In the vast landscape of historical discourse, few voices resonate as compellingly as that of Dominic Sandbrook. Known for his engaging storytelling and insightful analysis of modern British history, Sandbrook has captivated audiences through various media. Recently, he joined the popular YouTube series “Triggernometry,” where his conversations delve deeply into complex historical narratives. This blog post will dissect the key claims made during their discussion, offering a fact-check that ensures you walk away with not just entertainment, but a clearer understanding of the historical context shared. Join us as we separate fact from fiction and uncover the nuances behind one of the most engaging conversations about history you’ll ever encounter.

Find a fact check of this transcript on CheckForFacts

Transcript:

[00:00:02,839]: The mood music about history which I agree in the last let’s say 15 years has been intensely moralistic

[00:00:11,420]: Is that wrong

[00:00:12,420]: Like should we not be trying to learn the moral lessons from the past

[00:00:16,260]: The biggest killers were utopian idealists

[00:00:19,620]: They were people who believed in a better world

[00:00:21,600]: Hitler undoubtedly you know it sounds weird to say it but he’s an idealist

[00:00:24,799]: Stalin is obviously an idealist

[00:00:26,260]: Mao is an idealist

[00:00:27,100]: They think they are going to make a better world

[00:00:31,100]: We now have a slightly sanitized and a self deluding idealistic view of human nature and of what we’re capable of

[00:00:40,860]: They’ve been completely insulated from the beast in other people and in themselves

[00:00:45,740]: Knowledge of the beast is so important

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[00:01:09,620]: Dominic Sambro welcome to Triggernometry

[00:01:11,339]: Thank you for having me

[00:01:11,940]: It’s a great privilege

[00:01:12,779]: It’s an honor to be here

[00:01:13,580]: It’s an honor for us to have you

[00:01:14,819]: You’re of course part of the hugely successful The Rest is History podcast with our former and future guest Tom Holland

[00:01:22,080]: And history has always been a fascination of ours

[00:01:24,559]: Our audience love our history episodes

[00:01:26,400]: It’s great to have you here

[00:01:27,760]: The thing we wanted to talk about with you is I think given the current political climate and everything else that’s been going on a lot of people are kind of aware of the fact that the way history has been taught for quite some time now has produced people who see a history our history the history of the West the history of much of the world really in very one dimensional black and white quite moralizing terms

[00:01:52,160]: And what we wanted to explore with you is A how that was generated and perhaps fill in some of the blanks and the gaps and contextualize and add the nuance that I think history always requires

[00:02:04,220]: So first of all how do we get here

[00:02:06,919]: It’s a good question

[00:02:08,419]: I think it’s not so much actually about how history is taught but it’s how we talk about history more generally

[00:02:13,740]: So I do a lot of talks in schools events in schools to sort of promote history and whatnot

[00:02:22,720]: And I’m actually always struck by how enthusiastic the teachers are how committed to history but also how little time they have

[00:02:31,119]: So they have very little time

[00:02:32,320]: A lot of children will only do history for two hours a week let’s say or two 40 minute sessions

[00:02:37,479]: So they’re not covering a huge amount of ground first of all

[00:02:41,360]: But I think the actual the mood music about history which I agree in the last let’s say 15 years has been intensely moralistic certainly compared with when I was growing up

[00:02:53,240]: By the way before you get into that maybe the right question

[00:02:56,380]: Is that wrong

[00:02:57,419]: Like should we not be trying to learn the moral lessons from the past

[00:03:01,020]: Is it just like evil reactionaries like the three of us who are like you know we can’t judge people by the new standards

[00:03:06,979]: Are we wrong to be moralistic about history

[00:03:09,179]: No I think that’s a very good point

[00:03:11,220]: And not necessarily right

[00:03:12,259]: There have often been ages where people were very moralistic about history

[00:03:15,100]: So for example if you went back to a lot of people watching this if they are evil reactionaries will say oh we should be just like the Victorians

[00:03:20,880]: The Victorians were intensely moralistic about history and they really did tell it as heroes and villains

[00:03:26,199]: So there’s always been a tendency within history I think to see it as black and white you know good is and bad is

[00:03:32,539]: And that goes back as long as people have been writing history at all

[00:03:36,179]: So you know if you read I don’t know Roman historians let’s say my co presenters favorite subjects Tacitus Suetonius or something those accounts are very moralistic

[00:03:49,440]: You know you’ve got bad emperors and good emperors

[00:03:52,259]: And often there’s not much nuance when you’re talking about Caligula or Nero or whoever it might be

[00:03:58,520]: But I think when I was doing history so let’s say the 1980s 1990s the general discourse I suppose was not terribly judgmental

[00:04:11,699]: So in other words there was no premium placed there was no great value placed on you saying well this person is a terrible person and I want to tear them down and I want to you know diminish them

[00:04:24,059]: And this person everyone has said this person is a great for instance Nightingale or whoever it might be

[00:04:28,440]: And actually they’re a terrible person

[00:04:30,140]: I think there was an awareness that we’re all terrible people

[00:04:33,959]: And so it’s not actually a very interesting conversation to have

[00:04:37,339]: And I was quite conscious when I was doing my PhD and whatnot in the late 90s early 2000s I did American history

[00:04:46,220]: So listening to a lot of people coming from America that there was a new mood coming in actually from America

[00:04:54,320]: I think a lot of this has come from the US which was much more moralistic which was much more about I mean there’s a very famous example in the early 1990s a huge argument about Thomas Jefferson

[00:05:06,720]: Had he fathered children with his slave Sally Hemings and therefore should Jefferson effectively be canceled

[00:05:12,839]: People didn’t use that terminology then but that conversation was already happening

[00:05:16,799]: And that was a sort of harbinger I think of what was to come in the 2000s then obviously even more so in the 2010s and then 2020 the kind of high point of it the Black Lives Matter kind of George Floyd statue toppling moment

[00:05:31,320]: And for people of a slightly older generation like me that’s very disconcerting

[00:05:36,320]: Because I had grown up thinking you know very much history is warts and all

[00:05:41,500]: But that doesn’t mean you know you are open about violence and cruelty and all those things that happened in the past but you don’t set yourself up as a hanging judge

[00:05:51,940]: And I think it’s a question of tone actually

[00:05:55,200]: It’s not a question of what the story is that you’re telling but it’s how you tell it

[00:05:58,559]: So in other words anybody who wrote about the British Empire to give you an example anyone who wrote about the British Empire from the moment that it was happening knew that there was a lot of violence right

[00:06:09,239]: They knew that when the Indian mutiny happened and the British reestablished their authority that there were reprisals and they fired people out of cannons and all of that kind of thing

[00:06:20,420]: But for a long time when people told that story they sort of said well obviously the reprisals and very terrible things happened and there was a lot of savagery and blah blah blah blah

[00:06:28,320]: You know that’s not surprising because that’s how people behave in history

[00:06:32,440]: But I think what changed was the tone with which people describe those events

[00:06:35,779]: So suddenly instead of saying you know it’s very the grim things happen in history history is often very dark so be it

[00:06:42,239]: People there was a lot of suddenly then a weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth and this is terrible how could this have happened

[00:06:49,000]: We should tear down the plaques to these people blah blah blah blah

[00:06:53,019]: Almost as though people were indignant and affronted and surprised that something so terrible could have happened in history

[00:07:01,059]: Whereas I when I approach history think of course people behave selfishly greedily you know sadistically because that’s in us

[00:07:09,100]: We would be no different

[00:07:10,700]: And it’s not our place or it’s actually it’s not even that it’s not our place

[00:07:15,420]: It’s a bit boring to say oh gosh well I’m so terribly immoral and these people are so immoral and they’re in the gutter compared with me

[00:07:23,519]: So obviously I think that’s a really foolish way to think about human nature and a slightly it’s a very egotistical and self promoting and pompous way to talk about yourself as opposed to the people who were your predecessors

[00:07:34,619]: Well I would almost say that it’s a denial of human nature

[00:07:38,480]: What’s interesting to me though is how why you think that tendency has happened

[00:07:43,980]: I mean one of the things we might blame is the fact that we’ve had this massive period of I use inverted commas when I say peace but really if you live in the West if you’ve not voluntarily enlisted to go and fight other than the war in Vietnam which was many many decades ago now you’ve never really had to be confronted with the reality that even I walk around London we’re sitting here in the heart of London almost every monument is to do with war

[00:08:12,540]: And yet no one in our almost essentially the three generations that anybody will know themselves their parents and their grandparents has any experience of that really in the West at all

[00:08:23,399]: Is that why

[00:08:24,559]: Yeah I completely agree with you

[00:08:25,779]: Sorry it’s very boring for you to have a guest on the podcast who tells you that

[00:08:28,579]: No isn’t it

[00:08:29,220]: It’s great

[00:08:29,679]: My ego gets bigger and bigger

[00:08:31,799]: That’s what we do

[00:08:32,520]: We bring experts on to make ourselves feel good

[00:08:36,760]: I mean that is the podcast model

[00:08:39,200]: Let’s be fair

[00:08:39,859]: I mean we don’t actually do that but it’s a pleasant change from arguing with idiots

[00:08:45,080]: No but I do completely agree with you

[00:08:47,159]: I think what we have lost is somebody described it as a sense of the tragic

[00:08:52,780]: So for example we no longer have politicians with a sense of the tragic a sense of how close we always are to the precipice as it were

[00:09:01,039]: But not just actually to the precipice as in terms of you know our civilization could fall apart a load of people would turn up in our village and kind of burn all the houses down and rape and ravage and behave really badly

[00:09:11,320]: But also how close we are to the beasts within ourselves as it were

[00:09:15,140]: Now I think of people who had been who lived in societies that were geared for war and where war was a fairly regular occurrence that would not be surprising

[00:09:24,280]: In other words I mean you just think about it in terms you don’t have to go very far back in history

[00:09:28,940]: So go back to let’s say the first half of the last century

[00:09:32,320]: You’ve got two world wars

[00:09:33,599]: You have in Central and Eastern Europe endless little conflicts in the 1920s and 1930s

[00:09:39,880]: You know if you’re really unlucky and you’re living in what’s now Eastern Poland or Belarus or Western Ukraine you know the borders are changing every few years endless pogroms ethnic cleansing all of this kind of thing

[00:09:52,919]: I mean those are people who really do have a sense of the tragic because they know that things can change with dizzying speed and in a couple of years the people who you’ve relied on all your life who are your neighbors may turn on you and try to kill you

