Transcription
Do we presently live in an in a enlightened era, in an enlightened age, or do we live in a dark age?
>> So the the title of the book, um, really was was designed as a warning. We're not in a new dark age, although we live in an age where there are dark patches, and the danger is if we're not careful, uh, um, our our times will become much, much darker.
And, um, um, basically what I'm I'm I'm arguing is that we need to take seriously what's at stake in the culture wars. Uh, there are important things at stake, but one of them is is our ability to to speak freely about what we think to be true, and to have, um, open discussions and open criticism of different points of view, because otherwise, uh, uh, orthodoxies, prevailing ideas that are perhaps false or distorted, uh, get to reign over us and dominate us, and we all suffer.
Uh, so, uh, uh, you haven't quoted the the subtitle of the book, um, which is how what why liberals must win the culture wars, and I'm very careful right at the beginning to explain what I mean by liberal, cuz I know that the word liberal, uh, especially in the US, uh, but even in conservative circles here, is is a bad word. And there are certain certain respects in which I'm not liberal at all, but I am liberal in the sense that, uh, I want our societies to be ones where you and I can can tell each other quite candidly and quite frankly and openly what we think to be true, and we can discuss discuss our differences, and, you horrific, maybe if we're lucky and if we're patient, both of us might learn about what the truth is.
Uh, so we don't want societies where that's that's not possible. And in your society and in mine, in the US and in Britain, um, it's become much more difficult to talk about certain things honestly because some people don't want other people to hear what we're saying. And that's what I discovered about 9 years ago when I got dragged into the culture wars when I wasn't expecting it. I just I said certain things I believe to be true and discovered that other people didn't want. Well, it wasn't it wasn't that they didn't want to hear it. It wasn't that they didn't want to be forced to hear it because no one's forced to hear me or you. And no one has to listen to this program. But what some people didn't want was that other people should hear what I have to say. And I didn't think we had a problem with that until about 9 years ago.
And you want to talk a little bit since you mentioned it, you want to talk about this story from from 9 years ago in 20, you know, was it December 20, 2017, I believe, when you when you're talking about specifically?
>> Exactly, Jesse. Exactly.
So, um, in 2017, um, by 2017, I I had realized that, uh, history, particularly colonial history, colonialism, had become a politically, uh, um, um, freighted important topic. And so I launched, uh, a research project in Oxford University called Ethics and Empire, and the the idea was to to look at, uh, how the ancient Chinese, uh, or medieval Arabs, or, uh, early modern Spanish people viewed the empires of their day and to ask, "Well, did they did they think of empire the way we tend to, which is empire is a bad thing? Did they think of empire as a bad thing? And if not, why not? And is there anything we might learn from them?" That was the idea.
And then in late November '17, I published a a press article in the London Times making what I thought to be the completely anodyne point that we British, or we Canadians, or we Australians and New Zealanders, um, even even you Americans, you can find in your colonial past both reasons for pride and shame. I mean, so so some some of our colonial ancestors did some very bad things, some of them did very admirable things. I thought that was completely no one could object to that.
Um, and then a few days later I finally got round to posting online a description of the Ethics and Empire project. And that was my my fatal mistake in retrospect. Because a few days after that, uh, a professor of post-colonial literature at the University of Cambridge, uh, called Priyamvada Gopal, posted, um, or tweeted to her followers in Ox- Oxford and Cambridge and London, uh, she wrote, "OMG, oh my god, this is serious. Uh, we need to {lock capitals} shut this down," referring to the Ethics and Empire project.
And then then followed a week's worth of, um, three online protests, one by a group of students in Oxford, another by a group of 50 at Oxford colleagues, and then a third one signed by 195 academics of the world calling upon Oxford University to take the project out of my hands. Um, and the the my my main historian collaborator, a very eminent historian of of empire worldwide, John Darwin, he resigned from the project, um, a few days after the first protest was published. And then my name was in the in the press for about three weeks every day.
Um, and there was a there was a, just to carry on the story and finish it. The good news was I got a a contract to write a an intelligent person's guide to colonialism out of that notorious, um, public, um, um, scrap. And, um, in in the 2020, I submitted a manuscript to my publisher Bloomsbury as my contract required, and in early 2021, my commissioning editor wrote back to say that he was, um, speechless with admiration for the book's, um, comprehensiveness and rigor. He said it was one of the most important manuscripts to come across his desk in years and predicted sales of 20,000 copies.
The book then went into the copyediting process. They designed a cover for it, but 3 months later I got a an email from the top of the publishing company saying they were postponing publication indefinitely because, quote, "public feeling is unfavorable." And what had happened was that, uh, junior staff at at Bloomsbury Publishing had protested against having to process material that they regarded as as offensive. And the senior management had caved in, and the future of my book was, um, in doubt.
