Hello everybody, welcome to this week's podcast. It's Paul Speaking here. And I'm all alone this week. I don't have Glenn with me. Unfortunately, one of our team members at Xpeat Life tested positive for COVID-19 just yesterday. And so we've had to close down the office and we're all in isolation. We're all doing well. Glenn is feeling a bit under the weather, but it looks like it might be something else. The symptoms don't line up with COVID. But a number of us have had a couple of tests. The rest of us are isolating away. So we've no confirmation that anyone else has it at the moment, but we do really appreciate your prayers. Our team member, Max, who's tested positive, is doing absolutely fine, but of course, keep him in your prayers as well. And yeah, we hopefully will be able to get back to normal as of next week. When we'll have finished our time of isolation. That does mean, of course, that we haven't really got any uh a new uh live cast or podcast for you this week, but we have got uh the interview that Glenn did with Douglas Murray. Some of you may have seen that we are uh currently at the beginning of a new series that we're running called Reset, which is a series uh delving into Genesis chapters 1 to 4, and uh discussing, you know, do these chapters still have anything to say to us now here in the 21st century? And as part of that, there's going to be seven episodes coming out as videos, a couple before Christmas and a few after as well, um, which kind of examine different topics. Uh, but as part of that as well, we've been interviewing 15 different thinkers um on some of these issues, and those people include Christians and non-Christians. Uh, we've got people like uh Dr. John Lennox, we've had Catherine Burbel Singh, who is described as uh Britain's strictest headteacher, and we've had historian Tom Holland. I know Glenn has interviewed people like Mirislav Wolf and Malcolm Geit, and those ones are all kind of in the pipeline, or some of them are still in the pipeline. You can st you can already hear Tom Holland and Catherine Burble Singh out on YouTube if you've not got that already. Um but one of the people he's spoken to is Douglas Murray, and so this week is our podcast. We're uh giving you the audio of that interview, uh, which you'll be able to check out uh in a minute. But do get over to YouTube if you're not subscribed to us already, and check out the other videos, and do uh subscribe and hit that bell so uh you can find out when the rest of these reset videos come out. It's gonna be a really great series. Uh the interviews that are out already are full of brilliant material. Um, it's incredible what uh people who who are atheists uh actually have to contribute to this discussion and things that can really make us think uh as Christians as well. A couple of other things just to keep you abreast of. We're heading towards Christmas. I know it's it's uh it's coming quickly, um, and it seems bizarre because the other day it seemed like it was March and we were at the beginning of this whole thing, but it is on top of this, it will be coming soon. Um, and as always, we are putting together a Christmas video. Um, so last year you may have seen that we did a uh a short um poem, kind of word-based video about uh the coming, which is a poem by R. S. Thomas. Um and it had this kind of uh finish of let me go there. That was kind of the big um thing at the end of that poem. And this year we're kind of picking up on that. Glenn had an idea for uh an animation uh using uh that um that idea, and that's in development as we speak. So we really value prayer for that as well. We've got an animator working on it as we speak, um, and he's actually giving his time around other work, so um, it's a big job for him. So please pray for fruitfulness. But we know, you know, these Christmas videos are always enjoyed by people. Um we we really hope they'll be able to be shared out so they can be encouragement to Christians as well as non-Christians who may see them as well. Uh, you know, we know that this year things are going to be quite different. I imagine most churches aren't going to be having their big uh carol services and getting, you know, maybe the hundreds, maybe even thousands of people through the door that you wouldn't you wouldn't see the rest of the year. So we wanna we want to pray that this video would be something that we can share as Christians widely on social media and reach people. You know, we think back to things like Meet the Nativity a couple of years ago, which really captured people's imaginations. So um do be looking out for that um as we reach kind of December time, but please be praying for that um in the uh upcoming months as well. And as always, we we can only really keep doing this because of support from people like you. So uh we really value that, we value your prayers, but we also value your financial support. And if there's any way you could support uh our work at all, we'd um we'd be really thankful. And you can do that by heading over to speaklife.org.uk forward slash give, and you can find a couple of different ways there you can give towards our work and support what we're doing, and we'd be incredibly grateful for that. Uh but uh without further ado, I will leave you with Glenn and Douglas Murray, and uh it's a great interview, so enjoy and hopefully we'll see you again next week. Take care. Bye.
SPEAKER_03I mean there are an awful lot of things that you can point to in society at present uh that have a God-shaped hull.
SPEAKER_01Reset is about going back to the beginning, back to our ancient origin story of Genesis, to see whether that text still speaks to us today. We're talking to Christians and non-Christians, to biblical commentators as well as cultural commentators to figure out what that ancient text means. In this series, we'll be talking to people like Douglas Murray, like Tom Holland, like Professor John Lennox, Professor Rupert Sheldrake, uh, Professor Miroslav Wolf. We're talking to many different people, both inside the faith and outside the faith. And we want to learn whether we can hit Reset, whether there's anything to be learnt by going back to the beginning. Today on Reset, it is our great pleasure to be speaking to Douglas Murray. Douglas is the author of many books, including The Strange Death of Europe and the Madness of Crowds, and he joins me on the line now. Uh Douglas Murray, thank you so much for joining us. It's a huge pleasure to be with you. Thank you. Well, um, your book, Madness of Crowds, I read it back in 2019, and uh I found it uh blistering and hilarious and sobering. Um and the book seems to orbit around, or at least it describes movements that orbit around some fairly sacred values. Things like equality, diversity, inclusion. Um let's let's steal man that position and and let's to begin with um talk about the glory of equality, diversity, inclusion, and and where do you think those ideas have come from?
