Category Archives: Jordan Peterson

Controversial Canadian author and psychologist Jordan Peterson has blasted COVID-19 vaccine mandates as an imitation of "a totalitarian state."

The self-proclaimed "professor against political correctness" said that COVID-19 policy was "being driven by people who are more afraid than they should be" during an appearance on the conservative talk show The Rubin Report on Wednesday.

Peterson, who argued that the mandates were an example of "herd" mentality, was diagnosed with COVID-19 in August 2020 while receiving treatment for prescription drug dependence in Serbia and has since been vaccinated against the virus.

"The thing that surprised me the most, probably, was how rapidly we stampeded to imitate a totalitarian state in the immediate aftermath of the release of COVID," Peters said. "You know, if you think it through a little bit, no one really knew how serious the virus was going to be. And so, it was an unknown threat."

"A herd will stampede because the most neurotic member of the herd jumps first, and then [the rest of the herd will] instantly follow them," he added. "And that's kind of what we did in the early stages of the pandemic. The Chinese acted first. Now, unfortunately they are a totalitarian state. And we all followed."

Peterson went on to say that "the breakdown of our rights" caused by COVID-19 public health measures was especially "grating" in Canada. Peterson described mandates that require vaccination as a precondition for travel as "extraordinarily annoying."

"My father isn't vaccinated. He decided not to, partly because they were telling him he had to. And he has his other reasons," Peterson said. "To then find out that there's nothing behind it except the most instrumental and cowardly random polling is extremely disheartening and also maddening and also angering."

"Canadians who aren't vaccinated right now cannot leave the country. Like, what the hell, why is that?" he continued. "I got vaccinated. And people took me to task for that. And I thought, 'All right, I'll get the damn vaccine.' Here's the deal, guys: I'll get the vaccine, you f***ing leave me alone!"

Peterson lamented that becoming vaccinated did not "work," in the sense that he is still required to be tested for COVID-19 to both leave and return to Canada. The psychologist suggested that the travel restrictions were the primary reason to become vaccinated, question why he got the vaccine "if you're not going to leave me alone."

Peterson has described himself as a "classical liberal" but has amassed a large following of mostly conservatives due to his positions on issues of political correctness and identity politics. He first entered the spotlight after opposing a 2016 Canadian law intended to prevent discrimination against transgender people, arguing that the law would unfairly police language.

Newsweek reached out to Peterson for comment.

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Jordan Peterson Says COVID Vaccine Mandates Imitate ...

Americans know very little about Canada. Fewer than half of Americans surveyed in 2011 knew where Canadas capital is (hint: its Ottawa), and two-thirds acknowledged they learned next to nothing about Canadas history in school. (Truth be told, its not as interesting as Americas). In another study, nearly 40% of American eighth-graders thought Canadas government was a dictatorship.

As a colleague of mine recently said, theres an untapped market for a book about Canada written specifically for our neighbors to the south. But then again, making Americans care about Canada has been a losing battle for centuries.

So it came as a pleasant surprise that when Canada recently made international headlines because of protests over vaccine mandates, Americans started to pay attention. The problem is, many people sought to compare and contrast a country they know little about with the only country that most Americans know something about: America.

Writing in The New York Times, Paul Krugman called the trucker protests a slow-moving Jan. 6 with the truckers cast as economic vandals. An MSNBC commentator said that ineffectual law enforcement response to the Ambassador Bridge blockade smacked strongly of what happened with the Capitol Police before and during the attempted putsch on Jan. 6. A CNN correspondent called the demonstrations an insurrection, sedition.

Others have taken to pointing out a perceived race-based double standard among those who decried the Black Lives Matter protests in the United States, but now support the Canadian trucker protests. But to my well-meaning American friends engaging in these comparisons, it might be worth exercising a bit more caution before stepping into another nations conversation.

For starters, despite popular misconception, a sizable contingent of the Canadian demonstrators are people of color. And, as Jamil Jivani recently argued in Newsweek, It will be uncomfortable for some to read this, but the truth must be said: We have no reason to believe the majority of truckers in the convoy are racist. In fact, appropriate for the month of February, the trucker convoy is actually a Black history moment.

