Hello and welcome to crosstalk were all things are considered im peter a little cash remember the phrase to honest people can disagree this concept as essentially been the bedrock of western civilization since the enlightenment its also the origins of the american 1st amendment cancel culture is putting all this in question are we now ruled by the hecklers. To discuss this and more im joined by my guest Brad Blankenship in prague he is a freelance journalist as well as a journalist. And in bloomington we have Michael Kernis he is a r. T. Columnist and a comic book writer all right gentlemen crossed up or is an affair. That means you can jump in anytime you want and i was it was good and its going to bradford. You know it will be over the last few weeks watching this whole cancel culture phenomenon and i find it is a completely ludicrous anti intellectual and a historical. Antirational ok im a trained historian and i history is full of tragedies that were supposed to learn from ok not wipe it away so how does this cancel culture phenomenon it really enhanced the Public Square or is the whole point not to go ahead. Well i think that the whole little thrust of it generally is is progress in the sense that its actually giving some democratization to the platforms now its not like silencing peoples free speech of course people still have this right but its really seizing the platforms with that work for so long in my opinion and i think its the truth that they were fully occupied in the filter was wealth and privilege and the United States especially. Now it seems that people are trying to democratize these by through the filter of the internet now celebrities you know i can go in a tweet any celebrity i want and Say Something mean to mask them. Over something that theyve said in the past something thats problematic i think it really depends on the industry how much people are being held accountable and i like to center the general idea of Council Culture as it were as a kind of cultural accountability but i think it depends on the industry so for example at hollywood we have people like for example Roseanne Barr who is still rich after being canceled still has a quite significant following have khalid being who said some racist things she has a ton of programs if you go on her website you can see a lot of events of course mel gibson he is still going strong in hollywood hes working on a movie now probably has one next year as well he still may be nominated wanted more of you watch mel gibson dont watch him ok Roseanne Barr dont Pay Attention to her i mean i dont understand this year i mean it should be the the Public Square that you decide does that to shame people her for bad behavior i mean we we have a hit and let me bring in mike here i mean we have a history you know critically when we look at an american context of what you shouldnt say offensive language you know im going to load that but now its right language what you should say now that is very different from our cultural tradition here and there but if people are going over the line now basically its mind control you can say this but you cant say that before you shouldnt. Say certain things that would be obviously universally agreed to be of michael well and thats thats generally where we sit these days i think that in a lot of ways there is this sort of massive amount of offensive ideas that are not allowed to be spoken there verboten a sense you know you youre not allowed to say certain words youre not allowed to say certain phrases so on so forth that we didnt even consider controversial 1015 years ago if someone if a celebrity is to say what one good example would be terry crews was to say you know fatherlessness is an issue within the black Community Well all of a sudden theres a problem with that now why theres a problem with that i dont really understand its a true statement you know and in and ignoring it doesnt mean that the problem is just going to go away you know but thats thats generally the issue is if a certain loud facet of social media the internet what have you is offended by something and then all of a sudden the person who said the offensive statement they must be wiped away and in other cases if someone is accused of something terrible even if there isnt evidence quite yet presented yet or the context that evidence is not presented they too must be destroyed they must lose something for this so that is that is the issue that i see that mike if it did that thats not rule isnt it i mean yes you know presumption of innocence any more ok i think that that is that and that may be because what happens is and we saw that with this Harper Magazine article is that you have these 150. 00 lefty more or less intellectuals and then they start going after each other gradually go back you know i mean this is we see this before ok i think it was even this before i mean you can you can plead guilty but the red guard during the great cultural revolution in china the last 10 years that was so i. Unbelievably destructive ok i mean how do you put a brake on this when we design on accuse each other. Being tended when you dont have a right not to be offended thats part of our cultural strength i would say. But peter i wouldnt characterize its the same thing because i dont think that the left as it were in the United States occupy the same power that the red guard had in communist china i think they have less than a dozen members of Congress Bernie Sanders a o c come to mind as the leaders of this movement these are people that have no power in society more or less especially in institutions but for centuries have been the downtrodden of our society and you know its a bit like what institutions academia hollywood the media and. I would say yes because hollywood in actually you get and you see a right and are absolutely dont have now are you serious well listen im