“On your interest in young men, particularly on the young male in Western societies… I think that’s your focus – I think it’s fair to say that your focus is on how men feel in society…”

“No, I don’t think that that is my focus…. I think the fact that what I’m doing is being construed in that manner is a consequence of the overwhelming influence of identity politics on our political and philosophical discourse. What I’m doing is constantly being viewed as a manifestation of identity politics, and so people talk about my particular attraction for ‘young white men.’ The audiences that come to see me – and I hate to even categorise them in this manner because it’s part of playing the same game – are very diverse ethnically and with regards to gender. The problem is that the way that our discourse is framed right now, it’s impossible to avoid being shunted into an identity politics box. And I think there’s nothing about that that isn’t reprehensible.”  

“You sound quite angry.”

The Economist’s Anne McElvoy interviews Jordan Peterson.  

The interview is by no means a Cathy Newman-level car crash, and is at times quite interesting; but it does, I think, tell us more about the assumptions of the interviewer, and by extension her peers, than those of the person being interviewed. For instance, about 43 minutes in, Peterson mentions sex differences in antisocial behaviour, and the types of bullying that tend to be favoured by women more than men. This is met with disbelief and indignation, as if this rather obvious and unremarkable phenomenon – the differing ways in which men and women tend to express aggression – were some kind of scandalous affront to womanhood, something one shouldn’t acknowledge, and indeed should lie about.

Following a number of enquiries as to why I don’t have a specific tag for items involving the cartoonish Laurie Penny, I thought I’d compile a few of my posts on the British left’s foremost unreliable narrator. It’s necessarily incomplete – there are several short posts and endless, lengthy comments I haven’t included – but it should convey a flavour of Laurie’s intermittent relationship with reality, her ongoing struggles with logic, and her delightful personality. 

Or, How Dare You Not Perform Our Fashionable Contortions.   

In times of extremism, moderation itself can come to seem the greater enemy to those ideologically possessed, in part because it is the true danger: The public will tend to move toward it by default, and thus the instinctive recourse by those who sense the fragility of their extreme doctrines to resort to coercive means to prevail in arguments they would not otherwise win.

Speaking, as we were, of the more mendacious and hysterical reactions to Jordan Peterson by activists and journalists (and increasingly, activist-journalists) – here’s Wesley Yang on the same: 

“You’re a mean, mad, white man.”

In the video below, Jordan Peterson, Stephen Fry, Michelle Goldberg and Michael Dyson debate political correctness and “white privilege.”

The Guardian champions Teen Vogue:

“We’re a woke brand and our readers are woke too.”

Orwell & Goode: 

“The best of Teen Vogue.” 

That is all. 

Update: 

In one year, Teen Vogue’s readership has nearly halved. Less than 5% of their audience consists of actual teenagers.

Oh dear.