Motherhood, Transhumanism, and the Case for Being Normal | Mary Harrington

what whatever whatever the horrible statistic is like one in four or something mad like that of American babies who are who are put into daycare at two weeks old is just horrendous you know that's absolutely not an age at which babies should be separated from their mothers I mean it's not even legal to separate puppies from others at two weeks old so you why why we imagine it would be okay to do that to human children who develop so much more slowly is completely Beyond me it's [Music] barous my guest on this occasion is Mary Harrington who's a very thoughtful and very honest person who displays great courage I have to say she's a contributing editor at unheard in the United Kingdom she writes for other outlets uh as well including first things the news Statesman and her own substack where she writes regularly she's also just published her first book feminism against progress I think you'll enjoy this Mary thank you so much for joining us and can we kick off I understand that your grandmother gave you some advice that you've never forgotten and that impacted your life uh once can I ask what that was and why it was so powerful my grandmother was a very practical woman um she was a doctor she was a farmer she she was a mom um she she got on with stuff the whole life she was never she was never Idol and and she always she always saw life as it was I thought and she was quite old by the time she gave that advice I think she was already in a retirement home but she and I were great friends we always as well all through my adult life I remember when I was at University we'd ring I'd ring her on a Sunday and we'd do the the big cryptic crossword the weekend down the phone together but she was a great friend and one one day when I was in my I think I was sort of late lsh 20s I went to visit her and I told her what was going on in my life and she said she sort of paused and looked at me after and after a moment or two she said you know Mary I think you should grow your hair and get married it's s of it was it was it was great I mean it was excellent advice as it turned out um I did and I did um and as as it turned out she was right U but it sort of took me by surprise at the time because I had very short hair I was very much not married I was living in assorted um sketchy house shares and sort of commune type setups and leading a very a very experimental sort of Life which was fun and interesting and and her her advice was timely um because it hit on something I hadn't really been able to put into words at the time which was that it was starting to become less fun as I got older living like that stopped being stopped feeling as though it could go on forever um and it's and it was beginning to dawn on me I think well I don't I don't know that I'd have put it like this myself but it was beginning to dawn on me that I was getting older um and that leading an experimental communitarian um Avant gardish sort of life um not be as fun by the time I was I don't know 45 or 60 or older than as it was when I was 24 and and you know I don't I don't think I sort of went away and ruminated um I didn't spend lots of time thinking bright by or and I didn't I didn't abruptly make any changes the next day but it stuck with me um it must have stuck with me and it must have had an impact on me um I think I think what grandma was trying to say and she was she was very as I said she was a very practical person very clever but also very practical um was have you considered being normal U which which I I honestly hadn't up to that point I had I think I had sincerely not considered being normal as as an available option um it was it just seemed obvious to me that the way to live was in in defiance or in contravention of any kind of expected expected social norms or expected that doing it like that just wasn't going to work for me it was going to be boring and dull and stuffy and conformist and etc etc etc and that the the obvious the obvious ethical experimental avanguard is um thing to do was to try and try and try and devise a set of principles for me for living from scratch but this was this that that was that was the obvious right and proper thing to do I mean um i' I'd ingested a fair amount I suppose of critical theory when I was at University which which kind of underscored all of that um I was a I was a radical leftist I I believed in um floting the floating and thating and subverting the status quo um so just be normal was paradoxically very submissive advice at the time um but I tried it and as it as it turned out she was right I mean not least that it's it it turns out I one of the great one of the great secrets of being normal is that it's it's it's actually very liberating in terms of in terms of how eccentric you then have mission to be because you fly under the radar what part of what she meant and part of your experience have been that Fun's one thing but happiness and contentedness and purpose are tied somehow to accepting responsibility taking on and accepting and exercising responsibility well I suppose that's that that's the conclusion I've come to since I think for for me at the time just to to set a bit of context for your but for your audience um I didn't yeah I I was a I was a very I was a very radical leftist and I was a very um very I was very I suppose I was committed to an early an early version of what we think of as woke now um you I went on marches and I I believed in the whole uh anybody can be anything they say they are or at least I at least I wanted to try and believe it and I had a good old I had a good old experimental go up believing it and I I took my friends seriously when they said they when they when they said they had special pronouns and yeah all that um I mean it was all in very in very kind of germinal form in the naties this was some time ago it hadn't kind of eaten the entire culture the way it has now um and and I think it was I I hadn't really I hadn't really thought about responsibility or um contentment um because I was I was much more I hadn't really thought about the relationship between responsibility and meaning and contentment and um actually being able to build anything serious in your life because at that point I was I I was too sort of too sort of constitutively allergic to the idea of um hierarchy or order or really sort of authority of any kind I suppose is the yeah I was I was sort of basic in quite a basic way like allergic to Authority um and if you're if you're quite basically allergic to Authority the idea that actually it could add anything useful or beneficial to your life is doesn't compute so and and in that in that context just be normal obviously that's not what grandma actually said she said goow to her and get married but but I mean you know from from her perspective you know effectively that that imanity can you please just be normal um is is is the gentlest possible version of a suggestion that actually just fitting in with what everybody else is already doing you know might actually be a root to happiness which yeah it didn't make any H it was was counterintuitive to me at the time but as it turned out it was right um and I think and it's I mean there a lot of a lot has happened since then John and I've done a lot more thinking since then but I think one of the one of the things one of the reflections it left me with um is just how much of the culture is is dedicated to telling people that just be normal is terrible advice which is not true um I mean if you think about all of those kids movies where you know an ant or a bee or a penguin or something um you know becomes a heroic figure by doing something which is which which doesn't fit in with everybody else around them and and it's the story that gets drummed into you by you know from Pixel movies onwards again and again and again that you know what you what you absolutely must not do is just be normal what you absolutely must not do is just do what everybody expects you to do what you absolutely must not do is fit in with the the role that everybody has allotted to you because there's it's it's not even it's not even that you'll find that frustrating or it's it's almost presented as immoral or or a kind of failure an abdication of responsibility to say okay fine I'll just go along with that and everywhere the messaging says just be you and and and there's an implication somehow that whatever it is that just be you means is not going to be oh I'm just going to be an noral person um that that's never what it means some the the answer can never be okay I'm just going to be a conventional person who lives in the sh has two or three kids and um has a nice life and um hangs out with their friends that's that just be you has to mean something different implicit has to mean something and and I don't know I suppose I'm I'm the kind of nerd who tries to take this take who takes that stuff far too literally there's a great many people who just go get get on with being normal anyway fewer maybe these days but enough of them thank goodness um I took all of that far too literally and tried tried to have a really good go at just being myself and as it turned out it's it's terrible advice um it's you you have a much nicer life if you make a concerted effort to be normal um and if you're if you're an eccentric or an unusual person that will that will just happen anyway there's nothing you can do about that I I can't help wondering what a normal person does do now to be normal quite