The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - 246. The Adventures of Pinnochio and Free Speech Part 1⧸4

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00:00:52.000 Welcome to episode 246 of the JBP podcast. I'm Michaela Peterson.

00:01:00.000 This is part one of a new compilation series on free speech.

00:01:04.000 The episode begins with Dad's clip describing the trials Pinocchio had to overcome to reach maturity, followed by people like Brett Weinstein, Julie Ponnese, Arif Ahmed, and Yunmi Park, describing how they've all been affected by free speech or censored speech in their own unique ways.

00:01:23.000 I hope you enjoy this compilation.

00:01:25.000 I'm going to show you something from Pinocchio.

00:01:29.000 Now, this is an initiation ritual.

00:01:32.000 It's a journey to the depths, so it's a journey to the underworld.

00:01:35.000 It's the consequence of a collapse in previous personality and the disintegration of that previous personality into a chaotic state prior to rebirth.

00:01:49.000 Now, what happens in Pinocchio, which, by the way, was released at about the same time that World War II was brewing, and which also contains one of the best representations of the individual motivations for fascism that I've ever seen anywhere.

00:02:07.000 That's the scenes that are associated with Pleasure Island.

00:02:10.000 Remember, all the puppet is trying to become a real boy, right?

00:02:14.000 So he's a marionette to begin with.

00:02:15.000 Something else is pulling his strings.

00:02:18.000 Well, for Jung, that's your habitual state of being.

00:02:23.000 Something else is pulling your strings.

00:02:26.000 Even the idea that you're autonomous is the consequence of something else pulling your strings.

00:02:31.000 And for Jung, what you needed to do was find out exactly who and what is pulling your strings and decide if that's the direction in which you want to go.

00:02:40.000 And that's really what happens to Pinocchio, because we're going to watch Pinocchio part of it in the Pinocchio story.

00:02:45.000 He starts out as a marionette.

00:02:47.000 Now, he's a marionette made by a good father, because Geppetto is a good father.

00:02:51.000 He's a good craftsman and so on.

00:02:53.000 So he's a marionette with a benevolent puppeteer.

00:02:56.000 But as soon as he develops some autonomy, then he becomes prey to forces that are elements of the demonic archetype.

00:03:04.000 In fact, the worst bad guy in the entire movie turns into Satan himself at one point in the movie.

00:03:10.000 He basically has horns and a bright red face.

00:03:13.000 And he manifests himself as so terrifying that the coyote, coyote, wolf, fox, and the cat that are trying to corrupt Pinocchio are terrified.

00:03:25.000 Because they're criminals, they're petty criminals and deceptive and so forth.

00:03:29.000 But when they get a look at who's pulling their strings, it's enough to terrify them.

00:03:33.000 And so, Pinocchio goes through a series of temptations of various sorts, including a Freudian temptation.

00:03:40.000 And the Freudian temptation is to remain weak and sickly instead of becoming a real person.

00:03:45.000 So it's an Oedipal problem.

00:03:47.000 And another problem that faces Pinocchio is that he's offered false celebrity as a way of solving his life's problems.

00:03:55.000 So he's offered the opportunity to become an actor.

00:03:58.000 And what that means is a deceitful fake who's constructed a persona that makes him appear far more valuable than he really is.

00:04:06.000 So the movie outlines two pathological modes of movement towards maturity.

00:04:10.000 One being a phony.

00:04:12.000 And the other taking the easy way out and hyper valuing all your pathology so that you become dependent.

00:04:21.000 So anyways, and then another mode of pathological development is offered to Pinocchio.

00:04:29.000 Which is to do nothing but engage in short term impulsive and destructive play.

00:04:35.000 And that's on Pleasure Island but when he goes to Pleasure Island he finds that it's actually ruled by demonic forces with faceless entities who are transforming all the pleasure seeking marionettes to braying donkeys who are slaves.

00:04:54.000 So Pinocchio escapes from that and he does it basically by jumping into the unknown and that's where we're going to start our exposure to his initiation.

00:05:10.000 I'd like you to walk me through what's happened to you since the events in Evergreen and bring everybody up to date on my end.

00:05:21.000 So maybe you could start with what happened at Evergreen although I suspect many of the people watching this do know.

00:05:28.000 Does that seem reasonable?

00:05:30.000 Sure.

00:05:31.000 Yeah, we can start there.

00:05:33.000 I think we should probably err in the direction of being sparse with the details and see where it leads us.

00:05:43.000 Yeah.

00:05:44.000 So in 2017, I was teaching at Evergreen as was Heather, my wife, and she was literally Evergreen's most popular professor.

00:05:53.000 I wasn't too far behind.

00:05:54.000 I was very popular as well.

00:05:56.000 The classes were always over full and we accepted more people than we had to and had to turn some away anyway.

00:06:03.000 And then in actually 2016, the new president of the college, George Bridges, began an initiative or a set of initiatives surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion.

00:06:15.000 And these initiatives included the impaneling of a committee that was supposed to look into racism at the college, its impacts and to propose solutions.

00:06:28.000 And as it became clear what they were alleging and proposing, Heather and I became very alarmed.

00:06:37.000 And I began to speak out at first in faculty meetings.

00:06:41.000 And then when the ability to speak out in faculty meetings became non-existent, I took to our faculty and staff email list to talk about the threat to the college that was created by these initiatives.

00:06:56.000 And that, of course, brought about exactly what you would imagine, which were accusations that I was motivated by some kind of racism or white supremacy or white fragility or who knows what the accusations were exactly.

00:07:09.000 But in any case, I fought back anyway.

00:07:14.000 And my sense was I had tenure and I was well liked and I was well known at the college.

00:07:19.000 I had been there for 14 years.

00:07:21.000 And so I didn't think they had the power to to get rid of me.

00:07:26.000 And that gave me the ability to say what needed to be said about these proposals.

00:07:30.000 Well, the upshot is that ultimately protesters, 50 students that I had never met.

00:07:39.000 Showed up at my classroom, accused me of racism, demanded that I either be fired or resign.

00:07:45.000 I told them I wouldn't.

00:07:47.000 And riots broke out at the college in which faculty and administrators were kidnapped.

00:07:55.000 I was apparently hunted car to car on campus by protesters.

00:08:00.000 The police were stood down by the college president.

00:08:04.000 And we were basically left to fend for ourselves with student patrols roving the campus with weapons, baseball bats and the like.

00:08:17.000 So it was a chaotic scene.

00:08:20.000 There was a lot of interest in it because it was very colorful.

00:08:25.000 But of course, most people back in 2017 dismissed this as, yes, an overreaction.

00:08:32.000 But you know how college students are.

00:08:34.000 And those of us who saw it up close knew that that couldn't be the case, that it would ultimately spill out into civilization.

00:08:41.000 And we, of course, were right.

00:08:45.000 And now it's everywhere.

00:08:47.000 We see it taking over institution after institution.

00:08:50.000 In the US and Canada, we see it making tremendous strides in government.

00:08:56.000 And there's no telling where it ends.

00:08:59.000 And what is, I mean, I have a bunch of questions that come out of that.

00:09:03.000 I mean, so I'm going to lay out three.

00:09:06.000 Why in the world did this bother you enough so that you took a stand, especially given your political leanings?

00:09:13.000 Because you were, which I'm not criticizing, by the way, I'm just stating that it isn't obvious to begin with why it would be you that would take a stand, say, rather than someone else.

00:09:24.000 You did. And so I'm curious about why.

00:09:26.000 And what is it that you saw coming?

00:09:30.000 And what is this it that you're referring to?

00:09:32.000 You've had a lot of time to be thinking about this now.

00:09:35.000 It's been four years.

00:09:36.000 And I mean, you're.

00:09:37.000 And the other thing I want to ask you about is your life was thrown completely upside down.

00:09:41.000 You and your wife.

00:09:42.000 You don't have your job at the university anymore.

00:09:44.000 Either of you, despite the fact that you were tenured professors, it's not an easy thing to get another toehold in academia.

