0:00:12 > 0:00:16Christopher, can we start by talking about the cancer?
0:00:16 > 0:00:17What is the prognosis?
0:00:18 > 0:00:22Well, the particular form of malignancy
0:00:22 > 0:00:27I have is in my oesophagus but it's metastasised, as they love to say,
0:00:27 > 0:00:29to my lymph nodes.
0:00:29 > 0:00:33You can actually feel one in my clavicle, on bad days anyway.
0:00:33 > 0:00:37And, I'm afraid, to at least a tiny speck in my lungs.
0:00:39 > 0:00:44And the prognosis for that is that if you lump it all together
0:00:44 > 0:00:46and you leave out every other consideration,
0:00:46 > 0:00:505% of us live another five years. So that's not ideal.
0:00:50 > 0:00:55But I have a strong constitution, for example, which has served me
0:00:55 > 0:00:58quite well, though if I hadn't had such a strong one, I might have led
0:00:58 > 0:01:00a more healthy life, perhaps.
0:01:00 > 0:01:04But in the meantime, in the old cliche, you live day to day?
0:01:04 > 0:01:07Oh, yeah. Yes, one does. But actually who doesn't?
0:01:07 > 0:01:10There is however something specifically terrifying which
0:01:10 > 0:01:14I'm trying to oppose in my writing and my appearances about cancer.
0:01:15 > 0:01:17Are you terrified by it?
0:01:17 > 0:01:22No. I think it's a superstition. One among many.
0:01:22 > 0:01:26And I think I know where it comes from, actually, if you'd like me to say.
0:01:26 > 0:01:30Well, when I was a child we were all frightened still by polio.
0:01:30 > 0:01:33It takes an effort to remember that now,
0:01:33 > 0:01:35but in many countries people still are.
0:01:35 > 0:01:38Previous generations, it would have been smallpox.
0:01:38 > 0:01:41The heart that never gets the right rhythm. Bronchitis. TB.
0:01:41 > 0:01:44All these things. But none of them have the same, I think,
0:01:44 > 0:01:46horror as cancer's been allowed to acquire.
0:01:46 > 0:01:54And I think it's probably because of the idea of there being a live thing inside you.
0:01:54 > 0:01:56A sort of malignant alien.
0:01:56 > 0:01:59That can't outlive you but that does in a sense have a purpose
0:01:59 > 0:02:01to its life which is to kill you and then die.
0:02:01 > 0:02:06It's like an obscene parody of the idea of being pregnant.
0:02:06 > 0:02:11In fact I always feel sorrier for women who have cancer than men.
0:02:11 > 0:02:14For men, the idea of hosting another life of any kind
0:02:14 > 0:02:16is sort of hard to think about,
0:02:16 > 0:02:21but for a woman it must be a grotesque, nasty version
0:02:21 > 0:02:24of the idea of being a host to another life.
0:02:24 > 0:02:30I have a feeling this is why people propitiate it with bogus cures,
0:02:30 > 0:02:35terrible rumours, scare stories and so on.
0:02:35 > 0:02:39And I've set my face to trying to demonstrate that it's
0:02:39 > 0:02:43a malady like any other and it will yield to reason and science
0:02:43 > 0:02:47and that's what I'm trying to spend my time vindicating.
0:02:47 > 0:02:50Reason and science, but yet the word most commonly
0:02:50 > 0:02:54- used about cancer is battling cancer, isn't it?- Yes.
0:02:54 > 0:02:57And I, again, think that's a version of the pathetic fallacy.
0:02:57 > 0:03:02It's giving a real existence to something
0:03:02 > 0:03:05that's in a sense inanimate.
0:03:05 > 0:03:08Real sense inanimate. It has a sort of life but not a lot.
0:03:08 > 0:03:11I rather think it's battling me, I have to say.
0:03:11 > 0:03:14It's much more what it feels like.
0:03:14 > 0:03:17I have to sit passively every few weeks
0:03:17 > 0:03:23and have a huge dose of kill or cure venom put straight into my veins.
0:03:23 > 0:03:26And then follow that up with other poisons too.
0:03:26 > 0:03:28Doesn't feel like fighting at all.
0:03:28 > 0:03:33Possibly resisting, I suppose, but no,
0:03:33 > 0:03:36you feel as if you're drowning in passivity
0:03:36 > 0:03:42and being assaulted by something that has a horrible persistence
0:03:42 > 0:03:44that's working on you while you're asleep.
0:03:44 > 0:03:46Does it make you angry?
0:03:46 > 0:03:55No, it makes me sober, objective. I think, well, this is a...
