#1807 - Douglas Murray

SPEAKER_2 (0:04)

The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan (0:09)

Oh, I guess we are going there.

We're up and running. First of all, you look fucking great. You look like you've been working out. What's going on?

Douglas Murray (0:20)

I have been, and I'm also not wearing suits.

Joe Rogan (0:23)

Dude, you look jacked.

Douglas Murray (0:24)

Well, that's very kind. So do you.

Joe Rogan (0:25)

You do, but you look like the pandemic's been, there's two different types of people during the pandemic, the people that gained weight and the people that got fit, and you look like a fit man.

Douglas Murray (0:34)

I certainly tried not to gain weight during the pandemic.

Joe Rogan (0:36)

Yeah, you look good. Congratulations on that.

Douglas Murray (0:38)

Thank you.

Joe Rogan (0:38)

On holding it down. What does it feel like to be wandering the world now?

Douglas Murray (0:43)

Yeah, I mean, I sort of was a bit during the pandemic.

Joe Rogan (0:46)

Oh, you're a risk taker.

Douglas Murray (0:47)

Well, I don't like to say exactly what I did, but I did decide that after lockdown one in my native country of the UK, I wasn't going through that again. I mean, lockdowns are bad everywhere, but in the UK, they just kept doing them.

Joe Rogan (1:03)

Yeah.

Douglas Murray (1:03)

And they started one of them in late December, one year. And it was just like that.

You don't want to spend January locked in your house, and it's bad enough in the UK anyway.

Joe Rogan (1:15)

How did the UK handle lockdowns in terms of the restrictions? Like, what did they do?

Douglas Murray (1:19)

It was really strict, really strict.

Just terrible, and things like you were only allowed out once a day from your house for one bit of physical exercise.

One friend of mine called me one day, and she said, do you have spies in your neighborhood? I said, what do you mean? She said, in my village, we have people who inform. And I said, well, what does that look like? She said, for instance, somebody lent over the garden wall the other day and said to me, you are aware this is your second walk of the day. I know, and she said the embarrassing thing is I know him.

People were doing really crazy stuff like that. I thought it was horribly revealing and I loathed it and I got out.

Joe Rogan (2:01)

That's just a character issue that pops up whenever people have any kind of control. You know, that's the Stanford Prison Experiments, where they found it like almost immediately. People just started ordering people around and treating people like shit.

Douglas Murray (2:15)

Well, look at all these people who now love it. I mean, they were shouting at us for years.

And they want to keep doing it. I was in the theater recently in New York, and they now treat you like you're going to Rikers Island when you've paid $100 to go and see a show.

Joe Rogan (2:31)

Really?

Douglas Murray (2:31)

Like, everyone, show your papers. And it's like that. You think, whoa, this isn't a great start to the evening.

Joe Rogan (2:40)

Right.

Douglas Murray (2:40)

I mean, this play, a bit of you, funny. And they're doing that. And those people, I don't know what we can do with them after this, because they're going to lose their meaning.

Because they've just had a whale of a time.

Joe Rogan (2:51)

Yeah.

Douglas Murray (2:52)

All this sort of, you haven't re-masked fast enough, those people.

Joe Rogan (2:57)

Yeah, it became a way to communicate with people. It's like a standard way to do it. Like, you have to bark at someone who's not wearing their mask properly, bark at someone with, I can see your nose. Yeah, yeah.

Douglas Murray (3:10)

The one good thing in the UK was that we didn't have the crazy, complete politicization we have in America of like, you know, if Donald Trump had been pro-mask, the other side would be anti and, you know.

Joe Rogan (3:21)

Right, right, right.

Douglas Murray (3:22)

So we didn't actually have that. And masking wasn't quite as strict. So if I forgot my mask and I was going into a shop, you know, I could easily, like, I had several techniques. One was to pull my hat down a bit.

Another was I always felt if I walked a bit faster and frowned, that also kept COVID away.

Joe Rogan (3:39)

You know, I was at the gym in the middle of the pandemic, and there was a guy in the gym with a face shield on.