Andrew Doyle - Free Speech And Why It Matters | Modern Wisdom Podcast #283

Andrew Doyle is Titania McGrath, a comedian and a writer. Free speech is one of the core tenets of a modern liberal society, and yet we are seeing restrictions being placed on it across the West. In the UK Hate Speech Laws have been introduced and even America is looking at amending the amendment. Expect to learn what Andrew thinks about Donald Trump being removed from Twitter, whether cancel culture exists, why Miley Cyrus' genital preference is dangerous, what future humans will think when they look back on this period of history and much more... Sponsors: Get 20% discount on the best coffee in Britain with Uncommon Coffee’s entire range at http://uncommoncoffee.co.uk/ (use code MW20) Extra Stuff: Buy Free Speech - https://amzn.to/3a4afyD Buy Titania McGrath's new book - https://amzn.to/36KRNdd Follow Andrew on Twitter - https://twitter.com/andrewdoyle_com Get my free Ultimate Life Hacks List to 10x your daily productivity → https://chriswillx.com/lifehacks/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom #andrewdoyle #freespeech #chriswilliamson - 00:00 Intro 00:14 Why Free Speech Matters 07:49 Is Free Speech a Partisan Issue? 14:05 Confusing World of Gender 18:29 The Times’ Hit Piece on Jordan Peterson 28:36 Does Cancel Culture Exist? 34:12 Criminalising Critical Thinking 39:45 The ‘N-Word’ & Free Speech 48:58 How Will Future Humanity See Us? 53:08 Trump & Social Media Censorship 1:00:56 University Deplatforming 1:03:16 Lived Experience & Truth 1:06:19 Free Speech Under Biden 1:13:20 Where to Find Andrew - Listen to all episodes online. Search "Modern Wisdom" on any Podcast App or click here: iTunes: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/modern-wisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: [email protected]

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Andrew Doyle?

  It is the foundation of all of our freedoms. There can be no other freedoms. Any progress that has ever been made in terms of the advancement of personal liberty and social liberty has come through the exercise of free speech.

• 0:14Chris Williamson?

  What is free speech? Is it the same as being able to say anything without repercussions?

• 0:20Andrew Doyle?

  It depends what you mean by repercussions. So if by repercussions you mean that the state can arrest you and lock you up or fine you, or you can be harassed, threatened, intimidated, pushed out of your job, then no, those are not acceptable repercussions in a liberal society. But if you mean by repercussions, criticism, ridicule, that kind of thing, in other words, more speech in response to your speech, even protest in response to your speech, then of course you have absolutely no right, because when people protest against your form of speech, they're exercising their own free speech. That is absolutely fine as well. Yeah. I think it's actually quite simple this point, but this is a point that is missed all the time. It's really straightforward. In a liberal system, a liberal society, and this is something that has been completely overlooked, anyone should be able to say whatever they want.

• 1:06Andrew Doyle?

  And then people are able to say what they want in turn in response. And that's how that's how it should work. So when you hear particularly writers for The Guardian talking about how the thing is when people talk about free speech, what they really mean is they want consequence-free speech. For a start, no one has ever said that. I mean, literally, no one has ever said that. So this is an incredible, it's not even so much of a straw man. It's too insubstantial even to be made of straw. There's literally nobody who comes close.

• 1:33Chris Williamson?

  It's the invisible man, yeah.

• 1:34Andrew Doyle?

  It's invisible man. Like, no one, no one has ever said that, that they want the right to say whatever they want without someone criticizing them back. No one's ever said that. And if they have, then they're deranged and they're, we're talking about a fringe group of people. So that has to be put to rest, that overt lie. So no, free speech is the right to say whatever you want and for people to say whatever they want back to you.

• 1:57Chris Williamson?

  Why does it matter?

• 1:59Andrew Doyle?

  Because it is the bedrock of a liberal democracy. It is the foundation of all of our freedoms. There can be no other freedoms. Any progress that has ever been made in terms of the advancement of personal liberty and social liberty has come through the exercise of free speech, of saying what you want, expressing your thoughts. It is the route to personal autonomy. If you can't express what you feel about something, then you cannot develop. We cannot innovate without free speech. There can be no innovation. There has never been innovation without the freedom to say what you want and particularly to say controversial things. That's how innovation happens. You can't reason without speech because the very act of reason is typically a collaborative effort. The way that we evolve and learn is through discussion with other people and expressing

• 2:44Andrew Doyle?

  ideas and getting it wrong and making mistakes. All of that is part of it. So it is the linchpin of absolutely everything that we value if we value freedom. And that's why it is alarming to me that people are so cavalier about it. I mean, you hear a lot of people online, when they want, free speech skeptics, I call them, you know, when they call it freeze peach, you know, that really original pun. And they sometimes have an image of a peach frozen in an ice cube. They say, oh, look at you with your freeze peach. For starters, the most unimaginative, I mean, you know, they should be banned just for criminal unoriginality, right? But they say this stuff. But to be so cavalier about such a foundational principle is actually pretty damn disturbing.

• 3:28Andrew Doyle?

  It's like they don't care and they don't realise that they are themselves dependent on their right to free speech in order to behave like dickheads. They need to have that right too. So, you know, people shouldn't be so cavalier about it.

• 3:43Chris Williamson?

  Doesn't free speech allow those dickheads to cause harm and offence though? And other dickheads as well?

• 3:47Andrew Doyle?

  Yeah, that's the point. They can. I'm not here suggesting, again, this would be the interpretation, wouldn't it? Oh, you've just mocked people who use the phrase freeze peach and therefore you're trying to shut them down, aren't you? You're trying to silence them, you're trying to censor them. No. Criticism is not the same as censorship. I often think that people who mistake the two must be doing so willfully. They have to be. I mean, how else could they? You know, everyone knows this. So I often get that as well. Like if I, when I've mocked things in the past, people have said to me, oh, why are you having to go there? I thought you, I thought you cared about free speech. I always get this all the time. It's like, yeah, I'm exercising my free speech to criticize what they said. That's kind of how it works and they can do it back to me. That's fine. It's okay.

• 4:28Andrew Doyle?

  I, I think one of the reasons I wrote the book is fundamentally, there are so many misconceptions around, around free speech that, so many basic misconceptions, you know, that, that really people should have learnt about a long time ago and, and you're always having to fend them off. And I, I'd just like to put those things to rest. And I think, I think people need to have a, a, a, a sort of more sensible conception of what is meant by, by the concept of free speech. And so most of the arguments around this topic are dealing with straw men and they're dealing with misconceptions. And so if you can just get beyond all that detritus, then we can have a discussion about the actual issues because there are some very difficult issues surrounding the topic.

• 5:11Andrew Doyle?

  But we're not going to get anywhere if people don't know what free speech means. And so that's one of the reasons I wanted to.

• 5:17Chris Williamson?

  I, I learned about ethics and meta ethics from a buddy who's at Oxford Uni. And I'd never learned this before. And what he told me was that if you have two people trying to debate ethics who disagree on meta ethics, the ethical discussion actually breaks down because the underlying principles that they're coming to the table holding don't support any sort of discussion on top of that. And it seems like you're trying to sort of do this here. Like, look, this is the battleground that we're supposedly playing on. We can now have a conversation, any kind of, either productive or unproductive, but at least we can have a conversation because we know the rules of the game.

• 5:52Andrew Doyle?

  It's exactly right. And actually, I've been wrestling with this issue for a while now is is how do you argue against those who are incapable of argument? This is really hard because I'm all for I think we need more discussion, not less. I think we need me. I think one of the major problems that I think I've said it to you before, one of the major problems that we face at the moment is people aren't talking to each other, people from opposing political ideas, they're not they're not sitting down and talking to each other. So I'm all for doing that, and I will always do that. But if someone comes into the room and wants to talk, but they're not going to use play by the rules, right? In other words, they're going to just throw insults. In other words, they're going to start guessing what they think you believe. Right? Which is something they always do. They're going to misrepresent your perspective. In other words, they're just arguing with a version of themselves that they've created.

• 6:33Andrew Doyle?

  If they're going to do that, then that's that's bad faith. You can't you can't actually argue with someone like that. And I think I think it's really important when it comes to argument. That, yes, you make an effort, you may go out of your way to talk to people who disagree with you. But if they are unwilling or incapable of argumentation, then don't bother and block them. I seriously mean, I think I think and you might say, well, you're creating an echo chamber. Well, look, someone comes in and says, there are thirty two letters in the alphabet. Let's debate. Well, I'm not going to debate that person because, you know, it's clearly not the case. And if they absolutely refuse to accept the basic premise. You can't go it. You just can't go any further than that. I had this the other day where someone on Twitter was on at me saying, um.

• 7:15Andrew Doyle?

  Nobody, oh, you know, saying everyone in this country just accepts that, uh, or just uses they all the time as a singular pronoun, right? We'd already passed the point of, you know, where you do it if you don't know this, the gender of the person. Uh, and that's something that's a colloquial form of the term they. But the idea that the vast majority of people do not understand they as a plural pronoun is simply not true. And the only way you would think that that is the case is if you don't know people. Or if you're being willfully obtuse in order to to to win the argument. So therefore, I'm not going to debate that person. You have to accept certain premises in order to to move on. And one of them is is just knowing how to argue.

• 7:51Chris Williamson?

