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on the latest episodes without the

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ads. Hello,

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my name is David Runtzman and this

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is Past, Present, Future. We have reached

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the final episode in our series about

0:36

the history of freedom with the writer

0:38

and philosopher Lea Ippy. And

0:40

today Lea and I are talking about

0:43

liberation movements, liberation from

0:45

colonial rule, liberation for

0:47

women, gay liberation, animal

0:50

liberation, children's liberation, what

0:53

links them all, how do they

0:55

emancipate human beings, and

0:57

what comes next. This

1:00

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2:31

Le, if I had to sum up the history

2:33

of freedom over the last 100 years, this is

2:35

how I would do it. And to

2:37

begin with, you can push back on this. I think

2:39

there are three broad trends at work here in

2:42

the history of freedom. Over the 20th

2:44

century, the early 21st century, the

2:46

first is something that we've talked

2:48

about, which is the story of

2:50

liberation from extreme poverty. So

2:53

over the last 100 years, it is one

2:55

of the most remarkable features of human history,

2:58

within relative and absolute terms, the

3:01

hundreds of millions, the billions of people who

3:03

have been lifted out of extreme poverty.

3:05

And not just the last 100 years, not even the last 50 years,

3:07

the last 20 years. And

3:10

that's not the whole of freedom, as we discussed.

3:12

It may not even be the half of freedom,

3:15

but it is a remarkable story. And it is

3:17

one of the most distinctive features of the last

3:19

100 years of human history. The

3:21

second would be the history of revolutionary

3:23

movements over the last 100 years, so

3:25

attempts to reinvent

3:27

society on revolutionary principles, often

3:30

originally through violence and

3:32

then through philosophy or ideology. And

3:35

you may disagree with me here. For the most part,

3:38

I would say that is a story of failure. I

3:40

don't think those societies have been reinvented in that way.

3:42

The Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution. The

3:44

Chinese Revolution contributed many

3:46

things to the story of emancipation

3:48

from poverty. But the

3:51

promise of the revolution, those ideals have

3:53

not been delivered. And there's been an awful lot of

3:56

oppression along the way. And

3:58

then the third thing is liberation. movements.

4:00

So over the last century, particularly

4:03

in the second half of the 20th century and the

4:07

early 21st, a

4:09

different kind of story of

4:12

emancipation of peoples from colonial

4:14

oppression, of groups within society,

4:16

minorities, but also majorities, women's

4:18

liberation, liberation

4:20

on the basis of sexuality, on the

4:22

basis of color. And

4:26

there the picture is mixed. I

4:29

mean, some of these have been incredible success

4:31

stories. Some of these have been disappointments.

4:35

Those are the three stories of freedom. When I was thinking

4:37

about this before we started this conversation, I had a feeling

4:39

that you might say I've missed out the

4:41

question of equality. And actually,

4:44

that cuts across all of these stories. But before I

4:46

ask you about liberation movements, do you want to tell

4:48

me that that analysis is wrong? Yes.

4:52

So I think I have a tendency

4:54

not to see these movements as either

4:56

successes or failures. So I would say

4:58

in each case, there is a

5:00

history and there is a process.

5:03

And that process has both elements of

5:05

success and of failure. But

5:07

I wouldn't qualify any of those movements

5:09

as categorical successes or categorical failures, because

5:11

sometimes they are successes in one part

5:13

of the world. But us calling that

5:16

a success comes at the price of

5:18

neglecting what's happening in other parts of

5:20

the world. And even when I

5:22

think of the most obvious cases

5:24

where we think gay liberation or

5:26

women's liberation, I mean, it's true,

5:28

but it's also true for geographically

5:30

restricted areas. And there are entire

5:32

areas of the globe that where

5:35

those movements haven't actually achieved anything

5:37

yet. And indeed, entire parts of

5:39

the world there where they're not even in the social

5:41

consciousness yet. And so maybe because I take a more

5:43

global view, which

5:45

isn't just focused on the liberal

5:47

Western rich countries, that

5:49

record seems to be much more ambiguous, if you

5:51

think of it in global terms. And likewise, with

5:54

every revolution, I wouldn't single out, you know, the

5:56

Russian revolution of being a failure or the Chinese

5:58

revolution, because I think every revolution is made

6:00

of moments where there are advancements in rights

6:03

and moments where there is going back

6:06

and regress. I tend

6:08

to think of that as generally being the

6:10

case with every historical phenomenon. So I'm a

6:12

little bit more ambiguous, I guess, on both

6:14

calling something a complete failure

6:16

and calling something a complete success

6:18

because I think history is maybe a little bit

6:20

more nuanced than that. Yeah,

6:23

I think I was calling them relative failures and relative

6:26

successes and also failures in their own terms.

6:28

I wasn't trying to tell a universal history

6:31

and we'll come on to liberation movement

6:33

in a minute because I completely

6:36

agree that the say the story of gay liberation,

6:38

you couldn't tell that as a global story by

6:40

any means or

6:42

women's liberation. Post-colonial liberation

6:45

we'll discuss and that's

6:47

by definition a

6:49

non-Western story, but it has

6:51

a complicated heritage. But

6:54

those three broad trends, they're not universal and

6:56

they're not the whole of anything and it's

6:58

not dialectical what I've just told you. I

7:00

haven't talked about the ways they interact, your

7:02

liberation from poverty goes along

7:04

with other things that push

7:06

against human freedom, including rising

7:09

global inequality. But nonetheless,

7:11

I still think that you can

7:13

detect patterns at

7:15

work here and one

7:17

can talk about

7:20

relative success and relative failure. And

7:22

I think the relative successes

7:25

and failures are

7:27

not particularly ambiguous. Maybe

7:29

I want to do more of a broad ledger of

7:31

this. I mean, it's interesting that we have this argument

7:34

because at various other points in this series, you're the

7:36

one who wants to tell a universal history

7:39

and I don't. Yeah,

7:41

but I think that's true. But maybe

7:43

that's because I have also... You want to

7:45

tell a universal philosophical history. Well, exactly. Yeah,

7:47

which is in many ways, it's not a

7:49

consequentialist history. But also, I guess, for what

7:52

makes us different, I think you have a more more

7:54

consequentialist approach and I have a more deontological approach to

7:56

these things. So it's sometimes when you tell

7:58

a story of, OK, cost-benefiting. analysis.

8:01

It's just not methodologically

8:04

what appeals to me. Absolutely.

