Podcast: Konstantin Kisin and the Counter-Woke Revolution (Transcript)

Transcript of the podcast titled ‘Konstantin Kisin and the Counter-Woke Revolution’.  In this podcast, Dr Jordan B Peterson and Konstantin Kisin discuss western privilege, the self, the nature of God and religion, the necessity of religion for morality, and how we must combat the death of truth with cohesive principles.

TRANSCRIPT:

DR JORDAN B PETERSON: Hello, everyone watching and listening on YouTube and associated platforms. I’m speaking today with Konstantin Kisin, who’s a Russian-British satirist, social commentator, author, and podcast host, TRIGGERnometry. He has written for publications such as Quillette and The Daily Telegraph, and his book, An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the West, is a Sunday Times bestseller.

Kisin has been a popular guest on Good Morning Britain and has amassed over 100 million views for arguing against woke culture during a filmed recent Oxford Union debate. As I said, he’s also the co-host of the podcast TRIGGERnometry alongside Francis Foster. Together, they have garnered over 400,000 subscribers, having in-depth discussions that center on support for free speech in our society.

Hello, Mr. Kisin. It’s good to see you today. I’m looking forward to our conversation. We’ve talked a little bit before on TRIGGERnometry, and have we met in person?

KONSTANTIN KISIN: A couple of times, yes. I feel honored that you didn’t remember me. Thanks, Jordan.

DR JORDAN B PETERSON: Yeah, well, my memory has its problems.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: And you meet a lot of people.

DR JORDAN B PETERSON: Yes, well, it’s hard, too, when you meet people virtually. It’s hard to remember if you met them virtually or if you met them in person. They’re thicker and taller in person, but other than that, it’s a similar experience.

So you were just at the Oxford Union, and you seem to have managed something approximating a hit, as far as those things go. And so what do you think you did right? And why did what you did have the cultural impact it has had? Do you know how many people have watched that so far?

KONSTANTIN KISIN: It’s very difficult to measure because it goes into private Telegram channels, WhatsApp groups, etc. But I’m guessing somewhere between 100 and 200 million at this point. And in terms of why I think it got the resonance that it did, I think there are a few factors. I think the first one is something that you actually discussed with Joe Rogan recently, which is the world’s crying out for a positive vision of the future. Those of us who spend a lot of time trying to work out what this craziness was happening in the West and why it was happening, we had to do it from a position of critique and criticism. And we’ve spent five years, in our case, on TRIGGERnometry doing that, and you started earlier.

But now I think the world is in a position where it’s looking for a positive message. And that is actually one of the things that I tried to do. I tried to persuade people who were there at the Oxford Union at that debate. And I said to them, look, I don’t want to talk to those of you who already agree with me. I’m more interested in talking to those of you who may be woke. That was the debate I was invited to participate in and who are open to rational argument. So I think that was part of it.

And the second part of it, Jordan, and again, I think this is something you’ll be well aware of. We live in a society in which adults are afraid to tell children what they need to hear. And so I think a lot of people resonated with the fact that this was somebody who was an adult standing up in front of young people and challenging them to be better as opposed to either pandering to their preconceived beliefs and biases or cowering away from having that debate.

So I think those two things combined, plus a rational argument, a few jokes. You throw that in the mix and you’ve got yourself a good speech.