John Cleese has unleashed a damning verdict on today's "authoritatian" woke culture after spending over six decades in the spotlight.
Reflecting on how attitudes have changed and why "woke" people won't debate him about today's landscape, the GB News star said in discussion with Helen Pluckrose: "As I am a straight, white male - and an imperialist..."
"Apparently, yes," Pluckrose interjected with a chuckle before Cleese asked: "Is that why they won't speak to me?"
"It certainly is a big strike against you, yes," Pluckrose replied as she attempted to provide the answers someone who subscribed to wokery would give.
She continued: "But even more than that, have you taken effort to educate yourself, do the work, uncover your own biases, dismantle your whiteness, detoxify your masculinity and colonise your concepts of knowledge?
"Because if you have not done any of these, than you are not woke, you are not awake to the systems of power and privilege.
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"You are still asleep and so there is no point in speaking to you."
Cleese weighed back in to suggest "the whole thing sounds authoritarian" before he likened the attitude to that of the medieval church.
Pluckrose replied by suggesting that if someone truly believed that the way to achieve social justice was to rule with an iron fist over people's language, then they would subscribe to today's wokery.
Elsewhere in the show, Cleese discusses new research which shows one in four Brits have ditched a pal purely because they "reject their point of view".
Cleese said: "Whenever I'm asked to be interviewed on the BBC, even though it's supposed to be about the mating habits of ringtail lemurs, the first question will be what about cancel culture?
"Because mentioning cancel culture is the best way of geeing people up and that guarantees they won't switch channels. Same with the word woke.
"Most people have little idea what it really means, but despite that they tend to have strong feelings about it.
"As Winston Churchill said, democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others. Now, the essence of a liberal democracy is that people with different points of view discuss things and then we hope, in an ideal world, some consensus emerges that can be acted on.
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"But the woke say, 'No, we're not prepared to discuss our ideas because we're right. And if we start discussing them, people might suspect there is another point of view'.
"I don't think that's a very constructive attitude."
