#928 - Douglas Murray - Why Has The World Gone Insane?

Summary

Modern Wisdom Podcast Episode #928: Douglas Murray - Why Has The World Gone Insane?

Release Date: April 14, 2025

Hosts:

• Chris Williamson – Host of Modern Wisdom
• Douglas Murray – Author and Political Commentator

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1. Introduction

In episode #928 of Modern Wisdom, host Chris Williamson welcomes Douglas Murray to discuss the contemporary state of global affairs and the apparent descent into societal chaos. The conversation delves deep into political dynamics, cultural shifts, and the rise of tribalism, providing listeners with insightful analysis on why the world appears to be spiraling into insanity.

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2. Trump's Presidency: Early Days and Policy Implementation

Douglas Murray begins by evaluating the first 78 days of Donald Trump's second term, characterizing his efforts as a "mixed bag." Murray acknowledges Trump's decisive actions, particularly in border control and tariff implementations.

Douglas Murray [01:50]: "He does what he says he's going to do. So whether it's tariffs or foreign policy or domestic policy, border... he campaigns about it and then he does it, tries to do it."

Murray highlights the significant reduction in illegal border crossings as a major accomplishment, despite facing criticism over collateral damage in deportation policies.

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3. Political Strategies: The Left's Predicament

The discussion shifts to the Democratic Party's strategic missteps. Murray criticizes the party's flirtation with extreme left-wing policies and identity politics, arguing that such approaches alienate the broader electorate.

Douglas Murray [10:56]: "Very straightforward one. Which is you listen to your defeat and you learn from it and you work out what you did wrong."

He emphasizes the lack of cohesive leadership within the party, citing figures like Chuck Schumer as divisive and questioning the party's ability to present a unified front against Trumpism.

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4. Societal Challenges in the UK

Murray expresses concern over the UK's current social and economic climate, describing widespread depression and a lack of inspiring leadership.

Douglas Murray [21:38]: "Everyone is supremely depressed and doesn't think life will get better."

He criticizes the interminable debates over infrastructure projects like Heathrow's third runway and HS2, portraying them as emblematic of the UK's paralysis in making decisive progress.

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5. Cultural Suppression and Identity Politics

The conversation tackles the suppression of traditional Western culture in favor of progressive ideologies. Murray laments the decline of masculinity and the erosion of cultural institutions, using the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust's recent controversies as an example.

Douglas Murray [28:21]: "It's the moment when this necrophilic utterance, this is the moment when it all goes wrong."

He argues that such cultural shifts weaken societal cohesion and undermine national identity, making it difficult to rally around shared values.

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6. The Impact of Modern Media and Social Media

Murray and Williamson discuss the detrimental effects of the internet age on public discourse. Murray points out how the rapid velocity of news and the rise of conspiracy theories contribute to societal unrest.

Douglas Murray [70:17]: "The algorithm rewards the crazy."

He criticizes platforms like X (formerly Twitter) for facilitating the spread of misinformation and fostering polarized communities that act as "scapegoat out groups."

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7. Experiences from War Zones: Ukraine and Israel

Drawing from his time in conflict areas, Murray shares poignant stories that illustrate both the devastating effects of war and the remarkable human resilience observed among soldiers and civilians alike.

Douglas Murray [53:21]: "It shows humanity, humankind at its absolute worst and also at its absolute best."

One such story involves a young Israeli soldier who courageously confronts and defeats a terrorist, embodying the duality of human nature in extreme circumstances.

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8. Antisemitism and Scapegoating

Murray delves into the persistent issue of antisemitism, highlighting its adaptability across political spectrums. He explains how Jews historically serve as a versatile scapegoat, capable of absorbing a wide range of grievances.

Douglas Murray [73:45]: "The Jews can be blamed for everything and just have been historically."

He underscores the dangers of this scapegoating, linking it to broader societal failures and the erosion of trust in democratic institutions.

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9. Democracy and Death Cults: Understanding the Title

Murray elaborates on his book, "Democracies and Death Cults," explaining the concept behind the title. He argues that modern democratic societies are increasingly vulnerable to ideologies that glorify death and destruction, akin to cults.

Douglas Murray [57:42]: "It's not about just liking life or enjoying life. If you're going to enjoy life, you have to be willing to fight for it."

The book explores how external and internal threats challenge the very foundations of democratic values, necessitating a re-evaluation of societal priorities and defense mechanisms.

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10. Dealing with Criticism in the Digital Age

Addressing personal experiences with online criticism, Murray discusses strategies for handling negativity without allowing it to derail one's sense of purpose.

Douglas Murray [97:38]: "I just don't think it pays to spend very much time thinking about what other people think about you."

He emphasizes the importance of discerning constructive criticism from malicious attacks, advocating for resilience and self-awareness in maintaining one's integrity and focus.

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11. The Role of National Pride and Cultural Identity

Murray advocates for a renewed sense of national pride and cultural identity as a counterbalance to the pervasive negative narratives surrounding Western societies.

Douglas Murray [88:34]: "Classic way... it's the idea that it's actually rather wonderfully set up... doesn’t really work the way it's done in the West."

He critiques the Western tendency to undervalue its own cultural richness, suggesting that recognition and appreciation of one's heritage are crucial for societal stability and progress.

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12. Conclusion and Upcoming Projects

As the conversation wraps up, Murray shares his optimism despite global challenges, drawing inspiration from the heroism witnessed in conflict zones. He also touches upon his upcoming book release and future endeavors, leaving listeners with a message of hope and the importance of understanding and defending democratic values.

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Notable Quotes:

• Douglas Murray [01:50]: "He does what he says he's going to do. So whether it's tariffs or foreign policy or domestic policy, border... he campaigns about it and then he does it, tries to do it."

• Douglas Murray [10:56]: "Very straightforward one. Which is you listen to your defeat and you learn from it and you work out what you did wrong."

• Douglas Murray [21:38]: "Everyone is supremely depressed and doesn't think life will get better."

• Douglas Murray [28:21]: "It's the moment when this necrophilic utterance, this is the moment when it all goes wrong."

• Douglas Murray [53:21]: "It shows humanity, humankind at its absolute worst and also at its absolute best."

• Douglas Murray [73:45]: "The Jews can be blamed for everything and just have been historically."

• Douglas Murray [57:42]: "It's not about just liking life or enjoying life. If you're going to enjoy life, you have to be willing to fight for it."

• Douglas Murray [97:38]: "I just don't think it pays to spend very much time thinking about what other people think about you."

---

Final Thoughts

In this compelling episode, Douglas Murray provides a sobering analysis of contemporary societal issues, rooted in his extensive observations from war zones and political landscapes. He challenges listeners to rethink prevailing narratives, embrace cultural pride, and recognize the fragile balance holding modern democracies together. Through his expertise and firsthand experiences, Murray elucidates the complex factors contributing to the world's perceived descent into chaos, offering both critique and pathways to resilience.

Transcript

[Chris Williamson]

Douglas Murray, welcome to the show.

[Douglas Murray]

Very good to be back with you in your native Austin.

[Chris Williamson]

Ah, yes, you have. You're here for 24 hours. Salubrious.

[Douglas Murray]

Wonderful watching your success. With great admiration.

[Chris Williamson]

Thank you.

[Douglas Murray]

And great pride as well, in a way. I don't know why I feel pride, but I just.

[Chris Williamson]

You definitely contributed to it. I think I managed to get you to take a dice roll many, many years ago. Five years ago, six years ago.

[Douglas Murray]

That's right. I think I was doing madders of crowns and you were in your place in Newcastle with a mold on the ceiling.

[Chris Williamson]

Wasn't mold. It was because I had, as I explained for a long time, it's because I had a Yankee Candle addiction, which also actually is something to be embarrassed about. Not quite as bad as mold. And I had to get it repainted after our episode. The Internet shamed me so much that I had to get the ceiling of my old bedroom repainted.

[Douglas Murray]

And now you're here in Austin.

[Chris Williamson]

Look at me now.

[Douglas Murray]

It's great to see you.

[Chris Williamson]

Well, you too. Trump's been in office for 78 days. What you make of his efforts so far?

[Douglas Murray]

Mixed, I think, as with anyone. He got the very, very large and considerable mandate, won the popular vote, made it pretty impossible for people to criticize him from the election onwards, first couple of months, there's been very little, I think, pushback or rallying around against him. Then inevitably there are things that are now happening, you may have noticed if you keep an eye on the markets or anything like that, which very much people are going for him on. But yes, I mean, it's kind of early days, but a mixed bag, I'd say.

[Chris Williamson]

It feels like a lot's happened.

[Douglas Murray]

Well, a lot has happened.

[Chris Williamson]

78 days.

[Douglas Murray]

Yes. I mean, one of the things you can say, whatever your views on Trump, you can say with certainty, and I did ahead of the election, have since, which is that he does what he says he's going to do. So whether it's tariffs or foreign policy or domestic policy, border, you know, he, he, he campaigns about it and then he does it, tries to do it. And I am always quite amused by the people who, who are surprised that, that, you know, what's he doing with all this tariff stuff? I mean, like every rally I covered of his tariffs was a big thing. So, so yes, there, there are some corners of it, principally the Ukraine stuff, which I'm concerned about. But it's early days.

[Chris Williamson]

There's a sense of sort of the move fast break things thing that I think is Kind of sexy in Silicon Valley and tech and building businesses and stuff. Not convinced how perfectly it ports across onto governance.

[Douglas Murray]

Well, the normal problem that people find when they get elected and in fact I think he had in his first term is, is that you don't. It takes four years or so to work out which levers you can pull and something happens and which levers pull and you get a big clown appears and which levers you pull and just absolutely nothing happens. And I think he's come in this time knowing which levers to pull and a lot of presidential orders and much more. And so it's certainly more efficient and effective so far than his first months in office in the first term. I think things like the border are huge accomplishments. Very, very big reason for his election was we've got to sort out the border. We can't just have a porous border with Central and Southern America and indeed the rest of the world. And border crossings have gone down to almost nothing.

[Chris Williamson]

Is that right?

