- Cancel culture refers to campaigns to get people fired or de-platformed for speech that would normally be protected by the First Amendment
- The rise of cancel culture has created a climate of fear where people can lose their jobs for having the wrong opinion
- The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is an organization that fights for freedom of speech on college campuses
- Freedom of speech is interconnected with the love of science and the study of epistemology (the philosophy of knowledge)
- The First Amendment aims to protect fundamental human rights, including freedom of speech, and prevent conflicts over opinion and religion
- Viewpoint discrimination, where certain opinions are excluded from discussion, is considered a significant violation of freedom of speech
- First Amendment principles can provide guidance in determining what speech is protected and unprotected, and can be applied to analyze cancel culture cases.

- The speaker discusses the difficulty of drawing lines between what is allowed and what is not allowed in terms of speech and expression.
- They argue that while it is important to have boundaries, it becomes problematic when certain opinions or ideas are forbidden.
- The speaker emphasizes the importance of intuition and the need to protect freedom of speech in society.
- They express concern about the potential consequences of businesses becoming expressive associations, where individuals feel they cannot express their true opinions without fear of losing their jobs.
- The speaker highlights the significance of education in shaping culture and discusses the growing acceptance of the idea that only certain viewpoints are acceptable.
- They mention cancel culture from both the left and the right, focusing on its prevalence in academia but also noting attempts to ban certain topics in higher education.
- The speaker mentions the Stop Woke Act in Florida, which aimed to limit certain topics from being taught in schools, but was deemed unconstitutional by a judge.

- The state has a role in deciding what is taught in public K-12 education
- There is a lean towards the left in the administration of K-12 education
- The speaker believes dictating what books are taught is the wrong approach
- The legislature can have some say in deciding the curriculum
- The speaker recommends empowering the American mind as a solution
- The speaker discusses the possibility of extra protection for certain literature in the curriculum
- Religion and teaching religious texts in public schools is a complex issue
- The speaker believes it would be better to learn about religion outside of public school classes
- Teaching religion without offending anyone is challenging
- The speaker recommends the FIRE college free speech rankings for learning about universities
- Parameters for evaluating freedom of speech on college campuses include speech codes and deplatforming incidents

- The rankings of universities based on freedom of speech were determined by factors such as the number of professors punished and student opinions on freedom of speech.
- Michigan Technological University was ranked number 1, followed by Auburn University and UVA.
- University of Chicago dropped in rankings due to not recognizing a conservative student group.
- Harvard received the lowest ranking and faced criticism for their methodology.
- The bottom 5 schools had a high success rate in deplatforming speakers.
- Students and administrators often work together to create issues with freedom of speech on campuses.
- The hyper-bureaucratization of universities and ideological administrators contribute to the problem.
- Administrators who facilitate shout downs or deplatforming often face no consequences.
- The case at University of Washington highlighted administrators buying tickets for students to shout down a play, leading to heated confrontations and death threats.

- The video discusses death threats and lack of protection for individuals involved in controversial plays at Pullman Washington.
- The issue of hyper-bureaucratization in higher education is addressed as a major problem.
- Attempts to get professors fired or punished were initially led by administrators, but there has been an increase in fellow professors demanding punishment.
- The importance of integrity and standing up for freedom of speech is emphasized.
- University presidents should make clear declarations valuing freedom of expression.
- The tension between protesters and the university taking action based on protests is discussed.
- The concept of a heckler's veto is explained, where a crowd shouts down a speaker.
- Cancel culture is criticized for being cruel, anti-intellectual, and hindering the pursuit of truth.
- The book "The Cancelling of the American Mind" is recommended, which discusses cancel culture and rhetorical tactics used by both the left and the right.

- The speaker discusses various rhetorical tactics used in arguments, such as whataboutism, strawmanning, and steelmanning.
- They suggest integrating these tactics into social media platforms like Twitter.
- The speaker talks about different streams or categories within a platform, such as truth-focused, humor, and good vibes.
- They mention the importance of understanding and empathizing with opposing perspectives.
- The speaker expresses concern about societal issues like repatriomonialization and the influence of elite colleges on freedom of speech.
- They discuss the anger and resistance on the right, as well as their own book, "Coddling the American Mind."