Uh, again, the the story had a happy ending in the end because, uh, uh, HarperCollins picked up the picked up the the book and published it in 2023, and it's since sold about 70,000 copies worldwide. Uh, but that that's the those were the two main experiences of of my being the subject of of an attempt of the object of an attempt of attempts to shut me down. And until until then I didn't know that we had a problem, but we clearly have a problem in universities, but, but just there, but also in publishing companies, and as you know well, in other institutions, too.
You right now, of course, you live in in England, but you have [clears throat] multiple degrees, and you actually did some of your university work in the United States. You went to the University of Chicago. You also did some of your academic research and degrees in Toronto, Canada. And you're what? I believe you're in your early 70s right now. So, you've been in academia for decades. Yeah.
Um, was there like a point where you noticed a transformation, or to different? Again, you, you know, you, you also taught in at Oxford. You also taught in Ireland. So, you've been in multiple different countries, whether as a student or as a professor. Was there a timeline where things changed, or certain countries had changed? You know, what's kind of been your experience as you're in your 70s, and this is essentially been your life's work? Yeah. Yeah.
So, so I knew, Jesse, that that, I mean, fairly late in life, in the last 10, 15 years, uh, you know, I I I finally figured out what I think, and I began to think talk about what I think about war, about national loyalty, about rights, about colonial history, about patriotism, and stuff. And I I knew that my views my views are generally conservative. And I knew that those views are not popular, certainly in university circles in in Britain. Uh, and not nor in the nor in the US.
Um, but I I've been expressing them without, um, trouble for several years, since about about 2013. And I I didn't I didn't feel at all constrained until, as I say, December 2017. Um, I mean, I noticed that, uh, my colleague, my historian colleague John Darwin, um, as I said, with whom I I designed and launched this project Ethics and Empire, we had on the project several, uh, ethicists. Apart from me, all of them were actually American. We only had John Darwin as as an historian. I kept urging John to bring other historians onto the project. And he didn't respond. And in retrospect, I think I understand why, because he knew that in his circles, um, to engage in such such research would be regarded as as anathema, as as unacceptable.
So, I think I think what has been happening, I mean, my views on on empire are new ones. So, I don't think empire was all good. I don't I don't think it was all bad. And we talk about how good or bad it was. Um, uh, but my views, uh, were not much different from those of Niall Ferguson, who published a book on empire in 2003. Niall was a Scottish-born, Oxford-educated, and then, uh, is attached to to Stanford. Um, he he's right of center, yes, but pretty moderate. And then there's a left-of-center historian Bernard Porter, who published a book called British Imperial, What They What Empire Wasn't, uh, What the British Empire Wasn't in 2015-16, I think. Again, his views are pretty much the same as mine. So, it's not it's not as if what I'm saying was extreme.
But I think what have been happening in, uh, history departments and also in literature departments in particular is that, um, post-colonial ideology, certain theories about about, uh, colonial history and empire, somewhat Marxist, um, um, but stemming particularly from the thought of Edward Said and, uh, Frantz Fanon, these these ideologies, which are that they have certain axioms that are not challenged. Um, these have begun to gain more and more influence over over history departments. Um, and it's a, it's a younger generation. It's a generational thing. And this suddenly became apparent in 2017.
So, I think it's been going for a while. I think there's been a kind of capture of certain departments, particularly of history and and and English literature. And it's a yet generational thing. And I mean, I I I hold an old older generation of academics responsible for letting this happen. Uh, because clearly these views, the views that that, um, led a number number of academics to try and shut the Ethics Never Project down, these are not the views of John Darwin. And John Darwin was and is one of the English-speaking world's greatest historians of empire. And he he knew what was what was threatening. And he, you know, people like him were the ones who appointed the people the liberals who want to push their ideology. They let that happen. And and when trouble brewed, he jumped ship.
So, there's that, but there's also, Jesse, one one more thing, and that is, um, uh, you and the US are well aware of of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020, of the upsurge of Black Lives Matter, uh, and of the of the, um, upsurge of this this view that that the US is systemically racist and the racism goes right back into your foundations into the Constitution. So, the the 1619 Project, 1619 Project, would be, uh, uh, a well-known expression of that.
Well, the the BLM view who the Atlantic and landed in Britain. And the story told here are taken up by by anti-racist activists is that Britain is a systemically racist and that our systemic racism derives from our colonial history which can be summed up in in one word, slavery. And we have to we have to condemn our colonial history in order to to liberate ourselves of our systemic racism.
And there was there there was there was a BLM protest here in England which had a female protester holding up a placard saying defund the police. Oh, there's no disarm the police. Well, unlike the US, in England our police aren't armed. But but this this this this American notion across the Atlantic and it had been kind of unfiltered. And for some reason, well, for obvious reasons, taken up by anti-racist groups, but but also swallowed by our by our mainstream media. And this this notion that we are systemically racist then actually took hold. And that that that I think also added added fuel to the fire. But that was more recent.
