the the mood music about history, which

I agree in the last, let's say, 15

years, has been intensely moralistic.

Is that wrong? Like, should we not be

trying to learn the moral lessons from

the past?

The biggest killers were utopian

idealists. They were people who believed

in a better world. Hitler undoubtedly,

you know, it sounds weird to say it, but

he's an idealist. Stalin is obviously an

idealist. Mau is an idealist. They think

they are going to make a better world.

We now have a slightly

sanitized and um self-deluding

idealistic view of human nature and of

what we're capable of. They've been

completely insulated from the beast and

other people and in themselves.

Knowledge of the beast is is so

important.

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adree.

Dominic Samra, welcome to trigonometry.

Thank you for having me. It's a great

privilege. It's an honor to be here.

Oh, it's an honor for us to have you.

You're of course part of the hugely

successful the rest is history podcast

with our former and future guest Tom

Holland. Uh and history has always been

a fascination of ours. our audience love

our history episodes. So, it's great to

have you here. Uh the thing we wanted to

talk about with you is I think given the

current political climate and everything

else that's been going on, a lot of

people are kind of aware of the fact

that the way history's been taught for

quite some time now has produced people

who see a history, our history, the

history of the West, the history of much

of the world really, in very

one-dimensional, black and white, quite

moralizing terms.

Yeah. And what we wanted to explore with

you is a you know how that was generated

and perhaps fill in some of the blanks

and the gaps and you know contextualize

and add the nuance that I think history

always requires. So first of all how do

we how do we get here?

It's a good question. Um I think it's

not so much actually about how history

is taught but it's how we talk about

history more generally. M

so I do a lot of um uh talks in schools,

events in schools um uh to sort of

promote history and whatnot. And I'm

actually always struck by how

enthusiastic the teachers are, how um

committed to history uh but also how

little time they have. So they have very

little time. A lot of children will only

do history for two hours a week, let's

say, or two 40 minute um sessions. So

there's not they're not covering a huge

amount of ground, first of all. Um, but

I think the actual the the mood music

about history, which I agree in the

last, let's say, 15 years has been

intensely moralistic. I'm certainly

compared with when I was growing up.

By the way, before you get into that,

maybe the right question, is that wrong?

Like, should we not be trying to learn

the moral lessons from the past? Is it

just like evil reactionaries like the

three of us who are like, you know, we

can't judge people by the new standards?

And are we wrong to be moralistic about

history? No, it's a that's a very good

point and not necessarily, right? There

have often been ages where people were

very moralistic about history. So, for

example, if you went back to lots of

people watching this, if they are evil

reactionists will say, "Oh, we should be

just like the Victorians."

The Victorians were intensely moralistic

about history. And they really did tell

it as heroes and villains. So, there's

always been a tendency within history, I

think, to see it as um black and white,

you know, goodies and badies,

and that goes back as long as people

have been writing history at all. So,

you know, if you read, I don't know, uh,

Roman historians, let's say, my

co-presenter's favorite subjects,

Tacitus, Sutonius or something, those

um, those accounts are very moralistic.

You know, you've got bad emperors and

good emperors. Um, and often there's not

much nuance when you're talking about

Caligula or Nero or whoever it might be.

But I think when I was um doing history,

so let's say the 1980s, 1990s,

um

the the the general discourse I suppose

was not terribly judgmental. So in other

words, there was a there was no premium

placed. There was no great value placed

on you saying, "Well, this person is a

terrible person and I want to tear them

down and I want to, you know, diminish

them and this person, everyone has said

this person is a great Florence

Nightingale or whoever it might be and

actually they're a terrible person." I

think there was um an awareness that

we're all terrible people and so it's

not actually a very interesting

conversation to have

and I was quite conscious when I was um

doing my PhD and whatnot uh in the late

90s early 2000s I did American history

so listening to a lot of people coming

from America that there was a new mood

coming in actually from America I think

a lot of this has come from the US um

which was much more moralistic which

which was much more about I mean there's

a very famous example in the early 1990s

a huge argument about Thomas Jefferson

had heathered children with his slave

Sally Hemings and therefore should

Jefferson effectively be canceled people

didn't use that terminology then but

that that conversation was already

happening and that was a sort of

harbinger I think of what was to come in

the 2000s then obviously even more so in

the 2010s and then 2020 the kind of high

point of it the Black Lives Matter kind

of George Floyd statue toppling moment.

Um, and for people of a slightly older

generation like me, that's very

disconcerting because I had grown up

thinking, you know, very much history is

warts and all, but that doesn't mean,

you know, you you are open about

violence and cruelty and all those

things that happened in the past, but

you don't set yourself up as a hanging

judge. Um, and I think it's a question

of tone actually.

It's not a question of what the story is

that you're telling, but it's how you

tell it. M

so in other words anybody who wrote

about the British Empire to give you an

example anyone who wrote about the

British Empire from the moment that it

was happening knew that there was a lot

of violence right they knew that when

the Indian mutiny happened and the

British reestablished their authority

that there were reprisals and they fired

people out of cannons and all of that

kind of thing. But for a long time when

people told that story they sort of

said, well obviously the reprisals and

very terrible things happened and there

was a lot of savagery and blah blah blah

blah. You know that's not surprising

because that's how people behave in

history. But I think what changed was

the tone with which people describe

those events. So suddenly instead of

saying you know it's very the grim

things happen in history. History is

often very dark. So be it people there

was a lot of suddenly then a weeping and

wailing and nashing of teeth and this is

terrible. How could this have happened?

we should tear down the the plaques to

these people blah blah blah blah almost

as though people were indignant and

affronted and surprised that that

something so terrible could have

happened in history whereas I when I

approach history think of course people

behave selfishly greedily you know

sadistically because that's in us we

would be no different and it's not our

place or it's actually it's not even

it's not our place it's a bit boring to

say oh gosh Well, I'm so terribly moral

and these people are so immoral and they

live there in the Gothic compared with

me. It's obviously I think that's a

really foolish way to think about human

nature and a slightly it's a very

egotistical and self-promoting and

pompous way to talk about yourself as

opposed to the people who are your

predecessor.

Well, I would almost say that it's a

denial of human nature. Um, what what's

interesting to me though is how why you

think that tendency has happened. I

mean, one of the things we might blame

is the fact that we've had this massive

period of

I use inverted commas when I say peace,

but really if you live in the west,

yeah,

if you've not voluntarily enlisted to go

and fight other than the war in Vietnam,

which was many, many decades ago now,

you've never really had to be confronted

with the reality that if you even I walk

around London, we're sitting here in the

heart of London,

almost every monument is to do with war.