8:06

I am aware that mine is a

8:09

more consequentialist account. Let's

8:11

focus in on liberation movements because there

8:14

are so many things we can say

8:16

about this, not just in consequential terms,

8:18

but in philosophical terms. But also, you

8:20

can't lump these things together. Postcolonial liberation,

8:22

women's liberation, liberation

8:25

on the grounds of sexuality, these are very,

8:27

very different things. And they operate on very

8:29

different timeframes as well. If

8:32

we start with postcolonial liberation movements,

8:35

just tell me how you see that in

8:37

terms of this broader kind of history of freedom

8:40

that we've been talking about. So

8:42

from the second half of the

8:44

20th century, one of

8:46

the most fundamental shifts

8:48

in human history over this

8:50

period has been the end of the

8:52

great European empires, not completely. And the

8:55

emancipation is by no means a total

8:58

story, but nonetheless, in

9:00

Africa, in Asia, the

9:03

creation of postcolonial states, that is,

9:05

states that have been in some

9:08

way or other liberated from the forms

9:10

of rule under which they suffered for

9:13

centuries. How do

9:15

you see it now from the 21st century? I

9:17

don't want to ask you whether that was a

9:19

success story or a failure, but how do you

9:21

see it in terms of human liberation? But

9:24

can I take it one step back? Because I

9:26

am, as you know, from Albania,

9:28

from the Balkans, and it's

9:30

difficult for someone who comes from that

9:32

part of Europe to be lumped under

9:34

the kind of colonial Europe whose colonial

9:37

past is resumed and summarized in the

9:39

20th century, because, as I see

9:41

it, there were important anti-colonial movements going

9:43

on in the 19th century in

9:46

Eastern Europe and indeed in the

9:48

former Ottoman Empire. And

9:50

what's really interesting is that I think if

9:52

you think of the kind of decolonization movements,

9:54

anti-colonial movements, as being made of

9:57

both those movements that

9:59

emerge... within the European

10:01

continent and, for

10:04

example, resistance against the Habsburg Empire,

10:06

against the Ottoman Empire. These

10:09

were also, as the protagonists of those

10:11

movements saw them, movements for national liberation

10:13

and national emancipation, and they all took

10:16

place in the 19th century. And

10:18

then in the 20th century, the decolonial struggle

10:21

takes place outside Europe, but I think with

10:23

all the tensions of that 19th

10:25

century, anti-colonial movement within Europe still

10:28

being there. And indeed, I think

10:30

accounting for much of what we're experiencing now in

10:32

the 21st century is

10:34

still the legacy of, in Europe,

10:36

these three empires collapsing, the Russia and the

10:38

Habsburg, the Ottoman Empire, and the way in

10:40

which they then, countries that

10:42

emerged from that collapse, interact

10:45

with Western Europe and what kind of broad European story

10:47

we can tell. But I don't think we can tell

10:49

the story of Europe and colonialism in

10:51

Europe without considering this dimension of

10:53

intra-European colonialism, which I think a lot of

10:55

people tend to neglect because we think of

10:57

colonialism as taking place outside Europe

10:59

and outside in Africa and

11:02

Asia and Latin America and so on.

11:05

If you do take that perspective, so

11:07

you have the double movement in a

11:09

way of the earlier European story, and

11:11

then the later more global story, one

11:15

of the things that you described there

11:17

was that that European movement

11:19

was for national self-determination of various

11:22

kinds, particularly within Eastern Europe, and

11:24

it produced all sorts of

11:27

violent outcomes. One

11:30

of the questions about post-colonial

11:32

liberation is, should

11:35

it be a movement for national self-determination?

11:37

And this is one of the arguments

11:39

both in that earlier story and in

11:41

the later story. The more radical version

11:43

of post-colonial liberation is to be liberated

11:45

from those structures too. This is not

11:47

just about trying to recreate our own

11:50

version of a Western

11:52

European state or of

11:54

a European state or of a modern

11:56

state or of a representative democratic state.

12:00

with a national identity, it is

12:02

to be liberated from that. The

12:04

more radical post-colonial movements are liberation

12:07

from all of it. It's

12:09

part of the legacy of the European

12:12

version. This is the crusade for national

12:14

self-determination that it's actually constraining. Yeah,

12:16

that's right. And I think what's really interesting

12:19

and what happens historically is that nationalism,

12:21

as we've discussed in a previous

12:23

episode, not in this series, but when we

12:25

were talking about democracy and nationalism, there

12:27

was a moment in the 19th century where

12:30

nationalism was an emancipatory phenomenon that was

12:32

supposed to extend rights to

12:35

people that had been previously excluded.

12:37

And in many ways, what made

12:39

it emancipatory and radical politically was

12:42

its resistance to the Ancien Regime.

12:45

And so I think for that reason, because

12:47

these were all in many ways, this was

12:49

the world of the Ancien Regime, these were

12:51

in many ways movement that in resisting the

12:53

empire, the Habsburg or whatever, they were also

12:56

resisting a certain way of understanding political authority.

12:58

But that there hadn't been yet, I mean,

13:00

we're telling this story in a slightly teleological

13:02

way as though there is a uniform movement, but

13:04

just for the sake of simplicity, there

13:06

hadn't yet been an internal critique

13:08

of even the liberal democratic

13:11

states that were emerging from this

13:13

19th century, 18th, 19th century revolutions of

13:16

the kind that could then inspire an

13:18

alternative way of thinking about anti-colonial movements

13:20

as movements that also resisted the very

13:22

structure of rights that was being given

13:25

to them by these European centers. So

13:27

I think what's really interesting and that

13:29

kind of defines colonialism is there are

13:31

these two parallel movements. On the one

13:34

hand, it's yes, the movement for national

13:36

self-determination, but also the

13:38

awareness at some point historically, and I think

13:40

this begins to be articulated by these Marxist

13:43

movements in the early 20th century. I

13:45

mean, this is all the big question of Marxists

13:47

and socialism and self-determination and the

13:50

debates between Lenin and Luxembourg and

13:52

are all about, well, isn't

13:54

the nation state itself also

13:56

constraining because the patterns

13:58

of oppression? are wider than the

14:01

ones that are just replicated by the nation

14:03

state. And so that's where

14:05

then the question becomes, well, in that case,

14:07

aren't we just replacing one bourgeoisie for another

14:09

bourgeoisie, which was incidentally, and I don't think

14:11

this starts just with the third world or

14:13

with the other non-European countries,

14:16

because someone like Rosa Luxemburg, for

14:18

example, who was Polish, was using these

14:21

very arguments to respond to the struggles

14:23

for the national emancipation and the anti-colonial

14:25

emancipation of the Poles from the Russian

14:27

Empire. And she was saying, well, you're

14:30

just going to swap the Russian bourgeoisie

14:32

with the Polish bourgeoisie, but ultimately it's

14:34

still bourgeoisie and it's still constraining. And

14:36

this is still not the kind of

14:38

state that would represent a minority. And

14:41

I think something like this argument then obviously

14:43

becomes a part of other anti-colonial

14:46

movements in the 20th century

14:48

that are resisting British colonialism

14:50

or French colonialism or colonialism

14:52

perpetrated by the Western European

14:54

powers. I'm really nervous

14:56

now because I don't want to use the language of

14:58

failure or disappointment, but what

15:00

you've just described sounds

15:02

like a promise of

15:04

the late 19th, particularly early

15:07

20th century, which

15:10

has not been delivered. So

15:12

another thing you could say, not in consequentialist

15:14

terms, but just in terms of the ideas

15:16

that dominate our world is

15:18

that... And also, can I just sort of

15:21

just to point out something just historically, also

15:23

these things were going on in parallel, just

15:25

as you had these movements for national liberation

15:28

within Europe, you had imperialism and the beginnings

15:30

of the kind of so-called scramble for Africa

15:32

and so on. So these were also

15:34

historically more or less developing in parallel, which

15:37

is this, I think, what makes the protagonists

15:39

of these movements also within Europe become

15:41

aware of suddenly, okay, how are these

15:43

European powers operating outside

15:45

Europe? And in

15:48

some times it's really interesting because

15:50

often the anti-colonial movements within Europe

15:52

are completely oblivious to what's

15:54

going on with these colonial forces

15:56

operating outside Europe. And sometimes because

15:59

they have this... narrative of civilization and

16:01

rights and progress, which they internalize,

16:03

they don't see how they become

16:05

complicit in the perpetration of this

16:07

discourse around civilizing missions and colonialism

16:10

as liberation of primitive countries and

16:12

primitive peoples rather from their backwardness

16:14

and their oppression, which was what

16:16

made up the colonialism of 19th

16:18

century. Think of even

16:20

someone like John Stuart Mill or Tocqueville.