Being in the United States of America, I find it interesting reading your book from from the UK. We're we're a completely different part of the world. And you kind of one of the the themes was you're mentioning how you have this Americanization coming into at into Oxford. And in the book you basically talk about, I I believe it's EDI, which we would call DEI in the United States, diversity, equity, inclusion.
And I had a podcast with a British professor; we're talking about like the the baby boom generation. And she basically was saying like, you know, people will use the term boomers in the United States, but she's like, in England we didn't really actually have boomers because we got decimated in the war. And we didn't actually have this baby boom generation. And she's like, this whole, you know, kind of terminology came over from America to England. It's not even accurate.
And I had people. And I was thinking the same thing. It's like, like, how are we, how does England actually having to deal with things that happened in America across the Atlantic, you know, completely different result after World War, completely different, you know, culture? I guess I'm fairly shocked. But do you think that the BLM and, you know, DEI or EVI, I'm not even sure how you, is that even as much of an acronym? But I mean, I guess I don't, you know, what's kind of your thoughts on that, I guess?
Well, the thing is, you know, we share the same language. And so, American and, you know, America is the dominant English-speaking country. And your your soft power is dominant. We know, we have soft power, too, but American soft power since the Second World War has been dominant. And I our media pay a whole lot more attention to what goes on in the US than what goes on in the Europe.
[laughter] [gasps]
Um, partly partly cuz partly cuz, you know, you we we share so much language, culture, political institutions, traditions, etc. Um, but sometimes we, I mean, I'm and I, you quite rightly said, I spent 7 years in North America. I was educated not in I lived in Toronto, but I was educated in Vancouver and then Chicago. Uh, uh, I when I came back to the UK in 1985, I brought back an American wife with me. She's still a US citizen. Um, so, you know, I'm I'm very fond of America as as are many British people. Uh, but, you know, I'm quite clear I'm not I'm not American. Um, but some reason a lot of a lot of our media seem to have forgotten that.
Very very intriguingly, um, or maybe tellingly, uh, 3 years ago there was a a young, um, black Nigerian called Temi Awoladi who came to England to do a master's in English literature in one of our London universities. And he landed in London and discovered all his white peers were obsessed with racism. And there's black Temi Awoladi from Nigeria looking around and saying, "Well, where is it? I can't I don't I don't experience it. Where is it?" Um, and then he wrote he published a book in 2023 about race in Britain. And its title is, This Is Not America. Uh, but but it it is odd that we need, you know, someone else needs to be told that.
And it quite clearly you you see, I mean, yeah, okay, so, uh, so we import ideas from America not least bits of radical black politics and a critical race theory, that kind of stuff. Uh, but you can't blame you cuz it's it's we who take this. So, it's our fault. Um, uh, but but yeah, so I think it's we are exposed we, you know, we are exposed a lot to to American culture.
Uh, and the other thing is, um, especially in Oxford and Cambridge, you know, our our student bodies now are about 50% postgraduate or what you'd say graduate. No, you say postgraduate, don't you? Um, and, um, so Oxford has about 20,000 students, half of them are postgraduate. Um, last time I looked, uh, 60% of them were not British. And the largest equal the largest cohort of non-British postgraduate students is American alongside Chinese, but I think dominantly American. So, actually American students also bring American ideas here that that take root. Some of them are good. Some of them not so good.
In your book, since we're talking about the new dark age, you talk a little bit about the 1930s Germany, and you kind of compare academics today from those in 1930s Germany. What kind of similarities do you see that people may be reluctant to discuss, and you talk a lot about a kind of like cowardice in your book, and people just kind of go along to to get along or the silent majority, and it seems like it's pretty obvious, but you want to talk about that?
Yeah, and and, um, it's often said that, uh, making analogies with with the Nazis is is altogether overdone, and we do it a lot.
[snorts]
Um, but I think in this case, it's it's warranted. And the main point of the number of points, actually, but the the main point I wanted to make was about, um, acquiescence, people acquiescing in an illiberal culture. Because what I've discovered, and this will be a bit of a shock, really, you know, we we think of we think of academics as being, uh, you know, highly educated people. We think of them as being, uh, intellectually independent. Because they, you know, they they they make their careers by being by being intellectually original.
[snorts]
Well, that's true. So, academics, you know, academics, um, may well be very original when it comes to the finer points of late medieval German poetry, or or or the the the deeper secrets of astrophysics, um, or the higher reaches of of pure mathematics. But when it comes to ordinary moral and political issues, they're no more independent than anyone else. And they're they're perfectly capable of behaving like sheep, and I've see- seen this.
