Jordan Peterson: Gender Pronouns and Free Speech War

[luc]

Yep, that was excellent, thanks for sharing! How can you not like JP? He's calm, empathetic, shows emotions and even insecurities, yet he's also powerful, strong, humorous, brilliant and hard-working. A role model indeed!

I stumbled upon the following interview with him, it's interesting because he gets a bit challenged by the moderator. One part stood out for me (should start at 44:04):

https://youtu.be/OD-VCRNIp-U?start=2644

He says that ideologies are so powerful because they are fragmented religion and proclaim this part to be the whole theological reality, or so I understand it. He gives the example of the conquest of America: you can construct two powerful narratives - one of glorious adventure of heroic individuals who set out to tame nature, bring culture to the land etc., and one of tyrants plundering the natives and raping mother earth etc. Each of these narratives alone is an ideology, only if we put both together do we get a religious story. I found that a very useful example, especially in today's world with all these opposing yet somewhat valid narratives that almost makes one feel schizophrenic!

 

[Azur]

A very entertaining video of an interview with JP and Cathy Newman of UK's Channel 4 News (30 minutes)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMcjxSThD54&feature=youtu.be

https://youtu.be/aMcjxSThD54

The Twitter comments are also worth checking out...

https://twitter.com/cathynewman/status/953376780492136448

That was outstanding!

Thank you for that.

 

[maiko]

I just watched this today and thoroughly enjoyed the interview. She really thought she had him so many times, but she was out of her league to say the least. And to his credit, he was so good natured about the whole thing. The comments were indeed equally entertaining :)

Absolutely loved the interview. It took me about five seconds or so hovering over the mouse button before I could bring myself to click and watch because I knew how the interviewer was going to be with him...

Same for me T.C. I had to force mysef to keep on watching. It turned into a very good lesson of how to disarm your discussion partner. And JP definitely worked on his body language and facial expressions during heated coversations. After the first couple of minutes it was really fun to watch.

 

[Navigator]

A very entertaining video of an interview with JP and Cathy Newman of UK's Channel 4 News (30 minutes)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMcjxSThD54&feature=youtu.be

https://youtu.be/aMcjxSThD54

The Twitter comments are also worth checking out...

https://twitter.com/cathynewman/status/953376780492136448

That was amazing, I thoroughly enjoyed the interview. Watched it twice actually, the whole thing. It is understandable that the interviewer wanted to go rapid-fire with her questions, but she just kept fumbling with her counter-responses:

"So you are saying we should be like lobsters?"

This seems like she is not actually thinking (or listening as JP put it), just "system 1" reacting to arguments that needed deeper and thoughtful answers.

But, even with her silly questions, she was able to extract jewels of wisdom from JP.

 

[Alana]

Gah, that was awful. Dr. Peterson was (as one commenter put it) 'a saint' for patiently dragging her words out of his mouth over and over and attempting to put the interview on a rational foundation. But he never gave up, no matter how many strawmen she through at him. And when her brain finally gridlocked and something got through, he was gracious even though he joked a little ("Gotcha!")

I felt like cheering.

Yes, he was very graceful and humourous in responding to the inanities she was throwing at him. In one of his tweets yesterday he wrote about their interview something along the lines, "I think it was her way of flirting with me"

 

[Beorn]

The response of Jordan Peterson on the plight of young men is both sad and heart-warming.

https://youtu.be/5ER1LOarlgg?rel=0

 

[Arwenn]

Thanks for posting that Beorn, it touches my deeply every time JBP breaks down like that. I have a few male friends that have been absolutely devastated by acrimonious divorces, property/child custody battles where the odds are stacked against them. It's really so sad. I can totally understand the MGTOW (men going their own way) phenomenon - why would anyone want to sign up for this BS? I'm so glad there is someone like JBP speaking out for men's rights. Sadly, intersectional feminism is anything but about equality, it's about ruthlessly persecuting men and dominating them instead. Just another power trip cleverly disguised as compassion and social justice.

 

[Ant22]

Gah, that was awful. Dr. Peterson was (as one commenter put it) 'a saint' for patiently dragging her words out of his mouth over and over and attempting to put the interview on a rational foundation. But he never gave up, no matter how many strawmen she through at him. And when her brain finally gridlocked and something got through, he was gracious even though he joked a little ("Gotcha!")