[00:10:04,859]: And I think what’s clearly happened is that we now have a slightly sanitized and a self deluding idealistic view of human nature and of what we’re capable of

[00:10:17,260]: And a great example of this in the period that I’ve written about is the way that people thought about war and war crimes

[00:10:25,020]: So for example in the Falklands War in the 1980s

[00:10:28,039]: So the Falklands War by the standards of wars is a really really clean war

[00:10:32,520]: It’s been fought over islands where only a tiny population live

[00:10:36,619]: The two groups of people who are fighting over the islands the Argentines and the British most of them have never been to the islands before

[00:10:43,320]: So it doesn’t feel personal for them

[00:10:46,760]: It’s as though they’re fighting kind of they’ve agreed neutral territory and they’re fighting on this neutral territory

[00:10:51,479]: There are no war crimes against civilians because the civilian population is so small

[00:10:55,960]: So actually it’s a sort of in inverted commas a fair fight

[00:10:59,299]: But after that war happened about let’s say eight or nine years later when servicemen started to write their memoirs they would describe things like for example cutting off ears of enemy soldiers who had been killed as souvenirs

[00:11:18,119]: I mean it sounds lots of people watching this will be like wow that’s pretty horrific right

[00:11:21,940]: That you would take a trophy or posing for photos with dead bodies

[00:11:27,539]: Those kinds of things

[00:11:28,719]: Is that a war crime

[00:11:30,159]: I mean people I guess can make up their own mind about that

[00:11:32,340]: But here’s the thing

[00:11:33,400]: When that was first reported oh whoa oh what terrible behavior

[00:11:37,500]: How could we have behaved so badly

[00:11:38,900]: This is unbelievable

[00:11:39,919]: We have to have investigations

[00:11:41,260]: And then furious arguments

[00:11:42,500]: Other people say no that didn’t happen at all

[00:11:44,320]: But actually if you read any account of previous wars anybody who’d fought in previous wars would say I mean as grim as this is this is pretty standard stuff

[00:11:55,539]: You know Canadian soldiers at the day were notorious for I mean notorious is a very loaded word

[00:12:01,799]: They were well known for taking ears taking trophies for being really kind of you know they were pretty hardcore

[00:12:12,479]: Now because it’s World War II it’s the good war we don’t make a great fuss about it

[00:12:17,059]: But these things happen in wars

[00:12:18,520]: And people who had fought in previous wars were unsurprised by the reports coming from the Falklands

[00:12:23,080]: They were like come on this is what happens

[00:12:25,039]: You train young men to fight you know to do the most savage thing possible to kill an other young men

[00:12:31,599]: And that line is always going to be a little bit more gray and a bit slippery than we would like

[00:12:37,299]: Let’s not you know be pearl clutching about this

[00:12:40,440]: But I think what that reaction suggests and of course the reaction to what’s happened since and stories coming out of Afghanistan or Iraq or whatever is that probably we have we like our conflict now very sanitized

[00:12:54,020]: You know we like it kind of

[00:12:56,119]: With drones

[00:12:57,219]: Yeah right exactly

[00:12:58,299]: We like it at a distance

[00:13:00,200]: We like to shy away from the kind of the hand to hand the physical nature of it I guess

[00:13:06,640]: And that goes back to your point about we have been incredibly fortunate to grow up in an age of peace

[00:13:13,320]: And a lot of people now have lived and died in this country or in the West more generally

[00:13:19,659]: They’ve had the dream

[00:13:20,780]: They’ve been completely insulated from the beast and other people and in themselves

[00:13:25,200]: So they’ve kind of lost sight of that I suppose

[00:13:28,119]: I love the fact that you use the phrase warts and all which is famously Oliver Cromwell

[00:13:33,119]: Yeah

[00:13:34,219]: When a painter asked how he should have his portrait painted he famously said paint me warts and all

[00:13:40,239]: Yeah

[00:13:40,719]: And actually he’s a fascinating figure because on the one hand with Cromwell you talk to my Irish family for example and you can’t hear anything but you know expletive laden invective from them

[00:13:54,359]: Rightly so

[00:13:55,260]: And on the other hand father of democracy in this country et cetera et cetera

[00:14:00,400]: But what’s really interesting is how we can’t seem to accept that people like Cromwell great figures of history have this duality to them

[00:14:12,280]: Yeah you’re right

[00:14:13,159]: I mean I think Churchill is a good example of this as well right

[00:14:15,440]: That people will say oh yes Churchill

[00:14:17,400]: I know you say he saved democracy from Nazism but on the other hand he said some very cool things about Indians

[00:14:22,359]: You know people are complicated

[00:14:23,960]: And I think anybody who thinks at all seriously about human nature or about even the characters that you meet in great literature or something you don’t even have to think about the people that you know

[00:14:37,340]: You know that people are capable of tremendous things but also terrible things

[00:14:44,640]: I mean Cromwell I think is the most fascinating character in all English and British history

[00:14:51,880]: He’s much more complicated than people think

[00:14:54,260]: He’s actually much more fun loving than people think

[00:14:56,039]: By the way he didn’t ban Christmas

[00:14:58,340]: It’s not Cromwell who bans it

[00:15:00,140]: Anyway we don’t need to get into all that

[00:15:01,799]: But yeah Cromwell can be a very savage character

[00:15:08,719]: You know when he’s commanding at some of his later battles people describe him kind of laughing as though he’s drunk

[00:15:15,140]: You know he’s seized with this kind of martial spirit and a sense that actually we might find very unsettling now that he’s doing God’s work and his opponents are God’s enemies

[00:15:25,239]: And therefore they will be you know he will sigh through them as though through chaff or whatever

[00:15:31,799]: So that side of Cromwell a lot of people might find very unsettling

[00:15:35,119]: And yet on the other hand he’s somebody who wrestles with his conscience wrestles with what he thinks is God’s plan feels himself unworthy

[00:15:46,299]: You know one of the reasons in the 1650s after he basically he’s got effectively supreme power

[00:15:52,400]: And he wrestles with this issue about whether he should take the crown or not

[00:15:56,479]: It’s you know would that be too arrogant

[00:15:59,979]: Is that what God wants for me

[00:16:01,159]: Am I good enough

[00:16:02,000]: All of that kind of thing

[00:16:02,979]: And most dictators don’t think like that

[00:16:05,640]: Most dictators can’t wait to get their hands on the crown

[00:16:07,640]: So I think Cromwell’s a fascinating character

[00:16:10,179]: And he’s a really good example of somebody who you know there’s a statue of him just down the road from us outside the Palace of Westminster

[00:16:17,820]: Because as you say he is seen as one of the people in the Victorian period and the late Victorian period saw him as one of the great heroes of democracy in this country

[00:16:27,000]: Would I like to see I’ve got an Irish wife would I like to see Cromwell’s statue taken down

[00:16:32,940]: Absolutely not

[00:16:34,359]: Because I think as with all statues it’s a testament to a particular time period that in which it was put up

[00:16:41,179]: But also because I think big it’s good that people know about big complicated figures like that

[00:16:46,419]: And they appreciate precisely your point about Warts and all

[00:16:49,280]: I think that’s true of Churchill

[00:16:50,599]: It’s true of Cromwell

[00:16:51,380]: It’s true of almost all of the what we would think of as an inverted commas great characters in history

[00:16:57,580]: They’re always more complicated

[00:16:59,359]: Absolutely

[00:17:00,159]: And in particular let’s look at the British empire

[00:17:03,020]: Because as someone who has a South American background I actually find it infuriating when people talk about the British empire and they’re like this is the most evil empire that’s ever lived

[00:17:13,719]: I’m like compared to what

[00:17:15,040]: The Belgians in Congo

[00:17:16,599]: The Spanish empire

[00:17:18,040]: The Portuguese

[00:17:19,500]: It smacks not only of ignorance it smacks of a certain type of arrogance as well

[00:17:25,599]: That the British are not only did we have the greatest empire but we were also the most evil

[00:17:33,400]: I’m like really

[00:17:35,280]: It’s a tremendous self absorption

[00:17:37,520]: And actually it’s something that we share actually with our American cousins

[00:17:42,319]: No coup can happen anywhere in the world but the CIA’s fingerprints aren’t all over it according to kind of very ultra liberal kind of American commentators

[00:17:51,239]: Indigenous people or people in foreign countries never have any agency

[00:17:54,579]: It’s always got to be the evil American puppet masters who have done it

[00:17:57,800]: And as you say with the British empire there’s a narcissism about some of the commentary about it which is kind of we have to be the most evil

[00:18:05,359]: Everything must be our fault

[00:18:07,800]: Conflicts in the 21st century because we drew the boundaries in the wrong places

[00:18:12,180]: All of this kind of thing

[00:18:13,540]: Now on empires more generally my view on empires is actually very simple

[00:18:18,579]: The empire is the natural unit of human organization

[00:18:21,260]: There are others of course

[00:18:22,760]: And we live in an age now where lots of people watching this will think of the nation state as the most sort of obvious and natural model but no model is really natural

[00:18:35,819]: But empires for most people who’ve lived and died lived and died in empires of one kind or another

[00:18:41,800]: You know China effectively now is an empire

[00:18:44,579]: The United States is obviously an empire not merely continental empire across its North America but internationally

[00:18:53,479]: Having an empire is in itself I think not illegitimate

[00:18:56,400]: It’s the way that most people have been ruled

[00:18:58,660]: It’s the way that the Romans or the Persians or whoever the Ottomans organized their societies

[00:19:04,520]: One group dominating another again is not unnatural

[00:19:08,479]: It’s the norm in human history

[00:19:10,839]: I think what makes the British empire quite really interesting and really unusual is that right from the beginning it has the seeds of its own dissolution in it

[00:19:20,420]: Because it’s one of the things that it exports is the idea of the rule of law liberal democracy all of those kinds of things

[00:19:28,540]: So from the beginning the British empire is kind of an internal argument

[00:19:33,380]: There are always people lots of people in Britain who don’t like the idea of colonization and of dominance and so on

[00:19:40,020]: There are always ferocious arguments about it

[00:19:42,510]: And some of the British empire’s most well known celebrated critics Gandhi a great example these are people who are profoundly shaped by British institutions British traditions by the British idea of fairness and freedom and all of those kinds of things the kind of rhetoric of liberty if you like

[00:20:05,829]: That’s not to say of course there’s elements of hypocrisy and greed and all of these things in the British empire as they are in all human phenomena all human institutions

[00:20:16,589]: But I mean to go back to your point about you know the Belgians Portuguese the Spanish and so on

