May 25, 2023 • 23 mins
Every month in New York City, a small group of people who feel like they’ve been ostracized for holding unpopular opinions and their supporters meet up to chat, debate, and even sing folk songs. Reporter Emma Green attended a recent gathering.
You can read Emma Green’s New Yorker story “The Party is Cancelled” here: https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-local-correspondents/the-party-is-cancelled
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'm Emma Green, and I wrote the party is Canceled
for The New Yorker, and it's the story of the week.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
In the movie Annie Hall, Woody Allen repeats this joke,
I'd never join a club that would allow a person
like me to become a member, Which is too bad,
because there's a new club in New York City that
would totally invite Woody Allen, possibly the only one that
would invite Woody Allen. In twenty twenty three, it's called
(00:46):
the Gathering of Thought Criminals. It's a club for canceled people,
and a reporter has infiltrated their ranks. Writing is hard.
Who's got that kind of time when you're already busy
trying to be Joe stand.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
So it turns on a mic, maybe twitles en because
a journalist brand has got in that you time, single story.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Just listen to smart bandle speak conversation film information is
the story. Emma Green went to a Gathering of Thought
Criminals dinner and wrote about it for The New Yorker. Emma,
(01:40):
thank you for talking to me about this. How did
you first find out about this story? Are you? Are
you secretly a member of the canceled society.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I am not a member of the thought criminals. I
am not canceled as far as I know, but I'll
keep you posted if that changes.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
We'll work on that. During this interview, I knew.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I should never have accepted this podcast invitation. The origin
story of this is one of those journalism dream stories.
This person who I was having coffee with mentioned in
a totally casual, offhanded way, oh yeah, and you know
Pamela Pereski, She's like the mother hand of the canceled
And of course I thought to myself, I need to
(02:25):
know everything about that.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
So tell me what your story is about. As if
we had just met at a dinner party for canceled people.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
H well, you know the scal Pamela. She lives in
New York. She's fifty six, and she is trained as
a psychiatrist and is also a writer and public intellectual.
She has a regular feature at Psychology Today. She also
worked on The Coddling of the American Mind, which is
(02:53):
that book by John.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Hide that was a really important book, even a little
bit before cancel culture. That book was talking about how
universities weren't allowed to talk about all kinds.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Of stuff totally trigger warnings and safe spaces because so.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
She was involved in that. Yes, exactly, what's Pamela like?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
She is a little short, she has brown hair, gray streaks.
She has glasses, she often purchased them on her hair,
and she is very focused when she's talking to someone.
It's this feeling like you know, you're the only person
in the world. And she's just a very intense person.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
And someone in your story described her as being kinda hot.
Did you find that.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
I am not going to be the adjudicator of which
of my sources.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Is you're objective?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
I think I would lose my job if I started
doing that. But one of my sources did describe her
as the intellectual dark Web's most eligible bachelorette, which Pamela
says that she's not part of the intellectual dark Web.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
No one besides Joe Rogan wants to be part of that.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Right, Maybe, I don't know. There are a few people
who are really proud to be to be in that scene.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Has she been canceled.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
No. She has at times faced pushback on social media,
but she's never really faced any kind of personal professional
consequences for something that she's written or said or done,
And something that was really interesting to me was trying
to untangle why it is that cancelation matters to her
(04:27):
so much. It's a professional focus of hers, it's obviously
a personal focus of her. She's trying to get people
together who have been canceled, And it was really interesting
psychologically for me to try to puzzle out why is
it that this possibility, this danger of getting canceled feels
so present and threatening for her?
Speaker 1 (04:47):
And why did you conclude.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Well, there's a speculation that maybe goes beyond what I
wrote in my story, but I suppose that's why you
go on podcasts. She wanted to be this actress when
she was growing up, and she told me that she
went from wanting to be an actress to wanting to
be an actress who just sort of was in the background,
not really wanting to be known at all. And I
thought that was really tough. She is sort of scared
of what happens when you take the limelight and the
(05:12):
consequences for saying or doing things that are unpopular.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Was she ever an actress?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
She had her big break in Goodfellas. She is an
extra in the famous Coca Cabana party scene. Whereas there's
that one long shot.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Oh, the opening shot, the endless tracking right where they
go through the kitchen of the club and you can
see her after they come out of the kitchen, and
she has this big nineteen fifties hair, dude, and she's
sort of.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Conspiring with these men in suits. And to me, that's
a perfect stand in for Pamela, which is she's kind
of in the background, you don't really know she's there,
but she sure is having an interesting conspiratorial discussion with
important looking men on the side.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
So what is this dinner party called?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
So Pamela calls this the gathering of the thought Criminals.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
The gathering of the thought Criminals. That's great. I want
to join that.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Some people think it's great. Some people don't think it's great.
I talk to some people who were like, yeah, you know,
that criminal is so fun. At Thought Criminals, we do this.
