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Learn more by visiting acast.com slash advertise. You're listening to Deconstructive Criticism. I am Aaron Flamm. Author and comedian Andrew Doyle has just released three of his books in Swedish.
Freedom of Speech, Woke, and the New Puritans. He joins me in a conversation about the cluster fact that is our current state of affairs. Thank you for supporting Deconstructive Criticism. You can contribute on patreon.com slash Aaron Flamm with PayPal, Bitcoin, and on SWISH WO46-768943737.
WO46-7689437. With my own book, this is a Swedish tiger about how and why social democracy opened the door for Islamists to the west, and their inherent Jew hatred is available on Kindle. Author satirist TV star and stand-up comedian Andrew Doyle is as sharp with his wit as he is with his pen. I have interviewed Andrew before when his book Woke, written as the character Titania McGrath, came out.
Titania is a woke Twitter troll that satirizes Wokeness by being well, just Woke as F. It is hilarious, and I'm much-needed antidote to the strict Puritanism of the intersectional left. The New Puritans is a more serious analysis of Wokeness written in his own name, and since freedom of speech is the enemy of said left, he had to write a book about that too. All three books are now available in Swedish, and I suggest that you buy them and study them.
Any and all rhetorical weapons are needed in the fight ahead, and if any country is infected by leftism, it is Sweden. Andrew Doyle is a playwright, journalist, and political satirist from New York, who has written for the fictional character Jonathan Pie and created the character Titania McGrath. Andrew also has a TV show on GBNews titled Free Speech Nation. Enjoy.
Welcome back to Deconstructive Criticism, Andrew Doyle. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure, and thank you for doing it last night. It was lovely, wasn't it?
Yes, it was. Nice group of people. Very. Yeah.
Sharing a lot of wrong things. Yes, and how long have you been in Sweden now? Two days. All right, and how long are you saying?
Another day. All right. I'm not going to see much. I won't be able to be much of a tourist.
No. But although I'm saying in the old towns, the more historical parts of town, so I've been in all the best bits anyway. Yes, well, it's not going to be rather small. Yes.
You can pretty much walk across it in 40 minutes time. Yeah. Last time you were here, we talked about your book Woke written under the pseudonym Titania McGrath, which is now blown, I suppose. People know you are- Oh, journalists have done some sort of investigative work and worked out that it was me.
That was for the times in London. So actually the week of its release coincided with that story. And so everyone knew which actually helped the publicity for the book. I'm sure.
But it wasn't deliberate. No. And at the moment you were a TV star in England. Well, I have a show on a new channel called GBNews.
I have a weekly show where I talk mostly about the culture war. It's a show devoted to that. Okay, well, then I am now you're in Sweden because all of your books, or at least three of them, have now been translated to Swedish. Yes, yes.
Published. Yes, all released simultaneously, which is quite exciting. Yes. And which I understand your proponent.
Yes, the book is in favour of freedom of speech. We are used to controversial views on this show. Yes. And the new Puritans, which is about the culture wars that you just mentioned.
That's right. And I was going to start with something else, but we might as well start there. How come you got involved in the culture wars to begin with? It's a good question.
It wasn't deliberate insofar as many people I was dragged into it, I think. Because I suppose my background is stand up comedy and playwriting and the arts generally. And unfortunately for whatever reason, whatever we want to call this, the woke movement or critical social justice or whatever you want to call it. You want to call this critical social justice.
I read your book, sir. I do want to because I think it's, well, maybe we'll get onto that later. But this movement for whatever reason has infected the arts particularly. And I would say it has originated from the humanities and from literary studies.
And so therefore it started to have an impact on my life and work. Comedians, I noticed, were policing each other's jokes or complaining about certain topics being joked about. And so freedom of speech, particularly in the UK, I started to see was increasingly under threat. Not just from creatives and the industry, but also from critics, from the government, even in various areas, certainly in education.
And so I ended up talking about it. And I think I wasn't intending to make this my life, but the more I spoke about it, the more ostracized I became, the more angry people. And I didn't understand why. Because all I was doing was saying what I felt to be true, which was what everyone believed up until ten minutes ago.
And you kind of, if you're open and honest about your criticisms of this movement, you become siloed, you become a persona non gras, I suppose. And so it just happened, I was sort of pushed into that. That sounds a lot like my own story actually. Yes.
When I started doing stand up, I had this principle because I had all these ideas about comedy, especially stand up comedy. And one of my principles was that I was not to do jokes of the difference between men and women, because those are not because it's politically incorrect. I just felt the subject matter was tired. Yes.
And then a few years in, I noticed that, okay, so now we're in a situation where no male comedians do jokes about women. Yeah. But all the female comedians do sexist jokes about men. Yes.
That seems a bit lopsided. Yeah. So I think that's... Then it changed again.