0:03:55 > 0:03:58This is the best-known of our disease enemies.
0:03:58 > 0:04:01I'm one of its many, many, many victims.
0:04:01 > 0:04:04I'm probably one of the luckier ones in point of being able to
0:04:04 > 0:04:07have treatment and care.
0:04:07 > 0:04:10I'd like to prove to other people that it's not the end
0:04:10 > 0:04:13of everything to be diagnosed with it.
0:04:13 > 0:04:15In other words, yes, it can be resisted.
0:04:15 > 0:04:17I think I prefer resistance to battling.
0:04:17 > 0:04:21I didn't pick this fight, but now I'm in it I'd like to give
0:04:21 > 0:04:26it my best shot, and as I say, what this means to me is putting
0:04:26 > 0:04:30myself on the side of those men of medicine and science and reason
0:04:30 > 0:04:34who are trying to reduce it to something that is understandable,
0:04:34 > 0:04:38similable to reason and that will be brought under control.
0:04:38 > 0:04:40But the likelihood is that it will kill you?
0:04:40 > 0:04:43Oh well, the certainty is that's what I'll die from.
0:04:43 > 0:04:46Yeah. Some people die with cancer.
0:04:46 > 0:04:51I might die with it. It will be, unless I have a heart attack,
0:04:51 > 0:04:54which I could easily have, by the way.
0:04:54 > 0:04:59I'm much more likely now to have a blood clot than I was before, or a stroke, perhaps.
0:04:59 > 0:05:03But, no, it's the proximate cause of my death, and I'm both lucky
0:05:03 > 0:05:07and unlucky to know it in advance and be able to take its measure.
0:05:07 > 0:05:10And there will be people, and they won't say it to your face, perhaps,
0:05:10 > 0:05:13but, "Well, he smoked a lot, he drank a lot."
0:05:13 > 0:05:17Yes, well, that's exactly what's demystifying about it.
0:05:17 > 0:05:20There are also people who say it's God's curse on me that
0:05:20 > 0:05:22I should have it near my throat because that was
0:05:22 > 0:05:25the organ of blasphemy which I used for so many years.
0:05:25 > 0:05:27I've used many other organs to blaspheme as well
0:05:27 > 0:05:29if it comes to that.
0:05:29 > 0:05:34Um, no, it is banal in that precise way.
0:05:34 > 0:05:38If you've led a rather bohemian and rackety life, as I have,
0:05:38 > 0:05:42it's precisely the cancer that you'd expect to get. That's a bit of a yawn.
0:05:42 > 0:05:45You're not an old man.
0:05:45 > 0:05:49And you're living with the prospect of an abbreviated life.
0:05:49 > 0:05:50Yes.
0:05:50 > 0:05:53What does that do to the way you think about life?
0:05:54 > 0:06:00Well, it, um... to borrow slightly from Dr Johnson,
0:06:00 > 0:06:04it does concentrate the mind, of course, to realise that your time
0:06:04 > 0:06:08is even more rationed than you thought it was.
0:06:08 > 0:06:13And though I can be stoic in point of myself about that
0:06:13 > 0:06:18because everyone has to go sometime, and whatever day came
0:06:18 > 0:06:22that the newspapers came out and I wasn't there to read them,
0:06:22 > 0:06:25I've always thought that will be a bad day, at least for me.
0:06:25 > 0:06:31I now have a more pressing idea of what that might be like.
0:06:31 > 0:06:34Anyway, that's being stoic for my own sake.
0:06:34 > 0:06:36But for my family it's not very nice.
0:06:36 > 0:06:39I could wish, perhaps, to have led a more healthy
0:06:39 > 0:06:43and upright life for their sake.
0:06:43 > 0:06:46And that's a very melancholy reflection, of course.
0:06:46 > 0:06:50And then there are things that I would like to live to see.
0:06:50 > 0:06:54I've mentioned some of them in an article I wrote on the subject.
0:06:54 > 0:06:58I would like to see the World Trade Center reopened.
0:06:58 > 0:07:03I'd like to see Osama bin Laden on trial. Or dead.
0:07:03 > 0:07:05There are places that I'd like to go,
0:07:05 > 0:07:10people I'd like to meet, books I'd like to at least re-read if not read for the first time.
0:07:10 > 0:07:14But, in a sense, that would always be true. I'd still, I hope, have these ambitions.
0:07:14 > 0:07:17Has it given you a mellower view of humanity?
0:07:17 > 0:07:18Mellower?
0:07:18 > 0:07:20Yes.
0:07:20 > 0:07:23Something about that word I don't relish. I don't know quite why.
