In short
Eric Weinstein argues that after Charlie Kirk’s murder, mainstream media and education have normalized “revolutionary” ideology (not just “woke/progressives”), producing a “shifted empathy complex” that helps people celebrate political violence. He claims news style rules (e.g., AP guidance) create “strategic silence,” obscuring motives and enabling spread. He also argues free speech needs cultural “mustn’ts” (social prohibitions) rather than legal bans, warning that platforming certain voices can “paint targets” and lead to “direct action.”
Guest backgrounds
Eric Weinstein is a Harvard PhD/MIT postdoc, a public intellectual and podcaster. Piers Morgan is the host, a mainstream journalist/commentator.
Key claims
revolutionaries are at war with the society that hosts them; labels like “fascist/Nazi/Zionist” shift empathy so killing feels justified; gatekeeping is inevitable but should be about preventing violence, not suppressing debate.
Notable examples
lamb/veal analogy for moral distancing; “message killing” via revolutionary rhetoric; Abraham Lincoln Brigade analogy; references to Butler, Pennsylvania and Charlie Kirk; “Look at Your Game, Girl” (Charles Manson) as a sampling/moral discomfort example.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Disconnect in Modern Society
0:28 to 1:39
Discussion about the youth's exclusion from societal norms and responsibilities.
“You have this group of people, particularly people, let's say, in their 20s now, who've not been invited into the party of Western civilization.”
Revolutionaries vs. Liberals
1:39 to 2:32
Exploration of the normalization of revolutionary thinking in society.
“the education system and perhaps the Democratic Party.”
Empathy Shift in Revolutionary Thinking
2:32 to 4:31
How revolutionaries display a shifted empathy and its societal implications.
“of center family myself, we used to recognize these people as revolutionaries.”
Message Killing and Language
4:31 to 6:20
The impact of language in framing enemies and normalizing violence.
“I'll come to that as well in a moment, but just on that point you make about empathy, when I watched those clips, these weren't just young people being stupid because you could kind of explain that.”
The Political Landscape and Woke Ideology
6:20 to 9:05
Analyzing the intersection of revolutionary ideas and political parties.
“And the odd part about it is we don't recognize that they are at war.”
The Rise of Illiberal Ideas
9:05 to 11:10
The dangers posed by illiberal ideas and their societal effects.
“more around Christian nationalism and Christian identity.”
Conclusion: Fear and Revolutionary Behavior
11:10 to 14:00
Reflections on the threats posed by recognized revolutionary behavior.
“Because I've got a new book coming out called Woke is Dead.”
The Dangers of Illiberal Ideas
14:00 to 18:45
Discusses how ideologies shape societal reactions and the impact on free speech.
“do you imagine you're looking at thousands upon thousands of mental illness cases?”
Debating Platforming Controversial Voices
20:37 to 28:00
Explores the complexities of platforming individuals with controversial views and the implications for free speech.
“In other words, what I'm telling you is we've got a country that is wall-to-wall stocked with high-powered rifles that allow very far shots to be made relatively easily.”
Debating Free Speech and Gatekeeping
28:00 to 36:58
Explore the complexities of free speech, gatekeeping, and societal norms in a heated debate.
“that actually, you know, hateful speech has to be tolerated.”
Show all 11 chapters
Final Thoughts on Platforming Guests
36:58 to 37:19
Piers and Eric conclude their discussion on who should be platformed, questioning the implications of gatekeeping.
“of every guest we've had on this year, and I want you to tell them, before we speak again, who I shouldn't have platformed.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Piers Morgan:And we're live from the living room as Doug eyes up the matchday spread. He's reaching for the Buffalo wing. Perfect. Hang on, what's this? Oh, he's going for a can of Pepsi too. Incredible. What a finish. Sensational combination. Look at the delight on his face. There's no doubt about it. It just tastes better. Matchdays deserve Pepsi. Food deserves Pepsi. Grab a pack of Pepsi Zero Sugar for today's match. It's poetry in motion.
0:30Eric Weinstein:You have this group of people, particularly people, let's say, in their 20s now, who've not been invited into the party of Western civilization. They are not being given the means to have babies, a mortgage, to participate in a profound way. And they're being asked to conserve a society that is more or less using them as a protein source. You mustn't celebrate Charlie Kirk's murder. It's an absolute. It's not a legal requirement that you've not celebrated. Come on, man. Have you lost your mind? Have you lost your humanity? This show isn't as important enough to me that I want to endanger my family and myself playing these games.