  Why is it mostly people on the right who seem to be promoting freedom of speech? Like, we rarely hear the left complain about lacking free speech.

• 8:01Andrew Doyle?

  Well, the opposite was true when I was a child. So this is, this is something that I think shows us that it's not a partisan issue. You know, when I was a kid, there used to be, I mean, you're too young, but there were things like the Daily Mail and the Daily Express, I think, tried to, had a campaign to try and ban David Cronenberg's film Crash. There were all sorts of campaigns every now and then, whenever there was, I mean, go back even before my time, there were campaigns against things like The Last Temptation of Christ, the Scorsese film, or Last Tango in Paris. So there's always these sort of censorious kind of campaigns going on and say that we should ban artistic expression of one form or another. But it was always coming from the right when I was a kid. It was always, I mean, you just associate, I mean, then if you

• 8:44Andrew Doyle?

  think of Mary Whitehouse, who was the famous campaigner who did the cleanup TV campaign back in the the 60s and 70s, and then the Video Nasties campaign in the 80s, you know, in the 80s, they banned films like Driller Killer and Evil Dead was banned. You know, the Sam Raimi film? That was, that was banned by the, by the Video Nasties scandal. And all of this was coming from the right. This was just the way that, because, because conservatives traditionally have a sort of, I suppose, a kind of old fashioned view of decorum and that kind of thing. And they, and, but they all bought into this myth, which was very much Mary Whitehouse's thing, that popular entertainment has the capacity to corrupt the masses. And it was, it was a kind of very snobbish idea that basically suggested that poor people were like robots who

• 9:27Andrew Doyle?

  just do what they, you know, they just see stuff and they react. Okay. That exact philosophy and idea is now predominantly expressed by those on the left. It's a weird shift. It's difficult to determine when exactly it happened, but you'll notice they're all, all calls for sort of artistic censorship or criticism, which is saying, well, why hasn't this film got more diversity or representation? Or why, why has, why is this film sending a negative message about women or a negative message about, about gay people or whatever it might be? And when, of course, the role of art, it has absolutely nothing to do with messages or morality necessarily. Not, not that art can't have a moral message if it wants to. But it always puts me off when it does. I find it quite revolutive as a form. But, you know, this is now coming always from The Guardian, always from the New States,

• 10:12Andrew Doyle?

  but always from the leftist publication. This is just where it is now. This very haughty puritanical approach, this pearl clutching would be the phrase. It's a very good phrase, isn't it? Because you really imagine people go, you know, very camp, very kind of, oh, this person said this rude, disgusting thing. It's just shifted, and it will no doubt shift back again, you know. And then you get it from the right, even now. You do. You get it when certain creative people do something that is considered offensive, and you'll get that. And that will always happen. It's just a strange phenomenon that at the moment, the ones who would seek to shut down forms of expression tend to be on the left. And of course, that is largely down to the

• 10:55Andrew Doyle?

  new social justice movement, which mistrusts, at its heart, mistrusts speech and sees speech as violence and conflates the two things. And pretty much everyone within that camp, I mean, there are disagreements along the way, but pretty much everyone is of the view that language has the capacity to normalize behaviour and that people do follow these mechanical cues, these mechanical linguistic cues. And ultimately, that's down to a mistrust of humanity, and particularly a mistrust of working class people. That's what you'll find, which is why they often go after working class comics, because it's the audiences that are dangerous. They won't go after a middle class comic talking about various things because, you know, they're a better educated audience. They understand what they do. You know, there is a deep

• 11:39Chris Williamson?

  Very patronising, isn't it? This sort of odd paternalistic, like, kind of overbearing, like nanny, like neo nanny state in a really bizarre way.

• 11:52Andrew Doyle?

  There was an article, When the Dapper Laughs. You remember the Dapper Laughs controversy?

• 11:56Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, is he still around?

• 11:58Andrew Doyle?

  I have absolutely no idea, but they succeeded in having his TV show booted off, I think it was ITV2. And there was a really alarmist, ludicrous article online talking about how his show was a rapist's almanac, they used. I don't think they used that word right, correctly. But it was absolutely insane. And actually, the whole article was hilarious because he'd obviously gone through his thesaurus and just tried to sound as learned as possible, but actually by doing so came across as incredibly unlettered. But when he wrote this article, and people, but it wasn't just that he wrote the, I mean, you can have some maniacs writing articles about this sort of stuff. But so many people bought into it and even comedians I know signed this open letter saying we should have this banned.

• 12:40Andrew Doyle?

  It was a weird moment, although I have to say, some of those who I know who did that now regret it. But of course, the idea, it was really because Dapper Laughs' audience were working class. And this idea that they would watch him picking up girls and being, being a cheeky lad or whatever. I mean, look, it's not to my taste. I don't, I don't even know what it was. I watched a bit of it and I thought, it's not for me, you know. But, but I don't think for a second that some working class guys are going to watch it and think, all right, I've got permission now to go out and commit some sexual assault. Incredible, incredible. This, this, it is just patronizing, isn't it? It is just a fear of, of, of people who aren't like you. It's, it's, because believe it or not, it doesn't matter what class you come from. Everyone knows the difference between a joke and real life.

• 13:25Andrew Doyle?

  And even if it were an outright instruction to behave badly, people don't, people do have agency. They do make decisions, you know. They, they don't just do things because someone tells them. But this is a belief that you can't, actually, we can't get over because it's so ingrained now. It's everywhere, you know, it comes down to even in Parliament, when Boris Johnson was using the metaphor of the surrender bill. And you had all these Labour MPs saying that your language is normalizing violence. People are going to hear you using military metaphors. Well, political, political language is full of military metaphors. Conflict, we, we go on to fight. We need strength. All of this sort of stuff, but it's interpreted as incitement, right? Well, again, this is based on a very patronizing view of, of humanity. It's not true.

• 14:05Chris Williamson?

  Did you see Miley Cyrus drop herself in it with her preference remarks showing underlying transphobia?

• 14:13Andrew Doyle?

  I didn't. Why don't you fill me in on that one? I'm not up on my Miley Cyrus gossip.

• 14:17Chris Williamson?

  Well, let me tell you, this is in out.com by May Rood. Not sure if that's a real name.

• 14:23Andrew Doyle?

  So this is, this is the gay press?

• 14:25Chris Williamson?

  Is out.com the gay press?

• 14:28Andrew Doyle?

  It will. Well, it sounds a bit gay.

• 14:30Chris Williamson?

  That's, only you can say that. Miley Cyrus is making waves with new comments about her sexuality. In a new interview, she not only says that she prefers women to men, but also attempts to explain why. Girls are way hotter, we know this, the 28-year-old bisexual said in an interview with Sirius XM's Barstool Radio. Everyone, I think, can agree that from ancient times, dicks make wonderful sculptures. Other than that, I'm not as interested. I like dicks as art pieces and sculptural. I love the shape. I think it looks really good on a table. The singer continued, "It's good if I can just get it in and go away, because I don't want it eyeing me up. That's how I truly feel. I really feel good about saying that." She dug in even deeper, adding, "Everyone knows that tits are prettier than balls.

• 15:12Chris Williamson?

  That's what ended up making female relationships make more sense to me." And then this cuts back to May Rood. "I wish that I could say this news makes me excited and proud to be a woman and a lesbian, but Cyrus's quote is littered with transphobia. This kind of gender essentialism was left behind by most of the queer community years ago. Genitals do not equal gender, and Miley should know this." And then it just keeps on going, in an age where TERFs are more vocal than ever, people like Miley believe that genitals determine gender. Trans women and girls are often considered to be in public spaces. Trans women should be kicked, blah, blah, blah. This isn't the first time she's gotten in hot water. She seemed to imply that being gay is a choice. I don't think that Miley meant to traffic in TERF talking points, but the fact is she did and should know better.

• 15:55Chris Williamson?

  The stakes are too high for someone with as big of a spotlight on her as accidentally spreading this sort of rhetoric. Miley, I love you, but I'm going to need you to make this right. And I'm sure that Miley Cyrus really took that to heart.

• 16:07Andrew Doyle?

  I'm sure the incredible entitlement of that kind of article is insufferable, isn't it? And it's, um... Not only actually did I read that, I tweeted about it. So when I said I hadn't heard of it, it's because I read this stuff every day.

• 16:20Chris Williamson?

  It could have been anyone talking about anything.

• 16:24Andrew Doyle?

  I mean, the idea that if you find breasts more attractive than a scrotum, that is a turf viewpoint. You know, that phrase is just ludicrous anyway, turf.

• 16:37Andrew Doyle?

  That it is in some way transphobic. You see this all the time. Genital preferences are transphobic. No, they're not. They're obviously not. But I shouldn't have to say that. It's obviously not the case. That is true. I mean, and also the idea, listen to what she said in the article. The queer community left this behind years ago. Most gay people have genital preferences. Sorry to break this to you. The vast majority, you've clearly never been on a cruising ground. I tell you what, because it is very, very much about the genitals. And don't you tell me that suddenly people are blind. They're blind to what is in the underwear department. They don't care. Are you kidding? Go on, grinder.

• 17:12Chris Williamson?

  That's all. That's all they care about.

• 17:15Andrew Doyle?

  Pretty much.

