1 00:00:07,960 --> 00:00:12,160 Well, today I'd like to welcome to UK column Doctor Anthony 2 00:00:12,160 --> 00:00:15,120 McCarthy. Now Anthony is a director and 3 00:00:15,120 --> 00:00:17,560 founder of the BIOS Centre in London. 4 00:00:17,840 --> 00:00:21,520 He's a visiting scholar in moral philosophy at the Theological 5 00:00:21,520 --> 00:00:26,960 Institute in Trauma, Austria. He holds degrees in philosophy 6 00:00:26,960 --> 00:00:30,800 from King's College London, University College London and 7 00:00:30,800 --> 00:00:35,320 the University of Surrey. He's the author of Ethical Sex, 8 00:00:35,600 --> 00:00:38,120 Sexual Choices and Their Nature and Meaning. 9 00:00:38,480 --> 00:00:42,480 And Anthony is joining us today to speak in a personal capacity. 10 00:00:42,800 --> 00:00:47,520 So welcome, Anthony, it's really great to have you here today. 11 00:00:47,840 --> 00:00:52,120 And I just, you know, just want to ask you what prompted you to, 12 00:00:53,240 --> 00:00:57,800 to write Ethical Ethical Sex. Well, thank you very much for 13 00:00:57,800 --> 00:01:01,600 having me. So I had quite an interest in 14 00:01:01,600 --> 00:01:05,360 philosophy from a young age and a particularly moral philosophy. 15 00:01:05,880 --> 00:01:11,400 And so I went to study study that subject and I found that 16 00:01:13,160 --> 00:01:15,960 moral philosophy was very interesting, but that the 17 00:01:15,960 --> 00:01:19,440 treatments of a very important area of life, namely our our 18 00:01:19,440 --> 00:01:24,960 sexual nature, received very little serious attention within 19 00:01:25,520 --> 00:01:28,400 philosophy. So you had discussions in moral 20 00:01:28,400 --> 00:01:31,400 philosophy about all sorts of areas of life and political 21 00:01:31,400 --> 00:01:33,440 questions as well concerning property. 22 00:01:34,040 --> 00:01:37,080 And there was a feeling that people would have a general 23 00:01:37,600 --> 00:01:41,880 moral philosophical theory and that there was no special area 24 00:01:41,880 --> 00:01:46,240 of sex, as it were. So sex was actually treated, I 25 00:01:46,240 --> 00:01:48,720 think, in a very trivial way. It was treated as though it 26 00:01:48,720 --> 00:01:52,440 wasn't a special area of life. And this seemed to me to 27 00:01:52,760 --> 00:01:57,920 conflict very much with our own experience of, of, of this area 28 00:01:57,920 --> 00:02:00,040 of life. But also it's it's importance in 29 00:02:00,040 --> 00:02:04,880 society if one thinks so. I mean, one thing I thought, for 30 00:02:04,880 --> 00:02:09,479 example, rape is a particularly horrendous type of crime. 31 00:02:09,840 --> 00:02:14,560 But if you understand sexual ethics only in terms of consent, 32 00:02:14,560 --> 00:02:17,480 basically consent is the only thing that matters, It's 33 00:02:17,480 --> 00:02:20,800 actually quite hard to understand why that particular 34 00:02:20,800 --> 00:02:24,640 violation of consent seems to be so devastating to seem to do 35 00:02:24,640 --> 00:02:28,680 such moral damage to people. So that was sort of where I 36 00:02:28,680 --> 00:02:33,600 began is is with a frustration. And I mean, a very good example. 37 00:02:34,520 --> 00:02:38,640 There was the first year book called Practical Ethics by Peter 38 00:02:38,640 --> 00:02:39,920 Singer. And Peter Singer is a very 39 00:02:39,920 --> 00:02:43,280 extreme character. He's known for animal rights, 40 00:02:43,280 --> 00:02:46,640 but also he has endorsed infanticide. 41 00:02:46,640 --> 00:02:52,400 He he's a very hard line utilitarian if you like. 42 00:02:52,800 --> 00:02:55,960 And at the beginning of that book, he says that sex is of no 43 00:02:55,960 --> 00:03:00,520 importance at all for ethics any more than traffic regulations. 44 00:03:00,920 --> 00:03:02,400 So you just have a general set of. 45 00:03:02,640 --> 00:03:05,200 Rules. Yeah, You have a general set of 46 00:03:05,200 --> 00:03:11,320 rules, you know, for traffic, say, and sex is just like that. 47 00:03:11,320 --> 00:03:14,440 He has no special nature. And I thought, well, if you look 48 00:03:14,440 --> 00:03:18,880 at all of literature, the idea of a virtue connected with, with 49 00:03:18,880 --> 00:03:24,280 the sexual morality, chastity, ideas about marriage, the 50 00:03:24,280 --> 00:03:28,040 seriousness of adultery, say, the importance of marriage, what 51 00:03:28,040 --> 00:03:29,200 the meaning of marriage might be. 52 00:03:29,200 --> 00:03:33,520 If you think about those questions seriously, you realise 53 00:03:33,520 --> 00:03:38,080 it's nothing like that at all. So you wonder why in philosophy 54 00:03:38,080 --> 00:03:41,480 it is so neglected. And I think downstream from 55 00:03:41,480 --> 00:03:47,440 that, as it were, you have big changes in the culture and 56 00:03:47,440 --> 00:03:51,160 people don't really know how to address these questions, you 57 00:03:51,160 --> 00:03:53,680 know, because they keep coming back to, well, is it consensual? 58 00:03:54,080 --> 00:03:56,680 Which is of course, that's a very important consideration. 59 00:03:56,680 --> 00:03:59,240 There's a lot to be said about the nature of consent. 60 00:03:59,680 --> 00:04:02,800 But is that all there is to, to sexual morality, whether 61 00:04:02,800 --> 00:04:05,520 something is consensual or not? It seems to me not. 62 00:04:06,280 --> 00:04:09,200 Quite right. And so really we're looking at 63 00:04:09,200 --> 00:04:13,400 the, the, the whole sexual revolution, you know, it's 64 00:04:13,400 --> 00:04:17,399 obviously reshaped and possibly distorted the meaning of sex in 65 00:04:17,399 --> 00:04:19,279 a lot of ways. Do you feel that might be the 66 00:04:19,279 --> 00:04:22,040 case? Yes, very much so. 67 00:04:22,920 --> 00:04:29,120 And I think actually we see a lot of confusions arising from 68 00:04:29,640 --> 00:04:33,080 what I would take to be a misunderstanding about the 69 00:04:33,080 --> 00:04:38,520 nature of, of of sex. So I mean, the most radical sort 70 00:04:38,520 --> 00:04:46,120 of change comes about with the promotion of contraception. 71 00:04:46,360 --> 00:04:51,280 The The contraceptive pill obviously has very big social 72 00:04:51,880 --> 00:04:56,280 consequences because it gets people very used to the idea 73 00:04:56,400 --> 00:05:01,000 that sex is that there's nothing essentially about sex which 74 00:05:01,000 --> 00:05:05,360 relates to procreation to to the. 75 00:05:05,360 --> 00:05:08,920 Coming to be of new. And women's. 76 00:05:08,920 --> 00:05:12,600 Liberation as well, women's liberation where in in a way, 77 00:05:12,600 --> 00:05:16,720 this promise of, of career freedom and sexual freedom and 78 00:05:16,720 --> 00:05:20,160 financial independence, which, you know, all sounds very good 79 00:05:20,160 --> 00:05:22,840 on the outside, but you know, actually has it made women 80 00:05:22,840 --> 00:05:25,720 happier? And I, I, I know a lot of women 81 00:05:25,720 --> 00:05:29,280 at the moment who have, you know, it's led to loneliness and 82 00:05:29,320 --> 00:05:34,120 and insecurity actually. So yeah, that is a whole new 83 00:05:35,200 --> 00:05:38,800 area that that I think people have overlooked. 84 00:05:38,880 --> 00:05:41,640 The fact that is, has it made us happier? 85 00:05:41,760 --> 00:05:43,320 It hasn't made men happier either. 86 00:05:43,680 --> 00:05:46,000 So yeah, I mean, do you agree with that? 87 00:05:46,640 --> 00:05:51,040 Well, it's certainly, I mean, yeah, it it, it certainly hasn't 88 00:05:51,040 --> 00:05:53,960 been a utopia, put it that way. And I think there are very 89 00:05:53,960 --> 00:05:57,720 serious costs. So there's a question, Do you? 90 00:05:58,080 --> 00:06:00,920 So it's sold in terms of an increase in your autonomy, an 91 00:06:00,920 --> 00:06:05,240 increase in your range of choices, and with an increase in 92 00:06:05,240 --> 00:06:10,360 your range of choices, you know, that is taken to be necessarily 93 00:06:10,360 --> 00:06:13,960 a good thing. OK, now this is a general point 94 00:06:13,960 --> 00:06:17,240 about choices. Actually, an extension of your 95 00:06:17,240 --> 00:06:22,440 range of choices within a society creates all sorts of 96 00:06:22,440 --> 00:06:25,760 social pressures that you perhaps didn't anticipate. 97 00:06:28,120 --> 00:06:34,000 So 1 a consequence you might say, and this is sort of 98 00:06:34,000 --> 00:06:37,320 connected with the sexual revolution is something like 99 00:06:37,320 --> 00:06:42,080 abortion. So someone says that is now a 100 00:06:42,080 --> 00:06:46,800 choice that can be legitimate. The the law will support you, 101 00:06:46,920 --> 00:06:51,440 the medical profession will provide for for this operation 102 00:06:52,240 --> 00:06:55,760 for what had once been seen as something seriously wrong or 103 00:06:55,760 --> 00:06:59,760 problematic. OK, so you now have a choice you 104 00:06:59,760 --> 00:07:03,320 didn't previously have. Well, an effect of having that 105 00:07:03,320 --> 00:07:07,560 choice, aside from the moral question about abortion and 106 00:07:07,920 --> 00:07:12,440 whether the taking of an unborn life is is morally wrong, is 107 00:07:14,160 --> 00:07:18,320 that a woman who is now pregnant is starts to become viewed 108 00:07:18,320 --> 00:07:20,120 differently. You don't think, well, she's 109 00:07:20,120 --> 00:07:22,560 pregnant, so she's going to have a baby. 110 00:07:22,560 --> 00:07:24,120 So we have to think about how to help her. 111 00:07:24,760 --> 00:07:27,520 You might think, well, why the hell doesn't she have an 112 00:07:27,520 --> 00:07:29,960 abortion? That's an option for her now. 113 00:07:30,360 --> 00:07:33,760 So suddenly there's a social pressure that wasn't there 114 00:07:33,760 --> 00:07:36,440 before because something was seen as not an option. 115 00:07:36,720 --> 00:07:38,280 So it's not a. Straightforward thing is that 116 00:07:38,280 --> 00:07:41,360 what you're saying it's been normalized to I think it value 117 00:07:41,680 --> 00:07:43,600 life. Yeah, well, the the baseline 118 00:07:43,600 --> 00:07:45,960 assumption changes. So the baseline assumption 119 00:07:45,960 --> 00:07:49,320 before was this woman is pregnant and then hopefully you 120 00:07:49,320 --> 00:07:52,040 think, well, if she's going to have a child, she will need some 121 00:07:52,040 --> 00:07:54,720 support. What is the, the best way of, of 122 00:07:54,720 --> 00:07:58,120 supporting that? But if you stay, ah, but now she 123 00:07:58,120 --> 00:08:00,960 has a choice to end that pregnancy and you end the 124 00:08:00,960 --> 00:08:03,680 pregnancy by destroying the unborn child. 125 00:08:05,240 --> 00:08:08,840 Well, then she's in a very different position socially 126 00:08:08,880 --> 00:08:12,360 because now people look upon a pregnant woman and they might 127 00:08:12,360 --> 00:08:16,160 think, well, she shouldn't be pregnant or why should anyone 128 00:08:16,160 --> 00:08:20,080 pay for this, You know, therefore she should go back and 129 00:08:20,080 --> 00:08:23,640 destroy the child. And I think this, this, this 130 00:08:23,640 --> 00:08:27,400 sort of thinking about autonomy is very dangerous. 131 00:08:27,400 --> 00:08:30,720 We, we also see this with end of life debates actually that well, 132 00:08:30,720 --> 00:08:35,240 why are you choosing to stay alive when you could kill 133 00:08:35,240 --> 00:08:38,960 yourself? OK, if the law changes, it 134 00:08:38,960 --> 00:08:42,600 changes the social pressure and the expectations upon people and 135 00:08:42,600 --> 00:08:45,120 those those those things I think are underestimated. 136 00:08:46,680 --> 00:08:50,000 And, and also we've, we've got this, the, the demographic 137 00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:54,240 collapse in, in, you know, in, in population, in, in the 138 00:08:54,240 --> 00:08:57,680 Western world where this is really having quite a 139 00:08:57,680 --> 00:09:00,080 devastating effect. Birth rates are falling, 140 00:09:00,320 --> 00:09:04,720 marriage is collapsing, and many women do end up childless 141 00:09:04,720 --> 00:09:07,680 because not by choice, but because of circumstances as 142 00:09:07,680 --> 00:09:10,360 you've just sure, of course, you know, illustrated. 143 00:09:10,600 --> 00:09:13,800 So what does this reveal about our our culture's moral 144 00:09:13,800 --> 00:09:19,840 direction at the moment? Well, I think by, as it were, 145 00:09:19,840 --> 00:09:25,200 removing the reference of, well, the association between sexual 146 00:09:25,200 --> 00:09:28,160 activity and the coming to be of children. 147 00:09:28,480 --> 00:09:33,680 You remove an awful lot of institutions that traditionally 148 00:09:33,680 --> 00:09:36,800 did surround that. So the first thing you do in a 149 00:09:36,800 --> 00:09:39,360 sense is you weaken the very idea of marriage. 