frankly because it seems to me that in the age of identity politics were so atomized uh and and and uh so intent on finding ourselves from within uh that uh there is no normal and there's not much happiness either well I think that's it depends where you are if you if you spend your time entirely on the internet which I'm I'm complet which obviously you don't and most I almost don't um I spend far too much time on the internet and if you spend if you spend far to much time on the internet you'd be forgiven for thinking that yes um there's there is no normal anymore but actually I mean I live in small town Britain and the very much is a normal you know most most normal people are still pretty normal um you know people walk their dogs and go to the pub and um you do normal jobs and have normal opinions U it's I find it and I love it here because because of that you know it's I'm not I'm not surrounded by people who are ostentatiously trying to trying to flout or subvert the the status quo all the time people just getting all the life um but if you spend all your time on the internet you'd absolutely get the impression there is no such thing as normal anymore and certain and I think in some contexts it's kind of true I mean in terms of public policy terms there's there's a very strong sort of political policy pressure against the idea that the state should put its weight behind any particular form of normal I mean that's that I don't know if that's I don't know how true that is in Australia but it's certainly true in the United Kingdom I the the conservative MP Danny Krueger and the and the MP Miriam Kates have B under a lot of fire relatively recently for Danny Danny said something he he he made a defense of the normative family which is to say married heterosexual couples intact families raising children and and was was absolutely roasted to high heaven including by his own side um Matt Hancock um said that that to to state that even that such family was even normal constituted you know was a completely Fringe view in his party despite the fact that I mean if you were to ask if you if you throw throw a wet hadock into a group of dog walkers locals to where I live in smalltown Britain they would absolutely tell you that a married intact heterosexual couple raising children is the normative family that's just that's just what it is um and and the fact that the fact that there are a great many single parents who do a superb job in sometimes challenging circumstances doesn't make that any less true um so but but the point that there's a kind of official if you like an elite consensus um against the idea that there is such thing as normal and there's a policy consensus against the belief that normal exists um and I I would even go as far as to say that in some more avanguard or Progressive quarters there's an active effort um this sort of active ideological effort to undermine the idea that there is such thing as a normal which goes all the way down even to biological levels you know sort of technological war on normal human reproduction for example and and there are you know and technological war on on on normal in a whole host of other fields beside I mean biotech is a whole I mean I don't want to go down the I don't want to go down the biotech rabbit hole but if there I can't think of a more literal war on the idea of of of biological Norms than than setting out to edit them at the at the genetic level so so yeah I mean it depends who you ask I think is the is the long answer to your question is the is there such a thing as normal anymore it depends if you ask if you ask your average dog walker in smalltown England they will they will absolutely say there is if you ask somebody um in front of a camera who's a who's A Member of Parliament um they they will probably try and fudge the question because from because they'll get absolutely r bured at the stake if they try and make any statement that that suggests that there is it's very profound insight there of course in that um what you're really highlighting is the difference now between the elites who are really quite disdainful of the common person and the common Community disdainful is not too strong a word in my view uh but the response is Despair and disdain from those who feel that the elites patronize them and don't think their views are worthy of course in Britain in some ways that played out with brexit but it hasn't gone away and my impression is that many people would feel in that the that the experts simply refuse to learn to learn they refuse to listen they refuse to learn they refuse to take the views of the mainstream the views that most people would say have stood the test of time seriously and I wonder just how corrosive all of this is in the end for the body politic very much so I it's absolutely corrosive before body politic whether it's going to improve anytime soon I think is an open question uh I I'm not I'm not optimistic To Be Honest John and the reason I'm not optimistic is that you know we may we we all like the idea of democracy and the people having a vote and the people really determining how things go U I was I was very I was deeply dispirited to read Peter turin's recent effort um he's I mean he's he's arguing essentially that that America is is on its on on its way way to a revolutionary condition based on other previous polies that have found themselves with those structural conditions too many Elites and um not but but one of the most Salient things that he points to is not enough of a mechanism he he has this Grand sort of historical view of um how polies can end up in in disruptive and chaotic um in internal situations and his argument is that one one of the factors that that drives that is too many Elites who are competing for the top spot um and but but but also um among Elites an ability to F wealth and resources and opportunities upwards to themselves without any countervailing me means from from the masses if you like to stop them and I think um in that in that sense when I look at Britain and I look really at the entire developed world that's that's what I see in position that there simply is no obvious mechanism for for the people people to to just to to to hold to hold the Elite Feet to the fire and say hang on a minute you can't do this um I think the there was a point and and by I mean sort of real I I don't mean being able to vote that's sort of that's kind of the iene on the cape what what what what I mean is substantive so you know what what I mean is leverage um I mean if you think about if you think about when women were granted the franchise that was in the in after the first world war in Britain that was largely as a consequence of the fact that women's women's work was needed because so many men have been killed so it was simply not tenable to to say well we we need you to do some we need you to fill some of these roles that men filled before but we're also not going to let you vote it just it just wasn't possible anymore so women at that point had the leverage to demand the vote um but I think if you it doesn't matter doesn't matter how how how how much lip service we want to pay to the idea of democracy if the if that doesn't come with a corresponding amount of Leverage um it's just you know the your vote just isn't going to mean very much um and I think about I think I think about the industrialization in particular in that context and I think about the the the future sketched by by futurists like no you noi where he he imagines that um Automation in particular is just going to render a large large sections of the body polit politic functionally just irrelevant yeah they under those circumstances it's not obvious to me why um somebody at the top of the of the political hierarchy would pay any attention at all to to how the masses vote I mean who cares you know they can they can vote for whatever they want but if they can't actually do anything when it's ignored if they don't actually have any means of say of of if they can't withhold their labor in through through strikes and there is there is no industry anymore because it's all been outsourced and in fact most of the wealth in the country comes through financial services which is concentrated in one tiny area who cares what they think I mean it literally doesn't matter from from a sort of realist point of view it literally doesn't matter um and I think that's that's what briefly seemed not to be true after the brexit vote and that's what if you look at what what has happened you know what people have done rather than what they said um since the brexit vote I think that's that's pretty pretty demonstrably the case it literally doesn't matter what vast majority of the the electorate thinks because they just don't they don't have any leverage um and and until that changes and I see no obvious way for it to change then I don't know I'm not I'm not optimistic that anything particularly is going to that the the the disdain that actually is very palpable I think from at least some quarters in in government is going to is going to modify with anything uh more listening with more listening or more of a gen reflection to popular I don't see it changing and into all of this mess comes something that I think you touched on and I think you've also said that um you know you found much of it not very use useful I would suggest that perhaps it was more than useless it's actually very dangerous uh the idea of I mean critical theory critical race Theory critical gender Theory critical fat Theory critical