WEBVTT - FREEDOM OF SPEECH: Osita Nwanevu 0:00:15.396 --> 0:00:22.036 Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is Deep Background, the show 0:00:22.036 --> 0:00:25.356 where we explore the stories behind the stories in the news. 0:00:25.916 --> 0:00:29.316 I'm Noah Felton. For the next two weeks, We're going 0:00:29.396 --> 0:00:33.156 to try something a little different. Over the past year, 0:00:33.556 --> 0:00:37.756 I've been having conversations with experts across the ideological spectrum 0:00:37.796 --> 0:00:40.516 about a topic that I care a lot about, the 0:00:40.636 --> 0:00:45.556 freedom of speech. I am extremely excited to share them 0:00:45.636 --> 0:00:49.596 with you now, and one positive side effect of being 0:00:49.596 --> 0:00:51.716 able to do so is that it will give a 0:00:51.796 --> 0:00:55.556 chance for our hard working producer, shore Runner here a 0:00:55.676 --> 0:01:00.396 Deep Background, to have a little summer break. This episode 0:01:00.516 --> 0:01:08.516 in our Free Speech series is about cancel culture. The 0:01:08.596 --> 0:01:13.716 idea of quote canceling someone is itself relatively new. One 0:01:13.756 --> 0:01:15.716 of the first times the word was used in this 0:01:15.756 --> 0:01:19.356 way was in the nineteen ninety one action movie New 0:01:19.476 --> 0:01:22.116 Jack City. I Know I'm Dating Myself Now, in which 0:01:22.116 --> 0:01:25.276 Wesley Snipes plays a drug lord and actually says it 0:01:25.436 --> 0:01:33.276 about his girlfriend can pitch. The idea of canceling someone 0:01:33.596 --> 0:01:38.076 then pretty slowly made its way into pop culture, first 0:01:38.236 --> 0:01:42.076 used in a humorous way and then eventually more seriously. 0:01:42.876 --> 0:01:46.676 Osita Jenevu, a writer at the New Republic, wrote a 0:01:46.716 --> 0:01:52.116 really insightful article about this phenomenon called the cancel culture Khan. 0:01:52.836 --> 0:01:56.516 He's been following the evolution of the term. I spoke 0:01:56.556 --> 0:01:59.996 to Osita back in February, when the public debate around 0:02:00.076 --> 0:02:05.996 cancil culture was really gaining steam. Here's Osita's take. A 0:02:06.036 --> 0:02:10.076 couple of years ago, before cancel culture was a phrase 0:02:10.076 --> 0:02:13.636 in circulation, you would see people on Twitter, especially sort 0:02:13.676 --> 0:02:17.876 of ironically say that things had been canceled. Pop star 0:02:17.956 --> 0:02:21.196 disappointed you in some way, or that person's canceled. There's 0:02:21.196 --> 0:02:26.316 a popular shift of celebrity on Twitter pointing to a 0:02:26.396 --> 0:02:28.876 coffee machine and had been broken and saying, oh, that's 0:02:28.916 --> 0:02:31.316 canceled out. You know. It was that kind of usage. 0:02:31.556 --> 0:02:33.276 And one I think it's interesting about that to me 0:02:33.476 --> 0:02:37.796 is the phrase political correctness originally emerged in a very 0:02:37.836 --> 0:02:40.796 similar way. People in the New Left in the late 0:02:40.836 --> 0:02:45.036 nineteen seventies began using it as a way of describing 0:02:45.356 --> 0:02:48.796 a kind of orthodoxy or political orthodoxy within their circles. 0:02:48.956 --> 0:02:51.476 It's a politically correct thing to believe X, Y and z. 0:02:52.276 --> 0:02:55.476 But then it got picked up by conservatives. He used 0:02:55.516 --> 0:02:59.356 it earnestly to describe ideological tendencies on the left that 0:02:59.396 --> 0:03:01.676 they didn't like. So I think in a very similar 0:03:02.196 --> 0:03:05.676 way we see now with cancelation cancel culture. I think 0:03:05.716 --> 0:03:10.556 that kind of mirrors the way that that terminology has emerged. 