"Trauma Made Me a Radical Leftist" - Richard Grannon

a lot of the radical left actually if you look at their behaviors and what they say they believe in that is absolutely unprocessed trauma a lot of that is borderline personality disorder you can get stuck in Anger you can get stuck in resentment and stock in pain and you become aggressive but you don't mean to I've lived it I've lived there I know what being a fringe lunatic radical leftist says I've literally been there somebody who's traumatized somebody who's experienced their sexual and physical abuse as a kid who's angry with someone out there who's more powerful than I am and then you become the conspiracy theorist it's the structure it's the patriarchy it's I used to write essays railing against um uh Western mechanistic uh scientific perspectives and I hate I really hated it because I thought that's what hurt me I thought that's what had caused me pain and was causing pain all around the world does this weird conspiracy out I'm victimized and it's like why who who's whose point who's doing this to you obviously sometimes that does happen but it's an obsessive insistence on victimization through a grand scale conspiracy which couldn't possibly exist at the scale that they say it does but it absolves you of responsibility and that's the point foreign ometry I'm Francis Foster I'm Constantine kitchen and this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with Fascinating People a brilliant and returning guest today is one of our absolute favorites uh he is a man who's done many many things and he's got a book out which is called a cult of one how to de-program yourself from narcissistic abuse which is an error specialty Richard grannan welcome back to trigonometry thanks very much for having me backed up uh it's really you look like you've frozen into the chair yes we'll talk about the book and we'll talk about all this great stuff made but we haven't seen you for a while how's life how have you been uh good busy just busy with work and um trying to sort things out and move forward um I'm having a few problems with with YouTube at the moment uh starting to look suspiciously like uh being Shadow banned so I'm gonna sort that out tell us um you could make a lot of money if you can do that yeah well yeah because a lot of people have the same suspicion I think I had I had the the a guy who works for me in conversation with him yesterday and and they said oh we've reviewed it and there's absolutely nothing wrong with your channel even despite the evidence we gave them and I just have to move to a new channel so totally yeah we're gonna have to start a new channel and I won't put my name in the videos so I'll go to my email list and push people through from the list to the videos because it's a poison challenge now and there's there's just that's it like it's interesting because our numbers have been weird on YouTube as well because when we do a good interview with a big name guest it will do well not as well as it used to necessarily but it'll do well but if someone is less known or maybe the interview is less spicy the numbers are much lower than they were even though the channel is bigger and on the podcast on the audio side of things the numbers are going up every month you've got on YouTube because you're never recommended to me I'm a subscriber of yours I have to actively go and look for you you're not uh there's different people are in Douglas Murray I've watched Douglas Murray videos all the time and YouTube never goes oh this guy watches don't let's give him some Douglas Murray today never ever happens you guys never come up with my recommended I have to go and find you so these are indications that shadow banned or throttled or whatever people want to call it like there is a bit of [ __ ] what's it called a visibility filtering right yeah you have been filtered you've been filtered mate so so there is there is a bit of there's there's that sort of aspect of things going on and I'm thinking okay what's what's the appropriate way to deal with that what's the appropriate action for that and uh you know it's gonna match The Branding and the effort with the project that I'm trying to make and all the rest of it so yeah that's that's going to be the big one for next year wow man so the book why did you write it Richard uh I wanted to get down on paper and my experiences that led me to doing the channel as I've been doing up until now and I wanted to also sort of convey the philosophy behind what I teach and have it all in one place have it you know fairly easy to read fairly easy to understand and so I could just say to people okay if you've got a question for me you can find it there in the book so I submitted an 80 000 word academic style document to the publisher uh the these gentle Americans and um they sort of said to me oh this is really fascinating um we think it's a little dense and I'm like it's boring isn't it no no it's not boring it's just so they they then had to re-educate me on how to write a book so they wanted me to do half every chapter needs to be half an expose of my own life anecdotes for my own life and then you earn the right to teach people something and I was like you know I went to a British boarding school I didn't possibly share my private life so I had to go through this process of open ing up uh and telling stories from my own life in the book which was in the end it was fun once I learned how to do it and what was that process like and did you learn something about yourself while she were doing it oh gosh yeah I learned I I it was it became this it became a therapeutic process it was uh it took at points it was like pulling teeth it was really hard it was really really hard and and the the editors kept asking me for more they were like we need more from you we need you to reveal more about yourself and I was like oh God I'm really resistant to this there's parts of me that I do not want in the public space which like what yeah tell us now what you didn't want to say so that was it was but because if you look like uh on the other side of the coin it meant it made me think oh wow I'm really not in alignment with the way our culture is going because people are rushing to share their private life they can't wait to let you know what they had for breakfast or who they're sleeping with or what color socks they've got on they'd love to be seen I hate it I absolutely just it uh emotifies me I find it like a really mortifying bro so I'll show you it was tough but that's quite interesting because you are a public person you know you're a performer you're someone who likes to be in front of camera you've got a lot of somebody who likes attention so that's quite strange isn't it because normally people are like that want to reveal all parts of themselves don't they it very much was a deliberate Persona that was that was created so I've kept my protection my psychological self-protection was always have a public Persona and then my private life kept very very separate and it's made uh it I think it's made my life easier so you get you see people like they get their Twitter accounts banned or and they become very very emotional they're extremely emotionally attached to their social media and I'd always look at that and think I couldn't possibly I couldn't feel that way and now I'm realizing it's because they've put themselves in there and it's parts of themselves that are getting thrown away for me it was strictly business well let's talk about the book because I I think it you know we we've spoken with you in the past and there's so much more to uh you know often we go for dinner and talk and and there's so much more that you talk about the narcissism which is what people will be familiar with you but we'll start with the narcissism and um I suppose in order to recover from narcissistic abuse you first need to know that you've experienced it yes you need to have you need to have a model of reality that says there is a personality disorder called narcissism and this is what they do not just to me but it's happened to other people multiple times and it's going on right now so how do you know that you've been in a narcissistically abusive relationship uh when you find yourself at three o'clock in the morning on YouTube going why is my girlfriend such a horrible [ __ ] and I'm looking at videos where my face comes up and other people's faces and the field come up there's usually a sense of confusion about what's going on in the relationship and then people well literally they will put in like why is my husband so cruel why is my wife is my wife a sadist or these are the questions that come up in the Google Search terms and then they filter through to this this area of YouTube which is just a ton of this like so many hours of videos now people talking about narcissistic abuse there needs to be a sense that something is wrong and it's not just you know oh she has anger management issues or oh he's going through a difficult phase of his life there's a consistent pattern of bewildering Behavior here you're stuck in these dead end conversations that leave you feeling um it's called cognitive dissonance it's a stressful feeling because you're being asked to believe several different things that contradict each other at the same time and it creates a feeling of stress somatically in the body some people are generalized they can't sleep they get physical symptoms and they start obsessively hunting for answers so that obsessive Hunt For answers is the first indicator that somebody is probably in a emotionally abusive relationship at least and what do we mean by emotionally abusive because the problem is Richard is it like a lot of words now at one point they meant one thing and now they mean you know something completely different well a woman was asked where she's really from and that was called the trauma and sustained right they sustained abuse and and whatever yeah did you follow this yes uh a woman was asking Fulani and she was dressed in full African regime yeah yeah and an old white lady said to her oh and where are you from yeah because you're clearly representing a country yeah and that was soon as the most aggressive form of attack well well she said it was traumatic so this I guess France's point is like you know you might have just had an argument with your partner yeah that's not the same as being narcissistically abused no you're you're pointing to an effect that was identified by a scholar from Brent Brent or Ghent University Ghent university called Yan DeVos it's called psychologization and he pointed out the first paper in 2012. it's the effect by which psychology itself has seeped out into the culture and pathologized so there's pathologization where we think everything is a medical issue and then beyond that is psychologization the things that are not psychological issues are being rendered psychological issues so yes emotional abuse had one meaning um you were with a partner who's abusive but they didn't hit you they used coercive control and now if I say I don't like the color of your socks that could be considered emotional abuse it depends on where the dial on sensitivity is scaled up to yes that's a part of the conversation that we can't have in a psychologized society because psychology won't go there psychology is in its you know effectively a very left-leaning field and you can't question the victim because that would be called we have a term for that as well and that is the sin that's a sin against the Orthodoxy that we live under now so you can't you basically can't say something is traumatic and something is abusive but some things aren't because as long as someone claims of those things are traumatic and abusive you would be denying their pain and blaming them I think the language they use is you're denying their lived experience yeah yeah um and so that actually wasn't the normal stance of psychology for a long time if you go back men and women male and female psychologists for years would push back against that because they would say well you're not mentally well you need objective feedback to know where you're up to somewhere you know radical maybe radical feminism promoted it maybe radical feminists got into more of the faculties more of the social sciences post-modernism