Douglas Murray: Can indulgent dinner conversation save OUR civilisation?
Douglas Murray is a British conservative columnist, social pundit, and veteran culture warrior famed for his biting wit and eloquent intellectual speech. But just how much of that is actually down to him having a posh British accent and a tendency to rant about whatever 'bloody' topic he's took a fancy to? Join Matt and Chris for their latest therapy session as they try to process what they've done to their brains by listening to an indulgent and meandering 4.5 hour conversation between Douglas and the IDW's über guru Eric Weinstein. Along the way you will learn the *real* truth about the coronavirus, the value of memorising Shakespearian sonnets, how embarrassing it is to eat bats, and just how sacred dinner tables actually are. ...GUFFAW...LinksThe Portal Episode 41: Douglas Murray- Heroism 2020: Defence of Our Civilization
Hello and welcome to Decoding the Gurus, the podcast where us, two academics, we listen to content from the greatest minds the online world has to offer and we try to understand what they're talking about.
How's it going there, Chris?
Yeah, pretty good, Matt.
I don't know why there was this psychic energy that...
I just had a feeling there might be some improvisation in the intro coming, but it didn't come.
Just my psychic abilities are, you know, letting me down.
I don't know why I felt that.
I don't know why I felt that.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm desperately trying to find interesting ways to spice up the intro, and some days inspiration does not strike.
Is it?
Well, as long as the inspiration is not just novel ways to insult me, then I'm down with that.
Yes.
Yes, that's right.
I can't keep insulting you the same way every time.
I need to think of innovative new ways to insult you and that's the tricky bit.
That is outside the box, mate.
You need to go for, you know, the lesser hit targets.
Anthropologist, Northern Irish accent to mainstream.
Give me your niche guru.
Personality flaws.
Everyone knows those ones.
That's right, they're splashed all over the internet.
Next you'll be pointing out I listen to stuff I dislike too much.
Obsessive, Chris.
Obsessive.
Okay, so we've got a few little things to get through before getting into our topic today.
We're going to start off as usual with our shout-outs to the Patreons.
Yes, that's right.
We have another five.
In this sheet that I've just closed down and I'm furiously trying to open.
Oh, there it is.
Okay.
So, yes, our Patreon continues along the unbridled success that it is, and we have shoutouts to give.
So, the first is to Madov, who is a galaxy brain guru.
Thank you, Madov.
Thank you, Madov.
You're sitting on one of the great scientific stories that I've ever heard, and you're so polite.
And, hey, wait a minute.
Am I an expert?
I kind of am.
Yeah.
I don't trust people at all.
Chris, I've been getting some feedback from our listeners.
We've been getting some negative feedback about that chuckle.
Yeah, it kind of drills into your soul.
I know I feel the same thing, but if it's in my...
It must be inflicted upon everyone else.
So sorry about that, Galaxy Green.
I agree.
That's what you get for supporting us.
The next is Justin Brisley, who is a conspiracy hypothesizer.
Thank you, Justin.
Thanks, Justin.
Every great idea starts with a minority of one.
We are not going to advance conspiracy theories.
We will advance conspiracy hypotheses.
And next.
Timur Duniav, who is a friend on Twitter.
And yeah, I guess it's him.
Unless there's another Timur in the world, which obviously can't be true.
There's only one.
And also, I clearly revealed I can't pronounce his surname, but that's going to be a recurring motif, so get used to it.
And Timur is a revolutionary genius.
Yes, of course it is.
That's a pretty high level.
Maybe you can spit out that hydrogenated thinking and let yourself feed off of your own thinking.
What you really are is an unbelievable thinker and researcher, a thinker that the world doesn't know.
I've often said that about Timur.
He is a thinker the world doesn't know.
Is that like a dig?
No, no.
It isn't.
This is Prius.
Prius, Matt.
And moving swiftly on, Austin.
Thank you, Austin.
You beautiful conspiracy hypothesizer, you.
Every great idea starts with a minority of one.
We are not going to advance conspiracy theories.
We will advance conspiracy hypotheses.
Yes.
And our very last minority of one, Robert L., another conspiracy hypothesizer.
Much obliged, Robert.
Every great idea starts with a minority of one.
We are not going to advance conspiracy theories.
We will advance conspiracy hypotheses.
So we will.
And that's our shout-outs done for today.
So if you want to join that illustrious group, you can check out the Patreon.
Yeah, so it probably is worth noting that these different categories, Galaxy, Brain Guru, Conspiracy, Hypothesizer and whatnot, are based on the tiers that people are subscribed to.
So it isn't just me assigning random titles to people.
Yes, these are important tiers.
There is a science to it, Matt.
There is a science.
Quite so, quite so.
All right, so next up, let's cover a couple of reviews.
Actually, we've got three reviews because they're very short and we don't have any really insulting ones, which is a shame.
That's it.
You're letting yourself down, listeners.
Get on it.
Okay, let's start off with one from Jojo Brazil 777 titled Love and Hate This Pod.
Let me start by saying that I hate running.
I am an academic, so built for comfort rather than speed.
But I've reluctantly started running during lockdown.
To make it less bad, I listen to this podcast on my runs.
The content is great.
Great, Chris.
And the Weinstein episodes are a particular treat, and the analysis is sharp.
The problem is that it makes me want to go for a run, for which I will never forgive Matt and Chris.
So congratulations on a great podcast, but screw you both for making me want to run.
Wow.
I like that review, and thank you very much.
I share his sentiment about hitting the run.
I really hate exercise, like running on a treadmill or just running around the park because I always end up feeling like, why am I doing this?
Like, I know why I'm doing that, but I just, I hate it.
So, like, the only way I can get exercise is to be doing something else, like, you know, doing martial arts or doing some class or something.
Basically, I have no...
Self-willpower.
I have to be in groups.
So, yeah, I feel your pain, Jojo Brazil.
Yep, me too.
I haven't even considered running for decades.
I won't even count the idea.
Let's go to the next one.
And the next one is James 3141592654.
And I must say, Chris is not going to say this, but immediately after reading that out, Chris said, oh, that's Pi.
Which I was very impressed by.
You're a very clever man, Chris.
How do you know I wasn't going to say it, Matt?
I might have just said it again and appeared profound.
No, I know you have too much respect for yourself to do that, so I did it for you.
You're wrong.
You're wrong.
But, yeah, it is pie.
Look, there's one thing I know.
I wonder if it's James Lindsay.
You know, he's a mathematician.
He likes places.
I don't think it's James Lindsay, given the comment, which is quite polite and friendly.
So let me read it out.
I really appreciated the even-handed analysis of the Weinstein brothers.
The hosts are clearly fascinated with their subjects, but unlike most IDW critics, they're not coming from a place of malice.
Well, at least in my case, I guess.
Their commentary on Eric was particularly insightful and at times laughed out loud hilarious.
That's good.
I admit I was on the Weinstein train for a few months, but this episode proved beyond all doubt that the Weinsteins are really just entertainers, fabulists at best, unhinged conspiracy theorists at worst.
Can't wait for more episodes.
So, yeah, like I say, I think that is from James Lindsay, and it's nice of him to give us this kudos.
But, yeah, you know, One thing I will say, Matt, is that I think, honestly, if you tick the three episodes that have addressed Eric Weinstein and Brett Weinstein's content, the first episode, the one about the community management and the intro essay,
that package, I really think it would be hard for somebody who is even a big fan to listen to and not to recognize that there is a lot.
Of conspiratorial and self-aggrandizing stuff.
So I'm kind of content that we have put out this content that digs through the Weinsteinian mythos in a concise way.
Kind of concise, just like five hours or whatever.
Yeah, I think it is particularly nice to get those comments from people who at least were at some point fans of the people we cover and might still enjoy their content and be fans.
And I've been pretty surprised and delighted, really, because I expected to get a fair bit of online flack from doing this podcast with you, Chris.
But I have to say, to the credit of the people who follow these people, they either are not paying attention, which is probably the most likely thing, but to the extent that they have noticed, they've been pretty cool about it, really.
Yeah, agreed.
Category that people don't listen to long-form content that they don't like, except for, you know, badly mentally damaged people.
So there is, you know, an audience selection issue.
But it is also true that the feedback we've received, including from people that are sympathetic to the gurus that we cover, has been favorable, apart from the reviews that we read out here.
Yes.
Okay.
We did find one that wasn't entirely positive.
So this is from Final Anti-Negativist.
That's a good name, actually.
Final Anti-Negativist.
I like the double negative.
The title is Great Podcast, Fake Podcasters.
Love the podcast, but I'm concerned that neither Australia nor Northern Ireland are real countries.
Will, brackets, hosts address this?
Chris.
Do you have a response to this accusation?
Never.
We'll never address it.
That's it.
That's going in the memory hole along with our white, middle-aged, cis male identities.
Never to be addressed.
Ever.
Ever.
Yeah, that reminds me of Ian Paisley.
There's a Northern Irish cut for you.
But yeah, it will never be addressed.
Take that final anti-negativist and your five-star review.
I'm wondering if that is a reference to the Flat Earthers, some of whom, at least purportedly, believe that Australia is not a real place and is entirely fictitious.
Well, Northern Ireland doesn't usually come in for those criticisms.
No, no, no.
Anyway, we'll have to leave it as a mystery, but a delightful mystery at that.
So that's good.
So that's the shout-outs done.
Thank you all for the nice reviews.
If any of our haters feel so inclined, please leave your negative ones so we can balance our self-indulgent.
Thank you.
Yes, definitely love the hypercritical ones and the ones that are parodies of gurus.
Just as long as they're five stars, then frankly, the text doesn't matter, except to amuse us.
That's right.
All right.
So one thing, event happened in the world since the last episode that we recorded.
Well, quite a few events happened in the world, but one that was widely noted.
Was that there were a kind of minor insurrection, possibly, or at least an incompetent uprising and rioting around the Capitol buildings?
I think I saw something about that.
I think I saw something about that.
There was a bit of a minor scuffle, I think.
Yeah, a little bit.
From a bunch of very well-dressed and polite individuals with very coherent...
Policy issues that they wanted addressed.
That's what I saw, Matt.
Yeah, just looking to participate in the great democratic process.
Yeah, so this is the sarcastic reputation that we have garnered unjustifiably.
So, yeah, a bunch of morons and conspiracy theorists and victims of partisan ideology.
Stormed the Capitol, in significant part thanks to the exhortations of one Donald Trump.
If there was a strategy to it, it seems to have been to try to force Mike Pence to invalidate the confirmation of Biden's being...
Selected as the next president, but he didn't even have that power anyway.
So it was all incoherent fury, but it caused quite a mess because they actually got into the building and went around vandalizing things and taking selfies.
And there's been hot take after hot take after hot take.
Available over this issue.
Are you hinting that there's no need for us to spend like an hour giving our hot take on this event?
Well, what I'm actually going to say about that is, should you want our hot take, we did give an hour long response to it on the Patreon.
But it definitely seemed an event that we should probably mention in passing because...
I think it is an illustration, and I don't think this should be controversial or require hot takery, to note that conspiracy rhetoric was a significant part of the events, the motivation for the events,
and the talking points that Donald Trump likes to invoke.
So these topics that we...
Talk about, you know, with gurus and the rhetorical techniques and the anti-institutionalism and conspiracy mongering.
I just think it's another illustration of how far it has penetrated into the mainstream and not for the better.
That the kind of things that we talk about are actually more relevant than...
They used to be.
I don't think it's a good thing.
That's my take on it.
Yeah, I agree with that take that it's not a good thing.
Also, worth noting that Trump is in many ways the guru to end all gurus.
And when we sat down and figured out our science of gurometry and figured out those themes that we tend to see cropping up in these gurus, it really stands out how Trump...
Exemplifies quite a few of them, including the self-aggrandizement and narcissism, most obviously, but also the anti-establishment positioning, the grievance mongering.
Galaxy brandness.
Yep, the conspiracy theories, obviously, and even the grifting.
He's raised something on the order of $160 million to support his nebulous further campaigns to stop the steal.
So that puts the previous record holder that springs to mind of the London Real scamming about $1.6 million from their followers, that really puts it into perspective.
Are you throwing shade on Trump's stakes and Trump University, Matt?
You don't think those are worthwhile products and services?
If so, you know, I'm not sure I'm on board with this ad hominem attacks on an upstanding businessman.
Yes, yes, yes.
Very heavy-handed, heavy-handed cheekiness there, Chris.
Well, you know, we're famed.
My people are famed for our subtle sarcasm and wry sense of humor.
So I thought that might have passed you by.
The famous Northern Ireland sledgehammer wit.
All right, cool.
Anything else you want to say on the Capitol?
No.
Yeah, I don't have anything insightful to add.
And I think that many of the takes available online probably don't add that much either.
It just doesn't seem to be an event where there is a huge amount of mystery about what happened and that you need some...
Deep insight to work it out.
No.
It seems superficially clear.
It does seem pretty clear.
Yeah.
So let's just hope there's not going to be another one, a second one in the near future.
The next thing coming up is to mention our upcoming interviews, which we're very excited about.
We have locked in Tai Nguyen, a professor of philosophy at the University of Utah.
We came across...
Oh!
Interesting fact, Matt.
Utah, the South Plains there, that's where the intro scene to Knight Rider was filmed.
Oh, cool.
That's very cool.
Yep.
But, you know...
It's very relevant as well.
I just want to say, you know, it isn't just the IDW that give you these interesting insights and, you know, lesser known information about YAML creators.
Just letting you know, Knight Rider intro.
Recorded in Utah.
Okay, that's fine.
We've still got Mad Max, so, you know, we're still winning.
The thing to say about Tai Nguyen is we came across Tai on Twitter in a very interesting chat about methods of persuasion and the online incentivization.
