#088 - Momus Najmi - Britain After Decline: Reformation, Restoration, And The Long Road Back

Momus Najmi is a writer, cultural commentator, and history enthusiast. He writes The World of Momus on Substack and runs a YouTube channel exploring Britain’s cultural, political, and civilisational predicament.

In this conversation, we think out loud about a question many sense but struggle to articulate: has Britain lost its way and if so, what would genuine reform actually require?

We explore:

•  why Britain’s problems are not merely economic or political, but cultural and spiritual; 
• whether the monarchy and wider institutions are capable of reform; and why the next general election is unlikely to resolve the country’s underlying crisis
• the possibility that Britain faces a prolonged period of stagnation or decline before any meaningful renewal can take place; and 
• what individuals can do in the meantime.

Our conversation ranges across the importance of building local, cultural, and intellectual strongholds; the role of Christianity in sustaining civilisation; reflections on Catholicism and institutional faith; the limits of podcasting and public commentary; and Momus’ own reassessment of how to participate in public life.

To see my previous conversation with Momus in February 2024 follow click here. 

You can find Momus’s work here:

• Website
• YouTube 
• X/Twitter
• Instagram

About Thinking Class:
Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast exploring the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world.

Hosted by John Gillam, the show features serious conversations with historians, academics, and independent thinkers.

Thinking Class is concerned with discovering long-term patterns over headlines and hot-takes. Expect historically-grounded analysis on matters of national character, institutions, demography, belief, and political legitimacy.

New episodes every week.

▶️ Subscribe on YouTube
🎧 Follow on Spotify
📰 Read on Substack
🐦 Follow on X

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, classmates, and welcome to Thinking Class. I'm John Gillam and today I'm speaking with Momus Najmi. Momus is a writer, cultural commentator, and history enthusiast. He's the author of the Substat, The World of Momus, and owner of the popular YouTube channel of the same name. In this episode, Momus and I think out loud about the manifold economic, societal, and cultural issues experienced in Britain today, whether the monarchy needs to be reformed, including the need for a change in personnel, why the 2029 election will not see a credible government form to fix Britain's issues, why each one of us should focus instead on building physical, cultural and intellectual strongholds in the areas in which we live, why the 2034 general election might be the year in which we see true change in how politics is done in the country, why Britain needs to undergo a period of suffering between now and then so that it can find its way again, the importance of finding Christianity and living it, our thoughts on the Catholic Church, whether podcasting is worth it, and Momus's change of approach to his public profile, and much, much more. Momus is a friend of mine, and we have spoken once before, which you can find in the archives back in February 2024, where he talks about his falling away from Islam. Make sure to check that out. In the meantime, make sure also to like, subscribe, and follow this show on YouTube, your podcast platform of choice, and indeed on Substack. Let's grow Thinking Class together. Enjoy the show, classmates. Thanks for having me. Well, it's been some time. I think we we spoke in February 2024. We got right into the topic of Islam, theological basis of Islam, the impact that it's having as it mixes with other cultures throughout the West. That is not the topic of our conversation today. I think you do that a lot in other places, probably a bit sick of it. I know you're writing a book about it, and we can maybe get to that at the end. But you have been writing quite a lot recently about having become grown disillusioned with politics, specifically political movements here in Britain. Maybe you can tell us why it is that you're getting disillusioned with such movements.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

All right. Um I'm not sure. I would say like I'm getting disillusioned with politics, right? Because I love politics. But it's the people, it's politicking, probably. It's people how they're engaging with it, and and not just the people who are doing politics, but actually the public itself, the way that they're voting, that the way they they become such personalities sort of cult oriented. Like, you know, I'm I'm sick of that. People are not focusing on the policies that can actually make changes, but like of just rhetorics, right? So and just personalities. So also I think I think overall there are certain inevitable things that are going to happen, in my view, right? And and it's not just my view, obviously, like you've had people like David Betts as well, who who's been saying this for a long time, and other people as well who have been talking about like civil war, civil unrest, and you know, it might not turn out to be an actual war, uh, as in like street fighting and stuff. There might be like just some scuffles and stuff, and but a period of suffering is upon us, right? Um and I don't see anyone trying to any any unifying force right now with with a vision to actually undo these things. There's no serious players in these in this matter, including Reform Party, including any other like new parties as well. New party like even Advanced UK is never going to gain that much uh traction, in my view. Um, yeah, and you know, like I am very favorable towards SDP, but they've been trying for a while, they're never going to, you know, take that view right now. No, no party is going to do that, right? Tories are in turmoil, they need to be reformed um themselves. You know, that's just not going to happen right now. It's not going to happen in 2029. I know people are desperate. And but desperation doesn't mean like, you know, we're gonna get things right. It's usually we're gonna fuck things up. And I think so that is inevitable. That's going to happen. We're gonna have high inflation, we're going to have shortages of things. Like in we have we we have to go through this period, right? So I am more focused on what happens after this period. Because in my head, it's already resolved. One form of another, it's going to be some form of struggle we have to go through, right? So it's best to prepare ourselves for that struggle rather than trying to still cling on to this some savior is going to save us, right? Because that's what people are like so desperate about. It is going to happen, right? So it's sort of like your parent are your parents are going to spank you because you've been bad. It's coming. But we're so desperate to avoid that spanking. It's coming, right? It is going to happen one way or another, economic or civil unrest, or both combined on whatever level, even full-out war or not full out war, war with external enemies or whatever. Something is coming, something is not right, and it's it's probably needed to some level as well. Right. So I I am sort of tired of the now, and I want to think about what happens after that. How do we organize ourselves after that so that the lessons learned from that struggle actually result into something productive and actual reforms can happen, right? Because what can also happen through these difficult times is that we are so disconnected that we give our enemies enough power to take complete control. So we could actually end up being a communist state for a lot longer than we need to be, right? Um, because we give them the the ammunition that's needed, right? So what what my thoughts are more concentrated on is what happens afterwards, and people who want to think about what happens afterwards are sort of like my kind of people. People who are just in the immediate right now, I just I just don't think I can help them anymore or I can be part of that anymore. Um in my piece as well, I know I'm going on for a bit, but in my piece as well that I wrote, I was talking about the importance of the uh the three three things that needs to be reformed, right? Um the and that's the monarchy that needs to be reformed, and and not the way necessarily that it functions as a constitutional monarchy, but possibly the personnel involved at the moment, right? That needs to happen, and that's not gonna happen till at least within our 10-year period, it's not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

Before you get into the other two points, Memus, and you're talking about the reforming of personnel and the monarchy, who who are we talking about?