150 00:09:39,680 --> 00:09:45,640 So if you think that marriage is about a man and a woman engaged 151 00:09:45,640 --> 00:09:49,400 in a lifelong partnership for the rearing of children, of 152 00:09:49,400 --> 00:09:52,440 course not every marriage will have children. 153 00:09:52,720 --> 00:09:59,160 But the the a couple are engaged in a procreative and a unitive 154 00:09:59,160 --> 00:10:02,280 kind of act, which is the kind of act that can bring children 155 00:10:02,280 --> 00:10:05,200 to be. If you completely and radically 156 00:10:05,200 --> 00:10:09,560 separate the idea of sexual activity from the coming to be 157 00:10:09,560 --> 00:10:15,920 of a new new new life children, you actually radically change 158 00:10:15,920 --> 00:10:20,840 the very nature of marriage because marriage no longer it's 159 00:10:20,840 --> 00:10:24,120 no longer obvious why marriage should be, for example, 160 00:10:24,120 --> 00:10:28,480 lifelong. That is very or indeed if we're 161 00:10:28,480 --> 00:10:30,920 going to push it to the extreme or indeed between two people of 162 00:10:30,920 --> 00:10:37,760 opposite sex, because there is no essential relation of that 163 00:10:37,760 --> 00:10:40,240 institution to the child. Whereas traditionally the idea 164 00:10:40,240 --> 00:10:45,640 was marriage is built around a particular kind of act, namely a 165 00:10:45,640 --> 00:10:50,440 sexual act which is open to the possibility of new life of of 166 00:10:50,440 --> 00:10:53,280 children. So the institution, as it were, 167 00:10:54,960 --> 00:10:59,120 is built around that understanding and that's very, 168 00:10:59,240 --> 00:11:02,480 as it were child centric. So the idea is that children are 169 00:11:02,680 --> 00:11:04,280 parents are for the child as it were. 170 00:11:04,280 --> 00:11:06,920 They are striving towards a child and they in some sense 171 00:11:06,920 --> 00:11:10,560 serve that child. Now that gets reversed if you 172 00:11:10,560 --> 00:11:16,520 change the nature of the institution and the act. 173 00:11:17,800 --> 00:11:20,760 So if you if you change the nature of the ACT it, it somehow 174 00:11:20,760 --> 00:11:24,440 loses its rationale to some extent because you're now 175 00:11:24,440 --> 00:11:29,200 engaged in what's called sexual, sexual activity of some kind, 176 00:11:29,880 --> 00:11:32,680 which has no relation to children and therefore no 177 00:11:32,680 --> 00:11:35,040 relation to a traditional view of marriage at all. 178 00:11:35,760 --> 00:11:38,600 So why should it be contained? Within marriage, but also, I 179 00:11:39,040 --> 00:11:43,600 mean, it is, can it not within the family framework? 180 00:11:43,880 --> 00:11:48,840 Can it not just be also an act that brings people closer and, 181 00:11:48,840 --> 00:11:54,160 and develops a, a deeper understanding of each human 182 00:11:54,160 --> 00:11:56,000 being? You know, the, the, the couple. 183 00:11:56,800 --> 00:12:01,640 So it's, it's although the, the, the reason the, the framework is 184 00:12:01,640 --> 00:12:06,600 the family and the children, but it is also hopefully deepening 185 00:12:06,600 --> 00:12:09,240 the connection between the two people that create that 186 00:12:09,240 --> 00:12:10,800 framework. Would you agree? 187 00:12:10,880 --> 00:12:13,560 Well, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, they're not I, I, I 188 00:12:13,560 --> 00:12:14,760 certainly wouldn't separate them. 189 00:12:14,760 --> 00:12:17,440 I mean, someone who's overly focused on children and forgets 190 00:12:17,440 --> 00:12:20,960 about, yes, the union of the couple is, is doing something 191 00:12:20,960 --> 00:12:23,280 very wrong. In fact, both it's there are two 192 00:12:23,280 --> 00:12:24,600 ways of going wrong, it seems to me. 193 00:12:24,600 --> 00:12:28,680 One is over focus on, you know, childbirth and just having 194 00:12:28,680 --> 00:12:31,960 children and neglecting the marital friendship, as it were, 195 00:12:31,960 --> 00:12:34,680 in the union. The other is to only focus on 196 00:12:34,680 --> 00:12:39,040 that and to deliberately exclude from that the possibility of 197 00:12:39,040 --> 00:12:41,840 children and, and changing the nature of the sexual act so that 198 00:12:41,840 --> 00:12:45,240 it doesn't do that. So and the idea of marriage was 199 00:12:45,240 --> 00:12:48,640 that you have this lifelong commitment where you really 200 00:12:48,640 --> 00:12:52,360 understand the other person is irreplaceable in some sense, so. 201 00:12:52,480 --> 00:12:56,560 This brings us onto the question of then if we, if we look at the 202 00:12:56,560 --> 00:13:01,960 whole LBGTQ expansion and the trans movement, you know that 203 00:13:01,960 --> 00:13:08,680 that in a way that that kind of, you know, this is really a lot 204 00:13:08,680 --> 00:13:10,400 of young people are getting involved in that. 205 00:13:10,400 --> 00:13:14,480 What deeper philosophical or cultural forces are driving that 206 00:13:14,920 --> 00:13:17,000 in, in respect to what we've just talked about? 207 00:13:18,240 --> 00:13:22,240 Well, I think if you change the nature of the sexual act as as 208 00:13:22,240 --> 00:13:24,760 the sort of sexual revolution tended to do, it changed the 209 00:13:24,760 --> 00:13:29,080 societal understanding of it. Then very quickly it becomes 210 00:13:29,080 --> 00:13:34,080 reasonable for someone to say, well, if you can engage in 211 00:13:34,080 --> 00:13:39,000 sexual acts of for emotional reasons completely unrelated to 212 00:13:39,000 --> 00:13:42,480 marriage, completely unrelated to the idea of building a, a 213 00:13:42,480 --> 00:13:46,080 life around these acts and children and, and, and the 214 00:13:46,080 --> 00:13:47,840 marital union and everything that goes with it. 215 00:13:48,600 --> 00:13:55,080 Then why do you, for example, condemn homosexual activity, 216 00:13:55,080 --> 00:13:58,680 say, or other forms of, of sexual activity which had 217 00:13:58,680 --> 00:14:02,360 traditionally been rather condemned and sometimes in in 218 00:14:02,360 --> 00:14:04,160 rather brutal ways has to be said? 219 00:14:05,480 --> 00:14:09,560 Well, in a sense they have a point. 220 00:14:09,560 --> 00:14:13,720 Because if you have changed the nature of the sexual act, and if 221 00:14:13,720 --> 00:14:17,480 you say that that act now no longer has any sort of marital 222 00:14:17,480 --> 00:14:22,400 meaning in itself, it's merely a matter of choice, then why not 223 00:14:22,960 --> 00:14:28,160 engage in in other kinds of sexual activities or indeed 224 00:14:28,480 --> 00:14:31,040 change the nature of marriage, which we've seen with the 225 00:14:31,840 --> 00:14:33,840 legislation on same sex marriage, which completely 226 00:14:33,840 --> 00:14:37,280 changes the meaning of marriage. It is now no longer has that 227 00:14:37,280 --> 00:14:45,000 traditional meaning. So I think in a sense you've the 228 00:14:45,040 --> 00:14:47,280 these things, as it were, follow logically. 229 00:14:47,280 --> 00:14:50,280 It might take a while for society to develop, but as we've 230 00:14:50,280 --> 00:14:54,600 seen, once you've changed this, you do get and you do get these 231 00:14:54,600 --> 00:14:58,360 sort of changes in the LGBT area. 232 00:14:58,600 --> 00:15:03,040 But you also get confusions now about the very idea of gender, 233 00:15:04,360 --> 00:15:07,520 because in a sense what you've done is you've, by changing the 234 00:15:07,520 --> 00:15:10,760 nature of the sexual act, you've changed the fundamental idea of 235 00:15:10,760 --> 00:15:14,760 masculinity and femininity, male and female, and as our bodies as 236 00:15:14,760 --> 00:15:17,800 having a kind of meaning, I would say a marital meaning. 237 00:15:19,080 --> 00:15:25,080 So once you've done that, you, you don't really, I mean, the, 238 00:15:25,080 --> 00:15:32,880 the, when it comes to the LGBT area, you, you, you can't really 239 00:15:32,880 --> 00:15:36,600 argue, it seems to me on on grounds of traditional reality, 240 00:15:36,600 --> 00:15:40,440 if you yourself have agreed with the sexual revolution. 241 00:15:40,560 --> 00:15:44,360 So I mean I. Do think the, the whole thing 242 00:15:44,360 --> 00:15:50,240 about sexual identity, if you can, if you can somehow separate 243 00:15:50,240 --> 00:15:55,440 the biology from the identity. I feel that that this again, it 244 00:15:55,440 --> 00:15:59,480 serves the a political agenda where at the moment we're, we're 245 00:15:59,560 --> 00:16:03,840 we're getting this whole identity issue because if you 246 00:16:03,960 --> 00:16:07,320 destroy someones identity, which basically you are, you're 247 00:16:07,400 --> 00:16:10,840 destroying their sexual identity and replacing it with, with 248 00:16:11,120 --> 00:16:14,480 something else. And if you can do that, it, it 249 00:16:14,480 --> 00:16:19,400 kind of is very easy then to morph into the, the whole 250 00:16:19,400 --> 00:16:23,080 transhumanism agenda, which I don't necessarily want to touch 251 00:16:23,080 --> 00:16:25,560 on too much. But also we're talking about, 252 00:16:25,560 --> 00:16:29,520 you know, digital identity, you know, if, if it's all kind of 253 00:16:29,520 --> 00:16:33,040 wrapped up with the, with, with understanding who you really 254 00:16:33,040 --> 00:16:35,480 are. And if you're changing who, you 255 00:16:35,480 --> 00:16:39,880 know, the biology that you have, there's a danger of, of it being 256 00:16:40,240 --> 00:16:44,440 almost controlled into an, into a different way. 257 00:16:44,480 --> 00:16:48,640 Like when you look at the, the whole Internet of bodies and the 258 00:16:48,640 --> 00:16:50,560 digital twins that they're creating. 259 00:16:50,840 --> 00:16:54,520 So it does serve a purpose in the broader, if you like, 260 00:16:54,520 --> 00:16:58,160 technocratic sense, yeah. No, I, I just, I think that a 261 00:16:59,400 --> 00:17:03,320 lot of it stems from a down grading of the idea that our 262 00:17:03,520 --> 00:17:06,119 sexual activity has a certain kind of meaning. 263 00:17:07,720 --> 00:17:10,240 It relates to an institution called marriage. 264 00:17:10,400 --> 00:17:13,200 It could be argued. Now, if you don't take that and 265 00:17:13,200 --> 00:17:17,319 you say, well, no, I'm a creature and I have autonomous 266 00:17:17,319 --> 00:17:20,800 choices and I get to decide my identity and I get to make 267 00:17:20,800 --> 00:17:26,040 myself and do all these things. Okay, But then you're denying 268 00:17:26,040 --> 00:17:28,720 that our bodies have a particular kind of meaning. 269 00:17:29,000 --> 00:17:33,840 So are you then going to impose a meaning on things that people 270 00:17:33,840 --> 00:17:36,880 had thought had a meaning in themselves or that marriage had 271 00:17:36,880 --> 00:17:39,080 a particular kind of meaning or something like that? 272 00:17:39,360 --> 00:17:43,400 And of course, as soon as you do that, as soon as you degrade 273 00:17:43,400 --> 00:17:46,960 the, the, the idea that your maleness or femaleness has a 274 00:17:46,960 --> 00:17:51,880 certain kind of meaning, which relates to biology and has many 275 00:17:51,880 --> 00:17:53,920 other meanings. But of course biology is, is 276 00:17:53,920 --> 00:17:57,240 fundamental. Once you do that, then of course 277 00:17:57,240 --> 00:18:01,680 you get people creating their own identity, sometimes in 278 00:18:01,680 --> 00:18:05,680 opposition to their, to their, their biological nature. 279 00:18:05,760 --> 00:18:09,320 And that I think that does. I mean, if people ground their 280 00:18:09,320 --> 00:18:16,840 identities in something that is unrelated to their, what I might 281 00:18:16,840 --> 00:18:21,960 consider their, their, the, the meaning of their bodies, as it 282 00:18:21,960 --> 00:18:25,840 were, the meaning of being male or female as they relate to each 283 00:18:25,840 --> 00:18:28,480 other. If you define something yourself 284 00:18:28,520 --> 00:18:32,240 outside of that or in opposition to that, then it seems to me 285 00:18:32,240 --> 00:18:35,920 that that's a very fragile basis for an identity because it's not 286 00:18:35,920 --> 00:18:38,960 actually grounded in certain things that we traditionally 287 00:18:38,960 --> 00:18:41,560 have thought were, were, were required. 288 00:18:41,560 --> 00:18:46,440 And if if that's the case, then politically it seems to me that, 289 00:18:48,400 --> 00:18:51,200 yeah, if somebody has a great deal of power, they don't want 290 00:18:51,200 --> 00:18:54,560 people to have strong grounded identities which they find, for 291 00:18:54,560 --> 00:18:56,800 example, in a family. They've become much more 292 00:18:56,800 --> 00:18:58,800 atomized. They've become much more 293 00:18:58,800 --> 00:19:01,960 fragmentary. And the family framework does 294 00:19:02,000 --> 00:19:06,440 does actually give that, that you know, that, that security 295 00:19:06,440 --> 00:19:11,160 and, and stable basis for developing your own identity and 296 00:19:11,160 --> 00:19:13,360 your own opinions and, and everything. 