• 17:16Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. I mean, the funny, the funny thing that I saw there was it was like the, we talk about grievance hierarchies, right? It was like the hierarchy of different things that she'd done. So I kind of had it in my head. I could imagine this kind of like quite haughty foreman working, like looking over a building site. And he's like looking, he goes, feminism, women, yeah, check. Lesbian, yeah, women, check. Oh, we're looking good here, mate. Oh, you haven't, you haven't quite got it right. You didn't quite get it right on the transphobia, did you? I'm gonna have to, I'll give you, I'll give you a B minus and you're gonna hand this in at reception and we'll see if we can get you back next week. You know what I mean? You're like, it's some sort of calling card.

• 17:55Andrew Doyle?

  I mean, for one thing, like, it's such a shame we even have to discuss, like, the article sounds banal, doesn't it? It sounds, why do I care what Miley Cyrus thinks about tits? I don't care about that. It's so, it's really not interesting. I can pretty much guarantee I've got no interest in anything she's got to say. But that is, that really, that really takes a bit. So why am I even having to talk about this? Well, it's because journalists are picking through, sifting through everything that people say and trying to find some way to turn it into an offensive comment. How boring. What a boring existence this person must have. And, you know.

• 18:28Chris Williamson?

  Did you see Jordan Peterson's interview with Decca Aitkenhead from the Times and then the subsequent write-up?

• 18:34Andrew Doyle?

  Yeah.

• 18:35Chris Williamson?

  What were your thoughts on that?

• 18:37Andrew Doyle?

  I didn't see it all, to be fair. So I saw Michaela's response to it. And I mean, it was quite of, I mean, but the snapshots I heard, because I heard some of the recording, and I could tell that this was a hit piece, even before reading the final, I could tell that the, there was, there was something about the smugness of the tone and the kind of combative nature of the interview that you knew that this person had already decided in advance what they thought about this situation. They were going to say what they thought about it. And then, having read what, what actually happened, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's a hit piece. That's what it is. It's, it's someone who is not going in in good faith. And I think it's, it's the wrong way to go about an interview. If you're going, if you're, if you're serious

• 19:18Andrew Doyle?

  about being an interviewer, you need to sort of coax out some truths about that person, or get, or get them to reveal some things about themselves. Not use it as an opportunity to smear someone. And particularly with someone like Jordan Peterson, who, let's face it, has probably been mischaracterized more than anyone else, except for perhaps J.K. Rowling. The two of them are right up there as people who've, you know, when you see the level of vitriol against them, and the accusations that are thrown against them, you know, particularly with Jordan Peterson, who is someone who isn't even really that political. All of this stuff is weird, because you read, it bears no resemblance to reality. And this is what I'm talking about when I say about arguing people who are capable of argumentation. Someone who is willing to just completely

• 20:01Andrew Doyle?

  mischaracterize, and not provide evidence for their mischaracterizations. You can't talk to that person. It's like talking to a madman. There's no point in debating someone who's, who's, who's literally in, in, in living in their own reverie, their own vision of what the world, they would like the world to be. And that's unfortunately where you are with someone like that. I've been in discussions with people online about J.K. Rowling, talking about all the transphobic things she said. And whenever I said, can you quote me something transphobic she said, they never can. And the fact that they never can- Look at Jordan Peterson, same thing. Same thing, right, exactly. Precisely the same thing. Well, in a sense, it's worse because you have, you have, most of his old lectures are online.

• 20:43Andrew Doyle?

  So you have a verifiable record of a man whose opposition to tyranny in all its forms, including Nazism, could not be better documented. So the idea that then you can then say, oh, he's supportive of Nazis. It's, it's, it's so, it's not even something you can debate because it is just so fundamentally the opposite of the truth. There's no point in getting involved in that, you know. So it is infuriating, but that's the point which you have to say, no, well, I'm stepping back from this conversation. This isn't someone, this, the, the problem is that so many of these people who are, who are living in this hallucination of, of, of a society, of a world are pretty prominent commentators and interviewers for various major newspapers.

• 21:28Andrew Doyle?

  So it's, it's, it's, it's frustrating because you have to, I suppose what I'm saying in short is the adults just need to start talking to each other and let the kids, you know, have their little tantrums and let them get on with it. But the adults need to talk to each other.

• 21:43Chris Williamson?

  I mean, you think with someone like Dekker Aikenhead, who's like lead, invest, interview reporter or whatever for the Times, you think that she would have been one of the adults.

• 21:52Andrew Doyle?

  I don't know much, to be fair, I don't know much about her, but I think I'm perfectly prepared to concede because of my lack of knowledge of her work, that she is actually a very sensible, intelligent journalist. And on this occasion, she allowed her passion to overwhelm her reason. I mean, that is a conflict that, that lives in the heart of all of us and we're all likely to, to fall prey to it if, if we have a, a particular bugbear about something or if we are, if we have, I mean, all of us at any given time have false perceptions of the world. The key is never to lose sight of your objectivity. And I think, but it, but, but it is undoubtedly, undoubtedly the case that in that particular interview, she didn't behave in a professional way and let herself down. And the result was a poor piece of journalism.

• 22:37Chris Williamson?

  Well, I mean, is the interesting thing now, talking about freedom of speech, not that she is permitted to write that swath of unrepresentative, maligned, very preconceived ideas about a man who 15 minutes into the interview has to take a break to go and cry. In 15 minutes in, breaks down, talking about how other people have been positively affected by his work. And the only reason that we're even given any notion of that is that Michaela had the foresight to actually record the call. So that they can then put it up to the seat, do you know what I mean?

• 23:16Andrew Doyle?

  Yeah, didn't she say something in the interview about how he's not in touch with his emotions or he doesn't have any emotion? There was something in there relating to, it was, it was, yeah, it was, it was obviously, well, that's the thing about Peterson in particular as well. He's, he's obviously not a confrontational, combative person.

• 23:32Chris Williamson?

  No.

• 23:33Andrew Doyle?

  Right? He really isn't. And this, this view of him as someone who's, who's in it for the fight and gets sort of gets off on, on the fight is, is, is palpably not true. And everyone I know who knows it's not true.

• 23:45Chris Williamson?

  Look at what he's saying during the very, very first set. He breaks the fourth wall. He obviously thinks, at least stepping in, that this Decker lady is on side in one form or another. And I'm going to guess that having been through the sort of hell of all of the rehab and the trips around the world and all that stuff that he's had to do. They'll have filtered this very, very, very carefully to think, right, are we going to be okay? Is this the sort of thing that dad's up to? It's obviously going to be worthwhile. It's the times, it's reputable, it's blah, blah, blah. He's got the new book coming out and he breaks the fourth wall early on in that and says,

• 24:19Chris Williamson?

  I, every time that I have one of these combative interviews, I have to take a rest afterwards almost. I feel sort of physically drained once it happens. So he's saying to her, look, like, I know that you're sort of not a part of that. And then slowly over time, obviously that hope just gets chipped away. Yeah, man, I mean, like, Michaela's a good mate. And I, I really feel like that family just, like, if anyone's had enough, like, really, after the last year.

• 24:47Andrew Doyle?

  The problem is that, that because so much of, of. I hate thinking in terms of sides, but I think I just see so much evidence of of those who are, you know, completely enamored of this social justice ideology. They're very quick to dehumanize people. They're very quick to demonize. I mean, they, to the extent that they don't care if people die and will gloat if someone dies who doesn't agree with them. And that, that, to me, is an inhuman way. You've lost your humanity as soon as you start doing that. You're not really a human being in any serious sense in terms of your emotional capacity. You're like, you've made yourself, you've made yourself ironically into the, the, the sort of a version of the person you're projecting onto these other people.

• 25:32Andrew Doyle?

  And, and that is very sad. And I think the cruelty of someone who can see someone who's obviously been through serious medical problems, and yet you want to kick them when they're down is, it is actually unfathomable to me.

• 25:45Chris Williamson?

  I can't imagine, I can't imagine ever getting myself into the sort of place, ever, ever, where that would be the sort of thing. Man, like that type of journalism, that sort of like, very, I don't know, like if you, if, if Piers Morgan lost 50 IQ points and was 20 years ago, like that's the sort of, that's still kind of like playing the heel, but with absolutely no charm to it, with no sort of goodwill. That's the sort of person, I don't know what Decca Aitkenhead looks like, but I imagine that it's kind of like a younger Piers Morgan with a wig and like a little bit more frumpy.

• 26:21Andrew Doyle?

  I don't know what she looks, I, I thought she was older, though. I thought she was more established. I don't know, to be fair, but I suppose what I think it is, is, yeah, I mean, it depresses me when I think about the way in which people allow themselves to become these monsters, which is what, you know, unless you have empathy, empathy's got to be the bottom line. Unless you, unless you. And I think because identity, politics has become so tied to identity now, that it means that if someone is challenging a worldview, instead of welcoming that, I mean, you should, you should welcome it. And instead of welcoming it, you see that person as a kind of, as someone who is the embodiment of evil, someone who is therefore threatening your

• 27:05Andrew Doyle?

  identity, who you are, and committing violence simply by disagreeing with you, then it's very easy to get yourself in a situation where you can, you can see that person as less than human and expendable. And, and that is really at the heart of cancel culture, isn't it? This idea that we, you know, if we could just get rid of these people who think differently than us. Because, well, something that Peterson himself talks about is the way in which, when you are challenged, it feels painful. It's a kind of, if you have to change your mind and you get this shock of awakening, and it's a difficult process to be open minded, to be a free thinker, to challenge yourself and be challenged by others. All of that is really difficult. But rather than accept that actually this is a positive form of growth, you know,

• 27:46Andrew Doyle?

  that, that kind of, those mini form of destructions are a positive thing for yourself as an individual, is to get rid of and eliminate any possibility that it could happen. It's tied up with the whole idea of the safe space culture, the idea of not being challenged and not being exposed to ideas that might make you uncomfortable. What they mean by uncomfortable is challenge you, make you a better person, make you a more interesting and well-rounded person. We have to, in a sense, start from scratch. All of this stuff has, you know, it means the universities, schools, everything's got to basically start from scratch again. Because at the moment, we are in this, you know, this wilderness of tigers where, where there's no sensible discussions going on. Everyone's out to hurt each other. No one's wanting to listen. They're just having

• 28:31Andrew Doyle?

  their own individual scraps with imaginary enemies. It can't go on forever.

