Free Speech, Comedy, and Woke Culture | Konstantin Kisin

Interview with Konstantin Kisin in 'John Anderson Conversations' 2019.

This is a transcript of a YouTube video.

1:34
Kisin: I'm not a conservative. And my commentary is not really conservative. This is one of the biggest problems with the position that we now find ourselves in. Which is that, anyone, who in any way, challenges the radical, progressive, leftist narrative, in any way, is automatically right wing — is automatically conservative, at best. That's the nicest thing they'll say about you. I'm not conservative. I have conservative views on some things. I have very liberal views on many other things. I'm in the centre politically, as I think of it. But it boggles my mind, that we are now in a position, John, that freedom of speech, which is a fundamental cornerstone of western civilization, has become a conservative value. That is an absolutely insane position to me, as someone who came from a society where freedom of speech did not exist. And when I came here, my parents essentially sacrificed their life and their savings to get me here. They didn't move over. They sent me to boarding school here … The reason they did that is so that I could be in a free society. To think that that happened, and now, this fundamental principle of this country is a marginal issue, that supposedly is right at best, boggles the mind.

2:56
Anderson: You underscore something which really I think, is fascinating there, which is that in fact, … in the past, it's usually been the left that has seen the value of free speech, because the current debate would have you believe that free speech is … just a something that conservatives believe in, so they can belt up on everybody else, but in the past those who felt oppressed understood how important it was to them, so they could have their grievances heard.

3:38
Kisin: Well even if you go back as far as slavery in America, that the slaves who were protesting about their condition were demanding freedom of speech in order to be able to argue for their liberation. It's a fundamental principle, as I say. So the idea that we now live in a society where it's the opposite ... I think the reason for that is actually very simple John, which is that a lot of these narratives, whether it's intersectionality or these structures of oppression, or all this stuff, they don't actually have any logical or reasonable underpinning. And so the only way you can defend them … is by shutting down people who don't agree with you, because if you have a reasonable rational argument, their views crumble like a house of cards, because they're not built on anything: they're built on fallacious logic and just assertions without any basis in fact. So that's why I think now the left, the radical left, not all of the left, but the radical left, have come to this place where they have to shut down and label and smear anyone who doesn't agree with them because their ideas are not based on anything.

4:38
Anderson: So the language as we know it, the most innocuous remarks about somebody else, can be painted as bigotry, as hatred, the doozy of them all, racist, because that's the ultimate slur I think, to be called a racist: to judge somebody else by the color of their skin, is a shocking thing to do. Well, it is, but it's used as a weapon against people who simply want to discuss differences.

5:03
Kisin: And it debases language. We had Lionel Shriver on my YouTube show called 'TRIGGERnometry' recently, and one of the points that she made is the word 'racist' has been used so much and so inappropriately, that is why we now use terms like 'white supremacist', because being a racist is no longer enough. You have to take it up a notch right and that's why the word of white supremacy has come back. And the point that she made, which I thought was brilliant, was that … in her childhood, white supremacists were people, that if you walked up to them and you said: "Are you a white supremacist". They'd be like: "hell yeah! Right!" That was what a white supremacist looked like. Now it's these people who are undercover and pretend they're not apparently. This is what we're being told.

5:43
Anderson: So in this rejection of our past — because that's what it is. I mean these great concepts of freedom: freedom of conscience probably the first of them, really — don't burn others at the stake for holding a minority view; freedom of speech; freedom of association — you don't have freedom of speech if you don't have the right to associate or not associate. Discrimination is painted as a terrible word, but it's often a normal part of living. You discriminate when you decide not to invite me to dinner but to ask your next-door neighbor but I don't complain. Mind you I'd like to come too.

Kisin: Well you might be complaining after this, yeah.

Anderson: But to what extent — now you've come from a society that your parents wanted you moved out of that was Marxist in origin — it was communist. To what extent do you know …

Kisin: It wasn't real communism apparently … what you keep being told by 18 year-olds on the internet.

Anderson: Yeah. Right. Nothing wrong with the theory. [overtalk] The theory was hopelessly wrong. And the theory was wrong because there was an assumption in it, that people would give their loyalty to the party and the state ahead of those around them — the ones that they love their husbands, their wives, their children their aunts, their uncles, their community. We're not wired like that.

7:01
Kisin: That's exactly it. They're ignoring fundamental human biology. I don't think …

Anderson: Human nature.

Kisin: Human nature exactly. That's what I mean. So the way we evolved to be. They're completely ignoring any of that and that's why the theory doesn't work. It might be a great theory but it doesn't work in practice, because human beings, as you say, are not wired in that way.

Anderson: The point to take out of it, because I think it's a very, very important point, is that it's not just that it failed because it wasn't implemented properly. The theory is not a great theory. It's not a workable theory. But to where I wanted to go with this is where we've got to understand where we've got to now. So your family wanted you to come to the west where there was a different, if you like, set of foundational principles evolved over a lot of time, a lot of blood, sweat, tears. We would dismiss it now. We don't teach it. Apparently it's all dark.