297 00:19:13,360 --> 00:19:16,800 So in a way it does, it could, I mean, we, we've seen the 298 00:19:16,800 --> 00:19:20,680 destruction of the family unit and that does serve a bigger 299 00:19:20,680 --> 00:19:22,880 agenda. If, if, if it is all about 300 00:19:22,880 --> 00:19:26,520 control, which we're seeing more and more these days now, do you 301 00:19:26,520 --> 00:19:28,880 think men have been culturally encouraged to avoid 302 00:19:28,880 --> 00:19:31,560 responsibility? Because this is what I'm seeing, 303 00:19:31,560 --> 00:19:33,840 you know, family, you know, and adulthood. 304 00:19:33,840 --> 00:19:39,120 Are we raising boys who are disconnected from fatherhood as 305 00:19:39,160 --> 00:19:43,280 a as a sort of a moral calling in a in a sense? 306 00:19:45,880 --> 00:19:47,760 Well, it certainly seems that way. 307 00:19:48,720 --> 00:19:52,000 I mean, I think it's, you know, there are many causes for these 308 00:19:52,000 --> 00:19:54,280 things. I mean, I certainly don't think, 309 00:19:54,440 --> 00:19:57,640 you know the sort of economic setup of our society is 310 00:19:57,640 --> 00:20:01,080 particularly supportive of. Of it's the dependency, isn't 311 00:20:01,080 --> 00:20:03,160 it? It's, it's creating this, this 312 00:20:03,160 --> 00:20:07,040 dependency on benefits which allows for the, the, the men to 313 00:20:07,040 --> 00:20:12,960 take no responsibility and the women to, to, to live alone and, 314 00:20:12,960 --> 00:20:17,040 and receive benefits in, in this dependent sort of cycle, which 315 00:20:17,040 --> 00:20:20,200 isn't good for anyone really. And, and also you've got 316 00:20:20,200 --> 00:20:24,720 fatherless, fatherless sons and, and daughters, but sons 317 00:20:24,720 --> 00:20:28,160 particularly, I think you know, they, they, we, we, we've got 318 00:20:28,160 --> 00:20:31,680 all these boys that have no fathers and no role models. 319 00:20:31,680 --> 00:20:34,960 So that can't be very healthy for them either. 320 00:20:35,800 --> 00:20:40,080 Well, I think if you, if you weaken the fundamental idea of 321 00:20:40,080 --> 00:20:43,760 marriage, the fundamental institution, then then clearly 322 00:20:43,760 --> 00:20:47,760 you lose a great deal of foundation and grounding in the, 323 00:20:47,920 --> 00:20:51,320 in the bringing up of, of people that can be threatened in many 324 00:20:51,920 --> 00:20:55,200 various ways. Certainly, you know, the, the 325 00:20:55,200 --> 00:20:58,760 welfare culture can, can be part of that, but also a, a culture 326 00:20:58,760 --> 00:21:00,920 which basically doesn't support families either. 327 00:21:01,800 --> 00:21:05,920 A highly consumerist culture, which is constantly sort of, you 328 00:21:05,920 --> 00:21:08,800 know, you know, actually a very revolutionary way, constantly 329 00:21:08,840 --> 00:21:12,000 undermining in the name of prophets or whatever, 330 00:21:12,880 --> 00:21:16,200 undermining all sorts of social structures that, that deed 331 00:21:16,200 --> 00:21:20,040 favour the family, because the family in a sense is a, is a 332 00:21:20,040 --> 00:21:23,280 world in itself. And, and there are certain 333 00:21:23,280 --> 00:21:26,080 people who don't want worlds in themselves because those worlds 334 00:21:26,080 --> 00:21:31,320 in themselves, as it were, are inherently pre political. 335 00:21:31,360 --> 00:21:35,280 And they're actually, you know, aware, I, I, I would argue we 336 00:21:35,280 --> 00:21:37,600 can discover some of our greatest freedoms. 337 00:21:38,160 --> 00:21:41,160 Now, if you break that and you weaken that and you do it in the 338 00:21:41,160 --> 00:21:45,400 name of freedom, in the name of choice, well, you can end up 339 00:21:45,400 --> 00:21:49,040 with these expected or unexpected consequences, 340 00:21:49,040 --> 00:21:53,640 depending on who's thinking about it, where you have much 341 00:21:53,640 --> 00:21:57,480 weaker individuals who see themselves as consumers, as 342 00:21:57,480 --> 00:22:00,480 choice makers and things like that, bereft of the frameworks. 343 00:22:00,480 --> 00:22:05,800 Now that can be very damaging to men, you know who, who now 344 00:22:05,800 --> 00:22:10,200 think, well, why the hell should I take a, a lifelong oath to 345 00:22:10,200 --> 00:22:15,480 another human being or a woman? But also if you know, with maybe 346 00:22:15,480 --> 00:22:22,960 radical feminism or something, you have women who regard these 347 00:22:22,960 --> 00:22:25,400 things as, you know, outdated or sexist or whatever. 348 00:22:25,800 --> 00:22:29,880 Well, then of course then, then that will change how women view 349 00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:33,240 these things. I think a lot of people, men and 350 00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:35,160 women are, are very frustrated by this. 351 00:22:36,960 --> 00:22:40,560 They do not think that the results have been particularly 352 00:22:40,560 --> 00:22:44,400 good, that the costs of this so-called increase in autonomy 353 00:22:44,400 --> 00:22:47,360 have been very high. And a lot of people feel more 354 00:22:47,360 --> 00:22:50,520 enslaved than ever, ironically. So you have this supposed 355 00:22:50,520 --> 00:22:53,400 increase in autonomy and yet people feel more and more 356 00:22:53,400 --> 00:22:57,920 enslaved. And actually, you know, sex is a 357 00:22:57,920 --> 00:23:02,120 very powerful force within our lives and that can be monetised 358 00:23:02,120 --> 00:23:03,560 through pornography, which is a kind of. 359 00:23:03,560 --> 00:23:05,160 Ultimate forward. I'm going to get onto 360 00:23:05,240 --> 00:23:09,320 pornography because I mean. That's an extreme case. 361 00:23:10,120 --> 00:23:11,760 And just one thing about identity. 362 00:23:11,760 --> 00:23:16,680 I mean, to me, someone might say, well, I have this sexual 363 00:23:16,680 --> 00:23:19,400 identity or whatever. That's actually quite a strange 364 00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:20,920 thing in a way, if you think about it. 365 00:23:20,960 --> 00:23:24,560 I mean, why do you define your your core? 366 00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:27,960 One of the most important things about you is, is who you are 367 00:23:27,960 --> 00:23:32,920 attracted to as opposed to what kind of being you are, you know, 368 00:23:32,920 --> 00:23:34,720 a male or female or something like that. 369 00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:39,280 So but I, but I do think it's interesting that that one of the 370 00:23:39,280 --> 00:23:42,880 strongest forms of identity people tend to identify as is 371 00:23:42,880 --> 00:23:46,200 with a sexual identity. So that maybe suggests that 372 00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:49,120 there's something very important here about who you are, that 373 00:23:49,120 --> 00:23:53,400 this is not just, you know, what kitchens you happen to like or 374 00:23:53,400 --> 00:23:55,720 what football team you, you, you, you happen to prefer. 375 00:23:56,080 --> 00:24:00,200 There's something about those kinds of desires which relate to 376 00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:04,360 something beyond yourself. And so in a way, I, I understand 377 00:24:04,360 --> 00:24:08,880 people who want to identify in a particular way around the sexual 378 00:24:08,880 --> 00:24:11,400 things. My, my question would be in what 379 00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:13,960 sense does that have a, a deeper meaning? 380 00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:16,640 I can understand it in terms of marriage or being a husband or 381 00:24:16,640 --> 00:24:18,640 being a father or a wife or mother. 382 00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:22,400 Those seem to be very fundamental kinds of roles 383 00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:25,800 within life. But having a sexual predilection 384 00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:28,880 for XII? Don't really see how that's a 385 00:24:28,880 --> 00:24:32,440 fundamental role within life with which to identify. 386 00:24:32,520 --> 00:24:35,480 And and why should that be the most important thing about it? 387 00:24:35,520 --> 00:24:37,920 Doesn't seem to me obvious. Yeah. 388 00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:42,800 And, and with pornography, I mean, we, you know, it seems 389 00:24:42,800 --> 00:24:46,560 that we, we're men and women are affected by this because it, it, 390 00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:50,880 it, it takes the ability to form, you know, meaningful 391 00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:54,800 relationships away in some ways, because it's all about, it's all 392 00:24:54,800 --> 00:24:59,640 about the sex and the, and the drive for sex without, you know, 393 00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:03,760 I, I feel that it's, it's, it's debasing the whole fundamental 394 00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:08,600 act, isn't it really Sure. And a lot of boys and, and women 395 00:25:08,600 --> 00:25:10,960 are looking at, you know, it's not just men, it's women are 396 00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:13,600 looking at pornography. And it's becoming addictive. 397 00:25:13,680 --> 00:25:17,680 And it's becoming almost like a benchmark of how women are 398 00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:19,960 treated. Would you agree? 399 00:25:20,880 --> 00:25:23,320 Yeah. Yeah, and it's also it's it's 400 00:25:23,320 --> 00:25:26,960 it's a dangerous fantasy. And and the danger of fantasy is 401 00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:30,120 that it pretends to be real and then it starts to affect what 402 00:25:30,120 --> 00:25:32,800 you think. So you, you don't, you cease to 403 00:25:32,800 --> 00:25:35,640 see real men and real women of the kind you might form a 404 00:25:35,640 --> 00:25:39,960 relationship with. And, but also it's, I mean, 405 00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:41,480 it's, it's also completely sterile. 406 00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:45,600 It's, it's, it's, it's sort of skimming pleasure of something, 407 00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:49,200 in this case something unreal without. 408 00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:51,320 But you're engaging your sexual emotions now. 409 00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:55,440 I think those emotions actually ideally relate to another human 410 00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:59,000 being who you love and nurture and cherish in a sense. 411 00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:03,000 That's why they're there. But of course you can distort 412 00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:04,680 them. And of course, I mean, the the 413 00:26:04,720 --> 00:26:07,880 irony is that, you know, almost, you know, an awful lot of 414 00:26:07,880 --> 00:26:12,480 people, ordinary people, even if they use porno, feel engaged 415 00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:14,160 with it. They don't actually think it's 416 00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:15,720 good. So you hear this thing where 417 00:26:15,720 --> 00:26:18,240 lots of people use it. Well, lots of people lie, lots 418 00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:20,920 of people do also, we all do all sorts of things that we maybe 419 00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:24,160 shouldn't do, but that doesn't mean we think that that's a good 420 00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:26,320 thing. So this pretence that this is a 421 00:26:26,320 --> 00:26:28,720 normal good thing. And I think it's very striking 422 00:26:28,720 --> 00:26:35,800 that a lot of people who complain about moral changes in 423 00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:38,520 society, moral degradation, they don't want to do anything to 424 00:26:38,520 --> 00:26:41,520 tackle this particular industry, which seems to me almost 425 00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:47,960 entirely harmful industry which is run by people who basically 426 00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:50,040 want to enslave people. I mean, I mean within the 427 00:26:50,040 --> 00:26:53,960 industry itself, if we can call it an industry, are horribly 428 00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:57,440 mistreated people who are often in extremely depressed States 429 00:26:57,920 --> 00:26:59,320 and that sort of swept under the carpet. 