1:09Eric Weinstein:We know what morality is. We know that this is far outside it. And if you want to play with those people because you think that those are interesting ideas, that's up to you. I'm not going to interfere with your free speech. I'm not your gatekeeper.
1:22Piers Morgan:One word I will repeat, which I would love to have answered next time, which is, who? Who are you talking about? In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's murder, Dr Eric Weinstein wrote, revolutionaries have been normalised as if they're liberals. They're not. That normalisation, he says, is the fault of the media, the education system and perhaps the Democratic Party. A lot has been said and written about whether this violence and division are a left-wing problem, a right-wing problem, or just an internet problem. Dr Weinstein joins me now to talk through his thinking on this subject and more. Eric, great to have you back on Uncensored.
1:57Eric Weinstein:It appears good to be with you.
1:59Piers Morgan:Just explain to me what your overview is about where we find ourselves post the Charlie Kirk murder.
2:09Eric Weinstein:It's an interesting spot. But I guess from my perspective, it's been fairly clear to me that we've been aggressively normalizing revolutionary thinking, and we don't recognize it when we see it. So as a result, you have decided that you've created people who I don't really think exist. You might call them the woke or progressives, but coming from a relatively progressive left of center family myself, we used to recognize these people as revolutionaries. And you'll see them by their empathy. Their empathy is entirely shifted. So if you've seen any of the interviews of random college students asked about Charlie Kirk's murder and they're smirking or they're happy or they're making jokes.
2:55Piers Morgan:Yeah, it's been really shocking. What you're seeing is, well, that's the odd part.
3:01Eric Weinstein:It's not really shocking at all. You just don't realize what you've been looking at. Revolutionaries have a shifted empathy complex. They're at war. They're at war with the system in which they embed. And the nurses administering your IV, the person making your coffee, the person at the DMV processing your driver's license is someone who is often completely unsympathetic with the society in which you exist and who would ask for its overthrow, potentially with violence. And often violence is to be celebrated. So, you know, there's language around this called direct action. And I just have this feeling that effectively Americans haven't been, I don't know, in contact with revolutionary thinking enough to understand that it's an entirely shifted empathy complex.
3:56Piers Morgan:But is it almost worse than that? If they were genuine revolutionaries, then perhaps I would subscribe to that theory. I also think a lot of them have been contaminated by the constant refrain that Trump's Adolf Hitler, that his supporters are Nazis, they're all a bunch of fascists, that if you are a bit of an unhinged young brain and you keep hearing that repeatedly and you see it all over your TikTok and everything else, that eventually you sort of see it almost as a civic duty to defend your nation against these Nazis. I think that's part of the problem. But I also felt... I'll come to that as well in a moment, but just on that point you make about empathy, when I watched those clips, these weren't just young people being stupid because you could kind of explain that.
4:45But I saw teachers, university professors, doctors,
4:52Piers Morgan:all posting stuff, gleefully celebrating the cold-blooded execution of a young man with a wife and two kids who were there. And that was something more than just a lack of empathy. And I don't think it was linked to them seeing themselves as great revolutionaries. It was just an absolute disconnect from normal human reaction. I mean, I've actually interviewed genuine medically diagnosed psychopaths who are medically, you know, deemed to be incapable of feeling empathy, guilt and so on. But these people aren't in that category. What has happened to them to make them so completely detached from the reality of what they're doing?
5:38Eric Weinstein:I'm myself mystified by the mystification. You know, so I don't know even how to talk about this, Pierce. These people are not in a medical state. They have loaded a revolutionary program. And, you know, let's say when America went to war against Germany and Japan, we used phrases like the Jerry's and the Japs, and we wrote messages on munitions that we used to kill the enemy. This is what they're doing. They're writing on bullets and casings. They are doing message killing. And the odd part about it is we don't recognize that they are at war. Now, you make the point that they're not real revolutionaries, And this has to do with the fact that, let's say a nurse who administers anesthesia and IVs, somebody with real control over your life, becomes a revolutionary.