00:09:51.000 Once you've been a tenured professor somewhere, especially if you've gone through what you went through, because no hiring committee anywhere is going to give you any consideration once you've been once you've been tarred by scandal, regardless of what your role in it was.

00:10:07.000 They're far too conservative to ever do anything like that.

00:10:10.000 And so, okay, so let's, I don't know if I can remember the order in which I asked those questions, but I think the first one was, why in the world did you, why in the world were you compelled to, to object, to object?

00:10:25.000 And what is it that you were objecting to, do you think?

00:10:28.000 Well, it's a funny, a funny question for you to pose to me because I have the feeling that the answer will be entirely native to you.

00:10:38.000 I literally don't believe I had any choice.

00:10:42.000 People frequently ask me why I stood up.

00:10:45.000 And my sense is if I think through the alternative, I simply can't live with it.

00:10:50.000 I can't sleep.

00:10:51.000 Yeah, but that doesn't seem to bother most people.

00:10:53.000 So I don't get that.

00:10:54.000 Like, why, why you?

00:10:56.000 Well, right.

00:10:57.000 I mean, I guess that's the, the thing I'm discovering.

00:11:01.000 Um, so you alluded to my political leanings and you and I both know what you mean by that.

00:11:06.000 I'm a liberal and I would actually, I describe myself sometimes as a reluctant radical.

00:11:13.000 Um, by that, I mean that I believe we must engage in radical change if we are to survive as a species.

00:11:22.000 But I also know that radical change is very dangerous.

00:11:26.000 And so it's not like, you know, I find most people who would call themselves radicals feel like radical change is always called for.

00:11:34.000 And I don't.

00:11:35.000 My sense is I hope to see change that makes civilization good enough that I get to be a conservative, that I get to say, actually, we're doing so well that we have no choice but to preserve this.

00:11:49.000 If we try to improve it, we'll mess it up.

00:11:51.000 That's where I want to go.

00:11:52.000 But what I'm discovering is that the bedrock of my liberalism is nothing like the underpinnings of the so-called liberalism of most of the people on the left side of the political spectrum.

00:12:08.000 My liberalism comes from a sense that, yes, compassion is a virtue, but that policy must be based on a dispassionate analysis of problems.

00:12:21.000 It is based on an understanding that the magic of the West comes from a tension between those who aspire to change things for the better and those who recognize the danger of changing them at all.

00:12:36.000 And so, in any case, I think the short answer is we look around the world and everybody makes arguments that sound as if they come from first principles, but most people do not arrive at conclusions from first principles.

00:12:56.000 If they extrapolate at all, if they extrapolate at all, they don't do it very well.

00:13:00.000 And that results in severe compartmentalization of thought.

00:13:06.000 And that means that when confronted with changes that threaten a system on which we are dependent, most people don't recognize it.

00:13:19.000 And if they do recognize it, they wouldn't know what to do about it.

00:13:22.000 So, how can I put it in plain terms?

00:13:28.000 I had no choice because I was as if on a ship where somebody had proposed to fix our course through a field of icebergs and navigate based on some absurd theory with no grounding in fact.

00:13:45.000 Somebody had to object.

00:13:47.000 And I was a little surprised at how few and far between the objectors were.

00:13:53.000 But, you know, if I'm to be totally candid about it, at the point that things went haywire at Evergreen, I had watched video of you reacting to protesters in Toronto.

00:14:07.000 And it had made so much sense to me at a number of different levels.

00:14:13.000 You know, I recognized you as somebody who knew that although the initial proposals were arguably symbolic, that they were connected to things that ultimately were very much about an exercise of power and a transfer of well-being.

00:14:31.000 And that it was therefore, you know, you felt obligated to stand up and say no, which resulted, as you know, better than anyone in you being mocked for overreacting.

00:14:43.000 And then here we are years later.

00:14:45.000 And it turns out that you saw with absolute clarity what others couldn't even imagine.

00:14:49.000 Yes, but I certainly didn't see what was going to happen to me.

00:14:53.600 Right.

00:14:54.400 With clarity, you know.

00:14:56.280 So, being quite a strange route.

00:14:59.040 It wasn't possible to see what would happen with specificity to you.

00:15:04.220 But am I correct in seeing that you knew that something very dramatic was likely to come from your standing on principle and that that didn't provide any license to do anything but make that stand?

00:15:24.760 I really can't say, you know.

00:15:27.620 Well, it's a while ago now, so that's part of it.

00:15:33.260 But so much has happened to me that's been so strange in the last four years that I have a very difficult time making any sense of it.

00:15:40.460 I can't even really think about, especially the last two years, I can't really think about them in any consistent and comprehensive way.

00:15:48.680 I mean, my family situation has been so catastrophic and my illness and my wife's illness.

00:15:54.180 It's just been, although she recovered completely, thank God.

00:15:58.020 It's just been so utterly catastrophic that my thinking about it is unbelievably fragmented.

00:16:05.060 And I'm struck dumb still to some degree by all of what emerged as a consequence of me making the first videos that I made.

00:16:21.000 You know, I went downstairs, talked to my wife and my son.

00:16:25.740 My son was living at home at that time, temporarily.

00:16:28.940 And I said, this piece of legislation is really bothering me because it calls for compelled speech.

00:16:34.340 And I looked at the background documents and something wasn't right.

00:16:40.040 And I said, I need to say something about it.

00:16:41.880 They said, well, go for it.

00:16:42.940 You know, we'll see what happens.

00:16:45.500 And all hell broke loose and continues to break loose for that matter, which is one of the things that's so bloody strange about it is it doesn't seem to end.

00:16:53.580 And I would have thought when it first started, I thought, oh, well, you know, I'd be a flash in the pan for a week or something or two weeks or a month or six months or a year or two years or but it doesn't stop.

00:17:06.860 And I really can't understand that.

00:17:08.920 It's it's it's beyond my comprehension.

00:17:11.140 Now, I guess it's partly because I continue to communicate my thoughts to some degree, even talking to mainstream media people, although increasingly less and perhaps not at all from here on in.

00:17:24.700 I mean, I had an interview with The London Times.

00:17:28.400 Two weeks ago, three weeks ago, it was published.

00:17:30.420 And, you know, it was just another complete, absolute bloody nightmare for my family, my daughter in particular, because they took her to task in an extraordinarily nasty way.

00:17:41.560 And, you know, and the journalist who did the interview was completely.

00:17:46.660 She you couldn't invent her.

00:17:49.120 You know, not only the way she she she was she was so deceitful in what she did, but I learned more about her background afterward as a consequence of another journalist who wrote about her.

00:17:58.820 And, you know, she's a very singular person, to say the least.

00:18:05.540 And so I did feel at the time, like you did, I guess, that I was more afraid of not speaking than I was afraid of speaking.

00:18:13.400 And I have something against being told what to say.

00:18:15.980 It's like I'll pay the price for what I have to say.

00:18:20.240 I'm not going to pay the price to say what you want me to say.

00:18:23.480 You go say it yourself and see what the hell happens.

00:18:26.680 And, you know, maybe that's just a kind of incomprehensible stubbornness in some sense.

00:18:36.840 Although I did, I think I did see what has, I did see the beginnings of what has unfolded since then, although I can't even really put my finger on what it is that's happening.

00:18:49.900 So, well, I wonder a little bit about, you know, in some ways, you know, there's nothing good about why you were absent from the scene.

00:19:00.680 But there may be something good about your having not been there for every moment of it and being able to come back to the discussion with something like fresh eyes.

00:19:13.380 Because a lot of this is developmental and, you know, you say you're surprised that this is continuing.

00:19:23.980 And I must say I'm having the same experience.

00:19:25.940 I feel like I was picked up, you know, my whole family was picked up by a tornado and we haven't been put down.

00:19:31.400 And, you know, I sort of feel like we rejoined in the tornado during 2020.

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00:21:21.700 And so what was it like going to teach at Grace Church School?

