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Speaker 1: Also media, what's murdering seventy five men in hand to

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Speaker 1: hand combat? My margaret? Have you killed seventy five men

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Speaker 1: in hand to hand combat?

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Speaker 2: I have been told to not comment on this until

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Speaker 2: I'm more certain about a few sevs. The other fucking

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Speaker 2: follow you into war? So bad?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? Yes, yes, boss, where we going to me to

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Speaker 1: meet me? Grab my axe, let's go. That's going to

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Speaker 1: be conditional for me on what kinds of men you

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Speaker 1: count when you're killing? Right? You know, like Outa didn't

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Speaker 1: count turks? You know, do you count turks if you

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Speaker 1: kill them in hand to hand combat? These are the

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Speaker 1: questions that I need to know.

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Speaker 2: You know, chuds are the ones that are not certain count.

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Speaker 1: You don't count no chuds? Yeah, yeah, no, yeah.

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Speaker 2: And people think I refer to it as a truck

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Speaker 2: because it looks like a truck of chud would drive,

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Speaker 2: But actually it's just very good at.

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Speaker 1: Anyway. Oh, Audo would have been a truck guy. I

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Speaker 1: think we can all agree on that. Yeah, long enough

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Speaker 1: to see the highlux, I know, it's it's tragic he

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Speaker 1: was born for the highlux. Oh my god, can you

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Speaker 1: imagine how much Lawrence would have loved the Highlux.

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Speaker 2: I got my oil at this guy who was like

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Speaker 2: trying to tell me about why it's worth it to

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Speaker 2: import a highlux.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, you don't me, brother, the.

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Speaker 2: Cost of importing the He went over all of the

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Speaker 2: prices of all of the importing the Highlux, and I

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Speaker 2: was like, this no longer seems worth it. I thought

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Speaker 2: the point of it was that it was cheaper than

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Speaker 2: the other Toyota trucks.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the point of it is that it's a high Lux,

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Speaker 1: you know, that's just that's just got some flair you

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Speaker 1: can't replace.

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Speaker 2: It has high classiness, it's in the name.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I do feel some some I can understand Lawrence

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Speaker 1: better now that I've gone into battle in the back

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Speaker 1: of a Highlux in the fucking Arab world, driven across Syria. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: in an up armored Hilux. Yeah that that that is

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Speaker 1: a good life experience to have for really getting t

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Speaker 1: E Lawrence. Yeah, it would have been a lot of fun,

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Speaker 1: probably if we gotten to blow up a bridge or two,

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Speaker 1: but that wouldn't have been helpful in the situation we

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Speaker 1: were in.

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Speaker 2: Now, this a strategic scientifically scientific and I have no

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Speaker 2: idea how to really do that.

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Speaker 1: I would just blow up the bridge. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Uh.

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Speaker 1: Now when we discuss T. E. Lawrence, particularly when we

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Speaker 1: try to answer the question was he a bastard? You know,

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Speaker 1: sitting at our computers in the fall of twenty two?

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Speaker 1: Have we been forgetting to do cold opens? Haven't we? Sophie?

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Speaker 3: We just do them and then Daniel cuts them in later.

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Speaker 1: Daniel cuts them in later. Well, heiro And I don't

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Speaker 1: know does Dan? Sorry, I just it's fine. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: wonder what Daniel counts. Yeah, it depends. I still don't know.

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Speaker 1: I don't know what kind of men Daniel counts when

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Speaker 1: he when he when he's killing men.

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Speaker 2: So she doesn't count men. It's pretty impressive.

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Speaker 1: Wow. Wow, only only the women you kill? Okay, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's good to know.

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Speaker 2: Would Yeah, that's what Sophie. Just never kills anyone by

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Speaker 2: Sophie standards.

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Speaker 1: Woke swashbuckler who only counts the nbs he kills men

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Speaker 1: and women don't count to me, just the they thems.

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Speaker 2: Each one counts more than one because of the plural. Anyway,

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Speaker 2: Is this like.

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Speaker 3: A political ad that plays during baseball games?

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Speaker 1: Oh my god, yeah, Jesus Christ.

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Speaker 2: Okay, far enough left of your jokes.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you wind up doing a trump at So when

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Speaker 1: we discussed Lawrence while sitting in our computers in the

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Speaker 1: fall of twenty twenty four, one thing probably stands what

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Speaker 1: that wasn't even a joke, I know, but so funny.

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Speaker 1: It's good. Yeah, one thing stands above every other matter,

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Speaker 1: which is his support for the Balfour Declaration, particularly his

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Speaker 1: support I mean, because that was not made, he did

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Speaker 1: not help make that, but he is. He is a

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Speaker 1: supporter of Zionism in this particularly post war period, right

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Speaker 1: when all of these European powers give their official support

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Speaker 1: for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Lawrence is not initially

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Speaker 1: on that side, but he's going to wind up on

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Speaker 1: that side, right and given what's going on in Gaza

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Speaker 1: right now, it's probably impossible to avoid having this dominate

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Speaker 1: your thoughts on the man's legacy. And that's not entirely wrong.

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Speaker 1: We are going to talk about his role here because

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Speaker 1: it's significant, but it's important to note that at the

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Speaker 1: time his feelings on Zionism are not what any of

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Speaker 1: his critics, including in the Arab world, saw as the

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Speaker 1: most problematic thing about the man. If you are a

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Speaker 1: Westerner or a Turk the top argument in your Lawrence's

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Speaker 1: evil ledger probably would have been the war crimes, and

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Speaker 1: so we're going to talk about those first. The gist

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Speaker 1: of this story is that after Lawrence escape the Turks,

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Speaker 1: the forces under his command exhibited increasingly brutal behavior on

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Speaker 1: the battlefield. He started ordering his soldiers not to take prisoners,

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Speaker 1: which is against the law, and in several cases began

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Speaker 1: executing wounded men himself as they lay bleeding on the battlefield.

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Speaker 1: He would just walk around battlefields afterwards, shooting guys in

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Speaker 1: the head, doing qu de grass, cooing degraz. Yeah, okay,

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Speaker 1: which is you know, bad, You're not supposed to do that.

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Speaker 1: I mean, arguably in a lot of these cases that

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Speaker 1: may have been the kindest thing to do, but it's

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Speaker 1: not legal to do that. Yeah, so he's cooing some degraz,

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Speaker 1: he's killing people. Scott Anderson, writing for Smithsonian Magazine, describes

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Speaker 1: how his judgment seems to have degraded as well, and

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Speaker 1: the general way this often gets credited to, like the

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Speaker 1: fact that he has just been gang raped, right that

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Speaker 1: like this kind of his mind breaks After that quote,

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Speaker 1: he attacked the Turkish troop train, despite being so short

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Speaker 1: of weapons that some of his men could only throw

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Speaker 1: rocks at the enemy. If this was rooted in the

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Speaker 1: trauma at Derah's it seems he was at least as

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Speaker 1: much driven by the desperate belief that if the Arabs

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Speaker 1: could reach Damascus first, then the lies and guilty secrets

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Speaker 1: he had harbored since coming to Arabia might somehow be

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Speaker 1: set right. So that's kind of the debate here, is like,

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Speaker 1: is he traumatized because he's just been raped and as

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Speaker 1: a result, he's making all of these very rash moves,

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Speaker 1: He's becoming increasingly brutal in battle. Is it more that

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Speaker 1: he's desperate to try and he's traumatized because he knows

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Speaker 1: that he's kind of betraying his friends, and he's trying

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Speaker 1: to make things right by getting them to Damascus before

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Speaker 1: the war ends, you know, in order to kind of

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Speaker 1: cut off Sykes Pico at the knees. Right.

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Speaker 2: I think that's a strong argument to me, because he

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Speaker 2: wants to be a moral man and he knows he's not,

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Speaker 2: so he can find a loophole to loophole himself into

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Speaker 2: morality by killing everyone.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, maybe that's the only thing he can do.

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Speaker 1: There's also this argument that, like Lawrence describes himself as

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Speaker 1: a virgin, and he is someone who his friends in

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Speaker 1: sist he has no discernible sexual leanings, and maybe they're

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Speaker 1: this the fact that it's forced upon him, like he

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Speaker 1: has an extra strong reaction to it. We just will

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Speaker 1: never know, you know, thexual he did go to it,

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Speaker 1: he did. He went to less rapeye schools than a

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Speaker 1: lot of other British boys of his of his era.

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Speaker 1: But like, I think that is kind of built into

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Speaker 1: a lot of that school system though, But we don't.

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Speaker 1: I have no evidence as to whether or not any

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Speaker 1: anything like that happened to Lawrence. He certainly doesn't write

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Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, so even if you hold the argument

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Speaker 1: that Lawrence light about the rape, and maybe he would

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Speaker 1: have led about that in order to explain why he

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Speaker 1: was like obsessively trying to get the Arabs to Damascus,

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Speaker 1: because that was kind of some like light treason against

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Speaker 1: his own side. Whatever's going on here, it makes total

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Speaker 1: sense that his mental state would be degraded. By this point.

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Speaker 1: He has spent more than half of his time in Arabia,

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Speaker 1: deathly ill, sick with plague and heat stroke and catastrophic dehydration.

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Speaker 1: He's experienced harrowing combat at close quarters he had, he

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Speaker 1: has blown his camel's brains out and been flung into

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Speaker 1: the hot desert sands during a battle. So yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: just not weird that he's kind of losing it at

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Speaker 1: this point. And as Anderson notes, he's also weighed down

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Speaker 1: with guilt over the fact that all these guys are

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Speaker 1: fighting and dying with him, maybe for nothing, because his

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Speaker 1: government might betray them. This all culminates in late September

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Speaker 1: in an attack on a town called Derah, where Lawrence

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Speaker 1: had been if he was raped. This is where that happened, right,

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Speaker 1: So this is part of a general offensive that he

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Speaker 1: is carrying out with Allenby that's meant to coordinate with

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Speaker 1: an attack by Allenby on Palestine in the north. Right,

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Speaker 1: Lawrence and his Bedouin allies are supposed to cut off

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Speaker 1: the Turkish avenues of retreat by taking the railroad junction

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Speaker 1: at Derah. So one of the arguments here is that

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Speaker 1: like this is, you know, where he claims to have

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Speaker 1: been tortured, So maybe what he's about to do is

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Speaker 1: like him taking vengeance, you know, for that attack. And

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Speaker 1: I'm going to quote from Anderson again. After coming upon

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Speaker 1: the village of Tafas, where the fleeing Turks had massacred

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Speaker 1: many residents. Lawrence ordered his men to give no quarter.

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Speaker 1: Throughout that day. The rebels picked apart a retreating column

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Speaker 1: of four thousand, slaughtering all they found. But as Lawrence

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Speaker 1: doubled back that afternoon, he discovered one unit had missed

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Speaker 1: the command and taken two hundred and fifty Turks and

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Speaker 1: Germans captive. We turned our Hotchkiss machine gun on the prisoners,

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Speaker 1: he noted in his battlefield report, and made an end

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Speaker 1: of them. Lawrence was even more explicit about his actions

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Speaker 1: that day, and seven pillars. In a madness born of

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Speaker 1: the horror of Taphus, we killed and killed, even blowing

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Speaker 1: in the heads of the fallen and of the animals,

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Speaker 1: as though their death and running blood could slake our agony. Whoops. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he's going full like corn berserker here. You know, he's

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Speaker 1: just massacring people, and it's you know, the people he's

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Speaker 1: massacring had also just massacred a bunch of civilians. It's

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Speaker 1: a very ugly war like war. Plenty of war crimes

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Speaker 1: to go around here, right, but this, this slaughter of

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Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of prisoners and wounded men

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Speaker 1: would have been a massive war crime in any theater

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Speaker 1: of world wars. To put him in like yeah, belongs

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Speaker 1: and behind the bastards, now yeah, that's that's that's an

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Speaker 1: international criminal court crime. Right yeah.

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Speaker 2: Now again, any of the bastards who had on have

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Speaker 2: killed like three people.

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Speaker 1: Right right? That said, do I kind of sympathize with him? Still? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Like this is just no, I don't know, I just

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Speaker 1: don't know how likely it is that most commanders in

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Speaker 1: a similar situation, having gone through what he's gone through,

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Speaker 1: would have been much better, right, especially since this is

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Speaker 1: not entirely Lawrence, by his own admission, is partaking in

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Speaker 1: the bloodshed. But a lot of this is just that

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Speaker 1: his own troops are so angry at all of these

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Speaker 1: war crimes that including on some of their families, right,

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Speaker 1: and they're just bent for slaughter now, right, like everyone

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Speaker 1: has just lost their minds. The war has gotten that ugly.

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Speaker 1: So anyway, you know, you can you can parse that

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Speaker 1: out morally however you want to. You could judge him

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Speaker 1: however you want to. Sitting at your computer. We all

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Speaker 1: do to some extent. But yeah, from here, from Dera.

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Speaker 1: Lawrence himself moved directly to Damascus, right like, he and

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Speaker 1: his forces rushed there and they they beat the Turks

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Speaker 1: out of Damascus, and they beat European forces to the city.

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Speaker 2: Now I have a question, Yeah, how did he get

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Speaker 2: out of conscription rape channel?

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Speaker 1: He kind of just escapes? Okay, I mean they're not

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Speaker 1: they're not great at at at at doing guardings. They

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Speaker 1: don't know that he's Lawrence of Arabia. Right, he just

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Speaker 1: sort of bounces, you know, after a while. So this

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Speaker 1: was an explicit and a direct attempt to destroy Sykes Picau.

