John McWhorter: ‘The mob doesn’t go forever’ 

John is an honest thinker and a very brave man. This is what we need as a college professor.

I've been a fan of John's since he wrote "Losing the Race". He is a great American patriot and we are lucky to have his voice as a bulwark against the insanity of racists and anti-racists.

John is the rarest of creatures, an academic that's rational and not pretentious.

My mother was a psychiatrist, one of only several black people (not women) to graduate from the University of Edinburgh in the late 1950s, she went on to treat people in the Caribbean, Deep South, and Canada, so successfully she was featured in a national magazine. Like your mother she taught us racism was ignorance. It was not “racially bound” by any group. She taught us that we showed people what black people were like apart from stereotypes. Every person we enlightened was a positive for our race. I never viewed myself as a victim, and until the last 4 years EVERY psychologist or therapist knew that the way to rid yourself of a victim mindset, which is THE MOST debilitating mindset, was to expose yourself to difficulty to develop a strength against it. Idk how we will get out of the quagmire. Make disciples bc Jesus is coming.

I've read most of his books and I listen to every podcast he does with Glenn Lowry. Two incredibly intelligent and measured men. The way they disagree and are okay disagreeing is something we should all strive for!! I could listen to him talk all day

I read everything this man writes. Rarely am I so entertained while simultaneously being educated.

The online mob is annoying, but you're right, eventually it goes away. But a lot of times they have a serious impact on peop;e's lives. The problem is that people within the mob do things like track down your employer and get the mob to target them so they fire you, or someone in the mob realize you're in the same university and starts filing 'harassment' complaints against you despite never meeting you in person, or someone learns your address and you have random strangers harassing your family members.

How refreshing to listen to such an well versed, open minded educator discuss the reality of today’s identity driven society AND to see such clear paths to permanent solutions. We need more John!

John McWhorter has always been one of those public intellectuals that I wish I knew as a friend personally. I've always felt like I could relate to him, and not just about "matters of public import". Thanks for sharing this interview.

I'm sure your Mom would be very proud to see her work bearing fruit in both society and her children. Very interesting!

John McWhorter is incredibly intelligent and articulate. He offers careful thought, not slogans rooted in groupthink.

I remember watching John give lectures through the Great Learning Courses--this man is so eloquent and insightful, it is truly a delight to just listen to him.

So much respect for John. His conversations with Glenn kept me sane during the George Floyd riots.

I went to find some of his books on Audible and low and behold I've actually listened to a number of his lectures. It's nice when you find someone you are finding interesting to then see you already have from another source.

I lived in the Philippines as the child of a Navy doctor in the early eighties; no one in America lives in a ghetto compared to their poor people.

I've been soaking up John's knowledge forever, and he's amazing. But I must say, his friend Loury is even more impressive. They're both off the charts smart, but holy shit. Half of everything Glenn Loury says is worthy of being quoted, etched into a piece of wood, and then hung on the wall. I listen to them discuss current issues all the time and I love every minute of it.

Mr. John McWhorter, I must admit I first became aware of you around December 2023. However, I quickly noticed your discussions have depth and intellectual value. In addition, you are very eloquent, respectful, and educated. It's so refreshing discovering special people like you. You are indeed a thinker. You are inspiring! And I highly appreciate and enjoy your topics of discussion.

Damn...bless your mother's heart! 🧡

I think John still hasn't come to grips with the realization that his Democrat party is long gone. It is crazy now.

Safe space meant a place where one was safe to express one’s thoughts, feelings, and ideas without judgement. Years ago I had college professors say it often enough that it felt as cliche as “my door is always open.” but it played out that way in the lecture hall. Now the warped definition necessitates by design a total hivemind in that any time anyone’s opinion differs they are either culled by the group or keep their true feelings and opinions hidden. This creates a new definition of a safe space being a place safe from the expression of individual thought.

Im a fourth generation Philadelphian. My wife and I moved to Mt Airy in 1977 and started our family there; lived there until 1988. Dr. McWhorter is correct that the community was unique. The experience of living in a genuinely integrated neighborhood has provided lasting benefits to both of our children.

I don't always agree with everything Dr. McWhorter says, but I respect his intellect, articulation and rationality so much that, if I see his name or his picture, I tend to click. I value him as one of the sane (mostly silent) majority of us who refuse to join the growing lunatic fringes of either the Left or Right. Voices of reason like John's are difficult to find these days.

I saw a video, from " The Great Courses" of him teaching linguistics a couple of year s back. It was Wonderful!!

John, it is such a pleasure to hear from you.

We have come to instantiate this: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.” -W.B. Yeats ….but it doesn’t mean it has to be tolerated.