Yeah. And yet no one in our almost

essentially the three generations that

anybody will know themselves, their

parents and their grandparents has any

experience of that really in the west at

all.

Is that why?

Yeah, I completely agree with you. Sorry

it's very boring for you to have a guest

on the podcast who just tells you that.

No, it's great. It just my ego gets

bigger and bigger. That's what we do. We

bring experts on to make ourselves feel

agree with

I mean that is the podcast model. Let's

be frank. I mean we don't actually do

that but yeah it's it's a pleasant

change from arguing with idiots.

No but I do completely agree with you. I

I think what we uh have lost is uh

somebody described it as a sense of the

tragic. So for example we no longer have

politicians with a sense of the tragic

a sense of how um how close we always

are to the precipice as it were but not

just actually to the precipice as in

terms of you know our civilization could

fall apart. a load of people would turn

up in our village and kind of burn all

the houses down and and rape and ravage

and behave really badly, but also how

close we are to the beasts within

ourselves as it were. Now, I think if

people who had been who lived in

societies that were geared for war and

where war was a fairly regular

occurrence,

that would not be surprising. In other

words, I mean, you just think about it

in term, you don't have to go very far

back in history. So, go back to let's

say the first half of the last century.

You've got two world wars. You have in

central and eastern Europe endless

little conflicts in the 1920s and 1930s.

You know, if you're really unlucky and

you're living in what's now Eastern

Poland or Bellarus or Western Ukraine,

you know, the borders are changing every

few years. Endless pograms, ethnic

cleansing, all of this kind of thing. I

mean, those are people who really do

have a sense of the tragic because they

know that things can change with

dizzying speed. in a couple of years,

the people who you've relied on all your

life, who are your neighbors, may turn

on you and try to kill you. And I think

what's clearly happened is that we now

have a slightly um sanitized and um

self-deluding idealistic view

of human nature and of what we're

capable of. And a great example of this

from the period that I've written about

is the way that people thought about war

and war crimes. Um so for example in the

Falklands war in the 1980s so the

Falklands war by the standards of wars

is a really really clean war. It's being

fought over islands where only a tiny

population live. The two groups of

people who are fighting over the islands

the Argentines and the British most of

them have never been to the islands

before. So it doesn't feel personal for

them. They're almost fight. It's as

though they're fighting kind of they've

agreed neutral territory and they're

fighting on this neutral territory.

there are no war crimes against

civilians because the civilian

population is so small. So actually it's

a sort of in a vertigas a fair fight.

But after that war um happened about

let's say eight or nine years later when

servicemen started to write their

memoirs they would describe things like

for example cutting off ears of uh enemy

soldiers who had been killed as

souvenirs. I mean, it sounds lots of

people watching this will be like, "Wow,

that's pretty horrific, right?" That you

would take a trophy or or posing for

photos with dead bodies.

Those kinds of things.

Is that a war crime?

I mean, people, I guess, can make up

their own mind about that. But here's

the thing. When that was first reported,

oh whoa, oh, what terrible behavior. How

could we have behaved so badly? This is

unbelievable. We have to have

investigations. And then furious

arguments, other people say, no, that

didn't happen at all. But actually, if

you read any account of previous wars,

anybody who'd fought in previous wars

would say, I mean, as grim as this is,

this is pretty standard stuff. You know,

Canadian soldiers at D-Day were

notorious for I want I mean, the tourist

is a very loaded word. They were well

known for

famous

for, you know, the bit taking people

taking ears, taking trophies, for being

really kind of, you know, they were

pretty hardcore. Now, because it's World

War II, it's the good war. We don't make

it to great fuss about it. But these

things happen in wars. And people who

had fought in previous wars were

unsurprised by the reports coming from

the fools. They were like, "Come on,

this is what happens. You train young

men to fight, you know, to do the most

savage thing possible to kill an other

young men." And that line is always

going to be a little bit more gray and a

bit slippery than we would like. Let's

not, you know, be pearl clutching about

this. But I think what that reaction

suggests and of course the reaction to

what's happened since and stories coming

out of Afghanistan or Iraq or whatever

is that probably we have we we like our

uh confident now very sanitized you know

we like it kind of um

with drones.

Yeah. Right. Exactly. We like it at a

distance. We like to shy away from the

kind of that the handtohand the the

physical nature of it I guess. And that

goes back to your point about we have

been incredibly fortunate to grow up in

an age of peace and you know lots of

people now have lived and died in this

country or in the west more generally.

They've had the dream they've been

completely insulated from the beast in

other people and in themselves. So

they've kind of lost lost sight of that

I suppose.

I love the fact that you use the phrase

warts and all which is famously Oliver

Cromwell. Yeah. when asked when a

painter asked how he should have his

portrait painted, he famously said,

"Paint me Wartson all."

Yeah.

And actually that's he's a fascinating

figure because on the one hand with

Cromwell, you talk to my Irish family

for example and you can't hear anything

but you know exploitive laden invective

from them rightly so. And on the other

hand, father of democracy in this

country etc etc. But what's really

interesting is how we can't seem to

accept that people like Com, great

figures of history, have this duality to

them.

Yeah, you're right. I mean, I think

Churchill is a good example of this as

well, right? That people will say, "Oh,

yes, Churchill, I know you say he saved

democracy from Nazism, but he said some

very cool things about Indians." You

know, people are complicated. And I

think anybody who thinks at all

seriously about human nature or about um

even the characters that you meet in

great literature or something. You don't

even have to think about the people that

you know. You know that people are

capable of um tremendous things but also

terrible things. I mean Cromwell I think

is what the most fascinating character

in all um English and British history.

Um he's uh much more complicated than

people think. He's actually much more

funloving than people think. By the way,

he didn't ban Christmas. Uh it's not

Cromwell who bans it. It's Anyway, we

don't need to get into all that. But

yeah, Cromwell uh can be a very savage

character. You know, when he's

commanding at some of his later battles,

people describe him kind of laughing as

though he's drunk. you know, he's seized

with this kind of marshall spirit and a

sense that that actually we might find

very unsettling now that he's doing

God's work and his opponents are God's

enemies and therefore they will be, you

know, he will sigh through them as

though through chaff or whatever. Um, so

that side of Cromwell you lots of people

might find very unsettling. And yet on

the other hand, he's somebody who

wrestles with his conscience, wrestles

with what he thinks is is God's plan,

uh, feels himself unworthy. You know,

one of the reasons in the 1650s after he

basically he's he's got effectively

supreme power and he wrestles with this

issue about whether he should take the

crown or not, it's, you know, would that

be too arrogant? Is that what God wants

for me? Am I good enough? All of that

kind of thing. You know, most dictators

don't think like that. Most dictators

can't wait to get their hands on the

ground. So, I think Cromwell's a

fascinating character and he's a really

good example of somebody who, you know,

there's a statue of him just down the

road from us outside the um Palace of

Westminster because, as you say, he is

seen as one of the you know, the people

in the in the Victorian period in the

late Victorian period saw him as one of

the great heroes of democracy in this

country. Would I like to see I'm I've

got an Irish wife. Would I like to see

Cromwell statue taken down? Absolutely

not. Um because I think as with all

statues, it's a testament to a

particular time period that in which it

was put up.