430 00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:03,000 So I think I think actually a serious person who wanted to 431 00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:10,160 resist certain kinds of tyranny should be attacking also those 432 00:27:10,160 --> 00:27:14,160 kinds of tyrannies which which are horribly enslaving and and 433 00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:18,080 damaging to to society in in at large and. 434 00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:20,960 When, Yeah, when you look at, when you look at pornography and 435 00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:24,680 how easily it could be, it could be regulated particularly, you 436 00:27:24,680 --> 00:27:26,240 know, youngsters are looking at it. 437 00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:30,640 There should be some, some way of, of, of preventing children 438 00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:32,960 from actually accessing pornography. 439 00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:37,000 If they don't have parents that are safeguarding, then they, 440 00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:40,320 they will have access to it. And what's interesting is just 441 00:27:40,480 --> 00:27:46,320 only this week the government have their remedy against what 442 00:27:46,320 --> 00:27:50,240 they they say is is violence towards women and girls is to 443 00:27:51,320 --> 00:27:55,800 have boys of 11 years plus to have lessons in workshops at 444 00:27:56,000 --> 00:28:00,520 within school to address their deep seated misogyny. 445 00:28:01,280 --> 00:28:05,680 So how does this put the, you know, an 11 year old boy is then 446 00:28:05,680 --> 00:28:10,440 put into a, a, a lesson or a workshop in school and told that 447 00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:15,040 he's got deep seated misogyny and that he's bad and that they, 448 00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:19,680 they need to learn how to respect women, Which I mean, how 449 00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:23,200 do you think that will, you know, sort of influence a young 450 00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:27,080 boy being told that he's bad? He may not have even thought 451 00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:31,400 about misogyny, but he's being told because obviously this is 452 00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:35,280 their way of addressing it. And I personally think that you 453 00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:39,800 know, you, you've got all these influences like Andrew Tate, 454 00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:43,760 who's who's been influencing young boys into this kind of 455 00:28:43,760 --> 00:28:46,600 misogyny. Why isn't something done about 456 00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:49,080 that? And pornography, rather than 457 00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:52,280 giving them this poor, these poor children, some sort of 458 00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:55,640 guilt trip about being bad because it's not going to work. 459 00:28:56,680 --> 00:28:59,320 I mean, it's outrageous. I think it's particularly at at 460 00:28:59,320 --> 00:29:02,120 very young age, people are very impressionable and often you're 461 00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:04,360 putting ideas in their head that they never had. 462 00:29:05,960 --> 00:29:09,120 But I mean, the hypocrisy is incredible because you have a 463 00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:13,360 government that doesn't really want to do anything about say 464 00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:17,760 for example, pornography or, you know, sorts of problems 465 00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:21,160 associated with it. But at the same time, it's going 466 00:29:21,160 --> 00:29:25,080 to try and indoctrinate 11 year olds with a, with a kind of 467 00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:29,840 almost a social theory that that somehow you're inherently, you 468 00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:32,880 have an inherent tendency to treating women appallingly. 469 00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:36,280 Well, OK, here's an industry that treats women appallingly 470 00:29:36,280 --> 00:29:40,320 and degrades everybody involved and is extremely addictive and, 471 00:29:40,320 --> 00:29:42,520 and horrible. And you're doing nothing about 472 00:29:42,520 --> 00:29:47,760 that. That's just, you know, ignored. 473 00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:50,160 And then you're going to get into schools and you're going to 474 00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:52,960 try and rewrite sort of rewire people. 475 00:29:53,320 --> 00:29:56,400 And I think it's, it's very damaging generally to have this 476 00:29:56,400 --> 00:30:01,680 idea that that somehow you know, you are, you are a wicked person 477 00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:05,760 who needs to be re engineered. When you're talking about an 11 478 00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:09,760 year old, You know, what is it that you're offering the 11 year 479 00:30:09,760 --> 00:30:11,640 old? You're offering some some some 480 00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:15,480 sort of condemnation of something that is hugely 481 00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:18,040 turbocharged by an industry that you're not going to do anything 482 00:30:18,040 --> 00:30:19,600 about. Exactly. 483 00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:22,760 So what? What needs to be recovered for a 484 00:30:22,760 --> 00:30:27,560 genuine, you know, a genuine moral sort of almost a renewal 485 00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:29,600 in moral ethics? What in what? 486 00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:32,160 How would you see that? What would that look like in 487 00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:35,280 schools, for instance, or anywhere in? 488 00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:39,000 Well, I think I mean, one thing that is that is always sort of 489 00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:44,040 worrying in schools is, is, is there is sometimes a sort of 490 00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:47,000 mistrust of parents. So there's the idea that that, 491 00:30:47,320 --> 00:30:49,960 well, you can't trust parents. The school knows best, but 492 00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:54,600 actually the, the child's primary education is, is within 493 00:30:54,600 --> 00:30:55,960 the family. Now, of course there are 494 00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:59,400 families that that are, you know, are not great, very 495 00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:03,440 fragmented or bad parenting, whatever. 496 00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:10,840 But the presumption should be that the the the school is, as 497 00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:13,960 it were in loco parentis, but it's it's doing something on 498 00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:17,320 behalf of parents, as it were, when they're at school. 499 00:31:17,520 --> 00:31:24,240 Not that the school, you know, informed by a state wanting to 500 00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:29,360 push out certain messages is somehow the primary care and 501 00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:32,640 influence for children. And these these stupid parents 502 00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:35,160 need to be sort of retrained or reorganized. 503 00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:40,800 Generally speaking, parents are the look out for the best 504 00:31:40,800 --> 00:31:43,800 interests of their children. Of course there are failures and 505 00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:46,800 then there are people. But, but I'm talking generally 506 00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:50,800 that that is the, the more suitable area whereby the child 507 00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:54,440 is understood as having come from a a father and a mother 508 00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:56,440 having a particular identity within a home. 509 00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:03,800 So I think, well, I, I think strengthening the idea of 510 00:32:03,800 --> 00:32:07,600 marriage is, is a very good place to, to start to, to say 511 00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:12,320 that this is actually, you know, if you're a parent, you, you are 512 00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:15,440 to some extent living for serving your own children. 513 00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:19,160 And that's that's a natural instinct that many people have, 514 00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:23,680 but it's often undermined or or threatened by an extremely 515 00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:28,040 consumerist society, a way of thinking and talking that that 516 00:32:28,040 --> 00:32:31,880 is is ultimately sort of radical or even hyper individualist. 517 00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:35,080 OK. I would say that a fundamental 518 00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:38,360 pre political building block is the family where and and it's 519 00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:41,720 through the family that you discover the importance of 520 00:32:41,720 --> 00:32:45,560 persons, the irreplaceability of persons, but also bonds your 521 00:32:45,560 --> 00:32:47,920 connection to heritage and history. 522 00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:51,960 Also your your responsibility for the future. 523 00:32:52,920 --> 00:32:56,800 If you have a sort of hyper individualised society, which is 524 00:32:56,800 --> 00:33:00,280 encouraged, I think in part by the kind of economic 525 00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:04,560 arrangements that we have at current and by the idea that 526 00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:11,520 basically if someone desires something, it's good regardless, 527 00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:15,400 you know, unless it can be shown to prove very obvious sort of 528 00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:18,280 certain kinds of harms, it's fine. 529 00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:22,320 It's good if that's your sort of presumption behind everything. 530 00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:25,600 It seems to me you're not going to get a particularly ethical 531 00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:29,360 society because actually that's a that's a very unrealistic way 532 00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:32,520 of viewing any society. The particularly. 533 00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:35,800 In the West as well, because you know, there are other cultures, 534 00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:38,760 other religions that do value, you know, family. 535 00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:41,800 I mean, most of them actually, you look at Islam, they're very 536 00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:46,280 family oriented. So, so Hindus, Judaism, they, 537 00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:50,560 they all seem to have a very, very strong sense of family. 538 00:33:51,560 --> 00:33:55,360 What happened to Christianity? Because it's, it seems to have 539 00:33:55,800 --> 00:33:58,520 just lost its moral compass at the moment. 540 00:33:59,440 --> 00:34:02,720 And how, how does that, how do we get back to that? 541 00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:05,440 Because, you know, Christianity is supposed to be the Western, 542 00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:09,800 you know, religion and we've gone so far away from it. 543 00:34:10,719 --> 00:34:14,120 So how can that be reclaimed in some way? 544 00:34:15,679 --> 00:34:21,000 Well, I think you might sort of say in what's called the West, 545 00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:27,840 you have a kind of Christian heresy, which is called 546 00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:31,280 liberalism. And liberalism becomes very 547 00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:35,280 powerful. It's associated with some 548 00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:37,840 economic production at, at at certain points as well, and 549 00:34:37,840 --> 00:34:40,880 certain ideas about freedom. And these are very powerful and, 550 00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:43,199 and, and in many ways very attractive ideas. 