This is CBSI on the World. I'm John Baxter. I'm enjoying philosophizing with my copy, Peter Berkowitz, of the Hoover Institution. There is philosophy here, but there are also some details that are irritating. Most recently, I've read Peter in the alumni magazines at Princeton that they're weighing, removing John Witherspoon's statue that stands in front of Witherspoon Hall, which I believe is the mathematics department.

But, you know, it's that was then. It might have moved by now. The reason to remove John Witherspoon's statue is that he was a man of Virginia,

the South, I believe.

In any event, at some point in his career, he owned slaves, and therefore his statue

is to be removed.

I puzzled about this because it doesn't achieve anything, but it continues cancel culture.

What is cancel culture?

What is that?

I looked at it.

I get caught up in the facts of why you're condemning this person.

Cancel culture strikes me as another example of that use that Stalin made of condemnation.

That you cancel people out and you've put fear in the land.

You've darkened discourse.

You've made people turn away and not share their thoughts, not enter into arguments.

You'd rather you just wonder off when somebody says anything controversial.

And by condemning John Witherspoon, and they condemn Woodrow Wilson, they're condemning

the history of the United States.

And why do they do that, Peter?

These are academicians doing it.

This isn't taxpayers who are earning a living.

This is men and women who are privileged beyond belief in that precious complex of Princeton University.

Why do they condemn?

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