In the last few years, it's become taboo to talk about the differences between men and women completely. It's become edgy again, because of course, there are so many activists are saying that there are no differences between men and women, and that it's all social constructs. And so actually one of the most edgy things you can do is do an old-fashioned joke about the wife or whatever. It's a strange situation.
The old bone chain. Exactly. Yeah. So the arts, you say, that's where you started noticing it.
I started noticing a tendency towards conformist thinking from those who are ostensibly meant to be the most free-thinking members of society, the creatives. And that to me was a fundamental contradiction. I don't think you can be an artist. I'm not simply trying to gauge what the acceptable point of view is.
Or indeed, if you are using your art as a conduit to express whatever the vogus ideology of the time happens to be. And that is what has happened. I mean, if you go to any theatrical production in the UK now, nine times out of ten, it will be a sermon disguised as a piece of entertainment. If you go and see a Shakespeare play, it will be a simply a means by which the word ideology can be expressed and supported.
It's all about diversity. It's all about sanitizing aspects that are considered problematic. You know, I spoke to an artistic director of an opera company in Wales. And they had done a production of Dead Man Walking, which was a film that Susan Sarandon, a true story about a man who was on death row for a crime that he did in fact commit.
And the opera opened with the scene of his crime, which is a rape and murder that he commits. It's quite important that you see that because the shock of seeing that really raises all kinds of moral quandaries for the audience in terms of the ethics of capital punishment. But they had a discussion and they sent out a letter to an email to all audience members, everyone who brought a ticket to warn them about the opening scene and to advise that if they might be triggered or upset, they should arrive ten minutes late so that they wouldn't have to see this upsetting scene. But of course, the upsetting scene is part of the artistic vision.
If you don't see it. Also, they would be disturbing the other audience members if they arrived late. All sorts of reasons. I hate that it comes anyway.
But it struck me that that kind of thing, and similarly with trigger warnings, which are now pretty common in universities, and you might say, well, there's no harm in putting a warning on a work of literature if it will upset certain people. But there actually is a harm because what it sends a signal. It says, it says a fact that this book is a potential weapon. It's like a grenade.
It's like a bomb. It's something that can cause harm and damage. Words. It's that conflation of words and violence, which has seen so many problems in society.
So, well, then we might laugh at a trigger. One, for instance, there was a trigger warning at a university on a Julius Caesar that it contained scenes of a murder. Well, if you don't know that already, then you shouldn't be studying literature in the first place. There was one on the old man on the sea by anyway, and it said that it contained scenes of graphic fishing.
What? Excuse me? Yeah. So, I mean, these things are funny.
You see them as self-saturizing. They're already funny. But like I say, I think they point to something more serious, more troubling, and not just the conflation of words and violence, but the infantilization of adults. We forget that we call them kids when they go to university with adults, and they've chosen to study these subjects.
Yes, you mentioned, I think in the last chapter of your book, the New Puritans, now out in Swedish, I think you mentioned mass infantilization quite at least two times. Well, I think it's a key problem. I think it's eternalistic. I think it's based on a lack of faith in humanity, a lack of faith in us to make our own decisions.
Ultimately, I believe in liberty, individual autonomy, and this movement does not believe in that. It believes that if there are bad words out there, then we, the public, the demoths, like drones will just imbibe these words and act them and become evil, racist, empathetic, or whatever, you know, insert epithet there. That I think is fundamentally, it encourages us to be treated like children. And worse than that, you now find students asking to be treated like children.
You must protect us from these harmful words. There's that incredible viral video from Yale University, which is easy to find, where a member of staff had written to the students who had complained about Halloween costumes. It said there was a really upsetting triggering Halloween costumes at the party. Can we ban them?
And one of the members of staff had written to them, saying, no, because you're adults and we can't be your parents. And people have to choose to make their own decisions about what they wear and how they react. And there's a viral video of all of the students surrounding this member of staff's husband, who is also a professor, screaming at him. Screaming at him.
You are meant to make this a safe space for us. It's meant to be a home. It's not meant to be. When was this?
About three years ago. It's interesting. I mean Halloween celebrations have just started to come to Sweden. Yes.
And the point of Halloween costumes is that they're supposed to be scary slash sexy. Yes. Right. And I think you had some students dressing as Bill Cosby or something like that, making a joke of what Halloween tradition he was.
And the video is shocking because they're screaming and they're swearing at the professor and calling him a motherfucker and all this sort of stuff. And you just think, why aren't they just expelled immediately? And why is this being tolerated? Why aren't they expelled immediately?
Because we've hardly, I suppose, it's because the universities are sort of like businesses now where the students are treated as customers. I thought you had state sponsored universities in the UK as well. Well, this video was from the US. Oh, no.