- The speaker discusses the cruelty and mercilessness of counselors and the negative impact it had on their mental health.
- They argue that elite education is insulting to the working class and treats a large portion of the American public as illegitimate and unworthy of respect.
- The speaker criticizes the elitism and lack of compassion that often accompanies the ideology dominant in elite institutions.
- They describe the "perfect rhetorical fortress" used on the left to dismiss arguments without engaging with them.
- The speaker acknowledges their own participation in dismissing conservative viewpoints and emphasizes the need to listen to and engage with different perspectives.
- They mention a debate hosted by FIRE and the Free Press that was criticized by the LA Times, who accused FIRE of only defending viewpoints they agree with, which the speaker refutes.
- The speaker introduces the concept of "hypocrisy projection," where people assume others are hypocrites without doing proper research or considering different viewpoints.

The rise of cancel culture, where people are fired or de-platformed for their speech, has created a climate of fear and threatens freedom of speech. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) fights for freedom of speech on college campuses. The First Amendment protects fundamental human rights, including freedom of speech, and can be used to analyze cancel culture cases. The difficulty of drawing lines between allowed and forbidden speech is discussed, as well as the importance of intuition and protecting freedom of speech. Cancel culture is prevalent in academia, but attempts to ban certain topics have been deemed unconstitutional. The speaker recommends empowering the American mind and discusses the complexities of teaching religion in public schools. The FIRE college free speech rankings evaluate universities based on speech codes and deplatforming incidents. The rankings highlight the issue of hyper-bureaucratization and the lack of consequences for administrators involved in deplatforming. The importance of integrity and standing up for freedom of speech is emphasized, as well as the negative impact of cancel culture on mental health. The speaker criticizes the elitism and lack of compassion in elite institutions and emphasizes the need to engage with different perspectives."""

- The speaker criticizes the use of whataboutism and accusing opponents of hypocrisy as ineffective tactics for finding truth.
- They argue that those who engage in such tactics often lack consistency on free speech themselves.
- The speaker emphasizes the importance of caring about free speech cases that do not have a political bias and highlight the exercise of power against marginalized groups.
- They urge people to take attacks from both the left and right seriously and to care about censorship even when it affects those they dislike.
- The speaker discusses the problems with some diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, suggesting that they can sometimes divide rather than unite people.
- They provide examples of professors being targeted for their political opinions, comparing the current situation to the Red Scare era.
- The speaker argues that cancel culture is real and happening on campuses, citing surveys of professors who have been threatened or investigated for their views.
- They criticize the addition of DEI statements as a requirement for hiring or admission, stating that it effectively becomes a political litmus test.
- An experiment on evaluating different types of DEI statements showed that administrators often eliminate candidates based on their statements, particularly those related to viewpoint diversity and religious diversity.

- The speaker discusses the lack of diversity in higher education, particularly in terms of viewpoint, religion, and socioeconomic background.
- The inclusion of ideological litmus tests in college applications is criticized for promoting homogeneity and stifling free thinking.
- The fear of self-censorship among professors and students is highlighted, with statistics showing a significant number engaging in self-censorship.
- The left-leaning bias in academia is discussed, with some departments having no conservative representation.
- The reasons for this bias include the unpleasant working environment for conservatives and the presence of leftist ideologies in certain departments.
- The speaker mentions various dismissal mechanisms, such as labeling individuals as conservative, white, straight, or male, leading to their dismissal in certain discussions or topics.

- The speaker discusses how cancel culture dismisses individuals based on their opinions, even if they belong to marginalized groups.
- Prominent black conservatives and moderates have been told they are "not really black" for their opinions.
- Cancel culture limits the time available for meaningful discussions and can be amplified on social media.
- The speaker acknowledges that cancel culture exists on both the left and the right.
- Cancel culture can interfere with faith in expertise, leading to a dismissal of experts and journalists with differing opinions.
- The speaker mentions the case of Jennifer Say at Levi's, who faced backlash for advocating to reopen schools during COVID-19.
- Cancel culture often leads to forgetting why someone was canceled, even if they were proven right.
- The speaker discusses hate speech and its connection to the anti-free speech movement.
- The concept of hate speech emerged from academia and was used to ban certain types of speech.
- The speaker argues against banning hate speech, emphasizing the importance of protecting offensive speech as a subjective concept.
- The speaker highlights the need for viewpoint diversity in order to accurately determine what is considered hateful or offensive speech.

