Douglas Murray: Great Men Will Save the West | The Restoration Podcast 001

And she to sa all of us like I thought I really want to [Music] take look at that one this one I understand what that what does this one believe yeah yes cool so Luke so I'm going presenter contributor cameraman sound engineer I know this technical um um that's me okay so we're definitely On yeah we're definitely on we're recording start at any moment um which now um so Douglas Mari is a man who needs no introduction but he's one anyway he has for years been one of Britain's leading cultural commentators and writers uh on

the conservative side of things uh he is the author of many bestselling books including the madness of crowds and the W on the west and he's the associate editor at The Spectator and last night Douglas you Were here in New York winning the uh Hamilton award I was being honored by the Manhattan Institute with the Hamilton award which is an annual award they give out and I had the great pleasure of being introduced by Ayan incredible you guys go way back um we've worked with Nathan before and I've known you for a little bit as

well so we're sort of thrilled to have you on our restoration podcast it's a great pleasure to be with You all right thatas you have been a friend for a very long time and a supporter and a Defender um I have so much to ask you but the first question I want to begin with because I'm fascinated by your speech last night and I know that we're going to fix it when we say last night but you were awarded the Alexander Hamilton um prize by the Manhattan in Institute and you gave a speech and it's

Probably one of the most inspiring speeches I've had and well thank you what stayed with me was that rhetorical question that you posed of what are young people if they are confronted today with what Israel was confronted on the 7th of October if something similar happened in America or Europe what would how many people would actually sign up for that I want to to reverse that because as you were talking I thought oh my goodness the images of these people Coming in actually siding with the other side MH POS the other question which is how

many people would actually side with the Enemy I find that much more frightening and I ask this question because I've been through so many exercises of the Reckoning with the second world war m there were ordinary people who worked with Hitler's schem to take their neighbors and to take their fellow citizens to labor camps and gas Chambers and I lived in the Netherlands when this reconing was happening and it seemed that the hardest question was not why didn't people go to war to fight against Hitler the hardest question was why did my neighbor betray me

why did they and that's I think question of really the question glaring question we have to ask oh by the way there's another version of that which is what soier niton asks which is when the when the terror started after petrograd in 1917 why when the secret police were the weakest and they came to an apartment Block in the day why did people in the rest the other people in the apartment block not just attack the secret police with whatever they had in their hands and kill them wound them send them back to the headquarters

make sure this couldn't happen and there's a couple of stories actually of that happening in petrograd in 1917 as a as a woman who actually was pulled in off the street And some other people passing actually sto the secret police getting her and uh they they get her in her apartment that night but the answer as far as I can see Soldier n says is um well the easiest answer to it is because we didn't know it was too early yeah and if you'd have said in 1917 this is going to end up with the

gulag um then maybe people would have resisted yeah but they didn't know but I Don't buy that it's 2024 uh let me the two ideologies now that are aligned and that are also V amongst themselves who dominance one is islamism the other one is it's neomarxism that we call lism it's 2024 and we know as clearly as daylight The Logical outcome of both ideologies and the one the islamist one it's only in 2018 that we saw what the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria was doing to the people they Conquered uh the Islamic regime in

Iran conquered Iran in 1979 we know what they've been up to for the last 4 45 years we know that when you establish Sharia law exactly what happens so I want to know in 2024 why would a student in Colombia or Cambridge University or Penn State or MIT or Barkley who are well informed most well-informed generation of all humankind okay the highest educated well the most let the most Expensively educated most expensively educated so the and I know that the Germans and other Europeans in these haoning exercises were saying we didn't know so that doesn't

work now there's no way you could say I didn't know I think there is a way I think quite a lot of people are saying we don't know I mean look at the people who are denying October 7th and have spent the last 6 months for instance deny completely unnecessarily Denying that there were for instance rapes of Israeli women by Hamas on the day why do they do that I mean they can't be they just haven't looked into it or it can't be they've looked into it and persuaded that the video evidence isn't what it

is and the evidence of the First Responders isn't what it is and the evidence of the people and the morgs isn't what it is it's that they cannot face up to what their own side does so their sort of willful ignorance they're Trying to psychologically insulate themselves from you know it reminds me of something I I don't want to make the obvious comparison but it reminds me of what what what people did after the Holocaust who still wanted to be Nazis there's a great book by a German um writer um patina stth called akman before

