The Collapse Of The West Or The Birth Of A New Era? - Douglas Murray

Douglas Murray, welcome to the show. Very good to be back with you in your native Austin. Ah, yes, you have. You're here for 24 hours. Cubrious. Wonderful. Watching your success with great admiration. Thank you. No. And great pride as well in a way. I don't know why I feel pride, but I just Well, you definitely contributed to it. I think I managed to get you to take a dice roll uh many many years ago. Five years ago, six years ago. That's right. I think I was doing the Matters of Crowds and you were in your uh place in Newcastle with a mold on the ceiling. Wasn't mold. It was because I had, as I explained for a long time, it's because I had a Yankee candle addiction. Uh, which also actually is something to be embarrassed about, not quite as bad as mold. Uh, and I had to get it repainted after our episode. The internet shamed me so much that I had to get the ceiling of my old bedroom repainted. Uh, and now you're here in Austin. And look at me now. It's great to see you. Well, you too. Trump's been in office for 78 days. What you make of his efforts so far? Um, uh, mixed, I think, as with anyone. Um, he got the very, very large and considerable mandate. Um, won the popular vote, made it pretty impossible for people to criticize him from the election onwards. Um first couple of months there's been very little I think push back or rallying around against him. Um then inevitably there are things that are now happening. You may have noticed if you keep an eye on the markets or anything like that. Uh which very much people are uh going for him on. Um but yes, I mean it's it's kind of early days but a mixed bag. I'd say it feels like a lot's happened. Well, a lot has happened. 78 days. Yes. I mean, uh, one of the things you can say, whatever your views on Trump, you can say with certainty, and I did ahead of the election have since, which is that he does what he says he's going to do. So whether it's tariffs or foreign policy or domestic policy, border, you know, he he he campaigns about it and then he does it, tries to do it. And um I am always quite amused by the people who who are surprised that that you know what's he doing with all this tariff stuff? I mean like every rally I covered of his tariffs was a big thing. Mhm. So uh so yes there there are some corners of it uh principally the Ukraine stuff which I'm concerned about. Um but it's early days. There's a a sense of sort of the move fast break things. Oh yeah, that is kind of sexy in Silicon Valley and tech and building businesses and stuff. Not convinced how perfectly it ports across onto governance. Well, the normal the normal problem that people find when they get elected, and in fact, I think he had in his first term, is that you don't it takes four years or so to work out which levers you can pull and something happens and which levers pull and you get a big clown appears and and which levers you pull and just absolutely nothing happens. And I think he's come in this time knowing which levers to pull and a lot of presidential orders and much more. Um, and so it's certainly more uh efficient and effective so far than his first months in office in the first term. Mhm. Um, I think things like the border are huge accomplishments. Very, very big reason for his election was we've got to sort out the border. We can't just have a poorest border. uh with Central and Southern America and indeed the rest of the world and uh border crossings have gone down to almost nothing. Is that right? Yeah. And the and I think that the uh the removal of illegals who have no right to be an American, have been committing crimes whilst in America or very dangerous criminals is a very good place to start. Um, and inevitably when you do that, uh, some people will holler and whail like the mayor of Boston who insists that somebody who's been paying taxes all their life in Boston and whose predecessors also paid taxes in Boston um, have the same rights as somebody who recently broke into Boston and um, wants to squat there on the street shooting out and um, quite a lot of disagree with that. There are lots of people of course who are finding a way on the deportations thing to criticize him. Some some of which is perfectly legitimate which is of course stuff like um you know there have been some cases of people who've been deported who have done nothing wrong. And that's also something that always happens when you try to institute a policy like that. I don't think it means you don't institute the policy. It means you do it better. Yeah. There was there was an issue in El Salvador when uh the president came in and just decided to go scorched earth with everybody into these football stadiums sized prisons, these new things. And uh yeah, one of the I remember I did some research on that and one of the concerns was the collateral damage of um the the brothers, younger brothers of people who were criminals. Uh and you just sort of sweep everybody up. you you have a smoke detector principle of either you pattern match incorrectly when it's not there or you don't pattern match when it is there and I think in these sorts of situations people tend to overindex on being a little bit more uh sensitive to the pattern matching. Yeah, they and they've they should remedy that and make sure they got things accurate. But uh I think none of that means that the status quo that existed is remotely right. Um and and this is all the sort of blowback that I'd imagine that he and uh the people who are working with him on that would have expected. It's a little early to say what's going to happen with the market stuff and the tariffs. Do you know anything about tariffs? Do you know how they work? I mean I I'm not one of those people who pretends to be an expert on absolutely everything. So I'm not going to pretend to be a tariff expert. I noticed the people who are tariff experts this week are the same people who were experts in Ukrainian min Ukrainian mineral deposits just a matter of weeks ago. It's it's amazing what people can know. It's uh quite stuff pace of learning on the internet. Yeah. Unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a masterclass course about that. But no, I look the all I know is that I got a message from my accountant saying uh might be a good time to put more money into the S&P. Might not. We'll see. That was a message that I received this morning. Thanks for that. But this is what Trump has said not just for the last four years campaigning. what he said for 40 years. He uh believes that America is being taken advantage of. And we'll see whether I mean I I would have thought my expectation I guess from the little I know is it'll be some quite a lot of short-term turmoil. Mhm. If in the long term it doesn't sort it out. If if manufacturing cannot return to America as fast as it should, then that's a problem. That's a that's the case in in every western country though. We're we've all been um satisfying ourselves with cheap goods imported from China, usually using slave labor that we wouldn't want to see at home, but we turned a blind eye. And uh there's there's there's there's much manufacturing, many goods that there's no reason why you couldn't make them in America. Whether or not you can persuade people to actually take up those jobs, start those firms, that's another another matter entirely. Um but if anywhere can do that, America can. It's strange that a lot of people who would maybe complain about a cost of living crisis and uh quality of jobs and employment opportunities for progression and student loan debt and housing and so on and so forth. Uh also I I would guess the same profile of people that shop on Teimu and Shien. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the ones we can buy a top for $4 and throw it away after two uses, which Yeah. You know, the there's a an industry called the rag industry, and these are um a lot of them are engineering. That's right. Get get yourself charged up, man. Uh uh they're working in manufacturing, working in engineering, and they use rags, used uh t-shirts or whatever that then be washed, but they get trickled down. Maybe it goes to charity shops, something like that. and to clean off grease, to do all of this other stuff. The rag industry in uh the West is dying because the quality of the clothes that people are wearing are disintegrating so quickly that they can't even be used to mop up oil and water. Wow. I'm going to sound incredibly old now, but when I was growing up in West London as a boy, I remember there was a rag and bow man. I did. Yeah. Do you remember that? There was one that used to go past in the in Stock Neep. Yeah. A a a guy sort of wheeling a thing. A traveler usually, I suspect, with a horsedrawn cart. Mhm. Calling out rag and bones. Yep. Rag feels. And if you tell the young now, they won't believe you. [ __ ] prehistoric. Uh Don Lemon said, "That's a name I haven't heard for a while. People love AOC. Jasmine Crockett and Eric Swallwell. I think the Democratic Party should put people out there who the people want, who they're asking for. Is that a good strategy for the future of the left? I'm not sure about that. Uh Eric Swarwell was the one was the one who was found banging Fang Fang. Uh wasn't he? Do you remember that? Chinese spy Fang Fang. Uh she uh infiltrated him. Stop saying it like that. No. Fang Fang. What's wrong with that? Stop saying it. He Bang Bang Fang Fang. Everyone knows that. Okay. Yeah. He was infiltrated by a Chinese Communist Party spy. Okay. Sexually. Very much so. Okay. and uh regrettably so and that was a big national security breach. But um uh yes the others look Don Lemon why why I mean like asking to find sense in the entrils of a chicken. Why what's his analysis is of no value and if the Democrats listened to him they'd never be in power again. what uh let's say that you were a adviser to the left and in many ways I imagine that you do have uh desires to have a a a burgeoning flourishing left that doesn't make everybody sort of shuddering cringe in that way what would you advise them to do in America yes um uh very straightforward one which is you listen to your defeat and you learn from it and you work out what you did wrong and I I think they are to to some extent. My friends who are on the left in America, Democrats, um the sensible ones are trying to do that. You'll notice that since the election in November last year, they've definitely changed their strategy a bit when we haven't got Russia, Russia, Russia, and uh you're all Nazis so much. They're still doing it a bit, but not anywhere near as much. Partly because if if your opponent has has won the popular vote, it's tricky to pretend that that the majority of people in America are Nazi supporters. The wiser Democrats realize that's not a good strategy. Losing strategy. Yeah. Don't insult the voters in their majority. Mhm. Um they should learn from it. They should and I think they are. I I think this time around as much less denial and uh I that now the the books are starting to come out as we knew they would be uh explaining that you know actually you know the Democrats kind of knew that Joe Biden wasn't there these expose memoir exafer people people the people who spent uh the years of the Biden presidency assuring us that there's nobody who was a sharp attack in the box and now they're all saying, "Oh, actually, you know, he didn't know whether he was the president of the United States or the head of NATO and things like that." And so, that stuff is starting to come out and there'll be lots more and they'll they'll they'll tear themselves apart for a bit. Uh, but the main problem for the Democrats is just they don't really have anyone leading the party. Uh, Chuck Schumer when he made his deal with uh uh Trump on the budget the other week immediately was the most hated person on the left and even, you know, uh, Pelosi criticized him on that. So it's hard to see who's really sort of leading the party. It's not cohesive at the moment. No. And um so they they should they should learn. My view is if I was a Democrat adviser strategist, I would say what what what anyone would from observing them, which is they tacked very far to the crazy left. And um the American public didn't want it. Uh