- The speaker believes that hate speech should not be banned because it is important to know what people really think in order to have a complete understanding of the world.
- Censorship of hate speech can actually make things worse by causing preference falsification and group polarization.
- The speaker argues that freedom of speech, even in extreme cases like allowing white supremacists on campus, can have short-term harm but long-term benefits in promoting truth and understanding.
- The responsibility of handling speech without censoring is emphasized, requiring deep historical knowledge and compassion. Documentary filmmakers and biographers are mentioned as examples of conducting conversations effectively.
- The speaker advocates for curiosity and understanding as the cure for extremism, rather than unwarranted certainty.

- The speaker recommends a documentary about Floyd Abrams and another one about Ira Glasser, the former head of the ACLU.
- The documentary about Ira Glasser explores the ACLU's defense of the Nazis in Skokie and Glasser's leadership.
- Allowing the Nazis to speak in Skokie undermined their movement and exposed their racist beliefs.
- The speaker expresses concern about cancel culture and the potential consequences of past actions being used against individuals.
- The speaker discusses the importance of cultivating curiosity and intellectual humility in children to promote a free speech culture.
- Generation Z is against cancel culture and the speaker hopes for a future where flaws and insecurities are accepted and lead to human connection.
- The speaker mentions studying censorship during the Tudor dynasty and the licensing of the printing press by Henry VIII.

The speaker discusses the history of censorship during the Tudor dynasty and compares it to the current era of social media. They mention the disruptive nature of the printing press and its eventual benefits, and express optimism for the potential positive impact of social media. They caution against attempts to control or ban social media platforms, emphasizing the need for cultural adaptation and wiser use of the technology. The speaker also acknowledges the negative effects of social media on mental health and suggests the possibility of creating a social media platform that promotes long-term fulfillment and growth. They reference the show Fleabag to highlight the desire for guidance in living optimally. They conclude by discussing the potential of algorithms to provide personalized and educational content on social media.

The speaker criticizes the use of whataboutism and accusing opponents of hypocrisy as ineffective tactics for finding truth. They emphasize the importance of caring about free speech cases that do not have a political bias and highlight the exercise of power against marginalized groups. The speaker discusses the problems with some diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, criticizing the addition of DEI statements as a requirement for hiring or admission. They discuss the lack of diversity in higher education and the fear of self-censorship among professors and students. The speaker also discusses cancel culture, hate speech, and the importance of protecting offensive speech. They advocate for curiosity and understanding as the cure for extremism. The speaker mentions studying censorship during the Tudor dynasty and the potential positive impact of social media, while cautioning against attempts to control or ban social media platforms. They suggest the possibility of creating a social media platform that promotes long-term fulfillment and growth.

- The speaker believes that the current period is anarchical and requires cultural adjustments.
- The internet has exposed the flaws in our knowledge and research.
- People need authorities they can trust and respect.
- The speaker suggests creating a platform for serious discussions with rules and integrity.
- Wikipedia is praised for its self-reflective nature but has biases and flaws.
- The accessibility and visibility of the editing process could be improved.
- The speaker shares personal experiences with depression and how the culture war affected their mental health.

- The speaker discusses their experience with cancel culture and the negative impact it had on their mental health.
- They talk about undergoing cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to address their negative thought patterns and how it helped them overcome their depression.
- The speaker mentions the dangers of administrators promoting cognitive distortions to students and the need to address this issue.
- They share the story of a friend who committed suicide after being canceled and emphasize the psychological toll of fighting against cancel culture.
- The speaker highlights the cruelty of people online and the potential harm it can cause, urging others to consider the impact of their words.
- They mention their book, "Canceling the American Mind," which addresses cancel culture and quotes various individuals, including Taylor Swift, who discuss the cruel nature of cancel culture.
- The speaker emphasizes the importance of not letting hurtful words have power over oneself and encourages empathy and understanding.
- They express their disappointment in witnessing cruelty among people and how it affects their faith in humanity.
- The speaker believes that people are tired of not being able to be authentic and that censorship is unsustainable.
- They suggest that creating alternative ways to prove intelligence and hard work, outside of prestigious schools, could help address some of the problems related to cancel culture and elitism.