SPEAKER_03Uh well, my own view is that they consist of, among other things, um a spillage from Christianity, we might say an afterglow from Christianity. Um it's it does hardly need to be said, although perhaps it does these days, that uh most uh civilizations and uh theories and moralities throughout history uh do not consist of any particular respect for the individual, uh any particular respect for differences between individuals, uh let alone the celebration of that difference being actually the guiding light uh of such a principle. Um so I yes, I in the spirit of what T. E. Hulmer famously described uh Romanticism as being, I I alter his famous saying and say that the social justice movements, uh searching for equalities and all this, is a form of spilt Christianity. Um I mean, I'm not the first person to have made this point, obviously quite a lot of others have, including a number of radical theologians, and some see that as being um a good thing. Uh I mean I'm uh particularly struck by uh uh a theologian who made a lot of impact in the eighties, I think it's rather less so in the decades since, but Don Cupett, the radical theologian from Cambridge, actually by the the 90s was saying that actually is the precise purpose of Christianity to become this. Um so so that is uh it it it seems, I mean we could go into more depth, but it seems to be clearly the the origin uh philosophy from which uh these movements come. It's it's it's got other things added in, but that's that's the main one. Uh essentially uh uh uh all of the all of the fa all all of the the easier, nicer aspects of Christianity without any of the hard bits. And um and I think that what is fascinating about this moment that we're living through is that it seems to me that it is one of those periods historically where you are moving from one metaphysical system to another, right? And not very many people seem to be aware that that is what is going on. Right. Uh and it seems to me, just just a a further thought on that, which is that it seems to me that the handover from uh uh a Christian metaphysic to a human rights uh-based sort of metaphysic is is rather similar. It actually happens around the same time as the handover of the Anglosphere uh or the the uh the the British uh um dominance in the world to American dominance. What I mean by that is that in geostrategic terms it's quite o quite often said that the remarkable thing about the 20th century is that Britain effectively hands over to America and it's the most seamless move seamless such mass movement in strategic history. Uh almost never does it does one great power get replaced by another great power without an even greater conflagration. And I see the handover of a qu effectively a Christian metaphysic to this metaphysics of human rights as being that uh like that. A lot of people didn't realize it was going on as it was going on. There are people left around regretting it, there are people left around fighting for it not to be the case. Um but it it feels like that is that is in historical terms what what we are living through at the moment.
SPEAKER_01So you talk about one metaphysical system to another. I mean, interestingly, the the very first quotes uh that you begin the book with is by G.K. Chesterton, Catholic uh author. He says that the special mark of the modern world is not that it is skeptical, but that it is dogmatic without knowing it.
SPEAKER_03Um isn't it extraordinary, by the way, that he said that about the modern world in the early 20th century, but he could have could have said it in 2020.
SPEAKER_01A hundred years ago, right. And and so many of his quotes are are exactly the same. Yes.
SPEAKER_03Um a remarkable prose writer, apart from being a remarkable thinker.
SPEAKER_01Really, really. I th uh he would have nailed Twitter. He definitely would have nailed Twitter.
SPEAKER_03I think he might have been booted off quite early as well.
SPEAKER_01He wouldn't be the first. So um in what ways do you do you think the the modern era shows its dogmatism, and in what sh in what ways do you think it shows its ignorance of its metaphysical truth claims?
SPEAKER_03Are you sure you've got time for all of them? Um uh the I I I think it starts the first one. Is this that the human rights-based world order has a terrible chasm underneath it, which everybody can see, and which I do think is an explanation an explanation for a lot of personal as well as uh um wider traumas going on in the modern era, which is that you hear of a metaphysical system which is a human rights-based system, which is all the time described as though it is what it says it is and claims to be. That is, um, it claims that human rights are inviolable, but they're violated all the time. It says that they are absolutely fundamental, but they are attacked all the time. Uh they can be attacked around the world with impunity, uh countries after countries, eras after eras in the in the modern human rights era, in which um, you know, yes, you you you you it's claimed you have the following rights, but somebody comes and takes them all and nothing happens. Uh that's quite different from a Christian idea of justice, of course, which which says, well, that may happen in this world, but there is justice in a um in another place and in another sense. Uh so I think that the whole claim, I I've often said that uh uh the human rights-based order suffers, among other things, from the form of Zimbabwean hype hyperinflation, that that everything becomes a human right, and yet actually the bits that were in the post-war period set up uh as a fundamental charter in order to try to address that, even those are in many countries around the world highly contingent on circumstance, on birth, on uh uh origin. And uh and so clearly they are not exactly what they say they are. Now, you could say, in that case, we should reframe them, we should say that they're not human rights, but for instance, human aspirations. Um that would seem to me to be a to put them in uh is not perfect, but it would put them in a more reasonable um it would establish them in a more reasonable way. Um or more reasonable expectations, shall we say. Uh but uh as I see it, the the unwillingness to contend with the Christian origins of the human rights era is very specific. And it's based in a number of things. One is an unwillingness to recognize the particular inheritance and truth claims of the Christian religion, for all sorts of reasons, but one of which in the modern era has become the um claim that basically all religions are the same, that they all teach the same thing and they all have the same virtues, and uh you know you may you may choose Christianity, I may choose Islam, someone else might do yoga, and there's no real uh difference between any of these things. I think that's that's a modern wish, but I mean there's very little uh evidence to it's quite a Christian wish, actually.
SPEAKER_01It's the Christianized West has kind of forwarded that view, really.
SPEAKER_03I'd say the post-Christianized West has forwarded that view. Uh it doesn't matter how you get there, you know, as long as you sort of you know aspire to climb this sort of ladder to God, you will, and you could do it through, as I say, through yoga or through communion. It doesn't matter much which that's a sort of post-Christian idea, or watery, so built over Christian. Um and another reason, of course, is um our suspicion in the modern era of exclusivist truth claims. Uh and and obviously that, as you know, is is something tied up with a lot of confusion that's always been there within the Christian tradition, which is is it for us or is it for everybody? And of course, there's a shortcut to the it's for everybody, which is um to pretend it already is and everybody's already got it. Um so there's a lot going on in our era and a lot of denial, and I think that the denial is is is the what I've just said, and and an unwilling basically let me also say it's an unwillingness to concede where the rights might come from in terms of historical tradition, because uh non-believers fear that if they make the concession that the rights have their basis in a Christian worldview, what you will do is give great fuel to a Christian revival. And uh I think that is that may be tactically uh correct, it may be tactically wise, but it's not true uh uh to uh to make that claim. And and I think I'm wise in some other ways.
SPEAKER_01Yes. What do you see as I mean, you've expressed many times a hope that we could somehow depoliticize ourselves. I mean, everything is so fraught, everything is is everything is heightened to the level of of a kind of a religious truth claim at the moment. And I I think in the in the absence, in uh, you know, after the death of God, there is a power vacuum, and suddenly politics is taking that place, and then entertainment has to take the place, and and sport has to take the place of politics. Everything gets promoted. And you've many times said, you know, can we cool our jets a bit? Can we step back? How can we do that without having something else properly in that sort of highest place of our ideals and imagination?
