Why Are We Yearning For Tradition In 2021? - Tim Stanley | Modern Wisdom Podcast 391

1. 0:00 – 0:54

   Intro

   1. TSTim Stanley0:00

      Liberalism has very good intentions. It wants us to be free. And over the course of a few hundred years, it builds strong institutions that allow us to be free. So it both has a good intent, and it also has a rational way of going about it. The problem with liberalism is that in constantly pushing freedom, and in placing so much weight upon reason as the way that we reach conclusions, it slowly begins to erode the basis for its own existence.

   2. CWChris Williamson0:31

      I've just got back from Italy, and I've managed to evade all of the culture war stuff. Basically, not been on Twitter or social media for a full week. And I've arrived back to find out that Ted Cruz is being accused of apologizing for Nazi salutes at a teachers meeting, and that Rishi's budget is racist or some other horse shit. So I've descended-

   3. TSTim Stanley0:51

      (laughs)

   4. CWChris Williamson0:51

      ... descended back into the muck and the mire, but you're here with me, so we're- we're

2. 0:54 – 6:44

   Why Tim is Interested in Tradition

   1. CWChris Williamson0:54

      both going into it today.

   2. TSTim Stanley0:55

      It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure.

   3. CWChris Williamson0:57

      Why are you interested in tradition?

   4. TSTim Stanley1:00

      I'm interested in tradition because I'm trying to find different ways to live. Uh, I think one of the problems with the modern world is we're encouraged to live in the present and we're encouraged to live for ourselves. And one of the great things about tradition is it- it does the complete opposite. It- it compels you to look backwards, to root your identity in the past rather than the here and the now. But it also compels you to submit some- to something other than yourself. Now, uh, that might all sound creepily medieval, and many people just hearing that will think, "I don't want any of that." Uh, but that's what so radical and revolutionary about it. And living in a democratic consumer society as we do, one of the things is you can choose the past you look back to and you can choose the things to submit to. But either way, I'm just interested in- in living beyond the here and the now, and all those things you've just described, which are- are so temporary and fleeting and- and very often distracting.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:53

      There's a blog post by a friend called David Perell, and he identified that the Lindy effect, which is how long certain ideas and pieces of art and books and stuff stay around, you can presume that however long they've been around for, they're going to be around for that much longer. So the classics are the classics for a reason. 1984 has been around for, whatever, 80 years or so now. That may continue, we can expect, for at least another 80 years moving forward. But he identified that almost all of the content that everybody consumes on a daily basis has been produced within the last 24 hours. That it's the most-

   6. TSTim Stanley2:27

      (laughs)

   7. CWChris Williamson2:27

      ... un-Lindy world that you could imagine. (laughs)

   8. TSTim Stanley2:30

      Right. Yeah. And isn't it extraordinary how we have never had so much information at our fingertips, yet it feels harder to learn and to retain information? I don't know about you, but I can, in the course of a day, learn so much, and by the end of it, have forgotten all of it. So it's- it's not just that it- a lot of what we're bu- bombarded with is nonsense or passing or fleeting, it's also our inability to retain it. Whereas those big things, those big central ideas, which partly because they've been around for so long we slightly resist and kick against, because we think we must always be doing something new, but those big ideas, they stick, uh, because they're powerful and they're easy to remember and they're embedded in the culture, so you can't escape them.

   9. CWChris Williamson3:12

      Is it an allure of novelty? Do you think that's why people always presume that new is better?

   10. TSTim Stanley3:17

       Yeah. It's definitely. It's- it's partly human condition, uh, the desire for something new, but also selfishness, um, and we all want to be the creator of our own world. We all want to feel like we're writing our own story, that we're in power and we're in command. But this is also a philosophy which has been embedded in Western culture since about the 18th century. I mean, others would argue that it actually dates before then. You can, uh, you can go all the way back to, um, Athens and Rome and see much of this as well. But certainly since the Enlightenment, this- this idea has been woven into us that we must be skeptical, that we must seek the new, that we must always doubt existing knowledge, we must always question and challenge it. But I think in the last, uh, last sort of 20 or 30 years, that's been, uh, we've entered a period of hyper-skepticism, uh, hyper-novelty, um, where partly because it's the ability to do things new is at our own personal fingertips. Uh, we're- we're really encouraged to do that. And we've become allergic to roots, we've become allergic to things which hold us back and constrain us and limit our options. Uh, so we're producing a new kind of man that- that wants novelty all the time. And one result of that is that some of us, you asked the question at the beginning why I'm interested in tradition, some of us are looking for the novelty of consistency. I quite like now things which never change. So I like to go, there are certain galleries I like to go back to just to see the same paintings. One reason why I'm drawn to church is because I go on a Sunday and I hear the same thing. Unfortunately, those institutions are themselves attracted to novelty and feel they're letting themselves down by not embracing novelty, so we get history being rewritten, we get churches rethinking their liturgies. But I think they're wrong, because actually many of us crave the novelty of consistency.

   11. CWChris Williamson4:56

       Is it trite to say that letting go of the wisdom of the past and presuming that we can recreate the things that took thousands and thousands of years of the smartest minds on the planet to slowly culturally evolve and whatever was left over definitely had some wisdom in it, that to me seems like sort of flogging an old horse. Like, yes, obviously that's the case. The fact that we've had so many different iterations of societies, whether that be the, on the individual level, on the local level, regionally, nationally, globally, whatever, whether it's culture, spirituality, health, uh, bonding, family, all of these different topics, to- to say that to me seems really, really obvious. Is it or is it not?

   12. TSTim Stanley5:39

       I- I think it's striking how when people do, uh, attempt to, uh, produce novelty, they- they produce things which have been said before or which everyone else is saying. So and- and I mean on both left and right. So whenever... I- so many right-wing tracks and so much right-wing thinking today I've heard before, and has- and has been, uh, said before, particularly in the 19th century in the way with industrialization. So many complaints, we're not having enough kids, men are effeminate, women dominate society. All of them, these are terribly old conservative complaints. So I- I think...I'm just really struck by how we keep coming up with the same stuff. And likewise, in this great era of cultural novelty now, I'm really- I'm really bored with it, because people just say the same things. Society is racist, society is sexist. Everything on TV goes over the same subjects. And yet with each iteration, we're told it's groundbreaking. And you wonder how much ground has actually been left to break, how many glass ceilings there are yet to break through, because it just feels like we- we went through that ceiling 20 or 30 years ago. Uh, we're just doing it again for the thrill of it.

3. 6:44 – 15:13

   The War with our own History

   1. TSTim Stanley6:44

   2. CWChris Williamson6:44

      You say that, "The West is at war with its own history. Modern culture encourages us to examine our ancestors with skepticism, even contempt." Why?

