Against Hate, You Say
Further to this unedifying exchange, more mouthings of the woke:
Some of us identify as queer, non-binary, asexual, femme, men, POC, etc. We are your neighbours, we are your co-workers, we are concerned citizens who feel that one does not need to be part of an organisation or pre-existing group to speak up and oppose oppression wherever it rears its ugly head.
So says Humans Against Hate, a group of anonymous Portland activists who rail against the “oppression” of ideas being discussed, and whose implied definition of neighbourliness is, shall we say, intriguing.
You see, if Jordan Peterson is permitted to speak to people who wish to hear him and wish to ask him questions, then the venue being hired will be assailed by a mob of ill-informed Mao-lings, for whom Peterson’s arguments exist only as caricature, and who promise to “disrupt” not only the event in question, thereby spoiling the evening of roughly 3,000 people about whom the Mao-lings know nothing, but also other, unrelated events, involving unrelated people, just because they can. “We will not stand for bigots coming to our city,” say these self-imagined warriors, these champions of the downtrodden.
Because harassing random people and ruining their evenings, while exulting in the thrill of mob coercion and intimations of thuggery, is what people who aren’t full of hate do, apparently.
Haters Against Discussion would be a better name for them.
Seeing as they’re making threats of violence in advance, they should be locked up now.
“for his controversial belief that gender is only binary and that gender fluidity leads to chaos.”
Note: “Controversial belief”. An old and obvious journalistic tactic, but one that still works.
It’s not oppression when they do it.
Oh wait, it is. Silly little fascists.
Peterson telling everybody “Do as a lobster would—clean your room!”=fascism!
Why do I suspect that they feel that one does not need to have a job, either?
Nothing new to this approach, really. I recall back when the Bosnia war was going on I was attending an outdoor Shakespear In The Park kind of thing and being accosted by anti-war protesters.
Some of us identify as queer, non-binary, asexual, femme, men, POC, etc. We are your neighbours, we are your co-workers, we are concerned citizens who feel that one does not need to be part of an organisation or pre-existing group to speak up and oppose oppression wherever it rears its ugly head.
So non-conformist.
Because harassing random people and ruining their evenings, while exulting in the thrill of mob coercion and intimations of thuggery, is what people who aren’t full of hate do, apparently.
As our host would say: lefties project.
Let Nurse Ratched run the asylum and you will get the orderlies she prefers.
It’s not oppression when they do it. Oh wait, it is. Silly little fascists.
The most generous framing I can come up with is that some of these clowns may have had unhappy experiences on account of their skin colour, sexuality or whatever, and consequently wish to inflict some kind of revenge on the world, even if it entails screwing over random strangers, all in the name of morality. It’s not exactly edifying, I know, but it’s more generous than other, perhaps more obvious, alternatives. Among which, the tendency of such groups to attract borderline personalities and outright sociopaths.
These people never seem to understand that I don’t want to be their neighbour or friend.
Anonymous to hide their numbers. Hoping to intimidate the venue into raising security costs and force cancelation before anybody notices the small size of the group.
An organization made up of folks who don’t feel the need to be “ part of an organization” to be heard. Funny.
“We will not stand for bigots coming to our city,” say these self-imagined warriors,
“Our city”? What about all the people who want to hear Peterson *and live there too*…?
The most generous framing I can come up with is that some of these clowns may have had unhappy experiences on account of their skin colour…
I think it is more like, “…some of these clowns desperately want to believe they have had unhappy experiences…”
“Our city”? What about all the people who want to hear Peterson *and live there too*…?
Well, quite. But apparently, only ill-informed leftists count as residents, as citizens, as people with rights too.
It’s rather like the clown show in London in 2013, when, following a mob of student Mao-lings laying siege to a building and trapping people inside, other student Mao-lings began vandalising property, setting bins on fire and trashing police cars, while chanting “Whose streets? Our streets!” The fact that very few of the so-called ‘protestors’ actually lived anywhere near those streets or even in the same city – and that the Mao-lings were gleefully terrorising the people who did live there – didn’t seem to register.
Meanwhile, it the progressive halls of power, the Portland authorities are trying mightily to disclaim any responsibility for protecting Peterson, the venue or the attendees. Expect an announcement about them unable to insure the safety of the participants–so sorry–shortly.
BTW, this history of Oregon is not exactly unicorn farts when comes to racial relations. To this day, Portland is one of the most segregated cities in the country. It’s a fascinating story, and one is tempted to tell these “anti-Haters” to get their own house in order first, before harassing others for their ostensible sins.
“… that the Mao-lings were gleefully terrorising the people who did live there – didn’t seem to register.”
