Sweet are the uses of adversity, as Shakespeare says. Which is why a previously little-known psychologist is Canada’s newest intellectual star
Why it seems like ages ago, when the University of Toronto leaped into the now infamous Pronoun Wars with a couple of minatory letters to Prof. Jordan Peterson that were as ham-fisted and bullying as they were badly written. Peterson had made it very clear that he would not, under any asserted compulsion from legislation or human rights code, use any newly coined pronouns (they had reached a count of 31 at one point) when addressing transgender students. Succinctly stated, he would not be compelled to speak words others insisted he speak.
The University of Toronto, which many insist is a world-class institution, responded that as a result of this (then) little-known clinical psychologist, that some of its students had been the subject of “specific and violent threats, including threats of assault, injury and death.” Then in sly malice it went on to hope that these death and other threats “were not his intention” in making the arguments he was making.
The university held back on the bowl of hemlock traditionally offered to enlightened dissidents. However it grimly “urged him,” because of the “threats” and under the requirements of the Ontario Human Rights Code, to “stop making” (these) remarks.
The university held back on the bowl of hemlock
Sweet are the uses of adversity, as Shakespeare has reminded us. The university’s ludicrous claims and attempts at censorship kindled a fire of publicity. The case of the professor who refused to speak made-up pronouns, and who made YouTube videos calmly explaining why, entered the newsstream. However, the greatest gift to Prof. Peterson and his cause was not these two craven letters.
The gods, in their always inscrutable way, really smiled on him during a free-speech rally, when a mob of social justice hooligans hectored him, set up a white-noise machine to drown him out, and insulted him with the usual volleys of bigotry and transphobia.
There was the gift. There was the germinal moment. The melee of intolerance was filmed, as everything is these days. It entered the broad and infinite reaches of the internet. Prof. Peterson, calm as always in the centre of the manufactured mayhem and malice, was now fully launched, as he never could have been, purely on the strength of reasonable arguments, reasonably advanced.
Hysterical reaction to his principled arguments has been the engine that now supplies him with an audience of millions
That’s the historical context — history comes in short spans these days — of the pronoun wars and the saga of Jordan Peterson. Unfair, overwrought and downright malicious opposition to him has been the primary engine of his rise to international prominence. Hysterical reaction to his principled arguments has been the engine that now supplies him with an audience of millions and book sales of Salinger proportions (he’s now outselling Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury).
To be very particular, I like to believe that of all the torments and obstacles placed in his way in the early days of his campaign, it was the hauling of that white-noise machine — the attempt, literally, to drown out a professor, at a free-speech rally, on a university campus, by people preaching tolerance — that gave him and his cause its wings. That was the moment: Christmas morning for free speech and Jordan Peterson.
There has been much since of course. The core of the Lindsay Shepherd scandal — it was a scandal how Miss Shepherd was treated — was her daring to show a brief clip of Jordan Peterson. The key moment in her interrogation was when the Inquisitor in Chief asked her if “she (horror and shame) had been one of Jordan Peterson’s students.” (She wasn’t.) Wilfrid Laurier’s pathological allergy to Peterson or his thoughts propelled his story further.
A great climax came within the past week. Prof. Peterson, now the most prominent Canadian academic possibly in all the world, on a tour for his new book, entered another lioness’s den. This was a 30-minute interview by a left-wing feminist on Britain’s Channel Four. The interviewer was, by definition and mindset, hostile. But over its 30 achingly painful minutes, the calm professor whittled away at her every presupposition and false ascription, till by interview’s end, the host was a lost voice in a forest of tiny splinters on the studio floor.
At one point in this epic demolition, Peterson allowed himself an unwonted indulgence. He quietly uttered “Ha. Gotcha.”
It was the “Gotcha” heard round the world. That interview on Youtube has claimed millions of views worldwide, and such is its pure entertainment value, it will claim millions more.
Sweet are the uses of adversity. Peterson’s book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, is now at the Alpine peak of Amazon sales the world over. He is appearing everywhere from New Zealand to California. Howard Anglin, the perceptive and trenchant lawyer, puzzles on Twitter whether Peterson is more a “Northrop Frye” intellectual than a “Marshall McLuhan.” Canada has a new intellectual star.