as indeed most publics don't. and they didn't want all their children to be transed and they didn't want uh all of the the crazy identity politics stuff that had gone just completely deranged. Um they also didn't want I mean the the more sensible ones have already realized that it's a it's a party a very very distinguished party with a with a considerable history. It's not a street movement. It's not a it's not a protest movement. I can't remember which which one it was who the other week I wrote about him in my column in the New York Post who led a protest on a street in New York against Elon Musk and I think it's probably the most illiterate speech I've ever heard against some really quite stiff competition and uh it ended up with him saying you take your Moscow money you moo moo moo moo. Yeah, not good. Line for the ages. Line for ages. um Cicero would event um so the wiser ones were just that's not how you become serious again. You don't give in to the street protest people. Don't give in to the most radical people. There are really impressive people in the Democratic party. Uh but they need they're going to need to allow them to come up. Tim Waltz. If I was a Republican strategist, I would tell the Democrats to keep going with with uh with uh Tim Waltz, the pinnacle of masculinity. I mean, that that's all that stuff is just a disaster. Everyone knows that he was a horrible candidate. Everyone knows that Carla was a horrible candidate. You just got to find the talent and and encourage it up. But they they they've got time. I don't think they should I don't think they should panic or start, you know, but they do at some point have to have a coherent opposition to Trump and Trumpism. Well, it certainly seems like one of the things that everybody's probably noticed. Um, how much is the blowing with the wind that we're seeing at the moment of Mark Zuckerberg not only uh satorial rebrand but uh meta policy based rebrand getting rid of fact checkers and opening up conversations specifically around I think trans or gender identity was one of the points and I think I think what as I understand it what happened with Zuckerberg was that he discovered that you know with whatever it is 80,000 employees you set up a uh philanthropic wing with like 1,000 employees and then they spend all their time waring on the 80,000 people making money and derange the whole company and so you get rid of it. But you've seen that, right? Lots of different companies seeming to uh move in that direction. So uh Black Rockck the they exited climate groups, eliminated diversity targets, ends its ESG stuff. Hexet says he's eliminating DEI within the military and then even European companies like Aldi and Santandere are rolling back their DEI programs over here. So it does feel a lot like I don't know everyone's blowing with the Trumpian wind whatever the sort of direction is that things are going in at the moment. Absolutely. I mean, I I said to you many years ago, I'm sure with matters of crowds that I mean, one of the problems with all of that stuff was, you know, at some point it gets serious and the bridges start to fall down. You know, um I was never totally confident that if the bridges fell down because of DI that people wouldn't say that's just yet more evidence of the patriarchy. Um but it sort of got it gets serious. It gets really serious at certain points. It gets really serious with the military. I'm very glad that Pete Hex is is addressing that. You do want extremely tough mainly men at the forefront of your nation's military and your nation's defense. It's it's not about, you know, to use the most perhaps hackneed but most extraordinary one. It's not about that like CIA recruiting ad where the obese uh diverse woman of color who explains how many mental disorders she has is necessarily your ideal poster child. I didn't get to see I wasn't. She was great. She was like a bipolar drone operator or something. Okay. Right. Well, I the performance-enhancing effects of different mental maladies, I guess, can work quite well on in the military, but most of them would be you like psychopathy. Yeah, I think. Yes. But you certainly don't want somebody on a lot of hormones in charge of a drone program. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. I don't know. I think it'll be very interesting to see what the next sort of two years has uh in store especially for what did the Democrats do in reversing some of the positions that caused them to sort of fall behind so much how much faith has been lost. You know what it kind of feels like a little bit to me? The the period that we had during COVID where kind of the veils fell from people's eyes a little around, huh, the mainstream media don't really know what they're talking about and they roll back their positions and the institutions that are supposed to be in charge of this stuff and people that are supposed to know what's going on in terms of verology or epidemiology or public health or whatever. Huh. I I actually think that the pe that there's no adults in the room. I don't think there's any adult. The thing is there are it's just the what always happens is you know something goes deranged in one direction then you get a correction but as we've discussed before the question is always whether the correction goes back to level or whether it's an over correction that goes to somewhere equally crazy or or recognizably crazy. Take that one of the um uh the the co era and the postcoid era. Um there's you know lots and lots of things that clearly went wrong. That doesn't mean in my view that you should discourage people from taking giving polio vaccines to their children. Um there's lots that has gone wrong in public health and lots that can be corrected but you know it it it doesn't mean that there are no there are no there should be no guardrails in society. You look at the way in which the term gatekeeper is used these days as if there should be no gatekeeping and actually the sometimes uh people might disagree with this but actually sometimes if there's somebody who's an expert in a field and they should be trusted and can be trusted they do need to draw the line of what is what is within the parameters and what is not um that's obviously why like RFK Jr. caused a lot of concern when he came in was, you know, is this a suitable correction or a wild overcorrection. You described the West as a civilization trying to erase itself. Mhm. Do you reckon we've got any better over the last few years? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Um I I think that the I think that the anti-western uh assault has been halted. Um, as I say again, we'll see whether or not it it it corrects or overcorrects, but I I I don't think that in the uh era of Trump's second term that in America that's going to be uh um as much of a problem. Elsewhere, usual story. Our country of birth, usual story. Temperature plays a huge role in how well you sleep, but traditional bedding often falls short. Just add the brand new Pod 4 Ultra to your mattress like a fitted sheet, and it will automatically cool down or warm up each side of your bed up to 20°. Plus, it's got integrated sensors that track your sleep time and your sleep phases and your HRV and your snoring and your heart rate with 99% accuracy. Eight has been clinically proven to increase total sleep by up to 1 hour every night, increase deep sleep by up to 2.5 hours a month, and reduce wake time by up to 3 hours per month. Best of all, they ship to the US, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia. Plus, they offer a 30day sleep trial, so you can buy it and sleep on it for 29 days. And if you do not like it, they will give you your money back. Right now, you can get $350 off the brand new Pod 4 Ultra by going to the link in the description below or heading to 8LE.com/modernwisdom using the code modernwisdom at checkout. That's eigle.com/modernwisdomd and modernwisdom at checkout. Say more. How are you feeling about the UK at the moment? Well, I don't know when you will ask back, but my experience of going back to the UK now is that everyone is supremely depressed and doesn't think life will get better. Yeah. It's kind of like a Gary's economics monologue uh just being played on repeat, but like that sentiment of you're broke and your children are going to be broke and no one's going to get a house and you're going to die destitute and Yeah. Everyone's going to be poorer than than this generation and all that sort of thing. Yeah. It's yeah, I I was very depressed when I got went back to the UK last because I think I just come fresh from the inauguration in DC and I mean which was bracing for lots of reasons but uh I just noticed that all you know there are lots of opportunities for things to be writed in America and put in a more sane direction again we'll see if that happens but I think there's a great opportunity there's a whole set of great opportunities in America economic and much more for the country educational reform a lot of problems that that America needs to address that have now the opportunity to be addressed whereas Britain like most of Western Europe it just stumbles on you know uh it's very depressing and I noticed I've noticed that my friends are all wildly depressed rather surprised at how upbeat I was you know I mean they beat it out of me having just having just come from a war zone a cycle war zone I mean but but you know within 24 hours of being in the UK I was suitably depressed at at the equilibrium that was expected of every all level and come into line with everyone else. Yeah. You'd said, "I've seen a lot of um plenty wars up close, but it's the UK that I'm most concerned about." Well, yeah, actually I am I am maybe a sort of dramatic overstatement, but um yeah, I mean what gives you hope in any country, whether it's a peace or a war, is whether whether the people in the country want to fight for the country metaphorically or literally. Mhm. And um in the last uh few years, I think since I last saw you, yeah, I've seen spent a lot of time in Ukraine and uh more so in Israel and the Middle East and uh seen people literally fighting for their survival for their country and that's always, but particularly in those cases are a very remarkable thing to see. Um when you then see a deenergized, innovated society where everyone's split and no one knows how to go forward. It's yeah, it's very uh it's very concerning. Um I I and I just see that for the time being rolling on in the UK as I say the stop has been put to it of a kind in the US. But how much is bottom up and how much is top down do you think? How much of this is sort of structural bureaucratic because of the leadership because of things that need to be changed in institutional level and how much of this is as you mentioned the the sort of culture of the people that they're sort of reing in their own uh I guess binding together over their own sort of shared discontent. Well having having few economic opportunities causes everything else to go wrong. I mean, I'm I'm completely persuaded by my economist friends who say, you know, the one job of politics is to keep the economy good. And if if you don't do that, everything else can go wrong as well. I think that's true, but I just it's a combination of the economics of the the market not working, um growth not happening, wages being stagnant, unaffordability of housing, and then plus the just wild innovation of all the cultural crap. Mhm. Um I I I think I think you can go you can have weak economics but keep strong culture but if you've got weak economics and weak culture I mean I was just watching this morning you know there's a there's a row that's been going on because something I helped to fuel um but um um there's a bunch of Labour MPs who've been busily campaigning against the third runway at Heathrow airport which is just like seriously this This has happened all my adult life. Any healthy country doesn't debate for 20 years uh a third runway at your major airport. You just you just get it done. Just build it. Um same thing with there's like infrastructure like H like HS2 which has one virtue in it which is that it can the plan is to be able to get out of Birmingham faster. And uh these but these big infrastructure projects have been like