1 00:00:16,960 --> 00:00:21,239 We're back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emilijashinsky, culture 2 00:00:21,320 --> 00:00:23,800 editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the show at 3 00:00:23,920 --> 00:00:27,640 radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on Twitter at fdr LST. 4 00:00:27,839 --> 00:00:30,920 Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and if you'd like to 5 00:00:30,920 --> 00:00:34,159 support our work, make sure to visit our website at the Federalist dot com 6 00:00:34,200 --> 00:00:38,439 and sign up to join the Federalist Community for an ad free website experience and 7 00:00:38,520 --> 00:00:43,159 access to exclusive content you don't want to miss. All right, Today's guest 8 00:00:43,320 --> 00:00:46,920 is Greg Lukianoff. He's the co author of the wonderful new book and it's 9 00:00:46,920 --> 00:00:51,240 actually physically a beautiful new book. It's called The Canceling of the American Mind. 10 00:00:51,520 --> 00:00:55,039 He wrote that with the wonderful writer Ricky Schlott, who has an interesting 11 00:00:55,079 --> 00:00:57,920 story in and of herself. But I just want to give a shout out 12 00:00:57,960 --> 00:01:02,479 to Greg before we get started, because this is a recording of a conversation 13 00:01:02,640 --> 00:01:06,439 that we had last week. So I think it was last Wednesday, and 14 00:01:06,560 --> 00:01:11,560 my laptop was having the worst day of its life. So Greg, in 15 00:01:11,599 --> 00:01:14,920 the midst of his very busy schedule as he has this important new book out 16 00:01:15,480 --> 00:01:19,480 actually was putting up with my laptop continuing to mysteriously die. And then after 17 00:01:19,519 --> 00:01:25,359 my laptop died the final time, Greg stayed on the recording and recorded his 18 00:01:25,519 --> 00:01:29,760 full final last answer just for the heck of it in case it was still 19 00:01:29,799 --> 00:01:32,439 recording. It looked like it was still recording, so it ended up on 20 00:01:32,480 --> 00:01:36,280 the cloud, which was amazing because I could use it and we got a 21 00:01:36,319 --> 00:01:42,640 full podcast despite my laptop continuing to die time after time after time. So 22 00:01:42,879 --> 00:01:46,239 we are so grateful to Greg. Hopefully you won't notice anything at all in 23 00:01:46,280 --> 00:01:49,120 this I just wanted to give him a shout out because he made that possible 24 00:01:49,519 --> 00:01:53,159 by taking the extra time to record his final answer after my laptop died and 25 00:01:53,239 --> 00:01:57,560 hung in the entire time. And Greg, if you're not familiar with the 26 00:01:57,599 --> 00:02:00,239 work that they do over at Fire, has been at the forefront of this 27 00:02:00,319 --> 00:02:07,280 conversation about speech, about this conversation, of this conversation about expression, and 28 00:02:07,760 --> 00:02:10,280 even this conversation about social media, the conversation that we have often here and 29 00:02:10,319 --> 00:02:15,240 we have had for years here about how social media itself is shaping so many 30 00:02:15,240 --> 00:02:17,680 of these problems and influencing so many of these problems and to some extent, 31 00:02:17,719 --> 00:02:22,120 maybe causing so many of these problems. So it was a wonderful conversation. 32 00:02:22,159 --> 00:02:24,639 I was really looking forward to talking to Greg about this new book, so 33 00:02:24,719 --> 00:02:28,800 I definitely recommend that you check it out. Highly recommend that you check it 34 00:02:28,800 --> 00:02:31,719 out. And again, just thank you for listening. Thank you to Greg 35 00:02:31,800 --> 00:02:37,560 for coming on the podcast, for recording that final answer, whether or not 36 00:02:37,599 --> 00:02:39,960 he knew if it was going into the void, it was just awesome. 37 00:02:40,400 --> 00:02:44,960 And shout out to everybody for sending so many thoughtful emails recently. We really 38 00:02:44,960 --> 00:02:46,840 appreciate it, try to respond to all of them, try to read all 39 00:02:46,879 --> 00:02:51,360 of them at the very least, and just again, we really appreciate it. 40 00:02:51,400 --> 00:02:54,120 We're so grateful to everyone for continuing to listen to the show, and 41 00:02:54,159 --> 00:02:59,280 I really hope you enjoyed this discussion that I got to have with Greg Lukianov. 42 00:03:01,199 --> 00:03:05,319 We're joined today by the one and only Greg Lukianov has of course, 43 00:03:05,360 --> 00:03:10,159 from fire the important organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education now and 44 00:03:10,280 --> 00:03:14,159 expression. Oh my gosh, Greg, I'm so sorry about that. Of 45 00:03:14,199 --> 00:03:17,199 course, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, that's actually a really good 46 00:03:17,199 --> 00:03:21,840 place to start though, and maybe we should just start there because fires change 47 00:03:21,840 --> 00:03:25,639 from an education to expression is completely salient to the book that Greg just wrote 48 00:03:25,639 --> 00:03:29,599 with his wonderful co author, Ricky Schlott. It's called The Canceling of the 49 00:03:29,599 --> 00:03:32,680 American Mind. It's a very important book. I cannot recommend it highly enough. 50 00:03:32,879 --> 00:03:37,039 So, Greg, why don't we actually just start right there because it's 51 00:03:37,240 --> 00:03:40,560 completely relevant. Absolutely. Yeah. So we're founded in ninety ninety nine as 52 00:03:40,560 --> 00:03:47,680 a Foundation for Individual Rights and Education, and we changed in on June sixth, 53 00:03:49,039 --> 00:03:53,439 twenty twenty two, to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression artially because 54 00:03:54,080 --> 00:03:59,759 things got so bad in the country in twenty twenty We realized that we couldn't 55 00:03:59,759 --> 00:04:01,719 know all younger save campuses if we didn't work to save the rest of the 56 00:04:01,719 --> 00:04:04,000 country. And that also, frankly, if we didn't save the rest of 57 00:04:04,039 --> 00:04:09,800 the country, we couldn't actually save the save campuses. So we expanded beyond 58 00:04:09,800 --> 00:04:13,599 that. We have a you know, we have much more litigation off campus 59 00:04:13,680 --> 00:04:16,000 now than we used to do, and we try to teach people just like 60 00:04:16,079 --> 00:04:18,160 and the book is one of the ways we do. Is Canceling of the 61 00:04:18,199 --> 00:04:23,800 American Mind is in part, you know, us trying to teach people about 62 00:04:23,879 --> 00:04:27,439 what a culture of free speech is, which is part of part of the 63 00:04:27,480 --> 00:04:30,839 mission is to educate people not just on free speech law, but on speech 64 00:04:30,920 --> 00:04:35,839 valleys. Greg amidst all of the tragedy and suffering in the Middle East right 65 00:04:35,879 --> 00:04:40,120 now and in Israel, my friend Jason Willick, the former fire intern. 66 00:04:40,199 --> 00:04:43,680 By the way, I didn't know that about Jason. Well, this is 67 00:04:43,720 --> 00:04:46,120 perfect then, So Jason Willick wrote an excellent column in the Washington Post, 68 00:04:46,759 --> 00:04:54,319 really directed at people who are looking at the outpouring of outright support for hamas 69 00:04:54,639 --> 00:04:58,360 we've seen the paragliders and all of that iconography kind of being used already in 70 00:04:58,399 --> 00:05:00,639 college campuses, and they're kind of looking and asking what the heck happened? 