ThePostOnline — Dr Sid Lukkassen between image and substance: he deserves a hearing

Opinion. By Peter Lamberts. 30 October 2021, 16:00.

‘Unwillingness to listen is as damaging as the disappearance of freedom of expression.’

There has been a great deal of attention recently for the film Honey Pot, which presents Sid Lukkassen in a less than flattering light, to put it mildly. In a way, Lukkassen can take it as a compliment: nobody ever thinks of asking me to take part in a project like that, and if it did happen, it would never attract any media attention. Why would it? Schadenfreude only works with well-known Dutch people. Lukkassen is a reasonably well-known Dutchman, and he is known above all for refusing to conform. This increases the glee of those who do conform and are regularly put on the rack by Lukkassen.

Sid Lukkassen is a prolific writer who has been attacking the Dutch ‘left’ since 2015, from a wide variety of angles and without any restraint. The core of his argument, broadly speaking, is that Western society is destroying itself through far too much understanding for non-Western influences. Although I disagree with this conviction, he is one of the few thinkers on the right of the political spectrum who develops a substantive argument through careful thought and factual examples.

Does that mean no attention should be paid to a film such as Honey Pot? Of course it should. It is public information, and if you behave as foolishly as Lukkassen has, you must also accept the consequences.

At the same time, the question arises whether the choice to link these public images to the substance of his thinking through this film helps render that thinking uninteresting. This takes us straight to one of his criticisms of his opponents: you have freedom of expression, but if your opinion is not politically correct, various means are used to make dissenting opinions — and Lukkassen is wholly dissenting — irrelevant on grounds unrelated to their substance. Ultimately, an unwillingness to listen is as damaging as the disappearance of freedom of expression.

And he deserves a hearing. Even before the word ‘woke’ existed, he was fighting attempts to justify things that are completely wrong. For years, he has fought left-wing dominance in education. For years, he has looked not at the injustices that socialist regimes combat, but precisely at the injustices those regimes cause. He is ahead of the pack and, of course, receives no credit by the time others begin to reach the same insights. As in art, however, it is important to cherish opinions even before they are appreciated.

And now Lukkassen’s image has been tarnished. How bad is that? Well, it is an image you do not want to see, but there is nothing forbidden about it. On the other hand, there is the substance of his arguments, which remains unchanged and is independent of that image. The question, then, is how bad it is that people refuse to listen to someone who articulates what hundreds of thousands of voters, exercising their democratic rights, have repeatedly shown they consider important ever since Pim Fortuyn. That is bad.

Even though I disagree with his ultimate conclusions, he raises many valid points in building towards them. It is therefore good not only that he voices his opinion, but also that others — including those outside his own camp — listen to it.

Peter Lamberts is a regular reviewer of Sid Lukkassen’s work and chair of the VVD in Barneveld.