A razor-sharp analysis of science, politics, power and conspiracies

Every now and then you come across ideas that are so deeply affecting that you have to do something with them. This also applies to this 'car ride' on YouTube in which Jelle van Baardewijk reflects on politics, science, power, policy and criticism thereof, in 2022. Especially in view of the current discussion about the democratic banning of political parties. For people who don't like watching videos or simply don't value them (important target group!) I have a transcript (also downloadable as PDF) of his arguments:

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Of course, I have also noticed that nowadays there is a lot of talk about alternative facts, fake news, conspiracies... This week, because of a report from the NVTC about the threat of jihadism and conspiracies - on the one hand I think: of course, yes, that is a good report, but if you see how it is picked up in the news and how such a category of conspiracies is magnified, then yes, I would like to make some comments about that.

That has to do with the following. In the Netherlands, we have ended up in a system where criticism is difficult. There are people everywhere who supposedly 'think critically' but if you really have criticism, for example on gender, on diversity, on sustainability, so criticism of the liberal and woke worldview, so if you have some more socially conservative criticism, then yes, there doesn't really seem to be an ear for that. That criticism is downplayed, even ridiculed.

I read a booklet by Kim Putters, a professor and chairman of the SER, one of the most powerful men in the Netherlands. In a review column by Martin Sommer I even read: "Actually, you have to read Kim Putters to know how the driver in the Netherlands will think on average in the coming years". Well, that is of course a compliment and a criticism if that is said about your book. But in that book about the Bv Nederland and the need to tell a bigger story about our country, Kim Putters says all important things. For example: governance problems in the Netherlands that we want to solve by throwing a bag of money and then we think: 'well, money will solve it' and of course we know that that is too simple.

He mentions a number of things, for example Robbert Dijkgraaf's point: 'we need to revaluate MBO students'. But the book ends with a very unexpected point for me. The scales fell from my eyes. Kim Putters says 'Yes, criticism, criticism... as a director you really shouldn't read too much criticism. The opinion pages, the YouTube programs, the discussion tables on TV: it is better to ignore them. Because (says Putters) it is about the silent majority in the Netherlands. As a director you actually have to think about the data generated by the Social and Cultural Planning Office and, for example, by the RIVM about how people perceive problems, discuss problems with each other and based on those 'facts' you have to stay the course as a director. Those critics on opinion pages, yes, they only polarize. They are critical, they do not think along, so you have to go back to the factual basis of those government research agencies.'

If you know those research agencies a little bit, you also know very well that there are often all kinds of studies that are not really interpreted, put in a larger story, in the key of a larger story. That's where the problem of conspiracies actually arises. The truth claim of our public institutions is intolerant, is exclusive. So what happens to critics? They radicalize. They say: 'Yes, but how come you don't listen to us?'

I myself have been trying for years, together with Ad, to explain why the Anglicisation of universities is a major problem. However, that also partly causes people to be receptive to alternative facts because there are very few scientists who can still make contact with citizens about real existing problems.

Of course I am in favor of multilingualism, but I am against the dominance of English - but in the Netherlands you can only submit such a discussion piece via the opinion pages. Directors don't listen, they think: 'Yes, those critics are exaggerating, things won't go that fast.'

So you see those labels: populism, alternative facts, fake news, those are disqualifications of people who bring in arguments. And then I also know that some people fabulize a bit and are not so faithful to the truth and we try that with the new world. I'm definitely trying to do it. I am truly true to the truth. I study my way around and I like that and I'm also happy that I get paid for it - not for The New World but for my work at the university and the college so I'm truthful and I stand up for that.

But of course you see that sometimes there is really truth value in more speculative interpretations of facts. You can't really say that anymore within the regions of higher education. But also not within the media. For example. what is hidden behind von der Leyen's apps. What is the importance between the EU and big Pharma, what are the model truths and variables behind the Corona admission ticket. Why are they not transparent? Isn't it just openness; the openness, isn't that the core value of science, isn't that what Karl Popper says is falsifiability? Enable the rebuttableability of your own models.

Yes, the answer is: yes, that is scientificity. So you can see that in our knowledge institutions up to and including deep in the RIVM there is a certain intransparency. That is at odds with the truth. So I actually think that a lot of those knowledge institutions themselves take a run with science, I turn it around! The critical position that we very often take at The New World is actually an attack on their scientificity! That's no small criticism...

Well, it is true: you can also start to fable and go too far with facts that you are going to read through the lens of an inflated hyperbolic theory. Then you come to themes such as a small elite that secretly keeps this country under control, to a real conspiracy. But there too I believe that an intellectual has the task of weighing up the facts and interpretations and what certain apparently fake news brings to the surface, people's fears and desires. And in this way it should also help people to understand the world better. But the opposite is happening: you now quickly see that when you have criticism, let alone radical criticism, you are actually disqualified and ridiculed because the real knowledge, yes, that is the knowledge of policymakers and academics.

