Killer Mike! John Cleese! Bill Maher! Oh my!
My 2023 in six videos
Business was booming for free speech defenders in 2023 … which is generally bad news for the rest of society. Here was some of the biggest news and highlights from my year.
‘The Canceling of the American Mind’
Over the last 11 years, I have written 3.2 books: “Unlearning Liberty” (2012), the very short (hence the 0.2) “Freedom from Speech” (2014), “The Coddling of the American Mind” (2018), and now “The Canceling of the American Mind.” Despite working with the brilliant and unflappable Gen Z journalist Rikki Schlott, I found writing “Canceling” particularly challenging, because in order to write it we had to do a deep dive into the stories of the unfairly canceled. For obvious reasons, this led me to ask many times throughout the process, “By writing a book calling out the cancelers, aren’t I just begging to be canceled?”
But I am glad the book is out! So far it has been named one of the Wall Street Journal’s best books on politics of 2023, one of fall’s nonfiction “books to read” by The New York Times, and one of The Free Press’s “12 Books of Christmas,” and it received a “Non-Obvious Book Award.”
Here is my favorite interview about the book, with the great Lex Fridman:
There is still time to be canceled, of course, but at least Rikki and I laid out the tactics to be on the lookout for!
Killer Mike at the FIRE Gala
This year FIRE celebrated its transformation from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education — focused primarily on higher ed — to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression — devoted to protecting the First Amendment and freedom of speech both on campus and beyond — with a big gala in New York City. The event was a hit and was covered by “The Fifth Column,” SPIN, and the LA Times, among many others.
Killer Mike’s keynote speech brought the house down and was truly one of the best speeches I’ve ever heard on freedom of speech. And when you’ve been doing this work as long as I have, that’s really saying something!
FIRE’s College Free Speech Rankings goes big-time
In 2023, FIRE’s College Free Speech Rankings made its biggest impact ever. Every year we try to improve the methodology to make the rankings a more accurate reflection of the free speech environment on American college campuses, and as we hone the survey, the argument only gets worse for elite higher ed — especially the Ivy League.
Bottom 5:
#244: Fordham University
#245: Georgetown University
#248: Harvard University
But don’t get too pessimistic! Some schools did quite well:
Top 5:
And, while FIRE’s research department proves its worth everyday, it is not yet fully funded and could really benefit from your support. So please consider donating to FIRE and helping us spread the word!
Meeting my hero John Cleese (while naked)
As regular readers will know, I had the profound honor of sitting down with one of my comedic idols John Cleese this year in his (and my mom’s) native England. And while you have probably heard the popular warning, “Don’t meet your heroes,” the experience was an absolute delight. I would only change that advice slightly to, “If you do meet your heroes, try to be fully dressed!”
Laughing with Bill Maher
And, more recently, I flew to Los Angeles to record an episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher.” I had an absolute blast chatting with Bill about “Canceling” and joining the other panelists on “Overtime.”
SHOT FOR THE ROAD
The only bad thing about Killer Mike’s barn-burner of a gala speech was having to give my final talk of the night right after it! While I could never match his rousing performance, I did get to say some things that have been on my mind for years — specifically that the personality type most drawn to utopian visions run by philosopher-kings is one of the great recurrent dangers in all of human history. In case you missed it, here’s my “Fight the Guardians” speech (with more than 460k views, and counting, on X!):
Free speech truly is the eternally radical idea. It needs constant protection across the board. That’s why FIRE expanded its mission beyond campus, why I started this Substack, and why we need your support. If you care about the future for free speech, please consider supporting FIRE and becoming a card-carrying member of the new free speech movement!
Happy New Year, everyone. See you in 2024!
Really enjoyed the speech Greg. “...stay curious, intellectually humble, and keep talking to each other...” is a great message. Educational institutions would be well served to make that the introductory paragraph of their campus speech codes. And, it’s a good way to ensure diversity of thought, and overcome the identity categorization of opinions that start with.”As a [blank] my view on [blank-related] issues is more valid than yours“. The contrapositive statement, which is, “be certain, intellectually arrogant , and only talk to people with whom you agree” describes a lot of the Commentariat.
You are winning. Keep it up. I should have said “we” are winning.