EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,023 words- 0:00 – 15:00
(drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast,…
- JRJoe Rogan
(drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
- DMDouglas Murray
The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music) Douglas, how are you?
- DMDouglas Murray
Great to be with you again, Joe. How are you?
- JRJoe Rogan
Great to be with you as well. And we were talking about you potentially being able to come to America, hopefully, sometime soon.
- DMDouglas Murray
That's right, I'm hoping too. I'm hoping to, ah, it would be nice to be with you for the end times.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) Well, I've escaped to Texas, so I think I'll avoid the end times by at least a couple of months.
- DMDouglas Murray
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
I think, ah, we'll know for-
- DMDouglas Murray
Do you think that's what it might have brought you?
- JRJoe Rogan
I think it's already happening in California. I mean, this is, if it keeps burning the way it's burning, what's gonna be left? Some friends of ours, ah, sent photos from Mammoth, California, up in the mountains. It is a hellscape. It's a terrifying-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... vision. I mean, it's just everything is on fire. It's, it's so bizarre.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and it's, um, it's a combination of events, isn't it?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
That's the other thing that's so terrifying. It's like, um, just seeing a civilization being hit by plague, by fires, by pestilence, by politicians-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
... you know, everything.
- JRJoe Rogan
If we were in, uh, another time, where we didn't have access to information, we would be sure that this is the end. If we were-
- DMDouglas Murray
I think we'd be expecting the, the sun not to come up tomorrow by this stage.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. We'd be expecting-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... demons to arise out of the fires and, and ride horses with searing eyes. (laughs)
- DMDouglas Murray
And then we'd be trying to work out which of our friends were the demons and slaying them for no reason.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, right, like the Salem-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... Witch Trials. Yeah, it's-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ah, Los Angeles, which I, I was telling you that I, well, before we got started that I fled, um, I, I really never thought too much about the government there. I never thought-
- DMDouglas Murray
Right.
- 15:00 – 30:00
Oh, boy. …
- DMDouglas Murray
The headline was, "I'm, I'm, I'm fearful that I'm going to be buried in the wrong gender."
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, boy.
- DMDouglas Murray
And, of course, I just thought, "Well, a lot of us are just fearful of being buried," you know? Period.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
Uh, y-
- JRJoe Rogan
Please, call me a woman when I'm dead.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I don't give a fuck.
- DMDouglas Murray
You can misgender me all you like, after... I just-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
I don't want to be buried, that's the first thing.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) This is so crazy.
- DMDouglas Murray
Not, not this year. Not this year.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ugh. There's so much nonsense.
- DMDouglas Murray
And s- so it's... So that sort of thing started happening. I thought, "Oh, this is just... They're just..." But again, I still thought, "They'll double down, but the majority won't listen to them." And then Minnesota happened, and the race one came back with a vengeance. And that had been happening through COVID obviously, because in all of our countries we had this thing of, uh, uh, ethnic minorities, particularly Black people, suffering disproportionately from the virus. And what I was worried about was that in the American media and the British media and elsewhere, this was being portrayed as if, as if the, if this was the case, and it does seem to be, then it was because, like, America couldn't even import a virus from China without giving it its own special racist spin. You know, that all of the things that you could look at to explain why there might be a higher mortality rate, including, uh, higher numbers of perhaps nurses in the health service, um, underlying health issues, and, and much more. That, that wasn't being focused on. It kept on being portrayed as if this could only be because of racism.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DMDouglas Murray
And, and that just worried me because I thought, "E- even a virus, a pandemic can't bring us together, and we still have these people doing this." But as I say, it wasn't until after Minnesota that then that really took off, and we discovered something very important, which is that, that, that, that racism and the whole issue of race is even more important than trying to avoid the pandemic. And, and th- that, and everything that's flowed from it, is just rolling on and on, and it's very, very worrying. It's everything I feared would happen, which was everybody doubling down on these identity traits in the era when we all hoped we could move beyond them. You know?
