| | When J.K. Rowling defends the idea of women's faces, nobody says anything. |
| | The entire art world has embarrassed itself. |
| | I don't think being outspoken has helped my fiction career. |
| | Individual employees have a big problem with me. |
| | They haven't stopped the publication of my books. |
| | I'm one of the only fiction writers that I know of who has stuck his or her neck out. |
| | You would think they're independent thinkers, and they're not. |
| | These people care desperately about fashion, about status. |
| | Bill Maher coming out and saying, of course it's ridiculous to say that there are only two sexes. |
| | There's only two sexes, which is ridiculous. |
| | I find it dumbfounding. |
| | I like his deportations, drastically reducing the number of people crossing the southern border of the United States illegally. |
| | There is very little fiction that portrays the immigrant experience from the host country's perspective. |
| | It's always from the immigrant's perspective. |
| | It's one of the big problems with the Muslim community. |
| | The mountain comes to Mohammed. |
| | Lionel Shriver, welcome to the show. |
| | I'm glad to be here. |
| | I want to ask you something you've been writing about as well. |
| | Is the woke mind virus reaching its end? |
| | I think the simple answer is no. |
| | But it's a nice idea. |
| | And I'm promoting, I'm actively promoting the idea that it has become unfashionable to be woke. |
| | And that's because I think these people care desperately about fashion, about status, about being part of modernity, you know. |
| | And so if we can convince them that this stuff is simply yesterday's news, a lot of people are going to drop it. |
| | Interesting. |
| | Now, in reality, one of the reasons that the woke mind virus has been so successful is that it has infected people in positions of power. |
| | And they're still in those positions of power, with the singular exception of the United States presidency. |
| | Would that be an example of politics being downstream of culture? |
| | Well, right now, politics seems upstream of culture. |
| | It seems to be determinative. |
| | The reason that we suddenly have in our minds that, you know, woke is over is purely because of what happened in November. |
| | And a couple of percentage points going the other way, we wouldn't be having this discussion. |
| | That's really interesting. |
| | Because I always wonder, okay, maybe the left are going to get into power at some point. |
| | Does that mean the country is going to go more left? |
| | Or are people going to push back against it and go lurch to the right? |
| | I suppose it can change depending on the circumstances. |
| | And I guess what you're saying is right now, Trump being a bit more to the right, a bit more anti-woke in particular, has actually led to people feeling more emboldened about saying no to some of the madness. |
| | Well, it's basically emboldening the majority, which hasn't been emboldened, has been actively oppressed and suppressed. |
| | Most of the so-called anti-woke views are simply common sense and rational defense of normal values, normal even democratic values. |
| | And finally, it seems as if we can say there are two sexes, for example. |
| | It's embarrassing to have to make that announcement as if it's some kind of discovery. |
| | But I'm relieved to have a government that embraces that kind of simple scientific reality in great contrast to the Biden administration. |
| | Now, how much having Trump in the White House is going to change the culture is really hard to determine because culture is so amorphous. |
| | It's like, what is culture? |
| | I mean, when I got it in the neck for deriding the idea of cultural appropriation back in 2016, one of the things that I had to come to grips with was, what is culture? |
| | We don't often ask ourselves that, but it is a very ill-defined phenomenon. |
| | And that makes it hard to pin down. |
| | So we can step back and say that we've been through an era in which far-left ideologies came to dominate the culture, the conversation, what people talk about, what people make movies about, what people make television about, what people write books about. |
| | What I've written books about. |
| | But it's just, how do you, that is a big step back perception. |
| | And when culture is actually changing, it's really difficult to tell, is this just a moment in time when we're suddenly saying that everything has changed? |
| | And then later we'll step back and say, actually, not much changed at all. |
| | You can't, you almost can't know what's happening in your own time. |
| | You certainly can't predict it. |
| | And that's, you know, I was saying to you just before we started about Bill Maher coming out and saying on two separate occasions, just out of nowhere, as if it were the most sensible thing in the world, he said, of course, it's ridiculous to say that there are only two sexes. |
| | And that was, I felt that it was very disappointing for you to hear that. |
| | Yeah, it was. |
| | I find it dumbfounding and unlike him. |
| | I'm a big admirer of Maher. |
| | And he says very little with which I don't agree. |
| | And I don't know. |
| | Honestly, I don't know what he's talking about. |
| | What is the other sex? |
| | Yeah, he hasn't named them. |
| | No. |
| | I think he was just trying to suggest there's a, well, amorphous being the kind of, the sort of blob of sexuality. |
| | Well, of course, there are all kinds of sexuality. |
| | But that's the same thing as sex. |
| | And he's smart enough to know that. |
| | So, I mean, he doesn't usually say things just to please. |
| | Not that I've perceived. |
| | That is the kind of thing that a liberal would say to keep certain kinds of people on side. |
| | But I don't read him as somebody who is heavily influenced by trying to please. |
| | So, maybe he knows someone or cares about someone who's very attached to this way of thinking. |
| | Maybe there is some kind of confusion in his head about, you know, the many different sexualities that people have. |
| | And he thinks that's the same thing. |
| | But there's no way that's not disappointing to me. |
| | Is that something you've come across that when people go along with this insane view about sex, that they tend to have a personal relationship that means they sort of have to defend that position? |
| | I think very often when you find someone whom you think you know pretty well, whose views you generally have regard for, who suddenly comes up with, you know, an orange and a wine of apples on the slot machine. |
| | It's often because they're close to somebody and they're protecting that relationship. |
| | Is that like someone like other people in mind? |
