Daily Archives: July 23, 2021

The left, he believes, refuses to admit that men might be in charge because they are better at it. The people who hold that our culture is an oppressive patriarchy, they dont want to admit that the current hierarchy might be predicated on competence, he said.

Mr. Peterson illustrates his arguments with copious references to ancient myths bringing up stories of witches, biblical allegories and ancient traditions. I ask why these old stories should guide us today.

It makes sense that a witch lives in a swamp. Yeah, he says. Why?

Its a hard one.

Right. Thats right. You dont know. Its because those things hang together at a very deep level. Right. Yeah. And it makes sense that an old king lives in a desiccated tower.

But witches dont exist, and they dont live in swamps, I say.

Yeah, they do. They do exist. They just dont exist the way you think they exist. They certainly exist. You may say well dragons dont exist. Its, like, yes they do the category predator and the category dragon are the same category. It absolutely exists. Its a superordinate category. It exists absolutely more than anything else. In fact, it really exists. What exists is not obvious. You say, Well, theres no such thing as witches. Yeah, I know what you mean, but that isnt what you think when you go see a movie about them. You cant help but fall into these categories. Theres no escape from them.

Recently, a young man named Alek Minassian drove through Toronto trying to kill people with his van. Ten were killed, and he has been charged with first-degree murder for their deaths, and with attempted murder for 16 people who were injured. Mr. Minassian declared himself to be part of a misogynist group whose members call themselves incels. The term is short for involuntary celibates, though the group has evolved into a male supremacist movement made up of people some celibate, some not who believe that women should be treated as sexual objects with few rights. Some believe in forced sexual redistribution, in which a governing body would intervene in womens lives to force them into sexual relationships.

Violent attacks are what happens when men do not have partners, Mr. Peterson says, and society needs to work to make sure those men are married.

Read more here:

Jordan Peterson, Custodian of the Patriarchy - The New ...

Photo credit: Derek Story via Unsplash.

Jonathon Van Maren atConviviumputs his fingeron an interesting phenomenon: the atheists and agnostics who are coming around to a pro-Christian view:

Not so long ago, the atheists who retreated to their Darwinian towers and bricked themselves up to fire arrows at the faithfulwantedto be there. Their intellectual siloes were a refuge from faith because they didnt want Christianity to be true. They hated it and thought wed be better off without it. Like [Christopher] Hitchens, they were thrilled to find arguments that permitted them to reject it.

These atheists are finding the Darwinian tower less to their liking, and are laying down their bow and arrow. Not because they doubt their atheism, or evolution for that matter. As John West and others have pointed out, Darwinian atheism has acorrosive effecton culture. But the theory, like atheism more broadly, could still be true and its influence would be no less corrosive.

I call this group the New New Atheists. We still have the loud and aggressive Old New Atheists around, folks like evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne who think wed all be much better off without Christianity, or other faiths. But this seems increasingly like an old-fashioned position. Van Maren cites historian Niall Ferguson, philosopher Roger Scruton, writer Douglas Murray, social scientist Charles Murray, historian Tom Holland, and the famed Jordan Peterson as examples of agnostics or atheists who argue that the West without Christianity would be in serious trouble.

Christopher Hitchens wrote a book calledGod Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Published in 2007, that now seems like a time capsule. From the perspective of 2021, the spitefulness of the title sounds reactionary. More of the moment is Douglas Murray, who provocatively called himself a Christian atheist in afascinating conversationwith blogger Esther OReilly on Justin Brierleys podcastUnbelievable?

The view of people like this carries weight. Peterson has appeared to tremble on the edge of conversion, while withholding it from expectant observers for now. He may be a greater influence as he is. As OReillypoints out, the fact of Petersons not being a Christian disproportionately tilts ears in his direction right out of the gate.

Van Maren quotes Fergusson:

I know I cant achieve religious faith, he went on, but I do think we should go to church.We dont have, I dont think, an evolved ethical system. I dont buy the idea that evolution alone gets us to be moral. It can modify behavior, but theres just too much evidence that in the raw, when the constraints of civilization fall away, we behave in the most savage way to one another. Im a big believer that with the inherited wisdom of a two-millennia old religion, weve got a pretty good framework to work with. [Emphasis added.]