7:51
But you go back to the 20s and it was obvious to a lot of people who were committed to a Marxist worldview that there was a at least one major problem. The working class were not rising up. They didn't seem interested. They seemed too lethargic. Perhaps they'd been opiated too much by religion or whatever, to overthrow the terrible capitalist societies that they were in. So you had this push to say well we better accelerate the process find other mechanisms to smash democratic capitalism, introduce communism. It became known as cultural Marxist because the model was to attack the cultural institutions of the Western, to weaken them — family, church, academia, whatever [community].

And then over time that's morphed into: let's accumulate as many people with grievances as possible; stoke those grievances and weld them into bodies that oppose everything Western. You think that's what's happened?

8:53
Kisin: I think that's exactly what's happening. That is exactly what's happened. The long march through the institutions, which is what you just described, is a way of capturing power in a capitalist society. The one thing I would say on that, which I always tried to make a point of, there is a reason that communism and radical socialism is making a comeback now, particularly among young people. And the reason is that young people, and Douglas Murray, who I know you've spoken to recently talks about this, as well, if you are a young person today, yeah, living in London or the South East of England or in many big cities in America. I imagine in Australia it's similar. I have some friends there too. I do have friends in Australia — young people, young comedians for example — and the reality for young people today is that the idea of buying a property in London, they say, is completely out of the realms of the possible. And if you live in a society where people have no access to the one form of capital that traditionally you would have a chance to accumulate, it's very difficult to expect people to be capitalist yes in that country.

9:54
Anderson: Yes. I understand that and I think that's a real concern and in a long time in government I believe in sound economic management. What people miss is that government and economics in the Western model is downstream of culture and that's highly significant, because I think capitalism has, you know, been badly traduced in many ways — almost crony capitalism, the model we have today.

You get back to Lehman Brothers: the breakdown of prudence, of integrity; bankers stopped asking what is the right thing to do and instead ask what can I get away with; how can I prosper most rapidly. And it ended in tears because unsustainable and unconscionable and economically very stupid decisions were made.

10:45
Kisin: But, to come back to your point about grievances, my wife sent me this experiment very literally a couple of days ago, where they did an experiment with a group of women and they put scars on their faces and they told these women that they're going into a job interview and the purpose of the experiment is to find out whether people with visual facial disfigurements face discrimination. They showed them the scars in the mirror. The women saw themselves with these cars and as they led them out of the room they said we're just going to touch it up a little bit. And as they touched it up, they removed the scarring completely. so the women went into the job interview thinking that they are scarred but actually being their normal selves.

11:26
And the result of the experiment is that those women then came back reporting massively increased level of discrimination. Indeed they, many of them, came back with comments that the interviewer had made the … they felt, were referencing their facial disfigurements. And this is why I think this ideology of victimhood is so dangerous, because if you preach to people constantly that we're all oppressed, that we're all being discriminated against at different levels, because I'm an immigrant I'm automatically disadvantaged, that because I have dark skin and I'm automatically disadvantaged then that primes people to look for that and it's like you know when you buy a new car you see that car everywhere else as you drive around. It's that kind of effect which is why this ideology of teaching people that they're victims is so incredibly damaging and so incredibly dangerous.

We have to teach young people in particular that they're strong. That they're capable. That they're able to overcome adversity. Not that they're victims.

Anderson: It always seems to me that the the idea of elevating, if you like, people who may or may not have suffered real disadvantage or been sidelined to a sort of caste system, and with intersectionality you can add on to it, if you have other characteristics. Bowls over the central idea of Western freedom, which is that all are worthy of dignity and of standing because a higher authority says they are, but we mock that idea completely. We haven't found a substitute for valuing one another that's workable.

13:03
Kisin: I think we have actually. The substitute is very simple if we believe in not discriminating against people, not in the way that you defined that earlier, but in the negative way. If we believe that people should be treated equally and given an equal opportunity based on their skills and merit and talents, that is a perfect solution. And what we now have is, because we've elevated certain groups to above that mean, above that median point, we now have a society where we promote certain people ahead of others. We have what supposedly is called 'positive discrimination'. I don't think any discrimination can be positive in that way.

So actuallythe solution is there, but the reality is that, as Douglas Murray says, some people enjoy the over-correction, some people enjoy their over-correction and the power that comes with it, and the ability to shut down anyone and to go: "well, speaking as an immigrant you're not allowed to say that. Speaking as a whatever you're not allowed to say that." That's power. In a society that tries to debate ideas, that is tremendous power, and people don't want to give that up. They don't want to give that up. And I think that's a big part of why this is happening.

14:14
And the other thing is of course, this whole ideology of victimhood. It's weaponized empathy. It's weaponized our empathy … I'm using your empathy against you, because if I say: "well look, as a bla bla bla I've been oppressed for 50 years," you empathize with that. (right) As a human being you naturally empathize, so anything I then tack onto that … I've been discriminated against, therefore we must now overturn capitalism. It's harder to argue against simply the slogan 'we must overturn capitalism'. So it's weaponized empathy and that's why it's become so powerful and so corrosive. Because it's very difficult to argue against … when people project this former oppression that their victimhood.