At that Criminals, we do that, And then some other
people who were like, eugh, I really hate that that
criminal stick like it's kind of cringey.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
So there are some rules to the club.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
It's like fight club, except.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
It is like fight club, right.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Well, there's only one rule at fight club. There are
two rules at that criminals. Okay, first rule of that, criminals,
you have to be willing to break bed with people
who have been canceled or whatever term you want to use,
if you don't believe the cancelation is a real thing.
And second rule, Pamela's got to like you. She is
the bouncer and getting past Pamela is the all important thing.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Can you ask to be invited or is that against
the rules? You have to wait for her to find
you and invite you.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
So I've heard of a few instances where someone has
asked to come along. Pamela also finds people when they're
going through something big, when they're getting pushback on social media,
or they're facing a way with cancelation. So she accumulates
people in lots of different ways. But I'm not sure
that they're is a Google form that you could go
(07:11):
fill out drol and try to get in. Sorry about that,
I'm going to go work on that.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Are there are there t shirts or rings or anything
like secret society ish or you just show up at
these dinners?
Speaker 2 (07:22):
I wish And if there were, they didn't show them
to me.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
No, they would show you you're a great reporter. They
would one hundred percent show.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
I would like to think that if there was any
kind of like gear or paraphernalia, I would not only
have seen it, but maybe have scored one to take
back to my reporting trophy shelf.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
But alas, okay, so what is her definition of being
canceled that would get you into this dinner party?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Everything from pushback on social media to people who have
lost their jobs because of something that they said or
did so to her, it really encompasses a wide range,
and in fact, not everybody at that criminals has to
have been canceled. You just have to be willing to
break bread with someone who's been canceled.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Are these all liberals who the liberals have turned on?
Or are there on people who are actually from the
conservative side of things who come to.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
These I think it's both. I met and talked to
someone who is an avowed socialist, a couple libertarians, certainly
at least a couple of people who are definitely conservatives
vote Republican. And then I think there are a lot
of disaffected liberals, people who would describe themselves as lifelong Democrats.
(08:32):
Maybe they still vote Democrat, but there is something about
liberal culture that they feel has gone over the top.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
So does this dinner party always at Pamela's house or
where does she throw these?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
They rotate around New York City. Often they're at this
restaurant called the Olive Tree, which is above the Comedy
Seller in Greenwich Village.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Oh, the Comedy Seller guy.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
No, I'm Dorman.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
He owns that place too, he does. He is kind
of a libertarian himself. He's the guy who brought Louis
c K back. Right after Louis c K was canceled,
he was performing at the Comedy Seller and people were
mad at this guy.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
That's right. That was one of Louis K's first stops
after his whole cancelation saga. And now you know, everybody's
basically back to having Luis K on. But Noam Dorman
I don't know his politics, and he says that he
just likes making his venues a home for lively debate.
And Noam Dorman has in the past picked up the
(09:30):
check for the thought Criminals.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
The Comedy Steller guy is the sponsor of the gathering
of the thought Criminals.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
He comps them when they go wow. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
So if you want to get a free dinner, go
to the Olive Tree Cafe above the Comedy Seller and
just talk loudly with controversial opinions, and there's a chance
that your bill will disappear.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
I think if I said that, no one would kill me.
So no comment.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
When we come back, Emma will go inside the gathering
of thought criminals dinner and not eat anything. But first,
our advertisers have some red pills they want to sell you. Okay,
(10:16):
So you went to one of these dinners, tell me
what it was like, just from the moment you start
walking towards it.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
So this was on a Sunday night. You go up
a little slide of stairs and you're up into the
Olive Tree and it's one of these old restaurants, like
maroon leather booths and those hanging lights that are sort
of stained glassish that hang over your head kind of
like a flower. You know, they had all this like
soft Rock, Queen Creeden's Clearwater Revival. You know, it's that
(10:46):
kind of place. So wings and burgers kind of joint, I.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Know exactly the eighties place in the West Village you're
talking about.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
So there's this table that had been pushed together maybe
I don't know, twelve or thirteen people showed up to
this version of the gathering. Now, it's important to note
that this was a special version of the gathering, and
they knew I was going to be there, so it
was smaller than usual. And I would say it was
a very particular set because it was people who are
willing to show up to one of these hangouts when
(11:14):
they knew that a New Yorker reporter was going to
be there.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
So normally there'd be like twice as many people. Or
how many people do they usually get?
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Pamila says that they get anywhere from a few dozen
to sixty.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
And what does it feel like? Does it feel tense?
Does it feel excitingly? How does it compare to other
parties you've been to?
Speaker 2 (11:32):
It felt like the kind of party that lifelong debate
kids go to. People who want nothing more than to
sit around having extremely detailed and technical arguments, and that's
how they want to spend their socializing and free time.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Are people wearing name tags or is it much more casual?
