The Paikin Podcast - Ric Bienstock: Has a Decade of Culture War Permanently Changed Us?

Episode Date: April 28, 2026

Ric Bienstock joins Steve to discuss her documentary Speechless, the explosion of the culture wars on college campuses, why we have lost the ability to talk to each other, and how free speech has been reshaped in colleges and beyond. They also discuss the rise of the “woke right,” if they have come to mirror the woke left they oppose, if anyone really cares about free speech anymore, how to do DEI right, and if she was surprised CBC aired her documentary. Support us: patreon.com/thepaikinpodcast Follow The Paikin Podcast: YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/@ThePaikinPodcastSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OhwznCIUEA11lZGcNIM4h?si=b5d73bc7c3a041b7X: x.com/ThePaikinPodINSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thepaikinpodcastBLUESKY: bsky.app/profile/thepaikinpodcast.bsky.social Email us at: [e-mail] 

The last several years have seen some of the nastiest examples of university and college campus violence since the 1960s. Middle East politics, wokeism, free speech and more have all been subjects for significant campus eruptions. Today on the Pekin podcast, we are going to talk to one of Canada's foremost documentary filmmakers who's got a new, excellent doc out, just out, about how we should be navigating these culture wars. Rick Esther Beinstock, one-on-one. Coming up next on the Paken podcast, I am delighted to welcome Rick Esther Bienstock to the Paken podcast. Her latest documentary is called Speechless, and it quite wonderfully chronicles how so many people these days seem to have lost the ability to talk to one another because we are neck deep in culture wars. Rick, it's great to see you again. How are you? Very nice to be here. Thank you for having me. I'm great.

What was it about this topic that compelled you to want to spend so much of your time making a documentary about it? Well, it started quite a long time ago, actually, and the film has had to evolve. But in around 2015-16, I started hearing stories coming out of campuses in Toronto as well and Canada and, you know, in the States about students feeling harmed by ideas, needing safe spaces, not from physical harm, but from emotional harm, the terms cultural appropriation. There was just a lot of different terms coming out of these campuses. that I had never heard. Now they're very familiar to all of us, microaggressions, trigger warnings. There was this little moment in 2015, 16, 17,

where that was on the rise, at least to people who weren't in academia. So I just was very curious. I had two kids that were soon going to be going to university, and I thought, like, what's going on? Like, I never felt the need for safe spaces from emotional harm, or we used to kind of fight about ideas on campus

and then go have lunch together. So it just seemed like a very different kind of atmosphere. Where did you do your post-secondary? At McGill. I was in Montreal. Okay. And everybody seemed to be able to debate big ideas without resorting to blows or calling in the police and that kind of thing back in the day? Well, I mean, it's not like you agreed. It wasn't all Pollyanna perfect then either. I just mean, we did. I mean, I still do. You should see our dinner table. We argue. We argue about ideas. We don't all agree on everything. Obviously, the world has changed radically and social media has not helped and people being in echo chambers has not helped.

So clearly that is kind of one of the things that have ignited this perfect storm that's created this environment. But when I started the film, I really thought, well, is it snowflake students? What's this about when I think about the 60s and protest movements? You think about students protesting to get out of the grip of the administration, wanting to protest things that were, happening off campus. So I just saw it as, you know, protesting wars. I'm not, let's not go to October 7th yet. But at the time in 2015, 16, 17, it was about ideas, wanting to be protected from ideas and actually demanding that the administration take care of them. So it just felt like a real switch at the time. But I didn't really understand where it was coming from. And I thought

it was a simpler, going to be a simpler film that it turned out to be all these 10 years later, as I kind of tracked what we now call the culture wars. Yeah, this film is not simple. In fact, it deals with some hugely complicated issues. And you ask a really great question right near the beginning of the documentary, which is, how the hell did we get here? What's the answer? You want one sentence?

I mean, I think there's a lot of, you know, of course there's a lot of reasons. There's no one reason why we got there. But what I did, what I tried to do is understand that question. I was curious myself. I was legitimately curious. how did we get here and what does this mean? And there's a bunch of different threads in the film that I hope resonate when people watch it, no matter what position you take on the issues.

One is there were kind of philosophical movements and seeds planted in the 60s. I talk about some of them, not all of them. And some of them are critical pedagogy and postmodernism and movements that were really about trying to fight against depression, talking about power, who owns the truth, what is truth? These movements, you know, there was a lot of protests and a lot of thinkers on campuses in those days. And I think those thoughts planted the seeds that started kind of weaving their way through academia. That's one reason. The other reason is that we are a very diverse, very diverse society. there are a lot of people who have historically been marginalized and not welcome at these institutions.

