Stephen Fry On Depression And Loving Life

Stephen Fry is an actor, comedian, director, writer, and narrator. His TV shows include “A Bit of Fry & Laurie,” “Jeeves and Wooster,” and “Blackadder,” and his films include Wilde, Gosford Park, and Love & Friendship. His Broadway career includes “Me and My Girl” and “Twelfth Night.” He’s produced several documentary series, including “Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive,” and he’s the president of Mind, a mental health charity. He has written 17 books, including three autobiographies, and he narrated all seven of the Harry Potter books. You can find him on Substack at The Fry Corner — subscribe!

You can listen right away in the audio player above (or on the right side of the player, click “Listen On” to add the Dishcast feed to your favorite podcast app). For two clips of our convo — on the profound pain of bipolar depression, and whether the EU diminishes Englishness — pop over to our YouTube page.

Other topics: growing up in Norfolk; his mom’s Jewish ancestry in Central Europe; her dad facing anti-Semitism after fighting in WWI and coming to England to train farmers; embracing Englishness; family members lost to the Holocaust; Disraeli; the diversity of Tory PMs; Stephen’s wayward youth; wanting to become a priest as a teen; growing up gay in England; the profound influence of Oscar Wilde and his trials; Gore Vidal on puritanism; Cavafy; Auden; E.M. Forster; Orwell; Stephen’s bipolarism; the dark lows and manic highs; my mum’s lifelong struggle with that illness; dementia; her harrowing final days; transgenerational trauma; Larkin’s “This Be the Verse”; theodicy; the shame of mental illness; Gen Z’s version of trauma; the way Jesus spoke; St. Francis; the corruption and scandals of the Church; Hitchens; the disruption of Silicon Valley and the GOP; Chesterton’s hedge metaphor for conservatism; Burke and Hayek; Oakeshott; coastal elites and populist resentment; the Iraq War and the 2008 financial crisis; Stephen writing jokes for Tony Blair; Brexit and national identity; Boris Johnson; Corbyn and anti-Semitism; Starmer’s victory and his emphasis on stability; Labour’s new super-majority; and Sunak’s graceful concession.

Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Lionel Shriver on human limits and resentment, Anne Applebaum on autocrats, Eric Kaufmann on reversing woke extremism, and Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on animal cruelty. (Van Jones’ PR team canceled his planned appearance.) Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

On last week’s episode on politicized faith, a rabbi writes:

I very much enjoyed and appreciated your conversation with Erick Erickson.

I confess to an annoyance that has gained more poignancy in an age of rising antisemitism. When Erickson speaks of “Christian principles of love your neighbor and seeing all human beings in God’s image,” I wish there was an acknowledgment that he is quoting the Hebrew Bible, twice, and that these are principles that Judaism gave to the world.

He is also quite obviously channeling the Gospels. From another listener:

In your episode with Erickson, you refer to Jesus as a “strange guy from Palestine.” It is, of course, de rigeur on the left to say that “Jesus was a Palestinian,” or similar ahistorical nonsense, as a way of garnering support for the present-day Palestinian cause. But it was only after the Romans destroyed the Jewish Temple in 70 CE, and likely after they put down the final Jewish revolt in 135 CE, that they renamed the Jewish state of Judea, choosing the name “Syria Palaestina” — likely drawing inspiration from the Philistines of the Bible. Of course the Palestinians of today are Arab, not Philistine or Canaanite. This all happened about a century after Jesus’ death, so suffice to say he would have thought of himself as Judean — certainly not Palestinian.

There are no Philistines or Canaanites anymore, though the Palestinians claim to be indigenous — which is to say, more indigenous than the Jews, whom they paint as European colonists. But we are the furthest thing from colonists. We are Jews, just like Jesus, and we once again live in Judea.

Can we not be quite so touchy? I wasn’t making an ideological or political point. Next up, a clip on the post-Christian right:

“An avid listener to your show” addresses another topic:

In your discussion with Erickson, you seemed to remain skeptical about the danger of scientism and defended the dominant global warming theory: that CO2 is responsible for the warming, and human emissions play a profound role. You said that you had not heard any other global warming theories. That does not surprise me; these theories are labeled by the scientific establishment as conspiracy theories and are not allowed to be published. I know of two of these theories supported by respected scientists, including a Nobel laureate in physics: (i) that water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas, (ii) that Milankovitch orbital cycles are responsible for climate change.

On Nov 1, 2021, Google started censoring “global warming skeptics.” The policy affects the monetization of “content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change.” This includes content referring to climate change as a hoax or a scam, claims denying that long-term trends show the global climate is warming, and claims denying that greenhouse gas emissions or human activity contribute to climate change. It is unsettling how conspiracy theories are dumped together with scientific skepticism.

Humanity must play some role in global warming, but it is not clear how big. Why must we sacrifice our wellbeing for the goal to stop this warming process? Why now, when the climate is still way cooler than before the last Ice Age? Palm trees once grew in southern Canada and Siberia — that’s why we have oil in the ground. I am a physicist who worked on mathematical modeling of highly nonlinear systems (as our atmosphere is). We always have many adjustable parameters in our models, because we do not know their exact values. So, mathematical modelers like to say: simulation results usually confirm the modeler’s hypothesis.

I remain open to persuasion on empirical subjects. But I don’t think moving to post-carbon energy has that many downsides anyway, if not done too crudely.

On another episode:

I just listened to your conversation with Elizabeth Corey on Oakeshott, and loved his question about what it is, exactly, that people want to be saved from:

I immediately remembered Hitchens’ observation that many Christians’ idea of salvation is, in fact, a yearning to live in a celestial North Korea. I think Oakeshott would have agreed with him completely :)

I suspect he would have. A guest rec:

First, I am sending your mother, you, and your loved ones my prayers for her easy passing and comfort.

