Jordan Peterson: Gender Pronouns and Free Speech War

[Voyageur]

It's brilliant. Yes, he begins with the customary condemnation of Putin, then recites the standard Western economic and geopolitical reasons for the war, but that's all prelude to him saying that those answers don't satisfy him, and that he thinks THE (or, at least, A) major reason for the war is that Putin is trying to prevent Western degeneracy from taking hold in Russia/Ukraine.

Yes, as he asks hard questions here:

And are we degenerate, in a profoundly threatening manner? I think the answer to that may well be yes. The idea that we are ensconced in a culture war has become a rhetorical commonplace. How serious is that war? Is it serious enough to increase the probability that Russia, say, will be motivated to invade and potentially incapacitate Ukraine merely to keep the pathological West out of that country, which is a key part of the historically Russian sphere of influence?

Thanks @Navigator for the full text, for me it was behind a register and sign-in prompt.

 

[luc]

I initially didn't like Peterson's monologue either, but 12 minutes or so into it he ditches the geopolitics and launches into his specialty: ethics and culture/philosophy.

It's brilliant. Yes, he begins with the customary condemnation of Putin, then recites the standard Western economic and geopolitical reasons for the war, but that's all prelude to him saying that those answers don't satisfy him, and that he thinks THE (or, at least, A) major reason for the war is that Putin is trying to prevent Western degeneracy from taking hold in Russia/Ukraine.

Being a russophile, Peterson naturally considers Russia to be culturally 'Western', so he wraps by saying that the US 'Culture War' and the 'Ukraine War' (actually, US-Russia proxy war)... are the same war; it's an intra-Western Civil War.

This framing develops something I first heard Laura say about the 'explosion' in Ukraine in 2014; that event - specifically, Putin countering the US pathocracy sublimely in Crimea - made Western heads explode, prompting a radical escalation of the 'Gender-Bender Agenda'. I'm unsure as to why, but it seems like 'the degenerates' instinctively 'realized' that if they didn't 'come out of the closet NOW' and go 'full-transgender on all fronts', Putin/Russia/conservatism might 'gain the upper hand'.

Anyway, here's the text of Peterson's monologue, although it appears to be behind a firewall. Here it is again in video/narrated format:

Yes, brilliant! He obviously doesn't know that the West is losing the actual war big-time, and he's still trying to appease the "Putin is a madman" crowd (not sure whether he really believes that), but boy did he nail the cultural/spiritual aspect of all this. And here I thought JP might be tainted by the somewhat neo-con environment of the Daily Wire.

Sadly, after a quick look at the comments at the video, it seems that most people don't get it (or YT carefully curates the comments, knowing how important it is not to have someone like JP bust their narrative).

 

[Seppo Ilmarinen]

Yes, brilliant! He obviously doesn't know that the West is losing the actual war big-time, and he's still trying to appease the "Putin is a madman" crowd (not sure whether he really believes that), but boy did he nail the cultural/spiritual aspect of all this. And here I thought JP might be tainted by the somewhat neo-con environment of the Daily Wire.

Sadly, after a quick look at the comments at the video, it seems that most people don't get it (or YT carefully curates the comments, knowing how important it is not to have someone like JP bust their narrative).

When watching the video I started wondering if Peterson may be practicing strategic enclosure with some of those things he says about Putin. He first presents the "Putin is tyrant" narrative (referencing his interview with neocon Frederick Kagan) but then introduces "antithesis" to this via John Mearsheimer and his famous lecture of 30 million views, and adds more nuance by explaining that Russia -like all superpowers- has natural geopolitical reasons to secure it's "sphere of interest" (basically offering realpolitik explanation to replace the ideological one).

JP then expands this into the cultural domain, where he outlines the current chaotic state of Western culture and it's obsession with radical ideologies, and again pushes the listener to consider Russia's side; how it could see Western 'degenerate' values as a spiritual/social threat, since Russia has "been there before" and understands what the West is morphing into.