SPEAKER_03It may not be possible, and I should put that out there because it's you know it's an argument against self-interest, as it were, in certain ways, but it may not be possible. I mean, there are an awful lot of things that you can point to in society at present uh that have a God-shaped hull. Um so maybe it's not possible. Um maybe when I describe the change in the metaphysical systems we're currently going through, it may be that that that that change is um is a boomerang of some kind. Uh it may be that we become something totally different, or maybe we would go back to something that we would recognize. Um but it but it may be the case, I just stress this, because it it might not be possible to cover over the God-shaped hole. I do think that the various um attempts to make other things fill that gap are almost uniformly difficult. I mean I almost use the word problematic.
SPEAKER_01Hashtag problematic, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Not a word I'm fond of, but or be I become unfond of because of the people who who wield it. But yes, uh there is something um there is something highly problematic about people replacing God with politics because you end up with a fervency that might well, we recognize it when it's used in religious terms, you might end up with that same feverishness in political terms, and they may actually make the business of politics impossible, among much else, precisely because you need the saved and the unsaved. You need you need the elect, and the the elect must have the thing to which to be against. And it it's a sort of disappointment about politics in some ways that you learn as you are growing up, but it's probably quite a good thing to learn that that it cannot achieve the utopian dream. I mean, it it's you know, uh people quite often moan about the managerialism of politics, and there is lots to moan about, but the managerialist stance is much better than the one when you know that you're in history and are suffering for it. Right. Um but yes, I think that it imbues politics with with attributes that it cannot sustain. Um of course there have been other efforts to re to fill the god-shaped hole. I wrote about one of them in The Stranger Death of Europe, which is the obvious one is the attempt, particularly in the 19th century, most most persuasively performed by Wagner in his compositions and his operas, uh, to fill the God-shaped hole with art. And that that that has its own problems um and uh uh its own risks. Uh and I'm not only thinking of the ones that Wagner personally went through.
SPEAKER_01So let's let's dive down into the madness of crowds. And um you you use the analogy of uh you know you're going to clear the uh the landmines by tripping tripping over as many of them as you can, um, which you then um proceed uh to do with with some glee and abandon, I'm sure. But uh you you go through, is it uh gay, women, race, trans? Is that the order?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's it.
SPEAKER_01I was I was fascinated by by beginning with a story of uh some conservative Christians who were um putting on a documentary about conversion therapy, um which I'm sure both you and I have have questions about, perhaps for different reasons. Um but you know, I've I've got a friend who she's actually part of this series called Resets. I'm interviewing her. She um went to Yale, she was an atheist and gay um and stole a copy of Mere Christianity and was converted and and found herself uh after many twists and turns um married to a man called Andrew, happily married, um, have they have a child. And what I find difficult is if she had asked me to pray for her at any stage of her developing romance with Andrew, and and said, Can you pray that my heart would, you know, turn towards Andrew? Um that could be criminalized if that's you know considered to be conversion therapy. And yet, if she asked me, um, can you pray that I would become Andrew? Um, that that could almost be celebrated. You know, there's there seems to be the idea of an Interchangeability of gender and the absolute fixity of sexuality.
SPEAKER_03Because I'm interested in the things that the age waves through without question. And I say in the gay chapter of Madness of Crowds, while starting off with this group who made this film about so-called gay conversion therapy, that I'm much more willing to listen to their arguments than many people, particularly most gay people. Partly because I'm just curious about curious arguments, and partly because, as I say there, I think there are questions that were left behind. And that's consistent in all of the issues I address in the Manners of Crowd. It's consistent in the women's chapter. What are the questions that we that feminism left behind as too difficult to address? The obvious one I say, like Camille Padlier, the obvious one is motherhood. Feminism jumped along on a whole range of things to do with, you know, equal representation on boards and so on, and uh, and and really never worked out what what to do about motherhood. And as I say in the mouse crowds, that's a that's a biggie. That's a biggie to jump over. Um and in the gay chapter, yes, I say something along the lines of what you've just said, which is um we we we haven't we have a set of odd odd ideas about this. One is that the gay is a one-way street, which um it may be, and there's a lot of evidence to demonstrate that it is. Uh that there is, however, considerable diversity, and the largest form of diversity in that is between men and women. Uh, this is a conversation I've had in the past, I think people can find on YouTube with Brett Weinstein, the biologist, about why it may be that uh uh women are more sexually um fluid uh in this way than men. I mean, the shorthand example I give is you can quite often find somebody who's a lesbian who's had bad examples with men, and that may not be the only reason she's become a lesbian, but it's it's quite a strong one that she seeks to be with another woman. You never meet a man who's had bad experiences with women and as a result becomes gay. I mean, who wouldn't have been had they not met the wrong woman sort of thing. Now, all this is incredibly dangerous and contested terrain, perhaps. But I say, look, why have we why have we said it's so straightforwardly a one-way three? Are we absolutely sure about the nature of how sexuality is formed? And the answer is no, we're not really. Uh I think the evidence increasingly points to the fact that it is biological, or at least determined from uh uh uh the womb from say from a very, very early age. Um but there are also possibly some societal factors that might might be at play. And I don't see why we shouldn't be able to discuss them, other than that uh they um tread on some what have become sacred values. And I'd add one other thing, which is of course the the the obvious reason is again, is this fear that if you do address them, then you'll go back to you know the horrible times that have existed in the past, and in some places exist still, where young gay people are fairly sort of tortured by uh um alleged professionals in order to become something they just cannot become. Uh but yes, the example you give also exists in the trans one. Uh your and I've written about this a lot because the era now says um if you're, I don't know, a young, slightly effeminate boy, you know, likelihood is you're really a girl and should be given medical help to become a girl, and vice versa, a Tom Boyish girl is really a boy. And that's of course not only against a lot of issues to do with women's rights, but a lot of things to do with gay rights. And that is very offensive to a lot of gay people. And um and so but but but the the point of saying all this is to say this whole thing's a great big blooming mess, you know, it's it's very messy terrain. And I think that it's unwise, it's wise to try to be as kindly to people as possible and to listen to their concerns. It seems unwise to me to dig in and embed narratives that have not actually been proven. Right. And um I worry about any shutting down that's total like that. So, as you say, the the conversion therapy example is tricky because um you may uh make it illegal for somebody to suggest that somebody might be happier being straight, and as I say, like in the case of your friend, uh that's more common among women. Um but uh um at the same time as you make that illegal, you make it illegal not to approve of a child being in the wrong sex and therefore medically transitioning at a later stage. That seems to me to be a very uh uh demented set of things to have going on at the same time. So I'm just interested in in opening that up. I think we need a l we need to know a lot more until we're as certain as we're currently pretending to be about these issues.