| | I mean, Cynthia Nixon, do you know that is a Sex and the City woman? |
| | Yes. |
| | David Tennant, do you know that is a lot of people in mind that you find particularly frustrating? |
| | Just, I'm not speaking of public figures right now, but I just mean personally, I find, you know, there's certain classes where, and geographical locations where the number of trans kids is just through the roof. |
| | And I know that when you deal with someone who isn't necessarily a parent, but at least, you know, this whole thing is a big part of their friendship group. |
| | It's touchy, right? |
| | And parents who go along with it have a lot on the line. |
| | You know, they have a, they fiercely have to defend the whole phenomenon because they've made sacrifices for it. |
| | And, and it's, and in defending the movement, then they are also protecting their relationship with their kid. |
| | So I have some sympathy with that. |
| | Not, I, not absolute sympathy, but limited sympathy. |
| | If woke people, as you've written out, conformists, does that suggest that if the tide does change, they might cling to whatever is next? |
| | I've seen a writer called Thomas Chatterton Williams. |
| | He was writing about vice signaling and replacing virtue signaling. |
| | Now we see Trump and Musk and the, the, the Sig Heils and things like that. |
| | Do you think that might be the next big fashion? |
| | Well, I was about to say it would surprise me if Nazism really took hold in, on the left. |
| | But considering what they've done in relation to Hamas, of it, nothing's far-fetched, right? |
| | I mean, they're defending the rape of babies. |
| | Great. |
| | So there's obviously no limit. |
| | And after all, my most recent novel, Mania, which, of course, you're obliged to talk about. |
| | Yes, yes, Mania. |
| | Tell me about Mania. |
| | Well, Mania starts with this young quote, doesn't it? |
| | Do you remember, do you know the quote in your head? |
| | Of course not. |
| | I don't remember anything. |
| | It's about the psychic epidemic being the most dangerous thing. |
| | Yes, which it is. |
| | Yeah. |
| | It's more dangerous than the medical kind. |
| | Mania is expressly about it having taken hold in 2011 that there's no such thing as variable human intelligence. |
| | Everyone is equally smart. |
| | And the idea of calling anyone stupid becomes the new, you know, it's the new N-word. |
| | Okay. |
| | Okay. |
| | So it's the S-word. |
| | And if everyone is equally smart, then all kinds of meritocratic mechanisms are moot. |
| | So, you know, there are no standards because anyone is going to be able to meet them. |
| | And so if you have standards, you necessarily have a means by which people can fail to meet them. |
| | And that becomes just unacceptable. |
| | So there are no grades. |
| | There are no admission standards at all for getting in universities. |
| | But even more concerning, there are no more tests for becoming an air traffic controller or a pilot or a surgeon. |
| | And first of all, I'm obviously making fun of a series of what I perceive to be social manias, especially during the last 15 years. |
| | Though I wanted to make up my own so that it wasn't expressly looking at just one of them and say, you know, sending up the trans movement, for example. |
| | Though it is in some ways a model for this, partly because it is in defiance of biological reality. |
| | The truth is some people are really smart, much smarter than I am. |
| | But there are actually a few people out there who are dumber. |
| | So we know this to be true. |
| | And so I was interested in doing, making a mania that defies what everyone knows. |
| | More generally, I'm interested in the phenomenon of the social mania. |
| | And I've just watched them whiz by recently. |
| | I mean, the Me Too movement, the Black Lives Matter movement. |
| | COVID, in some ways, was a social mania with lots of little sub manias, like masking. |
| | And I am increasingly concerned that this whole net zero climate change thing has all the symptoms of another mania. |
| | Now, the same people who were prone to all the woke, all these woke manifestations are going to be vulnerable to the next one. |
| | Because those are the kinds of people they are. |
| | So even if they get over being completely obsessed with race and gender, something else will come along to be obsessed with. |
| | And it will be equally irrational. |
| | Do we have those on the right? |
| | Yes. |
| | I mean, there's a way in which the whole Trump phenomenon is itself a mania. |
| | I mean, I try really hard to preserve my perspective on him as a phenomenon. |
| | I'm not a fan. |
| | I've never voted for him. |
| | But he is doing some things that I like. |
| | And it's interesting in this polarized environment how difficult it is to maintain a moderate position on anything. |
| | Because, of course, with certain groups of people, the first, whenever you say anything good about Trump, you have sullied yourself and you're in the wrong camp. |
| | So I admit I like his deportations. |
| | They have already succeeded in drastically reducing the number of people crossing the southern border of the United States illegally. |
| | I'm a little queasy about the nature of his cabinet. |
| | I don't think they're all crazy or going to completely destroy the federal government. |
| | But I'm also not convinced that they are the best qualified for their positions. |
| | I'm concerned about his reducing the size of the federal workforce without consideration. |
| | It's being done too hastily. |
| | I have a nephew in the Weather Service. |
| | And he's frantic that he may lose his job. |
| | And he deserves his job. |
| | And he's worked hard in the Weather Service. |
| | We, you know, I use the Weather Service. |
| | We all do, really. |
| | And I don't want to see him fired for no good reason. |
| | It wouldn't help the country. |
| | It wouldn't appreciably solve the deficit problem. |
| | In fact, I gathered that hiring everyone in the federal government only cost about 3% of the budget. |
| | I was shocked by that. |
| | Yeah. |
| | I couldn't believe it, how small it was. |
| | So, you know, I try to not get sucked into the cult of Trump and to maintain an ability to independently assess what he does and who he is. |
| | I'm not enamored with him, but he can sometimes make me laugh. |
| | Yeah. |
| | He's really funny. |
| | Yeah. |
| | He's just crazy funny in a way that I'm not sure Elon Musk is. |
| | Elon Musk. |
| | I don't find Musk funny at all. |
| | No. |
| | I find him a little goofy. |
| | Yeah. |
| | But he's just an awkward person. |
| | Yeah. |
| | Which is a shame because I like funny people. |
| | I like people who, I mean, don't we all? |
| | We like people who can make us laugh. |