0:07:23 > 0:07:27Well, that's because you're a polemicist. A contrary...
0:07:27 > 0:07:30No, if you like, no, if anything my view was already quite stark,
0:07:30 > 0:07:32which is we're born into a losing struggle.
0:07:32 > 0:07:36I knew that when I was well, or thought myself to be well.
0:07:36 > 0:07:38We're born into a losing struggle.
0:07:38 > 0:07:42We're enjoined by the faithful to consider ourselves to be born sick
0:07:42 > 0:07:44and yet commanded to be well.
0:07:44 > 0:07:47The whole thing is, at best, ironic.
0:07:47 > 0:07:52Something meaningless or random, I don't know if I want to go that far.
0:07:52 > 0:07:57But it's a stark existence, and for many people born
0:07:57 > 0:08:00in less fortunate circumstances than mine it's always stark.
0:08:00 > 0:08:04It was stark every day till they died. This makes it starker.
0:08:04 > 0:08:07Does it make you regret saying or doing things?
0:08:09 > 0:08:13This doesn't, no. I've sometimes had cause to regret saying things
0:08:13 > 0:08:16or wish I'd said them in a different way,
0:08:16 > 0:08:19but that's part of the ongoing revision of being a writer.
0:08:19 > 0:08:23I hope. This hasn't prompted me to that, no.
0:08:23 > 0:08:25Perhaps it should.
0:08:25 > 0:08:28You're famously a person with very strong convictions
0:08:28 > 0:08:34and a very persuasive, forceful form of argument.
0:08:34 > 0:08:36Thank you.
0:08:36 > 0:08:39Well, no, that's what you do.
0:08:39 > 0:08:43You're celebrated worldwide for it.
0:08:43 > 0:08:46Do you have any sense of why you were like that?
0:08:46 > 0:08:49No. I don't.
0:08:49 > 0:08:52Um...
0:08:52 > 0:08:58My parents were both people of principle. It's true.
0:08:58 > 0:09:03Um, but they didn't expect to inflict this on others.
0:09:03 > 0:09:06I mean, it was just something they were and something they did.
0:09:06 > 0:09:09Um, and something they inculcated in me,
0:09:09 > 0:09:12but they didn't want an audience for it. I did.
0:09:12 > 0:09:15Do you regret any of the targets you chose, like...
0:09:15 > 0:09:17Who needs to attack Mother Teresa?
0:09:17 > 0:09:19- Oh, it's very important to attack Mother Teresa.- Why?
0:09:19 > 0:09:22Well, for the same reason that people admire her.
0:09:22 > 0:09:26You have to care about the millions of people who are stricken by
0:09:26 > 0:09:29millennial poverty.
0:09:29 > 0:09:32I mean poverty of the sort that it's almost impossible to escape from.
0:09:32 > 0:09:35That was her pretended concern. Now, as it happens...
0:09:35 > 0:09:36It wasn't her fault.
0:09:36 > 0:09:38No. Well, you say that, but, um...
0:09:38 > 0:09:42- It wasn't her fault that people were in poverty.- Not in the first place,
0:09:42 > 0:09:46but as it happens, I could go on at length about this,
0:09:46 > 0:09:48but summarised in one statement
0:09:48 > 0:09:51which I think is pretty hard to refute.
0:09:51 > 0:09:53The best known cure for poverty we've come up with is
0:09:53 > 0:09:55something called the empowerment of women.
0:09:55 > 0:10:00If you give women control over their cycle of reproduction,
0:10:00 > 0:10:03you don't keep them chained to an animal cycle
0:10:03 > 0:10:05of annual pregnancy, and so forth.
0:10:05 > 0:10:09And you give them... If you can add to that by throwing in a handful
0:10:09 > 0:10:12of seeds or some credit you'll have done very well.
0:10:12 > 0:10:15Nowhere where that's tried does it not work.
0:10:15 > 0:10:19You'll see in an instant Mother Teresa spent her entire life campaigning against that.
0:10:19 > 0:10:24She thought contraception and abortion were morally equivalent and that abortion was murder.
0:10:24 > 0:10:25Now, that's not what Calcutta needs,
0:10:25 > 0:10:27and I think her teachings and preachings
0:10:27 > 0:10:31were actually counter to the cause she's supposed to represent.
0:10:31 > 0:10:33It was very important to point that out.
0:10:33 > 0:10:38Are there any of the targets of your polemic or essay in the past
0:10:38 > 0:10:40that you regret choosing?
0:10:41 > 0:10:45No. No. I don't.
