>> eric. it's has published what he got his career and his writings have appeared in periodicals like the near times the "washington post" economist "l.a. times" l.a. weekly previous books include punishment in the boundaries of desire comes to us today from our own san francisco. in conversation tonight he have judy miller and amy peabody award-winning television

correspondent and "national public radio" commentator. working for abc news in 1990 she has covered among other stories the 1992 rodney king trial and the ensuing riots and the o.j. simpson criminal and civil trials for which he received an award. we have some very excellent guest that we have here tonight. thank you for coming out everybody one last time. i'll give it to eric and judy. >> thanks for that lovely introduction. i am really thrilled to be talking today with eric berkowitz. eric is truly one of the finest writers i know especially when it comes to tackling enormous subjects like you know the history of censorship in the west. and i love this book.

most authors would be intimidated by that huge subject matter but eric has this great talent of taking a big subject and serving it up and delicious morsels of history. he is a great storyteller and these are page turning stories full of betrayal and heroism and facts which is always helpful and all of those amazing dramatic things. you book was called a masterpiece of astounding a comprehensive historical account of censorship and that was not his mother. that was a real reviewer. [laughter] one of the major takeaways for me eric and i love this book after reading it seems to me the

major theme is that censorship never really works at least in the long run. is that how you see a too quick to have all these examples that in and your thoughts and words in whatever form fail. is that true? >> i think it's almost entirely true because there's a real difference between censoring a book or a picture or even shutting down a demonstration or even killing someone from the idea that actually has embodied in what is said and what we find repeatedly in one way or another is that the efforts of authority either the mob are generally a government or a church, there's an idea that they feel threatened by the idea so they

try to eradicate all copies of the copies only surviving more than that the idea in the copies survive. when something is suppressed again take it from your own life, when something is banned you want to look at it and when something is. he wants to get up. it is said repeatedly that when an expression is locked down it's going to come through. most recently china has the most comprehensive internet scheme in the world. they are doing everything they can with millions of people and lots of money to bar foreign news. the reporters without borders found ways to funnel news

stories through the on line game mind craft. mind craft. the examples are legion. >> that is china today. how to keep dangerous ideas away from their people. >> good luck with that. >> this book begins with one of the first emperors in china and what did they do to suppress ideas that they thought were dangerous? >> you touched on the opening anecdote of the book which is what i thought and compass so much. the first emperor of china and i'm going to which are the pronunciation -- so we are now back to the third century. he is more of a warrior.

he tries to build a wall and what he wanted was history. it killed them to hear people criticizing him. he was a great achiever but he was hated and particularly using confucius and intellectuals would say was really better than. what he did was he realized confucius was probably the source of all these ideas. not just confucius but all books of poetry literature and history philosophy burned them all. he saved copies for himself. so again it doesn't work ready also turned to philosophers to carry the ideas and buried them

alive. buried 400 philosophers alive. in fact from that point forward even to discuss the past critically you would get yourself killed along with her family. so that worked for about three years. that worked for about three years until he had some mental problems. he died from the elixir of life but the truth is confucius lasted and chinese poetry lasted. he's the one who. >> oh that's interesting. he tried to keep it away from the masses and this is another theme i see all three are put that censorship is kind of a

class struggle. it's the haves versus the riffraff. those from the church pornography and what really blows this apart was the printing press. is that right? >> absolutely. we can go into it in questions. we are building up to this. one censorship is the work and there are always ideas so would you do with it? you are most concerned about your channeling knowledge and channeling ideas rather than suppressing them so when looks were in written manuscript there weren't that many books to go around and they were expenses and difficult. it became available to everybody

in a few decades the catholic church index crept up censorship was an the whole thing was keep knowledge away from the masses, keep them ignorant, keep them docile and that really has been a preoccupation. >> i'm thinking of what they call the streisand effect. you can explain where it comes from but the idea that the more you try to suppress something the more appealing it is. >> isn't that the case with you? >> course. >> why is it named after barbara

streisand and where does that come from? >> barbara streisand objected very much to having -- there were some aerial pictures of her place in malibu and she was trying to stop it and everybody said what is this place? are forbidden fruit aspect of censorship never really stopped. for example and wind was very consumed in the 19th century with keeping criticism of the king down, criticizing the king in the church in particular so here's one example. an antiquarian bookseller wrote some parody and wrote some jokes sort of the book of humor.

