Anyone up to speed with the Lindsay Shepherd case (the Canadian TA)?

[ConfessionsOfTeenageDramaQueen]

For those who aren't Lindsay is a 20-something TA at a Canadian University. Last November she was teaching a class on pronouns and, during the class, showed a 5 minute clip of a debate (that had been broadcast on Canadian TV) that featured a panel of speakers discussing gender pronouns in the context of trans issues.

The panel consisted of a few people including a trans-man, and Jordan Peterson.

After the class a student mentioned the clip to someone who reported it to the local LGBT group on campus who complained to the faculty who hauled her into a disciplinary meeting, which she had the presence of mind to record.

The meeting is 40 minutes long but I implore you to listen: not only does it give an insight into the Orwellian mindset of these two male professors, but their comments are absolutely dripping with sexism:

I'd be interested to know what others make of this case.

[Imnobody4]

I think it says more about the state of the left. How can the suppression of free speech have ever become their battle cry? I keep finding myself agreeing with people I wouldn't have given the time of day to previously. I'm of the left and am starting to despise them, they've lost all sense of reality.

[Bamc1977]

I liked Lindsey shepherds first video good bye to the left m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qpg6P1PNWR8
I’m the same. Five years ago I would have definitely been on the centre left of British politics, yet last week I joined UKIP... You can refuse to debate and resort to name calling or listen to the reasoning and give it consideration I guess. I was once a Labour Party member. It’s a funny old world.

[SolidarityGdansk]

I have been following her case and wish her all the best of luck in her legal claim.

[Offred]

Five years ago, on the political compass Labour was actually rightwing though TBF. Do you mean you were centre left or you were Labour?

Labour to UKIP is not uncommon at all IME. UKIP has been very good at exploiting the economically insecure, whose interests have been neglected and abused for years. They have given people a narrative that has meaning in their experiences and for their lives. There is also, and has always been a left wing pro Brexit position.

I find it hard to relate to the idea that political principles and ideological beliefs would change based on the negative behaviours of others though. I’m interested in why people often seem to prioritise belonging to a group over the credibility of the principles and practices... I find it very hard to understand.

I’d change my view for example if there was evidence that the view was wrong in some way, my understanding of what it meant was incorrect, it had consequences I hadn’t fully appreciated etc etc There is no way I’d change my view just because other people in my supposed crowd were cunts to me.

I’ve had that a lot anyway but I never feel comfortable about being lumped in together with other people and group think anyway. Surely it’s the ideas that need to be wrong not the other people who identify themselves with them for someone to change their own ideas?

[Offred]

I do get the grooming. With tribalism grooming often happens when one of the opposition is in a vulnerable position and being rejected by their group and it’s motivated by scalp taking type thoughts...

I watched a lot of the interviews Lindsay did and thought ‘a lot of this is grooming behaviour’ TBH.

[Freespeecher]

I remember Nick Cohen, in one of his books, describing Labour as "muddling along, trying to improve people's lives".

I think what we're seeing how are a whole lot of people who'd have been perfectly happy with that being put off by an increasingly authoritarian approach which results in them going after anyone who disagrees in an extremely agressive manner.

(Also, they have real difficulties understanding those who identify as being English, British etc as, for them, this is nationalism and can only ever be negative and harmful, meaning they tie themselves in all sorts of knots over it and, as with the poster above, alienate an element of their historical support.
Doesn't have much to do with Lindsay Shepherd I know, but Martin Kettle wrote rather a good piece on it here: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/07/england-identity-politics-left-right ).

[speakingwoman]

She says:

"In a University, all perspectives are valid."

he answers:

"That's not necessarily true."

sums it up really. I hope she is ok.

[Offred]

In terms of policy labour is significantly less authoritarian than it has been for decade.

The way people behave in groups is different to the policy positions. I don’t think it’s explained by increasing authoritarianism in politics I think it is explained better by the tyranny of authoritarian individualism when people enter into tribal behaviours.

[Terfulike]

I do like the hands across the aisles initiative though, what do other mns think?

[nauticant]

I thought this was an interesting summary of where things are:

www.thespec.com/opinion-story/8689667-lindsay-shepherd-s-law-suit-is-about-changing-the-rules/

[Terfulike]

Crikey that audio recordings horrendous isn't it. She was so brave.

[Ereshkigal]

What was utterly batshit was the response of the LGBT soc at Laurier claiming "epistemic violence".

[jgrobinson]

Thanks for that article nauticant!

[Bamc1977]

Offered. I was on the moderate centre left, a labour member but no fan of Blair. I still pretty much am centre left in many ways and haven’t changed all that much. But the left have become everything I despise in politics. They divided people into groups based on arbitrary characteristics and pit one group against another. They are anti free speech and censorious. They don’t believe in objective truth and ignore reality when it doesn’t suit their ideology. They are as dogmatic as any cult I know of. They think the individual doesn’t matter and seek power to control others. So yeah, I joined UKIP. Funny old world. I listened to how Lindsey shepherd was treated (it was appalling) and searched her and her speech on leaving the left just rang true for me.