6:42Eric Weinstein:He may have a perfectly nice life as a nurse, and he's not eager to die. However, the program that has been loaded is exactly this program. The first thing you do is you paint the target. So notice the following words, fascist, reactionary, Zionist, Nazi. As soon as you see someone painted with those terms, the empathy complex changes. Tell me something. Have you ever had really good lamb?
7:16Piers Morgan:Yes, many times.
7:18Eric Weinstein:Or veal?
7:20Piers Morgan:Yeah.
7:20Eric Weinstein:If you think about what lamb and veal are, it's one of the most upsetting concepts. But you're given language, which is, I'll have the lamb. No, I'll have the veal. And you don't actually think about what it means. And so what I'm claiming is, is that when you hear somebody talking about, oh, I'm fighting reactionaries, I'm fighting the Zios, punch a Nazi, that guy's a reactionary far right. That is the language used to paint the enemy so that you don't need to feel bad about the enemy dying or getting hurt. You can celebrate this. And this issue of message killing is something I've been talking about for a long time.
8:02Eric Weinstein:If you have something like the AP Style Guide and it says we can't print manifestos of killers anymore, the public doesn't know that there's an entire theory or a doctrine called strategic silence. So they're sitting there watching their news, trying to figure out, well, what's the motive? And the motive that comes to the AP style guy might be something like, the alleged mass killer is reputed to have shouted a foreign religious slogan in another language. And you're thinking, oh, come on. You know, you can't even report on what happened. SO THAT GIVES THE ILLUSION OF A COVER-UP BECAUSE WHAT'S GOING ON IS THAT THE NEWS ORGANIZATIONS HAVE BEEN PRE-PROGRAMMED AS TO HOW THEY CAN REPORT ON THIS.
8:46Eric Weinstein:SO YOU HAVE A SITUATION IN WHICH WE HAVE A GROUP CALLED THE WOKE THAT DON'T REALLY EXIST OR THE PROGRESSIVES WHICH ARE ACTUALLY NORMALIZED REVOLUTIONARIES PARTICULARLY WITHIN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. MY PARTY HAS NORMALIZED REVOLUTIONARIES INSIDE THE PARTY. THERE ARE NORMALIZED REVOLUTIONARIES IN THE OTHER PARTY, THE REPUBLICANS, MUCH more around Christian nationalism and Christian identity. And you're now playing this game where we are undoing a tolerant liberal society where the only people with real ideas are these fringe individuals. Let me just make a point that people aren't going to have thought much about.
9:27Eric Weinstein:The normalized revolutionaries inside the Democratic Party have ideas. AOC has ideas. Mamdani has ideas. Hillary Clinton does not have ideas. You have this group of people, particularly people, let's say, in their 20s now, who've not been invited into the party of Western civilization. They are not being given the means to have babies, a mortgage to participate in a profound way. And they're being asked to conserve a society that is more or less using them as a protein source. And as a result, the real problem is that the two parties, the centers of the two parties in the U.S. don't have ideas.
10:15Eric Weinstein:They have no offerings. They've got revolutionaries. They're playing with revolutionaries. The revolutionaries are getting normalized. There's an entire shifted empathy complex. People, let's say, 40 to 15, which you saw around the Charlie Kirk thing. We're having a discussion about it as if it's an individual mental health crisis. It isn't. This is one of the things that the human mind can be trained to do if it goes to war, which is it can't over-sympathize with the enemy. And these people are very much at war with the society that houses them. If I can make an analogy, at some point the Gulf cartel in Mexico hired the Zetas from Mexican special forces as their muscle.
11:00Eric Weinstein:And, you know, I just gave an interview with the A16Z podcast where I said Antifa is, in many ways, the armed wing of the Democratic Party, and I'm talking about my party.
11:10Piers Morgan:Yeah, I completely agree. So what's the answer? Because I've got a new book coming out called Woke is Dead. I say in that I don't think it's actually dead yet, but I do feel that the ideology was given a sort of spectacular repudiation when Trump got re-elected that a lot of people looked at the way the Democrats, in particular, had gone down this progressive, woke-left path, leading to the kind of insanity of promoting trans athletes and women's sport and so on. And they realised they kind of lost all ability to sound like they understood basic common sense. And therefore, as a society, we sort of come through years of this, and I think most people now instinctively recoil against a lot of that woke ideology.
