 We're live, but not anymore Gary are we live oh We did the link. Well, you could have told us we were live No, you didn't and I didn't even tweet the link Retweet mark. I just treated the link. So retweet me ridiculous. How is this? This is no way to start a New series of tisky Sam and myself and Michael Walker. How you doing Michael very well? How are you Aaron? Why have we been gone away for so long? I blame you Aaron? I think it was your book for your made luxury communism Okay, I blame you. It's taking you away. I blame your master's degree at the LSE Look Aaron, I've I've done an episode of tisky in your absence with Sarah Jaffe. You weren't there What was I to do Sarah Hiffey the boss? Jaffe the gaffer. She does a podcast so we know how to pronounce it Is she just trying is she just trying to sort of appease white guilt? Oh I don't know That was a joke For any Jordan Peterson fans watching this by the way much of this is not serious Give us to be clear. Although we are Marxist. I'm not I'm a Marxist prepare to be triggered We'll be talking about fake news and Communist lobsters so invariably we're covering this story Which is really just to find the last seven days of the British media with Jeremy Corbyn being a suspected acclaimed Shekhar Slovak security asset And it's all sort of falling apart in the last 24 hours in particular. What's going on Michael? so this story was broken if you can give it that name on Thursday by the Sun the title the headline being Corbyn and the commie spy They had got information from former Czech diplomat Jan Sarkochi and he'd claimed Corbyn not only had passed on information, but was in the pay of Communist Czechoslovakia and was known as agent Cobb This made its way from the Sun to the mail to the Telegraph and the Times The problem is this guy is a complete crank That doesn't seem to be any factual basis in what was said. We know this now from what's his name? His name is Jan Sarkochi. That sounds Kind of familiar then you organize live aid Ah We're not sure he've organized live aid or the free Nelson Mandela concerts, right? That's what he claims And the information he was asking for from Jeremy Corbyn was was very very vital secrets of state You know what they were go on What Margaret Thatcher had for breakfast and what she was gonna wear tomorrow so if you were in the Czech government and You'll think you know you've got some Serious foreign policy discussions going on you need to know what Margaret Thatcher is wearing the next day Jeremy Corbyn doesn't even know what Jeremy Corbyn is gonna wear the next That's true. I mean he doesn't care, right? I mean he talks about that He buys was close like this like clothing cup or something in Islington. Oh, does he yeah nice I mean probably not anymore, right? I mean he's in GQ magazine and stuff back in the day Yeah, I mean if he knew what Margaret Thatcher was gonna wear the next day that would be an even bigger Controversy than him being a communist spy the affair of the unexpected fair of the 1980s. I mean that would trump John Major and what was their name Edwina Curry Edwina Curry. Oh my god. Well, this well done Michael. God Well anyway, so this crank was saying that he had actually a ring it turns out 15 labor MPs including John McDonnell The only problem is that John McDonnell wasn't an MP in the late 1980s. He was working for Camden Council Who's in the GRC? No, I think he was kind of London strategic city I think he'd gone at this point to Camden Council. He was at Camden Council before 92 anyway, okay Because the GRC is like folded, right? Yeah, but this was in the early 80s, which was exactly when the GRC was running No, this is 87 This is 87. Yeah, I think the GRC was folded. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so whatever I mean John McDonnell wasn't working in parliament. He wasn't a labor MP. He was working in local government the idea that the Czech security services would have agents or assets in local government is just Potty to be frank and I mean the Czechs The Czechoslovaks, by the way, sorry to invisibilize Slovakia like this You know, this erasure of Slovakia by the print media is really outlandish and disgraceful Um, if if the Czechoslovaks had 15 labor MPs, how many of the Soviets have 100? Because it wasn't like Czechoslovakia is not a big player, right? Well, they might have swapped, you know, they're probably Shared spies, right? They'd share informants I don't I mean it doesn't make any sense And they did have so they did have a couple of spies in the 60s and 70s the Soviets to two labor MPs in a Tory Kim Philby and a Tory guy and they had a nickname for him, which was like He just asked for too much money Money bags, but look anyway, the point is this the story from the outset was clearly not true Uh, as I think Joseph Goebbels said you lie big You keep on lying. That's what the print media tried to do with their outriders Uh, uh, you know forks tries to announce the spectator It was even enabled quite grotesquely by Matthew Dankona at the Guardian and um, I don't think they expected this kind of kickback Did they from Jeremy Corbyn from the left and of course that the culmination of that was his video Last night that he put out on Twitter. Yeah, so exactly So I mean, I think when the sun and these papers broke this story and when the Tories jumped on They were probably aware that at some point the bottom was going to fall out of this story And that their source wasn't very strong, but the hope is that if you throw enough shit some of it sticks, right? um Which probably would have happened but Corbyn has Quite impressively really turned the table. So he's made this about the press He's gone on the counter attack and he said we've had enough of a news media that lies to us Um, and we're going to when we're in government Reign in your power a little bit, which doesn't mean Any kind of censorship? It's about saying there are currently media monopolies which have way too much influence over our democratic process with no accountability so what we need to do is make a model of The media sustainable where people can hear Respectable voices as well our voices that don't just make up shit. Yeah, I mean, this is what I I've got a piece coming out with Navarra media my first column tomorrow And actually the the tactics which are being used here by the mainstream media slander defamation but also false ambiguity false binaries Illusion of critique like this is what you would use and this is effectively propaganda war This is the kind of counter insert. I'm not even joking if you read a book by a gentleman called frank kitson He was in berma. He was overseeing Counter insurgency methods in the final days of the britch empire He perfected it in berma in malaysia. He takes it to northern island in the mid 1970s These the precise same techniques that the british establishment used on its Colonies and on its possessions overseas and now they're being used against the leader of the opposition now that isn't new Something similar happened with harold wilson But germy corbin isn't even a number 10 yet. I mean, this is a whole new level of Effectively an apparatus which historically discredited radicals abroad now coming home And it's uh, it's not terrifying because it's a complete disaster. It's kind of funny But when you think of it in those terms, I mean it's this is just a taste Of how the media would treat a germy corbin government But it is why you have to tackle it head on so there were the centrist response on twitter yesterday and today So james bolded a tweet which was saying like these are actually all quite good policies But the fact that he's uh repeated them just after he was attacked Tarnishes them because it makes it seem like it's revenge But the point is you can't pretend that the relationship between the labor party and the media is not political If you pretend that this was just a mistake and then you announce your reforming policies in a couple of weeks time The media win because they when when they're at a stronger position when they're out of the news when they look less Ridiculous, they can say this is an attack on our freedom of speech Whereas what you need to do is you need to say actually there is a struggle going on There is a struggle going on which is between oligarch owned media oligopoly monopolies against democracy against having a proper Informed debate in britain about what we want the country to look like and we were talking about um what would have happened Had the sun run this story Let's say well just over 12 months ago 14 months ago I think for me the nadir the low point of the corpsman leadership was probably january 2017 Just because that was the month that mark fresher Took his own life and it just felt very bleak the weather was terrible It just felt very bleak the you know people were saying that therese may would get a majority of 200 all sorts of things People on the left were saying that as well and not without and not without substance. It wasn't just because they were You know Running away with themselves that was there in the polling I didn't think I never thought things were that bad but clearly things weren't particularly good Well, it was also the period where they'd briefed they were going to do populism and then didn't yeah actually do it Yeah Yeah, for me the two low points have been basically that the period after the first leadership election again that was kind of early 2016 the winter and then similar process with the two bar elections as well last year in stoken and in uh in cumbria with copeland um But I do wonder how this story would have been processed differently had it come out 14 months ago Or had it come out 20 months ago and I think the big difference is that The labor right melts Have broadly said nothing if you look at jess philips's twitter feed. She has said nothing about this Now the good nor bad And I have a suspicion that was where it'd be 20 months ago A couple of dozen of them would have piled in and of course that then gives This nonsense this propaganda credibility because The public's perception is well the sun's saying the tories are saying it and even labor's saying it So it must be true and I think that's a really really big change. What do you think? I think that's absolutely true And you know, I that makes a big difference that no No labor MPs have piled up piled in and the tories that have piled in now have egg on their faces I'm so ben bradley corbin's launching legal action against him, which is brilliant Andrew neil on the daily politics today was really taking down the The Tory frontbencher who was was on the show to say have have your colleagues just been completely bullshitting Is there anything behind what they've been saying actually tool could we could we pull that up? The big man gary. I'm gonna say his name gary doesn't want to be named. Well, you're gonna be named gary Said you know Don't