ICE, Immigration and Cultural Suicide - Lionel Shriver

Summary

TRIGGERnometry Podcast: ICE, Immigration and Cultural Suicide – Lionel Shriver (March 1, 2026)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, hosts Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster are joined by prolific author Lionel Shriver to discuss her new novel A Better Life. The conversation broadly uses Shriver's novel as a springboard to examine mass immigration, cultural dynamics, Western societal incentives, gender roles, and the moral psychology underpinning current immigration debates in the US and UK. The discussion is candid, controversial, and challenges mainstream progressive narratives, with particular attention to motivations, unintended consequences, and questions of cultural and demographic sustainability.

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Key Topics and Discussion Points

1. The Political Design Behind Mass Immigration

• Shriver firmly asserts that mass immigration is a result of deliberate policy, not a force of nature, and that political actors are responsible for opening borders.
  • “This is all the result of individual political decisions. The Biden administration opened that border on purpose. There is design behind it. We are not acting out of self interest.” — Lionel Shriver (00:02)
• The conversation critiques the framing of mass immigration as ‘inevitable’ and emphasizes the agency of Western policymakers.

2. Narrative Gaps in Immigration Literature

• Shriver notes that most immigration novels are written from the immigrant’s perspective, inherently promoting pro-immigration sympathies, with scant attention given to the host society’s perspective. She references T.C. Boyle’s The Tortilla Curtain as a rare exception.
  • “There have certainly been plenty of novels about immigration, but they're always implicitly pro immigration because they are reliably told from the perspective of the immigrant… I know of only one other novel that portrays the experience of the host community...” — Lionel Shriver (02:19)

3. Who is Responsible for Mass Immigration?

• The hosts and Shriver agree that Western politicians and segments of society (not immigrants) are primarily responsible for enabling mass immigration.
  • “What your book actually explores is the people who are responsible for the waves of mass immigration are the people who are encouraging and making it possible.” — Host (04:28)
  • Shriver agrees, highlighting the conscious invitation and decisions behind the shift (05:20-07:06).

4. “Suicidal Empathy” and Moral Display

• The conversation introduces “suicidal empathy” (Gad Saad's term) and Shriver’s refinement: “suicidal vanity.” She suggests much of pro-immigration advocacy is a performance of moral superiority.
  • “My only problem with that expression is that I think often what you're dealing with is not genuinely empathy, it’s suicidal vanity… It's an exercise in moral display.” — Lionel Shriver (07:31, 07:38)

5. Patronization and Infantilization of Immigrants

• The progressive stance is described as not only condescending but also contradictory: painting immigrants as both noble and desperately in need of protection, while simultaneously criticizing the West.
  • “The progressive view of minorities is terribly condescending... the assumption that all these illegal immigrants are innocent.” — Lionel Shriver (08:56)
  • Points out how transactional motivations of economic migrants are overlooked and Western laws do not serve native interests (08:56-11:14).

6. Incentives and Perverse Social Structures

• Central to the novel and discussion is how all characters – immigrants, locals, young people – are responding to the perverse incentives of contemporary Western societies.
  • “In a way, isn't every character just responding to the perverse incentives of our society?” — Co-host (23:22)
  • Shriver agrees, illustrating how both welfare systems and cultural messages encourage dependency and passivity (24:49, 28:43).

7. Masculinity, Gender Dynamics, and the Crisis of Adulthood

• The gender split in immigration attitudes is explored, with Shriver observing that compassion-driven activism is often led by women, whereas men (like the novel’s protagonist Nico) are depicted as demasculinized and passive.
  • “The women in the book… sincerely embrace their beliefs and can't see, for example, their own vanity and, and can't see… their own condescension.” — Lionel Shriver (18:11)
  • “For the first long part of the book, Nico seems to be very contented with this demasculinized version of himself...” — Lionel Shriver (29:16)
  • Notably, Shriver advocates for a return to recognizing ‘masculine virtues’ at both personal and cultural levels (29:16-31:22).

8. Cultural Self-Confidence, Guilt, and Legacy

• The decline in birth rates and lack of defense for Western culture are linked; Shriver suggests that if people do not care about their culture or have a legacy (children, continuity), they will not defend it.
  • “If we don't have children, then we're handing the keys to somebody else.” — Lionel Shriver (43:01)
  • “This mass incursion on Western territory is evidence of a lack of cultural self confidence.” — Lionel Shriver (66:50)

9. The Role of Guilt and the Holocaust Legacy

• British and European attitudes toward asylum and immigration are partly shaped by historical guilt over the Holocaust, leading to an often dysfunctional, outdated asylum system.
  • “I think the guilt that we feel about that still, even now, is so profound that it has deranged the way we think about this issue completely.” — Host (63:01)
  • Shriver argues this should be updated, as designed, voluntary humanitarian policies may be preferable to mandated legal obligations open to abuse (64:51).

