Professor Green: Why Men Today Feel Lost | GREAT MOMENTS

Summary

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Great Company with Jamie Laing

Episode: Professor Green: Why Men Today Feel Lost | GREAT MOMENTS

Date: April 5, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode of Great Moments, Jamie Laing revisits a compelling conversation with Professor Green (Stephen Manderson), focusing on the challenges facing men today, particularly feelings of being lost, societal division, poverty’s connection to crime, and the importance of personal growth and unity. Professor Green draws from his personal experiences and wide social perspective to unpack why men, especially from working class backgrounds, are struggling and how society can begin to create real change.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Lasting Impact of Violence and Knife Crime

• Trauma and Randomness of Knife Crime
  • Professor Green shares the story and scars from being stabbed, discussing the randomness and senselessness of such violence.
  • (02:49): “I was professionally shanked… Someone stabbed you in the neck with a bottle… It descended and it just, you know, I… The arc of, you know, just how quick it went from nothing to nearly taking my life, which would have took both of our lives. It was just so unwarranted… There was no history to it.”
• Societal/Systemic Dimensions
  • Explains that most knife crimes are not committed with “zombie” knives but with kitchen knives, often tied to socio-economic deprivation rather than psychopathy.
  • (03:59): “There’s areas and there’s a kind of socioeconomic background where this happens. And the problem we’re dealing with is poverty… We’re not tackling poverty, so we’re not going to tackle knife crime.”

The Relationship Between Opportunity, Outcomes, and the Economy

• Front-Loading Support vs. Costly Consequences
  • Argues investing early in opportunities for at-risk youth is more effective and less costly than dealing with outcomes like incarceration.
  • (05:01): “If you improve someone’s opportunity, you improve outcomes. If you improve outcomes, you improve the labor force… There’s a lot of reason to improve opportunity.”
  • Emphasizes both the human and economic incentives to address social inequality.
  • (05:44): “From a human point of view… you improve the quality of someone’s life and we only have one, and it’s really short, innit?”

The Crisis of Male Identity and Disconnection

• Men Feeling Lost
  • Jamie asks, “Do you think in the working class community, typically men, there’s a lot of men who are lost?”
  • Professor Green references Richard Reeves’ book Boys and Men, discussing the growing sense of men being “unmarriageable” or left behind by changes in society.
  • (06:27): “There’s a really terrifying book, Boys and Men, by Richard Reeves… the effect of men becoming less marriageable… men being at much greater risk of mortality if they’re not in a relationship… There’s so much fucking division, man.”
• Societal Division and Blame
  • Points out how society is being divided—men vs. women, locals vs. immigrants—to prevent unity and significant social change.
  • (07:26): “It’s all of this division which is encouraged and relied upon that stops any significant change from ever happening, because there’s no unity between us.”

How to Create Unity and Change

• Starting with the Home & Education
  • Calls for individual responsibility in fostering unity, starting with oneself and one’s family, especially raising the next generation better.
  • (07:53): “Fix your home. Genuinely… but we have to educate ourselves… collectively, we all have responsibility with each other because… we are all in this together.”
• Working Against Algorithm-Driven Polarization
  • Jamie and Professor Green discuss how algorithms trap people in echo chambers, making it harder to find common ground or have open, challenging conversations.
  • (09:02) Jamie: “A lot of people consuming conversations that we’re stuck in our own algorithms… rather than the wider algorithm, which we need to see.”
• Loss of Agreeable Disagreement
  • The art of respectfully disagreeing has become rare due to social media dynamics.
  • (09:17): “There’s not much safe space for conversation… The art of disagreeing agreeably is forgotten.”

The Importance of Trying and Personal Growth

• Honesty About Progress
  • Professor Green is candid about his own struggles, admitting he’s still “guilty of” the behaviors he critiques but insists on the value of effort and trying.
  • (10:14): “I just want to be absolute. I am not everything I’ve spoken about. I’m still very much… I’m still very guilty of.”
• Final Takeaway: Keep Trying
  • The necessity of conscious effort to change oneself and keep improving is highlighted as the key lesson.
  • (10:38): “Try. Yeah, it’s really easy to sit with… ill feeling… but you can take that and try and do something different going forwards… Try, fail, try again. Do something different. Actively force yourself to do something different.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Senseless Violence:
  • “The arc of, you know, just how quick it went from nothing to nearly taking my life… it was just so unwarranted.” — Professor Green, (03:05)
• On Opportunity and the Economy:
  • “If you improve someone’s opportunity, you improve outcomes… So from a completely capitalist, selfish point of view, let’s improve opportunity, because… we grow the economy.” — Professor Green, (05:10)
• On Societal Division:
  • “It’s all of this division which is encouraged and relied upon that stops any significant change from ever happening, because there’s no unity between us.” — Professor Green, (07:26)
• On Individual Action:
  • “Fix your home… but collectively, we all have responsibility with each other because… we are all in this together.” — Professor Green, (07:53)
• On Trying:
  • “Try, fail, try again. Do something different. Actively force yourself to do something different.” — Professor Green, (10:38)

