Was having a chat this week with somebody I like to quip saying that I'm neither left wing nor right wing, I'm the middle finger. And the gentleman responded by saying, but labels do matter, you know, you can't erase language. And I found that quite interesting because to a degree he's got a point. Like a gardener is somebody who's a gardener and you, it's his descriptor or doctor. But if you're talking about something abstract, like an ideological worldview, then
labels become less important. No, I think labels become really problematic. I think they're very important because they're still problematic. You know, we like to compartmentalise people, we like to compartmentalise things. And but the problem is if, if you decide for yourself that you're left wing or right wing, then you've automatically got to believe certain things.
I mean, I, I'm quite proud of the fact that we've been equally accused of being right wing and left wing and so on, because, because this isn't, this shouldn't be how the world works. You know, that, that, OK, I'm right wing, therefore I've got to support Israel or I'm right wing, therefore I've got to be anti this or that. That's, that's not how it works. We should be looking at each issue as as it is and and having a conversation about each issue and set this ideological nonsense aside.
Well, I think it's up to us really as to whether they do create division. I mean, I think that's, yeah, it's a, it's a related issue. But you know, OK, let's take the, the obvious right, right or left wing. Why aren't we grown up enough to just consider that somebody who describes themselves as either right wing, if you're left wing or left wing and you're right wing, that they just have a different point of view ultimately? We've talked about this a little bit before You're.
You. You would label yourself as such because you believe that you're pursuing ultimately probably the same ends, but just by different means. And I think that I think division is or the sowing of division. The way that division manifests is, is slightly a separate issue, but but of course, of
course, absolutely related. I, I think also the, you know, one of the massive problems with labelling, whether it's of people or of things or of concepts or, or whatever is it, it means different things to different people. And that is in some ways deliberate. But, but I think I, yeah, again, I, I think that that adds, sort
of adds to the confusion. The term left and right wing, I mean, I think most people should know by now that they come from the French Revolution, which was a few centuries ago. They had a reason to exist then because it was literal division of the parliamentary structure. You know, those who were trying to revolutionise the system set to the left of the parliamentary speaker and those who wanted to preserve the monarchy set to the right. The terms now don't mean
anything. And I have asked numerous people over the years, will you call me far right? This is not even better. Please define that. What do you mean by that? And every single person you ask
has a different definition. And I would say that there are all the definitions are wrong anyway, because, because if we look at the so called political spectrum and we look at the the absolute extremes of that and we look at, you know, extreme socialism slash communism on one side and extreme right wing slash national socialism on the other side. What what is the difference between them?
So, so the better paradigm perhaps might be a circle that that once you move too far to the right, you basically end up in the same place as moving too far to the left. But you know, at the end of the day, as I say these, these as, as you've said, these labels are there to divide. And you know who's who? I think the question that we've all got to ask, no matter what part of the political spectrum we might think we exist in, the question we've got to ask is who
is it that wants that division? That seems to me to be the, the, the best starting place. And perhaps then you discover that that that that person that you're hollering at who who you say is on the opposite side of the political spectrum to yourself actually is wanting to consider exactly the same issues that you're wanting to consider. And in fact, the enemy isn't on that political spectrum at all. Yes, well, that was the point I
was making. I I said, so I was at a gathering of cartoonists a few days ago, some of South Africa's top cartoonists. And the irony is that they all were impressed that I pitched up because they said, well, that was very brave because, you know, you're you're the only right wing cartoonist. And I found that so odd because I said to them, what do you mean though? Like, what does that actually mean? We both want a better society. We both want a better world,
right? We just have perhaps different views on certain things. And they and they they still stuck in that sort of ideological paradigm. And I've it's bizarre. Well, I, I don't think it's that bizarre when you consider the amount of effort that goes into maintaining that particular status quo. Because exactly like Mike says, you know, if, if, if people are busy fighting with each other and, and, and only ever looking sideways, not up sort of figuratively, then then then
that's, that's ideal. That, that is absolutely ideal. So, yeah, I mean, inserting of labelling is, I would have said, you know, when it is done deliberately has it, it is for that very reason. And, and I totally agree on, you know, I mean, on the, the sort of continuum thing. I can, I can remember one of the few things I remember from school that seem to absolutely make sense, you know, looking at whether one was told it was extreme left or right, ultimately it is exactly the same thing.
And certainly for the people within such a system that describes itself or one or the other, the yeah, the outcomes are more or less identical. And I think we're we're seeing in in a lot of so called sort of Western civilised societies, we're seeing those points being reached, if not for everybody, certainly sort of in principle that that the push the drive for those spaces, those points on that continuums absolutely
playing out now I think. I think the the, the major issue here is that that from bottom to top, we have this political division of doesn't matter what country you're in either. You've got 2, basically two major parties or two major
ideologies at work here. But if we, if we look, you're just taking 2 examples, the, the creation of the Soviet Union and the creation of Nazi Germany. And, and you find the same, when you actually do a little bit of digging, you find the same financial interests supporting both efforts. And, and so, you know, that's, that's OK, that's an extreme example, but but this is, this is how it works.