• 28:38Andrew Doyle?

  Does cancel culture exist?

• 28:41Andrew Doyle?

  It's incredible to me that anyone would deny that it exists when the evidence is so overwhelming for it. I've been in conversations with people about this online and there's a couple of threads online which have hundreds and hundreds of examples of people who've lost their jobs out of for something they've said at work or something that's, you know, of course it exists. I mean, quite obviously, I think, you know, the main complaint of saying, well, no one's been cancelled. Again, that's someone taking a metaphor literally. No one's saying that anyone is literally being cancelled. Cancel culture is a shorthand metaphor for a form, a method whereby when you hear something that offends you, upsets you, typically something quite innocuous or relatively inconsequential. In other words, part of cancel culture is an

• 29:22Andrew Doyle?

  overreaction, right? So you go in all guns blazing and you don't stop until that person has lost everything, their livelihood, their job, their reputation. Absolutely, it's all got to go because there can be no redemption, there can be no forgiveness. And this happens again and again. And the examples of it are so numerous that it is impossible to deny with a straight face that it doesn't exist. And yet people do. You know, it's for this, it's the same reason. I mean, you know, people hate to say it again, but writers for The Guardian will continually say cancel culture doesn't exist because they are its chief practitioners. You know, remember, this is a publication that when Suzanne Moore wrote that article, which they all disliked, most of the staff wrote a letter of complaint to try and get her booted out. And then it's the same people who will say that cancel culture doesn't exist.

• 30:03Andrew Doyle?

  Well, this is hardly surprising because the culture war is largely engineered and motored by people like the people who work at The Guardian. It's their culture war. This is the identitarian left's culture war. But they are the same people who will say the culture war is a right wing myth. But they're the antagonists. It's nuts.

• 30:19Chris Williamson?

  But J K Rowling said loads of stuff. She hasn't been cancelled. Why is she not been cancelled?

• 30:24Andrew Doyle?

  Well, you know the answer to that, Chris. Let's say she's a billionaire and as we all know, cancel culture overwhelmingly affects poorer people.

• 30:35Andrew Doyle?

  And this is the other major myth about it, you know, if you're a celebrity, put someone in the public eye who is financially secure, it's very difficult to cancel, you know, you can't cancel JK Rowling, she's the richest, richest author in the world. You can however, cancel Gillian Phillip, who's the Scottish author who tweeted in support of JK Rowling. So she lost her publisher and she lost her agent, that can happen, because she's, she's expendable. You can't, no publisher in their right mind would get rid of JK Rowling. So no, she cannot be cancelled. But that does not justify that the venomous misogynistic abuse she gets on a daily basis. I mean, that's still on a human level, just morally unforgivable. However, she, she isn't subject to cancel culture, I will accept, I will accept that. And the ones who are subject to cancel culture are normally people who don't have the means to stick up for themselves, who don't have the financial resources to

• 31:19Andrew Doyle?

  do so, who are intimidated because they go into work and suddenly they're facing a tribunal because someone overheard something they said and, and, and misinterpreted, misinterpreted it. This isn't about someone who's gone into work and starts shouting about faggots and puffs and, and how they should all be killed and stuff. That's the way it's portrayed. No, it's someone who made a joke that someone's misinterpreted as being homophobic because it hurt their feelings. And so they went and that, you know, it's a different thing. And it may not even have been about gay people at all. Right? It's the, the key aspects of cancel culture is that the slight is actually often very small. Right? And also, it's, it's possible. I mean, there's, a lot of people now are talking about how we should, we should not have call out culture, we should have call in culture. And actually, it sounds

• 32:01Andrew Doyle?

  a bit tacky, but there's something in that. Insofar as if you're in the workplace and someone says something that upsets you or offends you, you call in, you go over to them and say, look, what you said bothered me a bit, can we ever talk about it? And you, and you resolve your things that way. Calling out would be screenshot the email, put it online, let everyone know that this person is evil and should be fired and hounded. And that's quite a good distinction to make, because that's what we used to do. I mean, I, I've had disputes at work, you know, I used to be a teacher, I used to work in a call centre, I've had disputes with people, and I've took them to one side and said, can we discuss this? And sometimes

• 32:35Andrew Doyle?

  Been right and sometimes I've been right, but you get, you reach a resolution because we're human beings, we can deal with conflict and there's no such thing as a human relationship that doesn't, that is devoid of conflict. Um, but if, if my initial reaction was always, I want to see that person fall. I want to publicly shame that person. I want them to suffer. That's not, that's not justice, that's revenge. And I think that that's what, that's what is at the heart of this. And then what we mean by cancel culture is this general propensity to seek vengeance for a perceived slight that may or may not have been a slight in the first place. It may have been just the way that you perceived it. That's what cancel culture is and it happens all the time. So we need to again, go back to what I said, start from scratch. The idea, things we shouldn't accept, uh, that the culture war is a right

• 33:19Andrew Doyle?

  wing myth, uh, that cancel culture does not exist, uh, that anyone is calling for, uh, free speech without any kind of consequences or criticism. None of those things are at all true and yet they are stated as though they are true. And this comes back to a very important problem that we face. And they gave us a word for it, didn't they? The word is gaslighting. That so many people on the identitarian left loved gaslight. They were loved. They will happily say to you, this is a thing that is happening when it is not happening. Or this is a thing that's not happening when it plainly is happening. They would just deny observable, observable reality, uh, and they will keep denying of observable reality so that you start to doubt your insanity. That's what gaslighting means comes from the film Gaslight, you know, where the guy is constantly lowering the lights

• 34:02Andrew Doyle?

  and his wife's saying, why is it getting so dim in here? And he's saying, it's not, it's just you. You know, so that's what they, that's what they do. And yet again, they accuse others of gaslighting because that's what they do.

• 34:13Chris Williamson?

  How far do you think we are from thoughts being a crime? Like, is there a significant philosophical or symbolic difference between thinking a thing in your head and making the noises of that thing with your mouth?

• 34:26Andrew Doyle?

  Well, everyone should, uh, has a responsibility to think carefully about the things they say and they, they should.

• 34:31Chris Williamson?

  But do we have to think carefully about the things we think?

• 34:34Andrew Doyle?

  No, you can't. Nobody can afford to express their every unfiltered view. That's why we have a we have a filter, you know, we, I mean, how could that be? Our minds are very complex things. We are continually wrestling with difficult ideas and everyone has thoughts that they would not express. But that's the, that's the point of socialization. That's why children sometimes say the most awful things, you know,

• 35:02Chris Williamson?

  Hilarious things, yeah.

• 35:03Andrew Doyle?

  They just come out with it and they say sometimes really offensive and upsetting things because they don't have that filter and they don't have that sense of social responsibility. And that's something that we learn when we're socialized. The idea of criminalizing someone's thoughts. I mean, of course, it's horrific and it's the stuff of dystopia. That's why dystopian writers such as Philip K. Dick always wrote about that kind of thing. Whether it's actually happening, is that your question? Whether, how far are we from it?

• 35:24Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, just the, so the, the interesting thing that I've found is that certain groups of people would sooner have a lying ally than a truthful opponent. So they would rather someone make the mouth noises that they don't believe. And essentially be unreliable, like they don't know what that person's going to do. They're evidently not being themselves, or even if they don't, they're perhaps making themselves willfully ignorant of their deception.

• 35:49Andrew Doyle?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:49Chris Williamson?

  Rather than someone who maybe isn't an actual opponent, maybe they're just slightly adjacent to them, or maybe they're not fully on board, but is being wholly themselves and is being completely truthful. And that to me, I find that fascinating. How someone is prepared to take deception as long as it's deception on my side.

• 36:08Andrew Doyle?

  Oh, well, I think though, the view that deception is preferable to the truth. I mean, this is thing that they call preference falsification is when you, you say what you think is the, the, the most popular view, not what you actually think. The thing that you're meant to say, that, that, that's the phrase. It was, it was coined by an economist and I'm, I'm gutted, I can't remember his name, but you can look it up, preference falsification is very important. Because

• 36:33Andrew Doyle?

  I remember talking to someone who'd been on Question Time and they, oh wait, oh no, I'm misremembering. Someone who knew someone had been on a Question Time panel. And they said that they'd had this discussion with all the politicians and the journalists. And then afterwards in the green room, they'd all sort of said, did you really think that? No, I don't think that. And they all agreed that they actually thought the opposite. But they knew that they had to give the, that to say the right thing now.

• 36:52Chris Williamson?

