be made that the society are one of its attributes is racism you couldn't make that I think that this and you don't think I just don't know you know okay so if it were true this is the this is something I was interested reading reading your book about like the criticisms of concepts like intersectionality and the criticisms of positive discrimination and things would you still be as critical and as suspect of these approaches towards society if we did live in a racist society well if we did live in a race society than many of the claims that people make would be legitimate and you'd have to act on them and you'd have to act them I would submit in a general way as well as on a case-by-case basis right but it it is extremely hard I would submit this day for any fair-minded person to look at a society like Britain and claim that racism is endemic or sexism and misogyny are endemic and when somebody interprets an entire society in that way I think that you've then got to start separating out are you talking about a critic who wants to improve you are you talking about somebody looking at you as an enemy right this is such a hostile interpretation of a society I don't think it can legitimately be being made by people who simply want to make minor improvements in it yeah well the reason I'm asking is because yeah I don't think it's it's particularly interesting although it might be important to discuss whether society is racist the reason that I'm asking you isn't just to get your opinion on that but to say that it seems to be that you're implying therefore in saying that if we did live in a racist society perhaps these methods would be appropriate that the problem is not in fact the approach the problem is that they've got the context wrong but the actual the actual attitude the kind of in order to solve a problem like there's something like intersectionality would be a good approach no intersectionality was still not behind approach intersectionality couldn't be a good approach in any universe right it's demonstrably untrue well can you say that with confidence because the reason the reason why you say that at one point at least you say that intersectionality has not been trialed and so people can't go around saying that it's true but if it hasn't been trialed then how can you say it's oh well no I say that it's false because the claims it makes a demonstrably false it's the idea that for instance if the central intersectional claim that the world is based on a set of interlocking oppressions and that if we unlock one we have to unlock them all you know the argument I'm making the book among other things this is demonstrably nonsense because it's very clear at this stage that gay and trans do not happen work together they do not interlock together if you so called unlock trans you cause an enormous amount of oppression to gaze straight out straight out and what does that look like because we have a situation of well you might call it disappearing of young gay men and women one of the points of gay liberation was that gay people should be allowed to decide work out their sexuality themselves and not be told that because they were gay they were basically of the opposite sex or a sort of that gay men like me were not sort of women in honey ding and that that lesbians were not just actually men you know manly women sort of think this is this is a very basic but I don't think really the trans activists are saying that oh they are saying that and a lot more the coal campaign in trans at the moment is to say there are people who we can identify while they are children as being actually in the wrong body when for instance it's an effeminate young man or ass or a slightly manly girl you know it what we might have called a tomboy and and the the intersectional activists actually saying that that these things unlock at the same time rather than grinding in a really ugly and increasingly ugly way against each other well let me just use the other example if it were the case the trans rights has to be unlocked and it can only be unlocked if we also unlock institutional misogyny well what do you do with the fact that so much of the male female trans issue runs directly against what feminism has tried to do for the last century directly against it by basically embodying stereotypes about women that women have been trying to get away from since the first wave of feminism and again if the intersectional claims were true this wouldn't be the case there wouldn't be these terrible grinding gears it would be being clear but it would become clear by this point the whole thing frees us all up together and it doesn't but when I say that if this hasn't been tried I say that it's very unwise to for instance roll out things like a bias training across all government departments across an increasing number of corporate and parts of the corporate world if it's if it's not clear at this stage of this thing were that that particular aspect of it the biased the alleged bias identification and trap and training so so yes I think that there isn't there isn't a world in which the intersectional thing works because on its own claims it's it's it's not possible but but I think it's necessary then to separate out the intersectional bit which is a specific claim from other specific rights claims you know I try I think it would be a shame if for instance if there were an element of society that were discovered to be really institutionally racist if we had to then instead of addressing that address it only by going through the log jam of intersectional claims about it you know in fact it's probably that would probably be one of the worst ways to solve such a specific issue and we see quite a lot of that at the moment where people say we can only solve this issue if we also solve x y&z we hear this quite a lot at the moment within the anti-capitalist movement you know we can only address capitalism if we also address you know institutional misogyny and racism and etc said it's such a gloire plea of things that nothing that no specific could be addressed and they don't have anything to do with each other I noticed when I was uh I went to witness the protests against Steve bannon's talk at the Oxford Union area that long ago and I remember there were lots of people there and you had the typical Oxford Against Fascism science but you also had people carrying around things saying save the NHS yes of course as if it's got anything to do with what woollen there's a class of person who wants to protest against everything that's a perennial there's never a protest that they can't turn up to with their banner of choice it's a particular type of psyche in my view most reasonable people really only turn up to a protest under serious duress when something very close to their own life is being affected but a reasonable person does not have a collection of banners in the hallway waiting eagerly to latch on to any well an unless effeminacy thing unless I think that those kinds of issues that are so personally affecting and moving are embedded into the culture they're living in at least you can even understand why they might be if that mindset even if you think it's wrong if you thought that you lived in a society that was constantly challenging who you are you probably have those those picket fences by the door ready to go we've just seen the phenomenon of extinction rebellion and indeed it's it's you know the demographic of that from what I saw in London was people who hadn't had anything big to protest about since 1968 love love the whiff of the fumes of righteousness that they haven't had since their I think that's what it is you think hot part of it part of it I mean all of these things I just just to go back to the thing of like who would be protesting within the areas of the thing I'm writing about in the madness of crowd yeah obviously there are some people who are deeply sincere in their view of what our society is and largely I would submit because they've been told to believe this stuff by adults who are themselves deluded or wrong but I think it's very sad but I think it's visibly the case I've seen too many cases I spend how many people who actually do believe you know we live in the most oppressive society imaginable and that's because they don't have a historical memory going back before last week yeah how did you think that do you think that's true I hate to interrupt but do you think it's true that they're saying that it's this the most oppressive society imaginable well that that seems a bit of an exaggeration it's at least that is exceptionally yes unfair they don't I mean I won't have to always get anecdotal but I've spoken to too many people if I might say so sort of your generation who have adopted the hysterical attitude and who when you dig down it hat they just have less reason to be hysterical than any generation in history yes I mean you know I would speak again sorry to get out dope there was a young lady in the audience I was speaking with recently as confront me after the matter she was telling me all of her concerns of her generation she said there's there's North Korea you know is developing nuclear weapons I think your parents and grandparents grew up under the shadow of