We've got the same financial interest supporting both so called sides of politics in all our countries. And, and so we end up with a false choice between in the, in the UK, between Labour and Tory and, and increasingly it's a false choice because increasingly it's obvious that it's a uni party because they pursue the same policies.
And and so you know, the quite the question that that we've got to, I think if we've got to persuade anybody, if anything, it is to to look a bit deeper at, at who is actually where, you know, who is supporting and originating these ideologies in the first place. The one gentleman was chatting to me about it doesn't really matter too much, but it was about hunting. And he said, but I, I completely oppose it. You know, that's it's predictable that, that you would, that you would support
hunting. And I said, how is that a political? How's that a political thing? OK, I asked him, do you eat meat? He said yes. And then there was a moment of silence. And he goes, yes, I understand that that what you about to say is that it's going to be a double standard here. But somehow this has been encapsulated into political ideal, ideology and of course, division. Of course, that's because it's a
mechanism of control. And so the fact that the fact is we can't have those conversations because, you know, let's put ourselves in the shoes of, of that person you were speaking to. We can't have that conversation because he's already without thinking about it. And this is the key point. Without thinking about it, he has already decided that he is against hunting and he's pro abortion because he happens to, to exist in that particular
political space. The, the, the main issue is that, that once you find yourself in that kind of reality and that kind of thinking, you're immediately switching off your brain. At that point, you don't need to think anymore. And this is, this is part of the attraction of it. Of course you can just, you can just consume a whole swathe of policy areas and say, yeah, I support that. And you don't actually have to consider any of the implications.
You just get on with it. So that's, that's part of the problem. The problem is that for most people they don't play in the game that they're not playing characters to use that right so called right wing term and and they don't think we've got to start thinking.
Just as well for the people who do get stuck in these conversations, because otherwise you have to confront the rather unfortunate reality that if you say that you oppose hunting and therefore you don't want to see animals being killed, but you support abortion and therefore you do want to see unborn foetuses being killed, then that puts you in a slightly tricky position. But of course, that's not part of it. You're not supposed to think that much about it. Because you've outsourced your
critical thinking. Yeah, yeah, totally, totally and utterly. But, but, but it's you know, it's it's it's brilliantly done. And also you see how how the the sort of the drawbridges drop at the appropriate moments when people it's slightly different, but how when people are primed
for such and such a thing. And, and the example now, I think we might have talked about this before, but the, the, the Labour government via what has been referred to as a think tank that is in effect, the Labour government has said that they've just cracked it. You know, they've, they've worked out how to stop this terrible scourge of illegal and, or the problems with legal migration, which is via digital ID And, and the way that the ground is prepared for it means
that people of all creeds, as it were politically should for it's sort of the trap is designed for everybody to fall into. And that, and that again, is another, is another gift of the, of the sort of labelling thing, because you can, you can sell, you can in effect, sell the same product to different people by just calling it a different thing. It's, it's wonderful. And it just never.
It never finishes. But I think a great counter response to the whole are you a left winger or are you a right winger might be something along the lines of, well, if you can give me a definition of the term, then I'll tell you if I am. Yes. Oh yeah, absolutely. I I think, I think that should be should completely be the first response with with any of these things. Exactly.
So to, to define, you know, well, rather than saying, am I whatever, Yeah, say, well, what, what is it exactly that you think you mean by that? And, and then you and then you do, I mean, frankly, that should actually, if, if people are open minded enough and sort of can remain calm enough that that does lead into an interesting discussion.
Because I mean, after all, what we're talking about now is not I, I can't see that anyone would find this offensive, whether they consider themselves to be of the left or of the right, just to examine what that does mean and why they think that such and such a thing conforms to it. And it reminds me actually of the conversation that you had with Vanessa Bailey, uh, within what I come.
