The Violent Suppression of Free Speech - Andrew Doyle

Chris Williamson 0:00 ... the first time that we recorded, you were going from London to Edinburgh, maybe to do the Fringe?

Andrew Doyle 0:06 Yes, it was at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Chris Williamson 0:07 You stopped off at my house-

Andrew Doyle 0:08 Yes.

Chris Williamson 0:08 ... en route.

Andrew Doyle 0:09 Yes, we did-

Chris Williamson 0:10 2019 or 2018?

Andrew Doyle 0:11 It was a long time ago.

Chris Williamson 0:12 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 0:12 We did their podcast in your living room.

Chris Williamson 0:14 Correct.

Andrew Doyle 0:14 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 0:15 How tough.

Andrew Doyle 0:15 It was nice and homely.

Chris Williamson 0:16 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 0:17 This is a bit more minimalist.

Chris Williamson 0:18 Yeah, yeah, it's-

Andrew Doyle 0:19 You know.

Chris Williamson 0:19 ... much, much more sterile. Um-

Andrew Doyle 0:21 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 0:21 (laughs) I saw a, a tweet earlier on that I thought was pretty interesting. "The left's greatest enemy is not the right, but the hard left. The right's greatest enemy is not the left, but the hard right. The lunatics on your own side make you look much sillier than the opposition ever could."

Andrew Doyle 0:35 Yeah. Well, there's a problem, isn't there, at the moment? Which is that the, uh, there seems to be more of an overlap between the left and the hard left, which doesn't exist to the, the same degree it does exist on the right, but not to the same degree. So, I think, I mean, I've, I've made the case that I think the left has to really disavow the lunatics within its own house.

Chris Williamson 0:56 Mm.

Andrew Doyle 0:56 That's something they really, really need to do, because I've been really shocked since this horrific murder of Charlie Kirk, seeing the extent of left wing, mainstream left wing voices attempting to justify it. And I know that always happens. You know, if you go back to the Brighton Bombing, we got, at the Tory Party Conference back in the early '80s, uh, if you go back to the, the de- death of Margaret Thatcher, there were some people who were rejoicing in death and celebrating death. So you always get a bit of that, and it's always grotesquely unpleasant whenever you see it. But-

Chris Williamson 1:28 And the, Th- That Track was number one, right? S-

Andrew Doyle 1:30 I don't think it quite got to number... Oh, well, maybe it did, The Witch Is Dead.

Chris Williamson 1:32 Hi Ho The Witch Is Dead.

Andrew Doyle 1:33 Yeah, yeah, the one... Not Hi Ho, it was Ding Dong. You're confusing Wizard of Oz with the, with the, the dwarves from Snow White. The, uh, and those two should be conflated in a mashup form, and remixed. I, I think that should happen. But-

Chris Williamson 1:48 Go on.

Andrew Doyle 1:49 ... th- th- but it is true that there's always that kind of thing, but I didn't, I've never seen the extent of it.

Chris Williamson 1:53 Mm.

Andrew Doyle 1:53 Like, there's thousands and thousands of 'em. And-

Chris Williamson 1:55 Why do you think that is?

Andrew Doyle 1:56 Because, I think, because I think there's too much of an eroded boundary between that far left and left. They... You know, the mainstream left, just as the mainstream right, has a kind of responsibility to distance itself from the more egregious, crazy people on their own side, although they're not really on their side. But, you know, on, on the further extremes of the political spectrum, and if you don't do that, in the public imagination, the two become conflated.

Chris Williamson 2:18 What does distancing yourself look like?

Andrew Doyle 2:20 It looks like saying, "I don't agree when someone celebrates murder."

Chris Williamson 2:23 Right.

Andrew Doyle 2:23 And who the hell is this to rep, to, to claim to represent my political position? It's actually not that hard to do. Um, (laughs) and it's been thre- Any movement... I mean, look, uh, I, (sighs) there was a, a clip of a, a trans pride protest in London, where an activist stood up and shouted out, "If you see a TERF, punch them in the fucking face. If you see a woman..." So, calling for violence. Now, every movement, every protest has a few bad apples, right? If I saw that, I wouldn't really think much of it. What, what I reacted to was the crowd cheering and applauding that, because what that tells you is that violence and violent rhetoric has been normalized within the trans activist community. Right? Because if I was at a parade of something that I really supported, some cause I really cared about, and I was at a protest and someone stood up and called for violence, I'd be like, "Who's that? Can we get him off the stage? This p- doesn't represent us."

Chris Williamson 3:13 Mm.

Andrew Doyle 3:14 I wouldn't be cheering along, and I'd be incredibly disturbed if I saw s- supposed allies cheering that kind of thing. You'd do something about it, wouldn't you?

Chris Williamson 3:23 Mm.

Andrew Doyle 3:23 So, that's, that's all I mean by that. And I think the, the tweet that you quoted, I presume, is alluding to this idea that, you know, increasingly, there is a tolerance, if not support, but there's certainly a tolerance, for the most extreme forms of violent rhetoric on the left, by the mainstream left. And you can see that, by the way that mainstream commentators are throwing a word, the word fascist around, and the word Nazi around, which is so dangerous. It's... And more than anything, it's his- it's historically illiterate.

Chris Williamson 3:52 Mm.

Andrew Doyle 3:52 They don't know what the word means. What it's come to mean is a kind of catchall to dehumanize, to say, "This person isn't really human. They are a kind of embodiment of evil," some kind of... It, it diabolizes them.

Chris Williamson 4:05 Mm.

Andrew Doyle 4:06 And that's the effect of it, and I think that's a very dangerous thing to do. And you're seeing that, really, on the mainstream.

Chris Williamson 4:13 I saw this YouGov poll talking about the difference between people on the left, uh, using violence to achieve their political goals, uh, versus those who don't. And it seems like younger liberal Americans, uh, are worryingly close to saying that actually, yeah, it is, it is, can sometimes be justified. Uh, 25% of very liberals, uh, say that, uh, violence can sometimes be justified, uh, in order to achieve political goals.

Andrew Doyle 4:48 Is this the FIRE, um, study? There was a study by FIRE, the, um, the Free Speech Organization in America, which only came out four or five days ago. And I think-

Chris Williamson 4:58 Uh, that's, uh, this is from September 10.

Andrew Doyle 5:00 So, I think it's even worse than you think. The statistics quoted in that are really chilling. It suggests a high propensity towards the tolerance, or, uh, I suppose, excuse making, for violence. The idea that a speaker on campus who is espousing views you don't agree with is making you unsafe, and therefore, they deserve some kind of physical intervention, either a, a punch, or God forbid even further, uh, a- an act of assassination. What's very disturbing though about that study is that the trend seems to be increasing on the right as well among young conservatives. They're catching up. Now, it's always been the case, according to the FIRE study is that the l- the left-

Chris Williamson 5:38 What is FIRE?

Andrew Doyle 5:39 Uh, f- uh, you're gonna... It's the Foundation for Individual, uh, well, it used to be the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and they changed the meaning of the acronym so that it's more bl-

Chris Williamson 5:48 They kept the acronym. (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 5:49 They kept the acronym-

Chris Williamson 5:50 That's right.

Andrew Doyle 5:50 ... but changed, now, uh-

Chris Williamson 5:52 It doesn't, it doesn't matter.

Andrew Doyle 5:52 Well, Greg Lukianoff, who's in charge of it, is gonna hate me for not knowing the new-

Chris Williamson 5:57 Sorry, Greg.

Andrew Doyle 5:57 ... the new words.

Chris Williamson 5:58 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 5:58 Um, but it's, it's still a free speech organization, but it's more... What I think what they realized is it's not just about campus.

Chris Williamson 6:04 Right.

Andrew Doyle 6:04 We have to be there to protect free speech for everyone. They're non-partisan. They're not left or right. They're, they're just free speech for absolutely everyone. And, uh, the last study was saying that, you know, whereas you've had leftist tolerance on s- on university campus forever, it's always been the case that there's been more of a tolerance for violence, but the right is catching up. In other words, this idea that we are becoming so tribal now-... that if you, if someone disagrees with you, it is now widely taken to be a kind of attack, and I know I've looked into studies on this, apparently it's fairly natural, uh, for people when you disagree with them to take it. Your instinct, instinct is to take it as an attack.

Chris Williamson 6:42 Mm.

Andrew Doyle 6:43 But that is amplified when your sense of identity is connected to a political viewpoint, you know, because you're not, if, you know, if, if, if your whole identity is wrapped up with a particular politics-

Chris Williamson 6:55 Mm.

Andrew Doyle 6:56 ... and someone says, "Your politics is wrong," they're saying that you're wrong. They're saying that you're rotten. There's something about you that is, that is bad. And I think that's what's, that's what's happened. And actually, what Charlie Kirk was doing, was exactly what we need to do. As in, you go into the lion's den, you go to speak to people who fundamentally disagree with you, and you let them speak, and you give them a platform, and you engage in discussion. And that's why I think this particular murder, because political violence does happen from time to time and always has, there's nothing new about that.

Chris Williamson 7:27 Mm.

Andrew Doyle 7:28 There is something so horrific about this particular one, because what he was doing was so noble, was so much the right thing to be doing, it feels like an attack on free speech itself, as well as being an attack, of course, on, on a poor innocent man.

Chris Williamson 7:42 Question.

Andrew Doyle 7:43 Yes.

Chris Williamson 7:43 Do you think that the story or the reaction of Trump being shot if his head had been two inches to the right-

Andrew Doyle 7:53 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 7:53 ... a year ago, would have been as horrific as Charlie's was? The, the reason I ask, uh, is there's a little bit of a sense that sort of, "Well, Trump had it coming," because he's the guy at the top, he's said all of these things, he's done all of these things. Charlie, the sort of post-mortem roundup of, um, a variety of clips, some of which seem to be taken out of context, some of which seem to be him not saying what he actually said-

Andrew Doyle 8:27 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:27 ... um, uh, this sort of evidence searching to justify, well, maybe it's not as egregious as you actually thought-

Andrew Doyle 8:36 Exactly.

Chris Williamson 8:37 ... as if any amount of words somehow justifies a bullet.

Andrew Doyle 8:40 Well, I mean, first things first, the caveat always has to be that political violence should be considered an oxymoron. Those two things, those two words shouldn't go together.

Chris Williamson 8:48 The reason you have the politics is to avoid the violence.

Andrew Doyle 8:49 Quite. So, had Trump been killed in that assassination attempt, it would've been a human tragedy.

