The Skeptics Society & Skeptic magazine

In the May 8, 2018 issue of The New York Times the editor and writer Bari Weiss introduced the world to the “Renegades of the Intellectual Dark Web,” which she described as “an alliance of heretics” who are “making an end run around the mainstream conversation.”¹ These heretics, she noted, are “iconoclastic thinkers, academic renegades and media personalities” who were “purged from institutions that have become increasingly hostile to unorthodox thought.” In response, their sweep around what Weiss described as “legacy media” included podcasting, blogs, social media, YouTube channels, and public speaking.

Included in this initial cohort were the mathematician Eric Weinstein (who coined the IDW label), the podcaster Joe Rogan, the neuroscientist Sam Harris, the talk show host Dave Rubin, the evolutionary biologists Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, the psychologist Jordan Peterson, the conservative commentators and authors Ben Shapiro and Douglas Murray, the anti-extremist activist Maajid Nawaz, the feminist activists and authors Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Christina Hoff Sommers, the magazine publisher Claire Lehmann, the neuroscientist and sex researcher Debra Soh, and I (MS). As the conversation continued past Weiss’ New York Times feature, other intellectuals were added to the assemblage, including Steven Pinker, Heather Mac Donald, Niall Ferguson, Gad Saad, James Damore, Jonathan Haidt, Greg Lukianoff, Glenn Loury, John McWhorter, Peter Boghossian, James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, Gregg Hurwitz, Geoffrey Miller, Diane Fleischman, Coleman Hughes, Andy Ngo, Jonathan Kay, and Toby Young. A website sprang up featuring most of these thinkers, with photographs, short bios, and links to relevant writings and videos.²

Whoever is included, however, Weiss asked, rhetorically, “Should we be listening?” Her answer in the affirmative led to a flurry of articles, essays, and Opinion Editorials about the IDW and what, exactly members of this cohort believe. A number of commentators suggested that there is some irony in describing as oppressed or silenced individuals with massive followings that number in the millions, such as Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, Dave Rubin, and Sam Harris, or writers like Steven Pinker, Heather Mac Donald, Jonathan Haidt, John McWhorter, and myself, whose articles and essays regularly appear in mainstream publications and whose books are published by major publishing houses.

Most of these post-Weiss commentaries on the IDW carry a strong negative valence in which the authors make sweeping generalizations about the cohort based on a select handful of members, further delimited by selective quoting from Twitter feeds, blogs, and podcasts. With the confirmation bias dialed up to eleven one can find almost anything. Pundits — journalists and the lay public alike — continue to confidently espouse their “hot take” of the IDW without the slightest bit of systematic data collection to back up their claims.

Many critics focused on the political leanings of IDWers. In the National Review, for example, the conservative commentator Jonah Goldberg concluded that the IDW is “just a coalition of thinkers and journalists who happen to share a disdain for the keepers of the liberal orthodoxy.” Since a lot of IDWers are openly liberal, however, Goldberg proposed a conversion experience in which “they suddenly have a revelation about the enforced orthodoxy of their own side, and as they pull on these intellectual threads, they face blowback and reinforcement from unexpected places.”³ By contrast, The Guardian sardonically pronounced (in its headline) the IDW to be the “supposed thinking wing of the alt-right,” featuring a photograph of Alex Jones, mentioned by absolutely no one as being part of the IDW.⁴

In Vox, Henry Farrell focused on the race of the IDW, tagging it as “popular white intellectuals,” with Jordan Peterson standing in for the entire cohort. Farrell probed what it has “in common with the alt-right,” concluding: “It would not be surprising to see many of the people discussed in Weiss’s piece defect to the forces of darkness over the next couple of years. Instead, it would be surprising if some did not.”⁵ In ArcMedia, Alexander Blum followed suit, opining “why it’s fair to compare the Intellectual Dark Web to the Alt-Right.”⁶ His proof? Sam Harris hosted Charles Murray on his podcast (one of over 170 episodes), and Jordan Peterson once commented that biological differences between the sexes could have political ramifications.

