Making Sense - Sam Harris - #100 — Facing the Crowd

In this episode, I speak with Nicholas Christakis, a sociologist and physician who directs the Human Nature Lab at Yale University, where he is appointed as the Saul Goldman Family Professor of Social and Natural Science, and is the co-director of the Yale Institute for Network Science. His research focuses on the relationship between social networks and well-being, and his research engages two types of phenomena: connection and contagion. In his work, he investigates the biological and social implications of how they operate to influence thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. His lab also does experiments in how to change population-level behavior related to health and cooperation, and cooperation and economic development. In this conversation, we discuss the dynamics of mob behavior and moral panic, and related issues, and how they relate to the recent events that have come to be known as the "Mealday" at Berkeley and the attack on Charles Murray at Middlebury, as well as the protests against Milo Yiannopoulos at the University of California, Berkeley, and the protests at Evergreen University in response to his appearance at the UC-Berkeley speech. I think you'll find an interesting and useful and certainly timely conversation. I am here to bring you the first part of a conversation I had with Dr. Christakis on the podcast, and I hope you do the same with the second part of the conversation, which will be posted on my blog post on the Making Sense Podcast. -Sam Harris. Make sense of it! Thanks for listening to Making Sense: A.K.A. by Sam Harris and the rest of the podcast by Making Sense, and for supporting the podcast? Subscribe to the podcast on the making sense Podcast by becoming a patron of Making Sense by becoming one of our sponsors, and contributing to our podcast, Sam Harris . Sam Harris, the podcast that makes sense of things that make sense of the world. and making sense of what we're doing here and what we re doing here, and what s going on in the world and everywhere else we do in the culture and everywhere we do it. Sam and I are making sense, and we hope you enjoy what we are doing here. Thank you, too, and thank you, friend you're listening to this podcast and listening to us, and please consider becoming a supporter of us, too... -Your support is so much more! - Sam and the podcast is made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers.

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast.

00:00:08.820 This is Sam Harris.

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00:00:46.520 Today I'm bringing you Nicholas Christakis.

00:00:50.160 Nicholas is a sociologist and a physician.

00:00:52.620 He directs the Human Nature Lab at Yale University, where he is appointed as the Saul Goldman Family

00:00:59.480 Professor of Social and Natural Science, and he's the co-director of the Yale Institute

00:01:04.160 for Network Science.

00:01:06.140 His lab focuses on the relationship between social networks and well-being, and his research

00:01:11.520 engages two types of phenomena.

00:01:13.760 The social, mathematical, and biological rules governing how social networks form.

00:01:18.140 This is referred to as connection in his work, and the biological and social implications

00:01:24.120 of how they operate to influence thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and this is often referred

00:01:29.040 to as contagion.

00:01:30.820 His lab also does experiments in how to change population-level behavior related to health

00:01:37.480 and cooperation and economic development.

00:01:40.800 So it's very interesting work.

00:01:42.080 And I would have wanted to speak with Nicholas anyway about his work, but another thing that

00:01:48.120 reminded me of the need to speak with him was his experience at Yale, which you may have

00:01:55.060 seen on YouTube, and you should watch it now if you haven't.

00:02:00.280 But he was the professor a while back who was standing before a howling mob of students

00:02:05.880 and stood there with the imperturbability of a saint, really, as he was castigated by young

00:02:15.680 men and women who were properly unhinged by their identity politics and some of the crazy

00:02:21.960 ideas about speech that are rattling around in their heads.

00:02:26.260 I'll embed a relevant clip on my blog.

00:02:28.800 There are many, but I'll have one there where this podcast is embedded.

00:02:32.580 And you will enjoy the first hour of this conversation much more if you've seen five minutes, at

00:02:40.340 least, of that encounter, because you will see Nicholas's patience.

00:02:44.780 You will see the untenability of the situation he was in.

00:02:48.720 You will see a hostility to dialogue among Yale students that one could scarcely imagine possible.

00:02:56.720 And this was, I believe, the first incident like this to come to national attention.

00:03:05.060 This preceded the riots at Berkeley preventing Milo's speech, and it preceded Brett Weinstein's

00:03:12.800 ordeal at Evergreen, and it preceded the attack upon Charles Murray at Middlebury.

00:03:17.620 So this was, if not the first moment like this, the first that became very prominent in recent

00:03:24.520 memory, it makes for very interesting viewing.

00:03:27.960 So Nicholas and I talk about all that, and then we get into the dynamics of mob behavior

00:03:33.560 and moral panic and related issues.

00:03:36.360 And I think you'll find it an interesting and useful and certainly timely conversation.

00:03:42.760 So now, without further delay, I give you Nicholas Christakis.

00:03:54.040 I am here with Nicholas Christakis.

00:03:56.280 Nicholas, thanks for coming on the podcast.

00:03:58.400 Thank you so much for having me, Sam.

00:04:00.360 So we met at the TED conference, if I'm not mistaken.

00:04:04.520 I don't think we've met since.

00:04:05.920 I think that was in 2010, and if I recall, you gave the talk right after mine, or maybe

00:04:12.780 it was just we were rehearsing together or something, but that's the moment I have in

00:04:16.920 my memory where we shook hands and said hi was at TED just before or after one of us got

00:04:23.640 off stage.