crap 10 Marxism crap 10 um and yes it became a case of saying no the subjective experience is all important but only the subjective experience of certain select individuals and we're not going to tell you who you're going to find out when you're being punished so it's a maddening of this maddening situation I I still love psychology but it is a mess it's an absolute mess but the thing that's bizarre about that is in many ways when you do that you're not helping people no that's what you're making from zika I mean it's provable it's a uh what's his name Jonathan height wrote a bow set and the coddling of the American mind he used Jan devos's psychologization and connected it to a concept created by two Australian psychologists called looping so if you say to somebody um you're the victim here and you're sick by a process of looping they'll identify with that version of themselves and they'll create more victimization for themselves and they'll see themselves as vulnerable Jonathan Heights uh point now as I look at the generation of kids now they see themselves as completely vulnerable because of this psychologization and it's not I don't think psychology intrinsically should lead this lean this way you can have a version of psychology that is much more philosophically robust than you teach people no we the psychologist expects you to be strong your counselor expects you to be strong we don't just I call it tea and biscuits like tea and biscuit psychology is crap psychology ah poor you would you like a biscuit that's not gonna help it's not because we have to get down to look you're an adult do you want to function in this reality this is what you need to do the responsibility must be spread it can't be offset because that creates an externalized locus of control which is known to be highly associated with anxiety and depression because you feel like you're not in control of your life right and this is why I feel the timing of your book so great I haven't had a chance to read it yet but I will look forward to doing it over Christmas because I think the timing is right and you know how sometimes people come along um and they definitely have a really good set of things to share with the world but the timing is not right and it doesn't work out whereas whenever I think about something like Jordan Peterson for example I think there's a reason that he exploded in the way that he did yeah because the message was necessary and I feel the way you approach this issue it's kind of how I always thought about life as well is like you could spend your life being a victim and if I listed all the things that I've I've been homeless my family's been destined like I can be gone for ages but it's not going to improve my life right no and I think that's kind of the message that you're bringing as well which is here's a set of steps to actually overcome things that you've been through right 100 and I was thinking of Jordan Peterson uh he had this mildly amusing joke when he addressed the Oxford Union and he said there's there's very very few right-leaning psychologists in the world in fact the only one of them is here in the room with you now which is is not least because he's actually on the left but we've had this conversation before like as as far as the today's left is concerned he's literally Hitler so um but he is that it was that flavor of that type of psychologist still psychology but it still has its roots in nature and Dostoyevsky which was you know yeah you're you're on your own in this world and you have to strive and you have to fight which is a more of a if you take a yin yang perspective that's more of a Yang approach that's more of a um a masculine principled approach the feminine principled approach would be no you need top-down assistance from a community to help you you need both like balance and everything but we've gone too far this way yeah so everything becomes an appeal to Authority if you're in pain and you have a boo-boo then you have to call for Authority at least authoritarian that's why you throw super paintings yes to save the climate that's why you do all this stuff and I actually I did a debate at the Oxford Union which they haven't released yet but this is one of the things I talked about is like if you think climate change is a really big problem um then complaining about it is literally not going to do anything right particularly in Britain which produces two percent of global carbon emissions even if you disappeared Britain from the map it still wouldn't change anything right you've got to you've got to do something you've got to create technology you've got to have inventions you've got to pursue that and we've somehow as you say ended up in a position where we just as a culture we don't that's not the attitude the attitude is Big Daddy government or this or that you know the society has failed me systemic this structural that yes yes systemic they're structural that which comes from I said it's Yen principled which is feminine principle it comes from feminism it's a it's from feminism I don't see why his YouTube channel is not doing as well anymore you keep that up Mr granted and see where it gets sure just turning the dial he's winding about birds again so so there is that like to me um like being I would say the left is generally Yen principled it's it's kindness It's fairness the right tends to be young principled it's competitiveness and it's it's requires more resilience it believes in it a prioritize it I think we need balance in all these things but when I say the cult or yandavos said the culture is psychologized he wasn't saying it's psychologized with nietzschean psychology or adlerian psychology he's saying it's psychologized with this these are radical feminists Marx says post-modernist ideas that do point at structures that and the interesting thing is they kind of become conspiracy theorists there's this weird conspiracy out I'm victimized and it's like who who's who's Point who's doing this to you obviously sometimes that does happen but it's an obsessive insistence on victimization through a grand scale conspiracy which couldn't possibly exist at the scale that they say it does but it absolves you of responsibility and that's the point so that's that's that's why I think it's gone that way yeah I was listening to uh Gabor mate I'm really going do you I don't know if you know Gabor I love gobble yeah yeah yeah and he talks a lot about trauma and it just made me realize that actually what you see with a lot of people's negative behavior in my opinion is just their unprocessed trauma that they've never really looked into or never wanted to deal with and then they just go around just vomiting it yeah which is a lot of the radical left actually if you look at their behaviors and what they say they believe in that is absolutely unprocessed trauma a lot of that is borderline personality disorder you're not supposed to say that even Jordan Peterson resisted saying it for the first five years that he shot to fame he wouldn't I had uh friends and clients of mine go to a seminars and ask him and he would refuse to he would refuse to answer it he's saying it now that's borderline personality disorder well the interesting thing about that is in terms of the point you're making Francis is it's easy it's much easier to say because the radical right is exactly the same I have a uh I I used to be friends with some people um anyway in the movie world and there's a brilliant I think it's Finnish movie called Heart of a Lion about neo-nazis and I met a brilliant film about neonats he's a brilliant film about neo-nazis I'm a big admirer of yeah promotional man yeah exactly that's why we started the show that's where all the merch is from anyway the actors did a lot of research yeah to to get ready to play a neonati and they said that when they met these people who'd been reformed neo-nazis or just were neonatis almost all of them had a certain childhood experience yes traumatic childhood experiences shaped them into seeing the world in that way and and that makes perfect sense that like the people who are out there doing extreme [ __ ] they're probably doing it for for a reason you know what I mean 100 um that the chances of well anybody who has extremist views that can easily be challenged inside of a 20-minute sober conversation not having some issues related to their sanities becomes very very small so yeah radical anything so yeah radical right-wingers again you'll see borderline personality disorder because they'll be they're extremely emotionally disregulated damages their perceptions everything is still an externalized locus of control you mentioned the Nazis that was absolutely a victimhood story right another Jewels it was all one one group yeah for everything and you think you know if you sat down and be like are you sure like that's it that's your view of reality you wouldn't even spread their responsibility out could you name like five different groups on that nope just one nine like we say like we say in Russian if there's no water in the tab the Jews drank it that's how people think though right you know and those people any those those people it creates an infantile view of reality and I think a lot of the problems that we're seeing nowadays is we're not having adult conversations because people aren't coming from an adult point of view they're literally not capable of having the adult conversation because they're traumatized they're stuck in an infantile world view the emotional dysregulation turns your perceptions upside down people don't realize how how sick they've become and they crave this ideology because it it moderates the emotions externally so they they follow I don't know maybe they become neo-nazis or maybe they become radical leftists or so or or whatever and because that makes them feel a little bit better it stops the screaming in their head for a few minutes Richard I'm going to put a Counterpoint to you isn't it even more oh yeah if you don't mean make some they're not all bad someone is going to clip that by the way um but it's becoming more and more difficult Richard to keep your sanity when you look around at the world and what is reality is rapidly let's be fair to come in undone like you you just see that the media has been lying to us you saw what happened with covid you saw that we were told one thing about vaccines and I'm keeping it deliberately deliberately opaque because you know we know what will happen with YouTube and now the reality is something else yeah we've been consistently lied to for a long time yeah so Can you blind people from distrusting reality um blame that's interesting that's interesting okay so to push back on that I would say that we all as adults have a responsibility to approach well you said this point I would feed your point back to you we all have to process our trauma it's rough right now I agree and the fact that we're seeing more and more people emotionally dysregulated especially after lockdowns and everything else surprises me not at all the the thing that bothers me at the moment um is it feels like the effort to coerce people's opinions and to move them in a certain direction is being increased and that largely speaking people are going along with that which is it's it's very worrying I find I'm pretty worried about where we're up to at the moment when I last spoke to you I was much more like oh no you said you said we were heading to gulags and genocide but then the last time we spoke in the in the interview that's gone missing yes oh you interviewed that you were quite positive we did a great interview man and I hope we we can record because something went wrong with the hard drive uh but you did a great interview with us and I can't wait for people to see that hopefully we can get that back man it was really good yeah um sorry no but that being the case look what would you do as an individual how do you operate in a world where you look around and things you're being deliberately misled you've been deliberately misinformed I don't know I don't I don't know what we need so sometimes I think you know I question myself when I say are you this is Richard to Richard are you flirting with uh an idea an idea of a narrative that you haven't that you don't dare to fully realize because it's going