00:21:29.720 Well, it was it was really nice because I was used to a corporate environment, I guess.

00:21:34.620 I, you know, because of my time that I had done in a previous job at HBO, I was a technical manager.

00:21:41.420 It was a whole other career.

00:21:42.400 And, you know, I was I was very concerned that I reported to the right people or, you know, what's the org structure, you know?

00:21:49.600 And they were just like, well, you know, just you have colleagues and you can discuss things with them and we're not going to make you do anything.

00:21:55.660 You can you can talk to us.

00:21:57.060 It was it's a very friendly environment.

00:22:00.880 I mean, there were serious expectations like, you know, and everyone took their jobs very seriously.

00:22:06.380 But there really was a sense of belonging and community.

00:22:10.840 They were very that was that was very welcoming, actually, and very energizing, I will say, because I wasn't used to that.

00:22:18.680 I didn't expect it. And so I would be remain aloof from it.

00:22:21.620 You know, at the beginning, like what's what are these people?

00:22:25.040 Why are they always smiling at me? Like what's going on?

00:22:27.320 You know, like I don't know why I just gradually loosen up and, you know, it was kind of corny, but I would kind of go along with it.

00:22:34.120 And I it's a good kind of corny.

00:22:36.800 Yeah. And I did actually, you know, I warmed up a little bit.

00:22:40.220 I felt I did feel like I was a part of things and I was able to sort of transmit that to others, too.

00:22:47.820 And so what happened over time?

00:22:52.780 It was a very gradual change that, you know, I would say, well, within the first three years,

00:23:00.180 one of the tenets of our our school was that every employee and every faculty and staff member had to attend a seminar called Undoing Racism.

00:23:12.580 That was your H.R. department, was it?

00:23:14.740 Yeah, it was it was a you know, it was a mandate from the dean of faculty at the time.

00:23:20.740 And that was a requirement.

00:23:22.140 Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, so I went to that and that was a very interesting experience.

00:23:29.940 You know, it's hard to what would you say, refuse a call to anti-racism?

00:23:35.960 Sure. No, I mean, do that.

00:23:37.600 What kind of monster? Yeah.

00:23:38.900 Yeah. And I, you know, I went into it and I actually felt energized and I was converted.

00:23:45.580 You know, I had a sort of, you know, I am white and I'm privileged and you're right.

00:23:49.660 We need to take care of this.

00:23:51.200 And there were people in a circle and people of all different races and backgrounds.

00:23:55.480 And it was facilitated.

00:23:56.900 And, you know, later I look back on it and I realize sort of how they how they did it.

00:24:03.460 They did it in a very interesting, seductive way.

00:24:06.260 Um, and what way was that?

00:24:09.640 Well, you know, as I recall, they they started out.

00:24:14.800 Um, well, there was sort of two parts.

00:24:16.740 The first part was the history since, you know, the slave ships landed on American soil.

00:24:23.440 And then throughout time leading up to the present.

00:24:27.420 And then they focused for the second half of the session.

00:24:30.140 They focused on, you know, how to help a community that has been shaped by all of this.

00:24:36.260 And very early in the very early in the session, they said, we want you to withhold any judgment of anyone's choice or agency.

00:24:45.640 Anyone, you know, any of, you know, the minority black populations that we're talking about here.

00:24:51.640 We want you to simply bracket or put, you know, hold, hold, withhold any analysis of the choices that people make because, you know, they that will often lead to a misunderstanding or insensitivity towards what's happening.

00:25:08.640 And so why do you focus on that specifically, that issue specifically?

00:25:12.980 Well, because, you know, it was as, as they retold the history and as they talk about the present circumstances, they never actually revisited that.

00:25:21.740 So, you know, you're, you're constantly focused on the oppressed population in, in terms of what is acting upon it, acting upon those individuals.

00:25:34.640 And, you know, to me, that's like denying a certain agency, right.

00:25:41.120 And, but they never actually lifted the blinders off at the end.

00:25:44.540 Like they, they would put these, everyone sort of acknowledged that they were going to go along with this at the beginning.

00:25:49.540 And I was like, really, we're going to do that.

00:25:51.400 We're going to treat people as less than human. 0.96

00:25:53.460 Well, okay.

00:25:54.100 I just, it must be like a temporary thing.

00:25:56.180 And why did you see that as treating them as less than human?

00:25:59.500 I mean, I presume that the people on the other side of the fence would say, well, you know, we're, we're, we're all caught like corks on the sea in, in the throes of vast social movements over which we have little or no control.

00:26:13.580 And, and who are you to cast judgment on people who have been the relative, relatively deprived in that regard compared to you?

00:26:22.700 Well, it's possible to make a fairly stringent moral case that that's the appropriate mode of behavior.

00:26:28.900 But you were, there was something in you that objected to that.

00:26:32.760 And you remember that now.

00:26:35.100 Yeah.

00:26:35.920 Despite the fact that you said that you were energized by this and pulled in by it.

00:26:39.540 Why do you think, why do you think it caught you as well?

00:26:44.560 Well, it was a social thing, right?

00:26:47.140 It was, it's a people in a circle and people are talking about their experiences.

00:26:50.720 And people are saying as a black person, I have, this has happened to me.

00:26:55.940 And at one point they asked, they actually, you know, and they, it's, it's empathy, right?

00:27:00.180 You, you care about people.

00:27:01.380 You, you feel, if you're sitting face to face with someone, of course, you're going to be, I'm going to be sympathetic and empathetic and, and people are narrating.

00:27:09.820 Um, you know, but the problem I think is generalizing that to groups and, you know, getting you to make a different set of assumptions about those groups based on a sort of, you know, selective way that the empathy is leveraged.

00:27:25.680 I would say, well, there's also the implicit, there's the implicit, um, uh, what would you say the implicit perceptual and categorical structure that comes along with it, which is the a priori assumption that the appropriate classification for human beings is by group.

00:27:41.920 Yeah.

00:27:43.240 And, and that, that, that's so implicit, but so pervasive that it in some sense never needs to be stated.

00:27:49.080 And as soon as you assume that the group level is the appropriate level, then you're bound to minimize or even forbid discussion of such things as individual agency.

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00:29:09.520 So, tell us about the blog.

00:29:12.940 When did you start writing your blog?

00:29:14.860 In July 2019.

00:29:17.540 And why did you start to do that?

00:29:19.920 I mean, you have your research career, you're an undergraduate, or you're a teacher as well.

00:29:25.260 You're working in the community, you have a full life.

00:29:27.780 What compelled you to start a blog?

00:29:31.120 I love to write, and I think it's a reflex that I have from war.

00:29:35.740 So, I used to write my diary in Arabic and in French, and I have them with me.

00:29:41.440 They came with me in a box and went across three provinces.

00:29:45.820 So, I love to write.

00:29:46.880 So, in July 2019, I didn't have the chance maybe to say what I wanted to say on a platform.

00:29:52.640 So, I decided to have my own blog and just write for the pleasure of writing.

00:29:58.700 I write about Lebanon maybe half of the time.

00:30:02.580 I write about Canada, Quebec, here.

00:30:05.060 I just write and express views in relation to what is happening in Canada and in the world.

00:30:13.860 And I think I'm seeing something very worrisome, and maybe that's part of why maybe I'm writing,

00:30:20.740 because I'm seeing that we are in times where we can't talk about things.

00:30:27.060 Look what's happening in my story.

00:30:28.580 Like, people are afraid, they may think things when they are at home privately,

00:30:34.440 but they may not express them publicly, or maybe because of, you know, political correctness or whatever.

00:30:41.280 I'm not that type of person.

00:30:42.980 Like, what I write for Bambi, the name of the person writing, is actually the meaning of my first name, Rima.

00:30:49.540 It means a little deer in Arabic, and Bambi is that deer. 1.00

00:30:53.520 So, Bambi's afkar are Bambi's thoughts.

00:30:55.800 So, what I write is actually who I am, my own thoughts privately and on that blog.