- The speaker believes that America has become elitist, with leadership coming from a few prestigious schools.
- They suggest that society would be healthier if excellence could be proven in different ways, outside of traditional institutions.
- The speaker mentions the idea of a test that only a small percentage of people can pass, as an alternative to expensive education.
- They emphasize the need for additional streams for creative problem solvers and mention technology, such as Khan Academy, as a potential solution.
- The speaker criticizes elite higher education institutions for replicating class privilege and recommends reading the book "Poison Ivy" by Evan Mandry.
- They encourage people to continue being weird and unique.
- The conversation concludes with appreciation for the work being done and a quote from Noam Chomsky about freedom of speech.

- The speaker discusses the need for cultural adjustments in the current anarchical period.
- They highlight the flaws in our knowledge and research exposed by the internet.
- Authorities that people can trust and respect are needed.
- The speaker suggests creating a platform for serious discussions with rules and integrity.
- Wikipedia is praised for its self-reflective nature but has biases and flaws.
- The accessibility and visibility of the editing process could be improved.
- The speaker shares personal experiences with depression and the negative impact of cancel culture on mental health.
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) helped the speaker overcome depression.
- The dangers of administrators promoting cognitive distortions to students are mentioned.
- The psychological toll of cancel culture is highlighted through the story of a friend's suicide.
- The speaker urges others to consider the impact of their words and emphasizes empathy and understanding.
- The importance of not letting hurtful words have power is emphasized.
- The speaker believes censorship is unsustainable and suggests alternative ways to prove intelligence and hard work.
- America is criticized for being elitist and leadership coming from prestigious schools.
- The need for additional streams for creative problem solvers is mentioned.
- Elite higher education institutions are criticized for replicating class privilege.
- People are encouraged to embrace their uniqueness and individuality.

Greg Lukianoff is a free speech advocate, first-amendment attorney, president of FIRE - Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, and co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind and a new book The Canceling of the American Mind. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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TRANSCRIPT:
https://lexfridman.com/greg-lukianoff-transcript

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OUTLINE:
0:00 - Introduction
2:11 - Cancel culture & freedom of speech
16:42 - Left-wing vs right-wing cancel culture
25:27 - Religion
28:07 - College rankings by freedom of speech
34:15 - Deplatforming
48:50 - Whataboutism
53:53 - Steelmanning
1:01:29 - How the left argues
1:12:09 - Diversity, equity, and inclusion
1:24:00 - Why colleges lean left
1:31:38 - How the right argues
1:36:13 - Hate speech
1:45:00 - Platforming
1:54:31 - Social media
2:15:38 - Depression
2:27:09 - Hope

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If the goal is the project of human knowledge, which is to know the world as it is, you cannot know the world as it is without knowing what people really think.

What people really think is an incredibly important fact to know.

Every time you're actually saying, you can't say that, you're actually depriving yourself of the knowledge of what people really think.

You're causing what Timur Kuran, who's on our board of advisors, calls preference falsification.

You end up with an inaccurate picture of the world, which by the way, In a lot of cases, because there are activists who want to restrict more speech, they actually tend to think that people are more prejudiced than they might be.

And actually, 1 very real practical way it makes things worse is when you censor people, it doesn't change their opinion.

It just encourages them to not share it with people who will get them in trouble.

So it leads them to talk to people who they already agree with, and group polarization takes off.

The following is a conversation with Greg Lukianoff, free speech advocate, first amendment attorney, president and CEO of FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

And he's the author of Unleashing Liberty, co-author with Jonathan Haidt of Coddling of the American Mind and co-author with Ricky Schlott of a new book coming out in October, that you should definitely pre-order now, called The Cancelling of the American Mind, which is a definitive accounting of the history, present and future of cancel culture, a term used and overused in public discourse, but rarely studied and understood with the depth and rigor that Greg and Ricky do in this book and in part in this conversation.

