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Aug. 4, 2023 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

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The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #712

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	Good afternoon, folks.
	Welcome to the podcast for Friday, the 4th of August, 2023.
	I'm joined by the wonderful Peter Whittle.
	Peter, thanks so much for coming in.
	And today we're going to be talking about the decline and how it's Undeniable at this point, which is heartbreaking.
	I'm going to tell you a bit about South African politics.
	I'm not an expert, but I did look into the Economic Freedom Fighters, which is such a wonderful name for such a kind party, and we're going to be talking about Americans and how they don't understand that they occupy a place and time in the continuum of history.
	And it's amusing, frankly, so our American friends will definitely enjoy that.
	Anyway, so let's begin.
	What do you think of the state of modern Britain, Peter?
	God, how long have you got?
	About 20 minutes.
	I mean, from what point of view?
	I suppose, just to allude to something we were just talking about before we came on air, the general decline in, you know, our surroundings has suddenly become noticeable.
	Sorry, John, we're getting an echo.
	Can we stop that, please?
	Yeah.
	And I sort of found this because I've been going around the country, different places, and you can't, it's sort of palpable.
	Fewer people about and also just dirty streets, tattiness generally, the sense of things not working.
	I mean, all of this, you know, nothing news.
	I'm sure anyone is listening.
	But I think that, you know, when you look at all of these sorts of things, even the way that people, people's demeanor even, you know, then that seems to have actually struck me almost in the past year, I would say.
	It's sudden, like that.
	And I no longer, I was living in, I've lived in London all my life, but I moved out to Windsor a year and a half ago, and people think that, you know, Windsor is this very twee place and everything.
	It's not twee at all actually, but you know, even in, you know, Places like Windsor, you know, there are signs of empty shops, you know, things that basically people got used to in their own suburban town centres.
	It's too easy to say it's just about the pandemic.
	No.
	I think there's been a general retreat for these very reasons from the public space.
	I see it in myself.
	I can feel it in myself.
	There's been a general sort of hollowing out of life.
	Yes, exactly.
	And a sort of Exhaustion.
	I would say cultural exhaustion.
	So what does that actually mean?
	I know what I mean by that, I'm sure you do, but it's a kind of feeling that there's no dynamic driving society.
	And what we've had in the past Three or four years, I would say, is a sense in which people can't even take refuge in the past.
	They can't, you know, nostalgia is probably a banned thing.
	Everything is under attack at the moment.
	Yes.
	It's hard to identify where the attacks are really coming from.
	Yes.
	I mean, it's a kind of, from the moment you wake up in the morning, if you're still stupid enough to listen to the Today program, right the way through, it is one long litany of basically why you are essentially bad, why you are at fault.
	This affects certain sections of our society more, say men or whatever.
	And, you know, that is never ending.
	It's incessant.
	And it will have an effect on the way people... That's why one of the reasons I think they sort of stopped having children.
	I don't just think it's about money and the expense of it.
	I mean, if you don't feel that there's actually anything in the future, it's kind of an odd subconscious thing.
	You know, why would you do something which was about the future?
	Why can't we feel optimistic about our own futures?
	It's very hard to explain why the decline is happening.
	And no politicians, no pundits on TV, no one ever tries to give you an explanation.
	I talk to taxi drivers quite a lot.
	I think tax drivers are an interesting barometer of the country.
	At some point, everyone has to get a taxi, right?
	And the taxi drivers I speak to are always just like, yeah, this country is going down.
	And I ask them, well, do you ever see anyone trying to explain?
	They're like, no.
	It's just, it's inevitable.
	The reason I think that is that we're not meant to think that it is going down.
	We're meant to be actually, you know, living in some kind of nirvana.
	Yeah.
	And essentially, therefore, you can't, you have to sort of, you know, there's a sort of thing now called vision crime, I think, that you should look at something and say, that's not right.
	But actually, everything is telling you that this is absolutely fine and that, in fact, it's better than ever.
	Well, that's very much what the Conservatives are trying to pretend, isn't it?
	I mean, I just remember Liz Truss saying, I think Britain's best days are ahead of us.
	I think they're gone.
	But one of the things that I think is something that will help with this is actually going back to understanding what made us good, and I think that virtue ethics made us good.
	Which is why, if you want to support us, go to the website and go and check out Stelios and I's examination of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, which I think are just the root of all of the virtues that Britain has had, basically.
	Doing the right things for the right reasons, for the right amount of time, with the right people.
	Uh, these are all things that are important and it is not just in one realm of life.
	This is a thing you need to think about for your whole life.
	And it's one of those things that just, you would never get this kind of conversation in an educational situation, in schools, in academia, you wouldn't hear about it on TV.
	And yet this, honestly, the reason my life is way better now is because I decided to essentially just do what Aristotle recommended.
	Right.
	Just just try and be a good person in these ways.
	And it really worked for me.
	And so I totally recommend it for other people.
	When you say works for you, Carl, I mean, do you mean it changes your general attitude to things?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Primarily to understand that you should do all of the things you like doing, but not too much or too little, I think, is a good way of actually reframing your entire life, because too many Life plans are in some way really restrictive, right?
	Oh, you should never eat this.
	You should never do that.
	And it's no, you, you, you should, there's a time and a place for all of these things, but you should do everything essentially in moderation.
	And this is an old phrase that the British have used for many years because it's true.
	You shouldn't be denying yourself the pleasures of life, but also you shouldn't be doing it all the time.
	Yeah.
	You know, there's there's, you know, go out once a month with your friends and go drinking.
	That's totally fine.
	In fact, it's part of the good life to have all of these things.
	And actually, I think that one of the things that Zoomers don't have these days is access to the good life because they don't have friends.
	They don't have friendship circles in the way that when we were young, we absolutely did, because you couldn't just spend all your time on the Internet.
	You know, you didn't have that option.
	If you wanted to have fun with other people, you had to go out.
	And that was important.
	But anyway, so that's what I think is the solution to our current woes.
	But let's have a look at our current woes.
	So there was a recent poll by IpsosMemory, I believe it was, where they asked people, well, do you think Britain's getting better or worse?
	And 76% thought Britain is a worse place to live compared to 49% in June 2010, which is when the austerity years began, and 71% in May 2008 as the financial crisis hit.
	Uh, this is reflected in people's opinions on politics, obviously.
	Uh, nobody really approves of any of our politicians, although, um, Keir Starmer is the most approved off because he hasn't become the prime minister and screwed everything up yet.
	But even then, uh, only 36% of people see Keir Starmer as the most capable man to be the prime minister.
	So two thirds of the country are like, no.
	I mean, it's three quarters of the country that say no to Sunak.
	Actually, how much notice do you even take of Westminster politics?
	I mean, I take very little.
	I mean, you know, I was asked the other day to go on something and just simply, what do you think of Rishi Sunak?
	And I sort of thought, I don't care.
	I don't care.
	I don't think of Rishi Sunak, yeah.
	Yes, exactly.
	But don't.
	He's a perfectly nice guy.
	I'm sure it'd be nice to have a barbecue.
	Yeah.
	Yes.
	But I mean, really, it seems beside the point.
	Yes.
	That's the point.
	I wrote something about this on Twitter the other day.
	It's clear that there are forces at work that are just beyond national government at this point.
	And none of the people in charge have got the stones to challenge these forces.
	And so the governments just feel like regional managers.
	Like Rishi Sunak feels like the regional manager of a McDonald's.
	Everything he presents, he presents in the sort of CBB's presenter voice.
	And it's like, look, I don't take you seriously.
	I don't really think you're in charge.
	You know, you don't have the gravitas or the energy to make me think that you're the one who's really pulling these strings.
	And it's not just me who thinks this.
	I mean, 79% of people are dissatisfied with the government.
	Only 14% of the people in the country are satisfied with the government.
	I'd love to speak to some of those people.
	Sorry, what exactly are you satisfied with?
	What around you do you think is at least as good as it was five years ago, if not slightly better?
	There's absolutely nothing.
	Fewer than half the country think that Labour are ready to form a government, obviously, but none of the above are essentially in a commanding lead at this point in British politics, which is Typical.
	The thing is, is that the general caliber of these people is rock bottom on the whole.
	I mean, you know, you don't have to be a Thatcherite or think that Thatcherite was right to look at her cabinet.
	I mean, I watched a couple of really good documentaries about Thatchers and they had these cabinet ministers, former cabinet ministers on.
	And the fact is they were people with some seriousness about them.
	You know, they'd had or sometimes wartime experience still by that.
	And you sort of felt that they had earned a kind of place.
	When you look now at the people who make up our Westminster village, they are You know, they are very, very low, low rent, you know, and so and also that it's interestingly that actually that happens as well when the institution, in this case Parliament, is no longer seen as being Uh, as meaningful as it was.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	You know, I mean, essentially when institutions go, well then, you know, why, why not just have this person in and why not just let this person become leader?
	Why not?
	Yeah.
	I mean, like I said, when I was, I was on Twitter the day and I asked people, well, look, just name a politician who you think understands the problem and who you think could devise a plan that would produce the intended results.