queer Theory uh this is extraordinary stuff uh and as um Steven pink has pointed out uh the idea that it's not only taken hold in Academia but is now spreading out into the community and it finds its way into the education system into the entertain industry into U politics and now business as well how can there be any normal if we base our lives around the concepts of critical theory in particular that the world's great problem is white supremacy critical race Theory the that whole architecture of um grievance studies and what's post that that that bit of postcolonialism and critical race Theory sort of post-dated me I think in the academy so I'm I'm actually not massively familiar with with the text I mean I I was sort of I was inculcated I suppose into kind of 90s 90s and u0s postmodernism which was a very slightly different piece but the risk of getting too theoretical I don't think all of the insights of postmodernism are wrong not all of them um there's a the the there the basic Insight of standpoint epistemology I think is right you know I have blind spots but based on my own life experience and where I stand and um what is or isn't is is or isn't easily available to me politically based on who I am and where I exist and where how I show up in the world I I I think that's that's fundamentally probably accurate um there are you know the idea that that language and power inflect how we perceive reality it's basically accurate um but but the I think what's the the difficulty is that the it doesn't follow from that that it doesn't follow from that that the world doesn't exist it doesn't follow from that that we construct everything sort of EX Neo based on based on human on it doesn't follow that that that we exist in a consensus reality and there's nothing of substance underneath reality is still there um it's just a little bit inflected by by by factors some some of some of which are in our control but most of which are not um so what I me we still have to exist in the world I still I I still inhabit my body and nobody else's body I'm still female and there's nothing I can do about that you know there are there's a if if you like the the the the basic critical theory insights I don't know I I look at I I look at some of the some of the theories that have evolved out of this and they sort of fit my my basic rule of thumb about um new in new Innovative political theories which is that you know the it's reliably true that whatever whatever means whatever form they make their way out into the world in will be the most stupid reductive and and eventually counterproductive form possible so you can you can come up with the most brilliant subtle you know far-reaching observant insightful new theories that you like for for why we are the way they are but by the time they percolate out to the people in general they're just going to be dumb slogans that's just that's just unfortunately true um and I I look at well you again the insights of quer theory or critical theory or critical race Theory and and and the the original postmodernists were not wrong about a lot of stuff it's just that it's percolated out into the world in general in in the form of imbecilic slogans and profoundly destructive um policies and Nostra and yeah I think what it's been sort of you know digested and digested and digested by rank after rank after rank of sort of midwit um Third Rate Scholars until it until it just becomes a set of idiotic slogans which then perate out into HR departments and become really nothing nothing very good um I suppose this is this is Mary's elite theory again isn't it but this time this time I'm arguing for the elite rather than against them as I was a minute ago make up your binary um it's extraordinary how much of an impact um the the idiotic reductive versions well how much of a hold these have come to have over over public policy um you know even even in countries where they don't obviously fit or where it would seem it would seem sensible to come up with your own version I mean America's America is a unique polic in its race politics you know it's it's the its history um you know it's its status both as a settler nation and also as a former slaving Colony um makes it it makes makes it surely unique and also the world's only superpower um that's the that's that's a completely unique cocktail and America's you know I visit America quite a lot um I talk to people a lot there about politics and it's clear that the the the race politics there are bitter and intractable and don't they don't seem to be improving you know not withstanding 50 years of sincere and concerted efforts to improve things um that's that's really that's regrettable and I feel for I feel for America in having this kind of original sin to try and grapple with um but it doesn't follow from that that what makes that the theories and the the sort of radical approaches and the yeah the the the theories which have which have emerged in American among American progressives to try and make sense of what's happening in America should should be propagated throughout the world but because it's the because it's the world's only superpower um and because it's kind it's such a media heimen as well as being such a political hen that's that's inevitably what ends up happening because that's just that's just how how Empires work right and even if America isn't officially an Empire and in a in a cultural sense 100% is and so and so the other the the rest of the anglosphere ends up being infected with ideas that only really make sense within the American politic um a friend of mine Tom oad wrote a book about that recently he tried he he did his best to to to unpick I mean he's he's he's of immigrant Heritage and um a African Heritage I believe um he's doing his best to unpack just how just how badly American critical race Theory makes sense in the context of the United Kingdom which again you know our race politics are complicated and not always happy um but our history is different and the the the people's the origin stories of of immigrant communities um white communities in the United Kingdom is completely different um it it's just we just don't have the same backstory at all um and so but but but it's extraordinarily difficult in our kind of unified anglosphere media ecosystem where it's very difficult to disaggregate the English political argument from the American political argument on the internet because they all just kind of happen in the same placeless place it's extremely difficult to disaggregate arguments about race in Britain from arguments about race in America inevitably they end up sort of cross-pollinating one another and and a lot of the times I think that's incredibly counterproductive I I I don't I don't know or I'm not very familiar with those kinds of arguments in Australia but I dare say they happen and I dare say that as well in Australia they they're they're inflected by by what gets pumped out of of the world's cultural hedgemon and and that's that's I'd be surprised if that's any more useful to Australians as as than it is to British uh well it is here and in some ways it's very unhelpful so in a way a way of summarizing what I think you've just put before us let me test this on you would be to say that if if some if a school of thought call a critical race theory establishes rightly that the statistics reveal that some people and perhaps it's there's a race element hood are privileged that may be true and that may be something you ought to deal with appropriately but you can also deal with it inappropriately the inappropriate ways to burn the house down so to speak in a sort of um let's get even sort of mindset let's tear the place down the more constructive place would be to say with of your privilege you ought to be aware of it you ought to be prepared to double your efforts to do the right thing for other people who are not so for forunate the no bless subl idea that seems to have been washed out of our culture all together would that be a a way of sort of understanding what you were saying about the value of some of these understandings versus the conclusions and actions that arise out of those understandings well I suppose I hadn't really I hadn't really included the the the privilege U theme in my Reflections so far but I think it's I think it's fair to say that um the the the sort of critical the critical studies argument is that you know we should be doing our best to dismantle Privileges and that's a sort of central that's a central tenet of of the the the grievance studies if you like we should be we should be doing our best to dismantle privileges um I no one ever really seem no no one seems to want to contemplate the possibility that possibly we can't um and that there are some which are simply simply immovable because they're I mean I'm I'm fond of saying we I'm sorry and to start us off down another Rabbit Hole jump um that a great deal in the in the 21st century at least I don't think it was always true um people talk a lot about patriarchy um feminists talk about patriarchy and it's it's I've come to think over time that you know in a in a world where actual patriarchy has been largely dismantled you know what's that what we actually end up talking about when we talk about patriarchy is IM immovable immutable sex differences that we don't like and and the bottom line is that there are some asymmetries which are just not going to go away between the Sexes um to what extent that's true across other axes of privilege I don't know I think we could