And there is discrimination in society. Some people are racist. Some people are bigoted and there are groups which have been marginalized historically, and we are now at a point where largely we've addressed many of those issues but the industries that they have created around those: career feminism, career whatever else it is; those people are never going to give it up. If you've got a successful career as a TV feminist you're not gonna give it up. You know you're not gonna go: "oh look the gender pay gap is pretty much closed and in fact women under 40 are out earning men." You're not gonna want to hear that. You're not gonna want to spread that.

Anderson: So if your status and your power are derived from being a victim. (Yeah) You have to remain a victim. You must remain a victim. You don't want your victimhood resolved.

Kisin: Absolutely. Why would you want to give up your power. (yeah) No one wants to …

15:55
Anderson: You touched on something that I think is very important, that no one would say our society's perfect or ever has been, what it has had though, a unique capacity, because of the, I think that you know, the Judeo-Christian commitment that lies at the heart of Western civilization.

I really do believe this. I know others push back against it but I think you know it's pretty clear that we have a commitment to others, that we are obliged to love others and do through them as we'd have them do under us. Even we need to love our enemies, You've got that capacity to right and wrongs and the objective ought to be to see people who are weak or oppressed or downtrodden or marginalized. Give them the opportunity to enjoy full citizenship. If I can put it that way. Join the family.

16:40
Kisin: It sounds kind of catastrophizing, but I do feel like, if we're not careful, we may find that we're living through the last days of the Roman Empire. We have become so unwilling to maintain our immune system as a culture, as a civilization, which is what what this is about. This is all about. We've become completely unwilling to defend our values. (yep. Well we despise them.) What absolutely. We're embarrassed about them. We're ashamed. This — we had a debate in this country ten years ago — is there such a thing as British identity. What are you talking about. (yeah) What on earth are you talking about. Every culture has its own identity. Every culture has its own values and there's nothing wrong with that.

17:25
And this thing that drives me mad about it, as well as, of all the things that are terrible that were done by the British Empire and by America. Undoubtedly these things happened, but the question for me is: do you think that if it had been the other way around, if it was Russia ruling the world — as a Russian I say this — or if it was China ruling the world now, or if the Islamic nations of the 14th century had continued their advance through southern Europe, do you think that they would have not done any of these thing.

Anderson: People in Venice might now be, instead of writing theses on pronouns and bathing they're studying the Koran.

Kisin: Right, and this is just the flow of history. And as we know the lessons of history, no one learns the lessons of history. But I think and hope that we can be the first generation of people that pay some attention, because if we don't, if we don't …

18:20
Anderson: But who's going to teach. The history hasn't been taught. Or it's been taught through various lenses, grievance lenses. So it's not understood.

18:28
Kisin: Yes, that's the problem. Absolutely. But what we have to do is strengthen our immune system because if we don't, our civilization will collapse and there are plenty of others waiting to take our place believe you me. (yeah) I come from Russia, I know lots of Chinese people, they're not talking about gender pronouns in those countries. They're getting ready. So Western civilization needs to defend itself. It needs to defend its values. We need to remember what they are, and then defend them.

18:58
Anderson: We're so intent though, on describing, I mean here in Britain either, I come from Australia, we were once a colony, the original sin it seems in Britain today is that it was once a colonizing country. (Right) Now in fact, there's much that was good and noble. Just as there was much that was clumsy and inappropriate and some of it downright evil. Things were done in the name of colonialism. We know that, but we just don't seem to be able to adapt that with balance, nor would we seem to be committed to learning what happened well enough to see if you, for want of putting it a better way, what worked and produced good outcomes in freedom, and what didn't work, because you need to learn from both. Nobody's saying we didn't get things wrong, they're just saying we got everything wrong and that's terrible.

19:48
Kisin: And the question is what is the purpose of identifying the wrongs of the past. If the purpose of them is to learn from them, that is a useful exercise, at a level of the individual, if you look at yourself and what you've done wrong, you can improve. But if you look at yourself day and night and focus solely on your errors and your weaknesses and your failings, and you do nothing else, that is the recipe for depression and that is a recipe for disaster. And it's true of the individual, it is true of society, it is true of civilization. Which is why focusing solely on that and failing to see it in a broader historical context, it's the death knell of Western civilization. And I hate to be the doomsayer and talk about all this stuff but I see it coming.

20:31
Anyone who knows anything by history sees it coming.

Anderson: So why would you will it on yourself; why would you not try and break the circuit?

Kisin: Well the reason is that we live in a very prosperous society we've got nothing better to do. We've got nothing better to do than sit around and navel gaze.

20:48
Anderson: And then we're frightened if we do actually step out and try and challenge some of the stupidity around us. As you say we get clobbered. So it's more comfortable to stay comfy.

