Alex O'Connor: Islam's influence in the West, moral relativism & multiculturalism's fundamental flaw 

Alex is great but this interviewer is simply out of his depth dealing with Alex. One is an honest intellectual and the other is an employee attempting to hold the line for his company.

The moderator is really obsessed with "woke" people and want that Alex says that they are all irrational.

48:00 Alex gives the best answer I've ever heard to one of the most difficult questions ever asked. Then, he says "I guess that's a bit of a bad answer." I don't care that he's 24. I'm 40, and I was probably smarter when I was 24. Alex is a brilliant thinker.

Wow. Wasn't expecting to see Alex O'Connor on GB News. Then again, if he appeared on the BBC my head would probably explode. Anyways, great stuff.

I don't think that it's possible to have a multi cultural society with a culture that doesn't appreciate multiple cultures and ideas. if some cultures reaction to criticism and different ideas is violence, those cultures can't co exist with others.

Yes wokism is a religion, that’s why all woke organizations should be tax exempt

This was a really difficult interview to watch. Some of the questions were incredibly leading. I know no trans people personally. I am not trans. But I have been exposed to the issue in a minor sense and find the pushback against it to be so obscure. People keep suggesting that trans people believe trans people are claiming to be biologically a female. That is not a claim that at least the majority of trans people are claiming. They are talking about the social construct of a woman in society.

Find Alex O'Connor really interesting and enjoy listening to what he has to say. Makes me think.

I am a muslim, but I don't understand why I like listening to Alex, I obviously don't agree with him on many things, yet I love to listen to this person who is very different from me.

I think the point is being missed when ‘bad people will use religion to justify what they want’. I think this overlooks the power of belief and indoctrination.

Interviewer was a bit of a mouth-breather but it’s always nice to see more Alex

thanks alex for introducing me to uneducated talkshows of the great english speaking contries. As allways, you are a joy to watch!

Alex is so erudite. A joy to listen to..

Re slavery, the abolitionist movement in Europe in the early-modern period was not in fact the first time slavery was abolished. It was actually abolished in England in the century after the Norman Conquest. It only became legal again in the context of the trans-Atlantic slave trace. That was four of five hundred years of prohibition. Norman England was Roman Catholic, so yes, Christian. But then again, in many other parts of Europe, which were also Roman Catholic, slavery was not abolished. So I don’t think we can credibly argue that that episode of slavery abolition was because of Christianity either. There must have been other social forces in play.

The first time that a country moved towards a general abolition of slavery was China in the 14th century, it came back later, but the idea that the abolition of slavery as a though comes exclusively from Christianity is just wrong. In the end it was the dominance of Britain and the West during that time that led to the abolition of slavery, but the opposition to slavery has a long philosophical tradition both inside Christianity and outside. Edit: I am aware that there have been other abolitionist moves in other countries including England before, the difference however was that they specified a group who were not allowed to be enslaved in England it was Christians for example. China was the first country to try to abolish slavery in general. That it ultimately failed is irrelevant to the claim of the video, which was that the abolitionist sentiment was something uniquely Western or even British.

I wish to commend GB News for providing a platform for this very interesting interview.

For me the best bit came at the end when Alex was asked how he finds meaning in his life - a very personal question. And his answer was excellent. It is very difficult to find meaning without any kind of spiritual ledge to dangle from. And to show how wise he is at the age of 25, Alex actually admits that not having to deal with serious responsibilities like children does leave one having to invent or devise activities like taking cold showers or running on a treadmill just to inject some hardship or challenge into one's life presumably to fill the void that a life without meaning brings. But I have to say that finding meaning is just as difficult even if you're not an atheist and believe in some sort of supernatural existence of whatever kind you wish to name. And why is that? Is it because we have too much time on our hands these days (especially in the West) to reflect on and wallow in life's imponderables? Meaning is a complex animal and it often wreaks havoc in our lives because we can't help but fall into its vortex. As human beings, we absolutely do need meaning. Without it, there is actually no point to anything. So, one of the biggest tasks in this world is that from early teens all the way to our last breath, we have to strive to find it. And if you do find it, there is no guarantee you will keep it or that it will always be there. Pockets of doubt will arise from time to time.

