Free Kiwis!

Nathan Seuili is a former pastor who has worked for several years for the NZ Free Speech Union. He has now left the FSU to found a new organization, PILLAR, which is dedicated to Protecting Individual Life, Liberty And Rights.

In a wide-ranging conversation, we talked about Nathan's free speech journey; hierarchy, Christianity, and gender in Samoan culture; and how Christians dedicated to individual freedom might think about laws around euthanasia and prostitution.

Nathan on X: https://x.com/nathan_seiuli
Pillar on X: https://x.com/Pillar_NZ

David Webb is a lawyer and a spokesperson for The Opportunities Party on their Citizens' Voice policy. We talked to him about the party's plan for citizens' assemblies, the benefits and drawbacks of referenda, and how we could improve MMP.

TOP's citizens' voice page: https://www.top.org.nz/citizens-voice
James' article with Geoff Neal: Politicians are disconnected from the people they represent - Newsroom

Musa al-Gharbi is an assistant professor in the School of Communication and Journalism at Stony Brook University. He was the Communications Director at Heterodox Academy from 2016 to 2020.

I talked to Musa about growing up in a military family, being cancelled by Fox News, who 'symbolic capitalists' are, the extent to which Donald Trump is comparable to an alligator, and what the future holds for universities.

Musa's book: https://www.thenile.co.nz/books/musa-al-gharbi/we-have-never-been-woke/9780691235349
Intellectuals and motivated reasoning: 

Doug Elliffe is a professor of psychology at the University of Auckland. We talked to him about whether crows know what's good for them, the Listener letter and its fallout, and how to foster a culture of free inquiry at New Zealand universities.

In this episode we are once again joined by our regular correspondent from the Free Speech Union (and the New Zealand Initiative), Steph Martin. We debrief about the FSU's panel events in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch on institutional neutrality and the draft academic freedom legislation. We also talk about that legislation (part of the Education and Training Amendment Bill No. 2), and more particularly about the response to it in Parliament by two opposition politicians.

Henare Parata is a teacher of te reo and mātauranga Māori. He has also been involved with The Opportunities Party (TOP), and is a well-known presence on X as @TeHenare. We talked to him about mātauranga Māori and science, what pre-colonial Māori society was really like, and where his favourite marae is.

Brandon McMurtrie is a PhD student in psychology at Massey University, where he studies political polarization. He is also a keen Substacker, X-user, and hunter. We talked to him about polarization; whether the way we're currently talking about mental health might have some downsides; psychological research on left- (and right-) wing authoritarianism; and why he goes hunting.

Pew Research on polarization in the US: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/...
Costello et al. on the traditional political spectrum: https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retri...

Brandon's piece on 'identity satiation': https://backcountrypsych.substack.com...
Steven Pinker on the American Psychological Associations' guidelines: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/op...

Quadrant piece on authoritarianism research: https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/unca...
Jesse Smith, 'Old wine in new wineskins': https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...
For more links, see the YouTube version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MTXAgF1MTs&t=7s

Dr James Lindsay was one of the perpetrators of the 'Sokal Squared' hoax, and is the co-author of Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody and of How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide.

We asked him who his favourite post-modern thinker is, whether he went crazy on Twitter, and what he means by terms like 'groomer' and 'the woke right.'

Cynical Theories: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/1634312023
How to Have Impossible Conversations: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/0738285323
The New Zealand Free Speech Union: https://www.fsu.nz/

Damien Grant is a Stuff columnist and the Principal of Waterstone Insolvency. We talked to him about occupational licensing, free speech, Trump's likely impact on the Anglosphere, and New Zealand's COVID response.

Damien's column about Janet Dickson: https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360573233/damien-grant-how-real-estate-agent-lost-her-career-over-90-minute-course
about COVID: https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360513485/damien-grant-new-zealand-ashamed-about-what-happened-covid-years
and about National, ACT, and Trump: https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360581859/damien-grant-acts-clarity-sticking-point-luxon-his-apparent-struggle-explain-why

John Stuart Mill on liberty: https://gutenberg.org/files/34901/34901-h/34901-h.htm
Jacob Mchangama's book about free speech history: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/1541600495
Pew Research report on polarization in the US: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/
Self-censorship now and in the McCarthy era: https://www.persuasion.community/p/americans-are-self-censoring-at-record
James' report on academic freedom: https://www.nzinitiative.org.nz/reports-and-media/reports/unpopular-opinions-academic-freedom-in-new-zealand/
Noah Carl on border closures in countries with few entry-points: https://quillette.com/2021/02/15/do-lockdowns-work-only-if-you-lock-the-borders-down-too/
John Gibson's article about COVID mortality:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00779954.2024.2314770

Frances Widdowson was a professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary until 2021, when the university fired her. Frances gives us her account of the circumstances of her dismissal. She also talks to us about ideas such as 'land-based knowledge' (which she has long criticized) and about the controversy over Canada's residential schools.

Frances' website: https://wokeacademy.info/

Frances' paper on 'land-based knowledge': https://www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap/book/9781802208542/book-part-9781802208542-47.xml

Ian Gentles' long-read on residential schools: https://quillette.com/2023/08/02/not-a-genocide/