found really fascinating. it is with a playwright. and there is a smash hit broadway comedy. it was a smash hit in london. this is a man of the left. he has written a play in the past about integration. he even became the target of total vilification. and we had a conversation that i will put up on my website in which we discussed this phenomenon. it is difficult to have a civilized conversation with

people that don't necessarily agree on things. we can have a civilized discussion. abuse has replaced discussion and civilized arguments. what a terrible thing that is. it's like the closing of the mind that is going on in the west. it is supposed to be in the most rational society. and yes, it is closing and it's really frightening. it is one of the things that i have with embooks, trying to open it up a bit more and open up the public debate.

hopefully creating the aid of the people who will be reading them working. to helporking. to help create a civilized space. especially in a way that expands public knowledge and consciousness brings us together instead of driving us apart. >> host: let's talk about your books. >> guest: yes, it originated with jean-jacques rousseau. he draws his theory in this

country and he was fantastically inflectional. what his whole philosophy was was what a child brings to question what classroom of experience is infinitely more important than anything that can be given to the child. you have to water it like a plant in the plant grows. it is a construction of that growth. so the child brings the ability to learn by himself. what the teacher has to do is take a backseat and gently water. but not actually give that child

the ability to be coupled forever. that philosophy has ruined american education. but certainly what when the most about, british education. it basically said it is important. the child is an autonomous meaning maker. it means that the child looks at him or herself and the world around. it's like saying, going to the jungle. you're going to find her own way. that is what we have done in the classroom. it guides the child into the world. giving the child a mental map by

which they can make sense of the world. the teacher is saying to the child, you are an adult. we don't have to teach adults. we don't have to guide adults. adults are not people. a child needs to be guided and i think more than that, i tried to explain it, this didn't come from nowhere. we are responsible for ourselves. this includes the intellectual map to guide in the transition

of knowledge. we are not going to say to the child, it's illegal, don't do this. we are going to say to the child , here's the information. they're all good information that you could use or chemicals and here's information about them. that is teaching the child to be a premature adult.

as they adult world teaches children, indiscriminate. it is an abandonment of children and what the relationship is. it is the abandonment of proper parenting. and to know what is going on in the world by him or herself. and i think in britain and america, it has abdicated that responsibility. and several generations have gone past.

many don't know how to be adults. and as teachers, we have this problem so they can't teach, they can't teach mathematics, they can't teach english or grammar. they have this terrible cycle of poor education and poor parenting, creating a problem down through the generations. this is very frightening where people just forget in a society forgets completely. so that is kind of why it is a bit surprising.

so i could see what was going on in education and i couldn't find a school for my young children letting them run roughshod and sling mud at the walls. i could not find schools that would do it. i went with the evidence lead. what they were being taught at teacher training institutions, and came across this. he economists meaning maker. you could not believe the new literacy. i kid you not, these institutions, this is what they're being told to teach. societies unequal.

the working class is oppressed. people are taught to read. but for the fact that they can read, in order that they should no longer be oppressed, we don't teach them to read. it sounds absolutely barking mad. and it was barking mad. but that was the kind of ideology that helped lead generations to stop teaching children to read and say they will teach themselves to read. we will literally kicked them and we will read them a story, they will memorize the words, or they will guess the words and then we can tell them the reason

so you have generations of children who grew up to be illiterate, but they were being told that they were illiterate. this is wicked stuff. when i was at the guardian, i could not believe it. i couldn't believe a society could help do this. unfortunately it was true. you know, it took me into reading in all kinds of avenues that were equally bizarre. and so i wrote this book. so it was kind of what i was saying in the book that this had

taken over the entire establishment. lo and behold, they proved it in the book. establishment. lo and behold, they proved it in the book. i got contacted by unless numbers of parents who say, okay, now i understand what i couldn't understand about my child's education. who said to me what you said is not only true, but i will lose my job. and that is when i realized that there was something there that was happening that was wicked, thwarted then. >> host: very quickly, your website for people who want to see her books today or go to your personal website. >> guest: embooks.com where they can find my memoir and another

book as well melanie phillips.com is where my blog is house of the journalism that i've written so far is archived. >> host: team in milwaukee, wisconsin. you are on. >> caller: thank you for having me on. i am a big fan of yours. you hit it on the head when you say that we are so prone to toe the line and it shuts down discussions and debates. i am a little bit of a left leaning centrist with people out here who think i'm a nut case. but i have talked about these issues with conservatives and

liberals. and the more that we have a discussion, the more that we listen to each other, the more that we find that we are not that far apart. which is just amazing. a quick scenario -- a tutor young inner-city kids. we had a scenario in the '90s. what we had was a super intendant that wanted to break up school system and it got pushed aside by both sides of the political aisle. and he was run out of town. i agree with you and i read your books and i love your thoughts on opening people to open themselves to each other. on religion i would like to ask a quick question and let you go. do you think that we have turned

to ideology, do you feel that if we go back a sort of religious country, where people go to church one or have more faith, are we going to limit the debate again? >> host: okay, thank you we have appointed melanie phillips? >> guest: i think religion is at the heart of all of us and i think it is a problem. people have a problem than belief. but i do think that the ideology is much associated with the erosion of formal religion, specifically judeo christianity

and the precepts that underlie it in the bedrock faith of the west. in comparison to this, america is a religious country. it is still pretty faithful. these great values that we prize so much, it is part of the integrity of every human being. this animates the western belief in democracy at the very center.

and we respect each other because we believe that we are all made in the image of god. if we take god out of the equation, we don't have equality. it is a fact. i think it's a big problem. i do believe that we can't think our way out of this predicament. unless we have some kind of research and of the fundamental precepts. all the characteristics, been appealing the facts to support a predetermined opinion. it could be attributed.

>> the individuals allowing these things, there are people on all signs who exaggerate and to play with the facts. all of us are prone to the political divide that we may be on. there are people people on all sides are prone to this kind of behavior. the conversation is trying to make was a bit different than that. they had a conclusion to which they wish to fix.

that is so that is held by people not on the left. i hesitate to say the right. there many people and i don't think it is the kind of institutionalized characteristic of people not on the left. as part of a preordained conclusion. let's start with an ideology. there is no ideology. the ideology is the left. they may hold those ideas very strongly. but nevertheless, it is not people who are on the left.

they're a certain individuals who take these extreme positions were not on the left. i do know the people that control the hearts -- including in britain, the conservative party. that includes uncharitable truth which in my view and it comes about the truth. the number of physicians follow.

i don't see that kind of thing operating among people as a group of people. >> host: in the book "all must have prizes", he was institutionalized for the political program. with no blame or shame or pain society. in the process, it helps the integration of british culture itself. >> yes, people are very shocked. much more complicated. she was a political titan.

finding a role, and we have to subside gently -- that is what leadership is. i have a great deal of respect for her. there are so many on the left.

however, i still have considerable reservations about what she did. she took on this in the government. but she did it entirely is not correct. but she did give them a sense of industrious perspective in the world. she thought of everything in terms of economics. she thought that everything could be solved by running everything like the corner shelf. perform certain changes on those principles.

the bonds of trust and fellowship. the rise of group rights, group against group, what would happen in the education profession, taking over the teaching profession, she never realized until she was late in her premonition. and she thought everythineverythin g was part of the free market. as a result, the institutions relied upon intangibility, such as trust.

and a shared sense of inheriting values. she basically dismiss them lightly, indeed. but anything that was inherited was a some kind of conspiracy. but anything was basically to be distrusted. a professionalism based upon a body of people who share the same kind of assumptions about the way they operate. that was, to her, defrauding the consumer. so the result was unspoken bonds of trust and belief in honesty and attachment to the intangible , which was rooted in tradition. in other words, a true radical.

i thought she did a great deal of values. there is a kind of symmetry on the left and right. on the left basically said, the bonds the latest to each other are up in the air. and what we say about ourselves mattered. if i decide that living with my lovers is right for me, no one else can tell me otherwise. in other words, there's a type of radical privatization and

many determine what is right for me. and no one has a right to tell me that i'm wrong. so was individualism. especially in the social sphere. the traditional family, morality and general. basically saying, we don't hold these ideas that britain is bound up by a kind of understanding and refugee and duty. the individual consumer.

that was the individuals in the economic sphere. two forces working together. i think it was being driven apart and fragmented. and what we needed was to get away from this. the bonds of shared tradition and language. and it was actually fragmenting us. after all that has happened, i still think that is not wrong. >> host: mark from san antonio, texas. you're on booktv.