SPEAKER_01Right, right. So you move you move from the gay chapter to the the women chapter. Um and and again, here here is um a prime example of equality and diversity and and how how it is that we um can we have a space for the particularity of women? Can we can we still name what the feminine is? Can we name what the masculine is without having a hierarchy to say one's higher than the other? Can we blend them? Can we bring a unity? It's it's uh a real struggle. Um where where do you think we we go wrong as we try to um get this unity and diversity over the sexes?
SPEAKER_03The relations between the sex is one is is is is absolutely central because it throws up uh it throws a light on the problems we're having in the other areas as well. I uh to steel manage, I think that the aim of good people of the social justice movement is something like the following. It is nobody should ever be held back from achieving in their life what they can achieve by dint of some character trait over which they have no say. Now, I absolutely agree with that aim. And I think the polling would show that very significant majorities in countries like ours have the same view. Uh it's a long time now since you had a majority thinking that like a smart woman shouldn't go to university or shouldn't, if they're capable of a high-flying job, perform that high-flying job. Uh and I think it's some time since uh people claimed that people who were gay, for instance, couldn't perform certain tasks that they could perform, and that people who are black shouldn't perform tasks they could perform. There are people, uh, I don't deny that. There are always, you know, residual pockets of unpleasantness and and prejudice. But I I I I I think you we have honestly, in countries like Britain and America, we've got majorities on our sides to say that's really the aim. The aim is that nobody should be held back from doing anything that they have a competency at. Uh but then we get into the real problem. Uh the left says, uh, broadly speaking, that any remaining inequities, that is, um, if there aren't enough women in a particular position in a particular industry, there is only ever one explanation, and that is male sexism. Um if there aren't and it's the same thing, you know, if there are isn't enough gay representation in a particular field, then it's because of homophobia. And if there isn't enough racial diversity, then it must be to do with racism. And broadly speaking, uh uh the right hasn't particularly known what to do with these claims, because the right tends to be scattered by fear at the accusations coming its way, the accusations of homophobia, sexism, misogyny, racism. Um and I submit that that one of the reasons we're in the confusion we're in is because we have not allowed ourselves, I think the left is responsible for this because of its amazing ability at excommunication and heresy finding. Um it has not allowed us to have the conversations we need to have about this and specifically that, these are clearly not, and there's a you know, one could go at this from almost any direction, but these are clearly not totalistic explanations in the way that they are holding themselves out as. For instance, it is not just terrible sexism that explains why there are not as many female firefighters as male firefighters. It is not that every year thousands of young women in Britain fling themselves at the fire brigade union begging to be allowed to climb up ladders and go into burning buildings and pull out cats and people and much more. Uh, it is that there must be other things at play as well. In the same way, uh if you said, Why are there not enough male kindergarten teachers? Right.
SPEAKER_01That's the example I was about to do.
SPEAKER_03Would it would it be helpful in any way to pretend that the problem was that just like hordes of male kindergarten teachers every year fling themselves at closed kindergarten doors and just aren't allowed in by bigoted women who want just to keep the train to themselves? It's obviously not now. I I I select their two um extreme examples. But forms of this, if we agree that there are certain things that people have aptitudes for, then then then one must recognize that that exists in other realms as well. The problem is most realms are a little bit more complicated than the kindergarten teacher or fire brigade examples. And uh I fear that we've made all this terrain um much uglier, much nastier than we needed to make it, because we've only got this one explanation still. And that's for lots of reasons, but one of them is our era's deep and understandable fear of what you might call biological determinism. Um we have a deep fear of it which is not only uh uh reasonable, but I think legitimate. Um and so we we trample down everything that looks like it might be a biologically determinist argument. Um we do that uh with the sexes, we do it very, very vociferously with everything to do with race for reasons that you hardly need to go into. But it's that that's the darkest corner and the worst. Uh but I think you could say the same thing about um uh gays in certain industries, you know. And and really what what what it what it always shows is this is what you can come back to, because I'm I'm I'm keen that one uh finds a way that people can unify around common aspirations. If we do have this common aspiration, how can we get there? And I would say that it is by recognizing that if we create the conditions that allow people to do whatever it is they have the compensate competency to do and to attain that goal, we must almost as as payback for that, must accept that certain um other factors will mean that there is not equity in the distribution of roles.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03And I'm, you know, I think again, I think we're grown up enough to have this. I think we're grown up enough to say we would dislike it if a woman competent to be a firefighter wasn't able to do the job, uh, wasn't given the job. And we would dislike it if a man able to be a good kindergarten teacher didn't get allowed in because of that. But that does not mean that we should be aiming for 50-50 sexual representation in these industries or any other.
SPEAKER_01Right. Right, right. I I see a problem here in that what we've done in secularizing the image of God or what whatever we've done in terms of having a concept of human rights and equality is that in the absence of a a God who values us, the value must somehow be seen inherently. It it must be seen um materially, um, so that then it be it becomes about do you have the same amount of stuff and in exactly the same regard. Yes, yes, yes, yes. So we've traveled quite a distance from you know Genesis 1, verse 26, you know, and God made man in his image. Male and female, he created them and he blessed them, and he said, Be fruitful and increase in number. And and instantly the first thing God says in Genesis 1 is there is a unity between the sexes that involves complementarity, that involves distinction and particularity and romance, um, and therefore difference and equality. And what worries me is that when you take that element out of it, equality just becomes do I have the same amount of stuff as that group? And and if I don't, I go to war. Yes. And it becomes a zero-sum game at that point.