But in the UK, we no longer have, when I was at the university, I had a full grant because I wasn't from a wealthy family. And so you've got money. That stopped the year after I went to university. So increasingly, it's actually harder for people to go to university.
They get loans to cover it mostly. But it's not just that. It's also that academics are terrified of the students. They're terrified of complaints.
You know, I had a friend who taught art history at university and was told by the faculty that he mustn't show any nude images in his lectures because it might upset certain religious sensibilities. Which religious sensibilities would that be? It would be Islam. Yes, it would be.
Well, yes, and well, but then, you know, there's a history of, if you go back long enough, at the Vatican, there was a time where they were chopping off all the penises of the statues, which is why when you go around the Vatican now, you can see a lot of them have been glued back on, which I find quite funny because there must have been a box of these penises somewhere in the Vatican vaults for many years. But, you know, obviously things have changed in Christianity and Christendom generally if you want to use that old Russian term. But in Islam, clearly, this is a sensitivity. And my friend who was teaching art history did try to make the case that if you can't show nude bodies, you can't really teach art history, particularly Western art.
It sort of immiserates the entire discipline. And it can't really be done, but he had to do it otherwise he would have lost his job. So there's all those various universities where are meant to be about knowledge, the pursuit of truth, et cetera. Now they seem to be largely factories for laundering ideological ideas or propagating those ideas.
And that to me is just the opposite of what they meant before. Yes, same here, but we have, you know, state-funded universities and higher learning institutions. Yes. So here it's probably been going on for a much longer time.
But you're writing the last chapter of your book about mass interfantalization, that it's a failure of socialization, right? Yeah. These young people haven't been socialized into society properly. So are you blaming just the parents, though?
No. I think it's cultural trends more broadly. I think I make the case that in order to be an autonomous adult, you have to be effectively socialized in childhood. But that would be the parents' responsibility.
That's partly that. Yeah, absolutely. But also schooling. I think I've probably become more old-fashioned.
I've grown to realize that the system of education that I went through was actually, didn't serve me well. And I'm continually catching up on my own education by reading. But we didn't study Latin or Greek. We didn't study the classics.
We were taught books that were not particularly challenging. And when was this? Well, that was in the 80s and 90s. So late 80s and 90s.
And I feel that my parents' generation had a better education than I did. And we had very little in the way of discipline in the way that they did. So I think my idea is about education have changed. And I suppose that's the case I'm trying to make in the book.
Because a lot of people will try to say that my stance on free speech, for instance, doesn't apply when it comes to children, but I know it doesn't apply when it comes to children because I think children need boundaries and discipline, et cetera. And the reason I want to enforce that so much is because I hardly believe in liberty for adults. We should be able to make our own decisions about our own lives. And that's something I will always stand by.
But I think that's harder when you haven't really grown up, when society hasn't let you grown up. Obviously. But that's, I mean, it's a failure of parents. But as you said, if university administration takes part of this in this infantilization, then society becomes culpable.
It's not just that. I mean, it's culture. I mean, to give you an example. Culture consists of individuals.
It does. I suppose what I mean by culture specifically. Let's take the arts. If I want to read a work of fiction, I will always choose a book that was written in the book that was published before I was born.
Because that way I know it's quality will at least be reasonably high. That suggests something to me. As in books of art, just were just better written. 60 years ago than they are now.
If you take a PG-Woodhouse novel, which was considered light entertainment, light novel that teenagers would read, adults as well. But it was not considered heavy going. But if you try and summarize the plot of a Woodhouse novel, they are incredibly complex as fast as. It's very difficult to do.
Really? Yeah. I mean, basically, Western Geibs goes to a summary state of some well to do that they know or related to. One or several of Wooster's aunts, one seemed to marry the heiress.
Yes. While the heiress is involved with one of Wooster's friends. Yes. And another one of Wooster's friends is in love with the heiress.
Yes. Well, the heiress is friends who is also at the castle for summer. He's in love with the heiress. Is that so complicated?
It actually is. What you're describing is one of these short stories. If you actually read one of the novels, I actually wrote down all of them. Well, I wrote down the uncle friend in the springtime.
And I started writing about those sorts of misdirections. And it became sprawling. Like, mass kind of mess on this page because there were too many different interconnected strands. Which, of course, is how fast works.
It should be the point in fast that you actually get confused yourself while you're reading it. That's sort of how it should work. And it's not something that he's just rushed off. No, no.
And the writer did write quite a few of them over over a hundred books. And the prose style is incredible. There is no one who can write like that even now. The stylist in it is just brilliant.
It's literary. And yet they consider that sort of the equivalent of an airport paperback. But by now he must be cancelled. After all, he was in Germany during the war.