71 00:05:01,439 --> 00:05:04,720 You know, Jason reminds people that this is the symptom of this is a 72 00:05:04,800 --> 00:05:09,319 symptom of something much deeper. So Greg, I wanted to start with you 73 00:05:09,360 --> 00:05:11,639 on that point. In a sad way, it's kind of perfect timing for 74 00:05:11,639 --> 00:05:15,240 the book to come out for everyone, you know, maybe the people on 75 00:05:15,279 --> 00:05:18,279 the left who are looking around now at college campuses in the wake of what's 76 00:05:18,279 --> 00:05:21,399 happened in the last couple of weeks. Do you agree, Greg, you 77 00:05:21,639 --> 00:05:25,639 talk about this so much that this is a symptom of something so much deeper. 78 00:05:26,199 --> 00:05:29,120 And I mean and so donors, and I want donors to not just 79 00:05:29,160 --> 00:05:32,319 focus on this one. It's like this one horrifying thing. You don't get 80 00:05:32,360 --> 00:05:38,519 to a point where university presidents who believe that the Umbas attacks were monstrous and 81 00:05:38,600 --> 00:05:43,879 support Israel are afraid to publicly say so because they're afraid that they'll, you 82 00:05:43,920 --> 00:05:46,199 know, at least their lives will be really unpleasant if not, you know, 83 00:05:46,279 --> 00:05:51,480 be canceled for taking the unpopular position, particularly an elite campuses in particularly 84 00:05:51,480 --> 00:05:57,800 campuses by the way, in California. So the weird behavior was the product 85 00:05:57,920 --> 00:06:00,839 of cancel culture. It's also one of the reasons why Harvard students could actually 86 00:06:00,839 --> 00:06:06,240 think that they could write something saying watching this horror show and say this is 87 00:06:06,360 --> 00:06:10,560 entirely Israel's fault. Why they actually could believe that that would be something that 88 00:06:10,600 --> 00:06:15,600 would be relatively well accepted is that they exist in an environment where everybody's too 89 00:06:15,680 --> 00:06:18,600 scared to talk about this issue from anything other than the pro Palestinian perspective. 90 00:06:18,839 --> 00:06:24,959 So cancel culture resulted in this group think. It resulted in an atmosphere university 91 00:06:24,959 --> 00:06:28,079 presences are afraid to say what they think. And in some ways, thank 92 00:06:28,120 --> 00:06:30,920 goodness for donors. Now, listen, donors were coming in and saying, 93 00:06:31,639 --> 00:06:34,040 you have to take a position you don't believe, or I will draw my 94 00:06:34,160 --> 00:06:38,680 money, or for that matter, you have to fire somebody, or you 95 00:06:38,680 --> 00:06:43,560 have to expel somebody for their freedom of speech. Well fire would come in 96 00:06:43,560 --> 00:06:46,720 in that case. 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Today had to 121 00:08:37,120 --> 00:08:41,080 try fume dot com slash federalist and use the code federalist to save an additional 122 00:08:41,120 --> 00:08:46,679 ten percent off your order today. So interesting. You know, I saw 123 00:08:46,720 --> 00:08:50,279 another commentary I think this was from Chris Rufo, sort of looking at what 124 00:08:50,320 --> 00:08:56,639 happened in the twentieth century, looking at communism and this paradigm that you're between 125 00:08:56,720 --> 00:09:00,960 right and wrong, that if you are not morally with us, you are 126 00:09:01,360 --> 00:09:07,799 against us, comparing that kind of to a campus mindset now and as that 127 00:09:07,879 --> 00:09:13,759 has you become more and more powerful, it's sort of left the universities and 128 00:09:13,799 --> 00:09:18,320 it has gone out into the broader culture. Gregor wanted to ask you if 129 00:09:18,840 --> 00:09:26,519 you also see maybe these parallels between that ideological formulation between what you're seeing right 130 00:09:26,559 --> 00:09:31,320 now and then in the twentieth century. Well. Yeah, And one thing 131 00:09:31,320 --> 00:09:35,080 that I have to point out in the book is that cancel culture is actually 132 00:09:35,120 --> 00:09:39,159 worse than Macarthyism by a number of statistics. Probably the way in which cancel 133 00:09:39,159 --> 00:09:43,360 culture was macarthurs was way worse was actually what's now known as the Lavender scale 134 00:09:43,519 --> 00:09:48,480 scare on something that Jamie Kertrick wrote about like the you know, under sort 135 00:09:48,519 --> 00:09:52,679 of you know, the belief that gay employees could be easily blackmailed. You 136 00:09:52,720 --> 00:09:56,799 know. I think thousands of gay employees were fired, you know, in 137 00:09:56,840 --> 00:10:00,799 the nineteen fifties, and that's something that people should should know more about. 138 00:10:01,000 --> 00:10:03,840 But the way in which cancel culture is actually worse than the McCarthyism is in 139 00:10:03,879 --> 00:10:09,080 the numbers. So, first of all, there was a real threat in 140 00:10:09,080 --> 00:10:13,919 the nineteen fifties. There were actual American and British spies who helped to as 141 00:10:13,960 --> 00:10:16,279 a Russian American I got the person I refer to is a super Hitler Stalin 142 00:10:16,399 --> 00:10:20,720 actually get the bomb. There was reason to be freaked out in the nineteen 143 00:10:20,799 --> 00:10:24,919 fifties because the most the thing that could end civilization was given to someone up 144 00:10:26,000 --> 00:10:28,240 there with Hitler and Mao in terms of his murder counts. So people there 145 00:10:28,279 --> 00:10:31,039 was some reason to be freaked out. It wasn't just bad speech. It 146 00:10:31,120 --> 00:10:35,080 was I'm afraid some of these people are disloyal, and some of them actually 147 00:10:35,080 --> 00:10:39,639 were, so I always have to clarify that. And that's more normal for 148 00:10:39,720 --> 00:10:43,320 the situation for mass censorship events. Cancel culture, which we defined, is 149 00:10:43,360 --> 00:10:46,879 the uptick of campaigns to get people fired for what would be their first amendment 150 00:10:46,879 --> 00:10:50,279 of protected beliefs, starting around twenty fifteen and really accelerating in twenty seventeen. 151 00:10:52,240 --> 00:10:56,200 Isn't happening during a massive security crisis. It's not happening because of a global 152 00:10:56,240 --> 00:11:01,000 war. So it's weird on a lot of levels. But when we looked 153 00:11:01,039 --> 00:11:03,480 at it, you know, and we know this is a massive undergound because 154 00:11:03,519 --> 00:11:07,039 like one out of ten students say something like that, and our newest research 155 00:11:07,080 --> 00:11:11,799 indicate that they've been investigated for their speech, which is insane. I think 156 00:11:11,840 --> 00:11:15,679 the younger people don't understand how completely nuts that is. What a one out 157 00:11:15,679 --> 00:11:20,879 of six professors have said they've even been threatened with investigation or actually investigated for 158 00:11:20,960 --> 00:11:24,240 their academic freedom and free speech, which is also crazy. And for the 159 00:11:24,240 --> 00:11:28,120 case and so we know that there's a huge number of cases that will never 160 00:11:28,159 --> 00:11:31,000 make it to the light of day because there are secret hearings, are bias 161 00:11:31,039 --> 00:11:33,559 related incident programs there. Then there really are like that that sounds conspiratorial, 162 00:11:33,600 --> 00:11:39,000 but an Apple Bama loaurer Chidnus writes about this and they are real and we 163 00:11:39,360 --> 00:11:41,759 and even despite all that, despite the fact there's no viewpoint diversity in many 164 00:11:41,759 --> 00:11:46,080 