endlessly debated in the UK for like 20 years. Yeah. And um that's very depressing. But yes, a group of Labor MPs um uh all with diverse constituencies or not uh have been busily anti- uh runway at uh Heathrow, but have been urging um the funding of an airport in Mapur um because uh their constituents want to be able to get um back and forth to see family um Mapur in Pakistan. Um and um uh they're they're very insistent that that that that anti-building of runways in in England but very in Pakistan and those things are just crazy and everyone in Britain can see it and and you know and then people criticized these pe these MPs for this obvious ridiculous double standard of saying you know if there isn't if the Heathrow expands you know it will kill the planet. They go, "But me poor, great, good to go." And uh, everyone can see that. And then people in Britain, a couple of MPs called it out and then were immediately called Islamophobic racists by these other MPs who, you know, that that's just typical Britain. It's like typical Britain and nobody knows how to get out of it. It's you it's the same thing you know everyone now knows you you complain about anything in Britain online or off and these weird unicized police will tap on your door with a and none of it's metaphorical you know as constant kissing said the other week about the thousands and thousands of people who've had police come to their door because of like saying something that critical of their school on Facebook and this sort of it's just it's just bizarre the weeks situation that Britain has got into. We weren't like that. Um, we don't have to be. Yeah. The uh culture of a stiff upper lip appears to have been sort of lost in its entirety. It hasn't been. It hasn't been. It's just been wildly suppressed like everything else like masculinity, like natural, you know, the kind the natural culture of the country. I wrote the other week about this ridiculous thing where the Shakespeare birthplace trust inevitably is waging war on Shakespeare, you know, and that the new thing is like why are we doing so much Shakespeare at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and why aren't we spending more time celebrating this Bengali poet? Well, said Bengali poet wasn't born in Stratford upon Haven, you jerk. probably if you go to his birthplace you won't find all that much Shakespeare and but you know it's just filled all of the institutions all the cultural institutions all filled with stupid thinking like that you know I think the slight difference is there's a sense of rebelliousness in America that we don't well there there is in Britain as well there is everywhere it's just that you can very effectively squash it and you know for some years in America They tried to squash that in America and Americans used the biggest hammer they could find to hit back against it which is Donald J. Trump. Um, and the British public haven't yet found a hammer. Very interesting. Yeah. If you think about who Americans are the progeny of, I'm aware that immigration, recent immigration, uh, waters this down a little bit, but they're the they're the descendants of people who said 8week journey at sea, limited chance of survival, not really too sure what I'm going to count me in. Yeah, I know there there there is an explanation of that. Yes, but there's also, you know, there's I'd like to think there are plenty of belligerent buggers back home as well. and uh and there are plenty of brave people and plenty of people who may not have left the islands but but who still have similar instincts. You know, it just seems like there's a at least in the UK and not among most of the friends that I spend my time with, but that's because I, you know, very carefully sort of selected my group of friends to not be those people. But when I hear the sort of commentary that happens online, I do think, huh, this shared reveling in discontent in, you know, if you were to ring one of your friends and say in the UK, get that in. Thank you, Douglas. Time for you to do your first ad read. There we are. Yeah. Newtonic. In fact, if I become wildly ill from drinking this, it's bad for you, isn't it? Uh, it would look bad, but you can hold it together. I'm sure you've taken worse across across across your illustrious career. Thank you. Very good. Okay. Come on. Come here. There we go. Cheers. Chin Chen. Chen. Chen. Chen. It's delicious. Very. That's good. Yeah. You You were paid to say that. Uh yeah. This I I always remember I rang a friend and uh I say, "Hey, like what are you doing today? What you tell me about what you've done today?" Oh, man. Living the dream. Took the bins out this morning. It's been raining all day. You know that classic British sort of that's banter though. It is. But it feels to me like it be careful sort of what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be in some ways and uh rarely that's Kurt Vonagget rarely you it's hard to reverse that like people bond in the UK over this sense of shared suffering over this sense that that things are sort of a little bit crap and not necessarily well you have to make them better then yep I think so is I don't really like whining although we're doing it a bit at the moment well we B together over there. Conor McGregor, savior of Ireland. Interesting figure. Interesting figure. Big fan of stimulants. Really? Oh, yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. I've been reliably told. Yeah. What sort of stimulants we talking about? Uh, the prototypical nasal delivery system, the patented. He Conor McGregor likes his cocaine as far as I see. Right. Oh gosh. Right. Yeah. Huh. Yeah, wasn't immediate what I was thinking when you mentioned him, but no, I I just I quite like the fact that he stood up and uh said um what a [ __ ] hole the politicians are making of his home country of Ireland at the moment. And then um his uh his his statement was confirmed by the fact that all Irish politicians condemned him for saying it. That's always always a sign because you're right. Yeah. Always a sign that you're right. Um yeah, I I admired him for saying that. I don't know. Everything about him is admirable, but I admired him for saying that. Again, I'm like, well, since when did the Irish become such weak people? And when I was growing up, they were car bombers. And no, I joke about that, but no, there was a some years ago in Derry, London Derry, it was made European city of culture. I mean, I'm leaping to the Northern Ireland, but uh and uh the moment that it was announced that that Derry, London Derry, was to become European City of Culture, somebody put a car bomb outside the uh offices of the uh European City of Culture. Fortunately, it didn't go off, but uh as a as a local friend of mine said, in one way, we were introducing them to our local culture. Um anyway, um no, I I mean I have lots of views about the Irish, but but I never thought of them as people you could just walk over. And the current generation of politicians with their immigration policies and much more seem to have suggested you can just walk over the Irish. It's rather surprising. Have you tried to tie any of these threads together sort of what we're seeing? Well, I tried in a book some years ago called The Strange Death of Europe and um said almost everything I had to say about that. And um how much of a Cassandra do you feel like now? Um I think I was pretty much right on everything. Yeah. I didn't know how fast the timeline I'd be right on or which countries, but I it didn't require a prophet. It just required somebody with eyes. You know, if you if you madly import uh people from all over the world who don't particularly want to be part of your society and shove them in to, you know, County Kerry, you'll create problems. I've been fascinated by uh the pace of the news and how quickly there's a lack of stickiness that they've all had. Uh, is it disturbing that we regularly just forget or sort of look away from catastrophes or is it just sort of part a course in the modern world now? Cuz like remember when Trump got shot? No, me neither. Yeah, I know. But that that disappeared within days. It was amazing. And it just seems like I haven't even got much of an explanation about the shooter. And I I don't see anybody really because there's always something new. The velocity of news. I remember um in AS level media studies in Stockton six form college I was told this story about uh a lady on September 12th 2001 who's a PR agent and she advised all of the companies that they were working with to dump every piece of bad news that they had. Oh, there was somebody in the British government who who was an adviser. Good day for bad news. Good day for bad news. That's right. And then she lost her job. Yep. Uh yeah, I don't think it I I think that the devices we all have in our pockets speed everything up, but what what I can't quite understand is that I mean I I have to be across all all or most of the news certainly about the things I need to know about because it's my my job as well as my passion. But um I can't understand the the people who like have the buzz on their Apple iPhone for like updates of news when when they're they're not in the business of it. It seems it's very very unhealthy to my view to my view. It's it's uh I think it creates a sort of cycle of panic and uh and it's you know and forgetfulness and self arrandisement and you oh my god have you heard you know been a earthquake in Myanmar and that's bad but you it's it's just it all flows by and it's always like that I'm not quite sure what people are meant to do with most of the information that's coming their way if they're not in the business. Not quite sure what's expected of them other than to kind of some people they think following it. Yeah. Or sort of prove they care or something. I don't know. I wish more people would read books. It just, you know, you've spent the last few years uh not in the US that much. You've been traveling. Uh Mhm. Not maybe the way that most people would consider traveling. Well, I didn't take a gap year in Thailand. Shame. Uh but with that, you know, we've had a lot of an awful lot of turmoil over the last few years and it just it doesn't very few things seem to stick now. Uh even causes that people were once unbelievably ardent about this the sort of manana mñana something new, something more sexy, something more recent. And um that's true. Yeah. The ability for anything to be Lindy is is increasingly difficult to be what? Lindy. uh the lifetime life cycle of a non-p perishable good like an idea it's a Talb sort of uh repopularized it basically the classics are the classics for a reason if something's been around for 500 years it's probably likely that it's going to be around in future the problem being that we are living in a never- ending now where almost all of the content that you consume today was created in the last 24 hours in fact that's exactly how Instagram stories and Snapchat and stuff like that work yes if you see something today that's on the trending side of X and it's still there tomorrow. You think, [ __ ] hell, that's a big that's a big story. It's still here tomorrow. That's a big story. I often say this about some of the war zones I' I've spent recent years in is that it it's um you I I sometimes come back and I and you, you know, happened in America. Uh and people I get this sense like people are fed up of the war. I go, but it's not your place to be fed up of the war. You're not in the war. You're nowhere near the war. What you're saying is you want the story to change, but the story is not there for you. It's not there for your edification or entertainment. Um, that's a very unhealthy attitude I come across quite a lot. Oh, can't it just be over? Oh, bet no one in the region wishes that. Um yeah, I that's a that's a peril of um of of coming back from places where the the the news is real, you know, where none of it's none of it's metaphorical and none of it's um uh abstract. No, the criticisms from people who are getting pinged on their iPhone a few too many times per day seem a little bit ridiculous. Yeah, I just got back from Ukraine again the other day and um uh I watched the uh um unfortunate episode in the Oval Office between President Zilinski and uh the president and vice president and um I watched it with some Ukrainian soldiers in a trench at the front line and well I watched it and then noticed that bit later that they'd noticed it and I was profoundly depressed by what I saw um and then actually was rather energized by the fact that the response of the troops was different. Uh, how so? Well, I said to um I said to the command of the drone unit that I was embedded with, um, you know, I can't can't help noticing that as you were scrolling through your Instagram and a down moment. That was one of the things that came across your phone along with, you know, the usual cat videos and sort of hot chick sort of thing, you know, and there was a picture from the Oval Office and I said, "Did you do you have any, you know, reaction to that?" and he said, "Well, we were kind of encouraged not to um spend too much time focusing on the international twoings and throwings." And uh he said, I was rather pleased to quote it in the post. He said, "Shit happens all the time, but I've got a job to do." He went out and he put the bomb on the drone and sent it off. Keep calm and carry on droning. Yeah, that's always rather encouraging in a way that that that what people get head up about nevertheless is a level at which people are still and you know whatever one people's thoughts about that war you know um he and the other people in the trench their um their homes are like 30 km behind us and the Russians were one and a half kilometers that way. So none of it is abstract you know. Do you know Freya India? You familiar with her? No. Blonde, a young blonde girl, writer, very good um on Substack and doing some stuff with the free press. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've seen the by line. Yeah. And um she I had this conversation with her at the start of last year. She was talking a lot about how people criticize Gen Z for uh taking stuff that they see online and turning it. That's right. Come on, keep fueling yourself. Very good. uh and they see it as reality. And people criticize uh Gen Z for uh turning the virtual into the real in this way. And she said, "Well, you have to realize that a lot of these kids are spending, you know, 8 10 hours a day on screens, far less asleep, far less around other people." So, I understand it makes sense sort of rationally if you were to just sort of explain the situation. Why are you over prioritizing what's happening digitally over what's happening in the real world or your real world? Again, news stories from outside of your uh uh territory of your domain of control. It's externalizing of agency, all this sort of stuff. Uh but yeah, she said the online world is the real world for these people. And I kind of get the same sense here. I kind of get the same sense that people who don't know what's happening on the ground, who don't understand sort of the implications of of what this is, they they get to lop within the sort of narrative and then you are in the trenches with these people and they say, "Well, I've got a job to do." So, I kind of can't afford to, but we shouldn't be we shouldn't be uh um of the the dejected belief that people are always what they are now. Um, one of the things that's much struck me uh in the last 18 months in Israel uh has been that the generation that I partly write about in this new book uh are very largely people from a generation who their elders thought were, you know, iPhone obsessed Snapchat and Instagram. Yeah, brain rot just wanted a party and have fun and you know be on Instagram. That was what a lot of older Israelis thought who fought in ' 67 and 73 and you know and so on and and then actually when their country was was attacked that that this is a generation that has stood up and shown its magic. They've been galvanized. They really have. I mean it's I've I've I've been with them you know for much of the last 18 months and whether it's in Gaza or in Lebanon or in Israel or Judea and Samaria and um I'm constantly struck by this that these are people whose whose contemporaries in America and Britain are still described in the terms that they were described as until October the 6th 2023. So it's not inevitable that people can't rise to an occasion or can't change. It's not inevitable that because you know there's a sort of virtual era you've been in that you'll always be stuck in it. M I do think I when I came back from um Middle East at Christmas last year, I spoke to a um a friend who's a politician and I I mentioned this phenomenon of you know just because people have been this does not mean that when a time of trial comes which is something I've had on my mind a lot in recent years. It's not inevitable that at the moment of trial some people don't a lot of people don't step up and really show what they are for the good. And this friend said yes it's true it's circumstances isn't it? And I said, I've got a slight tweak to make to that observation, which is yes, it's circumstances, but it's not just circumstances. It's circumstances plus whether you have well cultured people up until that moment. M this is why I I've cited a few times and I cited in this book the uh the terrible terrible statistics for you know the percentage of young Americans who'd be willing to fight for their country if it was under imminent threat of invasion the number of British young people who'd be willing to fight for their country if it was an existential risk and this is something I I say this in democracies and death cults but if you look at the stats it's terrifying uh shortly after Ukraine was invaded by Russia. In February 22, there was a poll asking Americans, you know, what percentage of them would be willing to stay and fight if their country was invaded. And only just a majority of Republicans said that they would stay and fight. And only just a majority of Democrats. And as I quipped at the time, you that means the rest of them would hot foot it to Canada, assuming that Canada wasn't the invader. Uh I think when I first made that observation, that seemed like a joke. 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That's how confident they are that you'll love it. Right now you can get a free sample pack of all eight flavors with your first box by going to the link in the description below or heading to drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom. That's drinklmnt.com/modern wisdom. I don't know whether you know that uh Canada owns Pornhub. Does it indeed? Yeah. I'm not quite sure of the Is that just what happens? I say Canada and you go, "Yeah, Pornhub." No, you haven't. Wait for my 300 IQ move here. Uh, yeah, I'm watching this with interest. The secret weapon in the trade war that Canada needs to use is to restrict access to Pornhub. That's how they fight back. You want to talk about tariffs? Ah, we'll see what happens when you don't have as free and easy access to millions of Yeah, exactly. Honestly, that's that if the comedian came up with the idea, I think it's I think it's a strong solution. Strong. we see if Mark Carney has the balls to do that. Um, no, I mean I I was I was fascinated by that and when that poll first came out, a lot of Americans sort of wrote about it and said, "Crianky, you know, that's that's not that's not good news." Um, but I I I wasn't so depressed about it because in my interpretation, uh, the concept for most Americans of their country being invaded by a land invasion from another country is not just hard to imagine. It's impossible to imagine. Um, it's not impossible to imagine if you live in Donetsk or indeed in Kiev. Uh, but it's it's not impossible if you live in Latvia or Lithuania or Estonia anymore. But, uh, it's impossible for most Americans to imagine. So, in a way, it's not really a fair question. It's it's like me saying, you know, how do you think you'd behave if UFOs landed and Martians started telling you what to do? Jesus don't know what um but it was the same in the UK uh after uh about a year ago or I think after partly because of the the Russian uh invasion of Ukraine but it was there was also I think the head of the chief of defense staff said you know if this if this escalation continued in Europe then it might we might have to have conscription in the UK and again I mean that sounds like like what nobody from this generation can even imagine that uh but that was just what he said and then of course there's a poll and it asks young people from the ages of 18 to 40 which is the ages of our forebears were when they went to fight in 1914 18 and 1939 to45 and um a majority of people said that they wouldn't fight even if Britain was at existential risk of invasion and by the way when I looked at the figures I mean it was there there were some great I think it did it there were some fantastic gems inside that one was that the the one of the main reasons why people said that they wouldn't fight was like just the most banal things that they've been told by Hollywood films and things which is oh you know little bits of Gandhi which was you know the number of people who said things like war doesn't solve anything you know want to bet um so there was that and another I think I Fascinated by the fact I think 9% of the young people questioned said that they couldn't fight because they had someone at home they were looking after mysterious answer to me. I'm looking after my nan so I can't fight to protect her too busy bringing her tea in the morning to stop making sure that someone doesn't kick the door down. Yeah, it's very strange. Anyway, but the point is the reason I mention this rather laboriously is I do think that I it's very very hard to predict how people actually react at a time of trial. One of the reasons why I tell some of the uh the personal stories I do about the uh people I've spoken to in the war in Israel in the last year and a half is because it's so interesting to see who steps up and how people react and you know the heroism of of of some people indeed many people when you realize what's at stake um I quote the opening of on democ on on democracies and death cults. this um this thing I've thought about a lot which comes up in Toltoy War and peace which is when the uh two armies are facing off against each other in the old Napoleonic style you know where they they I'll do this around they they they face each other on the battlefield and they um the order has not yet been issued to advance and Toltoy brilliantly describes how every soldier on each side knows that the step they're going to take is not just a step. It's a movement into a totally different realm. And that you know that in that case you are from the realm of standing there uniform polished on guard meant to be holding a line. And when you're from the moment you're one step that way, you're in the place where you'll just have to do anything. And um and that's that's one of the reasons why I'm I'm uh why I'm interested in this because this is the this is the this is the most real it's why war is so terrible and also for a writer so fascinating is because it's that that transition from one world to another totally different world seems unfathomable until you're in it. What have you learned about what wartime does to people? Um, a lot. But I would say the simplest and most important one is that it shows uh people it shows humanity, humankind at its absolute worst and also at its absolute best. It's uh there's nothing there's nothing comparable to it in human experience that brings out the appallingness of which our species is capable and the greatness and sometimes at the same moment. What greatness have you seen? Well, uh an awful lot. I mean, um, there are some stories I tell in the book, like, um, I mean, this there's a there was a young woman I met, um, early in the conflict who had lost her, uh, her fiance. Uh, he had been at the Nova party, uh, in the desert when Hamaz attacked at 6:30 in the morning, you know, hundreds and hundreds of young people rave. And um when Hamas terrorists fired rockets and then drove in on military jeeps and started raping and killing and butchering, he managed to get he was one of the people who did manage the young people trying to get into cars and get out were blockaded by him as killed in the cars and then it caused a backlog of the cars of people trying to escape and then people were just