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Well, we're talking about our current king, right? And and and it is it's it's it's not easy to say that because you are, you know, um kind of close to being a traitor when you talk about the king in that way. But if the king is sort of letting down the people so much, then you have to you have to, you know, start talking about these things and start thinking about those things. Um and it's pretty clear that our king has a direction that he wants to take the country that is not going to be conducive for you know the whole of Britain.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

And are you referring specifically to his avowedly uh multiculturalist stance?

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Well, he's always been like that, right? So it's and all like especially with when it comes to Islam, right? So and a lot of people I have also heard a lot of people say, like, oh, it's uh the that's why the queen held on for that long and blah blah stuff like that. I think that's bullshit because she's the one who gave the uh royal charter to the Islamic Studies Center in Oxford, right? So this is something on whatever level our elites and not just our uh the monarchy, but all our elites have sort of kneeled down to in a way that they think that Islam is the future, right? It's not just me saying it's there's a lot of people who've said that there's uh way uh you know notable people in in the House of Lords who would say that as well. That it regrettably a lot of elites have actually come down to this conclusion that probably Islam is the future because they can't see a revival of Christianity, and now it's just like damage control for them, right? Whether they want it or not, they are just thinking about damage control because they can't think about what a reversal would be, because a reversal would mean a lot of you know hard decisions that need to be taken, right? And they are they just don't have the stomach for it. So maybe a change in personnel in the monarchy which has more fortitude that can actually give that um you know, give that confidence in the political elites as well, to actually follow through what they want, right? Because what we've seen is even when it comes to Nigel Faraj, he's also kneeling down to the Muslim votes and stuff like that, right? It's because he doesn't have the confidence as well from the monarchy. Even if he becomes a prime minister, right, uh and the king's direction is like, no, no, we're not kicking out Islam at all. We're not gonna go against Islam. It's not Islam, it's just few people within Islam, and we're going to tackle that, and we're going to have more and more Islamic centers of study, and we're going to invite people, uh, different Islamic scholars, like he said, to like which the Islamic Center is doing in Oxford to you know give speeches and stuff and uh broaden the understanding of Islam. Why the hell do we need to do that, right? So it's already it's already cockolding to Islam, right? And any prime minister that comes in will have that problem to deal with.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

You know. Okay. And when we're talking about uh change in personnel in the monarchy, are we thinking about uh uh bringing up an example I saw someone say the other day, which is I would never go against the crown because that would make me a Republican and I'm not. However, I do support an abdication rather than a revolution. Is this what you're saying? Is move over and let's see if if if William has some metal.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

So this is this is my understanding, right? So if he moves over now and William comes in, it's going to be business as usual, and we're still going to go through decline. If we go through a period of struggle with this high civil unrest, high um uh disunity as well, and high anger towards the monarchy for not fixing it, right? And then in that process, the king passes away, moves on, right, and then William takes over, then it won't be business as usual, right? Because and whoever takes over after that, because they would have to do like certain they will have to take certain steps to win back the public.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Yeah, right. So what the monarchy's always done, which is survive, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

So that that would they will have to do, but they won't won't do unless they're pushed to that point. So right now, changing the personnel is not going to fix it. By going through the inevitable, you know, and then changing it might have an have a better effect of it. And and that's what I think. Because otherwise, like otherwise, we will go if we change the personnel right now and it's business as usual, then you are I I we can be damn sure that we're going to become a republic within the 10 years, if that happens, right? Because if if we change the personnel and nothing happens, and there's still the same old, same old, then people like, okay, you know what, we are done with monarchy, like, you know, we're not giving it another chance. And we might still have, and the pressure will actually come more if Australia becomes a republic as well. Right? If they go through being a republic, I think so that can have a cascading effect. And if that means and if uh the monarchy over here doesn't change, you know, it's snapped.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Okay. Well, interesting. It's also interesting here when you talk about we have to go through the period of struggle. It it brings to mind the story of Exodus, the Israelite Israelites, they they lose sight of what's what matters. I think Thomas uh Carlyle ended up quoting in one of his many excellent speeches, which I've been reading of late, or lectures, should I say, um, which I think he he paraphrased from scripture, which is uh you uh you have forgotten the ways of the God, you do not walk the way of God, and thus you you must suffer. Uh whether people want to subscribe to the scriptural stuff, is effectively what you're saying is look, we've lost our way in just about every single area, suffering is inevitable. We're gonna go through that period being out in the desert before we're able to return to Jerusalem, so to speak.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Yeah, yeah. And and and that that has to happen, right? And that's like even even out of biblical uh context, struggle is vital for us. I just want to concentrate that our struggle is for something and it's not, you know, it's not just continuous, it's not towards a decline of non-existence for a country like Britain. But it's if we if we are going through a struggle, it has to have a meaning, it has to have a purpose. That's why I want to think about what happens next so that it gives a purpose to the struggle, so people know like why they're tightening their belts because there's something.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Understood. Well, I I I stopped you and made you expand on point number one of the three things that needs to happen. What are the other two things, Murmis?

SPEAKER_01 14:50

So the other this the second thing is I think so the reformation of the Tory Party. Uh and uh the reformation of conservatives is actually really vital. And I know people are very angry at the Conservative Party for failing them, right? And the reason why people are more angry at the Tory Party than they actually are at even at Labour and stuff as well, is the this the very reason why we need a reformation of the Tory Party. It's because the Tory Party is like the monarchy, right? It is the party, and every other party is is a challenger to that party, right? And it is so it's sort of like that father figure of a party, right? And that if that goes astray, I think so the country goes astray. It has the apparatus built in, it has the imagination of people still intact, right? And that is the prime mover of politics. Things change when they they move, right? It won't it won't change unless they move. If we reform them, then we are actually thinking about not just reforming the conservative party. So people need to stop thinking about like, oh, we're just reforming the conservative party itself, right? And and and stop thinking about their period of 14 years, because the party is more than the 14 years, and the country is more than those, just those failed 14 years, right? We're actually thinking uh we're actually talking about reforming the elites, right? And also why you need elites in any society for effective governance, right? It's not that the fact that we have elites that's a problem. It's the fact that we have a corrupted elite and an incompetent elite, that's a problem. So when we're talking about reforming the Tory party, we're actually talking about reforming the elites, actually having competent people back who know how to govern, who know how to build policies, who know how to look after their own people, their country, and everything within. Right? I think so. That's why it's important to reform the Tory Party. But again, the Tory Party will not be reformed unless they go through that period of extreme humiliation and struggle and the justified hate of the people, which has to happen now, right? So people are getting when I say that, people get angry at me for saying, Oh, just forget about the Tory party, right? Well, well, you haven't been able to forget about it since his inception. So there's a reason for it, right? You can't forget about it. But you I'm not saying you don't have to get angry at them. I'm not talking about that you need to reform them now. I'm not no, they they actually have to go through this themselves, right? This struggle. They have to have even a more humiliation in 2029. I'm talking about reforming them from before 2034. Like, because that's when when when we can start changing things. So that's my second point.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

