At All Costs, Paraphrase
Or, A Demonstration Of Patience.
“You’re saying we should organise our societies along the lines of the lobsters…”
In this largely unedited video, Channel 4’s Cathy Newman interviews Jordan Peterson.
I use the word interview quite loosely. In fact, I propose a drinking game, in which you take a shot of tequila every time Ms Newman somehow misses the point entirely and interrupts with the words, “You’re saying…”
What’s interesting, I think, is the contrast in thinking styles, and which party comes across as rather narrow and dogmatic. And I’m struggling to think of another interview in which the interviewee has to correct the interviewer so many times, on matters of fact and basic logic, after almost every question.
Update:
The Guardian’s Zoe Williams weighs in, having misplaced her medication.
her repeated missing of obvious and fundamental points — never mind nearly criminally mis-representing most of what JBP said — left me torn between amazement and vicarious embarrassment.
Well, as I hope I’ve illustrated here over the years, leftism tends to be quite corrosive to realism. It blunts the senses and makes otherwise clever people say remarkably dumb or dishonest things, often while admiring themselves.
I think it’s more that her political convictions, or political assumptions, have made her both dogmatic and foolish.
It’s more than that, though. Your average mainstream journalist believes unquestioningly that anyone who challenges leftist positions or other on-trend assumptions is either bigoted, stupid or both. It would never occur to them that they might need to think on their feet when interviewing someone from “the right”. They would simply need to let the odious chauvinist condemn himself out of his own mouth with his silly, unfounded opinions.
Take the gender pay gay, as one of the main topics they discuss. Someone like Newman is incapable of thinking outside the established consensus on this matter: the pay gap exists because men oppress women. It is a monstrous historical injustice that prevails because governments are not willing to punish men for it. Simple.
But when confronted with someone who has studied the matter and has seen that there are multiple variables at play that suggest the established view is at the very least faulty, Newman has to fall back on “so you’re saying…”
I think you’ll find that she genuinely didn’t expect to engage with facts and reason. She was forced to fall back on signalling to the viewer that this man’s facts and reason should be ignored on account of his being a bullying, hate-filled man.
That, of course didn’t work out very well for her, but somehow I don’t think she’ll learn…
But when confronted with someone who has studied the matter and has seen that there are multiple variables at play that suggest the established view is at the very least faulty, Newman has to fall back on “so you’re saying…”
There’s also the bit where Ms Newman hears some, to me, unremarkable statement, about the authoritarian connotations of thinking solely in terms of victimhood and identity groups, and she seems momentarily dumbfounded, before insisting that Peterson must be some kind of contrarian provocateur, a troll. Which, if nothing else, suggests a remarkable narrowness of worldview. As if the only reason a person might disagree with left-of-centre conceits – and specifically, identity politics – is to be an annoyance.
“Leftism tends to be quite corrosive to realism. It blunts the senses and makes otherwise clever people say remarkably dumb or dishonest things, often while admiring themselves.”
That’s a keeper!
“22’23”- that.”
Yes. Was it just after that where she had to pause to collect her thoughts, making it quite obvious that she’s never actually thought about it before? It almost looked like an epiphany, except that within seconds she’s back to the, “So you’re saying…” stuff.
“It’s more than that, though. Your average mainstream journalist believes unquestioningly that anyone who challenges leftist positions or other on-trend assumptions is either bigoted, stupid or both. It would never occur to them that they might need to think on their feet when interviewing someone from “the right”. They would simply need to let the odious chauvinist condemn himself out of his own mouth with his silly, unfounded opinions.”
Exactly. That moment I’m talking about illustrates the point perfectly. But what’s fascinating for me about this interview is that the usual technique didn’t just fail, it did so spectacularly and obviously. It’s hard to imagine that anyone but the most hardline Leftist could watch it and still assume that Dr. Peterson is an ignorant, hateful, bigot.
Re my previous, I was reminded of Matt Frei’s incredulous, poorly-researched interview with Thomas Sowell for the BBC. Oddly enough, or not oddly at all, Mr Frei airs precisely the kinds of vanities that Sowell criticises, which may explain his difficulty in comprehending Sowell’s points.
It would never occur to them that they might need to think on their feet when interviewing someone from “the right”.
