Konstantin Kisin
British comedian
Konstantin Kisin, born 25 December 1982, is a Russian-British satirist, podcaster, author and political commentator.
Kisin has written for a number of publications including Quillette, The Spectator, The Daily Telegraph and Standpoint on issues relating to tech censorship, woke culture, comedy and culture war topics in the past but currently publishes articles on these subjects on his Substack. He has co-hosted Triggernometry since 2018, a YouTube channel and podcast featuring fellow comedian and co-host Francis Foster.
Quotes edit
- [About the 2018 interview Cathy Newman did with Jordan Peterson:] I can't understand how no one in Channel four saw that and went "We can't possibly put this out there. It's embarrassing." but they did and they got the attention they deserved. But what they don't realize, these people, is it's one time attention. You watch that interview and you will never watch an interview with Cathy Newman again.
- "Free Speech, Comedy, and Woke Culture - Konstantin Kisin" (at 40m26s), John Anderson on YouTube, 7 April 2020.
- I'm a non-believer, but I can't help but think that what we've created as a society when we killed God is a vacuum that inevitably has to be filled. And when it gets filled, it gets filled by a new religion which is what social justice and intersectionality and all of that now is. They have priests. They have inquisitions. The only thing they don't have in that religion is redemption and forgiveness. [...] If we don't have forgiveness, I don't understand how this world is gonna work. I honestly don't.
- "Free Speech, Comedy, and Woke Culture - Konstantin Kisin" (at 50m23s), John Anderson on YouTube, 7 April 2020.
- If there is one thing my Soviet childhood taught me, it's that subscribing to someone else's ideology will always inevitably mean having to suspend your own judgment about right and wrong to appease your tribe. I refuse to do so.
- From Kisin's An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West (2022). Douglas Murray. Take it from a Russian – the alternative to Western democracy is far, far worse (archived), The Telegraph, 3 July 2022.
- The media ... is not yours to co-opt or use to spread propaganda. You are merely stewards of the industry.
- From Kisin's An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West (2022). Douglas Murray. Take it from a Russian – the alternative to Western democracy is far, far worse (archived), The Telegraph, 3 July 2022.
- Free speech is not some right-wing reframing of whatever; it is the foundation of Western civilization.
- "Konstantin Kisin: Woke Culture HAS Gone Too Far - 7/8 | Oxford Union" (at 59s), OxfordUnion, 12 January 2023.
- The only way to deal with the problem of racism is to treat people on the content of their character and nothing else, and the fact that woke culture seeks to overturn that is a new form of racism that we must all oppose.
- "Konstantin Kisin: Woke Culture HAS Gone Too Far - 7/8 | Oxford Union" (at 1m16s), OxfordUnion, 12 January 2023.
- This country is responsible for 2 percent of global carbon emissions, which means that if Britain was to sink into the sea right now it would make absolutely no difference to the issue of climate change. You know why? Because the future of the climate is going to be decided in Asia and in Latin America. By poor people who couldn't give a shit about saving the climate. [...] Do you know why? Because they're poor. [...] 120 million people in China do not have enough food. I don't mean that they don't get desert, I mean they suffer from malnutrition. That means that their immune system is breaking down because they don't have enough food. You're not going to get them to stay poor.
- "Konstantin Kisin: Woke Culture HAS Gone Too Far - 7/8 | Oxford Union" (at 3m21s), OxfordUnion, 12 January 2023.
- I actually get invited on TV a lot nowadays, and I don't do as much of it as I used to. And part of the reason is that once you've [got] the heroin of a long term conversation, why would you drop down to methadone? This is so much more fulfilling and satisfying. We're sitting here for a good chunk of time, you're giving me the space to speak, you're not talking over me, you're not trying to make me look bad [...], and [in corporate media] you get three minutes to make one point. And look, there's a market out there for that [but] I enjoy this. I enjoy having a conversation [and] connecting with somebody, getting to know how they think and them getting to know how I think, disagreeing where there's disagreement but doing it in a constructive way as opposed to going for the click bait and all of that. That is a really fulfilling part of doing Triggernometry for me. We get to interview fascinating people [...] and we just sit and learn. [...] How many people get the opportunity to sit down with a great mind for an hour and just engage, and speak, and listen, and think about the world? To me, that is incredibly gratifying. And I don't think that if i was hosting something on TV [that] I'd get a chance to do that.
- "Konstantin Kisin On Free Speech, Vladimir Putin, Jordan Peterson, Greta Thunberg, & Bitcoin" (at 12m7s), Anthony Pompliano on YouTube, 23 January 2023.
- Rather than us exporting liberal democracy to these countries instead we're importing Chinese style authoritarianism.
- "Konstantin Kisin On Free Speech, Vladimir Putin, Jordan Peterson, Greta Thunberg, & Bitcoin" (at 30m57s), Anthony Pompliano on YouTube, 23 January 2023.
- When you have some kid, who works for Twitter in the Philippines, censoring a Nobel price winning scientist, speaking about his area of expertise, I think we've lost the plot.
- "WE'VE LOST THE PLOT! Konstantin Kisin and Bill Maher Mock Science Censorship" (at 1m5s), Triggernometry, 21 June 2023.
- [About the importance of saying what you think]: We come from generations of people who were killed for their beliefs. Well, I'm not going to dishonor them.
- "Is It Brave to Say What You Think?", Triggernometry, 30 June 2023.