10. Immigration as Cultural Suicide

• Throughout, there is an underlying theme: that Western passivity, cultural self-denial, and declining demographics constitute a form of societal self-destruction, facilitated by open immigration policies.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Deliberate Policy on Immigration

• “The Biden administration opened that border on purpose. There is design behind it.” — Lionel Shriver (00:02, 11:48)

On the Motives of Progressives

• “What you're dealing with is not genuinely empathy, it’s suicidal vanity. Right. It’s a conceit about yourself being a good person and you're going to inflict your goodness on everybody else...” — Lionel Shriver (07:38)

On Male Passivity

• “For the first long part of the book, Nico seems to be very contented with this demasculinized version of himself... But there is a crucial point at which he realizes that he needs access to the masculine virtues... Even physically. He needs strength.” — Lionel Shriver (29:16)

On the Sense of Legacy

• “If we don't have children, then we're handing the keys to somebody else.” — Lionel Shriver (43:01)
• “Having children is an act of generosity in every sense.” — Lionel Shriver (48:30)

On Self-Destructive Cultural Attitudes

• “This mass incursion on Western territory is evidence of a lack of cultural self confidence. Because why would you want to protect your culture from people incursion by others? If you don't care about it, you're not going to try to protect it.” — Lionel Shriver (66:50)

On “Economic Migrants” and System Gaming

• “The immigrants, for the most part, know your immigration law better than you do. Way better... They’ve done their homework in advance… That’s a big part of the motivation. They're smart, right? ...What’s odd about our immigration policy... is that we are not acting out of self interest.” — Lionel Shriver (08:56)

On Guilt and Asylum Policies

• “I would shit can all of asylum... That doesn't mean that voluntarily, countries couldn't say, here's this conflict over there, let's say Ukraine, right? Russia's invaded Ukraine. There are a lot of people in danger, especially in east of the country. We will take our share, we will invite them voluntarily. That's what we do, right? But not because we have to, because we've inverted it so it's required charity and therefore it's an open invitation to game the system.” — Lionel Shriver (64:51)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:02: Shriver argues mass immigration is a conscious political decision.
• 02:19: Discussion of narrative sympathies in immigration literature.
• 07:31: “Suicidal empathy” versus “suicidal vanity.”
• 08:56: Shriver details the condescension of progressives toward minorities and immigrants.
• 17:33: The economic case for immigration and the limitations of GDP growth metrics.
• 18:11 – 22:37: Gender roles and the crisis of Western masculinity.
• 23:31: The principle of perverse incentives for all characters.
• 29:16: Description of demasculinized young men.
• 43:01: The metaphor of the childless family and its broader implications.
• 51:34: Is there a cultural or political turning point ahead?
• 56:23: Demonstration of how in other countries, illegal entry is perceived as invasion.
• 62:44: Reflections on Western guilt post-Holocaust and its impact on modern asylum policy.
• 66:50: Lack of cultural self-confidence and willingness to protect Western culture.
• 68:07: Shriver’s final thought: the underappreciated importance of water as a demographic-immigration issue.

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Tone and Language

• The conversation is frank, intellectual, and sometimes provocative, reflecting Shriver’s and the hosts' willingness to challenge taboos.
• There is a strong undercurrent of concern for Western identity, cultural continuity, and realism versus performative morality.
• Participants often use metaphor and humor amid their serious critiques (e.g. describing passive men as “glorified pets”).

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Takeaways

• Shriver and the hosts frame Western immigration policy as an act of self-neglect, driven by political design and a collapse in cultural self-belief.
• The episode is unflinching in suggesting that comfort, passivity, and a desire to be seen as virtuous have left Western societies both demographically and culturally vulnerable.
• Listeners are encouraged to reflect on incentives, legacy, and the value of defending (and understanding) their cultural inheritance.

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For more content and exclusive subscriber questions, the hosts direct listeners to the podcast’s website at the end.

Transcript

[Lionel Shriver]

This is all the result of individual political decisions. The Biden administration opened that border on purpose. There is design behind it. We are not acting out of self interest.

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

The gender dynamics in the book between who it is that actually is inviting these people and who it is that's

[Lionel Shriver]

resisting this movement has brought out the worst in women. I'm a big fan with masculine virtues and I mean that on an individual level, but also on a cultural one. We have poo pooed them for a long time. Our countries are being overrun by strangers because nobody is stopping them.

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[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

Terms apply frivol. Welcome back to Trigonometry.

[Lionel Shriver]

Third time lucky.

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

Third time great to have you. The reason we have you on regularly is you're a prolific writer. As I was saying before we started, you've just written a new book called A Better Life. And as always, you stay away from the controversy, don't you, Lionel?

[Lionel Shriver]

Oh, yeah. I tried to go for the safe subject.

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

Well, this book, of course, is a novel, but it is about immigration. And I think you actually go very deep and very hard at an issue that has become completely toxified, impossible to talk about and also impossible to be honest about. Is that why you wanted to talk about this issue?

[Lionel Shriver]

Well, I am always looking for a gap in the cultural library. There's no point in writing a book that has been written multiple times. I'm trying to look for something that people are not writing about, and there's usually a reason people are not writing about something because it's dangerous. It's too polarizing. And there have certainly been plenty of novels about immigration, but they're always implicitly pro Immigration because they are reliably told from the perspective of the immigrant, and they're not necessarily all bad novels. And in fact, I think the format of the immigrant story is narratively appealing intrinsically. Someone who's seeking a better life is on a journey, is literally going from A to B, and therefore, perhaps making another kind of spiritual, political, social journey, and has to face obstacles to overcome, is usually at a disadvantage. Often, often that's an economic disadvantage. All of these things are a formula for a sympathetic character. And when you have a sympathetic immigrant, you are implicitly writing a pro immigration book. I mean, that's just the way it works insofar as is you have any political content. I know of only one other novel that portrays the experience of the host community, and that would be T.C. boyle's the Tortilla Curtain. That goes back to 1999. And I really can't name another one.

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

One of the interesting things that I think you explore in the book is why this is all happening in the west, why there's been these gigantic waves of mass immigration in the last 20 years in particular, and it was interesting. I was listening to you on another podcast with our friend Winston, and he asked you about the comments that Jim Ratcliffe made when he said england's been colonized by immigrants. And he said, do you think that's true? And you said, of course. Which I thought was surprising, actually, because I think that the reason I don't agree with what he said, even though I understand why he said it, is that I think to say something is colonization is to imply that the people who are coming are responsible for it. Whereas what your book actually explores is the people who are responsible for the ways of mass immigration are the people who are encouraging and making it possible.