551 00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:48,480 The problem is that then becomes unmoored from the Christian 552 00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:54,639 culture from which it arose, and that unmooring is very dangerous 553 00:34:54,639 --> 00:34:59,160 because then liberalism, as it as it were, becomes almost like 554 00:34:59,160 --> 00:35:02,120 an acid. It starts dissolving the very 555 00:35:02,120 --> 00:35:05,240 structures and foundations that gave rise to it. 556 00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:07,800 So I think it's a particular problem in the West that we 557 00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:11,880 think of things in terms of what you might say an over emphasis 558 00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:18,560 on an idea about autonomy removed from the kind of moral 559 00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:20,440 framework that made sense of that. 560 00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:25,880 And actually, I would say almost like a a worship of man. 561 00:35:26,240 --> 00:35:29,840 So you end up with this idea that man is somehow this God 562 00:35:29,840 --> 00:35:34,000 like creature or if man desires something, it's good in itself. 563 00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:35,600 And all I need to do is say to us. 564 00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:38,160 And then you just have a few restrictions here and there for 565 00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:42,000 really things that have kind of obviously problematic, but but 566 00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:45,520 there's no deeper understanding of what man is for or anything 567 00:35:45,520 --> 00:35:48,160 like that. How we get back to that. 568 00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:50,720 Well, I think, I mean, encouraging sign is I think 569 00:35:50,720 --> 00:35:54,840 people are exhausted by it. A lot of people are exhausted of 570 00:35:54,960 --> 00:36:00,440 what's called liberalism because they they think, well, it does 571 00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:04,080 seem to have destroyed, for instance, to some extent, the 572 00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:07,000 institution of marriage. It doesn't actually seem to be 573 00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:11,360 bringing home the the kind of economic results and prosperity 574 00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:14,920 is that perhaps once it did and more and more people are 575 00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:16,600 reacting against it. Now. 576 00:36:17,040 --> 00:36:19,480 People can react against liberalism in all sorts of ways. 577 00:36:19,480 --> 00:36:22,320 Some of them can be very dangerous, you know, if not 578 00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:26,240 worse, you know, sort of the extreme collectivism, for 579 00:36:26,240 --> 00:36:31,640 example, or a vicious reaction. But in fact, true liberty, I 580 00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:37,280 think, has to be grounded in sort of return to certain kind 581 00:36:37,280 --> 00:36:39,120 of ethical understandings of our role. 582 00:36:39,440 --> 00:36:43,800 And at a very basic level, that starts within the idea of the 583 00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:45,120 family. I would say so. 584 00:36:45,120 --> 00:36:49,080 So being a man is understood for many people, obviously not for 585 00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:54,280 everybody, but in terms of what it means to be a father, what it 586 00:36:54,280 --> 00:36:57,920 means to have a lifelong institution that treats every 587 00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:01,040 new human being as somehow irreplaceable, not just a 588 00:37:01,160 --> 00:37:05,600 consumer choice. A move away from a sort of view 589 00:37:05,600 --> 00:37:08,120 of seeing everything is transactional, everything is 590 00:37:08,120 --> 00:37:10,720 replaceable. Now traditionally religion 591 00:37:12,240 --> 00:37:15,560 strengthen that role. Many people are are not 592 00:37:15,560 --> 00:37:19,200 religious, but I think that the truths about the family can be 593 00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:25,320 understood by someone who even without a religious faith just 594 00:37:25,320 --> 00:37:27,600 as easily and and many, many people are coming through to 595 00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:30,360 that. So I think, I think in a way, 596 00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:36,400 the exhaustion of of our society and the creeping sort of 597 00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:38,040 totalitarianism that comes with it. 598 00:37:38,040 --> 00:37:41,640 If you have an ultra high, you know, ultra individualist 599 00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:45,640 society, what you find pretty soon is, you know, the 600 00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:49,200 government actually in those circumstances can push through a 601 00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:55,160 lot more repressive measures than they could when there were 602 00:37:55,560 --> 00:37:57,320 stronger communities and stronger families. 603 00:37:57,320 --> 00:37:59,800 So I, I think, you know, focusing on your community, on 604 00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:06,760 your family is, is one way in which you can start to resist 605 00:38:07,120 --> 00:38:09,240 some of. I mean, it is, it is interesting 606 00:38:09,240 --> 00:38:13,680 because I actually just to endorse what you've said, just 607 00:38:13,680 --> 00:38:16,680 just lately I've been talking to a lot of younger people. 608 00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:21,640 I mean, I'm talking people late teens, early to mid 20s and they 609 00:38:21,640 --> 00:38:26,680 are almost rebelling against this, this whole, I suppose, 610 00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:31,920 destruction of, of, of, you know, the, the, the, the, the 611 00:38:31,920 --> 00:38:34,720 moral fibre of, of, of our society. 612 00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:38,440 And, and that, you know, that, that has all of that has been 613 00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:41,520 quite celebrated, I think with, you know, women's liberation 614 00:38:41,520 --> 00:38:43,920 and, and the destruction of the family unit. 615 00:38:44,240 --> 00:38:46,600 And they're, they're saying, well, we want to get married 616 00:38:46,600 --> 00:38:50,120 early and have, have children. And, and there, there's, there 617 00:38:50,120 --> 00:38:53,120 is a bit of a turn around. Do you think that because it's 618 00:38:53,120 --> 00:38:57,240 it's been pushed so far and this exhaustion that you're Speaking 619 00:38:57,240 --> 00:39:00,280 of has actually pushed people to actually you wake up and see 620 00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:03,520 what's really going on? Yes, I do. 621 00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:08,600 I mean, I, I think, I mean it's partly because people get that 622 00:39:08,600 --> 00:39:11,560 it's just not plausible to carry on like this as it were. 623 00:39:12,080 --> 00:39:15,560 Whereas maybe it was, you know, in the 60s, there was a very 624 00:39:15,560 --> 00:39:18,920 different atmosphere where it things seemed possible and there 625 00:39:18,920 --> 00:39:21,520 were these utopian visions and this would somehow lead to. 626 00:39:21,840 --> 00:39:25,240 But the results are in, you know, the statistics have been a 627 00:39:25,240 --> 00:39:27,440 disaster. And actually very many social 628 00:39:27,440 --> 00:39:30,720 changes, they say this will be fine, This will lead to great 629 00:39:30,720 --> 00:39:32,320 liberation. People at the time said, well, 630 00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:34,920 actually what it will lead to is the kind of things we see now. 631 00:39:35,640 --> 00:39:37,200 And that's exactly what's happened. 632 00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:41,960 I mean, reality as it were will not be mocked. 633 00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:45,760 So, you know, you can live in this fantasy world, but it's now 634 00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:50,120 it's very obviously a fantasy that if you have mass sexual 635 00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:51,800 liberalisation, you have a utopia. 636 00:39:52,440 --> 00:39:54,880 You know, there are the costs all around us. 637 00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:57,800 And a lot of people, I mean, you hear this sort of people talk 638 00:39:57,800 --> 00:39:59,760 about boomers. There's a kind of resentment, I 639 00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:02,640 think amongst young people that a particular generation or 640 00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:07,560 elements of a particular generation bequeathed them a 641 00:40:07,560 --> 00:40:10,680 huge amount more insecurity because all of these things have 642 00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:12,720 other effects, including economic effects. 643 00:40:12,720 --> 00:40:15,680 So, so OK, great, we've had sexual liberation and now you 644 00:40:15,680 --> 00:40:17,680 can't buy a house, you know, great. 645 00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:21,160 You know you have all these things that you expected that 646 00:40:21,160 --> 00:40:23,400 you might have. And instead of which they've 647 00:40:23,400 --> 00:40:25,520 been sold down a river. And actually, I, I think there's 648 00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:29,760 a story to be told about the, the, what you might call the 649 00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:35,800 left or has shifted from economic concerns, which many of 650 00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:39,760 which I think had some legitimacy to, as it were sexual 651 00:40:39,760 --> 00:40:41,720 liberation. So you, you end up with a, a 652 00:40:42,560 --> 00:40:45,600 sort of split within the left where it's sort of lifestyle 653 00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:50,280 liberalism, which is extremely socially costly and economically 654 00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:55,680 costly and destructive and traditional concerns to do with 655 00:40:55,680 --> 00:40:57,640 the economy are, are put to one side. 656 00:40:58,520 --> 00:41:00,920 So ignore all that. And then you have a sort of, you 657 00:41:00,920 --> 00:41:06,320 know, you have an extremely ugly culture where there is no really 658 00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:09,520 serious critique. But what I think a problem with, 659 00:41:09,520 --> 00:41:15,800 with some people on on the left is that they have, as it were, 660 00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:19,280 adopted a sort of extreme lifestyle liberalism kind of 661 00:41:19,520 --> 00:41:24,320 view and, and undermine the family and things like that. 662 00:41:24,760 --> 00:41:28,840 And at the same time they complain about the economic 663 00:41:28,840 --> 00:41:30,120 decision. Well, these things are linked, 664 00:41:30,520 --> 00:41:32,920 you know, if you, if you have stronger families, if you have 665 00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:37,840 an understanding within Society of paying people so that they 666 00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:41,320 can bring up a family of allowing housing not to be sort 667 00:41:41,320 --> 00:41:43,640 of insane. And a lot of these problems have 668 00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:46,480 come about precisely because traditional structures have been 669 00:41:46,840 --> 00:41:50,040 destroyed. So it's it's a terrible mess, 670 00:41:50,640 --> 00:41:53,640 but I think as you say, people are waking up both to the 671 00:41:54,120 --> 00:41:59,760 economic disaster, but also to the fact that maybe, just maybe 672 00:41:59,760 --> 00:42:03,440 jettisoning some traditional moral ideas of jettisoned 673 00:42:03,440 --> 00:42:09,280 Christianity and things like that actually leads to much 674 00:42:09,280 --> 00:42:12,080 worse results all round. Yeah. 675 00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:16,800 I mean, do you, do you feel that maybe religious education should 676 00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:20,600 be really quite focused on in, in, in education? 