Um but also because I think big it's

good that people know about big

complicated figures like that and they

appreciate precisely your point about WS

and all. I think that's true of

Churchill. It's true of Cromwell. to

true of almost all of the what we would

think of as an invert in inverted commas

great characters in history. They're

always more complicated.

Absolutely. And in particular, let's

look at the British Empire because as

someone who has a South American

background, I actually find it

infuriating when people talk about the

British Empire and they're like, "This

is the most evil empire that's ever

lived." I'm like, "Compared to what? the

Belgians in Congo. Yeah.

The Spanish Empire, the Portuguese.

It smacks not only of ignorance, it

smacks of a certain type of arrogance as

well that the British are, you know, not

only did we have the greatest empire,

but we were also the most evil. The most

evil. I'm like, really?

It's a it's a it's a it's a tremendous

self-absorption. And actually, it's

something that we share actually with

our American cousins. M

you know they love to no coup can happen

anywhere in the world but the CIA's

fingerprints aren't all over it

according to kind of you know very ultra

liberal kind of American commentators

you know indigenous people or people in

foreign countries never have any agency

it's always got to be the evil American

puppet masters who have done it and as

you say with the British Empire there's

a there's a narcissism about some of the

commentary about it which is kind of we

have to be the most evil everything must

be our fault conflicts in the 21st

century because we drew the boundar

boundaries in the wrong places all of

this kind of thing. Now on empires more

generally um my view on empires is

actually very simple that empire is the

natural unit of human organization.

There are others of course

and we live in an age now where lots of

people watching this will think of the

nation state as the most

sort of obvious and natural model but no

model is really natural.

But empires for most people who've lived

and died lived and died in empires of

one kind or another. You know China

effectively now is an empire. The United

States is obviously a empire, not merely

continental empire across its North

America. But internationally,

having an empire is in itself, I think,

not illegitimate. It's the way that most

people have been ruled. It's the way

that the Romans or the Persians or

whoever the Ottomans organized their

societies. Um, one group dominating

another again is not unnatural. It's the

norm in human history. I think what

makes the British Empire quite really

interesting and really unusual is that

right from the beginning it has the

seeds of its own dissolution in it

because it one of the things it it

exports is the idea of you know the rule

of law liberal democracy all of those

kinds of things. So from the beginning

the British Empire is is kind of an an

internal argument. There are always

people lots of people in Britain who

don't like the idea of colonization and

of um dominance and so on. There always

ferocious arguments about it and you

know some of the British Empire's most

well-known celebrated critics Gandhi a a

great example. These are people who are

profoundly shaped by British

institutions,

uh, British traditions, by the British

idea of British ideas of fairness and

freedom and all of those kinds of

things, the kind of rhetoric of liberty,

if you like. That's not to say, of

course, there's d there's elements of

hypocrisy and greed and all of these

things in the British Empire as they're

all are in all human phenomena, all

human institutions. But I mean to to go

back to your point about you know the

Belgians, Portuguese, the Spanish and so

on. If you had you know it's a bit like

um the philosopher kind of John Rules's

famous sort of conceit which is you know

if you could choose if you had to make a

blind choice and you didn't know how

rich you were going to be. You didn't

know what you going to look like but

where would you choose to kind of start

again and you had to choose an empire a

European colonial empire in which to do

it. I think the British Empire would be

a pretty good place to choose. I mean,

it's definitely not the Belgian Congo,

right?

It's not, you know, you're not in Mexico

in the 19 in the 1520s kind of ravaged

by smallbox with Cortez and the

concistadors rampaging around um uh what

becomes Mexico City. So, yeah, I I think

um I think the British Empire, it's it's

clearly not the most evil empire in

history. It's not dedicated to

extermination or to um or to violence in

the way that the Third Reich is or

whatever. So those comparisons that you

see quite a lot nowadays, especially

online, just strike me as as utterly

bonkers.

Well, they are. And and one of the

things that also bothers me about this

and you you mentioned you know uh

Central America for example there is

this sort of idea that you know

everyone's living peacefully and singing

kumbaya and holding hands and then these

evil Europeans arrived and like started

being violent.

Yeah.

Like that not entirely my reading of the

attemp empires. Exactly.

Do you know do you know what I mean?

like all you know the more I read about

the Native Americans in North America I

s suddenly figure out they're not really

they weren't really you know they

weren't really that peaceful or or

loving or

no no there are very simplistic ways of

talking about this so even the

distinction between indigenous people

and European colonizers is wrong because

often say to give the example of uh the

Aztecs the Aztecs had come from

somewhere else they were they were armed

migrants or you might call them

colonizers themselves they come from

probably from what's now roughly what's

now Colorado. They'd come south. They

subjugated people around them. They ran

this empire. You know, they did

sacrifice people to the gods. They did

all these kind of things in

huge numbers.

They were no strangers. Exactly. They

were no strangers to violence. Now,

that's not to say they're terrible

villains and the Europeans are great

saints. Um they're they're both

complicated societies capable of all the

extremes of human nature. I think that's

my approach. It's not it's not to say,

you know, because I've written about the

Aztecs for in the book for children.

Um it's not to say

you probably have to sanitize that a

fair bit, I'd imagine.

Actually, no. No, not at all. Cuz kids

love the violence.

Yeah, they do. When I taught the Aztecs

at school, the kids loved it.

Yeah, of course. I I Why would that be

worrying? That's normal. Kids,

if if you're standing in front of uh 40

10 year olds and you know, you've got 40

minutes, if you're not careful, they

will be very bored very quickly. And the

best way to keep them interested is to,

you know, every few moment, every few

minutes, punctuate it with somebody

having his heart ripped out or, you

know, Henry VII having an enema or any

of these kinds of details, these kind of

grim, gory details that stick in kids'

mind.

They love it.

They love it. Of course, they love it

because people are fascinated, right?

In many ways, kids are

human beings at their most unseasoned.

Well, not in many ways, that very

obvious. They're most raw and

unseasoned, right? And kids are f Why do

kids love gladiators?

