Konstantin Kisin: Woke Culture HAS Gone Too Far - 7/8 | Oxford Union

foreign [Music] Mr President I'd like to thank you for that preview of the 2024 American election we witnessed earlier and uh if you're not persuaded to vote for the proposition tonight by that speech by James I don't know what will persuade you you will not know this but I was supposed to be the first non-student Speaker for the proposition I've now been the fourth which means that I now have to thank all the previous speakers for making my best points for me and I find that the reason the main reason now that I have left

to be uh in support of the motion is that I am so tired of talking about world culture that's why it's gone too far more than anything else and I thanked the other speakers for making the points for me because it means I don't have to reiterate the point that no no free speech is not some right-wing reframing of whatever it's the foundation of Western Civilization upon this civilization is built and the enlightenment values that led to it I don't have to make the point that has been made by far better people in the past

that the only way to deal with the problem of racism is to treat people on the content of their character and nothing else and the fact that woke culture seeks to overturn that is a new form of racism that we must all oppose it means also I will not use this opportunity to say I Told You So as someone who spent the last five years warning people in the west that if we continue to erode our culture if we continue to undermine our confidence in Western values that our enemies enemies like Vladimir Putin will seek

to capitalize on it I will not make any of those points tonight at all instead I'm not going to talk to those of you who already agree with me which I imagine as most of you um I'm not going to talk to you because I imagine after everything you've heard tonight you're going to vote for the proposition I'm going to confess I will take your vote for granted tonight I am the labor party and you are the red wall now I want to talk to those of you who are woke and who are open to

rational argument a small minority I accept because one of the tenets of weaknesses of course that your feelings matter more than the truth but I believe in you I believe there are those of you here who are work who are open to rational arguments so let me make one we are told that your generation cares more than any other about one issue in particular and that issues climate change we're told that many of you suffer from climate anxiety you wish to save the planet and for tonight and tonight only I will join you I will

join you in worshiping at the feet of Saint Greta of climate change let us all accept right here right now that we are living through a climate emergency and our stocks of polar bears are running extremely low I join you in this view I truly do now what are we to do about this huge problem facing Humanity what can we in Britain do we can only do one thing you know why this country is responsible for two percent of global carbon emissions which means that if Britain was to sink into the sea right now it

would make absolutely no difference to the issue of climate change you know why because the future of the climate is going to be decided in Asia and in Latin America by poor people who couldn't give a [ __ ] about saving the planet no thank you no thank you it's going to be decided by poor people in Asia and Latin America who don't care about saving the planet you know why because they're poor because they're poor I Come From Russia which is not a poor country it's a middle-income country 20 of households in Russia do

not have an indoor toilet what they have is an outdoor toilet and I don't mean one of those nice poor to lose that we get here I don't even mean a Glastonbury portaloo I mean a wooden Shack with a hole in the ground the holes are collected fermented memory of the last 10 000 visits how many of you are going to go home tonight and say let's rip out our bathroom and erect a Siberian [ __ ] in the back Garden and if you're not why should they 120 million people in China do not have

enough food I don't mean that they don't get dessert I mean they suffer from malnutrition that means that their immune system is breaking down because they don't have enough food you're not going to get them to stay poor imagine Yoshi Jinping the leader of China when you were 10 years old there was a revolution a cultural revolution in your country and people came and they put your father in prison your mother had to denounce him your sister killed herself and you no longer enjoying the protection of your formerly powerful father were sent to a village

where you lived in a cave house and here you are decades later you have clawed your way of the bloody and greasy pole of Chinese politics to be the Undisputed supreme leader of the very Communist Party that destroyed your family and you know that the main thing you have to do to survive and to stay in power is to deliver the one thing that the people of China want prosperity economic growth where do you think climate change ranks on XI jinping's list of priorities a third of all children who live in extreme poverty in the

world live in India that means they are starving and dying of preventable disease now about 15 months ago my wife got pregnant not me because we're old school and for nine months we talked about what a boy would look like what he might do when he grows up we looked at baby scans and videos on YouTube about what the fetus looks like at nine months and 12 months and 20 months and eventually he was born and he is this cute little bundle of joy he's cuter than about eighty percent of puppies right now if you

said to me that I had a choice either my son had a serious risk of starving or dying from a preventable disease in the next year or I could press a button and he would live he would go to school he would bring his first girlfriend home you'd go to university and graduate and become a woke idiot and then he'd get a job and get married and have children and become a man but all I have to do is press this button and for every day of my son's life a giant plume of CO2 is

going to get released into the atmosphere now you're all very young and most of you are not parents let me tell you something there is not a parent in the world who would not smash that button so hard to hand bled [Applause] you are not going to get these people to stay poor you're not even going to get them to not want to be richer and so I put it to you ladies and gentlemen there is only one thing we can do in this country to stop climate change and that is to make scientific and

technological breakthroughs that will create the clean energy that is not only clean but also cheap and the No thank you and the only I want everyone to get home on time today which is not going to happen and the only thing that wokeness has to offer in exchange is to brainwash Bright Young Minds like you to believe that you are victims to believe that you have no agency to believe that what you must do to improve the world is to complain is to protest is to throw soup on paintings and we on this side of

the house are not on this side of the house because we do not wish to improve the world we sit on this side of the house because we know that the way to improve the world is to work is to create it is to build and the problem with work culture is that it's trained too many young minds like yours to forget about that thank you very much [Applause] [Music]