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Speaker 1: Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is Deep Background, the show

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Speaker 1: where we explore the stories behind the stories in the news.

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Speaker 1: I'm Noah Felder. Welcome to the latest installment and the

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Speaker 1: last of our Freedom of Speech miniseries. Just yesterday we

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Speaker 1: heard from Eugene Valak, a professor at UCLA School of Law. Today,

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Speaker 1: we're going to hear from another staunch defender of freedom

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Speaker 1: of speech, but one who is coming at the issue

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Speaker 1: from almost the opposite place on the political spectrum. Nadine

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Speaker 1: Strawson was the president of the American Civil Liberties Union

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Speaker 1: for almost two decades up until two thousand and eight.

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Speaker 1: She was the first woman and the youngest person ever

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Speaker 1: to lead the organization. She's now a professor at New

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Speaker 1: York Law School. I spoke to Nadine back in October,

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Speaker 1: when the world was very different, and yet we were

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Speaker 1: wrestling with a lot of the same issues. Needin, I

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Speaker 1: want to start with hate speech, because after a long

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Speaker 1: career of focusing on all aspects of freedom of expression,

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Speaker 1: you wrote a book recently called hate Why we Should

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Speaker 1: Resist It with free speech not censorship, which is I

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Speaker 1: think appropriately provocative and controversial title. So what do you

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Speaker 1: mean when you say hate speech, there are lots of

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Speaker 1: different definitions out there. The core of the concept is

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Speaker 1: speech that conveys hateful, discriminatory, stereotyped ideas, particularly on basies

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Speaker 1: such as race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, groups that have

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Speaker 1: traditionally been marginalized or excluded. But if you look at

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Speaker 1: how we use the term in everyday parlance in the

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Speaker 1: United States, you will see that people are using that

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Speaker 1: term absolutely profligately to describe and decry and often try

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Speaker 1: to sense or any speech that conveys any idea that

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Speaker 1: they hate. And some of this has been well publicized.

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Speaker 1: For example, on some college campuses, t r U m

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Speaker 1: P chalked on sidewalks or worn on T shirts or

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Speaker 1: caps has been attacked as hate speech. Some politicians have

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Speaker 1: denounced Black Lives Matter activism and protests as hate speech.

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Speaker 1: Most chillingly to me, although I understand where it's coming from,

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Speaker 1: on some campuses and other venues, the phrase free speech

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Speaker 1: has been attacked as hate speech. And the reason why

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Speaker 1: I say I know where that's coming from, sad ly, Noah,

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Speaker 1: is that so often white supremacists and white nationalists and

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Speaker 1: other hate mongers have had the right to express their

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Speaker 1: repulsive ideas because of free speech principles, and unfortunately that

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Speaker 1: means in the minds of too many people, racist speech

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Speaker 1: and other hate mongering speech has become equated with free speech.

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Speaker 1: So I really had to write. I felt absolutely compelled

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Speaker 1: to write the book because I have been a proud

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Speaker 1: social justice warrior my entire life. I consider that a compliment,

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Speaker 1: not an insult, as some people use the term. And

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Speaker 1: I am absolutely committed to freedom of speech, and I

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Speaker 1: am absolutely convinced that both goals are inextricable. That we

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Speaker 1: cannot advance equality, dignity, diversity, inclusivity, especially for groups that

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Speaker 1: have traditionally been discriminated against, without having really robust free speech,

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Speaker 1: robust enough to extend even to so called hate speech.

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Speaker 1: So let's focus then, nating if we can, on what

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Speaker 1: I would consider the hard case, the kind of speech

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Speaker 1: that almost every country that considers itself roughly being civilized

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Speaker 1: in the world does sanction or outlaw to some degree.

