Listen now (74 min) | I’m back with John McWhorter for the latest installment of our ongoing conversation. John hit some technical snags in the first ten minutes of the recording, so apologies if the beginning sounds a little jumpy. After that, things smooth out. On to the conversation.
At time 14: John is worried that a reader who likes him would read a hypothetical McWhorter book through lens of race. I have “English- our bastard language” on my bookshelf. How many people bought that book? That would be a partial indicator of market size of audience sub-group that is interested in something other than race. I am still waiting for McWhorter to create a neuter pronoun for humans, a human version of “it”. My entire life, I have to write s/he or “the person” for context where my intent is to say “The human votes on election day.”
At time 5:05; John speculates about how readers of a “McWhortor Memoir” would respond with unfair or unwarranted interpretation. We witches know the feeling of frustration and disappointment when a reader violates the assumed author-reader contract. I suggest that John not publish, but write memoir for children, grandchildren and other relatives. Don’t title it “Memoir”, but rather “Personal letter to loved ones.”
John- Your discussion on Rachel Dolezal was interesting. In addition to your words, I would offer the following.... if the three named folks really believed what they were saying, shouldn't they applaud Rachel as a hero? After all, she was voluntarily giving up her white privilege and surely suffering as a result in this racist country. If they believe what they say, I see no possible better way for a white person to atone for their sins and show solidarity with people of color.
Glenn, I have listened to you and John since the middle of the Obama Administration, and I wanted to simply say thank you to both for teaching me so much.
I write today to note this. as I seem to get more from listening to Glenn opine while John is dealing with technical issues than I get from most OTHER podcasts.
To paraphrase the Emperor from the movie "Amadeus": 'You are the brightest Star in the Podcast firmament.'
I watched almost all of the Darrel Brooks trial, and I want to push back slightly against Glenn's characterization--and maybe John's as well--of the events.
The prosecutor never imputed any motivation onto Brooks. Much like Derek Chauvin's trial there was no mention of race by any party. We can reasonably infer that it was racially motivated given Brooks' history of anti-white racism online, but the actual course of action that led to the atrocity seems to suggest there was minimal premeditation: he was out on bail, he had just beaten his ex-girlfriend, he was hopping mad, and he wanted to do something evil. It is not entirely clear that he wouldn't have done this same thing had the parade been full of black people (and while the victims were technically all white, several of them were Hispanic).
I'm not saying that it wasn't racially motivated. Only that I don't know for sure. It's certainly flattering, for white right-wingers (like me), who are constantly accused of being domestic terrorists and white supremacists by a corrupt corporate media, to point at Brooks and say, "See! It isn't us!" But I'm not sure doing so would be intellectually honest.
Whether or not Brooks' behavior in the courtroom was informed by his 'blackness' was something I thought about while watching him attempt to represent himself. It's tempting to say, as John does, that it's representative of certain pathologies or attitudes toward authority or what have you. But any attempt to argue this is complicated significantly by his pro se representation (or pro per, as he would demand)--and the fact that he clung desperately to sovereign citizen arguments in an attempt to get acquitted. His behavior was deranged--he's clearly mentally ill--but it was also calculated. He looked up 'how to get out of life in prison' on Google and found a pamphlet (literally, we found the one he used online) about how you can say the magic word of sovereign citizens, and he ran with it 100%. That explains his actions far better than his race.
Demanding to address "subject matter jurisdiction" every five minutes and shouting "grounz" constantly and being utterly disrespectful to a good judge looks ridiculous in court, but I think a white man in a similar situation could have done the same thing if he thought his only way out was sovereign citizen mumbo jumbo.
As for his behavior more generally, it was shocking to see someone with such little regard for the process, but Brooks had nothing to lose. He wanted to be held in contempt. He wanted to cause a mistrial. At first I thought that this wasn't something you would see if someone like me were in his position, and to some extent that might be right; Nikolas Cruz, the Parkland shooter, was not like this at his recent trial. But I'm also not so sure. If I were schizophrenic, and I thought my only hope was to cause a mistrial, and somehow I found myself in a position where I had committed a crime as unbelievably evil as what Brooks did--I do think I, or someone like me, could have acted somewhat like him. I'm not convinced race is as important as it's being made out to be.
I should add that I view behavior as distinct from demeanor. Brooks' demeanor was reprehensible and inexplicable; he never showed any remorse whatsoever for his crimes, and regularly laughed and tried to joke with his own victims on the stand. He's a monster through-and-through. But I don't think that has anything to do with blackness. Anyone who can drive a car through a parade is clearly a psychopath and there are psychopaths in every ethnic group.
This also a comment to John, about memoirs. Yes, I started listening to you, as you describe, as a "Black contrarian" . But my interest in your life would be - what was it about your life, or your way of thinking, that made you so independent of mind, and of voice? As I said it to a friend recently - talking as if bullshit didn't exist - or rather - that it had no hold on you. That's very unusual, I don't have it, and I aspire to it, and I'd like to know how you got it.