   3. TSTim Stanley6:53

      Well, it- it- (sighs) why does it do that? I- partly, it's an inheritance of this 18th century skepticism, uh, the desire to start again, which is, uh, reflected in the French Revolution and all revolutions since, which are this- this idea that we have got this baggage hanging on us, and we need to get rid of that baggage. And that if we did, if human beings were unencumbered by the past, they would be pure, they would be noble savages who would, uh, reach moral conclusions based not upon anything that was, uh, lumped onto them, not- not upon this sort of rucksack put on their back full of stones of old ideas and old sins, but instead, they would reach good conclusions through reason and debate. So there is- there is to a certain extent a- a huge faith in human beings at the heart of this, the idea that we don't need the past. So I- I think it's that. But I, uh... But there's also a cruder political motivation, which is, you mentioned 1984, if you want to create a new future for people, you really have to start by erasing the past. You have to change their memory of the past so that they ch- you change their thinking about the present and the future. And in particular, if you give people this idea that the past, in the past, we were thoroughly, utterly evil, we were terribly wicked people, then obviously, you need to start again. And once you say, "We need to start again," well, that hands enormous political power over to the people who've said the past is bad, because we're left saying, "Okay, so what's the future gonna be? What must- what- what are we allowed to think? What can we be like?" And that's when you empower the revolutionaries, the cultural revolutionaries, to say, "Okay, this is what the new society will look like in the future." Now, the- the experience every time this has been done in the past, the experience is that you replicate, uh, the power structures of the past in new forms. Uh, this is- this is why, uh, Michel Foucault is- is someone who conservatives should read, uh, because he points out that with every revolution, you- you change the power structures, but power doesn't go away. Someone still wants to dominate. So when we create this new society freely from the past, you can bet your bottom dollar there'll still be someone at the top and someone at the bottom, an oppressor and- and a victim. So i- i- it's a frustrating cycle of behavior. Uh, but nonetheless, I think- I think that's politically at the heart of it. If you can discredit the past, then you can say that the present order is broken, therefore we need a new one, and that leaves it open to intellectuals to write the new order.

   4. CWChris Williamson9:13

      What are some of the examples of previous revolutions that have gone through a similar cycle?

   5. TSTim Stanley9:20

      Well, the classic one is the French Revolution, uh, which starts out, uh, as an attempt simply to rein in the king and to produce a constitutional monarchy. Uh, but it very quickly, uh, it- it very quickly moves beyond that and becomes a revolutionary republic. And then once- once you have torn up the old order and the old constitution, and particularly once you have beheaded the king, then anything's possible. And there was a great desire, there was a great fervor for novelty in the new. So French society didn't just change its constitution, it instituted a 10-day week, it rewrote the calendar, uh, it abolished slavery. This is not all bad stuff. There's some good stuff that's done. That's one thing the American Revolution didn't do that the French Revolution did. So there was attempt then to rebuild society from the ground up. Uh, the consequence of that, uh, was not democracy, of course. It was revolutionary dictatorship. Uh, once the constitution had been written, it was effectively suspended. Uh, w- uh, it is true that in- you got rid of a lot of, um, prejudices and you got rid of a lot of, uh, authoritarianism from the past, uh, but once constraints of ritual and custom had gone as well, you also made it far easier to impose a tyranny. Um, so th- that blank slate-

   6. CWChris Williamson10:30

      Why is it easier to impose a tyranny when you get rid of the past?

   7. TSTim Stanley10:35

      Well, because, uh, you do... O- over the course of centuries, you do accrue privileges, but you also accrue rights. And once you come along and you wipe th- the slate clean, you get rid of the privileges, but you also make it possible to get rid of the rights, um, in part because you change the structure and the order of society in a way that usually ends up empowering the state and the new people who are in- in control. So for example, uh, French society pre the French Revolution was incredibly decentralized, with a great deal of local governance, which would- which would govern through rituals and customs and patterns of authority which had developed over hundreds of years. Well, the French Revolution doesn't want that. It's about creating a nation state. So there's an attempt to harmonize the entire country, to get it to move and to think and to operate as one. So you could say that's a- a- a refreshing, bold thing. I mean, we as modernists, we as children of the modern world, are encouraged to think in terms of nation states, and that would be a liberating thing, 'cause the individual is now part of a nation rather than just some local area. But of course, the consequence is that you get rid of local governments and you get rid of local authorities and all the local rights that had- had accrued around that. So in the course of trying to create a new state, you demolish much of that which came before. And this is very typically a pattern in revolutionary societies, uh, that in- in that attempt to modernize, you also eradicate those things that over hundreds of years gave people identity and rights.

   8. CWChris Williamson12:06

      Why was Notre Dame an interesting example, speaking of the French?

   9. TSTim Stanley12:11

      Well, I use Notre Dame, uh, in the book, because, uh, it was really the fire, uh, of Notre Dame a few years ago which- which made me think I want to turn my attention to this. And-And I mention it in the introduction, uh, the history of Notre Dame is great because it's an example of how tradition does not appear overnight, but evolves and adapts and develops over time. So much of what you see of Notre Dame, um, actually, uh, is- m- most of it's very, very old. But in the, in the, in the, uh, in the Baroque era, it was subject to a great deal of quite actually unpleasant new decoration. And then during the French Revolution, uh, when, uh, the old religion was abolished and there was a creation of a cult of supreme being... I mean, literally, the revolutionaries couldn't imagine a world without a supreme being, because they needed someone who would have the authority with which to, uh, an authority which to invoke in order to impose a moral order. So having got rid, having nationalized the church, having carried out a mini reformation, and having established a secular state, the first thing they decide they've got to do is create a god, create a supreme being. And so Notre Dame is then transformed into this extraordinary pagan temple. Uh, by the end of the 1790s, Notre Dame was falling apart. It was then restored in the 19th century with the effect that many of the gargoyles and many of the decorations of the church that you look at and assume are centuries old, are actually part of a neo-Gothic romantic design to reclaim the medieval past. So modern Notre Dame is actually a 19th century reimagination.

   10. CWChris Williamson13:37

       It's a throwback. It's a Throwback Thursday, yeah.

   11. TSTim Stanley13:38

       It's a... Exactly, exactly. Um, and then a couple of years ago, the roof caught fire. Uh, and when it caught fire, uh, I noticed in the reporting, uh, that many reporters found it curious that people fell to their knees and prayed. And there was a stunning headline, I think it was, uh, an AP, uh, headline which said something like, uh, "Tourist Mecca Notre Dame Also Revered as a Place of Worship." And that, that just says where we've got to in the 21st century, that the primary purpose of the church has been lost. That within the very society that built Notre Dame, there are people who don't quite know what Notre Dame is for, or don't get it, and don't instinctively think, "That's a place of worship." Instead, it's a tourist center. And in the aftermath of the fire, there were discussion about how to rebuild Notre Dame, and people came up with lots of grotesque ideas, modernist nonsense, much of which hinged upon the idea that Notre Dame should now belong to everyone, not just the religious, that it should be opened up to the entire public so you can create a sectarian cathedral, um, sorry, you can create a secular cathedral. Um, that's very interesting. That, that shows where the culture has gone in much of Western Europe, that we've lost the sense of sacred. And much of what we deal with nowadays in our culture, which you can see in woke as well, is Christianity minus the eschatology. It's a hangover of Christian culture, but without God and without a clear understanding of how religions work, it sort of deforms into a new kind of liberal left madness.