00:04:24.520 Does that jive with your memory?

00:04:25.620 Yeah, we were in the same session, and my memory is that you were sitting next to me

00:04:29.320 as we were watching the speakers.

00:04:32.460 Sarah Silverman spoke, I don't know if you remember, and the woman from 10,000 Maniacs

00:04:38.120 who's singing I Adore, whose name I'm spacing on, and you spoke.

00:04:43.900 And what I remember of your talk was that remarkable slide, maybe that was the first time you used

00:04:48.660 it, where you showed side-by-side photographs of a bunch of women wearing the chador, and

00:04:56.720 then a bunch of...

00:04:57.320 Oh, yeah, the full burqa, yeah. 0.99

00:04:58.540 The full burqa, and then a bunch of women, you know, on... 1.00

00:05:02.220 Scantily clad, yeah.

00:05:03.500 Yeah, on a pornography or whatever, and you said these are, you know, very different moral

00:05:08.500 landscapes, but we should surely...

00:05:10.400 And even they looked like landscapes.

00:05:11.580 I remember visually thinking, you know, there were these undulating heads in the way it was

00:05:15.120 rendered, your image, and it really got me to thinking.

00:05:18.980 And, you know, the topic of moral relativism and moral universalism is an old one, but I don't

00:05:25.280 think the sophistication of thought that we've been bringing to that topic lately has been

00:05:28.720 very strong.

00:05:30.620 That was a...

00:05:31.280 You made a big impression on me, too.

00:05:33.000 So we're going to talk about your science and some of the science you presented there

00:05:37.060 at TED and some of the stuff you've done in the intervening years.

00:05:40.820 But first, just tell people, what is your background generally, academically and scientifically?

00:05:46.360 Well, I am trained in the natural and the social sciences.

00:05:49.220 I'm a physician, trained as a hospice doctor, so I spent 15 years taking care of people who

00:05:57.020 were dying.

00:05:57.740 I was...

00:05:58.220 My first appointment was at the University of Chicago, and I worked on the south side

00:06:01.940 of Chicago, taking care of primarily indigent patients, although I had a few faculty and,

00:06:07.340 you know, sort of more well-to-do people.

00:06:09.120 And I worked there as a hospice doctor.

00:06:12.080 And then when I moved to Harvard from Chicago in 2001, I was a palliative...

00:06:18.000 Clinically, I was a palliative medicine doctor.

00:06:19.540 So I was trained as a physician, but then also I was trained as a sociologist, and I have

00:06:24.040 a PhD in sociology as well.

00:06:25.620 And most of my career has been devoted to research.

00:06:28.340 So I'm primarily a research scientist and doing work in public health.

00:06:32.820 But...

00:06:33.540 And I stopped seeing patients about 10 years ago now.

00:06:36.400 So I'm a natural and a social scientist.

00:06:38.680 And increasingly, we do a lot of computational science as well in my lab.

00:06:42.740 We'll talk about the science, because obviously, what can be known about social networks and

00:06:48.040 group psychology and many of the other topics you touch, you're now touching AI or human

00:06:54.240 interaction with AI.

00:06:56.360 So all of that's very interesting.

00:06:57.820 But I want to start with your immediate background here, because this is one reason why many people

00:07:05.760 know of you and were eager for you to come on the podcast.

00:07:09.500 You and your wife, Erica, were really the canaries in the coal mine for some recent moral panic

00:07:18.100 is the appropriate name we've witnessed on college campuses.

00:07:21.840 You are the man that many of us have seen standing in the quad at Yale, or I assume that was the

00:07:27.260 quad, surrounded by a fairly large crowd of increasingly unhinged students.

00:07:34.680 And this was really mesmerizing to watch.

00:07:38.700 I can't imagine it felt the same to be in the middle of it.

00:07:42.140 And I must say, you handled yourself as well as I could possibly imagine.

00:07:47.340 And you have been much praised for the way you conducted yourself in that situation.

00:07:51.900 And many professors have since found themselves in similar situations.

00:07:56.900 There was Brett Weinstein at Evergreen recently.

00:07:59.980 So I just want to talk a little bit about your experience at Yale, and then move on generically

00:08:08.180 to the problem on college campuses in general, as described by people like Jonathan Haidt and

00:08:15.160 others who are focusing on the way in which there's a kind of authoritarianism emerging on

00:08:21.560 the left, really exclusively, that is preventing free speech.

00:08:26.200 And I want to get your sense of what's happening there and how big the problem is, and then

00:08:30.740 we'll move on to what we can understand scientifically about crowds and social trends.

00:08:36.520 But insofar as you are comfortable talking about it, can you tell me about what happened

00:08:41.920 at Yale?

00:08:43.480 I think I have been devoted to, you know, in some ways I'm a little naive in the sense that

00:08:52.480 I believe in institutions.

00:08:56.020 I'm also skeptical of institutions, and I am worried about institutions, but I also believe

00:09:01.420 in social institutions.

00:09:02.980 And so I've devoted my life to academia and to what I take to be their core commitments

00:09:11.120 of modern American universities, which are envied the world over.

00:09:15.360 And these commitments center around, if you look at the motto of Yale, it's lux et veritas.

00:09:19.800 I mean, that's an extraordinary commitment, light and truth.