21:00
Kisin: Yeah. Absolutely. Look, John. Most people have got busy lives. They've got food to put on the table. They've got kids to bring up. They haven't got time for the culture wars. They haven't got time to explore gender pronouns. They're just trying to get on with their life as best they can.

But those of us who, as Douglas says you know, the only people who are allowed to speak now are authors, comedians and maybe some people who are rich enough that they don't care about the consequences.

Those of us who are in this field, we have a responsibility to call it like it is, and the situation we're in now, potentially is very, very dangerous, and the direction of travel is not good. And we have to do something about it now.

Anderson: Now, as a comedian, it seems that part of the immune system for healthy society is that it can laugh at itself, and I think we've also understood, that it can teach us a great deal about ourselves. Are you able to operate freely as a comedian in Britain today?

Kisin: More or less. I don't know if you know this, but I was performing a comedy club just around the corner from here and some students were in, and they saw me and liked me, and they invited me to perform at the University. And when they did, they sent me what they call the 'behavioral agreement contract', which said that in the interest of creating a safe space for comedy, they had a zero-tolerance policy on racism, sexism, classism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, anti-religion, anti-atheism, and it also said the all jokes must be respectful and kind.

20:30
Anderson: I'm just trying to think whether there's any sort of joke that could not be potentially caught up in one of those categories.

Kisin: Right, particularly the respectful and kind. I mean even self-deprecating joke are not kind to you, right, if you make jokes about yourself.

22:47
Anderson: But you talked about British values. It was one of the things about British culture (yes), that you took in good humor a good ribbing, as we'd call it in Australia. (absolutely). You'd laugh at yourself. You didn't take yourself so seriously that you immediately resorted to deep offense.

Kisin: It's a sign of maturity. Ability to laugh at yourself is the sign of maturity. An adolescent struggles with that. That's why younger societies including Russia there isn't that culture at all. Russians don't like when I make fun of Russians. No. So, the British attitude …

Anderson: Can they make fun of themselves … well you are Russian … but (yes) Russians can't make fun of themselves?

23:30
Kisin: They can a little bit, but it's got to be very careful . You can't be too biting.

Anderson: Because, I remember as a schoolboy here, not hearing the one about Sergei ordering a car, and he's told: 'it'll arrive in seven years time on such-and-such a date' (yeah). You know. I'm sure you've heard it. (yes) And he says will that be in the morning or afternoon and they said: 'well what difference does it make?' 'Well it's just that I've got an appointment with the dentist that morning (yes) so I'd rather pick it up in the afternoon.'

Kisin: Yeah I think Richard Nixon was a big … oh Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan was a big fan of those jokes about the Soviet Union. He used to tell them.

Anderson: Well I think he used humor to devastating effect actually (yeah … so) in the cold war era.

Kisin: But coming back to our discussion about British culture, I have this, it's not even a joke, I just I sometimes say on stage that I love this country and I say so publicly which is how you know I'm not really British. (ha, ha, ha)

Do you know what I mean? There is this … I think … there was a point when this was healthy, but we've now reached a point where the desire to smear and play down everything that makes you who you are, is gone a little bit too far. I see all the time, when you go to a comedy club and you've got a guy in his twenties talking about how as a straight white man he's obviously evil, but and then there's a joke and I think we're getting to that point where the desire to be self-deprecating has become self flagellation. And I think we've got to be careful by … and it comes from the thing that we've just talked about, which is a fundamental failure to remember your own value and your own values. That is something that you have to come back to. And coming back further to your question about what it's like operating as a comedian, it's becoming very sensitive. People are becoming very sensitive.

25:20
I did my show in Edinburgh this year at Edinburgh Festival, about that contract and about everything that happened. And I tried to push some of the boundaries of, just to make my point, and overall this is the other thing about this, John, is that ordinary people, the public if you like, are completely not on board with this progressive ideology.

Anderson: But they're powerless. They feel powerless to do it. (yes) And they're busy as you said.

25:50 Kisin: Yes. But particularly powerless, and this is why people look up to comedians, writers, authors, YouTubers, whoever, who speak out against this. And actually ordinary people feel like they can't say what they think, a lot more than I do as a comedian, (yeah) because I'm on stage every night and I, broadly speaking, I can kind of can say what I think, but if you're normally a person, I mean there was a guy who was fired from his job in a supermarket a couple of months ago because he shared a Billy Connolly routine about religion on his Facebook. (right)

One of the things I talked about in my show is, let me ask you this: in Russia last year, 400 people were arrested for things that they said on social media. 400 people in Russia. Obviously this country is very different. How many people do you think were arrested in Britain for things they said on social media last year? Come on. take a guess. (I have no idea) 3,300.

Anderson: Really. Arrested for what they'd said on social media. (yep) What sort of things get you …

26:49
Kisin: One example I give in my show is: there was a young woman from Liverpool called Chelsea Russell — and people can look this up (link1 link2). Her friend was killed in a car crash — 19 year old woman — and she posted lyrics of his favorite song on her Instagram — the lyrics. And there was a rap song, so the lyrics contain several instances of the n-word. Okay.