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Speaker 1: Let's call it dehumanizing speech that is directed at traditionally

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Speaker 1: marginalized groups. And I want to ask you, in that,

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Speaker 1: to my mind, somewhat hard case of hate speech, what

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Speaker 1: you think about the main rationales that are usually used

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Speaker 1: to justify regulations. So the first is that such speech

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Speaker 1: has a tendency to lead to real world, concrete physical

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Speaker 1: harm against people from marginalized groups. That it's not enough

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Speaker 1: to only prohibit speech that immediately threatens imminent violence, but

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Speaker 1: that ultimately we need to also think about the downstream effect.

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Speaker 1: You know, when Hitler starts talking, he's not got crowds

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Speaker 1: in front of him immediately about to lynch people, but

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Speaker 1: over time he builds up support through a steady diet

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Speaker 1: of hate. And so goes the argument, we need to

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Speaker 1: nip that the bud. It'll be too late if we

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Speaker 1: wait until the point that there's an angry crowd. We

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Speaker 1: have to worry about the structural development of dehumanization because

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Speaker 1: we know, having lived after the terrible twentieth century, and

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Speaker 1: we know in the twenty first century we're still encountering genocide,

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Speaker 1: and so the argument goes, we need to limit hate

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Speaker 1: speech to prevent that kind of disaster. What's your primary

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Speaker 1: answer to that charge? Before I answer the question, Noah,

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Speaker 1: I have distressed because you asked about dehumanizing speech that's

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Speaker 1: targeted at particular groups, and as you adverted to later,

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Speaker 1: in your excellent question, certain speech that meets that criterion

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Speaker 1: can and should be punished consistent with First Amendment principles.

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Speaker 1: So if the speech is targeting an individual or small

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Speaker 1: group of individuals, and if it constitutes intentional incitement of

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Speaker 1: imminent violence that's likely to happen, that cannon should be punished.

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Speaker 1: If it's targeted harassment or bullying, that can and should

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Speaker 1: be punished. If it means to instill a reasonable fear

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Speaker 1: that the audience that's targeted is going to be subject

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Speaker 1: to harm, that is a punishable so called true threat.

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Speaker 1: So in general, I and others summarize this principle under

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Speaker 1: US law and by the way, also under international human

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Speaker 1: rights law as the emergency principle. When the speech presents

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Speaker 1: a direct threat of serious, imminent, specific harm, then it

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Speaker 1: can and should be punished. But I completely agree with

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Speaker 1: you that speech does cause harm even if it does

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Speaker 1: not satisfy that strict definition, or at least it certainly

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Speaker 1: can potentially cause harm more indirectly and remotely, as you

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Speaker 1: ask in your question, And my reason for opposing censorship

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Speaker 1: is not because I just ute the potential harmful impact

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Speaker 1: of non punishable hate speech, but rather because I think

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Speaker 1: that censorship is at best and ineffective way to counter

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Speaker 1: the potential harm, and at worst a counter productive one.

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Speaker 1: So let's push on that Indian So you know, let's

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Speaker 1: talk about mitigation. We're not talking about curing the harm.

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Speaker 1: So imagine you have a country. We have a lot

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Speaker 1: of European countries that fit this description today, where they're

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Speaker 1: far right politicians who are getting more and more votes

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Speaker 1: in each election and their rhetoric is getting more and

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Speaker 1: more radical. And this time it's not Jews that they

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Speaker 1: are primarily biased against. Now it's Muslims, still an immigrant group,

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Speaker 1: it's on the group that's being labeled criminal and an

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Speaker 1: other parallels to you know, Europe in the nineteen twenties

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Speaker 1: and thirties are obvious. Let's say we want to say,

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Speaker 1: you know, maybe we won't ban all of that speech,

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Speaker 1: but we're not going to let you be elected to

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Speaker 1: the parliament as a party if you advocate expressly racist views.