Arguably the Wests inherited wisdom can itself be explained in (loosely defined) evolutionary terms. Traditions dont survive for millennia because they areunfitto guide a healthy culture.

These atheists are only recognizing something that no small number of Jews also see Ben Shapiro, Dennis Prager, and Michael Medved, for example. They (and I) would agree with Fergusson that, when the constraints of civilization fall away and in the West, that means Christian civilization we behave in the most savage way to one another. Christianity is suited to the role of a religion for billions of people. Judaism,as Ive pointed out, is not well suited to that role. William Lane Craignotesthe paradoxical effectiveness of Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew, in pointing people to Christianity. Craig hassaid he was flabbergastedthat in an interview, Shapiro invited him to offer his personal testimony as a Christian and did not really argue with Craigs apologetic case. My instinct would have been to push back, but Shapiro was the wiser.

Something new, in any event, looks to be evolving, even if still on a modest scale. Weve been encouraged by the responses to Stephen Meyers new book,Return of the God Hypothesis, from self-described agnostics, Brian Keating, Michael Shermer, and James Croft, among otherscientists and scholars, a long way from the petulant jeering of the Old New Atheists. Perhaps Jonathon Van Marens observation helps to explain that too.

Follow this link:

Meet the New New Atheists, Not Like the Old New Atheists - Discovery Institute

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Universities should be safe spaces from assault and bodily harm, but not from ideas and opinions people might find offensive

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The University of Glasgow hit peak woke when it recently announced that it will be urging professors to avoid using the phrase trigger warning.

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Professors have been advised to stop saying trigger warning before sensitive content is talked about because it could be too triggering for their thin-skinned students. Instead, theyve been asked to say content advisory prior to speaking about sensitive matters, in order to ensure U of G remains a safe space.

While this incident took place in the United Kingdom, Canadian schools are not immune to this type of thinking.

A group of current and former students at Ryerson Universitys School of Journalism caused an internal revolt in March, releasing an open letter that claimed the school had contributed to an unsafe learning environment because they were subjected to words and opinions they disapproved of. This letter was written after a group of students was frustrated by the facultys response to a human rights complaint that I initiated against the Eyeopener, one of Ryersons campus newspapers.

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Likewise, for the past year, community members at Wilfrid Laurier University have called for professors David Haskell and William McNally to be fired for the crime of being conservative. Haskell and McNally have been vocal defenders of freedom of expression at Laurier, which the woke mob sees as unacceptable.

People might hope this safe-space culture would stop at the doors of universities, but it has extended into the work world, as well. This idea of not wanting to offend people contributed to the resignation of Bari Weiss, an opinion writer and editor at the New York Times, in 2020. Weiss said she was annoyed with how stories that didnt explicitly promote progressive causes needed to have every detail scrutinized before being published.

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Employees at Penguin Random House Canada proclaimed in November that they were offended when it was announced that the company would be publishing Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson. The employees said the book should not be published by Penguin because they did not want Petersons views to be platformed.

Universities should be safe spaces from assault and bodily harm, but not from ideas and opinions people might find offensive. The harmfulness of safe-space culture was explored at length in the 2018 book, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt.

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The authors said they wrote the book because they observed that students were pathologizing words and ideas as dangerous and violent, which they found illogical. This change started to occur around 2013 or 2014, and became more widespread from 2015 to 2017.

In the book, Lukianoff and Haidt argue that safe-space culture does not work because it relies on three great untruths: what does not kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; and life is a battle between good and evil people. These untruths contradict modern psychological research and ancient philosophical wisdom, and serve to hurt people who embrace them.

Indeed, the authors found that embracing these untruths has led to increased depression, anxiety and suicides among students. In other words, what was supposed to help students has left them unprepared to deal with stressors and challenges, which leads to increased suffering.

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Lukianoff and Haidt argue students need stressors and challenges in order to learn, adapt and grow. But universities consistently do the opposite, teaching students that they are candles that can easily be extinguished, instead of fires that thrive when faced with adversity.

Trigger warnings, in particular, often have the opposite effect of what they are intended to. A 2018 study out of Harvard University suggested that trigger warnings intensify the stigma associated with trauma, as they serve to enforce the idea that trauma is central to peoples identities.

The study went on to explain that trigger warnings are terrible for people who have never experienced trauma, as they can lead to people thinking that they are not resilient and may lead them to think that they are vulnerable to developing mental illnesses.