	I'm thinking one.
	I can't think of any.
	Like you say, low rent is a great way of describing it.
	I think the other thing as well is there was a piece by Alistair Heath in The Telegraph yesterday.
	Alistair Heath is the editor of Sunday Telegraph and it was a piece basically going through all the various points about what's wrong and why the Tories in his case have got to grapple with it but it was pretty good and also very thorough for Telegraph which is after all part of the establishment media.
	I was rather taken with it because I mean it was you know all of these things you say that he went through everything the woke ideology gradually taking over the culture wars all of this as well as economic And basically, and the general malaise, basically no politician will really go to any of those points.
	And I see it reflected like I no longer have a TV.
	I stopped paying my license two years ago or whatever, but I did see BBC recently because I was at someone's flat.
	And the actual news, I watched the news and it was the weirdest thing actually, Karl.
	It sort of felt quite banal.
	It sort of felt banal.
	I just thought, wait, there are huge amounts going on and yet, wait a minute, I'm watching something which seems very, very sort of It seemed like stage-managed.
	Yes, it was stage-managed, but also of no real consequence.
	And this was local news as well.
	And I just was thinking, well, you know, perhaps it's because I spend all of my life in these waters that this is actually me, but I don't think it is.
	But even then, why aren't these waters what the BBC is talking about?
	Because I feel like we're actually further ahead of the curve than most.
	We're talking about real things that are quite impactful.
	And for some reason, the BBC is essentially giving people some kind of political sedative in order to make sure that they don't think anything's wrong as the world crumbles around them.
	And it's not just the fact that, of course, the government and the political system, but it's becoming apparent that everything we have is actually just junk now.
	We have arrived in the era of badly made products.
	Here's a quick quote from this that I think just summarizes it.
	People don't exactly want to pay more for all that stuff.
	So what has to happen if everything is more expensive and consumers still want to pay the same price, is that something has to be cut.
	And often that's going to be the quality.
	Even though designers may say, oh, this is just as good, the components themselves are increasingly plastic instead of metal.
	These are gluing instead of screws.
	There's some definite design trends that are making these things not work for very long.
	Yep.
	Everyone can see it.
	And we've of course outsourced our manufacturing to China, which isn't exactly Reputed for their engineering finesse.
	Uh, and so the things we have are becoming of worse quality and the places in which we live are becoming worse quality as well.
	It turns out that our houses are just terrible, poor quality housing, but look at the framing on this.
	Well, poor quality housing is costing the NHS 1.4 billion a year in treatments.
	Maybe I'm not worried about how much it's costing.
	Maybe I'm worried that we live in a junk heap.
	Yes.
	Maybe I'm worried that there's something wrong when we live in squalor.
	You know, I don't even care about the cost of the NHS, but apparently 11% of the houses in this country, two and a half million homes are of poor quality and contain more than one category one hazard under the housing health and safety rating system.
	I have no idea what that even is.
	Uh, and this of course is costing the economy money.
	It's like, there's something about the fact that it's humiliating for us to live in a collapsing civilization.
	Yes, with the housing thing as well, the houses that are being built, say take London, the houses being built there are being built almost entirely for single or maybe couples, young couples, professionals, no kids.
	They're all luxury.
	You know, the idea that there should be a family home is basically something which is sort of disappearing.
	So that's what's being built at a massive and grotesque expense.
	I think the thing is with living in Squalor as well is that, I mean, you're talking about actual structural faults, are you here?
	Both, actually.
	Not only is the house just generally not very pleasant, but yeah, the houses themselves are of just poor quality.
	But again, this is two and a half million people, according to one think tank, of young people, 18 to 34, just living in poor quality houses.
	Defining homes that were not in a good state of repair, whether heating, electrics or plumbing, not really in full working order, there's damp present, they're living in old family houses that have been portioned up into apartments now.
	So they're living in smaller living arrangements and everyone can see and you get like, uh, just things like this, just on Reddit and places people notice people come to this country.
	I'm like, my God, why are the houses so terrible?
	Like, why is this case?
	I mean, this person's like, look, if I go to France, Germany, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, the houses are better and cheaper.
	Why is it terrible in the UK?
	And no one knows.
	No one has any answer.
	People speculate, but that's not true.
	Decline in engineering skills, for example?
	Quite possibly.
	I mean, you know, I've often thought that when it, not just this, but even in, I remember, this is a long time ago, but when Terminal 5 opened at Heathrow, I think it was, and then it would, it basically nearly had to close again the same day because it was just in such, it was just a screw up.
	I mean, nothing worked.
	And I did think at the time, maybe we're seeing the kind of coming through finally of the complete deterioration in education in schools.
	People just simply don't know enough anymore.
	They don't have skills enough anymore.
	But I think maybe that's a bit of a stretch to this story.
	Quite possibly, but I don't know.
	And I can't say that there isn't Some kind of long-term knock on effect.
	And even if that isn't the reason for this now, it will be the reason for more of this in the future.
	Yes, people can't make a decision.
	They haven't been taught how to make a decision anymore.
	The standards and pride in the work is all gone because nobody's proud of the country because the country has been so debased in the eyes of media, the politicians, the educated classes who are always talking down to them.
	There's no reason to be proud of anything around you.
	Well, there's no reason.
	I think there's a difference between, you know, the poll, going back to the poll you had, I think you mentioned 2010 was the one that there'd been a big rise in people thinking Britain got worse.
	Well, I mean, You've just alluded to it there.
	But since then, you know, we've been through, well, for me, which was an absolute low point, would have been 2020 during that pandemic thing, during that disastrous lockdown.
	And then in the middle of it, we had outright attacks on everything we were during the BLM time.
	And I remember that was the time where colleagues of mine, family members really thought that that was it.
	You know, that the level of, you know, Things were terrible all around us because of the pandemic, but then there was nothing.
	Even our very foundations now, we were being cast adrift from those.
	The statue of Winston Churchill being defaced.
	Exactly, and statues being pulled down.
	Every museum you came across coming out with the same thing.
	You know, decolonization, the British Museum, British Library, Kew Gardens.
	I mean, it went on and on and still indeed going on.
	But That, of course, you know, of course it's going to make people feel that countries... well, that's because, I mean, a lot of people will think, well, actually, we're not what we always thought we were.
	Yeah, well, we're not what we used to be.
	Yes.
	Like, I remember in living memory when this country was much better, when we had self-confidence, when we were happy to do things to a high standard.
	But that was the Britain I grew up in.
	The funny thing is, though, the difference is important, is that in the 1970s, I'm sure you're too young to remember that, Rob.
	I was born in 79.
	Right, well in the 1970s, trust me, it was grim.
	That's what my father said.
	It was very, very grim.
	That's why he was always on a Thatcherite and not a Labour.
	You talk about, you know, I've just been going on about, it sounds like I'm about to contradict myself, but in a way I am.
	When you talk about the way that things look, the way that maybe Swindon looks now, the way that London looks, whatever, all the time, you sort of think, boy, you know, things have ever been as grim as this.
	Well, actually, the 70s, you've only got to look at old footage if you didn't, if you weren't around then, or even the movies of the time.
	And basically it was kind of, yeah, it was terrible.
	It was like the aesthetic was terrible.
	It was, you know, Brown and grey and everything very very.
	Everything was run down then as well.
	Incredibly run down.
	Didn't have so much graffiti and all of that but you know things were run down and it changed whether you like what happened or not but it certainly did change the absolute amazing shift that happened between the 1979 and around about basically 10 years later just a bit before that.
	It was extraordinary.
	Yeah.
	I know it wasn't great if you were a minor, I'm not saying that, but if you talk about an idea of decline not being inevitable, that was the period.
	And I'm not kidding.
	I was in the Tory party at that time.
	And very active.
	You felt that you were on the winning side, you know, and Britain was standing tall in all of this.
	And one thing I think Thatcher was remarkable at, without wanting to digress too much, is that even though she never had to actually get into the culture wars, because they didn't really exist at that time, or so they thought, she did single-handedly kind of Bring the country up in the eyes of other people.
	Oh yeah.
	She was always, I've seen loads of speeches of hers where she's just saying, no, we're British and we're better than you.
	But it's just the entire framing.
	If I can just finish that point, that was making very, in a very labored way there.
	The 70s were like that.
	However, it didn't feel as depressing.
	Yeah.
	Simply because we were culturally intact.
	Yeah.
	It was economic.
	Yeah.
	It felt like change was possible.
	Yeah.
	You could, yes.
	Well, you could line up and be socialist.
	You could line up with all the massive unions at the time.
	You could have a very honorable, actually, when I did, you know what I mean?
	Yes, compared to now.
	Or you could have been a capitalist.
	But the big argument was, should we be a socialist society or a capitalist one?
	Now, that sort of, well, it might be making a bit of a return, but it's not really a question, not in a serious way.
	And yet, culturally, we are all over the place and completely fragmented.
	But we weren't then.
	Let's carry on with how else Britain is bad, quickly, shall we?
	What about the NHS?