It is clear what is true and what is false, what is right and wrong. But that's actually a politicization by the highly educated of the less educated - it's just class shit. It's just really class shit. The fact is that when someone is not really faithful to the factual basis and is indeed somewhat imaginative in the interpretations, then someone simply starts following conspiracies. Then you can either respond sensibly and conscientiously, based on the combination of genuine concern about the world and how people interpret that world, or you can respond severely: negatively. Why wouldn't the first be much better than the second? I mean it.

In my opinion, science itself is organized skepticism at its core and the escalation to cynical criticism, to existential despair, ultimately also to conspiracies- that escalation is just imitable, you can just follow it. You can understand that, as an academic.

At The New World, that's why I try to take people really seriously, no matter what they say, and you can check how people draw conclusions. It's far too easy to reject.

That is why I really find it a mystery why certain matters remain unresolved in the media and politics. For example, those Nordstream pipelines, what do we know about them? There are just research reports about that. I also think that the WEF tensions, the World Economic Forum stories are so great now, among people who are really afraid of the grip of big capitalists over the backs of our farmers, that you have to take those stories seriously. You have to weigh them, you have to think about what is here, what is going on here. But what happens if you take such a story seriously? That's 'ridiculous', you know. That is… yes, then you are not thinking 'methodically'. 'What are you doing? You don't stick to the facts!'

That's how highly educated people think nowadays.

Let it sink in how sad that actually is, what a grandiose narrowing of our view our culture has ended up in. In the end, it has to do with that point that I just connected to my reading experience at that BV Nederland book by Kim Putters. Really an interesting book but that ending - again, the scales fell off my eyes - that the driver actually thinks (at least through Kim Putters): "Yes, if you really criticize and polarize, yes, that's not what it's about, that's but the media you shouldn't think too much about that". That is actually a depoliticization of public space, a proposal to depoliticize public space.

It is precisely by discussing this and interpreting what the facts are in a particular file that you can move forward: what exactly is nitrogen? How are these Natura 2000 areas created? If you are no longer allowed to have those kinds of discussions because they quickly touch on major issues: system coherence, interests of universities, Wageningen University, which is also partly financed by Campina... Those kinds of issues, such an integral analysis in which you also have to consider what the role of power and capital is in this, you cannot make those kinds of analyzes if you stick to the so-called 'facts'.

There is nothing wrong with pursuing such an integrally politicized interpretation. I don't think you should become a fan of conspiracies, that's a step too far, but you should study them.

Conspiracies are just hyperbolic theories, they are radical hypotheses. You don't debunk them by rejecting them, you debunk them by studying, looking, pondering and weighing them: what's in this why people find that attractive? Is this wappie or is a conclusion being drawn here that is intuitively not that stupid at all?

Jelle van Baardewijk

People outside the universities are not stupid. That's kind of a very weird image, that you can only be smart within the models. Models are just methods, there are choices for variables, for starting points. People in the world who don't understand those models, they understand other things. There are several forms of knowledge, which you have to take with you. For that reason alone, you have to study skepticism, criticism, even conspiracies: what's in them? What are people's concerns?

But yes, that is not possible in the Netherlands. You have a kind of administrative/VVD thinking framework in the Netherlands that simply goes in one direction. And if you receive criticism from the woke corner, that something is not diverse enough or how the sustainability apocalypse can still be registered a little better - yes, people will listen. But the power/knowledge complex in the Netherlands seems to be immune to other types of criticism. Extremely worrying.

It also testifies to epistemic uncertainty [epistemic: taking into account the justification of claims]. It is precisely in the policy framework of the Netherlands that there is a deep uncertainty about what knowledge is because they would be very attached to those models because they themselves do not see it well. And then you get convulsive criticism of others who criticize it. We really live in that sense in a remarkably uncritical time.

There is a crisis of truth. You can still speak one truth and if you have doubts about it, then you are already escalating. Then you are already escalating! Well, if you include the history of philosophy and you read, for example, Aristotle or Hegel, Nietzsche, then you notice such a different perspective on what life is. Such a different perspective on what - even what is contradiction. What does it mean to deal with power and to contradict power.

There is not just one way of doing politics and organizing knowledge and research. There are simply more than one way, all history testifies to this. But for us that is a kind of past tense. Plato? Nice for the library...

Yes, sorry. I think it is precisely in that tradition that you can learn very well that our current interpretation of capitalism and democracy and the public sphere, that that is only an interpretation. That this interpretation in his knowledge space is actually quite intolerant and has difficulty with other perspectives.

That is why The New World is so important to me, because you can find depth there, can talk things out with each other. You can listen to someone who just looks very differently at what motherhood is, what gender is, what transsexuality is, what nitrogen is. Follow your intuitions and listen to people what their intuitions are and how they express them and how they do that: with books or with art or with films. That's just mind-enriching, for myself to do as well. I notice that it also makes me more tolerant in a certain way, that I understand better why other people can sometimes really look at things very differently. That's great too. It's a pluriform world.

It is sad to note that so much policy has been born out of the spirit of 'there is no alternative'. It all has to be done in one way.

We are on a chosen path...

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Jelle is the founder of The New World, a YouTube channel for in-depth conversations in a time of change. Donating to DNW can here.