American Thought Leaders - The Cost of Staying Silent in the Face of Bullying Mobs: Katherine Brodsky

Episode Date: February 7, 2024

“If you can’t stand up for a human being that you respect, and love, and appreciate, and if you can’t stand up for a principle that you believe in, if you can’t stand up when somebody’s doing something that isn’t right—then who are you?”Katherine Brodsky was at the peak of her journalistic career, writing about technology, film, and culture for publications such as Variety and The Washington Post, when she fell victim to the cancel culture mob.“People were sending me threats. They were trying to reach out to my employers, or past employers, to make sure I was unhireable … People were attempting to dox me. So it just really spiraled beyond anything I’ve ever experienced,” says Ms. Brodsky.In this episode, we dive into her new book, “No Apologies: How to Find and Free Your Voice in the Age of Outrage,” and discuss her views, as a Canadian, on the recent federal court ruling against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.“I’ve been a liberal voter. So, I’m the Trudeau target demographic, although I wasn’t a huge fan. And I’ve even voted left of that, at a certain point. But the idea that you can just ignore a huge segment of your population and just paint them as evil and racist, and labels that didn’t even make sense that he gave them, it was very terrifying to see. And I went from not maybe liking him very much—because he was very virtue-signally, and I don’t think he was particularly smart—to really actively being afraid that he had this authoritarian streak,” says Ms. Brodsky.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

If you can't stand up for a principle that you believe in, if you can't stand up when somebody's doing something that isn't right, if you can't stand up for a human being that you respect and love and appreciate, who are you? Katherine Brodsky was at the peak of her journalistic career, writing about tech, film and culture for publications such as Variety and The Washington Post, when she fell victim to the cancel culture mob. People were sending me threats. They were trying to reach out to my employers or past employers

to make sure I was unhirable. People were attempting to dox me. So it's just really spiral beyond anything I've ever experienced. In this episode, we dive into her new book, No Apologies, How to Find and Free Your Voice in the Age of Outrage. This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Jan Jekielek. Catherine Brodsky, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders. Thanks for having me. Does it mean that I'm a thought leader now? I think so. And in your book, it's actually very interesting because I think of your book a bit like a kind of written version of American thought leaders. And some of them indeed actually have been on the show. A number of them have been on the show. But the format even is a little bit similar. So I feel a kinship there.

Oh, excellent. I'm glad I could inspire you. Just kidding. I think you've done it earlier than I have. So you predate me. Absolutely. And the central theme of your book, and there's multiple incredibly important themes, but one of the things that really jumped out to me, right, is how central the concept of bullying, you know, this thing from childhood, right? This thing, we don't really think about it. We think we've gotten over it. I experienced it myself and responded to it in different ways. It's kind of, you've made me actually reflect on this a bit from the book, but how central this is to the whole societal dynamic today. So why don't we just start there? That's a great place to start. It's interesting because I too have been quite massively bullied throughout high school. And it's interesting because the experiences that I've noticed in society as of late and things that I tackle in my book, as well

as my own experience, has very, very strong similarities to bullying. In fact, I don't know that you would distinguish it from bullying. The only difference might be is that there is some sort of a puritanical motivation, the self-righteousness that maybe bullies in high school didn't necessarily have to the same extent. They bullied you because, you know, you've talked a little funny or you looked a little funny or you just didn't quite fit in. But the tactics are very similar and it's never done, you know, it's not one individual doing the bullying. It's a number of individuals doing the bullying. So I think there's huge similarities. And, you know, I think

none of us really fully recover from it. But, you know, sometimes the bullied become the bullies, which I always found really strange, because I think for me, if anything, when I've sort of recovered from the bullying, it made me more empathetic towards other people who might experience the same. And, you know, I kind of think about how I might have felt and what I can do about that. But some people actually become the bullies. And, you know, once somebody is a victim, sometimes they can't wait to become the victimizer. And my dad, I remember, told me the story. That's the story that stuck with me. It was in the military. You know, it's kind of tradition to, to basically bully. Haze? Yeah, haze, exactly. The

hazing ritual, you know, that's, that is something that's very common in many environments, but in particular in the military. And it's quite, it can be quite terrible. But the, what he had noted was that the same people who were hazed quite terribly couldn't wait for that new fresh crop of people to come in so that they could haze them. And in some ways I think it's very relevant to what we're seeing in our culture. I think a lot of times it's people who've seen themselves as victims in the past. Now they have a bit of power and they can't wait to haze other people. So you know this phenomenon of cancellation, as we're

discussing this, it's actually a mass bullying, isn't it? I would say so. I would definitely say so. Again, same tactics. It's about a group of people coming at you. I think, and you see a pattern in my book, not all the people who've had this experience were women necessarily, but a lot of times they were. I think it does happen a little bit more frequently with women. And I think primarily because that's one of the powers of mechanism

is words and attacking people and canceling people and sort of ostracizing them. Those are very powerful weapons that people use to sort of take out their targets. But you're saying that the women do the bullying or the women are the bullied or both? Well, it can be both because women like to bully other women quite a bit. But I noticed that women do bully more frequently than men do their fists and settle it in a more aggressive way. And women tend to use their tongues a little bit more, not to fight, but with their words. Right. Well, no, and that's a trend I think that I've seen a number of people describe, even in scientific literature, so to speak.