She was arrested, prosecuted, found guilty, given 500 hours of community service and a fine, tagged, and for a year [IB: article says 8 weeks], she was under 8 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. curfew. (my goodness) In Britain. (in Britain) In 2018.

27:28
Anderson: So we talked about the Chinese system of Social Credit (right), and described it as the creation of, or the emerging of a digital prison, but we're doing it to ourselves voluntarily in the West, so to speak.

Kisin: Absolutely.

Anderson: I will cancel people socially if they say the wrong thing on social media. But you're telling me now that three and a half thousand people were visited by the police …

Kisin: No, far more visited by the police, far more. There are cases just half a year ago, and I defended Joe brand, British comedian over this. She made some comments — you know it wasn't a great joke — but she talked about this during this milkshaking episodes where people were having milkshakes thrown at them. She said that well if I was doing it, I'd throw some acid over them. (right) That's not a great joke, but she got a visit from the police on the basis that she was quote: 'inciting violence'. And they eventually decided not to proceed with prosecution, but it was obviously a joke. She's a comedian. She was on a comedy program. The context is very clear.

And the defining case actually in recent British history on this was at the Count Dankula incident. I don't know if you're familiar with it. (no) This is a Scottish YouTuber who made … okay… This is quite quite an interesting one to explain. His girlfriend had a pug dog — you know those little ugly dogs, well (yes) ... And she thought it was the cutest thing in the world. And he wanted to annoy her, for a prank, so he trained the dog to be the most horrific thing that he could think of, which in this case was a Nazi. So he trained this dog to do a Nazi salute. Right. He posted it on YouTube to his three subscribers at the time, and overnight the video went completely viral — three million views in like a week. He was arrested, convicted, found guilty, fined eight hundred pounds, and he is to this day …

Anderson: What precisely I see was the charge?

Kisin: It was hate speech. (hate speech) Yeah ... No. Sorry. It's grossly offensive. He was being grossly offensive. That's the correct legal terminology. And he to this day is a hate criminal. When the papers write about him, they are legally allowed to call him a Nazi hate criminal. (Wow) That is where we are and it really started with that … I talk about all of these things in my show and where we are now in a position where, in that court case the prosecutor argued that context and intent are irrelevant, and the judge accepted this. (really) So even by retelling the story to you now I am potentially engaging in grossly offensive behavior. Context and intent, according to these people, are irrelevant.

Now, get your mind around that and think about the potential implications, of that.

30:36
Anderson: Well its extraordinary!

Kisin: That is where we are. It's funny, like I said, I was chatting before, I think we started, I was having dinner with a friend from Saudi Arabia, about this. And I told her and she couldn't believe it … you know… So what does that say about us? Do you know what I mean? And she was like: 'Really! In Britain! Isn't this a free country?' That is where we are, and that's why, as I say, we have to push back against it, and go back to what our fundamental values of civilization are. What are they? Freedom of speech. Freedom of association, as you said. (right) And respect for the individual and the rights of the individual. That's not to say that community isn't important, but there's a level of rights that we all have.

Anderson: Well the point about the individual being important, which is to me very dear, that if I say I have value as an individual I say so do you. (yes) And I cannot diminish your value. (correct) That's where the community bit comes in, surely.

31:36
Kisin: Unless of course we get to the situation where we are now, where I have more value because my skin is darker than yours. (yeah) I have more value because I come from abroad and you, well actually in this case you do as well, but you know what I'm mean.

Anderson: I know exactly what you mean, but it's Jonathan Hart's point in a way, to … we're raising our children to believe that life is a battle between good people and bad people. Now it was one of your countrymen, Sultan Natan, he said if it was just… if only it was as simple as that. (yeah) If life was a battle between good people and bad people, and you wanted a good world, well you just eliminate the bad people wouldn't you. (yes) And then you'd have a good world.

Kisin: Yes. Well that's how these people think. But that's why we need others to help us along the way. And you mentioned Solzhenitsyn. And one of the great things — and I wish everybody read the Gulag Archipelago — not only did he detail the camps, which in that moment in time, was not something anyone knew about.

Anderson: No, it was he smuggled the books out. (absolutely) That's how they became known.

Kisin: Exactly. But the other point that he details in the book is his personal journey, from being a committed communist, from fighting for the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front. And believing in everything. (and decorated, highly decorated). Absolutely. Going from that, to, the fall from pride … the full from pride when he spoke out, when he wrote some private letters about Joseph Stalin to a friend. And he details — it's a great scene in the book — where he details how, as he was being escorted back to the Soviet Union, there was a German soldier, as part of their convoy, who he made carry his own suitcase, because he felt that he was above him. And you can see for the rest of the book this idea of his feeling of superiority percolating, as this something that he needs to reassess.

