Jordan Peterson: Gender Pronouns and Free Speech War

[bjorb]

One of the editors of the washingtonpost has something to say:

Don’t laugh: I have a serious reason for raising my cats gender-neutral
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/04/05/dont-laugh-i-have-a-serious-reason-for-raising-my-cats-gender-neutral/?utm_term=.b7b5ad26a349

My new cats were freaking out. In carriers in the back seat of the car, they yowled their displeasure. I reassured them: “Don’t worry boys, we’ll be home soon.”

Whoops! I had called them boys, when in fact they were girls. An understandable mistake, as I’ve had cats for about 50 years, and all of them have been male. “I’m going to have to work on using the right pronouns,” I thought. And then another thought: “Why? They’re cats.”

That’s when I decided to raise my cats to be gender neutral.

The cats’ lives wouldn’t change, I reasoned, and it would help me learn to use plural pronouns for my friends, neighbors and colleagues who individually go by they, their and them. Even though using they, them and their as singular pronouns grates on many people because it’s grammatically incorrect, it seems to be the most popular solution to the question of how to identify people without requiring them to conform to the gender binary of female and male. It also just feels right to refer to people as they wish to be referred to.

Around the house, with just me, Essence and Trouble – named for Rare Essence and Trouble Funk, for the DC music lovers reading this – things were pretty easy. I’d make a mistake (called “misgendering”), saying something like “Where’s your brother?” (Yes, I talk to my cats.) Usually, I’d remember to fix it (“Where’s your sibling?” or “Where’s your pal?”). Just as I’d hoped, I began finding it easier to remember to use gender-neutral language for the humans in my life.

And I began to get an infinitesimal taste of what transgender and gender-nonconforming people face. I’m not talking about the outright bigotry and hatred –something I can’t know without being in their shoes — but the complete cluelessness. Friends would come over, I’d introduce the cats and their pronouns, and some would ask, “But what ARE they?” Some would randomly use “he” and “she.” Some would stumble, unable to form a sentence when talking about one of the cats.

Things got a little more real when Essence got sick. They were really sick. I took them to the vet and had to weigh the question: Do I explain their pronouns not only to the vet, but also the front-desk workers, the vet techs, and everyone else we interacted with? Before the illness was over, we saw five vets, two sets of front desk people, and countless vet techs. I chose to fall back on my cis-gender privilege (look it up) and used the singular pronoun for Essence. I understood that wouldn’t have been so easy if I were the patient — or if Essence were human.

While all of this was unfolding, friends would ask me: How is your cat? “They’re better” or “The same. The vets don’t know what’s wrong with them,” I’d say. “Wait a minute—are they both sick?” people would reply, confused.

It is confusing. We’ve had gender drilled into us as part of language since we first heard adults talking when we were infants – decades of “he” and “she.”

But at the same time it’s necessary. People are coming to understand that not all of us fit into the “girl” box or the “boy” box. Those who don’t are claiming space to be who they are. We all need to find ways to acknowledge and respect that. My way of respecting it just happens to be raising my cats gender neutral. You can choose your own.

Lauren R. Taylor is a freelance writer and a part-time multi-platform editor at the Post.

 

[Hindsight Man]

One of the editors of the washingtonpost has something to say:

Don’t laugh: I have a serious reason for raising my cats gender-neutral
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/04/05/dont-laugh-i-have-a-serious-reason-for-raising-my-cats-gender-neutral/?utm_term=.b7b5ad26a349

My new cats were freaking out. In carriers in the back seat of the car, they yowled their displeasure. I reassured them: “Don’t worry boys, we’ll be home soon.”

Whoops! I had called them boys, when in fact they were girls. An understandable mistake, as I’ve had cats for about 50 years, and all of them have been male. “I’m going to have to work on using the right pronouns,” I thought. And then another thought: “Why? They’re cats.”

That’s when I decided to raise my cats to be gender neutral.

The cats’ lives wouldn’t change, I reasoned, and it would help me learn to use plural pronouns for my friends, neighbors and colleagues who individually go by they, their and them. Even though using they, them and their as singular pronouns grates on many people because it’s grammatically incorrect, it seems to be the most popular solution to the question of how to identify people without requiring them to conform to the gender binary of female and male. It also just feels right to refer to people as they wish to be referred to.

Around the house, with just me, Essence and Trouble – named for Rare Essence and Trouble Funk, for the DC music lovers reading this – things were pretty easy. I’d make a mistake (called “misgendering”), saying something like “Where’s your brother?” (Yes, I talk to my cats.) Usually, I’d remember to fix it (“Where’s your sibling?” or “Where’s your pal?”). Just as I’d hoped, I began finding it easier to remember to use gender-neutral language for the humans in my life.

And I began to get an infinitesimal taste of what transgender and gender-nonconforming people face. I’m not talking about the outright bigotry and hatred –something I can’t know without being in their shoes — but the complete cluelessness. Friends would come over, I’d introduce the cats and their pronouns, and some would ask, “But what ARE they?” Some would randomly use “he” and “she.” Some would stumble, unable to form a sentence when talking about one of the cats.

