Jordan Peterson, a tough guy in his own mind, wants to live in a world in which intellectual arguments can be resolved with fisticuffs. Yesterday on Twitter, he suggested that Joe Rogan, on whose podcast he’s made several appearances, should punch out former MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann for calling him a “dipshit.”
I like that he put Keith’ Olbermann’s first name in scare quotes, for some unknown reason. And that he snitch-tagged Rogan so that he’s be sure to see both Olbermann’s insult and Peterson’s suggestion of how best to deal with this impertinence.
This isn’t particularly surprising behavior from Peterson, who has a long history of publicly fantasizing about violence, usually with himself as the bringer of a fist to the face. You can see some examples in this Twitter thread, including my favorite one of all:
This is how 12-year-old boys think. It’s astonishing to me that Peterson is considered a role model for anybody. Clean your room, bucko — and clear you head of all this violence.
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@tim gueguen: Indeed. And he fantasized about going on a hunger strike after his imminent arrest and becoming a literal free speech martyr.
To be honest with you guys, all 5 feet 100 pounds of me could take down Peterson, and I got winded putting on pants today. in my current physical condition, I could take this guy down with a cough. Peterson needs to take several seats.
LollyPop:
It was mainly just baffling in the moment since, as noted, I was just beginning to understand what was going on. I’m not used to considering people as a threat (much privilege!) but I to tend intuitively shy away from confrontations and even mildly scary situations. It’s not even very calculated or anything. I thank my progressive upbringing for being able to run away without feeling shame.
Off-topic, but did any of y’all catch Laura Ingraham’s disturbingly gleeful reaction to the news that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has apparently tested positive for Covid?
Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fox-news-host-laura-ingraham-s-glee-at-general-s-covid-diagnosis-sparks-outrage/ar-AASUja3?ocid=undefined
The subreddit that keeps the running total of all the folk arrested for using the wrong pronouns – https://www.reddit.com/r/ArrestedCanadaBillC16/
>I like that he put Keith’ Olbermann’s first name in scare quotes, for some unknown reason.
I think it’s because conservatives have gotten used to putting trans people’s names in scare quotes, so now they’re just doing it to everyone they don’t like.
@occasional reader – Thanks! And yes, fair point. I didn’t mean to suggest lots of politicians have bodyguards, but it might have sounded that way! I meant elected officials are more likely to have the kind of social power (riches, fame) that many journalists don’t (unless they’re TV reporters on a big news channel, for example). So it’s not that politicians aren’t vulnerable, but journalists might be more so.
…Then again, if you’re perceived as important, you could be targeted for violence – like the member of parliament in the UK who was killed, or the several U.S. presidents in the past. So I’m not sure what would be a greater risk overall, but it seems especially unfair to go after journalists.
Jordan Peterson has resigned from the University of Toronto. All that woke stuff chased him away.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2022/01/19/jordan-peterson-quits/
@tim
And there was much rejoicing.
@tim
And there was much rejoicing.
Oops. Feel free to delete one of the rejoicings.
I got dumped back to the start and figured the comment had been eaten.
You’ve gotta love how the Pharyngula article uses an “angry troll” graphic and Comic Sans whenever it quotes Peterson, but no troll graphic and no Comic Sans when quoting other sources. 🙂
Then there’s this from one of the comments:
That “higher reported happiness in conservatives” would be the translation into hi-falutin’ academic speech of the commonplace observation “ignorance is bliss”.
@Surplus:
Pharyngula has a long history of using the troll/Comic Sans quoting for quoting people seen as ridiculous. Which given the usual ‘beat’ of Pharyngula, usually means creationists like Kent Hovind or the like. (In fact, if you look at the HTML source code, it actually has <blockquote class=”creationist”%gt; for that.) The ‘troll’ is actually a cartoon version of the loud and stupid ‘Mr. Gumby’ character from Monty Python.
@ surplus
I don’t think that’s right because all the conservatives I meet are always angry about something and it’s normally something small. Like my aunt gets mad Every time she see a poc in a relationship with a white person on tv. She’s still stuck on the “they never should have allowed that to happen “way of thinking and frankly, they all seem to just get mad at any small thing.
A tattoo on a woman, rage.
A boy not wearing a belt, rage.
Someone not letting their cat outside so it can get hit by a car or eaten by bigger animals, rage
Like not offended but actual rage about what a stranger is doing and i dont understand it
You mean, they’re really like those propagandists on Fox Noise? That’s not just actors acting? Yikes.
I’m not sure how this has been missed- is this perhaps a disproportionately cisgender commentariat?- but the implication is clearly that Olbermann’s politics are explained by his being secretly trans. If there were any merit to it, it would make the sports reporters of recent decades rather more progressive than assumed.
@Lollypop Men firing above or away from their officers’ intended targets can also be a conscious political tactic. For example, a noted resistance tactic in Vietnam for Vietnamese fighters and Black Americans alike was to make silent eye contact and move away in opposite directions. Impossible to prove, but every bit as effective as fragging.
@tim gueguen The logic was supposedly that gender identity being recognized as a site of human rights violation, plus Ontario’s existing law requiring him to use students’ pronouns (apparently unenforced!), meant he would soon be a “Criminal”. There is probably a kernel of truth in that his already-unlawful behavior had been tolerated, but was unlikely to be tolerated further in a climate where universities would be more accountable to trans people as such.
My grandfathers could have told Dr Peterson that the acme of adult masculinity was staying indoors and studying, siring children and teaching them, and earning a living. Fighting has nothing to do with it.
Peterson is such a pussy that he would get his ass kicked easily. This guy is such a loser.
I changed my mind about this. I am not a fan of Jordan Peterson and his books are just garden variety self help books. However, I think he is really losing it with his benzo addiction and other health problems. Additionally, Peterson is being used and played by the various YouTube personalities and that meathead, Joe Rogan. Plus, his daughter, Mikala, has some very questionable motives with him. Even though he was out of line with this comment, I kind of feel bad for him. He opened a toxic Pandora’s box, that he can’t get out of.