[Douglas Murray]

Yeah. And I think that the removal of illegals who have no right to be an American, have been committing crimes whilst in America or very dangerous criminals is a very good place to start. And inevitably when you do that, some people will holler and wail, like the Mayor of Boston who insists that somebody who's been paying taxes all their life in Boston and whose predecessors also paid taxes in Boston have the same rights as somebody who recently broke into Boston and wants to squat there on the street shooting up. And quite a lot of people disagree with that. There are lots of people, of course, who are finding a way on the deportation thing to criticize him, some of which is perfectly legitimate, which is of course stuff like, you know, there have been some cases of people who've been deported who haven't done nothing wrong. And that's also something that always happens when you try to institute a policy like that. I don't think it means you don't institute the policy, it means you do it better.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah, More accurate. There was an issue in El Salvador when the President came in and just decided to go scorched earth with everybody into these football stadium sized prisons, these new things. And yeah, one of the, I remember I did some research on that and one of the concerns was the collateral damage of the brothers, younger brothers of people who are criminals and you just sort of sweep everybody up. You have a smoke detector principle of either you pattern match incorrectly when it's not there or you don't pattern match when it is there. And I think in these sorts of situations People tend to over index on being a little bit more sensitive to the pattern matching.

[Douglas Murray]

Yeah. They should remedy that and make sure they've got things accurate. But I think none of that means that the status quo that exists is remotely right. And this is all the sort of blowback that I'd imagine that he and the people who are working with him on that would have expected. It's a little early to say what's going to happen with the market stuff and the tariffs.

[Chris Williamson]

Do you know anything about tariffs? Do you know how they work?

[Douglas Murray]

I mean I'm not one of those people who pretends to be an expert on absolutely everything. So I'm not going to pretend to be a tariff expert. I noticed the people who are tariff experts this week are the same people who were experts in Ukrainian minerals, Ukrainian mineral deposits just a matter of weeks ago. It's amazing what people can know.

[Chris Williamson]

Oh, it's quite starting pace of learning on the Internet.

[Douglas Murray]

Unbelievable.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah, yeah. I think there's a masterclass course about that. But no, I. Look the. All I know is that I got a message from my accountant saying might be a good time to put more money into the S and P. Might not. We'll see. That was a message that I received this morning. Thanks for that.

[Douglas Murray]

But this is what Trump has said, not just for the last four years, campaigning is what he said for 40 years. He believes that America is being taken advantage of and we'll see whether. I mean I would have thought my expectation, I guess from the little I know is it'll be some quite a lot of short term turmoil if in the long term it doesn't sort it out. If manufacturing cannot return to America as fast as it should, then that's a problem. That's the case in every western country though. We've all been satisfying ourselves with cheap goods imported from China, usually using slave labor that we wouldn't want to see at home. But we turned a blind eye and there's much manufacturing many goods that there's no reason why you couldn't make them in America. Whether or not you can persuade people to actually take up those jobs, start those firms, that's another matter entirely. But if anywhere can do that, America can.

[Chris Williamson]

It's strange that a lot of people who would maybe complain about a cost of living crisis and quality of jobs and employment opportunities for progression and student loan debt and housing and so on and so forth. Also I would guess at the same profile as people that shop on Temu and Shein.

[Douglas Murray]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The ones where you can Buy a top for $4 and throw it away after two uses. Which.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah, you know, there's a. An industry called the rag industry. And these are. A lot of them are engineering. That's right. Get, get, get yourself charged up. One, they working in manufacturing, working in engineering, and they use rags used T shirts or whatever, then be washed, but they get trickled down. Maybe it goes to charity shops, something like that. And to clean off Greece to do all of this other stuff, the rag industry in the west is dying because the quality of the clothes that people are wearing are disintegrating so quickly that they can't even be used to mop up oil and water.

[Douglas Murray]

Wow. I'm gonna sound incredibly old now, but when I was growing up in West London as a boy, I remember there was a rag and bone man.

[Chris Williamson]

I did. Yeah.

[Douglas Murray]

Do you remember that there was one.

[Chris Williamson]

That used to go past in Stocknapontes?

[Douglas Murray]

Yeah.

[Chris Williamson]

A guy sort of wheeling a thing.

[Douglas Murray]

A traveler usually, I suspect with a horse drawn cart calling out rag and bones. Yep, Rag bones. And if you tell the young now, they won't believe you.

[Chris Williamson]

Fucking prehistoric. Don Lemon said.

[Douglas Murray]

That's a name I haven't heard for a while.

[Chris Williamson]

People love aoc, Jasmine Crockett and Eric Swalwell. I think the Democratic Party should put people out there who the people want, who they're asking for. Is that a good strategy for the future of the left?

[Douglas Murray]

I'm not sure about that. Eric Swalwell was the one who was found banging Fang Fang, wasn't he? Do you remember that Chinese spy, Fang Fang? She infiltrated.

[Chris Williamson]

Stop saying it like that.

[Douglas Murray]

No, Fang Fang, what's wrong with that?

[Chris Williamson]

Stop saying it.

[Douglas Murray]

Bang, bang, Fang Fang. Everyone knows that. Okay, yeah, he was infiltrated by a Chinese Communist Party spy.

[Chris Williamson]

Okay. Sexually?

[Douglas Murray]

Very much so.

[Chris Williamson]

Okay.

[Douglas Murray]

And regrettably so. And that was a big national security breach. But yes, the others. Look, Don Lemon, why? Why? I mean, like asking to find sense in the entrails of a chicken. What's his analysis is of no value. And if the Democrats listened to him, they'd never be in power again. What?

[Chris Williamson]

Let's say that you were a advisor to the left. And in many ways I imagine that you do have desires to have a burgeoning, flourishing left that doesn't make everybody sort of shuddering, cringe in that way. What would you advise them to do in America? Yes.

[Douglas Murray]

Very straightforward one. Which is you listen to your defeat and you learn from it and you work out what you did wrong. And I think they are to some extent my Friends who are on the left in America, Democrats, the sensible ones, are trying to do that. You'll notice that since the election in November last year, they've definitely changed their strategy a bit. When we haven't got Russia, Russia, Russia, and you're all Nazis so much. They're still doing it a bit, but not anywhere near as much. Partly because if, if your opponent has, has won the popular vote, it's tricky to pretend that the majority of people in America are Nazi supporters. The wiser Democrats realize that's not a good strategy.

[Chris Williamson]

Losing strategy.

[Douglas Murray]

Yeah, don't insult the voters in their majority. They should learn from it. They should. And I think they are. I think this time around there's much less denial. And I mean that. Now the, the books are starting to come out as we knew they would be explaining. Actually, you know, the Democrats kind of knew that Joe Biden wasn't there.

[Chris Williamson]

These expose, memoir, ex staffer people, the.

[Douglas Murray]

People who spent the years of the Biden presidency assuring us there's nobody who has a sharp attack in the box. And now they're all saying, oh, actually, you know, he didn't know whether he was the President of the United States or the head of NATO and things like that. And so that stuff is starting to come out and there'll be lots more and they'll, they'll, they'll tear themselves apart for a bit. But the main problem for the Democrats is just they don't really have anyone leading the party. Chuck Schumer, when he made his deal with Trump on the budget the other week, immediately was the most hated person on the left. And even, you know, Pelosi criticized him on that. So it's hard to see who's really sort of leading the party.

[Chris Williamson]

It's not cohesive at the moment.

[Douglas Murray]

No. And so they should learn. My view is, if I was a Democrat advisor, strategist, I would say what anyone would from observing them, which is they tacked very far to the crazy left and the American public didn't want it, as indeed most publics don't. And they didn't want all their children to be trans. And they didn't want all of the crazy identity politics stuff that had gone just completely deranged. They also didn't want one. I mean, the more sensible ones have already realized that it's a party, a very, very distinguished party with a considerable history. It's not a street movement, it's not a protest movement. I can't remember which one it was, who the other week I wrote about him in my column in the New York Post, who led a protest on a street in New York against Elon Musk. And I think it's probably the most illiterate speech I've ever heard against some really quite stiff competition. And it ended up with him saying, you take your Moscow money, you moo, moo, moo, moo. Yeah, not good.

[Chris Williamson]

Line for the ages.

[Douglas Murray]

Line for ages. Cicero would event beat it. So the wiser ones were just. That's not how you become serious again. You don't give in to the street protest people. Don't give in to the most radical people. There are really impressive people in the Democratic Party, but they're gonna need to allow them to come up.

[Chris Williamson]

Tim Waltz.

[Douglas Murray]

If I was a Republican strategist, I would tell the Democrats to keep going.

[Chris Williamson]

With Tim Waltz, the pinnacle of masculinity.

[Douglas Murray]

I mean, all that stuff is just a disaster. Everyone knows that he was a horrible candidate. Everyone knows that Kamala was a horrible candidate. You just got to find the talent and encourage it up. But they've got time. I don't think they should panic or start, you know, but they do at some point have to have a coherent opposition to Trump and Trumpism.

[Chris Williamson]

Well, it certainly seems like one of the things that everybody's probably noticed. How much is the blowing with the wind that we're seeing at the moment of Mark Zuckerberg, not only a sartorial rebrand, but meta policy based rebrand, getting rid of fact checkers and opening up conversations specifically around, I think trans or gender identity was one of the points.

[Douglas Murray]

And I think, I think what, as I understand it, what happened with Zuckerberg was that he discovered that, you know, with whatever it is, 80,000 employees, you set up a philanthropic wing with like 1,000 employees, and then they spend all their time warring on the 80,000 people making money and derange the whole company. And so you get rid of it.

[Chris Williamson]

But you've seen that, right? Lots of different companies seeming to move in that direction. So BlackRock, they exited climate groups, eliminated diversity targets, ends its ESG stuff. Hegseth says he's eliminating DEI within the military. And then even European companies like Aldi and Santander are rolling back their DEI programs over here. So it does feel a lot like, I don't know, everyone's blowing with the Trumpian wind, whatever the sort of direction is that things are going in at the moment.

[Douglas Murray]

Absolutely. I mean, I said to you many years ago, I'm sure with Madison Crown out, I mean, one of the problems with all of that stuff Was, you know, some point it gets serious and the bridges start to fall down. You know, I was never totally confident that if the bridges fell down because of Di, that people wouldn't say, that's just yet more evidence of the patriarchy. But it sort of. It gets serious. It gets really serious at certain points. It gets really serious with the military. I'm very glad that Pete Hegseth is. Is addressing that. You do want extremely tough, mainly men at the forefront of your nation's military and your nation's defense. It's not about to use the most perhaps hackneyed, but most extraordinary one. It's not about that CIA recruiting ad where the obese, diverse woman of color who explains how many mental disorders she has is necessarily your ideal poster child.

[Chris Williamson]

I didn't get to see.

[Douglas Murray]

You never get to see her.

[Chris Williamson]

I wasn't. She was great.

[Douglas Murray]

It's just like a bipolar drone operator or something.

[Chris Williamson]

Okay. Right. Well, I. The performance enhancing effects of different mental maladies, I guess, can work quite well on in the military, but most of them would be, you know, like psychopathy. Yeah, I think.