Well, I'm a Tai Nguyen hipster.
Matt, because I'd already come across him before you're Fred because, of course, he was interviewed on Embrace the Void podcast.
Yes.
Actually, I misspoke.
Well, Chris, actually, it sounds like I'm backpedaling here, but I misspoke because I did actually follow Ty before then.
Oh, you were a Ty Nguyen hipster as well.
I was hip to Ty.
Sorry, sorry.
We're really doing a lot of damage to our credibility.
Anyway, long story short, Ty does research on this stuff and has written some very interesting papers and have a very interesting manuscript right in front of me that he's working on entitled...
Seductions of Clarity.
So those themes and more will be explored in that interview because there's a lot of great overlap between the stuff that we focus on with our gurus and the stuff that Ty is working on.
So that'll be good.
Would you like to mention our next...
Oh, sorry.
I was getting my segue sledgehammer ready.
Okay, so we're also looking forward to interviewing Stuart Ritchie, who is a lecturer at King's College London and has written some very good books about the practice of science and where science goes wrong.
Would you like to say more, Chris?
No segues.
Yes, self-described as looking like a startled hedgehog.
Which I've met him in person.
I can also say is accurate.
Maybe it's you, Chris.
Maybe you're startling.
I am.
My striking visage often makes people look like startled hedgehogs.
But even selling that aside, he has a hedgehog-ish quality to him.
So sorry, Stuart, for spending so long on that.
But yeah, Stuart, friend of the pod.
I'm a person with many insights on scientific fraud and issues in modern science, various problems related to replication crisis and so on.
And so we haven't set down yet exactly when we will do this, but we will do it in the near future.
And I think Stuart will have some interesting views about where actual Researchers, actual scientists, can slip into guruism or where there are overlaps or distinctions between the kind of figures that we might focus more on who tend to be on the outskirts of the scientific mainstream and the people that are actually embedded and yet engage in some of the same issues.
I think it would be an interesting topic to explore where the parallels and where the divergences are.
And maybe what solutions might be.
Yep, yep.
Yeah, we've mentioned Stuart before in the context of comparing certain gurus' critiques of academia unfavourably with someone who is bona fide and actually understands what's going on and is making good critiques of academia,
which land a lot better than the ones made by our gurus.
So that should be good.
Yeah, I wrote a long...
Chapter-by-chapter tweet review of his book, Science Fictions, and one, it's a great book, but two, like you say, it just flew into such stark relief how, if dare I say low-quality, the criticisms of academic institutions are amongst the guru set,
where if they just friggin' parroted Stuart, they would have a lot of really good...
Lines, they attack academia and scientific institutions with.
So they should just pay more attention to Stuart.
He could teach them how to do anti-institutionalism, you know, correctly.
Agreed, agreed.
So we're not going to do the state of the gurus because tracking the gurus can get a little bit depressing.
But we will mention stuff when funny stuff happens.
So I think something...
That slightly amusing came up in your feed.
Chris, would you like to share that with us?
Yeah.
So we've talked, I think, before about how the decoding the Guru's feed is a horror show.
Like, we only follow the people that we cover.
So the timeline there is just a pit of despair, really.
But James Lindsay features prominently on them because of the amount that he tweets.
And like I said, we're not going to cover every...
Nonsense tweet that Lindsay does every week.
But it is notable when there's overlap between our gurus.
And there was a case of Galaxy Brain's butting head where Eric Weinstein bumped into conceptual James's ego.
So he was doing his both-siderism things about Trump is bad, but other people don't understand the reason why properly and blah, blah, blah.
And he was actually pointing out a point that we often make, that Trump...
Saying that people should protest peacefully and patriotically doesn't really mean anything because of what he was actually encouraging people to do.
So it's more like a disclaimer.
And James quote tweeted Eric and said he literally said peacefully and patriotically, to which Eric responded, Trump has a limited form of genius.
Here he easily gets conceptual James to teach me that Trump said to be peaceful.
And James is a smart guy.
Yes, James, I agree.
Because the dime always lies on its side.
It's a strategy.
Always balance the dime.
I've covered this already.
Which led to James then responding to Eric, I'm only smart, not very smart, capitalized.
So this requires guru linguistic interpretations, but I think this is a case of...
Galaxy brains colliding.
Eric tried landing, you know, the little flattery.
James is a smart guy.
But because he was still saying that, you know, James isn't properly grokking the situation, it wasn't enough.
So James had to be upset that he's not capitalizing, you know, very smart.
He's not a galaxy brain like Eric.
So yeah, they're just, it's just egos colliding in the night and revealing their...
Intellectual sensitivities for the world to see.
Yeah.
Look, that's a nice little anecdote.
It highlights a couple of things, doesn't it?
First of all, there's that split where Eric Weinstein has his patented galaxy brained by Ciderism, whereas James is become...
a full-throated MAGA partisan.
So I keep saying partisan like...
I never normally say it like that.
I don't know why, but anyway.
So, yeah, so there's that.
There's that divergence going on.
But the other thing about it too is the social psychology of these relationships between the gurus because this is a pretty typical kind of thing with these big Excuse the language.
Big swinging dick.
Big swinging brains, Mark.
Big swinging brains.
Big swinging brains.
Sorry, like rubbing up against each other.
Forgive the imagery there, people.
And their relationships are fascinating because they're characterized by this flattery, but it's always quite fractious and there's always one-upping.
Going on.
And they very quickly deteriorate and there are these facts which then need to be resolved.
It's, yeah, it just keeps following that same pattern.
Yeah, I notice in a lot of the content that we cover when it's an interview format, unless it's like an actual interviewer, like the Jordan Peterson episode, but when it's a nuller guru, it's often like a competition for who can have the most...
Yes, that's interesting, but...
You know, did you consider, and like this episode that we're going to cover with Eric and Douglas is a very good illustration of this, but yeah, the need to be the biggest brain in the room is quite something.
And like you say, I think the notable feature here is Eric tried to do the thing which usually works, which is, you know, say some fawning prayers, or even if you're correcting someone, well...
I really respect things inside, but maybe he hasn't considered this.
But because James has become full-on Trump apologist, that didn't work.
So it's a good illustration of the fractionating of the IDW sphere into these more extreme and less extreme wings that I discussed with Aaron on Embracing the Void.
So it's interesting from that respect.
As well as the just interpersonal drama of it all.
Yeah, I feel like that one-upmanship happens on this podcast too, Chris, where you correct my pop culture references in a blatant put-down.
But, you know, I try to be the bigger man and just let it go.
Well, often, Matt, you know, I've often thought that the way that we are able to have these conversations and that we offer such insights.
It's rare in this environment, you know, to have people as thoughtful as us who are able to communicate despite our differences.
These are just, the listeners are lucky.
I really respect you having the courage to say that, Chris.
It is hard to say.
And the thing is, you don't hear this kind of thing on the mainstream media or other places.
It's really only a long-form podcast that you can get this kind of heterodox.
I think literally the only people standing up and saying this kind of thing are you and me and several of our friends.
It's a sad state of the world.
Anyway.
Yeah, well, I'm glad you had the time already to say that, Matt, so thank you.
Thank you.
Anyway, enough of that.
Sorry, everyone.
That's enough.
Yeah, that's right.
We shouldn't be doing the parodies.
We expect you guys to be doing the parodies.
Do the parodies, put them in the reviews, and send them in to us.
I have to say, this has been a parody-heavy, too-long intro segment.
I feel I may have let my sarcastic snarkism go too freely.
So I apologise for that.
And I just want you to note, Matt, that I'm a big enough person to apologise.
Stop, stop, stop.
I can't do this.
Okay, all right.
So let's get to the grist.
Of the matter.
Let's introduce who we're covering today.
It is, of course, Douglas Murray.
Noted British fucker.
Chris, Chris, we have a reputation for even-handedness to maintain, please.
Yes, sorry, sorry.
Yes, I noted.
Did I say fucker?
I meant public intellectual.
Okay, public intellectual slash fucker.
He's the author of several books.
Chris, you've read at least one of them, haven't you?
I have.
I've read two of them.
And the author of many books, including lesser known ones like, was it In Defense of Neoconservatism?
Or Neoconservatism, Why We Need It?
That's one of his earlier books.
But the two that he's most famous for are The Strange Death of Europe, Immigration, Identity, Islam, a kind of anti-immigration book.
Focusing on Europe.
And The Madness of Crowds, Gender, Race and Identity, which is essentially culture war, but kind of bemoaning and kind of reveling in the culture war.
So yeah, those two most recent books and probably the books he's most famous for.
And he's also a journalist writing columns for The Spectator and a couple of times Wall Street Journal and so on.
So yeah, a noted public intellectual.
Being interviewed by...
Our favourite guru, Eric Weinstein, in a non-self-indulgent four-and-a-half-hour podcast.
Yes, yes.
So, and apologies to everyone for taking so long to get this to you, but it has been a slog, to put it mildly.
And just to also emphasise the non-self-indulgent, non-backpadding nature of it, the title.
Of this episode, The Portal, episode 41, is Douglas Murray, Heroism 2020, Defense of Our Own Civilization.
Heroism 2020, Defense of Our Own Civilization.
And who would he be referring to in describing these heroes, these defenders of civilization, Chris?
Which is impossible to parody.
He's referring to himself and Douglas Murray.
It's true.
There isn't some sort of weird take on this.
He's just saying Douglas and him are heroes.
That's a bold way to title an episode.
So that gives you a sense of where the conversation is going and Murray's background.
So yeah, this would be great.
Let's get into it.
Just before we start, it's probably fair to say that he's the right-wing conservative commentator who most often gets invoked as an intellectual powerhouse amongst critics of the left.
That Douglas Murray is, whatever you'll say about him, somebody that you have to take seriously.
And there's a particular love affair with him amongst the intellectuals within the intellectual dark web.
This title is an example, but it's really hard to overstate how far they regard him as their own political guru who is cutting through the bullshit, delivering to the American and Anglo-sphere world the truth of the modern era that we need to heed to.
So, you know, people might take issue with us including him.
In the guru sphere, given that he's more towards the journalist side of things.
But I think we'll see that, especially for some of the gurus that we cover, he is a guru.
He's a guru of gurus.
Yeah, I mean, Eric himself describes him in very flattering terms and very clearly regards him as an intellectual heavyweight and a big influence.
Yeah.
That might be a good clip to start with.
But the last thing I will also say, Matt, is that we decided that because this episode is equally filled with Eric-isms, it's at least, it's maybe 60% Eric talking.
And that involves him saying lots of, you know, lots of Eric Weinsteinian stuff that we could spend hours on.
But we will forego that.
And we've agreed to basically try to avoid...
Focusing on what Eric is doing.
And we will keep that into a little condensed segment where we are allowed to indulge in looking at some of the worst things that Eric says during this four and a half hour interview.
But we're mainly going to try and focus on the man of the hour, Douglas Murray.
Good plan.
Let's do it.
All right.
So speaking of Murray being front and center.
I think a good place to start is where Eric positions him, and we will see that he's a central figure in a topic that we often end up talking about.
But now I'm going to reveal something on this program that I've waited to reveal.
People always ask me, well, you name the IDW.
Who is in the intellectual dark web?
And you were patient zero.
You didn't know it.
But if there was anyone in the intellectual dark web, I realized after the Charlie Hebdo situation, it was you.
And I viewed that as really heroic.
And so on.
It goes on.
So Matt, what do you think about that?
Douglas Murray is the alpha and omega of the intellectual dark web.
Yeah, that's definitely how Eric sees him.
Eric is...
Not stingy in his praise and definitely looks up to Murray and, yeah, sees him as a pretty big deal.
That's a fair summary.
Yeah, and I would say there's a tinge of Anglophone admiration chucked in.
So this is Eric pointing out Murray's role within the British intellectual sphere.
And here's the weirdest statement I can possibly make.
If I just take the Anglophone countries and I think about the UK as central to the Anglophone group, the Five Eyes, as you said, you're about the only voice that sounds like I remember and like I expected.
Yeah.
So we're going to get into why he's the only person that sounds like Eric remembers.
And he's talking about intellectual giants of the past and Christopher Hitchens.
Yeah, I feel like we shouldn't editorialize too heavily at the outset, but I think we're going to hear a lot more of this, which is that Eric really does lay it on pretty thick with the flattery.
And I feel like he does come on pretty strong with the flattery.
It's almost as if, I hate to be cynical here, but it seems like a strategy where he does.
See Douglas Murray as somebody with a lot of cachet and someone he wants to be flattered by.
And it feels a little bit like this is a way of building himself up by...
You know, rubbing shoulders with the right people.
Yeah.
And like, I know we said we're not going to focus on Eric if we've started.
Oh my God!
But listen, there's a good reason because we're letting Eric introduce Douglas.
And so as a result, you know, it's impossible not to talk about that.
Intellectual bromance that is blossoming in front of our eyes here.
And I do want to highlight one thing, and then we promise we'll move on to focus on Murray, is that the admiration, it's not put on.
It's genuine because there's a couple of instances where Eric actually starts imitating Douglas's accent.
And that's a...
Indication, usually, of close friendship or admiration of the person.
And let me just play it for you because it was really noticeable to me.
But I think that holds.
Oh yes, I guess it was after Shabbat.
Yeah, but my point holds.
Okay, that's one.
You heard the, you know, and this is the second one.
And that's the breakdown of the situation.
By pussy, I should say that Douglas actually means cowards.
Correct?
Very much.
Absolutely.
Very much.
In a very real sense.
Yeah.
The love is real, Chris.
The love is real.
I'm just going to say I'm never going to imitate your accent, not in a million years.