departments, like literally no conservatives in many departments, and cancel culture is much 165 00:11:46,120 --> 00:11:50,559 worse. In the top ten schools in the country. We still have found, 166 00:11:50,639 --> 00:11:54,759 you know, over a thousand attempts to get professors fired since twenty fourteen, 167 00:11:56,080 --> 00:11:58,200 about two thirds of them result in some fired or punished. To be 168 00:11:58,200 --> 00:12:03,399 clear, they don't specifically mention firing. Someone pointed out to me, like 169 00:12:03,480 --> 00:12:07,320 about three hundred of the student petition do specifically mentioned firing. But okay, 170 00:12:07,440 --> 00:12:13,399 sure, that's a huge difference anyway, but two thirds of them are actually 171 00:12:13,399 --> 00:12:18,240 punished in some way, investigated, etc. But almost two hundred of them, 172 00:12:18,480 --> 00:12:20,240 and I suspect by the end of the year it's going to be over 173 00:12:20,240 --> 00:12:22,639 two hundred of them have actually been fired. And by the way, like 174 00:12:22,720 --> 00:12:26,879 at the time of McCarthyism, there was something like sixty two or sixty three 175 00:12:26,919 --> 00:12:31,120 professors who in the best research that was done in the fifties about this, 176 00:12:31,600 --> 00:12:35,240 that were fired for communist beliefs, about ninety for beliefs overall, oftentimes round 177 00:12:35,320 --> 00:12:39,320 up two hundred. I think with hindsight we can tell that the numbers were 178 00:12:39,480 --> 00:12:43,320 somewhat bigger, maybe one hundred, Somewhere between hundred hundred and fifty. We're 179 00:12:43,320 --> 00:12:46,960 talking about two hundred professors being fired here. And here's the big difference. 180 00:12:46,240 --> 00:12:52,039 The law wasn't clear that you couldn't do that until nineteen fifty seven to nineteen 181 00:12:52,080 --> 00:12:54,159 seventy three. Like they actually thought, Okay, we're firing these communist professors 182 00:12:54,159 --> 00:13:00,320 because they're two doctrine there. They're going to doctrinate their kids. And you 183 00:13:00,360 --> 00:13:03,000 know, obviously I stand by either free speech rights as established by the nineteen 184 00:13:03,039 --> 00:13:07,200 fifty seven case, but now the law couldn't be clearer viewpoint, diversity couldn't 185 00:13:07,200 --> 00:13:13,879 be lower in higher education. There are a million different mechanisms they can use 186 00:13:13,919 --> 00:13:18,840 to induce conformity from K through twelve on up to get people to fall into 187 00:13:18,879 --> 00:13:20,879 line. We have a whole chapter called the Conformity Gauntlet talking about all the 188 00:13:20,919 --> 00:13:26,840 different pressures to actually make you reform your to engage in thought reform. And 189 00:13:26,919 --> 00:13:33,000 still they're able to find this many heretics to burn, and it's just it's 190 00:13:33,039 --> 00:13:35,440 amazing to be gas lit by people are saying, oh, this isn't even 191 00:13:35,480 --> 00:13:39,799 happening, and like, so, I guess you're saying that the Sedition Acts 192 00:13:39,919 --> 00:13:43,679 of seventeen ninety eight, which only dealt with between fifty and a dozen prosecutions, 193 00:13:43,720 --> 00:13:46,919 I think only ten prosecutions was nothing, or mccartheism or something like. 194 00:13:48,120 --> 00:13:54,639 You can't find another since law was established. It's anywhere vaguely in the ballpark 195 00:13:54,679 --> 00:13:56,720 of what's been going on today, But still you have to deal with people 196 00:13:56,759 --> 00:14:03,200 saying it's not happening at all. This week. On the Word of the 197 00:14:03,200 --> 00:14:05,960 Lord Indoors Forever, we are rolling right along in our adventures and acts with 198 00:14:07,159 --> 00:14:13,320 almost persuaded Paul Sales for Rome a fateful Decision, Paul's I Told you so, 199 00:14:13,919 --> 00:14:18,759 and approaching Land Join me, pastor Will Whedon for the Word of the 200 00:14:18,799 --> 00:14:24,519 Lord Indoors Forever, your daily fifteen minute verse by verse Bible study on demand, 201 00:14:24,919 --> 00:14:33,440 listen at the Word indoors dot org or your favorite podcast provider. And 202 00:14:33,519 --> 00:14:35,919 the argument, of course is they'll say it's accountability culture. As you well 203 00:14:35,960 --> 00:14:39,679 know, they like to say it's accountability culture. And I want to ask 204 00:14:39,720 --> 00:14:41,519 in the again, in the context of the last few weeks, there have 205 00:14:41,600 --> 00:14:46,960 been some conservatives or people on the right talking about punishing students for writing or 206 00:14:48,000 --> 00:14:52,039 for signing letters anything like that. But this is just kind of a I 207 00:14:52,080 --> 00:14:54,519 think as a strong man. I mean, there are people on the right 208 00:14:54,559 --> 00:14:58,000 who were ever saying that we should have a culture where there's no such things 209 00:14:58,320 --> 00:15:01,960 as shame. That's, you know, sort of a silly argument. There's 210 00:15:03,000 --> 00:15:07,600 nobody who's ever been out saying that there should be no boundaries, there should 211 00:15:07,639 --> 00:15:11,759 be no shame in the culture. But I do want to ask Greg if 212 00:15:11,840 --> 00:15:15,960 this is something you think is you know, it's definitely not my top priority. 213 00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:18,320 But if you think this is something that's potent on the right, that's 214 00:15:18,360 --> 00:15:22,480 something that really has traction to be dangerous. Oh. To be clear, 215 00:15:22,559 --> 00:15:26,639 the book takes on the right and the left. Cancel culture being more pronounced 216 00:15:26,679 --> 00:15:33,480 in corporations and journalism and in academia of course is more left leaning like overall, 217 00:15:33,519 --> 00:15:35,879 and a lot of times the cancelers on the right think they're actually trying 218 00:15:35,879 --> 00:15:41,679 to cancel cancel culture. But they shouldn't actually cancel cancel culture. They shouldn't 219 00:15:41,720 --> 00:15:46,120 actually cancel people, or else they look like hypocrites. But meanwhile, and 220 00:15:46,120 --> 00:15:52,399 it's been really funny watching a lot of the book is about this absolutely lame 221 00:15:52,840 --> 00:15:58,519 andmbursing way we argue that's tolerated unbelievably on campus. And because that came out 222 00:15:58,519 --> 00:16:02,120 of social media, all these the silly little tricks we use to not have 223 00:16:02,200 --> 00:16:04,240 to actually engage with each other. And one thing we talk about is we 224 00:16:04,279 --> 00:16:08,799 call hypocrisy projection, which is and you see this all the time on Twitter, 225 00:16:08,799 --> 00:16:11,000 it's like where is fire on this case? And we're like, we're 226 00:16:11,120 --> 00:16:17,720 quoted in the third inch of this of this article, which this is a 227 00:16:17,759 --> 00:16:22,440 fire case because there is this assumption that everybody else And it's so funny because 228 00:16:22,440 --> 00:16:26,600 it usually comes from people who only care about one side of the political spectrum, 229 00:16:26,639 --> 00:16:29,960 but they think everybody else is a hypocrite, which is like almost comical. 