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Speaker 1: Some European countries have rules like that. And again this

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Speaker 1: isn't meant to eliminate all racism. It's meant to mitigate

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Speaker 1: the real world effects, especially when organized political parties realize

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Speaker 1: that they can gain more votes by using forms of

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Speaker 1: hate speech. I'm assuming that's not okay with you either,

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Speaker 1: even though that's something short of a pure ben because

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Speaker 1: it is a fifth technique of mitigation. Though the facts

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Speaker 1: that you cite now actually support my point, because the

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Speaker 1: fact is that those European countries have extremely strict anti

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Speaker 1: hate speech laws that are very strictly enforced, and they

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Speaker 1: have not prevented the rise of hateful expression by hateful

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Speaker 1: parties that are gaining support among the people. Germany is

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Speaker 1: an excellent case in point. It has the strictest anti

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Speaker 1: hate speech laws in the world, with a possible exception

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Speaker 1: of some Middle Eastern countries. The law are extremely strictly enforced.

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Speaker 1: They are enforced against politicians as well as candidates, as

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Speaker 1: well as elected officials, and as you well know, despite

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Speaker 1: and would some German commentators say because of those laws

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Speaker 1: that they have spurred the frustration and the anger and

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Speaker 1: the backlash that has fueled the frightening rise of the AfD,

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Speaker 1: the Alternative for Germany, which is an expressly racist party.

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Speaker 1: It got thirteen percent of the vote in the last

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Speaker 1: national election a couple of years ago. And Germany also

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Speaker 1: has had distressing levels of violence against Jews, against Roma,

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Speaker 1: against refugees, to the point that Angelo Michael, for the

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Speaker 1: very first time in German history, actually appointed a cabinet

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Speaker 1: level minister for anti Semitism, and the head of the

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Speaker 1: largest council Jewish organizations in Germany warned Jews that they

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Speaker 1: should not feel safe wearing the yamuka, the skull cap

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Speaker 1: that some observant male Jews feel a religious obligation to

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Speaker 1: wear in public. Now, I know you can't prove a counterfactual.

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Speaker 1: Maybe the situation would be even worse if Germany wasn't

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Speaker 1: enforcing I mean, I unless you can help me on this,

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Speaker 1: I don't think there's any way I could ever prove that.

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Speaker 1: But it's clearly the case that even very strictly enforced

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Speaker 1: laws have not been enough to sufficiently quell the rise

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Speaker 1: of hateful expression and conduct. And the same thing happened

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Speaker 1: in the Weimar Republic, during which Hitler rose to power,

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Speaker 1: you know, and that's often cited as epitomizing this situation. Now,

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Speaker 1: and I agree, as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor,

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Speaker 1: My goodness, you know, if anything could have prevented Hitler

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Speaker 1: from rising to power, I certainly would have been in

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Speaker 1: favor of it. But back then Germany also already had

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Speaker 1: very strict anti hate speech laws that were enforced against

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Speaker 1: Nazis repeatedly, and they loved it. It was a propaganda

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Speaker 1: platform for them, an opportunity for them to gain attention

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Speaker 1: that they otherwise never would have and sympathy they otherwise

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Speaker 1: never would have. And that is the same strategy that's

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Speaker 1: used by hate mongers in this country. Noah, and I

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Speaker 1: don't at all mean to compare them to the Nazis,

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Speaker 1: thank goodness, they're certainly not advocating genocide, but you know,

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Speaker 1: the Miloanopolises and the Richard Spencers of this world, other

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Speaker 1: provocateurs revel. Oh, and in the online context, Alex Jones,

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Speaker 1: you know, they celebrate when they're subject to attempts to

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Speaker 1: ban or punish them, because they know that that gains

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Speaker 1: them attention that they otherwise would not have received. Organizations

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Speaker 1: whose work I generally very much admire, the Anti Defamation

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Speaker 1: League and the Southern Poverty Law Center, whose mission is

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Speaker 1: focused on countering actual discrimination. They've actually urged college students

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Speaker 1: and others please resist the temptation to try to deep

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Speaker 1: platform or shout down or shutdown or otherwise suppress the

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Speaker 1: voices of those that are conveying trying to convey hateful messages.

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Speaker 1: It may feel very morally satisfying, but it is actually

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Speaker 1: going to do more harm than good. We'll be right back.