I'm waiting on this.
Where is your Belfast brogue going to break light?
Where are my backpats, Matt?
Like, I feel after listening to this conversation.
That I really don't get enough praise.
No, no, no.
Well, you know, you could become a hero of mine.
I just have to work for it a bit more.
Yeah.
So we've talked a little bit off air about the fact that this conversation, it's a little bit hard to analyze because in some sense, it's a super indulgent four and a half hour conversation amongst Yeah, yeah.
But the thing that elevates it beyond that is the claims that they end up talking about and the claims they make, right?
I mean, this is the defense of our civilization.
It's not just a dinner table chat.
Yeah. Like this is, I mean, you're completely right about it.
That this is largely typified by emptiness.
The conversation doesn't really go anywhere and just sort of touches on things and then moves on to unrelated anecdotes and analogies.
But this is exactly the kind of conversation that it feels like people will point to as the real serious talk where courageous people get to grips with the serious issues.
So we almost have to look at it.
To check whether or not they do or not.
Are you saying long-form podcasting is the defense of civilization?
The last line keeping us from the barbarians at the gate?
Is that what you're implying?
Yes, yes, I'm definitely implying that.
Definitely implying that.
Well, okay, so let's move on and see if all these laudits...
That Murray is receiving are justified.
So one of the topics that comes up early, which is a recurrent feature in a lot of the guru's fear that we look at, is the coronavirus and the response to it of institutions and elites.
And in essence, the failure of that.
So maybe I'll start us off with a clip to get a taste of where Murray is coming from on this issue.
I have this very concerning thought that the pandemic was a wonderful first period.
It was a period at first that was wonderful for science because it showed that science was perhaps the only thing left that we trusted.
And that actually when the scientists appeared with the politicians, then we thought, okay, they're serious.
This isn't like a newspaper columnist appearing with the politicians, but then something happened.
All right, we'll keep going.
Oh, that's it.
Maybe the follow-on clip would be necessary.
I didn't.
I'm guilty of this.
I didn't spend much time thinking about pandemics, if any.
And so when it came along, I think most people thought, well, I'll trust the people who know.
I do have now a very serious set of questions, I think we probably all do, and concerns.
Not least on the fact that, first of all, the people who I and most of the rest of the public trusted turn out to have been wrong in significant ways.
I'm thinking of things like the Imperial College study that predicted mortality rates at a level which you just haven't seen in any country, whatever the...
country's policy is.
You don't see these figures in Italy, you don't see them in Sweden.
And when it turned out that those same people who are
I trusted and my fellow countrymen trusted, had pulled the same graphs out with BSE, for instance.
I started to get a sense of ennui about this.
Oh, that's a shame.
Yeah.
He's got serious questions and concerns that ultimately are giving him a feeling of ennui.
I'll let you go first on this, Chris.
To take the reasonable position or the kind of strong version of the argument, right?
Everybody acknowledges that various institutions and governments didn't react perfectly, right?
Mistakes were made, policies were...
Put in place that we're counterproductive.
And there's a range of debates that you can have about what the appropriate response is, right?
It's a complex situation.
There aren't one-size-fits-all answers.
That's a given.
Sure, sure.
But what Douglass does goes beyond that.
And it strays into the realm of JPCers and other people we've looked at, where he basically suggests that scientists got this completely wrong.
They expected this to be a serious issue and it just hasn't turned out that way.
The virus is not as bad as predicted.
People are overreacting and basically scientists just have constantly revealed how wrong they are.
And that's not true.
You've got that exactly the wrong way around.
The public are currently thinking we did trust the scientists.
They turned out to have led us into significant error.
We're not listening to them again.
At this stage, it would have to be the plague, a child-slaying plague, the Black Death, to make us listen to the scientists again.
That's not true.
No, I mean, given the situation, the number of people dying per day is...
The idea that the science, the mistakes in the early modelling and so on led to an overreaction and overestimation of the threat seems just totally absurd to me.
Like, that seems like a terrible take.
Am I missing something?
No.
I mean, especially now, right?
Because we're in a period where the UK and the US and a bunch of other countries are...
Are in severe difficulties and there's tens of thousands or in some cases, hundreds of thousands of cases, right?
So the claim that this worldwide disaster has not materialized is not true.
It has materialized.
It's already killed over a million people and infected much more than that.
And this is something which didn't exist a year and a half ago.
And in fact, with 2020 hindsight, it's obvious that the initial reactions, if anything, were an underreaction.
We would have been better off doing things like having much greater controls on international flights much earlier.
Things like that would have helped an awful lot and we got there eventually after a few months.
And countries like Australia are...
With those controls, managing to avoid the large-scale infection and death that's happening elsewhere.
So if he's hinting at the scientists causing an unnecessary overreaction, that just seems absurd.
But the two things that's kind of grated on me, Chris, is first of all...
This thing that our friend Aaron at Embrace the Void has called cheap talk, and that's using these phrases like, I've got these serious questions and concerns about such and such.
That's a very vague kind of statement and it covers the whole gamut, doesn't it?
It sort of hints that there's something fundamentally wrong and all the experts are wrong and you can't trust the institutions and so on.
But it also is vague and general enough to encompass a whole spectrum of reasonable questions and concerns.
Yeah.
The other thing, so what exactly is being said?
Nothing really.
And the second thing that's annoying.
Is this holding the experts and institutions to a standard of infallibility?
So we just constantly see this where, you know, it was obviously a very novel, fast-evolving situation, limited information, you know, the fog of war type stuff, and the picture gradually clears as time goes by.
Meanwhile, you have politicians talking A lot of nonsense in many cases.
Just terrible takes, right?
And you've got the public armchair opinionators like Eric and Douglas giving any number of nonsensical hot takes.
But that's not the standard by which they're evaluating the scientists and the institutions.
The standard that they're evaluating them at is just perfect infallibility.
And any mistakes, and there are mistakes, and things that are wrong, that's what research is like when you're doing it in a hurry.
But they point those things out as if they're like a smoking gun, which they're just not, in my view.
Yeah, and it's noticeable that there's a double standard where when it comes to discussing Trump, for example, and the information that he pumps out, they'll tend to take a very charitable view to say, well, he didn't actually say you should inject bleach directly.
You know, that's an exaggeration of what he said.
So there's charity available, but it tends to flow along either right-wing partisan lines or another...
Way to put it, would at least be along contrarian lines, right?
If everybody is criticizing Trump for handling the coronavirus badly, then you will take the position that, well, actually.
Yeah.
And the point you made about the public and institutions, so here's a little clip making the contrast that Murray wants to draw between those clear.
We can notice that everybody who went on the protests doesn't appear to have spent the...
You know, succeeding weeks in bed, gasping for breath.
This means that people seem to know more than everyone who's speaking to them, including those in authority, who are then left repeating a mantra that the public less and less believe.
It is striking if they can't deal with the complexities.
It's worrying when the institutions can't be as complex as the public are.
So the institutions don't have the capability to issue nuanced messages, but the public could certainly consume them.
And I think that reflects, like, it is the case that sometimes messages are simplified down and don't provide enough nuance.
But the notion that, for example, saying vaccines are not safe.
But you should still take them.
That first clause, for most people who don't understand what you're qualifying by saying not safe, right?
And it doesn't mean that you shouldn't admit that there are side effects, but you have to be careful in the way that you word things not to give the impression that vaccines are dangerous.
Yeah, yeah, I know.
Like, I think I must be in a...
I'm in a kind of grumpy mood this morning, this afternoon, so I'm probably less inclined to...
Hold my punches here, Chris, because honestly, their point of view is nonsensical.
It seems like these guys would like public health messaging to be this, like, six-page technical document with definitions and caveats and, you know, these long, intricate explanations, all of this nuance that they want,
for instance, providing the nuance that, oh, you know, drinking water technically isn't safe.
You know, that's terrible advice.
That's just stupid.
From public health messaging, yeah.
From a public health messaging point of view.
I'm also going to say it's contradictory because when you look at the advice issued by the World Health Organization or the majority of public bodies in the coronavirus, the fundamental advice has been relatively sensible.
Social distancing, good hygiene practices.
They were ambivalent or maybe too hesitant when it came to masks because the clinical evidence was mixed and they didn't want to create a rush on medical supplies.
But that was only for a month or two.
And people take that as apologetics, but I see it more as a complete layman, as a person like Douglas and Eric sitting there.
Yes, I think that public health bodies should have advocated mask wearing.
Due to the principle of caution and because I'm in a country where it's normal.
But I also can appreciate that when you have mixed clinical evidence and you have different cost-benefit analysis to, you know, what you put in your public messaging, that some bodies reach a different conclusion.
And it doesn't have to be for nefarious purposes or for a desire to mislead the public.
It can just simply be that they made a different judgment call.
And you can criticize that, but you shouldn't act like it's inexplicable.
Or, you know, Eric previously, and Douglas has done so in various articles, imply that it's due to a conspiracy related to China controlling the World Health Organization.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I'm just going to play a clip of them specifically talking about the World Health Organization, because I think it helps clarify why we might be...
A relatively small number of people knew that the World Health Organization was another of those international organizations that wasn't exactly what it called itself.
But now a very large number of people know that.
And again, we have this issue of residual institutional trust.
You saw this famous video with, I guess, a Hong Kong journalist trying to ask this.
A person from the WHO and he's pretending that he can't hear and then she says, shall I ask it again?
He's like, no, let's move on.
And then he reaches for the kill button.
This is a bad magic show that I'm forced to sit through.
I know that's Eric bringing up that example, but I've heard it on so many of the podcasts we're listening to.
That is a really good illustration to me because, you know, that's that famous clip that went viral where a WHO official was asked about...
Taiwan's response, right?
And badly flubbed trying to avoid that question.
Essentially, tried to avoid making any political statement about the status of Taiwan and its response in comparison to mainland China.
And the person who made that was somebody that was involved with organizing the response or investigating the response in mainland China.
Okay, the health official.
Now, when I saw that, like everyone else, I saw how transparently Mm-hmm.
Right? Yeah.
But I also took that as, what did you expect?
Like he could have done it much better, but this was just somebody who is a health specialist wanting to talk about the virus in an interview and get messaging across.
And then he gets hit with a question, which he correctly recognized could become a political talking point.
And he tried to avoid it.
So it's just to me...
It's not remarkable.
That's completely understandable why someone would do that.
But it was taken as, well, that shows that the WHO can't be trusted on anything.
And you're like, no, that inference doesn't follow.
Yeah, it seems like the standard procedure for these kinds of conspiracy theories, it's a bit like with the American stolen election.
So much rests on some video in some counting office or something, which purportedly shows something damning.
But it only shows that if you've got these special goggles on, making a whole bunch of inferences.
It's a complete non-secretur.
So, yeah, I agree with you.
I haven't seen that particular video, but that kind of reasoning and complete overblown interpretation of a relatively innocuous event is very familiar to me.
Yeah, and in case people think that we're being unfair and reading too much into the sentiment that is being expressed, like, you could read it as, well, you know, look, they're just being critical of institutions.
You defend the status quo unthinkingly.
So let me just illustrate how strong their anti-institutional sentiment goes.
And then you get on to the institution one, which is that nobody, as you know, nobody in an institution now can tell the truth.
And it's slightly worse than that, which is that...
I'm used to my saying stuff like that and then people calling me an extremist.
Do you believe what you just said?
My phrase is, almost everybody, particularly in an institution, is lying about almost everything, almost all the time.
That's where I believe we've gotten to.
There we go.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So in the previous clip, Douglas uses that cheap talk, hedging his bets.
He uses the phrase, oh, we realised the WHO wasn't exactly what it called itself, you know, this nice vague language.
But, yeah, it's nice for them to be explicit.
They're nice and explicit at least sometimes.
Well, that's in the third or fourth hour.
So I think many people have tuned out correctly by then.
But at the beginning, they're not that explicit.
But I thought that just summarizes the anti-establishment, anti-institutional philosophy of gurus.
And Douglas and Eric Sherrod, the difference is just in the tone and the way that they express it.
Eric is more direct, but the sentiment is the same.
Yeah, no, I think it feels very self-serving as well because it relates to their previous point, which is that the institutions, the experts, won't pay the public enough credit and won't give them enough credit and respect their intelligence by giving them a sufficiently detailed and nuanced account that truly respects their intelligence.
And also they lie all the time and are completely captured by various nefarious interests.
So these techniques really are all about carving out their own legitimacy because who do you turn to when there's no one else out there who can or is willing to tell you the truth?
Yeah.
I think there's also an element that because Douglas Murray has an accent, which is an upper-class British accent, That, you know, that's the prototypical accent associated with intelligence and education.
So, you know, I'm not just engaging in anti-British sentiment or the well-trodden ground of Anglo-Irish relations here, but I definitely think it does a lot of work that Murray sounds so well-spoken and educated.
Even when he's making a really bad point.
So let me just illustrate this.
Still on the subject of coronavirus, here's Douglas talking about how he worked out that maybe the virus isn't as serious as we were told.
I had friends at the beginning of the virus who got it.
A friend of mine who's 94 who got it, and I just thought, oh hell.
And after a couple of weeks, she called me back and told me she was better.
Yeah.
And then that was one of the ones for me that made me think, oh, that's interesting.
Because if it was what we thought it was, that wouldn't be possible.
So, okay, before we talk about the accent, this is...
Yeah, what the accent you're saying is what's important.
Like that last phrase where he says, oh, that's interesting.
I mean, sometimes they are explicit, but most of the time it's just constantly hinting that it's all a lie, that we're not being told the truth.
It's actually not that serious.
I mean, that is the subtext that underlies so many of the points they make, even though they don't follow through on it.