Speaker 2 (11:53):
It's way more casual than that in other versions of
the gathering. I've been told that often people will sit
down and get out of a guitar and start singing
folk songs. So it's a pretty convivial and casual setting
where people can get to know each other without having
to have something like a name tag on that's too dorky.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
How was the food I didn't eat?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
You know, gotta work? You didn't eat?
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Come on, really, is that what we're supposed to do?
Speaker 2 (12:17):
I always eat Packapeebie and Jay. You know, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
I always eat no matter where I am. I shouldn't
be doing that as a reporter.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
I'm not here to criticize your journalistic ethics. Yes, would
I say that you're you're a bad reporter. I wouldn't
say that you're a bad reporter. Other people might say that.
I wouldn't say, no.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
This is horrible. Just yesterday, I was out an event,
I was interviewing people. I was just shoving food in
my face.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Wow, I mean, no judgment. I guess. I guess.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Do you feel comfortable there? Like? How do you feel?
Speaker 2 (12:51):
It's hard to say, because reporters are like bad party guests.
Don't invite reporters to your parties. I mean, maybe you
and I should keep that to ourselves because I want
people to keep reporting.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Reporters so everyone knows trust me.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
But you know, I think by the end of the night,
when people were at their loosest, it really was people
sitting around one end of the table, heads really close together,
you know, leaning in, talking about very technical aspects of
the trans debate, and it was just very intense and.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
This trans debate. Who was leading that There was.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
A woman there named Kim Jones who is the mother
of a swimmer who competed against the athlete Leah Thomas,
who is a trans woman, and there was a lot
of backlash to Leah Thomas because she was victorious. So
Kim Jones, this mom has basically reorganized her life around
what happened to her daughter. She has started an organization
(13:50):
which is about, as she would say, defending single sex
spaces and the rights of female athletes, and that includes
the exclusion of trans athletes from female sports.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Who else was there?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
So I met a number of people who weren't willing
to use their nos or go on the record. There
were a couple of people who had previously identified as
transgender and then later had detransitioned away from that identity.
Nick Gillespie, who is a professional libertarian he works for
(14:24):
Reason magazine was there. There was another young woman there
named Ricky Schlott, who is a journalist and dropped out
of NYU. She felt that it was kind of a
waste of her time during the pandemic. And also she
was hiding books by the black economist Thomas Soowell under
her mattress, who sort of like loved by young conservatives
and hated by everybody else.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
It's a weird thing to keep under your bed. That's
just sad, but exciting for Thomas soul maybe.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Yeah, So lots of different kinds of people.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
How about canceled people, though there are actually canceled people there.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
So one of the d transitioners who I talked with
this is someone who I would say has faced a
significant amount of public backlash. I talked on the phone
separately with a couple of people who I would say
count as fully canceled. Sarah Rosiskind is an example of
one of these people who did go through something that
(15:17):
is pretty explicitly a cancelation. When she was at Harvard,
this is maybe ten years ago, she wrote an op
ed for The Crimson about affirmative action, and I think
she would say that it was kind of flip in
and intended to be a little funny, but there was
a big backlash on Harvard's campus. She talked to me
about having friends who stopped talking to her, people walking
(15:39):
out on dates with her. Somebody from Jezebel wrote about
how she was I think, a snide, rude, little baby.
And she talked about even after she graduated, she had
encounters where this would come up and it would be
a source of contention at a party that she was at.
And she's thirty one now. She said that basically this
has defined the last ten years of her life. She
(16:00):
has had a really hard time reckoning with it, and
she told me that she hated herself. She had to
do a lot of therapy. She did a lot of
psychedelic drug use as a foray into trying to get
some understanding and forgiveness. And I think she's someone who's very,
very very deeply thoughtful about what happened to her. She
(16:21):
regrets the articles. She's learned a lot more about affirmative action.
I think she also has come to feel like these
instances where people are really just destroyed because even if
they say something stupid that they later regret, she feels
that that is not a great way to treat people,
(16:43):
and in that way, I found her to be a
really interesting example of a thought criminal, someone who's trying
to wrestle with all of this.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
I've talked to people who've been canceled. It seems from
the outside like it shouldn't be such a big deal,
but we're such social creatures that people's lives fall apart.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Yeah, that's something that Sarah and I talked about, which
is I think one of the critiques from the left
about cancelation or cancel culture, people who are skeptic that
such a thing exists, is that sometimes there are real
clear consequences when someone gets canceled, they lose a job
or whatever, but oftentimes it's not really clear what the
consequence is. Right, they don't necessarily lose their job, they
(17:22):
don't necessarily lose their house or their wife. But to Sarah,
it still matters what your reputation is, right, because how
other people think of us, how we're known, the kind
of association that we have with bad ideas or bad deeds,
that's such an important currency of social trust. And when
that's broken, both in our own self perception and in
(17:45):
other people's perceptions, I think it can be really devastating
for people, and you might think, well, they deserve it,
But I think it's interesting to engage with people who
have been through that, because, if nothing else, I think
it's important for us to understand as a society what
happens when we've done this to someone.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Yeah, when you kick someone out of the village, that
you should know the consequences of it. And so many
people who get kicked out of the village kind of
have an ideological turn, like some people become more successful
after being canceled. Were there those kind of people at
this dinner?
