Jordan Peterson debate on the gender pay gap, campus protests and postmodernism

[paleologos]

If you haven't seen the interview here is a link, I suggest you watch it.
If you are liberal, you may find it educational, in most other cases you will find it entertaining and very satisfactory.

Now, I used to think that I were a liberal myself but seeing the positions taken by mainstream self-professed liberals I have begun to question my designation as such.
What bothers me is that identity politics seem to have become the pivot around which a liberal's worldview and political stances are structured.
Even when confronted by very strong evidence, a self-professed liberal will not acknowledge being at fault, perhaps out of fear of being branded as "alt-right", or at least not liberal enough.

The most significant (IMO) thing I took away from that interview is the assertion by Professor Peterson that the assumption that group identity is paramount is a commonality between social justice activists and left wing authoritarian regimes and can lead to all sorts of disasters.
It is my suspicion that therein lies to answer to the question why was that interview such a disaster for the interviewer: that in her attempt to defend her brand as a liberal she took positions that on one hand could not be defended and on the other she could not waver from.

What do you think?

[Sir Adrian]

Personally I think that 99% of ameri-liberals, feminists, sjws, etc are in it for personal interest (money, attention, sense of belonging, whatever the reason) or were educated as such since childhood by self-interested and egotistical individuals who saw a market to buy their crap. So obviously they will refuse to admit they are in the wrong or back down as doing so will directly threaten their self-interest/everything they were taught

If you look at it closely the entire ameri-liberal/feminism thing of "you're with us or part of the alt-right" is maintained and reinforced by handful of individuals who are making a killing while the masses simply repeat what said individuals tell them.
Once the market has been tapped out you will see a distinct decrease in talk about gender roles, pay gaps, multiculturalism and gay stuff.



* I use ameri-liberal to distinguish between what liberal means in america and britain and the classical mainland european definition of liberal. (which americans/brits would define as libertarian)

[Cope]

Now, I used to think that I were a liberal myself but seeing the positions taken by mainstream self-professed liberals I have begun to question my designation as such.
What bothers me is that identity politics seem to have become the pivot around which a liberal's worldview and political stances are structured.

Somewhat true.

Even when confronted by very strong evidence, a self-professed liberal will not acknowledge being at fault, perhaps out of fear of being branded as "alt-right", or at least not liberal enough.

A refusal to acknowledge one's faults hasn't much to do with political outlook.

The most significant (IMO) thing I took away from that interview is the assertion by Professor Peterson that the assumption that group identity is paramount is a commonality between social justice activists and left wing authoritarian regimes and can lead to all sorts of disasters.

Group identity necessarily plays in role in politics: there is no avoiding this reality. The issue of authoritarianism merged with identity politics occurs as frequently on the right as it does on the left - and yes, it's a problem.

It is my suspicion that therein lies to answer to the question why was that interview such a disaster for the interviewer: that in her attempt to defend her brand as a liberal she took positions that on one hand could not be defended and on the other she could not waver from.

Group preferences frequently create grotesque intellectual inconsistencies. It's not unusual for identity activists to become militantly hostile to their own standards when they threaten to disadvantage an "in-group" or benefit an "out-group".

[Prodromos]

Related is Jonah Goldberg's article about the lifestylization of politics. Nowadays politics isn't a belief, but a lifestyle and an identity. The vast majority of people arguing over politics have an elementary understanding of it. They're just looking for drama, fun and a group to belong to. When I hear about 16 year old Egyptian girls on Twitter denouncing the Republican tax bill, I have to pinch myself to make sure I'm not just having a bizarre dream. Politics today is a sport. Everyone has a team and roots for it.

[paleologos]

A refusal to acknowledge one's faults hasn't much to do with political outlook.

I was talking about the political outlook itself having flaws built into it.
It would make sense to use the benefit of people pointing out to you what those flaws are but only if you intend to improve your political outlook.
If you watch the interview from a neutral standpoint you will see that the interviewer takes a stance that is ultimately against her best interest.
Heck, it inspired so many memes, it practically made Cathy Newman a punch line for all sorts of comedians:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I can think of two things that can turn a person against their own interest: fear and passion, though passion is rather a broad category of human flaws such as greed, lust, pride, etc.
So what I was saying is that the reason she maneuvered herself into this position was the fear of what feminists would accuse her off if she didn't give this guest the hardest possible time.

