Conversations with Coleman

My guest today is Kathleen Stock. Kathleen is a philosopher and a writer, and she was a philosophy professor at the University of Sussex for many years, until she was stampeded out of her job by a mob of angry students. As you'll hear in this episode, Kathleen's main offense was her views on trans issues, which are broadly aligned with people like JK Rowling and Helen Joyce. Due to these critiques of Trans activist ideology, she was more or less run out of her university. Kathleen's story didn't make as many headlines in America as it should have. However, it really is one of the most egregious examples of cancel culture since Brett Weinstein's debacle at Evergreen.

Though Kathleen and I don't agree on everything, as you'll see in the episode, I think the treatment she's received has been shameful. In any event, we discuss all of that in this episode. We talk about the conceptual distinction between sex and gender. We talk about whether one should respect people's preferred pronouns and I think there's some distance between Kathleen and me on those two topics. We also talk about the conflict between trans rights and female rights. We talk about what to do with female-only spaces such as locker rooms, bathrooms, women's sports, and prisons. We talk about what to do with children who self-identify as Trans. We talk about puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgical transitions. We also discuss the phenomenon of social contagion, detransitioners, and desisters. 

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The topic of today's episode is the Israel-Palestine conflict. I've avoided discussing Israel on this podcast for two reasons. First, because I didn't know enough to feel qualified to weigh in on it. Second, because it may literally be the most radioactive topic on planet Earth. A tiny mistake or misplace word can cause a level of backlash that I just don't want to deal with. However, two things have changed over the past few months. I discuss these two factors in detail in the first few minutes of the episode.

I want the first half of this podcast to serve as an introduction to basic historical facts behind the conflict. If you're well versed on this topic, then you may want to skip the beginning. However, on the other hand, there is still quite a bit of interesting material there. The rest of this podcast is about the ethics and the current politics of the conflict. Who is in the right, and who is in the wrong? Is Israel an apartheid state that's oppressing a minority out of pure bigotry? Is it a colonialist, expansionist state motivated by religious belief? Or is it an embattled and legitimate nation-state surrounded by enemies that want only to survive? These are the questions that people struggle with and I brought in Dr. Benny Morris to help me answer them. Dr.Benny Morris has a unique vantage point on this issue. On the one hand, he is an Israeli Jew, and in recent years, he has become a major defender of Israel against global condemnation. On the other hand, he's probably done more than almost anyone you could name, to discover and publicize Israel's historical war crimes. He refused to serve in the Occupy West Bank Operation and was arrested as a result. His academic work on Israel is cited favorably by people like Noam Chomsky, who is all the way on the other side of the issue. Dr. Benny was at one point shunned by the Israeli academic community for being in essence "a traitor" to his people. He's one of the few people who can really claim to have battle scars from both sides of this debate.

Therefore, I thought he'd be a good person to help me weave through the complexities of the topic. I have a lot of admiration for Benny Morris, and I hope you find him as illuminating as I did.

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My guest today is Inaya Folarin Iman. Inaya is the founder of The Equiano Project, a British organization dedicated to promoting free speech, common humanity, and universalism. She recently organized a conference called "Towards the Common Good" hosted at Cambridge, where John McWhorter, Glenn Loury, Thomas Chatterton Williams, and yours truly, spoke along with a host of British thinkers who are fighting in the same trenches that people like John, Glenn, Thomas and myself are. Inaya is one of the major people fighting this fight in the UK. She also ran for Parliament as part of the Brexit party in 2019 and has written for many outlets in the UK including The Telegraph, Spiked and Unheard.

In this episode, we discuss Inaya's background growing up in a working-class immigrant family. We talk about the influence of Black Lives Matter and the George Floyd moment in the UK. We discuss the similarities and differences between the US and the UK with regard to race relations. We talk about the contents of Boris Johnson's commission on race and how that report was misportrayed in the media. We also talk about the tragic cases of Sasha Johnson (a Brit) and Jazmine Barnes (an American), both of whom call into question which Black lives matter, and which Black lives don't. 

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

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This is a recording of a live event that I did in London with Freddie Sayers. Freddie is the former editor-in-chief of YouGov, the founder of Politics Home, and the executive editor of UnHerd, which is a great publication you should all be reading.

So Freddie ran this conversation, and we covered lots of ground. We talk about American race politics. We discuss the legacy of Black Lives Matter. We talk about how to tackle divisive, race-centered ideologies. I really enjoyed this conversation, and you'll hear that the crowd did too. For whatever reason, I was quite a bit funnier here than I usually am. So that's always good.