| | Trump is, whether you like him or not. |
| | I mean, I used to, when I was a bit younger, I would hate someone like Trump, but he still made me laugh. |
| | But I don't, I guess where I worry is, it's not Trump, it is some of the people around Musk and the SIG Hiling. |
| | And I know people will say, oh, he's just being funny, but I just don't find it that funny. |
| | Oh, it's not funny. |
| | Yeah. |
| | Um, I mean, if we're talking about that original so-called SIG Hile, I thought that was, it was just, you know, my heart goes out to me. |
| | I think so as well. |
| | Don't do that. |
| | Oh, no. |
| | I'll never live it down. |
| | Yeah, I know. |
| | Pictures of you everywhere. |
| | I can't believe you did it. |
| | But no, of course, I think so as well. |
| | Or he seems like the kind of person that somebody could have said to him before, see if you can get away with doing it as a joke. |
| | Who knows? |
| | You know, you win the, you get to have the first beer if you can do it and no one realizes you did it. |
| | Or as a joke, I don't think he's a Nazi. |
| | It's ridiculous. |
| | But now loads of them started doing it. |
| | And it just feels to me, and I can imagine you wouldn't like this as well, because you write about conformism. |
| | It just feels like another kind of identity politics. |
| | You know, am I on the vice signaling side? |
| | Can I show that I'm a naughty boy and do the SIG Hile? |
| | Well, as you say, it's not funny. |
| | Yeah. |
| | It's hard to make Nazis funny. |
| | I mean, there was. |
| | Hogan's Heroes was one of my favorite shows as a kid. |
| | There you go. |
| | So, take it back. |
| | Charlie Chaplin. |
| | It can be done. |
| | Chaplin did it, didn't he? |
| | Yeah. |
| | So, yeah. |
| | What about, have you, I mean, you must have been asked over the years about this, but we need to talk about Kevin. |
| | He's obviously the big hit, the big, even more popular than your other work. |
| | And you talk so much, write some. |
| | Don't make my books the enemies of one another. |
| | Yeah. |
| | They're all wonderful, beautiful pieces of art who love one another. |
| | One of them got made into this huge, huge film. |
| | And two of the main actors in it are really on board. |
| | That gender train. |
| | Ezra Miller, isn't it? |
| | Ezra Miller. |
| | And Tilda Swinton's just, Tilda Swinton's come out with a lot of angry, woke stuff. |
| | Just when I thought it was dying down. |
| | That's a pity. |
| | It is. |
| | I like her. |
| | She's very smart. |
| | Did you meet those people? |
| | Were you part of that? |
| | Yeah, I did meet them. |
| | They did not become my best friends. |
| | But it was, you know, it was fun. |
| | I wasn't very involved in the making of the film. |
| | Okay. |
| | Like, I wasn't involved. |
| | They don't ask you to come along and sort of look at stuff. |
| | No, I think that's what authors always think it means. |
| | Like, you're on the set all the time and giving them pointers. |
| | Yeah, that's not how I meant it. |
| | No, no. |
| | That character wouldn't do that. |
| | So, yeah, basically I was invited to the, you know, to the premiere or whatever. |
| | Okay. |
| | And it was interesting to have a film made of one of my books. |
| | I've had a lot of, I've sold a lot of options. |
| | So, this is the only time it's actually come to fruition. |
| | I thought the best of the film was when the director lifted scenes from the book and used some of the dialogue. |
| | And when they put my dialogue together with that terrific cast and very good directing, then that film really sang. |
| | So, that gave me a taste for more. |
| | Yeah. |
| | But it hasn't happened yet in such a big way. |
| | No. |
| | Gosh. |
| | That's the dream of any writer though, isn't it? |
| | Like a big Hollywood production taking your film. |
| | Not anymore. |
| | Why not? |
| | Everyone wants a television series. |
| | Oh. |
| | Television has really, it used to be, you know, oh, if you were in film, you were embarrassed to be reduced to television. |
| | And likewise, you know, if you were George Clooney in ER, you aspired to become a Ocean's Eleven. |
| | I mean, it's totally the opposite way now. |
| | And that's real success now is having your book turned into a series. |
| | And I think especially for a novelist, there's a certain sense to that because the television series has so many more hours. |
| | I mean, a series like Succession, which I adored, is so novelistic. |
| | And so, with that amount of time, and you can develop characters in a very novelistic way. |
| | I mean, that's the big restriction in cinema is time. |
| | And there's only so much you can accomplish in that amount of time. |
| | You cannot get the fullness of character than you can now get in good television. |
| | But would that be harder for people like you or J.K. Rowling now to do because you've been so outspoken? |
| | Well, I don't think being outspoken has helped my fiction career, right? |
| | It has meant that I do more nonfiction. |
| | I have a column in The Spectator. |
| | If I kept my mouth shut the whole time, I would never have been asked to do that. |
| | And a load of other things. |
| | But there are other opportunities that I'm sure are passing me by. |
| | Of course, you never know when people are not asking you to do things, right? |
| | This absence of something happening is immeasurable. |
| | But I do not get nearly the number of invitations to, say, international literary festivals that I used to. |
| | Now, maybe that makes me lucky. |
| | But actually, the main reason it makes me unlucky is that there are certain people that I only see at literary festivals. |
| | Right. |
| | And now I'm going to have to buy my own plane ticket to visit them. |
| | Okay. |
| | That's annoying then. |
| | Right. |
| | Yeah, that's a shame. |
| | But, you know, this whole period has been disconcerting for me because I'm one of the only fiction writers that I know of who has stuck his or her neck out during this highly political and divisive time. |
| | And I just find it astonishing that supposedly creative people who think outside the proverbial box, you know, they're supposed to make something from nothing. |
| | You would think they're independent thinkers. |
| | And they're not. |
| | Yeah. |
| | They're not. |
| | And, you know, I believe that collectively the entire art world, including all forms now, has embarrassed itself. |
| | I think that we have been found universally wanting with a few little exceptions. |
| | And so the art world has spoken with one voice. |
| | It has got behind every cause that's been dictated from wherever these ideas come from. |
| | And they haven't stuck up for each other. |
