Special Episode: Bret Stephens on Cancel Culture
One of our regular guests – Bret Stephens, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for The New York Times – returns for a conversation on cancel culture, anti-semitism and a new issue of a journal he edits, called Sapir.
Bret joined The New York Times after a long career with The Wall Street Journal, where he was most recently deputy editorial page editor and, for 11 years, a foreign affairs columnist. Before that, he was editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post. And prior to Israel, he was based in Brussels for The Wall Street Journal.
In this episode we speak extensively about Sapir: https://sapirjournal.org/
Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
[00:00:00] for years. Uh, the Hasidic community in Williamsburg and other areas of New York has been under attack and very few people outside of those communities were aware of them. We just weren't reporting it.
From time to time on this podcast, we drop special episodes, topics that are meaty enough to warrant their own conversation, but not long enough to be a dedicated episode. It's what my, one of my favorite podcasters, Bill Simmons calls Free appetizers, free apps. It comes before the meal. It's not the entire meal, but it's on the house.
So this one's on the house. Look out for a regular full length episode, The Meal, to drop Tuesday. But until then, for this special episode, this free app, we have one of our regular guests, Bret Stephens, the Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the New York Times, [00:01:00] returning for a conversation about cancel culture, anti Semitism, and a new issue, of a journal he edits called Sapir.
More on Sapir later. As listeners to this podcast know, Brett came to the New York Times after a long career with the Wall Street Journal, where he was most recently Deputy Editorial Page Editor and for 11 years a Foreign Affairs Columnist. Before that he was Editor in Chief of the Jerusalem Post. And prior to Israel, he was based in Brussels, also for the Wall Street Journal.
Brett was raised in Mexico City. He earned his BA at the University of Chicago and his master's At the London School of Economics. This is Call Me Back.
And I'm pleased to welcome back to the podcast for a special episode, uh, Bret Stephens of the New York Times, of the Superior Journal, and as we recently discussed, banned, officially banned by Vladimir Putin and the Russian government, uh, a very high distinction. Bret, good to see ya. Good to be here. Okay, so I want to [00:02:00] talk, I am, um, I inhale Sapir, Sapir Journal, which is a new journal that you started and, uh, the Maimonides Fund backs, and it's this incredible collaboration between you and Maimonides.
Uh, I'm a huge fan. I, I have the various issues here and you can read it online, sapirjournal. org. There's the Uh, there was the summer 2021 issue on power, there was the, uh, winter 2022 issue on aspiration, there was the spring 2022 issue on zionism, I can go on and on, I actually have like, you know, highlighted notes from some of these essays that I liked, uh, or, or wanted to use a reference because you also collect, you, you basically, uh, Collect a pretty interesting group of writers, but I want to talk about the newest issue Which just came out called Jews and cancel culture.
Yeah, so I guess first tell us what Sapir is and then I want to talk about [00:03:00] why you Decided to do a whole issue on Jews and cancel culture. Well Sapir is a new Quarterly, whose subtitle is, uh, ideas for a thriving Jewish future. So, uh, what we see ourselves as doing is providing, uh, Jews, particularly Jewish Americans, uh, with, uh, not just arguments, but really prescriptive ideas for how to make different aspects of Jewish life, uh, more successful, um, to, uh, increase, uh, a sense of.
community and commitment and, uh, and purpose, um, uh, and excellence to, uh, uh, to Jewish life. Um, and I also am of the view that the best way to do that is to [00:04:00] bring in writers of different perspectives, whether they're, uh, different religious perspectives, uh, or different political, uh, perspectives, uh, so that.
We're really speaking to the broad Jewish family and not just Uh the left wing sort of dissent reading side of it or the right of center neoconservative side of it but a broad spectrum of of people. So that's, that's Sapir and every issue, uh, and we do it, we publish it on a quarterly basis. Every issue is devoted to a single theme, whether it's social justice or continuity or Zionism or education or now cancellation.
And we attack that theme from a whole variety of perspectives. So the new issue on cancellation, what, what, what was the inspiration for this? Uh, issue, why did you think you needed to write it and what and you wrote an essay for it called Jews and cancel culture, which can you talk a [00:05:00] little bit about that too?
Well, I think the whole subject of cancellation engages a set of uh, deeply jewish questions Ethically and theologically david wolpe has uh, the rabbi has a wonderful essay Uh, tackling the, uh, some of the theological issues, but it also engages, I think, a lot of Jews and people who, uh, are, uh, uh, in, in professional life, uh, uh, on a personal basis because cancel culture has come.
