 Andrew Doyle is an Irish journalist who's perhaps best known as the creator of the Twitter personality Titania McGrath, a parody of an ultra-woke 24-year-old that he says is a militant vegan who thinks she's a better poet than William Shakespeare. Though the 43-year-old Doyle describes himself as a left-winger, he's a fierce critic of cancel culture and proponent of Brexit. He holds a doctorate from Oxford in early Renaissance poetry, is the host of the new nightly show G.B. News and a columnist for Spiked Online. He's also the author of the new book Free Speech and Why It Matters, a comprehensive, learned and compelling argument in favor of unfettered debate and open expression. Reason talked with him about why cancel culture is on the rise, how to combat it and what Titania McGrath is up to as she approaches her quarter-life crisis. Andrew Doyle, thanks for talking a reason. Thank you for having me. So Free Speech and Why It Matters, what is the elevator pitch of the book? Well, I suppose it's a book that I didn't think I would ever have to write. I think the idea came to me because we are in a situation at the moment where, although it's not quite crisis point, we are definitely detecting more and more people who are willing to let slide the principle of free speech, which I consider to be the foundational principle of our society. And a lot of this is a sort of well-intentioned thing, but there are people who are moving towards, let's say, more aggressive hate speech laws or urging further big tech censorship or this kind of rise of what we call cancel culture, this kind of strategy of attempting to shut down certain opinions or unfashionable opinions or viewpoints or ideas or even jokes. And the reason why I thought the book was important was that this is happening more often now. Whereas about 15 years ago, it was just a given. Everyone just agreed that free speech was this very foundational principle and it was very important. Now, the rise of this kind of free speech skepticism, I find a bit disturbing. And actually, the book isn't really aimed at the activists who just simply don't believe that free speech is a good thing. It's more at the majority of people who, broadly speaking, believe in free speech, but they're also nervous about demagogues saying hateful things or the potential impact of language. And it's been a while since we've dusted off the actual reasons for free speech. I mean, it's become a kind of blank bromide. Early on in the book, you talk about, we are left facing that confusing and rare phenomenon, the well-intentioned authoritarian. And you talk at the opening of the book, which is just a fantastic kind of set piece in a section called, We Need to Check Your Thinking. You write, between 2014 and 2019, almost 120,000 non-crime hate incidents were recorded by police forces in England and Wales. This sort of development has left a substantial number of inquiries, etc. What is a non-crime hate incident? And why are the police collecting such data? This is a very interesting point, because recently, the Home Secretary here, Preeti Patel, has said to the College of Policing, the College of Policing being the body that is responsible for the training of all police officers in the UK, that they shouldn't be advising police officers to record non-crime or investigate non-crime. However, they still haven't updated their website or changed that, I think you're going to see this battle between the police, the College of Policing specifically, and Preeti Patel. There is a culture within the UK police that they believe it is partly their responsibility to investigate certain language, certain linguistic misdemeanors, shall we say, and to ensure that people aren't being offensive. It is a cultural problem within the police force. So a non-crime hate incident, as you say, many, many thousands of which are recorded every year is when, so for instance, if someone said something mean to me, and I interpreted that as being, coming from a say a homophobic basis or whatever, I wanted to, however I wanted to interpret that, I could phone the police and say, I believe it was my perception that this was an attack based on my sexual orientation, which is one of the five protected characteristics. What are the other ones? Do you remember them all? Okay, so it's race, gender, it's race, gender, disability, religion, and I think that the last one is gender identity, I think. I would have to double check that. So do you think people, like short people were like, again, we are just written out of the discussion? Well, exactly. I mean, there have been calls for sort of, why aren't vegans in there and this kind of thing. I've actually got the list here. Yes, it's disability or perceived disability, race or perceived race, religion or perceived religion, sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation, or a person who is transgender or perceived to be transgender. What you see there though is this constant repetition of the concept of perception, because it doesn't really matter whether someone had attacked me with a homophobic motive or not, it's whether I decide that that was their motive. So it's a bizarre. This is not a crime, but the police is keeping tabs, which... It's a non-crime. It's non-crime. The police's explanation, when the police are challenged on this, the explanation is that non-crime can lead or that crime is always preceded by non-crime, which I would have thought was self-evident. I think it's always succeeded by non-crime as well, right? I mean, unless we just cross a line and then it's just crime for the rest of the turn. Exactly. It's absolutely given. So the police record it, sometimes they investigate, and in all cases it is recorded, and the problem with that is, well, firstly, the police have no business investigating people for non-crime. That's the first thing. But the massive principle of science... You're talking to somebody who, you have to convince me, the police have a right to investigate me for crime. Well then, yeah, so this is way out of your league. You wouldn't tolerate this at all. But in addition to that, their idea that if hateful words inevitably lead to violence is interesting because there was an article recently talking about the number of these recorded non-crimes that have actually led to crimes is precisely zero. So even by their own statistics, they know that this is bunkum. But there is this culture. I mean, recently we had the police in Merseyside near Liverpool or in Liverpool standing. There was a picture, a photograph that went viral, and they were standing in front of this digital billboard. And on the billboard, it said the slogan, being offensive is an offense. And this was flanked by these very menacing looking police officers. And of course, this went viral because lots of critics were