make me pull too many things up, but we're gonna try this. We want to pull something off Yeah, let's pull it up. Let's just see how it works. I tweeted it today gary So you can get it on my you can get it on my feed It's a really I mean, but this is the reason why I want to bring it up is because like you say Andrew Neal's a conservative. Okay He was working for Murdoch on the late 80s. He was Murdoch's rottweiler notwithstanding that he also knows which way the wind is blowing He's also very smart. He's very well read and When Andrew Neal is reacting like that, I think it means something which is that The toys are an absolute freefall that this is an embarrassment. This is really this is really bad This is an embarrassment for the establishment because they don't even have like brexit anymore Brexit is going to happen in 13 months And actually it looks like they're going to have to accept kind of labor's position fundamentally Unless Theresa May wants to stand down and then a hard brexit here replace her as So by that you mean something that looks like the customs union Yeah, we basically leave the single market, but we've uh, a lot of prioritized We'll have an interim period after brexit day, which is in 13 months, right? Um, I think actually we're going to just go to this Andrew Neal thing now Let's have a look. Let's see what Andy Neal did this morning dropping heat on the daily politics Country in what way? Well, the defense secretary's chosen his own words. I mean the point for me about this debacle No, has he betrayed his country? Well, Jeremy Corbyn, I think is a grave danger to this country But that's because he betrayed the country that's because of the the ideas in which he believes and what that would mean for our economy And our society people of all sorts of ideas But you're a defense secretary Our defense secretary the defense secretary of this government of our government Has said the leader of her majesty's opposition has betrayed his country In what way has he betrayed his country? Well, that it really is a question for gammon. Williamson. That's not the word So you don't agree with it. Well, I'm not I'm not really commenting on the Do you think he's betrayed the country? I think that Jeremy Corbyn is a grave danger to our country It's a political point. That's a different of course you do everybody in one party thinks the other party's a grave danger Betrayal is an entirely different matter. That's a serious accusation I just pointed out that a senior figure of the check republic defense ministry says sarcosi Who is the former cheque spy? It's his real name is a liar That's the exact word the director of the cheque archives on security says no files show mr. Corbyn Incorporating with cheque intelligence the german archivists say there are no stasi files on mr. Corbyn at all So I ask again in what sense has mr. Corbyn betrayed this country Well, andra, I'm not going to comment on that as you've suggested This is an area where there's lots of questions to answer We've got a free press in this country. The free press is asking the questions. They should be answered Yeah, but you it's not just the free press your fellow tories are all piling in as a result Your security minister again the key word security minister He's compared mr. Corbyn to kim philby Kim philby was a traitor at the time if he'd been found guilty. He would have been hanged That's an outrageous smear to say of the leader of the opposition Well, andra, I'm not going to allow you to draw me into potentially libeling anybody And so I'm not going to comment on so you don't agree with that either Well, I don't agree with the defense minister. You don't agree with the security minister Well, this is classic dead cat strategy, isn't it the government's on the road? Skewered When you're being asked, um, do you agree with your colleague and then your response is I don't want to libel anyone You're effectively saying my colleagues are up shit creek and they're about to lose and I'm talking particularly to ben bradley here And who's this other chap who actually said the kill kim philby comment? He's he's security minister He's slightly less than ice I think because he made some sort of excuse up when it's still up there But I think ben bradley ben bradley. I mean, I'm not a lawyer He's a security minister though the other one the one who compared him to king philby You know these aren't he was just saying I wanted to add historical context all this stuff I mean Ben bradley absolutely 100 percent is going to have to get a court and it's going to have to account for that Delicious it is delicious It is delicious. But why is that quickly? Why does and why was andy neal? Playing it so hard there Well, as we were just saying earlier, I mean, he is a smart guy. He's of conservative leanings. Absolutely But it seems like this story has unraveled to such a degree that it's It's an embarrassment even to the establishment. There's there's just no way that you can So what's what's what's happened? Because obviously look, they're good at this. They're good at smiths. They've been doing it for decades Why has this unfolded so Badly so quickly Well, I suppose the media were clutching at straws and the media who are particularly partisan towards Theresa may they can't attack labor on policy They can't defend may on policy. So they're going for Bizarre smears now and they have to look in funny places as well Because I think they're a bit shocked by how much they've thrown at corbin and how much it hasn't stuck So things are going to get more and more wild As we go on also, do they not think that people have kind of baked this in? I mean, we saw this with trump, right? The person stuff just wasn't working with look donald trump needed effectively like jeremy corbin jeremy corbin needs to win a big majority labor need 42 43 of the country, right a decent majority Clearly at the next general election. I can imagine I can even imagine 50 of the electorate Have baked that all in and they don't care actually and they're going to vote for greens or lib dems or jeremy corbin or the smp Even right there's a deeper point as well actually whether it's do people have suspicions about his uh foreign policy agenda, but bake it in but say I recognize that but I really like his economic policy or do people actually respect the fact that he always had an independent relationship to Global politics So one of the reasons one of the things that the sun Constantly try and fling at him was that he wasn't an uncritical nationalist So he took the republican side in the irish conflict Seriously, you know, so it's so they they want to smear him just for the fact of speaking to republicans Which is the same as mafio dancona. He was like, why was he even speaking to this cheque diplomat? So there's this idea that you might want to hear the other side of the story being inherently suspicious And I think it seems that people don't don't buy that We don't have this idea that britain were always perfect and we know that margaret fracture allowed with people like pinnish a I mean on the on the ira thing jeremy corbin met Representatives of shin fein in the haza parliament very shortly after the bright and bombing in regard to The human rights of irish prisoners in the uk Legal justice system in the prison system. Those are human rights. Of course a politician has to talk about them Of course, they have to try and address them We're talking about political prisoners Now if you think that's beyond the pale for progress actually even for any politician quite frankly that they simply shouldn't talk about those things Then actually as a journalist You shouldn't be writing in a democratic country because you don't like democratic values But anyone can write in a democratic country aren't company Well, I mean, but this is the but this is that I mean this is the sort of the The converse of this is that they say we want a free press, but at the same time We don't want politicians who want to protect human rights of political prisoners in the british prison system Uh, of course it's hypocrisy, but that's all these people do Mm-hmm Anything else I think we're done on spies in corbin. Oh, I wanted there was one more thing That was the the finkelstein the dany finkelstein. Oh, okay. Yeah. This is good lord finkelstein. Can we pull this up in the times? um It was interesting in so much as Uh, it's completely a hundred percent false Well, no, it's false But then dany finkelstein added that the the sort of variant of socialism to which jeremy corbin has always subscribed The peace movement internationalism never really enamored with moscow Um, doesn't fit with this misrepresentation of him. Yes, there are some people in the labor party today that may apply to It applies to david aronovich, for instance, who's now one of his leading critics used to be in the communist party. Here we go um and You know jeremy corbin was signing parliamentary motions in the late 1980s criticizing the Stalinist bureaucracy of the schekoslovak government And supporting striking workers, you know Similar with solidarinovsk similar with the ddr with the soviet union What he said was that what we this needs the breakdown of these regimes now needs to be an opportunity for real socialism Which it wasn't uh, and I think we probably both agree with that. Yeah, it's not a niche position there was there was a really good quote in the In the guardian piece on this where jan kevan who was I don't know if that's how you pronounce it So he was the foreign minister and deputy prime minister after the fall of the iron cairn So from 1969 to 1989 he was a leading dissident in exile So he'd been in exile since the prague spring. He was someone who wanted to democratize some six six day, right? Uh, well, he was in exile from 69 69. Okay, so a long time 68 having them. Um, so that's Oh 20 years. Yeah, but he considered corbin a good friend Um, the two spoke at length when the leader visited prague. So corbin was a friend of cheque dissidents He wasn't an apologist for an authoritarian regime And kevan said of the allegations you have to take you have to take it not just with a pinch of salt But a wagon load of salt he added it's a classic smear campaign. It's clearly designed to weaken jeremy corbin's position So that's from a cheque dissident Not from anyone who was involved in the pro-soviet regime not michael walker at enviromedia cheque dissident Expelled after the the prague spring. Exactly. But this this thing was some point. I want to stick with Because It's it's remarkable. How many tories like ben bradley or how many people in the media even like a said pain at the At the financial times this matthew dankona piece in the guardian. Well, those of us This matthew dankona piece in the guardian and it's remarkable how few of them will actually be aware of this stuff How there are a variety of left traditions how after the