SPEAKER_03You know, it can do. I mean, there's a lot in what you've just said. Um, I mean, the first is obviously the the uh the secularized version of mankind as being in the image of God, is that mankind becomes a kind of godlike being on its own terms without a god. And uh there's been a lot written about that, um, and it's a dangerous position to be in, um uh not least because there's no there's no break on a lack of humility. Um the specific idea of the image of God, of course, is the origin of this very idea that there is something sacred about us as beings, that we are different from the ant and different from the antelope and every other creature on earth, that that that we are uh um born in the image of God is uh now you could say of course that this is only an inheritance of Christianity. I I think that Christianity has this inheritance because as other traditions do, because it does say something um to ourselves about ourselves, which we intuit. And that is that's to do with consciousness and the specific nature of human consciousness, which is you know the thing the thing observing the thing. Um and this this this leaves us with this this uh um irreconcilable human um dilemma always, which is what is this thing that we are capable of observing about ourselves. Um God is uh obviously the the the the the image of God idea in Christianity uh explains that, it's gives you the origin for that. Um either say I don't think it is something that is exclusive in the in the Christian tradition, the Christian tradition of it, the Judeo-Christian tradition of it is a very, very profound one. I think it answers this deep, deep question uh within ourselves. And uh and and the Chris Judeo-Christian uh tradition has has an extraordinary amount to claim for itself in answering it in this fashion, whether it's uh true or not, and obviously a believer believes it's true, and a non-believer doesn't believe it is, but uh I I I think that it it does it does speak to and reveal a very, very deep truth, perhaps the deepest. Um as for the complementarity, I've written about that before, it's it's yes, and it's something which we again don't want to recognize because again we fear what'll happen. Our whole age is is replete with these things we won't do because we fear what'll happen if we allow people to do them. Yes. Ideas we cannot explore because we fear that the implication if we allow the exploration to commence. Uh the obvious one of that one is if you say that men and women complement each other, you will be doing a number of things, and I'm not gonna rattle a number off the top of my head, you might be being homophobic, you might be being transphobic, you might be uh, but more significantly, you you in in numbers terms, what you might be doing is saying to women the ideal uh for a woman is to be a home, be a mother, and so on. And uh so for these reasons, among others, yeah, we don't want to have the complementarity uh uh discussion. Right. And yet it's one of the ones that everybody knows that. It may not suit everybody, it certainly doesn't suit everybody, it visibly doesn't suit everybody, but a very large number of people it will do. And it shouldn't, it seems to me, therefore, be cut off as an option by an age that believes it's doing so in the name of tolerance.
SPEAKER_01Right. Right, right. And you lose you you lose the crunchiness of an equality that can include distinctions and that can include the gift of the feminine to the masculine and the masculine to the feminine. Yes. And instead you have uniformity.
SPEAKER_03Yes, which but I mean in my case, I'm intrinsically opposed to. I don't like human uniformity, I like difference. And a lot of people who say they like difference really just want everyone to be the same, but like them. But I mean I do actually think that it's it's fascinating seeing the way that different people think. And there are certain trends that we do correctly attribute to one sex over another. Um and there's nothing there's nothing wrong with that, it seems to me, unless it was then used to limit what somebody was capable of doing in their lives. But you know, why do we know that if a two-year-old falls over at a birthday party, it will be the women who will r run over and seek to comfort the child most swiftly and best, I would submit. This is isn't to say that men can't do it. And again, uh if uh the building's on fire, I mean this is something gets you into trouble, but you don't grab the nearest woman and say, get in there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I'm not saying they won't.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, not if I hear there's a burglar downstairs, I don't nudge my wife and say, Emma, I went last time, it's your turn. Exactly, exactly.
SPEAKER_03Very good example. Um and and as I say, I think there might be an just in the same way that there might be a risk from having admitted such things, there could be a risk from admitting such things. We should admit that there might be a risk from not admitting such things. Yes. And that that just as we could thwart lives by being overly deterministic, we could also thwart lives by trying to ignore this. And by the way, I can give a very good example of this, which is once on everyone's mind. Uh women get to a certain age, obviously in their late 30s and early 40s, and if they haven't had children, they have a different call from that which uh exists in men. Now, you may say that's because of a roughly 20 or more year biological clock difference between the sexes, but uh uh there seems to me to be a considerable uh argument, considerable force to say actually the cost of not having these discussions is seen in things like women in their early 40s who've devoted their whole life to their career and have done really well and have climbed the ladder, realizing that they are not going to have children or are gonna find it very hard to have children. And that that seems also to me that that's that's quite something to have on your conscience as a society or a group to say actually we we we misled, we misled some people. It doesn't matter how many in a way, we misled some people uh about what the how this ran.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, one of the great consolations of of life. Not the only, but one of one of the great ones. Of course. So yes, so we want we want a quality with diversity to include the particularity, but but somehow to to get to a unity. And I I I often think interestingly, the the way that certainly in the Judeo Christian tradition it gets developed, it doesn't just Get left in Genesis 1, but perhaps the great verse in the New Testament about but that's often brought up when it comes to equality, even though the word equal is not there. It's Paul in Galatians saying there is no male, no female, no Jew, no gentile, no slave, no free, for we're all one in Christ Jesus. And I think what's fascinating about that is you get you get actually a community in which the oneness happens. And of course, you you don't ignore the fact that someone's from a Jewish background, someone's from Gentile, you don't ignore the fact that there's a man and a woman. It's the fact that you've actually been brought around the same table in this Christian idea to share in the same meal, to be welcome at the same banquet. Um again is something that I just don't get when I hear modern secular demands for equality, because it's just I need the same stuff.
SPEAKER_03Uh it's it's I need the same stuff. It's also I could only understand people who have the same traits as me. One of the enormously impressive things of Christian civilization is exactly what you've just pointed to there. Um and by the way, I mean I should say it does have uh copies, but in other traditions, uh the Muslim concept of the Ummah is a very good approximation of the same thing and and is moving uh uh for precisely the same reason, which is that that anybody, be they rich or poor, uh wherever they're from, are brothers in in this faith. And it it's it's it's a powerful thing, what whichever tradition you take it from, because it is of course one of the only answers of how the self can be as if as effectively not dissolved in the into the community but to become a part of a community, on lines other than the only other available ones. And the only other available ones are nation or tribe, which are different things usually, but um they have a crossover, tribe or nation, uh and uh then uh otherwise with a modern obsession, which is you are a member of the identity groupings you happen to be a part of, which is uh although in the modern case only if uh the grouping in question is the approved kind. So it's good to be identifying yourself as black, but we would not look kindly on people who said that their primary identity was that they were white. Uh in the same way, we don't have much sympathy in our society for people, people who say that they feel straight pride, but we do feel sympathy for people who say they feel gay pride. And again, uh it's quite common for people to say, I'm so proud to be a woman. It's strange, if not unusual, in our societies to say I'm proud to be a man. Uh and uh so in our own era, yes, the identity grouping is most commonly that, as long as it's not centered around a majority trait other than womanhood.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_03Um and and yes, these are um well, yes, as I say, this obviously so Paul's great insight about the uh and his uh ability to universalize the faith is obviously what transforms a Christian religion.