Well, I I I think you're onto something there. I have made this point on this podcast, also in private conversation with a few people that I believe the reports that the Conservative Party is dead may be a little premature to paraphrase a famous dome line, in that it's been around for hundreds of years, and in accordance with the Lindy effect, which Nik Nasim Nicholas Taleb has described so well as the things that have old that have been around for so long are likely to be around for even longer. It's not to say that it's absolutely sure that they're going to survive, but as you've pointed out, is that there is going to be no real answer in 2029. I mean, there's never a silver bullet, but 2029 may well prove to be a false dawn. It might be that if you do end up with a reform government or whatever else, that that all just goes to pot, or that circumstances means you can't get there. But by 2034, because of the period of the long period of suffering that's currently been endured, is that people will need to be living in a totally different political paradigm. And the Conservative Party, after all of that time, if they don't get back in at the next election, will have had done a lot of time clearing out Deadwood. And I I I I look at the the Tories, and similar to you, which is a I don't really want to go sliming people all of the time just for the sake of it, if I start to see goods being done, then that should be recognised. And I take a similar view to Douglas Carswell, who came on the show, where he said, I don't really care who does the things that are right, just so long as it gets done. And that goes for the Labour Party, it goes for the rest of it. And if I look at the Tories, not the current leadership, but if I look at Jenric and his acolytes like Neil O'Brien and Katie Lamb and Nick Timothy and all the rest of it, I go, actually, that there would be a very useful leadership team and more likely to be able to govern than all of the other challenges so far. So I I think it's a deleterious thing to do to just dismiss a whole party and all of the things they might be able to do.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

They have to die as well to rise from the ashes, right? Exactly, to be reborn. And in every single instance, the third one that I come up to as well, the first two instances well, they both have to die. The the monarchy has to be at its lowest, it has to die to be able to be reborn, right? This is a story, like you know, of the Christ itself as well. Like, you know, they the rebirth is important, but you can't be born again unless you have died once, right? So that that story has to come to an end for them to be born. And you know, it's not as if I'm saying like all the parties, all the smaller parties and stuff are not important, and then we should only have like one singular party. The thing is, those parties are important as well, as pressure groups to keep the Tories on their toes, right? So you need reform party, you need advanced UK as well. I don't see advanced UK's role as being more than uh, you know, more of a role than Liberal Democrats, right? They're never gonna form a government, but they can be in a very strong position, and this is actually what I see for reform as well. They can be in a position where they can swing, you know, the decisions, they can they can put pressure on, right? That's why you need those parties, but ultimately they are all challengers to the main party of conservatives, labor included, all of them are actually challengers. That's why every time a labor party like forms government, it always fails. Because you know, they just don't know what to do. Like they do know what to do when they come in, government, but like you know, they they're trying to enact their way of thinking, right? Their their socialist way of life. They're not trying to correct things that the conservatives got wrong. That is what the other challenges would do, right? But these parties on the left they are trying to enact something completely new. So they they want to do away with what the conservatives are. Conservatives' problem has been that they try to. Appease these people, these people who actually want to destroy completely the way that Britain has been run, right? From the time of Tony Blair and even before that, what that's what they've tried to do, they've tried to completely, you know, um change the way Britain is run. There's no point on appeasing those people. And the greatest win of the communist has been in infiltrating the Conservative Party with these liberal democrats and these sort of liberal people within the party, right? So that needs to change, and that is only going to change once once the conservative party completely dies and it comes out like a new crop of people who restart it while their party apparatus is still there. Because I don't see uh I just don't see Reform Party as being a serious enough party to be able to govern, right? They can be in government, they might win all the votes and stuff. I like that doesn't matter. Winning is not winning an election is not the point, right? What do you do with that is the point, right? So they put out statement like yesterday Rick really annoyed me. They put out these tweets uh like of the Nigel Farage said he will require all police officers, uh the police officers to um investigate all crimes or something of that sort, right? So what a vacuously stupid statement to make. Obviously, they're required by the crown when they take uh when they when they uh you know take the oath to the crown, they are required to investigate every single crime, right? It's in their oath that they will do all they can to prevent all crimes, right? And and and to pursue all means, right? The problem is not what you will require them to do. The problem for them is what is their capacity and ability to do those things, right? So, how are you going to enable them? How are you going to make sure that they have enough capacity? How are you going to build in reforms for for the uh the police academy and stuff to be so that they you enable them to do the stuff, right? So it just shows me when they put out these, you know, slop sort of statements that they're not really serious about these things, they don't really know how it works. And the same that I saw when like them winning local elections as well, local council elections and stuff, and they started talking about uh the the the doge, the UK Doge like thing that they started. Um, what's his name? Whatever his name is, uh ZR Yusuf, right? So he started saying it. It just it was pretty clear that they don't know how local councils are run. You know, when they were saying, are we going to audit? The councillors are going to audit the councils, like okay, unless you change the complete law on that, that's that's not how it happens. A council itself doesn't audit on itself, right? It it that's how it does it. Local councillors actually cannot do audits on it, right? But it's just they put out these statements because they know at this point that the public doesn't know how things work. Right? And that's why it's easy to fool the public because these are statements that are very nice statements to make, right? They are very catchy statements to make. Oh, I'll require every police officer to, you know, investigate all crimes. Then people are all of a sudden thinking, oh, yeah, that means they won't be investigating all the woke crimes, all the woke hate crimes and stuff like that. It's like even if you take that away, they still don't have the capacity to investigate everything. That's how much crime we have currently, and that's how much they lack the capacity. That's how much admin work that they have to do, that they are trapped into this. That's why how much they have to write investigation reports after every single sorry, incident reports after every single incident, right? It it ties them up in those sort of things. It just shows me that they don't know how the mechanics of each of those departments work, right? If they come in government, the civil service will continue as usual. And what they will end up doing is that they they will end up putting out these statements and say, So, see, we tried to do something, and the civil service, the blob, the government blob, the deep state is stopping us from doing it. So they will keep getting the confidence of the people, the the uh popularity, because they'll be like, Well, we are trying, but the uh the government is stopping us. Uh the civil service is stopping us from doing it. Well, fine, like that's a good way of doing like empty politics, right? But I'm I'm not interested in that. So I'm interested in how you're actually going to make the civil service do those things, and you won't be able to do uh make them do anything unless you actually know what you're talking about, right? So, anyways, like that was a long tangent on why I don't think like the reform party is like able to do those things. Conservative party has that apparatus and has that understanding, it's just that they don't have the political will right now, so they need to go through that point. But the third point of the third reformation point is the reformation of faith, right? And and these that is the most important reformation that is needed. All of these points of reformation can uh, in my opinion, cannot be in isolation of each other. They have to be you know they have to be in concert with each other, and they have to affect each other, right? So when I think so, when the faith is reformed, you know, and and has the beginning of it, that's when it will have an effect on monarchy and the conservatives. And that's and you are already seeing those glimmer of things, not in the monarchy, which is disturbing to see, but you're seeing it within the Tory party where more and more Christian MPs are actually finding their voice, right? And you can see why it will work only through Christian Christianity, only through the reformation of faith. Right? That's when we we can we can confidently say no to things on the basis of it. So that those were my three points. Like I don't uh at this point, I don't really care whether people agree or disagree with me. Uh I've never cared anyways, but I especially don't agree right now. Uh don't care right now if people uh agree or not, because I'm thinking about what happens next, what's needed next, because I'm already, you know, I'm already settled in my there is going to be uh a point of extreme pier of extreme struggle. I've tried telling very notable people, giving them plans and stuff, but they're not interested in it on how to create strongholds, cultural strongholds, physical strongholds, intellectual strongholds that we need that, that we actually need physical places of strongholds and stuff in certain communities to protect the British people. They're not interested, they want to seem interested to other people, right? This is why I'm disillusioned by everyone right now, it's all in the world of politics, activism, or whatever the hell you want to call it. Because most of the people I see they are only interested in their own notoriety. People are more interested in to be the hero rather than saving the people. And I'm not I'm only interested in saving the people. So I'm just like, okay, if you're not going to do it, then I need to do it for myself. So, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:11