Chris Williamson 8:55 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 8:56 All political violence, all violence is a, you know, I can't endorse any of it, but, but you're right to identify that it wouldn't have had the... I mean, it would've had a major impact. It would've been seismic. Of course it would. Um, but Charlie Kirk was not a politician. He had robust political views, which he expressed, but he had no political clout. And I think that's why it hits people harder, because he was effectively punished for his opinion. And whatever you think about that opinion, the first thing you should be able to say, as just a human being is, "That was utterly immoral, grotesque and evil." That's the first thing you should... You know, all of this cherry picking, "Let me find some quotations to, to say that he was a horrible person," it is a way of justifying what happened, you know, I think.

Chris Williamson 9:43 One of the things that I saw that I'd be interested to get your take on, a lot of the, um, really well meaning, uh, apologies, I do- I don't know what you would say, like a tribute, I suppose, like a little tribute tweet or whatever, Cenk Uygur did one, you know, people from the left that did that, there was always a caveat in there. "Although I didn't agree with his positions, I c- condemn and do all of the things."

Andrew Doyle 10:08 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 10:08 And you're like, "Hey, that's nice." I, I'm not sure, I'm totally open to being wrong. I don't know if the same amount of hand-wringing would need to be done if somebody on the left had been shot and people on the right were s- were giving their, uh, tribute.

Andrew Doyle 10:25 Yes. I suppose it depends how you look at it. I mean, there, there's been a lot of criticism of that and why do you have to say that you disagreed with him? Because the point, the fundamental point is it's wrong and you should say that it's wrong, right? Mind you-

Chris Williamson 10:37 It's to protect yourself, it's to protect yourself, I think, from being seen as, uh, not having sufficient fealty to your own side because the purity spiral that exists within the left is not the same-

Andrew Doyle 10:48 So-

Chris Williamson 10:48 ... as it is in the right.

Andrew Doyle 10:49 ... possibly that, but in addition to that, it could be something else.

Chris Williamson 10:52 Okay.

Andrew Doyle 10:52 Ezra Klein, for example, writes this article saying that he's grieving for, mourning for Charlie Kirk. He gets piled on by the left. Then he writes another article and doubles down and says, "No, you're wrong. And you're wrong to pile on me. I am mourning for him as a human being as well." You know, and he makes the point that he disagreed with virtually everything, uh, that Charlie Kirk said. But I don't think that is an attempt to appease his side. I mean, that shows he wasn't interested in appeasing his side. He- he's saying what he believes.

Chris Williamson 11:17 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 11:18 It could be, and maybe this is a positive, it could be someone trying to say that, uh, trying to critique, I suppose, the very idea that it should make a difference if you agree or not. You know, if someone, if someone who disagrees-

Chris Williamson 11:29 Very meta way to look at it, but yeah, I guess.

Andrew Doyle 11:31 Well, it does make sense, doesn't it? If, you know, you're standing up for the liberal principle, which is that nobody should be silenced with violence according to their point of view. And it's very easy the, you know, people who agree with what he said to say that, but actually it's quite powerful when someone who doesn't, uh, comes out. It- it's more powerful when someone from the left says it.

Chris Williamson 11:49 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 11:49 And so in order to do that, you have to make clear that you don't agree. So it depends. I mean, look, there could be all sorts of motivations. I don't know. I don't want to bombard people too much or, or be too harsh on them for making the point that they disagreed.

Chris Williamson 11:59 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 12:00 Um, I think it can have a positive effect. What I do take ex- exception to is the people who either misrepresent what he said in order to attack him-

Chris Williamson 12:11 Mm.

Andrew Doyle 12:11 ... which has been happening an awful lot, out of context clips like you said, or not doing the basic research. I mean, one of the big issues is, we're dealing with a folk devil. It isn't really, it isn't really Charlie Kirk they hate because they haven't watched anything that he's ever said and they haven't really engaged. They've seen a few out of context clips.

Chris Williamson 12:28 Mm.

Andrew Doyle 12:29 It's the monster of their imagination that they've collectively, uh, created. And that's why out of context clips work, because of course it acts as confirmation bias. They see it, they think, "Oh yeah, that, that tallies with the monster in my head, so that's great." Um, and you see, you see it all along, you know.... people like Alastair Campbell, who went online and said that Charlie Kirk supported stoning gay people to death. Now, I tweeted that clip out and said, "This is categorically wrong." And he did apologize. I must be the only person ever to get an apology out of Alastair Campbell. That- that- that is an achievement.

Chris Williamson 12:57 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 12:58 But he should have taken the effort to- to look into that, 'cause it's an incredibly severe accusation, y- and he should know better. You should be damn sure, uh, that- that someone's actually said something like that before you say it. And of course, what he was saying, what Charlie Kirk was saying in the original clip, is he was critiquing an organizer of a Pride event who had quoted a book from the Old Testament in support of Pride, about love and about compassion. And he was making the point that the same book of the Bible also says that you should stone gay people to death. So, he was critiquing the idea of cherry picking scripture for your own political agenda. That was the point. You know, similarly, we've had this thing about, "Oh, well, he supported the Second Amendment." He- he said that, uh- uh, some deaths, because of any- any country that has guns will have some deaths, that that was a price worth paying for the Second Amendment. That wasn't, that doesn't mean he was saying that everyone who is killed by guns, that's justifiable. I mean, that's an incredible leap. And in the same clip, he makes the clear point, he says, "Look, 50,000 people a year die from car accidents, and we all collectively accept that as a cost for the convenience of getting to our destination quicker." So, anyone who has a car implicitly supports Charlie Kirk's view on the Second Amendment. It makes them an incredible hypocrite if they have a car but they're saying, because actually, we could all abandon our cars and save 50,000 lives a year.

Chris Williamson 14:21 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 14:21 We don't. I actually think we should all move to Waymos and driverless cars, 'cause that would reduce the, uh, that fatality rate by 95% or something like that. But nevertheless, um, you know, that- so that's an example of someone taking something he said, out of context, using it to justify the murder. I mean, this stuff is, it's hobgoblin-like behavior. It is incredibly low.

Chris Williamson 14:43 You

Chris Williamson 14:44 seem pretty let up by the- the response to the Charlie thing.

Andrew Doyle 14:46 It's bothered me, yeah. It's really bothered me, 'cause it's been relentless and it's just inhumane. I have this naïve faith in humanity, and I always think the best of people. And I always assume that if you present the arguments, people are gonna come round t- to it or... I also assume that people who disagree with me aren't doing so from a place of malevolence. But this is malevolence, and it's explicit malevolence. And that's sort of shaken me a bit, yeah. It's bothered me.

Chris Williamson 15:14 I-

Andrew Doyle 15:14 You're very good at detecting that. You're like a psychotherapist, you've worked it out.

Chris Williamson 15:18 (laughs) Well, I wasn't-

Andrew Doyle 15:18 You kinda tease it out of me.

Chris Williamson 15:19 You weren't- you weren't exactly subtle, but-

Andrew Doyle 15:21 No, that's true.

Chris Williamson 15:22 ... um, I- I was talking to a friend the day after it happened. I saw- I saw the two videos-

Andrew Doyle 15:29 (sniffs) Mm.

Chris Williamson 15:29 ... uh, about it, and one of them is seared into my fucking hippocampus for the rest of time. Like, I'm just never going to be able to forget that scene.

Andrew Doyle 15:40 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:41 Uh, and I spoke to a friend, and I was like, "Mate, can you tell me, uh, how easy or difficult this shot would be to take from this place?" You know, he's a military guy and he's got expertise and stuff, and he's been in and around the administration for a while. And I just texted him, and he rang me, and, uh, he gave me a- a sort of five-minute breakdown. Interesting bit of info that I don't know if it's come out yet, still now, uh, according to him, Charlie wasn't shot in the neck. Charlie was shot in the chest. He was wearing a steel plate and the bullet hit him in the chest and ricochets up into his throat.

Andrew Doyle 16:22 Right.

Chris Williamson 16:23 So, the reason that you wear steel, as opposed to like a big puffy thing, is that you can wear it underneath a shirt.

Andrew Doyle 16:28 Okay.

Chris Williamson 16:29 And you can't tell that you're wearing it. The disadvantage is that it doesn't absorb bullets, it pings them off.

Andrew Doyle 16:34 Right.

Chris Williamson 16:34 And his- the justification for that is, well, if you take the 360 degrees that it could come off at, uh, or whatever it is, 180 degrees, um, there's only, 96.5% of them are non-fatal.

Andrew Doyle 16:49 Okay.

Chris Williamson 16:49 So, if it hits you in the leg, if it hits you in the arm, if it hits you in the hand, it's like, you're okay, but at least it didn't go through your chest.

Andrew Doyle 16:54 Yes.

Chris Williamson 16:55 Um, but yeah, he- he first made that point and then immediately followed it up by saying that guy was probably gonna be the future president of the United States. The highest following among young conservative, you know, I- I don't know whether you saw, I don't know if this is true, Stephen Crowder changed his bio on X from the day before to the day after, saying he was the number two conservative show in America to the number one conservative show in America.

Andrew Doyle 17:19 Is that right?

Chris Williamson 17:20 This was either a doctored image, in which case I've done gone and fallen for it-

Andrew Doyle 17:24 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 17:25 ... uh, or i- some timely bio updating, which we're probably gonna get onto in- in-

Andrew Doyle 17:31 Mm.

Chris Williamson 17:31 ... other regards later on as well. Um, but even if it wasn't the current president of the United States, maybe it was someone that was gonna shape the sort of future of American politics.

Andrew Doyle 17:41 No doubt. I mean, he was, if you watch those videos of him engaging with people, I mean, he is brilliant at it. And he didn't always used to be. I mean, I remember seeing videos of him, in fact, seeing him live, uh, uh, many, many years ago. And, you know, he- he wasn't as accomplished a- a debater. He was getting better and better and better. You know, and he, the- the thing that he'd learned brilliantly was to hear people out, to- to let them speak, to let them make their point, not to keep interjecting and getting angry at them. To sort of, to- to take the emotion out of it as best as he could, even though, obviously, he was very passionate about what he believed.

Chris Williamson 18:16 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 18:16 And, uh, that was so effective. I think that's one of the reasons he was so hated. Because he wa- he had realized that the best way for bad ideas to disperse is to hear them. And so, he would allow people to express exactly what they... Because they were damned themselves with some of the ridiculous logic. Uh, and he was a fantastic communicator, and obviously, there is every possibility he would've become a- an elected politician, and yeah, he had that sort of caliber.

Chris Williamson 18:46 Mm-hmm. That's true, yeah....