Jerusalem in which he described how these neo- nais in in South America in 1950s desperately wanted to believe the Holocaust hadn't happened because They realized already it was a big problem for their side and they weren't going to actually be able to get naism back or fascism back in Europe so long as there was this PR problem which is how they saw it m and they get ikman in Argentina and they have these tape recording sessions with him in which among other things I ikan badly misreads his audience um uh with one of the most

fascinating problems of the 20th century he gave Z speeches explaining how he Killed six million Jews yeah and the room goes silent when he finishes because that's not what we wanted to hear right now why did they not want to hear it because they wanted to get around the Holocaust because they realized there was no where you could do fascism or narcism over again you would have to walk through the Holocaust and therefore it couldn't be done and that's what the people I think why I it's eminently possible for them to to try to Get

around it because I mean if if somebody I supported or you supported like went into a country and started raping women and and and shooting them in the head as you rape them I I think the only thing we could do would be to say we would say is that that has happened and it's appalling and I wonder whether my side's going wrong yeah but that requires a degree of honesty which and it's much easier and I think most people do just you get around it yeah You can't walk through that they get around it

so they say oh it's been exaggerated or it didn't happen or I don't want to read about it or it's it's PR or what about Gaza and so there is a is easy for these people yeah so there is okay easy for these people various forms of denial trying to get around it there's another feature of denial and I remember um thinker in the Netherlands Paul shepher used to talk about it and he called it Indifference uh to what extent do we have people just large audiences who know and know perfectly well and understand it

entails but take on maybe it's also a form of dening itself take on this indifferent attitude it's not happening to me it's not happening in my neighborhood it's happening there well there's something that happens I mean there's something fascinating that happens with the nature of violence which is that it's like something Shatters around you it's my view I mean it happens even in I know a bar fight the first time somebody throws a fist Everything Changes our late friend Clive James was in Cambridge in 1968 when the Garden Hotel riots happened which big news in

Cambridge at the time but not everybody historically remembers it um there was 68ers they were imitating it in Cambridge England for some reason they protested outside this hotel and Somebody threw a brick at the hotel and I remember Clive said that's when everything changed the nature of violence suddenly was on the table and I think that if you're a student at Colombia or whatever the really interesting thing I think I said this to you the other day the really interesting thing I think is happening at the moment is that they've picked up an interesting tactic

of Hamas and I think Eric Weinstein said this first but they they've picked up a tactic which is hamas's tactic is please kill my people for the cameras or even kill me for the cameras or kill my son for the cameras and students at Columbia and elsewhere seem to be saying hit me or hurt me policemen for the cameras so it is that a sort of lowlevel Version of something which is a much more brutal level is is a tactic and the tactic I think we should explain to the viewers is a tactic that's been

um utilized by Hamas for decades which is to fight uh to use human beings as Shields civilians as Shields hide behind children put their um military facilities in mosques in hospitals in schools MH uh in markets uh knowing free well that when Israel retaliates that it's these children who Will be killed and then there the horror of war would be then on the screens of Western consumers of the news yeah and that propaganda element of them condemning Israel is what works for them so you are saying and Eric is saying that that tactic is now

being deployed by yes yes I wonder if there's there's a connection between these two things if if you're affronted with the horrible violence that happened on October 7th and you're on the Palestinian side what you really need is to find something even worse on the Israeli side yes of course and if you can't find something then you got to make it happen yourself right this is this is one way psychologically to rationalize say okay okay fine those bad things did happen but you know Israel is now so much worse that even with this it's all

you know perfectly just to to raise that yes flag and wrap yourself in that Headscarf I think that's a good point you make there but it is easy then to say let's um condemn Israel from this distance but when we were attacked here in New York and in Paris and in London we gave permission uh you know full support to our governments to chase them this is phrase that's Biden used I think when he was vice president we will chase them to the gates of hell that's right yes and and so we were fine with

that but When Israel manages doesn't even changee them to the great to the gates of hell but is waging walk in this very delicate line trying to um preserve the lives of the civilians there are civilians that they have put in danger while at the same time trying uh to neutralize them we condemn Israel I think that's where the element maybe comes in of is it because they're Jewish yeah of course that's a significant part of it um but I I also think there's there there's an Interesting question which both you and I have spent

significant parts of our Lives cycling which is what are you going to do about it yeah now in Israel when Israel is attacked like it was on the 7th who knows what to do about it people disagree about tactics some people will say you shouldn't have gone in this far or only win a bit or do it from the air everyone becomes an expert in ground house to House missions but um but they know what to do they've got an army citizen army they have significant experience in counterinsurgency and warfare and they know what to

do what does Britain do when as suicide bomber goes into concert all in Manchester blows himself up and kills 22 young people the question I heard it at the time what are you going to do what are you going to do about it well certainly Don't Look Back in Anger yes I mean the first thing is of course yes is a a few local people sing an a racist a banal a racist lyric and then suddenly all the newspapers are pushing Don't Look Back in Anger and the and the politicians are saying isn't this a

wonderful sentiment and I was the only one of the only people in the country saying no if your daughter is blown up be very angry seems reasonable be very very angry and ask what your government is going to do About it and but but the point is is as I say I come back to this thing that in in most western societies the answer is the one that comes back at me has done all my life what are you going to do about it when you see a council elected in the north of England the

other day in Regional elections and he he's a member of the green party I think he misunderstands what green stands for in this particular it's a very broad Church yeah there some of the other councilors I wouldn't use the word church it's a broad something but the green party moves from being sort of Eco you know let's all save the the seals and the Dolphins or whatever now it's Alba and the guy wins and he's all alak by this and um uh and again like well what are you going to do about it uh this