Uh, knocking on our doors in our organizations, in our universities, in our, uh, uh, media establishments and so on. And so we thought that this was, uh, a, a fruitful topic about which people have, um, strong views and important views. And, uh, and we, we decided to cover it. And what you talk a bit, a little bit about.
You know, we, [00:06:00] we, we tend to, um, we don't, we're not very clear, I guess, is my interpretation on drawing a distinction between what it means to be cancelled and what it means to live with consequences for bad behavior, but not totally cancelled. So you talk a little bit about the, the distinction and why it's important.
Yeah, I mean, look, uh, uh, Harvey Weinstein wasn't cancelled Harvey Weinstein was behaving in a criminal fashion, and he was not just fired, but he, he, he paid, uh, deep legal consequences. Another example I mentioned is Roseanne Barr, who, uh, uh, addressed, uh, tweeted about, Valerie Jarrett, the former, uh, President Obama's former, uh, uh, aide, uh, in a manner that was sort of nakedly, uh, racist, uh, and, uh, Disney fired her.
Well, Disney has legitimate reputational interests in not having one of its [00:07:00] Premier talents, uh, uh, speaking that way. And those are, that's normal. That's normal, established behavior. That's not cancel culture. Cancel culture is, uh, a new, uh, different set of attitudes about. Um, what is a firing offense? And, uh, the goal is not simply to discipline an unruly person.
The goal is to establish, um, a set of norms, uh, uh, within organizations that are punitive and that advance, uh, ideological agendas, that's cancellation. So I spell out in my essay that cancellation is an action, it's a method. It is, uh, a mentality. Uh, it's a culture. Um, and it's finally it involves also, uh, capitulation on the part of, uh, managers who ought to know better and ought to know that [00:08:00] there ought to be something between, um, uh, uh, uh, capital punishment and, uh, uh, no consequences whatsoever when it comes to, uh, infractions That are effectively about, uh, um, political views or norms rather than professional conduct.
And you point out that it often is, you know, standards that are constantly changing that are impossible to keep up with. So, you know Right, exactly. And that's one of the things that's terrifying about cancel culture, which is, uh Is what was acceptable five years ago or five weeks ago, or five weeks ago, acceptable today.
Um, uh, and, and by the way, if it is unacceptable, is the consequence going to be, uh, um, firing? Uh, are there any warnings? Um, are there any steps along the way to, [00:09:00] uh, disciplinary action? And are the, and are the penalties going to apply retroactively to behavior that happened when something, when some kind of, you know, when it was much more, uh, uh, ordinary behavior.
So that's, that's a profound distinction, which is that cancel culture reaches into the past to discover behavior. That might've been okay then, or at least not, uh, not a firing offense then, and turned it into a firing offense now, and it's making, it's making organizational life, professional life scary.
And it is another key distinction. It is mostly. Most of it involves people, the, the accusers and the system that enforces, you know, that, that, that, um, sentences one to cancellation. It's basically operating in bad faith. They're not actually trying to constructively engage the, the person charged. It is, it is There's no [00:10:00] effort at achieving reconciliation, offering forgiveness.
Uh, if you say, if you apologize in, uh, in, in a organization that has been, that, Has adopted a cancel culture mentality. That apology isn't seen as, uh, a bid for forgiveness or an effort at a conversation. It's a it's an admission of guilt for which the sentence is always, um, uh, reputational ruin. Um, and that's and anyone who is working in, uh, most organizations, large organizations, the United States today, I think is afraid.
Uh, there's a there's just a pervasive fear. Yeah. Uh, in almost any, uh, uh, line of work with which I'm familiar. So now let's talk about rising anti Semitism, which you've, you've written about in your column. Most recently, you wrote a column about, uh, Kanye West and [00:11:00] you, you, you cite some pretty Uh, staggering data.
It's out there for 2020. The FBI reports that Jews who constitute about 2. 4 percent of the adult of the total adult population in the United States were on the receiving end of 54. 9 percent of all religiously motivated hate crimes on many nights in New York City. Hasidic or Orthodox Jews are being shoved, harangued and beaten.
You talk a lot, a lot about this. The chief of the New York City Police Commissioner was recently in a meeting with Some friends of mine who she said it's like unbelievable you have these gangs of young people roaming the streets of Brooklyn who go out They go out on a Saturday night looking to go beat an Orthodox and a Hasidic Jew That's like they're out and about like that's the that's their recreational activity.
It's it's something they have not seen anything like this I mean in you know In decades, right? Since the early 90s. So, and even what they're seeing now is, is actually [00:12:00] different than what they were seeing post, you know, Crown Heights. So, and then, but you say what we're going through now is one of the most under reported stories in the country.