Uh, so for, I mean, in my own experience, um, in in December '17, [snorts] as I told you, uh, my coming under, um, under attempts to repress my project was in the press, several newspapers, every day for about 3 weeks before Christmas. So, my situation was very well known. And yet, uh, most of my academic colleagues, including, uh, friends of mine, made no comment about it whatsoever. Four people got in touch with me to express their support, four university colleagues whom I never met. But among my friends and among my my colleagues I did know, silence.
[snorts]
Um, so, that was that that was a that was a real shock. Um, and and looking back, I mean, some of them perhaps didn't read the press. Most most academics do. But my my interpretation is that, you know, when you attract when you say something is unpopular and you attract flak and trouble, other people who don't want trouble and that may not care about the issue, they shy away from you because if you're diseased and they say nothing cuz they just don't want trouble. They don't want to be involved.
Um, and then there was a a case, uh, couple years later, uh, in Cambridge, um, the university [snorts] wanted, uh, all members of the all faculty members to sign up to to, um, a rule that would require them to respect the views of other people. Now, on the surface that seems reasonable, except, uh, that there was a there was a an awkward philosopher called Arif Ahmed in Cambridge, uh, who thought to himself, "Well, no, no, no, no, you can ask me to tolerate views that I regard as as ludicrous, but don't ask me to respect them."
And so he he decided to to to contest the university's proposal. And, uh, to do that the the use of University of Cambridge has a senate to which all the academics belong, and this proposal was going to come before the senate for it to be debated. He had to get, I think, about 30 academics to sign a motion against it. Well, he spent about a month or 6 weeks trying to get academics enough academics to sign a motion saying, "No, we're not willing to say we'll respect views we regard as as absurd." Um, and what he discovered was lots of colleagues would say, "Well, I agree with you entirely, but I'm not going to sign anything." But, he eventually got his requisite number of signatures.
The motion was put, it was debated, and I think the the debate involved many, many more academics than are normally involved in senate debates. I think something like 1,200 out of 2,000 academics, roughly. Which is a very high proportion. And the university's motion was defeated, uh, overwhelmingly by 4 5 to 1.
[snorts]
But, here's the thing. The reason it was defeated was there was a secret ballot. So, none of the academics had to say anything public.
[snorts]
And, um, so, the good news is there is a majority of academics out there who who are pretty sensible. The bad news is that, um, they lack the conviction or the courage to dare to say what they think in in public. And so, when it comes to the Nazis, um, what I what I what I argue is the Nazi party was more highly represented in the ranks of university professors than in most other professional groups in in 1930s Ger- 1940s Germany.
Um, now, there were some convinced Nazis who became Nazi party members, but lots of professors became Nazi party members because they didn't want obstacles put in front of their careers. They just wanted to go on with their lives, go with the flow, and they didn't want trouble. So, what I say is I I'm not, you know, in drawing the analogy between, um, academics in the 1930s Germany and the present, I'm not saying that that most academics in in the US or in Britain are Nazis. No, they're not. But I'm not even saying that most Nazi party members who are academics were Nazi. They just wanted to go on with their lives and avoid trouble, just like academics in the US and Britain today.
But the danger is you avoid trouble and you let you let false, uh, distorted, um, um, illiberal, repressive orthodoxies rule our institutions, uh, because you don't you want you want to avoid trouble and you've forgotten that being liberal, you know, caring about free speech and the testing of ideas is not the same as avoiding conflict. Right? So, you need to you need to recover your liberal conviction.
And I at the beginning of the new dark age, Jesse, you remember I quote I quote two people. One is, um, Martin Luther King, but the other is, uh, W.B. Yeats, the Irish poet, who was writing on the eve of the descent of Ireland into civil war in 1919. And in this poem, there's a line where he says, "The best lack all conviction, and the worst are full of passionate intensity." And that's where we are. Uh, we are we are we are intimidated by a small group of zealots with passionate intensity. And the majority, partly cuz they're scared, partly cuz they've lost their liberal conviction, are letting the zealots win. And if we don't stop that, we're going to plunge into a new dark age.
One of the themes of the book is, uh, that these universities shape future leaders, especially some of the more elite universities, your Harvards, your Princetons, Stanfords, you know, of course, and across the Atlantic where you went where you were teaching, Oxford obviously is one of the oldest, most prestigious universities in the world. Do you think what's happening on campus right now is already showed up in business, media, and government for for years? I mean, it seems like with all the the kind of divisiveness and, uh, you know, you had a, you know, Rob Henderson, luxury beliefs. This stuff has been going on for years. I mean, what's your kind of your analysis on that?
