Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott: The Canceling of the American Mind

“We've taught young people that any of their missteps or any of their heterodox opinions are grounds to tear them down. That's no way to grow up.”

"We've taught young people that any of their missteps or any of their heterodox opinions are grounds to tear them down. That's no way to grow up."

That was journalist Rikki Schlott speaking before a sold-out crowd on Monday night at a live taping of The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie podcast in New York City. Schlott, 23, teamed up with Greg Lukianoff to co-write The Canceling of the American Mind. 

Lukianoff, 49, is the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and co-author with Jonathan Haidt of the bestselling The Coddling of the American Mind (2018). Schlott is a fellow at FIRE, a New York Post columnist, and a cohost of the Lost Debate podcast. 

Cancel culture, they argue, constitutes a serious threat to free speech and open inquiry in academia and the workplace and is best understood as a battle for power, status, and dominance. I talked with them about the roots and extent of cancel culture, whether it's fading, and whether firing or not hiring someone who supports Hamas' killing of Israeli citizens is an act of cancel culture.

To watch the video version and to read a transcript of the interview, go here.

Live tapings of this podcast take place once a month in New York at the Reason Speakeasy. To find out when the next one is happening, go here. For past Speakeasy events, go here.

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Comments

[Mother's Lament - Professional Shrike Sock Spotter]

“I talked with them about the roots and extent of cancel culture, whether it’s fading, and whether firing or not hiring someone who supports Hamas’ killing of Israeli citizens is an act of cancel culture.”

Thank goodness. I was worried it was going to be insurrectionist stuff like the cancelling of Pfizer injection opponents or Trump supporters.

[A Cynical Asshole]

the cancelling of Pfizer injection opponents or Trump supporters.

Something something... "old news" mumble mumble...

[Public Entelectual]

What ever became of your day job at NEWS OF THE WORLD ?

[Mickey Rat]

I realize that is the canceling that is in the news today, but without another example it makes it sound that "canceling" only becomes a problem when it is Leftists that are the ones being canceled.

[Religion and Politics, my life]

But having any label is cancelling, by definition.
That is like opposing my homosexual or abortion stance by calling it religious
Such Nazi nonsense has bred most of the recent anti-abortion groups

SECULAR PRO-lIFE

PRO-LIFE ALLIANCE OF GAYS AND LESBIANS +
HUMAN RIGHTS START WHEN HUMAN LIFE BEGINS

THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF
PRO-LIFE OBSTETRICIANS AND GYNECOLOGISTS
BOARD CERTIFIED. PROFESSIONAL.
MEDICAL EXPERTS IN THE PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT SINCE 1973

Democrats for Life

PRogressive Anti-abortion Uprising

Feminsts for Life

[SRG2]

It almost certainly is religious even if you’ve not thought it through. Your opposition to evolution is likewise.

General rule: if your opposition to X is on religious grounds, you have no business preventing others who don’t share your religion from doing X, even if your religious beliefs don’t agree.

As for calling it Nazi nonsense, your imposing your ideology on others is more Nazi-like than giving other people the freedom to choose.

[Religion and Politics, my life]

But you don't know LOGIC.
You can't state a proposition and then make it a different statement by conjecturing WHY it was said!!!
Abortion is taking an innocent life is true or false under any circumstances
People like you violate the Stupid Rule

Don't take the wrong side of an argument just because your opponent has taken the right side.

Baltasar Gracian

[Jerryskids]

We've taught young people that any of their missteps or any of their heterodox opinions are grounds to tear them down.

And by 'heterodox opinions', you mean conservative thought, right? Any failure to vocally support the current thing, whether that's support for pedophiles or anti-semites or Nazis or communists or neo-luddites or militant vegans?

[Religion and Politics, my life]

at least $30,000 (plus opportunity costs) and I go to schol for 4 years to be told there is no God, no Truth, and I might as well kill myself. Why would I pay to do that? Enrollment cliff is coming in one year, over a half-million student decline in enrollment.
My long time in education leads me to think the big destruction of higher education is well on its way. Hurray.
I remember being told in grad school that if I didn't accept evolution I should get out of this class !! And I am paying his salary.
Let it all go to sht.

[NOYB2]

I appreciate Lukianoff's dedication and activism. But he has been at it for a quarter of a century and things have gotten much, much worse. It doesn't seem to be working.

I think rather than trying to fix public and non-profit universities, it may be time to put them out of their misery. The structure and economic incentives of those institutions is intrinsically broken and unfixable.

[mad.casual]

It certainly doesn't help that Lukianoff, rather than getting into the nitty gritty of unconscionable acts, statutes of limitation and ex post facto, 3rd party doctrine, or even (find a fainting couch) Section 230 and who owns what speech online, continues to juxtapose free speech directly against free association.

Not every case of Twitter finding something someone said a decade before they were hired and forcing a corporation to terminate an employee has to break down into either the employee losing their free speech or the employer losing their ability to hire and fire how they please. It's entirely possible that in some, if not many, cases someone is actually guilty of libel or slander on the internet or in the media and is forcing the specific dichotomy.

[Muzamal]

harmo