The average Leftist views all interactions with people on the Right, (wherein “right” is defined as “anyone who disagrees with me”), as a sort of kibuki theater. There are established roles and plots which can never, ever be altered in any way. Or, as someone mentioned in the comments a few days ago, it is a Neo-Scholasticism. They have received the wisdom and there need be no new inquiry or investigation.
Ms Newman probably believed all the feminist-media BS about Professor Peterson. She should have done her homework better. Embarrassing!
“By 11 minutes in she is saying ‘I think I take issue with (that)’, before demonstrating that she can’t. Soon she is reduced to dropping the bombshell observation that ‘all women are different’. By 16.45 there is a palpable win, as Peterson points out that Newman has exactly the disagreeable and aggressive qualities that allow certain types of people to succeed.”
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/01/watch-cathy-newmans-catastrophic-interview-with-jordan-peterson/
If I were trying to discuss this issue with Cathy Newman, I would have lost my temper and started telling her that she was either a stupid bint or a dishonest left-wing SFB.
This woman needs to get her ears cleaned. She didn’t hear a word Peterson was saying.
Her mind needs cleaning. A power wash to remove the leftist dogma that prevent her synapses from functioning.
Holy cow, that was hilarious. Talk about having your arse handed to you. Ms ‘So you’re saying’ could not have embarrassed herself more. I especially liked when he so flummoxed her at around 22:30 that she was literally lost for words. I have never seen a TV interviewer so caught off guard, and you just gotta love JP’s ‘Gotcha!’. The way he simply laughed off her non-stop attacks was an absolute inspiration to watch. I wish I had his ability to treat such attacks with his good humour and good grace.
I’ve been a big fan of JP since he burst on the scene just over a year ago, but this ranks up there with one of his best.
OK, I’m off to tidy my room now 😉
The average Leftist views all interactions with people on the Right […] as a sort of kibuki theater.
Yes, but also: leftists always assume themselves to be more intelligent, educated and better informed that those who disagree with them. They’re incapable of thinking otherwise. And you just know that Newman isn’t going to come away from the interview thinking “he made some interesting points there, perhaps I should look up some of the research that he was drawing on for his answers to see whether there’s something in it”.
It’s almost as though they don’t want to understand the reasons behind the pay differentials they find so distressing.
“Stop triggering me!”
And, reader, I was SO drunk I married him.
And it’s everyone’s fault but mine.
leftists always assume themselves to be more intelligent, educated and better informed that those who disagree with them
Living, as I do, in bluest Massachusetts, I am all too familiar with that aspect. A sneering superiority over non-believers is a defining characteristic of many on the left. They are often otherwise decent people (or seem to be), but then some ugly, condescending aside will come out of their mouths. People who disagree with them are evidently evil and selfish, not just incorrect.
Or at a push, The Incinerator.
As portrayed by Robert Ginty?
https://youtu.be/cnDJa_HZVP0
Thing is, I don’t think she’s an idiot. You don’t get a first from Oxford, even in English literature, unless you’ve an IQ comfortably above average. I think it’s more that her political convictions, or political assumptions, have made her both dogmatic and foolish.
=======
wisdom> intelligence> education> schooling
the only thing she can produce proof of is a certification of her schooling. The fact that is from Oxford says more about Oxford, most of it bad, than it does about her.
“They have received the wisdom”
“How dare you disagree with me?! Just look at all those books (or perhaps climate alarmist studies) on my shelf over there!”
Great to see Peterson looking so relaxed and comfortable in his chair whilst fending off these straw men with consummate good humour and even cheerfulness. The word “magisterial” springs to mind. And there’s an obvious contrast to the Canadian TV interviews he did in late 2016, in which he was evidently seething with righteous indignation and sitting up straight. This is lobster expert level.
I wasn’t able to make it to any of his talks in London, but I gather he’ll be doing a tour of the country at some point. Could we get him and Rees-Mogg on the same stage, do you think, or would that cross some cosmic negentropy limit?
Just finished watching the video …
I don’t think I could have been that polite & good humored with a harridan engaging in such bad faith haranguing.
She got spanked. Wet her boxers.
It does get rather surreal. And it is, I think, instructive, though perhaps not in ways that Ms Newman would have wished.
Seen in the light of the Newman-Peterson interview, this cartoon now seems particularly ironic.
Heh.
I don’t think I could have been that polite & good humored with a harridan engaging in such bad faith haranguing.
Perhaps the idea, the tactic, is to be erratic, obtuse and needlessly belligerent, in the hope of leaving the victim flustered. Though it’s possible I’m giving Ms Newman too much credit.