[Lionel Shriver]

I agree with you. I'm not sure that being willing to use the word colonization means that the cause of that colonization is just the force of people's desire. Certainly that's part of the explanation, but it is being permitted, without doubt encouraged,

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

and in fact, invited, I would argue.

[Lionel Shriver]

Yes, yes. And, you know, I was doing an event last night and somebody said, you know, isn't it inevitable? It is not inevitable. Politicians of certain stripes have encouraged us to believe that it is inevitable. And this book is set in the United States. The US has been taught to believe that the demographic and ethnic racial transformation of the country, which has been drastic since 1965, is almost like a natural process, like photosynthesis. It's like the sun shines and the immigrants come, or you water the garden and you get flowers. It's as if nobody's making any decisions that makes such rapid demographic change possible. But this is all the result of individual political decisions. And it's the same in the uk. They're being let in, or as you say, actually invited in.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

And the plot of the book deals with an ordinary middle class family, American family, who invite this immigrant into their house. And then as it progresses, it has awfully tragic consequences.

As I was reading the book, two

words kept coming up into my mind, which is an idea which started with Gad Saad, former guest of the show, which the two words are suicidal empathy.

[Lionel Shriver]

I knew that's what you were gonna say.

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[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

And it really struck me. Is that something that you'd agree with?

[Lionel Shriver]

Oh, sure. I mean, my only problem with that expression is that I think often what you're dealing with is not genuinely empathy, it's suicidal vanity. Right. It's a conceit about yourself being a good person and you're going to inflict your goodness on everybody else. It's sticking up for people who are vulnerable. But I often feel with these people that the groups of people they are defending, they're almost irrelevant because it's an exercise in moral display.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Absolutely. And one of the things that you

see when we talk about moral display is how the people.

Should we just say the characters, let's call them progressives or hyper liberals, whatever. Whatever term you want to use to describe them, is not only do they have this suicidal vanity, but they're also quite patronizing as well to these immigrants.

They treat them as lesser than, and they can't really see that.

[Lionel Shriver]

Yeah, I know. It is conspicuous at any distance that the progressive view of minorities is terribly condescending. And one of the things that's condescending is the assumption that all these illegal immigrants are innocent. And in the United States, there's also this conceit that they're just. Not only are they just seeking a better life, which is itself portrayed as a faultless process, but they admire the United States. They love America. They want to become a part of it. They want to make contribution. They are patriots in waiting. And that's really what's motivating them, this admiration of the country and of the culture and wanting to be part of it. And of course, at the same time, progressives think the country is evil. But, you know, inconsistency never bothers these people. And so there's no giving of credit that this is, in many instances, in the era of the welfare state, a transactional process. Right. The immigrants, for the most part, know your immigration law better than you do. Way better. So they've done their homework in advance. They have the stories prepared for their asylum claims, even though they're overwhelmingly economic migrants. And they know what benefits they can get. And that's a lot of it. That's a big part of the motivation. They're smart, right? This is smart. This is acting out of self interest. What's odd about our immigration policy, again I talk in terms of both countries, is that we are not acting out of self interest. The laws are not in our self interest.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

And that's a really profound point because there's moments where the police get involved and what the main characters realize is there's no way of getting these people out of their house.

And then you suddenly make it very clear in the book that the system

is biased against the people that it's

meant to, in inverted commas, protect.

[Lionel Shriver]

Yes. And the British will recognize that right away.

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

Quite. And why you mentioned that you agree with me that this is being invited. What do you think is the motivation for all of this? What were the motivations there? I'm sure there's more than one.

[Lionel Shriver]

I think it's especially mysterious in the UK though there may be an intersection there. I resisted for a long time this notion that Democrats were deliberately inviting masses of foreigners into the country because they wanted to grow little democrats and create a one party state. I've started to come round to that view. I also, before Trump effectively closed the southern border, I imagined a lot of it was incompetence and fecklessness. Now there may be an element of that, but I think it was more intentional. The Biden administration opened that border on purpose and ship people all over the country wherever they wanted to go. In fact, they put illegal migrants with no ID onto commercial airplanes with regular passengers who all have to have an impeccable national id. It's just there is design behind it. And I don't have any other theory aside from this pathological passion for minorities and a weird notion that people who are non white are superior. I don't see any other reason for inviting so many people in. Especially because on the one hand, the left talks about, oh, we need these people economically. We have this aging age structure and you know, Social Security's imperiled and Medicare costs too much and we need young people to fill out the workforce. But then, you know, they support family reunification, which means these people can bring in their parents. Right. I mean, so much for improving the age structure. And furthermore, the people that came in illegally during the Biden administration were largely unskilled or under skilled, poorly educated. These people, they've done the research. These people are going to be net usurpers of social resources over the course of their lifetimes. So that is definitely not going to fix the public finances. So you use the economic argument to open the border, but then you don't do the economically rational thing, which would be to let in high skilled immigrants who are going to walk into jobs with substantial salaries, they'll pay taxes, et cetera. That makes sense, but that's not what we're doing in either country.

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[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

Well, in Britain, there is another motivation which is, and we've talked about this a lot, which is if you measure economic growth in terms of the total GDP of the country and you are not capable of delivering actual growth, as in improvements in productivity, the creation of new jobs and new businesses, then the one thing you can do to avoid, if you're the Prime Minister going out and having to say, well, actually the economy shrank by 0.3% is just to bring more bodies in.