You know, the effect of all this is something that you mention, and it's actually, I guess, another central theme in your whole story here, right, because you were kind of part of that silenced majority initially, just tell me a little bit about that. My hope is, and from what I've observed in society and having many, many conversations with people, is that a lot of the issues that they're seeing in society, including this trend towards intolerance, towards different ideas, the canceling of individuals, these bullying mob attacks. Those are not things that I believe that most people are actually approving of. In fact, a lot of them will voice that privately, but the problem is that they are afraid of becoming victims themselves or targets themselves, and therefore they don't speak up about it.

So that's what I really wanted to change. But, you know, part of my own story is that I wouldn't say that I hadn't spoken out at all, but I certainly my voice, I would describe it was much more of a whimper as I was starting to see things in society that were just not something that sort of adhered to my moral philosophy, my principles. And so I started having conversations with people, I would say, a number of years ago. I think I've always sort of expressed dissent when I didn't agree, but it was very private. And there were definitely many, many topics that I was certainly afraid to broach or I'd be much more cautious as to who I talked to about what. So I was definitely, I would consider myself one of the silenced. Catherine, if you don't mind, it would be great to just get our viewers to become familiar with who you were prior to starting to, as you said, raise your voice,

maybe initially with a whimper, but then more and more? Ironically enough, I was one of the people who was meant to be using their voice. So most of my career has been as a writer in different forms. I usually describe myself as a storyteller, but I was a journalist. I wrote for Variety. I wrote for The Washington a storyteller, but I was a journalist. I wrote for Variety. I wrote for the Washington Post, Guardian, Newsweek, Wired, all sorts of publications. And I wrote mostly on culture. I did a lot of interviewing. I did a lot of stories about tech and film and culture. But I wasn't an opinion writer. I wasn't somebody who was necessarily adding my own

context into the stories I was writing. And I also worked quite a bit in the film industry as well, sort of producing some of the behind the scenes content, so things like that. And so it was interesting because to me, I was sort of an objective observer of the world and not politically involved at all. One of the things that I've noticed about you as we've gotten to know each other over the past few years is that, you know, and sometimes it takes a little while, I just want to mention, for people to come out and have a voice, not because they're necessarily afraid, but just because they want to be sure they got it right. But you observed something happening.

Yeah, I absolutely was observing. And you're spot on, actually, with your assessment, because I think sometimes people perceive me as being a bit wobbly or not. You know, I don't speak always with such certainty because I'm often undecided about certain questions and I'm going back and forth and back and forth. And if I'm going to come out and say something that I really believe in, I have to actually really believe in it and be pretty convinced that I've got it right. And still willing, I'm always willing to change my mind. So it makes, you know, I think it's much more impactful sometimes when people speak with absolute certainty. It can be more charismatic, more persuasive. But for me, what I was quite certain that I was seeing in the world, especially in journalism, I was very much seeing how things were shifting from, you know, an objective reporting with very, you know, I was fortunate enough to work with editors who really honed in on some of my stories with really good questions to help me push my stories further,

to be more accurate, to not be putting any kinds of opinions in them and have that level of objectivity. Instead of this sort of objectivity, I was seeing, you know, pretty much activist journalism happening. And the other thing that I was seeing is that certain stories just weren't allowed to be told. And you had this sort of chilling effect. It wasn't like somebody was saying to you, you can't tell the story, you just kind of know. And I've noticed this. I remember pitching, I had an editor who was very, very enthusiastic about me writing actually an op-ed at the time. It would have been my first op-ed. And I had this really kind of different take on something that was happening

with the current news story. And it didn't quite conform to the societal norms, I suppose, at the time, even though in my mind, I was just investigating something that was quite obvious. I found additional facts about the story, and I thought it was worth tackling that. And I've had another experience with a very large publication that killed the story because it very much went against a particular narrative as well. And that was something that really stuck with me and really struck me. And it does have that chilling effect because next time I'm not going to to I never even pitched to any of these editors again. But that is a real problem. And I was very, very critical of journalism at the time. I started really speaking out about what was going on. It wasn't about an ideology.

It was really very much just about the principles. As somebody who grew up in very liberal environments, you know, freedom of speech, being able to challenge ideas, having the opportunity to discuss them was so fundamental and was actually very much embedded in these, you know, very left-leaning institutions. And suddenly it felt like it was abandoned. And I wasn't sure how that happened or what was going on, but I knew that that was happening. One of the things that just strikes me is that a number of the people that you interviewed in the book whose stories you tell in No Apologies, Brett Weinstein, for example, talks about how the idea of having challenging opinions and scientific opinions, viewpoints, is central to the idea of doing science at all. It's the scientific method. Right, right, exactly. And it's almost just bizarre. I hadn't really thought about it that

way, but it's just so bizarre that there's this idea that we work through scientific consensus, or that someone is the science, that's the one that has become one of my favorite, or at least can represent the truth of science at a given point. Exactly. When somebody challenges me, I see that as a service to me. I think often people respond to it and they're trying to defend their positions, and they see it as an attack. But to me, when somebody disagrees with me and they do it thoughtfully, it's kind of a gift, I say, because it allows me to refine my own perspective. And sometimes I'll go back and I'll have the same perspective,