16:23

These are usually progressive characters, but they're

16:25

not entirely untouched by this rhetoric. It's

16:28

interesting how this rhetoric I think is reproduced

16:30

also in the periphery, Eastern Europe, all

16:32

the elites aren't really always

16:34

critical of this discourse. They're

16:37

partaking in it even though they're partaking it

16:39

as marginalized peoples themselves. In

16:42

a way, that was George Orwell's critique

16:44

of imperialism, which is it's the oblivious

16:47

form of politics. Unlike other kinds of

16:49

politics, you can literally park the

16:51

uncomfortable thoughts somewhere else, so it's not just

16:53

that you export violence or

16:56

you export certain kinds of

16:58

exploitation. You also just export

17:00

the difficult ideas and then you can

17:03

create at home a version

17:05

of politics which allows a kind of

17:07

emancipatory politics, which is oblivious

17:09

to what underpins it. One

17:13

of the consequences of that is it

17:15

does reinforce nationalism because it happens within

17:17

national borders. That's where it

17:19

feels to me like what you have described

17:21

is in your terms a disappointing story that

17:23

the promise of the earlier double

17:26

movement of these anti-colonial

17:29

campaigns has not

17:31

been delivered in the sense that nationalism

17:34

over the last hundred years has not

17:36

weakened its hold on

17:38

the human political imagination to an

17:41

extraordinary extent. We have discussed this a bit before,

17:43

but it's still a remarkable feature of 21st century

17:46

politics, a global politics, a politics

17:48

of collective risk, a politics of

17:50

collective fate. The

17:53

idea of the nation is

17:55

in many ways as strong as it's ever been

17:58

in the relics of that. world in

18:00

Europe, but also in all of the parts of

18:02

the world that have tried to emancipate themselves from

18:04

it. Yeah, and indeed, I think has

18:07

become increasingly pernicious because it's often being

18:09

weaponized and used as an excuse to

18:11

then single out the world in deserving

18:14

and undeserving nations, which is where a

18:16

lot of the discourses that justify, well,

18:18

these neo-colonial measures taken in

18:20

other parts of the world or the

18:23

way in which European centers often direct

18:25

even search parties to do this with

18:27

their economies or solve their debt

18:29

in this way or create a

18:32

rule of law and fight corruption, you know,

18:34

all the usual rhetoric around

18:36

what needs to be done to create

18:38

functioning democracies, whether you're very aware of

18:40

a world that there aren't that many

18:43

functioning democracies actually all over, but there's

18:45

certainly a rhetoric of distinction between the

18:47

nations that made it that created the

18:49

system of rights and benefits and welfare

18:51

that works for everyone and the nations

18:54

that have failed. And then that becomes

18:56

itself part of an internal justification that

18:58

ends up excusing a lot of abuses

19:00

in the name of exactly this world that

19:02

is divided in this way, which is, I think, the

19:04

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20:15

Franz Fanon, a Marxist

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critic of imperialism and

20:21

one of the heroes in many ways of the

20:23

post-colonial, anti-colonial movement argued

20:26

that the great trap here was the one that

20:28

you described, which is you fall back into the

20:30

patterns of behavior from which you're trying to emancipate

20:33

yourself, partly for reasons of class.

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The bourgeoisie and the city intellectuals will find

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themselves comfortable in a home which looks a

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bit like the thing that they're trying to

20:41

get away from. Also for

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reasons of global power structures and what's needed

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in the African context, he said, was a

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reimagining of the state so that we have

20:49

to have something new, which he called an

20:52

African state. He called it a pan-African state,

20:54

but also it had to come from a completely different

20:56

set of traditions. So this

20:59

wasn't just straightforward Marxist revolutionary thought, this

21:01

was also about culture and history. You

21:04

could argue that in different parts of the world

21:06

too, right? You know, you need a different imagining

21:08

of the state in different places. It's

21:12

remarkable the extent to which that hasn't

21:14

happened. Well, I mean, it's

21:16

remarkable, but it's also unsurprising in

21:18

a way, because I think part

21:20

of the analysis and part of

21:22

the diagnosis for why this hasn't

21:24

happened had to do with the

21:26

combination of the structures that the

21:28

state offers to accommodate certain interests

21:30

of certain elites and the

21:33

political and economic processes that continue to

21:35

be in motion and that make those

21:37

structures be what they are. So in

21:39

a way, I think the critique from

21:41

someone like Fanon and so on was a critique

21:43

of both the state and of

21:45

capitalism and of the combination of

21:47

these two elements, right? The fact

21:49

that the liberal states sustains economic

21:52

capitalist structure and that the

21:54

economic capitalist structure is itself there and strengthens

21:56

the hold of the liberal state and to

21:58

some extent also this asymmetry in the

22:00

world between those states that made it and

22:02

the states that haven't or that failed is

22:04

itself also the result of thinking about

22:07

economic production and output in a

22:09

certain way and distribution. And

22:11

I share that diagnosis. I think there is

22:14

something that's very, very powerful about the fact

22:16

that there is here a dialectic of the

22:18

means of emancipation, which is supposed to be

22:20

the state, but also the fact that the

22:22

state emerged as a result of these particular

22:24

historical economic processes and not for arbitrary reasons.

22:26

It's not arbitrary that we have a state

22:29

that is starts with private rights and then

22:31

develops into public right and then develops into international

22:33

right. But the bedrock, the foundation is really

22:35

private right. And that's in all the justifications

22:37

of the state that you find in modern

22:40

philosophy and modern political thought. That

22:42

means that it's not as easy as it looks

22:44

to separate these two elements, the form of rights

22:46

and the types of interests and the

22:49

claims that that right structure accommodates somehow

22:51

that these are two very hard to

22:53

distinguish elements, which is where I think

22:56

the radicality of some of that postcolonial critique

22:58

comes because what they're trying to do is

23:00

to really think of a new form. And

23:03

it's really hard to think of a new form that

23:05

is not itself the result of the development of

23:07

a certain political and economic process. It's

23:10

really hard borderline impossible.