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Speaker 1: As soon as the city was in their hands, Lawrence

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Speaker 1: helped organize a provisional Arab government headed by Feisal. Right now, again,

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Speaker 1: the Arabs don't really want the Arabs of Syria don't

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Speaker 1: really want Faisal in charge of them. They certain don't

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Speaker 1: want his dad in charge. But like they have their

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Speaker 1: own leaders, and they see they don't really like guys

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Speaker 1: from Mecca. They write about like these these Arabs in

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Speaker 1: Syria who are pissed about this. Some of them are

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Speaker 1: like making overtures to the Ottomans because of how unhappy

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Speaker 1: they are about Faisal. They kind of see Feisal and

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Speaker 1: his dad, this whole family of like guys, the Sharif

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Speaker 1: of Mecca, the way like rural Americans talk about like

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Speaker 1: people from like San Francisco or you know, DC. You

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Speaker 1: know that they have the kind of like Richmond north

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Speaker 1: of Richmond talk about them of like these fucking city

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Speaker 1: assholes from Mecca coming into Syria and telling us how

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Speaker 1: to live our goddamn lives. I don't like that any

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Speaker 1: better than the Turks, you know. Yeah, And there's actually

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Speaker 1: there's this this kind of Zionism is going to play

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Speaker 1: a weird role in this here because it becomes kind

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Speaker 1: of crucial to this conflict in between these different factions

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Speaker 1: on the Arab revolt. Right. So, within a few days

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Speaker 1: of the Arabs taking Damascus, General Allenby arrives and he's

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Speaker 1: like provisional government, my ass The French are in charge now,

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Speaker 1: and Lawrence like there's really nothing he can do, right

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Speaker 1: allenb is his superior officer. The British are there with

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Speaker 1: like you know, a significant amount of assets, and this

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Speaker 1: is you know, kind of shatters him, right, Like he

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Speaker 1: is so distraught over the fact that all of their work,

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Speaker 1: you know, even though they took the city it's just

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Speaker 1: been handed over to French control. He said, distraught by this,

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Speaker 1: that he begs to be relieved of command by Allen.

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Speaker 1: Allenb he leaves for London, hell bent on using his

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Speaker 1: celebrity to win Western support for an independent Arab nation

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Speaker 1: after this. Now, as a note, Lawrence was definitely a

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Speaker 1: very famous over in Europe by this point. An American

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Speaker 1: journalist based in Palestine, Lowell Thomas, had like spotted his

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Speaker 1: story and been like, this is one of the most

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Speaker 1: interesting things happening in the war. It's much more interesting

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Speaker 1: than just like recording slaughter at the various trench fronts.

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna follow this guy around. I'm gonna take some

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Speaker 1: video and photographs and whatnot. And he put together like

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Speaker 1: a lecture show, basically like a slide show with a

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Speaker 1: lecture attached to it that runs in movie theaters. It's

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Speaker 1: like a matinee hit in England. It's a huge blockbuster

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Speaker 1: at the time, like prior to the nineteen sixty Lawrence

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Speaker 1: of Arabia. This is kind of like the first movie

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Speaker 1: version of Lawrence, and it's it's portrayed as journalism, but la,

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Speaker 1: you know, Lowell is a he's like a tabloid guy, right,

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Speaker 1: Like he is exaggerating, he's kind of outright lying about stuff.

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Speaker 1: There's some evidence that Lawrence is deeply, deeply unhappy as

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Speaker 1: a result of like the kind of attention that Lowell

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Speaker 1: draws on him and how much he makes Lawrence the

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Speaker 1: center of the story. But he's also able to use

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Speaker 1: this fame in order to secure meetings with like politicians

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Speaker 1: to try and talk up feisal side of things, right

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Speaker 1: as during these negotiations over what's going to happen to

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Speaker 1: Ottoman territories in the wake of Ottoman collapse. So he's

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Speaker 1: he's so he's such a a vocal part of this

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Speaker 1: and such like so vocally against Syke's Picot that he

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Speaker 1: starts to be seen as a threat from within the

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Speaker 1: military and like within the government of the British Empire.

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Speaker 1: A lot of them see him as a fame hound

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Speaker 1: because like this is happening while his movie's a big deal.

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Speaker 1: They see him as like he's just some like up

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Speaker 1: to junior officer who's gotten way too big for his

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Speaker 1: breeches and he's trying to ruin this good thing we've

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Speaker 1: got with France. This horrible war is finally done and

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Speaker 1: We're finally going to get fucking some money a place

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Speaker 1: we can plunder right to, to help make up for

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Speaker 1: all of the money we spent on this stupid war

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Speaker 1: we got our country into, right, and this guy is

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Speaker 1: going to fuck it all up right now. The Balfour

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Speaker 1: Declaration had been leaked out to the public right around

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Speaker 1: the same time Sykes Picot had been made public so

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Speaker 1: right at the end of nineteen seventeen, and some in

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Speaker 1: the British administration during these negotiations in late nineteen eighteen

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Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen, saw the Balfour Declaration, which has a complicated reaction,

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Speaker 1: especially over in the Arab world, saw it as potentially

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Speaker 1: good news for their support of the Husseins, because again,

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Speaker 1: Feisal and his dad are wildly unpopular in Syria. Right

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Speaker 1: They're seen as these assholes from Mecca trying to lord

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Speaker 1: over a place they don't belong, and Lawrence's boss and

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Speaker 1: the Intelligence Services Service. One of the masterminds behind the

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Speaker 1: whole Arab revolt was a brigadier general named Gilbert Clayton,

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Speaker 1: and Gilbert saw the Balfour declaration as problematic. He's going

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Speaker 1: to be the guy who writes most accurately about why

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Speaker 1: this is a bad idea, But he also is like

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Speaker 1: this could help us with faisal, right, and he writes

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Speaker 1: up to date, the Syrian Arab has shown the utmost

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Speaker 1: distaste for any idea of a government in which Meccan

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Speaker 1: patriarchism has any influence, hence a lack of real sympathy

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Speaker 1: with the Sharif. Fear of the jew may cause a

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Speaker 1: reproach ma. Right, if we make it clear that we're

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Speaker 1: going to give the Jews a homeland, the Arabs may

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Speaker 1: get so angry that they decide they line up behind

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Speaker 1: our guy, who they're not really happy about right now,

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Speaker 1: but maybe they're racism against Jewish people will like convince them,

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Speaker 1: you know which obviously that's an incredibly racist move from Clayton, right,

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Speaker 1: Like we'll just use anti Semitism to solve our imperial

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Speaker 1: problems and get our puppet in charge.

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Speaker 2: He's pretty classic.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty classic, right, yeah. Now, Psykes himself tried to

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Speaker 1: convince Clayton that the declaration was a positive for Arab independence,

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Speaker 1: which Clayton, for all of you know the racism you

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Speaker 1: see in his writing, really does care about Arab independence.

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Speaker 1: He is one of these guys like Lawrence, who is like,

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Speaker 1: we made promises to these people and we should keep them.

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Speaker 1: Clayton more than Lawrence recognizes, because Lawrence kind of gets

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Speaker 1: behind the idea of Zionism. Eventually, Clayton is always like,

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Speaker 1: this is a bad idea and we shouldn't have done it.

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Speaker 1: But he does get into that. He comes to that

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Speaker 1: conclusion also through a very racist way by saying that

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Speaker 1: Arabs would be dismayed by knowledge that the Jews quote

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Speaker 1: whose superior intelligence and commercial abilities are feared, would take

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Speaker 1: over in Palestine. In a different level letter to Gertrude Bell,

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Speaker 1: the Arab Bureau's Bagdad correspondent, Clayton wrote this, the Arab

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Speaker 1: of Syria and Palestine sees the Jew with a free

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Speaker 1: hand and the backing of Her Majesty's government, and interprets

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Speaker 1: it as meaning the eventual loss of his heritage. Jacob

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Speaker 1: and Esau wants more. The Arab is right, and no

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Speaker 1: amount of species oratory will humbug them in a matter

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Speaker 1: which affects him so vitally. Experience such as I have

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Speaker 1: gained in this war impels me to deprecate strongly. In

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Speaker 1: cautious declarations and visionary agreements, we are like men walking

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Speaker 1: through an unknown country in a fog, and it behooves

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Speaker 1: to feel our way and take care with each step

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Speaker 1: we take.

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Speaker 2: And he is not wrong.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we are men. We shouldn't be doing this in

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Speaker 1: part because, like obviously this is going to lead to

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Speaker 1: Arabs being displaced from their homes in Palestine, right, Arabs

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Speaker 1: recognize this, their right to recognize this, and even by

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Speaker 1: sticking our hands into this mess, we are We are

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Speaker 1: men walking through an unknown country in a we don't

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Speaker 1: know what we're doing, and so we shouldn't be doing it, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: which is.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, No, that's that's what the British Empire should have

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Speaker 2: been doing.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, empire. He is he again, everyone here is racist,

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Speaker 1: but some of the racists are correct about what's going

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Speaker 1: to happen. Yeah, right, Bell, who also deserves much more

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Speaker 1: coverage than we're giving her, good true Bill as a

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Speaker 1: fascinating character. This woman who had just like traveled alone

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Speaker 1: throughout this huge stretch of the Middle East become a

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Speaker 1: legitimate expert on the area, a really interesting person, someone

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Speaker 1: who knew Lawrence too kind of in his early travels.

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Speaker 1: Replied that she also hated quote mister Balfour's Zionist pronouncement.

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Speaker 1: But Lawrence, whose instincts for this region and its people

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Speaker 1: were generally much better than this, got caught up in

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Speaker 1: the Zionist cause, and he did so in an interesting

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Speaker 1: way as part of his backing of the Arab cause.

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Speaker 1: Right So, during Lawrence's struggle against Syke's Picot in London

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Speaker 1: after the war, he came to see European Zionists as

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Speaker 1: potential alley the fight for Arab independence. He met with

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Speaker 1: Heim Weizmann, head of the English Zionist Federation, who was

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Speaker 1: willing to back Lawrence's fight for an Arab state so

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Speaker 1: long as Lawrence supported the establishment of a Jewish state. Lawrence,

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Speaker 1: by one account, convinced Faisal. By another, Faisal is kind

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Speaker 1: of the one who's saying, hey, Lawrence, I want you

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Speaker 1: to make overtures to this guy. But either way, Lawrence

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Speaker 1: and Faisal get on board with Wiseman and the Zionists

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Speaker 1: and they make an agreement. They actually sign an agreement,

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Speaker 1: right which if the Zionists support a Faisal led Arab

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Speaker 1: state based in Syria, Faisal will support European Jews immigrating

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Speaker 1: to Palestine. Now, Faisal does not explicitly embrace a Jewish state,

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Speaker 1: but that was understood to be the result of this.

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Speaker 1: The treaty between the two of them reads mindful, and

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Speaker 1: this is just fascinating reading just in light of where

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Speaker 1: we are today, mindful of the racial kinship and ancient

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Speaker 1: bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jewish people, and

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Speaker 1: realizing that the surest means of working out the consummation

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Speaker 1: of their national aspirations is through the closest possible collaboration

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Speaker 1: in the development of the Arab state in Palestine. It

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Speaker 1: continues that the Arab State and Palestine should, in all

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Speaker 1: their relations be controlled by the most cordial goodwill. A

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Speaker 1: commission would be established to lay out boundaries of the

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Speaker 1: Arab state and Palestine. Right, and there's a lot there

401
00:21:19,160 --> 00:21:23,080
Speaker 1: about like obviously no, it will be displaced by this. Right,

402
00:21:23,240 --> 00:21:28,560
Speaker 1: it's presenting a two state solution for Palestine, not entirely. Right,

403
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Speaker 1: There's an Arab state and then there's Palestine. But Palestine

404
00:21:32,240 --> 00:21:36,479
Speaker 1: is also understood to be an encouraging Jewish immigration and

405
00:21:36,520 --> 00:21:39,240
Speaker 1: seen as a Jewish state. Now it's not clear does

406
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Speaker 1: that mean Arabs and Palestine like Arabs and like European

407
00:21:45,840 --> 00:21:48,879
Speaker 1: Jews who immigrate and like you know, like the people

408
00:21:49,160 --> 00:21:50,800
Speaker 1: and who live there at now are will they be

409
00:21:50,880 --> 00:21:54,159
Speaker 1: kind of equal partners in a state? That's kind of

410
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Speaker 1: how I read it is the idea, but it's not

411
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Speaker 1: a two state solution. They are always referring to Palestine, right,

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Speaker 1: like they don't call to Israel.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, to the one state solution, the like one

414
00:22:04,320 --> 00:22:06,280
Speaker 2: seculary you can be Jewish.

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Speaker 1: Or yeah, yeah, that is the closest thing, right, Like

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Speaker 1: the arrangement that they are talking to. When I say

417
00:22:12,960 --> 00:22:16,280
Speaker 1: that like he supported Zionism, the actual text of the

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00:22:16,400 --> 00:22:19,199
Speaker 1: kind of thing he was trying to set up is

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Speaker 1: very different than what exists today. Right, I'm going to

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Speaker 1: quote again from that agreement. All necessary measures shall be

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Speaker 1: taken to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine

422
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Speaker 1: on a large scale and as quickly as possible, to

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Speaker 1: settle Jewish immigrants upon the land through closer settlement and

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Speaker 1: intensive cultivation of the soil. And taking such measures, the

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Speaker 1: Arab peasant and tenant farmers shall be protected in their

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Speaker 1: rights and shall be assisted in forwarding their economic development.

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Speaker 1: It goes on to state that no interference and free

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Speaker 1: exercise of religion would be permitted, and the Mohammedan holy

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00:22:53,760 --> 00:22:57,560
Speaker 1: places in Jerusalem and elsewhere shall be under Mohammedan control.