You know, they're they they're not

really interested in Roman baths or in

Roman law codes. What they like is the

coliseum and basically people, you know,

gouging each other's eyes out and

whatnot because kids, like all of us,

they're kind of voyers when they look at

history and they they love the extremes.

I think that's completely normal and

natural. And you know, I'm not saying we

should completely pander to it and sink

into the kind of pornography of violence

when we talk about history, but it's

self-deluding, I think, to pretend that

that's not why people are often

interested in history in the first

place. You when I fell in love with

history when I was very small,

it was knights, battles, kings and

queens, executions, all of these kinds

of things. If you had said to me, "No,

actually, um, little Dominic, age seven

or something, it's much better for you

to learn about the suffragettes and the

struggle for equal rights and all of

these." You know, how many people are

really going to be that enthusiastic

about history? That's not to completely

dismiss those subjects and say, "Don't

do them later on."

But what gets you into history is is is

narrative conflict.

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So I interrupted you when you were

saying you wrote the book about Aztecs

for kids.

Yeah. Oh yes you did. Yeah. So I felt

with that that um you know you have two

sort of complicated societies. You have

um a conquest that actually is is is

very again very nuanced and very

complicated because it's actually not

the Spanish just conquering Mexico. The

Spanish have loads of um they they

actually have far there are far more the

great battles. There are far more

indigenous misoamerican soldiers on the

Spanish side than there are Spaniards,

right? There are internal struggles.

There's internal dissension. The this is

a clash of empires,

a clash of colonizers if you like. So to

see it really simplistically is these

guys are the good guys, these guys are

the bad guys. Now that's obviously how

people initially told the story when it

was told from the European perspective.

Now the trend is to completely do it the

other way and to say that everything

about the Spanish or other European

colonizers is terrible and they're

greedy and they're they don't really

care of their Christianity is just a

pretext for their sort of ruthless

mercenary ambitions. I think that's just

as simplistic as the old stories.

Whereas the kind of Aztec slavering

covered in blood and the Spanish kind of

noble Christian warriors, they're both

really sort of silly ways to talk about

history, I would say. And I I always

remember uh when I was in Venezuela

being pinned against the wall by what my

uncle's friend who told me and in great

detail about how Francis Drake was a

birata.

Oh yeah,

a pirate. And uh I was like, well, I'm

kind of 7 years old, mate. I don't

really understand what you want me to do

with this information. Yeah,

but it was a very powerful lesson for me

cuz it made me understand the way that I

see Sir Francis Drake and I was taught

in school to a Latin American he was a

pirate, a plunderer, a thief on a mass

scale.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I think it's

a fascinating um these lessons are

really good actually. So you mentioned

Cromwell. Yeah.

If I was Irish I undoubtedly would have

a very dim view of Oliver Cromwell. I'm

not so I don't you know it's not that

complicated. people always um you know

looking at historical characters you

always have to be conscious of where

you're standing right where I'm standing

where you're standing will always be

different places just because you know

not because of any differences between

us but nobody can be exactly where you

are no coming to it with the baggage

that you have and I think actually

instead of you know these people get

into really frenzid and fierce arguments

which to my mind are actually

unnecessary it's completely reasonable

that people have different views about

characters in the past and the idea that

you that one view must dominate that it

becomes intolerable for anybody to say

well actually I quite like Winston

Churchill I mean that's obviously

ridiculous you know Winston Churchill

sure I understand I completely get that

if you're an an Indian historian you're

going to look at different aspects of

Churchill's life and career that will

jump out to you and and you know you may

regard him as objectionable that's fine

I don't need to to persuade you will

silence you. You say your own thing. But

I think it's completely reasonable that

people in Britain see Churchill as the

incarnation of the bulldog spirit, as

the symbol of patriotism, as the symbol

of winning the Second World War or those

kinds of things. Why wouldn't we? I

mean, it'd be weird if we didn't. And

it's also as well acknowledging the fact

that when you're dealing with these

seismic figures who changed history in

such a profound way, they're going to

change history in ways that are you

perceive to be good, but also other

people will perceive to be bad.

Yeah. Yeah. Of course. And and and to

take that on a little bit, um it's mad

to think that other to reward people in

history purely because they agree with

you. In other words,

to celebrate only the people who who

mirror your own um prejudices and

preconceptions, right? So, in other

words, to look back at the 18th century

to say, "Well, so and so is obviously a

good person because they believed in

equality like me.

But this person who appears to be very

interesting and civilized and what not

is actually a terrible person because

they invested in the slave trade or

whatever it might be. We can be

horrified by the slave trade and think

that slavery is wrong and all those

kinds of things, but people, you've got

to grant people in the past their own

agency, their own space, their own their

difference, I guess, and and sort of and

respect their difference. I guess

respect the fact that they

their moral world, their mental world,

the baggage they're carrying with them

is completely different from ours. And

of course, what I always say, especially

when I'm in schools actually, and this

always makes the children kind of go,

is to say, "You're not the end." Like,

there will be people who come after you,

who will say, "You were bonkers

and immoral and wrong, and why couldn't

you see that

eating meat is morally wrong or getting

on an airplane is, you know, all

whatever." All these kinds of things

that the kids will take for granted,

right?

It's a bright picture of the future

you're painting there, maybe.

Well, you know, I really realized I was

in Isbekistan recently and they have

these giant statues of Tim. They call

him Tim Khan. He's called Tamil, but

they don't like that cuz that's Tim the

lame.

Basically making fun of a disabled

person at this point, right? But I if

you actually look at what he did

dayto-day, right? This is a guy that

every time he had an opportunity, he'd

go and invade somewhere, right?

Kill all the men, the women, whatever,

right? come back home and then he'd go

and hunt and kill animals to chill out.

This is and that was basically what you

did. And that was the way that these

people thought. And when I thought about

that, I just went, "Well, this person's

brain worked so differently to me and to

anyone I am ever likely to meet. These

are different people. Like they think

differently. The whole world view is

different." Um, but I guess where it

leaves me, Dominic, and it comes back to

what you're saying is a question about

the truth then, because you go, well,

you know, everyone's everyone's got

their own perspective. Everyone's

standing in their own place, and now

you've got these morons on the internet

going, well, actually, Winston Churchill

is the greatest villain of World War II.

And that just isn't true. Yeah.

Right.

And that's not cuz they're standing in a

different place. It's just cuz they're

they're wrong.

Yeah.

Unless they are standing in Adolf

Hitler's place, in which point maybe

they do. Do you see where I'm getting

there?