Group identity necessarily plays in role in politics: there is no avoiding this reality.

I don't agree with this assertion, specifically the "necessarily" part of it.
What is necessary for a political carrier is to differentiate themselves from the competition.
If they cannot differentiate in terms of how to handle the business of the nation then they try to invent artificial instances of differentiation.
But it is not a necessity for the citizens and the fact that the citizens seem easy to draw into it shows complete lack of political acumen on their part.

The issue of authoritarianism merged with identity politics occurs as frequently on the right as it does on the left - and yes, it's a problem.

According to Peterson, Marxist authoritarian regimes emphasize group identity at the complete -and intended- detriment of the individual: "the individual is nothing, the group is everything".
The similarity between a Marxist authoritarian regimes and social justice activists is the staunch assertion that they represent the interests of others without having been elected.
Such an assertion only becomes plausible in the minds of people who presume that the individual draws a sense of identity from their sense of belonging to a group.
When that happens with right wing authoritarian regimes then the only group that can be presumed is the nation.
The result is fascism/national socialism.

Group preferences frequently create grotesque intellectual inconsistencies. It's not unusual for identity activists to become militantly hostile to their own standards when they threaten to disadvantage an "in-group" or benefit an "out-group".

While I don't disagree with this claim it seems to me that Cathy Newman was more likely engaged in defense of her image as a SJW.
I mean she wasn't trying to defend a particular person's interests.
The more I think of it the more I become inclined to believe that her whole strategy was an indirect ad hominem (a logical fallacy) assault:
If she would manage to make Peterson look like a bigot then she would have achieved in invalidating his positions without actually having to counter them.
To that end her tactic was the straw man, another logical fallacy.

Related is Jonah Goldberg's article about the lifestylization of politics. Nowadays politics isn't a belief, but a lifestyle and an identity. The vast majority of people arguing over politics have an elementary understanding of it. They're just looking for drama, fun and a group to belong to. When I hear about 16 year old Egyptian girls on Twitter denouncing the Republican tax bill, I have to pinch myself to make sure I'm not just having a bizarre dream. Politics today is a sport. Everyone has a team and roots for it.

Politics was never supposed to be about belief, that's not politics, it's dogma.
What seems to have changed is the dominance of big money over the political carriers.
The result is the narrowing down of the political proposals that would attract the kind of financing that wins elections.
Since political carriers still need to differentiate they focus on the values they represent and there are real differences of values between the people on the right and on the left.
Just not real differences in economic policies or foreign policy on the part of the political parties.
To disguise and make up for this lack of differentiation, partisan politics encourage a tribalistic approach/understanding of the political discourse.

[Cope]

I was talking about the political outlook itself having flaws built into it.
It would make sense to use the benefit of people pointing out to you what those flaws are but only if you intend to improve your political outlook.
If you watch the interview from a neutral standpoint you will see that the interviewer takes a stance that is ultimately against her best interest.
Heck, it inspired so many memes, it practically made Cathy Newman a punch line for all sorts of comedians:

All political outlooks are flawed. A refusal to acknowledge one's flaws or faults tends to relate more closely to an individual's character than it does to his/her political perspective.

I can think of two things that can turn a person against their own interest: fear and passion, though passion is rather a broad category of human flaws such as greed, lust, pride, etc.

So what I was saying is that the reason she maneuvered herself into this position was the fear of what feminists would accuse her off if she didn't give this guest the hardest possible time.

You are probably overstating Newman's intentions and/or motives with respect to her adversarial approach. Plenty of people have interviewed Jordan Peterson from a position of neutrality without being victimized by his detractors. Even though it is likely that Newman disagrees with Peterson's views, her decision to aggressively challenge his position was in any case derived from a desire to liven (and therefore popularize) the debate. If part of her role at Channel 4 is to attract viewers, then the interview was a success.

I don't agree with this assertion, specifically the "

necessarily" part of it.
What is necessary for a political carrier is to differentiate themselves from the competition.
If they cannot differentiate in terms of how to handle the business of the nation then they try to invent artificial instances of differentiation.
But it is not a necessity for the citizens and the fact that the citizens seem easy to draw into it shows complete lack of political acumen on their part.

Politics is about managing societies. This necessarily involves groups of human beings.