00:31:03.860 I sometimes write maybe, you know, personal things about birthdays of loved ones or whatever.

00:31:09.720 It's a blog, right?

00:31:10.640 So, that's it.

00:31:12.900 And what kind of audience does your blog have?

00:31:15.800 Well, at first, I thought it had maybe 10 people.

00:31:18.880 Maybe first myself, I was writing for myself, but I thought family, family members.

00:31:22.360 And then when that story happened, for once I searched, I usually don't have the time to do that.

00:31:28.240 And I thought it was, like, really getting 2,000 on one day.

00:31:32.780 And then, like, I don't know, another day I checked 500, something like that.

00:31:36.500 I thought, oh, my goodness.

00:31:37.700 Like, I was really thinking, I'm writing, you know, I'm using, during the pandemic, my in-laws or my parents sometimes with some issues.

00:31:46.440 Or writing about the Beirut explosion, I interviewed friends about what they are going through, the financial crisis, you know, things like that.

00:31:56.320 Right.

00:31:56.900 So, it had expanded beyond the small number of people that you had assumed were reading it.

00:32:01.680 Absolutely.

00:32:02.580 Exactly what happened to you.

00:32:04.100 So, you were living what I would presume was a pretty comfortable and happy life, as you've described, being a teacher and a researcher.

00:32:13.480 You spun off this blog on the side.

00:32:16.380 And then, what happened?

00:32:17.900 One day, you were notified by the university.

00:32:21.500 Tell us exactly the story.

00:32:23.400 I can tell you, but I want to say, yes, I'm extremely happy.

00:32:25.860 Even in the pandemic, even despite the Beirut explosion and everything, like, I'm finding my ways of, you know, living, coping, where New Brunswick is amazing, or Canada.

00:32:36.380 But we're also lucky to be in the semi-rural areas where even the pandemic did not hit us as hard as Tron or bigger places in Montreal.

00:32:47.060 So, in that sense, I was all okay until that February 22nd, where I can tell you that story because it's my story.

00:32:57.640 That's my part.

00:32:58.960 So, and it's in the media, actually.

00:33:01.900 I was having symptoms of actually like COVID-19.

00:33:06.420 I wasn't sure.

00:33:07.460 And I was very, very, very sick.

00:33:09.640 I usually run fast and jump and go on the stairs.

00:33:13.060 And I couldn't take the stairs.

00:33:14.460 I would stop, you know, couldn't breathe.

00:33:16.100 And so, on that day, the Monday where it happened, I went for testing.

00:33:21.180 It was finally negative.

00:33:22.360 But I went, came back, did my work day.

00:33:25.640 And then at the end of the day, I was lying on the couch, thinking that I was resting.

00:33:30.260 I got a phone call from a kind former student telling me, Dr. Azhar, you need to know what is happening.

00:33:38.660 And I thought, are you okay?

00:33:39.980 What is happening?

00:33:40.720 He was worried.

00:33:41.880 And he said, no, I'm fine.

00:33:43.600 You are in trouble, in big trouble.

00:33:45.500 So, the story started in the social media.

00:33:49.120 I'm not on social media myself.

00:33:52.040 So, for me, I chose that blog because it's what suits my personality, what I, you know, writing and having enough space to write.

00:34:00.040 And so, anyways, I enjoy reading social media and I do, but I'm not on it.

00:34:05.580 So, I went, I read quickly and I thought, okay, it's, you know, it was there.

00:34:11.640 And then...

00:34:12.120 Is this where, this was on Twitter?

00:34:13.420 This was all happening on Twitter?

00:34:14.940 On Twitter.

00:34:15.300 Or where was it?

00:34:16.120 On Twitter.

00:34:16.280 I don't know if it was happening on, elsewhere as a Facebook, I guess, but I saw the Twitter myself.

00:34:21.540 And then an email got out of the university publicly.

00:34:26.160 So, not on Twitter, on Facebook, or the public channels of the university saying, you know, it's public.

00:34:33.900 So, I'm not saying what is not public.

00:34:36.160 Trigger warning that blog, we dissociate ourselves from it.

00:34:40.160 And, you know, and encouraging complaints.

00:34:44.520 Okay.

00:34:44.780 So, what people, what were people saying on Twitter?

00:34:46.880 And who, who was it that was saying it and how many of them were there?

00:34:51.380 Do you know?

00:34:52.280 A lot.

00:34:53.460 And, like, it was, it was a big thing on social media.

00:34:56.820 Like, and there has been also at one point, you know, a threat of violence on social media and things like that.

00:35:03.580 So, it was, it was then, I don't want to forget that part.

00:35:08.300 When the, there were three student organizations asked for my removal from my position at my university and also affiliations elsewhere, like University of New Brunswick, University of Moncton, as well.

00:35:24.860 So, it got really big.

00:35:26.740 Okay.

00:35:27.140 So, I want to zero in on this.

00:35:29.100 So, there's, there's some students primarily on social media, on Twitter primarily, and they're complaining about your blog.

00:35:38.140 Yes.

00:35:38.320 And they're students who are part of student organizations.

00:35:41.800 And do you, and then the student organizations themselves, three of them, are contacting your, the people that you're working for or with, suggesting that you're not the sort of person they should be associating with and asking for your removal.

00:35:56.560 Exactly.

00:35:56.900 Now, you said there were lots of, of students doing this.

00:36:00.860 And I'd like to get something, an estimate of something like a number.

00:36:04.580 So, does a lot mean 500 or does it mean five?

00:36:08.700 Hmm.

00:36:09.180 So, in between maybe.

00:36:10.700 I don't know precisely the answer.

00:36:13.240 Well, the reason I'm asking is because one of the things I'm curious about is just how many people have to complain before complaints are taken with some degree of seriousness.

00:36:23.040 Now, I've dealt with ethics boards, for example, at my own university, and they have a policy that every complaint should be investigated thoroughly.

00:36:31.340 And I'm not very fond of that policy, particularly, because there are a lot of people who cause a fair bit of trouble for absolutely no reason.

00:36:40.400 And it seems to me that complaints need to pass something approximating a reasonable threshold before they're dealt with, let's say, seriously.

00:36:48.220 And so, you know, it's striking when you're talking about this that you don't know how many people actually came after you because they came after you on social media.

00:36:57.560 And it's certainly not in the hundreds.

00:36:59.640 It's unlikely to be, and correct me if I'm wrong, it's unlikely to be in the dozens.

00:37:04.960 Is it 10?

00:37:06.700 Is it 15?

00:37:08.360 And were they students who were actually in your classes, or were they just people who read your blog?

00:37:13.160 And what were they objecting to in your blog exactly?

00:37:16.620 What did you say that was in principle?

00:37:18.640 Or do you even know what it is that they're upset about?

00:37:22.180 What I've read is that you made some claim that Canada wasn't systemically racist, that that wasn't the right way of looking at the country.

00:37:29.700 And to me, that means now, is that the case now that at a university, if I stand up and say that I don't believe that the lens of systemic racism is the proper way to analyze Canada, especially compared to other countries, that now I'm so reprehensible that I deserve to be suspended?

00:37:46.920 If a couple of people object, is that the situation that we're looking at?

00:37:51.420 Or am I being too hard on the university?

00:37:53.720 Well, I think it's hard to answer that question.

00:37:58.200 I know.

00:37:58.780 The numbers that I know of now, I know them because of what happened and how many people, but before I didn't know anything.

00:38:05.500 I personally found it amazing that my university, my employer that I love and respect, you know, did not call me to tell me what was happening, that I learned it in that way.

00:38:19.040 Did your union?

00:38:21.120 My union is doing what needs to be done, and I'm very grateful.

00:38:25.880 But I didn't know about that.

00:38:28.900 That's how I knew it.

00:38:30.120 And then after that first call, friends from Nova Scotia, Amherst, Nova Scotia, called hearing in the news and the radio.

00:38:38.400 It was all everywhere.