what does the british government to? they put them on trial for seditious libel. he was just a guy. the trial itself brought him fame and before the -- text that there were three trials and before the trials were done he was selling thousands and thousands of copies. that was repeated in 100 different ways. >> so what happened to him? >> i finally gave up. he didn't set out to be a warrior for free speech but that's what he became. >> he didn't when but what he

was trying to do -- it was a case of the boomerang effect. talk about him a little bit. >> let's start with tyndale being termed by the british library is the most important library in the english language. tyndale was in the early 16th century a scholar again a professor at oxford and cambridge and he read martin luther's illegal translation of the bible. 10 dolph i'm going to translate this into english. he went to the bishop but of london and said can i do it and the bishop said of course not. we will kill you if you do that. he went to the convent and did

it and did a brilliant job of it and to get to and when. thousands and thousands of copies were sold again because they were forbidden. and so the bishop went chasing all the illegal copies. five copies of the illegal bible to bring them back to england then burning them. he was finally caught and murdered. what is the epilogue to this? the illegal bible was so brilliant that times change very soon and they broke with the church and the bible became the court the king james bible so this altar for bitten document is now a bestseller.

also it's part of the core bible >> yours is the meringue effect and sometimes sometimes they said we don't know the full story. i'm thinking of someone rushdie here and if you ask most person they'd say yes i remember he wrote a book that offended -- to put out a fatwa on him which was kill him if you see him and he had to go into hiding and that looks bad but now salman rushdie was up here where i live a while ago having dinner and i saw him near me in the first thought was fatwa and i moved, no. selman rushdie came out and he still writing and all of that

but isn't there a kind of lingering effect of something like that a kind of censorship that's late and then underneath it people are still washing -- watching and is there a lingering effect of censorship like that that it has on author? >> it certainly does and it has the cumulative effect and a step-by-step process. i want to give a shadow to keenan who spend a lot of time on this and he used a wonderful phrase which i wish i could claim called we internalize the fatwa. someone rushdie. >> a book called "the satanic verses" and to me it was offensive. there was a death sentence a

fatwa put out on him. the british government had a lot of pressure to shut them down as did his publisher and so his book was never fully censored. he survived but we internalize the fatwa now in a sense that it was much more concerned with defense and now it's uncovered a lot of things that were produced , concerts that weren't put on because of our fear that perhaps there will be not necessarily violence but we have internalize this notion that free speech is fine so long as it doesn't bother anybody so long as it doesn't offend anybody. that's not the free speech that we really care about. it's the larry flynt and the salman rushdie and the nutcase

down the street who is protecting your speech, not you and me. we just live our lives and so we have come to believe that free speech itself is a risk a source of harm rather than a reward of society. i think the lesson of the lingering conscience from verses and the cartoons in a diverse society offense is no longer the price we pay for freedom. it's something we shut down and i personally believe that is incompatible with what free speech is. >> since we are on this heavy of her personally been censured or felt the need to?

>> well you know yes. in fact i think i know where you're going. i have self-censored on this book itself in a very painful way. you taught me when you were my journalism professor that a reporter should never be the story but in this case i was. i was writing about this and this published in the united states and the uk. my publisher was run by an extremely brave woman who was goading me the whole time, don't pull punches, tell the truth, be bold. okay and i was writing about what you and i were just talking about and there was a recent decision by the european court of human rights which i criticize very heavily. this woman had given a seminar

in austria in which she called prophet mohammed a pedophile because he had a young wife, a very young wife and he was prosecuted in this environment for inciting hatred. the european court of human rights upheld that saying well the rule of the court says you shouldn't be gratuitously offensive and i was astounded that the highest court protecting human rights in europe and protecting freedom of expression said freedom of expression unless you are offensive and i said something to the effect of we have internalize the fatwa. my publisher called me and said eric i can't do it. can't do it. i do not like that line. we can't say it turn like the

