We've Never Had it So Good
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.พ. 2025
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"We're going to hell in a handcart." That's the cry of the deteriorationists who believe everything has got worse: the planet is overheating, population numbers are exploding, communities are being lost; liberal democracy is creaking on its foundations, and for twentysomethings prospects are looking seriously grim: they're leaving university with substantial debts, little hope of finding a job and next to no chance of getting on the property ladder. Meanwhile, children no longer romp outside and explore the world but fester indoors with their iPads posting selfies and surfing internet porn. As for culture, both classical and pop music pale in comparison to the heights reached in the past. Art has become a corporate fetish, and the figure our times now exalt is no longer the artist or the scientist but the celebrity.
But which age, argue the optimists, would these people prefer to live in? The age when they burnt witches? When women were chattels? When disease and agony could not be addressed by antibiotics and anaesthetics? Anyone who isn't a killjoy should recognise that now is the golden age: we are freer, richer, warmer, healthier, and more tolerant of differences than we've ever been in history. The internet has brought the world to our finger tips, cheap travel has allowed us to roam the earth and almost everything -- good food, entertainment, music -- that was once limited to the very rich is available to most of us in infinite variety.
We've never had it so good because most of us have a fresh coffee maker. *Except everyone who can't have one.* Unbelievable. Does she realise she's becoming a parody of her own arguments?
PurushaDesa Sadly, no she doesn't and she never will.
I'm not rich by any means but I'm sure I have a better,healthier,more varied and self-fulfilled life than a 19th century millionaire
I have friends who work for an electronics company. For every one of them, their wages today are only two-thirds to 60% of what they were ten years ago. They continue to work for the same company because there are few jobs to be had. They are afraid to leave and try elsewhere, because most jobs here are restricted hours/part-time and usually minimum wage. No-one, married and both earning, has a hope of buying a house, and yet they are paying rents that would easily be the equal of a mortgage payment on a small starter home ten years ago. And here comes some tory to tell them they've never had it so good. I'd cheerfully reserve a lamp-post for the idiot.
Johnson is far too sporadic and spends far too much time hoping around _non sequitur_ examples. She even managed to quote examples that when entirely against her point.
LOL, "There are so many food banks! Isn't the generosity wonderful!"
@@MatthewMcVeagh tc gute bin h
@@markuskhan3492 ?
@@MatthewMcVeagh "Red Nose Day, Red Buttocks Day, Red Genitals Day..."
'Do you put on a prosaic suit'. Good comeback from Self.
Will Self + Rod Liddle = superb tag-team.
***** So you have no thoughts on this video?
***** So you just go to random videos to insult the commentators? How pathetic. How tragic.
Will Self is the genius!!
"Rachel starved herself for charity"
'Breathe, walk, think, meditate.' That was a beautiful moment.
must be nice to not only be wealthy enough to be having it so good but to be able to lecture the rest of us that it's the case for us all... no it frickin aint!
Rachel Johnson appeared seriously out of her depth. I thought Boris was a waffler, but she's far worse. I bet her debating partner was wincing all the way though her airy-fairy ramble. Why the hell did he accept to team up with such a numpty.
Can't say I felt sorry for Jesse Norman but I was certainly imagining him grinding his teeth.
Within the first seconds Jesse Norman pisses me off. The reference to schooling unnecessary? I don't think so -- the over saturation of old etonians is an embarrassing display of the class and wealth divide in the uk.
How can they find being poor and having mental illness so amusing. Makes me sick.
At least one person in this world cares about the poor and mentally ill.
Obviously things are better and worse at the same time
GCSE English students will really benefit from watching these IQ Squared debates! Good luck with your speaking and listening!
Totally agree with Will Self, how can we say that we've never had it so good when we can never truly understand or know the feelings of the person most closest to us? I'm sure if you ask a homeless person the question in contrast to an upper class citizen the question you'd get different answers. The question is completely relative to the individual being asked and is why its such a pointless question. Love these debates though
Go ask the King how good he had it 2 centuries ago when he was shitting into a wooden bucket.
Will Self will never understand that Society is not equal ?
@@susannamarker2582 I think he understands.