be here for we could be here a very long time and get into some very radioactive territory if we if we were to explore that so let's not go there but but I but but the the central question I suppose is what if what if we can't the architecture of privilege what if there are always going to be Elites and I mean this is Peter turin's argument that there will always be elite you can't have a functioning poity unless you have a ruling class and if you if you have a ruling class then there will probably be some asymmetries in it in terms of its demographics or in terms of yeah in terms of who's wielding the power and there there there are some perverse incentives in play and given given that um it seems plausible that we're not going to be able to get away with architectures of privilege you know we might be able to and I mean and some people some people include accuse the critical studies people of of knowing that perfectly well and simply wanting to to dismantle the existing architecture of privilege and replace it with their own and I think if you look at what they do rather than what they say there's probably some truth in that um it's not about it's not about making everybody the same it's just about redirecting the engines of patronage from one one set of one demographic to another you know that's in in that case it's sort of in in a sense it's it's it's simply the latest delivery mechanism for Politics as Usual um and I think that's I see I find that argument quite convincing personally um you but I mean the it is is privilege something is thinking about privilege something we should replace with reflecting on no bless obl yes um absolutely again this comes back to the tchan insight about the the relationship between Elites and the wealth pump and um political stability and the masses in general it comes back to the idea that fundamentally if you're going to have a ruling class that's that has a sort of functional and stable relationship to the to the masses in general then a measure of a pragmatic measure of concession um is or or if you prefer nobless obl um is is sensible because otherwise soon or or there'll be a revolution and somebody and somebody else will be and you'll be replaced with somebody else and so there are there are there are solid realist reasons again for for for no OB I suppose what I'm saying is that uh more than anything else just saying there's there's always a useful and con destructive approach which helps if you like build opportunity and human flourishing versus a response which ultimately proves to be atomizing and destructive that's that was really the only point that I was seeking to establish there absolutely absolutely I completely agree with you there this idea that we're going to be any better off simply by burning everything down is demonstrably not true and all it really does is replace one one architecture of privilege with a different one um and and you can plausibly end up just throwing a lot of babies out with a bath water in the process coming to your U most recent book uh in feminism against progress I understand you speak of what you call Progressive theology that interesting terms or term what what do you mean by it well by progress theology um I mean the belief and I think it's a belief not a fact yeah progress progress theology um I I simply mean the belief that things can go on getting better and definitely um on any axis you care to name um I haven't set out to to argue that case in detail in the book because it's it's more of a kind of starting point for everything else which follows um but in the in I think the first chapter I I I make the claim there are there are plenty of other great books you can read that argue against the the belief in progress I think one one of the one of the famous ones is Christopher lash who writes who a book titled the true and Only Heaven where he he gives an analysis of the American belief in progress um but I've I've I've taken as a starting point for the book The the claim that this is this is not a fact it's a belief um if you like it's an ordering belief um that that out of which politics and behavior and social structures and so on then flow the idea that the the progress is a thing um I don't believe in it um think the the starting point really for all of the reflections that I've I've laid out in the book is is sad um I I I lost my faith I I stopped believing in progress theology I just came to think it was it was not true um and and it did feel a lot like losing my faith um because it is it's a very it's a very metaphysical belief that has has strong Trace connections to the Christianity which it I mean in a sense progress you know progressivism is a kind of Christian heresy in that you without Christianity we don't have the idea of um hisory of History having any sort of directionality to it at all um with the the idea that you you you get over a huge an enormously long Arc from creation through the fall to Salvation to the end times to the day of judgment and then finally to heaven on Earth or Heaven um the the everything and finally rejoining our maker I mean that's the sort of that's the fundamental Christian um sort of spiritual narrative the the the Christian eschatology um and the the progressive eschatology is is kind of the same it just get takes it just abstracts the spiritual elements from and implies that we can achieve all of that here on Earth but it's fundament structurally it's the same esy as the Christian one um so it's it's it's deeply deeply religious in nature it's deeply religious in origin um it's held by it's so pervasive in the culture today as to be just part of the air that we breathe the idea that things can get better and things things can and should get better I mean it's difficult to think of a of a political party even on the conservative side that doesn't or think tank or that that doesn't use the language of moving forward of you know going forwards rather than backwards you know forwards is always better by definition and I mean you know it's just everywhere once you start looking for it you see progress theology everywhere it's simply simply how we make sense of the world and it's not the only one I mean we you don't you don't have to look very far outside outside the Christian West to find plenty of cultures uh I mean the plenty of cultures where that just don't think about that don't think about life in the world and history in those terms at all I mean it it yeah there are there are plenty of other ways of making sense of the world the Chinese and the Indians um have a completely different religious sort of metaphysical architecture for how they make sense of the big sweep of time but the the progressive one is fundamentally a Christian one and its structure and it's just there everywhere and and I stop believing in it I I just don't think it's a thing the the specific architecture of attaining Heaven on Earth over his over the course of history is just not true so to be a little bit provocative or even cheeky I'd be interested in your views um I suspect a lot of people are realizing that there's not much room for Progressive theology now the evidence is suggesting that we're not going to see it in our life times there's a lot of Despair in Western societies we know that from the research that's easy to see um so we've rejected Christianity um the Theology of progress is sort of uh looking pretty unappetizing unre unachievable at the moment where do we find hope now well I don't I don't think we have rejected progress theology as the thing I mean it's it's certainly percolating from from the ground up um people people are beginning to have some questions about how how well it's borne out by by reality um but people at the top to the extent to to the extent that people are insulated from from stagnation from uh from from political unrest from Street crime Etc and so on to the extent that people are insulated from that they they tend still to believe in progress and I think you can you you see you can see that in the socioeconomic breakdown of how people vote and I would I'd be willing to bet that similar patterns are visible in Australia as as in the United Kingdom that people are more likely to vote for socially Progressive parties the wealthier they are because the the the the counter of the the counter argument isn't happening all around to quite such an extent so you can you can still have hope you can still believe that you know if only if only we fiddle with the policy and give people even even fewer even fewer restrictions and even less of a a set of social norms then perhaps everything perhaps we will attain heaven on Earth and yeah to and I think that's that it's still believable if you live in some peaceful Pleasant places where where those those policies haven't haven't been implemented fully yet it becomes increasingly obvious where where they have been implemented that that's not really that's not really what happens um but yeah it's a progress is a progress is a belief it's not a fact where where do we find Hope after to Peak progress oh that's a big question that's a big question I mean I I I always have hope I always but I mean it's there there are so many books that I didn't write when I wrote when I set out to write feminism against progress I I I mean this is this is my learning arc on in writing my first book I thought I was going to have a chance to say everything and it turns out that actually 50,000 words is nearly enough you know you have to you have to be every bit as selective about