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<v Mark Cully>Good morning, everyone. It's my great pleasure to welcome you here this Sunday morning to hear the extraordinary Francis Wynne.

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<v Mark Cully>Francis is being kept very busy this Festival of Ideas. This is his third session so far, and of course he's in the panel session for the very last session of the whole festival later this afternoon.

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<v Mark Cully>And the fact that Rose White and the Festival of Ideas Committee have managed to squeeze Francis onto four different sessions in the course of the four days gives you an idea of how incredibly diverse Francis's interests and writings are.

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<v Mark Cully>One of the great advantages that I have at my job at the State Library is that when Rose told me I would be chairing Francis's session, I could just ring down and say,

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<v Mark Cully>could you please bring up...

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<v Mark Cully>everything that Francis has ever written.

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<v Mark Cully>And so I've had the great pleasure over the last few weeks of reading and in some cases rereading some of the wonderful books, actually all of the wonderful books that Francis has written.

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<v Mark Cully>And the diversity is just extraordinary.

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<v Mark Cully>Francis's primary role, of course, is as a journalist and as deputy editor of Private Eye.

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<v Mark Cully>But he's also a most noted biographer of very different people.

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<v Mark Cully>Thomas.

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<v Mark Cully>Tom Dryberg.

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<v Mark Cully>The enthusiastically promiscuous homosexual Labour MP.

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<v Mark Cully>And Karl Marx, who was not an enthusiastically promiscuous homosexual Labour MP.

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<v Mark Cully>Quite the contrary.

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<v Mark Cully>And a really bizarre Hungarian transsexual con man.

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<v Mark Cully>And Francis's biography of that particular person whose name completely escapes me at the moment is being made into a film.

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<v Mark Cully>At the moment.

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<v Mark Cully>The only thing that these people would appear to have in common is that they spent a great deal of their life in London, as has Francis.

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<v Mark Cully>The book that Francis will be talking about this morning is How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World.

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<v Mark Cully>I remain deeply sad that Francis's publisher refused to go to print with Francis's original working title for this opus, which was The History of Bollocks.

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<v Mark Cully>Apparently, his publisher said, the Americans wouldn't understand the term.

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<v Mark Cully>I think they need to be told.

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<v Mark Cully>Will you please join with me in welcoming Francis Ween.

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<v Mark Cully>Thank you.

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<v Francis Wheen>Well, thank you very much for coming.

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<v Francis Wheen>And thank you very much for that introduction.

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<v Francis Wheen>Extra special thanks, of course, to the State Library of South Australia, because they are in fact the supporters of this event.

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<v Francis Wheen>So if you want to know who to blame for keeping you from church on this Sunday morning, that's your man.

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<v Francis Wheen>Now I thought actually noticing the organ pipes, if you are getting withdrawal symptoms, any churchgoers among you, perhaps at the end, if there's time, we can have a quick blast of Abide With Me.

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<v Francis Wheen>But first you have to sit through the sermon, obviously.

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<v Francis Wheen>And as Alan says, the theme for today's sermon is Mumbos.

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<v Francis Wheen>Mumbo Jumbo, or indeed, Bollocks, as I would prefer to have called the book.

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<v Francis Wheen>And actually, this excuse the publisher gave me, saying, oh, it wouldn't work on the American edition, turned out to be bogus, because the Americans retitled it anyway.

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<v Francis Wheen>I mean, they've retitled it so many times.

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<v Francis Wheen>In fact, you have to be careful in the book tent here, because there are certain books there which turn out to be the Mumbo Jumbo book under another name.

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<v Francis Wheen>Idiot Proof was one of the American, I think, the American hardback.

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<v Francis Wheen>And just before that, they were going to call it, The 25-Year History of How We Stopped Thinking.

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<v Francis Wheen>Which seemed a bit sort of clunking somehow.

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<v Francis Wheen>And they obviously thought so, too.

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<v Francis Wheen>But it struck me it did at least have the merit of being a very concise and accurate account of what the book was.

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<v Francis Wheen>Because it's a history of how we stopped thinking.

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<v Francis Wheen>And it covers a period of roughly 25 years, starting in 1979.

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<v Francis Wheen>And you may say, why start in 1979?

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<v Francis Wheen>Well, you have to start somewhere.

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<v Francis Wheen>By the way, I'd better just take out my watch, because there's a grave danger that I could go on for three hours without noticing if I don't keep up.

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<v Francis Wheen>But also because I thought 1979 was rather underrated as a turning point in modern history.

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<v Francis Wheen>Which had really set the tone for much of what has happened since.

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<v Francis Wheen>That on the 1st of February that year, the Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Tehran.

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<v Francis Wheen>You have the Iranian Revolution kick-starting a whole new wave of theocratic militant political Islam.

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<v Francis Wheen>Which has since, over the period since then, spread in many different forms and guises around the world.

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<v Francis Wheen>And is very much with us to this day.

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<v Francis Wheen>And has been one of the dominant forces of that period.

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<v Francis Wheen>And then of course three months after the Iranian Revolution, we had our own little revolution in Britain.

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<v Francis Wheen>Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister.

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<v Francis Wheen>Standing on the doorsteps of Number 10, quoting St. Francis of Assisi rather wonderfully.

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<v Francis Wheen>Where there is discord, may we bring harmony.

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<v Francis Wheen>Thatcher, answer that.

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<v Francis Wheen>And so we had the Thatcher Revolution.

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<v Francis Wheen>And then the following year, Ronald Reagan elected President.

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<v Francis Wheen>Her great fan.

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<v Francis Wheen>And in no time at all, this too had kick-started a revolution around the world.

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<v Francis Wheen>Or spread itself around the world through various disciples in the International Monetary Fund.

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<v Francis Wheen>And elsewhere, spreading the gospel of privatize, deregulate, liberalize.

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<v Francis Wheen>There is no alternative.

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<v Francis Wheen>Market fundamentalism.

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<v Francis Wheen>And again, that is still with us.

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<v Francis Wheen>So I wanted to write a history of this period.

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<v Francis Wheen>Starting with those two events.

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<v Francis Wheen>Those two big ideas.

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<v Francis Wheen>But through the other ideas.

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<v Francis Wheen>Big and maybe not so big.

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<v Francis Wheen>That had emerged.

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<v Francis Wheen>Or sometimes reemerged.

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<v Francis Wheen>Groaning from the grave.

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<v Francis Wheen>During this period.

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<v Francis Wheen>Things like the end of history.

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<v Francis Wheen>Remember at the end of the 1980s.

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<v Francis Wheen>Around about the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

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<v Francis Wheen>Francis Fukuyama came up with this theory.

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<v Francis Wheen>That if you like the whole of world history had been a bit like the soccer world cup.

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<v Francis Wheen>You had the preliminary qualifying rounds.

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<v Francis Wheen>And the group stages.

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<v Francis Wheen>And so on.

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<v Francis Wheen>And then finally the 20th century had been the cup final of world history.

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<v Francis Wheen>Between capitalism in the blue shirts.

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<v Francis Wheen>Communism in the red shirts.

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<v Francis Wheen>And capitalism had won.

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<v Francis Wheen>Without the need for extra time.

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<v Francis Wheen>Even a penalty shootout unnecessary.

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<v Francis Wheen>And so that was it.

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<v Francis Wheen>And according to this theory.

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<v Francis Wheen>That was it forever.

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<v Francis Wheen>You got to keep the trophy.

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<v Francis Wheen>In this particular world cup.

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<v Francis Wheen>Because no improvement was possible or imaginable.

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<v Francis Wheen>We had now reached the terminus.

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<v Francis Wheen>It was like a sort of shark.

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<v Francis Wheen>You know.

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<v Francis Wheen>We had ceased to evolve.

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<v Francis Wheen>Because we were now so perfectly adapted.

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<v Francis Wheen>That no system.

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<v Francis Wheen>No improvements to liberal democratic capitalism were possible.

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<v Francis Wheen>And that was it forever and ever.

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<v Francis Wheen>Shortly after that.

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<v Francis Wheen>Fukuyama's old tutor.

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<v Francis Wheen>Oddly enough.

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<v Francis Wheen>From university.

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<v Francis Wheen>A man called Samuel Huntington.

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<v Francis Wheen>Who I think was probably a bit annoyed.

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<v Francis Wheen>To see this former student of his making an absolute fortune.

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<v Francis Wheen>Out of peddling simplistic twaddle.

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<v Francis Wheen>Thought I could do that.

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<v Francis Wheen>And so he did.

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<v Francis Wheen>So he came up with his own pitch for the big ideas market.

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<v Francis Wheen>Which was the clash of civilizations.

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<v Francis Wheen>Which as you may know.

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<v Francis Wheen>Divides the world into about five or six separate.

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<v Francis Wheen>Very separate civilizations.

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<v Francis Wheen>He's a bit vague about precisely how many there are.

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<v Francis Wheen>Because he couldn't decide if Africa counted as a civilization or not.

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<v Francis Wheen>This shows how rough and ready.

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<v Francis Wheen>And how precise his approach was.

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<v Francis Wheen>But the gist of it is.

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<v Francis Wheen>That there are these separate hermetically sealed civilizations.

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<v Francis Wheen>Which have always been clashing.

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<v Francis Wheen>Are clashing.

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<v Francis Wheen>And always will be clashing.

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<v Francis Wheen>There's nothing to be done about it.

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<v Francis Wheen>Except guard your corner.

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<v Francis Wheen>And fend off the others.

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<v Francis Wheen>Overlooking the fact that of course.

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<v Francis Wheen>Most divisions and clashes indeed.

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<v Francis Wheen>In society are not between civilizations.

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<v Francis Wheen>But within them.

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<v Francis Wheen>But within each of these civilizations.

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<v Francis Wheen>Pretty well that he writes about.

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<v Francis Wheen>You have liberals.

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<v Francis Wheen>You have conservatives.

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<v Francis Wheen>You have religious fundamentalists.

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<v Francis Wheen>You have atheists.

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<v Francis Wheen>Secularists.

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<v Francis Wheen>And all the rest of it.

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<v Francis Wheen>And that actually.

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<v Francis Wheen>Over the last 20 or 30 years.

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<v Francis Wheen>Most wars in the world have been civil wars.

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<v Francis Wheen>A fact that somehow eluded.

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<v Francis Wheen>The great Professor Huntington.

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<v Francis Wheen>And that is very much with us to this day.

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<v Francis Wheen>Partly because it's got the word clash.

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<v Francis Wheen>And the word civilization.

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<v Francis Wheen>Since 9-11.

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<v Francis Wheen>There's been this idea put about.

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<v Francis Wheen>That he got it right.

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<v Francis Wheen>And that Huntington has done rather better.

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<v Francis Wheen>Than Fukuyama in this respect.

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<v Francis Wheen>You don't hear much.

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<v Francis Wheen>From the end.

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<v Francis Wheen>About the end of history these days.

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<v Francis Wheen>Not least from Fukuyama himself.

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<v Francis Wheen>Who's moved on to other things.

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<v Francis Wheen>And hopes we'll forget the absolute rubbish.

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<v Francis Wheen>He peddled about 25 years ago.

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<v Francis Wheen>So there's that.

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<v Francis Wheen>And then there were all these other ideas.

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<v Francis Wheen>As I say.

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<v Francis Wheen>Some great.

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<v Francis Wheen>Some not so great.

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<v Francis Wheen>In Britain.

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<v Francis Wheen>Our own little attempt at it.