0:10:45 > 0:10:47I regret only not doing more about it.
0:10:47 > 0:10:50You fell out with a lot of people over your support
0:10:50 > 0:10:52for the decision to go to war against Saddam Hussein.
0:10:52 > 0:10:55- Yes.- Do you regret that at all?
0:10:55 > 0:10:57Well...
0:10:57 > 0:10:59100,000 people dead. Maybe more.
0:10:59 > 0:11:04To say one had no regrets would be, I mean, would be abnormally unreflective, I think.
0:11:04 > 0:11:09I mean, no-one can be other than horrified
0:11:09 > 0:11:13at the current state of...of Iraq.
0:11:13 > 0:11:17But I don't take the view, the glib view that is taken by so many,
0:11:17 > 0:11:20that the casualties are all as a result of the intervention.
0:11:20 > 0:11:24I mean, for one thing it's an outrage to the idea of moral responsibility.
0:11:24 > 0:11:30Last month in Iraq the Al-Qaeda forces broke into a Catholic church,
0:11:30 > 0:11:34as it happens, in Baghdad, and massacred about 50 people.
0:11:34 > 0:11:38People say that's Tony Blair's fault or George Bush's fault. Don't be silly.
0:11:38 > 0:11:41How dare you absolve the actual murderers of what they have done?
0:11:41 > 0:11:44Say, "Well, they wouldn't be there if we weren't there."
0:11:44 > 0:11:45Are you so sure?
0:11:45 > 0:11:50Al-Qaeda is operating in innumerable countries and was certainly present
0:11:50 > 0:11:53in the form of Mr Zakawi in Iraq before we got there.
0:11:53 > 0:11:56I'm not going to have it put like that. No.
0:11:56 > 0:11:59I also think that there was a terrible misery and implosion
0:11:59 > 0:12:04coming to Iraq as long as it was left in the control of Saddam Hussein,
0:12:04 > 0:12:08plus UN sanctions that affected mostly the Iraqi people.
0:12:08 > 0:12:10I thought that was an impossible state of affairs.
0:12:10 > 0:12:16And I finally found I couldn't support any policy
0:12:16 > 0:12:19that involved the continuation of Saddam Hussein in power.
0:12:19 > 0:12:24The private ownership of Iraq, in other words, by him and his crime family.
0:12:24 > 0:12:27I thought that you couldn't give your support to any policy that accepted that.
0:12:27 > 0:12:31So to that extent I'm not apologetic.
0:12:31 > 0:12:34But it did a lot of damage to the United Kingdom.
0:12:34 > 0:12:38Waterboarding, for example, which George Bush only a couple of weeks ago
0:12:38 > 0:12:42defended as not being torture and as a legitimate means to...
0:12:42 > 0:12:45I'm one of the few people you're likely to meet who's been waterboarded...
0:12:45 > 0:12:49Everyone applauds you for your guts in that.
0:12:49 > 0:12:53I read with alarm and disgust the former President's...
0:12:53 > 0:12:56What did he say? Damn right, or some awful...
0:12:56 > 0:12:59I mean, trying to live up, it seemed to me,
0:12:59 > 0:13:02to the worst interpretation of himself as a Texan bigmouth.
0:13:02 > 0:13:06I don't sacrifice any of my internationalist or
0:13:06 > 0:13:09humanitarian or democratic principles in saying these
0:13:09 > 0:13:13principles are incompatible with the existence of regimes like
0:13:13 > 0:13:17Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Charles Taylor in Liberia
0:13:17 > 0:13:21and others who Tony Blair deserves credit for helping to get rid of.
0:13:21 > 0:13:24Whatever else may be said, that must be part of the account.
0:13:24 > 0:13:29You didn't ask me... You only said did I regret that targets I did pick?
0:13:29 > 0:13:32There are some I regret not picking. I was much too soft on Mugabe.
0:13:32 > 0:13:34I say it in my memoir.
0:13:34 > 0:13:38I claim to have had good reasons for it.
0:13:38 > 0:13:41I was very keen to see the end of
0:13:41 > 0:13:45white supremacist dictatorship in southern Africa,
0:13:45 > 0:13:47and I was probably soft-peddling what I knew
0:13:47 > 0:13:52about some of Zanu-PF, but having a good motive is not a good enough
0:13:52 > 0:13:55reason for doing something that was a betrayal, really, of principle.
0:13:55 > 0:14:00Anyway, hoping to see the end of these and others
0:14:00 > 0:14:05is a good reason for KBO as um...
0:14:05 > 0:14:06Keep Buggering On.
0:14:06 > 0:14:09If the BBC will allow that to be said.