Most of the time they just restrict themselves to saying, oh, hmm, that's what I thought.
It's just not quite what it seems, not what we thought it was.
The WHO isn't quite what it calls itself.
So they tiptoe around it an awful lot, but if you listen to the whole thing, it's all pointing in the one direction, which is quite an extreme comment, given that we have like...
Thousands and thousands of people dying every day from this.
The point that they're making is that it's really not that serious and that it's beat up by the institutions for some nefarious purpose.
It's just so irritating.
But to get back to the accent, I mean, I've said this about Douglas before, that he delivers Daily Mail opinions in a Times accent.
And it's quite amazing what the accent does.
And this is another thing with gurus that Eric included, in that they do have...
Rather nice voices.
I know that upper class English accent doesn't do anything for you, Chris, but for the rest of the agosphere and the United States, which is the major audience here, it does sound nice.
They sound very good and it could be sometimes difficult to put that aside and pay attention to.
Really, they're quite nonsensical things that they're saying or hinting at.
Yeah, and I've got some clips that I think show Murray somewhat leaning into almost a stereotypical caricature of the upper-class British elite.
We should get on to violence shortly, by the way.
But before we do, can I suggest that there are...
You can take over the show.
You can do whatever you want.
No, no, no.
I dream of it.
Do you know how much work you would save me?
Can I suggest, though, that...
But I will say that he's pretty much a master of innuendo.
Like the point that you're making that he doesn't always directly come out, just raises a point and says, hmm, that's interesting.
I don't know if you've seen the Dark Crystal, Matt, the Jim Henson.
Yes.
Yeah, I have seen it.
No, he sounds much more sophisticated than it, but it's a little bit like the Skaggsies guy, you know, the hmm.
It has the same effect.
At least for me, you know, the upper class British accents don't do it for me.
So yeah, I'm inoculated.
But I can still tell that there is something very appealing about the way he talks.
But okay, before we get to that, I want to also just note that that anecdote about the 94-year-old friend who didn't die, it's not just...
The innuendo there.
The logic is terrible, right?
Because the fact that you have someone that gets a disease and they don't die from it doesn't tell you anything, even if they're in a high-risk category.
That should be something that seems really straightforward and obvious.
That's like somebody getting a severe cancer diagnosis and going into remission when they're in their 90s.
And then someone saying, well, you know...
They said it's bad, but this wouldn't be possible if it was what they said it is.
And the logic there is bad, right?
Well, it's too, yeah, I know it's almost too obvious to point out why it's bad, but arguing from anecdote and not an actual data set is absurd.
And it's funny to hear these logic and reason science guys doing such a, just an obviously...
Stupid thing.
Arguing from anecdote.
Yeah, and okay, before we touch on a different subject, I just want to play a clip related to the National Health Service in Britain and how the reaction to the coronavirus has been overblown, right?
So this was a couple of months ago, but just listen to this.
The beginning of this whole thing, certainly in the UK, I think in America to some extent, we had this thing of we must protect the health service.
You know, we must protect the hospitals by not being ill and going into them.
Of course, I mean, I and others said at the time, you know, actually the health service exists to protect us, not the other way around.
It isn't that we form a ring of steel around it, but that it's meant to form a ring of steel around us.
And then, of course, you started to hear, I don't know, that a grateful public was sort of sending donuts to doctors who had nothing to do other than spend their day eating donuts.
I'm not saying in all cases.
At the beginning, there was certainly a fight on.
On the front line, but since then, our health service has been moribund.
Well, lucky, Douglas, that it's not moribund now.
Yeah, but that's the same sentiment as, look at the doctors dancing around.
I thought this was supposed to be a crisis, right?
And it's the same logic that when people show projections...
And that all projections, you know, were accurate, but ones that were suggesting, okay, if we don't do anything, this is going to be very, very bad very quickly.
And then when things are tamped down via restrictions and various measures...
Or just good luck, or even just some good luck, you know?
Yeah, or even good luck, you know, certain features of the virus or the well or, you know, whatever it is, mean that the worst doesn't come to pass.
But their reaction is...
Well, then we didn't need to take any of these mitigating measures anyway.
And like we're seeing now, the health services are not doing fine and managing fantastically, right?
Where that happens, it's because of efforts to prevent the health service from being overrun.
And if we weren't taking steps to do that, that's what would happen.
Everything would get clogged up with coronavirus cases.
I know.
I mean, I had to go to the hospital for some reason.
I forget.
That's right.
I broke a toe.
And, you know, this was right at that point where there was a lot of fear and a lot of uncertainty in Australia.
And people were avoiding going to the hospital and probably maybe even being advised to avoid it unless necessary.
And it was.
Empty at that particular time.
And fortunately, in Australia's case, it turned out that the various measures that were put in place here actually worked and are still working.
So that's good.
You know, that's good.
That's like setting up like a MASH field hospital just before a major offensive and finding out that...
You actually didn't need it that much.
That doesn't mean...
I realise I'm making the same point you did, but it should be obvious.
That's right.
It's an excellent point, Mark.
Yeah, good enough to be made twice, I think.
Well, look, there's another aspect of this where, like, Douglas gets credit, including from me, that he is good at pointing out excesses of the left and inconsistencies.
And overreactions, right?
And I think he does have a way of leveraging his outrage.
We'll give examples of it in a bit about him going on rants.
And he's good at that.
But from listening to this episode, and I knew this from his book as well, but it was really clear in this episode, there's a lot of straw manning of alternative positions.
So let me just play one clip which is related to...
People who were supportive of lockdowns.
So this is him trying to get inside their psychology.
We had a poll recently that said 70% of the public wanted curfews.
I mean, either this plays to some deep sexual fetish of the British nation.
Well, you have many.
You don't need to tell me.
It is either some desire to be dominated by the government and told you're bad and locked down.
I won't extend the metaphor.
I think you should, because our ratings will soar, sir.
But you also might be banned from YouTube for explicit content.
We're headed that way anyway, I'm sure.
But it's either that or, and this is how I read it, people...
Tell the pollsters this.
They even tell their friends that.
But they really think that the lockdown, that the curfew is for other people.
Yeah.
And like the guffawing, there's actual, these are actual people who guffaw.
I haven't come across that many people in my life who guffaw, but they do.
The notion that people are supportive of curfews or lockdowns or that kind of thing because of a desire to be dominated or because of a weak character, rather than just they have a fucking genuine concern about a global pandemic killing their relatives and destroying...
The health service, it's such a caricature, but they present it as if what could explain this bizarre psychological quirk that people would be willing to make sacrifices.
And that actually fits with the NHS point, because Murray reeling against the NHS and we are supposed to be the ones protected by it.
It actually feels to me he's pretty out of step.
You know, he's claiming to speak for the people.
But speaking as someone who grew up in the UK and who watched the reactions at the beginning of the pandemic and throughout it, people treat the NHS as a secret value, as something to be proud of that is associated with Britain.
That's why it featured so heavily in the Olympics opening thing and Murray presenting it as people are resentful.
That actually they didn't need to do anything and it's really the NHS's job to protect us.
No, I think the clearer public sentiment is that people respect what doctors and nurses are willing to do and they want to help them by making sacrifices if they can.
Yeah, it does feel like he's channeling what feels like a modern conservatism sort of sentiment there, which is kind of dismissing those traditional values of...
contributing to the community and making sacrifices for the greater country or community or whatever.
It seems to be talking to that modern or postmodern conservatism, which is really one of entitlement and one of resentment that the country isn't delivering enough to you that you deserve and you shouldn't have to do
anything to support it.
I agree.
You've made this point before about the loss in Modern conservatism off this sense of civic duty.
Yes.
Right?
And it's somewhat ironic because a large segment of this discussion between Douglas and Eric is waxing lyrical about the stiff upper lip and people having the chance to demonstrate their formidability in the face of a crisis.
To demonstrate the British spunk, Chris.
When the pandemic.
When we first came and we did all think, or a lot of us thought, as we were told, that we'd be losing a lot of our loved ones, that that was an even more important impulse.
Okay, this is going to sort some of the wheat from the chaff.
This is going to reveal the Stoics in our society.
Right.
And I can't say that I was entirely...
Gloomy about the prospect.
But I thought, in some ways, that's a generational challenge in that case.
And it's an invitation to seriousness.
Apart from anything else, it'll clear debris away.
It'll give us greater clarity.
And then, of course, among much else, the fact that the virus turned out not to be what we thought it was at the beginning.
Yeah, and this gets...
I think this gets to a thing that you found interesting about memorizing classic literature or poetry in order to steel yourself against the vagaries of modern society.
So here's Murray outlining that.
My point is that the knowledge that you'll need stuff, that it'll...
Fortify you through your life.
It's a very deep instinct with me.
And so when people say, you know, it's worth memorizing in order that you keep your brain going and it's a useful cognitive exercise, it's not just that.
It's, you know, part of the purpose of it.
In fact, the most important purpose is you need to steel yourself for what's coming.
Feel yourself for what?
Yeah, kind of a test of character or something.
Yeah, and this leads to quite a few examples during the conversation where both Eric and Murray, it feels a little bit like they're competing against each other to quote lyrics or snippets from classical text.
So I'll just play a short little montage of some examples of that.
A favorite.
Version of the question, the biggest question, which comes up in Rilke in the Arduino Elegies.
Rilke says somewhere in there, does the outer space into which we dissolve taste of us at all?
Oh, that's beautiful.
I don't know that quote.
Oh, and here's Eric.
You know, there's a lyric in a Bob Dylan song, which I'm very partial to, where he says...
Buy me a flute and a gun that shoots tailgates and substitutes.
And then the line is, strap yourself to a tree with roots because you ain't going nowhere.
And I think about this idea of the tree with roots.
What is it that has survived two world wars?
I love the indulgent, you know, yeah, that is a deep, you know, makes you think.
But one more man for you, one more.
Pasternak, by the last day, everyone says, you've got to say something.
And Pasternak gets up onto the...
Podium and says one number and everybody rises.
It's the number of the Shakespeare sonnet, when to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past.
And past they did the translation of this into Russian, which they say is as beautiful as any of the words in English.
Yes.
So that's just...
Those are just, you know, a little snippet or a sample of the recitations and references that you get in this.
And they're often being used to make a point, but it definitely does feel like a big part of the point is I can remember and recite things with gravitas.
Yes, that really is.
At one point, Douglas recites a large part of a Shakespearean sonnet.
You know, that's nice, and it was tangentially related to what they were talking about.
But, yeah, it really does feel like a lot of what they're doing is to just create that impression amongst the listeners of what erudite and fascinating people they are.
Their quotes are kind of relevant, but they don't really serve much of a function.
For instance, when he quotes that sonnet, the broader point they're making is that It's a shame that people are using their devices so much these days and the internet and just Googling information.
It's really important that we memorise knowledge and be able to just store it in our brains because if you ever find yourself locked up in a gulag or in a prison or something like that, then you'll have the ability to,
you'll have the mental resources to keep yourself entertained.
That sounds like I'm being unfair in summarizing the point, but actually that was the point.
So quoting Shakespeare to make a pretty dumb point like that, yeah.
Yeah, for one, let's hear Murray explain that point because there's a beautiful thing which happens shortly after, which I just felt was poetic justice.
So I'll play that now, the first of them.
Particularly since the pandemic.
Yeah.
I have found myself telling my friends to put bloody phone down.
Yeah.
No, I don't want you to show me the thing on the screen.
I want you to tell me.
Yes.
Okay?
I don't need to see the video.
I'd rather that you described it to me.
It'll be more fun.
I haven't encountered this before.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So he goes on a little bit of a rant about, you know, people...
Losing the art of face-to-face interaction and conversations.
But later, I just enjoyed this because he's basically saying, you know, people don't memorize things.
They just rely on technology and it's lost art.
And then this happens.
What is it?
uh at the 1937 writers conference in moscow um uh the uh
The Russian novelist, who now, why have I blanked on the name suddenly?
You have to edit that.
I won't let you look it up.
You know that.
Yeah.
Oh, you know.
God, I hate it when this happens.
Author of Dr. Zhivago.
Why have I lost the name?
Pasternak?
Pasternak.
Why have I lost Pasternak?
That's bad.
There's mental deterioration.
Don't worry.
Press on, sir.
Mental deterioration right there.
Poor Douglas.
Yeah.
Eric is torturing him there.
But it also feels like, yes, because, you know, if you just typed it into your freaking phone, you could get it in like five seconds.
I know.
I mean, like, I would never, like, I've got the worst memory and I would never make fun of someone for not remembering something.
But the fact that they just, it just made such a, that both made such a demonstrative point of showing off what wonderful memories they've got and how, and really how it illustrates what marvelous human beings they are.
It was pretty funny.
It's just like, maybe that's why people look up the thing, right?
To avoid that painful.
Uncomfortable silence while you are like, I could get the answer so easily, but I'm not alive.
We have to give credit to Eric for not editing that out.
Yeah, well, I think Eric enjoyed it.
You know, I won't let you.
That's right.
And again, we heard Eric adopting the kind of British accent in there.
I don't know, you know, part of it might on occasion be intentional, but I think a lot of it is just mirroring.
Yeah, look, it is mirroring, and it's not even particularly unusual, is it?
No, but it's just noticeable.
I mean, I think it might be because I'm slightly reactive to, you know, posh British accents, but to hear Eric putting on a fake British accent is even worse.
Well, okay, a thing which I think follows on neatly from there is another rant that actually ties in to the point about phones is...
Murray complaining about people putting politics ahead of friendships over dinner during conversations and in particular when they're at these dinner parties, which apparently everyone else is having except me.
So let me play Murray outlining what his problem is with this.
Yeah.
Well...