but it will be stronger because I'll understand exactly why I believe what I believe. Or maybe there's some cracks in what I'm thinking and I need to adjust it a little bit. So I see that as a gift and we need that opportunity. And you're not going to get that opportunity if you're only talking to people who absolutely agree with you. So, and I think that's part of the radicalization that we're seeing where, you know, people go further and further into their sort of echo chambers, right, on the right, on the left, and in multiple disciplines, because

they don't have that push and pull that's really necessary to refine ideas and to keep them, you know, sort of sane. So instead, if you're just having people affirming exactly what you believe, you kind of gravitate further and further to some levels of extreme. And I think that is fundamentally a very dangerous thing. And that is what I'm currently seeing in our society, unfortunately. Well, and James Damore, as you note in the book, observes that that's what happened to Google at an institutional level, having no competition. It has the proclivity to get fixated on ideological things as opposed to having to face the needs of the populace, so to speak, or develop the product so that it will actually work for people as opposed to develop the thing they feel like they should be developing. Before we go there, I just want to talk about this moment where you suddenly

became outed as a thought criminal. How that happened, what you realized. Yeah, definitely. I think thought criminal is an apt descriptor of this. So there was an inciting incident, and somebody referred to it as my Genesis story, essentially, like a superhero or a supervillain. I don't know yet which one I'll be. And I guess it depends on people's perspectives, how they judge me. But, you know, I basically, I ran a group, and it was for female writers. And they had different offshoots that, you know, I basically I ran a group and it was for female writers and they had different offshoots that, you know, dealt with, you know, how to find work and advice and science writing and arts and business and all sorts of things. And so I decided I did an offshoot. And since it was already a group for women, I had to maintain that. So that group was for female writers and specifically focused on employment opportunities. And we had some mentorship programs within some resources

and just jobs that we would share within the group. And what happened was somebody shared Somebody shared a job opening at Fox News. And all hell broke loose, basically. And everybody, you know, people started really attacking her, piling up on this person and just really were quite savage to this individual. So I, you know, as the person who runs the group, I felt like I had to step in. So I made a post that I thought was pretty neutral. And I just said, let's avoid personal attacks and let's not have politics in the group. And let's come together instead of how we've been coming apart so much over the last few years. And I thought that was a pretty PC post, but apparently people did not agree with me. So they started, you know, calling me a white supremacist, said that I had soon let the KKK

recruit from my job board and all sorts of things. And it was just, it just really spiraled. And they also said, well, you can't take, if you take, you can't take politics out of a group that's meant for women because that's inherently political. So I said, OK, well, then I don't want politics in here, so I'll open it up to everyone, which I was fine with anyways. But that in particular caused things to really escalate. So it got to the point where people were sending me threats. They were trying to reach out to my employers or past employers to make sure I was unhirable. For example, one of the images that I really recall

is mobs with torches. And it just said, you know, we have long memories. Talk about billing. People downloaded my content. People were attempting to dox me. So it's just really spiraled beyond anything I've ever experienced. However, what I was also getting at the same time were also messages of support. And this kind of takes us back to this idea of the silent majority, because a lot of these people were saying, look, I see what's happening to you. And I think it's actually really wrong. But I feel really ashamed because I, I'm too afraid to speak up. And then on top of it, I was getting a lot of messages from people

who were sharing their own stories of how the bullies went after them and they've lost their employment opportunities. They've left their careers. They lost their communities. All of those things were happening. And I was really overwhelmed by all of that. And I felt like I had two options. I was really at a crossroad. I could go left and I could just remain silent and let this kind of fade away. And I think it would have, to be honest, because I think the mob only has, you know, attention spent for a couple of weeks. And the other option was to take a stand. And I took a stand. I wrote a piece for Newsweek. The other thing that was happening, they were writing like, little articles on me as well. So it was it was, it was somewhat prominent,

but it wasn't quite in that very, very public sphere at that point. And I was worried that, you know, now I'm making it public. And it's probably going to ruin my entire career and people were warning me not to do it. And the article, while it shared my own story, it was really about how we're heading towards this culture, already in this culture, of such intolerance towards different ideas, different people and the importance of having that tolerance and having that dialogue. And I found something within me that I didn't think really existed, like a backbone. And so I published it and waited. It's funny, now I feel sort of distanced from it. But at the time, it was deeply emotional. And as much as I hate using the word, I realize now that it was quite traumatic. I am a bit of a people pleaser the virtuous bullies, basically. And I called them

bullies, you know, call them out for what they were. And they kind of faded away. And instead, I ended up having a lot of people who came out and really resonated with the piece, people who shared their own experiences. And I started building sort of a community and also looking into the phenomenon a lot more, even though I was already aware of, you know, what people call cancel culture. I don't think I realized quite the extent because often we hear certain stories of perseverance.

