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/334/ Cancellation is Cancelled ft. Norman Finkelstein (Patreon)

Published:
2023-04-18 15:29:35
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

On the US cultural climate.

Renowned/notorious writer Norman Finkelstein joins us to discuss the themes of his latest and last book, I'll Burn That Bridge When I Get To It!

What unites the leading intellectual proponents of wokeness today, people like Ibram X Kendi or Kimberlé Crenshaw? How do they differ from anti-racist and liberationist heroes of the past? What continuities are there between today's cancel culture and the politics of the New Left? 

We discuss the definition of wokeness and ask whether we have already reached peak wokeness, and examine the emergence of anti-wokness.

Readings:

I'll Burn That Bridge When I Get To It!: Heretical Thoughts on Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, and Academic Freedom, Norman Finkelstein, Sublation

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Comments

Davka Smolah Collective

So regarding taboos, there's something I never understand in the "pro" and "anti" debate. Don't taboos usually come as the "cherry on top" of winning a political battle? The Allies didn't fight the Nazis because they considered eugenics taboo (they quite liked it, often); rather, they tabooed eugenics because it was associated with their defeated enemy. Why talk about this as a matter of free speech rather than as a matter of power, that of either authority or simple objective truth?

Julien Armstrong

What is so remarkable about China's economic strides in the 20th century that couldn't also be said about South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia or even Thailand (I'll exclude Japan because it was significantly more advanced than other Asian nations in 1900)? Is the argument that Chinese culture was somehow substantially more backwards than those of the other countries mentioned?

jkjkjkj

I’m surprised Norm didn’t discuss Ta Nehisi Coates and Nikole Hannah Jones. Frankly I think they’re more relevant than Crenshaw at the moment, who is relevant to academics but not as much to the targeted audience of wokeness. I will also contend that Norms narrative around Obama crushing bernie has a degree of weight, but pointing to South Carolina seems superfluous, as it is a state whose primary was by all measures among the oldest and most conservative in the country and many of whose voters take cue (and historically have) from the African American-Democratic political machine that typically spring up in states with large African American populations. That distinction is important because it taps beyond idpol as symbolism or signaling but into actual political machinery, something which is an explicit and intentional alternative to class organizing

Justin O’Connor

The size of the country and the fact that it happens outside US hegemony

Andrew Mountford

Enjoyed listening to Norm. I'm dissappointed that there was no discussion of the weaponisation of racism against Corbyn in the UK. Something which bunga continues to avoid/downplay but was very significant in the attacks on the left and something which Norm has spoken up against in the past (though I don't know if its dealt with in his book.)

FDC

I have to say I found this conversation disappointing. It's not that I disagreed with a lot of what he was saying, but I was hoping for something new or a fresh angle. People have been doing these critiques of wokeness for at least the last five years and there was nothing new here. There was too much complaint about how people aren't real radicals anymore and a lack of deeper analysis or insight, either into the material foundations of contemporary politics or their intellectual origins.

DTC

How the hell is deleuze a philosopher of wokeness?