Maybe part of the problem of this is that everyone is currently behaving as if they're in permanent campaign mode.
Yes.
When it's not their bloody job.
You know, I mean, this is what's so infuriating, particularly in America at the moment.
What do you think this dinner table is?
Is it a place where friends congregate and we exchange ideas?
Or is it some low-grade version of the Veep debate?
Exactly.
This is...
The quality of our relationships at the table are so much higher than the quality of our relationships with these things I call creatures who have fused with their parties, that they've fused with their institutions.
It's like cyborgs who are no longer human, but part man, part machine, right?
So yeah, they're having a big talk there about how it's so terrible that people are letting their personal relationships get damaged by politics.
And it's so important for us to just come together as human beings and converse and share ideas like human beings.
Yes.
And I also want to note, Matt, that they are highlighting that it's a particular kind of person that has been badly affected by this.
So who do you think it is that has that problem?
Who could it be?
Yeah, who?
Friends who are on the anti-Trump side.
At some point in dinner they have lost it.
At somebody else at the table.
Perhaps something that has crept up on me and has crept up on all of you, but I'm really struck particularly by how much more deranged everybody is than they were when I was last here.
And I would say of all the people that are visibly hurting, visibly hurting, are my liberal left-wing centrist friends who just have been erupting.
All the time.
Conversations are quite hard.
Yeah.
So, look, I mean, so far it's a pretty anodine point that we should, you know, be nice to each other and not let politics dominate our lives.
Sure.
Sounds fine so far.
But I think there's another clip there, Chris.
Yes.
And I will also say that, like, it's treating dinner tables as a fairly freaking secret, you know, secret.
Area of life that is defiled by the discussion of politics.
And I don't know, maybe they have these dinner tables where people are having these deep philosophical conversations about the meaning of life that are now being interrupted by politics.
But speaking for myself...
My dinner table discussions are just about, you know, what happened that day and what the kids got up to.
Exactly.
I think a large part of maybe what we provide here, Chris, is just to go, look, you know, not every, like, they cultivate this, and they do this quite a lot in this episode, they cultivate this aura and this mystique.
They spend a long time talking about the various dinner parties they've been invited to and the famous people they know.
He was a Conservative Member of Parliament.
He's a distinguished thinker, extraordinary mind, and a very haunting figure in British politics, because I remember him from boyhood, as I met him a number of times as a child.
He was a captivating figure in lots of ways.
He was like an Old Testament prophet.
By the way, the late George Steiner, who I sadly didn't know, but who I once also had given a lecture when I was a boy, Also deeply impressed this on me.
I mean, one of my...
I only met him once, somebody I admired enormously in my 20s, Irving Kristol.
And I remember Irving said somewhere...
Assuming that many of the people who came to your dinner arrived in luxury automobiles, what percentage of those luxury automobiles were purchased?
And they make these hints at this wonderfully civilised discourse that happens in these rarefied circles that I don't think their listeners belong to, but I think they're trying to inculcate that feeling of wanting them to wish that they belonged to these circles and that they can,
by listening to them talk and reading their books and so on, they can somehow participate.
Maybe you and I are strange, Chris, but yeah, my life is not like that.
Are you saying, so wait, let me just play a clip.
Are you saying you haven't had this kind of experience?
Exactly.
I'm thinking about a situation I was just in with my son where we were scuba diving in Belize and we happened to encounter a Caribbean reef shark quite unexpectedly.
There could be a bad example.
I have been scuba diving with my daughter.
I have encountered reef sharks, but not in Belize.
Oh my God!
Not in Belize, not in Belize.
Well, at least, you know, two out of three years in the past, but I forgot you're an Australian.
You know, you just scuba dive on your way to work.
That's right.
Then hop on a kangaroo, go for a ride.
Yeah, it's a different world.
Well, as somebody from the darker side of the universe, I will say that scuba diving with Caribbean...
I don't know where Belize is.
You're so uncultured, Chris.
This is terrible.
I am, I am.
So, well, wherever the friggin' reef shark is.
When an anecdote starts with that, and it's presented as a fairly anodyne thing to talk about, you know you're dealing with elites.
Which would be fine, except that they spent all their time reeling against the Leagues.
That's a problem.
We haven't played all the clips of them doing this, but they really do spend an awful lot of time alluding to the very special people they know and the special events that they've been to and just the exclusive circles in which they move.
They do do that a lot.
They do.
I was invited to dinner in London.
Which really did comprise, I don't believe in the term the establishment.
I find it lazy.
There are multiple establishments at any one time.
Conjunction alert.
Yeah.
But?
But.
It was really a dinner of people who I really would regard as the establishment in multiple areas of public life.
Very distinguished figures.
And for some reason me as a sort of grit in the oyster.
Okay, so to get back to the dinner table, the sacred dinner table space, here's why that stance that they stake out might be a tad hypocritical.
So here's another story that Douglas tells shortly, about 20 minutes after that.
The point is that they go around the table, everyone to explain what they thought the long and short-term threats to the country were.
And everybody did the same thing.
Everybody in the room talked about how Brexit and Trump were the biggest problems we faced because they had unleashed populism and that therefore everything must be done to stop Brexit and Trump.
And they got to me and I said I'd rather not speak.
I'd wait.
At the very end of the evening the host said...
Douglas, you know, you've been uncharacteristically silent.
That's usually a worrying sign.
What do you think?
And I said, you're all mad.
You're all completely mad.
Yeah.
And among much other madness, you've decided that the general public, the majority of the public, must be warred against.
In my country, when the majority of the public, when 52% of the public vote for something, don't go against the majority of the public.
Yeah, so I kept that long because they get into Brexit and the framing of Brexit is just, again, presenting the popular will of the 52%.
Yeah, he does present himself as the representative of the common man.
In the exalted circles, most of whom look down on them and don't listen to them and don't respect them.
But, you know, the main point with that, as you said, it came in about 20 minutes after this long talk about, you know, pretty stupid point but fine point that it's important to have nice conversations at dinner and we shouldn't get all head up about politics and political disagreements.
And then he goes on with this other anecdote, which involves him sitting and stewing.
And refusing to answer because he just disagrees so strongly and then he saves it for the end and then rants at them about what idiots they all are.
It's just so many of the points that they make and the framing just comes across as so inauthentic.
And hypocritical, because in that case, it sounds like another weird dinner party where people go round and you outline what you see the problems of society are.
But okay, that's something that people do.
To be pretty clear, I doubt that these events actually really happened in the way that they're being described anyway.
It's all just the way things are presented.
That's even worse if it's true, because the glee that he takes off, you know, saying, how dare you?
And also, it's that he's channeling outrage and chastising people for expressing whatever views that he didn't like, that the biggest problems are populism and Trump or something like that.
But he just went on about how you shouldn't...
Do that.
How people can express their opinions and that's fine and it's okay to hear things.
But instead, he sat silently.
When asked his opinion, he said, I think I'll give it later.
And then at the end, launches into a tirade.
So if that's not true, it's even worse, right?
Because then he's just inventing a scenario where he ranted at people in his mind.
It doesn't work very well either way.
Yeah.
So, look, we should pause just for a second here because it feels like we've been jumping around a fair bit.
But in this episode, this four-and-a-half-hour chat they have, they really don't deal with any of these topics properly.
So it's different from, say, the Rutger Bregman episode or the ContraPoints episode where they do...
Have some sort of structure to the conversation and they do lay out some sort of arguments and there's actually some meat to sort of deal with.
In this rambling conversation, they hint at and touch on and then drift away every single topic.
So if you feel, I'm talking to people listening now, if you're feeling like you haven't gotten a sense of what they're talking about from our coverage.
I'm sorry, but you're not missing out on anything because there was nothing there.
Just explaining about the scattergun approach we're taking.
I think you're a little bit harsh though, Matt, because I will say that they do have segments where they spend 20 minutes on the importance of maintaining a stiff upper lip and learning classical.
Poetry.
So they do have their little themes.
They have 30 or 40 minutes to spend on gender topics towards the end.
They certainly have their themes, I guess I'm saying, but they don't back them up or debate them or discuss them in any real way.
They just agree with each other.
Of course, that's true.
Yeah, I think the counter-argument would be that they're...
Their examples and the anecdotes that they provide are what they are offering to back it up.
That is what their evidence is.
But I agree with you that a lot of the content can be summed up by a couple of clips which I think illustrate the way that they interact and they complain about the use of the term performative.
But I think performative is a good To describe a lot of the way that their conversation works.
So here's just a couple of clips to give a taste of how their interactions go.
Marcus Aurelius alone cannot get us out of this problem, but he helps.
Okay.
Boethius can't alone help us out, but he can help.
You know, my view is you wouldn't need kamikazes.
If everyone took one step forward, you know, I'm for everybody taking one step forward.
Except you.
Your way forward.
That's what my mother fears.
Yeah.
I'm with her.
Look, I don't feel it.
I mean, I feel great.
Apart from the first state of the world, I'd forgotten how embarrassing to say that and to have forgotten that it was your table.
Your table was one of the tables in which it happened.
As you know, I'm high on disagreeability in public and highly agreeable in private.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's a representative sample.
That gives people a taste of what the tone...
And really 90% of this four-and-a-half-hour thing, it's so performative.
It feels to me like kind of after-dinner conversation with a couple of people that know each other, but it really isn't something that should be recorded and distributed because its sole function that I could see it playing is really for people to enjoy Eric and Douglas' play acting.
And aping, not what intellectuals do, what people's image of intellectuals do.
It's hard to identify anything useful that a listener could get out of listening to that.
Yeah, and I will say as well that we talked about the competitive recitals and the reference to elite events and important people that they know.
But one thing which...
Douglas Murray is good at doing is presenting conservative talking points or arguments in a kind of persuasive manner, which often involves strawmanning or at least significantly weakly presenting the alternative.
So there's nothing inherently wrong with him arguing for conservative views.
But that's what he's doing.
And he's often presenting this as if it's an enlightened form of centrism.
That he's practicing.
But in many times, it's just clearly partisan.
So let me give an example to illustrate.
So this is a little bit where he's talking about Europe and America and attitudes towards colonialism and race relations and all that.
So there's a lot of things that he says, but here's an example.
I mean, as a Dutch historian wrote recently, actually, in The Spectator, What exactly were the Europeans meant to do after they found America?
Were they meant to go back home and go, shh?
Were they meant to say, we've discovered this amazing place?
I don't think it has any potential.
I wouldn't bother with it.
There's a large landmass over there.
Doesn't appear to be at all heavily populated.
But I don't think we should be much interested in there.
Somebody else will find it.
What exactly were they meant to do?
Maybe not commit genocide is what people are suggesting is the problem.
It feels to me that what is being done there is framing a very easy lead.
Dismissed straw man, right?
That, okay, so when Europeans found America, you expected them to just turn around and ignore that they existed?
No, nobody expected that in history.
But they lament the consequences for the people, the Native Americans who were there, right?
And for the undeniable savagery and exploitation that fell from that.
But that happens throughout history.
But it's just...
Acknowledgement of what happened.
In terms of the tone and the presentation, they like to present themselves as being dispassionate and even-handed and rational and just bringing some common sense into the debate.
That's how it's represented.
But what he's actually doing is, as you said, presenting the liberal point of view as a reasonably extreme straw man.
And then arguing that the consequence of that is that you just have to accept really quite a strong right-wing position that it was all inevitable, nobody did anything wrong.
And so, yeah, that's quite irritating, being a total partisan but not presenting yourself as one.
Yeah.
And they're quite good at doing that.
Yeah, and it does take on sometimes a slightly more nefarious tone.
Here's an example talking about the dynamics that liberal overreaction to past atrocities or past injustices can engender.
Often unadulteratedly.
For instance, have you heard the Empire Strikes Back term?
The Empire Strikes Back has been for 20 years or so a description of immigration in Europe.
I see.
Hmm.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Yeah, they like it.
Oh, you don't like the immigration?
Well, the empire strikes back.
I see.
Ah.
Now, of course, your obvious play to that is to say, okay, and when does the empire reassert itself and strike back?
This is ugly.
They want to make us ugly.
But it's vengeance.
Yes.
Yeah.
So this goes to the heart of Douglas's theme about immigration in Europe and how it's a terrible thing.
And it's quite a straw man of the pro-immigration attitude, isn't it?
And it's designed to inspire a reaction.
Yeah.
So, yeah, it is partisan rhetoric, but presented in a nice, calm Etonian or Oxford voice.
Well, both.
He's from both.
But, yeah, so just to follow on to that before we move on, this is another part where he's talking about the reaction engendered when people say they don't care about British people or, you know, white people's ancestors.
You keep graffitiing the Cenotaph, which is the memorial to the dead of the two wild wars.
You keep doing that, and then you say, we don't give a damn about your ancestors.
What's the instinct that kicks in that's not very noble, but anyway is an instinct worth putting out there?
The instinct is, you know what?
If you don't give a damn about my ancestors, I don't see why I should pretend to give a damn about yours.
So let's go at it.
Fine.
You want to go at that?
We can do that.
Here's the ignoble version of that in the American context.
You want to tell the majority of the population who are still white that 13% of the population who are black are allowed to demean and talk in a derogatory fashion about the majority.
How long do you think that's going to last?
On the one hand, you can read that as, well, he's just remarking on the negative consequences of having this polarized dialogue around the topic.
But it sounds a lot more to me like he's reveling in that.
Sense of, you know, righteous indignation.
And while presenting it as a regretful state of affairs, but when does the empire reassert itself?
When do the white people stand up to this oppression?
Like, it really isn't that far from, you know, some really pretty toxic...
You know, you could put together an argument around double standards, which might have something to it, but I agree with you that in his case, he's seeing this as a good opportunity for a jumping off point to instigating an emotive reactionary response.