677 00:42:20,920 --> 00:42:25,480 Because I mean, just recently Northern Ireland, the, the 678 00:42:25,520 --> 00:42:31,520 Supreme Court ruled that RE was actually not going to be, they 679 00:42:31,600 --> 00:42:36,000 said it was illegal to actually teach RE in, in Northern 680 00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:41,080 Northern Irish schools. So that is a massive turn around 681 00:42:41,120 --> 00:42:43,280 in. And you know, this, this is 682 00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:45,800 something that we're facing at the moment where it's almost 683 00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:47,920 being, you know, Christianity is being cancelled. 684 00:42:48,240 --> 00:42:50,960 Do you see a lot of that at the moment? 685 00:42:50,960 --> 00:42:53,480 Well. I mean, certainly I think what 686 00:42:53,480 --> 00:42:57,640 you have, you have a a kind of state religion which is 687 00:42:57,640 --> 00:42:59,840 promoted. So I mean, one of one of the 688 00:42:59,840 --> 00:43:03,240 sort of deceptions of liberalism is it always claims that it is 689 00:43:03,240 --> 00:43:09,720 somehow neutral, neutral about the meaning of life or the 690 00:43:09,920 --> 00:43:13,520 neutral on these questions. But then obviously any school 691 00:43:13,520 --> 00:43:17,880 curriculum, particularly in a state school, will actually be 692 00:43:17,920 --> 00:43:20,840 focused on certain kinds of questions and certain it will 693 00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:22,720 emphasise certain kinds of values. 694 00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:26,760 So what you have broadly you have had, we've seen, you know, 695 00:43:26,760 --> 00:43:29,320 people talk about the woke stuff or whatever. 696 00:43:29,640 --> 00:43:36,240 You see a very partial and biased emphasis in some personal 697 00:43:36,240 --> 00:43:39,360 social education used to be called when I was at school on 698 00:43:39,360 --> 00:43:42,320 certain kinds of lifestyles and certain kinds of things are 699 00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:46,200 wrong and and right. And those can be very much in 700 00:43:46,200 --> 00:43:49,120 conflict with some traditional religious ideas. 701 00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:54,240 So religion is then seen as a rival to this, as it were, you 702 00:43:54,240 --> 00:43:56,480 might say state promoted ideology. 703 00:43:56,960 --> 00:44:04,480 And any state in fact in the end will not be very tolerant of, 704 00:44:04,920 --> 00:44:07,920 despite what it might say, will not be very tolerant of views 705 00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:12,600 which fundamentally question, say, things like marriage or the 706 00:44:12,600 --> 00:44:16,400 upbringing of children. So I think there's inevitably 707 00:44:16,400 --> 00:44:20,120 going to be friction and conflict, but I think the thing 708 00:44:20,120 --> 00:44:23,080 to remember is, is, is a particular ideology which 709 00:44:23,240 --> 00:44:25,360 functions almost like a religion. 710 00:44:25,360 --> 00:44:28,720 It has its own, you know, heresies and punishments and, 711 00:44:29,080 --> 00:44:35,320 and ways of enforcing things that that is going to be jealous 712 00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:38,720 of traditional religions, particularly when traditional 713 00:44:38,720 --> 00:44:44,920 religions actually question some pretty big fundamental ethical 714 00:44:44,920 --> 00:44:49,320 questions as opposed to sort of some sort of milk toast, you 715 00:44:49,320 --> 00:44:54,360 know, kumbaya, generic, generic messages, which ineffensive to 716 00:44:54,360 --> 00:44:58,920 anybody because religion actually, you know, is a very 717 00:44:58,920 --> 00:45:01,120 important thing in people's lives, but it's also 718 00:45:01,320 --> 00:45:07,920 historically important. So I think, yeah, it's it's I, I 719 00:45:07,920 --> 00:45:11,640 think, I think being aware that certain things that are pushed 720 00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:15,600 are necessarily intolerant. So for instance, and, and sex is 721 00:45:15,600 --> 00:45:22,440 actually a very good example, a, a, a traditional view of sexual 722 00:45:22,440 --> 00:45:26,880 morality is deemed as extremely offensive or bigoted or phobic 723 00:45:26,880 --> 00:45:30,840 or all these sorts of things. Well, those, those are actually 724 00:45:30,840 --> 00:45:34,440 the, the deep seated beliefs of religions over thousands and 725 00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:39,280 thousands of years across the world throughout history. 726 00:45:39,560 --> 00:45:42,800 And we have a very small minority, very recent view 727 00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:46,800 within world history which is radically opposed to all of 728 00:45:46,800 --> 00:45:49,240 that. And that is taught as though 729 00:45:49,240 --> 00:45:53,080 that is absolute common sense. And all of this religion stuff 730 00:45:53,080 --> 00:45:57,800 is false. So it doesn't surprise me that 731 00:45:58,440 --> 00:45:59,920 such repressive messages come in. 732 00:45:59,960 --> 00:46:03,240 Of course, it's not very good for the self-image of a country 733 00:46:03,240 --> 00:46:05,480 which claims that it's liberal because it says, well, we're 734 00:46:05,480 --> 00:46:07,560 neutral. But I think that neutrality is 735 00:46:08,160 --> 00:46:11,800 is really ultimately A sham. You know, you can't just park 736 00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:15,160 fundamental questions. What you can do is have really 737 00:46:15,160 --> 00:46:20,960 serious discussions of them, but that of course is not the, if, 738 00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:24,320 if you look at all the name calling that that surrounds 739 00:46:24,320 --> 00:46:27,440 these kinds of debates, that is clearly not the interests of of 740 00:46:27,440 --> 00:46:32,200 many of the elite in this country and, and, and I presume 741 00:46:32,200 --> 00:46:35,200 Northern Ireland. Yeah, Well, that's, that's, 742 00:46:35,320 --> 00:46:37,440 that's, that's, that's interesting. 743 00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:41,640 Now, abortion and assisted suicide, I know we, we touched 744 00:46:41,640 --> 00:46:44,320 on it earlier. Are we witnessing A fundamental 745 00:46:44,320 --> 00:46:46,840 shift in how society values human life? 746 00:46:46,840 --> 00:46:49,280 I mean, we're having this massive debate at the moment 747 00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:53,360 going on in the House of House of Lords about assisted dying. 748 00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:56,880 And the Lords are doing a sterling job at defending the 749 00:46:56,880 --> 00:47:00,000 value of human life. And of course it's, it's now 750 00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:03,280 going into next year and it's, it's, it's ping ponging around 751 00:47:03,280 --> 00:47:08,080 this whole committee stage. I mean, do you think that it's, 752 00:47:08,080 --> 00:47:11,560 it's almost like, I mean, when, when I was listening to it last 753 00:47:11,560 --> 00:47:15,840 week and they had an issue, they were, they were looking at 754 00:47:16,040 --> 00:47:23,000 assisted dying for prisoners, people who are homeless and also 755 00:47:23,320 --> 00:47:26,960 pregnant women. And you know, that this whole 756 00:47:26,960 --> 00:47:31,680 issue came up about do you encourage a woman to who is 757 00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:34,520 pregnant to have, you know, to take assisted dying? 758 00:47:34,520 --> 00:47:37,920 That decision. And it was defended very heavily 759 00:47:37,920 --> 00:47:43,720 by Lord McKinley, Who, who, who, who just, you know, he, he 760 00:47:43,720 --> 00:47:46,400 really said, you know, we need to value the life as a fetus 761 00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:48,400 because it's, it's fetus side, basically. 762 00:47:49,280 --> 00:47:52,880 And, you know, I couldn't believe Lord Falconer absolutely 763 00:47:53,760 --> 00:47:56,520 said, you know, it, it it's a state accompli. 764 00:47:56,520 --> 00:47:59,560 If she's pregnant, then, you know, the fetus dies as well. 765 00:47:59,880 --> 00:48:01,080 Unbelievable. What what? 766 00:48:01,080 --> 00:48:05,360 What's your view on that? Well, I think it's a very good 767 00:48:05,360 --> 00:48:09,120 illustration of a kind of fanatical position. 768 00:48:09,120 --> 00:48:11,640 And the fanatical position is there's this thing called 769 00:48:11,640 --> 00:48:15,760 autonomy. And that, as it were, is where 770 00:48:15,760 --> 00:48:20,360 we put all the value on autonomy that that and we don't actually 771 00:48:20,360 --> 00:48:23,720 address the actual choices. So you people talk about I've 772 00:48:23,720 --> 00:48:25,480 got a right to choose. I've got a right to choose. 773 00:48:25,920 --> 00:48:31,200 Well, a right to choose what? I mean, fairly obviously, what 774 00:48:31,200 --> 00:48:32,720 matters is what you are choosing. 775 00:48:32,720 --> 00:48:34,280 That's what needs to be examined. 776 00:48:34,280 --> 00:48:37,720 What does that involve? OK, not just this sort of 777 00:48:37,760 --> 00:48:44,200 abstract universal right that actually doesn't go into a 778 00:48:44,200 --> 00:48:45,760 description of what's being chosen. 779 00:48:46,160 --> 00:48:47,480 So you see this with the abortion debate. 780 00:48:47,480 --> 00:48:49,680 Well, I've got a right to choose and then sometimes we'll choose 781 00:48:49,680 --> 00:48:51,640 what? And then you need to talk about, 782 00:48:51,640 --> 00:48:56,640 well, what is an abortion? What is the status of an unborn 783 00:48:56,640 --> 00:49:01,240 child or fetus, an embryo? What what metaphysical status 784 00:49:01,240 --> 00:49:03,240 does that have? And what what does that mean 785 00:49:03,240 --> 00:49:05,360 morally? Those are very big questions 786 00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:08,040 which need to be debated, but they don't they get completely 787 00:49:08,040 --> 00:49:09,400 ignored. If someone just says I've got a 788 00:49:09,400 --> 00:49:11,800 right to choose and you're anti choice. 789 00:49:12,120 --> 00:49:14,240 Well, what's the choice? You know, that's not what you 790 00:49:14,240 --> 00:49:18,880 say about almost anything else. OK, and just look at look at the 791 00:49:18,880 --> 00:49:22,520 laws we have. But what we've seen in the LED 792 00:49:22,520 --> 00:49:26,200 bitty debate is, again, I have a right to choose. 793 00:49:26,280 --> 00:49:27,840 OK. And then people say, well, let's 794 00:49:27,840 --> 00:49:30,880 examine what that means. What does it mean about 795 00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:36,840 traditional ideas about the taking of an innocent life? 796 00:49:37,280 --> 00:49:40,960 OK, including your own. What does it actually mean to to 797 00:49:40,960 --> 00:49:43,600 say that? So we have immense dishonesty 798 00:49:43,600 --> 00:49:45,960 from Leadbeater. She gets very, very angry if you 799 00:49:45,960 --> 00:49:49,960 say suicide. Oh, it's not suicide. 800 00:49:50,320 --> 00:49:54,000 Well, it's, it's willing your own death and, and getting the 801 00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:59,240 equipment to carry it out. And in fact the legislation has 802 00:49:59,240 --> 00:50:04,360 to change the current suicide Act, which makes it blindingly 803 00:50:04,360 --> 00:50:08,080 obvious that it is about suicide. 804 00:50:08,600 --> 00:50:11,480 It the reason is that suicide still has an emotional charge 805 00:50:11,480 --> 00:50:13,640 for lots of people. They think suicide is something 806 00:50:14,280 --> 00:50:17,400 bad, something to be avoided, something you try and prevent 807 00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:23,320 people from carrying out. So I mean, the Faulkner response 808 00:50:23,320 --> 00:50:26,960 was was interesting because in a sense it shows that there's this 809 00:50:26,960 --> 00:50:29,680 fanaticism of this so-called right to choose. 810 00:50:30,120 --> 00:50:33,120 And no matter what you plug in at the end, like, well, what if 811 00:50:33,120 --> 00:50:35,800 the woman's pregnant and it looks as though you're you're 812 00:50:35,800 --> 00:50:39,360 she's in choosing that she's taking another life as well. 813 00:50:41,560 --> 00:50:43,520 And he's got really nothing to say to that. 814 00:50:45,360 --> 00:50:49,640 This shows the fanaticism that in fact there's a driving force 815 00:50:50,080 --> 00:50:54,080 that that this must be legislated and we must ignore 816 00:50:54,080 --> 00:50:57,600 all amendments, all questions, all of the evidence that the 817 00:50:57,600 --> 00:50:59,240 royal colleges are not in favour of it. 818 00:50:59,240 --> 00:51:02,440 You know, the disability groups are not in favour of it because 819 00:51:02,440 --> 00:51:07,000 the people who are opposing it generally, we'll see how it will 820 00:51:07,000 --> 00:51:09,680 affect all sorts of vulnerable groups. 