We only hear about celebrities, big stars. We don't really hear about the average person who just has their, you know, nine to five job. And so I felt like writing this book, I really wanted to reach people and empower them so that they understand a what the scale of the problem is and why it's important, how it affects every part of our society, be it arts, be it science, be it tech, academia, and also, you know, take away some lessons from those people in terms of what they learned, what their path was. So that was my intention with writing the book. You know, initially, you had all these people reach out to you. Some of those people were no doubt what we would call conservatives. At the Epoch Times, I never thought about whether we were conservative or liberal or anything like that. We didn't really think in those categories

until 2015, 2016, when we started being pejoratively called conservative. I didn't even realize it was a pejorative. In Canada, as you know, it's the name of a political party. It's just very different in the U.S. But it was very much a pejorative. And you even mentioned in the book, too, how you had this kind of, you know, distance to so-called conservatives, whether or not they really were. And tell me a little bit about that and the change in your thinking and even what that means or how that's used. Yeah, I mean, I was always more, a little bit more open-minded about people on different political spectrums, because I was always sort of willing to talk to anybody. But even then, despite that, I think I definitely had some biases against conservatives. And certainly, you're right, the idea of somebody

being called a conservative, there is a slur-like element to it. So the people that reached out to me, I would say they were really all over the spectrum. And in fact, a lot of the times the people who were affected by it were people more predominantly on the left because it was their own tribes canceling them, but people who, and or people who sort of hid the fact that they were conservative. So I had a lot of people like that reach out for sure, because I mean, how awful is it that you have to hide that you're conservative? But I think a lot of people do. A lot of the people, because they were targeted more just for being conservatives, they there

is a lot of conservatives sort of took up this mantle for free speech and being anti-cancel culture because I feel like that was really affecting them and it was and at first as I sort of got to know much many more conservatives than I used to I just I just didn't really have many in my circle just because you know just the nature of the industries I was in. I got to know them and I got to know their perspectives and it wasn't entirely what I was told throughout my life. Now, there are definitely some that meet that stereotype of being, you know, these kind of alt-right or white supremacist types. They do very much exist and I've come across them also. But, you know, that's not the vast majority of people that I had encountered. We have different perspectives

on things. But the often what I've realized is often we want to solve similar problems. We just have different approaches to how we want to go about it. So, you know, it's been quite a journey for me to get to know that group of people. And I think in the beginning, I was even like, well, maybe I'm a conservative, and I just didn't know it. And I quickly realized that that is not the case, just because of how I look at the world and some of the values that I have. But what bothers me a lot about all this is I really didn't used to think about it much. You know, I really never really, you know, yes, I view myself as a liberal, but it wasn't a big part of my identity. It didn't care so much about somebody's political orientation.

It wouldn't even be a question that I would ask. And now there is this kind of everyone's sort of divided and they divide themselves as well, right? They put it on their bios on social media and they won't talk to the other side. And they'll actually state that in their bios as well. And I've seen that on, frankly, both sides of the aisle. And even in the beginning, some people that I've engaged with, immediately, because there was like a liberal, which they could tell from the publications I've written for, you know, they would be very, very angry towards me. And I know that happens very much on the other side as well. There's this

dehumanization that that's going on. But ultimately, you know, this is also a part of the stifling of ideas, because I had conversations with communists, actually, and I've had conversations with people very much on the right. And I think there are some things that I agree with, you know, that might be considered traditionally on the left, some things on the right. And frankly, I don't even see it as this like two sides anyways. I think you need to look at things and look, here's the best idea. This idea is going to really help this issue. Nobody should really care if this is traditionally right or left, as long as it helps people.

But unfortunately, we have such a rivalry going on and sort of an inability to compromise or work together and find some solutions together. And I think that causes a lot of chaos and a lot of problems don't get fixed. Like, for example, something that I've noticed that both people on the left and the right would be pretty keen on fixing and even investing money in is homelessness or mental health issues. Mental health issues is something that seems to really unite in the conversations that I've had. People are pretty united in wanting to do something about it and increase attention and even increase funding, even though conservatives might be traditionally against putting as much money into social programs. And yet they're not talking to each other. And so

the problem gets completely ignored. And so that's something that was part of my discovery process, I guess. Well, some of these ideas, you could use the term leftist or far left or whatever, a lot of the ideas that dominate in our society today are ideas that don't withstand that scrutiny. Yet, we're implementing them. For example, the current border policy would be a great example of something which is, by any rational standard, a horrible failure. But because it can't withstand scrutiny, it ends up being something that's beyond reproach. And a lot of these types of ideas, that's how I view the purpose, in a way, of this silencing, of creating this silenced majority. Perhaps this was Herbert Marcuse's evil genius

when he came up with this repressive tolerance principle where you can't tolerate people that aren't part of our team because they're regressive and we need to push forward with the revolution. Yeah, I mean, I again, I think it's this sort of positioning where people are very just defensive of their ideas instead of coming together. Something like the border, and I have no real expertise there. But you know, it is something that I imagine that a lot of people on both sides are pretty concerned about it. But I would say that people on the left would have a very difficult time voicing that because it will come across, you know, potentially racist, even though it really shouldn't be. If you're going to have borders, you do have the right to enforce them. You might

disagree with the idea of having borders, which is fine, you can have some arguments for that. I've had them myself. But if you believe that borders should exist, then, you know, you should support those borders being enforced. And I think that with conservatives, what I find is that there is a very aggressive way of talking about it. So I think they're right to bring it up. But I think what's happening is that you have one side that's just, you know, vilifying anything that conservatives say or any issues they bring up and instead sort of cling to these potentially bad ideas no matter what, which is a terrible position to take because you're just causing chaos. And on the other hand, you have a group of people who are just very fed up with being ignored. And so they're getting more aggressive. And that really precludes a very good conversation or a working relationship between the two where really they should be working