- JRJoe Rogan
We also got to this weird point where we're supposed to collectively ignore the fact that having 50,000 people marching through the streets arm in arm could easily be spreading the disease. And there was this giant uptick of the disease in America, and everyone stuffed their head in the sand and pretended they were not connected.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, well-
- JRJoe Rogan
Everyone wanted to pretend, "Well, it had nothing to do with the protests." Well, if you looked at the-
- DMDouglas Murray
Even more.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's clear-
- DMDouglas Murray
Even more. It wasn't, it wasn't just c- head in the sand. It was actually saying-
- JRJoe Rogan
That-
- DMDouglas Murray
... "We don't mind." I mean, the medical, medical professionals in America who signed the joint letter defending people going out on the protests were saying that...... that, that racism kills and so does COVID, but racism is, uh, clearly a bigger underlying risk than COVID. And if you've taken that view, then everything's possible, isn't it?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
Uh, I mean, I mean, I mean, apart from the fact that it's not- it's clearly not true. Because however you would, you know, work out the numbers of people killed by racism, uh, which does exist, but I mean, the, the, uh, the, to claim that the mortality rates from racism are, are higher than those from COVID when one of the figures in America now, you know, six figures of, of people who've died and-
- JRJoe Rogan
190,000 is the latest.
- 30:00 – 45:00
(laughs) …
- DMDouglas Murray
that we and Britain regard this as a WMD attack. And what's more," she says, looking at him meaningfully, "a WMD attack on a nuclear power." (laughs) And Donald Trump turns to, uh, uh, one of the other people with Theresa May and says, "Have you got nukes?"
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DMDouglas Murray
It's, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DMDouglas Murray
... it's- it's- it's striking.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DMDouglas Murray
Um, and yeah-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
... the- the point about this is that you hear this sort of story and you think, "Well, that's shocking, but not that surprising." And then you think, "But anyway, look what else is being offered." And this- this- this thought is just obviously going through everyone's minds because the left in America has screwed up so badly. They could have... It's- it's- it's so striking to me as an outsider, they could have spent the last four years saying, "How did this person with all of these- these character traits that we sort of agreed on that we don't like, and with lots of downsides and things, how did he win anyway?" And they could have looked at that-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DMDouglas Murray
... and worked- and worked so much out. And instead, you've had four wasted years of, you know, frankly, bullshit claims that have wasted everyone's time.
- JRJoe Rogan
I think they thought-
- DMDouglas Murray
We, by the way, have had something very similar in Britain, but- but I just... It's- it's horrifying for an outsider to see this.
- JRJoe Rogan
I think they thought those claims were gonna work. I think they thought-
- DMDouglas Murray
Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... the Russia scandal was going to work. I think they thought his affairs were gonna ruin him. I think they thought all these various chess pieces that they moved into position, that they thought they were at checkmate multiple times. And he's like, "Nope, fuck you." And they're like, "What?"
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, and he-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... just keeps on keeping on. And-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... I- I just don't think they... I don't think they correctly estimated his resilience, nor did they-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... estimate the way people who support him would view him. And I, again-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... I think there's a lot of people that m- don't agree with him, don't like his tactics, don't like his personality, but they see him as the preferable alternative to what's-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... going on in Portland, what's going on in Seattle-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and what- what-
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
(laughs) …
- DMDouglas Murray
rights appears to cross over and tread on women's rights. And, you know, u- unsurprisingly, most of the people who signed that letter were young. But the problem with it was that, on that occasion, the CEO actually stood by JK Rowling 'cause she's very, very successful, probably the world's most successful author. And at the moment, at that very, very top level, sometimes, not all the time, the money speaks. But nobody turned round and said the only thing that needed to be said, which was, you know, "You're not even at a publishing house that's publishing JK Rowling's Big Book of Trans, you know?"