| | So that, you know, when J.K. Rowling actually defends the idea of, you know, women's spaces, so-called, nobody says anything. |
| | Much less does anyone say anything to stick up for someone like Kathleen Stock. |
| | Whenever anyone falls out of favor, they're on their own. |
| | And the only people who stick up for them are in the nonfiction world, in the journalistic world, in the podcast world. |
| | Yeah. |
| | So fiction is particularly bad. |
| | But why do all, why does everyone, virtually everyone in the creative world agree with each other on everything? |
| | I don't get it. |
| | You'd think someone like Ian McEwen, has he come, I haven't, I haven't followed the last few years. |
| | Has he said something? |
| | He's usually quite sort of not really woke. |
| | I haven't kept up with what he's saying in a nonfiction context. |
| | Yeah. |
| | Yeah. |
| | I just, I would have thought, I just, I always thought Atonement was sort of a perfect anti-woke story in many respects. |
| | It was. |
| | Because it was a lie about, about the, that a man had assaulted a girl or whatever it was. |
| | Yeah, it was a pre-Me Too story. |
| | It's a great book. |
| | I love that book. |
| | That's such a great book. |
| | Yeah. |
| | Crummy movie. |
| | Did you not like the movie? |
| | Yeah, I thought it was terrible. |
| | To saccharine? |
| | Just didn't capture the drama of the story. |
| | And yeah, I, he wrote about lying and, and it was, it was really painful. |
| | And it just didn't feel very painful because it was one of those lies. |
| | The, the little girl lied about what she saw and it ruined two people's lives. |
| | And he really made you feel that. |
| | And the enduring guilt even into adulthood. |
| | I don't know. |
| | The, the, the film didn't make me feel anything aside from glad it was over. |
| | I cried and cried. |
| | Yeah. |
| | Yeah. |
| | At the end of that film. |
| | And I knew, I'd read the book, so I knew, I knew what it would, but my word. |
| | What was, um, we need to talk about Kevin. |
| | Was that, was that a, an anti-woke book in some respects? |
| | Did it, did it also maybe capture the, the sort of an enemy within us? |
| | I'm not sure I would categorize it as, as anti-woke. |
| | What, what made that book successful wasn't because it was a, about a school mass murder. |
| | It turned out that if anything, that was a turnoff and it was successful despite it. |
| | Right. |
| | Um, but, uh, but it was about a, a woman's ambivalence about her child. |
| | She started out not especially wanting to have a kid and came round to the idea and then didn't end up bonding with him and actually started forming an active dislike for her own son. |
| | Uh, so in, it broke the ultimate narrative taboo. |
| | Your, a mother's love for her son is sacrosanct. |
| | It was still at that time sacrosanct. |
| | I had found the only taboo we hadn't broken yet. |
| | So, um, and it kicked off a discussion, uh, not just among women actually, but among parents or prospective parents. |
| | Uh, about the merits of childbearing. |
| | And, and, and, and because it is a much more realistic representation of what it's like to raise a kid that was hard, not at all romanticized. |
| | It wasn't just the adorable one sitting around the dinner table saying wise things. |
| | Um, and it gave, it gave even people who did have children permission to talk about some of the downsides. |
| | Now, one of the weird things about that book in retrospect is that while I haven't changed my mind on a lot of things, and I haven't even changed my mind on this point in relation to myself. |
| | I don't have any children. |
| | And, and, and I think in, uh, even looking back, I probably made the right decision for me. |
| | But in my generation, the decision to not have children was still unusual. |
| | Mm-hmm. |
| | And as we say now, it has become normalized. |
| | And, and to excess. |
| | So that I, I, I, back in, you know, 2003 when the book came out, um, it, it seemed politically refreshing to talk about, you know, the fact that often playing with small children is extremely boring. |
| | Yeah. |
| | And we never admit it. |
| | Um, but now I feel guilty is too heavy word, but a little sheepish maybe, or, or blatantly hypocritical. |
| | Because, um, whenever I meet young people of reproductive age today, especially if they have not had any children or start starting to say the usual, you know, uh, I care about my career. |
| | We'll see putting it off too late, big, big mistake. |
| | And I keep saying, well, you know, you should, you should really consider having children. |
| | Um, it, it's, uh, it, it puts more love in your life. |
| | You know, I've got a whole list of reasons why people should have children. |
| | And so it's all, you know, do as I say and not as I did. |
| | I get that though. |
| | And I think that's, that's a fair stance sometimes. |
| | You know, I, I did a particular thing and I don't regret it, but I hope that as a society at large, we do encourage and incentivize people to, uh, have more children because we, you know, we're struggling. |
| | There's nothing wrong with having the right, you know, the social right, if you will, to not bear children because it just isn't your thing. |
| | It doesn't appeal to you, but you can't have a larger culture that is antenatal. |
| | It, it's ruinous. |
| | Yeah. |
| | It's the beginning of the end for us, I think. |
| | And, and, and, you know, it's ruinous on many level levels, obviously economically, but also emotionally, culturally. |
| | I think this whole, uh, low fertility rate has come via, um, and I did write about this back in 2005, via a, um, a change in Western culture about, what we think is the meaning of life. |
| | I think it's that profound. |
| | And in the olden days, only going back a couple generations, it was, people responded to a sense of duty and, um, did things because they were supposed to. |
| | And that sounds bad. |
| | We immediately think supposed to, oh, we must rebel against that. |
| | We must not be bossed around. |
| | We are all independent beings. |
| | We should be able to make our own decisions. |
| | We don't want to be oppressed by, um, what is considered the way things are done. |
| | Patriarchy. |
| | And, you know, I come from the, I was kind of a late boomer, grew up during the tail end of the 1960s. |
| | And that was very much what we were about. |
| | And in fact, my generation is what brought in this new concern for the individual. |
| | And we should all be, you know, self-realizing. |
| | And, um, so what, rather than obey a sense of, of, of duty to preserving your, your family line, your country, your region, your people, however you define them. |
| | Uh, it's all about your own happiness. |
| | So the purpose of life is, is to be happy. |
