I'll Burn That Bridge When I Get To It!: Heretical Thoughts on Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, and Academic Freedom

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In the malaphor we have chosen this week, there are two conventional idioms at play- “to burn one’s bridges” and “I’ll/we’ll cross that bridge when I/we get to it”. Identity politics has distracted from and, when need be, outright sabotaged a class-based movement [viz.

Many or most of them one would likely personally despise—just as, on the other hand, one would "love" many people belonging to a "different group. Before doing so, however, I can't resist quoting a few Finkelsteinian zingers, to preface the following heavy discussion with a bit of levity. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. One might argue that in this chapter Finkelstein's profound contempt for the "Elmer Gantry in blackface" at the head of this gaggle of amoral mediocrities gets the best of his prodigious literary gifts, since the ruthless mockery goes on and on and becomes somewhat tiresome, but it can't be gainsaid that it's all well-deserved. Although racism is real and you should always be at the ready to fight it whenever it rears its ugly head, you all, Black and white, have a helluva lot more in common.If you're white, you're a racist—whether you're John Brown or Jefferson Davis, a fascist or an anti-fascist. That is to say, we need hundreds of left intellectuals with the courage and intelligence to think for themselves and never sell out, to refuse to compromise—even to risk alienating fellow leftists by publicly repudiating woke culture and the more vacuous forms of identity politics in favor of an unstinting adherence to class politics. You're fallible, you're imperfect vessels… If you unite to change the system, then your psyches will fall into place.

facile judgments but instead will engage with the book's substance, because it has important things to say. The last chapter of I'll Burn That Bridge delves into a specific dimension of cancel culture: when is it appropriate for a professor to be disciplined for his public behavior and statements, whether on social media or in some other context?But the analogy with Emanuel fails, because in fact one Rahm Emanuel is far too many whereas one Finkelstein is not nearly enough.