Episode 104: Elle Griffin on Faith, Hope, and Clarity

Can Substack survive mainstream media pearl-clutching?

Do we dare to dream of utopia?

Was the Virgin Mary really a virgin?

These are just some of the questions I get into with the fascinating and contagiously positive Elle Griffin in this wide-ranging conversation.

Elle is the author of The Elysian, an exploration of utopian ideas through fiction and non-fiction that goes out to over 11,000 subscribers on Substack.

In December 2023, her open letter defending Substack’s content moderation policy, co-signed by a large number of Substack authors, went viral. The catalyst? An article in The Atlantic by Jonathan M. Katz called “Substack Has A Nazi Problem”. Katz’s main beef is that Nazis and extremists have Substack newsletters that in some cases have paid subscribers, and therefore, he claims, Substack is helping Nazis to make money, and is taking a cut in the process. No prizes for guessing what he thinks would solve the “Nazi Problem”.

Would censorship and de-platforming be better than the hands-off, walled garden approach that Substack has chosen?

Elle and I do our bit to tease out the subtleties of the situation while maintaining our sense of humour.

You can find Elle at https://www.elysian.press/.

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