By David Futrelle
I ran across this Tweet this morning from an intrepid Jordan Peterson debunker on Twitter and, well, it’s pretty much spot on:
https://twitter.com/zei_nabq/status/1083015376022224896
For evidence of this, we need look no further than some of the off-the-cuff comments about birth control and the allegedly scary consequences of women controlling their own sexuality that Peterson recently made to a small audience that included, among others, Charlie Kirk, “Bumble Jack” Posobiec, and weirdo MAGA couple Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle at Turning Point USA’s annual Student Action Summit.
As Sam Seder points out in this clip from his Majority Report show, Peterson seems to be pushing the idea that what he sees as feminists’ preoccupation with sexual consent is basically a left-wing “sexual taboo” roughly equivalent to the right-wing “taboo” against gay sex. (Peterson being Peterson, he doesn’t quite come out and say this outright.)
Sam has been taking on Peterson’s nonsense for some time. Here’s another video in which Sam discusses a Peterson appearance on the Joe Rogan show in which Rogan, an oddball in his own right but still pretty sharp, gobsmacks the Canadian beef-eater by pointing out a very basic issue with his promotion of “enforced monogamy.”
While Peterson’s utterances do seem to be getting weirder by the day, he’s been saying awful crap about the often fraught relationship between women and men for years. And for a time, during a sort of pickup artist phase, he did so dressed like a 1930s gangster.
Sam’s got a video on that, too.
And this guy is seen as a leading light in the “intellectual dark web.” It’s really a testament to how fucked up this political moment is that a cornball weirdo like Peterson is taken seriously by anyone at all, much less the adoring throngs that attend his talks and watch his videos and buy his books.
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I will give Jason D. some credit for warning us we’re weakening Western Civ and letting the Chinese win, instead of warning us that we’re weakening Western Civ so the Muslims can impose a caliphate on us. (Being a Canadian I’m far more worried about some Dominionist taking power in the US, making a mess there, and then deciding Canada is next, than the Chinese.)
@tim gueguen
Eh, the Chinese simultaneously make a convenient bogeyman and role model for neoreactionaries. They appear to be ‘winning’ in ways that the West is not (economically ascendant, internally stable, militarily strong), and haven’t gone ‘soft’ the way the West has (i.e. they’re still authoritarian, with a power structure generally based around men from the majority ethnicity, and very technocratic). Furthermore, trying to sell centrists on the idea that this is about economic survival rather than white genocide generally makes it an easier pill to swallow.
Never mind that between the 1940s and 1970s when there was a sustained period of growth, an increasing middle class and the US became a superpower, we had economic policies that are now considered horribly unrealistic and socialist by conservatives and the centrists that enable them.
It pisses me off so much that people wax nostalgic about the good old days but reject the part that made them good, because a solid economy, wage growth and growing middle class is no fun if it isn’t whites only. I will just never comprehend why people can be so racist that they’d rather suffer so long as black and brown people suffer more.
@weirwoodtreehugger: chief manatee:
Yeah, it’s a bit much watching centrist bootlickers like Anderson Cooper tut and clutch his pearls at AOC for daring to suggest the 1% be taxed at a marginal rate of 70% when they were taxed at much higher rates during the 1950s.
The neoliberals have had since the 70s to prove their half-baked trickle-down/ supply-side/ whatever-they’re-calling-it-this-week bullshit theories and this is where it’s gotten us: an unprecedented period of increased productivity brought about by technology, but spiraling debt and wage stagnation that’s pretty much lasted my whole life. But meanwhile, there’s no shortage of internet ignoramuses to tell me I’m living in a neo-Marxist utopia, no less!
The level of historical ignorance among the American general population is jaw dropping. I was in History of Labor class once – a graduate-level class, mind you (and one I was taking outside my field) – and not one of the students besides me had heard of company towns.
I mean seriously: what the fuck?
Racism is like a giant cognitive black hole for me; I feel like I have a handle (in an intellectual way) on the psychological factors that drive most people’s attitudes, but nothing about racism makes any kind of sense to me.
The best I can come up with is that it’s lazy thinking, but that strikes me as far too shallow and placid a state to be the source of something so emotionally charged.
I just don’t get it.
I’m still studying the art of war, most recently by an analysis of the Marching Song of the First Arkansas.
Makes me mad, though, that twentieth-century versions sung by supposed “liberals” still took out the verse about reparations.
Gaebolga said
To be fair, I never had either until fairly recently, probably the 1990s.
But as a child in the 1960s, I did pick up what Tennessee Ernie Ford was putting down in the song “Sixteen Tons”* When I did hear the term, it didn’t take me long to extrapolate.