is uh where we are this is where Britain is so we have been here before on the question of where are you going to do what what are you going to Do about it depending on the scale they go the stadium in Manchester or the MP M or the teacher who's beheaded or you know Charlie ABDO in fact remember when we all marched I don't know M just sweet Charli yeah just sweet Charlie and and that Bley teacher is still in hiding yes so but there was one moment I remember uh quite recently when all

the arguments that were used that we were told over and over again we can't do that you know we we we will not prevent we will not Change the laws it's all about the fact that we're an open Society you know they have hadous Corpus this isn't a war we're going to try them in courts of law not military courts all of that changed with butter when and it wasn't the event itself I think it was a Cascade of events yes the French government was confronted with this is not something can control suddenly uh state

of emergency was Declared and yes now people can be picked up at any time for any kind of interrogation and we don't know where they're going do you remember the height of Isis in fact when the French government was caught saying don't bring them back let them get killed there yes so all the principles that were used as an argument to do nothing were Sly cast by the way side and now in a state of emergency and I think there is a psyche among the ruling class where they think If things go from bad to

worse we can do that yes I think I think that that is true I mean there there have been a few occasions that have been very bad but not quite bad enough to have the kind of change that's expected people always people always ask me as I'm sure they do with you like what's the Tipping Point on this and I I long ago gave up saying what it would be because you know I remember just every time I was wrong I thought this will change things people It turns out you need I mean even Israel

needed an awful lot of horror on the 7th to stop the country ripping itself apart on a question of judicial reforms that now looks pathetic but do you think that Israel is sort of primed in a way because you you you've made this case after every single sort of horrific thing that's happened in Europe um that you know some you know there could be a moment where the country decides actually we don't want this anymore um Time and time again we've almost acquiesced it's become sort of the level of violence is just normalized um yeah

and so I have a lot of I'm very skeptical about my sort of accelerationist friends who say you know something big can happen and things will change do we just are we just so demoralized as a society that we we we we can no longer stick up for ourselves I I think I think people don't know what they do about it yeah And you have the added problem that that the the people in charge distrust the public and maybe they're right yeah I mean this is one that I very torn about always which is you

know um a few years ago the BBC finally did a program about the uh the rape gangs the Muslim rape gangs in the north of England and made a fictional sort of fictionalized version of dramatized version rather of one of the called three girls and you know it only took 20 years for the BBC to Finally get around to addressing this question that you've written about in prey and elsewhere but they made made this program it was quite good and um a little while later a guy from Wales hired a van and drove into a

crowd outside Finsbury Park Mosque in London wounding a number of people and my view is that uh by the way the BBC when they were looking for blame for how that happened notably didn't point the finger at themselves but the man who did it Said in his interrogation by the police that he saw three girls on the BBC and he was so angered he thought he'd get a of dried into a mosque yeah and so but I mention that because there's the complexity you you've got to address this you've got to address it but they

don't trust the public because they think the I me I my view is most of the public can deal in the complexity of yeah uh these people are criminal rapists but that doesn't Mean that you should go and attack the guy who runs the shop on the corner of your street but you know there's probably a certain number of people who don't have that ability to to to draw that distinction and maybe Society is currently running at the speed of we can't trust those people not to do that I think that's where it is and

then strangely the reaction then to the guy who takes the van and after watch after he watches the documentary um hands Tries to kill people kills people at F mosque um that incident is used in different ways it's used by the islamists with an agenda yes to say look see islamophobia mhm any kind of criticism or scrutiny or analysis of what's going on in our society uh is going to be giving way to this kind of um senseless mindless uh violence yes and therefore de BBC or the other mainstream media Outlets stop talking about the

threat of Radical Islam whatever happens just seem to benefit the islamists yes the marxists yeah they're very good at that yeah there's a a case in Germany a couple days ago where an RF day politician I believe was fined not even for invective but for publishing statistics about afan migrants committing rapes in Germany it was 6,000 I think the fine was um AST well that's yeah there's a story now that uh someone published a book about the far right in Germany um and it it captured I think the German Fascination uh two Eastern European men

aided by a woman went for years were killing immigrants choosing who they were going to kill they were Nazis they're part of the National Socialist underground um and these Fringe groups were always there yes but one way of seeing this is actually the fact that now this whole Mantra about white privilege and structural racism is Giving these people who will loses and the majority of societies saw them as loses that's why they Underground they been lifted above ground by well this nonsense well that's been done before that miton did that very successfully in France in

the 80s by making sure that Jean Marie Leen took part in the presidential television debates and M did it because he was going to lose and he needed to split the French ride so he split the French right By inviting a VI candidate to join the debate very clever and in in countries like Germany I mean there's another thing that happens with the afd and others which is same thing with edl and the UK which is that of course if you say this group of people who say that they're patriotic and just want to stand

up for their country and don't like their country being dismantled in front of them if you say they're far right they actually then the few people who Are actually far right go to them and go oh great we've got our own party and then before you know it they they uh it becomes it the afd is a very interesting case in point I mean it's obviously it's obviously several different things and there's a big struggle going on about where they might go yeah um I want to go back to the Tipping Point because maybe there's