He sees it as a rhetorical opportunity.
So he comes across to me a right-wing conservative rhetorician.
How do you say that, Chris?
Yeah, I like that.
That's good enough.
Someone who does rhetoric.
I'm actually okay with him being recognized as that.
But the issue for me is that by many people, he isn't treated that way.
Like he's noted as being right-wing, but then he's kind of presented as if he's a fair-handed person.
Looking at issues without bias.
And that's what rankles to me, that it clearly isn't that.
Like, I don't have an instinctive hate for someone who is a conservative rhetorician.
A conservative person who does rhetoric, right?
I mean, because the left has people like, I don't know, AOC who does rhetoric, and that's fine.
So, but...
Yeah, it is the thing that rankles is the presentation that this is just common sense, that this is just what any reasonable person who, you know, is properly civilised and is willing to just think about things in a forthright way.
See, I'm imitating his accent now too, but that's on purpose, Chris.
You know, that's the bit that rankles.
You just have to...
Admit you're an activist.
Admit you're a right-wing activist and be frank about that.
And I suppose he does present himself, does he, like personally?
It's just that other people sort of view him as something more than them.
Look, I think it depends on who he's talking to, but I think he is clear about having a general conservative lean, which is so novel that it is.
It's worth remarking on.
But in other occasions, I've heard him describe himself as, yeah, I'm mostly liberal, but I suppose I have some traditional conservative tendencies and so on and so forth.
So another example of this on a completely different topic concerns the part where they start to get into modern gender dynamics between the sexes.
And this, I think, there's a couple of clips.
Which are very indicative of Murray's opinion here.
So here's one that I called Men's Rights Advocate.
So much that the pleasure which women and some men are taking in sexually torturing heterosexual men is extraordinary to me.
I mean, the recognition that the benefits of recent sexual advances can be made.
Accrued by a tiny number of heterosexual men and that the rest should be tortured is one of the things I think is least attractive in the age.
Again, the language of revenge.
I think that, I mean, several things.
One is that the big underlying one is that women are trying to make men into something that women don't want.
So he's...
He's diving right into not just MRA territory there, but into incel territory there, Chris, don't you think?
Yeah, yeah.
Before you go on further, here's just one more clip that might illustrate that point.
The attempt to feminise the heterosexual male.
Right.
To make him beseeching and rather pathetic.
I mean, this is also, this is throughout the advertising culture much more, the pathetic male.
Is the very common theme now.
The male is the one who cannot do anything and the kids and the mother need to do it, or the girlfriend.
And this builds out onto everything.
And it's, of course, because it's come about because the male part of the dance is not permitted.
So I remember this and it is quite surprising how...
Enthusiastically, he dives into that territory, Chris.
For people who aren't familiar with some of that stuff he alluded to at the beginning, the stuff that he's talking about where apparently a small percentage of men get all of the sexual opportunities and the large majority of men are disenfranchised is a really strong incel ideological point,
which...
Leads them to sort of this throwback reactionary conservatism where marriages should be enforced and controlled and that has to be done so that all the men get their fair share of sexual opportunities.
It's creepy stuff.
There's a version of it where I would have some sympathy towards the over-transactionary nature of modern dating or whatever.
But the thing is, I don't actually know if that's true.
Because all I see that is in terms of outrage articles and, you know, things that people are needing to get consent documents signed before they kiss someone.
I don't know if that's actually the case, right?
Because I'm not in the dating world now.
But there's a realm in between where Murray goes.
And pointing out some of the excesses of the modern era or things where dynamics might have got a little bit messy or confused, right?
Or American dynamics being exported to the rest of the world.
And I think there's a point there, but...
He's going way, way beyond that point into the Elliot Rogers manifesto territory.
Yeah, like you, I have a strong suspicion that the kind of stuff that makes it into the magazines and the discourse is somewhat exaggerated.
Yeah, obviously the landscape has changed due to technology and culture.
You know, people are meeting online.
You got your Tinder.
You got your Grindr.
Yeah, exactly.
That's right.
That's what the kids are doing, I think.
I'm not sure.
They're up chatting.
They're dick picking.
That's right.
They're dick picking.
I've never sent a dick pic, Chris, and that's an experience of probably...
No?
I've never felt that that's hard to do.
Actually, I asked my wife once whether I...
How do you feel about it if I said to one?
But her answer was a firm no.
I can imagine that's my reaction.
You should try it, yeah.
So this kind of discourse seems to imagine a past which was free of the vulgarities of the modern age.
I'm not sure it was.
I follow an account called Whores of Yore on Twitter, which is a great account.
Everyone should follow it, which is a bit of a historian of sexuality.
And, yeah, I'm suspicious that Murray's account there is not simply just...
Playing into these golden age conservative motifs.
Nostalgia.
Well, to illustrate that nostalgic take, here's him talking about people overreacting to what happens in the sex-like world of being at a bar.
Well, what I'm talking about is things like, oh, I don't know, you're in a bar.
You need to squeeze through a space and somebody touches you on the arse as you do.
It's not the end of the world, you know?
You didn't ask for it.
But you're in a highly sexualised place.
And...
So what?
It's quite flattering.
You don't always want it.
If you really didn't want it, you...
You know?
But you're in that game.
You're in the...
In the sort of sex-like world.
The sex-like world of a bar.
I don't know.
I think our bar experiences have been slightly different.
But that just struck me as, okay, okay, so you can say, yeah, look, it's not the end of the world if somebody grabs your ass in a bar.
But it isn't okay.
It is not a loss of something.
That we might regard that as socially unacceptable, that women don't have to put up with just random men feeling that they can, you know, grab their ass without consequences.
Like, yeah, it just, that really graded on me that that was presented as common sense that that would be fine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because like you said, it wasn't, that actually wasn't fine.
Back when 20 years ago or whatever, as I recall, because when we were out at bars and clubs with friends, when they got grabbed by some guy they didn't know, it wasn't okay.
No, I agree.
And I don't think it was okay in the 1950s or the 1960s.
I mean, look, there are certain bars, sure.
There are certain bars.
There is sex-like world bars, but those are not your, you know, it's just a description of the bar as like a massively sexualized environment.
Like, I've been to many bars that are not highly sexualized environments.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
They're almost anti-sexual.
For me, the main point is that the point that he's making is just not a very...
Smart line of argument.
So it is odd that he's perceived as a scholar and a philosopher and a deep thinker.
The examples we've covered so far in our episode have been pretty representative of the kind of stuff that he talks about with Eric.
And it's just all pretty trivial stuff.
It's the conversational equivalent of a bad tweet.
Well, Matt, there was one tale that nicely.
There was one point that reminded me of our favorite guru, Scott Adams, and his infamous, the past cannot, like, what can you do to change the past?
Nothing.
So what's the problem?
So there was a point where Murray is talking about focusing on problems.
And our inability to solve them.
So let me just play that, because I enjoyed this.
It's a disastrous thing to realise.
We didn't solve climate.
Yes.
We didn't solve COVID.
We sure as hell haven't solved race.
In fact, we make everything worse.
Yeah.
So, and this is him talking, you know, if we focus on problems, we don't solve them.
We make them worse.
So the inference is kind of, you know, don't waste your time, but like, don't waste your time on climate change or COVID.
I have to point out that the reason why these problems aren't solved is because people like him have been doing everything they can to stop them from being solved.
And we are solving them.
Obviously, climate change is a much bigger and longer-term issue, but it's people like Murray giving apologetics for Trump that are part of the reason that efforts don't progress as fast, like you say.
But the other thing is the coronavirus.
We've made tons of frigging progress to solve that.
We understand much better how to treat people.
We know much more details about the virus.
We've developed vaccines in a record amount of time with a record amount of cooperation and international collaboration to get it done, including with regulatory institutions, the evil institutions.
They managed to get through drug trials in...
Quicker time than has ever been managed before.
And yet, this is presented as if that's a complete failure of our attention space.
We're focusing on the wrong things.
We'd be better to just ignore these issues.
And then things would probably get better if we ignored them more.
Yeah, I find it so irritating.
And I hope the point's coming through here that Douglas Murray's a conservative, and that's fine.
We're not conservatives, so it's natural that we're going to disagree with him.
But I hope it's clear that...
The points he's making are really bad.
The logic behind them is really not good.
I can think of far better points to make in favour of all of those Conservative positions than he has.
Well, look, you know, every time we do an episode, we always have a segment where we try to find something nice or where we think the person has made good arguments or we agree with.
He recites a mean sonnet.
I'll give him that.
Okay, that's yours.
Well, I had an entire segment that I found very refreshing, and it's about one of my favorite topics, the intellectual dark web, and people like that.
So first, Murray is talking about himself mostly, but then he extends the point out.
So here is him making a point which I strongly agree with.
I've found this quite often, not just in other people, but for myself, and being portrayed as in some way a sort of outlier.
And I sort of have to stress to people, not only that it doesn't feel like that, but it's not the case.
You know, I'm not, like, hanging on by my fingertips to respectability, such as it is and such as I would desire it.
I write for all of the major newspapers in my country.
It's a wonderful thing, but they all want me in their pages and it's a great honor.
Yeah.
He's not wrong.
No, he's not.
And this is him making the point that he isn't repressed or that the IDW sphere often has people presenting these victim narratives while at the same time that they're faraging people for adopting victim narratives.
As he states there, he has, you know, columns in national papers.
He regularly appears on TVs.
He has best-selling books.
And here's him making the point even clearer in regards to the contrast of his critics.
And I will not have people who are genuinely obscure people who deserve their obscurity and genuinely incurious.
And uncredentialed and unthinking.
Try to portray me or any of the rest of us as in some way the weirdos.
It's not the case.
Well, this is this British expression, oh, do fuck off.
I invite them to do so.
Yes.
So, yeah, he's quite right.
So you mentioned the tendency of people in the ITW sphere, and pretty much everybody across the board these days, to present themselves as a victim.
Whereas he obviously avoids that, and that's refreshing.
So on the other hand, there's often a tendency for people on the left side of politics to present people like Douglas Murray as if they are extremists and way out there in the political spectrum.
And I don't think that's right either.
So Douglas Murray does do quite well in pretty broad spectrum of English publications precisely because he does represent what are pretty mainstream
Well, yeah, although I would maybe counter that a bit by saying it could also be the case that a large segment of the population agreeing with Douglas Murray's narratives doesn't mean that he doesn't lean to the Farler edges.
Of the right, right?
Not the Nazi fringe.
I'm not suggesting that.
But I mean, more towards the Nigel Farage sphere in British politics, which used to be regarded as like a extreme fringe.
Murray is a figure which does, you know, he says he's not controversial and stuff here, but he is.
And part of that is because of his tendency to...
Run defense for people who are more extreme than him.
Or openly more extreme than him.
You know, he quite happily appeared with Stefan Molyneux, just wrote a glowing hegeographical account of Andy Ngo.
And in essence, he's rarely met a conservative figure that he doesn't wax lyrical about.
But in any case...
Wherever you place him, it is definitely the case that he isn't a marginal figure with no access to an audience or influence.
But this is in particular when he starts talking about the IDW.
I think he says something that I would firmly endorse, which is this.
I'm getting fed up of the number of people who sidle up to me.
And ask me about my, you know, benighted status.
It's not like that.
It's not just that it doesn't feel like that.
It isn't like that.
And it isn't, I think, for most of us.
And I think that the era of hiding behind victimhood as a way to excuse oneself and permit oneself to say things that are true really ought to stop.
There's a new phase that's needed on this with so many other things.
Yeah, so the IDW needs to stop wallowing in its claims to persecution and victimhood.
And yes, I strongly endorse that, Douglas.
You are correct.
But you're speaking to a primary culprit.
Okay, good.
Is there anything else that he said that you liked?
Well, there was one thing where I think it was directly aimed at me.
It felt like I was being singled out for condemnation.
Shall I play that for you, Matt?
Okay.
Is this something you agree with or just something else now?
Well, I think you're the only person that can judge whether this is accurate or not.
I cannot speak to it.
Okay.
All right.
So here we go.
And we are seeking out.
It's self-harm.
It's self-harm.
We're seeking out people who don't like us and listening to them.
And it's making us again.
I think some of them are bots.
Oh, I'm sure.
I'm sure.
But, you know, some of them are real lunatics.
And they are having an effect.
I know so many people who have been fundamentally affected by this.
And they have to be saved.
Also, by the way, we have to not celebrate people for suffering.
Yeah, so you feel seen by that?
I feel seen.
I feel seen, yeah.
He's generally talking about like slightly different about people seeking out to feel offended.
But I think he had points.
He seems genuinely concerned about people who would seek out stuff that they don't agree with.
Yeah.
I am sympathetic with his point of view.
Sometimes it does feel like a form of self-harm, particularly after a four and a half hour episode of him and Eric.
And I did have one very last point that he made, but he's essentially making a point about Americans being slightly myopic in the way that they apply their culture war to the rest
I'm sorry, but you have an incredibly ignorant left.
You have an incredibly ignorant internationalist class.
You have an incredibly parochial internationalist class, let alone the nationalists.
You have people who believe they've got the whole thing sussed.
And they think that this situation you've had in this country is the default situation.
And they're willing to burn this whole damn thing down to learn that it's not.
And then they're going to take everyone else with them at this rate.
You know, I'm fed up of the spillage of American ignorance on these matters coming into my own country, coming all across Europe as well.
We have our own problems.
Well, so I do realize that's not a great clip to play.
I agree with that.
You know what I mean?
No, I understand the point that you agree with, that exporting of the American frame of looking at the world and American neuroses and projecting all of that onto the rest of the world.