Secondly, please have David Bentley Hart on the podcast. He’s the author of many books, including The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss. He is often described as a Christian apologist, but that book makes him more of an “atheism debunker.” It’s one of the most important books I’ve ever read. Hart is not an absolutist and does not pretend he’s figured it all out, but he puts in context how and why atheism exists, and how it’s as much of a “therapy” as it is a serious assessment of the world around us. It is a gloriously hopeful, humane book.

To be honest, I’m a little intimidated by Hart, but have always wanted to invite him on. I feel I need to read him more though, before I dive in. I have his New Testament translation.

Another writes, “It would be great to hear you chat with Yuval Levin about his latest book on the American Constitution.” A legal expert could help us answer questions like these on our new presidential immunity:

I’m writing to vent a little and ask a smart conservative how this Supreme Court is conservative. How can it, on the one hand, get rid of Chevron deference — an obvious blow to executive power — but then in the same breath give a president or former president absolute immunity for official acts — which appear to be pretty much everything a president does besides maybe sleep and eat? So the Court says the executive branch can’t interpret laws to make regulations, but the president can do whatever he likes, even if it breaks the law? The latter seems to make no sense for a “conservative” movement intent on dismantling the administrative state.

It seems as if this movement, led by the Court, doesn’t want to dismantle the administrative state so much as to put all its power into the hands of the chief executive. Again, that doesn’t strike me as conservative at all, but maybe I’m missing something.

Roberts strikes me as the only actual conservative on the court.

On to the presidential race, a reader writes:

First off, Andrew, condolences on your family situation. I can only hope your faith comforts you.

On Biden. The debate was the first time I saw what you and all the other Biden haters see. For the first time, he looked scared, and lost, and OLD. 

At the same time, I’m willing to say that it might be just one bad day. (It’s been pointed out to me that Dukakis had a stronger lead than Trump does now, and we know how that turned out.) The question is, was it just one bad day?

I’m neutral on whether Biden should quit. But for one thing, it’s not as simple as you seem to think it is, largely because a new candidate would have to raise their own money. Kamala at least would not have to do that, and awful as she is, as the head of a ticket, that means that Trump is the only candidate who could be accused of being old and feeble-minded. 

If Joe can ride this out, that’s fine with me. If he can’t, and we need someone else, that’s fine too. What matters is stopping Trump, and that should inform Joe’s decision.

I would ask two questions of Joe. One, was that debate brain-freeze just an acute thing or something we need to worry about in the near future, let alone the next four years? (And that question would also be asked of the people around Biden, like his Secret Service and the medical staff who need to be around a president for just such reason.)

Two, Joe: do you remember when Trump was president and you ran against him because you knew you were the only guy who could beat him? And you were RIGHT then? Now, can you look at your own polls — and compare that to polls of Democrats in down-ballot races, to the success of their efforts against state abortion bans after Dobbs, to their midterm victories and special election victories — and ask yourself, do you want to be the only reason Democrats lose elections that are theirs to lose?

In that regard, Andrew, here’s a quote from C.S. Lewis you should appreciate: “We all want progress. But … if you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”

Another looks to the vice president:

In 1994, when Kamala Harris and Willie Brown — the Democratic speaker of the California State Assembly — became a public couple, she had been a deputy prosecutor at the DA’s office in Alameda County for four years. Little is known of her political activity before Brown, other than that at UC Berkeley Law School, she was president of the Black Student Association. Did he (60 years old and still married) pursue her, or did she (30 years old) chase him down because of her political aspirations? Check out this piece: “Kamala Harris launched political career with $120K ‘patronage’ job from boyfriend Willie Brown.”

I could take a 2x4 to all these idiots who say that Kamala has to be the presidential candidate because it would be an insult to all women of color is she weren’t. There are probably millions of people who would not vote for her, but would vote for Michelle Obama, or Oprah Winfrey, or Stacey Abrams.

Another huge problem is Kamala’s forced effusiveness, highly exaggerated mannerisms, and constant cackling. You don’t have to look long to realize that she’s someone who’s always performing a two-dimensional persona, unsure of who’s inside her skin.

She is extremely weird, and utterly unelectable as president of the US.

On the IVF thread, some final thoughts from readers. The first:

Your original IVF piece hit me pretty hard. It did feel cruel, and personal, and full of misunderstandings. It always hits me hard when people suggest that that my gorgeous 13-year-old boy — with his curly hair and blue eyes and brilliant mind — shouldn’t exist because we discarded some clumps of cells.

But then I read your thoughtful curation of responses, complete with links and images. (One reader wrote, “IVF isn’t about playing God or discarding life. It’s about creating life where it would otherwise be impossible.”) I felt a renewed sense of gratitude. Because the difference between you and so many people I know is that they wouldn’t use their platforms to share rebuttals to things they believed and said. They’re not interested in even hearing nuance, much less sharing ideas that contradict their own. So on balance, this whole experience has made me glad the Dish exists.

Thank you. It’s how this place has always operated — for nearly 25 years now. The immediate contribution of readers’ perspectives is unique to the web, and the Dish is webby in its core. I have to say though that I tried very hard not to be “cruel” or “personal” in my original piece. Another writes:

Wow, you really took a lot of flak from readers here, and I wanted to say kudos for, as always, being a person who can hold space for all opinions. It always feels like love and sanity when you do that.

Something that struck me among your reader stories was how many people see a life devoid of meaning and purpose without children.