To refute the “alt-right” label, a cybersecurity writer named Daniel Miessler drew up a chart of six IDWers — Sam Harris, Eric Weinstein, Joe Rogan, Dave Rubin, Jordan Peterson, and Ben Shapiro — and where they fall on a dozen issues, from climate change and abortion to gay marriage and immigration. There was a lot of liberalism in that graph, leading Miessler to conclude that the IDW is “mostly a collection of disillusioned liberals looking for a place to have honest conversation.”⁷ In Quillette, Uri Harris countered with a photograph of Dave Rubin chumming with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, emphasizing the conservative bona fides of some IDWers, challenging the movement to make a choice between being a partisan organization “where its members get together in front of an audience to iron out their differences and strategize on how to defeat the new left, or does it want to be genuinely non-partisan? If the latter, it needs to open itself up to new left people and ideas.”⁸ In response to this exchange, journalist Cathy Young asserted that Uri Harris “misses the mark in some important respects” with regards to liberalism and progressivism, then advised “how the IDW can avoid the tribalist pull,” mentioning only two IDWers, Dave Rubin and Jordan Peterson.⁹

Reviewing these and many other articles, in The Federalist Sumantra Maitra proclaimed that the IDW “is collapsing under its contradictions,” characterizing it as “largely a group of centrists” while acknowledging that “there’s quite some distance between the values of Heying and Peterson, for example,” leading him to conclude that “perhaps the IDW should’ve never existed.”¹⁰ In the Los Angeles Review of Books Jacob Hamburger was more nuanced (and generous) in his assessment that “these dark web media stars are correct that reason and science belong to neither right nor left. But upon examination of the actual ideas put forward in defense of these values, these supposedly centrist crusaders against political correctness may have more in common with their conservative predecessors than they let on.” Even though the IDW openly opposes political tribalism, Hamburger concluded, “the movement does tend to think of liberals, progressives, and leftists as its primary adversaries,” and as such “they recycle the neoconservative indictment of ‘postmodernism’ in order to explain why this left has been taken in by political correctness.”¹¹

In National Review, David French concluded that all these critics “miss the point” of the IDW, which “isn’t really about the speakers. It’s about their audience.” Based on a quarter century of writing and speaking about free speech, French drew two conclusions: (1) laws protecting free speech have largely improved, but (2) “the culture of free speech has decayed. Individuals and organizations are far more sensitive and far less tolerant of dissent than they were even in the recent past. People in academia and in much of corporate America report increasingly politicized workplaces, with HR departments weaponized in the service of identity politics and social-media accounts monitored for thought crimes. People are all too aware of social-media pile-ons, and they know that one complaint — even if hypersensitive and meritless — can derail a career.”¹²

Finally, and arguably closest to the IDW without actually being “in” it (whatever that may mean), Quillette editor Jonathan Kay took a stab at capturing the “preoccupations” of the collective on the one-year anniversary of Bari Weiss’s introduction, astutely noting that “most articles about the movement have focused on identifying and profiling its leading voices rather than delineating its ideas.” Politically, the label “classical liberalism” would seem closest to capturing the movement, and yet “this label isn’t entirely suitable” inasmuch as “classical liberals generally favor limited government and low taxation in a way that sometimes blurs into libertarianism,” whereas for most IDW thinkers “fiscal issues do not figure heavily.” As well, classical liberalism is more concerned with citizens’ relationship to their government (which they hold should be reigned in on restricting individual liberties), whereas IDW advocacy is more “targeted at social-media entrepreneurs, academic institutions, scientists, and intellectuals at large.” The heckler’s veto that silences speakers on college campuses is not the same as government censorship prohibited by the First Amendment. Instead of searching for the genesis of the IDW, Kay suggested that we focus on its exodus, that is, what its thinkers are fleeing from, which “is the twinned husks of liberalism and conservatism,” at least in their latest instantiations of progressivism (on the left) and populism (on the right). Thus, Kay concluded, tossing his hat into the IDW ring, “from the perspective of policy-making, we favor policies that allow the greatest possible range of opinions, and which reflect our wariness of any process that may be co-opted by ideological inquisitors — which, in the traditional political idiom, translates roughly to free speech, due process, free scientific and intellectual inquiry, rationalism, and civil liberties.”¹³

As a card-carrying member of the IDW (although, appropriately enough, no cards have ever been issued), I think Kay’s appraisal comes the closest to capturing my own intuitions about the movement, but my subjective evaluation is no less colored than anyone else’s, which is why, after a year of reading a fusillade of media arrows scattershot all over the IDW target, I proposed to my colleagues, Dr. Anondah Saide and Dr. Kevin McCaffree (and their graduate student Marshall McCready), that we collaborate on a preliminary empirical study of the IDWers by asking them directly what they believe in the form of validated social science and political science survey measures.

