Transcript of a conversation hosted by Rob Henderson discussing recent fallout at elite universities (Yale, Harvard, MIT, Penn), the rise of 'wokeness' since ~2015, and consequences for academics (public and 'soft' cancellation). The speakers reflect on personal experiences of dismissed or marginalized academics, ideological policing in institutions, and migration of debate to podcasts and alternative platforms.
What do you make of the last few months of fallout from Yale and Harvard and such?
I mean, yeah, we saw that big testimonial from the presidents. Yeah, it was Harvard, mit, Penn. I mean, I wasn't surprised by it. I mean, a lot of people, I think, are finally fully realizing they're coming to their senses. People have been saying this for a while now. Oh, you know, eventually the pendulum will swing back and people will finally figure out what's really going on in these institutions and this sort of ideology that's been spilling out of the universities, and now I think they finally are actually truly realizing it. But, yeah, I saw the kind of the birth of what a lot of people call wokeness in 2015 when I arrived on campus at Yale, and that was my first semester. I saw what was happening there. And, yeah, I mean, I think you can draw a straight line from some of those events in 2015 to what we're seeing now. And, yeah, it's been really ugly, but kind of amusing from my perspective because I was one of the. I'd like to think that I was one of the sort of early observers and people who could recognize what was occurring and then later on. So Jordan Peterson was another. And there have been other critics of higher ed and especially these elite universities. But, yeah, it's been really, really amusing and also sort of disheartening to see it.
There's this sort of odd blend of fatalism, Chardon Freud, nihilism, sort of pleasure, displeasure. Yeah, like, ick, Pity. Yeah, It's a real concatenation of. Of things. And obviously we've got a couple of mutual friends that have either been directly or tangentially involved. Vincent, our mutual friend. I managed to get removed from a higher education institution because of him appearing on this podcast.
Yeah.
Carol Hooven.
Yeah.
Who is, you know, really good mutual friend, has kind of been thrust into the middle of this. She told me that she basically felt like she'd been used like a football. And for the people who know who Carol is, she went on Rogan, I think she cried like six times on Joe's show. She cried at least three times on mine. We went for breakfast. I'm pretty sure she cried like three times at breakfast. She's just a very sort of emotional person. She's really sort of feeling this. And, yeah, you realize in a sort of proxy fucking battle like this, the people that are useful political footballs to be kicked around often end up paying a pretty high price. And no one ever thinks about them because you're like oh, no, but you're, you know, you're a flaming warrior for free speech or whatever. And you go, well, yeah, but I didn't ask to be.
Yeah, yeah. Very few people want to be fired. I mean, it's. A lot of people may not be familiar with just how difficult it is to get an academic job in the first place. I mean, I, you know, I'm friends with Vincent. I saw. I mean, he was hustling hard and he had a very impressive academic record. And no one wants to be in that position. I think the, Their, their critics or their detractors say, like, oh, you know, oh, poor me with your cancel culture. And now look at you going on all these podcasts and playing up your victim. Victimhood and all of this. But that's not what it is. I think it's. For some people, it's just a consolation that, well, I lost my dream job. At the very least, I can sort.
Of communicate fucking something.
Exactly. And, yeah, I was observing all of this from afar. I mean, one thing that I've pointed out before is that for every, like, public academic cancellation, you see there are probably five to 10 others that are not covered in the media. Most people actually don't enjoy the limelight that much, especially academics who tend to be kind of weird nerds with their obscure niche interests. They just want to keep their head down, do their research, be left alone, and then suddenly they are accused of X, Y, or Z and they just want to silently have it blow over. And that's like the sort of modal case. That's the usual case. And so, yeah, it's been, we can see it now that finally people are recognizing that there's a serious issue. I didn't even want an academic job. I mean, by the time I was probably about halfway through my PhD, I saw what was happening. I remember, yeah, I would have very contentious discussions with other PhD students and postdocs and kind of early career researchers. And I would tell them, I don't think that if you color outside the lines, if you are an independent thinker, it will be very difficult for you to get a sort of typical tenure track academic job now. Not impossible, but just much harder than it would have been maybe 10 or 15 years ago. And people would say, oh, no, that's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And now, you know, four, four plus years later, I'm seeing, like some of those friends are having difficulty. Some of them have been hired and fired by now. It's been, you know, I've seen the whole. The whole spectrum of outcomes. Some of them have successfully obtained jobs and just, you know, keep their mouth shut. But for me, I just. That wasn't what I thought academia was going to be like. Yeah, I thought it was going to be, you know, this little kind of contained bubble, you know, the. I guess some people call it the ivory tower. Right. Where you can live that life of the mind and communicate interesting ideas and debate and disagree, but still sort of inch your way towards the truth or at least inch your way towards interesting ideas. But, you know, that's interestingly happening more on places like podcasts and substack and alternate sort of parallel institutions.
Yeah, it's fascinating to think as well about, I guess, soft cancellation. So I had Ricky Schlott on, who co authored the canceling of the American Mind with Greg Lukianoff, and she was talking about all of the different ways that people kind of get soft cancelled and it's just not being invited to the end of your party. You know, it's people sitting in different locations to you. I think she went to maybe NYU Stern and she was hiding Jordan Peterson books under her bed. You know, like fucking Anne Frank in the attic. That philosophical Anne Frank. And she was saying that, you know, there's lots of sort of ideological shit tests, she called them, which I thought was a really great name. You know, what do you think about Ben Shapiro? You know, just like fucking throw that hand grenade into the room and see if anyone pipes up or doesn't pipe up.
That was something that I learned when I was in grad school, was, does anyone just remain silent and not say, oh, he's so. He's an evil right wing. Whatever. Right. If they just kind of keep their head down and don't say anything, you know, I sort of.
Oh, I observed that silence is compliance or whatever.
Silence is violence or. Yeah, yeah.
Whatever it is. What about the. You had this interesting idea about the hidden hierarchies of the Harvard Extension School thing.
Yeah, yeah, Well, I saw that with, you know, I was, you know, observing what was occurring on Twitter X with Christopher Ruffo, who was one of the sort of architect.