230 00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:33,279 So when it comes to, you know, cancel culture on the right, 231 00:16:33,919 --> 00:16:36,120 when they when they've pointed out kind of like, well, aren't you 232 00:16:36,159 --> 00:16:38,240 saying that people being put on blacklists for what they say on campus? You're 233 00:16:38,279 --> 00:16:41,159 not saying that's cancel culture. I'm like I said it on Sprikantish, like 234 00:16:41,320 --> 00:16:45,480 I said on National TV, like like last week, Like I've said it 235 00:16:45,480 --> 00:16:48,960 on podcasts, I've said it, like We've been all over the place making 236 00:16:49,240 --> 00:16:52,960 making the point. Now. Of course, when you're talking about a cultural 237 00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:56,720 and I always have to be clear, companies can hire whoever they want. 238 00:16:56,000 --> 00:17:00,960 What we want people to do is consider well, like it was happening in 239 00:17:00,000 --> 00:17:04,319 twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, which was every widget factory was deciding that 240 00:17:04,319 --> 00:17:07,880 they're also a political shop. And if you had something critical to say of 241 00:17:07,960 --> 00:17:11,079 say like for example, like BLM, you know your job might be in 242 00:17:11,119 --> 00:17:15,160 trouble. Now, yes, they have a First Amendment right. Companies have 243 00:17:15,160 --> 00:17:18,880 a first right to fire people on the basis of their opinion. And I 244 00:17:18,920 --> 00:17:22,319 think, and by the way, I think, I don't want the government 245 00:17:22,400 --> 00:17:27,000 stepping in and demanding that they don't. But consider the country you want to 246 00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:32,119 live in. If you have First Amendment rights but you can't actually hold down 247 00:17:32,119 --> 00:17:37,279 a job and actually authentically say your opinion, that's not a healthy democratic republic. 248 00:17:37,319 --> 00:17:41,680 And one bigger thing, it's really valuable to know what people really think. 249 00:17:41,799 --> 00:17:44,920 And this is one of the things I think is funny when people are 250 00:17:44,960 --> 00:17:48,079 responding. And by the way, not that many people are responding demanding censorship 251 00:17:48,079 --> 00:17:52,200 on campus right now. I was here for nine to eleven, so many 252 00:17:52,200 --> 00:17:56,079 more professors were punished for saying in some cases insensitive things, you know, 253 00:17:56,720 --> 00:18:00,920 saying the attacks were justified, or cracking jokes them, or for that matter, 254 00:18:00,960 --> 00:18:03,559 saying that there should be a ferocious response to these attacks, like a 255 00:18:03,599 --> 00:18:07,799 lot of professors and students got in trouble after nine to eleven. We're not 256 00:18:07,839 --> 00:18:11,920 seeing that scale, at least not yet on campus, but we you know, 257 00:18:11,079 --> 00:18:15,200 we will. We are investing investigating some cases. But so far, 258 00:18:15,759 --> 00:18:18,079 you know, but I do think that you know, cancel culture on the 259 00:18:18,160 --> 00:18:22,680 right, you know, it can't it can be real, and it shouldn't 260 00:18:22,680 --> 00:18:26,799 be the response to cancel culture. But so here is one thing though, 261 00:18:26,839 --> 00:18:30,880 that I really wish would happen that's not happening so far, but needs to. 262 00:18:30,640 --> 00:18:37,480 All these people who argued accountability cancel cultures and cultures accountability culture, and 263 00:18:37,519 --> 00:18:41,799 then you have all these cases of people, you know, think in some 264 00:18:41,880 --> 00:18:45,559 cases where people are losing their jobs for saying prohomas things and they're like, 265 00:18:45,799 --> 00:18:49,000 their first response is you're hypocrites. You know, It's like, are you 266 00:18:49,119 --> 00:18:55,359 reevaluating whether or not you think accountability culture and cancel culture are so swell when 267 00:18:55,400 --> 00:18:57,440 it's being used against you, Like, is there any self reflection going on 268 00:18:57,480 --> 00:19:00,599 at this moment? And I'm sure there are for some people, but in 269 00:19:00,680 --> 00:19:03,400 the culture war, like the culture war seems to be particularly for the people 270 00:19:03,400 --> 00:19:07,480 who are superpartisan like the whole thing about the culture war is like I love 271 00:19:07,480 --> 00:19:10,319 the culture to work because I never have to say I was wrong about anything. 272 00:19:14,839 --> 00:19:18,519 From the studio that brought you Sound of Freedom and the Chosen Comes After 273 00:19:18,640 --> 00:19:22,319 Death an unprecedented deep dive into the phenomena of near death experiences, which I'm 274 00:19:22,359 --> 00:19:26,119 fascinated by and I'm sure many of you are fascinated by. 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Your friend Jonathan height wrote a 308 00:21:56,160 --> 00:22:03,160 beautiful forward to this book, and obviously Jonathan Highten, he writes about your 309 00:22:03,160 --> 00:22:07,559 own sort of experience and experiences with cognitive behavioral therapy, and I think some 310 00:22:07,640 --> 00:22:12,720 of this explains why the left and the right are susceptible to cancelation impulses. 311 00:22:14,279 --> 00:22:18,519 You know, apart from being comprised of human beings, there's something right now 312 00:22:18,720 --> 00:22:23,799 about the way our minds are being conditioned to engage in argumentation that Jonathan hight 313 00:22:23,920 --> 00:22:29,680 has written and studied very closely as have you. It's in this book, 314 00:22:29,720 --> 00:22:32,359 and you know, of course folks should go out and buy the book to 315 00:22:32,400 --> 00:22:34,079 get the full answer to this question. But I really wanted to ask Greg. 316 00:22:34,599 --> 00:22:38,160 I think this is at the core of the conversation. It always should 317 00:22:38,200 --> 00:22:45,880 be, to what extent is social media causing some of these problems of the 318 00:22:45,920 --> 00:22:52,039 canceling of the American mind. Social media sped things up. I sped up 319 00:22:52,160 --> 00:22:59,079 a lot of existing trends like polarization and you know, partisanship and the ability 320 00:22:59,079 --> 00:23:02,960 to attack. But it also create new avenues. It created entirely new phenomena. 321 00:23:03,319 --> 00:23:06,680 And I know people are kind of sick of hearing about social media, 322 00:23:06,720 --> 00:23:10,319 and sometimes they even kind of roll their eyes about, like you know when 323 00:23:10,319 --> 00:23:11,279 we point out, like how big of a shift it is. But you 324 00:23:11,359 --> 00:23:15,519 got to understand, like I used to study the printing press. The printing 325 00:23:15,559 --> 00:23:21,759 press brought millions of additional people into the European conversation, and it was devastating 326 00:23:21,759 --> 00:23:23,720 in the short term. It led to an uptick in the witch trials, 327 00:23:23,720 --> 00:23:26,599 It led to religious wars, it led to civil wars. By the time 328 00:23:26,599 --> 00:23:29,920 you're getting to Henry, the aight's trying to put the genie back in the 329 00:23:29,920 --> 00:23:33,400 bottle in the fifteen twenties and fifteen the thirties, you know, like he's 330 00:23:33,400 --> 00:23:34,880 like, he's like, this was not this was probably not worth it. 331 00:23:34,920 --> 00:23:38,359 I'm sure he was thinking quite a bit. This technology is too disruptive, 332 00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:41,920 and of course over the long term it became one of the most important things 333 00:23:41,920 --> 00:23:45,599 for the development of human thought, but in the short term didn't eem worth 334 00:23:45,640 --> 00:23:51,319 it. We just added billion or billions of people to the global conversation. 