11:54Piers Morgan:Therefore, the ideology is dying. Do you agree with that? And if not, what is the solution?
12:06Eric Weinstein:Yeah, I don't agree with this at all. First of all, I don't think there was woke ideology. I think that's the name we gave to revolutionary ideology. A revolutionary ideology doesn't die quite so quickly. I think people are just waking up to what an actual, what a rifle is. I think people have the idea, well, 100 yards sounds like very far away. If you talk to anybody who knows the way around an AR-15, it's a long time before you have to start taking in Coriolis forces and wind conditions. I think people have no idea what Pandora's box they've opened. And, Pierce, if I could just bring it back to this program.
12:46Eric Weinstein:As you know, I very much enjoy doing this program. but principally I insist that it's you and me in one-on-one. And why is that? It's because this program also is normalizing the most insane voices. If you think about it, you're very capable of having a terrific one-on-one discussion, but you're also at the same time playing with people who are completely unhinged in a sort of Jerry Springerization of the discussion of our problems. Some of those people that you have on are revolutionaries. They're not actually normal guests.
13:18Piers Morgan:Who are you talking about? And that revolutionary empathy. Who are you talking about?
13:23Eric Weinstein:I'm not going to get into it. I don't want these people coming to my...
13:28Piers Morgan:You've got to give an example, surely.
13:32Eric Weinstein:I have no problem giving an example. I'm trying to tell you about what my issue is, is that they come to my house. They publish my address. What you're talking about is inviting people who have absolutely no regard for life, for family, for even normal politics. And what I'm trying to say is we don't understand who we've opened the door to. If you look at all of those videos asking for Charlie Kirk reactions, do you imagine you're looking at thousands upon thousands of mental illness cases? No, you're looking at an ideology that you can't kill so easily. And in fact, I ran a poll recently on Twitter, are there illiberal ideas that cannot be reversed by liberal measures alone?
14:20Eric Weinstein:The more you open the door to this insanity of trans athletes and cross-dressers in charge of our spent nuclear material, all this kind of stuff, the more you're going to have an illiberal reaction in the form of Donald Trump, MAGA, and the hardliners in the Republican who are going to say that we cannot afford to keep this door open to normalized madness. And so, you know, I would love to have a discussion about it. But quite frankly, these people are scary dangerous. I have not had a podcast for five years in part because of the increased threat coming from recognized revolutionary behavior.
15:00Piers Morgan:I mean, you said recently, you wrote actually, when it comes to speech, there is shouldn't, brackets, bad, mustn't, unthinkable, can't, illegal. If broadly celebrating political murder of national figures is merely shouldn't, we will all end up with can't. Free speech is all about mustn't. We bet all of society on mustn't. What exactly did you mean by that?
15:25Eric Weinstein:Thank you for bringing that up. Really appreciate the opportunity. You mustn't burn the flag. It's not that you can't. It shouldn't be illegal to burn the flag. And it's not that you really shouldn't because it's a bad thing to do. It should be unthinkable. And I want to live in a country in which I have every right to burn my flag, and it never once occurs to me during a normal life that that would be a thing that I would even consider doing. There's this concept of mustn't, which is cultural, which is what stops very dangerous fit ideas. You see, the fitness of an idea determines how easily it spreads.
16:05Eric Weinstein:You can have a bad idea that's fit just the way a virus is fit in an evolutionary sense. And so what we're really looking for is we're looking for very strong cultural prohibitions that leave us a free people with every legal right to express ourselves. What you're starting to see is that the violation of mustn't, there is no concept of mustn't. You mustn't celebrate Charlie Kirk's murder. It's an absolute. It's not a legal requirement that you not celebrate it. It's like, come on, man. Have you lost your mind? Have you lost your humanity? And that is increasingly seen as funny or quaint.
16:46Piers Morgan:Right, but how... So, look, coming back to what you said about this show and who we platform and stuff, you know, I have people who react to me platforming you. who say you're a dangerous extremist and so on. You've heard that yourself many times, I'm sure. I don't view you as I'm a dangerous...
17:03Eric Weinstein:I haven't heard that I'm a dangerous extremist.
17:08Piers Morgan:I don't think that about you for a moment, but I'm curious who you think we've platformed who would fit that category that you're discussing and whether you think that...