hangarian uprising after the prague spring, there were many Fawks in the road where people took different directions and actually they weren't backing mosco after 1945 mosco effectively loses ugoslavia because it is a spur of influence so I mean really the historical illiteracy of these people almost matches their ineptitude in underpinning successful smear campaign which they failed to do Well, there's also no recognition of the fact that blind loyalty to the united states in the cold war was a morally reprehensible position Right, vietnam. Yeah, right. Well, but a bunch of places. No, I mean, I mean, that's the most that's the most visceral in our culture right the most visceral one think like But supporting the overthrow of democracy in Chile I mean facture supported that more directly by being good pals with pinache But this kind of stuff where in the history books even in I sometimes teach a level history Even in a level history you learn that there were two sides to the cold war Yeah, and that you can't take you can't just see the west as the good guys and the east as the bad guys And if anyone was speaking to a member of the eastern bloc consider that completely suspicious, you know, this is it's a cold war ideology that doesn't really have credence anymore, but Tory MPs and I think that's why why it's not sticking And but Tory MPs and and these journalists are sticking with all the people that's to cite in this conversation I'm gonna bring Ann Coulter And she says that Ann Coulter if people don't know is obviously just kind of very right-wing commentary in the US In many ways, I think the most talented because she she nails things in a certain way quite succinctly And I remember her saying this when trump was being pinned down with all this russia stuff She said americans don't care about russia. You know why because we won the cold war They don't care we won move on next story. So there's no sense of um anger of grievance You won the cold war. Why are you still talking about mosca? Why trying to address Vladimir Putin up as Nikita Khrushchev mark 2 it's not going to work because On the one hand you're saying this on the other hand such integral part of our political culture is the west is so great We beat these guys. Well, if we beat them then how the hell are they such a threat? And uh, I mean she was right because trump won and the russia stuff still Whatever you think about it Isn't sticking. I mean it's polling after his state of the union address. I think went up slightly. So Yeah, I don't I mean I I don't know who thinks this stuff works. It's a waste of time, which is great I mean this this shit ain't sticking do you think that the corbin project Thrives an adversity that actually they've done him a favor uh I think there's there's two answers to this question. So it does thrive in these moments, but whether or not it can sustain itself on Moment after moment after moment after moment until the next general election is a different question. So I think even though some Some onlookers have been a bit disappointed that things have been a bit quiet over the last couple of months So there isn't the same kind of anti establishment fights that we saw during the general election I've been one of them. Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, I think it's a legitimate position But the argument is is that sustainable for four years or is it Better for in this period You're sort of trying to reassure people you're trying to broaden your base you're trying to build up new allies and new constituencies Even if it is with seemingly incredibly boring policies like 50 things to do with your pet I can't the 50 point plan for 50 like this plan for pats pats. No not at all, but Well, I'm making five. Why 50 points 50s 50s wait It's like when it's like when they did uh about a thousand of one questions about brexit or something I remember when they launched that one It maybe could have been done better But what I'm saying is that if what you're doing doesn't get huge headlines for the next year considering we're in A low point in an electoral cycle anyway Sort of building a bit of a narrative where you reassure people where you flesh out your economic policy a little bit And I'm not sure if you can sustain Taking on the establishment every week for four years I mean, I I think do it when you have to and I've been a hat to this week I mean I wrote in 2016 I said the new laws of politics kind of thing about after trump won and after brexit And I said in the new politics either you're on the front foot or you're on the back foot And I believe that I don't think there's a standing still in politics at the moment So if you look at the s.m.p. For instance, there's the referendum 2014 huge breakthrough in the general election the following year in may 2015 and They sort of stood still and it doesn't work It doesn't work because we're in a moment of profound economic and political crisis We're in a moment of declining media. We're in a moment of Consent really being withdrawn from our system even amongst Tories even amongst people that will never vote labor or Jeremy Corbyn They are losing consent in the status quo. Now that means they either go to ukip or they don't vote or they go to the libtems Or you know, they'll carry on voting the Tories, but they really hate doing it But really very very very few people are actually happy with the system as it is So I do think that kind of static I can understand why you'd want to do it. I mean, it's very tempting, but I think to do it for Years I think will be a huge mistake and that's why I think that this Has almost been a gift to Jeremy Corbyn. I mean, what is true is that people hate the press There's a lot of evidence to suggest that people have no respect and no trust for these guys so when They try and get all hand-wringing about oh, he's attacking our friend No one thinks the sun are a neutral arbiter in politics being unfairly attacked. Everyone knows there are hyperpartisan Organization with zero screw pulls and who are very inclined to lie So taking on they are one of the most what was great about yesterday is the two headlines where Jeremy Corbyn takes on bankers And Jeremy Corbyn takes on the media. I mean that's it, right? That's perfect No one likes those guys for good reason a final point on this story. I remember doing I was doing probation Actually just before it was outsourced to circle in London and I was in south london with a bunch of It's mostly young younger black guys Because nobody's done anything particularly serious. There were also some women Who'd done driving offences and again, they were all black And the point is if you're a white person who doesn't you know It does something naughty while you're driving you don't do this, right? You just get a slap on the wrist So that was Pretty amazing just as an experience in terms of the racialization of the criminal justice system But I remember one there was one day when uh, one of the guys came in one of the gaffers came in And he put the sun and it was two jamaican men actually And he put the sundown on the paper the the newspaper the sundown on the on the table And my heart sank and I thought oh my god, they're reading the sun It's just all these young boys just joking go. This is a lot of like bullshit. Ha ha lol. This is funny People don't go to this and this is what I don't like with the left to go We need to persuade these people through the sun nobody reads the sun for their political views Actually, that's why so many sun readers at the last general election voted labor They go for the football they go because it's literally it's peanuts. It costs like 20p or something Uh, they go for a bit of a laugh and a bit of an escape And something to read on the bus or on their tea break. They're not going trevor cavernor says this in the Sun, you know, I'm gonna agree with them. It may be part of a broader ecology where it confirms other things They're hearing and reading. Sure. I'm not saying it's unimportant But in and of itself is a kind of former of political opinion. I think it's really really really overestimated More now more than ever, right? So right we're gonna move on to the big business today the main business Jordan Peterson and communist lobsters So, uh, Jordan Peterson. Who is he Michael? Well, actually he doesn't think lobsters were communist Just just to just to clarify He he thinks lobsters were deeply deeply hierarchical Uh, and and lived in a very unequal society. But anyway, who is he? He's a canadian Psychologist, uh, who is I don't know if he is anymore, but for a very long period of time He was number one on the us canadian and uk book charts with his book 12 rules for life Which is a self-help guide which we've both been reading which mixes Biblical stories with evolutionary biology and And psychology, right and psychology and then quite a lot of anti-communism And basically no sociology or politics. We'll talk about that in a second if maybe gary can get this up You can see this guy's book on amazon um 12 rules of life and antidote to chaos or something exactly. Yeah, so the general theme is that You it's sort of aimed at young men And the idea is that to be To live a good life You need to have some self-discipline. You need to have some purpose. You need to get up at the right time. You need to eat well um, and you need to act strong Then people will respect you. Um, and you need to forego immediate pleasures for Long-term achievements. It's 13 pound 60 Uh, it's a big book and it's only in hardback, right? And um, I think it's 450 pages. Is it? I downloaded it. It's a big big book I mean, I was just listening to it on audible um, so I went through about half of it just a couple of hours um It's a big big book and you think I can understand, you know a book the size of capitalist realism when I was Talking to versa about doing this fully automated luxury communism book They were saying let's do a pamphlet because that's what's going to sell that's the presumption But actually what jordan petens has done here is a self-help book But it's you know 450 pages. It's like reading hagel or something and actually the pros as you'll know Can be quite thick and turgid at points Well, it's I mean in Obviously we'll get onto the politics of it but just the fact of that this is the most Selling book and also that joe rogan and those podcasts which are two and a half hours of just a conversation um about quite Serious significant topics. I mean that it's often wrong obviously. Um, but it is quite Counter-intuitive, especially to what people have been expecting In the recent media landscape, which is that you have to make things short snappy Uh, very quick to the point Um, whereas yeah, it turns out. There is actually quite a large audience for very discursive Long-winded. I mean, it's all quite easy to understand. It doesn't You don't have to have read anything else to read