Freedom of speech is important, especially on college campuses, the very place that should serve as the battleground of ideas, including weird and controversial ones, that should encourage bold risk-taking, not conformity.

To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.

And now, dear friends, here's Greg Lukianoff.

Now, You've said that you don't like the term as it's been quote dragged through the mud and abused endlessly by a whole host of controversial figures Nevertheless, we have the term.

Cancel culture is the uptick of campaigns, especially successful campaigns starting around 2014 to get people fired, expelled, de-platformed, et cetera,

for speech that would normally be protected by the First Amendment.

I always say would be protected because we're talking about circumstances in which it isn't necessarily where the First Amendment applies.

But what I mean is like as an analog to say things you couldn't lose your job as a public employee for.

And also the climate of fear that's resulted from that phenomenon, the fact that you can lose your job for having the wrong opinion.

And it wasn't subtle that there was an uptick in this, particularly on campus around 2014.

John Ronson wrote a book called So You've Been Publicly Shamed.

It came out in 2015, already documenting this phenomenon.

I wrote a book called Freedom From Speech in 2014.

But it really was in 2017 when you started seeing this be directed at professors.

And when it comes to the number of professors that we've seen be targeted and lose their jobs, I've been doing this for 22 years and I've seen nothing like it.

So there's so many things I wanna ask you here.

Can you explain what the organization is?

Because it's interconnected to this whole fight and the rise of cancel culture and

So FIRE was founded in 1999 by Harvey Sloverglate.

He's the person who actually found me out in my very happy life out in San Francisco but knew I was looking for a First Amendment job.

I had gone to law school specifically to do First Amendment and he found me, which was pretty cool.

His protege, Kathleen Sullivan, was the dean of Stanford Law School and this remains the best compliment I ever got in my life is that she recommended me to Harvey.

And since that's the whole reason why I went to law school, I was excited to be a part of this new organization.

The other co-founder of fire is Alan Charles Kors.

He is 1 of the leading experts in the world on the Enlightenment and particularly about Voltaire.

And if any of your listeners do like the great courses, he has a lecture on Blaise Pascal, and Blaise of course is famous for Pascal's Wager, and I left it just so moved and impressed and with a depth of understanding of how important this person

That's interesting, you mentioned to me offline connected to this that there is,

at least it runs in parallel, or there's a connection between the love of science and the love of the freedom of speech.

Can you maybe elaborate where that connection is?

who are really, you know, who've devoted our lives to freedom of speech, 1 thing that we are into whether we know it or not is epistemology, you know, the study and philosophy of knowledge.

You know, freedom of speech has lots of moral and philosophical dimensions, but from a pragmatic standpoint, it is necessary because we're creatures of incredibly limited knowledge.

I always love the fact that Yuval Harari refers to the enlightenment as the discovery of ignorance because that's exactly what it was.

It was suddenly being like, wow, hold on a second.

All this incredibly interesting folk wisdom we got, which by the way can be surprisingly reliable here and there, When you start testing a lot of it, it is nonsense and it doesn't hold up.

Even our ideas about the way things fall, you know, as Galileo established, like even our intuitions, they're just wrong.

So A lot of the early history of freedom of speech, it was happening at the same time as sort of the scientific revolution.

A lot of the early debates about freedom of speech were tied in.

Certainly, Galileo—I always point out like Kepler was probably like the even more radical idea that there weren't even perfect spheres.

But at the same time, largely because of the invention of the printing press, you also had all these political developments.

And I always talk about Jan Hus from the famous Czech hero who was burned at the stake and I think in 1419.

But he was basically Luther before the printing press.

Before Luther could get his word out, he didn't stand a chance, and that was exactly what Jan Hus was.

But a century later, thanks to the printing press, everyone could know what Luther thought, and boy, did they.

But it led to, of course, this completely crazy, hyper-disrupted period in European history.

Well, you mentioned, to jump around a little bit, the First Amendment.

First of all, what is the First Amendment, and what is the connection to you between the First Amendment, the freedom of speech, and cancel culture?