335 00:23:51,440 --> 00:23:55,240 There's literally no way. Once that's happened, that is unparalleled, and people 336 00:23:55,279 --> 00:23:56,079 get used to this kind of stuff and it's like no, no, no, 337 00:23:56,240 --> 00:24:02,160 there's never literally never been something like where you get to see people's instant 338 00:24:02,200 --> 00:24:04,559 reactions to things in real time. I talk about it. It's like seeing 339 00:24:04,599 --> 00:24:10,359 the collective mind of the entire species. And sometimes you're pretty horrified by what 340 00:24:10,440 --> 00:24:14,319 you see. But we should exercise some curiosity. Now, social media has 341 00:24:14,359 --> 00:24:18,240 made a lot of these trends worse. It also creates the possibility for cancel 342 00:24:18,279 --> 00:24:22,359 culture to thrive. Because back when you wanted to get that you know, 343 00:24:22,440 --> 00:24:26,279 journalist fired, you know, you had to send a letter to the editor 344 00:24:26,319 --> 00:24:30,359 you know, and it ends up in a in a drawers somewhere, nothing 345 00:24:30,359 --> 00:24:33,440 ever happens. Meanwhile, today what people realized was, hey, you know, 346 00:24:33,480 --> 00:24:37,480 it feels great, you know, right, righteous indignation, and I 347 00:24:37,559 --> 00:24:41,519 have all these political enemies and they say, they say things, and I 348 00:24:41,559 --> 00:24:45,440 can figure out sometimes they actually will do offense archaeology, which is looking back 349 00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:48,680 into what people said in the past to try to get someone they dislike, 350 00:24:48,799 --> 00:24:52,240 you know, canceled for some other reason. We talk about the intricacies of 351 00:24:52,279 --> 00:24:55,839 this. We actually have a lot of fun talking about the various rhetorical fortresses 352 00:24:55,839 --> 00:24:59,680 and all the forgive the expression bs techniques that people used to actually not address 353 00:25:00,039 --> 00:25:04,240 at each other's arguments. But now when one of the you know, a 354 00:25:04,279 --> 00:25:08,039 columnist says something that someone doesn't like, they can you get them and their 355 00:25:08,079 --> 00:25:12,160 friends and sometimes theirir sock puppet accounts to make it look like there's an army 356 00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:18,839 of people to today are demanding that you fire this person, and to their 357 00:25:18,880 --> 00:25:22,359 shame, a lot of higher education and a lot of companies actually, you 358 00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:26,839 know, would actually oblige them sometimes thinking that there was this massive movement. 359 00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:29,599 Meanwhile, one of the things that we always say, one thing that can 360 00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:33,920 really diffuse this is tell people, Okay, you've got a complaint. We 361 00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:37,079 have a policy of waiting three weeks after these things to investigate them, and 362 00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:41,319 that would make the stuff die down because in so many cases they're just moving 363 00:25:41,319 --> 00:25:44,799 on to the next, the next target. But yeah, social media has 364 00:25:44,960 --> 00:25:48,680 fundamentally changed the world, and I know people are tired of hearing it, 365 00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:53,359 but you really got to consider, like how strange this transformation of society actually 366 00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:59,920 is. Just said something earlier about hypocrisy, and that made me think the 367 00:26:00,039 --> 00:26:03,839 kind of hypocrisy call out type culture on social media. That made me think 368 00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:11,880 of actually the kind of memification of our politics and our discourse and whether maybe 369 00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:17,000 people are rethinking their positions on accountability culture in the midst of all of this. 370 00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:19,160 And it strikes me that some of this, and I want to ask 371 00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:22,480 again, you've been doing this for a very long time. Can some of 372 00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:27,319 this maybe be attributed to the fact that people are the reality that people young 373 00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:33,640 people don't have as well thought out positions or beliefs when it comes to free 374 00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:38,000 expression as they would have had maybe twenty years ago. Oh. Absolutely, 375 00:26:38,559 --> 00:26:42,920 I think that the lack of I mean, part of the problem is that 376 00:26:42,960 --> 00:26:48,079 we literally live in more isolated neighborhoods from people who don't share our politics than 377 00:26:48,079 --> 00:26:52,119 we used to. We're very segregated by cloud ass And one of the big 378 00:26:52,160 --> 00:26:56,559 things that people don't want to talk about why higher education is elite. Higher 379 00:26:56,599 --> 00:27:00,720 education is so weird. It's because it has a lot of the the typical 380 00:27:00,759 --> 00:27:03,960 ailments of rich people of the one percent. I make the point that when 381 00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:11,119 people make this argument that cancel culture is just the powerless taking their power back, 382 00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:17,039 and I'm just like, please, cancel culture is most prevalent in the 383 00:27:17,039 --> 00:27:19,759 top ten schools in the country, in the most elite schools in the country, 384 00:27:19,759 --> 00:27:22,880 which, by the way, you know, schools like Harvard, Stanford, 385 00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:26,480 et cetera, educate more people from the one percent than they do from 386 00:27:26,519 --> 00:27:33,920 the bottom fifty percent of the social economic they are they recreate class privilege to 387 00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:37,680 a degree, and I think sometimes actually feeling so guilty about that is they 388 00:27:37,799 --> 00:27:41,920 think they can make up to society for it, my hand, especially radical 389 00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:47,480 politics, which is just I watched Stanford like all the time, I did 390 00:27:47,519 --> 00:27:49,759 actual public service. I come from a poor back and my friends who went 391 00:27:49,799 --> 00:27:53,839 to and I actually went to go take a huge pay cut to go to 392 00:27:53,839 --> 00:27:57,319 go wor work in a place like Fire as its first legal director. But 393 00:27:57,400 --> 00:28:02,640 my friends who did like corporate law, they're super radical in their hearts, 394 00:28:02,759 --> 00:28:06,839 partially because partially because they you know, they feel guilty about a lot of 395 00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:15,880 us. This is Molly Hemingway encouraging you to listen to my favorite podcast, 396 00:28:17,279 --> 00:28:22,160 Issues, et cetera. Every day you get in depth interviews with host Todd 397 00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:27,160 