Should the star podcaster take any responsibility for how he uses his power?
By Helen Lewis, The Atlantic
Recently, I felt a great disturbance in the world of podcasts, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in horror and were suddenly silenced. Someone had been on Joe Rogan’s show and pointed out that getting your opinions entirely from stand-up comics, Bigfoot forums, and various men named Dave might not be the optimal method for acquiring knowledge. Rogan fans were appalled at this disrespect.
The culprit was the British writer Douglas Murray, who confronted Rogan earlier this month over the podcaster’s decision to platform a series of guests with, shall we say, minority views on the Second World War. The obvious example is Darryl Cooper, a “storyteller” who has lately taken a sharp turn into Nazi apologism. “I’m just interested in your selection of guests, because you’re, like, the world’s number-one podcast,” Murray told Rogan. This kind of direct challenge is quite simply not how things are done in the anti-woke sphere, which is brutally hierarchical. Free-speech absolutism does not include lèse-majesté. “Principleless hacks,” the libertarian podcaster Clint Russell posted on X afterward, referring to Murray and those who support him. “And that’s assuming this is genuine and not a paid op, which would be even worse—disreputable mercenaries.”