Well, there are a couple of things there. I mean, well, the first thing to the point, if you pick up a cheap paperback from an airport now, it'll be like, it's like a child's book now comparatively. So that's my point about the degradation generally. Woodhouse has had to be rewritten.
In fact, the recent, the new editions of his books, they've taken stuff out. Really? And they've rewritten phrases that are considered offensive. Mostly phrases that are either racial depictions or even wait.
If someone is overweight, there's bits have taken out because I might upset people. Fat phobic. Fat phobic, exactly. So yeah, that has happened.
Of course, there's been an uproar though, which is quite reassuring. So people weren't happy about that. And also, yeah, he was a, well, he stayed behind in France when the Germans invaded. And then while he was imprisoned, he did some ill-advised radio broadcasts for the Nazis.
But it was more to do with his temperament. You know, the idea that he was a collaborator is preposterous and has been debunked a million times. And you know, what's his character? He satirized most of these black shirts in one of his novels.
I can't remember the name of the character, but it's so caustic and brilliant. I think that character returns in several of these. Yes, he does. And Nazi collaborator doesn't do that.
It's about shorts. He wants to see the British men's knees. That's in there. All British men's knees must be visible for everyone at all times.
Exactly. Yeah. And also something about potatoes or spuds. I don't recall.
But I'll take your word for it. So generally, how are things in England post-Brexit? Brexit drove England mad in a way that I don't think other people from other countries fully appreciate. I think you have to be in the midst of that storm to realize.
We had, I mean, it was the largest mandate in our democratic history. More people voted in that vote than any other that has ever occurred. We had months and months and months of debate where everyone was participating. There was something quite exciting about that because there's a general apathy when it comes to politics in a large segment of the population.
And for this, that didn't appear to be the case. People were debating in the pub with their friends on the football pitch at the bus stop everywhere. You know, these things were going to be on the TV all the time. And yet, in spite of that, once the vote came in, members of the commentariat and the political class decided that no one was in the public.
The political class decided that no one knew what they were voting for and tried to undermine it. We had a parliament attempting to undermine the vote, either to get them to re-vote as was Labour's policy, or to just have it completely stymied entirely as was the Liberal Democrats' policy. Nick Clegg, who was the leader of the party at the time, wrote a book called How to Stop Brexit, which may as well have been called How to Stop Democracy, as I can see. And people just continually saying that there wasn't a legitimate vote because no one understood what they were voting for.
But on the contrary, they understood more about this than any other vote they'd ever taken because we had those debates and we had those arguments. So it was quite astonishing. And this goes back to the infantilism idea, this idea that nobody really had agency. I suppose it goes back to the awareness of the consciousness, I suppose you'd say.
Because you were a pro-Brexit. Yeah, exactly. And why? Why did you dump us?
It was very much specifically aimed at Sweden. I'm just sick of it. Sick of the Swedes. No.
The reason, where my background is very much on the left economically. And I don't think it is consistent to espouse left-wing views while you are voting in favour of a pro-corporate, neo-liberal, unbureaucratic, technocratic body, a trading block that has capitalism at the heart of its constitution. I think that's an incoherent stance. I found it bizarre that all of my left-wing friends in the UK started, became sudden enthusiasts for the EU overnight, having never expressed any sentiments regarding them before, having no understanding of how the commission works or what it does, painting their faces in the EU flag colours.
The incredible zealotry based on no knowledge whatsoever. These same people who had demonised the likes of Margaret Thatcher were quite happy to cheer on the likes of Michelle Varnier and Donald Tusk and Giva Hofstra and these various right-wing politicians in Brussels. It was hilarious to me. And I thought it was an nonsense and I thought ultimately, if I were to give a reason in a nutshell, it was about democracy.
It was. Why are we outsourcing democratic power to unelected bureaucrats? Why would we do that? You know Tony Benn, you start with his five famous questions which I think I might quote in the book about politicians.
The last question is how do we get rid of you? For any democracy to work, the power has to be with the Demos. If people are making decisions changing our laws and we can't vote them out, we no longer live in a democracy, which is why I believe that the EU had to be got rid of. I stand by it.
I think even if we left an economic room in it with the right decision, just on the principle of democracy. So how come do you think that wokeism has taken over so much of the Anglo world? I'm talking United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand? It's interesting about what people go, it's the theory about this that it is to do with the language that woke ideas don't translate particularly well.
To what? To any other language. That's what I think. Yes.
That's his argument. However, I do notice that the Titania MacRaph book has been translated into 10 languages now. And one of them translates the title. The word woke is retained for all of the others.
And there are, I mean, his view is that if you, the ideas don't translate, but you're saying that that clearly isn't case in Sweden. No, no, personally, I think if you ask me the same question I just asked you, I think that it's so noticeable in the Anglo world because you're so individualistic and you're not used to conformist and consensus seeking ideas. What you call a woke is just what we in Sweden for decades, 100 years, I've called consensus culture. And it's a formal collective.