4. 15:13 – 22:17

   Is Liberalism the Primary Villain?

   1. CWChris Williamson15:13

      Yeah. You say that liberalism is the primary villain here. Why is that?

   2. TSTim Stanley15:18

      Um... Well, liberalism effectively as the political expression of The Enlightenment, and it's a primary villain, um, because liberalism has very good intentions. It wants us to be free. And over the course of a few hundred years, it builds strong int- i- strong institutions that allow us to be free. So it both has a good intent and it also has a rational way of going about it. The problem with liberalism is that in constantly pushing freedom, and in placing so much weight upon reason as the way that we reach conclusions, it slowly begins to erode the basis for its own existence. Because if you have too much freedom, you undermine freedom. Uh, you know, the, the man who eats too much, who has the freedom to eat too much and gives way to that passion, ends up becoming so physically sick that he is unwell. And likewise, when you have a political culture which is so obsessed about individual freedom, uh, so obsessed about liberty that it becomes, i- it increasingly becomes impossible to think about the corporate anymore or to operate effectively as a society, you, you begin to actually undermine it. And what's interesting is that the, l- liberalism has sort of gone off the tracks a bit, uh, and it has now bled into identity politics groups which are actually, uh, at war with the very institutions that liberalism helped build. So the effect is that those institutions are either trashed or are captured by people who don't really value what the institution was created for. Of which the starkest example is the university, always controversial, I have to say. Conservatives have hated them for a very long time. But the, the university has now been so captured and corrupted by, uh, identity politics that increasingly it isn't capable of doing the things that liberals established universities for and wanted them to do. That is, to test ideas. It's now becoming difficult to test ideas in them.

   3. CWChris Williamson17:14

      Yeah. It's strange to think that human nature is so inherently flawed that we do need some constraints, that oddly constraints can give us a sense of freedom. And throwing everything out of the window means that you need to wake up on a morning and choose what it is that you're going to do. How am I gonna spend my day?

   4. TSTim Stanley17:31

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson17:31

      Am I going to-

   6. TSTim Stanley17:32

      Yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson17:33

      ... lie in bed and smoke weed and play Xbox and order Deliveroo? Or am I gonna fly to Rome or am I gonna... This is, th- those are the two options that I have in my life. It's-

   8. TSTim Stanley17:42

      (laughs)

   9. CWChris Williamson17:42

      ... smoke weed, play Xbox, or fly to Rome. And, um, yeah, it's, it, I, I, I sense this as well because I think you're an only child, as am I. Is that right?

   10. TSTim Stanley17:51

       Yes.

   11. CWChris Williamson17:51

       Yeah. Um-

   12. TSTim Stanley17:52

       That's correct, yes. Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson17:53

       And I think that one of the, maybe one of the reasons why you were quite attuned to some of these things is the extra sense of individualism and perhaps atomization that comes with having a very small family structure.

   14. TSTim Stanley18:07

       Yeah, yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson18:08

       That if you, if you don't have these huge big roots into the ground... Because it's not just the sister and the brother, it's then the sister's partner and the brother's partner and their kids and their in-laws and so on and so forth. Um, and yet I get that sense sort of from a personal level as well, looking back and realizing that you get to define...... whatever it is that you want to do, which is liberating but also terrifying at the same time. And it means that you can make a lot of mistakes. If you don't have an older brother that has made-

   16. TSTim Stanley18:38

       Mm-hmm.

   17. CWChris Williamson18:38

       ... a ton of mistakes bof- before you and goes, "Hang on, Tim. Maybe, maybe that thing, 'cause, 'cause I tried. I thought that thing was a good idea and I wasted three years of my life." Uh, without that, you end up having to discover these mistakes for yourself.

   18. TSTim Stanley18:54

       Mm-hmm.

   19. CWChris Williamson18:54

       And a lot of what we need to do in life is, you can achieve an awful lot of success by simply avoiding failure. But the, the vast majority of the things that you need to stop doing are just not fucking up. And if you manage to get that right, you've probably gone pretty far. But the freedom-

   20. TSTim Stanley19:08

       Yeah.

   21. CWChris Williamson19:08

       ... opens up those problems.

   22. TSTim Stanley19:10

       Yeah. I- I- I- I'm not- I'm- I'm not giving away anything here because I mention this in the book, so, um, but I- I had a difficult relationship with my father. Um, and morality/common sense is very often transmitted, and it's transmitted down the generations, particularly between fathers and sons. Um, and when you have- uh, when you just have no communication with your father, (laughs) you- you don't, you have someone who's not telling you how to behave or what to expect, so then your family becomes even smaller. Um, and I was fortunate enough that my family stayed together, but of course other people have broken families, uh, where that transmission between father and son doesn't take place at all. And you can get to a point, there's an Italian thinker, Massimo Meccanici, I think his name is, uh, who argues that actually we've reached a point where because that transmission has already been broken, you've now got people who didn't even have the information to transmit it. So you have a generation which is completely divor- divorced, um, through several generations, from that original learning the fathers were supposed to pass down. So I- I- I ... So, so if- if you have a difficult relationship with your father, it makes it all the harder. But also, yes, if you're an only child, if you have a small family as I do, um, you- you edge towards older age and you become aware that what was once liberating and freeing is- is actually a prison. Because I could- unless they invent robots, uh, that can look after us in old age, I am gonna get to old age unmarried, uh, without siblings, and there's gonna be no one to look after me, right? (laughs) So we need to be embedded. Now, I- I, for instance, became a Catholic for religious and spiritual reasons, but it serves a utilitarian purpose as well. I have something to do with my time. I have somewhere to go on a Sunday. If I am old and alone, I will be visited by the priest. Uh, when I come to die, I will be given the last rites. These ... Y- you- you should not, uh, you should not sign up to a tradition purely in order that things will be done for you. That would be a very cynical way of doing it. But my point is that these traditions serve human needs, and over hundreds of years, they've worked out how to look after the lonely and how to provide a family for people who don't have one.

   23. CWChris Williamson21:16

       Yeah. But you s- talking about liberalism being part of the villainy here, but conservatives aren't fantastic at retaining tradition either.