0:03:10.916 --> 0:03:13.116 That's totally fascinating. Can I just say, as a purely 0:03:13.236 --> 0:03:15.916 linguistic matter, the reason this is so fascinating is when 0:03:15.996 --> 0:03:19.916 we think about appropriation of phrases, we're kind of acclimated 0:03:20.076 --> 0:03:23.756 to be thinking about cases where you have a term 0:03:23.796 --> 0:03:26.956 that is a racist term, or is enophobic term, or 0:03:26.996 --> 0:03:29.556 some other form of bias a homophobic term, and then 0:03:29.596 --> 0:03:34.156 the group that is subject to bias appropriates the term, 0:03:34.476 --> 0:03:38.676 repurposes it and makes it a term of pride. You know. 0:03:38.716 --> 0:03:41.076 The term queer is the sort of archetypal example of 0:03:41.076 --> 0:03:43.436 this where this happened in my lifetime when I was 0:03:43.476 --> 0:03:46.876 a kid, Queer was solely at least an ordinary discourse, 0:03:47.196 --> 0:03:50.556 a homophobic insult, and then it came to be taken 0:03:50.596 --> 0:03:53.316 over in the process of act up in the movement 0:03:53.356 --> 0:03:56.276 against AIDS as a statement of pride, so it went 0:03:56.836 --> 0:04:02.516 from badness to self appropriation. In this case, this is 0:04:02.556 --> 0:04:04.556 actually really fascinating. You're saying that the movement is the 0:04:04.636 --> 0:04:07.316 other way it starts with an ironic self description by 0:04:07.316 --> 0:04:09.836 the in group that sort of light heart did, and 0:04:09.876 --> 0:04:13.836 then comes to be as it were appropriated by the outgroup, 0:04:14.236 --> 0:04:16.796 and then it gets reaffied as an actual thing. That's 0:04:16.836 --> 0:04:19.076 a great point that you're making right there. That's certainly 0:04:19.116 --> 0:04:21.556 my understanding the history of the phrase political correctness. And 0:04:21.556 --> 0:04:24.756 I think that's particularly interesting to me is that in 0:04:24.876 --> 0:04:29.396 that translation, or in that appropriation by the right, you 0:04:29.516 --> 0:04:31.316 lose all of the iron it. You lose the sense 0:04:31.396 --> 0:04:35.156 that when people originally use the phrase political correctness, they 0:04:35.156 --> 0:04:41.076 were saying something self aware about themselves and their tendency 0:04:41.116 --> 0:04:44.196 to get carried away about certain things. Right, it was 0:04:44.236 --> 0:04:48.196 an acknowledgments within those circles. That's some of the things 0:04:48.196 --> 0:04:51.516 that they believed or said, you know, we're a little wacky. 0:04:51.756 --> 0:04:54.676 But they could be humorous about it, and they're aware 0:04:54.716 --> 0:04:57.516 of it, and they could criticize it. But when it 0:04:57.556 --> 0:05:00.476 moves over to the right, you don't just have the 0:05:00.516 --> 0:05:03.596 phrase shift over it, but you lose the sense that 0:05:03.636 --> 0:05:06.156 you were talking about a group of people that is 0:05:06.196 --> 0:05:09.716 capable of self criticism, and it's capable of the knowledging 0:05:09.756 --> 0:05:13.596 its own limitations, and you start believing in earnest, and 0:05:13.756 --> 0:05:17.756 these are people who are wildly doctrinaire about crazy out 0:05:17.796 --> 0:05:22.556 there identity political beliefs, with no sense of self awareness. 0:05:22.556 --> 0:05:24.516 I think that's the thing that's so striking to me 0:05:24.556 --> 0:05:28.476 about that shift, and I think that with cancel culture 0:05:29.396 --> 0:05:32.196 there is also that self awareness now where people will, 0:05:32.636 --> 0:05:34.996 partially as a reaction to the way that this has 0:05:34.996 --> 0:05:39.196 become a discourse, will sort of jokingly say they're about 0:05:39.236 --> 0:05:43.196 counseling somebody for making a particular joke that is like 0:05:43.276 --> 0:05:46.236 just over the edge, but not really that's the offensive. 0:05:46.836 --> 0:05:48.636 There is no a serious use of it as well, right, 0:05:48.636 --> 0:05:50.876 I mean, so I completely buy what you're saying. And 0:05:51.036 --> 0:05:54.836 a huge number of the uses of cancel are clearly 0:05:54.876 --> 0:05:59.116 intended lightheartedly or ironically, and certainly when critics of cancel 0:05:59.196 --> 0:06:01.876 culture say that everyone has been canceled, part of the 0:06:01.916 --> 0:06:03.796 reason for that is that people are using the term 0:06:03.876 --> 0:06:06.996 sometimes in this lighter way. But there is some phenomenon 0:06:07.036 --> 0:06:11.116 of people on Twitter using the term non ironically. Yes, 0:06:11.276 --> 0:06:13.676 what when do you see that getting used and what 0:06:13.756 --> 0:06:16.676 trends do you see in that usage. I think that 0:06:16.756 --> 0:06:18.996 when Chappelle came