saying, well, actually being offensive isn't against the law. And one of the striking things about that... I thought that at least 90% of English culture is being offensive, right? It's important to us. That's how we get along. But I think what was interesting is that it wasn't just some sign that some rogue police officer had sketched up and put up. It was a digital billboard that obviously there'd be meetings, discussions. People had discussed the language that should be... So there's obviously a culture within the police force where they think that it is their job to investigate people for being offensive. And the scary thing about it is actually they had inadvertently hit upon a truth because it is against the law to be offensive in this country. Quite explicitly, the 2003 Electronic Communications Act says that if you post material that is quote unquote, grossly offensive, that is the stipulation for criminal prosecution. So actually we are in... There's another reason why I thought this book needed to be written. That phrase, we need to check your thinking, which came from a policeman who was calling up somebody, right? That is... I mean, that's one thing if that's happening within the context of a classroom or even a boardroom. But the idea that the police would be the agency that would be checking your thinking is kind of terrifying. Yeah, because it's straight out of all, well, isn't it? It is thought crime. And I know that's become a cliche, but what are you going to do? That's exactly what it is. Well, and it's... Yeah. And it's interesting that it's out of Orwell, but it's also by way of Burgess, right? In Clockwork Orange where the police are revealed without any romanticism to be a bunch of droogs who are as violent as the criminals they're supposedly apprehending. Certainly that's where we are in America. And I mean, this is an overstatement, but the last people you want policing things are the police, right? I think everyone should read Clockwork Orange. They should read 1984. And if they read the Crucible as well, we'd probably be in a much better situation. I love Clockwork Orange, by the way. I love the way that after about 10, 15 pages, your mind just adjusts to the language. It's really smart. It's a side note, but what's fascinating is that the version that was published in the United States left off the final chapter in which... Spoiler alert, Alex is redeemed or grows out of it, actually, because he's a young child. And that has a radically different... It leaves the book with a radically different message. Well, I mean, it feels like then he's sort of saying, well, there is an inevitability to a violent impulse in male youth. And he might be onto something there. And also one that gets grown out of. I mean, there's a... Well, I mean, we know that. I mean, violent crime past the age of 40 decreases hugely. We know this. So there's something in that. So the idea of having the police checking your thinking and what you were just discussing is one sign that we are in a different era when it comes to kind of the way that we talk about, the way that we think about free speech and potential offense arising from just kind of an open discourse. What are some of the other examples? I mean, before we talk about free speech, the problems with it being under attack, can we document a little bit more how we know it is under attack? When I talk about... Well, I've spoken about hate speech laws. I mean, there's the fact that we have that just in terms of legislation, which I think is a major issue, which you obviously are less likely to have given your First Amendment. Right. Although we do have certain... There are times where that is, but the types of things which are frankly becoming more conceivable here, but in Europe as well as in England, the idea that making fun of a religion or selling Nazi memorabilia is somehow illegal, that's a bridge too far. But there are types of hate crime... There is hate crime legislation which intensifies criminal penalties. Sure. You've got that. You've also got a movement in America from certain activists to see that hate speech doesn't count within the constitutional protections. And then, of course, you've got Prince Harry coming over there and telling you that your First Amendment is... Yeah. Well, you need to talk about that. Free trade is a fine thing, but not when we're... This is an import that I think we really should have put a very high tariff on. Yes, I'm sure. So anyway, in terms of other examples... Yes, so in the UK then, specifically in the UK, we have got the Public Order Act and the Communications Act, both of which encode a hate speech legislation across Europe. Most major European countries have hate speech legislation, which differ depending on the country. A good way to have a look at that is Paul Coleman's book, Censored, which actually reproduces facsimiles of all of the hate speech legislation so you can see it for yourself. In fact, most of the book is just reproductions of those laws. Yes, so there's the legal side of things, and then there is the cultural side of things. And I think it goes back to what you said about how I felt that I had to reiterate and sort of polish up the trans-historical defense of free speech, which is something that we forget. And I think it is something that you have to kind of not take for granted because it is so rare and because it is so miraculous that we live in a country with free speech, that we have to just continually make the case. It's not something that you win and then it's won for a program or more. So you said you think free speech is the basic thing, like everything comes after that. Why? Just very briefly, why is free speech the starting point? And when does that defense of free speech for you emerge in a kind of Anglo-American or Western culture as, okay, this is the first right? Because it's the seedbed of all other liberties. I don't think you can have freedom without the freedom to express yourself. It's why the free speech movement at Berkeley, it's why the early civil rights activists were all unanimous in their defense of free speech because they understood that they wouldn't be able to secure any of those other liberties without the freedom to say what they thought. And that seems, and as we know across the world, all of the countries in which free speech protections are poor, it is minorities who suffer the most. So there is a very important reason why we need to defend it. And particularly, ironically, I think that the people who are most antagonistic toward the concept of free speech from minority groups and minority activists, those are the ones who have the most to benefit from it. So that's why I wanted to write a book that they could read and would not be feel alienated by, I'm not attempting to, I'm not insulting them, I'm