total annihilation yeah okay total global nuclear annihilation my father remembers going to bed one night and his father saying to him we may not wake up in the morning so make sure you know your prayers tonight okay that was a normal household at the height of the Missile Crisis yeah and and so so yes there are there is something of there is something of just a terrible lack of historical context about what we're going through at the moment but one of the things that interests me more it's not the people who've been lied to or fibbed to or persuaded that hysterical attitude is the appropriate attitude of a serious person but rather the people who have cottoned on in the most cynical way imaginable to this whole thing and are at this stage using identity issues as pure political battering rams those are those are in some ways the ones that are most interesting yeah but but before talking about that I'm interested in in in this this example you give you say that you know people historically in the UK have had good reason to be genuinely worried and to be protesting their governments because they lived and we less than anywhere well because because they lived under the under the threat of total annihilation within their lifetimes well is that not exactly the claim the extension rebellion protests that we live under the threat of total annihilation and we need to do something Geoff I'm not there parents also saying listen you know this this this this species of arms might be gone sooner than you can do anything about it right that is their attitude yeah so and whether or not you you you agree with that or think it's wrong right you're kind of criticizing the mindset of self-righteousness not recognizing that we live in a better time huh then they're never in history but if it is true surely it makes sense in the same way that it made sense and then to worry it makes hatred it makes sense now to worry too and in fact you could say that the the environmental crisis if it's as bad as they're saying it is is much worse than the threat of nuclear war which at least might be abated by governmental Act I'm not an expert in climate but I need an awful lot more persuading from the people who take the extinction Rebellion view that it's worth complete Liam is rating our lives in order to agree to what they say sure but I mean I there's an awful lot more persuading to do yeah and I guess that the people who are protesting are the people to be doing that right so there are people aren't for people no I don't think so I think it's that it's the job of the scientist and the researcher to do the persuading and if you are persuaded then you go and protest even if you can't necessarily defend the science yourself if you see what I mean so for sure if you're mainly listening and seeing in the news the stories of these extinction rebellion protesters and I see these videos on YouTube of people going and interviewing them about the issues and getting these the sound bites of where they don't know what they're talking about and it's not well a lot of people don't know that but but do they need to be in order to be angry about something that I've become convinced you you ought to be very sure before you seriously disrupt everyone else's life and you want to be really sure before you tell everyone to impoverish themselves and their children right and their forever that's the same kind of logic is saying like you need to be sure that this works before you enroll it in society it's the same kind of yeah making sure that intersectionality works or something yeah certain amount of humility in this regard wouldn't be wholly missed plays sure I suppose these people just feel like there's no time for humility in BAPS in more way more ways than one there's no time yeah the humility but there's also a chest don't have time to I don't know but I I'm saying I'm just trying to kind of Express like you know I was on the street protesting with extinction rebellion but I I and yes it's annoying when I can it to work in the morning but at the very least I can kind of understand that if they've got because to take for instance like you say if we lived in a racist society then protesting against racism we of course makes sense and maybe the reason it would be a silly thing to do in your view is because the racism doesn't exist it's like but you can recognize that if it were true like those protests would be intense if we lived in a genuinely races Society you'd probably be ok with people blocking traffic in order to get that fit you might find better ways to address the problem than blocking traffic yeah of course you do what you could do because that's the problem right people people feel the reason that this this movement kind of sprung out nowheres because they feel like I've tried everything I wouldn't liked I wouldn't like to compare the extinction rebellion with the civil rights movement but only in it's only a short method but one of the things looking back historically at the civil rights movement in America which it's worth remembering had an awful lot of support from non black Americans as well one of the things that's just so striking about it about I mean I compare it with gay rights movement in America particularly much in Washington thirty years later organized by your duty Canadian yeah compared with with a rather a downer on the gay version but the reason I meant is because what is one of the striking things looking back on the civil rights movement but the unbelievable moral force of the argument being made right it wasn't we we are going to make you agree with us by disrupting your day all by shrieking or by behaving terribly or by pissing off the entire society until it agrees with us it was here is a case of such outstanding moral force you can't resist it that was what happened in the end that was what happened and if it if it wasn't done in that manner would you have less respect for the movement even even given the rightness of its cause well I mean for instance there are good causes historically which have been ruined by people to do it the wrong way for sure sure I mean for instance I'm not a meticulous I'm not at all a supporter of Irish nationalism when it seeks to change people's the territorial integrity United Kingdom but Irish nationalism scores was very significantly harmed in my own lifetime by the decision of a certain number of people to disappear a woman a mother of ten like Jean McConville from her home shoot from the back of her head and disappear her body it wasn't like well you know if this didn't exactly help the Irish nationalist cause in the end so of course there are there are some causes that can be good which are then wrecked by the behavior and the tactics of their followers yeah but all no kind of less and less wreckingball approach to this you take like the the approach of someone like Rosa Parks or at least the people could because it's it's I've read at least that it wasn't as spontaneous as people make it out to being with the fact that she kind of she disrupted people's day she she disobeyed the law she she probably stopped the bus from getting moving for a very long time and someone might come along and say listen I get the whole civil rights thing but let me just going about this wrong Rosa Parks like you you're poisoning the movement you're just pissing everybody off come on you go go knock on Parliament's door instead but several things first of all I mean the striking thing about Rosa Parks was the dignity of the protest that's what everyone remembers it's everybody it reflects still and were struck at the time yeah by the fact this seemed this was such a dignified way of protesting it was it was tripoli hard to oppose if you are so inclined to oppose you think so it's more hard to a person like that even though it exhibits a similar car if you're dealing with it if you're dealing with a certain type of society and i mean this is my point is it right arguments with with moral force in the right conditions yeah but but to get back to the things that people are claiming at the moment i mean you know obviously every country is different and one of the things I think we're suffering from at the moment is the rolling out of this of an interpretation of all democratic societies as being broadly similar so that for instance the undeniable racial problems that specifically exists in America end up the interpretation of them and the lens of that ends up getting rolled out across other countries as well that's one of the phloem that I think people quite realized at the moment but which is going on so that a specific issue in one country becomes effectively the lens through which the issue is seen in all other countries yeah that's definitely a problem you mentioned earlier about essential overcompensation yeah for the historical abuses of racism sexism things like this what kind of things are you talking about I'm very interested in over reach we have cause if you agree that there's been a historical problems such as historically we've had as I say sexism do you correct by getting to equal do you correct by over correcting for a period if you believe that the swiftest way to correct it is to have a period of over correction which I think a