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Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I mean it's presented a fairly reasonable idea.

431
00:23:04,240 --> 00:23:07,600
Speaker 2: I mean, like obviously, like that's clearly not what large.

432
00:23:07,600 --> 00:23:10,520
Speaker 1: Is, not what's going to happen. But when we say

433
00:23:10,520 --> 00:23:14,440
Speaker 1: that he's a Zionist, he's not supporting what exists currently, right,

434
00:23:14,520 --> 00:23:17,359
Speaker 1: Like that is the result, and he's it's worthy of criticism.

435
00:23:17,359 --> 00:23:20,000
Speaker 1: It's Faisal is worthy of criticism too. And it's important

436
00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:22,800
Speaker 1: to note that like Faisal, this guy seeking to be

437
00:23:22,920 --> 00:23:27,800
Speaker 1: the king of this Arabic state is supportive of this measure, right,

438
00:23:28,359 --> 00:23:30,159
Speaker 1: but there's some economic reasons for it.

439
00:23:30,280 --> 00:23:33,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, at the very beginning where he's like you know

440
00:23:33,320 --> 00:23:38,640
Speaker 2: the long standing between Arab and Jewish folks, I mean,

441
00:23:38,640 --> 00:23:41,800
Speaker 2: that's that is real, and like yeah, there is like

442
00:23:42,400 --> 00:23:45,440
Speaker 2: you know, when you study Ottoman Empire before it started

443
00:23:45,480 --> 00:23:48,200
Speaker 2: falling apart, it's like, well that's where European Jews went

444
00:23:48,600 --> 00:23:51,639
Speaker 2: because they were like second class citizens in the Ottoman Empire.

445
00:23:51,680 --> 00:23:54,679
Speaker 1: But like they were, Yeah, we all know what happened

446
00:23:54,720 --> 00:24:01,640
Speaker 1: in Russia, right, Well happened elsewhere, right, Yeah, when the.

447
00:24:01,640 --> 00:24:03,800
Speaker 2: Other thing that happened in fourteen ninety two as relates

448
00:24:03,840 --> 00:24:05,840
Speaker 2: to Spain, is that all the Jews were kicked out

449
00:24:05,880 --> 00:24:09,200
Speaker 2: and forced to convert. You know, there's just massive immigration

450
00:24:10,200 --> 00:24:11,280
Speaker 2: into the Ottoman Empire.

451
00:24:11,520 --> 00:24:15,800
Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah, So this is MESSI And obviously none of

452
00:24:15,800 --> 00:24:18,800
Speaker 1: this works out the way that Faisal and Lawrence had hoped.

453
00:24:19,720 --> 00:24:23,640
Speaker 1: While researching this, I've come across several extremely pro Israel publications,

454
00:24:23,640 --> 00:24:28,199
Speaker 1: including the Israel Forever Foundation, who published articles trying to

455
00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:31,320
Speaker 1: remake Lawrence into a hardcore supporter of the modern state

456
00:24:31,359 --> 00:24:33,880
Speaker 1: of Israel. I found this line in an article they

457
00:24:33,920 --> 00:24:37,119
Speaker 1: republished from The Jerusalem Post. You won't find this truth

458
00:24:37,119 --> 00:24:40,080
Speaker 1: and the lengthy biography of Thomas Edward Lawrence, the Legendary

459
00:24:40,160 --> 00:24:43,919
Speaker 1: Lawrence of Arabia, in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Don't expect to

460
00:24:43,960 --> 00:24:46,879
Speaker 1: hear about this on the BBC. The world remembers Lawrence

461
00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:49,159
Speaker 1: as a guide, friend and champion of Arabs, but hardly

462
00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:51,359
Speaker 1: knows that he believed in Zionism as it was forced

463
00:24:51,359 --> 00:24:54,400
Speaker 1: to restore Palestine to which ancient glory brought about by

464
00:24:54,440 --> 00:25:00,399
Speaker 1: active British Jewish Arab cooperation. And that's not really like

465
00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:03,639
Speaker 1: that is making him into that he is not nothing

466
00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:07,160
Speaker 1: that he has described sounds like the modern state of Israel. Right. Yeah,

467
00:25:07,160 --> 00:25:10,320
Speaker 1: he was not in favor of Palestinians being forced out

468
00:25:10,320 --> 00:25:12,719
Speaker 1: of their land. Now we can say that was a

469
00:25:12,720 --> 00:25:14,679
Speaker 1: foolish thing for him to hope, and he should have

470
00:25:14,720 --> 00:25:17,480
Speaker 1: known that there was very likely this was going to

471
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:22,040
Speaker 1: get ugly, right, But you know, he he winds up

472
00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:23,760
Speaker 1: doing what he does, right, And a big part of

473
00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:26,040
Speaker 1: like what he and Feisler was hoping for, is that

474
00:25:26,480 --> 00:25:30,640
Speaker 1: if we allow Jewish immigration to Palestine, that will bring

475
00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:33,320
Speaker 1: in a lot of money to this economically depressed area,

476
00:25:33,359 --> 00:25:36,159
Speaker 1: and it will be good for these like Palestinian farmers

477
00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:38,800
Speaker 1: and peasants. Right that it will like a rising tide,

478
00:25:38,840 --> 00:25:41,040
Speaker 1: will kind of lift all boats. That is what they

479
00:25:41,080 --> 00:25:43,760
Speaker 1: are writing about. Right. There were ways it could have

480
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:47,000
Speaker 1: worked out differently than it did, right, But you know,

481
00:25:47,119 --> 00:25:52,040
Speaker 1: it's also worth noting that whatever their plans and whatever

482
00:25:52,080 --> 00:25:54,640
Speaker 1: their hopes for how this works out, Lawrence winds up

483
00:25:54,680 --> 00:25:58,480
Speaker 1: on the side of what becomes a major calamity for

484
00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:03,000
Speaker 1: the Middle East. Right, is how bloody and brutal everything

485
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:06,240
Speaker 1: that results from this eventually is, right, And I.

486
00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:08,840
Speaker 2: Actually think it's the same problem he has in general,

487
00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:11,960
Speaker 2: which is that even though he doesn't want England to

488
00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:14,920
Speaker 2: control these things, he's still on some level he's more

489
00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:17,720
Speaker 2: okay with fucking around with England controlling things.

490
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:18,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know.

491
00:26:18,800 --> 00:26:21,359
Speaker 2: And so it's like, and that is the same problem

492
00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:26,399
Speaker 2: that happened with British mandate Palestine? Now is that is

493
00:26:26,440 --> 00:26:27,520
Speaker 2: that the British.

494
00:26:27,320 --> 00:26:30,679
Speaker 1: We're again it's like Clayton writes, right, we don't know

495
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:33,200
Speaker 1: what we're doing, Like we're going to fuck a bunch

496
00:26:33,240 --> 00:26:36,280
Speaker 1: of things up because we don't really understand what we're

497
00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:40,200
Speaker 1: messing around with here. Yeah, and yeah, like it probably

498
00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:42,119
Speaker 1: just shouldn't have been fucking around with any of this.

499
00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:46,080
Speaker 1: Maybe a bunch of British guys should not have been

500
00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:49,320
Speaker 1: making all of these calls. Yeah, and maybe and to

501
00:26:49,359 --> 00:26:51,800
Speaker 1: be fair, a bunch of guys like Faisal Rich, guys

502
00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:54,080
Speaker 1: from Mecca shouldn't have been making all of these calls.

503
00:26:54,119 --> 00:26:58,359
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Like none of it works very well. Yeah, Now,

504
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:01,159
Speaker 1: I will say for a much, you know, because of

505
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:04,120
Speaker 1: what's happening right now, this gets a lot of focus.

506
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:07,120
Speaker 1: We're going to inherently think a lot about Lawrence's support

507
00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:09,560
Speaker 1: of this, of the Balfour Declaration, of all this stuff.

508
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:12,320
Speaker 1: This probably was not a big part thing on his

509
00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:15,239
Speaker 1: mind when he thought about like his failures, you know

510
00:27:15,400 --> 00:27:18,560
Speaker 1: here in the wake of kind of the peace agreements

511
00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:22,639
Speaker 1: and stuff, because like nothing happens during his lifetime, right,

512
00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:25,480
Speaker 1: he dies in thirty five, Right, So none of this

513
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:30,040
Speaker 1: like leads to anything while he is around, you know, And.

514
00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:31,960
Speaker 2: There's like a couple of riots and stuff, but it's not.

515
00:27:31,920 --> 00:27:34,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's some riots, you know, there's some stuff that

516
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:37,119
Speaker 1: does result from this, but he's probably not super plugged

517
00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:40,800
Speaker 1: into it, right, Yeah, he is. What really is occupying

518
00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:42,879
Speaker 1: his mind is he sees the wheeling and dealing in

519
00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 1: the immediate wake of the war as a fucking calamity

520
00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:48,639
Speaker 1: for this cause that he cares about. Nearly every piece

521
00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:51,359
Speaker 1: of the cause that he cared about goes down in

522
00:27:51,560 --> 00:27:55,480
Speaker 1: flaming failure. The French get their mandate in Syria, the

523
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:58,680
Speaker 1: British wind up running much of his imagined Arab state,

524
00:27:58,760 --> 00:28:02,520
Speaker 1: including Palestine, and and once it becomes clear that Arabs

525
00:28:02,520 --> 00:28:05,119
Speaker 1: had fought and won a war of independence only to

526
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:09,200
Speaker 1: wind up ruled by Europeans, the response was bloody. As

527
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:12,520
Speaker 1: this passage from an article in Smithsonian Magazine makes clear,

528
00:28:13,240 --> 00:28:17,520
Speaker 1: Lawrence was particularly prescient about Iraq in nineteen nineteen. He

529
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:20,440
Speaker 1: had predicted full scale revolt against British rule there by

530
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:23,560
Speaker 1: March of nineteen twenty if we don't mind our ways.

531
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:26,680
Speaker 1: The result of the result of the uprising in May

532
00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:30,200
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty was some ten thousand dead, including one thousand

533
00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:33,960
Speaker 1: British soldiers and administrators. And man, that's a good prediction,

534
00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:37,640
Speaker 1: right he calls March. It happens in May, not bad.

535
00:28:39,080 --> 00:28:41,440
Speaker 1: Task to clean up the debacle was the new British

536
00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:45,120
Speaker 1: Colonial Secretary, Winston Churchill, who turned for help to the

537
00:28:45,160 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 1: man whose warnings had been spurred T. E. Lawrence at

538
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:50,840
Speaker 1: the Cairo Conference in nineteen twenty one. Lawrence helped to

539
00:28:50,880 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 1: redress some of the wrongs. In the near future, Faisal,

540
00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:56,480
Speaker 1: deposed by the French in Syria, would be placed on

541
00:28:56,520 --> 00:28:59,560
Speaker 1: a new throne in British controlled Iraq, out of the

542
00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:02,600
Speaker 1: British buffer state of trans Jordan. The nation of Jordan

543
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 1: would be created, with Faisal's brother Abdullah at its head right.

544
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:09,360
Speaker 1: And obviously Faisal and his family don't wind up in

545
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:11,480
Speaker 1: charge of a rock for all that long, you know,

546
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:14,360
Speaker 1: thanks to our friend of the Pod, Saddam Hussein and

547
00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:17,800
Speaker 1: the Bath Party. And then Faisal's brother Abdullah, that is

548
00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 1: still the ruling family in Jordan. Right, that's where that's

549
00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:23,920
Speaker 1: where that all gets started. Now, the fact that this

550
00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 1: is the result, right, you know, it's not a total failure.

551
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:31,000
Speaker 1: You do have Arab states that are independent, you know,

552
00:29:31,400 --> 00:29:34,360
Speaker 1: that get come out as a result of this. But largely,

553
00:29:34,800 --> 00:29:37,600
Speaker 1: you know, during his lifetime, it's France and Britain kind

554
00:29:37,600 --> 00:29:39,440
Speaker 1: of calling the shots in a large a lot of

555
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:43,959
Speaker 1: this region. This shatters Lawrence, right, he never really recovers

556
00:29:44,600 --> 00:29:47,600
Speaker 1: from his failure here. And you know who else has

557
00:29:47,600 --> 00:29:49,200
Speaker 1: never recovered from their failures?

558
00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:51,880
Speaker 2: Is it the casinos?

559
00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:56,800
Speaker 1: Yeah? The casinos there their failure to give you too

560
00:29:56,840 --> 00:29:59,600
Speaker 1: much money, right, yeah, you know, they just can't wait

561
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:00,560
Speaker 1: to give you money.

562
00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:00,840
Speaker 3: Now.

563
00:30:00,840 --> 00:30:03,360
Speaker 2: They lose money more often than they win. That's why gambling,

564
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:07,280
Speaker 2: if you gamble enough, you always win. The house always loses.

565
00:30:07,320 --> 00:30:08,320
Speaker 2: That's why they say.

566
00:30:08,080 --> 00:30:12,360
Speaker 1: That, Yeah, exactly, the house always loses. It's always safe,

567
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:16,480
Speaker 1: always safe to gamble. Keep your money in a casino, right,

568
00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:18,280
Speaker 1: it's an investment.

569
00:30:18,320 --> 00:30:20,960
Speaker 2: I mean if it's controlled by the casino. Yeah, yeah,

570
00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:29,800
Speaker 2: they do it. They will succeed, and we're bad. Robert,

571
00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 2: I have terrible news. I followed our advice, and now

572
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:32,960
Speaker 2: I have no money left.