Never having it so good should mean that if you are in full employment you should be financially o.k. . Well to put it simply millions of people are in full employment and struggling. 40 yrs of wage stagnation opposed to a huge increase in wealth by the 1% . That is a cheque mate to any idea of ' we've never had it so good'
When in recent history and distant history did we have it better in terms of material goods, comforts and services and access to information?
I know I drive a better car, with a better cell phone and live in a better house than my parents did at my age. Especially since cell phones didn't exist. I also have air conditioning which is something that they didn't always have
You should never settle, things can always get better.
Either Norman is deliberately doing an impersonation of Boris Johnson, or these Etonian hooray henry clones are manufactured in a factory somewhere outside London.
Those tories just make me want to smash my computer up.
Thanks for holding the line, Will.
The vast majority of people today, even those in lower socioeconomic classes, have a better life than kings ever had. Even kings didn't have access to an almost endless supply of clean drinking water and people have regular access to food kings only ate on special occasion. There's also a good chance you'll never meet someone who lost a child or wife/mother giving birth. If you get sick your doctors won't "bleed" you in order to balance the body's humors. You will also live much longer than most kings and travel further and more safely than any king could dream of. The level of sanitation you experience is far superior to what kings had and your house isn't always filled with smoke. You have access to more information, education, clothing and leisure activities than most king ever had.
01:12:10 - notice how it is always the rich who claim that everyone else is better off. I see it as a cynical ploy to keep everyone else below them. Yet for some reason they can never earn enough, can't they see the irony in them never having enough when they claim that everyone else has enough?
As for Rachel Johnson claiming that coffee machines have materially made our lives better it just shows how out of touch she is with the average English person who would happily give up coffee machines for an affordable mortgage.
The coffee machines she is referring to, I assume, are the type where you insert a little plastic container that holds just the right amount of coffee for 1 cup. These are incredibly wasteful and cause more waste in the environment from the discarded used-up containers. All this because people are assumed to be incapable of using a spoon to move the coffee from their coffee tin in to their coffee machine. I call my coffee machine a saucepan because that is what it is and it makes perfectly acceptable coffee.
I also agree with the first half of your comment. People judge others by their own standards. I live in a free-hold house so naturally I assume that everyone else does as well. lol
The question is, what is the motivation of people who remind us that despite our problems today, "we've never had it so good". On the one hand, certainly all of us know this is true in itself, so saying it would seem irrelevant. On the other hand, are they saying it as an excuse to curb progress. Certainly we have groups with vested interest in the status quo, also a totally uncontroversial fact.
"All of us know this is true in itself" All? Are you deluded? Did you even watch the debate?
@@johannesdesilentio1536 Name one time in recent history and one time in distant history where a randomly selected person in the world would be better off economically or comfort/safety wise than they are today?
I think the question is do all these goods, services, comforts that are more abundantly available to all of us actually make us feel like we have it "good," and that is what was largely argued by the victorious opponents here.
No doubt your average person has a better, more reliable car, with more features in the UK than they did a generation ago. They also have access to world class education, free lectures from Yale and other universities... However, they are also living in a state of increased anxiety due to constant bombardment of negativity from media, news and social media. If they aren't paying attention to that, then often it's a state of anxiety about their social media posts, who likes it, etc. What is the solution?
What!? Why isn't Peter Hitchens on the panel!? The deteriorationist extraordinaire!
his doom and gloom is insufferable
@@corpgov The perfect pick-me-up. lol
Fascinating in 2020 to watch these tories from 2014 tell us how things are moving in the right direction.
Funny and eery to watch this now... Sort of like my ancestors back in 1919 Soviet Russia sitting around a crudely made metal stove, burning their furniture in it, and reading The Apollo (arts and literature) magazine from 1913...
We've never had so much pressure and so many opportunities offshored or given to foreigners... I've seen real wages stagnate while house prices rise exponentially. Food prices rising, bills too... As a poor person I've got poorer in real terms while you rich-heads got richer off my hard work. Electronics may be cheaper but that's a landfill of poison for the brain-warped, mobile phone addicted kids smashed in the head by social media and communication overload.
To those who did not understand Will Self's argument .