lot of people know any or otherwise do think is is the case right when in that case would you identify that the overcorrection had hasn't and how would you get back to equal I'm very interested in this in each of the issues I write about in this book because I think with an element of them has crept into each one it was always there in the gay rights discussion were gays exactly the same as straights or slightly better okay a weird really uncomfortable not that common but it was there it was their their sexuality matter or does it not right does sexuality matter does it not matter or does it matter more than anything else for instance there those are those are big differences just there are women exactly the same as men or are they the same and magically better mmm-hmm our black people the same as white people or do they have something a bit better yeah now I I quote as you know in the introduction the in town today on as it happens black American writer Coleman Hughes he mentions that among his contemporaries in America he couldn't help noticing in recent they seem to think that he had some special moral insight because he was black and that would be an example of over a correction you know you get past equal and go on to slightly better well is he saying that he is his better or is he saying that he no no he's not saying he's been he's saying that he interprets his white contemporaries as seeing him as in some way I say yes but so I the I think the principle that goes behind the overcorrection would be something resembling retribution right mm-hmm yeah I don't know I don't know how much you buy into retributive ISM and generally speaking but to me a huge factor the interesting point about this is if we consider cuz you say like how far would it go like how do we know when it's done well retribution implies like for like right it implies kind of a I for I type approach meaning that it may be the case that these people by wanting some kind of retribution they say the overcompensating is done when as much damage has been done to you as has historically been done to us which is obviously a disastrous approach I think that's what we're going through if it's from some people but is there any legitimacy to the retributive approach of saying well listen you've punched me in the face and you could say well look do we want to get do we do we want to fix this by becoming equal and no longer anybody punching each other in the face what do I get to punch you back well there's an added layer of complexity to this isn't there which is it's not even if it were that claim that would be one thing but the claim is something like historically you punched somebody like me so I can punch you now I think it's more like historically you punched somebody and as a result of that I'm suffering well whether or not you agree with that that's that's more for more accurately the claim um we've recently seen the interesting attempt by some people to do gay reparations piggybacking on the back of reparations claims in America for black Americans and this just goes to show the fact this this stuff can just spill out everywhere because some people just want a bit of cash and you know that's that's what's going on with some people but no I think that I think the attempt to I think the attempt to claim suffering because of forebear suffered unbelievably unwise thing to open because I don't see how you close it so don't see how you close it finally let me give you a quick example sure again I'm interested in us trying to have reasonable attitudes towards ourselves as well as towards our past and if you take the view that for instance there are people today who suffer because of their gender sex sexual orientation or race and they suffer because of forebear suffered for instance you among other things you you engage in so many lies but one of the lies is that everybody who wasn't of your group was somehow part of therefore the oppressor group so that an average white British person today must in some way put up with some overcompensation the other way when in actual fact most of our own ancestors did not spend the 15th 16th 17th 18th or 19th century just living in Clover but scratched out a living died far too young had lives of horrible toil to just provide for their families and it wasn't like they were massive beneficiaries of some patriarchal systemically racist society it's it's such an unfair interpretation of what our forebears went through yeah in a country like Britain I mean there's a lot of unpack fare I mean I suppose you could say that they perhaps were to say that they were benefiting seems ridiculous because they were suffering so much but you could still say that perhaps they were they were suffering less than other people were we get into this I mean whether they were suffering or not I mean yeah but it doesn't matter of course of course it's a silly argument but allow me to kind of represent it in the way that I would present it where I'm making it not that I probably would but also the way that I feel like is perhaps the argument of people who are putting it the way you're putting it are not fully understanding the point which is like it's not that somebody in my ancestry suffered and because they suffered at the hands of somebody else if you are a descendant of that somebody else you deserve the retribution it's like well not only have I suffered as a result of that historical injustice but you've benefited from it so it's not it's not my virtue of you being part of the ancestry they've caused the harm in the past is by virtue of you now benefiting from that right that's the argument I hear how would you respond to that well there's so many thing one one one problem in this whole thing like who's going to do the accounting on this mmm like seriously who the accountants of this I mean people trying oh yeah the people are trying other people who also want to be the beneficiaries no not entirely coincidental of this I mean what if we agreed for instance that we should draw up a list of suffering people in history and find a way to compensate people for it we might find for instance that at the top of the list of races that are suffered are the Jews do we do some massive house-to-house money taking right and give it to the Jews I just where on earth would this end you know my mind blowing it would end after that if we managed to actually account for everything because of course like how about how about me if you wanted here's one that would easily follow that yeah my forebears did more to fight and for this country in its liberties than your forebears therefore I deserve more of the Liberty Wow okay people could do that they could vote if they could easily do that they would because that would be silly right but well it's all silly at some point because we're looking at we're looking at history as some kind of bank then we wear deposits have been put that are being kept from us yeah and at some point in our lifetimes we can pull the lever could Ching and the interest rates are pretty high and I I as I say if you start this game yeah so and I just think a reasonable attitude towards history among other things would help us to have a more reasonable attitude towards the present but the whole thing is being interpreted in this extraordinary zero-sum highly interpretive way one other thing if I may just add to that yeah I'm obsessed by this Asian I wrote about it quite a lot in the strange death of Europe I'm obsessed by this issue of forgiveness you know I write a chapter about it in the maps of crowds but why we spend no time thinking about the mechanisms of forgiveness which is you know I can't quote Hannah Arendt on in this book which is just something fascinating to me we we are living in societies where guilt and blame including historical guilt and historical blame are made to be overwhelming for certain groups of people but we have no thought about what the mechanisms of forgiveness would be but here's the other problem from that is that we don't even think in a serious way about who actually can forgive and who can be forgiven mm-hmm it's one of the most important issues in this whole thing I don't few know that there's a very interesting story by Simon Wiesenthal I think nobody knows if it's true or not if it's a novelized version of what he went through if it is a a truthful thing but he wrote a book called the sunflower of you've read it it's really worth really it's it's an account of a man in like VN Hall in the camps who is pulled aside from a queue of workers and you know slave laborers and he's taking the deathbed of dying Nazi who basically wants to confess about a terrible crime he's committed in a village burned a village to death and he the reason tile character works out during it that what the high-ranking Nazi is wanting is absolution and the reason tile character describes how at the end of this confession to all intents and purposes he gets up and leaves and the published version which was I think at sometime in the 60s has a symposium afterwards by a range of philosophers and thinkers about this question did he did the recent whole figure do the right thing and it's interesting most of them basically agree that he did and the basic agreement