The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Cancel Culture and The Problem with Gen Z with Rikki Schlott

Episode Date: February 9, 2024

Rikki Schlott is a journalist and political commentator. She is a research fellow at FIRE, host of the Lost Debate podcast, a columnist at the New York Post, and a regular contributor to numerous publications and television programs. She is co-author of The Canceling of the American Mind.

This is Live from the Table, the official podcast of the world-famous comedy cellar, coming at you on SiriusXM 99 Raw Comedy, formerly Raw Dog. A change for the better, I think, in terms of names. A little less vulgar. It's also available as a podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Dan Natterman. I'm with Noam Dorman, owner of the ever-expanding world-famous comedy cellar. Present.

Soon to be adding a room on the corner of 6th Avenue and West 3rd Street. Coming early 25? 2025, yeah. Early 25, a beautiful new comedy theater that will set the comedy world in New York City on fire. Pera Lashenbrand joins us as well. We're being joined by Ricky Schlott, journalist Ricky Schlott, in a few minutes. Prior to that, just a couple things.

Oh, that's probably her. I would be remiss if I didn't mention the passing of a former Live from the Table guest and a staple of the New York comedy scene, Al Martin, who owned the New York Comedy Club and the Greenwich village he sold

it to emilio um i don't remember his last name emilio's last you know i mean anyway he no longer owned the new york comedy club he still owned the greenwich village comedy club right here on mcdougall street but uh he was uh a a a larger than life figure in the New York comedy scene. I know, Noam, you were very fond of him. Yeah, I liked him very much. He got a, maybe now, maybe now that he's died, he'll be more fondly thought of.

He got a lot of, I thought, very unfair criticism by the comics over the years. I don't think anybody spoke, nobody disliked him, but they were kind of like, you know, I don't know what the words, they would, I don't think anybody spoke. Nobody disliked him, but they were kind of like you know,

I don't know what the words. I didn't like, he was a survivor. He was very successful. He had a lot of rooms. He didn't go out of business. He never cheated anybody as far as I know. And I admired him. I liked him. And he was a good family

man. Yeah, you know, that he was. oh are we is ricky here hello ricky how do you do ricky has joined us ricky is settling in i i would like whilst she is settling and i i would like to uh ask what you think of billy joel's new song this is off topic but um noam's a musician and i was wondering if he had heard Billy's latest song, Turn the Lights Back On. I heard some of it. I thought it was a disappointment. Oh, did you? I like it.

You know, I don't think it's exactly at the level of scenes from an Italian restaurant, but I think it stacks up well with a lot of the modern pop stuff out there. I think it's pretty good. This is what I think. Yeah.

Who comes in when you're... No, I mean, when you want. Sorry. So this is what I think about the song. He hadn't released a song in like 20 years, 15 years? Something like that, yeah. And so you expect it to really be powerful. And the song is nice enough, but it's

derivative and evocative of other Billy Joel songs. There's a few parts in it. Yeah, I heard Piano Man in there a little bit. Yeah, there's one part. If I had a guitar, I could show you. But there's one part where it goes, da-da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da-da.

And it's like, the chorus, like, it goes to E major. And it's just like, it's like the chorus like you can see it goes to e e major and and um it's just like it's a very typical billy joel device that he's used better in other songs and i really thought that well if he's been sitting on this one song for all these years and he said well that i just i must release this song that this was really going to be something special. Yeah. It still sounds like a B-side a little bit. Well, he co-wrote it. He didn't write the song himself.

He co-wrote it with some younger people, which may be why it sounds a little more modern than the album. We're talking about Billy Joel's new song. I know this is not necessarily your field of endeavor, but you being a young person and Billy being an old person, I thought it may be interesting to hear your thoughts, but you haven't heard the song. I haven't, no.

I have a very splotchy sense of music taste, because my dad is 86 now, so I grew up with the 50s. Your dad's 86? Yeah, and you're Gen Z. Yeah, I was a late addition to the family. Talk to your mom. How old are you? I'm 23, so my dad was 63 when I was born.

Oh, my God. You're like Harry Enten. Yeah, so I just know a lot of Elvis. And then there's this huge cultural blind spot. And so like Fergie. It's really embarrassing. That's hilarious. Now, can I ask you a question?

Wait, are you going to introduce her first? I'll introduce her, as we typically do on the show. Rikki Schlott, New York-based journalist, commentator. She has a column in the New York Post. And she is author, along with our friend Greg Lukainoff, of The Canceling of the American Mind. And she writes a lot about cancel culture on campus and Gen Z and the problems with Gen Z. And we'll get to all that.

And Max, you're Gen Z too, right? I'm a millennial still. How old are you? 29. Oh, okay. I don't necessarily know where the demarcation is. So it's 64 is the end of the baby boomers. 65 to 80, right?

I'm not sure where the millennials start, but I know the oldest Gen Zers are born in 97. So they would be like 26. I'm Gen X. As you clearly see, 65 to 80 is Gen X. That's me in there. Yeah, 65 to 80, 81 to 96 and 97 to 2012.

Oh, you have it up here. I was doing it from memory. If you have to squint to see it, you're probably Gen X. Okay, so here's my question. And then we'll talk about politics. I'm 61 and I have young kids. My youngest is 6. My oldest is 12. And I'm 61 and I have young kids. My youngest is six.

My oldest is 12. And I'm very worried about what it's like for them to have an older dad. Now I'm pretty youthful, I have to say. I mean, I run around and I, but, but, you know, they, they still like, my daughter will comment already like, oh, you know, oh dad, you, you look older already than you did in the pictures when I was a baby and stuff. what what was it like to have an older dad it's definitely it's complex my dad is super young and with it I think I probably have something to do with it we're like best friends we're inseparable I'd say that there's a huge amount

of upside in my opinion to having like a touchstone of a different generation and different time in my household so immediately I think it made me more resistant to some of the like generational trends where I mean my mom is is I share politics with my mom but I think she might have been a little bit more amenable to like me being like oh that's offensive or we can't say that at the dinner table whereas my dad would be like that's not offensive when do we think like that um so I think it definitely grounded me in a way. Is that why you use the N word all the time? Yeah, exactly. Thanks, dad. But I would say, I mean, there's also, of course, the complexities of dealing with, I mean, my dad's older than my grandfather, so I'm dealing with the same challenges of an aging parent as my mom is right now. So there's complexity. Your mom's younger

than your dad. Yeah, 26 years. So, but when you were growing up, when you were a teenager. Yeah. Was it like a drag to have an older dad or? Hardly. No, we were like, he would play basketball with me when I was doing the high school basketball team. I was terrible and he was really embarrassed about it. But like, you know, he's stayed young.

He stayed fit. I would say the first time that it really like resonated with me that there was something strange about it was when I moved into my freshman dorm and my dad was like carrying stuff in for me. No problem. Even though he was older at the time. And then my roommate's father was in his 40s still. And I was like, oh, this is a little weird. Everyone thinks this guy's my grandpa. And just being in a different context where no one knew me and knew my family that was the first time that i was like oh this is more unusual than i kind of took it for granted to be because you know growing up everyone knew ricky's dad's old whatever but you

know i think you mentioned that you might have something to do with your father being youthful that might be or it might be that the fact that he was able to have a kid at that age indicates a certain vigor and vitality. That's true. Who knows what the... He's not as old as you think, Dan. 61, 60. He was conceived when he was 62, maybe. Well, I don't know how...

A man at 62 is still able to... Got it. I don't know about 87, but 62... They're still able to... Okay, well, that may be. But I, yeah. Well, I'm not too far away, you know, but although I look good, I'll acknowledge that. But surely as a kid, though, when did it hit you?

You know, because when you're real little, I guess you didn't know, but then at some point, you're like, something's not right here. Not that it's not right, but something's different about your father. I kind of have always known it because my brothers are like in their 60s. I had middle-aged brothers when I was a kid. I had nieces that were older than me and nephews and stuff.

