EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,006 words- 0:00 – 15:00
Keep this about a…
- JRJoe Rogan
Keep this about a fist away.
- DMDouglas Murray
Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
(clears throat) And we're live. Douglas, first of all, thanks for joining me. Appreciate it.
- DMDouglas Murray
Great pleasure to be with you.
- JRJoe Rogan
Looking forward to talking to you.
- DMDouglas Murray
Likewise.
- JRJoe Rogan
You've become, uh, an example to me ... or your conversation with Sam Harris has become an example to me of how squirrelly things have gotten lately with the way people interpret conversations about ideas.
- DMDouglas Murray
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Because of this. Jamie, pull that thing up. This is, uh, a tweet that someone sent out, and he got a strike, a community guideline strike-
- DMDouglas Murray
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... just for listening, just for putting you on his playlist, a conversation between Sam Harris and you, and, uh-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... he, this man, um ... or I don't know if it's a man. I'm b- I'm, uh ... I just assumed. I'm, I'm a problem. I'm part of the problem, part of the patriarchy. P-T-R-K-C-C-X on Twitter. Uh, that is his screen name, his, or her, or zir screen name on Twitter. And got a community guideline strike-
- DMDouglas Murray
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... for just putting this. Now I brought this up to ... uh, I was having dinner with some friends, one of them who used to work at Google, and someone who was there was a, uh, you know, highly ranked person at YouTube. I brought this up. And the exact quote was, uh, "That was because it's hate speech."
- DMDouglas Murray
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I said, "You said that so flippantly." I go, "Please tell me the contents of the conversation." Do you know what they talked about?" I go, "How did you say that?" She goes, "Well, I'm sure if someone m- marked it as a community guideline ..."
- DMDouglas Murray
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
"That ... Or, or as a c- strike, a community strike ..." What is it called? A community guideline strike? Yeah. "That they must be hate speech."
- DMDouglas Murray
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm like, "Do you, do you understand this is Douglas Murray and Sam Harris?"
- DMDouglas Murray
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
"I, I, I bet, I bet that's not what the conversation was about."
- DMDouglas Murray
(laughs) I, I, I bet it wasn't too.
- JRJoe Rogan
S-
- DMDouglas Murray
I'm try- I'm trying to think what we did talk about now. It's making me nervous. I mean, but I know that ... I know it definitely wasn't hate speech, by any sane definition of those words. Um, but th- the, you ... this is, this sorta thing is very disturbing to me-
- JRJoe Rogan
Very disturbing.
- DMDouglas Murray
... because, um, you ... and you noticed it happening with other people, of course.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DMDouglas Murray
And that's disturbing enough. It's more disturbing, of course, when it happens to you, but slightly surreal. Uh, uh, I mean, I know Sam Harris a bit. Um, not a hateful person, uh, uh, my most sorta yogic, calm, blissed-out, West Coast of America friend. And I'm, um, pretty amazed that anyone at Google or anyone else would think that anything that could come out of his mouth was hate streetch- uh, hate speech, unless you decided that hate speech is just anything you personally don't like or that words don't matter anymore.
- 15:00 – 30:00
(laughs) …
- DMDouglas Murray
attacked a vice immediately after he had become incapable of it himself.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DMDouglas Murray
(laughs) When it was clear that Muggeridge didn't have as much sex as he'd did fairly often in his youth, sex was a big problem.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's a giant problem.
- DMDouglas Murray
And, uh (...)
- JRJoe Rogan
Needs to let everybody know.
- DMDouglas Murray
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Virtue signaling to the highest degree. Let everybody know, this is awful.
- DMDouglas Murray
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
All that pleasure and flesh, stop it.
- DMDouglas Murray
I won't have it.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) I had a lot of it, but I won't have it anymore. (laughs)
- DMDouglas Murray
Not in my bedroom. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
It's just, I- I don't know, man. I'm just, I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful that we're gonna work through this, but I'm- I'm also disturbed because no one's at the wheel.
- DMDouglas Murray
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's no- there's no particular logical human being that's at- at the wheel that has a real rational sort of a solution for all of these issues.
- DMDouglas Murray
Well-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's just chaos and infighting.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, but the problem is, again, it comes back to thinking about the truth being whatever you're having yourself. We don't have anyone that we might mutually agree on as some kind of umpire.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
I mean that- that's becoming, that's becoming part of the problem. Who- who- who- I mean, I'd be very suspicious of any umpire put forward, but- but where would you roughly look for one? Um, uh, I- I mean, I like to think that truth still matters, but you know, when you discover that a lot of people don't seem to particularly care for it or are willing to sacrifice it, as I say, for some other purpose, including winning a goal, um, it's hard to see how you could, uh, adjudicate in this era. But just one other thought was in it, which is a lot of this has to do with whether or not the online world, uh, can forgive. This seems to me to be a really central thing. One of the- one of the, uh, things that came up, the case I- I said recently about this 2009 case of somebody in Britain who tweeted about a woman's breasts, among other things, was he mistook Twitter for a conversation with friends.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DMDouglas Murray
And ...