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Speaker 1: So let me turn out, then, Nadine, to the question

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Speaker 1: of social media, and let me try out an argument

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Speaker 1: that you know, I know is not yours, but that

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Speaker 1: I believe as a person who is very deeply committed

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Speaker 1: to free speech principles, and it runs something like this.

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Speaker 1: It says, you know, Nadine, and you and your work

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Speaker 1: with the ACL you have convinced us and the forefathers

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Speaker 1: and foremothers are free speech doctrine, have convinced us that

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Speaker 1: the government shouldn't be trusted to engage in regulation of speech.

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Speaker 1: But when we turn to the context of social media,

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Speaker 1: the very same First Amendment principles that tell us the

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Speaker 1: government can't regulate also tell us that a private publisher

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Speaker 1: or a private platform is protected by the First Amendment

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Speaker 1: in possessing its own right and authority to make its

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Speaker 1: own decisions about what content it does or doesn't want

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Speaker 1: to allow on its platform, or it does or doesn't

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Speaker 1: want to promote to varying degrees. From this premise, the

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Speaker 1: argument goes on to say that if a company doesn't

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Speaker 1: want to allow hate speech on its platform, it should

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Speaker 1: be allowed to prohibit it, and that it's also desirable

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Speaker 1: for platforms that have the capacity to reduce the amount

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Speaker 1: of hate it's in circulation to use their own tools

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Speaker 1: and techniques for engaging in that form of regulation. Full disclosure,

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Speaker 1: I've been advising Facebook on the creation of an oversight board.

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Speaker 1: Facebook itself, like all the other major platforms, does limit

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Speaker 1: hate speech on its platform if that's allowed by the

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Speaker 1: First Amendment, if it doesn't threaten at its core the

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Speaker 1: idea of a free speech because after all, the platforms

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Speaker 1: also have free speech rights. Why shouldn't those private actors

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Speaker 1: take a different stance than the government does? Or should

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Speaker 1: I completely agree with everything you said until you got

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Speaker 1: to the desirable so called content moderation by the social

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Speaker 1: media giants, including Facebook, I couldn't agree with you more. Noah,

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Speaker 1: that we have no free speech rightspees v. Private sector actors.

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Speaker 1: I for one, would balk at government trying to reign

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Speaker 1: in what I do believe to be the free speech

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Speaker 1: editorial rights of social media companies, just as I would

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Speaker 1: balk at that power being used for traditional media. Where

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Speaker 1: I part company with you is on the desirability of

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Speaker 1: Facebook using its enormous power. And we'll just use Facebook

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Speaker 1: as an example. But the points I'd make I would

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Speaker 1: apply to the companies that have dominant power. As the

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court set in decision a couple of years ago,

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Speaker 1: they really constitute the major platform now in our society

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Speaker 1: and in our political sphere, not only for discussions between

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Speaker 1: you and me and our friends and our colleagues, but

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Speaker 1: also between we, the people, to quote the opening words

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Speaker 1: of the Constitution, who wield sovereign power in this country

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Speaker 1: and those we elect to represent us. So the major

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Speaker 1: power in terms of not only individual free expression but

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Speaker 1: also democratic self government is now in the hands of

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Speaker 1: these powerful private sector actors. And I have to say

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Speaker 1: whom do I distrust more? The government, which I traditionally

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Speaker 1: instinctively distrust for good reason based on history, but also

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Speaker 1: it's hard to trust a powerful private sector entity, no

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Speaker 1: matter how good spirited the individuals associated with it may be,

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Speaker 1: and no matter how brilliant and you know people that

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Speaker 1: they are working with such as you knowah, and with

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Speaker 1: your commitment to free speech. Ultimately they're not accountable to

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Speaker 1: we the people, but ultimately accountable to shareholders. I guess

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Speaker 1: in the case of Facebook, that means to Mark Zuckerberg, right,

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Speaker 1: and that's worrisome. But that said, I don't think that

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Speaker 1: there is a legal solution of government imposing limits on

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Speaker 1: how Facebook exercises its editorial power trying to remain open minded.