So I'm a First Amendment lawyer, as I mentioned.

And I think American First Amendment law is incredibly interesting.

In 1 sentence, the First Amendment is trying to get rid of basically all the reasons why humankind had been killing each other for its entire existence.

That we weren't going to fight any more over opinion, we weren't gonna fight any more religion, that you have the right to approach your government for redress of grievances, that you have the freedom to associate, that all of these things in 1 sentence, we're like, nope, the government will no longer interfere with your right to have these fundamental human rights.

And so 1 thing that makes FIRE a little different from other organizations is, however, we're not just a First Amendment organization.

But at the same time, a lot of what I think free speech is can be well explained with reference to a lot of First Amendment law, partially because in American history, some of our smartest people have been thinking about what the parameters of freedom of speech are in relationship to the First Amendment.

And a lot of those principles, they transfer very well just as pragmatic ideas.

So like the biggest sin in terms of censorship is called viewpoint discrimination, that essentially you allow freedom of speech except for that opinion.

Now, it's found to be kind of more defensible and I think this makes sense that if you set up a forum and like we're only going to talk about economics

exclude people who want to talk about a different topic.

But it's considered rightfully a bigger deal if you set up a forum for economics but we're not going to let people talk about that kind of economics or have that opinion on economics, most particularly.

So a lot of the principles from First Amendment law actually make a lot of philosophical sense as good principles for when like what is protected and unprotected speech, what should get you in trouble, how you actually analyze it, which is why we actually try, in our definition of cancel culture, to work in some of the First Amendment norms just in the definition, so we don't have to bog down on them as well.

You're saying so many interesting things, but if you can linger on the viewpoint discrimination, is there any gray area of discussion there?

Like what is and isn't economics, for the example you gave?

I mean, is it a science or is it an art to draw lines of what is and isn't allowed?

Yeah, you know, If you're saying that something is or is not economics, well, you can say everything is economics and therefore I want to talk about poetry.

There would be some line drawing exercise in there.

But let's say at once you decide to open up to poetry even, It's a big difference between saying, okay, now we're open to poetry, but you can't say Dante was bad.

Like that's a forbidden opinion now, officially, in this otherwise open forum.

That would immediately, at an intuitive level, strike people as a bigger problem than just saying that poetry isn't economics.

Yeah, I mean, that intuitive level that you speak to, I hope that all of us have that kind of basic intuition when the line is crossed.

It's the same thing for like pornography, right?

I think there's the same level of intuition that should be applied across the board here.

And it's when that intuition becomes deformed by whatever forces of society, that's when it starts to feel like censorship.

Yeah, I mean, people find it a different thing, you know, if someone loses their job simply for their political opinion, even if that employer has every right in the world to fire you, I think Americans should still be like, well, it's true, they have every right in the world, and I'm not making a legal case that maybe you shouldn't fire someone for their political opinion, but think that through.

Like what society do we want to – what kind of society do we want to live in?

It's been funny watching – I point this out.

Yes, I will defend businesses' First Amendment rights of association to be able to have the legal right to decide who works for them.

But from a moral or philosophical matter, if you think through the implications of if every business in America becomes an expressive association in addition to being a profit maximizing organization, that would be a disaster for democracy because you would end up in a situation where people would actually be saying to themselves, I don't think I can actually say what I really think and still believe I can keep my job.

I felt like we were headed because a lot of the initial response to people getting canceled was very simply, you know, oh but they have the right to get rid of this person.

And that's the beginning and end of the discussion.

I thought that wasn't actually a very serious way of, that if you care about both the First Amendment and freedom of speech, of thinking it through.

So to you, just to clarify, the First Amendment is kind of a legal embodiment of the ideal of freedom of speech.

Now freedom of speech is the application of the principle to like everything, including like kind of the high level philosophical ideal of what it, of the value of people being able to speak their mind.

Yeah, It's an older, bolder, more expansive idea.

You can have a situation – and I talk about countries that have good free speech law but not necessarily great free speech culture.

I talk about how when we sometimes make this distinction between free speech law and free speech culture, we're thinking in a very cloudy kind of way.