Didn’t seem to, but perhaps it did, really.
“These people never seem to understand that I don’t want to be their neighbour or friend.”
Sometimes you need to use a bayonet for people to get your point.
An anonymous group …
There’s no way of knowing this for sure of course, but I suspect that the letter is an inside job and was written by a person or persons working from within one or more of the organisations to whom the letter was sent (i.e. “Portland’s5 Centers for the Arts, Metro, the Metropolitan Exposition Recreation Commission and the City of Portland”).
My suspicions were aroused by the last paragraph of the article:
If Portland5 does not cancel the event, the group says it is prepared to organize protests and call-in campaigns, including disrupting the Metropolitan Exposition Recreation Committee’s June 6 meeting at the Oregon Convention Center.
Why would the anonymous group want to disrupt that particular meeting? And why mention it?
Even today, journalists have a habit of occasionally slipping in hints of things they know, but are unable to state in print so I checked on the website of the Metropolitan Exposition and Recreation Commission and one of the first things I noticed on the sidebar there was that the Commission includes a Committee on Racial Equality.
Nothing wrong with that in and of itself of course – I think the vast majority of people can agree that racism is both iniquitous and harmful and that it is also an enduring presence in our societies. Unfortunately, there also appear to be a number of people who are determined to find it in places where it simply might not exist. I feel I can say with confidence that whatever else Peterson might be, he is not a racist.
In that light, the comments that the committee members have written to introduce themselves on their personal profiles are suggestive of people who strongly sympathise with that “anonymous” letter (if indeed they were not the letter’s actual authors):
Martine Coblentz, Clackamas County Resolution Services
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Equity hashtag: #StayWoke
#StayWoke?
Says Coblentz (amongst other things):
I know on both ends what it is like to be of privilege and to have committed micro aggressions toward my own sibling, processing that, humbling myself and working on my own implicit biases AND, I have had to process the discrimination I face in the outside world and micro aggressions toward me
Another member, Duncan Hwang, includes the following details on his career:
I was politicized while studying at the University of Michigan and on paper I received degrees in Political Science and Asian Studies. In reality though, I spent most of my time as a campus activist leader …
Didn’t the University of Michigan get a mention on this blog just yesterday?
Three other members’ profiles include Equity superpowers.
No really.
Pronouns: she/her
Equity hashtag: #AccessForAll
Equity superpower: My super power would have to be my Advocate shield. I really don’t know how to take no for an answer. When I see an injustice, I tend to stick with it until the opposition gives up.
Ummm …
Pronouns: she/her
Equity hashtag: #browngirlsresist
Equity superpower: I’m like Nymphodora Tonks in the Harry Potter world – the research/data voice in social justice spaces; and the social justice voice in research and data spaces.
Nymphodora Tonks? As someone who has not followed the Potter series, is that a real character? Nymphodora? In a children’s book?
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Equity hashtag/superpower: This #FierceJusticeDeva can maneuver hard conversations with strong differences of opinion on tough race topics to a solid engaged meeting of the minds – in one round.
I must stress that the idea that one or more inside members of the Commission wrote this letter is complete conjecture on my part – it is perfectly possible that a group of radical students wrote the letter independently.
However, the article also states that (my bold):
Portland5’s executive director Robyn Williams says she is aware of the “controversy regarding this upcoming event at the Keller Auditorium,” but that “Portland’5 Centers for the Arts may not legally refuse to rent our theatres to a group due to the content of a performance.”
If the Commission is therefore unable to legally prevent Peterson from booking the venue, then such an anonymous letter would certainly be a solution to their inability to control who gets to speak in the venues they preside over.
Presumably, that original rule was written in the 1980s or 1990s to allow people to throw crucifixes into buckets of piss or stage theatrical versions of 120 Days of Sodom and so on – you know, to support freedom of expression however offensive or objectionable that expression might be to some people.
The people who wrote that rule probably found the idea that a Christian and moderately conservative Canadian professor and clinical psychologist might one day be perceived to be a ‘dangerous’ radical with ‘harmful’ ideas absolutely inconceivable.
So if that letter was in fact authored by members of the Commission itself, it would have been as a way getting around their own rules in order to prevent Peterson from speaking.
If that were the case, then I would find that to be not a little disturbing
But again, I am just idly speculating here.
I know on both ends what it is like to be of privilege and to have committed micro aggressions toward my own sibling
My brother pulled a carving knife on me once. Fuck your microaggressions, Madame Coblentz.
humbling myself
Why, I wonder, do I find that so hard to believe?
The article itself isn’t a news piece, but another bit of “advocacy journalism”. It editorializes against Dr. Peterson from the headline to the picture to the framing of the article.