I for one suffer from immense white privilege guilt. Not being wealthy enough to pay reparations to people I don't know, concerning things people unrelated to me did to other people unrelated to me several hundred years ago, I have resolved to buy our country's black population a tin of Cadbury's Roses. Who I send it to, and quite how it will be divided among Britain's black community, is down to the British branch of BLM, who have done a wonderful job of distributing their hard-earned donations so far.

Alex tip toes around Islam. He was happy to bash the Hebrew bible, but when asked if our culture is better than Pakistan - he starts to talk about relativism. Yet there wasn't any when he was slagging off the old testament calling it morally wrong.

11:53 Ive listened to many hours of alex but the idea that irrationality and rationality are equally good for society is harmful to society.

He’s 25 but is so intelligent. I really enjoy listening to Alex .

The old 'Nazis were atheists' trope 😂, were they 'woke' as well? 😂

This interviewer was dying for Alex to be supporting his hate of foreigners but kudos to Alex for not falling into his traps

Alex is eloquent and speaks with substance. As for the interviewer, the less said the better.

What is wrong with this channel. The presenter has a weird portrait filter making his ear blurry. Alex is sat in front of a dirty window and I'm not convinced his lapel mic is on, or if it is, there is so much background noise being taken out in post it sounds like a Zoom call

Hitler was not an atheist. He did believe in some form of guiding force in the universe, something greater than himself. He was not a Christian and did not share a christian understanding of God.

Omg who let this interviewer on? He does not belong in this conversation. Alex was great.

Naive of the interviewer to think Christianity is the reason for our morals. Morals are innate.

i don't know if this makes sense but recently alex seems to have become so overly philosophically cautious that he doesn't seem to actually get anywhere.

Pleasant surprise to see this interview! Thanks GB News.

Alex makes a great point early on about why we need to separate political philosophy from religious philosophy... politics hardly says anything about metaphysics (with the exception of climate change- but even these are hardly political until their responses are discussed)...

Thou shall not murder is not the same as thou shall not kill it's not the same thing. But often conflated into the same thing

What does Alex mean when he says " human" and "female" can't be defined. Of course they can.

The key benefit of a multi cultural society is that ideas are challenged and thus develop. The challenge is maintaining a balance between the stability of everyone thinking the same thing and the chaos of everything being challenged all the time. The strength in diversity is the abilty to adapt and compromise, which will always win in the long run over (perceived) dogmatic unity.

The focus on religion is a ridiculous cop out. The issue is an ethnic one. The problem of the displacement of indigenous Europeans in their own nations

Multiculturalism in Europe has always seemed utterly ridiculous to me. I'm American. The USA is by definition multicultural. We are fifty countries, each with its own government, its own culture, and its own values. Indeed, different regions of various states have their own dramatically distinct subculture. Also, the USA is _actually_ a nation of immigrants. But the countries of Europe are the indigenous lands of Europeans. German people are _from_ Germany. Italians are _from_ Italy. If I decided to move to Japan, it would be because I believed that Japanese culture is a better fit for me. I would do everything I could to assimilate into Japanese culture. I would learn the language. I would do everything I could to learn the casual cultural practices of the people in the region I moved to. I would not move there to be an American in Japan. If I tried to do that, if I started insisting the laws change, and that cultural practices change, to suit my American sensibilities, there would be no one in the world who would support me doing that. So why the actual f*#@, are there so many Europeans who think it makes perfect sense for people from other regions of the world to move to European countries and do that? If you are Syrian, and choose to move to England, you need to acculturate to yourself. You need to learn the language and assimilate to laws and cultural practices. Indeed, I would go so far as to say, you have no right to expect protections for your religion, as England is _literally_ a Christian nation. I'm not Christian, but that doesn't prevent me from acknowledging that, on paper, the head of the British state is the Christian God. The King has a mandate from God to rule the land and its people, in God's name. And Parliament serves at the Kings pleasure. Moving their and expecting the UK to adjust its culture and laws to suit your Muslim sensibilities is as stupid as an Englishman moving to Jordan and expecting to have special protections for their Anglicanism. Here in America, it's completely different. In the grocery store I shop at, I will usually hear at least 6 different languages being spoken, as I move around the store. Within walking distance of my home, there are Mosques, Sikh Temples, Synagogues, Churches, and Buddhist temples (yes, all plural). That makes sense in America, because the only indigenous people here are generally separate from the governments of the US. That's a nasty rabbit hole, but suffice it to say, no religion and no national background has a legitimate basis to see itself as the "true" culture of the USA. So, if you want to move here and form communities that reflect your country of origin, then great! Welcome neighbor! But the same in Europe...no.