Yes, I mean, I think as I say, I I only became aware of the problem about 10 years ago. Uh, it may be going on I'm sure it's been going on in in pockets of universities for a while. Uh, but both in the both in the US, I I think rather more in the US than in the UK, these woke up progressive orthodoxies have come to dominate important institutions.
And, um, um, certainly, you know, we see the same kind of illiberal repressive woke orthodoxy, uh, in in in museums, in schools, in publishing houses, um, and in all sorts of other institutions with with certain axioms, certain problem is I just un- un- questioned. I mean, you know, the solution of diversity. I mean, yes, you know, we all want diversity of certain kinds, but certain certain kinds of diversity we don't want. But but no one no one never analyzes these things. And the same with racism. What, what do you mean by racism? Um, there's there's no critical reflection.
And so so that I I I can't prove it, but I it seems to me that nowadays, uh, um, almost everybody who comes to lead an institution has a university degree in the way they didn't 50 [snorts] years ago. And, um, um, makes sense that universities do form the intellects of students. I mean, what are they about if they don't? And if you have in a university department of literature or history, um, or, um, I don't know, social studies, uh, these illiberal views that that sink in then they're bound to express themselves when people come to run businesses or or, uh, cultural institutions. Um, so, uh, that makes sense to me.
But the worry is if universities don't take seriously their responsibility to to maintain a properly liberal space where all students have to face up to points of view they really really don't like. Points of view that threaten them. Uh, like we all, you know, we all had to do that. I mean, I'm I'm I'm a confessing Christian. I have to live in a world where people think that what I believe is nonsense and will say so. Um, um, that's a liberal that's a liberal society.
Uh, but if universities don't maintain a liberal culture, uh, and as it were, teach kids how first of all to to to restrain their emotions so that, you know, if you just say, uh, saying something that upsets me, I don't I don't stamp and scream and shout you down. I have to restrain myself. And then I have to ask you critical questions. And who knows? I might learn something I didn't expect to. I mean, that that's what university should be about.
Um, but if universities don't do that, and and as you know, toward the end of the book I talk about vices and virtues. If you don't if you don't equip kids with the the the character traits, [snorts] the virtues, the capacity for self-restraint for example, um, um, we're going to produce people in charge of our institutions who are not capable of being liberal who are not capable of facing up to views they don't like and are going to make sure that views they don't like no one else gets to hear. And that's bad for everybody.
But how long has it gone for? I don't know, but it certainly it came to it came it came to to surface in my experience 10 years ago. No doubt it it's been it's been bubbling under the surface for some time before that.
You know one of my kind of theories is that, um, all this [clears throat] uh, craziness really stems from the 2008 global financial crash and it's just a way to divert attention from growing inequality in the quote unquote developed countries and we can focus on identity politics which will steer the conversation away from class-based grievances, uh, which will help obscure the economic stratification between the elite and the working class by replacing economic critiques with cultural critiques.
And in the, and, you know, people want to talk about cuz we, you know, we kind of had a lot of things happen around the same time. I mean, the iPhone came out in 2007. Great financial crash was 2008. So, we had social media really explode in like 2012, '13, '14 as you had everything on your phone. But the fact is I think at least in the US, and this was This was reverberated around the world, was that no one went to prison. Everyone got bailed out.
And I think the the people that actually make decisions in the world, your unelected officials, basically figured out after they got bailed out after the 2008 global financial crisis, like, "Hey, we can get away with this shit." And let's just get all like if if these you had cuz you then had Occupy Wall Street, at least in the US, and you had people kind of like, "Hey, we need to figure out a way to like not to keep these these, you know, billionaire elites in check." And then I think the billionaire elites figured out like, "Hey, let's just get all the regular people or plebs, whatever you want to call them, let's just get all them fighting amongst each other and change the topic."
And ultimately at a university, if you're a professor and you want to get research grants, you have to put in a proposal. And if you don't have certain keywords, you're not going to get this funding. So, you kind of use the the academic elite to push the narrative. They use the media elite to push this this narrative. I mean, that's my theory. I mean, maybe I'm com- completely wrong, but that's, you know, I I mean, I'm way younger than you than you, but that's kind of, I mean, I'm 40 in my late 40s, but that's kind of how I see it.
Well, I think there's something There's something to what you say, Jesse, uh, it's certainly true that the left in the UK has much of it it seems to have abandoned a concern for, um, um, economic justice for identity politics. Uh, so I just read today in the newspaper. No, it was on it was on on Twitter actually. There's a new poll showing that the richest people in Britain tend to vote for the Labour Party. Only 10% of the poorest vote for the Labour Party.