23:13

I mean, the history of

23:16

the last 50 or 100 years hard

23:18

doesn't seem adequate to describe just how

23:20

hard it is. I mean, I'm reluctant to

23:22

use the word impossible in politics because I think

23:24

politics is the real freedom in the end. Because

23:27

I think human beings are, yes, they are

23:30

the product of circumstance and there is the

23:32

determinism, but there is also free will and

23:34

there is also freedom. There's some element of

23:36

possibility that opens up in ways that we

23:38

don't always see and we can't always anticipate

23:40

or expect. But it does happen and it

23:43

has historically happened. So this is why

23:45

I'm sort of reluctant to say it was impossible, because it seems

23:47

to me that if you say it's impossible, then

23:49

you're just delivering a verdict. And it's like, you

23:51

know, what Kant used to call prophetic history. You're

23:53

just saying how things should be

23:55

when in fact you're dealing with human beings that are

23:58

also fundamentally free. And so it's. doesn't

24:00

have to be that way, but I

24:02

completely acknowledge the constraint. And indeed,

24:04

I think a lot of anti-colonial

24:06

politics, decolonial politics has discovered those

24:08

constraints and many liberation movements. Actually,

24:10

it's not just the anti-colonial movement.

24:13

And so in my three-way

24:16

distinction between emancipation from poverty,

24:18

revolutionary politics, and liberation movements,

24:21

and I talked about them as though they were separate

24:23

things, liberation movements

24:26

have discovered the hard limits of liberation

24:28

politics because you are liberating yourself from

24:30

something that you often end up recreating

24:33

in another form. Revolutionary

24:35

politics is meant to be radically

24:38

different from that because you don't just

24:40

try and break free. You

24:42

also, in the act of breaking free, entirely

24:44

reinvent the system from

24:47

which you're being emancipated. I'm

24:49

guessing therefore what you're saying is the thing that

24:51

has to be returned to as the promise of

24:53

revolutionary politics, which is the thing that I described

24:55

as the more absolute failure. Yeah,

24:58

but also a way of thinking about what

25:00

revolution is, which isn't working on one single

25:02

axis. So often what you see in these

25:04

revolutionary movements, including the

25:06

anti-colonial ones, is that they

25:09

prioritize one dimension of struggle and then because that

25:11

becomes the main dimension, all the others are neglected.

25:13

And so then they are sacrificed in the altar

25:15

of history because you think, well, I need to

25:17

make compromises. So where do I make compromises? I

25:19

decide which one is the kind of oppression that

25:21

matters most to me, which is actually

25:23

why I said at the beginning that I'm

25:25

reluctant to go with this consequentialist logic because

25:28

it's exactly what forces you to go along

25:30

these single measure dimensions. And if you have

25:32

a different way of thinking about value, then

25:34

you're less condemned to having to make these

25:36

kinds of decisions where you have to

25:38

decide, okay, which of these values is consequentially

25:40

the most likely to make me succeed

25:43

or which ones am I willing to

25:45

sacrifice more easily? And I think all

25:47

of these revolutions, even when they're revolutionary

25:49

movements, they somehow end up, I think,

25:52

sacrificing because they decide, okay, I'm going

25:54

to prioritize the economic struggle or I'm going

25:56

to prioritize the political struggle or I'm going to prioritize

25:58

the social or the cultural. cultural struggle, and

26:00

I'll forget. And it's exactly what's

26:03

really hard, but what's needed is to

26:05

be able to maintain that intersectional dimension.

26:07

If they are liberation movements, they have

26:09

to be able to be functional and

26:11

effective on all of these levels. And

26:13

that's why I think it's both a challenge, but

26:15

what needs to be kept in mind when assessing

26:18

their successes and thinking about what could they do

26:20

better next time. Adam

26:22

Where then would women's liberation fit

26:24

into that intersectional struggle?

26:26

A critique that has often been

26:28

made of a thinker,

26:30

a writer like Fanon, is that he

26:33

entirely neglected those aspects

26:35

of the oppression of women

26:37

by men that were part

26:39

of the sort of history and social

26:43

African version of politics that he was

26:45

hoping to emancipate from the dead

26:48

hand of the Western liberal representative

26:50

state. And within

26:53

the Western liberal representative state, women's

26:55

emancipation in its own terms

26:57

has been part of the progress of the last

27:00

50 or 100 years. So

27:03

where do you place... I mean, it

27:05

used to be called women's liberation. I don't

27:07

think it is called that anymore. It was

27:09

the women's liberation movement. I think it's now

27:11

just called feminism. But where would you place

27:13

women's liberation in the wider struggle? Lae Yeah,

27:15

I think there is a similar dynamic at

27:17

play. One can really see

27:20

the parallels here both if you think, for

27:22

example, about the, let's say, take the example

27:24

of black liberation in the 20th century

27:26

and the authors that contributed to thinking about black

27:28

liberation, who were, a lot of them were Marxists,

27:31

you know, Du Bois, Cedric Robinson, a number

27:33

of people who engaged critically with

27:35

the Marxist tradition by saying, look,

27:37

the Marxist tradition itself inherits a

27:39

number of biases and prejudices of

27:41

this enlightenment view of the world

27:43

and the kind of civilizational discourse

27:45

that shaped a lot of that

27:47

enlightenment view of the world is

27:49

also somehow an original sin

27:51

in the thought of Marx himself, because

27:53

he never really separated or never really

27:55

gave a radical critique of that. And

27:57

that was the problem with white Marxism.

28:00

it were. They were just not thinking about

28:02

black people as relevant, oppressed subjects. They were

28:04

thinking mainly about the working classes, but then

28:06

when you were scratching the surface

28:09

a little bit more, it turned out that

28:11

the working classes were mainly white. And so

28:13

the black Marxists complained that this was not

28:15

a liberation discourse that was sufficient for them

28:18

and that they needed to come up with

28:20

something that was more attentive to black liberation

28:22

struggles. I think a parallel critique is, if

28:25

you think about feminism, and at least the

28:27

kind of feminism that I'm more familiar

28:29

with, which is socialist feminism, a

28:31

similar critique was then being moved

28:33

to the anti-colonial black liberation movements

28:35

from the radical feminists who were

28:37

saying, well, actually, you're only thinking

28:40

about the emancipation in the public

28:42

sphere and in the state, but

28:44

you don't really even have the

28:46

theoretical apparatus that enables you to

28:48

see domestic oppression as an even

28:50

more oppressive form than the oppression

28:52

that goes on in the workplace

28:54

or in the factories and so

28:56

on. Because they were saying the

28:58

men are white working classes or

29:00

working classes are oppressed in the workplace, but

29:02

when they go home, the men are masters,

29:04

whereas the women are the ones that are

29:06

cardiometrically oppressed because they get oppressed both in

29:08

the workplace and in the household. And so

29:10

there isn't even a kind of respite from

29:13

that. So I think I'm sympathetic to

29:15

that. And it speaks to this both

29:17

importance of keeping all these dimensions together,

29:19

but also why then you can look

29:21

at these histories of liberation in

29:23

a much more critical light, the more you

29:26

open up to these different types of exclusion.

