When Gender Ideology Became Law I Kathleen Stock and Mary Harrington — Transcript

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1. 0:00When you say that the idea that men can be  women are still around, I think on some level,
2. 0:05yes, it'll always be around because there'll  always be people that want to play around with
3. 0:10those concepts, but um they don't have the  cultural dominance they did. Most of us who
4. 0:15aren't completely literal minded and black  and white can play around with language all
5. 0:19the time and know we could just make little  micro games up between us and we both know
6. 0:23immediately what we're talking about. We could  play those games for a bit and then certain
7. 0:27subcultures can play certain games. So all of  that's going to carry on. But um the problem
8. 0:33with the trans activist stuff was that sort of  what should have stayed in the realm of play got
9. 0:37literalized got translated into pharmaceuticals  and surgeries and politics and taken as if it
10. 0:48as if it was a sort of scientific discourse.  And that's um that should never have happened.
11. 0:57Welcome to Socrates Dialogues. I'm Mary  Harrington. Today I have the immense privilege
12. 1:02of being joined by Kathleen Stock who is one of  the original voices of clarity and reason in a
13. 1:08very chaotic and confusing late 2010s in British  politics at a point where culture really was at
14. 1:17a hinge moment um in trying to get to grips  with what is real, what is important, what is
15. 1:23meaningful and Kathleen was right at the forefront  of all of that um in some ways which I hope we can
16. 1:28explore today. Kathleen, welcome and thank you for  coming. Thank you for having me, Mary. That's very
17. 1:32kind. So, I mean, we've we've known each other for  a while, but you you started life as a you know,
18. 1:39I mean, if imagine the movie trope, you know, with  the record scratch moment one, you know, there you
19. 1:43are minding your own business as a mildmannered,  unassuming University of Sussex professor of
20. 1:48what? Of philosophy. It was aesthetics. It was  philosophy of fiction and imagination which got
21. 1:53badged as aesthetics, but it wasn't really about  art. It was about um the mind. That's right. So
22. 1:58your the the philosophy of fiction and what it  what it what it means to to write or create nor
23. 2:02engage with fiction. Yeah. What what is fiction?  What is belief? Um and relationship to imagination
24. 2:11as well. Yeah. Record scratch moment. There was  well there was a going along with a mildmannered
25. 2:17metaphor. It's really going to a phone box  and I come out a culture warrior. Um but yeah,
26. 2:22I absolutely had no um no activist side to me. no  public facing side to me at all, but I did write a
27. 2:31blog post that I self-published on Medium um about  the Gender Recognition Act and that's my record
28. 2:38scratch moment, I guess. And then what happened  when you published that? What did it say? Cuz I
29. 2:43mean this is it feels like a lot has happened  since then, has it? So unbelievably anodine.
30. 2:48It was like we should be able to ask questions. I  didn't even answer the questions about whether uh
31. 2:53so this was in response to the gender recognition  act which was coming down the changes to the
32. 2:57gender recognition act that were coming down the  pipes looked like everyone all political parties
33. 3:02as you know were again were for it sorry and um I  just said we need to raise questions about whether
34. 3:11making self ID in um gender identity uh relevant  to women's spaces and resources was a good idea
35. 3:22and we need to in order to do that we needed to be  able to question whether trans women were in fact
36. 3:27women but I didn't pronounce and I was very very  careful to articulate it in a way that I mean I
37. 3:33think I developed all these weird concantenations  like um women who are not trans women hyphenated
38. 3:41and stuff like that just to try and uh make  it a little bit soft yeah I know soon enough
39. 3:48I realized that's not going to work. Um, these  people didn't want to listen to me anyway. So,
40. 3:53yeah, all I did was publish that and then there  was a sort of local big fuss in philosophy that
41. 3:58then kind of then I wrote another one. Then  people started attacking me. So, from then on
42. 4:02it was a kind of a certain group would attack me  that was quite small. I would write a response,
43. 4:08a bigger group would attack me, I would write  a response. and the the group attacking me just
44. 4:12got bigger and bigger and my uh sort of notoriety  went from philosophy to academia to the public,
45. 4:19you know, that sort of thing. Before you knew  it, when when was this? Um it's 2018. 2018. Yeah,
46. 4:24that that sounds that feels about right. I mean,  I I came to the the great question of whether or
47. 4:30not men can be women um via Mumsnet, I think.  And there was a point actually early on in that
48. 4:36whole argument I remember arguing viciferously for  the other side in about Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure.
49. 4:41Right. I was a fully paid I know your past your  checkered past I think a little bit but that's
50. 4:46right. I have a I I have a I have a a checkered  history with many tours and detours and by and
51. 4:52in in the late in the late u I was still a fully  paid up butlerite and was arguing passionately for
52. 4:59right but really because I never really thought  about the question as it applied to men. I'd only
53. 5:04ever the only trans people I'd ever encountered  had been women and the the the the safeguarding
54. 5:09bluntly the safeguarding issues had simply never  occurred to me. Yeah. Um, and from from the
55. 5:14perspective of uh transidentified lesbians as they  generally are, it seemed it seemed to me I could
56. 5:20there just wasn't really an issue and you know we  could sort of all we could all make believe and be
57. 5:25nice about it and it wasn't you know and I and I  remember arguing that passionately on Mumsnet in
58. 5:30sort of late late or 2010 or thereabouts and and  being yelled at by the radical feminists who were
59. 5:35already very well um organized and mobilized  and articulated in their in their views.
60. 5:42Yes. And and a boil under the surface on Mumsnet.  Um and by by degrees over the course of the tens,
61. 5:49I I sort of came came to think that no, actually  there was a bit more to the question than that.