0:14:09 > 0:14:11It's a bit early in the evening but we can try.
0:14:11 > 0:14:15- Family values.- Yes, um...
0:14:15 > 0:14:17We're sitting here talking in Washington
0:14:17 > 0:14:21and you have said that you felt you were born in the wrong country.
0:14:21 > 0:14:23- Yes.- Why did you feel that?
0:14:23 > 0:14:28It's a bit like the question, it was for me a bit like the question,
0:14:28 > 0:14:31why did I want to be a writer? Essentially unanswerable.
0:14:31 > 0:14:34I could only say that it was more that I felt I had to,
0:14:34 > 0:14:36rather than I wanted to.
0:14:36 > 0:14:41And when I was not much older, I was in my mid-teens,
0:14:41 > 0:14:45I began to have a very strong feeling of a sort of pull
0:14:45 > 0:14:49from the American planet, is the best way I can think of phrasing it.
0:14:49 > 0:14:52Didn't know why. None of my family had ever been.
0:14:52 > 0:14:57Didn't know much about it, but a very strong gravitational pull,
0:14:57 > 0:15:00which eventually I succumbed to.
0:15:00 > 0:15:04And now, because as you know, Kierkegaard says life has to be
0:15:04 > 0:15:06lived forward and then reviewed backwards.
0:15:06 > 0:15:08Now, I sort of do know,
0:15:08 > 0:15:12in that they were versions, the two things, of the same.
0:15:12 > 0:15:16In order for me to become an independent, self-starting writer,
0:15:16 > 0:15:20I had to move to the United States, had to leave England.
0:15:20 > 0:15:21"Why?", you may ask.
0:15:21 > 0:15:26I don't know, but it could have something to do with the relative openness of the United States.
0:15:26 > 0:15:28You didn't have to keep on sort of passing
0:15:28 > 0:15:32so many approval tests as you did seem to in London.
0:15:32 > 0:15:36- You're a polemicist in...- Yes.
0:15:36 > 0:15:39And you look at our country now, with its coalition government.
0:15:39 > 0:15:42- Yes.- Muddling along.- Yes.
0:15:42 > 0:15:44As it's muddled along for many long years.
0:15:44 > 0:15:48And how do you feel? I mean, could you exist there?
0:15:48 > 0:15:52In Britain I have half of my life, still, to look back on.
0:15:52 > 0:15:54I was about 30 when I left.
0:15:54 > 0:15:56A lot of that was formative.
0:15:56 > 0:16:02Um... it's where I learnt to love literature,
0:16:02 > 0:16:06and a look at my bookshelves would show what I like, still.
0:16:06 > 0:16:08Um, Anglo-American is what I am.
0:16:08 > 0:16:12I think it's quite a nice synthesis.
0:16:12 > 0:16:14What do I think about the Cameron/Clegg coalition?
0:16:14 > 0:16:17It doesn't make me think all that much, I have to say.
0:16:17 > 0:16:21- That speaks volumes in itself, doesn't it?- It might, yes.
0:16:21 > 0:16:24Also, I suppose for historical reasons,
0:16:24 > 0:16:26I joined the Labour Party as soon as I was eligible to do so.
0:16:26 > 0:16:29I watch more the future and character of the Labour Party.
0:16:29 > 0:16:32I still feel involved in that.
0:16:32 > 0:16:35- Do you still consider yourself a leftist?- Yes.
0:16:35 > 0:16:37- Really?- Yeah, I do. It's...
0:16:37 > 0:16:40Because as you know, many of your critics would say,
0:16:40 > 0:16:44what's happened to you is that, as your waistband expanded,
0:16:44 > 0:16:46your politics moved further to the right.
0:16:46 > 0:16:49Well, they should see my waistband now. I've just lost 30lbs.
0:16:49 > 0:16:51Not in the nicest possible way.
0:16:51 > 0:16:54- But the accusation against you is... - Of course.
0:16:54 > 0:16:58Well, it's such a well-known script that it is deserving of the name cliche,
0:16:58 > 0:17:01and I pin that accusation on my accusers. That's what they're resorting to.
0:17:01 > 0:17:07So do any of these labels apply to you - leftist or whatever?
0:17:07 > 0:17:10I mean, you're more of an iconoclast, aren't you?
0:17:10 > 0:17:14There isn't a global, international working class movement anymore.
0:17:14 > 0:17:15There used to be.
0:17:15 > 0:17:18Um, some of us miss it, but it's gone.
0:17:18 > 0:17:21Is it likely to be replaced? I don't think so.