17:19Eric Weinstein:But you just repeated something, which I don't...
17:22Piers Morgan:Well, I'm just talking about random people I'm not talking about a mainstream voice. I'm talking about random people commenting when we do stuff. There's always a few that pop up who think you're a lunatic, right? As there are with everyone I talk to. I can interview Mother Teresa. There'll be people calling you a dangerous lunatic. Pierce, for God's sake, for God's sake, man.
Read the full transcript
17:43Eric Weinstein:I'm a Harvard PhD with an MIT postdoc. I've been funded by Soros and Teal. Nobody really thinks that I'm stupid. Nobody thinks that I'm a dangerous lunatic. Nobody really thinks that I'm far left or far right. There's a bunch of morons on the internet, and if you want to decide that they have a voice, then I'm sure that some of them think I'm a robot, some of them think I'm a hologram, and some of them think that I'm a space alien. If you decide that you're going to open the discussion to those voices, I'll go get a sandwich. You're not a dangerous lunatic. I'm not a dangerous lunatic.
18:19Piers Morgan:No, no, I think you must hear my point. I've got no problem with you saying what you said about some of the people we platform. I'm just curious who these people are that you think I shouldn't be platforming. Because without saying who they are, it's very hard for me to assess it. It's Medicare annual enrolment and people aged 64 and above should prepare to be bombarded with hundreds of phone calls and texts from agents for simply pushing the Medicare plans which pay them the most. This is one message you won't want to skip. Most Medicare plans change every year and many just disappear. Even if you like your current Medicare plan, it's critical to look at the 2026 plans or you risk losing the coverage you need.
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20:36Eric Weinstein:Well, but Pierce, why would I want to repeat anyone's name who has this characteristic and profile? In other words, what I'm telling you is we've got a country that is wall-to-wall stocked with high-powered rifles that allow very far shots to be made relatively easily. And you're talking about the fact that woke is over. No, no. There are going to be revolutionaries at various levels throughout your life. You'll never get rid of them. They are never going away. And what we're talking about is we're talking about not inviting them into our lives. Every time you ask for what are the names, what are the specifics, get into it.
21:15Eric Weinstein:I will tell you, why invite that person to a bigger audience? Why invite that person to paint more targets with words like reactionary, Nazi, Zionist? All of these things, alt-right, far-right, that stuff is going to get more and more people killed. So I would prefer that we talk about this in general, which is anybody with wildly and radically shifted empathy. You'll see somebody smiling when they're trying to destroy another person's character. You'll see a different shift in the basic notion of what makes someone happy. You'll see people who are far more concerned with people they've never met than their own family members or even their own life.
22:03Eric Weinstein:If you want to think about this in a positive way, for example, you could remember the Abraham Lincoln Brigade that went to the civil war involving Franco in Spain. Those were Americans who, for whatever reason, decided that they were so ideologically committed that they were willing to give their own lives in a foreign war that no one was drafting them to fight. I'm telling you that you just... You have to understand that there's an archetype, which is the revolution. I understand that. I understand that. But people would say...
22:29Piers Morgan:Okay, but Eric, people would say about you, you know, some people say this about you, that you operate outside of mainstream thinking about a lot of things, right? Maybe you... And I'm sure you'd be quite happy to concede that. So, yeah, you do. But people will say that and they'll say, well, I shouldn't be platforming you for that reason. So my question really... I'm not... You know, obviously it's difficult to know who you're talking about if you don't say who it is. But my point is, who is the arbiter of who should not be platformed? Who is the person who decides whether this person or that person is not worthy of being platformed or should be under the category of mustn't, as you put it in that paragraph that I read out.
23:12Piers Morgan:Who is the arbiter of this stuff? Is it you, who some people consider out there yourself? Is it somebody else? Is there some kind of papal figure we have for determining our booking process?
23:27Eric Weinstein:Pierce, are we that confused? I mean, look, if somebody starts talking about the need to murder little children, let's say, you know, are we going to pretend that that person is potentially as outrageous as somebody who talks about the fact that maybe our taxes need to be a little bit lower? Let me give you an example. Let me give you an example.