it, which is what's quite one of the reasons. It's quite popular so people on the left um, so I was reading uh An article by shu ha haida from viewpoint sort of critiquing it because he's it was a misreading of derrida Or he hadn't really bothered reading derrida, but the whole point of jordan petersen is that to read it You don't have to have read anything else. It gives you sort of like these introductions to different schools of thought which makes sense to people because they do Exist as tendencies kind of in the world even if they're mistreated. We're getting a bit ahead of ourselves We're talking about derrida and stuff like this. Um I guess a good place to start for a british audience is the interview that he did with kathy newman on channel four Well, this is where he got famous so so and around the world he got famous basically from various shock moments So in canada, it was a controversy about a new law about trans rights, which we're going to get to in britain It was this interview with kathy newman where she was trying to Take him down basically she was trying to skewer him and she failed Um, and this has over six million views now and this is what more Well, the last time I looked it was six million so even more now. I think he's got a lot more Maybe I'm wrong. Um, so It was like tens of millions now now Things like 32 million or something. I don't I don't want to misinform people So I mean won't be the first time but this this was the moment where the book went to Number one in the uk charts not many people had heard of him before this He was touring the uk at this point. I know he did a speech a speech He was talking at conway hall. I think in london and he went on channel four that day He's back over here actually a man. I want to get him on. I'd love to go I want to challenge him on this stuff 7.3 million views 7.3 million There's a video of him somewhere. Maybe that's the Joe Rogan video. Okay, anyway On that note, we're going to go to the latter parts the latter stages of that interview with Kathy Newman particularly where they focus on the The neurotransmitters of lobsters and what it tells us about hierarchies. Let's let's see that Right that you hate to be compared to You want to stir things up? I'm only a provocateur in so far as When I say what I believe to be true. It's provocative. I don't provoke Maybe for humor now and then I'm not interested in provoking But what about the thing about you know fighting and the lobster tell us about the lobster Well, that's quite a segue. Well, the first chapter I have in my book Is called stand up straight with your shoulders back and it's an injunction to be combative Not least to further your career. Let's say but also to adopt A stance of ready engagement with the world and to reflect that in your posture and the reason that I write about lobsters is because there's this idea that hierarchical structures are a sociological construct of the western patriarchy and that is so untrue that it's almost unbelievable And I use the lobster as an example because the lobster we we devolved from lobsters in evolutionary history about 350 million years ago common ancestor and lobsters exist in hierarchies and they have a nervous system attuned to the hierarchy And that nervous system runs on serotonin just like our nervous systems do And the nervous system of the lobster and the human being is so similar that anti-depressants work on lobsters And it's part of my attempt to demonstrate that the idea of hierarchy has absolutely nothing to do with sociocultural Construction which it doesn't let me just get straight. You're saying that we should organize our societies along the lines of the lobsters I'm saying that it's inevitable that there will be continuity in the way that animals and human beings organizing organize their structures It's it's absolutely inevitable and there is one third of a billion years of evolutionary history behind that So that's I mean, that's really interesting, right? He's um, he's using evolutionary biology as a defense for quite reactionary politics And that's new and that's new. I mean you get historical racists at the end of the 19th century, but it's bad science, right? That's the thing with um Spengler or Lombro so in Italy the sort of basis of you know, white supremacy is justifiable Those are white man's burden because these people are racially superior. What he's now saying is well actually hierarchy is inevitable You need it in societies and it's an outgrowth of nature and actually it's hundreds of millions of years old It even precedes primates and I thought the the problem with that conversation was I mean, we're going to agree you're always going to have hierarchies Um, even anarchists would say you have some forms of hierarchy For instance, you have representation through delegates. The point is they're recallable The point is it's democratic or they would say there's a hierarchy on base of competence A doctor can operate on you because they're a doctor whereas a mechanic can't So you're always going to have hierarchies, but it's about democratic oversight um Their ability to compel other people to do things And I that's just completely absent in what he's saying. I mean humans have always had hierarchies, but god the hierarchy of you know Hunter gatherers 12,000 years ago on the savannah obviously looks completely different that donald trump is president of the united states well, I think what's what's happening in that interview and this is quite common for jordan peterson and it's why it would have been I think if you went with the right preparation you could take him on on these things, which is he's he's basically built up a strawman And he's got quite a ridiculous position Which is there was no hierarchy before patriarchy and capitalism And therefore if we get rid of both of them we'll get rid of hierarchy. That's the argument. He's he's seemingly arguing against and he's saying because There is a human nature. It's not Unmalleable, but there are some sort of constants that will exist Within it. I think that's true I mean, I think you can use evolutionary biology to sort of like derive some insights about How we behave. I don't think you can get any sort of moral justification for anything from it But do you not think the art that means there is an answer which says Nature isn't just well, that's the point. We're not purely biological animals We're also, you know, whether it's in pico de la Miranda or Shakespeare or pope You know humans are somewhere between the the dust and between the angels the point is we're sentient and we can Reflect on our social situations, which is an amic and they constantly change and we can try and shape them in ways which we think are more Just right. Nobody thinks that for instance universal equality or equality in the law Is an outgrowth of biology? We just think that's a pretty good way to run society because if you were x person Then you would want it to be run like that too Now what I think what the argument he's making Is that we can learn and this is what I mean is he's chosen a very easy target He's chosen a very easy target which is sort of like potentially a non-existent But some sort of basically us campus politics is who he's targeting it at and you do get this tendency from From some political movements and arguments, which is that everything is socially constructed There isn't really a human nature oppression is something that we learn from Capitalism competition is something that we learn from capitalism and he's saying actually it goes deeper than that And whatever society you build you're going to have some You're going to have many competitive individuals who are seeking some sort of status over each other I mean that's all he says in that clip there. I mean if if you read deeper into it. It's a much more inherently conservative Doctrine basically because he thinks he he tries to characterize everything That's not the status quo as that kind of totalitarian desire to remove all inequality I mean, this is mark fisher talks about this in capitalist realism, right? He talks about Because there is so little to offer on the neoliberalism that The establishment try to construct consent on anti utopianism So what I think Jordan Peterson is appealing to there is you can't change the status quo Things will always be bad and actually it's an outgrowth to some extent of our our natural inclinations in a biology And like you say and we'll get on to this in a second any attempt to do so Actually will always will always be negative and I think this is This is important because conservative ideology fundamentally can accept the possibility of change But it says it has to be slow and it has to happen when it works Reactionary ideology actually wants to reverse society back to a former state of affairs So arguably you could take conservatism. It's possibly a modern ideology Angela Merkel is actually a conservative, you know She wants to change things very incrementally I think Jordan Peterson is A reactionary because he's seeking to say that actually many aspects of our modern social settlement Are born out of this error and actually we need to go back. That's why I say that this whole evolutionary psychology thing He's trying to basically prop up. I think I think an anti an anti-initement politics a politics literally which would precede the french and american revolutions If you take his arguments theological conclusion feudal feudalism fundamentally divine right of kings things like this Well, it depends. I mean, it's quite vague. I think it's left quite vague. I mean it on on the most basic level. It's a sort of Well, no, but if you say politically the center of my politics is hierarchy is natural I mean that does lend itself to Yeah, I mean if you give that a central place in your politics, which he does and but that's because he's made this weird Enemy he sort of made up this enemy of someone who's wants no hierarchy So he's treating it like there's either hierarchy or no hierarchy And there isn't a discussion of different levels of hierarchy or democratic hierarchy or non democratic hierarchy So he's he's counterposing Basically the stakes quo with something Completely bizarre that not actually many people are fighting for so that's why he's and that's why it's so slippery Right, so that was the the cathy newman. What would you think of that interview by the way? Because it was quite long in the end, wasn't it? Yeah, I mean, I think I think the the interview was that was the first I'd seen of Jordan Peterson was from that interview and He didn't say anything as shocking as I was expecting because it's I mean he did he He wasn't really pushed to the logical conclusion of any of his arguments where it gets really conservative. So he was generally talking against a A straw man Which is and what a lazy place the argumentation that cathy Newman took now look the books 450 