[00:20:23,530]: It’s a bit like the philosopher kind of John Rawls famous sort of conceit which is you know if you could choose if you had to make a blind choice and you didn’t know how rich you were gonna be you didn’t know what you’re gonna look like but where would you choose to kind of start again

[00:20:39,190]: And you had to choose an empire a European colonial empire in which to do it I think the British Empire would be a pretty good place to choose

[00:20:46,870]: I mean it’s definitely not the Belgian Congo right

[00:20:49,170]: It’s not you know you’re not in Mexico in the 1520s kind of ravaged by smallpox with Cortes and the conquistadors rampaging around what becomes Mexico City

[00:21:01,810]: So yeah I think the British Empire it’s clearly not the most evil empire in history

[00:21:09,070]: It’s not dedicated to extermination or to violence in the way that the Third Reich is or whatever

[00:21:16,750]: So those comparisons that you see quite a lot nowadays especially online just strike me as utterly bonkers

[00:21:22,950]: Well they are

[00:21:23,770]: And one of the things that also bothers me about this and you mentioned you know Central America for example there is this sort of idea that you know everyone’s living peacefully and singing Kumbaya and holding hands and then these evil Europeans arrived and like started being violent

[00:21:40,410]: Yeah

[00:21:40,850]: Like that’s not entirely my reading of the Aztec Empire

[00:21:44,710]: Exactly

[00:21:45,230]: Do you know what I mean

[00:21:48,110]: You know the more I read about the Native Americans in North America I suddenly figure out they’re not really they weren’t really you know they weren’t really that peaceful or loving

[00:21:58,830]: No no no

[00:21:59,470]: There are very simplistic ways of talking about this

[00:22:01,050]: So even the distinction between indigenous people and European colonizers is wrong

[00:22:05,390]: Because often so to give the example of the Aztecs the Aztecs had come from somewhere else

[00:22:10,730]: They were armed migrants or you might call them colonizers themselves

[00:22:16,410]: They’d come from probably from what’s now roughly what’s now Colorado

[00:22:19,630]: They’d come south they subjugated people around them they ran this empire you know they did sacrifice people to the gods they did all these kinds of things

[00:22:28,430]: In huge numbers

[00:22:29,190]: They were no strangers

[00:22:30,370]: Exactly

[00:22:30,690]: They were no strangers to violence

[00:22:31,910]: Now that’s not to say they’re terrible villains and the Europeans are great saints

[00:22:36,890]: They’re both complicated societies capable of all the extremes of human nature

[00:22:41,910]: I think that’s my approach

[00:22:43,110]: It’s not to say you know because I’ve written about the Aztecs in a book for children

[00:22:47,970]: It’s not to say

[00:22:49,290]: You probably have to sanitize that a fair bit I’d imagine

[00:22:51,950]: Actually no no not at all

[00:22:53,250]: Because kids love the violence

[00:22:54,570]: Yeah they do

[00:22:55,510]: When I taught the Aztecs at school the kids loved it

[00:22:59,250]: Yeah of course

[00:23:00,330]: Why would that be worrying

[00:23:01,490]: That’s normal

[00:23:02,070]: Kids if you’re standing in front of 40 10 year olds and you know you’ve got 40 minutes if you’re not careful they will be very bored very quickly

[00:23:11,390]: And the best way to keep them interested is to you know every few moments every few minutes punctuate it with somebody having his heart ripped out or you know Henry VIII having an enema or any of these kinds of details

[00:23:24,250]: These kind of grim gory details are sticking kids minds

[00:23:26,870]: They love it

[00:23:27,390]: They love it

[00:23:27,990]: Of course they love it because people are fascinated

[00:23:30,330]: Right

[00:23:30,550]: So in many ways kids are human beings that they’re most unseasoned well in not many ways

[00:23:35,870]: That’s very obvious

[00:23:36,510]: They’re most raw and unseasoned

[00:23:38,530]: And kids are fascinated

[00:23:40,010]: Why do kids love gladiators

[00:23:41,850]: You know they’re not really interested in Roman baths or in Roman law codes

[00:23:46,650]: What they like is the Colosseum and basically people you know gouging each other’s eyes out and whatnot

[00:23:52,050]: Because kids like all of us they’re kind of voyeurs when they look at history and they love the extremes

[00:23:57,030]: I think that’s completely normal and natural and you know I’m not saying we should completely pander to it and sink into the kind of pornography of violence when we talk about history but it’s self deluding I think to pretend that that’s not why people are often interested in history in the first place

[00:24:15,330]: You know when I fell in love with history when I was very small it was knights battles kings and queens executions all of these kinds of things

[00:24:24,130]: If you had said to me no actually little Dominic age seven or something it’s much better for you to learn about the suffragettes and the struggle for equal rights and all of these things

[00:24:35,590]: How many people are really going to be that enthusiastic about history

[00:24:38,390]: That’s not to completely dismiss those subjects and say don’t do them later on

[00:24:41,830]: But what gets you into history is narrative conflict

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[00:27:57,490]: So I interrupted you when you were saying you wrote the book about Aztecs for kids

[00:28:01,730]: Yeah

[00:28:02,050]: Oh yes you did yeah

[00:28:03,550]: So I felt with that that you know you have two sort of complicated societies

[00:28:13,010]: You have a conquest that actually is again very nuanced and very complicated because it’s actually not the Spanish just conquering Mexico the Spanish have loads of they actually have far there are far more the great battles there are far more indigenous Mesoamerican soldiers on the Spanish side than there are Spaniards right

[00:28:35,070]: There are internal struggles there’s internal dissension

[00:28:37,890]: This is a clash of empires a clash of colonizers if you like

[00:28:41,990]: So to see it really simplistically is these guys are the good guys these guys are the bad guys

[00:28:46,610]: Now that’s obviously how people initially told the story when it was told from the European perspective

[00:28:50,350]: Now the trend is to completely do it the other way and to say that everything about the Spanish or other European colonizers is terrible and they’re greedy and they don’t really care of their Christianity as just a pretext for their sort of ruthless mercenary ambitions

[00:29:06,150]: I think that’s just as simplistic as the old stories where it was the kind of Aztec slavering covered in blood and the Spanish kind of noble Christian warriors

[00:29:15,470]: They’re both really sort of silly ways to talk about history I would say

[00:29:19,230]: And I always remember when I was in Venezuela being pinned against the wall by my uncle’s friend who told me in great detail about how Francis Drake was a pirata a pirate

[00:29:33,490]: And I was like well I’m kind of seven years old mate

[00:29:36,470]: I don’t really understand what you want me to do with this information

[00:29:39,790]: But it was a very powerful lesson for me because it made me understand oh the way that I see Sir Francis Drake and I was taught in school to a Latin American he was a pirate a plunderer a thief on a mass scale

[00:29:54,570]: Yeah yeah yeah

[00:29:55,270]: Exactly

[00:29:55,530]: I think it’s fascinating

[00:29:57,930]: These lessons are really good actually

[00:29:59,530]: So you mentioned Cromwell

[00:30:00,770]: Yeah

[00:30:01,050]: If I was Irish I undoubtedly would have a very dim view of Oliver Cromwell

[00:30:04,570]: I’m not so I don’t

[00:30:06,550]: It’s not that complicated

[00:30:08,150]: People always you know looking at historical characters you always have to be conscious of where you’re standing right

[00:30:14,430]: Where I’m standing where you’re standing will always be different places

[00:30:17,530]: Just because you know not because of any differences between us but nobody can be exactly where you are coming to it with the baggage that you have

[00:30:25,890]: And I think actually instead of you know these people get into really frenzied and fierce arguments which to my mind are actually unnecessary

[00:30:34,750]: It’s completely reasonable that people have different views about characters in the past

[00:30:38,850]: And the idea that you that one view must dominate that it becomes intolerable for anybody to say well actually I quite like Winston Churchill I mean that’s obviously ridiculous

[00:30:48,550]: You know Winston Churchill sure I understand

[00:30:51,370]: I completely get that if you’re an Indian historian you’re going to look at different aspects of Churchill’s life and career that will jump out to you and you know you may regard him as objectionable

[00:31:04,550]: That’s fine

[00:31:05,350]: I don’t need to persuade you of silence you say your own thing

[00:31:08,670]: But I think it’s completely reasonable that people in Britain see Churchill as the incarnation of the Bulldog spirit as the symbol of patriotism as the symbol of winning the Second World War all of those kinds of things

[00:31:18,230]: Why wouldn’t we

[00:31:19,010]: I mean it’d be weird if we didn’t

[00:31:20,450]: And it’s also as well acknowledging the fact that when you’re dealing with these seismic figures who changed history in such a profound way they’re going to change history in ways that you perceive to be good but also other people will perceive to be bad

[00:31:36,610]: Yeah of course

[00:31:38,010]: And to take that on a little bit it’s mad to think that other to reward people in history purely because they agree with you

[00:31:46,110]: In other words to celebrate only the people who mirror your own prejudices and preconceptions right

[00:31:56,330]: So in other words to look back at the 18th century and to say well so and so is obviously a good person because they believed in equality like me

[00:32:02,830]: But this person who appears to be very interesting and civilized and whatnot is actually a terrible person because they invested in the slave trade or whatever it might be

[00:32:11,770]: We can be horrified by the slave trade and think that slavery is wrong and all those kinds of things

[00:32:17,910]: But you’ve got to grant people in the past their own agency their own space their difference I guess and respect their difference

[00:32:30,170]: I guess respect the fact that their moral world their mental world the baggage they’re carrying with them is completely different from ours

[00:32:39,690]: And of course what I always say especially when I’m in schools actually and this always makes the children kind of go oh is to say you’re not the end like there will be people who come after you who will say you were bonkers and immoral and wrong

[00:32:54,230]: And why couldn’t you see that eating meat is morally wrong or getting on an airplane is you know whatever all these kinds of things that the kids will take for granted right

[00:33:05,470]: It’s a bright picture of the future you’re painting that mate

[00:33:08,810]: Well you know I really realized I was in Uzbekistan recently and they have these giant statues of Timur they call him Timur Khan he’s called Tamerlane

[00:33:18,330]: But they don’t like that because that’s Timur the lame basically making fun of a disabled person at this point

[00:33:26,390]: But if you actually look at what he did day to day right this is a guy that every time he had an opportunity he’d go and invade somewhere right

[00:33:34,750]: Kill all the men the women whatever right

[00:33:37,650]: Come back home and then he’d go and hunt and kill animals to chill out