As we were putting together the survey instrument and deciding to whom it should be sent, I queried a few of the names often added after Weiss’s initial list, most of whom I know reasonably well, asking simply “Do you identify with the Intellectual Dark Web?” Two responses were especially enlightening. From the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt:

I don’t identify with the IDW, because there is nothing at all “dark” about me. As with Steve Pinker and most of the professors, I can publish where I want to, etc. But neither do I reject it. I had considered asking to have my name/pic removed from that mysterious web page, but decided not to, because I do share something important with the loose web of people that you list. I think it is this: we are all fed up with a strain of illiberalism that is found on the left but that is nowhere near a majority of the left.

And this from the behavioral scientist (and Quillette columnist) Clay Routledge:

IDW is a weird construct, if it is one at all. As far as I can tell, it is something cooked up by one or a few people who are loosely associated in social/business/media networks as opposed to a conceptually meaningful variable. What does that mean? If you want to say there is something distinct about self-identified IDW folks then that would also require sampling a large group of non-IDW folks to make comparisons. What distinguishes IDW, if anything? You would have to also test alternative models, which gets this back to needing larger samples and inferential statistics. And you would also need real peer comparisons groups. If we are talking about people who have a certain level of public status, you would need to see what distinguishes them from non-IDW public intellectuals engaged in social/political commentary.

These are good points that helped inform this preliminary study (and more to come). I personally emailed each of the 34 people associated with the IDW (listed above), asking if they would be willing to take a 15-minute anonymous survey. A total of 18 people completed the survey for a 53% completion rate. Since the survey really was anonymous we do not know who did and who did not complete the survey (a few started the survey but did not complete it, so those results were not included in our preliminary analysis). What follows are just descriptive statements about the survey and our findings from Anondah Saide and Kevin McCaffree. We cannot make any generalizations beyond this sample and/or make any causal claims. Additional research is required and Drs. Saide and McCaffree received funding from the University of North Texas to conduct a study with a nationally representative sample of United States adults, the results of which will be forthcoming.

The survey was created and administered via Qualtrics Survey Software. The survey took approximately 15 minutes to complete when done in a single sitting. It included measures on the following:

1. Political identification (i.e., partisan identity, placement on liberal-conservative spectrum).¹⁴
2. Moral relativism (i.e., beliefs regarding the subjectivity or objectivity of right and wrong).¹⁵
3. Views on specific moral and political issues (e.g., abortion, gun control, free speech).¹⁶
4. Faith in science (i.e., belief that science can solve problems).¹⁷
5. Demographic characteristics (e.g., gender, age, income).¹⁸

Demographically, the majority of IDW respondents identified as male (83%), married (89%), ethnically white (72%), highly educated (72% doctoral degree or equivalent), and as having a high household income (67% reported $140,000 or above). They are also not especially religious: 28% reported in the affirmative that God exists, while 67% reported some degree of certainty that God does not exist (1 person was unsure). 56% do not affiliate with any religious tradition. The other 44% affiliated with Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, or Protestant Christianity. Lastly, 83% never participate in private (e.g., prayer) or public (e.g., attend services) religious practices.

Regarding their political and social attitudes, there was some similarity between them. Regarding social/cultural issues, 61% of IDW respondents identified as “liberal,” 22% identified as “moderate,” and 17% as “conservative.” Regarding financial/economic issues, 11% identified as “liberal,” 56% identified as “moderate,” and 33% identified as “conservative.” This group of individuals appears to identify their political orientation differently depending on the nature of the issue — overall, they appear to be socially liberal and fiscally moderate-to-conservative.

Regarding specific political and social issues, there was fairly good consensus regarding the following issues: 78% strongly disagreed that the government needs to do more to enforce affirmative action (no one strongly agreed), 67% reported that gun control is necessary (22% thought it was not at all necessary), 67% strongly agreed that global warming is caused by human actions (no one strongly disagreed), and 61% strongly agreed (only 1 person strongly disagreed) that political conflict between liberals and conservatives is a major threat to society.

There was less consensus concerning abortion and the legalization of illicit drugs: 56% strongly agreed that abortion should always be a women’s choice (22% strongly disagreed) and 50% strongly agreed that the government should consider legalizing all illegal drugs. There was even less consensus regarding income inequality: 33% reported that income inequality in the United Sates is a serious problem while 22% reported that it is not a serious problem, and everyone else fell somewhere in-between those two poles. Related to this, 22% strongly agreed that the government needs to do more to reduce the income gap, while 33% strongly disagreed with that statement, and again, everyone else fell somewhere in-between those two poles.

