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Join Freddie Sayers on UnHerd as he sits down with Claire Lehmann, founder of Quillette, the Sydney-based magazine launched in 2015 that’s become a global force for reason and free expression.
With Trump powering through his first 100 days and Right-wing populism surging across the West, the free speech landscape is shifting. Are journalism and open debate now under threat from the Right? Has the Left’s ‘woke’ orthodoxy given way to a new ‘woke Right’ menace?
Watch the full interview above.
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SubscribeI will not renew my Quilette subscription when it expires. Trump coverage has not been balanced at all. What tipped me over the edge though was an essay accusing the AfD of being facist. I have no issue with someone arguing that case, but there was not one single mention that the AfD leader is a lesbian married to an immigrant woman of colour. That is not journalism.
I want to add that at the beginning of COVID she joined the general panic with the enthusiasm of a typical scared witless woman, deleting everyone who did not agree with her opinion.
This was the moment when a large group of readers left her site.
Now, in the light of a sober analysis of the consequences, people are beginning to agree that we have done much more harm to ourselves than the pandemic itself, but I remember very well her unbearable self-confidence of a strict mom, punishing those who behave badly on her (!) site.
And now she is in the same role, promoting “moderation” for the right, while the left has long since moved on to illegal, if not violent, actions, total war in the literal sense of the word.
I remember Jaroslav Hasek organized a farcical “party of moderate progress within the framework of law and order” in Prague. It seems that we are witnessing the revival of this party without any irony.
i cancelled my Quillette subscription after hearing some of the things they were saying during COVID. they still have some good journalism that i read from time to time, but i’ve not forgiven them yet.
Me too.
I remember a video taken at a rally in Australia against COVID measures. I was particularly pleased by the moment when a policeman with his huge boot pressed face down to the asphalt a gray-haired pensioner fallen on the road.
Ha I didn’t know that. That’s wild.
Cancelled mine two days ago, for very similar reasons.
She probably does have ‘classical liberal’ leanings, but because of the hatred she’s received for so many years from the ‘fascist left’, she’s now going full tilt at this idea that there’s an equal and opposite force resembling ‘woke’ on the mainstream right. It gives her a bit of respite, which is understandable from a human perspective—but from a purely political analysis, it’s completely wrong.
The mirror image of the ‘woke left’ is literally neo-Nazis. Woke is a fascistic, race-based ideology that still holds near-monolithic institutional power, and has done for about 70 years. If the ‘right’ were to take total institutional power this year, maybe her points would mean something around the year 2200. At the moment, she’s punching down, equating the rebels with the oppressors.
Freddy is one of the best interviewers out there.
Great interview, great questions and perspectives (really !!!), great answers!!!! I am somehow from the traditional left and I would have felt betrayed if Quillette did not condemn the violation of feee speech when it comes from the right !!! From the left, but I appreciate Unherd and Quillete quite a lot !!
I agree with Claire Lehmann. If you’re sincerely going to be a principled, free-speech media outlet you have to stand up for free speech, and classical liberal principles, no matter who is challenging those values, even if it’s your own audience.
I voted for Trump. I’m deeply relieved he’s back in the White House and the Dems are out, and I generally agree with his agenda and many of his rather brute force tactics. But my sense is there might have been some excesses and it’s fair for publications like Quillette to call them out. Of course, we can all decide whether we agree with Quillette’s stance on these issues or not.
For me, the most interesting part of this discussion occurred at the end. It appears the business model in the “new media” is to cultivate an audience who share certain strongly-held views, such as Right-leaning or Left-leaning viewpoints. Those people are committed enough to support your media business. So what happens when, in standing up for classical liberal values, you alienate some of your core audience? As Clare Lehmann noted, you’re likely to lose revenue.
I do wonder if it’s possible to build a successful media business now without cultivating a rather opinionated audience and ensuring you provide them with the content they want. That might not be the best outcome for a pure free speech advocate, but it might be the reality of the on-line business world. I would guess Unherd has considered these business issues too.
Maybe the iron law is actually just this: When someone acquires authority, they become authoritarian to protect that status.
I think Freddy hit the nail on the head. The Bureacratic Centralists and their allies on the Left have weaponized the process aspect of due process so thoroughly that it’s not even due process. It’s just a mechanism that prevents Conservatives from ever changing absurd leftist policies.
It seems that Ms. Lehmann is more focused on criticising vigorous arguments and perhaps, unreasonable demands, with censorship and threats to free speech from the “right”. I don’t see this happening and the right isn’t saying the “science is settled”, “the debate is over”, “you don’t have the right to speak about XXX, because you are not YYY”, etc.
So, her argument comes across as being a bit lame with respect to free speech.
Quillette is kak.