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Well, you know, that's something that Sarah and I talked about.
She was saying, you know, good to be brave, but
you shouldn't be an edge lord. There are a lot
of different ways to deal with this, and one of
them is to become really defensive. But for me, I
think the question as a reporter becomes is there a
really well developed understanding of sin and forgiveness here? I
(18:45):
asked this question over and over again to basically everyone
I met who went to the gatherings, which is what
happens if there's a truly bad person, do you invite
them into the gathering? Do you still have jovial conversation
with them. What's the threshold for forgiveness?
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Yeah, I think there is there's a limit of who
I want to be in a room.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
With, right, And that is I think the really big
question about the Thought Criminals. Pamela was like, Harvey Weinstein
can't come. But you know, in some ways that's the
easy question.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Right exactly, that's actual criminal.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yeah, he's an actual criminal. But you know, there's a
lot of hashmarks between Harvey Weinstein and someone who has
a mildly unpopular opinion. And when I talked to Pamela,
it didn't seem to me that she had developed really
clear parameters for how to figure out how far out
you could be and still be welcomed into the Thought Criminals.
(19:42):
And Pamela, to her credit, was like, look, we're just
a group of friends. You're putting too much on us,
Like you're asking us to be too you know, sophisticated
and have all these rules written out about you know,
how we think about sin and forgiveness or whatever. But
ultimately I think this is a story about how in
society do we categorize people's sins and after someone has sinned,
(20:04):
is there a method for forgiveness. What should happen to
them afterwards?
Speaker 1 (20:09):
She does have a rule, and it's kind of the
only rule anyone has. If you're friends with Pamela, you're
in right, And that's the rule all of us are making.
And it's not just people who are like publicly canceled.
It's like my uncle who voted for Trump, Like it's
a constant decision of who you include and exclude.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
That's right. And I think part of what's complicated about
a gathering like this is that all of these people
have experienced something that involves other people making accusations, and
so that trust is eroded in this popular consensus about
who should be in polite company and who should be
outside of it. But then who do I trust? I
guess I trust Pamela, And if Pamela vouches, then I
(20:47):
guess you must be okay. It's creating this alternative ecosystem
for who deserves to be in a nice cocktail party.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
What feedback have you gotten since the story came out?
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Like?
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Have you gotten canceled? Just for writing about canceled people.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
There was a lot of reaction on Twitter. A lot
of people hated the story and criticized everything from these
people are boring to why are you giving this concept
of being canceled any kind of air? You know, this
was just a credulous report about people who are bad people,
And you know, in the end, I just have to
(21:26):
trust make up, which is that. I think this little
group actually opens up a lot of really substant questions
about what we think as a society about how to
deal with people who have, either in their thoughts or
their words or their deeds, transgressed boundaries, especially in a
time when those boundaries are shifting and there's a lot
(21:48):
of disagreement about where those boundaries should be. I think
it's really important to try to engage with that question,
because it's not just about the thought criminals, whatever you
think about the thought criminals, it's about trying to grapple
with these questions of sit and forgiveness.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Would you go back if they embrage you just for fun?
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I got enough going on. I got other stuff to do.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Emma Green, you wrote the party is canceled for the
New Yorker. Thank you so much for coming on and
for your bravery.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Ha I will not accept the praise of bravery because
I think that would be cringe but I am so
happy to have come on.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Your podcast, and may you never be canceled.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
May you never be canceled to you too.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
I am so sorry to inform you, but just by
listening to this podcast, you've been canceled. See you listen
to a podcast about people who've done questionable things, and
by doing that, you've now tacitly endorsed those questionable things.
So you're canceled. You should probably not check Twitter right now.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
At the end of the show, what's next for Joel Stein?
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Maybe you'll take a never poke around online. Our show
is produced by Joey fish Ground, Mola Board and nih
event Cut. It was edited by Lydia jeden Kopp. Our
engineer is a Mantha kay Wang and our executive producer
is kath Ronald Cherradah. Our theme song was produced by
Jonathan Coltman. A special thanks to my voice coach Vicky
(23:26):
Merrick and my consulting producer Laurence Alasnik. To find more
Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your podcasts. I'm Joel Stein and
this is story of the Week.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
I hope that nothing I said will bring me any
more trouble than I've already gotten into.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Are you worried about anything in particular?
