Jordan Peterson

[ruby sparks]

Prejudice is prejudice, prejudging and treating people according to their race or gender is racism and sexism. It doesn't stop being so based on whether the person doing it is liberal or conservative, or whether the person doing so is looking to help "the oppressed" or not.

Once again, I'm sceptical. What we might call 'reverse racism' is not the same as and can't be readily equated to racism against disadvantaged minorities. Often, imo, what passes for or is felt to be reverse racism is just rebalancing, which does, it's true, involve a relative 'loss' for the historically advantaged group.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I get the point about 'not especially privileged' white males being fed up with being told they're privileged.

Do you also get the point about many of us non-white people being fed up with being told we are X or Y and hold these or those specific interest just because of our race?

What worries me (quite a bit) is the motives of the anti-IP's. Are they really for universality and inclusion and an end to inequalities, or are they secretly just trying to maintain the status quo?

They may be honest, and even if they are not, then why not echo their words and hold them to their words so long as their words are about inclusion and against prejudice?

To me, the solution is not 'blind' policies, it's policies that aim for universality and inclusion of minorities, but without pretending they don't exist, as groups, or have real disadvantages, in group terms. In other words, the solution is what people like Martin Luther King was banging on about.

I have traits and interests in common with some people, but I don't exist as a group. There is no monolith that I belong to, in which I will tolerate you switching me in and out as a cog interchangeable with others you assign to my group identity.

Do you want to exist as a group, as white people? Along with Donald Trump and the KKK? You don't share their interests just because you are white, right? Don't presume people of other races share the same interests with one another either.

What's supposedly one of the 'worst' and most-cited examples of Identity Politics gone divisive?

The best example in US history is the KKK. They don't speak for you, right? You don't share their "white interests" right? You are an individual. You have a quite a different identity than they do, right?

Jordan Peterson, bringing this back on topic, spoke about this regarding transexual individuals, and how the protesters and pushers of the gender pronoun hysteria were representative of many transexual individuals who wrote him and thanked him for what he had said. Likewise, there are plenty of hispanics who do not hold "immigration" as their core issue. Some of them were born here after many generations or immigrated here legally and side against illegal immigration amnesty. There are also plenty of pro-life women out there. None of these people are traitors to their identity just because they are "minorities within the minorities".

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

What we might call 'reverse racism' is not the same as and can't be readily equated to racism against disadvantaged minorities.

First, there is no "reverse racism". There is only racism.

Second, me treating you badly because you are white is no more excusable than you treating me badly because I'm not, and both are racism for the exact same reason. They are equally inexcusable. What isn't usually the same is the societal framework and power structure (though sometimes it IS the same, and sometimes it is even reversed).

Black people CAN be racist, and many are, just as many white people are, and many asian and latino people are. It is equally inexcusable regardless of the race of the person doing it and the race of the person it is done to.

Saying black racists are any more excusable than white racists is itself racist, and is exactly the kind of identity politics bullshit that divides people, and plays directly into the hands of white racists.

The same logic goes for male victims of domestic violence, by the way (they matter just as much as female victims of it), and other people who are diminished because of the groups people identify them with instead of looking at them as individuals.

 

[ruby sparks]

Do you also get the point about many of us non-white people being fed up with being told we are X or Y and hold these or those specific interest just because of our race?



They may be honest, and even if they are not, then why not echo their words and hold them to their words so long as their words are about inclusion and against prejudice?

To me, the solution is not 'blind' policies, it's policies that aim for universality and inclusion of minorities, but without pretending they don't exist, as groups, or have real disadvantages, in group terms. In other words, the solution is what people like Martin Luther King was banging on about.

I have traits and interests in common with some people, but I don't exist as a group. There is no monolith that I belong to, in which I will tolerate you switching me in and out as a cog interchangeable with others you assign to my group identity.

Do you want to exist as a group, as white people? Along with Donald Trump and the KKK? You don't share their interests just because you are white, right? Don't presume people of other races share the same interests with one another either.

What's supposedly one of the 'worst' and most-cited examples of Identity Politics gone divisive?

The best example in US history is the KKK. They don't speak for you, right? You don't share their "white interests" right? You are an individual. You have a quite a different identity than they do, right?