[laughter]
And I I it must be the same with the Democrats. I mean these these parties historically for the poor, at least the the industrial worker, um, have decided to, um, preoccupy themselves with controversies over for example, transgender. Um, uh, um, so, yes, I I think there is the left seems to have shifted shifted its focus. Why they've done that, I I don't know. Um, but they have. I mean, I I guess there was a 20 years ago we thought we'd kind of solved the the the the class struggle or got got past that. And so the left went in search of a new crusade and and trans trans was the next one and then decolonization was the one after that. And I think there is something there is something to that.
Um, and you're absolutely right. Of course, the explosion of social media and the the ease with which, um, uh, crazy extreme ideas can can propagate and spread and we get siloed into into, uh, uh, put into silos where we we constantly get our prejudices re- reaffirmed, that really hasn't helped and and has to have been a major contributor. Um, so that the both of both those things are, uh, uh, true.
And so I and so, you know, I I've read Rob Hen- Henderson's book and and there's this notion of luxury beliefs that also is right, um, because, for example, in 2015-16, uh, there was a a protest movement here in Oxford to have, um, a statue of Cecil Rhodes, who was a late 19th century im- imperialist capitalist, uh, dismantled from, uh, an obscure perch high up on the back of a building overlooking a street here in Oxford. And the protesters said, you know, Rhodes was South Africa's Hitler. He he built concentration camps. He was guilty of genocide and he was a racist.
Now, as it happens, I was halfway through, uh, the standard biography of Rhodes by an American called Robert Rotberg. And it's it's about yay thick. And all the stuff they were saying about Rhodes, uh, of course, Rhodes is most famous for his Rhodes scholarships, which brings Americans to Oxford, mainly Americans. And I've I've been reading about, uh, Rhodes and I I knew none of those claims were true. And not no and not not not simply true. I mean, he was he he, yes, he was a bit racially prejudiced, but on the other hand, he he supported, uh, the vote for South African blacks in South Africa, uh, in the late, uh, 1800s.
[snorts]
Much much more nuanced character, but here's the thing. So, that that there there there were very privileged, um, Oxford postgraduate students, mostly. Some of them Rhodes scholars, biting the hand that was feeding them. Hollering for the dismantling of this obscure statue on Oxford High Street. Meanwhile, in in South Africa, where Rhodes lived and worked, and where the leading protester, one of the leading protesters actually came from, uh, Jacob Zuma was busy looting the South African state to build himself palaces and more swimming pools and to reward his ANC cronies, and driving the state to insolvency.
And what did they what did they, uh, privileged protesters in Oxford have to say about that real real-time political scandal? Absolutely nothing. They were busy hollering about a statue in Oxford. It cost them nothing, and it was based the the case was based on lies, and they didn't care. And my view is, you know, if if you if you really, you know, if you if you really care to solve a problem, you you will care to get the the diagnosis right, because otherwise your solution's going to going to misfire. And these guys didn't care about the truth. They were just too busy performing themselves as crusaders.
Uh, so I I I have come to conclusion that in much in many cases, these these woke protests and and and crusades are not about the poor and disadvantaged. They're about the crusader. Uh, and so that that's this notion of virtue signaling. This is not This is about signaling what a good person I am, but it isn't about solving real problems.
What you're talking about right now, I mean, people I guess in the US call it like virtue signaling. But [clears throat] I think in the book where you talk about how you just got a lot of these people that aren't necessarily religious, and I I had a a previous guest who was when we were talking about environmentalism was basically saying that you have a a god, uh, hole si- or you basically have a a hole the size of God in your heart, and you're filling it with like environmentalism, or you're filling it with something else, and it, it seems like the, you know, you get a lot of people that don't believe in religion. It's like better to believe in religion. So now you want to believe in something else.
And so now your crusade is like, "Oh, I'm going to be an anti-racist." Whatever whatever that means or I'm going to, you know, be a, you know, Greta Thunberg and be an environmentalist. Now I'm going to fight for, I don't know, Palestine whatever. I mean whatever is kind of like the flavor of the month. But I think there's just a lot of people that don't have meaning. You go to especially if you're like a professor, you go to university for 12 years. And all of a sudden you have this debt. You probably have a lower paying job. It's hard to start a family. The time you start a family and maybe you can't even start a family. So now you have a bunch of dogs or cats. I mean I believe it was in New York City and some of these other major urban centers people have more pets than they do have children.
And so now right now you need to have the you need to find other meaning in your life. So it's like I'm going to drive around in my free time since I have no life. I have no kids. I can bring my cat with me and we can drive around and we can like protest ICE or whatever. Everyone wants to have meaning in their life. Everyone wants to have a purpose and I think we're just as as again the as more people get educated and spend more time and more more funds, you kind of push all that all the important things in life way out there and maybe just get to the point where you're not actually able to to start a family or or, you know, I don't, you know, I I think that's a kind of a big part of it.