[Douglas Murray]

Yes, but you certainly don't want somebody on a lot of hormones in charge of a drone program.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah. I don't know. I think it'll be very interesting to see what the next sort of two years has in store, especially for. What did the Democrats do in reversing some of the positions that caused them to sort of fall behind so much. How much faith has been lost. You know what it kind of feels like a little bit to me, the period that we had during COVID where kind of the veils fell from people's eyes a little around. Huh. The mainstream media don't really know what they're talking about, and they roll back their positions and the institutions that are supposed to be in charge of this stuff and people that are supposed to know what's going on in terms of virology or epidemiology or public health or whatever.

[Douglas Murray]

Huh.

[Chris Williamson]

I actually think that the people that. There's no adults in the room. I don't think there's any adults.

[Douglas Murray]

Well, the thing is, there are. It's just the. What always happens is, you know, something goes deranged in one direction, then you get a correction. But as we've discussed before, the question is always whether the correction goes back to level or whether it's an overcorrection that goes to somewhere equally crazy or recognizably crazy. Take that one of the COVID era and the post Covid era. There's lots and lots of things that clearly went wrong. That doesn't mean, in my view, that you should discourage people from giving polio vaccines to their children. There's lots that has gone wrong in public health and lots that can be corrected. But you know, doesn't mean that there are no, there are no, there should be no guardrails in society. Look at the way in which the term gatekeeper is used these days, as if there should be no gatekeeping. And actually the sometimes people might disagree with this, but actually sometimes if there's somebody who's an expert in a field and they should be trust and can be trusted, they do need to draw the line of what is within the parameters and what is not. That's obviously why, like RFK Jr caused a lot of concern when he came in. Was, you know, is this a suitable correction or a wild over correction?

[Chris Williamson]

You described the west as a civilization trying to erase itself. Do you reckon we've got any better over the last few years?

[Douglas Murray]

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I think that the anti Western assault has been halted. As I say again, we'll see whether or not it corrects or overcorrects. But I don't think that in the era of Trump's second term that in America that's going to be as much of a problem elsewhere. Usual Story Our country of birth Usual.

[Chris Williamson]

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[Douglas Murray]

Well, I don't know when you will ask back but my experience of going back to the UK now is that everyone is supremely depressed and doesn't think life will get better.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah, it's kind of like a Gary's Economics monologue just being played on repeat but like that sentiment of you're broke and your children are going to be broke and no one's going to get a house and you're going to die destitute.

[Douglas Murray]

Yeah. And everyone's going to be poorer than. Than this generation and all that sort of thing. Yeah. I was very depressed when I got went back to the UK last because I think I had just come fresh from the inauguration in D.C. and I mean which was bracing for lots of reasons but I just noticed that, you know, there are lots of opportunities for things to be righted in America and put in a more sane direction again. We'll see if that happens but I think there's a great opportunity this whole set of great opportunities in America, economic and much more for the country educational reform, a lot of problems that America needs to address that have now the opportunity to be addressed whereas Britain, like most of Western Europe it just stumbles on. It's very depressing and I noticed not very inspiring. I've noticed that my friends are all wildly depressed and rather surprised at how upbeat I was. You know, I mean they beat it.

[Chris Williamson]

Out of me having just. Having just come from a war zone but.

[Douglas Murray]

But you know, within 24 hours of being in the UK I was suitably depressed. Equilibrium that was expected eventually cortisol level.

[Chris Williamson]

And come into line with everyone else. Yeah. Instead I've seen a lot of plenty wars up close but it's the UK that I'm most concerned about.

[Douglas Murray]

Well, yeah, actually I am. I am maybe a sort of dramatic overstatement but yeah, I mean what gives you hope in any country, whether it's a peace or a war, is whether whether the people in the country want to fight for the country metaphorically or literally. And in the last few years, I think since I last saw you, yeah I've seen spent a lot of time in Ukraine and more so in Israel and the Middle east and seen people literally fighting for their survival for their country. And that's always. But particularly in those cases are very remarkable thing to see when you then see a de energized, enervated society where everyone's split and no one knows how to go forward. Yeah, it's very concerning and I Just see that for the time being rolling on in the uk, as I say, the stop has been put to it of a kind in the us.

[Chris Williamson]

But how much is bottom up and how much is top down, do you think how much of this is sort of structural, bureaucratic because of the leadership, because of things that need to be changed in an institutional. And how much of this is, as you mentioned, the sort of culture of the people that they're sort of reveling in their own, I guess, binding together over their own sort of shared discontent?

[Douglas Murray]

Well, having few economic opportunities causes everything else to go wrong. I mean, I'm completely persuaded by my economist friends who say, you know, the one job of politics is to keep the economy good and if you don't do that, everything else can go wrong as well. I think that's true, but I just. It's a combination of the economics of the, the market not working, growth not happening, wages being stagnant, unaffordability of housing and then plus the just wild innovation of all the cultural crap. I think, I think you can go, you can have weak economics, but keep strong culture. But if you've got weak economics and weak culture, I mean, I was just watching this morning, there's a row that's been going on because that's just something I helped to fuel. But there's a bunch of labor mps who've been busily campaigning against the third Runway at Heathrow Airport, which is just like, seriously, this has happened all my adult life. Any healthy country doesn't debate for 20 years a third Runway at your major airport. You just get it done, just build it. Same thing with there's like infrastructure like HS2, which has one virtue in it, which is that the plan is to be able to get out of Birmingham faster. And. But these big infrastructure projects have been endlessly debated in the UK for like 20 years. And that's very depressing. But yes, a group of Labour MPs all with diverse constituencies or not, have been busily anti Runway at Heathrow, but have been urging the funding of an airport in Mirpur because their constituents want to be able to get back and forth to see family in Pakistan. And they're very insistent that anti building of runways in England, but very in Pakistan. And those things are just crazy and everyone in Britain can see it. And you know, and then people criticized these MPs for this obvious ridiculous double standards of saying, you know, if there isn't, if the Heathrow expands, you know, it will kill the planet. They go, but mpur.

[Chris Williamson]

Great, good to go.

[Douglas Murray]

And everyone can see that. And then people in Britain, a couple of mps called it out and then were immediately called Islamophobic racists by these other mps who, you know, that that's just typical Britain. It's like typical Britain and nobody knows how to get out of it because it's, you know, it's the same thing. You know, everyone now knows, you know, you complain about anything in Britain online or off, and these weird eunuch ized police will tap on your door with a. And none of it's metaphorical, you know, as constant kissing said the other week about the thousands and thousands of people who've had police come to their door because of, like saying something critical of their school on Facebook and this sort of thing. It's just, it's just bizarre, the weak situation that Britain has got into. We weren't like that. We don't have to be. Yeah.

[Chris Williamson]

The culture of a Steph upper lip appears to have been sort of lost in its entirety.

[Douglas Murray]

It hasn't been. It hasn't been. It's just been wildly suppressed like everything else, like masculinity, like natural, you know, the natural culture of the country. I wrote the other week about this ridiculous thing where the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust inevitably is waging war on Shakespeare, you know, and their new thing is like, like, why are we doing so much Shakespeare at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and why aren't we spending more time celebrating this Bengali poet? Said Bengali poet wasn't born in Stratford upon Avon, you jerk. Probably if you go to his birthplace, you won't find all that much Shakespeare. But, you know, it's just filled all of the institutions, all the cultural institutions, all filled with stupid thinking like that.

[Chris Williamson]

You know, I think the slight difference is there's a sense of rebelliousness in America that we don't.

[Douglas Murray]

Well, there is in Britain as well. There is everywhere. It's just that you can very effectively squash it. And, you know, for some years in America, they tried to squash that in America and Americans used the biggest hammer they could find to hit back against it, which is Donald J. Trump. And the British public haven't yet found.

[Chris Williamson]

A hammer very interesting.

[Douglas Murray]

Yeah.

[Chris Williamson]

If you think about who Americans are the progeny of, I'm aware that immigration, recent immigration, waters this down a little bit, but they're the descendants of people who said, eight week journey at sea, limited chance of survival, not really too sure what. I'm going to. Count me in.

[Douglas Murray]

Yeah, I know there is an explanation of that. Yes. But there's also, you know, I'd like to think there are plenty of belligerent buggers back home as well. And there are plenty of brave people and plenty of people who may not have left the islands, but who still have similar instincts.

[Chris Williamson]

You know, it just seems like there's a. At least in the uk, and not among most of the friends that I spend my time with. But that's because I, you know, very carefully sort of selected my group of friends to not be those people. But when I hear the sort of commentary that happens online, I do think, huh, this shared reveling in discontent, in. You know, if you were to ring one of your friends and say, in the uk, get that in you. Thank you, Douglas. Time for you to do your first ad read. There we are. New tonic.

[Douglas Murray]

If I become wildly ill from drinking this, it's bad for you, isn't it?

[Chris Williamson]

It would look bad, but you can hold it together. I'm sure you've taken worse across your illustrious career.

[Douglas Murray]

Cheers.

[Chris Williamson]

Thank you. Very good. Come on. There we go. Cheers. Chin chin.

[Douglas Murray]

Cheers.

[Chris Williamson]

Chin chin.

[Douglas Murray]

It's delicious.

[Chris Williamson]

Very. That's good. Yeah. You. You were paid to say that. Yeah, This. I. I always remember I rang a friend and I said, hey, man, what are you doing today? What? You tell me about what you've done today. Oh, man, living the dream. Took the bins out this morning. It's been raining all day. You know that. That classic British sort of.

[Douglas Murray]

That's a banter, though.

[Chris Williamson]

It is. But it feels to me like it be careful sort of what you pretend to be, because you are what you pretend to be in some ways. And rarely. That's Kurt Vonnegut. Rarely, you. It's hard to reverse that. Like, people bond in the UK over this sense of shared suffering, over this sense that. That things are sort of a little bit crap and not necessarily.

[Douglas Murray]

Well, you have to make them better, then.

[Chris Williamson]

Yep, I think so.

[Douglas Murray]

So I don't really like whining, although we're doing a bit of bit at the moment.

[Chris Williamson]

Well, we can bond together over that. Conor McGregor, savior of Ireland.

[Douglas Murray]

Interesting figure. Interesting figure.

[Chris Williamson]

Big fan of stimulants.

[Douglas Murray]

Really?

[Chris Williamson]

Oh, yeah.

[Douglas Murray]

Okay.

[Chris Williamson]

Oh, yeah. I've been reliably told. Yeah.