[00:33:41,550]: And that was basically what you did

[00:33:44,030]: And that was the way that these people thought

[00:33:46,190]: And when I thought about that I just went well this person’s brain worked so differently to me and to anyone I am ever likely to meet

[00:33:55,210]: These are different people like they think differently the whole worldview is different

[00:34:01,190]: But I guess where it leaves me Dominic and it comes back to what you’re saying is a question about the truth then because you go well you know everyone’s got their own perspective everyone’s standing in their own place

[00:34:12,430]: And now you’ve got these morons on the internet going well actually Winston Churchill is the greatest villain of World War II

[00:34:18,430]: And that just isn’t true right

[00:34:21,170]: And that’s not because they’re standing in a different place

[00:34:23,830]: It’s just because they’re wrong

[00:34:26,310]: Unless they are standing in Adolf Hitler’s place at which point maybe they do

[00:34:30,650]: Do you see where I’m getting at

[00:34:31,370]: Yeah I do completely

[00:34:32,150]: It’s a really difficult one actually

[00:34:35,030]: And it’s one that I kind of wrestle with a little bit like is there such a thing as historical truth

[00:34:41,370]: I think to some extent you know the conversation that we’ve been having you’ll probably be appalled by this

[00:34:46,250]: But to some extent all of us living in the 21st century are postmodernists to the extent that we all recognize that there can be different accounts of something that are all equally correct or all equally flawed right

[00:34:59,430]: Equally

[00:34:59,870]: Yeah I think there can be

[00:35:00,970]: No I don’t recognize that

[00:35:01,730]: No I think you probably do because I think you and I I think you do without knowing it

[00:35:05,610]: In other words that you and I you might have a take on history right

[00:35:09,850]: And I might have a slightly different take on history a slightly different take on history

[00:35:14,130]: And we would say well we’re probably not going to agree on this but I can see where you’re coming from and where you’d say it

[00:35:19,030]: And they’re probably both reasonable narrative accounts of what happened

[00:35:22,310]: In other words just to give you a tiny really petty and trivial example if we were both writing accounts of this conversation afterwards we might write different accounts but they might both be right

[00:35:31,890]: Okay fine

[00:35:32,610]: So in other words what’s the true account of our conversation

[00:35:37,490]: Even the footage that you’re doing right now depending on the camera you choose they might say well actually the camera didn’t pick up that bit of nuance

[00:35:44,070]: That was kind of lost on you’re right

[00:35:45,510]: Or the conversation that happened before we started or whatever

[00:35:49,230]: So it’s actually hard to it’s very hard to get at what the truth yeah about that

[00:35:53,150]: That was a really exciting conversation

[00:35:55,910]: It’s really hard to get at what that truth would be

[00:35:59,350]: However at the same time as saying this in other words we can sort of see that you can have lots of competing accounts that all have some validity

[00:36:09,670]: So otherwise you would be able to write the definitive history book on the Crusades and nobody would ever write a book on the Crusades again because that person would have published the truth

[00:36:18,850]: Okay

[00:36:18,950]: That will clearly never happen

[00:36:20,110]: There will always be lots of different books on the Crusades

[00:36:22,310]: People ask different questions people see different things

[00:36:24,690]: It doesn’t mean that the others are wrong and untrue but you can have competing versions

[00:36:31,090]: But you can’t then what you obviously I think most historians would say is what you don’t want to do is open the door and say well they’re all equally valid or invalid

[00:36:38,550]: That was the reason I disagreed with you

[00:36:39,990]: Because obviously that’s not

[00:36:41,230]: Because if I retold this conversation as you know a 644 black man came sat down and we started talking about geography that’s just factually correct

[00:36:51,810]: Exactly

[00:36:52,410]: So to give an example of the Crusades or the Second World War I think we could say there are many different accounts that are often wildly different but they’re all valid and they’re all valuable

[00:37:03,910]: But then there are some accounts that are not valid and valuable

[00:37:07,490]: So there is a dividing line between truth and untruth

[00:37:10,650]: So in other words the Second World War there are lots of different books on the Second World War seeing it from different perspectives

[00:37:15,270]: Some that say I could write a book on the Second World War saying a tremendous victory for democracy and freedom blah blah blah

[00:37:21,010]: A Polish historian could write a book on the Second World War that says well hold on we ended up being conquered by Stalin

[00:37:26,430]: Stalin’s the big winner of the Second World War not Churchill blah blah blah blah

[00:37:29,770]: You know you can have different accounts that you could say yeah I can understand where you’re coming from

[00:37:33,390]: That’s valid

[00:37:34,010]: That’s also valid

[00:37:35,250]: It’s good to have different opinions

[00:37:36,650]: Like people always do that about all kinds of things

[00:37:39,760]: But there has to be a dividing line

[00:37:42,350]: I think that’s what most academic historians or scholars would say

[00:37:45,530]: There has to be a point where you say hold on you know they didn’t just sit there and talk about geography

[00:37:50,050]: You know there is right and there is wrong

[00:37:52,750]: And this is what obviously has become more and more slippery in the last 20 years or so

[00:37:57,910]: So the examples you’re picking up you know people who are getting a lot of traction sometimes going on shows like this or on podcasts or whatever saying actually you know Hitler is the great victim of the Second World War and Churchill is the villain all of this kind of stuff

[00:38:13,130]: Right

[00:38:13,590]: I think historians clearly have a duty to say no you’re just wrong

[00:38:18,530]: There is such a thing as fact

[00:38:20,970]: I guess truth is a very loaded word

[00:38:24,610]: I guess accuracy is maybe a more useful word in that context

[00:38:29,790]: Say that’s just not accurate

[00:38:31,190]: It’s just not correct

[00:38:34,090]: Churchill clearly is not the villain of the Second World War

[00:38:36,590]: Britain did not force Hitler into war all of these kinds of things

[00:38:41,670]: So I think it’s slightly more complicated than to say true untrue

[00:38:46,970]: I think you can still have disagreements you can still have competing versions

[00:38:51,290]: But what has happened I think because basically the technological change it’s a bit like the invention of the printing press in the 16th century

[00:39:00,130]: Technological change means that suddenly it’s like the ground beneath your feet has become unstable

[00:39:05,790]: You don’t know what to trust

[00:39:07,670]: There are loads of competing versions of reality some of which are basically completely fraudulent and founded on nothing

[00:39:19,670]: And historians are I guess it’s also a bit of a problem that as academic historians have slightly vacated the field right they don’t they’re not quite as public facing as they could be

[00:39:31,110]: They’re not talking to the public often they’re talking to each other

[00:39:34,490]: That allows opportunists and charlatans and whatnot to enter the conversation to dominate the conversation instead

[00:39:42,650]: And once you’ve left that arena and if you’re not very good at speaking to the public then it becomes very hard to fight back against it

[00:39:48,830]: Donny I want to talk to you about the evil because a lot of people use that word particularly to talk about events in history whether it’s the British Empire whether it’s Adolf Hitler

[00:40:00,870]: And Adolf Hitler when we think about evil we think about Adolf Hitler

[00:40:05,190]: And you look at these people and you go in Hitler’s mind obviously what he did was horrendous evil but in his own mind he thought he was doing good

[00:40:17,030]: And if you look at a lot of these figures from history they believe that they were doing some type of good whether it’s the conquistadors whether it’s the Mayans who were praying to the God why wouldn’t you rip the heart out of a child

[00:40:31,010]: You have to appease a God otherwise we all die

[00:40:33,970]: How do we reconcile that

[00:40:36,810]: Even Bridget Philipson thinks she’s doing good

[00:40:41,690]: How do you reconcile it

[00:40:42,910]: Do you need to reconcile it

[00:40:44,170]: Do you need to

[00:40:45,090]: In the sense that human beings never think they’re the bad guys

[00:40:50,250]: You know that scene the famous scene from the Michelin web sketch where they’re looking at their Nazi soldiers and they’re kind of looking at their badges and saying are we actually

[00:41:00,230]: Are we the baddies

[00:41:01,070]: Yeah

[00:41:01,590]: Are we the baddies

[00:41:03,030]: The skulls

[00:41:03,610]: Like really

[00:41:04,690]: Have you looked at our caps recently

[00:41:08,890]: Our caps

[00:41:10,250]: The badges on our caps

[00:41:12,550]: Have you looked at them

[00:41:13,830]: What

[00:41:14,550]: No

[00:41:15,590]: A bit

[00:41:17,710]: They’ve got skulls on them

[00:41:21,090]: Have you noticed that our caps have actually got little pictures of skulls on them

[00:41:27,710]: I don’t

[00:41:28,950]: Hands

[00:41:32,550]: Are we the baddies

[00:41:35,410]: There’s never a moment I think where people you know willfully genuinely cast themselves as the villains

[00:41:43,590]: So to take your example of the Nazis we did an episode of The Rest is History about Nazi ideology and about why they thought they were you know they were doing not God’s work but they were doing science’s work actually

[00:41:55,730]: They thought life was racial struggle and they believed that they were

[00:42:00,476]: you know operating in the cause of racial hygiene and that they would leave Germany a better place and the world a better place right

[00:42:09,256]: That’s what Nazi ideologists think

[00:42:11,576]: It’s what they tell their soldiers

[00:42:12,996]: Their soldiers even as they’re carrying out what would strike us as appalling atrocities on the Eastern Front they sort of will write in their diaries and their letters they’ll say well it might sound grim but it kind of it’s very hard to find people in history who say I know this is evil and I’m actually a terrible person but does Stalin think he’s a bad man

[00:42:39,536]: I would say not

[00:42:40,916]: All that we know about Stalin is that you see I don’t think Stalin is an inverted commas a monster

[00:42:46,676]: I think Stalin is a Marxist which is slightly different

[00:42:50,416]: If I can say that a monster and a Marxist on this show are two different things

[00:42:54,016]: So Stalin thinks he takes his Marxism very seriously

[00:42:57,576]: I think the recent scholarship on Stalin has really emphasized the extent to which he’s a true believer in his own ideology

[00:43:03,236]: He thinks he’s operating again not unlike the Nazis following scientific laws that will lead to human progress and that the world will be a better place

[00:43:12,936]: And that collectivization or purges getting rid of enemies all of these kinds of things that ultimately the world will be better afterwards

[00:43:21,716]: And he will have done tough work dirty work but it had to be done

[00:43:27,696]: That’s what a lot of people think in history that this was more interesting people

[00:43:33,216]: Of course there are always people who are just sort of boringly greedy and venal and corrupt or whatever