I ain’t gonna say a thing about the content of Glenn’s memoir because I know better than to mess with a Muse. All I’ll say is I’m going to pre-order it as soon as Amazon/Audible lets me
I first encountered John on the Glenn Show, where the topics are frequently related to race. Because it was mentioned here, I discovered Lexicon Valley, which is John's podcast about language. I've learned a number of surprising and interesting things about John from Lexicon Valley, including that he became interested in language because he heard someone speaking Hebrew when he was young. His expertise about Sranan Tongo is interesting to me because I grew up in Suriname where I heard it spoken, though I didn't learn the language.
Musical theater isn't that important to me, but John's love of it makes me wonder what I'm missing. Before I listened to Lexicon Valley, if I'd been forced to racialize show tunes, I'd have thought of them as much more white than black, but now I associate them with John, who happens to be black.
Unloading on Henry Rogers was probably one of the best on-camera moments in the history of the Glenn Show. Love your passion Glenn. As an aside, I have to confess that I've never read any Nietzsche first hand either.
Imitation of Life: The Lia Thomas Story. The new, smash hit Broadway musical. Words and music by...
One of the worst moments of the Darrell Brooks trial was the day before the verdict, when the judge said court would resume the next day at 8:30am. Brooks attempted to clown with the judge, taking on a friendly, teasing voice: I don't know, that's awful early to get up; I like to sleep late. Words to that effect, showing a complete indifference to the deaths, to the survivors, to the legal system. Did he think the judge was going to smile and giggle? The trial showed clearly, in my view, that garden-variety remorselessness is not "mental illness."
I read a recent editorial by Ruy Teixeira in The Economist asking if we've reached peak woke. His view was that the populace is sick of woke, that most politicians are sick of woke, but that woke has so penetrated our institutions that it isn't going away any time soon, because millions of people now have jobs predicated on woke staying alive. As Dr. Loury alluded to, next Tuesday might well be a proxy for the mindset of voters.
Very interesting discussion! There should be no compromise when it comes to enforcing law and order. Black criminals should not be cut any slack for whatever reason at all ever! The same standard should be ruthlessly applied to everybody.
At time 14: John is worried that a reader who likes him would read a hypothetical McWhorter book through lens of race. I have “English- our bastard language” on my bookshelf. How many people bought that book? That would be a partial indicator of market size of audience sub-group that is interested in something other than race. I am still waiting for McWhorter to create a neuter pronoun for humans, a human version of “it”. My entire life, I have to write s/he or “the person” for context where my intent is to say “The human votes on election day.”
At time 5:05; John speculates about how readers of a “McWhortor Memoir” would respond with unfair or unwarranted interpretation. We witches know the feeling of frustration and disappointment when a reader violates the assumed author-reader contract. I suggest that John not publish, but write memoir for children, grandchildren and other relatives. Don’t title it “Memoir”, but rather “Personal letter to loved ones.”
John- Your discussion on Rachel Dolezal was interesting. In addition to your words, I would offer the following.... if the three named folks really believed what they were saying, shouldn't they applaud Rachel as a hero? After all, she was voluntarily giving up her white privilege and surely suffering as a result in this racist country. If they believe what they say, I see no possible better way for a white person to atone for their sins and show solidarity with people of color.
Glenn, I have listened to you and John since the middle of the Obama Administration, and I wanted to simply say thank you to both for teaching me so much.
I write today to note this. as I seem to get more from listening to Glenn opine while John is dealing with technical issues than I get from most OTHER podcasts.
To paraphrase the Emperor from the movie "Amadeus": 'You are the brightest Star in the Podcast firmament.'
I watched almost all of the Darrel Brooks trial, and I want to push back slightly against Glenn's characterization--and maybe John's as well--of the events.
The prosecutor never imputed any motivation onto Brooks. Much like Derek Chauvin's trial there was no mention of race by any party. We can reasonably infer that it was racially motivated given Brooks' history of anti-white racism online, but the actual course of action that led to the atrocity seems to suggest there was minimal premeditation: he was out on bail, he had just beaten his ex-girlfriend, he was hopping mad, and he wanted to do something evil. It is not entirely clear that he wouldn't have done this same thing had the parade been full of black people (and while the victims were technically all white, several of them were Hispanic).
I'm not saying that it wasn't racially motivated. Only that I don't know for sure. It's certainly flattering, for white right-wingers (like me), who are constantly accused of being domestic terrorists and white supremacists by a corrupt corporate media, to point at Brooks and say, "See! It isn't us!" But I'm not sure doing so would be intellectually honest.