taking their arguments seriously and attempting to engage with them. In terms of the cultural reason why free speech defense is necessary is because of this rise of cancel culture, which is something which is often misunderstood, either because people take it very literally and they say, well, no one's been actually canceled, have they? And of course, it's a metaphor. And a lot of the social justice activists are particularly adept at metaphor. What we mean by this is a kind of a system or a strategy or an impulse to publicly shame someone, to harass and threaten someone or to contact their employer, defame their reputation to such an extent that actually their livelihood is damaged and possibly destroyed. So it is essentially a vengeful approach to disagreement. That's what cancel culture is. It's kind of the heckler's veto writ large as part of a cultural moment. Exactly. And there are so many examples of this. And when I was writing the book and I mentioned, there's a chapter in the book on cancel culture. And I thought, shall I start listing the examples? And I started collating them and there were hundreds. And I thought, this is going to go on forever. So I won't do that. What I'll do is I just, I mentioned 10 or so in the footnotes because I didn't want it to distract, because it's a given. It's an absolute given. So the people who deny cancel culture are usually its most ardent practitioners and I suppose they have a vested interest in denying its existence. But I mean, it's indisputable. I can give you some examples if it would help. What's your favorite example of a cancel culture moment? Well, I mean, one of the first ones, which really got people thinking was the cancellation of Tim Hunt, who's the Nobel Prize-winning biochemist who, he made a joke at a conference, I think it was in South Korea, and it was deliberately misrepresented by a journalist. I mean, quite willfully misrepresented, that's clear, as being, as not being a joke, in fact, and as being a simply overtly misogynistic statement, this from a man who has done so much for women in sciences, but you know, that wasn't taken into account. And by the time he got home from this conference, he had lost his fellowship and his reputation was in tatters. And this happened very, very, very quickly. And of course, in the old days, what you would do is you would, if you misunderstood a joke or something that someone had said in a conference, you would perhaps go up to that person and say, well, now what was that about? That worried me, whatever, let's resolve this, have a drink and talk about, you know, not this kind of, let's post everything online and destroy this person's career. So that was a really early example. But there've been many, many prominent ones. I mean, there was the example of Nick Buckley in the UK, who was the founder of a charity which sort of focused on helping young people from ethnic minority backgrounds out of poverty. So this is someone who you would have thought would have been, you know, the social justice activists would have absolutely adored and the intersectional activists would have loved. And yet, they accused him of being racist because he criticized some of the aspects of the Black Lives Matter movement and certainly some of the stranger demands on their website, which I believe have since been taken off. And this man, who was done so much and devoted so much of his life and work to helping people from ethnic minority backgrounds was smeared as a racist. And another prominent example would have been Roger Scruton. Roger Scruton, of course, one of the prominent conservative thinkers in the UK who died relatively recently. In 2019, he was supposed to be part of this commission, this government commission to look into housing and architecture. And because he has some very interesting ideas about this and has written extensively on it, it was called the Building Beautiful Commission. And he was interviewed by a man called George Eaton from the New Statesman. And it was an incredibly dishonest interview. Not only did he misrepresent him in the interview himself, Eaton quoted him on his Twitter feed, but took out key elements of the sentences. So in one case, Scruton had made a point which was explicitly anti-racist, was explicitly critical of the Chinese government and the way that it attacked its own people and made it look like he was making a racist statement. He was talking about the way in which the Chinese government treats its people like robots, inhuman. And by taking out the words, it looked like he was saying Chinese people are just like robots, they're all the same. So it was the opposite of what he had meant. And that, I'm afraid, that kind of bolderization cannot be anything other than deliberate. So it didn't matter. The truth did not matter. That's what happens when a journalist becomes an activist. But that wasn't the worst thing. I mean, it's astonishing that he kept his job after that. But that wasn't the worst thing about that kind of misrepresentation. The worst thing was that the government immediately kicked him off the commission. Yeah, what's going on there? Because that's the second part of this, right? I mean, you have people who feel empowered or emboldened to just make shit up about people oftentimes, or bring something in the worst possible light to make a point or to achieve some goal. But then, isn't the real blame there on the government committee that says, like, okay, scrutiny, we've known you for years, we don't think you're this, but get the fuck out. Yeah, exactly. This is the thing I'm always saying is that I feel that the problem isn't the activists themselves because there's not many of them. I know they're incredibly powerful. But the reason they're powerful is because those in authority continually capitulate to their demands. It happens again and again, time and again. And this is the problem. None of this would have mattered if Nick Buckley wasn't fired, if Roger Scruton wasn't ditched from the commission, if Tim Hunt didn't lose his fellowship. None of it would matter. It would just be people bleeding on the internet, which is what it should be. So the problem really is that people are just, they don't have the guts to stand up to these bullies. And that's the problem because it's an intimidatory tactic. That's why you only need two or three people of this woke mentality in any industry or any corporation before everyone capitulates because they are terrifying people. I had a conversation with a writer friend and playwright friend of mine who was working with one of these directors who was an intersectionalist, woke activist style director. And he said that he started treating her like a dangerous dog. Because if you said the wrong thing, they would go for you in this vicious way. And it is, unfortunately, what's