Claire Lehmann on Speaking Freely

Conversations with Tyler

Society & Culture, Education

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 29 August 2018

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Claire Lehmann is the founding editor of Quillette, an online magazine dedicated to free thought and open inquiry. Founded in 2015, the magazine has already developed a large and growing readership that values Quillette's promise to treat all ideas with respect, even those that may be politically incorrect.

As an Australian, Claire tells Tyler she doesn't think she could have started the magazine in America. Even in risk-loving San Fransisco, where this conversation took place, people are too afraid to speak their minds. "You celebrate entrepreneurs and courage in making money and that kind of thing, but there is a general timidity when it comes to expressing one's honest views about things," she tells Tyler. "I find that surprising, and particularly among people who are risk-taking in all sorts of other domains."

She and Tyler explore her ideas about the stifling effect of political correctness and more, including why its dominant form may come from the political right, how higher education got screwed up, strands of thought favored by the Internet and Youtube, overrated and underrated Australian cities, Aussie blokes, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

Recorded July 19th, 2018

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Conversations with Tyler is produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University,
0:08.3	bridging the gap between academic ideas and real-world problems.
0:12.5	Learn more at mercatis.org.
0:15.2	And for more conversations, including videos, transcripts, and upcoming dates, visit
0:20.4	ConversationsWithTyler.com.
0:30.3	I'm here today with Claire Laman, who is the founder and editor of Quillette, an online magazine.
0:36.6	Claire is coming to us from Sydney, Australia.
0:39.5	But today, we're right here in San Francisco.
0:42.0	Thank you for coming, Claire.
0:43.2	Thanks for having me, Tyler.
0:44.7	Let me start with my first question, a very difficult one.
0:47.6	Quillette has published a lot of articles criticizing what you might call the side of political correctness.
0:53.7	What would be an example where you would actually side with the people trying to make things more politically correct?
1:00.0	Well, I agree with civility, and if people define political correctness as being civil and being polite,
1:09.6	then I'm on that side.
1:11.3	I'm on the side of not being aggressively provocative and overly polemical with ones perceived political opponents.
1:21.5	But I don't really think that's what political correctness is.
1:25.3	I think political correctness is the restraint on inquiry.
1:29.0	However, a lot of people define it as just being nice and being civil and respectful.
1:34.7	And so if we were to just go on that definition, I'm in perfect agreement with being nice and being respectful.
1:42.4	Yeah, we'd both agree in the past, and still the present racism has been a problem.
1:46.8	Gay individuals have not been treated well.
	...

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