I actually know something about interviewing, which puts me one up on that fool woman. She’s breaking all the rules. You do not interrupt your respondent. You do not argue with him. You do not tell him what YOU think, because it’s likely to “contaminate” his responses; most people want to be agreeable and to go along, so if you state your opinion he’ll probably agree. Granted I don’t think that would be a problem with this particular respondent. You also do not tell him what you think because you aren’t being paid for that; you’re being paid to find out what HE thinks. She did at least 75% of the talking; it couldn’t have been more obvious that she didn’t care what he had to say. She jumped all over, I could not tell what the topic was supposed to be—his book, maybe. You don’t do that. You stick with the topic and you “probe.” You say “ And can you tell me a little more about how the value of flidgets reflects the fluctuations of the world economy,” or whatever the topic is; this will often prompt a response lie, “ Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that flidget value blah blah blah.” Only after the respondent is all probed out on topic #1 do you go to topic #2, if there is one.
Why is the BBC paying her to interview people?
Er, I meant “…a response like,” though if you are interviewing a politician, I suppose “ a response lie” fits too.😊
Why is the BBC paying her to interview people?
They aren’t – it’s Channel 4. Still, two cheeks of the same arse.
I don’t think I could have been that polite & good humored with a harridan engaging in such bad faith haranguing.
That’s Peterson all over. Seen the video with the trans activists heckling him? He’s totally in control at all times.
“You also do not tell him what you think because you aren’t being paid for that; you’re being paid to find out what HE thinks.”
I find myself yelling that at the TV all the time. Hell, in the UK, it’s kind of supposed to be the law. (It’s a bloody absurd law, in my opinion, but there it is.)
Gad Saad’s take on this…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YetzM2_SKKY
@Nik
Beware Burge’s Law and New Yorker comics.
“Your average mainstream journalist believes unquestioningly that anyone who challenges leftist positions or other on-trend assumptions is either bigoted, stupid or both.”
And the left in general, from the general public to the professors at prestigious universities.
An example: Very few on the left can accept that the root cause of Islamic terrorism is religious doctrine. Their minds are so saturated with secular progressive dogma that they cannot believe that such violence could have any but secular causes, especially classic Marxist ones such as poverty.
It’s fascinating to watch. Ms Newman compensates for a lack of nuance in her thinking by repeatedly interrupting with questions that simply ignore previous answers.
Short version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgKE6Voe__k
Short version.
Heh. It makes no sense – and therefore captures, quite vividly, the flavour of the exchange. As when Peterson points out the authoritarian aspects of thinking solely in terms of identity groups, which somehow results in the accusation, “You’re saying that trans activists could lead to the deaths of millions of people.”
It’s like watching an episode of Brass Eye.
I see the memes have begun.
Fascinating to watch. She clearly came in with a brief/strategy to trap Dr Peterson in a sexist/denialist position, and couldn’t find a new approach when he reasonably, calmly parried or reversed everything she threw at him. I was particularly touched when he politely pointed out how her confrontational approach hadn’t been easy for him. His expression suggests it really hasn’t, but he maintains his composure and even a good. Humour like an absolute boss.
Sagacious, is the word I’d choose.
I was particularly touched when he politely pointed out how her confrontational approach hadn’t been easy for him.
Well, I’d imagine it’s unpleasant to appear on national TV news and immediately find yourself being smeared by association and then, for the next half hour, being wilfully misconstrued in the most obtuse and bizarre terms, and realising that almost every question is an attempt at a trap, an attempt to publicly humiliate. And it’s telling that Ms Newman struggles with the notion of rights and reciprocity. I suspect it tells us something, not only about her, but about her political constituency.
It’s like watching an episode of Brass Eye.
That.
Also this, which occurs within the first four minutes.
Peterson has just finished outlining his reasons behind the statement that (western) men need to “grow the hell up” which Newman quoted to him in her opening question. She then goes on:
Newman: What’s in it for the women, though?
Peterson: Well, what sort of partner do you want? Do you want an overgrown child? Or do you want someone to contend with that’s going to help you?
Newman: So you’re saying women have some sort of duty to sort of help fix the crisis of masculinity?
This is not simply a strawman as many others have (rightly) pointed out – it is also arguably an attempt to dominate Peterson though emotional blackmail.