Yeah, so I I I I reflected on on the religious quality of, um, the woke movement. Um, uh, it it began by I I began to think about that because in observing the behavior of some of my more aggressive critics. You know, um, you know, just I'm perfectly willing to be persuaded I'm mistaken. Right? And so if you want to tell me why you think I'm I'm I'm wrong, I'm I'm all ears. I I may not I may I may fight back, uh, but I in principle I I I'm reckon I could be mistaken. I could I could deserve correction.
Um, but what what bewildered me to start with was I know the behavior of of, um, academics who didn't agree with me was not to to, I don't know, publish a careful critique or something so I'd respond to it. No, the behavior was to try and shut me down. Um, and early on, um, I I was tempted to engage in what I thought was a dialogue with some of these folk. And you know what I discovered was they don't want a dialogue. Uh, because they they kept moving the goal posts. And you dance at one point and they change the subject and move to another. And I thought, um, ah, you're not this is not a conversation where where you listen to what I'm saying you engage with it. Basically, this is a fight and you want to provoke me and insult me and you want to demonstrate to whoever's watching you, uh, how how superior you are. This is about power.
And I also thought to myself, I mean, for example, um, there's one particularly obsessive, uh, hit, um, academic, uh, who wrote when my book on colonialism came out in 2023, Colonialism and Moral Reckoning, he wrote a 15,000 word book review. That's a very long book review. Let me tell you.
And in this 15,000 book review,
[laughter]
he couldn't find a single a single positive thing to say about my book. Now, I've been around long enough. I know I can make mistakes. But I know I'm not stupid. Um, and I was written quite a few book reviews myself and I've never ever written a book review where I couldn't find something positive to say about the the book. Uh, but this guy could find nothing positive to say about me or my book or the British Empire.
And, you know, just just just in case some of your listeners might be inclined to agree with him there's nothing positive about the British Empire, let me just say two things. Uh, just to to, um, make clear why I think that's not a terrible position. Um, the British Empire was among the first states and it was the leading state in the history of the world to abolish slavery and slave trading in the early 1800s. And they used its imperial power for 150 years to suppress slavery from Brazil to New Zealand at some cost in lives and money. That's the first thing.
Second thing is between May 1940 when France fell to the Nazis and June '41 when the Nazis unwisely invaded the Soviet Union, the British Empire offered Nazi Germany the only military resistance. With the sole exception of Greece, in other words, the British Empire was the only opponent of fascism. So whatever else you think about the Empire, at least give it credit for that. But this guy this guy couldn't even give it credit credit for anything.
And I thought to myself, you know, you're behaving like like a little god. Like you have absolute possession of the truth. Um, and you're not you're not going to open yourself to any to any possibility that I might have something use- useful to say. You're completely closed. And all you're trying to do is to damn me. Um, because you you you have the truth. You you are self-righteous. And anyone like me who contradicts you is simply there to be damned and repressed and shut down. And I thought to myself, yeah, you're a baby little god.
There's there's the whereas particularly as a as a Christian, you just say that when you and I are talking, my view is I'm a creature. I'm not a god. What I know is limited. I'm also a sinner. It's quite possible there are truths I don't want to face up to cuz they're too uncomfortable. And I have to listen to you in spite of your offensive views because it's possible, um, you might speak the word of God to me. It's possible you might speak a word of truth and justice I have to hear. And that's my attitude, uh, when we go into conversation. But there's a sense in which the truth, reality is above us both. And that's why we have to to engage in good faith dialogue. But these guys won't behave that way at all.
And, um, the other thing was, um, when observing the behavior of some of these fellows, the the claims they make are so far ahead of the evidence, so way in front of the evidence and reason. And they do repeatedly. And I thought to myself, you guys you're not in control of yourselves. You're driven by something. And I I even used the word demonic. Something's driving you. And you're not in control.
Um, uh, so, yes, I I I I did I did think there's a I do think there's a religious dimension. The other thing is, um, uh, reflect- thinking about about the the work Crusaders, I mean, they in a sense they they they they they fully buy into the the, uh, the righteous ire of the Hebrew prophets against against social oppression and cruelty. So, they've got that. Um, what they don't have if you like is is is the the notion, particularly the New Testament notion, that we're all sinners, uh, that we're all, uh, uh, guilty. Um, and that, um, you know, um, um, wrongdoing, vice, ignorance is is in here, not just over there. Um, so, it is a kind of lopsided, uh, religion which is is is self-righteous and it's merciless and it's repressive. Um, so, from my point of view, yes, it is religious, but it's it's it's bad religion.
So, Nigel, our kind of last big question before we wrap this up, which is just, um, I mean, the age of AI, I think, you know, universities are going to change. And in the US, you know, Europe, we've seen a lot of the decrease in fertility rate. In in the year 2025, the United States has had the largest graduating high school class ever. And every subsequent year you have a smaller graduating class. Yet, in 2010, we actually saw a decrease in enrollment in university in the United States. There's a lot of, I shouldn't say a lot, but there's universities that are going out of, uh, business that have shut down. There's other universities that are consolidating programs, getting rid of programs.