out this special, you know, it was 0:06:19.036 --> 0:06:21.876 a good example of this. People were offended by some 0:06:21.916 --> 0:06:23.956 of the things you said about transgender people and the 0:06:24.036 --> 0:06:26.156 jokes made by Michael Jackson. And I'm sure if you 0:06:27.196 --> 0:06:30.076 saw videos that were being posted on Twitter on the 0:06:30.276 --> 0:06:32.756 social media's time, you'd see in the comments people saying, well, 0:06:32.756 --> 0:06:35.076 now Chappelle is canceled, and they'd mean it. You know, 0:06:35.156 --> 0:06:37.716 they didn't mean that the special would literally be canceled, 0:06:37.796 --> 0:06:40.116 because it wasn't. But they may have meant that they 0:06:40.116 --> 0:06:41.996 would like that to be the case, or they may 0:06:42.156 --> 0:06:44.796 just have meant that they personally were canceling him in 0:06:44.836 --> 0:06:46.916 the sense that he was now out of their pantheon 0:06:46.956 --> 0:06:49.756 of comedians that they would listen to. So it's really unclear, right, Like, 0:06:49.796 --> 0:06:53.356 I don't know that most of the people who use 0:06:53.436 --> 0:06:58.756 the term would say, well, now Chappelle should literally be 0:06:58.996 --> 0:07:01.676 like the special should be pulled from Netflix and Chappelle 0:07:01.756 --> 0:07:04.796 should be removed from all of his contracts. But I 0:07:04.836 --> 0:07:07.476 think it's most of the time it's people saying personally 0:07:07.556 --> 0:07:10.996 to them, as far as they're concerned, Chappelle is no 0:07:11.036 --> 0:07:14.276 longer good in their eyes. So you know, that's that's 0:07:14.436 --> 0:07:16.516 that's a real thing, and it's a real way that 0:07:16.596 --> 0:07:19.396 people use the phrase, I think one of the things, 0:07:19.476 --> 0:07:21.116 I guess the main thing really I'm trying to get 0:07:21.116 --> 0:07:24.556 out in the pieces to what extents are we watching 0:07:25.236 --> 0:07:31.076 a sort of new phenomenon in these critiques? Is it 0:07:31.196 --> 0:07:34.636 really the case that there is a new culture of 0:07:34.676 --> 0:07:41.596 criticism that's emerged that is uniquely and troublingly unsparing and 0:07:41.996 --> 0:07:45.196 un empathetic, or is it take case that we are 0:07:45.236 --> 0:07:49.476 seeing forms of criticism that have always sort of been 0:07:49.516 --> 0:07:54.436 around translated into a new medium on social media and 0:07:54.516 --> 0:07:57.956 that is sort of upsetting people's understanding of the line 0:07:57.956 --> 0:08:01.676 between creators and artists and their audience and journalists and 0:08:01.676 --> 0:08:05.836 their readers. And are we basically just watching technology transform 0:08:05.996 --> 0:08:11.476 something that already existed into a new and unfamiliar and 0:08:11.716 --> 0:08:16.556 kind of scary seeming novelty. And your argument is that 0:08:16.716 --> 0:08:19.116 very much it's the latter that we've always had, you know, 0:08:19.116 --> 0:08:22.356 people saying, cancel my subscription, or we've had people engaging 0:08:22.356 --> 0:08:25.196 in systematic criticism or saying, you know, such and such 0:08:25.236 --> 0:08:27.476 a person is outside the pale because of this or 0:08:27.476 --> 0:08:30.036 that view that they hold, and that there's a kind 0:08:30.076 --> 0:08:33.516 of cancel culture panic going on out there. Is that 0:08:33.756 --> 0:08:36.156 a fair read of where you come down. I mean, 0:08:36.196 --> 0:08:39.876 I certainly think so. I start the piece talking about 0:08:40.076 --> 0:08:44.876 Lenny Bruce, a very controversial comedian in his day, who 0:08:44.916 --> 0:08:49.636 made a lot of jobs at powerful people and rubbed 0:08:49.636 --> 0:08:52.276 people a ang way. His use of language was also 0:08:52.356 --> 0:08:56.196 self consciously designed to shock and to break taboos. He 0:08:56.236 --> 0:08:59.156 was breaking taboos, especially about swearing, and he gained an 0:08:59.196 --> 0:09:00.916 audience for doing that, and he gained a lot of 0:09:00.916 --> 0:09:04.276 respects for doing that as somebody who you know, is 0:09:04.436 --> 0:09:08.716 bringing first values to their fullest expression. But he was 0:09:08.756 --> 