29:30

But what about those versions of feminism in the

29:32

more Western setting, in

29:35

the more domestic setting that prioritise the domestic

29:37

over the political? Because in a way,

29:39

that's where a lot of the focus has been. And there

29:42

is always a question in those kinds of movements, how

29:45

radical does it need to be to

29:47

achieve some of the goals of the

29:49

movement? So if one of the goals

29:51

of the movement of women's liberation is

29:53

equality, equality understood as equality under the

29:55

law, say a sort of classic liberal

29:57

idea for many

29:59

feminist. this, that is the goal. I

30:02

understand from what you're saying, you think it's not enough.

30:05

But nonetheless, if you look at the last 50 or

30:08

100 years, on that

30:10

measure, the change has been

30:12

dramatic. Well, I mean,

30:15

so again, I don't agree with that,

30:17

because I have a different diagnosis. I

30:19

think that is just what you get

30:21

if you only focus on middle class

30:23

women emancipation. If you're thinking about socioeconomic

30:26

constraints on women's liberation, then you realize

30:28

that the cost of someone like, say,

30:30

me, who is a relatively privileged professional

30:32

woman who can pay for a

30:34

babysitter and be able to outsource childcare,

30:36

is that there has to be availability

30:39

from hundreds and thousands of migrant women

30:41

who come and don't have the same

30:43

rights and don't have the same opportunities.

30:45

And you can perform your job because they are

30:47

doing it, but not because there has been a

30:50

real liberation. So I'd say, and this is where

30:52

I would say my criticism comes from, which is

30:54

it's not just about formal equality

30:56

of rights. You have to think about what

30:58

are the structural socioeconomic conditions under which you

31:01

can make claims of equality between men and

31:03

women in the public sphere and understand

31:05

that we are not in a world

31:07

where these can be effectively distributed globally

31:09

and where everyone can actually benefit. Indeed,

31:12

the cost of some advancing and obtaining

31:14

those rights and claiming them is that

31:16

others will continue to be oppressed. And

31:18

I don't think we can be blind

31:21

to that. And I worry that a

31:23

lot of liberal feminism that takes the

31:25

kind of empowerment or

31:27

role modeling or what all

31:30

kinds of discourse is around women emancipation, which I'm

31:32

not sympathetic with. The reason I'm not sympathetic to

31:34

them is because I think they tend to neglect

31:36

this more socioeconomic aspects and the

31:39

socioeconomic constraints. Do you have

31:41

any sympathy with the other kind of radical critique

31:44

of liberal feminism, which is not the

31:46

socioeconomic one, but

31:48

the idea that these ideals like equality

31:51

under the law actually, they are

31:53

abstractions that are still structured to favor

31:55

forms of male power. So you create

31:57

equality under the law, but these are

31:59

in social. social settings in which men

32:01

are still dominant in ways that stand

32:03

behind the system of law. So

32:05

you still, you find yourselves

32:07

in law courts in which there is a

32:09

formal equality. But if you understand the power

32:11

structures lie behind them, this is still a

32:13

patriarchy. That would be how that critique

32:16

would go. And in a way

32:18

that therefore what is needed is

32:21

not an emphasis on formal equality

32:23

or abstract equality, but something more

32:25

like separateness. So something more like

32:27

the idea that groups

32:29

that are oppressed shouldn't just be blended

32:32

back into the great liberal egalitarian mix in

32:34

which the people with power still have the

32:36

power. They do it under the guise of

32:38

the rule of law. But what

32:40

you need is different kind of status. In an

32:42

earlier episode, I said there is a liberal definition

32:44

of the advance of freedom, which is from status

32:46

to contract. So this

32:49

radical critique would say, actually, we need

32:51

to move back from contract to status

32:53

in the sense that we need to

32:55

recognize the status of the really oppressed

32:58

groups. And they need not

33:00

egalitarian under the rule

33:03

of law protection, but special protection,

33:05

special rights. Yeah, I'm sympathetic,

33:07

but I also with some qualifications, I'm

33:10

sort of, I have a different view here, which

33:12

is I have a kind of transitional ideal and

33:14

then a more overarching, more demanding ideal. I'm

33:16

sympathetic to it. And I think the reasons

33:18

I'm sympathetic are similar to what we discussed

33:20

last time in one of our previous episodes when

33:23

we were talking about Machiavelli and the importance of

33:25

class specific institutions and this

33:27

group differentiated representative institutions. I

33:30

think something like that could be said for women's

33:32

when I agree that there is a dimension of

33:34

oppression, which isn't reducible to just economic

33:36

oppression. There is the dimension of oppression that

33:38

we could call patriarchy, which has to do

33:40

with symbols and role models and social norms

33:43

and the way in which these are

33:45

replicated historically. And for that, I think

33:47

it would be important to actually create

33:50

something like group based representation that goes back

33:52

to a different ideal of equality from the

33:54

one that we are familiar with in liberal

33:57

societies. On the other hand, I also really

33:59

like the ideal of equality, but kind of

34:01

the more general and more abstract one, because there

34:03

is something to be said for it, for being

34:05

able to transition from one group to the other.

34:07

And so for having flexibility in how you understand

34:09

representation, and I worry that, yes,

34:11

these are in the intermediate, perhaps

34:14

the best we can do, and they are

34:16

very important. But I think it's also important

34:18

that these groups are not then reified and

34:21

have such strong boundaries that they can never

34:23

be crossed. And because I think there

34:25

is a loss there, because no identity should ever be

34:27

so understood in such a way that you can never

34:29

cross from one way of understanding your identity

34:31

to the other. And so I think the

34:34

ideal shouldn't be this

34:36

exclusive group representation should be something different

34:38

and a bit more flexible and a

34:40

bit more fluid. But perhaps what we

34:42

need right now, given the conditions, it

34:44

is actually something like group specific representation.

34:46

And I'm sympathetic to that argument. And

34:48

I can really see the force behind a lot

34:51

of the planes. So how would that

34:53

work in practice, even if it's only

34:55

transitional on the way to something that is closer

34:57

to your ideal? But are we talking about women

35:01

representing women? Yeah, I mean,

35:03

that but also, you know, creating

35:05

institutions where you have actually collective

35:07

empowerment of women. So actually, you

35:09

know, just having voices in fora

35:12

that are made by both men

35:14

and women, but actually having institutions

35:16

that are just women. And

35:18

where you think about something like

35:20

the Machiavellian example of class specific

35:22

institutions, but perhaps with gender

35:25

specific elements. So I don't really know. I'm thinking

35:27

about it as I'm saying it. I've always thought

35:29

about I haven't thought about how you specifically kind

35:31

of turn it into institutions. But maybe

35:33

there is something along those lines. I

35:35

mean, Iris Marion Young had this discussion

35:37

in justice and the politics of difference, where

35:40

she talked about group specific representation and what

35:42

that is involved in the kinds of assemblies

35:44

that you would open up only to members

35:46

of some groups and not others and what

35:48

legislative and executive measures you could take with

35:51

one rather than the other type of representation.

35:53

So there is a little bit of work

35:55

done in that direction. And I'm sympathetic to that.

