As I recounted on May 14, philosopher Maarten Boudry from Ghent, developmental biologist Michael Richardson from Leiden and I were “deplatformed” by a student-run group, “BetaBreak”, at the University of Amsterdam. We were recruited to discuss a paper that I wrote with Luana Maroja, “The ideological subversion of biology,” in which we discussed several areas (sex, race, evolutionary psych0logy, etc.) in which “progressive” ideology had crept into biology, distorting the science.
A few days before our event, we got a note that BetaBreak was canceling our discussion because Maarten and I had “unacceptable” sympathies towards Israel in the Gaza War. This had nothing to do with our discussion, as you’ll see when I put the video in the next post. But it didn’t matter, if you’re more on the side of the Jews, you’re tainted—at least in Amsterdam. (Maarten had in fact been deplatformed a few days before that when he was scheduled to give a talk on climate change, which he eventually gave remotely.)
At any rate, BetaBreak then came up with a second explanation for our deplatforming, which was that the event “could get violent” and they couldn’t guarantee our safety. Well, that sounds bogus to me (a scientific descussion?), and of course none of us were worried about our safety. The fact that the “safety” trope came only in a subsequent explanation of course makes us think it was confected, for, as the group explained in its first message to us: “Another fear is how [the deplaforming] would reflect on us as a committee and that we might be blackballed at UvA/AUC.” Oh, dearie me. They might have been blackballed! They canceled others so they wouldn’t get canceled themselves. . . And the advantage of raising the “safety” issue, of course, is that it can’t be refuted: if you cancel an event on those grounds, you’ll never know if your worries were justified.
The details of the deplatforming are in the first link above, but Maarten and I collaborated on a new article in Quillette, which you can see below (click the headline) for free, BUT READ IT WITHIN A DAY OR SO, AS IT’S GOING TO BE PAYWALLED. (I did find an archived link here.) But the point of our article was not to play the victim, for within a few days we staged the discussion without an audience, and it was recorded professionally and put on YouTube. (More people can hear it now!)
The point of our Quillette piece, as you see, is that deplatforming invited speakers is a disservice not just to the speakers, but, more important, to the audience. In the article I added an apposite quote from John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty” to show why, whether or not you disagree with speakers whose views offend you, you should still listen to them. I’ll put it here:
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
That is, if you listen carefully to such a speaker, you might not only change your mind on some issues, but, even if you don’t, it gives you the chance to hear the best arguments of your opponents, and thus a chance to hone your ideas. (Further, the person speaking is “outed” in that you finally can learn what they really believe.)
But I see I’m summarizing the piece for you. Please read it yourself (and before the weekend!) by clicking below. It’s not very long.
Also, if you’re a regular reader of Quillette, remember that it has no ads and is sponsored by reader support alone. You can subscribe by going here.
I’ll give the first paragraph and then the last two:
Like being struck by lightning, getting deplatformed—first invited to speak and then disinvited for your political views—is something you assume happens only to other people. But, unlike a lightning strike, it’s not a rare occurrence. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)’s “campus deplatforming database” of US universities lists 626 successful deplatforming attempts since 1998. This year alone, there have already been 110 attempts to cancel talks, most involving speakers sympathetic to Israel. Neither of us, however, had ever personally experienced this kind of cancellation before.
And the ending:
The problem with this approach [deplatforming or canceling people] is that plenty of unsavoury people have produced wonderful work in music, art, literature, and science, and that work should be judged on its own merits. In any case, who is to judge which beliefs and behaviours should render you untouchable? As Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four shows, “approved” opinions have a way of changing, and it’s impossible to predict which widely held opinions of today will be considered grounds for damnation tomorrow. Who could have predicted the current “orthodox” view on the war in Gaza several decades ago, when most Western progressives were staunchly pro-Israel? A hundred years ago, vegetarians were seen as cranks. A century hence, will killing and eating animals for food be seen as beyond the pale?
It’s been 155 years since Mill published his famous essay and, sadly, we have still not taken its lessons to heart. If BetaBreak had allowed our discussion to proceed, the students would not only have been able to engage in a lively discussion, but might also have learned something or—heaven forbid—even changed their minds about the relationship between science and ideology.
