Nobody Has a Monopoly on Truth: Norm Finkelstein Extended Interview
Norm talks cancel culture, civil rights, his communist crush, and more in this funny and controversial talk with Matt and Katie
“For even your most deep-seated belief, you have to leave at least some corner of your mind open to the possibility that you’re wrong.”
Why? Because Norm told you to.
He describes how he learned this key life lesson from a college professor. This professor is the only professor he remembers because this was the only professor who forced him to think. His right-wing professor.
A devil’s advocate, no matter how much you fundamentally disagree with them, no matter how nauseating, plays a useful function in the pursuit of truth. And Professor Finkelstein knows that if we surround ourselves in an echo chamber of like-minded beliefs, nobody’s going to learn a thing.
Matt and Katie can barely keep up as Norm swerves from telling non-PC jokes to lambasting today’s activists, from lampooning himself to sharing vivid stories of civil rights history that electrified his political career.
You just can’t miss it.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s subscriber-only episode of Useful Idiots. Listen here.
That collage is legend.
I loved the unabashed longing for style, substance, form...for beauty in writing. And for research! Also, re: W.E.B DuBois's formidable journalism, his book on visualizing Black America is extraordinary. It has hand-drawn charts and graphs that put today's data viz to shame--absolutely glorious.