It's an expression of collectivism. But then when I speak to Spanish people, they say this is a relatively new thing in their country. The work movement is very much gripping on just Spain now, but it wasn't there. No, it would be very hard in Latin languages that actually separate the genders grammatically.
Yeah. Oh, wait. Yeah, I don't know. It has only taken off in, I mean, certainly Canada is basically lost at this point.
Australia is really bad in New Zealand's a joke. UK, obviously, America. Yeah. I mean, there's something about the language that does, and there must be some reason why it takes hold in the Anglo sphere.
Well, as I said, I think it's just more noticeable when it comes for you guys because you actually mobilize a resistance to it. Yes. Instead of just accepting it. Well, there's something in that.
And I also do feel that although they call the UK Turf Island, which is a TR of trans exclusionary radical feminist, which is a synonym for which basically, but they call it a term because there is a real fight back against gender identity ideology in the UK, which hasn't occurred anywhere else really, not to this extent. And I think it will be the hub of a global change because it is an, it's a, the ideology in itself is a nonsense. It is a belief system that is just that depends upon the negation of reality. So once someone starts speaking up about it, once someone points at the emperor and says he's naked, everyone else has permission to laugh.
And I think that's what's happening in the UK that we're saying, no, there are two sexes, no human being has ever changed sex. We don't have a mysterious gendered soul that may or may not be alive with our anatomy. That thing is not true. That same sex attracted young people ought to be medically fixed so that they fit into a heterosexual paradigm in the name of progress.
This is not something that any sort of rational person can believe people have over the past 10 years or so, or five 10 years, but there's a real fight back in the UK and it's working. And that's really, I think so. Yeah, absolutely. You know, the conservative government were trying to push through reforms to the gender recognition act to effectively mean that anyone can claim to be the opposite sex and have their birth certificate changed with very little in the way of a medical diagnosis, which is what Scotland were trying to do.
And as they were trying to push that through, which Westminster actually overruled, but as the Scottish government coincidentally, as they were pushing it through, there was a very high profile case. Of a man called Adam Graham, double rapist, who decided after he was arrested for rape to identify as I love Bryson, a woman and start wearing a terrible wig. And they were going to house him in a female prison. In fact, they were accommodating him in a female prison until they made their risk assessment decision.
And this all became news at the same time as the Scottish government's vote to basically make anyone could identify as the opposite sex with a matter of months just by saying so. And then they had to back down. I think it brought down Nicholas Sturgeon, who was the head of the SMP. Because he couldn't reply to the simple question, what woman is it?
Right, exactly. And whereas, you know, even what's her name, Jackson, the nominee for the Supreme Court, when she was a quizzed about this, what is, you know, what is a woman? And she said, I can't answer that. I'm not a biologist, even though any four-year-old can answer it without a degree in biology.
More and more people are waking up to the point that it's very funny to watch politicians struggle to answer the most basic questions. Kia Stama was asked on a radio show. He's the leader of the opposition in the UK, and he was asked, can a woman have a penis? And he just stummed and stuttered and panicked.
And that's funny. And the reason it's funny is we all know that he knows the answer. And he knows that we all know that he knows the answer. But he still can't say the answer.
So that's a, it's, it's almost like the puzzle faulty thing. It's funny when puzzle faulty is angry, but he isn't able to express it because he's talking to a posh person or a lord or something. So similarly, he knew the answer and we knew that he couldn't express it. And that's funny, it's a restrained emotion.
And it's, you know, it makes him a laughingstock. So now he's had to change his mind. I think he's now saying that 99% of women don't have penises. But even 1% of women having penises is still a lot of penises.
And isn't true, more to the point. Whereas Richie Sousnak has come out and said women don't have penises. It's weird that this is even a discussion. Yeah, I know.
It's, it's, I mean, you can imagine I had stayed away from the topic as a comedian, my entire career. And then suddenly I like, sort of find myself doing a comedy special called groin where I basically have to say men have penises and women have vaginas. Yeah. Yeah.
And we all agree on that. If you think that gender is just a social construct, you never got to kick to your social construct. Yes. Yes.
I mean, that's very funny. There's a child in kindergarten cop, the almost Schwarzenegger film. Yeah, I remember. You know, about five years old, and he stands up as boys have a penis, girls have a vagina.
And even he knew, now he would be arrested for a transphobic hate crime. But it's insane. But the, but the, the sheer insanity of it is a, is, is changing. I mean, I think the tipping point very much.
First, it's the rapist and female prisons. People like Karen White, say Karen White. I don't know what his real name is. But, you know, rapist, pedophile identifies as a woman, is moved into a female prison and goes on to sexually assault women in that prison.
