Jordan Peterson on Question Time next Thursday

[HandsOffMyRights]

As somebody fairly new to the self ID debate, could somebody please tell me how Jordan is connected? And what (if anything) this means for next week?

Posie was simply correcting a man who was persisting in calling her ‘miss’.

fucking hell, what is this obsession with Posie? She's banned here so can't defend herself.

Back to Peterson. I have some issues with his rules

Rule 6 Set your house in perfect order before you criticise the world

Perfect order? really? so until you are totally happy with your life you shouldn't form opinions about the world around you? this just seems to me to be him saying to all those shitty little students who've been rude to him 'shut up and listen to the grown ups'

Rule 10 Be precise in your speech

hypocrite much? this is the man who mused on the Toronto incel attack and said 'an answer is enforced monogamy'.

Then when people said 'hang on, are we talking government issued girlfriends here?' said 'no,. it was a figure of speech, of course I didn't mean that'. We be fucking precise Jordan - say what you mean!

PeakPants. You said on trump: He is also slowly but surely transforming the country into a veritable terrifying hell-hole for women

Sorrry, but this kind of rhetoric is absolutely bonkers. How, exactly? Could you give some specific examples of precisely how the USA is “a terrifying hell-hole for women” at the moment? I am American and spend an awful lot of time there so I would be curious to know what exactly you have seen and experienced that makes you say this.

Jordan Peterson does some interesting work on identifying people who are in the grip of an ideology. I have to say you’re displaying many of the traits.

On the back of this thread, I've gone to find out a bit more about Peterson. And found this, by the person who appointed him.

I was Jordan Peterson’s strongest supporter. Now I think he’s dangerous
www.thestar.com/opinion/2018/05/25/i-was-jordan-petersons-strongest-supporter-now-i-think-hes-dangerous.html

I didn't know about Peterson wanting to buy a church, or about him trying to stop the university research ethics committee from reviewing any of his proposed experiments – reviews which are mandated by law to protect experimental subjects.

And found this, by the person who appointed him.

That's an interesting piece with some good points made about JP. Like this:

What was off-putting was his tendency to be categorical about his positions, reminiscent of his lectures where he presented personal theories as absolute truths.

JP never comes across as someone who is open to having his mind changed about anything. But reading on, it is clear that that person's opinion of JP may well be influenced by this:

I have a trans daughter, but that was hardly an issue compared to what I felt was a betrayal of my trust and confidence in him. It was an abuse of the trust that comes with his professorial position, which I had fought for, to have misrepresented gender science by dismissing the evidence that the relationship of gender to biology is not absolute

I understand that line to be saying that Peterson takes the position that the relationship of gender to biology is absolute.

Or at the very least Peterson dismisses evidence that it isn't absolute.

Assuming the writer means "gender the construct", and isn't using "gender" as a synonym for "sex", then the writer is saying that Peterson isn't gender-critical but believes gender is innate and biological.

My impression of peterson is certainly that he likes to imply that gender is innate

of course he never actually comes out and says anything concrete so it's kind of hard to be sure

Perking I would suggest that his belief in gender being innate and biological is influenced by his deeply held religious views.

he never actually comes out and says anything concrete so it's kind of hard to be sure

Exactly. I hear all this stuff about Peterson but quite honestly, I've no idea what he stands for because, whenever I've seen him interviewed (mostly by Joe Rogan) he's been so long winded I've completely lost track of what he was trying to say.
It'll be interesting to see how he copes on Question Time when presumably he'll have a strict time limit. It could make him or break him.

More from that article by his former senior colleague, some possibly relevant to what he'll do on Newsnight:

Jordan has studied and understands authoritarian demagogic leaders. They know how to attract a following. In an interview with Ethan Klein in an H3 Podcast, Jordan describes how such leaders learn to repeat those things which make the crowd roar, and not repeat those things that do not.
[...]
More recently, when questioned about the merits of 12 Rules for Life, Jordan answered that he must be doing something right because of the huge response the book has received. How odd given what he said in that same interview about demagogues and cheering crowds. In an article published in January in the Spectator, Douglas Murray described the atmosphere at one of Jordan’s talks as “ecstatic.”

I have no way of knowing whether Jordan is aware that he is playing out of the same authoritarian demagogue handbook that he himself has described. If he is unaware, then his ironic failure, unwillingness, or inability to see in himself what he attributes to them is very disconcerting.
[...]
I was warned by a number of writers, editors and friends that this article would invite backlash, primarily from his young male acolytes, and I was asked to consider whether publishing it was worth it. More than anything, that convinced me it should be published.