	Are we happy with the NHS?
	Nope.
	Uh, 47% of British people think that the NHS will get worse in the coming years.
	And that's only because they're looking at recent history and saying, well, it's got worse now.
	Hasn't it?
	Up until this point, um, five out of every six British respondents saying the health service is overstretched, which is more than any other country surveyed.
	So yeah, not, not kidding because the number of people on waiting lists are 11% of the population.
	Seven and a half million people are on waiting lists in the NHS in England.
	That's mad, isn't it?
	It's incredible.
	This is a service that's not functioning.
	Why is it not functioning?
	Well, I mean, I think one reason is just going to be simply the sheer number of people who are allowed to claim it.
	Because, of course, last year, the conservative government allowed 1.2 million people to come and live here in perpetuity.
	I mean, look, whether it's the NHS or whether it's housing.
	Oh, let's talk about housing, actually.
	Yeah.
	This is very interesting.
	I checked these.
	You can see there, I'm just asking, will you have a link for this?
	Isn't it interesting how 72% of Somalians in this country have government houses?
	You pay for three quarters of the Somalis in this country to live in a house.
	Why is that the case?
	Why are they here?
	Why are any of these people here?
	Why am I paying for a single one of these people to live in a house?
	This is mad.
	This is billions that you, the British taxpayer, pay for recent immigrants to live in government housing.
	And we wonder why there's a decline.
	This is your money.
	This is why you're poor.
	This is why you can't afford this.
	Of course, this isn't exactly breeding a wonderful social environment.
	Here's just literally something I found this morning, popped up in my feed, which is just awful, right?
	Two drug dealers got jailed for stabbing an aspiring lawyer to death in Northwest London.
	The aspiring lawyer was Sven Badzak.
	Good old British name, that.
	He got attacked by Rashid Ghadel and Shiro Ambersley, who mistook him for someone else.
	And murdered him because they thought he was someone else.
	We don't have to live like this.
	We shouldn't have to live like this.
	This is awful.
	Why are these people here?
	Why are they doing all of these things?
	But anyway, right.
	Well, let's keep moving on.
	Right.
	So it turns out that your cost of living is up, uh, by 20% or so food.
	So there's a fifth almost, uh, your food inflation has gone up and it becomes evident that the people advising the government, uh, the economists at the bank of England have been like, look, The era of cheap food is an end.
	So your house is rubbish.
	The streets are dangerous.
	You're paying for foreigners to live in this country and you are going to have trouble feeding yourselves.
	So you're probably going to have to find a job, right?
	Well, I mean, you know, you're getting on a bit, but have you considered just being a takeaway delivery driver in your fifties?
	Isn't that a bit humiliating?
	That's the job that teenagers should be doing.
	And the government are just like, well, you know, the work and pension sector is like, well, He's been a delivery driver.
	No, quite extraordinarily stupid remark to make, isn't it?
	But it just shows you the expectations and the level of consideration that the people of this country have.
	So no, no, no, you should be looking for you.
	I know you're coming up to retirement.
	But, uh, you're probably poor because everything's going badly.
	You probably live in a crap house and you're probably just really desperate for money.
	So why don't you spend your weekends delivering pizzas to people who need them?
	Like just, just, but this is the low aspirations of this country.
	Everything has come into what I've just called the decline, right?
	And so I wrote an article about this because I think that you can see it in the people of England.
	You can see it on their faces as they're walking around.
	Because I took Peter Boghossian to a local cafe and I was just sitting there and watch them walking around.
	And he was like, yeah, I see what you mean.
	But they just look beaten down.
	Right.
	And then, I mean, this is just everywhere.
	This is a really interesting TikTok.
	Whereas this kid from London or chap from London who comes to Swindon, he's just like, my God, why is this also run down?
	Yep.
	That's a great question.
	Can you skip about halfway in John, just so you can see a bit more of it.
	So you see the streets a bit, bit back on that.
	Sorry about halfway back.
	Yeah.
	So you can just see like, you know, so the general tattiness of everything and we'll leave that plain from it because it's just utterly depressing.
	And it's like, okay, why, you know, where are we going as a civilization?
	What are we doing?
	It didn't used to look like this.
	That used to be a market that used to be open every day.
	And it was full of things.
	And now it's closed.
	Also, I mean, like, you know, I was in Norwich recently.
	You know, Norwich, which is right out on a limb.
	Yeah.
	And, you know, it's not a harsh, gritty urban place.
	But even that was sort of tidy.
	It's usually you can tell when you come in from the station.
	Yeah.
	You know, and you come into the station and things are not quite as they sort of should be down a hill.
	People look bad.
	I mean, You know, I don't fully regret saying this, but I mean, no one cares about how they look anymore.
	Nope.
	You know, I mean, that is a sure sign of basically when, when basically things are kind of collapsing.
	You don't care.
	You simply don't care.
	It's just your own comfort that you're worried about.
	So we'll leave this there because this is just depressing me.
	Yes.
	We'll go on to a much nicer place.
	South Africa.
	I tell you what, South Africa, I find it as a really scary place.
	I've never been there.
	I'm just someone who sees what's happening from overseas.
	I don't understand the cultural moment that they're in, but I see things that are happening there, such as the continual rolling blackouts that they have and the, again, general degradation of their civilization.
	I think, wow, is that what's happening to them happening to us?
	Are we becoming South Africanized here?
	And that's kind of scary to me because it seems like South Africa is riddled with socialism, frankly.
	But if you want to support us, by the way, go and watch Dan and Josh's chat about the economics of the USSR, which is going to be relevant to this conversation, because I would like to talk about the 10th anniversary of the Economic Freedom Fighters, which are a racial communist party in South Africa that have about 10% of the vote.
	Which is a bit scary, but of course they're not terribly different to the ANC, who are kind of soft racial communist party.
	And so I just look at their politics and think, wow.
	I don't want that.
	I really don't want that.
	Such as what?
	Well, such as racial redistribution of land and a continual beating of the drum that there is an oppressive class of white people who are holding down and forever holding down the black natives.
	Who aren't actually natives, who are also immigrants in South Africa.
	And yet the narrative has been set and you get people like this Julius Malema guy.
	Now, like I said, I'm not an expert on South African politics, so I just went to a Wikipedia page and checked them out.
	And he's a concerning chap.
	He got kicked out of the ANC, which is the ruling party of South Africa, essentially for being an insane radical who, quote, brought the party into disrepute.
	And so he wants to nationalize various industries in South Africa.
	And I've watched a few of his speeches and his pledges, and they're basically, I'm going to give you free stuff.
	That's the thing that he is offering his constituents.
	And I have to racialize this because these things are racialized he has he is speaking to black identitarians and he's saying that we're going to take things from the white man and give it to the black man we're just going to do that and i mean you could say well how did that work out for zimbabwe for example Uh, not great, but it doesn't matter that it didn't work in Zimbabwe.
	He wants the dinner in South Africa.
	Uh, and so he, um, he's elected to the parliament.
	He's got, uh, he, after he left the ANC, he founded the economic freedom fighters, uh, in order to essentially try and usurp them, uh, against something like 11, 13% of the vote, which is not.
	At all.
	Uh, nothing.
	It's enough to get him a seat in the parliament.
	Uh, and in fact, they got 24 seats in the parliament, which is quite a lot as far as I'm concerned.
	Uh, and so the thing about the Wikipedia page though, that I thought was interesting is the repeated illusions to violence that he makes, uh, racial violence, which I would say are concerning, right?
	I mean, in 2016 at a political rally, he said that quote, the EFF, we're not calling for the slaughter of white people, at least for now.
	That's worrying isn't it?
	Yes, extraordinary.
	He repeated the sentiment in 2022 saying he could not guarantee I won't or I can't or won't call for the slaughter of white people at some point in the future.
	Right.
	And this guy's got 12% of the vote, does he?
	That's worrying.
	And he has said that, you know, he's going to cut the throat of whiteness.
	He has been accused of stoking up racial hatred, which does seem to be the case.
	He tweeted a number of controversial quotes by Robert Mugabe, including, the only white man you can trust is a dead white man.
	And he was sued in 2011 for spreading hate speech in the form of a particular song, which we'll come to in a minute.
	So, I mean, I think this guy is a racist maniac.
	The BBC South Africa's Julius Malema celebrates 10 years of the EFF.
	Uh, this guy seems to be kind of genocidal BBC.
	And he does keep saying genocidal things, but they say, despite his dismal performance in school and his divisive nature, just the divisive nature, the firebrand leader of South Africa's second largest opposition party, Julius Malema has become a symbol of success for his legion of supporters.
	It's just, well, I'm sorry, but I'm not surprised with the BBC.
	No, it's not surprising with the BBC, is it?
	It's pretty concerning.
	You know, it's just.
	Consider the words that they use, as you're seeing here on this, the outspoken.
	Yes.
	You know, controversial.
	He's a bombastic firebrand.
	Firebrand.
	He's just mildly divisive.
	He's not calling for the slaughter of all white people yet, but he can't guarantee that he won't do it in the future.
