The Anti-Woke Expert: “USA & UK Are Brainwashed!”

Konstantin Kisin (0:00)

One of the terrible things about wokeness is that we are at risk of destroying the very thing that we now enjoy, freedom, because other countries see that as weakness and they capitalize on it.

Steven Bartlett (0:09)

How do you prove that threat is real?

Konstantin Kisin (0:10)

Because this has already happened, and we'll get into this in more detail.

SPEAKER_3 (0:14)

Konstantin Kisin is the sharp-witted satirist, podcast host and social commentator, unafraid to discuss some of the most controversial topics and challenging questions that society is struggling with.

Konstantin Kisin (0:24)

Ideology is a very bad thing because the moment you buy into a prepackaged set of ideas about what you're supposed to believe, you can very quickly find yourself not interested in the truth. For example, the ideology of wokeness creates a very simplistic and frankly ridiculous way of looking at people not as individuals, but as groups with a hierarchy of oppression and promotion of victimhood, which is what makes them so dangerous because when you teach people to be victims, you actually cause them to suffer in real life. We're weakening ourselves. And now we sense everything. Political labeling is a weapon that people use against their opponents. And political correctness is preventing you from expressing a dissenting opinion. You can't say that that's hate speech, but as we spend more time arguing about trivial issues instead of real stuff that matters, the dominant civilization becomes more divided, especially from the inside. And other countries get to make a play for that dominant position. And it will mean that the values of the West, human rights, equality of treatment, freedom of speech, those values will not be considered values at all. They don't want to hold hands and sink them by eye. And I'm convinced that the geopolitics we have seen in the last many years would not be happening if we were not signaling weakness in division.

Steven Bartlett (1:28)

Is there a way to stop the division?

Konstantin Kisin (1:30)

Here's what you do.

Steven Bartlett (1:39)

Konstantin, who are you and what do you do? And I have to add to that, why do you do it?

Konstantin Kisin (1:46)

My history is I was born in the late Soviet Union and I grew up in that society, watched the collapse as a young man, young boy actually.

And then I saw the craziness of the emergence of modern Russia, which was an experience unlike any other, really, it was pretty insane what happened. And then there was a very, very brief window in my family's time when we went from being very poor when I was born to being very rich, to being very poor in the space of like 10 years. And in the five-year period when my family did have money, they sent me to boarding school in the UK. And that's how I ended up here. And then fast forward a bunch of years, I started a podcast with another comedian called Francis Foster called TRIGGERnometry. We're about to hit a million subscribers today, which is pretty exciting. Yeah. And the reason I do what I do is I have a different perspective to most people. Most people who were born here, grew up here, who take what we have here as a given, they take it for granted in my opinion, many people. I've seen that the world is not like this everywhere. I've seen also that societies don't necessarily last forever. Cultures don't necessarily last forever. Civilizations don't necessarily last forever. So the reason I do what I do is I'm trying to remind people in the West how privileged and truly lucky we are to live in this society. And we've talked, you know, in the last 10 years in particular, so much about different forms of privilege, you know, male privilege, white privilege. The one form of privilege that we don't ever talk about for some reason is Western privilege. And actually I believe that's the one that we really should be talking about and should be talking about from a position of gratitude because we are incredibly lucky to live in the West. And because we don't know that, I believe we're at risk of destroying the very things that we now enjoy.

Steven Bartlett (3:44)

An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West is the title of your book. I love this title for a variety of reasons. The word love is really intentional. Why did you include the word love?

Konstantin Kisin (3:56)

Because it's how I feel. You know, when you've come to a place from outside, it's easier to see what makes it special. And so I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunities that people like me enjoy, but actually all of us enjoy. The freedom to make of your life what you will. The freedom to speak your mind, at least until recently. The freedom to pursue things. The freedom, you know, one of the bedrocks of our societies is capitalism. Now capitalism is based on the idea of private property.