62. 5:53And I suppose we sort of converged on it from  opposite directions. What do you think it was
63. 5:57about the 2010s that made made this suddenly such  a burning issue? Um I think um popular feminism by
64. 6:08which I mean sort of the approved version amongst  young women um had got a lot of energy. There
65. 6:18seemed to be a succession of big moments um in in  the UK. These were these included um the everyday
66. 6:27sexism website with Laura Bates. I remember that.  Yeah. uh Caroline Cria Perez getting someone on a
67. 6:35bank note, a woman on a bank note. I've forgotten  to marry Cury or someone like that. Um there just
68. 6:39these sort of big and then there was the the me  too stuff and the [ __ ] hat thing and the women's
69. 6:44march and all of that just kind of intersectionals  happened. Well, intersectional was I mean all of
70. 6:50the theory had been in so far as you can call  it theory had been laid down for decades. I mean
71. 6:55academics had been plugging away at that setting  up a structure but nobody took it particularly
72. 7:02seriously I think apart from gender studies  departments and I suppose it was avon guard
73. 7:06as well in academia so women's studies departments  were becoming gender studies departments under the
74. 7:11influence of Butler which was sort of um spreading  out across like a ripples across a pond but um but
75. 7:20why you know why that hooked up with this energy  around was female. Yeah. The internet. Tumblr
76. 7:28seems to have I mean Mumsnet radicalized one one  corner of the of the population. Tumblr certainly
77. 7:34some Tumblr did something in it seems to have been  a a vector for the greater world. So there's lots
78. 7:40of different vectors. One of them is the kind  of um this kind of activist energy looking for
79. 7:46a new cause and also um I mean I suppose it had  so much success that feminist inverted commas
80. 7:56background of empowerment and so on for for women  that there probably had to be a kind of because
81. 8:04it's always the same in women's movements a sort  of correction towards guilt and self-abasement
82. 8:07immediately afterwards and you know it was very  effectively turned turned immediately into, oh my
83. 8:12god, we are overprivileged. Uh, we need to abase  ourselves before this new set of ideas. But at the
84. 8:19same time, Tumblr had been going for a while with  kids trying out new identities on the internet,
85. 8:24obviously completely unrestrained by reality or  having to get jobs or anything and and driven
86. 8:30by all the social dynamics that tend to energize  teenagers. And so Tumblr, as Angela Nagel points
87. 8:37out very well, Tumblr was the kind of other  side of 4chan. And that's where all the girls
88. 8:42were getting kind into hyper female behaviors.  Um, sort of distorted, amplified by not having
89. 8:52connection to reality, not all going on virtually.  So all of these things then sort of mashed up. Um,
90. 8:58but you know, I'm sure there's other things too.  To be honest, I don't think about this that much
91. 9:02anymore. I used to have lots of theories and I now  I can't even remember my own theories. It feels It
92. 9:07weirdly feels like a long time ago, doesn't it?  I mean, I suppose, you know, 2018 was I mean,
93. 9:12it's not quite a decade. Oh, yeah. It feels ago.  It feels like the culture's changed so much since
94. 9:17then. I think it's it has. Well, certainly  for me, I mean this is just bio biographical,
95. 9:24but um I just was in that space for so long  thinking about all that stuff for so long I
96. 9:30just completely ran out of energy and also took a  lot as we all know or some people know took a lot
97. 9:36of flack for it and it just became was very  particularly costly for you I think. Yeah,
98. 9:40I mean costly. There were benefits, too, but it  definitely was grueling. And um and I didn't want
99. 9:47the rest of my life to be defined by my thinking  about those things when they're so boring. I mean,
100. 9:53it's it's kind of boring to be pointing out  reality that most people still really on
101. 10:00some level understand perfectly well, but they've  just all been pretending they didn't for a while.
102. 10:04um you're not really explaining anything they  didn't know, but you're trying to find a a sort
103. 10:08of academically respectable way for them to come  back. But there is something really crazymaking,
104. 10:14isn't there, about feeling like being feeling  obliged, sort of socially pressured to make
105. 10:18the academic case for something which is just  obviously true. Oh, there's something completely
106. 10:23insane, very crazy making. And of course it  puts you in this terrible position where for for
107. 10:29most people who are still sane, not much on the  internet and don't really know what's going on,
108. 10:33like why are you bothering with this stuff? Why?  Because this is so intellectually impoverished.
109. 10:38You're wasting your life explaining there's two  sexes. Um, and that has social consequences.
110. 10:44And of course, this is never going to come to  anything. And of course, they in a way they were
111. 10:47sort of right. But but it, you know, well, you say  they had a jolly good go. there there are plenty
112. 10:53of places in the world where still still you know  that that that is now that's now the law. Yeah.
113. 10:58But I just in some part of me thinks I suppose I  go back and forth on this. Some part of me thinks
114. 11:04it was always going to burn itself out. But then  I think well if it people like us hadn't stood
115. 11:08up and said anything it wouldn't have done. So I  don't know. But it's just so stupid and so counter
116. 11:14counter um to the way reality is. And it's so bad  for people who get caught up in it. so manifestly
117. 11:21bad to their flourishing, not in difficult  to detect ways, but in absolutely obvious
118. 11:26ways that manifest themselves in their physical  well-being and their mental health. Um, you know,
119. 11:32how could that carry on for decades? It just  couldn't, it seems to me. Yeah. But then again,
120. 11:38if we hadn't fought it, who knows where we'd be?  I just don't know about that. Yeah. So gender but
121. 11:44but I mean it was a it was a very serious and  very meaningful and as you say completely cross
122. 11:48party push in in the 2018s which feels a million  miles away now like maybe we did win this one but
123. 11:54I I you know I mean you know they only have to  win once it feels like sometime we we have but
124. 11:58they we we didn't lose that time you know gender  selfidentification didn't become law at least not
125. 12:03in not in the United Kingdom England and I think  that's because if you can bear to keep pointing
126. 12:12out the obvious downsides over and over and  over and over again to people and explaining
127. 12:18it. Get past all the baffling language and the  the claims of victimhood and all the rest of
128. 12:25it and just keep explaining it. No one no one  sensible could possibly disagree with you. It
129. 12:29felt significant to me that it was it really was  it was predominantly mothers and lesbians who led
130. 12:35the charge and eventually everybody else accepted  it. But I think those are those are two groups
131. 12:40of women for whom it is particularly salient as  an issue. Your sex is um it really is it's it's
132. 12:47more obvious to you for you know for different  reasons that that sex actually really does matter.
133. 12:52I think yes that's true. I also think that at  that point in the 2010s any man who might have
134. 12:58had an opinion about it was absolutely cowed  into silence by the feminist stuff I was just
135. 13:04talking about sit down stay in your lane. you  know, we're doing this on our own. And also the
136. 13:11other thing is it was despite the popular idea  that this was spearheaded by men, it was I mean
137. 13:18there were some influential men in transactivism.  There still are. Uh and I mean men in dresses,
138. 13:26but they're still men. But um but it's the most  people sort of operationalizing all the ideas were
139. 13:32women and most people doing all the counseling  were women. Mhm. Um, so it sort of women against
140. 13:37women kind of thing going on and it's difficult  for men at the best of times to get involved in
141. 13:42that. Imagine most of most would want to run in  the direction of away. But what I what I found
142. 13:48consistently interesting and actually still find  interesting um even I mean these are all these are
143. 13:52all battles which you know god willing are now  water under the bridge and you know we're not
144. 13:57going to have to keep let's let's hope we don't  have to keep relitigating those. But the the the
145. 14:02underlying argument it it seems to me has not gone  away that there were two if you like two competing
146. 14:07accounts of reality in in the question you know  can men be women um there are and and somehow
147. 14:14you know the the the the the issue was fought  tactically on the question of gender identity but
148. 14:20in a sense it I don't know I don't know if it's  been won um substantively in the sense that those
149. 14:26two those two competing accounts of reality are  still there and they're still duking it that and
150. 14:31I suppose I would I car you know I I don't want to  make it as reductive as you know nominalism versus
151. 14:37um something something more scholastic but you  know there's a there's a constructivist view of
152. 14:43reality that says you know our our ideas are part  of what makes a thing a thing and then there's
153. 14:48there's another view which says no actually things  have a have a have a reality in their own right I
154. 14:53mean there's you're the philosopher so perhaps  you can perhaps you can provide the technical
155. 14:56terms well I mean there's a different uh position  from either of those or I think it is which says
156. 15:03look reality is reality the words don't change the  things at least not in every realm there are some
157. 15:12realms like finance and things like where over  time so there's clear social construction but
158. 15:18um it's we've got lots of different words to  describe the same set of facts and some of them
159. 15:26are more sort of playful some of them involve  inolve pretense, some of them involve fictions,
160. 15:32uh, useful fictions, and we do it all the time.  And we cycle between different vocabularies and
161. 15:37discourses all the time. Like we can, so there's  one way, a very sort of rigid way to say those two
162. 15:43discourses you just mentioned, they're completely  at odds with each other, and you have to pick a
163. 15:47team. But no, you like we we well most of us  who aren't completely literal minded and black
164. 15:54and white can play around with language all the  time and know we can just make little micro games
165. 15:58up between us and we both know immediately what  we're talking about. We could play those games for
166. 16:02a bit. Um and then certain subcultures can play  certain games. So all of that's going to carry on.