	And, you know, he didn't do well in school, but he's currently registered for a master's degree at a respected university, don't you know?
	That's brilliant.
	That's great.
	And so he's seen as a quote, this is a quote, right?
	Malema is seen as something of a trendsetter.
	Is he a trendsetter?
	That's very interesting.
	Many young people do disagree with his style of politics, but they still respect him.
	Hmm.
	This is extraordinary.
	I know.
	But not, you know, in the sense that it's coming from the BBC.
	Shocking, but not surprising.
	Yes, exactly.
	Racism is an entirely white thing.
	I would imagine the people who work at the BBC, if they are, you know, anything like your average woke.
	Yeah.
	Basically, if you think that racism is entirely white and that it's Actually, it's impossible for other ethnic groups to be racist, then you could probably write that kind of thing.
	Well, yeah, that's the thing.
	You'd see Julius Malema as a hero, some kind of hero of African freedom.
	There was apparently a massacre at a mine.
	Uh, in 2012, uh, where a series of, uh, striking miners, uh, 40 of them were killed by South African police.
	And Julius Malema went down with his party, uh, and the party slaughtered 15 cows and brewed traditional beer to appease the ancestors in memory of these people.
	And it's like, okay, fine.
	All I'm saying is they aren't like us and you don't understand them.
	Why are they doing that?
	I have no idea what they're doing.
	Do we do that?
	No, we don't do that.
	Right.
	These are two different civilizations that are interceding with each other here.
	So anyway, let's go to his, uh, let's go to his life coverage of celebration.
	Now he had 90,000 people in a stadium, a very Trumpian style rally, but with a slightly different tone.
	Oh yes, I've seen this and this is where they sing the song.
	Yes, this is where he sings his favorite song.
	So yeah, the huge rally.
	Again, it is Trumpian in that it is populist politics.
	Of course, Trump has never ever said anything like Julius Malema has said.
	So let's watch the clip.
	Kichi, Kichi, Kichi, Kichi, Má, Cipran Kondo, Aláez, Chutu, Kí.
	Yeah.
	Hamaza! Kill the poor! Reformer! Kill the poor! Reformer! Brr-pa! Pa! Brr-pa! Pa!
	Addition!
	Well, 90,000.
	Yeah.
	13% of the vote.
	Now, a lot of people are like, well, hang on, is this something to do with critical race theory or something like that?
	No, no, this predates critical race theory.
	Uh, this, uh, is an old song from the nineties, uh, under apartheid that was used by revolutionaries to, uh, boost their spirits.
	Uh, and there's a lot of defense of this.
	Now this used to be hate speech, that song.
	Uh, sorry, let's go back.
	It used to be hate speech.
	Um, but not anymore.
	It was declared hate speech in 2011, 2010, sorry.
	He was convicted of hate speech.
	The song was declared legal.
	But for some reason in 2022, it was made legal again.
	So, you know, victory for free speech there.
	This Shoot the Boa song does not constitute hate speech.
	I mean, I just feel really concerned that that was the thing that one of the trendy parties in South Africa was just singing in a stadium.
	I mean, I would consider that concerning, but what do I know?
	Uh, there are lots of people who have got lots of defenses of this though.
	Oh, well, what does kill the bow?
	I mean, what does it mean?
	What do you think it means?
	Peter?
	Yes.
	I'm very literal-minded about these things.
	Right?
	I didn't think that there was much depth to it, but this is apparently a liberation song.
	It's a song about liberation, you see.
	You get lots of the many lies around, quote, kill the Boa.
	Yeah, I know.
	I can't believe that this was never meant to be taken literally, you know?
	What is the level of coverage of him on mainstream broadcast news?
	Very little, as far as I can tell.
	That was the only BBC article I found on it.
	Yeah, and that's on their website.
	Yeah, and it doesn't mention the Kill the Boa song, because why would it?
	But this person from South Africa said, oh, well, it's never meant to be taken literally.
	I mean, you know, it's just a song about shooting boas who are white men, white settlers.
	And this song had been sung throughout the early 1990s in a language the whites did not understand, and so it did not provoke controversy.
	Yes, of course it didn't.
	We didn't know what they were saying.
	But he says in his comments, a video clip was played to the court, and the chap in question argued that the liberation movement's conception of Boer had always meant the enemy is a system of white supremacy.
	Oh, well, that's reassuring, isn't it?
	Yeah, yeah.
	It's just a system of white supremacy.
	So shoot the system of white supremacy.
	Right, okay, gotcha.
	It's never meant any individual on the basis of his or her color.
	Even as we chanted these slogans during the armed struggle, they've never driven us to the houses of the whites or to the farmers as individuals to kill them.
	Oh, really?
	That's very reassuring.
	And the ANC say, quote, we have absolutely no policy to kill farmers.
	Absolutely none.
	That's very reassuring.
	If you look at our own politicians, who would even mount a defense of, say, like the white farmers?
	Yeah.
	Well, Donald Trump.
	Well, no.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	I meant in Britain.
	Yeah.
	No, in Britain.
	Absolutely not.
	It doesn't matter what's right or wrong.
	If you consider him a politician these days, but he's the only one, and for some reason can't get elected to Westminster.
	So let's talk about farm attacks in South Africa, because there is a weird number of utterly brutal, completely barbaric, The most savage, Mongol-style massacres that you will ever see.
	This happens on a daily basis in South Africa.
	Apparently in 2022, there were 400 attacks on privately owned farms by whites in South Africa.
	This led to 55 murders.
	So not all attacks are, of course, successful, but all attacks are an attempt to murder people.
	And if you read any of the individual accounts, your stomach will turn.
	Literally like boiling children, like murdering, raping, just torturing for hours because these are remote places.
	And so if the people who are doing these murders can get in, then that's what happens.
	I mean, in 2023, there have been 77 attacks in the first 90 days.
	In 2023, there have been 77 attacks in the first 90 days.
	So it's almost one a day.
	Now I encountered many people on Twitter saying, well, there's no connection between the chap in front of 90,000 people chanting, shoot the boa, kill the farmer.
	And the persistent and ongoing attacks.
	It's just a completely.
	Parallel coincidence.
	I thought worse for violence.
	Well, exactly.
	They would otherwise call the stochastic terrorism.
	Yeah.
	And I don't believe there's no link there.
	And you must be a bloody fool if you do believe there's no link to that.
	If I were a South African, I'd be asking, why do we have to put up this?
	Why do we have to put up with this?
	Why is this our politics?
	Personally, if I was in South Africa, I'd leave, but I'm not in any position to advise anyone on anything, but I just think it's awful.
	If you want more information on this, go and watch Lauren Southern's Farmlands documentary, in which she speaks to some of the survivors of these things.
	It's just, they are just the most hideous things in the world.
	This is turning into a rather grim and serious podcast, Peter.
	Well, no, no.
	But I mean, one thing's for sure.
	I'm certainly going to try and find out more about that.
	But I mean, obviously, it's clear I know very little about the issue.
	Oh, it's just hideous.
	So, you know, it's just appalling.
	Yes.
	South Africa is the only country that has affirmative action for the majority.
	Weirdly.
	But anyway, we'll leave that there.
	Like I said, I'm no expert on South Africa, but from what I can see, I don't like him.
	So anyway, let's go on to America and hopefully do something that's a little more entertaining, which is talk about Americans talking about their own history.
	You will see Al Sharpton.
	He used to be enormous.
	He's a huge guy.
	He's very much thinned down.
	Oh, yes, he has.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	But anyway, so I don't preempt.
	He hasn't wisened up because one thing about Americans that has become apparent is they don't really know anything about America, as in why America is what it is and how it came to be.
	And Al Sharpton actually, uh, was the inspiration for this segment because he kind of put the crown on top of the, uh, the cherry on the cake, uh, the, the angel on the tree.
	It was just the most amazing statement that I think we'll get to.
	Before we do, if you want to support us, go and watch them.
	Epoch's on the siege of Waco.
	It's an interesting part of American history, but of course it does an excellent job.
	I think he's with Josh there as well.
	Um, but anyway, so let's, let's begin this with just this article from the New York Post where that 41,000 Americans in all 50 States and Washington DC were surveyed and.
	They don't know much about American history.
	Only 27% of those under 45 could demonstrate a basic knowledge of American history.
	Only 4 in 10 Americans passed the little exam they were given.
	The study also revealed that 15% of American adults were able to correctly note the year the US Constitution was written.
	Fifty.
	Fifteen.
	Uh, this was 1787.
	Now, if you're not an American, why would you be expected to know that?
	If you're an American, you think that would be something you would know.
	Uh, and only 25% could correctly state that the constitution has had 27 amendments.
	Again, if you're not an American, why would you know that?
	Uh, a quarter of the survey takers were unaware that freedom of speech was guaranteed under the first amendment.
	57% did not know that Woodrow Wilson was the president during World War I. The distressing results show that American education is not working, as students are not asked to memorize dates, events, and leaders, which polls show they are not retained in adulthood.
	And I found another article on the LA Times, which I thought was interesting.