00:38:40.700 I have to admit, I may be wrong, but there may have been a flavor for that during that month. 0.96

00:38:48.040 So like it was like my story was sort of a scapegoat for something that is much bigger than a deer, a simple deer, a silly deer.

00:38:59.000 Sometimes we're not allowed to write serious things or silly things or be wrong or change our mind.

00:39:05.680 So what precisely, I don't know.

00:39:07.920 But I do, I personally, I'm allergic to identity politics, given my background.

00:39:13.320 So I may have written things about that or about, you know, it's hard to tell.

00:39:20.740 But you're still not sure.

00:39:22.020 You're still not sure what it is that.

00:39:23.680 Okay, so you're not sure exactly who you offended or how many of them there are, and you're not exactly sure why you offended them.

00:39:31.760 And you're so unsure that what you say is that as far as you're concerned, you can't safely write down what you think, despite the fact that you have your opinions, given where you came from, given the fact that you've immigrated here, that you can take a look at Canada from the perspective of an insider and an outsider.

00:39:48.820 You're not sure what your crime is.

00:39:51.860 No, but now because it's in the media, I can talk to that.

00:39:56.400 So I'm sad that I'm not respecting the confidentiality of the process of the investigation report.

00:40:03.900 It's in the media.

00:40:04.820 There is an allegation.

00:40:05.720 Well, you get the chance to defend yourself in any case.

00:40:08.940 I mean, you've been suspended, correct?

00:40:11.320 Yes.

00:40:11.480 In the fall.

00:40:12.360 Okay, and you said your university didn't even call you when all this blew up, which is typical in my experience of the way institutions are reacting to this sort of thing.

00:40:20.940 So an unnamed number of students made comments that you have used that are in some sense reprehensible, even though you don't know what they are, and the response of your university, despite the fact that you have tenure, that you're an accomplished scientist, that you're a popular undergraduate researcher, that you have tenure, the response of your university was to not call you but suspend you for the fall, what, pending an investigation.

00:40:45.420 An investigation into what exactly?

00:40:47.580 Have they told you what you did wrong?

00:40:49.360 Of course, I saw those complaints, and I can tell you, I think that part I can say is most of them are related to the blog, and that's fine.

00:41:00.180 People have the right not to like what you say, what I say, what anyone else is saying.

00:41:05.620 That's fine.

00:41:06.580 But when we get into false allegations, it's a different story.

00:41:13.520 There's also a difference between having the right not to like what you say on your blog and aggregating behind your back and conspiring to contact all your employers and to insist that you be removed because you're reprehensible and hypothetically a danger to the, let's say, the safety of students.

00:41:32.000 And to have you removed from your position and have your reputation dragged through the mud and have you exposed in the media.

00:41:39.060 I mean, that's not merely not liking what you said.

00:41:42.180 That's an all out attack.

00:41:43.580 And it's amazing to me that this handful of students, an unspecified number, has the power to move the administration to produce such a dramatic response.

00:41:55.440 And you keep wavering in some sense as to the nature of your crimes.

00:42:00.880 You said you think it might, you think it's likely the blog, but I guess there are allegations that go outside the blog as well.

00:42:06.700 Have you ever had trouble with your students in classes that have resulted in complaints?

00:42:12.440 Never, never, ever.

00:42:13.220 All those who know me personally who can guess who I am in the blog because I think it shows a little bit that, you know, I write a lot.

00:42:24.940 So you can guess, you can see, you can make links, you can see.

00:42:27.820 So, for example, I may criticize a certain politician in one blog, but I can say thank you on another one for doing something good.

00:42:37.760 You know, I'm writing because we cannot comment on media articles.

00:42:42.880 Many times, you know, the comment section is closed, right?

00:42:46.220 So for me, it's my way of doing it.

00:42:48.180 So if they can...

00:42:49.120 Well, it doesn't seem to me that it's something that needs to be justified.

00:42:52.280 I mean, first of all, you're a citizen of a free country.

00:42:55.600 You have a right to express yourself any way that you see fit.

00:42:58.900 Second of all, you're a tenured professor and your thoughts are actually protected to a fair degree.

00:43:04.340 And it's protected broadly so that you can think broadly.

00:43:08.220 And the fact that this has happened despite your tenure...

00:43:11.040 Well, I guess part of the question that people who are watching might be asking is why the hell should they care about this?

00:43:16.160 And the reason I believe that people should care about this, first of all, is that what happens in the universities ends up happening everywhere else very, very rapidly.

00:43:23.640 And if it can happen to someone like you, it seems to me that it can happen to anyone at any time in any place.

00:43:30.080 And this unbelievable cowardice that our institutions show in the face of unwarranted allegations, as long as they're the right flavor, is something that should be tremendously worrisome to everyone.

00:43:42.200 Tell us about No Safe Spaces first and then tell us about, you know, your attempts to get it distributed or the attempts to get it distributed.

00:43:49.980 Well, I'll start with the movie and then Dennis will go on to the attempts to be distributed.

00:43:59.080 Oh, I actually wanted it to reverse.

00:44:01.500 Okay.

00:44:04.520 Well, that's fine.

00:44:06.320 Either way.

00:44:07.320 You know, Dennis and I are very different.

00:44:11.680 We have very different backgrounds, but we do have common sense in common.

00:44:17.460 And I have found more and more, and I'm assuming you guys feel the same way, which is just finding someone with common sense seems to trump all the other characteristics that we're constantly talking about.

00:44:31.220 About, you know, where, what region you're born in or who your team is or what color your skin is.

00:44:37.160 Dennis and I always had common sense in common and we struck up a great friendship.

00:44:44.040 We've done many speaking engagements.

00:44:46.140 We've always had a great time in each other's companies.

00:44:48.880 And so when the producers came to us with this idea, I immediately jumped at it just because it selfishly seemed like we could spend a lot of time together talking about a subject that we're both pretty passionate about, which is free speech.

00:45:03.960 And since the time we made this movie, I feel like things have gotten much worse.

00:45:10.980 I think the movie was a bit ahead of its time in terms of what it is, the subject matter.

00:45:18.960 And now I feel like in just the three or four years since we started, this free speech issue has gone into overdrive.

00:45:28.240 Go ahead, Dennis.

00:45:29.600 Yeah.

00:45:29.820 A word on the movie and then a word on the distribution.

00:45:33.960 So I've said from the beginning and I, I'm neither arrogant nor humble.

00:45:40.700 I just pretty much try to see myself in life objectively.

00:45:48.440 And I, so I have said, this is a great movie and it's not a great movie because I'm in it.

00:45:55.320 It might be a great movie because Adam is in it, but the truth is it's a great movie.

00:46:00.100 And Adam and I happen to be the quote unquote stars, but that's not the point of the movie.

00:46:05.320 Uh, I have watched this about five times.

00:46:08.660 I have the attention span of a child.

00:46:11.200 And so for something to keep me riveted five times, uh, speaks, um, uh, immensely about it.

00:46:17.560 It is, it is, it truly is an important movie.

00:46:20.200 It's more important today, even than when it was made about free speech.

00:46:23.920 And it's got movies within the movies.

00:46:26.320 And anyway, people should see it.

00:46:28.700 I should, I'd like to point out too, just, just as an advertisement of sorts, there's a Canadian equivalent to that movie called better left unsaid that has faced the same sort of distribution problems that you guys have faced.

00:46:40.220 And it focuses on issues that are more germane to Canada, although also relevant to the U S and so, um, well, they deserve a note.

00:46:48.780 They deserve a mention.

00:46:50.400 So I'm glad you pointed out.

00:46:52.020 I happen to think that things are worse in Canada than in the U S.

00:46:55.660 Uh, but, uh, that's an interesting discussion for either another time or later on today.

00:47:00.620 So what was your impetus for making, I'm in the movie.

00:47:03.140 Let me just talk about the distribution.

00:47:05.560 Yes.

00:47:06.000 Yes.

00:47:06.520 Netflix refused to distribute it, uh, uh, to, to stream it, which is incredible given how popular the movie is.

