Some more buzz on Jordan Peterson’s recent BBC interview. Jordan B Peterson, Critical Theory, and the New Bourgeoisie
1,713,144 views of that interview as I start writing. I’m 3 of them. ;)
1,749,983 as I post.
I linked to it yesterday. I should have embedded it. Better late than never:
But, to the article. Progressives hold (and contemporary society ignorantly acquiesces) that equality and liberation are “unquestioned moral good[s] that no reasonable person could disagree with.”
Well, as JBP points out, it depends on your definitions. If those definitions are informed by Critical Theory the outcomes are, as Peterson says, “sub-optimal.”
I would say “morally indefensible.” The interviewer was so immersed in prejudice(s) immune to moral distinction that she couldn’t follow Peterson’s points and kept trying to put words in his mouth: To wit, her unthinking, reflexive arguments against positions she imagined he held. This is not the interview she was looking for.
And readers of Christina Hoff Sommers will recognize that she (Sommers) pointed this out – “boys and young men are now becoming increasingly alienated from the educational system” – long ago in The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men (2000).
As Peterson says at 22:10 of the interview, when asked why freedom of speech grants him the lattitude not to use transgender pronouns under force of law: “In order to be able to think, you have to risk being offensive.”
Peterson has done an interesting one-on-one conversation with Camille Paglia, I think he should also sit down with Sommers and Dr. Steven Pinker.
Afterthought.
A case can be made that the main problem with GOP politicians (they are hardly alone), is an unwillingness to offend. Too agreeable. To the extent this is true, it argues that a Trump is necessary – if still not sufficient. It does not argue that you have to go out of your way to offend everyday, however.