00:09:23.480 And these institutions are committed to the preservation, production, and dissemination of

00:09:30.780 knowledge.

00:09:31.740 And they are guided ostensibly by principles of open expression and reason and debate and

00:09:41.860 sort of liberal commitments to the quality of human beings, their capacity to perfect the

00:09:50.600 world, the knowability of the world, or in my view, committed to a kind of belief in the

00:09:59.560 objective nature of reality.

00:10:01.680 And I would strongly defend those principles and have devoted my life to them.

00:10:05.980 And in fact, even in the narrow issue of free expression, have been defending free expression

00:10:12.220 often for disenfranchised populations for a very long time.

00:10:16.860 So I, you know, even before I came to Yale four years ago, I was at Harvard.

00:10:20.400 I, my wife and I had taken some unpopular stands defending the free expression of individuals

00:10:26.200 who, you know, were on the side of Black Lives Matter, who were protesting.

00:10:33.280 There was a high school student who, who had worn a t-shirt that says, Jesus was not a homophobe.

00:10:39.320 And we came to his defense.

00:10:41.180 There were some minority students at Harvard who had some concerns about the, the final clubs

00:10:47.040 at that institution, the sort of, sort of, they're kind of like elite fraternities.

00:10:52.760 And, and they had posted a satirical flyer and, and some people were unhappy about that flyer and

00:11:00.920 wanted to squelch the free expression of those students.

00:11:03.740 And, and we came to their defense.

00:11:05.560 And so we, you know, I am committed to this, I sort of maybe naively bought in hook, line and sinker

00:11:13.940 to this belief that these institutions of higher learning in our society are, are important,

00:11:19.860 that they are worthy of protection and respect.

00:11:24.380 And, and so this is why when they fail us, I get very sad.

00:11:29.780 I get sad for our society.

00:11:31.360 I get sad for the students and I get sad for the, the, the institutions.

00:11:36.000 And I mean, I don't, I don't want to just keep talking endlessly, but I mean, there's a,

00:11:40.740 there's a parallel set and I'll come back, I think, to your question.

00:11:42.840 And there's a parallel set of ideas about, about, about universities in our society.

00:11:47.980 If you think about these universities, they are supported by tax dollars and the bequests

00:11:53.220 of primarily wealthy people.

00:11:55.580 And the reason this money is given to these institutions is to further the mission of the

00:12:01.200 preservation, production, and dissemination of knowledge, not to provide faculty with easy

00:12:07.840 lifestyles.

00:12:09.080 I mean, it's a wonderful thing to be a professor.

00:12:10.640 I see it as a calling, but that's not the purpose, right?

00:12:14.820 I mean, the, the point is that we are supposed to be that place, which, which, which discovers

00:12:20.920 things, which preserves Sanskrit, which preserves Shakespeare, which preserves antiquities, which

00:12:28.320 preserves mathematical knowledge and, and, and scientific knowledge, which produces discoveries.

00:12:33.560 We're supposed to be the place that transmits this to new young people. 0.70

00:12:36.720 And, and, and that's the role we're supposed to play in, in society.

00:12:39.900 And, and we have a deep commitment to light and truth.

00:12:42.560 So I get very upset when fields of inquiry or ideas are proscribed.

00:12:51.360 And I think that we, if our ideas are strong, they should win the battle of ideas.

00:12:56.420 If, if you're so confident in what you have to say, you should be able to defend it.

00:13:02.080 And your approach should not be to silence your opponents.

00:13:05.120 Your approach should be to win the battle of ideas.

00:13:08.020 I'm just going to interrupt you by, by reminding you of something you wrote, which appeared in

00:13:12.180 the New York Times, which I think is the only thing you wrote in the aftermath of, of what

00:13:16.580 happened at Yale addressing it.

00:13:18.120 You wrote here, quoting you, the faculty must cut at the root of a set of ideas that are

00:13:23.620 wholly illiberal.

00:13:25.180 Disagreement is not oppression.

00:13:27.560 Argument is not assault.

00:13:29.680 Words, even provocative or repugnant ones, are not violence.

00:13:34.200 The answer to speech we do not like is more speech.

00:13:38.060 I couldn't agree more with that sentiment.

00:13:40.320 And that's, it's amazing to me that this even needs to be said and said as frequently as

00:13:46.820 we now have to say it, how is it that the left, and again, I do want to come back to

00:13:51.100 specifically what happened at Yale because many people just might not be aware of it or

00:13:54.660 have forgotten the details, but how do you think it is that the left primarily has lost

00:14:01.100 sight of this principle that the antidote to bad ideas is good ideas and the criticism

00:14:09.460 of bad ideas?

00:14:10.620 Yeah, I think the right and the left take turns in this regard.

00:14:13.040 I mean, let's not forget the history of McCarthyism on campus and...

00:14:16.760 Yeah, but we sort of expect the right to get this wrong at the extreme, right?

00:14:21.200 I mean, the left is...

00:14:23.400 I was talking to some students here recently.

00:14:27.160 They happen to be conservative students.

00:14:28.720 Again, I should say politically, I'm left of center.

00:14:31.140 I mean, I'm very progressive.

00:14:32.720 I have all, I have some libertarian ideas.

00:14:35.300 I have some conservative ideas, but mostly my, if I have done these surveys, I am, you

00:14:39.640 know, significantly left of center politically overall.