He mentions his friend Rationality Rules, who thinks that male bodies dont have any natural advantages in strength etc, he feels only testosterone gives an advantage despite biological evidence that male and women bodies are very different

"Adult Human female" is not nebulous. Each of those words have a definition. "Adult" is subjective to culture, yet we all understand the difference between adults and children, hence laws against pederasty.

This was horrible. I like Alex, but the other guy seems like a real pos.

Defining wokeism is even bigger impossibility than defining religion

antisemitism is tolerated in the West, but anti-muslim bigotry is not. that is the big difference

There's nothing nebulous in "adult human female"

Marxism does not necessitate atheism by any regard. Marxism is a philosophy of the material world, a materialist philosophy. It does not advocate materialism, it attempts to explain it.

The comment about Christianity being different when it was in charge is similar to Islam in the UK today. It was the religion of peace until it got enough supporters to force its views on others…usually by violence or the (genuine) threat of it.

Absolutely outclassed by Alex tbh

Multiculturalism has worked exactly how it was intended. A society by definition is a group of people who live in an area that share a culture. When you divide the culture you divide the society which is exactly the intention.

How's multi cultural going on in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and other Muslim countries?

When the host admitted he was in support of the monarchy. Fail right there my boy, absolute fail.

I'm astounded that so many here praise this fellows erudition ...... all I see is breadth but no depth, lots of notions tossed out but never properly expounded upon. To argue about defining a castle, a religion, a woman and saying it's impossible to pin down what these things are is trite beyond belief, it's Humpty Dumpty saying "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean", it's anti-rational deconstructionalism in it's denial of fixed points, accepted meanings. If this is what passes for intellectualism in 2024 then we truly are screwed ...... but then, what would I know, I'm just a van driver who hopes those in charge will do the right thing for the country and its folk.

Why does Alex say there was a unique awfulness of the transatlantic trade and then admit he doesn't know much about other slave cultures. He should also read Tom Holland's 'Dominion.' The Enlightenment developed in a Christian Europe.

Alex is great to listen to. He doesn't care for left and right, He just looks for truth. And I believe absolutely many people looking for power use religion to gain support, including Trump

I wish those in governance would stand up to say that not only violence is never tolerated, but that hostility towards fellow citizens in the form of verbal or physical abuse is a threat to the freedom in the country. And that if you stand to threaten the freedom through a series of papercuts to intimidate, then the country can deem you hostile. And so priviledges should be withheld as a form of punishment. With the ultimate being your right to citizenship. If you start to tolerate that which is in intolerable along your most valued of social contracts then by not enforcing it WE AS A WHOLE are throwing the values in the bin. WE are responsible for accepting bullying and intimidation. And if we don't even dare to call it what it is then we will fall by that weakness.

This was such a good discussion. Great questions and back-and-forth from the interviewer

#islamoutofbritain

Ngl, its hard to get behind him not having any moral stances, he spends half the video arguing if christianity or atheism are better at preventing things like brutal slavery, rape, killing. But then when asked about Islam vs western culture he goes on about buildings and food being different, when thats clearly not the contentious topic.

Alex is forgetting the thing that many people forget. He's claiming that abolition rose to prominence during the Enlightenment. It did not. People always forget that Europeans enslaved each other from time immemorial. The first abolitionist movement was an intracultural movement, beginning in the 1000s, six hundred years _before_ the Enlightenment. And they were successful. My Scandinavian ancestors enslaved each other all the way until they were Christianized. The abolition of slavery amongst Scandinavians by other Scandinavians was an explicit part of that process.

On the question of multiculturism, the world we live in is currently and has always been multi-cultural. So even if Britain becomes a mono-cultural society, it will still be part of a multi-cultural world. And as it is evident in history, mono-cultural societies hardly ever get along with other mono-cultural societies. So the question should not be whether multi-culturalism is good or bad, the real question should be, how do we live in a multi-cultural world without trying to cleanse our world of cultural diversity?

Being a moral relativist is impossible without being amoral. Think about it.

this interviewer is not very intelligent

On the slavery note, Romania was the last nation to abolish slavery. The Roma were enslaved for centuries by the nobility and clergy. And that only happened because of the enlightenment and western pressure.