fatwa. we have had death threats and bricks of the window at might the child. you've got to rewrite it. for a minute i thought i'm going to pull the book and not do it. i'm a hypocrite. then i realized my hyperprivileged perch in san francisco it's easy to have a first amendment absolutely and then i rode around it. for those who want to read the american edition it's all there. the uk edition for the safety of others has been amended. >> and yet in afghanistan just last week 50 young girls were killed at the school, clearly an attempt to silence the education of young women under very extreme islamic law kind of idea

and that obviously is going to have an effect in the same way that it had an effect on you where it puts you in danger of you write this. it does have a centering effect correct? >> it does. the difference between afghanistan, well afghanistan is a much less diverse society than the one we are living in and we are paying the price. i'm not sure it's right and i'm not defending it. i am easily offended. i've got my fatwa -- soft spot and that doesn't mean i necessarily want to shut it down but two of knowledge that a lot of speech causes pain -- we are diverse society and it's a lot different now than a lot of

people are saying that a price of the diverse society is we have to be a little bit more careful. i'm not sure i agree with that. that is what it comes down to. what happened in afghanistan is hideous by any perspective. >> i want to get to academia and a minute. but most americans would say yes we believe in free speech and we are proud of the first amendment and yet there are signs that we'd like to tinker with the first amendment a little bit. maybe it's gone too far for some people. is there any evidence that americans are low schizoid on this? >> oh my god we aren't a little schizoid, we are cut into pieces and we are on fragments around the floor. we are very proud of our -- proud of our traditions and free speech but at the same time

surveys have shown that half of americans and even more millenials believe the first amendment is outdated. i cite a few poles and it's getting more and more. in fact attracts a lot of ivy league students who say you can shut people down. we can't bear the idea of an idea that doesn't fit us. it's really really interesting. in my opinion when the signature achievements of this country in the last 50 or 60 odd years is decreased like the world is never known by a large margin. the noise of free speech is

powerful medicine for society and it makes us responsible for ourselves. now i think a lot of people say protect me. stop that person. stop that person from saying something and that is absolutely part of it. you are looking to social media. allow me to say what i want at stop him. >> social media twitter at all have almost weaponized the kind of hate speech and propaganda and lies that used to be censored and there are those that say facebook has become the

biggest censor now in our country. how do you feel about how that is all falling out with their oversight counsel banning trump because of his insightful speech. nobody has lied more on facebook or twitter than the former president but yet is somebody who has written about censorship you must be horrified with the idea that we would be censoring any kind of speech as a country. facebook is a private company and they are allowed to do it but give me your thoughts on that whole issue. >> you remember the disney cartoon when we were kids called the sorcerer's apprentice?

where you start something and it looks good and you have to be careful of what you wish for. that's the subtitle of what i talk about with respect to the internet. just a little bit of background. the way that our country was set up is that the government at least at this point has almost no power in free speech unless it's directed toward violence unless it's a copyright infringement. very limited whereas the private sector you know we think about restaurants and cafés and things like that has almost complete power. don't tread on me, okay? so because the normal model of censorship has been people versus the government we have the sorcerer's apprentice where

facebook twitter and the others are private companies so they don't have to censor anything. and they can censor everything. so in this country hate speech and things like that, they are legal. the government has no power but what you want is people are increasingly and i think rightfully being critical of what's going on on social media particularly when we have a president himself and his minions shoving hatred and lies into the system. we want to social media companies to do the work that the government can't and he might look concerned when he shows up in the senate every few

weeks but no one is happier about this chaos than zuckerberg and jack dorsey because every dispute makes them money. they set up the system to foster conflict because that keeps us on the platform. effectively censorship was set up on this peer first amendment principle that then as facebook wanted to europe and had to absorb much more restrictive rules in europe they reimported it back in this country and i think we can badger facebook all we want but they are going to do what they want. it's just a whitewash just basically saying we are taking care of it. >> i want to remind those of you who are listening and tuning in

that you can ask questions put out on the chat board and if we have time and we are going to try to make time we will ask eric your questions or just put it in the chat and we'll keep an eye on it. while we are on social media do you see your role and do you see any kind of push for government regulation of the internet social media? does that scare you? >> yes it scares me terribly and that's not to say that i'm not made crazy by a lot of terrible things. there are two words that arise and that is donald trump. the first amendment effectively saves us from him. he's the absolute enemy and