23:49Piers Morgan:I have people on who are extremely, extremely Zionist, okay, in their thinking. And they come on and they can often talk in a way that many people find grotesquely offensive about what the Israeli government has been doing in Gaza and so on. Now, many people on the pro-Palestinian side would say, it's appalling that I platform these inhuman, callous people who speak in such a language. if I had someone like Smodrich or Ben Gavir on from the Israeli government and they started talking casually about ethnic cleansing Palestinians and so on. So the question becomes, again, for me, I've got no problem with you critiquing the show, but the complexity comes from me if you don't say who you're talking about because actually I have a lot of guests on that people say I shouldn't platform.
24:36Piers Morgan:And often it's because their own personal positioning says that that person's dangerous, that person's an extremist. What they really mean is they challenge what I'm thinking, the individuals who are complaining. And I don't think... The whole point of my show is I tend to bring people on who do disagree with each other and do challenge each other. And I do one-on-ones, but I also, as you know, do occasional panels. And I see no problem with that. But you seem to be kind of having an all-encompassing critique of the show without being specific, which is difficult for me because I would love to debate an individual booking we've had that you're particularly incensed about, because then I can make a more clear-eyed view.
25:17Piers Morgan:But what I'm trying to say to you... It appears I'm not trying... Yeah.
25:21Eric Weinstein:You see what I mean? I'm not trying to get anyone... Yeah, but I'm trying not... I am not ever, I promise you this on air, ever going to try to send dangerous people to the home of one of your guests to terrorise them after the show.
25:35Piers Morgan:Right.
25:36Eric Weinstein:Right? In other words, what you're talking about largely stays on the show. So the first cut, just the easiest cut to make here is that a lot of these people are playing off of the Internet. It's not just a question of trading tweets or trading ideas or trading accusations. It's a question of how can I endanger this person in their personal life? It's a full game that is nonstop. You know, I have a stalking mob that's been coming after me for years. And it's like, who are they? Well, what do they want? Shut up. Why do I want to talk about these people in specific? The next point that I'm going to try to make is if you have somebody who's supposedly a Zionist representative who's excited about the death and destruction in Gaza, please don't have that person on unless they have some governmental reason for being on the show.
26:30Eric Weinstein:And if you have some revolutionary who's worried about what's going on in Gaza and is excited about missiles falling in Israel and killing civilians, why is that person on? In other words, there is still a thing called basic Western values that you represent, that I represent. You and I, I think, have recently disagreed in part about what's going on in Israel and Gaza. But my point is, you don't want to see one extra person die who doesn't need to on any side, neither do I, right? And so we may have different ideas about how to accomplish that.
27:09Piers Morgan:But I think what would concern me... But to pretend that some... Yeah, but what concerns me, Eric, about this is it's a slippery slope, isn't it, into real, genuine suppression of free speech. You know, what you're really saying is that I should operate a much more stringent and draconian anti-free speech policy. I should stop platforming anyone whose views you, Eric, find really offensive. Isn't that really what you're saying? And isn't that actually goes against everything you probably think you stand for about free speech?
27:40Eric Weinstein:Yeah, I'm a huge free speech addict. And in part, I want to make sure that free speech is always about the exchange of ideas. Yeah, but the whole point of free speech, surely, is that the whole point of free speech, actually,
27:55Piers Morgan:is that unless what somebody says is already illegal, in other words, you are inciting an act of violence or whatever it may be, that actually, you know, hateful speech has to be tolerated. but it seems to me like you don't want me to have anyone on here who espouses things that you personally find hateful. And I would say that there are plenty of people who might find some things you say hateful. I don't happen to think so, but there are people. Now, should I ban you? In other words, who decides... Maybe. If you feel that I'm... I don't. I don't. I don't agree with anything on it. But who decides?
28:33Piers Morgan:Who decides where that line is?
28:39Eric Weinstein:this is not as hard of a problem as we're making it out to be. It's not a question of, well, some people say this and some people say that. There are basic concepts about dignity and human empathy, and there are violations of them that are very profitable right now that are the precursors, the painting of targets that lead to what is called direct action. What I'm trying to do is to alert you to something where you can sit there and you can say, look, we have a demarcation problem. Eric, are you not asserting that we need gatekeepers? Well, yes, at some level.
29:15Piers Morgan:Yeah.