>> caller: i really love booktv. i hear most of what you're saying, but you talked about the truth out. you talked about older culturalism. >> i would like to say that i don't know if they are really a universal truth. but i do know that people have the right to express the culture and humanity. but what we may call it a

universal truth. it includes a consideration of the truth. especially when they say that the social workers -- not a [inaudible] tomie where you are getting this definition. >> guest: it is a question, it is not that i ever base my view of this -- we cannot say that

any culture is better than another. but i have heard this for a quarter of a century over and over again. and i've heard it said in the context of the whole range of events that have happened. it seems to me that is the conclusion that i have come to. and i quite agree. different people have different understandings of what multiculturalism is. i've been talking about it in way that i understand it to be the case. some people take it to mean something quite different. so i always try to put out there what my definition is. so we all know what we are talking about.

this is the great point that yes, of course, in my view, properly tolerant society expects that different people believe different things. but nevertheless, in my view is, if you want to uphold a liberal democratic society with values such as tolerance of other people's beliefs, the ability of people to have no religion without persecution, and equality for women. in the kind of core values -- my culture is preferable to

another. therefore i will act on that basis. these terms are used so differently. >> host: the next call comes from patricia in cambria, california. >> caller: i very much enjoy this program. i have one comment that i work in a large school district. i want to ask you guys a question. we are in a litter very sphere, and i did feel that in the practical day-to-day operation

of dealing with the difficulties , a lot of adults have come through the system and then trained in one of these new methods and so forth. it is very hard to impose this under the current effect of the legal system. and when britain it is probably very different. but for example, i remember when i was teaching, we had an english teacher, a phd. she was told it was racist to teach grammar and things like this. one of the things that the adults experienced is that if you do buck the system and go against the grain, you could be facing various legal challenges.

i'm wondering if that was a problem in britain. my other question to you would be can you recommend any contemporary british writers that you are particularly interested in. i'm going to bring very soon. guess not well, the legal challenge that you mentioned. we have a different system in britain from yours. i'm not sure that it is quite the same. but there are legal challenges and the real problem comes from this. this was published in the '90s. 1990. okay, i have that mixed up.

they put into the book how they were paralyzed with the education officials and the local authorities that has been the authority over the schools. and she taught in a fairly conventional way, started classes and facing this. when the inspector was due to come around, she had gotten through the inspection. that is the current thing that was going on then.

there is a kind of conformism. which means this is the kind of thing you're talking about, you don't get promoted, if that sort of thing, it's that kind of legal challenge. not sure if you're talking about education or -- >> host: who are you reading right now? >> guest: in terms of factual books. >> host: whatever you want to say or recommend. as the caller said, any recommendations on british others besides yourself? >> well, it depends very much on what you're looking for. i tend to read things about

foreign policy and trying to work out what is going on. >> host: we will be talking about the books that influenced you and go from there. this is a tweet for you. finally, a woman after my own heart and mind. too bad her website is only showing about one eighth of the content. >> guest: which website? >> host: i'm not sure. >> guest: there is a problem on melanie phillips.com, some of the archives have been restricted due to a terrible technical glitch. and there is a problem accessing it. if so, i apologize. but people can access the recent

columns without a problem. how much will be published? >> guest: there are bits of it. and it will be a different template for different books. and they are about to be put up in the next few days. but as people look at the website of the next two days, enables the what we are delighted about and that

includes published books. we download the books, but there is a certain amount of video material already there. and there will be more. which will be a new way of giving people a taste of the books that are available on embooks.com. >> host: margaux inver vermont, california. >> caller: good morning and thank you for having me on booktv. i have two questions. one is about the extreme christian right in america and, for example, i would love to read what you have to say.

how can we spare rational discourse? thank you very much. >> i devote a lot of my time to this. and all i can do is try to envision it. getting the debate going, and this includes the debate that we have going. and when you ask is actually a deeper question. how do you shift the culture that has gone wrong. you know, it has gone all these ways that i think have gone wrong. friends and family.

had he shipped it back again? it's somehow to make our voices heard. all of these things are going on as it was. the changes and suddenly people are saying something quite different. and you're thinking, where did that come from? well, society works with a different level at the same time.

but it is actually underneath. they are processing and thinking men after time, that suddenly pops up. so that's all we can do, is keep the same things that we can and try to produce this more enlightened and civilized and rational discourse. and this will eventually become a default mechanism. including the extreme christian right's. i'm aware that there is part of the individuals that agree with this. i am basically in my journalism, i have been basically evolved in

the systematic issues. the kind of things in the extreme american christian rights, as you call them come at a something that is particular to america. i haven't got my head around it yet, but i'm sure it is a delight in store. >> host: we have duane in houston, texas. good afternoon. >> caller: i'm an educator in texas. i teach special education. i have a comment and a question. the congressman wrote about called education of the negro, and he actually speaks about how

the church has organized religion in america. my question is so how do you think this has affected the board is affecting education? >> guest: i didn't quite hear you? >> caller: africans, transatlantic spreading of africans during slavery. as a descendent of slaves, i do think that affects education? >> guest: i think it is very

different on an american perspective. in britain it hasn't had a lot of effect due to the kind of changes in education, it came about almost exclusively as a result of liberals in britain. as a young reporter, i certainly remember encountering it. i remember going to north london where there is a significantly black population, mainly african population.

so it was preventing them from something out as an independent school and local authority in state funding. it includes proper education. teaching them about the world as it was. the children were being treated by white liberals, as if they were not entitled to the best education. they were being prevented by the local education boards. on the basis that there was no need for it. in the education board knew what was best for the children. so that is where we are coming

from in britain. the role played in britain was very different in the history of black people in america. we don't have the history of slavery that of course you have. >> host: we have another call from houston. >> caller: hello, i had never heard of your heard you speak. but listening to this morning, i am optimistic that people in the world like yourself were speaking about prudence and silence. as a member of the silent majority, i feel incredibly repressed by the left and the right with the rhetoric and the

things that are thrown out to me and the people that i love. they have to sort it out and disseminate. what would be a suggestion for family gatherings for something as simple as having a dinner party and inviting people over and setting the ground rules for discourse and discussion and suggestions for something like that? people used to sit down and have civil discourse. it just seems that there is none of that. >> host: thank you for calling in. melanie phillips? >> i think it is rather

regrettable. in britain, the diamond cable is going at a fascinating case. they were increasingly there at the computer screen and they are grazing and it is a fantastic vehicle for social discourse. gathering around the table is the premier way in which families talk to each other and friends and colleagues and everybody can talk to each other

and it is a very sociable event. how you restore that in a society where we are all basically doing our own thing, to the extent that we are, it is a very difficult challenge. but i think that it would be very nice if parents were to make a bit of a future of this. at least once a week, once a day, whatever it is. religious rituals, thanksgiving dinner, the christmas dinner, the friday night meal. these are the places where families and friends get together and they put aside their technology and they get their heads up and they look at

each other and they talk to each other. that is something that should be encouraged and yes, you're right >> host: one of the books we are delving into is "the sex-change society: feminized britain and the neutered male." it is important for masculine identities. ..

>> guest: but, but i do think there is a need to recognize that for women, um, work -- however important it is, and it was vital for me, i could not have imagined that i would not have worked ever, i could not have imagined that -- but nevertheless, i also understand that work for women plays a different role than it does for men. for men it is essential, i think, to their identity. for women work is often very, very important -- paid work, employed work -- is very important. it was important for me, it's important for millions of women. but we don't feel less of a woman if we don't work. men feel less of a man if they

don't work. and this is a very unfashionable thing to say, but i believe it to be true. and consequently, unemployment for a man is absolutely devastating whereas for a woman it's painful, it's annoying, it's, you know, it's a state that she doesn't want to be in, but it doesn't have the same effect. and there was another point to bread winning which is that the erosion of the breadwinner function is this is very much a chicken and egg, you know, which came first. but basically, in my view, what has driven families apart, there are many factors that have driven families apart. although i should say the pattern of traditional family life has been driven apart by many factors. but one of the key factors, the

key driver has been the fact that by and large women have changed the calibration of where their best interests lie. in the past women thought of themselves as they may have wanted to work, but they thought of themselves as wanting to have children. and in order to have children, they needed to have the father of their children onboard to support them and their children while the children were growing up and, therefore, they looked for a marriageable mate, and they married him. along came a whole bunch of social changes. and as a result, women decided they could do it on their own. they could be, if they wanted, mother and father to tear children. -- to their children. they could have the child without a father onboard at all. visit the local sperm bank. they could do without the father completely. if they had a father, if they were married to the father or if