00:47:15.440 Okay.

00:47:15.880 So make a case for that.

00:47:16.960 Like why?

00:47:17.780 Okay.

00:47:17.940 So Netflix should have been incentivized as, as far as you're concerned by the fact that the movie was economically successful.

00:47:23.620 And there are other streaming agencies too online that are fairly powerful.

00:47:27.300 So Amazon, et cetera.

00:47:29.500 Have you had any interest from any of the streaming agencies?

00:47:32.700 Yes.

00:47:33.000 Well, it's interesting.

00:47:34.420 I don't know the, I'll, I'll look up the Amazon question.

00:47:36.520 I know that the Walmart doesn't sell it in its stores.

00:47:39.840 They, they, they have the same thing.

00:47:42.100 Uh, all you need really in, in, at Netflix or Walmart or any of these is one or two people who are woke, uh, to tell, uh, you know, we can't do this.

00:47:52.560 We're going to get a bad name.

00:47:54.240 Uh, and, and then, you know, what, what is it to Netflix not to listen to somebody who says, Oh, Dennis Prager.

00:47:59.300 We know, we know for a fact that it was my name.

00:48:02.160 That was the trigger, which is an interesting thing, which I, one day would be fascinating to discuss.

00:48:08.620 Uh, because whenever my name is, is raised, uh, as this bugaboo, I always say, well, can you say anything in 35 years of broadcasting 10 books, literally 1000 columns on the internet, plus tens of thousands of hours of, of the radio recorded.

00:48:26.440 Say one thing that I have ever said that strikes you as extreme.

00:48:32.340 And so there's never an example.

00:48:34.040 There's literally never the New York times did a piece on me.

00:48:37.000 They couldn't find one sentence.

00:48:38.900 Uh, they, they made up something.

00:48:40.660 In fact, they says that Prager suggested.

00:48:43.380 And I always tell people if they don't say said, don't believe the line suggested is the New York times, not what I said.

00:48:51.860 And then they had no quotes, but anyway, I've had the same experience, Dennis, you know, I have, I know that I can't find a thing you've ever said that is an ennobling.

00:49:04.680 I love your work.

00:49:06.280 I wrote the, I wrote the introduction to your biography.

00:49:09.500 I had, uh, I had this experience as well.

00:49:14.280 And then I have another thought, which is, uh, I got into a lot of trouble and I got out of favor with critics because, um, it was widely said that Adam Carolla said women weren't funny.

00:49:29.320 Now this is perfect.

00:49:30.920 And you guys have experienced a version of this.

00:49:33.300 I did an interview years ago and the person said at the end, who's funnier men or women?

00:49:41.780 And I said, well, I think men are, I think it's based on them trying to have sex essentially. 0.66

00:49:48.540 So they had to exercise that muscle a little bit, but I know many female comedians that are funnier than anybody, any guy ever went to high school with that then turned into Adam Carolla said women weren't funny. 1.00

00:50:03.300 And then they just ran with it and that's up there with that.

00:50:08.400 Well, look, it's, it's pretty, pretty credible what you say, because my sense is, is that there's been a couple of things I've said that have been blown up in the press, you know, and they were exaggerations of the sort that you're describing taken out of context.

00:50:22.980 I think that in the current climate, if you've ever said anything reprehensible on public record, that you will be slaughtered for it.

00:50:31.000 And so if you haven't been slaughtered for it, the probability that you haven't said anything reprehensible is pretty damn high because people are combing over the, the utterances of people like you trying to find a smoking pistol.

00:50:44.300 So I don't know if you can comb over things to find a smoking pistol, but.

00:50:48.060 I was at a Senate subcommittee on the suppression of free speech, testifying about what's happening to PragerU, where hundreds of our videos are placed on the restricted list.

00:51:01.280 Meaning if you have a filter against pornography and violence, you actually can't see the video.

00:51:06.520 So one of them was in fact one, one that I had given, I only give one 10th of the videos, 90% of other people, but I, I have given a number of videos on the 10 commandments, for example.

00:51:17.940 And so Senator Ted Cruz asked the representative of Google, why did you, you, people could see this on YouTube, it is still there.

00:51:26.840 Why did you, why did you put Mr. Prager's talk on, on, on the 10 commandments on, on the restricted list?

00:51:37.860 And the man looked at Senator Cruz and said, because it mentions murder.

00:51:46.360 And I remember, I remember humming the twilight zone theme because I, I felt I had entered an alternate universe.

00:51:55.700 So what do you think the reason was, Dennis?

00:51:58.240 I mean, obviously, look, that's got to be a bit of a PR nightmare for Google to do something like that.

00:52:03.680 So it, it smacks of a certain degree of incompetence to begin with.

00:52:07.360 And I, I like to hypothesize incompetence before malevolence.

00:52:11.560 So, so why do you think it was censored that specifically?

00:52:15.040 And then why with regards to, is it reasonable to call what's happening with PragerU censorship?

00:52:20.040 And why do you think it's happening?

00:52:22.980 Because, well, I'll tell you the, the, I'll answer the last one.

00:52:25.700 The last one first, and this will help you realize that I think there's more malevolence than incompetence.

00:52:33.080 There is never an instance in the history of the world.

00:52:36.240 And this is my field of study since I was in graduate school at Columbia.

00:52:40.000 That's why I studied Russian was to read Pravda and visit the Soviet Union on multiple occasions and other, and other communist countries.

00:52:47.400 There is no instance in world history that is since the Russian Revolution of the left gaining power and not suppressing speech.

00:52:56.460 Liberals are for free speech.

00:52:58.540 Conservatives are for free speech.

00:53:00.440 The left has never been for free speech.

00:53:02.780 Okay.

00:53:03.040 So let me ask you a clarifying question there.

00:53:05.320 All right.

00:53:05.540 Because, you know, I'm a Canadian, and I suppose, along with the Scandinavian countries, we're tilted a fair degree to the left compared to the U.S.

00:53:14.280 And so, I mean, freedom of speech is in reasonable shape in our countries, those countries that I mentioned.

00:53:21.800 And so when you talk about the left, tell me more specifically what you mean and how you would define that particular sake.

00:53:29.800 Because you're not talking about the Democrats per se, I can't imagine, or perhaps you are.

00:53:34.880 The Democrats used to be, I was a Democrat.

00:53:38.540 The Democrats used to be liberal.

00:53:40.260 The Democrats, when I was a kid in the 70s, Nazis, real Nazis, not people they just call Nazis, real Nazis with swastikas, demonstrated in Skokie, Illinois, because a lot of Jews lived there, especially Holocaust survivors.

00:53:56.540 It was a particularly vicious act.

00:53:58.080 And Jewish groups, the ACLU, liberal groups, the Democratic Party, all defended their right, because in America, anybody could say anything except yell a fire in a crowded theater.

00:54:10.860 That is no longer the position.

00:54:13.620 Look, why did you get in trouble?

00:54:17.540 I wondered about that for a long time.

00:54:20.140 Okay.

00:54:20.380 So, well, no.

00:54:22.000 Well, if you're wondering, I'm not.

00:54:25.020 But you said something the left didn't like, that you were not going to be told by the government what pronoun you will use.

00:54:33.340 We need institutions that we can respect and that hold up the standards that have made them what they are.

00:54:41.140 And if they fold, well, how can you expect normal people, say, not to be cowed and intimidated by the same tactics?

00:54:48.900 Absolutely.

00:54:49.200 Actually, there were two other episodes on my mind, one of which sort of confirmed my theory about what was happening in your case, the other of which suggested different sorts of motivations.

00:54:58.520 So one of them was a case that occurred around the same time as yours, which was a case of a research fellow at St. Edmunds College here in Cambridge, who was doing research.

00:55:07.560 He was a sociologist, a very well-known respectable sociologist.

00:55:10.960 He had work profiles in The Economist, in top journals.

00:55:15.700 He was fired because there was, again, there was a mob protesting about his associations, conferences he'd been to, journals that he published in, in which other people that they found distasteful had published in, and so on.