He counters the idea of collective punishment for Russians, using actually Putin in this argument, saying that he may not be leading the country after 10 years, but Russians will always be there, and WE need to make steps towards dialogue with Russia, instead of trying to humiliate Putin/Russia (although in reality the West is mostly humiliating itself, but JP uses this argument to counter russophobia).

Peterson brings up the skyrocketing energy prices and food shortages as increasing consequence of the war between West and Russia. He points out that our own environmental policies are exacerbating these problems, again creating friction in the narrative that it's all Russia's fault: "the hypotethically passionate and working class positive green types and their ilk are perfectly willing to sacrifice today's actual poor to the hypothetical thriving poor of their imaginary future utopia".

I'm not saying JP got everything right in relation to geopolitics and Russia in his monologue, but the conclusions he makes are nevertheless sound. Yet it's true that someone like Peterson should be able to make right assessment of Putin's character by just watching some of his interviews and listening what he's been saying all these years (and comparing this to how Western politicians talk). It would be strange if he haven't done this already. So, is JP being strategic, or just being lazy with his analysis of Putin, trusting again his sources too much?

Well, in a sense it may not matter what Peterson's audience thinks about Putin, as long as they start to grok his overall message: Russia as a nation probably has it's own geopolitically justifiable reasons for it's military operation, this is much wider conflict than is being told with complex background and cultural/spiritual dimensions, we should stop escalating it and stop demonizing Russians, our leaders are using the war to advance their own self-destructing agendas and we'll soon have serious economic problems, if we keep going on like this.

Because when they broader their view of Russia, they broader their view of Putin (added context will dismantle the Putin strawman created by Western politicians and media) - and this should apply to Peterson himself.

 

[aragorn]

Sorry, a bit off topic, but I was laughing more than I have in ages when I saw a couple of comedian Tyler Fischer's impressions of JBP. His impression of JBP:s voice and manners are just amazing...and funny! At Fischer's YT channel you can also find many other impressions that he's done (Trump being one of the best ones). So, maybe you've already seen these, but in case you haven't:

It is my understanding that JBP himself liked one of Fischer's impression videos and that they've subsequently met IRL.

 

[Cosmos]

When watching the video I started wondering if Peterson may be practicing strategic enclosure with some of those things he says about Putin.

I‘ve skipped through a number of parts in the video and I don’t think that he is practicing strategic enclosure in regards to Putin specifically and/or Russia. I do think that he believes quite a number of the nonsensical notions about both. If he did strategic enclosure here, which I doubt, he did encourage and promote the nonsense about both and especially the defaming campaign against Putin/Russia. Personally, that is a big no go to me in any type of strategic enclosure concerning both subjects. You can quite easily do strategic enclosure without throwing people under the bus and/or fueling appalling lies. And Peterson of all people would be able to do just that if he did indeed practice strategic enclosure here.

Having said that, we know that Peterson has quite a number of blindspots there, so I can understand that. The rest of his reasoning, as mentioned, seems to be quite good if you filter out his biases.

 

[Navigator]

And here I thought JP might be tainted by the somewhat neo-con environment of the Daily Wire.

In the article he mentions speaking with F. Kagan, which he did back in March. So it seems that his views on the Ukrainian conflict come from even before joining the DW.

I have spoken publicly (on my YouTube channel and podcast) with American policy expert Frederick Kagan, who was recommended to me by some of my conservative associates in the US

 

[Seppo Ilmarinen]

If he did strategic enclosure here, which I doubt, he did encourage and promote the nonsense about both and especially the defaming campaign against Putin/Russia.