Once upon a time, there were no women in universities. So if we wanted to be a much more welcoming environment, which is really important, a lot of movements were started to help marginalize people or people who hadn't been in higher ed, people who are first generation. And so so many of the movements that were created with really good intentions for very good reasons started hardening into ideology. At least that's what I found. So they started with not only good intentions,

but important intentions. If you have a diverse multicultural world, then you're going to have people with different views and different thoughts and different ideas and different experiences. And you have to be able to figure out a way to share those differences in a constructive way. And so that's why I say, you know, affirmative action.

And, you know, I talk about diversity, equity, inclusion, DEI in the film, because I think it's very fundamental. to how things have changed now. And then social media. And finally, you know, conservatives who have always felt, sorry for the monologue, but let me just get through these. No, this is actually the podcast where you're allowed to speak in paragraphs and not in 10 second clips.

So you know, you go. You're doing fine. But you can interrupt me if you have to. And then finally, there's a lot of, you know, the university campus in Western liberal democracies is largely very, very left. Conservatives have felt, have always been, not always, but recently felt suspicious of universities. And they were basically seeing all of this intolerance on campus and kind of gathering these stories as ammunition for, you know, what ultimately became a Trump kind of campaign takeover. And he was doing the same thing to, you know, to free speech as I would say the

kind of illiberal left or, you know, hyper-progressive left. Well, let's do an example here of one thing that you put your camera onto in the documentary. And I must confess, when I watched this scene, I didn't really know how to react. There is a moment in the documentary where a kind of mob of students are screaming at a university president, and they are telling him that the way he is speaking with his hands is somehow racist, and he needs to stop moving his hands while he is talking to them. What are we? I mean, I don't even know what the question is emerging from that other than, like,

how do you conduct a conversation with, under those circumstances? Well, this was Evergreen State College. That was in 2017. And that was the first campus I filmed on. I wasn't even in production, Steve. I basically had this idea to do this film. I talked to CBC about it. And then because I was following all these campus controversies,

suddenly I started seeing on social media these students live streaming this protest. So I literally just got on a plane and then called someone who's a friend and he's a director and a shooter and said, can you meet me in Olympia, Washington? This was on the west coast, northwest of the United States. And I did not understand what I was witnessing. it was not only was it a campus takeover, but I legitimately did not understand the language. I didn't understand what, you know, I was called a white supremacist within two days of being there. And again, not as an insult, just as a matter of facts, like I say in the film, as a friendly heads up.

And then this president, basically they say it was a microaggression. It was just talking with your hands as a microaggression. But it didn't make sense. I'm not saying everything the students wanted didn't make sense. I'm saying that at that moment, it was a shift in power. And I didn't understand it at the time, but now looking back, it was about power and controlling. And the president allowed that to happen because he believed that the students had legitimate grievances, that there was, you know, there should be more administrators of color, more professors. that looked like them. There's some truth to all of this. And what I, what I wanted to do was go in

with a benevolent eye. As much as I thought at the time, of course, this is crazy. I thought, you're not allowed to say, you're not allowed to say crazy. That is a microaggression. This is bananas. I wanted to get inside the heads of the students. I said, I don't, I don't necessarily agree with you, but I just want to understand where you're coming from. And I tried to, as honestly as I could portray them as they would want to be portrayed. No, I think you did that, but do you accept the premise that some of them put forward? That essentially whiteness has become, this was one of the things advanced. Whiteness, a white way of speaking, a white way of being, have become the kind of defaults in our

culture, and that whole structure needs to be destroyed and overturned, right? Well, I mean, we're seeing it not only on campus now. That's the other thing about campus stories. What happens on campus doesn't stay on campus. So there, the idea, it is all about intersectionality, oppressor oppressed, whiteness being the dominant culture, whiteness being the culture of colonization, and trying to dismantle all of the systems that were set up. That's what I, came to see is that it was, you know, it was, again, then it was new to me. Now it's not new anymore, but we're seeing that not only on campus. We're seeing that everywhere. And of course, we have to interrogate the terrible history of what white culture did. But it's not the only culture that did terrible things. But in the film, I can't, there was no way for me to and to really dig deep. What I wanted to do was show you basically how it was manifesting.

We hear about these cancellations, often sensationalized by outlets like Fox. And I will say that a lot of people said, don't touch this stuff. You're just giving Fox and the right wing more fodder. Why are you doing this, Rick? And I just thought, well, what's happening doesn't feel natural to me. And just because Fox is covering it doesn't mean it's not happening. So we don't want Fox to do these stories. Why not have, like I say benevolent.