pages She probably didn't read much of it. She probably just watched a few videos fine But this kind of skewering clearly actually it's very counterproductive with somebody like him When I saw that interview, I don't know if you feel the same It really it just really hit me that the left has to get their shit together when it comes to Criticizing and confronting the ideologues of the radical right, which he is a member of I don't these are fascists But I think he's clearly On the radical right. He's like I said, I think he probably has a reactionary politics And there's this default thing where it's just like call somebody a fascist Call somebody a white supremacist and that's it. You're not winning the argument. Guess what politics is about persuasion you're not persuading anybody and It's not so bad in this country. But some of the stuff you see in the us is I mean, it's bad shit and it's you're only gonna lose You're only going to lose That doesn't mean you stop debating fascists or Tommy Robinson And by the way, I define a fascist as somebody in a fascist organization. Okay, it's a good place to start but Most people don't care less about politics. They don't know about the history of lobsters. They don't know about the french revolution They're gonna listen to Jordan Peterson. He looks calm. He looks the articulate He's an older man. So he has all the the associations in our culture that we we we see as congruent with authority and legitimacy And they're gonna take his argument over yours. That's life. So we need to stop doing something about it So if anything, I want Jordan Peterson to shake the left out of this Elements of the left out of this kind of laziness so that it has to make arguments We have to argue our position. Otherwise we lose because the left clearly isn't winning in terms of stopping his voice getting heard given that it's the most bought book in The uk the u.s and canada and they're some of the most watched videos on youtube Right, you can't you can't just ignore it. We can't ignore it And we can't be a lot. I mean we've done it today because it's kind of funny the lobster communism thing People go the lobster guy. I mean, it's kind of a really fucking weird way of making his argument but No, he's he's a relatively intelligent reaction reaction. We have to confront that quite Quite constructively the next video we're gonna go is I think it's on ontario where he teaches, right? Or is it toronto? On sero. I remember to canada Uh, nick sernax from canada best thing about canada, nick sernax Oh, it's toronto. It's from toronto good So we're gonna go to this video and this kind of propelled him actually as a bit of an internet star about a year ago and he's being confronted by Trans activists a range of activists. I think who who I think it seems tried to basically shut down one of his events So let's have a look at that I have a calm rational question. I won't get emotional with you. Um, so, uh, who is this legislation harming Who is harming anybody who wants to use their own words? In what in what capacity be specific look, it's important that people are able to use their own words Okay, because that's how we think and if the government starts legislating how we think So if I wanted to call you she No, no, I'm playing off of what you're saying if I wanted to call you she and her and miss because that's my freedom speech And and if everyone just called you that all the time and that was the only thing Can you tell I I think that you think that you don't care because you've never had to face that And it's a common trend among people who have never had to face, uh, like transgender related discrimination That you think it's not a big deal because you don't have to deal with that. I didn't say I didn't think it was a big deal I said I didn't care if people called me that It does prevent us from accessing I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I have a question for you. Yeah, do you realize that right now if you were to kill a trans person because I mean, this is interesting, right? Because he's talking about the pronouns and then the second that somebody interjected with like an economic argument about Oh, they they talk about that by the way in that video. It's about all rights to housing access to XYZ material economic resources He's like he doesn't know what to talk about because his ground is civil and political rights And freedom of speech. It also wasn't in that particular It's later in that clip. I think where he does slip up and he gets a little bit nervous after that actually because He's been trying to make out. Oh, we actually haven't we actually haven't really introduced the issue. Have we? Yeah, go on. So this was so this is Jordan Peterson Like many people on on the new right get famous through a series of controversies So Jordan Peterson here was that interview with Kathy Newman Where she got quite a lot of abusive tweets afterwards, but that kind of helped Jordan Peterson because it made it into a news story This was how he got famous in canada, which was opposing a bill which was going to include trans rights within their version of the human rights act and C17 C17 and he'd read into this that This is going to make it illegal for me to this is going to make it a legal requirement that I refer to Anyone or that anyone refers to anyone by their favored pronoun And he's saying this isn't about and his argument is constantly this isn't about the rights of I'm not interested in attacking the rights of trans people What I'm saying is we this is a freedom of speech issue And I and a person shouldn't be made to say z or zeer If they if they don't want to that shouldn't be the law But what happens in this which is I mean when it's when when it's on freedom of speech, that's always when they're at their strongest in a way But they asked him would you refer to me as they or them and he was like no I wouldn't So it's so it's not about freedom of speech is that he's ideologically opposed to anyone to having to recognize anyone as non-binary As someone who doesn't feel comfortable It's a problem with the English languages. We don't really use the impersonal third person very often, right? And no, no, I'm just saying in many languages. So like this It's obviously just much of that of his argument. I wouldn't use they well actually formally in some languages You would have to use something equivalent today um, especially speaking of somebody older than you and I mean it's just And let me get this this is up from the national review and sort of clarifies. I think what he's saying and how I mean incredibly strange it is He says quote I will never use words. I hate like the trendy and artificially constructed words. I mean all words are artificially constructed Zhiyin zhe, is that what you said? Yeah, I'm not sure Zhiyin zhe, that's how it's spelt here These words the vanguard of a post-modern radical leftist ideology that I detest and which is in my professional opinion Frighteningly similar to the marxist doctrines that killed at least a hundred million people in the 20th century Now that's a big jump That's a big jump going from pronouns. And again, it's about we're saying about either hierarchy. No hierarchy false binaries Either I'm for these new pronouns Or I'm not and if I'm for them it means that I'm also in favor of gulags and hundreds of millions of people being killed Yeah, it's bizarre Um, so how how has that got so much traction amongst otherwise amongst some people who are otherwise rational? Um, well, because it's quite a seductive argument. Well, if it's framed as Um, you will be by law forced to call Someone by whatever pronoun they Choose that day Um, then yeah, it does seem like that would be a bit of a ridiculous law I mean, but what the what the activists were saying there is they were saying we don't want to be called Zhiyin or Zhiyin. We want to be called they we agree with you that we can't just mandate you to completely Change your language in a way that's completely unnatural to you and has no sort of social Context surrounding it. Yeah, but they said that's why we use they in Shakespeare. They is used as a singular No, this this has a history in our language And at the same time so then also a bunch of lawyers came in So this was a huge debate in in Canada So their association of the bar came in and said this won't be criminalizing anyone for just Misgendering someone once or twice. It's if you do it consistently In a way that's intended to harm someone like using the n word Yeah, right. We just hate we just hate speech already. Yeah, so I don't know that. I don't like that term hate speech. I think it's just Because it's a very slippery term, but I mean it clearly should become an offense. Yes And but he's trying to make it out that that's not what's up for debate So that that's how you become a controversialist really is you take something where on one One very specific interpretation Of of that law. It seems Intuitively like a bad law. It was a bit like the gender recognition act, right in this country a bit So, I mean people have a variety of opinions on it, but what people obviously focus on is okay. Well trans men in prisons Or trans sorry trans women in prisons. I think most people agree trans men shouldn't be in I mean, I wouldn't want to put them Place where they could be sexually assaulted But that seems to be the focus actually that the trans men things almost ignored While we put trans women into women's prisons and this is you know, we're talking about Pretty small numbers of people here and yet it's coming to define a debate which affects, you know I don't know how many people while it self identifies non-binary or trans in this country But you you're talking about hundreds of thousands if not millions of people Um, so it's a similar thing, right? Yeah, well, it's similar in the same way that there was a particular interpretation of That law which people who are opposed to it could make it seem like a really bad law So the fact that what they in britain what they've sort of clung onto is this idea of self identification And what they've said is look it seems completely unreasonable that someone can just say I'm a woman and then have the same rights as a woman to go into all women's spaces Which have been hard fought and won and you know, like there's women definitely have a right to all women's spaces um but what it Sort of ignores is that it's not actually that easy to just say I'm a woman, you know, you one of the best arguments I read about this was someone who was a I can't remember her name Trans lawyer, but she was saying it's actually really difficult to change all of your details to To a woman or to a man if you're if you're a woman already you need to get a new passport You need to get all these all these new different forms of identification even if it's not medically Sort of categorized as it is now so now you have to live