for a wide variety of philosophers is that he did because it's not in the gift of the person who was not themselves suffered to give absolution and if that is the case what are we what is this game we're engaging in I think it's a game of trying to figure out whether people now are suffering due to historical and justices yeah I repeat because we are doing the suffering then they do have the power where do we start if we have it where do we start with it somewhere do we finish well my grandmother lost her brothers in the first one half before her father in the first war and her brothers in the second war they will just drown to see she didn't spend the rest of her life looking for vengeance on this or indeed compensation for yeah history was horrible for everybody yeah and we can't engage in this as I say in this matter counting bunk and Oh at least we could do I'm just edging people to think again about here I mean it cuz intuitively I agree with what you're saying but at least the component of of where does it end where where can we draw this line when can we decide when it's when what counts and what doesn't seems to me something of an argument from futility like saying you know look it's a very tricky thing to to defer to define the line between what counts as sexual assault and what counts as playful flirting but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't argue that the worst instances of sexual assault are wrong because I could say well look people are starting to go around and saying that rape is wrong but like if we start on that train where's it going to end like is sexual assault wrong sure is this wrong is this wrong and you get near to the line but it's like so what if we don't know where it ends sounds really easy because I mean rapes against the law crime we're talking about the ethics of this right not not what what is currently legal but what we should be doing how we should be designing society well as I say I'm you know the laws on rape um pretty good for a pretty good reason which is actually there is a identifiable line it's not always as easy as it we might wish it to be to actually prove that in a court of law because by nature you're dealing with two people's testimony of an event but you know the reason why that line is drawn clearly in the Lord anyway just because the law recognizes as our society does that there is a big difference if one person with holds consent and nevertheless is abuse obviously the specificities of that example of apps not the most appropriate or or easy to talk about but the point remaining that just because we don't know where it would end or where the line would be drawn doesn't mean that there isn't some line to be drawn even if it's more of a kind of miss definitive lines sure but then again if we agree that historically there have been in justices yeah and then we try to work out what in justices may still be occurring today why would any reasonable criticism of it instead of engaging in an attempt to draw together a broad covered bro day coalition as possible to address that specific thing said actually the problem is that your society our society is racist sis patriarchal swype supremacist etc etc the worst way to get a consensus on some of these things I say this as you know in the trans chapter where I lay out I think is humanely and as carefully as possible what it would look like to try to get a coalition of support for legitimate claims within this area and as you know what I find striking about it is that none of it has been done none of it that instead of getting a coalition of reasonable people to address for instance the really just really unfortunate situation that some people have when they're born so-called intersex you know with with unclear genitalia it really just terrible start in life not not wife anything but just not an optimal star why did people why was then why did people skip over that and go straight to or at least very swiftly to say the big bearded man is a penis with a penis is a woman or you're a bigot hi the when when alleged rights claims do not go down a reasonable route like that but instead run to the most unreasonable claim and demand that you agree with it it's no surprise that they're not going to work so this is this is more of a criticism of kind of the approach that's being taken rather than the ontology of the point well it's not just approach because I think I think the approach betrays something important which right so counterintuitive fact that that a coalition is not what they're after I see yes yeah that makes sense I suppose that's an interesting argument it's very counterintuitive because most of us assume if you want people to agree with you you will be trying to get a consensus of agreement but as I say I think the trans thing is marked out by the fact that again not by any means with everyone but the the the campaign in recent years particularly last 15 years has moved very swiftly on to demanding the most impossible to a bear to acquiesce in claims in order that people fail and and it's why you can predict with 100 percent accuracy who's going to grab on the latest trans claim and they are always the people who in every case the people who want to completely change the society we're in for some other reason I'm talking about why is it that every radical marks who still exists always grabs the latest big muscular man who says he's a woman who just wins another weightlifting competition why would the marxists me because they don't care about the weightlifting they care because it it undermines a certainty in the society they wish to write even if they're trying to critic it in another way the idea that it can be good they grab they grab the the male to female trans people we ready see it at the moment it's going on at the moment since stonewall group sort of basic the founders of stone walls split in the last week because not before time a number of the LS and G's and the B's realize that the T's were a problem and certainly weren't in the same category on a range of rights claims a problem to that the the the LGB bit as into the to the advocacy first they had their right yeah I mean I mean we see these cases over the case last month in Manchester with male to female transsexuals barking a group of women including lesbian activists in a room and they're banging and banging on the windows outside no other time in our society do we allow people who are born men to intimidate women and think that that's a that's a sort of non arrests of all offense yeah there's no two different arguments going on here one saying that they shouldn't be conducting themselves in that way and another saying that they're wrong hmm well I think they're both and you're making better I think the first betrays the second on this occasion I think we extraordinary rage yeah the first male to female transsexual expressed towards women in particularly the heck of a giveaway if it's a hecklers betrays the second because you think that if if your cause was right then that would entail you wanting to approach it in this manner and since you're not approaching and in this manner that implies that the course was wrong it's an it's an awful giveaway that you would that you would decide on the wet Wednesday evening to go to Manchester and bang on the windows of a women's rights movement you know it's the sort of thing that a reasonable person might weigh up their life and wonder if it was going feel quite the right direction okay so the rightness of these people it are they are they wrong in what sense do you think that these people are wrong on the ontology at that point is is a philosophical wrongness is it a biological wellness let me get the better point I was making about stone want to answer that the point I was making about the stone walls bit is that in recent days since it happened all of the radical Marxist types left in the UK including the straight ones have been all over social media saying there's no LGB without the T mm-hmm well that's flat-out wrong where's Philip pencha pointed out yes morning Laurie penny who I think trains me straight he's telling gay people how to live and the Philip ng said we don't particularly for that thank you but it's demonstrably wrong that without the T there's no LGB I mean I see if there isn't a T I'm not going to go out and start dating women this evening it's it's not the case that these are these are separate they may be legitimate all in their different ways but they are separate claims the cause they're you and but the point I'm making is why can you predict with 100% accuracy of the people on the T side in this specific in Denis fine dispute are the ones who also want to bring down capitalism also want to destroy the patriarchy and so on and so on in the very predictable menu of grievances which they now claim that they have that's a manifestation of this intersectional approach to things it's like saying because if you can you can take the logic one way because I I definitely think that these people would have far much more success if they recognized the individuality in their causes and so when you when you recognize that being transgender is a totally different experience from being gay you've kind of got two