| | And so that, that is, that is the rubric. |
| | That's what you obey. |
| | What is going to make me happy? |
| | And so if you decide that children don't make you happy, then you don't have them. |
| | I think this is misguided on a couple of levels, but first of all, it has to do with a mistake about what real happiness is. |
| | It's not an ice cream cone. |
| | It is a process more than a point at which you arrive. |
| | It is, it isn't an achievable state. |
| | It isn't, it is a direction. |
| | It is, it is about having purpose. |
| | It is about pursuing a purpose. |
| | And if you are sufficiently engaged with that purpose, you don't even think about whether you're happy. |
| | That means you're happy, right? |
| | The moment you start thinking, wondering whether you're happy, you probably are miserable. |
| | But the thing is that a lot of purposes are very difficult to achieve, and you may never achieve them. |
| | And the things that I have achieved that mean something to me and that have ultimately made me happy were hard. |
| | They were hard and involved a lot of sacrifice and misery. |
| | If you want an example, writ small, I took a number of really long cycling trips in my 20s. |
| | And it involved a great deal of misery, getting rained on, cycling day after day into a ferocious headwind, getting cold, getting hot, not finding a place to, a comfortable place to camp, and sleeping on rocks. |
| | I mean, you know, there was a lot of unpleasantness. |
| | But taken as a whole, it was very gratifying. |
| | And I took this trip in the U.S. with my younger brother. |
| | We went down south where we used to live and then back up again to New York. |
| | And I remember cycling across the George Washington Bridge, and it was exhilarating. |
| | I suppose it's sort of like marriage, you could say. |
| | It's sort of a lot of misery and just depression day after day. |
| | But long term, it's sort of fulfilling, isn't it? |
| | I'm not sure I'd even get into a lot of trouble if I characterize marriage that way. |
| | If my wife's watching this, I'm joking. |
| | But luckily, she doesn't watch the podcast. |
| | But children is the point. |
| | Children are the hardest project of all. |
| | Yeah. |
| | And it does require sacrifice and some suffering, some boredom, some annoyance, some conflict. |
| | And the whole project can go bad. |
| | It's rife with risk. |
| | You know, maybe your kid does become a high school killer. |
| | That's one of the things you risk. |
| | But the rewards are immense. |
| | And I admire people who are willing to take that risk. |
| | I wasn't. |
| | And it was right for me, but I don't admire myself for that. |
| | That's not one of my achievements. |
| | I really like what you said about it being sacrosanct, the mother's love for a child. |
| | Because of all the things I've spoken about on the podcast that have caused controversy and provoked angry emails and comments, I once or twice said, I'm not sure there is an innate love from a mother for a child. |
| | I'm sure we incentivize to feel that more often than not have it. |
| | But I think a lot of mothers and fathers don't necessarily have it. |
| | And it puts undue pressure on them to have that if they don't. |
| | Well, that's a lot of what Kevin is about. |
| | That that's our expectation of mothers especially are supposed to be overwhelmingly in love with their children. |
| | And we like to think that they don't have any choice. |
| | And that it is part of nature's way to, you know, make sure that mothers take care of their young. |
| | And I've heard from any number of people because of that book, of course, that this is not always the case. |
| | That's fascinating. |
| | And there is surely, I don't speak with any authority, but there is surely a process by which you come to love your children as people. |
| | Because after all, a baby is kind of a blob. |
| | And it doesn't really have much discernible character yet. |
| | I'm imagining a lot of very angry people already commenting on that because they will get angry about that. |
| | Really? |
| | Yeah. |
| | I don't know what it is. |
| | You know, they would say to us, we don't have kids as well. |
| | You know, you don't understand it. |
| | And they got a problem. |
| | I think there probably is a lot of biological instinct at work. |
| | Yeah. |
| | And. |
| | But I've seen what they do in Scientology to their kids. |
| | I've seen what they do and did in China to their kids, you know. |
| | So that's the argument against this kind of instinctual love. |
| | And okay, they would say, but those mothers obviously did love their kids, but had to drown them. |
| | But in Scientology, they don't seem to love their kids at all. |
| | When they're babies or when they grow up, they're just other people. |
| | I think that what we should just agree is that there are many different experiences, just as there are many different sexes. |
| | But there is no template for what it's always like to be a parent. |
| | And that's what I was trying to portray in Kevin is that my protagonist was expecting that she would immediately fall in love with her child. |
| | That this, that's what she wanted. |
| | And then it didn't happen. |
| | And when the baby is first put on her breast, she feels absolutely nothing. |
| | And it's devastating. |
| | It's meant to be a tragedy. |
| | And it induces terrible feelings of guilt and inadequacy in her. |
| | But I just, I think one of the things the book helped do is just elasticize our ideas about what it means to be a parent. |
| | And there is no one way. |
| | You're not necessarily always going to feel the way you're supposed to. |
| | How wonderful. |
| | I was just thinking how wonderful to have written a book that's such a hit that you can call it by one word of the whole title. |
| | And everybody knows immediately what that is. |
| | And they have associations with that. |
| | I was thinking when I was emailing with your publishers, it's HarperCollins. |
| | And I've been speaking with Douglas Murray's guys as well. |
| | That's also HarperCollins. |
| | And I thought that I didn't properly check into this because I wanted to ask you. |
| | There can't be British HarperCollins because they wouldn't publish you guys. |
| | Or is it not so bad? |
| | Is it American HarperCollins? |
| | It's both. |
| | It's both. |
| | And they don't have a problem with you? |
| | I'm sure individual employees have a big problem with me. |
| | But they haven't stopped the publication of my books. |
| | And, you know, HarperCollins has a, I think, well-earned reputation of the big five of publishing a wide range of viewpoints. |
| | Right. |
| | And that's in nonfiction as well. |
| | Well, so, yeah, they, that's, Douglas used to be at Bloomsbury and now he's at HarperCollins and it made perfect sense to me. |