to be extremely inconvenient which at this point would be I have to become politically engaged and every fiber in my being goes oh God not that you everyone who does that so no no disrespect but like everyone who does that make kind of makes a fool of themselves in the end because it's loaded with Dogma you say well this is the policy by which everybody should live it's always gonna you always end up look you look stupid on some issues at some point and then another part he says well what else is there because you have to give people directions so if you're not going to give them Direction politically what are you going to do oh we use psychology psychology is infected and I think I've spread the infection I'm one of the people who popularizes the idea of microaggressions and being traumatized by words I'm one of those people what so what philosophy religion spirituality I don't know I wouldn't have the balls to uh to to go out there and and start preaching at a philosophical or spiritual level so I I don't I don't know what to do I'm at a loss well I I think look I I keep saying this in every [ __ ] interview people are probably gonna get as Fed Up of it as France is saying he used to be a teacher but you know becoming a father this year really gave me part of the answer to that part of the answer to what we're talking about is family man yeah and human connection and family connection yes uh that answers like 80 to 90 of all this existential [ __ ] that people struggle with on a day-to-day basis it's that man it's it's a lack of meaning it's a lack of purpose and if you don't have that it's very hard to be grounded and attached to whatever it is that you know having my son has completely changed my worldview and I went from being one of these guys who used to hate parents banging on about it because I'm now one of them yeah you know I can't help it but that's because it's added me I've always been someone who wanted meaningful work and trigonometry is is that for me and always has been but having family uh having children that because they need you yeah and they are vulnerable yeah right so I can't afford to be needy and vulnerable because there's a small little creature that needs me right now my wife needs me right now she needs me to provide she needs me to be there emotionally and it forces me to get out of my own head yes and get into the real world where [ __ ] needs to be done and I think that's part of the answer man and I'm afraid you know people don't like being told this and I used to hate being told this but I think it's very very difficult to for most people there will be of course be exceptions but for most people I think without taking that extra step it's very difficult to be an adult like I do I look back at me even two years ago and I think I was a mature young person um that's that's the best that I would call it I think a big part of the reason we are where we are is the the plummeting birth rate the people delaying having children you know what do you think about that I think uh it was predicted by Aleister Crowley of all people back in 1901 he wrote a book about this that said we're going to move into an age of infantilism he called it the Aeon of Horus um and then young picked that up never credited Crowley and called it the uh which was right for probably the right thing to do uh he called it the puer eternus which means the Eternal child so we now live in the age of the Eternal child and yes you're probably right as as biological entities we don't fully enter our adulthood unless we have children of Our Own I don't know if it's a solution to say to people have kids yeah you're really [ __ ] up go and have some kids to solve that yeah I agree and there's also there's going to be because everything is politicized as well as psychologized now it sounds right wing well having kids yeah well isn't that [ __ ] up though that's insane isn't it it's completely insane but you see but everything's right when the guardian put did an article about what going to the gym is right wing yeah absolutely it is a funny way of like the thing is what what all this all that's doing is is it's if if being healthy physically yes if being healthy mentally yes if having a family and children if taking responsibility if not asking for handouts from the government if not asking for the big systemic oppression to be overturned if if all of that is right wing they're sort of pushing all healthy people to the right well there's um there's another uh Dot and Professor dotton the Jolly Aerotek who reviews The evolutionary psychology research and he says that I believe him there's evidence to suggest that on the whole right wing people are healthier and better looking they have better DNA better genetics right we need to move to the right yeah exactly we need to stop pretending to be in the center we have we've become far right in the course of this conversation and and you look you look at that and you think oh God I hope that's not true but I don't I don't know what I don't know what the right means so what does it mean nowadays if you're on the right so are we saying that one is life-affirming and individualistic uh where the other one is kind of life negating and globalist maybe maybe that's the division maybe that's what we should be talking about on this side here humans are bad we're a burden on the earth we're a burden on the environment we're overpopulated masculinity is bad uh femininity is bad sexuality is bad all of all of that it's like a death cult and on the other side you have people who are life affirming and they want to have children and they want to move forward and have a sense of Pride and a sense of dignity in their own lives and there's that we got right and left wing from the French Revolution are we still having the same conversation I mean it seems like we're probably not so we're using these terms I I disagree with people who say the terms are now meaningless but we have to see how far warped the world has has gone this isn't about so in the French Revolution it was either you you wanted to keep the royalty and you want to keep the church you wanted to preserve things the way they were or you wanted to turn everything on its head so left wing is a revolutionaries right Wingers keep everything the same way this is this is a little different and I think there's different agendas that got tagged on and because they could be so people who were of the left based on that point in human history were open to ideas like globalization open to ideas like population reduction in environmentalism the notion that we are an evil virus on the world and the world would be better if there were just less of us or none of us here at all which seems to be like the Pinnacle of modern left-wing ideology the most righteous person would be all humans are trash just get rid of the whole lot of us that's my humble opinion that's if you follow the the dictates that seems to be where it goes to so yes the life-affirming people probably will be healthier and you know have less genetic mutation be slightly more intelligent and so on hey Francis what do you think is the best way to advertise a business that's easy all you need to do is spend shed loads of cash on an advert that's going to be promoted on a dying medium-like TV then simply sit back and watch all your hard-earned money disappear down the toilet what about advertising with trigonometry why would I do that when I can advertise on itv3 for the measly sum of 20 grand and be watched by six people because trigonometry now has over 350 000 subscribers across the different platforms and gets 2 million views and downloads a month that's right you can place an advert with us and we'll promote your brand on one of our episodes your advert will be written by two professional comedians yeah that's right we're hiring two professional comedians when we make our ads funny and engaging to the point where some people say the ads are their favorite parts of the show yeah we probably shouldn't admit that mate all you need to do is contact us on marketing triggerpod.co.uk that's marketing a triggerpod DOT Co dot UK advertise with us and we'll get your business canceled for me covered through all of this into really sharp relief because I saw two groups of people in when it when covid happened there were the people who were just like well the government knew the government needs to support me the government needs to bail me out the guy I need furlough blah blah blah yeah and those people who were like well I've just got to get on with it and of course there's more Nuance to that there were there unfortunately there were some businesses that could no longer operate because of because of covid and a lot of people couldn't do their job that's why they needed to follow yeah the government forced them not to exactly but but there was the attitude of of particularly my industry with with comedy in our industry at the time where comedians were were saying well I need to be bailed out and it's like well I understand that your industry has stopped but that doesn't mean that you can't navigate other areas yes you can't do other things you're denying your agency yes yeah the I we may have discussed this before but I've always been on adopted the left the left-wing uh largely left-wing uh argument and psychology which is that most things in life are due to trauma the environment and nurture but with covid I really started to see a reaction that I thought was nature based because it was so fast and people were so certain of their position literally within weeks without questioning it and I started to see that split you said that you were presenting a non-nuanced version of reality but I would say the response was non-nuanced like it was really low resolution every largely speaking people went one of two ways they either wanted blind submission to Authority and bailouts or they wanted to fight against Authority and sort themselves out so you just had authoritarianism versus uh essentially individualism and I that was so fast and so I never had any doubts I wasn't like oh but I do like a bit of authoritarianism I was like [ __ ] no ah get that away from me absolutely not but people really close to me went all the way the other way overnight and I thought for the first time ever in my life I thought maybe there is a genetic component to this this could be rooted in our biology because there was some people who just craved it yeah yeah and they saw the government expansion of governmental control in their lives as a positive and they loved it and they loved it and and they craved it and they wanted more yeah 100 it makes sense I mean one of our favorite fellow favorite guests is a guy called Stephen Hicks who's a philosopher and his historian I feel like I don't know if you're familiar with him yeah I've listened to him I'm a big fan of him and this is one of the points that he made is people who are temperamentally fearful of the future of life of the world they don't feel uh competent or able to solve their own problems it is very natural to those people to then cling towards authoritarianism because in a time of panic in a time of fear if you don't feel able to solve the problem or someone else has got to solve the problem right and who's that going to be the government and if other people are refusing to cooperate yeah what do you do well let's get the hammer out you know it it it to me I I kind of I had compassion for the desire to rely on governmental forces and and to have that appeal to Authority a top-down appeal to Authority but it was so unquestioning it made me laugh I thought people were joking I was like why would you trust your government to do that what evidence do you have that your government is qualified for this and they go well it's the government just do what they say I'm like look at it falling over each other like clowns in a circus that that's who we're trusting and then they just just there was this stressful response like just do as you say do as they say and everything will be okay do as they say and everything will be okay stop asking questions it threatens our survival it was like we were on a life raft and I was standing up waving my arms they're like you're gonna capsize us all and I was like I don't see that the world is like