Why Can Nobody Think For Themselves Anymore? - Douglas Murray (4K)

Chris Williamson 0:00 You've spent a lot of time studying history and writing about-

Douglas Murray 0:03 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 0:03 ... current events at the moment. How would you rate your predictive ability given the current state of the world? Were there things that you foresaw coming or things that you've been particularly surprised by?

Douglas Murray 0:17 Um, well, nobody gets to predict with 100% accuracy anything, because among other things, all the time, things happen that you could never have seen coming. I could never have seen COVID coming, I just didn't. Um, so whenever anyone sort of boasts about their predictive capabilities, I always think you have to do it with a certain amount of humility, because, I mean, s- things happen all the time you couldn't see. You can only see round the bend of the road you're coming to. You can't see round the corner. Um, yeah, I mean, some things I've written about for years, particularly in my book, The Strange Death of Europe", that came out in 2017, which I think are sadly, uh, coming to fruition. I say sadly because th- it... People think that if you've predicted something and got it right, you would feel any pleasure, and that would only be if the thing you were predicting was something you looked forward to. And what I was predicting was somebody I was, something I was dreading.

Chris Williamson 1:10 (clears throat)

Douglas Murray 1:11 And, um, uh, that was the transformation of our country of birth, uh, and many other countries in the West due to demographic change. And, uh, I mean, every day now pretty much, somebody says to me, "Gosh, I used to think what you were saying in The Strange Death of Europe was a bit out there, and now I realize you were right." But it gives me no pleasure for them to say that 'cause I always sort of think, "Well, if you'd have agreed back then, some things might not have happened." But... So th- No, but, you know, as, um, Mark Steyn said, you know, "Demographics is destiny." So, uh, it's one of the things you can predict with the most ease. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:51 Did you have Victoria's Secret's plan to bring sexy back

Chris Williamson 1:55 on your 2023 bingo card?

Douglas Murray 1:58 Why are Victoria's Secret's bringing sexy back?

Chris Williamson 2:00 After experimenting with 300-pound mannequins-

Douglas Murray 2:03 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 2:03 ... plus-sized models, disabled models, trans models, a male model, and a 38-year-old football player, Victoria's Secret have made the controversial decision to switch strategy and start using hot women to model their underwear again.

Douglas Murray 2:15 It makes commercial sense-

Chris Williamson 2:16 (clears throat)

Douglas Murray 2:17 ... to my mind. Um, yeah, it, it's, it's quite e- I, well, I'm always amazed that advertising executives find it complex, this stuff. I mean, all you need to do is stick sexy guys on stuff and stick sexy girls on stuff, and you can-

Chris Williamson 2:29 They sell-

Douglas Murray 2:29 ... sell the merchandise. It sort of pretty much writes itself. Um, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm not particularly surprised that if you stick Lizzo in a bikini it's not as appealing as a bit of sales merchandise. But, you know, live and learn, I suppose.

Chris Williamson 2:46 Liz and learn.

Douglas Murray 2:47 Liz and learn.

Chris Williamson 2:48 Uh, one of my friends owns a, uh, very big clothing company, and for a while, they tried plus-sized models-

Douglas Murray 2:57 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 2:58 ... uh, mostly for women. There's not much of a body positivity movement for men.

Douglas Murray 3:02 No, there's not, like a beer gut movement.

Chris Williamson 3:04 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 3:04 Like a... Yeah.

Chris Williamson 3:05 The skinny fat revolution. Uh, and, uh, he said, "We've split-tested this into oblivion. Big girls don't sell clothes."

Douglas Murray 3:13 Right.

Chris Williamson 3:13 So when you see that, when you see a company, you know, Ann Summers are making double plus-sized dildos or whatever, uh, the, the company is actively hurting their top line and bottom line to be able to send the right message.

Douglas Murray 3:29 Mm-hmm. Right.

Chris Williamson 3:29 And that's all well and good up until some shareholder meeting where some th- 70s-year-old guy looks at the far right column of an Excel sheet and goes, "What the fuck's this?"

Douglas Murray 3:43 Yes.

Chris Williamson 3:44 And they go, "No, no, you don't understand, it's this really cool-"

Douglas Murray 3:47 Right.

Chris Williamson 3:47 "... new movement. Uh, it, it, we... It's very progressive." And he goes, "I don't care."

Douglas Murray 3:53 Right.

Chris Williamson 3:54 "I want more money"-

Douglas Murray 3:56 There's a-

Chris Williamson 3:56 "... than we had last year, and this is less money than we had last year."

Douglas Murray 3:59 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 3:59 (clears throat)

Douglas Murray 3:59 Yeah, they, um... Well, I mean, I suppose it all starts off from a good place, like some or many things, but, uh, look, if you... Y- you might agree that, you know, it's not a good thing to sell anorexic-looking models to young women. That's... Yeah, okay, uh, let's all agree on that. But you can, you can stop somewhere before morbidly obese. You know, that's where the thought, the whole thing goes wrong on the po- body positivity thing. Plus, there's a place where the body positivity shouldn't occur. It should be... I mean, if somebody is so morbidly obese that they're at significant risk of heart failure, you shouldn't celebrate them. You should say, "Hang on a minute, steady on the donuts." But they don't say that, they just did... They, they, they, they, they run all the way. I wish that you could just have sort of healthy-looking women, uh, on, on the ads and, and just draw the line there. But as, as ever, they, they sort of don't know where the line is until, as you say, something wrenches them back. And the thing that wrenches them back is normally, as you say, the bottom line.

Chris Williamson 4:53 Yeah. I, uh, I've been thinking about this sort of performative empathy point for a while. Got this idea, I need to meme it better. But I think something like, um, short-term empathy or the shallow pond of empathy-

Douglas Murray 5:05 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 5:05 ... I've been thinking about. What is most popular in culture at the moment is something that optimizes for its immediacy to signal that you are a good guy-

Douglas Murray 5:17 Do it.

Chris Williamson 5:17 ... or good girl-

Douglas Murray 5:18 Right.

Chris Williamson 5:18 ... even if that's at the expense of the ultimate outcome for the person.

Douglas Murray 5:24 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 5:24 So let's say (clears throat) y- y- you're able to do something, giving a child ice cream. It may be what it wants right now, it may be bad for it long term, but if you're the ice cream promoter for the young children, you will be seen as a good person. Uh, and if you're the-

Douglas Murray 5:38 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 5:38 ... person who's saying, "Hang on a second"-

Douglas Murray 5:40 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 5:40 ... "that's not what you want long term."

Douglas Murray 5:42 Right.

Chris Williamson 5:42 Maybe responsibility in Peterson language, maybe not-

Douglas Murray 5:45 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 5:45 ... casual sex in Louise Perry language, maybe, you know, not as much food as you want in body positivity language, uh, you're seen as-... uh, bigoted or judgmental or whatever.

Douglas Murray 5:55 Well, yeah, because that's- that's because there's no countervailing force in the culture. The- the- the- the unlimited empathy people have run a long way very fast because, as you say, there's a short-term gain to be seen to be being empathetic, you know, let's celebrate yourself. Um, but ordinarily, you would have some other counterforce in the society and different for- different forces have provided that in history, including a church. But if there is no counterforce to say, for instance, you know, uh, lo- long-term gratification better than short-term or, you know, whatever, don't... then- then yeah. And- and- and- and that's a sort of unappealing position in our society now. There's- there's plenty of room for people to be in that space, but it's still... you're still on the defensive, you know. We still live in a s- in a society where effectively to own an ice cream truck, you know, in the sort of language of a child would seem to be a great thing.

Chris Williamson 6:42 Mm.

Douglas Murray 6:42 Just have the short-term thing. Um, yeah, not many people want that role. It's sort of uncool in some way. I- it might become cool at some point in the future when more people realize that the short-term gratification thing was leading to diabetes or whatever, but...

Chris Williamson 6:58 It's the same as one of the justifications I think for why people

Chris Williamson 7:01 aren't having children, that upfront-

Douglas Murray 7:03 One of them, yeah.

Chris Williamson 7:03 ... children, you just see a very, very large cost on all of the joy and-

Douglas Murray 7:07 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 7:07 ... and stuff, but-

Douglas Murray 7:08 What's the other... The Economist put it as the- the c- the child tax, the amount of money you have less if you have a child. A weird w- way around-

Chris Williamson 7:17 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 7:17 ... to look at the future of the species, isn't it? If only I died with more money in my bank account. Life of regret. Uh...

Chris Williamson 7:26 (laughs) Death of regret, perhaps.

Douglas Murray 7:28 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 7:29 Yeah. Well, you know, it's kind of the, uh, as well the- the Mexican Fisherman story. Are you familiar with that?

Douglas Murray 7:35 No.

Chris Williamson 7:35 The Parable of the Mexican Fishermen?

Douglas Murray 7:37 No, I don't think I am.

Chris Williamson 7:38 This is cool. You'll like this. So, an American businessman goes on holiday to Mexico. And while he's there, he-

Douglas Murray 7:45 Is it a true story?

Chris Williamson 7:46 It's a parable, Douglas.

Douglas Murray 7:47 Okay, right, okay. Got it.

Chris Williamson 7:48 Fucking hell. He goes on holiday. He gets taken out, uh, fishing by a local Mexican. And he asks the Mexican how he spends his time. The Mexican says, "I fish a little on the morning, I catch enough for my family. We go back, we cook, we laugh around the fire, and I spend time with my children." And the American businessman goes, "That's stupid. Here's a better idea. What you should do is actually spend most of your day fishing, and then with the surplus fish, you could sell them at the market." And the Mexican Fisherman says, "And why would I do that?" He said, "Well, once you've got the additional money, you could start to employ some of your friends and they could come out fishing with you too, and you could catch more fish, which you could sell at the market for more money." He said, "Why would I do that?" He says, "Well, once you've done that, you would be able to incorporate in America and you would maybe be able to start a canning factory so that you could own the entire production process, and you could then sell the company for a lot of money." He said, "And why would I do that?" He said, "Because once you've done that, you'd be able to fish a little on a morning and then go back-"

Douglas Murray 8:44 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 8:45 ... "and spend time with your children around the fire."

Douglas Murray 8:47 Very good.

Chris Williamson 8:48 And I often think about that as a much more direct route to- to happiness, you know?