What I mean to say is like an honest, legitimate documentary analysis of what's going on and why it's going on. Because it's affecting higher education in a profound way. I think there's no denying that. It's not in every class on every single campus, but it's ubiquitous. And anyway, all this to say, so you're asking questions about this whiteness. and, you know, but I was trying to just show you these cancellations happen in the most, kind of not benign ways, benign is the wrong word, but more like they don't happen with big protests all the time, I guess is what I'm going to say. They just, they happen in little list serves and emails and tweets that go out that basically take somebody who has a belief like there are two biological sexes,

not gender, not engaging in the gender wars, and that becomes something that is so transphobic, and they get so deep inside a mob that wants them out, that you can't have a legitimate conversation about ideas that even if you don't agree with them, they're still mainstream. Well, and the mob is winning, because you featured in your documentary, a female professor at Harvard who couldn't take it anymore.

and well, I won't give away too much of the plot here, but suffice to say she went to a fairly dark place because of the treatment she received at the hands of the mob. But I want to bring your attention to, and you'll remember his name and where he spoke. It was Eric. He's a black professor. Yeah. And he, you know, I thought he was fascinating because, of course, he was going exactly against stereotype in saying, we don't want to burn the house down. We should be trying to renovate the house. What was he trying to say with that metaphor? Well, he, he You know, Eric, I'm glad you pointed out, Eric, because he was really amazing to me at articulating the ideas and the issues with the ideology that wants to dismantle everything that is Western liberal democracy. He believes in classical liberal values, and he says the problem with classical liberal values aren't the values in and of themselves.

It's not living up to those values. So we should continue to try and live up to those values, which is the culture that I think I'm living in. we try and live up, we mess up, but it's a culture that evolves. And he basically is saying that in response, what you suggested, is saying that in response to people saying, I want to dismantle these white systems. He's saying, I don't want to dismantle them. I want to redecorate. I want to renovate, but the house stands.

In other words, if you value democracy and classical liberal values, then you continue to work and improve that democracy. You don't tear it down. And I will say this. I mean, I'm trying to keep, you know, talking about the film and my message as speaking across differences. But if you want to

tear down democracy, I'm just not for that. I will say that. Like I'm trying, I'm not completely unbiased in the film. Of course, nobody's unbiased and I show my bias sometimes so that you know it's me speaking. Oh, you plead guilty to a lot of stuff, Rick. You plead guilty to being white,

female, heterosexual, and maybe the worst one of all, you're Jewish. Yeah, that was. So you are right in the, You're right, the crosshairs have a whole lot of trouble on campus these days with that. Yeah, yeah, that was my, and the reason, by the way, I disclose my identity is because the filmmakers now under the microscope, too, as part of this movement, right? Who you are, what stories are you allowed to tell? So it's not like I'm trying to absolve myself.

I was just trying to say, I'm telling this story. So, you know, it does have my point of view. And then, you know, now when I'm hearing in response, people are like, okay, boomering me. like, okay, boomer, you know? It's like, as opposed, don't okay boomer me. Engage with the ideas in the film and tell me why you think they're wrong. Well, you and I are both at the sort of tail end of the baby boom. So we are older than all, obviously a lot older than the people you're chronicling,

but we're, believe it or not too young to have really experienced the major campus crises of the 1960s. Yeah. But that, those 20-somethings back in the 60s, were rather. and left, and they are today as well. The campuses have been overrun, many of them, by, you know, young, radical, and left. So I guess the question is, has anything really changed in that regard? I think what's changed is that you're not seeing it. They're not the students. They're the professors and the lectures and the administrators. And that's where you're kind of getting it from both sides. One of the, you know, I read this book called The Codling of the American Mind back in

20. Well, it was an article in 2015. That's what actually started me really thinking about this topic. It subsequently became a book. Jonathan Haidt, who was the co-author of the book, he talks about what is the purpose of a university? And that is the big question. What is the purpose of a university? Is it seeking truth, critical inquiry, or is it activism? And in some cases, you have to see that there is, you know, the ideas that I presented initially, like critical pedagogy, for example, which just means you're not just there to learn, you're there to take action. I didn't start making documentary films because I learned about social justice. I didn't learn about social justice. It's part of the ethos of my family. It's part of reading the books I

read at university. And then I decided to do social issue films. I'm not talking about this one. my past films. Now social justice is kind of part of the curriculum. Activism is part of the curriculum. So I wanted to show that too, not only visa v. October 7th, which is a very complicated and complex story, of course, but just in terms of everything else, is that what Jonathan Heichols the telos of the university? What is the point of university? And people should ask themselves that question. There's a new term that's sort of making the rounds these days, and that is, you know, of course, we've heard of the woke left, and many conservative politicians in the United States in particular have been railing against it for a decade or more. But now we hear about