I have to somewhat disagree that Peterson is promoting nonsense in this monologue about Putin/Russia. Yes, he says the compulsory "Putin is bad, mm'kay" oneliner, and repeats the narrative for the listener that neocon F. Kagan gave in earlier interview, but then explicitly distincts (or rather downgrades) it as only one possible theory instead of truth, presenting professor Mearsheimer's talk as the main competive narrative. Then he continues the rest of his talk to give more wider and self-critical view of Ukraine war, delving into spiritual degradation of Western society, and basically siding with Mearsheimer instead of Kagan, because IMO it's clear how JP is aiming throughout the monologue to have the average listener to consider things from Russia's point of view, and to think West's own responsibility in all of this, instead of just blaming Putin (counter to MSM narratives). I believe that's the take home message, and Peterson's average listener should have more nuanced view of Russia/Putin after this monologue, OSIT.

 

[whitecoast]

Peterson recently wrote a piece for the Telegraph about the mutilation of children under the guise of "gender affirmation" therapy, and the self-righteousness with which it is promoted by some doctors and psychotherapists. The title the editor went with was We are sacrificing our children on the altar of a brutal, far-Left ideology. The title Jordan Peterson wanted it to go with was Doctors and Psychiatrists: Butchers and Liars.

We are sacrificing our children on the altar of a brutal, far-Left ideology

The medical profession is crumbling in response to radical transgender activists

www.telegraph.co.uk

(It's behind a paywall, so use a paywall bypass extension in your browser or read the full text below)

There is good evidence that many ancient societies sacrificed children to their gods. Parents in ancient Phoenician colonies in Carthage, Sicily, Sardinia and Malta slew their offspring prior to cremating them, hoping that the gods would hear their voices and bless them.
We are rightly appalled by this, though sometimes I wonder whether we understand child sacrifice far more than we’d like to admit.
I saw a video the other day featuring an American surgeon bragging that he had performed more than 3,000 double mastectomies on young women who had paid for gender reassignment, individuals confused – one might say encouraged – by those who profit from it into believing that their adolescent emotional trials can be ‘cured’, and happiness reign forever, if they subject themselves to this brutal practice.
And it is brutal – a process that often includes not only the aforementioned mastectomies but other appalling surgical processes: orchiectomy (that’s castration, in blunter language), the removal of the uterus, the demolition of the musculature of the forearm to make what is not a penis but must be referred to as such – all of that.
For someone purporting to be a physician to perform this on children, to me at least, seems like something worthy of a prison sentence.
Whatever happened to the doctrine expressed by the ancient language as primum non nocere – first, do no harm?
The Hippocratic Oath has been replaced by a delusion: a belief that can be summarised as ‘by blocking the puberty of children, and then surgically altering them, we are only restoring what is theirs by right. A child’s feelings are the final arbiters of their reproductive destiny, and any attempt to contest their gender identity risks increasing their proclivity for suicide’.
Lies. Lies. Lies. Then butchery.

Changing standards​

Psychologists – those in my own personal field of medicine – have also surrendered to this groupthink. The American Psychological Association’s ‘Task Force on Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming People (TGNC)’ insists that psychologists and other professional counsellors offer “trans-affirmative” care, starting with such niceties as displaying “TGNC-affirmative resources in waiting areas”. Practitioners are also asked to examine “how their language (e.g. use of incorrect pronouns and names) may reinforce the gender binary in overt or subtle and unintentional ways”.
These guidelines first read like a manual of indoctrination written by Marxist ideologues, and second like a document designed to undermine and destroy the practice of therapy itself.
But at an alarming rate these ‘guidelines’ have transformed themselves into punitive laws governing what a psychologist or counsellor may say and think in relation to their clients.
Let me make myself perfectly clear: speaking as a professional, whether in America, Britain, or anywhere, it is not the place of a therapist to “affirm” or, conversely, to deny, the “identity” of anyone whom they take into their care. People come to see a therapist, often after long and painful deliberation, because they are suffering, confused, or both. The job of that therapist is to listen, to question, and proceed with due caution, neither providing cheap advice (and thereby stealing their client’s successes or heaping failure upon them) nor assuming special knowledge of the proper outcome for a given individual.
There is simply no way that I would ever tell an 18-year old woman that she is absolutely correct if sometimes she feels more masculine than feminine (however that feeling might emerge), and that if she feels that surgery is the answer then recommend hormones that day. I would instead spend many weeks, perhaps even months or years, listening to her unwrap her story, using caution as my watchword, and help her come to some thorough and well-developed understanding of both her autobiographical history and her destiny.
That is not “affirmation” and neither is it “denial.” How could I possibly dare to do either when someone has come to me because they are mixed up and desperate – a state of twinned experience indicating a profound confusion about identity itself?