It was a couple days ago and she was talking about the differences, you know, the imagined differences between between say Donald Trump and Joe Biden with regard to to war or indeed Obama or, you know, any of them. And, and it is incredible that there are an enormous number of people who will believe that because somebody has been sort of labelled as a, a peacemaking anti war president, that therefore there won't be war and they won't remember that there
was war. And then you, you look at what has happened and you see that the, the way in which this person is described and their administration is described is totally at odds with what actually happened. But people will continue to believe it because that's the that's the packaging that the story has had. You mentioned emotional response. Why? Why do you think people get so
worked up? Yeah, I mean that that that's a good one that that is, that is quite some conditioning because exactly why, why would you, why, why do people feel. And you know, again, Donald Trump is an interesting one. People, a lot of people do seem to behave sort of like they know him. And we we get this on UK column after the news. Not that we, you know, we, we don't at all make a, a practise of playing the man and not the
ball. But sometimes it, it is very much the case that you can look at one individual who has for whatever reason, influenced the situation in, in a, a way that deserves scrutiny. And this is not meant to be a generalisation, but there there are invariably a number of responses to such a such a sort of talking point, especially in the news about something that's perceived to say critical of the person, you know, negative about that particular person.
And it is, it's really interesting because often it manifests all the way it expresses itself is as though the the UK column viewer who's who's sort of written in about it takes it personally, as though, as though somehow you're, you know, savaging a member of their family or, or
even them by extension. And, and it is, it is interesting, but I think this is, this is one of the things that has been done very successfully is, is perhaps through all these incredible and and non stop forms of media, people's personalities have sort of been imprinted upon those that are absorbing the content. And therefore they do seem to have what what they perceive to be almost a personal relationship with that person. I think there's a number of
issues here. The first is to follow on from what Charles is saying. There's because there's so much chaos and so on at the moment. There's definitely a need in people for some kind of hero to come and save the day. There's no question about that. But but on the more general point, you know, there seems to be some kind of ingrained fundamental desire requirement in humanity to be a member of a
club. It doesn't matter whether it's support for a Sports Club. You think of the of how how motivated people get about football, for example, and how partisan they are. So it doesn't matter whether it's sports or whether it's politics or, or whatever it happens with, whether it's gender or whatever it happens to be, people want to belong to to a club.
And, and this is, This is why it makes us so manipulable because we have that strong desire to be amongst people that think the same way and, and behave the same way and so on. And, and this, this makes us suckers for this every single time. They just they, they the people that are, that are sort of managing societies, recognise how to manage societies and, and giving strong brand identity to the various clubs is is a, a mechanism for doing that and we
fall for it every time. It's the Messiah syndrome. And no question about that. And but also it's because people perceive events locally, nationally, globally, whatever it happens to be, they perceive events as being so big that there's nothing that they as individuals can do about it because they're just little people.
And and we, we, it's, it's natural for us to all have this kind of concern and so on. But but somehow because Trump has given the perhaps false perception that he's somehow something special because he happens to own some real estate and and a couple of golf courses and has said some things in the past that people agree with. And nobody seems to they see, it's been people seem to switch their brains off at this point and say, well, OK, he said stuff that I agree with in the past.
I'm going to support this guy because he's going to save the day. And he said he's going to drain the swamp and he's going to do this. And the other thing nobody has ever considered the possibility that he's, he has lied all this time. I mean, I'm not saying that he has, but because I don't know the man and I don't know, you know, what his thought processes
have been over the years. But nobody has considered the possibility that he has lied his way into the position of President of the United States. And that actually the, the, the faith in, in that individual or any individual is, is falsely placed. And this is, this is dangerous because we're effectively giving up any agency that we have. But, but the, the fundamental problem here is that people refuse to believe that they have any agency of their own.
I. Think I think it was Catherine Fitz who made a great comment about a a way to look at world leaders. You know that they're effectively just middle management. I think, I think that that's a good observation, but I, and I think that this is, this is also, this is another aspect of the problem that people have is that they're always thinking about who's at the top of the pyramid and that's the target.
Well, no, that's not the target. That should never be the target because the fact of the matter is the people at the top of the pyramid, they hold the purse strings and so on, but they, they have no direct control over what happens on the ground. And so they need this layer of middle management. If you can disrupt that layer of middle management, you can disrupt their plans. And that's, that's that I think is where people make a mistake. They're always trying to target
the top of the pyramid. They're always worried about who's at the top of The Who cares? Doesn't matter. The fact of the matter is, you know, those people are invisible, but the people that are visible, the people that are in middle management, they are there. They're the target. And that's who we should be targeting, in my opinion. You know, we, we should also, I think they should be much more
lampooning. I mean, the idea of a one world government is just so utterly preposterous that it's laughable, frankly. And yes, you know, all right, there are, there are many, you know, well founded concerns that come with the idea of it and the and the sort of movement towards it. But it it does come down to the choices that you make and what you're able to put in place to make sure that you can deal with the situation as it as it
presents itself, I think. Ian Davis actually makes a good point about that one world government narrative. I I mean, I agree with you. I think it does seem quite preposterous. The world's a very big place. But he argues that one world governance is more plausible. And one world governance, for example, can occur through systems like the UN, which has, you know, almost 200 countries basically agreeing to everything that the UN says.