	And this is just remarkable, right?
	Most Americans do not know which countries the US fought against in World War II.
	Well you see, I used to write for the Yellow Times actually when I was living there and I was just wondering what is the kind of trajectory here?
	Did they know a lot more?
	10 years ago?
	I mean, the students, you know, did they know?
	Would they have known who America was fighting?
	I don't.
	I mean, I should hope so.
	I would hope so.
	But I mean, before we get too smug about this.
	I'm not saying it's any better in Britain.
	Yes, it used to be.
	But I think you might struggle.
	Oh yeah, for our American viewers, don't worry, I don't think that young people in Britain know anything about Britain's history, at all.
	But of course, they can't point to Ukraine or Belarus on a map, and they stare blindly if you ask them who represents them in the state legislature, or what rights are protected by the First Amendment.
	They say that there's nothing particularly new about this, but I would say that it's probably getting worse.
	Yes.
	I think that this is not good.
	In 2019, just 13% of eighth graders were deemed to be proficient in history based on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, an exam sometimes called America's Report Card.
	Only 22% were found to be proficient in civics.
	That's really bad.
	No, it's simply important.
	But you see, now they have an excuse not to know.
	Well.
	But they can just simply say, well, why would I want to know that kind of, you know, white supremacist bullshit?
	You know, you can almost hear them saying it, you know.
	And you'll get things like the 1619 Project, where they will deliberately try to pervert history.
	In order to make sure that you don't really know what happened.
	Now this I found is a particularly fascinating thing because the 1619 project was a attempt at historical revisionism by a journalist called Nicole Hannah Jones, who writes from the New York Times.
	And this was highly critiqued and refuted by historians as soon as it came out, because it hinges around a key lie.
	The lie is that the American Revolution was fought to keep slavery.
	No, it wasn't.
	For anyone who's wondering, the British Empire didn't attempt to start outlawing slavery until something like 1808.
	So the U.S.
	had been independent for at least a generation and wasn't successful in abolishing slavery until 1830.
	So no, this is just a complete lie.
	And this person Was a fact checker on that.
	And they say, well, look, I, I was like, I'm in total.
	I totally agree that we should rewrite American history in order to characterize all of America's racist.
	But the problem is if we start on false narratives, then people will refute our entire project.
	And so it wasn't that she was like, well, maybe we shouldn't lie about these things.
	She was just like, well, maybe we shouldn't have a lie that overturns our entire project.
	In fact, she says this.
	Both sets of inaccuracies worried me, but the Revolutionary War statement made me especially anxious.
	So, I mean, there are obviously other inaccuracies, but that particular one about the Revolutionary War.
	Overall, the 1619 Project is a much needed corrective to the blindly celebratory histories that once dominated our understanding of the past.
	Histories that wrongly suggested that racism and slavery were not a central part of U.S.
	history.
	I was concerned that critics would use the overstated claim to discredit the entire undertaking.
	So far, that's exactly what's happened.
	Overstated claims.
	So, it's not like there isn't a general hatred of the United States that is pervading through the history.
	And so, I mean, I'm not particularly surprised that young people are just not interested in history.
	The thing is, she writes for the New York Times.
	She does, yeah.
	But, also, it's become a New York Times project.
	Yes, it was.
	You know, it is something that they initiated.
	This is the New York Times, which is, you know, the most respected paper in America, at least it was.
	And without pushing to digress, the decline, you know, that's been a theme of this week's podcast.
	I'm afraid it is.
	The decline of the New York Times is just something to behold.
	It is outright propaganda.
	It is complete hatred of Britain as well.
	Hatred of America, hatred of Britain, hatred of the West, hatred of anything that demonstrates excellence, success, strength, competence, Anything.
	And indeed as well what it does there what has happened there is a famous case last year when basically the more junior staff if you like get to reporters get together and make sure that say like an editor they disapprove of loses her job which is what happened.
	Yeah.
	You know they have this kind of power to do it you know management is sort of like that frightened these people but I think it's just It's just one of the big sort of, you know, icons, cultural icons of American life, which has completely changed, you know, in the past 10 years.
	No, that's absolutely correct.
	And again, just the quality of people is deniable.
	You can see that the people writing are not as good as the writers of previous generations.
	I mean, whenever you go back and watch Just television debates, you do not see the level of articulation of the point that you used to then.
	You can't see that anywhere now.
	Actually, American culture, I would say during the, what many people call the real kind of, you know, apotheosis of imperialism, American empire, 1950s and 60s, they would regularly have Dramas on CBS and NBC and these sort of networks, they would have cello concertos, you know, Pablo Casals playing, things like this.
	High culture.
	Yes, exactly.
	Not all the time, but I mean, it would be there and it wouldn't be considered weird that it was on.
	You'd have William F. Buckley Jr.
	with his like, you know, hour-long philosophical discussions with leading thinkers of the time that the audience would be expected to keep up with.
	Yes, exactly.
	The problem is, I think now, as I say, is that people have been given a kind of excuse to not know anything about it.
	Plus, well, it's a chicken and egg thing, isn't it?
	But for example, If you're going to do this kind of thing, if you're going to basically try to subvert the whole foundation of your history, it does help if people don't know what you're doing.
	It does!
	That's exactly right!
	If you think of Britain, how many people, take some of the adversities we've had recently.
	So, Magna Carta, how many really know what that's about?
	Very few, I think, actually.
	The King James Bible was about 10 years or so ago now.
	A big anniversary.
	Why was that important?
	What is the significance of the King James Bible?
	I'm sure it's a loss on most people and you know there was a great book I had as a kid which I'm sure you did too called 1066 and all that and it was a kind of no it was a historical it was written in the 1930s and it was an historical uh very gentle parody of history teaching lovely book but everyone knew 1066 well of course that's when the Normans came and everything but
	I don't think you could have that title now, because I think even that title, and we're coming up to a thousand years, a thousand years.
	That's a terrible, there's a terrible omen there somewhere, actually, Karl.
	You know, like, we're coming up, aren't we, to a thousand years, 1066 to, well, actually, 2166.
	Yeah.
	So we're, actually, we're over it, aren't we, already?
	Yeah, we must, well, no, it's 2066.
	20, yes, 2066.
	2066. 20, yes, 2066.
	We would be 2166, weren't we?
	No, we're 2023.
	Yes, of course we are.
	So 43 years.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So, but the thing is that actually might be in our lifetimes, you know.
	Well, yes, but I mean, can you imagine?
	Lucky enough.
	You know what, that's almost like a, like a a pair of, you know, it's like a...
	Bookends.
	A bookend.
	It's like, you know, might it be, you know.
	Well, you will be here.
	I won't be here.
	Well, I doubt it.
	I'll be...
	More importantly, your children will be here.
	Yeah, hopefully my children will be here.
	My grandchildren, if I'm lucky enough.
	But you are completely right about this.
	It's easy to fool people about history if they don't know anything about history.
	I saw this going around the other day, which, I mean, this is just everything about young people now, right?
	Women weren't even allowed to have credit cards until 1974.
	So, you know, it's empowering that I've maxed mine out.
	Ha ha ha.
	Um, Visa was created in 1976.
	I went and looked this up, right?
	So I just looked up the history of credit cards.
	The first credit card was launched in 1958, right?
	But she's, she's acting.
	Like, credit cards were something invented by the ancient Greeks, and we were just like, oh yeah, women weren't allowed them until 1974.
	They were created in 1958, so 18 years or 16 years before women were allowed them, right?
	But that's only because they weren't on a wide scale.
	Like, the first one went out to 60,000 people.
	And it wasn't until Visa was created in 1976 that there was a nationwide credit card in America anyway.
	So to act like, Oh, women have been oppressed.
	Shut up.
	You know, nothing.
	You know, this is the thing.
	You are an idiot.
	And now you've got, you know, massive amounts of credit card debt and you're bragging on social media as if this is some win.
	Is this TikTok or?
	Yeah, it's a TikTok video that I took a screenshot from.
	Um, and it was just.
	Everything about the modern world is just a tremendous mistake.
	Dancing in the ruins of our civilization.
	Yes, but also sort of essentially using it as an excuse.
	There was one I saw again, TikTok, and it was a woman giving marital advice.
	Oh, was this Mia Khalifa?
	Yes.
	And she was more or less sort of saying, you know, don't worry if you want to leave, just don't worry.
	What's the big deal?
	She said, I've been married three times.
	Take advice from me.
	It's like, no, that's why you don't take it.
	Well, exactly.
	And also, if it's such a little deal, why is she bothered to go through it three times?
	Yeah.
	That's another great question.
	Why?
	Just stay with the, you know, live with the guy or whatever.
	And so I thought I would get to Al Sharpton, who, as you say, he has lost a lot of weight, hasn't he?
	I thought we'd just watch this because it's just funny.
	You know, I thought about this as I was looking through the indictment last night.
	And I grew up and started my activism in a section of Brooklyn called Brownsville.
	And walking to the subway many mornings, some of the guys in the neighborhood would say, Rev, I caught a case.
