By David Futrelle
Browsing the Jordan Peterson subreddit today, I scrolled past the link to an article on a right-wing clickbait site asserting that “Hate Crime Hoaxes are More Common than You Think.”
I paused for a moment at a post denouncing “More State Enforced Cultural Marxism” — by which the OP meant programs to teach children that gay and trans people exist. I sighed a little at the post declaring that “It is time to talk about female privilege.” (Pretty sure it isn’t.)
But I stopped dead at this post:
Was this person reading the same subreddit I was? I scrolled up to the top of the page. Yep, I was remembering correctly: this was still the literal top unstickied post, with more than 200 upvotes, complaining about a joke on Twitter suggesting that perhaps it was a teensy bit silly for white dudes to get quite so bent out of shape about a woman playing Captain Marvel:
Huh, I wondered. Was it possible that perhaps the victimhood-lamenters of the Jordan Peterson subreddit kind of, sort of, like playing the victims themselves?
No, I thought, that couldn’t be true.That would be too hypocritical, even for them, I must be wrong.
I mean, it’s not like the Jordan Peterson subreddit is chock-full of whiny laments by white dudes convinced they’re being denied their rightful share of success by evil SJWs and unqualified people of color.
Oh wait.
It’s not like some of them have convinced themselves that “neo-Marxist” SJWs and uppity “Black Females” are conspiring to destroy their careers, deny them healthcare, and take away their right to vote.
It’s not like they’re furious that men might no longer be celebrated as the noble heroes responsible for every good thing accomplished in the history of Western Civilization — including all a dose paintings by da ottist youse all may know as da Vince!
It’s not like they’re furious at the SJW’s supposed anti-white-male-doctor agenda — whether the doctors in question are real or fictional.
In the comments to that post, one of the more reasonable Jordan Peterson fans concedes that maybe only “97-98 out of a 100” real-world heroes are men.
It must be hard for members of such a truly oppressed class to ward off the temptation to play the victim. I, for one, salute the denizens of the Jordan Peterson subreddit for their heroism in standing up against victimhood culture.
NOTE FOR EXTREMELY LITERAL-MINDED READERS: Post may contain sarcasm.
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There’s just no question that white men are being rode out of town on a rail in numbers WAAAYYYY too large to ignore…
….
It’s kinda a wonder the neighbors haven’t noticed….
(/s)
… or should I type: (((/s)))
Let me tell you a story.
The youth teacher at my church had a picture posted, on Facebook, with his own wife and Jordan Peterson. The caption said “My hero and my heart.”
Almost puked on my keyboard.
Let x ∈ ∅ …
Oh.
Nevermind, then.
He was confirmed to the Supreme Court. He’s one of the most powerful people in the United States. What would happen if he wasn’t “scalped”? Would he be Judge King Kavanaugh, first of his name?
@Viscaria: That was merely an attempted scalping. It only failed because of the few brave, brave folks who stood up against the mean liberals. If it had been successful, he would merely have been a common judge, and we can’t have that now, can we?
@Snowberry:
And let us note that one of those brave folks – the decisive one, in fact – was a woman. Ya don’t get ta complain, libruls! (Though you do get to vote her out in two years.)
As for the “da Vince” post: I don’t want to get Reddit cooties on my computer, so do I want to know what he’s on about? How are “Cultural Marxists” calling Leonardo a monster? Or is that code for “Stop making me aware that an indisputably brilliant white man was just as indisputably gay! Please don’t make me know that!!!” ?
And here comes the Peterson Stans to defend their master.
@Rabid Rabbit
I checked it out. There’s an article from two years ago questioning da Vinci’s relationship with Salai, arguing that the age difference between the two is abusive.
@Bakunin:
You are a braver human than I.
That being said, that’s one of the tougher ones. From our viewpoint, yes, automatically; from a century before the concept of adolescence existed (and the age expectancy meant that 40 was old), and when older-man/younger-man relationships were praised philosophically and were the acceptable form of homosexuality… It’s the old conundrum about Sparta: From our viewpoint, they were all horribly abused, but because they were all abused, none of them would see it that way: so if the abusers don’t think they’re abusing, and the abused don’t think they’re abused, and the whole society thinks it’s fine and, for that matter, encourages it, and everyone’s fine with it, who the hell are we to insist otherwise?
No. The mean life expectancy was ~35-40, but that’s a statistical artifact of infant mortality. If you lived past 6 you were a pretty good bet to see 60. Seeing 80 was a hell of a lot rarer then than it is now, though.
Yes, but that still means that being 40 meant being a lot older than it does today (2/3 or your life rather than half, for instance).
And today in “we focus so much on ourselves but still have no self-awareness”: Everyone acts like a victim but poor, poor me!
The important thing to remember is that “victimhood” consists of complaining about the fact that you are subject to all sorts of problems, difficulties and inconveniences you would not have suffered if you were white and male, and somehow expecting that you shouldn’t be. These difficulties are the inevitable result of you not being super-awesome like white males are, and you should STFU and live with it.