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<v Francis Wheen>Our Prime Minister.

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<v Francis Wheen>Mr Blair.

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<v Francis Wheen>Came up with something called the third way.

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<v Francis Wheen>Which had a brief vogue.

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<v Francis Wheen>He managed to persuade Bill Clinton to take it up.

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<v Francis Wheen>It was one of Bill Clinton's State of the Union addresses actually.

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<v Francis Wheen>He stood up.

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<v Francis Wheen>And rather dramatically declared to both houses of Congress.

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<v Francis Wheen>My fellow Americans.

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<v Francis Wheen>We have found the third way.

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<v Francis Wheen>Given Bill Clinton's record.

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<v Francis Wheen>I think we can all guess where it was.

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<v Francis Wheen>But.

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<v Francis Wheen>The problem with this third way.

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<v Francis Wheen>Is that.

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<v Francis Wheen>It's a.

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<v Francis Wheen>That despite endless seminars around the world.

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<v Francis Wheen>No one could ever discover what it really meant.

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<v Francis Wheen>It was somewhere between the second coming and the fourth dimension.

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<v Francis Wheen>And it did rather wilt.

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<v Francis Wheen>So.

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<v Francis Wheen>Alarmingly.

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<v Francis Wheen>The man who devised it.

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<v Francis Wheen>With and for Blair.

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<v Francis Wheen>A man called Professor Anthony Giddens.

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<v Francis Wheen>Who is now Lord Giddens.

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<v Francis Wheen>Was given a peerage on the strength of this bollocks.

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<v Francis Wheen>Is now threatening us with the fourth way.

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<v Francis Wheen>So that's something to look forward to.

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<v Francis Wheen>And of course in this period that I'm talking about since 79.

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<v Francis Wheen>There have been all sorts of other things.

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<v Francis Wheen>Like the rise of the new age.

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<v Francis Wheen>movement with a fair bit of associated mysticism involving ley lines and magic crystals and

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<v Francis Wheen>various other things, and a great proliferation of gurus, gurus of every kind, management

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<v Francis Wheen>gurus, lifestyle gurus, new age gurus, self-help gurus, and just plain guru gurus, setting

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<v Francis Wheen>up little sects and persuading people to come and commit mass suicide to live on the Hallibop

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<v Francis Wheen>Comet. And it struck me actually while I was writing this that although it's not true

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<v Francis Wheen>of all of them, surprisingly many of the ideas in this period, what they have in common,

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<v Francis Wheen>surprisingly many of them, is a tremendous hostility to the Enlightenment legacy, if

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<v Francis Wheen>you like, to Enlightenment values, secularism, reason, scientific empiricism, and so forth.

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<v Francis Wheen>And it's a rather odd alliance, really, between pre-modernists and post-modernists ganging

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<v Francis Wheen>up on modernity in the sense of the Enlightenment.

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<v Francis Wheen>And by pre-modernists, I don't just mean the obvious suspects like the Ayatollah or

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<v Francis Wheen>the Taliban, but also actually people elsewhere. I mean, I think, you know, certain elements

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<v Francis Wheen>of the deep green, sort of Earth First movement reached a point where there was not so much

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<v Francis Wheen>pre-industrial as pre-agrarian. I thought the invention of the plough had been rather

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<v Francis Wheen>a retrograde step. And this great sort of yearning for a return to Eden, if only we

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<v Francis Wheen>could all go and live in little remote, isolated communities and eat berries off the trees

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<v Francis Wheen>and eat them.

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<v Francis Wheen>How much better everything would be. Personally, I have actually lived in remote, isolated

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<v Francis Wheen>communities occasionally, and find they're not always quite so blissful. In fact, I'm

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<v Francis Wheen>rather glad at the invention of things like telephones and modern transport systems, because

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<v Francis Wheen>if things get too oppressive there, you can at least make contact with kindred spirits

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<v Francis Wheen>outside and eventually flee, which is often necessary.

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<v Francis Wheen>So there was this sort of strong pre-modern impulse, this impulse that, I mean, again

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<v Francis Wheen>and again in this period, what I come across is the yearning to turn the clock back. I

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<v Francis Wheen>mean, the Ayatollah Khomeini wanted to turn it back 1500 years, and the Taliban damn near

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<v Francis Wheen>succeeded in turning it back 1500 years, whereas people like Mrs Thatcher obviously only wanted

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<v Francis Wheen>to go back to the 19th century. Victorian values, as she put it. But on all parts there

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<v Francis Wheen>was this sort of rejection of the 20th century and of the modern world. And the pre-modernists,

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<v Francis Wheen>as I say, wanted to go back to living in a remote village somewhere. But then they were

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<v Francis Wheen>also allied to, in a curious way, post-modernists who had gone through modernity and come out

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<v Francis Wheen>the other side. And I think that's a very important thing. And I think that's a very

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<v Francis Wheen>important thing.

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<v Francis Wheen>So the post-modernists, with their heads so frazzled that they lived in this sort of swirl

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<v Francis Wheen>where there was no reality, no such thing as truth, that we live simply in a swirl of

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<v Francis Wheen>theories all none more valid than another because they're all equally valid or invalid

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<v Francis Wheen>in the sense that you can't apply such concepts because there is no such thing as reality.

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<v Francis Wheen>And the post-modernists created their own sort of church almost with high priests and

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<v Francis Wheen>you know, the

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<v Francis Wheen>indeed inquisitions, quite on certain campuses especially.

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<v Francis Wheen>And one of the heroes of my book is a man called Alan Sokal,

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<v Francis Wheen>a physics professor in New York,

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<v Francis Wheen>who carried out one of the great hoaxes of the last century,

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<v Francis Wheen>except for the Earned Malley hoax, obviously, but it's up there.

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<v Francis Wheen>I think when the next anthology of great hoaxes comes out,

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<v Francis Wheen>I hope he'll be in it.

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<v Francis Wheen>Because about ten years ago, he'd had enough of this.

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<v Francis Wheen>Partly because the postmodernists used the language of science

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<v Francis Wheen>even though none of them knew anything about it,

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<v Francis Wheen>to give an appearance of sort of method

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<v Francis Wheen>and also mystification to some of their assertions.

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<v Francis Wheen>I mean, if I've got time, perhaps I could just give you a couple of samples.

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<v Francis Wheen>Lucera Gary, one of the great high priestesses,

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<v Francis Wheen>denounced E equals MC squared, Einstein's famous equation,

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<v Francis Wheen>as a sexed equation, since it privileges the speed of light

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<v Francis Wheen>over other, less masculine speeds that are vitally necessary to us.

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<v Francis Wheen>And in the same vein, she complained about the privileging of solid

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<v Francis Wheen>over fluidity.

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<v Francis Wheen>She said,

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<v Francis Wheen>and indeed the inability of science to deal with turbulent flow at all,

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<v Francis Wheen>which may come as news to certain scientists,

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<v Francis Wheen>but she attributed this to the association of fluidity with femininity.

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<v Francis Wheen>I also warned you, I'm afraid postmodernists are obsessed with genitals.

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<v Francis Wheen>There's no getting away from it, so you might want to cover your ears.

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<v Francis Wheen>Whereas men have sex organs, she writes, that protrude and become rigid,

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<v Francis Wheen>women have openings that leak menstrual blood and vaginal fluids.

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<v Francis Wheen>From this perspective, it is no wonder that science has not been able

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<v Francis Wheen>to arrive at a successful model for turbulence.

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<v Francis Wheen>Jacques Lacan, another great oracle of this movement,

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<v Francis Wheen>who was received with awe on many British and American campuses,

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<v Francis Wheen>certainly, tried to give some methodical rigor to his chats about sex

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<v Francis Wheen>by coming up with this equation.

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<v Francis Wheen>Capital S, the signifier, over small s, the signified,

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<v Francis Wheen>equals S, the statement.

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<v Francis Wheen>Where capital S, if we're following this, the signifier, equals minus one,

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<v Francis Wheen>and this produces,

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<v Francis Wheen>the statement, the square root of minus one.

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<v Francis Wheen>Now, you don't need to know much math to see that this is complete gibberish,

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<v Francis Wheen>but for Lacan, there's absolutely nothing that can't be expressed algebraically,

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<v Francis Wheen>and in this particular case, can you guess what it is yet,

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<v Francis Wheen>as Rolf Harris used to say?

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<v Francis Wheen>Thus, the erectile organ, I did warn you,

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<v Francis Wheen>the erectile organ comes to symbolize the place of jouissance,

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<v Francis Wheen>not in itself or in the form of an image,

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<v Francis Wheen>but as a part lacking in the desired image.

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<v Francis Wheen>That is why it is equivalent, this is the male erectile organ,

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<v Francis Wheen>to the square root of minus one.

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<v Francis Wheen>Minus one of the signification produced above

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<v Francis Wheen>of the jouissance that it restores

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<v Francis Wheen>by the coefficient of its statement

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<v Francis Wheen>to the function of lack of signifier minus one.

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<v Francis Wheen>Barbara Ehrenreich, the American writer, once asked,

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<v Francis Wheen>what does it matter if some French guy thinks his erect penis is the square root of minus one?

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<v Francis Wheen>And it's a fair question.

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<v Francis Wheen>But I think the answer is that,

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<v Francis Wheen>it's, postmodernism became more than just a campus fad.

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<v Francis Wheen>I mean, rather like drinking till you vomit.

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<v Francis Wheen>I mean, there are many things that start as campus fads,

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<v Francis Wheen>but then spread into the much wider world, and this is one of them.

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<v Francis Wheen>And very much like drinking till you vomit.

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<v Francis Wheen>It had rather disgusting consequences because, of course,

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<v Francis Wheen>as I said, Sokal, what particularly annoyed him was,

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<v Francis Wheen>all this was done in the name of radicalism.

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<v Francis Wheen>Most of the postmodernists would regard themselves and surround themselves as radicals.

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<v Francis Wheen>Some Marxists.

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<v Francis Wheen>Some ex-Marxists.

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<v Francis Wheen>Some post-Marxists, undoubtedly.

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<v Francis Wheen>And Sokal, who was a genuine man of the left,

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<v Francis Wheen>he was an old American leftist.

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<v Francis Wheen>He taught in Nicaragua after the Sandinista revolution and so on.

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<v Francis Wheen>Felt that for the last 200 years, the left had supported reason and science and enlightenment.

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<v Francis Wheen>And was now, radicals were now embracing, through postmodernism,

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<v Francis Wheen>basically the most reactionary sort of obscurantism.

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<v Francis Wheen>And he was so annoyed by this, he wrote a spoof paper for Social Text,

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<v Francis Wheen>one of the leading postmodernist journals.

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<v Francis Wheen>They were having a special issue on science,

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<v Francis Wheen>and they hadn't actually got any scientists to write in it, for obvious reasons.

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<v Francis Wheen>So he sent it in, knowing they'd be immensely flattered to find a real physics professor contributing

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<v Francis Wheen>and paying homage to their superior wisdom, which his article did.

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<v Francis Wheen>And it was called, Transgressing the Boundaries Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity.

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<v Francis Wheen>And as you can tell from the title, he'd got the gist.

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<v Francis Wheen>And they loved it.

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<v Francis Wheen>Though actually, you'd think if they had an ounce of sense, they might have spotted that this was a hoax.

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<v Francis Wheen>From the beginning.