29:15Eric Weinstein:The whole point of free speech is to load gatekeeping on social pressure, not legal pressure. And the whole point about that is that I want to hear from people who have radically different perspectives from my own, like radically different. But I want to hear it in the context of an exchange of ideas rather than as a precursor to revolutionary violence. What I'm trying to get at is that if you want to get into it about free speech, I've talked to you previously about physicists don't have it because of restricted data. Or Brandenburg versus Ohio took it away. Or memoirs versus Massachusetts became Miller versus Californian pornography.
29:57Eric Weinstein:There are so many adjustments to free speech that have to do with the law trying to handle something which we know more or less what is it that is a liberal society. It has to do with the fact that there are so many people with good ideas who represent these various forces that we could give all those slots to people who very forcefully advocate for their side without needing to expand this to people who see that the general game involves message killing of sneaking up behind a CEO or taking a long shot at Charlie Kirk or hiding in Butler PA at a Trump rally. I mean, wake up, man. It's not about...
30:45Eric Weinstein:Nobody's portraying me who's smart as a violent extremist. It's just not true. And what I'm trying to say to you is... No, I didn't say that. I said there are some people... If you look for the shift...
30:56Piers Morgan:There have been some people who take some of your views, and they think they're dangerous or extreme. I don't happen to be one of those people, but they exist. They're out there. And every time I interview, there'll be a few popping up on social media saying so, right? So my point being, the only point of me saying that is not because I agree with them. I don't. I don't think you're either of those things. I love having you on. I love arguing with you. I find it very intellectually stimulating. But it just seems to me slightly perverse that somebody who is so emphatically pro-free speech sounds to me dangerously, extremously like he wants to introduce a kind of a new gatekeeping thing to the show where there Only people who show a bar of empathy that you, Eric Weinstein, find acceptable could then be platformed on the show.
31:44Piers Morgan:And that, to me, is a really dangerous road to go down. Ironically, to me, you're sounding quite dangerous and extremist about how you want to suppress free speech.
31:57Eric Weinstein:I find this hysterically funny. Pierce, if you think about it, your front door has a lock on it. Are you a gatekeeper? Not everybody can get into this van in San Francisco and get on your program. You're gatekeeping every day of your life. This idea that gatekeeping is bad? No, gatekeeping is essential. We all gatekeep. When it comes to free speech. The problem is the... Again, you're not... But I thought, haven't you argued against this in the physics world?
32:27Piers Morgan:Haven't you said the very thing that's problematic with the physics world is the gatekeeping by the mainstream orthodoxy. Isn't that one of your main bugbears about them?
32:38Eric Weinstein:But I really... I think it's as if you're trying to say gatekeeping good or bad. It's like saying water good or bad. If you're thirsty, water's great. If you're hit with an avalanche, you're going to die from it, or a tidal wave. You can't say that gatekeeping is good or bad. The question is the quality of the gates kept.
32:56Piers Morgan:No, but my problem is that you... It seems to me that you, Eric Weinstein, wanted to be the gatekeeper. You want to determine whether people's empathy levels reach your bar that warrants them being allowed to be on this show, for example. And I'm saying that, to me, actually is a pretty dangerous road to go down, isn't it?
33:17Eric Weinstein:Piers, let me ask you a question. You and I have never had a conversation about Charlie Kirk and whether or not I think highly or poorly of him. Am I correct?
33:24Piers Morgan:I think that's right.
33:25Eric Weinstein:Do you have any question about... Yeah. Do you have any question about what my reaction is to his murder? Sure. Emotionally.
33:33Piers Morgan:Sure. What is your reaction? What's my reaction?
33:36Eric Weinstein:You tell me. Do you think I'm excited about it? No. I know you're not excited about it, and I've never heard your reaction, because we're both part of normal societal reality. What we're talking about is so shifted. I can assume all sorts of things. You know, I speak a little Turkish. I didn't sit down in this van expecting that maybe we were going to do this in Turkish or Russian or some other language that I fumble in. I assumed it was going to be English. We make assumptions about each other and ourselves and our society every day. And as a result of that, what I'm trying to say is this revolutionary thing, I don't want to prohibit it at the level of speech at all.