Yeah, I do completely. It's a really

difficult one actually. Um uh and it's

one that uh I kind of wrestle with a

little bit. Like is there such a thing

as historical truth? M

I think to some extent, you know, the

conversation that we've been having,

you'll probably be appalled by this, but

to some extent, all of us living in the

21st century are postmodernists to the

extent that we all recognize that there

can be different accounts of something

that are all equally correct or all

equally flawed, right?

Equally.

Yeah, I think I don't recognize that.

No, I think you probably do because I

think you and I I think you do without

knowing it. In other words, that you and

I you might you might have a take on

history, right? Mhm.

And I might have a slightly different

take on history. A slightly different

take on history.

And and we would say, well, we're

probably not going to agree on this, but

I can see where you're coming from and

where you say it, and they're probably

both reasonable narrative accounts of

what happened. In other words, just to

give you a tiny really petty and trivial

example. If we were both writing

accounts of this conversation

afterwards,

we might write different accounts, but

they might both be right.

Okay, fine.

So, in other words, what's the true

account of our conversation?

even the the footage that you're doing

right now depending on the camera you

choose to they might say well actually

the camera didn't pick up that bit of

nuance that was kind of lost on you

right so it's hard

or the conversation that happened before

we started or whatever so it's actually

hard to it's very hard to get at what

the truth yeah about that now that was a

really exciting conversation um

it's really hard to get at what that

truth would be however

at the same time as saying that so in

other words we can sort of see that you

can have lots of competing accounts

that all have some validity. So

otherwise there would you know you would

be able to write the definitive history

book on the crusades and nobody would

ever write a book on the crusades again

because that person would have published

the truth. Okay, that will clearly never

happen. There will always be lots of

different books on the crusades. People

will ask different questions. People

will see different things. It doesn't

mean the others are wrong and untrue,

but you can have competing versions,

but you can't then what you obviously I

think most historians would say is what

you don't want to do is open the door

and say, "Well, they're all equally

valid or invalid."

That was the reason I disagree with

because obviously that's not

because if I retold this conversation

as, you know, a 644 black man came sat

sat down and we started talking about

geography. It's not true.

That's just factually correct.

Exactly. Exactly. So to give you an

example of the crusades of the second

world war, I think it's we could say

there are many different accounts that

are often wildly different, but they're

all valid and they're all uh valuable.

But then there are some accounts that

are not valid and valuable. So there is

a dividing line between truth and

untruth, right? So in other words,

Second World War, there are lots of

different books on the Second World War

seeing it from different perspectives.

Some that say,

I could write a book on the Second World

War saying a tremendous victory for

democracy and freedom, blah blah blah. A

Polish historian could write a book on

the Second World War that says, "Well,

hold on. We ended up being conquered by

Stalin. Stalin's the big winner of the

Second World War, not Churchill, blah

blah blah blah blah blah." You know, you

can have different accounts that you

could say, "Yeah, I can understand where

you're coming from. That's valid. That's

also valid. It's good to have different

opinions." Like people always people

always do that about all kinds of

things,

but there has to be a dividing line. I

think that's what most academic

historians or scholars would say. There

has to be a point where you say hold on

you know they didn't just sit there and

talk about geography you know that there

is there is right and there is wrong and

this is what obviously has become more

and more slippery in the last 20 years

or so. to the examples you're picking

up, you know, people who are um getting

a lot of traction sometimes going on

shows like this or on podcasts or

whatever, saying actually, you know,

Hitler is the is the great victim of the

Second World War and Churchill is the

villain. All of this kind of stuff,

right? I think historians clearly have a

duty to say, "No, you're just wrong.

There is such a thing as fact." I guess

it's truth is a very loathe word. I

guess accuracy is maybe a more useful

word in that context. Say that's just

not accurate. It's just not correct. Um

Churchill clearly is not the villain of

the Second World War. Britain did not

force Hitler into war. All of these

kinds of things.

So I think it's slightly more

complicated than to say true untrue. I

think you can still have disagreements.

You can still have competing versions.

But what has happened I think because

basically the technological change it's

a bit like the invention of the printing

press in the 16th century

technological change means that suddenly

it's like the ground beneath your feet

has become unstable. You don't know what

to trust. There are loads of competing

um versions of reality

some of which are are basically

completely fraudulent and founded on

nothing. And you know, historians are I

I guess it's also a bit of a problem

that as academic historians have

slightly vacated the field, right? They

don't they're not quite as public facing

as they could be. They're not talking to

the the public often. They're talking to

each other. That allows opportunists and

charlatans and whatnot to to enter the

conversation, dominate the conversation

instead. And once you've left that arena

and if you're not very good at speaking

to the public, then it becomes very hard

to fight back against it.

Don, I I want to talk to you about the

evil because a lot of people use that

word particularly to talk about events

in history, whether it's the British

Empire, whether it's you Adolf Hitler

and Adolf Hitler. When we think about

evil, we think about Adolf Hitler.

And and you look at these people and you

go in Hitler's mind, obviously what he

did was horrendous. and evil. But in his

own mind, he thought he was doing good.

Yeah.

And if you look at a lot of these

figures from history,

they believe that they were doing some

type of good. Whether it's the

concistadors,

whether it's, you know, the Mayans who

are praying to the god. Why wouldn't you

rip the heart out of a child? You have

to appease a god otherwise we all die.

Yeah.

How do we reconcile that?

Isn't it? Even Bridgetson thinks she's

doing good. Um, I think uh, how do you

reconcile it? Do you need to reconcile

it? Do you need to I in a in a sense

that

human beings never think they're the bad

guys? You know, that scene, the famous

scene from the Michelin Web sketch where

they they're looking at their their Nazi

soldiers and they're kind of looking at

their badges and saying, "Are we

actually are we?"

Yeah. Are we the baddies? The skulls?

Like, really?

Have you looked at our caps recently?

Our caps.

The badges on our caps. Have you looked

at them?

What? No. A bit.

They've got skulls on them.

Have you noticed that our caps have

actually got little pictures of skulls

on them?

I don't. Uh,

hands.

Are we the baddies?

There's never a moment I think where

people you know willfully

genuinely cast themselves as the

villains. So to take your example of the

Nazis, we did an episode of the rest is

history about Nazi ideology and about

why they thought they were,

you know, they were doing not God's

work, but they were doing science's

work. Actually, they thought life was

racial struggle and um they believed

that they were, you know, operating in

the cause of racial hygiene and that

they would leave Germany a better place

and the world a better place. Right?

That's what Nazi ideologists think. It's

what they tell their soldiers. their

soldiers, even as they're carrying out

all what would strike us as appalling

atrocities on the Eastern Front, they

sort of will write in their diaries and

their letters, they'll say, "Well, it

look sounded, you know, might sound

grim, but it kind of had to be done and

it's better that we've done it."

