‘Primates like us having conversations. This is the best game in town’: Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris and Douglas Murray at the 02, reviewed

I’ve just returned home from seeing Douglas Murray, Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris on stage at the O2 Arena in London before a crowd of 8,000 people. And I have to say, it was a pretty good show.

Once you’re past the bizarreness of seeing three top-flight intellectuals calmly occupying the same stage normally strutted upon by the likes of Iron Maiden or Def Leppard, it’s tempting to try to evaluate the content of the discussion, score it like a boxing match, or try to figure out which gentleman is the more brilliant or righteous. But those angles, valid as the might be, miss the larger point: namely, that deep conversation, underpinned by goodwill, delivers transformative value that can’t be obtained any other way.

Backstage an hour beforehand, I asked the event’s impresario, Travis Pangburn, what makes for a crackling dialogue: “In order for it to be a good conversation,” he answers, “the stakes have to be large, and the air has to be thick.