The problem with compressing the trucker protests into the January 6 box, or other boxes, is that theyre simply different things in different countries and contexts. Journalist Rupa Subramanya spoke to nearly a hundred protesters and couldnt find the hordes of alt-right, QAnon-following conspiracists supposedly sieging Ottawa.

Instead, she found the very opposite.

Benjamin Dichter, a leading spokesman for the Freedom Convoy who recently appeared on Jordan Petersons podcast, told Subramanya: Im Jewish. I have family in mass graves in Europe. And apparently Im a white supremacist.

Theres also not as much civil disobedience as one might suspect given the mainstream coverage of the truckers as far-right extremists. The notion of hate-filled truckers and conspiracists appears mostly overblown, particularly coming from people who months earlier marshaled justifications in the wake of the 2021 protests that resulted in the most expensive insurance-claim payout in American history.

The disproportionate response of the Canadian government in activating Canadas Emergencies Act (which replaced the War Measures Act) is striking. Remarkably, it has only been exercised thrice before: twice during each World War and once when Quebecois separatists kidnapped and murdered the deputy prime minister.

A heavy-handed government response is just what the Canadian-American journalist David Frum fears. As weve seen with the spread of racial justice protests, so too could government overreach inspire similar mobilization across the West.

Even though not even a third of Canadians side with the protestors (essentially the same percentage of support Prime Minister Justin Trudeau received in the last election), the protests have grown, even as some Ottawa residents reported feeling unsafe in their own neighborhoods.

Canadian authorities must think long and hard about their next move. But insinuating that the truckers represent antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, homophobia, and transphobia, as Trudeau has tweeted, well, that seems like a political playbook from south of the border.

Ari David Blaff is a Canadian freelance journalist. His writings have appeared in National Review, Tablet, Quillette and the Institute for Family Studies.

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Canada protests: Why have they been compared to Jan. 6 riot? | Opinion - Deseret News

Evangeline Lilly appeared in a five-minute video this weekend with a direct appeal to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau concerning the ongoing protests against vaccine mandates in that country. The protests began in late January in the Canadian capital, Ottawa, led by cross-border truck drivers, and has since spread to other cities. The Ant-Man and Lost star, who was born and raised in Western Canada, published her cri de coeur on the Instagram page of Bridge City News, a daily program out of Alberta that airs on The Miracle Channel, Canadas first over-the-air religious television station.

In a calm tone with noticeable "oot"s for "out"s, Lilly opens by telling Trudeau she has concerns about his current approach to, and current treatment of, our fellow Canadians who are protesting your federal vaccine mandates. They have asked to meet with you, Prime Minister; medical experts, top scientists, doctors, nurses, parents, grandparents, intelligent, loving, concerned citizens. Why won't you sit with them?

She goes on to request he listen to what they have to say with a mind open to hearing things that might go against the ideas you are entrenched in. She also suggested he listen to Needle Points by Norman Doidge, the name of a four-part essay published in Tablet Magazine last November, and also the name of a January podcast hosted by Jordan Peterson, the ubiquitous controversial Canadian professor. Lilly says that Doidge, the best-selling author of The Brain That Changes Itself, has painstakingly and comprehensively laid out why these protestors are not unreasonable."

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In late January, Lilly attended an anti-vaccine-mandate hullabaloo in Washington, D.C., the same one where Robert F. Kennedy Jr. compared current American public health initiatives to the policies of Nazi Germany. Even in Hitler Germany [sic], you [could] cross the Alps into Switzerland. You could hide in an attic, like Anne Frank did, he said, then later apologized after the Auschwitz Memorial's social media arm called his comments a sad symptom of moral & intellectual decay.

From that event, Lilly posted some black and white shots to her Instagram to support bodily sovereignty while Canadian truckers were rallying for their cross-country, peaceful convoy in support of the same thing.

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Following these remarks, Lillys Ant-Man co-star David Dastmalchian, as well as fellow Marvel hero (and Canadian) Simu Liu, made social media comments about of their own about the value of Covid vaccines and the appropriate use of a wide platform.

The third Ant-Man picture, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, is scheduled for release in July 2023.