Douglas Murray 8:53 Yeah. Um, well, that's- that's the classic thing that you're- the place you, uh, end up is the place you started from, but yes. Um, there- were there are lots of reasons why people aren't having children, um, and a lot of them are simple e- economic things. I mean, all of the Western countries that have terrible replacement birth rate figures are e- because of very easy things to solve, like cost of housing and things like that. It's n- it's not hard to build affordable housing. We just proved to be incapable of doing so. So young people wanting to- wanting to both get on the property ladder and have a- and start a family think they have to do either/or. And they're not entirely wrong, but that's something the governments could have sorted out and none of them do. They're- they're so hopeless at it and they have been for years. T- under consecutive governments. They never build enough housing, so young people don't see a future, don't s- feel hopeless, and then don't have kids, and then everyone wonders why there's a demographic crisis.

Chris Williamson 9:48 Intergenerational competition theory is something I learned about a couple of weeks ago.

Douglas Murray 9:52 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 9:52 You familiar with this?

Douglas Murray 9:53 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 9:53 Yeah. I didn't know about it before, but it makes complete sense. You know, there was always this talk of millennials are the first generation to have done worse than their parents, and it seems if you got-

Douglas Murray 10:00 Well, they're not the first. First in a little while.

Chris Williamson 10:02 Yes, first in-

Douglas Murray 10:03 First in two generations.

Chris Williamson 10:04 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 10:04 Yeah, a little bit longer.

Chris Williamson 10:05 Um, and it seems like millennials actually probably just about managed to get over on average.

Douglas Murray 10:10 Okay.

Chris Williamson 10:11 Uh, but Gen Z materially-

Douglas Murray 10:12 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 10:13 ... difficulty in getting in the property ladder. The most common living arrangement for men under 35 is still at home with their parents.

Douglas Murray 10:19 Yes, awful.

Chris Williamson 10:20 Um, and, uh, yeah, you know, it- it bakes in this sort of intergenerational competitiveness-

Douglas Murray 10:30 Mm.

Chris Williamson 10:30 ... a- a- and a dissatisfaction when you look at where your parents were and this-

Douglas Murray 10:33 Sure.

Chris Williamson 10:34 ... you know, felt sense that your parents got advantages that you never did.

Douglas Murray 10:37 Which is usually not true. I mean, they didn't suffer inflation the same rates, but they suffered very high taxation in the post-war period. Um, we haven't had taxation as the levels it was at in the 1960s and '70s, for instance, in the UK. Um, uh, there was a time when people were... top rate taxpayers were paying 99% tax. I had a friend who once in that period paid over 100% tax one year, for reasons he can still not-

Chris Williamson 11:00 How's that possible?

Douglas Murray 11:02 Uh, it will be back taxed and that sort of thing. So, I mean, th- we- we- the- there's a tendency, particularly among, uh, uh, millennials and after to think that their parents had it very easy. In my experience of people from that generation, the boomer generation, it didn't feel easy at the time. And, yeah, they- there were certain things. Getting on the property housing ladder was a little bit easier than it is or significantly easier once you have, what is it, five times average earnings, uh, being the, you know, the f- inadequate to- to get to the, uh, average property price. You see the- this, the split go on. But you- you always have to factor, I mean, it's like if you say, you know, the millennials are the first ones or Gen Z were the first ones since, uh, whoever to have a better standard of living, you have to bake in things like, oh, yeah, well, they had a world war, you know.

Chris Williamson 11:50 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 11:50 So that's quite a big P.S., or that's a big footnote. Um, so, yeah. Uh, everyone- everyone has their challenges. I just don't see why- why once you've id- identified them and know the way out of them, you don't do them, but...

Chris Williamson 12:03 I was talking to mutual friend Eric Weinstein about this.

Douglas Murray 12:06 Hm.

Chris Williamson 12:07 I also spoke to Sam about this. I've spoken to a bunch of people. Why, in your opinion, do you think everybody struggles to agree on the truth now?

Douglas Murray 12:18 Oh, that's quite straightforward. We can't agree on what has happened. So, uh, broadly speaking, an event happens now, and some people believe it has happened and other people think it hasn't. Um, I mean, we've been through a number of deranging years since we first spoke, in which for instance, you know, as I said, there's been a global pandemic, which some people believe was something which killed millions and millions of people in their own country and think they were just about saved from dying themselves, and other people think it was a fake, and other people think, uh, we just massively overreacted, and other people think, uh, it was all planned and, um, uh, I mean, nobody agrees what happened. Uh, that's just to take one example. In America, you have obviously the fact that- that nobody agrees who won an election. That's a problem. And so you just have basic things nobody can agree on that just happened. Uh, I always say in America, you know, it'd be nice if we could just agree that one thing that's just happened, happened, but then nobody wants to and says you must be a WF shill if you- if you- if you believe that. So I think it is a problem, and then obviously underneath that is just a problem with the fact that, uh, the treadmill of social media has totally changed the way in which we communicate, the way in which we learn things, absorb things, and we don't know what the consequences of that are. We're so early into it. Um, and it seems to me that among other things, it's allowed people to have their own version of recent events, recent history, uh, past few days. And so when you sit down to talk to somebody, uh, you can fairly swiftly work out whether they're somebody who's open to the idea of things that happened having happened or whether or not they will fight you all the way. And, um, that just makes everything much harder than it used to be. Um, and that isn't to a sort of particularly pine for the era of a mono-narrative-

Chris Williamson 14:07 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 14:07 ... if that- if that era ever particularly existed, and when you read history, not clear that it did. Um, but it's just mes- massively worse, and news is coming at us at such a pace these days, and it's just like, you know, every day feels like, you know, a month's worth of news in the past. Things just fly by you so fast that you don't even have time to absorb it before it's happened.

Chris Williamson 14:31 Mm.

Douglas Murray 14:31 Um, so I think that's part of the reason. Um, and in any case, the whole concept of truth as being a desirable thing in this society seems to have eroded from both the right and the left, and um...

Chris Williamson 14:43 How so?

Douglas Murray 14:45 Well, uh, truth, for instance, used to be the basis for a university, uh, education and the basis of university inquiry, that you sought the truth wherever it led you. That was the point of academia, for instance. Uh, politics was different. Politics was always about having to find a way around truth and deal with it and address it where-

Chris Williamson 15:07 Pesky inconvenience.

Douglas Murray 15:08 Yeah, address it where you could, but, you know, get around it if it was too awkward. But inquiry used to be about seeking truth, and we've been like that for a couple thousand years or more, since the Greeks certainly, and then it changed at some point relatively recently, and, um, truth is now not a desirable thing because truth hurts people, and, um, it can be mean.

Chris Williamson 15:33 So it's not only that people have different opinions on things.

Douglas Murray 15:37 They don't agree that the thing we used to agree on is worth going for.

Chris Williamson 15:40 They have different facts as well.

Douglas Murray 15:41 Well, they have different facts, but they don't agree that the... I mean, they don't agree that you should just follow truth wherever it takes you-

Chris Williamson 15:48 Hm.

Douglas Murray 15:49 ... um, because other things are prioritized over truth. I still prioritize truth over all things if I can, and try to, and, uh, I think that's the interesting thing about the world is finding out what in it is true and what is not. But other people don't seem to have that same, um, appetite anymore, and uh, would rather live in lies, which I think is very dangerous for an individual and very dangerous for society. Um, in fact, it's- it's- it's dangerous for an individual and lethal in a society, I'd say. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 16:23 It's interesting to think about the motivations that people have for not believing something which is already on an unshaky foundation of we can't agree on the thing that we're not believing about.

Douglas Murray 16:38 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 16:39 And, uh, Gwenda, one of my friends, has this idea that, uh, if no amount of evidence would dissuade someone of what they believe, then they don't have a rational belief, they have a, uh, religious ideology.

Douglas Murray 16:53 Yeah, yeah, that's... Jonathan Swift, uh, beautifully put it as you can't reason somebody out of a position they weren't reasoned into. Yeah, of course. I mean, you're dealing with dogma with many people today. It's just they don't know which faith they belong to, but it's dogma for sure. I just am not very interested in their views, uh, because I think they can't defend them, and if you can't defend your views, I'm not very interested in them 'cause I don't find them persuasive.

Chris Williamson 17:24 I asked Sam this about whether or not... Obviously, whatever, 10, 15 years ago, he was a big part of the new atheist movement-

Douglas Murray 17:31 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 17:31 ... and I guess you were tangentially on it.

Douglas Murray 17:33 Mm-hmm. I was a little bit of a whipper-snapper, in fact.

Chris Williamson 17:35 Ancillary...

Douglas Murray 17:35 I was a whipper-snapper new atheist.

Chris Williamson 17:37 You were an orbiter. It's referred to-

Douglas Murray 17:39 I was a sh- I was a short trousers-

Chris Williamson 17:40 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 17:41 ... uh, new atheist.

Chris Williamson 17:42 Okay. Um, but, you know, your book, uh, The Madness of Crowds, talks about the collapse of grand narratives.

Douglas Murray 17:49 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 17:49 And one of the biggest collapses of grand narratives was religion.

Douglas Murray 17:51 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 17:52 So I asked Sam whether or not looking back, he believed that his deconstruction of religion was on balance a net good or a net-

Douglas Murray 17:58 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 17:58 ... uh, uh, net negative.

Douglas Murray 17:59 What did he say?

Chris Williamson 18:01 Uh, he- he managed to evade being too committal either way, uh, I think, but what do you think? What's your opinion on that?

Douglas Murray 18:09 Well, I think it's like a lot of things that you deconstruct.... um, you, you only know afterwards whether or not it's something you could have put back together. It's like children with bicycles. We're very fine at taking them apart, but very bad at putting them back together. I'm not comparing Sam to a child, but, I mean, I just- I think that is- it is something you notice only once you've taken it apart. Once you can't reconstruct it, you'd realize what it- what function it might have performed. Um, I said to Sam on stage a few years ago, uh, that I- I thought that it would all be fine if most atheists were as rational and level-headed as Sam, but it's not Sam Harris all the way down. It's like Sam Harris followed by total mentalist.

Chris Williamson 18:51 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 18:52 And, um, who just will not reason or rationalize anything and are just screaming harpies of insanity.

Chris Williamson 19:02 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 19:02 So that's a shame. Um, but, yes, I mean, I think that that whole thing works for some people, but obviously doesn't work for others. I mean, religion is, uh, you know, Schopenhauer among others saw it, was, um, religion was philosophy for the masses. Um, absent religion completely, uh, there are several- lots of options of what will happen. One is that the- the- the- the general public lose the overarching framework of their lives and have nothing to replace it with, and another one is that they do replace it with other things, you know, which are new religions which crop up all the time. We have the- the religion of the body negativity movement, you know, we have the religion of, um, trans, we have the religion of gender, we have the religion of race and, you know, and all these things have just stepped into this void. And, uh, they're all dogmatic things with their founding texts. Um, they're- they've all got their own catechisms of a kind.