happening? Somebody who spent some time in the barrel was J.K. Rowling, beloved children's author, the creator of the Harry Potter series. She stepped in a discussion about trans rights and about kind of biological essentialism for lack of a better term. She got slammed. She got attacked a lot on Twitter and elsewhere people wrote many columns against her. But practitioners of cancel culture or supporters of calling for truth just say, look, J.K. Rowling, she wasn't hurt at all by this. And in fact, this is just discourse. What's wrong with that understanding of cancel culture? It's very naive. If you think that to be continually bombarded, deigned by rape threats, death threats, threats of violence and misogynistic abuse is not in any way hurtful simply because you're a millionaire celebrity, shows a complete lack of understanding of what it means to be human, I would have thought. And that's a very, very bizarre thing. What you the best that you could say is that she hasn't been canceled, which is true. You can't cancel J.K. Rowling. You can't cancel a multimillionaire. You can't cancel the most successful author in the world. You absolutely can't. No publisher in their right mind would ditch her. But they would ditch Jillian Phillip, who was the Scottish author who simply supported her on Twitter. Yeah, she got ditched by her publisher overnight because she's not as lucrative. So this defense that, well, because J.K. Rowling hasn't been canceled, that proves that cancel culture doesn't exist. No, it's the opposite. It proves that it exists, but that it predominantly affects those who are not the rich and powerful. It predominantly affects normal people. I was going to say, but then what do you say though? And I actually find this a compelling question. I'm not sure that I agree with the answer. But what's actually going on is that because of the internet and because of social media and a variety of breakdowns of gatekeeper institutions, just in being able to control what and where people talk, but also there's that kind of jellyfish dimension that you're talking about, where authorities will no longer actually step in to do the right thing. But what we're witnessing is this glorious age where the rabble finally has the ability to directly call out and address powerful people. And it's not just people like J.K. Rowling about something about trans rights, but in the United States campaigns against, I don't know, people like Bill Cosby who got dragged on Twitter and ultimately was canceled for a variety of sexual crimes. There is an ability now for the common person to actually interact publicly and directly with people in power and that that's what we're actually witnessing. The voiceless have now been given a voice and people in power don't like that. The voiceless aren't always right. I think the first thing to say is that what you're describing there is creating the conditions for a witch hunt mentality. It's all very well saying that a lot of good can be achieved by mass mobilization online. And you could point to, I don't know, the Arab Spring or whatever you want depending on your point of view. And you could point to sex criminals who are outed, but there are also lots of innocent people who are accused of sex crimes who are effectively tried via social media. That is not a good thing, actually. And I never take accusations like that seriously even if they are overwhelming in numbers because I know enough about history to know that mass accusations can often be false. And I think we shouldn't lose due process. But by the same token, it is a good thing, like you say, that people are able to, to everyone's a broadcaster. Everyone can get their opinion out there and their ideas out there. That is a good thing. But that's not what we mean by cancel culture. No one is saying that you shouldn't be able to criticize celebrities. This is a bizarre misunderstanding what cancel culture is. Actually, I think Prince Harry and Meghan Markle may be saying that, but they are a law into themselves, aren't they? Yes, they are absolutely saying that, but no, no one else is. No one is saying that the problem with, if people want to bombard people onto it, if people want to criticize celebrities, then I'm all for that. You should be able to criticize whoever you want. You should be able to be abusive and insulting to whoever you want. They don't have to listen to you. They should just block you and move on with their lives. I don't approve it, by the way. I think civility is something we should urge at all times. I don't take anyone seriously if they're uncivil. I will block them and move on. I'm absolutely not going to waste my time talking to someone who can't discuss like an adult. You have a doctorate in Renaissance poetry. You quote Milton, and obviously Milton in Areopagitica has a very important and enduring defense of an unlicensed press, or the idea that you should not have to put your thoughts through some kind of official mechanism for approval before it sees print. In Milton's time, there was a profusion of tracts and the ability for all sorts of people, including very much anonymously to print and publish whatever they thought. It's kind of a glorious thing. Can you talk a little bit about how cancel culture, what we're talking about here? Rather than celebrating the ability to speak, it actually also seems to be acting in the role of the government censor that Milton is pushing back, almost psychologically. It's not necessarily saying that the government censor is going to pre-approve everything that gets published, but we're doing that work ourselves. Yeah, it's weird. It's almost like people are acting as government censors. You know, and this is one of the most curious aspects of the social justice movement, is because it is an establishment movement now, because it's absolutely the establishment, particularly in America, you've got Biden, Biden's administration is very much on board with it. But culturally speaking, it's been in the ascendancy and has been the most powerful driving force in the UK culture, even with the Tory government in control. It doesn't really relate to this right-left debate. And yet, that establishment line is the very thing that activists will seek to maintain through their online behavior. So this is, it's almost like you don't need an inquisition. It's like the people are applying the hot plates and the pincers to each other of their own accord. Well, this is, it's Foucault, right? I mean, that we've internalized the panopticon, essentially. So we're doing the work for the government or for the power structure. We are all participants, yes, we're all the panopticon. And it's interesting, I do think Foucault would have an awful lot to say about the social justice ideology in the way that it wields power. I mean, I don't