According to Peterson, Marxist authoritarian regimes emphasize group identity at the complete -and intended- detriment of the individual: "the individual is nothing, the group is everything".

The similarity between a Marxist authoritarian regimes and social justice activists is the staunch assertion that they represent the interests of others without having been elected.
Such an assertion only becomes plausible in the minds of people who presume that the individual draws a sense of identity from their sense of belonging to a group.
When that happens with right wing authoritarian regimes then the only group that can be presumed is the nation.
The result is fascism/national socialism.

The authoritarian right is as embroiled in identity politics as the left is. Perhaps the only significant difference between the two is the choice of in-groups.

While I don't disagree with this claim it seems to me that Cathy Newman was more likely engaged in defense of her image as a SJW.

I mean she wasn't trying to defend a particular person's interests.
The more I think of it the more I become inclined to believe that her whole strategy was an indirect ad hominem (a logical fallacy) assault:
If she would manage to make Peterson look like a bigot then she would have achieved in invalidating his positions without actually having to counter them.
To that end her tactic was the straw man, another logical fallacy.

This is speculation. Her strategy was to challenge Professor Peterson's views for the purposes of attracting attention to the channel (which is part of her job). That Peterson, a seasoned academic, outfoxed a journalist in a debate in one of his fields of specialty is hardly surprising. Perhaps Newman was a little overzealous, but that doesn't make her an SJW.

[Common Soldier]

The problem with discussion of pay gap and other issues, is that they are taken out of context, and don't include all the facts. For example, when you look at CEOs, you are not looking at the hirint practices of today, but the practices of a couple decades ago, when they were first hired.

Also, many, most women will probably sometime in their career be off due to maternity leave, and those cost are real cost incurred by employers that you can't ignore. Also, I personnally know of several women who dropped out of corporate America to concentrate on raising their children. While they are now backing working outside the home, that does affect their advancement. I don't personally of any men who did the same thing. Many more women are the single parent raising kids than men, and many women are unable or unwilling to make the sacrifices for career advancement. I recall in the old movie Kramer vs Kramer, the man who got stuck with raising the child by himself lost his first job and got a 2nd slightly lower paying job partly as a result of his having to take care of his child by himself. But usually, it is the other way around.

And as for bias, I don't see any women speaking out that only males have to register for the selective service in the US. There doesn't seem to be any likelyhood it will be implement, but still, if women demand the right to service in combat, it should apply the same as men, including being drafted.

In the case of black lives matter, it is seldom pointed out that cops shoot unawared whites in about the sqme numbers as blacks. There was a case last year of an unarmed white woman being shot by a black officer in Minnesota, which didn't make the news. True, the rate that unarmed blacks are shot is about 4 times, but a higner percentage of African Americans live in in higher crime areas where these shootings are more likely to occur. African Americans also 4 times more likely to commit murder, and cops know this. Of course, the shooting any unarmed person is a trag:edy, but it isn't exclusively confined to African Americans.

And the exploitation of Zimmer and Martin set race relations back. Despite the claim otherwise, and it is not reported by the mainstream media, some years before the Martin shooting, an African neighborhood watchman came out of his house and shot and killed an unarmed white honor student, and got off, even though the student never even came in contact with the watchman, and the friends who were with him claimed that the killed student was not threatenint the watchman. The jury had good reason to declare the watchman not guilty, but at best, he was guilty of the same poor judgment leveled at Zimmer. Instead of staying safely in house while the police came, he went out and deliberately took his gun in what he knew could be a violent confrontation. By only reporting nationally stories when it happens to African American, and not when the situation is reversed, you give potentially false impressions, and really do a disservice.
And since with the internet, many are aware of these untold stories by the national media, it creates a distrust of the media that is not in the country's best interestt

[Elfdude]

We start with the general statements, most of them are true and sort of obvious. He explains central dogma about maturity and talks about competency of partners and the desire of partners to be competent. This is where it's fairly easy to agree with him. When Feminists talk about masculinity that's exactly what he's talking about for the first 4-5 minutes. He's talking about power which is measured by the oppression of others, power which although he doesn't say this is often turned upon marginalized communities most frequently (but not most proportionally) towards women. However my first indication of his political messaging starts to eat in at about 5 minutes when he starts to get into details about power and relationship dynamics and runs off on a tangent that some women prefer men they can dominate.