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Evangeline Lilly Appeals to Justin Trudeau To Hear From the People Sitting Out in the Cold at Your Door - Vanity Fair

1867 & All Thatis a lively and riveting romp through some of the most important stories from Canadian political history. The first season retold the stories of the Rebellions of 1837 and 1838 and the long fight in the 1840s over this strange but fundamental Canadian concept called responsible government.

Now Season Two has just launched.

This season1867 & All Thatrecounts the tumultuous road that led to the creation of Canada. Starting with the bitter ethnic and religious fights in the 1850s in the Province of Canada, it introduces the key personalities and events which led an unlikely group of friends and foes to temporarily set aside their differences and forge a country.

The past has a funny way of looking like the present and1867 & All Thatshows that cancel culture and brawling fights over contentious speakers didnt originate with Twitter. In the years before Confederation, crowds shouted down speakers, they smashed windows, and even, on one occasion, trained a cannon on a Catholic Church to prevent a St. Patricks Day parade.

Season Two of1867 & All Thatcontains these stories and more. But it starts with the little remembered story of an Italian priest who riled and divided Canadians more than Jordan Peterson and Dave Chappelle combined.

Heres a taste of episode one:

At some point in that summer of 1853, it must have occurred to Alessandro Gavazzi that this Canadian trip hadnt been such a good idea. If I had to guess Id say the moment of doubt might have come when he found himself mounted atop a high church podium in Quebec City, clasping a wooden chair, swinging it wildly about, trying to defend himself against a mob of irate Catholics who wanted to beat him senseless.

Or maybe not.

Alessandro Gavazzi was no timid man. The Italian liberal nationalist was a revolutionary after all. He had fled his homeland after the failed 1848 revolutions. Gavazzi retreated to London and then to North America, making his living as a public orator. His favourite topic that summer of 1853 was the evils of the Papacy. Gavazzi was a former priestwith the emphasis on former. He still donned clerical robes as a man of God, just no longer as a Catholic. Feeling betrayed by Pope Pius IX who reformers like Gavazzi felt had betrayed the revolution in Italy, Gavazzi had left the church and become a protestant. Like many converts to a new faithor maybe like ex-smokersthe new convert soon became the most vitriolic detractor of his former faith and practice.

His speaking tour of British North America began in Toronto and the crowds in that thoroughly protestant city welcomed him heartily. But after Toronto, he travelled to the decidedly Catholic precincts of Quebec Citythat fortified bastion of the French fact in North America founded hundreds of years ago after Champlains first visit. And Quebecs French Catholics as well as its many recently arrived Irish Catholics were not pleased he had come.

In his first public talk he had regaled audiences with his anti-Catholic speeches to much excitement. But the next day, with rumours swirling in the city that local Catholics planned to retaliate, Gavazzi had to scramble to find another church in which to speak after his first host reluctantly cancelled his appearance. Another church opened its doors to him and so Gavazzi spoke on what he titled the Catholic churchs ancient and modern inquisition.

That night, crowds of angry Catholics gathered outside the church even as, inside, Gavazzi offered lurid descriptions of the horrid torture practices of the church during the inquisition. He then turned to the controversial subject of Ireland and the protestant-Catholic fights in that part of the British Islesa subject bound to be more difficult in Quebec, what with the large numbers of recent famine Irish migrants. Thats when someone in the audience shouted:

Its a lie! And then Turn him out!

Perhaps that had been a signal because, at just that moment, the crowd outside the church began its assault. Stones crashed through the windows and rioters burst through the doors. Chaos erupted as rioters attempted to storm the pulpit and pull Gavazzi down. Thats when he grabbed a chair, employing it as a weapon. Others in the crowd hurled songbooks at him. Protestants and Catholics shouted and shoved each other in a general melee. Several angry detractors pushed their way through the crowd and up to the pulpit, heaving Gavazzi off his perch from a height of fifteen feet. Luckily, he landed on the crowd below, their bodies softening his fall. He got to his feet and was helped to safety.

Yet as Gavazzi limped away into the night, the divisions of the Canadas played themselves out in tumultuous fashion amid shouts and shoving on the streets of Quebec.