0:09:13.316 also basically persecuted by obscenity laws. And there was a 0:09:13.396 --> 0:09:16.556 time in which cancelation, or what we sort of think 0:09:16.596 --> 0:09:20.556 of now is cancelation, wasn't sort of just a purely 0:09:20.596 --> 0:09:24.716 social phenomenon or purely a matter of public opinion. It 0:09:24.796 --> 0:09:27.116 was the law that if you said certain things, you 0:09:27.156 --> 0:09:31.596 could lose your gigs or end up at a workhouse, 0:09:31.676 --> 0:09:34.236 you know, as he was sentenced to. So, I mean, 0:09:34.276 --> 0:09:37.876 I think that in examining episodes like that, in examples 0:09:37.916 --> 0:09:40.836 like his life, it comes very clear that there's nothing 0:09:40.876 --> 0:09:44.276 particularly new about the act of saying that something is 0:09:44.316 --> 0:09:49.956 beyond the pale or offensive. Obviously, there's not even something 0:09:49.996 --> 0:09:54.716 new necessarily about the public on mass congregating to say 0:09:54.796 --> 0:10:00.356 that a particular television program, particular comedian, particular article was 0:10:00.636 --> 0:10:03.436 wrong or bad or off the mark or offensive in 0:10:03.516 --> 0:10:05.556 some way. People used to send in letters. You'd have 0:10:05.596 --> 0:10:09.396 the Parents Television Council dial up the FCC when they 0:10:09.436 --> 0:10:11.356 thought things on television that they didn't want their kids 0:10:11.396 --> 0:10:15.196 to see in etc. I think what particularly concerns people 0:10:15.316 --> 0:10:17.916 is sort of it called a mob like. It's the 0:10:17.956 --> 0:10:21.636 fact that you have the worst cases, maybe hundreds of 0:10:21.636 --> 0:10:25.676 people with thousands of people coming together and saying this joke, 0:10:26.036 --> 0:10:31.116 this TV program, this movie, whatever, is wrong in some way. 0:10:31.516 --> 0:10:35.916 Even that the fact of people on mass coming together 0:10:35.956 --> 0:10:39.396 to criticize people. It's not like an invention of the 0:10:39.476 --> 0:10:42.036 social media age. It used to happen. It's just the 0:10:42.076 --> 0:10:46.676 social media has made it particularly easy and particularly visible. 0:10:47.076 --> 0:10:50.236 It doesn't always see all they hate mail that you 0:10:50.596 --> 0:10:53.636 would have used to flow into magazine mail rooms. You know, 0:10:53.716 --> 0:10:56.276 that wasn't something that the public could look at and 0:10:56.596 --> 0:11:00.676 feel a ghast about, but you do see tweets and comments. 0:11:01.436 --> 0:11:14.596 We'll be right back as I am very very convinced 0:11:14.636 --> 0:11:17.756 by your argument that that kind of opposition is not 0:11:17.876 --> 0:11:21.396 new but is just much more observable. But I've been 0:11:21.956 --> 0:11:26.396 really trying to come up with the most sympathetic account 0:11:26.516 --> 0:11:29.396 that I can of the form of the criticism. So 0:11:29.596 --> 0:11:31.756 let me try out the following hypothesis on you of 0:11:31.836 --> 0:11:33.916 the other side's view. And I'm not attributing this to 0:11:33.956 --> 0:11:37.556 any actual person who's criticizing Cancel culture. This is just 0:11:37.636 --> 0:11:41.076 my attempt to reconstruct the best argument you could make 0:11:41.116 --> 0:11:44.996 on their side. The argument would be this, the distinctive 0:11:45.116 --> 0:11:48.996 form of criticism that one hears again and again and 0:11:49.076 --> 0:11:53.676 again today is that we should break down the distinction 0:11:54.276 --> 0:11:57.996 between the artist or the author or the maker on 0:11:58.036 --> 0:12:00.836 the one hand, and the human being on the other side. 0:12:01.516 --> 0:12:04.716 That we should admit that we can't distinguish the dancer 0:12:04.756 --> 0:12:07.996 from the dance, and for that reason, when we see 0:12:08.316 --> 0:12:13.676 a moral failing in the person, we should respond by 0:12:13.836 --> 0:12:19.116 sanctioning the artwork that that person creates. So to take 0:12:19.156 --> 0:12:22.156 a concrete example, you know, if one is convinced that 0:12:22.516 --> 0:12:25.716 the allegations from many years ago against Woody Allen that 0:12:25.876 --> 0:12:28.236 he abused his daughter, an allegation