00:14:42.960 Anyway, I was talking to some of these conservative students and I was about to say, you know,

00:14:46.400 you know, it's the left wing that marches in the streets, but that's actually not true.

00:14:50.040 The right wing also marches in the streets at different points in history in different

00:14:53.240 locations.

00:14:54.240 I think lately it has been, it has been the left which has abandoned these principles.

00:15:02.240 And for me, I should say that there are things like free speech or a non-corrupt judiciary

00:15:07.200 or a strong defense, you know, which really should be apolitical. 0.97

00:15:11.620 And I also think it's tactically idiotic of the left to surrender this free speech. 0.93

00:15:16.400 I mean, after all, let's not forget the Berkeley free... 0.95

00:15:19.220 That's where the modern free speech movement was born at Berkeley.

00:15:22.440 And to...

00:15:23.140 Yeah.

00:15:23.560 And that's where you cannot give a talk now without police protection at every moment.

00:15:28.380 You know, I don't agree with many of the things that Ben Shapiro espouses, but the idea that

00:15:33.360 $600,000 of police protection would be required for Ben Shapiro to speak on a university campus

00:15:38.460 is preposterous.

00:15:39.540 And it's a waste of money.

00:15:40.980 I mean, I think this is the other thing that I think is astonishing to me is that if we

00:15:45.380 could preserve and cultivate and recommit as a society to principles of open discourse

00:15:51.500 and protest, I totally support protest.

00:15:54.580 I support the right of students to protest.

00:15:56.040 I believe that many of the most important movements, the civil rights movement, the gay

00:16:00.280 marriage movement, many of these movements, which I wholly endorse, have been...

00:16:04.380 The lead has been taken by young people and people protesting in the streets.

00:16:08.180 This is also part of the American tradition, and it deserves respect and cherishing.

00:16:13.860 But you cannot resort to violence or prevent others from speaking.

00:16:18.940 And it's cost ineffective.

00:16:20.860 Like, look at the money.

00:16:21.800 That $600,000 could have been spent on dozens of students going to school for free.

00:16:27.080 And when we lose sight of these core liberal commitments, I think we wind up spending money

00:16:33.540 and eventually spilling blood, which is just heartbreaking.

00:16:37.920 So, yeah, I mean, I think it's nuts that many of these speakers need protection.

00:16:46.120 We're going to go back to Yale because I have to get there, but I'll just give a little more color

00:16:51.400 to how crazy this has gotten.

00:16:53.700 You sent me an article from The Economist prior to this interview, which I hadn't seen,

00:17:01.300 describing recent events at Reed College.

00:17:03.800 And it reads like an Onion article.

00:17:06.820 I mean, it's just an unbelievable document.

00:17:09.860 I'm going to read a couple of paragraphs here to give people a sense of it,

00:17:12.300 because as much as I've paid attention to this, I was still surprised by these details.

00:17:17.560 Yeah, and I'll interrupt you before I said there's been a number of examples of almost

00:17:21.820 stereotypical kind of cultural revolution, like almost Maoism, where the far left resorts

00:17:27.780 to eating its own.

00:17:29.040 So with Brett Weinstein, I mean, Brett is a completely progressive individual for his whole life.

00:17:33.700 And Rebecca Tuval, who wrote that piece, you know, she was stunned.

00:17:39.160 And this professor at Reed, who, you know, who I might or might not agree with about a variety of things,

00:17:44.980 you'll read, you're about to read the case.

00:17:47.160 I mean, there's so many of these cases which are so hard to understand.

00:17:51.660 And I hope we can talk a little bit about where they might be coming from as well, but go on.

00:17:55.100 Definitely, definitely.

00:17:55.680 Okay, so there's this Western Civ course that apparently has been receiving protests,

00:18:02.660 it seems, in every single class at Reed.

00:18:05.660 So that's the setup.

00:18:07.340 And so now, quoting from the article,

00:18:09.400 Assistant Professor Lucia Martinez Valdivia, who describes herself as mixed race and queer,

00:18:16.120 asked protesters not to demonstrate during her lecture on Sappho last November.

00:18:21.180 I mean, that's already an Onion article.

00:18:22.660 And Sappho is a great poet, and also, you know, a favorite of queer theory as well.

00:18:28.340 I mean, it's interesting.

00:18:29.680 It's not a surprise she'd be lecturing on Sappho, but still.

00:18:32.060 Her poetry on love is unbelievable, but anyway, go on.

00:18:34.620 I'm going to get some hate mail for my reaction to that, but it gets better.

00:18:38.760 Ms. Valdivia said she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder

00:18:41.720 and doubted her ability to deliver the lecture in the face of their opposition.

00:18:45.820 At first, demonstrators announced they would change tactics

00:18:48.440 and sit quietly in the audience, wearing black.

00:18:50.920 After her speech, a number of them berated her, bringing her to tears.

00:18:55.380 Demonstrators said that Ms. Valdivia was guilty of a variety of offenses. 0.97

00:18:59.460 She was a, quote, race traitor, who upheld white supremacist principles 1.00

00:19:02.980 for failing to oppose the humanities syllabus. 0.99

00:19:05.940 She was, quote, anti-black, because she appropriated black slang 0.92

00:19:09.560 by wearing a t-shirt that said, poetry is lit.