Chris Williamson 18:50 the last few months, there seems to have been sort of an increase in conversations around trans ideology, progressivism, woke stuff, uh, ratcheting up how real world the implications of, uh, that being more inflammatory-

Andrew Doyle 19:08 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 19:08 ... has been, um, shooters, shell casings. It seems like the guy that shot Charlie Kirk was in a relationship with a trans person, trans roommate, and had said that hateful comments, dad was MAGA, had brought it up to the dad over the dinner table-

Andrew Doyle 19:25 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 19:25 ... that he was hateful and that his comments about blah, blah, blah. Uh, does this comport with your perspective that woke is dying?

Andrew Doyle 19:34 Well, I know why you're saying this 'cause I wrote a book called The End of Woke. But the, as you know, I think you've read it, you know that I'm not saying, "It's all over, let's have a party and go home." What I'm saying is that too much has happened at this point, uh, for it to ever have the power that it once had, and in other words, the process of its decline has very much begun. We know this from the stats, the, The Economist did a report into wokeness. Support for wokeness was at its height in 2020, around the summer of George Floyd, and has been declining ever since. We've had some major seismic changes in the world that, that can never be reversed. We've had the Cass Review in the UK, which is a study into, uh, gender affirming care for children, which has, uh, exposed this idea that, that that is in any way appropriate or effective, and that puberty blockers are potentially very dangerous and, and unevidenced. Uh, that's changed everything because you've had the Tavistock Clinic closed as a result of that. Um, uh, so the, the very notion of gender identity ideology has been damaged and dented in a way that it, that it won't be able to recover from. Similarly, you've had the Supreme Court in the UK ruling that, uh, biological sex is a thing and is protected in equality law. That's been absolutely huge as well. You've had, uh, DEI, uh, programs in various companies and corporations rolled back, even in things like McDonald's and Walmart and, and Facebook, Meta, you know. So these big, big names, they're just getting rid of it because they know that it doesn't... Well, actually, it's not only not effective, it can actually ramp up racism in the workplace according to studies. So, it's a really bad idea and always was, but that's all been stripped away. So all of this stuff is happening, you've got Trump's election, you've got various sporting bodies talking about h- uh, uh, se- basically saying men cannot compete in women's sports. Uh, now what happens then? I mean, I make the case in, in the book that wokeness was simply the latest manifestation of authoritarianism, which is a natural impulse to humankind, and it emerges from the left and the right and everywhere in between throughout history in various forms, in various guises. This is just the latest form, right? And it will emerge again. And so the, the point I'm making is, yes, wokeness is on its way out, but what replaces it could be just as bad. We're bound to get another form of authoritarianism at some point. But I think absolutely what we call wokeness is dying. But it could be a long death, and it could be years and years and years before it dissipates because it has such a stranglehold, particularly in universities, uh, and particular- less so now in corporations because it's been rolled back, but in gov- in government departments, in quangos, in the UK we have, uh, a quango called the College of Policing-

Chris Williamson 22:08 What's a quango?

Andrew Doyle 22:09 A quango is a non-governmental organization that effectively takes... The government entrusts to run an aspect of society.

Chris Williamson 22:16 Okay.

Andrew Doyle 22:16 So, so for instance, uh, the, the College of Policing is a quango because it directs and trains police in England and Wales, writes the guidelines for them, but it's not an elected body, right? It's, it, it, it comes up with this sort of stuff itself. Um, and they are activist-captured, they are captured by gender identity ideology, which is why police in the UK tend to turn up at your door if you say that men and women are different. And so m- my point, just to finish my point about the, the, the, the decline of woke is that I think what will also happen is that the ideologues, 'cause it's a kind of pseudo-religion, they will become more defensive and more aggressive and more extreme in the way that a cornered rat lashes out more ex- in a more extreme way than it ever has before. Hence, the extreme violence that we're seeing.

Chris Williamson 23:03 Do you think that these two things are correlated? The decline of sort of widespread acceptance and this sort of pullback in terms of, uh, the trajectory going in the right direction for people who believe this thing and the increased sort of kinetic real world implications of it?

Andrew Doyle 23:20 Well, I don't know for sure. Uh, I think what I could always... Uh, you know, we know that the genderist movement has always endorsed violence. Uh, violence and violent rhetoric has been completely normalized in that movement. Uh, there's a website called Turf is a Slur which collects thousands of screenshots of activists basically saying they want to kill, rape, and, uh, torture, uh, women who believe that, um, there are two sexes. Uh, it's very, very normalized, which is why JK Rowling is continually, uh, uh, inundated with rape and death threats. She said she gets so many she could paper the house with them. And that's a big house, that's JK's home.

Chris Williamson 23:54 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 23:54 All right? So this is... It's a real, it's a real problem, but... So in a way, if this mur- latest murder is connected to genderist ideology, which I suspect it might be but I don't know, if it is connected to that, uh, that just makes sense, that is, uh, a continuation of, uh, what that, what that community of activists have created. But on the other hand, it's also the most extreme reaction, isn't it? And I th- I suspect that, I mean, violence comes about when you've lost the debate. Violence comes about when language doesn't work anymore. And so therefore, you know, as wokeness... Because wokeness can never work. It was only ever, I mean, what, the More in Common study into this says that, uh, the woke belief system was only ever endorsed by between 8 and 10% of the population, even at its height, which means it was always a minority view and it, it was imposed on society from a, from the top down. It was never accepted by people, people just went along with it because they were terrified...... of the key players. It was actually, uh, predominantly an upper middle class movement. It was pushed by the elites, it never caught on in working class communities. Working class people don't care about what your pronouns are, they care about feeding their kids.

Chris Williamson 24:59 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 25:00 Now, that means that this is... From the start, it was always an authoritarian movement. It was always an imposition of values that people didn't accept or believe in, right? You saw recently, what was it, Malcolm Gladwell talking about how he was on a panel and he lied about his position on gender ideology. Uh, now I don't think he should've lied. I think if more of us had said the truth-

Chris Williamson 25:19 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 25:19 ... we would've got out of this sooner. But he was probably terrified. I mean, you've seen what, the way the activists behave. They're terrifying. And that's why any organization or corporation or body which goes woke, it doesn't take many. It takes one or two, a handful of activists within that corporation t- to shift it. And once a, a, a, a body becomes woke, it forgets about its key point and becomes merely a conduit for the ideology.

Chris Williamson 25:46 Have you tried to, or have you managed to break down what makes it such a effective, effectively reproducing meme? Like, what was it, what are the component parts of this that allowed a single individual within a department to...

Andrew Doyle 26:03 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 26:04 Um...

Andrew Doyle 26:04 Uh, well it's not to do with the ideas being robust, is it? I mean, they, it's all based on fantasy. We don't have a gendered soul that can be misaligned with our body. That's not a thing. And if you want to reorganize society on the basis of that pseudo-religious belief system, you'd better find some evidence for it, hadn't you? I mean, isn't it crazy that Jacqui Smith, who's the, uh, uh, government's representative, spokesperson for equalities in the House of Lords, is asked, "What is the government's working definition of gender identity?" And she can't answer the question. She doesn't know what it is, but the government imposes various policies on the basis of something they cannot define. So, this is not something that can be sustained through debate, and they know that, and that's why you get violence. That's why Stonewall, which w- used to be the foremost gay rights charity in the country, pivoted into gender ideology and suddenly said, "No debate." That was their mantra. "No debate. We don't discuss this anymore, you just go along with it." Because there is no situation where the woke ideas could be debated and come out on top. It's not possible, because they're all based on absolute nonsense.

Chris Williamson 27:06 Okay.

Andrew Doyle 27:06 So, it was nev- so it was never gonna be able to be sustained. So then your question is, well why is it then that a nonsensical view can become the mainstream? That, again, happens throughout history when-

Chris Williamson 27:17 Give me some examples.

Andrew Doyle 27:19 ... well, the Inquisition did pretty well. I would say that if you're, if you're going to be strapped to a rack and tortured if you don't accept the creed, you might do it. Now, I don't think the, uh, the woke are, they don't, they're not strapping people to the rack. But, uh, if they could burn people at the stake, I think they would. They certainly express the rhetoric to imply that they want to commit physical harm. And they certainly can ruin and destroy your lives. They've got a pretty good reputation of that. They developed this system of cancel culture, they can destroy everything that you've ever built, for, for no other reason than they disagree with you. And they've done it many, many times. I mean, the, the number, the list of casualties of cancel culture are now mountainous. They're Himalayan. And yet, they still, the practitioners, the practitioners of it will still say it doesn't exist. Well, that's convenient, isn't it? Um, yeah, it happens all the time. It's intimidation. The large, the, the k- I mean, it's not about... Some ideas spread because they're good ideas. Some ideas spread because people are too scared to disagree. That's what's happened here, I think.

Chris Williamson 28:14 So is it the enforcement mechanism is a big part of it?

Andrew Doyle 28:16 Yeah, huge.

Chris Williamson 28:17 It seems like something to do with sort of weaponized empathy, this sort of lifting up of a, of a maligned underprivileged group. Uh-

Andrew Doyle 28:27 Okay, you've hit on something really interesting there.

Chris Williamson 28:29 Okay.

Andrew Doyle 28:29 'Cause I think it is a combination of the-

Chris Williamson 28:31 I can do that.

Andrew Doyle 28:31 Well, you do.

Chris Williamson 28:32 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 28:32 And, and successfully. There is a, uh, an element of the, uh, how can we put it? The intimidatory... It's a, it's a movement that attracts bullies and sociopaths, right? Because if you are a sociopath, or a psychopath even, and you want to inflict as much pain on other people, this is the perfect movement for you. Because you can do it, but you do it under the guise of compassion and love. Perfect, right? That's, of course you do it. They're like a modern day clergy. They can do, they can do whatever they want. I mean, it, it's a bit like if you were a psychopath in Northern Ireland during The Troubles, you would join a paramilitary group, and there you can kill and maim and be lauded for it. There's a good example of a guy called Murphy, who was the leader of the Shankill Butchers, who if you go and visit his grave, it says, "Here lies a soldier." This man was a serial killer. He tortured people, cut them up, murdered. He's Jack the Ripper. It's like saying, "Here lies a soldier," on Jack the Ripper's grave, although we don't know who Jack the Ripper was. But th- you get my point. A psychopath can... And, and he was lauded by that community. They thought he was a hero, right? That's what this movement does. It allows the worst in society, the most, the bullies, the bullies to, to do whatever they want and be praised for it, right? So, there's that. There's also, I have no doubt, many people within the movement who genuinely believe it, who genuinely think that what they're fighting for is compassion and justice and equality, although they call it equity, which is the opposite of equality. And a lot of the k- time, I think it's just people who've been gulled. People who've been gulled into believing the redefinitions of words. I mean, look, in, in the book, I quote two people saying the same thing. I quote the former... Sorry. I quote the former Conservative Prime Minister of the UK, Theresa May, and a left-wing a- uh, actor and comedian called Kathy Burke. Th- th- they couldn't be further apart politically. They both say the same thing. "All that wokeness means is being nice to people and not being racist. Therefore, we're woke." Theresa May said in her book she's woke and proud. But that's not what woke means. But they've been gulled into thinking that that's all it means. If you could sit down with Kathy Burke and Theresa May and say, "Okay, so do you support the mutilation and sterilization of gay youths?"... do you support the censorship of free speech? Do you support the erosion of women's rights and the taking away of their spaces? Do you support any of this? Do you support a hyper-racialized society where people are judged for- first and foremost for their skin color? Do you believe any of that? They would say no, they would be horrified. But when they say we're woke, that's what they're saying they believe. What I'm saying is, the culture-

Chris Williamson 31:12 It's the Motte and Bailey type thing.