Apologies for the completely off topic comment but I thought it worth sharing that the V. Venkatarman paper debunking the notorious “Hunter-Gatherer” paper from last year has been peer revieweed and in press.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1090513824000497?dgcid=author
Good article! Thank you for writing it.
Hey, I wanna be deplatformed now!
[ Not The Ramones : I Wanna Be Deplatformed ]
With abject apologies to the ghosts of Tommy, Dee-Dee, Joey and Johnny;
“20, 20, 24 hours to go
I wanna be deplatformed
Nothin’ to do, nowhere to go
I wanna be deplatformed
Just put me in room, get me on a panel
Hurry, hurry, hurry before I go mental
I can’t control the termites, I can’t control the admins
Oh, no, oh-oh, oh-oh
20, 20, 24 hours to go
I wanna be deplatformed
Nothin’ to do, nowhere to go-oh
I wanna be deplatformed
Bam, bam, ba-bam, ba-bam, bam, ba-bam
I wanna be deplatformed
Bam, bam, ba-bam, ba-bam, bam, ba-bam
I wanna be deplatformed””
hmmm, doesn’t really scan, does it? Oh well, it’s only punk rawk.
Today WEIT
Tomorrow CBGBs
Maybe in 100 years, owning pets will be seen as equivalent as slavery by some on the end of the political spectrum. “He OWNED CATS!! We can’t allow him to be studied in University!!”. You just never know.
🙂
(Silly Rabbit. NOBODY owns cats. It’s unpossible.
D*gs, otoh…)
This situation could serve as the poster child for how cancel culture exerts its harmful effects and why it’s so harmful. Ultimately, the cancelling occurred because the student group feared that THEY would be ostracized for being associated with the event. These kinds of downstream effects magnify the impact of any single cancellation by orders of magnitude.
One picky point — which just happens to be a bit of a pet peeve of mine. You mention, Jerry, in the Quillette piece that: “Even though we are critical of the Netanyahu government and its far-right cronies, the mere fact that we support Israel’s right to defend itself against a terrorist group placed us beyond the pale.”
My view is that your opinion about Netanyahu is not relevant. What if you DID support Netanyahu? Would that have made the cancellation more reasonable? I know that wasn’t the point you were trying to make, but mentioning your opposition to Netanyahu does suggest that your criticism of Netanyahu makes the cancellation particularly unreasonable. Again — I think the cancellation would have been just as outrageous if you were known for being a Netanyahu supporter.
When Hamas barbarians massacred >1200 on Oct. 7 they didn’t check whether those they were about to slaughter supported Netanyahu or supported a two-state solution. And in fact, some of those massacred were peace activists. The Israel haters don’t care about political nuances.
In any case — thank god for the Streisand effect eh! Great discussion.
Yes, you’re right, of course. We were just trying to lay out our position, for perhaps supporting Netanyahu is the cardinal sin and not supporting Israel itself. It is, you know, to many people. But you’re right in saying that our position on Israel, whatever it was, doesn’t make cancellation any more reasonable.
Great article! And in Quillette, a great way to platform your deplatforming.
It’s good to see an update on this thing. I wonder if BetaBreak will be blackballed because they did a unilateral deplatforming? It’s a student group, and surely they are subjected to oversight from, you know, actual adults.
The quote from John Stuart Mill made me think of a recent Sam Harris podcast where the guest (I think Greg Lukianeff) made the same argument, calling it the “information argument” in favor of free speech.
Thanks for this!
I’m glad to see this article. Well done!
What a loss for the students. I guess they go to expensive schools so they can have a megaphone of what they already believe.
Seeing the cancellation work as response to threats sets a terrible example: yell and scream and threaten and you’ll get your own way.
It seems rather clear that the students didn’t fear for their safety as much as they dreaded the moral condemnation of their peers. It is a fear, as we have often seen, that has overcome much of professional life in the West. What explains this? When and why did so many credentialed adults revert to (or never leave) the stultifying peer pressure and conformity of adolescence?
Great article. Thanks for making it available to us.
(You guys with the Ramones had me ROFL)
Excellent article.
By the way, I clicked on the link in the article to the discussion you taped in Amsterdam in lieu of the cancelled presentation. That was a stimulating and entertaining discussion. I particularly liked the tangent it took with respect to “is all knowledge good”. Fascinating stuff.
Edit: I just now see that you’ve posted the link separately.