SPEAKER_01And I think there's a there's a kind of a doctrine of God going on in the background, too. Colin Gunton um was a philosopher at uh King's College, and and he wrote uh a book, The One, the Three, and the Many, which was kind of a survey of Western philosophy, talking about it as the tug of war between the one and the many. Um you've got a uh you know Plato with this unifying force, and the Aristotle being the particularizing force. And um, how do we mediate um between these in all sorts of areas, metaphysics and ethics and ontology and and political uh philosophy? Um, there is this great tug of war between the one and the many. How do I find a brotherhood or a community in which I can be myself and be one with the other? And I think that the the doctrine of the Trinity um gives a gives a fascinating um unity in diversity kind of here's here's the archetype, let's say. Here's here's the highest value for a Christian society. Um the the particularity of the Son of God is not dissolved into the Father or dissolved into the spirit, and yet the Son can never be without the Father, and the Father can never be without the Son. There is something about a unity and diversity that I think Christian civilization has has taught us, which again, I think without that, you get the tug of war between either uniformity or hierarchy and war. Um but let me let me move on to the the the race issue, because um obviously since the hardback came back came out in 2019, um I I I I was about to say, is is race one of the areas that you you've you've seen sort of most development in over the past year? But it it's it's uh quite a competition between all four, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03Uh yes, but I mean race is definitely the winner in you know being the one that's thrown to the fore most clearly, most visibly.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_03Um I think the weaponization of all of the identity traits I'm talking about has gone on with considerable abandon in the last year. Yes. And I refer to this in the updated paperback edition. Um, but obviously the one that that that has now become most dominant, domineering, you might say, is the question of race. And it's one that I uh um I tackle, I address carefully. I think it requires care. Um, but I'm very, very deeply worried about where we're going on this. And I'm worried about it because I think that we are in the process of re-racialising our societies uh in the name of anti-racism. And uh uh the the most obvious example of that is that uh going back to your question about I mean your point you make about community, you can either dissolve yourself in a civic community or you strip that back, dissolve that and go back to some other form of belonging. And it seems to me almost impossible for a society to encourage some groups to do that on racial terms and not on others. Uh so it seems to me that if you I mean, unless you you you take the view that that quite a lot of people do, and I I I identify as being the the issue of um over-correction, that is, in the same way that gays have been uh repressed historically, let's give the gays a you know better run of it now. Uh let's let them be sort of more for a bit. Uh in the same way that you could argue that because women have been you know uh in some ways discriminated, certainly kept from certain um roles in life in the past, let's let's let them get away with some stuff for a bit that men can't. And in the same way, the most obvious example is since it has been racism historically, and certainly in white, predominantly white societies like Britain and America, uh you know, certainly famous in the case of America, um American blacks have had a uh have certainly not had the opportunities available to American whites, which isn't to say that American whites have had an easy time throughout American history either, but because of that, why don't we allow black pride to run for a bit, just as we allow gay pride to run for a bit, just as we allow feminism in in its perhaps worst forms to run on for a bit. And the problem of that is that you just see there's an almighty car crash coming down the road, which is you just you you don't know when the overcompensation has gone on for long enough. Uh no one will tell you, and you wouldn't know who to listen to and who you'd believe. Uh but I believe, for instance, it is just not possible uh to argue that some people should feel deep pride in their racial uh origin and other people should feel deep shame. And I don't think that's possible in any direction. I stress this, in any direction. And it's also uh even if it was desirable, and it never is. It's highly undesirable to say that one racial group of people carry historic guilt and another do not. Uh, highly undesirable to say that one group is better than another, or morally better than another, or in any other way. But this is this is another, this goes back to the very fundamental questions of our time. This is again because we don't trust ourselves. We don't trust ourselves with racial difference, and we try to say that it the only ways in which it exists is when it exists in a positive light, that is, X minority racial group have a particular ability to do Y. We trust ourselves with that because it's a positive. We don't trust ourselves with and X racial minority group seem to do more of B, uh, which leads to C. We won't do that if it's negative. And uh for understandable reasons. Uh but it means that uh uh we are running several programs simultaneously, and it doesn't take a genius to notice it. Um you're running racial total similarity and racial betterness in specific cases. And I think that, for instance, in a country like America where black uh Americans only constitute 13% of the population or so, I don't see that you can persuade a majority population for a very long time that they should put up with being told that they are, for instance, demons, which uh I watched a video of one uh white, uh anti-white uh diversity officer in an American firm telling telling the the employees, yes, yeah. I just don't think I wouldn't sit in a room and be told that by dint of my skin colour I was a demon. I would certainly stand up for any of my black friends, brothers and sisters who were told that by somebody else. I would expect every other good person too as well. I wouldn't want it to happen in any direction. I wouldn't don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it said about any racial group of people by dint of their race. And I think it's highly unwise to allow such overreach to continue when you are still talking about the majority.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and again, again, there's the particularity of the tribe and the nation that we take pride in. We we naturally, you know, I'm I'm Australian, I take pride in being Australian. There's um all sorts of national pride and and the unity points. And and how do you, you know, in in the New Testament, you know, the Apostle Paul looks back to Genesis and he says, From one man God made every race of men, um bringing back a great unity to Adam. Yes. I think that there's that very interesting, you know, m many people should say, you know, in the Bible there's one race, the human race. Um and there are very many tribes and peoples.
