Who We Are: On Western Values
City Journal Audio
Manhattan Institute
4.7 • 656 Ratings
🗓️ 18 February 2026
⏱️ 67 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Author and cultural critic Douglas Murray joins Rafael Mangual to talk about the growing challenges facing the West. They discuss the rise of anti-Semitism, the failures of socialism, and the erosion of free speech, especially in the U.K. Murray makes a clear case for defending Western values with courage, clarity, and action.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to another episode of the City Journal podcast. |
| 0:10.6 | I'm your host, Rafael Menguil, and I am so thrilled to be joined by my colleague, Douglas |
| 0:15.5 | Murray. It is so nice to get to call you a colleague now. |
| 0:18.1 | Well, likewise. |
| 0:19.1 | I have followed your work for such a long time. |
| 0:22.1 | I've been such a fan, and I think it's incredibly important, so I'm really excited to talk to you about that today. |
| 0:28.6 | For those of you who've been watching the show, you know that we spent the last few weeks of this show kind of doing this series called Who We Are, where we take deeper dives into the topics at the Manhattan Institute and that City Journal has been covering. |
| 0:41.2 | And today's conversation, I'd really like to focus on, you know, the broader defense of the West, we'll say. |
| 0:50.0 | But before we get to the substance, I do want to just like to ask our guests sort of how we ended up in this world. |
| 0:56.2 | I think that's always interesting to people, you know, who read our work and think about what we do and think to themselves, well, you know, how does one end up, you know, as a public intellectual? |
| 1:05.9 | And if, you know, if I had to read your bio, which I won't do because you're the man who needs no introductions, |
| 1:11.9 | I think, you know, the title that best fits you is Defender of the West, I think. |
| 1:17.6 | You know, if I had to choose what to put on your tombstone, that's what I would put on it. |
| 1:23.1 | And, you know, how does one end up there? |
| 1:28.5 | Like a lot of our things in life in a way by accident, and a way by surprise, nothing I've |
| 1:36.0 | written or said or studied in my public life is anything that strikes me as being |
| 1:42.8 | very surprising. |
| 1:45.2 | I suppose if I accept the title you're willing to put, I hope, many decades, Anna, on my |
| 1:52.1 | tombstone, if I was to accept that title, it would be with some amazement still that |
| 1:58.5 | the West sort of needs defending or explaining or justifying or anything like that. |
| 2:07.2 | But I suppose that, I mean, they say that everybody thinks that the family and the situation they grow up in is the same situation every other person grows up in |
| 2:18.8 | the same sort of set up, same family. And of course then as you get into adulthood, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Manhattan Institute, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Manhattan Institute and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.