   24. TSTim Stanley21:24

       No, they're not. No. And- and part of the problem is the- the Conservative Party with a capital C, uh, exists in order to preserve whatever status quo it inherits, uh, partly because it- it is the party of the establishment. So if the status quo is liberalism, and if the establishment are all liberals, then you're gonna get a Conservative Party that actually isn't terribly conservative. And that's what we've had for about the last 20 years. The Conservative Party has really aped New Labour. Um, I'm- I'm- I like Boris Johnson and I like where this government's going. I think this government might be a change of direction, but only because the public has changed the status quo with Brexit. This is the thing about Trump and Brexit. They came from the public saying, "Whatever this system is, whatever this order is, we don't like it anymore." So clever conservatives are adapting to reflect what the public thinks. But in their heart of hearts, conservatives just don't like rocking the boat. And if the order is liberal, that's what they will defend.

5. 22:17 – 31:55

   Tim’s Studies of Circumcision

   1. TSTim Stanley22:17

   2. CWChris Williamson22:17

      I noticed that you spent a fair bit of time researching genitalia and circumcision.

   3. TSTim Stanley22:22

      (laughs) Yes. I did. It's funny how you can go down a rabbit hole, isn't it? I did. I did (laughs) get drawn to ... I- I was drawn to it because it's the, it's the starkest example one can think of, of an identity being imprinted upon a child at birth, and the most controversial one. Now, I'm talking of course about male circumcision, because I think female circumcision is in a different moral order. Although some of the arguments against male circumcision, uh, can apply to female circumcision. But fundamentally, the idea that at birth the child is marked, um, as belonging to a tribe, and that that mark communicates not just identity but also moral order. Although it is physically done, uh, by Jews and Muslims to, uh, the boy, it is also of course spiritually done by Christians to girls and boys, uh, because they are marked through baptism in a very similar way. And it- and of course baptism of water is meant to replace, uh, the literal bapti- uh, the literal circumcision of the flesh. It's described as the circumcision of the heart. So I chose it because, uh, I wasn't just being prurient. It- it- it is the starkest and most controversial example of identity being imprinted at birth. And I understand why people have difficulty with it. But I also in researching it came to understand why, uh, it's so important to people.

   4. CWChris Williamson23:44

      Why?

   5. TSTim Stanley23:45

      Well, in some cases it's a historical, cultural thing, uh, that because, uh, there were attempts to wipe it out before, some people feel, uh, a responsibility to keep it going, uh, because it lends them identity and belonging, and also because in the Jewish faith, there's a covenant with God. Uh, it's more than just identity. Uh, it also marks ... It- it connects you to Abraham, it connects you to the past, the history of the Jewish people, uh, and it, and it- it- it conveys a moral order that you are born to be a good Jew. You are born to maintain this covenant. Um, and therefore, it- it is, it is a stamp of belonging. And when you are part of a people who there have been sincere attempts to eradicate you-... physically eradicate you. Keeping that culture going is so much more important. And, and, I, and you often find that among groups that have been subject to attempted genocides, that, uh, the culture speaks for them, and they need to keep it going because it is proof that they have survived against the odds.

   6. CWChris Williamson24:48

      Were there any other rituals or interesting identity-related branding techniques that you noticed during your research?

   7. TSTim Stanley24:57

      Oh, I, I find the, uh, the Japan- the, the, the Chinese, uh, ritual called xie-xie, uh, which is practiced after a baby is born. I was actually told about, uh, by some friends who are of Bangladeshi descent. So it seems to have spread throughout East Asia. Uh, it's the idea that shortly after birth, uh, you lay down objects in front of the child, uh, and the child is, is encouraged to crawl towards one of the objects, and whichever it picks up will tell, tells you what their personality or what their chosen career will be. And what I love about this is I was told that the parents stack the game. So first of all, you, you, the parents get to decide which objects are laid down. Now, there are certain traditional objects you're supposed to put down, but people will put down things like stethoscope to show doctor, they'll put down calculator to show accountant, and if there's any risk of the child crawling towards the wrong thing, like a makeup box or something like that, they will entice it towards the, (laughs) towards the profession they wanted to do. So although, although in some ways that's utterly cynical, I think that speaks to how much of our identity is, is pre-chosen. I mean, there, there are things that can overcome it, genetics and circumstances and personality, um, but so much of the modern world is wrapped up in this silly idea that we invent ourselves, and we really don't. I mean, just, uh, you and I, our language, our gender, the color of our skin, these things over which we have absolutely no say pre- predetermine a lot of what our lives will be like. And in much of these, uh, rituals, uh, they're just being honest about that.

   8. CWChris Williamson26:27

      I had Robert Plomin, behavioral geneticist, on the show, uh, a couple of months ago.

   9. TSTim Stanley26:31

      Mm-hmm.

   10. CWChris Williamson26:32

       And he has done the largest twin studies in history. So 10,000-ish pairs of twins, every twin born between about 1992 and 1995 in the UK has been contacted by him. And-

   11. TSTim Stanley26:46

       Right.

   12. CWChris Williamson26:46

       ... he's done... whether it's adoptive parents, whether it's twins, and he's teased apart nature and nurture as tightly as you can, and he ended up doing a study to work out what difference the choice of school makes to your child's-

   13. TSTim Stanley26:59

       Mm-hmm.

   14. CWChris Williamson26:59

       ... outcomes in terms of education, uh, and also in terms of earning once they get out. And when you end up, uh, controlling for the area that people live in, so the friend groups that the children have outside of school, it's between 1% and 2%. So all-

   15. TSTim Stanley27:17

       Right.

   16. CWChris Williamson27:17

       ... of the move, we're gonna change postcodes, we're gonna pick up and move because this state school's got better UCAS performance or whatever, all of that stuff, horse shit.

   17. TSTim Stanley27:27

       Mm-hmm.

   18. CWChris Williamson27:27

       1%-

   19. TSTim Stanley27:28

       Mm-hmm.

   20. CWChris Williamson27:28

       ... is the difference. And as he says, genes do not predetermine, but they do-

   21. TSTim Stanley27:33

       (laughs)

   22. CWChris Williamson27:33

       ... predispose. That if you have a child that's going to be-

   23. TSTim Stanley27:35

       Right.

   24. CWChris Williamson27:35

       ... a musician, you can force them into being a doctor and you'll find them, like, twanging the stethoscope and the-

   25. TSTim Stanley27:42

       (laughs)

   26. CWChris Williamson27:43

       These-

   27. TSTim Stanley27:44

       Right.

   28. CWChris Williamson27:44

       ... these, um, the ways that we move through life... So perfect example for me, I was a club promoter for a very long time, and I still am. But I loved being a businessman, I didn't love being a party boy. But it took me forever to realize that. If I look back at what I did when I was a kid, I talked too much and I listened to lots of audiobooks. R- roll that-

   29. TSTim Stanley28:01

       Yeah.

