This is just embarrassing. If you read it and thought ‘yes, how could anyone disagree?,’ please look again: “The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure...” We KNOW this is false. Vaccine/COVID conspiracy theories are KILLING people because it is false. 1/n harpers.org/a-letter-on-ju…
Also, after giving a list of vague, unspecified examples of ‘mob’ silencing, the authors say “Whatever the arguments around each particular incident...” NOPE. Stop right there. If the arguments around that incident establish it was justified, you don’t get to wave them away. 2/n
Also notice that nowhere do the authors draw a moral line that would justify censure. Nowhere. Not even the most vicious, hateful, unfounded and harm-inciting rhetoric is by that criterion unscholarly or deserving of repudiation, *except* by feeding it attentive critique 3/n
So this screed tells academics they must be resigned to waste their energies on an endless game of whack-a-mole with pseudo-science and poisonous conspiracies of all stripes: white supremacist nonsense, eugenicist nonsense, phrenology nonsense, you name it, because...4/n
They tell us that the marketplace of ideas must be able to sell *anything*: whether it’s poison labeled as wine or 19th century rat turds in candy wrappers. And no one who markets these *ideas* can be asked to go sell them elsewhere! 5/n
Instead, no matter what they say, they must never be denied the imprimatur of scientific credibility and prestige that this particular market confers! What kind of market works like this, with absolutely zero standards of care, trustworthiness, good faith or credibility? 6/n
It’s one where flat-earth societies, anti-vax theories, eugenics & race science can not only be shared (which already no one is stopping), they must be given more: as much elite status and amplification as their authors and adherents demand, or else they are being ‘silenced.’ 7/n
It’s uncomfortable to find yourself as an elite academic being told to peddle your shoddy and injurious wares somewhere else. If the community is wrong, then labor to demonstrate the non-shoddiness of your wares by careful argument. But that’s not what this letter does. 8/n
The letter argues for a blanket hall pass—not only to publish anything you like in any prestigious venue, but to keep all your board memberships & honors & editorships & keynote speaking slots, because acceptance by your peer community of scholars is an inalienable right? No. 9/n
Now look. Could overreach and groupthink limit academic freedom? Of course. We must take care to keep new and challenging ideas coming, and weigh them fairly. But this isn’t asking for that. It’s asking for intellectual status without intellectual accountability. 10/10