Jordan Peterson, bringing this back on topic, spoke about this regarding transexual individuals, and how the protesters and pushers of the gender pronoun hysteria were representative of many transexual individuals who wrote him and thanked him for what he had said. Likewise, there are plenty of hispanics who do not hold "immigration" as their core issue. Some of them were born here after many generations or immigrated here legally and side against illegal immigration amnesty. There are also plenty of pro-life women out there. None of these people are traitors to their identity just because they are "minorities within the minorities".

But that's all obvious. But it's a false dichotomy to say say either I'm an individual or I'm part of a group. So it's not a 'groups paradigm bad, Individuals paradigms good' thing or the reverse. But that often seems to be the level of discourse.

 

[ruby sparks]

What we might call 'reverse racism' is not the same as and can't be readily equated to racism against disadvantaged minorities.

First, there is no "reverse racism". There is only racism.

Second, me treating you badly because you are white is no more excusable than you treating me badly because I'm not, and both are racism for the exact same reason. They are equally inexcusable. What isn't usually the same is the societal framework and power structure (though sometimes it IS the same, and sometimes it is even reversed).

Black people CAN be racist, and many are, just as many white people are, and many asian and latino people are. It is equally inexcusable regardless of the race of the person doing it and the race of the person it is done to.

Saying black racists are any more excusable than white racists is itself racist, and is exactly the kind of identity politics bullshit that divides people, and plays directly into the hands of white racists.

The same logic goes for male victims of domestic violence, by the way (they matter just as much as female victims of it), and other people who are diminished because of the groups people identify them with instead of looking at them as individuals.

I agree with that quite a bit. I was just making an important distinction, and it's one that only emerges when we look at group effects, such as institutional or societal racism, which can generally only happen when majority and/or power factors come into play, as they do in, say, the USA. Focusing only on individual racism and being blind to its group effects is not going to be the most effective way to address it. Same goes for sexism. So I don't think you can equate all forms and/or individual instances of discrimination, because one (majority/power discrimination) has the ability, sometimes subtly and in ways which are quite hidden, and for a variety of reasons, to affect society (and more people in it) much more than the other. Societal issues often need societal solutions, or at the very least societal/group analyses.

Of course, you can take either approach (group or individual) too far, but that's a nuanced problem.

On a side note, the issue is partly highlighted when people like Jordan Peterson rail against group paradigms but simultaneously refer to their supposed 'opponents' in caricatured group terms. Which I think is amusing, ironic and a bit telling.

 

[ruby sparks]

Do you also get the point about many of us non-white people being fed up with being told we are X or Y and hold these or those specific interest just because of our race?

You must experience more of that sort of thing than I do. I'm sure it's out there, if one goes looking for it, or can be heard from those (a minority) closer to the radical/extreme/simplistic ends of the spectrum, but I'm not sure it significantly adversely affects the lives of the people its directed at, all things considered. In any case, a lot of the time, it's not, it seems to me, actually people saying 'you as an individual are X therefore you will have trait Y', it's people generalising, quite validly most of the time. And I mean, do you get how frustrating it can be for those people raising valid general concerns hearing you constantly saying, 'hey but what about the lesser flipside problems'?

And here we are, yet again, with me wondering exactly why you are asking me to set aside the unreasonable aspects of what Jordan Peterson says and focus on the good bits (as you did with the Australian guy who said that 'New Feminism' - what is that exactly? Surely not a lumping together of individual opinions into group form? Couldn't be, or you would have objected - is anti-women) while apparently not consistently taking this approach for, say, Anita Sarkeesian, or indeed Chanty Binx. I'm seeing double standards. Again.

 

[ruby sparks]

They may be honest, and even if they are not, then why not echo their words and hold them to their words so long as their words are about inclusion and against prejudice?

Ok but how do I do that with, say, Jordan Peterson's words in the OP video? His analysis of the issue of white privilege is that it more or less doesn't exist. There's not much you can say to that except, 'nice try Jordan, but please stop talking bollocks'.

'Oh and by the way, Jordan, please stop wittering on about 'group paradigms you don't like' supposedly being divisive while grouping people into caricatures of goodies and baddies'.

 

[Frikki]

I don't, by and large, like what he has to say.

When I have heard him speak in the past he tends to take a scientific approach and use things like "facts".

