Jan Bergstra & Laurens Buijs
Amsterdam Gender Theory Research Team
In our previous blog AGTRT-BF25, we discussed what we felt were unfair qualifications from the Studium Generale of Utrecht University toward opponents of the proposed new transgender law. In our opinion, such qualifications only end up supporting opposition to this law.
The habit of progressive movements in the Netherlands is to negatively identify substantive opponents by caricature and preferably systematically ignore their arguments. There is often not even the effort to refute those arguments. This dynamic has again contributed to the right’s electoral victory recently. In doing so, the Progressive movement encounters itself as an obstacle.
We see this mechanism at play with issues around gender theory, as well as climate and environment. We take Extinction Rebellion NL (XRNL) as an example. In our opinion, XRNL is a de facto supporter of the PVV, and perhaps even the FVD.
XRNL gets into the news with all sorts of claims, only a minority of which have a scientific basis. Apparently XRNL cares little about whether one has the science behind them. But without the scientific basis, that story about excessive CO2 emissions is also just an opinion, exactly what the PVV seems to think of it. The PVV may have a different opinion, but that is allowed in a democracy.
So what does XRNL claim that has no basis scientifically? We cite four examples.
First, in recent years, XRNL always cried out that the Netherlands should be climate neutral by 2025. Everyone inside and outside XRNL knew that this suggestion was meaningless. And even if that succeeded, the problems had not been solved. But therefore not to worry, XRNL is apparently right by definition according to its own understanding, even if it talks nonsense.
Second, as far as we can tell, XRNL does not have a good word to say about the idea of working hard on climate adaptation in the Netherlands. Within a classical leftist view, working on the causes of a problem is considered infinitely more important than working on consequences and symptoms. Now the Netherlands does face a threat, both from the sea and from the great rivers, and that threat is even relatively great. The idea that this threat would be less “because the Netherlands is a rich country” hits no mark and solves no problem. Even the PVV could not deny the need for climate adaptation. But here we can count on XRNL: anyone who wants to talk about climate adaptation there will get nowhere.
Third, XRNL has shown that fighting Zwarte Piet to every corner of the Netherlands (i.e. supporting KOZP) is also entirely part of XRNL’s agenda. But by and large, the battle against ZP has long since been won. The question of whether this has been fully understood in every village in the Netherlands also belongs on the plate of sociologists rather than on the plate of a movement like XR. That a positive goal can be achieved by 100% elimination of ZP we do not see. Societal transformations take time, and the transformation that comes with abolishing ZP also takes time. But that transformation also runs strikingly fast on closer inspection. That XR would still need to demonstrate about this we do not see. That there is a connection to the climate crisis we do not believe at all. XRNL has apparently become a vehicle for protest that one can use generically for anything and everything, including KOZP.
Fourth, XRNL has also recently taken sides in the conflict between Israel and Hamas in a very public way. With this they were not alone, all kinds of movements and groups have done so, but it remains a political choice. That choice has no scientific basis or background whatsoever. Even if one can prove that Israel (like the U.S., Australia, and Canada) has a past in European colonialism, and that traces of it can still be seen in Israel today, and even if one might be able to show that the state of Israel currently has structural defects, no definitive and objective judgment follows from that about the situation after Oct. 7, 2023.
Within XRNL, action and visibility is the primary source of power. The reasonableness or provability of the positions taken arguably comes second. Thus, XRNL manages to ridicule the climate agenda of PvdA-GL, thereby helping the PVV (in part) to an electoral victory. This mechanism thus leads to paradoxical support for opponents of the climate agenda.
There is a frustrating unwillingness among progressives to take the arguments of substantive opponents seriously and refute them with arguments of their own, and to acknowledge, if necessary, that the truth might lie somewhat in the middle.
It is important that the progressive movement becomes aware of this mechanism, and starts to see how it paradoxically leads to support for political opponents. Paradoxical support is also support. Regularly pointing out mechanisms of paradoxical support may help the progressive movement to actually enter into conversation with the opponents it now prefers to silence through a self-regulated cancel culture.
All of these mechanisms we also see occurring in the battle over gender theory. For example, the UvA social sciences department has been rejecting any substantive discussion of gender theory for months. This only reinforces the gender-critical agenda. Since sociologists at the UvA really do know by now that this is how it works, we can speak of a conscious support of the gender-critical agenda.
UvA professor Sarah Bracke’s utterly nonsensical claim that the gender-critical movement can be mentioned in the same breath as facism and genocide (see AGTRT-BF10) can thus also be seen as a powerful, successful and perhaps even conscious support of the gender-critical movement. What a paradox. We therefore continue to hope for the moment when progressive Holland finally takes the step toward real dialogue.
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