that's important to note 0:12:28.236 --> 0:12:30.396 he was cleared of at the time. But if one 0:12:30.476 --> 0:12:33.556 came to believe that that allegation were true, one should 0:12:33.596 --> 0:12:37.396 therefore not watch any Woody Allen movies. And in the 0:12:37.436 --> 0:12:40.396 sense that fits into the word cancel because it's not 0:12:40.676 --> 0:12:44.196 canceled the thing or argue against the utterance. Usually a 0:12:44.316 --> 0:12:48.996 human being is the direct object of the verb to cancel. Yeah, 0:12:49.156 --> 0:12:52.996 and so if that's what they're really upset about, I 0:12:53.036 --> 0:12:55.556 think one can have a very serious debate or argument 0:12:55.556 --> 0:12:58.276 about this, because I'm not sure there's a clear correct answer. 0:12:58.276 --> 0:13:00.676 I can see both sides of the argument. But that 0:13:00.756 --> 0:13:04.436 does seem to be some trend that is a little 0:13:04.596 --> 0:13:08.796 greater today than it was, say, ten years ago. What 0:13:08.836 --> 0:13:11.116 do you think about that hypothesis? See, I just don't know. 0:13:11.196 --> 0:13:13.076 Like I think, one of the things that's so hard 0:13:13.116 --> 0:13:16.116 about these conversations is that they're very hard to quantify. 0:13:16.836 --> 0:13:19.116 It's very hard to bring any kind of empirical evidence 0:13:19.116 --> 0:13:21.156 to bear sure, and a lot of this stuff, but 0:13:21.196 --> 0:13:22.996 you know, you can go back to Ezra Pounds and 0:13:23.076 --> 0:13:26.036 people talking about his anti semitism and the extent to 0:13:26.116 --> 0:13:28.156 which it may have you know, it should influence the 0:13:28.196 --> 0:13:30.716 way you see his poetry. You can talk about Roman Polanski. 0:13:30.756 --> 0:13:33.476 These are conversations that people have had about arts and 0:13:33.636 --> 0:13:36.596 artists for a very long time. I think those are 0:13:36.636 --> 0:13:39.036 great examples. But the way I was taught those things, 0:13:39.556 --> 0:13:41.956 those were both taught as canonical people. So you know, 0:13:42.276 --> 0:13:45.636 the Norton Anthology of English Poetry, from which I was 0:13:45.676 --> 0:13:48.036 taught poetry and at a at a tender age, which 0:13:48.076 --> 0:13:51.956 influenced me, included all of the Ezra Pound poems one 0:13:51.996 --> 0:13:54.916 could want, including some of the ones that were anti Semitic. 0:13:54.956 --> 0:13:57.756 And sure a teacher might say, you know, ge, just 0:13:57.796 --> 0:13:59.556 so you know, he's got these terrible views. And there 0:13:59.556 --> 0:14:01.316 are some people who think we shouldn't, but the sort 0:14:01.356 --> 0:14:04.716 of canonical answer in the culture was, but you should 0:14:04.716 --> 0:14:07.476 certainly read the poems. The same with Polanski. I mean 0:14:07.516 --> 0:14:09.516 he left, he had to leave the United States because 0:14:09.556 --> 0:14:14.356 of indictment for statutory rape. And yet I don't know 0:14:14.476 --> 0:14:17.476 too many people who studied film in a serious way 0:14:17.556 --> 0:14:21.396 who were told, don't watch Chinatown because of Roman Polanski's immorality. 0:14:21.396 --> 0:14:23.956 That's a canonical film. I agree that people have been 0:14:23.996 --> 0:14:26.156 debating this. They're probably be debating this since there was art, 0:14:26.476 --> 0:14:29.356 But I think that more serious people today are saying 0:14:29.916 --> 0:14:33.196 that the person is out based on their immorality or 0:14:33.276 --> 0:14:35.556 the immoral features of some of their artwork than was 0:14:35.596 --> 0:14:39.436 the case in at least the classical reception. Maybe I 0:14:39.556 --> 0:14:42.156 just don't know. Like the thing that I've been thinking 0:14:42.156 --> 0:14:44.796 about in this realm of the past couple of weeks, 0:14:44.836 --> 0:14:46.756 although it's a little bit of a different example, is 0:14:47.156 --> 0:14:51.956 Kobe Bryant. He's been the subject of many, many moving 0:14:52.836 --> 0:14:58.196 and loving tributes, politicians issued statements talking about how wonderful 0:14:58.276 --> 0:15:00.276 he was and all he did for the support of basketball. 