This is an interesting sentiment, the feeling that women desire incompetent men because they can be dominated as a solution towards toxic masculinity which often dominates women. I think this is a rather egregious statement to make without any backing. While we have gobs of data about abuse on women, we really have very little on men. Now of course that could be that toxic masculinity demands men don't reveal their subordinance to women who are almost without exception physically weaker but socially far more nimble. Now when we start to delve into the depths of his beliefs is when we start to get into the BS of his point of view. He believes that the entirety of postmodernism is a ploy to convince us that the systems of powers we have were designed and set up by white men to exclude women, minorities, gays, etc.

This is perhaps the most laughable thing so far. No one in their right mind, whether they be historian is so ignorant as to not realize that yes, the power structures were indeed set up by white men. However it wasn't just white men, it was rich white men. Historically these were the only people in society who were vetted with rights, and throughout history not even they held those rights, it was through resistance and protest and demand that white common men eventually grew to hold the same legal standing as white rich men. This is not debatable whatsoever, it's absolute. However postmodernism makes the claim that inherently the history and knowledge we learn is to a certain extent defined by the interest and perspective of these men. This is true, history is written by the victor and the victor throughout history has been rich white men.

Pay gap - now the UK pay gap via multivariant analysis does definitely show only a small component is prejudice however it depends on what you mean by prejudice. They talk about agreeableness as one trait, agreeableness is a learned behavior. Not inherent. As someone who works with child development I can say you talk to a 4 year old and there's no gender differentiation. You talk to a 6 year old and suddenly you seem dramatically normalization towards agreeableness. You also talk about other factors, those other factors are quite significant as well. One of those factors is ambitiousness, again this is taught socially. I don't think any person advocates for flat 9% raise for women. That'd be ridiculous because the fact of the matter is that the pay gap does not exist on the sole issue of women's pay i.e. we're treating the symptom (pay gap) and ignoring the cause (systemic biases which influence a child's growth and development from day one). Now the problem enters in when you look at certain locations (particularly the poor rural areas and the south in the US) and you see an astonishing jump in pay gap. As bias flat out, women can't do this or women shouldn't do this, or you as a woman are going to do a fraction as a man does indeed exist. Frankly the UK has it easy but it's important to note that this man's premises are not universally applicable and if I'm understanding him thus far I doubt he'd advocate for it (although I know from other things he's posted and said he does).

Now they get into a large back and forth where he does a pretty good job at staying true to his central point. His point isn't that equality of opportunity is undesirable, his point is that the factors we select for are not found as commonly within women. He seems to appreciate that some of this is social conditioning towards women, some of this is the affect of bias, and some of it is likely down to personality differences. I think the problem he makes here is that he forgets to consider who defines what is desirable within a competitive enterprise. We have an enormous selection bias where only those who conform with the preconceived standards of worthiness are rewarded with worthwhile positions. Although we know from studies that the traits which lead to productivity, the traits which lead to success and in many cases the best traits for a the job are not only not the traits often selected for but also found in employees who are not those who fit these preconceived natures. We've all encountered the subpar pushy domineering co-worker who seems to get more promotions and raises thrown their way because while they're mediocre at their job they spend a great deal of time pushing for more. Towards 18 minutes she brings this up (which I agree was rather slow of her). Overall he seems to cede this point and points out we don't have an idea of whether that works (we do have some tantilziing clues it does actually).

They then talk a bit about Hierarchies and whether or not hierarchies are a result of capitalism. I do sort of agree with him here. Hierarchies probably arose through resource scarcity combined with consoldiation of power followed by a bit of group polarization and snowball effects. As someone gained more resources, they produced more successful lineages and those lineages gathered more resources and so on and so forth, these lineages in turn took power as a result of their resources and then used that power to formulate laws which helped them to retain it. I do think hierarchies are a natural phenomena, however I think that in many cases they are deleterious and in the modern world we're seeing more and more issues which arise with hierarchialism and our thoughts of egalitarianism and feelings that people should have a genuine equality of opportunity.

However towards the end of the debate I'm left feeling a sense of mismatch between the OP, the title of this thread and your point.

You start by talking about identity politics as being a bad thing, something only vaguely referenced whatsoever in his theory and it's a theory which I'd highly disagree with. As a scientist who regularly carries out research I have to be aware of biases which influence my research. For example for a long time we presumed women were at no risk of heart disease, in reality we simply hadn't studied it. We presumed those women who were would respond similarly to drugs designed for men, in reality this wasn't the case. Understanding how sampling biases (undercovering, overcovering, convenience, nonresponse and voluntary response), and respondent bias (leading questions, social desirability, peer pressure), lead to outcomes within our society is paramount to understanding why society looks the way it does. These biases are real and when a SJW talks about inequities they're talking inelegantly about biases which are absolutely valid and absolutely exist. There are solutions to these biases as well, and those solutions are something we can't begin to talk about until people by and large understand these types of biases and how they operate.

I'm aware of fringe social justice warriors but they are fringe precisely because they have no basis to their statements. "Penis in vagina = rape" advocates should not be seen as representatives of the feminist movement, they are dearly hurt and often traumatized individuals. These are not sentiments you come to through some sort of logical inquiry and there's no real issue that they'll become ubiquitous in any sort of manner. Rather I often see these outliers held up as representatives of a movement when they don't even encapsulate a large minority of it. It's like holding mormons as the standard for all christians, a ridiculous assertion leading to spurious ideas about what this movement is. However I would point out here that there is a major role in their existence in shifting the overton window towards the reasonable left. Towards liberal policies such as social security and welfare, protection of our poor and programs designed to build a future which shows progress. These sort of policies are good, they're economically supported and they are not something which will come out of conservative ideologies because conservatives in this country are too far too the right to recognize good sense policy as the good sense policy it is but rather presume it is liberal garbage.

If Trump did anything he showed the power of extremist thinking to accomplish just that. If you want to eliminate extremist liberals you should first turn towards extremist conservatives because extremist liberals only exist as a reaction to conservative stupidity. This is absolutely true in college protests where we see a reaction to conservatives who incite violence and attacks. The media is happy to talk about the clash of black-block and the conservative front line, but they don't mention black block cordoning off hospitals and allowing healthcare workers to see to BOTH sides of the conflict, they don't mention how these members chase off groups which stalk activists as they try to return home, they don't talk about anything of the sort. Leftist violence is so rare in this country that any amount becomes headline news and that produces the same sort of sampling biases we talked about earlier and leads folks to make spurious conclusions.

TLDR;

He doesn't say much which seems to lend credibility to this thread. In fact you do the same thing he goes through great pains to point out you shouldn't do in your OP followed by the usual masturbatory release of several conservatives who think they can pile in on someone they feel is ripe for conversion.

[athanaric]

Historians don't argue that "the system was set up by white men", because their skin colour is immaterial in the grand scheme of things and it's not the kind of way historians who are active after 1945 argue. The only people obsessed by "whiteness" (other than white supremacists) are SJWs and their ideological leaders who've managed to twist Marxism in order to make it about race instead of class. It's amazing how the "Left" has supplanted the extreme "Right" in becoming the biggest and most influential racist movement in Western countries, and is continuing to dominate the market for racism even after the rise of the alt-Right. Well done, folks.

This is speculation. Her strategy was to challenge Professor Peterson's views for the purposes of attracting attention to the channel (which is part of her job). That Peterson, a seasoned academic, outfoxed a journalist in a debate in one of his fields of specialty is hardly surprising.

Plenty of seasoned academics roll over and die (figuratively speaking) when confronted with aggressive rhetorics and accusations, particularly when the latter come from an ideological direction which is popular and powerful in society. Need I remind you of the biology professor who was hounded for making a joke about women, or the engineer who was bullied relentlessly for wearing a shirt that was deemed "offensive"? Peterson is one of the few academics who're willing to stand up to the intense psychological and public pressure exerted by the self-appointed guardians of virtue. Having the right arguments isn't always enough. It's also about having the presence of mind, the rhetorical skill, and being able to discern the manipulative ways in which you are being interrogated. Of course, being a psychologist helps you in those situations.

Perhaps Newman was a little overzealous, but that doesn't make her an SJW.

Nevertheless, her approach to the subject ("So you're saying that x") was the typical one taken by people arguing in bad faith, including SJWs. I've encountered this style of "discussion" many times and it's really tiresome, so it's good to see someone being able to completely trounce it.