What I mean by that is that law is generally – particularly in a common law country, it's the reflection of norms.

Judges are people too and in a lot of cases, common law is supposed to actually take our intuitive ideas of fairness and place them into the law.

So if you actually have a culture that doesn't appreciate free speech from a philosophical standpoint, it's not going to be able to protect free speech for the long haul, even in the law, because eventually, that's 1 of the reasons why I worry so much about some of these terrible cases coming out of law schools because I fear that even though, sure, American First Amendment law is very strongly protective of First Amendment, for now, it's not gonna stay that way if you have generations of law students graduating who actually think there's nothing, there's no higher goal than shouting down your opponent.

Yeah, so that's why so much of your focus or a large fraction of your focus is on the higher education or education period is because education

64, you have the free speech movement on Berkeley.

And in 65, you have repressive tolerance by Herbert Marcuse, which was a declaration of, by the way, we on the left, we shouldn't—we should have free speech, but we should have free speech for us.

I mean I went back and reread repressive tolerance and how clear it is.

I had forgotten that it really is kind of like—and these so-called conservatives and right-wingers, we need to repress them because they're regressive thinkers.

It really doesn't come out to anything more sophisticated than the very old idea that our people are good.

We should not have – we have to retrain society.

Of course like it ends up being another – he was also a fan of Mao so it's not surprising that he – of course the system would have to rely on some kind of totalitarian system.

But that was a laughable position, you know, say 30, 40 years ago.

The idea that essentially, you know, free speech for me, not for thee, as the great, you know, free speech champion, that Hentoff used to say, was something that you were supposed to be embarrassed by.

But I saw this when I was in law school in 97.

I saw this when I was interning at the ACLU in 99, that there was a slow motion train wreck coming, that essentially there was these bad ideas from campus that had been taking on more and more steam of basically no free speech for my opponent were actually becoming more and more accepted as and partially because academia was becoming less and less viewpoint diverse.

I think that as my co-author Jonathan Haidt points out, that when you have low viewpoint diversity, people start thinking in a very kind of tribal way.

And if you don't have the respected dissenters, you don't have the people that you can point to that I'm like, hey, this is a smart person.

This is like, this is a smart, reasonable, decent person that I disagree with.

So I guess not everyone thinks alike on this issue.

You start getting much more kind of like, only bad people, only heretics, only blasphemers, only right-wingers, can actually think in this way.

Every time you say something, I always have a million thoughts and a million questions that pop up.

But since you mentioned there's a kind of drift as you write about in the

book, and you mentioned now there's a drift towards the left in academia, which will also maybe draw a distinction here between the left and the right and the cancel culture as you present in your

book is not necessarily associated with any 1 political viewpoint, that there's mechanisms on both sides that result in cancellation and censorship in violation of freedom of speech.

So 1 thing I wanna be really clear about is the book takes on both right and left cancel culture.

They're different in a lot of ways and definitely, you know, cancel culture from the left is more important in academia where the left dominates.

But we talk a lot about cancel culture coming from legislatures.

We talk a lot about cancel culture on campus as well because even though most of the attempts that come from on campus to get people canceled are still from the left, there are a lot of attacks that come from the right, that come from attempts by different organizations and sometimes when there are stories in Fox News, like they'll go after professors.

About one-third of the attempts to get professors punished that are successful actually do come from the right.

We talk about attempts to get books banned in the book.

We talk about suing the Florida legislature.

Ron DeSantis had something called the Stop Woke Act, which we told everyone this is laughably unconstitutional.

They tried to ban, you know, particular topics in higher ed and we're like, no, this is a joke.

Like, this will be laughed out of court and they didn't listen to us and they brought it, they passed it and we sued and we won.

Now they're trying again with something that's equally as unconstitutional and we will sue again and we will win.

So this is presumably trying to limit certain topics from being taught in school?

You know, it came out of the sort of attempt to get at critical race theory.

So it's topics related to race, gender, et cetera.

I don't remember exactly how they tried to cabinet to CRT.

But when you actually, the law is really well established that you can't tell higher education what they're allowed to teach without violating the First Amendment and when this got in front of a judge It was exactly as, he was exactly as skeptical of it as we thought he'd be.

