Douglas Murray: evaluation

Transcript context

…People have very little understanding of things if they’re willing to say that because you’re sitting down and talking with somebody you are ergo platforming them, advancing their cause, being used, being a shill, or whatever like that. You might be actually just finding some things out, which I think is something you do expertly. And another thing that your critics wouldn’t realize is that life is long, and hopefully, God willing, we’re both around for a long time, and therefore you don’t blow everything up at the request of some twat online. But I do think that a superpower of a kind is to identify the people whose opinion you care for and worry about their opinion, and no one else’s, really, and you just keep your own guiding light. That’s what’s always done it for me, is that I’ve always said I wouldn’t care if I was the only person with my opinion and billions of people disagreed. I mean, I might be curious if the whole planet disagreed with me, but it doesn’t, fundamentally that’s not why… I’ll send you Churchill’s great speech on the death of Chamberlain. I mean it. He says one of the most wise and brilliant things. I was thinking about it slightly earlier when you were talking about Zelenskyy, because one of Churchill’s greatnesses was his magnanimity, and when his great political opponent, Chamberlain died in 1940, and Churchill had just taken over as prime minister, he could have used the opportunity, and we might even say that some politicians in our day won’t be able to resist the opportunity, he could have used the opportunity to say, you see, I was right, and Chamberlain didn’t know what the hell he was doing and he’s led us into this mess, and you should have all listened to me, because that would’ve been a good time. It would’ve been a good time to say that, that would’ve been one for the win, as they say. But Churchill doesn’t do that in his great eulogy for Chamberlain. He talks about how hard it is for mankind to operate in the world, and how you can do it successfully. He very movingly says, he doesn’t even mention the name of Hitler, he says, “What were Neville Chamberlain’s flaws?” He says, “Desiring of human peace, to be seeking peace,” and he says, “and the curse that he had was he was led astray by a very wicked man.” But then he has this great passage where Churchill says, beautiful resonant passage about how, he says, “It’s not given to men happily for them, for otherwise life would prove intolerable to foresee or to predict to any great extent the unfolding course of events.” And he says, “In one phase, men seem to have been right and in another they’re proved wrong,” and then a different scale of values emerges. predict to any great extent the unfolding course of events.” And he says, “In one phase, men seem to have been right and in another they’re proved wrong,” and then a different scale of values emerges. And he says, “What is the worth of all this?” He says, “The only guide to a man is his conscience, the only shield his memory, his rectitude, and the sincerity of his actions. ” In fact, he says, ” It doesn’t matter what happens, if you have this,” finishes it he says, “However the fates may play, but if you have this shield to guard you,” he says, “you march always in the ranks of honor. ” All that can guide a man is that. If you lose sight of it, and some people do, and maybe everyone does at some point, then it’s a challenge, and then you get buffeted by the tos and throes of the waves of popular opinion, and that’s dangerous. But if you keep sight and hold onto what you believe, a million billion foes don’t matter. Yeah, that is the path. We were talking offline about the great biography of Churchill. Churchill himself made mistakes, then admitted the mistakes, and we can even say was proud of the mistakes. I mean-…

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