Well, the intellectual, physical, cultural strongholds you've been talking about, it's uh it has uh rings of Rodre's the Benedict option, where he, for those who don't know it, suggests that when a culture has gone so far wrong, in which case he's making the argument that modernity, heavily secularized progressive modernity, has become an aberration and it is uh uh bad for our health, uh both individually and as families and as societies, is better to surround yourself with people who are committed to uh a more fulsome human life like the one you just talked about in point three, which is one focused around faith and specifically the faith that drove this country for the last 1,500 years at least. Um let's let's think about that a little bit more. So I guess what you're saying is we all need to go and not just touch grass, get off the internet, and be thinking about clicks and all the rest of it, but actually we need to go and live cheek by jowl, shoulder to shoulder with the people in our neighborhood, pick up some kind of uh a tool and get digging or hammering or whatever. Uh obviously, I'm speaking uh figuratively, it might be that you own support with just cleaning the neighborhood or repairing things or whatever, but quite actually going and getting involved in a community, not just in an abstract sense, but becoming a part of it, and for all of the warts and all, uh, because I do think as I look around, even just interacting with people, particularly people under the age of 30 on a day-to-day, just how much personalities have been and culture has been totally homogenized to the point that personalities are lacking depth now, and the view of the world is this internationalized pop culture. We all use the same language depending on which which algorithm we're down, obviously determines how we see the world. We find ourselves talking about an awful lot of things, and in many respects, that is important. I'm glad I'm I am kept up to date with what's going on in the world as much as it's entirely depressing, and but it does help you see the direction of travel. But at the same token, it's it can be very dispiriting as that if that's all you do, and actually the amount of energy you get out from just going and dealing with flesh and bed blood people on the street uh is a good thing. And I know it's something as I'm moving into this next chapter in my own life that I'm looking forward to going and pick up that mantle because uh perhaps like you, Momus, I'm looking around going, there's a there are there are more productive things that we can be doing in life. Um is is is that is that what you mean? Get out there and actually just do something within be be famous in within five miles or within a mile instead of trying to be famous on the internet.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