0:15:01.116 --> 0:15:04.396 But he's also somebody with who had a very serious 0:15:04.436 --> 0:15:09.676 allegation of sexual abuse level against him, and that hasn't 0:15:09.716 --> 0:15:13.116 really broken into a lot of the conversation we've been 0:15:13.156 --> 0:15:17.116 having since his death. In fact, the Washington Post reprimanded 0:15:17.116 --> 0:15:20.756 a reporter I believe on the afternoon came down that 0:15:20.796 --> 0:15:25.516 he had died for linking to an article mentioning this case. 0:15:26.076 --> 0:15:27.996 So you're saying this is the opposite of cancel culture, 0:15:28.276 --> 0:15:32.516 is this is the whitewashing culture. I have read things 0:15:32.556 --> 0:15:36.036 by feminists and others making the point that it's problematic 0:15:36.076 --> 0:15:38.516 that there's been this celebration of Kobe Bryant. But if 0:15:38.516 --> 0:15:41.596 your point is that, no, that the celebration, at least 0:15:41.596 --> 0:15:45.156 culturally has substantially outweighed the criticism. I think you're unquestionably 0:15:45.236 --> 0:15:47.316 right about that. I guess the point I'm making is 0:15:47.356 --> 0:15:52.276 that we still have a very broad capacity to overlook 0:15:52.836 --> 0:15:55.716 the bad things that famous people have done, you know, 0:15:56.236 --> 0:15:57.796 And I think that you would have to have a 0:15:57.836 --> 0:16:00.396 lot of evidence to suggest that. You know, we're now 0:16:00.436 --> 0:16:04.716 in this culture where any mark against you, if you're 0:16:04.756 --> 0:16:07.556 an artist or an athlete, or an entertainer or some kind, 0:16:07.996 --> 0:16:12.476 is now much more damaging to your public perception than 0:16:12.476 --> 0:16:14.836 it would have been previously. I think there's certain kinds 0:16:14.916 --> 0:16:20.516 of things you can do. I think that Brian example. Nonwithstanding, 0:16:20.556 --> 0:16:24.356 I think people are much less lenient about sexual abuse 0:16:24.676 --> 0:16:28.636 now and allegations of sexism. I think people are obviously 0:16:28.716 --> 0:16:32.636 more sensitive about racism. But I don't know that people 0:16:32.836 --> 0:16:37.236 now in general are willing to sort of metaphorically burned 0:16:37.276 --> 0:16:41.036 books or paintings, or sort of strike people from historical 0:16:41.116 --> 0:16:45.356 record as far as popular entertainment is concerned for having 0:16:45.396 --> 0:16:48.916 done something wrong in the past. You know, I think 0:16:48.956 --> 0:16:52.996 that there's a different conversation now happening about historical figures. 0:16:53.796 --> 0:16:57.356 That's certainly a related conversation. Conversation. Yeah, you know, one 0:16:57.396 --> 0:17:00.876 thinks of Calhoun's name being taken off of one of 0:17:00.876 --> 0:17:03.076 the Yale colleges, and there it's not fair to say 0:17:03.196 --> 0:17:05.036 was based on one thing that he did. It is 0:17:05.076 --> 0:17:07.716 based on the fact that the very thing that had 0:17:07.716 --> 0:17:11.756 gotten him recognition in the first place, namely his statesmanship 0:17:11.796 --> 0:17:15.476 in US history, could not be disentangled from the position 0:17:15.516 --> 0:17:18.596 that he advocated at all of those moments, which was 0:17:19.236 --> 0:17:24.196 South Carolinian quasi sovereignty in order to protect slavery right. 0:17:24.676 --> 0:17:27.316 And this sort of raises that it does seem kind 0:17:27.316 --> 0:17:30.756 of striking that maybe the is stereotypical, but the mostly 0:17:30.836 --> 0:17:35.076 white conservative critics of quote unquote cancel culture seemed to 0:17:35.116 --> 0:17:39.716 be really worried that people of color or women are 0:17:39.756 --> 0:17:43.396 the ones who suddenly have the capacity to, as they imagine, 0:17:43.756 --> 0:17:46.156 shut down a certain kind of discourse. And that seemed 0:17:46.196 --> 0:17:49.276 to be making folks very, very nervous in a way 0:17:49.316 --> 0:17:51.196 that it might not have been the case when the 0:17:51.276 --> 0:17:54.036 question of access or who you would listen to was 0:17:54.116 --> 0:17:57.836 more broadly controlled by white elites. Yeah, I mean, I 0:17:57.916 --> 0:18:00.516 think this is one of the big shifts in cultural 0:18:00.556 --> 0:18:03.676 politics I've been fascinated by over the past simple years. 