00:19:13.100 She was, quote, an ableist, because she believes trigger warnings

00:19:17.280 sometimes diminish sexual trauma.

00:19:19.120 She was also a, quote, gaslighter for making disadvantaged students 1.00

00:19:23.460 doubt their own feelings of oppression.

00:19:26.180 And then there's a quote from her now.

00:19:27.820 I am intimidated by these students.

00:19:29.780 I'm scared to teach courses on race, gender, or sexuality,

00:19:32.500 or even texts that bring these issues up in any way.

00:19:35.820 I'm at a loss as how to address this,

00:19:38.220 especially since many of these students don't believe in historicity or objective facts.

00:19:43.160 They denounce the latter as being a tool of white cis-heteropatriarchy.

00:19:47.660 So, I mean, this is just so insane on every level.

00:19:54.020 And this use of the term gaslighting, with which I'm familiar,

00:19:59.120 which has been used ever since the film came out, whatever, 60 years ago,

00:20:03.340 but I hadn't heard this being appropriated by the intersectional mob.

00:20:08.180 But then I recently re-watched part of the video of you talking to students at Yale,

00:20:14.440 and I heard one of the students admonish you for gaslighting,

00:20:18.360 which I hadn't caught the first time around.

00:20:20.400 I have to say, Nicholas, that video is just astounding to watch,

00:20:25.180 and I can only imagine what it was like to be there,

00:20:29.140 not having yet been schooled in this trend that this is the sort of thing

00:20:35.080 that has been happening to people.

00:20:36.680 Am I right about that?

00:20:38.160 Were you aware of this happening to anyone else before it happened to you,

00:20:41.260 or are you the first?

00:20:43.180 I honestly don't know the answer.

00:20:44.720 I don't remember if at the time I was,

00:20:46.640 because since then there have been so many similar episodes

00:20:48.800 that I don't remember if two years ago I was then aware of other episodes.

00:20:56.520 Part of the problem is here that there is some merit to some of the ideas,

00:21:03.800 the grand philosophical ideas.

00:21:05.780 And in my view, a lot of merit to some of the complaints of the students.

00:21:10.360 And the problem becomes that these things have been so generalized,

00:21:14.520 and what Jonathan calls concept creep as well affects these phenomena.

00:21:18.500 So what do I mean by this?

00:21:19.800 Earlier, you and I talked about a commitment to the idea that there's an objective nature to reality.

00:21:25.220 Now, there is a long philosophical debate about this topic.

00:21:28.600 It's a deep and interesting set of ideas about subjectivity.

00:21:32.680 You know, can we even see the world objectively?

00:21:36.020 Does objective reality even exist?

00:21:37.820 I think it does, but you can make an interesting philosophical argument.

00:21:40.980 What about the notion of so-called social construction?

00:21:43.280 The idea that the gender of the scientist or the racist beliefs of the scientist color their objectivity?

00:21:49.860 Of course they do.

00:21:51.120 We have countless examples of this.

00:21:52.620 We know this from research done by historians and others.

00:21:55.780 We know that it's difficult to be an impersonal observer.

00:22:00.200 You know, that every observer is situated somewhere.

00:22:02.900 And I think there's validity to those ideas.

00:22:05.020 Now, I also think there is an out there out there and that it is knowable and that we do our best to understand it.

00:22:12.320 And so when you carry the rejection of objective reality to the extreme that you call it a tool of heteropatriarchy,

00:22:22.940 you really have kind of jumped the shark.

00:22:26.660 You've taken a core idea which says, look, we need to not always believe what we are told,

00:22:31.860 or we need to understand how a person's position in society might affect what they see.

00:22:38.620 And we know this affects even ostensibly objective phenomena.

00:22:41.820 We know that scientists, for example, looking—so Emily Martin has done some fantastic work,

00:22:46.280 which I teach, on how scientists looking at, you know, at cell division or menstruation,

00:22:52.520 you know, interpret the biology by virtue of who they are.

00:22:56.860 But then it takes it to such a ridiculous extreme that it becomes absurd.

00:23:00.380 And similarly, the notion of cultural appropriation.

00:23:03.520 So the kernel of the idea there is that some communities of people are so denigrated that not only are they,

00:23:11.060 let's say, killed and wiped out, but all of their ideas and culture is stolen from them, is expropriated.

00:23:18.740 They are effaced. 0.96

00:23:20.640 And that all that's left is a kind of caricature of who they are.

00:23:24.160 And there is some truth to that, too, that it's like adding insult to injury.

00:23:29.380 You know, not only do I engage in genocide, but, like, I take all your ideas, your culture as well,

00:23:35.500 and don't even credit you.

00:23:36.720 And who am I to do that?

00:23:38.060 The problem is that, again, it's carried to a preposterous extreme,

00:23:41.580 so that now, you know, the whole history of ideas and of culture, of art and music is endless theft.

00:23:49.080 I mean, it's endless modification and transformation and exchange of ideas and of thoughts and musical and artistic forms and so forth.

00:24:02.100 So to then start claiming that, you know, like in the Reed College example, that, you know, that she couldn't teach these things,

00:24:11.660 you know, she couldn't where poetry is lit because she's appropriating African-American slang, 1.00

00:24:17.380 is just a crazy caricature of what is otherwise potentially an interesting philosophical idea to discuss.

