Michael Ruse: The Sins of Orlando Figes

[Michael Ruse directs the program in history and philosophy of science at Florida State University. His forthcoming book is Science and Spirituality: Making Room for Faith in the Age of Science.]

This is all a prolegomenon to what is going on in historical circles in England at the moment. The deservedly distinguished historian of modern Russia, Orlando Figes, has been caught with his pants down. He has been writing reviews, on Amazon.com, trashing his rivals’ books. He has also been writing reviews praising his own books. After a week of threatening and blustering, talking of libel suits, and then blaming his wife (a distinguished law professor in her own right), he admitted to his actions.

• [A]fter a week of questions and increasingly critical headlines, Figes today revealed that he had been responsible for the comments.
• He apologized to [those] "to whom I gave incorrect information"--for actions he called "stupid", adding: "Some of the reviews were small-minded and ungenerous, but they were not intended to harm."
• He described a state of panic when he first saw the email sent by [a rival whom he criticized], which made him instruct his lawyer "without thinking this through rationally."
• "This escalated the situation," he said, "and brought more pressure on myself by prompting a legal response. My wife loyally tried to save me and protect our family at a moment of intense stress when she was worried about my health. I owe her an unreserved apology."...

I am not going to draw any immediate moral conclusions from all of this. Apparently the historians that Figes trashed were very upset. I clearly have a different sort of personality. I welcome any publicity so long as my name is spelt correctly. (By no means a foregone conclusion--Rose, Russ, Rouse, Roose, Rooze.) As I have been explaining in the pieces about my book, I am what is known as an accommodationist--this apparently has nothing to do with my sexual preferences and everything to do with the fact that I believe that science and religion can co-exist harmoniously. The blogs are out to get me. Jerry Coyne in his Why Evolution Is True and P.Z. Myers in his Pharyngula are obsessive about my sins, and their commentators range from disdain to outright abuse. The number who confidently assert that I am a nasty person quite amazes me. I didn’t know I knew that many people. There is one critic who is so persistently unpleasant and anatomically presumptuous that I truly do wonder if my fault was making an indecent proposition or not making an indecent proposition.

Certainly nasty reviews are part of the happy course of my academic life. Which brings me to the conclusion that I do want to draw. One thing that I value above all else in American culture is the First Amendment right to free speech. If some jerk wants to go to downtown Tallahassee, stand on a soapbox, and praise Hitler, then I say let him do it. I can ignore him or (more likely) my grad students and I can go down there and yell rude things at him. He could not do that in Canada and I think that a mistake....

So I for one will be very very sorry if the Orlando Figes affair puts a damper on the blogs or on the reviews on Amazon. I say, let them all hang out. Say what you want and let the world decide. And that even goes for the betas who comment on my pieces on Brainstorm, failing to appreciate my literary genius, my philosophical depth, and my great moral sensitivity. I should retire, indeed!