Chris Williamson 20:03 Priests.

Douglas Murray 20:03 They have priests, they have, uh, excommunication rites, and I- my- my only observation really would be on that is that I preferred the old gods, you know. I preferred the old priesthood, funnily enough, uh, partly because we knew its flaws. And, um, the sweet point where you see the flaws of religious belief but can still live through it is, um, is one even I can- well, I can especially feel nostalgic for-

Chris Williamson 20:32 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 20:32 ... because I- I- I don't like the new priesthood. I- I find them, um, uh, as corrupt as any priesthood in history, uh, with the negative, uh, um, attribute that- that not everyone's woken up to them yet, you know. I mean, do we have- do we have in our culture an equivalent, for instance, of the meme of the pedophile priest? I don't think we do. I mean, for instance, I would love it if the- the sort of, uh, adults who push, you know, gender dysmorphia stuff on children were regarded as the equivalent of pedophile priests. I think that'd be fine. Uh, but it- but my point is it doesn't come with that yet. It's like the Catholic Church in Boston circa 1950. The priests are still fiddling with the kids but no one wants to talk about it, so...

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Douglas Murray 22:39 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 22:40 Quote. I keep coming back to that in my personal life as well, but thinking about what people want to optimize for in their existence, there are no solutions ultimately.

Douglas Murray 22:50 Mm.

Chris Williamson 22:50 Like, and you have to give up certain things.

Douglas Murray 22:53 Uh, don't have to give up everything.

Chris Williamson 22:54 Well, no, there's certainly better solutions.

Douglas Murray 22:56 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 22:57 Right? But the world is trying to maximize everything. It's- there is- and it goes back to the, uh, shallow pond of empathy.

Douglas Murray 23:06 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 23:06 That accepting that trade-offs are an inevitability doesn't fit into that paradigm, right?

Douglas Murray 23:13 Okay.

Chris Williamson 23:13 It's- we will always optimize for what is- what feels most pleasurable or empathetic in the short term.

Douglas Murray 23:20 Uh, I don't know. I don't feel that.

Chris Williamson 23:23 Well, that's what the- that's how it plays out, I think.

Douglas Murray 23:26 For a lot of people, yes, if they have no character.

Chris Williamson 23:29 If they have no character, then-

Douglas Murray 23:30 Well, what do you optimize for?

Chris Williamson 23:32 I try to optimize for peace. That seems to be the thing that, for me, in my personal life, I try to do. If the price is my sanity, the cost is too high, no matter what it is, and I continually throw that rule out of the window all the time. That's what I try and aim for, right? My own rubric is.

Douglas Murray 23:48 I love it, uh, the peace in your- in your private life, right?

Chris Williamson 23:51 I- I try.

Douglas Murray 23:51 It reminds me of Lady- Lady Bracknell's line about the general at the end of The Importance of Being Earnest, and she says, "The general was essentially a man of peace except in his domestic life."

Chris Williamson 24:00 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 24:02 (laughs) But you're the other way around.

Chris Williamson 24:06 Yeah, I try to-

Douglas Murray 24:07 You're a man of peace in your domestic life.

Chris Williamson 24:09 Except for my public life.

Douglas Murray 24:09 Maybe you are generally as well, but you are.

Chris Williamson 24:10 No, I'm- I don't- I don't think I am.

Douglas Murray 24:12 You're a highly agreeable person. I'm fucking not.

Chris Williamson 24:14 Really? Uh, I- I- I try as best I can to keep a- keep a lid on it. But yeah, the, um-This lack of, of meaning and, and people's desire, their absolutely fervent desire to try and fill that hole with-

Douglas Murray 24:29 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 24:29 ... as many things as they can.

Douglas Murray 24:31 Like Lizzo.

Chris Williamson 24:32 Like Lizzo, indeed. Did you hea-

Douglas Murray 24:34 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 24:34 Did you see the stories that came out about Lizzo-

Douglas Murray 24:37 Oh, it was wonderful.

Chris Williamson 24:39 ... about her Amsterdam-

Douglas Murray 24:39 Yeah, my, my favorite story of the year.

Chris Williamson 24:41 Yeah. W- what-

Douglas Murray 24:41 No. Long way.

Chris Williamson 24:42 What, for the people that don't know-

Douglas Murray 24:44 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 24:45 ... Lizzo was on tour, uh, in Amsterdam.

Douglas Murray 24:48 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 24:48 Uh, took her backup dancers to the Red Light District-

Douglas Murray 24:51 Yes.

Chris Williamson 24:51 ... and made the backup dancers, some of the backup dancers eat bananas out of the vaginas of Amsterdamian strippers.

Douglas Murray 24:58 Yes. M- my view is that what had happened here, was that Lizzo thought you could outsource the eating of your five fruit and veg a day. She (laughs) -

Chris Williamson 25:07 To the vagina?

Douglas Murray 25:08 So sweet-

Chris Williamson 25:08 To the vagina of the stripper or to the mouth of the-

Douglas Murray 25:10 She's so reluctant to eat healthfully, she even outsources the five fruit and veg a day. That was my view.

Chris Williamson 25:17 Well, (laughs) -

Douglas Murray 25:18 Hm?

Chris Williamson 25:18 ... it seems to me that-

Douglas Murray 25:19 Wh- what?

Chris Williamson 25:20 ... it's t- it's, it seems to me that both Lizzo, uh, Ellen DeGeneres, uh-

Douglas Murray 25:25 Oh, yes.

Chris Williamson 25:25 ... Jimmy Kimmel, all of these people who upfront-

Douglas Murray 25:28 Oh, isn't it wonderful? It's so great. It's always the nicest-

Chris Williamson 25:31 The schadenfreude is palpable.

Douglas Murray 25:32 It's always the nice, the nicest squeak, oh, not that Lizzo ever looked nice, but like the, the squeaky clean Ellen DeGeneres thing, you know, just dance and Yeah. And of course, they're horrible in real life.

Chris Williamson 25:42 Horrible people behind the scenes.

Douglas Murray 25:44 Of course. There's a sort of rule that, by the way, actually, with public figures. Is that the ones who are most, you know, sort of sweetie-sweetie in public tend to be the nastiest in private.

Chris Williamson 25:52 Mm-hmm.

Douglas Murray 25:52 And sometimes the opposite can be true. Some people who are thought to have a very, um, hard edge in public can actually be lovely, lovely people in private. Like Margaret Thatcher was a good example.

Chris Williamson 26:00 Hm.

Douglas Murray 26:01 Very, very nice to people around her, you know, but could make tough decisions.

Chris Williamson 26:05 Yeah, it's, to me it's a, a counter-signal if I see someone doing the Lizzo thing of, "I am so body positivity." Uh, it m- it becomes their identity of how they're a, a s- flaming sword card carrying paragon of whatever this thing is.

Douglas Murray 26:19 Well, it's also, it's also a bit like the, um, uh, the Jimmy Savile, um, uh, the hospital, uh, what was it called? Uh, it still goes, but, um, there was a hospital for children that he raised money for-

Chris Williamson 26:33 Mm-hmm.

Douglas Murray 26:34 ... at the time. And whenever anyone would try to do an investigation into Savile, he'd go, "Oh, you know, it's gonna, it's gonna hurt the hospital for kids. You know, are you sure-"

Chris Williamson 26:40 Oh.

Douglas Murray 26:40 "... you wanna run that story? Oh, that's gonna hurt the hospital." So there are lot, lots of people our own age who have a thing like that. They build a, like, the equivalent of the Jimmy Savile Children's Hospital façade up-

Chris Williamson 26:50 Mm-hmm.

Douglas Murray 26:50 ... in order to protect themselves.

Chris Williamson 26:52 Right. Are you saying that, uh, Lizzo's work with the body positivity movement is in a case to try and effectively put a wall-

Douglas Murray 26:58 Yes.

Chris Williamson 26:59 ... of large-

Douglas Murray 26:59 It creates a wall.

Chris Williamson 27:00 ... bodied people in front of her?

Douglas Murray 27:02 A very d- a difficult wall to get over. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 27:04 Well, it, I think it's probably easy to get over. Getting around it might be more difficult. Um-

Douglas Murray 27:08 (laughs) Well, ƒ�nôlement d'homme, yeah, "I got into a car and it ran out of gas."

Chris Williamson 27:12 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 27:12 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 27:13 So, uh, I had this idea about, um, why certain women

Chris Williamson 27:19 are very pro-body positivity movement.

Douglas Murray 27:21 Okay.

Chris Williamson 27:22 And I was w- listening to Bill Burr do a live show, and he said, uh, "Ladies, if you could only support the WNBA the way that you support a fat chick who is, uh, gaining weight and no longer a threat to you, that it would be doing more numbers than the NBA is." And I realized that-

Douglas Murray 27:40 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 27:42 ... some, some nonzero number of women may, deep down in their darker moments, realize that they don't discourage some of their friends from, uh, gaining weight-

Douglas Murray 27:52 Yes.

Chris Williamson 27:52 ... because they can eat themselves out of their intrasexual competition for-

Douglas Murray 27:56 Yes.

Chris Williamson 27:56 ... potential partners.

Douglas Murray 27:57 Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Oh, it's, oh, come on. Men are like that as well.

Chris Williamson 27:59 How do we play that game?

Douglas Murray 28:02 Uh, f- I mean, this is gonna show a low side of my character. But you, you can't say always that you're sad if a... somebody you're not very close to, but you knew, knew, and you see them after some years and they look, and they're fat.

Chris Williamson 28:14 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 28:15 I mean, you can't say there isn't a slight sort of (laughs) , "You'll never guess who's become fat." There, there is different versions of that with, with men, I think. I th- and I, I think men can be complicit in that as well.

Chris Williamson 28:27 Hm.

Douglas Murray 28:27 Yeah. You know, the thrill when a friend balds early, you know? And I think that's very common with men.

Chris Williamson 28:33 (laughs) Thrill. That means, there'll be a German word for that.

Douglas Murray 28:35 Of course.

Chris Williamson 28:36 Like schadenfreude-

Douglas Murray 28:37 The, the, yeah-

Chris Williamson 28:37 ... but specifically for the-

Douglas Murray 28:38 Yeah. Yeah. For the, for the scalp.

Chris Williamson 28:39 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 28:40 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:40 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, scalp-enfreude.

Douglas Murray 28:41 Um, I think, I, yeah, I think lots of people do that. But it's, it's a pretty bad thing to encourage among people. Uh, but yeah, I, I think it is, it's part of the competition take- taking out of the competition, for sure.