they lived with the father of their child, you know what? didn't like him, throw him out. because, ultimately, we can go it alone now. and there's also that. well, the men kind of got marginalized, they got pushed out. they were made to feel as the if they were spare parts in the human race. they were wasted space. they were only needed to provide the special in the first place, and then i think i call them sperm donors, walking wallets and occasional au pairs. that was the limit of their usefulness to women. and they became kind of demoralized in every sense, demoralized. if they weren't going to have one woman making herself uniquely available to them, well, why stop? so they started fathering serial children. and because there wasn't a commitment to bring up a child, the working became less vital

and, you know, it's a chicken and egg. if a man has a child to support, he will work, and he will work long hours. and if he doesn't have a child to support, it's less of a, less of a push. these things are much more complicated than i'm making out. there are many other factors involved. i wouldn't like you to think that i was reducing it all to this, but i do think it's a very important change that's happened. it's a change for the worse. we kind of have thrown out the baby with the bath water, to mix my metaphor rather badly. because, as i say, women should be able to work. men should be able and feel, you know, feel under some obligation to take an active role in the nurturing of their children and helping in the home and all the rest of it. but we kind of lost a sense of proportion here. we kind of lost the sense that there are some irreducible differences between the sexes and, no, it's not for the stupid and ignorant to say that. it is true. and unless we actually

acknowledge what those differences are, we can't actually then shape in a fashion a household to accommodate reality. once again we're trying to refashion reality to accommodate an idea of what we think should be the case. and that way lies a great deal of distress. >> host: you're watching booktv on c-span2. our guest on "in depth" this month, author and columnist melanie phillips. we have a little over an hour left in our program. here's a look at some of ms. phillips' influences and favorite books.

>> host: andrew miner, if you -- and a reminder, if you can't get through on the phone lines, and we're going to put them up on the screen, you can contact her via social media. we have our facebook page, facebook.com/booktv. you can make a comment there. you can send a tweet, @booktv

is our twitter handle. and finally an e-mail to booktv@c-span.org. melanie phillips is the author of nine books, the most recent is has just come out today. it's called "guardian angel." she began writing in 1980. "the divided house: women at westminster." "doctors' dilemma" came out in 1985. "the sex change society, ""feminized britain and the neutered male," 1999. america's social revolution came out in 2010. "the assent of women," 2003. "how britain has created a terror state within" came out in 2006, and "the world turned upside down: the global battle over god, truth and power," 2011. by the way, if you'd like to see melanie phillips talk about that book, that particular book more

in depthly, you can go to booktv.org. we covered an event with her when that book came out. and finally today, "guardian angel" comes out, and that's an e-book on her new imprint m books.com. melanie phillips, who were al fellowed and mabel? >> guest: they were my parents. i loved them very much. they were the formative influences on my life, particularly my mother to whom i was extremely close. and they were just, um, very typical of british jews of that generation around the second world war. they were married just after the second world war in 1947. and they came from families which originally came from, as immigrants to britain from poland and russia around the turn of the 20th century. it was a very typical pattern of

immigration of jews into britain around that time. and they were kind of typical of the british jewish community. my father sold dresses from a van, made his dresses from a van. my mother ran a children's clothes shop. they were people of very, very modest means. and as a jewish family, religiously we weren't very religiously observant. my parents went to the synagogue really on high holy days, about three times a year. but we observed the jewish dietary or laws, and i was always expected to be home for a meal on friday evening. and it was a home which instilled in me, um, jewish values to do with self-discipline and looking after other people, particularly the most vulnerable in society. and it really, you know, it was

a household that made me what i am today and also what made me what i am today is that i was an only child. as an only child, i had a particularly close relationship to my mother in particular, and that was a great formative influence on me. >> host: well, reading "guardian angel," was that a tough book to write? you had a little bit of a -- i don't know what word to use about your childhood. >> guest: it was a very tough book to write. look, as a journalist i've always thought journalists who write about themselves are like the pits. i mean, as journalists you keep yourself out of the story. you must never be in the story. you bring the world to other people. you don't bring yourself to other people. i would never have before, um, written about myself in that way, written about my family background in the way that i have in "guardian angel." but i wanted to write a book which explained what people find so perplexing, which is this great journey i've been on from,

you know, being at the heart of the left-wing establishment in britain to becoming what some people think of as being on the right and i tend to think of as being a champion of the center ground. so i wanted to explain that process, that journey. and through the prism of that personal journey, i think that illuminates what happened to britain over the last quarter of the century. and by britain i mean the english-speaking world, but particularly britain. and then having sort of sketched this out, i then thought to myself, actually, i can't actually do this without doing, without going one step further and explain to people why i was as i was and why i reacted to what i came across and became what i became. and, unfortunately, the only way one can do that to say why i am what i am, why i was what i was and am what i am is to go into my family background. so i found myself, you know, for the first time ever going into

in prohibit -- in print a story which is extremely painful to me because it involved a separation from individuals that i loved very much but to whom i was far too close, my mother in particular. and the strange thing was that i ended up writing a book, "guardian angel," which is about two separations, two parallel separations. a separation from my real family which was extraordinarily painful and a separation from my political family which is also extremely painful. and at various points in my history, the two kind of fed into each other. it is a rather strange thing that these things ran kind of in parallel, and as i say, it was a painful thing to write. it was painful because i was writing about myself and about those nearest and dearest to me, and i found it very

uncomfortable experience, indeed. but there was no other way of doing it, really, so that's why i ended up doing it. >> host: melanie phillips is our guest. and, by the way, if you can't get through the phone lines, try social media if the phone lines are scrammed. also want -- jammed. also wallet to let our international -- want to let our international viewers know, 202-585-3882 is the dedicated line for international viewers only. martin in stony brook, new york, please go ahead with your question or comment. >> caller: melanie, do you hear me? >> guest: i can hear you. >> caller: the problem i'm having with your presentation is -- i'm not in england, so i don't know what the realities are. but the united states, we don't have a -- [inaudible] that was destroyed during the mccarthy period. we do have a labor party, but not socialism and marxism, they

have been demonized. and so, and not that people don't exist in our society where you can talk to them because they might be, you know, completely irrational, calling names, they do exist, but they come from the right. the left, in a sense, has no power. we have one senator up in vermont, bernie sanders, who calls himself an independent, but he might be really a socialist. >> guest: uh-huh. >> caller: so if you were writing the book, e appearancing -- experiencing it in the united states, you might have a different take on who the people you can't talk to are. in our country the people you can't talk to are called the tea party people. and the split call spectrum in the united states has moved completely to the right. we don't have a left. we have a center which is what the democrats are, and then you have the extreme right which is what the republicans have become as a consequence of the pressure of the tea party. >> host: martin, where do you consider yourself on the

political spectrum? [laughter] >> caller: oh, i'm one of those who would consider myself, well, labels are a problem. i agree that we should all respect one another and listen to one another. but my concerns are as a consequence of the economic situation. and the foreign policy situation. i'm a critic, i'm a critic of u.s. foreign policy, and i don't have to be on the left because chalmers johnson who was a conservative economist was very critical of u.s. foreign policy in his books "blowback" and "sorrows of empire." >> host: martin, tell you what, we've got a lot on the table. let's hear what melanie phillips has to say. thanks for calling in. >> guest: well, you're right, there are very significant differences between britain and america. and i hear what you say, that's, you know, there is no sort of socialist party in america as there is in britain.

