Professor From the Yale Halloween Costume Controversy Explains What Happened | Joe Rogan

I became aware of you like many people did with the infamous Halloween costume incident at Yale where, explain that for people who don't know what happened. Because it was kind of a crazy scene, it went national. Yes, it was a moment when around the country many students were struggling with how to balance conflicting sort of needs. Try to keep that a little bit closer to your face. Conflicting needs. How on the one hand to create an environment in schools where everyone sort of felt welcome as we've democratized admissions to our American universities as I think we should have. People from all walks of life have started moving into these institutions claiming them for their own which I think is appropriate. But at the same time these institutions had wonderful heritages of commitment to free expression and open debate and reason as a principle for resolving our differences. And some of those values came into tension. And so around the country there was a lot of heat about this and I happened to walk into a propeller myself and wound up in some challenging circumstances. And it was not the worst thing that's ever happened to me but it was in the top 10 challenging moments I've had in my life let's say. That's a very lawyer like way of describing exactly what happened. Well, I mean the thing is I struggle, I mean you can tell the story if you want and I can correct things. But here's the thing, it's my job to be a teacher and I have taken responsibility for teaching young people and it is the case that many people lost their minds, I mean lost their senses. And the faculty too incidentally, I mean it's one thing to talk about people in college age people but then the faculty also didn't necessarily do what they should have done. But the thing is that my commitment is to teaching more generally and I don't want to be defined by that event. I don't want that to become the most important thing about me. I have this book that we're going to talk about that is an important thing in my life, instantiates my values, it talks about what I think is important about the world. So I'm trying to be balanced about it. It's one thing that happened, I did my best, it's in the past. Let me help out here because you're being so nice about the whole thing. So people know what we're talking about. There was an incident that was captured on someone's cell phone where you were standing there- Just many people, it was an hour of footage, five or six different angles so a clip went viral but I want to emphasize that there were many people filming that day and an hour or more of the two or three hours I was out there as available. Well, I'm glad that you had the courage to do that though, to stand out there and talk to those kids. But some of them were clearly, there's something that happens when people become extremely self-indulgent when they know that they have this platform and they have someone who is in a position of authority and they get to hamstring them in front of the public and that's what I felt was going on. Just my understanding of human nature, I knew what she was doing. What she was doing by shouting and screaming, this is our fucking home, we're supposed to be safe here. I was like, oh, I see what's going on. She's throwing up the flag of virtue for all of her friends to see how amazing she was so she's putting on a show. People do that, it's human nature. You handled it admirably, you stood there and you just listened to her and you never yelled back and you never raised your voice and you remain calm but that sort of environment where the children and I want to say children, they're basically adults but acting like children. This is one of the ironies, people that age can fight in wars and lose their lives and so I think it's a difficult challenge because on the one hand it's right and appropriate to hold people responsible for their actions. Certainly if you're 20 years old, you're an adult, you're still growing, you're still changing, you're still learning. I'm not the same man I was when I was 20 but you have to be responsible for your behavior so I don't think you get a total pass either. No, you do not get a total pass and for folks who don't have a 20 year old in their life and don't remember what it was like, you're not a fully formed thing yet. You're filled with chaos, emotions and hormones and then you're at school and you're probably away from the instructions of your parents for the first time and you're cutting loose and trying out new ways of communicating that way, it's a mess. But most people felt horrified watching that, that you were subjected to that when you're being very reasonable and also what it all came about was your wife had sent out an email saying like hey, maybe it should be okay for someone to wear a fucked up Halloween costume. Maybe it's okay for someone to dress up like Crazy Horse. Well, actually just to be clear, what Erica was saying in that note was not, this is a very important intellectual distinction, I think we've lost a lot of nuance in our political lives in general in our country right now and also in the nuance and the way we think about difficult topics. So what Erica was saying was not that necessarily, she was not taking a position on any particular costumes like this is okay, in fact many of the costumes that would have offended the students would offend her. What she was saying was that she didn't think the university should be telling students what to wear and she was asking the students do you students, at this age at Yale, do you really want the university to be sending you guidance on what to wear? Perhaps you should think about that. You're adults, you're smart, you're in an environment that privileges free expression. Do you really want to grant the power to an institution to tell you how to communicate? And people then thought that she was saying that she was defending a particular course of action. What she was saying was, she was saying do you students really want to surrender that kind of control over your own lives to older adults? And apparently many students did, actually they wanted, they did it. I don't believe they did. I think they wanted absolute enforcement of what they thought to be wrong or right. Yes, yes, I think that's right. So they, they, they, they, many, but not all of the students, I mean let's also be very clear and part of the motivation in Erika writing