Are you sure it's "what he has to say" you don't like or is it "reality"?

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

 

[DrZoidberg]

So you don't think the public discourse is suffering today?

Is public discourse suffering today? Yeah. It always has. Is it worse now because of these issues you're highlighting? Dunno, it some ways it might be better for it, imo, in others worse. And where? Denmark? I can't speak for there. But the USA? Is there much of a far left let alone a left, in the USA? I doubt it. Marxists my arse. It's overblown. The primary, conservative, capitalist narratives are still in charge and as far as I can see the main players in the USA have always stamped down on anything resembling a challenge to that and this is just the latest version.

If you're asking me if things such as political correctness can go too far, I'd agree, but to be honest I think it's overplayed as a concern. Most of all, it's simplistic.

Denmark is awesome. Danes have zero tolerance for PC bullshit. To survive here you need to be able to take a joke. You also have to think for yourself. Drugs are in practice legal here. Why? Because people need to learn to think for themselves. Danes aren't mollycuddled by the government.

Not like Sweden. I'm Swedish. Sweden is very politically correct. So there's not much of a political debate going on. Swedes are mostly preoccupied with being outraged than weighing political pros and cons against eachother. It's simply impossible to have an adult conversation in Sweden if there's any risk of the content of the discussion spreading.

I'm so happy I moved.

The important thing here is that I've experienced two cultures that are very similar except for this one thing.

PC is pure poison. It seeps into everything and destroys anything it touches. It makes people anxious and dishonest. Nobody speaks from the heart. Everything becomes posturing and symbolism.

 

[Juma]

So you don't think the public discourse is suffering today?

Is public discourse suffering today? Yeah. It always has. Is it worse now because of these issues you're highlighting? Dunno, it some ways it might be better for it, imo, in others worse. And where? Denmark? I can't speak for there. But the USA? Is there much of a far left let alone a left, in the USA? I doubt it. Marxists my arse. It's overblown. The primary, conservative, capitalist narratives are still in charge and as far as I can see the main players in the USA have always stamped down on anything resembling a challenge to that and this is just the latest version.

If you're asking me if things such as political correctness can go too far, I'd agree, but to be honest I think it's overplayed as a concern. Most of all, it's simplistic.

Denmark is awesome. Danes have zero tolerance for PC bullshit. To survive here you need to be able to take a joke. You also have to think for yourself. Drugs are in practice legal here. Why? Because people need to learn to think for themselves. Danes aren't mollycuddled by the government.

Not like Sweden. I'm Swedish. Sweden is very politically correct. So there's not much of a political debate going on. Swedes are mostly preoccupied with being outraged than weighing political pros and cons against eachother. It's simply impossible to have an adult conversation in Sweden if there's any risk of the content of the discussion spreading.

I'm so happy I moved.

The important thing here is that I've experienced two cultures that are very similar except for this one thing.

PC is pure poison. It seeps into everything and destroys anything it touches. It makes people anxious and dishonest. Nobody speaks from the heart. Everything becomes posturing and symbolism.

On the contrary. There is a lot of discussion here in sweden!
PC is NOT the problem.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

What are the positives of PC supposed to be?

Also, I would like to not that PC is not the same as politeness. You can be polite without being PC, and you can be PC without being polite.

 

[Mumbles]

What are the positives of PC supposed to be?

Also, I would like to not that PC is not the same as politeness. You can be polite without being PC, and you can be PC without being polite.

No, as far as I can tell, the second paragraph is false. Specifically, "PC" means "treat others with respect", when spouted by a person who outright refuses to do so due to religion, skin color, and so forth.

(I'll note one major distinction: the people in the US what whine about "PC taking over" are the same ones that are horrified when their bigotry is called out, when someone refuses to be their fried or to date them due to their active attempts to harm others based on their bigotry, and so forth. See: the people whining about "civility" for Dolt 45's senior officials and ignoring that whole mass kidnapping thing.)

The big positive, of course, is that you aren't immediately identifiable as a remarkably awful person.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Denmark is awesome. Danes have zero tolerance for PC bullshit. To survive here you need to be able to take a joke. You also have to think for yourself. Drugs are in practice legal here. Why? Because people need to learn to think for themselves. Danes aren't mollycuddled by the government.