Chris Williamson 28:49 Mm-hmm. I was thinking as well about how, uh, material conditions, you were saying before, people's parents maybe had it better in some ways, but also would've had it way worse.

Douglas Murray 29:01 Yeah, of course.

Chris Williamson 29:02 Material conditions often don't impact people's demeanors in the way that they might've predicted. Like rich people can be bitter idiots-

Douglas Murray 29:11 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 29:11 ... and poor people can be grateful heroes.

Douglas Murray 29:14 Well, those, George Orwell said, "By the age of 50, every man gets the face he deserves."

Chris Williamson 29:18 What do you mean by that?

Douglas Murray 29:20 I think that's actually true. I think there's a certain age, it might not be 50 now, but it's a certain age where you do show your life on your, your face.

Chris Williamson 29:27 Hm.

Douglas Murray 29:28 Oh, yeah. I mean, for instance, somebody who's very profoundly depressed for long time, it writes itself across the face. It writes itself in their eyes, I think. Um, peop- uh, uh, particularly unhappiness writes itself on somebody's face. Joy does as well. I mean, if somebody (laughs) , if somebody smiles a lot, they have laugh lines.

Chris Williamson 29:46 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 29:46 You know? And, um, yes. It's i- i- there, there's a great truth in it. I mean, we, we know that because we, we judge people by their faces. By the way they interact with us. By the way they look at us. I don't know, it's perfectly sensible.

Chris Williamson 30:03 I f- found a quote the other day that said, uh, "People with low self-esteem will always find a way to be miserable." And it made me think that, uh, material conditions a lot

Chris Williamson 30:13 of the time are what young people, but many people lay at the feet of their despondency or their nihilism-

Douglas Murray 30:19 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 30:19 ... or their critical nature or whatever it might be.

Douglas Murray 30:23 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 30:23 And I've seen enough of my friends'...... vacillate through varying levels of, uh, affluence, or- or- or relationship, or singletoned-ness, or whatever. Uh, and one of the things... Which sometimes it impacts the way that they show up, but many times they are the common denominator between all of those situations-

Douglas Murray 30:43 Right.

Chris Williamson 30:43 ... and the material conditions don't actually impact the way that they show up all that much.

Douglas Murray 30:46 That's true. Well, there's a problem with analyzing this, which is that anyone who's successful inevitably looks at their own path to success as being, to some extent, preordained. I mean, almost so far. I mean if you- you just g- there are some people with wild luck. But most people, a- a lot of people let me say, who- who are successful, uh, look back and they think, "Well, I don't understand this person who hasn't made it to the same rung of the ladder as I have. Why didn't they work harder?" And so there's a sort of, um, a callousness actually that can cr- creep in there. Um, but equally, uh, people are, to a great extent, masters of their own fate. And it's- it's- it's a very hard one to analyze that, as I say, because the outriders skew the whole statistics. I mean, the- the outrider who does very well, not everyone can do what he or she has done, but he or she is likely to think they could have done.

Chris Williamson 31:35 Well, you retroactively... L- lots of people that achieve success look back at the route that was particularly designed by them, for them, to achieve the very specific type of success-

Douglas Murray 31:45 Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 31:45 ... that they managed to get, and then retrofit that as a universal law that anybody else could follow.

Douglas Murray 31:49 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 31:49 But one of the things I've realized is I've spent more time digging into personal growth and self-development and all of that stuff, so much of it is post hoc rationalization about one person's-

Douglas Murray 31:59 Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 31:59 ... ve- very idiosyncratic-

Douglas Murray 32:00 Oh yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:01 ... solution for this thing. And they say, "These are the universal principles of-"

Douglas Murray 32:05 Okay.

Chris Williamson 32:05 "... X, Y, and Z." And you go, "No, they're not."

Douglas Murray 32:07 No, they won't. No. They- it's- it's highly personal.

Chris Williamson 32:09 It's your personality just spun up and tuned up to 11.

Douglas Murray 32:12 Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, uh, most v- very successful people I've ever met have some story o- of their own growth, which is both inspiring and not replicable-

Chris Williamson 32:26 What's the-

Douglas Murray 32:27 ... 'cause they're unusual people.

Chris Williamson 32:28 But what's the alternative? As you said before, like, you- you have to lay the agency at your own feet. Because if you were to-

Douglas Murray 32:33 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 32:33 ... perhaps admit the truth, which is, "I was in the right place at the right time," was it-

Douglas Murray 32:38 Well, there's a... Yeah, that can be the case. Uh, not many people say that-

Chris Williamson 32:40 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 32:40 ... but yeah, some do. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:41 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 32:42 Yeah, if you were in Britain in the '80s for instance, it's a good time to make money. Easier, better, um, than today. So th- then some people will say, "Yeah, it was a great place and right time." But most people, uh, do sort of vaguely think they've made it, that they, it was sort of preordained. I mean, I- we all do that to some extent. I often describe myself as being lucky and then need somebody to remind m- me of how hard I've worked.

Chris Williamson 33:06 Yeah. I had a friend who joined Goldman Sachs in 1998.

Douglas Murray 33:12 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 33:13 And he said he had an absolute golden period-

Douglas Murray 33:16 Oh yeah, absolutely.

Chris Williamson 33:16 ... for about- for about-

Douglas Murray 33:17 10 years?

Chris Williamson 33:17 Yeah, yeah. Uh, a little bit less. Uh, he said he- it was already starting to wind down.

Douglas Murray 33:23 Before Lehman Brothers.

Chris Williamson 33:23 Yeah. Um, uh, some of that was to do with DEI, a very early instantiation of DEI.

Douglas Murray 33:29 That's right, yes. There's a, there's several books that make that clear in the subtext.

Chris Williamson 33:32 Is that right?

Douglas Murray 33:33 Yeah. Several books-

Chris Williamson 33:33 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 33:33 ... that make it clear about some of the hiring processes going on.

Chris Williamson 33:35 Yeah, like 2006-

Douglas Murray 33:37 Uh-huh.

Chris Williamson 33:37 ... he was already seeing it. But he told me, uh, he made a trade, uh, on, uh, 9/11. He made a, he made a- a very particular trade, and, uh, bypassed all of the security, um, concern, oh, uh, th- the limits on everything. And, uh, the pit boss or whatever, he's just some young dude, he's been there for two years, right? Out of whatever, university or something.

Douglas Murray 34:01 What did his boss think of the trade?

Chris Williamson 34:02 Came over and said, like, "What the fuck-"

Douglas Murray 34:05 Yes.

Chris Williamson 34:05 "... are you doing?" And he said, "Look at this. If this then that, if this then that, run it all the way down." He said, "This is the outcome. This is what's gonna happen." And he was like, "We... Like, I- I don't know what..." So first off he was concerned that it was gonna go wrong, and then he made the most ungodly amount of money in the space of three hours. And then all the markets shut for 10 days from-

Douglas Murray 34:27 Well, yes.

Chris Williamson 34:27 ... from September 12th.

Douglas Murray 34:28 Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 34:29 And, uh, the only organization that had spare capital was Goldman because of this particular trade.

Douglas Murray 34:37 Wow.

Chris Williamson 34:37 And, uh, he was basically told... We may need to cut this, I'll check with him. He was basically told, "Go home. Don't tell anybody-"

Douglas Murray 34:46 Yeah, of course.

Chris Williamson 34:46 "... that you made this."

Douglas Murray 34:47 He shorted the market. Uh, yeah. I mean, it was- it was widely thought after 9/11 that because the- the stock market tanked of course immediately, and we didn't know if there was gonna be a world war or if this was world war. Um, and, um, uh, it was regarded very swiftly as actually being, uh, uh, the duty of Wall Street to- to not do that.

Chris Williamson 35:05 Mm.

Douglas Murray 35:06 To the markets.

Chris Williamson 35:06 But Bush came back. You remember? He did that Ground Zero announcement.

Douglas Murray 35:09 Yeah, yeah, of course.

Chris Williamson 35:09 "And we- we will do..." And that was as much for the, uh-

Douglas Murray 35:13 For the markets, yeah, of course.

Chris Williamson 35:13 ... stock market as it was for the (laughs) fucking popular-

Douglas Murray 35:15 Yeah, absolutely. Well yes, because I mean, if the stock ma- market collapses, I mean, many, many more Americans, I can't remember the percentage, but are own- are- are invested in the stock market than in Britain. I mean, I think like three times more or something-

Chris Williamson 35:26 Right.

Douglas Murray 35:26 Americans are-

Chris Williamson 35:27 With 401Ks, and-

Douglas Murray 35:28 Yeah, more than 50% of the population in America has some, uh, investment in the, in the stock market. So it's different from in the UK where... When the stock, when- when the pound was shorted in the 1990s by, uh, um, Soros and others, uh, they, um, uh, a- a- a lot of British people are not that sympathetic 'cause they- they don't see themselves as being involved in the stock market.

Chris Williamson 35:48 Mm.

Douglas Murray 35:49 Which of course they are, they just don't know it.

Chris Williamson 35:51 You mentioned George

Chris Williamson 35:52 Orwell there.

Douglas Murray 35:53 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 35:53 The Telegraph recently spoke about his bi- his wife's biography or autobiography.

Douglas Murray 35:58 Oh, there's a new biography of Sonia Orwell, yeah.

Chris Williamson 36:00 "George Orwell was sadistic, misogynistic, homophobic, and sometimes violent. Biographer of the legendary writer's wife says darkness that runs through 1984 is a reflection of his soul."

Douglas Murray 36:12 Huh.

Chris Williamson 36:12 Should we un-person George?

Douglas Murray 36:15 Well, it would be the obvious end point to the-

Chris Williamson 36:17 Full circle. (laughs)

Douglas Murray 36:18 Full circle. Um, yeah, I- I... This- this is just a way of the- for the author to get publicity is to- to repeat things everyone knew-I mean, George Orwell held the views of his time about gay men, for instance. We know he was a little bit homophobic, but it was the 1940s, you know. Um, Nancy Boys and so on, as he would have called them-

Chris Williamson 36:40 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 36:40 ... were not-

Chris Williamson 36:41 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 36:42 ... you know, people weren't into it.

Chris Williamson 36:43 That sounds like a, like a, a 1990s Taxi Driver's insult that they've thrown at them.

Douglas Murray 36:48 No, it was a sort of word that Orwell and people of his generation would use, you know, fairies, that sort of thing. And he does in some of his letters and some of his articles. But I mean, so fucking what? I don't care. I mean, was he sadistic? Probably in some ways, sometimes. Was... Could he be cruel and nasty? Probably, being a human being. I just think that, that the absurdity of our age of judging people and passing... Well, you know, just, just wait till people do that to you.

