Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em Podcast 94. Greg Lukianoff on the Canceling of the American Mind
Our guest is Greg Lukianoff, president and CEO of FIRE (The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) and author of the new book, The Canceling of the American Mind, which he wrote with Ricki Schlott. The book is a “walk down trauma lane” of the past several years, covering the feeding frenzy to go after people with views other than your own — and how we get out of it. Greg can chart when this mess began, late 2013 and 2014. But why? And what monster has been created now? (One answer might be found in a bunch of college groups publicly supporting the mass murder of civilians in Israel.) Also discussed:
* People who say cancel culture isn’t real
* What is the actual scope of the problem?
* “The horrible phenomena of Tumblr, out of which all terrible mental health ideas seem to have arisen…”
* Yale University has one administrator for every four students. “That’s the same ratio the government recommends for childcare of infants under twelve months.”
* What is the worst college for free speech?
* The link between wealth and performative justice
* People telling Greg, “We do not hire elite college graduates anymore…”
* Matt Welch gets name-checked as “an autodidact”!
* Steven Pinker, too big to cancel?
* Book banning and other problems with the right
* Why you want to send your kid to U of Chicago and UVA
* What Taylor Swift and the Pope have in common