[Douglas Murray]

What sort of stimulants are we talking about?

[Chris Williamson]

The prototypical nasal delivery system. The patented he. Conor McGregor likes his cocaine.

[Douglas Murray]

Oh. As far as I see. Right. Oh, gosh. Right.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah.

[Douglas Murray]

Huh. Wasn't immediate what I was thinking when you mentioned him, but. No, I. I just. I quite like the fact that he stood up and said what a. The politicians are making of his home country of Ireland at the moment. And then his, his, his statement was confirmed by the fact that all Irish politicians condemned him for saying it. That's always.

[Chris Williamson]

The butterfly.

[Douglas Murray]

Yeah. Always sign that you're right. Yeah. I admired him for saying that. I don't know, everything about him is admirable, but I admired him for saying that. Again, I'm like, well, since when did the Irish become such weak people? When I was growing up, they were car bombers. No, I mean, I don't joke about that, but no. There was a. Some years ago in Derry, Londonderry, it was made European a city of culture. I mean, I'm leaping to the Northern Ireland, but. And the moment that it was announced that Derry, Londonderry was to become European city of Culture, somebody put a car bomb outside the offices of the European City of culture. Fortunately it didn't go off, but as a local friend of mine said, in one way we were introducing them to our local culture anyway. No, I mean I have lots of views about the Irish, but I never thought of them as people you could just walk over. And the current generation of politicians with their immigration policies are much more seem to have suggested you can just walk over the Irish. It's rather surprising.

[Chris Williamson]

Have you tried to tie any of these threads together, sort of what we're seeing?

[Douglas Murray]

Well, I tried in a book some years ago called Strange Death of Europe and said almost everything I had to say about that.

[Chris Williamson]

And how much of a Cassandra do you feel like now?

[Douglas Murray]

I think I was pretty much right on everything. Yeah. I didn't know how fast the timeline I'd be right on or which countries. But it didn't require a prophet, it just required somebody with eyes. You know, if you were madly import people from all over the world who don't particularly want to be part of your society and shove them in to, you know, County Kerry, you'll create problems.

[Chris Williamson]

I've been fascinated by the pace of the news and how quickly there's a lack of stickiness that they've all had. Is it disturbing that we regularly just forget or sort of look away from catastrophes or is it just sort of par for course in the modern world now? Because like remember when Trump got shot? No, me neither.

[Douglas Murray]

Yeah, I know, but that disappeared within days. It was amazing.

[Chris Williamson]

And it just seems like you haven't.

[Douglas Murray]

Even got much of an explanation about the shooter.

[Chris Williamson]

And I don't see anybody really because there's always something new, the velocity of news. I remember in as level media studies in Stockton sixth form College, I was Told this story about a lady on September 12, 2001 who's a PR agent and she advised all of the companies that they were working with to dump every piece of bad news that they had.

[Douglas Murray]

Oh, there was somebody in the British government who was an advisor.

[Chris Williamson]

Good day for bad news.

[Douglas Murray]

Good day for bad news. That's right. And then she lost her job. Yeah. I don't think it's. I think the devices we all have in our pockets speed everything up. But what I can't quite understand is that I mean I have to be across all or most of the news certainly about the things I need to know about because it's my job as well as my passion. But I can't understand the people who have the buzz on their Apple iPhone for updates of news when they're, they're not in the business of it, it seems. It's very, very unhealthy to my, to my view. It's, it's. I think it creates a sort of cycle of panic and, and it's, you know, and forgetfulness and self aggrandizement and oh my God, have you heard, you know, been a earthquake in Myanmar and that's bad. But it's, it's, it just, it all flows by and it's always like that. I'm not quite sure what people are meant to do with most of the information that's coming their way if they're not in the business. Not quite sure what's expected of them other than to kind of. Some people, they think yeah or sort of prove they care or something. I don't know. I wish more people would read books.

[Chris Williamson]

It just, you know, you've spent the last few years not in the US that much. You've been traveling. Not maybe the way that most people would consider traveling.

[Douglas Murray]

I didn't take a gap year in Thailand.

[Chris Williamson]

Shame. But with that, you know, we've had a lot of. An awful lot of turmoil over the last few years and it just, it doesn't. Very few things seem to stick now. Even causes that people were once unbelievably ardent about the sort of manana. Manana. Something new, something more sexy, something more recent.

[Douglas Murray]

That's true.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah. The ability for anything to be Lindy is increasingly difficult to be what? Lindy. The lifetime life cycle of a non perishable good like an idea. It's a Taleb sort of repopularized it. Basically the classics are the classics for a reason. If something's been around for 500 years, it's probably like it's going to be around in future. The problem being that we are living in a never ending now where almost all of the content that you consume today was created in the last 24 hours. In fact, that's exactly how Instagram stories and Snapchat and stuff like that work.

[Douglas Murray]

Yes.

[Chris Williamson]

If you see something today that's on the trending side of X and it's still there tomorrow, you think, fucking hell, that's a bit. It's a big story. It's still here tomorrow. Yes, a big story.

[Douglas Murray]

I often say this about some of the war zones I've spent recent years in is. It's. I sometimes come back and I. And usually, you know, happened in America and because I get this sense that, like, people are fed up of the war. It's not your place to be fed up of the war. You're not in the war, you're nowhere near the war. What you're saying is you want the story to change, but the story's not there for you. It's not there for your edification or entertainment. That's a very unhealthy attitude. I come across quite a lot, oh, can't it just be over? Oh, but no one in the region wishes that. Yeah, that's a peril of coming back from places where the news is real, where none of it's metaphorical and none of it's abstract.

[Chris Williamson]

The criticisms from people who are getting pinged on their iPhone a few too many times per day seem a little bit.

[Douglas Murray]

Yeah, I just got back from Ukraine again the other day and I watched the unfortunate episode in the Oval Office between President Zelensky and the president and Vice President. And I watched it with some Ukrainian soldiers in a trench at the front line. And, well, I watched it and then noticed that bit later that they'd noticed it. I was profoundly depressed by what I saw and then actually was rather energized by the fact that the response of the troops was different.

[Chris Williamson]

How so?

[Douglas Murray]

Well, I said to the command of the drone unit that I was embedded with, you know, I can't help noticing that as you were scrolling through your Instagram in a down moment, that was one of the things that came across your phone along with, you know, the usual cat videos and sort of hot chicks sort of thing, you know, and there was a picture from the Oval Office. And I said, do you have any, you know, reaction to that? And he said, well, we were kind of encouraged not to spend too much time focusing on the international toings and throwings. And he said, I was rather Pleased to quote it in the post. He said shit happens all the time, but I've got a job to do. He went out and he put the bomb on the drone and sent it off.

[Chris Williamson]

Keep calm and carry on droning.

[Douglas Murray]

Yeah, that's always rather encouraging in a way that what people get head up about nevertheless there's a level at which people are still and you know, whatever one people's thoughts about that war, you know, he and the other people in the trench, their homes are like 30 kilometers behind us and the Russians were one and a half kilometers that way. So none of it is abstract, you know.

[Chris Williamson]

Do you know Freya India? Familiar with her?

[Douglas Murray]

No.

[Chris Williamson]

A young blonde girl writer, very good on substack and doing some stuff with the free press things.

[Douglas Murray]

Oh yeah, yeah, I've seen the byline. Yeah.

[Chris Williamson]

And she. I had this conversation with her at the start of last year. She was talking a lot about how people criticize Gen Z for taking stuff that they see online and turning it. That's right. Come on, keep fueling yourself. Very good. And they see it as reality and people criticize Gen Z for turning the virtual into the real in this way. And she said, well, you have to realize that a lot of these kids are spending, you know, eight, ten hours a day on screens, far less asleep, far less around other people. So I understand it makes sense sort of rationally if you were to just sort of explain the situation. Why are you over prioritizing what's happening digitally over what's happening in the real world or your real world again, news stories from outside of your territory, of your domain of control, it's externalizing of agency, all this sort of stuff. But yeah, she said the online world is the real world for these people. And I kind of get the same sense here, I kind of get the same sense that people who don't know what's happening on the ground, who don't understand sort of the implications of what this is, they get to LARP within the sort of narrative and then you are in the trenches with these people and they say, well, I've got a job to do so I kind of can't afford to.

[Douglas Murray]

But we shouldn't be of the dejected belief that people are always what they are. Now one of the things that's much struck me in the last 18 months in Israel has been that the generation that I hardly write about in this new book are very largely people from a generation who their elders thought were, you know, iPhone obsessed Snapchat and Instagram.

[Chris Williamson]

Brain rot.

[Douglas Murray]

Yeah, brain Rot just wanted a party and have fun and, you know, be on Instagram. That was what a lot of older Israelis thought who fought in 67 and 73 and, you know, and so on and, and then actually when their country was, was attacked, that this is a generation that has stood up and shown its method.

[Chris Williamson]

They've been galvanized.

[Douglas Murray]

They really have. I mean, I've been with them for much of the last 18 months. And whether it's in Gaza or in Lebanon or in Israel or Judea and Samaria, and I'm constantly struck by this, that these are people whose contemporaries in America and Britain are still described in the terms that they were described as until October 6, 2023. So it's not inevitable that people can't rise to an occasion or can't change. It's not inevitable that because, you know, there's a sort of virtual era you've been in that you'll always be stuck in it. I do think when I came back from Middle east at Christmas last year, I spoke to a friend who's a politician and I mentioned this phenomenon of, you know, just because people have been this does not mean that when a time of trial comes, which is something I've had on my mind a lot in recent years, it's not inevitable that at the moment of trial, some people, a lot of people don't step up and really show what they are for the good. And this friend said, yes, it's true, it's circumstances, isn't it? And I said, I've got a slight tweak to make to that observation, which is, yes, it's circumstances, but it's not just circumstances, it's circumstances plus whether you have well cultured people up until that moment. This is why I've cited a few times and I cited in this book the, the terrible, terrible statistics for, you know, the percentage of young Americans who'd be willing to fight for their country if it was under imminent threat of invasion. The number of British young people would be willing to fight for their country if it was an existential risk. And this is something, I say this in democracies and death cults, but if you look at the, the stats, it's terrifying. Shortly after Ukraine was invaded by Russia in February 22, there was a poll asking Americans, you know, what percentage of them would be willing to stay and fight if their country was invaded. And only just a majority of Republicans said that they would stay and fight, and only just a majority of Democrats. And as I quipped at the time, that means the rest of them would hot foot it to Canada, assuming that Canada wasn't the invader. I think when I first made that observation, that seemed like a joke. Now.