this I don't see it the way you guys are saying it at all but they absolutely saw it that way it was it was an amazing I'm still not fully recovered if I'm if I'm being really honest I kind of I trust people a lot less I trust institutions far less now and well the times we're living through now every month that goes by you see more and more reason to be uh um deeply suspicious of what any of our institutions are saying which institutions can we trust you don't trust your church you don't trust your media you don't trust your government you don't trust the police who can you trust if we really lose all trust for all of our institutions our civilization's moving nowhere yeah and that's something that I think people don't realize when they you know they talk in such hyperbolic manner manners and you know they try to put forward this narrative about Civil War and you know talking about the West collapsing and these grandiose terms you just go you're not doing good here yeah yeah yeah you know there's a way to discuss these things and these things do need to be discussed but there's also a sensible way to discuss them without being inflammatory and without trying to polarize people yes I I think the the leaning towards being uh inflammatory and polarizing it it's an unfortunate side effect of the in the brain entrainment that social media has given us you just get more likes you just get more views that way yeah the more of a deck you are the more ridiculous statements you make um the three people who are sat here now would have more Instagram followers if we deliberately wound people up every week and just adopted the more polarized view on any topic just take the most polarized View and just Hammer that view on any topic this is what I was going to ask you you talk about not being fully recovered and I think as a society we really haven't fully recovered because uh one of the things that there's obviously a thing that exists which is uh what on on Twitter people call I support the current thing right which is the government and the mainstream media are saying You must do this therefore you must do this yes yeah we've now also seen that there is that I oppose the current thing okay and there's a whole economy of of people who are doing what you're saying which is going oh the government is saying this what would be the very up oh here we go yeah you know and then before you know it you know like and whatever whatever the opposite is of what the government is saying it's always there and and people who literally have and I've I saw it with the war in Ukraine yeah because it's something that I know a lot about by virtual background having family connections speaking a language blah blah and I suddenly saw these people people I know yeah people who couldn't find Ukraine on a map right having very strongly held very very extreme opinions about that subject and I think you've explained it perfectly and guess what I reckon if Donald Trump had won the last election and he was the one sending money to Ukraine yeah it would be exactly flipped all the people who now oppose it would support it and all the people who currently support it would oppose it I mean not all obviously but the majority yes and I I agree with you and I think that that says something very sad about the state of modern politics yeah so when I was in California and I was I was talking to people there uh I was I was there in October and I was saying you know I was asking around like do you would you vote for Biden again and they said yeah absolutely we would vote for buying again what with no reservation whatsoever and the attitude that I got and the answer I got from most people was I would vote for anybody as long as it meant that Trump didn't get back in I was like okay just yeah but listen to yourself speak that's your your vote is just to stop someone you don't like from getting in that's not democracy that I I don't know what you call that but that can't be that's not what the voting system is designed to do I'll just hate my enemies at any cost it's not it's not I want this I believe in this policy this education policy is good it's just screw the other guys whatever it takes to beat them that's what we're gonna do that is not a healthy uh State football is extra bit no because it's just built on Revenge 100 and what you see in our culture a lot of what is going on is Revenge yeah one side does one thing to another side which is unfair and wrong and then the other side then does the same thing and then they start using each other's weapons like the left started out canceling people and then the right went actually you know what we're gonna do the same thing yes yes and you and you go well okay but what's the end game for that yeah it creates an awful lot of resentment more emotional dysregulation perceptions become more skewed um I don't I again when I look at this I think what is the solution I liked before what you said about family family community uh there is a practical solution I could get behind a movement that said let's bring people back together face to face it's England what was the United cold it's a bit of a pain in the ass but we probably should see more of each other because we're all in our houses seeing each other through this evil thing that just generates the jungian shadow in you uh you get a very strange view of people there's not that many extremists actually out there no they don't live on your road they don't go to your local if you knew the people around you you'd probably feel that we're better plus I suspect that it's just a good evolutionary match we probably just should be sat around looking at each other we should be sat around the campfire at the end of the day just looking at each other and talking and that would probably bring a lot of the stress levels down I suspect so and I think as well man like whenever we talk about Solutions we've all we've all become very uh extreme left about it in the we always think we need a movement and a system and a whatever whereas actually I think the truth is a lot of the solution to what you know people go through life and most people live lives where they experience a lot of anxiety a lot of fear about the future a lot of loneliness a lot of disconnection the answer to that is not for the three of us to sit here and devise a system yeah it's for you as an individual for me as an individual to go for a walk to go to the gym to have children and look after them to to make sure your relationship is open to get therapy if that's what you need because sometimes that's what you need too right to to put things in place in your own life that make your life better and then when we come on set here we can have a a conversation as people who are emotionally better regulated than otherwise would be I think that's much more the answer than coming up with a grand plan I actually didn't realize that I was unconsciously doing that but you're right of a left-wing sort of unconscious left-wing responses like there should be a movement why that's an externalized locus of control and all that all that that would do is further infantilize people but I think I've been trained into that because a lot of my interactions with people are through social media and they're constantly saying to me do something I'm like oh I maybe I have to do something but you're right no I don't why why the [ __ ] should I do you do something you're an adult I like I'm an adult what do I know well as people who talk in public are in public or do things in public I think that's actually quite a big part of it is just and I and I I'm not using myself as an example I remember 15 years ago I I saw a clip of Peter Hitchens who I used to think was a right-wing lunatic until I became a Centrist lunatic or whatever I am now and he was talking about cyclization of everything right and he said you know a lot of people a lot of time people now talk about things where the solution is just to go for a brisk walk yeah and I realized I was sitting at home having spent the entire day in front of my computer first working then playing computer games right feeling [ __ ] yeah and here I was on YouTube listening to Peter Hitchens yeah why not go for a walk and I went for a walk and I felt better amazing and I was like oh yeah that's the answer yeah and this is I think because we've got to a point where we think that thought is power yeah and it's not thought plus action is power yes action is power right but thought you can't think your way out of a paper bag you have to do things yes right and I think this is where I'm really interested to hear what you talk about in the book in terms of the Practical steps for people to overcome what they've experienced in that kind of relationship so tell us more about the Practical steps of dealing with things like that there's a few things that I advocate for in the book one of them as an exercise I came up with for myself when I was two years ago back in 2013 I was living in Kuala Lumpur I wasn't mentally particularly doing very well and uh I formulated this exercise where I wanted to get an objective sense of where I was in the world and how people saw me so I did like a profit and loss account put a line right down the middle how do I see myself what am I really about and then I listed how do other people see me the disparity between the two like I had no control or that I had a very big gap between what my intention was and how I was allowing other people to see me you know I was a 100 kilogram fat white guy with a shaved head living in a largely Chinese conservative area and people would treat me with suspicion and they looked at me like a criminal because they were racist because I can't be racist to white people they would have been racist if I wasn't Gammon they would be racist but they looked at me like I was a criminal because I kind of looked like a criminal I was in a place where there was there was nobody else there like me I didn't dress very well I didn't care about my parents when I spoke to people I used a very abrasive style of humor that I thought was funny but it was often a lot of like sexual jokes or violent jokes or things that are kind of a little bit shocking and I sort of looked at that and was like okay I don't want people to see me that way there's a lot of stuff I'm saying and doing here that is giving people a sense of who I am that's a million miles away from what I care about what my values are and getting a hold of that really made a huge difference in my life because if you're internally this but you're you're externally projecting that the feedback you're getting from the social environment is not congruent with who you are and you end up with this weird sense of alienation from yourself that creates a huge amount of depression and anxiety those people that we've been talking about today like extremists on both sides of the polarization politically who I think you know with like a one or two day seminar you could do work with them like let's just be like okay you're you're very angry about something what are you trying to tell people well okay they're just calmly just can we write it down and then feed it back to them socratically are you saying until they're satisfied that you've got to sense of what they're trying to say and then just explore the possibility that maybe there's a way of conveying it that doesn't require all this you can get stuck in Anger you can get stuck in resentments and stock in pain and you become aggressive but you don't mean to I've lived it I've lived it I know what being I know what being a fringe lunatic radical leftist says I've literally been there somebody's traumatized somebody who's experienced their sexual and physical abuse as a kid who's angry with someone out there who's more powerful than I am and then you become the conspiracy theorist it's the structure it's the patriarchy it's I used to write essays railing against um uh Western mechanistic uh scientific perspectives and I hate I I really hated it because I thought that's what had hurt me I thought that's what had caused me pain and was causing pain all around the world and you can if you're stuck there you can build that narrative like if we did a writing exercise all three of us could write like that it's not it's not impossible to get into