LINK: I feel enormously flattered by both the tremendous compliment which SIAW paid to me, and also with their gracious reply, with which I entirely agree:
"Our intention was to highlight the presentation of those arguments, both by the academics themselves and by their sympathisers at the Guardian, as if the mere fact of their being “prominent” and “expert” made their arguments worthy of everyone’s attention. Only a certain kind of academic, imprisoned within a set of unexamined assumptions about the proper role of “intellectuals” and the benighted ignorance of the masses, could sign up to such stuff in the first place; while most “regular citizens” (we think) would be at least a little warier of seeing the world in such black and white terms - and, regrettably, a lot more modest, even self-doubting, about putting their arguments forward."
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
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