I'll just make the jet. I'll just gently make the point, Jeremy, that we've had a one World Governance series on the UK column website since 2010 or so or 2011. So, so this is this, this has been our point from the beginning. This, this isn't about one World government because of course that is simply not possible. Even if you have some kind of Politburo Bureau in the UN or wherever, where whatever organisation is supposed to be at the top of that particular pyramid.
Of course there has to be government at, you know, various strata and, and in various parts of the world, various regional assemblies and, and so on it. But it's the governance framework which is the important thing. And of course, you know, we would categorise digital ID and CBDC and these types of policy areas as being part of the, that governance framework. And, and it's, it's the idea that, you know, that that is decided at, in one location on
the planet. And that therefore at a local level, we basically have no say in how that framework is created and what, what that framework is that that I think is, is a dangerous thing. And, and you know, it, it this, this comes back to whole other raft of issues.
For example, the issue of diversity, which is presented as being some mechanism to protect minorities or make sure that people that are, you know, immigrants to a country are treated fairly or that women are treated fairly or whatever it happens to be. But in fact, I think we may have mentioned this before, but, but diversity is about breaking down the differences between, between peoples and between whatever part of, you know, section of society we're talking about.
And that, that in the process of doing that, you actually break down the, the strength of, of the human, because strength comes from having different ideas and debating and, and so on. And we end up with, with better answers when we, when we actually approach problems from different points of view. If we all think the same and that then we're weakening ourselves as, as, as a, as a species. And, and that's dangerous.
But you know, it's absolutely governance is the and the governance frameworks are the things that we should be focusing on, not the idea of, of, of some kind of single government which can never exist as, as Charles is saying. The three of us are quite diverse. We have different views and we have overlapping views. That in itself is diversity. We aren't all zombies with precisely the same outlook on everything.
Yeah, that's because that's because, again, these are points of division that that that certain people take advantage of for, you know, at at multiple levels. I mean, the the people at the top of the pyramid absolutely take advantage of that for as a mechanism control. But but equally people at the bottom of the pyramid take advantage of that just because it gives them some kind of, you know, public persona or whatever.
And they, they stand and they shout at certain sections of the, of, of the town or city that they happen to be in and, and start shouting about enemy combatants and this kind of thing. So, so you know, this, this is something that can be exploited in many, many ways. Now, I'm not going to say that I like everybody. I reserve the right to to dislike anybody I like, but I'm not, I'm sorry, dislike anybody I want rather than yes, but,
but, but I'm going to do that. I'm personally would would make that decision based on what they say and what they do, but particularly what they do not, not based on anything else. I mean, what at the end of the day, why would I care what religion somebody is? I mean, I, I grew up in a society that told me that I had to care what religion somebody was and that, you know, that was nonsense and, and that was obviously nonsense for anybody that had a brain at the time.
And I mean, too much diversity in any event, is not a good thing. South Africa on a macro level is a good example of that. But on a more micro level, if if you're on a tour bus and there are, let's say 30 people from different countries and they're all speaking different languages, you're going to really get nowhere until you hear that one person speaking perhaps English. And you go, there's somebody, there's somebody, and you want to go and sit next to them so you can at least chat.
No, I don't think, I don't think I agree with that. I think I think, you know, if, if how many countries do we have in the world 170 something or whatever it is. You know, each of those countries, some of them are, are, have formed naturally. Some of them have formed because, you know, various empires have said this is your border. But nonetheless, those people have different languages often, but they, but I think we made
this point as well before. There are concepts expressed in some languages that are unexpressible in other languages. If we, if we destroy those, if in the name of diversity, we say, no, you can't speak your language anymore because because I can't understand you, you've got to speak English or you've got to speak German or you've got to speak French, Then of course you lose the concepts that that are expressed in that language by those people. You lose, you lose that thought process.
And, and that, that's, that's what I mean when, when we weaken ourselves, when we do that. So, so, you know, I take your point that if you're in a, if you're a stranger in a strange land, that it can be difficult because you don't speak the language. But but that doesn't mean that we should be all deciding to sort of lessen the the range of. Yeah, that's not, Yeah, that's not what I was saying. I was. That's why I thought OK.