And it actually happens. But I think this went on for a long time because if you are at the average person on the street, by the way, there are male rapists in women's prisons. They won't believe you. They don't think that's just too preposterous.
But it actually is happening. They're, they're rapists in, in female prisons in Ireland at the moment. And it's so absurd. So Ireland is also on the island worst in England Island is, because they were for so many years, they were obviously beholden to the Catholic church and they've got rid of that and they voted again.
They voted for same sex marriage and for abortion rights. And they've gone all the other way. They just found a new religion to sort of occupy the whole that is left by Catholicism and they've gone full on. I mean, either that moment is insta, insta, insta, insta, it's a major draconian hate speech legislation, which is even worse.
I think then Scottish hate speech legislation and that is saying something. So that's, I'm glad you brought up Ireland for several reasons, but you, I think you just said it and sort of summarized your book, The New Puritans, in the process, which is they got rid of Catholicism and old religion. And now neo-hiddenism, not hate-donism, but hate-donism. Is that how you would view the woke sectarians as a form of neo-hiddens?
Are they heathens? Well, they believe it's a moral relativism. So that is heathen. I'm sure if we cram in Greta and Sam Smith, we can probably construct some sort of, what would you call it, the Greek word is not Parthenon, but something like that, like a collection of gods.
Yeah, that's Parthenon. Oh, right. No, it's not. It's not.
It's something else. There you go. Parthenon is to do with the Virgin's. It's the Temple of the Virgin's in Greek.
My mind must have been somewhere else. Hanhani is all the gods. Yeah. So, can you, I mean, I just did this out of the top of my head, the written Sam Smith, but you were one of the first to actually classify wokeism as a religion, right?
You must have been very early out. I was very early, but I wasn't the first. No, no. But I was early in it.
I've been characterizing it as such from eight years or so, but I know that others have done so beforehand, because it does share all the hallmarks of some kind of religion. And so far as it, it is, it punishes heretics seeks out heresy. It has a form of excommunication, which we now call cancel culture, but for a while we didn't have a name for it. And it believes in ultimately unforceifiable claims.
It makes unforceifiable claims. You know, the gendered soul idea is a perfect example. Structural racism, this sort of nebulous spirit stuff that goes on. Yes.
So you heard about Zeno pronouns. Well, I know of neo pronouns. No, these are Zeno. I don't know about Zeno pronouns.
They are unspeakable. Right. Okay. It's someone whose pronouns are so esoteric that they cannot be mentioned.
Fascinating. It's absolute nonsense. But I mean, the mother of them, some whose pronouns are now cat and cat self. And of course you shouldn't be indulging what these are children, like I say, you don't indulge a toddler.
You tell it to shut up, you know, but we're just indulging it. So, yeah, absolutely. So, yes, I've definitely seen from an early stage the religious overtones to this. And but also it's not just a religion, it's intolerant fundamentalist religion as to whether it is essentially heathen.
It's certainly for this night. It certainly hates the arts. The arts for this movement are simply a means to propaganda is if it doesn't support the cause, it has no other purpose. Whenever an ideology infects any institution, that institution then becomes solely about the promotion of the ideology and not about its original function, hence the universities, which are no longer about the pursuit of truth, but is about the promotion of this similarly, even in the NHS or the police or whatever schools, you know, so all of these libraries, particularly in library, there are librarians who are hiding books if they consider them to be problematic or not stocking them at all.
There's a real weird problem with their work as in libraries in librarians, that the British Library in London has a decolonizing working group that decided to create a watch list of authors who had connections with the slave trade so that they could keep an eye on these problematic authors. They even decided that the shape of the library was a problem because it resembled a battleship and was therefore militaristic and colonial. So these people are insane and just very, very stupid, I think, a lot of them. I can't remember what the question was.
It doesn't really matter, I think we're heading somewhere. We're recording this on the 25th of October, 2023, it's almost three weeks after Hamas's terror programs against the Israeli Jews. How many British artists have signed lists in support of Israel? There were 2000.
So in support of Israel? The opposite. The opposite. Yeah, that happened last week.
Steve Coogan was one of the lead signatories. Of course he was. I signed a declaration in support of British Jews a few days later. You and how many others?
About 100? Right. 150 something like that. More than I thought.
Yeah, yeah. I think there was a, what was shocking about that statement by Coogan, et cetera. There was some kind of nod to, we don't support, getting of civilians. That was sort of a little nod there.
But there was no outright denunciation of Hamas. And civilians could be Palestinian, civilians could be Israeli. It was very, you know, meaning out. And anyone who is supportive of Palestinians and Palestinians, civilians, rights, life, which they do have, of course, should denounce Hamas first and foremost because Hamas are the ones that are putting them in danger, not just by committing atrocities against Israel and therefore guaranteeing a reaction, a military reaction, but also literally using them as human shields, having their headquarters in hospitals in places where civilians must gather and cannot leave.