0:18:03.676 --> 0:18:06.236 You have the people who in the eighties, I guess 0:18:06.236 --> 0:18:09.036 would have been railing against offensive lyrics in hip hop. 0:18:09.316 --> 0:18:14.356 Now rebranding themselves as a movement as the defenders of 0:18:14.436 --> 0:18:18.276 free speech and the defenders of free expression against the 0:18:18.316 --> 0:18:22.876 overlease and sorious twenty something woke people on Twitter, and 0:18:22.996 --> 0:18:26.396 you know, like I don't know that if you go 0:18:26.556 --> 0:18:30.516 through the history of the conservative movements and examine the 0:18:30.556 --> 0:18:33.956 way that the movement responded to certain controversies and the 0:18:33.996 --> 0:18:36.436 way that they respond to speech controversies, now you're going 0:18:36.476 --> 0:18:40.556 to find like a natural sort of intellectual evolution to 0:18:40.636 --> 0:18:43.156 their current position. I think it's kind of a one 0:18:43.356 --> 0:18:48.836 eighty that's happening for pretty obvious reasons. One of the 0:18:48.876 --> 0:18:51.316 things that was mattening to me about the campus political 0:18:51.316 --> 0:18:53.756 controversies that took up so much attention a couple of 0:18:53.836 --> 0:18:58.756 years ago was that there was so much writing about 0:18:59.556 --> 0:19:04.396 people at events, you know, shouting at a professor or 0:19:04.436 --> 0:19:08.396 a speaker, or saying that a speaker shouldn't come to campus, 0:19:08.436 --> 0:19:11.116 and so on. You can have your view on whether 0:19:11.236 --> 0:19:15.836 or not that seat useful or meaningful form of protest. 0:19:16.196 --> 0:19:20.116 There's always no writing at all about Republican state legislatures. 0:19:20.476 --> 0:19:24.156 By law trying to prevent certain people from coming to 0:19:24.156 --> 0:19:27.636 certain campuses, or trying to crack down on certain student movements. 0:19:27.636 --> 0:19:31.596 There was no conversation about that as a threat to 0:19:31.676 --> 0:19:36.076 free speech. You would imagine that actions state government would 0:19:36.076 --> 0:19:39.876 be slightly more concerning actions by five and a half 0:19:40.076 --> 0:19:43.756 liberal arts students in the Northeast. You know, sure, you're 0:19:43.756 --> 0:19:45.596 making a point that I think. First of all, I 0:19:45.596 --> 0:19:49.596 think it's absolutely correct that free speech has only become 0:19:49.636 --> 0:19:53.436 a rallying cry of conservatives in the last decade. And 0:19:53.516 --> 0:19:57.316 historically conservatives were more status, they were more in supportive 0:19:57.836 --> 0:19:59.956 the state when it restricted speech, and they were also 0:20:00.076 --> 0:20:04.156 more committed to what they saw as moral judgment and 0:20:04.276 --> 0:20:06.956 made the argument typically that when a work of art 0:20:07.036 --> 0:20:10.316 or something else violated community more out, it ought to 0:20:10.356 --> 0:20:13.476 be appropriate to suppress it or not to fund it. 0:20:14.156 --> 0:20:17.236 But I would just note the flip, what I call 0:20:17.316 --> 0:20:20.236 the flip, and the political economy of free speech has 0:20:20.236 --> 0:20:22.636 actually taken place on both sides. I mean, it's also 0:20:22.716 --> 0:20:26.956 true that in left of center circles, the knee jerk 0:20:27.276 --> 0:20:32.316 view for most of the twentieth century was more speech 0:20:32.596 --> 0:20:35.636 is good. You know. The American Civil Liberties Union got 0:20:35.676 --> 0:20:39.676 its start as a really very far left organization, deeply 0:20:39.716 --> 0:20:44.316 embedded with socialism and even communism, and it gradually morphed 0:20:44.316 --> 0:20:47.236 into being a more general civil libertarian set of positions. 