0:17:21 > 0:17:26Is there a socialist theory of an alternative world economy
0:17:26 > 0:17:30that, just in theory, could stand up against the idea
0:17:30 > 0:17:37of a market system, however defined? Not conspicuously, no.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40The anti-globalising movement seems to me to be nostalgic
0:17:40 > 0:17:43for a pre-industrial society, in many ways.
0:17:43 > 0:17:45Thus to be rather conservative.
0:17:45 > 0:17:49From this, you could probably tell that I still think like a Marxist, which I do.
0:17:49 > 0:17:52Yes. You believe in the dialectic?
0:17:52 > 0:17:55Yes. And then the materialist conception of history.
0:17:55 > 0:17:59The end of the Cold War really buggered everything up, didn't it?
0:17:59 > 0:18:02Um, yes, it did, but it was a huge release of human energy.
0:18:02 > 0:18:06Huge release of human energy, and emancipation.
0:18:06 > 0:18:09It was a great day, er, November 9th 1989.
0:18:09 > 0:18:12I have on my... Just behind me, you can see it,
0:18:12 > 0:18:15a chunk of the Berlin Wall on my mantelpiece.
0:18:15 > 0:18:21And I was in Romania to see the end of the Ceausescu regime, the worst of them all.
0:18:21 > 0:18:25And it materialises my view that human nature
0:18:25 > 0:18:28is incompatible with dictatorship and slavery.
0:18:28 > 0:18:32- Conflict is intrinsic to human history.- Yes.
0:18:32 > 0:18:37And there will be some further conflict.
0:18:37 > 0:18:39Many people say it has already begun,
0:18:39 > 0:18:43and it's the conflict between the West and sort of Islamo-fascism.
0:18:45 > 0:18:48Do you think that is a conflict which can be lost by the West?
0:18:48 > 0:18:51Well, first on conflict, you're completely right.
0:18:51 > 0:18:56It's unavoidable and I'm glad because I think it's desirable - especially in the United States.
0:18:56 > 0:19:01There's a huge privilege given to the word "unity" or "unification".
0:19:01 > 0:19:05Partly because it's a various and multifarious society.
0:19:05 > 0:19:08There's a big need for good manners, but if you say, "I'm a unifier,
0:19:08 > 0:19:13"not a divider", you expect, and you usually get, applause. I'm a divider.
0:19:13 > 0:19:15I think only division can cause progress.
0:19:15 > 0:19:19People say the politics of division. Politics is division by definition.
0:19:19 > 0:19:22If there was no disagreement, there'd be no politics.
0:19:22 > 0:19:25So the illusion of unity isn't worth having.
0:19:25 > 0:19:28And anyway, it's unattainable.
0:19:28 > 0:19:32What I do think of as the greatest conflict
0:19:32 > 0:19:35at present is a version of the old conflict, which is between
0:19:35 > 0:19:39totalitarianism and free thought,
0:19:39 > 0:19:41which is, in other words,
0:19:41 > 0:19:43between theocracy and the enlightenment,
0:19:43 > 0:19:46and the form in which this is currently being played out,
0:19:46 > 0:19:48you could define as the West versus Islam.
0:19:48 > 0:19:50But it's not quite so.
0:19:50 > 0:19:53Within many Islamic countries, there are people who have a greater
0:19:53 > 0:19:56respect for pluralism, and there are people in Britain
0:19:56 > 0:19:59who would like to censor me for criticising Islam, for example.
0:19:59 > 0:20:02But roughly, you describe the outlines correctly.
0:20:02 > 0:20:07Yes, I refuse to be told what to think or how,
0:20:07 > 0:20:12let alone what to say or write, by anybody, but most certainly,
0:20:12 > 0:20:20not by people who claim the authority of fabricated works of primeval myth and fiction,
0:20:20 > 0:20:22and want me to believe that these are divine.
0:20:22 > 0:20:26That I won't have. That's the original repudiation.
0:20:26 > 0:20:29The first rebellion against mental slavery comes from saying,
0:20:29 > 0:20:31"This is man-made, it's not divine."
0:20:31 > 0:20:34And to be clear about what you're talking about here -
0:20:34 > 0:20:35the Bible and the Koran?
0:20:35 > 0:20:38Yeah, well, and the Torah, yes, yeah.
0:20:38 > 0:20:43- All of these are works of fiction? - All of these are depraved works of man-made fiction, yeah.
0:20:43 > 0:20:48And in what way does saying that you find the Koran laughable,
0:20:48 > 0:20:53laughable in places, in what way does that help the spread of reason?