And so I just always knew that my family is different, for sure. I mean, it just was a fact of life. It wasn't something that really bothered me too much. I mean, I definitely have premature anxieties about mortality and stuff that a child of a younger parent would not have had, but that's just life.

I think every child has the fear. Because every child, their parents are old, even if they're young. So every child fears their parents are... So you and your other siblings have a different mother? Yeah, I'm the only one from my mom. So I'm like her only child, but there's a lot of slots in the world.

And I know this is another thing. No, go ahead. Do you find that because you share different genetics that it's like kind of obvious you share different genetics than the siblings? Like differences? Yeah, I mean, it would be quite a stretch to like pick the two out

two of us out of a room if one of my brothers are in a room full of people you'd never be like that's where he's so what about personality wise um i think i see how they're like my father in some ways but um yeah i mean my brothers and i get along very well but we just being like gen x men and a gen z woman it's it feels more like an uncle probably i would guess this is probably the closest approximate but not a ton of like glaring similarities between us to be honest so we have a 29 year old son who's uh my stepson so it's kind of similar and um i mean he's nothing like me it. It's completely obvious he's from a different coupling.

Alright. Well by the way just one more preliminary question. Ricky is short for Richelina? It's short for Erica because my dad already had Richard Jr. and I was the first girl so it was a roundabout way to name me after him. So Ricky short for not Richard. Ricky's a great name for a girl.

I think of Ricky Lake is my only association with the female Ricky you don't lose that number as well you don't lose a number yeah that's because you have

an older father you know that song I like those names like Ricky we were going to have another kid turn out to be a boy but I wanted to name her Josie

because she likes cool like hey Josie Josie no Steely Dan there's another oh no I'm thinking of the song

by the outfield Josie's on a vacation no Steely Dan when Josie another. Oh, no, I'm thinking of the song by the outfield. Josie's on a vacation. No, Steely Dan, when Josie comes home. I don't know. Anyway, okay. You know that song. I don't know it. Enough preliminary shit.

We're here with Ricky Schlatt. Gen Z-er, that is fighting the good fight against wokeism. What's wrong with your generation? So many things. Where do you want to start? Well, I'll leave it to you to. I mean, I read The Coddling of the American Mind, which my co-author wrote with Jonathan Haidt when I was a freshman in college at NYU.

And I found that like what a diagnosis in there in terms of fragility and safetyism and a sense that like words can wound you and you need to be protected. And it's just this crippling like undercurrent of anxiety and depression in my generation. When I read that book, it, it felt like sociologists like looking in and diagnosing all these things that I'd seen the symptoms of, but I couldn't quite figure out like what was up with the general cultural

trends that way. Um, and I think if I were to diagnose what's wrong with my generation, I would say that book is probably like the best start. It's how this second book came to be because I had been so impacted by it. But I would say quite a lot. I think that in a lot of ways, we're the victims of a culture that has generally shifted away from free speech norms and classical liberal norms. And we're the first generation to be really born into a post-liberalism world and where like a liberalism is rampant on campuses and places that should be bastions of free speech values or they take for granted that we're being raised in a way where classical liberalism

is taught to us, where sticks and stones are taught to us, but it's quite the opposite. Describe for people who might not know, we don't have this, you know, I don't know who listens to us, but what do you mean by classical liberalism? You know, like the old idioms- I almost insulted the audience, so I take it back. Well, I think like the old idioms. I almost insulted the audience. I take it back. I think like the old idioms of a free speech culture. For Perry Ellis fans. Go ahead.

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. No worries. The old idioms of like a free speech culture that I think we're really ingrained in American society until recently, like sticks and stones into each their own and everyone's entitled to their own opinions, which were just part of the American ethos until very recently um and I you know a lot of things I'll talk to my mom about like it's I'm so amazed that I didn't understand the the philosophical value of free speech until

I taught it to myself during the pandemic reading John Stuart Mill which I'd never been assigned before in college or I I like I'll bring things up to her about like anti-fragility and she'll be like yeah I thought that that was just like the world that you were growing up in I didn't understand that when you went off onto this college campus or this high school campus that it's completely inverted and that you're taught that you're a victim and that you're taught to look at people through the lens of oppressor and oppressed and so you know I think a lot of it is just an older generation that wasn't totally aware of just how distorted those classic American values have become in our

culture today. We actually had Jonathan here a couple of weeks ago. He was talking about the impact of social media on your generation, I guess, and even younger. Younger, younger. You know, but... Generation Alpha? Is that what it's called? Generation Alpha? Yeah, Gen Alpha. I mean, I had an iPhone when I was 10, so I'm like the guinea pig test case for...

I guess it came out a couple years before I was 10, but like the first generation of kids or sub-generation of kids who has always been plugged in since day one. Instagram by the time I was 11, so I certainly can speak to that too. But what effect do you think that has on, you know, that generation that grew up with it? You know, I think I'm, I'm with John that I don't think it's quite as much of a, like the screen time itself is causing dysfunction for people, but it's what it's

replacing. And when you look at, you know, like up to eight hours a day that kids are spending on their screens, what would have been there instead? And it might not be that they're doing something so terrible online. They could be, but they would have otherwise been outside playing with their friends or socializing in a normal way or doing normal rites of passage. We know kids are having less sex, that they're not driving driver's licenses, that they're staying in, that they're not socializing with friends in person. I think that a lot of like all those things are kind of a formula for just a normal childhood and growing up into adulthood. And I think that a lot of young people are stunted as a result of that kind of replaced time. Well, regarding less sex, it'd be hard to have less than I did as a teenager.

But I would I would think I would think that social media is very helpful. It would have been a godsend to a guy like me who is just a lot better, and I have a joke about that, about sending a text and being a lot more confident than I would have ever been in person, or with Instagram and Bumble and Tinder. This is a godsend to the shy people

that can flourish whilst behind a screen and be more— Yeah, but haven't you ever heard of rejection therapy and stuff and how actually getting—you have to get yourself out there to be able to comport yourself normally in social situations? Imagine if you'd had, for as long as you've been dating, you had something to fall back on where you don't actually have to build up the guts to go approach a woman at a bar and you have to do a texting back and forth. Yeah, but I still haven't developed that skill. Well, I think you'd be even worse if you were like a Zoomer. As a comedian also, I, you know, because I'm on stage, you know, and I let them come to me, even before Bumble and Tinder and this stuff, you know, you know, I would let them come to me after a show. Now, not that they all came out to me after a show, but if they happened to come, then I

would be, I still am not confident. I still can't, you know, just approach anybody that hasn't. I saw this statistic recently that like, it was something like 56%, I'm fudging the numbers, but it was like a little more than half of men under the age of 30, like 18 to 30, had never approached a woman in person, which doesn't surprise me at all. But I also don't think that that's healthy for a culture or like entrusting dating apps with algorithms and all of their complexities to match make for an entire generation.

I don't think it's a good thing. Are you allowed to still approach a woman in person? No, you're not allowed. It's like it never happened. Not without asking consent. No, you can approach her. At some point, if she says no, maybe you try one more time. I mean, at some point, it becomes

harassment. Hey, would you like to get a cup of coffee? Oh, no, thanks. I'm not really interested. Please. How about tomorrow? At some point, I don't know what that point is. You become like a harasser. There's certainly a point.

Are you single? I am. Now, do you get upset if a man approaches you? No, certainly not. But even some of my female friends who share politics with me will be put off by that. It's really stigmatized. I think growing up with dating apps and never having to actually, I mean, statistically speaking, you're, you're, it's a better use of your time to be like on the crap or swiping through people rather than just taking a gamble that someone that you approach is single. And I think an entire generation just

grew up with that crutch and now it's stigmatized to even do it the other way around, which is crazy. I, I don't think that's healthy. I do think there's a pendulum swing coming, though. Like, I know people who are doing speed dating and want to meet in person, but it's like it's totally chilled. Like, nobody is just walking up to anyone cold unless it's like an exceptional circumstance in my experience.