on some things together because i think they can and again they can sort of balance each other and then people getting increasingly frustrated to the point that you know some people are seriously discussing civil war which is absolutely insane i hope it's not remotely realistic but but that is the mindset that's happening. And part of that, well, a huge part of that is happening because there's a side that feels like they're not being listened to at all and they're vilified. And so they become such radically defensive. Well, and then, you know, many people that I've spoken with on the show, and I think you've spoken with some of them as well, would argue that that's indeed by design, because the sort of the purpose of this is to kind of, you know, kind of break the system in a way. And as much as many people aren't, that might be involved in that aren't aware that that's the true motive, you know, kind of the cloward-Piven, you know, approach or something like that? I don't think it's by design. I know a lot of people think that. I just don't give people that level of credit. I mean, you know how bureaucracies work, and I know how these institutions work, and I know how politicians function. I mean, yes, there is, I'm sure there's some political

levers of power that are being taken advantage of, absolutely is. I'm sure there's some political lovers of power that are being taken advantage of. Absolutely. But I don't think that this whole idea like let's break society or let's break the United States is intentional as much as it is a consequence of certain intolerances of certain kinds of people taking power and wanting to cling to that power and oppressing those who do not fit their model of perfection. And it's the level of idealism that may be not ideal for society, but is being forced down on people. But I don't necessarily think it's like, okay, let's break these institutions on purpose. I really don't. Okay. Well, it could also be that there are some people

that have that intention and a whole lot of people that don't. For example, the Chinese Communist Party has that very specific purpose and has, for example, the tool of TikTok to be able to sew these kinds of things into society. One example that comes to my mind is all of a sudden after October 7th, you had all these young people going around saying that Osama bin Laden had a good point because they had heard from an influencer that Osama bin Laden's letter to America was a very important and thoughtful document and had a lot of good points. I think they're taking existing rifts and they're taking existing narratives that already

exist in society and are being pushed from the inside, and they take advantage of them and they magnify them and they amplify them. You're right, the CCP and also Russia and many other players. I mean, I've looked a bit into just how disinformation, but the real kind, the kind where, you know, governments are intentionally exploiting social media platforms. They're paying influencers. They're spreading fake news, which they actually create. They even create entire news channels that aren't real to spread fake stories. I mean, that's all happening. And a lot of governments are actually involved in that.

So it would be silly to think that that's not happening in the U.S. It's provably happening in the U.S. and Canada and the West. But I do think that they're taking grains of truth. And that's where the best lies operate at their peak is when they take grains of truth and they manipulate them. And I even see that was, for example, with Putin, you know, he's using he's exploiting this anti-woke narrative to which there is a lot of truth. Right. There is kind of this wokeness that people talk about and people stand up against it. And he's trying to get the group that's standing up against it by exploiting that narrative and amplifying it

and also manipulating it for his own means. I think you can't just completely invent something and you have to take it from an existing system, but you can absolutely grow it. And I think that's what we're seeing happening. Absolutely. Let's take your own experience and, you know, these 16 other experiences, which you chronicle, you know, each of which has a bit of a lesson with it. What would you say is your sort of the biggest lesson of all for, you know, dealing with this milieu if you are, let's say, secretly a free thinker and maybe you're trying to figure out what to do because of the challenges of, you know, being cancelled potentially or, you know, you're facing your peers and so forth? Yeah, that's a great question.

And, you know, there is a reason why my book is called No Apologies. I think even though I am a Canadian and we apologize even when people step on our foot. Stereotypically, yes. Stereotypically, it's kind of, it's true, actually. But I do believe that, you know, no apologies means to stand up for the things that you really believe in. It doesn't mean never, ever, ever apologize for something. You shouldn't, you should apologize for something if you were wrong, if you got something wrong, or if you, you know, if you did something wrong, you should absolutely apologize for it. But if you believe something wrong, or if you, you know, if you did something wrong, you should absolutely

apologize for it. But if you believe something to be true, and you're standing up for something that you should do that unapologetically, you should do that firmly. If you don't do that firmly, it's a it is seen as a sign of weakness. But more importantly, I think the fundamental principle should be there, you should stand up for the things you really believe in. You don't have to stand up for everything. You can choose what you stand up for. It should be something that's really meaningful to you, that's a universal value that you have.