that headspace but then slowly over time you just have to look and say okay is that true you know is the history of the United Kingdom one of colonization genocide and slavery and nothing else for example this is one of those it's uh I remember listening to Douglas Murray break that down and when I'm trying to get into that headspace that's the example I go to first I'm like okay where are the contravating examples where do you see the bits and pieces that move against that very simplistic and kind of satiating narrative it's like eating a big fat burger because it it gives you everything you want straight away yes England is all for United Kingdom is awful white people are awful it's all slowed down there's a few facts historically speaking that we have to look at oh that's hard I have to think yeah you might you might have to think you might have to look at some things that won't make you comfortable that that will go against this uh I think some of these narratives they're placatory it's like it's sucking your thumb you're basically sucking your thumb and going okay I feel better now Richard do you think as well let's go back to narcissism to me the conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists and narcissism they're quite they seem to be linked because it's someone going I've got the answers yes I really know what's going on yeah and you see them all the time on social media going this thing that's just happened this major world event this happened because of it's about me yeah yeah yeah yeah you know yeah and inside and I know why this has happened and it's because of this and it's like well no you don't and isn't that quite a grandiose thing to say that you were one of the few people who actually really understands yes I am a member of the Gnostic Brotherhood of the Illuminati and I know the truth yeah yeah it's very grandiose and yes it's fueled by I think I think it's called ideas of reference which is a self-centered you're basically saying this is all about me fundamentally The Narrative that they have behind everything they're saying is all roads lead back to Rome which is me I am Rome this is all about me um and yes there is there is a narcissism to that as well because it's not only is it grandiose it's riddled with ideas ideas of reference self-reference but it's delusional like you just said like no you don't know none of us really know we can look at the evidence and we can hypothesize and we can challenge uh whatever the the major narrative is but not nobody actually really knows and where did you get your effing certainty from and does that serve you to be that certain all the time about every single topic it doesn't make sense it's not I I think that is uh that's a philosophical Point that's where I would say okay here I can see a gap in the puzzle and that definitely philosophy goes in there let's learn to think again let's make thinking great again you know the Socratic method let's go back and forth what what is your position as there any evidence you've ever seen that contravenes that opposes that position okay well you know let's think in a more nuanced way let's learn to think whereas what we have now is a screaming mob and that obviously reduces all everything becomes low resolution there's low resolution perspectives of problems and they yield low resolution Solutions of course they do that are highly emotive and extremely self-serving so yes absolutely there is an artist isn't there and it's also as well you know this is the thing that I find depressing is that if someone says one thing normally you can see like oh you're gonna you're gonna think this so for instance if someone's really distrustful of the government and they think the government is corrupt and they're not being honest which is a legitimate point of view yeah you kind of go yeah I bet you're into Bitcoin so these Rebels actually become just carbon copy Printing and then it's the same on the other side as well and they all think the same way about a specific set of things and then it's like you're saying we need to actually make thinking great Again by going well you can think the government is corrupt and they probably are yeah but that doesn't mean that Bitcoin is going to be the solution that's really interesting I never thought of it that way before actually yes you can see if this person adopts wow you could probably create a graph or something for this well there will be and there will be like I mean the correlation between people in America who are anti-abortion and pro-gun or or Pro masks and therefore Pro tax Rises you know like I mean one thing just trips well it's like fish and chips you can't have one without the other for some reason you know what I mean so your super pro mask but you're also super pro-abortion well there would be yeah oh sorry Pro Health except for before right right yeah no I suppose I so I suppose it makes sense because there's a congruence of values there but I also I also think what you're saying is interesting it's like we just fall into an archetype yeah because I believe this well I don't have to think then do I I could just ingest I could just imagine my mind because look Joe Rogan for example we talked to him about this she's massively into guns I think he's massively pro-choice as far as I understand I don't know if he's massively approached it was definitely you know not everyone has to align with the leashes that's why I call myself a Centrist it's not because I am in the center of every issue yeah as we've established on some issues I'm far right but but you know what I mean like there's certain things about which I feel quite strongly to one side there's issues about which I feel strongly to the left you know decriminalization of certain drugs for example you know um and then you this interest isn't really a good way of describing that I'm just someone who wants to think about things on an individual basis as opposed to get a package off the shelf yes and I do Wonder like when it comes to Joe Rogan if there's obviously a lot of reasons for his appeal but I think that could be one of them that could be one of them is that the guy can be pro-hunting Pro meat eating pro-gun and then very pro-choice and in America that's it's a pretty it's a pretty rare thing I meet people like that if I want to meet people like that when I go and visit my sister in California there's a place called iron sights there's a shooting range it's like a 40 minute drive from our house and that's where you'll meet that yeah you can't put them in boxes because they they're Californians they vote this way but they love their cons and they will disappear off into the woods if they feel if they feel they need to they can survive um so there is there is that there so there's there is a degree of of nuance there and with him I also think the encouragement to thought but not in like where he doesn't have a snotty English accent and he doesn't come from a highbrow perspective quoting different various authors that you're never going to read because they're hard to read it's more of that sort of like a guy who took psychedelics and he's like did you ever think that maybe and just like um that's philosophy actually that's kind of a philosophical exercise it's a Socratic exercise which I think I think that leads to the uh the the the broadness of his appeal it's also as well I think you know but thinking for yourself and challenging narratives and developing your own points of view is going to ostracize you from certain people yeah it just is yeah and I think people are really scared of that Richard because we're fundamentally tribal we we want to be around people we want to be accepted I mean you get the odd person who's I don't care and they're fine with it but I think the majority of us just want our tribe yeah you crave it yeah yeah definitely so there is a there's a biological Instinct towards um conforming and I think I think that's one of the things that is hard to identify in a moment of polarization because you say well polarization is a real problem but it's the conformist element to it that kind of frightens me and it depresses me if I'm being really honest I find it quite depressing to see how quickly people will throw themselves into Conformity with the party line whatever it is we're all going to believe this and I'm going to be very predictable on all my answers to everything without thought that just that's not philosophy that's ideology something is thinking for you it's like you've got a brain parasite that's just just doing the thinking for you um I find that depressing I think because of how willingly people have given up their their sovereignty in that sense like it's just too hard to think that well maybe it's something like this the world's become too complicated I can't think so think for me and I'll just chant whatever you tell me it's a chance just absolves me of the need to think it through for myself and it has become very complicated hasn't it yeah I mean if you think about almost any issue I mean climate change is a good example of this and I I don't imagine among your many talents you're a climate scientist neither of us is so when you're presented with um a certain worldview about that issue and you are it's not just a world you you are told that there are certain things that must be done as a result yes and then on top of that you go well I I don't know what's going on I'm not an expert in this area I'm told that we have to do these pretty drastic things and if I don't want to do them or if I don't necessarily believe this or if I have questions about this or if whatever then I'm a bad person yeah and in that situation I think for a lot of people the Temptation is to just go well this is what we're being told then that's what we must do um which look and this is kind of the point is there's a hundred other issues like that you know we've got strikes in this country are they good thing or a bad thing I don't know do you does anyone yeah you know you you can have a view on it but do you know no and you know is technology good or bad the way that it's changing at the moment it's got lots of positives it's got lots of down do you give your kid a mobile phone you know what all of these questions are really really complicated um and you I think that a lot of the stuff that we talk about on the show a lot of the stuff that people who watch our show are dealing with is the fact as you say the world is getting very complicated very quickly and maybe then maybe then there is a need to to learn to think uh that becomes quite urgent because we can ask questions Upstream of the questions you've just asked which would be what is good what is bad like if you say strikes are bad what's the bad but why I'm when we say it's good why is something good you probably do need that because the larger a more existential and more complex the problem is the more likely it is to induce submission in the person who's facing it uh the climate change one yeah I find I find mind I'm presented with data and I'm told it's absolutely necessary that we must do these things off the back of that data and I think that it's unlikely that you can be certain based on this data that these are the things that are going to help or that these are the things that are even going to correlate with that correlation isn't necessarily causation as we know so yeah the climate change one is interesting well even if you accept climate change is happening and you think it's a major urgent issue the thing that I find very strange is that as I said in this country we produce two percent of all Global yeah CO2 emissions so even if we never burn never release another molecule of CO2 and atmosphere would make no difference to climate change right and yet we are told that we must kill thousands of pensioners with cold every winter and now I'm a bad person yes I don't want to be a bad person I don't want to be asking the wrong but but it seems obvious to me that that the solution doesn't match the problem yeah it doesn't solve the problem doesn't address the problem and the solution that we are being told we must Implement is hurting a lot of people and will continue to hurt lots of people yes Net Zero will kill lots of people yes there's no question about that that's a fact so even if you think