as a trans person for two years To sign off that you that's how you get gender recognition. Whereas what the Current proposals in the gender recognition act are is that to get To be recognized as of a certain gender you have to self declare But that doesn't just mean you wake up in the morning and say yeah, I'm a woman, you know, right? Which is the sort of there's there's a bureaucratic process to go through which which does give it some social And also there's like a significant social stigma attached Right, I mean trans people are amongst the most abused people I mean in terms of their legal rights. They're often not fulfilled. They're obviously subject to sexual assault Significantly higher amongst, you know, I think that's the lgbtq community. They're significantly more likely to be sexually assaulted You know murders of black trans women in the u.s. Are huge The murder rates huge suicide rates huge mental health problems. It's like the idea that somebody's just going to one day Do this? I mean again, it's very far-fetched. Anyway enough of that Um, why does he think this is marxist? This is what I don't understand Karl Marx never talks about gender pronouns. So why does Um, Jordan Peterson thinks this has anything to do with the guy who was a political economist So he sees Marxism this is all about hierarchy again So he's saying that Marx saw any inequality as something to be abolished So but for marx it was inequality between the classes and in the process of trying to abolish that inequality you destroy Individualism tradition and then society breaks down and you end up with gulags. That's his argument, right Um, he says that when marxism went out of fashion in the 1960s it failed, right? Basically, he says when it fails post modernists replace capitalist and proletariat with oppressed and oppressor. Yeah, and It's hard to draw the relationship between this and and trans right but so you get from You have oppressed and oppressor and people see that any distinction between these two well one he's saying that Derrida sees any categorization of anything as sort of like a power relation. So the The idea that there are men and women is Born out of men oppressing women, right? So any binary category that we keep Will be inherently oppressive, right? And so we have to remove all difference because Categorization is violent basically and so he sees this as part of that process of trying to remove all difference between people and get to Equality of outcome because I mean I was listening we're going to go to the Joe Rogan podcast in a sec where he's talking We won't talk it won't include the bit that i'm about to reference He says that basically the the kind of economic marxism Was completely disproven. He says it went out of fashion in the 60s and 70s replaced by Cultural marxism post modernism by the way cultural marxism great article on this in The Guardian Is a leitmotif of fascism again. I don't believe that Jordan beats in as a fascist I just don't think he's very well read on this stuff And I think probably many of his intellectual sources. You could say are either fascists or themselves sources for fascism So the idea of cultural marxism was that basically the frankfurt school many jews by the way Leave europe under the threat of nazi tyranny. They go to the u.s. All spends been obviously dies But people like adorno hawkheimer. They go to the u.s And they basically say well look we can't win the economic battle So what we need to do is win a culture war which brings people around to our view which this is so mad Which is white men White wealthy men are the enemy because that's always the enemy under capitalism And therefore we're going to reorient this around a kind of cultural struggle rather than an economic one And then they start to make gramshi and they all talk about gramshi They were obsessed with gramshi as well as the frankfurt school and they say well actually they understood that To change society which gramshi, you know does say in their defense to change society You need to change the common sense and the prevailing ideas Rather before you change the economic relations of production So people like jordan peton he buys into all of that right steve bannon And this is why he's a fellow traveler of these people steve bannon buys into all that andrew breitbart buys into all that Alex jones buys into all of that and many members of the kkk will buy into that So when we're talking about kind of set of fellow travelers on the far right And like i say repeat jordan peton's not a fascist. He agrees with them on a number of things and in fact it's singly I think is probably the most important factor in his analysis of the left Very very very similar to fascists and again, it has nothing to do analytically. This is the article here great article Analytically has nothing to do with Marx how can you say marxism has been disproven in the last 10 years? Wades are going down in this country productivity flat in the u.s. Home ownership back to 1965 levels Technology, you know today jeff bezos announces The culture series it's about a post guest utopia will be a series on amazon demands worth 120 billion dollars Based on basically precarious low pay workers mixed with high technology Clearly the system isn't working and you know, some people happen to think that marx actually has a pretty good handle on Why inequality gets bigger over time which he concedes actually has a problem? well, I mean the The thing he really needs to do is like chill out about these Because that that whole cultural marxism idea. I mean obviously it's it's not just an accidental mistake. They've made but it's to see left-wing politics or to see any opposition to the status quo Whatever that that is as one a pathology And to a conspiracy so that's good. So jordan peterson sees any sort of Any drive for more equality as resentment Any disquiet with the status quo as as resentment and he sees resentment as a bit of a pathology He's a psychologist and then anything he sees from people he Believes to be to the left of him He reads as part of this grand conspiracy to impose Complete equality of outcome on everyone in the world and he thinks that that process which might happen innocuously it's kind of alex jones via Such a democratic politician or by a tv series on netflix. He thinks this is all people Ultimately who are trying to impose complete equality of opportunity on everyone because they believe that oppression and hierarchy Can and must be abolished as the number one priority over everything else I mean the thing about pathology is really important. So he's a psychologist like you say but um dirkheim Emil dirkheim 19th century sociologist He creates what he helps create this idea of sociology which says that social facts aren't just the accumulation of Private interests and the agency of individuals social facts are actually things which can be measured almost as objective That's what we have social science and they're distinct. They're not just the accumulation of psychological needs and desire There's something much broader and it's almost like jordan peton is saying that sociology doesn't exist Or that political science can't exist or why would this population in this time and place have the grievances that they have They may be justified instead like you say it's about it's really based on the individual And the fact that any dissensus with the status quo reflects You know an unhealthy personality Which in a way it's kind of interesting because this is how many late 19th century far-right people saw things And yeah, it's very nicely aligned with the self-help culture of neoliberalism. Yeah, exactly Which is why this book's doing so well. I think it's I mean because that would be the question to ask him is is sort of like What would you have said to black people in 1960s america would you have said stop trying to overcome Segregation and jim crow look to yourself. Look how you can improve yourself. Yeah, because there's no Yes, sometimes maybe politics is driven by resentment and people haven't thought about what system they want to create Want to replace the current one weird and maybe it's going to be worth maybe maybe that is good Maybe that is the case. Yeah, I mean that's often how things start, but how do you How do you adjudicate between those two things if you the moment you see someone rebelling you dismiss them as resentful as pathological and part of a grand conspiracy then that's a pretty Unscientific way to look at any grievance in the world But this is the thing the guy tries to pass himself off as ultra empirical ultra-rational ultra scientific and then he's just coming up with all manner of shibboleths Unevidenced and like I say this emphasis on psychology and pathology Uh, you know, he's getting rid of 150 years basically of of social science and sociology And it's it's just super weird like it's it's really good good point about you know Where would you be in terms of lgbt struggles or women struggles or well? He's he specifically says at one point in the book that we we made divorce Uh, we live we liberalized divorce laws too soon too fast I mean, there's maybe an argument for that I'm not sure. I'm not liberalized, but I mean there's maybe I mean society wasn't ready for Um, it was a huge shift in in I mean I think in sweden and look that that tells you it's not dysfunctional The fact that the the highest rates of this stuff tend to be in wealthier countries with low income inequality quite happy people But clearly something happens off or maybe I suppose the counter argument is this was like a dam, right and then actually This this new expanded understanding of personal freedom in the 1960s. Yes Okay, it actually did get rid of thousands of years worth of presumptions around the centrality of the family I mean it did happen remarkably quickly and I look at uh, Women my mum's age for instance I know she always she always struggled with her personal relationships with men because she didn't know what the expectations were Um, and I think as a generation we're quite lucky because men do have to do the things that women expect to them You know, whereas I think my dad's generation. I mean he's my dad's very good But I think there was a there was a an interregnum period there where there was a lot of uncertainty around around gender roles Um But it was something that a lot of people fought for and that improved a lot of people's lives as well, right? Only 100% I mean it's obviously an excellent thing to do But I think you know, you're not going to go from thousands of years of patriarchy and the pregnancy of men in the family unit To you know, universal gender equality. It's just not going to happen because it's a huge social shift um, but anyway, let's go to this um Joe Rogan video Where he talks about cultural markism a little bit more because this is something we really We want to unpack because it