[Elfdude]

Historians don't argue that "the system was set up by white men", because their skin colour is immaterial in the grand scheme of things and it's not the kind of way historians who are active after 1945 argue.

That's not even slightly true. Their skin color was only as material as the people of the age said it was. Which is quite material and hence relevant. This historical revisionism thing of yours is so pitiful. Do you really hate that people (whom you have no real connection to) did terrible things in the name of whiteness and just so happened to also be control of the world in countless ways that you can't face reality?

The only people obsessed by "whiteness" (other than white supremacists) are SJWs and their ideological leaders who've managed to twist Marxism in order to make it about race instead of class.

It's not even about marxism. Power dynamics as a method of understanding society and class has been something we've talked about for thousands of years well before Marx even existed. It's only the recent phenomena of figuring out the lurid stories we told ourselves of our own ancestries were quite fanciful and hid the dark truths of the reality of our histories that people started getting irritated by it. Within the academic establishment there has been no real challenge to this type of philosophy on sociology for well over 100 years before marx existed. Possibly because the people learning in academia were also the masters who were quite aware of what they were doing who knows? Power is an aggregate of many factors, whiteness being just one of very many but it's skin-color is a category in which we see a vast difference in power in both internal and external society. It's so severe that ANY study I will ever perform that crosses racial demographics will have to control for it by quite a large extent. I'm sorry but your vain attempts to distill it into meaninglessness is amusing but it's far more potent of a variable than any other typical selection bias you'll encounter in research. That alone validates the claims of power dynamics as it applies to race. What's interesting is how irrelevant this thread and the discussion of this is to the statements made by a man who was quite selective with his words.

It's amazing how the "Left" has supplanted the extreme "Right" in becoming the biggest and most influential racist movement in Western countries, and is continuing to dominate the market for racism even after the rise of the alt-Right. Well done, folks.

What's amazing is how the right has hoodwinked people into thinking basic statistics and population dynamics which every researcher on the face of the planet is aware of is racist. Observing the significance of how we value and interact with certain traits is not at all racist. It's far more racist to try and pretend that these effects don't exist because then you run into the flawed reasoning of racial/gendered inferiority.

Plenty of seasoned academics roll over and die (figuratively speaking) when confronted with aggressive rhetorics and accusations, particularly when the latter come from an ideological direction which is popular and powerful in society. Need I remind you of the biology professor who was hounded for making a joke about women, or the engineer who was bullied relentlessly for wearing a shirt that was deemed "offensive"?

Does it strike you that Peterson would make such obvious mistakes? I'm sorry but your whataboutism is boring and is little more than cherry picking to validate your own world views. It's so basic. Her strategy was to ask straight-forward questions, and she likely doesn't know enough to realize that she found the point of his weakness twice but failed to dig into it. Once when he tried to talk about post-modernism and liberal ideology, and a second time when she forced him to admit that the way we even measure competence is based on a definition created by men. Either of those points would've unraveled his metered and cool explanation but she's not a scientist, she's a person with a vague understanding of things which means it's relatively easy for folks to mislead her.

Peterson is one of the few academics who're willing to stand up to the intense psychological and public pressure exerted by the self-appointed guardians of virtue. Having the right arguments isn't always enough. It's also about having the presence of mind, the rhetorical skill, and being able to discern the manipulative ways in which you are being interrogated. Of course, being a psychologist helps you in those situations.

It's interesting how psychology is suddenly a real science when the man is saying what you want him to be. Despite this he does not seem to support a lot of ideals you give him credit for, in fact he's very careful about his phrasing to ensure that he doesn't.

Nevertheless, her approach to the subject ("So you're saying that x") was the typical one taken by people arguing in bad faith, including SJWs. I've encountered this style of "discussion" many times and it's really tiresome, so it's good to see someone being able to completely trounce it.

This isn't a "bad" approach, it's a method of listening that helps dive deeply into subjects. Her problem was that she was too quick in the lines of questioning and only really scratched the surface of his rhetoric. Had she dived deeper instead of covering a plurality of subjects his reasoning would've quickly fallen apart on several items. If what someone repeats back to you is incorrect, correct them. That's what he does and what anyone who has any degree of intellectual honesty should do. If you fail to be able to do so, leave the argument, grow up and then try coming back to it when you can act like an adult and let your words be open to critical analysis and review.