Sorry about that. That's why I said on a on a micro level, if you're on a tour bus, you you're going to have a very, very boring time if you aren't able to communicate with everybody around you. Yeah, OK. But I think we've got to wait. I think we've got to get our terms right here because because when, when you say diversity, that doesn't, that doesn't mean the same as when they say diversity, because when they say diversity, what they mean is the
removal of diversity. They, they mean that, that in order to, in order to, you know, be accepting of, of other cultures and so on, you've got to change your culture. And so the aim of the game there is to turn everybody into the same thing. It's like it's, you know, an example of this. If you look through, look at any city in the Western world, in Europe, let's just say Europe, you will find the same shops in the same high streets that
everything looks the same. Now this is this at a certain level is a great example of it. And it, it's, it's horrible because you can't go to Paris or you can't go to Berlin or you can't go to Frotzois or, or, or Warsaw and see something which is in Francois for Warsaw. You can't see something which is Polish anymore. You can't see something which is German. And in Berlin it's all the big
multinational corporates. This is the effect of of their meaning of diversity with a. Capital D. Yes, and and it's it's destroying cultures and that is the point of it. So because, because, because the language that's being used at a certain, with a certain section of society has been turned into something different. So the words might be English, but they don't mean what you think they mean or what I think they mean. And that that's our problem with.
So we have to, the first thing we have to do is to try to interpret what they're saying. And, and you know, it's, it's a silly thing to say, perhaps, but, but often if you just assume that what they mean is 180° out from what you think they mean, you may be getting closer to the truth. Yeah, but that dovetails to the start of this conversation with understanding labels and definition. So we need to, we need to also be clear with our language.
So when people speak like this we need to 1st ask them what do you mean? Yeah. Well, that's where you can come off the rails quite quickly because basically people don't know and and that's unfortunately where I think this sort of conversation that starts out as well meaning and well intended can can turn into something that becomes more contradictory and controversial than it should because people are unable.
I mean, it's you know, it shouldn't be really regarded as a challenge, but people perceive it to be a challenge as though you're immediately trying to undermine their point of view. But in actual fact, you're just trying to understand it. And and you know, like you say, going back to the beginning, The thing is that people by and large, they don't, they don't understand, they don't they, they know that such and such a thing equals far right or far left or what?
I mean, actually not really far left these days, mostly far right. And that's enough. That's, that's all you need to know. You don't, you don't have to be able to qualify it. It's, yeah, it's, it's, it's pathetic. How? How disappointing to to have to exist like that. Charles So I did a, As you know, I did a conversation with Vanessa Bailey a few nights ago and I got an very, very angry message from somebody after that. Good. This is just anti Semitic. How can you, how can you even
platform somebody like this? She doesn't know what she's talking about, blah, blah, blah. I'm so disappointed in, in, in you and UK calling blah, blah, blah. And this is the problem that you were alluding to earlier, that people get so emotionally attached to these ideological world views. Yeah, I mean, on that specific
issue, join the club. You know that that's, that that happens without fail when there's any, any suggestion that that the state of Israel, which has nothing to do with Jewish people or the Jewish faith, literally just talking about the, the, the state of Israel. It is, it is absolutely seen as somehow indistinct from criticism of, of, of Jewish people. And therefore it's the inference is that it's anti Semitic. And I mean, yeah. And again, that term is completely mis misappropriated
anyway. So yes, I mean, it's, you know, it's very sad because people do, people do get triggered by it and they therefore don't think about what is actually being said. And I, I'm not, I mean, I, I, I remember exactly Vanessa's remark and, and, and I, I completely agree with her within the context that she said it. And, and saying, saying that because, I mean, you know,
again, are people inconsistent? I mean, you did, did whoever you were communicating with have a view on Kashmir or Western Sahara or, you know, any of the other many disputed territories over the world And, and there, you know, how they sort of came to be. So, yes, I, I think it's, it's another excellent exercise in, well, let's say, labelling the, the, the fact that people, an enormous number of people that never have never really stopped to think about it.
And, and I don't mean I'm not talking about people that are Jewish or have links to Israel, but but people across the board are just conditioned into thinking of Israel as being the only country on earth that is somehow absolutely to be regarded as indistinct from anybody that is Jewish. It's, it's a remarkable achievement to have have been able to say that mental condition across the world.
But, but it's amazing because I, I mean, I, I don't know, can can you think of anywhere else that falls into a similar category? The other, sorry, the other point I would make about this is of course that that that reaction from that person to what Vanessa said was a first of all, a knee jerk reaction that they, they reacted immediately without thinking based on I'm, I'm speculating here, but probably based on ideological
lines. But they did so without considering who and what Vanessa Bailey actually is and maybe don't know anything about her. And so, you know, the fact that she lived in Gaza for a while, the fact that she's lived in Syria for so many years, the fact that she has been on the ground on the receiving end of a lot of what Israel has done over the last number of decades. But also her family background
as well. And the fact that she was, you know, the daughter of a British diplomat who ended up carrying the can for the Suez crisis and so on. And so she has quite a bit of direct knowledge of the situation that many of us don't have. You know, most of us are reading about Israel from books. She has lived actually quite a lot of that and and so has a different perspective on on things.