Andrew Doyle 31:13 It's the Motte and Bailey, exactly. The culture war has always been about language and who gets to define the meaning of terms. And unfortunately when you do that, when you play around with language, when you play language games, it means a lot of people end up supporting things that are antithetical to their essential, uh, belief system. That's what's happened there. I- I think Kathy Burke and Theresa May are anti-woke, but they call themselves woke because they don't know what woke means. And they certainly don't understand what the activists mean when they're- when they're- when they're... You know, you know this. They say they're liberal, they're anti-liberal. They say they're progressive, they are regressive. They say they're anti-racist, but they want to rehabilitate racism for a new generation. You know, they say they believe in equality, but they don't. They believe in equity, which is very, very different. They say they believe in inclusion, but they actually believe in exclusion of anyone with a different point of view. They- th- they are... It's pretty much across the board, whatever language they use is almost always the exact opposite of what they're intending to achieve. And so you have this odd concatenation of the scary bully, sociopath, psychopath, demon types who just want to beat the world up and be applauded for it, and you also have the fellow travelers who believe that the demons are good because they're wearing a nice fancy cape. I think that's what it is.

Chris Williamson 32:28 Yeah, I think... most of the cultu- culture wars, because there's so few sort of original thinkers and so few people who, uh... have the agency to be able to make this sort of stuff happen, most people aren't seduced by a message that feels... good, feels like the right thing to do. I don't-

Andrew Doyle 32:49 Sure.

Chris Williamson 32:50 I don't think that that many people actually have the capacity for evil, or have the capacity-

Andrew Doyle 32:55 I think everyone has the capacity for evil.

Chris Williamson 32:56 Uh, okay, but most people don't have the conscience to be able to tolerate their own evil-

Andrew Doyle 33:00 Sure.

Chris Williamson 33:01 ... I would say. Uh, yes, they have the capacity to do it, but in order to be able to reach that stage. But m- my point being that... most of the worst acts in human history I think have been committed by people believing that they were doing good.

Andrew Doyle 33:15 I'm sure you're right, yeah. If you were to ch- you know, a young person today who cared about, you know, what's happening to, or cared about justice, and you saw a group calling itself Antifa, anti-fascist, wouldn't you say, "That's great. I'm anti-fascist, I hate fascists." Although I have to say, the deep-

Chris Williamson 33:32 Good branding.

Andrew Doyle 33:33 It's good branding, but, uh, l- you know, like Black Lives Matter, no one disagrees with that statement. And therefore if you were to disagree with anything the organization said, people would say, "Oh, you're saying Black lives don't matter." Of course it's, it's a, it's a rhetorical trick. Antifa is a very good exam- Because antifa is a concept, anti-fascism is an old, old concept. It's just been, uh, appropriated. I mean, in the way that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, no one's going to say it's actually democratic just because they call themselves democratic, right? I don't think. Um-

Chris Williamson 34:00 Like there's, uh, that- that rule that you have around university subjects that anything that's got the word science in it tends not to be a science.

Andrew Doyle 34:06 Exactly, there we go. There we go. Um-

Chris Williamson 34:08 The lady doth protest.

Andrew Doyle 34:09 (laughs) Well, that's it. So, you know, the thing about Antifa is that you- if- if you read, there's a book by Mark Bray who was a supporter of Antifa and anti-fascism, who has written a book, very well-written book, outlining the background to anti- the, the history of anti-fascism right, right back to Cable Street and beyond, right up until today with the Antifa movement. Where he singularly fails is he doesn't understand that the current Antifa movement has no connection whatsoever to those who stood up to the fa- actual fascists at the Battle of Cable Street and actual faci- fascists during the war. These are people who are taking on the mantle of something that does not connect them to it. So, uh, what can you say about... I mean, they're miss- firstly, they don't know what fascism means, right? So what they are taking... Uh, but, but what we can say about fascism, there's lots of disagreements about definitions, right? The one thing we can say with utter certainty is every fascistic regime in history has shared one quality, which is the violent suppression of opposition. That's in- unequivocal. And that is the very same quality that Antifa wholeheartedly support.

Chris Williamson 35:14 And that would be, uh, aligned with, if there is a speaker on campus who is saying something that you-

Andrew Doyle 35:20 Exactly.

Chris Williamson 35:20 Right, okay.

Andrew Doyle 35:21 And that's not to say that everyone who believes that you should punch a speaker is a fascist. But what it is saying is that they are embracing wholeheartedly a key fascist

Andrew Doyle 35:28 principle.

Chris Williamson 35:28 Have there been... many or any instances that you're aware of of right of center student supporters barricading the doors to stop people from hearing a Hasan Piker lecture or whatever?

Andrew Doyle 35:49 I fear it might be coming, but I haven't seen it yet.

Chris Williamson 35:52 Right, okay. So I mean, this is, this has sort of always been the, one of the big concerns, that, um... it does feel at least a little bit... and I- I'm s- hesitant of personifying political movements too much, uh, especially not with, uh, school playground dynamics, so I'm gonna try and see if I can get-

Andrew Doyle 36:12 Okay.

Chris Williamson 36:12 ... through this in one piece. It feels a little bit to me like the right has always been seen as sort of the big bully.

Andrew Doyle 36:18 Yes.

Chris Williamson 36:18 They're the one, they're the ones who have the muscle. They've got guns. We know there's a history of them using them. They tend to sort of just be more militant or militaristic, like in-

Andrew Doyle 36:30 Yes.

Chris Williamson 36:30 ... their presentation, in the, uh, composition of the members of this group. Uh, and you kind of just sort of expect it from them-

Andrew Doyle 36:38 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 36:38 ... a little bit.

Andrew Doyle 36:38 I know what you mean.

Chris Williamson 36:39 And with that in mind, there's always been a little bit of, well, yeah, sure, you know, the left are, eh, uh, squawking and making these no- and not the left actually, like progressives, I think-

Andrew Doyle 36:50 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 36:51 ... the left, the left now, at least as far as I can see, uh, the Kyle Kulinskis of the world, the sort of populist left are very much trying to distance themselves, trying to bifurcate off, whatever it is, the lunatics of your own side versus the blah, blah, blah.

Andrew Doyle 37:01 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:02 Um, eh- m- how good of a job they're doing with that, I'm not sure. But still, like, it...... the right has always been big bully. The left has always been a little bit like, "Well, like, what are you gonna do? The- the fucking trans guy." Like, the trans guy is the one that you're worried, "Oh, he's gonna p- come up and punch you in the street." No, it's the hairy biker man. That sort of asymmetry-

Andrew Doyle 37:19 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:19 ... in terms of, like, kinetic power, and it seems to me, this is like old hat now from five years ago when we would have first started speaking, that the real concern was if you light sufficient fires underneath the asses of the people, of the big bully-

Andrew Doyle 37:37 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:37 ... as the younger brother, right?

Andrew Doyle 37:38 Yes.

Chris Williamson 37:38 If the younger brother keeps on sort of...

Andrew Doyle 37:41 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:42 Over and over, and you go, if you do that a few too many times, the retaliation in response. Like, because what you're asking for is with, uh, restraint on one side, where there is a lack of restraint on another.

Andrew Doyle 37:58 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:59 And this is because of, uh, sort of a history of expectation, and I certainly, I have to assume as well that people on the right know that this is the case as well, that they're almost expected that this is the kind of response that they're going to have-

Andrew Doyle 38:10 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 38:10 ... that it is going to be a militaristic sort of response in that way. Now, I might be totally wrong. I'm totally open to somebody saying, "No, there is just as much political violence coming from the right or on the right," or the- that the bigger threat that is right of center or whatever it might be. Maybe that's t- the case, maybe it's not. But, uh, at least in terms of, like, how I'm seeing it, that personification seems to be true, that there's been more... There has been a- a- a type of leeway given to the left. Maybe some of it's top down because it's more toxically empathetic.

Andrew Doyle 38:36 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 38:37 It's cooler, it's currently in Vogue, et cetera. It- it just plays better, right? It does play better in sort of modern, like, secular, meritocratic equality culture. Like, it does.

Andrew Doyle 38:48 Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 38:48 At- at least on the surface it does, even if it doesn't deliver the promises that it keeps making. The concern is if you keep pushing and keep pushing and keep pushing, what's the response?

Andrew Doyle 38:59 Well, I- I- I've no doubt you're right. I mean, a lot of right-wingers have guns, don't they? A lot of right-wingers, you know, as you say, it is like the Big Brother phenomenon. Um, the truth is that... Well, firstly, the, I think the caveat should be that political violence is extremely rare.

Chris Williamson 39:15 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 39:16 So therefore, looking at statistics of which side is committing to more acts of violence is- is always gonna be tricky, because, I mean there was a, um, I saw a- a post about the degree of far right versus far left violence in America through a certain period of time.

Chris Williamson 39:32 Okay.

Andrew Doyle 39:32 And- and the right vastly, uh, um, was overrepresented within that.

Chris Williamson 39:37 Glad I caveated what I said.

Andrew Doyle 39:38 Yes, but on the other hand, uh, there was an article in Reason magazine analyzing the figures and showing that if you just extend the parameters by a year, it flips, or at least the difference dis- dissipates entirely.

Chris Williamson 39:49 Are you-

Andrew Doyle 39:49 Because-

Chris Williamson 39:50 ... bringing it up to the present day?

Andrew Doyle 39:51 Because political violence is so rare-

Chris Williamson 39:53 Right, okay.

Andrew Doyle 39:54 ... as soon-

Chris Williamson 39:54 You're talking with such tiny numbers-

Andrew Doyle 39:55 Exactly.

Chris Williamson 39:56 ... a couple of incidents can flip it.

Andrew Doyle 39:57 Yeah, exactly. It's like, it's like those studies that talk about the prevalence of far right violence against Islamist violence in America that tend to start after 2001, because if you go back a year-

Chris Williamson 40:07 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 40:08 ... you suddenly get an extra 3,000 deaths on the other side. Do you know what I mean?