It’s all thanks to his opponents. Ha. Gotcha!
I must point out that the fact that she was willing to concede his point and with such thoughtful good grace does speak to her intellectual honesty. Amazing considering her robotic juggernautic start, the usual Progressive journalistic style. My usual experience debating Progressives is that their only response to defeat is to abruptly change the subject, conceding nothing, just going down the list to their next talking point. Maddeningly. Making me feel my time has been wasted after they asked my opinion.
This exchange actually began to turn into a conversation. It left me wanting more.
But, then again, despite the fact that she was controlling the topics, pace and speed of the conversation, trying to not let him get more than a word in edge-wise, he did, like a patient competent teacher with an opinionated student who doesn’t know what she doesn’t know but really does want to understand, did manage to get her thinking. But, not knowing what was coming, I had to watch the end before being motivated to go back and watch the whole thing from the beginning because the very beginning did not engage my interest at all; not being very grown up myself, perhaps, I was a touch “offended.”
Good interview.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIUsD-EWMQg
While I’m also skeptical of some of his generalizations, for example, I’ve mostly worked for and with women and found them to be more aggressive, touchy and competitive than male bosses and co-workers, it’s really good the way he points out the gross over-generalizations that is driving the left-wing radicalism that is trying to destroy our society. The devil is in the details. 25,000 letters or so and various statistics with random samplings according to various criteria, there are a lot more people than that in any given finite setting, i.e., a country, culture, or profession, and unlike red and green marbles, people have too many variables to generalize reliably. It’s a case of the three blind men and the elephant.
Sad, that he has to give a reason for why we must defend the speech we hate.
Did take a while to cut to the chase. I included a – stuck in moderation – wikipedia article about a slow-bowling cricketer from the early 20th century Edgar G. mentioned plus a film of him and photos and finally a clip of Bob and Ray’s hilarious piece slow talkers of America in which a fast talking interviewer is climbing the walls trying to get his slow talking interlocutor to cut to the chase.
@ Edgar G.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhA_gk1GmNk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Rhodes
https://www.google.com/search?q=wilfred+rhodes&safe=active&rlz=1CAACAJ_enUS775US775&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiRj4m2sf7YAhUM0VMKHQHJABAQ_AUIDCgD&biw=911&bih=436&dpr=1.5
http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/544187.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qvrh73BVraE
Bravo! By refusing to participate in the madness Professor Jordan Peterson has exposed the Pronoun War for the insanity that it is. Perhaps his refusal will resonate like the voice of the child in the “Emperor’s New Clothes” who exclaims, “But the Emperor has NO clothes!”
@ archie:
Maybe he was meant to come to prominence just now as an antidote for Justin Trudeau, which we need so badly. The Canadian Public must be gagging …. He should be next of Peterson’s list….if he has one. I suppose he does not. With him dangling out there as an enticement for the liberal, do-gooders (for everyone but their own people) and free-speechers for nobody except themselves, he’s provocation to attack him. Which is the best thing that could happens since he has a smooth, impervious method of handling them to their detriment and our benefit..
None of you guys would ever know what or whom I am speaking about , but he reminded me of Wilfred Rhodes’ enticing, slow left handed bowling. ………!!… I met him once in Leeds when I was a teen-ager, and he a tall thin old man, who could no longer see, but was a regular at all matches.. I saw some of the greatest stars in history playing at the “Benefit Match” that day, but nobody like Rhodes.
Peterson’s YouTube attacks against cultural Marxism and post modern theory are definitive and should be mandatory viewing for anyone with a brain and an awareness of current affairs. Same for Ben Shapiro. We need to field more smart people like these capable of effective elocution.
I love the professor! I have enjoyed his words of wisdom for many years now, well before UoT’s attack on him that propelled him to stardom. He is well spoken on almost any topic due to his breadth of wisdom and his calm well thought out logic. If only more people would think things through and investigate ‘facts’ like he does.