a scenario where the Tipping Point is not we're going to be confronted with a succession Of violent attacks and the state is going to declare a state of emergency but it is this gradualist just wait them out these European societies are not having children they're getting old they're dying the number of fighting age go back to your question of who's going to fight for the country the number of men in the fighting age category are shrinking and as you just gradually islamize there will be no there's no Need for violent action we will capture these

institutions Through The Ballot Box and there is some history to show that things can happen that way do happen that way sorts of Transformations we've seen it in Egypt we've seen it in Iran we've seen it uh closer Home in some of these towns that have become ghettoized and that are left to um you know for this parallel islamist Sharia laws soft Sharia um to to take its place and we Know it's there but we look the other way we know that there is place polygamy we know that Sharia disputes are resolved this disputes are

resolved on Sharia lines we know all about this whole Halal infrastructure you just let it be and over time I we've seen it in Turkey for instance a lot of my secular Turkish friends uh when I was in Parliament in the Netherlands were saying no erogan is going to be transformed by the secular structures He's not going to transform it you know you don't want to tell them I told you so but it has happened maybe that certif is going to be not tiing Sensational yeah I think that's quite likely and with the demoralizing of

of the Native populations everywhere is is is part of the process of that I wrote about this in spectator the other week that the uh there's now a very interesting linguistic change which is instead of People in jobs particular government appointed jobs instead of asking for a member of ethnic minorities or any minority to step forward they now say they would like representatives from the global majority which is a very very I mean if if it sounds threatening it's meant to be it is it's meant to say you know I mean um not only not

only we start off by saying you're an e you know the ethnic minorities in our country then Suddenly they're not an ethnic minority they're the global majority now we wonder if in in response to that the public in country like Britain will might say well now maybe we can have minority States yeah I was speaking to Ed West recently and he he he he told me that at his Children's School they have special parents evenings for uh just specifically for the global majority and they have special sort of sessions and assemblies for the global majority

which He and his family aren't allowed to attend every corporation has this now right every university has this even room spaces on American universities they're effectively just no no whites but maybe it's an interesting um and perhaps useful change of language because it's honest it tells the truth um well it's suitably threatening um my view my view is by the way it's it's not going to work um I mean if the Aim if the aim of all of this BS that we've been through in recent decades is as some people used to pretend to let

Talent rip in other words to say let's just like make sure there's no glass ceilings if you're a woman if you're gay if you're um a member of an ethnic minority and you can do something you should do it and we'll encourage you and there'll be no glass ceilings so smash that glass ceiling and make sure that any woman who wants to lay tarmac can Lay tarmac and any any uh any any woman who's dreamt of the thrill of the railroads just dreams of the the the the the romance and excitement of driving the train

to reading uh if you want to do that by God that's your right and just drive away and hope there's no parallel parking but the point is is the but the point is is that that in all of this if the idea was just like let the most talented people go then people should have seen a long time ago this Isn't what we're getting what we're getting is actually I always quote nature it's it's not Justice it's Revenge it's you the majority who now call the minority pipe down you've had your time especially if you're

white especially if you're male MH oh you've had your time it's time for the trans black uh um goddess to emerge and for us to worship at the new gu's feet and she they will lead us I've literally heard I've heard White men who have been subjected to this say to me well we had our time yeah and I always they trying to get laid or well my view my view is that they're they're what I call the Cuttlefish they're pretending to be meek mild things and then at some point move in but but no

some of them are genuinely demoralized and I noticed this among my peers and I noticed them and I feel sorry for them sort of you know and they tend to vape And they sort of sort of cringing figures slightly and they're sort of hoping it'll they'll hoping they'll last their time I've seen the demoralization um in California here in the United States and I am stunned by those people who report on attending having attended um anti-racist programs uh these ritual ual that are put together inspired by this woman prob Angelo and even ex candy and

uh then the me too uh You know you are a racist period And if you Deni it your you know what was it fragile MH and so you have to go through these sessions and exercises yes there are some people who go through these sessions and come out and say it was such a waste of time I had to do it because I want to get on with my work yes it's a requirement right it's a requirement all of these big big companies big institutions universities it's a require you have to Attend these these nonsensical

things but there are those who come out completely confused saying exactly describing what you're saying and and and owning it and saying I'm racist you know toxic masculinity it's very successful in part because the best way to demoralize somebody is to make them doubt their most Basic Instincts and their most basic knowled knowledge you know it's a very it's that's why I was always you know against the sort of Erosion of biological reality was because I always so I know what comes next which is that you can do anything once you said to somebody that

that this table in front of you is not there and I will have it beaten into your head that it's not there until you say it's not there then the aim is to do something else next and is is this a conscious Choice do you think by certain group of people who are seeking to demoralize Society I mean I'm just going back to What you said about the train drivers your recent spectator article uh where you were sort of explaining that it's very absurd that these sort of news stories just get dropped um as if

there's a great surprise new women don't necessarily want to be train driv story was on the BBC was most train drivers are middle AED men and white I mean that's not a new story that's that's like um so why coming out Chinese people are Chinese why they why Do these confected news stories because it's all part of the same thing it's this idea which a lot of people in newsrooms and elsewhere have which is you know you've had your time it's time for the black Trans guia goddess to rise up is a sort it's like