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Using trigger warnings communicates to students that words can be harmful. After all, trigger warnings serve as threat-confirmations. This inclination to see threats where they do not exist is associated with an increased risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the study.

The result is that many conservatives are now afraid to say what they really think. A recent study from the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology found that 58 per cent of right-wing professors in Canada claim their university is a hostile climate for their views.

It also found that 45 per cent of Canadian academics say they would discriminate against a colleague who supports former U.S. president Donald Trump, that 17 per cent would discriminate against a right-leaning grant bid and 11 per cent would be more critical of a right-leaning paper submission.

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The study went on to claim that 34 per cent of somewhat right grad students and 62 per cent of very right grad students in North America and the United Kingdom believe sharing their views would make their lives difficult. As a result, right-wing grad students end up being less inclined to pursue academic careers, as conservatives are made to feel like they have to shut up or face consequences.

Given all of the evidence that safe-space culture does not work, I find it confusing why so many students and professors support it. I presented this evidence to various people throughout my academic career at Ryerson, but faculty and students consistently ignored the facts presented to them. I recall one instance where I recommended a journalism professor read The Coddling of the American Mind to understand why safe-space culture does not work, and he said he would never pick it up.

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There are plenty of basic steps universities can take to stop this craziness: adopt a free speech policy based on the Chicago statement; stop using the word unsafe except when it pertains to matters of physical safety; and remove their radical diversity, inclusion and equity offices and instead encourage unity among faculty and students. These solutions might be unpopular, but they are the right moves.

Former British prime minister Winston Churchill said that, A state of society where men may not speak their minds cannot endure long. People should be free to speak their minds on university campuses without being punished. If freedom of expression remains a touchy subject on university campuses, the prospects of having a functioning democracy are minimal.

National Post

Jonathan Bradley recently graduated from the journalism program at Ryerson University.

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Excerpt from:

Jonathan Bradley: Campus safe-space culture is a threat to the very fabric of our society - National Post

The Utah state flag, top, and a commemorative state flag, below, fly atop the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, July 13, 2021. As Pioneer Day nears, the Utah League of Cities and Towns released a new lighthearted campaign Thursday aimed at getting national outlets to call people from Utah "Utahns." (Spenser Heaps, Deseret News)

SALT LAKE CITY The Utah League of Cities and Towns has a bone to pick with how some people spell the word for people from Utah.

Stop spelling "Utahn" U-T-A-H-A-N.

Yes, as the Pioneer Day state holiday nears, the organization rolled out a new campaign called "Call Me a Utahn," aimed to get people to correctly pronounce and spell Utah's demonym. The lighthearted campaign took aim at national news organizations like the New York Times, USA Today and the Associated Press for spelling "Utahn" with an extra "a."

"I'm not sure what a UTAHAN is, but it is not me!" said Bountiful city manager Gary Hill, and the league's vice president, in a written statement released Thursday.

Utah League of Cities and Towns also enlisted the help of Y2 Analytics to conduct a poll among Utahns about what they call themselves and how they spell it. In an adjoining report, they found 90% spelled it "Utahn." Nearly half of those polled didn't just prefer "Utahn" but also believed "Utahan" wasn't acceptable. Another 43% preferred "Utahn" but didn't mind "Utahan."

Quin Monson, a partner at Y2 Analytics, wrote in a report Thursday that finding 90% agreement on anything is "rare," especially because large groups tend to have "a few contrarians."

"That's probably higher than the proportion of Utahns that consider themselves fans of the Utah Jazz or that listen to the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square," he wrote of the 90% agreement, adding that it was higher than the number of people who approved of Pioneer Day as an official state holiday which received an 84% favorable rating among Utahns who responded to the survey.

What they also found is that calling people "Utahns" was something even opposing groups could agree on. Ninety-three percent of Democrats polled favored "Utahn," and so did 90% of Republicans. Whether you voted for Joe Biden or Donald Trump, Spencer Cox or Christopher Peterson, or are a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or not, it didn't seem to make a difference. All of those ranged from 88% to 92% in favor of "Utahn."

"Overwhelming majorities of Democrats and Republicans, Biden voters and Trump voters, as well as Cox voters and Peterson voters agree that Utahn is correct. These are groups that normally see the world differently," Monson added. "Given the long-term religious and cultural divide in Utah, you might expect some differences on the preferred demonym by religion. That expectation would be incorrect.