573
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:38,000
Speaker 1: Oh no, well maybe you should just put all of

574
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:41,640
Speaker 1: your remaining money on black and uh and and just

575
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:44,120
Speaker 1: do it. Do a shadow roulette. I think that'll fix

576
00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:45,200
Speaker 1: your problems, Margaret.

577
00:30:45,480 --> 00:30:48,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, the forty eight point five percent chance of success,

578
00:30:48,280 --> 00:30:50,160
Speaker 2: that's more than fifty so it'll work.

579
00:30:50,800 --> 00:30:55,800
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. So Lawrence is shattered. He's very depressed. He

580
00:30:55,880 --> 00:30:59,000
Speaker 1: has seen all of his hopes for a better future

581
00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:01,760
Speaker 1: go down and flame sames. He's never going to recover

582
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:05,000
Speaker 1: from his failure here or the attendant PTSD as a

583
00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:08,320
Speaker 1: result of his wartime experiences. And honestly, this is a

584
00:31:08,360 --> 00:31:10,960
Speaker 1: big part of what makes him a sympathetic figure to me, right,

585
00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:13,200
Speaker 1: but he is not seen that way by a lot

586
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:15,880
Speaker 1: of the men who fought for him or his descendants.

587
00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:19,600
Speaker 1: One of my favorite articles analyzing Lawrence's legacy was That

588
00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:23,080
Speaker 1: Peace in Smithsonian Magazine by Scott Anderson in twenty fourteen.

589
00:31:23,520 --> 00:31:26,000
Speaker 1: He followed in Lawrence's Shadow during the early years of

590
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:29,000
Speaker 1: the Syrian Civil War and interviewed descendants of the Bedouins

591
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:32,600
Speaker 1: who'd fought by Lawrence's side. One sheikh, a latune of

592
00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:36,800
Speaker 1: Muduwara in southern Jordan lamented that after the war, the

593
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:40,880
Speaker 1: badly damaged Hejah's railway was allowed to fall apart, entirely

594
00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:45,320
Speaker 1: isolating many communities once connected by the Imperial project. The

595
00:31:45,360 --> 00:31:48,000
Speaker 1: partitioning of the Arab world had made the maintenance and

596
00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:51,160
Speaker 1: rebuilding of such a railway impossible, and there's no real

597
00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:53,600
Speaker 1: way to conceive of such a project working out and

598
00:31:53,640 --> 00:31:57,080
Speaker 1: preserving such accomplice peaks of infrastructure through all of the

599
00:31:57,080 --> 00:32:00,800
Speaker 1: conflicts that have royaled the area since. Quote. My grandfather

600
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:03,720
Speaker 1: thought that these destructions were a temporary matter because of

601
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:06,680
Speaker 1: the war, but they actually became permanent. And you have

602
00:32:06,720 --> 00:32:10,320
Speaker 1: to remember this railway had been backed and funded by

603
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 1: donations from Muslims in places like the Hejahs, because it

604
00:32:13,760 --> 00:32:16,880
Speaker 1: was this was their future, right, this would have connected

605
00:32:16,960 --> 00:32:19,280
Speaker 1: them to the world. And there's no way to keep

606
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:22,480
Speaker 1: this going in like these carved up conflicting states that

607
00:32:22,520 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 1: are the ultimate result, right of the actual you know,

608
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:29,360
Speaker 1: post war period. And Lawrence had kind of convinced people

609
00:32:29,400 --> 00:32:32,160
Speaker 1: to blow up this railway and the promise that and

610
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:34,320
Speaker 1: then you'll get a state and we can fix things

611
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:37,400
Speaker 1: right like you know, the right, and that never happens

612
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:43,000
Speaker 1: right now, Lawrence tries, right, how much credit does that

613
00:32:43,080 --> 00:32:45,040
Speaker 1: get him? You know, maybe not a lot if you're

614
00:32:45,080 --> 00:32:48,760
Speaker 1: living in the in the rusting shadow of this dead railway,

615
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:52,600
Speaker 1: watching any hope of a better future, you know, fade away, Right,

616
00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:53,400
Speaker 1: So they kind of.

617
00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:55,320
Speaker 2: Like, you know, in the end, it was better under

618
00:32:55,360 --> 00:32:55,920
Speaker 2: the Ottomans.

619
00:32:56,680 --> 00:33:00,000
Speaker 1: No, I think it's a little more complicated than that. Ultimately,

620
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:02,800
Speaker 1: when I read kind of analyzes of Laura, you know,

621
00:33:03,040 --> 00:33:06,720
Speaker 1: you can find some good pieces of like Muslim scholars

622
00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:09,040
Speaker 1: talking about like how Lawrence gets talked about. It's mostly

623
00:33:09,120 --> 00:33:11,480
Speaker 1: just like he's not really seen as a major figure

624
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:13,440
Speaker 1: in all of this, right, They're more interested in like

625
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:16,400
Speaker 1: guys like Faisal, They're more interested even in like British

626
00:33:16,440 --> 00:33:19,120
Speaker 1: people like alan By, there were some other you know,

627
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 1: British agents who were moving around like Lawrence. Because I

628
00:33:22,760 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 1: think in part of how much attention he gets has

629
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:28,560
Speaker 1: for a long times been kind of like, well, he

630
00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:31,479
Speaker 1: wasn't really as important as everyone thinks he is. Right now,

631
00:33:31,560 --> 00:33:35,960
Speaker 1: that is, there's a reappraisal that's going on in the

632
00:33:36,040 --> 00:33:39,640
Speaker 1: present day, and you can find some some like Muslim

633
00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:44,479
Speaker 1: historians who are essentially like, yeah, I actually he actually

634
00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:47,520
Speaker 1: was a very significant part his book is a fairly

635
00:33:47,560 --> 00:33:50,640
Speaker 1: accurate accounting of things, and he seems to have really

636
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:53,280
Speaker 1: tried to do what he thought was best, even though

637
00:33:53,320 --> 00:33:55,120
Speaker 1: like a lot of it didn't work out. Like there

638
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:58,800
Speaker 1: is a reappraisal going on here, in part because modern

639
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:02,440
Speaker 1: historiography has found that Lawrence was actually telling the truth

640
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:04,600
Speaker 1: about a lot of stuff that he had been kind

641
00:34:04,640 --> 00:34:08,120
Speaker 1: of believed to be bullshitting about for a while. Now

642
00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:12,279
Speaker 1: that said, attitudes about him are very complicated over there.

643
00:34:12,360 --> 00:34:15,000
Speaker 1: Right now, I want to refer back to that article

644
00:34:15,040 --> 00:34:18,160
Speaker 1: in the Smithsonian magazine because later in that article, Sheik

645
00:34:18,239 --> 00:34:21,480
Speaker 1: a Latune says this, some people think he was really

646
00:34:21,520 --> 00:34:23,640
Speaker 1: trying to help the Arabs, but others think it was

647
00:34:23,640 --> 00:34:25,880
Speaker 1: all a trick, that Lawrence was actually working for the

648
00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:28,760
Speaker 1: British Empire all along. When I press for his opinion,

649
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:32,560
Speaker 1: the shape grows slightly discomfited. May I speak frankly. Maybe

650
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:34,440
Speaker 1: some of the very old ones still believe he was

651
00:34:34,480 --> 00:34:36,640
Speaker 1: a friend of the Arabs, but almost everyone else we

652
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:39,799
Speaker 1: know the truth. Even my grandfather, before he died, he

653
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:44,319
Speaker 1: believed he had been tricked. And that's a common attitude

654
00:34:44,400 --> 00:34:47,319
Speaker 1: towards Lawrence over there, and it was not universal. His

655
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:51,160
Speaker 1: old friend Emir Feisal, who became King of Iraq, said

656
00:34:51,160 --> 00:34:54,320
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty that Lawrence had been truthful in his promises,

657
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:56,880
Speaker 1: a matter that made the Arabs trust him, But a

658
00:34:56,920 --> 00:34:59,400
Speaker 1: lot of people dislike Feisal, right, you know.

659
00:35:00,600 --> 00:35:03,240
Speaker 2: I mean this gets into the like, why I believe

660
00:35:03,280 --> 00:35:05,760
Speaker 2: so strongly in honesty is that well to the people

661
00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:09,800
Speaker 2: that you're working alongside of, is that you set yourself

662
00:35:09,880 --> 00:35:11,319
Speaker 2: up for that when you lie to people, even if

663
00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:15,960
Speaker 2: you're trying to. Like his paternalism in the end makes

664
00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:19,200
Speaker 2: people realize that he was fucking them over, you know,

665
00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:22,280
Speaker 2: because he didn't treat them as equals and make decisions

666
00:35:22,320 --> 00:35:24,600
Speaker 2: alongside of them. Yeah, because they might have reached the

667
00:35:24,640 --> 00:35:26,799
Speaker 2: same conclusions. They might have been like, well, cynically, I

668
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:29,799
Speaker 2: guess we should side with the British because dynamite and

669
00:35:29,960 --> 00:35:32,200
Speaker 2: British gold will accomplish everything, you know.

670
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:34,839
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of like you could you could

671
00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:37,759
Speaker 1: argue prob Maybe part of why Feisal is, you know,

672
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:45,360
Speaker 1: so positive towards Lawrence is that, like, you know, Lawrence

673
00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:49,160
Speaker 1: is kind of honest with Feisal in a way that

674
00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:51,480
Speaker 1: maybe he isn't to a lot of these other people, right,

675
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:53,640
Speaker 1: These different because a lot of these a lot of

676
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:56,040
Speaker 1: these Arab tribes that he was getting in line behind

677
00:35:56,080 --> 00:35:59,000
Speaker 1: the rebellion weren't super pro feisial. What they were like, well,

678
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:00,960
Speaker 1: but we hate the Ottoman and he's saying it'll work

679
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:03,240
Speaker 1: out better. Maybe we'll just like give it a shot.

680
00:36:03,560 --> 00:36:07,319
Speaker 1: The rebellion seems to be working pretty well, and then

681
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:08,839
Speaker 1: they wind up being like, oh, well, we just kind

682
00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:11,080
Speaker 1: of got fucked on this, right, We sent our sons

683
00:36:11,120 --> 00:36:13,560
Speaker 1: to die and this asshole became a king. But like,

684
00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:18,200
Speaker 1: what did we get right? Yeah, So, after his brief

685
00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:22,160
Speaker 1: stint with Churchill, Lawrence changed his name and asked to

686
00:36:22,160 --> 00:36:24,680
Speaker 1: be allowed to re enlist in the British military, this

687
00:36:24,800 --> 00:36:27,279
Speaker 1: time as a private. He told a friend that he

688
00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:30,879
Speaker 1: never wanted to be responsible for anyone or anything significant

689
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:33,279
Speaker 1: again for the rest of his life. Like this is

690
00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:35,680
Speaker 1: how broken he is that he was like, I don't

691
00:36:35,680 --> 00:36:37,759
Speaker 1: want any of this fame. I am not going to

692
00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 1: I'm going to take a new name and it re

693
00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:42,520
Speaker 1: enlists us a private, so I just don't have to

694
00:36:42,560 --> 00:36:44,960
Speaker 1: do anything but follow orders for the rest of my life.

695
00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:46,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, I kill and die.

696
00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:49,960
Speaker 1: That's kill and die. Sure, I'm fine with that. Literally,

697
00:36:50,040 --> 00:36:52,719
Speaker 1: anything like I've done lots of killing. I'm okay with that.

698
00:36:53,960 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 1: I just can't like, I have failed so utterly in

699
00:36:57,600 --> 00:37:01,400
Speaker 1: what were my goals in this thing that I just

700
00:37:01,920 --> 00:37:03,919
Speaker 1: I don't want to make another decision for the rest

701
00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:04,600
Speaker 1: of my life.

702
00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:05,680
Speaker 2: Yeah.

703
00:37:06,120 --> 00:37:08,520
Speaker 1: So we spend the next I think fourteen years stationed

704
00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:11,479
Speaker 1: on a series of small bases around Britain. He lives

705
00:37:11,520 --> 00:37:16,080
Speaker 1: a quiet, almost solitary life, reading voraciously, listening to music,

706
00:37:16,120 --> 00:37:19,640
Speaker 1: writing letters to friends, and writing his motorcycle through the countryside.

707
00:37:20,520 --> 00:37:23,120
Speaker 1: Through this time, the legend of Lawrence grew and grew,

708
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:26,120
Speaker 1: spurred on by the publication of an edited version of

709
00:37:26,160 --> 00:37:29,600
Speaker 1: his book, which is there's a fascinating story here Margaret

710
00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:34,799
Speaker 1: about like what happens to Lawrence's manuscript here, And this

711
00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:36,680
Speaker 1: is one of the there's a great article by Robert

712
00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:41,520
Speaker 1: Knu that's just an author's worst nightmare. So Lawrence, he

713
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:44,560
Speaker 1: writes while he's like, you know, in the start of

714
00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:47,560
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, after all of this had fallen apart,

715
00:37:47,560 --> 00:37:49,840
Speaker 1: he wants to write his great memoir, which he'd planned

716
00:37:49,880 --> 00:37:51,520
Speaker 1: for a long time. He'd planned to publish a book

717
00:37:51,560 --> 00:37:54,360
Speaker 1: called Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Initially this was going to

718
00:37:54,360 --> 00:37:57,399
Speaker 1: be based on his before the war, his travels through

719
00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:01,879
Speaker 1: the Muslim world, and he writes that book and then

720
00:38:01,880 --> 00:38:04,480
Speaker 1: he destroys it. He gets like anxious about it. He

721
00:38:04,520 --> 00:38:08,279
Speaker 1: decides it's no good, and before he goes off to war,

722
00:38:08,320 --> 00:38:11,640
Speaker 1: he destroys the entire book, right, And then he takes

723
00:38:11,719 --> 00:38:13,480
Speaker 1: the title of that book and he uses it for

724
00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:16,239
Speaker 1: the book that he writes about his time fighting in

725
00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:20,560
Speaker 1: this desert war. And he puts together, using all of

726
00:38:20,800 --> 00:38:22,960
Speaker 1: these notes that he's taken, a two hundred and fifty

727
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:26,480
Speaker 1: thousand word manuscript. And then after finishing the manuscript, he

728
00:38:26,560 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 1: destroys his notes. I don't know why. I've never heard

729
00:38:30,520 --> 00:38:33,000
Speaker 1: a good reason as to like, why does he destroy

730
00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:36,040
Speaker 1: all of his original notes once he finishes it? But

731
00:38:36,120 --> 00:38:39,160
Speaker 1: he does, And he only has a single copy of

732
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:43,240
Speaker 1: this manuscript. And then when he is at reading station,

733
00:38:43,520 --> 00:38:46,640
Speaker 1: he leaves it in a bathroom and loses it.