167. 16:09But um the problem with the trans activist stuff  was that a sort of what should have stayed in the
168. 16:15realm of play and a m a subculture of um I mean  it was never very useful got literalized got
169. 16:22translated into pharmaceuticals and surgeries and  politics and taken as if it as if it was a sort
170. 16:32of scientific discourse and that's um that should  never have happened. Uh but so when you say that
171. 16:41the idea that men can be women is still around.  I think on some level yes it'll always be around
172. 16:48because we'll all there will always be people  that want to play around with those concepts but
173. 16:52um they don't have the cultural dominance they  did. I can't see of course anything can happen
174. 16:59but I there's just not enough there's not the  energy behind that stuff anymore. energ is
175. 17:04going in different directions now and they're  not that interested in that one. I don't think
176. 17:11I I have I hosted on my Substack a fun piece from  a young guy who's he's not a he's not as gender
177. 17:18critical as perhaps you or I but he took he took  as a met he's he's sort of one of these Americans
178. 17:24who's ethnically ambiguous. has his ancestry is  from all over the place and and he gets mistaken
179. 17:29for various different different ethnicities and  he wrote actually an actually very playful article
180. 17:33saying well why can't we play with race which  I mean is a fairly provocative thing to say in
181. 17:38the context of American race politics but he he  extended that to gender as well to say you know
182. 17:43why can't why can't we play in the space of you  know the androgene and the all all these these
183. 17:49different ways you can sort of push the envelope  of normative genders without having to reify it.
184. 17:54You can play as long as you know it's play,  I think. I mean, I'm not one of those people
185. 17:59that's always, you know, correcting uh  misgendering wherever I find it. I mean,
186. 18:06misgendering in the um correcting in in the  correct Sorry. Yes. I don't know. Misgendering
187. 18:12as in what the transactivists would call mis No,  I can't even work out my own. Which one is the
188. 18:17misgendering? which one is I'm not going around  going it's a man all the time when it is uh even
189. 18:24though I know it's a man but um I think it just  we can play it's fine but like there is something
190. 18:31decadent about play when it becomes the central  concern of the establishment and for a while that
191. 18:38seemed to be there's something deeply frivolous  about spending a lot of time political energy on
192. 18:45gender just so why do you think that happened, you  know, cuz I think I think you're right, you know,
193. 18:50if we sort of zoom out from from the the either  the metaphysics of um crossdressing or, you know,
194. 18:57the the philosophy of physics of crossing to  coin a phrase. Um I mean there it does have
195. 19:05a metaphysics, but just swerve that. Everything's  got a metaphysics. I know it's it's the thankfully
196. 19:13my job is also my hobby. Yeah. Um, which is not  crossdressing my hobby, just to be clear. Um,
197. 19:19but you know, so zoom zooming out, you know,  I think you're right that there's some there's
198. 19:24something there's a sort of it's it's as though  it was a displacement activity. It was a total
199. 19:28it was a self- reggarding virtue signaling  is the right term. It was a luxury belief
200. 19:35um status acrewing exercise by people. you know  at the risk of being cryptomarxist do you think
201. 19:41it makes sense makes more sense in the context of  the crash and everything which has come since the
202. 19:46crash why I mean in the you know if you if you  want to talk you know thinking about I think you
203. 19:51know the the crash kind of broke everything um  in ways which I think is are still broke I mean
204. 19:56certainly certainly everything has been broken  in Britain pretty much since 2008 at a very deep
205. 20:00level that I think is still working itself out  um the economy came came unmed from reality in a
206. 20:06very fundamental way with with the bank bailout um  and you know and quantitative easing hasn't really
207. 20:12stopped since then and there's a there's a sort  of coming away from reality of the entire money
208. 20:16system and you know is could you make the case  that the whole that gender became such a sort of
209. 20:21fixation because there's a kind of viar situation  brewing you could I wouldn't uh but that's because
210. 20:27I just don't think like that but what I would say  sorry I just don't but one thing I would say is
211. 20:34for me it's and you can connect you can explain  the economic substructure But um I I think it's
212. 20:40of a piece with the general turn to nostalgia  that seems to be around that like um interesting.
213. 20:47basically what the ma the the straight white  university educated person um is is grew up in
214. 20:59a time where there was a lot of status attached to  act uh LGBT activism and somehow through the 90s
215. 21:07that narrative got absolutely embedded that you  know there'd been AIDS there had been section 28
216. 21:15um there had been uh a noble correction of  homophobia um in the law and things like that. So,
217. 21:24and that people just want to get back to that, you  know, that's that I think that's what they um you
218. 21:31know, the way they go on about this is just like  Stonewall. It's actually a nostalgia for something
219. 21:36they don't even have because they usually they  by Stonewall they mean what happened in New York,
220. 21:42not what happens in um London. But um yeah, I  think it's just playing the hits of the '9s in
221. 21:51a different key. That's what I think it is. And I  know people have made the case that Stonewall the
222. 21:57organization I mean the British act gay gay and  LGBT now now also querty++ organization sort of
223. 22:05ran out of things to do after gay marriage. Yes.  Um and and did the sums and think okay we need a
224. 22:12new source of we need we need something new to  fund raise on. Yeah. Yeah. because they were
225. 22:15they had access to every politician in Britain.  They had loads and loads of money. Um they had
226. 22:21all these staff networks about every blue chip and  public sector organization. They what they weren't
227. 22:27going to just roll that all back. They had they  had needed a new project. They also were run by
228. 22:33idiots to be honest. I mean a lot of this is  you can't underestimate how stupid the people
229. 22:38that sort of put this in. They had absolutely  no idea what they were doing. I've heard people
230. 22:45report secondhand conversations with Ruth Hunt  who was in charge of Stonewall when they made
231. 22:50they added the tea to their ambitions um and  decided to go for self ID and everything else that
232. 22:56followed and she would say things like you know  we should be giving puberty blockers to children
233. 23:04um because like imagine if one of those children  who didn't get it grew up to be in the wrong
234. 23:10body you know how awful would that be and that's  supposed to the sort of intuition pump that moves
235. 23:16us to give puberty blockers just to like huge  numbers of children just in case one of those
236. 23:21children who hadn't got them would have ended  up right you know in a great big postpubescent
237. 23:27body they didn't want and then it just didn't  seem to occur to her by the sound of it what
238. 23:31happens to all the false positives on your story  you know they just they they were so mired and
239. 23:38like I say completely dafted uh believing several  impossible things before breakfast just to keep
240. 23:46the money going. Basically, I remember being very  struck um over the over the course of all the the
241. 23:52interminable internet battles and the all the the  ramifying discourse about this stuff. You know,
242. 23:57some of some of what emerged about how Stonewall  operates um or how the the Stonewall certification
243. 24:02scheme operates or I don't know if it still does  the the the Stonewall diversity champions I think
244. 24:08it's called. There was that and then there's a  workplace scheme as well. That's right. That's
245. 24:11right. which are these certification schemes  for anyone who's not familiar with this.