| | That's interesting. |
| | I had a book out with HarperCollins, with Pam McMillan. |
| | And I felt very little support as I started speaking out more against the woke stuff. |
| | And now I don't even hear from them. |
| | I think I would have to go through my agent to even find out how it's going. |
| | Yeah. |
| | No, Harper has been very supportive. |
| | And they're going to be tested to the limit on the next book. |
| | Oh, good. |
| | Yeah. |
| | Because it's about immigration. |
| | Okay. |
| | Can you tell me more about it? |
| | It's set in New York during the migrant crisis, this most recent surge of migrants, many of whom were bused from Texas by the governor up to New York. |
| | During the whole de facto open border period of the Biden presidency. |
| | The whole idea of the book came from a speech that Mayor Eric Adams made in 2023 in which he announced that he was going to ask local New Yorkers to start taking in migrants in their own home. |
| | He was going to pay them. |
| | And then that program never went anywhere. |
| | He never said it again. |
| | And it didn't happen. |
| | But it gave me an idea. |
| | So in my parallel universe, the program goes ahead. |
| | And this family takes in one migrant to start with. |
| | The rest is history. |
| | That is, you'll have to wait until it comes out. |
| | But there is very little fiction that portrays the immigrant experience, first of all, at all from the host country's perspective. |
| | Right? |
| | It's always from the immigrant's perspective. |
| | Yeah. |
| | And rarely is the issue itself taken on in all its complexity from more than one point of view, not just go, go. |
| | I mean, the thing is that immigration is, in fictional terms, it is naturally sympathetic with the immigrant. |
| | The immigrant is a wanderer, a seeker. |
| | It's been proposed that all of fiction reduces to the quest. |
| | And so that the immigrant is necessarily on a quest. |
| | The immigrant is also always the disadvantaged party, which makes, you know, the underdog. |
| | Which they are as well. |
| | Which they are. |
| | Yeah. |
| | And so in comparison, the host country is usually rich, complacent. |
| | You know, and if they don't like the incursions of others, they seem hostile, negative, xenophobic, maybe racist, et cetera, et cetera. |
| | I mean, it's just a setup. |
| | And so it's not surprising to me that almost all novels that take on immigration in any way are simplistic on an issue level and are reliably side with the immigrant. |
| | One of the only exceptions I know is T.C. |
| | Boyle's The Tortilla Curtain. |
| | I don't know. |
| | Which is a wonderful book. |
| | Interesting. |
| | Yeah. |
| | Yeah, that's, it's something that we hear a lot from the celebrity class, you know, bring in more refugees all the time. |
| | And then a common retort is, well, can they come and live at your house? |
| | Exactly. |
| | You can see why. |
| | I mean, the title of the book is A Better Life. |
| | I suppose they could make the argument, the pro-bring-the-refugees people that you made with regards to having children, which is, well, not in my life. |
| | I don't really want the refugees here. |
| | But I think it would be better for society were they peppered throughout our country. |
| | Right. |
| | I mean, the main advocates of open borders are the people who don't live with consequences. |
| | That's true. |
| | Yeah. |
| | I mean, because I live in a fairly not posh area. |
| | And so, yeah, I mean, most people now, I would say most, if I needed to ask some directions or whatever somewhere around my area, would not be able to respond in English. |
| | That's a bizarre place for a country to be in. |
| | Yes, and it changes what it feels like to be there. |
| | I mean, it does, it starts turning both countries and neighborhoods into just locations, right? |
| | Yeah. |
| | Rather than places in that fuller sense. |
| | It's just a bunch of people, and they happen to live there and not somewhere else. |
| | And that's what you have in common. |
| | And I think that's a loss. |
| | I mean, we don't talk about that loss. |
| | We're not even allowed to talk about that loss. |
| | But, you know, I think it's down to something like 30, 37%, maybe even lower, maybe like 34% of our, in New York are, you know, white New Yorkers. |
| | New York has the highest foreign-born population in the world. |
| | Does it matter if they're white? |
| | I don't ask that as a, you know, it's just a question. |
| | It isn't so much a matter of being white. |
| | There's a difference between a New Yorker who has family there and was born there and really identifies with the place because that's where they are. |
| | You know, that's a part of their identity. |
| | And someone who just arrived at the age of, I don't know, 40 and lived their whole life somewhere else, and now they're New Yorkers in a way, but it's not the same. |
| | And the other thing that's pernicious is that when people come in from very different places with very different cultures, in large quantity, they don't have the motivation to assimilate. |
| | Yeah. |
| | Right. |
| | They have a quorum. |
| | Why would they assimilate? |
| | They've got all their friends who speak their language. |
| | It's hard to assimilate. |
| | It's a lot of effort, and it means changing the way you do things, the way you think. |
| | It means learning another language often and kind of conceding that you're in someone else's territory and you need to adapt to their way of doing things and not get them to adapt to you. |
| | It's one of the big problems with the Muslim community in Britain. |
| | There seems to be a pervasive impression that the mountain comes to Mohammed. |
| | Yeah. |
| | Right. |
| | So, you know, I think that when you create an expectation that immigrants assimilate, that is making a big demand. |
| | And I think it's a demand that we need to make in order to continue to have coherent countries. |
| | But when you're in a community large enough that you can go to the local shops and they all speak your language and they're all from Iraq or whatever. |
| | Pakistan. |
| | You don't need to make that effort. |
| | You can just hang out with your friends. |
| | And that's happening all over the United States. |
| | I mean, it's becoming much more atomized. |
| | I've seen it, having lived abroad with other English people, that we just gather. |
| | Why wouldn't we? |
| | We gather together. |
| | We play football together. |
| | We do all our things together. |
| | But I made a big effort to learn languages and all those things. |
| | You lived in Nairobi, Bangkok, Belfast, among other places. |
| | Do you think that has given you a wider understanding? |