a woke right. Do you see that as a mirror image of the woke left? In many ways, it's a mirror image because it's just as, you know, it's also about dismantling. The only thing I'll say is that when the state intervenes, that's a whole other level. If you are forcing by law people to shut down diversity, equity inclusion departments, or getting rid of gender studies, or clamping down on free speech or arresting people for writing op-eds you don't agree with, that's a whole other level. But the impulse, I feel, is the same. The impulse to shut down what you don't agree with. It's just, you know, you don't want an authoritarian state deciding what goes in newspapers, deciding what's on television, deciding, you know, what the curriculum is

either. So, but yes, I mean, I just, so I have to make that distinction. It's much more dangerous, but the impulse is the same. And it was really interesting because while I was filming, I was noticing that there were many, many campuses and many classes, including, and I say this in the film, including, you know, math and physics, where you had to make a DEI pledge, if you wanted to get a job teaching, a diversity equity inclusion pledge for how your physics is going to kind of. Yeah, because two plus two equals four surely has some kind of culture war angle to it, right? Well, it definitely does. But what was interesting is that the minute Trump was voted in, there was a list of words that you could not use for grant applications in the states.

And that included diversity, equity, and inclusion. So it was just, it was in that sense, the mirror image. And I just think that where's the middle? Like where did the middle go? The center shall not hold. The Insurance Brokers Association of Canada is all about protection. This spring they will be in Ottawa to advocate for a consumer-first approach to federal initiatives around natural disasters, cyber security, and other risks that Canadians face every day. Insurance protects families, homes, and businesses when the unexpected happens.

Brokers are your trusted advisors, helping you choose the right insurance to safeguard what you value most. Canada's insurance brokers. Their slogan is, we know what's worth protecting. You've got a moment in the documentary where there's, I think, a young kid getting scooped up off the street for publishing a pro-Palestine article. and of course there have been attempts by the, if you want to call it this, the woke right to cancel those who have been critical of Charlie Kirk after his death was over. And it does raise, I mean, the woke left, they're certainly replete in your documentary, but it does make you wonder whether anybody's in favor of free speech anymore. What do you think?

I think you have a very good point. And I think that, you know, one of the distinctions, I realized I started off saying, this is a film about free speech on campus. That's what I thought the film was. Sometimes when I would say that to a lot of, because remember, I spoke to hundreds of people, not only the people who appeared in the film. A lot of people did not want to appear in the film.

But when I said it was free speech on campus, sometimes they would recoil like I was trying to do, like free speech was considered like right wing dog whistle. And I would say, but I don't see free speech. I see it as universal. I see it as foundational. And it doesn't have a social. side. And now the right wing was all going, well, we're for free speech. Then, you know, post-October

7th, people were saying, well, we need free speech. People are clamping down on our free speech. But I realize the film is not so much about free speech in the legal sense. You know, in Canada, we have hate speech, you know, what are the parameters of free speech and the states they have, the First Amendment. It's really about free expression. It's about our ability to speak to each other, speak across differences. Hear views that we don't like. Sometimes even views that we hate and either engage with them

or listen and walk away or ignore them if you don't want to. And that's what worries me the most. The stories that I couldn't tell are the stories of the people who said, I can't talk on camera because I have no tenure, Rick. And I've just cleansed my curriculum

of anything that is remotely controversial or even not controversial, but that might offend someone in the class because if I get reported, the administration will not have my back and I need this job. Or students who go, I just need the marks. If I don't agree with the teacher, they won't give me a good mark. And my producer who I worked with, Garfield Miller, he also spoke to hundreds of people.

We did a lot of Zooms off the record. And I will say that was the most shocking thing. The amount of people, and they weren't all white, and they weren't all students. And they were studying everything from, you know, museum studies to psychology. They were everywhere from Ivy League to community colleges. And ever since the film aired on CBC here and on BBC in the UK,

I've been getting emails through my website from professors who are just going, thank you so much. I mean, of course, it's all, you know, self-selection. But people are saying, like, I've never, you know, I keep my head down. But where did this notion come from? Because it certainly wasn't there when you and I went to university. Where did the notion come from that somehow you should be able to go to classes at a post-secondary institution and never have to worry about being offended by any idea you hear?

And yet that just seems antithetical to the whole university experience. And yet, you know, for the longest time now, that has become standard operating procedures. at many post-secondary campuses. How'd that happen? Well, I think if you train a generation of students to feel that words or ideas are actually harmful, then that's the result. Also, I hate using these buzzwords because I don't want to be pegged, but it's kind of identity politics in a way.