Chris Williamson 40:11 Yeah, yeah.

Andrew Doyle 40:11 So- so it's a rare thing.

Chris Williamson 40:14 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 40:14 So what happened the other day in Utah is a rare, rare thing, and you shouldn't say that that is reflective of a polit- of a political affiliation, right? My point was that those extremes are becoming more tolerated. What you can s- clearly see is a greater toleration for that kind of thing in leftist discourse. You've also, of course, seen the riots, you know, in- in 2020. Uh, a lot of the pro- there were a lot of peaceful protests, by the way, but a lot of them flipped over into riots that actually ended up with people being killed.

Chris Williamson 40:42 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 40:42 Okay? Now, uh, it is true, and observably true, that we're not seeing that on the right in that way. There isn't that tendency, I suppose. Um, but as you say, if they ever did, we would be in a- a very bad situation.

Chris Williamson 40:57 Do you remember how long Charlottesville was reverberated?

Andrew Doyle 41:01 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 41:02 Uh, and I always remember thinking, like, "Wow, this has really got staying power. This must be a big part of American-"

Andrew Doyle 41:10 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 41:10 "... history."

Andrew Doyle 41:11 It... (sighs) Yeah. Can I ask a question?

Chris Williamson 41:15 No. Yes.

Andrew Doyle 41:16 Can I go to the toilet?

Chris Williamson 41:17 Yeah, absolutely.

Andrew Doyle 41:18 I don't-

Chris Williamson 41:18 It's because you've been drinking all of my-

Andrew Doyle 41:19 I know. I don't- I've got three-

Chris Williamson 41:20 ... tasty, carbonated, hydrating beverages.

Andrew Doyle 41:22 I've got three drinks.

Chris Williamson 41:23 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 41:24 And my bladder is, uh, h- has a limited capacity.

Chris Williamson 41:26 This- you- the- this is the sort of... You- you came to my house first.

Andrew Doyle 41:29 Yes.

Chris Williamson 41:30 It was cozy, but, uh, wholly under hydrated.

Andrew Doyle 41:34 Yes.

Chris Williamson 41:34 And now...

Andrew Doyle 41:35 This doesn't need to be part of the podcast. Like, you don't need to film me doing it.

Chris Williamson 41:38 Okay.

Andrew Doyle 41:38 Unless you're all about the naturalism.

Chris Williamson 41:40 I am.

Andrew Doyle 41:40 And- and- oh, okay.

Chris Williamson 41:41 Get in there.

Andrew Doyle 41:41 Let's go then.

Chris Williamson 41:42 I'm following, I'm following.

Andrew Doyle 41:42 Come with me.

Chris Williamson 41:43 I've got, I've got the Zoom lens.

Andrew Doyle 41:44 All right.

Chris Williamson 41:44 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 41:45 Won't need them then.

Chris Williamson 41:47 (laughs) Oh, of course.

Andrew Doyle 41:50 I didn't- I didn't, I wasn't getting uncomfortable with the questioning.

Chris Williamson 41:52 Mm-hmm. Okay.

Andrew Doyle 41:55 Ah.

Chris Williamson 41:56 All righty. Uh, I said, um-

Andrew Doyle 41:58 Yeah, so you-

Chris Williamson 41:58 ... are people concerned about the (swooshing sound) fucking greater rebound off the wall?

Andrew Doyle 42:04 I mean, what would happen if, what would happen if the right rioted in the way that the left did in 2020? I mean, I think it would be absolutely terrifying.

Chris Williamson 42:14 Certainly better armed.

Andrew Doyle 42:16 Yeah, it would be, it would be bad. I mean, uh, that's the, that's the point, isn't it? That's why I talk about getting your own house in order, you know? That's why I think mainstream leftist commentators should stop misusing language and stop branding everyone they disagree with as fascist, and... Because, you know, it does... If you genuinely thought there were fascists on the rise and that fascism was the dominant force, you would have a responsibility to oppose it, and I think that's what a lot of people are feeling like, because they've bought into the rhetoric. They've bought into the language.

Chris Williamson 42:44 Well, again, this is, uh, you know, people doing good, thinking they're doing good. Look, you're straight-

Andrew Doyle 42:48 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 42:48 ... back, you're straight back on the fluids. You'd just go-

Andrew Doyle 42:50 Am I not allowed to drink the fluid?

Chris Williamson 42:51 Of course you are. No, no, again, that's... I love it. I love it. Ryan was like, "Hey, do you want another, should we get him another water?" I'm like, "Mate, he's had enough. Do you know what I mean? You've had enough."

Andrew Doyle 42:58 It's just my bladder that I'm worried about.

Chris Williamson 42:59 No, that's fine. Don't worry about it. Um, so, you know, we've been talking, between me and you and- and a bunch of our friends in the UK, we've been talking about this stuff for quite a while now.

Andrew Doyle 43:08 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 43:08 I think the last conversation me and you had was 2018, 2019, and it's been this sort of consistent theme.I used to have a little bit that I said to my friends that were internet marketers, which was some of the smartest people of our generation have had their time taken up working out how to make people click on ads.

Andrew Doyle 43:24 Yes.

Chris Williamson 43:25 Uh, which I think is true. I also fear that some of the smartest people of our generation have had their time taken up working out whether a man is a man and a woman is a woman or not.

Andrew Doyle 43:35 Yeah, no.

Chris Williamson 43:36 And I do w-wonder about the loss of human progress and productivity. I mean, certainly not from me or you, we weren't gonna do anything anyway.

Andrew Doyle 43:46 Sure.

Chris Williamson 43:47 But, um, from people smarter than me or you. This, the, uh, meme and the counter-meme and the counter-counter-meme and the sort of subsequent reverberations-

Andrew Doyle 43:59 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 43:59 ... that, the aftershock that's happened from, um, "This is something that I think is a righteous cause." "That's illogical, you shouldn't be thinking about it." "That's bigoted, you don't understand the problem." "That's misaligned, you don't actually realize what it is that you're fighting for." Like, and, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, is this weird memetic fucking cultural catnip that people seem to be unable to put down. And, uh, the main reason that I hope that this stuff fucks off is so that we can actually talk about other ideas.

Andrew Doyle 44:29 I agree wholeheartedly. Uh, it is a waste of time. At the same time, it's essential, insofar as, if you ignore it, it doesn't just go away, the, the falsehood wins.

Chris Williamson 44:41 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 44:42 It's act- there's actually pretty much nothing more important than the difference between truth and fiction. And I would say it is important when you have a movement that comes along that pretends to be progressive and is, uh, sterilizing young people for no reason other than ideology, uh, destroying women's rights, destroying gay rights, rehabilitating racism. Actually, those are really important things. And the idea of censorship, and, you know, there's nothing more important than resisting authoritarianism, 'cause it's about what kind of society you want to live in. So, you know, I, but I take your point. I mean, look, I'm, my background is writing musicals and drama and comedy, and I've been dragged into this.

Chris Williamson 45:19 Ask for this war.

Andrew Doyle 45:20 I was dragged into this, like Pacino says in Godfather III, you know, completely against my will. Um, but I don't regret it or think it wasn't worthwhile. But I think all the books I've written about this, I, I would've much rather written books about other things, about literature or, you know, create other th- go back to writing scripts and comedy-

Chris Williamson 45:39 If you want, yeah.

Andrew Doyle 45:40 ... which is-

Chris Williamson 45:40 Okay, I, I wanna do, uh, take a slightly different tact than we've had in previous conversations. Can you give me, first off-

Andrew Doyle 45:50 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 45:50 ... the steel man case, the strongest case, fairest case that you can for what the progressive movement, what the woke movement, uh, either was or is trying to achieve-

Andrew Doyle 46:01 Yes.

Chris Williamson 46:01 ... at the moment?

Andrew Doyle 46:02 Society, uh, has made great progress since the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and there are laws to protect people from discrimination due to protected characteristics, for instance race, sex, sexual orientation. And yet, racism, sexism, homophobia, et cetera, uh, does still linger in society. The question is, why? And this is the key question of critical race theory. It's, you know, which obviously as you know started as a legal, uh, discipline. We have all these laws in place, we have a society where we have progressed sufficiently to understand that the consensus is that racism is wrong. Why does it still exist? And it still exists, I'm speaking as a critical race theorist here, it still exists because society is organized around the, uh, the dominance of white people for the benefit of white people. And therefore, there are power structures that are embedded within society that we cannot necessarily easily see. And therefore, it is up to people, uh, like me and my voice as a critical race theorist, to study these various degree. You need queer theorists, you need people like Robin DiAngelo studying whiteness so that we have-

Chris Williamson 47:05 Is this the steel man?

Andrew Doyle 47:07 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 47:07 Is this the strongest-

Andrew Doyle 47:08 This is what they, this is their argument.

Chris Williamson 47:09 But is this the strongest way that you could put forward that case on their behalf? Like, what, what are they trying to achieve if you strip away the, the, um-

Andrew Doyle 47:19 But that's what they say. They say that they are, uh, detecting these p- and, and resisting and interrupting, which is a phrase they use, these power structures that are embedded, so deeply embedded in society that we, we can no longer see them. This is why Robin DiAngelo in, in White Fragility t- makes the case that racism today is, in a way, worse than Jim Crow, because Jim Crow was an overt racist system that you could see. The current racist system is invisible, except for white women like her who can see it. Right? Now, look, I'm obviously mocking at the same time, but it is their case, right? So that is the, the... And, and, you know, I don't disagree with them that racism still lingers and needs to be tackled, right? So that is why I believe that is the steel man case, because I do agree on that point. But I don't think detecting racism where it doesn't exist, detecting it where the evidence quite clearly shows it doesn't exist, in fact, the opposite is true, uh, that's not helpful. That's not the way you tackle racism. You tackle racism in the liberal way-

Chris Williamson 48:14 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 48:15 ... which, and, and I know that's difficult in America, 'cause Americans don't know what liberal means. Uh, they think it means left wing. You tackle it in the liberal way, you identify it as and when it occurs, and engage, right? That's, I mean, isn't that a fair way to steel man th- the case?

Chris Williamson 48:29 Uh, I'm not convinced it's the strongest. I think it's maybe the most accurate of how they would put it forward themselves.

Andrew Doyle 48:35 Sure, but you're asking me to therefore defend their case better than they have.

Chris Williamson 48:39 Yes.

Andrew Doyle 48:40 Well, it's not a defensible case. So all I can do is replicate what they say.

Chris Williamson 48:44 Understood. Second, uh, idea here. Let's say that you were, uh, the person in charge of coordinating left of center political culture.