821 00:51:09,920 --> 00:51:13,840 Okay, this as this religion of autonomy will actually have 822 00:51:13,880 --> 00:51:17,880 enormous numbers of victims of people who don't actually have 823 00:51:17,880 --> 00:51:21,320 much autonomy but will feel social pressure and will 824 00:51:21,320 --> 00:51:24,080 pressure themselves to end their lives. 825 00:51:24,880 --> 00:51:27,480 So I I think that's why we get these kind of grotesques. 826 00:51:27,480 --> 00:51:31,720 Yes, yeah, absolutely. Now what Also I I was, I was 827 00:51:31,720 --> 00:51:33,520 thinking, you know, because they were they were talking about, 828 00:51:33,520 --> 00:51:35,560 you know, people with with severe depression. 829 00:51:35,560 --> 00:51:41,480 And of course if if if someone is is for instance, if this this 830 00:51:41,560 --> 00:51:45,040 bill at the moment is for people with six months to live or less. 831 00:51:46,360 --> 00:51:50,080 And you wonder if, if a homeless person, for instance, is, is 832 00:51:50,080 --> 00:51:53,800 homeless, they've had a diagnosis of whatever and 833 00:51:53,800 --> 00:51:57,560 they've been given six months to live, you know, would their view 834 00:51:57,560 --> 00:52:00,120 change if they were said? If, if someone said to them, 835 00:52:00,120 --> 00:52:04,240 listen, let's put you up in a, in a wonderful facility, give 836 00:52:04,240 --> 00:52:07,520 you palliative care and see how it goes. 837 00:52:07,520 --> 00:52:10,720 You know, sure. Rather than agree, you know, 838 00:52:10,720 --> 00:52:15,360 getting them to agree to, to, to suicide themselves, basically, 839 00:52:16,480 --> 00:52:19,000 you know, this, this, this is the same, this is the same for, 840 00:52:19,000 --> 00:52:22,240 for prisoners and, and for, for pregnant women because 841 00:52:22,560 --> 00:52:25,360 palliative care is being decreased. 842 00:52:25,680 --> 00:52:28,160 And I think it's a choice because people aren't getting 843 00:52:28,400 --> 00:52:31,600 the palliative care they need and the pain relief or whatever. 844 00:52:32,080 --> 00:52:35,280 And it's, it's almost like a choice because do I go through 845 00:52:35,280 --> 00:52:38,640 all that pain in an uncomfortable situation like 846 00:52:38,640 --> 00:52:42,760 being homeless or a prisoner or, or a, a woman who's who's 847 00:52:42,760 --> 00:52:46,080 feeling insecure? Or do I just end it all because 848 00:52:46,080 --> 00:52:48,040 it's all too awful to face? Sure. 849 00:52:48,240 --> 00:52:51,320 So that's what I'm seeing to be honest, is. 850 00:52:51,320 --> 00:52:54,200 There's not. Enough about, you know, looking 851 00:52:54,200 --> 00:52:56,120 after people who have six months to live. 852 00:52:56,120 --> 00:52:58,600 Yeah. Well, it's the very opposite of 853 00:52:58,600 --> 00:53:02,480 actually what medicine is about. Medicine is about healing. 854 00:53:02,480 --> 00:53:04,840 And, and interestingly, actually the Hippocratic Oath, which is 855 00:53:04,880 --> 00:53:08,440 a, a pre Christian oath by several 100 years. 856 00:53:09,720 --> 00:53:12,600 It specifically rules out euthanasia. 857 00:53:12,880 --> 00:53:16,320 It specifically rules out that as paradigmatically anti 858 00:53:16,400 --> 00:53:20,720 medicinal, it's anti healing. So the presumption and, and 859 00:53:20,720 --> 00:53:24,080 indeed it was in the NH s s founding documents that you 860 00:53:24,080 --> 00:53:27,240 know, you're there to, to help and assist and preserve life. 861 00:53:27,240 --> 00:53:31,400 That's a massive assumption, a societal assumption that will be 862 00:53:31,400 --> 00:53:35,760 removed here, OK. And if you remove that 863 00:53:35,760 --> 00:53:41,520 presumption, everybody becomes much more vulnerable, OK, in in 864 00:53:41,520 --> 00:53:43,760 very obvious ways. For example, you said if people 865 00:53:43,760 --> 00:53:46,400 are depressed and feeling vulnerable, things like that. 866 00:53:46,680 --> 00:53:51,640 Well, unfortunately, the given human nature, there are very 867 00:53:51,640 --> 00:53:56,760 many people, maybe all of us at some point who, you know, find 868 00:53:56,760 --> 00:54:00,720 other people very burdensome. And it may be that we send out a 869 00:54:00,720 --> 00:54:04,080 message knowingly or not that actually they are pretty 870 00:54:04,080 --> 00:54:07,480 burdensome and they would be better off being dead and other 871 00:54:07,480 --> 00:54:09,480 people would be better off if they were dead. 872 00:54:10,000 --> 00:54:13,160 OK, So that's that's thought then seeps into people, 873 00:54:13,160 --> 00:54:15,840 particularly people who are depressed, particularly people 874 00:54:15,840 --> 00:54:19,840 who who feel undervalued. And the, I mean, the idea is 875 00:54:19,840 --> 00:54:21,800 basically that the message goes out. 876 00:54:22,880 --> 00:54:26,520 There are certain lives that are unworthy of life, to use a, to 877 00:54:26,520 --> 00:54:29,960 use a phrase used in the 30s, there are certain lives that are 878 00:54:29,960 --> 00:54:32,040 unworthy of life. OK. 879 00:54:33,120 --> 00:54:36,560 And if you happen to think that your life is unworthy of life, 880 00:54:36,640 --> 00:54:39,880 we will support you in that. The state will say this is a 881 00:54:39,920 --> 00:54:44,400 good thing and we will bestow death on you at your own hand, 882 00:54:44,400 --> 00:54:47,400 but we'll give you the means. That's an extraordinarily 883 00:54:47,400 --> 00:54:50,560 dangerous change. And actually, I mean dangerous 884 00:54:50,560 --> 00:54:52,640 territory. It's very, I mean, it should be 885 00:54:52,640 --> 00:54:55,400 stressed. There are people who many people 886 00:54:55,760 --> 00:54:59,760 who are not against, who don't have an inherent objection to 887 00:54:59,760 --> 00:55:04,320 suicide, but who see this law as extraordinarily dangerous. 888 00:55:05,040 --> 00:55:06,200 It certainly is. I mean, I'm. 889 00:55:06,200 --> 00:55:08,960 Even even talking to farmers, you know, farmers with the 890 00:55:08,960 --> 00:55:13,680 inheritance tax, if you're an elderly farmer and you've been a 891 00:55:13,800 --> 00:55:16,800 lot of the farmers, you know, I've been talking to them quite, 892 00:55:17,280 --> 00:55:19,840 you know, quite in depth. And there's some of them who, 893 00:55:21,120 --> 00:55:23,120 you know, might be in their 80s or whatever. 894 00:55:23,440 --> 00:55:27,200 They don't they, they, they, they know that if they, if they 895 00:55:27,200 --> 00:55:31,480 don't live past April, then their, their farms are going to 896 00:55:31,480 --> 00:55:34,440 be gone for their families. And they're even turning down 897 00:55:34,440 --> 00:55:38,240 cancer treatments in order that, you know, they died before 898 00:55:38,240 --> 00:55:40,440 April, which is just an. Awful. 899 00:55:40,920 --> 00:55:44,960 Thing for people to face and it just shows you exactly what 900 00:55:44,960 --> 00:55:47,880 Starmer's government is is actually creating here. 901 00:55:48,120 --> 00:55:51,640 Well, I think, I think, I mean, it's very striking that Starmer, 902 00:55:52,480 --> 00:55:59,080 there was a leak in the Guardian newspaper which was of a memo 903 00:55:59,080 --> 00:56:03,000 which shows quite clearly that Starmer has been backing this 904 00:56:03,000 --> 00:56:05,760 bill behind the scenes. And it was very deliberately 905 00:56:05,760 --> 00:56:08,440 brought in as a private members bill so as to escape certain 906 00:56:08,440 --> 00:56:10,480 checks and balances. And I think it's actually quite 907 00:56:10,480 --> 00:56:14,840 a fitting with regard to Starmer that it seems to me the one bit 908 00:56:14,840 --> 00:56:18,120 of legislation he hasn't done, the legislation he's promised in 909 00:56:18,120 --> 00:56:22,520 all sorts of areas, but the one bit he really is committed to 910 00:56:22,560 --> 00:56:26,720 is, is something to help people to end their lives. 911 00:56:26,960 --> 00:56:31,720 It sort of seems, it seems to sort of be be reflective of, of 912 00:56:31,720 --> 00:56:37,440 an attitude to people as, yeah, people who, who you don't value 913 00:56:37,440 --> 00:56:40,600 the inherent value of their lives at all. 914 00:56:41,120 --> 00:56:45,520 Rather you make life very hard for all sorts of people. 915 00:56:45,720 --> 00:56:49,040 And then you say, Oh, well, you know, that could be a valid 916 00:56:49,040 --> 00:56:51,440 reason for an assisted suicide. I want to involve the inherent 917 00:56:51,440 --> 00:56:52,800 attacks. I mean, I mean, you have a bill 918 00:56:52,800 --> 00:56:57,080 that doesn't at present, doesn't really have any safeguard 919 00:56:57,080 --> 00:56:59,000 against that. And in fact, this kind of 920 00:56:59,000 --> 00:57:03,160 legislation, I think you you can have no real safeguards. 921 00:57:03,160 --> 00:57:07,840 We've seen in every other legislature where legislators 922 00:57:07,840 --> 00:57:11,640 come in that it very quickly expands to cover the huge amount 923 00:57:11,640 --> 00:57:15,360 of other cases because there's nothing inherent, you know, for, 924 00:57:15,520 --> 00:57:19,440 for example, six months to live. Well, I'm, you know, first of 925 00:57:19,440 --> 00:57:26,560 all, predicting life, the length of life is, is notoriously 926 00:57:26,560 --> 00:57:31,480 difficult, but it makes no reference to pain. 927 00:57:31,560 --> 00:57:34,080 So someone might say, well, what if I'm in great deal of pain and 928 00:57:34,080 --> 00:57:35,280 but I haven't got six months to live? 929 00:57:35,320 --> 00:57:36,800 Aren't I being discriminated against? 930 00:57:36,800 --> 00:57:40,080 Why don't you give it to me? OK, so it's all, all, all of 931 00:57:40,080 --> 00:57:42,560 these things become very arbitrary and there's a slippery 932 00:57:42,560 --> 00:57:46,560 slope problem that if you can't give a justification for 933 00:57:46,560 --> 00:57:50,280 something further down the line. So there's nothing in the 934 00:57:50,280 --> 00:57:53,200 legislation that doesn't protect against a similar rationale 935 00:57:53,200 --> 00:57:55,200 being given for something that goes beyond the law. 936 00:57:55,840 --> 00:57:58,680 So it's it's it's really terrifying. 937 00:57:59,800 --> 00:58:03,120 And I mean, the good news is that that a lot of people, 938 00:58:03,680 --> 00:58:06,800 religious and non religious, left and right, people from all 939 00:58:06,800 --> 00:58:09,680 sorts of different backgrounds are opposing this very strongly. 940 00:58:10,240 --> 00:58:12,480 Yes, yeah. And including the war colleges. 941 00:58:12,480 --> 00:58:16,160 Yeah, yeah, I feel that. Yeah, I think what it does is it 942 00:58:16,160 --> 00:58:19,560 exposes the fanaticism of those pushing it because in a sense 943 00:58:19,800 --> 00:58:21,680 they have. And actually going back to the 944 00:58:21,680 --> 00:58:26,200 sexual revolution, you know, we were told abortion, for example, 945 00:58:26,240 --> 00:58:28,480 Oh well, it will just be a few very difficult cases. 946 00:58:28,920 --> 00:58:31,680 Just a few small, small, very difficult cases. 947 00:58:32,320 --> 00:58:33,880 They they change things, don't they, to make it. 948 00:58:34,360 --> 00:58:38,640 Very quickly, I mean, we could be facing 300,000 abortions. 949 00:58:39,480 --> 00:58:42,760 I think the next figures, you know well. 950 00:58:43,160 --> 00:58:46,560 And people warned at the time that this would happen and they 951 00:58:46,560 --> 00:58:49,480 were told they were nutters, they were naysayers, 952 00:58:50,040 --> 00:58:52,360 scaremongering. And this has happened again and 953 00:58:52,360 --> 00:58:54,960 again and again with with these radical social changes. 954 00:58:55,280 --> 00:59:00,440 There are people who warn about the dangers and they're they're 955 00:59:00,440 --> 00:59:02,720 dismissed as cranks or lunatics or whatever. 956 00:59:03,000 --> 00:59:07,240 And then 3040 is right, exactly that's happened and society has 957 00:59:07,240 --> 00:59:10,040 become coarsened and changed. And people say, well, that was a 958 00:59:10,040 --> 00:59:11,840 long time ago, move on, you know? 959 00:59:12,760 --> 00:59:16,440 And it is concerning that this, this could all lead to the, the 960 00:59:16,440 --> 00:59:19,920 Canadian model that's that that we're seeing unfolding in Canada 961 00:59:19,920 --> 00:59:23,240 with the NAGE system, the medically assisted dying and, 962 00:59:23,280 --> 00:59:26,840 and how, you know, vulnerable people are being encouraged to, 963 00:59:27,640 --> 00:59:30,360 to take their own lives, you know, people with mental health 964 00:59:30,360 --> 00:59:34,720 issues and, and just even just general depression. 