It's all about your identity. And if you are, if it's, it is, you know, it's kind of the, the people have termed it the oppression Olympics, right? If you are white and cisgendered and you have all this privilege and all this unearned privilege and you've had a voice and these people haven't had a voice. And again, some of it's grounded in truth. That's the thing. It's not all nonsense. Some of it is real and we should be aware of these things. But if everything is about your identity, if your identity defines everything you are, the color of your skin, your religious beliefs, the, then if someone questions that, they're insulting you. So everything becomes personal. I don't

believe in identity politics. I think everybody is an individual. And one of the things in the film, and again, we don't beat it, but it's kind of there for you to see if you see it is there's a federalist society president at Stanford law. Federalist society is a conservative organization. A lot of the conservative judges on the Supreme Court come from the Federalist Society. And he invites a federal judge to Stanford law to speak. The federal judge was appointed by Trump. He's anti-LGBQ. He's anti-gay marriage. He's anti-abortion. And the students don't want him to speak. And they went way more than that. They shouted him down. They wouldn't let him speak. It was a, I mean, it was a melee. Yeah, it was really, really unbelievably rude. I do not agree with this federal judge's views, but

He's a federal judge. And the guy who invited them is federalist society conservative. He himself is gay. And so there's a lot of these little what my editor likes to call Easter eggs. Like he's gay. He basically says if you want to go to the Supreme Court in the United States and you're from this circuit, you have to go through his court first. So he has something to say. He doesn't believe in law.

There are ideas you shouldn't talk about. There is a trans student at Cornell who basically. I ask what it's like, what's the atmosphere like at Cornell. And she says, well, to be honest, it's easier being trans than Jewish at Cornell. There's a lot of different identities in the film that do not necessarily fit what you'd think, you know, where you think, because we're not just our sexuality and our race. We're more than that. We're individuals. And Eric proves that.

He doesn't agree with that teaching English is a tool of the oppressor. He just doesn't believe that. That's not an extreme thought. Like what is the Overton window now for acceptable conversation? What are, you know, what are the parameters for what we're allowed to talk about? And that's important. Yeah. Well, my great hope is, at least maybe I'm naive in this, but my great hope is that the vast majority of people, the people watching are listening to this, are in a vast middle, you know, center left on something.

center right on other things. They understand that diversity, you know, is a good thing and that people shouldn't be discriminated against. And you ask a very important question in the, but on the other hand, they don't want to see, you know, radical extremism of a woke left take over every aspect of their lives. They don't want that either. Yeah. You ask a good question in the film, which is, is there a DEI, is there a diversity, equity, inclusion, which can be done well? That brings people together as opposed to divides them. Did you come to a conclusion about that? I think, I believe in DEI, but I don't believe it's being done well in most cases. And when I say most cases, I'm not everywhere. It's not, I didn't do a thesis on DEI.

So if somebody out there is doing diversity, equity, inclusion in a way that is really inclusive, that really listens to everybody, that doesn't shun people for having a different opinion, but really tries to bring people together, then I think that's great, and I think we need to promote that. But what I saw was not that. That was my experience, but remember, I'm only a filmmaker.

I just documented what I saw, and I went to a lot of places and tried not to cherry pick. You know, I mean, you're always choosing when you make a film. But I think there's, you know, a story in Toronto, actually, of, he wasn't a university professor, so I didn't cover him.

He was, I think, a principal of a school. And he was caught out in a diversity, equity, inclusion training session where he was called out by the leader. And he was obviously emotionally fragile as well. And he ended up committing suicide. He was so shunned by them. You know the story. I interviewed him on the agenda.

Oh, you did? He had been, he was a guest on the agenda. And we were talking about an education-related issue. And yes, they, I mean, he, he. His allies, his friends would tell you that, you know, the extreme DEI crowd tormented him to take his own life and, you know, a terrible tragedy. Well, I spoke to many people, many, you know, a handful. It's not like who were suicidal after this. Because when you get socially ostracized, it is such a potent deterrent to behavior.

This is why these students are falling into line. and professors, when you talk about the middle, which is the vast majority, which is where I think I sit, you know, where, and I engage with people, I don't agree with, I mean, I don't want to engage with someone who thinks I should be dead, but I'm willing to engage. And, you know, we generally are friend groups, are people we generally agree with on a lot of stuff and share the same values. But I spoke to a lot of people who were suicidal, and I can understand why. If your cohorts don't support you because they're petrified or because they agree with whatever side and your admin doesn't support you, just imagine how surreal that is. And I think you see that very much with Carol Hoeven, who's the Harvard lecture in the film.