00:55:27.400 Again, Donald said nothing illegal.

00:55:29.620 That was one case, which, again, I think illustrates the sorts of pressures that I think were being brought to their view.

00:55:33.920 And what were the topics for that?

00:55:35.900 The topics of race and intelligence.

00:55:37.680 Yes, yes, yes.

00:55:38.800 Well, the intelligence literature is rough, that's for sure.

00:55:43.040 I mean, the whole thing was so chilling, Jordan, because it was decided by an inquiry that was kept secret.

00:55:48.500 Nobody's going to know what the evidence was in this inquiry.

00:55:51.620 So the whole thing was terrifying.

00:55:54.880 The other case was slightly different.

00:55:56.260 So there was another case that concerned me, which was a case where it was an event for the Palestinian society, where there was a chair from that society, which the university threatened to shut down because they thought they were worried that the chair might be an extremist or something.

00:56:09.820 She wasn't at all.

00:56:10.520 She was a respectable academic from SOAS.

00:56:13.440 And the university imposed its own chair on that.

00:56:17.340 Now, that was slightly different because that was responding to another threat of free speech, which is the government's legislation on prevent and anti-terrorism.

00:56:24.960 But those three events were sort of coalescing in my mind around the time that I tried to change the university's free speech policy.

00:56:32.840 Okay, so what did, so let's talk about the change in the free speech policy.

00:56:37.780 What, what changes did you propose?

00:56:39.920 And then it took a couple of years, as I understand, to really get this through.

00:56:44.160 And I also understand from James that it wasn't that easy to get people to speak in favor of your proposal, but that it was passed.

00:56:52.960 And we need to go into that by an overwhelming majority of the people who were concerned and able to legislate such things, so to speak, for the university.

00:57:01.140 Yeah, so I can take you through that.

00:57:03.600 What happened was, it was, this was around actually March 2020, so about a year after your, your case.

00:57:10.040 And the university had decided that it was going to put through a new freedom of speech policy.

00:57:16.160 This was obviously at a time when everyone had had other things on their mind, at least in Britain, in March 2020.

00:57:22.160 They didn't offer a vote on it.

00:57:23.320 They just wanted to put it straight through.

00:57:25.080 And it was a policy which I found concerning, especially in life of these incidents.

00:57:28.680 One part of it was that it mandates, said that we have a right to free speech, but we must always exercise respect for other people's identities and opinions.

00:57:38.080 Now, that might seem innocuous.

00:57:40.640 But of course, the word respect being so vague.

00:57:43.920 It doesn't seem innocuous to me.

00:57:45.920 Indeed.

00:57:46.440 I mean, it seems terrible, because it just, it just removes the first part of protection for free speech.

00:57:52.560 I mean, if you have to be cautious about other people's opinions, much less their identity, well, we should reverse that.

00:57:58.880 Their identity, much less their opinions, well, who decides when that's respectful and what, yeah, yeah, it's just weasel words that.

00:58:05.240 Exactly. And the bit about identities, I bet they had you in mind when they were saying that, actually.

00:58:10.800 But whenever anyone says, I believe in free speech, but that's a good sign to me that they don't believe in free speech.

00:58:15.940 And that was the impression that this policy gave off.

00:58:18.780 Other parts of the policy, which may not have been directly explicitly new, but which certainly brought you and those other cases, for instance, the Palestinian society to mind,

00:58:26.180 were rules which said that the university could stop speaker events if they thought they would threaten the welfare of students.

00:58:32.480 Notice that welfare is defined again, undefined, and could be interpreted broadly.

00:58:37.080 And indeed, allowed the university to stop events under pretty much any circumstances that they liked, speaker events, for instance.

00:58:44.240 So that was the proposed policy in March 2020.

00:58:47.640 So why did that bother you so much?

00:58:50.640 I mean, you're pretty young and starting your academic career in many ways.

00:58:55.640 Maybe I'm wrong about that.

00:58:57.080 But, you know, it's a hell of a thing to take on.

00:58:59.740 And it's not without its risks.

00:59:01.120 And I'm always curious about people's motives.

00:59:03.340 It's like there's lots of professors at Cambridge.

00:59:05.780 Why do you think this was your problem?

00:59:09.600 Well, you flatter me about being young.

00:59:11.040 But I will say that I guess there were two things.

00:59:14.780 One of them was philosophical and one of those more to do with the nature of the job.

00:59:17.860 So philosophically speaking, my basic philosophical position is what you might call classical liberal.

00:59:23.080 So my basic value is individual liberty.

00:59:27.720 And, you know, in terms of what I do, my political engagement, even my professional engagement to some extent, you know, that's the ultimate and most important value.

00:59:37.580 So for me, it really touched a nerve.

00:59:39.900 It touched something that was the core of my identity, if you want to use that appalling word.

00:59:44.360 The other aspect, which I said was professional, was simply to do something I alluded to earlier, which was what is this job for?

00:59:51.060 It's part of your duty as an academic, I would have thought.

00:59:54.300 You know, academics are normally cautious, as they should be.

00:59:56.380 But the one thing that they shouldn't be cautious about is defending the ultimate purpose of the academy.

01:00:01.420 And that cannot be pursued without free speech and without the ability to question freely beliefs that are held by the majority, also beliefs that are held by minorities, and without worrying about who you're going to offend, who's going to be hurt by your words, especially in a subject like philosophy.

01:00:17.840 And I dare say in a subject like yours and certainly in a subject like James's, you can't have free discussion if every time you talk about something, you're frightened that you're going to offend the other person.

01:00:26.600 And then they might report to you and you might get in trouble.

01:00:28.880 I can't do my job.

01:00:30.000 I don't expect James can.

01:00:30.980 I don't expect you can, if discussion is curtailed in that way.

01:00:34.400 No, scientists can, because that freedom of inquiry and the freedom to upset traditional truths, let's say, well, in a really fundamental sense, that's what science is all about.

01:00:45.540 And as a, let's say, a creative scientist, you're always working against what's established, because otherwise what you discovered wouldn't be new.

01:00:55.680 And you're always going to be facing people who are upset for one reason or another by your hypotheses and your research.

01:01:01.660 So it's not a side issue here.

01:01:06.160 It's crucial to the academy as such.

01:01:09.100 Yeah, absolutely.

01:01:09.820 But that still doesn't explain why you made it your problem, say, when so many people were perfectly willing to remain silent.

01:01:17.940 Well, one thing I would say is that I was slightly surprised when I wrote.

01:01:23.280 So after the university's policy came out, there was a discussion.

01:01:27.600 What's called a discussion in Cambridge University really means that you write a paper and it's published in the university magazine.

01:01:33.980 And so I sent a short paper off proposing some changes to these policies and stating my objections.

01:01:40.240 And I had expected, this being Cambridge University, that many other people would do the same, because I didn't think I was alone in being concerned about this.

01:01:49.400 Nobody else did.

01:01:50.620 So I was, that was the first point at which I realised.

01:01:53.820 So there was no, there was no real bravery on my part, because I had expected at that point that a lot of people, a lot of other people would be, would be jumping in.

01:02:00.240 But nobody did.

01:02:02.360 So that was the point at which I realised that I was perhaps more isolated than I'd expected.

01:02:08.620 To go back to your question about motivations, I mean, I don't know what more I can tell you.

01:02:11.420 I mean, these are things that matter to me.

01:02:12.700 I don't really care if anyone else is doing it or not.

01:02:14.860 And did you face any trouble?

01:02:16.340 So you voiced your opinion and you wanted to modify this, this document, which had, let's say, politically correct underpinnings.

01:02:22.960 And did it cause grief for you?

01:02:26.080 Were people outraged by what you said?

01:02:28.240 Or did things proceed as a matter of course?

01:02:31.300 Well, it was interesting.

01:02:32.200 So some people, some people wrote to me, in fact, quite a few people wrote to me at the time saying that they agreed with my concerns, which sort of made it even more surprising that nobody had actually said so in public.