246. 24:16um whereby you you sign up to the scheme, you give  Stonewall fids of money obviously that's and then
247. 24:20they come in and do training courses for you and  um and and you you basically agree to entrench
248. 24:26their um to to Kathleen and me completely  bonkers um prescriptions like you know you
249. 24:32must you must erase every mention of of sex any  sex specific reference to anything um including
250. 24:38in in your your HR policies on pregnancy for  example and you're not and you're not allowed
251. 24:44single sex but and anything. And all of all of  these things are forbidden. You must basically
252. 24:48gender neutralize everything. And the more the  more extreme you you are about this and the more
253. 24:52you escalate every year. The the the more the more  you can compete in their league table for the most
254. 24:58the most unhingedly rainbowcoded organization.  And and companies were companies were very into
255. 25:03this for a long time. It seems to have sort of  gone out of fashion mercifully slightly. Well,
256. 25:08totally. I mean, Stonewall is just a shell of  itself now. Um but but at the time, yes. I mean in
257. 25:14my former institution like as in many universities  they would say the management would say when they
258. 25:22came like 105th on the workplace rankings they'd  be like we will learn from this it is our aim as
259. 25:28part of our five-year plan they built it in  we will be in the top 25 and then um they it
260. 25:34was explicitly mentioned as as a goal that they  were going to get and of course this meant that
261. 25:39Stonewall would mark their homework on everything  from sports policies, changing room policies,
262. 25:46privacy policies, and also then al a bunch of  secondary policies about hate crimes, transphobia,
263. 25:53um, and curriculum stuff as well. So, yeah, it was  a and it that's it was such a big work project.
264. 26:00You can see like they didn't have much else  to do and now they had to erase mention of the
265. 26:04female sex across every institution in Britain.  That's like a massive job. So, but it's also very
266. 26:10simple. It's like it's not you don't need to be  a genius to work out. You can be like, "Oh yeah,
267. 26:15there's sex in this domain and there's sex in this  domain. There's this sex in this domain." Right?
268. 26:20Okay. We're going to get rid of all that. It's  quite simple. And well, when you when you you step
269. 26:25back and you you you think about what's going on  there that people are sort of outsourcing the the
270. 26:30entire moral moral and you know large chunks of  the disciplinary framework of their organization
271. 26:35and you know sometimes completely reorienting  their corporate or institution or is onetra around
272. 26:40what is what is fundament you know a company  which is subsisting you I mean it's not it's not
273. 26:44officially a commercial enterprise but people  are earning money you know people are taking
274. 26:49respectable salaries they've got these enormous  enormous coffers of money which come you're paying
275. 26:54essentially to be given I mean it's it people have  made the parallel with the sale of indulgences at
276. 26:59the end of the middle ages and I think it feels it  feels apt actually yes but you've got to remember
277. 27:03the university sector was doing it because they  thought students wanted it and they were desperate
278. 27:07for the student fees and that's a important part  of every discussion about whatever universities
279. 27:13do is in a sense it's not stupid to go along  with this massive social trend um or at least
280. 27:19certainly not to stand against it uh when all your  competitors are doing it and this would be a way
281. 27:26of branding yourself uh in a way that attracted  students or you hope it would certainly and it got
282. 27:31to a point where so many universities were already  signed up that anyone who wasn't would just look
283. 27:35like a completely out of touch antid-dolivian uh  possibly transphobic organization so um you know
284. 27:42it just got an it got a life of its own which as  to repeat I don't think is there anymore I think
285. 27:48there'll be little pockets of resistance there'll  be really annoying activists in each university
286. 27:52But everyone will be now thoroughly sick of the  whole thing and just wish it would go away. I
287. 27:55think let's hope so. So, do you think that's  really just a matter of fashion? It's a fun.
288. 28:01I mean, in that case, did we win? Did the turfs  win? Um, I mean, I think we did. I'm not saying
289. 28:08like obviously battles are this battle may never  be over or at least who knows if we're in a a
290. 28:14war and this is just one battle and there'll be  another one like the hundred years war, there'll
291. 28:19be another one in 25 years or something. I mean,  for for example, when I was I was preparing for
292. 28:23this conversation and thinking about what I what  I wanted to talk about with you, I looked up I
293. 28:26looked you up on Wikipedia just to see just to see  what the Wikipedia I never do that. No, no, no,
294. 28:31no. I don't look myself up either on principle.  You know, this is a very unwise thing to do. But I
295. 28:35noticed just how just how larded the whole article  is with references to cis women and you and at
296. 28:42one point it's you know one one of one of Dr.  Stock's beliefs is that sex is binary which which
297. 28:48a viewpoint which is disputed by some scientific  theories you know footnote footnote footnote and
298. 28:53I'm thinking you know this is you know it's it  hasn't hasn't gone away or at least amongst the
299. 28:59subset of people who are obsessively boring people  that upset sorry no offense to any listeners but
300. 29:04you know the people that up update Wikipedia  that's not a that's a quite a niche subculture
301. 29:10I think um just to say that that whole Wikipedia  set page was set up originally by hostile people
302. 29:17who originally put my age in as like 69 and quite  a lot of people thought I was very old and they
303. 29:22thought I look quite good for my age for I look  quite long I mean if that's true I want to know
304. 29:25what what moisturizer you use yeah well no I'm not  but um no I mean so I think that yes it's it's not
305. 29:33coming at us like it was in this massive wave  with all parties signed up to it the BBC signed
306. 29:39up to it the Guardian signed up to it basically  there are pockets where Estab establishment
307. 29:44organizations are trying to find a way out from  the mess they've got themselves into, but they
308. 29:49recognize it's a mess where they didn't even  see it before. They were completely blind. One
309. 29:53obvious place where there's still huge problems  is the puberty blocker trial, which is still going
310. 29:59ahead run by King's College. Um, that shouldn't  be happening. I mean, there's just no rationale
311. 30:05for it. And there is so there's obvious activists  powerful in the NHS and in the Labour party and in
312. 30:12the Labour party and in the Guardian and at the  BBC but there are other people who are prepared
313. 30:18to come up against them and that was just not the  case back then and I think that and also the law
314. 30:23is now on our side in it won't affect the puberty  blocker trial but the law in terms of women's
315. 30:28spaces and resources is now on our side thanks  to the Supreme Court decision in our favor. So,
316. 30:34um I just can't see a world in which it's going to  get worse. I can see where there'll be stasis for
317. 30:40a while in certain areas and gradually over time.  Yes. And and as you say, the fashion is changing.