  Performative sort of conversation, yeah.

• 36:54Andrew Doyle?

  That's a fairly standard thing in politics. I mean, you know, politicians are always having to toe a certain party line. The, the problem is that now, like you say, um, there were all things that we're expected to say, even if we don't believe them. And I would urge everyone never to say something you don't believe. I think, I think it's self-destructive to speak, knowing falsehoods is, is really self-destructive. Not only that, it means you don't know anyone, people don't know each other. I would rather know what people actually think. But I think the reason why particularly the social justice left would rather they lived in a world of liars. Firstly, I think it's because a lot of them are liars themselves and they, they are willing to be colluding.

• 37:30Chris Williamson?

  They're like they're in good company.

• 37:32Andrew Doyle?

  Well, I guess it's just a kind of sense of the means always justify the ends. I think that's really what, what, what it's about. But also I think additionally to that, it's about this idea that there, it's about their belief that language creates reality. It's that postmodern belief or that, that everything that happens in the world is down to the words that are expressed. And as a result of that, if you have opinions that are, shall we say objectionable, and those opinions are articulated, then they're out, they've escaped like a, like a poison from a lab. You know, they're like, like, like a virus. And therefore what happens is that changes society and poisons and infects society. And I think they genuinely believe that, as opposed to the truth of it, which is the opposite of that,

• 38:13Andrew Doyle?

  which is that if you hear objectionable ideas out loud, you are able to engage with them and explain why they are wrong or expose the people who are expressing it, all the other things that, which is how progress works. It's why we got over slavery in the 19th century through discussion and debate and people wrangling with these then very difficult issues, but issues now that everyone, there's a complete consensus on, right? You don't reach that consensus without discussion. When, when I hear of people attempting to criminalize, particularly with the trans debate, trying to attempt to criminalize the language that people use, misgendering, that kind of thing, or compelling speech as Canada is now doing. When I hear that, I think you have learnt nothing from civil rights movements. You've learnt nothing.

• 38:57Andrew Doyle?

  The gay rights movement never did this. They never suggested we should criminalise people who used words about gay people in a certain way or didn't accept gay equality. We never had that. We had debate protest and we even had ridicule and we had discussion and persuasion. Above all, we had persuasion. And it worked. Now, you won't find many people who are against equal rights for gay people. The ones, the residual elements tend to be very religious, in fact. So, again, you reach it. You reach, progress is achieved through open discussion and progress is stymied when people misrepresent their own thoughts for fear of the tyranny of the collective,

• 39:39Andrew Doyle?

  of what you call peer pressure.

• 39:45Chris Williamson?

  Where does the N-word fit into free speech? Recently, we've had this 67-year-old New York Times writer, Donald McNeil, fired for referring to the N-word. Isn't it weird that if he was a rapper and he'd said that, he'd have been fine?

• 39:58Andrew Doyle?

  Was the context of that, that he was quoting? I believe there was a recent example of someone quoting.

• 40:03Chris Williamson?

  Referring to something else, yeah. So, I guess he's one level removed from saying it.

• 40:09Andrew Doyle?

  Yeah. Well, I think the truth is, we all acknowledge that when I say that words and violence are two different things, I'm not saying that words don't have power or indeed that words don't have baggage. And when you have a word that is so associated with the evils of slavery and certainly a word that is favoured by racists, there's no getting around that, then obviously, this is why I say about, you know, people should think before they speak because they should think not just about what they are saying, but how it is received. That's why clarity is always important. So, having acknowledged that, then you have to talk about the intention of why the word is being uttered. If you're quoting from a text, if you're teaching of Mice and Men by Steinbeck,

• 40:53Andrew Doyle?

  in which the word occurs frequently, if you're teaching Huckleberry Finn, although of course a lot of people aren't now because they say it's a racist book because it contains the word. Well, context is absolutely everything. You couldn't, the book, let's take Mark Twain, let's take Huckleberry Finn, right? The book wouldn't work. If that word was not there, because the work is a satire against, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a book which is pro racial equality. It is against those people, those hypocrites. But you'll notice that the hypocrites in that novel are the adults who believe that they are Christian and good and righteous. And yet they endorse slavery and it takes a child to see through the evil of slavery. Right? That's the point.

• 41:33Andrew Doyle?

  And, and that doesn't work if you sanitize the reality of what life was like for someone like Jim, for a character like Jim, right? It doesn't work. So to say that the book is racist, simply because of the presence of a, of a word that many people find offensive, is to completely divorce, firstly, it's a complete misinterpretation of what the text is about. But it's also to empower a certain word with this undue weight. And say that the word in of itself is an evil word. Well, that's, that's almost talismanic. That's almost, that's almost, that almost invested with the kind of significance. Words are all about intent because they're, they're, they're how we express our ideas about the world. That, that isn't, I think we should be very wary of an overreaction.

• 42:13Andrew Doyle?

  However, having said that, and, and for all my urging people to, to speak with care and to not go out of their way to hurt other people's feelings. If, if you've decided that you want to use the word for whatever reason, that's up to you. It is not for me. If I heard that someone, someone using that word or any kind of racial slur authentically from a place of racial hatred, then I would know that's not the sort of person I want to associate with. And I will remove myself from that situation pretty quickly, or I will say something. You know, if I feel like, if I feel I'm not going to get beaten to a pulp, I would probably say something to that person. I would complain.

• 42:49Andrew Doyle?

  But if it's someone in a classroom quoting a poem, I didn't it happen when someone was quoting James Baldwin? An academic was quoting.

• 42:55Chris Williamson?

  The best, the best example I've heard was a teacher teaching Chinese.

• 43:02Chris Williamson?

  To Americans and there is a word in Chinese that sounds like the N word.

• 43:07Andrew Doyle?

  Right.

• 43:07Chris Williamson?

  He's trying, he's trying to teach them it phonetically. It sounds like that. I think it's maybe like CG or two Cs instead, but it's, it's close enough. Also, I mean, even just the fact, I get it. That, that word is loaded with baggage and I have nightmares about accidentally saying it sometimes on a live stream or something. Not that it's a word that I don't think, I can't remember using because I'm so terrified that if it gets into my lexicon somehow that it might just sneak out at a really inopportune time.

• 43:39Andrew Doyle?

  You're not a rap fan. You're not a fan of rap.

• 43:40Chris Williamson?

  No, well, that's the thing. That's the other really fascinating thing that if you're a rapper of any, any racial dissent, you can say it. If you're a rapper, you're allowed to say that word as many times as you want. If you're Cardi B, it can be the majority of one of your songs.

• 43:58Andrew Doyle?

  Yeah, but again, there's context to that. There's context to the, the genre.

• 44:02Chris Williamson?

  But there was no context to Donald McNeil referring to it on a bus.

• 44:07Andrew Doyle?

  That's my point. It's always got to be about, it's always got to be about context. But this is why I say the, the bottom line should be anyone should be able to, to say what they choose to say. That's it. And if they say something that's offensive and, and even horrible, then, then you, you, then we have a decision to either criticize them back or to remove ourselves from that situation. That, that's the way it's got to be, you know?

• 44:29Chris Williamson?

  I mean, Donald, Donald McNeil was allowed to say it. It wasn't like someone, someone came in with a big set of jaw clamps or something and was like, no, you're not allowed to finish the second syllable of that word.

• 44:40Andrew Doyle?

  Yeah. What we shouldn't stand for is, is then this, this decision that he's a racist. Because although I'm not familiar with the case, from what you've described, it's someone quoting, he's clearly not a racist. In fact, it was probably an anti-racist point.

• 44:53Chris Williamson?

  So there's some, there's some accusations of other things that he said on the trip. And if they're true, that kind of reframes this, but it doesn't really seem like there's as much evidence. And then you think, well, it kind of feels like that's being thrown in after the fact. It's just, it's so messy. We have so little truth. We have so little truth.

• 45:11Andrew Doyle?

  I don't know, because I don't know about the specifics of the case. Let's, let's take the example of a teacher who is teaching James Baldwin and uses the word because the word is in the text. Right, we should not stand for anyone accusing that person of racism. It doesn't make sense. There's absolutely, because if you're going to accuse someone of racism, you're going to have to have more, you have to have more evidence than he's just quoted a text. It's not enough, right? It's outrageous. In fact, I think he would be probably in derision of his duty as a teacher if he didn't, if he didn't quote accurately. Right? And often in order to make a, a, a, a point, even in opposition to racism, like I say with the Mark Twain example, the book doesn't work without, in other words, a book about racism, which is critical of racism, won't work if there's no depiction of racism in it.

• 45:55Andrew Doyle?

  Is it? It's just not going to work, right? And these people have no idea about art. I remember reading, um, there was a feminist book called Cunt.

• 46:06Andrew Doyle?

  Is that funny? That's all right.

• 46:08Chris Williamson?

  Just, I love that sentence. There was, there was, there was a feminist book called Cunt.

• 46:13Andrew Doyle?

  Yeah, back in the eighties, I think it was, and the subtitle was A Declaration of Independence. And I read this book at the, or not in the eighties because I was a child, I read it in the nineties. And there was a moment in the book where I, I just flinched because it was talking about how feminists should go and watch films at the cinema like Thelma and Louise. And when there's a rape scene, they should stand up and scream at the screen. Shut this down. This is disgusting. How dare, right? In other words, any depiction of rape is an endorsement of rape and creates rape in society, right? And I remember reading that thinking, no one thinks this. This is extreme, extreme stuff.