00:24:22.640 And so I think, you know, this is the thing that has made it especially hard for me,

00:24:26.980 is that I believe that I have a more than passing understanding of the epistemology here.

00:24:35.740 And I have a more than passing sympathy for some of the concerns about, that the students have,

00:24:41.940 about police brutality, about economic inequality, about racial justice.

00:24:46.540 But I am deeply concerned with the Maoist abandonment of reason and discourse and the kind of dehumanizing, atomizing of people.

00:25:02.060 I mean, one of the things that has really depressed me in the courtyard that day,

00:25:06.240 and I wrote a little bit about this in that one other prior,

00:25:09.500 I think you're the only second public remarks I'm making about this, the piece in the New York Times.

00:25:14.180 There was a young woman who I think was African-American, and she said to me very plaintively,

00:25:22.080 and it pulled at my heartstrings, she said, you know,

00:25:25.960 you cannot understand our predicament because you are a middle-aged and white and male. 0.96

00:25:32.660 And I said to her, I said to her that I understood what she was saying,

00:25:39.000 but that I nevertheless believed in our common humanity.

00:25:41.960 And I believe that all of us, and I still believe this, that all of us as human beings

00:25:46.400 can speak to and understand each other, united by our common humanity.

00:25:51.920 And that even though I was a different gender and age and skin color than her,

00:25:57.180 that I nevertheless could understand her, and that I was interested in making the effort to understand her,

00:26:02.060 and I would hope that she could understand me.

00:26:04.060 And the students adjured at this.

00:26:11.340 Yeah, yeah.

00:26:12.140 And that was, and then there was another student, a minority student,

00:26:14.660 who later wrote a post in the Yale Daily News,

00:26:17.080 where he wrote that he had never been more disappointed in his colleagues

00:26:19.940 than when I was then, the titles at the time were that we were the masters of these colleges.

00:26:24.800 Now we're called head of college, the title has changed.

00:26:27.020 And he said, I'd never been more disappointed when the master made the argument about our common humanity

00:26:32.800 and that his peers jeered.

00:26:34.920 And so I think when, so my point is, when you abandon the commitment to our common humanity,

00:26:41.180 when you atomize people, when you believe that only certain types of people have authority

00:26:45.580 to use certain types of cultural ideas or tropes, you efface, for me,

00:26:53.240 a fundamental reality of our common humanity and a fundamental tool we can have to interact with each other.

00:26:58.240 So that professor at Reed, the claim that she can't wear a t-shirt that says poetry is lit,

00:27:03.300 is to me just, is preposterous and violates every basic principle, in my view,

00:27:07.980 that should animate a civilized society.

00:27:10.220 To use the example of what the young woman said to you in the quad,

00:27:14.360 that amounts to a naked declaration that meaningful communication is impossible.

00:27:20.900 Yes, which I think is really self-defeating in the end.

00:27:24.220 So what is your game plan if you're saying that you can't communicate your grievances...

00:27:29.240 To anyone who is not exactly like you.

00:27:31.620 Yeah, to anyone who doesn't suffer them along with you.

00:27:34.060 Or, but it's...

00:27:34.740 What help are you asking for?

00:27:36.540 There are other experiences that we all have had with pain and suffering and death and grief.

00:27:42.540 Um, and, you know, maybe I've not had exactly the same kind of suffering as you, Sam,

00:27:48.640 but I'm pretty sure you've had some knocks in life.

00:27:51.020 And I'm pretty sure that if we had a drink together and we're talking about a topic

00:27:54.700 that we would find common ground or shared understanding,

00:27:58.460 even with dissimilar trajectories through life.

00:28:01.080 Of course.

00:28:01.760 One person struggled with poverty as a child.

00:28:04.020 Another person struggled with the divorced parents.

00:28:06.300 Another person, you know, escaped Vietnam on a boat.

00:28:09.660 And another person, you know, witnessed violence.

00:28:12.680 And another person, you know, there are gradations and differences.

00:28:15.020 But I believe people can empathize with each other.

00:28:17.980 I hope.

00:28:18.920 I mean, I don't...

00:28:19.640 But so what was so disturbing about that encounter you had was the insistence that none of that

00:28:27.680 is possible and none of that is ethically or politically relevant.

00:28:31.160 And what was in its place was a desire to essentially shame you into silence.

00:28:39.600 And this is, again, coming from Yale students, objectively, some of the most privileged people

00:28:45.320 who have ever lived, whatever the color of their skin.

00:28:47.960 I mean, this is just undeniable.

00:28:50.060 Again, you know, taking on board everything you just said about who knows what suffering,

00:28:54.760 even privileged people have had in their lives.

00:28:57.200 But the idea that these were some of the most aggrieved people on earth,

00:29:03.520 this was like the wailing of the widows of Srebrenica.

00:29:06.340 I mean, it was just...

00:29:06.960 It was madness.

00:29:08.560 And so, again, this is...

00:29:10.000 I'm speaking as someone who just watched this from outside, who's not, you know,

00:29:13.180 doesn't know these students and hasn't lived with them and dealt with them subsequently.

00:29:17.400 And so it's just...