I think he called this dystopian and it wasn't a close call.

of teaching, the right way to fight it is by making the case that it's not a good idea as part of

the curriculum as opposed to banning it from the curriculum.

It just – the state doesn't have the power to simply say – to ban what teachers – what professors in higher education teach.

Now it gets a little more complicated when you talk about K-12 because the state has a role in deciding what public K-12 teaches because they're your kids, it's taxpayer funded, and generally the legislature is involved.

There is democratic oversight of that process.

So for K-12, is there also a lean towards the left in terms of the administration that manages the curriculum?

I have a 5 and a seven-year-old and They have lovely teachers, but we have run into a lot of problems with education schools at fire.

A lot of the graduates of education school end up being the administrators who clamp down on free speech in higher education.

I've been trying to think of positive ways to take on some of the problems that I see in K-12.

I thought that the attempt to just dictate you won't teach the following 10 books or 20 books or 200 books was the wrong way to do it.

Now, when it comes to deciding what books are in the curriculum, again, that's something the legislature actually can't have some say in, and that's pretty uncontroversial in terms of the law.

But when it comes to how you fight it, I had something that, since I'm kind of stuck with a formula, I called empowering of the American mind.

I gave principles that were inconsistent with the sort of group think and heavy emphasis on identity politics that some of the critics are rightfully complaining about in K through 12.

And we, that is actually in The Cancelling of the American Mind, but I have a more detailed explanation of it that I'm gonna be putting up on my blog, The Eternally Radical Idea.

legally, this is a silly question perhaps, create an extra protection for certain kinds of literature, 1984 or something, to remain in the curriculum.

I mean, it's already, it's all protected, I guess.

I guess to protect against administrators from fiddling too much with the curriculum, like stabilizing the curriculum.

In K through 12, you know, state legislatures, you know, they're part of that.

They're part of that, and they can say, like, you should teach the following books.

of course, people are always a little bit worried that if they were to recommend, you know, teach the Declaration of Independence, you know, that

it will end up being, well, they're going to teach

the Declaration of Independence was just to protect slavery, which it wasn't.

Yeah, so teaching a particular topic matters, which textbooks you choose, which perspective you take, all that kind of stuff.

Of course, there's like, religion starts to creep into the whole question.

I like how, you know, is the Bible, are you allowed to teach, and to incorporate that into education?

I mean, I'm an atheist with an intense interest in religion.

I actually read the entire Bible this year just because I do stuff like that.

And I never actually had read it from beginning to end.

Then I read the Quran, because, you know, and I'm gonna try to do the Book of Mormon, but you know.

Well, I'm sorry to, man, you're so fascinating.

I think you should, just to know, because it's such a touchstone in the way people talk about things.

It can get pretty tedious, but I even made myself read through all of the very specific instructions on how tall the different parts of the temple need to be and how long the garbs need to be and what shape they need to be and what—and those go on a lot.

Surprisingly, a big chunk of Exodus—I thought that was more like in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

But then you get to books like Job, you know, wow.

I mean, Job is such a read and no way Job originally had that ending.

Like Job is basically – it starts out as this perverse bet between God and Satan about whether or not they can actually make a good man renounce God.

Then they finally really torture Job And he turns into the best, why is God cruel?

And he turns into like the best lawyer in the entire world and he defeats everyone, all the people who come to argue with him.

And then suddenly at the end, God shows up and he's like, well, you know, I am everywhere.

He gives an answer kind of like, I am there when lionesses give birth and I am there.

And by the way, there's this giant monster Leviathan that's very big and it's very scary and I have to manage the universe.

And I'm kind of like, God, are you saying that you're very busy?

Is that essentially your argument to Job?

And you don't mention the whole kind of like, that I have a bet that's why I was torturing you, that doesn't come up.

And then at the end, he decides, God decides, like Job's like, oh no, you're totally right, I was totally wrong, sorry.

And God says, I'm gonna punish those people who tried to argue with you and didn't win.

So he gets rid of the, I don't know exactly what he does to them, I don't remember.

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Greg Lukianoff: Cancel Culture, Deplatforming, Censorship & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #397