Blogpost infested with rightwingers violating rabble policy - hi, mods!

Boze wrote:

swallow wrote:

Men are smarter than women, Peterson says (using fancier words). Wow. That's seriously fucked up. I hope everyone will at least agree on that point. 

Peterson is a trait psychologist. "Intellect" in this sense is a measurable personality trait, which some groups will score higher on, on average, than others. It is not synonymous with intelligence. It is a sub-aspect of trait "Openness to Experience," which is one of the Big Five personality traits (the others being Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Neuroticism). Technically, what Peterson said is an empirical fact.

It is equally a fact that women are, on average, more agreeable than men, and more neurotic (again, using the technical definition of these terms in trait psychology).

Inability to discuss these things due to people's reactions and misunderstandings of psychology (not to mention statistics) would, I assume, be one of Peterson's major gripes against political correctness. I know it's one of mine.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Boze wrote:

This video is instructive,

I found it kind of sad to watch, actually.

I mean, I take this fellow at his word when he says (in the debate) that he has helped people in therapy. I am just having a hard time seeing that in his behaviour in this video.Perhaps he is a totally different person when he is not obsessing on this issue (and I kind of saw that in some of the videos I posted upthread) but he does seem to be easily set off by stuff.

I'm easily set off by narcissists too, especially when they are able to manipulate others. I'm not a psychologist (yet) but most clinical psychologists that study the phenomenon will tell you that in order for meaningful progress to be made in treating pathological narcissism, the narcissist must suffer a grievous narcissistic injury - in other words they have to be broken. So far from feeling bad for people who will watch Peterson's videos and think "oh my god, am I being a terrible narcissist by acting this way?" I actually think it's the best thing for them. They have to be broken of their delusions. They have to be stripped of their false self and forced to reckon with the reality of their true self being exposed, naked, for all to see. And that's a lot easier when everybody is on the same page, which, of course, terrifies the narcissist.

First perversion. Now you are saying you consider transgenderism narcissism as well?

I'm not sure it's really up to all of us to "break" narcissists in order to "cure" them.

But I also don't think that being called "he" instead of "ze" would really break anyone anyway.  It might annoy, or insult them, but that's really about it.

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But, how is this different from faith or creed?

At no time is there any expectation that I will be a participant in anyone's faith or creed, other than by NOT refusing them service, a job, a dwelling, or personal physical safety.

In other words, people are free to believe in The Flying Spaghetti Monster, but I'm not expected to show through my speech or actions that I believe in TFSM or that I validate their belief.  I can even go so far as to suggest that TFSM doesn't exist. 

6079_Smith_W wrote:

First perversion. Now you are saying you consider transgenderism narcissism as well?

I'm starting to consider you a troll. We've been over this, this has nothing to do with transgenderism. The vast majority of trans people identify very strongly with the gender binary and have a very strong preference for either "he" or "she" pronouns.

So no, I don't, and I don't consider non-binary gender identities narcissistic either. What I consider narcissistic is the idea that people are entitled to, as Peterson put it, "linguistic preferential treatment." That's narcissistic. You can identify as gender "purple" all you want, but when you start demanding that people put "purple" on forms next to "male" and "female," I'm going to tell you to fuck off. Loudly. That's not only stupid, it's dangerous, and it's dangerous to humour people like that. They need to be challenged and I'm eternally grateful to Prof. Peterson for doing it.

Really?

More narcissistic than someone who imagines that there actually hordes of people insisting that they be called "purple" even though he hasn't had a single such encounter? And that a law designed to extend protection from discrimination to people who have difficulty in even finding a place to go to the bathroom is really all about him and this imagined free speech violation?

Yesterday, Unionist posted an update to the latest legal goings-on with regard to the religious community of Bountiful.

I certainly don't share the beliefs of the members of Bountiful.  And I can't support their beardy old elders trading 13-year old brides like they were hockey cards.  But their church has been around for long enough that I have to acknowledge that their beliefs are actual beliefs.  In fact, that's been the biggest problem for the law in their case -- if they were just the B.C. Secular Polygamist Club they'd have been shut down years ago.

Anyway, the article mentions a former member named Robert Crossfield, who identifies as "Prophet Onias".

1.  If he wants to identify as "Prophet Onias", I respect his right to do so.

2.  If other members of Bountiful wish to address him as "Prophet Onias", I respect their right to do so.

3.  If I don't wish to call him "Prophet Onias", I don't believe I should be required to, even if he requests this.

4.  I don't believe that anyone else should be coerced in any way to call him "Prophet Onias" if they don't wish to, even if he requests this.

His rights to religious freedom simply don't extend to anyone else's behaviour or language.

Boze wrote:

I don't think there are hordes, and neither does Peterson. They're few in number but they're malicious and dangerous and they often make complaints against professors, and wreak tremendous havoc within organizations (and I'm not talking about gender nonconformists here - I'm talking about the kind of person who would complain that a form doesn't have a box to tick for gender: purple), and we need to be able to tell them to fuck off without being worried about being slapped with an allegation of discrimination.

Who?

Geez, never mind hordes. I'd settle for one. Even Peterson has said he hasn't had this encounter. And for the record, he said he wasn't sure how he would respond if he did.

As Magoo said:

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It might annoy, or insult them, but that's really about it.

That's a far stretch from your malicious and dangerous. So if you think so, let's see the evidence.

Mr. Magoo wrote:

I'm not sure it's really up to all of us to "break" narcissists in order to "cure" them.

But I also don't think that being called "he" instead of "ze" would really break anyone anyway.  It might annoy, or insult them, but that's really about it.

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But, how is this different from faith or creed?

At no time is there any expectation that I will be a participant in anyone's faith or creed, other than by NOT refusing them service, a job, a dwelling, or personal physical safety.

In other words, people are free to believe in The Flying Spaghetti Monster, but I'm not expected to show through my speech or actions that I believe in TFSM or that I validate their belief.  I can even go so far as to suggest that TFSM doesn't exist. 

I have to disagree with you Magoo. It IS up to us to challenge pernicious bullshit rather than enable it.

It's not about merely not humouring them either. It's important to challenge this nonsense, to let it be known that we see right through them. Allow me to provide an illustration of my point. 

[youtube]z2_8cfVpXbo[/youtube] 

@ Unionist

Like the rest of this nonsense speculation, we have had 40 years of experience that shows that is not going to happen.

And we had an even more recent Supreme Court ruling that ensured your right to ridicule anyone you want for their religion, race, gender or sex.

also, smith i think there is some cases where people have been fined by the HRC for exactly ridiculing "anyone you want for their religion, race, gender or sex."  the comedian fined for getting into a tussle with the two lesbian women, glasses broken a drink thrown in his face.  The guy who ridiculed the disabled kid in quebec, etc.

i think it just goes both ways...yeah "usually" the judgements are fairly reasonable and the law isn't misused. 

but the way it's written leaves it open to abuse which sometime does happen.  They could for example, specify that "these provisions do not extend to the forced use of speech or compelled speech" something like that and everyone would  be protected, but they won't allow that because the law is intentionally vague for that exact purpose--it can LATER be deterined what it really means, and that's the part that scares people....much like bill c51, it's the lack of clear standards, definitions and oversight not really the "intent" that's being debated.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

milo204 wrote:

Perhaps SMITH may i put the onus on you to show us skeptics how this is totally unreasonable?

No milo, you may not, and I just explained why to Magoo. I don't entertain challenges to prove god and UFOs don't exist either.

You let me know when someone comes after Peterson (or, Blatchford, since she has presumably opened the door), and when a tribunal decides to hear a complaint.

As for ridicule, here is the part of the 2013 ruling that struck down part of Saskatchewan's Human Rights Code:

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The court struck down the part of the legislation that includes speech that "ridicules, belittles or otherwise affronts the dignity of any person or class of persons on the basis of a prohibited ground." It found those words are not rationally connected to the objective of protecting people from hate speech.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/top-court-upholds-key-part-of-sask-anti-...

You don't care at all that people might keep silent...that they might want to say something, but be afraid to, because of the PC police.

I direct you to Peterson's anecdote around 33:45 of the debate video which you posted in this thread.

Academics want to say things, about political correctness, and many are grateful to Peterson for taking a shot at it, but they are worried about the impact that speaking up would have on their careers. As Peterson says...the PC police are in our heads. This is about the social penalties for speaking out against this bs as much as it is about any potential legal penalties. What's the reaction when someone says "we can't talk openly about X without being called racist/sexist/whatever"? 

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Beliefs which they clearly know are discriminatory, otherwise they wouldn't be ashamed of them.

This right here? This is the problem in a nutshell. Nobody says a goddamn word because the social costs might be too high. Except to say that "it's racist" or "it's bigoted" or "it's offensive." That's a totally uncontroversial sentiment to express, and you know that you'll be backed up if you say it, no matter how spurious the accusation, even if you're totally off-base, as though your heart was in the right place - as though it's better to be wrong about shouting something down for being offensive than it is to chance saying someething that somebody might be offended by.

The students wanted to work in pairs and be assigned opinions, rather than take responsibility for sharing their opinions, goddammit. Who can possibly think this is a desirable state of affairs at a university?

Fucking madness. I'm out for the night.

Boze wrote:

Fucking madness. I'm out for the night.

When you come back, maybe you could answer the question above from the holder of a graduate degree in psychology. I don't have a psych degree, but I'm also surprised to see you state trait spychology with such certainty. 

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You don't see a bit of a double standard? People asking for consideration for their identity is a perversion which should be spat at, and we should resist any attempt to prevent us from speaking our minds.

As Peterson has said, what you have are people asserting that their identity is what they say it is, as opposed to it being socially negotiated. When people hold their tongues about the trigender pyrofox because they don't want to be seen as hateful, that's something we need to resist, yes, absolutely.

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But students put in a position where they have uncomfortable ideas need to be sheltered and not have them challenged.

Who said this? Look, you're not seeing the same reality that I am. People are afraid to speak at all. I mean, take a look at what *some* people are saying about people who voted Trump or supported Trump. "Yes they ARE all racists." "If you supported Donald Trump you are literally a bad person." People won't admit that they supported Trump because they might lose friends over it. They are cowed into submission because they value their friendships above honesty. I suppose the only cure is for them to learn courage. Of course, I loathe Trump and I am not happy at all that it has come to this, but with each passing day it becomes more and more clear why he won.

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Doesn't his classroom experiment seem a bit contrived to shame and get a specific response? The example of a grown man claiming to be a five-year-old? Of course students are going to be confused by it. And he is the one who assigned opinions.

He was reading a letter from a graduate student, he wasn't the one teaching the class. And no, he didn't assign opinions, the graduate student asked what could be done to make people more comfortable speaking, and one student suggested being assigned to pairs and assigned positions so that no individual had to take ownership of their opinions. This is the death knell of the university, folks.

As for the example of the grown man claiming to be a five-year old girl and finding people who will humour him, the point is that given a big enough population, you can always find people in sufficient number to make any identity claim seem legitimate, instead of like psychopathology. Chew on that and tell me if it's offensive, or impute positions to me that I have not taken or do not take because of your perceptions of the implications of what I've said - I no longer care. Offense is irrelevant. Frank discussion is the only real discussion. The man claiming to be a five-year old girl is deeply disturbed, and the people indulging him are basically doing evil - but you know that there are people out there who will not only defend this, but attack those of us who criticize it as hateful bigots.

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But his conclusion - if you have an uncomfortable feeling it all comes down to "the PC police inside your head" and that is the enemy rather than trying to bridge that misunderstanding - is a really messed up and manipulative one

This is less about teaching students to look at a situation and form an opinion than it is about playing into Peterson's warped ideas about discrimination.

After all, this isn't really about white people who claim they are black, this is about Peterson fundamentally opposing any kind of anti-racism training because he thinks that would automatically make him a racist (he said exactly that in one of the articles posted upthread). So sure, anyone asking for that kind of consideration is the enemy.

As we discussed upthread, the anti-racism training was instituted at the behest of the Black Liberation Collective, an organization with an ideology that Peterson despises, for good reasons. He fundamentally opposes mandatory anti-racism training, because he believes, with some justification I would say, that it's propaganda. He likely also opposes it because of some of his resent research that he's discussed in interviews (one with The Rebel in particular is worth watching) showing that attending these kind of propaganda sessions correlates with "PC authoritarianism."

But what happens if you denounce mandatory anti-racist training? Well, people like YOU will say "you must be a racist!" So no one does it. The PC bullshit goes unchallenged. This is the enemy as far as I'm concerned - the mindset that people MUST go along with political correctness or else at least keep their "hateful" opinions to themselves.

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Like I said, I wasn't in the classroom, so I only have his account to go on. While I think his opinions should not affect his academic career (and indeed, they HAVE not, contrary to his claim), if he is indeed playing with people's minds the way he seems to be here that is something for which his role as a teacher and as a therapist SHOULD be questioned, IMO.