that's true. but i'm talking about something that goes beyond party affiliation and beyond the conventional understanding of socialism in the sense of, you know, russian communism, soviet communism. which, of course, you know, the soviet empire, the the communist empire is a thing of the past. i'm talking about a way of looking at the world which i consider to be of the left because the left adopted it which is a sort of a secularist perspective. as i was saying earlier on, the core of it is everything is relative, everything's a matter of opinion and, therefore, and none of us can assert any way of life is better that any other way of life. and as far as i can see, a lot of this has taken grip in

america. i mean, you may well be right about the extreme right in america, you know, the wilder fringes of political debate on that side of the division. and that's something we don't have in britain, and i quite agree that is a considerable difference. but from where i'm looking across the pond, you know, at your democratic party, i think they're very different from the democratic party of 30, 40 years ago because they, it seems to me, to have embodied to a greater or lesser extent this kind of world view of the left that everything is relative; lifestyle coys and all of that -- choice and all of that. a disdain for conventional values. and a disdain for the people who subscribe to conventional values. a view of the world that is a little bit ashamed of america, a little bit ashamed of the idea that america stands for values

which are really great and wonderful, and we should all try and espouse them. and, you know, i've occasionally picked that up in your president as well who i would not say was, i would say he was a pretty left-wing character from where i'm sitting. his belief that, you know, that the state is basically a benevolent actor -- whether you agree with it or not is another matter -- but that is very much a left-wing perspective, i would suggest. and so i think that what i'm talking about is something a bit different from what you're talking about. i'm talking about a way of looking at the world which i think has, has taken hold across a very, very wide swath of elites. in britain, as i think i alluded to earlier, i think these attitudes that i'm describing have taken hold in our conservative party, the equivalent of your republican party. and i will say, you're right that the situation here is

different. but i think there are certain similarities which maybe you're not quite acknowledging. >> host: from "america's social revolution," melanie phillips writes: america is now a country divided between the superindividualist culture: and that was from 2001's "america's social revolution." david tc tweets in to you, melanie phillips: to what extent do you think that the u.s. and britain's support of israel accounts for the antipathy the pus limb world has -- muslim world has towards us? >> guest: well, i think this is rather putting the cart before

the horse. i think the antipathy that the muslim world is currently expressing towards the west is to do with the fact that the muslim world has been, as i was saying earlier, has been largely taken over by a particular view which seeks to hold back and turn back the tide of modernity. it wishes to prevent muslims from living under the tenets of modernity which is, basically, individual freedom and democracy. and instead, to subject them to the submissive tenets of islam. and it hates the west because it embodies this kind of this belief that individual freedom that is so important and because it's not islamic. the islamists who now rule the

islamic world hate the west because it's not islamic, and they wish to subject it to the dictates of islam. now, they hate israel, their hatred of israel is kind of subsequent to that. israel to them is the expression of american values in particular and modernity in general, western modernity, western values in general in the middle east. to them, israel is, therefore, illegitimate from that point of view. and i have to say within the muslim world there is a very, very widespread and deep hay -- hatred of jews as jews. we don't have time to go into the detail of this, but it is, there's copious amounts of evidence to this effect, that they simply hate jews. in large measure. and these are the reasons why israel is the kind of, is the

kind of lightning rod for the hatred of the western world. in addition, the hatred of israel has been used by the tyrants who keep their own populations in such subjection and misery in the islamic world. it's being used as a kind of alibi or a displacement exercise, perhaps i should say, in which the tyrants and dictators who rule the islamic world whip up their populations' hatred of israel as a means of diverting that hatred away from themselves, because they themselves are keeping their own people in such poverty, in conditions of political -- they are tyrannizing them in political terms. the -- i was interested to hear this illusion of america that i think your questioners talked about the support given to israel by both america and

britain. well, america certainly supports israel as, indeed, it should because the vast bulk of american people, the vast bulk of ordinary, god-fearing, christian american people understand very well that israel stands up for its own values, is the front, the forward salient of those values in the middle east and that they identify with israel as being, um, a kind of, a nation that's founded on values which are identical to the values that america is founded on. britain doesn't have quite the same perspectives towards israel, i have to tell you. it's a more troubled history in which britain was the colonial, the last colonial occupier of the pre-israel state of palestine in which the role played by britain to the returning jews, jews returning to restore their ancient homeland in the land of israel,

the british colonial administrators was to side with those who in the arab world who wishes to frustrate -- who wished to frustrate the declared will of the world as enshrine inside international treaty to settle those jews and to restore the ancient jewish homeland as the state of israel. so britain's history is a little troubled in this regard. and britain's current attitude to israel is, let's put it this way, i think of it as talking out of both sides of your mouth simultaneously. with one side of the mouth, britain says written is our ally -- israel is our ally. with the other side of the mouth britain says israel is our ally, and anything it does militarily to defend itself we think wrong. i slightly exaggerate, but that's broadly the position that the british government has gotten itself into. it's a very complicated

attitude, a very complicated relationship britain has with israel. its ties to israel, as america, through intelligence and military cooperation. without israel's intelligence eyes and ears in the middle east, britain and america would be in far greater danger than they are now. but nevertheless, in the political sphere things are a little more complicated. >> host: and melanie phillips writes in "the world turned upside down," among the educated and high-minded classes in particular -- steve loeb posts on our facebook page, melanie, first, congrats on m books. i am so excited i can find more of you now. second, i was wondering what your view on the church of scotland's new position on israel is. [laughter] >> host: what's he referring to? >> guest: i think what he's referring to is that the church

of scotland has taken in recent days a very belligerent attitude towards israel, and he's talking about, you know, it's part of the, it's called bds, poi cot, divestment and sanctions movement which basically seeks to vilify israel by pretending that it's the tyrant in the middle east and inverting everything so that the true victim in the middle east, which is israel, becomes the true tyrant, true aggressor which is the arab muslim world becomes the victim. and the church of scotland has leapt onto this particular bandwagon, and very distressing it is too. but in britain you see the established church, and britain is composed of both -- consists of england as well as scotland. scotland has a different church from england, and england has a church of england, scotland has a church of scotland.

but they are, as i understand it, theologically broadly on the same page. and they have broadly the same view of the world. they have broadly the same view of the middle east and israel's role in the middle east. and, therefore, the mainstream, the established churches in britain, church of england, church of scotland have this view of israel which is the view that i think in america is true of your more liberal churches, the presbyterians and churches like that whereas your evangelical churches are much more well disposed and, indeed, passionately well disposed towards's reel. now, in britain -- towards israel. now, in britain we don't have that kind of balance. we don't have so many evangelical churches who remain, let's put it this way, scripturally faithful. our church of england, rather, looks down its nose at scripture

as being only believed by those who are, basically, ignorant and stupid. and the more -- you refer to a quote by me about how the an animosity to israel seems to go hand in hand with education. and it's all part of the same thing, that the more, the more highly-developed brains people seem to think they have, the more they hold their own intellect in the highest possible regard, the more departing from reality they are. and that's true of the churches. and it's true more generally. this thing, this hatred of israel, i'm afraid, is correlated with education and social class. the lower down the educational and social scale you go, the more decent, moral and sensible and rational people are, the

higher up the educational and social scale you are, the more divorced they are from reality over a whole range of these issues. the more they subscribe to ideologies, ideas and the more disgusting they are, quite frankly, they side with people who are tyrants, who tyrannize their own populations, who treat their women as animals, and they reserve they are venom for the jews of israel who are merely trying to defend themselves in their own ancient historic homeland to which they have every right to be entitled. and which once upon a time the international community said they have the right to settle this land. and yet those people, the beachhead of the kind of values that liberals hold dear -- freedom, equality, tolerance, political enfranchisement -- the people upholding those values in the middle east are the people

who are being subjected to boycott movements, to sanctions, to excoriation, to vilification in order to, all in order to delegitimize israel and, basically, bring about a situation in which it disappears from the map. while the people who are tyrannizing their own population s locking up political dissidents, hanging them from cranes, throwing them off the tops of tall buildings -- [inaudible] their children, using their children as human bond, indoctrinating their children to hatred and to murder of people simply because they are american, j well,ews, the west. those people get a free pass from our liberals, from the people who are highly educated. go figure. all this education produced this

irrationality, this hatred? i'm afraid, for me, it's all part of the pattern that i've been papefully unraveling -- painfully unraveling all my professional life in these books. it's actually part of the same story. that a class of people who through education have come to the belief that, you know, there is no such thing as truth believe lies. they believe lies are true, and they can't distinguish truth from lie, and they turn themselves, therefore, into accomplices of the undefensible and the intolerable and people who in any normal, decent, moral, sensible universe would be people that any decent individual would be against. that's why i wrote, that's why i called my last book "the world turned upside down." because to me it is absolutely that. it's a world which has taken leave of its senses.