When he used to word 'We' In a totalitarian sense , he was referring to the growing trend of society to view all members of society as a collective group of consumer demand and determining how well off a community is by looking at how much money goes in and out of the system .
He also implys that 'Never' and 'Good' are subjective terms . Yes , we may argue about scientific advancement over years gone by , aye, that's true in the aspect of health and well being we're better off than our ancestors in medieval times but consider modern society from the view of a priest of the middle ages , he may say that our godless society and our blind devotion to money and wealth in these times is terrible and to him, atleast , people were better off in the middle ages . We have to remember that health and wealth are not the only determiners for judging to quality of life of an individual
I am NOW 67 and I is so fick and stupid were was education education education for my generation. I must I must improve my wealth. TOO LATE FOR ME we shell see .wish me luck
"Never" is also an absolutist term, something which I dislike as it is inflexible and therefore unrealistic.
It would be nice if they could debate instead of trying out their new standup routines.
you'd have to go to the Oxford Student Union for that
The first speaker was following the principle of "If a little is good, more must be better".
Will Self killed it...
No he didn't. He drones on like a priest at a funeral.
Unfortunately, Johnson has made it quite clear why she is often referred to simply as *the sister of X*.
What planet is this woman on?
holenewman - privileged white bitch queen - that's a real planet now...
23 mins, died of laughter. Very well done by both sides thus far
This IQ2 debate was a debacle and really does not address some of the true issues facing the vast majority of society today. I wonder how these people would have reacted if they held this debate in some of the poorer parts of London. Both sides of politics has failed us.
The collective"we" is not all inclusive but applies to the majority on the planet. Most of us are better off as we have never had so much control of our circumstances. No one has the authority to populate Australia. Also, we have a much greater understanding of the less fortunate or different. Just being understood is better than not being acknowledged. My grandma worried about what was in store for us. She had no clue of how she took all her hardship for granted.
I agree with the motion, "no" we have not had it so good, but the girl at 1:15 seems like a classic, lefty woke snowflake who doesn't really know what she is taking about
Spot on Rod.
I agree with Rod, we should double the minimum wage, actually, lets make it £100/hour, that way we will all be happy, I mean, its not like companies would hire fewer staff, leave the country, automate those roles....... Or just put their prices up and therefore the people earning double the minimum wage would then complain they couldn't afford to eat.
Double the minimum wage? This would force most of the workforce out of the opportunity for a job. If the company had to pay £100 for one position they would not be able to afford jobs for anyone else. Then you get rising unemployment, a strained welfare state and consumer prices rising too. In other words - a catastrophe. It's a bit of an economic fairyland you describe above.
+schumiisking English skills? You might think about using a capital letter at the beginning of your sentences. You might think about practising what you preach. You seem like a lovely person. Fancy a coffee sometime?
+Jake Stutz He is a lovely person Jake isn't he?
Wilf self is such an arsehole
Rod Liddle has hit the nail. Will amuses ironically
i think will self is taken for granted, the guys an utter gift.
HAHAHA I LOVE Will Self!
pretentious twats. Someone has to pay.
superior to martin amis ?? why?...how?
" I love will self ".................. You must set your bar very low then!! Will Self looks and sounds like the living DEAD. Will self would be more happy if we were ALL SKINT just so long as we were all the same.
City Zen............... Ha ! The same could be said of Adolf Hitler, Stalin and any other crackpot you care to mention !!
The people laughing at Will Self's remarks are so uneasy in their laughter as they go on. He must have had a few drinks that day.
People probably WERE depressed in the past they just didn't get it recognised and spent their lives miserable.
So big pharma would of solved depression? Big Phama has been a HUGE FAILURE on depression, and a Huge Success on profitability on useless depression meds
Will thank you very much. I've given up on life and am about to jump.
