Modern Wisdom #1002 – Andrew Doyle: Political Violence & The Lunatics of Your Own Side (October 4, 2025)

Episode Overview

In this thought-provoking episode, Chris Williamson welcomes social commentator, author, and satirist Andrew Doyle to discuss the recent surge in political violence, the dark dynamics unfolding within political tribes, and the decline of "wokeness." Their conversation delves into the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the weaponization of empathy, the psychological draw of ideological purity, UK censorship trends, and the future of culture wars on both sides of the Atlantic. Doyle draws on his new book, "End of Woke," and his own experiences to dissect the tribal psychology and authoritarian reflexes driving division.

Key Topics & Insights

1. The Threat from "The Lunatics of Your Own Side"

• Opening Theme: The hardest enemies for moderates aren’t the opposition; it’s their own extremes.
  • Chris references a tweet: “The lunatics on your own side make you look much sillier than the opposition ever could.” (00:18)
• Andrew’s View: The left must disavow their extremists; failure leads to moral conflation and damages their credibility.
  • "I've made the case that I think the left has to really disavow the lunatics within its own house." (00:35)
• Example: Post-Charlie Kirk assassination, mainstream left figures justified or rationalized the violence, echoing celebratory reactions to past political deaths (e.g., Margaret Thatcher).
  • "What I reacted to was the crowd cheering and applauding that... violence and violent rhetoric has been normalized within the trans activist community." (02:19)

2. Political Violence—Justifications & Escalation

• Normalization Among the Young: Alarming trends show increased left-wing tolerance (and now right-wing tolerance) for political violence, especially among youth.
  • “25% of very liberals say that violence can sometimes be justified in order to achieve political goals.” — Chris (04:12)
• Identity and Tribalism: Political identities are merging with personal identities, making disagreement feel existential.
  • “If your whole identity is wrapped up with a particular politics and someone says your politics is wrong, they're saying that you're wrong." — Andrew Doyle (05:49)
• Case Study: Charlie Kirk assassinated at a speaking event. Doyle sees it as an attack not just on a person, but on free speech itself.
  • "There is something so horrific about this particular one, because what he was doing was so noble... It feels like an attack on free speech itself, as well as being an attack on a poor, innocent man." (07:00)

3. Comparing Reactions to Left/Right Victims of Violence

• Contrast With Trump Shooting: The hosts debate whether a successful Trump assassination would prompt similar moral hand-wringing or if he’d be dehumanized in death.
  • Chris notes, “Sort of, well, Trump had it coming because he's the guy at the top…” (07:43)
  • Andrew: “Political violence should be considered an oxymoron. Those two words shouldn't go together.” (08:40)
• The "Qualified Condemnation" Phenomenon: Notable left figures’ tributes came with “Although I disagreed with him…” caveats.
  • Chris: "I'm not sure...if somebody on the left had been shot...the same amount of hand-wringing would need to be done." (10:37)

4. The Power Of Out-of-Context Narratives

• Folk Devils & Confirmation Bias: The danger of demonizing opponents through cherry-picked or misleading clips—Kirk's example as a "monster of their imagination."
  • "It's the monster of their imagination that they've collectively created. And that's why out of context clips work..." — Andrew Doyle (12:23)
• Media Corrections Rarely Satisfy: Not even public apologies (e.g., Alastair Campbell) can reverse misinformation’s damage.
  • "I must be the only person ever to get an apology out of Alistair Campbell. That is an achievement." (13:29)

5. The Decline (and Danger) of Wokeness

• End of Woke?: Doyle’s thesis is that wokeness has begun its decline, but warns “cornered” ideological movements grow more violent before fading.
  • "What I'm saying is that too much has happened at this point for [wokeness] to ever have the power it once had. The process of its decline has very much begun..." (20:46)
• Signposts of Decline: Tavistock Clinic closure, Cass Review revelations, Supreme Court affirmations of biological sex, DEI program rollbacks in corporations.
  • "These big, big names...they're just getting rid of it because they know it doesn't—well, actually, it’s not only not effective, it can actually ramp up racism..." (22:47)
• What Comes After?: New forms of extreme, defensive authoritarianism from both left and right are likely in the wake.
  • "...what replaces it could be just as bad. We're bound to get another form of authoritarianism at some point." (22:09)

6. How Ideologies Spread: Meme, Cancel Culture & "Weaponized Empathy"

• Cancel Culture as an Enforcement Mechanism: Fear and virtue-signaling enable bad ideas to spread without robust debate.
  • “Some ideas spread because people are too scared to disagree. That's what's happened here.” (29:28)
• Attraction for Psychopaths & Bullies: Movements provide cover for harm under a guise of compassion.
  • "If you are a sociopath...and you want to inflict as much pain on other people, this is the perfect movement...you do it under the guise of compassion and love." (31:41)
• Language Manipulation (Motte & Bailey): Words like “woke,” “liberal,” and “equality” are redefined so even well-meaning people support causes contrary to their values.
  • "The culture war has always been about language and who gets to define the meaning of terms." (33:04)

7. The Culture War’s Cost & the Futility of Countermemes

• Lost Progress: The intellectual energy wasted debating basic realities instead of pushing culture forward.
  • "The main reason that I hope this stuff fucks off is so that we can actually talk about other ideas." — Chris (46:40)
• But Ignoring It Doesn’t Work: Doyle: "There's actually pretty much nothing more important than the difference between truth and fiction." (46:56)

