Who shall save democracy and truth?

Albeit for all the wrong reasons, the psychologist Stephan Lewandowsky will be very familiar to anyone who has a penchant for scepticism. It was he who led the production of the Debunking Handbook, purporting to demonstrate how easy it is to identify the weaknesses in a sceptic’s arguments. The first version was heavily centred upon the importance of the backfire effect¹ and how to overcome it. The second version had to concede that there was actually scant evidence for the existence of such an effect², but that didn’t seem to faze Stephan. An admission to having dabbled in pseudoscience would be a fatal blow to most people’s reputation, but the Debunking Handbook seems to have grown ever more influential since debunking itself.

In the wake of that success, Lewandowsky was to be seen again with his Uncertainty Handbook, a treatise on how to communicate climate uncertainty to the sceptical. Once again, technical rigour was lacking, as he managed to get to the end of his handbook without once explaining how climate scientists measure uncertainty, or indeed how they often use the wrong approach. I guess that is what you get when you turn to a behavioural scientist to explain a subject that lies outside his field of expertise and is beset with philosophical difficulty and mathematical subtlety³.

And now he has another handbook, issued just in time to save the world from the growing menace of Trump and his authoritarianism:  The Anti-Autocracy Handbook — A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding.

But before anyone accuses me of being sarcastic about saving the world, you’d better take a look at what Lewandowsky and his fellow authors⁴ have to say regarding the handbook’s importance:

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook is a call to action, resilience, and collective defence of democracy, truth, and academic freedom in the face of mounting authoritarianism.

Yes, democracy, truth and academic freedom are at stake here. So could this just be the most important book to be written since the dawn of democracy, truth, etc.? Well, let’s see. Let us start by considering what the handbook sets out to show. According to its authors:

…it sets out how autocracies often follow a common playbook, built around the “3 Ps”: populism, polarization, and post-truth.

If you ever get into Lewandowsky’s canon of work, you are going to have to get used to seeing the word ‘playbook’, since the idea that autocrats and sceptics work by one permeates everything he has to say on the matter. Note also that he doesn’t work by playbooks himself – oh no, he only produces handbooks.

The nature of the threat

Explaining what exactly is meant by the 3Ps, the Anti-Autocracy Handbook states:

Leaders present themselves as voices of “the people” against “corrupt elites”, inflame societal divisions, and undermine facts to avoid accountability.

And what does all of this lead to?

This leads to a cascade of dangers for scholarship, including censorship, restrictions on funding and research collaboration, and even violence.

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Lions and tigers and bears. But why should academia in particular be in such peril? Once again, the handbook provides the answer:

Because open inquiry and dissent are central to science and academia—qualities antithetical to authoritarian control—academia is often among the first targets of autocrats.

Damn those autocrats for picking on poor, innocent people who only have inquiry and dissent at their heart. But what form do these attacks actually take?

Some of the dimensions which affect scholars and which vary in repression include ideological taboos for particular research topics and ‘thought police’; constraints on collaboration and publication; public loyalty displays and rituals of submission to authorities; enforced privileging of certain gender, ethnic, and religious groups; enforced marginalisation of others; criminalisation of speech affirming facts or findings; loss of employment and funding…

I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to stop them right there, because what they are describing seems pretty close to what happens within academia anyway, with or without external interference from someone like Trump. And that seems to be the fatal flaw in the handbook’s central reasoning. Scholars like to think of themselves as paragons of virtue, wanting only to unearth the truth without fear or favour, but the reality is somewhat grubbier than that. This reality was demonstrated, for example, when the renowned meteorologist, Professor Lennart Bengtsson, tried to join the sceptical Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). The response from his peers was so shocking to him that he was moved to compare it to McCarthyism. Which is somewhat pertinent, because it is at this point in the handbook that a list of Trump’s Executive Orders is provided, followed by this knowing wink:

The current democratic backsliding is far from unique in American history. The 1940s and 1950s saw similar attempts to silence inconvenient voices under the guise of investigating “un-American activities”. This came to be associated with the term McCarthyism.