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1867 & All That explores the 19th century's cancel culture - The Hub

Growing up as a middle child in suburban Chicago, Drew Peterson was something of a sport contrarian. When his family rooted for the Cubs, he was in Yankee pinstripes. On Sundays, he was cheering the Chiefs rather than the hometown Bears.

And while his father and older brother considered Michael Jordan the greatest basketball player ever, Peterson preferred LeBron James.

That could simply be a generational bias at play, but its also revealing about the type of player Peterson always wanted to be, and has become as a member of USC mens basketball the past two seasons: A pass-first guard, despite his height at 6-foot-9.

Peterson was not a point guard who had a late growth spurt in high school. He was always taller than his classmates, towering over other kids while playing first base in Little League.

But because he was also so skinny and could not keep up with the physical battles in the post, his father, Mike, emphasized guard skills.

And that suited Peterson just fine.

He likes to make plays, his father said. As much as he likes to score, he likes to drive the ball and dish and make people happy. Its as much his personality as any training he had.

I always liked to pass the ball growing up, even as more of a three, Peterson added. So I always tried to develop my handle and just be able to prove that I can control the ball for more of the game.

Peterson spent his first two college years at Rice, where he displayed many of the same tendencies as a pass-first guard. But he struggled to control the ball against quicker defenders with lower centers of gravity, averaging a career-high 2.7 turnovers as a sophomore.

When he entered the transfer portal in the early months of the pandemic, he rushed into a commitment to Minnesota. But he backed out, wanting to further explore his options.

A scholarship had opened at USC in the meantime, and Peterson was attracted to the university and the basketball program.

Early after Peterson enrolled at USC, head coach Andy Enfield began to emphasize Petersons ability to spread the ball around and run the offense. In Petersons first year with the Trojans, he got some opportunities to back up the teams point guards.

But this season as a senior, Peterson has acted as the Trojans primary ball handler for long stretches of games. As he led 17th-ranked USC in every major category in last weeks win over UCLA, he was bringing the ball up the court on most possessions.

And as impressive as his scoring was that game with a career-high 27 points, Peterson still found opportunities for his teammates, like a perfect skip pass to Chevez Goodwin for an easy dunk.

We were able to flourish together, [Enfields] philosophy and how I play, Peterson said. I always had the confidence, I always wanted to play point guard. Now Im just trusted in big situations to be able to come off ball screens and be able to make plays for my teammates.

When: Sunday, 4:30 p.m.

Where:Galen Center

TV/Radio:Fox Sports 1 / 790 AM

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USCs Drew Peterson and the development of a point forward - The San Gabriel Valley Tribune

After two years filled with remote learning, many of us wonder about what an increasingly online world may mean for kids. Well, in a new book, author Mark Bauerlein, who in 2008s The Dumbest Generation lamented the stupefying impact of the digital age, argues that young adults have suffered significant consequences from ubiquitous technology. In his new book, The Dumbest Generation Grows Up, Bauerlein, a senior editor at First Things and an English professor at Emory University, makes the case about the long-lasting psychological and intellectual effect of growing up digital. Given the timeliness and the provocative title, I was interested in hearing what he had to say.

Rick

Rick: So, Mark, whats the big picture?

Mark: Back in 2008, when I wrote The Dumbest Generation, the word on millennials was a big cheer. Web 2.0 was racing ahead, and teens were praised as the digital natives, early adopters leading America into a superconnected 21st century. One book had the title Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation. My response: No! This is awful! In my book, I wrote about how 250 selfies and 4,000 texts per month were a disasterwhich brought charges of old fogey, Luddite, curmudgeon from educators and digiphiles at the many lectures I gave in the months following my book release. Fifteen years later, millennial glow is no more. The consequences of letting them close their books, cut off the elders, and dive into screens in their teens are all too clear as they hit their 30s: a generation increasingly nonreligious, unpatriotic, bouncing from job to job, uninterested in marriage and kids, unhappy.

Rick: Can you say a bit more about why you think technology has harmed children and young adults?