a fertility cult you remember do you remember um wonderful friend of my deack La did you know dpack lovely man lovely man he died a few years ago wonderful indian born Economist and I remember deac saying to Me he had a wonderful Charming way of speaking and smoked a pipe and chortled at the human Madness always I remember deepack once saying to me over dinner with his wife he said he said he said everybody thought Douglas that the age of um of uh a the age of a you know the age of rationalism would lead

to the age of atheism and he said I think it's completely wrong he said I think we've entered the age of polytheism again you have your God I have mine she has hers She worships at the green Idol he worships at the go the golden calf they are very keen on the cult of a Swedish schoolrent and you just everyone has their goddesses and um and and sometimes they overlap and you say would you mind if we borrowed your temple because we find similar worshiping Trends but but it is essentially a sort of movement in

polytheism and that's why mentioned in my speech last night that one of the um one of the the the chicken for KFC Students at uh Colombia yeah this absurd individual uh probably calls himself they he wears a crop top like all people who a male with no fashion sense and um he has a belly piercing and uh he's been very prominent during the cosplay for hamz at Colombia you know covers himself in a cfir tries to dress like ass harant prob never heard of him and um this uh this idiot S one of these sort

of you know chanting you of course of course because if You're going to free Palestine the obvious way to do it is to holler at people in Upstate New York but um but this guy I saw a video of him the other day and he at the beginning of this academic year before October 7th he was a he was for a climate emergency yes um so I think the real thing that's interesting is we have a class of person in AR Society after they've been demoralized and of course some of them as lonel Shri always

reminds me some of Them they they talk about how you just feel self-abasement but they feel no self-abasement themselves they feel very good about themselves my goodness but the really interesting thing is there is a type of person we have created in the post religious age or whatever who I'm told there's an there's an analogy about this from medieval Japan where if you were a warrior and your Le Lord died the person to whom you would sworn falty yeah you would stagger around the Land looking for a new Lord to swear your oath too because

in the meantime you were nobody this is this is what we have this is why the Colombian students students at Colombia a one day green then their hamz and after the hamz cosplay is over there there'll be something else but that that's the question underneath the question which was how did we create the what are the what are the names again the Ronin Ron yeah yeah we we I went to A very Catholic school and you know Roman Catholic and uh we were taught to emulate Saints it was the best thing you could be as

a saint and you read the lives of the Saints and you went yes when you're a little kid okay I'm going to grow up and be just like St St Martin St whoever it is and and Douglas I remember when we were working together we did an analysis of the curriculum and in fact of I think all the American History AP Tests yes and we we went through them with a fine toothed comb and we found that it was something like 50% of the questions were on the civil rights movement or other s quite related

yeah movements and and if you're taught from a from a young age that look history is really awful it's all just white men doing Terri full of Horrors but there was this thing that happened in the 60s and that was really good yes then you give them new Saints these These are the oh yeah and and if you can't be like Martin Luther King you know with race and you better be like him for the green issue or for Palestine or for something there is no salvation otherwise that's that was that's so so there's there's

an example I've been thinking about quite a lot recently in uh Warfare because one of the problems that generals and military leaders always face is the there's a famous thing you always fight the last War yeah and um you know we're used to that in counter Insurgency and in Warfare you know you always fight the last counter Insurgency and then for the next one you fight the last the one before the enemy has of course gone the enem is doing something totally new I mean like you know the in Northern Ireland we were we were

we were fighting the Mau and in Iraq we were fighting the Republican IRA and so on fighting the Nazis Europeans are still fighting the Nazis but you know I think that this is pro this this fighting the last war we probably haven't wised up to it yet is that we're always fighting the last culture war and really what's happening is that we're currently Rel litigating the 1960s without the problems the 1960s had yeah I mean why why are people so determined to see racism everywhere in the 1960s in America that was a very uh uh

important thing to see 2024 at an American uh liberal arts campus probably not I suggest definitely not you speak a lot to Richard Hanan and I think he has developed this um Theory an analyzing the Civil Rights and how then seeing the world that way and interpreting history or starting history from just around the civiles movement then translated into changing structures actual structures yes and I've had this and the other day I was listening to a speech um given by David starky the British historian um I don't the lastor queen i l so many times

not like me saying that but um the point he was making was also this um creating perverting the original human ideas that were based on protecting the individual the individual's Freedom individuals property turning them into group rights and then cultivating these new Saints as and then creating an economy out of it I mean the Le industry In America and increasingly in Britain as well yeah so in Britain David star dates it back to 1997 and the BL right um government in the UK so in the United States it's Civil Rights Act I don't know I