ready to jail anyone who spoke against him and he calls the press enemy of the people 5000 times. and he actually believes that so as we talk about government regulations and there's a call for censorship this is one of the lessons of might look. you always have to look at who is doing the regulations so we think the government can regulate hate speech or fake news for these other terrible things that benefit is we eyes have to thank but what if donald trump had that power? would have jeff sessions sessions had that power? what it josh hawley had that power etc.? where is i as much as any one want the horror off the internet i'm very concerned about the solution being far worse than

the problem. >> there are people who talk a lot about cancel culture, political correct is and this is a reaction to a movement that is understandably worried about hate speech. >> they are all woven together. >> what do you think of that term cancel culture and political correctness and the impact it's having on academia? >> the latest example of cancel culture that i have seen came out yesterday out of the kentucky derby. that horse medina spirit flunked a drug test and the owner of the horse is pretty mad. he said cancel culture. what does that have to do with the? >> nothing.

cancel culture is terms like politically correct or woke in their terms that are bleached of all meaning and even the word unconstitutional. they are unconstitutional. we use these terms to label things and developments that we don't like. >> on the other hand there's a renewed concerned about the n words and words that offend people, transgender attacks and this kind of thing but i've also seen such an overreaction in academia, professors being fired during his meeting with a couple of students, one student asked to read a case study, read it in a lawsuit and reading the case studies the n word was prolific reading from a case study in this created a huge -- it was a

huge thing and a the professor and the student have apologized and it sounds like something out of mao's cultural revolution where you apologize or else and he was reading and quoting certain words that have become. >> radioactive. >> pardon me? >> radioactive. >> radioactive. they are words and intention important? what kind of intention do you say something with? for instance they award and if you stayed in anger against a woman is an awful but if you say it's a female dog and it's also what abe v. and expression.

there's a town in france which had to remove its name from facebook because facebook was upset that the word was in there. we lost her mind is what i'm asking. >> yes we have lost our minds. facebook is facing in europe massive fines and i mean gargantuan fines worth billions and billions and billions of pieces of content. their human content moderators that they hired just filed a class-action suit because the working conditions are so terrible so what facebook uses as a human content monitor programs.

so no human thought they just love the term and it was gone. so the town renamed itself. there is a lack of intention on the social media platform trendy keep up with regulation but they are talking about cancel culture talking about the n word. i mean yes that was like swastika and a number of other things. swastikas allowed here in germany. it will get cleaned out or it won't happen. they have words beyond what they signify in that case we are talking about that was a law school the n word case that was at a law school quoting from a

judges opinion that included that word. her intention was simply to discuss the case but we have had the point where that can't be allowed. talking about cancel culture i want to get more subtle than that. a lot of people use cancel culture is a revenge that those who don't have power can get together and call out or make someone accountable for doing something hideous or having done something hideous or saying something and this is the way for people to gather the powers and bring people down when the power structure is -- it sounds good in theory but it's mostly the good old-fashioned mob. there were a lot of lives

ruined. maybe some life should be ruined but a lot more are not and yes professors are getting cleaned out. i think the administration is terrified of the mob. >> it is censorship by mob, is it not, in a sense? i'm just making this argument because so many people do. it really is as though you can't escape censorship in some way or another. >> censorship used to mean exclusively action by the government against the people and that's what censorship typically means with a judge or a cop or something like that.

i guess a better word is censorship is losing a lot of its real meaning. >> okay. i have a question on the chat that i want to get in. i don't want to get into social media right away. the question to 30 as a communication act needs to be modified or eliminated what first explain what section 230 is. >> yeah sure. section 230 is no longer obscure. it's been called -- but it basically says is that the platform, everything from facebook to yelp and to wikipedia anything that involves content, comments and contributions. the platforms themselves the

people that hosts are not liable. they are just letting it happen. typically the world of newspapers wasn't always the case by any stretch but it basically allowed interactive internet and it blew up. the statute was passed in 96 and section 230 is taken a lot of heat for being blamed for all this on the internet and this pervasiveness and hatred it on some level in answer to the question should be modified? i guess my feeling would be no. a qualified knowing here is why. they can't be modified very well because the government starts to