what you want to say um and so you know there was a there was a book about there was a book about the end of peak oil and and the end of fossil fuels which which is coming I mean know it's even even the most Ardent climate denialist will have to accept that the the the just in terms of mass the the amount of fossil fuel available to to to power our energy throughput is finite right and when it runs out a huge amount of stuff is going to go with it because I I remain unconvinced that that either nuclear or Renewables or anything is going to be is going to is going to be any sort of a functioning replacement um that's going to do interesting things to economic growth it's going to do interesting things to our political our financial architectures and our social architectures and our Behavior yeah it's it's utterly utterly World shattering reality shattering and that's a that's a whole and I mean it has implications for feminism as well that was the orig that was the original book I set out to WR about the the dissonance between the women the women's movement and the environmental m movement which seems obvious to me in as much as in as much as a great deal of women's Liberation is predicated on the existence of Labor saving Technologies which is true um this the the end of the end of easily available consumer goods um and labor saving Technologies is implies the necessity of quite a diff of quite a radical reading of women's Liberation um and that that's that's a whole other book which I didn't have an opportunity to write um where do I find you know so where do I find hope I I think big changes are coming likely in our likely in my lifetime um probably in both of our lifetimes they're already here um PE progress in the theological sense is you know sometimes I think it really is as reductive as you know what we think what what we mean when we when we point to progress is is actually mostly energy throughput which is mostly fossil fuels and the and the less the less of the the less of the latter we have the less the formal we're going to have um and in as much as I have hope it's because humans are astonishingly adaptable and we've been around for a long time and this this wouldn't be the first civilization to come and go and and with with humans carrying on in one form or another I you know I don't think I don't think we're heading for a sort of human you know Planet planetary scale human extinction event I think there's a there's a solid chance that this particular way of this this particular form of humans existing on the planet is is not going to last indefinitely but but you know are we going to Prevail one way or another probably um you know and will yeah will will we find new and new ways of flourishing together probably I mean it's it's a very qualified sort of an optimism but I'm I'm very I have immense faith in adaptability and creativity and robustness and you know and in as much as in as much as a lot of the things which I critique are also Inseparable from you know the the the high energy throughput extractive um civilization or Paradigm that we exist in you know maybe may maybe it won't be all bad I think a lot of it's going to suck making the trans you know I remember expressing all of this to a to a to a conservative local to me who said the thing the thing to remember Mary is if you read Gibbon you you read it quite quickly but actually all of that stuff happened over quite a long period of time and if you if you were living through the fall of the Roman Empire you know you probably you probably just Lots Mo most of the people who lived through the fall of the Roman Empire actually L fairly peaceful lives you know it was just it was just that some things changed and not not all of them for the better and you know maybe maybe that's maybe that's what we're looking at now with plenty of opportunities still to lead good I mean there are always plenty of opportunities to lead good and decent lives even if the world as we know it is in fact going I don't know I'm not sure how I'm not sure if that's the hopeful message you were looking for well I think what I would take out of that is a powerful reminder that in the end not only are we adaptive but when you come back to basics you start to think about what really matters surely in the end we're the thing to recognize is we're not only adaptive we're relational we're relational human beings so I'd like to come to absolutely on that sorry um just absolutely I think the the angle that I've taken on all of these questions in the book um is to to underline the fact that if we're going to weather some potentially quite bumpy um trans itional years to come which which few people would few people would dispute given you know the sort of rolling poly crisis you know one of the from a from a feminist point of view from a from a from the point of view of pursuing women's interests um actually the PO the point to retrench to and to to refocus on is is solidarity you know solidarity between the Sexes and re rebuilding you know Perhaps Perhaps setting down some of our our belief that we can and should always be trying to go it alone and refocusing on what how we can show up for one another well I'm quoting you directly here you wrote by the end of the of your 20s I had concluded that sexual Freedom brings alienation alienation means amongst other things loneliness I suppose a Breaking of relationships what did you know and understand by your late 20s that you hadn't seen in your mid to late teens if I can put it that way I suppose i' just done a bit more dating you know I sort of I prefer to prefer to draw a veil over the Gory details because none of it was I mean none none of it was especially great or fun or longlasting um yeah I I experimented some I experimented plenty um came came grimly to the conclusion that if you if you prioritize endless optionality by which I mean always having the opportunity to to walk away and to be somewhere new I suppose the modern but this was all before the dating apps but the this this has been literalized for a generation or so younger than me by the existence of dating apps where you can just scroll and find find a new potential social partner you know pretty much as though you're shopping on Amazon so in a sense the the the all all the incentives now work against the idea of finding somebody and settling down with them because that you have all of these all of these things um beeping on your phone reminding you that there's plenty more fish in the sea but I suppose the even prior to that the sort of the moral architecture for for for that basic Paradigm was already there and I suppose had has had been sort of developing since the since the sexual Revolution um and it's but if you if you take as your sort of basic your your core belief and the idea that there are always plenty more fish in the sea then then you're never really going to make much of an effort to to compromise with another person you're never going to make much of an effort to to find somebody with the kind of traits that would suit a long-term relationship you're never going to you're never going to be filtering for you you'll be filtering for fun or you'll be filtering for novelty or you'll be filtering for emotional intensity or you'll be filtering for you know all sorts of things which make for uh that make for great anecdote or an interesting an interesting weekend but not necessarily what makes for long partnership um and I suppose I I did that for a while um and it was interesting and made for some great anecdotes um some some fun weekend but um I yeah not really not not necessarily for well definitely not for lifelong partnership and I can't remember the point when I can't remember the point exactly where I I made a more or less conscious decision to think about it differently but I did um at some point Point um I well I can I can remember dating like that and then I can remember realizing that I was effectively you know quite an oldfashioned way dating to marry and I don't remember that being a particularly conscious decision but I think my grandmother's advice probably did play into it um at that point I realized I was just filtering for quite a different set of things um in in the people who in the people who I was wanting to spend some time with and yeah no no regret it was it was the best the best thing I could possibly have done was to change was to adjust my adjust my Paradigm in that way um the the advice I tend to give people who you young younger women who ask me about this now is you know don't don't waste don't don't wait don't be me um don't yeah don't don't spend your 20s doing that if you're certain that what you want is a CLE family life you know be clear be clear about how you should be thinking about it um you you know don't don't waste your time with charmings or sketchy guys or um players you know don't just don't do that because it's not going to do you any good and you'll end up you'll just end up where I did you know with with as many miles on the clock as I did and that's that's not not that's not necessarily the best way to start married life either I don't know I mean it's a it's very again it's sort of slightly battered and bruised advice to to to the younger generation and whether or not any of them will will listen to my suggestion on that front I don't know my sense is that relations between the Sexes now have got so embittered again this this might just be a case of not going outside enough for all I know there are plenty of young people who are doing