climate change is urgent and a massive problem why are we being offered a solution that doesn't solve it and kills lots of people and why am I a bad person for asking the question and then you go well like how do I think about this now maybe the problem is that we have a top heavy population with too many old people and the whole maybe they're just trying to find solutions to other problems masked I don't know I don't you know that's where my brain goes to I have a perverse mind and I think maybe there's another problem here behind the problem and the solution what we should look at is the solution and what the solution does and start questioning is that the point that's interesting you see I I don't I I don't think about it that way my thinking is I think that they they it's actually the other thing that you said which is there is and Michael schellenberger I don't know if you read this sub stack is very good on this there is a particular world view that you described earlier which is humans are a virus humans are bad humans are this and that and so it's not just we must reduce the population which I think is what you're hinting at I think it's much more basic than that which is we must be punished we must punish ourselves for the terrible harm look at that I fully support look who started the Industrial Revolution humans we did well it's not just humans it's Western humans right the worst humans the worst humans we did the Industrial Revolution who did colonialism who did racism who did slaver I mean actually everyone did we'll skip over that but who've done a racism obviously you know no one anywhere else in the world is in anywhere racist we know that who who's caused all these great problems that we're now dealing with right well let's ignore the fact that China and India are going to build a Coal Power Station every two days yeah well let's look at ourselves Richard let's look deep into our soul and realize I'm waiting we have sinned we have sinned and we must atone and I think actually quite a lot of it is coming from that that's why the ordinary person sort of buys into it quite often I I think so I agree with you I think there is a undoubtedly a religious impulse to this like it is sin and there must be some sort of penance that is paid um again it seems like a a super low resolution propositions and it's weirdly it's weirdly racist via the back door of course because if we're the it's what it's saying is well I don't want to get in trouble ah [ __ ] it white people white Western people are the only people powerful enough to hurt this world they're terrible evil they're the most evil and therefore they're the best at being evil it's still a white supremacism it's but it's like this is where slab boy Zizek when he talks about this he gets into trouble where he's like no I want Native Americans to be able to be evil I want them to be able to embrace their capacity for genocide and torture or Africans or or whoever the minority group is because if we own evil if we colonize evil and make it only our own thing it's still it can still be a passive Flex we're the ones who did this you see all this terrible than we did this because we were the only whilst you would whilst you were in alignment with nature and uh being at one with the earth a very nice you Noble Savages we were the ones who did all this damage it's still a kind of a weird Flex in a way um so yeah I don't I don't buy it I just I just think yeah and it's the whole white guilt thing like come on it's racism it's fundamentally racism you can't you can't escape that structurally you can't be racist against wife against white people whatever but like it's ethnocentrism we can at least say that it doesn't it just doesn't make sense and it's a form of narcissism as well 100 100 yeah yeah it's mirror gazing it's absolutely mirror gazing um and it is like all narcissism it's rooted in a delusional fantasy narrative that that deviates from reality because reality is too traumatic reality you know when people when children develop narcissist personality disorder is because they're raised in environments that are far too traumatic to deal with so they go for the infantile defense this is an infantile defense to a traumatic reality do you have a website or do you plan to have a website because if you do then easy DNS is a company for you easy DNS is the perfect domain name registrar provider and web host for you they have a track record of standing up for their clients whether it be canceled culture D platform attacks or overzealous government agencies he knows about that so will you in a second easy DNS have Rock Solid Network infrastructure and fantastic customer support they're in your corner no matter what the world throws at you unless it's your ex-girlfriend in which case you're on your own you know about that move your domains and websites over to easy DNS right now all you've got to do is go to easydns.com forward slash triggered that's easydns.com forward slash ticket use our promo code which is also triggered and get 50 off the initial purchase sign up for the newsletter access of easy which tells you everything you need to know about technology privacy and censorship and we are a society that Embraces infantile Behavior we encourage it yeah now now more than now more than ever before that's why I think there's a fear of adulthood there's a fear of responsibility and you know to be fair it's harder than ever before economically it's harder to be an adult you know we're not this is the never before the then two yeah I see you've bought the left is [ __ ] man well it's harder than 200 years ago 200 years ago you'd be sleeping in a factory your wife would be sleeping in another part of the factory you know what I mean um can we make comparisons today to 200 years ago yeah okay you got me there do you see what I mean I do I'm not trying to catch you out no no no no but do catch me out okay because I want to be caught out 200 years ago people were just breathing like rabbits because they didn't they were ignorant for me to go ahead and read we would just poke each other well forget 200 years ago compare yourself to your grandparents is your life easier or harder it's easy it was easier for them it was more rewarding for them to become adults for my grandparents I am not allowed to be a masculator I call him no but this is great Brazilian Jiu Jitsu of the mind I thought I thought about this yesterday because I wondered if this would come up from my grandparents let me present let me present it to you 1930s so um they had no choice they could only they had a potential marriage pool of about 30 people largely they had to be in the same geographical location my father my grandfather was a man rewarded for being a man rewarded for his masculinity his masculinity wasn't the bloated hyperbolic cartoonist masculinity of steroids and neck tattoos that we have today what made him he was a skinny little dude but he could uh he could fix cars he flew planes for the Navy he did up houses worked with his hands he was a useful providing man my grandmother was a woman she was rewarded for being a woman she had women's interests she made um dresses and did hairdressing for people they were rewarded by their culture for being a man for being a woman when they got married the greater stress of their marriage was that she was Protestant and he was Catholic my goodness me could you imagine the uh the Scandal then they they went to work and they could afford to buy a house by the time he was 35 he had three of his four children and everyone was on side with him doing that a young man today so we go back to a young man today can't be a man can't be masculine can't chase women chasing women is a like a sexual assault liking women well that's heteronormative but come on on this part of it you're exaggerating a little bit before tiny bits it was easier for them to become adults was my was my premise I I accept the premise I think you're right in that we make adulthood harder now and people will fear it for that reason on the other hand and this is the point I always think about Mike I take my grandmother she's 15 years well when she's probably about seven there's a mass famine where she lives because the government's decided that that's what needs to happen and millions of people staff uh she's Ukrainian yeah The Peasants who happen to have a horse which makes them cool acts Rich peasants so the communists come and take their horse and Deport them to Siberia they eventually make their way back and within a few years Nazi Germany invades and there's a holocaust happening that involves a lot of the area millions of people killed people go off to war and I'm murdered and whatever my grandmother I've told the story before she and her girlfriends the main conversation they had when the war ended was will we ever taste real bread again that's how they lived um maybe it was easier for her to to become an adult but would I trade places um that's uh that's a slightly different question is like you're sort of saying was life easier that yes but given that you've made that point I would like to moderate my premise and see there are more barriers to adulthood now there would be no barriers to adulthood before there's also more rewards for the remaining infantile yeah there's more rewards yeah there's more rewards you know what are the rewards of remaining infantry uh one of them is you don't have to take responsibility okay and people will not look down upon you for doing it this is one of the things that happens when you abolish the concept of Shame which is a very useful concept shame was a way Society regulated people as long as people have kids and he wants to bring back shame he's fully formed fully right away no but but it's not that I think I'm one thousand percent agree with you it's just that society's moved so far in other direction that people who want Society to still function are right wing essentially right but am I wrong from where I sit here today it's hard for me to argue that I don't want to be sitting here saying this because politically I'm not right wing but on on a practical it's like that's a lot of us are well it's like vote left live right this is what they always say because this is what they say about uh middle class people in this country a lot of them will vote left but if you look at how they live their actual life their right wing yeah you know they take responsibility they teach their kids to take a response all of this other [ __ ] right so my point is about shame is shame is the society's mechanism of enforcing a certain set of rules yes right you take that away you say there is no there isn't there's no problem with being massively overweight we must not shame people for that and emotionally I agree with that I don't want to shame anyone I don't want to make people feel bad about a condition that they can't deal with right 100 you don't have to take you don't have to go to the gym you don't have to manage your diet these things are difficult they're unpleasant often right why don't you just you know be infantile about it go this is the thing that's happening to me yeah and Society will go oh poor little you or poor big you in this case right and poor sweating heavy breathing you exactly diabetic you oh it sounds like a great kids book doesn't exactly so Society will reward you for that and all so if you if you want to engage in victimhood yeah you get currency you can and more importantly than that on social media you get power yeah oh you know we love a bit of power don't we you know you know I I I I've been you know someone asked me where I'm really from I can go and do a tour of all the or TV studio as I unexplained why instead of being being mature about it and going this person's probably trying to communicate something reasonable let's find out what that is let's have a conversation that's what an adult does yes but infantile behavior is rewarded you're not going to get on TV screens if all you say is you know someone asked me where I'm really from I went oh I'm actually from and we had a nice conversation yeah so you reward that as well okay uh doesn't mean I I agree with both of you yes housing crisis big problem uh that that that creates challenges and particularly now you know living standards are probably