being killed where they were. There were a couple of other exits from the party and one this young man found and he took uh four strangers in his car, drove them uh to a nearby town called Bashiba, dropped them off, drove back. They begged him not to. He spoke to his his girlfriend on the way and she she said, "Please don't." He went back, filled up the car with another group of young people from the rave, drives back, he goes back a third time, and on the way back the third time, Hamas killed them all. But this is just amazing. Amazing human greatness. There's a friend who I I mention in the book who uh um has a story that's that is should be much better known. He's a wonderful young man called Nimrod. And he uh he on the morning woke up in his home outside Jerusalem when the sirens were starting to go, the rockets coming in, thousands of rockets from Gaza. And he uh was in reserves being a special forces guy and uh he was in reserve. He woke up, realized for messages from people in the south how serious it was. uh got a call from his commander and his unit in Jerusalem, you're called back. We're, you know, and he said, "No, we're needed south." And he drove and he picked up a pistol on the way and I think eight rounds of ammunition. He went past every police checkpoint, security army checkpoint, the sto it started to go up. He said he didn't see a live body until early hours of the afternoon. But then he engaged the terrorists and he fought with them for the next 48 hours. Saved many lives. But on the way he uh he he said to me, he said, "I I when I got to the junction where there all these dead bodies lying around, partygoers and others, he said, "When I got to the motorway junction, I was certain I would not survive that day." And he stopped. He pulled out pulled got out of the car and pulled into a ditch and he made a phone. Uh he he got on his phone. He made a video for his two children and he said, "I I I wanted them to have a message from me that so that when the phone was found on my body, they'd have something." And he survived. And I just am filled with admiration. Filled with admiration for people like that. Amazing. Amazing. Mhm. Um be very very lucky in America, Britain or any other country to produce people like that. But we could we should explain the title to me again. On democracies and death cults. It's currently in between a lot of Easter books. I I showed you Amazon bestseller lists. Yes. Just before we started. There's a there's an awful lot of um I will explain the title, but yes, it it it did amuse me that I'm currently um battling in the Amazon.com bestseller lists with um uh I'm currently at number 12, but number 13 sneaking up behind me is uh it's not easy being a bunny. An early reader book for kids, beginner books, you've probably got it. And um also, but I'm chasing I'm getting very close to catching up with a a great tome you probably know as well called Hippity Hoppity Little Bunny Finger Puppet Board Book for Easter. Also, Little Blue Truck Springtime is doing very well. You know, there was a there was a humorist in the UK many years ago who discovered that in the 70s or so, the three things that sold books in Britain in those days were anything to do with cats, anything to do with golf, and anything to do with Nazis. So, he wrote a book called Golfing for Cats with a cat with a swastiker armband on the cover. How did it do? Quite well, actually, I think. Yeah. Um I'm not sure there's a perfect crossover in the ven diagram uh of those readers, but yeah. I know. Next time I'll call it democracies and death cults and Easter bunnies. Um, no, the the the the title goes to um something I had thought about for a long time and which I try to answer in the book which is um what attitude uh people in free liberal societies, democratic societies, societies are at peace. um can take towards uh what I call the death cults. I should stress by the way that our societies have experienced plenty of death cults in the past. Um I give the example there was a uh uh Spanish philosopher from the last century who was uh much opposed to the rise of fascism in Spain, Francoism and uh a uh meeting at the university he taught at the uh students uh at one point uh started chanting Viva Lamuete, long live death. And he he said this is the moment when this necrilic utterance this is this is the moment when it's all goes wrong. So it has happened in the past but the the death cult I'm primarily uh writing about and talking about in this book is the death cult of Hamaz and Islamic uh jihadists in general. I uh I say that the um I was one of the shortly after the 7th of October when I went uh to the region, went to Israel first, I um went to a reunion of some of the survivors of the Nova party and one of the uh young man who'd survived said to me um uh after showing me his footage from the morning, which was too graphic to go into, but he said, "What would you do if this happened in your country. And uh I thought, but I didn't say to him, but it has, you know, it has happened in my country. It happened at the Manchester Arena in 2017. It happened at the Batcloud Theater in Paris in 2015. It happened at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in 2015. It's just that it first of all people sort of don't know what to do about it and try to pass it over. Um or it hasn't happened thank god hasn't happened uh as much but uh it's uh it it really I suppose it's in part as well as being a firsthand account of war. The purpose of this book is to try to answer this question that I've tried to answer all my life, which is what attitude you can take and what response you can make to uh people who have totally different values to yours. Because see there has been this presumption which we both grew up with which is what we have is what everyone has or wants to have and we all have the same desires in this life and um some people do and some people just don't. And some people want to, you know, they want to make the world burn and some of them want to make other people burn and take as many people as they can with them and much more. and the the the the taunt that al-Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, the taunt they always have is the same which is uh some variation of we love death more than you love life. And in fact, Hassan Nazallah, who went to meet his maker uh last year in Beirut, the head of Hezbollah, he said this for decades. He said, you know, the thing with the infidels is that they love life and this is their great weakness. And uh I think that's not the case. Um, but I know for sure, and it's one of the things that this book is about, is that it's not it's not enough to just like life or to enjoy life. If you're going to enjoy life, you also have to be willing to fight for it. And sometimes that's metaphorical and sometimes it's really not. A quick note, I partnered with Function because I wanted a smarter and more comprehensive way to understand what's happening inside of my body. Twice a year, Function run lab tests that monitor over a hundred biomarkers. And then they've got a team of expert physicians that analyze the data and give you actionable advice to improve your health and lifespan. If you've been feeling a bit sluggish, then your testosterone levels might be the problem. They play a massive role in your energy and your performance. And being able to see them charted over the course of a year with actionable insights to actually improve them gives you a clear path to making your life better. So, if you have not been performing in the gym or the bedroom the way that you would like, this is an awesome way to work out what's happening inside of your body. Getting these lab tests done would usually cost thousands. But with Function, it is only $500. And right now, you can get the exact same blood panels that I get and bypass their weight list by going to the link in the description below or heading to functionhealth.com/modernwisdom. That's functionhealth.com/modernwisdom. been pretty fascinated by the reaction online over the last I think with the Ukraine with the Middle East with sort of a broader conversation about the Jewish community at large generally. Uh I wonder how much Elon's opening up of X has contributed to outgroup tribalism now that maybe some of the guardrails have been taken off with regards to that. Uh but yeah, it feels to me like the world has reached some new fever pitch of sort of outgroup passion uh against whoever they see as a scapegoat, whoever they see as being in the wrong and nobody can agree on who is in the wrong, which is one of the most sort of interesting observations that everybody acts as if the facts are already settled whilst never being able to actually agree on what the facts are. So I say they're settled, you say they're settled, we don't agree, but both of us act as if they are. And uh yeah, I just the the reaction especially in the west to a rapidly developing kinetic situation on the other side of the planet and well I mean I think I've said to you before I mean one of the things I noticed in the internet age was that um uh we'd gone from the era of uh we disagree about our opinions or our interpretations of an event and And well, the internet age has given us the great things if we disagree about what just happened. And um that does throw up its own uh manas. So, one of the reasons I try to see things with my my own eyes is because I'm always pretty confident that someone's going to try to tell me I haven't seen something I've seen with my own eyes. Mhm. Um and sure enough, that happens all the time, but you have the reassurance if you know. How's that? you know and uh I but I do find that interesting. There are for instance I mean there are people who would like to regard themselves as civilized people I'm sure who just will not accept that what happened on October the 7th happened which is one of the reasons why I went there uh straight away was because I knew that would happen. When did you get there? I got there in October of 2023. I went because I was in Time Square the day after the massacre as it was still going on and um the uh there was an anti-Israel promaz protest happening in the center of Time Square uh with people supporting the massacre and I thought well this is one of the things that's going to happen is they're going to pass over the massacre. they're going to celebrate it and pass it over. They're going to pretend it didn't happen or try to diminish it or minimize it. And um I just didn't want to see that happen is what many people said, but it was like watching Holocaust denial in real time. And um yes I mean and and and in the other main conflict going on at the moment in Russia Ukraine you know I mean at the highest level of American government there have been people who've implied that you know Ukraine started the war or is the aggressor and that's uh that's disturbing to see because there are some things that just have to be agreed upon. Um, you know, it was Russian tanks that rolled into Ukraine in February 2022. It was Hamas terrorists who invaded by the thousands into Israel on October the 7th, 2023. Like, let's at least agree to that. as what you describe as the sort of um the online thing is uh is definitely massively worsened and I think it's because I mean the sort of all the slooes are up all of the all of the guard rails all of that and there's and that's good in lots of ways I mean look at look at what happened when our societies tried to say there's only one explanation for for instance you know the co uh virus coming out of the area where that virus was being made and that it was to do with Chinese people eating bats and from a wet market and not to do with the lab that was making that virus happening to be leaky. Um, we were told uh consistently that the lab leak was a conspiracy. And one of the reasons why that's so uh poisonous to the discourse as a whole is because it understandably makes people say if I've been lied to about that, what are the other things that are true? What are the other conspiracy theories that are not conspiracy theories? Becomes a gateway drug. Yeah. And I think a lot of people are on that. And then of course it's a great habit and is a kind of enjoyable and people I believe everything is being kept