Well at least the audience were intelligent enough to react against the rubbish spewed forth by the likes of Johnson and Norman. Is it just me, or did Rachel Johnson undermine her own argument by talking about Matt Ridley, a speculative selfish individual, as an example of 'never having it so good' and did she even mention fracking in a somewhat positive light? Not surprising they lost votes, as no one likes to be lectured too by the over privileged. Say what you want about Will self, at least he is genuinely funny, isn't unctuously all over you and makes good points. As far as depression in a consumerist society goes, I don't agree with him on most things, but I think Marx was right on the money with the concept of 'alienation'. As we live further away from the making and value of the objects we consume the perceived value of them becomes skewed and those that possess less can only judge themselves inferior against those that have more in a society where consumption equates to happiness. Also, as the rich become entirely divorced form the immediate dependence on their surroundings and neighbours through virtue of their money in an increasingly globalised and image obsessed world, most people can only be the outsiders looking in and can only judge themselves wanting in comparison.
Will Self says "I didn't go to public school" but has before admitted to attending University College School, so what is going on here?
What's going on is you don't understand what a public school is....
Rod: you're so right about so much, but my working class mother and father would be horrified to see you chewing while you're talking.
It's nicotine gum.
WHY? A pointless debate when their are NO actual unemployed or homeless people on the panel, or single mothers or indeed any "poor" people?
Rachel Johnson is the most hottest grandma ive seen
She's a grandma? Hubba Hubba !!
A splendid result
Astoundingly thought provoking crowd. Good use of good education :-) intangibles count
very funny. A revolutionary definition for personal attitudes.
If Peter Cook and Pete Townshend could have procreated back in the early 60s,would they have given birth to Will Self ?
Of course-the key word being 'if'.
Not having read a British tabloid for 30 years I had no idea she was Boris`sister. I`m grateful she brought it up though as it saved me listening to ten minutes of privileged nonsense.
Thanks for the heads up Boris` sister! Sorry, I`ve already forgotten your name.
Material wealth is not everything. Ruling 1/4 of the globe gives you respect and honor. People also dressed well. Victorian England is when you'd want to live.
Who? Me?
Who's we?
Scarey thing is the fors seem to actually believe their own shit.
All the people who usually champion Rod don't seem to have followed him to this comment section.
The imagery of a double-posted smiley emoticon captures all too well exactly the shallow hubris of positivism as defended here for the motion. That being said, I side for the motion because I think that the objective evidences for quality of life and well being are simply too strong.
Several times throughout the debate I imagined our primal ancestors surviving among a small tribe on the planes of Africa some 200,000 years ago. Its near impossible to imagine what the raw state of this primal being would be like, but its how I tend to frame for prospective when contextualizing the absurdities of our modern existences. Will's point on walking really demonstrated the desire to grab calm and reflective fresh air for those who see our society as a cage with too many rats.
Jesse Norman and Will Self were pure #banter
we take all the wonders we can avail ourselves of in the west for granted,if our electricity went down for a few days,we d realise just how lucky we are,that being said,i find most people i come across are not as happy as people were, in the not too distant past,i personally have been taken off benefits,and i have many chronic health issues,and now find myself scrabbling around for work that isn't easy to find nowadays,while they let big corporations off billions in taxes,and swamp our country with immigrants who are nearly all on benefits,it makes no sense
"Jessie Norman would be singing..."
Pearls before swine...
Lost it all in 2008. Never had it so bad
last guy nailed it
Jesse Norman? I try to avoid listening to what Tory politicians have to say because they all seem to remind me in some way or other of Boris Johnson but I thought I'd give this guy a shot, and guess what, Boris without the blonde wig.
Why does the Johnson family insist upon obscuring their faces with their ludicrous hair dos? :)
I have to say the side that disagree are unbeleivably emotional and impolite and incapable of being objective. The other side are simply saying things are better 'today' than 'yesterday', which unfortunatley is just pointing out the obvious but, as usual both sides are right. The question is how to we look to the good and say "yes please more and more of that" so we can articulate exactly what is bad and say "No thank you less and less of that please". Surley if we can't meet this standard, as a bare minimum, then we are all guilty of refusing to change ourselves and the lives of those around us, pro-activley.
Who gives a public lecture whilst chewing gum into the mic? Rod Liddle thats who. He was on the right side of the argument at least.
Apparently it was Nicotine Gum so I suppose it was better than actually smoking instead.
will self you absolute don
Self Will is the problem.
As a host Jonathon is good..