And so whether we agree with her or not, and this is, this is the point that I really want to make here, whether we agree with someone or not, we, we should be prepared to, to consider what they have to say. And you know, when by that I mean, whether we agree with them as as an initial reaction or not, we should be willing to consider what they have to say and actually find out a little bit more about why they're saying it. And, and you know, that that helps to inform our future decisions.
But, you know, I've always said, Jeremy, that, that if we're finding ourselves in an ideological situation and somebody says something to us which causes that, that knot in our gut and, and, and we just want to lash out and, and, and say something unpleasant about them. That's the point where we have to, in my opinion, actually challenge our own perceptions and our own. And we have to, we have to actually use that as a, as a trigger for reconsidering whether we're whether our
position is correct or not. And, and this is something that that most of us don't do often enough or at all. We should be, we should be absolutely challenging our positions on things every day, every time we have, we make a statement or have a thought about it. Am I right? Or have it, is there something I haven't taken into account here? Because that, you know, if we aren't doing that, then we don't really believe in the truth at
all. Mike, you're, I think you're absolutely perfectly right to talk about, you know, a comment from Vanessa should be seen as something coming from somebody who has seen what she's seen, researched what she's researched and you know, all the other factors. But I think it's unfair on Vanessa to think that there's the possibility that her view is in any way an emotional one or one that's based on stuff that she's seen.
Because I think that takes away what the, the objective point she was making, which was about just giving land that wasn't British to somebody. I mean, the, the she was talking about the, the creation of the state of Israel, which which is complete a completely extraordinary thing.
And, and rather than giving people the, the possibility of regarding Vanessa as being a sort of, you know, Arabist sympathiser and, you know, having, having any sort of interference with, in her view of the all the various aspects of her life that you reference, I think is, is a, is a real
issue. And, and yet we see, you know, we see this sort of both both ways, whether it be to, in relation to Israel or, or exactly like you say, German with the, the issue of whether Islam is or isn't compatible with, with such and such a thing.
But I think it does, you know, the, because I, well, what I would say with, with Israel is of course, the, the, the conversation with Vanessa specifically was about Christian Zionism. And, and again, that means that people are not taking an objective view, that they're basing their point of view on something that they believe is the case from, you know, sort of historical biblical context. And, and that strips away the objectivity.
So in in effect it becomes an emotional point of view, which I think is a a dangerous thing. Asking the question actually is not a very good question. Whether or not Israel has the right to exist because a state exists or doesn't, nobody can kind of enforce that right. I don't know whether it is. I don't know whether it is, I think I think because just to follow on from what Charles has just said, you know, the word that Charles used there was extraordinary.
It's the way that that the way that that project was done hasn't been done that way before or since. And so I think, I think I think it, it is actually quite a good question and and it's one that needs to be discussed much more, not less would be my suggestion on that. Yeah, I agree and I I think. Is it the right though? Sorry. No, no, just just just to draw out the the because the inference, you know what, what
does 1 infer from the question? And again, that's you have to you have to ask yourself, well, what is it you're reading into that question because it what you should mean, but sorry, not what you should. But what I think you mean by that question is, is, was the way in which the state of Israel was created correct? What what was that? Was that to follow a process that that that was, you know, sort of Fair, legal, lawful or any of these sorts of things? But, but ultimately, was it right?
As opposed to is, you know, does that question mean that all, all Jews should be wiped off the face of the earth? Well, what a ridiculous thing to to try. I mean, you there, there are, there are Jewish people outside the state of Israel and there are non Jewish people within. So it it makes no sense on that basis.
But you can bet that people will infer from that question that that is what you mean by it. And indeed an answer that Vanessa gave in saying no, it shouldn't, that people will say, oh, well, she, you know, she's saying death to whoever. I mean which is which is just completely not fair or not the case. It was that banned recently? Was it in the UK with a sang death to the IDF or something? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they are. No, unbelievable. I mean, not sorry, not
unbelievable. They did it unbelievable that people can't think further than the end of their nose because. Or if did we not talk about it before anyway. But, you know, just imagine if they'd said if they'd done death to death to Russian armed forces. Great. Well done, guys. Well, you know, same place next year. So yeah, it's just, it's it's pathetic. By the way, it's your country that pretty much created the state of Israel. Yeah.
Absolutely, but that but that's why but but that is why going back to the specifics then that that's where it does come into play. The fact that the fact that Vanessa does know what she's knows and has lived what she has and that her father was a diplomat, you know, during that sort of period. If that is, that's where all of this becomes significant because we look at how history as it's unfolding in front of our very eyes is, is rewritten.