Chris Williamson 37:20 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 37:20 You know, wait- wait till somebody weighs up your own life in the balance and finds you wanting, you know. I mean, I think it's preposterous. Human beings are what we are. Being amazed at us in the past is always just an expression of our own vanity and thinking we've got past all that. It's like the way... If, if a friend of mine was saying to me the other day when I was at Oxford, if you want to get a grant to study these days, say, in English, and you were to choose Shakespeare as your subject of study, which is sort of unusual these days, uh, you would, um, you would, for instance, have to, uh, find Shakespeare guilty of, you know, racism, colonialist thinking, and so on. And it doesn't seem to strike these people that actually their job is not to judge Shakespeare. Shakespeare judges us, and he might find us wanting.

Chris Williamson 38:11 How so?

Douglas Murray 38:13 Well, he gives us visions of the universe and our place in it, which it would do us well to listen to, um, and that might include exposing human follies, human weakness, human pride, human sin, human lust, uh, the tendency to do evil in the name of doing good, or think you're doing good and do great harm, so much more. All of this is in Shakespeare's work, in his characters, in the things he inv- he created in his mind and his work. I think that, that if you look at a panoply of a vision like that, you should think, "I wonder what he's telling us?" Rather than, "I wonder how I can judge him?" What's the point of the latter? It's so boring. Human being from the past in human being in the past. Shocker.

Chris Williamson 39:03 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 39:05 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 39:06 Has it always been this way? Has it always been, uh, people of the present judging people of yesterday by the standards of today?

Douglas Murray 39:13 Um, well, most people didn't have time in the past to engage in that. Um, too busy trying to put food on the table or surviving past the age of 25, you know. Um, uh, but w- what it is in our current society is there's a very strange, um, um, lack of respect for wisdom. Uh, Henry Kissinger said this in the early years of internet. He said, "I, uh... All the knowledge is there, but where's the wisdom?"

Chris Williamson 39:41 Mm.

Douglas Murray 39:42 Uh, and people might not like me quoting Doctor Kissinger in that regard, but again, he knows a lot more than most of his critics. Um, I do think that's a, that's a str- oddity of the age. I think the oddity, the vanity of trying to judge everyone from the past by our current standards is just absurd. You think you know more than Shakespeare? You think you know more than Orwell? Uh, these are minnows, uh, snapping at giants. I don't care for them. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 40:12 One, uh, potentially

Chris Williamson 40:15 unfortunate situation is that women's mental health is in part down to misogynistic songs. When BTS lead singer Jungkook changed t- to a more misogynistic music, a disturbing trend followed. A psychiatrist's point of view on BTS's Jungkook and the, the messages of pop music. Early in their teen career, BTS took a deliberate stance to refrain from objectifying or sexualizing women. Despite going against a music industry norm, they achieved huge success. Now, as part of his solo launch, different imagery has s- surfaced in Jungkook's songs. They include a woman telling her man that she will "be your fantasy" and "swallow your pride" to make him "never think about cheating." Lyrics that identify-

Douglas Murray 40:59 Ow. So what's this? Why... You just said, "Swallow your pride," in a particularly suggestive way.

Chris Williamson 41:02 I did not at all.

Douglas Murray 41:03 What's the... What's-

Chris Williamson 41:03 I've got worse.

Douglas Murray 41:04 ... the subtext of that?

Chris Williamson 41:04 I've got, I've got more to go here.

Douglas Murray 41:06 Oh, okay. Okay.

Chris Williamson 41:06 Uh, lyrics that identify women as "those hoes over there" and a male rapper telling his female partner, "I wanked before you came so that I can fuck you longer." Of course, in reality, Jungkook's songs are par for the course, or even tame.

Douglas Murray 41:20 Does that work, by the way, what you just described?

Chris Williamson 41:22 You've never im- increased your stamina-

Douglas Murray 41:25 I just think it's... If-

Chris Williamson 41:26 ... by t- uh, having a warm up?

Douglas Murray 41:27 I would have thought the lyric more likely, "I did that before you came and now I'd just like to go to bed."

Chris Williamson 41:32 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 41:34 I'd kind of like a lie down.

Chris Williamson 41:35 "I did that before you came-"

Douglas Murray 41:37 I might have an early night, yeah.

Chris Williamson 41:37 ... "and that's why I texted saying I'm not so fussed about ..."

Douglas Murray 41:39 That... Yeah, yeah, I don't mind. Let's have a quick dinner now I get to bed.

Chris Williamson 41:41 Uh, one of my friends had a, uh, had a, a, a rubric for this that was "masturbate before you evaluate."

Douglas Murray 41:48 Oh, well, that's true. Yeah, that's... That can be sensible advice.

Chris Williamson 41:50 "I'm not sure if I liked you or I was just horny."

Douglas Murray 41:53 Horny, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 41:54 Yeah. But no, girls' mental health-

Douglas Murray 41:56 Okay, sorry. You were reading out these charming lyrics. Is that it?

Chris Williamson 41:57 That's it. That's it. "Those hoes over there," "I wanked before you came so that I can fuck you longer."

Douglas Murray 42:02 Hmm. Well, where to start?

Chris Williamson 42:06 Downstream from K-pop is a litany of female mental health problems. That's what I'm saying.

Douglas Murray 42:12 There's a problem here, isn't there? Because on the one hand, popular culture does have a massive impact on the way we see the world. Uh, I was at a gym recently where I actually asked the gym staff to, to turn off the music because it was a load of rap, very unpleasant rap, with repeated use of the N-word in it.... obviously it was a black rapper, or so I was assuming.

Chris Williamson 42:32 Right.

Douglas Murray 42:33 Um-

Chris Williamson 42:33 You didn't find yourself mouthing along to the lyrics and were worried about it? (laughs)

Douglas Murray 42:36 No. (laughs) No, I- But actually I don't...

Chris Williamson 42:39 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 42:39 That's right. What pro- what problem could possibly emerge from singing along? Um...

Chris Williamson 42:44 Just to interject there, someone got canceled on TikTok for mouthing the N-word along to a song.

Douglas Murray 42:50 Right. It's, it's possible.

Chris Williamson 42:53 So it's no longer... It's no longer the sound of the word, it's the mouth shape-

Douglas Murray 42:57 Mouthing. Yes.

Chris Williamson 42:57 ... that that word engenders.

Douglas Murray 42:59 Yeah. Um, well, we know that it's a magical word in our time, which even the speaking of suddenly summons up the demons of the past.

Chris Williamson 43:06 Lord Voldemort will emerge.

Douglas Murray 43:07 Yeah, very, very strange.

Chris Williamson 43:08 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 43:08 But, no, I just said to the s- I said to the ..., I said, "I just don't want to hear it, 'cause I don't want... I just don't want it in the background of my life."

Chris Williamson 43:16 Mm-hmm.

Douglas Murray 43:16 You know. Um...

Chris Williamson 43:18 Was it that gym that we trained at?

Douglas Murray 43:19 ... We can discuss this another time.

Chris Williamson 43:21 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 43:21 But anyway... Um, no, I just don't like... There are certain things I don't want in my ears, and that's one actually. I have no interest in hearing the word because it's a banned word, so why would I want it in my mental background?

Chris Williamson 43:33 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 43:34 Um, but s- but anyway, the point is, is that of course popular culture has a huge impact on people. It has a huge impact on the way in which people see themselves. It does, it does.

Chris Williamson 43:42 Mm-hmm.

Douglas Murray 43:43 At the same time, you can overstate it. You know, somebody is not generally unhappy just because of the popular culture, apart from anything else because you can easily step out of it, as I try to do. Um, and, you know, be a part of your time but not be its creature, as Schiller says. Um, and so no, I, I think it, it's a sort of weak excuse for unhappiness, the popular culture happens not to be to your taste or... Avoid it. Get out. Look up from the screen.

Chris Williamson 44:11 When is cancel culture going to come for rap lyrics? Because it seems to me that-

Douglas Murray 44:16 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 44:16 ... you know, as we're fighting against the misogyny of air conditioning temperatures in offices that are conditioned to the male body temperature as opposed to the female body temperature, or...

Douglas Murray 44:27 I mean, the, the, the, the levity of the era is just astonishing to me. You know, lots of people contribute to me this quote that I, it's not quite right, and it's quite for me, but that, um, that we'll be talking about gender pronouns when the barbarians break in. But I've said something like it quite a few times. But I mean, you know, gender norms and air conditioning, it's the sort of thing that w- you would be discussing just before you all get m- you know, macheted.

Chris Williamson 44:57 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 44:58 I'm totally serious about this. It's... Sometimes it's like... One of the things that actually genuinely shocked me in recent weeks, speaking of the Hamas massacre in Israel, was, you know... And then something which I do think at some point when, when it's all died down a bit, might, there might be a moment of, of, of... Uh, what do you call it? I've got to say this carefully. But a moment of, um, seriousness, which is, you know, take the music festival within a few miles of the Gaza border that Hamas attacked. All young people there were at this sort of peace rave. And, um, this isn't in any way to victim blame. These were people just wanting to dance, and, um, dance into the early morning, and I think it was called the p- the peace rave, the peace and love rave, something like that. Um, and then this hideous other world broke into, to them and to their lives, and ended the lives of hundreds of them. There's something, there's something haunting about this, I find, because it's, uh, especially haunting, because it sort of demonstrates that your slogans and your attitudes only go so far. And they can't keep out some of the things that are lurking at the edges. And I think that when I hear people whining about minor things, phew, if you have any idea of the world out there, if you had any idea of the things that was lurking, you couldn't possibly be complaining about this.

Chris Williamson 46:35 Well, how do you think Gays for Gaza will get

Chris Williamson 46:38 on long-term?

Douglas Murray 46:39 Well, it... The joke at the moment is that there aren't enough tall buildings in Gaza to throw Gays for Gaza off. But these, I mean, these people, uh, you know, I've said very often they're, they're part of the same phenomenon as turkeys for Christmas and chickens for KFC. I mean, I, I just, I'm fed up with these in- fringe idiot cases. I mean, they're so mentally defective, these people. Uh, and, and incredibly narcissistic. You know, "I can be queer and also celebrate Palestine." No, you fucking can't. Fuck off.

Chris Williamson 47:15 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 47:15 Just... You know, "I can both argue for two-state solution and also celebrate queerness, and also not let myself down." No, you can't. No, you can't. You can't do all those things. At some point, you gotta choose.

Chris Williamson 47:27 I've got a video to show you. Let me show you this video.

Narrator 47:31 Can someone please explain to me what this means? What does, "Reproductive justice means-"

Chris Williamson 47:39 Oh.