I think there are it's very hard to find

people in history who say, "I know this

is evil and I'm actually a terrible

person, but does Stalin think he's a bad

man?" I would say not. All that we know

about Stalin is that you see I don't

think Stalin is an inverted commas a

monster. I think Stalin is a Marxist

which is slightly different. I can't if

I can say that a monster and a Marxist

on this show are two different things.

So Stalin thinks he takes his Marxism

very seriously. I think um the recent

scholarship on Stalin has really

emphasized the extent to which he's a

true believer in his own ideology. He

thinks he's operating um again not

unlike the Nazis, following scientific

laws that will lead to human progress

and that the world will be a better

place and that collectivization

or purges, getting rid of enemies, all

of these kinds of things that ultimately

the world will be better afterwards and

he will have done tough work, you know,

dirty work, but it had to be done.

That's what a lot of people think in

history that this was, you know, more

interesting people. Of course, there are

always people who were just sort of

boringly greedy and venal and corrupt or

whatever. But somebody like Stalin, I

think, is interesting and chilling

precisely because he thinks he's he's on

the side of right. He's on the side of

morality. And it's the capitalists who

are the bad people. He's the good

person. Now, Hitler undoubtedly thought

of himself as a good person, as somebody

who would be rewarded by posterity for

having done what had to be done to make

Germany safer, cleaner, happier,

racially pure, all of those kinds of

things. It's very shocking for us to

think that people would think that they

were the they were the good guys, but

people in history always think they're

the good guys. They're always the heroes

of their own story.

It's one of the reasons I always uh I've

talked about this a lot. I don't fear

evil people that much. One of the

reasons they do exist in my opinion.

There are people who are just

bad people,

evil, genuinely evil people who like

torturing other people or killing other

people for the sake of it. Right.

But it's very difficult if you're evil

to motivate millions of other people to

join you.

Yeah. However, if you have a very

persuasive story about why certain evil

things need to be done for the greater

good, that's when you can persuade

yourself into ignoring rules,

conscience, whatever. And you can lead

millions of people behind you. Which is

why I I I am always very wary of people

who have this

uh very strong sense of certainty about

the fact that they are leading us in the

right direction. And just this one time

we just need to ignore the rules of

normal behavior just to get to you know

we just suspend democracy for a bit we

just you kill these people or we just

those are the really dangerous people in

history aren't they

the big killers the biggest killers were

utopian idealists right they were people

who believed in a better world Hitler

undoubtedly you know it sounds weird say

it but he's an idealist Stalin is

obviously an idealist ma is an idealist

Paul pot when the kouge come in in

Cambodia in the 1970s year zero empty

the cities start again on the

They think they are going to make a

better world. And you know, you can't

make an omelette without breaking some

eggs. That is the classic thing. That's

what the Jacob thought in the French

Revolution. Um, it's one, it's funny

because I was only, I was rereading The

Handmaid's Tale the other day, you know,

a Margaret Atwoods sort of uh um

feminist sort of science speculative

fiction book and which lots of people

watching this will have seen the TV

adaptation. And she gave an interview

about that when she said, you know, the

real enemy here, it's absolutely not an

anti-religious book. It's not an

anti-male book. The real enemy is is and

I quote utopian idealism because the

people who are the oppressors who run

the regime think they are doing the

right thing and that they will and I

think all great you know dystopias 1984

brave new world whatever the villains as

it were are people who think they're

good people and I completely agree with

you and this is probably because I'm a

very reactionary person as well but the

enemy is certainty the enemy is people

who say I know what should be done I

know who what right where right and

wrong lie. I know I'm a good person.

That goes back to the point I was making

earlier about, you know, losing the

sense of the tragic. And one of the

things that I think the sense of the

tragic um makes you aware of is your own

weakness and frailty and your and your

own you know that I think if we're

honest with ourselves we know that we

could be greedy and corrupt and violent

and sadistic that because we know from

history by the way that lots of

unexpected people have that in them the

kind of all those people who previously

had been a boring bank cler in Hanover

but actually suddenly for a few months

in 1941 or 1942 turn out to be the most

unbelievable sadistic killers and then

go back and be a boring bankark again

for the rest of their lives. You know

this says a lot about bankers

but I think within all of us knowledge

of the beast I was just joking of course

knowledge of the beast is is so

important

but let me push back on the idea. So you

talk about certainty and you know you

you having that knowledge that we're all

flawed and broken and I agree with you.

Yeah, but

but look at Churchill. Churchill was

pretty certain. He was the one raising

the alarm in the 1930s, banging the

drum.

He had been he had made many mistakes,

but he had that certainty.

Cometh the hour cometh the man.

Yeah. But what Churchill believes in is

uh first of all, Churchill is very aware

of his own flaws and his own frailty

precisely because he's made so many

mistakes. So Churchill knows that he has

a terrible screw- up in him at any given

moment, you know, and he's his mad

schemes often they don't work. Churchill

I think has a it's one reason I'm always

slightly baffled by the intense

antipathy to Churchill by sort of the

more sort of woke element is that I

think Churchill of all historical

characters has a very kind of generous

human sense of his own frailties the

qualities and frailties of others how

complicated life is you know you only

have to read his memoir my early life

when he's talking about you know serving

on the in the northwest frontier in

India he's talking by the men he served

with Indians as well as British. There's

a kind of he's there's a rhyess to it

and an awareness of kind of the

complexity of human life and human

nature. So sure is believe has things he

really believes in. He really believes

in the empire. He believes in Britain.

He believes that Britain stands for

freedom and that the Nazis are bad

people and that Hitler is a threat to

democracy and all of those kinds of

things. But I don't think that is

um I I don't think that flows from that

sort of intensely moralistic slightly

self-promoting certainty that we're

talking about which is the sense of I'm

a good person. I'm a really kind and you

know and generous person and I'm on the

side of the angels and all of that kind

of thing. I think Churchill absolutely

did have the sense what I would call the

sense of the tragic. So, in other words,

Churchill believes that, you know, life

can be pretty brutal and because he's

seen war up front.

You know, he knows how tough it can be.

And I don't think he thinks he thinks

we're going to muddle through. You know,

his famous catchphrase is keep buggering

on KBO. You know, you keep just keep

going and you'll get there eventually.

But Churchill doesn't think you know I

will lead the world into a place where

everybody you know there'll be kind of

lambs gambling in the fields and

everybody will be singing come by and

all of that kind of thing. Churchill is

not an idealist in that sense. I think

his life he is devoted he's devoted his

life to kind of quite concrete things to

Britain to its empire to tr you know its

traditions its history all of that but

not to an abstract noun.