And anyone say, say teenagers now will believe stuff that is absolute lies from anything that's happened over the last couple of years. I mean, you know, or, or, or look at, look at where we are with, with climate change, you know, the, the big one, they are, people are absolutely conditioned into thinking something that is, that is not true. She she did concede, saying, look, perhaps it's because she has an emotional attachment to
Jewish history and. No, I, I have much more time for people that, that approach these issues in that way than I do for people that have simply decided something because they, you know, they actually have no historical attachment to, to this, the topic in any way, shape or form. They've, they've come to a certain conclusion because someone else told them that that was the conclusion that they had
to have. So, you know, someone like that, someone like that, I think you can have a conversation with, but it's, it's much harder to have a conversation with someone who has just taken a, a position without any kind of cerebral process at all, you know, because there's no, there's no discussion. Patrick Kennington and I were at a a thing last night at Plymouth University and it was, it was a, a documentary film that that was getting a showing.
It hasn't been sold in the UK. So at this point nobody else can watch it unless there's another private viewing somewhere else in the country. But at this point it can't be watched. And it's all about the militarisation of the Arctic. And, and the premise is that this militarisation is happening because of climate change, because the ice is melting. And therefore countries, there's this massive race to, to, to get control of that, that neck of
the woods. There's, there's a whole raft of of issues around that that that particular topic and and I've completely lost the the thread of where I was going to go with that. I'm enjoying your raft of issues in the Arctic where of course there's no ice now, so it just be floating, floating around with all your issues on it. Right, right. So, so, so we go in, we sit down and the first person who speaks is, is a senior lecturer at Plymouth University who's a climate lecturer.
And so there's no discussion with him whatsoever about anything. And then the guy who's made the documentary has been working in the past on, on David Attenborough's series and so on and, and whatnot. And it's absolutely clear that, that, that he has managed to get this documentary made by himself on his own with no support on the production side, but with massive support on the NATO side. And, and he so he has ended up producing something which, which is an absolute propaganda peace.
But my point is this the, the, the whole premise of the thing has come from this ideological standpoint that hasn't really been thought through. And, and so, but, but it was the reaction from most of the audience, which was really amusing because because none of them had thought through the issues either. And so they have been presented with this piece of work which they have consumed and have. And there was no, in the Q&A at the end, there was clearly no
thought process. I mean, for example, this is all part of this militarization of the Arctic is all happening because the ice is melting. And the bad guys in this are Russia and China. But China is spending more money now on building Ice Breakers than they ever have in the past. And I'm thinking, well, hold on a second, if why are they investing in Ice Breakers if the ice is melting, right? So, so the whole argument is in turn, nobody in the room got this. Nobody in the room could
understand this concept. On me just thinking ahead to 2030 when global emissions have dropped to below 0 and all the ice comes back. I, I couldn't comment on that. I mean, and, and Russia the same. They're building nuclear, nuclear powered Ice Breakers, right? So, so why are they doing this if the ice is all melting? It's, it's, it's the, the, the, the, the lack of of thought and consideration in that room for what they were being presented with was off the charts.
It was amazing. And I'm not sure whether that is, is the point that I was originally intending to make anyway, but but I'll make, I'll make that point because it was quite an incredible experience just to be in a room with, with 100 and 150 people watching this, this documentary and listening to them speak afterwards. Quite amazing. The further you go through life, the more perhaps as a generalisation, the more evident it becomes. It it is.
I think it is harder to change your responses to things or the the way you do think about things or the OR your behaviours the further you go through life. Again, I, I, you know, I know there will absolutely be people listening who we'll reject that out of hand at a personal level, which is fine. But but yes, I, I think by and large, we are all conditioned by our experiences very early on in life.
And I mean, OK, I don't know nearly enough about it, but if you that there are people who speak very clearly about this in so far as what's imprinted on a child's mind or behaviour by the age of 7. And it's it, you know, it's
very, very significant. And I think this goes back to the sort of the white hat thing or coalescing or what, you know, what Jason Kristoff talks about with the, the, the well, but but the, the idea that either you do grow up as you know, there, there are variables here, but the idea that you do grow up as somebody who is looking to be part of a group and needing those sorts of life lines as you perceive them or you're not. And I don't think that broadly speaking, people change in that
fundamental sense. And I, and I remember this coming out, we, Mike and Brian and I went to a pub in Plymouth a couple of months ago. And we, we, we were chatting to people and, and these stories were being shared about how, because I think a number of people there who certainly described that they'd woken up during the COVID thing.
And, and, and there was a lady there who had she, I can't forget actually, whether she was in, she was working, she was either working in a care home or in a sort of medical setting, I can't remember which it was. I think maybe she was a nurse and she was talking about how she just conscience wouldn't let her continue to do the things they were being asked to do. And I asked her whether she was sort of surprised by that. And could you think of other instances in life?