| | Would you recommend people live abroad to be able to come back, if they're able to, of course, and come back and sort of see their country in a different light? |
| | I mean, yeah, I'm a big advocate of travel. |
| | I've lived a number of different places. |
| | I've lived most of my adult life outside the United States, though I do continue to go back. |
| | Never pretend not to be an American. |
| | Been in Britain the better part of 37 years. |
| | If I didn't like it, I would have gone home by now. |
| | To what degree it's given me a better perspective on my own country, I think that's a little up for grabs. |
| | Not being there at certain times probably makes me more ignorant. |
| | And I keep a little less of a finger on the pulse because I'm not always attuned to changes in the way people think or talk. |
| | And it's not so much of having a better perspective on my own country as feeling in a very tangible, visceral way that there are other countries. |
| | Right? |
| | I never quite believe in any country I haven't been to. |
| | Right? |
| | You know what that's like? |
| | And suddenly, you know, if you've been to Estonia, suddenly Estonia is a real place. |
| | I don't believe you. |
| | And you haven't been there. |
| | And I can call up pictures in my own experience rather than looking at a book or seeing something on a news report. |
| | For me, it was a case of like, in Argentina, for example, and the reason I ask is because I do feel like it is something to go abroad and see how they run their country. |
| | So, for example, in Argentina, where they still make jokes about people from different races. |
| | Now, there are problems with racism there, of course, but they're able to laugh at themselves a little bit. |
| | Where they've had far left in a way that has exceeded anything we've had in the States or the UK. |
| | And they know how bad it can get, as with the far right in Argentina. |
| | So, those kinds of extremes, and then you come back to the UK and you've got people saying there's a million different kinds of sex and welcoming people who don't like our culture. |
| | It suddenly feels utterly ridiculous. |
| | It's absurd compared to the rest of the world. |
| | I think the amount of travel I've done and the extent to which I have lived outside my country of birth influences my interest in immigration as an issue. |
| | But not in the way that you might think, to be simply sympathetic with the immigrant experience. |
| | I mean, I am an immigrant, but I followed the rules, which are quite onerous. |
| | Paid all the fees, went through all the bureaucracy, and maybe more importantly, always knew I was a foreigner and never pretended anything else. |
| | Always knew that it was up to me to fit in, to respect the distinction between me, who was not born in Britain. |
| | Let's just keep it to Britain. |
| | That this was someone else's country. |
| | And it was up to me to learn how things are done here. |
| | And I did. |
| | And I've always been glad. |
| | I mean, one of the things that is comfortable to me about living in Britain is that I have made an effort and I've been very involved in the politics. |
| | I've learned something about how the government is structured here and his functioner fails to function. |
| | I've assimilated, right? |
| | Now, obviously, since I speak English of a kind, that was easier because I didn't have that big language barrier. |
| | But I feel that I have done my part in going far more than halfway. |
| | And yet I still appreciate the fact this is not my country. |
| | And I honestly believe that even if I did go to that extra trouble, which I never did, of becoming a citizen, it still wouldn't be my country in the same way as it is someone's country who was born here. |
| | And that whole package together, put together with the fact that when I go back to New York, that every year it is more dominated by people who were not born there and often don't speak English and are not assimilating. |
| | I feel a little cheated because I've been the good immigrant over here. |
| | And then what should be my country, my territory is being encroached upon by people who are not making that effort. |
| | Well, a lot of immigrants to this country like yourself. |
| | It's like you, isn't it? |
| | Not like yourself. |
| | That's correct. |
| | Like you. |
| | That's an interesting misusage. |
| | It's a commonplace misusage because it's pretentious. |
| | Adding the self. |
| | Yeah. |
| | It sounds loftier. |
| | They all say it on these reality shows. |
| | It drives me mad. |
| | And what about yourself? |
| | Are you and, you know, I was thinking of voting for yourself. |
| | And I'm like, what? |
| | No, it's you. |
| | Just vote. |
| | And it's less direct. |
| | Yeah. |
| | Yourself is less direct. |
| | You is just that booming sound. |
| | It sounds more aggressive when you say you. |
| | That's what David Baddiel says about Jew as well. |
| | People, Jews tend to call them, oh, I'm Jewish. |
| | They won't say I'm a Jew because it's got that ooh sound in it, which. |
| | He's right. |
| | Yeah. |
| | He's right. |
| | Yeah. |
| | I always use the word Jew with this infinitesimal hesitation. |
| | It's like, I'm not saying anything pejorative, am I? |
| | Because it has been used pejoratively so pervasively. |
| | Historically, plus the. |
| | And it is partly a sound. |
| | The sound. |
| | Yeah. |
| | But, okay. |
| | So people like you, immigrants who have come to, who love this country and want to adapt. |
| | And they're so disappointed with, I suppose, other immigrants who have made it not the UK that they wanted to come to. |
| | Also, I think this is very similar in both the US and the UK that there's a contingent of immigrants who are disappointed, as you say, because they want to move to America or to England as they conceived of it, which is not full of other immigrants. |
| | Right. |
| | But it works if everybody tries to fit into whatever it is that America or the UK is. |
| | If everybody does that, then if all the immigrants come over and do that, then all the immigrants will be happy because, okay, we've all moved over together, but we're adapting to what we believe Britain is. |
| | Yeah. |
| | I guess we'll see. |
| | They don't. |
| | Well, it doesn't happen, unfortunately. |
| | I mean, with people who are here or in the States in particular illegally, I mean, when I was in Argentina, I had a, I mean, a friend of mine said to me recently about that because I wasn't always entirely legal there. |
| | I was, it was like one of those tourist visas. |
| | I had to leave the country every 89 days and come back for six years. |
| | And there were issues. |
| | I mean, it was, it wasn't, but someone said, what if, what if they'd come and taken you and said, listen, you got to go. |