Narrator 47:40 "... free Palestine"? What does that even mean? Like, what does it mean? I'm pretty sure... I'm not pretty sure. Abortions are illegal in Palestine, unless it's like, you know, a super medical emergency and the mother will die. From what I understand, actually, a lot of Palestinians have to go to Israel to get the abortions they want. So what does this mean?

Chris Williamson 48:04 Yeah.

Narrator 48:05 What? It...

Chris Williamson 48:06 (laughs)

Narrator 48:06 It's such a huge sign. There's five people holding this thing. It's massive.

Douglas Murray 48:14 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 48:14 That's very good. That's Danny, the other half of Ryan who wasn't there the day that you, that you came. Um-

Douglas Murray 48:20 Yeah, the boys' cost. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 48:21 Reproductive justice means free Palestine. What are you thinking? Can you-

Douglas Murray 48:25 I mean, this is just, this is just, uh, incredibly ignorant young people in America who have been taught this weird-... version of the world where all oppressions interlink and interlock and you- uh, you're either the majority or minority for minority rights and issues, or for majority rights and issues. And all minority rights and issues intersect and overlap, so that if you're queer, somehow you- No, no, it's not even that. These ignoramuses who couldn't point to the River Jordan if you showed it to them on a map, um, walk along the streets of America s- sh- shouting, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." Because they think the Palestinians are the underdogs in this weird version where they've mapped American racial... Well, they've mapped a very specific version of American racial politics onto everything else in the world. It's the same thing who p- talk- p- people who talk about colonizers. I mean, there's this language of colonizers, apartheid, all this stuff, and they've just tried to map it everywhere. Well, I say everywhere, actually it's highly selectively, highly selectively. I mean, the people who are talking about Israelis being colonizers, um, when I saw that the other day on the streets of London, I thought, "Yes, if only there was a name for large numbers of people who came from outside to a country and, um, if only we could identify what they might be called in Britain. Oh, it would be immigrants, wouldn't it?" Do you want to call immigrants colonizers in Britain? Are you sure you want to follow this logical conclusion? The talk about indigenous peoples. Oh, okay, great. Any way you don't want to apply that? Might there be a country or continent, say, oh, Europe, where you don't want to start talking about the indigenous peoples? I notice that people don't. But if you do want to, welcome to hell. So no, all that is happening is a very selective mapping of a particular interpretation of the world that very dumb people in America have tried to f- put on certain selective other cases. And it doesn't work, it just doesn't work, but may they never find out how much it doesn't work. May they never find out. Um-

Chris Williamson 50:37 (coughs)

Douglas Murray 50:37 I, I wish them bliss in their ignorance because if their ignorance ever gets popped, it will be as brutal a day as can be imagined.

Chris Williamson 50:47 I've been thinking for a good while about how hypocrisy is a purpose-built tool for the internet to use. It's th- it's like catnip for the internet. It's the thing, because the reason-

Douglas Murray 50:58 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 50:58 ... it's so purpose-built, it's like a, one of those can you spot the difference competitions on a touchscreen iPad.

Douglas Murray 51:04 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 51:04 This is what's on the left, this is what's on the right. And what you have is, here's something that someone once said or a position that they used to hold, and here is what they hold now, or here is what they do in their real life, or here is whatever.

Douglas Murray 51:14 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 51:14 And it's kind of what you're identifying here, that you have a worldview which is self-contradictory. You're just using different words for one thing that is almost exactly the same for another thing-

Douglas Murray 51:24 Right.

Chris Williamson 51:24 ... and then complaining about this one saying, "Don't look o- d- don't look over here at this one."

Douglas Murray 51:29 Don't look over here. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 51:29 Yeah. Uh.

Douglas Murray 51:30 Well, I mean, e- everyone is inconsistent to some extent. And I don't think, by the way, that I mean, I mean, on hypocrisy or... You know, for instance, I can see a scenario where somebody might say, "Oh, Douglas, you're hypocritical on this particular question." I might say, "Well, you know, there are some things I think are even more important than not being a hypocrite. Such as?" I don't know, surviving. I... The worst thing about him is his hypocrisy. And it's, it's, it's, it's, there's a, there's a weird... Hypocrisy is, is the easiest one to catch people on is the truth of that.

Chris Williamson 51:59 Correct. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Douglas Murray 51:59 It's the easiest one to spot.

Chris Williamson 52:01 Yes.

Douglas Murray 52:02 Um, y- you just... And, and they, they do it as you say on, "This is what this person said 20 years ago, this is what they say now." A g- uh, again, human being in- growing up, shocker.

Chris Williamson 52:13 Yes.

Douglas Murray 52:13 Yeah. Um, people are allowed to evolve, they change their minds, they grow up. It'd be rather boring to say the same thing and f- think the same thing only for 70 years. Um, but yeah, people find hypocrisy very h- very easy to, to see, and it's about the only vice you can really catch somebody on, I think, which is if you say one thing publicly and do another thing privately.

Chris Williamson 52:36 Mm-hmm.

Douglas Murray 52:37 It's about the only one that people are really confident on. Uh, almost other moral judgments, for better or worse, have sort of ebbed away, but people still f- are able to judge, uh, hypocrisy. Um, uh, but I think, I, I mean, I, I think there are worse things. I mean, I think not standing up for your loved ones, not standing up for your country, not standing up for, uh, yourselves in the face of horrible opposition from within and without are probably worse than hypocrisy.

Chris Williamson 53:05 I heard you say recently you don't have to agree with everyone's principle to respect the principle they're sticking to.

Douglas Murray 53:12 Uh, did I say that? Yeah, sounds good.

Chris Williamson 53:13 Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it's nice.

Douglas Murray 53:14 Okay. I, I didn't know I said that, but yeah.

Chris Williamson 53:15 You did.

Douglas Murray 53:16 Okay.

Chris Williamson 53:16 Uh, but the reason that I like that is I think it shows why the bravery conversation or standing up for something that you believe in-

Douglas Murray 53:29 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 53:30 ... is something that is a pr- c- at least then if someone is prepared to stand up for whatever their beliefs are, that you can assume they're telling the truth, especially if they pay a high price for it.

Douglas Murray 53:40 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 53:40 It's one of the reasons why I have, uh, a good amount of faith that Sam believes the things that he says.

Douglas Murray 53:45 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 53:46 Because he p-

Douglas Murray 53:46 Well, why would he not?

Chris Williamson 53:46 He pays an unbelievably high price to continue to flip-flop from one tribe to another tribe, to another tribe.

Douglas Murray 53:53 I don't think it's an unbelievably high price, but a price, let's say.

Chris Williamson 53:56 Relatively high price, yeah.

Douglas Murray 53:58 Yeah. I m- I, I mean, very early in some people's careers or when people first make it to public notice, people say things like, you know, "Do you really believe what you say?" The answer to which for most people is, or ought to be, "Well, why would I say it if I didn't believe it?"

Chris Williamson 54:11 Mm-hmm.

Douglas Murray 54:12 Uh, there are people who obviously do say stuff for LOLs or clicks or monetary purpose, but at a certain point, I mean, you, you gotta accept that the person thinks what they think and, you know, respect them for it, or at least do them the decency of believing that they mean it. And I think that even on people I disagree with wildly, I mean. It's such a boring argument that one, some people use it, particularly on the left is like, "You know, I wonder if they a- a- actually even believe it. I think they don't, I think they're just doing it for money." Okay, well, that's an easier way to try to ignore them than actually trying to contend with the possibility that what they're saying is something they mean and believe-

Chris Williamson 54:44 Mm-hmm.

Douglas Murray 54:45 ... and trying to work out if there's anything in it.

Chris Williamson 54:46 Mm-hmm.

Douglas Murray 54:47 Much easier to say the person's only doing it 'cause they're paid or something.

Chris Williamson 54:50 Yeah, that's the shill, grifter accusation.

Douglas Murray 54:54 Very boring accusation.

Chris Williamson 54:55 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 54:55 I- I- I don't doubt there are some people who, who that is the case with, but-

Chris Williamson 54:59 Way fewer than-

Douglas Murray 55:00 ... way fewer than people

Douglas Murray 55:01 think.

Chris Williamson 55:01 Michael Malice has a, a hierarchy of different, uh, I think it's like the hierarchy of grifters.

Douglas Murray 55:07 I don't know why, but the moment you say Michael Malice, my m- m- face immediately sort of starts to smile.

Chris Williamson 55:11 Yeah, he's terrible. Uh, one of the, it's like, um, industry plant, paid opposition, controlled PSYOP.

Douglas Murray 55:19 Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes.

Chris Williamson 55:20 It goes all the way up, and he said-

Douglas Murray 55:22 Oh, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 55:22 ... that he descended recently. He's not quite at paid opposition, but I think he's industry plant now.

Douglas Murray 55:26 Right.

Chris Williamson 55:27 I think Lex Fridman is paid opposition. Um, s- s-

Douglas Murray 55:30 P- Paid is different from controlled opposition.

Chris Williamson 55:32 Uh, maybe it's controlled opposition.

Douglas Murray 55:34 Maybe it's the same.

Chris Williamson 55:34 I don't fucking know.

Douglas Murray 55:34 Controlled opposition is... These are such weird terms that have cropped up in our era.

Chris Williamson 55:39 I love it.

Douglas Murray 55:40 Again, I think they're sort of low resolution explanations, but they're really, really low resolution explanations for things. Whenever I hear somebody describe things as that, I always sort of know you're not dealing with somebody who actually understands the world.

Chris Williamson 55:53 Do you find... There's a, definitely a trend of, um, conspiratorial thinking, conspiracism.

Douglas Murray 55:59 Yeah, of course.

Chris Williamson 55:59 Uh, much stronger in our adopted homeland than it is in the UK, I think.

Douglas Murray 56:04 Yes, that's true.

Chris Williamson 56:07 What do you think? Uh, uh, are you... How conspiracy pilled are you? Do you see...

Douglas Murray 56:13 I- I mean, it's, it's... This is the moment when people say, "Aha, controlled opposition."

Chris Williamson 56:21 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 56:21 (laughs) I just wa-

Chris Williamson 56:22 You ascended.

Douglas Murray 56:23 I-

Chris Williamson 56:23 This is me allowing you to graduate from-

Douglas Murray 56:25 I think I talked about this on the Boys cast, that's right.

Chris Williamson 56:27 Did you?

Douglas Murray 56:27 And, and, and, uh, brief- briefly, and, and, and, uh, various people wrote to me saying, "Ah, there you go. That's proof that you're paid."

Chris Williamson 56:34 You're glowing, as it's called.