Whether or not Brooks' behavior in the courtroom was informed by his 'blackness' was something I thought about while watching him attempt to represent himself. It's tempting to say, as John does, that it's representative of certain pathologies or attitudes toward authority or what have you. But any attempt to argue this is complicated significantly by his pro se representation (or pro per, as he would demand)--and the fact that he clung desperately to sovereign citizen arguments in an attempt to get acquitted. His behavior was deranged--he's clearly mentally ill--but it was also calculated. He looked up 'how to get out of life in prison' on Google and found a pamphlet (literally, we found the one he used online) about how you can say the magic word of sovereign citizens, and he ran with it 100%. That explains his actions far better than his race.
Demanding to address "subject matter jurisdiction" every five minutes and shouting "grounz" constantly and being utterly disrespectful to a good judge looks ridiculous in court, but I think a white man in a similar situation could have done the same thing if he thought his only way out was sovereign citizen mumbo jumbo.
As for his behavior more generally, it was shocking to see someone with such little regard for the process, but Brooks had nothing to lose. He wanted to be held in contempt. He wanted to cause a mistrial. At first I thought that this wasn't something you would see if someone like me were in his position, and to some extent that might be right; Nikolas Cruz, the Parkland shooter, was not like this at his recent trial. But I'm also not so sure. If I were schizophrenic, and I thought my only hope was to cause a mistrial, and somehow I found myself in a position where I had committed a crime as unbelievably evil as what Brooks did--I do think I, or someone like me, could have acted somewhat like him. I'm not convinced race is as important as it's being made out to be.
I should add that I view behavior as distinct from demeanor. Brooks' demeanor was reprehensible and inexplicable; he never showed any remorse whatsoever for his crimes, and regularly laughed and tried to joke with his own victims on the stand. He's a monster through-and-through. But I don't think that has anything to do with blackness. Anyone who can drive a car through a parade is clearly a psychopath and there are psychopaths in every ethnic group.
This also a comment to John, about memoirs. Yes, I started listening to you, as you describe, as a "Black contrarian" . But my interest in your life would be - what was it about your life, or your way of thinking, that made you so independent of mind, and of voice? As I said it to a friend recently - talking as if bullshit didn't exist - or rather - that it had no hold on you. That's very unusual, I don't have it, and I aspire to it, and I'd like to know how you got it.
Look into
HG Tudor. He covers narcissism on his channel and covers Brooks and many others on his channel. The "woke" world has their share of them.
John has now alluded to Tim Whatley in Seinfeld and I've completely forgotten the preceding 59 minutes of this conversation. Love it!
https://youtu.be/u8QMIYv-y98
Great as always Glenn and John. I really enjoyed you guys cracking up together as well.
I ain’t gonna say a thing about the content of Glenn’s memoir because I know better than to mess with a Muse. All I’ll say is I’m going to pre-order it as soon as Amazon/Audible lets me
I first encountered John on the Glenn Show, where the topics are frequently related to race. Because it was mentioned here, I discovered Lexicon Valley, which is John's podcast about language. I've learned a number of surprising and interesting things about John from Lexicon Valley, including that he became interested in language because he heard someone speaking Hebrew when he was young. His expertise about Sranan Tongo is interesting to me because I grew up in Suriname where I heard it spoken, though I didn't learn the language.
Musical theater isn't that important to me, but John's love of it makes me wonder what I'm missing. Before I listened to Lexicon Valley, if I'd been forced to racialize show tunes, I'd have thought of them as much more white than black, but now I associate them with John, who happens to be black.
Unloading on Henry Rogers was probably one of the best on-camera moments in the history of the Glenn Show. Love your passion Glenn. As an aside, I have to confess that I've never read any Nietzsche first hand either.
5:19 "Connection Problems with John McWhorter" could be a new show.
Imitation of Life: The Lia Thomas Story. The new, smash hit Broadway musical. Words and music by...
One of the worst moments of the Darrell Brooks trial was the day before the verdict, when the judge said court would resume the next day at 8:30am. Brooks attempted to clown with the judge, taking on a friendly, teasing voice: I don't know, that's awful early to get up; I like to sleep late. Words to that effect, showing a complete indifference to the deaths, to the survivors, to the legal system. Did he think the judge was going to smile and giggle? The trial showed clearly, in my view, that garden-variety remorselessness is not "mental illness."
I read a recent editorial by Ruy Teixeira in The Economist asking if we've reached peak woke. His view was that the populace is sick of woke, that most politicians are sick of woke, but that woke has so penetrated our institutions that it isn't going away any time soon, because millions of people now have jobs predicated on woke staying alive. As Dr. Loury alluded to, next Tuesday might well be a proxy for the mindset of voters.
Can John invest in a decent streaming setup and internet connection, and maybe do a sound check before the episode?
Very interesting discussion! There should be no compromise when it comes to enforcing law and order. Black criminals should not be cut any slack for whatever reason at all ever! The same standard should be ruthlessly applied to everybody.