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Speaker 1: So for me, now, the question is, practically speaking, is

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Speaker 1: it in fact desirable for Facebook to try to define

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Speaker 1: and to try to enforce standards against hate speech? And

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Speaker 1: my reason for concluding no, Although I will, to the

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Speaker 1: best of my ability try to be open minded as

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Speaker 1: new evidence comes in, but I think it is as

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Speaker 1: doomed to be arbitrary at best and discriminatory at worst

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Speaker 1: as all so called hate speech so called standards have

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Speaker 1: been when enforced by government around the world throughout history.

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Speaker 1: So let me let me make then a different version

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Speaker 1: of the argument on the other side. So I'm going

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Speaker 1: to begin by conceding to you I completely agree that

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Speaker 1: if we don't trust government, there's no reason we should

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Speaker 1: trust private corporations. And it doesn't matter how well intentioned

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Speaker 1: or ill intentioned they or their leading shareholders might be.

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Speaker 1: I agree, there's no reason we should trust them. The

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Speaker 1: argument though, for restricting hate speech on social media, I

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Speaker 1: think takes seriously your point that increasingly social media is

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Speaker 1: where we go to engage in the civic republican conversation

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Speaker 1: that we need to run our country. And the argument

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Speaker 1: would be something like this, in order for us to

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Speaker 1: have a collective series of conversations that we need to

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Speaker 1: be a functioning democracy, we need to have some basic

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Speaker 1: guidelines of civility and of not speaking in a way

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Speaker 1: that shuts up other people. And you know, again I

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Speaker 1: am with you that we don't trust the government to

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Speaker 1: come up with those standards, but we could be a

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Speaker 1: little more experimental in the social media context, partly because

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Speaker 1: the social media companies can change their minds, they can

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Speaker 1: alter their standards, They can do real world experiments. They

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Speaker 1: can see if certain kinds of speech are leading vulnerable

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Speaker 1: people to get off the service or to shut down

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Speaker 1: or not speak. There's some better tools available here than

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Speaker 1: there would be available to a government. Why not run

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Speaker 1: the experiment? Why begin a priori with the view that

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Speaker 1: all regulations of speech are going to go awry. I

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Speaker 1: certainly am open to experiment, and as I said earlier, Noah,

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Speaker 1: I am open to considering evidence, and my starting premise

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Speaker 1: is I'm only looking for what is the least bad

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Speaker 1: solution because I see problems with all of the options.

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Speaker 1: I see the problem that you're talking about. I associate

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Speaker 1: myself very much with a number of reports that have

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Speaker 1: been done on these issues by PEN America, the organization

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Speaker 1: that represents writers including journalists and very much advocates free speech,

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Speaker 1: and a couple of years ago, PENN did a handbook

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Speaker 1: for writers and bloggers and journalists about the hazards of

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Speaker 1: being on social media, trolling and dosing and harassment, and

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Speaker 1: they did a survey of their members which showed that

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Speaker 1: people were being driven off and see saying journalists were

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Speaker 1: sobbing they're ending their social media commentary, especially women and

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Speaker 1: members of minority groups. So I couldn't agree with you more.

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Speaker 1: I had earlier said there are free speech concerns here

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Speaker 1: on both sides, right, nonregulated and regulated. But PAN America's

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Speaker 1: proposed response is not regulation beyond and forcing legal standards

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Speaker 1: that exist already. As we talked about against targeted harassment

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Speaker 1: and bullying, and so forth. But beyond that, Pan America

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Speaker 1: was advocating a series of free speech type responses, including

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Speaker 1: by publishers, by editors, by friends and colleagues, and in

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Speaker 1: addition to experimenting with content moderation. And you know, you

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Speaker 1: know better than I do that Facebook wasn't always trying

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Speaker 1: to restrict hate speech. So it also wasn't an a

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Speaker 1: priori assumption that there would be content regulation, including a