[Lionel Shriver]

Yeah, but that's assuming that if you have an intelligent opposition, they're not going to point out that GDP per capita has gone down.

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

Well, I've been pointing this out for a long time, but it's only now that the supposedly intelligent opposition is starting to catch onto this idea. But I think there's another thing that you touch on and this is a very, very difficult and controversial thing. But I think the gender dynamics in the book that you explore between who it is that actually is inviting these people and who it is that's resisting is interesting because it's men and women or women and men.

[Lionel Shriver]

And I think that's very accurate. You know, that's, it's, it's. I mean, the women in the book, I tried not to make caricatures, honestly, in comparison to the lunatics I see trying to interfere with ice operations in the likes of Minneapolis. The mother in my book is really quite sedate and reasonable and rational and calm. She's not screaming at the top of her lungs or something. So I think I'm fair to her. I think it's a realistic portrait and she believes in her own shtick, you know, of. We can step outside her and see that moral vanity, but I don't think most of these people are aware of it. It feels like passionate concern for others. That's the experience. And so I give her credit and the two other women, to slightly lesser extent, but they all by themselves, B u y. They all, they all sincerely embrace their beliefs and can't see, can't see their own vanity and, and can't see, for example, their own condescension.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

And it's quite interesting because as well as Talking about the women, you don't spare the men, particularly the protagonist, the main character, Nico, the young man. I mean, it's a pretty devastating analysis of young men that you do in the book.

[Lionel Shriver]

The entire book is seen through the eyes of niko, who is 26 when the book starts. He has earned a degree in engineering from a decent university, but had an epiphany shortly before he graduated that he doesn't want to be an engineer, and he doesn't want to be anything else either. He just doesn't want to be a grownup. There's nothing in it that attracts him. This is very different from how I felt at that age. There's always something intimidating about your 20s. You're supposed to be an adult, and you don't really feel like one. And you're making decisions that are probably going to influence the rest of your life, and you don't know which they are. And I can see just deciding. Not for me. Right. The idea of just not having any ambition at all is weirdly attractive. It's restful. You can't fail. Right.

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

No pressure.

[Lionel Shriver]

No pressure whatsoever. Your wife is calm. Nico has so little to do with other people that he has deleted the calendar app on his phone. And when I was writing this character, I came to see his point of view, that being an adult is hard. Assuming responsibility, especially for your own life, can feel onerous. And as long as you can get away with it, I can see just resigning from adulthood. Right. And this is typical of a certain kind of young person now, and I think we've gone through a couple of generations where a percentage, and I think it's especially been a problem with men, a percentage of that generation has tried to hide under the bed.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

But one of the things that your book explores very intelligently is incentives. Yes, the women of the family behave the way they do because of incentives, social incentives, you know, being seen to be a good person. The migrants behave in their own way because of incentives, because they know that if they come to the U.S. they're gonna have a better quality of life, far better than when they came from. And there will be opportunities for them to have a much better quality of life. But Nico is also responding to incentives.

Being an adult is hard. It's tough. You have responsibility, you have unpleasant days at work. You get involved in a relationship, it might not work.

You get involved in a career, you might get fired. You get knocked back, you get rejected.

So in a way, isn't every character

just responding to the perverse incentives of our society?

[Lionel Shriver]

Yes. There's an exchange in the book between Nico and an old friend of his that he hasn't seen in a long time. And his friend is. He's the grown up, he's the alternative. He has a job, he has a career, he's going to get married, he wants children. Wow, where'd you come from? And his friends says, you know, Nico, I don't know. You were, you were really popular in high school. How have you. Why have you stalled? Why are you. What happened? She said, basically, he's stalled because I can. Because I can. As you were saying, it's been enabled. His mother's not going to kick him out of the house. He has a little inheritance from his grandfather. And there's a way in which that is. The book is full of metaphors, but even that little inheritance from his grandfather is metaphorical.

[Monetary Metals Advertiser]

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[Lionel Shriver]

too many young people are spending their inheritance and not contributing to what they would pass on. Even this refusal to have children is a spending of your inheritance without amassing another fortune to pass on. A kind of a genetic fortune, a social fortune, an economic fortune even. There is a widespread. I don't want to. I know these are generalizations. I don't want to trash young people. Everyone's not like this. But there is a proportion of young people who just who are doing what Nico is doing writ large, not embracing a future. And there's a whole way of thinking behind that. Very convenient. I mean, I think this whole thing of climate change is a big fat excuse, right? Oh, there is no future. We're all going to die. Well, yeah, that's right. We are all going to die. And if you keep thinking like that, there will be no future. That's very self fulfilling. If you don't have. If nobody has kids, that's. That's it. And most of all, there is the rejection of the western heritage. That's convenient too. If you reject it, you don't have to learn it, you don't have to appreciate it, you don't have to read any of those long books. You just say it's all evil. You don't have to learn anything about history. If you decide all history is bad, you make it very simple. You know, you reduce it Americans reduce it to slavery and the slaughter of the Indians. That's all you need to know about history. Oh, and you need to know a little bit of World War II so that you can call the enemy Nazis and fascists. That's about it. And it seems as if the left in both our countries is Utopian, but they're not utopian. They are dystopian. In fact, they are nihilistic. I don't think there is any positive vision for the future. It's just a complete blank, no future. That's nihilistic. And it's easy. You know, it's staying home. It's not building anything. It's not making anything, and it's not appreciating anything. It's not. It's not humbly accepting that many people have come before you that make your smartphone possible and your sewage and your supermarket full of infinite array of food. I mean, it's an ungrateful position. And that's easy, too, because gratitude requires humility. It's not something that makes you vain. Right. It is. And gratitude requires some energy, generosity. And I think the whole progressive left, which I talked to a little bit with Winston, is just incredibly narcissistic. And I find that ironic because this is in the guise of caring so much for others.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

I was gonna say as well, because

focusing on the men in the book, particularly Nico, his constant search for comfort has meant that he has become demasculinized. When you compare him to the immigrants coming in who've had a much harder, tougher way of life, they're far more masculine than he is.