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<v Francis Wheen>In his very first sentence, if I can find it here, of his piece, in Social Text,

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<v Francis Wheen>he said, here we are, I'm so blind these days, I don't like to put these on,

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<v Francis Wheen>because I think I'll get shouted at by truck drivers who think I'm John Howard.

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<v Francis Wheen>In the first sentence, he attacks the dogma, as he puts it,

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<v Francis Wheen>imposed by the long post-Enlightenment hegemony.

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<v Francis Wheen>And you have to remember, he's doing this tongue-in-cheek, but he's pretending to attack the post-Enlightenment dogma.

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<v Francis Wheen>The dogma which he summarizes like this, that there exists an external world,

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<v Francis Wheen>whose properties are independent of any individual human being, and indeed of humanity as a whole.

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<v Francis Wheen>That these properties are encoded in physical laws, and that human beings can obtain reliable,

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<v Francis Wheen>if tentative, knowledge of these laws, by hewing to the so-called procedures prescribed by the so-called scientific method.

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<v Francis Wheen>Now, you think that's a good thing.

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<v Francis Wheen>I think even the editors of Social Text might have noticed this supposedly imaginary external world from time to time,

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<v Francis Wheen>not least when they open the curtains every morning,

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<v Francis Wheen>and noticed that the sun has risen without any assistance from them,

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<v Francis Wheen>and indeed, if the entire post-modernist world on every campus was wiped out by Asian bird flu tomorrow,

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<v Francis Wheen>the sun would still rise every morning, in fact, probably with a bit of a spring in its step.

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<v Francis Wheen>But their bullshit detectors were clearly switched off, precisely because this man was a physicist,

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<v Francis Wheen>and they thought, God, he is paying homage to us,

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<v Francis Wheen>because he then congratulated post-structuralist and post-modernist critics for demystifying Western scientific practice.

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<v Francis Wheen>And he said, thanks to them, it's become increasingly apparent that physical reality,

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<v Francis Wheen>Barbara Ehrenreich, who I mentioned earlier, said that when her daughter was at university,

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<v Francis Wheen>she actually got marked down in essays every time she forgot to put inverted commas around the word reality.

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<v Francis Wheen>So, very important to do this.

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<v Francis Wheen>Thanks to post-modernists, it's become increasingly apparent that physical reality,

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<v Francis Wheen>no less than social reality,

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<v Francis Wheen>is at bottom a social and linguistic construct.

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<v Francis Wheen>Now, if you listen to that carefully, he's not talking about theories of physical reality,

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<v Francis Wheen>which clearly are a social and linguistic construct,

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<v Francis Wheen>he's talking about the reality itself being a social and linguistic construct.

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<v Francis Wheen>And when he exposed his own hoax, he said, fair enough,

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<v Francis Wheen>anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social conventions

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<v Francis Wheen>is invited to try transgressing these conventions from the windows of my apartment.

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<v Francis Wheen>I live on the 21st floor.

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<v Francis Wheen>.

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<v Francis Wheen>But as I say, this sort of got way beyond the campus fad,

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<v Francis Wheen>and most unlikely people used it to justify their activities,

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<v Francis Wheen>not least my compatriot, Mr. David Irving, the neo-Nazi historian,

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<v Francis Wheen>who for years had been arguing that no Jews were gassed at Auschwitz.

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<v Francis Wheen>And he, sort of using the tenets of post-modernist historians,

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<v Francis Wheen>was able to say, well, there's no such thing as historical truth,

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<v Francis Wheen>we know this from post-modernism,

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<v Francis Wheen>they're all merely theories, one shouldn't be privileged over another,

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<v Francis Wheen>I say no Jews were killed at Auschwitz, other people say they were,

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<v Francis Wheen>both theories are equally good, equally valid.

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<v Francis Wheen>And post-modernism found itself with all these unlikely beneficiaries,

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<v Francis Wheen>and of course the dear old creationists.

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<v Francis Wheen>Back in the early 1920s, I think Woodrow Wilson was asked by an interviewer,

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<v Francis Wheen>what did he think of evolutionary theory?

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<v Francis Wheen>And he said, well, it amazes me that at this late date, this is the 1920s,

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<v Francis Wheen>the question should even be asked.

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<v Francis Wheen>Surely most intelligent people now accept that,

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<v Francis Wheen>that evolutionary theory is broadly right,

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<v Francis Wheen>or at least by far the most plausible theory.

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<v Francis Wheen>Little did he realise, actually, only a couple of years later,

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<v Francis Wheen>there was the Scopes trial in Tennessee,

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<v Francis Wheen>which showed that not all people had accepted this.

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<v Francis Wheen>But he did qualify it, of course, by saying that he thought most intelligent people.

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<v Francis Wheen>And at the time of the Scopes trial, it became increasingly apparent

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<v Francis Wheen>that certainly in parts of Tennessee, there were certain characters

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<v Francis Wheen>written about rather wonderfully by H.L. Mencken and his coverage of the Scopes trial,

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<v Francis Wheen>who really did believe that the world was a world of science,

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<v Francis Wheen>and that the world was 5,000 years old at the most.

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<v Francis Wheen>And the amazing thing is that here we are in the 21st century,

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<v Francis Wheen>and there still are, and there are more and more of them.

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<v Francis Wheen>That's the amazing thing, because after the Scopes trial,

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<v Francis Wheen>although this biology teacher was convicted of teaching Darwin in school

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<v Francis Wheen>and fined, I think, $100, it was a Pyrrhic victory,

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<v Francis Wheen>and for a long time after that, creationism was sort of off the agenda, off the syllabus.

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<v Francis Wheen>And then you come along to, in fact, the very beginning of the 21st century, 2000,

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<v Francis Wheen>the presidential election campaign in America between Bush and Gore.

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<v Francis Wheen>Just before that, the state of the art was in the process

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<v Francis Wheen>of being re-established, and the state of Kansas schools committee voted

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<v Francis Wheen>to put creationism on the biology syllabus,

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<v Francis Wheen>so the two candidates were asked what they thought of this.

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<v Francis Wheen>Bush saw no problem at all.

401
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<v Francis Wheen>He said, well, they're both theories, aren't they?

402
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<v Francis Wheen>And the jury is still out.

403
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<v Francis Wheen>Those were his precise words.

404
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<v Francis Wheen>So he couldn't see any problem about that.

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<v Francis Wheen>And again and again with mumbo jumbo,

406
00:21:49.420 --> 00:21:51.940
<v Francis Wheen>I find there are people who fall into two categories.

407
00:21:52.040 --> 00:21:54.640
<v Francis Wheen>There are people who fall into the category of people who don't know any better,

408
00:21:54.800 --> 00:21:58.840
<v Francis Wheen>and I suppose we can possibly agree that George Bush might well be in that category.

409
00:21:59.480 --> 00:22:02.300
<v Francis Wheen>And then there's the other category of people who jolly well do know better

410
00:22:02.300 --> 00:22:05.760
<v Francis Wheen>or ought to, and Al Gore certainly falls into that category

411
00:22:05.760 --> 00:22:09.200
<v Francis Wheen>because he presented himself as the Mr. Science of the Clinton administration

412
00:22:09.620 --> 00:22:12.720
<v Francis Wheen>just as he is now the Mr. Science of global warming

413
00:22:12.720 --> 00:22:15.620
<v Francis Wheen>and the Mr. Science who is saving the world with rock concerts and all the rest of it.

414
00:22:15.720 --> 00:22:20.500
<v Francis Wheen>But in the 2000 election, his immediate reaction to this Kansas decision

415
00:22:20.500 --> 00:22:21.640
<v Francis Wheen>was the same as Bush's.

416
00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:23.660
<v Francis Wheen>Fine, I don't see any problem about this.

417
00:22:23.760 --> 00:22:24.440
<v Francis Wheen>They're both theories, aren't they?

418
00:22:24.940 --> 00:22:27.680
<v Francis Wheen>And you think, why does an intelligent person behave like this?

419
00:22:27.760 --> 00:22:28.900
<v Francis Wheen>Well, there's a perfectly simple answer.

420
00:22:28.900 --> 00:22:31.760
<v Francis Wheen>As Mencken pointed out at the time of the Scopes trial,

421
00:22:32.600 --> 00:22:35.380
<v Francis Wheen>people who believe this stuff have votes.

422
00:22:35.640 --> 00:22:38.520
<v Francis Wheen>And most opinion polls over the last 10 years or so

423
00:22:38.520 --> 00:22:45.320
<v Francis Wheen>suggest that about 46% of Americans believe basically the creationist line,

424
00:22:45.520 --> 00:22:47.180
<v Francis Wheen>that they believe the world is 5,000 years old.

425
00:22:47.840 --> 00:22:51.820
<v Francis Wheen>Of course, there's great problems explaining away things like dinosaur bones

426
00:22:51.820 --> 00:22:54.200
<v Francis Wheen>and the fossil record, but that is what they believe.

427
00:22:54.320 --> 00:22:57.560
<v Francis Wheen>So that's almost half the population, millions of people.

428
00:22:57.560 --> 00:23:02.260
<v Francis Wheen>And by some extraordinary method, these people are allowed to vote.

429
00:23:02.620 --> 00:23:05.860
<v Francis Wheen>And so in an election year in America,

430
00:23:05.980 --> 00:23:08.780
<v Francis Wheen>you don't go around antagonizing half the electorate by saying,

431
00:23:08.800 --> 00:23:13.480
<v Francis Wheen>look, actually, I think you'll find it's billions rather than thousands of years ago that this happened.

432
00:23:13.760 --> 00:23:21.280
<v Francis Wheen>And in Britain, where I live, it's very easy to sneer at some of the wackier aspects of the United States.

433
00:23:21.460 --> 00:23:22.240
<v Francis Wheen>And we often do.

434
00:23:22.300 --> 00:23:25.620
<v Francis Wheen>We sophisticated Europeans look at these upstart colonials.

435
00:23:25.860 --> 00:23:26.560
<v Francis Wheen>. .

436
00:23:26.640 --> 00:23:29.800
<v Francis Wheen>And it's doubly easy because they do indeed have,

437
00:23:29.840 --> 00:23:33.660
<v Francis Wheen>I mean, there are more crackpots per square mile in the United States than anywhere else on the planet.

438
00:23:33.760 --> 00:23:35.480
<v Francis Wheen>As I keep pointing out in mitigation,

439
00:23:35.700 --> 00:23:39.140
<v Francis Wheen>there are also more Nobel Prize winners per square mile than anywhere else on the planet.

440
00:23:39.260 --> 00:23:42.480
<v Francis Wheen>I mean, the joy of America, which is itself an enlightenment project,

441
00:23:42.580 --> 00:23:47.180
<v Francis Wheen>a child of enlightenment, is that there is and always has been this extraordinary diversity,

442
00:23:47.320 --> 00:23:53.400
<v Francis Wheen>but also there's plenty of people who are heirs to the likes of Jefferson and Adams

443
00:23:53.400 --> 00:23:56.460
<v Francis Wheen>and in favor of the separation of church and state.

444
00:23:56.500 --> 00:23:56.620
<v Francis Wheen>. .

445
00:23:56.640 --> 00:23:58.160
<v Francis Wheen>And so the American nation will actually fight quite hard for it.

446
00:23:58.460 --> 00:24:03.340
<v Francis Wheen>And every time there are encroachments upon it, we'll be quite militant in its defense.

447
00:24:03.560 --> 00:24:07.080
<v Francis Wheen>But it can't be denied that there are more crackpots per square mile as well.