>> host: melanie phillips is our guest. a little under an hour left in our program. mark in dana point, california, you've been very patient. please, go ahead. >> caller: melanie, you have a number of interesting beliefs that need to be explored. however, you lose credibility with the scientific community when you claim that the scientific method was not used to establish the facts about global warming as caused by humans' burning of fossil fuels. the scientific method was used extensively in the 1970s and the '80s, and the predictions started coming true in the early '90s. and the only claim that you can make against the scientists in this area is that they understated the significance of this problem. and today we have a situationing where 97% of the top 200 climate scientists are diametrically opposed to your beliefs. your beliefs are parallelled by

sarah palin from the state of alaska and senator inhofe, the state of oklahoma, tw states that economies -- two states that economies are based on burning fossil fuels. you need to rethis think this so -- rethink this saw that you get -- so that you get on the right side of this issue. >> guest: well, thank you for that. it's an interesting point of view. i don't know about save rah palin or the other -- sarah palin or the other senator you mentioned. i've been looking at global warming theory since 1998, looking at it in great detail, talking over those years to a very large number of scientist, reading the literature, reading scientific literature. i certainly don't say that science has got it wrong. i say that science has been hijacked by dockery their ideologies who pretend the science is what it is when it is not. it's quite extraordinary in the way it's been presented, so good people like yourself, i sympathize. if i had only read what was in

the media, i, too, would think like you. but i've done the research. i've done the looking at what's behind it all. and it's simply not true that 97% of all scientists think that manmade global warming is true. they don't. the, there are many now, there's many pieces of evidence now where hundreds of the top climate-related scientists have come forward to say that this is simply not the case. they don't believe it is true. it was not the case that the science always said this. the science didn't say this. global warming, manmade global warming theory was, actually, to a large extent the result of computer operators putting into computers information which, um, first of all, was skewed. secondly, the idea that you can actually predict climate through computer models is absurd,

because climate is actually one of the most complex mechanisms involving biofeedback mechanisms which no computer can actually properly assimilate. the fact is that, um, we've been told since 1988 that the rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will produce catastrophic amounts of warming, and to cut a very long story short, in the last ten years the climate has actually been flatlining, and low amounts of the excuses that are being made can alter that fact. that the theory that we were told was absolutely inexorable, that the rise in carbon dioxide would mean a rides in heat -- a rise in heat simply hasn't happened. and i'm afraid the warmists can't, plain that.

this is a very -- can't explain that. this is a very complicated story. my position has always been that i have never seen any credible evidence that anything out of the historical ordinary is happening to the climate. climate has always gone up and down, and what's been happening in the last century or so, more so, is actually part of that pattern. and there is no evidence, no credible evidence to suggest that anything out of the ordinary has been happening. but i can quite understand why you are saying what you're saying, because by and large people are not aware that the best and brightest, the most brilliant of climate-related sign terrorists are saying something -- scientists are saying something very different. and final thought to leave with you, it's not simply that, you know, there are some scientists saying this, there are some scientists saying that, which is how science proceeds. people say one thing, people say another thing, that's how it proceeds. but there is also evidence, and i've written about it and other

people have written about it of not just disagreements between scientists, but active fraud. active fraud, and i've spoken to some of the sign tufts who have watch -- scientists who have watched this fraud take place under the aegis of these bodies putting out in this theory of manmade global warming in which the science has been actively misrepresented. and some of the brightest and the best who were involved in the intergovernmental panel on climate change were employed in the early cays as expert -- in the early days as expert witnesses on the science on the basis that their science was being manipulated and they could observe the fraud being perpetrated upon science. and, frankly, i mean, this is a terrible scandal that's happened. because science, the integrity of science has been compromised by people who wish to hijack science to make a political point. and, you know, it's, it may be that politicians that you don't

agree with have taken up the cultures of this particular argument that i'm making. that may be the case. but that in itself, i'm sure you would agree, that in itself does not prove that the argument is wrong. you may not like those politicians, but whether the argument is right or wrong, to answer that question one really does have to go and look at the science itself. identify done that, and i would suggest you do too. >> host: melanie phillips is the author of nine books. she's a columnist with the "the daily mail," and she is now a publisher with mbooks.com. dennis post on our facebook page, regarding truth which you refer to that the left will not discuss, what are some examples of those truths as they relate to abortion and homosexuality. >> guest: sorry, what are the -- >> host: as he puts it, what are some examples of those truths that the left will not discuss --

>> guest: ah. >> host: -- as they relate to abortion and homosexuality. >> guest: um, i don't think -- well, in the case of, in the case of abortion, i think that if one's just looking at the narrow business of truth being suppressed, then i would say that what the left does is skate over, dismiss or even negate the effects of what actually takes place in late-term abortions, because it's so emotive, what happens. they don't like to talk about it because they think it's going to, to be used as ammunition by the other side, the the people who are anti-abortion. but i find the question a little perplexing, which is why i asked you to repeat it. to me, these issues of abortion and homosexuality are not to do as much with truths but opinions

and the way of looking at us as human beings, you know, where does life start, what value do we place on human life, how tolerant should we be of people whose sexuality is different from ours, to what extent should we accommodate those differences in our mainstream institutions? those are the debates which i think tend upon issues like abortion and homosexuality. i wouldn't say apart from one or two aspects such as the effects of late-term abortion, unless i'm missing the point of your questioner, i wouldn't say this is to do with truths as much as a difference in the way we look at the world. >> host: so, melanie phillips, what's your view on abortion and gay marriage? [laughter] >> guest: small questions, you ask. [laughter] well, my view on abortion is informed very much by my jewish background which is, and this

may sound a little strange from an american audience which has a different view of abortion from britain. in britain it's, politically it's not, it's not an issue. people generally accept the law which permits abortion in certain circumstances. the argument in britain is about when the law should be amended to take account of changes that have happened in technology, the fact that we can keep premature babies alive much longer and so on. my view is, as i say, i think informed by my jewish background which says it's not an absolute point of view. it says that at the very earlyist stages, abortion in certain circumstances is okay. the it's the lesser of two evils. never okay, but it's the lesser

of two evils in certain circumstances. but later on in a pregnancy, then it becomes very, very much more difficult, and at a certain point cannot be tolerated. and broadly, that is my view. that in certain very limited circumstances, it's the lesser of two evils. i think what's happened in britain is that, um, the law was enacted with that kind of approach in mind back in the very late '60s, early' 70s. but very quickly it became overtaken by the view that it should be allowed in all circumstances except where it wasn't specifically committed. it was a complete change in the way in which the law was apply which has led to the kind of abortion-on-demand situation in britain which i think has brutalized our culture, brutalized it in this a way that

in a sense our respect for all human life including very early human life, um, has been eroded. but as i say, i'm not an absolutist. i think -- [inaudible] very, very early. if, for example, there is a threat to the life of the mother, then there should be no question that the life of the mother takes precedence over this very, very early form of human life. that's my own personal view. so it's a more nuanced point of view which i think is, actually, it is jewish, but it's also very british. as far as homosexuality is concerned, or i think you asked about gay marriage. well, look, my view is this, that i think -- and this is my view about rights, the right's agenda in general. i think there is a very important distinction to be made between the public and the private. what people do in their private lives should be respected, and people should not be disadvantaged or persecuted for what they do in their private

life. where the private life becomes taken into the public culture so that public institutions will change, then i think it's more of a problem. so, for example, park homosexuality for a moment. the thing that most concerns me is the destruction of the traditional father, mother, father, two -- mother, father, looking after their children while the children are growing up. in personal terms, marriage's founder -- one would be less than compassionate if one doesn't accept that fact. but it's a necessary evil, if you like; divorce, fatherless child. it's a necessary evil in certain circumstances, not desirable. so in personal terms, you know, one is compassionate. in public terms what's happened in britain which is so disastrous is that that's kind of made a kind of, the compassion to the personal have

made a kind of terrible jump so that, um, it's become now, you know, it's a woman's right to bring into the world a child without a father. well, how can it be right to bring into the world a child -- [inaudible] personally, i think that's wrong. that's the job between the personal and the public. now, as far as gay marriage is concerned, there's no question that in times gone by, in recent times gone by homosexuals had a terrible time living, you know, in a furtive manner, disparaged or discriminated against, targets of rilification and abuse -- vilification and abuse and sometimes violence. terrible, terrible. i would not wish to go back to that for one moment. furthermore, i have a great deal of sympathy for gay people, because i can see that what they want is just to be like

everybody else. they want to live the same kind of life as everybody else. they don't want to be paid to feel different. they want to enjoy the same sorts of things; stability, family, love, companionship. all those things. i have every sympathy for that. and i have every sympathy for gay couples who live together. that's fine. it's none of my business. i don't care. if people are happy in their private lives, that's great. fine. gay marriage, i think, is different because i think it's a category error. i think marriage is of necessity , um, not as it has been kind of reconceived in the heterosexual world as a kind of partnership, as a kind of contract which could be broken. marriage is not that. it's not a contract. it's not a partnership. it contains elements of contract, it contains elements of partnership, but marriage is