I felt like cheering.

Yes, he was very graceful and humourous in responding to the inanities she was throwing at him. In one of his tweets yesterday he wrote about their interview something along the lines, "I think it was her way of flirting with me"

Agreed, this entire interview was a real shocker to watch. But it became obvious very quickly that his knowledge base and logical thinking were not really something she was in any way capable of handling with her "hearing what I want to hear" attitude.

She kept saying "so you're saying" and then she twisted what he said into the opposite. Gosh, it sounded like some sort of conversational gaslighting!

I do wonder what she thought of her own performance after the interview. I would not be entirely surprised if she's convinced she actually won the argument and proved her point.

 

[Joe]

I do wonder what she thought of her own performance after the interview. I would not be entirely surprised if she's convinced she actually won the argument and proved her point.

No doubt. You went to a speech he gave recently Ant, right? How was it?

 

[Ruth]

Oh yes, definitely. I hope they play this one on Signs of the Times. "Nothing uglier than an old infant". (Men need to grow the hell up? - if applicable. And we all know we're individuals) It's a real eye opener.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMcjxSThD54&feature=youtu.be

And a rather feisty interview as well.

 

[Possibility of Being]

/.../
He says that ideologies are so powerful because they are fragmented religion and proclaim this part to be the whole theological reality, or so I understand it. /.../

Interestingly, a few days ago Putin likened communism to Christianity:
https://ria.ru/society/20180114/1512573918.html (in Russian)
Google transl.:

January 14 - RIA Novosti. Russian President Vladimir Putin likened communism to Christianity, and Lenin's mausoleum - with veneration of the relics of saints.

"Maybe I'll say something now that someone might not like, but I'll say it as I think. First, faith always accompanied us, it was strengthened when our country, our people, were going through especially hard times. There were such rigid theophany years when priests were destroyed, churches were destroyed, but at the same time they created a new religion. Communist ideology, it is very similar to Christianity, in fact: freedom, equality, brotherhood, justice - everything is laid in the Holy Scripture, it's all there. And the code of the builder is this is sublimation, it's just such a primitive excerpt from the Bible, nothing new came up," Putin said in an interview for the movie "Valaam", an excerpt of which was shown in the program "News of the Week" on the TV channel Russia 1.

The Russian president compared the attitude of the Communists to Lenin with the veneration of saints in Christianity. "Look, Lenin was put in a mausoleum, how is this different from the relics of saints for Orthodox Christians, and just for Christians?" When they say that no, in Christianity there is no such tradition, well, how not, go to Athos, look, there relics of the saints there are, and we have holy relics here," Putin said.

"In fact, nothing new then the government did not come up with, it just adapted under its ideology what mankind has long invented," the Russian leader added.

Actually, as far as I know, the concept of "civil religion" goes back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Later, in the 20th century, it was understood that totalitarian ideologies - such as fascism, nazism and communism - being a sort of poor and utopian interpretations of Christianity, constituted a radical form of "civil religion" and that form was called "political religion".

 

[luc]

Actually, as far as I know, the concept of "civil religion" goes back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Later, in the 20th century, it was understood that totalitarian ideologies - such as fascism, nazism and communism - being a sort of poor and utopian interpretations of Christianity, constituted a radical form of "civil religion" and that form was called "political religion".

Yes, and I also thought about the "mosaic consciousness" the Cs talked about when I saw this part of JP's interview I linked to above - his gesture with his hands, the "clicking together" of two narratives to form a whole... It's like we have this religious or theological reality that consists of all these different true angles and narratives that are somewhat limited in scope and only parts of the whole picture. An ideology or pseudo-religion is created by taking one such piece of the mosaic, blow it out of proportion and proclaim it's the whole reality. This can only lead to total confusion and drives people into dark places. Fwiw

 

[Niall]

A video of JP's London talk is now up:

https://youtu.be/-5RCmu-HuTg

 

[Navigator]

JBP posted this and caught my attention:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/19/channel-4-calls-in-security-experts-after-cathy-newman-suffers-online-abuse?CMP=share_btn_tw

Channel 4 News has called in security specialists to analyse threats made to presenter Cathy Newman following her interview with a controversial Canadian psychologist who has attracted a following among the “alt-right”.