[00:43:39,936]: But somebody like Stalin I think is interesting and chilling precisely because he thinks he’s on the side of right

[00:43:46,276]: He’s on the side of morality

[00:43:47,616]: And it’s the capitalists who are the bad people

[00:43:50,816]: He’s the good person

[00:43:51,936]: Now Hitler undoubtedly thought of himself as a good person as somebody who would be rewarded by posterity for having done what had to be done to make Germany safer cleaner happier racially pure all of those kinds of things

[00:44:07,756]: It’s very shocking for us to think that people could think that they were the good guys

[00:44:12,116]: But people in history always think they’re the good guys

[00:44:14,636]: They’re always the heroes of their own story

[00:44:16,176]: It’s one of the reasons I always I’ve talked about this a lot

[00:44:19,976]: I don’t fear evil people that much

[00:44:22,916]: One of the reasons they do exist in my opinion

[00:44:25,436]: There are people who are just a bad people evil genuinely evil people who like torturing other people or killing other people for the sake of it

[00:44:32,836]: But it’s very difficult if you’re evil to motivate millions of other people to join you

[00:44:39,416]: However if you have a very persuasive story about why certain evil things need to be done for the greater good that’s when you can persuade yourself into ignoring rules conscience whatever

[00:44:52,696]: And you can lead millions of people behind you which is why I am always very wary of people who have this very strong sense of certainty about the fact that they are leading us in the right direction

[00:45:06,436]: And just this one time we just need to ignore the rules of normal behavior just to get to you know we just suspend democracy for a bit or we just kill these people

[00:45:15,696]: Those are the really dangerous people in history aren’t they

[00:45:18,016]: The big killers the biggest killers were utopian idealists

[00:45:21,516]: They were people who believed in a better world

[00:45:23,696]: Hitler undoubtedly you know it sounds weird to say it but he’s an idealist

[00:45:26,896]: Stalin is obviously an idealist

[00:45:28,436]: Mao is an idealist

[00:45:29,696]: Pol Pot when Khmer Rouge come in in Cambodia in the 1970s year zero empty the cities start again on the land

[00:45:36,636]: They think they are going to make a better world

[00:45:39,916]: And you know you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs

[00:45:42,176]: That is the classic thing

[00:45:43,396]: That’s what the Jacobin thought in the French Revolution

[00:45:47,176]: It’s funny because I was only I was rereading The Handmaid’s Tale the other day you know Margaret Atwood’s sort of feminist sort of science speculative fiction book and there’s lots of people watching this will have seen the TV adaptation

[00:46:01,076]: And she gave an interview about that when she said you know the real enemy here it’s absolutely not an anti religious book

[00:46:06,976]: It’s not an anti male book

[00:46:08,716]: The real enemy is and I quote utopian idealism because the people who are the oppressors who run the regime think they are doing the right thing and that they will and I think all great you know dystopias 1984 Brave New World whatever the villains as it were are people who think they’re good people

[00:46:26,476]: And I completely agree with you

[00:46:28,036]: And this is probably because I’m a very reactionary person as well

[00:46:31,836]: The enemy is certainty

[00:46:34,076]: The enemy is people who say I know what should be done

[00:46:37,716]: I know what right where right and wrong lie

[00:46:40,576]: I know I’m a good person

[00:46:42,116]: And that goes back to the point I was making earlier about you know losing the sense of the tragic

[00:46:47,476]: And one of the things that I think the sense of the tragic makes you aware of is your own weakness and frailty and your own you know the I think if we’re honest with ourselves we know that we could be greedy and corrupt and violent and sadistic that well because we know from history by the way that lots of unexpected people have that in them

[00:47:09,296]: They’re kind of all those people who previously had been a boring bank clerk in Hanover but actually suddenly for a few months in 1941 or 1942 turned out to be the most unbelievable sadistic killers and then go back and be a boring bank clerk for the rest of their lives

[00:47:27,816]: You know this says a lot about bankers

[00:47:30,896]: But I think with all of us knowledge of the beast is so important

[00:47:37,736]: But let me push back on the idea

[00:47:39,416]: So you talk about certainty and you know having that knowledge that we’re all flawed and broken

[00:47:45,376]: And I agree with you

[00:47:46,956]: Yeah

[00:47:47,516]: But

[00:47:48,476]: But look at Churchill

[00:47:49,656]: Churchill was pretty certain

[00:47:51,236]: He was the one raising the alarm in the 1930s banging the drum

[00:47:57,036]: He had made many mistakes but he had that certainty cometh the hour cometh the man

[00:48:02,876]: Yeah

[00:48:02,956]: But what Churchill believes in is first of all Churchill is very aware of his own flaws and his own frailty precisely because he’s made so many mistakes

[00:48:11,836]: So Churchill knows that he has a terrible screw up in him at any given moment you know and his mad schemes often they don’t work

[00:48:20,556]: Churchill I think has a

[00:48:21,956]: it’s one reason I’m always slightly baffled by the intense antipathy to Churchill by sort of the more sort of woke element is that I think Churchill of all historical characters has a very kind of generous human sense of his own frailties the qualities and frailties of others how complicated life is

[00:48:42,936]: You know you only have to read his memoir My Early Life when he’s talking about you know serving in the Northwest frontier in India

[00:48:49,456]: He’s talking about the men he served with Indians as well as British

[00:48:53,076]: There’s a kind of

[00:48:54,296]: there’s a rhinus to it and an awareness of kind of the complexity of human life and human nature

[00:49:00,576]: So sure Churchill has things he really believes in

[00:49:04,016]: He really believes in the empire

[00:49:05,356]: He believes in Britain

[00:49:06,896]: He believes that Britain stands for freedom and that the Nazis are bad people and that Hitler is a threat to democracy and all those kinds of things

[00:49:14,196]: But I don’t think that is

[00:49:17,256]: I don’t think that flows from that sort of intensely moralistic slightly self promoting certainty that we’re talking about which is the sense of I’m a good person I’m a really kind and you know a generous person and I’m on the side of the angels and all of that kind of thing

[00:49:34,316]: I think Churchill absolutely did have the sense what I would call the sense of the tragedy

[00:49:37,576]: So in other words Churchill believes that you know life can be pretty brutal and because he’s seen war up front you know he knows how tough it can be

[00:49:47,336]: And I don’t think he thinks he thinks we’re going to muddle through

[00:49:51,056]: You know his famous catchphrase keep buggering on KBO

[00:49:54,096]: You know you keep

[00:49:55,356]: just keep going and you’ll get there eventually

[00:49:57,596]: But Churchill doesn’t think you know I will lead the world into a place where everybody you know there’ll be kind of lamb gambling in the fields and everybody will be singing Kumbaya and all of that kind of thing

[00:50:09,756]: Churchill’s not an idealist in that sense I think

[00:50:12,116]: His life he is devoted he’s devoted his life to kind of quite concrete things to Britain to its empire to its traditions its history all of that but not to an abstract noun

[00:50:23,896]: He’s not trying to remake the world

[00:50:25,756]: And I think one of the other things because I agree with Francis in the sense that I think quite often the people who really do make a difference in the world the people who have very strong faith in things that they believe and that they want to bring in the changes they want to make etc

[00:50:41,676]: I think the issue is quite often what you’re willing to do in the service of that

[00:50:48,436]: And if you’re willing to violate particular standards and norms and rules about not hurting other people not killing other people not you know disenfranchising other people in order to achieve your goals

[00:51:00,856]: That’s where I see the distinction right

[00:51:03,616]: Because if you firmly believe in a particular worldview well that’s fine

[00:51:07,356]: As long as you’re not willing to use that to hurt other people

[00:51:11,756]: So I think there’s a couple of things

[00:51:12,696]: I think one of them is seeing other people as expendable other human beings lives as expendable

[00:51:16,256]: I mean that’s obviously what Stalin would have done

[00:51:18,816]: So Stalin’s thinking is you know I will make this better world

[00:51:22,436]: Unfortunately these X million people will have to go first

[00:51:25,996]: But I mean you know that’s a price worth paying

[00:51:27,916]: I think once you’re using that sort of language you know politicians always by definition a political leader will have to make bad choices that would involve some people getting hurt right

[00:51:38,296]: Even if it’s in a very small way because they’re going to lose a benefit or they’re going to pay the tax

[00:51:43,476]: You’re always going to make choices

[00:51:45,396]: If you’re a sensible politician I mean obviously if you’re like Keir Starmer or somebody you don’t like making choices at all

[00:51:50,116]: But most effective politicians know that there are always going to be losers

[00:51:53,936]: There are always going to be people whose lives are worse

[00:51:55,816]: And you hope that there’ll be as few of those as possible

[00:51:58,996]: But once you’re getting into the game of constantly saying well there’s a price worth paying unfortunately those people had to die or whatever

[00:52:06,636]: I think that’s very dangerous

[00:52:07,756]: I think the dying part is where I’m aiming my

[00:52:10,296]: And I think the corollary of that to go back to your point about certainty and I think there’s a difference between believing something strongly and being suffocatingly certain about it

[00:52:22,636]: So in other words I would say I mean you obviously believe something strongly you have strong views

[00:52:27,496]: But I would well I would assume or I would hope that you’re aware that not everybody has those views and other views are available

[00:52:35,196]: Of course we all are

[00:52:37,296]: So I think it’s being aware of the contingency of your position that if you were somebody else you might believe something different

[00:52:42,756]: And that’s kind of fine

[00:52:44,276]: I don’t expect I don’t think I have a hotline to God or to the truth and that therefore everybody should fall into line with me and they’re just wrong and I’m just right

[00:52:52,656]: I think that’s the issue isn’t it

[00:52:54,236]: Someone like Stalin or Hitler they thought well I’m just right

[00:52:58,076]: Because in the both cases actually they were kind of scientific materialists to some degree

[00:53:02,716]: They thought the laws of nature and the world I know them

[00:53:08,576]: Karl Marx or whoever told me them and I’m just following those laws

[00:53:12,856]: So the other opinions are by definition illegitimate

[00:53:17,516]: They are totally wrong and the people who are promoting them are liars

[00:53:21,996]: And basically I need to get rid of them

[00:53:24,776]: Whereas in a pluralistic society you’re aware that there’s lots of valid viewpoints

[00:53:29,256]: And let’s say Churchill

[00:53:31,596]: Churchill doesn’t like Bolshevism doesn’t like socialism but he’s perfectly happy to work with socialists in his war cabinet