Mark: The tools put them in a bubble of adolescence, alone in the bedroom texting and chatting, viewing and gaming, filming and talking with one another. What have we done to them? I ask in the first sentence of the new book. The screens we handed them didnt provide equipment to manage ordinary woes of adulthood. They didnt get a humanities formation that would make them feel they live in a wondrous stream of civilization, an inheritance of masterpieces, heroes and villains of epic stature, visions of transcendence, a great country, momentous events, heights of eloquence, . . . and that left them rootless and bitter and fragile, searching for purpose and meaning in the screen and in extreme ideological movements. Oh yes, the supervisors of the young failed them and damaged them, and our 30-year-old doesnt know what to do. He has five hours of leisure time per day and he devotes seven minutes to reading.

Rick: This is obviously a passionate critique. For those who are skeptical, whats some evidence that things are as bad as you say?

Mark: SAT writing scores dropped 15 points from 2006 to 2016, when SAT scrapped the writing requirement. ACT college readiness in reading dropped 8 points from 2009 to 2019. Majors in the humanities in higher ed. have plummeted. I wish knowledge levels were high, but NAEP U.S. history and ACT science scores arent reflecting that. I wish emotional and mental well-being were indicating some improvement, but depression, anxiety, narcissism, and suicide are up, while job satisfaction and optimism are down. One-third of millennial males will never have married by age 40. They are more intolerant and mistrustful than older Americans, too, and they have a vindictive outlook. When they see a microaggression, they want the culprit to pay dearly. This is the source of the cancel culture they favor.

Rick: In your new book, you talk about youth becoming dangerous adults. What do you mean by this?

Mark: When a person is happy to sign a petition with 2,000 others to get a stranger fired for telling a dumb racial joke on social media; when students demand that a question be added to course evaluations asking whether the teacher committed any microaggressions during the semester; when the election of Donald Trump inspires outright trauma among young Dems; when young editors in tears demand Jordan Petersons latest book be canceled . . . we are in the realm of danger.

Rick: You argue that technology is a big driver for the shifts that concern you. But how you do you think about unpacking the impact of technology from other social, cultural, and political changes?

Mark: The thing I focus on is how ubiquitous screens drew millennials away from, in a word, civilization. The 2008 crash was badand a little knowledge of the Depression would give perspective. Trumps triumph was debilitatingand knowing of the shock in 1901 of Teddy Roosevelt taking charge would have done the same. They nurse socialist dreamsand a little Orwell and Hayek would temper those fantasies. Thats what civilization endows: a steadying force against the pressures of the moment. The iPhone only aggravated those pressures.

Rick: OK, so for readers persuaded by your critique, what are one or two things youd urge schools and educators to do?

Mark: Boost literary curriculum. Why are the young so fractious and reactive? Because they havent read enough novels, performed in plays, and memorized poems. Recitation and performance get them out of their heads, force them to use better words and assume other personalities. Novels make them consider motive and imagine feelings they dont have themselves, which builds cognitive empathy. Yes, more literary education, make them become for a moment Lady Macbeth, Emily Dickinson, Frederick Douglass, and Jay Gatsby. Thats a very healthy thing for an adolescent to do. The phone pushes the opposite, turning what should be a time of expansion into contraction, a Daily Me, as it used to be called, that only promotes narcissism, and we know how Narcissus ended.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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Have We Raised the 'Dumbest Generation'? (An Author Q&A) (Opinion) - Education Week

On a recent episode of Joe Rogans controversial and highly influential podcast, Canadian psychology professor and best-selling author Jordan Peterson repeated several false claims about the energy transition. During the show, which is Spotifys top-rated podcast and boasts an audience of 11 million, Peterson claims rising prices, which he assumes will be caused by the energy transition, will hurt the most vulnerable.

When discussing the move to a low carbon economy, he told Rogan, There is the old saying, When the aristocracy gets a cold, the working class dies of pneumonia. So fine, increase energy costs. Well, what happens? A bunch of poor people fall off the map and the more you increase the energy cost, the more that happens.

While Peterson, who New York Times columnist David Brooks has called the most influential public intellectual in the Western world right now, paints a dire picture the reality is that his claims are not backed up by reality. Our research shows that the transition to renewable energy will lower energy costs over time and in many areas, we are already seeing wind and solar outcompeting fossil fuels.