want to get dragged into a side conversation on this, but he actually did push back against that in his day. It's just interesting to me that they quote, or cite Foucault as being this sort of, they're luminary, but of course, I think they've largely misunderstood him. Right. One of the issues that comes up and you talked about it in the book is that there is a huge gulf between, for lack of a better term, just crudely older generations and younger generations when it comes to a belief in the value of free speech. How old are you? I'm 42. Okay. So you're a late Gen Xer in American ease. Yeah, exactly. I'm on the cusp. But millennials and Gen Z in America, you know, so people like basically 40 and under are, you know, polls and surveys show this compared to older people like me. I'm a late boomer. Gen X people are very much more in favor of free speech. It's just, we grew up thinking that younger people are much more, I don't know about this free speech, it needs to be balanced against other concerns. Can you talk a little bit about the gulf in support for free speech and then speak to why, you know, what happened? What happened that free speech has gone from, you know, I in grad school, I was taught by people who were at the Berkeley free speech movement rallies. They were pushing, you know, even into the 80s and 90s, they were like, no, everybody should be allowed to talk. That's a given that world has totally disappeared. Yeah, I'm very wary and we should always be very wary of just ending up criticizing what the younger generation do simply because they are younger and there are a lot of things that the younger generation have done, which are better, a lot better than the way things were when I was their age. But I think you also have to point out regression as and when it happens and not be afraid to do so simply because it is partly generational. I mean, and actually this could all be redundant anyway, given that the signs very clearly are showing that the youngest generation, Generation Z, are pushing back against the millennial generation. And we will probably get a free speech fight back from the very young, because a lot of them are very, very sick of it. I'd say preponderance, actually. But nevertheless, yeah, there is something generational about it. And I think it is because it is coincidental with the rise of identity politics. And inevitably, we now have a substantial body of people who believe that certain fundamental liberties are worth dispensing with if it can be said that they are effectively oppressing minority groups. Unfortunately, that analysis is incorrect. It isn't true. So it is people buying into this illusory perception. And just I mean, I'm very surprised. I remember giving a talk at a school where I asked whether there should be legal limits on what comedians can joke about. And the fact that the majority of the pupils put their hands up really through me because I thought this is a very... And as we talked about it more and more, it was very clear that this hadn't been... This wasn't a thought through position. This isn't a position that they have been reasoned into. It is just the acceptable position. It's the high status opinion to have. And so therefore, I think that is part of it. I think it is largely a product of my generation more than anything. I think my generation has to blame more than anything because it is academics of my age and older who are the ones who have instilled this what we call that, I suppose, applied post-modernism. And is it the idea that speech is the equivalent of violence? Is that power? Everything is seen in terms of power and that that's reflected in language. So in order to disrupt power relations, we need to police and regulate language. Could you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, this is a fair... This is a way you can fairly say this is derived from Foucaultian thought and the work of the French post-modernists, post-structuralists, because if you are convinced that our understanding of reality is entirely constructed through language, therefore, it makes sense, doesn't it, that words act like spells and incantations that when they're out of the bottle, they will have this effect on people and that people are... It involves... It combines with that post-modern idea this very pessimistic view of humanity, which is that we are malleable and that we are completely products of our culture to the extent that we have no agency, which is something that I don't get on board with. And moreover, and most importantly, and this is why I wrote about it in the book, is that most importantly, the statistics and the research doesn't support this view. So the idea that we are just drones who respond mechanically on cue to language in movies, the arts, popular culture, the media, it's been debunked. Media effects theory has been debunked over six decades of research. So when we say, oh, it is dangerous to have a comedy show where someone uses that phrase because it will have this impact on society and make society more racist. If you're going to make that proposition, let's have the evidence. If you have debunked all of the six decades of research into this, then show us your work. Let's see the notes. Because I think it's just faith. At the moment, it's just faith. That's why the comparison with religion works so well, because it is not something... You can't contest something if it is simply asserted without evidence. This brings us back to Clockwork Orange, which it's funny. I think I'm going to go out and read Clockwork Orange again. It's been a while, but the idea that we are what we watch, which I think actually comes out of not out of post-structuralism, but a kind of Frankfurt School kind of understanding of popular culture, that we are programmed by everything we watch and we see. So Donald Duck takes his punishment in the cartoon, so that workers take their punishment in the workplace, etc. It's fascinating. In the 90s, all of this was debunked, essentially. There was a new generation of media studies and cultural studies people who were like, no, in fact, we are end users. We recreate meaning. We create meaning on our own. We don't care about authorial intention, whatever that might mean. But now we're back to the idea that if somebody witnesses something, they will either model it or it will have a drastic impact on them. But you're right. There's no evidence for that. I'd say that this pessimistic view of humanity that I'm describing probably does come from the Frankfurt School. And it's interesting to me that there are groups of people who want to resurrect the worst aspects of that thinking. And this almost very snobbish idea, really, that popular culture, the way in which the thinkers of the Frankfurt School completely dismissed popular culture and divided it. And I've seen