[Chris Williamson]

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[Douglas Murray]

Does it indeed? Yeah. I'm not quite sure of the. Is that just what happens? I say Canada and you go, yeah, Pornhub.

[Chris Williamson]

You haven't wait for my 300 IQ move here.

[Douglas Murray]

Yeah, I'm watching this with interest.

[Chris Williamson]

The secret weapon in the trade war that Canada needs to use is to restrict access to pornhub. That's how they fight back. You want to talk about tariffs? We'll see what happens when you don't have as free and easy access to millions of. Yeah, exactly. Honestly, that's. This comedian came up with the idea. I think it's a strong solution.

[Douglas Murray]

Strong. We see if Mark Carney has the balls to do that. No, I mean, I was fascinated by that. And when that poll first came out, a lot of Americans wrote about it and said, crikey, you know, that's not good news. But I wasn't so depressed about it because in my interpretation, the concept for most Americans of Their country being invaded by land. Invasion from another country is not just hard to imagine. It's impossible to imagine. It's not impossible to imagine if you live in Donetsk or indeed in Kiev, but it's in. It's not impossible if you live in Latvia or Lithuania or Estonia anymore, but it's impossible for most Americans to imagine. So in a way, it's not really a fair question. It's like me saying, you know, how do you think you'd behave if UFOs landed, Martians started telling you what to do, you just don't know what. But it was the same in the UK after about a year ago, I think, partly because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But it was. There was also, I think the head of the chief of the defense staff said, you know, if this. If this escalation continued in Europe, then it might. We might have to have conscription in the uk. And again, I mean, that sounds like nobody from this generation can even imagine that. But that was just what he said. And then, of course, there's a poll, and it asks young people from the ages of 18 to 40, which is the ages of our forebears, when they went to fight in 1940 and 18 and 1939-45. And the majority of people said that they wouldn't fight even if Britain was at existential risk of invasion. And by the way, when I looked at the figures, I mean, there was some great. I think it was YouGov who did it. There was some fantastic gems inside. That one was that one of the main reasons why people said that they wouldn't fight was like just the most banal things that they've been told by Hollywood films and things which is. Oh, and, you know, and little bits of Gandhi, which was, you know, the number of people who said things like, war doesn't solve anything. Yeah. Want to bet? So there was that and another one. I think I was fascinated by the fact, I think 9% of the young people question said that they couldn't fight because they had someone at home they were looking after. Mysterious answer to me. I'm looking after my nan, so I can't fight to protect her. Too busy bringing her tea in the morning to stop making sure that someone.

[Chris Williamson]

Doesn'T kick the door down.

[Douglas Murray]

Yeah, it's very strange. Anyway, but the point is, the reason I mentioned this rather laboriously is I do think that it's very, very hard to predict how people actually react at a time of trial. One of the reasons why I tell some of the personal stories, I do about the people I've spoken during the war in Israel in the last year and a half is because it's so interesting to see who steps up and how people react and you know, the heroism of some people, indeed many people, when you realize what's at stake, I quote at the opening of On Democracies and Death Cults. This thing I've thought about a lot, which comes up in Tolstoy in War and Peace, which is when the two armies are facing off against each other other in the old Napoleonic style, you know, where they. I'll do this around. They face each other on the battlefield and the order has not yet been issued to advance. And Tolstoy brilliantly describes how every soldier on each side knows that the step they're going to take is not just a step, it's a movement into a totally different realm. And that you know that in that case you are from the realm of standing there, uniform polished, on guard, meant to be holding a line. And when you're, from the moment you're one step that way, you're in the place where you'll just have to do anything. And that's one of the reasons why I'm interested in this, because this is the most real. It's why war is so terrible and also for a writer, so fascinating, is because that transition from one world to another, totally different world, seems unfathomable until you're in it.

[Chris Williamson]

What have you learned about what wartime does to people?

[Douglas Murray]

A lot. But I would say the simplest and most important one is that it shows people, it shows humanity, humankind at its absolute worst and also at its absolute best. There's nothing comparable to it in human experience that brings out the appallingness of which our species is capable and the greatness. And sometimes at the same moment.

[Chris Williamson]

What greatness have you seen?

[Douglas Murray]

An awful lot. I mean, there are some stories I tell in the book, like, I mean, there was a young woman I met early in the conflict who'd lost her fiance. He had been at the Nova party in the desert when hamas attacked at 6:30 in the morning, hundreds and hundreds of young people to rave. And when Hamas terrorists fired rockets and then drove in on military jeeps and started raping and killing and butchering. He managed to get. He was one of the people that did manage. The young people trying to get into cars and get out were blockaded by him as were killed in the cars. And then it caused a backlog of the cars of people trying to escape. And then people were just being killed where they were, there were a couple of other exits from the party. And one this young man found and he took four strangers in his car, drove them to a nearby town called Bathsheba, dropped them off, drove back. They begged him not to. He spoke to his girlfriend on the way and she said, please don't. He went back, filled up the car with another group of young people from the rave, drives back, he goes back a third time, and on the way back, the third time, mama has killed them all. But this is just amazing, amazing human greatness. There's a friend who I mention in the book who has a story that should be much better known. He's a wonderful young man called Nimrod. And he on the morning, woke up in his home outside Jerusalem when the sirens were starting to go, the rockets coming in, thousands of rockets from Gaza. And he was in reserves, being a special forces guy, and he was in reserve. He woke up, realized for messages from people in the south, how serious it was. Got a call from his commander and his unit in Jerusalem. You're called back. And he said, no, we're needed south. And he drove and he picked up a pistol on the way and I think eight rounds of ammunition. He went past every police checkpoint, security, army checkpoint. It started to go up, up. He said he didn't see a live body until early hours of the afternoon. But then he engaged the terrorists and he fought with them for the next 48 hours, saved many lives. But on the way, he, he, he said to me, he said, I, I. When I got to the junction where there all these dead bodies are lying around, party goers and others. So when I got to the motorway junction, I was certain I would not survive that day. And he stopped, he got out of the car and pulled into a ditch and he made a phone. He got onto his phone, he made a video for his two children. And he said, I wanted them to have a message for me so that when the phone was found on my body, they'd have something. And he survived. And I just filled with admiration, filled with admiration for people like that. Amazing, amazing. Be very, very lucky in America, Britain or any other country to produce people like that. But we could. We should.

[Chris Williamson]

Explain the title to me.

[Douglas Murray]

Again on democracies and death cults.

[Chris Williamson]

It's currently in between a lot of Easter books.

[Douglas Murray]

I showed you Amazon bestseller lists. Yes, just before we started. There's an awful lot of. I will explain the title. But yes, it did amuse me that I'm currently battling in the Amazon.com bestseller lists. With I'm currently a number 12, but number 13 sneaking up behind me is It's Not Easy Being a Bunny. An early reader book for kids. Beginner books. You've probably got it. And I'm also. But I'm chasing. I'm getting very close to catching up with a great tome you probably know as well called Hippity Hoppity Little Bunny Finger Puppet Board Book for Easter. Also, Little Blue Truck Springtime is doing very well. You know, there was a humorist in the UK many years ago who discovered that in the 70s or so, the three things that Sol Books in Britain in those days were anything to do with cats, anything to do with golf and anything to do with Nazis. So he wrote a book called Golfing for Cats with a cat with a swastika armband on the COVID How did it do? Quite well, actually. I think. Yeah. I'm not sure there's a perfect crossover in the Venn diagram of those readers, but yeah, no, next time I'll call it Democracies and Death Cults and Easter Bunnies. No, the title goes to something I had thought about for a long time and which I try to answer in the book, which is what attitude people in free liberal societies, democratic societies, societies are at peace, can take towards what I call the death cults. I should stress, by the way, that our societies have experienced plenty of death cults in the past. I give the example. There was a Spanish philosopher from the last century who was much opposed to the rise of fascism in Spain, Francoism, and a meeting at the university he taught at. The students at one point started chanting, viva la Muerte. Long live death. And he. He said, this is the moment when this necrophilic utterance, this is. This is the moment when it all goes wrong. So it has happened in the past. But the. The death cult I'm primarily writing about and talking about in this book is the death cult of Hamas and Islamic jihadists in general. I say that I was one of the. Shortly after the 7th of October, when I went to the region, went to Israel first, I went to a reunion of some of the survivors of the NOVA party. And one of the young man who'd survived said to me, after showing me his footage from the morning, which was too graphic to go into, but he said, what would you do if this happened in your country? And I thought, but I didn't say to him, but it has, you know, it has happened in my country. It happened at the Manchester arena in 2017. It happened at the Bat Eclat Theater in Paris in 2015. It happened at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in 2015. It's just that it. First of all, people sort of don't know what to do about it and try to pass it over or it hasn't happened, thank God, hasn't happened as much. But. But really, I suppose it's in part, as well as being a firsthand account of war, the purpose of this book is to try to answer this question that I've tried to answer all my life, which is what attitude you can take and what response you can make to people who have totally different values to yours. Because there has been this presumption which we both grew up with, which is what we have is what everyone has or wants to have. And we all have the same desires in this life. And some people do, and some people just don't. And some people want to. As you know, they want to make the world burn, and some of them want to make other people burn and take as many people as they can with them and much more. And the taunt that Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, isis, Hamas, Hezbollah, the taunt they always have is the same, which is some variation of we love death more than you love life. And in fact, Hassan Nasrallah, who went to meet his maker last year in Beirut, the head of Hezbollah, he said this for decades. He said, you know, the thing with the infidels is that they love life and this is their great weakness. And I think that's not the case, but I know for sure. And it's one of the things that this book is about, is that it's not enough to just like life or to enjoy life. If you're going to enjoy life, you also have to be willing to fight for it. And sometimes that's metaphorical, and sometimes it's really not.

[Chris Williamson]

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[Douglas Murray]

Well, I mean, I think I've said to you before that one of the things that I noticed in the Internet age was that we'd gone from the era of we disagree about our opinions or our interpretations of an event. And then, well, the Internet age has given us the great things. If we disagree about what just happened, and that does throw up its own manias. So one of the reasons I try to see things in my own eyes is because I'm always pretty confident that someone's going to try to tell me I haven't seen something I've seen with my own eyes. And sure enough, that happens all the time. But you have the reassurance if you know. But I do find that interesting. There are, for instance, I mean, there are people who would like to regard themselves as civilized people, I'm sure, who just will not accept that what happened on October 7 happened. Which is one of the reasons why I went there straight away was because I knew that would happen.

[Chris Williamson]

When did you get there?

