Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is all the result of individual political decisions. The Biden administration opened that border on purpose. There is design behind it.
Chapter 2: What are the reasons behind the recent waves of mass immigration?
We are not acting out of self-interest.
The gender dynamics in the book between who it is that actually is inviting these people and who it is that's resisting,
This movement has brought out the worst in women. I'm a big fan with masculine virtues, and I mean that on an individual level, but also on a cultural one. We have poo-pooed them for a long time. Our countries are being overrun by strangers because nobody is stopping them.
Look, Abu, an old lamp.
Chapter 3: What motivates individuals to immigrate?
If I dust it a little... Oh! No ni. Mä oon lampun henki, ja sä oot sää, ja sä tiedät, mitä seuraavaksi tapahtuu. Sulla on kolme toivomusta, eikä saa toivoa lisää toivomuksia.
Chapter 4: How does immigration relate to economic growth?
Mitä laitetaan? Kulho, lusikka, ja sitä uutta valiojugurtti luonnonmakeaa, jonka makeus on hedelmien sokereista. Kulho, lusikka, valiojugurtti luonnonmakeaa. Kuittiin. Arjen klassikka. Valiojugurtti.
Thriva, welcome back to Trigonometry.
Third time lucky.
Third time, great to have you. The reason we have you on regularly is you're a prolific writer, as I was saying before we started. You've just written the new book called A Better Life. And as always, you stay away from the controversy, don't you, Lionel?
Oh, yeah, I tried to go for the safe subject.
Well, this book, of course, is a novel, but it is about immigration. And I think you actually go very deep and very hard at an issue that has become completely toxified, impossible to talk about, and also impossible to be honest about. Is that why you wanted to talk about this issue?
Well, I am always looking for a gap in the cultural library.
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Chapter 5: Are women more affected by woke culture than men?
There's no point in writing a book that has been written multiple times. I'm trying to look for something that people are not writing about. And there's usually a reason people are not writing about something, because it's dangerous, it's too polarizing.
And there have certainly been plenty of novels about immigration, but they're always implicitly pro-immigration because they are reliably told from the perspective of the immigrant. And they're not necessarily all bad novels. And in fact, I think the The format of the immigrant story is narratively appealing intrinsically.
Someone who's seeking a better life is on a journey, is literally going from A to B, and therefore perhaps making another kind of spiritual, political, social journey.
Chapter 6: What impact does not having children have on women's behavior?
and has to face obstacles to overcome is usually at a disadvantage. Often that's an economic disadvantage. All of these things are a formula for a sympathetic character. And when you have a sympathetic immigrant, you are implicitly writing a pro-immigration book. I mean, that's just the way it works, insofar as you have any political content.
I know of only one other novel that portrays the experience of the host community, and that would be T.C. Boyle's The Tortilla Curtain.
Chapter 7: Why do people believe the current immigration policies are unsustainable?
That goes back to 1999. And I really can't name another one.
One of the interesting things that I think you explore in the book is why this is all happening in the West, why there's been these gigantic waves of mass immigration in the last 20 years in particular.
And it was interesting, I was listening to you on another podcast with our friend Winston, and he asked you about the comments that Jim Ratcliffe made when he said England's been colonized by immigrants. And he said, do you think that's true? And you said,
Of course, which I thought was surprising, actually, because I think that the reason I don't agree with what he said, even though I understand why he said it, is that I think to say something is colonization is to imply that the people who are coming are responsible for it, whereas what your book actually explores is the people who are responsible for the ways of mass immigration, the people who are encouraging and making it possible.
I agree with you.
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Chapter 8: How does a lack of cultural self-confidence affect society?
I'm not sure that being willing to use the word colonization means that the cause of that colonization is just the force of people's desire. Certainly, that's part of the explanation, but it is being permitted. Right. Without doubt.
Encouraged and, in fact, invited, I would argue.
Yes, yes. And, you know, I was doing an event last night and somebody said, you know, isn't it inevitable? It is not inevitable. Politicians of certain stripes have encouraged us to believe that it is inevitable. And, you know, this book is set in the United States. The U.S.
has been taught to believe that the demographic and ethnic racial transformation of the country, which has been drastic since 1965, is almost like a natural process, like photosynthesis. It's like the sun shines and the immigrants come, or you water the garden and you get flowers. It's as if nobody's making any decisions that makes such rapid demographic change possible.
But this is all the result of individual political decisions. And it's the same in the UK. They're being let in or, as you say, actually invited in.
And the plot of the book deals with an ordinary middle-class family, American family, who invite this immigrant into their house. And then as it progresses, it has awfully tragic consequences. As I was reading the book, Two words kept coming up into my mind, which is an idea which started with Gad Saad, former guest of the show, which the two words are suicidal empathy.
I knew that's what you were going to say. And it really struck me. Is that something that you'd agree with? Oh, sure.
I mean, my only problem with that expression is that I think often what you're dealing with is not genuinely empathy. It's suicidal vanity. Hmm. It's a conceit about yourself being a good person, and you're going to inflict your goodness on everybody else. It's sticking up for people who are vulnerable.
I often feel with these people that the groups of people they are defending, they're almost irrelevant because it's an exercise in moral display.
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