I mentioned it before, two biological sexes. Even if you don't agree with her, and I will say, Steve, that I spoke to people at her school who would not speak to me on the record, who basically said to me, she's just, wrong. There are four biological sexes, Rick. She's just wrong. And if you believe there are four biological sexes, I understand it's chromosomal. A lot of that is semantics. But even if you believe there are four biological sexes and she's wrong, why does she have to be called a transphobe? Why did you engage? Yeah, you can't hound her into nearly killing herself, which is, I mean, she told you. She thought about it. Yeah. Yeah. She thought about it because nobody supported her. That's all. I mean, it's not so much that you have to agree with her. It's that this is not a reason

for a mob to destroy her life. Let me get your view on, you know, probably what was, uh, in terms of headline grabbing, in terms of oxygen occupied in the room, uh, one of the most, uh, dramatic episodes around all of this. And that's when those, uh, university presidents had to testify in Congress. And the congresswoman Elise DeFanak really took them out to the woodshed. And one of the things that observers said emerged from all of that testimony was that apparently on campuses like Harvard, like Penn, like, anyway, the list goes on, you're allowed to kind of get away with saying death to the Jews, but you couldn't for gays or blacks or trans or anybody else.

They would be very much protected minorities, but it's open season on Jews. Now, I'm going to ask you, you know, as a Jewish filmmaker, how you made sense of all of that. Okay, so there's stepping back from my own identity. Calling for the genocide of Jews in the United States is free speech. That's just those university presidents were right. Depends on the context. If someone's threatening, at least Sephanic, by the way. I mean, you know, I put Christopher Rufa, who's a right-wing activist, commenting on that

because he was very clear about what these congressional hearings are. You're looking for a viral clip. You're trying to get something that'll... And she got it. So, you know, I had to put the... By the way, that was making me crazy. The film kept going and going. I had to keep film...

I'm in the edit, and we had to, like, oh, my God, more things that we had to kind of incorporate. But so, theoretically, they have the right to say that. But what's interesting is the hypocrisy. And calling for the genocide of Jews, one of the issues about that was no one, it's about the interpretation as what is from the river to the sea and globalize the antifatamine. And that's what she was referring to. Does that mean calling for the genocide? And that's contested.

Like everything, you unravel it. There's a never, you know, ending unravel to that. I just stuck to because it's the most complex geopolitical problem on the planet, the Middle East. And people were, you know, everyone's, so it was a little bit hard to tackle. But what I did was I really, it was weird to be on the campuses and hear those chants. And I had to grapple with two things. One, hearing stuff I really found hurtful and disagreed with and engaging and really testing. Like, do I really believe in free speech?

And two, I do think there is a hypocrisy there. And Carol Hoeven was proof of that hypocrisy that hypocrisy that she said, there are two biological sexes, and she got no support. And then when October 7th came around, suddenly the administrations were grappling with free speech. And I feel bad for all those administrators and the presidents. They were in a lose-lose situation. If they shut down the protests, they're shutting down free speech. You know, I mean, I don't know what I would do.

A lot of them, by the way, have resigned. A lot of them resigned because of those congressional hearings, but a lot have quietly resigned after because it's so thankless being on campuses now that you can't win. Well, they gave a bunch of legalistic answers in a political forum, which just made them look ridiculous, frankly. Ridiculous, because they could have easily said, you know, they could have easily said, well, you know, it is, of course, calling for the genocide of anybody is inappropriate.

And even it doesn't have to do with the First Amendment. It has to do with bullying practices on campus. You're not allowed to bully people. You don't have to go free speech on that. So they were, you know, it was ridiculous. and they failed and whoever advised them should really look in the mirror because I feel like you could do a better job of defending people's right to protest without saying it depends on the context.

And we'll be back right after this. Let me try this with you, which is to say, and I'm not asking you this in an aggressive way. You just told us a moment ago you've got to make decisions when you make a documentary. And, you know, you pointed out in the doc, you're a Canadian. You put the Canadian flag up there, but all of your examples in the documentary are all stateside. How come? So that, I'm getting a lot of that, Steve, and I have to say I actually feel bad about that because I think that is a very, very fair criticism. When I initially started this, I interviewed back in 2017, Jordan Peterson.

I interviewed, I was in development, what we call development, which is research stage. And there was a Lindsay Shepard's story at Wilfred Laurier University where she showed a clip from your show, the agenda. And then got hauled in and she recorded a meeting where she was called. I don't remember what she was called. But that was, you know, she was called. No, the professor's bullied her in, you know, submission on. Bulleted her. Like she was, you know, it was harmful to show, you know, and I remember telling people that story.