318. 30:48The Gen Z are not really into it in the same way.  So when it'll change, I think I think we, you
319. 30:54know, we had to push back really, really, really  hard and there's still great organizations in the
320. 30:59UK like Sex Matters who are just plugging away at  like every single manifestation of trans activism
321. 31:06that's still out there. They are it's like  whack-a-ole. Um, but they're not popping up as
322. 31:12often. Mhm. Mhm. And the University of Sussex was  fined 500 Was it £585,000 for I don't remember. It
323. 31:21was it was it was a lot. It was but then but then  it was but they deserved it. Yeah. But then but
324. 31:26then they they repealed and and now they're not  finding that anymore. So um but that's uh but that
325. 31:31was that was brutalizing. I mean I I was nowhere  near what happened to you. But it it was it was
326. 31:36clear even as an outsider that that that must  have been a horrendous atmosphere to have been in.
327. 31:42It was a horrendous. So the most I don't want  to retraumatize the most. You don't want to
328. 31:48go there then. The most prominent sort of part  of it was right at the end when I just decided
329. 31:53I've had enough and there was like protesters  coming to campus and stuff like that. But over
330. 31:58several years, I had been basically very isolated  psychologically and in every other way and treated
331. 32:09pretty much like a sort of embarrassment that we  have to put up with through gritted teeth. But it
332. 32:16was obvious the vibes from people that, you know,  I otherwise liked and respected that they just
333. 32:20wish that I would just stop writing about this.  And so there was ne when anything happened to me
334. 32:26and lots of things happened to me there was never  a sense of like outrage on my behalf. It was more
335. 32:30like well you know she did ask for it this um and  nobody said that but there was just a lot of um
336. 32:39everyone just assumed you were asking for it. I  think they um yes I think there is that you know
337. 32:46why did she keep going if she didn't like it so  much? Why did she keep going? She's still talking
338. 32:49isn't she? you know, all that stuff that people  say defensively and there's a there's a sense in
339. 32:53that's still alive and well. I seem to remember  there was a there was a young woman recently
340. 32:56at Cambridge who's now become the next victim,  you know, in the great circle of cancellation.
341. 33:01Possession of your book, in fact, was the  approximate cause of her being cancelled. Yes. Um
342. 33:09I mean, somebody spotted it. It was under her bed.  I think it was, you know, it really wasn't. It
343. 33:14wasn't like she glued it to her door or something  like that. Even worse, she's got something to
344. 33:18hide. She knows that's bad. It was It was some,  you know, she just like been kicked under the bed.
345. 33:23Yeah. And so much of this seems to me like girl,  what girls do, what horrible mean girls do to,
346. 33:30you know, to bully other girls. And I think that  was going on for me too. You know, that's that's a
347. 33:36dynamic that's ancient and this was just a way  in which you can in a Cambridge college for a
348. 33:43first year to basically be completely ostracized  by all the women in her college. Um, and most of
349. 33:50them will be just going along with it because they  don't want to be bullied as well. But, you know,
350. 33:55we know what that is. That's not new. No, but  it's it sort of raises the question, you know,
351. 34:02what what if anything what what if anything could  or should be done about, you know, is it the place
352. 34:06of a university to intervene when something like  that happens? I think I mean no intervene depends
353. 34:11what you mean of um and I don't I don't know about  too much about that case but no but generally
354. 34:17speaking if it it was the case for me and it it  would be the case for her that if um the powers
355. 34:25that be the dons the lecturers from the top down  came out and said to all students in all possible
356. 34:34circumstances we don't do that here we don't you  know um ostracize people for philosophical beliefs
357. 34:40that they hold. Uh and actually not just that, but  the gender critical ones amongst them should say
358. 34:47so because that's the thing. Quite a lot of people  do agree with us but don't say so. That's right.
359. 34:51And if they all did say so to be the Gerardian  scapegoat. Exactly. But if they all did it at
360. 34:56the same time, like I had a friend, a philosopher  friend ages years ago who said, "Why don't we just
361. 35:00all get badges and say I believe in two sexes or  whatever it was and then we'll all put them on at
362. 35:05the same time." I was like, "Okay, good. Typical  philosophers's idea. This is never going to work."
363. 35:12I mean, on on this on the the the young woman in  question seems to have been made made of fairly
364. 35:16stern stuff. You know, she's doubled and tripled  down. Started the Cambridge Society for Women.
365. 35:21Yes. And I'm sure that she's probably ultimately  glad this happened to her because it does teach
366. 35:28you lots and lots of things and it you know, your  character is forged in in fire. I mean, is Yeah.
367. 35:33A character forming experience. It is. It really  describes. I mean, do do you think what happened
368. 35:39to you was character forming? Yes, definitely.  Oh, yes. I mean, I I'm not I'm not scar Well,
369. 35:47if I am scarred, fine. They've healed, you know.  I mean, I've learned a lot. I've confirmed a lot
370. 35:53of thoughts I had about people in a good way and a  bad way. And I wasn't completely alone. You know,
371. 36:00people some people came to to help and they were  great, you know. What do you think the prognosis
372. 36:06is for academia in general? Because I mean it  seems to me that there's a I mean you've spoken
373. 36:10about the commercial incentives for universities  to towards coddling and towards adopting you
374. 36:16know moral fashions and you know the the sense in  which they're sort of they're providing a consumer
375. 36:22service which seems inimicable with im enimical to  the academic project at least conceived of as a at
376. 36:28a in a more classical sense. You know, is there  is there anywhere in the academy for disagreeable
377. 36:33nerds anymore? I don't mean disagreeable as in  unpleasant. I mean disagreeable as in not not not
378. 36:38inclined to go along with the with consensus just  because. Yes, I think so. I think we should never
379. 36:44I've been a strong critic of many universities  including my former institution, but most students
380. 36:52are still like they always were and they were  right up until the moment I left. I'm pretty sure
381. 36:56that's still true. Um, there are people having  robust disagreements in philosophy classes at the
382. 37:03moment, although possibly not about gender because  I do think that's become so difficult and maybe
383. 37:08not about race, stuff like that. But, but if it's  abstract enough and doesn't have any real world
384. 37:13consequences or even something like abortion, I  think there's probably still some room for people
385. 37:18to disagree in universities. Um, the coddling  thing, I mean, it's again, take it back to fees.