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Timestamps

• 02:49 – Professor Green describes his experience with knife crime
• 03:50 – Discussion on the randomness and context of violence in deprived communities
• 05:01 – Investing in opportunity versus cost of incarceration
• 06:27 – The challenges facing working class men today
• 07:26 – On manufactured division in society
• 07:53 – Individual responsibility to fix “your home” and educate ourselves
• 09:02 – The effects of social media and algorithm-based echo chambers
• 10:14 – Honest admission of personal struggle with distraction and growth
• 10:38 – The concluding message: keep trying and striving for personal improvement

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Episode Tone & Style

The conversation is candid, direct, sometimes raw and emotional, but always marked by a spirit of hope and a call for collective responsibility. Professor Green brings personal testimony and systemic critique, with Jamie guiding the discussion toward reflection and practical takeaways. Much of the episode is grounded in real experience, informed analysis, and an empathetic, non-judgmental tone.

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This summary captures the essence and major themes of the episode, spotlighting the crises facing men, the impact of poverty and division, and what each of us can do to build a better, more united society.

Transcript

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[Jamie Laing]

Hello everyone, I'm Jamie Laing and this is Great Moments. Hello everyone. This is Great Moments where I share some of my favorite moments from my conversations on Great Company. Something that's made me think, made me laugh or change my perspective and hopefully, hopefully there's something in it for you too. So are you ready? Let's get into it. I mean, one of the things you also have, and you sort of spoke about is the scar you have in your neck, which is where someone on

[Guest (Knife Crime Survivor)]

the other side now as well. Down there. I've got one there and I've got one all the way across my stomach. And different reasons. These were all surgical. I was professionally shanked, but

[Jamie Laing]

man, could Someone stabbed you in the neck with a bottle.

[Guest (Knife Crime Survivor)]

Yes. Yeah, yeah. He accused me of barging someone. The person, he said. I barged. Never said anything because I said excuse me in a loud club and he didn't hear me. So I put an open hand on his back and said, excuse me, please, and move behind. You know, I'm. You've seen me enough to know how I carry myself 100%. And yeah, it just. It descended and it just, you know, I. Yeah, yeah. Didn't need to go there. It didn't. It. The arc of, you know, just how quick it went from nothing to nearly taking my life, which would have took both of our lives. It was just so unwarranted. It had no. There was no history to it. I never got stabbed on no g shit, no block shit, no road shit. It happened really randomly and I wish for both of us it didn't.

[Jamie Laing]

Isn't it. Isn't it crazy how I think about this, like how one moment can change life really quickly. That sliding door moment.

[Guest (Knife Crime Survivor)]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jamie Laing]

One decision, one moment.

[Guest (Knife Crime Survivor)]

There was a kid on the very same night who sadly on Amherst Road passed away, got stabbed in the neck on the same night and hacked me. And he passed away. And how many other lives altered, changed, maimed, ruined, destroyed because of it. It's really. And the thing is, as well, like, you know, outside of psychotic behavior, it. There's a place where it happens. And so when you see campaigns around zombie knives and stuff, I agree, they shouldn't. People should not have access to tools like that. But most people are stabbed with kitchen knives. You're not going to get rid of kitchen knives. There's an. You know, there's areas and there's a kind of socioeconomic background where this happens. And the problem we're dealing with is poverty. You know, Skinny man talks about it on his album. Brilliant album. Best UK rap album ever. The council state mind, you know, the science of social deprivation. This. This is understood. And we're not tackling poverty, so we're not going to tackle knife crime where I would argue it's being perpetuated at the moment with.

[Jamie Laing]

So what would you do. Big question.

[Guest (Knife Crime Survivor)]

I speculate, you know, front end the spending. We know what it costs when someone ends up in prison. We know what it costs when someone's

[Jamie Laing]

life, £60,000 a year, right?

[Guest (Knife Crime Survivor)]

And we know. So, I mean, you could probably have that and give someone a wage. Not that people should just be given, but if you improve someone's. If you improve. If you improve someone's opportunity, you improve outcomes. If you. So from a completely capitalist, selfish point of view, let's improve opportunity, because if we improve opportunity, we improve outcomes. If we improve outcomes, we improve the labor force. Because more people go into the labor force, what happens then? Well, more people have money to spend, so what happens? We grow the economy. There's a lot of reason to improve opportunity. And, and then from a human point

[Jamie Laing]

of view, because if the economy grew

[Guest (Knife Crime Survivor)]

up with fuck all point of view, yeah, you improve the quality of someone's life and we only have one, and it's really short in it. God, that's the first time I've nearly cried this whole episode. Because it is immediate. I go to my son and I'm like, how much time have I got? Like, my head just goes. But you improve people's quality of life. And that should be where we start. But sadly, you know, I think that the more selfish aspect of how it can benefit the economy is probably more attractive to people who can possibly make a difference. I don't know why there has to be such disparity. I don't know who it aids.