just fine but my my sense is that the the the culture percolating out of the internet is actively counterproductive where it comes to forming new relationships and forming long-term relationships um and I I do I do Wonder as well whether there whether there isn't more that older Generations particularly older women could be doing um to to push against that and I think if we leave if we leave family formation up to the dating apps we're basically screwed you know it's all of us collectively because we won't we won't be um putting our heads together older people won't won't have been doing what we should be doing um to support family formation among the young I don't think I don't think they should be left entirely to it to their own devices um you know tradition traditionally it's been you know interfering in in the in the Romantic lives of of younger men and women has been absolutely The Preserve of the middleaged like me and to in a to a very modest degree um I meddle in the I meddle in the Romantic lives of friends who are somewhat younger than me my my great friend Lise Perry another reactionary feminist has recently taken to organizing singles nights because she was she had so many so many young men and women write to her saying how how on Earth am I meant to find a partner um that she ended that she ended up organizing a sort of Deb stance for her readership which is apparently a great success I mean whether whether any marriages will come out of it or not I don't know but we've we've come to the conclusion that there's a there's there's a missing piece of Life interfering from come and it has to come from older women I think there are I read recently about um a conservative man who has set out to to run to run basically a dating service for young conservative men and women in in the United Kingdom to me that just seems weird like the incentives are all wrong men shouldn't be involved in in in matchmaking it just is I just think that's yeah the the pervers the opportunity for the opportunity for things to go wrong and for perverse incentives is just way too great I think you have to you have to have the the typical you know married mother of however many um abstract interest in interfering in people's personal lives to be able to do that at all Health but but but there's a there's a missing there's a missing social space there which where where I think yeah I think older women can can potentially step up and do a bit more there the missing aunties oh yeah that was that was that was the I remember a young a guy who I who I worked with once um he was Indian her he's a British Asian um and he was being he was being CED around the British Asian arranged marriage circuit while we were working together and he used to come in on a Monday morning and rigil us with his exploits and and he used to talk about the aunties and by that he meant the network of older women in his community all of whom knew one another and gossiped with one another he didn't just mean you know his his his father's his father and mother's siblings but you Auntie was a auntie is a sort of honorific which which encompasses a much broader range of a much broader range of older women it basically means like older women who feel entitled to meddle in your life and it strikes me that there are there are aunties that are missing in our culture and you perhaps they drive us up the wall if we had them back that also also their absence leaves a gap well we may be missing uncles as well I'd have to say but I'd also want to just quite sincerely commend you on being courageous enough to be vulnerable uh and courageous enough to be honest because I'm sure there are people everywhere looking for ants well done I think that's terrific um H you you mentioned your friend Louise Perry I think she commented that um the arrival of a new baby is not just about the creation of a baby a new human being it's also of something else that's new usually um it creates parents you've been through that experience I understand you know the first baby was a big moment can you say something about that yeah I think yes absolutely I think that was that was really if losing my faith started started this trajectory having a baby completed it in the I was always I was already I already had some questions about progress theology but having a baby was kind of the nail the nail in the coffin so there that that basic Paradigm because if there's a you know if if progress theology has an end point it's complete individualism you know that that's the T Los of prog you know things getting better to the extent that people become more and more free I think would be a sort of reductive a sort of crude but fairly accurate summary of of that that belief you know to to the extent that people become more and more free to be themselves then we are making progress um and I came I after I had a baby I came to think that more and more free um is is not a is not it's not a good enough it's not a rich enough summary of what it means what what it means to be a person in relationship with others to in in the sense that if you if you have a baby you're you're considerably less free but didn't feel like I was it didn't feel like a step backwards and and I had I had to do my best to make sense of that and it was a very visceral it was literally visceral experience I mean I grew I grew my daughter in my literal viscera um and became you know and and it's a very literal experience of becoming less free you know you're functionally disabled by the time you're heavily pregnant you need help getting up done you know some people literally are you know and have to get around on crutches because it messes with their hit um you got your you're heavy and you're ponderous awkward and I never never ever once we were renovating our house at the time and I had to I had to repaint the banisters up and down the stairs eight months pregnant and I never want to do that again because it was so uncomfortable you just try trying to trying to paint trying trying trying to paint these get into these awkward Corners around this enormous bump that's kind of that's part of your midsection is just horrible um but it was all worth it you know because then you got this you got this amazing new little person and and what what was really what was so extraordinary about it I I just had no idea about the real kind of going through the Looking Glass moment was when I realized I mean she felt like she'd been just part of my body getting more and more kind of palpably part of my body for nine months and then after she was born she didn't stop feeling like part of my body that's and that just completely melted my yeah just blew all of my assumptions out of the water it was as though I grown an extra limb um and then that limb was somehow weirdly detached from me and and still needed looking after and the the desire to to look after her well-being was was as strong as the desire would be to look up to make sure my my own arms and legs are okay it's it's that that immediate the idea that something something could harm or injure your child um after they've been inside your body for nine months is as is as immediate and totally all consuming as the the instinctive desire to look after your own extremities and the idea that harm could come to them is just terrific um that exactly the same level and you know it mess it messes with your um yeah it's a totally mind-altering experience becoming a mom a an absolutely physiological level it literally rewies your brain um it completely changes your hormonal makeup to your totally transforms your your outlook on life and I I felt yeah I felt merged completely kind of um completely merged with my baby for some time and it actually that only wears off very gradually I think it was I think my daughter was a year and a half old before I felt comfortable being away from her for any length of time um and and I know there are plenty of Ms who have to be apart from their babies at a much younger age than that but I but I think it's more often than not it's a real wrench to do it um yet people get used to it but it but it sucks um because that's not that's not the the basic instinctive desire the instinctive desire is is more to be around is to feel that that sense of um that sense of fusion even and and I think it's that it's a challenging experience when you've been raised to believe that separateness and autonomy is the the ultimate moral good and is you know by by definition evidence of progress because on the one hand you you you value your autonomy I I I still prize my autonomy and on the and a great many women do and on the other hand you have this basic kind of animalistic um pre- rational sense of merger with with this completely dependent of human being and it's very difficult to make those two things add up it's and you know women women struggle with this in all sorts of different ways and some some just throw themselves into the mummy thing and some some some really struggle or but it's it's very it's very rare to find a modern a modern woman who who doesn't really grapple with that Paradox and and what I what I set out to try and make sense of when I my starting point for writing feminism against progress was was just trying to Grapple with that Paradox you know how have we ended up with a culture be a sort of completely accepted ideology that just suffuses the culture from top to to bottom which is so constitutively at odds with the experience of being a mother it just how how do we end up there and how has that become so