from them. And doubtless some stuff is being kept from us. Sometimes for good reasons, sometimes not. But um I think I think I think the the uh the conspiratorial mindset is is is flourishing flourishing at the moment. And it's funny because you can you can um well it's funny but it's also more importantly it's serious because it's a sign of very unhealthy thing in society. Um when the uh JFK files were released the other week there was a lot of excitement that you know finally we're going to discover exactly what happened. Uh, I wrote a column a little while afterwards saying, you know, the thing we've learned from the JFK files is that the president was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald with the gun that Lee Harvey Oswald owned that Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald noticed was missing from the house that morning. And um, because it was funny because I noticed that to the extent that I monitor reactions to anything I say, I noticed how many people were annoyed. No, there's still this question. He wasn't as good a sharpshooter as he was. You can't stop it. Um, it looks, by the way, on that one, it's quite interesting. It looks like what what happened was the CIA were monitoring him pretty carefully, Lee Harvey Oswald, because he tried to defect to Russia once before and he tried to defect to Cuba and um and so the CIA were monitoring him and they didn't want to reveal the methods by which they did that. In the process, one of the biggest conspiracy theories of the modern era was born. But you but I don't think I'll persuade anyone who thinks otherwise on that who's deeply into the idea that LBJ desperately wanted to do this or X wanted to do that. And the problem is is what you allude to is that the problem is that the algorithm rewards the crazy. I noticed on the day that the JFK files were released, some uh Wank Rag online um started a live stream that was suggested to me and it was its title was JFK Files reveal Israeli like plot or something. And there was no such thing. But that gets engagement. Whereas JFK scholars reading documents live, it'll take about 4 months less sexy, less engagement. You're not going to watch them reading the documents. And you know, that's just the reality of the era we're in. Uh, and you can't stop it, but I think people should be alive to it, should be aware of it. This is one of the things that's being done to us by these darn devices that tell me all about Easter Bunny Box. It seems like the sort of scapegoat outgroup fingerpointing dynamic, it feels like that has been tuned up at least over the last couple of years. Yeah. And um as I say in this book, I mean it's inevitable because historically we know this is the case. And I say this to somebody who isn't Jewish, but it will almost always end up with the Jews. Why is that the case? Very interesting question. Um one is that right and left can both do it. Oh, it's like a equal opportunity victim. Yes. Right. Both right and left can do it. I say at one point in the book, one of the interesting things about anti-semitism is that it's uh which isn't to say that all criticism of Israel is anti-semitic, which isn't, etc., etc. But I think that one of the interesting things about anti-semitism is that it's famously a shape-shifting virus. It can come from anywhere. It can come from the political left. It can come from the political right. It can come from people wearing jack boots and it can come from people wearing COVID masks. you know, laterally we've been less attuned to the existence of the second, you know, because there's been there's always this expectation that it'll be the same as last time, but it doesn't. It moves. But the reason why I do think that that's a perennial to the conspiracy mind is because uh the Jews can be blamed for everything and just have been historically. Uh they get blamed for they you get sim simultaneously blamed for being poor and for being rich. you know, 19th century British anti-semitism uh and indeed continental anti-semitism relied on the the trope of the Rothschilds and of the impoverished Jews from Eastern Europe and they just did both at once. Uh they can be accused of being very religious and trying to push religion and also being ultra secularist, the most secular, uh pushing atheism. um they can be blamed for being stateless ruthless cosmopolitans was a line that anti-semmites of the right used to use and the left about Jews and now they get blamed for having a state. So it it's it's a sort of perennial and I think if you if you wanted to go down exactly on why it is it's it's many reasons. There's different types of anti-semitism. There's Islamic anti-semitism. There's types of Christian anti-semitism. Um uh I think that the it ends up usually being that um historically Jews are almost perfectly positioned to mirror whatever your own failings are. And this this is uh it's a line I quote in the book from a great Russian writer Vastley Gman who said in the 20th century in his masterpiece life and fate he said tell me what you accuse the Jews of and I'll tell you what you're guilty of. It's fascinating insight this it's a mirror to your own failings. How so? So for instance uh the main accusation that the revolutionary Islamic government in Thran uses of the Jewish state of Israel is that it's a um it's a colonial power. Um, and uh, it uh, this is quite funny to me because I mean, by the way, the Supreme Leader of Iran last year wrote a thank you letter to students at Colombia and other American Ivy League universities for coming out for the last year and a half uh, on the anti-Israel protest. He wrote them a thank you letter in joining him in the anti-colonialist cause. There is one country in the Middle East which has been colonizing the place more than any other in our lifetimes and that's the Iranian revolutionary government in Thran. They colonized the great country of Iran in 1979. They've in the years and decades since they've colonized Iraq, colonized Syria, colonized Yemen, colonized and destroyed Lebanon. But they say the Jews are the colonialist power. Another very good example just right there, the the president of Turkey, sometime very close enemy of mine, um uh reip Edwan, who I initiated a defamatory poetry competition against many years ago. That's a byway. You have friends in high places. I do. And and good enemies, the best. Uh the uh recipiped, President Erdogan of Turkey uh accuses the Jewish state of being uh an occupying power, which is hilarious if you know Cyprus at all because the north half of Cyprus is occupied by Turkey now still has been for 50 years. Totally illegal occupation that nobody in America or Britain or the West seems to give a damn about. So when Erdogan says the Jews are occupiers, all he's doing is telling us about himself. That's all. And uh when I mean it works every which way you do it. The Nazis accused the Jews of being racists. It's almost as if it tells us something about the Nazis. It's it's an extraordinary thing. Uh uh and this works almost every way. Um yeah, people accuse the Jews of things they're guilty of and uh because they're a small enough portion of the global population uh and tend to outperform, not always by any means, but tend to outperform in the areas they go into. They're almost the perfect scapegoat. Is this not true of other groups, too? Oh, yeah, for sure. never anywhere as much um because of this shape-shifting thing I describe and because there are very deep theological reasons for it. You know, it took until the 1950s for a pope in Rome to say the Jews are not responsible for the killing of Christ. That's a long time um for the church to confirm that. So you know you have many centuries of Christian anti-semitic pograms and much more. Uh the Islamic world has not yet caught up with that and uh much of it still blames the Jews for rejecting the revelation of Muhammad because when the inventor of Islam came up with the idea and went around trying to get other people to join him, the Jews were among the first people who said no thanks. We've already got our religion and we'd like to keep it. What are the lessons for the wider world from the Ukraine, from the Middle East over the last few years? What what should people take away from the way that these sort of conflicts have unfolded and the response because it seems and a lot of people sort of say this uh ever escalating kinetic engagement. the sort of burbling below the surface you mentioned before about the only job of the politicians and government is to keep the economy going. There's maybe some fertile ground to sew seeds in with regards to that which is going to raise tensions. I watched a video from uh the PM of Singapore who as far as I can tell I'm sure there's critics of Singapore out there and I'm not a geopolitics expert. Um, as far as I can tell, Singapore's kind of a shining light of uh some areas of growth, governance. Oh, for sure. Of economics. Sure. Uh, and he said himself, you know, that economic uh turbulence like this has preceded a lot of pretty big conflicts in the past. And uh if you've got a few petri dish examples of this actually happening before you've got the economic pressure happening as well globally. You know the the era of free tra trade is over. You know could be yeah um traveling should be about the pleasure of the trip and not the stress of packing which is why I am such a huge fan of nomatic. This travel pack the 14 liter travel pack is what I wear every single day. It is the biggest game changer and it genuinely makes spending your day lugging your possessions around infinitely more enjoyable. 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But I can tell you the the few uh the few sort of positive things that that I have picked up and one is a very straightforward one which I think is a very important one for the west which I go into in this book which is um because I mentioned I mean it's about this these twin worlds and how does the democracy whatever you whether you're democrat republican doesn't matter labor conservative doesn't matter but What can anyone who broadly speaking likes the societies we're from and wants them to continue, wants them to do well, what can they do if those societies are tested? And I think one of the things that is really uh very obvious to me now is you need to know what you're fighting for. You need to know that your what you're fighting for is something that you cherish and you love. And I think that there has been in the period of deenergizing which hopefully we're coming out of. But that in that period we have all been told in America and Britain and elsewhere that what we have is not good. You know, as I said in my last book, in the war on the West, we have been told that, you know, like we're guilty. I mean, this is all horseshit, by the way, but I mean, you know, that we're uniquely guilty from colonialism or uniquely guilty from slavery or uniquely guilty from racism or all of this stuff. It's total horseshit. We should never have put up with it for so long that among other things people from the around the world wanted to come to countries in the west and then tell us how bad we were. Should never have agreed to that. If somebody came into my home and said they didn't like my home and they thought it was uniquely awful, I think I'd tell them to scram. Uh so why we put up with this for so long I don't know but we have been and arguably many young people in particular younger than us have been put up have been told that that what they have been born into is not good. And one of my in first instincts when I saw that poll of young Americans and young Brits you know would you be willing to lay down your life for the country if something terrible happened and you had to step up. I think one of the reasons why the the yes vote is so low is because doesn't matter whether you're patriotic or not, you've been told your country is rotten. You know, there was a there was an article written in the Daily Mail the other week by a very smart young British guy who who's a right-wing I think he's you sort of reform voter type saying why would I lay down my life for my country when it's let me down so badly when you know our politicians don't listen to us when so it's not just a leftright thing