Outrage 005 – Holocaust Denial – Luke Berryman

When I first approached the topic of this episode, the prototypical title was โ€œItโ€™s ok to punch Nazis.โ€

Let me explain.

As you know, the Outrage Overload podcast is science-oriented, intended to be non-partisan. If we talk about politics, we bring in scientists to talk about the psychology or neuroscience of politics, not about specific issues. In that context, we often talk about how โ€œboth sidesโ€ are guilty of using outrage porn (messaging designed to trigger moral outrage); How all of us can fall into self-delusions like motivated reasoning and such, regardless of party affiliation; And so on.

Because we frequently talk about โ€œboth sidesโ€ in the context of the research we discuss, I wanted to do a specific episode on bothsidesism, both in a general sense and also specifically making a distinction in the context of the podcast. Generally I donโ€™t express positions on specific issues or try to change anyoneโ€™s politics on the podcast – there are other places for those discussions. But I thought it was important to dedicate an episode to clarifying this bothsidesism issue.

So thatโ€™s how I came to reach out to Luke Berryman. He is the founder of The Ninth Candle, a Chicago-based nonprofit organization whose mission is to end antisemitism by sharing knowledge. He has been in education for over a decade, teaching at the University of Cambridge and at schools in Britain and the United States. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on Nazi propaganda at Kingโ€™s College London.

I discovered Luke Berryman from an article in Education Week titled โ€œHow Holocaust Denial and Other Bogus Claims Are Poisoning Schoolsโ€ with the sub-title โ€œDonโ€™t be fooled by bothsidesism.โ€


Luke Berryman is the founder of The Ninth Candle, a Chicago-based nonprofit organization whose mission is to end antisemitism by sharing knowledge. He has been in education for over a decade, teaching at the University of Cambridge and at schools in Britain and the United States.

Timestamps and Transcript

Links and References

The Ninth Candle: https://theninthcandle.com/

International Holocaust Remembrance Day January 27, 2023 https://www.ushmm.org/remember/international-holocaust-remembrance-day

Education Week article: How Holocaust Denial and Other Bogus Claims Are Poisoning Schools


๐Ÿ’ฌ What was your big takeaway or insight gained from this episode? Comment below.

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Outrage Overload is a podcast about the outrage industry, my journey to discover what it is, how it affects us, and what we can do about it.