Gee, small wonder that he might be worried, when people talk like this...never mind that you're not even discussing a scenario which actually happened, because he wasn't teaching the class in that story.

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He is basically using unrealistic examples to paint people as "others" who are a threat. That notions of racism, sexism and discrimination are just PC police, and that any attempt to challenge these uncomfortable ideas, whether valid or not, is an attack.

Actually, it seems to me that he is saying that notions of racism, sexism and discrimination can be, and often are, used as a thought-terminating cliche, and that people go along with it too often because of bullying.

You don't see it. Okay, that's fine. But authoritarians are ALWAYS a threat. So please, don't participate in the authoritarianism. Don't be a PC bully.

How is someone asking to be referred to as "they" bullying?

And in fact, if you are telling me to not participate in the bullying, what are you saying, exactly? That you don't want to have your ideas challenged?

6079_Smith_W wrote:

How is someone asking to be referred to as "they" bullying?

And in fact, if you are telling me to not participate in the bullying, what are you saying, exactly? That you don't want to have your ideas challenged

You're either not listening, or you're trolling.

Shaming and shunning people for opposing PC bullshit in a level-headed, non-hateful manner, is bullying.

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How am I shaming you?

About the closest I have come to that is pointing out that some of the ideas here are conspiracist and without foundation. And considering that I have repeatedly invited people to ante up with any evidence, I'd say that is fair comment. But if what you are asking for is for no one to challenge your ideas at all, well sorry; get your own blog where you are free to shut down opposition. And I'll say again it is a bit of a contradiction to what you are asking for.

Though yeah, saying you want to spit in their faces is really level-headed.

I didn't say that, you bonehead.

Nor was I accusing you of shaming. But repeatedly misinterpreting what I have said as a desire to deny rights or respect to gender non-conformists (reminder, this has nothing to do with trans people) would qualify as bullying to me. You're trying to paint me as something other than I am in order to dismiss what I have to say.

You won't accept any evidence because at most it could only be anecdotal.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

???

I just asked you how you thought I was bullying you, and you said this:

Boze wrote:

Shaming and shunning people for opposing PC bullshit in a level-headed, non-hateful manner, is bullying.

But I am a bonehead for thinking you are also accusing me of shaming you? Come on.

And this:

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I have never admired Blatchford as much as I do right now. This attitude is the correct one. Spit in the face of this perverse horseshit.

Level headed argument? Non-hateful?

Haha, it might not be me at my most level-headed. But I don't think it's hateful. I am glad to see people fight back publicly.

And, if it wasn't clear, I wasn't accusing you of bullying me when I said "please, don't be a PC bully." I was speaking generally.

Mr. Magoo wrote:

But I also don't think that being called "he" instead of "ze" would really break anyone anyway.  It might annoy, or insult them, but that's really about it.

What if someone was being continually called "he" instead of "she", or "she instead of he"?

wage zombie wrote:

Mr. Magoo wrote:

But I also don't think that being called "he" instead of "ze" would really break anyone anyway.  It might annoy, or insult them, but that's really about it.

What if someone was being continually called "he" instead of "she", or "she instead of he"?

If you want to be called "she," you know what you have to do. Changing your name, appearance, behaviour is the major part of it. You signal to others that you are functioning as a "she."

For me this is not ideological. If someone who looks to be of one gender but asks me to use a pronoun of the other gender I will comply with their wishes. It might be because they are cross dressing, preparing for or going through gender reassignment surgery or another unknown reason. In my workplace my female colleagues use Ms, Mrs. Or Miss. I always ask them which they use and address them using their preferred term. Communication between individuals is difficult enough without throwing up boundaries needlessly. And yes, I have had some strange requests and I have honoured those as well.

i think a big part of this debate is that instead of the various gender neutral people agreeing on a gender neutral version of he/she etc, they still haven't figured out amongst themselves what it should be.

like if they decided on one and we're like "can you use this instead" people would come around to it, but because it's  this ever changing and ever expanding list  people see it as impossible and unworkable. 

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What if someone was being continually called "he" instead of "she", or "she instead of he"?

What if someone identifies as "Prophet Onias", but people keep calling him "Mr. Crossfield"?

Is that rude?  If we can call a doctor "Doctor" and if we can call a professor "Professor", then why would we withold our courtesy for a Prophet of God?