For example, our 2021 report Put Gas on Standby showed new onshore wind and solar investment options are already cheaper than the costs associated with the continued operation of existing gas plants in the US. By 2030, we project the costs for both renewable technologies will fall to levels less than half the long-run marginal cost for gas.

The ability of renewables to provide cheaper power is also true when it comes to coal. In 2018, we found that by 2030 building new renewables will be cheaper than continuing to operate 96% of todays existing and planned coal plants.

Given Jordan Petersons concern for the poor, he should know that instead of impoverishing people, our research finds that the opportunities for growth are greatest in emerging markets. This is driven by the fact that many developing nations are building out their energy systems, and cheap renewables offer a route to bring cheaper power to more people, create new industries, jobs and wealth. These benefits could be especially felt in Africa which has a massive 39% of global potential growth in renewables and could become a clean energy superpower.

In addition, providing jobs and cheaper energy, moving to a low carbon economy will cut greenhouse gas emissions and protect us from the worst impacts of climate change. This is critical if we want to help those living in poverty for the simple fact that, as numerous studies have shown, the extreme weather created by global warming will disproportionately impact the poorest communities around the world.

There has been a great deal of blowback about the Joe Rogan interview. Jordan Petersons comments on climate science have been panned by scientists, such as UN IPCC author and leading climate researcher Professor Michael Mann, as absurd, nonsensical and false. However, one thing Peterson is right about is that we do face choices regarding the energy transition.

Fortunately, it is not a question of whether we burn fossil fuels or starve the poor.

The choices we really face are about how we might enable a just energy transition. This involves several challenges, including finding ways to help workers in the fossil fuel sector transition to a new career in clean energy and making sure the vast economic benefits created by the growth of renewables are widely shared.

If someone is truly concerned about uplifting the poor, as Peterson claims he is, then these are places they should be focusing instead of on framing false choices that would lock us into polluting, and increasingly expensive fossil fuels.

The photo of Jordan Peterson was taken by photographer Gage Skidmore.

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Why Jordan Peterson Should Think Again on the Energy Transition - Carbon Tracker Initiative

The philosopher Nina Power believes men are under attack. Western society has done away with the positive dimensions of patriarchy, that is, the protective father, the responsible man, the paternalistic attitude that exhibits care and compassion. In her new book, What Do Men Want?, she expresses the hope that, following a great deal of bitterness in recent years, men and women can reconcile on the basis of a renewed and greater understanding of one another and advocates a return to old values and virtues honour, loyalty, courage; rather than being made to feel guilty for their gender privilege, Boys and men must be allowed to be good, to become better.

These are worthy sentiments, but the underlying premise is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Just how prevalent is the current demonisation of men? Have compassion and virtue really been abolished? Are boys not presently allowed to be good? The sweeping, simplistic and vaguely sour tone recalls the handwringing culture wars opinion pieces that have proliferated in recent years. They invariably follow a template: an obscure incidence of arguably overzealous identity politicking usually involving a university campus is held up as evidence of a deep civilisational malaise. The alarmist register can make for compelling clickbait, but whether it can sustain a serious, book-length work is another matter.

To give us a sense of 21st-century male ennui, Power presents a cursory overview of the masculinist online communities known collectively as the manosphere. At the relatively respectable end of the spectrum we find Canadian self-help guru Jordan Peterson, whose brand of commonsensical conservatism has helped lots of young men find a sense of direction in their lives. (Many people, it seems, desire the kind of certainty that comes from someone saying basic things in a stern manner, she notes.) At the more extreme end are gender separatist groups such as Men Going Their Own Way, and self-styled incels (involuntary celibates).

Power argues we should try to understand these communities rather than treating them as pariahs. She invokes the trajectory of notorious pickup artist Neil Strauss, who authored a bestselling manual on chatting up women before eventually seeing the error of his ways, to show that redemption is possible. Intriguingly, she suggests the subculture around obsessive self-improvement contains a kernel of radical leftism: If pro-masculinist books have an appeal it is in large part because they present an image of an escape from various kinds of depressed, morose types of masculinity in a consumerist, hedonistic society. In this analysis, the restraint and discipline advocated by, for example, the NoFap movement which preaches abstinence from masturbation and pornography is re-conceived as a form of anti-capitalist resistance.