35:58

What about political parties? There are a occasionally

36:00

attempts to found political

36:02

parties in systems where the most powerful

36:04

parties are kind of catchall parties that

36:06

try to build coalitions where they match

36:09

and trade off the interests of different

36:11

groups in order to produce a general

36:13

program. And there's often pushback against

36:15

that with an attempt to found say a women's

36:17

party or women's equality party or

36:20

a women's liberation party to

36:22

represent more specific

36:24

interests. But they tend

36:26

to found it. I mean, it's partly because of

36:28

the structure of the electoral

36:30

systems that we have. It's partly because of the way

36:33

the institutions are set up. But nonetheless,

36:35

there's always a strong appeal of

36:37

the idea that you want

36:39

to have a political party which are the

36:41

most powerful organizations in democratic political systems of

36:43

the kind we have that doesn't

36:46

just try and balance and catchall

36:48

and build the biggest coalition it

36:50

has. It just does

36:52

speak for the group. Yeah.

36:55

And but one of the criticisms of the parties

36:57

that we know in the circumstances that

36:59

we have them in which they have

37:01

emerged and increasingly what they have become

37:03

is exactly that they are actually they

37:05

claim to speak for everyone, but in

37:07

fact, are most of the time captured

37:09

by powerful elites who in

37:11

the end control the agenda and decide

37:14

what gets said and what doesn't get

37:16

said and gets ruled out. So there

37:18

is a criticism of parties for having

37:21

this ideal of general universal representation. But

37:23

actually in practice operating just like very

37:25

small restricted interest groups. And

37:28

what you'd need to do to open up

37:30

the party system to make it more

37:32

inclusive, both along socioeconomic lines, but also

37:34

now also along gender lines or ethnicity

37:36

lines is a very difficult question. I

37:38

don't know that I have the answer

37:40

up my sleeve, but I'm not hostile

37:42

to thinking about ways in which you

37:44

can actually create forms of

37:46

group representation which consolidate and strengthen the

37:48

group and enable it to have even

37:50

sometimes veto powers or have say on

37:52

some things that are really important. And

37:54

I wouldn't if there are questions that

37:57

not because I necessarily think and automatically

37:59

think that every. that affects women should

38:01

be taken just by women. But there is

38:03

something to be said for also having the

38:05

kinds of institutions that enable women to have

38:07

more of a say on certain issues than,

38:09

say, men. So

38:12

I want to ask you about gay liberation because in

38:16

my lifetime, it's one

38:18

of the most dramatic social shifts.

38:20

So when I was born in

38:22

1967, in March 1967,

38:25

in the UK, homosexuality

38:27

was still illegal. It was outlawed.

38:29

So it was only decriminalized, I

38:32

think, in the summer of 1967. So within my lifetime. When

38:37

I was a student in the

38:39

late 1980s in the UK,

38:42

the social stigma was still really

38:44

acute. And there

38:46

was a lot of violence, gay students would be

38:48

beaten up regularly. It was

38:51

sort of just part of the background of, you

38:54

know, it's an unfortunate world we live in, but

38:56

this kind of stuff happens. The

38:58

government in the UK in the 1980s,

39:00

the Thatcher government was hostile

39:03

to gay rights. And this

39:06

percolated through to the way

39:08

that people talked about it. This

39:10

that was also the era of the arrival

39:13

of AIDS as a disease, which was treated

39:16

in public discourse in the UK in a way

39:18

that now seems like it comes from

39:20

100 years ago, not 30 years ago. And

39:24

in the last 10 or 15 years, there's been

39:26

a really dramatic shift in

39:28

terms of social acceptance

39:31

and understanding in terms

39:33

of the way in which institutions.

39:35

And I think even here are things like

39:37

tabloid newspapers. It is unbelievable when you look

39:40

back on how tabloid newspapers used to write

39:42

about the lives of gay

39:44

people even 20 years ago compared

39:47

to now. I can't think of

39:49

a comparably dramatic shift in

39:52

anything actually on any dimension. And

39:55

yet what's also interesting about it is

39:58

the sort of flagship. example

40:00

of the change is the

40:02

legalization in many, many places in the world.

40:04

By no means all, as you said earlier,

40:07

I'm talking about certain parts of the world,

40:09

but still it's remarkably widespread actually, which

40:11

is the acceptance and the legalization of

40:14

gay marriage. But

40:16

it's interesting that it's marriage because then in that

40:18

longer story of human history, marriage is one of

40:20

the things that women in particular

40:22

wanted to be emancipated from because marriage is

40:25

often been seen as the great constrainer of

40:28

human freedom. I'm

40:30

really curious to know what you

40:32

think about that sort of double

40:34

symbol of one

40:37

really successful liberation movement,

40:39

which is the gay rights movement. I'm

40:41

going to use the language of success even if

40:43

you hate it. It has been incredibly successful in

40:46

certain parts of the world. In other parts of the world, you

40:49

can still lose your life for having the

40:51

wrong sexuality. But that was true

40:53

in the part of the world I grew up in. I mean,

40:56

it was true in Britain, but it's much less true

40:58

today. It's not perfect, but it's much less true today.

41:01

And yet the symbol of

41:03

this emancipation is

41:05

marriage. How do you feel

41:07

about that? I'm really curious to know actually how

41:09

you feel about that. GKM Yes. I mean,

41:12

what's interesting I think with just taking again,

41:14

going a little bit back historically, is that

41:16

I don't think it was the case that

41:18

there was gay oppression in all societies to

41:20

the same extent always. So there have

41:22

been periods in history where there was

41:24

much more tolerance toward gay people. And indeed,

41:26

I discovered the other day while I was doing

41:28

something unrelated research in the Ottoman Empire,

41:31

I discovered that in the 19th century,

41:33

in the early 19th century, in the

41:35

Ottoman Empire, punishment against gay people was

41:38

much, much less than it was in

41:40

Victorian, and it's a later Victorian Britain.