[00:53:37,776]: Clement Attlee gets on brilliantly with them

[00:53:40,216]: And Churchill himself is ideologically complicated

[00:53:43,176]: He’s changed parties

[00:53:44,376]: He was once very radical

[00:53:45,716]: He ends up becoming much more conservative

[00:53:47,996]: You know he’s conscious of the complexity of a kind of pluralistic worldview

[00:53:52,776]: And that’s what makes him ultimately I think a very attractive figure

[00:53:57,456]: Because I think what he’s representing there is the kind of breadth that these monsters don’t have

[00:54:04,676]: They’re narrow

[00:54:05,876]: There’s something claustrophobic I think about their worldview because they exclude everything outside of it

[00:54:11,516]: All right people it’s trivia time

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[00:54:27,636]: But from January 21st through July 21st the Dow Jones grew less than 1

[00:54:32,976]: What about Bitcoin

[00:54:34,756]: President Trump loves Bitcoin so it must have performed well right

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[00:57:21,616]: And when we think about Hitler we think about the most evil man that has ever lived

[00:57:28,576]: And I think look obviously he’s not… Is that true

[00:57:32,236]: No no no no

[00:57:33,236]: Sorry

[00:57:33,596]: No I was checking myself

[00:57:35,536]: I was going to say I don’t know whether he is but the fact that it’s in my head is partly a result of education

[00:57:45,076]: And we think about him as the most evil man that Stalin killed more people Mao killed more people and yet you talk to the average person and if someone says they’re a communist we just go OK he’s communist

[00:57:59,096]: But if someone says they’re a Nazi… Yeah

[00:58:02,036]: How many conversations with Nazis are you having

[00:58:04,676]: Yeah

[00:58:05,116]: Quite a lot mate with our fan base

[00:58:07,216]: No but genuinely do you know what I mean

[00:58:10,016]: No I do know what you mean

[00:58:10,776]: I think it’s a really funny thing

[00:58:12,056]: You know I often tell the story I was backpacking in Bulgaria with some student friends in the 1990s and we were in this village and there was a bloke there he was like selling old communist memorabilia

[00:58:26,576]: And we were looking through it because yeah we’re interested in history we’re kind of looking through oh look there’s a medal of Stalin there’s all this kind of thing

[00:58:31,696]: And this bloke said they have other tray

[00:58:34,036]: And he kind of pulled out this other tray underneath this is like the real tray

[00:58:38,436]: And the real tray was full of like SS stuff

[00:58:41,736]: And we were like no put it away put it away

[00:58:43,756]: Terrible

[00:58:44,156]: I’m not interested in that

[00:58:45,136]: But afterwards we were talking about it how our reactions were different right

[00:58:50,296]: The communist stuff to a Brit in the 1990s was kind of slightly comical right

[00:58:56,476]: You could have a hammer and sickle t shirt as a student and people would kind of you know or CCCP or whatever

[00:59:04,256]: And no one’s going to think anything of it really

[00:59:06,256]: You know it’s a bit of an affectation

[00:59:11,036]: You’re sort aesthetic thing as much as anything

[00:59:14,196]: Obviously you know a swastika t shirt walking into a studio swastika t shirt is pretty punchy

[00:59:20,436]: And you’re going to get a very different kind of reaction

[00:59:22,916]: And I think obviously to some degree that reflects the fact that for us in Britain Nazism was the real enemy

[00:59:31,876]: We’re very conscious of the death toll

[00:59:34,616]: It seems nihilistic and horrendous and utterly beyond the pale right

[00:59:39,716]: If somebody wears a swastika t shirt I think you pretty much say okay that’s it

[00:59:44,776]: It’s inconceivable to me that one of my friends would come home with a swastika t shirt

[00:59:48,636]: Unless they’re Hindu

[00:59:50,116]: Right

[00:59:50,436]: Well you’re trying quite hard there

[00:59:54,116]: Or a famous rapper

[00:59:55,736]: Yeah but you’re wearing that hammer and sickle t shirt in Poland or in you know the former occupied Eastern Europe or you’re walking around with a Khmer Rouge t shirt in Cambodia or something

[01:00:10,016]: I mean that’s obviously going to have a very very difference

[01:00:13,716]: So it does slightly depend where you’re standing

[01:00:16,296]: There’s also a perception of intentionality

[01:00:19,996]: I think most people fundamentally don’t understand the thing we’ve been talking about in this conversation which is the Nazis were also well intentioned

[01:00:28,136]: They think the Nazis were just evil

[01:00:31,036]: Whereas the communists were well intentioned

[01:00:33,736]: I think you’re right

[01:00:34,256]: And the things that they did were kind of like well they were trying to do good but then they just put these people in camps

[01:00:40,996]: And also I think the other thing as well the difference is communists killed millions of people Mao and Stalin

[01:00:47,996]: A lot of the deaths were actually through incompetence and the inability of the economic model that they were applying to feed people basically

[01:00:57,256]: Yeah right

[01:00:57,656]: So they do kill people deliberately

[01:00:59,396]: Of course they do

[01:01:00,316]: Stalin’s purges the great terror you know

[01:01:03,376]: But that doesn’t compare to marching 7 million people if you include all the different groups into

[01:01:09,556]: Yeah exactly

[01:01:10,536]: Do you know what I mean

[01:01:10,976]: Exactly

[01:01:11,396]: There’s not quite the same industrialized deliberate methodical apparatus of extermination

[01:01:19,876]: But the really controversial thing I wanted to ask you is when Francis said Hitler’s the most evil man blah blah blah

[01:01:24,376]: He’s the most evil man

[01:01:25,436]: From my reading of World War II I know this will be controversial

[01:01:30,416]: I’m not sure what the Japanese did in World War II wasn’t worse than what the Germans did

[01:01:36,016]: I think the death toll of

[01:01:38,416]: The Japanese don’t have an exterminatory program in the same way that the Germans do

[01:01:43,536]: Imagine you had a Japanese guest right

[01:01:45,976]: A sort of nationalistic Japanese guest

[01:01:48,616]: That guest would say to you I can’t believe I’ve degenerated to impersonating a Japanese nationalist on YouTube

[01:01:54,056]: I hope you don’t do the accent because that really would take us out of the light

[01:01:57,916]: He would presumably say look we’re doing what European colonializers

[01:02:03,096]: We’re butchering millions of people with shovels and bayonets and

[01:02:07,096]: He would say violence happens people

[01:02:08,396]: But he’d say did not Dominic say earlier in the show

[01:02:10,716]: Right

[01:02:11,216]: That violence happens and bad things happen in all empires and so on and so forth

[01:02:14,656]: Why are you judging us by different standards

[01:02:16,876]: Yeah

[01:02:17,376]: He would probably say that

[01:02:18,396]: But wouldn’t Adolf Hitler say that too

[01:02:19,656]: No because I think Hitler

[01:02:21,956]: I mean Hitler might but Hitler has an exterminatory program which very few other empires do

[01:02:29,236]: That’s fair

[01:02:29,996]: So to give you an example that you mentioned which is the Spanish in the Americas

[01:02:35,096]: The Spanish a lot of people die when the Spanish arrive

[01:02:38,896]: Loads of people die

[01:02:40,016]: And they die through disease they die through massacres all of those kinds of things

[01:02:44,256]: But the Spanish really don’t want to kill a lot of people

[01:02:46,536]: What they really want is workers

[01:02:47,796]: And they’re gutted when all these people start dying in the Caribbean or whatever

[01:02:51,376]: So the so called genocide that the Spanish carry out in the Caribbean the Taino people when they arrive there are none of them left right

[01:02:58,156]: Within a couple of decades

[01:02:59,836]: And the Spanish were really disappointed because they’d wanted these people to be working in the gold mines and whatnot for them

[01:03:05,096]: They don’t want to go to the Americas and kill loads of people

[01:03:08,136]: It’s not part of their program

[01:03:09,916]: They want to make loads of money

[01:03:11,036]: And if they have to kill a few people fair enough

[01:03:13,516]: As they say that’s part of the game

[01:03:15,116]: But they don’t have a genocidal program

[01:03:18,696]: The Third Reich is unusual in having a deliberate genocidal program

[01:03:23,556]: Even the Mongols weren’t really genocidal

[01:03:25,376]: They were like either surrender we’ll kill you

[01:03:28,296]: Exactly

[01:03:29,116]: Sacking your city is just par for the course right

[01:03:30,776]: That’s what they think

[01:03:31,516]: So that’s what makes the Nazis kind of different

[01:03:34,376]: I think it makes them yeah it makes them really chilling and unsettling

[01:03:37,876]: And there is a sort of this application of the apparatus of industrial modernity to killing people

[01:03:46,896]: I think that’s what a lot of people it’s like you know you think about some of the most chilling films about the Holocaust

[01:03:54,436]: There’s the film Conspiracy which is about the Wannsee conference

[01:03:57,156]: And it’s literally just people sitting around a table like this talking about you know how they’re going to organize the infrastructure

[01:04:03,536]: Or the film I can’t remember the title now where you never see it but you hear it where it’s set just over there

[01:04:09,916]: It’s the Camp Commandant at Auschwitz very recent film did really well

[01:04:15,576]: And again you don’t see what’s happening in the camp but you see the banality and the ordered methodical almost sort of humdrum nature of the apparatus of killing

[01:04:27,116]: I think that’s what we find really terrifying about the Nazis

[01:04:30,956]: And that’s different I think from let’s say Stalin’s Great Terror

[01:04:36,493]: I mean it’s not unlike other terrorists in history

[01:04:39,333]: There’s a sort of an ad hoc nature to it

[01:04:43,393]: It’s a regime trying to purge people within it

[01:04:45,953]: We’ve seen it many times in history

[01:04:47,573]: It’s on a much bigger scale of course but it doesn’t have that kind of quite have that cold It’s kind of like the French Revolution and what happened after it because basically you’ve got a bunch of these like crazy lunatic revolutionaries and you can’t really run a country like that

[01:05:00,633]: So you have to kill them off and then you kill off the people who killed them off until you really It’s the idea of the enemy within

[01:05:07,873]: Yeah

[01:05:08,393]: I think the idea of the enemy within is a very the traitor within is a really dangerous one

[01:05:15,993]: Once you go down that road it almost always happens with revolutionary regimes

[01:05:19,973]: They’re in battle from the very beginning because they’ve got the old regime they’re worried they’re going to come back or they’ve got foreign adversaries as they did in the French Revolution

[01:05:30,613]: So I’m getting so excited talking about the French Revolution that I can’t even speak

