Cambridge University LGBTQI+ students: we are not attempting to silence free speech, we just want to deplatform Helen Joyce

I think what I’m trying to say is NOT that people should be banned from talking about these things - I think people should be able to talk about whatever they like - but that publicly-funded institutions should not be actively promoting their research and discussion in a context where only a limited number of topics can be covered/funded/discussed/researched. Because that implies they are legitimate topics of public interest and concern, rather than fairly niche issues heavily associated with racist ideologies.

(Do note I’m talking about racial IQ issues and Holocaust denial here, not Helen Joyce!)

Bookmarking for later, ta!

I love listening to Glenn Loury.

These are the elite minds of the future??? Fuck Me.

Who the hell is going to be running around protecting their fragile little selves from reality once they're in the workplace? Who will be the Mummy they run to at that point?

And where are the colleges raising the ones with the strength of mind and character and common sense who will be the protectors and caretakers of this lot? Fgs someone go and show them the Freedom Programme. You don't have to live your life enabling muppets.

I don't think it's difficult. Let people have the debates out. More talking rather than less. #nodebate does not help anyone - even the TRAs are seeing it backfire on them.

If you want adults to be protected from "charismatic people", then their ideas must be able to be aired, discussed and interrogated.

Exactally. I can't really think of a worse idea. This is why HJ is being deplatformed right now.

One academic who has been largely deplatformed, who talks about racial groups and IQ, is Charles Murray. People protest his all the time when he speaks at other universities. And the arguments are this stuff about the black and brown students feeling uncomfortable, or it implies his ideas are worthy of respect.

Maybe about a year ago Glan Loury, the black economist, interviewed Murray for his podccast. It was really interesting, well worth listening too, and I think they both found it a stimulating conversation. And maybe this sounds harsh, I think if you are not up to that kind of thing, you shouldn't be at university. Sorry. It's not for you.

I agree with you in theory! I’d love for it to be a symbiotic partnership, but right now, one of those two partners is behaving like an abuser and gaslighting the other until they barely know if they are coming or going.

Universities have to re find the old balance before they become utterly useless.

My whole family are arts and humanities grads so I promise I say these things with loving concern rather than a prejudice towards STEM. Deconstructionism was interesting as a literary theory but we can’t let it into the systems we use to organise society and then act surprised when everything around us is reduced to rubble!

and as many of us have discovered over the last few years, there many regular people who are taken in by non-logical arguments, and swayed into popular opinion.

If you’re talking about genderism i think you’re making the opposite of the case you’re arguing for! Authoritarian nonsense has flourished because free speech has been suppressed. More people speaking up is proving to be the antidote to the insanity.

I actually would love to see a meta-debate on the hypothetical IQ-race discussion: why is talking about IQ so heavily loaded? Am I a more valuable and more human person than someone with intellectual disabilities? I tend to think not, but IMO assumptions like that underlie the taboo around that debate and I’d love to see them dragged into the light. I think the taboo on that discussion only reinforces what is a deeply capitalist, anti-human and even eugenicist system of values -we should discuss that! I truly believe the principle that the solution to bad speech is more speech.

And I’m not sure about the host vs sponsor a debate issue - I think when a university room is offered (for free) then it’s essentially a university-sponsored event (Complicated slightly in Cambridge by the College system, I realise!).

No of course I don’t think that! I think it is generally widely accepted, though, that we are morally obligated to refrain from conducting or publicising research that sets out to undermine racial equality, which many people think this would do. And I also think that holding a university event on the topic would promote the sense that the university as an institution thinks this is an area of legitimate debate, which would be difficult to square with its public commitment to racial equality.

That book was indirectly responsible for the fact I started out pretty suspicious of id pol.

Back when I was still in school, I guess I was about 16, we had a guest speaker come to talk to my class on black history topics, and a lot of his ideas came from Black Athena.

I was quite a history buff and noticed several odd things about what he said, and was foolish enough to ask about one - he claimed Cleopatra was black, and I said I thought she had been Greek, a descendant of Ptolemy. Which, for my trouble, I was told that I was a racist. (By the other kids, he just implied I was a victim of racist culture. My teacher, who was an Egyptologist, didn't say a word.)

I kept quiet about my doubts that Aristotle has stolen all his ideas from the African books in the Alexandrian library.

@beastlyslumber it is a really difficult area I think. But when there is traction against a particular cohort of people pronounced by a charismatic what are the safeguards for that cohort? It is why holocaust denial is now a crime. To paraphrase, all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. We have seen again and again recently how good people do nothing to protect and support children against misinformation.

So who gets to decide which ideas and speakers are too dangerous for the public to make up their own minds about? Who decides which are the incorrect views which shouldn't be heard?

Sorry but that is one hell of a slippery slope towards authoritarianism.

Why wouldn't that be a topic for debate?