John is great as always.

Great comments. It's nice reading complete, grammatical correct sentences on yt for a change.

McWhorter is a great American voice, one the greatest this century. Often measured and calm on topics. Logic and reason shine in his eloquence. He often understands his critics because he takes the time to contemplate their backgrounds. Thoughtful and brilliant, yet unafraid of controversy when his convictions appear to align with the truth. When John McWhorter is there you have this comforting feeling a grown up is in the room. The best of Amercan thinkers in our troubled 21rst century. Thank God for John McWhorter, we need him and his peers, of which there are few, right now.

Professor McWhorter is a once in a generation intellectual that has a unique background; a rigorous and privileged academic training as a linguist; and a life experience that allows him to make connections, arguments, and develop original ideas that many of us could have never made. His book on "Woke Racism" is brilliant not only in its social commentary, but in contributing to much wider academic debates about the role of religion and secularization. When Professor Nietzsche said that "God is dead!....How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us?" Professor McWhorter's book provides the BEST analysis of the current american religion that has replaced the "death of God."

Thank you FIRE. Love the drumwork in this vid too.

Love John s clarity and persuasion.

A video worth watching. The great John McWhorter.

Excellent.

Wow. For the first time since being forced to read it in high school, I actually understood a Lord of the flies reference. I hated the book, but maybe there was a point to it after all.

Great length of video. Articulate and structured person who doesn’t talk too much without saying anything we already know. Subscribed

Fishtown in Philly now costs 500K for a two bedroom townhome.

Thank you Dr. McWhorter. You are one of the few voices of reason and sanity of our time. When I was going though Leftist indoctrination in grad school, I was taught that Losing The Race was evil heresy (I may add that John and I are the same age). Today I see some of what I was taught for what it was.

Huge fan Dr McWhorter❣️🙏🏼 Thank you🙏🏼❣️

Great interview

As always John is an asset to American progress and black young men if not all young men. I dont always agree with him but thats true of many other people i admire too.

Such respect for Professor McWhorter.

Honest conversation.

I first came across John on Tyler Cowen's podcast, conversations with Tyler. And Tyler being the best interviewer of all time, and John being a great linguist, that conversation got me totally hooked on linguistics of all things. Love it.

Words are not violence. They are the only weapon we have in the neverending battle against bad ideas.

great guest

Lovely video.

Amazing how one can still have a couple of fundamental disagreements witn John McWhorter and still love him. Its a shame he doesnt realize that the left are not liberal anymore. Hes a classic liberal and the type that actually thinks.

I have learnt a lot more about John and some of his characteristics. 👍

Yes! Thank you Professor.I must read Shelby Steel's book( from another great book he had written)

This man is the main reason why I haven't cancelled my NYT subscription

If it wasn't for the handful of sane voices out there I would have no hope for the future

I have so much respect for Mr John McWhorter! I love his lectures & interviews.

If everyone spoke as well as John and behaved with his decorum and sartorial good taste. We would all be a pleasure to be around.

I read the Steele book in 1991, commuting to New York.

I read McWhorter's piece "Is Musicology racist?" Although he was rightly critical of Philip Ewell's racist purge of everything white from the field of music he was uncommonly tolerant of the anti-white racism that runs through all of his work. I see a lot of left wing people revising their philosophy after the congressional hearings that featured three professors unable to denounce genocide. It is only now becoming apparent how deeply-rooted racism is in the teachings at university. Anti-white racism, which by extension becomes Anti-Asian racism and antisemitism is only now becoming seen for the danger it really is. I'm glad professors like McWhorter are re-evaluating their positions. They have been sitting astride the fence for too long.

always interesting...

Steve Sailer (definitely not an angry-type person) wrote this about Stephen Jay Gould on 3/17/2013: "Natural History magazine, in which the late Stephen Jay Gould went on at such length for so many years, offers a perspective on Gould’s career by the distinguished physical anthropologist Ian Tattersall that’s outwardly celebratory, but is actually a pretty funny account of Gould’s penchant for projection of all his own intellectual inadequacy, ethical shortcomings, and ethnic hostility on to the morally and technically superior scientists that he fulminated against. (Of course, you have to read it closely and all the way to the end to notice this.)"

John W this was exceptional in the succinct manner in which you presented your ideas. Watch you with Glenn L. I like the uniqueness of this and could use this in the classroom. Well done.

McWhorter is among the best and most thoughtful public intellectuals today. He can deal with difficult topics with neutral way of speaking that give anyone the opportunity to listen to his thoughts. Rather than have a knee jerk reaction.

The explanation of why swearing (and then sexual reference words) became verboten is fascinating. Same with the notion that slur words fall into a similar category.