elements of it in recent years. I remember seeing Noam Chomsky talking about how sports are a form of control of the masses and this kind of thing. It's peculiar too in an age of social media where things are kind of more individualized or people are empowered to consume what they want, when they want to produce things as well and engage. Why do you think, and this might be on the purview of the book or this conversation, but why did identity politics arise as it did, given that the kind of institutional barriers to all sorts of oppressed groups and oppressed identities, whether we're talking about racial identities or gender identities or sexual identities, these have all kind of faded in the past 20 years. It's not to say they don't still exist, but England and America, most countries are less racist, less sexist, less homophobic, more cosmopolitan and kind of accepting. So why does identity politics flourish in that kind of setting? I wish I knew the answer. I mean, I've heard lots of people speculate about this. And one potentially convincing explanation is that there is something alluring about being a victim. And once you've achieved equality, where'd you go from there? I suppose you have to start taking responsibility for your failures. And to give the example of Stonewall, which is the leading gay rights charity in the UK, they won. We had equal age of consent laws. We had equal marriage. We had equal hospital visitation rights and legacy rights and all the rest of it. So we had complete legal equality. This is not to say that homophobia was ever eliminated. I don't think it ever can be, actually. Although it's been greatly reduced. Hugely reduced, yes, exactly, to the point where no one in their right mind, even if they were homophobic, would be openly so because it would be destroyed themselves socially. So they won. And then I got and they got to a point think, well, what can we do now? And I think a lot of people think they took on the gender ideology of extreme trans activism as a means to keep themselves going. Because by that point, at the height of their success, suddenly they had corporate support, suddenly they had money flowing there. It's a very lucrative lucrative thing. So yeah, maybe it's to do with the monetary incentive. Maybe it's to do with power. Maybe it's to do with having some sway in society. I do feel sorry, though, for activists who are convinced that we live in the most oppressive time that has ever been, given that the opposite is true. Given that we have never, there has never been a society that is more tolerant and open and progressive than ours, and less racist and less homophobic and less sexist, not to say that none of those things still exist. I have to keep putting this obvious caveat in. But to nonetheless, genuinely see fascists everywhere, seeing Nazis in every shadow, seeing homophobes and sexism, racism, that's your, if you if you live in that world of imaginary monsters, it must be absolutely horrible psychologically. So I do have some degree of pity for people who have bought into this mass delusion. I really do. But it but the delusion is what it is. Can you, you know, many of the people who are most vociferous and trying to limit speech, whether through legal restrictions or kind of cultural imposition, are from, you know, very small minority groups, you know, trans activists, you mentioned. Can you make the case to them directly that they actually need free speech more than anybody, that they'll say, you know, there's too much free speech, and it's attacking me. But you argue, I think pretty persuasively, that that's exactly wrong, that it's the most marginalized people who benefit the most from free speech. Yeah. And that, you know, studies again and again show this. There's a human rights campaign called Jacob, I'm going to pronounce his wrong, his name wrong, it's Chiangama, Chiangama, I think. And he's done work into this and looked into the way in which the first thing that a despot will do is come down on free speech and that that always has a negative impact on minority groups. It always disproportionately affects minority groups. And you just need to have a sort of, I suppose, a cursory understanding of history to know how this works. Or you just have to look at minority groups in Islamic states and the way that they are treated. If you're a gay person or a woman in Islamic states, your life isn't, you know, there are people who are really risking their lives to try and do something about that. Free speech is the first thing that is to go. So in order to achieve the goals that you claim that you want to achieve, you absolutely have to protect that. And I think the problem is that what they really mean is they want free speech protections for themselves, but not for their detractors. But of course, it's not a principle that is, well, I mean, you dilute the principle when you deny it to those that you oppose. And I mean, you may get to control the microphone for a little bit, but inevitably you get pushed off the stage. Right. Exactly. The principle is much bigger. Yeah, the principle is much, much bigger. So, you know, one very interesting kind of conundrum here is the, who is policing speech or where does speech happen? In the past, and you write about this, you know, it used to be Tories in England and, you know, conservatives in America who were the ones who were really trying to police speech a lot. Now they tend to be kind of more free speechy and whatnot. But more importantly, people talk about how it's not about government censorship. It's about large social media companies, Facebook, Twitter, etc. And you write, you know, you say that libertarians like me, you know, libertarians in an American context, we are using old arguments when we say that Facebook is a private entity. So, they get a right to basically run their platform the way they want to. But at various, and so you seem to be arguing on the one hand that they should be treated more like a common carrier where they don't get to pick and choose. They don't get to moderate the speech or who gets to use those services. But then at other times, that argument kind of goes away. And it's clear, like, you don't want the government to be in charge of regulating Facebook, right? So, like, how do you work your way through all of that? Yeah, I mean, you make it sound like I'm having a go at you specifically in the book. You know, I take things very personal. It's the only way that I feel important. I should have written libertarians like Nick Gillespie think this and it's ridiculous. What's he going on about? Yeah, it is a difficult one. But as the libertarian argument only really works, if it is possible to set up competitive industries, as we saw with with parlor, that isn't possible. So if parlor is back, though, I hear what you're