"Cancelling Cancel Culture" - Part 3.

Danube Institute

“The first thing that strike any open-minded observer in all cases is the total absence of any self-restraining impulses”, so says Prof Legutko when comparing modern-day ‘Cancel Culture’ to past cancel culture events which were a part of the French Revolution and Communist Russia/USSR. In his lecture, Legutko addresses the underpinnings of Cancel Culture.

This is the third of a multi-part series entitled “Cancelling Cancel Culture”, a gathering of significant voices from countries on both sides of the Atlantic, including Laurence Fox Professor Frank Furedi and Douglas Murray from the U.K., Dr. James Lindsay, Rod Dreher, Charles Cooke and Dave Rubin from the U.S., Eric Tegnér and Eric Zemmour from France, Professor Ryszard Legutko from Poland, Professor Josette Baer from Switzerland and pop star Ákos of Hungary.

All over the Western world, speakers who hold unpopular views that is, views unpopular with the Left are being told that they cannot speak. Sometimes they are dismissed by the companies for which they work. Sometimes their articles are accepted by newspapers but then returned because some journalists on the paper object. Sometimes they are physically attacked and injured. There’s been a reluctance to accept that these things are happening, but they are.
That’s why we’ve brought together this group of distinguished academics, journalists, and artists from several countries to discuss this disturbing new trend.
Professor Legutko was raised in Communist Poland and is the former editor of Solidarity’s official journal of philosophy, one of several editors of the former Samizdat underground quarterly ARKA, published during the Soviet era. An academic, philosopher, politician, and author. Professor Legutko is the Professor of Philosophy at Jagellonian University in Krakow, Poland where he specializes in ancient philosophy and political theory. He is currently a Member of the European Parliament from Poland and is Chairman of the European Conservatives and Reformist parliamentary group. He has held several elected as well as appointed offices including a Member of the Polish Senate where he served as Deputy Speaker, former Education Minister, and former Secretary of State in the Chancellery of President Kaczyński. His latest book is The Cunning of Freedom: Saving the Self in an Age of False Idols; Encounter Books 2021.

This is a production of the Danube Institute and introduced by Danube Institute president, John O’Sullivan.