8. Steelmanning the Progressive Movement (& Its Limits)

• Best Case for Progressivism: Rooted in critiquing persistent injustice despite legal progress; skepticism over structural racism.
  • “Society is organized around the dominance of white people for the benefit of white people.” — Andrew, channeling CRT (48:13)
• Failures of the Modern Left: Abandonment of class analysis for group identity; therapy sessions for privilege while workers suffer.
  • "They have substituted money for identity...what socialist writers have said for generations..." (51:29)

9. The New UK Authoritarianism & Free Speech

• Rise in Police Overreach: Real stories of British citizens arrested or investigated for "offensive" online speech (e.g., Graham Linehan's airport arrest, viral non-crime hate incidents).
  • "We've seen the Times did a recent Freedom of Information...showing that 12,000 people a year are arrested in the UK for things they say online..." (88:42)
  • “[The police] ignore the Supreme Court...various other people are doing the same—just ignore the law." (111:13)
• Two-Tier System: Inconsistencies and bias in how the law is applied depending on ideological alignment.
  • “We have a two tier policing system in our country. We absolutely do.” (97:08)

10. The Strange Bedfellows of Intersectionality

• Woke Homophobia & Forced Teaming: Gay rights now actively undermined by gender ideology; LGB and T causes fundamentally misaligned.
  • "The genderist movement is an anti-gay movement, quite fundamentally..." (66:53)
• Pro-Islam/Pro-Gay Contradiction: The performative alliance of disparate oppressed groups is unsustainable and dangerous, especially when beliefs directly conflict.
  • "[Queers for Palestine]...why don't they go to Gaza and Saudi Arabia and set up at their pride march?" (85:28)

11. Cancel Culture, Revenge & Asymmetric Warfare

• Both Sides Now Weaponizing Outrage: The right mirrors the left’s tactics, using cancellation, employer pressure, and social media shaming for vengeance.
  • "It's just going to be a trend. It's like a type of artillery that both sides can use to fire at each other." (129:59)
• Nuanced Defense of Free Speech: Critical distinction between firing for actual job performance versus cancelation for views—Doyle stresses this nuance.
  • "[Some] have disqualified themselves from the role. It is untenable for you to run that institution." (124:44)

12. The Allure and Danger of Purity Spirals

• Infantilism & Ideological Fragility: Both right and left descend into purity spirals, ostracizing moderate voices and ex-allies for minor deviations.
  • “...the purity spiral is something we should resist...it's infantile—mass tantrumising...” (139:57)
• Lack of Humility & Good/Evil Simplification: The refusal to accept personal fallibility fuels tribalism.
  • "There's a kind of pseudo-theological aspect to all of this, which is the division of the world into good and evil. It's very simplistic." (143:03)

Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the normalization of violence:
  "A speaker on campus who is espousing views you don't agree with is making you unsafe and therefore they deserve some kind of physical intervention, either a punch or God forbid, even further, an act of assassination." — Andrew Doyle (05:00)

• On identity and disagreement:
  "If you don't do that, in the public imagination, the two become conflated." — Andrew Doyle (01:55)

• On forced alliances:
  "The idea of sexual orientation has nothing to do with gender identity...It's like forced teaming vegans with carnivores. It doesn't make sense." — Andrew Doyle (69:26)

• On authoritarian drift in Britain:
  "It's deeply authoritarian...30 a day [arrested] for offensive things they say online. That's more than any other country in the west, as far as I'm aware..." — Andrew Doyle (88:42)

• On wokeness as declining pseudo-religion:
  "The ideologues, because it's a kind of pseudo religion, will become more defensive and more aggressive and more extreme in the way that a cornered rat lashes out." — Andrew Doyle (22:09)

• On cancel culture from both sides:
  "It's just going to be a trend. It's like a type of artillery that both sides can use to fire at each other." — Chris Williamson (129:59)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:18 – Main theme: “lunatics” on your own side.
• 04:12 – YouGov/FIRE poll: rising mainstream justification for political violence.
• 10:25 – The “I disagreed, but condemn violence” trope.
• 20:46 – Doyle: The decline of wokeness and what follows.
• 33:04 – Language games and misdefinition of “woke.”
• 46:40 – The cost of culture war distractions.
• 51:29 – Jettisoning identity politics for class analysis on the left.
• 88:42 – UK’s two-tier free speech crisis; online speech criminalization.
• 97:08 – Police and the two-tier system: Lucy Connolly case.
• 111:13 – Lawfare over trans/gender issues; Scottish government defiance.
• 129:59 – Cancel culture as reciprocal artillery.
• 139:57 – Purity spirals and ideological infantilism.
• 144:41 – Doyle’s forecast: beware backlash authoritarianism post-woke.

Tone & Style

• The conversation blends intellectual rigor with characteristic dry humor, candid reflections, and powerful analogies.
• Doyle is passionate, occasionally exasperated, but always analytically sharp—a mix of “naive faith in humanity” and weary cynicism.
• Williamson brings curiosity, skepticism, and attempts at steelmanning opposing views, punctuated with relatable asides.

Final Thoughts & Looking Forward

Doyle and Williamson warn that, though the "woke" moment is waning, the threat of a new, right-wing authoritarian backlash is real. The pair call for a recommitment to classical liberal values—free speech, civil disagreement, humility, and a rejection of both purity spirals and cancel culture—regardless of political persuasion. Both worry about the loss of nuance and the infantilization of political discourse, but hold out (British) hope that open debate and realignment on foundational truths can still win out.

Further Reading & Links

• Andrew Doyle’s new book: "End of Woke"
• Andrew’s Substack: andrewdoyle.org
• Peterson Academy (Doyle's lectures): Peterson Academy

For listeners who want to understand the emotional, political, and institutional crosscurrents driving the modern culture war, this episode offers both a diagnosis and a cautionary roadmap for what comes next.