Wilkin, asking expert guests substantive, thought provoking questions on all of the important 398 00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:32,519 news and issues of our day. The expert guests are in culture, law, 399 00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:37,160 ethics, philosophy, theology, and apologetics. Expert guests expansive topics, 400 00:28:37,359 --> 00:28:48,000 always extolling christ issues, et cetera. So the postliberals, the Patrick Dennes, 401 00:28:48,359 --> 00:28:51,839 actually Michael Noles wrote a whole book called Speechless. It's a great book, 402 00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:56,720 but they look at the liberal project, the small l liberal project, 403 00:28:56,000 --> 00:29:03,519 and you say, this cannot work. A system of constitutional republicanism cannot work 404 00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:08,119 unless there are some basic tenets to which we all agree, and free speech 405 00:29:08,160 --> 00:29:11,519 and expression are obviously one of them, and the version of it that you 406 00:29:11,519 --> 00:29:15,000 know Michael puts forward and speechless is probably one of those things. To which 407 00:29:15,799 --> 00:29:22,160 or that does actually expose some of these fundamental disagreements within the liberal project itself. 408 00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:25,680 So, Greg, I actually want to ask you, do you see 409 00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:32,599 this as a sign that the liberal project cannot work, that the sort of 410 00:29:32,599 --> 00:29:36,839 fabric of the liberal project in the United States is or in the West is 411 00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:41,759 crumbling, or is this something that you just kind of are necessarily it's necessarily 412 00:29:41,799 --> 00:29:45,079 a necessary bug of the system, but it's one that you know can can 413 00:29:45,119 --> 00:29:51,279 be overcome ultimately. Yeah. I mean, I consider myself a liberal and 414 00:29:51,359 --> 00:29:53,720 I'm left of center, but I'm not a progressive. And I think that 415 00:29:53,839 --> 00:29:57,480 some of the things that Patrick denim that I don't there's a looking at is 416 00:29:57,519 --> 00:30:03,400 actually they're looking at progressives, and they're thinking about people who themselves are incredibly 417 00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:07,519 hostile to liberalism, and even if sometimes some of them know it and say 418 00:30:07,559 --> 00:30:11,880 it, some of who don't actually realize that being hostile and you know, 419 00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:14,599 basically thinking that we'd be better ruled by it and lightened elite, and the 420 00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:18,279 free speech shouldn't be protected and that selectively people should have rights. That's not 421 00:30:18,359 --> 00:30:21,519 liberalism by any definition. Now, to be clear, I tend to use 422 00:30:21,599 --> 00:30:26,119 the more kind of textbook definition Yasha Mounk kind of idea that basically, it 423 00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:29,440 seemed like up until fairly recently, all Americans kind of agreed on like, 424 00:30:29,799 --> 00:30:33,880 or at least most you know, that essentially people should have celebrities, and 425 00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:36,599 people should have freedom of speech, and democracy is good and all this kind 426 00:30:36,599 --> 00:30:41,440 of stuff that we didn't we hoped wasn't going anywhere. I would actually like 427 00:30:41,519 --> 00:30:45,319 those of us who believe in those values to actually collect together. I think 428 00:30:45,319 --> 00:30:48,599 there are enough people in the center left and center right who could actually push 429 00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:55,240 back against this. I just hope that our book helps open their eyes about 430 00:30:55,279 --> 00:30:59,359 how crazy things have gotten in some of these institutions, like a particular elite 431 00:30:59,440 --> 00:31:03,559 higher education. They need massive reform. But giving up on freedom of speech, 432 00:31:03,880 --> 00:31:07,680 even just out of self interest, even just out of self interest for 433 00:31:07,799 --> 00:31:11,839 conservatives, is a terrible idea because guess who's going to be enforcing those new 434 00:31:11,839 --> 00:31:15,559 speech codes. It probably won't be someone on the right. In many cases, 435 00:31:15,599 --> 00:31:19,000 it definitely will not be someone on the right in higher education. So 436 00:31:19,279 --> 00:31:22,559 I think sometimes, you know, I sometimes see like movement on the right 437 00:31:22,599 --> 00:31:26,119 to get rid of Section two thirty, and I'm like, who do you 438 00:31:26,119 --> 00:31:29,720 think would be harm the most if they got rid of two thirty, who 439 00:31:29,759 --> 00:31:33,039 do you think these companies in Silicon Valley, you know, are going to 440 00:31:33,119 --> 00:31:37,960 kick off their platforms first. So I think that some of the thinking around 441 00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:44,400 rethinking freedom of speech, for example, would actually, if it were to 442 00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:47,599 actually to exist in the real world, would definitely harm conservatives. Now, 443 00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:52,319 of course I'd oppose it to my dying breath, because I believe in these 444 00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:56,680 as values. But I share the concern that there is a generation being educated 445 00:31:56,759 --> 00:32:00,400 right now that's coming off college campuses that I think freedom of speech is part 446 00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:05,839 of the problem that enlightened censorship is swell. They look at you know, 447 00:32:05,839 --> 00:32:08,319 there were like something like we point this out in the book, there were 448 00:32:08,359 --> 00:32:12,920 something like three thousand, four thousand arrests during the pomer Raids in the first 449 00:32:13,039 --> 00:32:15,960 red Scare over two years of the pomer Raids. I think it is around 450 00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:22,240 three thousand and four thousand. They're around almost four thousand people arrested for offensive 451 00:32:22,359 --> 00:32:29,720 comments on social media in Britain in twenty sixteen. I think, and when 452 00:32:29,759 --> 00:32:31,599 I hear, you know, people like on the left saying like, oh, 453 00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:37,079 we should be like Europe, I'm like, you want massive policing of 454 00:32:37,119 --> 00:32:39,839 what people say on social media. And now meanwhile, kind of like you're 455 00:32:39,839 --> 00:32:45,079 seeing, actually what's happening in Europe where there there were in some cases like 456 00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:50,079 France maybe is banning Palestinian flags, the people are actually going to jail in 457 00:32:50,119 --> 00:32:55,039 some cases for some of their speech around this. And what I wish would 458 00:32:55,079 --> 00:32:59,319 happen. Would people go, oh, oh no, actually, maybe I 459 00:32:59,359 --> 00:33:02,400 was wrong about thinking about this enlightened censorship in Europe. But