Not like Sweden. I'm Swedish. Sweden is very politically correct. So there's not much of a political debate going on. Swedes are mostly preoccupied with being outraged than weighing political pros and cons against eachother. It's simply impossible to have an adult conversation in Sweden if there's any risk of the content of the discussion spreading.

I'm so happy I moved.

The important thing here is that I've experienced two cultures that are very similar except for this one thing.

PC is pure poison. It seeps into everything and destroys anything it touches. It makes people anxious and dishonest. Nobody speaks from the heart. Everything becomes posturing and symbolism.

On the contrary. There is a lot of discussion here in sweden!
PC is NOT the problem.

What are they paying you to say that? I can't think why you'd say thst otherwise. Sweden is a lunatic asylum.

Why do you think SD has support of 1/3 of Swedish voters? It's a political party founded by a Swedish volunteer for Hitler in WW2. We have pictures of all their leaders in full Nazi regalia? Do you think that party would have a chance in hell if the Swedish public discourse was working? Swedish political debate is dead. It's just noise at this point.

Here's a question. Why do you think Swedes are so pre-occupied with "ta avstånd"? If anybody says anything that can be interpreted ad controversial the rest of society is supposed to conspire to destroy their lives. It's not cool. And it's not how you get a healthy debate.

Here's an example. Metoo. In the Danish press the men who were accused were given space in newspapers to defend themselves. That never happened in Sweden. Nobody wanted to hear their side of the story. Unless they made a public apology.

Unless we can have an adult discussion where people don't take themselves so damn serious no conversation is possible. It went too far in Sweden a long time ago

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

What are the positives of PC supposed to be?

Also, I would like to note that PC is not the same as politeness. You can be polite without being PC, and you can be PC without being polite.

No, as far as I can tell, the second paragraph is false. Specifically, "PC" means "treat others with respect", when spouted by a person who outright refuses to do so due to religion, skin color, and so forth.

No. Politically Correct means to speak only what is socially acceptable. That does NOT mean treating people with respect. It can sometimes mean treating people with great disrespect in fact. It means deviating from the politically accepted norm.

 

[ZiprHead]

What are the positives of PC supposed to be?

Also, I would like to not that PC is not the same as politeness. You can be polite without being PC, and you can be PC without being polite.

 

[Mumbles]

What are the positives of PC supposed to be?

Also, I would like to note that PC is not the same as politeness. You can be polite without being PC, and you can be PC without being polite.

No, as far as I can tell, the second paragraph is false. Specifically, "PC" means "treat others with respect", when spouted by a person who outright refuses to do so due to religion, skin color, and so forth.

No. Politically Correct means to speak only what is socially acceptable. That does NOT mean treating people with respect. It can sometimes mean treating people with great disrespect in fact. It means deviating from the politically accepted norm.

It's too bad that "what is socially acceptable" varies wildly depending on the group you're in, thus rendering your definition meaningless. What's "socially acceptable" in Dolt 45's administration is wildly at odds with what's "socially acceptable" in pretty much any mixed group I've ever been a part of, as an obvious example - which is why questioning someone's competence baed entirely on skin color (as Dolt 45 himself repeatedly has done) is correctly called "racist" pretty much anywhere else. One can whine that it's Political Correctness run wild or whatever to point out the racism in the statement, but that doesn't change matters at all.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

What's "socially acceptable" in Dolt 45's administration is wildly at odds with what's "socially acceptable" in pretty much any mixed group I've ever been a part of, as an obvious example - which is why questioning someone's competence baed entirely on skin color (as Dolt 45 himself repeatedly has done) is correctly called "racist" pretty much anywhere else.

And you would be correct that it is racist.

One can whine that it's Political Correctness run wild or whatever to point out the racism in the statement, but that doesn't change matters at all.

If the racists gain more power, then it you calling people out for racism will be politically incorrect, and they will seek to silence you with the same social pressure that people now use to silence what is now seen as politically incorrect.

 

[DrZoidberg]

What are the positives of PC supposed to be?

Also, I would like to not that PC is not the same as politeness. You can be polite without being PC, and you can be PC without being polite.