Radical new guidelines​

I am focusing on the American Psychological Association (APA) because it is the body charged with establishing the norms and ideals for clinical practice in the most populous democracy on Earth – principles that will, and are, spreading around the West more broadly, including in Britain. Some of their ‘guidelines’ are appalling enough to deserve dissection:

“Guideline 1. Psychologists understand that gender is a nonbinary construct that allows for a range of gender identities and that a person’s gender identity may not align with sex assigned at birth.”

I don’t understand this radical postmodern definition of gender, one that rests on a person’s “deeply felt” or “inherent sense” of being one sex over another, regardless of biology.
Psychologically it is indisputably the case that a non-trivial proportion of males have a feminine temperament (which essentially means that they experience higher levels of negative emotions such as anxiety and the analogs of pain – grief, frustration, disappointment, depression) and are more agreeable (compassionate/polite) than typical males, and equally true that a non-trivial proportion of females have a masculine temperament. But this does not change how, objectively, professionals should measure a person’s gender.
Psychologists once cared if measurement followed standard practices of validity and reliability. Try reading, for example, a document published by the APA itself in 2014, where you will learn that a psychologist worth their salt is obliged to utilise “constructs” (i.e. terms such as “gender”) in a technically appropriate manner. This means, at the very least, that fundamental attributes must be measurable and measured properly.
But all that goes out the window when we are discussing the magic of “gender” now, which is entirely subjectively defined, even though that insistence indubitably contravenes the earlier standards. But feelings über alles, folks. And it's no joke. Particularly if you’re 15, and have undergone surgery that makes you incapable of reproducing, often to foster someone else’s sense of moral superiority or sense of self-attributed “compassion”– a word that increasingly makes me shudder when I encounter it.

New doctrines​

Psychologists are also now adopting the simple-minded and anything-but-revolutionary doctrine of “intersectionality” without question. And what is that doctrine? Nothing more than the claim that human beings are characterised by identities that span multiple dimensions. Any given person has a race, ethnicity, sex, temperament (five dimensions there alone), intelligence level, etc. We’ve known that forever. It's only become a hot cultural item since fools noted the obvious fact that minority status might be additive or multiplicative. I hate to even point that out given that anyone with any sense whatsoever also knew, without any statistical training, that it was possible to be of Latino extraction, say (or even ‘LatinX’, to use that absurd, demeaning and patronising term) and female simultaneously.
One cannot question this, however, without fear of being ostracised by one’s colleagues. Note the chilling wording of Guideline 7:

“Psychologists understand the need to promote social change that reduces the negative effects of stigma on the health and well-being of TGNC people.”

In summary: if you’re not an activist (and one of our activists) then you better be watching over your shoulder.
So what should govern my behaviour as a therapist, and your expectations as a client? The answer to that is: whatever the activists deem a priority at their whim. And remember that in court, folks.