identified with feminism which is meant to be the the the political movement um you that that pursues women's interests you know when when the majority of women still are mothers you know how how do we end up with a women's movement that has such a mother- shaped blind spot and I I realized as I as I dug into it that that that's not that's that's less than accurate that in fact feminism doesn't have a mother shap blind spot that the the women's movement has always engaged in in in a very rich and prous way with the question of being a mother it's that the dominant the prevailing the the line that comes through the line that wins out again and again and again is the one is is the one that excludes um that sense of relationality and that sense of maternal um and and I set out to answer the question you know how how do we end up there why why is it that care is always the poor relation why is it that mothering is always the poor relation you know what why why are why are mothers marginalized why do the maternal feminists get a little marginal footnote and the The Liberation fists get get the main history book yeah how how why does that keep happening and and the rest of the book is sets out to answer that question and and a few other on besides but but yeah that was that was really my that that that was how I started how I found myself trying to answer that question as well because I prized my I I believed wholeheartedly up to that point that more freedom was always by definition better and then I found myself in a situation where exercising my freedom to not get up in the night and feed my screaming child was just not you know that that was Unthinkable you know this idea that you you know more freedom would say actually you should have a right to just lie there and say no I don't want to but that's but it's just not true it doesn't feel true and and everybody Mo most most you know Common Sense would say that that would be just obviously wrong you know something would something would have obviously gone very wrong in your in your postpartum mental health if you were just lying there listening to your hungry child screaming um and saying no I'm not going to get up and feed them because I don't want to um and I I should have my freedom to not to not do it you know people would look at a mother who was behaving like that and say you're right you something something's gone obviously gone very wrong um yeah but but it's it's a lot to it's a lot to adjust to um when every when when the entire culture has basically been lying to you up to that point about um how how humans actually work the idea of individual freedom in the end seems to involve an enormous amount of selfishness for a lot of people and I think in a sense you've touched on it you said something very interesting you said it was 18 months before you felt comfortable being separated from your daughter uh and you're able to articulate that your child at that age can't at what age do you think your daughter might have been comfortable being separated from you well this is this is a question I mean it's a it's a very it's a very that's an incredibly moving Target it's you know how much separation and who's there in the meantime and for how long um and yeah and you know what what's the environment like during separation you know these are this that's such a moving Target that it's it's very difficult to give a definitive answer to that um I can remember sort of borderline having a panic attack when my daughter was I think poor five months old and I had to I just had to go to the dentist and the dentist was running late and so she'd woken up from her nap by the time I got home but but my mom was like I and I should have you know it was it was fine because my mom was there and and she she yeah my daughter was fine but I completely freaked out I was sitting there in the waiting room just like because because I knew you know the idea of my daughter waking up and me not being there not being able to be there for her when she was away it was just so appalling but that was sort of you know four or five months old by the time she was yeah but but by the time she was two it was a completely different ball game you know she'd she'd be perfectly happy with somebody else you know a trusted a trusted other who who I I knew was fine and who I knew would care for her and who she knew um she'd be fine for a few hours um to be with somebody else um yeah it's a it's a very but but you know if I left her on her own with strangers for for for a whole day at the age of two she'd have absolutely hated it so you know it depends on so many different things um at what age what age is it fine to I mean if I anecdotally this is a very nonscientific um sample of just some moms some moms who had children about the same time as I did um me in Britain relative to some countries we have fairly generous maternity provision in that you know if you can take six months paid and six months unpaid and so most most mothers who can afford it will go back to work after about a year um I think it's you know anecdotally that's too soon you know as 12-month old baby is still a baby um and most of the mothers who I spoke to about it would have preferred 18 months because something some I I don't know what it is that that changes around then but you know they could a bit more exploring and a bit more verbal and a bit more noticing and a bit more interested in the world around them um and a bit more separation and become then starts to feel emotionally plausible at about 18 months but it depends on so many other factors that I think it's it's difficult to give a give a defin answer but I mean what what I what I absolutely do know is that the what whatever whatever the horrible statistic is like one in four or something mad like that of American babies who are who are put into daycare at two weeks old is just horrendous you know that's absolutely not an age at which both babies should be separated from their mothers I mean it's not even legal to separate puppies from others at two weeks old so you why why we imagine it would be okay to do that to human children who develop so much more slowly is completely Beyond me it's barbarous wow interesting way of putting it another quote women will own will women will succeed at feminism only in so far as we succeed at not being mothers it suggests that you see a contradiction between the goals of feminism and and the calling of motherhood you you've touched on that um how do you think the leaders of this sort of argument reconciled with something else you've referred to which is that most mothers would prefer instinctively feel the need to spend more time with their with their young um I I'm G to go back to that quote and just Nance it a little bit um because it's in I I made that statement in in the context of a much broader argument women women will succeed at feminism to the extent that we that we're not mothers um applies specifically to what I think of as the dominant Victorious of movement which is s what you might call magazine feminism which is what we live with in the mainstream now which is the the feminism of Freedom um which is and I just want to underline the fact that it's not the only feminism ever um and in the book I've I did I went into some depth on retrieving some some other feminisms which preceded it I think there's a hugely interesting body of of work among 19th century women um in responding to the Industrial Revolution in in a whole host of different ways lots of which would are not intelligible in the term in the terms of 21st century feminism because then because they were they were not the feminisms of Freedom um so there's a whole there's a whole other there's a whole lot more to it than you know women will succeed at feminism to the extent that we're not mothers but that but that is the dominant strand that we've ended up with um today um it's one which prizes autonomy um over relationality um and and see sees that as by definition um you what what's going to be better for women um how how how how how are mothers meant to flourish under that Paradigm what what are we meant to do how are we meant to make sense of it how are we meant to um I think you know that's you very you can very easily get into the Weeds on policy about um when it comes to because so many of these questions really are concrete and there are you know there's a school of thought that says you know the the solution the way of squaring this circle is the way of squaring the circle is more child care and then there are others who say no actually the way of squaring the circle is uh making it more affordable for stay at home and the answer is probably both um you know the Katherine hakeim was a sociologist sort of lightly canceled I suppose who did some great research on this in the naughties um and has argued persuasively I think that um you know based on her research um roughly 60 yeah so so BR it it breaks breaks down roughly 6040 um or 60 2020 so if you ask women all other things being equal what would you prefer would you rather spend most of your time at work would you rather spend most of your time at home or would you rather have a mixture of the two and may roughly 20% um would just just want to prioritize work and some of those won't have kids and some of those will just put their kids in full-time daycare um another 20% would just like to be full-time months um would would I say just you know it's a it's a entirely Noble legitimate course of action um roughly 20% would like to spend spend their