View attachment 16389

I don't agree at all. The PC-brigade aren't being civil. That's the problem here. The problem isn't being politically correct. The problem is demanding that other's are. For public discourse to work, make sure you're own house is in order... ie behave in a civil manner. And then have an open mind about what other's are saying. That last part is gone in the post PC world. We now have a public discourse where people try hard to interpret whatever other people say in the worst possible way and get bent out of shape for it. What's civil about that?

edit: I remember 10-20 years ago when leftists were the open minded patient one's. That's all gone now. The left is now as bad as the right. I see no difference. It bothers me

 

[ruby sparks]

No. Politically Correct means to speak only what is socially acceptable. That does NOT mean treating people with respect. It can sometimes mean treating people with great disrespect in fact. It means deviating from the politically accepted norm.

It's too bad that "what is socially acceptable" varies wildly depending on the group you're in, thus rendering your definition meaningless. What's "socially acceptable" in Dolt 45's administration is wildly at odds with what's "socially acceptable" in pretty much any mixed group I've ever been a part of, as an obvious example - which is why questioning someone's competence baed entirely on skin color (as Dolt 45 himself repeatedly has done) is correctly called "racist" pretty much anywhere else. One can whine that it's Political Correctness run wild or whatever to point out the racism in the statement, but that doesn't change matters at all.

To me, this issue is too often aired as a set of slogans and lumping togethers that get tossed back and forth (between 'left' and 'right' a lot of the time) as if it were actually possible to say that something (in this case PC) is either 'bad' or 'good'. Anyone with any intelligence and objectivity can see that it's a mixed bag, and that it goes into the category of 'a good idea but at risk of being taken too far' along with about a thousand other ideas.

Another aspect of the matter, it seems to me, is that balanced analysis, including objective data (as opposed to opinion and anecdote) are generally in short supply.

For example, it is often said that part of the reason Trump got elected is because the opposition's excessive PC and Identity Politics shot itself in the foot. To me it seems equally possible that it was Trump exploiting myths about those things. It's very hard to tell the difference.

I do note that in the book, 'Dark Money' journalist Jane Meyer claims that the modern (pejorative) use of the term PC originated in written analyses (publications) funded by America's filthy rich capitalists such as climate-denier David Koch, so I do think there is a whiff of something dodgy, something possibly invoking the word 'smear', about some of the criticism of progressive policies described as PC, in the USA. The powerful American capitalist elite squashing anything remotely capable of diluting the power of the American capitalist elite seems to have been a recurring theme in modern American history, and truth does not seem to have been the priority.

Sweden may be a different kettle of fish, because unlike the USA it hasn't been the epicentre of oligarchic capitalism this last hundred years or more. If PC has gone too far in Sweden, I'd be curious as to why.

Not knowing a great deal about recent Swedish politics, I suppose I'd wonder if for example the (relatively recent) immigration issue is a key trigger. I could imagine soft stances on that being seen as (and possibly being) excessively PC.

It has been said that soft stances on immigration to the UK contributed to the Brexit outcome. However, it's not clear whether it was the soft stances that were harmful or whether it was to some extent unnecessary scare-mongering about them that had a greater effect. And I would wonder about similar effects in other western european countries, perhaps including Sweden.

 

[ZiprHead]

What are the positives of PC supposed to be?

Also, I would like to not that PC is not the same as politeness. You can be polite without being PC, and you can be PC without being polite.

View attachment 16389

I don't agree at all. The PC-brigade aren't being civil. That's the problem here. The problem isn't being politically correct. The problem is demanding that other's are. For public discourse to work, make sure you're own house is in order... ie behave in a civil manner. And then have an open mind about what other's are saying. That last part is gone in the post PC world. We now have a public discourse where people try hard to interpret whatever other people say in the worst possible way and get bent out of shape for it. What's civil about that?

edit: I remember 10-20 years ago when leftists were the open minded patient one's. That's all gone now. The left is now as bad as the right. I see no difference. It bothers me

What, Nazis don't like to be called Nazis? No one should protest when a Nazi wants to speak, we should just endeavor to understand them. We should try to come to terms with people like Richard Spencer, Milo Yiannapolis, and bless the fact we have Nazis in our government like Stephen Miller and Sebastian Gorka.

How come that only works on one side.

https://reason.com/blog/2017/10/16/whittier-college-speakers-trump-shutdown