Andrew Doyle 48:58 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 48:58 Uh, and that you could lay out some battle plans in order to make the future of left contribution to politics, culture, governance, all that stuff better.

Andrew Doyle 49:11 Yes.

Chris Williamson 49:12 What would you advise people to do? What should they be focusing on? What should they be jettisoning?

Andrew Doyle 49:17 Uh-... you would jettison woke politics because wokeness is not authentically left wing. Because to be authentically left wing, as the entire history of left wing writing and thought tells us, is to be, uh, interested in class inequality, economic inequality.

Chris Williamson 49:33 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 49:34 And they have completely jettisoned that. They have substituted money for identity, group identity.

Chris Williamson 49:40 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 49:41 And that's where the problem starts, that's where the problem started, what you call the cultural turn of Marxism. What genuinely, authentically left wing people want to do, I mean, they're, they recognize that pronouns and multiple gender identity, this is a bourgeois luxury, this is a middle class luxury. The woke movement, calling itself left wing, created cancel culture. The only people who were able to resist cancel culture were the uncancelable billionaires, millionaires. Uh, it also arranged a system whereby, uh, workers, working class people were told that they were all racist, whether they believed it or not, and they had to undertake unconscious bias sessions, uh, retraining, reprogramming. And if they objected, uh, they would probably be fired or disciplined, and the woke would side with the multi-billion dollar corporations over the workers. Any, any movement that arranges things so that only the super rich get to say what they think cannot be said to be authentically left wing. Now, I understand why I get criticism for saying that because people say, "Oh, you're saying wokeness isn't on the, isn't left." I understand that its origins are in the left. I completely get that, uh, and, philosophically speaking. I understand. But it's a, a perversion of Marxism, it's a perversion of those original ideas.

Chris Williamson 50:55 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 50:56 Um, so if I were a left wing campaigner, a socialist campaigner, I would say, "Let's get back to the concept of the means of production, of what socialist writers have said for generations, and not waste our time with the politics of group identity, which ou- ultimately, above all, attacks the working class."

Chris Williamson 51:18 On that, sounds an awful lot like Gary Stevenson. It sounds an awful lot like the kind of lines that he's talking on.

Andrew Doyle 51:24 I don't know who Gary Stevenson is.

Chris Williamson 51:26 Gary's economics.

Andrew Doyle 51:27 Oh, well that's why, 'cause I'm hopelessly inadequate when it comes to economics.

Chris Williamson 51:31 You know Gary's economics?

Andrew Doyle 51:32 No.

Chris Williamson 51:33 You don't know Gary's, okay, well I'm, I'm looking forward-

Andrew Doyle 51:34 You, I can see a shock in your eye.

Chris Williamson 51:36 Uh, he is, as far as I can see, the, uh, quickest-growing left of center commentator in the UK.

Andrew Doyle 51:44 Very nice.

Chris Williamson 51:44 By, by distance.

Andrew Doyle 51:45 Okay.

Chris Williamson 51:45 And he-

Andrew Doyle 51:46 Is he online? Is that the-

Chris Williamson 51:47 Yeah, he's on YouTube a lot. Um, he's got an honorary doctorate from, from, uh, UUR, URCS or whatever it's called recently, wherever Louise Perry went. And, uh, he debated Daniel Priestly and he talks a lot about economic inequality, lots and lots and lots.

Andrew Doyle 52:05 Well, I apologize to Gary for not knowing who you are.

Chris Williamson 52:07 I, I think that, I, I highly advise that you sort of track him.

Andrew Doyle 52:10 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:11 I, I think he's very, very worth sort of putting a GPS tracker on because, um-

Andrew Doyle 52:15 Does it tally with what I'm saying?

Chris Williamson 52:16 Yeah, 100%. 100%.

Andrew Doyle 52:17 When I-

Chris Williamson 52:17 I haven't, I mean, he's certainly left of center, uh, massively so. I'm, he, I'm sure he's talked about it at some point. But I really don't hear him talking about race, about group identity, about, certainly not about sexual orientation or fucking gender, you know, any of this stuff.

Andrew Doyle 52:32 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:33 Um, but he is hard in the paint on wealth tax, millionaires and billionaires, working people-

Andrew Doyle 52:41 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:41 ... how, cost of living crisis, housing, like really fucking hard on it.

Andrew Doyle 52:44 Yeah, well that's great. I mean, that's not, that's not to say that the super rich can't be left wing. I mean, take someone like Tony Benn, I think he was aristocratic virtually-

Chris Williamson 52:52 Right.

Andrew Doyle 52:52 ... and he was a major left wing voice. Uh, but what I'm saying is that the, the, the, the extre- the activists are predominantly, overwhelmingly upper middle class fighting for their own interests, right? I mean, we see this again and again. Uh, net zero, which is gonna affect the, uh, the, the poorest people worst of all. It's why the posher people... It's why whenever, whenever you see one of these activists throwing orange paint over a work of art, uh, and you hear them talk, they sound like a caricature. They sound like someone from a P.G. Wodehouse novel.

Chris Williamson 53:20 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 53:21 And it's so strange hearing, it's like, it's like, it's like I've, I've dressed up and made, made it a satirical character and I'm doing it.

Chris Williamson 53:27 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 53:27 You know? They have names like, what was the name of, Hugo Ponsford was one of the names of the Colston Hall-

Chris Williamson 53:32 Humphrey...

Andrew Doyle 53:32 That's a joke. That's a joke, like, but it's true. Um, so, you know, when a, when a movement is so dominated by the upper middle classes, by the, by the privileged and they're lecturing you about privilege, I mean, for a start, it's funny, and it opens itself up to satire.

Chris Williamson 53:48 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 53:49 That-

Chris Williamson 53:49 It s- does sound like a sketch that you would have written in your-

Andrew Doyle 53:52 Right.

Chris Williamson 53:52 ... earlier career.

Andrew Doyle 53:52 Right. I mean, that's, that's why people saying, "We're the underdogs," when every major billion dollar corporation is behind you, when Meghan Markle and the pr- and a, and a actual prince is behind you. You know? When, when academia is behind you, when the, when the, when the government is behind you, this is, you're not oppressed. Like, these people are the establishment.

Chris Williamson 54:11 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 54:12 Um, but what a ruse, eh? You can be privileged, rich, establishment, still call yourself the underdog, and still have a cause.

Chris Williamson 54:19 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 54:20 Isn't that kind of interesting? Like, s- so th- these are not genuine socialists, are they?

Chris Williamson 54:25 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 54:26 They're not relinquishing their power. And we, we saw the same with Brexit, you know, all of a sudden, you know, Brexit, it was the same thing, you know, we had people claiming to be on the left cheerleading for a, uh, an international trading bloc that has capitalism baked into the heart of its constitution, that is run predominantly by right wing politicians, Thatcherites, right? By, by, you know, by people like Juncker and, uh, y- you know, Donald Tusk. I mean, what's go- this is not, why are you cheerleading for that person that you're, I thought you were left wing, weren't you? And because it was never about the EU, like the EU has alway- left wingers have always opposed the EU.

Chris Williamson 55:01 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 55:02 You know, I think the Labour manifesto early '80s, '82, explicitly said, "We're coming out of the EC." The, like, Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn, who's been campaigning to get out for years and then pretended he wa- he didn't, as if he voted to, to remain. There's no chance. You know, left wi- left wingers understood and always understood-... that the EU was a, a fundamentally right-wing body.

Chris Williamson 55:22 How does, uh, environmentalism fold into the woke movement?

Andrew Doyle 55:26 Well, because I think what happens with the woke movement is that, because it's an ideology, it's an, uh, an ill thought through ideology, and it's more about, uh, displaying fealty to a set of causes that you don't need to know all that much about. If, anyway, this is why if you, if you were someone I didn't know and you said a woke thing, in support of, say, Black Lives Matter or Queers for Palestine, or something else, I would be able to tell you your opinions on every single subject under the sun.

Chris Williamson 55:54 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 55:54 I've never been proven wrong on that, by the way. You know, I, I, you, you don't get that, that, those disagreements. You don't get... Like, it's a set of rules, it's a script.

Chris Williamson 56:01 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 56:01 And that's why Greta Thunberg can pivot from environmental activism into pro-Palestine activism. It's easy for her. Just put on that, what, what's it called? A kefir? No, that's a drink, isn't it?

Chris Williamson 56:14 I'd like that.

Andrew Doyle 56:15 It's a great drink.

Chris Williamson 56:16 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 56:16 I've only recently discovered it.

Chris Williamson 56:17 It's wonderful.

Andrew Doyle 56:18 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 56:18 It's the best way to get, uh, what is it? What's that stuff? Um, uh, like, uh, cultured s- like, probiotics?

Andrew Doyle 56:27 Bacteria.

Chris Williamson 56:27 Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's good for you.

Andrew Doyle 56:28 I mean, I don't know what it's doing in there.

Chris Williamson 56:29 It's better than sauerkraut, which was the other alternative.

Andrew Doyle 56:31 Isn't that just cabbage?

Chris Williamson 56:33 B- But it's, yeah, it's pickled. I don't want that.

Andrew Doyle 56:34 It's pickled cabbage.

Chris Williamson 56:35 Yeah, I don't want that.

Andrew Doyle 56:36 You don't wanna be swigging that in the morning, do you?

Chris Williamson 56:37 No, I want yogurt. I want, I wa- I want a nice tasty yogurt that says that it's good for me.

Andrew Doyle 56:40 It has the illusion of... Uh, it's creamy, isn't it?

Chris Williamson 56:42 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 56:43 But it's not really that bad for you.

Chris Williamson 56:44 And this is what she's been wearing.

Andrew Doyle 56:47 She's been wearing?

Chris Williamson 56:48 Dousing herself-

Andrew Doyle 56:49 Yogurt?

Chris Williamson 56:49 ... with kefir. (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 56:50 All over herself?

Chris Williamson 56:50 Now, I would, I personally, I would support-

Andrew Doyle 56:53 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 56:53 ... Greta Thunberg if she came out doused in kefir.

Andrew Doyle 56:57 I would absolutely support her. I think she needs to be more performative and theatrical. Absolutely.

Chris Williamson 57:02 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 57:02 Although I liked her taking a little flotilla to, to the, to the border.

Chris Williamson 57:06 Uh, Rory Sutherland was sat there a couple of months ago, and he was explaining to me just this wonderful, in his Rory way, wonderful idea that, um, people look at a guy in a helicopter and think that that's somebody who's really rich.

Andrew Doyle 57:17 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 57:18 But they don't understand that that is a person who, yes, is cash rich, but is evidently time poor, because he needs to get somewhere fast.