• 46:56Andrew Doyle?

  No, and I knew a lot of feminists and none of them would have gone along with this. They'd be like, well, that's just stupid. That's just thick. Because there's a difference between endorsing rape and depicting it on screen. Because actually, when you're depicting it on screen, more often than not, you want it to look bad because it's a bad thing.

• 47:10Chris Williamson?

  Tends to not glorify it, yeah.

• 47:12Andrew Doyle?

  Quite, quite. But now that idea is mainstream. That's the norm. You see something depicted in a film. Who was that? There was one critic saying, we need to call out David Lynch for his violence against women. He's not violent against women. He's depicted violence against certain women. He's also depicted violence against a lot of men, probably more. But that's not what you notice, is it? And and this idea that artistic representation is the same as the thing. I it it blows my mind because what it it's someone who is so politicized, they don't understand art. They don't get what art is. They don't get that it's the word art means artifice. It is a false representation. It is not the actual thing. That's what art is, right? You know, if you take a scene like the scene, the rape scene in Irreversible, which I can't watch, to be honest, I watched it once and I.

• 47:56Andrew Doyle?

  I I I could I could never watch it again. It's so brutal, so vicious. Um, it's an extended, it's about a 10 minute scene of the camera doesn't move and it watches this rape in an alleyway. And it is unbelievably upsetting, but it's meant to be. That's the point. You know, it's not saying. Look how exciting this is. It's saying, look how fucking horrible this is. And that that's the point. And it. It doesn't, it doesn't do well actually to represent horrible things as though they're okay. And as though they're just, you can just get on with it, right? It's not, it's not, you know, it's it's. You know, and it's it's this incredible misunderstanding. So when I read that book, I remember thinking, well, no one's ever going to get on board with that. This is and and I can't believe.

• 48:38Andrew Doyle?

  That that idea has won out. I can't believe it, that now that is, that is the way most not, maybe I'm. Having my mind skewed because I just read The Guardian all the time, but. A lot of people in power think that now. They think that artistic representation, representation in film. Uh, needs to send a positive message. Uh, it's it it blows my mind.

• 48:59Chris Williamson?

  You've got this quote in the book that I really liked. It says, history does not look fondly on the hubris of those who appoint themselves as arbiters of permissible speech and thought. Their authority is only ever contingent on the wisdom of their time. Would you reckon that future humans are going to look back on this time and think?

• 49:16Andrew Doyle?

  It will be fascinating. I think I have absolutely no doubt that this this will be a weird blip in human history, right? I mean, I feel like I mean, I'm living it. And I'm also very aware that, of course, we never know how future generations will perceive. But my God, it feels weird enough being in it.

• 49:37Chris Williamson?

  With all of the context and all of the upbringing and all of the understanding.

• 49:41Andrew Doyle?

  I read the article today about how people men need to stop wearing ties because it's a phallic symbol of white supremacy. And you just think, well, you know, that's become normal to me now. I see that sort of thing every day. It shouldn't, by the way, that should always be like, what the hell is this kind of moment? Who's reading this rubbish? Mainstream newspapers, Guardian again. And we're living it. It's everywhere. I think ultimately, in a hundred years' time, people will look, they will they will see it as a pocket of hysteria. This was a moment of hysteria that that people lived through, where everyone just started denying reality. Everyone just started saying the ACLU started putting

• 50:21Andrew Doyle?

  posts out saying there is no advantage whatsoever to being born biologically male when it comes to sport. That just simply doesn't exist. Just statements of untruth. And they call them facts. Do you notice that? I don't know if you saw that thread?

• 50:34Chris Williamson?

  No.

• 50:34Andrew Doyle?

  They call them facts. Oh, the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties, which has basically become a an identitarian activist group now, put out a list of facts debunked with debunking the myths. And one of the myths they debunked was the idea that there is any biological difference between men and women whatsoever. That's a myth that they're just debunking via Twitter. So well done. But you see, I think historians will look at that and say, okay, so there were all these people saying observable falsehoods and stating them with such self assurance as though they were fact. Well, religious zealots, in other words. And and this was not only did this happen, but governments and businesses and corporations

• 51:18Andrew Doyle?

  and HR departments and the police and schools and teachers and universities echoed these same falsehoods. And everyone colluded and pretended that they were real, except for the majority of people who were standing there saying, what what's going on? None of this is real. Why? Why are you creating this fantasy land that we have to occupy? But that's what happened. But the powerful people sustained the illusion for this length of time until suddenly a thing called democracy won out.

• 51:46Chris Williamson?

  Until the Doyle, until the Doyle Party finally took over and rose, rose to prominence, bearing, bearing their pitchforks and their rocket grenade launches.

• 51:56Andrew Doyle?

  Idea that I would ever go into politics. I've, I've had a number of people suggest it to me. I, I never, no, no, no, not at all. Why don't you start one?

• 52:04Chris Williamson?

  No.

• 52:05Andrew Doyle?

  The Chris Williams' party.

• 52:06Chris Williamson?

  Mate, I've, I've done far too many party drugs to be able to ever. But in fact, actually, that might be what gets me in. Maybe that's, maybe that is my routine. Maybe.

• 52:14Andrew Doyle?

  It's allowed. I think it's allowed these days, isn't it? Because most of the major politicians have admitted to some sort of drug use over the past.

• 52:20Chris Williamson?

  Fair enough. So that might be it.

• 52:21Andrew Doyle?

  Hey, I mean, I, I couldn't do it because I was a stand-up comedian. Still am. Notice I use past tense then. It's because I've been locked down.

• 52:28Chris Williamson?

  Pre-COVID, I used to be a stand-up comedian.

• 52:31Andrew Doyle?

  But you, well, there are no stand-up comedians at the moment, are there? But if you, um, if, you know, you could go through my old sets and take a quote out of context, and you could do that with any comedian, you know, and you know what politicians, they get such scrutiny over absolutely everything they've ever said. But that's not the real reason I wouldn't do it. The real reason I wouldn't do it is because I couldn't do the lying thing. I couldn't, you know, if you're a part, a member of a party, you have to follow the party line on certain issues. And I couldn't be in that position of not saying what I thought. I can't do that.

• 52:59Chris Williamson?

  I'm a terrible liar, like absolutely awful. And many of my ex-girlfriends will attest to that as well. You notice I said ex as well there. What are your thoughts on Trump being removed from Twitter? Like, is that a freedom of speech issue?

• 53:13Andrew Doyle?

  So the, the question of big tech censorship, I suppose, is, well, firstly, we have to bring the argument up to date. So when you talk about how a lot of people will say censorship is just the, the prerogative of the state, it's something the state does, that's an argument that's completely out of date, about 20 years out of date. The big tech companies operate this oligopoly. They, they have, they dominate the predominant, I mean, the predominant public forum, the predominant means of communication. They have more collective power. Than any nation state, but they have none of the democratic accountability that comes with it. We have to accept that they are in a unique position. If you're going to say to me that it is it is fine for them to determine the parameters of acceptable

• 53:56Andrew Doyle?

  speech, when they not only do they own all of the major platforms of speech, they will shut down any competition in its nascent form, as we saw with Parley. So they'll say, go and set up your own platform. Someone does, they shut it down, right? So this is not, you know, this is the reason why we have antitrust laws. We have it for a reason. You know, when when certain small groups of companies dominate a market, there are measures put in place to address that. I don't see why it should be any different with big tech. I think the when it comes to Donald Trump specifically, it is terrifies me actually that that these unelected billionaires can decide whether we get to hear from an elected

• 54:41Andrew Doyle?

  president, the leader of the free world. That's a terrifying thing. And last people that should be cheering on the power of multi-billion dollar corporations is anyone who is authentically on the left, because to be on the left means that you don't support those people, by the way. Sorry, this is sort of leftism 101. Read a book about this stuff. It's not difficult. You know, it's it's absolutely nuts that this would be the case. That no leftist thinker going back beyond 20, because leftism has become dominated by identity politics now. None of these people are really left wing. But but go back, you know, even not even that long ago, and people would have laughed out loud. You went to a socialist meeting back in the 80s and said, yeah, we need Google to, and Google

• 55:21Andrew Doyle?

  didn't exist, but the equivalent of Google to to stand up for our to to look after us, basically to be our parent.

• 55:28Chris Williamson?

  Do you think do you think that he would have been removed if he was still going to be president for four years?

• 55:34Andrew Doyle?

  Well, I always thought they were going to actually wait until he was out. And I knew they were going to nuke his account, but I thought they were going to do it like the day after he was out. I think that it just goes to show how brave they're becoming. I mean, they now believe that they are more powerful than the president. They believe they're more powerful than politicians. Now, look, it's a straightforward thing. And you'll always hear the, oh, well, it's a private company, they can do what they want. Argument, okay, well, you know, that while that is technically true, they absolutely can. I suppose they could also decide to not allow gay people on their platform if they want. I think they should face robust criticism if they decide to do that. And similarly, they should face robust criticism when they are editorializing on completely partisan lines. Let's face it, that's exactly what they are doing.

• 56:16Andrew Doyle?