448
00:24:07.360 --> 00:24:11.360
<v Francis Wheen>And I think two million Americans, according to the last survey I saw,

449
00:24:11.500 --> 00:24:16.160
<v Francis Wheen>believe they've been abducted at some point by extraterrestrials and taken away for experiments.

450
00:24:16.500 --> 00:24:19.960
<v Francis Wheen>And as someone pointed out, given that a lot of them talk about multiple abductions,

451
00:24:20.060 --> 00:24:26.080
<v Francis Wheen>this is an air traffic control nightmare we're looking at here because nonstop shuttle service.

452
00:24:26.080 --> 00:24:30.700
<v Francis Wheen>It's a bunch of UFOs rushing down to Arizona to grab another few people and take them away.

453
00:24:30.920 --> 00:24:35.820
<v Francis Wheen>I do wonder if they're postmodernists, these ETs, because they too also seem to be obsessed with sexual organs.

454
00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:41.380
<v Francis Wheen>All the accounts of abduction seem to come down to having their genitals prodded by these funny chaps with pointy heads,

455
00:24:42.460 --> 00:24:44.680
<v Francis Wheen>almost certainly called Jacques Lacan, I should think.

456
00:24:44.920 --> 00:24:45.320
<v Francis Wheen>. .

457
00:24:47.400 --> 00:24:51.180
<v Francis Wheen>And so, as I say, from Europe in particular, we like to sneer at all the things,

458
00:24:51.260 --> 00:24:53.080
<v Francis Wheen>but actually I think there are no grounds for smugness,

459
00:24:53.080 --> 00:24:58.280
<v Francis Wheen>because we are just as susceptible as anyone else in Britain, for example,

460
00:24:58.400 --> 00:25:01.760
<v Francis Wheen>where for the last ten years or so we've had Tony Blair as Prime Minister,

461
00:25:01.880 --> 00:25:04.880
<v Francis Wheen>who presented himself from the outside as a modern kind of guy,

462
00:25:05.060 --> 00:25:08.820
<v Francis Wheen>education, education, education, that was his mantra, his great slogan,

463
00:25:09.500 --> 00:25:11.120
<v Francis Wheen>and a terrifically modern sort of chap.

464
00:25:11.420 --> 00:25:14.780
<v Francis Wheen>He, about five years ago, the Guardian newspaper in Britain,

465
00:25:15.500 --> 00:25:18.340
<v Francis Wheen>exposed a state school, a state secondary school in Gateshead,

466
00:25:18.420 --> 00:25:20.460
<v Francis Wheen>which was the beneficiary of one of Blair's education reforms,

467
00:25:20.700 --> 00:25:23.060
<v Francis Wheen>whereby local business tycoons can walk around in their school uniforms,

468
00:25:23.080 --> 00:25:25.660
<v Francis Wheen>move in on a school, they put up a bit of money,

469
00:25:25.760 --> 00:25:28.140
<v Francis Wheen>and in return for that they get total control over the school basically,

470
00:25:28.220 --> 00:25:29.980
<v Francis Wheen>and couldn't choose the teachers and all the rest of it.

471
00:25:30.240 --> 00:25:35.220
<v Francis Wheen>And a used car dealer had moved in on this school and stuffed it with creationists,

472
00:25:35.240 --> 00:25:36.560
<v Francis Wheen>because he himself was a creationist,

473
00:25:36.660 --> 00:25:39.500
<v Francis Wheen>and the Guardian got hold of all sorts of internal memos and things

474
00:25:39.500 --> 00:25:41.620
<v Francis Wheen>from the head of biology to the deputy head teacher saying,

475
00:25:41.740 --> 00:25:45.720
<v Francis Wheen>we must tell the children that the Book of Genesis is the only biology textbook they'll need,

476
00:25:46.840 --> 00:25:48.760
<v Francis Wheen>and that Darwin is now totally discredited.

477
00:25:50.620 --> 00:25:52.500
<v Francis Wheen>And the Prime Minister's question was the following week,

478
00:25:52.500 --> 00:25:55.440
<v Francis Wheen>Blair was asked by an MP, was he happy with this,

479
00:25:55.460 --> 00:25:58.460
<v Francis Wheen>that a state-funded secondary school was being run by creationists?

480
00:25:59.080 --> 00:26:01.800
<v Francis Wheen>And you'd think there'd be only one answer for this modern kind of guy,

481
00:26:01.880 --> 00:26:04.200
<v Francis Wheen>especially as actually the very week after that he was due to give a speech

482
00:26:04.200 --> 00:26:07.020
<v Francis Wheen>to the Royal Society, a very distinguished scientific organisation in London,

483
00:26:07.140 --> 00:26:10.540
<v Francis Wheen>on the need to combat bad science, junk science, anti-science.

484
00:26:11.220 --> 00:26:13.840
<v Francis Wheen>But oddly enough the answer he gave was, yes he was happy

485
00:26:13.840 --> 00:26:16.040
<v Francis Wheen>that these creationists were moving in on the schools.

486
00:26:16.300 --> 00:26:18.860
<v Francis Wheen>And why was he happy? His precise words, I kid you not, were,

487
00:26:18.920 --> 00:26:22.480
<v Francis Wheen>in the end, a more diverse school system will deliver better education.

488
00:26:22.500 --> 00:26:24.000
<v Francis Wheen>Better results for our children.

489
00:26:26.060 --> 00:26:30.640
<v Francis Wheen>And it's sort of wonderful how this, when the relativism that I've been talking about

490
00:26:31.180 --> 00:26:34.820
<v Francis Wheen>spreads into the wider world, you often don't notice it,

491
00:26:34.880 --> 00:26:37.880
<v Francis Wheen>because particularly when it comes to sort of liberal type people,

492
00:26:38.100 --> 00:26:42.320
<v Francis Wheen>there are all these words like judgmental and diversity that sound so wonderful,

493
00:26:42.480 --> 00:26:43.640
<v Francis Wheen>and we're all in favour of that, aren't we,

494
00:26:43.680 --> 00:26:46.940
<v Francis Wheen>that you don't pause to deconstruct what's being said.

495
00:26:47.120 --> 00:26:50.540
<v Francis Wheen>You know, mustn't be judgmental about this, and every head nods, yes, yes,

496
00:26:50.540 --> 00:26:52.140
<v Francis Wheen>let's not be judgmental.

497
00:26:52.620 --> 00:26:55.320
<v Francis Wheen>Well actually, if someone comes up to you and says, the earth is flat,

498
00:26:56.460 --> 00:26:57.940
<v Francis Wheen>should you or should you not be judgmental?

499
00:26:57.960 --> 00:27:00.500
<v Francis Wheen>Should you say, well that's fine, that's your particular theory,

500
00:27:01.320 --> 00:27:04.060
<v Francis Wheen>it's as valid as any other, it's not for me to say whether you're right or wrong,

501
00:27:04.140 --> 00:27:07.020
<v Francis Wheen>or do you actually produce some evidence, say, look, I hate to break it to you,

502
00:27:07.060 --> 00:27:08.640
<v Francis Wheen>but there's quite a lot of evidence to the contrary.

503
00:27:09.820 --> 00:27:11.260
<v Francis Wheen>But, no, it mustn't be judgmental.

504
00:27:12.500 --> 00:27:14.100
<v Francis Wheen>And diversity, who could be against that?

505
00:27:14.140 --> 00:27:17.700
<v Francis Wheen>So when Blair said, you know, in the end, a more diverse school system

506
00:27:17.700 --> 00:27:20.820
<v Francis Wheen>will deliver better results for our children, he,

507
00:27:20.860 --> 00:27:21.100
<v Francis Wheen>he,

508
00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:25.900
<v Francis Wheen>nobody even really noticed, I think, apart from me and the House of Commons,

509
00:27:25.980 --> 00:27:28.340
<v Francis Wheen>there was one or two murmurs, but that was it, it passed off without notice,

510
00:27:28.420 --> 00:27:31.100
<v Francis Wheen>because who could be against a more diverse school system?

511
00:27:31.180 --> 00:27:33.080
<v Francis Wheen>As I say, it's only when you pause to think, well, by this logic,

512
00:27:33.220 --> 00:27:36.520
<v Francis Wheen>if schools taught that the moon was made of green cheese,

513
00:27:37.200 --> 00:27:39.680
<v Francis Wheen>I mean, clearly, that would be an even more diverse school system,

514
00:27:39.760 --> 00:27:43.500
<v Francis Wheen>and therefore, according to his logic, deliver even better results for our children.

515
00:27:43.840 --> 00:27:44.960
<v Francis Wheen>Sorry, for our children.

516
00:27:47.140 --> 00:27:52.360
<v Francis Wheen>And, so, so that's where we get to, where we have even one kind of guise,

517
00:27:52.360 --> 00:27:52.480
<v Francis Wheen>but it's not just about the

518
00:27:52.500 --> 00:27:58.840
<v Francis Wheen>for whatever reason, British Prime Ministers ending up backing the teaching of creationism in state schools,

519
00:27:58.960 --> 00:28:01.460
<v Francis Wheen>and indeed the takeover of schools by creationists.

520
00:28:02.480 --> 00:28:05.640
<v Francis Wheen>And the trouble with that is, I mean, people do occasionally say to me,

521
00:28:06.300 --> 00:28:09.120
<v Francis Wheen>you know, why do you have to be so boringly rational about everything?

522
00:28:09.300 --> 00:28:11.320
<v Francis Wheen>Can't you, have you no romance in your soul?

523
00:28:11.480 --> 00:28:15.360
<v Francis Wheen>You probably told your children as soon as they were born there was no Father Christmas, no Tooth Fairy.

524
00:28:15.460 --> 00:28:19.200
<v Francis Wheen>And I say, no, no, it's perfectly sweet if small children believe in Santa and believe in Tooth Fairies.

525
00:28:19.300 --> 00:28:21.700
<v Francis Wheen>But if your child got to the age of 18,

526
00:28:21.700 --> 00:28:23.660
<v Francis Wheen>and still believed in Father Christmas,

527
00:28:24.800 --> 00:28:28.300
<v Francis Wheen>I think even the most extreme person might begin to worry a bit,

528
00:28:29.160 --> 00:28:32.460
<v Francis Wheen>and think, oh my God, he's been to that school in Gateshead, I mean, almost certain.

529
00:28:33.620 --> 00:28:36.500
<v Francis Wheen>But if your child got to 18 and believed in all that, you would also think,

530
00:28:36.600 --> 00:28:39.760
<v Francis Wheen>well, won't he believe or she believe if she believes in all this stuff?

531
00:28:39.980 --> 00:28:42.540
<v Francis Wheen>And that's the problem. I mean, if you do believe that, you believe anything,

532
00:28:42.680 --> 00:28:48.900
<v Francis Wheen>because delusions of this kind, though individually, often seem harmless and indeed rather charming.

533
00:28:49.080 --> 00:28:51.360
<v Francis Wheen>I mean, let's say if you met a flat-earther, you'd think, God, how wonderful,

534
00:28:51.360 --> 00:28:53.160
<v Francis Wheen>there's the one person left who believes the other is flat.

535
00:28:53.420 --> 00:28:56.140
<v Francis Wheen>If it turned out that there were 100 million flat-earthers in the world,

536
00:28:56.200 --> 00:29:00.700
<v Francis Wheen>it would assume a rather more sinister element, particularly if they were proselytizing flat-earthers,

537
00:29:01.520 --> 00:29:02.880
<v Francis Wheen>prepared to use violent methods.