Things got a little more real when Essence got sick. They were really sick. I took them to the vet and had to weigh the question: Do I explain their pronouns not only to the vet, but also the front-desk workers, the vet techs, and everyone else we interacted with? Before the illness was over, we saw five vets, two sets of front desk people, and countless vet techs. I chose to fall back on my cis-gender privilege (look it up) and used the singular pronoun for Essence. I understood that wouldn’t have been so easy if I were the patient — or if Essence were human.

While all of this was unfolding, friends would ask me: How is your cat? “They’re better” or “The same. The vets don’t know what’s wrong with them,” I’d say. “Wait a minute—are they both sick?” people would reply, confused.

It is confusing. We’ve had gender drilled into us as part of language since we first heard adults talking when we were infants – decades of “he” and “she.”

But at the same time it’s necessary. People are coming to understand that not all of us fit into the “girl” box or the “boy” box. Those who don’t are claiming space to be who they are. We all need to find ways to acknowledge and respect that. My way of respecting it just happens to be raising my cats gender neutral. You can choose your own.

Lauren R. Taylor is a freelance writer and a part-time multi-platform editor at the Post.

I'd say that we've reached the point of maximum absurdity,but I don't think this is anywhere near as crazy as things can get.

 

[bjorb]

[quote author= Hindsight Man]I'd say that we've reached the point of maximum absurdity,but I don't think this is anywhere near as crazy as things can get. [/quote]

Sometimes it's difficult to spot the difference between The Union and the Washingtonpost.

It's funny considering how they tried to blacklist sott.net together with some other 200 websites.

 

[Voyageur]

Peterson has a new session on Maps and Meanings:

2017 Maps of Meaning 10: Genesis and the Buddha

Published on Apr 27, 2017

In this lecture, I discuss the creation stories in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, and describe the parallels with the stories of the development of the Buddha from childhood to early adulthood, using the archetypal schema developed previous in the course.

Belief systems etc. It is + 2 hours and have not reviewed extensively.

https://youtu.be/7XtEZvLo-Sc

 

[bjorb]

Dutch MSM finds the following children toy advertisement below extremely sexist and they are having an outcry about it: (http://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/het-cadeauboek-van-bart-smit-een-aanwinst-voor-het-seksismemuseum~a3520634/#&gid=1&pid=210bd049-a153-471f-ae68-7a9b2dae34dd)

I don't understand the fuzz about it. Besides, if those girls want to clean so badly. Why not give them a real vacuum cleaner instead. The fake one is just a cruel joke, what is even more frustating about cleaning is pretending to clean.

 

[Beorn]

Dutch MSM finds the following children toy advertisement below extremely sexist and they are having an outcry about it: (http://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/het-cadeauboek-van-bart-smit-een-aanwinst-voor-het-seksismemuseum~a3520634/#&gid=1&pid=210bd049-a153-471f-ae68-7a9b2dae34dd)

I don't understand the fuzz about it. Besides, if those girls want to clean so badly. Why not give them a real vacuum cleaner instead. The fake one is just a cruel joke, what is even more frustating about cleaning is pretending to clean.

My daughter loved to pretend to clean when she was younger. She even picked out a pretend cleaning set for herself. The real ones are a bit big although she had a go at the mopping

 

[luc]

Found this recent JP interview very good:

https://youtu.be/OXZJRT4kBSA

I think he's a bit too encouraging when it comes to psychedelics (or could be misunderstood that way), but it's still very interesting.

He says something simple yet profound about what we call 'conscious suffering' here: "You're a lot faster if you are running away from something that you don't want to be near towards something you want. That way you get your anxiety work for you instead of against you."

 

[bjorb]

Found this picture, it's a German add that targets pedophiles.

which translates to: "Do you love kids more than you would like to? There is help. Free and confidential."

Apparently, from what I am getting. They want us to believe that a significant amount of the population are pedophiles. So we should discuss it openly and all that. It's obvious where this is going.

First they need help, later on, pedophilia becomes normal. They are just trying to open and spark debate about it in their favor.

 

[Jacques]

I'd say that we've reached the point of maximum absurdity,but I don't think this is anywhere near as crazy as things can get.

Don't underestimate the capacity of the people to reach new levels of absurdity. ;)

 

[bjorb]

I'd say that we've reached the point of maximum absurdity,but I don't think this is anywhere near as crazy as things can get.

Don't underestimate the capacity of the people to reach new levels of absurdity. ;)

That's right, I couldn't have made all of this glorified nonsense up in a thousand year period. I am afraid we haven't seen nothing yet.

 

[Anthony]

Found this article.

Study: Describing Breastfeeding as ‘Natural’ Is Unethical Because it Reinforces Gender Roles

_https://heatst.com/culture-wars/study-describing-breastfeeding-as-natural-is-unethical-because-it-reinforces-gender-roles/

It’s “ethically inappropriate” for government and medical organizations to describe breastfeeding as “natural” because the term enforces rigid notions about gender roles, claims a new study in Pediatrics.