That's the agenda for, you know, it's not even, it's not Fox. It's, you know, TV Ontario. It's little old TVO for goodness. Little old TVO, but what I did is I went for the stories that were playing out post-COVID. A lot of the stuff, pre-COVID, I had Evergreen State College where I had jumped on a plane and spoken to all of those students. So that was going to be in this film. That was the start of my journey. And then a lot of cancellations were happening.

There was stuff that it was happening at TMU during COVID. It could not do this while COVID was happening. So I just went where I found stories where there was footage or there were recordings and there was stuff that I could use. But I now, I mean, if I had to go back, I would just seek out another story in Canada because Canada should not be absolved from this. It's happening on campuses here and I'm getting a lot of flack for not covering that side. But it wasn't kind of a deliberate omission. It was one of those where you're just going after the stories that are playing out that have, that, you know, have interrelationships like Eric Smith was using the Evergreen story as a case study in his class. That's what brought me to him. And anyway, I'm not going to make excuses because it's a fair criticism. Well, I found, you know, to me it was interesting that the CBC agreed to play your documentary. And we should say, I mean, I watched it in two parts. I don't know if they presented it in two parts, but it's, I guess it's about three hours long altogether. It's a real.

You know, there's a lot of meat here, and it's good stuff. I don't have to tell you, lots of people criticize the CBC for having a pro-left-wing bias, and yet they aired this documentary, which certainly shows the progressive movements in North America in a somewhat unfavorable light from time to time. Did it surprise you that they agreed to put it on? Well, I've done a lot of work for the CBC, and the last project I did actually just went into COVID. it was a six-part series called the about the transatlantic slave trade with Samuel Jackson.

It was a big project. And I've done a lot of work for them. So when I initially pitched this project, it's interesting because Jennifer Detman, who is the head of unscripted there, said, like, oh, boy, like Rick's pitching this. Like, we want to say yes, but the subject matter is, you know, is like a hot potato. But I think they backed it. And, you know, somebody told me that they heard rumors that they kind of took it on because of the election coming. And they thought there was going to be a conservative government in Canada.

So they wanted to show, look, we're not woke. Two things I'll say to that. One, that's not true because they commissioned it quite a long time ago. And I was very, very late in delivery because I kept saying, look, the world is just changing. Like there's no, I have to, you know, George Floyd happened subsequent. And then October 7th. and Trump's selection, and that had to be captured or it would have just fallen short.

But also, I will say, you know, people are going, how this anti-Woke, like I never use the term woke in the film because woke is become a pejorative term, but it started out as a positive term, being, you know, awake to injustices and things like that. So I want to try, you know, you want to stay away from those hot-button words

because they kind of diminish and they push people away. But I know it's naive, but I don't think of it as that. I think, like, I'm just trying to be honest. Like, these are real stories and they're really happening whether, and they happened or they're happening, whether I documented them or not. And I did reach out to many, many people in all of those stories. A lot of the progressive left would not talk to me on camera. I talked to a lot of them off and I said, but they were scared themselves, not necessarily because they, They were, you know, some of them didn't respond, of course, like just some of a lot of people didn't respond.

But, but some of them just said, like, they're too scared themselves. So that tells you something. They know. And I just felt like you are willing to go public to cancel this person, but you're scared yourself because you know you might be subjected to a mob. Maybe, you know, maybe a right-wing mob. So we're living in very difficult times for people to navigate this, for younger people, and even for us. And I think that the middle, I don't know how to get the middle to be louder because we're a bigger group. But we're just going about, I say we, the royal we, going about our business.

I don't want kids to go, I don't bother asking questions because it's just too loaded. And I'm so scared of offending people. I think that really affects education in ways that are undocumented and really serious. So would you permit me a personal observation at this point? If it's, yeah, okay, I'm ready. Here's my personal observation, which is to say, I mean, you know, I've known each other a long time. Not super well, but we've known each other a long time. And my impression of you is that you, you know, traditionally, generally,

feel very comfortable in the company of progressive people. But so many progressive people today, and we don't have to name names, but they're all over the newspapers, hate Jews and hate free speech and act like out of control mobs from time to time. And ironically enough, the right wingers who you normally would want no association with may be more along the lines of your own personal thinking on this issue. And that dynamic probably makes you feel somewhat queasy inside. Am I on to something here? you're 100% right but it's not kind of right wing I think I mean you know they always say if you're if you're right wing when you're young you're cruel and if you're left wing when you're older you're

