Woke people 'want to be right even if they don’t know why!’ | John Cleese — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:01hello whenever I'm asked to be
2. 0:03interviewed on the BBC even though it's
3. 0:06supposed to be about the mating habits
4. 0:08of ringtailed lemus the first question
5. 0:11will be what about cancel culture
6. 0:15because mentioning Council culture is
7. 0:17the best way of ging people up and that
8. 0:19guarantees they won't switch channels
9. 0:22same with the word woke most people have
10. 0:24little idea what it really means but
11. 0:26despite that they tend to have strong
12. 0:29feelings about it
13. 0:31very strong now Frank Lun my resident
14. 0:34pollster will tell us what people do
15. 0:38think it means Frank John we've been
16. 0:41ping unwoke for the last six months I've
17. 0:44got the data right here on my laptop
18. 0:46labor supporters are more than twice as
19. 0:48likely to identify themselves as being
20. 0:51woke than conservatives but onethird of
21. 0:54the British population doesn't even know
22. 0:56what it is the data that matters most to
23. 0:58me however that one out of four Brits
24. 1:01have stopped talking to someone because
25. 1:04they reject their point of view and one
26. 1:06out of five have had someone do it to
27. 1:08them and if you want to know who those
28. 1:10people are 18 to 29 year olds half of
29. 1:14our youngest population have cut someone
30. 1:16off simply because they disagree thanks
31. 1:20Frankie so tonight I want my dinosaurs
32. 1:24to clarify a few things so I've asked my
33. 1:27friend Matthew S to give us a brief
34. 1:30history of the word
35. 1:32woke Matthew can you help us I think the
36. 1:36first documented use is in a song by a
37. 1:40Blues singer called Lead Belly uh who
38. 1:43was singing about the scotsboro boys who
39. 1:45are a group of young black Americans who
40. 1:47had gone into the south of America and
41. 1:50been accused of of rape incorrectly
42. 1:54accused of rape but were sentenced to
43. 1:56death after an allwhite jury found them
44. 1:58guilty within a few seconds in what
45. 2:00Leadbelly is saying to Black Americans
46. 2:03is be awake be aware of racial Prejudice
47. 2:06if you go into the South the Jim Crow
48. 2:09South and it was really a Consciousness
49. 2:11raising term when was that so this song
50. 2:15uh scotsboro boys was in 193 thank you
51. 2:18very much you're uh in
52. 2:201938 and but what fascinates me John
53. 2:24this term becomes very prevalent in the
54. 2:27africanamerican community you know we
55. 2:29need to be aware of racial Injustice and
56. 2:31moreover we need to be conscious of what
57. 2:34we need to do to overturn it but then
58. 2:37through a process of Social and
59. 2:39linguistic osmosis it tiptoes ever more
60. 2:43widely into the mainstream and then you
61. 2:46come up to today and it's now a term of
62. 2:49abuse that people who are woke are too
63. 2:52sensitive to injustices in much the same
64. 2:55way that political correctness was kind
65. 2:57of a positive term at the beginning yes
66. 2:59but now is a term of abuse and linguists
67. 3:02call call this process pation how a term
68. 3:05a positive term slowly becomes a
69. 3:07purative but it then got widened from
70. 3:10racial discrimination to any form of
71. 3:13discrimination at all perceived or real
72. 3:17perceived and any form of Injustice yeah
73. 3:19and I think perhaps around 2017 2018
74. 3:23came wrapped up with this ideological
75. 3:26move uh in American universities called
76. 3:29critical race Theory where Injustice
77. 3:32almost doesn't have to be observed but
78. 3:34is there in the power structure
79. 3:36institutional racism institutional
80. 3:38misogyny various other kinds of
81. 3:41institutionalized things which are very
82. 3:42difficult to measure empirically yes but
83. 3:44are said to be there because of the
84. 3:46structure of the power relations and
85. 3:47that's when and they are there and
86. 3:50they're bad but they're also perceived
87. 3:53to be there when the justification for
88. 3:55that perception can be tiny I have a bit
89. 3:57of latitude to talk about these things
90. 3:59because I'm mixed race so I think if if
91. 4:03you're somebody from my background who
92. 4:05has been on the receiving end of racism
93. 4:06it gives me latitude to kind of saiz
94. 4:09yeah what has become known as woke
95. 4:11ideology but but you white right
96. 4:18heteronormative from a colonialized
97. 4:21nationalist you go into exactly you go
98. 4:23into this terrain with with some severe
99. 4:26baggage on your I kind of I me it's
100. 4:28interesting to me that when I at the
101. 4:29trajectory of your career I've I've
102. 4:31always seen you in your early life you
103. 4:34took as many great comedians do you took
104. 4:36aim at the power structures of of
105. 4:39religion and conservative ideology what
106. 4:42you characterizes closed systems of
107. 4:44thought but I think you're right to turn
108. 4:46your attention to woke because it has
109. 4:48become a closed system for me the
110. 4:50fundamental Achilles heel here is not to
111. 4:53understand the global context if you
112. 4:56look to other parts of the world ethnic
113. 4:59discrimination is rif Right tribal
114. 5:03conflict still characterizes much of
115. 5:05subsaharan Africa much of the Middle
116. 5:08East so these are two groups that will
117. 5:10be fighting with each other because of a
118. 5:12different tribal identity sometimes this
119. 5:15has a different ethnic identity
120. 5:16different linguistic identity this has
121. 5:18been a big problem for Humanity since
122. 5:20the Agricultural Revolution you are 100%
123. 5:24right to say liberal democracies have
124. 5:25done this better than any other kind of
125. 5:28government it has had an approach that
126. 5:30tries to treat these characteristics as
127. 5:32arbitrary and we should judge people on
128. 5:33the content of their character the
129. 5:35talents they could bring is it perfect
130. 5:38unquestionably not it's never going to
131. 5:39look at Lebanon look at Somalia look at
132. 5:42these places where they haven't even got
133. 5:43a coherent national identity because
134. 5:45people feel still still feel they're a
135. 5:47member of a tribe rather than a nation
136. 5:50state I would love to see the debate
137. 5:52just have a bit more Nuance a bit more
138. 5:54historical and geographical
139. 5:55understanding that way we're more likely
140. 5:57to reach an interesting consensus about
141. 5:59what we wish to do what amazes me about
142. 6:01the woke anti-woke argument is it's
143. 6:03never on substantive issues that we can
144. 6:05do to actually make people's lives
145. 6:07better it's a distraction from what we
146. 6:09need to do I think an awful lot of it is
147. 6:12an unattractive side of humanity which
148. 6:14is to sort of want to be
149. 6:18right you know even if they don't know
150. 6:22why they want to be right they want to
151. 6:23be right so you get as I said you get um
152. 6:27you know I've suffered this apping
153. 6:29oppression um
154. 6:31microaggression uh because they've
155. 6:33always in America mispronounced my name
156. 6:36well C whoever ate cheddar chees you
157. 6:40know so I I but I've survived you and
158. 6:44I'm going to set up an Institute where I
159. 6:46can teach people to spot microaggression
160. 6:49which otherwise they might never noticed
161. 6:51at
162. 6:53all thank you thank
163. 6:57you