[Jamie Laing]

Do you think in the working class community, typically men, there's a lot of men who are lost.

[Guest (Knife Crime Survivor)]

Yeah, massively, massively. There's a really terrifying book, Boys and Men, by Richard Reeves, and he talks about, you know, the effect of men becoming less marriageable, you know, men becoming unmarriageable. So therefore women looking at them as just an extra mouth to feed and thinking they can do everything themselves and the impact that that has on men raising boys and wow, that's not villainizing women, by the way, but just, just what's happening. And then men being at much greater risk. This is. I can't repeat all of this verbatim. I need to go back and read the book another six times. But men being at much greater risk of mortality if they're not in a relationship. So the, the women offered most independence by way of success are most likely to marry, which, you know, like, there's so much fucking division, man. We're not even, you know, against patriarchy together. It's just. Well, if women are Doing better, it must be at the cost of men. You know what I mean? Like, let's feed that to men. You know, in the same way that people are encouraged to be angry at immigrants because they're the problem. Right? Despite you having much more in common with them than you ever will your middle or upper class counterparts, they're the problem. It's all of this division which is encouraged and relied upon that stops any significant change from ever happening, because there's no unity between us. How do we ever unify and make substantial, substantial change when we're not all pulling in the same direction?

[Jamie Laing]

So how do we stop them versus us?

[Guest (Knife Crime Survivor)]

Oh, we try and work together. I always say, fix your home. Genuinely, I just think there's, you know, my son hopefully will grow up with ideas of how to do this better than I've ever had the ability to. And I just think if we all start from there, but we have to educate ourselves. You know, we can't just look at, we need to save boys, we need to help men. It's not necessarily a woman's job to do that, but collectively, we all have responsibility with each other because where we are, for better or worse, we are all in this together. People. There's a lot of people who are angry with the situations they find themselves in. And some of that anger is just, you know, I'm not here to diminish that anger, but it's then leveraged by people who benefit further from, you know, further division. And you look at reform and it's just, I find that, that side of things really scary.

[Jamie Laing]

Like, can I ask, mate, because you.

[Guest (Knife Crime Survivor)]

All the British flags going up. I went through Basildon the other day going, what in the Brexit is going on here? And it's a sad use of something which, you know, soldiers coming home from war gave a real good feeling of, I'm okay, I've made it back. It's not that anymore. There's, you know, people talk of being patriots and a lot of people not knowing their own history.

[Jamie Laing]

It's a lot of people consuming conversations that we're stuck in our mic, in our own algorithms. And so we're being. We're being taught by our own algorithms rather than the wider algorithm, which we need to see.

[Guest (Knife Crime Survivor)]

And then therefore. And there's also not much safe space for conversation because you have to sit and talk with people that you're not aligned with and that you don't agree with. But the art of disagreeing agreeably is forgotten. And you can't.

[Jamie Laing]

It's Gotta win now. You've gotta win. Rather than going again. Alan Botan says, my favorite thing, the thing that turns me on is when someone goes, oh, that's interesting. Oh, I haven't thought of it that way. Oh, maybe you're right. Yeah, we've lost that without the need

[Guest (Knife Crime Survivor)]

to be right, though.

[Jamie Laing]

Yes, without the need to be right. Yeah. But you know what I mean. We feel like we all have a voice because of social media, so we all become lawyers or dictators and we have to say, this is what we think. And you've got to believe. And if you don't believe it, then.

[Guest (Knife Crime Survivor)]

And it's so people can't. And I think there's also that the other thing that comes with phones and, you know, I'm guilty of spending too long on it, but is the distraction from what we feel and being able to just swipe from what we don't like feeling. So if we read something that challenges us and that prompts a feeling. See you later, man. You speak so.

[Jamie Laing]

You speak so clearly from a place

[Guest (Knife Crime Survivor)]

of such personal growth, but then go and spend two hours scrolling on my phone. Yeah, but I just want to be. I just want to be absolute. I am not everything I've spoken about. I'm still very much not victim of that's handing over accountability. Sorry, bad language. I'm still very guilty of.

[Jamie Laing]

Yes, but you're still, you're still. I'm trying, Jamie, and that's the most brilliant thing. Right, but what's the most important thing you've learned?

[Guest (Knife Crime Survivor)]

Try. Yeah, it's really easy to sit with. You know, it sounds crazy, doesn't it? Because it's not easy to sit with ill feeling or the feeling of, I could do more or I should have done different. You can't, you know, you can't. Unless you go down the rabbit hole of quantum physics. You know, you can't impact anything that's already happened, but you can take that and try and do something different going forwards. And that's really, really hard because especially, you know, 40, you've got a life of experience and it's really easy to just continue without making conscious effort. But it has to be conscious and it has to be effort to do something different. So, yeah, try, fail, try again. Do something different. Actively force yourself to do something different.

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