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DMDouglas Murray
"It's not Chicks With Dicks by JK Rowling."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DMDouglas Murray
"It's, it's, it, it ..." (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DMDouglas Murray
"It's, it's The Ickabog."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DMDouglas Murray
And if you cannot work in an office that's publishing The Ickabog, you're probably not just not cut out for this profession, but probably not cut out for this life. You're gonna find life really tricky if The Ickabog terrifies you. And what's more, the CEO of a company in that position should by now have said, "Thank you so much for your letter. I take it to be a resignation letter." And in the next day's newspapers, there should have been 150 openings at that publisher for people who wanted to work in the business of ideas and thought. And th- what is so striking is that even on the ones where people hold the line, they are not saying what needs to be said, which is, "We cannot be, as societies or as companies or as cultural entities, we cannot be held hostage by fundamentally dishonest, hostile actors. And we certainly can't be held hostage at the risk of just one person." Because that's all it requires, just one person saying, "The Ickabog's too mean for me." That's wh- ... And we can't operate like that. We can't exchange ideas like that.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, and what she's saying should be debated. If you disagree-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
... with what she's saying about trans rights, um, entering into the realm or, or suppressing women's rights, this should be a conversation that people have. The, the idea that you're gonna silence literally the most popular author alive today-
- DMDouglas Murray
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... because she has a very reasonable position. It, it's cra- it's madness, and this is, this is the same attitude that's led to deplatforming people with reasonable views, it's the same attitude that is, is infuriating people to the point where they're going to vote the opposite way and vote for-
- DMDouglas Murray
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... people like Donald Trump.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, this is what's happening.
- DMDouglas Murray
But I'm also ... You know, I, I, I'm worried about so many things to this. One is, one is, by the way, the reason why I've written about this, which is that I, I want people to know the scale of this. Uh, um, Pluckrose and Lindsay and Boghossian and others have done an amazing job on this. You know, because you really ... You need to s- you, you w- you want, among other things, to, to save people the hassle of having to read the crap that we're talking about.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DMDouglas Murray
I mean, th- you don't want-... the smartest minds of this generation having to wade their way through Judith Butler on feminism and performativity of gender. You know, I mean, almost anything is better to do with your life than that. And so to an extent, what is needed is these books and these people saying, as I try to say, "Look, this is what it is, but for God's sake, don't get caught up in it. Don't get stuck on it. Like, f- don't waste your life looking to solve the world through these means, 'cause all you will do is make yourself and everyone around you much, much more unhappy." But also, you know, we all, in our lives, definitely have something more important to do than talk endlessly about gender. You know, we almost certainly all have, in our lives, something more important to do than to talk endlessly about hereditary characteristics over which we have no say.
- JRJoe Rogan
And one of the best takes on this, in my opinion, has been Helen Pluckrose-
- DMDouglas Murray
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... Peter Boghossian, and James Lindsay when they did these grievance studies.
- DMDouglas Murray
Oh.
- JRJoe Rogan
And some of their more preposterous ideas-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and papers d- didn't just get reviewed, but got- got awarded, like-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... fat body building and-
- 1:00:00 – 1:15:00
Hmm. …
- DMDouglas Murray
but this is why I, I talk about, uh, St. Georgian retirement syndrome. And St. Georgian retirement syndrome is, is, is I think what a lot of campaigners are stuck in at the moment, which is that, uh, th- the, basically the situation St. George would be in after he'd got the acclaim of slaying the dragon...... he might be tempted to, to go round the land looking for other dragons to slay. And if there aren't dragons, he might be found attacking smaller and smaller animals until eventually one day, St. George can be found swinging his sword at thin air. Now, I don't say that there's absolutely thin air, but the St. Georgian retirement syndrome clearly exists for a portion of young people, in America in particular, because they've been told that... You know, and, and, and the problem is this is sort of right in lots of ways. Like, who wouldn't have wanted to have been with Martin Luther King in the March on Washington, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- DMDouglas Murray
Who wouldn't have wanted to have, have, have, had the pleasure and the satisfaction of being at the head of a movement like that? Who... You know, I mean, I, I, I have to say, I wouldn't particularly myself, but lots of people have been told, you know, "You should've been at the Stonewall Inn in 1968." Uh, or, "You should've burnt your bra with the f- the second-wave feminists." You know, and they miss this stuff because all of these movements have been vindicated massively. And the people who did partake in them have got a very serious, um, advantage in society because they are viewed with respect for h- rightly, for having been ahead of their time and for being brave and so on. But it means that in 2020, we have people who think that they are still slaying dragons which, at the very least by now, are just not that powerful dragons, at the very least.