not going to be getting better it's going to be a harder time for young people to find a job and so on so these things definitely exist but at the end of the day if we're sitting here talking about it from the point of your book and the conversation we're having there is no other answer is that than personal responsibility whatever is going on uh uh I haven't found one there's no other answer that's sustainable yeah I think I think I hope I I suspect that this I wish there were I don't wanna even I I'm someone who's naturally quiet respond I I lean into responsibility I don't want to take responsibility myself Tom I don't want to think about you know we've got this problem with trigonometry we need to sort of I've got this problem I I wish someone take took care of all of that for me but I haven't found a system that I've been able to make make things happen for me yeah maybe maybe that's what I need to do but I haven't found it so the only answer I'm seeing is you go what's working cool let's do more of that what's not working yeah let's not do as much of that yeah and learn and grow over time and make mistakes and pay for them pay for mistakes inexpensive ways and learn right I don't see any other answer do you no no I don't but um as as you were talking there it worries me because you said well what you just said was a vote left live right but then aren't we going to end up so if people do if so in a population of people who do that yeah they'll be the majority will uh vote left and live left and the appeals to authoritarianism will continue you're voting for them but you're carrying the burden it's like that John goals yeah I'm not voting for them right uh but I'm just saying in terms of my own life that is the things that I have found to work as for the way I vote uh I look uh I've I voted lib demon Labor All My Life at the last election purely because of brexit and I thought the way that even though I avoided to remain the way people uh were treated and the way that issue was treated was just completely undemocratic and that's why I voted for the conservatives because they were the only party that promised to implement a decision I didn't vote for but that's what the people voted for and that's why right so and has that made a big difference I mean probably not right the the conservative party isn't the party of personal responsibility either okay so to take just a slightly different attack yeah on that I'm just wondering that now if being reasonable um is reaching its limits like you're very reasonable you're very reasonable maybe it's the time to be unreasonable if your enemies are not reasonable if your enemies are not listening to you should you continue to be reasonable you've got a very balanced quite a kind approach who are my enemies though who are your enemies I don't I don't think I have enemies I think I have people that I disagree with about the way we should structure Society but they're not my enemies I don't think I think I think uh to a large extent the Chinese Communist party and the Russian dictatorship they're my enemies right what what about people who affect uh your child's future what about people who are going to promote transgenderism and it's my job to protect them from that okay you wouldn't consider those people your enemies no no I don't think it's a healthy way to do that they're not my enemies uh and also the problem is as well I I I'm I can buy into the warrior mindset in that in that thing yeah except we're not in a physical War like if you said to me there are some people out there who are going to trans your kid and we need to get the three of us get some Shields and swords and go out and deal with them and if we do that the problem will stop yeah sign me the [ __ ] up right but that isn't the way the situation is me and you and Francis putting on some swords and shields isn't going to solve that problem right that problem would get solved in here it gets solved by bringing people to explain Ollie London who was in your chair a week ago talking about how he spent a quarter of a million dollars on surgery to be Korean yeah guess what I found out he wasn't Korean right that's potentially how you solve it you talk you explain you persuade okay now is someone who has a very different view of me to me am I enemy I don't think that's a useful way if I thought that was a useful way of looking at it I would look at it that way I have no problem with fighting for things I believe in but I don't think that's the most effective way of achieving the outcomes that I want to achieve interesting I'd need to think about that that maybe I've been drinking too much of the wrong Kool-Aid um I see some some of the the positions adopted especially where they are deliberate outright attacks against for example the family unit or the sexual and towards the sexualization of children um I view that may maybe I'm becoming a little more polarized a little more Extreme as enemies and perhaps you're right I shouldn't it should and even if they are perhaps the weapon to deal with that is still reason debate no matter whether I see them as enemies or not I think most people and and I think it's important for every single person in this room every single person who is watching and listening to this to really understand this and accept this most people are not bad people most people are fundamentally good they just as we have said before they just don't think enough about long-term consequences when it comes to certain things particularly like transgenderism they get fed a narrative and they they believe that narrative and then they regurgitate that narrative I think the problem is if we start putting it and having the mindset of people being enemies I don't think we're gonna I don't the chance of us healing Society is going to become ever lower as a result of having that mindset I think that the the best thing that we can all do is try and be in the adults in the room which is to model good behavior because even when somebody has a great Point somebody could have a great point but the moment they lose their temper the moment they start indulging in tactics that the that their aggressor is using immediately that their status goes down immediately you start to have less empathy for them I think it's just really important that we try and moderate our language and our Behavior as difficult as it is and I'm not saying it's easy it really because it really isn't no it's hard it's hard so the solution would be to be aggressively reasonable well I I actually think you're right yeah and this is uh absolutely but this is interesting to me because I was talking to someone I don't want to name them because about some of this identity stuff and they were saying well the thing is I don't really want to say this thing because then I uh then I I you know then people won't hear it the same and I actually think one of the refreshing thing one of the reasons people do watch trigonometry or watch you or whatever is we try to say things as they are without going past that and embellishing them too much okay do you know what I mean and so I I agree with you for example that the idea that why people are uniquely evil and inherently bad is racist right but I also don't think that we live in a society in which is like you know why people are the most oppressed people ever no it's not what she didn't say no she didn't say but there are some people who think that way yeah and if you say that if you made it a priority that would be a mistake yeah it's not a priority exactly so the thing needs to be identified and described accurately yeah without going overboard and without being uh unreasonable about it in that way so I think being determined and being unwilling to compromise are important on on language and certain things but I think the enemy languages is possibly not unless you you're literally in a physical fight in which case absolutely you switch the Warrior on maybe that's uh the linguistic term of enemies is what is guiding a swords a path that looks like it's going to lead towards Civil War because we're talking about our fellow I'm talking about a fellow countrymen and in America it's the same thing it's that same pathway it's the internal fight um and maybe that isn't the way you said there's something interesting Francis uh you implied that the end goal was to heal the rift yeah it's got to be people aren't saying that don't and they're not thinking that and they're not moving that direction so that would be another element of it it would be say reasonable and also have that as an objective which is we're actually trying to heal I think it's very absolutely stated um in absolute terms and you know I've been reading a lot of Tom's Soul lately and this is one of the things you get is you kind of get there's no Solutions only trade-offs so I think what we're talking about is not to heal Society because I don't think that's possible people will always disagree temperamentally genetically they have predispositions that make them different it's about the way we have the conversation about our disagreements right and does that does it have to descend into personal animosity at every opportunity and we're all I am is guilty of that as anybody you know trolling someone online or calling sadiqana a tyrannical dwarf which he is you know but but still right it's it's the tone of the conversation I think rather than you're never going to heal Society but I think think if you improve the way we communicate that in itself would do some healing I I don't mean to get religious here but I will nevertheless um it's when Jesus was nailed to a cross and he said the words forgive them Lord for they know not what they do and I think if you have that attitude to a lot of people who you disagree with to a lot of people there's always a small minority a malevolent and spiteful but I think with most people they just don't consider the long-term consequences of their actions and I think if you approach them with compassion with understanding you might not change their mind but you might take a step to some type of reconciliation here's well I will agree with you though in addition to what Francis said and I agree with both of you actually I think it's what we're talking here as well is it's about concept creep there are some people who you will meet in a bar and you need to stay the [ __ ] away from them yeah right and there are other people who you could get into some kind of altercation with if you said the wrong thing and the wrong you bumped their elbow as they're bringing the point over and I think it's learning to tell the difference and I think what social media has done is it's made everyone an avatar for the guy you need to stay away from right like that's why I think you use a term like enemy because there's a small minority of people who are absolutely evil and are up to no good and they're deliberate about it yes but I think they are a very small minority who need to be dealt with but they I think the way to deal with them is to persuade everybody else that they are unreasonable and we are the reasonable majority so and you can only really do that by more reasoned debate that's it there's nothing else than that I think so yeah unless you've got something up your sleeve yeah I really don't know I've got nothing there's nothing there and also you know I mean again it's kind of like but but be that change that you want to want to see a world that is descending into chaos and disorder and people being dysregulated and not taking responsibility then be that person who does take responsibility be that person who is in control not that we're always in control of our emotions because we're not because we're humans but doing their best to control their emotions to be reasonable to be that adult in the room to be that person who is a Counterpoint to that behavior and say no if you think about the best teachers that you've ever had in your education they weren't the ones who ranted and raped they weren't the ones who you know who went the other way and just indulge you and let this classroom descend into chaos they're the ones who came in who set an example who every day did their best and you remember them because they set an example not the two other Polar Opposites and that's I think what we all need to be