1968 it's all around the same time also Vietnam has to be said Vietnam I was speaking recently in Philadelphia and somebody very very lovely very well educated man in his 80s Or so said to me you've got to remember the Vietnam effect Douglas and he fought in Vietnam is just like to be involved in a war that doesn't work and which makes you doubt your government and the direction of your authorities and I think that's I mean you know one has to recognize self-inflicted wounds I don't think that venam was the worst self-inflicted wound but

the when when it looks like you have no adults that's a big problem yeah and Um and I have to say by the way on this on the new Saints thing by the way we had Fox's book of Martyrs of course all all killed by your people we did um but uh but it's very interesting because of course some of I was in South Africa again recently and story of South Africa's overcoming of aparted is one of the great stories of the late 20th century it's an extraordinary thing but but but you know the mistake

of the American student is for instance they are not thec in the 1970s and Israel is not South Africa and Israel is not South Africa a part exactly and it's just these endless it's always low resolution all these attempts are to impose a low resolution understanding of something on a totally different scenario and to just go into it like who's the good guys who the bad guys um with the additional thing that if you don't know the obvious thing for any to do is just get Wholesale whatever their Sid's views are you know I'm on

the left therefore I'm on the side of the Palestinians yeah on side of her M sure and um but by the way when you mentioned David Stark is important thing to come back to what I thought the speech he did at the Oxford Union may have been the same one recently a very very moving speech in which I was struck by something I think the debate was about the great man view of History Which we've talked about before uh it's it's a very interesting debate because um this also comes the demoralization question which is that

um demoralization can be massively fueled in an individual by saying you can achieve nothing with your life you are a carbon emitter and you should try not to best if you stopped breathing of course uh don't have children don't pollute the planet with more of us let the Moss and the trees get on just great Without us and uh and just a set of things that say and and in any case all history is just it's class and economics and all this sort of thing I was on the island of St Helena the other week

and um you know when I was sitting rather grandly in Napoleon's study Looking Out on the Ocean apart from thinking about how to successfully take Europe this time I I I was I was just I just was thinking you know how can anyone deny the great man view of history when this Man was so extraordinary that they had to put him on the furthest FL island in the world stick four battalions of British troops on the island put forts on every Hilltop whole Fleet of ships of the British Navy facing into the harbor to keep

the power of the emperor contained and what was the power of the emperor this man that was it this little man and TL's brain this question yes and it's what tlso spends spends at the end of War and Peace just go over and over the question of Napoleon but David Stark in this speech said said of course great man of your history is is it's not to say there aren't other factors but that great men and women change the course of history seems to my mind at any point irrefutable and his point and one of

the interesting things he said was that he said when he was growing up his um somebody who was looking after him because he had some disabilities when he Was growing up somebody was looking after him gave him a book of 100 great men and she said to him you will be a great man one day and it was so moving him saying this and you could see him choke up slight and he said I'm not a great man which I think in way in his way I think he is in his way and um very

great historian and but but but it was so moving hearing him describe this because of course what what I I think what it was catching in his voice When he described this was this is what moted me this is what acted like Rocket Fuel to get me reading and finding out and then getting a scholarship and then getting to Cambridge and then being a worldclass historian and writing bestselling books and traveling the world and all these sorts of things this this loss of the idea that the one man or woman yeah can fundamentally alter the

tide of History means you have demotivated people cuz What is there to do other than vely enjoy yourself and that I think is the crisis we talk a lot about the crisis of leadership where is this man where are these men men real men and women um and nothing in between um and I think that the problem is we've set up our um status systems you know you're admired and and loved you become a celebrity today for being the opposite Of that yes for being a victim for crying for literally IM marinating yourself in Christianity

is what it is yeah me me me and so that's how to achieve quote unquote greatness or at least celebrity uh respect pity of your p appears the pity of you appears and but it does the pity then delivers on uh material things you get more money you get yourself into a senior position you know I am not given I can't become CEO of this place because of and then you Have to uh give as a reason something immutable everyone has to talk about feeling impostor syndrome as well yeah but it is you're you're chasing

or you you you seek a position of status but then you give something that no one can your skin color or your agenda or whatever it is to get that's the argument to get you to be the president of the CEO of the whatever it it's rewarding yes yes and and the caner People see the way to use that of course I mean one of the funniest things is the sort of claudian gay phenomenon where highly privileged people highly privileged to Philip exitor you know I mean family owns all the was it steel they own

all the steel yes my favorite one is my favorite one is there's a few complete frauds who do the rounds yeah um one uh Indian pseudo historian I won't name who's forever indicting everyone else who's from the highest Cast of Indian society and then comes to comes to you know the UK and pretends to be a baguer minority and that the workingclass white people are somehow producing him and and so and there AV verions of this everywhere America is Rife with sort of Haitian royalty who discovered that if you pass yourself off as a descendant

of slaves you can win in 21st century America absolutely so you have a class you actually have a class a cast yes of these fake victims who are Amassing wealth and they are amassing power and they they are now the elite everybody else wants to be like them yes the young woman in Colombia who saying she she thinks she's in Gaza and she fighting for asking for water humanitarian aid humanarian aid I watched with much Amusement someone trying to shove their pizza box into an elaborate pulley system to get it into and they couldn't quite

