Oxford ‘Investigates’ Professor for Email He Sent 26 Years Ago
The latest victim of academic cancel culture is Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom, although the beleaguered professor sort of cancelled himself. Let me explain.
A few days ago, Bostrom posted a document titled ‘Apology for An Old Email’ on his website. In it, he explains that after catching wind that somebody had been “digging through the archives of the Extropians listserv with a view towards finding embarrassing materials to disseminate about people”, he decided to “get ahead of this” and pre-emptively apologise for an email he sent 26 years ago.
The email in question is as follows. Bear in mind that it was part of a discussion about “offensive communication styles”.
By way of apology, Bostrom said:
I completely repudiate this disgusting email from 26 years ago… The invocation of a racial slur was repulsive. I immediately apologised for writing it at the time… and I apologise again unreservedly today. I recoil when I read it and reject it utterly.
As I’ve explained in a Substack article, I disagree with Bostrom’s claim that it’s unreasonable for people to be offended by the sentence “blacks are more stupid than whites”. Not because I dispute the factual assertion that (for whatever reason) black people typically achieve lower average scores on IQ tests than white people, but because the word “stupid” is pejorative and implies disdain.
Yet I don’t think he said anything racist. Yes, he mentioned a racial slur, but mentioning and using words are two different things. And he explicitly stated that he doesn’t dislike black people and he doesn’t want them to be treated badly.
What’s more, the email was sent to a private mailing list for people who’d expressed an interest in discussing “offensive communication styles”. It wasn’t read aloud in church. And to repeat: Bostrom sent the email 26 years ago when he was an LSE undergraduate! Let he who does not regret at least one thing he did as an undergraduate cast the first stone.
Despite Bostrom’s grovelling apology, Oxford has launched an “investigation” of the incident. They’re investigating a man for an email he sent to a private mailing list more than two decades ago – an email for which he’s already apologised. Even if you do find it offensive, this is patently ridiculous. If someone admits they told an off-colour joke when they were 14, is Oxford going to look into that too?
Here’s hoping the “investigation” is just a bureaucratic formality, and we can go back to problems more serious than what a 49-year-old man said at university.
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Noah is being crazily optimistic in expecting a university, or any other woke institution, to behave reasonably in any matter pertaining to the culture war. This is a war and appeals to reason will not work and will not be reciprocated. The enemy needs to be confronted everywhere and always.
Totally agree. We are under attack, and have been for decades.
“the word “stupid” is pejorative and implies disdain”
So what should he have written? X is less intelligent than Y? Don’t “more stupid” and “less intelligent” mean the same thing. How many times do we say to ourselves (and others) “Sorry, I’m being stupid”. All humans are stupid sometimes. There’s a spectrum of stupidity from not-very to exceedingly.
Anyway, I repeat my new dictum regarding accusations of racism. They should simply be ignored or responded to with “So what?” or “I don’t care”. They are almost always a wind-up, and anyway most people IMO are “racist” to some degree in that they have conscious or unconscious gut reactions to people based on race, and preferences that predispose them to on average like or dislike one group or another based on that group’s average cultural norms. Discussions of “racism” ought to be confined to blanket measures i.e. group X can’t vote or group X cannot be served in my shop. Otherwise isn’t it just humans being human?
Does anyone seriously think that the result would be any different were he to have used the phrase “less intelligent” instead of “more stupid”?
But it IS racist! Imagining for a second that the statement “black people are less intelligent than white people” were true – and I have serious doubts that it is – then firstly why the need to state it (or state agreement with it), to a private group or otherwise? And secondly, what racist statistician wasted time tallying up IQ scores of black and white people to try and prove a point.
It’s a completely inconsequential statistic anyway; if it were true, then what is anyone going to do with this fact? Put more IQ into black people?
The statistic is probably gibberish, but the wider point, and question, is which sensitive sous are still being offended by an email from 26 years ago, and seeking vengeance a quarter-century later?
In what way is that statement “racist”? What do you mean by “racist”?
The statement isn’t racist, it is simply the fact that one feels the need to state it that indicates a racial bias.
What do you mean by “racial bias”? Does having “racial bias” make you a “racist”? What do you mean by “racist”?
I think “racial bias” is pretty much the definition of racism, or at least racist attitudes. It’s not manifest racism, as in preferential treatment your favoured race, but to state such an inconsequential fact that is essentially going nowhere indicates to me that the one stating this, or agreeing with it, doesn’t like black people (whether the statement is true or not).
Anyway, the guy’s humbly apologized! Haven’t these Oxford whinge-bags got anything better to do?
Shame he has apologised. This will never end.
