I understand that this incident has been terrible and caused many of us to feel deeply afraid - unfortunately that is the nature of terrorism.
But your anger is misdirected. No matter how you try to rationalise this, directing anger at Cambridge academics is not helpful.
You write: “many of these jobs are highly regulated, for good reason, in a way that does not appear to apply to higher education projects such as this…”
This is incorrect. Academia is highly regulated. This university event probably had multiple layers of committees, ethics board reviews, and paperwork that was checked and cross-checked.
You say, “Most academics, unless coming late to academia, have very little real world experience and tend to focus on one very specific aspect of research. It does not mean that they are qualified to assess risks posed to their students and ultimately to the rest of us by people such as this terrorist.”
There are an incredible number of prejudiced assumptions here. First, this statement offers vague assumptions about “most academics” and their “real world experience.” We have no idea who was attending the Cambridge criminology event, what their professional experience may have been, and this statement implies that academics’ personal life histories somehow encouraged a man to start stabbing people? This is simply unhelpful and wildly vague.
Second, you mention risk assessment and regulations. All research at Cambridge and other universities - especially research and events relating to members of the public and human research subjects, like the ones at the London event - goes through extremely intense ethics reviews. These committees are precisely there to “assess risks posed to their students and ultimately to the rest of us.” You can find more information about the risk assessment process for the specific criminology department that hosted the event here: www.research-integrity.admin.cam.ac.uk/research-ethics/research-ethics-committees
There are many complicated layers to this terrorist event. This man fooled many people, members of the government and the criminal justice system, as well as many ethics review checks. Your assumption that Cambridge academics are to blame for this and did not assess risk is extremely unfair.
We can agree that various people missed something, and the processes of so many organisations, government, and review boards must be reviewed and studied so that this doesn’t happen again. But to imply that the Cambridge academics were flippant and careless is outrageous.
You also say: “The 'academics in ivory towers' refers to the academics (i.e. researchers and lecturers) involved in this programme, not specifically to the two victims of this terrible attack.”
Your definition of “academics” is extremely narrow if you exclude the victims, who were both there for academic interests and academic reasons. No matter how you label them, they were intimately involved in the event, so your shaming of the event is indeed victim shaming, no matter how you try to talk around it.
You also say: “that all such programmes should be urgently reviewed and very carefully regulated in the future.”
Obviously these programmes will be reviewed in the future! But just like a trivia question, the answer is only obvious after you already know the answer. One evil man tricked dozens and dozens of people and regulatory systems. Yes, the systems absolutely must be reviewed, but that doesn’t mean every single person who caused harm in the past has no chance for rehabilitation in the future. That’s a dangerous knee-jerk reaction.
One member of the public that you so greatly admire in your response was a convicted murderer attending the event. What if that former criminal hadn’t been there to help stop the terrorist? Rehabilitation is possible for a great many people, but obviously not all. How can we safely tell the difference without making mistakes? This question will take a great deal of time and effort and academic study to get this right. So let’s not attack those who are doing good work. Let’s not attack the academics working hard on this very complicated and difficult question - especially when they have been victims of a horrible attack.
Finally you say: "this view is not incompatible with support for those who want to research such ideas, but it should not be at the expense of the safety of others, including my own family, which certainly made it feel personal last week.”
You are taking this very personally, and I am sorry for the emotional turmoil you are feeling. We have all felt quite vulnerable. But to be frank, you are still far likelier to die by falling down the stairs in your own home than by a former criminal invited to a rehabilitation event hosted by Cambridge University. Please keep things in perspective, and don’t let this horrible terrorist win. His goal was to make you irrationally afraid. Don’t play into what he wanted.
To quote your subject title - I do believe your anger toward the academics involved is “misguided and naive.”
Yes, your emotions of sadness and fear are valid. Your anger is valid too - but please direct it to the real evil here. One man made a deeply personal choice to take out a knife and kill people. The room full of academics who were trying hard to help make the world a better place did NOT make that choice. Don’t blame them for this.
Stop victim shaming. The academics involved were victims too. Many, many, many people were fooled by this evil man. Many people in the criminal justice system, government, and people who personally knew the terrorist were every bit as fooled as the academics at the conference.
You suggest that you despair the lack of sensible discourse on this topic. I turn that sentiment back around and ask: how sensible you are being by posting on Mumsnet to rile people up against a group of victims who were attacked at their own conference?
You say that people are idealising institutions and demonising people who suggest there were shortcomings. I turn that back around and suggest that perhaps you might demonising an institution and innocent people, and that we are not disagreeing about the shortcomings but rather arguing over who is to blame. Was it the terrorist or the victims fooled by him?
I think we can agree that there were significant shortcomings, but I would argue that the more mature approach would be to study this incident thoughtfully, soberly, and without any irrational anger, so that we can understand what went wrong so that we can get it right next time.