[Muizer]

It's amazing how the "Left" has supplanted the extreme "Right" in becoming the biggest and most influential racist movement in Western countries

You mean the "extreme Left". The average leftist is no more a SJW than the average rightist is a neo-nazi.

[PointOfViewGun]

If you haven't seen the interview here is a link, I suggest you watch it.
If you are liberal, you may find it educational, in most other cases you will find it entertaining and very satisfactory.

Now, I used to think that I were a liberal myself but seeing the positions taken by mainstream self-professed liberals I have begun to question my designation as such.
What bothers me is that identity politics seem to have become the pivot around which a liberal's worldview and political stances are structured.
Even when confronted by very strong evidence, a self-professed liberal will not acknowledge being at fault, perhaps out of fear of being branded as "alt-right", or at least not liberal enough.

The most significant (IMO) thing I took away from that interview is the assertion by Professor Peterson that the assumption that group identity is paramount is a commonality between social justice activists and left wing authoritarian regimes and can lead to all sorts of disasters.
It is my suspicion that therein lies to answer to the question why was that interview such a disaster for the interviewer: that in her attempt to defend her brand as a liberal she took positions that on one hand could not be defended and on the other she could not waver from.

What do you think?

This is a simple case of a very bad interviewer. She put almost everything in his mouth which was annoying to watch. She also clearly doesn't understand the scope of the arguments Peterson was making. However, to put her in a sense a representative of liberalism in general is even more annoying. The funny thing is that what Peterson debates doesn't even go against liberalism. Perhaps people should stop making a single block out of liberalism.

[Cope]

Plenty of seasoned academics roll over and die (figuratively speaking) when confronted with aggressive rhetorics and accusations, particularly when the latter come from an ideological direction which is popular and powerful in society. Need I remind you of the biology professor who was hounded for making a joke about women, or the engineer who was bullied relentlessly for wearing a shirt that was deemed "offensive"? Peterson is one of the few academics who're willing to stand up to the intense psychological and public pressure exerted by the self-appointed guardians of virtue. Having the right arguments isn't always enough. It's also about having the presence of mind, the rhetorical skill, and being able to discern the manipulative ways in which you are being interrogated. Of course, being a psychologist helps you in those situations.

Academics being bullied and harassed by political zealots is a separate issue. I'm simply unsurprised that a scholar, who is also a public figure, was capable of outperforming a journalist in his area of specialty.

Nevertheless, her approach to the subject ("So you're saying that x") was the typical one taken by people arguing in bad faith, including SJWs. I've encountered this style of "discussion" many times and it's really tiresome, so it's good to see someone being able to completely trounce it.

It's not difficult to highlight a straw man.

[paleologos]

So what does everybody think about Prof Peterson's analysis of his interview with Cathy Newman?
(This video is only 12min, 25sec)

[paleologos]

It turns out that the video of Prof Peterson's analysis of his interview with Cathy Newman has been blocked on the excuse of copyright issues.
I say cowardice.

[Heathen Hammer]

Historians don't argue that "the system was set up by white men", because their skin colour is immaterial in the grand scheme of things and it's not the kind of way historians who are active after 1945 argue. The only people obsessed by "whiteness" (other than white supremacists) are SJWs and their ideological leaders who've managed to twist Marxism in order to make it about race instead of class. It's amazing how the "Left" has supplanted the extreme "Right" in becoming the biggest and most influential racist movement in Western countries, and is continuing to dominate the market for racism even after the rise of the alt-Right. Well done, folks.

It mainly has to do with the fact that instead of fighting corporate establishment, left decided to join forces with it, thus supporting extreme form of "let them eat cake" neoliberalism, where interests of working class are replaced with interests of "oppressed groups", obviously with "oppression" of latter being entirely fictional and grounded in actual racial animosity towards peoples of European ethnic backgrounds. Hence why we have such notions as "white patriarchy", and while every educated (of course here I mean real education, not the non-STEM "degrees") rational human knows that it objectively does not exist, left needs this myth to continue promoting above-mentioned neoliberal agenda.

[Sir Adrian]

It turns out that the video of Prof Peterson's analysis of his interview with Cathy Newman has been blocked on the excuse of copyright issues.
I say cowardice.