by any means but I think people have been told from a lot of different directions that our countries are not good and I think that's not true. I never thought that was true. I've got a long enough memory and I've traveled enough run up enough air miles in this life to know that's not true. But if you tell people that it's the case for a long time and you deenergize them and you demotivate them, you tell them that they're rotten, then yeah, you can really demoralize a society. I think that needs to turn around. I think that people need to recognize what what we have that's good. And as I've said to you before, the footfall alone tells us all we need to know. The footfall alone tells it. Nobody is trying today to make their way out of America to get to the safe harbor of Venezuela. Nobody's even leaving Britain to go to France. Certainly nobody's leaving France or Spain or Italy to try to get to Algeria. And in turn, nobody from Algeria is trying to break into subsahara and Africa. Very few people are trying to break into communist China. Absolutely no one is trying to hot foot it to North Korea. Okay. So, so like all of the countries that people in the world most want to come to are now what they have been for decades. America, Canada, Australia, Britain, France, and so on. So why did we put up with being told that these countries that are demonstrabably the places people want to come to are bad places and everywhere else is good. It's just so sickening to me. I've had enough of it and I think most people have. Is that sense that things would be better if we were more like them over there? Is that a dynamic that's sort of fueling some of this? Which bit do you mean? The fact that if only we were a little bit more like well the Middle East they they're living a little bit sort of closer to to simplicity. They have Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's the real uh uh colonialist thinking. That's the real uh that's the real orientalist thinking of our time is the idea that it's it's actually rather wonderfully sent up in white lotus among other things is is that stupid idea that you know um other cultures have like a depth of philosophy that we don't have or other cultures have a spiritualism that we don't have. Uh yeah, I mean it's a phenomenon I've described before of uh uh people going backpacking to see temples in Thailand. Wonderful things. Absolutely. Going to Myanmar to see temples. Wonderful things to see. Absolutely. But you should also visit Winchester Cathedral or Salsbury or St. Peters in Rome or Chartra, you know, on and on and on there. It's it's a it's a very interesting mindset that that the western mindset is that that that what we have isn't rich enough. I described this recently at ARC. I I borrowed Eric Weinstein's great analogy about um uh ice cream. Have you heard this? Um it's a brilliant observation. Uh some years ago, Eric and I were talking about this weird thing where uh the West had been sort of tricked into thinking or we'd been sort of told that um we need other flavors to make ourselves interesting cuz otherwise we're not interesting. You'll notice, by the way, that doesn't work any other way around. Nobody goes to Ghana and says, "I just can't help noticing you don't have have enough Welsh people." And you could really do with it because it'll bring you some color. It's a much needed diversity. Nobody would think of going to uh um Pakistan and saying, you know, guys, you seriously, you just don't have enough French culture here. But but you do do it always with the West. You do do it always. And Eric's uh observation which I thought was just brilliant that classic way he can do to sort of refine a a complicated question. And he said he said when I he said you know Doug when I was growing up I had the impression for a while that vanilla ice cream was the base ice cream. It was like the base flavor and that all other flavors of ice cream were flavors added on to vanilla ice cream. And it's the same with us in the west. Vanilla, if you want to look at it like that, is a very complicated and rich flavor of its own. It's not the case that everything added to it is being added to a nonflavor. And um I wish we realized that. I wish we had a little bit more um you know I I always say I never want sort of I don't want tub thumping nationalist stuff but I would like people to have some dumb pride in things they should have some dumb pride in. How have you avoided becoming or maybe you have more nihilistic despondent down I'm interested in what the sort of personal prices that you pay to be on the front lines of these things. I've seen an interview with you and Pierers Morgan where there was a brief interlude for a rocket to go overhead and then you sort of brushed yourself off and kind of got back to it. Uh I'm interested in sort of what it's been like for you over the last couple of years. Um not really for me to say. Um, I I think it goes back to that point about seeing things at their best and at their worst at the same time, you know. Uh, I um I can't deny that when you see some things too much, too close up, it has some kind of effect on you. Um I describe some of that in this book actually. But um but it's countered by the encouragement one gets. Uh I don't mean encouragement for other people. I mean literally seeing people who are encouraging to me in their actions. And uh you know I I I there have been in um both conflicts um I spent more time in the Israel Gaza conflict than in uh Ukraine. I was very struck near the beginning of the Ukraine conflict when I was with the Ukrainian armed forces when they re retook Kersson from the uh Russians and all these you know unbelievable sight of all these people coming out from their houses after 8 months under Putin rule coming being liberated by their own army and uh unbelievable scenes and conversations and sightes And um and I I find I find real heroism on the battlefield uh a remarkable thing. I mean unbelievably encouraging and and um positive. Um I like and feel enormous encouragement from seeing uh people fighting for life. I think it's uh almost unequaled uh as a thing to make you feel optimism about the species. Um and particularly fighting for life against people who worship death, you know. Um I tell a story in this book about which is um slightly difficult story to retell actually but um the the mastermind of October the 7th Yakya Sinoir who was a proper psychopath. I mean, as you'll see in the the segments about him, I mean, a proper psychopath, you know, was in an Israeli prison in the 2000s for strangling to death various Palestinians who he had fallen out with, you know. Um anyway, he uh uh he he he had such necrilic fantasies as a as a man, you know, promised even before the 7th of October, he said, "We will go over and we will get the Jews and we will tear their hearts out of their bodies." [Music] Um, in the end, uh, he was killed by a young soldier from a regiment called the Bizlak, who aren't even fully soldiers. Um, and this young man who killed Sinoir within less than a year of the 7th of October was not even in uniform when Sinoir invaded. And uh I went I went into Rafa just after Sinoir was killed and I went to see where he was and uh was with the unit that included the the men who killed him. And I thought what an extraordinary and wonderful thing that this man high on death finally had death delivered to him by someone who wasn't even in uniform. Some part-time squatty. He uh he created his own downfall. and that that sort of thing. I mean, I think that you know we all know there are different ways in different philosophies and different theological systems to look at the battle between good and evil. But um uh this one that one is a very clear one to me. And uh I I yes I've um I've I've got far more uh optimism actually funnily enough than I have uh pessimism despite everything. Does it make dealing with criticisms or accusations of motive or whatever from the internet does it put those sort of things into perspective? I never gave a [ __ ] about that as you know. I'm fascinated by it. I'm fascin I'm fascinated by how few shits you give. Yeah, I always have been. I I I just don't care, you know. I I I I was saying to somebody recently that I really I I slightly wonder what would have happened if I'd have grown up in the social media era and I have, you know, friends and family more of that sort of surveillance. But I think I think the truth is is simply that I think that people's sense of whether you're going right or wrong in your life or your career or in your whatever um who takes advice from complete strangers and don't we all I'm sure you as with me you listen to advice or criticism even from people who care for you and you care for or love and you know who love you who you admire and who admire you. I mean, I reckon I mean, without getting all schmaltzy, I reckon that if you said to me, I saw this interview you did and I think you shouldn't have said that or whatever, I would actually listen to that. Um, because, you know, there there are some people who I respect whose opinion I think, yeah, that's that matters. But if uh if you were you know just some rando online saying why why the hell would that you know I think I've said to you before that one of the interesting things is of course is is because the very nature of criticism is that you have to work out I think I said this to you when we first spoke you have to work out whether the person criticizing you is criticizing you to improve you or to demoralize and destroy you and the friendly critic. That's what I'm saying. Like I'd like to think of the same thing. If I said, you know, I just think, you know, you might think I I wouldn't be saying something critical of you other than if I thought it would improve you in some way or make something better for you. But if if I was some malevolent troll who desperately wanted to destroy Chris Williamson, hated him, and wanted him to fail, and I like started screaming advice at you, why the hell would you listen? You shouldn't. I But I mean, you know, you definitely have an advantage if you grew up before the deranging in online era because I think some of that sense is created from that. But I I mean, you know, it's it's I don't think it's a difficult superpower to acquire. I really don't. Yeah. As said everybody that is fantastic at something that comes naturally to them. Uh what do you mean? Well, just I think you you seem to have a big [ __ ] streak. Uh and Ryan Long taught me this comedian. He said he always Oh, I like him. I did his podcast. Yes. I introduced you. Yeah. Yeah. He's great. Him and Danny. Uh he said he always sort of discredited the things that came easily to him. He always he always assumed that there was more value in something that he had to work harder at. So he he's really great at sketch comedy. Yes. And he's naturally very funny. He's [ __ ] fantastic. And and to him sketches just they fall out of him on a daily basis. So he always looked at other twists and art forms. Maybe they were comedy or maybe they were tangential or maybe they were totally separate. Uh and he always assumed that those were the ones that were really valuable because he discredited the thing that came so easily to him. He always thought well the sketch comedy thing like you know everybody's got access. No, no, no, no, no. Not everybody has access to that. Yeah. You're a freak and you have that skill. So do you have do you have some like that things that come easily to me? Yeah. Uh I we're always at least for me I'm my own worst critic. Stuff that comes easily to me that I think other people assume that that's the case is networking. I that was something that uh as an only child who then becomes a club promoter, you are perfectly you're perfectly positioned to sort of observe social networks and see how they go. It's never anything that I've sort of practiced myself. It's just something that kind of came out of of of life and and programming. Um, and yapping, always being good at yapping, you know, from a kid, right? But so do you think you look down on those things as skills? I certainly I don't look down on them, but I do assume I've because they come easily to me, I'm not convinced that I value them in the same sort of way. I value them in myself, and it's something I'm very happy that I've got. But so what are the things then that you put an onus on that you don't think you have? Oh, that's a good question. [ __ ] you energy would be one of those. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Instead of getting mad, I tend to get sad. Uh I'll sort of turn I know. Oh, but it's true. It's true. Really? Uh yeah. In many ways, I think you can you can work past that quite easily. Interesting. uh at least operationally you can but there is a there is an initial hurdle where I will tend to I will tend to blame myself for something. So it's one of the one of the reasons I asked about the criticism actually I would say I'm a criticism hyperresponder sometimes and uh I created a list of different ways that uh me and perhaps other people uh have dealt with criticism with varying degrees of success. Oh yeah. Uh get bitter. Think of any critic as a hater just throwing envy and shade. Recite the quote, "Don't take criticism from someone you wouldn't take advice from." Number two, channel your inner David Gogggins and use it as fuel to prove people wrong. Number three, get aquinamus and see every criticism as a gift which you can learn from. Number four, get psychoanalytical and think of criticisms as a window into the mind of other humans. Bonus points for inferring sweeping generalizations about the public at large from whatever you read. That's very good. Uh, be incredibly precise with language, so no spell words, uh, which could be misconstrued at present. Uh, frontr run potential criticisms by caveating before speaking. Hey, I'm just an idiot spitballing a bro science theory here. Oh, no, that one's awful. Acknowledge both sides. Hey, look, I think climate change or women's mental health or poverty in Africa is an important issue we should focus on. But that was all that's a weak one. Avoid exposing yourself to it. Never search your own name on Twitter or Reddit. Don't read the comments. Oh, that's definitely true. Yes, of course. Dampen down the edgginess of your opinions and statements so the point gets made but in such a gentle way that people can't find anything sufficiently objectionable to get mad about. That's not great advice always. This isn't necessarily advice. These are just strategies that I've gone through. Interesting. Uh deny that it gets to you and just breath work busy meditate scroll Brazilian jiu-jitsu your way to distraction. Or final one, take it to heart, doubt your abilities and fear that you're not cut out for any level of exposure at large. And I think that it's probably the last one. Mhm. Which people online, a lot of people online would be hoping with anyone they're attacking to be able to slow them down. What they're hoping is that they'll do something that will demoralize you. And uh I imagine Mhm. I mean, I know that when I really want to uh demoralize someone, that's the sort of thing I do. No, I always think that if the uh I I I actually think the only the most effective form of really nasty criticism is to like find out what the really weak spot is on someone. There was a crazy woman many years ago in London who used to she was actually Jewish, but she was the most very vicious vicious anti-Israel protestant imaginable. and she used to turn up with a group of other maniacs and like disrupt things like like the Jerusalem string quartet played at the Wigmore Hall and they were like like attack the string quartet like couldn't you find a stronger target? Um and but I remember writing a piece about her and um for some reason I knew that if I just said you know you're just auntie or just a maniac wouldn't you know she'd had it all. But I I remember thinking because she would sing these mad songs like like she'd sing something was a song with new lyrics by herself that were like painting and I remember just describing her as a semi-trained singer. Oh, that was the one. I put my finger on the thing there. She was just a How dare I was drained. I just thought it was so funny. You just you just watch and think, I bet that's the one, you know. Adolf Hitler, world leader, failed artist. But yeah, I that's an interesting list. Yeah. What happened with you in the Guardian? Oh, um uh yeah, they they lieled me and lied about me so badly in the column that they um had to pay very substantial expenses in uh liable damages to me. Mhm. Um I'm actually there's a there's a uh and expenses and read out an apology in the high court in London which was they tried to do the classic thing. I think I can say this. Um sometimes when somebody's forced to do a liel um retraction, they sort of they don't tweet or publish anything and then they suddenly they do it and then they do masses of things so that it gets buried even on their own timeline. But um I made sure that didn't happen. how well I went quite big on the retweets and um so and Elon helped by um uh retweeting it and actually I think currently it's the most viewed apology in the history of British legal cases. So I wasn't unhappy about that. You did ask Jesus Christ. Uh there's a principle among journalists generally you don't sue because you know it's all kind of rough and you know but uh this one was so egregious that I just What did they do? I I don't I don't want to [ __ ] repeat the liel that I've just had the Right. Okay. Yeah. Well, it was it was incorrect. Yeah, that's fair. I don't know. I mean I I only sort of spied it. I I knew that there's something happening and I didn't really understand what it was and then I went and had a little bit of a look and then the way that these liel things are written out as well. They're so odd. Well, I mean, everyone knows that. I mean, despite being a member of the press myself, I mean, you know, one of the worst things about the press is is is that, you know, sometimes they get something like wildly wrong, but it's like front page and then the correction is 3 years later on page 49 in a, you know, small type and so on. everyone knows that and you know it's just part of the rough and tumble. But but um uh I I I think uh I think I mean having opinions that you disagree with or are wrong is all just fair enough, but you know, you can't go around and just make [ __ ] up and uh claim that it's true. Or at least you oughtn't to. And you certainly oughtn't to if you're the Guardian observer newspaper group and present yourselves as some kind of guardian of the truth even now. So um yeah I but I I don't do I don't do that very often but I um there are a few times when I've had substantial donations from people who've lieled me and I I wait and then uh act and win. Is there a uh proposed use for the proceeds from this? I thought I'd extend the moat around my house and uh and build a new drawbridge. Actually, some more butlers. I'm not sure there's room for more. I mean, there's got to be a limit, don't there? I mean, you can't have What do you think? Um, I know you don't care or it seems like you don't care. What do you think people commonly misunderstand about sort of your worldview, your positions? Don't really know. I mean, um, fascinates me how little time you sort of spend in, uh, self-critical, self-reflection. Not that you don't see where sort of failures and stuff come from, but that there's just so few shits given well I mean I'm very self-critical one of the one of I I learned this from anti Paul years ago from his novel there's a brilliant observation in one of them that um you should always presume that people are very critical who are very critical do turn the criticism inwards as well that's absolutely true um and I think it's actually constructive I mean I think it would be wildly odd if if you were critical of other people and not of yourself. Um but but I think it's a I think broadly speaking it's a good thing um to be uh self-critical. So that but I don't know I don't spend much time thinking what other people think about me. I generally take the view I I mean of course I think it's healthy because I think it and nobody says I have this really unhealthy thing I like you know to think. Um so have you know everyone's everyone's a good judge of character. That was one of my favorites. No, almost nobody says actually I'm just not a very good judge of charact. I'm just not good at telling who's a serial killer and who isn't. I just um and there are various ones like that that are very uh obvious. I think that in general my attitude is to be wary about thinking about other people's thoughts about me because uh I think that people who are uh express great admiration or um you know whatever about me I kind of don't obviously that's nice but I don't want to absorb it too much because I don't want to become a dick or any more of a dick. And um people who really don't like what I say, I don't really I don't think that's great either. I mean, I go back to this thing. I think that I mean, where you you know, where I where I would be very very sensitive would be if I made an error or something like that because then I'd feel that I'd made a mistake. I got something wrong and that would that would bother me. and does when I when I do, you know, I make a factual error or something that's really annoying and it has happened. Um uh but I don't think it pays to spend very much time thinking about what other people think about you. I just don't I think it it sort of means you don't get on with things and I've got a lot to do. What's coming up? Uh well, this book obviously which has got to beat the bunnies and with your help to the top. Um I'm doing a lot of travel uh to roll out the book. Uh which is great. Uh which I love. It's a funny thing with books is uh How's yours coming along by the way? Hiatus at the moment. Taking over. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've got other other fish to fry first. Okay. Um yeah, one of the great things about books is that you or the odd things about books is that when you've done when you've done the book or when you finished it, you you haven't finished that's when the work starts just because the moment like to I think we're talking well we are talking on the day that the book's officially out in America and uh uh so you know it's like from now that people start reading it and for me that's Great. Because that's when the book really starts and of course people can listen to it on audible where you get these dulit. No, not you. You don't read it. I read it on audible. And uh the uh Yeah. So I mean that's nice as well. And that by the way I mean that is as you know it's fantastic. That's one of the great things doesn't get enough uh attention the upsides of some of the tech. I mean I I discover that there's a you know there's a wonderful readership listenership which was not there before audio books took off to the extent they have now which is thank part partly to podcasters and the way in which people were able to you know are able to absorb and wishing to absorb um you know information and discussion and books uh and that and that's just fantastic. There's a there's a fantastic audience out there of people who, you know, might not come home and crack open a book at the end of the day, but will listen to it and they get the same thing, plus with me in their ear. Um, so I I love the business of a book being out. Um, even one about some pretty dark stuff like this one. But, um, yeah. When you do a fun one next, when we have a nice fun one. Well, that's a good question. Um, yeah. I I have a backlog of books in my head of the ones I want to write. Are there any fun ones? Easter 26 is calling. Well, I Yeah, now I know the frigin competition. The Bunny Market. Um, I uh No, I uh I've I've always got a lot to do. Always a lot on my mind. um and uh projects and uh yeah, a lot to do. I look forward to seeing it happen. I appreciate you, man. I always I always love getting to speak to you. It's it's it's really really lovely. Likewise. Right back at you, as I discovered to say in America. Well, you're here for a little while until you fly off again. Douglas, I appreciate you, man. Take care. Do you think that your algorithm on YouTube is a bit of a god? Is it able to know things about you that you don't know about yourself? Well, the YouTube gods have selected this episode specifically for you, bespoke. So, go and go and check it out.