Rule One when dealing with woketards – never, but never, apologise. Ever. You might think an apology will get them off your back, but all it does is to signal weakness – and they will take full advantage of that.
Look where apologising, feeling guilty and making concessions has got us. It will never end and it will never be enough.
Perhaps he doesn’t like black people. Who knows or cares? I guess there are some people who dislike ALL people from group X or Y, though I have never met any. But are there groups whose members I am more likely to like, ON AVERAGE, than others? Of course, but given that I am not a moron I tend to try and treat people as individuals – but that doesn’t mean we cannot notice and point out generalisations that we think are accurate? Do you get on equally, ON AVERAGE, with members of every racial group on Planet Earth? Are you likely to? Does the answer to this question make you a racist?
“an inconsequential fact that is essentially going nowhere”
Maybe going nowhere for you, not for others. And if it’s inconsequential then why is everyone getting so offended?
You’ve still not defined what you mean by “racism” or “racial bias”.
Racism: Unfair treatment or attitudes towards people of a certain race.
Racial bias: Pretty much the same thing.
“… why is everyone getting so offended?” – that is the million-dollar question, but I think the “everyone” you refer to are a small group of people in senior positions at the university just trying to stave off potential attacks by the woke crowd, hence their “investigation”.
Imagine that you and I both took an IQ test and your score came out on top of mine. This might indicate that you were more intelligent than me, and that statement in itself would not be offensive – just fact. But would I want you to announce this in front of a group of people? Certainly not! If you decided to state this in front of people, I could only conclude that it must be because you have something against me.
There is nothing wrong with noticing generalizations that you think are accurate, but in certain situations it would be less than tactful to point them out.
“unfair attitudes”. Such as disliking, on average, people of a certain race or culture, probably because they behave in ways that you find displeasing? Then IMO we’re almost all racist. Maybe you’re not, but I am.
Ok, “everyone getting offended” is inaccurate, but what he said is now taboo and very few people will defend him.
But why would you ever choose to “dislike, on average, people of a certain race or culture”. What is disliking “on average”? If you know a few people from race X that you find unfavourable, then it is fair that you dislike them individually, but it is not fair to extrapolate your sentiment onto the entirety of their race!
I am, and I suspect you are also, equally likely to get along with someone from any race, because your “getting along” with them depends on whether you personalities click, and not on their skin colour. In other words, race is not the prime determinant of which people I am “in favour of”, and hence to state that “on average” I get on better with race X than race Y would be meaningless.
You don’t “choose” to dislike people. It happens naturally. Races and cultures (which overlap considerably) differ from one another – even the race grifters admit that – and ON AVERAGE those differences may be things you like or dislike. So I might choose not to visit Country X because ON AVERAGE I am less likely to find it agreeable, and I am also less in favour of lots of people from Country X coming to live in my country, town or street, because life will be less pleasant for me. Of course I am capable of realising that there are MANY exceptions to these generalisations, because I am not an idiot (and neither is the bloke the article is about, and neither was he when he wrote the email), but nevertheless they hold true and will influence my choices. I don’t seriously believe that anyone on this planet “likes” every race/culture equally and that their choices are not influenced by their “racism”. I’d love to stop talking about race, but the race grifters won’t let me. White European Western Christian Civilisation has been good to me and my kids – I would like to see it continue rather than be… Read more »
So, does researching the different impact of certain diseases (e.g. sickle cell disease) on different races make one racist? Or to notice that more people of colour seem to be good at athletics? No.
If there are differences in IQ between different races shouldn’t we use that data to personalise education approaches? It doesn’t mean that we should negatively discriminate against people of colour, not does it mean that we should write-off a whole race, nor understand that there are also very intelligent black people (e.g. Thomas Sowell).
There’s plenty of ways for people to contribute to society. To label certain forms of research racist is to call for censorship and to diminish human understanding.
That is a very interesting point. It’s well-known in the world of athletics, for example, that the Jamaicans nearly always win the sprints and the Kenyans and Ethiopians win the marathons. This is an observed fact and nobody’s played the racist card against that observation. So point taken.
The same is true, as you say, about the relative impact of certain diseases upon different races. For example, various ethnic minorities have been more at risk of covid over the past years.
As for the first example, it’s a fairly innocuous piece of sporting analysis that certain countries do better at certain sports than others. This is worlds apart from claiming a whole race to be “stupider” than another – it is a crude attack on the very attribute that separates us from more primitive animals: our intelligence!
As for the second, this qualifies as very useful information. A person’s skin colour may, to use the example you quoted, give a doctor a better idea of how at-risk a patient is of sickle-cell disease. How is relative differences in IQ scores to be put to good use? Would you suggest special-needs schools for black children?