Multiculturalism hasn’t failed. It’s done exactly what it says. There is a society in the UK which has many cultures from many different countries. Where the issue lies is that those cultures not from the UK don’t appear to want to integrate. They don’t seem to want to adopt and share the values that made the UK the greatest country in the world. In short we would embrace a multi-ethnic society whose overarching values are British. Unfortunately the cultural elite don’t want that.

I stopped watching after 'what is a woman'. Really? There is no definition?' That's just too much nonsense.

Like Alex for his commitment to understatement. Zero hyperbole. If at times a little dilute is often substantiated with cool references

I feel like he Alex here was finally open/authentic again here instead of being so incredibly careful not to offend anyone

The background noise LOL... who brought the MGs at 15:35 ?? Do you guys want a sound mix guy? I'm open...

Female isn’t nebulous and impossible to define ‘the half of the sexual dimorphism whose physiology is geared towards the production or large, immotile gametes’

I like alex but whenever he mentions Aristotle it always gives me the impression that he's never even read him. When Aristotle defines humans as "rational animals" he's not saying that we're all really smart or rational (as in the english colloquial sense). The point is merely that we have certain cognitive capacities that non-human animals lack. A second, more important point, is that it's always slightly irritating when alex talks about emotion and rationality in general. The scattered remarks he makes about emotions again makes me think he hasn't read any philosophy or science on emotions; basically no one in the disciplines thinks that they're these irrational flutters, but rather rationally assessable (at least partly cognitive) responses to the world (and when we get it right, if ever, they're thereby rational responses to the world). I think alex would benefit from reading aristotle (and secondary literature); Aristotle's notion of rational is much wider than the one alex *rightly* criticises here; rationality for Aristotle is not restricted to deductive workings out. For aristotle it also includes, for instance, emotion.

I remember Peter Hitchens being asked "What is the scariest idea in the world right now?". He said the idea that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. And if you think about it that is truly scary in some sense. And lately were are starting to see how our moral values are still deeply rooted in Christian ideas. Alex is desperately trying to get away from this and fine some ground where all ideas are relative and equally meaningless.

the interviewer isn't listening to a thing Alex says

Very disappointed to see Alex adopt the Castle Definition argument from Rationality Rules. It's not simply a tribal pro vs anti trans debate, and yes we care about definitions when people play lingusitic games to push fictions and real-world dangers on others. Rarely would I say I could win an argument with Alex given his incredible knowledge and intellect (especially for someone so young), but it would be easy to win this one.

We have multiculturalism between Christianity, chatolic and ortodox and Islam in Bosnia for hundreds of years. What it boils down is humans are humans. Between the power play there is real bond between everyone. If you show respect youll be shown respect. Meaning theres pleanty to agree on and there are particular parts of uniqueness. I think muslims are by nature more power hungry than chrisians, but it surelly can be put in check. However our muslims in Bosnia are probably the most developed and liberal in the world which is probably consequence of very long term coexistance with us and never really living isolated in purely islamic country.

The definition of a woman is concrete. Only a theology student can have a brain so smoothed out.

How much higher philosophical “education” do you need before you feel confident arguing that “human” and “female” are nebulous terms?

What the fuck are you talking about Alex? ‘Adult human female’ is not a nebulous term…

The host trying to convince a man of high intellect to be a bigot and it unsurprisingly didn't work.

Adult human female is important and easy to understand. Not nebulous at all.

"What is a woman?" isn't a political question.

Yes slavery came from the enlightenment, but the enlightenment came from Christianity. Therefore christianity was a necessary precursor to abolitionism, hence why it did not happen in non Christian societies.

I do not agree with everything Alex says. But my god, he is one hell of a debator. I'd love to see him speak to Helen Pluckrose, James Lindsay, Peter Boghossian, Niall Ferguson, and also Douglas Murray again. His discussions are thought provoking and he holds his own against some great thinkers of our age .

was not expecting the explicit ethno-nationalism near the end of the interview

29:32 I never get this explanation, if you acquired some slaves (throughout most of history) then chances are those slaves aren't being treated like it's a two week trip to Centre Parks. It's more likely that in every country that partook you had some decent slave owners and some bastards. We document the bastards more because there was more to complain about.

