The supporters of cancel culture or the cancelers, I hope they're taking very vivid note of the steady disappearance of and pressures upon such freedoms all around the world right now.

And that to propose cancellation and to advocate any kind of suppression of speech at a time

of rising authoritarianism in our country and around the world is the fucking height of

irresponsibility.

Welcome to the unspeakable podcast.

I'm your host, Megan Dau.

My guest this week is editor and cultural critic Leon Weaseltier.

Weaseltier was the literary editor for the New Republic from 1983 to 2014,

tenure that lasted through multiple regime changes there and effectively made him the face and the figurehead of that magazine.

In the fall of 2017, he was set to launch a new publication

when he appeared on a list of men in the media accused of various

and wide-ranging forms of mostly sexual misconduct. The magazine was immediately pulped,

and Weasleteer's remaining professional connections were severed almost overnight. After three

years out of the public eye, he has re-emerged with a new journal called Liberties.

With the first issue coming in at more than 400 pages, it's old school in every way,

sprawling yet dense, not all that online, and designed more to challenge readers,

even overwhelm them than to please and placate.

But can an old school intellectual with a tarnished reputation make a comeback in these roiling times? Wieselteer spoke with me

about both his new project and his long complicated legacy in the media. We also talked at some

length about sexual dynamics in the workplace, in mentor relationships,

and whether the Me Too era and his entanglements therein have changed the way he views himself as a man in the world.

Leon Weaselteer, welcome to the unspeakable podcast.

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