Or maybe you just stand up for a friend. And this is what we see so often in many of the stories. You see how quickly people turn on other people and become part of the mobs just so that they can fit in or they just stay silent. They backbone to stand up for someone that's, you know, an important person in their lives. And if you can't do that, if you can't stand up for a human being that you respect and love and appreciate, and if you can't stand up for a principle that you believe in, if you can't stand up when somebody is doing something that isn't right, then who are you? You're just reminding me of something. I don't have a lot of regrets in my life. I've kind of chosen a certain path through my life. But I do have a few, and they're very stark. And one of them is from pretty early childhood, like kind of grade school. And it's precisely that betrayal of someone who was a friend to be part of the larger group, which is something I really

wanted. And I'll never forget that, and it's very difficult for me to even forgive myself for that. Courage, speaking out in this context, or being able to express what's actually on your mind, what your values are, it's a muscle. Once you do it a little bit, you get better at it and you feel more confident that you can do it. But the flip side is also true. As long as you stay silent, it's very hard. That inertia is very powerful. And you can see what happens to people when they

choose to do it and then get kind of squashed by the mob, as you describe it. Yeah, and that's why I would encourage people to do it gradually. And if you're really going to pick that moment to speak up, then you're in a better shape than those who found themselves on the wrong side unexpectedly because they didn't have a chance before sort of the inciting incident, but it was still very weak. But I think what's important is that you start, okay, first you talk to your friends, people who understand you, who are close to you, then it becomes sort of normal and second nature. And you have far more authentic relationships because you're actually saying, you know, they, you're actually saying what you mean and what you believe. And, and then, you know, you start talking to people you meet, and you tell them what you believe. And then, you know,

it depends, we, not everybody has like a platform is going to, you know, write a book or go on social media or go on talk shows. So everybody does it differently in their lives. But it has to be sort of normalized. You know, I think a lot of times people think, okay, freedom of speech, I can say whatever I want, but you should also, I think you have the responsibility. It's not something I'm going to, hey, you have to do it this way, but you should reflect and think, what do I want to do with this fundamental freedom? And ideally you say something that matters, that are thoughtful, that are in good faith. That's what I want to normalize. There's a cost to silence.

The reason people stay silent is because, you know, you have kind of plausible deniability or something like that, I think. And it's just a much easier road than being, you know, sort of taking a position and then having to face the ramifications of that, good or bad, right? And so just... Well, there's a personal cost that people often don't talk about, and there's a societal cost. The personal cost is that you ultimately live a life that is not authentic. Like I said, you know, you don't really have real relationships, real friendships, because you can't talk to them openly. And I've noticed, you know, my friendships are so much better now that I'm more open. And it also,

you know, with some people, maybe we're not as close anymore, because they're not as open minded. But luckily, most of my friends are, and we assume the best of each other. So that's why we can say what we want to say. And, you know, even if somebody disagrees or find something a little offensive, we can talk about it and I'll listen to them. Right. And, but the societal cost is that ultimately, you know, you're letting that usually very radical minority, because those are the people who tend to have the loudest voices and megaphones and go so proactively, you're letting them dictate how society is ran. We talk about it in the context of a culture war. Okay, that's not great. People losing their jobs, that's not great. People being ostracized. Also not great. But we've seen throughout history how it could lead to the ultimate price as well. People getting killed. lives because of a small group of people, but a very dominant group of people who are inside

these revolutions. They take these ideas and it all starts from the silencing of speech. That's why it is such a fundamentally important thing. Absolutely. To take that even a little further, one of the core lessons after having done almost a thousand American thought leaders' interviews, talking to people and challenging some of these grand narratives, many of them false, that are dominating our society today. One of the things I realized along the way was that we're very susceptible as human beings to this sense that something is the overall view, even if it's only 10% or 5% or something like that of a very large group. That group can almost brainwash people a bit,

maybe not almost, actually brainwash society somewhat because of that sense that when we believe something is the overall view because it's very loud and no one's saying anything, we're pushed in that direction. This is one of the reasons why I believe the truckers protest, which is just in the news as we're filming right now, the federal court in Canada has basically deemed this Emergencies Act, which was used to stop the truckers' protest in early February of 2022, as unconstitutional, as against the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and so forth. So those protests were some of the most important in recent history overall. And I think this is the reason, because they kind of broke the narrative. It wasn't just one person. It wasn't a few people. It was a whole bunch of

a very diverse group of people that said, no, we're not going to accept this thing that we're all supposed to accept. They got to that point, I think, because their voice was so heavily suppressed and oppressed and vilified to such an extent. It was quite shocking and life changing in some ways to see what happened during the pandemic. So I'm not even someone who's anti-vaccine myself, but I was very much anti-mandates because I do believe in people's fundamental right to choose. And a lot of things didn't quite make sense. I was one of the people who early on was like masking and isolating. And I think I filmed a video about how you should clean everything. And I was in that group. But what I saw was how quickly people are able to take a group and

vilify them in language that is so enormously dehumanizing and how quickly your freedoms are able to be taken away without any real discussion, without vote, without anything. And that was very alarming for me to see. And then with the trucker protest, what I noticed with that, and I'm not big on protest myself, but people have the fundamental right to protest. And what I was seeing and what I started speaking out about with that was in particular, you know, how the media was covering it. I'd see one Nazi flag or something with a swastika, who knows who brought that?

