One of the terrible things about workmoses that we are at risk of destroying the very thing of an actual freedom Because other countries see that as weakness and they capitalize on how do you pre-vept for retinas real Because this has already happened and we'll get into this in more detail Constantin Kishan is the sharp-witted satirist, podcast host and social commentator Unafraid to discuss some of the most controversial topics in challenging questions that society is struggling with Ideology is a very bad thing because the moment you buy into a pre-package set of ideas about what you're supposed to believe You can very quickly find yourself not interested in the truth For example, the ideology of workmies creates a very simplistic and frankly ridiculous way of looking at people not as individuals but as groups with a hierarchy of oppression and promotional victim Which is what makes themselves dangerous because when you teach people to be victims you actually cause them to suffer in real life We're weak in ourselves And now we sense our political labelings are weapon people using against their opponents And political correctness is preventing you from expressing a dissent in opinion You can't say that that's a speech but as we spend more time arguing about trivial issues instead of real stuff that matters The dominant civilization becomes more divided especially from the inside And other countries get to make a play for that dominant position And it will mean that the values of the way are human rights, the quality of treatment And in most speech those values will not be considered values at all They don't want to hold hands on the sink and buy up and I'm convinced that the geopolitics we have seen in the last many years would not be happening if we were not signaling weakness in division Is there a way to stop the division? Here's what you do Clustered team Who are you? And what you do? I have to add to that, why did you do it?
My history is I was born in the late Soviet Union And I grew up in that society, watched the collapse as a young man, young boy actually And then I saw the craziness of the emergence of modern Russia Which was inexperienced unlike any other, really it was pretty insane what happened And then there was a very very brief window in my family's time When we went from being very poor when I was born to being very rich to being very poor in the space of like 10 years And in the five year period when my family did have money, they sent me to boarding school in the UK And that's how I ended up here And then fast forward a bunch of years I started a podcast with another comedian called Francis Foster called Trenometry We're about to hit a million subscribers today, which is really very exciting And the reason I do what I do is I have a different perspective to most people Most people who were born here grew up here who take what we have here as a given They take it for granted in my opinion, many people I've seen that the world is not like this everywhere I've seen also that societies don't necessarily last forever Cultures don't necessarily last forever, civilizations don't necessarily last forever So the reason I do what I do is I'm trying to remind people in the West How privileged and truly lucky we are to live in the society And we've talked in the last 10 years in particular so much about different forms of privilege You know male privilege, white privilege The one form of privilege that we don't ever talk about for some reason is Western privilege And actually I believe that's the one that we really should be talking about And should be talking about from a position of gratitude Because we are incredibly lucky to live in the West And because we don't know that I believe we're at risk of destroying the very things that we now enjoy An immigrant's love letter to the West is the title of your book, I love this title For a variety of reasons The word love is really intentional, why do you include the word love? Because how I feel, you know when you come to a place from outside It's easier to see what makes it special And so I'm greatly grateful for the opportunities that people like me enjoy But actually all of us enjoy the freedom to make of your life what you will The freedom to speak in mind at least until recently The freedom to pursue things, the freedom, you know, one of the bedrock societies is capitalism Now capitalism is based on the idea of private property Private property doesn't really exist in most of the rest of the world If you are a billionaire, even in Russia, you might be a billionaire today But if you cross Vladimir Putin, whoever else might be in charge You will go to prison and have all your assets taken away from it That's what happened to Mikhail Horakovsky Jack Ma and China, he made some comments about like banking regulations It wasn't even particularly controversial stuff, and then he disappears for a year and comes back with Completely different set of opinions, all of a sudden, and loses most of his money So we have the luxury in the West to do what we want far more than any human beings have ever had in the history of humanity And I love that freedom and I love the opportunities that I've had to build my own life Because my family's life to give my son now opportunities that he never would have enjoyed in a billion years in another country So what is the threat? Because you love the UK, it's all going great What is the threat that you see on the horizon, and how do you prove that threat is real? If you look at history, and I'm not a historian, but if you read interesting people about history Most civilizations are not destroyed from the outside, they're destroyed through cultural suicide And I think one of the big threats I've been raising the alarm on for a long time is what people talk about as world culture Or progressive, you know, rampant progressives and whatever you want to call it But at the heart of it is the idea that we're bad, our society's bad It's based on history's bad, it's based on slavery and colonialism and exploitation and imperialism and all of this stuff And how do you prove that?
Well, there's several ways to think about it The first one is if you thought your society was bad, why would you defend it? Why would you teach its values to your children? Why would you want it to persevere and continue to exist? If you look geopolitically, in the last many years as I've been predicting now for a long time Look at what happened in Ukraine, look at what happened in Afghanistan with the withdrawal of American forces Look at what China is now doing in terms of how muscular it's becoming about Taiwan As the West loses confidence, as the West becomes more divided, as the West becomes more distracted, as we spend more time You know, it's a try and think to say, but as we spend more time arguing about what a woman is, instead of real stuff that matters Other people around the world see that as weakness and they capitalize on it And I'm convinced that the things we have seen in terms of geopolitics in the last many years would not be happening If we were not signaling weakness and division You politically affiliated at all, do you consider yourself to be on the left or the right or neither?
Well, here's how I think about it, right? My interest is in our society thriving, our culture thriving, culture doing better And I don't think the right or the left is always right, it's contextual, right? There are times when you want higher taxes and more government spending There are times when you want lower taxes and less government spending There are times when you need more immigration, you know, after World War II, Britain, Australia, Canada, many countries wanted more immigrants to come Because they needed to rebuild their society, there are times when you need less immigration And so I think it's about where you are in the moment as opposed to these rigid ideological positions Like, you know, I am pro-immigration, I'm anti-immigration, I think both of those are pretty misguided positions What you want is to be in the right place at the right time