[Lionel Shriver]

Yes.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

They're far more assertive. They're far more. Not only are they mentally. They're mentally dominant, they're far more physically dominant. So what you show is this comparison

between somebody who's been raised in the west and you look at him, you

go, this isn't a man.

This is a glorified pet.

[Lionel Shriver]

I thought you were gonna say girl. No, I like pet better.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

Yeah, It's a glorified pet. No, because it's an insult to women

to say that, because that's.

It's not feminine. It's something deeply pathetic that can only be maintained if someone looks after them. That's not a woman. That's a pet.

[Lionel Shriver]

Yeah. Well, for the first long part of the book, Nico seems to be very contented with this demasculinized version of himself and many of his peers. But there is a crucial point at which he realizes that he needs access to the masculine virtues. Even physically. He needs strength. He needs to be able to express aggression, and he needs to. Most of all, he needs to be able to protect his mother, who is in profound danger. And he doesn't know how he feels. He has no tools in a literal sense, and also in a characterological sense. He can't rise to the occasion. I, of course, don't want to give away the ending. But in his own small, struggling way, he does start to embrace being a man toward the end of the book. Doesn't come naturally. He doesn't really want to, but you know, it's it. You can see that somewhere out there awaits his salvation. And you know, I'm. I'm a big fan with masculine virtues. And I mean that on an individual level, but also on a cultural one, and especially on a cultural one, we have pooh poohed them for a long time. And so I think in my own small way, I'm defending a more. A more traditional manhood.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

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[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

I mean, the reason I brought up the men and women dynamic in all this, I think that comes across quite clearly. And it reminded me of a conversation we had with a lady called Helen Andrews when we were last in America. I don't know if you caught that episode, but her thesis essentially is that a lot of people say that the woke moment is a product of ideology. And her argument is not so much ideology. It's what happens when you have women becoming dominant in institutions and imposing their values and their mindset onto those institutions. So, for example, the idea that you talked about at length already in this interview about, well, the immigrants or the minorities, they can't put a foot wrong because they just need protection and looking after her argument is, well, if you kind of see vulnerable people effectively as babies, then that is how you're likely to act towards them. Is there any truth in this? Does that make any sense to you?

[Lionel Shriver]

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I'm afraid that in discussing the male female dynamic in relation to woke world, I don't speak very warmly about my own sex. This movement has brought out the worst in women. And, you know, women are capable of the masculine virtues also, and we have allowed them to run riot, feeding their worst impulses. Some of those impulses are masculine. They're just disguised because that crowd can be extremely aggressive and violent and vicious. Right. And it's true that the traditional cancel culture has had a catty female side. You know, that assassination of character and assassination of career, that's pretty female. But, you know, even physically, a lot of these people in protests and stuff, they're frightening. Right. And I feel that a lot of the emotions that dominate the progressive left are not just girly emotions. Theory. And a, a, a malign intent, you know, an intent toward destruction and harm. It's very, very negative.

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

Well, I think there's also another thing that maybe you could say does code more masculine, which is a lot of it from what I see is, you know, you talk about the character, the male character in your book who's sort of pacified and contented and also for the women as well. But ultimately, within every human being there is the desire for a cause to to, to be contributing something of value, to. To stand up for what is right. All of these things still exist. And also the desire to have status that corresponds with that. I know, I think a lot of progressives look to the previous generation of people who fought for certain rights and absent any other meaning in their life, that is what they're trying to emulate.

[Monetary Metals Advertiser]

So when you go and get shot

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

by an ICE agent while quote, unquote, defending immigrants, not quite, in my opinion, what they're doing there is an attempt at some, to seek greatness as part of that is what I see as well. There is a huge sense there that you are doing something important and willing to, through your own stupidity, to put your life on the line. And frankly, also, objectively speaking, to go down in history. Right, because, you know, millions of billions of people around the world are going to know your name.

[Lionel Shriver]

I think it's a little tricky to unravel when you're. You're pursuing your own causes, leaving the left aside. And I'm talking about us humans, not the others humans. I mean, I have lots of beliefs also. They're not the same beliefs, but. And you know, I wrote this novel partly out of my own beliefs about immigration, that it's been excessive and often damaging to, to Western culture in particular. And I would like to see it slow. So I have strong feelings about this issue. And maybe there is also a vanity in my thinking. The vast majority out there need somebody to speak for them. That's what I'm trying to do. And maybe you could step outside of me and say, well, you're just actually self. This is just an act of self promotion, right? This is narcissistic. This is. Your books are narcissistic. This is a kind of moral display. In other words, it's possible to turn all that stuff on yourself. And therefore I think it's important, even when disagreeing with the progressive left, to at least give them credit that I think they do, they do believe that they believe what they say.