*My parents had the album and explained the line about owing “my soul to the company store”. The only reason they knew was because my dad’s buddy from work explained it to him. He was from West Virginia coal country and only escaped by enlisting during WWII.
o.O How did you guys not hear about company towns? We covered them in both middle school and high school. It’s the only part of the labor movement we did cover, as – since it’s largely not a thing anymore – it’s a safe thing to blame the rise of unions on.
@Gaebolga
A good way I’ve seen this explained is that voting/making decisions based on racism is an economic decision being made about social capital. Just as you aren’t rich unless other people have less than you, if you have racial capital, it only has value if other people have less of it than you. So when people make economically disadvantageous decisions for racist reasons, they’re sacrificing economic capital they might gain, in favor of the social capital they already have.
See if I can actually leave the link on a second attempt.
Haven’t been here in awhile, but this is quite an interesting thread. I don’t think I’ve seen so many trolls here before. And why don’t any of them want to take on Scildfreja Unnyones? It doesn’t take a great intellect, or even an erudite lobster boy – to dance and deflect. And all the lobster deflection doesn’t mean readers don’t notice the wise one’s reticence to debate a challenging opponent.
@Katherine the Adequate
At a guess, because when it comes to intellectual argument, Scildfreja is a shining example of what they like to think their hero is (clear, unanswerable, and terrifyingly erudite), and the difference is a bit too much to stomach.
http://www.clipartmax.com/png/middle/220-2209649_fluttershy-blush-by-cptofthefriendship-fluttershy-blush.png
@Scildfreja Unnyðnes:
I hope it’s not too weird that I keep picturing you as Fluttershy whenever I read your comments on here… What I’m trying to say here is that I imagine a yellow pegasus with pink hair typing on a computer keyboard whilst making exasperated noises.
Yes, I know I’m weird. ô.Ô
http://pm1.narvii.com/6696/e38c1f46955de0abc7002ee1a87daab93428a078_00.jpg
Working As Intended
Dear lord the Peterson fanbabies are a bunch of sad little impotent manbabies wagging their thesaurus around to make up for their, *ahem* inadequacies.
Boys facts may not care about feelings but also reality doesn’t change just because you throw a bunch of 50 cent words around. You’re still a bunch of pathetic, mediocre failures that no one will ever care about or love.
Pavlovs House – thank you for the mention of the Marching Song! I’d never heard of it, and it’s wonderful.
None of them wanted to take on Scildfreja because she could easily out cite (outcite?) and out argue them with the proverbial hand behind her back. Honestly the contest is so uneven that in fairness we should start handicapping Scildfreja in some way.
@Gaebolga
As for the racism, I don’t understand it either and I did like the ideas about social and economic capital. I will add that the amount of propaganda, both conscious and unconscious, in the media and entertainment we see both creates and upholds internalized misogyny and racism especially when it comes to racism against Africans in the United States. Though perhaps I’m being too optimistic about it being centered on African Americans considering how much fear and hatred of Mexicans I encounter in the bizarre desert of the West.
There has been a little progress in that we see a few more actors and actresses of color playing roles that aren’t directly related to their race, but in a weird way that often seems to provide an opportunity to put the status quo racist messages in at a more meta level.
I also think fear is used as a bludgeon. Not just the oft cited economic insecurity but fear for survival, physical and existential. Existential fears help keep people from seeing each other and forming effective resistance. Can’t team up with people who are seen as an other, even if you share the same problems. But this alas turns out to be an expatiation on the methods of social and economic capital. My bad.
Are we a feminist, Marxist utopia now? Funny, because somehow I thought that would look different.
1st video JBP said ‘encapsulation of sexual behavior within marriage’ and ‘affirmative consent’. So nothing about rape nor gay sex. You have to be trying really hard not to understand him or you are just willfully misinterpreting what he says. Why is that?
Also what is your opinion on Aziz Ansari story?
2nd video – what exactly do you call promotion? What do you understand when JBP says ‘enforced monogamy’? Would you not call taxation where ‘The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (39.0 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (29.4 percent)’ enforced redistribution of income? Why is it OK to ‘promote’ that but not ‘promote’ ‘enforced monogamy’? Do you have to ‘promote’ all redistribution to be able to ‘promote’ the one you prefer or what exactly is the ‘very basic issue’? What do you think is JBPs opinion on wealth imbalance? Did you even check?
3rd video – here’s the whole clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeL-Fn0V8iU for context. What exactly is the awful crap?
‘OMG, weird fashion choice, that must be a really bad man’ – is that your sophisticated argument?
Wtf is this crap
Why the fuck would i care what jordie p says about money and taxes?
Newsflash, genius: women are people. Money is something that the rich hoards at the expense of everyone else.
Why would you even equate the two?