Now thats decided....what do we do to fix the problem?
Also where do we lock up these damn "yay sayers" lol
A Tory and a columnist for the Fail on Sunday. Charming pair.
Professor Snape crushed it
this was entertaining but it seems like 4 people shouting up their own bum holes.
If we have uncontrolled immigration, we can never help the immigrants who do come to integrate and have it good.
Manufacturing will reshore and is coming back, but will increasingly be carried out by robotics unless on micro scale perhaps.
Will Self talks a lot but never really says anything.
I find it the other way around.
@@minkleymcmoo5248 he uses one long esoteric word too many for my liking
poor guys they want to work but they cant because they have criminal records. boohoo
Whats this lady doing here. I bet she is known for being related to a important/ smart guy, because she clearly isn't.
"so much good to be have"
I agree with Rod, we should double the minimum wage, actually, lets make it £100/hour, that way we will all be happy, I mean, its not like companies would hire fewer staff, leave the country, automate those roles....... Or just put their prices up and therefore the people earning double the minimum wage would then complain they couldn't afford to eat.
Actually they wouldn't, the relationship between the cost of labour and the employment rate are non-linear as an increase in wage tends to drive spending (a primary factor of growth) and thus the drop off in employment is not as large as to negate any benefit. This is economics 101 kid.
AmateurDeadbeat
I agree, if you pay your staff £100 an hour your costs go down, makes sense.
Atlas Shrugged
Trust a Randroid to not grasp that economics is nuanced and can't be concluded with one big broad stroke of rhetoric.
AmateurDeadbeat
All you have is Ad Homs and zero economic understanding, run along, you're boring.
Atlas Shrugged
Nah this is pretty basic economics, a highschooler could grasp it. (although I understand if that is above your level of thought)
Sooo lets hold this on in Chelsea guys, you recon it'l have an effect on the crowd response and question type?
The change in the vote between the first and the last poll indicated that even the "well to do" were influenced by this debate.
No, your schooling's kinda relevant mate. Now who else went there I wonder?
Oh the good ol’ days
Is this becoming the Will Self Show ?
I thought the title for the video was a Tory slogan..?
Years ago when i was growing up my home was one where we sat together and talked about everything and anything with our family. We played games like cards, monopoly, dice games, scrabble, and kicked the ball in the street with our friends. This was a part of my life that future generations after mine have lost.
Self amusement has taken over with the internet and the i phone. people now sit with head buried in phone alone for hours, perhaps 12 hours per day for many. What an awful change this modern technology has brought with it. If only the modern generation had those hours of bonding with loved ones and friends they would be so much better off.
That explains why 50% of modern day people have anxiety, stress, and other mental illness.
By the way, Will Self is a drug fucked product of the sixties, who thinks he is in recovery, but the damage has been done and now all he can do is try to sound intelligent by appealing to peoples desire to rebel against the elites. The joke is he has become one of those himself, and is desperately trying to relate to people who are nothing like him.
He tries to use long words to impress, but if you listen carefully his ramblings are no more or less than you would expect from a drug damaged guy who sits on the park bench and says "whats life all about man?"
The question is simple Will .... We means the majority, and never means there has not been a previous time where the majority have had things so good.
I have given an example of how the quality of one important side of life has deteriorated. In some other areas it has improved. The challenge here was to balance the good against the bad, not to make a semantics lesson about it and completely ignore the question.
It's tragically hilarious to witness your personal petulant impertinent insults, at someone whose entire argument against the motion, supports your opening paragraph.
I guess, with Will having been a clear crowd favourite, the audience was also "fucked on drugs". Ey?
You should look into another aspect of his viewpoint: Which is that you sit among the depressed he referenced in support of his answer to the question, which was thoroughly addressed, and not ignored by him, as per your unbacked claim.
Finally, one need not be living the circumstances of another in order to understand and/or offer up actionable sympathy. Impactful social behaviourists do this for a living. Surely they do not relate on every level to the people whose living standards they aim to improve and restore🤷🏾♂️.
*We've never had it so good.* _In so many ways and aspects this is *true*._
I'm thankful for the groundbreaking advances in technology & medicine that we can enjoy and make proper use of.
