This is Eli Lake and you're listening to the re-education. My guest today is Noah Rothman,

author of The Rise of the New Puritans, a new book that looks at how progressive scolds

have waged a war on fun.

A paradox of the American experience is that in our country, there are long traditions

of both libertine excess and puritanical control.

Americans invented both spring break and girls gone Wild, as well as 12-step programs

and the Comstock laws. In other words, we are both a fun and anti-fun society. That is the

intellectual conceit of my guest Noah Rothman's new book on the progressive scolds that now seem to be on the march in nearly every facet of our lives.

There are the climate activists which would like us to stop eating meat and perhaps replace our tea bones with sauteed crickets.

There are the online anti-comedy activists

that pressure prestige outlets like Saturday Night Live

to fire dangerous alt-right comics.

And of course, there are the anti-racism experts

and consultants who implore us all to do the work.

And as they do the work of getting the word out,

the goal is for MCLA to do the work. And as they do the work of getting the word out, the goal is for MCLA to do the work of

anti-racism.

The name of the campaign is do the work of anti-racism.

But I think what we're hoping to do is kind of flood the quad, really have lots of signage

so that you're a little bit overwhelmed by it. That was a brief video from 2020 about a new campaign at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.

So what is the work, you may ask?

Well, it involves a process of self-interrogation, an acknowledgement that if you're white, you are inescapably racist.

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