a union, a coming together of two individuals who make a completely different kind of entity. a married couple is a union unlike any other couple, any other partnership. it's not a partnership. it's not a business partnership. it's not a contractual partnership. it's a union in which the two people fuse, and they fuse because they are not the same. they are complementary. and the reason that they fuse and the reason why marriage as a fusion so important to us as a society is because it is a the way we create -- is because that is the way we create humanity. that is the way we create the next generation of human beings. and a marriage that endures is the best way of nurturing those human beings. that's what matters to me. that's what drives me. the collapse of that understanding and the replacement of that understanding by this idea that a marriage is, it's really just a contract, and it's a contract which brings certain privileges. and why shouldn't everybody have

that contract? i sympathize, i sympathize, but actually if you give it to, if you, if you give it to people outside that idea that it's the two complementary elements of what makes a human being coming together, one you erode -- once you erode that, then you basically, whether you want to or not, you do inescapably, in my view, undermine the whole notion of what marriage is. and if you undermine whole notion of what marriage is, it's no longer a question of wanting to be nice to people who are gay, which i do, it's a question of undermining something that is of such importance not just to heterosexuals, but also to homosexuals. because if our society collapses, and i believe that the married family which nurtures new human beings is at the very core of protecting the society that we all take for granted, that we all value so much, if you undermine and erode

the core institution that guarantees all those freedoms and that tolerance, then all of us, heterosexual and homosexual, are going to be the losers, because we're going to fragment. we are fragments not because of the gay marriage thing, because of what heterosexuals have dope to the idea of marriage -- have done to the idea of marriage. they've made it contingent, they've made it less than something it should be which is something, i was going to say sacred, but that sounds too religious. i don't really mean that. i mean something that is unique, completely unique. and they've made it just like a contract. and as a result, heterosexual marriage is going down the tubes. with the results we can all see. and it's a great shame that, you know, gay people who, as i say, i understand where they're coming from. i sympathize greatly. but however much one wants to

be, to show compassion -- which i think is very necessary -- to people who just want to be like everybody else, if the cost of that is to basically destroy one of the pillars of our society so that we all suffer, well, i think then we'll actually have to have the kinds of conversation which, hopefully, will encourage everybody to understand what the stakes are here and adjust their attitudes accordingly. >> host: and this is booktv on c-span2. we're talking with author and columnist melanie phillips. matthew in silverdale, washington, please go ahead with your question or comment. matthew, you still with us? matthew is no longer with us. mark in kingston, new hampshire. >> caller: yes, hi, ms. phillips. you truly, truly are a brilliant person and a very, very interesting to listen to. and i find it difficult disagreeing with anything you say. however, i am a little bit concerned earlier in the program you said something about how

while america has the history of slavery, of the institution of slavery where we don't have that in great britain, and i know you didn't mean that how it sounded. as you know better than i, at the time slavery, the institution took hold in this country, these were all british colonies, these were all british subjects. >> guest: ah. >> caller: let's look at india, the treatment of natives in india and black africa. britain is one of my idols. there's so many institutions in this country that are british, and this is not a knock. but let's just not forget because i know you didn't mean that how it sounded. >> guest: yeah. >> caller: there's a very well-spoken writer in this country, ann coulter, who tries to blame the democrats on slavery and all that. and i know that you're, you know, a very well of of thinking conservative. but i'll leave it at that. i can't believe that you meant that how it sounded. >> guest: right. no, i think you're right. i, you know, of necessity was speak anything fairly shorthand fashion, so let me explain a bit

more what i meant and to agree with you and to explain a bit more. i was referring specifically to black slavery in america in the context of the question at the time who was talking about the particular experience of slavery in america, um, as an influence on the education system. and the point i was trying to make was that we didn't have black slavery in britain in the way that you had it in america. now, you're absolutely right that britain was involved in the slave trade during the empire. you mentioned india, there were other areas, too, in the world, obviously. but the point about slavery as far as britain is concerned is that, yes, britain was involved in the slave trade, but britain took the lead in abolishing the slave trade, and that's something that's often forgotten when people talk about britain and the slave trade. britain's great achievement was to bring us out of the slave trade. and the other thing that's forgotten about slavery is that

it's not a white-on-black thing. it's a black-on-black thing. there are still slaves in the third world, black slaves of black tyrants. and there always have been. and that's another kind of way in which this whole debate is kind of skewed a bit, i think. i don't know whether you would agree with me. clearly, the role that europeans played in the slave trade, the role that americans, white americans played in black slavery was, you know, reprehensible and regrettable, but two things, you know, i think, have been brought to mind to be fair-minded about this particular issue. first of all, it was white europeans, the british who abolished the slave trade. secondly, slavery has never been simply a white-on-black phenomenon, it's been a black-on-black phenomenon, too, and still is. >> host: half hour left in our program on "in depth" on booktv. marie or mary in camp very day, arizona. hi. >> caller: hi.

oh, i have so many comments now that it's amazing. you are a brilliant thinker, ma'am, and i wanted to ask you, have you read much of g.k. chesterton? >> guest: i've read some, but not a great deal, i'm afraid. >> caller: because many of the things that you are espousing are paraphrasing some of the things that he had said, and it was just, there are parallels between your form of thought. and i think -- do some more reading, you'll enjoy it. and then i had, um, another personal thing. is there a gentleman named mike maloney still working at the photo desk? he's an old friend at "the daily mail." [laughter] >> host: you know what? let's leave it there. let's get her views on g.k.

chtertonwho is -- >> guest: who is -- >> host: who is g.k. chesterton? >> >> guest: well, he was an author, british author. i don't know him very well. i've encountered him a little but not a great deal. um, and certainly he's not been an influence on me at all. [laughter] >> host: and do you know the gentleman to whom -- >> guest: i'm afraid i don't. i hope i'm not, you know, he may still be there, but to be perfectly frank, i don't go into the office, "the daily mail," that often. i don't know many people who work there. and that's my excuse. [laughter] >> host: so you do your column from home? >> guest: i'm sorry? >> host: you do your column from home? >> guest: i do, yes. >> host: once a week? once every two weeks? how often? >> guest: i have a regular weekly slot which appears in monday's "callly mail." that's my, that's my slot.

and in additioning i occasionally write other pieces, too, depending on what's happening, and, you know, what the paper wants, what i want to write. it's a fairly flexible arrangement. but i do have a regular weekly slot. >> host: this e-mail from chris in reading, connecticut. thank you, i'm enjoying your interview immensely, look forward to following your column. there is a pervasive sense among people he knows on the right that the decay and destruction of the ethic and strengths of western society is irreversible, the expansion of liberalism by creating widespread dependence on an ever-growing government is taking us beyond the point of no return not just in the u.s., but worldwide. do you see any way back at this late stage of the game? >> guest: well, you know, i'm -- this may surprise people who think of me as a bit of a pessimist, but i am actually an incurable on optimist. i don't believe it's ever over until the fat lady sings.

you know, if we were sitting around in britain in the 18th century, in coffee shops in britain and having our hot chocolate together and we would no doubt be bemoaning the state of britain, the state of the world. and we'd be saying to each other, you know what? it's all over. serial immorality, everyone's lying in the gutter drunk from gin, everyone's having babies out of wedlock, britain's over. that's it, finished. and you know what? it turned into the 9th century or -- 9th century -- 19th century, one of the greatest periods ever. queen victoria, all of that. who knew, who knew? on the other hand, we also have in front of us the example of the roman empire which, you know, one day it was there, the next day it was gone. empires crumble from within.