	I have never walked down that block and somebody said, I caught three cases.
	I mean, this is just as low as it gets.
	I've never heard of three cases on one individual in three jurisdictions.
	So this is serious, but on the other side of it.
	One day our children's children will read American history and can you imagine our reading that James Madison or Thomas Jefferson tried to overthrow the government so they could stay in power?
	That's what we're looking at.
	We're looking at American history and how it will play out is going to be very important.
	The sad part about this to me is that This is not a man that is facing all this because he believed in a political position or political policy or cause.
	I've seen people go down the wrong side for a cause.
	We'll leave him there because he's obviously talking about the Donald Trump and diamond, but it's just like, I can't believe James Madison or Thomas Jefferson would have a dream of What are you, mad?
	Do you not know what country you're in?
	Do you know who these people are?
	It's genuinely funny at this point, but it's comical.
	I mean, all the people on MSNBC, not one of them were like, well, they weren't revolutionaries.
	Yes, but these people don't challenge him at all.
	In any way, shape or form, you know.
	Because Donald Trump somehow is bad and therefore, but it's just, I mean, honestly, just everything everywhere is just pathetic, actually.
	You know, it's like, what is happening here?
	Why is he on TV saying, oh, I can't believe George Washington would be a revolutionary?
	Oh, yeah.
	As if it may be crazy if he led an army.
	I didn't cross the Delaware in the middle of winter or anything.
	What are you doing?
	Actually, you say, it's interesting.
	I don't know whether he's gone through some kind of, he's just, you know, got a new career, but he was just a rabble rouster, if I remember, in the 1970s.
	You know, he would sort of turn up and everything.
	And indeed he was parodied in a Wonderful Tom Wolfe book called Bonfire of the Vanities, where he just used to kind of attach himself to various cases that had to do with race.
	He's been race grifting for literally decades.
	That's right, but you're talking about the 70s and 80s, and here he is, sort of, you know, sort of, it's almost like he's maybe trying to become a political commentator or something.
	Well he is, but notice what he's appealing to here, right?
	He's saying, you know, He's appealing to the existing structures of the United States, right?
	The existing narrative of the United States.
	Oh, Donald Trump has tried to overthrow the Republic, and therefore, the Republic must be a good thing.
	But hang on, you spent your entire life saying that this was bad.
	You spent your entire life demonizing and stigmatizing.
	So why are you now on the side of those structures?
	And it's because there is some kind of insurgent force in our civilizations that has taken control of the narrative of the civilizations.
	And now it wants to legitimize itself by connecting itself artificially to these histories and saying, well, could you believe that Thomas Jefferson would be a revolutionary?
	Yeah, I could actually.
	But you can see how the whole thing is just lies upon lies upon lies upon lies.
	Other thing as well with this.
	this kind of example, but also just generally with the historical ones you're talking about, is it's not just that you don't have to learn about history.
	The idea of fact, well, basically the idea of truth as expressed in facts, you can now, it is contentious.
	So So basically you can sort of say that is entirely just truth is a supremacist thing, or facts are.
	It's a bit like saying mathematics is racist, which is what we're hearing more and more now.
	And so if you can basically, if you just take the carpet from underneath all of this, you're left with nothing.
	You're left with the ability to mold people into whatever form you want them to take, right?
	So you can have people thinking that America is always a racist project, but we need to be considerate of the founding fathers who are In some way authoritative and have set up the democracy that, I mean, do you remember AOC called it our sacred capital building?
	I'm like, but that's not an American frame.
	Like the Americans do not believe government is sacred.
	That's what a monarch thinks.
	And they think literally it was instituted by God and therefore that underpins it.
	The idea of the United States is that the people come together and form a government of their own choosing, which means the government is utterly temporal and is totally available to be dismantled by the people if they choose to dismantle it.
	There's no spiritual authority behind the United States government and that's the point of the United States government.
	So these people are just totally off the reservation but they are not Americans as a normal person would understand what an American is and so it's just like it doesn't matter What the continuum of truth that people are trying to adhere to is, you can just make people into anything that you want.
	Women, oh, they've always been oppressed.
	Couldn't get credit cards until before there was a national credit card, you see?
	And so why are you even talking?
	You know?
	And so anyway, it's all just lies upon lies upon lies.
	But I think, you see, when you say you can make people, you know, into what you want them To be that sort of implies that there's a plan.
	Or you could sort of take the approach which tends to be mine, which is sort of, you know, the same in genus, really, which is that this is an attack at the most fundamental level on everything that we are.
	Yes.
	And essentially then you could say, well, by whom?
	Where's it going?
	Cultural Marxism, whether it's the Long March to an institution, same thing.
	Essentially, yes.
	Basically, this goes right down to the trans issue.
	It's essentially to shake the foundations of what we even think we are, biologically.
	Yes.
	It's hugely successful.
	It is.
	It's probably the most successful political project in the last 50 years.
	It is actually concerning that for some reason, like the people who are charged with defending against these things, such as the Conservative Party or Republican Party are unable to do so.
	They don't know how.
	This has been such an oblique attack on them.
	They've been totally blindsided by it.
	They don't know how, but also, to an extent, they have also been slightly captured.
	The Republicans less so, I would say.
	The Conservatives far more.
	The Conservatives are willing.
	It was actually self-capture, if there was such a thing.
	They sort of went ahead and said, right, we want these people, during Cameron's time, we want these people.
	And essentially, many of them weren't It's not just me being colloquial saying, oh, they're not really conservative.
	They actually weren't.
	I mean, they were Lib Dems and things like that.
	I mean, David Cameron literally said he decided to modernize the Conservative Party because it was pale male and stale.
	And so he's like, right, we're going to have minority shortlist or women shortlist.
	It's like, that's Labour Party policy.
	That's literally what the Labour Party did.
	Why are you doing it?
	But anyway, so good luck, America.
	It's like, good luck here, good luck South Africa, good luck everywhere.
	These kind of, you know, these little box pops, you see them often and are very, very, very funny.
	I remember seeing one during the Clinton-Trump 2016 election.
	And these girls, this is a very clever guy actually, because he was very convincing.
	But he was just saying, we've just heard, you know, that Hillary Clinton has announced she's going to introduce Sharia law to the United States.
	As a woman, you know, what is your view on that?
	And of course, they were literally saying, well, if Hillary says it's a good thing for women, then yeah, I'm with that.
	You know, they just, they didn't know.
	But then, Again, I have to say that I'm increasingly amazed at what younger people don't know about our history.
	But I think there's been a sort of deliberate attempt to detach them from the moral content of our own history in order to make sure that they don't feel like they're the possessors of it.
	Because they should feel like they own our culture and that they have an obligation and a responsibility to uphold it and continue on into the future.
	So their children That they should want to have will also possess this accumulation of good things that we have ourselves been the inheritors of.
	And they just don't, they feel like they're nowhere people who don't belong in any place in time and who don't understand the difference between the past, the present and the future.
	Well, actually, nowhere people, interesting, you know, I would say the other way is that they, I think you're being, you know, that's one negative way.
	You could say they're anywhere people who think they're so wonderful that they can actually settle down somewhere, wherever they are in the world.
	You know, I do not need neighborhoods.
	I do not need roots.
	I do not need this, that, the other.
	I, my individual, My individual talent, my creativity, what I am, you know, this will basically flourish wherever I am in the world.
	And really, you know, these people with the David Goodhart anyways, they exist.
	You know, I mean, I remember I was really struck by this, actually, when I used to live in Woolwich.
	I lived in these flats and it was full of like young professional kind of anywhere type.
	I mean, they were all kind of, you know, remainers and all of that.
	But they were very un-neighborly.
	The older people, always neighborly.
	And indeed, people who would come from other countries actually were neighborly.
	But these young kind of woke type, it was all in their head.
	It was all theory, if you know what I mean, Karl.
	On a day-to-day level, they wouldn't have dreamt of volunteering to do something, for example.
	They could barely say hello, good morning.
	It was all, they were so wrapped up in themselves, you know.
	There's a distinct level of vanity to this anywhere person, isn't there?
	Yeah, it's a sort of conceit, you know, exactly the absolute, you know, I am a person of infinite creativity and therefore all these things, family, Neighbourhood, nation, all of these things will put a constraint on that.
	These are drags on me.
	Yeah.
	It's not that I should be obligated to other people.
	Exactly.
	It's actually they're a problem that I need to shear away from me.
	Yes, exactly.
	To fly free like the butterflies I am.
	Yes, exactly.
	Yes.
	And I'm afraid, fortunately, you see, you see, you know, basically parents kind of Taking that on, you know, in kids now, but that is essentially the difference between the kind of urban sort of increasingly what we would now call woke, but they were originally anywhere types, you know, and of course, you know.
	It's interesting you were saying about how we owe our culture something.
	People of a conservative mind have always been greater at organisations and volunteering and giving, you know, organising the fete and all of that stuff.
	Local community.
	Yes.
	All of that.
	Not getting any money necessarily out of it.
	Far better than the left.
	I totally agree.