Take the picture alone — The center focal subject is an attractive young woman passionately protesting and the caption is that this is part of the protest of President Trump’s inauguration.
AFAIK there is absolutely no connection between Trump & Peterson. But the writer wants to tie Peterson to Hitler-Trump in the reader’s minds as if they both have assaulted the young woman with their violent “infamous” views and words.
This is such transparent, Pravda-style propaganda it is no wonder there is no comment section on the piece.
The people who wrote that rule probably found the idea that a Christian and moderately conservative Canadian professor and clinical psychologist might one day be perceived to be a ‘dangerous’ radical with ‘harmful’ ideas absolutely inconceivable.
You’d have to be pretty hysterical to see Peterson as some ominous shadow of destruction, an existential threat. His political views, such as they are, are for the most part unremarkable. Crudely put, they boil down to advocating responsibility, reciprocation and a kind of stoicism; a preference for evidence and clarity, as opposed to begged questions and unearned conclusions; and a wariness of both vanity and the modish dogmas to which the vain are so often attracted. Keep things in proportion could easily be his motto.
And yet the Mao-lings behave as if Hitler’s brain had been implanted in the body of a giant robotic monster that fired lava from its eyes, and which was about to be set loose in the city, to stomp on all those poor “genderqueer” people. Especially the brown ones.
Related: On the great Awokening
…Hitler’s brain had been implanted in the body of a giant robotic monster that fired lava from its eyes, and which was about to be set loose in the city, to stomp on all those poor “genderqueer” people.
The pedestal they’ve placed themselves upon is so fragile, any minor disturbance could be catastrophic. They simply can’t take any chances.
The pedestal they’ve placed themselves upon is so fragile, any minor disturbance could be catastrophic. They simply can’t take any chances.
Yes, I think that’s a large part of it. The fashionable Mao-ling stance is now so unmoored from reality, so teetering in its pretensions, that any sense of proportion or reminder of normal proprieties – not least regarding debate and the testing of claims – will tend to be unflattering.
That, and some people just can’t resist an opportunity to be spiteful.
I read the Harry Potter books. Nymphadora is a character therein. Instead of “Hello” or “Whassup” or “Yo” or “ Hola” she says “Wotcher.” What does “wotcher” mean?
Related – Dave Rubin = ‘hate speech’.
https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=10948
“What does “wotcher” mean?”
I think it’s a corrupted contraction of something like “What are you up to?”, rather in the way “howdy” is clearly “How do you do?”. It’s a sort of cheery-chirpy-Cockney type thing. Apparently. Outside of authors and screenwriters indicating down-to-earth matiness in a character, I’ve never heard anyone actually use it.
Dave Rubin = ‘hate speech’.
By now I doubt it needs repeating, but hey, what the hell.
Lefties project.
Related – Dave Rubin = ‘hate speech’.
Of course it completely escapes this “professor” that it is entirely “their” fault. Yes their. You will all be surprised at “their” bona fides.
Some of the transcendently predictable and boring flummery one would expect from this sort of chucklehead:
Yes, the fierce struggle he has “not free” in a world where he can be a pantomime woman, hauling down probably six figures for spouting canned cant for a couple classes a year in a tenured position, there hasn’t been such a brave stand since the Warsaw uprising.
Considering I gained weight post-menopause, am I entitled to a Phd in Fat Studies?
In the brave new world, I hope we’ll all be free of nuts like Joelle.
a fierce but exhilarating struggle…
I’m reminded of a line from the protagonist (Vietnam vet Green Beret turned beat cop in a bad neighborhood) of Kent Anderson’s (ditto) novels:
“When was the last time you were really afraid?”
Wotcher = what cheer?
Considering I gained weight post-menopause, am I entitled to a Phd in Fat Studies?
Only if you are sufficiently leviathan that a grapefruit goes into orbit around you if someone throws it at you. If it hits you, you only get a masters.
For those with time to kill, there’s another Reddit Ask Me Anything with Peterson here. He mentions the recent exchange with Michael Dyson and Michelle Goldberg.
There’s an interesting piece on Peterson here:
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/2018/05/25/i-was-jordan-petersons-strongest-supporter-now-i-think-hes-dangerous.html
Interesting, because the person writing actually knows Peterson, and because he does make some specific claims about Peterson’s behaviour which, if true, might be a little concerning (rather than the usual innuendo and question begging that form the basis of most pieces critical of Peterson).
Not that the innuendo and question begging (not to mention garbled logic and exaggeration) are entirely absent, as you’ll see.
Holy moly!