shows just how much he is a a bird of a feather with people like Alex Jones So that's good. Uh, I haven't because people don't do it. They don't ask me to do it But what is it about that idea or that ideology about marxism that's so attractive to Young students and to university professors. That's a good question I think it goes back to the issue of inequality and and this is something that has to be dead seriously addressed It's like you might say well, why is the left wing necessary? Let let's let's put it that way And so and then a subset of that would be well, why is the left wing attractive? Well, the left wing is necessary because inequality does spiral out of control And so there has to be a political voice for the dispossessed and you you don't want people to stack up at zero You know where they can't play the game at all. It's a bad idea Not only do you not if people stack up at zero, they're too poor to get ahead at all Let's say they're too poor to open a bank account. They're too poor to buy enough food Like they're stuck at zero and they can't get out of it. It's a really bad scene because first of all that's a lot of suffering And that's not so good second of all Well, at least in principle a lot of those people might be What might have something to offer the world or their children might and you want to open up avenues of opportunity To them so that they can succeed but so that everyone else can benefit from their success So and then the next thing is well if the inequality gets out of hand too much Then the whole society starts to destabilize because if you get enough people stacked up at zero, especially young men You get enough young men stacked up at zero. They think oh to hell with it We'll just flip the whole board over And it'll settle in a new configuration and maybe we won't be stuck at zero in the new configuration So it foments revolutionary thinking So there's lots of reasons to be concerned about inequality And so you need a voice on the left to say look we got to Parameterize the the tendency towards inequality so that it doesn't destabilize the entire society So that it's everybody has an opportunity to advance like yes right you need that Okay, so that's the technical reason for the necessity of the left and then I think it's attractive because well because young people can be resentful partly because they're at the bottom of the Heap so to speak They're not Because they're young like look you want to be you want to be poor in 18 You want to be rich in 80 Which you're going to choose most people's going to take poor at 18 Well, yeah, especially if you've been rich at 80 and you understand you can get back there Yeah, well, that's the thing. You know is that Most of the people who are have a million dollars or more in the united states are old Well, why is that? Well, really? Do we need an explanation for that? It's like you've This is really stupid. This is really really really thick So the idea that people have asset ownership just because they're older I mean look in britain for instance in the 1980s you get uh cheap council housing You still have high wages. You can still get public pensions if you were let's say you weren't working in the In one of the public industries, which was privatized you kept your old pension You probably got some of the stock you bought your house on the cheap then in the 1990s your mortgage is nice and cheap After there's a brief period where it's not because of high interest rates interest rates get cheap again You pay off your mortgage. You've got your pension. You can then buy a second home You can make loads of money the political economy of asset ownership changes With falling wages inability to access credit after credit crunch and house prices in haring gay He's 15 times the average wage. It wasn't that 30 40 years ago So this idea about asset ownership just being a function of age of how old you are It's fucking stupid and again, it's a man that's trying to pass himself off as empirical and studious and a social scientist This does not stack up as a remotely intelligent argument I agree. I mean I get again. I think it's this thing where he's he's doing a He it's unclear who he's arguing with so he's arguing with someone with a completely ridiculous position which probably doesn't even exist and he's never He says on that Joe Rogan thing that he's never actually debated a Marxist He doesn't seem to debate left-wing people because then they'd probably say that's not actually what we what we think, mate Do you know what I mean? And it's like how well, I mean there. He's just saying kids protest because kids are resentful I mean He mainly only sees kids protesting because he's at university, right? So he's he doesn't see working class movements or movements of People with concrete demands to improve their life in the here and now Presumably in Iran recently without the protests there presumably he supported that to an extent. I mean, does he think that was just kids? Well, that was that a legitimate grievance Well, he doesn't give us any way of finding out what is and what is not a legitimate grievance I mean to be honest if you if you see there he he does actually so he says A grievance is only legitimate if it's so If it becomes dysfunctional for the current order, right? So he's saying we can't let people get too poor because especially if we let young men get poor They'll revolt and that might bring down the system. So he's basically got this functional idea that we need the left for functional reasons to keep the poor just Uh Wealthy enough to not do revolution But no more because if we if we give them anymore, that's that's very dangerous. There's a quote after the great format in britain 1832 it's kind of first step to a democracy in this country And it extends the the franchise the middle class it gets rid of things called lotten boroughs. There's all sorts of things and um Now what's a quote, but I can't remember who said it and it was reforms that you may preserve Was the line and effectively I think that seems to be his politics where again, it's you know You would only reform to maintain the social order Which I think seems kind of odd with some of his more reactionary points around for instance things like marriage or women in the workplace Well, he didn't think that was necessary, you see so so probably what he would have said is that and he's he talks about Reformed to divorce to divorce laws as if it was pushed for by a small minority So he basically thinks right if the if the moral majority had had Spoken out against this minority Then they could have quite comfortably kept that current social order and and it would have been stable If there was just a bit more grit from the right at that point to say like no, he likes he likes saying no This is raw. I can't do his voice But that's you need to come at the front. You need to come at the front. I don't want to get personal because People should Stand up and say no, this is wrong when any kind of minority demands They're right and say no, you're being resentful. No, we need to keep the social order Unless it's become so unequal. It's dysfunctional. But how do we know how do we know when that's the case? I just find the whole thing so is I look at look at people of color in the us african-americans in particular Now there's an argument a countervailing argument that says there's no racism in the us especially police racism because This is true Black people in the us are far more likely to be killed by the black people in black on black crime But the point is on the left we would understand that as an outgrowth of social and economic inequality Of course coming from slavery, but even more recently in 1945 you get the gi bill You get it also after career also after vietnam This privileges veterans, especially after world war two to mortgage credit free university tuition business loans African-americans don't really get that stuff So already you're seeing different, you know, he talks about we don't want opportunity of outcome. We want opportunity We don't want equality of outcome. We want a quality of opportunity You can see quite clearly there. There are these massive divergences historically between white and black people in america around A quality of opportunity And yet again, I think again, I don't even think it's that he disagrees with that. I don't think he knows it I mean, it's so weird. He's making these public declarations around politics His background is psychology. Actually some of the biblical stuff in the book. I find interesting But it's the most unscientific stuff i've ever engaged with and yet It seems to be forming the bedrock for this the pseudo scientific right Primarily on youtube, uh, which thinks I mean, it's really intellectually resourced which believe me. It isn't We have sociology. We have social science to understand social facts We don't need to talk about, uh Jung We can it's a variable, but not a big one. I think two things to take Seriously about Jordan Peterson So one is that I think some of the places where he is strongest is where the left is weakest so in the shoe her hide a piece I was discussing he was sort of Arguing with Peterson because he hadn't properly read derrida but then Haider goes on in the piece to say that oh, I've just got rid of it to say that What he was arguing against was what Peterson was claiming derrida said was that Uh There's just a suspicion of all objective truth in service of some kind of moralizing politics of identity So he's saying he's imposing on derrida this idea. There is no objective truth And Haider's saying Derrida never actually said that but Haider also says that this has actually become one of the key interpretations of derrida in american campus universities Between the 90s 80s and the 1990s. So this idea of total relativism and this idea that there is no objective truth science language Everything is just constructed by power relations, which did become quite a big deal in Literature departments, for example, but not the social sciences He's just invisibilizing all of political science. No, but what i'm saying is it it got quite a lot of traction Within the left and on campuses of bits of the left in the u.s. And yeah, and it was quite but and it was quite weak And also the fact that this has got so popular means that some people are They're not just fooled They're listening to what he's saying, which is one maybe because they they saw that particular part of the left Which we know at times is can be quite silencing 100% Um and can be yeah quite Foggin difficult to be part of and doesn't offer much to any newcomer because it's telling you you're You're bad and Whatever you say is problematic and just to use a word is sort of like imposing your particular Power privileges in that situation. This is not many people like this is not many people I saw some people on twitter saying that white people