The only way you would is because you think that women are the gatekeepers to sex that men should be getting, and not actual people with thoughts and feelings and… oh. Okay, i get it.
Re: the ‘context’ – no. If someone describes women as objects who hoard the sex that would pacify murderers so they don’t murder, i don’t care what he has to say. He’s dead to me.
Re – Aziz Ansari – wtf does this have to do with Jordie P? You are talking about one thing, let’s focus on that, shall we?
Now let’s see if you are another cowardly drive by, or if you will respond. My money is on drive-by, so…
I saw a video of a jp interview regarding women in the workplace. How he couldn’t say everything he wanted to say because feeeeeeemales were in the room, or some shit. He was angry bc he couldn’t bring out the locker room talk or some shit like that. He was seething. His hatred towards women is fucking scary. When he talks about women specifically you can see the rage and indignation all over his fucking face.
Every single person who likes jp can kiss my fucking female ass. anybody who defends such a pos is a pos themselves and wears their misogyny on their sleeve.
I SEE YOU JP FANS. Just admit you hate women. It will make this whole dance easier for all of us.
@Criannon
Lobsterman sounds a lot like an incel. And yes: One can be an incel while being married. It’s a state of mind.
Also, the fact that you compared women to money makes you a human-shaped pile of shit.
The irony at all these manosphere types arguing for some form of ‘sexual socialism’ is that they’d argue actual socialism and fair redistribution of wealth and resources (as opposed to, you know, people) was some form of tyranny.
I got directed here by Google.
Have you invited Peterson yet for a discussion? He says he values free speech and he doesn’t aim at winning any discussion.
There is a divide among people in the Western world between (feminists and equalists?) (progressives and regressives?) (help me out?). In other countries very few people understand “modern feminism”. Here in Vietnam they see equal opportunities for most people and their freedom to choose how to fill in their lives. They agree man and women have equal rights but make different choices. Very few people understand what “modern feminism” is all about. Also I see equal opportunities and different choices / different abilities, mainly between men and women.
The way I get it, JP in above video mentions the “rape culture”. Leftist media have been filled with statements how bad it is for men to clumsily approach women. Sometimes it sounds like this: a man touches a woman, and she shouts rape. Hugging is not allowed anymore in some offices. Making avances has become (close to) impossible for the many men who have been subjected to those stories. Nothing is allowed exept “may I touch you?”. As a result these men are very afraid to express themselves romantically, and they become very sad because every ancestor they ever had before them had intercourse just for them to exist: it’s natural.
So far I failed to find any youtube vids where people explain what CAN be done. Yet my parents conceived me without the questions “may I touch you?”, “may I kiss you?” and “I’d like to have sex with you, if you agree”. In my mother’s words: “It just happened” which I can’t place in any context except for that insanely long journey I went on to discover that those “feelings” women talk about are very very real because women and men can have identical feelings together, but men (I) have a hard time realizing what we (I) really feel. I have yet to meet a man who has an incling of understanding of what I just wrote.
Hence: everyone likes sex because of their heritage. Men try to express themselves but only clinicly stupid/uneducated/miseducated/desperate/violent…… men actually commit rape.
There is a big difference between actual rape and the stories in many of the main stream media.
Now tell me: how badly informed am I?
Waiting for your reply I remain,
Eddi.
No, I wouldn’t.
You obviously would, and that rhetorical choice is a pretty clear indication that you’re rather far down on the conservative side of the spectrum…well, that and the fact that you’re a Peterast.
Would you not call an economic system where the top 1 percent can buy legislation that makes it much easier to legally steal money from the other 99 percent deeply corrupt?
Would you not call paying for the infrastructure and services that allow the 1 percent to keep their wealth intact rather than having to literally build and finance their own personal fortress and army to do so “paying their fair share”? After all, they have a lot more to lose than the other 99 percent, so why shouldn’t they pay more?
And besides, if you’re paying 12 percent tax on your $25K per year income, that leaves you with $22,000 to live on each year, whereas if you’re paying 37 percent tax on your $10M per year income, that leaves you with $6.3M to live on each year.
Such unimaginable suffering. How can the 1 percent possibly survive that level of economic injustice?
Women’s bodies are not resources or commodities. You cannot compare redistributing us to redistributing income.
Also, ‘income redistribution is a loaded term for taxation and it encompasses a whole lot of biases and faulty assumptions about what taxation is and why it is needed. That misogynists need to use this loaded language to make comparison between taxation and enforced monogamy just adds an extra level of fail to the analogy.
I’d say Criannon needs to defend that taxation should be referred to as income redristibution in the first place to even begin defending the analogy, but I don’t particularly want to read some libertarian screed, so nah. I’ll just call him a troll for now.