	Let's get some comments because I've got lots of comments.
	Do we have video comments today, John?
	Right, okay, so just normal comments.
	Right, so Justin says, good to see Peter.
	The New Culture Forum is very important and does great work.
	Oh, that's very nice.
	Thank you, Justin.
	And Kiwi says, excellent guests recently, very chuffed.
	Oh, thank you.
	And then nothing embarrassing about the fact that I couldn't work out 1066 and 2066.
	Not yet, but maybe there are a few.
	I'm sure there'll be some coming in.
	So anyway, on the first segment, Maria Manzi says, Sadly I think in many ways society has passed the decline and is now a slow motion car crash crumpling against the wall.
	Can it be fixed or should it be left to be burnt to the ground is the sad, stark choice left.
	I do rather hope to be wrong.
	Well, I mean, I think this is a conversation one's having all the time, like with my friends, for example, who are not involved in politics.
	And it comes down to this whole Benedictine option.
	You know, Rod Dreher's book, Which, you know, I haven't read it.
	Oh, well, it's basically, yes, it is actually.
	And he's done more since, along the lines of how do you live through the decline of a civilization.
	But the Benedictine option is basically saying, take the best of what you have of us, all the things, sequester them away in monasteries.
	Yes.
	The name of the rose material, you know, basically dark age material.
	And people are doing that.
	People say, well, actually, all I do is Like a friend of mine, one of my senior fellows actually, Philip, is a great collector of first editions, right?
	He's always done that.
	Suddenly, he's actually found that he's doing a political thing.
	He's now going out and collecting first editions of the various people who are having these stupid trigger warnings put on the box.
	It's like an Orwellian act.
	And he wrote a piece in spite about this and saying, you know, this is actually what you should maybe do.
	So people are doing this or, for example, collecting together.
	I've heard of people collecting together physical CDs of music.
	Yeah.
	You know, because, yeah.
	And the same with movies as well, actually, is one of the things about the digital era is that streaming is an insecure medium.
	Yeah.
	If Netflix just takes it off, then it's gone.
	Well, also your iCloud and your and you know, the music, I think it's fantastic if you get these contraptions like Alexa or whatever it is.
	It is a technological marvel.
	Yes, it's a technological marvel.
	But then if I lose it, it's kind of gone.
	Yeah.
	I have got row upon row of vinyl.
	Records and I kind of caught them around wherever I go.
	If I move simply because I sort of think, well, actually you just don't know when the thing goes up in flames.
	That's exactly right.
	And this is one of the reasons I get real books rather than Kindle.
	It's just, you know, you're never going to be able to get rid of it unless of course you burn it.
	But like, but it's, I totally agree with you.
	It's especially bad.
	With streaming services actually, and they want everything to be an on-demand streaming service.
	But that just means that the people in charge of the streaming service have complete curation and control over everything that you can consume.
	I actually don't want that.
	I would actually like to be in control of my own consummation when it comes to these things.
	But the point that Maria is making here, I've come to the conclusion myself that the Whig view of history is wrong.
	It's not a straight line upwards.
	I've come to the conclusion that civilizations are cyclical.
	And I do think those people who in the early 20th century were saying, well look, we're on a bit of a downswing here, aren't we?
	Well, I think it's undeniable on a downswing, and essentially things are going to get worse before they get better, and so I'm not sure things can be fixed.
	Well, yes, and I agree that what we've got to do is that Benedictine option is preserve what you can preserve, but just get ready for the collapse.
	Yeah, but the implication again of the Benedictine option is that you are preserving these things for the time when they can come out again, you know, and I think that that is obviously what one You know, it has to hold to when you look about when you talk about, you know, the cyclical decline and everyone talks about the Roman Empire, for example.
	There are such extraordinary similarities.
	I mean, you know, the androgyny aspect is always an aspect of decline in civilizations.
	What are we obsessing about all the time now?
	It's a form of androgyny.
	It's a form of sexual confusion.
	But also the lack of duty is one real concern.
	One reason the Roman Empire couldn't raise armies like it used to is that landowners would essentially lie to the state about the number of men who worked on their estates and so they wouldn't be able to conscript them to the army.
	But then also you've got parallels like World War I and World War II in the invasions of Attila, where this was basically a Europe-wide conflict that was happening.
	And it was hundreds of thousands of people on each side.
	Like a massive European civil war happened between the Romans and Attila, where all of the tribes that were existing in Europe at the time had to be aligned one way or another.
	So you had this massive world-ending war and then a period of about 70 years or so decline afterwards.
	And honestly, it does feel like a lot of what's happening now.
	Yes, yes.
	It's quite concerning.
	So, you know, I do think this is just a kind of history repeating.
	But anyway, Gianni says, I'm fairly sure the political class is well aware of the problem, but have a vested interest in not fixing it.
	Well, that's also an issue, isn't it?
	Yes, I suppose so.
	Or actually just completely and utterly self-absorbed and opportunistic.
	Yeah.
	You know, that in fact, you know, it never, it never, I sound naive when I say this, never ceases to amaze me how people do Choose politics as a career.
	I mean, I'd say in that case, I better get some principles.
	You know what I mean?
	Yeah, it is.
	You should surely come on people.
	You must want to do this out of convictions.
	Not necessarily.
	I've heard some direct stories about this.
	One chap I knew who was an advisor in in these inner circles said that um he went to eat and one one of the one of his classmates became a labor party politician and he was like but you're a libertarian why are we doing the liberation i just want to be able to say i've been in parliament yeah yeah i just want to say it it's like Well, it's not unlike Boris Johnson.
	He lost interest, maybe, when he got the job.
	Because he's actually got it.
	That's all he wanted.
	But there's just no incentive for him to actually do anything.
	I mean, like Rishi Sunak.
	Imagine if Britain goes totally south.
	Everything collapses.
	You were literally like, you know, starving wasteland.
	Well, Rishi Sunak actually has somewhere he can go.
	And he's also a billionaire.
	So why does he care?
	What's the motivation for Rishi Sunak to fix Britain?
	Why would he care?
	He's not trapped here.
	But I don't think really people do feel that he does care in that way because they don't even present themselves in that way anymore.
	No.
	They present themselves as like, for example, Liz Truss during her kind of campaign saying, I will deliver, I will deliver.
	And I was sort of getting really buffed and tufted about this.
	I was sitting watching it thinking, look, you're not You're not a kind of new CEO of some, you know, company.
	You're not that.
	That is not what a country is, even though everyone's meant to say that's what we need.
	No, you're not that.
	I will deliver on my promise.
	No, that's actually not what I want from a Prime Minister.
	Speaking like regional managers.
	Yes, exactly.
	I deliver.
	I've always delivered.
	And He is very much like that technocratic approach.
	You know, you know, this is what we do.
	And here's my PowerPoint and all the rest.
	I'm not a gang.
	We're going to make things.
	Oh, shut up.
	I just don't respect you.
	I just don't respect you.
	I'm so sick of him.
	Kevin's got a great point here, actually.
	He says another reason for the squalor is because the latest generations are never taught by their parents the skills they needed to deal with life.
	I grew up watching my dad do jobs around the house, my mum cooking.
	Mothers taught their daughters to cook, clean, sew, knit and keep a good home in order, while the boys were taught to do basic jobs around the house, like fixing things and guarding the car.
	The current generation have no clue how to improve their own homes or even feed themselves properly.
	But I mean, there's a lot of truth in that.
	Yeah.
	And what Kevin says.
	Kevin says, yeah.
	Yeah, it's a lot of truth.
	I mean, People, kids actually do not know what certain vegetables are.
	You know, they don't know.
	They have never had.
	But also people are so distant now from the source of the things that they like, their food.
	And they don't particularly care.
	I mean, you know, again, going back to the flats where I lived in Woolwich, these very same people I talked about earlier, I was amazed that everything was delivered.
	So like even their breakfast was delivered.
	Yeah, even the breakfast came from delivery or whatever.
	Yeah, that's crazy.
	And you just sort of think, I mean, you know, I'm sorry, how lazy can you be?
	But it's the life of the most vain aristocratic class that's ever existed, right?
	I mean, at least in previous eras, aristocrats would go out hunting.
	Yeah.
	You know, they'd go fight wars.
	Yes.
	You know, but what do ours do?
	Ours sit around fanning themselves and congratulating themselves on how brilliant they are.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Bring back the actual bloody knights.
	I'd rather be a peasant, you know, and at least, oh, look, the knight's going forward.
	Brilliant.
	That's good.
	You know, at least he's out of my hair for a month.
	You know, I would at least rather that, you know, than serving this absolutely pathetic class of elites that we have now.
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	Eric says, Carl, as an engineer, I can tell you it's a matter of designed obsolescence.
	Consumer products are designed to meet the warranty coverage period and then start breaking down, which caused the consumers to purchase more products and continue the cycle.
	Yeah, I've heard about planned obsolescence.
	Not being an engineer, I can't speak to it, but I've got no doubt, cynically, that that's the case.
	Although, going against that point, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, there are a whole host of things now which don't break down anymore.