He's not trying to remake the world. And

I think one of the other things because

I I agree with Francis in the sense that

I think quite often the people who

really do make a difference in the world

are people who have very strong faith in

in in in things that they believe in

that they want to bring in the changes

they want to make etc. I think the issue

is quite often what you're willing to

do.

Yeah, of course.

In the service of that and if you're

willing to violate particular standards

and norms and rules about not hurting

other people, not killing other people,

not uh you know disenfranchising other

people in order to achieve your goals.

That's where I see the distinction,

right? Because if you firmly believe in

a particular worldview, well that's fine

as long as you're not willing to use

that to hurt other people.

So I think there's a couple of things I

think one of them is seeing other people

as expendable, other human beings lives

as expendable. I mean that's obviously

what I say Stalin would have done.

So Stalin's thinking is you know I will

make this better world. Unfortunately

these X million people will have to go

first but I mean you know that's a price

worth paying. I think once you're using

that sort of language, you know,

politicians always, by definition, a

political leader will have to make bad

choices

that will involve some people getting

hurt, right? Even if it's in a very

small way because they're going to lose

lose a benefit or they're going to pay

tax or such, right? You're always going

to make choices if you're a sensible

polit. I mean, obviously, if you're like

Kia Star or somebody, you don't like

making choices at all, but most polit

effective politicians know that there

always going to be losers. Yeah. There

always going to be people whose lives

are worse and you hope that there'll be

as few of those as possible.

But once you're get getting into the

game of constantly saying, "Well,

there's a price worth paying."

Unfortunately, those people had to die

or whatever. I think that's very

dangerous.

I think the dying part is where I'm

aiming my

and I and I think the the the coroller

to go back to your point about certainty

and I think there's a difference between

believing something strongly and being

suffocatingly certain about it. So in

other words, I would say I mean you

obviously believe something strongly,

right? You have strong views,

but I would well I would assume or I

would hope that you're aware that not

everybody has those views and other

views are available, right? Of course,

of course we all are.

So I think it's being aware of the

contingency of your position that if you

were somebody else, you might believe

something different. And that that's

kind of fine, right? I don't expect I

don't think I have a hotline to God or

to the truth and that therefore

everybody should fall into line with me

and they're just wrong and I'm just

right. I think that's the issue, isn't

it? Someone like Stalin or Hitler, they

thought, well, I'm just right. Because

in the both cases, actually, they were

kind of scientific materialists to some

degree. They thought the laws of nature

and the world, I know them, you know,

Karl Marx or whoever told me them and

I'm just following those laws. So the

other the other opinions are by

definition illegitimate. They are

totally wrong and the people who are

promoting them are liars and basically I

need to get rid of them.

Whereas in an impuristic society you're

aware that there's lots of valid

viewpoints and let's say Churchill.

Churchill doesn't like bulism doesn't

like socialism but he's perfectly happy

to work with socialists in his war

cabinet. Clement gets on brilliantly

with them. And Churchill himself is

ideologically complicated. He's changed

parties. He was once very radical. He

ends up becoming much more conservative.

You know, he's conscious of the

complexity of a kind of pluralistic

worldview. And that's what makes him

ultimately, I think, a very attractive

figure because I think what he's

representing there is a kind of breadth

that these monsters don't have. They're

narrow. That's they're claust there's

something claustrophobic I think about

their worldview because they exclude

everything outside of it.

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And when we think about Hitler, we think

about the most evil man that has ever

lived. And I think look, obviously he

he's not true. No,

sorry. No, I was I was checking myself.

I was saying I was going to say I I

don't know whether he is, but the fact

that it's in my head is a partly a

result of education.

Yeah. And we think about him as the most

evil man that ever lived. Even though he

Stalin killed more people, Ma killed

more people. And yet you talk to the

average person and if someone says

they're a communist, we just go,

"Okay, he's communist." When someone

says they're a Nazi.

Yeah. Yeah. How many conversations with

Nazis are you having?

Yeah. Quite a lot, mate. With our

foundation. No, but genuinely, do you

know what I mean?

No, I do know what you mean. I think

it's a really funny thing. You know, I

often tell this story. I was backpacking

in uh Bulgaria uh with some student

friends in the 1990s and um we were in

this village and there was a bloke

there. He was like selling old communist

memorabilia

and we were looking through it cuz you

know we're interested in history. We

were kind looking through, oh, look,

there's a medal of style and there's all

this kind of thing. And this bloke said,

I have other tray. And he kind of pulled

out this other tray underneath the this

is like the real tray. And the real tray

is was full of like SS stuff. And I

mean, like, oh no, put it away. Put it

away. Terrible. I'm not interested in

that. But afterwards, we were talking

about it, how our reactions were

different, right? The communist stuff

to a Brit in the 1990s was kind of

slightly comical, right? You could have

a hammer and sickle t-shirt as a student

and people would kind of, you know, or

CCCP or whatever and no one's going to

think anything of it really. You know,

it's a bit of an affectation. You're

sort of showing off a little bit,

but it's um it's an aesthetic thing as

much as anything. Obviously, you know, a

swastika t-shirt walking into a student

union with a swastika t-shirt is is

pretty punchy

and you're going to get a very different

kind of reaction. And I think obviously

to some degree that reflects the fact

that for us in Britain, Nazism was the

real enemy. We're very conscious of the

death toll. Um it seems nihilistic and

horrendous and utterly beyond the pale,

right? If somebody wears a swastika

t-shirt, you I think you pretty much

say, "Okay, that's it." You know, we we

have it's inconceivable to me that one

of my friends could come over with a

swastika t-shirt

unless they're Hindu,

right? Well, I guess that's you're

you're trying quite hard there or a

famous rapper, but

you're wearing that you're wearing that

hammer and sickle t-shirt in Poland or

in you know the former occupied Eastern

Europe

or you're walking around

with a Cam Rouge t-shirt in Cambodia or

something. I mean

that that's obviously going to have a

very very different um so it does

slightly depend where you're standing.

Is that because of there's also a

perception of intentionality? There is

there's the sense I think most people

fundamentally don't understand the thing

we've been talking about in this

conversation which is the Nazis were

also well-intentioned

right

they think the Nazis were just evil

whereas the communists were

well-intentioned I think you're right

and the things that they did were kind

of like well they were trying to make

they were trying to do good but then

they just put these people in camps or

they killed and also I think the other

thing as well the difference is

communists killed millions of people Mao

and Stalin a lot of the deaths were

actually through incompetence and the

inability of the economic model that

they were applying to actually feed

people basically.

Yeah. Right. So that they do kill people

deliberately. Of course they do.