[Douglas Murray]

I got there in October of 2023. I went because I was in Times Square the day after the massacre. As it was still going on. And there was an anti Israel, pro Hamas protest happening in the center of Times Square with people supporting the massacre. And I thought, well, well, one of the things that's going to happen is they're going to pass over the massacre. They're going to celebrate it and pass it over. They're going to pretend it didn't happen or try to diminish it or minimize it. And I just didn't want to see that happen. Is what many people said it was like watching Holocaust denial in real time. And yes, and in the other main conflict going on at the moment in Russia, Ukraine, I mean, at the highest level of the American government, there have been people who've implied that Ukraine started the war or is the aggressor. And that's disturbing to see because there are some things that just have to be agreed upon. It was Russian tanks that rolled into Ukraine in February 2022. It was Hamas terrorists who invaded by the thousands into Israel on October 7, 2023. Let's at least agree to that. What you describe as the sort of the online thing is definitely massively worsened. And I think it's because, I mean, the sort of all the sluices are up, all of the guardrails, all of that. And that's good in lots of ways. I mean, look at what happened when our societies tried to say there's only one explanation for, for instance, you know, the COVID virus coming out of the area where that virus was being made, and that it was to do with Chinese people eating bats and from a wet market and not to do with the lab that was making that virus happening to be leaky. We were told consistently that the lab leak was a conspiracy. And one of the reasons why that's so poisonous to the discourse as a whole is because it understandably makes people say, if I've been lied to about that, what are the other things that are true? What are the other conspiracy theories that are not? Conspiracy theory becomes a gateway drug. Yeah. And I think a lot of people are on that. And then of course, it's a great habit and it's a kind of enjoyable. And people like believe everything's being kept from them. And doubtless some stuff is being kept from us, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes not. But I think the, the conspiratorial mindset is, is.

[Chris Williamson]

Is flourishing.

[Douglas Murray]

Flourishing at the moment. And it's funny because you, you can. Well, it's funny, but it's also more, more importantly, it's serious because it's a Sign of very unhealthy thing in society. When the JFK files were released the other week, there was a lot of excitement that, you know, finally we're going to discover exactly what happened. And I wrote a column a while afterwards saying the thing we've learned from the JFK files is that the President was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald with the gun that Lee Harvey oswald owned that Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald noticed was missing from the house that morning. And it was funny because I noticed that to the extent that I monitor reactions to anything I say, I notice how many people were annoyed. No, there's still this question. He wasn't as good a sharpshooter as he. You can't stop looks, by the way on that one. It's quite interesting. It looks like what happened was the CIA were monitoring him pretty carefully. Lee Harvey Oswald because he tried to defect to Russia once before and he tried to defect Cuba and. And so the CIA were monitoring him and they didn't want to reveal the methods by which they did that. In the process, one of the biggest conspiracy theories of the modern era was born. But you. But I don't think I'll persuade anyone who thinks otherwise on that, who's deeply into the idea that LBJ desperately wanted to do this or X wanted to do that. And the problem is, is what you allude to is that the problem is that the algorithm rewards the crazy. I noticed on the day that the JFK files were released, some wank rag online started a live stream that was suggested to me and its title was JFK Files Reveal Israeli Plot or something. And there was no such thing. But that gets engagement. Whereas JFK scholars reading documents live, it'll take about four months, less sexy, less engagement. You're not going to watch them reading the documents. And you know, that's just the reality of the era we're in. And you can't stop it. But I think people should be alive to it, should be aware of it. This is one of the things that's being done to us by these darn devices that tell me all about Easter Bunny books.

[Chris Williamson]

It seems like the sort of scapegoat out group finger pointing dynamic. It feels like that has been tuned up at least over the last couple of years.

[Douglas Murray]

Yeah, and as I say in this book, I mean it's inevitable because historically we know this is the case and I say this to somebody who isn't Jewish, but it will almost always end up with the Jews.

[Chris Williamson]

Why is that the case?

[Douglas Murray]

Very interesting question one is that right and left can both do it?

[Chris Williamson]

Oh, like a equal opportunity victim.

[Douglas Murray]

Yes, right. Both right and left can do it. I say at one point in the book, one of the interesting things about anti Semitism is that it's. Which isn't to say that all criticism of Israel is anti Semitic, which isn't. Etc, Etc. But I think that one of the interesting things about anti Semitism is that it's famously a shape shifting virus. It can come from anywhere. It can come from the political left, it can come from the political right, it can come from people wearing jack boots and it can come from people wearing Covid masks. You know, latterly we've been less attuned to the existence of the second, you know, because there's always this expectation that it'll be the same as last time, but it doesn't. It moves. But the reason why I do think that that's a perennial to the conspiracy mind is because the Jews can be blamed for everything and just have been historically. They get blamed for. You get simultaneously blamed for being poor and for being rich. You know, 19th century British antisemitism and indeed continental antisemitism relied on the trope of the Rothschilds and of the impoverished Jews from Eastern Europe and they just did both at once. They can be accused of being very religious and trying to push religion and also being ultra secularist, the most secular pushing, atheism. They can be blamed for being stateless, rootless cosmopolitans. Was the line that anti Semites of the right used to use and left about Jews and now they get blamed for having a state. So it's a sort of perennial. And I think if you wanted to go down exactly on why it is, it's of many reasons because different types of antisemitism, there's Islamic antisemitism, there's types of Christian antisemitism. I think that it ends up usually being that historically Jews are almost perfectly positioned to mirror whatever your own failings are. And this is a line I quote in the book from a great Russian writer, Vasily Grossman, who said in the 20th century in his masterpiece Life and Fate, he said, tell me what you accuse the Jews of and I'll tell you what you're guilty of. It's fascinating insight this. It's a mirror to your own failings.

[Chris Williamson]

How so?

[Douglas Murray]

So for instance, the main accusation that the revolutionary Islamic government in Tehran uses of the Jewish state of Israel, well, is that it's a colonial power. And this is quite funny to me because I mean, by the way, the supreme leader of Iran Last year wrote a thank you letter to students at Columbia and other American Ivy League universities for coming out for the last year and a half on the anti Israel protest. He wrote them a thank you letter joining him in the anti colonialist cause. There is one country in the Middle east which has been colonizing the place more than any other in our lifetimes, and that's the Iranian revolutionary government in Tehran. They colonized the great country of Iran in 1979. They've in the years and decades since, they've colonized Iraq, colonized Syria, colonized Yemen, colonized and destroyed Lebanon. But they say the Jews are the colonialist power. Another very good example, just right there, the president of Turkey, sometime very close enemy of mine, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who I initiated a defamatory poetry competition against many years ago.

[Chris Williamson]

That's a byway you have friends in high places.

[Douglas Murray]

I do. And then good enemies. The best. The Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President Erdogan of Turkey, accuses the Jewish state of being an occupying power, which is hilarious, if you know Cyprus at all, because the north half of Cyprus is occupied by Turkey now. Still has been for 50 years. Totally illegal occupation that nobody in America or Britain or the west seems to give a damn about. So when Erdogan says the Jews are occupiers, all he's doing is telling us about himself. That's all. And when, I mean, it works every which way you do it. The Nazis accused the Jews of being racists. It's almost as if it tells us something about the Nazis. It's an extraordinary thing. And this works almost every way. Yeah. People accuse the Jews of things they're guilty of. And because they're a small enough portion of the global population and tend to outperform, not always by any means, but tend to outperform in the areas they go into, they're almost the perfect scapegoat.

[Chris Williamson]

Is this not true of other groups too?

[Douglas Murray]

Oh, yeah, for sure. Never anywhere as much because of this shape shifting thing I describe and because there are very deep theological reasons for it. You know, it took until the 1950s for a pope in Rome to say, the Jews are not responsible for the killing of Christ. That's a long time for the Church to confirm that. So, you know, you have many centuries of Christian anti Semitic pogroms and much more. The Islamic world has not yet caught up with that. And much of it still blames the Jews for rejecting the revelation of Muhammad. Because when the inventor of Islam came up with the idea and went around trying to get other people to join him. The Jews were among the first people who said, no thanks, we've already got our religion and we'd like to keep it.

[Chris Williamson]

What are the lessons for the wider world from the Ukraine, from the Middle east over the last few years? What should people take away from the way that these sort of conflicts have unfolded and the response? Because it seems and a lot of people sort of say this ever escalating kinetic engagement, the sort of burbling below the surface. You mentioned before about the only job of the politicians and government is to keep the economy going. There's maybe some fertile ground to sow seeds in with regards to that which is going to raise tensions. Say more I watched a video from the PM of Singapore who as far as I can tell, I'm sure there's critics of Singapore out there and I'm not a geopolitics expert. As far as I can tell, Singapore's kind of a shining light of some areas of growth, governance, oh for sure, of economics. And he said himself, you know, that economic turbulence like this has preceded a lot of pretty big conflicts in the past. And if you've got a few petri dish examples of this actually happening before you've got the economic pressure happening as well globally, the era of free trade is over.

[Douglas Murray]

Could be, yeah.

[Chris Williamson]

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[Douglas Murray]

I don't know. I mean, I'm very wary about using other people's tragedies as mere sort of learning, you know, points. But I can tell you the few sort of positive things that I have picked up. And one is a very straightforward one which I think is a very important one for the west, which I go into in this book, which is because I mentioned it's about these twin worlds. And how does the democracy, whatever you're, whether you're Democrat, Republican, doesn't matter. Labor, Conservative, doesn't matter. But what can anyone who broadly speaking, likes the societies we're from and wants them to continue and wants them to do well, what can they do if those societies are tested? And I think one of the things that is really very obvious to me now is you need to know what you're fighting for. You need to know that what you're fighting for is something that you cherish and you love. And I think that there has been in the period of de energizing, which hopefully we're coming out of, but in that period, we have all been told in America and Britain and elsewhere that what we have is not good. You know, as I said in my last book in the War on the west, we have been told that, you know, like we're guilty. I mean, this is all horseshit, by the way. But I mean, you know, that we're uniquely guilty from colonialism or uniquely guilty from slavery or uniquely guilty from racism or all of this stuff is total horseshit. We should never have put up with it for so long that among other things, people from the round the world wanted to come to countries in the west and then tell us how bad we were. Should never have agreed to that. Somebody came into my home and said they didn't like my home and they thought it was uniquely awful. I think I'd tell them to scram. So why we put up with this for so long, I don't know. But we have been, and arguably many young people in particular younger than us, have been told that what they have been born into is not good. And one of my first instincts when I saw that poll of young Americans and young Brits, would you be willing to lay down your life for the country if something terrible happened and you had to step up? I think one of the reasons why the yes vote is so low is because it doesn't matter whether you're patriotic or not. You've been told your country's Rotten. You know, there was an article written in the Daily Mail the other week by a very smart young British guy who's right wing. I think he's sort of reform voter type, saying why would I lay down my life for my country when it's let me down so badly when our politicians don't listen to us? So it's not just a left right thing by any means. But I think people have been told from a lot of different directions that, that our countries are not good. And I think that's not true. I never thought that was true. I've got a long enough memory and I've traveled enough, run up enough air miles in this life to know that's not true. But if you tell people that it's the case for a long time and you de energize them and you demotivate them, you tell them that they're rotten, then yeah, you can really demoralize a society. I think that needs to turn around. I think that people need to recognize what we have. That's good. And as I've said to you before, the footfall alone tells us all we need to know. Footfall alone tells it. Nobody is trying today to make their way out of America to get to the safe harbor of Venezuela. Nobody's even leaving Britain to go to France. Certainly nobody's leaving France or Spain or Italy to try to get to Algeria. And in turn, nobody from Algeria is trying to break into sub Saharan Africa. Very few people are trying to break into communist China. Absolutely no one is trying to hot foot it to North Korea. Okay, so like all of the countries that people in the world most want to come to are now what they have been for decades. America, Canada, Australia, Britain, France and so on. So why did we put up with being told that these countries that are demonstrably the places people want to come to are bad places and everywhere else is good. It's just so sickening to me. I've had enough of it and I think most people have.