people are so 460 00:33:02,839 --> 00:33:07,960 in there, they have their warheads on so tight, they don't seem to 461 00:33:07,039 --> 00:33:10,759 be doing this reevaluation that maybe we were super wrong about this stuff. And 462 00:33:10,799 --> 00:33:15,200 by the way, you were. Something that I love about this book is 463 00:33:15,279 --> 00:33:20,079 so fascinating as you kind of anatomize the rise of cancel culture, and obviously 464 00:33:20,119 --> 00:33:23,079 you were studying that from the very beginning. But that's really daunting in the 465 00:33:23,119 --> 00:33:28,200 context of everything we just talked about of social media and all of that. 466 00:33:28,319 --> 00:33:34,720 So can you just tell us a little bit greg about your prescription moving forward, 467 00:33:34,759 --> 00:33:37,200 your path for the future. Well, first thing I want readers to 468 00:33:37,279 --> 00:33:43,440 understand is that we don't think fixing it is easy. We spend a third 469 00:33:43,480 --> 00:33:45,240 of the book talking about it because we don't think it's easy. And by 470 00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:50,400 the way, we're just starting on some of these suggestions. Basically, I 471 00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:52,480 would characterize the last third of it as what might be a good start, 472 00:33:52,480 --> 00:33:55,759 And we have some pretty radical ideas in there as well. Like the most 473 00:33:55,839 --> 00:34:00,319 radical idea that I talk about is, I wish there was a test that 474 00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:05,880 was incredibly difficult to pass that would basically test your knowledge of everything, say 475 00:34:06,039 --> 00:34:10,639 Humanity's Harvard student would have studied like the in like the nineteen fifties, you 476 00:34:10,639 --> 00:34:14,719 know, like every single book. You'd have to understand all of them. 477 00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:19,000 But if you could pass that, you get a BA, you know, 478 00:34:19,079 --> 00:34:22,239 like you get a super prestigious BA because maybe one out of ten thousand people 479 00:34:22,280 --> 00:34:27,239 can pass this thing. Why do I think that's good? Because right now, 480 00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:31,599 and how badly elite higher education actually distorts the whole country. It is 481 00:34:31,639 --> 00:34:34,960 a major theme. But right now, let's take Harvard. Harvard, by 482 00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:37,840 the way, finished dead last in our campus free speech ranking, which is 483 00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:40,800 not our opinion. It's based on thirteen different factors, the largest study of 484 00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:47,079 student opinion ever done, four different databases on professor cancelations, student cancelations, 485 00:34:47,119 --> 00:34:52,719 deplatforming, and speech codes. And they finished dead last. They actually got 486 00:34:52,719 --> 00:34:57,559 a negative score that we rounded up to a zero. And meanwhile, at 487 00:34:57,559 --> 00:35:02,639 Harvard, I think the statistic is something like forty five percent of white students 488 00:35:02,679 --> 00:35:09,880 are either legacies kids or professors or athletes. And the average GPA at Harvard 489 00:35:10,199 --> 00:35:15,800 is a three point eight, which is insane like that, that's basically a 490 00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:19,400 perfect, perfect grade point average. So that means you could be getting an 491 00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:22,440 incredibly hard working, absolutely brilliant kid if you hire from Harvard, or you 492 00:35:22,519 --> 00:35:24,840 might be getting this kid who phoned it in got a three point six. 493 00:35:25,039 --> 00:35:30,639 You know, and as the son of is a fourth generation legacy and the 494 00:35:30,719 --> 00:35:34,519 kid of a major donor. If we had something like this test, you 495 00:35:34,559 --> 00:35:39,880 know, it would actually start scaring elite colleges where it matters the most. 496 00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:44,880 Besides, you know, alumni donations that they might not be one of the 497 00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:47,039 best indicators for who the best, brightest and hardest working are. By the 498 00:35:47,039 --> 00:35:51,119 way, they never were, but they thought they had a good argument for 499 00:35:51,639 --> 00:35:53,519 them being. But it's getting worse and worse by the year. Meanwhile, 500 00:35:53,719 --> 00:35:59,440 another major harm of hiring from elite colleges is those students might show up and 501 00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:01,840 be canceleds themselves. How many of the corporate things, and how often I've 502 00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:06,880 heard this and this, this, this one gets under my skin. Greg 503 00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:09,119 and Greg and John Hyde. Hi. You know, I'm an I'm a 504 00:36:09,119 --> 00:36:15,559 big employer. I've noticed that my predictingly my elite college graduates, but you 505 00:36:15,599 --> 00:36:21,320 know, from other schools as well. They show up and they're they're destroying 506 00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:23,639 my corporation. Like they're basically saying, I have to fire everyone who disagrees. 507 00:36:23,679 --> 00:36:25,719 We have to make statements on every political thing, and it has to 508 00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:31,280 be pretty pretty hard left. It's dysfunctional, and so I'm not hiring from 509 00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:34,320 there anymore. And I always I'm like, okay, can you tell the 510 00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:36,840 world that I'm like, no, I have to keep this private, and 511 00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:39,199 it's like no, please please tell the world this. This would this would 512 00:36:39,239 --> 00:36:44,000 actually help people understand that how how how bad it's gotten. I'm thankful to 513 00:36:44,119 --> 00:36:47,280 Ryan Grimm at The Intercept for writing an article called the Elephant in the Zoom, 514 00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:52,599 which points out how dysfunctional this has been when it hit social justice fundamentalism 515 00:36:52,639 --> 00:36:57,480 is my preferred term to wokeism when that hit the nonprofit world, and I 516 00:36:57,559 --> 00:37:00,079 really appreciate him for shining a light on it. So if we had some 517 00:37:00,199 --> 00:37:04,960 kind of like crazy test you know that was incredibly difficult to pass. Well 518 00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:08,360 one you don't know if you can be relatively confident you're probably not getting some 519 00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:14,480 thoughtless ideologue. You might be getting the genuinely hardworking, smart person who's a 520 00:37:14,519 --> 00:37:17,519 self starter. Meanwhile, you know you hire from Harvard or Yale, you 521 00:37:17,599 --> 00:37:22,519 might end up not only with someone who doesn't is not actually as good as 522 00:37:22,519 --> 00:37:24,280 they look on paper by a mile. There might be someone who shows up 523 00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:28,920 and sinks your corporation because they actually are demanding that all of your eccentric, 524 00:37:28,960 --> 00:37:36,760 interesting people have to go because they're not sufficiently doctrinaire. Hey, y'all, 525 00:37:36,800 --> 00:37:39,639 this is Sarah from the Sarah Carter Show. Thanks for listening to the Federalists 526 00:37:39,679 --> 00:37:44,400 or radio hour. We all have a heartfelt reason to support our blood pressure. 