work out to do by the way also also enter the crisis The real crisis of mental health of these people which that that uh that I can't say girl that woman is 33 years old oh interesting isn't it she's got a yes she's doing a postgraduate course in something that I I I read the description on the website until it was taken down she uh is she's sort of studying uh othering through a marxian lens of hermeneutics with you know one of those one of those Things it's to now if she's 33 now assuming I

mean she's assuming that she's not remedially stupid which maybe an assumption too far she must have finished her undergraduate degree at the age of 23 which means she spent 10 years doing this hermeneutics of the pharmacology of the of the Perpetual negation of the the the lesbian dance um she uh she has spent 10 years she has spent 10 years doing that now of course it's maybe the reason why she spent 10 Years doing it is because what she is trying to do cannot be done right I feel a little bit attacked it makes no

sense but but you really do have to wonder if you're 33 and you're not remotely on your way yet you're in trouble well are you in trouble because in this environment you could actually become say um press secretary for the bid Administration or you know you are you are you very fluent in Talking stringing sentences like that and talking this nonsense for this new group of elite um look at the CEO of MPR I mean look at oh yeah wow what a piece of work yeah you you you see all of these individuals and you

think the president of Colombia the president of Harvard the president of I don't know Matt West the you name it certainly these leadership positions occupied by people who didn't get there because of their competence or Because of their talent and AR not even pretending anymore that's why they there they're fighting some injustice that they say happened in the past yes for which they had to be rewarded it is she she doesn't have to worry about her job well that's until Chris rufo comes for her well let's go back to um great men of history for

a second um the US election is coming up uh Donald Trump is on trial here in New York um I wondered whether you think that you subscrib to The view that he is a sort of persecuted figure in sort of American society today um I don't have many sore toes but uh we've just trotten on one yeah uh I don't like talking about Trump I think it's there's nothing knew anyone can say everyone knows what it is everyone knew what it was in 2016 they knew what it was in 2020 they knew what it is

in 2024 maybe they'll vote for him and maybe he'll be president nobody knows although the polls look that Way um I've always wished that only one thing with Trump I've really wish which is that his critics took the people he is speaking to seriously that's that's the only I'm always amazed by this I I've noticed this with a range of people who've been very significantly attacked I'm not by any means comparing the two men as being alike but I always thought this with our friend Jordan Peterson I was always amazed by the number of hit

jobs on him in the media and I thought You know if if there was somebody who I disagreed with who was filling out stadiums night after night around the world and the audiences are mainly young I would want to find out what that person was talking to MH and there's a very odd thing that happens if you're perceived as being on the right where they just want to to take you down y take down anyone who's listening to you and I think this is a great great flaw of the modern left uh I Was talking

to my friend Thomas chatter Williams about this last night we were talking about uh some new literature in France that's coming out as catching up on various books recently and he and Thomas said to me I'm rather surprised you read a French leing novelist I read everything by and he said I'm I'm rather surprised you read him I bet he doesn't return the favor I said of course he doesn't of course he doesn't and you know so that's Why is is that you know I'm still bewildered that Trump's critics do not listen to why his

base vote for him and the reasons why they vote for him are very serious and important reasons and they should be listened to that and that brings me to the whole question of restoration is um it's the audiences it's the audiences of Jordan F and the audiences of Donald Trump it's the 80 Plus% of students who say that the police were fight to come and remove these encampments and stop the disruption um we have large majorities in Western Society who do not want this far-left insanity and they do not definitely do not want the islamist

insan and so when you talked about the Saints you know you were taught about the Saints and now it's the new Saints I think one restoration work that begins is to take Go back and stop talking about real saints sa you know take us back or talk about listen to what Jordan Peterson is saying and why his audiences are Laing it up what is it that made trunk supporters so loyal to him uh even as he's accused of uh all of these things the more he's persecuted I think part of it is also there's a

sense of real Injustice in thinking why is the entire System uh facing off with just this one man when there all these horrible things WR you know the one man who hasn't been scrutinized ever is the other one who challenged Hillary reflector Bernie Sanders and people who brought in why are we not looking and scrutinizing that and I think if you say restoration we've got to start we've got to retrace our steps go back and say to get out of This um mud of demoralization we're stuck in we need to climb out of that so

what is there to REM moralize us then there's instability what can we do to De you know to to fight that bring us back into stability have conversations healthy conversation where we disagree the other night I went and had a conversation with Richard dokins who's a friend great affection between us but now we have this fundamental disagreement where I am a believer and of course he maintains with great integrity his position on atheism and we had a conversation it wasn't mud slinging you know you're no longer my friend I hate you from now onwards this

is this is the stuff that demoralization is made of and so theorization is look how amazing our society is that we can have the powerful disagreements and remain friends well one one way to to to to deal with that is of course and this is So hard to communicate to people but um that it's incredibly unusual what you've just described is incredibly unusual of course not not today but in human history all around the globe as you know better than any of us I mean you know many countries around the globe if you say I'm

a Believer you're not I kill you one way around or the other it's it's it's uh you believe the wrong thing and you're you know Believe in your own you believe in your your Gods I believe in mine therefore I will kill you on behalf of my God and 30 years ago when I came to the West I thought what made the West outstanding was that you could have this you could have people in the same room sitting next to one another without machetes without swords and kn without poisoning one another without the bodyguards and