options which is to say wash we know let's keep the LGB and let's let's allow the T to be a separate community or you say well okay well let's keep the T but then we probably have to add on this and I don't listen yes and that's the direction that a lot of people have taken that's probably the direction that most people have taken is to instead of short in the acronym turn it into how you get to a hundred genders I think my own beef with this and the reason why I say I very carefully try to maybe an inhabited metaphor to try to salami slice this whole issue is because I believe that there's a fundamental set of truths were telling on this area I don't think there are a hundred genders I don't think that the non-binary thing exists is that you're being unconvinced or you believing that it's false uh nobody has yet convinced me I believe it or false but I'm totally open for convinced those who have those two are the same thing surely to say there's a welcome to say that you're unconvinced of something and to have the active belief that involves right well they can be I mean the the first bit is a polite way of saying the second but but I'm asking which you believe because the reason being if you just say that I'm unconvinced by the claim then you can say that with no problem but if you say that it's false then you've got your own proving to do no I don't know no no hang on if you think it's if you think it's not the case and there are more than two sexes or if you if you are unconvinced that it is the case which isn't the same thing well it's it's it's not for me to prove that there are two sexes yeah the Arrangements on the chromosomes have been well yeah it's not on you to claim it's it's not on you to prove that there are are two genders unless you claim that there are in which case you're making a claim that requires some justification that's a different thing you are saying I'm unconvincing I'm happy to hand over the defense to any biologist mm-hmm right now but now I mean that that sounds like when you go to an extinction rebellion protester and they do it and they and they say well look I don't find out that I'm gonna hand this off to the scientists go speak to them xx XY chromosomes very well understood okay yeah I'm happy to keep my faith in that yeah I'm perfectly happy to keep my faith in when people come along and claim actually there are a hundred genders such as two-spirit genderqueer but they're bearing in mind these peoples don't see gender is informed by chromosomes they see sex is informed by chromosomes yeah well that's one of the slips have happened in recent decades the turning of sex into gender which we're now reaping the rewards of this basically the social science is holding themselves out as Sciences which has had an incredible mattad cause an incredible amount of damage and not produced very much light in the decades since this was permitted to happen in the Academy primarily but but now III the the the whole claim is based on the way that an individual feels mm-hmm and it's very unclear about other things why we should change our interpretation or our understanding of science based on the way in which PDF feel I think that there's a way to approach this in a humane manner which I try to do and in person and in practice as well as in my writing on this issue you know I I'm not interested in just trying to upset people I am interested in trying to understand what is going on what I find upsetting is when as I say a claim that has no basis he's then used to bully people into not believing what has been scientifically known for an awfully long time and see one of the reasons why I found the trans thing so interesting when it really came flooding into thee that the mainstream in the last decade or so is that I noticed the people who were having problems with it were very often people who didn't have any problems with any previous rights claim of any kind yeah and oh I see he kept coming across the same thing which was expressed to me actually once by a scientist friend one of the main universities here who said I just can't do it like this because it's the first time that we scientists have been asked to say something that isn't true it hasn't happened before in my career on my lifetime and and that is that that is something that should worry people of course and and when people say well why don't you just say it for politeness is sake yeah you can do it and politeness is sake in a in a social situation at dinner party you're not going to say to the transsexual you know hey sir or whatever you know it's like don't be a dick unless you're Ben Shapiro but well actually I think bench borough was incredibly restrained in in that particular encounter but but but you know you don't do in that situation but again if you are asked I mean look at the language slippage of gender assigned at Birth yes yes not just that - it's not gender assigned at Birth but it's not a doctor was a big right but we have we I think we have to be careful to unpack it right because obviously absolutely is somebody's making a scientific claim that there's more than two sexes a apart from of course the abnormality such as people who are intersex is false right that is biologically false because they're making a biological claim but this does this this argument is muddied by this attempt to distinguish gender from sex now the first argument is whether that should be done and the second argument is supposing that it can be done which these people generally speaking do who making the same because really they're not actually making the the unscientific claim that you're purporting them to make it seems to me it's like their claim is about the the the psychological aspects for someone who feels like they're a man not it's got nothing to do with the biological clock it does it's a huge amount that's well that's why we see the endless push for changing of sex at birth on birth certificates of course they are if you see if you want if you if you insist that somebody born a man who decides in later life they actually feel like a woman and transition should be recognized on their birth certificate they're therefore to have been born a woman they are making a biological claim and making a scientific claim they're making a claim I make it much harder to collect data on things that's not the primary reason I'm opposed to it I'm posted I'm opposed to this because I think that society shouldn't should as little as possible in bed lies right like lies or mistakes well we're going to make mistakes but you think it's a lie you know do you think that mistakes in life no as I said we're going to make mistakes everybody does every society does we're gonna be make so many mistakes that gonna come out of our ears back okay but but lies that you know allies is unwise in my view yeah I there will be cases we can we can play around with where it might be necessary yeah I cannot see that this is one and just one other point about this over and make some quantities that we doesn't get stuck on trance but the problem the problem about this is not just being told lies but the horrible opportunity costs of going through this for range of other reasons I think that a lot of what we're seeing with the trans phenomenon the moment are and by the way a lot of doctors say this in private and a lot of clinicians are over a lot of it is an expression for mental illness I don't if you saw the LGBT town hall that the Democrats ran in America the beginning of October I might have - it was like an asylum outbreak I'm not I'm not exaggerating it your viewers and listeners can go and watch highlights online yeah because anything mentioned will be in the links in the yeah it was it was like an outbreak feminist an asylum a mother standing with her nine-year-old child who introduces himself as a trans child and everyone whoops and cheers Elizabeth Warren included or she leads the sharing and the whooping I did see you know woman who's there with her trans child and then a black male to female transsexual says we're not spending enough time to like black women of color who had trans and and she grabs the microphone and more people do this and then there's attacking Don Lemon he's a black gay man for covering up racism and it was just an asylum outbreak why would that be the case because there is a reiterate an awful lot of people in practice say this in private there is an awfully large crossover of mental illness and at least elements of the trans thing and it isn't it isn't only because we live in a transphobic society that makes people deranged because we're so transphobic and then the trans people have mental it's not just that yes that's the claim that's made if that's the one that's made like but there is an awful lot of the other way around in this right and that seems to me worth exploring and here's the kicker that's really worth exploring before you carry out medical experiments on children yes now that we can hopefully well I always say we can hopefully all agree on but we'd obvious weak heart you and I man on it but but so yeah there's there's a lot here you know but that's the thing it's like it reminds me of like I don't know Charles Murray's investigations into IQ right and and he he