I think so. That that is the community sort of aspect to it, right? So a community aspect, um taking the personal and as an individual, taking the personal and social responsibility, right? But that doesn't um translate into communism. I don't want the government to take responsibility for me, I want individuals to take responsibility for them, and that's the antithesis for communism when you're depending on the government to do your community work, right? And that is the essence in what Christianity actually is, but it teaches you about social and uh individual responsibility that if you have to do the work of charity and stuff, you do it yourself, right? The onus is upon you to do it, up to your ability, however much ability you have to do that good, right? And when it comes to also restoration of faith that I'm talking about as well, it's important to understand that I'm not just saying start going to church, right? So if I have empty souls going to church and just doing the you know whatever things that the church require you to do, that's that's not going to restore anything because you you you just you're just trying to cling on to a new fad now, right? Like, oh, I can I can go on social media and show, oh I've been to the church. Look, look, I've been to the church, oh this is like my cross or whatever. That's that's not going to restore the faith, right? That's actually going to damage the faith even more because that's going to show the actual faith to be just like you know, just anything, you know, just like a point of influence, just a political tool, right? So you don't want the faith to actually become a political tool. What I'm talking about is deeper. I'm talking about spiritual connection, restoration of the spirit and the faith. Right? It doesn't mean that you have to be a believing Christian, right? Uh but it most likely will lead you to become a believing Christian in time. So I don't require you to become a believing Christian now. I require you to start that journey of investigating the spirit more than material. Right. And that will change your worldview. That will change your that that will start making you think not just for yourself, not just for your security, but beyond yourself. And that's really the investigation that is needed in people, and that's where the restoration of faith is going to become when people start doing that, right? Because in my view, like Christianity started like, okay, I'm not an expert in this, right? So I'm just giving my view on this. I think so this is what I dislike about the Catholic Church itself because it makes Christianity into a church, right? Into an organization when it's supposed to be a bit more than that. It's supposed to be an investigation of yourself and stuff, and people just depend on certain oh, like the priest is gonna do that for me, or if I just go to a confession, it's gonna be fine, right? I can do whatever things I want, and I just go go confess my sins and everything is fine. I don't need to actually have that moment of reflection of not doing it and stuff. Like, I'm probably wrong on that, anyways. Doesn't matter. What I'm saying is it it has to be the church and the faith has to be more than bricks and mortar and priest and the way of doing things and like you know, of like you know, rituals or whatever, it has to be more than that. The restoration of faith is going to come from the investigation of the spirit and where it leads you, that will be determined by that period of struggle. Right? So if let's say people become more spiritually aware, right, of of and and trying to grasp at faith, but through the this period of struggle, they actually become you know pagan, all of them. In my view, that's gonna lead to disaster because it's not going to be organized, it's going to be more anarchy and libertarian anarchy. That's gonna probably that's what it's gonna lead to. But then that's that's fine then. Then that means we get destroyed then eventually, right? Or or we form into something else, or we become more Muslim, right? We go through this struggle and we find like okay, the only faith that we can have is the you know the teaching of a Peter Fal Prophet and uh, you know, warmongering prophet. So that's what we become. We become in the Islamic Republic of Britain, right? So it's just like we won't be what we are, we still will be Britain, but like it will be Islamic Britain, but obviously that means Britain will be no more, right? It will be something new, right? So it's not as if like if we go down a certain route, the Britain is gonna get nuclear, right? It's not gonna get nuclear blasted out of out of the existence, it's just going to be different. So the investigation of spirit, I think so, is that needs to come first before saying oh, just go to the church and stuff, right? And and just start becoming more Christian. I like I people need to dig down into it, they need to start doing more community work, they need to start helping their neighbors more, they need to start caring more. And when I I believe once we start doing these things, it will lead us down to Christianity as anyways, because that is what is at the heart of Christianity. That that sort of spirit is at the heart of Christianity, and it will lead us down over there, you know, and that's more familiar to Britain, right? But it's not going to come by just people going to the church and posting on social media, oh, I'm going to church, or the grandstanding for as a Christian, like or or shouting Christ is king while not understanding the wisdom of the Christ. That is what I was trying to say, actually, for all that long. Could have been bottled down to just one sentence. Try to understand the Christian uh the wisdom of the Christ rather than shouting Christ is king first.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Dear classmate John here, this isn't an advert, so you don't need to reach for the skip button. If you're enjoying the show, then show your support by liking, subscribing, and sharing on whichever device or platform you are watching or listening to Thinking Class on. You can find me in the show on YouTube at Thinking Class. You can also subscribe to me on Substack, searching for the at thinking class handle, or by entering thinkingclass.substack.com in your browser, and you can receive reflections, blog series, and recommended reading to your inbox. You can also follow me on X at Thinking Classes. Thanks for listening, thanks for sharing, thanks for showing your support. Enjoy the rest of the show, classmate. Yeah, well, that that makes sense to me as a as a as a as a at least a rather mild defence of the Catholic Church being being Catholic myself. I I understand what you're saying, actually, uh, with regards to there being a uh a risk that you could just outsource uh your your conscience and your faith ultimately to others, specifically in this case the the Catholic hierarchy which you're talking about. Uh what I would say though is because of the very kernel of Christianity, which is all about recognizing our fallen nature, and that your life's work is to make this crooked bit of wood as straight as it can be, while recognizing you'll never do that, but you have agency and free will, and it is your God-given gift to be able to make decisions that are in accordance with uh Christ-like behavior and symbolism, is that is ultimately what the Catholic Church is is set up to do. And obviously, it has gotten it wrong through the years because uh it is full of humans just like the rest of us, and they they can end up with corrupted hearts and souls like the rest of us. But the way it's set up, having an authority which allows you um to understand, learn, and have access to this wisdom, which you would never have without that um hierarchy, is we're we're all born, we have no knowledge, it gets imparted into us. And so by going through the rituals, traditions, and the um the internal process of calling to mind your confessions, sharing them, is then it is on you as a Christian to actually go and live those and not be empty. And I'm not perfect at this at all, but to not live an empty Christian life like the one you described, but actually be, as Paul said, be transformed by your new mind. And that once you walk out of that confession box, once you walk out of having engaged with the priest you're out there in the world, actually trying to live it rather than it being, as you pointed out, an aesthetic thing, right? A thing like I'm uh look at me, I'm now a Christian, here's my cross, I'm out these doing these things, actually living it. As I say, I'm I can't say I'm a a perfect Christian by any measure.

SPEAKER_01 41:27

Um it has to be transformative, right? So I'm like I'm not a baptized Christian myself, right? But it's like I'm just inviting people to go on a journey, whatever wherever that journey leads you, if at the heart of that journey is to is to reconnect with a spiritual self and still tie it to a sense of reality, right? So you don't go on the woo-woo spiritual journey, right? Is you start believing in astrology and all that crap, right? But like the actual investigation of the spirit when you go towards right, it is most likely going to lead you somewhere good. And at the most, like it at the least, sorry, is going to make you want to do good, right? And that will at least create an environment conducive enough for people, more people to investigate their spirit, right? And and that will eventually lead people to Christ, right? So as long as people have the spirit of Christ, it doesn't matter which church they go to, which which doctrine they follow. If they have the spirit of the Christ, good things, good outcomes will come, right? And that's the least, the lowest bar I personally want to set on the restoration of faith. Is people's personal faith. I'm not talking about restoring the Church of England, I'm not talking about restoring the Catholic Church, I'm not talking about restoring Orthodox Church. I'm talking about restoring the faith in people. That's why I didn't say restoration of church.

SPEAKER_00 43:03

Well, I won't I won't um uh grab your head personally and push it into the baptismal font moments. I'll I'll leave you to do do that yourself. Yeah, but um just sticking on faith a little bit whilst mixing the conversation with podcasting, yeah, is you were uh born into a Muslim family, you were born uh you are of Pakistani heritage, lived in Kuwait, and um you have clearly been very outspoken on Islam and what you believe is um uh the negative impacts it's been having within Britain and beyond, uh I would say that has probably caused you some security concerns, and I don't want to uh make you say anything that you don't want to, but if I think about your time on the internet as a face doing podcasting with the things that come. From doing that, from taking an outspoken view uh against Islam, is has it been worth it?