tinker with the amendment problem. we still have a strong first amendment, like it or not and companies such as facebook if they want to amplify something and they want to not amplify something that's their right to do. there's a lot that can be done to clean up the internet and maybe now's not the time. i personally think we should get them where they breathe and stop the targeted advertising model. not you but people have weight loss ads. they know you are pregnant before you are. a targeted ad model a model that follow someone around the targets them i really think in

many ways is the culprit. they can keep you agitated and keep you on the platform. there's much more safety under the first amendment then after five years of litigation telling facebook and others allow this and don't allow that into this and don't do that. that's really important. >> i think you are right. it's all about the money. it's all about appealing to our worst selves. whenever i get somebody liking my page and it goes to an endorphin in my brain and they say oh they like me. >> when you hear your enemy is worse than you ever thought. i asked my publisher how did you trend buy books on social media? i was curious. it's a stupid book you know?

>> nobody who march in charlottesville with a white supremacist group is going to buy your book, is that what you are saying? you'd have a great story about that. one of the fellows who was marching in charlottesville was allowed to say whatever he wants and then what happened to him? >> he was more than allowed to say what he wants, he was protected by police. he was protected. he was screaming those ridiculous hideous things. this lowlife was absolutely protected as much as you are i are and even at the hotdog restaurant where he works he doesn't have a job any more.

this perfectly illustrates the public-private rules that we have. he goes back to the free-speech workplace and finds his free speech isn't so respected their and the owner of the hotdog place as we respect their employees and they are free to make their own choices but they must accept responsibility and that is no more job. that same week these two halfwits go to berlin standing in berlin and they raise a salute and within 10 seconds they are arrested. this perfectly illustrates how various countries handle it. you can't do that in germany. >> almost every day we are hearing examples and the stories are everywhere.

censorship doesn't have to be about books and it doesn't have to be about movies. there were two young kids who were sent home from school and i care a member the state. >> i think it was oklahoma. >> you were wearing black lives matter t-shirts and the school said this is outrageous they can't wear this propaganda. i think what these boys are saying i think they were seven and nine, my life matters. what is so offensive about that? that is one example and then we have booked publishers saying we didn't want to rewrite history or show any of that ugly stuff. we didn't want to push the 1619 project that "the new york times" has about black history. what do you think of that? that's censorship, is it not? telling people what they can

wear and telling people they can't read that. it's the same old thing? >> absolutely. you and i chatted about this a couple of days ago. telling a little kid that he can't wear a t-shirt saying that his own life matters. that's an overaggressive school board and that's a school board that is just bonding to pressure that equates black lives matter with terrorism and they are scared of african-american identity. the project is more than a number of state saying you can't teach our students is. the 1619 -- was magnificent

research and how persists. there are no bills in a number of states hoping to forbid the teaching of that project. that will happen but what it means is it follows a long tradition. every tradition seeks to rewrite history in order to bolster itself. that's democratic as well as the authoritarian societies. we are just seeing the latest manifestation of it. we have the question. you do you have any suggestions for what citizens can do on the topic of fighting censorship. what do we do? how do we as individual students in this -- citizens with respect

to free-speech? do we speak up when we see a kid sent home from school? is a down to that point of view and is it that small of a place? is about refusing to be on facebook if they use algorithms to track our marketing desires? >> this is an going to be a very good answer and i really hope the book and trying to fashion myself as judge and jury and prescript or. society is chaotic and it didn't start with bezos. we went into a war in iraq and at the same time a fundamental law was behind 9/11. there were decades and decades where we thought her we were taught african-americans had a

different skull shape. to respond to this question you have to put yourself in harm's way just a little bit breadwinners a professor in the school who you don't agree with and whose views you find abhorrent is getting canceled or fired or being put under review for something he or she said you've got to speak out in favor that person and you have to argue against her own interest because i really deeply believe without a roadblock and free-speech environment in which we get a little bit dizzy, every day i wake up and think what fresh is trump giving me and i

