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| DATE | 2021-05-01 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Cancel THIS !!
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Opinion | The Man They Couldn=92t Cancel
Barton Swaim
11-14 minutes
The term =93cancel culture,=94 like =93political correctness=94 before it, =
is a
comical expression for an ugly cultural pathology. To be canceled=97an
older, closely related term is =93blacklisted=94=97is to have your public
persona or influence assailed, typically by a sizable mob, for some real
or perceived offense against progressive orthodoxy, whatever that
orthodoxy may hold at the moment. For that to happen, you must possess
some form of authority in the first place: an academic post, a political
office, a role in the entertainment industry, employment with a
=93mainstream=94 media organization, a voice as an intellectual or
imaginative writer.
But the targets of cancellation, having derived their legitimacy from
consensus left-liberal culture, are typically not very good at defending
themselves, or even understanding what happened to them. Often they
apologize, despite having said or done nothing wrong, which only
emboldens the cancelers. Or they fall back on pieties about free speech
and the marketplace of ideas, as if their tormentors still believed in
those principles.
One target of cancellation who is able to speak intelligently about it
is Jordan Peterson, the University of Toronto clinical psychologist,
YouTube lecturer, and author of =9312 Rules for Life: An Antidote to
Chaos=94 (2018) and =93Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life,=94 published in
March.
If you=92re an ordinary curious person, Mr. Peterson won=92t strike you as a
likely target for moral outrage. He brings together a dizzying array of
texts and traditions=97Jungian psychoanalysis, the Hebrew Bible and New
Testament, Frederick Nietzsche, S=F8ren Kierkegaard and much else=97to
formulate basic lessons, or =93rules,=94 about how humans might overcome
their natural tendency to lassitude and savagery. His books, podcasts
and lectures are impressively argued, frequently insightful and
occasionally abrasive presentations of various principles of wise living.
I don=92t share some of Mr. Peterson=92s philosophical premises and find in
his work points of disagreement, but there is much to appreciate and
nothing sinister in them. Twenty years ago very few people would have
considered him the intellectual subversive and moral monster many now
claim him to be. A few rules from his latest book: =93Do not do what you
hate,=94 =93Work as hard as you possibly can on at least one thing and see
what happens,=94 =93Try to make one room in your home as beautiful as possi=
ble.=94
Read More Weekend Interviews
Why has the political left taken a severe dislike to him? =93A lot of my
popularity derives from YouTube,=94 he says in a phone interview, =93and
YouTube skewed hard male for a long time, and is still mostly male. My
typical audience would probably be between 60/40 and 70/30 men to women.
There=92s nothing conspiratorial about that, and it wasn=92t because I was
talking specifically to young men. It might be that they=92re more
desperate for what I=92m saying.=94
The stereotypical Peterson fan, it=92s probably fair to say, is a young
white male whose life lacked structure and discipline but heard Mr.
Peterson=92s lectures and began to reorder his life. Mr. Peterson insists,
though, that his critics caricature his audience for their own ends.
=93There=92s this hypothetical group that I=92m helping,=94 he says: =93ang=
ry,
alienated, disenfranchised white-supremacist young males. First of all,
that=92s a lie. Second, even if it is disenfranchised young males who are
primarily responding to what I=92m saying, is there really something wrong
with me talking to them? Are they so beneath contempt that they don=92t
deserve anyone=92s attention?=94
Those who despise Mr. Peterson think of him as a member of =93the right=94
or even =93the far right.=94 I wouldn=92t describe him as a conservative=97=
his
interest lies in individual rather than societal order, and he says
little about public policy. But it=92s true that he not infrequently winds
up holding conservative viewpoints on cultural matters. In =93Beyond
Order,=94 for example, he makes the case for marriage over cohabitation
and readily acknowledges that children do better in two-parent families
than in single-parent ones. He also writes and speaks frequently on the
differences between masculinity and femininity.
But what put Mr. Peterson in the crosshairs of North America=92s cultural
arbiters was his vocal opposition to identity politics, and specifically
the totalitarian methods of militant transgenderism. In 2016 he ran
afoul of Bill C-16, legislation in the Canadian Parliament (later
enacted) that added =93gender identity or expression=94 to the list of
prohibited grounds of discrimination. In the course of that controversy
Mr. Peterson remarked that he would refuse to use contrived pronouns in
his classes. =93I regard these made-up pronouns, all of them, as
neologisms of a radical PC authoritarianism,=94 he said in 2016. =93I=92m n=
ot
going to be a mouthpiece for language I detest.=94
Since then he has been denounced as racist, misogynist, fascist and
transphobic. Occasionally violent protests against him have taken place
on the University of Toronto campus, and he is regularly shouted down at
speaking events. When Penguin Random House Canada announced that it
would publish =93Beyond Order,=94 its staff =93confronted management,=94
according to media reports, in a tearful town-hall meeting.