Hamas doesn't care about the people of Palestine. It sees them as collateral damage. It's great to have brought a plan, which is out right, explicitly in its charter of wiping Israel off the map. So if I don't believe people when they say they are pro-Palestine, who do not denounce Hamas, I can't, I don't think that's coherent.
Well, can't you believe that they really hate to choose? I can believe that. Exactly. Well, there you go.
Well, so they're trying to tell you. Yes. Well, so this is it. I mean, I've spoken to people who are activists to support Palestine, et cetera, who do denounce Hamas, but they don't do it at these gatherings.
That's what I'd like any commentator that you see on TV usually starts with. Of course, I denounce the atrocities against Israeli people, you know, what happened the other week. They don't do it at these gatherings. That's the test.
I think when a hundred thousand people march in London for Palestine and there were people speaking on these platforms, I would have liked to have seen people there say, first we denounce Hamas and everything that they've done. And they didn't. No. And they should have.
Yes. And that would have alleviated my concerns about the anti-Semitism within that movement. It would have, but you see how they'd done so. Can you imagine what the reaction of that crowd would have been?
Yes, they would have been killed. Right. So you told me last night that the Metropolitan Police met as you call them. Yeah.
I just want to say the entire phrase for my Swedish audience in case they don't understand what the Met is. And then they should know that the Metropolitan Police are in London. Yes. Yes.
That's where the Metropolitan. Yes. Of course they're on. I know.
But you told me anyway that they had not reacted against people brandishing. Was it Hamas flags? It was no not a Hamas flag. Of course, for Jihad.
So there was a guy with a flag that was, I believe, the al-Qaeda flag. OK. Not much better. No, no.
And he was screaming about a curse on the Jews. I think he was screaming. It's quite explicit. Yes.
But he was eventually arrested only after a social media outcry. Because they do arrest people for brandishing like British flags or English flags. Yes, they have done. They've arrested, well, it depends on the context, I think.
I haven't seen them arrest people for brandishing British flags. But I saw someone, a police officer, is scorting a man away for brandishing an Israeli flag. Although they would claim it was probably for his own safety, I suppose. But they do arrest people for misgendering.
That's happened. People have been arrested for calling a man a man because he identifies as a woman. They've also arrested people and investigated people for mean tweets. Someone has served prison, people have served prison time for jokes, for dis-sas-for jokes.
So if there is a hate speech law, it is not applied consistently. Let's put it that way. If you're on the streets and scream a curse on the Jews or call for jihad and you're not arrested, then there's something inconsistent at least about that. The other example was the members of a group called Hisbitaria, which is a militant Islamist group.
We have them here as well. Right. But they're banned in most Arab countries. Of course they are.
Because they're not good news. And they were calling for jihad. And then they met police, but out a statement saying, yes, but jihad means lots of different things. It can mean an internal struggle, a struggle to exempt yourself from sin.
But this guy was screaming for jihad through armies that would march on the forces of Israel. The context couldn't have been clearer and the met police were lying to us about their reasons for not taking action. And why do you think they're lying? Fear, I should imagine.
For the same reason why they didn't investigate the rape of children in Rotherham and in the various Northern towns. But Pakistani rape guns. Yes. And they admitted it was because of they didn't want to stir up racial tension or be accused of racism.
That's now confirmed. That's not me speculating. That is the fact. So they were prioritizing identity politics and race relations over the rape of children.
Well, I think you're doing that your moral compass is kind of skewed. Yes. And then what are a few Jews on top of raped children? Well, quite.
Yes. And this is not the case that there is also a soft form of racism against British Muslims here. It's implying that they shouldn't be subject to the same law as everyone else because they can't handle it because they're like children because they're bound to react violently. Well, there's the majority of British Muslims don't behave like that and don't support rape.
So why treat them like this? You know, apply the law and arrest these people. That's what I would say. I don't really understand Britain.
I must admit. Even though I was an ardent Anglo file in my tweens before I actually went to England. Yes. Because I had gotten to know England through the books of Pijibudas.
I loved England. That never really did. You know, he was creating a kind of fun scene. And the five books and Bill that mischievous child, Bill Books.
Oh, I'm just William. Yes, I had all of them. I read them all. Ah, OK.
I loved them. I read some of them as a child. I loved them as well. Yeah.
So, but I can't really swear it because England fought the Nazis. Yes. Yes. And the England issued about four decoration in 1917, which is sort of the basis of the modern state of Israel, of course, because Palestine was a British mandate.
It wasn't Palestinian state. It was a British, well, protect or something. So where does the British either anti-Semitism or because the BBC refuses to call a mass terrorist? Yes.