an idiot or whatever I don't know that's the expression I feel like I've kind of stayed more or less the same again October 7th was a big shift it's a big shift because I'm happy to engage on that front. I feel like I've stayed the same, but the whole, the rest of the world shifted. You know, I'm kind of here. Maybe I'm here now. But I remember hearing this from somebody in the film who went through a very terrible cancellation and said, you're going to lose friends, you know, I don't think I'm going to lose friends on this film, but they said, you're going to lose friends that you thought you had and you're going to gain friends that you didn't want. And I think that's what you're saying. I do, I do feel that the people who are lean more right are really,

to engage more on this topic. I would love to engage on more progressive podcasts. I mean, I don't see you as right wing, Steve, but I don't know. But maybe in today's world, we're similar. I really, I think we're similar. I mean, I've watched your show for years and you engage really fairly on all topics. Thank you. That's the point. That's what I think the point is. And again, not saying, like I'm not being all kumbaya. Oh my God, I love everybody. I don't. But, you know, there's, there's now, I shouldn't say this because it's ridiculous, but there's a Facebook thread. I'm going to encourage people to go see it of somebody who's in my community and posted vitriolic attack on the film. And it's fair. Like, I'm game for that too. But so many

ad hominem attacks, like, you know, it's problematic because I'm white and cyst and Jewish and they go and a Zionist genocider and all of this. And I just comfortable saying that publicly. So let me circle back to what you were saying about hating Jews. They're going to go, this is not anti-Semitism. I'm anti-Generg, I mean, I'm deeply critical of Netanyahu. I don't like what they're doing. Like, you can't have any nuanced views.

You can't have any nuanced views. You have to, so the Jew hate stuff has been difficult because I do feel it. And I know a lot of it is not Jew hate. A lot of it is criticism of Israel. That's fair. We criticize too. But there's Jew hate. And it's felt.

And it's just interesting that, and this is what I think you were getting at before, that if other people feel harmed by ideas, I was told, even if you don't intend to harm them, they feel harmed, they're harmed. But that does not apply. It does not apply to me or to us. So, you know, so be it. It's, it is what it is, I think is what the kids say. I don't know, you know, I don't know how else to engage.

Like, I'm, again, happy to engage with anyone on it. If the only people interested engaging with substance on the stuff that we're talking about are people who lean right, then I don't know what to say. They should, you know, lefty should have me on their podcast, too. I'm going to save the dumbest question for last here, because even though I've known you for a long time, I actually don't know the story behind your first name. You go by Rick, R-I-C. And what, what's the story there? You know, I get, it's the only, I'll answer anything except, it's such a stupid answer that I can't answer it.

It is a nickname, and I've been, I've used it just randomly. Somebody gave me that nickname. It's not, and I've used it since in my 12. 20s. And because I just moved to Toronto, I just told people that was my name. And then it became my name. And my bank accounts in that name, which is problematic because, you know, because it's not my legal name. And so I have some stuff as Rick. I never changed it legally. Some stuff is Rick and some stuff is Esther. But so silly story. So Esther is your actual real legal first name. Yeah. Okay. So I never knew any of this. This is all a learning story. Also, my name is Esther Bienstock, which

a lot of people said Esther Beanstalk, and Esther Beanstalk is not an easy name growing up with. It's not, you know, just saying. Well, you made it bien, and I sort of said, bein. So I, you know, I apologize. I should have given it a much more European pronunciation. No, the truth is that even in my own family and extended family, everyone pronounces it differently. So. Good.

Can I tell you what a joy it's been to have you on this little show of ours and talking about a fantastic documentary, which I well, I'll recommend to everybody. Now, as you point out, it's had a television play already, but if people want to see speechless, where do they go get it? Go to CBC Gem. It's playing on CBC Gem, which is an app, which is the CBC streamer. CBC also has it up on their YouTube channel. So it's two parts, get a lot of popcorn and dig in.

And it's really been a pleasure. I think this is the longest conversation we've ever had. Well, it's long overdue then. Let me do a little business before I say goodbye. which is to say one of the reasons we like to keep this program free of charge is that, well, we like it that way. We don't want anybody to have to pay to watch this. But thankfully, some people actually go into their pockets and make contributions at our Patreon page

because they want to support what we're doing to take care of our expenses. And you'll find some web-exclusive content while you're there and some ways to contact me and so on. So Patreon.com forward slash the pagan podcast. And a couple of people did that in the last couple of days. Reva Devons, I want to thank you very much for doing so and say hi to your husband, Steve, for me. And Greg Ealing also did it. And I want to thank Greg very much for pitching in. All of these interviews and shows are archived at my website, Stevepaken.com. Rick Bienstock. It was great to have you on our program.

And peace and love, everybody. Until next time.