- JRJoe Rogan
How did he do that?
- DMDouglas Murray
You know, I mean ...
- JRJoe Rogan
He's in public office?
- DMDouglas Murray
No, no, he's a journalist.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, okay.
- DMDouglas Murray
Um, and, uh, but was- was going to get a public office. Anyhow, but the point is- is that, you know, we don't really know what the rules of that are. I mean, like, what if you were a bit of a dick 10 years ago like that?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- 30:00 – 45:00
... terrible and-... unfortunately,…
- DMDouglas Murray
- JRJoe Rogan
... terrible and-... unfortunately, many people, um, weren't defending the murder but were talking, the murderers, I mean, I think-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... how many... I think it was 11 people-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that were murdered.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah and, and a policeman also.
- JRJoe Rogan
And a police officer. Um, they, but they were saying that instead of concentrating on the murder, which was done completely out of this reinforcing their rules of their ideology-
- DMDouglas Murray
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and, and retaliation for any mocking of that ideology. Instead of that, they were talking about how racist Charlie Hebdo was.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
There was a lot of that. In fact, my friend Jamie Kilstein was a part of that.
- DMDouglas Murray
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
He was on television d- back in his super social justice warrior days talking about that.
- DMDouglas Murray
Don't you wish, among other things, that people said, "No, I'm not talking about something if they don't know about it"?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
You know, my guess was that until, until the murders, I mean, an infinitely small number of people knew about Charlie Hebdo outside of France.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DMDouglas Murray
I, I found myself in the wake of that, uh, in studios with people who I know had just Googled Charlie Hebdo the day before. I know that they'd just gone to Wikipedia and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DMDouglas Murray
... and read an English version of a claim about what that magazine was about. It goes back to that thing about, my point about the journalist and the Holocaust denial thing that just, just root around, a bunch of people have been killed, this doesn't seem to vindicate my side's ideology, therefore, let me find what I can do to defame them. And oh good, somebody at Charlie Hebdo once did this cartoon that was off color and I can't understand what the, the words are beneath it, but I'll, I'll claim it's racist. I mean, people were actually doing that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
They're actually, there were, there was a, um, there was one cartoon that was used against Charlie Hebdo after the massacre, uh, that was a joke against the Front National and the claims they were making about a Black woman in Sarkozy government. But because they, the joke and the, the j- if you didn't speak French, it wasn't clear apparently, but it, and if you knew nothing about recent French history, you knew nothing about the soc- the Sarkozy administration and the, and the, and the minister in question, these people just went to it and said, "Racist cartoon."
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- DMDouglas Murray
Not noticing that the cartoon was actually a joke about racists, but they didn't, they didn't bother to find that out. And I thought that, I thought that whole thing, among many, many other things, was deeply worrying from that point of view, because it means that in the immediate aftermath of something that should be so damn clear, a bunch of people can just try to reframe the narrative.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
And re- and change the history of a publication. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
Um, claim it is just something different. And, and for a lot of people, of course, that was very, um, that was very convenient, because after all, if Charlie Hebdo's staff actually were these racists, then, you know, you didn't need to, uh, worry too much about them or why you'd been silent on the issues they'd spoken up about.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, the narrative had then been that these people had been mocking this disenfranchised, marginalized-
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
Yes. …
- JRJoe Rogan
I don't wanna draw Mohammed. I don't wanna piss people off by drawing the cartoon. But what I do wanna point out is that you, if you, if you don't defend people's rights to draw things without getting murdered-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
... then you're living in an insane society.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah. And, and, th- th- then there's a f- another thing which is we all know what comes next. I mean, my point about this has always been, think of something smaller than a cartoon to do.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DMDouglas Murray
Okay. I mean, I still reserve the right to be amazed that we call something a cartoon crisis and keep a straight face.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DMDouglas Murray
Our whole, you know, we're gonna have to militarize in Garland, Texas 'cause there's a cartoon crisis going around.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, the-
- DMDouglas Murray
You know?
- JRJoe Rogan
... natural progression could easily be you're, you're not allowed to draw the cartoon. Then from there, you're not allowed to speak of drawing.
- DMDouglas Murray
Right. But-
- JRJoe Rogan
And then from there, you have to show that you have a very certain idea in your head of what is good and what is bad, so you have to show that by verbalizing something. So you're forced-
- DMDouglas Murray
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... to, f- forced to verbalize something.
