The core thesis of this big and baggy book is that, while previously a marginal affair ‘pretty much confined to the college campus and the political left’, a certain damaging brand of identity politics (‘woke politics’) has now become ‘ubiquitous’ in US politics – and that it has done so as a consequence of the Democratic party substituting ‘“oppressed minorities” of every imaginable ilk’ for what used to be its mass base: the trade union movement.

This is also, undeniably, a book of digressions, as well as a book that is (in Finkelstein’s own words) ‘laced with vitriol’. I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Get to It! : Heretical Thoughts on Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, and Academic Freedom

About this book

This phrase is what is sometimes known as a malaphor or a mixed idiom, which is a phrase that blends two similar figures of speech to create a new one, that may or may not make much sense. 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”. To make (some) sense of what blending these two expressions might mean, let us first look at what they mean on their own.

The university's purpose is to search for truth, not the imposition of 'correct' ideas. It's also nearly impossible to physically stamp out an 'incorrect' idea, while, once gaining traction, it will spread with ease among a population ignorant of the arguments against it and consequently mentally disarmed to counter it" (421). Finkelstein himself was hounded out of academia for having exposed a series of frauds and hoaxes relating to the Israel- Palestine conflict, most notably Alan Dershowitz’s 2003 book The Case for Israel. The book is split into two parts, which can be read independently according to the reader’s interests. Chapter 1 (‘Confessions of a Crusty, Crotchety, Cantankerous, Contrarian, Communist Casualty of Cancel Culture’) sets the stage, and also outlines John Stuart Mill’s classic defence of free speech: you could be wrong; you shouldn’t prevent others from deciding for themselves; engagement with false claims helps to prevent true beliefs becoming ‘dead dogmas’; even false ideas may get certain things right and so should be heard.Here are my thoughts on our favorite academic with a Kermit voice who got cancelled and hates woke politics. No, not that one. For example, Kendi ‘den[ies] that the Civil Rights Movement was the prime mover in extirpating the deeply entrenched Jim Crow system’ in the American South, which he instead depicts as ‘wholly the work of white people oblivious to, insulated from, and untouched by the mass protests’. The irrefragable fact remains that "woke" politics are intellectually vacuous and politically pernicious. I endeavor to demonstrate this in Part I by parsing the ur-texts of "woke" politics, and then by dispelling the dense mist that surrounds that ultimate "woke" product: the Obama cult. In Part II, I critically assess what's become an article of faith in "woke" culture: that in the classroom a professor should teach only his own and not contending viewpoints on the controverted question; that he shouldn't strive for balance."

There is wisdom contained in this book, but much of that wisdom is doomed to fall on deaf ears, due to Norman Finkelstein's self-destructive need for controversy, and his needless drive to pull out the hatchet on his foes. Honestly, some of the language in this book wouldn't be out of place in a Dinesh D'souza book or a Breitbart article, and for the sake of fairness, I think it's only right to call it out. The book then proceeds to examine questions such as: ‘Should a professor who expresses “outrageous” opinions on morality outside the classroom have the right to teach?’Probably the shortest chapter and the most boring. The reason for both these things is that Coates's reparations article - the subject of the chapter - is very timid and doesn't actually end up calling for anything. Since the article itself is wishy-washy and therefore cannot be satisfactorily critiqued (standing, as it does, for nothing in particular), Norm instead focuses on one analogy Coates makes: the reparations demanded by the World Jewish Congress at the turn of the century. Of course Norm would hone in on this, because it was partially his exposure of the corruption surrounding this event that got him cancelled. He basically says, "reparations on that scale would never happen. It only exists as a tool the woke left invokes to put people like Bernie Sanders in a bad spot." Bernie Sanders, in fact, is the common thread throughout this book. Coates's tepid article also exposes the political bankruptcy of the woke left. I'd love to hear from others who have read this book. I almost feel that Part I should be required reading for people on this sub, since Norm takes down idpol while doing so from a decidedly leftist, class-focused position and never losing sight of the fact that racism, homophobia, sexism, and other things idpol rails against, are real, present, and deserving of opposition. Too many people on this sub are just here for the anti-idpol circlejerk without even trying to maintain a semblance of genuine leftism. Perhaps most interesting for PN readers is Finkelstein’s devastating take-down of Obama’s ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power.