Yes, it seems that Trump is accused of re-introducing McCarthyism to modern-day America, despite the fact that it was already alive and well and woven into the fabric of how things go down in the corridors of academia. I have covered this problem before, but just to remind my readers:

A recent national survey of US faculty at four-year colleges and universities found the following: 1) 4 to 11% had been disciplined or threatened with discipline for teaching or research; 2) 6 to 36% supported soft punishment (condemnation, investigations) for peers who make controversial claims, with higher support among younger, more left-leaning, and female faculty; 3) 34% had been pressured by peers to avoid controversial research; 4) 25% reported being “very” or “extremely” likely to self-censor in academic publications; and 5) 91% reported being at least somewhat likely to self-censor in publications, meetings, presentations, or on social media.

And all of this is well before a newly-elected Trump decided to intervene. But the handbook has only really just got going. The narrative of innocent, uncorrupted intellectuals pursued by an orc army continues with reference to that old chestnut, the Serengeti Effect:

As climate scientist Michael Mann put it, “much as lions on the Serengeti seek out vulnerable zebras at the edge of a herd, special interests faced with adverse scientific evidence often target individual scientists rather than take on an entire scientific field at once”.

And it gets even worse, because some of the most noble of innocent ungulates targeted by the lions, tigers and bears are none other than the ‘disinformation researchers’:

Substack bloggers and other fringe media personalities made false allegations that disinformation researchers colluded with government and social media companies to censor conservative voices.

Okay, so let’s reflect for a minute on why disinformation researchers might be under such scrutiny. The handbook says that the claims that they may be in collusion with governments are ‘false allegations’. I can’t speak for America, but I do know that here in the UK, during the Covid pandemic, the BBC with its ‘BBC Verify’ fact-checking was secretly granted unique access to the clandestine Counter-Disinformation Policy Forum, chaired by ministers and senior civil servants. When this fact finally surfaced some time later, the lady who attended on the BBC’s behalf (Jessica Cecil, founder of the Trusted News Initiative) couldn’t deny it; she just tried to play it down, insisting that she was ‘just an observer’. So let’s just drop all of this ‘false allegation’ rubbish. Sometimes, when you come under attack, it’s because you have been finally exposed.

Still, it is important to the handbook that this idea of ‘information laundering’ plays a central role in its argument. It continues:

Similar information laundering has also been applied to public outcries over university responses to pro-Palestine protests and other hot-button “culture war” issues. In the case of disinformation researchers, the laundering of this narrative contributed to the widespread myth that disinformation research is tantamount to censorship, and has led to a climate of hostility, threats, and self-censorship against those working in the field.

The poor things. Disinformation researchers with one particular viewpoint seem at odds with people who think differently. That can only lead to ‘a climate of hostility, threats, and self-censorship’ in a culture war that everyone but the researchers started. Our brave researchers are just seeking the truth whilst everyone else moans about censorship. Actually, my heart bleeds for these beleaguered souls. They should try walking a mile in the sceptics’ shoes and reflect upon the chilling effects that threats of criminalisation have.⁵

The handbook’s self-pitying tone continues, with further allegations that autocracy is beginning to have an adverse effect on the hitherto pristine culture of academic sweetness and light. Take, for example, climate change. Even the best of the seekers of truth are now being cowed into self-censorship, or so they would have you believe:

There have been reports that many American universities have advised academics not to speak out on “controversial” issues such as climate change, even when this is still technically possible. This is an understandable and pervasive response to autocracy: people seek to avoid or minimize adverse consequences by anticipating what the regime expects of them, and complying in advance.

I’m sure they would have Professor Bengtsson’s everlasting sympathy.

Meanwhile, the scholars’ right to involve themselves in political activism is proclaimed with disarming naivety:

Fortunately, there is evidence that scientists’ credibility does not suffer when they engage in policy advocacy within their domain of expertise.

That, I suspect, is what we sceptics would call wishful thinking.