Ben de Pear, the editor of Channel 4 News, said Newman had been subjected to “vicious misogynistic abuse”. Having to calling in security specialists was a “terrible indictment of the times we live in”, he said.

Newman interviewed the psychologist, Jordan Peterson, about gender on Tuesday. A video of the full 30-minute interview has been watched more than 1.6m times on the Channel 4 News YouTube page and has attracted more than 36,000 comments.

Peterson rose to prominence in 2016 when he released a video lecture series in which he said that his right to free speech meant he would not use gender-neutral pronouns for transgender students at the University of Toronto. He was in the UK promoting a new book called 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.

The combative Channel 4 interview led to praise for Peterson and criticism for Newman on some right-leaning sites. James Delingpole, a Breitbart columnist, said the interview marked a “pivotal victory in the culture wars” and that the “weaknesses of the regressive left have never been more cruelly or damningly expose”. Douglas Murray in the Spectator said: “I don’t think I have ever witnessed an interview that is more catastrophic for the interviewer.”

Newman has faced a wave of abuse and threats online, including on Twitter. There is no suggestion that Peterson, Delingpole or Murray are behind the threats or instigated them.

De Pear said on Twitter on Friday: “Our Channel 4 News on-screen journalists expect to be held to account for their journalism but the level of vicious misogynistic abuse, nastiness, and threat to Cathy Newman is an unacceptable response to a robust and engaging debate with Jordan Peterson.

“Such is the scale of threat, we are having to get security specialists in to carry out an analysis. I will not hesitate to get the police involved if necessary. What a terrible indictment of the times we live in.”

Newman retweeted De Pear’s posts. In response to Murray’s column – in which he said Newman should get Channel 4 to remove the video from the internet because of how “catastrophic” it was – she said earlier in the week: “Always grateful for advice from Douglas Murray but I won’t be suing or taking out a super-injunction. I thoroughly enjoyed my bout with Jordan Peterson as did hundreds of thousands of our viewers. Viva feminism, viva free speech. Stay tuned Douglas.”

Channel 4 News said: “Following her interview with psychology professor Jordan Peterson broadcast earlier this week, our presenter Cathy Newman has been the target of unwarranted and unacceptable misogynistic abuse and threats.

“As journalists in the public eye, our presenters expect criticism, but we will not tolerate this level of abuse towards our staff. We have taken immediate steps to ensure Cathy’s safety and security and continue to offer her our full support on this matter.”

At first I thought, as the interview went viral (1.8m views at the moment), that a lynching mob was after the interviewer. I read a lot of the comments posted on Youtube, a good portion went after the interviewer for being ja bad interviewer with an obvious agenda and failing and thus demostrating his arguments, but nothing too extreme in general, and the same happened on Twitter.

Then it came to me that perhaps this is diverting the attention away from the interviewer, it reverses the perception and setting a victimisation light. And Peterson's response was adequate, distancing himself from any bashing. Can we expect the next level up of difficulties for Peterson as he becomes more and more famous?

 

[luc]

At first I thought, as the interview went viral (1.8m views at the moment), that a lynching mob was after the interviewer. I read a lot of the comments posted on Youtube, a good portion went after the interviewer for being ja bad interviewer with an obvious agenda and failing and thus demostrating his arguments, but nothing too extreme in general, and the same happened on Twitter.

Then it came to me that perhaps this is diverting the attention away from the interviewer, it reverses the perception and setting a victimisation light. And Peterson's response was adequate, distancing himself from any bashing. Can we expect the next level up of difficulties for Peterson as he becomes more and more famous?

Yes, this is complete upside down. "Vicious misogynistic abuse, nastiness, and threat" - you'd think she was assaulted and raped or something! I can imagine how some of JP's followers might have gone over the top and called her names, but as far as I can see, this is a minority at best. And even so, my gosh, you can't go out there as a "tough interviewer", offending your guest etc., and then whine about the other side offending you in return. How is that even feminism? How about being tough as a woman, as this interviewer clearly is on screen, without crying to the (male!) authorities to protect your feelings!? Strange times!