734
00:38:51,960 --> 00:38:54,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, I see why every author's worst nightmare.

735
00:38:54,200 --> 00:38:57,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a nightmare. Now I want to lost.

736
00:38:56,840 --> 00:38:59,600
Speaker 2: A file of about thirty five thousand words of.

737
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:02,600
Speaker 1: Then god, oh my god, what a nightmare.

738
00:39:02,640 --> 00:39:08,600
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh that hurts here. I never finished that book.

739
00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:16,400
Speaker 1: Yeah. There is debate Margaret about this, Right, some biographers

740
00:39:16,840 --> 00:39:20,319
Speaker 1: or some people will argue, he probably didn't lose this.

741
00:39:20,719 --> 00:39:24,200
Speaker 1: He probably he was so angry about this guy who is,

742
00:39:25,440 --> 00:39:27,759
Speaker 1: you know, this journalist who has made him into like

743
00:39:27,840 --> 00:39:30,520
Speaker 1: the center, like a celebrity, right, and he's just so

744
00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:34,440
Speaker 1: shamed of what happened that he destroys this manuscript, right,

745
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:37,560
Speaker 1: and then like regrets it immediately, right, But that like

746
00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:41,320
Speaker 1: maybe that's what happened, right, And he's destroyed a manuscript before,

747
00:39:41,360 --> 00:39:45,239
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be weird, right, whatever the case. Lawrence gets

748
00:39:45,280 --> 00:39:47,960
Speaker 1: back to work working on a new version of the book,

749
00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:50,080
Speaker 1: and the second draft of this, which he has to

750
00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:52,640
Speaker 1: make from memory since he's destroyed most of his notes,

751
00:39:53,080 --> 00:39:56,560
Speaker 1: is four hundred thousand words. And he writes this in

752
00:39:56,680 --> 00:40:02,479
Speaker 1: three months, just like that's like some Stephen King ass shit.

753
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:05,680
Speaker 1: I do wonder if I know cocaine was available over

754
00:40:05,719 --> 00:40:07,799
Speaker 1: the counter back then, what were you doing, Laura? How

755
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:10,400
Speaker 1: do you do four hundred thousand words in three months?

756
00:40:10,400 --> 00:40:11,640
Speaker 1: That's nuts?

757
00:40:11,760 --> 00:40:13,359
Speaker 2: Well, like five thousand wars a day or something.

758
00:40:13,440 --> 00:40:16,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's an insane rate of something like that.

759
00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:18,759
Speaker 2: I could do that for like three weeks if I

760
00:40:18,840 --> 00:40:19,160
Speaker 2: had to.

761
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:22,279
Speaker 1: And he's unhappy with it, so he throws that out,

762
00:40:22,640 --> 00:40:24,960
Speaker 1: and then he writes a third version of the book.

763
00:40:25,719 --> 00:40:31,280
Speaker 2: He's on his fourth, seventh, four seven manuscripts of wisdom.

764
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:34,120
Speaker 1: He almost does write fucking seven.

765
00:40:34,480 --> 00:40:34,760
Speaker 3: Yeah.

766
00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:36,920
Speaker 1: The fourth version of this comes in at three hundred

767
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:39,839
Speaker 1: and thirty five thousand words, and this time he has

768
00:40:39,880 --> 00:40:43,040
Speaker 1: the Oxford Times Press print eight copies of it. Right,

769
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:46,359
Speaker 1: He's not gonna lose this fucking one. Right, he send

770
00:40:46,440 --> 00:40:48,319
Speaker 1: some of these and that this is the text from

771
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:50,399
Speaker 1: which we get the final version, and Lawrence would would

772
00:40:50,480 --> 00:40:52,000
Speaker 1: kind of regret for the rest of his life. He

773
00:40:52,040 --> 00:40:55,480
Speaker 1: would say that the first draft was more accurate, like

774
00:40:55,560 --> 00:40:58,120
Speaker 1: I fucked up less, like I got more of the

775
00:40:58,160 --> 00:41:02,160
Speaker 1: basic the nuts and bolts. Right. Some people will say, like, well,

776
00:41:02,160 --> 00:41:04,880
Speaker 1: it's actually probably much better because in the process of

777
00:41:04,920 --> 00:41:08,160
Speaker 1: writing a million words of this story over and over again,

778
00:41:08,200 --> 00:41:09,320
Speaker 1: he got better at writing.

779
00:41:10,040 --> 00:41:12,120
Speaker 2: I'm sure the prose is better, and I'm sure that

780
00:41:12,239 --> 00:41:13,799
Speaker 2: accuracy is better in the first one.

781
00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:17,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's probably fair to say. And that's like, my god,

782
00:41:17,200 --> 00:41:22,759
Speaker 1: what a fucking nightmare. I I know I would not

783
00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:24,360
Speaker 1: be able to live with myself.

784
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:28,920
Speaker 2: But would the first version have helped the Vietnamese defeat?

785
00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:35,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, have helped the Vietnamese war strategy, right, maybe not.

786
00:41:37,040 --> 00:41:38,759
Speaker 1: I think it's at this point here, like when we

787
00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:41,080
Speaker 1: talk about all these different versions of the truth and

788
00:41:41,120 --> 00:41:42,799
Speaker 1: the question of like how accurate is this, that we

789
00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:46,680
Speaker 1: get dragged back once again the question of Lawrence's sexuality. Right.

790
00:41:47,239 --> 00:41:49,840
Speaker 1: One of the key arguments against the rape and draw

791
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:52,720
Speaker 1: story is that some of Lawrence's comrades in the Tank

792
00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:55,560
Speaker 1: Corps would later claim that he asked them to beat

793
00:41:55,640 --> 00:41:59,759
Speaker 1: and whip him for sato masochistic pleasure. Now, there is

794
00:41:59,760 --> 00:42:03,279
Speaker 1: a lot of reason to doubt these claims, and even

795
00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:05,560
Speaker 1: if they are true, we could just as easily interpret

796
00:42:05,560 --> 00:42:07,960
Speaker 1: this as Lawrence working through his trauma as a result

797
00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:11,480
Speaker 1: of having been gang raped. But one piece of evidence

798
00:42:11,520 --> 00:42:13,759
Speaker 1: to the contrary is that in the original version of

799
00:42:13,800 --> 00:42:16,880
Speaker 1: Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Lawrence's description of his rape was

800
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:20,040
Speaker 1: then this is wild two hundred pages longer than the

801
00:42:20,160 --> 00:42:23,560
Speaker 1: version that wound up in print, which is a lot

802
00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:28,160
Speaker 1: And so some people will be like this, this kind

803
00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:31,359
Speaker 1: of reads like he was more putting out a fantasy. Right,

804
00:42:31,440 --> 00:42:34,240
Speaker 1: That's a lot of time to spend talking about yourself

805
00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:37,920
Speaker 1: being tortured in this kind of like very graphic detail.

806
00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:41,759
Speaker 1: That is, it is tinged with romance too, Like it's

807
00:42:41,880 --> 00:42:44,560
Speaker 1: very it's an odd bit of writing. Oh you know,

808
00:42:44,680 --> 00:42:47,160
Speaker 1: that's just the way Lawrence writes. Yeah.

809
00:42:47,200 --> 00:42:50,279
Speaker 2: And also there's a huge difference between romanticizing the bad

810
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:53,560
Speaker 2: stuff that happens to you and romanticizing bad stuff in general. Right, yeah,

811
00:42:53,600 --> 00:42:57,000
Speaker 2: Like if the way that you want to process something

812
00:42:57,239 --> 00:43:00,600
Speaker 2: bad is by romanticizing being like, at least my life

813
00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:04,600
Speaker 2: is interesting and beautiful, even though it's terrible and tragic, yeah, like,

814
00:43:05,680 --> 00:43:06,480
Speaker 2: good on you. Well.

815
00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:10,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the journalists that we get these claims that

816
00:43:10,239 --> 00:43:14,320
Speaker 1: Lawrence he's basically writing pornography, right, you know, just because

817
00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:16,759
Speaker 1: he's so into this stuff that didn't really happen is

818
00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:20,000
Speaker 1: a guy named Philip Knightley. And when I say journalists,

819
00:43:20,280 --> 00:43:22,440
Speaker 1: you might put some air quotes around this, but he

820
00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:25,840
Speaker 1: reports heavily on Lawrence, right, and he's kind of the

821
00:43:25,880 --> 00:43:27,880
Speaker 1: origin of a lot of this, And he says, quote

822
00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:30,879
Speaker 1: it was so redolent of the sort of sato masochistic

823
00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:33,560
Speaker 1: literature that you get in the Charing cross Road. It

824
00:43:33,680 --> 00:43:35,880
Speaker 1: sort of cried out that this is Lawrence writing for

825
00:43:35,960 --> 00:43:39,680
Speaker 1: his own interest in delectation. Right, This reads like a

826
00:43:39,719 --> 00:43:43,040
Speaker 1: lot of the Sato masochistic like smut that was being

827
00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:44,920
Speaker 1: published at the time, and so that's why I think

828
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:49,360
Speaker 1: it's fake. Quote. Lawrence continued these sato masochistic practices with

829
00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:52,040
Speaker 1: the help of a man called John Bruce. Bruce was

830
00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:54,200
Speaker 1: paid to birch Lawrence and then write an account of

831
00:43:54,239 --> 00:43:58,000
Speaker 1: Lawrence's beating bearing. Under the birching, the letters were collected

832
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:00,239
Speaker 1: by Lawrence, who read them again and got two kicks

833
00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:03,279
Speaker 1: for his book, so to speak, right, this is Knight's

834
00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:07,520
Speaker 1: Nightly's claim right now. The unedited version of the book

835
00:44:08,120 --> 00:44:11,319
Speaker 1: also points paints a darker and more self serving and

836
00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:15,240
Speaker 1: consciously imperialist picture of Lawrence. In the original text. For example,

837
00:44:15,239 --> 00:44:18,279
Speaker 1: he describes Fisle as a very weak man, an empty man.

838
00:44:18,440 --> 00:44:20,720
Speaker 1: You were able to use faisal to get what you wanted.

839
00:44:21,200 --> 00:44:23,360
Speaker 1: And is that a more accurate depiction of Lawrence or

840
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:26,080
Speaker 1: is that just kind of him in a much darker

841
00:44:26,120 --> 00:44:30,840
Speaker 1: frame of mind? After three writing three versions of this story, right.

842
00:44:31,160 --> 00:44:33,799
Speaker 2: How do we know what the first one said? Is

843
00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:34,920
Speaker 2: it because he's later we.

844
00:44:34,920 --> 00:44:37,800
Speaker 1: Know what earlier drafts say, Right, we have that draft

845
00:44:37,840 --> 00:44:39,879
Speaker 1: of the four hundred thousand word one. I think, oh,

846
00:44:39,920 --> 00:44:43,000
Speaker 1: we do have that. I think that's what he's talking about.

847
00:44:43,000 --> 00:44:45,680
Speaker 1: Not the original draft that's lost forever. We're like the

848
00:44:45,680 --> 00:44:47,640
Speaker 1: three hundred and thirty five thousand word one or something

849
00:44:47,719 --> 00:44:52,200
Speaker 1: like that. There are earlier There are earlier, longer drafts

850
00:44:52,320 --> 00:44:54,440
Speaker 1: than what got published that we have access to. I

851
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:57,200
Speaker 1: don't actually know exactly. There's so many, so many copies

852
00:44:57,239 --> 00:44:59,719
Speaker 1: of seven Pillars floating around, right I am.

853
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:01,560
Speaker 2: But if I were to write that and I spent

854
00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:04,680
Speaker 2: two hundred pages describing a thing that happened to me, yeah,

855
00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:07,319
Speaker 2: I could imagine being like, it's time for a third draft.

856
00:45:07,239 --> 00:45:09,000
Speaker 1: Time for a third draft. I might need to cut

857
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:13,360
Speaker 1: this down a little bit, kill your darlings, Lawrence. Maybe

858
00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:15,640
Speaker 1: maybe the torture scene is a little log.

859
00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:20,240
Speaker 2: There's this classic thing with like writing, where your first

860
00:45:20,280 --> 00:45:23,480
Speaker 2: novel you can't get away with spending eight pages describing

861
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:25,960
Speaker 2: stained glass. Yeah, But by the time you like on

862
00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:29,680
Speaker 2: your like fifth novel and there's a fucking window. Yeah.