	Go on.
	TV, for example.
	My parents had a radio rentals TV.
	Do you remember those?
	I haven't been yet.
	No, they used to rent their television.
	Really?
	A lot of people did.
	And what that meant is part of the deals used to call up the shop when it broke down, which was quite frequently.
	Oh, the telly's gone on the blink.
	Now, televisions never go on the blink.
	Do cars break down much?
	I've no idea.
	Don't think so.
	Anyway, so I'm just taking issue with that planned obsolescency.
	Um, well, I'll leave that hanging in the air.
	I don't know either way.
	Um, Tom says I worked in the sexual health clinic in North and the North and the NHS and about 80 calls a day and about seven appointments each day to book in.
	So you can see the demand and the supply there.
	He's got seven slots and he gets 80 calls every day.
	And so I left it years ago and it's only gotten worse, uh, which I believe, um, Uh, beggar hero says as an American, the thing that distorts our history more than our, is our presentism or simply using our morals in the present to critique the past.
	It shows the cowardice of the present, of fighting with dead men who made hard choices that spoiled brats wouldn't make.
	God, that's a good comment.
	That's a brilliant comment.
	Having moral arguments with the dead.
	Yes.
	Constantly.
	Yes.
	Guaranteed to win all of those, aren't you?
	That's a bloody good comment, beggar hero.
	Um, RJ says a lot of the media and elites have been covering up the real history, like with Emmeline Pankhurst.
	Yes, that terrorist who was going against what women wanted.
	People have been pushing the narrative that she won the vote for women.
	However, the complete opposite happened.
	Constant crazy antics and the bombing of Lord George's house almost lost them the vote.
	I would say a lot of what has been going on in Britain at the moment.
	A lot of that has been going on in Britain at the moment.
	The British government never pushes British culture in our history and instead allows ideologues to rewrite it in their image.
	Well, the British government never pushes the idea of pushing our history.
	It's just a revolutionary concept, frankly.
	They would consider it shameful.
	Yes.
	I remember once when I was back in UKIP, I was this culture spokesman.
	That used to give the BBC and the commentators huge amounts of laughs that we had a culture as spokesmen.
	What's wrong with having a culture?
	No, of course not.
	They used to think I would walk out with a big John Ball.
	No, actually we talked about things far more deeply than any of the other parties but I remember at the time saying we should have a huge yearly festival of Britain and British history and the point was to Children, you know, should be taken to it.
	Even make it permanent after a while.
	You can do that.
	Do that like the Festival of Britain, which is a festival, but then the remnants of it, i.e.
	the Festival Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, all of those things, they were all established by that.
	I thought, wouldn't that be a good thing to do?
	Yeah.
	Because you can't trust schools anymore.
	So let's try and get their imaginations going by doing it that way.
	But of course, you know, I mean, I'd love to take my sons to something like, you know, something like that or something like the Crystal Palace or something.
	Yes, yes.
	Because I know my kids be like, oh my God, what is all this?
	I'm like, son, this is stuff we've done.
	Yes, yes.
	That'd be fantastic.
	It would be amazing.
	But of course, we're not going to do that.
	Nothing good is going to happen.
	Chad Koala says, if there's one thing Marxists like the EFF hate more than the rich, it's independent farmers.
	Which is totally true.
	Whose mere existence shows the world that with enough perseverance, you can own your own land and manage it far more efficiently than a centralized government bureaucracy.
	Yeah.
	I saw a stat that it was a ridiculous number.
	It was something like 90% of the appropriated farms in South Africa have failed.
	So if you just appropriate someone's farm and give it to someone else, that farm fails.
	Almost guaranteed.
	Yeah.
	Someone online says South African whites really should start fleeing now while it's still rhetoric.
	Uh, actually in many cases, not rhetoric, hundreds of tax a year, brutal attacks, attacks that have the, the tinge of vengeance.
	That's the, that's what the, the brutality of the attacks.
	they've got this weird personal aspect to them and it's awful absolutely awful um edelstan says south africa would be looked at so differently if mandela and tutu had not been such great marketers of forgiveness mandela's wife speaks very much speaks very much like mcgabe did she was a terrorist so uh south africa post-apartheid has not been dissimilar to mcgabe's zimbabwe uh it Quite possibly.
	I'm not an expert, but I know a little bit.
	Arizona Desert Rat says, Americans talking about American history?
	Well, this is going to turn out to be embarrassing.
	Don't worry, if British people were talking about British history, that'd be embarrassing too.
	It's picked on your country because Hal Sharpton made it funny.
	Omar says, the left makes no secrets.
	About how much you are supposed to hate the foundational history of America or any other Western country.
	Is it any wonder so few people are interested in being lectured about how evil their heritage is?
	At this point, ignorance might be a semi-deliberate defense mechanism.
	Actually a good point, isn't it?
	Well, yes.
	Might be better to be ignorant rather than hateful of your own history.
	Boy, dear, what a, you know, these are the options.
	I know!
	It's terrible.
	I remember, it's kind of quite a well-known statistic now, but most kids, or a high proportion of kids, thought that Churchill was in fact that insurance bulldog, you know, the child with the knotty hairs.
	They really did.
	I bet they did.
	Actually, so, therefore, is that better than thinking he was racist scum?
	I mean, have we got to that level?
	Probably.
	I've seen loads of historians on Twitter, a lot of them Indian, having to essentially write long threads saying, no, Churchill didn't genocide Indians.
	There was a famine caused by a monsoon.
	And the Japanese controlled the ocean at the time in that area, and so Churchill, as soon as he found out, organized the relief of 100,000 tons of grain from Iraq to be sent to India.
	It's just, he couldn't do it any quicker, and it couldn't be done the other way because the Japanese had been invading Myanmar or wherever, Burma.
	And, you know, it's not Churchill's fault there was a famine, and he did everything that could be conceivably done to stop the famine.
	Also, this was in the middle of the World War, and so the troops, of course, had to be supplied, or else they'd starve, and we'd lose the war.
	But this has just been repackaged now into, Churchill starved the Indians.
	So are you mad?
	It's absolutely mad.
	It's just such an obvious lie.
	Yes.
	Most people who make those kind of anti-church claims, though, of course, are driven entirely on things he has said or written, not about his actions.
	They don't know what his actions were.
	Yeah, no, they don't.
	Exactly.
	And the actions, I mean, you know, call me old-fashioned, but I actually think what someone says is not nearly as important as what someone does.
	Boy, that really is old-fashioned.
	I know, I know.
	I'm feeling my age.
	But to be honest with you, at this point, as I'm growing older, I'm looking at modernity and the youth, and I'm actually quite happy that I was lucky enough to get these old-fashioned ideas into my head.
	Well, I tell you, I'm 62 now.
	I've talked to a friend who's taken the Benedictine option.
	She's now in Lucca in Italy, surrounded by lovely buildings.
	But basically we say, weren't we lucky to actually get the tail end in, even if you're talking about popular culture, the wonderful Hollywood films of the mid-century, the wonderful popular music of the mid-century.
	all of these things and the drama and the literature and all of that and you sort of think we were very lucky to see the tail end of something uh which was great it's not just that it's it's i mean i was lucky to be to have grown up in the late 80s and 90s Like, even then, Hollywood was still producing good films.
	Even then.
	I mean, remember Britpop, right?
	Cool Britannia.
	At least there was a great cultural vibrance in this country.
	You know, there was Blur and Oasis.
	There was loads of great films, like The Matrix, Fight Club, you know, Sixth Sense.
	There were loads of really great films.
	Gladiator came out around that time.
	Great films were still made at that time.
	Great culture was still produced.
	People were happy and they enjoyed things.
	It's only in the last 20 or so years that things have just cratered.
	It's this century.
	Yes, I think it's pretty much this century.
	No, I agree.
	I would say that still, I cling to my thing, that the absolute apex in terms of all those popular cultural things would have been around in America around 1945 to 60.
	And I think, just think of walking down Broadway in 1948, unheard of material success, Tennessee Williams on Broadway, Truman Capote writing, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Dina Simone.
	No one under 30 recognizes any of this.
	Really?
	Would they really not?
	Probably not.
	I bet if you were to poll them, they'd be like, no.
	All those names I kind of grew up with.
	But that was what it was.
	That's what the cultural mainstream was then.
	Anyway, I'm afraid we're going to have to leave it there.
	So, Peter, if people want to find you, where should they go?
	Oh, right.
	OK, well, I'm on Twitter at P.R.
	Whittle.
	And then obviously... Should have had that up in advance.
	And then also there is, there we go, and also New Culture Forum, there we go, so that's probably the best way to get in in touch with me, newcultureforum.org.uk and of course on YouTube too.
	Well, thank you so much for coming in.
	It's been a real pleasure.
	Really enjoyed it.
	Sorry, I didn't have something more jolly to talk about.
	You've got to talk about the things that you see in front of you.
	Exactly, reality.
	Yeah.
	So anyway, thank you so much for joining us, folks.
	Have a wonderful weekend and we'll see you on Monday.

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