discovers this uncountable fact now I haven't read the medical I know I I haven't read the medical literature surrounding the relationship between being transgender and having mental illness now I I know so I can't sit here and say no you're wrong but I also can't agree with you in to life right the relevant literature but it lets say that it is true and there is like a relevant link it reminds me of when someone like Charles Murray kind of discovers this uncomfortable truth around the relationship between IQ and race and then you're stuck with the situation of well what do we do here I'm sure if this is actually true then as surely it has to be reported on now yeah that the advocacy that I would make is one of saying if there is this link or even if there's not it's worth exploring as you say I think that to listeners who are made uncomfortable by the suggestions I suppose is what I'm trying to say because I'm trying to be diplomatic here oh my the people who people who are who don't like what you're having to say and you can you can disagree vehemently with what Douglas is saying but you can still be in favor of an honest inquiry into those questions right because if you're so certain that there's no link then you shouldn't be afraid of such research because it will come to prove you to be true yes and there may well be things in any society including this one which are unproductive to look into yeah even if they're true yes so it's interesting you know you raise the the IQ issue I have I've written on this a little bit as you know I write a bit about it in the madness of crowds in the race chapter because I think it's something that's coming back and you have to be exceptionally careful about this but personally I have always put that into the bucket of as you do the or what are you going to do about it even if that is true yeah it's kind of like a so what type thing right that's not the same here you know so what well this is informing medical operations on children exactly right and exactly and and also you're in the you're in the stages sort of being offered do something about it that's the thing isn't it yes yeah of course yeah if if you're way past the stage it's like again we can do this with history that we know people do it with you know kind of work out exactly where something went wrong and at some particular stage you can say what are you gonna do about it at this stage and then there are times again in a way it links to them quite the conversation we're having about them about the whole issue of historical restitution of things it is is yeah there are there are times at which you could make up for a thing and times after which it's it's a case of what are you gonna do now and and obviously you have to pick these things carefully and I know one of my editors says it's a good lesson is assume that since every age in history has done things you look back on and just say what were they thinking assume we're doing some things like that too and try to work out what they are yeah I think the trance one is is one he's a fairly confident even certain elements of certain elements mean possibly the whole thing possibly the whole thing because possibly I have no problem with because I'm always in favor of the open investigation in terms but it's it's a very difficult conversation to have I mean I might lose subscribers patrons just just for having this conversation right you do and because it well I don't know if that if they're idiots they might just be he might have had an unfortunate unfortunate university faculty that that's that's made them made them think this way but whatever is the case it's like it it's it's so difficult right because I feel that there's a lot of talking at cross-purposes if you say that these people are biologically incorrect and I say no they're not that is a dead end argument because we might be talking on different dimensions we might lean right yeah yeah I think we just have to be a bit slower when we getting into the conversation to make sure we're defining all of our terms we could be but here the challenge to your urge to caution yeah is is what if this is all a very bad sign kamil power here has made this point in the past but when there's a possibility there's a civilizational issue that arrives in this guise each time that we get to the stage where we become fascinated in fluidity for instance where the the norms are deliberately dissolved where hermaphroditism for instance becomes a particular fixation and so on Paglia by the think it's who first made this photo the first word for me to point says this is what happens at the end of empires the end of civilizations they they become they get into this weird terrain now I agree with you we should be respectful we should be careful to the extent we can yeah but we can't be endlessly so yeah because the point of somebody of your generation and intelligence and opportunity cannot be that you spend more than the shortest amount of time possible trying to undo this conundrum yeah because there are so many other conundrums and questions that you and your generation should be applying your minds to and if at the end of years of working out nicely where the unwinnable unresolvable fluid game that you're being invited to consider in the most cautious way possible were solved we don't think it can be what would you have to show for it you know you'll hate the comparison I can't help but imagine that I'm talking to somebody who is who is advocating for the approach or something like extinction rebellion and saying look yeah you've got to be yeah be careful but like but but there won't be time you know you've got a you can't just kind of do you see the community objects it I don't know I mean perhaps I'll leave it to the Judas of the audience is amazing so what's the essence of the point that you were just making it's like be careful because I if you have to kind of sum it up in a principle it's like don't waste your time doing things that are beneath you and that's what you're saying beneath that's one thing I'm saying are you also suggesting that perhaps the I'm urging you separate from that are you suggesting that our approach to people who are transgender or claimed to be transgender if you prefer is potentially at the beginning of the end of civilization no I'm saying I think is very interesting what Perea says indicative of people this is indicative of a certain type of for want of a better term decadence writing their decadence of thought yes I think there is something for anything no I'm rejecting comparison because I'm not saying and I I'm not saying the end is nigh we're all about to die unless it is not just that I mean I mean it it's obviously not a comparable in terms of scale but in terms of saying something like you have the science wrong and that's informing dangerous practice such as such as operations on children and an environmentalist might say you have the science wrong and that view is informing a lack of action there's going to talk about the end as I say I'm not yeah I don't see it particular is it you know have no intention of sitting on Vauxhall Bridge and stopping traffic but yeah as a trans but would my main if it go bad enough like it if it became society I see no more to the situation in which I sit in the middle of October stopping the traffic but I also because there's a there's no need to get bananas so there's an interesting difference of approach in general to what argument is that expresses itself in different ways right it's a very different thing to believe that argument is what for instance we're doing now or discussion dialectic and sitting in the middle of the thoroughfare yes stopping people and you're either the sort of person that does the first or does the second button they are wildly different means of communication but note that the point I want to get back to on this is it no I am worried about the opportunity cost if if people of your generation want to spend your lives unweaving the fluid rainbow and working out exactly which colors go where I'm not going to stop the traffic I'm not going to say it's the end times but I think is a damn shame yeah like it's a waste of time it's a horrible waste of time right like your generation should be thinking so many things working so many things out there's so much to do and the idea that this would occupy even a quarter of your mental space just doesn't seem wise that's my only response to that would be to say that it might be wise to try and unpack it in the sense of trying to get to the truth because even if it is totally dismissible as a concept like identitarian ism it's just a silly thing that we should get rid of i still think it's worth because so many people have become convinced that it is a useful concept i think it's worth unpacking it if only to show to people here it is laid bare we've done the thinking and we know that it's wrong because otherwise they can just say well listen you you don't know what you're talking about you need to unpack it you need to understand it in order to tell me that I shouldn't be an identity I'm worried if I I don't think I don't think it's reasonable for people to say unless unless you try to read Judith Butler enough you can't engage in