And that is, what would, this lack of humility, is something that I think as an individual —and I've gone through this myself you know the one, particular when you're young you don't have any sense of humility you think you're the be-all and end-all — as you grow and you mature, you need other people to help you position yourself correctly in society. And realize that you are not the center of the universe. And if we have a culture now, which we do, where every young person is taught that they are absolutely the center. (the center of their own universe) Well, they're the center of everyone's universe, that's the problem. If they were just the center of their own universe. But the problem is, you know, if I am sensitive, it annoys. No one is allowed to clap, as we now know from one of our universities which banned clapping.

Anderson: Yes. Extraordinary. They've banned clapping. What are you supposed to do instead?

34:16
Kisin: Well jazz hands aparently, which of course discriminates against blind people. But they haven't seem to consider that yet, so, blind people will come out next. And this is gonna continue. (what a tangled web we weave) Well it's gonna keep getting woven, if that's the correct word, because I'm predicting right now to you, and check this a year from now, we're gonna have conversations about high privilege because as you know, ninety percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are over six foot tall, and there is discrimination against short people, in some … just … it's just how we evolved. (right) We perceive bigger people as being better leaders, stronger, whatever, whatever might be. We're gonna talk about. That we're going to talk about attractiveness privileged. Attractive people get treated differently to unattractive people, and we're gonna keep going down this mental rabbit hole.

Anderson: I was wondering how you'd done so well.

Kisin: Yes exactly. And my five foot seven height has really helped me, John. This rabbit hole is going to keep getting deeper and deeper, unless enough of us speak out against it. It's why, what you're doing is so important you mentioned right what you're doing is so important.

Anderson: You mentioned pride. C.S. Lewis observed that it lies at the heart of every human failing. And he said: 'pursue humility with every ounce of your energy, but know that the minute you think you're making progress, you know you're not.'

But we've abandoned that — it's good to be proud now. In fact at some point, we decided that pride was a more valued human characteristic than humility. And yet, if you stop and think about that for just a moment, the people we are most comfortable with, and like most, are those who are not full of themselves, who are humble, who do consider others of significance and importance, and look after their needs, and seek to be helpful. What's happened to us. How did we become so blinded.

36:17
Kisin: Well this is where we come back to what you are doing right now, and what I do with my colleague, Francis, on 'trigonometry', because this — and I know this is why you came back after your days in the desert, post politics — is (a like that … days in the desert). Yeah. Well, what's the actual term? There's a biblical term for it, something like it, the wandering in the desert, or something. (yes) Something like … when you came back, you did it because you wanted the conversation to return to the public square.

Anderson: I don't to over blow it. I've got to be modest about it … a modest contribution to demonstrate you can have a civil conversation. (right) But to also get important ideas out there. (absolutely) We get this constant trickle of young people who say: 'love listening these conversations,' and they love podcasts — a lot of young people now – 'because we can't get this sort of variety of views at our school stroke University stroke workplace. And one young man said to me the other day, he'd watched everything I've produced —- music to my ears —- I mean strokes my vanity, I have to be honest, but he said: 'It has helped me, for the first time since I was a kid living at home with mum and dad, to believe that I could actually own my real views, instead of having to deny all the time what I really thought and to say things I didn't believe.' (absolutely) Have we really got to that?

Kisin: We have, we have got to that. The most common comment that we get on our videos on 'trigonometry' is: 'why don't I see this in the mainstream media.' (Yeah, we get a lot of that too. Why don't we see it in the mainstream media.) Yeah. Well it's very simple, the mainstream media are dying, and what we are seeing is the death throes of a clinging media establishment that are trying to hold on to power as best they can. Which is why, in my experience, whenever I've written an article for — and I write for several publications — it is inevitably the case that I write what I think is a reasonable, well-balanced, thoughtful piece, and the headline that gets attached to it is the most provocative, incendiary thing that you've ever seen.

38:28
The mainstream media are now the ones who are doing the clickbait. (yeah) Yes, they are the ones who are doing the clickbait. (Yeah.) And that is because their numbers are plummeting. They see us coming you know, and they're terrified. (Yeah) They're terrified. Because ordinary people who want the truth — not even the truth — just an honest conversation. I swear to God I find myself enjoying people whose views I completely dislike and disagree with if they're honest (so do I) much more. (I found the same thing.) And you know, I actually don't think that's healthy by the way. I don't think that's a healthy thing for a society to be that way. But if you create a vacuum of truth, then any objectivity or honesty, then people will be drawn to honesty or authenticity. This is, I think, one of the reasons that Donald Trump was so successful. He feels authentic. He feels like you know who that guy is. You know what he says and why he says it, even if a lot of the things that he says you don't personally agree with. But he feels authentic that a lot of people. And in a vacuum of authenticity … It's like George Carlin, the great comedian, he said that the most important thing in show business is authenticity. If you can fake that you can do anything.