538
00:29:03.820 --> 00:29:06.720
<v Francis Wheen>Because delusions, I think, are not only contagious, but cumulative.

539
00:29:07.180 --> 00:29:11.560
<v Francis Wheen>I mean, I think if you suspend your critical faculties for long enough to, I don't know,

540
00:29:11.580 --> 00:29:16.860
<v Francis Wheen>hire a Feng Shui consultant, in no time at all, you're buying the collective works of Deepak Chopra.

541
00:29:17.300 --> 00:29:19.240
<v Francis Wheen>And then there's no end to it. You're lost.

542
00:29:24.160 --> 00:29:28.740
<v Francis Wheen>And it does assume the form of a mass movement.

543
00:29:28.880 --> 00:29:31.580
<v Francis Wheen>I mean, again and again over the years, we've seen these things that start off.

544
00:29:32.400 --> 00:29:35.800
<v Francis Wheen>No doubt there was a time when Deepak Chopra was known only to his mother,

545
00:29:36.280 --> 00:29:39.560
<v Francis Wheen>but now known to millions all over the world and grown extremely rich on it.

546
00:29:39.980 --> 00:29:43.260
<v Francis Wheen>And I must stop this soon so everyone gets a chance to chip in,

547
00:29:43.320 --> 00:29:46.560
<v Francis Wheen>but I just want to say, in relation to it becoming a mass movement,

548
00:29:46.720 --> 00:29:51.260
<v Francis Wheen>when it really came home to me was exactly ten years ago, almost exactly ten years ago,

549
00:29:51.260 --> 00:29:53.720
<v Francis Wheen>in Britain, when Princess Diana died,

550
00:29:54.720 --> 00:29:59.420
<v Francis Wheen>who was actually a great fan, among other things, of an awful lot of these gurus,

551
00:29:59.480 --> 00:30:05.340
<v Francis Wheen>and faith healers, and tarot readers, and spiritual mentors of various kinds,

552
00:30:05.540 --> 00:30:07.360
<v Francis Wheen>let alone colonic irrigationists.

553
00:30:07.940 --> 00:30:11.320
<v Francis Wheen>But when she died, it seemed to me, for about a week or two afterwards in Britain,

554
00:30:12.040 --> 00:30:14.020
<v Francis Wheen>large parts of the country took leave of their senses.

555
00:30:14.220 --> 00:30:18.220
<v Francis Wheen>I mean, it was quite a scary time because, and obviously a terrible, tragic thing,

556
00:30:18.260 --> 00:30:21.180
<v Francis Wheen>this young woman cut off in her prime, her two sons left without a mother,

557
00:30:21.180 --> 00:30:21.940
<v Francis Wheen>all that sort of thing.

558
00:30:22.680 --> 00:30:28.640
<v Francis Wheen>It was very sad, but the scale of the public, howling and wailing and ululating,

559
00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:31.440
<v Francis Wheen>the sort of competitive grieving that went on,

560
00:30:31.540 --> 00:30:33.820
<v Francis Wheen>sort of, look, I'm grieving even more ostentatious than you,

561
00:30:33.880 --> 00:30:35.000
<v Francis Wheen>what's the matter with you? Oh, I see.

562
00:30:35.200 --> 00:30:37.520
<v Francis Wheen>And it became quite threatening and oppressive.

563
00:30:37.840 --> 00:30:40.760
<v Francis Wheen>If you didn't join in it, that pitch of howling,

564
00:30:41.160 --> 00:30:44.380
<v Francis Wheen>that didn't say this was the most terrible event in the entire history of the world,

565
00:30:44.460 --> 00:30:48.080
<v Francis Wheen>and you wanted to kill yourself, then you were somehow lacking.

566
00:30:49.380 --> 00:30:51.060
<v Francis Wheen>And I thought at the time, you know,

567
00:30:51.060 --> 00:30:53.280
<v Francis Wheen>this will pass in a week or two and we'll all come to our senses,

568
00:30:53.440 --> 00:30:57.920
<v Francis Wheen>but if a demagogue comes along at a time like this,

569
00:30:57.960 --> 00:31:00.920
<v Francis Wheen>a moment of mass hysteria, and wants to exploit it,

570
00:31:01.080 --> 00:31:02.920
<v Francis Wheen>it is a very good moment to do it.

571
00:31:03.020 --> 00:31:05.920
<v Francis Wheen>And you only have to look at footage of Nuremberg rallies and things like that

572
00:31:05.920 --> 00:31:09.880
<v Francis Wheen>to see what happens when a demagogue comes along and exploits and fans mass hysteria,

573
00:31:09.960 --> 00:31:14.440
<v Francis Wheen>no longer quite so quaint and harmless as it might seem in individual doses.

574
00:31:15.580 --> 00:31:16.780
<v Francis Wheen>So that, I think, is the problem.

575
00:31:16.860 --> 00:31:18.480
<v Francis Wheen>And that's why I wrote the book, among other things,

576
00:31:18.860 --> 00:31:20.940
<v Francis Wheen>as a, just, if I could,

577
00:31:21.060 --> 00:31:23.060
<v Francis Wheen>I'll finish with it, Charles Mackay, a great hero of mine,

578
00:31:23.840 --> 00:31:28.460
<v Francis Wheen>in 1841 wrote a book called Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.

579
00:31:28.500 --> 00:31:30.100
<v Francis Wheen>This is 1841, mark you.

580
00:31:30.680 --> 00:31:33.040
<v Francis Wheen>A history of human folly, though as he said,

581
00:31:33.080 --> 00:31:36.020
<v Francis Wheen>it's only a small chapter in the multi-multi-volume history of folly.

582
00:31:37.260 --> 00:31:41.280
<v Francis Wheen>And in that book he says, after going through all these things like witchcraft trials and the rest of it,

583
00:31:41.360 --> 00:31:44.360
<v Francis Wheen>he says, people that will be seen go mad in herds.

584
00:31:44.380 --> 00:31:48.480
<v Francis Wheen>They recover their senses slowly and one by one, if at all.

585
00:31:49.280 --> 00:31:51.300
<v Francis Wheen>And I think there's some truth in that,

586
00:31:51.320 --> 00:31:55.040
<v Francis Wheen>certainly in epidemics and eruptions of mass hysteria that I've seen,

587
00:31:55.100 --> 00:31:56.860
<v Francis Wheen>it is a slow business.

588
00:31:57.060 --> 00:31:59.380
<v Francis Wheen>I mean, with the Diana thing, people certainly went mad in herds,

589
00:31:59.380 --> 00:32:04.320
<v Francis Wheen>and I've spent the last ten years watching them recovering their senses slowly and one by one,

590
00:32:04.420 --> 00:32:05.320
<v Francis Wheen>if at all.

591
00:32:05.820 --> 00:32:11.040
<v Francis Wheen>And so I suppose my small thing is a contribution to that,

592
00:32:11.160 --> 00:32:14.320
<v Francis Wheen>because, of course, people aren't likely to recover their senses

593
00:32:14.320 --> 00:32:15.760
<v Francis Wheen>once they've succumbed to all of this stuff,

594
00:32:16.220 --> 00:32:18.460
<v Francis Wheen>unless there is someone in the community,

595
00:32:18.480 --> 00:32:18.680
<v Francis Wheen>in the crowd,

596
00:32:19.780 --> 00:32:21.880
<v Francis Wheen>who points out, as everyone else is cheering,

597
00:32:22.060 --> 00:32:24.100
<v Francis Wheen>the wonderful emperor and his fantastic new set of clothes.

598
00:32:24.400 --> 00:32:25.800
<v Francis Wheen>I said, well actually, I'm sorry to say this,

599
00:32:25.840 --> 00:32:27.160
<v Francis Wheen>but he's stark bollock naked.

600
00:32:27.860 --> 00:32:29.740
<v Francis Wheen>Which brings us back to my beloved bollocks.

601
00:32:29.860 --> 00:32:31.500
<v Francis Wheen>So that seems a good moment to finish.

602
00:32:32.120 --> 00:32:33.780
<v Francis Wheen>Extraordinary phrase, my beloved bollocks, good God.

603
00:32:35.320 --> 00:32:36.740
<v Francis Wheen>Anyway, so thank you very much,

604
00:32:36.800 --> 00:32:39.840
<v Francis Wheen>and I think we now have questions or whatever.

605
00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:40.940
<v Francis Wheen>Do you want me to come and sit over there for a moment?

606
00:32:40.940 --> 00:32:42.440
<v Mark Cully>Yes, over here, Francis. Thank you.

607
00:32:49.460 --> 00:32:49.940
<v Mark Cully>APPLAUSE

608
00:32:54.480 --> 00:32:56.400
<v Mark Cully>Thank you very much, Francis.

609
00:32:56.580 --> 00:32:58.680
<v Mark Cully>We now have 15 minutes for questions.

610
00:32:58.760 --> 00:33:00.860
<v Mark Cully>There's a microphone in the middle of the room here,

611
00:33:00.940 --> 00:33:04.140
<v Mark Cully>and we have one upstairs in the gallery as well.

612
00:33:04.360 --> 00:33:06.860
<v Mark Cully>So if anyone wishes to ask a question,

613
00:33:06.880 --> 00:33:10.040
<v Mark Cully>if they could make their way to the microphone, please.

614
00:33:10.380 --> 00:33:11.580
<v Mark Cully>I might start.

615
00:33:13.340 --> 00:33:15.040
<v Mark Cully>I mean, queue up at the microphone,

616
00:33:15.120 --> 00:33:17.680
<v Mark Cully>and we can move along very quickly,

617
00:33:17.680 --> 00:33:19.800
<v Mark Cully>because we want to be able to give as many people

618
00:33:19.800 --> 00:33:23.300
<v Mark Cully>an opportunity as possible to ask Francis questions.

619
00:33:23.640 --> 00:33:25.340
<v Mark Cully>But the one thing that intrigued me,

620
00:33:25.400 --> 00:33:27.960
<v Mark Cully>because I read your three very different biographies,

621
00:33:28.680 --> 00:33:30.800
<v Mark Cully>one after the other in the last few weeks,

622
00:33:31.680 --> 00:33:35.740
<v Mark Cully>and it seemed to me that three terribly,

623
00:33:35.740 --> 00:33:37.040
<v Mark Cully>terribly different people,

624
00:33:37.940 --> 00:33:40.740
<v Mark Cully>but there was a real commonality there as well.

625
00:33:40.900 --> 00:33:43.780
<v Mark Cully>All three of them were dreadful sponges.

626
00:33:44.620 --> 00:33:45.140
<v Mark Cully>Um...

627
00:33:47.740 --> 00:33:49.520
<v Mark Cully>Wasted money dreadfully,

628
00:33:49.640 --> 00:33:51.680
<v Mark Cully>were binge drinkers,

629
00:33:51.760 --> 00:33:54.020
<v Mark Cully>and never paid the rent.

630
00:33:54.720 --> 00:33:56.820
<v Francis Wheen>They're all disguised autobiographies, actually.

631
00:33:56.920 --> 00:33:58.500
<v Mark Cully>That was my question.

632
00:33:58.700 --> 00:34:01.700
<v Mark Cully>What led you to write about these three people?

633
00:34:01.780 --> 00:34:03.020
<v Mark Cully>Was there something in your own life?

634
00:34:03.080 --> 00:34:06.540
<v Mark Cully>Why these three particularly very, very different people?