Speaker 2 (23:50):
No, not really, but you know, for my sake, just
listen to make sure I don't say anything terrible.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Are you worried about the stuff you said about the Jews.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Nah, that part's fine.
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'm Emma Green, and I wrote the party is Canceled
for The New Yorker, and it's the story of the week.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
In the movie Annie Hall, Woody Allen repeats this joke,
I'd never join a club that would allow a person
like me to become a member, Which is too bad,
because there's a new club in New York City that
would totally invite Woody Allen, possibly the only one that
would invite Woody Allen. In twenty twenty three, it's called
(00:46):
the Gathering of Thought Criminals. It's a club for canceled people,
and a reporter has infiltrated their ranks. Writing is hard.
Who's got that kind of time when you're already busy
trying to be Joe stand.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
So it turns on a mic, maybe twitles en because
a journalist brand has got in that you time, single story.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Just listen to smart bandle speak conversation film information is
the story. Emma Green went to a Gathering of Thought
Criminals dinner and wrote about it for The New Yorker. Emma,
(01:40):
thank you for talking to me about this. How did
you first find out about this story? Are you? Are
you secretly a member of the canceled society.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I am not a member of the thought criminals. I
am not canceled as far as I know, but I'll
keep you posted if that changes.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
We'll work on that. During this interview, I knew.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I should never have accepted this podcast invitation. The origin
story of this is one of those journalism dream stories.
This person who I was having coffee with mentioned in
a totally casual, offhanded way, oh yeah, and you know
Pamela Pereski, She's like the mother hand of the canceled
And of course I thought to myself, I need to
(02:25):
know everything about that.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
So tell me what your story is about. As if
we had just met at a dinner party for canceled people.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
H well, you know the scal Pamela. She lives in
New York. She's fifty six, and she is trained as
a psychiatrist and is also a writer and public intellectual.
She has a regular feature at Psychology Today. She also
worked on The Coddling of the American Mind, which is
(02:53):
that book by John.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Hide that was a really important book, even a little
bit before cancel culture. That book was talking about how
universities weren't allowed to talk about all kinds.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Of stuff totally trigger warnings and safe spaces because so.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
She was involved in that. Yes, exactly, what's Pamela like?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
She is a little short, she has brown hair, gray streaks.
She has glasses, she often purchased them on her hair,
and she is very focused when she's talking to someone.
It's this feeling like you know, you're the only person
in the world. And she's just a very intense person.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
And someone in your story described her as being kinda hot.
Did you find that.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
I am not going to be the adjudicator of which
of my sources.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Is you're objective?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
I think I would lose my job if I started
doing that. But one of my sources did describe her
as the intellectual dark Web's most eligible bachelorette, which Pamela
says that she's not part of the intellectual dark Web.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
No one besides Joe Rogan wants to be part of that.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Right, Maybe, I don't know. There are a few people
who are really proud to be to be in that scene.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Has she been canceled.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
No. She has at times faced pushback on social media,
but she's never really faced any kind of personal professional
consequences for something that she's written or said or done,
And something that was really interesting to me was trying
to untangle why it is that cancelation matters to her
(04:27):
so much. It's a professional focus of hers, it's obviously
a personal focus of her. She's trying to get people
together who have been canceled, And it was really interesting
psychologically for me to try to puzzle out why is
it that this possibility, this danger of getting canceled feels
so present and threatening for her?
Speaker 1 (04:47):
And why did you conclude.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Well, there's a speculation that maybe goes beyond what I
wrote in my story, but I suppose that's why you
go on podcasts. She wanted to be this actress when
she was growing up, and she told me that she
went from wanting to be an actress to wanting to
be an actress who just sort of was in the background,
not really wanting to be known at all. And I
thought that was really tough. She is sort of scared
of what happens when you take the limelight and the
(05:12):
consequences for saying or doing things that are unpopular.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Was she ever an actress?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
She had her big break in Goodfellas. She is an
extra in the famous Coca Cabana party scene. Whereas there's
that one long shot.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Oh, the opening shot, the endless tracking right where they
go through the kitchen of the club and you can
see her after they come out of the kitchen, and
she has this big nineteen fifties hair, dude, and she's
sort of.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Conspiring with these men in suits. And to me, that's
a perfect stand in for Pamela, which is she's kind
of in the background, you don't really know she's there,
but she sure is having an interesting conspiratorial discussion with
important looking men on the side.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
So what is this dinner party called?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
So Pamela calls this the gathering of the thought Criminals.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
The gathering of the thought Criminals. That's great. I want
to join that.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Some people think it's great. Some people don't think it's great.
I talk to some people who were like, yeah, you know,
that criminal is so fun. At Thought Criminals, we do this.