Go McWhorter! Your Mother (and Dad & Philly) and me are so very proud of you. Comedian Josh thinking differently is also a montesorri grad.

John McWhorter is legend!

Hopefully the mob doesn't go on forever. Two nonbinary people I work with have been informing people that although I do use their preferred pronouns I do not do it in a respectful manner. This was after I interviewed one of them for a management position and chose another candidate.

John's WOKE RACISM is the most accessible and important book on anti-racism. I'd be curious to get his take on the brief ebonics movement in the early 2000s which got a lot of support from famous black leaders.

The idea of the mob eventually moving on and leaving the society 'free' again is a wonderful concept, and I hope with my all, that you are right. I worry with the influence they are wielding, that there won't be much left that has not been truly ruined by then.

John McWhorter for President - please

Excellent video. Free-speech advocates must address the problems of speech itself and how better speech rather than canceling is the answer.

Wow is that a snapshot @<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="648">10:48</a> Time capsule. Cigarette, glass of sherry, ashtray the size of a sailor hat. A newspaper and college dictionary. And whoever is taking the photo feels no urgency to post the private moment on the rotary phone. Did the cameraman put down the uncropped out Schlitz to take the pic? Different time. Your mom was beautiful and that expression on her face brings the 'sociology book to a 12 year old' story into focus.

🔥🔥🔥

I see John McWorther l know it's gonna be good.

The mob said you shouldn't write about musicology? But you're a LINGUIST -- and music an the international LANGUAGE!

if people can't decipher this issue for themselves your profession is lost.

John, you are a doll!!! Love those baby pics.

I think a close parallel to how people interact on social media is how they interact driving on the highway anonymously in their cars. People are rather careless in how they treat people they don't know when they think they themselves are anonymous. In fact, sometimes they go out of their way to annoy others and, in extreme cases, it results in road rage and can cause great harm

On a related note: IBM is about to be hit with dozens of not hundreds of discrimination lawsuits, for woke, systemic racism ☺️

I might need to revisit my reading of Shelby Steele's book. I might still have it on my bookshelf, if I did not give it away.

This guy can be real funny.

William Golding! Lord of the Flies!!

John McWhorter takes seriously the aesthetic value of speech, and I admire him for it. He and Christopher Hitchens are two of my oratory role models. It's so sad how many people today treat language as just a mode of communication with no artistic value, but it's plain to see in McWhorter that he is not one of those people. I'd listen to him talk about running out of toilet paper, and THAT'S the power of language.

Crocheting!

Respectfully, Dr McWhorter, it should be mentioned that "Nas" doesn't rhyme with "as", it rhymes with "Oz"

Thank you for the Steele reference. I see that he is a Hoover Institute senior fellow; his videos online are intelligent.

I don't agree with everything John said, but overall this was a wonderful essay with many important truths. I too am a huge fan of Stephan J Gould. His essay "The Median is Not the Message" was especially helpful to my wife and I when she was diagnosed with leukemia.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="360">6:00</a> Not living in Sweden, not somebody who's given up! And living in Sweden, made me wonder, what is that about?

John's wrong about the people in those mobs being normal nice people. They are the exact opposite of normal or nice. They are demonstrating their true inner self. The lowest part of who they really are.

@tony random well said.

Supernerd who never responded to music in any important way decides that no one is influenced by music.

"Stay in your lane" is amongst my favourites in the "dumb, empty retorts" category.

Whem was this recorded? John and Glenn have been conversing through Substack for nearly a year now

I can’t tell a liar by looking at them. But if we start to engage through language and both have a similar understanding of how the truth works, we will soon find out who knows how to be honest with themselves. Three sides to every story…yours,theirs and the truth. Truth doesn’t care what you or I think it is, we have to learn to be honest with ourselves to get close to it. Great discussion from John.

Free speech now free speech forever

Damn the attendant Music..

If one writes articles supporting chaos, how could they possibly make up for the damage they contributed to?

How has Columbia not fired this guy yet?

I could talk about knitting all day!

LEXICON VALLEY!!! Is a podcast he does on liguistics. Some will be over your head because dude is brilliant. But it a good show none the less. Also the Glenn show rocks too

It's so cute that he thinks that Twitter and social media mobs are a human phenomenon. What a sweet summer child. And what naivety he is spreading. To begin by using omission to absolve the algorithmic manipulation of people by the social media platforms of culpability is criminally negligent of this man. This needs dismantling.

As long as the mobs keep getting funded......

The problem is when u want to let it blow but your boss fires u, or forces u to apologize

I love this guy and I’m not gay or black.😉