would re-tweeted nights i get this guy off. i also know fall mating like he did on twitter shows what a maniac he was and is a great reason why. >> i love the way you have to work against your own interest because i can remember when the marched through skokie in the 60s and the aclu backed their right to do that. they were carrying flags. >> i thought that's true to your principle. that's true to free-speech. >> thurgood marshall the head of the naacp the majority to protect the rights of the ku klux klan and calling for his own murder calling for the murder of african-americans. marsha was able to see, i hate

this. it scares me but i'm not going to take the role of shutting down another person speech. absolutely we should speak out against violence and absolutely we should speak out against it but not to echo what we are to believe. do we sometimes feels, if it doesn't heard it doesn't -- count. >> i think the first amendment so misunderstood and it's one thing to say guess i've are right to speak another thing to say you have a right to speech and i hate what you are saying. when the founding fathers that the first amendment and the constitution and wasn't a deal. it wasn't the first thing i thought of and also it wasn't entirely free-speech at the

time. >> and franklin of all people said when they passed the first amendment they had no idea what the hell they were doing. i forgot how they put it but they put it beautifully. [inaudible] the idea of what free-speech was it's extremely difficult. i'm not saying what we call the absolutist view of the first amendment that we have now we also have to appreciate her achievements. seven years after the first amendment was passed we passed the sedition act which outlawed.

the first amendment it was passed as an intention and it's taking shape. i'm just really worried the fact that we are living in a highly partisan environment. we'd don't take that and simply say let's just rewrite the whole thing. >> i noticed you said effort in centering it. just joking. we do have a good question and we do have time to ask it from lou jetson who says you have an opinion about mark twain and n word as in huckleberry finn. the publisher didn't want to use the word in.

but it's historical and represents the time in which he lived. this really encapsulates the free-speech censorship historical perspective what was the intention that solve their and all across the country the board of education are banning huckleberry finn. the classic. would be thing? >> i think saying that word the word born of hatred and the word born of everything wrong is radioactive. >> i should point out to people who haven't read huckleberry finn the character of jim the n word is used in front of him because that was the style of free-speech at the time. >> yes and so if we went through huckleberry finn and the word is

probably use 1500 times and not book and let's just say one that would only call further attention to the existence of that word would erase something you simply highlight so it gets back to what we talked about the very beginning. it would only make the word that much more -- in our head so the ideas and going away. it gets to what was said and yes i agree with you entirely. that book is not only great achievement but a great example of the mindset during that time. i think twain was using that word to the extent that he was highlighting the injustices and

he was not using it in a way to call for violence or hatred. your comment judy about the intention matters a lot here. in short you can take a sharpie to the word and you need to deal with the hatred behind the word or not the word itself. >> i think that is an important place to rap this up and that was a great question in which to do it. there's obviously a debate that will rage on for centuries which never goes away. people try to censor and it never works and here we go around and around and now we have social media which has weaponized the debate and we shall see. time will tell all book the platitudes. i can see that rick has rejoined us. i want to thank you eric for

writing this book read is wonderful and i can't emphasize. they are there and they are wonderful and a remind you history is full of heroes who stood up against real oppression to keep freedom of speech going in that to me is a great take away. >> henry viii stands out. the guy that buried people alive stands out but anyway thank you for writing it and thank you for being with us today. >> absolutely. >> the book is "dangerous ideas" and our author was eric berkowitz and thank you again judy for being conversation tonight. it was a lovely conversation we had excellent questions and chat. thank you for it when it showed

up. it was very entertaining hours led to be a part of a pretty good like to purchase the book you can do so from book passage.com. the link has been posted multiple times in the chat. you can follow it there. if you happen to live near a store you can pick it up if you would like but even if you don't live near us we will ship it anywhere in the united states right to your doorstep. in addition to that if your local bookstore we will not begrudge you if you purchase from them. we love all venues all across the country but if you'd like to purchase from us we'd be happy to have you. again if you enjoy the conversation tonight please subscribe to the youtube channel. it's completely free and if you enjoy the conversation you can click the thumbs-up button. it helps the algorithm if you recommend our videos just a little bit faster to everybody else but thank you again one last time for showing up.

"dangerous ideas" and thanks again to eric and judy. i had a great time. thank