At that Criminals, we do that, And then some other
people who were like, eugh, I really hate that that
criminal stick like it's kind of cringey.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
So there are some rules to the club.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
It's like fight club, except.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
It is like fight club, right.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Well, there's only one rule at fight club. There are
two rules at that criminals. Okay, first rule of that, criminals,
you have to be willing to break bed with people
who have been canceled or whatever term you want to use,
if you don't believe the cancelation is a real thing.
And second rule, Pamela's got to like you. She is
the bouncer and getting past Pamela is the all important thing.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Can you ask to be invited or is that against
the rules? You have to wait for her to find
you and invite you.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
So I've heard of a few instances where someone has
asked to come along. Pamela also finds people when they're
going through something big, when they're getting pushback on social media,
or they're facing a way with cancelation. So she accumulates
people in lots of different ways. But I'm not sure
that they're is a Google form that you could go
(07:11):
fill out drol and try to get in. Sorry about that,
I'm going to go work on that.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Are there are there t shirts or rings or anything
like secret society ish or you just show up at
these dinners?
Speaker 2 (07:22):
I wish And if there were, they didn't show them
to me.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
No, they would show you you're a great reporter. They
would one hundred percent show.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
I would like to think that if there was any
kind of like gear or paraphernalia, I would not only
have seen it, but maybe have scored one to take
back to my reporting trophy shelf.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
But alas, okay, so what is her definition of being
canceled that would get you into this dinner party?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Everything from pushback on social media to people who have
lost their jobs because of something that they said or
did so to her, it really encompasses a wide range,
and in fact, not everybody at that criminals has to
have been canceled. You just have to be willing to
break bread with someone who's been canceled.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Are these all liberals who the liberals have turned on?
Or are there on people who are actually from the
conservative side of things who come to.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
These I think it's both. I met and talked to
someone who is an avowed socialist, a couple libertarians, certainly
at least a couple of people who are definitely conservatives
vote Republican. And then I think there are a lot
of disaffected liberals, people who would describe themselves as lifelong Democrats.
(08:32):
Maybe they still vote Democrat, but there is something about
liberal culture that they feel has gone over the top.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
So does this dinner party always at Pamela's house or
where does she throw these?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
They rotate around New York City. Often they're at this
restaurant called the Olive Tree, which is above the Comedy
Seller in Greenwich Village.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Oh, the Comedy Seller guy.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
No, I'm Dorman.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
He owns that place too, he does. He is kind
of a libertarian himself. He's the guy who brought Louis
c K back. Right after Louis c K was canceled,
he was performing at the Comedy Seller and people were
mad at this guy.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
That's right. That was one of Louis K's first stops
after his whole cancelation saga. And now you know, everybody's
basically back to having Luis K on. But Noam Dorman
I don't know his politics, and he says that he
just likes making his venues a home for lively debate.
And Noam Dorman has in the past picked up the
(09:30):
check for the thought Criminals.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
The Comedy Steller guy is the sponsor of the gathering
of the thought Criminals.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
He comps them when they go wow. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
So if you want to get a free dinner, go
to the Olive Tree Cafe above the Comedy Seller and
just talk loudly with controversial opinions, and there's a chance
that your bill will disappear.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
I think if I said that, no one would kill me.
So no comment.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
When we come back, Emma will go inside the gathering
of thought criminals dinner and not eat anything. But first,
our advertisers have some red pills they want to sell you. Okay,
(10:16):
So you went to one of these dinners, tell me
what it was like, just from the moment you start
walking towards it.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
So this was on a Sunday night. You go up
a little slide of stairs and you're up into the
Olive Tree and it's one of these old restaurants, like
maroon leather booths and those hanging lights that are sort
of stained glassish that hang over your head kind of
like a flower. You know, they had all this like
soft Rock, Queen Creeden's Clearwater Revival. You know, it's that
(10:46):
kind of place. So wings and burgers kind of joint, I.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Know exactly the eighties place in the West Village you're
talking about.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
So there's this table that had been pushed together maybe
I don't know, twelve or thirteen people showed up to
this version of the gathering. Now, it's important to note
that this was a special version of the gathering, and
they knew I was going to be there, so it
was smaller than usual. And I would say it was
a very particular set because it was people who are
willing to show up to one of these hangouts when
(11:14):
they knew that a New Yorker reporter was going to
be there.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
So normally there'd be like twice as many people. Or
how many people do they usually get?
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Pamila says that they get anywhere from a few dozen
to sixty.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
And what does it feel like? Does it feel tense?
Does it feel excitingly? How does it compare to other
parties you've been to?
Speaker 2 (11:32):
It felt like the kind of party that lifelong debate
kids go to. People who want nothing more than to
sit around having extremely detailed and technical arguments, and that's
how they want to spend their socializing and free time.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Are people wearing name tags or is it much more casual?