- JRJoe Rogan
I don't know how this ends. And, uh, Portland, to me, is the most interesting Petri dish, because of the fact that you have the most progressive mayor and they're still like, "Fuck you. Not good enough." I, I, I'm-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
My, my eyes are on that place in particular because Portland's always been a real- a- kind of an oddball place, and I always enjoy going there. I actually love Portland. It's one of my favorite places to perform. They're- most-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Most of the people there are very nice.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But, uh, there's a madness going on there. You wanna talk about madness of crowds. The- that, that is- th- that exemplifies that right now.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's, uh, to me-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
They, they, they've arrested people for lighting forest fires up there.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
They've arres- arrested left-wing people for lighting these forest fires, you know, air-quote "activists". And, uh, this is something that's also not widely being reported, you know, that people have actually been arrested for lighting fires up there. Uh, this is, uh-
- DMDouglas Murray
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
I, I don't know what, like, if... I would love to talk to the mayor and say, "What is your strategy for ending this?"
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
"Are you hoping this is just gonna die down?"
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, because they, they- these people want your head. They want-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
... blood, and they don't, they don't seem to be willing to settle for anything less. And the more they ve- r- they ve- receive n- no resistance from him, the, the more adamant they get about his, his resigning-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, and, and, and, and they're all... I mean, I, I've been reading quite a lot about revolutions recently for obvious reasons, and it's, uh, it's a good time to do it. I high- I highly recommend it. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
What have you been reading? Which books?
- DMDouglas Murray
Read? Well, um, uh, uh, lots of books on the Russian Revolution in 1917 and, of course, everything on the French Revolution always remains pertinent, mainly because of, of just the, the unchanging nature of our species, you know? It, it, it always happens in similar ways. I mean, you know, at the beginning of the Russian Revolution in 1917, people who weren't on the side of the revolutionaries but didn't want to get hurt would affix to their sleeves, you know, signs of the revolution so that the mob would leave them alone.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- DMDouglas Murray
Um, and what is, what is people doing Blackout Day on Instagram-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- 1:15:00 – 1:17:00
Yes. …
- DMDouglas Murray
and we feel no responsibility for the killing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DMDouglas Murray
Like, nobody in the football stadium had anything to do with the killing of George Floyd, and, and the cricket audience didn't kill George Floyd.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DMDouglas Murray
And they're willing for a bit to say, "Well, you know, there seems to be a particular problem that does sometimes come up in American policing, and I wish that was able to be sorted out 'cause that's just ugly as hell, and, and, but I'm not responsible. I'm not changing all the norms of my society. I'm not, I'm not introducing new, weird rituals and dance routines we're meant to go through, jumping through hoop after hoop after hoop because of something which I have no connection to and no responsibility to." Because this is a form of a claim of collective guilt and responsibility, which is ugly every w- every way you tried to do it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Agreed. Uh, I, I, I agree with everything you just said. I think, um, it's, uh, it's, it would be interesting to see how people would react in a large crowd and whether or not the crowd in America in a football stadium would go with it, or whether or not they would boo. Uh, I, I assume, would assume most people would go with it given today's climate because they would be scared to boo. They'd be scared to react that way.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, this is, this is how I feel-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... the climate is today in America.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, y- y- most people don't really want their politics mixed in with sports-
- DMDouglas Murray
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
... but when they are and it's kind of being forced down everyone's throat, they, they just go along with it because the consequences of going against it, saying, "Look, I support Black Lives Matter, but do we have to have it here?" Could- can- can't it just-
- DMDouglas Murray
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Can't this just be football, only football?
- DMDouglas Murray
I know. It, it's, it's happening right now. There are libraries that are currently having breakdowns over, you know, their collection. The, uh, the British Library has just announced it's gonna try to decolonize itself. I mean, God knows what that means. Uh, the British Museum has just announced it's gonna have a, a, an investigation into basically everything.
Episode duration: 2:15:44
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