Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie Reith Lectures R4 this morning

[JoyousAsOtters]

Standing in my kitchen clapping and tears in my eyes listening to this. (Dogs very confused.)
Every single word is so considered, deliberate and illuminating. She is utterly devastating.

Its brilliant

She answers the questions so well, and refuses to be sidetracked or derailed from the key points. She is so thorough and so intellectually powerful without patronising anyone.

I just came on to check if anyone else was listening. Here's the link:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/51PDSr0W90GLY9fxBl44Gqn/bbc-reith-lectures-2022-the-four-freedoms

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie spoke brilliantly. A very nuanced analysis.

Can't seem to find it on BBC Sounds, could you link please?

Ahha. Thanks

I can’t listen to it for a bit - what are her key themes?

dod sue thank Zoe Williams for giving her intellectual guidance?

The Reith Lectures

It’s on freedom of speech clueless. The great thing is how considered it all is, how she broadens out the subject to show how the impact of moral censorship on authors and literature (her area of course) is mirrored in and also a result of wider cultural concerns. And she doesn’t shy away from specifics when she addresses the Q + A despite the BBC presenter clearly attempting (irony bypass) to get her off a certain topic. Bet you can’t guess which one it was…

Poor Zoe. She can't hold a candle to Chimamanda's intelligence. Fortunately for Zoe, she's too dim to realise.

It was PHENOMENAL!
she was pure class in the Q&A session too

Wasn’t she? She gave tremendous advice too.

The advice was stellar

and I just love how funny and warm she is, alongside the lethal intelligence

‘I think most people are fundamentally decent. There are just a few arseholes’

I love the Reith Lectures

I missed this one, will check it out

Yes, fabulous.

Loved the lecture. She handled the questions brilliantly. Typical trans question - people don’t want us to exist. Nicely rebuffed

Looking forward to listening later!

I loved the way she handled the ‘trans right to exist’ question by explaining it in terms of factual truth (as opposed to the subjectivity the questioner posited) and the dangers of exemplifying your opposing tribe’s argument only in terms of their most extreme positions. She showed in one or two sentences how ‘they deny our right to exist’ is a straw man, and how that silences people.

It was brilliant. Brilliant.

I'm actually looking forward to the others - rowan williams is next on religious freedom. But back to this one. I am really interested in freedom of speech - that's how I realised something was up in feminism / gender v sex etc - and I think this might be the best discussion of free speech that I've heard. 'Social censure' she called all the stuff that happens to ppl who step outside the orthodoxy. Her positions were nuanced and moderate, and she described the current situation with truth. She got to the heart of it.

I also agreed with her answer to Harry Miller. She really is true to her own beliefs.

I'm not sure I agree with her last answer about not looking at social media. In an ideal world but it's not realistic for many who need to promote themselves. There could be a whole other talk hashing out ideas on that.

Such a good discussion.

I had to go out before the end, having listened in awe to her absolutely brilliant lecture, and so missed the questions - but I had a pretty good idea there would inevitably be something along the lines mentioned above. Can’t wait to catch up with her answer.

Loved it!

She's been very brave and resolute. She's had people she mentored and who have been published due to her support turn against her. I imagine it won't have been easy with her publishers. I hope she and JKR are in touch. I'd love to listen to them talking over lunch.

Interestingly if you listen via the web page you hear more questions than were on the radio. I’d forgotten this is usually the case. And Kathleen Stock was there, she asked a question about narration in literature, also David Olusoga. Maybe I popped out of the room but I missed those live.

In that context I’m a little heartened to see that the BBC could have edited out any questions they liked (for time constraints reasons) and yet chose to keep more contentious ones in the radio edit. There are also usually transcripts available for Reith, I’m not sure about the questions.

She was terrific, I only heard part because I had to be at the vet but will be listening to the extended version. Such a wise, informed, intelligent, speaker.

Maybe I popped out of the room but I missed those live.

No you didn't miss them. The Sounds version is longer. I only heard the live radio version so I'll have to catch up with the additional questions.

I agree with ManderleyAgain about her answer to Harry Miller. I loved that phrase about how you can't legislate for affection.

I'd echo many of the comments above but I do have some different views. At the heart of Miller's question was the right to be assertive about exercising one's free speech and CNA was not on board for that. In contrast to her lecture, which was largely about following on from sound principles, her answers had a slight #bekind flavour to them, at least to my ear.

"Social media is not the real world". Hmm, to me that's misleading, because for many, and probably for most involved in free speech arguments, social media is part of the real world. That fed into her "just ignore social media" which I felt was a position of considerable privilege, especially when said but someone who had her assistant handle that side of things for her.

Overall though it's a solid recommendation from me. Especially since if you listen to the stream on Sounds, you'll get an extended version.