And it was something she'd never really examined. And it was very interesting her response because she just sort of thought back and thought that actually there were other, many other instances in which she had effectively express the same sorts of behaviour. But of course, it hadn't been controversial because it wasn't largely out of kilter with what the people around her were doing or thinking.
So I, I, I think that that who we are is, is shaped from from a very early age and that, and that does inform the way that we will go on to think about things, even if we're, we're always learning stuff. But I think there's AI think there is definitely a difference between learning, you know, processing information and and then forming points of views, all judgement. A friend of mine made a comment about a year ago. He said to me, human progress,
the myth. I, I, I'm going to say I'm not sure whether that's entirely true because, you know, the, the, the fact of the matter is when, when we live in a, an environment that's Neolithic times or so on, there's certain things that we need to do to survive that we don't need to do anymore. So you know what, what proportion of people actually would know how to do something basic like, you know, kill an animal and, and prepare it for, for eating and so on. Is that pro?
Is that progress? I don't know. But, but anyway, the point is, I think, I think the problem that humanity exhibits is that, umm, we don't recognise the section of humanity which, umm, whether we want to call them sociopaths or psychopaths or whatever, which inevitably ends up at the, at the top of the pyramid. I, I think there's, I think that section of humanity certainly doesn't progress.
And, and because they effectively control the purse strings and, and drive policy and drive societies and so on. Umm, we find ourselves, we find ourselves unable to get rid of that particular aspect of, of humanity and, and therefore we, we, we perhaps maybe that's holding us back in some ways. I think we progress in some ways and we don't progress in others.
I mean, I think it would be equally easy to argue that the fact that that that many of us don't know how to how to survive in certain circumstances anymore is a backward step and not a progressive step. But anyway, maybe Charles can say something about that. Absolutely. Well, because I take a very literal view of it and and I think, I mean, just imagine, you know, the the creator looking down upon the creations and going through, you know, going
down the list. But, yeah, they can still fly, pretty much. They're good at, you know, catching. Catching the things they need to eat. Fish up. Still swimming. All right. Monkeys. Yeah, they can still climb trees. Humans. Oh, no, hang on. No, they can't really run. They can't bend down and pick stuff up. They don't know what to eat. They can't climb stuff. Yeah. So no, I mean, this is a really serious point in my mind. I think at a species level, we
have regressed terrifically. And I don't just mean physically. Yes, I, yes, I do absolutely think that is a very, very serious point and why, you know, we talk about conditioning when one's younger. I mean, why, why do we just stop doing the stuff that that we
should be able to do? Why when people get to the age of, I don't know, whatever it is, 15 if they've got a mobile telephone or perhaps 20 if not, they just stop, stop running, they stop swimming, they stop climbing, they stop doing all the sorts of things that keep you active. And I absolutely believe in healthy mind, in a healthy body.
And again, mental capacity. The problem is that we don't, the physical stuff is easier to, to sort of articulate because you can quite clearly see, oh, well, that person can't do that or I can't run a mile in whatever. The mental thing is harder to, to deal with because you don't know what your mental capacity could be because it's it, you know, it's not possible to, to regard that. But, but I think we absolutely have failed.
When you think of the, the way in which people could recite enormous volumes of poetry or song or, or whatever, we cannot do that now. We have, So I, I don't regard it as progress that we've basically outsourced all of our capabilities. I regard that as a massive vulnerability. Look where we are now. We talk the entire time about the, you know, the system being shut down, no money, no food, no whatever.
But but and the vast majority of people are totally stuck because they cannot rely upon themselves or the small groups of humans that they engage or operate with in order to achieve that. So I know it sounds sort of basic and simplistic, but I think it should be basic and simplistic. And I think we are absolute fools to imagine that we can sort of tech our way out of it. We can't and, and I'm afraid to say, and I, I do take a really hard line on this.
I think that it is an absolute abuse of the, you know, incredible sort of privilege of life to to squander that by not absolutely making the best of all the capabilities that we have. You know, we don't. One of our dogs was barking in the night and I couldn't quite think what what was going on. And I need to find that, you know, there was a huge confection of feathers on the lawn this morning. Evidently there was a fox around the house. I couldn't hear it.
I couldn't sense it, but one of the dogs could. So, yeah, we, we have lost ground and and we need to regain it. It's it is not all it's not all doom and gloom. I'm reading an excellent book about Crete during the Second World War at the minute and the incredible feats of, you know, sort of endurance and everything else by those, by the credence. And I dare say that persists to an extent to this day. Anyway, I know, I know we've got to wrap it up. But yeah, we have not progressed
in many respects. We need to, we need to reclaim that, that ground. Thank you for this week's Mantel. Catch up with you next week. Thank you.