SPEAKER_01 44:10

Um, it's always worth it to speak the truth, right? If not for others, it's for yourself. It's it's worth it. Because then the more true you are to yourself, um the better journey that you can take, right? The better investigation that you can take into your own life and stuff, right? You're not hiding behind false things, you're not living a lie. So that's always been worth it. I think so that there's a reason why I left Islam as well, because I could have just kept on pretending to be a Muslim, living in a Muslim country. I had every opportunity over there, I would have been far more successful in whatever I'm doing right now had I, you know, chosen that path even in my profession and stuff, because I had more opportunities, I had more connections and stuff. But I chose not to do it because I couldn't be true to myself. And I was like, well, that's not a way to live. Because, you know, I I've never been uh if someone who's interested been interested in money, maybe people can say because I've had money, but I have like you know, it's that's not really the case, you know. Our family has seen ups and downs, you know, been in wars before when I was four years old, lost everything, then family gained a bit more, like you know, we've been living up and down the middle class sort of life and stuff, like you know, but people can say, okay, you're always comfortable enough, that's why you never care about money. Or it's like I I don't think so. That's the thing. I think so. It's just I just never did uh care that more about money than myself. Uh sorry, more about money than my spirit, right? And uh and how I connect that with the world, right? That's has has been more of my concern. So, in that sense, I think so it has been worth it, and this is the reason why I left it at that point, because I just couldn't I just couldn't live a lie. When when I investigated more and more, it took me six years to actually research more and convince myself. More than research, I spent those six years convincing myself not to leave Islam, right? And finding ways of not leaving it, you know, delving into different elements of it, and it's like, okay, don't leave. Like, because I I had a lot to lose, right? But when I came to that point where it became like, okay, no, it there is no other way. I cannot condone the actions of this prophet, of this false prophet. This is this it is not giving me the spiritual satisfaction, it is not connecting me to the universe, sort of like the cosmos, sort of a thing. Like it's not you know inspiring me to be a better human being. Why should I condone this? Because if I condone this, then I'm condoning it for other people who know me as well, right? And and and I'm sending them to a path of hell through my actions, through my inaction, right? So I had to do it in the same way that I had to do over there. So when I see something, I have to speak it as well. Because it's always, I think so, it's always worth it, no matter the consequences, to speak the truth. And if you have the faith, you can you can change the way that you speak the truth, right? Which is something that I I think so we wanted to talk about, maybe something that I've been reflecting upon. Of maybe I need to change my tact of how I do it. Um, maybe these times since October 7th has you know ruffled me a bit too much, right? And where I have been been engaging out of character in the same topics that I've been talking about before as well, but I've been engaging in them differently before to what what how I've started engaging with them now. And maybe I need to like you know self-reflect, go through a period of self-reflection, see like, okay, what am I doing? Who am I involving myself with? Are they actually beneficial? Do I see them being beneficial? Do I do I am I, you know, am I that person which people might perceive or not? Like, can I, you know, so those sort of things I think so I need to go through a self-reflection for. But like to answer that again, like, yeah, it's always worth it to speak the truth.

SPEAKER_00 48:38

Some of the some of the people that you have talked about in recent posts, you talked about um some people being grifters, you talked about um some people perhaps um not particularly welcoming, you taking different viewpoints on them, perhaps people you were once uh closer to. Uh I I again don't know who these people are. And I suppose there's an another point on there, which is your your dismay, maybe this is a separate point, your dismay at older uh commentators, politicians, and all the rest of it, seeming to outsource uh or delegate the hard conversations to younger people. Um is this is this all part of your change in approach? Is it that you're effectively trying to steer clear of people that you think are political opportunists or people who are um just trying to that they're too single and narrow-minded, and you just want to be able to create your own more independently minded uh platform? Is this is this what's happening?

SPEAKER_01 49:43

So it's it's more about like concentrating on what I want to do rather than what others want to do, right? Because everyone has their own idea. They are everyone is doing things in a way that they think is going to get them the win that they want, right? I just don't overall, it's not about like particular individuals, it's everyone, right? I just don't see overall people have had that restoration of the spirit to be able to take those decisions beyond themselves, right? Or to to explore those things beyond themselves. I think so. So many people are they're they're trying, but they're still so concerned about being the hero rather than saving the people, that that's their prime motive, and that's what I see uh with everyone, right? Now there are good elements out there in all of those people, right? They're not like everyone is not just completely bad, even when it comes to reform party and stuff. They all have good elements. I want to speak to their good parts, right? I want to help that good part, people to focus on the good parts and maybe you know change them, right? Sort of like save the souls of those people. But overly, I also don't want to associate with people uh more like officially, like sort of associate with anyone, and that's just because I think so I want to go on my own journey uh and see where it leads me because like you know, it's it's it can change you, trying to live up to other people's expectations of who you are supposed to be rather than who you are can change you, and it's not as if like oh I want to become like you know, some superhero or something like that, or some like you know, this the ultimate savior or something. No, I I just I just want to focus on myself more and my family more and like you know uh do the things around my community more, sort of a thing, right? You know, wherever that leads me, that will lead me. But I also think like I'm not fully equipped, uh have enough experience, have enough like a lot of things to be able to help people properly, right? So I want to concentrate on that as well. How do I build myself up personally so that I have more expertise than I have at the moment, so that I can bring about effective change if change is going to come through me or via my help, right? So I can give better help rather than like trying to hold um the things at the moment. So I and uh and that means that I need to I need to have that space for exploration. I cannot be explicitly for one person or the other person because I'm trying to explore the ideas, right? So I can't be like pro this person completely and completely shut down the other person and and stop my learning from them, where I could have had learning from them to actually bring about the change, right? So yeah. I don't know if I'm making any sense.