What. I just watched it. It's still there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=aMcjxSThD54

[paleologos]

What. I just watched it. It's still there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=aMcjxSThD54

No, not that one.

I meant this one:
Prof Peterson's analysis of his interview with Cathy Newman
I had a chance to watch it but I did not think about downloading it.
So now you have nothing but my word to count on when I say that Peterson himself claimed what I said in post #5 of this thread:

...
The more I think of it the more I become inclined to believe that her whole strategy was an indirect ad hominem (a logical fallacy) assault:
If she would manage to make Peterson look like a bigot then she would have achieved in invalidating his positions without actually having to counter them.
To that end her tactic was the straw man, another logical fallacy.
...

As much as memory serves he claimed that:
her questions were like "a barb with bait on it's tip",
she oversimplified his positions to the extend that they bore no semblance to what his positions truly are,
that she tried to make him look like a person that would be very easy to disagree with.

I suppose if she thinks of herself as a champion/hero of women's rights she would need a villain to prove her case.

[Basil II the B.S]

If you haven't seen the interview here is a link, I suggest you watch it.
If you are liberal, you may find it educational, in most other cases you will find it entertaining and very satisfactory.

Now, I used to think that I were a liberal myself but seeing the positions taken by mainstream self-professed liberals I have begun to question my designation as such.
What bothers me is that identity politics seem to have become the pivot around which a liberal's worldview and political stances are structured.
Even when confronted by very strong evidence, a self-professed liberal will not acknowledge being at fault, perhaps out of fear of being branded as "alt-right", or at least not liberal enough.

The most significant (IMO) thing I took away from that interview is the assertion by Professor Peterson that the assumption that group identity is paramount is a commonality between social justice activists and left wing authoritarian regimes and can lead to all sorts of disasters.
It is my suspicion that therein lies to answer to the question why was that interview such a disaster for the interviewer: that in her attempt to defend her brand as a liberal she took positions that on one hand could not be defended and on the other she could not waver from.

What do you think?

Jordan Peterson is a liberal. By classical terms, hailing from the age of enlightment, Voltaire and the such.

Post-modern race and gender Marxism, which he criticizes and today passes for ''liberalism'' is not liberalism. The debate reflects an ongoing trend in political debate where anyone who disagrees with identity politics is branded as Hitler. Low tier debating tactics like that are regularly applied on this forum as well. It's noticeable by the amount of ''so you are saying'' that Cathy Newman does as well. Post-modern Marxist start from the idea that your racial/gender/sexual identity automatically makes you racist/sexist/homo/transphobe and thus try to spin your argument with strawman after strawman, because they aren't interested in the truth, they are only interested in censoring your opinion.

Liberalism was colorblind and genderblind. Identity politics prescribes different treatment according to race, gender or sexual orientation, making it indeed the racist and sexist ideology it claims to fight against.

As for you, sooner or later you'll have to pick sides. The truth is, you probably pass as ''straight white male'' and that makes you guilty of oppressing others, so your choices will be join the club of shamers or join the club of critics at the cost of being called Hitler.

Anyway, an interesting (long) take on the debate:

http://quillette.com/2018/01/17/jord...w-bourgeoisie/

And the sorry state of US universities: Peterson's panel cancelled to make room for a seminary on ''white privilege''.

http://amp.dailycaller.com/2018/01/2...e-speech-event

[The spartan]

This is more of an interview than an actual debate, but it is quite fascinating. It is a good example of the current struggle going on in the far-left, and it is quite noticeable on many college campuses. The surge in activism post-trump for the far-left has been dramatic and angsty. People are prickly due to provocations. Provocations toward identity of all things, which people are extremely passionate about. So a noticeable minority gets scared to the point of doing something stupid, though most are harmless, and the rest of society observes them and offers differing opinions. The problems really only arise when with the even smaller minority that does things that are not harmless, again, due to (often existential) fear. The views of this minority are not really to be tolerated by the rest of society, and it is important for those other groups who typically identify closely with the harmful extremist group to be ready to call out and reject the extremist position as well. All too often "aligned" groups tolerate positions put forth by associated extremists groups, often for reasons of political expedience. That is scummy and needs to stop. If individuals take stock and realize they very rarely or never call out groups near their "alignment", they should really reconsider their own levels of partisanship.