I suppose that a guy that was blessed with the ability and the confidence to do that would stand out. For a lot of women, they'd be like, wow, this guy's really, you know. Quite possibly. You know, for some women, I mean. Yeah, I think my friends fall into two categories

where they're always perturbed by anyone approaching them or there's always saying like, I wish that people would approach me. I actually have some female friends who are doing it now themselves, but that's. Well, that's good. Have we somehow backed into a more sexist age than we had prior where where women we don't come out and say but we're protecting women much more than we used

to like nobody nobody's gonna say a woman can't approach a man like that's not even on the table of course a woman can approach a man yeah of course a woman can try to kiss a man but women more than any time in my lifetime there there's this assumption that they have to you it's not equal they have to be protected from all sorts of things am i wrong about that yeah i mean i think that there's i certainly take issue with a lot of um like third we have feminism sort of protectionism and stuff and i do think that there's a a weird kind of undercurrent of misogyny and a lot of that as well as though women can't handle themselves or or gracefully handle a rejection of somebody is not someone that they're interested in who approaches them um or that i mean i think that there's tons of

excesses in the me too movement i do think that the original iteration of it was necessary but it's the pendulum has swung way too far. I think due process has gone out the window. Did you say due process? Dun, dun, dun. No, you know, there's a big issue now, a big due process issue going on. Yeah.

I'm afraid to talk about it yet, but I'm going to talk about it. All right, do it. No, no. Do you know what? You have feelings about it? I'm so upset about this. You mean somebody that got fired without due process?

Yes. Okay, we'll leave it at that. Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about, and I think it's... Well, we can open up the issue more generally. You can talk, right? Yeah, I mean, I'll refrain from Streisand affecting it because I think that that's possible at this point because it's so early.

You lost me with the Streisand effect. There's a term back in the day. You know what the Streisand affecting it because I think that that's possible at this point because it's so early. You lost me with the Streisand effect. There's a term back in the day. You know what the Streisand effect is. Is that the thing where everybody thinks they remember something but they don't?

No. It's like Barbara Streisand. There was some guy taking photos for some random thing that no one has ever heard of of beach erosion in California. And then Barbara Streisand

found out that her estate was in one of the photos. It was a large-scale photo. And then she tried toisand found out that her estate was like in one of the photos. It was like a large scale photo. And then she tried to like sue him or retaliate or get him to take that like take that photo back. And then that photo was like the cover of every freaking tabloid ever because she didn't want anyone to see it. And so now everyone knows about this photo that no one would ever have known about before. I would just say to any Jewish celebrity that might be listening, would you stop suing and making us look bad? Why'd you laugh?

Schlott sounds like a Jewish name, but she's not. Is it the two crosses? I guess it's German, I suppose. It is German. I thought you were afraid of vampires. I don't want to call attention to this. We can talk about the issue more generally. One second.

So let's pause at the Streisand effect because one of the things that I'm grappling with on this issue, I'll say what it is because that was suspended at the Atlantic, is that in the nervousness about amplifying it. No one's standing up for him. We're going to allow, they're going to amplify it.

The detractors are going to amplify it and establish the narrative before we even got out of bed. And then it will be hard to push back. And so the concern about the Streisand effect, it has to start with the assumption that well if I don't say anything about this is just going to disappear and I don't think it's going to so that's what I'm torn about well I know there was an ongoing investigation with the Atlantic

and that they're they've not cut ties with him permanently they did they've suspended they've suspended um publishing him until the investigation has concluded, which I think, I mean, the headlines. Did they say investigation? It's an internal investigation? It's an internal investigation. The headlines were definitely misleading on it. Like the headlines of, I think there was a Mediaite article that said that they cut ties, but like they say in their official statement that they've suspended publishing him until the investigation is finished. But I'll tell you you like my thoughts on

this first of all i read the original essay in which she accuses him i think that there's you know there's a lot of questions about like how reliable that narrative can be i think it's a great area kind of he said she said situation i wasn't in the room i'm not going to comment on what the like lines were crossed or what weren't however like the HR department of the Atlantic is not a police department and we can't expect like HR people to be able to two and a half years later to figure out what happened in this room and we also shouldn't expect that like they should be the only arbiters of justice or that i mean this isn't even his full-time employer i think that the entire thing is concerning to me i think believe all women is

actually really detrimental to women who are victims of sexual assault and who feel concerned about coming forward because there have been so many examples of i i just i don't know i don't think it sets a terrible precedent i mean i the public shaming element there's no due process in any of it i think we could change it to listen to all women I just, I don't know. I don't think, it sets a terrible precedent. The public shaming element, there's no due process in any of it. I think we could change it to listen to all women, and that's valid. Listen to what they have to say.

Don't dismiss them, but don't believe them without some sort of, you know, evidence. Yeah, and I mean, I know I'll get shit for this, because there's always the counter argument of like, how many rape cases get closed by police, or a lot of them end up just being inconclusive but i do think that there's there needs to be an impetus to actually involving law enforcement in a timely manner rather than all this time later expecting that

somehow people at the atlantic who are not law enforcement are going to be able to figure out a true picture of what happened at that point in time. Like it's just, it's a very complicated, messy situation. I think it's a problem, I think, with no great solution because a lot of women don't come forward for various valid reasons. And yeah, I just don't think coming forward on Twitter and screenshotting your email when there's an ongoing investigation. I agree with you very much. I, I, we can't have it. We can't have a world where our livelihoods and it's more than our livelihood. It's, um, our ability to exist in polite company, hang on the honor system. Yeah.

No, absolutely we can't. And I mean, I say this all as a woman who's been like the target of unwanted sexual advances many times in my life and have dealt with it in my own time. Like I'm not naive to the issue. It's an issue. And I think that there should be recourse where it's due and where it's necessary. But I think that this sort of example is just it's it's scary. I mean, I think it has also a chilling It's just feels like a lot of people like cafeteria level, like gossiping and people

at their different tables just ready to tear down the person at the opposite one on Twitter whenever anyone accuses anyone of anything. There are, did you find the statement from The Atlantic? I think so. Yeah, we are aware of the allegations concerning. Is that the whole statement? I want the whole statement. Said in a statement. No, no, no, no.

Go put it back. Put it back. It says said that hyperlink said in a statement. We're aware of the allegation concerning a freelance contributor to the Atlantic. We take such allegations seriously. The accused freelance contributor is not an employee of the Atlantic. We have not published any new work by the freelance contributor since being made aware of the allegation

and we suspended our relationship with the freelance contributor last month when we first learned of the accusation. We will, of course, be following any potential new developments in this matter. Yeah, so that's why, so I didn't say they're investigating. And I don't think they are.

I don't know. But, so there are, and there's a lot more to this so there are there are and there's a lot more to this story that i mean a lot more people should go online there's a lot more to it but i'm going to tell you off mic some of the other stuff but um there are tough cases where stories are very old where where i can't think off the top of my head, but for various reasons, the law seems like not a perfect fit and somehow unfair, an unfair way to shunt somebody, to prevent somebody from getting justice.

However, this case is not old. It's about two years old. She has full recourse of the civil system or the criminal system should she want it. She doesn't appear to be shy about speaking about it because she's

written thousands of words about it and done two or three. And then a month later followed up on that, didn't catch on. Yeah, that's right. And then named him. Yeah, no, I think there's definitely a public shaming element.