0:20:47.236 --> 0:20:49.356 But this was an alliance that was driven in part 0:20:49.396 --> 0:20:52.636 by the left sense that the right controlled the institutions 0:20:52.676 --> 0:20:55.316 of the state and was interested in shutting them down. 0:20:55.796 --> 0:20:58.356 And so today, you know, when I teach my students 0:20:58.356 --> 0:21:00.236 and I teach free speech, I teach First Amendment to 0:21:00.276 --> 0:21:05.356 my students. It's noteworthy that many students who see themselves 0:21:05.356 --> 0:21:08.956 as left of center are very skeptical about the power 0:21:08.956 --> 0:21:11.556 of free speech, and many students who are right of 0:21:11.636 --> 0:21:14.436 centers see themselves as deeply committed to free speech. And 0:21:14.476 --> 0:21:17.836 it's nearly one hundred and eighty degree flip, yea, even 0:21:17.996 --> 0:21:20.396 from what it is when I started teaching this, you know, 0:21:20.436 --> 0:21:22.876 fifteen years ago. So I've sort of watched this change 0:21:23.316 --> 0:21:26.396 happening in real time among my students, and I think 0:21:26.396 --> 0:21:29.876 they're reflecting a change it's happening more broadly in the society. 0:21:29.876 --> 0:21:32.556 So there's a lot of flipping to go around. You know, 0:21:32.596 --> 0:21:34.836 I don't know whether it's hypocritical or not, it's definitely 0:21:34.876 --> 0:21:36.716 a transformation. And how we think about these. So I 0:21:36.756 --> 0:21:38.876 mean there are ways in which I think the left. 0:21:39.356 --> 0:21:42.556 I guess the campus left now is a little bit 0:21:42.716 --> 0:21:47.796 frankly better on speech than the previous iteration of the 0:21:47.876 --> 0:21:50.316 campus left back in the eighties and nineties, when you 0:21:50.356 --> 0:21:52.836 had the first sort of way of political practice controversies. No, 0:21:52.956 --> 0:21:55.756 I say this because I'm interesting hearing your perspective on it. 0:21:56.716 --> 0:21:59.356 During that first wave, a lot of campuses were actively 0:21:59.396 --> 0:22:06.676 going about imposing speech codes. There were actual statutory efforts 0:22:06.916 --> 0:22:10.076 to prohibit people from saying certain things that were deemed 0:22:10.556 --> 0:22:15.436 offensive that ultimately ended up in a lot of court battles. Now, 0:22:15.556 --> 0:22:20.516 I think the way that this discourse happens is almost 0:22:20.836 --> 0:22:27.276 exclusively within social circle. Students will say among themselves, these 0:22:27.276 --> 0:22:29.476 are the kinds of values that we want to uphold. 0:22:30.116 --> 0:22:31.916 This is the kind of speech that we don't think 0:22:31.996 --> 0:22:37.756 is okay. And it's much more informal debate. Whatever norms 0:22:37.756 --> 0:22:41.556 are being enforced now or not being enforced by dictadd's 0:22:41.636 --> 0:22:45.916 being enforced by social dynamics, in some cases group pressure. 0:22:45.996 --> 0:22:51.236 But it's not about somebody laying down the law administratively. Now, 0:22:51.516 --> 0:22:54.956 is it possible that that's because of the First Amendment? 0:22:55.036 --> 0:22:57.796 Jurisprudence that emerge out of that first wave. Maybe I 0:22:57.836 --> 0:23:00.116 have a competing theory about why. I mean, first of all, 0:23:00.156 --> 0:23:03.276 I think it's a super astute observation and really really 0:23:03.316 --> 0:23:05.556 resonates with my own experiences, for sure. And I was 0:23:05.836 --> 0:23:08.116 a student in the very late eighties and early nineties 0:23:08.116 --> 0:23:09.876 on a campus, and I remember all of the intense 0:23:09.876 --> 0:23:12.196 debates about that, and you're totally right that those were 0:23:12.196 --> 0:23:15.756 about formal codification and now it's about the informal. But 0:23:15.876 --> 0:23:19.716 my instinctive reaction to that change, and to be blunt, 0:23:19.716 --> 0:23:20.956 I hadn't thought of it before. I think it's a 0:23:20.956 --> 0:23:23.236 great point that you're making, is that it's because of 0:23:23.236 --> 0:23:26.436 the rise of social media, much in the way that 0:23:26.876 --> 0:23:29.356 the question of where free expression lives used to be 0:23:29.516 --> 0:23:33.036 very much about the state and the private individual, and 0:23:33.276 --> 0:23:35.596 or maybe by extension, the university, which might be private 0:23:35.636 --> 0:23:37.796 but still functions as the state when you go to one. 0:23:38.356 --> 0:23:41.596 Now the big topic in free expression is really social 0:23:41.596 --> 0:23:43.676 media and what it means to have pre expression in 0:23:43.676 --> 0:23:46.236