0:20:53 > 0:20:58Oh, well, I think mockery of religion is one of the most essential things.
0:20:58 > 0:21:00Because to demystify
0:21:00 > 0:21:05supposedly holy texts that are dictated by God and show
0:21:05 > 0:21:08that they are man-made, and the internal inconsistencies
0:21:08 > 0:21:12and the absurdities, and one of the beginnings of human emancipation
0:21:12 > 0:21:14is the ability to laugh at authority.
0:21:14 > 0:21:17It's an indispensable thing.
0:21:17 > 0:21:21People can call it blasphemy if they like, but if they call it that,
0:21:21 > 0:21:24they have to assume there's something to be blasphemed, some divine word.
0:21:24 > 0:21:27I don't accept the premise.
0:21:27 > 0:21:31A lot of people in your position might take Pascal's Wager.
0:21:31 > 0:21:36They might say, "I don't know whether I'm right or wrong."
0:21:36 > 0:21:38Yes.
0:21:38 > 0:21:42"But if I accept the possibility of there being a purpose and a god,
0:21:42 > 0:21:45"I can't lose either way cos if there isn't,
0:21:45 > 0:21:47- "I've lost nothing, and if there is, I gain."- Yes.
0:21:47 > 0:21:49Why haven't you done that?
0:21:49 > 0:21:51Well, I've thought about Pascal's Wager and wrote
0:21:51 > 0:21:56about it in my book, long before I became possibly mortally sick.
0:21:57 > 0:22:02And what I said was this. Shall we state what it says?
0:22:02 > 0:22:05- Yes, please.- Pascal was a great mathematician
0:22:05 > 0:22:07and one of the founders of probability theory.
0:22:07 > 0:22:11I think it's his lowest point, called his wager or his gambit,
0:22:11 > 0:22:13where he says, rather like a huckster,
0:22:13 > 0:22:15"What have you got to lose?
0:22:15 > 0:22:20"You win everything if you bet on God and you've everything to lose if you're wrong".
0:22:20 > 0:22:23Well, what does this involve if it's correct?
0:22:23 > 0:22:27It involves a very cynical god, and a rather stupid one, who will say,
0:22:27 > 0:22:31"I noticed you make a profession of faith and also, because I'm God,
0:22:31 > 0:22:35"I know why you did, cos it was in the hope of winning favour with me."
0:22:35 > 0:22:38Well, that's fine, you will therefore get it.
0:22:38 > 0:22:40That seems to me a rather contemptible thing
0:22:40 > 0:22:43and necessarily, therefore, to entail a rather contemptible
0:22:43 > 0:22:46human being who says, "I don't really believe this.
0:22:46 > 0:22:51"I have no faith, but what can I lose by pretending to God that I do? I might get a break."
0:22:51 > 0:22:54I mean, this is pretty low, isn't it?
0:22:54 > 0:23:00If I'm surprised to find, when I pass on from this veil of tears,
0:23:00 > 0:23:03that I'm facing a tribunal,
0:23:03 > 0:23:06which, you notice, by the way, you're not allowed to bring
0:23:06 > 0:23:08a lawyer, there's no jury or appeal.
0:23:08 > 0:23:10I mean, this is all altogether unattractive.
0:23:10 > 0:23:14Why people want it to be believed their God is this way, I don't know.
0:23:14 > 0:23:17But suppose that I'm there, and there may be one person
0:23:17 > 0:23:21in the tribunal, depending on your view of the Trinity, I would say,
0:23:21 > 0:23:27"I hope you noticed that I didn't try and curry favour, that I was
0:23:27 > 0:23:34"honestly unable to believe in the claims made by your human spokespersons.
0:23:34 > 0:23:37"Now do I get any understanding?"
0:23:37 > 0:23:41And if that doesn't work, well, then, I don't know what will.
0:23:41 > 0:23:45But I'm not going to try anything servile.
0:23:45 > 0:23:48I'm resolved on that point.
0:23:48 > 0:23:52- It would be more comforting, wouldn't it, and more comfortable? - Which, the servile? No.
0:23:52 > 0:23:56To make an accommodation to have some belief
0:23:56 > 0:23:59in a possibility of this not being the end?
0:24:02 > 0:24:07Well, as long as I don't have to take the word of other humans
0:24:07 > 0:24:11on what are the necessary propitiations and gestures
0:24:11 > 0:24:17and subjections I have to submit myself to in order to qualify.
0:24:17 > 0:24:19In other words, there are many, many discrepant religions,
0:24:19 > 0:24:24all of whom say, only if I support them, or endorse them, will I qualify.