635
00:34:06.720 --> 00:34:08.100
<v Francis Wheen>Well, I think we can all see what you're getting at.

636
00:34:08.680 --> 00:34:09.160
<v Francis Wheen>LAUGHTER

637
00:34:10.060 --> 00:34:12.520
<v Francis Wheen>No point in denying it. No point in denying it.

638
00:34:13.340 --> 00:34:16.180
<v Francis Wheen>Obviously, I identified intensely with all these people.

639
00:34:16.820 --> 00:34:17.300
<v Francis Wheen>LAUGHTER

640
00:34:17.680 --> 00:34:21.620
<v Francis Wheen>But, no, actually, I didn't invent here a couple of days ago

641
00:34:21.620 --> 00:34:23.100
<v Francis Wheen>with my friend Ram Guha from India,

642
00:34:23.220 --> 00:34:24.540
<v Francis Wheen>who's writing The Life of Mahatma Gandhi,

643
00:34:24.760 --> 00:34:26.720
<v Francis Wheen>and we had to... It was the day before yesterday.

644
00:34:27.780 --> 00:34:31.220
<v Francis Wheen>We discussed the relative merits and characters of Marx and Gandhi.

645
00:34:31.620 --> 00:34:33.800
<v Francis Wheen>And when I was writing my life of Karl Marx,

646
00:34:34.440 --> 00:34:37.780
<v Francis Wheen>he was a rather tasse and presence occasionally around the house.

647
00:34:37.920 --> 00:34:40.680
<v Francis Wheen>Well, I didn't find him so, but the woman I lived with did.

648
00:34:40.800 --> 00:34:42.980
<v Francis Wheen>She said, I think I'd quite like him to go soon.

649
00:34:44.020 --> 00:34:44.420
<v Francis Wheen>LAUGHTER

650
00:34:45.220 --> 00:34:47.660
<v Francis Wheen>And I used to think, well, actually, I wouldn't like to live with him.

651
00:34:48.240 --> 00:34:50.080
<v Francis Wheen>I'd love to go out for a drink with him.

652
00:34:50.800 --> 00:34:53.080
<v Francis Wheen>And Ram said, yes, you couldn't do that with Gandhi, really.

653
00:34:53.860 --> 00:34:54.220
<v Francis Wheen>LAUGHTER

654
00:34:54.220 --> 00:34:55.620
<v Francis Wheen>So maybe that's it.

655
00:34:55.660 --> 00:34:58.140
<v Francis Wheen>Maybe that's why I tend to write about people like Karl Marx

656
00:34:58.140 --> 00:34:59.000
<v Francis Wheen>rather than Mahatma Gandhi.

657
00:34:59.620 --> 00:35:00.920
<v Francis Wheen>Because you can go out to the pub with them.

658
00:35:02.080 --> 00:35:04.220
<v Mark Cully>Now, there's someone there at the microphone. Thank you.

659
00:35:04.820 --> 00:35:08.760
<v Audience>Why do you think there has been this reaction against the Enlightenment?

660
00:35:09.980 --> 00:35:12.400
<v Francis Wheen>Well, it's odd, because, I mean, it seems paradoxical

661
00:35:12.400 --> 00:35:16.060
<v Francis Wheen>that in this very same period that I was talking about, since 1979,

662
00:35:16.820 --> 00:35:21.020
<v Francis Wheen>we've had the most extraordinary scientific and technological developments,

663
00:35:21.380 --> 00:35:23.220
<v Francis Wheen>the mapping of the human genome,

664
00:35:23.340 --> 00:35:25.640
<v Francis Wheen>the creation of the Internet and the World Wide Web,

665
00:35:25.740 --> 00:35:26.460
<v Francis Wheen>all that sort of stuff.

666
00:35:27.360 --> 00:35:28.400
<v Francis Wheen>Absolutely flabbergasting.

667
00:35:28.660 --> 00:35:30.940
<v Francis Wheen>And it seems odd, as I say, paradoxical,

668
00:35:30.960 --> 00:35:34.340
<v Francis Wheen>that at the same time there's been this wave of superstitions,

669
00:35:34.380 --> 00:35:37.180
<v Francis Wheen>new superstitions and reversions to old superstitions.

670
00:35:38.020 --> 00:35:39.480
<v Francis Wheen>But maybe it's not a paradox.

671
00:35:39.580 --> 00:35:42.880
<v Francis Wheen>Maybe actually one is related to the other,

672
00:35:42.960 --> 00:35:46.040
<v Francis Wheen>because a lot of people do find it through the internet.

673
00:35:46.040 --> 00:35:47.040
<v Francis Wheen>It's threatening and scary.

674
00:35:48.500 --> 00:35:51.560
<v Francis Wheen>Not just the nature of it, but the scale of it

675
00:35:51.560 --> 00:35:54.680
<v Francis Wheen>and the scale of the possibilities of it,

676
00:35:54.760 --> 00:35:59.460
<v Francis Wheen>whether it's the genome or whether it's the Internet.

677
00:36:01.100 --> 00:36:05.020
<v Francis Wheen>And find that they want to escape from this brave new world.

678
00:36:05.740 --> 00:36:08.300
<v Francis Wheen>I think it's, I mean, in a way, it's a bit like what Marx wrote

679
00:36:08.300 --> 00:36:12.140
<v Francis Wheen>about the Industrial Revolution when he was writing in the mid-19th century,

680
00:36:12.240 --> 00:36:15.100
<v Francis Wheen>the sense of everything getting faster and faster and bigger and bigger

681
00:36:15.100 --> 00:36:18.360
<v Francis Wheen>and being rather scary and throwing your world into chaos,

682
00:36:18.560 --> 00:36:21.620
<v Francis Wheen>as he put it at the time, all that is solid melts into air.

683
00:36:21.860 --> 00:36:25.020
<v Francis Wheen>And I think in the latest Industrial Revolution

684
00:36:25.020 --> 00:36:26.620
<v Francis Wheen>that we're going through, the technological revolution,

685
00:36:27.120 --> 00:36:30.320
<v Francis Wheen>I think again there's that sense of all that is solid melts into air.

686
00:36:30.540 --> 00:36:31.860
<v Francis Wheen>You really don't know what's happening.

687
00:36:32.040 --> 00:36:34.360
<v Francis Wheen>I mean, just to take a practical example, when I was a child,

688
00:36:34.440 --> 00:36:38.400
<v Francis Wheen>I think most of the adults I knew probably stayed in the same job

689
00:36:38.400 --> 00:36:40.560
<v Francis Wheen>or in the same institution or the same company or whatever

690
00:36:40.560 --> 00:36:42.180
<v Francis Wheen>for most of their working lives.

691
00:36:42.960 --> 00:36:45.080
<v Francis Wheen>I shouldn't think I know any adult that way.

692
00:36:45.080 --> 00:36:47.380
<v Francis Wheen>I think there's a lot of people now who expect to stay in the same institution

693
00:36:47.380 --> 00:36:49.620
<v Francis Wheen>or job or company for their working lives.

694
00:36:49.900 --> 00:36:53.480
<v Francis Wheen>And so there is a tremendous sense of insecurity bred by all that.

695
00:36:53.660 --> 00:36:56.760
<v Francis Wheen>And people who feel tossed around and insecure like that

696
00:36:56.760 --> 00:37:01.360
<v Francis Wheen>will want to grab some passing raft that seems to offer comfort or refuge.

697
00:37:01.720 --> 00:37:04.020
<v Francis Wheen>And of course, you know, people like Deepak Chopra

698
00:37:04.020 --> 00:37:06.260
<v Francis Wheen>or hundreds of others seem to do that.

699
00:37:06.360 --> 00:37:08.380
<v Francis Wheen>You know, this lovely warm bubble bath for the soul

700
00:37:08.380 --> 00:37:13.280
<v Francis Wheen>that you can plunge into and escape from all this scary stuff outside.

701
00:37:13.560 --> 00:37:15.060
<v Francis Wheen>So I think that may have something to do with it.

702
00:37:15.080 --> 00:37:19.340
<v Francis Wheen>I think it may be that people want to get into the bubble bath.

703
00:37:20.240 --> 00:37:22.080
<v Mark Cully>Thank you. The next gentleman. Thank you.

704
00:37:23.980 --> 00:37:27.360
<v Audience>While you were talking about your mumbo jumbo,

705
00:37:27.460 --> 00:37:32.500
<v Audience>what occurred to me is the role it plays, mumbo jumbo, snake oil,

706
00:37:32.660 --> 00:37:39.600
<v Audience>call it what you will, in what's occurring, I think, in Western democracies.

707
00:37:39.860 --> 00:37:43.440
<v Audience>And I'd like to consider them as manipulated democracies.

708
00:37:44.440 --> 00:37:45.060
<v Audience>In a sense, they're not.

709
00:37:45.080 --> 00:37:48.460
<v Audience>They're not as far as it doesn't seem to matter how I vote,

710
00:37:48.580 --> 00:37:49.860
<v Audience>I still get the same result.

711
00:37:51.840 --> 00:37:55.580
<v Audience>Would you like to care, would you care to comment on mumbo jumbo,

712
00:37:55.680 --> 00:37:58.100
<v Audience>snake oil and manipulated democracies?

713
00:37:59.740 --> 00:38:02.840
<v Francis Wheen>Well, obviously there is an overlap there because,

714
00:38:04.260 --> 00:38:06.780
<v Francis Wheen>apart from the us of it, I've talked about the proliferation of gurus,

715
00:38:06.840 --> 00:38:08.120
<v Francis Wheen>including management gurus.

716
00:38:09.100 --> 00:38:13.520
<v Francis Wheen>And an awful lot of political parties these days and political leaders

717
00:38:13.520 --> 00:38:17.980
<v Francis Wheen>are as enthralled to it as captains of industry and many others.

718
00:38:18.180 --> 00:38:23.660
<v Francis Wheen>And I believe that if you can use the techniques of management gurus

719
00:38:23.660 --> 00:38:26.980
<v Francis Wheen>and PR gurus, then you can sell yourselves that much more effectively.

720
00:38:27.700 --> 00:38:31.140
<v Francis Wheen>And the whole era of spin and stuff derives from that in a way.

721
00:38:31.240 --> 00:38:32.740
<v Francis Wheen>I mean, it's literally the case.

722
00:38:32.940 --> 00:38:37.180
<v Francis Wheen>I mentioned in my book, before Blair's government got in in Britain,

723
00:38:37.420 --> 00:38:41.520
<v Francis Wheen>they were forever going off for weekends organized by Anderson Consulting

724
00:38:42.320 --> 00:38:43.500
<v Francis Wheen>or Accenture, as they now call it.

725
00:38:43.520 --> 00:38:45.960
<v Francis Wheen>And all sorts of other gurus and consultants,

726
00:38:47.060 --> 00:38:48.980
<v Francis Wheen>mainly peddling complete gibberish to them.

727
00:38:49.140 --> 00:38:50.880
<v Francis Wheen>But it was all terrific, impressive.

728
00:38:51.240 --> 00:38:54.420
<v Francis Wheen>And then in no time at all, they were bringing Edward de Bono in

729
00:38:54.420 --> 00:38:58.000
<v Francis Wheen>as an advisor to the government with his six thinking hat system,

730
00:38:58.380 --> 00:39:00.040
<v Francis Wheen>telling them to put on red hats and black hats

731
00:39:00.040 --> 00:39:02.080
<v Francis Wheen>according to what they were thinking at the time.