863
00:45:29,719 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 2: But by the time you're on your fifth novel, you

864
00:45:31,160 --> 00:45:33,160
Speaker 2: can spend eight pages talking about stained glass because you

865
00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:36,600
Speaker 2: already have the auther buy in. So, Lawrence, your problem

866
00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:37,760
Speaker 2: was that it was your first book.

867
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:41,000
Speaker 1: It was your first book, buddy, you know, well, actually

868
00:45:41,040 --> 00:45:44,440
Speaker 1: it was It was like his third through or second

869
00:45:44,560 --> 00:45:54,840
Speaker 1: or third through like fifth books or something like that. Yeah, now, Nightly,

870
00:45:54,960 --> 00:45:57,840
Speaker 1: I should say this, who is making this case that

871
00:45:57,880 --> 00:46:00,440
Speaker 1: like Lawrence was an asshole. He was a real imp realist.

872
00:46:00,480 --> 00:46:02,640
Speaker 1: He was a bad person. He was this like masochist

873
00:46:02,680 --> 00:46:05,520
Speaker 1: who lied about what happened to him. Knightley's not a

874
00:46:05,520 --> 00:46:08,440
Speaker 1: great source himself. The first articles I found about him

875
00:46:08,440 --> 00:46:10,880
Speaker 1: that were like, well, there's this guy who says, you know,

876
00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:13,000
Speaker 1: all this bad stuff abou Lawrence described him as like

877
00:46:13,040 --> 00:46:18,120
Speaker 1: a scholar. That's not really who Nightly was. And to describe,

878
00:46:18,160 --> 00:46:19,759
Speaker 1: like who this guy is, I want to read a

879
00:46:19,840 --> 00:46:23,040
Speaker 1: quote from The New York Times. Early in nineteen sixty five,

880
00:46:23,080 --> 00:46:26,800
Speaker 1: Philip Knightley and Colin Simpson, journalists specializing in feature pieces

881
00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:29,600
Speaker 1: for the London Sunday Times, were assigned to follow up

882
00:46:29,640 --> 00:46:32,400
Speaker 1: a Sixtyish Scotman story that when he was nineteen and

883
00:46:32,480 --> 00:46:35,440
Speaker 1: Lauras thirty three, he was paid by the hero of

884
00:46:35,480 --> 00:46:39,920
Speaker 1: Arabia to administer periodic beatings. The lawrence that Lawrence relished

885
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:42,200
Speaker 1: testing his body in other ways was nothing new, but

886
00:46:42,239 --> 00:46:45,040
Speaker 1: the revelation was clearly of a kind when stretched into

887
00:46:45,120 --> 00:46:48,560
Speaker 1: a front page Sunday series to stimulate both reader and

888
00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:51,920
Speaker 1: newspaper circulation, and by early June of the same year,

889
00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:55,480
Speaker 1: the sensationally headlined articles began to appear. The Sheik who

890
00:46:55,560 --> 00:46:59,200
Speaker 1: made Lawrence Love Arabia and how Lawrence of Arabia cracked

891
00:46:59,280 --> 00:47:02,320
Speaker 1: up a full exclusive confession from the man who shared

892
00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:07,359
Speaker 1: his tragic secret with the global facilities established press power

893
00:47:07,400 --> 00:47:09,960
Speaker 1: and generous pocketbook with the Sunday Times at their disposal,

894
00:47:10,239 --> 00:47:12,920
Speaker 1: Nightley and Simpson could locate and interview people from Turkey

895
00:47:12,920 --> 00:47:16,360
Speaker 1: to Australia, pay for information, proy open library doors and

896
00:47:16,400 --> 00:47:19,000
Speaker 1: foreign office files long locked shut, and do it all

897
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:22,520
Speaker 1: in time to meet their newspaper deadlines. So, you know,

898
00:47:23,239 --> 00:47:25,480
Speaker 1: maybe take this with a grain of salt. Some of

899
00:47:25,520 --> 00:47:28,760
Speaker 1: these things they're claiming, these these recollections from other people

900
00:47:28,840 --> 00:47:31,640
Speaker 1: decades later. You know, these guys who are hungry for

901
00:47:31,719 --> 00:47:37,719
Speaker 1: big stories that they can sensationalize about, you know, t e. Lawrence, right, Jerry, just.

902
00:47:37,680 --> 00:47:39,400
Speaker 2: Like don't care if it was like whether it was

903
00:47:39,400 --> 00:47:42,799
Speaker 2: a kink or yeah, trauma dealing with because as are

904
00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:44,839
Speaker 2: related anyway, and like whatever.

905
00:47:44,760 --> 00:47:48,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm interested in like whether or not it happened, right,

906
00:47:48,440 --> 00:47:52,080
Speaker 1: But like, yeah, I've known more of Claire based on it, yeah,

907
00:47:52,160 --> 00:47:56,759
Speaker 1: right right now. Jeremy Wilson, Lawrence's officials biographer, interprets the

908
00:47:56,800 --> 00:47:59,319
Speaker 1: original text, or at least what we have of the

909
00:47:59,400 --> 00:48:02,839
Speaker 1: earlier text of Seven Pillars, very differently from Nightly. The

910
00:48:02,840 --> 00:48:04,640
Speaker 1: fact that you have Lawrence being more of a dick,

911
00:48:04,800 --> 00:48:07,160
Speaker 1: you know about some of this stuff, as this segment

912
00:48:07,160 --> 00:48:10,160
Speaker 1: from an article and the in dependent makes clear. Wilson said.

913
00:48:10,160 --> 00:48:13,160
Speaker 1: The text shows that Lawrence felt guilty after he encouraged

914
00:48:13,200 --> 00:48:15,440
Speaker 1: the Arabs to rise up and fight. He knew they

915
00:48:15,440 --> 00:48:17,759
Speaker 1: would not get an independent state in exchange for their

916
00:48:17,760 --> 00:48:20,719
Speaker 1: help because France and Britain had other plans. Wilson told

917
00:48:20,760 --> 00:48:24,160
Speaker 1: BBC Radio four. When he realized how duplicitous his role was,

918
00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:26,160
Speaker 1: he became upset about it and went off on a

919
00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:28,680
Speaker 1: spying mission to Damascus. But the point is he was

920
00:48:28,719 --> 00:48:31,240
Speaker 1: hoping to get killed on the way. There's no reference

921
00:48:31,239 --> 00:48:32,799
Speaker 1: to that in the final text, but there is an

922
00:48:32,840 --> 00:48:35,960
Speaker 1: allusion to it in the original texts. So Wilson, who

923
00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:39,560
Speaker 1: is more of a scholar certainly than Knightley, is like, well, no, actually,

924
00:48:39,600 --> 00:48:42,600
Speaker 1: like the original text includes him kind of talking about

925
00:48:42,600 --> 00:48:44,800
Speaker 1: how he tried to get himself killed because he felt

926
00:48:44,840 --> 00:48:47,560
Speaker 1: so bad about what he had done, right, which does

927
00:48:47,600 --> 00:48:50,680
Speaker 1: not portray him as like this cold imperialist, right, just

928
00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:53,600
Speaker 1: fucking over people, right, and is more a man who

929
00:48:53,960 --> 00:48:57,000
Speaker 1: did some very immoral things but was also trapped in

930
00:48:57,040 --> 00:49:00,879
Speaker 1: this just fucked up situation. Right now.

931
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:02,759
Speaker 2: That's the version that I feel like has been that

932
00:49:03,000 --> 00:49:06,040
Speaker 2: I've certainly taken away from. Yes, is like the man

933
00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:08,880
Speaker 2: who always wants to do right and realizes you can't

934
00:49:08,960 --> 00:49:10,439
Speaker 2: and then feels trapped and like.

935
00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:15,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think that's probably the closest reality to

936
00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:16,960
Speaker 1: the reality that we're going to get.

937
00:49:17,280 --> 00:49:19,360
Speaker 2: He would to be such a good Catholic, like he

938
00:49:19,400 --> 00:49:21,560
Speaker 2: wanted to get it, would have made it. Yeah, he

939
00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:22,920
Speaker 2: wants forgiveness.

940
00:49:23,120 --> 00:49:25,839
Speaker 1: He would have been a great monk, right, Like if

941
00:49:25,880 --> 00:49:28,160
Speaker 1: he had come about in the medieval era, he would

942
00:49:28,160 --> 00:49:29,719
Speaker 1: have been so happy as a monk.

943
00:49:29,920 --> 00:49:30,160
Speaker 2: Yeah.

944
00:49:30,719 --> 00:49:33,799
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, partly as a result of the War on

945
00:49:33,920 --> 00:49:36,560
Speaker 1: Terror and largely pushed by the work of scholars like

946
00:49:36,600 --> 00:49:40,080
Speaker 1: bar And shedding doubt on aspects of Lawrence's narrative, Lawrence

947
00:49:40,120 --> 00:49:42,920
Speaker 1: saw a reapprisal in the early twenty first century that

948
00:49:43,120 --> 00:49:46,319
Speaker 1: was largely late ninety late twentieth kind of early twenty

949
00:49:46,360 --> 00:49:49,360
Speaker 1: first century that was largely negative. Right, the Arab revolt

950
00:49:49,440 --> 00:49:52,040
Speaker 1: has regularly been described as a side show in World

951
00:49:52,040 --> 00:49:54,640
Speaker 1: War One, which I really hate to hear whenever people

952
00:49:54,680 --> 00:49:56,719
Speaker 1: are like, well, actually, it wasn't even that big a

953
00:49:56,760 --> 00:49:59,320
Speaker 1: deal that any of this went on, because one intent

954
00:49:59,400 --> 00:50:02,960
Speaker 1: of the people living in the region died in the fighting. Right, Like,

955
00:50:03,000 --> 00:50:05,400
Speaker 1: this is not a side show. This is a major

956
00:50:05,560 --> 00:50:07,920
Speaker 1: historical event, no matter how you slice it. And it's

957
00:50:07,960 --> 00:50:10,280
Speaker 1: really fucked up when people argue otherwise.

958
00:50:09,880 --> 00:50:11,680
Speaker 2: Sorry, fewer white people were there.

959
00:50:11,840 --> 00:50:13,839
Speaker 1: Sorry, there weren't as many white people there.

960
00:50:13,920 --> 00:50:14,080
Speaker 3: Right.

961
00:50:14,880 --> 00:50:18,160
Speaker 1: Lawrence has been described as a braggart, a liar, a fantasist,

962
00:50:18,160 --> 00:50:20,920
Speaker 1: and a historic appraisal of the man has to caution

963
00:50:21,120 --> 00:50:24,879
Speaker 1: against taking this interpretation too far. Again. Barr, who's very

964
00:50:25,000 --> 00:50:28,200
Speaker 1: properly critical, I would say, responsibly in a historical sense,

965
00:50:28,239 --> 00:50:32,680
Speaker 1: critical of Lawrence, also describes seven Pillars as essentially accurate. Right,

966
00:50:32,920 --> 00:50:36,719
Speaker 1: and more recent scholars, including the leftist academic Neil Faulkner,

967
00:50:37,040 --> 00:50:40,200
Speaker 1: have urged a reappreciation of Lawrence as a titanic figure

968
00:50:40,239 --> 00:50:44,440
Speaker 1: in world history and that of the region. Now, Margaret,

969
00:50:44,480 --> 00:50:46,400
Speaker 1: you asked a little earlier, are we going to hear

970
00:50:46,440 --> 00:50:49,200
Speaker 1: about what happened to do right, and it's time for

971
00:50:49,280 --> 00:50:51,719
Speaker 1: us to tell that story, which is I know, it's

972
00:50:51,719 --> 00:50:56,080
Speaker 1: a bummer. Yeah. Yeah. So after Lawrence left the Karkamish

973
00:50:56,120 --> 00:50:59,680
Speaker 1: dig site in nineteen fourteen, the two never met again

974
00:51:00,040 --> 00:51:03,160
Speaker 1: because during the war, partly as a result of the war,

975
00:51:03,480 --> 00:51:07,320
Speaker 1: there's a typhus epidemic in Dome's hometown and he dies

976
00:51:07,480 --> 00:51:11,360
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixteen. Oh shit, so he's only like sixteen

977
00:51:11,480 --> 00:51:12,920
Speaker 1: or something he was, Yeah, I think he might have

978
00:51:12,920 --> 00:51:15,880
Speaker 1: been eighteen, yeah, because he was like sixteen when Lawrence left, right,

979
00:51:15,880 --> 00:51:17,759
Speaker 1: So he's probably like eighteen. Yeah, but he does not

980
00:51:17,800 --> 00:51:20,400
Speaker 1: get a long life. You know, this is partly as

981
00:51:20,400 --> 00:51:23,320
Speaker 1: a result of the war, although not Lawrence's pardon it.