And the rest of us, it should be said, eagerly lapping that up and taking it on.
And yeah, I'm with you, Chris.
I agree with him in that respect as well.
Sometimes America really does need to look...
Overseas and see that, you know, places like Australia certainly aren't perfect, but we're certainly healthier in some respects than the United States.
So we certainly learn a lot of things from these big, you know, cultural heavy hitters like the United States or the UK for that matter.
And it would be nice just, you know, just occasionally just for people to take a glance down under, you know, maybe look at the New Zealanders as well.
They're all right.
You know, things are pretty good.
Are you sure?
You guys are all right?
So there's a point where in contrasting himself as the kind of world traveler and, you know, person who's seen things that if Americans and liberals understood it, they would appreciate what they have.
You know, even in the non-war zones, you know, as you know, I mean, travel around India.
And try to tell yourself that life in America is benighted.
Travel around much of China and try to tell yourself that human rights are not respected in the United States of America or the United Kingdom.
Let alone all the countries I could list, which I've seen firsthand the extent to which human life has even less, in fact much less, When he was casting himself as that,
I kept remembering this clip where it's talking about the coronavirus and how the pandemic started.
I'm just going to play it for you because then I have a point to make.
When the bat theory came up, I said that...
I've indicated one of my long-held theories, which was the problem with human beings is that someone always shags a monkey.
It's always been a disappointment of mine in our species.
There's always just one guy away from doing that.
And this is one of the things that makes the survival of our species extraordinary.
I mean, obviously, it's extraordinarily precarious.
And I thought, oh, there's always going to be one person who soups up a bat and then eats it.
And then, of course, at the time we don't realize that the bat one was the less embarrassing story that the Chinese might want to get out.
It wasn't, as some of us thought at first, the most embarrassing thing.
It was actually the less embarrassing thing.
Yeah, so the point I wanted to raise there is just the notion that people eating bats is embarrassing.
Right?
And this might be my anthropologist sense coming out, but I don't see what's inherently embarrassing about that.
But it's presented, you know, I mean, he presents that as ha-ha-ha, like essentially savages, you know, shagging monkeys and eating bats.
But what's better about eating a fucking hive?
That's right.
Is eating snails just the absolute worst?
Snails with garlic and butter are great.
Yeah, so, you know, I...
He's such a chauvinist, he probably hates the French as well.
So that's not to say that he isn't well-traveled or, you know, hasn't seen more of the world than a bunch of people, but it's just that maybe he isn't the person that's, you know, so worldly and open-minded as he pertains to be.
Because when I heard that, I had no reaction to...
Finding out that people eat bats.
Yeah, of course.
It's a strange thing to say.
I had a different take from that.
Would you like to hear it?
Yes, please.
So the thing that struck out to me is the way in which he followed the theme that I've been going at in this episode at how he presents just the most inane arguments with such an air of erudition and confidence that it somehow seems to be good.
And I'm going to say, so he says something like, you know, constantly extraordinary to me that the survival of our species is such an extraordinarily precarious situation because someone's always going to shag a bat.
Like, that's his point.
It sort of slips past you.
But it's just a dumb thing to say.
That's a dumb thing to say.
And it's not that his conservatism doesn't bother me at all, really.
It's just so irritating to hear such inane things said with such self-confidence.
Yeah, and well, the other thing which comes up for me is, you know, the Trump apologetics that we tend to find in the guru's face.
I think it's partly because some of them lean right wing and partly because it's an open invitation for contrarianism, right, to give a hot take.
There's this constant presentation that the real threat in the modern world is centrist liberals or the left.
It just strikes me as, you know, so counter to recent events, right?
So here's just an illustration of that sentiment being voiced.
Perhaps something that has crept up on me and has crept up on all of you, but I'm really struck particularly by how...
Much more deranged everybody is than they were when I was last here.
And I would say of all the people that are visibly hurting are my liberal left-wing centrist friends who just have been erupting all the time.
Conversations are quite hard.
Yeah, I wonder why.
I wonder if there's some situation that has That's
it.
Short one.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, yeah, it reminds me of Eric and Brett's galaxy-brainedness of how nothing really matters in politics, and Scott Adams for that matter, because everything's corrupt and they're all the same, so there's really no difference between Trump and Democrat politicians.
So, yeah, it's extraordinarily, especially in hindsight of recent events, it feels like an increasingly untenable position for these.
People to present left-wing irrationality and authoritarianism as the greatest threat to liberal democracies.
And I'm saying this as someone who is one of those people he's talking about.
I'm a centre-left liberal.
So I'm not completely oblivious to the stuff on the left-wing fringes, which I don't particularly like.
It's just ridiculous at this point to say that the left is the only concern for someone who cares about institutions and liberal democracies and the rule of law and so on.
That's just absolutely absurd.
Yeah, well, Matt, don't you know who is there to save us, though?
Maybe there's an answer that these two guys have for who we need to look to.
To get us out of these situations and deal with things.
Well, this is the thing.
Who can still dance on the A-frame roof or avoid the snowplow?
Yes.
We don't...
Yes, not very many people can.
Well, this is the thing.
Is it really down to 20 people and you know them all because 18 of them live in the modern version of your Rolodex?
Well...
Because it's the people who can speak in public.
And I really do think this has to do with institutions.
Yeah, they're about to get onto the fucking institutions again.
But, of course, the main point is that it's those two guys with their friends who...
Yeah, we don't need institutions.
What we need is Douglas Murray, Eric Weinstein, and four-hour podcasts where they discuss these kind of things and, you know, come up with the answers.
yeah
But we can't let this slide by.
I know this isn't about Eric, but what was that analogy to the snowplow and the dancing on an A-frame?
I think we've held off on Eric for long enough.
We're over two hours, so I think it's time to indulge us for a little bit.
Because there were some great Eric moments.
In some respects, he's really the star.
So that analogy is him talking about, I think Murray introduced it earlier, about in modern politics, the center lane is being plowed into the extreme furrows.
So there is no center lane.
The snow plow is coming up and pushing everybody to the extremes.
So that was that, and he combined it with...
Another one.
So that's why, you know, Eric likes to layer his metaphors and analogies on top of each other.
But I've got a lot of examples about that.
The folder here is called Eric's Greatest Hits.
This promises good things.
And this definitely has to be the intro to us diving into Eric, this clip.
Let's just fucking do it.
I'm going to get a lot of use out of that, Matt.
Let's go!
Let's just fucking do it!
Let's just fucking do it!
Well, okay, this isn't an analogy, but this is just a remarkable piece of reasoning, which I was so impressed by.
We're very arguing why we shouldn't throw...
I mean, just to riff off that analogy, the fact that large venomous monitor lizards exist, they clearly do.
And if I get too emphatic about saying that there are no dragons, I may say there are no Komodo dragons.
And if I do that, then I'm getting it wrong.
And I'm tempted to do that every four seconds because...
Yeah, so much.
What do you think about that?
You cannot say that dragons do not exist because there are Komodo dragons.
These word games are fun, aren't they?
There was a tweet recently of Eric's where he was defending his stance about having grave concerns.
about COVID vaccinations, one of his favourite topics.
And his Martin Bailey thing there is to compare it to water.
I'm just saying that vaccines are not 100% safe.
And even water isn't 100% safe.
So it's not accurate to say that vaccines are safe.
So these public health authorities, they really need to respect people's intelligence and give them more accurate information.
It just does my head in.
It's kind of hard to parody.
Vaxing denialism, or anti-vax sentiment at least, feels a bit more serious than, well or not, dragons exist.
But in Eric's mind, they're kind of related.
It's presented as being precise and nuanced and accurate, but it's just being...
This is bullshit.
Completely beside the point.
Yeah, and there was a point where Eric was talking about, you know, being able to give Trump credit for things, saying positive things, and he gives the example of the Nazis.
And I took this as a remarkably galaxy-brained example, so here we go.
And you have to say, well, do you think that the Nazis were wrong to buckle to the Rosenstrasse of protest in return?
Partially Jewish men to their non-Jewish wives out of the concentration camps.
That they send those people to the death as well.
It's like, well, that's an absurd blah, blah, blah.
And then you start to realize that this has to do not at all with the intellectual point, but with party discipline.
You've got to hand it to the Nazis.
You know, they returned some of the Jews in the Holocaust.
So, like, is it really fair not to give them credit for that, Matt?
Yeah, yeah, that would be unfair.
So, I mean, I guess, okay, so try to steal Matt it, I suppose.
He's talking to the point.
In his view, liberals don't want to give Trump credit for anything, that there's nothing that Trump could ever do, even signing the most obscure and innocuous law.
It has to be bad because Trump did it.
I mean, that's the thing that he's saying isn't true, which is a pretty minor point, but what do you think?
Yeah, it just struck me as, you know, that's presented as finding nuance, being able to say, Well, the Nazis returned some people from concentration camps due to pressure.
And we should be able to acknowledge that is a better outcome than them just killing them all.
But who was arguing that?
And it doesn't give them credit that they buckled to one pressure or some political circumstance, some agreement or whatever it is.
They still were instigating the Holocaust, right?
Chris, you've helped me clarify exactly what I've found so annoying about that line of argument, which is that they take some insignificant thing that somebody does, which...
It wasn't bad or good.
And then to make the Galaxy Green point that, oh, you can't say that Trump is bad because, you know, he's done some good things.
So, you know, it's all very complicated.
Let's consider some of it.
It's deflection and obfuscation.
To spend an awful lot of time talking about those little incidents that he mentions with the Nazis, it's such an insignificant thing.
It's obviously beside the point if you're talking about whether or not the Nazis were a good or bad thing.
That's obvious when it comes to Nazis, right?
But he gives these examples to back up his style of reasoning when he's talking about things like vaccines or whether we should worry about Trump and MAGA and so on.
And that's what's so annoying, to elevate insignificant things into making them out to mean as if they're an important point in the greater scheme of things, allowing them to ignore the elephants in the room.
I feel like there was a conference.
That none of us were invited to.
That came to some very strong conclusions.
And they've all circulated this list of correct answers.
We've decided that Donald Trump is odious and every good thing that he does must be made into a bad thing so that there is no break in party discipline.
I wasn't at this conference.
The extent to which...
The Weinstein and Murray are feeding on each other on the anti-establishmentarianism is really hard to exaggerate.
So here's an illustration of that.
Every institution's got dislikable things.
Sure.
The problem is when you see through it and with a set of our authority figures, with a set of our elites, we see through them now.
Do we?
Well, a growing number of us can.
Unless one gives up any attempt to believe any of this, right?
And this issue about...
Well, I don't know what vantage point I want to pull back to to analyze this with you.
The total collapse of institutional integrity across all sectors, across the entire Anglophone world, almost.
Maybe there's a pocket of integrity somewhere.
It's very hard.
WTF?
Yeah, WTF.
And there's no point where Douglas says, well, that's a bit hyperbolic, right?
No, that's right.
They're on the same page here.
It's a real one-two punch, isn't it?
So on one hand, what they do is that they take insignificant things and magnify them to make it all very complicated so you can't say that Trump is bad or whatever.
And then...
But when it comes to things that they don't, that they want to hit, for instance, the epidemiology community, the health authorities and so on, they also take these, what I think, in the great scheme of things,
not super significant things and inflate them into, they've totally collapsed.
There is total collapse in institutional authority.
There's no credibility or there's just nothing there at all.
So it's just this weird minimization and magnification.
Yeah, and I've got a beautiful illustration of that where it comes to discussing the legal system and how bad things have got.
So listen to this.
And we're going to lose the court system.
I don't think it's going to be possible for Majid Nawaz to win judgments in future.
Like, we have a jury system, and if this critical race theory continues apace...
We are not going to be able to impanel juries.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That critical race theory is going to prevent you from being able to win court cases.
Are you implying that's hyperbolic, Chris?
How many people in the general public have even freaking heard of critical race theory?
Except for Trump.
Reeling about it in some speech.
It's a very James Lindsay-ish thing.
But even if it was becoming this really strong societal force, the notion that you won't be able to get fair trials because of the penetration across society, really?
Yeah.
It is annoying.
Given the state of the United States at the moment, that they're presenting things like critical race theory as the primary threat to American institutions.
You would have to have really bought into the distorted looking glass view of the world where everything small looks big and everything big looks small in order to actually accept that kind of...
Yeah, and it isn't just the courts, though.
That's not just the only problem.
I'm sorry.
No, no.
What else?
But when somebody says, trust the scientists, they're really saying something like, we the UN have gathered the IPCC and gotten a consensus statement.
Please accept that as if it was somehow settled at the level of the laws of arithmetic, which it absolutely is not.
Yeah, I have to admit, as a...
Guy who would like to be able to think about this scientifically, I don't know where I can turn.
And in part, I know it's a little bit late to get in on UK bashing, given that the empire has been given up and all that.
But to lose, like, I don't know, nature.
I don't know that I trust the Royal Society to be an arbiter of things scientific.
Hmm.
Royal Society and Nature, they're gone.
Not surprising.
I mean, they refuse to acknowledge Brett's insight.
And they also have done that one-day shutdown STEM event, which, you know, completely discredited them.
So, my God, Matt, it's ridiculously hyperbolic.
Like, it's been in a era in which science, you know, in which the coronavirus research has developed at unprecedented pace.
And with just...
A really impressive scientific undertaking, but they present it as if all the credibility of the scientific institutions has just dissolved.
Yeah.
Like, sand.
Yeah.
I know.
It's out of touch with reality.
Like, this is not politics anymore.
This isn't these guys being, you know, a bit centristy right-wing or whatever you want to call it, and us not.
It's just being completely out of touch.
With reality.
Nobody should take this kind of thing seriously.
Yeah, yeah.