SPEAKER_00 52:46

No, you yeah, you you are, you are. I I uh the the I quite enjoyed you saying that ultimately, if at ever point if at any point in the future there's a there seems to be a duty incumbent on you to step up to the plate, you need to be effective and competent. And you can't just do that through following the algorithmic trends. And in many ways, this is the this is the big thing about being a podcaster with modest followings like you and I is that uh you you can either choose choose just to go all in on the engagement and just go, right, I'm I'm all about podcasting, only podcasting and carrying a certain message. But in the end, you've trained yourself up to become a spokesperson, but perhaps not actually that effective in what it is that you're trying to bring about, if anything, or at least things that you would support if it were to be brought about. Um, and I I struggle with similar things where I, from the beginning, have tried to maintain an independent focus and just look at areas that I'm interested in. That obviously can bring me back to politics and all the rest of it. But when you find yourself researching for things, guests, or just keeping up to date with all of the various trends that are going on in the country, and there's a lot of bad stuff out there, as you well know, is that you can then find yourself being caught up in inviting lots and lots of people on to speak about that thing. And before you know it, you've either theme captured yourself or audience captured yourself. Yeah. Um, and I think when you're effectively just wanting to have good conversations with people, and when the time arises, I would say contributes to the cultural tide of change or the tide of cultural change you want to see bring about, then you just gotta you've gotta find a fine balance. Otherwise, what you'll do is you'll just go all in on, right? It's cultural change, therefore, I just need to go for all the big political points that I want to see happen. But then all of a sudden, you'll find that other people might not want to come on your podcast because they think, well, it's not going to serve their purpose to come on and talk about their historical investigation into the peasants' revolt or something, yeah, uh, and all the rest of it. But you know, you'd find that fascinating. You'd quite welcome that conversation less about riots and this, that, and the other. But before you know it, you almost have no choice but to continue going on. So yeah, it's it's hard. It's it I think this is the the thing that's tough for all of us in this age, is that clearly we can be memed into a totally different character and a life. And I and I think there's certainly a space for all of the things we are viewing and seeing online. But if that becomes your sole locus of focus, as we picked up in other parts of this conversation, you can find yourself becoming dehumanized insofar as you're not really engaging in things beyond the political. So there is no room for faith, there's no room for family, there's no room for community. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:45

Yeah. And you're limiting your learning a lot. Like, and this is something I think so. This is something that uh the reason why I came up to that decision as well is because yeah, I had a I need to go through more peer of self-reflection, but I already had like all had this reflection like I'm not a podcaster, I have a podcast.

SPEAKER_00 56:08

Right?

SPEAKER_01 56:08

So I'm I'm not doing it for the clicks and views because what I see is on new media, all of these people like they talk about always so how different it is from mainstream media. It is not just in name, just in production. It is the same, it operates the same. So the the the things that they are exploring and investigating and stuff like that, it only they'll only do it if it gives them the views and the clicks, because they already are audience captured, whether they like it or not, because that's how they earn money now, right? So they're even in that sense, some of them are even worse than mainstream media, because in mainstream media, because you have the apparatus of the whole, like let's say BBC, they can do um documentaries about something that will only have a thousand views, but they can afford to have that, right? Uh, and that might be a really interesting part uh documentary that maybe later or 10 years on, people will look upon it and from 1,000 it will become 10 million views eventually, right? And a person delving in new media cannot afford to do that, so their scope of investigation becomes lower and lower and lower, and it only concentrates on what is the attention of the people right now, right? They can only investigate those things, so they're limiting themselves so much, and this is why I decided that's not why I started my uh like little podcast, and that's why that's the reason why it is still little podcast, is because I want to have conversations to learn from myself to grow, and that's what I was trying to do. So I don't want to say, Oh, I won't have these this people and that people, but I want to have people in in topics that I'm interested in, and I want to explore topics like you know, have my uh mystery and mythology episodes and investigate those topics because I'm researching for myself. If someone wants to view it, that's a plus, but that's not really my focus, right? So, yeah, I'm that's how I've started thinking about these things. Like, I I'm not a podcaster, I have a podcast, I have a substack, right? And I'm writing my thoughts on it, and I'm using that as an exercise to write better and better if I can get time to do it. I usually have people if people have seen my substack, I usually have five minutes to write those articles. So five to ten minutes, uh they will have mistakes and stuff because I haven't even had the chance to read them again. So, you know, but eventually finding that time to do that and like and investing in my own self so that I can grow myself, so that I can be a vehicle of change in the future if needed, right? Building myself up for that point, and this is the whole I uh the point of it that I want to look after what happens after the inevitable, right? So I want to build myself up to that point. I don't want to engage right now in what I know is going to happen, and what I know no matter how much you try, you cannot avoid it, is going to be civil unrest and all going to be all those things. So it's just no point. They are better people than me, right? Who are actually activists that can keep on doing that. They're actually good independent journalists who are doing these things, investigating and like you know, filing for FOIs and whatever, and write writing those things up. More power to them. There's no point of me trying to copy what they're doing just so that I can get some views and clicks and stuff, right? Because that's the reason why a lot of people are doing social commentary and stuff as well, just because oh, like everyone is talking about that right now. Oh, look at the YouTube metrics. It says, Oh, this topic riots is up, so I'm gonna just talk about riots. Like, I have 50,000 people talking about the same rights with the same point of view, nothing original, right? What am I adding to it? What's the point, right? If there's already good enough people that I see, 49,999 might be shit, but one of them is good enough quitting that point out, and I can't really add anything to it. Okay, let them do it, right? I'm not gonna focus on that. I might give my thoughts every now and then, but like I'm not gonna focus on that. So that's this period of self-reflection for me, is like finding what I'm good at, building myself up for it, so that when the time comes, and it's not like I'm not taking myself, I'm not like just finding a cabin some somewhere in the woods and like just gonna live over there and like you know, just you know, screw the world. But I'm trying to go through this period so I can create the connections if they are connected and create the wider associations with people to see how we can be more effective in the in the future after the spirit of struggle.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:57

Well, I think it's fair to say that the theme of this conversation so far has been change, whether it's through a reformation, whether it's through a restoration, whether it's through changing our mind, uh, whether it's through changing our approach to things. And so that was the most unsubtle segue into the final question that I asked all of my guests, which I didn't ask the first time round here on the show, because it was before I had the bright idea to ask people this question. But Momus, what have you changed your mind on during the course of your life? I know we've talked a little bit about Islam already, so maybe something else, but what have you changed your mind on during the course of your life? It might have been an absolute, it might have been something smaller than that. And what was it that made you think differently?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:47

