The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
00:31:16 · Greg Lukianoff
[00:31:16] S1: Well, both things are still happening. It's just a question of degree. And since Trump came into office, there's been... You know, politicians have felt empowered to really go after higher education, not on the basis of the idea of real meaningful reform in the name of search for truth, but political, score settling. It... It's become this very sort of vain foolhardy sort of project to just kind of give to the left what they what they perceived they were taking for a really long time, which is no way to fix anything. So so in the past, certainly in 2025, it was the first time we'd ever seen, like, the number one constituency for censorship on campus actually be, at least in our twenty twenty six years of existence, be politicians themselves. Now that's not historically unprecedented, but it's certainly not something we've seen in the last, you know, at least most of the last fifty years. I feel like we have failed as faculty
00:32:15 · Scott Galloway
[00:32:15] S0: to convince the students that the whole point of you being here is for us to offend your sensibilities. It's so strange that in this place where you're supposed to build a safe space to push the limits, that kids quite frankly are just such snowflakes. Our job is to create warriors, not wokesters. And I see it in class where a kid immediately identifies himself as being bit right in a fan of Trump. Mhmm. And he is ostracized. He's immediately seen as morally deficient. And I'm trying to figure out where did we go wrong. Like, how did this happen? It's one thing to disagree with someone, but to take it on as this person, I don't feel safe around this person. You know, that bullshit. Where did we come off the tracks here?
00:33:08 · Greg Lukianoff
[00:33:08] S1: Yeah. I mean, that's a long story. And Coddling of the American Mind, the book that I I I wrote with, Jonathan Haidt, you know, goes into depth a lot about where where this came from. One part that I feel like is underappreciated is the refusal to create expectations of discomfort, but also to actually do do something even worse, which is to kind of implant this this sort of idea that if you feel terribly about something, if you feel panicked, if you feel passionate about it, if you feel harmed by it, that there's something inherently noble about that, that that that essentially your heart is doing the hard work that your... Maybe your hands should actually be doing. You know, that's at the core of coddling of the American mind. I do think that part of it came from an idea that if we make students miserable enough, if we make them panicked enough about the future to see the world as a as a binary of good versus evil, that we make them overgeneralize in the name of social justice, that all of these things will somehow magically equal social progress as opposed to a cohort of miserable students who feel like they're always under attack because they're being told they're always under attack, but who are not great for free speech, academic freedom, or for their own mental well-being.
00:34:26 · Scott Galloway, Greg Lukianoff
[00:34:26] S0: I have a 19 and a 16 year old under the auspices of being a good dad without boring them and coming across as too serious. What would you want them to read or watch? What piece of media do you think does a great job, a thoughtful almost sort of sublime way of helping them understand the power and the importance of free speech? What would that what would that one piece of literature or media be? [00:34:50] S1: I'm just gonna say what immediately popped into my head. I wasn't thinking you're gonna ask about books. I would say, I think we'd be living in a much healthier country if at least a year before college students went out and had a real job for a year. Think that... [00:35:06] S0: Gap year. [00:35:06] S1: Yeah. But not just a party [00:35:08] S0: gap Okay. Mandatory national service. I'm interrupting you. [00:35:12] S1: That would be, that's one of those things where I wouldn't want to be imposed, but I would love it to be preferred by colleges [00:35:18] S0: that essentially- Encourage national service. Yeah. Make it so attractive they couldn't resist.
00:35:18 · Scott Galloway, Greg Lukianoff
[00:35:18] S0: that essentially- Encourage national service. Yeah. Make it so attractive they couldn't resist. [00:35:24] S1: Yeah. That essentially like we prefer people who have gone out and worked, you know, before being admitted admitted to the school or national service or something. And how does that teach free speech? It's partially because we are in these class silos to a large degree, and I do think that's a major problem. I I I think that I came in so much thicker skinned than a lot of the other kids, that I went to, know, undergrad and law school with, partially because I've been working in a restaurant since I was 11 with with people from all over the place. It's so empowering. It... It's it's the... It it fights depression. It fights that anxiety. It fights that snowflake ness. But it also teaches you about the give and take and the wide range of opinions outside of the weird elite that goes to Vassar.
00:36:07 · Scott Galloway, Greg Lukianoff, S3
[00:36:07] S0: It's so interesting because the connection or the word that bifurcates the fork in the road is empathy. And that as I think some people think they're being empathetic and they accidentally end up suppressing free speech, thinking they're protecting the rights of a discriminated community and what they're doing is not respecting free speech. At the same time, for me, I'm like you, I've had every services job in the world and people with much different backgrounds, that empathy relates to, well, maybe I should just shut up and listen every once in a while. I know. There's a lot of people whose shoes I've not walked in, and I should maybe just open my ears a little bit more. Greg, I always love speaking to you. I find you just so infinitely reasonable. Your your bio makes it sound like you're gonna be much more dogmatic, and I find you exceptionally nuanced. Greg Lukianoff is an attorney author and the president and CEO of FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. He joins us from his new home or new place of residence in Upstate New York. Greg, thanks very much for your time today. [00:37:09] S1: Thanks, Scott. Great seeing you. [00:37:19] S3: Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments, but that's weird. Okay. One judgment. Anyway, give it a try at Mint Mobile dot com slash switch.