The call to action

Had Lewandowsky’s handbook been nothing more than the gnashing of teeth and the tearing of shirts, it would not be of any particular value. However, you may recall that it was a ‘call to action’. As such, a good deal of its content is devoted to practical advice on how academics and scientists can respond to the authoritarian attack, thereby protecting their integrity. This advice is structured according to the level of threat that the individual is under, ranging from ‘low’ to ‘extreme’. I do not intend reviewing this advice in any great detail. However, I deem the following nuggets worthy of your attention.

The first action the handbook advises is to take personal care of your health, since working within an autocracy can be very stressful:

When you experience “brain fuzz”, stress, and anxiety, this is not just your personal response to a crisis—it is also a systemic consequence of autocracy and the crises and volatility it entails.

It is very interesting that the handbook should say this, since it betrays the extent to which autocratic attitudes had already been institutionalised within academia long before Trump appeared on the scene. Returning to the example of Professor Lennart Bengtsson, he wrote in his resignation letter to the GWPF:

I have been put under such an enormous group pressure in recent days from all over the world that has become virtually unbearable to me. If this is going to continue I will be unable to conduct my normal work and will even start to worry about my health and safety.

As the handbook points out, such ‘brain fuzz’ is a ‘systemic consequence of autocracy’. If only Lewandowsky’s Anti-Autocracy Handbook and its advice on mental health care had been available to Bengtsson!

Then there is the advice given to deal with ‘digital attack vectors’ that can be used for ‘doxxing, harassing, threats of violence, cyberstalking and fabricating false narratives’, all of which the handbook equates to the activities of the Brownshirts in 1930s Germany. Apparently, one particular Brownshirt ploy inflicted upon academics, for which ‘evidence abounds’, is ‘the abuse of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to harass and intimidate’. Against this the handbook advises ‘blocking tools and mental resilience’. It seems that freedom can sometimes come at a price academia is unwilling to pay.

Another nugget of advice is the use of precise language – apparently something that sceptics purposefully avoid:

It is important to remain on the lookout for “doublespeak” and other semantic tools that are wielded against academic scholarship and science. For example, people who deny or distort the basic physics of climate change like to be called “skeptics”, even though they do not exhibit any of the hallmarks of actual skepticism. Linguistic choices of that type are not without consequence, and it has been argued that they can unduly intrude into scientific activities through a process called “seepage”.

The handbook cites scholarly research to back up the idea of ‘seepage’, and (predictably enough) it turns out to be some of Lewandowsky’s own work. Self-citation features prominently in Lewandowsky’s playbook – sorry, his handbooks.

Other advice includes: get a good lawyer (redundant advice for someone such as Michael Mann), secure your IT and take regular backups, commit to facts and truth and be on the lookout for misinformation. John Cook’s lamentable FLICC taxonomy gets an inevitable citation at this point. Cook and Lewandowsky are academic bedfellows who specialise in pathologizing all forms of sceptical reasoning; one rarely encounters one individual without the other.

As the level of personal risk increases, the advice extends to denouncing the autocrats (obviously what Lewandowsky’s handbook is all about); engaging with the media and public (particularly the young public⁶); helping others cope with their ‘shock and fear’ (once again, Lewandowsky’s handbook would purport to be leading by example); protecting ‘imperilled research participants’ such as transgender scientists (really?); and — strangely enough — using ‘coded language and euphemisms’ to fly under the radar of the autocratic regime. I’m surprised they didn’t advocate using your attic to protect colleagues from deportation to the Gulag (‘perhaps only a few friends and family can be trusted’, the handbook chillingly warns).

Indeed, as the perceived threat to the individual increases, the tone of the handbook becomes increasingly sombre. By the time it gets to extreme risk, actions such as leaving the country or seeking the help of Scholars at Risk is advocated.⁷

The enemy within

Scholars who worry about the deleterious impact that an autocratic regime can have upon academia have every right to do so. History is full of examples of the pernicious control that autocratic governance can have over our academic and scientific communities, starting with coercion and censorship but often ending with brutal eradication of all dissent. Lewandowsky and his fellow authors cannot be blamed for sounding the alarm, and, given the carnage that Trump’s Executive Orders are destined to wreak, I cannot blame them for adopting a besieged mentality and turning to counter-propaganda in the form of a supposed survival guide.

