Benson Center Newsletter - October 2020

What's new?

Journalist Bari Weiss headlines “Cancel Culture” webinar series

Oct. 20, 2020, 6 p.m. MDT  Attend Free Speech and Cancel Culture

Join former New York Times opinion writer and editor Bari Weiss and Benson Center Director Daniel Jacobson in a presentation and discussion about free speech and today's cancel culture. Free admission; registration required. 

About the Speaker

Bari Weiss is a journalist and the author of How to Fight Anti-Semitism, which won a 2019 National Jewish Book Award and a Natan Notable Book Award. From 2017 to 2020, Weiss was an opinion writer and editor at The New York Times. Ms. Weiss recently resigned from the New York Times editorial board. Read her resignation letter here: https://www.bariweiss.com/resignation-letter. Weiss was formerly an op-ed and book review editor at The Wall Street Journal and a senior editor at Tablet Magazine.

Weiss is the winner of the Reason Foundation’s 2018 Bastiat Prize, which honors writing that “best demonstrates the importance of freedom with originality, wit, and eloquence.” In 2019, Vanity Fair called Weiss the Times's "star opinion writer" and The Jerusalem Post named Bari the seventh most influential Jew in the world.

About the “Cancel Culture” Series

Each year the Center’s Western Civ Dialogue Series features an intellectually diverse slate of events addressing a topic of political, social or economic importance. This year’s topic is the emergence of a cancel culture as a political and cultural force.

In recent months, social coercion has become a more effective means of restricting political speech than legal coercion. Opinions that were once common are now anathema, and campaigns to de-platform or even “cancel” proponents of these opinions are increasingly frequent. These attempts at "cancellation" are not merely fair-minded criticism. Rather, they involve efforts to punish those with heterodox views by banishing them from social media, pressuring their employers to fire them, harassing them in public, or threatening their families. These new methods of social coercion have curtailed the range political views that can be expressed publicly without fear of social sanction. This series considers the implications of the new cancel culture, the norms it imposes on thought and expression, and the conformism it attempts to compel.

Upcoming speakers in this series include:

• Joshua Katz | Nov. 12, 2020, 6 p.m. MDT
  • “Cancellation and Its Discontents” Webinar
  • Cotsen Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Classics, Princeton Universit
  • Attend Cancellation and Its Discontents
• Additional speakers TBA

“Community or Disunity?” series underway

The Benson Center promotes critical reflection on the distinctive traditions and political perspectives that characterize Western civilization. It encourages residents of Colorado and the United States to more fully understand and appreciate their past, their future and a free and creative American society within an international environment. Conservative Thought and Policy guest speakers bring a unique perspective as guests of the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy program.

This year’s series expands on the Benson Center’s 2020-21 Community or Disunity? theme.  All events in this series are livestreamed on YouTube at 6 p.m. For these free events, no registration is necessary.

About the “Community or Disunity?” series

The theme of the 2020 fall lecture series invites speakers, students, faculty, and community members to reflect upon questions related to the communities that we build and the challenges that may contribute to their disintegration. The fall speakers approach these topics from different perspectives, beginning with the original notion of political community as explained by classical thinkers, continuing with America and its unique and diverse founding, and concluding with the role of liberal education in sustaining and enriching our communities.

Professor Hayden Ausland, Whilom Professor of Classics, University of Montana (retired) kicked off the series on Sept. 15 with "On the Classical Idea of Political Community, as Set Forth by Aristotle and Cicero."

Upcoming speakers in the “Community or Disunity?” series include:

• John Eastman | October 6, 2020, 6 p.m.  
  • “The United States as Independent Community: A Particular Rooted in the Universal"
  • Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service, and former Dean, Chapman University Fowler School of Law.  Benson Center 2020-21 Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought & Policy 
  • Attend United States as Independent Community​
• Lucas Morel | October 27, 2020, 6 p.m.      
  • “The 1619 Project as Missed Opportunity"
  • John K. Boardman, Jr. Professor of Politics, Washington and Lee University
  • Attend the 1619 Project as Missed Opportunity 
• Elizabeth Eastman | November 17, 2020, 6 p.m.       
  • “From Shadows on the Wall to the Sun: Liberal Education and the Ascent from the Cave”
  • PhD Political Science Claremont Graduate School; Benson Center 2020-21 Senior Scholar in Residence
  • Attend From Shadows on the Wall to the Sun
• Spring semester speakers TBA