this conversation that is not that's not quite what I'm saying when I say unpacking at-at me meeting reading their literature I mean just spending the time thinking about it and engaging with all I mean I think broadly speaking as a society we are trying to do some of this at the moment there was a little bit of a glimpse of the thinking the discussion happening I go back to this point though I mean one of the reasons I do the gay thing first in the matters of crowds is to show I'm the only one that I've got a tiny sliver of yeah I'm gonna say it no one's accused you of being transferred because how dare you put them last in the book no I haven't had that critique yet but the reason I do gay first is because I wanted to show and I don't know if this comes across I rather hope it does I was doing the Brett Weinstein the other day seem to think so that I wanted to show look this is what I'm willing and very happy to talk about in the one thing of these identity groupings that I can claim to be a part of and I'm I'm very happy to have the discussion about how little we know about gays still because it does because in a way out the aim of doing that is to say is to say and it's not a trick it's a truth this isn't the foundation of myself and I would urge it not to be the foundation of yourself yes you know I we're never going to we've highly unlikely to ever actually Nix that question so so let's not spend too much why don't we just agree not to treat people badly agree to equality and then get on with more interesting thing I would be great if people didn't think that what you were doing was treating people badly not saying that it is but like we need to it can't be as simple as that you know whose the problem is that that a whilst I might not agree with your answers here I at least agree with the questions that they need to be asked but so many people won't even allow that to happen yeah because they are frankly badly educated on some of this though they're badly educated in the whole dialectic of ideas but how does this and art how does it become so embedded if it's so if it's so in some cases obviously false where did this come from surely the first academic to try to talk about this must have been laughed out of the room but clearly that can't have happened how is this managed in such a short time as well if there is no if it is so kind of obviously false to use the kind of Christian argument of how did it spread to the Roman Empire if it wasn't true you know but it's a similar line of approach it's like how did this happen I think it's very one I'm there lots of reasons but I think one is that there are times in society when you become vulnerable to bad ideas and we know that historically usually not always but usually when the economics goes bad [Music] quite a lot of people have contested this suggestion of minor that might I still stick to it that I think that post 2008 crash this stuff flooded into the system because people weren't weren't that able to oppose it because you're not when the economics goes bad it was a bad idea a bad set of ideas sitting around look like it has been systematized looked like it had been thought out had been scientist in itself an awfully long time and purported to be able to claim purported to be able to solve all in equities in our societies and then you have the explanation for the sort of woke capitalism thing which is you know companies companies and banks that helped to very nearly crash the world have embedded things like implicit bias training and the diversity quotas and much more as basically a tithe to try to get back some of the there is a tithe to the gods of the time to get back some of the goodwill they lost and they're willing to pay it it's like a recovered well rather than a kind of a positive you know this is we want to do for the benefit of its good yes it's kind of well they're doing they're paying it because they think it'll get them out of it for bit they did probably not all them believe in it some do and it's yeah it's the way to get through Smith so I think that's I think that's a sort of reasonable explanation for it but as for where the bad ideas themselves come from my memory is you know the chapter on this I tried to trace a very short history of it but the these were these are the products of liberal arts universities in America and um and maybe this is a rather snotty thing to say but um since we're in Oxford maybe I I can get away with it in this room but there is there is a Ponzi scheme going on in the American university system as in this university system in the UK to some degree and this is a very good and that whole intersectional thing is a very good way to try to cover that over in his last year's disciplines that aren't disciplines that prepare people for no no career the the products of the social sciences in the American system of D if you are in six-figure debt or your parents are in six-figure debt because you did a social science degree the claim to have nixed certain issues of the gender issue you're never making that back you're never making that back are you likely to in that situation recognize that you've been diddled or dig down further in some way sadly the studies tend to show that people dig down that's interesting it's like even if you become convinced after that time that actually maybe this was a waste of time you won't allow yourself to accept it no way they will no way it'll always be somebody else's fault it's interesting you know I'm I'm hoping to have my my philosophy tutor at least one of them at Oxford is currently in the process of publishing a book about about feminism and she's just been promoted to a fairly higher position in the university actually I would like to have her on because she is an exponent of intersectionality she is an exponent of the social sciences and I would love to see this rot has come all the way to Oxford I'll be sure to tell her you said that well it's it's it's been a hell of a conversation you know it's a difficult conversation to navigate as well because I tried to challenge all of my guests but usually on points like for instance when when Peter Singer was that way you're sad and and both of us are advocates for Animal Liberation and here I was challenging him and people people were like well of course he's easy okay you gonna challenge him even though you agree that that's what you'd do but it was easy to do because we were we were disagreeing on on whether pleasure is the fundamental basis of and can it be extrapolated to this philosophical words but the points that we're discussing here are not just these kind of abstract philosophical concepts as much as perhaps they should be right they are they are fundamental aspects of people's identity whether we like it or not and so it's a difficult conversation to have and I'm glad it's not me that has to be doing it right and I think that anybody listening who wants to listen to the specificities of what we've been talking about should read the book especially if something poked their ears and they think how dare he say that like listen to some of the explication and try and figure out what the actual argument is that it's being made because like I say even if I don't agree with the conclusions you might say even even he is the operative word there it is that it it is the method for me the takeaway at the book was was the kind of the critique of the method it's like you know than somebody who reads this book as it as a virulent it reminds me of that book that was written out defending my enemy by the old president of the ACLU who when the the Nazis tried to march in Skokie wrote this book and and he wrote it to say like people were like how could somebody defend a Nazis right to march in the street and he said well listen I'm Jewish and like I want the same ends as you I want anti-semitism to end but I'm scared of this approach I think it's self damaging and I think people can read this book and think that even if they can lately hate everything that you're standing for that you've you've you've hit a nail when it comes to saying that this might not be the approach you want to take yes not take the approach that they're being asked to take and to do something better with their lives hmm yeah I'm I'm inviting people not to waste their lives yeah and you'd also urge people to buy the book which is available of course at all fine bookstores and also an audible form also inaudible which has caused a bit of stir given your given your recitation of Nicki Minaj which I some people love my Nicki Minaj and some people don't I wish I could have listened to some people think it's better than the original I should possibly comment I'm sure the remixes will be flooding in on YouTube anytime soon Douglas thank you thank you for coming and yeah as always for my listeners if you enjoy the podcast please give us a rating on iTunes we were as I tell most of my guests at one point the number two philosophy podcast in the United Kingdom and it's only because of ratings like yours so please give us a rating leave a comment but as always I have been Alex O'Connor and today I've been in conversation with Douglas Murray [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: CosmicSkeptic