Douglas Murray 56:35 Um, but it's... What's that?

Chris Williamson 56:37 You're, you heard "you're glowing."

Douglas Murray 56:38 No, what's that?

Chris Williamson 56:38 So, uh, tell me if I'm wrong with this. Mark, you're the resident glow expert, but, "You're glowing," means you're, you're like a planted person who's saying something that is outing their, like...

Douglas Murray 56:58 Oh.

Chris Williamson 56:59 It's an intelligence operation that's, that's breached the surface and people can see it, and they comment on TikTok saying like, "You're glowing."

Douglas Murray 57:05 Oh, so it's, like, um, the people alleged to be FBI, um, who are at certain protests.

Chris Williamson 57:10 Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Douglas Murray 57:10 All wearing chinos and T-shirts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um.

Chris Williamson 57:14 So you're conspiratorial through this position?

Douglas Murray 57:15 Yeah. Well, so the conspiracy... No, the, the thing with conspiracy theories, it's very difficult in our era, 'cause some of the conspiracies are true, of course, have come true, um, or known to be true. Uh, lab leak conspiracy theory, probably true. They shouldn't have ever called... Nobody should ever have called it a conspiracy theory, 'cause it wasn't a conspiracy theory. It was one of a set of hype- of hypotheticals, uh, to explain what happened with, uh, with, uh, with COVID. Um, so a lot of things get called conspiracy, w- which are not, they're just hypotheses, uh, that should be allowed to remain on the table. And that makes a certain type of person increasingly prone to, uh, believe that everything, uh, that's called a conspiracy theory is not a conspiracy theory. And before you know it, you get sane-ish individuals thinking that the Moon landings were a conspiracy, uh, that we didn't land on the Moon, American didn't land on the Moon. I don't know whether the people who now claim that believe that the Russians also faked it. It's an interesting question to ask them. Do you think that the, that the Soviets were capable of getting to the Moon, but the Americans were not? The Americans set up, like, a, a, a blow fan and a flag on a dodgy papier-mache set, but the Soviets did make it? Or did the Soviets and Americans both agree to pretend to have gone to the Moon, but not really have gone? None of it makes sense to my mind. But there's a s- but, but, but it's... I have noticed, and, um, well, it's, it's actually all the literature demonstrates this, that there's certain types of mental, um, uh, uh, problems that people have that make them disproportionately likely to believe conspiracy theories en- en masse. And o- o- one of them is paranoia. Uh, the more paranoid a person is, the more likely they are to believe that sort of thing. And that's the observation in my own life. I've, and I've known a number of people who've, who've gone into the world of conspiracy and not come out, and they are all people who have suffered paranoid episodes in their lives, so, which adds up.

Chris Williamson 59:06 So fear engenders...

Douglas Murray 59:08 Yeah, and it's a, as I say, it's a sort of low resolution explanation for complex phenomena. Uh, and, you know, and I think it's also that... See, conspiracy theories come about and ex- and are used by people who, uh, and this is- isn't an original point, many people have made it, they're made... The, the claims about them are made, by and large, by people who don't understand how unbelievably chaotic the world actually is, or can't face it. Um, so they can't face the fact that, yeah, somebody you followed in the newspapers every day for all of your life did actually just die in a f- freak car crash because the driver was drunk. They can't bear the idea. The world can't be that cruel, it can't be that random. (laughs) You wanna bet? That's just the start of this.

Chris Williamson 59:56 It's got to be coordination, it can't be coincidence.

Douglas Murray 59:58 Exactly. So, uh, people who can't cope with the wild frivolity of the roulette table of our lives, um, always go to the, "There must be somebody behind it. There must be somebody who's controlling all this." Are you jo- Are you joking? Nobody's controlling this. If anyone was controlling the damn thing, I'd want to know by now. But of course they're not. It's, it's a... So it's a very unsatisfactory place to arrive at in your life. And, by the way, my own observation, it's not very good for people personally, because they, they start to lose agency themselves.

Chris Williamson 1:00:28 Locus of control gets externalized.

Douglas Murray 1:00:30 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:00:30 I'm at the mercy of the world.

Douglas Murray 1:00:31 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:00:32 (clears throat)

Douglas Murray 1:00:32 And, uh, the real answer is (laughs) the world doesn't care.

Chris Williamson 1:00:35 No. Doesn't even know that you exist.

Douglas Murray 1:00:37 It is deaf to you.

Chris Williamson 1:00:38 The, the ability for people to hold two conflicting thoughts in their mind at the same time is supposed to be the mark of, of sophisticated thinking, but it does show up here, which is the government is both so useless that they can't get anything right and so sophisticated that they're able to coordinate these-

Douglas Murray 1:00:55 Oh, well, that's masses of versions. The Arab world is filled with that. The Muslim world is filled with that. Things like, uh, I've noticed repeatedly on my travels, things like, um, uh-... uh, 9/11 was an inside job of the Americans to allow the Jews out of the World Trade Center, and also, "Yay, 9/11. Good for Osama bin Laden." They can do both. Uh, there was a m- a f- somebody I knew interviewed the father of, um, the main 9/11 hijacker, his name's gone out of my mind, I don't care, he must, he should be forgotten, but, uh, they interviewed the father in Jordan, and he was simultaneously capable of holding in his head that his son was a great shahid, a martyr for Islam, and that 9/11 was an inside job with the Americans. What? What the fuck? Like, choose. It's g- I mean, d- do you think your son was an agent of the FBI and also a sh- martyr? Like, hey, people do this. The Muslim world is particularly prone to, to conspiratorial thinking, because it's a f- it's a source of flattery to itself to explain why they have created so few successful societies. Um, and, and Bernard Lewis made this point many years ago that the problem in the Muslim world is that there's a, they ha- is they have to find ex- explanations, because if you're given the revelations of Muhammad and you're told it's the last revelation ever from God, and that you are the people who have received this revelation, and everything's going to go great for you because you've got the revelation. And then, like the Jews, sh- you have one country and it does much better than any of your countries. And, you know, you can't get the economy of most of your countries going at all, and you can't provide for most of your citizenry, and n- nobody's coming up the ladder, and the economy's in the dust and all this. You've gotta find an explanation for it because like, what? We were given the revelation and they're doing much better. So I mean, the- there's, uh, massive things like that that sit underneath the movements of our time, which m- m- maybe billions of people on the planet believe, and they believe them 'cause it flatters themselves. It flatters the governments who aspire to run these countries or claim to run these countries. Um, yeah. Billions of people believe this shit.

Chris Williamson 1:03:09 I was thinking

Chris Williamson 1:03:10 about the extremist worldview beliefs, largely in the West, but I guess everywhere, and I was wondering whether we have finally moved beyond peak woke. And a study came up recently that was kind of interesting. Researchers from Change Research polled over a thousand registered US voters from 18 to 34. A majority of both women and men consider far rightism and far leftism to be red flags in a potential partner. 76% of women and 59% of men consider identifying as a MAGA Republican to be a large turnoff. 64% of men and 55% of women say they'd also swipe left on someone identifying as a communist. 55% of women's-

Douglas Murray 1:03:50 What was the f- how was it with the - 64% of men, 55% of women swipe left on a, on a communist. That's a no. Uh, 55% of men said that listening to Joe Rogan was a red flag. Uh, f- (laughs) 41% of men said the same for a woman being into astrology. Oh, well that's no... I'm with that one.

Chris Williamson 1:04:08 Uh, th-

Douglas Murray 1:04:08 Because if somebody says, "What's your star sign?" Date over. Gone.

Chris Williamson 1:04:11 (laughs) Well, there's a, a really famous meme where, uh, it's o- on iMessage and the text says, um, "Mum, uh, what time was I born at?"

Douglas Murray 1:04:23 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:04:23 And the reply from mum says, "Uh, stay the fuck away from that girl." (laughs)

Douglas Murray 1:04:29 (laughs) Yeah, it is, it is... The, the heart sinks when it comes up as a question. Oh, no. It's a shame. Okay.

Chris Williamson 1:04:35 Uh, 41... uh, 33% of men said for Black Lives Matter, it was a red flag if they say Black Lives Matter, 14% of women. Uh, 53% of women said it was a red flag if they recei- refused to see the Barbie movie, uh, 31% of men. 58% of women, red flag, if they say there are only two genders. 34% of men. Uh, 54% of women for... they identify as a conservative, uh, 33% of men for... they identify as a liberal. Uh, so next time you're vibing with someone, maybe save the podcast recommendations and daily horoscopes for the second date.

Douglas Murray 1:05:11 Wow. And, and ma-

Chris Williamson 1:05:13 55% of women say that listening to Joe Rogan was a red flag.

Douglas Murray 1:05:16 I wonder if the species has any future. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:05:19 (laughs) Because they can't listen to Joe Rogan. (laughs)

Douglas Murray 1:05:21 Well, no, I mean, just like-

Chris Williamson 1:05:23 Or anything else.

Douglas Murray 1:05:23 ... uh, all these people w- are wiping out, like-

Chris Williamson 1:05:26 No, no, no, no.

Douglas Murray 1:05:26 ... very significant numbers of potential future partners.

Chris Williamson 1:05:29 Mm-hmm.

Douglas Murray 1:05:30 Um, how weird. And Joe turning up in there.

Chris Williamson 1:05:35 55%.

Douglas Murray 1:05:36 So w- now that's amazing. I don't... wha- what happened to all the good old people who used to say, "I don't really have an opinion on that"?

Chris Williamson 1:05:43 Well, I got-

Douglas Murray 1:05:44 What happened to those guys?

Chris Williamson 1:05:45 I got pulled in a good bit recently on the internet for, uh, not commenting on the recent sociopolitical furor that's happening in the Middle East. And I quoted you pseudonymously, and said, uh, "I'm trying to make a habit of something which is very rare on the internet-

Douglas Murray 1:06:04 Mm.

Chris Williamson 1:06:04 ... to not comment on something which I know-

Douglas Murray 1:06:05 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:06:05 ... nothing about."

Douglas Murray 1:06:06 It's a very good rule.

Chris Williamson 1:06:08 And yet, it's the rarest thing of all.

Douglas Murray 1:06:12 Yes.

Chris Williamson 1:06:12 Like, why shouldn't I? People, people care about my insights into health and fitness or, uh, my, my i- learnings about social psychology. Why, why shouldn't my fiscal-

Douglas Murray 1:06:25 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:06:25 ... advice be important?

Douglas Murray 1:06:27 Yeah. There's, there's-

Chris Williamson 1:06:27 Why, why shouldn't my views on immigration or-

Douglas Murray 1:06:29 It's much to be avoided, that. And it, uh, I mean, in the end, you make much less of a dick of yourself if you don't start talking about everything.