And I'm Jewish, you know, so I would find that particularly offensive. But it doesn't mean that the whole crowd of people is suddenly, you know, rabid anti-Semites or Nazis or as it was described. And then seeing our prime minister, Trudeau, even before the protests began, that's what was very alarming at the time. He had already described them in certain ways, that it's just a population that disagrees, that dares to dissent, and they're being painted as these absolutely evil individuals, while there are certain things that I feel like happened during the protests that I disagree with, like the blocking of the bridge, which I do think is criminal. This kind of idea that this group of people is not entitled to voice because people were so scared. I think that's where it was coming

from. When people are particularly scared, they're willing to give up their power. And that's what happened. I think it was this fear that was dictating it, but people also banned their principles. I've been a liberal voter, so I'm the Trudeau target demographic, although I was a huge fan, and I've even voted left of that at a certain point. The idea that you can just ignore a huge segment of your population and just paint them as evil and racist and all the labels that didn't even make sense that he gave them. It was very terrifying to see. And I went from not maybe liking him very much because he's very virtue signally and don't think he was particularly smart to really actively being afraid that he had this authoritarian streak. And in particular, when he invoked the, is it the Military Act? I keep forgetting. The Emergencies Act. It used to be called the War Measures Act. So I can see why you would say that.

Yeah, that's right. So the War Measures Act was only invoked one time, ironically, by his father. And then we have this act that was invoked and it was so unprecedented. And for what? I mean, we've had other there have been riots in the past, right? Riots that are praised in the U.S. I think Trudeau kneeled in regards to the BLM demonstrations. So this idea that you can take one group and apply a completely different standard to them, and then freezing bank accounts completely undermined a democratic society or a liberal society was authoritarian. And when I talked to other people, they agree, right? They found that to be quite terrifying, unprecedented.

And they, in particular, might have even hated the trucker protests. And the same thing when I talked to people overseas. They were really stunned. They did not expect that. That treatment was just absolutely absurd. And I think a good leader is also somebody who listens to a population and regardless of whether that segment of the population even voted for him, because he's been elected to represent everyone and to, again, vilify a particular group just because he doesn't like them or doesn't agree with them, you know, when he could have

engaged with dialogue, in dialogue, which would have been far more productive in maintaining some semblance of peace, instead, you know, sending the troops on them. That to me was just a terrifying moment. And I guess that's why some people are like, Canada has fallen. And I loved Canada. I, you know, I'm an immigrant to Canada. I think there's a some people are like, Canada has fallen. And I loved Canada. I'm an immigrant to Canada. I think there's a lot of wonderful, wonderful things about Canada, but this was not one of them. I can't help but think again about this sort of evil genius of Herbert Marcuse's repressive tolerance, which basically, to me, sets this sort of pseudo-moral framework for allowing for that kind of thinking in the first place. And I feel like we're kind of

living in the logic of that moment in many cases. So just very briefly, what's your reaction to this federal court ruling? I was quite relieved, actually, to have that federal court ruling. I didn't expect it. To be honest, I feel like the system is a little bit rigged right now. So I was quite surprised and relieved that that happened. But I know that the government immediately moved forward to repel it, I guess. And that's unfortunate. I think a lot of Canadians will appreciate that, will feel like maybe the system isn't completely against them, that there is some fairness inherently in the system, even if the government currently is treating them unfairly. So, you know, your number one lesson is never apologize if you did nothing wrong. But also have a plan B if you do. So you have some level of protection for yourself if you do decide to speak. I think it's really important to sort of consider the implications. I did not. I kind of went into it just idealistic and a bit blind. And I'm trying to figure out my way forward with this. It's definitely had a lot of costs in that arena. But I do think that if you are going to choose it,

you can be set up for a better outcome. And that's one of the advice that was given in one of the chapters. And I think if you can set it up where you have a level of independence or you have an employer who is supportive of you regardless, who understands you're just a good human being who is expressing some opinions, I think that's a good thing to consider. Was the cost worth it? I think so. I mean, look, I've always said, I guess I did think of a plan B. I always say this, and it's kind of a ridiculous pie in the sky plan B is like, oh, if anything, I'll open a coffee shop and I'll just be, and I'll work in a coffee shop, but I'll, you know, it will be not a desirable outcome. And in my case, I was sort of at the peak of my career

when I, when I, when all of this kind of went down, that's what, when I've chosen this path. And in many ways I would say I chose it as opposed to just falling victim to it, because I think I could have probably been okay. had I just kept my head down and not gone on shows like yours. But I didn't feel like as a human being, I could live with myself. And I found a greater sense of purpose. And I found a more authentic me, which I think is worth the price. because what's the point of living if you cannot be an authentic human being? And I've gotten to know some wonderful people and had such great conversations. And I feel like I'm operating in a different realm, because I am around people

who are just so much more open minded, whether they agree with me or disagree with me, that doesn't really matter. They're just human beings are trying to make sense of the world. We're all trying to make sense of the world. Then we're going to get it wrong sometimes. And we're going to say the wrong things sometimes. We're going to offend people sometimes. It is not my intention to offend people, but it is something that's going to happen in the process of figuring things out. And I very much want to learn and be curious. And part of that curiosity, I think, has to express itself with words and being able to say things that are a little bit dangerous to say. You said something very interesting, because it was almost in the same words that I use myself. Sometimes people will say,

you're courageous. And I think this thing of this idea of not being able to live with yourself to not do it, that might not be exactly the same thing as courage, but I think it's still very valuable, right? One common thread that I found in the stories of the people that I interviewed for the book really was that sense of integrity. I don't think it was like courage in the sense that, oh, I'm not scared. So or I'm well, courage is actually doing something when you are scared. So I guess that is a form of courage. But a lot of people were not necessarily like brave people inherently. I'm not a brave person inherently.