  So they do need to face not just criticism, there needs to be more than that. And I think the way you do it is they frankly, because they are now behaving like publishers, they should not have legal protections. That's all it is. If they're going to be publishers, then like every other publisher, like every other media outlet or newspaper, they are responsible for the words that appear on their platform. End of story. Because every time Twitter gets sued for a libelous thing that's there, they say, well, we're not a publisher. We're a platform, we're not responsible for what we put out. Well, just change that, change rules, change section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. And the way you could change it, because obviously, you know, that act was set up because of the proliferation of comment sections on news sites.

• 56:56Andrew Doyle?

  It's unreasonable to expect anyone to be responsible for everything they fail to remove in a comment section. That's really unreasonable, right? So you need to have those protections. So why not just change that law so that they're not, that they're responsible, so that it doesn't count for illegal content, say? So in other words, they can't be held responsible for, or libelous, libelous or illegal content. Rather than giving them license, as it currently does, the way it's phrased, they have the license to remove anything that they just disagree with or offends them, right? No, I think as soon as you're removing content because you politically disagree or because it offends your personal sensibilities, as happens all the time on Facebook and Twitter, then you are most definitely a publisher, you're editorializing, end of story.

• 57:40Andrew Doyle?

  So I think that's the point at which. We need to have some changes to the law, you know. So by all means, if Twitter wants to say, look, we're a private company, we're opposed to free speech and we will only allow these opinions, you can't have these other opinions, which is effectively what it does anyway now, you know. For instance, gender critical feminists are routinely booted off because Twitter just doesn't agree with them, right? Well, if you want that kind of platform, then say what you are. Just say what you are and be honest and open about it. Don't pretend that you're for free speech, which they're not.

• 58:14Chris Williamson?

  Do you reckon Trump will run in 2024?

• 58:17Andrew Doyle?

  I mean, I hate predicting the future because I always get it wrong.

• 58:19Chris Williamson?

  No, you always get it right, mate. Every time, the only, the only thing that you've ever predicted on this show that you got wrong, I think, was, oh no, you actually, you said that Biden was going to win as well. Yeah, so you did.

• 58:31Andrew Doyle?

  No, but I, I think, no, I'm, I'm happy to predict, but I'm no mothershippton. I'm, I'm.

• 58:36Chris Williamson?

  Cassandra over here.

• 58:39Andrew Doyle?

  Look, I think, no, I wouldn't have thought so. I wouldn't have thought so.

• 58:45Andrew Doyle?

  I mean, I could elaborate on that, but I just, I just don't, I don't, I don't think he's got the necessary support now within the Republican Party. So I just don't think he would get the nomination, but who knows? Who knows?

• 58:55Chris Williamson?

  My inclination as two Englishmen talking about American politics, which this channel gets, gets criticised for an absolute lot.

• 59:02Andrew Doyle?

  Yeah, I think American followers get really annoyed by this, don't they?

• 59:05Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, they hate it. Well, I mean, I put a video up with Carl Benjamin, the YouTuber formerly known as Sargon of Akkad the other day, talking about AOC and someone commented, someone commented and said, why are you two Brits always talking about American politics? And I was like, well, it's because it's far more interesting than ours. Like the closest thing that we have to AOC is Diane Abbott.

• 59:23Andrew Doyle?

  I mean, you're, you're very close to the whole stay in your lane argument there, aren't you? It's just, so we're not allowed to take any interest in world politics. That's ridiculous. And what's the harm? You know, maybe we get it wrong. That's all right. Maybe, maybe we get it completely wrong, but so what?

• 59:36Chris Williamson?

  Can't vote for it in any case. The, my favourite, my favourite thing that I've heard around this social media freedom of speech thing is freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom of reach. It's like, because it rhymes, somehow it's got, it's yet somehow it's got more veracity to it.

• 59:53Andrew Doyle?

  Yeah, it's either rhyming or repeating. Repetition's the other one. Have you seen the UN women? The UN women account keeps putting out these tweets that are just... What was the one they did the other day? "There is no wrong way to be a woman. There is no wrong way to be a woman." There were eight times. It's like, well, I wasn't convinced by the third time. By the fifth, I was being persuaded. And then by the eighth, I'm like, oh, yeah, man, you've nailed it. You know, if persuasive rhetorical documents from the history, all they were were just repeating the same sentence over and over again until they wore you down into submission. I mean, that's Jack Nicholson in The Shining. That's not a serious argument. That's "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." You know, it's insane.

• 1:00:31Chris Williamson?

  It's either that or the clap emojis, isn't it? If you put the clap emojis in between each of the words, that's hard hitting.

• 1:00:39Andrew Doyle?

  All the full stop after every word.

• 1:00:42Chris Williamson?

  Serious, very, very, very serious.

• 1:00:45Andrew Doyle?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:46Chris Williamson?

  One thing that's interesting...

• 1:00:48Andrew Doyle?

  That can never... Go on, sorry.

• 1:00:50Chris Williamson?

  One thing that's interesting...

• 1:00:51Andrew Doyle?

  No, I was just gonna say...

• 1:00:53Chris Williamson?

  We are on some hell of a time delay, I think, here between me and you. It's not an issue at the moment because no one can leave the house. But why shouldn't people protest against speakers that they don't like?

• 1:01:05Andrew Doyle?

  Uh, they should. I don't have a problem with that.

• 1:01:09Chris Williamson?

  Why shouldn't they petition to get them removed from the university? Or the campus or the wherever.

• 1:01:16Andrew Doyle?

  The problem I haven't got a problem with protest at all. I think protest is a sign of a healthy democracy and you should be able to protest whatever you like. My problem is people capitulating to protest that are clearly asinine, right? So if I, for instance, say, "I don't want this speaker on campus because he eats meat and I'm a vegetarian." And it will therefore normalize the killing of pigs, right? If I say something as ludicrous as that, I would expect the university authorities to say, "Okay, you're free to have that opinion, but shut up now because we're not gonna listen to it. We're not interested. But, you know, go and have your protest, whatever." But it's the demands, it's the threats. It's when protests literally prevent people from speaking, as in they sound fire alarms

• 1:01:58Andrew Doyle?

  or they prevent the event going ahead, or they threaten, therefore the cost of security become prohibitive. These are, that's where you are preventing someone else from speaking and that's the distinction. I don't have a problem with anyone protesting at all.

• 1:02:13Chris Williamson?

  I think the sort of protests I had in mind was when, was it Steve Bannon went to Oxford to speak and there was essentially like a human wall of people in front of the entrance that stopped.

• 1:02:24Andrew Doyle?

  Like I said, the distinction is clear. Peaceful protest, I'm all for. Any form of protest that turns violent, I oppose, no matter who is doing it and for what reason. And any measures that prevent other people from making their own informed choice. Right? So if you, in other words, because what you're doing is if you form a wall to prevent people actually, to prevent the event taking place, you are acting in loco parentis. You are deciding on behalf of your peers what they can and cannot hear. That's not for you to do.

• 1:02:53Chris Williamson?

  What's loco parentis mean?

• 1:02:54Andrew Doyle?

  In loco parentis, in place of a parent. It's a Poncy way of saying that. But basically, you know, that's what I, that I think is, that's when you are threatening free speech, you know, and that's when you are acting like an authoritarian, because what you're saying is my particular view of the world is the only one that matters. And that's the opposite of a liberal democracy and what it stands for.

• 1:03:17Chris Williamson?

  I've got my favorite passage from the book and I'm going to read it out here. "In an age when lived experience is often valued more than objective truth, the core tenants of liberalism, due process and free speech are bound to be at risk. Lived experience is what we used to call anecdotal evidence, a fallacious form of reasoning that has misled many into believing that ours is an essentially oppressive society, overrun by fascists and undergirded by white supremacy. Needless to say, those who's lived experience tell them that this worldview bears little resemblance to reality are quickly discounted. It would seem that lived experience only matters if it is of the approved sort." Good, good words, Andrew.

• 1:04:00Andrew Doyle?

  Oh, thank you, thank you, Chris. Because that is something that troubles me and it's something that I've already gone into with you before about, about,

• 1:04:09Andrew Doyle?

  you know, firstly, the inherent contradictions of the movement. So if you're going to say that objective truth doesn't matter and all that matters is people's lived experience and perception, in other words, then you're going to have to take on board everyone's perception, aren't you? Or what you're really doing is you're saying that, no, what I meant was people whose perception agrees with mine. And then it's a different thing, isn't it? So there's the inherent contradiction within it. But also the idea that we can just discount objective truth. Well, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's so opposed to basic enlightenment values of reason and scientific inquiry. It's, it's, it's absolutely nuts. I mean, yeah, there are people who will say that homeopathy objectively works because I had some of that course and I got better. But you see that we don't make these sweeping statements on the basis of that, do we?

• 1:04:52Andrew Doyle?

  Because that's not a sufficient study, that it worked for you. Right, that's not, that's not, that's not sufficient, is it? What was the Darren Brown show where he did the, the horse racing, The System? Have you seen that one?

• 1:05:04Chris Williamson?

  No.

• 1:05:05Andrew Doyle?

  You should watch it. So it's an hour long show called The System where he basically,

• 1:05:10Andrew Doyle?

  he shows you this process by which he, he picks a member of the public and he feeds them the information of which horse is going to win a race. And he does it five or six times and it works every time. Impossible, right? And then he shows you how he did it. And I won't tell you how he did it. But it's a similar, it's a similar thing because all we're seeing is her experience of winning every time. And we're not seeing what's actually happening, which is a much bigger picture that you might even be able to guess from what I've just said. Because we cannot, honestly, watch it, it's great. We cannot, we cannot base our perception, our conclusions about reality on our experience of reality. Okay, because if we do that, chaos reigns, as the fox said in Antichrist. You know, we, we, sorry, that's a bit of a niche reference. I just love that film. You've seen the film, Antichrist?