39:39
That's kind of that's kind of where we are. Where anyone who seems like they're authentic — the prime minister in this country right now — will get an advantage by having that feeling of authenticity. Because everyone else is a great cardboard cutout politician, that you have no idea what they stand for, you have no idea what they are. They've been media trained out of their brains and they can't ever formulate a thought that an ordinary person will go: 'yeah I agree with that'; because it's all been prepackaged, pre-tested and it's not real. And that's why people will gravitate towards people like us doing what we do. And that will only continue. And that's why the mainstream media are terrified. They're absolutely terrified.

Look at the interview that Kathy Newman did with Jordan Peterson. ( YouTube link ) (Yes) I can't understand how no one in Channel four saw that, and when we can't possibly put this out there. It's embarrassing. But they did and they got their attention they deserved. But what they don't realize, these people, is it's one time attention: you watch that interview and you will never watch an interview with Katherine Newman again.

40:48
Anderson: Comedy is surely the art that really goes to the human condition. What is it that's unique about comedy, that lets it cut through to who we really are?

Kisin: The point of comedy is to cut through the bullshit. It's to cut through all the things that we pretend to believe, and get to what we actually believe. That's why your most memorable moment from comedy will always be listening to someone talking about something that you think but you don't realize you think. (yeah right you know take the point.) That that's how it always works, and I actually myself, I'm more in certain satire than comedy, and there's quite a difference between the two.

41:26####difference between comedy and satire
You know my good friend Andrew Dora is a big fan of a quote from someone who 41:30 I can never remember which is that comedy is kind and pessimistic, and satire is angry and optimistic. In other words, comedy is about accepting the world as it is and being kind about it, making it okay, to to laugh at whatever the human condition may be. Where satire, which is what I leaned into more, is angry and optimistic. It's angry because it's not happy with the way the world is (yeah) and it's optimistic because it believes things can change. (thingse can change - yeah)

I am much more interested in satire and the reason is — coming back to the Soviet Union very much — we didn't have satire in the Soviet Union. We did not have satire in the Soviet Union. In Stalinist Russia, if you made a joke, even privately, that got passed down to the authorities, you would be killed. You'd be sent to the gulag and worked to death or you'd be shot. Even in 1990s Russia, when Boris Yeltsin, the first President of Russia, came to power, we had a brief moment when there was a liberalization. There was an opening up, and we had the equivalent of, it was a puppet show, equivalent to spitting image. And you guys had your own one in Australia — I can't remember what it's called. (yeah, I remember but I don't know what it was called either).

I was on a TV program with Julie Gillard recently. [indistinct cross talk] It was the first time in modern history — or it probably in any history of Russia frankly — where you could see the people in power be brought down a notch and be made fun of. And, I remember as a young boy, I would have been 12, the whole family — and this was true of all my family friends — and everybody would be sitting down, whenever that show was on, and watching it, because it was so revolutionary. It was incredible. (yeah)

The day that Putin came to power, day one, he called up the TV channel. He spoke to the main person and he said: 'you can continue doing the show. Two demands. You never make fun of the President. You never, ever make fun of the President. And they had a bunch of other things that they wanted. And, the satirist refused. The channel got shut down. Taken away from the people who are … they were persecuted and left Russia. And the main satirist, a man called Viktor Shenderovich has never worked in that way again.

Satire is very valuable. It is unique, very rare. It is rare to have a society where the powerful are up for scrutiny in that way and are up for life in that way. And it's very very important.

44:22
Anderson: Yeah, I admire enormously. I just wish I could do it but I can't. (You're neither end I'm afraid; you're the one getting [indistinct]) No, I'm just a broken-down farmer. But, and one just related out of that, different types of humor. I love wit. I'm incredibly impressed by wit. I wish I were good at it myself, but I love it, when when others are very, very quick … repartee flows or humour flows … what I don't like is degrading, or profane, or obscene humor. I don't like the sort of humor that puts down and destroys somebody else's dignity. Their pomposity perhaps, but not their dignity. I think there's a difference.

Kisin: It's a thin line. And everybody's interpretation of those words like pomposity and dignity will be different. This is the thing about comedy: people take it differently and we never know really when we say things which of them it is — something that attacks your dignity or attacks your pomposity. So, that's why I always defend the comedian's right to experiment and play, and make mistakes. It's very important, because without that there is no comedy, there is no humor. Because we never know. I don't know. I'm gonna go on stage tonight with some new material 10% of it is gonna be good, 90% it's gonna be terrible. That's how it always works. (We're so gonna be there) I wish you would. I hope you don't come. I'm gonna make sure you don't come and I'm not gonna tell you where it is But that's how it works. So, we have to preserve the right of comedians, but actually everybody to make mistakes.

Anderson: I understand that, and then we need to be prepared to forgive them.

You're really a very thoughtful fellow. You've quoted Benjamin Franklin, the American Founding Father: 'those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.' what is 'essential liberty'?