Do you think the evidence would show they were?

I’m not convinced those large numbers exist?

When we went investigating UK Fascism for another thread we discovered the National Front has crumbled down to a dust (29 members as of earlier this year)!

Well now you're saying "sponsor" a debate. I think that's a bit different than simply allowing a debate to be held.

If it's a debate it means you can go and have your views heard. Far better for these discussions to be out in the open.

There are loads of lectuses, books etc that say white people are inferior. I'd love there to be an actual debate so I could see their evidence and reasoning.

You can't combat bad ideas by censoring them.

Cambridge going seriously downhill if this is the standard of thought. Why are all these very intelligent people so frightened? Presumably their little absolutist mentality cannot stand a little discussion. Suggests there should be much more of it, not less.

Yes this too - but also that the talk would presumably attract large numbers of racists/anti-semites who we probably don’t want to invite to gather together inside university premises.

I do take your point about the possibility/risk of PoMo bollocks/‘lived experience’ subsuming the idea of respecting science. On the other hand, though, all other things being equal I think the humanities and STEM need, if anything, to be more integrated, not less. Scientific rigour can (in theory) hold to account ideas and theses from the humanities, act as a reminder that they are theses and not theories in the scientific sense, and hopefully enrich all other areas of study. Just as the study of the humanities/arts can and should enrich scientific study.

If I were a black student (I’m not but have taught many) I would feel very uncomfortable studying at a university that thought it was fine to sponsor a public debate on whether black people have lower IQ than white people. I imagine most black students (and staff) would.

I am trying mentally to extend this thought experiment to trans-identifying students at Cambridge seeing the Helen Joyce talk advertised - and I can’t. I think it’s because her talk is evidently not about “are trans people <insert derogatory adjective here>?” but about silencing of free speech in the context of gender-identity ideology.

I agree that we should talk to the racists (et al) and probe their thinking and make them "use their words"
This is our tactic during elections in Germany when the AfD are out and about. We engage them in conversation because that means they can't talk to the other passers by (we also take as many leaflets as we think we can get away with...)

I've had more than one where they say "there are so many foreigners and refugees coming in with their foreign ways and taking all the jobs"
"oh yes there are lots of foreigners where i work"
"see, so many"
"yes, but they all look like me. I'm a foreigner, surely you don't mean me?"
"of course not"
"which ones?"
"well, you know"
"no, i don't, can you explain?"

It's the same thing on a smaller scale than a talk or a lecture: but it doesn't stand to having a light shone on it.

It's an interesting point. My fear though is that some speakers are very charismatic, and as many of us have discovered over the last few years, there many regular people who are taken in by non-logical arguments, and swayed into popular opinion.

Slightly bigger picture, but this seems to point to a real lack of teaching these people have had around concepts like free speech, but also how universities are meant to function. (As well as the fact that something like gender ideology, no matter what you think of it, is an abstracted system, not some kind of self-evident fact.)

I remember, eons ago, actually covering these kinds of civics lessons in school, well before I was 16. I don't remember what the class was, but we discussed things like civil liberties, what that meant in terms of the law and how it was manifest in social function, also about instances like civil liberties groups in the US fighting for the free speech rights of KKK members. I understood why university faculty had tenure.

It seems pretty clear from these kinds of letters that these kids are operating at the level of 10 years olds, they seem to be missing basic knowledge.

And when I look at what my own kids are learning in school, it's clear why. They don't touch on any of this. They are almost overwhelmed with social justice topics, both in class and from speakers and groups invited from outside the school, or materials on posters and so on. They have all kinds of days dedicated to these different issues, they don't have things that we did like a debate team, model Parliament, model UN, or anything like that. About 90% of student groups are identity related.

I don't think any subject should be off limits for debate. We can't "socially agree" facts - we have to bring facts and evidence and be prepared to state our case over and over again. You can't just tell people "this is the rght way to think about a topic" you need to explain, educate and convince them with evidence.

On the example of racial differences I think any debate these days is more likely to be along the lines of "are white people all evil/stupid/racist" than the other way around. But of course we should debate that! A lot of people say they think this, so it ought to be properly discussed.

I met some Holocaust deniers this year (racist misogynists too in case you were wondering). I would love to see them formally debate their views and have them calmly exposed to rigorous scrutiny. No topic should be undebateable.

I agree with @TheClogLady The example of holocaust denial is a good one. It is illegal to do that because the facts of the situation have been socially agreed in response to devastating events and put into law. I think we could/should argue the same when it comes to speaking about racial differences. People should be legally recognised as people regardless of race and there is no value/merit in a discussion that tried to pick that apart in any way. It should be law and I am sure laws could be used against that sort of "discussion". The discussion about sex/gender has been proven in a court to be WORIADS, it is an example of an issue that has not yet been socially agreed.