386. 37:26Universities don't know what they're supposed to  be doing. Are they in locop parententis? Because a
387. 37:30lot of parents seem to think they are. Um parents  come to the open days with their their their
388. 37:36prospective students now, which never happened  for me. Um whenever there's a terrible student
389. 37:41suicide, the coroner will always criticize the  university for not doing enough to look after
390. 37:46or quite often anyway. And then the universities  absolutely panic and try and chuck loads of mental
391. 37:51health stuff. At odds with the idea of votes at  16, don't you think? Yes. Yeah. absolutely doesn't
392. 37:56fit with you know nothing fits together in this  world but it is but the money imperative to get
393. 38:02the students in and therefore persuade the parents  that this is a safe place um and especially in
394. 38:07smaller universities which will make a lot of  their sort of community feeling and anywhere
395. 38:14where there's an emphasis on social cohesion it's  there'll be ostracism of people who don't go along
396. 38:19particularly amongst young people um the equality  fact I mean I I'm not getting into a sort of large
397. 38:26scale discussion about that but the reasonable  adjustment thing as it as it manifests itself in
398. 38:33universities means that hardly anyone um ever does  a an exam you know it's all like open book or else
399. 38:42it's uh online or else it's dissertation work they  get extra you know I've said this a million times
400. 38:49but there's not enough rooms to give for exams  anymore more because so many people need their own
401. 38:56room and their own scribe and their own support  network and all the rest of it. And that's because
402. 39:01universities understand reasonable adjustments  very liberally. Um, when I were a class,
403. 39:06it was just a big room with somebody somebody  sat at the back and you had three hours. It
404. 39:10happens in engineering and things like that. But  in in the humanities, it's just al I mean it's
405. 39:16it's a perfect storm because obviously AI means  that a lot of them are cheating and now we can't
406. 39:20tell because we can't get them back in the room to  give them exams because they've all got reasonable
407. 39:23adjustments for 40% of students or something like  that. Ridiculous. in some universities have a have
408. 39:29a disability which is either autism, depression,  anxiety, um or something like that. So, it's a
409. 39:36they're in a terrible mess. They can't get out of  it. They think, you know, they're legally obliged
410. 39:41to do these things. Some of them they think they  are and they're very very bad for the students.
411. 39:45What do you think AI is going to How do you see  that playing out? This is something they can't
412. 39:50eradicate cheating now. They just can't do it. So  I mean presumably the end point of that is either
413. 39:54that the the the degree stops meaning anything as  a certificate or the meaning of that certificate
414. 40:00changes or they go back to to viviveror defenses  the meaning well it will it won't mean anything
415. 40:07useful to employers very soon if it does  already if that hasn't already happened.
416. 40:12Yeah it's probably already happened. So and I but  what I think how I think it will play out if I
417. 40:18know universities is that they will be totally  stuck and unable to meet the challenge because
418. 40:25of trying to be all these different things at once  pastorally caring continuing to bring students in
419. 40:33uh responsive to activist concerns all of  this just and also insanely in debt. Yeah,
420. 40:39very in debt and um competing with other  universities. So trying to do whatever
421. 40:43they're doing. I mean there might be room for the  occasional university to sort of say right we're
422. 40:48going to do it completely differently. We want  all the psychologically well balanced students
423. 40:53who can handle uh a two-hour exam. We'll take  them and then the degree that comes out at the
424. 40:59end will mean something. But um it's just awful  because those of those kids who are not cheating,
425. 41:06they're now at a positive disadvantage to those  that are. I asked I have a a a second cousin,
426. 41:12I think. I think a second cousin. Anyway, she  she's she's university age and doing a degree
427. 41:16at the moment in Australia, good university, a  smart kid. I asked her, "What percentage of your
428. 41:21peers do the work?" Um and she and what percentage  just use AI? She said, "Roughly 10% do the work."
429. 41:27Yeah. Which actually tallies I remember. Very  high, but yeah. I mean low right I mean I mean
430. 41:33I walked I walked down a plane flying between the  west and east coast of America and counted who was
431. 41:38reading long form and who was just scrolling again  it was roughly 10%. So so to me that feels about
432. 41:43right and that's prop isn't that and if I remember  rightly that's roughly the the proportion of the
433. 41:47population that went to go to university. So you  know maybe maybe there's a signal there I don't
434. 41:52know we need to get those people a whole new set  of institutions. If only there was a if only there
435. 41:58was some institution where we could just all the  new ones technical colleges. I don't know. Yeah,
436. 42:03maybe there's maybe there's something there  that we could work with. I don't know. I
437. 42:06don't know. But but so so we've we've you've  moved on from from the gender wars. I mean,
438. 42:10God help you know, God willing, we've all we're  all going to be able to move on from the gender
439. 42:14wars. And your your new book out this year  is do not go gentle. You know, the the title
440. 42:19taken from Dylan Thomas's very moving poem to  his dying father. and and it's about assisted
441. 42:25assisted death or as I you know medically  medically enabled suicide or whatever you
442. 42:29want to call it. How what prompted you to engage  with that? Kind of similar in emotionally in the
443. 42:36sense that the bill arrived in the UK. There was  an attempt uh a couple of years ago suddenly a
444. 42:42private members bill arrived that was going to  put assisted death on the books in the context
445. 42:48of the NHS and it passed its second reading. it  passed its third reading and I was like what you
446. 42:56know we haven't discussed this we haven't thought  about it and I'd been keeping an eye on what was
447. 43:00happening in other countries but I didn't think  it could I thought I just thought I was had all
448. 43:05these horror stories had no relevance to us right  and then suddenly I don't know why I thought that
449. 43:09but obviously I was naive just like before um  suddenly it was there and then I just had this
450. 43:14huge personal feeling that I had to lay out a case  philosophically against it because I didn't think
451. 43:23people were paying attention to things I could  see as really salient. I thought they were. So,
452. 43:28yeah. I mean, in between those books, I've been  pissing around with ideas, but nothing got the
453. 43:35energy behind it that this did. And um and you  know, so I raced to write it. It came out just
454. 43:43before the bill ran out of time in the Lords  and now the identical bill is back. Mhm. So,
455. 43:51so what's I mean what do you see as as the central  the central issue? What's the what's what's the
456. 43:57argument? The issue isn't about assisted death as  it happens in the individual level interpersonally
457. 44:03between this person and this person. The issue  is about the systematization of killing people or
458. 44:08helping them commit suicide um in the context of  medicine um calling it a form of health care. And
459. 44:16I mean there's so many different issues there  but um it corrupts it basically corrupts the
460. 44:23concept of medicine and healthare. It uh erodess  trust in doctors. It leads to sorts of unjust or
461. 44:32just gut-wrenching terrible outcomes. And um it  also becomes a kind of economically uh attractive
462. 44:44way of dealing with suffering, old age and  illness over time. It starts off circumscribed,
463. 44:52but it's very seductive way of thinking that, you  know, slope is very slippery. Well, once you've
464. 44:56once you've already conceded that like helping  people die is actually a kindness and a really
465. 45:00good thing for suffering and also um what they  really want. So you're kind of it's just all these
466. 45:06things wrapped up in a lovely bow. Why would you  fund paliative care which is much more expensive?