Andrew Doyle 57:28 Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 57:28 He said, "What you really need is somebody who is using a, um, dirigible. Because that shows that they are both cash rich and time rich." Because the pace that they're going to get anywhere in a hot air b- a blimp-

Andrew Doyle 57:44 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 57:44 ... or a hot air balloon would be even richer because you, you don't even get to choose where you go. It's like, "Where are you gonna go?" "Wherever the wind takes me." Now, that is real wealth.

Andrew Doyle 57:53 Right.

Chris Williamson 57:53 Right? Time, time rich, so time rich that that might not even arrive.

Andrew Doyle 57:57 What was Greta Thunberg's vehicle?

Chris Williamson 57:59 Flotilla.

Andrew Doyle 57:59 It was a flotilla, wasn't it?

Chris Williamson 58:00 Yeah. But-

Andrew Doyle 58:00 It wasn't a speedboat.

Chris Williamson 58:01 Exactly. So, that actually is a, a type of privilege, in a way.

Andrew Doyle 58:05 Yeah, and she was Instagramming the hell out of it. And she was there with the Onion Knight from Game of Thrones. He was there. You know, the g- the actor who plays the Onion Knight. He was on the same boat. So it was a bit of a celebrity hangout.

Chris Williamson 58:16 He, he, he was, he's a, he was playing a Geordie in Game of Thrones, I think.

Andrew Doyle 58:19 Was he?

Chris Williamson 58:19 He had a bit of a Geordie accent.

Andrew Doyle 58:21 Did he?

Chris Williamson 58:21 Yeah. Which is (overlapping) ... suspicious of him ever since.

Andrew Doyle 58:24 You should. I mean, it's a dodgy place, Newcastle.

Chris Williamson 58:26 Environmentalism.

Andrew Doyle 58:28 Well, I mean, you know, it's just one of the, I mean, it's, it's one of those... Look, hey, uh, you know, maybe they, maybe environmentalists have a case, right? My point is, it actually doesn't matter about the, the details of the belief. It's one of the approved beliefs within the intersectional, uh...

Chris Williamson 58:43 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 58:44 You know, it's, it's the, it's the hydra, the woke hydra. If you imagine a, a beast with many heads-

Chris Williamson 58:48 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 58:48 ... there's, there's a queer theory head, genderist head, there's a race, a BLM head, there's an environmental head. You know, they, they, they... And they're all connected to the same intersectional beast. If you imagine this creature, you know? And if you lop off a head, the head grows back. I think in m- the original myth, the, the... two heads.

Chris Williamson 59:06 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 59:07 So one... Yeah. Uh, let's not take the analogy too far.

Chris Williamson 59:09 Yeah. Exactly.

Andrew Doyle 59:10 But, uh, but what I would say is, yeah, I mean, that's the ca- I mean, I mistrust any ideology. I mistrust anyone who doesn't think for themselves on individual issues but will consult a chart or a book or a, a set of rules 'cause it means you're not really thinking for yourself. You're-

Chris Williamson 59:23 Thinking for yourself's hard.

Andrew Doyle 59:24 It's the hardest, right? Someone explain this to me, someone who knows a lot more about this than me, is that there's a thing called the cognitive miser model. And that we instinctively and evolutionarily, uh, always opt for the easiest solution, or the thing that's easier to understand.

Chris Williamson 59:38 Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andrew Doyle 59:39 And there mi- Look, I'm, I'm, I'm, that's secondhand. But that makes sense, doesn't it? Because thinking is one of the hardest thi- Like, the ha-

Chris Williamson 59:45 Very ethical.

Andrew Doyle 59:45 It's so hard to... You know, when you read something and you think, "Oh, I'd... That's making me think in a different way. That's ma-" Y- a lot of people just throw the book away at that, at that point.

Chris Williamson 59:54 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 59:55 But what we should be cultivating, and this is why I, I, in my book, I go on about the, the chapter on education, 'cause we should be instilling this idea that that's the best thing. Like, when you ch- ch- ch- should challenge your certainties. You know, I just saw a tweet before I came in to see you about a university professor saying, "One of my students is telling me that Queen Elizabeth I was trans." And the slightest, gentlest pushback saying, "What's your evidence for that?" could result in a, a complaint to HR, so I'm scared to do so. But that's an example. A young person who knows nothing about the world, because none of us do when we're 18, telling a, an academic who studied history that Queen Elizabeth I was trans with not a shred of evidence, and the slightest pushback, will throw their whole world into, into some sort of tailspin.

Chris Williamson 1:00:36 The correction mechanism isn't there anymore. What-

Andrew Doyle 1:00:38 (clears throat)

Chris Williamson 1:00:38 What is-

Andrew Doyle 1:00:39 Queen Elizabeth I was not trans, by the way.

Chris Williamson 1:00:41 Okay. You know that for sure?

Andrew Doyle 1:00:43 (laughs) Yeah. Of course.

Chris Williamson 1:00:43 Okay. We don't know how she identifies. Uh-

Andrew Doyle 1:00:45 Well, I can tell you it wasn't they them pronouns.

Chris Williamson 1:00:48 I am interested in what's happening with the gays. I'm very interested.

Andrew Doyle 1:00:52 Are you?

Chris Williamson 1:00:52 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 1:00:53 You're coming over to our side?

Chris Williamson 1:00:54 Not yet. Not yet.

Andrew Doyle 1:00:55 Okay.

Chris Williamson 1:00:55 No. Well, just no. Although the internet has had its rumors for a while. This is a funny one. So, uh, Spotify miscaptioned a w- a sentence that I said on Rogan-

Andrew Doyle 1:01:06 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:01:07 ... uh, a year and a half ago. And I said, um, "So, me and my housemate, sometimes on an afternoon, we watch, uh, videos of motorcross." Uh, wada-baba-baba. And it's- (laughs) it captioned it, it must have used AI and tried to u- do it in context.

Andrew Doyle 1:01:20 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:01:20 And housemate's a very British term-

Andrew Doyle 1:01:23 ... do people not use that in America?

Chris Williamson 1:01:24 It seems not. Like, roommate, uh-

Andrew Doyle 1:01:27 Okay.

Chris Williamson 1:01:27 ... would, would be the equivalent. Housemate, no. So it transcribed it as husband. So, "Me and my husband watch motocross on a-"

Andrew Doyle 1:01:34 Wow. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:01:35 ... on a, on a Sunday afternoon." And, uh, I got the number of, um, screenshots that went around of, "See, told you, I knew, knew he was always, knew he was batting for the other side. Here it is, here's the irrefutable proof."

Andrew Doyle 1:01:45 Wow.

Chris Williamson 1:01:45 I'm like, first off, if it was irrefutable proof, I haven't exactly been hiding it very well by saying it on the biggest podcast in the world. Secondly, I was watching motocross, that's the least gay thing that we can think of. Anyway, what's happening with woke homophobia and the gays?

Andrew Doyle 1:02:00 Well, as you know, there's a chapter in my book entitled Woke Homophobia. So, uh, thank you for teeing that up. Uh, (laughs) what I would say is, what's happening is that the genderist movement has been embraced among a lot of gay people because they've bought into this idea that there is such thing as the LGBTQIA+ community.

Chris Williamson 1:02:20 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 1:02:20 The problem with that is after the first three letters, you have people who are... whose ideology is antagonistic to gay rights. It's the opposite. It's like trying to, uh, shoehorn two opposing phenomena into the one thing.

Chris Williamson 1:02:32 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 1:02:33 The premise of gay rights has always been that there are a minority in any given population who are innately attracted to their own sex. If you come along and say biological sex isn't a thing, and that if you are excluding from your dating pool people of your own... uh, people of the opposite sex who happen to identify into your sex, uh, then you are, in fact, a bigot. That is... I mean, let me give you an example. Grindr. I don't know if you're familiar with Grindr. Uh, not- This is a test. ... not intimately.

Chris Williamson 1:03:05 Okay, it's a test while you're-

Andrew Doyle 1:03:06 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Me and my... Well, me and my husband.

Chris Williamson 1:03:07 Your husband knows about Grindr.

Andrew Doyle 1:03:07 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly, exactly.

Chris Williamson 1:03:09 Uh, well, you know, this is a gay hookup app. Uh, you're not allowed to filter out women who identify as men on that app, even though the people on the app are there for sex. Um, I'm not on the app, by the way. I should just emphasize that. Um-

Andrew Doyle 1:03:24 I imagine, I imagine Grindr, to me, seems like sort of the German engineering of the dating apps. It... There's no... There can't be much messing about on there.

Chris Williamson 1:03:36 No, of course not.

Andrew Doyle 1:03:37 Right. But this seems to really get in the way. This seems antithetical-

Chris Williamson 1:03:41 It-

Andrew Doyle 1:03:41 ... to the philosophy, the underlying principle of Grindr.

Chris Williamson 1:03:44 Quite.

Andrew Doyle 1:03:44 Again, I must... I, I need to reiterate that I'm not intimately familiar with this. This-

Chris Williamson 1:03:49 The lady doth protests.

Andrew Doyle 1:03:50 Whatever. All right.

Chris Williamson 1:03:52 No, no, of course.

Andrew Doyle 1:03:52 Okay.

Chris Williamson 1:03:52 Uh, yeah, you're right. On the website, on Grindr's website, it actually says, "We are not allowing you..." You can filter for all sorts of preferences. Height, weight, whatever, age. "We're not gonna allow you to filter out women who identify as men because that's bigoted. That makes you a bigot." It says it in black and white. What that is is a gay hookup site shaming gay men for being gay, because sexuality is discriminatory.

Andrew Doyle 1:04:17 Well, what- If men wanna sleep with men, it's not because they're bigots, it's because they're gay. Now, this shouldn't have to be spelled out. Again, it comes back to that point, why are we spending our time explaining the obvious? So what you have is the genderist movement is an anti-gay movement, quite fundamentally. Not just because it shames lesbians for not being attracted to people with penises, not because it shames gay men for not being attracted to people with vaginas, although that's a big part of it. There's also the fact that it, uh, seeks the mutilation, sterilization, and castration of gay youth, which I think is a pretty extreme anti-gay position. You saw LGB Alliance, which is the only gay rights organization of any worth in the UK, uh, had, had a conference last year where a group of genderist activists released cockroaches and insects and locusts, a plague, into the auditorium. Literal plague. Right. That is the sort of thing neo-Nazis would have done, wasn't it, back in the day, at a gay conference, a gay rights conference? It is, by definition, an anti-gay movement. And that can't be emphasized enough. And this is why a lot of gay people hate the Progress Pride flag and say it doesn't represent them. When they see that Progress Pride flag, they see it as a homophobic flag, a flag that is against their interests. And that's why it's not acceptable for the Mayor of London, for instance, to, uh, you know, festoon the city with a flag that basically says gay people aren't welcome here, just because he doesn't understand the implications of how divisive that flag is. Now, this is, uh, something that's not understood. In America, particularly, support for gay marriage is going down. You see a lot of people blaming gay people for the excesses of woke genderists who want to twerk in front of three-year-olds or have drag, sexualized drag queen performances for kids. Mm-hmm. But that is not the gay rights people. Those are the people who are working against gay rights quite explicitly. So it's weird to blame the victims of this for perpetrating it. It's a complete misunderstanding of the situation. And it's very dangerous. And that's why gay people really have to overtly and vocally reject the forced teaming with the QIA+ stuff.