After years of febrile identity politics discourse, it can be refreshing to read a writer urging us to come together and put aside our differences. But what does that actually mean? To whom is Power referring when she writes, in an apparent dig at contemporary feminists, that we should be wary of those who seek to generate resentment by pitting men and women against each other? Set against her caricaturing of bien-pensant liberalism, Powers ostensibly reasonable call for compassion feels at best platitudinous, at worst disingenuous or even reactionary: most forms of political struggle involve some measure of conflict between competing groups; to renounce this altogether amounts to a politics of quietism.

There is of course something to be said for the idea that cultivating personal virtue can mitigate the apathy and alienation of modern life, but most people already do this after a fashion. There may indeed be some pockets of misandry here and there, but they hardly amount to a societal war against men. And while many members of incel communities are probably just decent guys who lost their way, enough of them are thoroughly vile for the movement to be of concern. As with so many sallies in the culture wars, there is little substantive insight here just a simmering animus against a largely imagined enemy.

What Do Men Want? Masculinity and Its Discontents is published by Allen Lane (18.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

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What Do Men Want? by Nina Power review a misguided defence of the male - The Guardian

Is the city back to normal?

Thats the question every non-New Yorker asks about our city. And the answer, Im afraid, remains nope.

On the outside, it can look as though things are normal-ish. In reality, we have simply adapted to a set of insane, unsupportable rules which look set to remain in place forever.

While thousands packed into the Super Bowl stadium last Sunday, schoolchildren in California, like New York, continue to do physical exercise outside with masks over their faces. A New York friend relates that last weekend he watched his double-vaxxed son play soccer outside in a mask. For the first time, parents were allowed to observe. Also in masks. Only to be policed by officials threatening to expel parents should their masks slip below the nose.

I had a taste of this fresh hell last Saturday. Some Canadian friends were in town and generously took a group of us to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway.

On the way into the theater, bouncer-like staff screamed at us to form the correct queues and have the right documentation ready. We appeared to be visiting Azkaban, not Hogwarts. It was just the first of the evenings delights.

Inside the Lyric Theatre, they had tried to recreate the atmosphere of an English boarding school. As a survivor of such an establishment, I can tell you they did a grand job emulating the most sadistic aspects of such institutions.

The trouble started when one of our party bought water and a couple of beers for the group. With not much change for $100 for this pleasure, we took our seats. All through the auditorium prefects marched around with signs saying, Masks Up. We were in the welcoming arms of the Ambassadors Theatre Group.

Soon a member of staff came to warn me that I had failed to pull my mask up fast enough after my most recent swig of beer. As the show began, someone with a name badge saying Libby came over and told off another member of our group for failing to bring their mask up swiftly enough after sipping another of the overpriced drinks the Lyric Theatre had just sold us.

As the show began, it seemed that Libby (aka Dolores Umbridge) had identified us as troublemakers. Flagrant sippers. After the lights had gone low, I noticed Libby standing at the end of our row staring down it, hands on hips. There she stayed, glaring through the dark.

To say this distracted from events on stage is an understatement. Impressive though the effects are, the 3/-hour plot was already pretty arse-numbing. What made it more so was knowing Libby was monitoring us throughout. Whenever she slipped out briefly, another monitor took her place. Eventually, Libby got what she wanted. About an hour into Act 1, she spied through the dark that a female member of our party had failed to replace her mask swiftly enough over her nose and mouth. Libby clambered behind our row in the stalls and startled my friend by spitting at her loudly to pull her mask up.

By the time the interval came, one of my Canadian friends Jordan Peterson and I decided it might be a good idea to do that regrettable thing and ask to speak with the manager. We asked. At which point we were reintroduced to Libby. Libby was the manager, and explained that we were under suspicion because our group had already received three warnings for insufficiently speedy remasking after sips. Jordan and I both asked for further guidance on what exactly constituted permissible sip length.

But there is nothing you can do when you meet blank officialdom like this. Libby told us that this demented policy applied to all theaters run by the Ambassadors Theatre Group. These are the rules, she kept saying, and if we didnt like them we were welcome to leave. Jordan Peterson and I appeared on the brink of expulsion from Hogwarts.