00:29:17.960 But just to see the breakdown of discourse through the lens of what you experienced there,

00:29:24.920 again, from the outside, was pretty startling.

00:29:28.140 So I want to...

00:29:28.820 I just want to...

00:29:29.520 Before we get more into this, and again, we're going to talk about the more general insights

00:29:34.940 we can glean here about crowd dynamics and social contagion and all the rest.

00:29:40.080 But before we do anything else, I want to back up and just remind people how this kicked

00:29:45.960 off at Yale.

00:29:46.900 What happened?

00:29:47.940 You can be as abbreviated as you want, but just describe what the sequence of events.

00:29:53.840 Well, I would rather have you describe the sequence of events.

00:29:56.360 Sure.

00:29:56.700 I mean, so in my recollection, what happened is your wife, Erica, who was also a professor

00:30:03.160 at Yale, responded to an email that came out from the school admonishing people to dress

00:30:10.300 in the most tasteful possible and politically correct Halloween costumes.

00:30:15.040 And your wife, Erica, if memory serves, wrote a response to this to the some hundred students

00:30:21.940 who were under her charge in, what was it, their dormitory or their house?

00:30:26.760 Yeah, I mean, I think the original email was sent by a dean, a person in the dean's office

00:30:33.120 here, a man by the name of Burjwell Howard, who had previously been dean at the Northwestern

00:30:42.220 University, and he had sent the same Halloween costume email there, and then sort of decided

00:30:48.700 to resend it five or 10 years later at a different university and at a different time.

00:30:53.480 There had been, to my knowledge, no episodes of students wearing blackface at Yale or pushing

00:30:59.380 the boundaries in that such an extreme way.

00:31:03.280 But nevertheless, this email was sent out.

00:31:05.160 And actually, in the New York Times the previous month, there had been a whole exchange about

00:31:10.380 this Halloween costume guidance.

00:31:11.820 So in the zeitgeist, people were talking about how this was getting a little out of hand and

00:31:16.960 seemed a bit silly that universities were providing official guidance on Halloween costumes.

00:31:21.060 And I think there were six people who wrote in that article, and five were against Halloween

00:31:25.860 costume guidance, and one was for it.

00:31:27.440 And so there had been a number of emails that had come out at Yale at this time in the run-up.

00:31:33.360 And I think this one that Dean Howard sent was maybe the third and broadest, most detailed.

00:31:39.500 It had links to acceptable and unacceptable costumes or recommended and non-recommended costumes.

00:31:44.420 And it was coming from a positive intention.

00:31:49.420 And that is to say that it's not necessary to set out to cause needless offense.

00:31:57.500 I think in a free society, we have to tolerate offense, but it's not like I'm interested in

00:32:02.800 deliberately offending people.

00:32:04.760 And we can talk about some examples on college campuses where this can be hard.

00:32:09.480 Anyway, and what had happened is we had been hearing from the students, and Erica in particular

00:32:14.340 had been hearing from her students, that the students felt infantilized by this email.

00:32:17.440 So many of the students were objecting to this, that they couldn't believe this.

00:32:21.860 And Erica that day had taught a class, this was in late October, where the students in

00:32:25.560 the class was about child development.

00:32:27.040 She taught a class about child development.

00:32:29.440 And there was an animated and intellectually rigorous conversation about what stage of development

00:32:36.160 are college students at, and are they capable of choosing their own costumes or negotiating

00:32:39.720 among themselves, you know, if they have taken offense, talking to each other and so forth.

00:32:44.820 And because we had, it's more detailed than you want, probably, but because earlier in the

00:32:50.120 year, so this was in October, in August, I had sent an email to the students, the 400 students

00:32:55.440 in Silliman.

00:32:56.820 That summer, there had been the murders in Charleston, where this man, whose name I'm blocking,

00:33:01.520 thank God, who went into the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Mother Church in Charleston,

00:33:07.020 and slaughtered nine or 10 people at close range who had welcomed him into their midst. 0.95

00:33:12.080 So he was white, and the victims were all black. 0.98

00:33:15.200 And, you know, a vile and despicable carnage, motivated by racial hatred. 0.65

00:33:21.680 And there had been a lot of discourse in the public space that summer.

00:33:26.300 And that was the summer where all the Confederate flags began to finally come down.

00:33:29.900 And I was very concerned about these events, like many people were.

00:33:35.660 And I had organized a series of speakers at Silliman.

00:33:38.140 We had a famous African-American historian from MIT who came and spoke about the history

00:33:44.240 of slavery in American institutions.

00:33:46.780 We had some people talking about other aspects of this.

00:33:50.480 We also, I had booked months earlier, Greg Lukianoff, who had come to speak about free speech.

00:33:56.640 You know, there was a series of public speakers.

00:33:58.020 Anyway, I sent an email in August, late August, beginning of September, to the students in

00:34:01.800 the college about the aftermath of Charleston.

00:34:04.740 And I talked about how, as a public health person, one of the things that I found most

00:34:08.120 distressing was that Walmart had stopped selling Confederate flags, but not guns.

00:34:14.480 And that, in my view, this had it backwards.

00:34:17.420 That there was all this focus on symbolism, but not on practical concerns.

00:34:22.020 You know, that really we need to address, let's say, issues of inequality and issues of violence

00:34:26.420 in our society, and that these symbolic things, while important, were distracting, potentially

00:34:30.240 distracting us.