An issue for which the IDW appear to be united on is free speech: 89% of IDW respondents reported strong agreement that freedom of speech should always be allowed, and 83% of them agreed that, “people should be allowed to say and believe whatever they want, even if others think those words or beliefs are hurtful.” Additionally, more than half of them reported high tolerance for members of the political party opposite from them. They reported that they would not be irritated if their neighbor, local elected official, colleague, and/or their child’s romantic interest were a member of the opposite political party.

The majority of IDW individuals do not appear to be social constructionists or moral relativists: 72% reported, for example, that they do not believe that reality is determined by the words we use, and more than ⅔ of them believe that morality is determined by more than just one’s individual culture. Finally, an area where there seems to be little consensus is in their faith in science — 45% of them disagreed and 55% agreed (to varying degrees of certainty) with the idea that all tasks human beings face can be solved by science.

After thinking through these descriptive results together, here is what we have tentatively concluded. The IDW might most accurately be called “moderate secular liberals,” with particular intellectual interests in gun control (it’s necessary), climate change (it’s real, human caused, and needs to be addressed), political polarization (it’s a problem and needs to be mitigated), and free speech (it is critically important, even when feelings are sometimes hurt). These secular liberals tend to be more socially liberal and fiscally moderate, but it would be misleading to describe them as “libertarian” or “conservative,” and it would be absurd to call them “alt-right” or “white supremacist.” They do seem to disagree that the government should do more to enforce affirmative action, but given the rest of their responses, this is plausibly due to their perception that affirmative action, in extreme forms, is essentially just a new form of discrimination against people perceived to be homogeneously “privileged.” And, when it comes to ethics, these moderate secular liberals tend to see morality as a matter of human nature and reason (i.e., not merely an arbitrary issue of cultural opinion), though they do tend to disagree with one another about the role science can play in solving all of the important problems facing humanity.

Income inequality is also an area of disagreement — its severity and possible solutions are contested amongst this group. In order to understand why, it might be helpful to distinguish between inequality and poverty. Inequality seems to be rising, but poverty has been falling dramatically in most countries around the world over the past half century. So, plausibly, many in this group of moderate secular liberals may be more concerned with poverty (i.e., dying from starvation or a lack of clean drinking water; suffering from exposure due to lack of shelter)¹⁹ than with inequality (e.g., in 2018 CEOs earned 287 times more than their median employee²⁰). With the questions we asked, we are not able to say for sure if this is what is driving disagreement amongst this group, and this therefore remains an area for future investigation.

Framed in this way, the IDW is a group of people with a great deal of ideological diversity, albeit with specific common interests and values, most notably freedom of speech. The freedom for everyone to participate in a type of dialogue that the philosopher Karl Popper called “conjecture and refutation” is at the heart of both the scientific method and the political process.²¹ This procedure of generating new ideas and introducing them to others where they can be skeptically scrutinized in the bright light of thoughtful inquiry is the only way to find out if you’ve come up with something truly important or if you’re mired in illusion or self-deception.

Though they are demographically similar to one another (most are male, married, financially comfortable, white, and educated), they share many of the same concerns of moderate secular liberals generally. Their responses to our survey questions do not indicate either “white supremacy” or “male supremacy,” rather, their demographic characteristics are related to their public profiles — these are well-known, public intellectuals and thinkers who have relatively high levels of education and income (and, for complicated reasons these characteristics are correlated with being white and male in the United States).

Going forward, and knowing how modern media operates, it will bait more clicks to label members of the IDW as “alt-right” or “racist” or “misogynist” than to honestly assess them as secular moderate liberals, albeit of a high-profile sort and with some variation in their positions. But an accurate picture of these people based on data from validated social science and political science survey measures paints a more accurate and nuanced portrait than what can be gleaned from selective quote mining. Once this dataset is compared to a nationally representative sample of United States adults we may be able to say more about the Intellectual Dark Web, but until then my provisional conclusion is that the data from our survey closely matches my own intuitions about these people. As I know most of them fairly well, from my personal observations coupled to the data from our empirical study, if by fiat I had to identify one central organizing principle it would be a commitment to the search for truth and free speech as the royal road to it.