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Speaker 1: hate speech on these social media companies. And I know

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Speaker 1: that Facebook and the others are experimenting with different definitions

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Speaker 1: and different ways of enforcing the definitions and so forth,

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Speaker 1: So I do appreciate that open mindedness and experimentation. But

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Speaker 1: also in the spirit of experimentation, I have read with

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Speaker 1: great hopefulness about efforts that have been funded by Facebook

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Speaker 1: and other social media giants for how can we harness

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Speaker 1: the power of social media to promote counter speech of

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Speaker 1: various types. That will be another way of countering the

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Speaker 1: potential adverse impact of hate speech, Rooting people toward affirmative

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Speaker 1: information that will counter the statements that are being made

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Speaker 1: by hate mongers, providing support for people who are disparaged

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Speaker 1: by hate mongers, and so forth. Yeah, that all seems

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Speaker 1: that seems like a potentially promising direction. So let's talk

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Speaker 1: then about trends. And here I want to ask you

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Speaker 1: a question that's maybe a tiny bit impolite. You're a

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Speaker 1: self described social justice warrior, and you also a simultaneously

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Speaker 1: are deeply committed to freedom of expression. And doesn't that

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Speaker 1: make you and I might include myself in this category too,

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Speaker 1: doesn't that make us dinosaurs? Hasn't there been a radical

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Speaker 1: change over the last fifteen or twenty years. It happened gradually,

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Speaker 1: it didn't happen all in one go. But if you

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Speaker 1: look at where broadly speaking, progressive thinkers are today compared

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Speaker 1: to where they were twenty years ago, the trends seems

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Speaker 1: to be completely against you. The trends seems to be

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Speaker 1: And I see this with my students, and I see

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Speaker 1: it in the work of my generational contemporaries who are

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Speaker 1: intellectuals writing from the progressive perspective. There seems to have

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Speaker 1: been a major retreat on the left from the values

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Speaker 1: of strong civil libertarian free speech, whereas on the right

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Speaker 1: there's been almost a huge rise in support for them

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Speaker 1: of freedom of speech. I mean, we see something very

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Speaker 1: close to one hundred and eighty degree flip where if

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Speaker 1: you think of the classic Supreme Court cases of the sixties,

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Speaker 1: there it was the court's greatest liberals who were in

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Speaker 1: favor of freedom of expression and the conservatives were in

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Speaker 1: favor of censorship. And now, if anything, it's going the

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Speaker 1: other way, and conservatives are most strongly in favor of

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Speaker 1: freedom of expression. And maybe it's not quite true on

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, but more broadly in the society, freedom

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Speaker 1: of speech is not so favored among progressives. So what's

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Speaker 1: going on? And are we dinosaurs? I disagree with the

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Speaker 1: factual generalizations to this extent, now that I read every survey,

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Speaker 1: and there to me inconclusive and do show that depending

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Speaker 1: on what the subject is, you get self described liberals

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Speaker 1: and progressives who are against censorship or for and this

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Speaker 1: aim is true for self described conservatives. And in fact,

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Speaker 1: I think this situation throughout my entire adult lifetime, and

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Speaker 1: I'll pull the age rank on you. I've been in

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Speaker 1: the trenches probably for a couple more decades. In the

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Speaker 1: early nineteen eighties, Nat Hintoff, who was very active with ACLU,

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Speaker 1: a journalist, wrote a book whose title I think said

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Speaker 1: at all it was freedom of speech for me but

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Speaker 1: not for me how the left and right are relentlessly

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Speaker 1: censoring each other. But I obviously believe that there are

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Speaker 1: too many social justice activists who do not understand how

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Speaker 1: important free speech is to advance their causes. That's what

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Speaker 1: motivated me to write my book. And as one astute

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Speaker 1: reviewer commented, it's very clear that my book is aimed

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Speaker 1: at the left. That is the main audience now that

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Speaker 1: I believe needs persuading, and I do see a particular

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Speaker 1: need to make a case that is rooted specifically in