OTOH white males are super-awesome so can quite legitimately complain when they are unfairly victimised because of their being super-awesome, which they obviously can’t help.
They are two different things.
(/s – but did I really need to say that?)
These posts would be perfect for a game called “Peterson Fan or White Supremacist?” where you have to guess whether the comment came from Jordan Peterson’s followers or white supremacists. No matter what you guess though, every time it’s a trick question, cause they’re the same thing.
OT: I just got the new Specials album “Encore” and found that they’d invited Saffiyah Khan (the awesome young woman who faced down angry EDL bigots in Birmingham) to be on it. She does a sort of response to Prince Buster’s Ten Commandments with some commandments of her own and it’s pretty awesome.
Apparently, she’d been wearing a Specials t-shirt when she faced down the EDL thugs and The Specials had seen the images and been so impressed with her, they contacted her about being on their album.
Happy listening. If you like The Specials. But who the hell doesn’t?
@David F.
Since when do your posts “contain sarcasm”?! I don’t know if I can get used to this new facet of your personality.
I’ve been told many things in my life. Some of these things were true.
Here’s the thing about the alt-right (and the right in general.
They’re obsessively projecting.
All the snarking about the “culture of victimhood”?
They spend all day bemoaning how oppressed and victimized they are by feminists, affirmative action, the gay agenda, sjws, etc.
All that posturing about how they’re Alpha Males and the left are soft little soyboys? They’re all doughy neckbeards who’s last girlfriend bailed on them 2 years ago after getting tired of pretending to agree with their increasingly unhinged rants about ‘cultural Marxism’. They haven’t done anything more ‘alpha’ than managing a 10 game win streak on Call of Duty
All the smirking about how leftists are “npcs” and not great philosophers like them?
They spend their days endlessly repeating the same regurgitated talking points from Sargin of Akkad or whoever.
The rants about how “men and whites built civilization”?
They haven’t contributed a goddamn thing to society, and they know it, and it eats them up inside.
There’s nothing more pathetic than a right ering white dude complaining about others “playing the victim”. That’s all they do, they’re just mad because they don’t have a valid reason to claim oppression.
Ugh, typos that I couldn’t correct inside the deadline thanks to some weirdness with my browser.
Ah well, the point got across.
Well the thing about quotas for white men might have a little truth in it. I’ve heard that some big Hollywood names like Merryl Streep are considering adding diversity riders to their contracts: “I will not act in your film unless some of the people behind the camera are not whitemen .” If they actually go ahead and do it, maybe only 90% of the jobs will be open to white men, who are less than 30% of the US population. It’s a quota, sort of.
@ Kat:
You shouldn’t mock the use of “I’ve Been Told”… it is the ABSOLUTE PINNACLE of igno-right proof… even more compelling than “Everybody Knows”….
@Alexis Filth
It’s an odd way in which they seem to conceive of “victimhood.” They seem to have this idea that if any self-identifying group (like feminists or anti-racists or trans activists) acknowledge themselves as systemically disadvantaged that it makes them defined by their victimhood to the point that they’re unable to look “rationally” at a resolution to that disadvantage. Because a lot of these assclowns have mistaken detached dispassion for intellect and thus caring too much or having some personal skin in any given game makes one “biased”, which they also mistake as a “logical fallacy” when it isn’t.
It’s a telling aspect that all of their feigned victimhood is so low-stakes. No doubt they’ve invested a lot of their identities into their little niche subcultures like “gamer” or “white male”, but these are still identities that have moneyed interests catering to them, so it’s not like their very concepts of self are about to collapse from a handful of thinkpieces. It might feel that way for the hot moment they see it because they’re so unused to being criticized, but you can tell that it hasn’t really penetrated deep because they’re quick to use “victimhood” as a snarl word.
It’s a lot like how white supremacists make use of a grandiose bogeyman like (((da j00s))): white people would be undisputed rulers of the entire world right now if it weren’t for those people constantly getting in the way with their multicultural communism or whatever, and that’s the only reason that the clearly superior beings aren’t currently superior. So they’ll whine a lot about the outrage du jour, but they’re not victims because they’re still the galaxy brains compared to the rest of us professional victims.
Uh, I don’t pay that much attention to comics or the movies based on them, but haven’t there been several characters both male and female who went by the name Captain Marvel?
This is even dumber than the whining over the Ghostbusters reboot since there is precedent in canon for Captain Marvel being a woman.
Clearly they’re just covering their bases. Don’t be silly, [insert marginalized group here]! Oppression don’t real!
… And if oppression DO real, then it’s definitely straight white men who are the MOST oppressed! Because reasons. Checkmate, leftists.
@kobun37
For starters 3, from 3 different companies (Marvel, Fawcett (sued into oblivion then bought by DC), and one I don’t remember), all white dudes (one magically powered, one alien, one a robot). The Fawcett/DC one has a whole extended family of similarly powered individuals (if memory serves including a bunny), the Marvel one died and his name was taken one time or another by at least 4 different characters (3 women, 1 man).