[Ereshkigal]

This article, also by David Miller Haskell references the situation I was referring to with the LGBT group saying they were "unsafe" due to Lindsay Shepherd's presence:

quillette.com/2017/12/13/words-lose-meaning-wilfrid-laurier-university/

[Ereshkigal]

We know that is a familiar reason given for deplatforming feminist speakers, among others.

[edithann]

I understand that Lindsay told her mother of the meeting with Rambukkana, Pimlott and Joel; her mother told her to record it. Yeh Mom!

[Bamc1977]

I suspect when people say another’s opinion makes them feel “unsafe” when they are not being threatened but rather just disagreed with what they are really trying to do is stop thought and shutdown debate with a thought stopping guilt inducing buzzword in order to impose their will and get their way without being challenged or debated. No reasonable person feels unsafe because someone respectfully disagrees with them or refuses to buy into their dogma.

[Terfulike]

What do mns think of the Hands across the Aisles initiative?

[Dragoncake]

I'm only slightly familiar with Hands across the Aisle but like what I've seen.

[Ereshkigal]

Indeed Bamc.

[FloralBunting]

Well, although I'm posting here, I don't call myself a Feminist, largely because I don't subscribe to every tenet that most feminists do - but I do share common cause in terms of keeping women and children safe, and freeing them from the boxes society shoves them into.
I think feminism has done a lot of good, but I don't use the term of myself out of courtesy to people who do, because I think words have meanings and not all my positions on things are feminist.
However, I do think this is important - there are many of us who hover round the centre ground; a little further right on this, a bit further left on that. The incessant extremist 'Both feet in my political camp or not at all!' is so incredibly fundamentalist I am always surprised when rational people adopt it.
Because, put simply, some people will hear the ultimatum and say, "Ok, not at all then." and push their boat out as far as it will go.
My dad was a union man, knew Alan Johnson back in the day, hated Thatcher's guts with some vehemence. But he is an intelligent, well read man who taught me critical thinking, and finds himself in the peculiar position of liking a lot of what Jacob Rees Mogg says, and because of that kind of open listening without prejudice, he has found himself castigated by people who claim doctrinal purity must be maintained, most often on the left.
Honestly, I think there would be more open minded free thought among a trad-catholic sect than most of the left these days.
So if this young woman finds acceptance and the ideas right of centre appealing, the left really needs to ask themselves if calling everyone who isn't mainlining Marxism a Nazi is really the way forward.

[Ereshkigal]

So if this young woman finds acceptance and the ideas right of centre appealing, the left really needs to ask themselves if calling everyone who isn't mainlining Marxism a Nazi is really the way forward.

I totally agree with you. As someone who has always considered herself a leftist.

[Offred]

It’s not just the left though is it? It’s just a common theme with tribal groups at the moment as far as I can see.

I feel like this stuff re ‘who said it’ has become divorced from the idea of improving understanding of the idea by offering context and is now entirely about censorship/blind faith.

It is useful to look at the things a particular person has said in order to understand their ideas better but this is becoming very difficult because looking at the things someone says has become repurposed as a means of blind acceptance or censorship so certain people we are expected to boycott, others we are expected to uncritically promote... this is entirely based on their identity now... no thinking and no ideas. Understanding the ideas, the arguments they make and what they are based on has now become bigotry or simply unnecessary!

I don’t think the right excommunicates people as easily as the left but it has always been thus, however they both use the language of identity politics. I have not really seen critical thinking evidenced in the mainstream of either TBH.

‘Who said it?’ Now also becomes ‘what it says about me’ it’s all about individual politics, how you are seen based on how others are seen and some people being the right people and others the wrong people.

It’s all very vacuous but honestly the social sanctions for not conforming to this model of thought have often been absolutely appalling such that it is difficult to have a public life of any kind without conceding to it.

I despair every time I see someone saying ‘sorry for the fail link’ or ‘I’m slightly shocked to find myself agreeing with x person/group’ and that often becomes a type of ‘I now identify as part of x group’ or an existential crisis regarding what it means to be a person who linked to the fail, which I think is also wrong really.

It is not mandatory to identify with any group, in fact I think it should be mostly resisted and instead people should consider the ideas which inform their values and the level/form of support they are prepared to give based on those values. That’s where being an individual is relevant IMO, not this weird enforced collective individualism...

[Bamc1977]

@FloralBunting. I’m not a feminist either. I don’t believe it’s true that men and women are so similar that all the differences in outcome must be the result of anti female discrimination which seems to be feminism 101 these days. I’ve also heard some feminists say that if you couldn’t tell who was a male who was s female by looking at them men and women would (on average) always achieve the same results. I think this biology doesn’t matter and all differences are caused by discrimination thinking is probably why so many people seem to think that they can change gender simply by declaring it to be so and that anyone who disagrees can’t be anything other than a hateful bigot. I’ve no time for feminism any more but still believe passionately in defending women’s rights. I just don’t like western feminism. Western feminists don’t seem very good at standing with their Iranian ‘sisters’ being persecuted in countries like Iran for refusing to wear veils and such like. And males who call themselves feminists often seem to turn out to be Harvey Weinstein type characters.