[Chris Williamson]

Is that sense that things would be better if we were more like them over there. Is that a dynamic that's sort of fueling some of this?

[Douglas Murray]

Which bit do you mean?

[Chris Williamson]

The fact that if only we were a little bit more like, well, the Middle east, they're living a little bit sort of closer to simplicity.

[Douglas Murray]

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the real colonialist thinking. That's the real, that's the real Orientalist thinking of our time is the idea that it's actually rather wonderfully sent up in white lotus among other things, it is that stupid idea that, you know, other cultures have, like a depth of philosophy that we don't have, or other cultures have a spiritualism that we don't have. Yeah. I mean, it's a phenomenon I've described before of people going backpacking to see temples in Thailand. Wonderful things. Absolutely. Going to Myanmar to see temples. Wonderful things to see. Absolutely. But you should also visit Winchester Cathedral or Salisbury or St. Peter's in Rome or Chartres. On and on and on. It's a very interesting mindset, the Western mindset, that what we have isn't rich enough. I described this recently at arc. I borrowed Eric Weinstein's great analogy about ice cream. Have you heard this? It was a brilliant observation. Some years ago, Eric and I were talking about this weird thing where the west had been sort of tricked into thinking, or we'd been sort of told that we need other flavors to make ourselves interesting because otherwise we're not interesting. You'll notice, by the way, that doesn't work any other way around. Nobody goes to Ghana and says, I just can't help noticing you don't have enough Welsh people. And you could really do with it because it'll bring you some color, some much needed diversity. Nobody would think of going to Pakistan and saying, guys, seriously, you just don't have enough French culture here. But you do do it always with the West. You do do it always. And Eric's observation, which I thought was just brilliant, that classic way he can do to sort of refine a. A complicated question. He said, you know, Douglas, when I was growing up, I had the impression for a while that vanilla ice cream was the base ice cream. It was like the base flavor. And that all other flavors of ice cream were flavors added onto vanilla ice cream. And it's the same with us in the West. Vanilla, if you want to look at it like that, is a very complicated and rich flavor of its own. It's not the case that everything added to it is being added to a non flavor. And I wish we realized that. I wish we had a little bit more. I always say I never want sort of. I don't want tub thumping nationalist stuff, but I would like people to have some darn pride in things they should have some darn pride in.

[Chris Williamson]

How have you avoided becoming. Or maybe you have more nihilistic, despondent down. I'm interested in what the sort of personal price is that you pay to be on the front lines of these things. I've seen an interview with you and Piers Morgan where there was a brief interlude for a rocket to go overhead and then you sort of brush yourself off and. And kind of got back to it. I'm interested in sort of what it's been like for you over the last couple of years.

[Douglas Murray]

Not really for me to say. I think it goes back to that point about seeing things at their best and at their worst at the same time. You know, I. I can't deny that when you see some things too much too close up, it has some kind of effect on you. I describe some of that in this book, actually, but it's countered by the encouragement one gets. I don't mean encouragement for other people. I mean literally seeing people who are encouraging to me in their actions. And, you know, there have been in both conflicts. I spent more time in the Israel, Gaza conflict than in Ukraine. But I was very struck near the beginning of the Ukraine conflict when I was with Ukrainian armed forces when they retook Kherson from the Russians. And all these. These, you know, unbelievable sight, all these people coming out from their houses after eight months under Putinesque rule, coming. Being liberated by their own army and unbelievable scenes and conversations and sights and. And I. I find. I find real heroism on the battlefield a remarkable thing. I mean, unbelievably encouraging and positive. I like and feel enormous encouragement from seeing people fighting for life. I think it's almost unequaled as a thing to make you feel optimism about the species and particularly fighting for life against people who worship death. I tell a story in this book which is slightly difficult story to retell, actually, but the. The mastermind of October 7, Yahya Sinwar, who was a proper psychopath, I mean, as you'll see in the. The segments about him, I mean, a proper psychopath, you know, was in an Israeli prison in the 2000s for strangling to death various Palestinians who he had fallen out with, you know, Anyway, he had such necrophilic fantasies as a man promised even before 7th October, he said, we will go over and we will get the Jews and we will tear their hearts out of their bodies in the end. And he was killed by a young soldier from a regiment called the Bislach, who aren't even fully soldiers. And this young man who killed Sinois within less than a year of 7 October, was not even in uniform when Sinua invaded. And I went into Rafah just after Sinwar was killed, and I went to see where he was and was with the unit, included the men who killed him. And I thought, what an extraordinary and wonderful thing that this man, high on death finally had death delivered to him by someone who wasn't even in uniform.

[Chris Williamson]

Some part time squatting.

[Douglas Murray]

He created his own downfall and that sort of thing. I mean I think that, you know, we all know there are different ways and different philosophies and different theological systems to look at the battle between good and evil. But this one, that one is a very clear one to me. And yes, I've, I've got far more optimism actually funnily enough than I have pessimism despite everything.

[Chris Williamson]

Does it make dealing with criticisms or accusations of motive or whatever from the Internet, does it put those sort of things into perspective?

[Douglas Murray]

I never gave a shit about that as you know.

[Chris Williamson]

I'm fascinated by it. I'm fascinated by how few shits you get give. Yeah, I always have been.

[Douglas Murray]

I, I, I just don't care, you know, I, I, I, I was saying to somebody recently that I really, I, I mean I slightly wonder what would happen if I'd have grown up in the social media era and I have, you know, friends and felt more of.

[Chris Williamson]

That sort of surveillance.

[Douglas Murray]

But I think, I think the truth is, is simply that I think that people's sense of whether you're going right in your life or your career and your whatever, who takes advice from complete strangers and don't we all? I'm sure you as with me, you listen to advice or criticism even from people who care for you and you care for or love and you know, who love you, who you admire and who admire you. I mean, I reckon, I mean without getting all schmaltzy, I reckon that if you said to me, I saw this interview you did and I think you shouldn't have said that or whatever, I would actually listen to that because you know, there are some people who I respect whose opinion I think, yeah, that's, that matters. But if, if you were, you know, just some rando online saying so why, why the hell would that, you know, I think I've said to you before that one of the interesting things is of course is, is because the very nature of criticism is you have to work out, I think I said this when we first spoke, you have to work out whether the person criticizing you is criticizing you to improve you, you or to demoralize and destroy you and the friendly critic. So I'm saying I'd like to think it was the same thing if I said, I just think you might think I wouldn't be saying something critical of you other than if I thought it would Improve you in some way or make something better for you. You. But if. If I was some malevolent troll who desperately wanted to destroy Chris Williamson, hated him and wanted him to fail, and I, like started screaming advice at you, why the hell would you listen? You shouldn't. I. But I mean, you know, definitely have an advantage if you grew up before the deranging in online era, because I think some of that sense is created from that. But. But I mean, you know, I don't think it's a difficult superpower to acquire. I really don't.

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah. As said, everybody that is fantastic at something that comes naturally to them.

[Douglas Murray]

What do you mean?

[Chris Williamson]

Well, just I think you seem to have a big fuck you streak, and Ryan Long taught me this comedian. He said he always.

[Douglas Murray]

Oh, I like him. I did his podcast.

[Chris Williamson]

Yes, I introduced you. Yeah, yeah, he's great. Him and Danny. He said he always sort of discredited the things that came easily to him. He always assumed that there was more value in something that he had to work harder at. So he's really great at sketch comedy.

[Douglas Murray]

Yes. And he's naturally very funny.

[Chris Williamson]

He's fucking fantastic. And to him, sketches just, they fall out of him on a daily basis. So he always looked at other twists and art forms. Maybe they were comedy or maybe they were tangential or maybe they were totally separate. And he always assumed that those were the ones that were really valuable because he discredited the thing that came so easily to him. He always thought, well, the sketch comedy thing, like, you know, everybody's got access. He said, no, no, no, no, no. Not everybody has access to that. You're a freak and you have that skill.

[Douglas Murray]

So do you have some like that.

[Chris Williamson]

Things that come easily to me? Yeah, I, we're always. At least for me, I'm my own worst critic. Stuff that comes easily to me that I think other people assume that that's the case is networking. That was something that, as an only child who then becomes a club promoter, you are perfectly. You're perfectly positioned to. To sort of observe social networks and see how they go. But it's never anything that I've sort of practiced myself. It's just something that kind of came out of life and programming and yapping. Always been good at yapping, you know, from a kid.

[Douglas Murray]

Right. But so do you think you look down on those things as skills?

[Chris Williamson]

I certainly. I don't look down on them, but I do assume I. Because they come easily to me, I'm not convinced that I value them in the same sort of way I value them in myself and it's something I'm very happy that I've got hot, but.

[Douglas Murray]

So what are the things then that you put an onus on that you don't think you have?

[Chris Williamson]

Oh, that's a good question. You energy would be one of those.

[Douglas Murray]

Really?

[Chris Williamson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Instead of getting mad, I tend to get sad. I'll sort of turn. I know.

[Douglas Murray]

Oh, it's true.

[Chris Williamson]

It's true.

[Douglas Murray]

Really? Yeah.

