I’d like to see a source for Peterson’s actual words in context and not someone else’s interpretation before I comment. Similarly, I’ll reserve comment on a tweet that begins with “#2” without some additional context. Seems like a fair standard and, dare I say it, really the one everyone should be using.
Because the control of speech is one of the hallmarks of authoritarian governments. Peterson is correct when he asserts that the criminalization of speech is one of the lines that the Common Law (at least in recent history and especially in the US) was traditionally loathe to cross, and then only in the narrowest of circumstances. That principle exists exactly because of that link between the control of speech and authoritarianism, whether actual or percieved.
Peterson characterized it as “frighteningly similar” not identical. As in “evocative of” or “of the same kind if not the same degree.” And if you can’t imagine how someone could at least make a surface connection between an ever-growing and shifting set of compelled pronouns and the works of, say Orwell, and his connection to criticisms of Communist Russia, then I don’t know what to tell you. He never said they were remotely identical, but the fact remains that Gulags and the pronoun issue both potentially share at least the connection of criminalized speech. If people can directly compare ICE facilities to “concentration camps” then indirectly comparing criminalizing speech to what eventually resulted in the creation of the Gulags is no more extreme a comparison.
No, no, man, you gotta write “DRESSES DOWN”, in all caps.
He serves as a stand in for those who have ever wished they had a good articulate comeback when challenged, to get the last word in.
Yeah, he’s the kind of brilliant dude who so thoroughly dresses down those foolish enough to challenge him that after becoming famous talking about how “postmodern” “neomarxists” are ruining the world, and how Marxism is worse than Nazism, and how things like identity politics and white privilege are a bunch of “Marxist lies,” and saying Marxist like 10 times a minute on average, he signed up for a debate about “Happiness: Capitalism vs. Marxism” and then stood up on the stage and said he had never really read any Marx, and that he had tried reading the Manifesto prior to the debate but it had so many errors in it that it was just “weird,” and then made a bunch of inaccurate paraphrases of Marxist ideas that he clearly had just heard for the first time during that preparation.
If your argument against adopting a law is that it will have unjust consequences, and the law is adopted anyway, and those consequences never manifest, then I would say that’s powerful evidence that your argument was incorrect.
The law does not prevent someone from arguing against any particular facet of gender theory that supports the validity of trans identities. It just mandates that you can’t harass someone because you don’t agree with their concept of gender. One of the most common ways of harassing a trans person is by deliberately using the wrong pronoun, dead naming them, and referring to them as their birth gender. Do you think that trans people should not be protected from harassment in employment and education?
I also question your repeated assertion that racial epithets are “universally” offensive. I’m a very white guy. I’ve also been called a “nigger.” The experience was not remotely offensive - it was mostly hilarious, because I’m literally whiter than snow. Likewise, the word being used between two black people is not necessarily offensive, particularly if the word is used without the hard r. The offensiveness of that word is, in fact, very contextual.
On the other hand, misgendering someone is almost always insulting, regardless of whether or not they’re trans. You are, I’m assuming, cisgender and heterosexual, right? If someone at your job started referring to you as a woman, and calling you “Sally,” and otherwise questioning your manhood, would you view that as insulting? Harassment, even? Okay, so why is it different if it’s exactly the same situation, but you’re a transman?
All terms are only offensive in certain contexts. That’s sort of my point in bringing up the “fag” example. Referring to a cigarette as a fag is not insulting. Referring to a coworker as a fag is. Using masculine pronouns when referring to a man is not insulting. Using masculine pronouns when referring to a woman is.
Sure, absent any other information, “Harvard PhD” would be a strong indication that the person under discussion is pretty smart. But when you start accumulating all these really, really stupid things a person said, its valid to start challenging that assumption. In Petersen’s case, he’s said a lot of really, really stupid things. And he’s repeated a lot of them, as well - “feminists crave male domination” wasn’t a brain fart, it’s a theme he’s returned to repeatedly, and I don’t need a PhD in psychology to recognize that it’s an incredibly faulty argument, from premise straight through to conclusion. Saying, “Well, he’s got a PhD, so what he said must actually be smart,” isn’t an argument, it’s an appeal to authority. If he’s smart, show us the smart things he’s said.
Yeah, a presumption. The thing about presumptions is, they only hold in the absence of evidence. There’s been a lot of evident presented in this thread that, despite his pedigree, he’s not actually got a ton on the ball. You’ve failed to rebut any of this evidence. Pointing out that he has an advanced degree isn’t a rebuttal. He’s got a BA in political science, so you think that means that his ideas about communism automatically have merit. Except, I can point out people who have doctorates in political science who are actual, self-identified communists. If we’re weighing arguments purely by the academic credentials of the person making the argument, virtually everything Peterson says on politics can be dismissed, because it’s trivially easy to find someone with more advanced degrees than he has who disagree with him.
That’s a stunningly facile comparison, on the order of, “They’re both things done by humans, therefore they’re similar.” Every government in history has placed restrictions on what is or is not acceptable speech, including the US and Canada. You can’t just say, “The Soviets placed restrictions on speech, therefore this is bad.” Authoritarian regimes punished speech that was perceived as a threat to their hegemony, with a goal of crushing dissent. Liberal governments punish speech that attacks and marginalizes disadvantaged minority groups, with a goal of protecting their ability to live and work in society. Those aren’t remotely comparable situations. You might as well argue that the Nuremberg Trials and the Wannsee Conference were equivalent, because they were both about imprisoning and executing people.
Can you explain why this is remotely relevant? Is the idea that, because a leftist liked Solzhenitsyn, Peterson is correct, or what? I genuinely can’t figure out why you felt this was something worth mentioning.