It is the kind of response an abusive partner (or a partner in an abusive frame of mind) might make when out of the blue they suddenly explode: “Why did you leave your running shoes in the hall when you know I want them left by the kitchen door!?!?” despite the fact that the intimate other so accused has for many years left their running shoes in the hall with neither comment nor complaint. The accused partner must concede the fault or risk losing the respect, goodwill and love of the accuser
The content of the accusation itself is therefore mostly if not wholly irrelevant – it is the import of the emotional outburst that counts.
Given the superficial content of much of Newman’s questions it seems particularly ironic that this is the approach she should have taken.
That she should also have taken this approach with someone who for decades now has made his living as a clinical psychologist (including a stint at Harvard) was ill-judged to a really quite spectacular degree, as the video shows.
The content of the accusation itself is therefore mostly if not wholly irrelevant – it is the import of the emotional outburst that counts.
Ms Newman obviously felt entitled to frame Peterson as some kind of misogynist “alt right” villain, and to react as if he were one, regardless of reality and regardless of anything he actually said; but in the attempt, her own obnoxiousness and belligerent idiocy were hard to miss.
Newman: So you’re saying women have some sort of duty to sort of help fix the crisis of masculinity?
This is not simply a strawman as many others have (rightly) pointed out – it is also arguably an attempt to dominate Peterson though emotional blackmail.
Yeah. This exchange also reminds me of the irrational “Oh, so it’s MY fault now?” response to an simple statement of fact, or even a collective mea culpa like Peterson’s.
Which, of course, is the predictable escalation in your example too, should the accused say,”But I’ve always left them in the hall.”
To see this kind of dysfunction played out on a national level and cheered on by the left is…well, disturbing to say the least.
It’s like watching an episode of Brass Eye.
Not knowing what that was, other than a show, I had to look it up and watch a couple episodes, from the one on drugs:
Now I get your point, and thanks for giving something else to waste time with, hilarious though the episodes are – “To maintain the anonymity of the 15 year olds, we replaced them with five year olds…”, now we know where the Useless Studies ninnies got their “research” techniques.
Just say No to Cake. Remember, it’s a made-up drug.
“To maintain the anonymity of the 15 year olds, we replaced them with five year olds…”
Ah, the Nineties.
Just say No to Cake. Remember, it’s a made-up drug.
Worst of all, it activates the part of the brain known as Shatner’s Bassoon.
This is not simply a strawman as many others have (rightly) pointed out – it is also arguably an attempt to dominate Peterson though emotional blackmail.
Leftists (and American liberals) do that a lot. And then, when their targets dispute their accusations, and even turn the tables and point out how authoritarian or even totalitarian they are, they accuse their targets of “being angry people”.
Here’s the man himself in The Spectator’s “Life” supplement, September 2017:
‘The humanities in the universities have become almost incomprehensibly shallow and corrupt in multiple ways,’ he says. ‘They don’t rely on science because they are not scientifically educated. This is true particularly in sociology, where they mask their complete ignorance of science by claiming that science is just another mode of knowing and that it’s only privileged within the structure of the oppressive Eurocentric patriarchy. It’s appalling. We’re not having an intelligent conversation, we are having an ideological conversation.
‘Students, instead of being ennobled or inculcated into the proper culture, the last vestiges of structure are stripped from them by post-modernism and neo-Marxism, which defines everything in terms of relativism and power.’
I beg your pardon?
Cake? A made-up drug?
I’ve been fighting an addiction, and losing, for decades now! Black Forest Gateaux, Victoria Sponge, Lemon Drizzle, I’m addicted to all of them! And there are dealers everywhere.
Everywhere I tell you!
Ahem.
And then, when their targets dispute their accusations, and even turn the tables and point out how authoritarian or even totalitarian they are, they accuse their targets of “being angry people”.
Not to mention the “Kafka Trap,” where disputing an accusation constitutes proof of the truth of the accusation, i.e. denying and refuting the feminist trope of the Gender Pay Gap demonstrates the need for more feminism and the internal misogyny of the Denier.
they accuse their targets of “being angry people”
And if you object to being slandered as a racist, daily, based on nothing, then you’re exhibiting “white fragility,” which is construed, rather conveniently, as proof of your racism.
This is the educated left in the twenty-first century.
David, every time you cite one of your prior posts as evidence in some current debate, I imagine you–resplendent in your velour blogging thong–thinking, “See, I told you wankers this years ago.”