Speaker 2 (11:53):
It's way more casual than that in other versions of
the gathering. I've been told that often people will sit
down and get out of a guitar and start singing
folk songs. So it's a pretty convivial and casual setting
where people can get to know each other without having
to have something like a name tag on that's too dorky.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
How was the food I didn't eat?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
You know, gotta work? You didn't eat?
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Come on, really, is that what we're supposed to do?
Speaker 2 (12:17):
I always eat Packapeebie and Jay. You know, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
I always eat no matter where I am. I shouldn't
be doing that as a reporter.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
I'm not here to criticize your journalistic ethics. Yes, would
I say that you're you're a bad reporter. I wouldn't
say that you're a bad reporter. Other people might say that.
I wouldn't say, no.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
This is horrible. Just yesterday, I was out an event,
I was interviewing people. I was just shoving food in
my face.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Wow, I mean, no judgment. I guess. I guess.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Do you feel comfortable there? Like? How do you feel?
Speaker 2 (12:51):
It's hard to say, because reporters are like bad party guests.
Don't invite reporters to your parties. I mean, maybe you
and I should keep that to ourselves because I want
people to keep reporting.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Reporters so everyone knows trust me.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
But you know, I think by the end of the night,
when people were at their loosest, it really was people
sitting around one end of the table, heads really close together,
you know, leaning in, talking about very technical aspects of
the trans debate, and it was just very intense and.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
This trans debate. Who was leading that There was.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
A woman there named Kim Jones who is the mother
of a swimmer who competed against the athlete Leah Thomas,
who is a trans woman, and there was a lot
of backlash to Leah Thomas because she was victorious. So
Kim Jones, this mom has basically reorganized her life around
what happened to her daughter. She has started an organization
(13:50):
which is about, as she would say, defending single sex
spaces and the rights of female athletes, and that includes
the exclusion of trans athletes from female sports.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Who else was there?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
So I met a number of people who weren't willing
to use their nos or go on the record. There
were a couple of people who had previously identified as
transgender and then later had detransitioned away from that identity.
Nick Gillespie, who is a professional libertarian he works for
(14:24):
Reason magazine was there. There was another young woman there
named Ricky Schlott, who is a journalist and dropped out
of NYU. She felt that it was kind of a
waste of her time during the pandemic. And also she
was hiding books by the black economist Thomas Soowell under
her mattress, who sort of like loved by young conservatives
and hated by everybody else.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
It's a weird thing to keep under your bed. That's
just sad, but exciting for Thomas soul maybe.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Yeah, So lots of different kinds of people.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
How about canceled people, though there are actually canceled people there.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
So one of the d transitioners who I talked with
this is someone who I would say has faced a
significant amount of public backlash. I talked on the phone
separately with a couple of people who I would say
count as fully canceled. Sarah Rosiskind is an example of
one of these people who did go through something that
(15:17):
is pretty explicitly a cancelation. When she was at Harvard,
this is maybe ten years ago, she wrote an op
ed for The Crimson about affirmative action, and I think
she would say that it was kind of flip in
and intended to be a little funny, but there was
a big backlash on Harvard's campus. She talked to me
about having friends who stopped talking to her, people walking
(15:39):
out on dates with her. Somebody from Jezebel wrote about
how she was I think, a snide, rude, little baby.
And she talked about even after she graduated, she had
encounters where this would come up and it would be
a source of contention at a party that she was at.
And she's thirty one now. She said that basically this
has defined the last ten years of her life. She
(16:00):
has had a really hard time reckoning with it, and
she told me that she hated herself. She had to
do a lot of therapy. She did a lot of
psychedelic drug use as a foray into trying to get
some understanding and forgiveness. And I think she's someone who's very,
very very deeply thoughtful about what happened to her. She
(16:21):
regrets the articles. She's learned a lot more about affirmative action.
I think she also has come to feel like these
instances where people are really just destroyed because even if
they say something stupid that they later regret, she feels
that that is not a great way to treat people,
(16:43):
and in that way, I found her to be a
really interesting example of a thought criminal, someone who's trying
to wrestle with all of this.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
I've talked to people who've been canceled. It seems from
the outside like it shouldn't be such a big deal,
but we're such social creatures that people's lives fall apart.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Yeah, that's something that Sarah and I talked about, which
is I think one of the critiques from the left
about cancelation or cancel culture, people who are skeptic that
such a thing exists, is that sometimes there are real
clear consequences when someone gets canceled, they lose a job
or whatever, but oftentimes it's not really clear what the
consequence is. Right, they don't necessarily lose their job, they
(17:22):
don't necessarily lose their house or their wife. But to Sarah,
it still matters what your reputation is, right, because how
other people think of us, how we're known, the kind
of association that we have with bad ideas or bad deeds,
that's such an important currency of social trust. And when
that's broken, both in our own self perception and in
(17:45):
other people's perceptions, I think it can be really devastating
for people, and you might think, well, they deserve it,
But I think it's interesting to engage with people who
have been through that, because, if nothing else, I think
it's important for us to understand as a society what
happens when we've done this to someone.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Yeah, when you kick someone out of the village, that
you should know the consequences of it. And so many
people who get kicked out of the village kind of
have an ideological turn, like some people become more successful
after being canceled. Were there those kind of people at
this dinner?