And I think it's important for people to understand that because ultimately you're right. What it is, is is that sense of integrity, that moral compass of being willing to stand up for principles. The truth is most people have a tremendous amount of fear. You just need to persevere through that fear. And like you said earlier, it is a muscle, very much so. I found that very much to be a muscle within me. The level of comfort I have now speaking is very different from when I started. So that's why I encourage people to take maybe gentle steps, whatever you feel comfortable with, and build up that muscle. Well, and just something that struck me in reading your book and actually talking with our producers about, there's this price to stepping out, and you said it's worth it. But the other part is there's the

price to the silence. There's this cost to the silence, right? And maybe people becoming more aware of that. No, absolutely. And by the way, I should say, I mean, the cost I think is worth it for me. I cannot say if it's worth it for someone else. I cannot decide. People have families, they have kids, they have families. They have kids. They have different circumstances. So everybody is in their unique boat. But ultimately, I do think that we have that responsibility. And when you don't have an opposition, you feel empowered and that you're feeling empowered

to do sometimes very, very terrible things. So that is the cost of science. And that's why I said it can be very much a life and death situation. It can cause wars, you know, it can cause genocides, when we are not able to stand up and talk. And, you know, a lot of the conversation around this stuff tends to go around, like I said, more of the cultural war side of things, you know, can you say what is a woman or things like that? But ultimately, there's so many things in our world, in our society that we're not able to talk about, or we're only expected to stick to a particular narrative. And some of these things lead us to

such horrible outcomes. You don't want one person or one entity deciding what is an appropriate form of speech and what is not. Now, privately, I might think, well, this person is kind of a jerk and I don't want to associate with him. And that's why we also have free association. Or if I have my own company, you might have some rules on speech. But ultimately, I think we can never be in a position, and as a society, we should be encouraging, when it's good faith conversation, we should be able to have them.

And even, look, I've talked to some Nazis, you know, like the real kind, right? I have. And sometimes it's productive, sometimes it's not. Sometimes even being able to show that person that you can have a conversation with them without, you know, starting to go off at them. And I certainly don't have particularly positive views of Nazis. But, you know, being able to have that conversation sometimes changes their mind, just having a positive interaction with someone who happens, in my case, I'm Jewish, you know, and I'm not like going off at them. I think they find it kind of puzzling and maybe gradually that will cause them to rethink their sort of hatred. One of the chapters in my book is, one of my favorite chapters is Daryl Davis because he's such a role model to me.

You know, this is a black man, jazz musician and civil rights activist who actually took time to get to know people who are members of the KKK. And people who immediately sort of hate him. But his whole thing is, well, how can you hate me if you don't even know me? And that is true because a lot of these people are not even familiar with someone like him. And so he would have these conversations and he's been collecting hoods of people who left the KKK. And it wasn't even him being like, you should leave, right? It was just having an opportunity to sort of get to know him, and they couldn't stay the same. So when you have that kind of a potential outcome, I think it's worth risking a conversation with someone you don't particularly like. And he says this in the book, you know, some people will go to the grave hating, and some people might change. It might be a small amount of people, but, you know, I think there's hope.

And this is my Pollyanna complex, I guess. But I'd rather look at things that way than the alternative way. Any final thoughts as we finish, Catherine? No, I mean, I think actually what you just brought up is worth touching on because a lot of my time is spent figuring out how we can have better conversations. What are some of the tools, the tools to be open enough to also change your own mind? What questions you should ask yourself? And even as every canceled person seems to have a sub stack, that's something that I've put a lot of mine and same on my social media. It's something I spend a lot of time. And I think a lot of people, you know,

I think the other thing is modeling that kind of behavior, I think is very, very powerful. And I've had a lot of people reach out to me and say, listen, I tried your method. And I managed to have conversations with people that very, very radically disagree with. And now they follow me, you know, I had somebody reach out to me the other day and say that, and I've had many other people do that because that can have such an impact. Just having a human being to human being conversation, you don't know what the impact of that is going to be. And ultimately, you know, when people are coming at you, I think this is the other sort of big lesson that I learned myself when I was being attacked, because part of me was thinking, am I wrong? You know, so many people are

coming at me and they're so angry. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe, maybe I'm not seeing something. And I, and I did listen to them very much, but what I was seeing was people who ultimately were, you know, they were calling me names, they were calling me, they were attacking me, they were trying to dehumanize me, they were trying to destroy me by, you know, somebody said this recently to me, like, what's the point of cancellation, like, to take away your job? Well, what happens if you don't have a job? How do you eat? So isn't the ultimate point of that to basically take away your life? And that really resonated with me. I hadn't thought about it that way, but it's actually true. So when you're

hearing things from people who have no morals in the way that they approach it, because they think they're justified, because they think they're right, I don't think those are the people you should be listening to. Now, if somebody comes to me in good faith and makes an argument and tells me why, you know, they disagree with me, that's a to challenge you so you don't become completely oblivious to what other people are thinking. Who is it that you want to run society? And if you don't want those very angry, very radicalized voices to be the ones dictating what our world looks like, then I think you should try and use your own voice to stand up to that. Well, Catherine Brodsky, it's such a pleasure to have had you on. Thank you so much. Pleasure being on.