And so, when you factor in going forward, uh, uh, smaller high school graduating classes, you have fewer people going to university, then you add in AI. How do you think the future of of university will shape up between these these two pretty big factors? One demographics, two technological.
Yeah, that that that's a great questions, Jesse. Um, so certainly in in the UK, I think it's widely accepted too many of our kids go to university because, um, um, we used to have we used to have two two kinds of higher education institution. We had universities and then we had polytechnics. Polytechnics were more vocational, so you go there to become to to learn about nursing or accountancy or in other words, you you you route from from there to a to a professional career was straightforward. Uh, universities were were more academic. But then in the 1990s, we we merged the two. And so lots of kids, uh, have been paying have been taking out loans, large loans, to do degrees at second or third grade institutions. And coming out with degrees in what? In media or business that are in terms of of job prospects worthless.
And I I I I remember I was in the States 10 years ago hearing something similar about about, uh, law schools. Uh, law schools at second or third grade universities recruiting kids who'd come up with with law degrees that in terms of the market were quite worthless. Um, so I I think I think kids have been misled about the advantage of university. And we need in this country we we need people who can who can, you know, cope with with electrical problems or plumbing or something. Um, we we need people who are trained for that. And there are lots of people in universities who who are not really equipped for it and don't flourish there.
So I think there will be, um, a reduction in the number of universities and the number of kids going to university and that's probably all for the for the good. And we keep talking in this country about increasing the number of apprenticeships, um, for kids who who want to learn a trade of some kind rather than go to university. In fact, I was sitting in a in a train coming back from London to Oxford a few weeks ago and a young lad opposite me, um, noticed I was in the House of Lords and we got talking. And he he went from high school to work as a as a, um, as a as a coder, an IT person in a Goldman Sachs Sachs, um, bank. And he was having a great time, but he hadn't gone to university. And in fact, Goldman Sachs had paid for him to do a part-time degree in in something relevant to his work whilst he was employed by them. And I think that's likely to become more the pattern for more kids and it'll be better for them, frankly.
As for AI, um, I mean, the worry is it's going to wipe out all sorts of white-collar jobs. And, um, I mean, I I've observed that, uh, young people who are somewhat educated and have been given reason to think that their education is going to open prospects for them who find themselves frustrated that is a recipe for revolutionary politics because, uh, um, whether in Ireland or in India or in Egypt in the in the early 1900s it was, uh, overeducated, underemployed youths who formed the the, uh, the bulk of anti-colonial protesters. So, when when young people feel this isn't not working for them we can expect political turbulence. And if there are no job these people are are are overeducated and unemployed because of AI, we're going to have trouble. So, we need to think about what to do to make the prospects for younger people, whether they go to university or not, better than they are otherwise we're headed for. Yes, uh, uh, a dark political age.
Right, overeducated, underemployed, but also in today's day and age massively, heavily indebted, which I think adds another another facet to too bad.
That's right.
So, today's guys has been Lord Nigel Bigger, who is Professor Emeritus of Ethics and Theology at the University of Oxford in England. And we discussed his new book today, The New Dark Age. So, um, so, Nigel, just, uh, two final questions. One, where can people get a hold of your new book? You have a bunch of other books out there. Any information you want to provide? And then secondly, just leave us with a final thought to conclude this podcast today.
Okay, yes. So, um, my book, The New Dark Age: How Why Liberals Must Win the Culture Wars, published by Polity Press, has come out in the US, uh, I think in the next couple of days, maybe even today. So, it should be available in the US. You can certainly find it on Amazon now. Um, it's not a long book. People tell me you can you can pick it up and read it in one in one sitting. Um, uh, and, uh, I hope from this this podcast you'll gather that it's it's talking about really important things. Um, so, please do do pick up a copy.
As for my parting comment, well, I talked a little bit about virtue when we were talking earlier. And, um, just to say that the end of the book, uh, the penultimate chapter demonstrates cases where, you know, well-educated people, academics, uh, um, display a whole set of intellectual vices. And I end by talking in the final chapter about the importance of developing citizens through universities or schools or whatever who have virtues, who are capable of self-restraint and temperance and charity and justice and courage. Because we need those qualities if we're going to have societies that are liberal and where we can we can process our differences without bloodshed. So, [snorts] it's really important.
My dear friends, that is it for this episode of L podcast. Once again, if you're not yet subscribed, please [music] subscribe on YouTube as well as Rumble. You can also find us on Spotify and Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts from. We thank you all from the bottom of our hearts for watching and listening, and we will see you on the next episode.
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