and certainly what I'm trying to be I may not always get there a lot of the time I will fall and I have my own demons that we all do but I think that's the best way to be to try and be that person to Aspire to that it's interesting a lot of that it comes back to uh philosophy which is the the Greek you know Greek philosophy you know trying to be virtuous trying to establish whereas virtuous and aiming upwards rather than allowing yourself to slide downward interesting I think the reason that Francis and I are perhaps quite preachy about it or we might come across that way is doing what we do if you think about the history of trigonometry and you've been you've dipped in at different points is we started out talking about everything that was going wrong with the world right and we needed to do that because we needed to understand what was going on and we had to talk to a lot of people and so a lot of our conversations were like you know Francis but isn't the problem this and me going well what that was it but now as as we move further I think uh perhaps would as the show grows and more people watch it or whatever we also feel like we are we're no longer bystanders right we're in the game now so to speak what we do who we invite it sort of it has a small Ripple it's just a small little Ripple but but it has that Ripple and we can't pretend to ourselves that there isn't that responsibility on us and so we're really trying to both I think uh be better people so that we this opportunity that we have to bring amazing people like you on and have a discussion and not let them talk for the last 20 minutes you know but we're genuinely trying to to be constructive as people and as participants in this world that we live in yeah and think about less about you know who is being canceled and who hasn't been allowed this and that but actually you know how do we give opportunities to people how do we create things how do you know rather than being two comedians to set up a podcast to complain about things that needed addressing yeah what are we creating exactly right you know so you come from being problems focused to very much more solutions focused I think so and and also as well and this is a lot of work that I'm doing on myself you know looking at your own shadow because it's very easy to look outwards and point out the flaws in other people and God this person's like this this person's like this yeah but what about you um what about what you bring to the world is it all good all those are the the the element that you have the shadow within yourself what work are you doing in order to try and keep that shadow under as much control as possible and to deal with it yeah I suppose it's uh how much do you charge the therapy session we're racking up a bill aren't we we spend so much money on this [ __ ] Studio we can't afford it yeah no it it uh it I think I have one of those faces it might be it might be my demeanor no it's the fact that we did that interview with you before were you interviewed us yeah psychologically said that no one has seen yet so yeah we feel able to share I'll recover that I will replace it no I think um but I like this because I care very much about your project I care about what you're doing for like I told you from the beginning like this is this is fantastic and um it's nice to get in there and just check maybe even pressure to check like what's what's this what are we doing here what's this concept where are we going and to see that there is there is something there there's some real thought there like this project worked some people become the victims of their own success but if you're still growing inside of the project or growing because of the project that's fantastic isn't it yeah and but that's the thing it's it it's so important to grow yeah I think that's why so many people in the society and you look around they're miserable because they don't grow and that's why they go oh you know the best days of my lives were my life was at school and I'm number one I find that a horrifically tragic statement and anytime someone says it I feel deeply sorry for this because you had a [ __ ] time at school that's true maybe if I was captain of the football team and going out with whatever then maybe it would have been but but you go well the reason for that is because at school it was constant progression yeah you were going you know and the progression was going up every year you were going to a new year you were learning things you were always moving forward but a lot of people and they get into adulthood what we discuss what we perceive to be adulthood they read they they enter just a period of stasis yeah where they don't grow where they don't develop where they don't improve yes and as a result they slowly atrophy yeah and I think that's a very real problem yes 100 100 without air without external pressure people do actually we're living longer and the world is a more civilized place and they sound like good things but they bring their own problems with them as well of course don't they like as you say stagnation atrophy uh becoming too comfortable and I think one of the things that we all need as well is you need that challenge you need a bit of a fight a bit of a battle um at least at the intellectual level just to keep it fresh yeah because there must be things that even in the last six months that you believed to be true or you held as positions that you've let go of through chatting to people and chatting to each other and experiences that you go through yeah the experience is actually I think one of the bigger ones for example I definitely think uh running trigonometry has made me more fiscally conservative yeah because you run a small business in this country how [ __ ] hard it is running a small business will do that to you it changes you every time people ask me about business advice on my Dunder you will change as a person and break in ways you cannot [ __ ] imagine yeah it breaks you it builds you it's a it's a psychedelic experience you are a diff if you can do it if you because most most people can't they say like 80 of startups fail it's nonsense 99.99 fail because people can't break they they lack the mental flexibility to have the break and then come through the break and rebuild doing business from scratches it's I think it's been the same for you mate to some extent because you've worked in public sector jobs most of your life before becoming a comedian uh and now you're having to you know be confronted with you know you do this and this goes wrong and it's it's on you yeah absolutely and it's that's that's the real Challenge and but that's what I was talking I was doing therapy actually and I was talking about this and with my therapist and she was we were talking about regeneration and in many ways if you're not regenerating a part of yourself every six months and you're not changing every six months you're going backwards yeah you've got to you've got to change every six months I am completely different in many ways from the person I was six months ago because I have to because my life's changed because things have changed because we're in a new location where and the things that I have to implement in my life I've got to change that I've I've someone who I've always been very anxious and I'm doing taking a lot of steps to work with that to improve that I'm learning to drive as a 40 year old man in January yeah and I've you know I've avoided it and you know done it and touched it upon it and not done it because I found it difficult but well you've got to change yeah yeah otherwise would it otherwise you're not going to improve yeah and ultimately we talk about kindness but I think one of the things we never talk about with kindness is when we're not kind to ourselves and I think that's where a lot of depression actually comes from is because when you don't do things like you don't stand up for yourself you don't do things for yourself that you need even though you put it to the back of your mind you know that you've let yourself down and you're not being kind to yourself and I think a lot of it that's where the malaise the depression comes from because you're not being kind to yourself and it's all of those things Richard so you are our last interview of the year that we're recording it may not go out in that sequence but uh as you think about the last year what do you reflect on what are your thoughts uh what have you been thinking about what is the new thing for you that you've discovered or you've kind of identified or you wanted to say just a cough in our faces just a bit of coverage yeah it's coming back nice no it's now the flow mate yeah the uh the thing that's been um well I've never I never do this whole like new year new new meeting but the way 2022 was gone especially as I'm leading up to the end of the year it's like wow really a lot of old chapters in my life have closed um I've found that as I've become more fixated in my own life I'm more rooted in what I do want what I do want to create the people I want to have around me automatically and spontaneously different situations that were there different people that have been hanging around that shouldn't have been they've dropped off in my experience of their own volition I haven't said to them you know I've moved on it's time to go away maybe I'm giving them a different energy or a different vibe they just go on their own way and one of the things that I'm thinking about a lot moving into 2023 is just to get very very focused on what I do want what I do I do in life and I think politically philosophically this country us as a culture we we all have to do that now because I can see things moving potentially in a very dark Direction where there's going to be a lot more authoritarianism I don't think anybody really wants it who's thought it through in order to resist that we must have a strong sense of what it is we do want in our lives and we have to move toward it in a way that is uh courageous and with humility with flexibility and that's what I'm going to be doing personally in 2020 23 is just uh focusing on that as much so when are you going to find a wife and have some kids relative I knew he would listen fundamentally heart is Russia yes Babushka want to know you must have family yes otherwise you're not real men not real men no I I I'm sure I will eventually this year if I could go to Venezuela that's when when they let me into Venezuela that's when I will find there um also very good if you want to lose weight Venezuela as I said one of our absolute favorites uh thanks so much for coming back we'll do a couple of questions from our supporters that only they will get to see the answer on two on locals do we do the last question one thing we're not talking about that we really should be good Lord everything that we've been talking about today the uh the power of uh simple reasoned good faith debate I think that's that's uh that's powerful more than social activism more than aggressively you know pushing people in different directions opening up the conversation good philosophy embracing the Socratic method here in the other side and then building our ideas together fantastic if people want to get your book where's the best place to do that uh Jeff bezos's slave house that's where you can get my buckets I watch those films Cult of one it's called maybe you should knock it knocked out on its head that could be a new year stop watching that Jesus Christ there's an image to leave you with ladies and gentlemen boys and girls Richard Grant and thank you so much thank you thank you for watching and listening we will see you with another brilliant episode like this one oral show all of them go out at 7 pm UK time and for those of you who like your trigonometry on the go it's always available as a podcast take care and see you soon guys see you on locals guys are there indications of sociopathy in the mainstream media and government [Music]

Channel: Triggernometry

Views: 96,274

Keywords: triggernometry, triggerpod, konstantin kisin, francis foster, trigger, trigonometry, kissin, narc, narcissist, npd, narcissism, trauma, cult of one, granon, abuse, psychopath, sociopath, why is my

Id: 9NXGEUwxK1I

Length: 99min 21sec (5961 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 15 2023