Views: 705,201

Keywords: Alex O'Connor, cosmic, skeptic, cosmicskeptic, atheism

Id: gCtBUvFL-QQ

Length: 83min 28sec (5008 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 20 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Ravenofdispersion]

Submission statement: a discussion between Douglas Murray, whom Sam has had on his podcast a few times, and the Youtuber Cosmic Skeptic, who's engaged with many of the same topics as Sam and whose content has also been featured on this sub several times.

I found this video interesting because this is the first interview with Douglas in my memory, where the interviewer neither agreeably lets him speak unchallenged, nor interrupts him by throwing slurs out like candy. Instead, Alex (CS) presses Douglas several times and does not let him get away with essentially repeating the same talking points he uses in every other interview.

[u/Thefriendlyfaceplant]

That was awesome. Cosmic Skeptic wasn't on my radar since recently. But he is now.

[u/pistolpierre]

I'm so impressed with Cosmic Skeptic as a thinker. I also like Murray much of the time, but it's clear he has certain leanings, which may influence his reasoning. Alex seems to be genuinely starting from a point of true neutrality, and reasoning his way up from there.

[u/Jamesbrown22]

Holy hell. Murray's view on the civil rights movement is so historically illiterate. He is a clueless.

[u/[deleted]]

Douglas is the type of guy who thinks Brexit is good for the UK. He's a contrarian but not of the Hitchens type imo. Sam seems to think he's a wonderful thinker for some reason.

[u/Darkeyescry22]

I think Alex does a good job here. He disagrees, but doesn't act like a dick. I'm excited to watch his career progress. It's clear he's not yet confident enough to really press someone in the way he wants, as he just lets Murray change topics frequently when Alex pushes against his views.

[u/AKhan4200]

Alex is so smart its unfair

[u/SuccessfulOperation]

The trend of gays trying to be traditionalists is always funny to me. Its like they're trying to overcompensate for being outcasts by clinging to the very "culture" that, if it could, reject them openly and explicitly.

Peter Thiel, Douglas Murray, Dave Rubin, Andrew Sullivan etc.

[u/DynamoJonesJr]

Douglas came off like a smug paranoid uncle who talks about politics at Christmas.