46:25
To me it's the freedom to speak your mind. It's the freedom to speak your mind because, by speaking your mind you guarantee yourselves all are the freedoms. If you have the right, as the slaves were demanding, to argue for your freedom, then you will eventually win, if the truth is on your side. And you will eventually claim the rights that are owed to you by a society that believes that everybody's equal. You can advance and progress through freedom of speech. That's why I call it the cornerstone, because it's the founding principle and if you don't have that you don't have everything else.

Freedom of speech and the things that come with it, is the reason that the West has been so successful. Because people since the Enlightenment have been been able to pursue science, study, exploration because of it. And that is why the West is as successful as it is. And it's a guarantee of our strength. It's a guarantee of our competitive success. It's a guarantee of our economic success. It's a guarantee of everything. That's why it's essential Liberty.

47:32
Anderson: One of the things that strikes me as interesting about the current debate — I take your point there — but is that many of the people who are now exposing the absurdity of the position we find ourselves in, which has been driven large by self-proclaimed, progressive members of the left, is that it's people from the left who have been very quick, when they're honest, to show the dangers. So you stop and think of some comedians who, they'd hardly be conservative I suspect, I don't mean them any ill-will at all in saying that, but people who are well known in Australia too: Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Fry, John Cleese, Bill Maher. They've all attacked this emerging humorlessness, particularly by the progressive left. What's going on there?

48:26
Kisin: Probably sheer [indistinct]. It's a fundamental threat to what we do. (It's the left critiqueing the left quite often.) But but my point is, those people (they understand it because…) they're comedians or because they come from that background. They recognize that without the freedom to explore ideas and sometimes by the way, John, to cross the line, this is something that people forget, is we're human beings, all of us, and, if you have a culture where you make one mistake and you're done. One mistake and you're done forever. (yeah) That's not gonna work.

Anderson: This is part of this sort of unbelievably pompous, self-righteousness that now accompanies the idea that we reach the center as you say of the universe, and that we just can't cope with the idea that somebody shouldn't have something they said 15 or 20 years ago held against them. And Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in this city, makes the point that the washing out of forgiveness, that great judeo-christian demand, that we be prepared to forgive. And you know, I mean, I don't know how a relationship works if you can't forgive. How does a marriage relationship work? (I have no idea) Because you're going to do the wrong thing from time to time and you've got to be reflective enough to say, when your spouse says to you, you know, you've done the wrong thing. You say well, I better think that through. Perhaps I have, and then apologize. I mean well … (and then be forgiven) and then to be forgiven but it's a really important concept. I don't see how a family, a community, a society can work if you wash forgiveness out. But now we've made it worse, because we can't forget. Everything's been recorded by social media. So if forgiveness has gone, then perhaps you've got the hope that people might forget. Well that's gone as well now.

####the new religion of social justice, intersectionality etc.
50:10
Kisin: That's why forgiveness is probably the crucial thing right now because, as you say, things can't be forgotten. But also you touched on religion, and I am someone who is not, I'm a non-believer, but I can't help but think that what we've created as a society when we killed God, is a vacuum that inevitably has to be filled. And when it gets filled, it gets filled by a new religion, which is what social justice and intersectionality and all of that now is. They have priests. They have inquisitions. The only thing they don't have in that religion, is redemption and forgiveness. (right) And that is a pretty horrible religion. Can you imagine a religion with no forgiveness and redemption. Where you stray once and you're forever tormented in hell, or in living hell. It's not gonna work. It's not sustainable.

And forgiveness is the crucial thing. Which is why I'm always encouraged when I see politicians, you know, Andrew Yang ). I see him trying to introduce some of that.

There was a guy who said some racist things on a podcast who'd got hired for a comedy program, and then got fired, and Andrew Yang came out — and it was racism about Chinese people — and said: 'well I forgive him. You know people make mistakes.' that's reassuring to me. We need more of that, but it's got to be a shift that happens at the level of society. If we don't have forgiveness, I don't understand how this worlds are gonna work. I honestly don't.

51:51
Anderson: absolutely concur with you. I really do. I think it's an incredibly important matter that we're only now starting to think about. If we can't forgive, we can't move on. What's more we ro our society of many good and capable people who are judged for something they said in a moment of anger, or a lapse of judgment 20 or 30 years before. That's absurd! The other absurdity is that it locks us into a view that you can't grow. You can't become an adult. And I noticed now, that we seem to think well adults have made a complete mess of the world and we ought to hand it over to the children. Some academics have been putting forward the idea that we ought to give children as young as six the vote. It's obviously wiser than adults, who have ruined everything. So you know, we've we've gone mad.

But thank you for unpacking so much. The value of your perspectives I think are enormous, because, as is so often the case, you're able to look at it all from a perspective of somebody who's been, if you like locked into a darker side.

Kisin: Well, I hope you keep doing what you're doing. It's very important. And I'm gonna keep doing what I'm doing and, no, all it takes, to make the world a slightly better place is enough people who are doing the right thing. Which is that what I think you're doing.

Anderson: Thank you very much. I hope you come to Australia.

Kisin: Thanks so much.

 

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