41:43

And indeed, in England, you could be killed. And

41:45

in the Ottoman Empire, you just had to have

41:48

a fine. You paid a fine. And so there

41:50

were moments where there was much more tolerance. And

41:52

this is for me, that was interesting, because you

41:54

usually think of, you know, the Ottoman Empire

41:56

as horrible Muslims who just must have been

41:58

really horrible towards everyone. and in particular towards gay

42:01

people, if you think of the condition of gay people

42:03

around the world now. But it turned

42:06

out that actually historically things were much

42:08

more complicated. The other

42:10

thing that I wanted to say also historically

42:12

for me is really interesting because I think

42:14

one of the reasons why the gay liberation

42:16

movement has been so successful, in particular from,

42:18

I don't know, 1990 onwards, is that I

42:20

think the cause was taken up mostly

42:23

by the left to begin with, and then it

42:25

sort of took up at the

42:27

moment where there seemed to be a vacuum in

42:29

terms of what kind of causes the left would

42:32

embrace when socialism was dead as an ideal for

42:34

the future. And so it

42:36

became, this civil rights

42:38

movement, I think became particularly important and

42:40

really came at the center of the

42:42

agenda when it came to green parties

42:44

or broadly speaking parties of the

42:47

left in Western Europe, at the

42:49

very moment where they somehow decided

42:51

that there was nothing to be done with

42:54

socioeconomic ideas of revolution or socialism

42:56

in particular and radical emancipation of

42:58

that kind. And so then the struggle

43:00

became one of opening up legal access

43:02

and legal rights. And I think it

43:05

coincides with, in the case of gay

43:07

people, with exactly gay liberation, which was

43:09

one of the benefits of having this

43:11

moment in history because they could become

43:13

prominent and their cause was taken up

43:15

by the left. It

43:18

also, I think, goes back to human rights

43:20

more generally. So you get this flourishing of

43:22

discourse around human rights and the importance of human

43:24

rights, because it seems to me that once

43:27

you lose the vision of an

43:29

emancipation through a different sociopolitical

43:31

system, what you have is just

43:33

emancipation through the law. And so

43:35

the law then becomes the site

43:37

of demands for progressive

43:39

involvement of previously excluded

43:42

groups. So I don't think it's a

43:44

coincidence historically that this happens, that the gay movement

43:46

takes this form. And you're

43:49

right that it pushes against some of these

43:51

other ideas of isn't this to state, is

43:53

marriage is what feminists were rebelling against

43:55

because of its oppressive nature, but then it depends

43:57

on how you understand marriage and how you define

43:59

it. define it and how you think about it. It

44:02

can be a very general, very abstract social structure that

44:04

can then be filled with content depending on how

44:06

the politics of it operates. And

44:08

I think it's also really interesting that

44:11

some of these tensions you see also

44:13

between say trans movements now and feminist

44:16

movements where you sometimes see this kind of

44:18

tension about what is this movement one might

44:20

be the opposite of what has been claimed

44:23

in the past by this other one. So

44:26

I think the tension is somehow part of the politics of

44:28

it. I don't have firm views

44:30

on which one is right and which one is wrong, so

44:32

I'm not going to give you an answer on which ones I like.

44:35

So for me, it's more interesting sociologically to

44:37

see why did this happen and why did

44:39

emancipation through the law suddenly become the be-all

44:41

and end-all of all progressive movements, because I

44:44

don't think they could see beyond the emancipation

44:46

through the law, beyond the kind of politics

44:48

of the present. And in the

44:50

history of feminism, it's not marriage, it's divorce is the

44:52

great symbol. I mean, divorce was the great battle, right?

44:54

In the French Revolution, all the way back to the

44:56

French Revolution, the great battle was for

44:59

emancipation through the right to end

45:01

a marriage under conditions, but under

45:03

conditions in which marriage was profoundly

45:05

oppressive, because particularly property was

45:08

not equally distributed within the

45:10

household. That's a

45:12

200-year plus old story. Yeah, exactly, which I

45:14

think also goes back to this idea that these

45:16

aren't what looks like it's just a struggle for

45:18

rights, for just

45:20

abstract political representation. In the end, also

45:23

has an important material component behind it

45:25

that does a lot of work in

45:27

how you understand the struggle and how it develops

45:29

and what constraints and what possibilities there are there.

45:32

So to finish then, and maybe

45:34

I know what you're going to say, maybe I don't know

45:36

what you're going to say. So in the 21st century, the

45:38

20th century and the early

45:41

21st century, you can map

45:43

the arc of liberation movements.

45:46

For better and for worse, it's complicated. I do

45:48

get it doesn't all move in one direction. It's

45:50

not a global story. Advance is in

45:52

one place. Even if the

45:55

word is right, advance, see backward steps in

45:57

other places, all of that is going on.

46:00

the arc of these things, it is possible to talk about

46:03

a period where postcolonial liberation

46:05

movements come to a kind

46:07

of fruition. The

46:09

thing that I just described across my lifetime,

46:11

from living in a society where to

46:14

be gay was a crime, to

46:16

a society in which gay marriage is

46:18

accepted by people who 20 years ago

46:21

would have railed against

46:23

it. That is a

46:25

direction of travel. When

46:28

you look ahead, what is

46:30

the liberation movement of the

46:33

second half of the first half of the

46:35

21st century that might

46:38

characterize it? Or what

46:40

is the one that's missing? Yeah,

46:43

I mean, I guess I'm going to be

46:45

old fashioned historical materialist about this. I don't

46:47

think we can know about the movements without

46:49

knowing what the tensions are on the ground.

46:51

And as I understand, as

46:53

I see the future, it seems

46:55

to me that battles around environmental

46:58

questions and related to climate change

47:00

will become increasingly important. And they will

47:02

pose increasingly important constraints on the world

47:04

that we have. And I think

47:06

maybe from there, there'll be much

47:08

more prominence given to animal rights

47:10

movements or movements to do with conservation

47:12

of nature that have to do with kind

47:14

of rethinking our relationship to nature

47:16

in a much more sustainable way. But on

47:19

the other hand, I also don't think that

47:21

any of these movements that we know now

47:23

will go. So I think the working class

47:25

movements will work class claims will remain important.