I hope you all enjoy this conversation as much as I did. 

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My guest today is Andrew Gold. Andrew Gold is an ex-BBC journalist and documentary filmmaker, who now has an excellent podcast called "On The Edge". Andrew focuses on weird and controversial people, for instance, psychopaths, former cult members, exorcists, and so forth.

In this episode, we discuss Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's decision to leave the UK and the accusation of racism they leveled at the royal family on the way out. We discuss the Israel - Palestine conflict. We talk about the prospect of immortality and whether it would be desirable. We discuss the psychology of gender identity. We talk about pop music, social bubbles, and much more. I really liked this conversation because we dealt with so many seemingly unrelated topics, which is a nice departure from most of my conversations which generally focuses on one topic. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did. 

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Welcome to the first Conversations with Coleman of 2023.

We're starting things off right with a great guest, Meg Smaker. If you've heard of Meg, it's probably because of the controversy surrounding her new documentary, originally called "Jihad Rehab", but later changed to "The Unredacted". Now, before I describe the controversy to you, I want to first say that this is one of the best documentaries I have ever seen in my life, hands down, and it was initially received that way at the Sundance Film Festival. Meg and her camera crew follow former jihadists who have just been released from Guantanamo Bay after 15 years. These former terrorists go through a special rehab program in Saudi Arabia and eventually try to integrate back into Saudi society with varying levels of success.

The documentary touches on America's war on terror, the root causes of Jihadist violence, the challenges of becoming a civilian again once you spend two years fighting and in prison, and our tendency to dehumanize people who've done terrible things. However, Meg's film was condemned by a small group of perpetually offended people on the far left. They condemned the film for being Islamophobic, which it certainly isn't. And they condemn Meg for being a white woman making a film about Arabs (never mind that she lived in the Middle East for many years, speaks Arabic, and so forth). If this documentary had been created by an Arab filmmaker but was identical in every other way, I have no doubt that the same people would be saying it should be nominated for an Oscar. It's really that good. Unfortunately, after her initially warm reception at Sundance, the people at Sundance reversed course and rejected her film from the festival caving into the demands of a small group of activists. Truly a cowardly concession to cancel culture in my view.

If you are able to access this documentary, I highly recommend you watch it. I also hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

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In this special video essay, I share my thoughts on the long-running national debate on color blindness.

Check out the full article on my Substack - https://colemanhughes.substack.com

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Welcome to the final Conversations with Coleman episode of the year.

I want to thank everyone for all the incredible support this year.

It's been a great year for the podcast, and I have all of you, especially those of you who support the show to thank for that.

In this final episode, my producer has put together some of the best moments from the podcast over this last year.

I hope you all enjoy this year-end highlight reel and of course, wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy New Year!

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My guest today is Shadi Hamid. Shadi is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. He was named one of the world's top 50 thinkers in 2019 by Prospect Magazine. Shadi is also the author of three books, Temptations of Power, Islamic Exceptionalism, and The Problem of Democracy, which will be the primary subject of this conversation.

Shadi and I talk about the difference between liberal democracy and democracy, full stop. We discuss Shadi's concept of democratic minimalism, which is the idea that we should promote democracy in the Middle East even when it leads to illiberal outcomes. We discuss the state of public opinion in Arab countries. We talk about the difference between Islamist and secular parties. We talk about the Israel-Palestine conflict and how it might be affected by the prospect of more democracy in the Middle East. We discuss the lessons learned from the Arab Spring. We talk about the new popularity of isolationist foreign policy in America. We also go on to talk about the so-called "Benign Dictatorships" and much more.

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My guest today is David Sacks. David is an entrepreneur, tech investor, film producer, and the co-host of the All-In podcast, which I highly recommend. He's General Partner at Craft Ventures, a venture capital firm he co-founded. David was the founding CEO of PayPal, which makes him a part of the so-called PayPal Mafia, which includes folks like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. He was an angel investor in Facebook, Uber, SpaceX, Airbnb, and many other successful companies. He also produced the film "Thank You for Smoking", which was nominated for several Golden Globes. 

David and I talk about his background as an entrepreneur and investor. We discuss his critique of what he calls the "expert class" as well as the "professional class". We talk about the problems with elite colleges and universities. We discussed the attributes that made the PayPal Mafia so successful. We talk about Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter and his controversial leadership style. Finally, we also go on to talk about our mutual hobby - Chess.

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