   30. CWChris Williamson28:01

       ... forward by 20, 30 years, what's that? It's a podcast. So that's-
6. 31:55 – 36:47

   Erasing Figures of History

   1. TSTim Stanley31:55

   2. CWChris Williamson31:55

      Yeah, it's an interesting one thinking about the last, whatever year, 18 months or so, with statues being taken down in- all around Florence and Rome, as I've spent the last week, there's some pretty uncomfortable lessons and stories there. But they hold on to them, and I'm not sure that the same can be said for the UK or the US holding onto its history. What's your thoughts on the danger of deleting or unpersoning figures from history and some of the statue-related debacles we've seen recently?

   3. TSTim Stanley32:24

      I- I- I am not unsympathetic. Uh, partly because some of those statues, uh, you'll- you'll often find are quite modern. And so in- in the case of, uh, the United States, a great number of Civil War statues are not from the Civil War period or immediately afterwards, they're actually from the 1950s and '60s. And they were established in order, uh, to support segregation as it was at the time. So there are examples of statues which actually we shouldn't be nostalgic or- or rosy-tinted- rose-tinted about. They actually were put up in order to make a racial or political statement. Plus some of those figures that were up, like Colston in- in Bristol, were actually pretty unpleasant and they were regarded as unpleasant at the time, they were controversial at the time. Um, and the idea that the public space is unchanging and unchangeable, I find pretty strange. There's- there's no reason why they- why you shouldn't change it. But I object for several reasons. One is a democratic one. I don't like the idea of small groups of people saying, "We need to change the public sphere without asking others." Um, and when they do that, they very often misunderstand what it is people like about public places. One of which is, as we mentioned at the beginning, the novelty of consistency. A lot of people didn't know what those statues were of. A lot of people hadn't heard of Edward Colston. They just liked the statue. Um, and the meaning of that- of that statue can change over time. So a classic example is the statue of Baden-Powell which was- was targeted. While people aren't nostalgic for Baden-Powell because they support his views about empire or race, um, or his- his unusual approach towards, um, the raising of young men, they're nostalgic because they were in the Scouts themselves, and that's what Baden-Powell represents to them. So I do- I don't like this undemocratic thing of rewriting people's history. But I also think there's- there's a risk that you end up creating a very simplistic, binary approach to history where you say, "There was a bad thing and it got fixed," and there's no in-between. But the reality is, is that history is- is, uh, a process of people arguing and debating, getting things wrong, changing their minds, etc., etc. And sometimes it can be useful to have the entire historical record on show. Um, you know, what are you gonna do with the Founding Fathers of the United States, some of whom owned slaves, some of whom supported slavery? Some who were against it, but didn't want to get rid of it, some just d- d- d- state, uh, well, the- the- the- some we don't have a great strong record of their views on the subject. What are you gonna do with people who didn't oppose something that should have been opposed because it's so morally awful? So you end up creating a- a- a history that jumps from oppression to Martin Luther King. And- and the problem with that is there's so much in between that's interesting, that tells you the story of how we eventually got there through trial and error. So I think you can end up creating quite an artificial history if you just take down all the bad stuff.

   4. CWChris Williamson35:05

      Is there a potential that if you rely on tradition or if you hold tradition up too highly as a virtue that we need to- we need to keep a grasp of, that you're going to end up not having to call people that did things, mean things, bad things in the past to account? That I'm not a fan of judging the actions of people from yesterday by the standards of today, I think it's- it's kind of... I don't know, i- i- it just logically, I- I can't square that circle in my mind. Um, but I can also see the other side of the fence that says we also need to bring those people to account.

   5. TSTim Stanley35:41

      Y- yeah. Uh, what I would say is that most- well, many- many traditions have changed and have had a moral reckoning, um, and engaged morally with their past. A classic example is the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church has not- does not change doctrine or dogma, but it has changed its views on many subjects and the way that it does things. It has- i- its views on slavery have clearly developed and have changed, and it has held itself to account over that. It's doing it now slowly over child abuse. It will act like it's not. It is, it very much is, um, and it will change culturally as a- as a consequence. So many traditions do exactly that already. Um, but of course, if you take a blind approach towards tradition, if you choose to simply to revere something without interrogating it, there is a risk that you will end up, uh, perpetuating the oppressions of the past. Of course, there's a risk of that. But I- I think most sophisticated traditions don't do that and are very self-conscious of their limits. At least the ones that have survived generally are.

7. 36:47 – 46:59

   Traditional Roles Within The Family

   1. CWChris Williamson36:47

      What did you discover about the traditional roles of men and women and the family? Because that seems to be one of the real flashpoints at the moment.

   2. TSTim Stanley36:55

      Yes, yes, yes, it is. Uh, it, it varies across the world, and that's, that's an important thing to bear in mind. One mustn't just assume that, uh, your tradition is the only way that things are done, and they're not. I mean, I wa- I was fascinated to discover the existence of, um, just very crudely put, a third sex in India called the hijra, um, who are analogous to transgenderism, but not quite the same, because it's a category which can include gay men and effeminate men as well as, as trans people and eunuchs. Um, but that, that's an example of how a culture can have a completely different attitude towards gender and sexuality to the one that we have in the West. Plus, you also find that, uh, Western attitudes towards gender and sexuality have changed significantly as well. The 18th century has a much different attitude towards sexuality than the 19th does. Um, and also, there have been shifting attitudes towards the role of, of women and their authority within the household. Uh, I was fascinated to discover that, uh, in the wake of industrialization, as men moved to the city and they start to have children out of wedlock, uh, the Catholic Church begins to shift its views away from the idea of men as the moral head of the household to women as the moral head of the household. And the church begins to promote, uh, things like marriage counseling, and that's when you get the explosion of the veneration of the Virgin Mary and you get new ideals of, of matriarchal leadership. Uh, so the really interesting thing is how it has altered over time. Um, that said, uh, uh, until fairly recently, uh, in the West at least, there have, there have still been clear feminine and male archetypes, and those seem to be under some degree of assault. And I, and I, I understand why, and those archetypes can be deeply oppressive. If you obsess about men being manly men, well, how do you categorize people who are not manly men? And gender can end up becoming a performance, which is oppressive and restricting, and no one wants that. It can be deeply mentally unhealthy. Uh, nonetheless, the idea of ideals or archetypes, I think is useful. And, and the, the attempt to throw them out is very dangerous and unhelpful. So for instance, uh, you, you don't have to think that men are better than women to say that men can have moral virtues that are masculine, such as courage, such as strength, uh, such as chivalry. Uh, and if you take away those virtues from men, knowing men as I do, we'll just become slobs. And not just slobs, we'll probably become women-hating slobs as well, because men are like that. Uh, so I, I think that, that, that the nature of masculine and feminine has altered over time. But what I think is novel now is the attempt that you can get rid of these things, and that actually being a man might actually be some sort of original sin.

   3. CWChris Williamson39:48

      Yeah, without a firm place to stand, I see a lot of the masculine subcultures online, whether that be MGTOW or red pill or black pill or incels or whatever, it's a lot of men trying to find a place in the world.