I later checked the ticket prices and was astonished to see that stalls tickets for Harry Potter range between $149 and $329. Meaning that my kind hosts had paid a couple of thousand dollars for a night out at a theater where we were sold drinks we could not enjoy in a theater we were invited, without refund, to leave. Eventually, Libby wielded her ultimate threat. A thread of my own mask had come undone and had been harmlessly tied up. Infraction number four. Libby struck.

I am going to get my COVID safety team she announced, storming off. I imagined being pursued by Dementors. In fact, the COVID safety team turned out to be a large girl with a new mask for me.

It is hard to relay how reluctantly we returned for Act 2. The only moment of relief came at the shows climax when the dark lord Voldemort appeared on stage. Very scary. High tension. Some cowering from the younger members of the audience. Eventually, the Dark Lord came down off the stage and made his way scarily through the center of the audience. Hes going to tell us to pull our masks up, said some wag. A portion of the theater dissolved into uncontrollable laughter.

On the way out, we took our masks off with an air of abandon. But the Ambassadors Theatre Group was not done with us. Bouncers stood outside, bellowing at us to exit in particular ways. Only once we had thrown off this last line of Dementors were we finally free. For all the effort of the performers, I wouldnt go back to Harry Potter or any other theater run by the Ambassadors Theatre Group if they paid me.

But I was left thinking, not for the first time, how our city needs liberation from these people. The COVID enforcers have to go. Along with all the stupid, pointless, carefully demeaning rules they are making us live under after most of the world has clambered out from them.

What will happen to the mask enforcers when their empire finally does fall? Well, I dont know about Azkaban, but I know Rikers Island always needs wardens. How strange that Broadway should have been the place that trained up its next intake.

Read the original here:

Broadway and the prisoners of Mask-aban this isn't the show we need - New York Post

The Daily Beast offers a lengthy, exclusive dive into what it terms the messy, behind-the-scenes drama plaguing the production of HBOs hit teenage wasteland series Euphoria. As the show has gained accolades and an obsessive audience in its second season, so too have issues behind the scenes apparently ballooned.

Its worth reading the entire Beast piece in full. Unlike the interpersonal frictions that fuel Euphoria, the alleged issues offscreen dont seem centered between the young actors. Instead, there appears to be tension between creator and writer Sam Levinson and some of his cast (and maybe HBO?), as well as what sounds like difficult and draining working conditions for both cast and crew. Some actors, like Barbie Ferreira, are said to be upset about the direction or sidelining of their characters in season 2, with Ferreira alleged to have walked off the set multiple times.

Even when cast members praise Levinsons willingness to change a scene at their behest or take their feedback, it feels a bit cutting. Syndey Sweeney, who plays Cassie, seems to appreciate that Levinson is so willing to change up scenes on the fly, but shes also had to ask him to cut back on the amount of nude scenes he wanted for her and her character. While Sweeney is 24, Cassie is meant to be a high school senior.

For instance, Sweeney said she felt there was room to expand upon a blowout fight between Nate and Cassie, and Levinson ended up writing a five-page scene right then and there. Another timeSweeney toldThe Independentthat she gently pushed back on Levinson over some scenes that required nudity. There are moments where Cassie was supposed to be shirtless and I would tell Sam, I dont really think thats necessary here. He was like, OK, we dont need it, she explained.

The article also offers an intriguing look into what happens these days when a show captures a young and extremely online fandom. Fans pore over every inch of Euphoria as though it were a mystery like Yellowjackets or Lost, generating wild theories, and the spotlight is mercilessly on its young stars.

Of course, much in the Beast exclusive amounts to so many whispers and gossip and quotes from other interviews, with several central figures declining to comment. Everything here is, shall we say, extremely high school. I hope for the sake of all involved that the network takes steps to help the cast and crew feel comfortable and graduates them to more pleasant conditions.

(via The Daily Beast, image: HBO)

Here are some other things that we saw today:

And finally:

LMAO LOL let me out of this timeline. But its finally Friday! What did you see this fine pre-weekend day?

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See the original post here:

The Set of 'Euphoria' Sounds Like an Extremely Stressful Place to Be - The Mary Sue