And okay, so for the last Eric clip, here's something which might sound familiar from recent rhetoric, talking about globalists and what their agenda is.
You know, in the city of London is doing well, then the idea is that it is unpatriotic.
To fight this global agenda.
And I think that in part, one of the next idealisms that was supposed to follow the Davos idealism was the actual dissolution of national identity in a much more aggressive fashion.
That multiculturalism is when you still can say what distinct cultures are, but when you've thrown all the cultures together and you can't say what anything actually is, everyone is a mutt, there is no distinguishing aspect.
Yeah, so this is, you know, the Greek globalist conspiracy to create a one-world culture and government.
So, Chris, are you seeing this, like, in the last 20 years or so, have you seen the world just plummeting headlong into the loss of national identity and the loss of national units being a meaningful political structure and it being completely overtaken by trans-global?
Trans-internationalist global institutions.
Are you seeing that?
Because I haven't seen that.
Well, Matt, to be honest, sometimes I get very confused here in Japan whether I'm back in Ireland or...
Because it's all so similar.
Belfast and Tokyo, the cultures are just...
They just mold in together.
Yeah, it's remarkable.
And even when I lived relatively close...
Between Northern Ireland and England in London and then in Oxford.
Those places are different.
And they're right next to each other.
And we haven't lost the national diversity or cultural diversity.
And yes, there's globalization and there's American TV shows popular across the world and all that.
But man, it just...
It's hard to deal with the level of hyperbole that they put all these things on because it makes any reasonable point dissolve.
It really does, yeah.
The hyperbole takes it to just unreality.
Like last I checked with the Australian government policy, it was the same as it's always been, which is...
Pragmatic self-interest.
I don't see them falling under the sway of the IPCC or the WHO, China-controlled bureaucracies in Zurich or something, or Brussels.
Yeah, so it's just silly.
What a waste of time to spend your time inventing these fantastical hyperbolic scenarios.
And then clutching your pearls about these things.
He should just go back to talking about dragons.
Yeah.
They're more real than the stuff that they're talking about.
Yeah.
But, you know, to try to take his point semi-seriously, which is hard to do, towards the end he was talking about, okay, you know, if you have multiculturalism, you need to have distinct cultures.
And so that if we're all blended together and we're all mixed up, then you can't have multiculturalism anymore.
Actually, Australia is a pretty good example of that.
I mean, probably not too different from the United States, I suppose.
We're an explicitly multicultural country.
It's government policy and everyone is totally on board with it.
I learned that it's a controversial word elsewhere in the world, but it's not here.
It's just a statement of fact with more than 50% of people having very recent immigrant background in the country.
It's a statement describing the demographics.
Quite obviously, it's a mix of the two things.
Yes, you can pick out lots of different distinct cultural identities.
There are still Italian cane farmers up there in North Queensland who are distinct.
There is the Lebanese community in Melbourne that you can point out as being distinct.
There's a suburb in Brisbane that has a very wealthy suburb with a lot of Chinese people there.
You can do that.
At the same time, it's all totally mixed up.
You know, it's probably more that than the other.
So my question to them, I'm trying to take it seriously, is so what?
What's the problem?
Is there a problem?
Because it doesn't seem to be a problem.
Isn't that natural?
There's going to be a bit of distinctness, a lot of mixing up.
Maybe it'll all get mixed up.
I'm just focusing on Australia here, but it applies to everywhere.
Maybe we'll all get mixed up and there'll be this new melange culture.
Maybe it'll stay somewhat distinct and you'll have different things.
Probably a bit of both.
But who the fuck cares?
What is Eric concerned about?
Because I can't figure it out.
Well, you're obviously not a xenophilic restrictionist, Matt.
That's your problem.
That's a term which Eric has invented.
Oh, yes.
I remember that.
Xenophilic restrictionist.
So this is...
It's really fun to make these things explicit.
Do you have a clip that explains that?
Yes, I do.
Xenophilic restrictionism.
Let's do it!
Can you find a single article that will talk about what I call xenophilic restrictionism?
And there isn't any.
Sorry, that was it.
Okay, we can answer his question of why there are no articles talking about this term that he invented, xenophilic restrictionism.
It's because it's stupid and he just made it up.
He's trying to say that it's possible to want strong restrictions, immigration policies, and be in favour of immigrants or appreciate cultural diversity and that kind of thing.
And it is possible.
But I think it's fair to say that there's a distinct correlation between anti-immigration sentiment and the desire for harsh restrictions on immigration and a less than positive view of immigrants and their impact on society.
So the reason there aren't tons of articles outlining that position is because it's relatively rare that somebody...
Would take that position genuinely.
And Eric is, you know, very, very clear that that is the position which he is taking.
And let's take him at his word that it is purely an economic thing that he is interested in.
But it shouldn't surprise him that that thing is not popular because...
It's the reason that he ends up getting on so well with conservatives and other right-wing people.
I mean, I have this problem that I get along with conservatives and libertarians, even though I'm not in either group.
That's because we're still, if you don't mind my saying so, it's because we're still willing to talk.
Because...
He essentially endorses most of the policies that they want to employ.
So his personal attitude towards pasta or sushi or his friendships with various people from around the world, it doesn't really make that big of a difference.
No, it doesn't matter.
That's what I was going to say.
I mean, if you're talking about immigration policy, then the fact that you've got Indian friends or Chinese friends doesn't...
Eric wants to restrict high-skilled immigration.
He wants to reduce the amount of students coming to America and all that kind of thing.
There's tons of stuff that you can go into.
We talked with Dan about the Boskin Commission and various...
He has other conspiracy theories related to the National Science Foundation and the undercutting of...
Yes.
But he has reasons for all of these things, but a lot of the time it does get tied up with...
He'll say that, but then he'll also start talking about, you know, we can't really trust the amount of Chinese grad students and where their allegiances lie.
And yeah, it's like it's talking about both sides of your mouth in some ways.
The other thing I can't help but mention is that his conspiracy theory around the National Science Foundation pushing for a lot of technical immigration is connected to his, you know, he's got this art of connecting the conspiracy theories to his personal grievance story.
So I think his own feelings of the lack of opportunity for him and people like him.
Like homegrown talent in the United States is very much connected to his conspiracy theory about the importing of foreign talent.
Agreed.
Agreed.
Had to be said.
Yes, it did.
And I feel like we're still two hours short of catching up to them for their content.
But I feel for our audience's sake, the people that have made it this far.
We should call it a day and give her any final thoughts that we might have.
Yeah, I definitely agree we should call it a day.
I don't have a long speech to give about Douglas Murray because I think he could be summed up pretty simply.
He's a partisan rhetorician.
God, I don't know how it's said.
But he's a partisan, he does rhetoric, he has a nice voice and he gives a very civilised spin.
On what are either centre-right leading towards far-right political points of view.
So it's understandable that he's popular.
But if you actually look, as we did, at the points he's making, they're just bad.
They're just silly.
You don't have a hot take to end on.
I don't have a hot take and I don't have a positive impression of him.
I'd be interested.
I haven't read his books like you have.
Maybe in The Strange Death of Europe or some such, he puts together something more interesting and substantial, which I think I could appreciate even without necessarily agreeing with it, if he in fact does that.
But just based on this conversation with Eric, it's just very bad.
After dinner banter.
Him and Eric basically, during the conversation, demonize the use of the word performative because they don't like that things are seen as performative.
But I can't help but say...
That in a lot of the case with Murray, it feels that he can make arguments somewhat eloquently.
But a lot of that is down to the performance and the upper crust British tone that he adds to the thing.
And I'll just play one final clip, which I think sums up that character and the image that he presents.
This is him talking about at the beginning of the coronavirus.
Break what he decided to do if he was going to go out.
I don't know why he fought that, but like, yeah, if this was to be his final stand, what would he do?
That's why I spent the early weeks of lockdown when I thought, okay, maybe we're all going to die just reading Tolstoy because I thought this is something I want to do.
A nourishing thing to do.
And I'm not going to get caught out on this train.
Now, in retrospect, some people might legitimately say, well, you missed realising what the COVID thing was as well.
But as I say, I did that fatalistic thing of, okay, this is one that's not in my bailiwick.
Yeah.
So just a stereotypical image of the intellectual.
He finds out that we might all be doomed.
So if I'm going down by Jove, I'll read Tolstoy.
And I don't doubt.
Entirely that that might be what he did, but like, I think it's hard to separate in some sense how much of his personality is a posh caricature and how much just is him being a posh guy,
like actually, right?
Because he did go to Eton, he did go to Oxford.
And as we know, everybody who graduated from Oxford is an elite intellectual.
So just the joke for anybody who doesn't know is I graduated from Oxford, but you might not know this from my accent.
But I guess it's a kind of a common playbook in the UK, like if this very uppercross person, but speaking to the concerns of the common man.
Oh, yeah.
Isn't that kind of Boris Johnson's shtick as well, to some degree?
Yes, it is.
And, oh God, his name is going out of my head.
The British politician that looks like a cartoon British person.
You should just memorize this stuff, Chris, and that way you'll have the resources to keep you occupied.
Hold on, I can't believe it's on the tip of my tongue.
He's Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Jacob Rees.
Oh, yes.
Him.
Him.
Yes.
I know him too.
Yeah.
So it's exactly like that, right?
Like he's not a man of the people, but he's almost like a caricature of what a British elite leader is supposed to look like.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
But actually, I'm making these crazy connections, Chris, because, you know, there's a weird correspondence there with Donald Trump as well.
Like he's not...
He's not a man of the people in any way, shape, or form, but he says the things that connects with them.
He talks to popular talking points, just like Douglas Murray and just like Boris and Jacob Rees-Mogg.
People like it when the things that feels like earthy popular concerns are voiced by someone who superficially is so out of touch.
It's interesting, isn't it?
Yeah, so I think that there's that, right, with the kind of appealing to a broader audience, a popular audience, even if you are an elite.
I would also add to that that he seems to fit this ideal stereotype for our friends in the intellectual dark web and those kind of spheres as their ideal image of a public intellectual, right?
So this iconoclastic, stiff upper lip British guy, they love it.
Yeah, they love it.
And hearkening back to the old virtues as well is a strong thing there.
Yeah, so I don't really have that much to say apart from that.
So, yeah, I mean, I found this one a struggle.
I think we both did.
And I will be grateful to get back to people who are a bit more dramatically gory-ish.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, just to get out of the culture wars again.
I think we need a holiday from the culture wars.
The other thing, too, is you just can't overstate the degree of irrelevant sidetracks and analogies that were unnecessary and vignettes about episodes in one's life that really didn't.
Just serve no purpose apart from to be performative, as you said.
So there's all of that stuff.
It's just this exercise in pantomime.
Yeah, and this is coming from us.
Yes, yes, that's right.
But the other thing too, which we didn't mention, which is it's quite amazing how they didn't listen to each other throughout this episode.
Now, this is not the kind of thing that's easy to show with these clips, but...
Dozens of times throughout the four and a half hours, I was dutifully listening along, following the point that was being made, and then the other person, either Eric or Douglas, would reply.
And it was astonishing how many times.
Their reply was just a complete...
Non-secretary.
It was not a reply to the thing that was said.
It's almost like they were just waiting there.
This is particularly true of Eric, but to some degree of Douglas.
They're almost like just waiting for the other person to stop talking and looking for an opportunity to jump in with their own performance.
So generally they'll seize on some superficial thing that was mentioned and then start talking about something that was completely different.
So it made it...
Just insanely frustrating to listen to because no thought was ever finished.
No point was ever replied to.
So they do both have very good memories.
And it's like they're drawing upon this treasure trove of smart-sounding things to just inject at any random point.
Yeah, infuriating.
Yeah, I was tempted to just start talking about something completely different.
That's right, but you don't, do you?
Because you respect, you have some basic level of respect for the conversation.
That meta joke could have just went over.
Okay, so we didn't take the garometer for a spin this time, but...
Okay, so let's not do it and let's incorporate.
We're going to run through the garometer and go through all the people we've covered so far.
So we'll just load Douglas Murray in with the rest, eh?
Yeah, and from then on, we'll see about a segment for incorporating that.
So yeah, that's Douglas Murray in a three-hour nutshell.
Hi, Matt.
Who is it that we're due to look at next?
Did we decide?
No, I don't think we've decided, Chris.
So a lot of people in a lot of coffee shops have been asking for Nicholas Taleb.
Oh, of course.
Oh, yeah.
Taleb?
Yes.
Well, look, I mean, he was part of the original cast that inspired.
This little project of ours.
So, yeah.
And he's a little bit outside culture war stuff.
Like, he's not deep in the weeds, at least I freaking hope not.
Yeah.
No, I mean, my impression of him is that he's, well, he's blocked me on Twitter.
I find him extremely annoying, but I have to, I think he's going to be more substantial than these two jokers.
So, yeah, I'd be, yeah, I'd be in favor of him.
Okay.
So, let's say Nicholas Tlaib then, and we'll, Find some content, or if anybody has any suggestions, please send them to us.
What's the things that we normally need to tell people?
That we have Twitter accounts, which individually are C underscore Kavanaugh and R for C Dent.
And the podcast has its own account, Guru's Pod.
And we have a Patreon, which you can find with typing in Decoding the Gurus.
And a Gmail address, where we check the emails periodically, which is Decoding the Gurus.
Uh, gurus at gmail.com.
Awesome.
Yeah.
Nice one.
Good.
That's that.
And leave us reviews on iTunes and stuff.
Um, we appreciate them as you well know, cause we talked to you about them.
So yeah, thank you.
And, uh, please do that.
And, and yeah, uh, sorry, this is so late.
It's a bit of a tricky one, but we're done with it now.
