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> A law that empowers kangaroo courts sin't "simply asking nice." A law that empowers those courts to use an unscientific "unconscious bias" test that claims to

> A law that empowers kangaroo courts sin't "simply asking nice." A law that empowers those courts to use an unscientific "unconscious bias" test that claims to get into your head isn't "simply asking nice." A law that can result in dismissal from your job isn't "simply asking nice." I'd like to underline this statement. Making this into a law that will impact employment, sentencing, etc., is not a polite request. It's the power of the state. When that involves a certain way of speaking, or thinking, a lot of us civil libertarian types get very uneasy, regardless of the merits of the issue at hand.

beat 9y ago
I'm a civil libertarian myself. It makes me uncomfortable. But people seem hell-bent on missing my point in order to correct me for God forbid equating coercion and oppression. My actual godddamned POINT is that, whatever the logical merits of Peterson's position coming from him, the practical effect is for a hundred thousand red-pill assholes to share excerpted clips around, and thinking it means that a wise philosopher agrees with their joy in being mean to people over their gender identity.
- stcredzero 9y ago
  No matter what position you pick, some gaggle of idiots on the Internet are using it as a pretext for being a dick. A lot of the acrimony coming from the Right is a reaction to others doing it using pretexts from the Left. The solution is to have reasoned dialogue. If you follow Peterson's message, he seems to have explicitly decided to minister to lost young clueless right-wing men, by urging them to clean their rooms, and live worthwhile, responsible lives. In fact, I remember the video where he talks about becoming aware that so many of his followers were effectively Alt-Right, and seeing him hesitate, then say he didn't know what to make of that. He also talks about the mechanisms by which a crowd can suborn a speaker, so I think he's actively fighting against that. thinking it means that a wise philosopher agrees with their joy in being mean to people over their gender identity It seems to me that a lot of people did exactly that, coming from the far Left, in the name of Intersectionality. It was also done with racial identity. (Google "Feminist Cringe" & "Dartmouth College Library Activists")
  - beat 9y ago
    Oh, undoubtedly. There's no small amount of tribalism and moral sadism among the SJWs, using these sudden shifts in vocabulary as an excuse to berate people they didn't like in the first place. Which in no way means intersectionality is a Bad Idea. Intersectionality is a major advance in the understanding of oppression. I hope Peterson can actually wake up some of his red-pill followers, and do more harm than good in the long run. But for now, he really needs to apply that intellect to dealing with something he wasn't ever prepared to deal with - being a symbol of intellectual authority to a movement that stands for things he no doubt despises.
    - stcredzero 9y ago
      I hope Peterson can actually wake up some of his red-pill followers, and do more harm than good in the long run. Freudian slip? As George Orwell noted in Road to Wiggan Pier, leftists often don't so much as love the poor, but hate the rich. But for now, he really needs to apply that intellect to dealing with something he wasn't ever prepared to deal with - being a symbol of intellectual authority to a movement that stands for things he no doubt despises. For one thing, I can imagine him basically paraphrasing that sentence. How come I don't often hear anything like that kind of introspection coming from the left about the depredations of unbalanced followers? When it does come, why is it that others on the Far Left then try to kick them out of the Left? Then too, I hear and read things like, "It's okay to hate your oppressors." I think I know what it means when people start to say it's okay to hate on a group of people based on outward and inherent characteristics. I grew up being on the receiving end of that.
      - beat 9y ago
        You're making an awful lot of generalizations with very little substance here.
        stcredzero 9y ago
        You're denying people say "It's okay to hate your oppressors?" You're denying that people have been trying to kick people like Dave Rubin and Bret Weinstein out of the Left?

beat 9y ago

I'm a civil libertarian myself. It makes me uncomfortable. But people seem hell-bent on missing my point in order to correct me for God forbid equating coercion and oppression. My actual godddamned POINT is that, whatever the logical merits of Peterson's position coming from him, the practical effect is for a hundred thousand red-pill assholes to share excerpted clips around, and thinking it means that a wise philosopher agrees with their joy in being mean to people over their gender identity.

stcredzero 9y ago
No matter what position you pick, some gaggle of idiots on the Internet are using it as a pretext for being a dick. A lot of the acrimony coming from the Right is a reaction to others doing it using pretexts from the Left. The solution is to have reasoned dialogue. If you follow Peterson's message, he seems to have explicitly decided to minister to lost young clueless right-wing men, by urging them to clean their rooms, and live worthwhile, responsible lives. In fact, I remember the video where he talks about becoming aware that so many of his followers were effectively Alt-Right, and seeing him hesitate, then say he didn't know what to make of that. He also talks about the mechanisms by which a crowd can suborn a speaker, so I think he's actively fighting against that. thinking it means that a wise philosopher agrees with their joy in being mean to people over their gender identity It seems to me that a lot of people did exactly that, coming from the far Left, in the name of Intersectionality. It was also done with racial identity. (Google "Feminist Cringe" & "Dartmouth College Library Activists")
- beat 9y ago
  Oh, undoubtedly. There's no small amount of tribalism and moral sadism among the SJWs, using these sudden shifts in vocabulary as an excuse to berate people they didn't like in the first place. Which in no way means intersectionality is a Bad Idea. Intersectionality is a major advance in the understanding of oppression. I hope Peterson can actually wake up some of his red-pill followers, and do more harm than good in the long run. But for now, he really needs to apply that intellect to dealing with something he wasn't ever prepared to deal with - being a symbol of intellectual authority to a movement that stands for things he no doubt despises.
  - stcredzero 9y ago
    I hope Peterson can actually wake up some of his red-pill followers, and do more harm than good in the long run. Freudian slip? As George Orwell noted in Road to Wiggan Pier, leftists often don't so much as love the poor, but hate the rich. But for now, he really needs to apply that intellect to dealing with something he wasn't ever prepared to deal with - being a symbol of intellectual authority to a movement that stands for things he no doubt despises. For one thing, I can imagine him basically paraphrasing that sentence. How come I don't often hear anything like that kind of introspection coming from the left about the depredations of unbalanced followers? When it does come, why is it that others on the Far Left then try to kick them out of the Left? Then too, I hear and read things like, "It's okay to hate your oppressors." I think I know what it means when people start to say it's okay to hate on a group of people based on outward and inherent characteristics. I grew up being on the receiving end of that.
    - beat 9y ago
      You're making an awful lot of generalizations with very little substance here.
      - stcredzero 9y ago
        You're denying people say "It's okay to hate your oppressors?" You're denying that people have been trying to kick people like Dave Rubin and Bret Weinstein out of the Left?