982
00:51:23,400 --> 00:51:26,960
Speaker 1: Lawrence is not an active participant in the fighting until

983
00:51:27,320 --> 00:51:32,080
Speaker 1: Dome's dead. Now, if you don't find the claims made

984
00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:34,839
Speaker 1: a Knightley's reporting credible and instead take Lawrence at his

985
00:51:34,880 --> 00:51:37,320
Speaker 1: word and the words that he sent along to close friends,

986
00:51:37,640 --> 00:51:40,720
Speaker 1: he never had any other kind of intimate relationship, sexual

987
00:51:40,800 --> 00:51:43,480
Speaker 1: or otherwise in his life. I want to quote now

988
00:51:43,520 --> 00:51:46,360
Speaker 1: from an article in Salon dot com by Anthony Sattin

989
00:51:47,080 --> 00:51:49,239
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty seven. He wrote to his friend the

990
00:51:49,239 --> 00:51:53,560
Speaker 1: homosexual novelist, I M Forster, I'm so funnily made up sexually,

991
00:51:53,800 --> 00:51:56,719
Speaker 1: and later that same year went further. Having read Forster's

992
00:51:56,719 --> 00:51:59,680
Speaker 1: ghost story Doctor Woollacott, in which a man dies after

993
00:51:59,719 --> 00:52:03,319
Speaker 1: a game sexual encounter, Lawrence wrote that the Turks, as

994
00:52:03,360 --> 00:52:05,960
Speaker 1: you probably know or have guessed through the reticences of

995
00:52:06,040 --> 00:52:09,200
Speaker 1: seven Pillars, did it to me by force. I couldn't

996
00:52:09,239 --> 00:52:11,840
Speaker 1: ever do it. I believe the impulse strong enough to

997
00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:14,360
Speaker 1: make me touch another creature has not yet been born

998
00:52:14,440 --> 00:52:18,520
Speaker 1: in me. And that is that kind of sounds like, yeah,

999
00:52:18,600 --> 00:52:22,680
Speaker 1: like this is someone who's ace, that men's very ace, right.

1000
00:52:22,840 --> 00:52:26,200
Speaker 1: Like the following year with Robert Graves, the poet and

1001
00:52:26,239 --> 00:52:28,960
Speaker 1: at that point his biographer, he had a discussion about

1002
00:52:29,040 --> 00:52:32,000
Speaker 1: fucking as I wrote, with some courage. I think few

1003
00:52:32,000 --> 00:52:35,200
Speaker 1: people admit the damaging ignorance. I haven't ever, and I

1004
00:52:35,239 --> 00:52:38,319
Speaker 1: don't much want to. And that's part of what's so

1005
00:52:38,360 --> 00:52:40,640
Speaker 1: interesting to me is that, like, this isn't really something

1006
00:52:40,640 --> 00:52:42,360
Speaker 1: if we're looking at Lawrence, this isn't something we have

1007
00:52:42,400 --> 00:52:45,080
Speaker 1: to be like wondering about, because he not only as

1008
00:52:45,080 --> 00:52:48,920
Speaker 1: you write about it, he is aware and open to homosexuality.

1009
00:52:48,920 --> 00:52:52,120
Speaker 1: He is talking to his gay friends about his sexuality,

1010
00:52:52,120 --> 00:52:55,040
Speaker 1: which is so interesting to me, so unexpected, Right, I

1011
00:52:55,080 --> 00:52:57,880
Speaker 1: really didn't think that we would have him directly talking

1012
00:52:57,920 --> 00:53:00,200
Speaker 1: about like fucking and being like, yeah, I never wanted

1013
00:53:00,280 --> 00:53:04,080
Speaker 1: to do it, Like, yeah, that's fascinating to me. That's

1014
00:53:04,120 --> 00:53:06,200
Speaker 1: perhaps there's so many historical figures that I wish I

1015
00:53:06,280 --> 00:53:08,520
Speaker 1: knew that about, right, because you're like, oh, why did

1016
00:53:08,680 --> 00:53:11,879
Speaker 1: this woman never have children or get married? Was she guy?

1017
00:53:12,040 --> 00:53:12,560
Speaker 1: Was she Ace?

1018
00:53:12,680 --> 00:53:13,759
Speaker 2: Was it just never work out?

1019
00:53:13,880 --> 00:53:13,960
Speaker 3: Like?

1020
00:53:14,120 --> 00:53:17,160
Speaker 2: Was she just actually loved Duck? But it was doesn't

1021
00:53:17,200 --> 00:53:18,359
Speaker 2: want to marry? Like who knows?

1022
00:53:18,440 --> 00:53:18,640
Speaker 3: You know?

1023
00:53:18,840 --> 00:53:22,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's like with Lawrence, this is as clear

1024
00:53:22,400 --> 00:53:25,040
Speaker 1: as you can get a figure in this era talking

1025
00:53:25,040 --> 00:53:28,560
Speaker 1: about a sexuality. And probably I think the best final

1026
00:53:28,680 --> 00:53:33,080
Speaker 1: source on this is one of Lawrence's homosexual friends, Vivian Richard's.

1027
00:53:33,120 --> 00:53:36,719
Speaker 1: And it's like spelled vyv y an. It's a man's name,

1028
00:53:37,400 --> 00:53:40,440
Speaker 1: but I think it's just pronounced Vivian. The two met

1029
00:53:40,480 --> 00:53:45,000
Speaker 1: at Oxford, and Vivian is no, I haven't, Oh there's

1030
00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:48,120
Speaker 1: a there's a man named Villa. Anyway, Well, Vivian is

1031
00:53:48,160 --> 00:53:51,000
Speaker 1: in love with Lawrence, right. Vivian is a homosexual man

1032
00:53:51,000 --> 00:53:54,120
Speaker 1: who has a massive crush on Lawrence, and he was like,

1033
00:53:54,200 --> 00:53:57,080
Speaker 1: I could fix him. Yeah, horribly sad that Lawrence was

1034
00:53:57,160 --> 00:54:01,319
Speaker 1: never reciprocated. He wrote later, he had neither flesh nor

1035
00:54:01,360 --> 00:54:05,560
Speaker 1: carnality of any kind. He received my affection, my sacrifice,

1036
00:54:05,560 --> 00:54:08,560
Speaker 1: in fact, eventually my total subservience, as if it was

1037
00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:11,360
Speaker 1: his due. He neither gave the slightest sign that he

1038
00:54:11,440 --> 00:54:14,799
Speaker 1: understood my motives or fathomed my desire. In return for

1039
00:54:14,920 --> 00:54:18,200
Speaker 1: all I offered him with admittedly ulterior motives, he gave

1040
00:54:18,239 --> 00:54:20,799
Speaker 1: me the purest affection, love, and respect that I have

1041
00:54:20,920 --> 00:54:24,200
Speaker 1: ever received from anyone, a love and respect that was

1042
00:54:24,239 --> 00:54:28,160
Speaker 1: spiritual in quality. I realize now that he was sexless,

1043
00:54:28,360 --> 00:54:32,000
Speaker 1: at least that he was unaware of sex. And yeah,

1044
00:54:32,000 --> 00:54:32,920
Speaker 1: that's beautiful, that's.

1045
00:54:32,800 --> 00:54:35,839
Speaker 2: Kind of sweet. Yeah, it's like what sometimes like when

1046
00:54:36,040 --> 00:54:39,520
Speaker 2: people who have sexuality who date people who are ace. Yeah,

1047
00:54:39,600 --> 00:54:42,399
Speaker 2: you know my like, oh well there's something else that's

1048
00:54:42,440 --> 00:54:43,200
Speaker 2: beautiful about this.

1049
00:54:43,560 --> 00:54:46,560
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And that's very much what Vivian is saying.

1050
00:54:46,960 --> 00:54:50,359
Speaker 1: I think if Dome had lived, and he might have

1051
00:54:50,360 --> 00:54:54,879
Speaker 1: written something similar, right, like, this was never a physical thing,

1052
00:54:54,960 --> 00:54:58,360
Speaker 1: but he was the best and most most dedicated friend

1053
00:54:58,440 --> 00:55:02,200
Speaker 1: I ever had. Yeah, and this is where we will

1054
00:55:02,239 --> 00:55:05,759
Speaker 1: conclude the life of Lawrence Margaret after one of the

1055
00:55:05,760 --> 00:55:08,960
Speaker 1: most action packed first acts in history. The remainder of

1056
00:55:08,960 --> 00:55:11,919
Speaker 1: his military career in existence was not the stuff great

1057
00:55:11,960 --> 00:55:14,239
Speaker 1: movies are made of. The simple reason seems to be

1058
00:55:14,600 --> 00:55:18,280
Speaker 1: that he was just absolutely shattered by war. Lawrence's nerves

1059
00:55:18,360 --> 00:55:21,759
Speaker 1: never recovered, and in nineteen thirty five, at age forty six,

1060
00:55:21,840 --> 00:55:24,920
Speaker 1: he opted to retire from the military. As he was

1061
00:55:24,960 --> 00:55:27,440
Speaker 1: settling into his new home, he wrote one friend of

1062
00:55:27,440 --> 00:55:31,440
Speaker 1: his discomfort with this situation. I imagine leaves must feel

1063
00:55:31,480 --> 00:55:33,880
Speaker 1: this way after they have fallen from their tree and

1064
00:55:34,040 --> 00:55:36,880
Speaker 1: until they die. Let's hope that will not be my

1065
00:55:37,000 --> 00:55:41,160
Speaker 1: continuing state. Alas it was. A week after writing this,

1066
00:55:41,480 --> 00:55:45,680
Speaker 1: Lawrence crashed his motorcycle and perished in the accident. And

1067
00:55:45,680 --> 00:55:50,719
Speaker 1: that yeah, again, it's like, beautiful rider. Yeah.

1068
00:55:50,960 --> 00:55:55,839
Speaker 2: It's like when there's like several really sad musicians who

1069
00:55:56,480 --> 00:55:59,799
Speaker 2: accidentally drown and you're like, yeah, I'll let you have it.

1070
00:56:00,360 --> 00:56:04,240
Speaker 2: I'll pretend. I'll let the world pretend that's an accident. Yeah, yeah, sure,

1071
00:56:04,320 --> 00:56:06,759
Speaker 2: Lawrence accidentally crashed his motorcycle.

1072
00:56:07,120 --> 00:56:13,000
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, yep, wow, whoa see.

1073
00:56:13,000 --> 00:56:14,719
Speaker 2: I would watch the movie about the second half of

1074
00:56:14,719 --> 00:56:16,560
Speaker 2: his life. But it'd be more like watching The Lighthouse

1075
00:56:16,640 --> 00:56:17,000
Speaker 2: or something.

1076
00:56:17,120 --> 00:56:21,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that that I would as well. Also,

1077
00:56:22,200 --> 00:56:26,360
Speaker 1: I'll be watched The Lighthouse. Great movie. I think Lawrence

1078
00:56:26,360 --> 00:56:28,680
Speaker 1: of Arabia probably would have liked The Lighthouse.

1079
00:56:29,640 --> 00:56:31,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would have been too. He wouldn't have gotten

1080
00:56:31,600 --> 00:56:33,280
Speaker 2: all the masturbation. I didn't get all these.

1081
00:56:33,560 --> 00:56:35,319
Speaker 1: He would not not have been a fan of all

1082
00:56:35,360 --> 00:56:41,440
Speaker 1: of the masturbation. Yeah, it's not interested in that. Yeah, yeah,

1083
00:56:41,719 --> 00:56:44,560
Speaker 1: explaining the Mermussy to Lawrence of Arabia. If I get

1084
00:56:44,560 --> 00:56:47,520
Speaker 1: my time machine working, I'm gonna go back in time

1085
00:56:47,640 --> 00:56:50,200
Speaker 1: and be like Lawrence, wait a second before you get

1086
00:56:50,239 --> 00:56:54,239
Speaker 1: on that motorcycle. Yeah all right. First off, this is

1087
00:56:54,280 --> 00:56:56,399
Speaker 1: a photo of a man named Willem Dafoe. He's gonna

1088
00:56:56,400 --> 00:56:59,520
Speaker 1: be born in a couple of decades. Great actor. Now

1089
00:56:59,560 --> 00:57:01,160
Speaker 1: I need to explained to you with something called a

1090
00:57:01,200 --> 00:57:03,680
Speaker 1: book series called the Twilight Series, this is not your

1091
00:57:03,760 --> 00:57:07,319
Speaker 1: time to books. There are vampires which I feel like

1092
00:57:07,360 --> 00:57:09,200
Speaker 1: you might be into, but not in the way that

1093
00:57:09,239 --> 00:57:09,920
Speaker 1: you're into them.

1094
00:57:10,239 --> 00:57:17,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I didn't. I didn't know the first thing

1095
00:57:17,640 --> 00:57:20,760
Speaker 2: about him. I've read about the Ottoman Empire, I've read

1096
00:57:20,760 --> 00:57:24,200
Speaker 2: about British man Naye Palestine. I knew that there was

1097
00:57:24,240 --> 00:57:27,240
Speaker 2: this guy. I never saw Lawrence of Arabia the movie.

1098
00:57:27,320 --> 00:57:28,760
Speaker 1: Oh it's great, you should see it.

1099
00:57:28,840 --> 00:57:30,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think by the time I would have

1100
00:57:30,240 --> 00:57:32,040
Speaker 2: watched it, I would have been like, ah, another movie

1101
00:57:32,080 --> 00:57:34,040
Speaker 2: about a white guy and off to go save the

1102
00:57:34,040 --> 00:57:37,920
Speaker 2: world or whatever. Yeah, and well, now I want to

1103
00:57:37,920 --> 00:57:38,640
Speaker 2: watch the movie.

1104
00:57:38,840 --> 00:57:40,920
Speaker 1: But yeah, I recommend it.

1105
00:57:42,280 --> 00:57:45,760
Speaker 2: No, he's he's interesting. And it's like most of the

1106
00:57:45,800 --> 00:57:49,200
Speaker 2: really simple narratives that are around available for him don't

1107
00:57:49,240 --> 00:57:53,240
Speaker 2: seem accurate. Yeah, you know, because like absolutely is Orientalism

1108
00:57:53,280 --> 00:57:57,040
Speaker 2: part of his story completely for sure? Yes, and like

1109
00:57:57,680 --> 00:58:00,760
Speaker 2: but it's but you can compare his or antilism to

1110
00:58:01,280 --> 00:58:04,360
Speaker 2: the guy the like daddy guy who like wants to

1111
00:58:04,440 --> 00:58:06,480
Speaker 2: go around the Ottoman Empire or whatever. Yeah, and then

1112
00:58:06,520 --> 00:58:10,360
Speaker 2: also you know, he's still doing bad while trying to

1113
00:58:10,360 --> 00:58:12,280
Speaker 2: do good. And oh man, he's interesting.