467. 45:12Why wouldn't you start putting on pressure subtle  pressure on people to take this route? Um because
468. 45:18it's really nice and it's really effective. It's  a really effective way of ending suffering. So
469. 45:24um isn't it it 10% of deaths in Canada now are  not that high. I don't think I think last time
470. 45:30I looked it was like 5.7% I think something  like that. But yeah, it'll get there. I I I
471. 45:36don't see why it won't get there. But there are  I mean I I a real horror story crosses my radar
472. 45:42occasionally. This isn't something I track in  any detail. But you see cases of people where
473. 45:46where pressure has clearly been exerted or people  have opted in Canada for what they what they now
474. 45:52call quote unquote Canadian health care, which  is to say a doctor will come and bump you off
475. 45:56or even just a provider of bumping off services  will come and bump you off because they're too
476. 46:01disabled to live to be able to live a they they  they have a disability and they can't access the
477. 46:06resources they need to live comfortably. I mean,  it's not it's not a systematic decision. I mean,
478. 46:11I'm not conspiratorial about it. I don't think  that that's the idea, but I think that these cases
479. 46:15inevitably push in that direction. Yeah, exactly.  the incentives push and then you get these
480. 46:21um medics who who only ever think about what's  happening here and they think well we've got two
481. 46:27options here so I'm going to present them both  and actually your your social care package is
482. 46:32going to take 10 months and we haven't really got  enough pain controlling meds to sort that out but
483. 46:37we've got this third thing that government  has ratified that you know there's loads of
484. 46:41posters up and educational resources about and  you know have you thought about this and and I
485. 46:48think that's dystopian. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's  a there's a conscience question as well, isn't
486. 46:52there? Because I mean my my sense is that a lot  of people who work in hospice care, for example,
487. 46:56you know, are are drawn to do that, you know,  as a as a form as an expression of of faith,
488. 47:01for example, and for whom being obliged to include  um medically assisted suicide in their palative
489. 47:09care options would simply not be possible. Yes.  And um I mean some systems do have opt out like
490. 47:15the America it's coming to New York I think soon  and I looked at their law the law that's coming
491. 47:21in recently and there was an opt clear opt out  for faith-based institutions but although even
492. 47:25there the slope can be you know didn't Barack  Obama take the little sisters of the poor to
493. 47:29court for refusing to provide abortion services  it's one of those sort of cartoonish hands we're
494. 47:36the bad guys kit molt house in the UK during the  um committee stage said that basically hospices
495. 47:43implied that it might be an idea to defund  hospices who weren't on board. I mean, but
496. 47:47that's the thing. Once you present it as a matter  of justice, as choice, um, care, kindness, mercy,
497. 47:55all these good things, how can they not give it,  you know, are they monsters? That's right. What
498. 48:01kind of what kind of a monster are you refusing  to kill granny? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah,
499. 48:04this is especially potty when you know we we shut  down the entire world five years ago because you
500. 48:09know if you didn't do that then you were about to  kill granny but this is this is you can psycho and
501. 48:13analyze that swing. It's a bit like from me too to  you know uh women sit down and know your place. Uh
502. 48:22granny was everything now kill granny. I mean,  yeah, in a way, I don't know what's going on,
503. 48:29but yeah, maybe maybe there's something to  that. That's that's kind of that's kind of
504. 48:33dark. It also seems to me that there's a there's a  thematic link between between your your engagement
505. 48:40with the gender question and your engagement with  the med medical and not just because they're both
506. 48:45um corruptions. Well, really fundamentally, they  are both corruptions of healthcare in a sense.
507. 48:49Yeah, they both are absolutely and they both  have um the same kind of very impoverished
508. 48:56moral vocabulary behind them in the sense that  if you could sort of boil down you can certainly
509. 49:02boil down the defenses of assisted dying to either  freedom autonomy um I should do what I want with
510. 49:08my body even though you're asking somebody else  to do it for you so it's not really autonomy at
511. 49:11all. Yeah. I mean, if you were a real radical  autonomous, couldn't you? I mean, you know, the
512. 49:18you know, obviously though, you know, this is  not something anybody should ever No, no. I mean,
513. 49:21I've got a whole section of my book about how  there is no right to non-inference in your
514. 49:26own suicide. You know, I don't actually think I  think suicide prevention is a good thing. I think
515. 49:30uh there should be suicide watches. I think  um that we should interfere when people are
516. 49:35trying to end their lives. However, when people  go bang on about autonomy, I'm just pointing out
517. 49:41that there is an autonomous route available  to most people um even in terminal. What they
518. 49:47want is the government. But they don't want that.  They want what they want is assistance. What they
519. 49:51want is actually not doing something for yourself,  which is precisely the opposite of autonomy. So,
520. 49:55all I'm doing is pointing out the the the the  incoherency in the argument. I'm not And again,
521. 50:00there's a parallel there with the gender thing,  isn't it? Because I mean, in theory, you could,
522. 50:03you know, this is JK Rowling's point. Wear what  you like. Yeah. But you can't really like cut off
523. 50:07your own breasts and stuff like that. I suppose  I mean once once you get into the biomedical
524. 50:12interventions. Yes. But there's a there's a sense  in which the the real ask is about institutional
525. 50:17protection in both cases. But it come it's it's  presented in the same way. I should have I mean
526. 50:21in the same incoherent way. I should have the  right to do what I want with my body. It's my
527. 50:25body. It's my choice. Now please doctor would  you please do this thing and make it free? Yes.
528. 50:30Um but at the same time for the very same set of  people sometimes actually these people are very
529. 50:39vulnerable. You need to protect them. You need  compassion. They need this thing nothing to do
530. 50:44with autonomy to do with uh you know helping  them survive. I mean it's not in the case of
531. 50:49a sister death it's not helping them survive but  it's more like putting an end to this absolutely
532. 50:53awful suffering. So that's the compassion motive  and then then there's a freedom motive. But in
533. 50:57both cases they work against each other. A  very sort of odd reading of dignity as well,
534. 51:00isn't there? Oh yeah, in assisted dying.  Absolutely. I mean, dignity just reduces
535. 51:05to like being dignified or something like that. So  basically severely ill people are not dignified,
536. 51:11which I mean it seems to me that that has some  dis dystopian sort of followthroughs. you know,
537. 51:16if you if you if you the moment the moment you  propose that, you know, somebody if somebody's
538. 51:20sufficiently disabled, they lose dignity, you're  opening the door to all kinds of things which, you
539. 51:26know, we were, you know, we we said never again  about. Well, 1945 um disabled activists make this
540. 51:33point very profoundly and clearly that there's a  big crossover between terminally ill people and
541. 51:39disabled people in terms of the things that people  find undignified like uh loss of bodily functions,
542. 51:47inability to move around. Um so it's now the  the defender of assisted death will often say,
543. 51:54"Oh yes, but it's only undignified if I think  it's undignified for me. I can only make that
544. 51:58choice for me and I' I've judged that this is,  you know, I don't want to have my bodily needs,
545. 52:05my bodily fluids mopped up by somebody else,  you know, I just want to die. But I once again,
546. 52:12if that was just your decision and it wasn't  like a policy across a state, you could say that,
547. 52:19but once you've brought the policy in and you've  said this condition is un is basically if you
548. 52:24think it's undignified, it's undignified. It's  not the subjectivity that does that. It's the
549. 52:28it's the it's a agreement that that yeah there is  something a bit there's this determined blindness
550. 52:33as well isn't there to the idea that your choices  have social consequ you know there's a social
551. 52:37dimension to choices I mean this and and the  social dimension to the the institutional and the
552. 52:43medical technologies that we embrace people are  not very good at noticing I think people are very
553. 52:48committed to not noticing yeah and actually social  construction as I know you know you know it's got
554. 52:55it's become a sort of a bogey man for the right  and for realists. But actually lots of things
555. 53:02are socially constructed including feelings  um in the sense that there's a real social
556. 53:06dimension. We don't we catch feelings from our our  social context all the time and they may manifest
557. 53:12themselves in certain kinds of psychological  illness or desires or whatever and then to just
558. 53:20ignore all that fact. I mean, so you can see this  in the puberty blocker issue, you can see this in
559. 53:24assisted dying to kind of just doctors, the people  thinking about this just don't seem to notice how
560. 53:30it was produced and how it might not be produced  10 years down the line. And yet we're doing a
561. 53:34random controlled trial on these these kids to  work out what will always be the case for a child
562. 53:42of 11 who takes puberty blockers. Of course, it  will be different depending on the social context.