And you say, which itself is a telling indicator in an era that is otherwise hyper attuned to prejudice and hate, I guess hyper attuned to the need to cancel. And yet you're saying, here no one's paying attention, and then Kyrie happens, Kyrie Irving, and then Kanye West happens. Do you think things are changing?
Do you think people are paying attention? I hope so. And I think that the media started paying attention because, uh, Kanye West is seen as a right wing figure. Uh, although his strand of, uh, anti Semitism seems to be inspired by kind of Louis Farrakhan, uh, or, uh, the Black Hebrew movement, which is an anti Semitic, uh, uh, movement.
So I think [00:13:00] that has prompted some, some belated attention by the media. Uh, but I've been just shocked by so much of the coverage. Just to give you one example, uh, after that hostage taking situation in, uh, near Dallas in, uh, in January, uh, the FBI said I think idiotically, I don't, I just think the agent in charge, uh, didn't know what he was talking about said, uh, well, we don't think this was an anti Semitic attack, um, or words to that effect, compare that to the way in which.
The same media and then the media parroted that line from the FBI for about a week. Um, compare that to the way the f uh, uh, the, the mainstream media, um, provided wall to wall coverage on anti-Asian attacks in the wake of that, that horrific set of massage parlor shootings [00:14:00] in the vicinity of Atlanta, uh, a year, uh, uh, a year earlier.
So. Uh, you know, when there are hate crimes against, uh, Jews, particularly if the hate crimes are not coming from people in MAGA hats, uh, they tend to be, uh, uh, dramatically, noticeably underreported or excused as a function of the Israeli Palestinian, uh, conflict, or, uh, or as a, uh, misguided, uh, uh, misguided retribution for, Uh, Jewish behavior in, in mixed neighborhoods, like, you know, uh, aggressive landlords or Jewish landlords or, or, uh, new Jewish neighbors who want to, you know, want to buy their neighbor's, their neighbor's homes.
So, this itself is part of the problem. It's not anti Semitism, but it's sort of anti Semitic adjacent because it, applies one set of standard to, uh, [00:15:00] uh, anti Jewish hate crimes and another set of standard to hate crimes against other groups. Uh, the, you also said other examples like what's happened at the University of Berkeley Law School.
UC Berkeley Law School or the, what, what the new museum in the L, in L. A., the, the Oh, well, that was extraordinary. You know, I mean, Hollywood was a town, an industry that was invented by Jewish entrepreneurs, uh, back, you know, a hundred or ninety years ago. And a new museum, uh, dedicated to exploring that history had an exhibit on diversity in Hollywood.
Uh without once mentioning, uh, jewish diversity when when this of course was pointed out The museum scurried to find a permanent exhibit to you know People like jack warner and lewis my mayor and so on goldwood. But the fact that But the fact that it [00:16:00] required public outrage to get there was, was extraordinarily, uh, was extraordinarily telling, you know, and it, and at Berkeley, uh, a number of student organizations, um, uh, decided that they would not host, uh, uh, any kind of Zionist speaker and would require, uh, would, would, would, you know, make this a, a, a, a a litmus test, and the university, which wouldn't have stood for this for one second, uh, if it came to another discriminated against group, is sort of twisting itself into knots over the free speech, uh, issues at, at play.
My suggestion to Berkeley, for what it's worth, is they should absolutely accept the free speech principle that these organizations Uh, don't need to, uh, host, uh, Zionist speakers and they should require that every speaker they do get sign a pledge which Berkeley Law School will post on its website saying I, I adamantly [00:17:00] reject Zionism and Israel and that apartheid state so that, so that, uh, law schools and, uh, uh, judges offering clerkships can just see that posted in, in a public place so that these, these militant anti Zionists can Uh, what about so essentially a no Jewish Zionist policy, uh, uh, that, that they, that they can be seen and heard, uh, uh, in, in a way that has, uh, that, that goes beyond simply the question of the, uh, uh, a speaking engagement at Berkeley.
So last week I was at a, an event for the Jewish Federation, New York city to do this annual gala, their big wall street event where they have leaders from finance and investment. Management sectors, investment banking, uh, a couple of them get honored each year. It's a big, it's one of the biggest fundraisers for the New York City Jewish Federation, New York City Jewish, organized Jewish community.
And the keynote speaker was Van Jones, who you, [00:18:00] who you know worked in the Obama administration, who's a commentator on CNN, who's done a lot of work in, uh, on, on criminal justice reform. Uh, Black leader in the black community and he's made he got up there and gave a speech and he opened it was sort of Chilling he says I'm here with an apology.