[Chris Williamson]

In many ways I think you can. You can work past that quite easily.

[Douglas Murray]

Interesting.

[Chris Williamson]

Or at least operationally you can. But there is a. There is an initial hurdle where I will tend to. I will tend to blame myself for something. So it's one of the reasons I asked about the criticism, actually. I would say I'm a criticism hyper responder sometimes, and I created a list of different ways that me and perhaps other people have dealt with criticism with varying degrees of success. Oh yeah, get bitter. Think of any critic as a hater, just throwing envy and shade. Recite the quote. Don't take criticism from someone you wouldn't take advice from from. Number two, channel your inner David Goggins and use it as fuel to prove people wrong. Number three, get equanimous and see every criticism as a gift, which you can learn from. Number four, get psychoanalytical and think of criticisms as a window into the mind of other humans. Bonus points for inferring sweeping generalizations about the public at large from whatever you read.

[Douglas Murray]

That's very good.

[Chris Williamson]

Be incredibly precise with language so no spell words which could be misconstrued. At present, front run potential criticisms by caveating before speaking. Hey, I'm just an idiot spitballing a bro science theory here.

[Douglas Murray]

That one's awful.

[Chris Williamson]

Acknowledge both sides. Hey, look, I think climate change or women's mental health or poverty in Africa is an important issue we should focus on.

[Douglas Murray]

But that's all. That's a weak one.

[Chris Williamson]

Avoid exposing yourself to it. Never search your own name on Twitter or Reddit. Don't read the comments.

[Douglas Murray]

Oh, that's definitely true. Yes, of course.

[Chris Williamson]

Dampen down the edginess of your opinions and statements so the point gets made, but in such a gentle way that people can't find anything sufficiently objectionable to get mad about.

[Douglas Murray]

Not great advice always.

[Chris Williamson]

This isn't necessarily advice. These are just strategies that I've gone through. Deny that it gets to you in just breathwork. Busy meditate, scroll, Brazilian jiu jitsu, your way to distraction or final one, Take it to heart. Doubt your abilities and fear that you're not cut out for any level of exposure at large.

[Douglas Murray]

I think that it's probably the last one which people online, a lot of people online would be hoping with anyone.

[Chris Williamson]

They'Re attacking to be able to slow them down.

[Douglas Murray]

What they're hoping is that they'll do something that will demoralize you. And imagine, I mean, I know that when I really want to demoralize someone, that's the sort of thing I do. I always think that if the, the I, I actually think the only, the most effective form of really nasty criticism is to like find out what the really weak spot is on someone. There was a crazy woman many years ago in London who used to. She was actually Jewish, but she was the most very vicious, vicious anti Israel Protestant imaginable. And she used to turn up with a group of other maniacs and like disrupt things like, like the Jerusalem String Quartet played at the Wigmore hall and they were like, gah, like attack the string quartet. Couldn't you find a stronger target? And. But I remember writing a piece about her and for some reason I knew that if I just said, you know, you're just Auntie, just a maniac, that wouldn't, you know, she'd had it all. But I, I remember thinking, because she would sing these mad songs, like she'd sing something was a song with new lyrics by herself that were like hating. And I remember just describing her as a semi trained singer. Oh, that was the one. I put my finger on the thing there. She was just like, gah, how dare you. I was drained. I just thought it was so funny. You just watch and think. I bet that's the one.

[Chris Williamson]

You know, Adolf Hitler, world leader, failed artist.

[Douglas Murray]

But yeah, that's an interesting list. Yeah.

[Chris Williamson]

What happened with you in the Guardian?

[Douglas Murray]

Oh yeah, they libeled me and lied about me so badly in the column that they had to pay very substantial expenses in libel damages to me. Me, I'm actually there's a, there's a. And expenses. And read out an apology in the High Court in London which was. They tried to do the classic thing. I think I can say this. Sometimes when somebody's forced to do a libel retraction, they sort of, they don't tweet or publish anything and then they suddenly they do it and then they do masses of things so that it gets buried even on their own timeline. But I made sure that didn't happen.

[Chris Williamson]

How?

[Douglas Murray]

Well, I went quite big on the retweets and so. And Elon helped by retweeting it and actually I think Currently it's the most viewed apology in the history of British legal cases. So. I wasn't unhappy about that. You did ask.

[Chris Williamson]

Jesus Christ.

[Douglas Murray]

There's a principle among journalists generally, you don't sue because, you know, it's all kind of rough and you know, but this one was so egregious that I just.

[Chris Williamson]

What did they do?

[Douglas Murray]

I don't fucking repeat the libel that I've just had withdraw.

[Chris Williamson]

Right, okay. Yeah, well, it was incorrect. Yeah, that's fair. I don't know. I mean, I, I only sort of spied it. I, I knew there's something happening and I didn't really understand what it was. And then I went and had a little bit of a look and then the way that these libel things are written out as well, they're so odd.

[Douglas Murray]

Well, I mean, everyone knows that. I mean, despite being a member of the press myself, I mean, you know, one of the worst things about the press is, is, is that, you know, sometimes they get something like wildly wrong, but it's like front page and then the correction is three years later on page 49 in A, you know, small type and so on. And everyone knows that. And you know, it's just part of the rough and tumble. But, but I, I think, I think, I mean, having opinions that you disagree with or are wrong is all just fair enough, but, you know, you can't go around and just make shit up and claim that it's true, or at least you oughtn't to, and you certainly oughtn't to if you're the Guardian observer newspaper group and present yourselves as some kind of guardian of the truth, holier than thou. So. Yeah, but I don't do that very often, but there are a few times when I've had substantial donations from people who've libeled me. And I wait and then act and win.

[Chris Williamson]

Is there a proposed use for the proceeds from this?

[Douglas Murray]

I thought I'd extend the moat around my house and build a new drawbridge. Actually, some more butlers I'm not sure there's room for. I mean, there's got to be a limit, don't they? I mean, you can't have.

[Chris Williamson]

What do you think? I know you don't care or it seems like you don't care. What do you think people commonly misunderstand about sort of your worldview, your positions?

[Douglas Murray]

Don't really know. I mean.

[Chris Williamson]

It fascinates me how little time you sort of spend in self critical, self reflection. Not that you don't see where, where sort of failures and stuff come from. But that there's just so few shits given.

[Douglas Murray]

Well, I mean I'm very self critical. One of the. One of. I learned this from Anthony Powell years ago from his novel. There's a brilliant observation in one of them that you should always presume that people are very critical who are very critical do turn the criticism inwards as well. That's absolutely true and I think it's actually constructive. I mean I think it would be wildly odd if you were critical of other people and not of yourself. But. But I think it's. I think broadly speaking it's a good thing to be self critical so that. But I don't know. I don't spend much time thinking what other people think about me. I generally take the view. I. I mean of course I think it's healthy because I think it's. And nobody says I have this really unhealthy thing. I like to think so. Have you noticed everyone's a good judge of character? That's one of my favourites. Almost nobody says actually I'm just not a very good judge of character. I'm just not good at telling who's a serial killer and who isn't. I just. And there are various ones like that that are very obvious. I think that in general my attitude is to be wary about thinking about other people's thoughts about me because I think that people who express great admiration or, you know, whatever about me, I kind of don't. Obviously that's nice but I don't want to absorb it too much because I don't want to become a deck or any more of a dick. And people who really don't like what I say, I don't really. I don't think that's great either. I mean I go back to this thing, I think that. I mean, where, you know, where I would be very, very sensitive would be if I made an error or something like that because then I'd feel that I made a mistake, I got something wrong and that would bother me and does when I do I make a factual error or something that's really annoying and it has happened but I don't think it pays to spend very much time thinking about what other people think about you. I just don't. I think it sort of means you don't get on with things and I've got a lot to do.

[Chris Williamson]

What's coming up?

[Douglas Murray]

Well, this book obviously which has got to beat the bunnies and with your help to the top. I'm doing a lot of travel to roll out the Book, which is great. Which I love. It's a funny thing with books. How's your coming along, by the way?

[Chris Williamson]

Hiatus at the moment, taking over. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got other fish to fry from.

[Douglas Murray]

Yeah. One of the great things about books is that you. Or the odd things about books, is that when you've done it, when you've done the book or when you finished it, you haven't finished it.

[Chris Williamson]

That's when the work starts.

[Douglas Murray]

Just because the moment I think we're talking. Well, we are talking on the day that the book's officially out in America. And so it's like from now that people start reading it. And for me, that's great because that's when the book really starts. And of course, people can listen to it on audible, where you get these dulce. No, not you. You don't read it. I read it on audible and yeah. So I mean, that's nice as well. And by the way, I mean, that is, as you know, it's fantastic. That's one of the great things. Doesn't get enough attention. The upside of some of the tech, I mean, I discovered that there's a wonderful readership, listenership, which was not there before audiobooks took off to the extent they have now, which is thanks partly to podcasters and the way in which people are able to absorb and wishing to absorb information and discussion books. And that's just fantastic. There's a fantastic audience out there of people who might not come home and crack open a book at the end of the day, but will listen to it and they get the same thing, plus with me in their ear. So I love the business of a book being out, even one about some pretty dark stuff like this one. But.

[Chris Williamson]

But yeah, when you do a fun one next. When do we have a nice, fun one?

[Douglas Murray]

Well, that's a good question. Yeah. I have a backlog of books in my head of the ones I want to write.

[Chris Williamson]

Are there any fun ones? Easter 26 is calling.

[Douglas Murray]

Well, yeah, now I know.

[Chris Williamson]

The frigging competition, the bunny market.

[Douglas Murray]

No, I've always got a lot to do. Always a lot on my mind and projects and. Yeah, a lot to do.

[Chris Williamson]

I look forward to seeing it happen. I appreciate you, man. I always. I always love getting to speak to you. It's. It's. It's really, really lovely.

[Douglas Murray]

Likewise. Right back at you. As I discovered San America, while you're.

[Chris Williamson]

Here for a little while, until you fly off again. Douglas, I appreciate you, man.

[Douglas Murray]

Take care.

[Chris Williamson]

When I first started doing personal growth, I really wanted to read the best books, the most impactful ones, the most entertaining ones, the ones that were the easiest to read and the most dense and interesting, but there wasn't a list of them. So I scoured and scoured and scoured and then gave up and just started reading on my own. And then I made a list of 100 of the best books that I've ever found. And you can get that for free right now. So if you want to spend more time around great books that aren't going to completely kill your memory and your attention just trying to get through a single page, go to chriswillx.combooks to get my list completely free of 100 books you should read before you die. That's chriswillx.combooks.