34:16But I want to say, if we cannot say that people celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk are dangerously shifted from the rest of society, that it has a central core and that we are absolutely not embarrassed about
34:31Piers Morgan:this Judeo-Christian substrate. I would only have those people on if they had expressed that view and wanted to come on the show and I could rip them to pieces for their inhumanity. And the reason I would do that would be if they were already getting a lot of traction without being challenged, because I see my job to challenge that kind of thing and to expose it. Now, you know, you would probably not agree with me doing that because they so obviously lack empathy. But I want to expose that lack of empathy. I want most people to watch the exchanges I have with these people in that eventuality and think, good on you, Piers, for showing the world what this person really is, rather than giving them a free run on social media where they may not get any pushback at all from their own echo chamber.
35:19Eric Weinstein:You know, Piers, I don't know whether you've ever heard a song called Look at Your Game, Girl. It's an unbelievably beautiful song recorded during the 1960s by a recording artist named Charles Manson who went on to brutally murder a group of people. It's a sensitive, beautiful song. Now, my claim is that we have a discomfort about this because depending upon where we sample a person, we might find that they're semi-empathic, not completely empathic. I'm not telling you what you can and cannot do. I'm trying to say that you and I inherited a concept of mustn't. On different continents, we didn't grow up in the same place.
36:00Eric Weinstein:We're part of a shared Judeo-Christian substrate, which I am unambiguously in favor of, you know? And the whole idea is that our free speech and our freedom has to do with the fact that we are a highly disciplined moral people. Even when we transgress morality, and we all do, I'm guilty of it, as are you, we know at some level that we've transgressed. And this idea of celebrating the transgression and deciding that we are going to shift all of society into an illiberal framework and that that is going to then require incredibly illiberal means to reverse. I'm trying to say, look, we can do that.
36:38Eric Weinstein:If what we want to do is explore the concept that free speech and freedom and relativism and who's to say and we don't want gatekeeping and all that stuff, prepare for an infinite slide into the trough. What I'm trying to say is that wasn't what made...
36:52Piers Morgan:OK, I hear you, but here's how I'm going to end this because we've run out of time. I'm going to get my team to send you a list of every guest we've had on this year, and I want you to tell them, before we speak again, who I shouldn't have platformed. Deal?
37:10Eric Weinstein:Well, sorry, and then what, you talk about this, or I'm the gatekeeper? Don't set me up for that. We have a really fast...
37:17Piers Morgan:I'm not your gatekeeper? No, but you are suggesting... You do your... You're suggesting I need one, and you're suggesting a criteria, which is based around values and empathy and so on, I'm saying that's a suppression of free speech because actually somebody has to determine what those values are and what the level of empathy is. And so I think it'd be really interesting for me, rather than talking in generalised terms, who are we talking about that you think I've platformed,
37:44Eric Weinstein:which is wrong, and we can have a debate? Look, no. What I keep trying to tell you is I don't want these people following us after your show into our lives, calling our friends, our loved ones, publishing our... Yes, what I'm trying to say is some of the people you've had on are part of that complex and trying to draw me into a specific conversation with people who are very interested in acting as the shooter did at Charlie Kirk's, as the shooter did at Butler, Pennsylvania. What you're doing is you're trying to say, come on, man, let's have some free speech. Let's have some fun. Let's be open and free spirited and talk about people with whom we disagree.
38:28Eric Weinstein:Surely there is no gatekeeper. What I'm trying to say is this show isn't as important enough to me that I want to endanger my family and myself playing these games. We know what morality is. We know that this is far outside it. And if you want to play with those people because you think that those are interesting ideas, that's up to you. I'm not going to interfere with your free speech. I'm not your gatekeeper. And as always, I love talking to you. Thanks very much for having me on, Piers.
38:55Piers Morgan:I love talking to you. And I simply have one word I will repeat, which I would love to have answered next time, which is, who? Who are you talking about? Anyway, Eric, we're going to leave it there. I really appreciate you coming on. It's a fascinating conversation. And maybe we'll find out. Thank you very much.
39:11Eric Weinstein:Thanks for having me.
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From the publisher
In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s murder and the celebration of it by so-called progressive liberals, Dr Eric Weinstein has said that revolutionary thinking has become normalised.
The Harvard mathematician joins Piers Morgan for an insightful discussion on strategic silence, free speech, platforming, morality and the power of ‘mustn’t’.
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