47:28

And women's claims will remain important. And all

47:30

of these other discussions that

47:32

we've had, it's not as though they have a kind

47:34

of shelf life, and then they go and they get

47:36

replaced by something else. They are there for as long

47:39

as the conditions that enable them to be reproduced are

47:41

in place. And so I think there

47:44

will be a lot of what we

47:46

have. And there may be new emerging

47:48

movements that have to do with developed

47:50

with the conditions of changes in the

47:52

economy and in society and culture more

47:54

broadly. And where I think some of these environmental

47:56

questions that I've just been discussing will fit. So

47:58

maybe that will become a more central as

48:00

it already begins, we can already begin to

48:03

see it. Adam L Animals

48:30

are still pretty oppressed and not just in

48:32

certain parts of the world. They're

48:34

pretty oppressed everywhere. But

48:36

it must also be possible that under

48:38

conditions of environmental

48:41

constraint, rather

48:44

than the natural world acquiring

48:46

rights and being

48:48

brought into this kind of liberation language

48:53

just gets seen even more

48:55

than it is now as a set of resources

48:57

over which we are fighting. I mean, I feel

49:00

much more pessimistic slash, I want

49:02

to say realistic about what might

49:04

happen over the next 20, 30, 40

49:07

years as the environmental

49:10

crisis starts to bite, which

49:12

is that human beings won't think, oh

49:14

shit, we'd better take more

49:16

care of animals in the natural world. They

49:19

will think, God, we'd better make

49:21

sure we use the stuff that's ours for

49:24

other people, get their hands on it because

49:26

this is all becoming more scarce. As water

49:29

becomes more scarce, as land, arable land becomes

49:31

more scarce. I'm

49:34

not sure I think that the result of that will be

49:37

animal liberation. Sarah I

49:42

think there are claims that we can build around these as part of what

49:44

it means to have a

49:53

sustainable human life and human future. I

49:55

don't think that the claims of humans

49:57

and the claims of nature are... one

50:00

is here and the other is here. And

50:02

so to realize one, we need to sacrifice

50:04

the other. I think this is a question

50:07

that needs to be approached organically. And indeed,

50:09

I forgot to mention children as part of

50:11

my, you know, what could be the movement

50:13

for the future? Because if we're thinking about

50:16

future generations, I think it's really important to

50:18

think about children and the claims of children

50:20

and how one can take care and ensure

50:22

that they have robust forms of representation that

50:25

doesn't make present generations sacrifice future generations. And

50:27

perhaps children are one way of thinking about

50:29

the claims of future generations and the empowerment

50:31

of children, I think, is one way of

50:33

thinking about the claims of future generations. But

50:36

this also to say that for me, it's

50:38

not I don't really see that necessarily as

50:40

a trade-off. I think the question of how

50:42

we can all as a species have a

50:44

sustainable future means that all of these demands

50:46

are bound up with each other and that

50:48

I don't think you can conservation isn't conservation

50:50

because of some abstract claim

50:53

that one group of animals or

50:55

species in nature has. And that needs to

50:57

impose itself on all the others. It's more

50:59

that humans need to relate to nature in

51:01

a way that makes it, makes

51:03

their life together sustainable and that

51:06

enables them to kind of develop

51:08

a relationship to nature that isn't just

51:10

instrumental and isn't just the way it

51:12

is now, which is destroyed for the sake

51:14

of profit. Of course, that's a political question. So

51:16

we can't tell which one prevails, which one wins,

51:18

which one loses. It may well be that these

51:20

are all abstract, ideal claims and that in

51:23

the end, reality on the ground is much

51:25

harder hitting and then people decide to take

51:27

the shortcuts and to actually sacrifice animals

51:30

and to fight over resources in this way. I

51:32

don't think that's particularly enlightened, which is where I

51:34

think that's why it's a political question in the

51:36

end because it's all about how you make the

51:38

case and how you build it and

51:40

what kind of arguments you mobilize in support of

51:42

it. But I don't think it can be in

51:45

the end settled either way. So yes, there is

51:47

a pessimistic story, which is the one that you've

51:49

described where people rally for the small few resources

51:51

that they are and it becomes a kind of

51:53

war of all against all. Or it can be

51:56

that they take a much more enlightened long term

51:58

look and they understand that these things. can't go

52:00

on forever like this and that you will

52:02

confront the question either way, especially with climate

52:05

change and environmental constraints. And so

52:07

that we really need to rethink our relationship

52:09

to nature. But I really want to insist, I mean,

52:12

I'm a country and sometimes I get in trouble because

52:14

of this. It's not because

52:16

of nature. It's because it's one. It's

52:18

not nature there and humans there. These

52:20

two are connected and we need to

52:23

really take an organic approach. On

52:25

children, I'm conflicted because I

52:27

have for a few

52:30

years now advocated in franchising children.

52:33

And when I say this in public, it's

52:35

thought to be some kind of really

52:37

radical, almost children's liberationist movement.

52:40

Whereas I'm not that kind

52:42

of person and I'm not that sort of kind

52:44

of advocate. I don't think I'm radical about anything.

52:47

I think of it as a very pragmatic

52:49

thing. I mean, for me, it's an argument

52:51

in favor of small changes to democracy to

52:53

try and see what might work. I'm

52:56

interested in institutions. I want to try different

52:58

things and so on. And it seems to

53:00

me that in franchising children is not children's

53:02

liberation. People sort of think that if you gave

53:04

children the vote, suddenly

53:06

children would rule the world, which is complete nonsense.

53:09

It's just the damn vote. I mean,

53:11

I'm not sure because I sometimes think I'm very

53:13

sympathetic to that view because I don't think that

53:15

the world that is ruled by children is necessarily

53:17

going to be a much worse world than the

53:20

one that we have. So I think there's... Right.

53:22

So this is where we differ. It's sort of

53:24

weird. The one thing that I say in public

53:26

that's thought to be wild and radical is that

53:29

children should vote. But I don't want

53:31

children to rule the world. I would hate children to rule

53:33

the world. I want to make small steps, incremental steps.

53:35

I want to try new things. I

53:37

just think that enfranchisement, enfranchisement

53:40

is not liberation, right?

53:42

Women's enfranchisement was not women's

53:44

liberation. American enfranchisement

53:46

was not liberation because it's just

53:48

the vote and the vote doesn't

53:51

liberate anyone. It's a small building

53:53

block of certain forms

53:55

of emancipation, but we're

53:57

way too preoccupied with voting as the vehicle to

53:59

emancipate. For some of the reasons we just talked

54:01

about it, you know, the same people still end

54:03

up representing you. And

54:05

so when I advocate children voting, I'm

54:07

not advocating a world run by children.

54:10

And so somehow I find myself on the one

54:12

thing that I'm thought to be

54:15

radical about, I'm just as small C conservative

54:17

as I am about everything else. Whereas

54:20

you actually want children to rule the world, that's

54:22

why you are kind of out there. I

54:25

think I've

54:28

been reading with my children recently, actually,

54:30

P.P. Longstocking. And it's such an

54:32

amazing book because it really gives you an image

54:34

of what would be a world where children actually

54:37

rule. And when you read it, you realize, in

54:39

some ways, it's just a kind of anarchist character. And

54:42

I really like that aspect of it.

54:44

But there's this kind of irreverence to

54:46

authority. But there is also kind of

54:48

solidity to her becoming a master of

54:51

herself. You know, she rules herself, she governs

54:53

herself, she doesn't do stupid things. She's a very

54:55

sensible child, even though she's just by herself and

54:57

she's kind of controlling herself. And I mean, I

54:59

never thought about how that could be a utopia

55:01

for the future. But when I was reading the

55:03

book with my children, I was thinking, yeah, I

55:05

mean, she's a very sensible person. And so I

55:07

don't really see what's wrong with a world in

55:09

which I'm not saying someone like P.P.

55:12

and her friends rule, but where

55:14

there is much more scope for

55:16

that constituency making decisions just as we make

55:18

space for a lot of other. I think

55:21

there's a lot of stupid people are there

55:23

that are grown up and make stupid

55:25

decisions and that indeed having a more

55:28

childlike view on the world, much might

55:30

be in some ways an improvement. So

55:33

yeah. So one of my sort of more

55:36

memorable recent experiences was reading a book

55:38

to my young nephew and

55:40

niece, very young, four,

55:42

five, six, seven age. And it was a

55:44

book which was sort of just a general children's

55:47

guide to politics. And they wanted me to

55:49

read it to them as they were going

55:51

to sleep sort of partly as a joke. And

55:53

we were reading this book and in this book, which is

55:55

written for children, the author said there's this Cambridge professor who's

55:58

kind of so crazy that he's a young man. He thinks

56:00

that children should vote. The

56:02

children laughed at this. Who is that

56:05

crazy professor? It was me. If

56:08

you ask the children, you don't know what

56:10

you're going to get. Yeah,

56:13

I know. Of course you don't. But you

56:15

often get much more sensible things than you

56:17

get from grown-ups. So I'm not at all

56:19

unsympathetic to that argument on the contrary. If

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Our next series, starting on Thursday,

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59:00

Easier said done.