that note was that many, many of her students, and in fact many hundreds of other students felt infantilized by this policy. And there had been a big build up prior to that event, including an article in the New York Times about these Halloween costume policies around the country and weren't they kind of ridiculous? And so there was a, there was a kind of a ferment where people were saying, wait a minute, do we really need adults to be told in this institution, especially given its commitments to open expression, what to wear? And keep in mind that there could be many ways in which the costume that offends you might not, might, I might not know why. So let's say you had been abused by a priest and you were, one of the rules said you shouldn't mock religion, for example, was what one of the, one of the provisions. So, so a university-wide email went out, signed by 13 people saying, you know, don't, don't, don't mock people's deeply held faith traditions. Well what if for the sake of argument, you had been abused by a priest and you wanted in Halloween to dress up as a Catholic priest, for example, you know, holding a doll and someone else who had a different, who was Catholic was very deeply offended by that. Well who should adjudicate that? Like, you know, is it the role of the institution to come down and say, yes, you can express yourself this way? No, you cannot. And so the argument was, let the young people learn, let them sort it out themselves, let them learn by talking to each other, expressing themselves, saying, you know, that hurts my feelings. Here's why it hurts my feelings. And the other person said, oh, I understand, or I don't understand, I reject that reason and sort of buy into a kind of commitment to free and open expression that actually, I think ultimately serves the objectives of righteous social progress. If we really want to do better in our society or in any society, in my view, we have to create an environment where we can talk to each other, grant good faith, listen carefully, make subtle distinctions and free people up to express what they're thinking so we can have a real marketplace of ideas. That's, you know, my commitment or my belief. Well that's a wonderful belief. I love it. I mean that's really, I couldn't agree with you more enthusiastically. That's really, that sounds like the best possible environment for growing up and learning as long as you have someone to sort of moderate or someone to mediate if things go sideways. Yes, or I don't think you necessarily need a third party mediator, but you do need a shared understanding of core liberal principles. And these principles do include, as I mentioned earlier, a kind of commitment to free and open expression, a commitment to debate, a commitment to reason. So how are you and I going to come to a better understanding of what is true about the world? We could fight, right, and then the stronger person would decide what's right. We could vote. That doesn't seem quite right either. You know, 350 Cardinals voted that Galileo was wrong. That didn't make Galileo wrong. Or we could use principles of reason and inquiry to try to appreciate the world together, right? We're looking out at the world and saying, that's confusing. You know, does the sun, does the earth revolve around the sun or does the sun revolve around the earth? Or that's confusing. Should a king have, you know, should a king have ultimate authority in a state? Or is that not how we want to organize a state? So we, you and I look at the world and debate and think about, okay, and we exchange reasons and we use evidence and ways of understanding and studying the world. That to me is the only way to truth, actually. Now, some people will think that religion is a way to truth, right? They think that the truth is, you know, is God given, for example. Now I am very sympathetic to religious belief systems, but I don't think that's a way to truth. It's a way to some truths, actually. It's a way to some wisdom. But anyway, so that's what our universities and our society, our universities are officially committed to that. The models of our universities are all about free inquiry and pursuit of knowledge. And our country is committed to that in our Bill of Rights, right? We have a commitment to free and open expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and so forth. And those ground rules then, in my view, make it possible for us to have a better society. And there's more. I'm sure we will get into it. No, I'm sure we will. Again, I couldn't agree with you more enthusiastically. I just think we need more reasonable conversations and less screaming and less shouting people down and less stopping. Less mob action, I think. Yes, the mob action is very weird because I don't remember it. From the Vietnam War protests to what's going on today, there was this long gap where you didn't hear about universities shutting down speech. This is fairly new. This is within the last half decade or so. Well, let's not – yes. What? Yes. I mean, there's always an undercurrent of tension about this at universities and in our society at large. Let's not forget the McCarthy era where you had the right wing was really interested in shutting down communists. Like if you were a professor or an artist who had far left political views, you were screwed. Yes. And that was wrong. Or even if you went to a communist meeting to find out what it was all about, just to educate yourself. Yes. In fact, that's a great example because that – like right now, I see a lot of people being criticized for following online people they disagree with. Which is nuts. Crazy. Just because I follow someone doesn't mean I agree with what they're saying. I'm interested to learn. What are they saying? I'm friends with people I don't agree with. Yes, me too. I'm friends with so many people I don't agree with. I have a friend. I have friends across the political spectrum from the – I don't have any monarchists among my friends. I don't have any friends who are monarchists, but I have friends from the far right to far left. I have a friend who really believes – he's so libertarian, he thinks there should be private ownership of roads. Whoa. Yeah. That's ridiculous. Yeah, I think that's ridiculous. And we debate – he must be white. He is actually. My wife says she would just once like to meet a poor libertarian. A poor female libertarian. No. Yeah, that's a ridiculous position. I think so. Private roads. Get the fuck out of here. Yeah.