SPEAKER_03And and this, of course, as you know, I mean, and your listeners, I'm sure, will know, is um the foundation on which Wilberforce and the anti-slave campaigners who were Christians based their moral argument, which was that it was an un it was it was an immoral and unchristian thing to regard your brother in this light. And and again, that that is that is a moral insight that is is not common throughout history. There there is a particular reason why Christian countries like Britain managed to Britain in particular managed to lead the way out of slavery. Uh a um a horrible human evil that it existed in every civilization since the beginning of time. But there is a reason why it is able to be thrown off and indeed campaigned against by the Royal Navy, which is the Wilbur Force and others have the moral case based in a Christian idea of the similarity, the sameness. It's not just similarity, the the the identical nature in the eyes of God, apart from anything else, of the people who were being enslaved. And that's what led led to the incredibly rich tradition of uh the black churches in America. It's what led to the rich tradition from which Dr. Martin Luther King emerges, and it's the thing that gives him the central most important moral insight of the late 20th century.
SPEAKER_01Right. Right. Which is in danger of being reversed. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We are judging people by the colour of their skin and not the content of the character.
SPEAKER_03Something that the great fraud uh New York Times bestseller Robin D'Angelo actually tells people to do. She actually says to people that it would it is immoral not to judge people by the colour of their skin.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And sells millions. Um let's let's move on to to trans. And I and I guess you probably tackled trans last because in in so many uh ways it's it's one of the thornier issues, and I'm sure the the research you had to do.
SPEAKER_03Well, all of them are kind of thorny. I mean, you go, yeah, you gave yourself an easy pass doing race, Douglas. Yeah, yeah, I know, absolutely. Yeah, talking about men and women is a doodle.
SPEAKER_01But then, yeah, but of all the tri if you if you had to if you had to name we we did um here a um a Google survey, anonymous survey of unsayable opinions, and we collected two and a half thousand unsayable opinions. Half of them had to do with trans. Um so so yeah, half of you know, so well well over a thousand um unsayable opinions were were about trans in in terms that ten years ago would have been incomprehensible to to any of us. Um so it does it does stand out in some senses, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, of course. It stands out in a lot of senses. I did it last actually because of several reasons. One is that it's uh the most minority of a minority issue. And the second reason is you actually have to know all of the other things that have happened in the other areas to understand how the hell trans has come to be what it currently is, in terms of the galvanizing issue. I mean, an issue that affects something less than 0.05% of the population is 0.5% of the population is very, very hard to get everyone interested in, unless it treads across everything else. And I do translast because it treads across everything else, and people haven't been willing to admit this. It clearly runs it doesn't the intersectionalists to use the dreaded ugliest word of the era, the intersectionists pretend that all of these things, uh all rights claims interlock, and to address one you address them all, and if you solve one, you can solve them all. And one of the things that demonstrates that intersectionality is a total croc is that even on its own terms it doesn't work. And I explained the manners of crowds, I expose how that is the case. That intersectionalists claim that if you unlock women's rights, you unlock trans rights. That ain't the case. Quite the opposite. Quite the opposite. They seem to run very, very much against each other. Um there are big fears among a lot of feminists, quite rightly, about what trans is doing in terms of setting back women's rights. Um there are a lot of gay people, increasing number of gay people, who are very worried that trans is, and we touched on this earlier, fundamentally against gay rights. That is, that the LG and B are totally separate from the T, not least because, again, a young, tomboyish girl may, all of the small amount of evidence we have so far on this, suggests is very much more likely if she is diagnosed with so-called gender dysphoria to grow up to be a perfectly happy, healthy lesbian or happy, healthy heterosexual. She does not need to be surgically transformed into an approximation of a male. And uh, of course, the idea that she she would be is something that terrifies a lot of lesbians, for instance, who think, gosh, if this is if this was going on when I was growing up, and the opposite case, vice versa, with with gay men. So trans is uh unwittingly running against all these things, but it's it's more interesting because of what we're not well, several things. One is what we're not talking about in the trans thing, and what we're not talking about is sex, and that didn't used to be the case. As I say in the trans chapter, trans used to be in intimately uh tied up with sex. I'm trying to choose my terms carefully here.
SPEAKER_01No, no, don't um anyhow.
SPEAKER_03Trans used to be intimately tied up with sex, and today, actually, trans activists totally divorce their activities on sex. They say it has nothing to do with sex, right? Couldn't be more boring. Nothing we want less. And and and that's just uh what again, what what brave academics have you may be willing to make studies about that show that's just not the case. Um uh a portion at least of people we call trans are interested in attracting uh their own sex in a different body, for instance. Uh and a portion are people who just get a kick out of um effective sort of sexual kink, um autoginophilia, as it's rather um unmemorably called. Uh these are really complex, but actually very, very interesting terrains about the nature of human sexuality. I find them interesting for that reason, among others. I think it's very, very interesting that we have, in our era of tolerance and diversity and all that sort of thing, actually ended up making people's sexual uh uh preferences much, much more streamlined and straightforward than at any previous time almost. We are we are pretending that you know, if if if if you're born a man and you like men, well, we can make you into a woman, and then you can like men as a woman, for instance. That that that that's that's that that that's um that's got a lot of problems in it. The other thing is that uh um, and I wrote this recently in The Times in London. One of the interesting things I noticed about the transit thing, which is why it caught on so much, was that I noticed it among my scientist friends first, who are often rather, you know, always very cerebral, often rather, you know, shy creatures who you know spend the time in the laboratory. Um I noticed that these vole-like creatures, I'm almost portraying them as, but uh uh um when they uh emerge uh uh with something that disturbs them, you know, it's always worth listening. I mean, no, us humanities know nothings, uh, you know, have lots of things that disturb us. But but when a scientist when a scientist says this is uh a problem, um you you know, you particularly should listen. And I noticed the number of scientists I knew who were saying, I can't do it, I can't do it. And it was that they were being increasingly asked by their institutions to agree that, for instance, there's no such thing as uh gametes or chromosomes. And they just couldn't do it because um it was and I mean it's not just to do with people who are dealing with diseases which actually knowing the s the chromosomes of the person is very helpful in. I mean, you know, um even a a man who becomes a woman is not gonna get ovarian cancer, and uh a woman who tries, you know, to transition to a man is not gonna get testicular cancer. And I mean these are maybe obvious examples, but um there are many, many others of uh illnesses that are that that are to do with your your sex. And um uh so it wasn't just to do with that, it was it was an even deeper thing than that. And the deep thing was scientists who I started to notice were saying, it's the first time in my life or my career that I've been told that the scientific method does not reign supreme. Right.