saying. No, there's this is a, you know, an absolute case where people liberals mostly who in other contexts would tell business owners, no, you have to do it my way. But then suddenly when, you know, conservatives are like, you have to let us in. They're like, Hey, if you don't like Facebook, go build your own Facebook. Yeah. And then they do and then they're, you know, and then people are like, Well, we're not going to host it. We're not going to allow you to access to our app stores. We're not going to do this. But parlor is back, right? It's bad, but it's not big, is it? It's not good. I mean, it's going to be incredibly hard to break this deadlock. It's going to take a lot of very, very rich people and very, very determined people. And readers, right, are users because it might be that parlor is not, you know, gab before it was an alternative to Twitter. It's going to, it's actually going to be impossible because when something like gap for gab is a good example. So when that started and it's dedicated to free speech, so obviously it's not going to boot off some really horrible people is that there will be horrible people that Joseph Goebbels fan club is taking out all the good territory. They got all the parts right by the beach. But as soon as they're there, right, which they will be, right? Inevitably, because that's the downside of free speeches. You're going to hear some horrible things, right? But once they're there, then the activist press can say, can, you know, cherry pick those. I can't say that's what this is a Nazi site, right? So then it's a loss because then moderate, normal moderate people who don't like Nazis, people like us, are not going to go to that platform by fear of guilt by association. It's all a very big. But what do you do? I mean, on Facebook, there are vast mansions. You know, our father has many mansions with many rooms and there's still an enormous amount of speech going on that Facebook, frankly, can't police. Is it so? I mean, are these legal remedies or are they cultural remedies? How about we just have a situation where we don't have an exclusive group of publishers who are not responsible for the content of what they publish? I mean, this is a weird thing. I mean, well, you know, I don't I don't see why I can't write a book, which just libels people left, right and center and not get away with it. Well, I mean, the Facebook, Twitter, all the rest of them are publishers. They're not platforms. They curate their material quite explicitly. In American context, that distinction is not important in terms of, you know, web interactive web services such as social media websites. I mean, reason, for instance, just to give you, you know, an example, we have comments. If we were liable for the content of those comments, which are generated by the users, we would have no comments. So the speech is, you know, would be diminished if we if we're following the rules that you say that we should be responsible for everything that appears on our website. But that's not quite what I'm saying. What I'm saying is we should perhaps amend the communications decency act so that it isn't so that maybe the removal of well, I suppose it could be restricted. It could be it could be changed so that for instance, you were not responsible for illegal content that is uploaded into the comment sections of your of your website that you fail to remove. I mean, you might just not notice it, for instance, or something like that. But that you shouldn't therefore be able to abuse that legislation to just pick and choose what you remove on the basis of that you don't agree, or that you find it offensive. Maybe that would be the way to do it. I mean, it seems to me. So there would be no moderation. So then you could have a website where you would, you know, Facebook would have to let every Nazi on and every Nazi comment. And I think if it was restricted to if they had if they removed illegal content, if that was then that would be that would be fine by me. I have no problem with it. I mean, personally, I agree with you. But I think this, you know, one of the problems. And I don't think people have I don't think we've worked this through because it's a relatively novel situation. But yeah, yeah, with moderation of content and regulation of who's who's allowed on a service, you know, do child molesters, not child molesters, but people who talk about the sexual, you know, per in a prurient way, without ever touching a child, are they, you know, should they be guaranteed a free expression on Facebook, etc. The idea I mean, child pornography and child molestation is illegal. So of course, you can remove illegal content. You know, this is what I'm talking about. But I'm saying like the Namblo, you know, North American man boy, love association talking about it. You know, personally, I think everybody should be allowed to talk about whatever they want pretty much wherever they want. But if you want, if you want free speech, then horrible people are going to talk about horrible things, right? But the difference that there's a clear distinction between that and the actual dissemination of illegal material like pornography, like child pornography. And that is that is actionable. I mean, in the United States, stuff can be and defamatory comment. You can, you can always if somebody calls you a son of a bitch in a Facebook page, you can go after the person, you can't go after Facebook. That's kind of worked pretty well. Well, I mean, also, I think there's, let's bring the agency back to the user, you know, if it is a platform as as Facebook and Twitter maintain, look, if there's lots of people talking about sick, disgusting stuff about sexuality or or Nazi stuff, stuff that I just find inherently upsetting, I'll just block those people. I do it all the time. If someone comes on my Twitter feed and says something pro Nazi, I just block them. I do it straight away. And then I'd never have to hear from them again. So so I don't need the people in Silicon Valley to decide for me where my limits lie. And moreover, once you once you give them that power, then inevitably what happens is I now can't look at accounts of, say, gender critical feminists, because they just don't happen to like their opinion. So they ditch them. I mean, that's that's my point is that gives the power back to the individual user. Everyone has a right to say what they want. But everyone has a right to listen to what they want or not listen as the case may be. Absolutely. And I think, you know, this, the idea of empowering end users has kind of been pushed to the side, instead of this kind of more basic root level discussion of who's speech should be allowed on what platform. Having said that, I think moderation at scale is just so difficult. Yeah, sure. Complicated. And we're still working through