527 00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:47,760 In fact, more than half the US population would benefit from blood pressure 528 00:37:47,760 --> 00:37:52,360 support. 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My last question, Greg, you're so busy and 543 00:39:04,599 --> 00:39:07,159 I know you got to run, is to return a bit to Chris Rufo 544 00:39:07,800 --> 00:39:15,400 because he writes extensively about how this oppressor versus oppress see dichotomy is es central 545 00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:17,760 to a lot of the leftism that you see on campuses that maybe the objectionable 546 00:39:17,760 --> 00:39:22,159 excess of leftism that people look at and see on campuses. And I asked 547 00:39:22,199 --> 00:39:24,840 that because you know, in Ryan's article actually touches on some of this. 548 00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:28,960 But the first of the way I first became familiar with Fire was when I 549 00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:32,400 was interning for Christina Hoff Summer Back in Summer's Back in twenty twelve twenty fourteen. 550 00:39:32,480 --> 00:39:35,519 I talk about it on the show a lot, but it was very 551 00:39:35,519 --> 00:39:42,199 formative for me, and that language bubbled to the surface in those early days 552 00:39:42,199 --> 00:39:45,199 of cancel culture when you were one of the few people really studying this and 553 00:39:45,280 --> 00:39:49,599 really aware of it. I really just want to ask, is that that 554 00:39:49,679 --> 00:39:58,239 dichotomy, that colonizer versus colonized type of paradigm that know Rufo has written about 555 00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:00,039 and other people have written about in different ways and maybe have different takes on 556 00:40:00,079 --> 00:40:05,960 what it is, is that fundamentally a threat to free speech. The thing 557 00:40:05,960 --> 00:40:09,840 about Chris Truffo's book is, you know, even though Chris Ruffo and Fire 558 00:40:09,920 --> 00:40:14,119 butts heads on a number of issues, particularly the stop Okay in Florida, 559 00:40:14,239 --> 00:40:16,719 I actually thought the book was really quite impressive. Like I was, I 560 00:40:16,760 --> 00:40:21,119 thought it had a pointed it shaw a light on some really important issues, 561 00:40:21,159 --> 00:40:22,719 and I think it's important, for example, that everybody know that Marcus, 562 00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:27,360 in addition to being Herbert Marcuse, one of the fathers of enlightened censorship, 563 00:40:28,079 --> 00:40:31,239 was not just completely dead wrong and in my opinion, sort of like a 564 00:40:31,320 --> 00:40:35,880 simplistic thinker on freedom of speech was he believed MAO was still good in the 565 00:40:35,920 --> 00:40:37,639 nineteen seventies. I mean, and I think it's important the younger readers understand 566 00:40:37,639 --> 00:40:43,320 that, even though they might not understand how MAW is unfortunately. So there's 567 00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:45,840 a lot there's a lot that I like about the book, and I think 568 00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:50,960 that it really points out and one thing that I really want people to know 569 00:40:51,159 --> 00:40:55,400 is that when it comes to critical race theory, that yeah, you're you're 570 00:40:55,440 --> 00:41:00,119 allowed to teach it, you can assign that stuff, and we'll post that 571 00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:02,280 if you're saying that this is something these are ideas that can't be you know, 572 00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:07,239 talked about on campus. But the very first thing that the founders of 573 00:41:07,280 --> 00:41:12,760 Critical Race Theory did when they got together was make an argument for less free 574 00:41:12,800 --> 00:41:16,519 speech. The words that wound, you know, was something I think when 575 00:41:16,559 --> 00:41:21,400 the final version of it came out in the nineties. I think Crensha Delgado, 576 00:41:21,599 --> 00:41:25,599 Mary Matsuda, a lot of the founders of the movement were on that 577 00:41:25,679 --> 00:41:30,599 actual actually were co authors on that book. But also you know, the 578 00:41:30,599 --> 00:41:36,360 original words when I Think, I Think, which was nineteen eighty came out 579 00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:44,159 and it started the speech ghost movement. So like the critical race theory theory, 580 00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:47,559 you know, which is explicitly explicitly anti liberal to be clear, like 581 00:41:47,679 --> 00:41:51,840 they think that liberalism they day too, like the Patrick I mean right, 582 00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:59,199 think liberalism has failed and that it was fundamentally you know, anti free speech 583 00:41:59,599 --> 00:42:02,440 when it to the oppressed versus oppressor dichotomy. A lot of the sort of 584 00:42:02,519 --> 00:42:07,760 you know, using identity and using oppression to squash speech. It's it's something 585 00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:10,840 we never should have taken seriously in the first place, because there's nothing about 586 00:42:12,519 --> 00:42:15,800 being, you know, in the opinion of hire Ed a good person that 587 00:42:15,880 --> 00:42:20,360 means you're right, and there's nothing about being a bad person that means you're 588 00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:22,800 wrong. And we talk about this actually is a fourth grade unfruth in the 589 00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:24,840 book. You'll have to read it to figure out what I'm talking about. 590 00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:30,119 There. Another big thanks to Greg lukianof co author of the new book The 591 00:42:30,159 --> 00:42:32,519 Canceling of the American Mind, which he wrote with Ricky Schlott, and a 592 00:42:32,559 --> 00:42:37,920 big thanks to Greg for putting up with my computer troubles. It was just 593 00:42:37,039 --> 00:42:40,039 fantastic to be able to have that conversation with him. I want to give 594 00:42:40,079 --> 00:42:44,519 everyone a reminder that if they'd like to support our work at the Federalists, 595 00:42:44,559 --> 00:42:47,400 go to the Federalist dot com sign up to join the Federalist community for an 596 00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:52,039 ad free version of the website which is awesome, and also exclusive access to 597 00:42:52,119 --> 00:42:55,119 content that you don't want to miss, so make sure to go to Federalist 598 00:42:55,159 --> 00:42:59,920 dot com for that. I'm Emili Jaschinski, culture editor here at the Federalist. 599 00:43:00,039 --> 00:43:02,400 Thank you very much for listening. We will be back soon with more. 600 00:43:02,599 --> 00:43:21,119 Until then, be lovers of freedom and anxious for the Fray