What I cannot forgive, however, is the extent to which the same individuals have historically turned a blind eye to the autocratic attitudes that they have themselves been responsible for encouraging. The current climate of ‘progressive’ chauvinism within universities may have many causes but one cannot ignore the role that a left-wing, liberal leaning intelligentsia has played in fomenting such intolerance. There is much in the Anti-Autocracy Handbook that could have been written to assist those who have been intimidated, and even cancelled, in such a climate. And yet no such handbook was produced for their benefit. There has been no communal sense of outrage, such as that expressed in Lewandowsky’s latest offering. On the contrary, complaints of censorship, peer-group pressures and attacks on freedom of research have been routinely dismissed as myths perpetuated by individuals looking for excuses. The Anti-Autocracy Handbook continues those attacks, framing the complainants as being part of a co-ordinated campaign of ‘information laundering’ pursued under the aegis of an authoritarian regime.

It is difficult to read the Anti-Autocracy Handbook without coming away with the idea that it is just an attempt from those on one side of an ideological battle to claim the moral high ground. Naturally enough, Lewandowsky and his left-wing, liberal colleagues see themselves as part of the solution and not part of the problem. As it says in the handbook:

For scholars and scientists, a commitment to facts, evidence, and the possibility to pursue truth through inquiry should be self-evident. It is crucial to retain that commitment even when it is attacked by political actors and others.

Well, it should be self-evident, but that is often far from obviously the case. It is crucial to retain such a commitment, but not just when under attack from political actors and others. The real commitment is the one that has to be retained in the face of the ever-present temptation to exercise culturally embedded authoritarianism. Trump’s political interferences may indeed be looming large, but the real threat to facts, evidence and the pursuit of truth may be baked into the way that academia works. Or, more to the point, the way in which it sometimes doesn’t work.  

Footnotes:

[1] The backfire effect is purportedly a cognitive bias where presenting someone with evidence that contradicts their existing beliefs can lead them to strengthen their original belief, rather than change it.

[2] The first incarnation of the handbook confidently stated: ‘Hence the backfire effect is real’. The later 2020 version states: “Ten years ago, scholars and practitioners were concerned that corrections may ‘backfire’; that is, ironically strengthen misconceptions rather than reduce them. Recent research has allayed those concerns: backfire effects occur only occasionally and the risk of occurrence is lower in most situations than once thought.” The handbook proceeds to add detail to the climb-down, conceding the lack of experimental support for the previously proposed concepts of ‘familiarity’, ‘overkill’ and ‘worldview’ backfire effects. Such are the perils of p-hacking.

[3] In fact, I have every reason to believe that Lewandowsky doesn’t understand the philosophical and mathematical foundations of uncertainty; certainly not if his Uncertainty as Knowledge paper in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society is anything to go by. Meanwhile, the handbook claims it was independently vetted and approved by ‘five leading experts in risk research’. If so, I struggle to see what they achieved.

[4] Lewandowsky always has collaborators to help him write his handbooks. For the Anti-Autocracy Handbook he had no less than eighteen, the vast majority of whom are psychologists of one form or another.

[5] At the time of writing, the latest call for the criminalisation of so-called climate misinformation had been made by the UN special rapporteur on human rights and climate change, Elisa Morgera. This was in response to a report issued by the International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE), an organisation comprised of academic disinformation researchers. And they wonder why there is hostility towards them.

[6] In the case of the young, the handbook warns that, “The young generation is easily captured by new ideologies and most susceptible to cultural shifts. Autocratic regimes tend to exert influence through organised youth movements in educational settings. Maintain contact with young people, engage in education, talk to your children about what is happening.”

I would sympathise greatly with the handbook, and its concerns for a youth at risk of radicalisation by an autocratic regime, if it were not for the fact that academia has already taken great steps to ensure our children’s curriculum promotes their own version of ‘right-thinking’ and is sending children out to spread the message. Warning children now of the perils of brainwashing seems deeply ironic.

[7] Scholars at Risk is a network set up to provide sanctuary and assistance to scholars ‘facing grave threats’. Think ‘Allo, ‘Allo! if you must, but it is actually quite a serious concern.