Active malevolence​

I’m increasingly ashamed to be a clinical psychologist given the utter cowardice, spinelessness and apathy that characterises many colleagues and even more so my professional associations. At least in 20 years when we all come to regret this terrible social experiment I will be able to say “I said no when they all came to insist that we participate in the sacrifice of our children.” Other countries, and Britain in particular, must not make the same mistakes as in the US and elsewhere.
I cannot consent to what we are doing. I cannot abide by what have become the doctrines of my discipline. I believe that the acts of the medical ‘professional’ rushing to disfigure, sterilise, and harm young people with what are clearly ill-advised, dangerous, experimental procedures cross the line from ‘do no harm’ to outright harm.
Only if we bury our heads in the sand will sterility, impaired or absent sexual function, complex reactions to poorly understood hormones, expense – and, intermingled with all that, misery and confusion – continue for countless young people. We must address the threat posed to the integrity of the entire education system as indoctrination into the same philosophy that spawned this surgical enterprise and the APA ‘guidelines’ grows. It threatens general public trust that our peace and prosperity depends upon.
And, by the way: it will definitely be the case that a disproportionate number of children “freed” from their gender confusion would have grown up to be physically intact and fully functional gay adults. Need I point out that this unpalatable fact makes a mockery of any claim that the extended alphabet world of the LGBTQ+ coterie constitutes a homogeneous and unified “community.”
We have crossed the line from ideological possession to active malevolence – and we are multiplying our sin (there’s an intersection for you) by attributing our appalling actions to “compassion”. Heaven help us. Truly.

Jordan reads the article aloud here.

Later one he posted a reprise in a much more polished video which pulls even LESS punches than the above. He reported the overwhelmingly positive reception he received on the Telegraph and YT, in spite of the curated nature of both those feeds. This genuinely surprised him because he was well aware that it was an incendiary article that would draw the ire of radicals. In this video he spoke more to the ponerogenic angle of this (not using that word unfortunately) and how machiavellian and psychopathic individuals are a statistically small but highly activity minority weaponizing the compassion of decent people to give psychopaths medical access to children to cause suffering for their own moral self-gratification. His words are total fire Jordan Peterson at his best.

 

[Jones]

Here's an interview on Dr Phil between Matt Walsh and Addison Rose Vincent. There are also some parents who are either fighting schools over the gender issue or who have withdrawn their kids from school as well as a psychologist who is supportive of gender pronouns. A guest from the audience comments on raising their baby in a gender neutral way.

It seems as though the expected changes in the use of gender pronouns is actually distancing and disconnecting rather than uniting and connecting - hearing a mother refer to her child as 'they' as though the baby is someone separate over there, rather than someone connected that is being held is sad.

When questioned why the term cisgender was even used or needed, Vincent basically said that it was to discourage the use of adjectives i.e. strong man, real man. That makes no sense because adjectives will still be used. A strong cisgender with testicles or uterus. Walsh counters the idea with the statement that Vincent has just assigned gender! Good point.

Furthering the idea of distance, disconnection or disenfranchisement, the mother that is raising her baby gender neutral acknowledges that if someone asks if her baby is a boy or girl they are trying to establish connection, but she doesn't answer the question asked and instead gives another piece of information about the child - they are teething, 4yo, starting play group etc. Still seems to tend toward distance and disconnection to me.

A branch of my family used to do really nasty things to each other so that the other would 'know how I feel', and the sense that I get from all of this is that is probably one of the motivations behind the gender neutral ideology whether conscious or not is a similar dynamic - that everybody feels what they feel, that everyone must suffer the way that they do or have. In a way if any of that is accurate in any way, it basically seems like revenge.

 

[Adobe]

LGBT ‘propaganda’ faces complete ban in Russia​

"A new bill compares the promotion of “non-traditional sexual relations” with war propaganda and inciting national, racial or religious hatred"

“Family, motherhood and childhood in their traditional understanding, taken from the ancestors, are the values that ensure the continuous change of generations,” urge the authors of the bill, adding that they are a “condition for the preservation and development of the multinational people of the Russian Federation, and therefore need special protection from the state.”

“In Russia, at the legislative level, it is not allowed to promote suicide, drugs, extremism, criminal behavior, as they are considered negative and socially dangerous phenomena. At the same time, formally, until now, there is no ban on propaganda of the denial of family values and non-traditional sexual relations, including with the use of film distribution,” the note reads."