0:24:24 > 0:24:29Well, now, I don't know that there is no such thing as consciousness without the brain, for example.
0:24:29 > 0:24:32There's no such survival. I very much doubt it.
0:24:32 > 0:24:35But let's say, we don't know enough to say it's impossible.
0:24:35 > 0:24:38I would say what is impossible is that other humans can know
0:24:38 > 0:24:41what the conditions are whereby you qualify for survival.
0:24:41 > 0:24:43That I do know is false.
0:24:43 > 0:24:45Do you fear death?
0:24:45 > 0:24:48No. I'm not afraid of being dead, that's to say.
0:24:48 > 0:24:51Er, there's nothing to be afraid of. I won't know I'm dead.
0:24:51 > 0:24:55In my strong conviction, I won't.
0:24:55 > 0:24:59And if I find that I'm alive in any way at all,
0:24:59 > 0:25:03well, that'll be a pleasant surprise. I quite like surprises!
0:25:03 > 0:25:06But I strongly take leave to doubt it.
0:25:06 > 0:25:07Um...
0:25:07 > 0:25:09I'm...
0:25:09 > 0:25:12I can't be... I mean, one can't live without fear,
0:25:12 > 0:25:15it's a question of what is your attitude towards fear?
0:25:15 > 0:25:17I'm afraid of a sordid death.
0:25:17 > 0:25:22I'm afraid that, that I would die in an ugly or squalid way,
0:25:22 > 0:25:25and cancer can be very pitiless in that respect.
0:25:25 > 0:25:28- That's a fear of dying.- Yes. - It's not a fear of death, though.
0:25:28 > 0:25:30I forget which you asked.
0:25:30 > 0:25:34It's a good distinction. Of death, no. Of dying, yes.
0:25:34 > 0:25:39I feel a sense of waste about it because I'm not ready.
0:25:39 > 0:25:44Um, I feel a sense of betrayal to my family
0:25:44 > 0:25:48and even to some of my friends who would miss me.
0:25:48 > 0:25:50Undone things, unattained objectives.
0:25:50 > 0:25:53But as I said before, I hope I'd always have that
0:25:53 > 0:25:56if I was 100 when I was checking out.
0:25:56 > 0:26:01But no, I think my main fear is of being incapacitated
0:26:01 > 0:26:03or imbecilic at the end.
0:26:03 > 0:26:07That, that, of course, is not something to be afraid of,
0:26:07 > 0:26:09it's something to be terrified of.
0:26:09 > 0:26:14Bertrand Russell said, "I believe that when I die, my body will rot." Full stop.
0:26:14 > 0:26:18- Well, who doesn't? I mean, the... - That's it.
0:26:18 > 0:26:24Well, he does go on to say a bit more than that, but that's uncontroversial.
0:26:24 > 0:26:27I mean, nobody expects to get their old body back.
0:26:27 > 0:26:30I certainly don't want the body back that I'll die with.
0:26:30 > 0:26:34Nobody would. It'd be no doing nobody any favours.
0:26:34 > 0:26:37So some reassembly of atoms would have to occur.
0:26:37 > 0:26:40But that'd have to occur anyway.
0:26:40 > 0:26:43If only for us to be reunified with those who died
0:26:43 > 0:26:48er, so that we could live, and got blown to pieces for doing so.
0:26:48 > 0:26:50Do you think it's been a life well lived?
0:26:50 > 0:26:54Oh, I really have to leave that to others, Jeremy, I have to.
0:26:54 > 0:26:59I'm encouraged, I'll say this much, I've been encouraged in the last few months by some
0:26:59 > 0:27:04extraordinarily generous letters, including, these are the ones I take most to heart,
0:27:04 > 0:27:07from people I've never met or don't know.
0:27:07 > 0:27:10If they say that what I've written or done or said means anything
0:27:10 > 0:27:15to them, then I'm happy to take it at face value, for once.
0:27:15 > 0:27:19I'll say, "I'll take that." Um, and yes, it cheers me up.
0:27:19 > 0:27:23And I hope it isn't written with the intention of doing so.
0:27:23 > 0:27:28Though I must allow for it possibly being for that reason.
0:27:28 > 0:27:33But in case you are watching this, um, anybody,
0:27:33 > 0:27:36and you ever wonder whether to write to anyone, always do,
0:27:36 > 0:27:39because you'd be surprised by how much a difference it can make.
0:27:39 > 0:27:41I regret, here's a regret,
0:27:41 > 0:27:43I regret not doing it more often myself.
0:27:45 > 0:27:49- Thank you very much.- My pleasure.
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