I would even claim that we (at least in Europe) have made great advances in our cultural and ethical (ie. spiritual?) development.
And even if we believe that we are facing some sort of dilemma of the soul, then we should really push forward a more optimistic view of our situation. I cannot agree with Will Self's position and posture, here, although I understand his point of view.
It's not helpful and it isn't even reasonable or realistic to take the position of being victimized and cheated by society, culture and politics. This is a rather paralyzing, pessimistic view and we don't need that.
I wish we would have heard better speeches for the notion...
Yes. We've never had it so good. But: It's not good enough!
(That addendum perhaps would have changed a lot.)
BECAUSE we are facing dramatic challenges in the not so far future, we have to cherish and make proper use of the undeniably great social, economic, technological , medicinal & scientific advantages that we inherited and established for ourselves.
The majority on Earth, like a billion Chinese as opposed to 2 m. HKeese, have never had it so good and it will get even better as wars can't be controlled by the powerful - it can easily spiral out of control.
After 2 minutes of the Johnson woman I knew who was going to win. What an embarrassment.
And while I loved Will as I always do, I was actually impressed by Rod Liddle's more down to Earth contribution (which Self himself praised). I've not liked or agreed with everything he's said in the past but I thought he gave a really well-thought out and spirited speech here.
As soon as I saw which side Will Self was debating for I knew which side would win.
if you've NEVER had it how can you have it now?
Whenever I listen to Will Self, I'm struck by 2 things. One, how deeply immersed he is in his own navel; sadly, this is what 'academic discourse' sounds like these days. And two, how even his jokes and smiles are tinged with a quite genuine despair. I do not think it likely that any man whose final word on life is a cynical smirk has very much to teach us.
John Deighan interesting character - don't read his books though !
honest pride is better than fake humbleness
I love intellectual women...why didn't they get one for this debate?
Thank you for that wonderful piece of sexism.
Adds to the debate as to whether we've never had it so good, in favour of against the motion.
i was coming to a junction that is usually busy and their was a crown of people standing on the pavement waiting for the green man as i strode across with the red man ON i said 'you are all sheep' some went with me some still stayed on the pavement to wait for the safety of the 'green man' but NO ONE SAID A DAM WORD AT MY INSULT BAAAA
Was there any traffic coming?
Will Self is such a bore. He could (should ?) audition as Lurch in the Addams Family.
that eton public speaking style is awful
Will Self is the misery on society.
Rod Liddle is bang on
Crikey, wish the chair was'nt slobbering all over Will Self...
I'm not watching this, bore me senseless. But anyone who seriously thinks we've not got it better today than previous generations, in real terms, is conjuring, contriving some idealised/nostalgic concept of a past that barely existed. Though all things are relative, subjective, reality dictates to me that in real terms there is no point in human history that I would rather be alive in compared to today, for a plethora/myriad of reasons, and that despite so much sick, evil degeneracy and avarice in this world of 2014.
You really should have watched it; Will Self argued against the notion for purely semantic reasons, pulling apart the very wording and accusing it of all manor of totalitarian and dystopian connotations - there was certainly a unique and entertaining twist to the whole wrangle.
It may have been unique and entertaining but it was largely flawed. I've never been more disappointed in an audience. How naive or self-indulgent one has to be to disagree with the motion. How little perspective one must have to reject the notion that we've never had it so good - that is an incontrovertible truth. All Will Self had to do was cater to our insipid tendency to self-sympathise.
James Sherlock In what way is it an incontrovertible truth? You haven't explained your argument at all.
I _would_ read your *block* of unsolicited text but that'd 'bore me senseless' - Think I'll just watch the vid.
I think most would agree that in many respects, life was better before. It depends on what your idea of better is.
Why isn't Steven Pinker on this panel?
Heber Diaz Perhaps he wasn't asked.
I laughed very hard many times watching and listening to this 'debate', I often thought it clear why I had to laugh but other times I had a laugh that wasn't clear, though laughed nonetheless. Care not if I am left or right, rich or poor, agnostic or atheist, I am too inept to give any on this panel a decent rebuff unless deep in my cups!
Snobbery