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Well, you know, that's something that Sarah and I talked about.
She was saying, you know, good to be brave, but
you shouldn't be an edge lord. There are a lot
of different ways to deal with this, and one of
them is to become really defensive. But for me, I
think the question as a reporter becomes is there a
really well developed understanding of sin and forgiveness here? I
(18:45):
asked this question over and over again to basically everyone
I met who went to the gatherings, which is what
happens if there's a truly bad person, do you invite
them into the gathering? Do you still have jovial conversation
with them. What's the threshold for forgiveness?
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Yeah, I think there is there's a limit of who
I want to be in a room.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
With, right, And that is I think the really big
question about the Thought Criminals. Pamela was like, Harvey Weinstein
can't come. But you know, in some ways that's the
easy question.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Right exactly, that's actual criminal.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yeah, he's an actual criminal. But you know, there's a
lot of hashmarks between Harvey Weinstein and someone who has
a mildly unpopular opinion. And when I talked to Pamela,
it didn't seem to me that she had developed really
clear parameters for how to figure out how far out
you could be and still be welcomed into the Thought Criminals.
(19:42):
And Pamela, to her credit, was like, look, we're just
a group of friends. You're putting too much on us,
Like you're asking us to be too you know, sophisticated
and have all these rules written out about you know,
how we think about sin and forgiveness or whatever. But
ultimately I think this is a story about how in
society do we categorize people's sins and after someone has sinned,
(20:04):
is there a method for forgiveness. What should happen to
them afterwards?
Speaker 1 (20:09):
She does have a rule, and it's kind of the
only rule anyone has. If you're friends with Pamela, you're
in right, And that's the rule all of us are making.
And it's not just people who are like publicly canceled.
It's like my uncle who voted for Trump, Like it's
a constant decision of who you include and exclude.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
That's right. And I think part of what's complicated about
a gathering like this is that all of these people
have experienced something that involves other people making accusations, and
so that trust is eroded in this popular consensus about
who should be in polite company and who should be
outside of it. But then who do I trust? I
guess I trust Pamela, And if Pamela vouches, then I
(20:47):
guess you must be okay. It's creating this alternative ecosystem
for who deserves to be in a nice cocktail party.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
What feedback have you gotten since the story came out?
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Like?
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Have you gotten canceled? Just for writing about canceled people.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
There was a lot of reaction on Twitter. A lot
of people hated the story and criticized everything from these
people are boring to why are you giving this concept
of being canceled any kind of air? You know, this
was just a credulous report about people who are bad people,
And you know, in the end, I just have to
(21:26):
trust make up, which is that. I think this little
group actually opens up a lot of really substant questions
about what we think as a society about how to
deal with people who have, either in their thoughts or
their words or their deeds, transgressed boundaries, especially in a
time when those boundaries are shifting and there's a lot
(21:48):
of disagreement about where those boundaries should be. I think
it's really important to try to engage with that question,
because it's not just about the thought criminals, whatever you
think about the thought criminals, it's about trying to grapple
with these questions of sit and forgiveness.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Would you go back if they embrage you just for fun?
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I got enough going on. I got other stuff to do.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Emma Green, you wrote the party is canceled for the
New Yorker. Thank you so much for coming on and
for your bravery.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Ha I will not accept the praise of bravery because
I think that would be cringe but I am so
happy to have come on.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Your podcast, and may you never be canceled.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
May you never be canceled to you too.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
I am so sorry to inform you, but just by
listening to this podcast, you've been canceled. See you listen
to a podcast about people who've done questionable things, and
by doing that, you've now tacitly endorsed those questionable things.
So you're canceled. You should probably not check Twitter right now.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
At the end of the show, what's next for Joel Stein?
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Maybe you'll take a never poke around online. Our show
is produced by Joey fish Ground, Mola Board and nih
event Cut. It was edited by Lydia jeden Kopp. Our
engineer is a Mantha kay Wang and our executive producer
is kath Ronald Cherradah. Our theme song was produced by
Jonathan Coltman. A special thanks to my voice coach Vicky
(23:26):
Merrick and my consulting producer Laurence Alasnik. To find more
Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your podcasts. I'm Joel Stein and
this is story of the Week.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
I hope that nothing I said will bring me any
more trouble than I've already gotten into.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Are you worried about anything in particular?
Speaker 2 (23:50):
No, not really, but you know, for my sake, just
listen to make sure I don't say anything terrible.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Are you worried about the stuff you said about the Jews.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Nah, that part's fine.
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