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

But there is a huge difference between these two things, Lionel And I think this comes down to creativity versus destruction. Right? What you've done is you've written a great book. Now people might read that book and say, I disagree with the views that are implied by the plot and the storylines here, but they won't deny that it's a well written book if they've got any sense to them. Creating a good book is a hard thing to do. It takes skill, it takes practice, it takes the willingness to have people write negative things about you and deal with that emotionally. None of those things are easy. Going to a protest and putting yourself in harm's way, in some ways you could argue is courageous, but it's not hard. It takes no skill, it takes no intelligence, it takes no creativity. And I think that's the difference. I think the difference. And you talked about nihilism. The difference is that this is an easy way to access status. It's an easy way. It's a way of getting the things that take work without putting any work in. Because if you really care about immigrants, there's ways to contribute. You could go and start some kind of nonprofit organization that teaches them English or that teaches them job skills or that allows them to do this. X, Y, Z. All of that is creative. And I think most people would respect that. Right? If people already here that don't speak English, you'd want to teach them English. You could do that. But if you go to a protest,

[Monetary Metals Advertiser]

you don't have to do any work.

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

You just turn up and start screaming in someone's face.

[Lionel Shriver]

I also think there was an element of assumed imperviousness in these anti ice protests. I do not think that either of the people who got shot in Minneapolis believed that they were genuinely putting their lives in danger, Their middle class and imagined that no harm would befall them. It's a kind of entitlement that, you know, so in that all of this is a performance, it feels like theater. And they didn't actually believe that trying to stop armed law enforcement from doing their job was potentially putting themselves in harm's way. I just don't think that was the world in which they were mentally living. I mean, I didn't. I was not convinced that either of those shootings was righteous. I think it showed poor judgment on ISIS part. But at the same time, they did make. It was a joint effort. Right. There were misjudgments on both sides.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

How much of this and the ideology, people's behaviors, everything really is down to the fact we're simply not having enough kids. I don't think it was an accident in your book.

[Lionel Shriver]

Not an accident.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

The three of the characters, they didn't have any kids. The mom was in a house, a

big house, on her own.

That maternal. Those maternal instincts have to go somewhere. Arguably, this wouldn't have happened if the two daughters had all had kids and Nico had a kid, because mum would be so busy with grandkids and babies and ferrying them to hockey practice or whatever it may be. I don't know. Wouldn't have time for any of this stuff.

[Lionel Shriver]

Yes. I mean the Martine, the immigrant who's invited into the house, the first one, she makes that point very specifically that it looks as if this whole family is going to disappear. Right. None of them have had kids and therefore there will be no one left in the house. Nico, who doesn't take any of this stuff very seriously, said, yeah, okay, well, let me have the house for 70 years and I'll leave you the keys. But you know, that's also, that's the country, the house is the country. And if we don't have children, then we're handing the keys to somebody else.

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[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

And I think not enough people realize that because again, our civilization at this moment seems to be built around comfort. I don't want anything that will make me uncomfortable. I don't want to test myself because then I might feel anxious, I might feel stressed.

So what I'm going to do, again

using the analogy of a pet, I want to be looked after.

But the reality is that has very

real tradeoffs, particularly when it comes to kids and families.

If you don't have kids, then what happens is you don't have a legacy.

[Lionel Shriver]

That's right. And by the way, I need to clarify, I have not had children, so I'm a hypocrite. I had my.

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

In fact, I'm the only non hypocrite at the table.

[Lionel Shriver]

Good for you.

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

Good for me.

[Lionel Shriver]

I came around to my pronatalism late in my life. And in all honesty, I still don't feel specifically regretful. On my own account, my life worked out pretty much the way I wanted. There is some parallel universe in my mind in which I had children. And I think in a lot of ways, the latter part of my life would be much more interesting if I'd had children. And that's where it really gets me, because there'd be so much more plot. And I like plot. Unlike most literary writers, I like plot and I follow what happens to my nieces and nephews. My younger brother has four kids, and with real eagerness, as if I'm getting back to a novel that I'm in the middle of, but one that someone else is writing. And it's just more story. And not all the story is good, but it's this stuff. It's more life. And that aspect of my brother's life I'm actually envious of. So my life is now too simple. And people keep dying. And if my husband dies, I will be very by myself. You know, I have some friends and I still have my brother, but the family's getting littler on my side. And it's kind of shocking, you know, when you realize your friends start dying. I've lost any number of friends already. I did not grow a crop of social connections, deep social connections, meaning familial connections. And there's a price to pay for that.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

And that's something that I don't think we acknowledge in our society by seeking comfort, by avoiding what's important, by things like career, becoming an adult, testing yourself. What you are not doing is you are not investing in your future.

[Lionel Shriver]

That's right. And you're not investing in everyone else's future. You're not investing in a future that you will not experience. Having children is an act of generosity in every sense. And one of the things that's changed. I never was disapproving of people who had children, but I'm now actively approving of people who have children. I admire people who have children, those who say, oh, climate change, I'm not going to have any. I think it's a lie. I think it's a Cop out. And it's getting out of it because it's too much trouble. It is trouble,

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

but it's trouble that's worthwhile. And if you don't, if we don't have kids, as shown in the book, you invite a different sort of trouble. Yes, you're never gonna escape from trouble.

Life is trouble.

So wouldn't it be better to have trouble that has meaning instead of doing what the characters do in this book and look for meaning in places where they really is no meaning.

[Lionel Shriver]

Yeah, it's really like returning to basics. It's what people have always found meaning in, always having children, having a family. That's where your deepest bonds are and your biggest problems. And we need to, we need to become more old fashioned.