There’s an interesting piece on Peterson here:
By “interesting piece”, I am guessing you mean smear and hatchet job.
Not that there is any evidence of this in anything online that I have seen, but proceed.
There you have it, his personal axe to grind. Much more on the “trans” farrago follows.
It wasn’t real Marxism. Oh well, at least he isn’t hiding where he is coming from.
Evidently he saw a different interview than everyone else in the world. Throw in the “alt-right” and the usual grab bag of leftist drivel in the rest of this piece and that about rounds it out.
Leftist professor no longer wants to be BFFs with right leaning professor. Got it.
Horace
What I get from that article is jealousy masked as concern-trolling.
Poor Bernard that, he of the better principles and demeanor than Jordan, and unburdened by eccentricities, isn’t getting the spotlight.
Tsk, tsk.
Bravo, Farnsworth, you got further in the article than I … I got to the
and wanted to throw a shoe at my monitor …
Also in Portland: http://www.unz.com/isteve/nyt-reparations-happy-hour-invites-white-people-to-pay-for-drinks/
I read the Harry Potter books.
Any twenty- or thirty-something identifying themselves as a character from Harry Potter is exactly as pathetic as a forty-something identifying themselves as Luke Skywalker. These people are emotionally arrested children and should be treated with the attendant respect and attention that deserves.
In the brave new world, I hope we’ll all be free of nuts like Joelle.
His bio makes it clear that he’s got a lot of deep-rooted issues around his identity, self-esteem and fantasy, and like many in the Clown Quarter and the mental health field, he’s using the academic gobbledygook as a coping mechanism in lieu of getting real therapy for his underlying problems.
I don’t blame the loons. That would be like blaming the old lady who talks to fence posts and thinks the Russians are sifting through her garbage. I blame their enablers, the people who are using mentally ill people as a weapon in their agenda. It’s like using children as suicide bombers.
Poor Bernard that, he of the better principles and demeanor than Jordan, and unburdened by eccentricities, isn’t getting the spotlight.
A great many opinion pieces can be summarized as “someone is getting rich and famous and it’s not me”.
Darleen
I had similar thoughts. There’s a strong sense of bitterness that this Peterson fellow, whom Bernard likes to think of as a protégé, turns out to be smarter, richer and more famous than the man to whom he clearly owes his position.
Farnsworth
Yes quite. I think the nub of the piece, though, is this:
He is not a free speech warrior. He is a social order warrior.
Point 1: It seems clear that “social order”, or perhaps more correctly, social stability and cohesion, is something that Peterson is concerned about, openly and unapologetically. But then, these days, even some lefties are coming around to the view that social stability is something that might be jeopardised by rapid change and should be considered as an important part of policy making. So what exactly is the point of such a statement?
Point 2: Why should he not also be a free speech warrior? Bernard cites Peterson’s exposure of far-left teachers in the Academy, and his criticism of them, as proof that Peterson is not really above censorship. Of course Bernard knows full well that criticising someone, even robustly, is not an attack on free expression, but he wants us to believe that Peterson wishes to, and is able to “effectively silence” those with whom he disagrees. I won’t insult Mr Thompson’s readers’ intelligence by labouring this obvious point any further.
All this fuss over a guy who goes around telling people to clean their rooms.
I wasn’t too impressed with the other prof’s article, and how do you get to be a college professor without knowing how to tell male from female? I hope he’s not teaching biology.
Gadfly Vox Day doesn’t like Peterson either.
I don’t blame the loons. That would be like blaming the old lady who talks to fence posts and thinks the Russians are sifting through her garbage. I blame their enablers, the people who are using mentally ill people as a weapon in their agenda. It’s like using children as suicide bombers.
This. And those of us who continue to fund this lunacy with our tax dollars and nary a public peep.
There’s an interesting piece on Peterson here
I see the author is happy to insist on an allegedly vast and meaningful distinction between (a) being jailed for not paying a fine incurred for not wishing to be compelled to use absurd invented pronouns and thereby lie about what one sees, and (b) being jailed for not wishing to be compelled to use absurd invented pronouns and thereby lie about what one sees.
The pedestal they’ve placed themselves upon is so fragile, any minor disturbance could be catastrophic. They simply can’t take any chances.
I’d say this also applies to the Clown Quarter generally, not least when hyperventilating at the prospect of a visit by anyone slightly to the right of Elizabeth Warren. If a speaking engagement by Heather Mac Donald, Christina Hoff Sommers or Janice Fiamengo results in weeping, hysteria and outright thuggery by the venue’s students – and it does, frequently – then perhaps something has gone wrong – seriously wrong – with the environment being visited.