Posted on 05/25/2018 11:49:25 AM PDT by DeweyCA
Author Carol Horton identifies herself as someone who leans left on political and cultural issues. Yesterday, in a piece for Quillette, she describes looking into Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson and finding him a refreshing departure from the standard discourse. That put her at odds with friends who warned her that Peterson was hate-filled right-wing propaganda. But while Horton was willing to make up her own mind about Peterson, she found doing so left her feeling isolated and uncomfortable. Horton says the social pressure was so intense that she felt scared to speak up with her opinion. She believes that pressure to conform to a narrow, approved view is a much bigger problem for the left than Jordan Peterson:
If you follow the news stream, it seems that virtually every right-thinking left-leaning (pun intended) journalist, blogger, and social media maven agrees: Peterson is an alt-right wolf in professorial sheeps clothing, a self-serving charlatan who dresses up old-school misogyny, racism, and elitism in faux-intellectual, fascist mystical garb.
I dont buy it. Ive read and listened to enough Peterson to make up my own mind and thats not how I see him at all. Rather than being forthright about this, though, Ive tended to cower silently in my alienated corner, fearful that revealing my rejection of the stock anti-Peterson narrative will cause my progressive friends to denounce me and the social media mobs to swarm
The hyperbolic uniformity of the leftist attack on Peterson is emblematic of the growing tendency to reduce left-of-center thought to the status of a rigidly simplistic ideology. Increasingly, what passes for progressive political thought today offers little more than a scripted set of weaponized hashtags (you must be pro- #metoo and anti-patriarchy, no further thought required). This narrowing of our public discourse is disturbing, and worrisome on multiple, mutually reinforcing levels
The Lefts attack on Peterson is so unrelenting, so superficial, and quite frequently so vicious, that many of us who work and/or live in left-leaning social environments feel scared to speak up against it
I realize that Peterson has at times said things that I disagree with and might even find offensive. But Im much more concerned withand disgusted bythe endless stream of tendentious and dishonest articles from leftists critics that grab onto such statements and blow them out of proportion, while aggressively erasing everything else the man has ever said or done from the record.
We saw this left-wing smear machine in action just a few days ago. I highlighted an example from a debate in Toronto where Michael Dyson claimed Peterson was an example of white privilege and then called him a mean, mad, white man when Peterson dared to object. And that was only one of several possible examples I could have pointed to from that debate.
Heres another example. Writer Michelle Goldberg accused Peterson of saying women shouldnt be allowed to wear make-up at work. When he denied that, she told the audience hed said it in an interview with Vice and told the audience to Google it. But if you Google it, youll find that in the full interview Peterson says explicitly, Im not saying that women shouldnt do it and Im not saying that it should be banned. The video below contains video of both events. Could Michelle Goldberg have looked this up on her own? Probably so. So why didnt she do that before rolling out this attack in a debate?
Peterson doesnt get a fair shake from the left because the goal is not to engage with him but to make him appear so toxic that no one will be willing to engage with him. The classic in this genre is the now infamous interview of Peterson by Cathy Newman. Im putting the word interview in quotes because this isnt really an investigation of ideas, its a series of increasingly silly attacks designed to convince viewers that Peterson is toxic and/or irrational. Heres one of my favorite examples from the interview (as transcribed by the Atlantics Conor Friedersdorf):
Peterson: Theres this idea that hierarchical structures are a sociological construct of the Western patriarchy. And that is so untrue that its almost unbelievable. I use the lobster as an example: We diverged from lobsters evolutionarily history about 350 million years ago. And lobsters exist in hierarchies. They have a nervous system attuned to the hierarchy. And that nervous system runs on serotonin just like ours. The nervous system of the lobster and the human being is so similar that anti-depressants work on lobsters. And its part of my attempt to demonstrate that the idea of hierarchy has absolutely nothing to do with sociocultural construction, which it doesnt.
Newman: Let me get this straight. Youre saying that we should organize our societies along the lines of the lobsters?
Its not a coincidence that the author of a recent NY Times hit piece on Peterson used almost exactly this same line of attack, i.e. mocking his reference to lobsters without even trying to understand or explain the point of the reference.
Carol Horton is correct. The left isnt listening to Jordan Peterson, theyre just trying to destroy him as efficiently and quickly as possible. That dynamic says a lot about the left, none of it very good. Kudos to Horton for having the courage to stand up to the mob.
Theres an underlying question here: Why are so many, so eager to destroy Peterson? The most convincing explanation of the phenomenon that Ive seen is this one from NROs David French:
If Peterson were writing to a Christian audience, hed be one voice among many. An interesting and quirky voice, to be sure, but his core message about men and women would be conventional, not revelatory. Instead, however, Peterson stands out because he is playing in the Lefts cultural sandbox. Hes disrupting an emerging secular cultural monopoly with arguments about history, tradition, and the deep truths about human nature that the cultural radicals had long thought theyd banished to the fringe.
Thats the reason for the fury. Thats the reason for the rage. When Peterson walks into a secular university or a secular television studio and addresses a secular audience by referencing ancient theological arguments, the effect is not unlike inviting a genderqueer womens-studies professor to a Baptist Sunday-school class. Some things (in some places) are just not said.
I wish I could say I was optimistic about Petersons chances, but Ive seen the lefts scorched-earth playbook in action before and it usually succeeds. Throw enough garbage at the wall and eventually, a few bits stick. Those become all the excuse a compliant media needs to silence the target. Frankly, its a credit to Petersons quick wit that hes survived as long as he has given both the degree to which hes willing to challenge the lefts assumptions and the firepower they are deploying against him.
Heres the video mentioned above showing that, contrary to Michelle Goldbergs claim, Peterson is not for outlawing make-up in the workplace.
She's describing standard cult practices, which I would have thought a supposedly educated woman like Carol Horton would be perfectly well aware of.
Or maybe she's just a pseudo-intellectual phony.
Oh, her PhD is in yoga. Never mind about the “well educated” part.
She needs a new social and professional milieu. I can’t imagine an intelligent person sticking around and putting up with this lockstep foolishness.
Liberals are in a philosophical Andersonville Prison.
A swath of ground 20 yards inside the fence is the no-go zone, where if anyone wanders into that ground toward the fence, they are shot by the guards.
I'm surprised that Racism pimp Michael Dyson hasn't had the teeth beaten out of his lying racist face yet...
The comments on the youtube video(s) of the Munk debate are heartening.
Zero support for Dyson, and condemnation of his casual rascism.
bkmk
I don’t know a lot about Peterson, but he’s certainly not afraid to have a conversation.
This guy is fantastic. He’s articulate and doesn’t put up with PC. He became famous when Canada passed a law requiring people to refer to trans people by their preferred pronouns (impelled speech).
He’ll go on Lefty territory and debate them to their faces. Search youtube for his name and enjoy.
Thanks, Textide.
I highly recommend watching any video with Jordan Peterson in it. He is out there fighting the good fight against the horrible liberals in this world.
JoMa
Jordan Peterson’s greatest “sin” to the left is that he states there are scientifically proven biological and psychological differences between men and woman.
Not only women have to be accommodated in public conversations about sex, but men’s nature and voice must be heard as well.
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