732
00:39:02.200 --> 00:39:04.220
<v Francis Wheen>And in America, most strikingly, Bill Clinton,

733
00:39:04.360 --> 00:39:08.520
<v Francis Wheen>after the 93 elections when Newt Gingrich and the Republicans won control

734
00:39:08.520 --> 00:39:11.740
<v Francis Wheen>and won back Congress, Clinton, wondering where to go from here,

735
00:39:12.680 --> 00:39:13.500
<v Francis Wheen>had a brain freeze.

736
00:39:13.500 --> 00:39:15.140
<v Francis Wheen>And then he had a brainstorming weekend at Camp David

737
00:39:16.300 --> 00:39:19.140
<v Francis Wheen>with Anthony Robbins and Stephen R. Coby,

738
00:39:19.320 --> 00:39:21.720
<v Francis Wheen>the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

739
00:39:21.840 --> 00:39:24.540
<v Francis Wheen>So politicians in moments of crisis, it turns out,

740
00:39:24.620 --> 00:39:26.040
<v Francis Wheen>turned to these people.

741
00:39:26.120 --> 00:39:28.960
<v Francis Wheen>And actually alongside these two management gurus,

742
00:39:29.060 --> 00:39:33.100
<v Francis Wheen>they had a sacred psychologist and various other friends of Hillary's

743
00:39:33.100 --> 00:39:36.440
<v Francis Wheen>who were the ones who suggested to Hillary she should commune

744
00:39:36.440 --> 00:39:38.560
<v Francis Wheen>with the spirits of Eleanor Roosevelt and Mahatma Gandhi

745
00:39:38.560 --> 00:39:40.620
<v Francis Wheen>as a way around the problem, which she then duly did.

746
00:39:41.760 --> 00:39:44.680
<v Francis Wheen>So it is, I mean, it's very odd because when I was talking about people

747
00:39:44.680 --> 00:39:48.580
<v Francis Wheen>feeling powerless and threatened and so clinging to these things,

748
00:39:48.820 --> 00:39:51.600
<v Francis Wheen>clearly in the case of people like, I don't know, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair,

749
00:39:52.280 --> 00:39:54.400
<v Francis Wheen>I would hope they don't feel that powerless and threatened

750
00:39:54.920 --> 00:39:56.380
<v Francis Wheen>since they are the people in power.

751
00:39:58.060 --> 00:40:01.260
<v Francis Wheen>But it is, it may well be also that politicians,

752
00:40:02.680 --> 00:40:05.240
<v Francis Wheen>that those politicians, successful politicians,

753
00:40:05.560 --> 00:40:08.060
<v Francis Wheen>I mean Ronald Reagan before them, famously,

754
00:40:08.160 --> 00:40:09.540
<v Francis Wheen>could hardly get out of bed in the morning

755
00:40:09.540 --> 00:40:12.820
<v Francis Wheen>unless his wife's astrologer in San Francisco had rung through to say,

756
00:40:12.900 --> 00:40:15.940
<v Francis Wheen>it's auspicious for Ronnie to take off his gym jams now.

757
00:40:17.920 --> 00:40:21.600
<v Francis Wheen>And who indeed dictated the exact time and date and place

758
00:40:21.600 --> 00:40:24.540
<v Francis Wheen>of the signing of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty with Gorbachev.

759
00:40:24.560 --> 00:40:27.640
<v Francis Wheen>I mean nothing was done without this woman, Joan Quigley,

760
00:40:27.680 --> 00:40:29.780
<v Francis Wheen>in San Francisco being consulted by Nancy Reagan.

761
00:40:30.560 --> 00:40:33.700
<v Francis Wheen>And Reagan was a two-term president and everyone seemed to love him.

762
00:40:34.060 --> 00:40:36.280
<v Francis Wheen>Bill Clinton, very popular two-term president,

763
00:40:36.460 --> 00:40:39.520
<v Francis Wheen>an absolute slave to these people, an absolute sucker for these people.

764
00:40:39.540 --> 00:40:42.220
<v Francis Wheen>Tony Blair, a tremendously successful prime minister,

765
00:40:42.260 --> 00:40:44.780
<v Francis Wheen>ten years and more with three elections and three landslides.

766
00:40:45.320 --> 00:40:48.820
<v Francis Wheen>He too, I mean he and indeed his dear wife Cherie,

767
00:40:49.720 --> 00:40:52.500
<v Francis Wheen>even more so, and she's never met a superstition she didn't like.

768
00:40:52.660 --> 00:40:57.320
<v Francis Wheen>But as well as filling up Downing Street with not just management gurus

769
00:40:57.320 --> 00:41:00.080
<v Francis Wheen>but feng shui consultants, the first thing she did when she got into number ten

770
00:41:00.080 --> 00:41:02.640
<v Francis Wheen>was to get in a feng shui person to rearrange the furniture.

771
00:41:02.940 --> 00:41:04.480
<v Francis Wheen>And since then it's been non-stop.

772
00:41:04.600 --> 00:41:07.880
<v Francis Wheen>She wore this little brooch called a bioelectric shield,

773
00:41:07.880 --> 00:41:10.300
<v Francis Wheen>which actually Hillary Clinton had given her rather alarmingly,

774
00:41:10.320 --> 00:41:12.060
<v Francis Wheen>given that Hillary might be the next president of the United States,

775
00:41:12.460 --> 00:41:14.340
<v Francis Wheen>which is meant to ward off evil forces,

776
00:41:14.620 --> 00:41:16.940
<v Francis Wheen>a bit like Madonna's bit of red string around her wrist.

777
00:41:17.720 --> 00:41:21.560
<v Francis Wheen>And the most striking one of all actually was in August 2001,

778
00:41:21.960 --> 00:41:24.460
<v Francis Wheen>the Blairs went on holiday to the Mexican Riviera

779
00:41:24.460 --> 00:41:26.380
<v Francis Wheen>where they had a rebirthing ceremony.

780
00:41:27.880 --> 00:41:30.040
<v Francis Wheen>They stripped down to their swimming costumes

781
00:41:30.040 --> 00:41:33.200
<v Francis Wheen>and went into this little pyramid by the beach at Amazcal, it's called,

782
00:41:33.320 --> 00:41:37.800
<v Francis Wheen>where a sort of new age Mayan priestess dropped water

783
00:41:37.880 --> 00:41:39.680
<v Francis Wheen>onto hot rocks and up came the steam.

784
00:41:39.840 --> 00:41:42.540
<v Francis Wheen>And she said, see what animal shapes you can see in the steam

785
00:41:42.540 --> 00:41:44.000
<v Francis Wheen>and I will tell you what they signify.

786
00:41:44.220 --> 00:41:45.140
<v Francis Wheen>And there was a bit of this.

787
00:41:45.280 --> 00:41:48.540
<v Francis Wheen>And then they had to scream out loud to signify the pain of rebirth.

788
00:41:49.060 --> 00:41:51.080
<v Francis Wheen>This is our prime minister and his wife.

789
00:41:52.660 --> 00:41:56.400
<v Francis Wheen>But before that they had to smear themselves with mud and melanin and papaya.

790
00:41:57.120 --> 00:41:59.400
<v Francis Wheen>So there they were, covered in mud and melanin and papaya juice,

791
00:41:59.500 --> 00:42:00.960
<v Francis Wheen>screaming at the tops of their voices.

792
00:42:01.200 --> 00:42:03.640
<v Francis Wheen>And then before they went to the sea to wash it all off,

793
00:42:03.740 --> 00:42:05.300
<v Francis Wheen>they had to say a prayer.

794
00:42:05.480 --> 00:42:07.800
<v Francis Wheen>And Tony Blair said a prayer for world peace.

795
00:42:07.880 --> 00:42:12.660
<v Francis Wheen>This was August 2001, one month before the Twin Towers came down.

796
00:42:12.760 --> 00:42:16.900
<v Francis Wheen>So much good all that mud and melanin and screaming did them.

797
00:42:17.420 --> 00:42:20.440
<v Francis Wheen>But the thing that really struck me about this was when eventually

798
00:42:21.320 --> 00:42:23.660
<v Francis Wheen>Blair's then spin doctor, a man called Alastair Campbell,

799
00:42:23.820 --> 00:42:26.580
<v Francis Wheen>hated all this new age and mumbo jumbo-y stuff.

800
00:42:26.860 --> 00:42:29.540
<v Francis Wheen>There was a woman called Carol Kaplan who more or less lived in Number 10.

801
00:42:29.600 --> 00:42:31.880
<v Francis Wheen>She was employed as Cherie's lifestyle consultant.

802
00:42:31.980 --> 00:42:33.080
<v Francis Wheen>And Campbell hated all this stuff.

803
00:42:33.160 --> 00:42:35.980
<v Francis Wheen>And he duly leaked a detailed account of it to the Times.

804
00:42:36.040 --> 00:42:37.860
<v Francis Wheen>And when the Times reported this in great detail,

805
00:42:37.880 --> 00:42:41.240
<v Francis Wheen>this rebirthing ceremony, I was waiting for other people to pick up on it

806
00:42:41.240 --> 00:42:43.840
<v Francis Wheen>and for there to be some curiosity or indeed fuss.

807
00:42:44.340 --> 00:42:46.320
<v Francis Wheen>And it passed off without anyone really bothering.

808
00:42:46.580 --> 00:42:48.440
<v Francis Wheen>And I said to one or two other newspapers,

809
00:42:48.820 --> 00:42:50.420
<v Francis Wheen>do you think this is a story worth pursuing?

810
00:42:50.560 --> 00:42:51.820
<v Francis Wheen>And they said, no, not really.

811
00:42:51.980 --> 00:42:53.660
<v Francis Wheen>I mean, what do you expect the players to do?

812
00:42:53.700 --> 00:42:54.400
<v Francis Wheen>That's what they're like.

813
00:42:54.540 --> 00:42:57.640
<v Francis Wheen>I mean, it's, you know, the news would be if they didn't do that sort of thing

814
00:42:57.640 --> 00:42:59.000
<v Francis Wheen>because that's exactly what they get up to.

815
00:42:59.440 --> 00:43:02.440
<v Francis Wheen>So it was thought so humdrum as to be barely worth comment.

816
00:43:02.520 --> 00:43:04.520
<v Francis Wheen>And that was the most striking thing, that all these,

817
00:43:04.560 --> 00:43:06.080
<v Francis Wheen>particularly Reagan, Clinton, and Blair,

818
00:43:06.080 --> 00:43:08.800
<v Francis Wheen>that it may also alarmingly be that they are,

819
00:43:08.840 --> 00:43:11.100
<v Francis Wheen>the reason for their reelection is that they were in tune

820
00:43:11.100 --> 00:43:12.580
<v Francis Wheen>with a large part of the electorate.

821
00:43:12.640 --> 00:43:16.780
<v Francis Wheen>And so they themselves were enthralled to all this stuff.

822
00:43:16.880 --> 00:43:18.500
<v Francis Wheen>But it turned out that quite a lot of voters were too

823
00:43:18.500 --> 00:43:20.880
<v Francis Wheen>and recognised a fellow spirit when they saw one.

824
00:43:21.280 --> 00:43:21.960
<v Mark Cully>Thank you, Francis.

825
00:43:21.960 --> 00:43:24.120
<v Francis Wheen>We have time for just two quick questions.