965 00:59:34,720 --> 00:59:37,720 And it's really concerning. It's almost as though our 966 00:59:37,720 --> 00:59:41,520 government are really pushing this through to accelerate it to 967 00:59:41,520 --> 00:59:43,400 that level. Do you would you agree? 968 00:59:43,400 --> 00:59:45,160 I'm I'm just. Worried that that's where it. 969 00:59:45,320 --> 00:59:46,720 Looks as though it might be going I. 970 00:59:47,720 --> 00:59:49,480 Mean, I think what 1 can certainly say. 971 00:59:49,480 --> 00:59:51,720 Of course there are there are hidden motives. 972 00:59:51,760 --> 00:59:54,240 I mean, Matthew Paris, you know, sort of very much an 973 00:59:54,240 --> 00:59:57,680 establishment journalist, you know, openly came out and said, 974 00:59:57,960 --> 01:00:00,160 well, this will save loads of money and it's a good thing. 975 01:00:01,280 --> 01:00:04,080 And of course he he was sort of people told him to be quiet, but 976 01:00:04,080 --> 01:00:05,840 I think he said the quiet bit out loud. 977 01:00:07,160 --> 01:00:09,360 I think. I think some people are just so 978 01:00:09,360 --> 01:00:13,880 obsessed by this autonomy idea that this idea that this is some 979 01:00:13,880 --> 01:00:16,800 sort of great new expression of autonomy. 980 01:00:17,560 --> 01:00:20,800 That they just couldn't care less about the consequences. 981 01:00:20,840 --> 01:00:23,840 It's become that, that that's what's worrying is it's become 982 01:00:23,840 --> 01:00:27,400 almost a, a, a, a quaso of religious obsession such that 983 01:00:27,480 --> 01:00:30,920 any evidence is irrelevant because this is such a great 984 01:00:30,920 --> 01:00:32,520 good. And it's because basically what 985 01:00:32,520 --> 01:00:35,640 I'm saying is some people want to do this and therefore that's 986 01:00:35,640 --> 01:00:38,360 it. And, and hang the consequences. 987 01:00:38,720 --> 01:00:42,040 And actually I noticed John Grey, who's quite an interesting 988 01:00:42,040 --> 01:00:47,520 philosopher, who is certainly pro, pro-choice at the beginning 989 01:00:47,520 --> 01:00:53,920 of life with abortion and in principle pro euthanasia or or 990 01:00:53,920 --> 01:00:57,640 at least assisted suicide. He he came out the other day and 991 01:00:57,640 --> 01:01:01,840 just said this will mean death panels. 992 01:01:02,200 --> 01:01:06,800 This will mean horrific people making decisions ultimately over 993 01:01:06,800 --> 01:01:11,080 whether your life has any value or agreeing or pushing your own 994 01:01:11,080 --> 01:01:14,920 assessment of yourself. And he doesn't like it at all. 995 01:01:15,440 --> 01:01:17,480 So. So it's not, it's not, it's not 996 01:01:17,480 --> 01:01:19,640 only people who have a principled objection or some 997 01:01:19,640 --> 01:01:23,000 idea about the safety of life. It's people who have no in 998 01:01:23,000 --> 01:01:25,440 principled objection. But they they see exactly where 999 01:01:25,440 --> 01:01:27,160 this will lead to, where it's going. 1000 01:01:28,800 --> 01:01:31,960 And I think, yeah, this, this obsession with it goes back to 1001 01:01:31,960 --> 01:01:35,520 this idea that you can create yourself in any way and that all 1002 01:01:35,520 --> 01:01:40,080 of your choices should be affirmed regardless of what they 1003 01:01:40,080 --> 01:01:41,680 actually do, what they bring about. 1004 01:01:43,920 --> 01:01:46,680 Gosh, we've covered so much and and you know, this has been a 1005 01:01:46,680 --> 01:01:50,880 fascinating conversation and I could talk to you forever, but 1006 01:01:50,880 --> 01:01:52,000 I'm not sure how long we've been. 1007 01:01:52,000 --> 01:01:54,280 It must be an hour. I've haven't looked at the watch 1008 01:01:54,280 --> 01:01:56,920 actually. But oh gosh, yes, we've been, 1009 01:01:56,920 --> 01:02:02,040 we've just been over an hour. So where can we find your book? 1010 01:02:02,040 --> 01:02:06,160 Your your ethical sex? So I think it's still on Amazon, 1011 01:02:06,160 --> 01:02:11,720 so it's Amazon.co.uk. Otherwise people can write to me 1012 01:02:12,080 --> 01:02:17,080 if they would like. My e-mail is a McCarthy all one 1013 01:02:17,080 --> 01:02:26,960 word lower case at what? Is it a mccarthy@bioscentre.org 1014 01:02:27,040 --> 01:02:27,720 OR? G Right. 1015 01:02:27,800 --> 01:02:30,800 I'll put this all in the in the. In the notes. 1016 01:02:31,000 --> 01:02:34,520 Yeah. The details, yeah. 1017 01:02:34,560 --> 01:02:36,240 So so no. If they want to find out more 1018 01:02:36,240 --> 01:02:37,840 than I'm very happy. And do you? 1019 01:02:37,920 --> 01:02:42,120 Are you on social media at all? Not really, no, no, I look at 1020 01:02:42,120 --> 01:02:45,800 it, but I don't, I yeah, keep a low profile that way. 1021 01:02:46,560 --> 01:02:50,720 Absolutely, yeah. Okay, well, do you know I, I 1022 01:02:50,720 --> 01:02:52,840 could talk to you forever? I mean, is there anything else 1023 01:02:52,840 --> 01:02:55,720 that you'd like to say to, to, to finish up? 1024 01:02:56,360 --> 01:02:59,520 Because, you know, we've covered a lot of detail, which I think 1025 01:02:59,520 --> 01:03:03,200 it's probably a good time to, to stop because there's so much 1026 01:03:03,200 --> 01:03:06,800 information here that I think people will probably watch this 1027 01:03:06,800 --> 01:03:09,920 over and over again. I know I will because you've, 1028 01:03:10,080 --> 01:03:13,840 you've really answered almost well, just about every question 1029 01:03:13,840 --> 01:03:17,000 I had, which is, you know, was quite a lot of questions. 1030 01:03:17,000 --> 01:03:22,120 So it's been a really, really interesting and yeah, eye 1031 01:03:22,120 --> 01:03:26,400 opening interview. So is there anything else you'd 1032 01:03:26,400 --> 01:03:28,800 like to sort of say to round up? Is there? 1033 01:03:28,800 --> 01:03:31,200 Anything you'd like? I mean, just to thank to thank 1034 01:03:31,200 --> 01:03:36,200 you actually very much and and the work you do, but also, you 1035 01:03:36,200 --> 01:03:40,400 know that I think the debate on many matters is very 1036 01:03:40,400 --> 01:03:43,000 restrictive. And I think just getting out to 1037 01:03:43,000 --> 01:03:45,560 people and you're saying you're talking to farmers, but just 1038 01:03:45,560 --> 01:03:48,120 talking to people who are actually affected by these 1039 01:03:48,120 --> 01:03:52,720 changes is extremely important. And I feel as though one of the 1040 01:03:52,720 --> 01:03:55,960 reasons that that certain kinds of legislation can get through 1041 01:03:55,960 --> 01:04:01,560 or be pushed is precisely because many, many people's 1042 01:04:01,560 --> 01:04:05,520 voices are ignored in the euthanasia debate. 1043 01:04:05,520 --> 01:04:07,760 That was true for a very for a very long time. 1044 01:04:07,760 --> 01:04:10,880 It's got a little bit better, but but the victims of many 1045 01:04:10,880 --> 01:04:14,120 things are ignored. So we have victim culture, but 1046 01:04:14,120 --> 01:04:19,960 it's only very selected, specified victims who get, get a 1047 01:04:19,960 --> 01:04:22,240 voice. I think getting those voices out 1048 01:04:22,240 --> 01:04:25,960 is, is, is really important work, particularly now more than 1049 01:04:25,960 --> 01:04:27,920 ever. And that's true across a range 1050 01:04:27,920 --> 01:04:32,760 of, of subjects because in a way you don't really see the effects 1051 01:04:32,760 --> 01:04:36,480 of legislation unless you listen and speak to people who have the 1052 01:04:36,480 --> 01:04:39,360 relevant experience of, of the effect. 1053 01:04:40,680 --> 01:04:42,960 So I think that's that's very valuable work, you know. 1054 01:04:44,000 --> 01:04:47,360 Would you encourage people to, I mean, do they write to their 1055 01:04:47,360 --> 01:04:51,200 MPs? How, how can people almost get a 1056 01:04:51,600 --> 01:04:56,920 counterculture going on on all of this sort of devaluing of, of 1057 01:04:56,920 --> 01:04:58,560 human life? How can we? 1058 01:04:59,640 --> 01:05:06,080 How do do we write to? Our MPs, I certainly write to M 1059 01:05:06,080 --> 01:05:09,880 PS I mean, it is still worth doing just because the, the, the 1060 01:05:09,880 --> 01:05:12,880 sheer numbers may may cause a bit of a shift. 1061 01:05:12,880 --> 01:05:15,360 And we've seen a little bit with the, with the Leadbeater bill. 1062 01:05:15,360 --> 01:05:19,840 Actually, I, I think you know, but also, I suppose making 1063 01:05:19,840 --> 01:05:23,320 people aware that this is a very significant voice. 1064 01:05:23,320 --> 01:05:26,720 And that means, you know, in your conversations with people, 1065 01:05:27,840 --> 01:05:30,960 not just letting everyone assume that we all agree on this 1066 01:05:30,960 --> 01:05:34,720 because perhaps we don't. And the more you speak up, the 1067 01:05:34,720 --> 01:05:37,520 more other people will have the courage to to speak up. 1068 01:05:37,960 --> 01:05:42,480 And I think the other thing is, you know, depending on where you 1069 01:05:42,480 --> 01:05:47,160 are, I mean, if you're in the Academy or, or something like 1070 01:05:47,160 --> 01:05:51,040 that, you know, write papers, you know, I mean, you, you need 1071 01:05:51,040 --> 01:05:54,280 to try and as it were, change the culture at many, many 1072 01:05:54,280 --> 01:05:56,920 different levels. That includes at the elite 1073 01:05:56,920 --> 01:06:00,640 level, as it were, but it also includes very importantly sort 1074 01:06:00,640 --> 01:06:04,200 of more on on the ground and just speaking in your local 1075 01:06:04,200 --> 01:06:08,360 communities, organising, speaking up and also not. 1076 01:06:10,040 --> 01:06:13,360 I think a lot of people end up alienating each other on on 1077 01:06:14,800 --> 01:06:18,880 separate issues, but but trying to remind ourselves that, you 1078 01:06:18,880 --> 01:06:21,600 know, whether people are left or right or atheist or religious or 1079 01:06:21,600 --> 01:06:26,640 whatever, there's actually a huge amount of of sort of moral 1080 01:06:26,640 --> 01:06:30,000 common sense for what a better word that people do agree. 1081 01:06:30,080 --> 01:06:32,160 On and you can lose. Yeah, exactly. 1082 01:06:32,160 --> 01:06:34,960 And that actually unifies you. And once you're unified, you can 1083 01:06:34,960 --> 01:06:37,160 speak. So not to sort of, you know, 1084 01:06:37,200 --> 01:06:38,760 you're always going to disagree with people. 1085 01:06:38,760 --> 01:06:41,000 We all disagree with each other about all sorts of things. 1086 01:06:41,280 --> 01:06:43,360 But there are very, very big questions. 1087 01:06:43,720 --> 01:06:45,960 And what I'd say is if you think carefully about some of those 1088 01:06:45,960 --> 01:06:48,240 big questions, like like we were at the beginning of marriage, 1089 01:06:50,840 --> 01:06:54,680 that gives you some, some explanation of what's happening 1090 01:06:54,680 --> 01:06:58,000 in the society. So it's not just a, the range of 1091 01:06:58,440 --> 01:07:00,240 disconnected things that annoy you. 1092 01:07:00,640 --> 01:07:04,280 You begin to have some kind of explanatory theory. 1093 01:07:04,600 --> 01:07:08,000 And having that means you can tell a story, you have a, you 1094 01:07:08,000 --> 01:07:12,120 have a story to tell. And it's, it's having a, a real 1095 01:07:12,120 --> 01:07:15,680 story to tell that has serious content and, you know, 1096 01:07:17,240 --> 01:07:21,120 historical backing as well that I think convinces people. 1097 01:07:21,600 --> 01:07:24,400 Yeah, you've you've you've really get certainly given me 1098 01:07:24,400 --> 01:07:27,600 food for thought about maybe writing a bit more about this 1099 01:07:27,600 --> 01:07:30,640 and and putting the word out because it's it is it's a 1100 01:07:30,640 --> 01:07:36,760 fundamental thing about valuing our very life force. 1101 01:07:36,760 --> 01:07:39,880 Everything about, you know, what, what, what it means to be 1102 01:07:39,880 --> 01:07:43,680 human, what it means to be alive, and, you know, valuing, 1103 01:07:43,680 --> 01:07:47,480 giving that a value rather than devaluing it, which is what, 1104 01:07:47,480 --> 01:07:51,200 which is what's happened over over the last few decades, 1105 01:07:51,200 --> 01:07:53,920 actually. And, you know, I, I just want to 1106 01:07:53,920 --> 01:07:55,800 thank you so much for this interview. 1107 01:07:55,800 --> 01:07:59,120 It's so important. And I can't tell you how 1108 01:07:59,120 --> 01:08:02,080 wonderful it is. And Auntie McCarthy, thanks so 1109 01:08:02,080 --> 01:08:05,760 much for coming on. And we'll get this out as soon 1110 01:08:05,760 --> 01:08:08,520 as possible. And thanks very much for joining 1111 01:08:08,520 --> 01:08:10,840 me today. Thank you very much, Sandy. 1112 01:08:11,000 --> 01:08:11,320 Thank you.