[01:05:35,953]: And then when you start looking at your kind of you look in internally and you look at domestic opposition you say well these people are not just critics or opponents they’re traitors and they’re a threat to our revolution

[01:05:49,993]: Then they’ve got to go

[01:05:50,793]: And you see that again and again

[01:05:52,493]: And what’s really interesting and worrying at the same time is you look at our economy which is faltering to put it mildly

[01:05:59,753]: Yeah

[01:06:00,693]: People are getting poorer

[01:06:02,573]: People aren’t going to be able to

[01:06:03,673]: I’m intrigued about where you’re going to go with it

[01:06:07,253]: Is it are you going to ask the key question which is basically is Kirstein Stalin

[01:06:10,813]: Yes exactly

[01:06:11,533]: I don’t think he’s that competent if I’m going to be honest with you or has the courage of his convictions either

[01:06:16,593]: But I guess my point is do you get concerned when you see us enter these kind of economic times where richer rich and poor the gap is getting ever wider

[01:06:27,633]: People are struggling economically

[01:06:30,653]: That we’re going to enter more turbulent times

[01:06:33,493]: And these are the times where utopianism socialism you know these people are bad

[01:06:41,353]: That’s going to start to creep in as people look quite naturally for someone to blame

[01:06:46,253]: Am I concerned about it

[01:06:47,693]: I think it will happen but I’m not concerned about it because I think that’s history right

[01:06:51,573]: That’s just what happens

[01:06:53,133]: That’s a really shitty reason not to be concerned about it no offence

[01:06:56,953]: Well my entire family is going to get wiped out but that’s history mate you know don’t worry about it

[01:07:02,893]: That is what I think

[01:07:03,513]: What do you mean that’s what you think

[01:07:04,413]: I think that’s what I I think that’s what

[01:07:05,793]: You have children right

[01:07:06,833]: Yeah

[01:07:07,473]: So what if they all get killed

[01:07:08,553]: Are you not concerned about this

[01:07:09,613]: Well I always say to my son you know the lesson of history is your neighbours will probably try to kill and eat you so make sure you kill them first

[01:07:16,913]: He is right Wink

[01:07:19,193]: But I think I think that’s like complaining you’re not concerned that very soon you know the summer will be over and winter will come

[01:07:25,253]: I’m like of course I’m not concerned about it I mean I know it’s going to happen

[01:07:28,693]: It’d be a waste of time to lie awake worrying about it

[01:07:31,493]: I think people who like us you know born in the post war period grew up in the years of affluence sort of came of age in the post Cold War era end of history you know liberal not the norm

[01:07:55,793]: And I know history is much darker

[01:07:57,413]: But I think still instinctively we kind of think ah it’d be nice if it was like that all the time you know be nice if it was just economic growth and everybody was happy

[01:08:07,673]: It would be nice but it’s never going to happen

[01:08:09,193]: The 21st century we’ll see loads of wars and disasters

[01:08:13,833]: There’ll be a lot of you know am I worried about people being scapegoated or whatever

[01:08:18,193]: I mean I guess it’s sad that it happens

[01:08:20,253]: It is sad that it happens for the avoidance of doubt

[01:08:23,593]: It is sad that it happens but it’s going to happen

[01:08:27,053]: Like history is not going to stop

[01:08:28,633]: There will be people who are tremendous villains who will come to power and there will be you know massacres and stuff because human nature is never going to change

[01:08:38,593]: People will always keep behaving badly and stuff will keep happening and there’ll be migrant crises and there will be coups and there’ll be a revolution somewhere and all of those things will happen

[01:08:50,473]: Am I concerned about it

[01:08:51,613]: Not really because I spent all my life reading about it about it happening in the past and I know that history is not suddenly going to stop

[01:08:59,433]: You know I’m not Tony Blair or Bill Clinton thinking that brilliant the world is perfect we’re in 1999 and let’s hope that you know nothing ever happens again

[01:09:07,633]: The world was pretty good in 1999 though don’t you think

[01:09:11,593]: It really was

[01:09:13,333]: It was a great time

[01:09:15,453]: It was a great time

[01:09:17,173]: I guess it kind of was but I mean maybe we obviously we think that for very contingent reasons

[01:09:21,373]: You know there are lots of places where it wasn’t great

[01:09:23,833]: Yeah we don’t care about them I’m talking about for us

[01:09:25,573]: Yeah it was great for us

[01:09:26,653]: I think this is precisely the problem right

[01:09:29,413]: This is the problem about us having a slightly starry eyed view of humanity and how history works and what the future will bring

[01:09:38,173]: You know that sort of sense that people have now where they sort of you know talk about Britain’s in such a mess the Western world tearing itself apart we live in an age of populism and polarisation isn’t that a terrible shame and blah blah blah

[01:09:49,833]: And often I’m like you know what when we talk about how terrible everything is most people in history would say well A those things are completely normal

[01:09:58,153]: I mean that’s just life

[01:09:59,313]: And B you’ve got all those things that we always had but also you’re living until you’re 80 and you have central heating and you get to go on holiday all the time and you you know all this kind of thing

[01:10:08,753]: And your children survive into adulthood

[01:10:10,313]: Right

[01:10:10,333]: What are you whinging about

[01:10:11,533]: You know you’ve got all the

[01:10:12,373]: I think what people are whinging about and I don’t blame them is that things are moving in a downward direction

[01:10:18,293]: Right

[01:10:19,573]: That’s what people are whinging about because objectively speaking I completely agree with you

[01:10:24,053]: Life’s great

[01:10:25,473]: And my pinned thing on my Twitter is the West is brilliant there’s a clip of me talking about why we’re all lucky and we are lucky to live here

[01:10:31,753]: But I’d quite like my children and grandchildren to also feel lucky to live where we live

[01:10:36,293]: And that’s what people are concerned about

[01:10:38,413]: Of course I understand why they’re concerned about that but

[01:10:41,113]: But your point is they’re f**ked and there’s nothing you can do about it

[01:10:43,973]: I don’t necessarily think that there’ll be lots of winners

[01:10:46,333]: There always are

[01:10:47,633]: You know the nature of being a parent is you want your children to be among the winners and not the losers

[01:10:52,533]: But ultimately the nature of being a parent is also realizing that you can’t control your child’s destiny

[01:10:57,573]: So to some degree you do your best but there’s not much point worrying about it

[01:11:03,153]: I just always think you know a thing that always plays on my mind I think about this a lot is what it would have been like to have been a German in 1910

[01:11:13,233]: You live in a newly unified country where life really has got a lot better in the last few decades

[01:11:19,293]: You live in one of the most sophisticated civilized

[01:11:23,613]: The German people were amazing

[01:11:24,793]: This is the thing that we all lose because of everything that happened after 1910 quite rightly

[01:11:29,293]: They were an amazing people

[01:11:31,353]: So advanced in so many different

[01:11:34,193]: Like reading about the

[01:11:35,393]: They were like

[01:11:36,593]: I mean you kind of read it and go Hitler kind of had a bit of a point

[01:11:39,453]: This was like a superior race to some extent in terms of all the industrial development

[01:11:46,033]: I’m joking obviously but you know what I mean

[01:11:47,573]: They were incredible

[01:11:48,713]: Right of course

[01:11:49,193]: And so that’s 1910

[01:11:51,253]: If someone says to you then well how do you think the future will play out

[01:11:53,913]: You’d be like well it’ll probably be like this

[01:11:55,493]: Yeah it’s going to be great

[01:11:57,713]: And actually you know what

[01:11:59,533]: You could not conceive of how terrible it’s going to be

[01:12:03,233]: So looking forward do I worry looking forward to the future

[01:12:06,073]: I just think it’s unknowable

[01:12:07,753]: And there are societies right now that seem sophisticated safe united that may well

[01:12:16,113]: You know in 2050 you’ll be talking about it and saying my God who knew that Belgium would have a civil war that would last 20 years or whatever

[01:12:23,373]: I mean silly example but you just simply cannot predict what will happen

[01:12:28,493]: And do I worry about it

[01:12:30,413]: I don’t really worry because I just think that really is a waste of time

[01:12:33,093]: That’s a really interesting way of looking at it

[01:12:34,893]: Maybe as we wrap up the one thing that’s probably worth asking as well is you’ve delivered a masterclass of presenting the tragic vision

[01:12:45,613]: Thomas Sowell talks about this kind of being the core of the more right of center the more conservative worldview really which is human nature is what it is

[01:12:55,313]: Technology changes therefore we express human nature in different ways

[01:12:58,513]: Yes exactly

[01:12:59,813]: Oh before we get to that actually something else I was going to ask you which ties into this

[01:13:04,473]: Do you think that nuclear weapons fundamentally changed the course of human history

[01:13:09,853]: Because this peace dividend that we’ve had is actually because of nuclear weapons

[01:13:13,233]: Yes I do

[01:13:13,773]: Is that why

[01:13:14,773]: I do

[01:13:15,253]: I think there would have been a third world war without nuclear weapons

[01:13:18,093]: That makes sense

[01:13:18,473]: There’s no question in my mind

[01:13:19,533]: I think there would have been a war maybe not immediately

[01:13:21,293]: Well we’d be in one now right

[01:13:23,273]: I mean Russia Ukraine probably would have become

[01:13:25,693]: Yeah it could be

[01:13:26,413]: It could be

[01:13:26,953]: I think there would definitely have been a war probably over Berlin and maybe it would have been delayed until 1960 61 or something like that

[01:13:36,913]: But it would have come

[01:13:38,233]: Then Cuban Missile Crisis obviously what holds them back is the fear of nuclear annihilation

[01:13:42,793]: Again in the early 1980s you could have had multiple world wars during the Cold War and every time they’re held back by nuclear weapons

[01:13:51,873]: It’s so fascinating

[01:13:52,793]: It’s almost like human nature in that way where the worst thing is also the best thing because nuclear weapons probably will lead to the annihilation of all humanity at some point

[01:14:00,493]: It’s very possible in my opinion

[01:14:02,573]: But also it’s why we’ve avoided a global war

[01:14:06,353]: Yeah I agree

[01:14:06,773]: It’s so weird

[01:14:07,973]: But anyway coming back to this tragic vision which you presented I feel like the way we talk about modern things that are going on conflict in Russia and Ukraine in Israel and Gaza is partly because we’ve lost that right

[01:14:25,913]: Do you get where I’m going with this

[01:14:28,013]: I do

[01:14:28,633]: Yeah I do

[01:14:30,253]: Sorry I was distracted by the fact that I was resting my foot on your foot and I thought we’d passed the table