00:34:30.920 So I had an essay about this, which is, I think, still somewhere online.

00:34:35.280 And it's a couple of pages.

00:34:36.880 And the student feedback was tremendous.

00:34:38.520 Dozens of students wrote to me, and they said, wow, this has got me to think.

00:34:41.980 And it was so interesting.

00:34:43.100 And the masters at Yale, you know, previously, we hadn't been spoken to in this way.

00:34:47.860 And for me, this was normal.

00:34:49.280 It was like writing an essay, like a thoughtful essay where you're trying to defend a point

00:34:53.400 of view.

00:34:53.680 And we had done this previously when I had been at Harvard.

00:34:57.560 My wife and I had a similar role there.

00:34:59.480 And I, you know, we would regularly communicate with our students in this fashion.

00:35:02.380 And some would agree, and some wouldn't agree.

00:35:04.120 And, you know, we had debates there about religious symbols in public places and vegetarianism.

00:35:10.700 And, you know, could we roast a lamb at Greek Easter in the college courtyard, using university

00:35:18.280 money to purchase the lamb?

00:35:19.680 I mean, you know, they raise interesting sort of questions for the students to debate.

00:35:22.280 And anyway, so we got all this positive feedback for this.

00:35:26.660 And there had been a lot of students complaining about the Halloween costume guidance email.

00:35:30.060 And that was the history and the background.

00:35:32.100 The New York Times article was in the public sphere.

00:35:34.500 Yale students thought it was in fanalizing.

00:35:36.440 Previously, we had gotten some praise for engaging the students with ideas.

00:35:39.700 And that's what motivated my lovely wife, who has spent her career taking care of battered

00:35:45.480 women and inner city children and, you know, homeless substance users.

00:35:52.460 And this has been her life.

00:35:54.340 We're very progressive people.

00:35:56.380 Got her to send this email, which said, you know, do you students?

00:35:59.540 And the email, just to clarify, my wife's argument was not actually taking a stand one

00:36:04.420 way or the other on whether the guidance was necessary.

00:36:06.420 And one way or the other on the costumes, she was saying, do you, you students should

00:36:11.620 probably consider whether you wish to surrender this authority to super ordinance.

00:36:18.900 It fundamentally was a left-wing position saying you should be deeply skeptical of surrendering

00:36:24.480 power to, you know, the state, to the administration.

00:36:28.120 And you should talk about that.

00:36:29.760 But that was the intellectual essence of my wife's very gentle email, the aftermath of

00:36:36.160 which you summarized earlier.

00:36:38.400 Yeah.

00:36:38.600 I mean, I should say that the email was utterly balanced, as was Brett Weinstein's email to

00:36:45.540 his administration, right?

00:36:46.660 I mean, there's no trace of racism.

00:36:50.080 There's no trace of bigotry.

00:36:51.700 There's no trace of failure of empathy.

00:36:54.900 Or lack of sympathy for the students, right?

00:36:56.760 It's like showing respect.

00:36:59.120 I believe we show respect for the students when we say, you know, we are interested in

00:37:03.140 engaging you in ideas.

00:37:05.280 And again, we're talking about people who are old enough to be shipped off to fight a war.

00:37:09.760 We're talking about people who, in a few short years, will be on the job market as some of

00:37:16.360 the most highly educated and in-demand young adults in the country.

00:37:21.700 I mean, these are people who should be able to talk about a Halloween costume that offends

00:37:27.540 them.

00:37:28.780 Yes.

00:37:28.900 But you see, the problem is, again, there's—see, this is, again, where I have some empathy

00:37:32.420 and sympathy for the students, too.

00:37:34.060 And so this is what is so challenging.

00:37:36.120 Because, again, you see, there's a kernel of—like we discussed earlier with this notion of cultural

00:37:42.400 appropriation and these claims that science is an objectivity—claims to objectivity are

00:37:48.060 tools of oppression, you know, these ridiculously extreme claims—there's an element of truth

00:37:53.760 as well to the student's sense of alienation.

00:37:55.740 And part of it, again, is developmental.

00:37:57.640 You know, 18 to 22-year-olds feel a sense of alienation.

00:38:00.500 We all did, different ways.

00:38:02.360 And now, you know, if you're a minority student in these institutions, there may be an extra

00:38:07.120 burden of alienation that you feel.

00:38:08.880 And I think there are ways that we can discuss that with students.

00:38:12.320 I think there are ways we can reform our institutions.

00:38:15.320 And I'm not—I don't lack sympathy for that.

00:38:18.620 But I, as Jonathan Haidt has said, you know, I think the fundamental commitment of these

00:38:25.220 institutions is to luxe et veritas.

00:38:28.720 And, you know, this has to be done in a way in which we retain a deep and abiding commitment

00:38:34.000 to speaking the truth and having open expression.

00:38:37.720 So then what happened?

00:38:38.780 She sent the email, and some furor erupted, and then you stepped out of the building to

00:38:46.700 talk to an assembled group of students?

00:38:50.040 How did the YouTube video we've seen—

00:38:52.400 I'm not sure I want to go into all the details because it's, you know, a sense—

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Making Sense - Sam Harris - October 09, 2017

#100 — Facing the Crowd

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