   4. TSTim Stanley40:05

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson40:05

      The ones for whom the traditional positions in society or in a family, th- those don't exist. Okay, well, what is there for me now? And this is, I guess, one of the common, uh, excuses or reasons that's given for why we have this. We have this collapse of religion. There are no more grand narratives to make us feel like we are connected to those around us. We don't have ritual. We don't have anything sacred. We're losing a sense of awe and its connection to the wider world and dread about the fear of so on and so forth, all of this stuff. Um, but you see this replicated on a cultural level as well outside of religion. You see that there are things that people need to bind them together.

   6. TSTim Stanley40:44

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CWChris Williamson40:44

      Um, so it's, it sounds like a lot of what we're going over here is just explained by Chesterton's Fence.

   8. TSTim Stanley40:50

      Right.

   9. CWChris Williamson40:50

      Is there, is there ... So where's the, the nuance beyond just wide-eyed longing for the past and wanting t- tradition back?

   10. TSTim Stanley40:59

       (laughs) Where's the nuance? Well, first of all, as I've said, uh, we now live in a consumer society. So, uh, the joy is that you can choose your tradition. Um, and, and I think you're gonna get shopping, and I, I, I'm seeing that a lot among my friends. I, I've got friends who've converted to the Orthodox Church, who've become Copts. I have friends who have decided to leave London and go to the countryside and to raise poultry and things like that and to live much closer towards, uh, towards nature. So I, I, I think, uh, people are finding their own way and their own practical way of making tradition work for their lives, f- for themselves. I see it i- in the flowering of literature of people like Jordan Peterson. Um, one of the striking things about Peterson is that he just tells us things that 20 or 30 years ago were taken for granted, and they are received by people as though they are novel. Um, they're really not, but, but they're, they're very helpful to people. And I think also, I mean, just to go back to what you said there about, um, men and women, I think people need self-respect. And men, in particular, need self-respect. And I think there are certain rights that are linked to gen- to sex and to gender identity, and we have a very ... Rightly, we have a very strong idea of women's rights and what women are owed, and they are owed those things, respect, um, uh, space, uh, uh, and the right to advance and all that. But we've eroded what men are owed, and I think some of what people are looking for is self-respect. There is a sense that men have the right to be independent, to stand on their own two feet, to have dignity, to have a job with purpose. And, and the loss of that identity is actually the loss of a, a centuries-old right. So I think people are searching for things that used to, in our culture, be taken for granted, which they now have to rebuild on their own terms and their own lives, partly because the institutions are not gonna give it to them. There are many in-

   11. CWChris Williamson42:50

       Why do you think that's been lost for men?

   12. TSTim Stanley42:53

       (clears throat) Why do I think it's been lost for men? Partly because of economic and social change, uh, because of changing patterns of work which doesn't favor, uh, men, the loss of blue-collar jobs, things like that, uh, but also because the culture since the 1960s, um, has increasingly become feminized. And that's, we say that... It's not a criticism of women to say that. It's just that there is a- a- a cultural sense, uh, that, uh, masculinity is bad and femininity is good. And you see this constantly sold to you by advertising, consumerism, and television. It's just a constant message being drummed home to you. And whenever you do get a heroic man, uh, he is usually conflicted and neurotic and troubled. Uh, I hate to bring this back to Bond, but if you take the evolution of Bond, I would accept that he was a- a well-dressed Neanderthal in the 1960s. I don't want men to be like Bond, because if nothing else, he's going to die of alcohol poisoning and, uh, lung cancer. But equally, what he has become now, it's so frustrating that he cannot be a hero without being a psychological mess who is redeemed through women and is- is redeemed through family. I don't want to give anything away about the new film. I haven't seen it, I've just read synopses. I refuse to see it. Um, but it- it just frustrates me that men cannot be allowed to succeed on men's terms.

   13. CWChris Williamson44:16

       Yeah, there's an interesting parallel with children's TV that I think gets brought up a lot as an example, that if you ever have a competition between the boys and the girls, the girls will always be a little bit more cunning and perhaps a bit more meek, and the boys will try and push the rules and be boisterous, and inevitably, the girls, because of their quick wit, they will always end up winning. And this kind of is a- a very consistent archetype that you see in children's TV shows. And, um...

   14. TSTim Stanley44:42

       Right.

   15. CWChris Williamson44:43

       Yeah, I'd never thought of that. I'd never thought of the fact that you can't just have the classic hero, the classic masculine male hero anymore, that he's able to save the day because of hard work and temperance and virtue and courage and fortitude and resilience and grit and blah, blah, blah. You can't have that. It has to be a- a part of some twisted, um... That needs to be the other side of the coin to some deficiency that he has, and the deficiency often-

   16. TSTim Stanley45:14

       Yes.

   17. CWChris Williamson45:15

       ... is fixed by a woman.

   18. TSTim Stanley45:16

       It's the difference between- It's the difference between the Adam West Batman and the contemporary Batman.

   19. CWChris Williamson45:21

       (laughs)

   20. TSTim Stanley45:21

       You don't just have to-

   21. CWChris Williamson45:22

       Adam West Batman is... (laughs)

   22. TSTim Stanley45:24

       Right, right. Okay. But that's, that... Okay, the- the- the overweight guy (laughs) staggering his way through fistfights with a pow and blam. I mean, it's an unrealistic, silly... And actually, it was quite camp, uh-

   23. CWChris Williamson45:35

       Yeah.

   24. TSTim Stanley45:35

       ... and- and it was kitsch. Uh, so actually, it's far more, it's far more aware of- of the limitations of gender identity than we might give it credit. But my point is, there's a difference between a two-dimensional morality in which courage wins the day versus a contemporary morality in films, uh, whereby they're reluctant to allow that to succeed on its own terms. It usually does. Batman still generally wins. But there's usually some neuroses, there's some, uh, moral-

   25. CWChris Williamson46:00

       He pays a price.

   26. TSTim Stanley46:02

       There's some moral paradox. There'll be a woman who saves him, no doubt. And also, the other intriguing thing is that increasingly the villains are the heroes. So you have Suicide Squad, you have a movie all about Joker, and, and yet they are still presented in their flaws and they're still presented as psychopaths. But I find a culture, uh, which increasingly venerates bad guys, whereas in the past, they were the bad guys (laughs) , I find that really strange. And it speaks to something about the loss of clear moral compass now, uh, that we're- we're concerned about the victimhood of the Joker.

   27. CWChris Williamson46:33

       Mmm.

   28. TSTim Stanley46:34

       He's the joker. He's the bad guy.

   29. CWChris Williamson46:35

       He's supposed to be the bad guy. That is... I mean-

   30. TSTim Stanley46:38

       (laughs)
8. 46:59 – 52:21

   Culture’s Role in Managing Traditions

   1. CWChris Williamson46:59

      culture? Do you see it as a filtering mechanism? Do you see it as some sort of reflection? Is it a magnifier? Is it a catalyst for what's going on? What role does culture play in either perpetuating or eroding tradition?

   2. TSTim Stanley47:10

      It's all of those things. Uh, uh, a part of me cynically thinks it's primarily about making money, which it is. I remem- I remember when I wrote a book about Hollywood, uh, some time ago, uh, I- I spoke to someone who had tried to sell, uh, an antiwar script to Hollywood during the Iraq War, and he had been rebuffed. And he came back to them and said, "I assume I'm being rebuffed because I'm a man of principle, I'm antiwar, and you, Hollywood studios, you're f- you're- you're in bed with the Pentagon and you love war." And they said, "Oh, no, no. It's just that we've got dozens of antiwar movies in the making. We just want... We- we're just bored of them. If you want to write us a pro-war movie, (laughs) we might be able to make it." So it's always been my view of- of Hollywood and entertainment. I- I think it is just terribly cynical. It's also stuck in the problem, uh, of novelty. We come back to the need constantly to do something new, and that very often when you- you have that need, you end up replicating yourself. So when you come to the end of Marvel, when you've made not just every Superman or Spider-Man movie, but you've made them several times with a new cast, you reach a point where you have to say, "Look, what the hell do we do that's new?" So you end up doing things like elevating the villains over the heroes or something like that, or, I don't know, you might make Spider-Man... Uh, you- you might change his sexuality or something like that. Uh, the irony being that because everyone else has reached this point of, uh, cultural exhaustion, they're all doing the same thing as well. And so we have novelty that is reproduced and replicated. So I think it's partly just the desire to make money.

   3. CWChris Williamson48:41

      Once tradition's been destroyed, can it ever be restored?

   4. TSTim Stanley48:45

      Oh, yes, because it's been done many times before. As we mentioned with, uh, Notre Dame, uh, a building which has been colla- which is collapsing can be rebuilt, and not just rebuilt to look like the past, but also rebuilt using contemporary techniques so you can have a beautiful, uh, synthesis of the old and the new. Um, and we- we've seen traditions come and go, and they have...... miraculously revived. Much of the conversation that we're having now about culture was being had in the late 19th century, and that was-

   5. CWChris Williamson49:11

      Is that so?

   6. TSTim Stanley49:11

      ... turned around. Yeah, yeah. Mu- much of the, much of the concern about gender, about identity, um, about technology in particular, um, and about how life was becoming too fast, there was too much information, that complaint was being made about the steam train and about the newspaper. Um, and then you saw a sort of revival of spirit, um, in the... Well, I suppose, did you really? You saw fascism and communism, but you saw in opposition to those things, you saw a revival of moral purpose. So I do, I do absolutely think traditions can be revived because it has been done.

   7. CWChris Williamson49:44

      I can see how that would be done for a, uh, an archeological disaster. Uh, sorry, a- an architectural disaster. But I don't know. I- I... My concern is that there's something, whether it be the frictionless access to information and communication across the entire world, whether it be racing to the bottom of the brainstem, whether it be living standards going to the point where people on the whole don't have to concern themselves with getting a sense of purpose from their work, and-

   8. TSTim Stanley50:11

      Yes.

   9. CWChris Williamson50:11

      ... the slow disintegration of the nuclear family and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm concerned that you chop away at so many moorings that potentially you can do so much damage that it's a cul-de-sac you can never drive back out of again.

   10. TSTim Stanley50:24

       Yes. Um, my answer to that is partly it would be, uh, i- i- well, it would be un-Christian to despair, so I refuse to do that.

   11. CWChris Williamson50:32

       (laughs)

   12. TSTim Stanley50:33

       Um, it- it's part... Because really, that- that's a sinful attitude because you've got to have faith and hope in the future a- and in- in- in the Holy Spirit and God's wisdom. So I- I- I reject that on a, on a sort of almost theological basis. Um, but I, I also think you've got to have faith in the strength of traditions themselves that they all, they are, they have been tested by so many things in the past, plagues and wars and fascism and communism, and they have endured because they've got good ideas that speak to human need. And those needs don't go away. I mean, even if you have a leisure society, there still is a need to be productive. There still is a need to fill your time with something, and that can be filled with craftsmanship and with artisanship. And, and the other point I'd make is that it, it becomes different. I agree with you, something has changed in our society because so many institutions have collapsed, information has been democratized, there is so much of it, uh, and the way our brains actually work has altered in the last 20 years. But that simply means that we then have to actively choose to step outside of this new order and go and do something else. And just in the course of writing this book, I had to read so many things I'd never read before, and it was like being back at university. And for a year, there almost was no TV, no internet. There was just good old-fashioned books. And not only was it an intellectual feast and a joy, but I also physically felt better. (laughs) You actually find that old forms of living, uh, they actually have a physiological effect. And I'm convinced that once people... I- I think lots of people, almost like getting bored of McDonald's, will get bored of this lifestyle, will look back, and they'll find waiting for them this treasure trove of traditions and customs and rituals to enjoy, which have been designed to meet these desires that we have.

   13. CWChris Williamson52:19

       Yeah, I think that's certainly something

9. 52:21 – 1:06:00

   Predicting a Tradition Counter-culture

   1. CWChris Williamson52:21

      you're seeing at the moment. Do you predict a, how would you say, uh, a tradition counterculture coming at some point soon then?

   2. TSTim Stanley52:29

      Yeah, I think it's happening. I think it's already happening. It's happening within religious circles. It's happening within the Catholic Church with the revival of interest in things like traditional rites. So I can only speak to those, those, those areas of life which I, I know about myself. Um, I- I... But I, I see it taking place there. And I see it in the conversations that people are having about culture. It's so fascinating that, uh, culture seems to have trumped economics at a point e- at a point at which we really ought to be concerned about whether or not we can keep the lights on. Uh, people are still tearing their hair out over things like statues. And that's both a depressing thing and a frustrating thing, but in some ways a good thing, uh, because I- I think people have realized that it's not all about material questions, that there are bigger cultural and spiritual things that really matter and possibly even are more important than money. Um, and the return of those fundamental questions, uh, I think shows that the sp- the human species is, is in the mood, uh, to revive some things.

   3. CWChris Williamson53:25

      I hope that people that resonate with that sort of a message realize that they're not on their own. The number of guys and girls that I've got that I'm friends with, that work for me, that I've podcasted with and I keep in touch with, so many of them are yearning for this same sort of thing. Perfect example, I have a buddy out in Austin who's just bought a ranch, which is four units down from Ryan Holiday. So it's probably about 100 miles away from it, but it's only however many units down. And I was saying, "Hey man, I- I can't wait to come out and visit you. Um, how are you spending your weekends? What, what can we do? Should we go wakeboarding or should we go and have dinner?" And he said, "Well, actually, man, like a lot of the time on a weekend, we spend building fences. We put fences up."

   4. TSTim Stanley54:03

      (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson54:03

      "We hoe the ground, we do this sort of stuff." And my first reaction was, "Dude, like, tell me and I'm in."

   6. TSTim Stanley54:10

      (laughs)

   7. CWChris Williamson54:10

      "Tell me and I'm in." And you think that's the most indigent laborer-

   8. TSTim Stanley54:13

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson54:13

      ... the lowest of the low sort of job, and I'm choosing to do that in my leisure time.

   10. TSTim Stanley54:20

       Yes.

   11. CWChris Williamson54:20

       I'm choosing to go out of my way. Why? What is it that's compelling me, that's drawing me toward that sort of a lifestyle?

   12. TSTim Stanley54:27

       You need, you need structure and purpose. Um, ultimately, there is, and I speak entirely for myself here, uh, there is no point to life unless there is a reason to die. There, there is no point (laughs) to your life unless you have something to die for. That's how I feel. I feel that strongly. Um, and for most people, it's their kids. Most people, it's their family. Well, I don't have that, but I have a set of other principles and philosophies and beliefs for which I am prepared to die. And the strange thing is, that makes life more worth living, and it- it makes, (laughs) it makes life so much more colorful and enjoyable knowing, uh, that there is this thing beyond myself that I am connected to...... which is my faith, um, for which I- I am prepared to go to the wall. And those parts of my life in which I didn't have that, uh, were awful. They just felt pointless. You're just, you're just getting by day by day. And you accrue tasks and responsibilities. You accrue a sense, a sense of responsibility that flows from that philosophy, uh, that, uh, means that small things that if you didn't have that philosophy would be pointless, actually are the most important thing. All right. So I've reached the point... When I was young, I wanted to be rich and powerful like most people want to be. I now, when I die, hope people say, "He was a nice person." That's the most important thing to me. Not because I've given up, but because I've actually realized that's the most important thing, and that that flows from my Christian beliefs. I would much rather be remembered for the one time I gave someone a lift than for having been Prime Minister of Great Britain or some crap like that, (laughs) which ultimately doesn't matter. So that- that's what comes from having purpose, is a well-ordered life in which the small stuff actually gains new meaning.

   13. CWChris Williamson56:13

       Where should people find their meaning? Let's say that somebody doesn't have your faith, where should they find it?

   14. TSTim Stanley56:18

       Just look for it. And I, and I know... You, you may well not, it may well end up not being found in religion. Uh, I just, I, I just implore people... And that's what I... The one thing I hope the book does is I implore people to explore, to explore not just their own traditions and past, but other people's as well. And they might find, they might find redemption in very surprising places. Um, but also one finds meaning in other people too. Not everyone does. I'm a natural loner. Um, but still, um, as I said, uh, to be remembered fondly by people, to be appreciated by people is very important. So I- I think it's a combination of study and learning and travel, uh, but also trying to do good for people so that they appreciate you being around.

   15. CWChris Williamson57:01

       That's a firmer place to stand. When you think about a lot of the existential ills that people have-

   16. TSTim Stanley57:08

       (laughs) .

   17. CWChris Williamson57:08

       ... it's around the fact that everything feels a bit hollow-

   18. TSTim Stanley57:13

       Yeah.

   19. CWChris Williamson57:13

       ... and a bit shallow, and kind of fragile and a bit of a waste of time. And everyone kind of, in the back of their mind has this fear that what they're doing might just be a waste of time.

   20. TSTim Stanley57:26

       (laughs) Yes. Yeah.

   21. CWChris Williamson57:28

       And I think that the reason that the family is... I- I... That's why it's so perni- pernicious when you think about potentially destroying the family as, as a source of meaning or saying that you don't need to find, find purpose and meaning within the connections that you have around you in your familial setting. You know, you are... What's left for people to stand upon once you do take that away if you've got an increasingly secular society, you have one that bows at the altar of science rather than religion?

   22. TSTim Stanley57:56

       Mm.

   23. CWChris Williamson57:56

       There's not a whole lot left. And that's why I think just the general pointlessness of it all, I'm just the droid 379405 bleeping away in the background doing things until I slowly cart myself off to the grave.

   24. TSTim Stanley58:10

       (laughs)

   25. CWChris Williamson58:10

       Like, that's not, that's not the, that's not the story that we were given, right? That's not the life that we were fucking promised.

   26. TSTim Stanley58:15

       Mm-hmm.

   27. CWChris Williamson58:15

       And especially the last, the last week I've spent, you know, walking through the streets of Florence or, um, vespering through the, the hills of Tuscany, which is obviously very traditional vespering and drinking red wine, 'cause that's precisely what Michelangelo was doing. And just doing that and seeing... Feeling much more connected, seeing a very different pace of life, seeing a much more religious pace of life, seeing people that were really, really connected to their work and found great meaning in their work. You know, tour guides are a perfect example of this. For the two and a half hours that you have that tour guide, all that that person's concerned with is educating you on something that they know inside out. Some guy that went to university for four years to study the city of Florence and its history. And if you decide to ask him about Dante, he's got two hours that he can do on Dante. And if you ask him about Machiavelli, he's got two hours that he can do on Machiavelli. And you just think like, "This is somebody who is connected to a higher purpose." They believe that they are doing something that adds value. 'Cause I will remember the different guys, whether it was Lorenzo or Christian or Oscar, the different people that took me around different areas of their country and would... Had pride in it and had genuine connection. When they spoke about it, they spoke about, "We. We had this."

   28. TSTim Stanley59:28

       Mm-hmm. Yes.

   29. CWChris Williamson59:28

       "We had this challenge and we came together." This story about the mud angels, where there was this huge flood in 1966 in Florence and people from all over the world came. "We were so thankful for all of these people that were coming towards..." And you think, "Yes, this is connection." And in those people you see a sense of belonging and purpose and meaning and... Yeah, it's, it doesn't surprise me that that's the case. And the other thing that I was thinking as I was reading your book and as I was traveling around, yomping around Italy, it seems paradoxical that some people want to totally tear down and reconstruct modern society, and then other people kind of just want nothing to change. But-

   30. TSTim Stanley1:00:09

       Mm.
10. 1:06:00 – 1:06:36

    Where to Find Tim

    1. TSTim Stanley1:06:00

       (laughs)

    2. CWChris Williamson1:06:00

       Tim Stanley, ladies and gentlemen. People want to keep up to date with what you're doing, where should they go?

    3. TSTim Stanley1:06:05

       Oh, they can go on to timothystanley.co.uk, or just buy the book. Buy the book. It's- it's very good. Uh-

    4. CWChris Williamson1:06:11

       Whatever Happened to Tradition? History, Belonging, and the Future of the West will be linked in the show notes below. Tim, thank you so much.

    5. TSTim Stanley1:06:17

       It's a pleasure.

    6. CWChris Williamson1:06:18

       What's happening, people? Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe. Peace.

Episode duration: 1:06:37