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

Well, I think Francis is totally right to hone in on the idea of comfort because I think what having children does, I think maybe I spent too much time in my youth playing computer games, but I think of a lot of things as a video game. And having kids is literally going to the next level. You up the difficulty level, you up the reward level. And if what you want is to be comfortable, as Nico in the book does, or if you want to just stay, you kind of got, you're content. Content is the right word. You put very well. Why increase your difficulty level? Why do it? If you're not aspiring to a bigger reward, for example, of any kind, whether that's meaningfulness or anything else, why push yourself? And I think that's just seeped so much into the culture now. But it's interesting because I think the question I was going to ask you is do you think, you know, your book is one aspect of this, but there's a bigger thing going on where actually a lot of people are starting to realize that this just isn't sustainable. The immigration thing isn't sustainable, the birth rates aren't sustainable. I mean, I saw Marco Ruby in Munich and he was talking about security, global security, but he talked about mass immigration as part of that. And you just go, people are starting to get it now. The tide is starting to turn. Obviously the example of what's happened in the US where you've actually closed the border, I mean, you have, right? Do you think this is about to

[Lionel Shriver]

turn around the immigration situation? I think on the ground it turned around a long time ago. And that's why there is so much popular rage on this point in the uk. The electorate has opted to elect government after government, which has promised them beforehand that they're going to bring down immigration to the Tens of thousands. And people are furious, indeed furious. They've been ignored and lied to. Lied to totally. Now even, you know, I think Brexit wasn't. Was a vote of desperation. I supported it for sovereignty reasons as well as, you know, to get a handle on immigration. But it was like there was so much anger on the immigration front that they would. That the country voted to do something drastic. Right. And we're willing to take a kind of risk that I thought was very un. British. That's true. The British have always been a slow to anger population and very orderly, oriented towards the status quo and not into radical change. So that's one reason that vote really astonished me, because it was outside the popular character. But it was very specifically to do with immigration. And none of the other votes had helped. So let's try this.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

And it's one of the fascinating things when you talk about immigration or you talk about different cultures and as people. My mother's from a different culture, Constance from Russia. What people in the west don't seem to realize, and we talk about this a lot, and we talk about it between ourselves, is they think everyone thinks like them.

The reality is they don't. People in Afghanistan do not think the same way as people living in a

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

flat in Mayfair, by the way, there's another thing. You and I have talked about this a lot on the show. There's another thing I just realized that we should add on top of that, Western people, if they lived in the circumstances that people live in Afghanistan in, also wouldn't act like Western people act today. Living in a flat in a Mayfair. That's another aspect of it, which is when you're confronted by real hardship, for example, your mentality has to change and either changes because you want to survive or it changes because you die. Right? So all the people that are refused to adapt, they die off. And then what you're left with is the people who actually know how to survive in a difficult environment. And therefore they're much more connected to the reality of the world, you know, completely.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

And that's what the characters in the book, they think. Everybody thinks this. To put it bluntly, they've got every. The whole world thinks in these demented progressive values.

[Lionel Shriver]

They don't. They don't.

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

It's a nice neutral statement.

[Lionel Shriver]

There's one character in the book I especially like. He's a side character. His name is Alonzo. You remember him. And Alonzo thinks that most Americans are incredibly gullible and don't give immigrants credit for being conniving. For knowing how to game the system, both the immigration system and the benefit system. And he's very good at it. He's. He's an excellent and very clever shyster and proud of it. And he thinks that Americans are fools. And he says, you know, you think that we admire you and we're grateful that you let us into your country, but no, we think you're fools. We have contempt for you. And he says, inferior. If I had a country, it's my country, right? I have a country. And someone crosses my border without my permission, I'd shoot him. And then his friends will think twice about crossing my border without permission. End of migration crisis. And that's.

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

And that is how people in the rest of the world think, by the way. Yes, that is how they think.

[Lionel Shriver]

Yes. And in fact, the kind of numbers that we've been confronting, like during the Biden administration and even like a thousand people in a day rocking up on the southern coast of England at any other time, you know, that would be a military incursion and that would be met with a military force that would be regarded flat out as an invasion. But that, of course, is one of the words that we cannot use anymore. Or so we're told.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

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[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

You know, it's so funny the the entire conversation we're having. I just had a flashback. When I was in my early 20s, I was living in a flat chair with a girl, and one day her dad came around and I remember him talking to me and he was telling me the story about the fact that there was a, we were talking about immigration. I, I, you know, and he told me the story about how he used to work with this Afghan guy, I think he was from Afghanistan, somewhere like that, who used to say to him directly, used to say, you Brit, you know, you're British, you're gullible, you're easy to take advantage of. And he said, the, the father of the girl I was living with, he said, and I said to him, well, if you feel that way, then, you know, if you, if you don't, if you, if that's how you treat us, you should leave. And his daughter said, dad, dad, let's not talk like that here. And I think that's the entire thing in that one conversation. This is how I think the dad, and I remember saying to her, I

[Monetary Metals Advertiser]

agree with your dad.

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

I'm an immigrant. I agree with your dad, because he's right, because a lot of people, if you let them, they will take advantage of you, and you have to not let them take advantage of you. And if people are here who are taking advantage of you, they should go home. And she was horrified by what her dad said and by the fact that I agreed with her dad. And this, that's the entire conversation, isn't it?

[Lionel Shriver]

Well, I mean, if you think about it, imagine how all those boat people being put up in hotels all over Britain. What do they really think? What do they really think about this country? Why on earth are British taxpayers putting these people up and giving them three meals a day? Actually, in most circumstances, they have snacks and food on offer 24, 7. They've done nothing to deserve this. It's actually a kind of theft, right? It's a theft from the taxpayer. They have not contributed anything to the system. There is no reason that Britain has responsibility for these people. So if you're one of those people, don't you feel that these, that you're surrounded by fools? I mean, why are these people rewarding your having broken the law and arrived and you just arrive and they're taking care of you indefinitely, why would you not hold these people in contempt? What is wrong with them? It would never happen. Where you're from. If British show up in Afghanistan or Albania or something, you think that they're going to be taken care of and put in hotels? No. So why wouldn't that engender contempt rather than kind of gormless gratitude?

