Safe Spaces for Dumb Ideas
With Greg Lukianoff
Greg Lukianoff is a First Amendment lawyer, President and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), and co-author of the hits "The Coddling of the American Mind" with Jonathan Haidt and "The Canceling of the American Mind" with Rikki Schlott. He joins us to talk all things free speech, like why campuses are burning, how violence is kind of bad, actually, and why he fights for our right to say dumb things, and be called out on them.
Also:
What should keep us up at night?
Culture of free speech vs. the law of free speech
Actually, violence is bad
2023 was the worst year for deplatforming in history
Harvard is so mad at Greg right now
Even antisemites have free speech rights :(
Are the universities redeemable?
You're anti-intellectual! No, you're anti-intellectual!
Blame the lack of viewpoint diversity
Students + admins = trouble
Are you ever sick of all this free speech nonsense?
Kids need to be told they are stupid more often
FIRE-branded Shabbat dinners, coming soon to a table near you
Follow Greg on Twitter/X if you please, and also right here on Substack at
.The article that inspired the book The Coddling of the American Mind in The Atlantic (2015)
In other news, in case you missed it, earlier today some 1,200 pagers belonging to Hezbollah members mysteriously malfunctioned in Lebanon, exploding on their bodies. Should have gotten that software update, boys. There are more videos on X, but here is one of the least graphic ones (check out homeboy in the yellow shirt checking his messages):
And in even happier news, the Sufrin household is now 3:3 in the Rabbi to Non-Rabbi ratio! Mazal Tov to Chaya Leah’s son, Rabbi Mendy Sufrin, for becoming a Rabbi this week.
Mazel Tov to Chaya Leah, Mendy, and the whole Sufrin family. I’m kvelling. 🥲
One of the things mentioned in Canceling of the American Mind is that the median household income of Harvard students' families is over $500,000/yr. Part of the "why" for much of the deranged campus activism is that rich kids (many of them white) get indoctrinated by professors who absorbed the New Leftism of Herbert Marcuse -- and the guilt and hypocrisy they feel is diverted into projection: They compete to outbid each other in condemning the evils of whiteness, "settler-colonialism," etc.
But here's the kicker. The striving professional-managerial class takes its cues from these children of the elite. Which leads to more and more people who are so ashamed of their good life that they play the same Mean Girl(TM) games at the PTA, the HR department, the local schools, and so on. Those who may not entirely buy it usually fall into the standard liberal failure more of agreeableness, and don't stand up to the bullies. So here we are.