1114
00:58:12,680 --> 00:58:21,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, fascinating character. Oh yeah, and that's Laurence of Arabia. Well, Margaret,

1115
00:58:22,040 --> 00:58:25,560
Speaker 1: you're gonna go blow up the train now, uh legally

1116
00:58:26,080 --> 00:58:28,480
Speaker 1: legally not well cast over.

1117
00:58:29,280 --> 00:58:32,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, go listen to cool people, cool stuff if you

1118
00:58:32,440 --> 00:58:35,160
Speaker 2: like complicated moral stories about people that are kind of like.

1119
00:58:35,560 --> 00:58:39,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah, this was kind of that from me,

1120
00:58:39,800 --> 00:58:41,840
Speaker 1: because that is I guess we should answer the question

1121
00:58:41,920 --> 00:58:43,680
Speaker 1: I said we were going to be asking this, where

1122
00:58:43,680 --> 00:58:45,880
Speaker 1: do you land Lawrence of Arabia bastard? Yes or no?

1123
00:58:47,360 --> 00:58:49,320
Speaker 2: Bastard in the way that we're all doomed to be.

1124
00:58:51,080 --> 00:58:52,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that might be it.

1125
00:58:53,600 --> 00:58:55,600
Speaker 2: You can't go into it. You talk all the time

1126
00:58:55,600 --> 00:58:57,040
Speaker 2: on the show about how you can't go into war

1127
00:58:57,080 --> 00:58:59,320
Speaker 2: and come out with your hands clean, and I'm always like, yeah,

1128
00:58:59,320 --> 00:58:59,960
Speaker 2: but I probably could.

1129
00:59:00,520 --> 00:59:02,200
Speaker 1: I could get make it work.

1130
00:59:02,280 --> 00:59:04,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would just I would just stay morally clean,

1131
00:59:04,560 --> 00:59:05,680
Speaker 2: even if it kills me whatever.

1132
00:59:05,720 --> 00:59:06,680
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.

1133
00:59:06,760 --> 00:59:09,640
Speaker 2: And here's someone who wanted to stay morally clean even

1134
00:59:09,640 --> 00:59:11,360
Speaker 2: though it would kill him. And then he's like, oh no,

1135
00:59:11,520 --> 00:59:13,200
Speaker 2: never mind, I'm just gonna gun down everyone.

1136
00:59:13,520 --> 00:59:16,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, and timed to machine gun hundreds of people.

1137
00:59:17,200 --> 00:59:20,160
Speaker 2: So he is a bastard. And he's a bastard almost

1138
00:59:20,200 --> 00:59:23,360
Speaker 2: by like accident of birth and like thing he's involved in,

1139
00:59:23,840 --> 00:59:27,720
Speaker 2: rather than like a character treit. Yeah, you know, like

1140
00:59:28,040 --> 00:59:29,600
Speaker 2: he's up to some bastardrey.

1141
00:59:30,120 --> 00:59:38,240
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's tough. It's tough. He did his best, uh,

1142
00:59:38,720 --> 00:59:41,040
Speaker 1: but he also probably shouldn't have been doing some of

1143
00:59:41,040 --> 00:59:42,000
Speaker 1: the things he was doing.

1144
00:59:43,240 --> 00:59:46,600
Speaker 2: It's a mix, yeah, like, don't stumble around in the fog.

1145
00:59:47,560 --> 00:59:49,760
Speaker 1: Around in the fog of a foreign country, and yeah,

1146
00:59:49,760 --> 00:59:55,800
Speaker 1: and try to institute new states. Uh, maybe you don't

1147
00:59:55,800 --> 00:59:58,760
Speaker 1: know what you're doing. Maybe that's a bad idea. Maybe

1148
00:59:59,080 --> 01:00:02,880
Speaker 1: maybe maybe there's more wisdom in the prime direct. Not

1149
01:00:02,960 --> 01:00:05,040
Speaker 1: that this is a less advance, I'm not saying that,

1150
01:00:05,080 --> 01:00:07,440
Speaker 1: but like just in the idea that, like, don't just

1151
01:00:07,480 --> 01:00:12,040
Speaker 1: go stick in your dick in every fucking situation you see, right, Yeah,

1152
01:00:12,040 --> 01:00:14,320
Speaker 1: maybe the fact that some people are having a ward

1153
01:00:14,480 --> 01:00:18,080
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that you need to like make a call there, right.

1154
01:00:17,920 --> 01:00:20,040
Speaker 2: Even though you fell in love with one of them.

1155
01:00:19,920 --> 01:00:21,600
Speaker 1: Even though you fell in love with one of them,

1156
01:00:21,600 --> 01:00:24,040
Speaker 1: and even though it is very sweet to say I'm

1157
01:00:24,040 --> 01:00:28,320
Speaker 1: going to liberate his entire race, Yeah, yeah, it's also

1158
01:00:28,400 --> 01:00:31,160
Speaker 1: pretty fucked up and orientalist to do. So maybe just

1159
01:00:31,200 --> 01:00:35,080
Speaker 1: don't do that. Maybe maybe just buy him like some chocolates,

1160
01:00:35,320 --> 01:00:38,760
Speaker 1: you know, maybe chocolates are better than launching a rebellion.

1161
01:00:39,520 --> 01:00:41,760
Speaker 2: Maybe the ring of power needs to be cast into

1162
01:00:41,760 --> 01:00:43,560
Speaker 2: the fiery yeah pits of Mount Doom.

1163
01:00:43,680 --> 01:00:46,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sorry, yes he is. There is some strong

1164
01:00:46,800 --> 01:00:52,920
Speaker 1: Boramir vibes to t Lawrence. Yeah, he was boramir maxing

1165
01:00:52,960 --> 01:00:54,000
Speaker 1: there for a little while.

1166
01:00:54,200 --> 01:00:58,080
Speaker 2: Wonder some of the story about like going across the

1167
01:00:58,120 --> 01:01:00,640
Speaker 2: desert to go get the Allies to attack the city. Yeah,

1168
01:01:00,760 --> 01:01:03,520
Speaker 2: liked Tokien read that and then a going to go

1169
01:01:03,600 --> 01:01:06,360
Speaker 2: find the like undead army to bring it to bear.

1170
01:01:06,640 --> 01:01:09,440
Speaker 1: Like Token obviously would say like no, you know, this

1171
01:01:09,600 --> 01:01:11,800
Speaker 1: is none of it because that was always his stance.

1172
01:01:11,840 --> 01:01:16,160
Speaker 1: But like yeah, also, like obviously World War One influenced

1173
01:01:16,280 --> 01:01:19,400
Speaker 1: what he wrote, and this is part of World War One.

1174
01:01:19,720 --> 01:01:23,440
Speaker 1: This definitely who definitely takes from this. This is the

1175
01:01:23,480 --> 01:01:27,560
Speaker 1: basis of doom, right, Yeah, Like this is directly like

1176
01:01:27,600 --> 01:01:29,720
Speaker 1: this is not I'm not like going out on a linear.

1177
01:01:29,800 --> 01:01:32,000
Speaker 1: This is directly what inspires a lot of doom.

1178
01:01:32,280 --> 01:01:32,680
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1179
01:01:32,760 --> 01:01:35,120
Speaker 1: Right, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, and it's

1180
01:01:35,120 --> 01:01:38,600
Speaker 1: not really all that hard to see why, you know. Yeah.

1181
01:01:38,640 --> 01:01:41,480
Speaker 1: And it's also it's interesting because it shows that Frank Herbert,

1182
01:01:41,520 --> 01:01:44,520
Speaker 1: I think, understood this similarly to we Do to how

1183
01:01:44,560 --> 01:01:47,000
Speaker 1: we do, because dude is fundamentally about how like it's

1184
01:01:47,000 --> 01:01:49,080
Speaker 1: a really bad idea to have this white savior stumble

1185
01:01:49,120 --> 01:01:52,200
Speaker 1: into another culture and just start leading a war. It

1186
01:01:52,240 --> 01:01:54,760
Speaker 1: does not end well. He goes crazy. He com it's

1187
01:01:54,760 --> 01:01:58,680
Speaker 1: a shitload of war crimes. He becomes an absolute monster,

1188
01:02:00,120 --> 01:02:03,400
Speaker 1: and like, Okay, you got it. You really took the

1189
01:02:03,480 --> 01:02:07,040
Speaker 1: right thing out of the te Lawrence story. Unfortunately, everyone

1190
01:02:07,160 --> 01:02:10,360
Speaker 1: is going to interpret your book wrong for forever because

1191
01:02:10,400 --> 01:02:13,080
Speaker 1: you made the horrible mistake of doing it making it

1192
01:02:13,120 --> 01:02:14,160
Speaker 1: all look really cool.

1193
01:02:14,640 --> 01:02:15,160
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1194
01:02:15,720 --> 01:02:17,880
Speaker 2: Ah, well that's why I don't.

1195
01:02:17,760 --> 01:02:21,320
Speaker 1: Like Yeah, this is why I don't write fiction about,

1196
01:02:21,640 --> 01:02:25,240
Speaker 1: for example, anarchist militant characters who are are meant to

1197
01:02:25,280 --> 01:02:29,320
Speaker 1: be very complicated and not necessarily good people. But I

1198
01:02:29,360 --> 01:02:31,960
Speaker 1: also like writing about cool people, so they wind up

1199
01:02:32,000 --> 01:02:34,600
Speaker 1: sounding cool, and then people are like, oh, is this

1200
01:02:34,640 --> 01:02:36,040
Speaker 1: guy a good guy? No, no, he's not.

1201
01:02:37,480 --> 01:02:39,800
Speaker 2: And Bernie was curious they should go read Robert's book

1202
01:02:39,800 --> 01:02:42,720
Speaker 2: After the Revolution, because that is what that is talking, Yes.

1203
01:02:42,720 --> 01:02:45,640
Speaker 1: A book full of morally compromised people who regret their

1204
01:02:45,680 --> 01:02:47,680
Speaker 1: actions in war just get to say.

1205
01:02:48,320 --> 01:02:52,520
Speaker 3: Where sunscreen, yeah, plots of water, touch grass, and pet

1206
01:02:52,560 --> 01:02:54,680
Speaker 3: a dog if that dog says they want to be petted.

1207
01:02:55,000 --> 01:02:57,200
Speaker 2: And if you want to do a moral action that

1208
01:02:57,280 --> 01:02:59,120
Speaker 2: is essentially never wrong. Feed people.

1209
01:02:59,840 --> 01:03:03,439
Speaker 1: People don't blow up bridges, you know what. Honestly, more

1210
01:03:03,480 --> 01:03:06,960
Speaker 1: often than not, blowing up bridges works out badly. Sure,

1211
01:03:07,080 --> 01:03:09,600
Speaker 1: don't don't blow up a bridge unless you're a hurricane.

1212
01:03:09,720 --> 01:03:12,560
Speaker 1: Then like that's your business, you know, And not that

1213
01:03:12,680 --> 01:03:15,120
Speaker 1: I support it, but you know, you have that right.

1214
01:03:15,120 --> 01:03:17,160
Speaker 3: Hurricane, And if you do want to if you do

1215
01:03:17,240 --> 01:03:19,440
Speaker 3: want to do a hurricane, just call up Nancy Pelosi

1216
01:03:19,440 --> 01:03:21,320
Speaker 3: because she's got that hurricane on speed dial.

1217
01:03:21,760 --> 01:03:24,360
Speaker 1: Oh. I don't know what that's a reference to. I

1218
01:03:24,400 --> 01:03:26,800
Speaker 1: only know about to drink. What the fuck is I

1219
01:03:26,840 --> 01:03:31,440
Speaker 1: assume controlling the weather? Hurricane? Oh okay, I was.

1220
01:03:31,440 --> 01:03:33,760
Speaker 2: Just doing I've been doing a bunch of episodes about

1221
01:03:33,760 --> 01:03:38,520
Speaker 2: witches recently, and they they were believed to control the weather,

1222
01:03:38,600 --> 01:03:40,840
Speaker 2: and that was a It was actually not actually what

1223
01:03:40,920 --> 01:03:42,440
Speaker 2: caused the wish hunts, but a lot of them were.

1224
01:03:43,120 --> 01:03:45,080
Speaker 2: People were like, oh, the witches control the weather. And

1225
01:03:45,080 --> 01:03:47,160
Speaker 2: I'm like, ha ha ha, look at you, silly early

1226
01:03:47,280 --> 01:03:50,840
Speaker 2: modern fools thinking people. Oh crap, nope, that's happening now.

1227
01:03:52,200 --> 01:04:00,120
Speaker 3: Yep. Yeah, anyway, anyway, Bye.

1228
01:04:00,280 --> 01:04:03,000
Speaker 4: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

1229
01:04:03,360 --> 01:04:06,640
Speaker 4: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia

1230
01:04:06,800 --> 01:04:10,000
Speaker 4: dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1231
01:04:10,080 --> 01:04:12,560
Speaker 4: Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

1232
01:04:12,840 --> 01:04:16,240
Speaker 3: Behind the Bastards is now available on YouTube, new episodes

1233
01:04:16,520 --> 01:04:20,160
Speaker 3: every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to our channel YouTube dot

1234
01:04:20,200 --> 01:04:22,760
Speaker 3: com slash at Behind the Bastards