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

You know, I watch quite a lot of sports and sometimes you see a really great team or with really talented players lose against another team with less talented players. And in a moment of honesty, they'll ask one of the players and they'll go, why did you lose? And they'll go, you know what? They just wanted it more. And I look at the characters in your book. I look at what's happening in society writ large. I look at these people coming over. I see the way that they behave, and I think maybe they just want it more than us.

[Lionel Shriver]

Yeah, there's an element of that, and I think that's pretty clear in the novel, that the people who are taking action for the most part in the book, are the immigrants. They're going out and getting what they want. And the locals are passive. And, you know, nobody's. Our countries are being overrun by strangers because nobody is stopping them. So one of the things we don't want enough is to stop them. So it's just happening.

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

And, you know, when you were talking about the illegal boat immigrants in a hotel and the way you were talking about it, I felt this pang of like, but what. And I real.

[Lionel Shriver]

And I think, what was the pang?

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

You know what it was. I think it was almost like, isn't that exactly what the people who didn't let those fleeing the Holocaust in World War II would have said? And that is what they said. And they didn't let lots of people into their countries, and lots of people died as a result. And I think the guilt that we feel about that still, even now, is so profound that it has deranged the way we think about this issue completely.

[Lionel Shriver]

Yeah, well, that's where the European Convention on Human Rights comes from. That's why we have the whole asylum system. But it's been long enough that maybe we should get over it and update.

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

Well, what I think is actually not even update. I just think we have to be honest and recognize that if people are fleeing the Holocaust, we actually do want to let them in and look after them. But if people are economic migrants who've worked out that if you claim that you are gay or whatever and you're fleeing Afghanistan, we're going to let you in. All of a sudden it's all like that thing with, you know, we had. I mean, what was happening in Syria during the civil war meant that there were hundreds of thousands of people actually fleeing for the.

[Lionel Shriver]

Were genuine refugees.

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

But. But if you come to our country and claim you're 12 years old and go to school when you're 24, and we don't even bother to check. So the point is that the guilt and shame we felt, I actually think was somewhat appropriate. It's just, it's now been misallocated. You know, if I, you know, if I, if I was driving in, in a careless way and I hurt somebody, I should feel guilt about that. But if that, the result of that is I now decide to burn down all the cars in the country, maybe that's an overreaction and it sort of feels like that's what's happened here.

[Lionel Shriver]

Well, I think the big mistake in the asylum system is making it legally required so that all is, all that it is necessary is that someone from wherever sets a single foot on your territory and suddenly you're responsible for them. And they can make claims on your benefit system and they can also make claims on your judicial system, which is not free either. And that whole system has got to go. I would shit can all of asylum. But as you know, that doesn't mean that voluntarily, countries couldn't say, you know, here's this conflict over the, over there, let's say Ukraine, right? Russia's invaded Ukraine. There are a lot of people in danger, especially in east of the country. We will take our share, we will invite them voluntarily. That's what we do, right? But not because we have to, because we've inverted it so it's required charity and therefore it's an open invitation to game the system. And it's now a farce, it's now an embarrassment.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

But also as well, there's another part to this argument is, look, we've spent the last however many years in universities, in the media, in conversations denigrating the West. We're racist, we're evil, we're not. We all know the tropes. And if that's the case, if we are genuinely those things and our civilization is that, then why would you defend it?

Why would you defend your uncle if

your uncle is a, is a Nazi or he's a sex offender?

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

You wouldn't, you'd go, enough about the royal family.

[Co-host or Guest Contributor]

But yeah, but why would you, you wouldn't, you would just go, this person doesn't deserve to be defended. And our culture is the same.

[Lionel Shriver]

Yes. And this, this incursion, this mass incursion on Western territory is a, is evidence of a lack of cultural self confidence. Because why would you want to protect your culture from people incursion by others? If you don't care about it, you're not going to try to protect it. And we're raising, we're raising people to not care about it. You don't even have to go so far as to hate your own country. But if you just. You can passively not give a shit about it,

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

that'll do it. Yeah, that'll do it. Lionel, fantastic to have you back on. Congratulations on a better life. I hope it does very well, which I'm sure it will do. Thanks for coming back on. We're going to ask you a bunch of questions from our supporters on Substack in a second. But before we do, what is the one thing that we're still not talking about that we should be? Hmm?

[Lionel Shriver]

Water. We don't talk enough about water.

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

Tell me more.

[Lionel Shriver]

Well, this is. Especially in the US right now. The US always acts as if we can increase our pop. It's related to immigration because it's demography. We don't. We think that we can absorb an infinite number of people and keep growing the population indefinitely. There was even a book published not that long ago about 1 billion Americans, and that was supposed to be a positive vision. The biggest limitation on whole sections of the United States is groundwater is fresh water and we're sucking out the aquifers and nobody talks about it.

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

Lionel. Well, I look forward to reading your next book, which no doubt will be about water.

[Lionel Shriver]

Nope.

[Host (possibly a British podcaster)]

Thanks for coming on. Head on over to triggerpod.co.uk, where Lionel's going to answer your questions. If you were a young person currently seeing what you're seeing, and you had the opportunity to move and settle down in some other country, what would be your top picks of same countries in the world?

[Lionel Shriver]

Sa.