So you want to call them militants. And for me, that's anti-Semitism or at least indifference to anti-Semitism. I think the BBC have just changed their mind about that. And they've said they will now describe Hamas as a group that has been prescribed as a terrorist group, whether you take government.
Well, I listened to that when he says, good for them. Yeah. I think once people are massacring kids at a music festival and burning children alive, I think if you don't call them a terrorist, then you're lying. I think at that point, you know, so the BBC have a lot to answer for.
But the question is why I don't think it can be all put down to anti-Semitism. I think it is there's something about this movement which people call leftist, but I don't even think it's leftist. And for whatever reason, Jewish people are low down on their hierarchy of grievances. And I think it's because they see them as privileged.
I think that's what they see them as white. You've got social dialed in. Search is doing its thing. So why do your marketing results look the same as six months ago?
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Even though the majority of people need to rely on that. You come from economically disadvantaged conditions. So you come from the left. Is that a fair assumption?
Well, yeah, but I don't think left and right doesn't mean anything anymore. I don't even describe myself like that. Well, if I put forward the idea that the left is driven by the mortal sin of envy, what would you respond? Well, it never, I don't know whether that's what drives people.
I wouldn't like to assume. I think the ideal in the beginning was about economic equality, was it not? Or at least, addressing extreme economic inequality. I always saw socialism as a corrective to the excesses of capitalism in a way that some of that should be told.
I get some of that shimper to advanced. The idea that no one needs to be a multi-billionaire. You can redistribute wealth to a degree, not to completely eliminate the notion of ambition or that you can't earn a lot and have what you want. But that the excesses could be curved.
And that's the way I sort of saw it. I mean, I earn a lot more now than I used to. And I'm happy to be taxed at the top, right? Really?
Yeah, because I think I earn more and that's fine. Yes, but your taxes goes to the universities that promote woke ideology and it goes to the Metropolitan Police who can't arrest someone who's calling for jihad. It goes to the BBC who obviously can't tell you the truth. Well, the license fee goes to the BBC, which I do pay.
But the license fee is sort of mandatory. It is. Yes, that's right. There are lots of things that my taxes go to that I do approve of.
Sanitation. People collecting bins. Hospitals. Even the NHS is captured, but they still do a lot of good.
I'm not one of those things that simply because the government spends the taxes in a way that I don't necessarily approve of means that it's a bad idea. I don't begrudge. I think society needs to operate. So do I.
And so I'm not... But I also want to talk very well. I'm not a libertarian. I don't think the taxation is theft.
I think it's... But in that respect, I think I don't know if that's... I don't see how that's Envy. I think...
Well, if you have less and someone else has more, and you want some... that someone's more. That's Envy, isn't it? Yes.
Envy tends to drive you insane. But I've never been a communist. I've never said everyone should have exactly the same. No, but yes.
Well, I'm not from the left. Even though I grew up in a home where my father was social democrat. Yes. Or labor as you'd call it.
But I've just always had it. Because if you ban them all together, before we go, we can't do that. I wanted to talk to you because I tried to get you to answer where the antisemitism comes from in England. But I couldn't possibly say any more than I could say where racism comes from, where extreme homophobia comes from.
I think, well, I tell you where I think it comes from, human beings. I think there is always going to be an element within humanity, which is hateful, doesn't like difference, and that will manifest it in various ways. And I don't think that is defeatable. I think the only solution to that is what I call social liberalism.
Civilization. Is that we build up a civilized world so that such things become marginalised. Which is where we work heading and doing pretty well. Until and to workism.
Which resurrected it. So, you know, the critical race there is for instance, I've always said liberalism is the enemy. Because there is still racism. We have all these laws that say that everyone's got to be treated equally, and yet racism is still lingers in society.
That proves that liberalism has failed. Which is a misunderstanding of liberalism. Because liberalism is aware that it is a, we are trying to make the best of an imperceptible world. It is an ongoing project.
That's the misunderstanding there. And liberalism has its successes, which are quite palpable. To live as a black man in the 1960s in America is not the same experience as living as a black man in the 2020s in America. And that's because of the success of social liberalism.
And the work movement and critical race theorists will say that no, they are utopians in a way. Or dystopians really. That they want to, they can produce it if they can control the words that people say. And they can control the institutions.
Racism will be eradicated. And I don't think it will be. Anti-Semitism. It's called the world's all the hatred.
I don't think you will eliminate it. But what I think you can do is build up in a society, a civilized society. In which those that have anti-Semitic views, no to keep themselves themselves and don't have any, it has no count. And there's no currency.
That's how we build it. So where it comes from on the left, I don't know. I imagine there is a strong correlation between Israel and that overlap when it becomes criticism of the Israeli government to criticism of Jews. I don't think by the way that criticism of the Israeli government is automatism.