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

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Gleefully pulling apart the core claims of her seminal paper on the topic, Finkelstein enlists the services of a friendly mathematician to detail how – taken literally – her claim that any two categories of oppression combine to create ‘an entirely new, irreducible category of oppression’, leads to the existence of infinitely many such categories. Here's what Norm says in his introduction, which is much more quotable than the conclusion (it ends not with a bang, but with a whimper).

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?’ On the other hand, to cross that bridge when you get to it has a positive connotation. Collins Dictionary, again, defines the phrase as dealing with a problem or a difficult situation when it comes up and “not to anticipate difficulties”.

In addition to the man himself, Finkelstein also examines the memoirs of a ‘supporting cast’ that includes two of Obama’s chief speech writers; his senior adviser, Valerie Jarrett; his gofer, Reggie Love; and White House deputy chief of staff Alyssa Mastromonaco. So, when someone says that they will “burn that bridge when [they] get to it”, they expect to deal with an upcoming difficulty badly which will result in permanently cutting ties or alienating other people involved. In a nutshell, you are setting yourself up to fail in dealing with a future problem. The book is split into two parts, which can be read independently according to the reader’s interests. The ‘[s]elf-styled public conscience of the Obama administration’, Power had previously written the 2003 Pulitzer-winning book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide.

If Kendi is currently feted in charmed circles,’ Finkelstein notes ‘it’s because, for all his fire and brimstone rhetoric, his hip and hyped public persona, his militant preening and macho posturing, the only substantial demand he makes on the one percent – reconfigure the exploiting class to include a fair percentage of us – they’re already prepared to concede’. Four historical cases are considered, the best-known of which are those involving Bertrand Russell (who was prevented from teaching mathematical logic at the College of the City of New York in 1940, because of his publicly-stated attitudes towards sex and marriage) and Angela Davis (who was briefly suspended from a teaching post at UCLA because of her membership of the Communist party). The first chapter is, of course, about Norm and his own experiences with cancel culture from Zionists and academics who viewed him as antisemitic. The second recounts famous people who got cancelled: Betrand Russell (perv), Leo F. Koch (perv pinko?), Angela Davis (pinko rabble-rouser?), and Steven Salaita (rabble-rouser?). All four, he argues, were cancelled for incivility, whether moral (Russell, Koch) or political (Davis, Salaita). The crux of Norm's point in this chapter is this: (Norm is paraphrasing J.S. Mill) "The charge of incivility . . . is often directed at the weak by the strong, even as the strong are just as prone to incivility - the difference being, the weak get ostracized for their crassness, the strong lauded for their righteous indignation." However, the book’s two longest critiques – comprising roughly two-fifths of its total length – are devoted to Ibram X Kendi and the Obama administration.Throughout, as readers of his earlier books would expect, Finkelstein brings his famously forensic approach to bear on the issues at hand. He’s put the hours in and done his homework, displaying impressive command over a vast range of material. Norman "X." Finkelstein's latest book, I'll Burn That Bridge When I Get to It! Heretical Thoughts on Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, and Academic Freedom, was a pleasure to read, both because it was cleverly and ably written, and because it scratched that itch I think many of us have for seeing the likes of Robin DiAngelo get verbally shredded. However, it would be a shame if this were to deprive the book of the wide audience that it deserves. This is also, undeniably, a book of digressions, as well as a book that is (in Finkelstein’s own words) ‘laced with vitriol’. Finkelstein is furious that this ‘has distracted from and, when need be, outright sabotaged a class-based movement that promised profound social change’ – namely the mass grassroots movement supporting Bernie Sanders’ presidential bids in 2016 and 2020.

In reality, Finkelstein notes, even the chief strategist for Obama’s presidential campaigns, David Axelrod, concedes that ‘neither he nor Obama nor anyone else in Obama’s entourage ever contemplated a decisive rupture with the past’. Norm certainly does all these things; the question remains as to whether or not these two parts meld gracefully into one book. 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’. This is all the more ironic given that Finkelstein states explicitly that the shifts in societal attitudes toward sexual and racial minorities in recent decades are ‘a civilizational advance, a cultural tectonic shift, in which we as a society can justly take pride’. He cites approvingly, albeit with qualifications, John Stuart Mill’s famous encouragement of ‘experiments in living’.

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Definitely worth a read. I have to admit that I felt a little guilty reading it, as it felt sort of masturbatory to just watch someone destroy these people I already rant against anyway. But it did give me arguments against their theories that are more articulate than anything I ever could have come up with on my own. And anyway, 50% of this sub is circlejerking about idpol anyway. The cover, on the other hand, is hideous. I could also have done without the running joke about Obama’s acolytes and adulators all lusting after him (‘Although he professes that he and his students blissfully contemplated together the “curvature” of the Constitution, it’s more probable that Tribe was contemplating the curvature of his student’s constitution.’).

In 2020, his then-publisher proposed that he ‘join the debate with a short book’. What emerged was obviously not what had been expected.

Information about the book I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Get to It!, written by Norman G. Finkelstein About the book I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Get to It! : Heretical Thoughts on Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, and Academic Freedom 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 first, which comprises roughly fourth-fifths of the book, focuses mainly on identity politics. The second on questions to do with academic freedom. 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.