- DMDouglas Murray
And, and, uh, let's face it, it's not as if it's just the cartoon that's the problem, is it?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DMDouglas Murray
I mean, it's a novel, it's, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure.
- DMDouglas Murray
... short story and so forth.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's anything.
- DMDouglas Murray
And that's one of my big beefs about this, is, is that, uh, I, I don't want to not say what I think is true. And e- even if that does offend, you know, 1.3 or four billion people, as is often said in, in tones that are not entirely unthreatening. Uh, i- i- i- if, if, uh, Charlie Hebdo or somebody else can't draw a cartoon of Mohammed, then, then I know that exactly in tandem with that is somebody saying, "And you, Douglas, or you, Joe, or you, or anyone else, can't say what you find in the texts or what you think about this religion. And, and you can join the rest of, uh, of the society in being brave and, uh, y- you know, going to the Book of Mormon on a Friday night for a laugh, and it is a laugh, but don't you dare think of applying to Islam the same kind of speech that you would apply to Mormonism."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DMDouglas Murray
And, and that, that I, that I won't do. I just, I just won't join in on that. And, um, uh, despite there being, you know, a, a price to pay for that. But I just won't not say what I think is true in these matters.
- JRJoe Rogan
Are you aware of what they did with South Park?
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
With South Park-
- DMDouglas Murray
Oh, that's funny.
- JRJoe Rogan
Which South Park, it got very crazy, where they not only could not draw Mohammed, they couldn't draw Mohammed in a bear suit.
- DMDouglas Murray
(laughs) Yeah, I remember.
- 1:00:00 – 1:15:00
Whoa. …
- DMDouglas Murray
with my Al-Qaeda colleagues for wasting my time like this so much?" And he went to Google and he typed in "contradictions in Islam" and began to read.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- DMDouglas Murray
That was how he got out.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow. That's what did him in?
- DMDouglas Murray
He just-
- JRJoe Rogan
Someone being late.
- DMDouglas Murray
He just started reading again. "They told me this. Th- They, they never told me that. I never knew that." And that was... So, as I say, he's a very, very uncommon (laughs) person, but, but I think that might be happening quite a lot more than we know. People just Googling things, finding stuff out for themselves.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's the most dangerous r- religion to leave 'cause-
- DMDouglas Murray
Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... they kill apostates.
- DMDouglas Murray
They do.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, so what's... How is he dealing with that?
- DMDouglas Murray
Um, well he, he lives in hiding, so, I mean...
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, yeah. Well, interesting. Uh-... about, uh, two years ago.
- JRJoe Rogan
(exhales) One of the weirdest conversations that I ever saw anybody have with someone who was a believer, um, was, uh, Dawkins, I think it was-
- DMDouglas Murray
Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... was, uh, having a conversation with someone and he asked him point-blank whether or not he believed that Muhammad split the moon.
- DMDouglas Murray
Oh, yes. I think I know this was with a, a very close enemy of mine called Mehdi Hasan, who, uh, worked for Al Jazeera and who Richard Dawkins did a interview with, and I think he... That's right, he fluffed something earlier on, uh, Dawkins, he, that he didn't take him on then, he took him on on this. That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DMDouglas Murray
And I think that Hasan said yes-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DMDouglas Murray
... didn't he?
- JRJoe Rogan
He said yes.
- DMDouglas Murray
And then... And then it led to this terrible problem, which is, uh, really interesting, interesting problem of our era, which is that then Dawkins said, "I can't believe that somebody..." Or said afterwards, "I can't believe that somebody could be a working journalist and believe that, you know, Muhammad flew to the moon on a half-human horse."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. (laughs)
- DMDouglas Murray
Um, (laughs) and, uh, of course, I mean, there's a, there's a, uh, interesting point there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
But of course, we do, quite rightly, allow people to believe bizarre and insane things-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, sure-
- 1:15:00 – 1:16:01
Mm-hmm. …
- JRJoe Rogan
of 1500-
- DMDouglas Murray
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... the fact that only one person responded that way-
- DMDouglas Murray
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... is pretty extraordinary in and of itself.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yes. Yes. I, I, I would've... And I would have thought on some of this... I mean, you know, I don't know. Again, I mean, there are... uh, there are lots of examples one could use, but, uh, when something bad happens like the Manchester Arena attack, uh, I'm, I'm amazed in a way that people are so decent. I mean, I'm so pleased they are. But they... we really, we don't go out looking for people to attack. You know, the, the, the public, certainly in Britain, I can happily say, and I think it's the same in America, the public... we're not really lynch mobs waiting to be got going again.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DMDouglas Murray
But the expectation that we are is the only possibility of creating us in such a way. Um, it's only by treating us as if we can't deal with ugly things that go on that you could see the situation, it's where we began, th- to see the situation in which that all goes wrong in that different way.
Episode duration: 1:56:17
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