Contempt for the =93working class=94 by North America=92s =93liberal educat=
ed
elite,=94 is a major reason for his popularity, he says. =93There aren=92t
very many people with an encouraging voice,=94 Mr. Peterson says. =93Most of
the things you read by intellectuals=97not all, but it=92s a failing of
intellectuals=97most of it is criticism. Look what you=92re doing to the
planet. What a detestable bunch of wretches you are, with your rapacious
structures and your endless appetite and your desire for power. . . .
Look at what your ambition has done to the planet. How dare you!=94
Mr. Peterson doesn=92t directly challenge the substance of these dreary
criticisms. Rather he protests that they=92re unnatural and unhealthy.
=93The proper attitude toward young people is encouragement,=94 he
says=97=93their ambitions, their strivings, their desire to be competent,
their deep wish for a trustworthy guiding hand. I think our culture is
so cynical that it=92s impossible, especially for the established
intellectual chattering critics, to even imagine that encouragement is
possible.=94
When I ask what he thinks is driving the effort to destroy him and
others who hold heterodox views, he diagnoses his persecutors as though
they=92re exactly the sort of young people who wander into his lectures or
buy his books looking for structure and purpose. His admirers and his
fiercest detractors are, in his mind, not so different from each other.
Part of what drives these young moralistic firebrands, he thinks, is the
despairing outlook of the contemporary left. =93Whenever you see that
level of contempt manifest itself, that desire to flog and destroy, you
have to ask yourself: How deep is that? The idea that we=92re a cancer on
the planet=97well, what do you do with cancer? You eradicate it. I=92ve
heard environmentally sensitive types say that, and it=92s horrifying.
They=92re completely blind to what they=92re saying. If they weren=92t blind
to it, they=92d be traumatized by it.=94
The mention of environmentalism brings to mind the cultish side of
modern progressivism. Is this desire to flog and destroy, as he puts it,
a sign of some twisted spiritual longing? =93I think so,=94 Mr. Peterson
says. =93The people who caricature Western society as a patriarchy, and
then describe it as evil, they=92re possessed by a religious idea.=94 He
thinks the problem with modern enlightenment intellectuals=97he names the
American philosopher Sam Harris, the British conservative writer Matt
Ridley and the British broadcaster and writer Stephen Fry, all
atheists=97is that they offer no mythology, no =93adventure.=94
=93They leave this nihilistic nothingness in their wake, and what
happens?=94 he says. =93These kids turn to radical political correctness.=
=94
Messrs. Harris, Ridley, Fry, et al. aren=92t happy about political
correctness, Mr. Peterson notes, but =93what did they expect to happen?
Did they expect these kids would settle for their insipid rationalism?=94
This search for a metaphysical teleology denied young people by =93insipid
rationalism,=94 in his view, is also =93what motivates antifa and Black
Lives Matter and white nationalism and all these other romantic
revolutionary rebellions. It=92s the romance and the heroism these
movements offer.=94 Mr. Peterson recalls the famous line of George Orwell
in his review of =93Mein Kampf=94 in 1940: =93Whereas Socialism, and even
capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people =91I offer you a
good time,=92 Hitler has said to them =91I offer you struggle, danger and
death,=92 and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet.=94
Taking Orwell=92s terms =93socialism=94 and =93capitalism=94 both to mean,
roughly, life without transcendence or any hint of the supernatural, the
point seems defensible. Mr. Peterson thinks atheistic materialism has
nothing to compare to religious worldviews. Rather than telling people
simply not to do bad things, he says, =93the right approach is to say to
them: Here=92s a better adventure. Now go conquer your own demons.=94
In the end, Mr. Peterson hasn=92t been successfully canceled. He retains
his academic post; his YouTube lectures and podcasts have not been
scrubbed from the internet; and his publishers stuck with his books,
which are available for purchase. This is true for basically two
reasons. The first is that he has tried to understand his would-be
cancelers and thinks of them almost as outpatients. He speaks in gentle,
clinical terms about a reporter for the New York Times who in 2018 wrote
a scathing piece about him headlined =93Jordan Peterson, Custodian of the
Patriarchy=94 and later posted online what sounded like a confession (=93The
roar of Twitter on my side meant the kill was justified and good=94). He
has, as best I can tell, genuine pity for this writer.
The second reason follows from the first. The cancelers=92 strange
fixations mean that apologizing to them is folly. Mr. Peterson hasn=92t
apologized or disavowed any previous statement. Now there=92s a rule for
his next book: Don=92t apologize when you haven=92t done anything wrong.
-- =
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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