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_03That the era has dogmas that science must bow to. Right. And that is that is the thing that made me most concerned, makes me most concerned too, and it's why I won't do it. It's why I won't shut up on this issue or any other. Um because I think it's profoundly dangerous to uh give over your most useful tools for analysing very specific things. And just one other thing, which is the reason why I think that your thousand people had questions on this, is because of the other thing. The the people are now quite comfortable to talk about the overlap with feminism and trans, the it's got easier, it's got easier thanks to a small number of people to speak about the overlap between gay and trans and the way in which they run against each other. The one that is unpopular still but needs far more attention, would I bet be the one that you've heard from people, which is parents. And parents are not getting enough of a say in this, and they are being intimidated, and I think it's outrageous. And part of the point of the trans chapter is to give voice to the parents who have been put in a terrible position. And I don't think that that position is because they've discovered they've got a trans child, and there are all sorts of issues. I say I'm open-minded on all of this. I'm open-minded the fact that series something in very, very small numbers of people which we're nowhere near understanding. But it's nothing like the numbers we're talking about. There are clearly people being diagnosed as being gender dysphoric who are no such thing. And the worst thing is the is the is the attempt by so-called medical experts to pretend they know things they just don't know, and in the process, I think wreck a lot of young lives. And uh one other thing from that is the number of parents, and I've heard from a lot of parents since the Madness Crowds came out, who have said to me, and occasionally when we were still able to have events, would come up to me after events and say thank you, because uh I heard from a lot of parents who said what I had mentioned in the book that many. Professionals are telling them you either agree to everything your child is saying, and the alleged experts, who I really don't think are expert in this field, are saying, or you will have a dead child. Because they'll commit suicide because of bigotry. These these alleged experts are actually blackmailing parents with the death of their children. You know, they're very, very common. You I I've got familiar with all of the trans uh um cliches. And one of them is, you know, do you want uh, you know, if you have a son, do you want uh um a happy daughter or a dead son? Wow. What a way to talk. How dare they talk like that to parents? Yeah, yeah. And and think they're doing so in the name of being tolerant or understanding. Yeah. So I tried to speak up for those parents, and I spoke to a lot of parents when I was researching, and they've heard from a lot more since. But I think it's that that is is is most is most on people's minds because and parents should not shut up about this, by the way. If I can make a call for anything in this podcast, they would like to I'd like to do it for that. Please don't be quiet about these things. Please don't keep it unsayable. It has to be said. I wrote in the mail on Sunday last weekend about what the former gay rights group, Stonewall, which has now become a kind of anti-gay, pro-trans lobbying organization, is teaching. What its teaching packs say, uh it's totally delusional, it's wrong, deeply misleading, it's very confusing for children, it should not be taught in schools. And I think that it needs parents to say that. And if more of us said it, I think we would get a lot further. So my real urge is please, please, please, uh if you are a parent, don't keep this as something you whisper or write in anonymously, you know, to a podcast. Make it something you raise with you other parents, with teachers, with schools, because we are in danger of embedding a very, very bad narrative.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's a good uh that's a good word for all of us. Douglas has already gone across the uh the landmines, he's tripped them all for you. Let's uh let's join him.
SPEAKER_03And by the way, it's very pleasant tripping. I should stress that. It's absolutely people stress all the time the right, oh, it's so dangerous, you know, you know, oh, it's so risky. It it it it may be for some people in certain situations. But broadly speaking, I can't tell you. It is much easier to tell the truth than many people in our era think it is. Yes. And I also think that if we all share the burden in saying things that might be seeming to be unpopular, it'll become less of a burden and uh and and and and easier in due course.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and there's always a risk in not telling the truth as well.
SPEAKER_03No, it's much worse, much worse, much, much worse risk for your own conscience.
SPEAKER_01Right, right. Um Douglas, I must I must let you get on, but but people would be um very uh they they would think I'm very remiss if I don't ask you, you know, with your own you know Christian journey, and you know, we've we've talked about Christian civilization giving some sense of the unity going forwards. You want to depoliticize us, you want us to unite around something else. Would you like to see a revival of of Christianity in the West? And and how about in your own life?
SPEAKER_03I regard myself as being in an open-minded state on these things. I genuinely I went through a dogmatically atheist phase, as a lot of people do after they lose faith. And I believe myself to the extent I can be to be open-minded and open-hearted, I might even say. And that one should the most important thing actually this comes up in the Ratzinger Habermas dialogue on the dialectics of secularization. One should make sure that philosophy and religion are in dialogue. And that in my own life is the way I um I think about this, is um uh I I believe they have to be in dialogue, and there are things that philosophy can answer, and there are things that religion can answer, and they are overlapping magisteria, they're not completely overlapping. Um but yes, I also think by the way, that uh um in the case of Christianity, the most important thing is living by example. I don't put myself because I I can't profess to be a uh practicing Christian these days. Uh I don't in that case or in any other way put myself forward as an example to anyone. But I do think it's very important that that Christians live by example, because th that is in my own experience how people are most drawn to faith is to see see that other people um it's not about living their life in happiness or contentedness, but that but that they live by example is the manifestation of the faith. And and that is that is um beyond reason, that seems to me to be the most the most likely way for for for that to happen. Uh I say that personally as well as in a wider field. I I do f feel very disappointed when I see Justin Welby unable to defend his own faith. And I have been in extraordinary situations and seen extraordinary Christians in countries around the world, including in very beleaguered places, whose uh example has been uh among the most extraordinary things I've seen and one of the great privileges of my life to witness. So I do think that it that that that that you know, in a way, the call to Christian living is is also the answer to Christian proselytization.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, yeah, and those communities of of Christian living, uh they are the the salt and light that Jesus spoke of. Uh yeah, we shouldn't be looking for a top-down savior, but this this kind of bottom-up movement of faith. Douglas Murray, you've been so generous with your time. I'm so grateful.
SPEAKER_03It's been a great pleasure, thank you. I'm so pleased to have had this conversation and thank you for it.
SPEAKER_01Pleasure, pleasure. And everyone, run out and get the madness of crowds. It's out as a paperback now.