Starting purges, the great terror um you

know um

but that doesn't compare to marching 7

million people if you include all the

different groups into

into Yeah. Exactly. Do you know what I

mean? Exactly. There's not the sort of

there's not quite the same

industrialized deliberate Yeah. uh

methodical apparatus of extermination.

But the really controversial thing I

wanted to ask you is when France has

said Hitler is the most evil man blah

blah blah.

Is he the most evil man?

From from my reading of World War II,

like I know this will be controversial.

I'm not sure what the Japanese did in

World War II wasn't worse than what the

Germans did.

Uh I think the death toll of the the

Japanese don't have an exterminator

program in the same way that the the

Germans do. The Japanese So if you if

you imagine you had a Japanese guest,

right? what a sort of nationalistic

Japanese guest

that guest would say to you, I can't

believe I've I've degenerated to

impersonating a Japanese.

I hope you don't do the accent because

that really would take us out of life.

Um I he would presumably say, "Look,

we're doing what European

colonializers."

Yeah. What you I'll do it again.

We're butchering millions of people with

shovels and bayonets. And

he would say, "Violence happens people."

But he'd say, "Did not Dominic say

earlier in the show that violence

happens and bad things happen in all

empires and so on and so forth? Why are

you judging us by different standards?

Yeah,

he would probably say that.

But wouldn't Adolf Hitler say that too?

No, because I think Hitler um I mean

Hitler might, but Hitler has an

exterminatory program which very few

other empires do.

That's fair.

So to give you an example that you

mentioned, which is the Spanish in the

in the Americas,

the Spanish a lot of people die when the

Spanish arrive.

Loads of people die and they die through

disease. They desire through mass, they

die through massacres, all of those

kinds of things. But the Spanish really

don't want to kill a lot of people. What

they really want is workers. And they're

gutted when all these people start dying

in the Caribbean or whatever. So the

so-called genocide that the Spanish

carry out in the Caribbean, the Tyino

people, when they arrive, there are none

of them left, right, within a couple of

decades. And the Spanish were really

disappointed because they'd wanted these

people to be working the gold mines and

whatnot for them. They don't want to go

to the Americas and kill loads of

people. It's not part of their program.

They want to make loads of money and if

they have to kill a few people, fair

enough. That's as they see it. That's

part of the game. But they don't have a

genocidal program.

The Third Reich is unusual.

I see.

In having a deliberate genocidal

program.

Even the Mongols weren't really

genocidal. They were like, "Either

surrender, we'll kill you. But if you

surrender, we'll exactly sucking your

city is just part of the course, right?"

That's what they think.

So that's what makes the Nazis kind of

different is

I think it makes them Yeah. It makes

them really chilling and unsettling. And

there is a sort of um this application

of the apparatus of of industrial

modernity to killing people. I think

that's what a lot of people it's like

you know you think about some of one of

the most you know some of the most

chilling films about the Holocaust.

There's the film Conspiracy which is

about the Vanay conference and it's

literally just people sitting around a

table like this

talking about you know how they're going

to organize the infrastructure.

Yeah. or the film I can't remember the

title now where you never see that you

never see it but you hear it where it's

set just over there it's the uh camp

commandant at Achvitz very recent film

did really well um and you you again you

don't see what's happening in the camp

but you see the benality

and the ordered methodical

um almost sort of humdrum nature of the

of the apparatus of killing I think

that's what we find really terrifying

about the Nazis and that's different I

think from let's

Stalin's great terror,

his I mean it's not unlike other terrors

in history. There's a sort of um an ad

hoc nature to it of you know there's a

it's a regime trying to purge people

within it. We've seen it many times in

history. It's on a much bigger scale of

course but it doesn't have that kind of

quite had that cold.

It's kind of like the French Revolution

and what happened after it cuz basically

you've got a bunch of these like crazy

lunatic revolutionaries and you can't

really run a country like that. So you

have to kill them off and then you kill

off the people who killed them off and

until you you you really

the idea of the enemy within.

Yeah.

I think the idea of the enemy within um

is a very the traitor within

is a is a really dangerous one once you

go down that road. So it almost always

happens with revolutionary regimes.

They're in battle from the very

beginning because they've got the the

old regime. They're worried they're

going to come back or they've got

foreign advers. they've got foreign

adversaries adversaries as they did in

the French Revolution. That's why I'm

getting so excited talking about the

French Revolution that I can't even

speak. Um, and then when you start

looking at your kind of you look in

internally and you look at domestic

opposition, you say, "Well, these people

are not just, you know, critics or

opponents, they're traitors and they're

a threat to our revolution. Then they've

got to go." And you see that again and

again. And what's really interesting and

worrying at the same time is you look at

our economy which is faltering to put it

mildly.

Yeah.

People are getting poorer. People aren't

going to be able to

I'm intrigued about where you're going

to go with it.

Yeah.

Is it are you going to ask the key

question which is basically is K starin?

Yes. Exact. I don't think he's that

competent if I'm going to be honest with

you or has the courage of his

convictions either. But I guess my point

is, do you get concerned when you see us

enter these kind of economic times where

richer and rich and poor, the gap is

getting ever wider, people are

struggling economically,

that we're going to enter more turbulent

times and these are the times where

utopianism, yeah,

socialism, you know, these people are

bad. That's going to start to creep in

as people look quite naturally for

someone to play. Uh, am I concerned

about it? I think it will happen, but

I'm not concerned about it because I

think that's history, right? That's just

what happens.

That's a really reason not to be

concerned about it. I mean, no offense.

Well, I think my entire family is going

to get wiped out, but that's history,

mate. You know, don't worry about it.

That is what I think. That is what I

think.

What do you mean that's what you think?

I think that's what I I think that's

what

you have children, right?

Yeah.

So, what if they all get killed? Are you

not concerned about this?

Well, I will say to my son, you know,

the lesson of history is your neighbors

will probably try to kill and eat you.

So, make sure you kill them first.

He is rightwing.

I think but I think I think that's like

complaining. Are you not concerned that

very soon you know the summer will be

over and winter will come? I'm like of

course I'm not concerned about it. I

mean I know it's going to happen. It'd

be waste of time to lie awake worrying

about it. I think people who like us,

you know, born in the post-war period,

grew up in the years of affluence,

um, sort of came of age in the postcold

war era, end of history, you know,

liberal democracy,

uh, I we still, even though we

intellectually maybe think, oh yeah, I

know that's not the norm, and I know

history is much darker, but I think

still instinctively we kind of think

it'd be nice if it like that all the

time. You know, be nice if it was just

economic growth and everybody was happy

and we were all friends. It would be