shouldn't go and watch black panther They should let like black people watch it first. It's a film made under capitalism You fucking dickhead the actors the shareholders the producers the movie production companies the marketing companies They all want everybody to see it as much as possible. It's a commodity produced for exchange and profit This idea like hey let the black people have their film and also it's very very insulting to people of color The idea that they're just gonna all watch thing and go hey Wakanda my place is fucking made up marvel country But that is a very like you say it's a very Minor part of the left which Jordan Peterson likes to caricature and overstate So that like with this c17 stuff. He can make himself look more credible more legitimate He does overstate it, but it's also one of the reasons we've talked about it before on the show but one of the reasons angela nagle's book was so successful and it's a similar critique of the left which is that it's without all The particular background that Jordan Peterson draws from but this idea that it's quite Obsessed with privilege in a sense and a particular way of using language because it sees language as a way that you can cause harm And so you have to be very very careful all the time with what kind of language you use And you have to you have to modify your language all the time So one of the reasons that book was so successful is because people really recognized it people thought Oh, yeah, that does happen and that that is holding back the left So the fact so I think it's a bit disingenuous to say that doesn't exist on the left The reason we know it exists on the left is because critiques of it are so fucking popular And and because we've all seen it what Jordan Peterson is saying is that this is the left? That's the point. Yeah, that's that's that's the point And in an era of Bernie Sanders Jeremy Corbyn, Ada Callow, Jean-Luc Mélenchon I mean that's obviously You know, Jean-Luc Mélenchon was not going to the French electorate I think the guys got a great shot at winning the presidency in a few years time in France He's not, you know building a political platform on Cultural relativism, right? No, I mean absolutely. He's not engaging seriously with the left But I'm saying one of the reasons it's been so successful is because that is a real strain on the left It is a real strain on the left that people recognize and see and he is arguing against it sometimes Where it's most weak, which is on its idea that there is no objective reality and everything's just power relations Which does exist and that there are people who will say that there is no biological connection between sex and gender Which I mean there is that doesn't mean it should constrain you within a prison And if you want to have a different identity, you shouldn't be able to but the idea that the The development of men and women didn't give them any sort of different Ways of behaving at the margins on average is is just bad science So but that would that shocks many people on the left if you say that And I think there are some of these weaknesses and that's why caffeine human kind of struggled because it is there are some things that are unsayable which he says in a fairly convincing way even though he takes it in a direction which is Bizarre also, I mean we're going back to this kind of idea and we're going to finish up here I guess been a great podcast I mean, I think the one last thing is just to say why why is it so popular and it's because it's talking about It's a kind of small c conservatism which does offer people something to work with which is small c conservatism so in The tenacity coats book i've been reading recently. He talks about black conservatism in one of the chapters and he says it's it's a genuine strain of Black politics which shouldn't be dismissed which is saying what you need to look at is yourself first You need to look at your community and how you're going to lift yourself up instead of blaming Everything on political structures and removing your agency in that sense. I mean, obviously it's not True well, there's some truth in both of these positions, right? So this idea that you should Look at yourself and think about personal responsibility Is reasonable and that's why it's so successful because people are reading this book and think like yeah This is actually the way I can improve my lot. It's by thinking about myself by thinking about How I relate to the world and working on it. I can't just blame everything. I mean, it's not an either all right This goes back to the whole told story thing, you know where it says Better to change yourself than change the world and it's then fed into A little of 20th 21st century anarchism as well as right-wing thinking I mean, it's just hey do both and also actually that this is that the One of the foundational ideas of Marx is that in trying to transform society You also transform yourself in trying to transform your personal conditions You also help and contribute to transformation of society. So there's this kind of Mutually reinforcing relationship between the two but What I wanted to say about Pete's in the late 19th century was we had lots of these people the fondness yet The end of the century in the late 19th century And they were talking about cultural degeneration. They were talking about You know the decline of the West as Spengler called it And they viewed the enlightenment European values as being in decline And really this is an outgrowth of the fact you have urbanization You have a population explosion amongst the working classes You don't yet have social systems which lead or lend themselves rather to The social cohesion and stability very volatile period You've anarchists killing all sorts of people in the early 1900s heads of states and so on Italian king on butter was killed by an anarchist President is killed in the u.s. McKinley, I think around that time So it's an amazing time and then you have people like Max Nordau who wrote a book called degeneration Or you have Charles Baudelaire who's The flowers of evil appointed to by people on the right are saying look these people are just degenerates Drinking their absence with their sex workers and their degenerate art Picasso modernism and They say this is Europe in decline. This is not the Europe of Da Vinci and Michelangelo and all these things and Jordan Peterson's doing the same thing now. I wonder why now that resonated significantly at the end of the 19th century Frederick Nietzsche did the same thing, by the way and I wonder why Beatsons resonating with the same message today and if we are ourselves to kind of find a siekland moment I think we may be because like the end of the 19th century was the it was an end of an era in terms of progressive globalization a certain brand of Liberal nationalism was failing. Obviously fails fundamentally in 1914 but I wonder if that's the moment we're at now where people are looking for new values and I don't mean new values in like a new pair of socks I mean a whole new world view And I think when we talk about ideas on the left and progressive politics I personally think that's the scale we need to be thinking at so in the 21st century We're going to have aging populations Minority majority countries the us and uk most people won't be white. What kind of politics do we want? And I think it's going to have to be a radical offer or these people become Increasingly influential. I'm sure there'll be more intelligent ones coming after Peterson No, I mean I should add that I say that one of the reasons it's popular is because it speaks to I think a Legitimate emphasis on self-improvement, which I don't think we should deny as a part of politics But it is also it just so happens that all his philosophical arguments defend the privilege of white men or rich men and that there is A reactionary sense in that it's trying to hold back progress which which does affect Sort of like whole classes of people's Privileges that they currently exist at the expense of other people As I remember Alex Jones when he was sort of defending the west He was we gave the world the alignment the renaissance liberal capitalism is like these are all different things. Okay The renaissance is founded upon modern republicanism the idea of radical democracy self-government That's very different to the liberal tradition about private property self-ownership of your labor comes out of john lock These are distinct traditions. I'm not they're both interesting traditions very very valuable But there's this weird illusion the construction of his like sort of european history amongst the right Where they're saying that like Protestant capitalism, which is basically the basis of the us is the same as the italian renaissance Hey, these people disagree on quite a few things um Anyway, I mean it is weird I was listening to a podcast of mylo unopolis the other day and the guy was a radical catholic And he was saying that actually the the american republic is a catholic republic Because it has such a you know centrality of natural natural rights, which isn't there in the Protestant tradition That's the level that the new right is now thinking on I think which is I mean it's instructive and the left needs to respond Right absolutely Okay, it's getting lots of hits It's getting lots of hits although. I don't know if you saw mylo selling Supplements on our external info wars earlier today. Oh, what's it? It's kind of sad, right? Well, it is. I mean it's also incredibly successful. I mean they make money from those weird Not not I'm pretty sure mylo wouldn't want to do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he's pulling from grace If that's the right way to put I mean that shows you from heights It shows you the effectiveness of I mean, I I I think there's limits to stuff like shutting stuff down I mean, I mean his career is Badly damaged. He got screwed over because of the pedophilia thing though, right? Of course, but leave you know How it being kicked off twitter, etc. Etc. I mean, it's He was getting scarily influential around a year ago. Maybe a bit more. Yeah, he's just gone. Yeah on that note We'll be making this a fortnightly thing, right? Yeah And I guess if you like this approach this kind of live podcast thing We want to do more shows like that Uh, we're thinking about doing it with all the best So if you like it feedback If this is the first time you're watching this in the viral media.com. This is Michael Walker. I'm Aaron Mestani Um, if you like what we're doing get a support on the viral media.com We're building a new media for different politics to take on the people we've been talking about today So again, like I say, I'll see you in two weeks. We've got navara fm this friday Talking about media reform and we've got the fix next monday our weekly Show on monday evenings. So regardless, I guess we'll see you soon. Bye