And I think there was a deliberate attempt to bring the Atlantic in in a way that wasn't necessarily proper or fair by screenshotting an email that she sent to their editor-in-chief and named him and his full name and stuff. And it points the finger. proper fair by screenshotting an email that she sent to their editor in chief and named him and his full name and stuff and like and it points the finger and like is it about justice or is it about public shaming and what even is justice in that circumstance i'm not sure but it doesn't feel

like a it really so so let me let me be very clear i'm very agitated about this issue so i know him we know him i've been friends with him we're not buddies, but I've known him and I've socialized with him. And I will tell you, people who know me over the years will know that what I'm saying is true. It really has almost nothing to do with my feelings about this case. I've been almost equally upset about other cases of people I'd never met. There is a basic principle at stake here, which is that what I said, you can't, you just can't live in a world where, where people can choose not to use the institutions, institutions, which are the envy of the world, by the way, that we've set up that can compel testimony, put people under oath, subpoena the cell phones, find out what she said to her friends, what he said to his friends, whatever it is. And as best as humanly possible, reach a conclusion here and then determine punishment In a similar way. No. Well, you know, with the credibility of objectivity and the, you know, of the government, as I said, I don't want to do any of that.

This is much easier. Yeah. I'll tweet. And I'll accomplish exactly what I was hoping to do through the lawsuit, because I don't really want the money, I guess, you know. Or you don't want the burden of proof. Yeah. Potentially. Through the lawsuit. Because I don't really want the money, I guess. Or you don't want the burden of proof, potentially. And that the Atlantic, who has written and published articles criticizing exactly this, just folded like this. Where they could have... I had a situation like this once in my organization.

It was more complex than the Atlantic phase because it was someone who worked for me. She doesn't work for the Atlantic. And without going into the details, the facts were, were immediately difficult. And I said to her, listen, I can't adjudicate this, but I will, you can get in my car right now and I will take you to the sixth precinct. I know the people there

and I'll be able to walk you in and you can, and I'll make sure that you can handle this. And she declined. And then, and it weighed on me. And then a month later, I saw them making out at the bar. And a year later, they had a child. Now, that is not to say that she wasn't raped. Stranger things have happened, right? I really don't know. But I thought it was quite a good illustration

of why it was that I did the right thing. Imagine I had fired him. And by the way, and the Atlanta, I mean, this is your interview and I'm talking, but the Atlantic is quite aware of what downstream of that. It's not just,

it's like if I let a comedian go because he raped somebody. Every club, word gets around, right? It's not like, it's really his entire thing is going to go. And then imagine that happened to him. And then actually he ends up in a relationship with a woman. This is crazy, right?

I would just say two things. Number one is if what she's saying is true, then she has a right to tweet it. Well, she has a right to tweet it. Well, she has a right to tweet it. Not about her, it's about the... I understand that. Let's just presume for the sake of argument, she's telling the truth. Okay, I just...

None of this has to do with me wanting to question anybody. I'm just saying that I don't want to dump on her because she didn't go to the police. I'm dumping on the Atlantic. I'm not saying you. I'm saying, I'd like to just state, my opinion is that if somebody rapes you, you can tweet it. You can go to the police. You can do whatever you want. Fuck that guy.

As far as what the Atlantic did, that's a different matter. The Atlantic, you know, should I agree with you regarding the course of action that the Atlantic takes? Because the Atlantic doesn't know the truth. She knows the truth. The Atlantic does not. The Atlantic Atlantic doesn't know the truth. She knows the truth. The Atlantic does not. The Atlantic also could never know the truth. Like, that's just the, it's insane to expect them to be able to

years later between two people with a, like, an ongoing relationship with one another. There's no way that, you know, it wasn't like some dramatic event where there's, like, physical evidence that she gathered or anything like that. You know, it wasn't like some dramatic event where there's like physical evidence that she gathered or anything like that. You know, I I think also we're under we underestimate as a culture what these sorts of accusations, whether or not they're founded, like what this he said, she said sort of situation, what that does to women in the workplace.

I think that there's a meaningful consequence where women are treated sometimes like they're a liability or a danger. And I don't, like I understand why men sometimes they don't want to take a meeting alone with a female colleague in the way that they might a male colleague or they might feel a little bit more nervous. I mean, I think that you can feel the tension and the stigma sometimes in workplace settings because of that, which I think that's not healthy for society either. That's not healthy for gender equality. That's not healthy for men and women being able to work side by side with each other with the reasonable expectation that, you know,

there's due process of anything were ever to happen with the kind of ambient threat of sexual dynamics in a workplace. But, you know, I think that women suffer as a result of this, too, for sure. I've never had the fear of taking a meeting along with a woman, but I do know people do that. I do know that's a good thing. I've been invited to meetings with HR people there because, like, and I get why some young men, especially in leadership positions,

just don't want to be put in a situation where there's not a third pair of eyes there. I get it. Okay. But the pendulum often swings far in the other direction. When I was your age and I was, you know, trying to get writing jobs, I would walk into meetings in Hollywood and I wasn't connected. I didn't know anyone. I was hustling my way into this industry. And I would walk into a meeting of a room full of guys and the guy in charge would look at you and, you know, would say something like, oh, I didn't know they made hot writers. And everybody would laugh. And it really wasn't funny. funny now like i have a thick skin okay and

but it's not okay to do that and that's a woman to a man it would be okay nobody's gonna do that to a man that's true i mean i mean it's 100 i agree with you i think me too corrected on things but then of course corrected in a way that just we still haven't figured out where that I agree I agree with that a hundred percent I think that there is some middle ground here that's fucking reasonable and that's not it right yeah totally I mean my first job um in the media was with Megyn Kelly who was like the OG OG Me Too person. And I totally respect that. I think that there were there was stuff going on in the workplace that I'll never or hopefully never with the overcorrection or the fact that not even the original overcorrection, but the fact that we're now like this has been going on for years. Cancel culture has been a thing for years. I feel like we were at a cultural point where maybe we were starting to realize that due process was necessary because everyone was getting torn down right, left and everywhere.

And then something like this can just randomly happen again. Like it feels like 2018. Like what happened to the last five years? What I believe, and you might know at least as much or more than what I know about this, that world is very incestuous. These are all friends of friends and they know each other. And this decision that they're making is really not an objective decision. It's really because it's a personally pressured decision

by this person who knows that one and this person, she's telling the truth, whatever. And it's the most cowardly. It's just the most, and exactly what you said is right. It's things were seeming to exactly what you said is, is right. It's, it's things were seeming to get a little bit in order. People were seeming to get some perspective on the excesses and the benefits of what we've been through and kind of shedding some of the excesses. And arriving at a, at a sensible, positive outcome. And this is just a huge setback.

You have a scab, and they just pick it off. So upsetting. Sorry, Dan. Oh, yeah. So, I mean, by the way, this issue keeps coming up and coming up, you know, every however long, you know, every couple years or whatever, or even more frequently. It happened with Shane Gillis. You know, SNL was pressured, probably. They didn't really feel outraged, I don't think, about what Shane Gillis said,

but they fired him because they felt pressure. And, you know, Louis, Netflix felt pressured. They let him go. And so the question keeps coming up, to what extent can a business, should a business, you know, cut ties with somebody, not because they're morally outraged, but because they have stockholders, they have their own bottom line

to worry about, they're making a business decision. And Noam, we've discussed this, who would you let on stage if you knew that, rightly or wrongly, the audience would be outraged? You know? Well, two things.

First of all, there may be overlap, but it's not good to conflate situations where we know what happened with situations where we don't know what happened. In some of the examples you gave, we knew the facts, and how should the business react knowing the facts? And this is another case where nobody knows the the facts and they're just going to allow and they're not not anonymous but you know a very undetailed

fuzzy accusation to decide well it's a long detailed article um but the even the content there's not many details in the article i think is it's it's so like gray area he said she said stuff that it's it's impossible even with this like thousands of words long essay to understand fully yeah i wouldn't call the article detailed as to the facts at all yeah it's detailed about her feelings and about political statements and the aftermath yeah but we don't even know the most basic facts. Like the first questions that would pop into your mind when I told you the story, you could not find them in the article.