| | And I said, well, I'd understand because it's the country's rules and their laws. |
| | And if they decided I can't, I would fight to stay. |
| | Of course I would. |
| | I would do everything I could. |
| | I was trying all the time to get that visa to stay longer, but that's how their country functions. |
| | Who am I to go over and say, you have to have me in your country? |
| | It's bonkers. |
| | The left, as we know, believes that enforcing your borders is racist and that any kind of deportation is an outrage. |
| | And yet, you know, if they go to a bunch of any other country, if you go to countries in Africa, for example, they are very strict about visas. |
| | If they require a visa and you don't have one, you're out. |
| | They have their own illegal immigration problems. |
| | This is not just, it's not only the West that has borders and has rules about getting into the country. |
| | And if you don't follow those rules, they'll kick you out. |
| | In fact, it's especially the West that doesn't kick you out. |
| | Yeah, I think so too. |
| | I've got one more question for you, but first tell me a bit more about mania and, you know, where can people get it? |
| | I know they can just get it on the, on the online, can't they? |
| | But you know what I mean? |
| | You know what I mean? |
| | It is, it's out in paperback this month. |
| | Obviously, it's on audiobook as well. |
| | It's a fun book. |
| | I am told it's funny, which always makes me happy. |
| | And it's not only about this social mania I had invented or it would be pure social satire. |
| | But it's also about a almost lifelong friendship between two women. |
| | And eventually it explodes their relationship. |
| | And I thought that was important partly because it is a novel and it should be about people and not just some idea. |
| | But I have lost friends during this period. |
| | And I know that a lot of other people have lost friends during this period. |
| | Almost always it's the party to the right that is the victim and it's the party to the left that flounces out of the relationship. |
| | But that can be very painful. |
| | And I thought that that was a good topic for fiction. |
| | And I would have all too much company in having been through that. |
| | I've talked to any number of people who've lost lifelong relationships, lifelong friendships. |
| | And of course, it's also exploded families. |
| | And my main character in Mania was brought up as a Jehovah's Witness. |
| | And she decided she wanted to finish high school, which her parents didn't want her to because education is not important to Jehovah's Witnesses. |
| | And she just needed to get back and concentrate on becoming a good Jehovah's Witness. |
| | And she said no. |
| | And her family disowned her and never spoke to her again. |
| | Disfellowship. |
| | Right. |
| | Is that the word? |
| | Gosh, I don't remember. |
| | Well, it doesn't matter. |
| | Yeah. |
| | Once I've done all my research and I've done the book, I forget everything. |
| | But it's one of the saddest things you can do to someone. |
| | Oh, it's a terrible thing to do to someone. |
| | And so that character has had the experience of her family valuing dogma over love, over normal human commitment. |
| | And it's ugly. |
| | And then that ends up happening to her again when the person she regarded as her best friend also flounces out. |
| | And so it's, you know, it's not super long. |
| | It's amusing and germane. |
| | Very relatable to this audience in particular because so many of them would have lost friends because of their beliefs. |
| | If they're watching this show, that's almost certain of a large percentage of them. |
| | So I think they'll really enjoy it. |
| | And we'll have a link below. |
| | Tell me, who is a heretic you admire? |
| | David Starkey. |
| | Has anyone ever told you that before? |
| | I don't think he's, it's possible maybe once. |
| | I mean, he's come up on the podcast. |
| | I don't know if he was anyone's heretic though. |
| | Go on. |
| | Well, as much of your audience will already know, the historian David Starkey, who I think is almost 80 now. |
| | He doesn't seem it. |
| | No. |
| | Lost everything. |
| | Because of a single word. |
| | Right? |
| | He, he was defending the idea that slavery could not have been a genocide against black Africans or there wouldn't be so many damned blacks. |
| | Now, it was an infelicitous phrasing. |
| | And while he meant it for emphasis, there's no getting around the fact that that, that usage was still tinged negative. |
| | And I'm sure that if he had it to do over again, he would have expressed the idea, which is perfectly legitimate. |
| | The point was legitimate. |
| | Yeah. |
| | But the phrasing was unfortunate. |
| | He sure didn't deserve to, you know, be disavowed by every, virtually everyone and all the institutions he had anything to do with over that one moment of reaching for the wrong expression. |
| | You know, I know that we're, we've been through a time that, you know, if someone uses the wrong expression, they've somehow betrayed this dark, terrible interior. |
| | And that, you know, obviously David Starkey is this raging racist. |
| | And he finally, you know, it finally let it out. |
| | And, but the reason, the reason I think that he's especially admirable is not, is that he has risen from the ashes. |
| | And he has not just wallowed in apology and slunk away. |
| | And it's like, oh, I'm sorry I was ever born. |
| | None of that stuff. |
| | And he's just out there. |
| | And he's still, he does podcasts. |
| | He has this great YouTube channel that he, I think he, I think he does it every week. |
| | He's still, he's feisty as ever. |
| | He's any, his whole demeanor is anything but apologetic. |
| | And, and he's still promoting ideas that are very unpopular. |
| | I mean, he's, he, he has a ferocious love of Britain, you know. |
| | And, and he defends this country. |
| | And he defends the, the ideas that it is based on. |
| | And he's furious about what Tony Blair has done to, in some ways, the whole structure of British government. |
| | And I just think he's a very important intellectual voice who has not allowed himself to be cancelled. |
| | He has uncancelled himself. |
| | Oh, good on him. |
| | I think that's a great heretic. |
| | People, please do go and get Mania by Lionel Shriver. |
| | It's going to be down below. |
| | And I don't know why I did that. |
| | It's not in my hands, but it's in a, it's in the description below. |
| | Um, I think those of you will really relate to that. |
| | So please do go out and get the paperbacks out now. |
| | Get hold of that book, hit this like button and keep watching this show. |