"Whether you are a Latter-day Saint, some other religion, or no religion at all, you prefer to call yourself a 'Utahn.'"

In addition, Y2 Analytics found nearly all Utah news publications use "Utahn." For the record, KSL.com's internal style also prefers "Utahn" over "Utahan."

Meanwhile, outlets like the New York Times used it about 37% of the time, USA Today used it half of the time, and out-of-state stories from the Associated Press use "Utahn" about 63% of the time.

The Utah League of Cities and Towns' message to those who don't pronounce "Utahn" correctly or spell it U-T-A-H-N?

Get on board.

"Please, the next time you refer to us, call us Utahns. Really! We would appreciate it," said South Jordan Mayor Dawn Ramsey. "In fact, we'll probably send you a thank you note with some fry sauce and green Jell-O salad!"

Excerpt from:

Utah organization wants to make it clear: It's 'Utahn' not 'Utahan' - KSL.com

People who live in New York are New Yorkers. Residents of New Hampshire are New Hampshirites. Those in Georgia are Georgians.

Seems simple enough.

But what about people in Utah? Are they Utahns? Or are they Utahans?

Y2 Analytics recently posed this question in a statewide survey of Utah voters: Which of the following do you think is the correct way to spell the word that refers to someone who lives in Utah?

Only two options were given, and Utahn was chosen 90% of the time.

Every large group has some contrarians, so any public opinion item with 90% agreement is rare, said Quin Monson, a partner with the Salt Lake City-based market research and data analytics group. Thats probably higher than the proportion of Utahns who consider themselves fans of the Utah Jazz or that listen to the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square.

Even a state holiday received a smaller proportion of agreement. The survey conducted June 24 to July 7 found only 84% approve of Pioneer Day (July 24) being an official Utah state holiday.

The poll also found that a large percentage of Utahns believe that Utahn is the only acceptable demonym, the word used to refer to people in a particular country, state or city.

The locals clearly prefer one spelling over the other, Monson said.

The survey looked at other factors such as politics and religion to see what might predict the preference for Utahns over Utahans.

Overwhelming majorities of Democrats and Republicans, Joe Biden voters and Donald Trump voters, as well as Spencer Cox voters and Chris Peterson voters agree Utahn is correct.

These are groups that normally see the world differently, Monson said. They not only cannot agree on who to vote for in an election, but many cannot even agree on who won the 2020 presidential election or if election fraud occurred during that election.

As for religion, given the long-term religious and cultural divide in Utah, some might expect some difference on the preferred demonym. But that is not the case.

Whether you are a Latter-day Saint, some other religion, or no religion at all, you prefer to call yourself a Utahn, Monson said.

So Utahn it is.

But not everyone thinks so, including some major news outlets.

Y2 Analytics used the Lexis/Nexis database of news stories from 2000 to 2020 to search for both Utahn and Utahan and compute the percentage of the time news media used the correct spelling.

The New York Times only got it right 36.8% of the time. The Los Angeles Times and USA Today spelled it correctly half of the time. The Associated Press and the New York Post did it right about 60% of the time.

Every local news source, including the Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune, is above 95%.

In doing a little digging to find out why those two papers would allow an incorrect spelling to go to press, Y2 Analytics found it occurred only in letters to the editor (which are not corrected) or when a snarky columnist poked fun at an outsiders incorrect spelling.

In light of the survey results, the Utah League of Cities and Towns launched a campaign Thursday called Call Me a Utahn in an effort to get national news media to call us what residents want to be called.

Millcreek Mayor Jeff Silvestrini weighed in with some clever word play.

I am a Utahn, because its much easier to pronounce and (always a plus) uses fewer letters to express the same thought. It is an honor to be called a Utahn. It is not an honour to be called a Utahan. See, even Noah Webster would approve this style change, he said.

South Jordan Mayor Dawn Ramsey agreed, saying he is proud to be a Utahn.

Skiing, hiking, making green Jell-O, eating ice cream and cheering for the Utah Jazz all come natural to me, he said. We are Utahns, not Utahans.

Read more from the original source:

Utahn or Utahan? Whats the right term for people from the Beehive State? - Deseret News