you know the whole and unfortunately we're not unique anymore Is becoming like everybody else well that's why that's why what my remarked about last night to warn people that that when the uh going back to the garden house a tow riot in Cambridge when the first brick is thrown when the first punch is thrown yeah when the first gun is brought on campus as Alan bloom famously saw in the 1960s everything changes and then you have a decision to make which is do I want to be in the realm of violence or In the realm

of peaceful disagreement and if you want to go into the realm of violence as I'd say the students of the American universities you will make one massive misstep which is that you'll think you can control it and you never can the minute you go into that Realm anything can happen anything yeah so step back do you want think maybe we should have paid trips to madish for them to See what it looks like you know it's mus saying this right yeah you fly this country FL you should get a oneway ticket for free yeah I

um I actually you know I know a teacher who I you know as well who says whenever a child in in the school in England is playing up very very effective way to make their behaviors improve is to ask their parents to take them to their country of origin to meet their second cousins and to and they come back transform they Stops and I've always found that incredibly moving because that that's a specific one with people of you know specific immigrant background but I've always wanted to find in some way like that on a broader

basis to say just step out into the world I don't know like maybe a compulsory Gap year for all American students pay it be it would be cheaper than college for the year um to go around some of the world's uh um don't even have to go to the war zones Just go to the poor countries you know go to India see maybe go to Mark Zuckerberg and say can you create a virtual reality they can actually feel not just imagine immerse themselves in it and the only problem is with virtual is you can't really

smell taste feel you know yes and you have the bugs buzzing in your ears yeah yeah yeah and the uh and the imminent threat of everything going wrong I mean you know that's um no I Mean this this I said it's a war in the west but I mean this is why this is why I find the hardest the hardest thing to communicate to an ignoramus who's never really left their first world country is how to communicate what gratitude they should feel it's exceptionally hard to do because gratitude is such a comparative thing and um

it's a conservative's defying virtue maybe is gratitude at least it ought to be would I Mean it ought to be anyone's defining virtue yeah and um um you know people are grateful for good health how about being grateful for relatively good health in your country I don't mean I mean in every way because grateful to the people you not fful yes absolutely tears and and and the fact that again going going back to the great great men and women of History you know how did how did this This Republic come about remarkable people I I

mean I would say like I I I can never get over the genius of Thomas Jefferson and if if he had have been a bit stupider or a bit Wicked yeah yeah then this this whole damn country would be totally different it or it would be recognizable but to the side and not in a good way like a Canada or something really awful as bad as that so I guess with gratitude Comes This sense of Stewardship uh if you're grateful for what's given to you then you really want to look after it and pass it

on you want to pass it on we've lost that we need to regain it and and the best way of regaining it is to realize it's at risk and um so then I I suppose we have this sort of project restoration um you going to be writing a book on restoration uh and it's a sort of Hope project I suppose do you have much hope that we can regain Those things certain institutions we can focus on huge hope but it will not come at the behest of government policy no it will not come because the

deputy Minister for Homeland Affairs announces a white paper that we'll look into this it will not happen by a Government Review or a judicial review it will happen by men women being remarkable it's only how it happened in the past and it's only how it will happen now it means people have to step Forward they have to use their talents all of their talents uh they have to not subdue themselves and they have to have the idea again of Life as a heroic journey and not as this miserabl thing of what I call the harmlessness

aspiration the harmlessness one being you know go through your life don't emit any carbon um don't be too uh reliant on the welfare state or whatever else you be reliant on the welfare state um but Um you know don't don't make any fuss really and don't offend anybody and soone and then just sort of slip out uh um in a crematorium near you no no the the the the the aim the aim should be be the heroic journey of a life towards a direction to orient towards truth in the recognition that truth is not just

some kind of um uh game but a real thing which gets you somewhere and will get us somewhere so yeah I have huge uh uh uh Optimism on that M but it's with people it's only with people it's encouraging uh it's beautiful yeah unfortunately the police are clearly here to arrest well it's civilization working we've got the Empire State Building gleaming over there you've got the police uh doing sorting some sort of R out the street a long time Douglas was giving that beautiful speech Oh that's lovely uh do you want to ask if Douglas

has a magic wand what he would do or do you think he's really dealt with that question I think you've dealt with it I think also is this is the reason why we're doing it this way because I don't want you know another middle-aged woman talking down to the Next Generation but talking with them and I still can't quite accept your definition of yourself as middle-aged you should you should have Heard I you should have heard Ian yesterday with Anna katchen talking about how she was fading [Music] away we were in hysterics we were in

hysterics um but um Douglas than thank you for joining us on restoration podcast restoration bulletin.com restation a different setup but this was fantastic and this was a great conversation yeah yeah thank you think maybe next time we'll have drinks oh Yeah I mean just get of bubbly up why not yeah um I had quite a few last night really okay well it doesn't show you would never know you would never [Music] know what was I don't think I think I think