it. Do you know, I'm actually, I should say I do feel in a sense it's for the Silicon Valley tech giants, because there's a lot of pressure on them from governments to make to moderate their sites and all the rest of it as well as their own employees, right? I mean, I mean, that's it. Yeah, you know, and that becomes problematic. But it's also kind of, you know, maybe a company is the sum of its employees and whatever they can gull their leaders. Well, I sort of think when a group of people at Spotify, for instance, tried to get Joe Rogan's podcast censored, or for instance, when Penguin Random House in Canada, when they tried to get Jordan Peterson's book back, at that point, I think if you work for a publisher, and you don't accept that there's going to be a range of views expressed in the books that you publish, you're probably not actually qualified to be a publisher and you should probably be sacked. And that's not a cancel culture thing. That's like, you're simply not qualified to do the job. It would be like me saying that I want to be a professional footballer. No, my complete indolence and lack of physical fitness does exclude me from that. I agree. And it's this goes back to that question of where one of the things we're witnessing is how hollow and weak, you know, almost calcium deficient the bones of our authorities are, where companies and governments get pushed over. I mean, they're made of paper mache, which is both interesting and liberating and empowering and quite disturbing. So final question, you cite Mill and others about, you know, what in a more contemporary context, people like Greg Lukianoff of Fire, about that a broader culture of free speech and thought is ultimately more important than any of the actual rules or laws that are written down. What are some ways that, what are some steps you think we should take to get to reviving a culture or strengthening a culture of free speech and free thought, you know, apart from laws and things like that, because this really is kind of, you know, it's a cultural phenomenon that we're going through more than a legal or political one percent. I think it's a really, really good question. And I think my answer always comes back to education. I think it's about, I mean, obviously, because I have a background as a teacher as well, I think it's about exposing young people to all sorts of ideas and, you know, encouraging them to think critically and not to just simply accept things uncritically. That would be my approach to this. I think it's very, very important in fact. So it does disturb me the way that activists have very much infiltrated schools and are very much against the notion of dissent. We've seen in the UK recently critical race theory making its way into UK schools, which makes no sense because critical race theory doesn't make sense in the UK context. It's very much an American thing. But that has happened. Now, I actually think you should be able to teach kids about critical race theory. But I think you should do so critically. I mean, I think you should explain why it is such a flawed idea. And that would be a wonderful thing to do with kids because it is important at the moment. It's part of our national discussion. So I think that should be the case. But I think to teach any faith-based position uncritically in school is not a good thing. You know, and that's why I say, you know, it does disturb me when I get into these stupid arguments on Twitter. The lack of critical thinking, that to me is the thing that disturbs me most of all. I see these people, I think you've never ever questioned any of your own views. It's never occurred to you that you might be wrong. And I think, you know, teaching kids that we're always likely to be wrong about something. Just assume that it's a great start. And don't just read a book and think it's right. You hear this constant refrain of educate yourself, you know, and that people, you know, activists say, well, why don't you educate? It's not my job to educate you, educate yourself. What they mean by that is read the books, the two or three books I've read, and accept them uncritically. So basically, read Ibram Xkendi, read Robin D'Angelo, and just accept everything they say. Well, no, because they're both shoddy books. That's why we shouldn't do that. We need a redo of to-sir-with-love, right? We need to embolden, you know, working-class British kids to push back against their children. I haven't actually seen to-sir-with-love. From what I understand, it's a kind of precursor of dangerous minds. Is that right? Yes, very much so. It has its own problems as a teacher-savior movie. Okay. Well, that would appeal to me as a next teacher, I would love that. So a final question, I mean, you invented Tatania McGrath and you get to live in a world where, you know, after the nuclear Holocaust or, you know, environmental despoilation, the next civilization may well revere Tatiana McGrath or Tatania McGrath, you know, unironically. Is she having a moment? Or is her time, you know, is her time horizon limited now? Are you optimistic or pessimistic? It's definitely limited. I mean, I, you know, I tweet very rarely from her account now, you know, but then because I'm focused on so many other things. I mean, like the larger worldview she represents. Well, the problem is, of course, is with Tatania, I mean, just at the point where, you know, I feel like I've done a lot of what I can do with that. It's actually more relevant than it ever was. And that's the really annoying thing. So I will continue with, I'll continue with the live show, for instance. And if I'm going to do anything more with her, it will be developing it out. You know, I've done books and I've done the tweets and I think that's great. But a live thing is a really fun thing. So we're going to do some live shows in September with the character. But, you know, whether that idea, I mean, this is the problem is that every time I think there's a bit of a pushback, you know, something good happens and the activists don't win in a particular fight, and you think, oh, there's a pushback happening that it's starting and it never does. It's just a little glitch. It's always regressing. And I think, you know, and it's got to the point where now people like me who espouse liberal values, free speech, equality, et cetera, that's quite a controversial thing to espouse now. That's weird. I never thought that would happen. You know, I'd never and never ever thought that would happen. So I don't know, you know, I'm not a prophet. I don't know when this will all end. I think it must, though. I think if it doesn't, then we're all screwed. Thank you. You've made a pretty good start with all of your work, but especially your new book, Free Speech and Why It Matters. Andrew Doyle, thanks for talking. Thank you very much.