Chris Williamson 1:06:36 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 1:06:37 I mean, th- there's... Um, y- uh, I mean... Somebody recently sent me a, uh, an article, uh, a, a relatively well-known person sent me an article recently they wanted to publish about the Middle East. And near the opening, said, um, "I don't really know much about the Middle East, but, you know, this is..." Blah, blah, blah. And I was just like, "In that case, don't speak. Don't speak and say, 'But, here's my thing.'" You... If, if you don't know, just, just, just agree not to do it. Um-That's one reason why there's a lot of, I mean, there's a lot of television these days in the UK, where you can be invited on to debate with a total ignoramus who's only there for balance, you know, for Ofcom-related balance. And I just can't do that stuff anymore. It's too demeaning. You know, that if there's a subject you know about, a war that you've covered, or covered many times, as in my case with the Israel-Hamas wars and Israel-Hezbollah wars, um, I- I just can't be sitting there with somebody... I hate to say this, and it's not- not meant in a misogynistic way, but there's a lot of, um, uh, women who are currently invited on things for balance, firstly because they're women, secondly because they provide usually a left-wing perspective. And that's needed if it's me that's on as well. And, you know, I just think it's so depressing to- b- you know, to give your informed opinion about something you've seen and reported on firsthand and- and then they go to the other person and they go, "Well, like, I think it's..." And I say, "Oh, why don't I, why aren't I just at home? Why... I could be doing anything else, and I've got to listen to somebody who doesn't know what they're talking about whisk up an opinion live on air." Oh, it's so depressing. But masses of people are like that and it's just... Yeah. If you don't know about it, don't talk about it, it's a very good rule of thumb. Or try it out in private with friends and mates, and like try to learn something, read a book.

Chris Williamson 1:08:37 Are we morally obliged to have a take on everything?

Douglas Murray 1:08:40 No. No. And most people's opinion doesn't matter. I mean, it just doesn't. And I also think that the people who spend their time online, broadly speaking, th- th- th- you know, trying to broadcast out their opinions on things, should be told more often it doesn't matter. Um...

Chris Williamson 1:08:59 (clears throat)

Douglas Murray 1:09:00 It doesn't matter what you think. I mean, one of my rules on (clears throat) on any war is you should never, as a writer, try to give advice to a government you love. "This is what the Israelis must do. This is what the Ukrainians must do." You know? (laughs) They don't need to listen to you. I mean, uh, first of all, you don't live in the country. Unless you live in a country, be pretty damn sure- sure that you should be a bit humble about telling other people about their lives, you know? And also, like who made you the tactician du jour on everything?

Chris Williamson 1:09:37 Well, it's the same as COVID. Everyone became a virology or epidemiology expert.

Douglas Murray 1:09:41 And... Yeah, and then they became a withdrawal-from-Afghanistan expert, and then they became a Ukraine expert, and now they're all Middle East experts. And I just think it's a m- it should be regarded as a massive red flag that the person in question is... Normally what's happened is they've downloaded, uh, the set of opinions they believe that their tribe should have.

Chris Williamson 1:09:59 Correct.

Douglas Murray 1:10:00 And that's why the morons marching in London and other cities, you know, w- w- with the exception of the Muslims who are just whipped up all the time by the fact that the Jews do anything. I mean, like Muslims don't care about other Muslims, a- Arabs don't care about other Arabs. Nobody cares about the Palestinians. Nobody cares about them. Can't tell you how little they care about them. Jordanians loathe them. The Egyptians loathe them. The Lebanese loathe them. They've done nothing for the Palestinians for 70 years. (laughs) And yet, whenever the Israelis do anything, the Muslims across the West come out on the streets because they hate the Jews. And, you know, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in Yemen, not a peep on the streets of Britain and other places, certainly not big protests. Uh, Bashar al-Assad has killed more Muslims in the last 10 years than ha- than everybody on every side killed in every war involving Israel since 1948, including the War of Independence. Nobody cares. The Muslims don't come out on the streets. They don't care. The only thing they care about is their hatred of the Jews, and it motivates them like nothing else because it hits at the core of their self-esteem. They can't bear it. And so that one is, like, very interesting to me. But the- there are these fellow travelers who go along with them who have downloaded, as I say, a sort of pathetic American interpretation of colonization, decolonization, racial justice, reproductive rights, and try to map everything on and... (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:11:33 (laughs) My friend's got a theory called Gwinda's Theory of Bespoke Bullshit. Many don't have an opinion until they're asked for it, at which point they cobble together a viewpoint from whim and half-remembered hearsay before deciding that this two-minute ma- two-minute-old makeshift opinion will be their new hill to die on.

Douglas Murray 1:11:50 (laughs) That's very good. My friend Freddie Gray at The Spectator tends- tends to run very popular pieces e- each time a new big thing emerges, it's just, "The Bluffer's Guide to" whatever.

Chris Williamson 1:12:01 Okay.

Douglas Murray 1:12:01 And it's great and it usually involves, in foreign policy it us- usually involves him saying things like, "Well, they better get this done before the brutal Afghan winter kicks in." You go, "Who-"

Chris Williamson 1:12:11 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 1:12:11 "... who made you an expert on, like, meteorology in Afghanistan?"

Chris Williamson 1:12:15 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 1:12:15 Like, what? "Oh, no, the Ukrainians have got to make this advance before the dreaded N- Ukrainian May."

Chris Williamson 1:12:21 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 1:12:22 And I just think, "What..." (laughs) I- I mean, I try to have a-

Chris Williamson 1:12:25 (laughs) The Bluffer's Guide.

Douglas Murray 1:12:26 Yeah, it- it's a very useful rule. I- I- I try, for instance, never to write about any foreign policy issue if it's about a country I've not visited, preferably visited multiple times. I- I just- I can't bring myself to do it. I find it too embarrassing.

Chris Williamson 1:12:41 It's so interesting when you talk about, um, knowing one opinion that a person holds, and from that one opinion being able to accurately predict everything else that they believe.

Douglas Murray 1:12:51 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:12:52 That mono-thinking just proves that you're not a serious thinker.

Douglas Murray 1:12:56 Well, I d- I mean, I just think it's- it's fairly obvious if, for instance, you say, "Here, what's the problem with the big bearded guy winning the wei- women's weightlifting?" I go, "Okay, I know all of your other opinions as well." And to be fair, that probably works the other way around as well, to a great extent.The interesting thing with most people is where they're, um, slightly out of sorts with their own political side, and so on.

Chris Williamson 1:13:15 Well, that's exactly the point, that you... If it's been a long time since you were surprised by the opinion of your favorite thinker or writer or commentator or whatever it is, that's probably a reliable signal that they're not really thinking for themselves.

Douglas Murray 1:13:33 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:13:33 If you're just permanently, "Oh, yeah, it's like an old leather pair of shoes. Here we go again. The, the COVID things happened and I can already predict such-and-such's opinion on it." You go, "Every single time? All of the time? Every single time?" You know the idiosyncrasies of this person's very, very particular worldview. Well, that's because it's not theirs.

Douglas Murray 1:13:56 Yeah, of course, and, and-

Chris Williamson 1:13:57 It's everybody else's.

Douglas Murray 1:13:58 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:13:58 It's outsourced thinking.

Douglas Murray 1:13:59 And that, what's really sad about that is that, uh, that means that you're not really living your life. I mean, you're living a pastiche of a prescribed set of opinions. That's so sad. I mean, it's so sad, the wasted energies and wasted lives of people who've just downloaded a set of opinions, and they're just, they're just running them. You go, "Well, that's not your life. It's just someone else's life, uh, that you're just replaying."

Chris Williamson 1:14:23 What was that quote you told me about, about being shunted to the side of the road of your own?

Douglas Murray 1:14:28 It's a Philip Larkin quote, from a poem of his. Yeah, it's a description of a couple, and he says that something is pushing them to the side of their own lives. It's a beautiful line. Terrifying line, horrifying line. It should make everyone... (inhales deeply)

Chris Williamson 1:14:41 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 1:14:41 ... judge themselves.

Chris Williamson 1:14:43 What's it mean to you?

Douglas Murray 1:14:45 Oh, well, it means that there's a life that you hoped to live, your life you saw yourself living, and, and you, you got pushed to the side of it and ended up not living that life. I, I think a large number of people have that. Almost all unhappy people I've met have that feeling to some extent. And then you've got a choice of poisons, one of which is to choose the poison of, um, other people held me back. Another is to face up to the fact that you are in some way a coward or a victim of circumstance or something else. But I think a lot... I mean, you know, as you know, one thing that young people, you know, can be encouraged to do is to set out the sort of life they would like to live, imagine the sort of life they would like to live, and then aim for it. And, um, working it out is sometimes difficult, sometimes not. But if you do have that image of your life as you think it should be lived, and you end up not living it, that, that is... Particularly if you can feel yourself slowly being pushed away from it, I think that's a terrible, terrible feeling.

Chris Williamson 1:15:48 It's like watching your own demise occur second by second.

Douglas Murray 1:15:51 Yeah. Fortunately, I've never felt it, but I definitely fear it.

Chris Williamson 1:15:55 Where do you go to find, or to avoid cowardice or to find resilience or, or bravery?

Douglas Murray 1:16:02 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:16:02 Because a lot of the time, the easier path is easier, and it's the one that's got the least resistance and so on.

Douglas Murray 1:16:07 Surround yourself with courageous people. Surround yourself with, um, with brave people. And that can be bravery of all sorts of different kinds. And when I turned 40, I had a, a dinner, uh, which I think you weren't invited to, but it's only because you weren't in town, if I remember rightly. But, uh, I did get a lot of my favorite people in the room at least. And it was interesting, but, uh, a friend made a speech in which he said, it's striking, I won't say the names of the people around the table, but some of whom will be familiar to listeners. But a, a friend of mine gave a rather very touching speech I was very moved by, in which he said th- y- how noticeable it was that Douglas had surrounded himself with courageous people. And it was from a very wide arrain- array of bits of the world and different disciplines and so on. And I was really touched by that because I hadn't particularly noticed that I'd done it. Um, but then I realized I sort of had, that actually, yes, I had, must have subconsciously, but maybe now consciously, wanted to be around courageous people, 'cause I think that courage is something that rubs off on other people. I think it's enormously to be desired to, to be around courageous people. And that might be different types of courage, some of it physical, some of it mental. Um, so, that, that's one thing. Yeah, surround yourself with courageous people, or at least not, uh, cowards, not cretins, not the sort of people