“Coupling nature with motherhood… can inadvertently support biologically deterministic arguments about the roles of men and women in the family (for example, that women should be the primary caretaker,” the study says.

The study notes that in recent years, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the World Health Organization, and several state departments of health have all promoted breastfeeding over bottle-feeding, using the term “natural.”

This whole gender nonsense is getting ever more disturbing, to say the least.

 

[Divide by Zero]

Found this recent JP interview very good:


I think he's a bit too encouraging when it comes to psychedelics (or could be misunderstood that way), but it's still very interesting.

He says something simple yet profound about what we call 'conscious suffering' here: "You're a lot faster if you are running away from something that you don't want to be near towards something you want. That way you get your anxiety work for you instead of against you."

I think his psychedelics section was ok, he mentions the problems with it in this current day.


It sounds like what the C's told Laura about how schizophrenics today don't have the proper environment so its seeing in an improperly trained environment that could cause more disconnecting from reality. Of course this society is so twisted that a lot of these "demons" are going to be hard to battle internally, so psychedelics could be dangerous!


I didn't agree about his positive view on the world. He said more people are being connected to the power grid and being fed and so much more wealth was created. Umm, no- sorry... we learned how the hunter gatherers who "had less" had it much better.
Wealth creation just annoys me. Wealth is having more than you need. That's not what nature intended. Does he think we are special because we are information seeking species as he mentioned? I don't know but maybe his history of pulling himself up by the bootstraps growing up might have influenced his view on wealth and the economy?

 

[luc]

I think his psychedelics section was ok, he mentions the problems with it in this current day.

I agree, he has interesting things to say about this topic and I don't see anything wrong with what he says, such as that psychedelics can mess you up badly if you have not sorted your life out, i.e. the creatures hidden in your shadow will bite you. I guess I was missing an even clearer warning to discourage people from taking such drugs, since people might take it as a justification to continue/start using psychedelics and other related drugs. A rather minor point I guess.

I didn't agree about his positive view on the world. He said more people are being connected to the power grid and being fed and so much more wealth was created. Umm, no- sorry... we learned how the hunter gatherers who "had less" had it much better.
Wealth creation just annoys me. Wealth is having more than you need. That's not what nature intended. Does he think we are special because we are information seeking species as he mentioned? I don't know but maybe his history of pulling himself up by the bootstraps growing up might have influenced his view on wealth and the economy?

Well, I find myself disagreeing with him as well on this topic. However, it is an interesting and challenging perspective I think. I don't want to take the easy way out and dismiss his argument out of hand - you know, the West's imperialism, the horror of our modern world etc. Yes, that's a valid and important perspective, but that's not the whole story I think. He kind of has a point - it's a bit weird for me to sit here in front of my laptop in my heated house and complain about the modern world etc., romanticizing the life back in the days that I've never known. It's not so simple.

To me, that's one of the most important skills to practice in this crazy age: to recognize that there are many valid perspectives. Think of it this way: there is one objective truth, but we can never fully know it. But we can get closer to it, and one way to do this is to use different perspectives as spotlights to illuminate the vast field objective truth. This leads to different concepts that seem to oppose each other, yet they all are 'spotlights' that may illuminate the truth from a different angle. Note that this is not relativism; this is not saying "there is no objective truth and to each his own" - it means that there are different perspectives from which to look at and study the objective world.

I think we need to learn how to hold these different perspectives in mind without going crazy or identifying with a specific aspect too much. Like saying: "the world is a barbaric place run by psychopaths who exploit our planet" AND "we made a lot of progress in some areas, so let's show some humility and gratefulness"... and see what comes out of this friction.

 

[DianaRose]

Dutch MSM finds the following children toy advertisement below extremely sexist and they are having an outcry about it: (http://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/het-cadeauboek-van-bart-smit-een-aanwinst-voor-het-seksismemuseum~a3520634/#&gid=1&pid=210bd049-a153-471f-ae68-7a9b2dae34dd)

I don't understand the fuzz about it. Besides, if those girls want to clean so badly. Why not give them a real vacuum cleaner instead. The fake one is just a cruel joke, what is even more frustating about cleaning is pretending to clean.

The problem is that more and more people want to pretend that girls are not girl and are instead beings without gender. We can accept that animals depending on their sex will have different behaviours. We can't accept it from humans apparently.

 

[meta-agnostic]

Peterson has done another interview with Dave Rubin, this time in person. I'm only about halfway through the over 2 hours but I wanted to go ahead and share. So far they have covered a pretty wide range of political philosophy, existential metaphysics and other fun buzzwords, many things that Peterson may not have previously addressed publicly. Rubin has done a lot recently to foster dialog between opposing sides in the shifting political landscape and Peterson fits right into that conversation.

https://youtu.be/WJSJcPKA1Ug