Podcast: Gary Saul Morson on the New “Leninthink”

This Week’s Guest: Gary Saul Morson

Discussions about “cancel culture”—the practice of stigmatizing and ostracizing a person or institution deemed to have transgressed political correctness—have lately become ubiquitous in the United States. American culture seems to be undergoing a kind of revolution, fomented in social media, that is reshaping the contours of our public life: from the campus to the boardroom to the newsroom, the cost of having said or thought the wrong thing can now put one’s reputation and livelihood at risk. And there is little path for the accused to enjoy ablution, to wash away the sin of wrongthink.

In this podcast, editor Jonathan Silver is joined by Gary Saul Morson, professor of the arts and humanities at Northwestern University, to discuss his 2019 New Criterion essay “Leninthink.” Morson’s essay is not about Lenin the man, nor is it about Communist ideology. Leninthink is, rather, anti-ideological: a cast of mind and a political tactic that utilizes ideology to wage political revolution. At a time when cancel culture threatens to tear down the universities, the museums, and the press, Morson’s study is more important than ever.