We would all have. So my feeling is that there are some tough cases, but my feeling was all along, and this was contrary to the advice that I got at the time when Louis came back, but it proved to be true, that if you have a strong principled argument to make as to why what you're doing is the right thing to do, people will back down. And by the way, as you said, most of them don't even care to begin with.

There's a huge, like, I always use the joke, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Like Twitter really is like the Wizard of Oz. There's these, you know, 50, 100,000 people on Twitter that make you feel like the whole world is coming down on you. And actually the lines around the corner for the comedy seller were never affected even a little bit. So the first thing is don't jump to the conclusion that it's going to hurt your business. It probably won't. And second of all, as a leader, you do have the ability to persuade people.

You know, like when you, in this case that we're talking about now, if the Atlantic had written a paragraph, not a paragraph, but like one of these open letters about it or just an essay explaining it, they have very, very powerful arguments they could make. By the way, drawing on the arguments that have already been made in The Atlantic, because The Atlantic has published articles skewering all these notions.

They've published some pretty good anti-cancel culture. Um, me too, not skeptical, whatever the right adjective, but you know, uh, um, definitely they,

they publish articles defending this rush to judgment for certain men who have been accused and whatever it is. And they could certainly just point to their own things. And, and, and then if it got too hot, you know, they could back down.

They don't have to throw in the towel. You've often said, you know, when you start going down this road, like, where does it end? Like anybody can accuse anybody of anything, right? Like I have no idea what happened with that woman in that room, but that's beside the point, right? It's like, if just accusing somebody of something is enough to get them fired derail their career i mean it's insane right let's think of it by analogy for a second then i want to talk about the sats um your livelihood is money and then of course you can put a price on your maybe it's a higher price as i said before and and your ability to exist in the polite company of your people, of your milieu. Now, your bank account

as punishment without due process of law. No way. In Canada, they kind of did with the truckers. Yeah, Canada. Well, and it's an outrage, right? Yeah. In America, like, well, that's your bank and nobody could touch your money. And the thing is, what I'm saying now ought to appeal to liberals because liberals are the ones who normally support ownership in your job, union rules, no union contract, whatever allows somebody to get fired like this, right? This highly skeptical of at-work employment, highly skeptical of the notion of freelancing, gig economy. They want freelancers to have all the protections of employment. So philosophically, they're going to resort to things now. He's a freelancer. He can buy everything.

That they always stood against. And in the end, they're creating this alternate system where somebody can take your bank account. They're going to take all your bank account constructively with zero recourse and zero process, and they're going to pat themselves on the back for doing it. Isn't it great that we've made an end run around all these things that we do? Now all you want to do is ruin somebody is tweet.

Tweet to the employer, and then we expect the employer, and then the final thing I'll say, because I'm seeing this firsthand and what's so foul about the atmosphere is that actually I would say, not just the majority, I'd say 80, 90% of the people working at the Atlantic think this is bullshit.

Yeah. And they're afraid to say so. Yeah. So, so you, you can't even, so even if you could have a a an inquiry into truth here you can't because the people you would need to speak truthfully are afraid of getting in trouble for saying the wrong thing so you can't even have an open hearing as it were within that universe because within that universe only one side is really allowed

to speak freely yeah and it's awful and i think this industry is particularly um sensitive to that because so much of it is built off of reputation and and like taking moral stances and stuff and if there's one even question about your your ethics or your personal character like it can be impossible to come back from that unless you want to come back as the distorted, I've been canceled and now I'm in my echo chamber with the people that I brought with me to my little corner of the internet. So it's scary.

I'm completely with you. And these are the same people who write all these articles. They're just pointing their judgmental fingers at any politician who buckles for Trump or like anytime somebody acts in their own self-interest in a cowardly way, this is like

half of what they write about. And then the second they have to make a tough decision, show some backbone, they fold. And they're not politicians. They're journalists. They took,

this is a profession that's supposed to be the opposite. We understand politicians. Their oath is to re-election, right? That's what they do. But journalist's oath is supposed to be the principle. Now, hopefully politicians

have a little bit of that too, but they're not supposed to. Journalists are supposed to stand for something more. Jeffrey Goldberg is supposed to stand for something more. Okay. Dartmouth reinstated the SATs. Yeah.

I'm all for it. I think that's great. Because I don't have kids. So what was the situation with the SATs to begin with? During 2020, I mean, there had been the background of a lot of agitation, particularly like in the Ibram X. Kendi anti-racist world, that disparities in average SAT scores on the group level was indicative of the fact that the SAT itself or that standardized testing itself was in itself racist. And that had been a debate that had been happening in like the op-ed section of the New York Times for a while. But I don't think people had taken it so seriously that it could actually come out into the open. But then the pandemic

happened and all these schools suspended the SAT or requirements for the SAT and went test optional. I think understandably at first, because you don't want like a bunch of kids in some super spreader event, like taking tests in March for the next application cycle, but then they never put it back. And like a lot of schools, like Harvard, for example, already until the class of 2030, there's no SAT requirement. And it was the single, in my opinion, objective standard or numerical standard that schools had to go by, considering that GPAs don't really mean anything anymore

because everyone gets an A. Like the average GPA went from roughly like 3.2 to like 3.3 over like the course of five years or something crazy because we all need gold stars apparently in my generation. So I have no idea when it comes down to these ultra selective schools and picking between two kids with great grades and great essays that their parents could have written and, you know, extracurriculars that some $100,000 a year college counselor could have picked for them. Like, how could these schools possibly differentiate between these perfect-on-paper kids except for bystanders?

What about the AP exams? Is that also thrown out the window? I don't know if there's still a— there was not a requirement for APs when I applied. But certainly, yeah, like you could, like if somebody got a five on the Calc BC, you know, you could be pretty sure that this is a pretty smart cook.

Yeah, I don't know that, they were never required though. I think I got like a two. But yeah, no, I mean, it's unimaginable to me. I mean, I applied to colleges in like 2017. The idea of not having taken the SAT was so remote. And now there's going to be like from disadvantaged backgrounds whose SATs may not have been as high as the average at Dartmouth, which I will 100% agree that if you have the money for SAT prep and tutoring and stuff, you can raise your scores. There is a degree of privilege in that.

But only by so much, from the literature suggests maybe 50 to 100 points. Yeah, something like that. But I think that there's important context, like an SAT score, a kid who has by far the highest SAT in an inner city school should be considered a little bit differently from a kid who went to a prep school and has the same score potentially. And the Dartmouth study found that it was precisely those kids who weren't sure. Their SAT score was a little lower than average, so they decided to withhold it. And then they got rejected because the admissions counselors couldn't see that whole holistic vision of them. So it was the people that it was meant to help that it was hurting most. And yet most schools are still going forth with this test optional policy.

So, I mean, I agree with you a thousand percent. recent Supreme Court decision, the schools want to be basically unfettered in their ability to import into their class whatever they want and have it to be so fuzzy that nobody can prove that they did anything that they weren't supposed to. It seems to me so obvious, almost to be laughable to not understand this, that standardized tests are the only fair. Well, I have one more thing to say about that, but are the only fair apples to apples comparison that you can do among people. Because exactly as you say, grades don't mean anything. And of course, you know, some neighborhoods will be smarter than other neighborhoods, actually smarter. And

even if the grades were strictly on a curve in each neighborhood, you still don't have apples to apples because the C in one neighborhood, like I know people went to private schools, competitive private schools. A C plus in those private schools were different than a C-plus in my public school, right? And some combination of standardized tests and then, and I understand this would have a margin of error, measure of compensating for the socioeconomic background profile of that student such that we know that based on this life experience, as opposed to the rich private school kid, it's probably not fair. So we will have some, you know, multiple to add to it. Yeah. As you say, every kid, their parents do their essays yeah every recommendation their

parents friends write the recommendations the grades are meaningless so so like what i mean so let's get rid of essay twos as well so what are you going on yeah i mean i think that there's i i've always been a proponent of socioeconomic affirmative action and looking at people through the lens of contextual excellence. Like I came from the Lawrenceville school. I went to a hoity-toity boarding school. And like I am very like aware of the advantages that come with that. And getting a college counselor when you're like a junior in high school and having someone who's just built into your day-to-day school life that's helping you and figuring out.