whole time being stay-at-home months the rest the the remaining 60% would like a balance please um so that which is that that is the majority of women would like some some life and um some some some things going on outside the home one form or another and would also would also like to have plenty of time to be available to their kids um and to to me that seems like a I mean anecdotally that feels about right that there are some women who just not very interested in being months some women who for for whom that's that's that's life and and and the rest you know we're we're kind of muddling through one way or another and from a and on and and getting and I think that's to me that would be a good basis for getting into the Weeds on policy to think that actually actually for the most part if we're to try and find a solution that sort of roughly fits how people normally are you know can we can we try and find ways of of of supporting supporting women to achieve that that kind of a balance um unfortunately what seems to happen partly partly because of the interests of partly in the interests of economic growth and also partly in in the interests of the way um the the 20% who who really are are mostly interested in work are over represented in policym and legislation for obvious reasons um you know you have to be you have to be a pretty driven careerist to end up in those places right um so because those women are over represented they tend to universalize their own worldview and assume that that's that's what every woman is going to want it's just not true I mean if you're if you're a lawyer or a politician then you know you're going to be you're going to be much more You' there's much more you have a much more interesting set of work opportunities to sacrifice being with your kids for than if you're putting packets through a scanner um and and and and yes unfortunately you know once you roll out policies that that would be that would be a good fit for a barrister um or I I always I always come back to the example barrs in this in this case but you know Barrister or a doctor or a Management Consultant or whatever and you roll those policies out all the way all the way down the social scale including including to those women jobs rather than careers then it's it's not obvious to me that you're you're really serving those women's interests yeah so yeah it's it's it's a complex you know how you how you resolve that I don't know I mean again Miriam Kates who I mentioned earlier in the in the British discourse she's one of the very few um she's one of the very few politicians um I've I've seen making making the case you know sticking up for those women who have jobs rather than careers and arguing for policies which which would support women pursuing a balance rather than um just ever more ever more time in work and for that again she gets brick bats it's extraordinary you know even from her own side um so the you know the political forces ranged against what to me seems like a very Centrist and Common Sense argument you know supported by sociological research on what what women actually prefer um yeah the forces ranged against that are are considerable um and I yeah it's unfortunate it's not only what women would prefer it's what children need and it's seems to me that that is simply almost never taken into the equation and a society that doesn't look to the needs of its children is a society in the end with a Death Wish y I could not agree more and and that goes even that goes a lot wider than the child care question you think children's Children's needs are disregarded across a whole a whole host of a whole host of other you know mostly very contentious topics where from gestational from from gestational surrogacy through to um Family formation and you know the the Rights and Wrongs of when you should or shouldn't try and keep your marriage together or or yeah through a whole down to areas which I'm I'm not going to get into because they're just more radioactive than I think we have time for in this discussion yeah I agree I do make the point sometimes though that I find it a terrible reflection on Modern culture that we are so quick to judge those who have gone before for us without examining who we're marginalizing and whose lives we're discounting and whose lives we are not fully respecting because our culture does it just as the cultures we so readily criticize that have gone before us have done it's just we do it in different ways but to move on because you're being very generous with sorry with your time you've you've written a lot about personhood and transhumanism I was just wondering if we could explore a couple of issues there as we come into land yes I mean it's a it's a theme I come back to again and again if we're going to we touched on this very early in the conversation I talked about the the the technological war on normal which I think is it's a it's a governing theme of where we are now really really across the board I mean when when when politicians and Visionaries and futurists talk about the fourth Industrial Revolution that's that's fun you know what they're talking about is biotech and what they're talking about is a technological Mo move a technological move into the the sort of building blocks of life itself um experiment experiments re-engineering you living living creatures and and potentially potentially up to an including re-engineering human beings and you know there are lots of live culture War issues at the moment um concerning uh you know whether whether or how far we should be able to meddle with the human genetic structure you know whether it's whether whether it's appropriate or right or even plausible to to to explore you artificial gestation whether it's appropriate or right to explore um creating creating gametes in a laboratory out of out of other DNA there was a there was a a report out recently about some Japanese scientists who' successfully created um who' successfully grown live mice out of cells with cells created from the genetic M material provided by two male mice um you know obviously breath breathless headlines follow about about you know gay couples being able to have children related to both parents you know you can you can accomplish all of this in a laboratory and and you know of course and that sets off a whole question you know can we can we and how safe would it be and should we I mean it's it's this is this is this too too huge and too complex an area really to get into in any detail and the one thing I would say is that if you're Pro if your vision as as it does for the the for the technologists and I suppose particularly for the transhumanists is predicated on the idea that normal is at best a baseline to to improve on and at worst an outright enemy of your personal freedom then ultimately people ultimately the the group which will end up bearing the weight of your um insistence on ultimately the group that that will pay the price will be children um because if you're experimenting with normal where it comes to creating new life in inevitably that's going to mean yeah whenever those experiments go wrong um the people that the individuals for whom it will most palpably go wrong will be the babies themselves you know whether they're whe whether that's embryos that you're you're creating and then euthanizing in a Petri dish or whether it's baby you know it's the the first attempt to create a baby in an EXO womb that turns out to be some horrific thing that needs to be euthanized ultimately you know the or whether it's babies raised in situations which are which are simply not developmentally appropriate for babies um yeah the the the horror scenarios are potentially Limitless um and and and the and the suffering is almost all born by by those least able least able to shoulder it because they're they're newborn babies or infants or completely defenseless so I mean but I'm going to I'm going to Swerve the sort of bigger picture of transhumanism you know can we or should we try and try and remodel um human norms and and just say that if you're the the thing for me um not to lose sight of when we when we talk about re-engineering human when re-engineering the human re-engineering humans is who the most vulnerable really is um in this context and actually the the most vulnerable in the context of human beings is always babies and those are the and and it's the most vulnerable who are asked to pay the price when we set out to re re-engineer ourselves well you've given us a very great deal to think about indeed and perhaps at some stage uh it might be possible for us to reconvene to consider some of these matters as things unfold in the future but for the time being um I can only thank you for your deep insights and your incredible honesty I think the way in which you are prepared to as I touched on a moment ago be as honest and as vulnerable as you are means that there will be many who will be greatly encouraged not just to Think Through carefully how they construct their own lives their own relationships but perhaps also to become champions for what might be called true Freedom which is never licensed very true thank you so much thank you John it's been [Music] great [Music]

Channel: John Anderson

Views: 41,147

Keywords: John Anderson, John Anderson Conversation, Interview, John Anderson Interview, Policy debate, public policy, public debate, John Anderson Direct, Direct, Conversations

Id: bERjf2hdxrI

Length: 77min 6sec (4626 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 02 2024