not talking about the media im talking about the people that are kicking trying to snub the career people that are problematic in these institutions these institutions are definitely right wing i mean the whole 20th century the list that they had to blacklist leftists from the the media akademi and so on the story the left and in the United States the left is at the weakest position it has ever been in the history but it is now gaining steam and i think that this is just a reflection of this i cant really sentiment we have to go back and read im trying our terms not the left right now because you know we look at a platform you know roger stone was the platforms ok why because he said he offends you i mean im a conservative and roger stone of tinsley all the time i says profession is do of pens you ok right he makes a living Everybody Knows it mike and waiting on that i mean bending people shouldnt be verboten well exactly i mean if if offending people started to become verboten you think about how many comedians all of a sudden and several have been either cancel or people have attempted to cancel you know because of the things that they say look how many times you see joe rogan is over on twitter because joe rogan made some group mad because of the old fallon fox statements which by the way scientifically speaking german was not wrong about you know the things along those lines you know we our senses of humor basically gets thrown out the window and on top of the fact that what was mentioned earlier the these arent things that need to be listened to you know people seem to think that you know just turning the channel is not enough no this part its. The attitude of this Town Aint Big Enough for the 2 of us if you have this opinion if you have this idea that i do not like get out. Here and its not even something along the lines of something that like Richard Spencer would say you know if you were to say Border Security is a good saying some people are like get out of here why you know why is that you know why cant we have a discussion about that like civilized people it isnt you know way almost say a lack of civil or civil civil discussion. Yeah i mean with that the rabbit thats how we resolve things isnt it to discussion i mean i i want you know because of my job because of what i do to this program i watched amisom b. C. And c. N. N. And im offended all the time war the law i think its nonsense its propaganda it promotes the interests of the of the rich and powerful maintaining the status quo and the plant growing anyone anyone that disagrees with what i did i might have a program to push back because i think thats what we should do i think of our cultural tradition tells us to do that and i think it can be a fact of our i wouldnt be doing that so i have well i got my group here when it comes to the sentiment of m s n b c c. N. N. And all that i think that they definitely do represent the interests of the wealthy just like fox news does and United States people have a mission to give you that i think i want to respond on my cassette about leaving the sense of humor at the door and i want to have your own example from George Carlin whos a very famous american comedian and actually he had made a joke about mass that he had. Some bit about it in 2 days before 911 and he pulled it for taste because he said this is this is not tasteful its not funny to make fun of mass death in this context now its important because some things just are not funny and theres people theres black people being killed in the streets every single day by police theres theres women we have them aside and United States against many people we have Sexual Violence rampant even in hollywood notably you know these are the people that are friends with Jeffrey Epstein arent wife seen. Its just not funny actually its just poor. Humor if youre not good at your job as a comedian youre not funny you cannot keep up with the times you know youre not going to have an interior that you didnt but shouldnt the audience have for using the example of a comedian shouldnt they be the judge ok i think like a lot to say thats the audience thats the audience when absolutely i dont like it and im never going to watch you again ok because you know you went over the border for me but that may not be the case for everyone and i think both of us all of us want in our viewers watching this program is that humor is a way to kind of get dont go over the line in kind of talk about things that many people arent sure but i mean a lot of the comedians that are attempting to be canceled for example bill burr or. Louis c. K. Or joe rogan none of those people are cancelled and i mean like louis c. K. You made a comeback hes got a standing ovation on his 1st comedy gig coming back will burst out a famous asked joe rogan still has the biggest task United States so im just not seeing how this is really like an epidemic actually you know most people are who are attempt to be canceled really like you have no detriment to their life that oh i think we could argue that it does have something but it comes to what intellectuals and journalists i think aronsen are actually im more concerned with i dont i dont care about hollywood a listers most of them are complete idiots ok that wasnt news who cares who cares ok i dont know why people spend their time on it i dont look to hollywood per inspiration intellectually i dont know if thats ever been the case here but you know michel you know what im more concerned with is designed this in the in academia in the early ninetys in the United States that when i see now in the public sphere is whats already happening in the university its one of the reasons why last because it wasnt about scholarship anymore it was about finding the right way oh yes yes and i would definitely agree with that you see certain people out there you reference b. B. L. S. Intellectual