I mean, my mom just randomly applied to schools that she heard of because her parents hadn't gone to college, or her dad did, but they weren't holding her hand through it, and it's like a night-and-day situation. I completely think there should be a way to say, like, this kid is really gifted and talented, or even this kid's grades might not be awesome, but they were working

like shifts after school at night and their SAT is actually exceptional. And I mean, this is, it's, I think it's an attack on meritocracy. I think there's actually like the, the soft bigotry of low expectations at play here. Um, yeah, I mean, I, it makes me question even more the value of these, um, these degrees and stuff. I mean, I'm taking classes right now at Columbia. I, I dropped out of NYU and I'm just taking classes here and there. Cause I got in, um, just, I'd like to take drama quarters class and I don't plan to finish my degree in the end, but like, I, I don't really know what it means that I got in there. Cause I mean, I applied with my SAT scores. I was happy with them, but it was optional. And, like, who else is in my class and how do they even know who these kids are, where they came from?

You already have accomplishments. Yeah, I think the whole educational industrial complex, if you will, is due to collapse anyway. I think I see the future of more people like Ricky not even finishing school, learning what they need to learn. I think there's going to be less emphasis going forward on that degree, more emphasis on what do you know, what can you do. You know, we see a lot of people in computer science that don't even finish their, you know, I mean, Elon Musk. Well, he finished Penn, but he didn't finish grad school. But I think race is obviously our most difficult, intractable issue in this country. No comment on that? Okay.

Yeah. If the country were all one race, then it would be a relatively simple matter to agree on a fair way to figure out, but different, you know, economics. I feel like we would splinter out into whatever different little nuances we would pick for ourselves. I feel like it's human nature to be tribal. But I would say we would have standardized tests and we're going to help. You know, we're going to take into account that you came from these poor neighborhoods. We wouldn't and then we would not worry about the final mix because, you know, but we're very, very, very afraid of the racial disparities.

And by the way, it's a terrible look. I don't discount it. And what I've always said, and I think I'm right about this, is that what this country needs to do, and it will solve all our problems, is to focus on grammar school children being up to grade level from kindergarten through the sixth grade. And I think if we did that, all the other problems would disappear. And if we don't do that, it's ridiculous to think you're going to fix it when they're applying to college. If you're not on grade level by sixth grade, you are not going to catch up at Columbia.

But what if what you're suggesting doesn't solve the disparities? Oh, I mean, disparities don't have to disappear. Do you know Rob Henderson? No. He coined this term luxury beliefs, which is like, he uses it to describe the sort of beliefs that people, you need to be from a point of privilege to hold them. Like, for example, like defund the police. But I live in a doorman building in the Upper East Side type people who are actively holding views that are counterproductive for the very people they're

trying to protect. But that's an aside. He has a memoir that I think it comes out later this month that's about him growing up in foster care and the like fundamental kind of childhood changes that he would like to see in the system that would help people ultimately, which sounds very much like what you're saying. So you might enjoy it. Yeah, I'll check it out. I mean, if I were to tell you, we've said this before, that in the sixth grade,

these 10 kids were reading at high school level and these other 10 kids were reading at first grade level. And by the way, this is not a third grade. This is not an exaggeration because that's actually what you have there. And say, what do you predict about the, how many doctors are going to be from this class? I mean, it's obvious that we all know if you think back to your friends when you were young and you knew who the kids were doing and you see what has become of them as adults, it's almost always completely predictable.

The smart kids are all, and then the kids who, I don't want to say they weren't smart, but the kids who were not attending to their schoolwork and maybe less intelligent amounted to very little, right? Yeah. I think there's a disproportionate emphasis put on

like college matriculation rates and graduation rates that is not really put upon kids at younger ages, for sure. Can I retract amounted to very little? Because that's actually sounds snobby and it doesn't actually reflect the way I think. It amounts to little in terms of the statistics that people are concerned about. Yeah. The ultimate outcomes.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't look down on them in some way. I'm not saying that it's little. I'm saying that we're worried about these disparities. Yeah. Yeah. I don't look down on them in some way. I'm not saying that, you know, that's little. I'm saying that we're worried about these disparities. Yeah, absolutely. By the way, before you came, Ricky, Noam said to me, well, do you have things to ask Ricky about? Implying that we'd be short of subject matter. But as is typically the case, Noam was more than... No, I said it because he's a huge fan of yours.

And I must be like, is Peril falling asleep? You look like Bill Clinton at a speech. Bill Clinton is a freelance contributor to The Atlantic, a good standing. Dan, there's like 10, 15, 20 emails. Ricky Schlott, Ricky Schlott. I was Ricky Schlott. So I would say, well, you must have... Well,

I've also met her in person and figured she's a friend of the seller and would be a good fit. And I was right because this episode was quite good in my estimation. So what else is on your mind these days? Hmm. I mean, so this is the first semester that I'm taking classes at Columbia.

I got in like a year and a half ago and deferred and deferred and deferred. And they were like, if you're not coming, you're not coming. So you don't have a college degree? No, I dropped out of NYU. Well, actually, during the pandemic, I was a sophomore and they... Are you a prodigy? How did you become Greg Lukianoff's co-writer when you didn't have a college degree?

Bill Gates ain't got a college degree. I'll give you the very abbreviated version. But basically, I was a sophomore at NYU. The pandemic happened. I finished my sophomore spring on Zoom. My mom, they didn't give us any tuition break. Full tuition for Zoom school for the fall. And my mom was like,

yeah, if you do something like interesting and good, I'll float you through one semester financially to take a leave of absence and then we'll go back when it's normal in the spring, which of course it wasn't. I wish I didn't have a college degree. I wish I grew up in a sewer. I mean, because-

She didn't finish her story. I thought it was done. No, I'm just halfway through. So I took a semester off. I heard every word. I took a semester off. I heard every word. I took a semester off. I read all the books that had accumulated on my bedside table that I had not read, which I'd been assigned the Communist Manifesto like five times across the first two semesters or two years I was at NYU.

But I'd never read John Stuart Mill's On Liberty. And it was like a kind of switch flipped in my brain. And I just felt like I had a different understanding of freedom and what it meant to be an American and why it was so precious and I needed to protect it at the very time that I felt a lot of my freedoms were being kind of trampled upon during the pandemic. And also just in 2020 when it feels like free speech and tolerance went out the window in a lot of ways. And cancel culture went so rampant.

So I started submitting op-eds to the New York Post. An editor there picked me up and she became a mentor of mine. And I interviewed Greg for like my third op-ed about whether. Greg Lugianoff, yeah. Yeah, about whether. Keep thinking Greg Lugianoff. So I interviewed him for like my third article about whether Gen Z could be uncauteled by the pandemic, which the answer is actually no, but I was hoping yes. And so then he offered me a fellowship on that call, and then that fellowship turned into a book, and here I am.