I am finding some of the replies to this video bizarre. This was a friendly and interesting discussion, not some ultra combative debate. Yet many of you are treating it that way. It seems Alex has some sort of hardcore following, who are using Alex as a kind of tribal leader, even though he himself would not want that. I am assuming it is to push the tiresome narrative that left leaning people are more intelligent and enlightened than those on the right, and certainly more intelligent than the sort of people who would watch GB News. The problem is, even Alex admitted that multiculturalism is problematic. He has also admitted ignorance on certain subjects, which is not a bad thing, as it shows humility. It's incredibly childish that some people are using him in this sort of way. Please take him for what he is - a very intelligent young man with flaws, not a symbol for what you want him to be.

The interviewer's position seems to be that religious belief is rational and therefore, trans people are essentially irrational. So a belief in an eternal afterlife, where 'good' people are admitted to heaven and 'bad' people are condemned to eternal hell, is considered a rational viewpoint but challenging ideas around the norms of human sexuality, is not? It seems to me that taking a so-called moral position on these issues, blinds them to any real investigation, or consideration of the possibility that they might be wrong. Which is the difference between a rational approach and a faith based one.

12:24 Got slightly distracted by the guy that walked behind the glass with thr cables in his hand 😂

Interesting that despite that it is difficult to define "woke", you "kind of know what people mean" when they talk about "woke" people. On the other hand, when someone says a woman is an "adult human female", it's just *so* difficult to know what they *mean*. After all, wHaT iS a FeMaLe? WhAt Is an AdUlT? WhAt Is A hUmAn???

The burning question I really want to is: How does Steven Edginton lubricate his eyes?

No, it hasn't. Is just that conservatives are incapable of understanding or even perceiving how much of our "traditional culture" actually comes from very far places. Also, conservative weaponization after decades of neoliberalism and mass migrations caused by the destruction of countries like Libya, Siria, etc.

I'll accept "woke is a religion" if we define "anti-woke" as one.. There's a frothing zeolotism in how channels like gb try to find "woke" in everything.. Extreme right and extreme left have certainly become philistines with art

I don't understand how this counts as philosophy the bar is so low.

In your example about the woke not calling themselves woke: they still find a way to indentify themselves and others

Misrepresenting Christian teaching here by saying we haven’t done « what Jesus would have done » and therefore we’re not quite Christians. Well, we know that no one can do as Christ would have done but the idea is to try. So, although we fall short, we are still Christians. The west has been guided by Christ’s teachings even though we have fallen short as societies and as individuals.

37:10 Multiculturalism would work if the multiple cultures were Western European. Bringing in people from Pakistan and Bangladesh, Somalia, Nigeria, Albania, Jamaica etc was never going to work.

30:10 O'connor asys that the reason slavery was banned in 1860 in the USA is because that's "the first time we could do without it" And yet slavery was banned in Christendom for a 1000 years before that so his explanation is complete rubbish and is cynically trying to undermine the moral achievement of European peoples helping slavery be banned everywhere else. also saying that trans-atlantic slavery was "unimaginably" worse than ancient slavery which often meant automatically killing all the men then taking every woman and girl as a sex-slave is complete rubbish. Slaves were often made to work to death in either constructing monuments (pyramids, palaces) or extracting resources in mines or in fields. Slaves were marched to death to take them to market. It was the same.

But it's not just weather you prefer a culture like food. If you have a culture which say is oppressive to Gays or to women then you can argue that the culture is objectively worse.

Not everyone is going to prefer a particular moral creed. When we say we prefer one creed over another, and that these are important moral preferences, we are forcing everyone around us to follow the same preferences. We jail murderers, rapists, and thieves because we strongly prefer people not to commit these acts. If we think it is okay to jail people for these preferences, but not for our preferences for a type of architecture or music, then there is something different about these two types of "preferences".

There are people who still call themselves Woke Alex. Those of us that are disgusted by the racist appropriation of that term

It's matters not that it's failed. It matters not that all know that it's failed. What matters is that they don't fcuking care, they've no intention of stopping it. None whatsoever.

"What does female mean? What does adult mean" - really, Alex? Jesus. You ARE starting to sound like Jordan Peterson. They're not nebulous terms in the slightest

Brilliant conversation from two brilliant young minds/men

I have to point out the transition from "aren't some cultures morally superior to others" to "what should we do about antisemitism"