I discovered while writing this essay a shocking climate of fear among women writers and academics who would not attach their names to opinions or data which were critical of Jordan. All of Jordan’s critics receive nasty feedback from some of his followers, but women writers have felt personally threatened.

Jordan presents a confusing picture, and it’s often hard to know what he is up to. In one of his YouTube videos, Jordan said that if you are not sure of what or why someone is doing what they are doing, look at the consequences. They could be revealing.

That keeps me up at night.

I understand that line to be saying that Peterson takes the position that the relationship of gender to biology is absolute.

I probably shouldn't have quoted that last bit - as others have said it's hard to know exactly what JP thinks about this. The bit I wanted to draw attention to was the fact that the writer said he had a trans daughter, so it's likely that anything he says about transgender issues was coloured by this. He goes on to say:

If we have a “collective unconscious” there is a good chance that it would include our primitive assumptions about gender and biology. Transgender people violate those assumptions.
and
Transgender people appear early in human history but in these socially progressive times, which worry Jordan so much, they have become more visible.

There is an enormous distinction between free speech and compelled speech which seems to have been overlooked in the article.

I think Jordan is likely very emotionally volatile, but that article didn't do much to discredit him. Basically it says Jordan had a perfect teaching record, and the majority of his students adored him except for one "astute" student. But somehow this professor was responsible for his being hired.

And the fact he has a trans daughter hardly seems like a small footnote.

As well, "Calling Marxism, a respectable political and philosophical tradition, “murderous” conflates it with the perversion of those ideas in Stalinist Russia and elsewhere where they were."

Perking

I remember reading that article and noticing that, while the author knew Peterson better that most of those who had written about him, he also had a dog in the fight:

I have a trans daughter,

Well that's certainly an interesting contrast to the conversation above, of posters saying they don't have to agree with everything Peterson says, to agree with some things he says.

BTW, for those who haven't read the article, very little of it is about anything to do with transgenderism.

It covers quite a lot of Peterson's career. And I'd forgotten this bit from last night, but actually it does indeed answer the question of whether Peterson is (in Schiff's observation) gender-critical:

"He is a biological and Darwinian determinist. Gender, gender roles, dominance hierarchies, parenthood, all firmly entrenched in our biological heritage and not to be toyed with."

I don't often give in to the temptation to pull rank, so to speak, but I have been on MN for more than 10 years.

And yet somehow you found it within yourself to do exactly that.

Speaking of rank? It's nice to see you acknowledge the value of hierarchies, just like Jordan B Peterson.
👋⬇️🎤💅

I see Diane Abbott's on too. I'm sure she'll do the sisterhood proud.

It'll be interesting to see how he copes on Question Time when presumably he'll have a strict time limit. It could make him or break him.

The limitations of short form panel shows like Question Time, which drive people towards adversarial confrontations, are becoming more and more pronounced as time goes by. Which is why online longform shows like Joe Rogan are proving MASSIVELY SUCCESSFUL. Typically one of Rogan's interviews gets a few million views.

Main Stream Media is dying because people are smart enough to handle detailed discission.

I see Diane Abbott's on too. I'm sure she'll do the sisterhood proud.

How do you think she'll avoid making the same predictable replies?

Tbh I think the main battle will be between Peterson and Aaronovitch (who I like on some things and can't stand on others).

I certainly don't agree with everything he stands for but he is sound on free speech and Trans and can hold his own in debate which I doubt people who state " Yet another needledick loser" can. Maybe Goldsmiths is more your thing?

I don't think he's 'sound' on free speech in the least. He's another of those who thinks free speech is the right to be listened to and taken seriously if one is a white man. He first got public attention by making a huge fuss about how he was going to use the 'wrong' pronouns for his students and this was the hill he would die on etc. He's very big on dogwhistles for inadequate men who blame women/minorities for their own failure and consider white men the Most Oppressed.

As well, "Calling Marxism, a respectable political and philosophical tradition, “murderous” conflates it with the perversion of those ideas in Stalinist Russia and elsewhere where they were."

Where , exactly, has it operated as a benign government acting in the best interests of its people?

"Marxist hellhole" is a common phrase- is there anywhere where Marxism has been adopted as a government which could not be described that way?

Tonight's chorus line:

Kwasi Kwarteng MP
Diane Abbott MP
Mairead McGuinness MEP
David Aaronovitch
Jordan Peterson

Looks like it will be a lively one.

No he wasn't going to use the wrong pronouns he was against enforced use of language with regard to pronouns.