I think, to follow up on a statement I had made prior that didn't get a whole lot of traction here on the podcast, I think this is the trend. People, college, we're going to see a complete collapse. If you want to get an electrical engineering degree, I guess you've got to go to college. But for most people, I think it's bullshit, and I think that's how things are going to, in the future, everybody's going to be like Ricky. They're not going to it's it's just like if you got the money and you want to hang around and

read books and sit under a tree and go to frat parties then do that but i don't think employers are going to prioritize it i predict in 20 years it's going to be completely different yeah i mean i i think there's certainly a value to a classical liberal education, which I just don't think is what's on offer at schools right now. I mean, I don't want to like denigrate the institution entirely, but in its current form, I think it completely is deserving of that. But, you know, to your point, I found an editor at the Post, Margie Conklin, who like took me under her wing and taught me reporting by doing reporting. And then I've decided I'm just going to take this one class, kind of have my little victory lap on an Ivy League campus and then be an Ivy League dropout. But I... And it gives you more street cred. Now you're like, it's a cool thing, I think,

to not finish. No, it's true. And I went, I've been there for, I take one class a week and this is like my third one. The second one, I couldn't get onto campus without going through an NYPD checkpoint because the protests were getting so out of control. And I'm like, what is like this? It got worse since I left college campuses. But to your point, the other day I tried to go study in the School of Journalism library because I thought that'd be cool. And my ID bounced because I'm technically an undergrad plebe and I don't, I'm not worthy of being in the journalism department where people are learning to do the job that I'm doing. Which I think like there's, there's totally a case to be made for apprenticeships and learning by doing

and employers being open-minded to the potential that a kid who maybe went down their own path or took a gap year in part-time school. I think there's so many different routes to success that we're finally opening our eyes to, but it took such a shock to the system of higher education just totally like self-detonating and who did like who decided like somebody somewhere at some point decided

a bachelor's degree means four years and this many but somebody decided that there's nothing written in stone from mount sinai that says the four years and x number of credits is a valid education and two credits less and you're and and you didn't and you don't have to do i mean who like who gives a shit how about can you do the job yeah how about that you know i mean my dad's generation he doesn't have a degree that wasn't like a huge thing it went from being like a luxury or or a privilege or like a plus on your resume to being like a de facto requirement to even participate in polite society i think it's it's interesting to see how people like i i definitely don't want to be the kid who comes from like the lawrenceville school like a de facto requirement to even participate in polite society. I think it's interesting to see how people,

like I definitely don't want to be the kid who comes from like the Lawrenceville school and had a great education who's like no one needs to go to college. I think there's huge benefits and the class mobility that it in some cases can provide is completely worth it and they're fundamental lessons that I was fortunate to have learned at an earlier age just being at one of those types of schools but I also like I do feel that it's important to like put myself out there as someone who did take a different path and say that that's possible I'm a huge advocate for gap years I think I accidentally took one during the pandemic and giving kids more time to decide what path they want to take and evaluate whether a degree is necessary for it

or what this, like, gender studies degree actually means in the job market is probably a plus. But I do think that we— And take a class in gender studies. I have a theory about all this. I have a theory on everything. Go ahead. Shut up, Max. I didn't know Max didn't say anything.

He lied. Okay. my theory is that college first of all it used to be very challenging it was mostly required courses you had to read Shakespeare and it was

for the smartest people and so and it's funny, I was reading Leon Weaseltier interview today because I'm researching his stuff. And he talked about going to college and this professor enthralled him and this professor just opened his eyes.

And I'm like, I never had an experience like that. I never took a class. I just trying to figure out how to get through it. So there are people out there who are awakened by education. They're smart, usually. And college was for them. So then college, and these people are very able,

and they do great things. And then people began to think, oh, because they went to college, that gave them the skills to do that. But this college never had anything to do with them having these skills. They were drawn to college because they were to college. That gave them the skills to do that. But this college never had anything to do with them having these skills. They were drawn to college because they were these type of people.

And so, well, if it works for them, let's give it to everybody. So they start, but actually that kind of, that's a little bit too challenging. Not everybody could take Shakespeare. So then they give it to everybody and then they dumbed down all the courses

and it became meaningless. And I know as an employer, I deal with people who are college agents, they can't even write paragraphs. It is, it is now meaningless. Yeah. And now people will begin to rethink the whole thing. But like, like so many things, my father, um, didn't even graduate high school, but he was brilliant. It's not, it's, it's not the, uh, causation is backwards it's not that the college made great people great people went to college yeah i would say actually though i think it's inverted too where there's it used to be that that the educational system incentivized

independent thought and like pushing back on ideas and grappling with them and now there's a what i'm seeing and maybe it's because of the world that i move in but i'm seeing that those like exceptional thinkers who are who want to like push back against something and play devil's advocate and engage with ideas and who have a love of learning and curiosity and and want to look at both sides of an argument are the exact people who are getting squeezed out of the system right now because there's such a like caitlin flanagan had a great article about this in the recently i love her um about how the the new mission of a university professor used to be you know give you evidence and then you've come to your own conclusion and now it's completely

inverted where it's like here's the conclusion and now you go find your evidence to come to it and that was a hundred percent my experience throughout college I felt like any sort of dissent was just like it was social suicide it was going to hurt my GPA um and and you're basically even at a school like NYU and in all honors classes and stuff you're basically ascribed like as long as you can like support the viewpoint that is okay then you're going to get an A. And that's what I learned to do. I wrote essays that I didn't believe in. I had a final exam essay, like 20% of our grade, which like in class essay, then I'm going to fudge like the exact quote of it. But it was basically like, disregarding what you know from history, explain why Marx's vision for society is the best possible one.

Like, how is that an intellectual exercise? And, you know, it's definitely no longer teaching you how to think. And I think that the people who are independent original thinkers are exactly the people who get, like, disgusted by the system. But they are the people who make a lot of money on Substack. There is a big marketplace for these people who think for themselves, which is very interesting, right? Totally. You put any of these run-of-the-mill thinkers on CNN,

no one watches them. No one cares. It's just like noise. All right. We've got time for one more what else is uh bugging you oh gosh or maybe it's not bugging you maybe something that that you think is okay um so many things bug me all the time um i think i i mean i'll bring up 2024 i'm i'm like existentially dreading that and I feel... The election. Yeah, and I feel completely failed by

both the major political parties in the duopoly right now. Would you just write something about kids your age? I don't say kids, sorry. Young people that are not voting. Yeah, yeah, there's yeah, you did your homework. Nice. Yeah, there's a considerably

lower percentage of Gen Zers who are planning to vote in 2024, and I completely understand why. Lower than the historical trend or lower than 2020? Lower than 2020. Yeah, and I think there's so much disaffection and just blah, why should I? If it's

two 80-something-year-old candidates who the majority of the country statistically in almost every poll say that they don't want another Trump-Biden matchup, it feels like there's no real Democratic input ahead of the primaries in any meaningful way. And each party just is profiting

from the lack of options on the other side. And so... Is it the same? My gut, I haven't really followed the polls. My gut is that, to my chagrin, Trump voters are happy Trump's the nominee. I mean, they've had choices. Trump voters, sure, but I mean, I...

Biden voters would prefer a different candidate. The Trump voters are happy with their Trump. I don't fully agree with that because it's, you know, he's getting like, what, 50, 60% of the primary voters. And so there's almost half of registered primary Republican voters who don't want him. Plus all of the independents who might ultimately compromise and decide to vote for him. And I mean, I have so many people that I know and love who voted for Trump and felt enormously compromised by that decision, but they were like on the fence.

And so I do think that there's a, there are so many people, including Republicans, who'd be perfectly happy to have someone else. Yeah, there's some, but let me put it this way. If Biden, he's too old, but let's just suspend his age for a second. If Biden were to lose now in 2024, in 2028, he's not even going to show up on the radar in terms of being able to run for president again. He will have zero support. He will be done. Yeah. Trump, Trump, he vanquished DeSantis, Haley. I mean, real, real candidates, you know, he anyway. Yeah. I mean, among, so it's like a third of the country who's a registered Republican roughly. And it's about half of them who are voting for Trump in the primary. So it is still, it's the fringes who, who get to make these decisions for

the rest of the country. Wait, I want to say something about Biden. I've been very slow to accuse him of being senile or dementia. I've been saying for years now that he just seems like an old man. I have old people in my

family have had, I remember my grandparents, they were never senile, but they would forget where they put the keys. They'd forget names. I would not want my dad to be president right now. But he's not senile. No, but you know. So yesterday there were two things that went up.