[01:14:33,793]: No I quite enjoyed it

[01:14:34,773]: And actually there’s quite a lot that happens under the table if you’re not into it

[01:14:38,313]: You don’t get that on every podcast do you

[01:14:40,853]: You go and tell Rogan you’re not going to get that on

[01:14:42,933]: Yeah people always go why haven’t you got enough female guests

[01:14:44,993]: It’s because of him

[01:14:46,613]: They said I can’t help you

[01:14:47,993]: Women aren’t into that sort of shit as it turns out

[01:14:49,913]: Yeah yeah yeah

[01:14:51,053]: Sad

[01:14:51,193]: It doesn’t often happen on podcasts where the host is playing footsie with you under the table

[01:14:55,413]: But yeah you learn something every day

[01:14:57,093]: We give you the special treatment

[01:14:57,953]: Yeah

[01:14:58,553]: So in the sense that we’re talking about those wars and we’re surprised by them we’re surprised what happened and we’re very moralistic in the way we interpret them

[01:15:03,953]: And the way we talk about them you know genocide like everything’s a genocide now

[01:15:08,613]: Yeah

[01:15:08,953]: Do you know what I mean

[01:15:09,513]: I do

[01:15:09,873]: I do know what you mean

[01:15:10,613]: That there’s the language of we’re sort of we’re horrified we’re surprised we reach for extreme language to describe what we’re seeing

[01:15:20,893]: Yeah and I think maybe the war in Ukraine is a really good example of this because Putin if he was here now would say and he said it himself you know I’m doing what Peter the Great did

[01:15:30,053]: I’m doing what Catherine the Great did

[01:15:31,373]: I want to make Russia strong and that’s my job and I really would like an outlet on the Black Sea

[01:15:38,213]: You know I’d like Crimea

[01:15:39,553]: And actually I’d really like Ukraine to be a puppet state and that’s what empires do

[01:15:43,333]: We want puppets

[01:15:43,933]: We ring like puppet states

[01:15:45,373]: And this is our sphere of influence and we’ll do whatever the hell we want

[01:15:48,193]: We’ll do what we want because that’s what big powers do

[01:15:50,053]: Right

[01:15:50,413]: That’s exactly what he would say

[01:15:51,673]: And he would say look at you having a hissy fit about it

[01:15:53,933]: Now I think Putin’s a terrible man very committed to the defense of Ukraine but I think pretending that Putin is something abnormal is a weird way of thinking about it

[01:16:05,413]: Like I’ve been very very pro Ukraine but on the basis of exactly what you’re saying which is of course he’s going to do that

[01:16:11,073]: That’s why he can’t be allowed to do it

[01:16:12,753]: Yeah exactly

[01:16:13,293]: Do you know what I mean

[01:16:13,833]: Exactly

[01:16:14,333]: It’s the most obvious thing in the world

[01:16:16,053]: Like he wants to conquer that country and it’s not in our interest to let him

[01:16:19,533]: Yeah that’s exactly my

[01:16:20,813]: I wrote this column actually before the war happened just as he was gearing up and there were people saying oh he’s not going to do it he’s not going to do it or is he going to do it

[01:16:29,333]: And I wrote this column saying I think he is going to do it because thinking about Putin and the way he sees the world why wouldn’t you do it

[01:16:36,253]: Right

[01:16:36,493]: He thinks the West is really divided and weak

[01:16:38,533]: It was about the point when like you know I gave the example at the time there was a massive hullabaloo about Boris Johnson having a cake or something to do with COVID

[01:16:46,033]: And I was like he looks at the West right now

[01:16:47,833]: Joe Biden is 3 000 years old

[01:16:49,373]: Boris Johnson is battling with a cake or whatever

[01:16:51,793]: Why wouldn’t you

[01:16:52,973]: If you’re him and you have that ruthless cold blooded amoral view of human relations and all you care about is basically old fashioned martial imperialism why wouldn’t you do it

[01:17:03,133]: Totally

[01:17:03,433]: And that’s

[01:17:04,213]: So I think

[01:17:05,413]: So when people are

[01:17:06,413]: Is Putin mad

[01:17:06,993]: Well he’s not mad

[01:17:08,133]: He would say I’m doing exactly what empire builders have done all through history

[01:17:13,433]: No I don’t want his empire to succeed

[01:17:15,473]: I don’t like it

[01:17:16,513]: So I think we should stop him

[01:17:17,693]: Right

[01:17:18,053]: But I don’t delude myself about what the nature of the game is

[01:17:20,373]: It’s why I never used all this bullshit language about like it’s an illegal war

[01:17:24,013]: What do you mean

[01:17:25,013]: Yeah

[01:17:25,373]: I agree with you about that

[01:17:26,593]: What does that even mean

[01:17:27,693]: I think that

[01:17:28,273]: I agree with you completely

[01:17:29,513]: And I think most people who

[01:17:31,713]: I don’t want to completely go down the road of saying might is right but

[01:17:35,493]: A geopolitical

[01:17:36,293]: Most wars that have ever been fought were in averted commas illegal wars right

[01:17:40,853]: A hundred years war a legal war

[01:17:42,853]: I mean maybe Edward III would have said it was because it was a claim to the throne of Rome

[01:17:48,073]: You know this is the point about the conservative view of human nature I suppose right

[01:17:52,033]: That people will try to do what they can to maximize their own power and their own stability and security

[01:17:57,413]: And we shouldn’t be surprised when somebody who is not our friend tries to do that you know when tries to benefit his own country at the expense of others

[01:18:06,713]: Putin would say you’ve misunderstood the game

[01:18:09,113]: You don’t understand the rules

[01:18:10,973]: I’m playing the game properly and you clowns in the West you know preening yourselves about your principles have misunderstood what we’re all doing

[01:18:19,013]: And it’s also as well like you use the word amoral

[01:18:21,473]: I imagine Putin would push back on that and go I’m not amoral

[01:18:24,673]: I am doing something very moral which is the best for my country

[01:18:27,873]: Yeah he would

[01:18:28,913]: And that’s a fair point

[01:18:30,193]: I think one thing that’s I think really interesting that we have lost is a sense of national interest

[01:18:36,313]: There’s a famous interview of the story often told somebody sitting next to the then British Cabinet Secretary I think it was Sir Gus O’Donnell

[01:18:45,013]: And they asked him what’s more important in your view for you to do as the British Cabinet Secretary

[01:18:48,893]: Is it the Britain’s interest or the world’s interest

[01:18:51,033]: And he said I’d like to think it’s the world’s interest

[01:18:53,453]: I’m like well I think it should be Britain’s interests

[01:18:56,753]: I think again you’re misunderstanding the nature of the game you’re playing

[01:19:01,053]: Because let me tell you the Chinese aren’t thinking oh I’ll do what’s in Britain’s interest

[01:19:05,373]: If you’re not thinking it nobody else is

[01:19:07,113]: And I think we have partly as a result of the understandable revulsion of the excesses of nationalism in the first half of the 20th century partly because we’ve built this kind of liberal rules based international order and so on that so many people are very committed to

[01:19:24,653]: We have actually lost sense of the fact that there is a competitive element to world affairs in which basically you know you do what you can for your team

[01:19:33,213]: And that that means another team will lose out

[01:19:36,373]: And that’s again that’s the nature of the game

[01:19:38,853]: Dominic it’s been great having you on

[01:19:40,113]: We’re going to head over to Substack where our audience get to ask you their questions

[01:19:43,773]: But before we do the last question we always ask is what’s the one thing we’re not talking about that we really should be

[01:19:48,973]: So it’s something that you’ve actually alluded to already

[01:19:51,133]: So I was gutted when you brought it up because I was freeing and priding myself on having thought of this

[01:19:56,753]: It’s actually nuclear annihilation

[01:19:59,493]: I think it’s interesting how much you know for me growing up in the early 1980s this was a constant threat

[01:20:08,233]: You know it was on TV

[01:20:09,393]: There were dramas about it

[01:20:11,773]: There were people protesting about nuclear weapons

[01:20:14,833]: You know it was well we’re going to press the button all of this kind of thing

[01:20:17,333]: And now of course we live in an age where we don’t really talk about it very much at all

[01:20:21,513]: As an omnipresent fear it has vanished

[01:20:23,813]: Yet there are more countries with nuclear capability

[01:20:27,913]: And to go back to the whole argument about human nature nuclear weapons I do think probably have saved lives since the Second World War and prevented wars

[01:20:37,173]: But human nature being as it is one day people will use them

[01:20:41,273]: And they’ll use them I think out of fear because I think that’s how war starts

[01:20:45,413]: They will use them because they’re not because they are mad or because they’re evil but because they’re frightened and they feel they have no alternative

[01:20:53,053]: And especially in a world where AI will be running a lot of these defense programs I think once that process starts it will be very difficult to stop

[01:21:04,453]: And it’s a bit like you know if you’re a sort of existentialist philosopher or something you think to yourself how can people walk around knowing that they’re all going to die

[01:21:12,533]: Like why are they bothering buying a sandwich from Pret a Manger and making plans for Sunday when actually their own inevitable extinction is coming

[01:21:18,493]: And the reason is of course your inevitable extinction is too big a thing to think about

[01:21:22,553]: And it will paralyze you

[01:21:24,413]: And I sometimes wonder you know will our descendants living in their kind of irradiated ruins say how could they walk around saying how brilliant life is you know knowing that they’re sitting on all this stuff that one day probably it will go off and it will kill everybody and destroy civilization

[01:21:43,633]: And the answer is I guess that we’re mugs you know we’re blind

[01:21:49,753]: We’re willfully blind to the potential that this stuff has

[01:21:52,173]: And also there’s no one inventing it right

[01:21:54,053]: It’s never going to go away

[01:21:54,833]: We’re just stuck with it now

[01:21:56,653]: So yeah that’s a cheery thought

[01:21:58,493]: You really are an optimist

[01:21:59,553]: Yeah we’re all going to die in a nuclear holocaust

[01:22:01,253]: But you seem to believe that there will be people who live after that which makes you an optimist

[01:22:05,753]: Yeah sort of mutant half crab half human scuttling in the ruins

[01:22:10,693]: Anyone on that

[01:22:11,713]: I’m not happy no

[01:22:13,013]: Head on over to Substack where Dominic’s going to answer your questions

[01:22:17,353]: Are there any key moments in history of what if scenarios that you believe could have dramatically altered the outcome of a particular battle and in turn changed the course of a war

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