• 1:05:55Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:56Andrew Doyle?

  Is it the last one, Triv? You know the bit where the fox speaks and says chaos reigns? It's so chilling. I love it. Anyway.

• 1:06:04Andrew Doyle?

  Where was I? Sorry, I'm getting confused.

• 1:06:05Chris Williamson?

  You just, I love every time that you're on, for some reason, we seem to have like really apocalyptic references. I think I first ever introduced you as like Twitter cracking and crumbling beneath your feet as you, as we started the episode. It's always so apocalyptic. Under, um, under a Biden administration, do you think that it's better or worse for free speech? What's your predictions there? Or what's your, what's your sense? I know that you don't like making predictions.

• 1:06:33Andrew Doyle?

  I think it's worse. I think it is worse. So this is the, uh, I mean, Trump had his blind spots on free speech, which we should never be, he was not very good on press freedom. For instance, I think if he, if he could have had his way, he would have been quite happy to shut down his critics and muzzle his critics. I don't think there can be any doubt about that. I think the risk with Biden is that he, you know, I mean, I remember having a lot of discussions before the election and a lot of people who are voting Biden was sort of saying, well, you know, these fears that he's going to be a woke person. He was voted in because he's the non-woke candidate, right? That's why we don't have, we don't have Elizabeth Warren in the White House because, because wokeness doesn't win votes. Let's face it, you know? Uh, this is why Kamala Harris had

• 1:07:15Andrew Doyle?

  to drop out the primaries so early because she, she just wasn't popular. Um, and so, you know, all, and then, and then a lot of people would say to me, you know, well, that, that it's a, it's a false fear. But then within two days, a number of the executive orders are specifically woke executive orders. And you think, oh, hang on a minute, this is a bad thing. Wokeness and, and the opposition to freedom of speech go hand in hand. Uh, they just do because, because as I've said of this belief in, uh, the, uh, power of language to, to form reality. And that's really what it's about. Uh, so I don't think, firstly, also, I don't think Biden and his administration have any appetite to address the problems of big tech censorship, uh, because big tech is on their

• 1:07:58Andrew Doyle?

  At the moment, you know, it's very myopic because if you go into the, you know, they should be thinking long term here. They don't want to set these kind of precedents. So there's that. There's also a movement, as you know, in America to have the First Amendment changed, amend the amendment so that hate speech is not protected speech. But of course, hate speech is a formulation. It's just, as I say in the book, it's a kind of fudge to deal with or to suggest that speech that you don't like is not subject to constitutional protection. That's all that that is. So which is why I argue in the book was to be one of the arguments I imagine is going to get me in a bit of trouble is that I think all hate speech laws ought to be repealed and that there is no place for hate

• 1:08:39Andrew Doyle?

  speech laws on any statute books in a liberal democracy. And I think under Biden and his administration, the problem of hate speech is going to get worse, as it seems to be in this country a little bit. You've got the Law Commission pushing now for further hate speech regulation, when what they should be doing is dialing existing legislation back and they're going the other way. The SNP, of course, in Scotland, under Hamza Yousaf, the Justice Secretary, who as far as I can see is a kind of maniac, who thinks that you should prosecute people in their own homes for things that they say. I mean, this is properly authoritarian stuff. Like even a lot of people on the left are like, oh, hang on a minute, this is too much, you know, this is, it's scary stuff.

• 1:09:18Andrew Doyle?

  And the problem is, we need to, I was talking to a politician about this the other day. We need to find a way for politicians to be brave enough just to stand up and say, because it sounds like you're saying, I want everyone to be able to be hateful. I want everyone to say hateful things. And you're not saying that. You're talking about a much bigger picture about free speech and about the fact that the state has no place of deciding what its citizens can and cannot say, because that way tyranny lies. So it's going to take a brave politician. It's always, it always takes a degree of courage to defend free speech because what you're doing is you're Defending the rights of unpleasant people to say unpleasant things as as a corollary of what you're doing inevitably because speech that isn't controversial doesn't require protection.

• 1:10:03Andrew Doyle?

  So it's difficult. And that's why I emphasised in the book that if you're defending someone who is saying something that's utterly reprehensible, you should also make the point, just strategically, just make the point that you don't agree with what they're saying and you find it reprehensible. Be clear, because otherwise people will use it against you. They'll do it anyway, by the way. You know, I mean, like, it doesn't matter what you say, because people will just put words into your mouth. That seems to be the norm now. People will just decide what you secretly think, you know. You saw this, God, Owen Jones tweeted the other day that he was saying that the reason why GB News is so popular can be explained because everyone who supports it has this fear of of is a reactionary who has a fear of progress. So what you've done is you've just decided what's going on in the minds of all these millions of people about a programme that doesn't even exist yet, that you've also just decided what it's about.

• 1:10:46Andrew Doyle?

  It's this insane degree of entitlement. I think it's I think it's demented. I mean, the idea that you you you think you know what's going on in anyone's heads is is is is, you know, on the face of it absurd, but to just casually diagnose millions of people with your cod psychology over Twitter. I can't imagine being that entitled, that narcissistic, for God's sake. You know, just before I'd sent tweet, I'd be like, I'd be thinking, oh, should I should I say, should I be advertising the fact that I think I'm better than everyone else and can decide on their behalf what they're secretly thinking? Should I tweet that? Or should I have a little bit of fucking humility? Well, not everyone has that.

• 1:11:27Chris Williamson?

  The thing that I can't get out of my head is I I don't meet people like Owen Jones or anybody else. I don't meet a decorated head. I don't meet these sorts of people that say these sorts of things, despite having met an awful lot of people, but Newcastle seems to filter out the maniacs in in quite a good way. No one wants to come this far. Yeah, I think, I don't know what it is.

• 1:11:47Andrew Doyle?

  You have your own kind of maniacs, though.

• 1:11:49Chris Williamson?

  That's correct. Yeah, that is very true. And the thing that I always think, I always excuse it away in my own head by saying it's just for clout, because now things that are sort of inflammatory and cause response, they garner momentum and.

• 1:12:06Chris Williamson?

  That this, I know that that can't be true. I'm that's the best faith like potential that their words can have is that they're just using them and they don't believe them. Because if they believe them, this is a whole new magnitude of ridiculous foolishness.

• 1:12:22Andrew Doyle?

  What you're doing there is you're trying to make sense of the inexplicable and that that's an understandable instinct.

• 1:12:26Chris Williamson?

  It's a noble pursuit, right?

• 1:12:28Andrew Doyle?

  It is noble and you're also giving them the benefit of the doubt, weirdly, by suggesting that they're maybe being disingenuous. You're saying they can't be as maniacal as they seem. So that's actually quite a positive thing that you're doing there. But unfortunately, I, you know, I, on the other hand, do like to take people at face value and I, and I, I, I believe that people mean what they say unless proven otherwise. So I'm going to assume that they, they do believe this and that is a scarier world you're in there. I mean, that is, that is, that is a frightening place. Although I do notice that in conversation, such people rarely say things that are that unhinged. They, they, they tend to reserve them for, for Twitter or, you know, so I don't know what that tells us. But I, you

• 1:13:11Andrew Doyle?

  know, I hope you're right. I hope, I hope it is just a game and that they don't seriously believe what they say.

• 1:13:16Chris Williamson?

  I hope so too. Free speech and why it matters will be linked in the show notes below. Have you got anything else? Is there anything else happening in the world of Andrew Doyle at the moment?

• 1:13:25Andrew Doyle?

  Well, just, I'm, you know, because it's lockdown, I go for walks every day through fields and, you know, I don't know how to use Instagram. I don't know if I've said this, I don't know how to use it. So I just post pictures of what I see on my walks and they're normally sheep. And it occurred to me the other day that I think people think I've got a fetish because I just post pictures of sheep on Instagram. And it's not, so if anyone does follow me on Instagram, that's not the reason. It's just that I don't know how to use it. I don't know how to reply or do anything on Instagram. And if I'm out in a field and there's a sheep, I'll take a picture of the sheep because I quite like sheep. So don't get the wrong idea if you, if that's all I'd say.

• 1:13:56Chris Williamson?

  Cool. So new book, new book out and a caveat around the sort of images that people can expect to see on your Instagram. Those are the two main announcements that we've got.

• 1:14:05Andrew Doyle?

  Well, I'm not doing anything else because I'm stuck at home. So I'm only writing or walking and there is nothing else to do. So I wish I had more exciting, exciting news.

• 1:14:15Chris Williamson?

  That's, that to me is a wonderful way to finish an episode. Andrew, it's always a pleasure to have you on, mate. I hope that we get to see each other again properly at some point, but for now we'll continue doing this over the internet.

• 1:14:24Andrew Doyle?

  Thanks, Chris.

• 1:14:39Speaker 02

  Mr. President, my company tore me of the explosion on our rig on October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me. Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess. And Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 1:14:56Speaker 03

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You're stalled, you're freezing there, that's what.

• 1:15:00Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:15:03Speaker 03

  I'm not the first then.

• 1:15:05Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.