One is that he confused Macron with, he said Mitterrand instead of Macron. Like, well, all right. Mitterrand was president of France for a long time and they're both Ms and, you know, he's tired. That really didn't faze me. But then it appeared that he couldn't come up with the word Hamas. And he said, the opposition.

And that made me think, no, that might be a bridge too far for me to excuse. If you're the president of the United States and you can't come up with the word Hamas, I don't see how you're going to be president for four years. I don't see it. But, you know, dementia, certainly a negative, but not a deal breaker necessarily, depending on who's on the other side. No, not a deal breaker, but... But why is this like...

I'm taking the fundamental issue with the fact that that's what we're left to choose from. You're right. Nobody's happy about that. You're absolutely right. And like when you, the first election I really remember is 2016. And there's, I mean, it made me really politically animated out of hate for all of the options before me. But for so many young people who only remember that, like it just makes them think, why should I bother in american politics if no one at the table is even vaguely representative of my own personal interest at all what do you know him takes the point of view that because new york always goes democratic

anyway he can just stay home and arduously and not vote it's true although those right i don't have to feel bad about my protest vote, which always goes to some libertarian candidate. I don't vote, but I'm being urged to register as a Democrat and vote against Jamal Bauman in the primary. People are telling me I need to do that. Yeah, that's also another thing that I take issue with too is that if you're an independent here in New York, you can't vote in primaries, which is crazy.

Why is almost half of the people who are, I don't know the exact demographics in New York, but like almost half of people identify as an independent. And why should the moderate people be precisely the people who do not have a say in the first go round of an election? Like, they're who you want to be making the decision. Yeah, well, the primary system is not good. The smoke-filled rooms were much better. I know you don't vote, Noam, but I'm perfectly content to allow you to choose how I vote

since you're better informed than me. I think you need to know everything there is to know, Dan. I don't think there's much about policy that you would bring to bear in this election. You have two personalities. You have to decide who you think is more trustworthy with his finger on the button. Keep us...

Well, you've made... You've said that that would be Biden. I believe it would be Biden, yeah. Okay. Well, then I guess I'm voting Biden. No comment. I mean, I'm not... On a policy basis, I'm probably...

Not probably. I definitely lean more towards Trump, who they call a conservative, but is not not particularly conservative, you know. But I don't think policy was ever the issue with Trump. No, no, it's him. And, you know, he can call Kim Jong-un a rocket man and get away with that. But I don't know if I want that kind of mouthing off in this current world crisis. Yeah, no, I...

And I don't know if he'd have the sense not to do it. I don't know. I agree. On the other hand, there is the argument that he's so bellicose and unpredictable that maybe that would deter bad actors in the world. You can't rule that out, but you can't assume that either. Yeah.

I don't know. But it all comes back to what you were saying. It's ridiculous that these are our choices. We shouldn't have to be having this kind of discussion. These are undeterminable issues. It hardly feels like a democracy in any meaningful way, the way that it's run right now. All right.

This too will pass. It's one, one thing, you know what the half that that's the half, uh, empty version of it. The half full version of it is what an amazing country this is that we can have either of these two bozos.

And actually, if you don't get up and read the news, and I felt this way when Trump was president, you probably will not even notice the difference. That's true. Even if they, whatever policies they do, the country is not really about the president. It's about our system. It's about our freedom. It's about capitalism. It's about the dynamism of our population. And so long as something else far away in the world doesn't really upend us, it's going to be fine. It's going to be fine. Unless something else far away in the world does upend us. Yeah, there's always that possibility. There seems to be that very real possibility these days.

But there's no telling which president would, you know, be better. You can take your guess, which president be better than that. I mean, if you look, just said we got to go,

but if you look at the things Trump did that his, uh, uh, opponents predicted would end in disaster. Yeah. Killing a Soleimani, moving the embassy to Jerusalem. Um, Supreme court.

That was a big one. I know the disasters Roe being overturned was not talking about it, on the world stage but then like the next day he's like, maybe we should put the light inside the body to kill the COVID

so he couldn't let it sit well you know he gets a bum rap on that he actually does, because we just had Donald McNeil on the show. So first of all, there is a technology to kill viruses with light. He was right about that. But then what's even worse is he talked about applying the disinfectant directly to the lungs. If you Google it, you will see at least two serious scientific studies where they tested the inhalation of disinfectant, not the injection, but the inhalation to see if it would kill.

One was for COVID, I think, and one was for the flu. One was ethanol and one was vinegar or something. So, you know, it was a dumb thing to say. The president shouldn't be riffing on medical technology. But obviously, it went by. It was like a daytime. Nobody was even listening. His opponents turned it into a huge thing.

And then they said, isn't this the dumbest thing in the world? It was like, you know. So apropos of everything we've discussed on this show, cancel culture, you know, this sort of thing. Old dads. this show cancel culture you know um this sort of thing um old dads um which president do you think will make any difference in that regard either either one of them in what regard in the regard to how do we get beyond this current climate where where we're free speech the very notions of free speech i don't think the president can move it that much. I would say in retrospect, and again, this is also taking the personality out of it. Hillary Clinton is, is, is a good moderate sweet spot, I believe for what would have made a good president as, as was Mitt Romney.

Like I, years ago, I used to say, I don't think the people who were supporting Hillary as opposed to supporting Romney even remember what the issues that divided them were. Oh, it was $13 minimum wage as opposed to $4. They were such minor issues. But that kind of common sense middle ground president,

these people who can't even seem to get any support anymore i don't know but that you know i don't know who it'll listen these guys are so old the next generation will take over i'm i'm very optimistic about america we're in such better situation in the rest of the world we can't see it population wise we're better off uh uh population replacement wise i mean we have our issues but, but this country is great. We're going to be fine. I'm very glad to hear that.

Me too. What's terrible is going to happen. There are terrible things. They shouldn't be giving out life-saving medicine based on race. They shouldn't have been making Asians pretend they were white to get into college. They shouldn't be brainwashing our children

to be anti-Semites. Well, yeah, that's right. They shouldn't be brainwashing our children to be anti-Semites. Well, yeah, that's right. They shouldn't be brainwashing our children to be anti-Semites. But our country is self-correcting. I hope you're right. I hope so, too. It really is. I mean, do you think there's any, put it this way,

do you think there's any time in the last 100, 150 years where if you were having this discussion, you wouldn't have had very serious issues that you could have brought up in this discussion to make the case that we have a lot to be worried about as Americans. We're facing terrible headwinds. The world has always had issues. The country's always had issues. Those issues were much worse and much more dangerous than our issues now. Our parents lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis, World War II, Vietnam.

Imagine being in Vietnam and all the teenagers are one year away, they're going off to die in Vietnam. That's the good old days, right? That's when the country was operating well. We're doing great. All right. Thank you, Eric, better known as Ricky Schlott, for joining us. I thought a very instructive discussion.

I'm giving myself a pat on the back for requesting Ricky as a guest. I usually... She was overdue. She's... Yeah.

Thanks for the invite. It was fun. She's a friend of our dear friend Michael Moynihan's, I believe. Yeah. Camille. I was out with Camille that night, but I do know Michael, too.

Okay. Anyway. But I know the fifth column, guys. Yeah, they're cool. They're fun. Anyway, her book, The Canceling of the American Mind, and her column in the New York Post.

Thank you, Perrielle. And Maxwell, our magician with the sound. And podcast at comedycellar.com for questions, comments, and suggestions. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.