Chris Williamson 1:06:21 Well, there isn't a massive amount in common.

Andrew Doyle 1:06:25 There's nothing in common.

Chris Williamson 1:06:26 Between those groups.

Andrew Doyle 1:06:27 The idea of sexual, sexual orientation has nothing to do with gender identity. Gender identity is a, uh, an esoteric, pseudo-religious belief system which revolves around the idea of a soul, a mismatch between soul and body.

Chris Williamson 1:06:39 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 1:06:40 Sexual orientation is who you're attracted to. The two have actually nothing in common. It's like force teaming vegans with carnivores. It doesn't make sense.

Chris Williamson 1:06:48 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 1:06:49 So that's why more and more people are rejecting it. And, and that message, I think, has to be s- screamed loud and clear, because a lot of people, particularly on the right, have, have come to the view that it's all the same thing. And part of the problem is that a lot of gay people have, again, been fooled, hoodwinked into believing-

Chris Williamson 1:07:05 But surely, I mean, look, as far as I'm aware, from my exclusively outside of the tent position-

Andrew Doyle 1:07:12 Yes.

Chris Williamson 1:07:12 ... when it comes to the meat and potatoes of what's going on in... with the gay community, the genitals are a really big part of that. Like, that's like a... that's, you know, like a core tenet of what's going on there.

Andrew Doyle 1:07:30 Certainly an aspect.

Chris Williamson 1:07:31 Yeah, yeah.This needs to come into... Co- you made the point earlier on, a sort of luxury beliefs type position, right, that people that, uh, live in gated communities can say, "Defund the police," because they're not the ones that have to deal with- Yeah. ... inner-city crime, et cetera. Um, (clears throat) seems to me, rather shortsighted if people in the Gs and the Ls and the Bs... The, the Gs and the LS I think are a little suspicious of anyway, but that's a separate-

Andrew Doyle 1:08:01 Some are.

Chris Williamson 1:08:02 Yeah. Um, they are gonna get sort of sh- shot in the foot, or at least shot in the algorithm on Grindr at some point by permitting this sort of encroachment, territory encroachment thing, this conflation of sexual orientation with gender identity with, uh, w- w- whatever the sort of next thing is. And that is... Given how important the genitals are, that is a price. That's, you're, you're really putting your money where your mouth is with that.

Andrew Doyle 1:08:32 Yes.

Chris Williamson 1:08:33 Has, has no one realized that that's like a, a potential-

Andrew Doyle 1:08:36 Well, they have because, you know, your sexual orientation doesn't lie. You know what you find attractive and if you, if your ideology puts you in a position where you're saying, "I'm going to have sex with someone I do not desire just to make my point-"

Chris Williamson 1:08:49 For the cause.

Andrew Doyle 1:08:50 I mean, wow, that's, that's tough. That's not an easy thing to do.

Chris Williamson 1:08:54 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 1:08:54 Um, so, you know, you have a situation now where lesbians in Australia, it's illegal for them to gather without men present who want to be there, men who identify as women, uh, because it's considered, uh, discriminatory to exclude, uh, those individuals. Um, that is an anti-gay law, quite palpably. Uh, you have... Lesbian dating sites are now replete with people with penises and beards. But of course, lesbians-

Chris Williamson 1:09:22 I didn't realize I was a lesbian. I have been my whole life.

Andrew Doyle 1:09:25 There you are.

Chris Williamson 1:09:26 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 1:09:26 There you are. See, see how easy it is? You see? And, and you think it's a joke, but you could go on a lesbian dating app and this is actually more sinister.

Chris Williamson 1:09:34 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 1:09:35 Something else has happened where, on Grindr for instance, 'cause there's a lot of y- young women on there who have been told the lie that if they have surgery and take hormones, gay men will find them attractive. They don't. And there are now straight men going on Grindr to pick up women who think they're men because it's an eas- because it's an easy target, right? Now, that's really expl-

Chris Williamson 1:09:59 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 1:10:00 Now, look, that's really exploitative, isn't it? Because it's-

Chris Williamson 1:10:03 Jesus Christ. (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 1:10:04 I know. These are vulnerable people, by the way. These are people who genuinely think they've changed sex.

Chris Williamson 1:10:07 Oh my God.

Andrew Doyle 1:10:08 And they haven't.

Chris Williamson 1:10:09 Okay.

Andrew Doyle 1:10:09 And you see their, those awful leaked screenshots of people sort of complaining like, "Why does no one find me attractive? You know, I'm trying to pick up men. Why doesn't..." Because you're a woman and you're going to gay bars. I had a message from a friend who was in a sex club in Berlin saying, "There's, there's like women in here who've had their breasts removed who think they're men and..." You know, I hate to put it crudely-

Chris Williamson 1:10:28 Stuck in a corner.

Andrew Doyle 1:10:28 I hate to put it crudely, but it's a boner killer.

Chris Williamson 1:10:31 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 1:10:31 Like no, no one in that, no one in that sex club wants to have sex anymore because they don't find women attractive. It's not that they hate women or that they're mis- Same reason for lesbian. Lesbians-

Chris Williamson 1:10:39 They've got preferences.

Andrew Doyle 1:10:40 Lesbians don't... They're not misandrist because they don't want to sleep with someone with a penis. It's, they're lesbians.

Chris Williamson 1:10:44 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 1:10:45 This shouldn't be... It's not rocket science.

Chris Williamson 1:10:47 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 1:10:47 And so this is a, you know, this kind of shaming of gay people for being gay, isn't that weird that that's now coming from people who think they're on the left and progressive? Isn't that-

Chris Williamson 1:10:57 Well, that was a, you know, it still sticks in my mind. I think it might be in our first ever episode where you told me about this story of a, uh, the father of a young boy who was pretty effeminate and had decided that he was a girl and that had been affirmed, w- I don't think chemically yet, but would, he was gonna begin to identify as this girl. And they'd asked the father sort of how he felt about it, and he said something to the effect of, "I'm just so glad that I don't need to see my little boy mincing around the garden anymore."

Andrew Doyle 1:11:29 Yeah. It was in a documentary called Trans Kids, Who Knows Best? I think it was Channel 4.

Chris Williamson 1:11:33 A sort of rehabilitated homophobia thing.

Andrew Doyle 1:11:35 But the insiders and whistleblowers at the Tavistock Paediatric Gender Clinic said that homophobia was endemic among parents and even among some members of staff, some clinicians.

Chris Williamson 1:11:45 What do you think that says about human nature that, um, we, yeah, parents are somehow more accepting of their son or daughter identifying as a different gender than they are of their son or daughter being attracted to people of the same sex?

Andrew Doyle 1:12:05 Well, two things. I would say it's the mentality of the Iranian regime, 'cause of course in Iran they'll kill you for being gay, but they'll fund you if you wanna get a sex change so that you're no longer gay. Uh, they would rather have the facsimile of heterosexuality rather than homosexuality, right? It's, it's, it's rampant anti-gay homophobia, isn't it? It's, it's, it's extreme, but I'm not surprised by it. I think... I'll tell you why. I mean, like of all the kind of (sighs) discriminatory ideas, homophobia I kind of get the most. And the reason for that is the Sex Act is so powerful, is so, is so potent and there is a disgust response-

Chris Williamson 1:12:47 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 1:12:48 ... with sexual activity that you don't-

Chris Williamson 1:12:49 It's felt viscerally.

Andrew Doyle 1:12:50 ... that you don't like, right? Yeah?

Chris Williamson 1:12:51 Yeah, yeah.

Andrew Doyle 1:12:52 And that doesn't mean that you are... You hate people for their different inclinations, but you yourself have a disgust response, right? So I remember seeing a video of Richard Dawkins looking at gay pornography of two elderly men having sex.

Chris Williamson 1:13:05 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 1:13:05 And, uh, and he's saying, "Oh, no, I don't like that," et cetera. "Ugh." You know? But that doesn't mean he hates gay men who want to have sex who are in their 80s or whatever. It's just... And g- good on them if they're still doing it in their 80s, by the way. But he's saying, "Ugh." His response is disgust. Now, that's why I think homophobia will never go away, because I think it's an instinctive response for a lot of people.

Chris Williamson 1:13:27 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 1:13:27 And I think a lot of parents-

Chris Williamson 1:13:28 I don't want that.

Andrew Doyle 1:13:30 Right.

Chris Williamson 1:13:30 Therefore, it makes me feel like this. Is... S- so a question there, is that homophobia?

Andrew Doyle 1:13:36 Well, the word is massively misused. I don't like it really, because the word implies something pathological, doesn't it? Like that you have a fear-

Chris Williamson 1:13:44 Conscious prejudice.

Andrew Doyle 1:13:45 Yeah. Yeah, like I don't think it, uh... In a lot of cases it's just-

Chris Williamson 1:13:47 It's like saying I'm like cockroachaphobic, right?

Andrew Doyle 1:13:50 Right.

Chris Williamson 1:13:50 Not to make the comparison between...

Andrew Doyle 1:13:52 But then on the other hand, words are fluid and like the, the phrase arachnophobia is, you know, you, you're scared of spiders.

Chris Williamson 1:13:58 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 1:13:58 Sometimes it's a disgust response to f- spiders. It's a word that, you know, we shouldn't be too literal-minded and say anything with a phobia must mean fear, you know, because words, uh, evolve and all the rest of it. Um, but yeah, there's something about the... Yeah, the word is unsatisfactory because for instance, some people who just d- for instance, don't agree with gay marriage are branded as homophobic. Well, that's not fear or hatred. Often it's just religious conviction.

Chris Williamson 1:14:21 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 1:14:21 A different thing. Uh, often it comes from a good place, right? So, you know, a lot of my family probably are against that. I don't think they're evil bigots. Um, so I would say coming back to that disgust response.

Chris Williamson 1:14:36 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 1:14:37 Because I think that is there, because I think there is a, a resistance to the fact that a minority