dark web for example someone like pregnancy nurse brother or dr Jordan Peterson people. Mills lights theres certain things that they discuss that suddenly become or they Say Something along the lines and all the sudden theyre persona non grata in those particular communities now whether or not the attempt to successful or not i think is a honestly irrelevant it is the mentality that this person or their words must not exist that is the and the issue because it goes further than left and right left and right it goes you know beyond Something Like that it has something to do with our attitudes towards one another as people and i think that those are individuals that are very good examples of that because the people who whatever i would see. Dr peterson specifically spoken to by someone who you know would be on a different political or different state of mind than himself there was instantaneous hostility despite the fact that he is such a soft spoken and knowledgeable individual all that up all that we have to go to the heart breaking out about heart break well continue our discussion on Council Culture stay with our. If youre born into a poor family if youre born into a minority family if youre born into a family that only has a single parent that really constrains your life chances people die. Generational poverty. Fight every day you meet your needs and the needs of your family. Welcome out across stuff were all things are considered im futilely go to remind you were discussing Council Culture. Ok lets go back to ground here right one of the things that i really worry about is this tendency to have a monolithic big point of view on the past. And how much people should think and behave now. No i think theres a lot of concern for minty because being pushed and i find that really disturbing im really glad that Jordan Peterson was was mentioned i actually am a fan of a lot of things that Jordan Peterson talks about not everything i cherry pick like everybody else i think his understanding of history is white we obviously knows a lot about psychology and a lot of it is just its standard it is accepted in his profession but its these people on the outside on the fringes jump in and as if they are experts because it doesnt consume or do what you think about gender for example it or unsay amalie unix ok and i find it really disturbing is that theres this constant tendency for concern for many go ahead for. Well on the example of dr Jordan Peterson actually i read a really great opinion piece by i believe swedish scholar who studies the holocaust and he wrote the op ed in her rats and actually went through the line of Jordan Petersons hostility to the left how it relates to the old rites of general rigidity and kind of basically petersons holocaust revisionism and how he kind of categorized as hitler and the Nazi Movement in general as one of resentment against jewish people but categorizes socialism as inherently violent and genocidal and you can see in this way its kind of a sympathy with that and its not only its not only that he has bad ideas but he has also bad ideas based on just terrible scholarly work is that you know. I would distemper that by saying maybe its not necessarily a bad idea just that its bad research ok i mean plates nobody research that leads to an idea i dont know i think its like the great famine. Of the if that happened in Ukraine Southern russia and kazakhstan ok he has a he doesnt know the facts he doesnt know the history ok and i found that really quite disappointing ok if youre going to have a good and he drew the wrong conclusions because he had backed. Bad knowledge of history but if youre going to paint yourself as an expert in your should have this great public space at books that you should have some kind i like saying were not rate were completely a grain when it comes to talking about psychology i found that really interesting when he bared off into politics and we had that debate ridiculous debate was easing which was a train wreck if you say it was a train wreck or have me go back to my car here you know. What i did see happening and it is primarily from the left ok is that it. Is this tendency to. To shrink this is they do they have a spirited discussion ok its almost kind of like you know you know every guy is so every white guy has a racist hes a hes a redeemable racist but hes an irredeemable races i mean if it limits the area of discussion then you can have yeah and i would i would agree completely with that you know that is something that we have seen a lot from certain areas of academia and the black lives Matter Movement has has very much left on to that this idea that its almost comparable to original sin in a lot of ways the original sin of the white men is slavery or other things along those lines and it seems like there is this assumption that is made that because you are of this particular skin color you have a level of privilege quote unquote doesnt matter what your background is richer or what have you there is something along those lines and that sort of assumption of course tosses away any sort of idea of character or the ability to redeem oneself if they were an idiot at a younger age so on so forth it basically throws away the very idea of individuality as a sense you are not you know in this case mike or brad you are tasty white you youre white you know fertile like a better term you know that sort of assumption its it basically throws people into categories as opposed to you know taking people people person by person as such theyre much easier to dismiss or put or throw away in a sense as opposed to looking like them you know where he had them like a person. Brad how do you how do you react because i completely agree i mean on the issue of white mans original sin id like to be historical here is if it was white people then and International Slavery in the 19th ce