Um I could write a whole book on that, I think so. Um, because there's so many things, and not like just little things, because I have to avoid the little things because they but a major change in sort of my outlook uh of the world and stuff. I think so. The first point was that I actually was, you know, a practicing Muslim. I wasn't uh because most of the ex-Muslims that I uh come in contact with, they are people who stopped uh never believed like you know in Islam properly or whatever, and they they didn't pray or any, they weren't like really practicing Muslims, uh, and they wanted to party and stuff like that, right? And that's why they left eventually, right? But it wasn't the case for me. I I was actually like you know, very diligent in that. I was devout, right? So that was a major change of like changing my mind on my own faith. And and and and even on God and becoming like really militant atheist. And then a huge change came when I changed from that point of view to an agnostic point of view, to to someone who's investigating the spirit then, right? That's the spiritual self, then, right? And and to understanding the importance of Christianity, right? So those are like big, huge philosophical changes, right? And then going from someone who was very liberal to someone who's keeping those liberal values, but understanding the importance of the you know conservative and traditional values along with it, right? So that's the change in political philosophy as well, right? From liberalism to traditionalist conservatism, right? And and then along with that, like there's a huge thing that you know change comes in, like also from that liberal to the the conservative side is also like how you live your own life and to how you know you view the importance of families and the importance of all those things, right? So in between, there's a lot of things that I've and I keep I will keep on changing my mind on because those are like huge shifts in my mind, right? Uh I think so. Like that though those are the guiding principles, and obviously, like you know, current change as well. Current change, I won't really say it's a change, it's just reverting back, right? So it's not a change for me. It's like it's not as if like, oh I'm I'm I'm trying to be something I'm not actually. I actually am trying to be something that I am. That's why I'm not, I want to change the way that I tackle social media and you know, podcasting and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:37

There's a course correction, it's it's effectively embracing your the core part of your personality having been, I suppose, uh diverted through circumstance. You've you've in a in a fit of passion is probably an unfair, but through through a passionate response to the things that you've been seeing that have exercised your spirit and will, you've jumped on things, it's changed your approach.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:01

I care that much as well, right? Like if I didn't care about Britain that much, I it wouldn't matter to me, right? I'd just like move elsewhere and like you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:11

Well, yeah, we we spoke about that last time. You could have gone anywhere else and you you chose here. Um and I don't know, you've also made the point that look, you're of Pakistani heritage. There is quite a lot of conversation about what we do with an immigration policy in the future with regards to discriminating against where people are from, including not letting people in from Pakistan. There's also been quite a lot of people who say, right, no, no one now, and maybe get rid of everyone who already is. And that's in small circles. But I know you have such a um a patriotism, I suppose, for the country that I've even heard you say that despite your your heritage and despite the fact that those policies would end up discriminating against you and could see you kicked out, which I don't think will happen, of course, but you've But who am I to say? Because Britain is bigger than me. It's a it's it's got this thousand it's got this thousand long year history and more. How could I expect it to to care just solely about me and and my my kind of ethnic group, as it were, which is I I think to a lot of people would be a very, very alien view to hear anyone say. And so it just does go to show how much you really are invested in this uh this country, I suppose, not not self-immolating. And and so you you you've been writing a book, Momus, so maybe we can finish on this. I think you've been writing a book on on Islam. What's the progress? When can we expect it? And then I suppose on top of that, where can people find you if they don't know you already?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:49

Okay, so I mean uh the the book about Islam that I'm writing, and uh I'm just the outline is there, the structure, the skeleton is there. I'm just thinking of a how to how to present it. Additions to it. Maybe there might be some additions to it as well. How what what route do I want to go to? Do I want to go to the theological route or do I want to go to the sort of more political route with it? So there's there's things that I'm considering, or do I want to go with just the info if informative route? Like this is what is in there, make up your own mind, sort of a thing, right? So those are the things that I'm investigating right now. I don't know when I'll be finished, but I have a feeling that I just need I need to get it out of my system, right? So I need to write this book. So it might be that I I I don't I don't publish it till like you know a few years and I continue writing my fictional books in the in the middle because that's that that's actually what I write fiction uh and not reality. But um yeah, but I I don't I I don't think so. Like I I don't have a deadline in my head before I thought like maybe I'll finish it before November because my my book was themed on Islam Awareness Month, uh uh as opposed to the Islamophobia Awareness Month. So I did want it to release it in November because it's built, it's actually built on the the tweet thread that I did on Twitter, um where I every every single day of November I pointed out a thing that is wrong with Islam, right? So that was my Islam Awareness Month that I celebrated while people were celebrating Islamophobia Awareness Month. So the book will have that element uh of like each, you know, each of the days that is going to do it. So it probably will be published in one of the Novembers. Don't know just which one and when I need to do it. Maybe I need to look at through a fresh mind and not a combative mind, um, a mind that is thinking about how can effective change happen rather than just to antagonize, like so it's like you know, they there's a way you can either burn the Quran, right, and and antagonize people and get the reaction as an activist, right? Or you can actually you know critique the Quran properly, right? So those like those are the two sort of ways of doing it, which one can actually have more effective change and sort of save the souls of the Muslims themselves, to be honest, you know, so that they come they get out of that religion and start following that uh that ideology. I think so. I yeah, th those are the things that I'm investigating, probably take a while. Um interesting. I'm not known to finish things as well, so but yeah, and uh apart from that, like yeah, people can find me on on Substack theworld of momus.com. Um, they can find me on Twitter at the World of Momus, and they can find me on Instagram, The World of Momus, they can find me on YouTube, The World of Momus. Everywhere is the world of momus.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:58

There you go. Google the world of momus and they'll all come out. Um, well, momus, uh, thank you for coming into my digital world and letting me in yours. Uh it's a pleasure as always. You're a pleasure. Uh you're a pleasure. You're a you're a gentleman, but you are a pleasure. You're a great pleasure. You're a gentleman. Uh, I wish you every success. I hope that you find your way through writing the book. And I think it's probably a sensible thing to think about. Um truth. Uh, you can you there are ways in which to deliver it, which is more effective. Uh, so uh I can I can fully understand why you're you're tossing up there. But hey, look, November 26th sounds good. At least you have an extra year then. Um thank you very much for coming on. I'm sure we will speak again. And in the meantime, keep fighting the good fight. Thank you. To keep up to date with all that I am doing, please subscribe to the Thinking Class YouTube channel at Thinking Class and follow me on X at Thinking Classes. Thinking Class seeks to understand the civilizational issues we face and why what our leaders do in response matters. Here I seek to explore the ideas, values, and culture that made our civilization, those that are unmaking it, and how leaders at our public and private institutions should respond. Engage with me on YouTube or X or write to me at thinkingclasspod at gmail.com to tell me who you want me to speak to and what topics are important to you. I look forward to seeing you there and for joining me on this journey.