826
00:43:24.200 --> 00:43:26.560
<v Mark Cully>The gentleman in the blue first and the other gentleman.

827
00:43:27.040 --> 00:43:30.440
<v Mark Cully>And we only have time if, Francis, there are quicker answers.

828
00:43:30.980 --> 00:43:31.360
<v Mark Cully>Sorry.

829
00:43:32.700 --> 00:43:33.920
<v Mark Cully>Fascinating though they are,

830
00:43:33.980 --> 00:43:35.800
<v Mark Cully>but we do have to finish a quarter past.

831
00:43:36.080 --> 00:43:36.780
<v Mark Cully>Thank you.

832
00:43:36.880 --> 00:43:39.660
<v Audience>Maybe I can answer it while I'm asking it.

833
00:43:40.800 --> 00:43:46.140
<v Audience>Do you feel that the rise of all of this is more to do

834
00:43:46.140 --> 00:43:48.820
<v Audience>with the inability of people to cope with what I call

835
00:43:48.820 --> 00:43:51.100
<v Audience>the glorious uncertainty of life,

836
00:43:51.320 --> 00:43:56.680
<v Audience>that they're trying to construct these machines or structures

837
00:43:56.680 --> 00:44:01.120
<v Audience>that provide for a certainty in their existence?

838
00:44:02.800 --> 00:44:06.020
<v Audience>The worst proponents of it, to my way of thinking,

839
00:44:06.080 --> 00:44:07.040
<v Audience>are actually the economists.

840
00:44:08.480 --> 00:44:12.800
<v Audience>When we got the rise of so-called economic rationalism,

841
00:44:15.960 --> 00:44:19.820
<v Audience>Clinton's, actually it was Carville's line about it's the economy dummy.

842
00:44:22.140 --> 00:44:24.660
<v Audience>And the whole approach to economics,

843
00:44:24.820 --> 00:44:28.960
<v Audience>which is totally mechanical these days,

844
00:44:29.100 --> 00:44:31.060
<v Audience>I almost described an economist as a...

845
00:44:31.060 --> 00:44:31.360
<v Audience>Thank you.

846
00:44:31.400 --> 00:44:34.760
<v Mark Cully>Could we just have, I'm sorry, a less preamble in the question.

847
00:44:34.760 --> 00:44:35.760
<v Mark Cully>One good line here.

848
00:44:35.860 --> 00:44:38.920
<v Audience>I once described an economist as a failed accountant

849
00:44:38.920 --> 00:44:40.380
<v Audience>who thought he was an engineer.

850
00:44:40.600 --> 00:44:44.020
<v Audience>And it's this desire to construct these things

851
00:44:44.940 --> 00:44:48.100
<v Audience>to provide for the lack of certainty.

852
00:44:49.720 --> 00:44:53.000
<v Francis Wheen>Well, I think the appearance of certainty, more often than not,

853
00:44:53.060 --> 00:44:54.780
<v Francis Wheen>is a Wizard of Oz trick, isn't it?

854
00:44:54.820 --> 00:44:56.180
<v Francis Wheen>I mean, a lot of those people you're talking about,

855
00:44:56.220 --> 00:44:58.320
<v Francis Wheen>particularly the economists and people in finance,

856
00:44:59.400 --> 00:45:01.860
<v Francis Wheen>like to give this impression of fantastic sophistication.

857
00:45:01.860 --> 00:45:02.880
<v Francis Wheen>I mean, on Wall Street and elsewhere,

858
00:45:02.880 --> 00:45:06.280
<v Francis Wheen>and speculators, hedge fund managers, the rest of it,

859
00:45:06.360 --> 00:45:08.240
<v Francis Wheen>this sort of vast brain throbbing

860
00:45:08.240 --> 00:45:09.880
<v Francis Wheen>and doing something incredibly rational.

861
00:45:10.140 --> 00:45:11.240
<v Francis Wheen>I mean, the whole idea of rational markets,

862
00:45:11.360 --> 00:45:13.160
<v Francis Wheen>whereas in fact, actually, they're just sort of, you know,

863
00:45:13.200 --> 00:45:15.620
<v Francis Wheen>like someone reading the racing pages of a paper half the time

864
00:45:15.620 --> 00:45:18.100
<v Francis Wheen>and sticking a pin in at random, as often as not.

865
00:45:18.340 --> 00:45:20.880
<v Francis Wheen>And there's one, the Mackay, the book I mentioned earlier,

866
00:45:20.980 --> 00:45:23.060
<v Francis Wheen>Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.

867
00:45:23.060 --> 00:45:23.900
<v Francis Wheen>I remember when I read that,

868
00:45:24.660 --> 00:45:27.600
<v Francis Wheen>there's an account of the South Sea bubble in the early 18th century

869
00:45:27.600 --> 00:45:30.060
<v Francis Wheen>and the Dutch tulip craze in the late 17th century.

870
00:45:30.220 --> 00:45:31.520
<v Francis Wheen>And I was reading these things and thinking,

871
00:45:31.540 --> 00:45:32.360
<v Francis Wheen>God, how stupid.

872
00:45:32.880 --> 00:45:36.800
<v Francis Wheen>Who could be putting their life savings into these obviously bogus companies

873
00:45:36.800 --> 00:45:39.460
<v Francis Wheen>or into these mad things where you paid a million pounds for a tulip bulb?

874
00:45:39.620 --> 00:45:42.400
<v Francis Wheen>And my favorite South Sea bubble company, its prospectus just said,

875
00:45:42.480 --> 00:45:45.860
<v Francis Wheen>for an undertaking of great advantage, no one to know what it is.

876
00:45:46.200 --> 00:45:48.640
<v Francis Wheen>A stampede of investors, including Isaac Newton.

877
00:45:50.500 --> 00:45:52.820
<v Francis Wheen>Perfectly intelligent people who really ought to have known better,

878
00:45:52.900 --> 00:45:55.500
<v Francis Wheen>like Al Gore, lost their money on these ridiculous ventures.

879
00:45:55.560 --> 00:45:56.440
<v Francis Wheen>And I thought, how stupid.

880
00:45:56.540 --> 00:45:58.540
<v Francis Wheen>Well, we're all much more sophisticated now, aren't we?

881
00:45:58.560 --> 00:46:01.780
<v Francis Wheen>And at the end of the 20th century, we had dot-com mania

882
00:46:01.780 --> 00:46:05.020
<v Francis Wheen>and that amazing year or two when really you only had to scribble

883
00:46:05.020 --> 00:46:07.420
<v Francis Wheen>on the back of an envelope for a website of great advantage,

884
00:46:07.640 --> 00:46:10.640
<v Francis Wheen>no one to know what it is, and you'd be floated on the stock exchange

885
00:46:10.640 --> 00:46:13.040
<v Francis Wheen>and valued at $500 million before you knew where you were.

886
00:46:13.660 --> 00:46:17.420
<v Francis Wheen>But I think the trick is to appear certain and knowing

887
00:46:17.420 --> 00:46:20.080
<v Francis Wheen>when actually all along behind the mighty odds,

888
00:46:20.220 --> 00:46:22.540
<v Francis Wheen>there's just this funny chap lurking behind the screen

889
00:46:22.540 --> 00:46:24.820
<v Francis Wheen>as nervous and terrified as the rest of us.

890
00:46:25.400 --> 00:46:26.000
<v Mark Cully>Thank you.

891
00:46:26.020 --> 00:46:26.780
<v Mark Cully>Last question.

892
00:46:26.880 --> 00:46:27.720
<v Mark Cully>Thank you very much.

893
00:46:28.580 --> 00:46:29.020
<v Audience>Hi.

894
00:46:29.320 --> 00:46:31.620
<v Audience>I was just interested in hearing your comments

895
00:46:31.620 --> 00:46:34.660
<v Audience>about the rebirthing ceremony, which is obviously hilarious.

896
00:46:37.300 --> 00:46:40.460
<v Audience>But just any thoughts on is it essentially different

897
00:46:40.460 --> 00:46:42.420
<v Audience>from, say, taking a Catholic sacrament?

898
00:46:42.540 --> 00:46:43.180
<v Audience>I mean, is that...

899
00:46:44.140 --> 00:46:45.740
<v Audience>I mean, I know that sounds terrible,

900
00:46:45.840 --> 00:46:48.340
<v Audience>but is it just because it's less familiar to us

901
00:46:49.060 --> 00:46:50.640
<v Audience>that it seems more ridiculous?

902
00:46:50.760 --> 00:46:54.980
<v Audience>And if it's not different, how do you avoid a kind of misanthropy

903
00:46:54.980 --> 00:46:58.560
<v Audience>in terms of discounting a large proportion of humanity?

904
00:47:00.880 --> 00:47:01.600
<v Francis Wheen>Well, it's probably a different question.

905
00:47:01.620 --> 00:47:02.720
<v Francis Wheen>It's probably not that different, actually.

906
00:47:02.780 --> 00:47:04.480
<v Francis Wheen>I mean, as you say, it's the unfamiliarity

907
00:47:04.480 --> 00:47:07.500
<v Francis Wheen>that makes it more striking and more entertaining

908
00:47:07.500 --> 00:47:12.540
<v Francis Wheen>because we're all so used to the notion of Holy Communion, for example,

909
00:47:12.620 --> 00:47:15.260
<v Francis Wheen>and that this bread and wine turn into the body and blood of Christ

910
00:47:15.260 --> 00:47:21.100
<v Francis Wheen>that perhaps it no longer seems as odd to some of us as it should.

911
00:47:21.900 --> 00:47:23.740
<v Francis Wheen>Though actually, I'm not so sure about that

912
00:47:23.740 --> 00:47:27.260
<v Francis Wheen>because it seems to me that last year there's been nothing but books

913
00:47:27.260 --> 00:47:30.000
<v Francis Wheen>by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and 101 other people

914
00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:31.160
<v Francis Wheen>making precisely that point.

915
00:47:31.560 --> 00:47:34.960
<v Francis Wheen>So I don't think the Catholics, or indeed any other religion,

916
00:47:35.140 --> 00:47:36.720
<v Francis Wheen>are having it too easy at the moment.

917
00:47:36.820 --> 00:47:39.240
<v Francis Wheen>They seem to be under constant bombardment in the bestseller lists.

918
00:47:40.660 --> 00:47:42.600
<v Francis Wheen>So they get their fair share of it.

919
00:47:42.740 --> 00:47:44.940
<v Francis Wheen>And certainly it is something you're absolutely right.

920
00:47:45.140 --> 00:47:48.260
<v Francis Wheen>It's in principle absolutely the same.

921
00:47:50.060 --> 00:47:53.500
<v Francis Wheen>Nothing stranger about howling and smearing yourself with mud

922
00:47:53.500 --> 00:47:58.620
<v Francis Wheen>than there is about the belief, indeed, from my point of view,

923
00:47:58.660 --> 00:47:59.260
<v Francis Wheen>the belief in...

924
00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:02.460
<v Francis Wheen>a God who needs to be praised all the time,

925
00:48:02.480 --> 00:48:04.500
<v Francis Wheen>an omnipotent God who created everything,

926
00:48:05.320 --> 00:48:08.180
<v Francis Wheen>and yet who is so insecure that you have to keep praising him.

927
00:48:08.280 --> 00:48:10.160
<v Francis Wheen>It's like, look, thanks very much. It's very sweet of you.

928
00:48:12.440 --> 00:48:14.040
<v Mark Cully>Thank you very much, Francis.