i believe. that's where the damage is really done. they may, you know, the final, the final thought, the coup de grace, as it were, may be be inflicted by an external foe, but the real problem is if the society has fragmented and crumbled from inside. so your questioner asks a very good question, have we passed the point of no return? i do not believe that we have. i cannot believe that we have. i don't believe we are lemmings going over the cliff. i believe that the problem is we in the west don't know even that we are on the cliff. let alone that we are about to go over it. and consequently, i believe -- and you may think that i'm ridiculously naive optimist for saying this -- but i believe that if we actually do come to believe, come to realize we are on the cliff and are just about to go over the edge, we all

stop. now, stopping will be painful, no question. no question. it means taking decisions and setting society on a course which is going to be, would be very challenging. but it all depends if we think we are going off the edge of that cliff, then i think we would actually pull back. the question is whether enough of us can realize this in time and have enough traction on those who lead us. and even more important, whether from the ranks of those who lead us can come someone who actually has the power of leadership, the quality of leadership. because at the moment our leaders tend to be followers rather than leaders, which is one of the problems. but it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that we could find ourselves, i don't know, five years down the track, i

don't know, two years, ten years with leaders of the western world who do come forward with a very, very strong idea of the dangers that are in front of us and what we need to do to avert them and start putting those into effect. in which case i think we can, you know, come to a screeching and jutteering halt before we go over. whether that will happen, i don't know. it's one of the things i'm, in my own little way, trying to do and one of the reasons why i'm so keen to have, you know, a bigger platform on which to do it. to sound the alarm and not just to sound the alarm, but also to build -- and this is where my own imprint comes in -- to build a community of like-minded souls. i know there are so many people out there who do think like me and who feel disenfranchised. i can't believe in the politicians from the left, from

the right, who do i go to, what do i do? and i think that by building a community of like-minded souls and by building a kind of, a conversation we can actually get a good ball rolling here. >> host: melanie phillips, we haven't had much of a chance to talk about your 2003 book, "the assent of woman: a history of the suffrage movement." but i did want to ask you, what was the contagious disease act? >> guest: the contagious diseases act, well, this was a true moral panic which was going on in the, in various stages throughout the 19th century. it was all to do with the terror of prostitution. the horror of prostitution. and the very, very strong desire by a whole bunch of people to curb prostitution.

and to prevent the diseases that prostitutes were said to be promulgating like venereal disease. and what was so explosive about this and what meant that the contagious diseases act row led directly to the female suffrage movement was that behind the contagious diseases act lay what the feminists of the time, what the women of the time and what inspired their feminism, what they believed to be a double standard, that the men using the prostitutes were deemed to be simply satisfying their male urges. and that everybody knew that was so, and the men were just patted on the head, and that was how men were. but the women who serviced them, the prostitutes were regarded as the lowest of the low, and more than that they were regarded the carriers of disease.

they were subhuman l. -- almost. and they were subjected to the contagious diseases act which was designed to stop the spread of venereal diseases by prostitutes. those acts didn't just bring into train, um, bring in their train a whole set of punitive measures towards prostitutes, but what really got women going was that they involved an internal examination to see whether they were diseased. and for the women of the time, this was akin to rape. they were being raped. and they were being raped as a result of a disgusting double standard. anyway, the rows over this were quite complicated, and the people among do ranks of women and among the ranks of feminists that took different positions, some of them or were coming from from an evangelical tradition, and today wanted to stamp out pros -- and they wanted to stamp out prostitution altogether. some wanted to stamp out men

altogether. [laughter] some of them sum my wanted to be -- them simply wanted to be hygienic. basically, the tremendous row over this, this went on for decades on and off, radicalized large numbers of women. it got them organized. it got them writing pamphlets. i got them having meetings. it got them speaking in public. they'd never spoken in public in their lives. women didn't speak in public, it wasn't done, it wasn't nice, it wasn't genteel. there they were on platforms, and not just speaking in public, but speaking about internal examinations and prostitution and sexually-transmitted diseases. and everybody was so horrified. and the reaction toughened these women. it gave them an infrastructure of protest. it gave them the experience of being agitators. it gave them a taste for influencing public debate. they'd never entered into public debate in their lives. they hadn't had the vote.

they weren't civic beings. and that whole set of experiences led directly to the formation of the female suffrage movement which was fed by other things. it was fed apropos our previous conversation, by an absolute obsession with ending slavery, the slavery of every individual by not having the vote. the slavery of animals through vivid section, would you believe, experimentation on ap malls. this was one of the -- an medical schools. this was one of the great crusades of the time because it was slavery, a form of slavery. the slavery of women at the hands of men. and these things all fed into the suffrage women. but the contagious diseases act, i would say, was probably the single most important factor in the radicalization of women in the 19th century which led directly to the vote. >> host: tom in south hampton, pennsylvania, please go ahead with your question or comment for melanie phillips.

>> caller: melanie, you are truly a saint. i have so many things to do today and can't tear myself away. [laughter] as regards to influencing the public debate, i wonder if you would speak to how do we do that when the left believes that 100% of what the right says is wrong here in the united states? so immediately when a subject is brought up, the opinion of the right is wrong regardless of the circumstances. >> guest: yeah. it's a very great problem and one, you know, which has influenced and affected me over the years, because i've had exactly the same problem. as soon as you say anything, you know, you're labeled the the right, and it's like a sort of, it's like a sort of label that's hung round your neck, isn't it? don't go there. don't listen to him, don't listen to her because she's the right and, therefore, his or her opinions are of no account. um, how do you, how do you deal

with it, um, i think, i think it's by simply keeping on keeping on. a bit vague as that may sound, but it is the only way of doing it. and by continuing to write and speak wherever we can and to do so above all in ways that give the lie to the lie of the left. which, you know, to make our points in a civil and courteous fashion and to make them in a way which accepts that they are fair, valued arguments on the other side and just to keep on doing that and to try wherever possible to build communities of people like ourselves doing it. and that way we kind of, you know, force our way in gently but determinedly into the public debate and pry it open. as i said before, i don't know whether you heard me say this, but you may feel you're getting nowhere, you may feel that you're sort of, you know, speaking into a kind of fog and

nobody can see you, nobody can hear you. it's not like that. actually, people are listening. they may not say anything, they may not be worth -- it may be more than their life's worth to say anything in public. but they're listening. they're thinking. and if you present your arguments in a courteous and civil fashion and it's based on evidence and reality, they think, and a lot of them process these thoughts. and after a while, months, weeks, months, years, whatever, suddenly you find public opinion has shifted mysteriously. but it's not mysterious because it's a process that's going on all the time that we may -- as i say, we may think that we are, that our words aren't carrying any weight, but if they are true -- and, again, you may think i'm a bit naive, but i actually believe that ultimately, eventually truth does win. it may take a while. it may take a long time. there may be much grief along the way.

there may be much pain and anguish and worse a along the way. but ultimately, truth does win, and tyrants are overthrown. we just have to keep going. >> host: michael from new york e-mails in, i feel the biggest problem is the lack of training in logic. logic or critical thinking used to be a major part of the academic curriculum, but now it's not taught anywhere. do you see a renewal of that topic in our educational system? >> guest: well, i don't see a renewal of logic at the moment, because, um, it relates to what we were talking about earlier, that, um, what's gone down the tubes is, in my view, reason. and reason has gone down the tubes because we have a kind of prevailing intellectual ethos which has told us there's no such thing as truth. and, you know, if there's no truth, you can't have reason. and so we have to kind of unravel all of that. you can't have logic, again, unfortunately, until you restore truth and reason.

and i don't think that's beyond the bounds of human endeavor in the ways that we've been talking about during in this whole discussion. it's very difficult. for all the reasons that we've been alluding to. but, um, if you keep on rying -- trying to pull public debate back to the territory of evidence, of factual evidence, of reality, of truth, separating truth from lies and all of that, then eventually you do get back to logic. having said that, there is one specific thing that i've always thought. i wrote it in my book on educational surprises, and i think this is there i -- i don't know if this was true in america, but in britain it was very true. one of the things that happened in our education system, we used to -- when i was a child, i was taught how to write essays. an essay had a particular structure.

you started with a proposition. you then had a counterproposition or more than one counterproposition, and you then arrived at a conclusion. that taught you how to think. it taught you how to think logically on the basis of evidence. it taught you not to imagine, not to pant size. it taught -- fantasize. it taught you to ground your arguments if reality and to apply logic to progress from one stage to another and awe arrive at a conclusion. now, in britain the essay was virtually abolished. instead of the essay, we had the story. because what was prized above all was the creative imagination. people were encouraged to imagine. children were taught to imagine, to construct fantasies. that's fine. i'm entirely in favor of imaginative thinking, creative thinking, fantasies, story, novels, fiction. fantastic. i enjoy them as much as anybody. but they are fantasies. it's not logic. it's not evidence. it's not reason. it is fantasy.