However, they insist that these privileges “do not give them the right to seek public approval of such relations” or “disseminate ‘new’ values that carry hidden threats to society.”

full article below:

LGBT ‘propaganda’ faces complete ban in Russia

A bill is presented to Russia’s State Duma seeking to ban LGBT promotion, likening it to war propaganda and inciting of hatred

www.rt.com

 

[Maat]

Two females impregnated by transgender fellow inmate

Two females impregnated by transgender fellow inmate

torontosun.com

Trans woman who got two inmates pregnant moved to all-male prison

A transgender prisoner who impregnated two fellow inmates was moved to another New Jersey prison with only male youth inmates.

torontosun.com

I really have a hard time to keep pace with some headlines!

 

[Mari]

When I saw this headline on FB, I really thought it was Babylon Bee

Gender Activists Say Archaeologists Should Be Stopped From Identifying Ancient Human Remains as Male or Female

Because they don't know how the ancient human identified.

summit.news

Gender Activists Say Archaeologists Should Be Stopped From Identifying Ancient Human Remains as Male or Female​

Gender activists within the field of archaeology are pushing for anthropologists to be prevented from identifying human remains as male or female because it is not known how ancients would have self-identified.

No, this isn’t the Babylon Bee.

Criminal forensic psychologists, archaeologists and anthropologists have long had the skills to identify whether a body is male or female based on a number of traits, including the size and shape of bones.

However, far-left activists are now insisting that this is transphobic because experts don’t know if ancient people identified as a specific gender.

“You might know the argument that the archaeologists who find your bones one day will assign you the same gender as you had at birth, so regardless of whether you transition, you can’t escape your assigned sex,” complained Emma Palladino, a Canadian Master’s degree candidate.

Palladino, who is studying for an advanced degree in archaeology, went on to assert that it was “bullshit” to assign gender to an ancient human.

“Labelling remains ‘male’ or ‘female’ is rarely the end goal of any excavation, anyway,” she wrote. “The ‘bioarchaeology of the individual’ is what we aim for, factoring in absolutely everything we discover about a person into a nuanced and open-ended biography of their life.”

The tweet went viral and received over 44,000 likes.

Yes, because I’m sure there were countless people wandering around thousands of years ago identifying as gender non-binary, claiming they were actually wolves, or penguins, or hippos.

If there were, they’d have been rightly declared mentally ill and probably locked up.

In our society, we exalt these people to positions of authority and empower them to monster and silence anyone who dissents against their demented ideology.

As the College Fix highlights, this isn’t just the mad ravings of one student on Twitter, it’s a growing movement.

“Gender activists have formed a group called the Trans Doe Task Force to “explore ways in which current standards in forensic human identification do a disservice to people who do not clearly fit the gender binary.”

“We propose a gender-expansive approach to human identification by combing missing and unidentified databases looking for contextual clues such as decedents wearing clothing culturally coded to a gender other than their assigned sex,” proclaims the group’s mission statement.

We maintain our own database of missing and unidentified people who we have determined may be Transgender or gender-variant, as most current database systems do not permit comparison of missing to unidentified across different binary sex categories,” the group writes.

Pure, unadulterated insanity.

Added that I saw it on FB for clarity

 

[Magnolia]

Police Report After Shots Fired At Dallas Love Field Airport

Tyler Durden reports on Zerohedge: "Dallas Police have confirmed the shooter was a 37-year-old woman (how did they know it's a woman, are they biologists?) who fired multiple shots near the ticket counter."

Nice editorial comment!

 

[Adobe]

(how did they know it's a woman, are they biologists?) On point, and VERY funny

 

[Chad]

This video allegedly shows a parent storm into a drag queen story hour in the UK, the mother chastises the parents for taking their kids there, mentions grooming, wokeism, and asks them if they know what Autogynephilia is.

This is the first time i've seen such an event in the UK (although i'm sure they have happened), because it mostly seems to go on in the US, and so it's all the more surprising because the video shows part of the backlash growing against these events.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1551681169984557058