If the study of differences between people are verboten and unmentionable, it opens the door to accusations of racism (and sexism) where none exists. If some disparities of outcome between ethnicities (and sexes) are due to inheritable characteristics, and I think that’s true, it might be better if we learned to accept and embrace our differences rather than be divided and exploited by the race (and man-hating) grifters.
In over 2000 years, the indigenous black people on the continent of Africa never built or launched a single seaworthy boat to allow them to escape Africa. There was not a single two storey building built, just basic huts made with wood straw or stones. Not a single statue was erected to an influential black person. It was only when the dreaded white man arrived did that change. They don’t act or think or create as white people do. That statement was made by a black priest.
I’m so glad there wasn’t an internet when I was a teen. Thankfully I left behind zero evidence of what an idiot my 14 year old self truly was.
I was an idiot at 14, but this isn’t really comparable. Do you think this email was “idiotic”? In what way? It seems to me the basic sin he has committed is to mention IQ and race – that’s a taboo. If you mention IQ and race you will be mercilessly attacked. All the other stuff – use of the n-word, use of the word “stupid”, just makes life easier for the attackers.
Well god forbid any of my drunken posts on social media should ever be reclaimed from The Cloud! Also, this article is akin to me being cautioned for shoplifting when I was 14 years old. 30 years later, can you imagine if all of my previous subsequent employers had held this against me? It’s that farcical.
I think the Sceppie is skating on thin ice, providing ammunition to enemies. Noah’s defence, and that of the Prof, are a bit too close to the number of fairies on a pin-head.
This feels a bit like opening up a new front.
The Prof doesn’t require “defending” as he has, IMO, done nothing wrong.
It’s not a new front – it’s freedom of speech and belief and the right to hold and voice views freely without fear of losing your job because your employer disagrees with those views.
Would you throw the Prof to the dogs of the enemy?
The enemy provide their own ammunition. Time we fought back.
Being on the defensive is why we’re losing.
You left out the part in the apology that said.” And please don’t stop my pension”
The purpose of the race lobby and race activism is (1) as a grift for those involved (hence the business motive to forever perpetuate and exaggerate the problem), (2) to divide people against each other for cynical political reasons, (3) to distract us from the real issue of growing state authoritarianism, totalitarianism and collectivism. (4) to facilitate (3) through legislative and cultural changes based on grievance ideology.
Research on average relationships between race and IQ is such a societal taboo that any discussion is dangerous. I have no idea whether statistically meaningful differences can be found. Certainly differences in athletic performance between races have been observed at the highest level, but I draw no conclusions from this. It is probably a topic best left alone if we do not want to fan the flames of division and distraction. Better to concentrate on what makes us the same… I.e. human.
IQ is overrated anyway: a lot of high IQ people took the jibby jab and were 100% behind masks and lockdowns…
The more irrelevant the issue, the more academics will get their knickers in a twist. And they wonder why they’re accused of living in ivory towers? Dickheads.
Hmmm. Well, I think it’s stupid to define stupid by an IQ score. Academic intelligence is a very narrow type of intellect. To quote Carl Sagan:”Knowing a great deal is not the same as being smart; intelligence is not information alone but also judgement, the manner in which information is coordinated and used.”
The problem is: how on earth do you measure IQ, without the measurement being confounded by background, education, culture and so on?
Honestly, I am deeply sceptical of the “research” that claims to have found lower IQ’s among black people.
Certainly my own experience does not bear this out. It would also be surprising if it were true. We are all the same species, and the thing we call “race” is really just a grouping based on a number of characteristics of appearance.
The claim that black people are less intelligent is obviously insulting to black people. If it were true, that might be a defence for uttering it, but frankly I don’t believe it is true either. I really don’t think squabbling over emails written 26 years ago is helpful, but the claims were offensive and probably themselves stupid.
There are some people down the pub who I believe are more stupid than me because they talk loudly about subjects I have no interest in. Does that make me ‘loudist’?
But it is racist. To say that humans of any race or nation are less intelligent, or “stupid”, is more or less the same as saying that they are inferior. Thankfully, in my view, society doesn’t tolerate notions of superior or inferior races any more. Remember what happened in ww2?
I’ll tell you what is stupid though. That Noah Carl or the Daily Sceptic think there is any political capital to be gained by defending the free speech of an old racist. It rather detracts in my view from far more important journalism on this website and the defense of free speech in such areas as public health, woke and climate.
So there are no innate average differences between races? Or any average differences between races are the result of social factors? I think the evidence points to significant innate average differences between races. This is not racist, but a fact. The racist bit is when an objective difference is given a subjective label such as “superior” or “inferior”. Differences should be celebrated, not only between races but between individuals.