and consequently, we replaced the ability to reason and to think by the ability to imagine and to fantasize. and so we becauseically replaced fact -- basically replaced fact by fiction, and this is the confusion of the age. >> host: crystal in madison, mississippi, thank you for holding on. you're on booktv on c-span2 with melanie phillips. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. ms. phillips, i've enjoyed you today. and as i was listening to you, um, i kept thinking of hypocrisy, abuse, double standards -- some of of which you talked about. some of the standards that you, um, are talking about today are great indeed, but certainly everybody wasn't given an opportunity to live by those standards. your, the caller before talked about how do we return to those standards, and i think the right needs to start by cleaning up their own house. if you have double standards,

hypocrisy and abuse of power, people are going to reject those notions outright in anybody who espouses those beliefs. so until the right can clean up their own house and make sure that -- and while they have righteous indignation, let it be across the board. you know, i can hear you if your righteous indignation is only for those things that affect what's in your best interests and not in my best interests. so i wondered if you could comment on that. >> host: thank you, crystal. >> guest: i firmly agree. i think hypocrisy among politicians, um, is, you know, it really seriously gets in the way. and i'm, as i say, i'm not familiar with the details of your, of your political controversies, but insofar as politicians are saying one thing and doing another, for sure

that's pretty intolerable. one needs, i think fashionable word is transparency. i would call it honesty and integrity. you need politicians to stand up for certain things that are important and value and to live but those and to be consistent so that you can trust them, you know? you may disagree with them, but you know what they mean what they say and they say what they mean and where they're coming from. but i would make one further specific point. you talk about, you know, politicians on the right. it seems to me that particular point of hypocrisy is left slightly to one side. i'm aware that your republican party is in a bit of trouble. it doesn't seem to know what it's doing. it's thrashing around, it's veering off into extremes, or it's being told that they're rinos, republicans in the name only. there's a tremendous amount of

argument, more heat than light. there are certain key tasks for any people who want to repair society. and it seems to me related to one of the themes that's been coming off in this particular discussion over and over again, education. so much of what we're talking about or so much of what i've been talking about that's gone wrong has its origins in the collapse of education which, as we've just been hearing and talking about, um, has kind of stopped. people have stopped teaching people how to think, how to think properly and stop giving people the kind of knowledge that they need to equip them with the map to find their way around the world, around the universe. and it just seems to me that there's so much that needs attention in your american education system just as in my british education system. and i'm not aware, maybe i'm wrong, but i'm not aware that republicanism has made this a really key objective to get to the roots of what's gone wrongment i don't just -- wrong. i don't just mean the structure

that's important. but i'm talking about the actual ideas that have got into the educational bloodstream for decades now in both america and britain. in britain, um, our government is making a tab at this. i don't know whether it's going to succeed. but it actually has understood for the first time that i can remember, you have politicians who understood that what's gone wrong in education is not simply to do with structure, it's to do with what's going on in here, what's going on in teachers' minds, what's going on in the teaching of teachers, what's gone on with the assumptions behind what us actually means. and it seems to me that a lot of what we've been talking about today, the sort of concerns people have, the inability to connect with politicians who actually do reflect the need to address the problems that really need to be addressed, we have to start with practicalities, don't

we? and, you know, what are the ways in which those who are concerned about repairing society, whatever side of the political spectrum they come from, one of the key areas for them, i think, is to say, you know what? something's gone terribly wrong here with the way we think and the way we deal with knowledge and the way we are no longer educating our young. and that's what we have to address. and for me, far be it for me to tell americans how to conduct your politics, but for me that would be a priority. >> host: in 1985 you published "doctor's dilemma." in that book you write: the power of medicine to prevent nature from taking her course has been massively offended, and with that greater power has come an almost intolerable extension of moral choice. you go on to found principles to unlock the dilemmas of medicine. number one, tell the truth, accept responsibility, respect

autonomy of the patient. in, where did this book come from and whyn 1985? >> guest: um, well, that's a very long time ago, 1985, especially in terms of medical ethics, because so much has changed in terms of medicine and medical technology. the dilemmas that i was talking about then, you know, exponentially increased. i was approached to write it by a doctor who was at the time -- he's now sadly died, he died very young -- but at the time he was the official who serviced the medical ethics committee of the british medical association which is the professional organization representing clinicians in britain. finish and, um, this was in 1985, and i had not really thought about this at the time. but he came to me, and he wanted

me to help him write the book because he'd seen -- he wanted me to help him write a book about medical ethics because he'd noticed the kinds of things i'd been writing in "the guardian." and it had struck him that i was writing from, you know, a proper moral position. and he was very concerned even atta early stage, the mid '80s, as the official in carjack of medical ethics at the british medical association. hehe was -- perceived two things happening. on the one happened, you had this tremendous advance in medical technology which was creating the dilemmas, the creation of the first test tube baby was around that time. these questions about extending life at the end of life and whether you should intervene, and the technology was creating dilemmas which we had never heard of before. at the same time, he observed among his doctors, among the

doctors who were his colleagues, he noticed the beginnings of a moral slide. what i was beginning to pick up in the general cultural atmosphere, this business of, you know, there is no such thing as objective truth, but also there's no such thing as objective morality. the individual reigns supreme. my choice and everyone else's choirks and no one has the right to deny me my choice. everything is the subjective individual makes his own morality. and he saw that beginning to get in the way of what he considered to be the cardinal ethical imperative of medicine. first, do no harm. first, do no harm. and he saw there was an erosion. so there's an erosion of respect for human life. and i think this happened subsequent to our writing the book. what i observed about this a great deal, this erosion of the respect for the innate respect for human life among doctors has

moment that they no longer know the difference between dying and killing, many of them. they say at the the end of life, in this debate about euthanasia is no longer a debate about euthanasia in britain. the no longer a debate about mercy killing. it's a debate about allowing people to i die. but what they're talking about is not allowing people to die. it's about taking a course of action which takes someone who is not dying and as a result of the course of action the doctor takes, the person dies. now, in my view, that is killing. that is very different from not prolonging the process dying that's taking place already. the moral distinction absolutely crucial. but increaseingly, the doctor saw in the 1980s even at that stage he saw doctors were no longer able to make distinction. and ask as a result, he was -- and as a result, he was worried

that doctors would turn into killers and would pretend to be simply helping people to die. that was only one example. there's a whole host of other examples to do with genetics, genetic engineering, as i say, test tube babies, how long ago that seems. a variety of creme mas. but her is vived that the erosion of moral values was going create -- if we weren't very careful -- a criminalized society in which medical ethics went to the wall. and that's why he wanted me to helply the book, and that's why i helped write the book. >> ands stan in palmdale, california, we've only got a minute or two left. go ahead. >> guest: yes, i -- >> caller: yes, i disagree with the guest on so many things, it's hard to know where to start. on the other hand, it's good to hear opinions i disagree with. as far as israel goes, how can the guest expect israel to, i mean, the arabs to, to, um --

>> host: go ahead. >> caller: i'm sorry. how can, um, arabs negotiate with israel as long as israel keeps on stealing arab land on the west bank? and then one comment. i don't believe god is a real estate agent. >> host: and, melanie full lips, unfortunately with a big question like that, you have 60 -- [laughter] >> guest: well, it's not stealing arab land. this gentleman would be well advised to look at the history in which in the 1920s the international community said the jews alone were entitled to settle all this land, including the land that's disputed, because they alone had had this land originally of their own historic national kingdom. and this is a very complicated

issue, but that is the reality. people really, many people don't understand that the jews returned to their own historic homeland as an inalienable historic, moral and legal right. and once people realize that, as most americans i believe realize that, then the perspective rather changes. >> host: and if -- in one of your books you write it was almost a mistake that britain helped found israel. a little tongue in cheek. >> guest: certain people in the british ruling class would think rather a mistake that they helped bring it about. and, indeed, my own opinion is they both helped and then did their damnedest to stop it from coming about. but that is really another issue of immense complication for another time maybe. >> host: final e-mail from gary in lexington park, maryland. i have to comment on today's guest. when the interview started, i wondered how such an obviously

intelligent woman could have such obviously wrong-headed opinions on topics such as global warming. however, as the show progressed, i came to realize i greed with everything -- agreed with everything you had to say except global warming. [laughter] and that will be the last word. melanie phillips has been our guest for the last three years. "the divided house" was her first book. all must have prizes, the sex change society, america's social revolution, the assent of woman, the world turned upside down and, finally, "guardian angel" is being published today at mbooks.com, it's her autobiography. melaniephillips.com is her web site. this is booktv on c-span2.