Could you be persuaded to say something you knew not to be true?

Most of us would probably say “Absolutely not. Never.” But the evidence is that even a small amount of social pressure can make grown adults say things they know to be untrue.

Take the case of Malcolm Gladwell. The Canadian-born author has had most of the good fortune that life can bring. His received opinions have gained him lucrative positions at liberal publications. His books have become international bestsellers. In fact many authors might look in envy at the fact that some airport bookshops seem to have a whole Malcolm Gladwell section.

His schtick might be to say banal things in ways that appear spicy and new. But he has made a very good career of it and been lauded by his peers.

Yet this week he admitted that he is a coward.

Appearing on a podcast called “The Real Science of Sport,” Gladwell referred to the vexed question of born males competing in women’s sports.

For most of us this was always a no-brainer. It was obvious that someone who has been born a male, gone through male puberty and has all the physical advantages of being a man should be kept well-clear of women’s sports. Otherwise women’s sports cease to be women’s sports, thousands of young female athletes would train hard for no reason and women’s sports would simply become a division of men’s sports for men who can’t succeed against their male peers.

Gladwell says he finds the arguments for men competing in women’s sports to be unconvincing.

But at a panel in 2022, he said that men should indeed be allowed to compete in women’s sports.

To his credit, he admits why he said what he said just three years ago. He says that he felt “cowed” at the time. Now he is “ashamed of my performance” on the panel in question. He also admitted that he approached the discussion “in a dishonest way.”

Having debated Gladwell in the past, about the same time as his-now recanted panel, I can say that I’m pleased to hear his admission. I’m also not remotely surprised that Gladwell would approach a debate with dishonesty. His performances are generally filled with group-think and laced with condescension towards anyone he finds disagreeing with him.

In fact, in all the decades I have debated my own views in public, I don’t think I’ve often come across someone so willing and indeed eager to debate in bad faith.

But his admission helps us to understand something about the incentive structures in our own society.

Parents across America who said what Gladwell now says were slandered for years for saying this. High school and college athletes a third of Gladwell’s age who dared to say what was true were hounded by mobs. They had their reputations and sometimes their careers wrecked.

And for what? For saying something that should have required no courage to say and which should never have been controversial.

Consider the price that other people paid for similar heresies.

This week, the comedy writer Graham Linehan returned to the UK after a visit to America. On arrival at Heathrow airport, the 57 year old was met by five armed police officers. They promptly detained Linehan and took him into a cell for questioning. He has now been arrested and faces trial.

In recent years, Linehan has been one of the very few people in the entertainment industry to speak out against the gender ideology madness that flowed through Western societies. He refused to accept that a man can become a woman and stood up to the online and offline bullies who said otherwise.

For this he was dropped by all the mainstream figures who had once worked with him.

Despite producing masterpieces like the sitcom “Father Ted,” Linehan was treated like a pariah. He has struggled to find work. What writing he has done — including a book — has been carefully ignored by most of the media. You would be hard-pressed to find a “Graham Lineham section” in any airport bookshop.

And now on top of all this, Lineham has been arrested. By armed British police who not only don’t normally carry guns, and rarely if ever bother to investigate actual crimes. Most people in the orbit of London will never have any follow-up from the police if their phone or bicycle is stolen. Many will struggle to get the police to visit their house if they have suffered a home burglary.

But those same police show up with guns to detain a comedy writer who has been guilty of “wrong-think” on a social issue?

When put together the cases of Gladwell and Lineham should remind us of a deep and important truth about our culture.

If there is a punishment for telling the truth, then many people will tell lies. If telling lies is incentivized, then many people will tell lies. And if you allow mobs of people online or off to intimidate people without standing up to them then many people will be intimidated. And they will change what they say accordingly.

There has been a price to Graham Lineham for telling the truth. Whereas there were only ever rewards to Malcolm Gladwell for saying things that even he now admits to have known at the time to be untrue.

The debate on men in women’s sports is gradually reaching some kind of sensible place. But that isn’t because of the simple weight of truth. It is because a small number of famous people and a much larger number of people with no public profile refused to take part in a culture of lies.

A healthy society needs brave people. And a healthy society should celebrate those people. It should also express mockery and contempt for all those people in positions of power who now admit to putting their own personal comfort before any care for truth.