563. 53:46There's a sort of Yeah. There's a perverse  insistence on noticing social construction
564. 53:51where something is fundamentally just real and  then and then insisting on not seeing it where
565. 53:56where it's actually happening. Exactly. Yes. Yeah.  I mean the one one example that I cite sometimes
566. 54:04you know on on you know legitimizing a particular  technology and the fact that it affects everybody
567. 54:09including those who don't want to use it was is  the contraceptive pill which also which affect
568. 54:14when it when it was first introduced affected even  those women who didn't want to use it because it
569. 54:20so radically changed the entire atmosphere  around how men and women behaved in relation
570. 54:24to one another that you know saying saying  no mean meant something different and landed
571. 54:30in a way which hadn't been the case before. And  also shotgun weddings stopped happening. Once
572. 54:36abortion became legalized, shotgun weddings  stopped because in theory you could just get
573. 54:39rid of the baby. And so and so those women who  for conscience reasons didn't want to go down
574. 54:43that route found themselves in a in a situation  which they hadn't been in before. Yeah. And this
575. 54:47is I mean this is a you know the you can take that  that framework and apply it very straightforwardly
576. 54:52to the the issues around assisted dying and the  than the pitfalls of assisted dying. Absolutely.
577. 54:56I mean even those who think that well include  especially those who think that contraception was
578. 55:02a good thing they should be able to notice that  it had all these different effects. It just there
579. 55:06shouldn't be controversy about noticing that some  groups were winners and some groups were losers or
580. 55:11thought they were losers even if you think they  were really winners. But in the case of assisted
581. 55:15death absolutely I mean every single person  will have this choice as soon as soon as they
582. 55:21fall into the the category they tick the criteria  and the one that we're going to get in the UK if
583. 55:28we get it is you just need a doctor to say that  you've got six months to live or less. That's
584. 55:32pretty much it. You need mental capacity and six  months to live or less. And when you get to the
585. 55:37end of your life as an elderly person, quite often  frailty can be something that people think, well,
586. 55:42you've got six months to live or less probably.  You can find doctors to say that. Now you've
587. 55:46got now you're in the zone and now you have to  explain to yourself why you're not taking that
588. 55:51just as much as you have to explain to yourself  where you are. That's right. And you might have to
589. 55:55explain it to your relatives if they want justify  your decision to continue existing. and care home
590. 56:00fees being what they are and everybody knows how  much they are. They will literally eat away uh the
591. 56:07value of a house that you might have passed down  to the next generation or whatever and it's going
592. 56:11to be really really salient to people whereas now  it it's not salient. You could say oh well you
593. 56:17know I don't think I'd like to do that but it'll  be a completely different order of discussion with
594. 56:23yourself once it's there and you could take it.  And I think particularly in the context of some
595. 56:27of the intergenerational animus that you sort  of ambient feeling of hostility between the gen,
596. 56:34you know, oh the boomers took everything and they  did they destroyed you and left nothing in their
597. 56:37way. Now we have our life is so hard and you know  you you add assisted dying into that mix and it's
598. 56:42like the the what could possibly go wrong? I  mean, you know, I'm sure it's possible that
599. 56:48if that feeling gets sufficiently articulated  so it becomes directed at your own parents,
600. 56:54um, then it will have implications. But  you don't really need that sort of context,
601. 57:00that kind of bigger social context to understand  that some kids really hate their parents or really
602. 57:06resent their parents. I mean, that does speed  around well and that will affect this, too.
603. 57:11Well, let's let's hope let's hope this isn't Kia  Stalmer's final spiteful legacy. I doubt it will
604. 57:19be to be honest. Um I don't think I think even he  must have noticed by now that there is some issues
605. 57:28with there's some issues or at least that the  there's not the straightforward kind of applause
606. 57:33that he thought he might get for this. We have to  hope. So, what are you working on at the moment
607. 57:38having published? No, I'm not. I I'm waiting for  my next wave of anger to hit and um uh so I just
608. 57:48write for unheard as you know uh which keeps me  busy. Um but I haven't got any big book project.
609. 57:52I need to find one. And you have a podcast? Oh  yes, Julie Bindle and I have a podcast uh for this
610. 57:59organization we run called the Lesbian Project.  It's very silly though. I mean I don't think there
611. 58:03may not be much of a crossover of audiences for  this and that one. We basically look at sappic
612. 58:08culture that week, whatever that is, it's usually  absolute nonsense, and then we take the mick out
613. 58:13of it. So, what gives you hope other than taking  the mickey out of safic culture for that week?
614. 58:19What gives you hope when you think about the world  as it is in all of its silliness? I'm afraid I'm
615. 58:24I don't have much hope, but that's okay because I  I'm sort of like John Gray, you know? I basically
616. 58:32looked it in the face. I I don't ever think that  the stuff I write is going to really make that
617. 58:37much difference in the end. I think these Oh, I  think it does. Are running. I mean, even if it
618. 58:41just just getting young women cancer. I thought  you thought that I thought you thought that
619. 58:45basically the intellectuals only come in once the  social movements are on route anyway. And I think
620. 58:50I think that too. I know. But that doesn't mean  what you what you contribute is nothing. I don't
621. 58:56think it's nothing. But I mean ultimately look the  huge forces we're talking about economic forces of
622. 59:02decline you know avarice all the rest of it it's  not going to be books that stands against that or
623. 59:08podcasts. Um I think it I don't have much hope for  like the future of mankind. I certainly have no
624. 59:16faith in progressivism of any sort whether it's on  the right or the left. AI is an absolute disaster.
625. 59:22You know I'm a doomer but I'm okay with that.  like I've sort of looked the abyss in the face
626. 59:29and and it's staring back and that's fine as well.  Basically, we just need to accept it. And on that
627. 59:36ambivalently cheerful bombshell, Kathleen, this  has been such a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you,
628. 59:40Mary. Thank you. You might be thinking, that's  not Eric Mataxis. My name's Mary Harrington. I'm
629. 59:47a writer and a past contributor to Socrates in  the City. I'm thrilled to be joining Socrates
630. 59:53in the City as the first inaugural Socrates  contributor. Throughout 2026, I'll be hosting
631. 59:59many fascinating conversations on life, God, and  other small topics. Be sure to subscribe to get
632. 1:00:07notifications whenever a new episode from Eric  or myself drops. And thank you for tuning in.