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Speaker 1: the social justice causes as a rationale for supporting free speech. Nadine,

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Speaker 1: I want to thank you not just for this terrific conversation,

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Speaker 1: but for fighting the good fight in a serious way,

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Speaker 1: both in the trenches and in the leadership role for

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Speaker 1: so long. I've learned such a huge amount from your

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Speaker 1: free speech advocacy, and I learned a lot from this book,

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Speaker 1: and I hope we can keep on talking about these

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Speaker 1: really important issues. I guess that's the whole point of

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Speaker 1: free speech, right to discuss the idea as long as

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Speaker 1: we want, in for as much time as we want,

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Speaker 1: and hope that we get it right eventually, and right

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Speaker 1: back at you. Noah, thank you so much for your work,

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Speaker 1: including doing your best to preserve a wonderful free speech

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Speaker 1: environment on Facebook. Let's hope, so thanks a lot, Nadine,

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Speaker 1: take care. Coming from the left of the political spectrum,

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Speaker 1: where the ACLU has mostly been ever since its founding

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen twenties, Nadine Strausson offers a vision of

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Speaker 1: free speech that's grounded in a deep skepticism and distrust

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Speaker 1: of who controls the government and therefore of what will

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Speaker 1: happen when speech gets regulated. It's in the dna of

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Speaker 1: Nadine's view to believe that the government is not likely

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Speaker 1: to serve the interests of the dispossessed, of minorities, or

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Speaker 1: of those who lack power in the society. She therefore

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Speaker 1: thinks that any time we have limitations on speech from

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Speaker 1: the government, and indeed, she goes further and says, any

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Speaker 1: time even private entities like social media companies limit freedom

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Speaker 1: of speech, the results are likely to be, roughly speaking, statist,

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Speaker 1: to serve the interests of power, not to serve the

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Speaker 1: interests of the powerless. Nadine's perspective is to some degree

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Speaker 1: at odds with the views of many younger left liberals,

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Speaker 1: many of whom believe that free speech has ultimately come

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Speaker 1: to be used as a tool to help powerful forces,

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Speaker 1: rather than functioning as a tool to protect the alternative

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Speaker 1: and dissenting views of minorities and the powerless. This is

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Speaker 1: a difficult question and a hard problem to solve because

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Speaker 1: it depends on different people's predictive assessments of what's actually

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Speaker 1: going on in the world and what might go on

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Speaker 1: in the world if trends continue. I'm grateful to listeners

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Speaker 1: for sticking with us as we've gone deeper and deeper

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Speaker 1: into the issue of freedom of speech. No doubt will

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Speaker 1: return to the issue in certain ways in the future,

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Speaker 1: and will certainly continue to keep a close eye on

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Speaker 1: it until I speak to you next time. Be careful,

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Speaker 1: be safe, and be well. Deep Background is brought to

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Speaker 1: you by Pushkin Industries. Our producer is Lydia Jane Cott,

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Speaker 1: with mastering by Jason Gambrell and Martin Gonzalez. Our showrunner

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Speaker 1: is Sophima Kibbon. Our theme music is composed by Luis

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Speaker 1: GERA special thanks to the Pushkin Brass Malcolm Gladwell, Jacob

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Speaker 1: Weisberg and Mia Lobel. I'm Noah Feldman. I also write

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Speaker 1: a regular column for Bloomberg Opinion, which you can find

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Speaker 1: at bloomberg dot com slash Feldman. To discover Bloomberg's original

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00:28:18,916 --> 00:28:23,116
Speaker 1: slate of podcasts, go to Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts.

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Speaker 1: And one last thing. I just wrote a book called

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Speaker 1: The Arab Winter of a Tragedy. I would be delighted

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Speaker 1: if you checked it out. If you liked what you

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Speaker 1: heard today, please write a review or tell a friend.

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Speaker 1: You can always let me know what you think on Twitter.

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Speaker 1: My handle is Noah R. Feldman. This is deep background