So he said I'm here with an apology and the apology he Was making according to him you can find his speech. It's it's public It was he says it's on behalf of my community for not for not speaking out after Kanye He focused on con Kanye and and on behalf of the media, which I'm a part of he says For not actually taking these issues seriously and not reporting on them as we should have and he says that's about to change now It was it was an impressive His remarks, at least at the beginning there, were impressive, and it was admirable that he said these things, but I thought to myself, It's great, I like Van, it's great that he's saying these things, but he's saying it to a big Jewish audience in New York City.
[00:19:00] Who's making this point to the media? Decision makers in the media, mainstream media. Who's making this point to leaders in the black community? I is, is there, is there a real effort? I know we're all talking about it and the hand wringing about it, but you know, this is a discussion that has to happen inside certain industries and inside certain communities, not just within our own, uh, well, inside the media, I guess I am
Yeah. So you're there, you're in the belly of the beast. It's, it's a point that I make, uh, repeatedly and I think, uh, uh, I wrote a long Sunday review, uh, piece of the times on after that, pretty much exactly. Exactly. Well, actually, so I did it about the cartoon. Uh, and then I did it after the Colleyville hostage hostage situation.
Um, but, um, uh, the media, I think to some extent, this is a hypothetical. Uh, so I don't, uh, I'm, [00:20:00] I may be wrong, but I think to some extent, uh, a lot of, uh, Jewish media people who are Jews who are, Uh, leaders in, in their respective media organizations that think, well, we can't have a Jewish problem here in terms of our coverage because, you know, we're Jewish.
And so we are immune from any charge of anti Semitism, uh, and no one is charging them with anti Semitism. The question is, are you, are we giving this the kind of attention that it needs, or are we in fact downplaying it? Uh, because we somehow think it's less important than hate crimes being perpetrated against, uh, uh, other groups.
I don't know whether that's true or not, but I suspect there's at least some aspect, uh, uh, there that's, that's, uh, accurate. Um And, uh, and as a result, you know, for, for, uh, years, uh, the Hasidic [00:21:00] community in Williamsburg and other, other areas of New York has been under attack and very few people outside of those communities, uh, were aware of them, we just weren't reporting it.
Or when, uh, the LA times had this. I think it was, no, excuse me, it was another news organization, had a story about, uh, uh, Jewish diners at a sushi restaurant in West Hollywood being assaulted. During the Gaza War. During the May 21 Gaza War. Yeah. Right. And, and the, the suggestion was, well, uh, anger about the war just spilled over onto the streets of Yeah, it was a KABC report.
It was a local affiliate report. And it was, the line was, Middy's, Middy's, I'm quoting, Middy's tensions lead to L. A. fight. Yes, which, which is, it was, the Middy's tensions did not lead to the fight, and the fight was not a fight, it was an assault. Uh, and yet that's how it was reported, and you have to ask yourself, well Right, so [00:22:00] Jewish diners are eating sushi in L.
A., they get attacked in like a, in like a, like a mob attack and this is, uh, which is really like a blatantly anti Semitic attack and the press covers it as Mideast tensions lead to L. A. fight. I mean, it's unthinkable in other contexts, you know, white person upset about human rights situation. in, uh, Ethiopia, uh, attacks, uh, black people in the United States.
I mean, you know, it's, it's absurd and, and, uh, and of course it would unthinkable to, but it's commonplace when it comes to discussing. The Middle East vis a vis the, the safety, uh, of, of American Jews. So this is, this is an issue, and as I said, I've repeatedly tried to call attention to problematic way in which too much of the media, uh, reports it.[00:23:00]
All right, Brett, we'll leave it there. I highly recommend, uh, the Superior Journal, Ideas for a Thriving Jewish Future, which, again, we'll post on the show notes. And, um, the, uh, you know, as each issue comes out, there's always something, uh, you'll want to, um You want to sink your teeth in, so maybe we'll, readers will, so, uh, Brett, maybe we'll have you come back on again in the future to hit a future issue, uh, because, uh, it's like a discussion driver, and I have more and more people pointing out essays to me, I'm like, you don't have to point out Sapir to me, I'm on it, so, anyways, with that, thanks for coming on, and don't go to Russia.
Uh, no plans, thank you very much, Jim.
That's our show for today, be sure to look out tomorrow for a full episode. And also be sure to follow Sapir at sapirjournal. org, S A P I R G O U R N A L, that's sapirjournal. org. Call me back. It's [00:24:00] produced by Ilan Benatar. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.