- Francis Foster: Everybody knows that Joe Biden isn't in charge. He simply can't be.
Konstantin Kisin: He could be, but that's worse.- "Trump Must Win to Avoid Prison - Scott Adams" (at 37m22s), Triggernometry, 13 September 2023.
- During the whole Ngozi Fulani affair, it was covered like it was a terrorist attack when you sort of think there's probably much bigger core issues affecting way more people.
- "The Collapse of Mainstream Media Journalism" (8m54s), Triggernometry, 15 September 2023.
- [About vaccination mandates after the Covid-19 pandemic:] I'm against mandates and I'm against mandates of vaccination, right? People are free to have the vaccination, people are free to wear a mask, people are free to do whatever they want, right? But I think, if you look back, the idea that people shouldn't be forcebly injected with medical things that they don't wish to have came out in 1945 for very good fucking reason. Very good reason. And the fact that that became a controversial thing to say... No! No, no, no. People came together in Nuremberg for a very good reason and decided we're not going to let this happen again. And the fact that people were willing to just completely overlook that. This is the thing, they flip everything on its head.
- "Leader Of Canadian Freedom Convoy SPEAKS OUT" (at 1h9m45s), Triggernometry on YouTube, 27 September 2023.
- Many people woke up on October 7 sympathetic to parts of woke ideology and went to bed that evening questioning how they had signed on to a worldview that had nothing to say about the mass rape and murder of innocent people by terrorists.
- "The Day the Delusions Died" 22 October 2023
- We woke up on October 8 to the clamor of street protests in cities across the West condemning Israel even before any major Israeli response to the attacks. We watched celebratory crowds brandish swastikas and chant “gas the Jews” at events purporting to be about the loss of Palestinian lives. We saw Black Lives Matter chapters lionize terrorists.
- "The Day the Delusions Died" 22 October 2023
- The events of the last two weeks have shattered the illusion that wokeness is about protecting victims and standing up for persecuted minorities. This ideology is and has always been about the one thing many of us have told you it is about for years: power. And after the last two weeks, there can be no doubt about how these people will use any power they seize: they will seek to destroy, in any way they can, those who disagree.
- "The Day the Delusions Died" 22 October 2023
- What we have witnessed over the last two weeks—with enormous pro-Hamas rallies in cities like London, Paris, and Washington, D.C.—has the potential to change the immigration debate in a decisive way. It is much harder to pretend that allowing people to enter our country illegally is a moral good when you watch some of them celebrate mass murder in the streets of your capital cities.
- "The Day the Delusions Died" 22 October 2023
- Western civilization has produced some of the most stunning scientific, technological, social, and cultural breakthroughs in human history. If you consider yourself “liberal” or even “progressive,” it must surely be clear by now that America and her allies are the only places in the world where your values are even considered values. If our civilization is allowed to collapse, it will not be replaced by a progressive utopia. It will be replaced by chaos and barbarism.
- "The Day the Delusions Died" 22 October 2023
- When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.
- "The Day the Delusions Died" 22 October 2023 (quoting Thomas Sowell)
- [About Triggernometry and mainstream media:] We don't have a budget to employ a bunch of people to do extensive research on things or to do fact checking for us. So we can't do certain things that the mainstream media can do, and should do. The problem is the mainstream media isn't doing it either. [...] There's a really important role for the mainstream media. I just wish they'd play that role. [...] New media has its own problems. It over rewards charisma. It over rewards passion. It massively under rewards any attempts to cling to truth. It encourages people to go off in the pursuit of the most exciting take, and truth isn't always exciting. The truth is we need a vibrant ecosystem in which all of these different pieces play their own different roles, which is why I'm in favour of maximum freedom because that's when you get everybody doing their thing. Over time people who want wholesome content if you like, when it comes to fact or information or whatever, can seek it out. Because people aren't stupid.
- "Why Is Everyone Losing Their Minds? - Konstantin Kisin (4K) | Modern Wisdom 697" (at 16m40s–18m25s), Chris Williamson on YouTube, 23 October 2023.
- I think, it doesn't apply to everybody, caveat, for most women the greatest gift their partner can give them is the opportunity, if they want to be at home with the children, to do that.
- "Why Is Everyone Losing Their Minds? - Konstantin Kisin (4K) | Modern Wisdom 697" (at 54m32s), Chris Williamson on YouTube, 23 October 2023.
- One of the things people don't say enough about free speech is "Yes, it causes harm but the harm is worth it." And we don't make that argument because it's too honest and complicated and unpleasant.
- "Why Is Everyone Losing Their Minds? - Konstantin Kisin (4K) | Modern Wisdom 697" (at 1h53m36s), Chris Williamson on YouTube, 23 October 2023
Quotes about Konstantin Kisin edit
- Vadim Kisin [Konstantin's father], the first senior government official to fall victim to the crackdown on tax evasion, was dismissed after depositing $300,000 in a foreign bank account without paying the appropriate taxes in Russia, AFP reported on 20 November, citing Interfax. Kisin, 34, was deputy minister in charge of CIS affairs until his removal on 19 November. He will now be charged with large-scale tax evasion and faces up to five years in prison and the confiscation of his assets, according to tax officials. Kisin reportedly opened several accounts in West European banks between 1992 and 1994. Investigators found 10 bank cards in his or his parents' names issued by foreign banks.
- Newsline - November 21, 1996 Radio Free Europe, 21 November 1996