01:02:43.300 Some people wrote to me saying they agreed with my concerns, but weren't willing to say anything in public.

01:02:50.300 James was, as always, was brilliantly helpful.

01:02:53.320 James has always been really supportive.

01:02:54.760 And James has been publicly supportive throughout this process.

01:02:57.700 But it's because there have been a few courageous people like James and a few others, you know, in Cambridge at that stage.

01:03:02.580 That was definitely a big help.

01:03:05.000 So there was some support.

01:03:06.660 I also had people warning me.

01:03:08.100 So I had people saying, you know, you might get, you know, you might get some kind of disciplinary procedure, you might get some kind of investigation.

01:03:14.040 I didn't expect anything at that stage.

01:03:16.080 And indeed, nothing happened to me at that stage.

01:03:18.920 And I'm pleased to say there'd be no investigations or anything out of me, of me since.

01:03:23.240 So that's really interesting in two ways, isn't it?

01:03:26.040 Because it shows you how loathed people are to do this because they're afraid.

01:03:31.020 And we shouldn't make light of that because this is actually no fun.

01:03:34.800 You know, if you do something like this and it explodes in your face, like it probably took me, oh, it took me a long time to recover from the disinvitation, especially the way it was handled.

01:03:47.440 And my health and my wife's health were extremely compromised at the time.

01:03:51.520 And so it came at a particularly bad time.

01:03:56.060 We had just received news that she probably had terminal cancer.

01:03:59.360 And so this came on top of that.

01:04:01.460 Now, luckily, she survived, thank God.

01:04:04.240 But, you know, it was a harrowing time.

01:04:07.040 And so I see why people can be cowed like this, because, you know, you don't know when this is going to explode and when it's going to tangle you up so deeply that while your job's gone, that's what happened to the Weinsteins, for example, at Evergreen.

01:04:19.660 And I mean, that was really that did them a tremendous amount of damage.

01:04:23.800 They're unbelievably resourceful.

01:04:25.280 And they got back on their feet.

01:04:26.420 And, you know, they were a husband and wife team, so they had each other.

01:04:29.980 And that was good.

01:04:30.660 But not everybody can do that.

01:04:32.440 And you can get seriously taken out if if something like this goes wrong.

01:04:36.600 So but then that ties into this issue we discussed a bit earlier, which is how a small minority of, you know, people who whose wrath knows no bounds in some sense can be so dominant.

01:04:47.460 Yeah. Yeah. So it was it was it was in some ways a calculated risk.

01:04:52.180 And I can't imagine how difficult that must have been for you, Jordan.

01:04:55.420 It was, you know, it must have been horrific.

01:04:59.020 I mean, one thing I saw happening in Cambridge, not quite then, but a little bit later, was the treatment that was meted out to not an academic, but to a member of the university staff.

01:05:08.540 So we have we have college porters in Cambridge and these are these people who work at the colleges, often that they're sort of, you know, retired policemen or military or something really helpful.

01:05:19.420 They do all kinds of jobs around the college.

01:05:21.180 Students rely on them.

01:05:22.120 The academics rely on them.

01:05:23.600 The ones in my college are brilliant.

01:05:25.860 There was one at a college in Cambridge who was also a Labour councillor who who resigned on political grounds, which was to do with his view about about trans issues.

01:05:36.740 So he thought it was, you know, there was a there was a motion about trans issues that he thought, you know, threatened women's safety.

01:05:43.000 And so he resigned on a point of principle.

01:05:44.940 And that's his political activity.

01:05:46.000 That's his right.

01:05:46.960 I could I could understand his grounds for doing that.

01:05:49.500 The students at his college.

01:05:51.520 So these are typically much more privileged people than him.

01:05:54.920 Students at his college formed a mob to try to get this man sacked.

01:05:59.020 And this was this was, you know, this is a much more privileged people.

01:06:02.580 They didn't care about the consequences for him.

01:06:05.140 They just thought because he diverted from their line of ideological purity.

01:06:08.780 Do you remember this case, James?

01:06:10.140 And James may know.

01:06:10.780 I do.

01:06:12.140 Yeah.

01:06:13.220 I do.

01:06:13.740 And it was thanks to a very brave female undergraduate.

01:06:16.420 I think she was in her second year.

01:06:19.020 She spoke out, wrote a public article about it.

01:06:22.540 A great courage, I thought, to herself.

01:06:26.060 And she there was an awful lot of resistance to her doing that.

01:06:29.220 But it was remarkable.

01:06:31.140 She got in touch with us, I seem to remember.

01:06:32.660 And I can't remember how the case was resolved.

01:06:35.300 Did you ever apologize?

01:06:36.980 Did you or did you what happened with you?

01:06:39.300 Apologize for what?

01:06:40.620 Well, that's the for whatever you were being accused of.

01:06:45.080 I never apologized for refusing to comply with my university's mandate.

01:06:52.780 I never apologized for speaking publicly about it.

01:06:57.160 I never have and won't apologize for continuing to try to have discussions about the truth.

01:07:04.700 That doesn't mean that I or who I'm talking with will always get it right.

01:07:08.680 Surely we'll make mistakes.

01:07:09.880 Everyone makes mistakes.

01:07:11.540 The truth isn't a set of facts.

01:07:13.460 The truth is an approach to discussion.

01:07:16.540 That's what Joe Rogan's so good at.

01:07:18.440 That's why he's so popular.

01:07:19.600 It's not because Joe knows the truth.

01:07:23.040 It's because he acts out the truth in his speech and his actions.

01:07:30.220 So, yeah, that's a whole different thing.

01:07:33.200 Whole different thing.

01:07:33.840 Well, Solzhenitsyn was convinced that a totalitarian state could not exist unless everyone was participating in the lie and that the most potent anti-authoritarian action is to tell the truth.

01:07:49.700 And that means to say something when you have something to say, not because you're brave, but I think, but because the alternative is worse.

01:07:58.520 Exactly.

01:07:59.760 Yeah, that's...

01:08:00.760 And it was Orwell.

01:08:01.940 It's so interesting to me that it was Orwell that opened your eyes to that.

01:08:06.360 I mean, it makes perfect sense, but it's still really something.

01:08:11.120 Yeah, I know.

01:08:12.120 It's like that book.

01:08:14.460 I think that's when I realized, oh, everybody was responsible.

01:08:19.020 And that's when I started thinking about speaking out.

01:08:23.020 That's when you started thinking about speaking out.

01:08:25.600 Yeah.

01:08:25.880 I see.

01:08:26.200 I see.

01:08:26.640 And so you made a conscious decision at that point.

01:08:29.800 Yeah.

01:08:30.960 Why?

01:08:31.360 Because I knew the price of silence because like that, that was a price real pain, right?

01:08:39.340 Like not even knowing, like, that's the thing.

01:08:43.020 Like when people say, why no revolutions?

01:08:45.020 Because we don't know we are slaves in North Korea.

01:08:47.640 How do you fight to be free when you don't know you're a slave?

01:08:52.080 And that's a different thing.

01:08:53.620 Like the fact that my people don't even know they're oppressed.

01:08:57.400 That's the thing.

01:08:58.380 Like what carries me to this point about my father is not like he, I, of course, I would

01:09:05.440 be grateful if he ever lived in freedom, even one day.

01:09:09.180 But the heartbreaking thing is he didn't even know life could be this free and life could

01:09:15.760 be this beautiful.

01:09:17.120 He didn't even know that like life could be so different for other human beings.

01:09:22.280 I just wish he knew before he goes so he doesn't remember this life so hard, it's filled with

01:09:30.760 sadness, you know.

01:09:32.840 And that's the thing with North Koreans, we are talking with different degree of oppression.

01:09:37.620 They don't even know life can be this way.

01:09:40.980 And yeah.

01:09:43.280 So that was my time of understanding what happened and started believing in this freedom.

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - April 21, 2022

246. The Adventures of Pinnochio and Free Speech Part 1⧸4

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